Never Been Loved(72)

Eddie opens the door, as usual.

“What happened? Is he all right? Is he hurt?” Eddie asks, his eyebrows pinched tight. He’s also looking at me like I’m the cause of all this. Fuck, I’m always the cause. The man in front of me practically raised me. He’s staring at me like he’s ready for a fist fight over what I potentially did.

“He’s pissed. Sera and I are going to her friend’s place. I’d like to take her alone.”

Eddie’s got this twinkle in his eye. “Oh. All right, then. Matty, why on earth are you acting this way?”

“I want to go with Daddy and Sera! I want to goooooo!” The kid sobs in my arms and stops flailing around like a dying fish. His arms go around my neck and he cries against my shoulder. Crocodile tears, or real ones?

I’ve never been good at telling the difference.

“You’re going to stay with me and you’re going to see them both later on. Come on now, my boy, let’s go to the kitchen. I was just about to make something special just for you.”

Matty looks up from my shoulder, his eyes red-rimmed, tears running down his face. I love this kid, I really do. I just wish everything were different, better. Jules shouldn’t be dead, and I should only be an uncle.

“Check his sugar first, all right, Eddie? He’s been a little high today. Just… I’ll be by around eleven or something to come get him. Okay, Matty? I’ll be by later, and Sera can read to you after. All right?”

Eddie has the tiniest smile on his face at the mention of Sera reading to him. If I didn’t know any better, the old man is rooting for her to be mine. Well, I need all the luck and help I can get.

Taking the steps two at a time, I settle myself back in the driver’s seat. Sera’s looking at her hands in her lap and she’s quiet.

“Sorry. He’s been wigging out all day long. I think he had a bad day at daycare or something,” I say, closing the door. Now that sounds something like an excuse. Hell, why do I have to explain everything? I turn over the engine and just sit there.

I don’t know what I’m doing. She says she wants to be my friend, and I don’t know if I can do that.

I’ve alienated myself from everyone I ever knew. Especially after what happened. It was too painful seeing them again, seeing who wasn’t there, a part of the group. I just… I don’t know how to act around Sera. Seems like she knows what’s going on, who she is, who she wants to be.

She’s also some sort of kid-whisperer and she’s got my gut twisted in knots, and I have to meet her friends. That’s going to go over well. I hope my sugar doesn’t drop. I hope I sound coherent enough in a conversation.

They’re probably all going to be smarter than me. Not like I’m going to tell them I only have my high school diploma and a few credits in CEGEP I did nothing with. They’re going to get technical, ask my opinion on politics or some shit like that, trying to feel me out. Whatever brain cells I was born with sure as shit aren’t hanging around from all my sugar highs and lows.

This is going to be a disaster.

Staring at the wheel, I feel like I have to prove myself, make sure Sera knows.

“I’m not a bad dad.” I turn my head to look at her, only for her to give herself whiplash as our eyes lock for a split second.

Christ, why am I even trying? No woman wants someone with this much baggage. I’m like a 747 jumbo jet weighed down with hundreds of problems not to mention cargo.

“I never said you were.”

My breath eases out slowly.

“I can’t judge you, Hunt. You’re doing the best you can.”

I let out another heavy breath, and put my head in gear. I start us moving, watching the road, and wondering how she gets what I need to hear.

Sera gives me directions to her friend Alex’s place after I’ve turned the radio on low. I can’t stand the quiet – I feel like it’s going to strangle me with all the judgement in the world.

Once we’re there, I follow behind Sera, because that ass, and watch her give a friend, hopefully Alex, an aluminum-covered cake tin. Just another thing I can’t lay my hands on.

I watch Sera get hugged by four dudes, real hugs, except one looks skeevy to me. There’s a collective chorus of silence when they spot me. I get a lot of blinking stares and slow dawning comprehension as I follow in after Sera and close the door behind me.

“Everyone, this is Hunter. My next door neighbour,” she introduces me, and even though we’re standing inches apart, I wish I could put my arm around her shoulder. She has no idea how amazing she is, and she can’t tell anything by the hugs her boys give her. Yeah, none of them tried to cop a feel, but a guy knows about these things.