A Needful Heart (10 page)

“Really? Awesome!” She grinned at him. “I
love pizza.”

Gina was touched he had done that. She
certainly wasn’t in the mood to throw something together for
dinner. If it had been just her, she would have eaten an apple or
something and gone back to bed.

“Are you done with the stairway?”

Matt got a funny look on his face. “Uh, no.
Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

Gina felt like he wasn’t saying something and
realized she hadn’t heard a sound from the hallway at all. “Did you
get a chance to work on it?”

Matt looked down at his hands, dangling
between his knees. “No, I had staining to do outside.”

“Which was probably done hours ago,” she
finished.

Matt didn’t say either way, and Gina felt
guilty. He had put off finishing the house because she was
asleep.

“I’m sorry, Matt. I just walked in the door
and crashed. I didn’t expect going back to work to be so
difficult.” She held her wrist out in accusation. “This damn thing
caused me to fumble so many things today.”

“Is it still hurting?” he asked.

“Here and there.” She winced when she
remembered her few hours at work. “I smacked it into a door jamb
today, so I took one of the loopy pills. And the itching is really
what’s starting to drive me batty.”

Matt had a sympathetic expression on his
strong face. “And you’ve only got five and a half more weeks to
go.”

Gina gasped and burst out laughing, pushing
him lightly on the chest. “You suck. I can’t believe you had to
remind me about that.”

The gentle push over-balanced him, and he
fell back on his butt. The startled look on his face was precious.
Gina clapped a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t believe she’d done
that.

Matt laughed out loud, and Gina zeroed in on
the sound because he had never laughed with her before. It was deep
and dark, and laced with genuine humor that made her skin tingle.
His eyes crinkled at the corners and gave his face levels of
character. She laughed with him and realized it was the most at
ease they had been with each other since they’d met. Perhaps he was
as glad to see her as she was him.

Matt levered himself to his feet, brushing
imaginary dust from his jeans.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “It was mean. I
apologize.”

Gina shook her head at him, pushing her
tangled hair away with her left hand. “It’s okay. It’s the truth.”
She shuddered as she looked down at her scrubs. “I’m going to go
change out of these things. I’ll get plates, and we can watch some
TV in here while we eat if you want.”

Gina tried not to hold her breath as she
waited for his answer.

“Okay. That sounds good.”

The expectation holding her captive eased at
his easy response, and she walked out the door and up the
stairs.

Maybe she was making some headway in getting
Matt to relax. He certainly wasn’t as defensive as he had been at
first, and he was willing to spend time with her. Gina wondered if
she could convince him to cuddle later.

Sighing, she crossed to her closet. She’d
just be happy he was staying with her and not expect anything more
than that.

Matt watched Gina walk out and struggled to
rein in his excitement. As mundane as pizza and a movie was to
other people, it was novel for him. He’d never actually taken a
woman out, anywhere. He’d never wanted to, really, because
closeness led to questions he had no desire to answer about
himself. About his dad and his childhood. He had lived in South
Bend all his life, so a lot of people already knew about him and
his history, but Gina had moved to town only four years ago. She
didn’t have any preconceived notions about him.

Most of the women in town looked at him as if
he were as crazy as his dad had been, even though he had never
given them reason to. Some remembered him from school, with all the
bruises and excuses. They hadn’t been surprised when he had dropped
out.

How ridiculous was it that a thirty-two year
old man had never been on an actual date with a woman? Yes, he’d
been
out
with women, as in, met them in bars and accepted
invitations to follow them home, but he’d never actually taken a
woman out and bought her dinner.

Gina was setting all kinds of records for
him, though it was probably a stretch to classify this as a
date.

He’d never met another woman’s family,
either. Actually, the thought of being at the mercy of somebody he
didn’t even know was chilling. Gina will be there, he kept telling
himself. And you’ll have your truck, so you can leave any time. If
he said it enough, maybe he would believe it.

The delivery man came a bit later, and Matt
paid for the pizzas. The exhilaration at paying the kid the
twenty-five bucks was ridiculous, but it was definitely there. He
crossed the room and positioned the two boxes on the coffee table,
lining them up with the corners. Excitement needled him, and he sat
on the settee to wait for her to come down the stairs.

I’ve become a caveman, feeding my woman and
taking care of her.

The notion didn’t chafe as bad as he thought
it would. Gina didn’t smother him. Actually, he could see the
struggle in her expressive eyes, and at times she had pulled back
when she knew touching him or saying something would have been too
much. And he appreciated that.

He straightened on the settee and looked
toward the stairs. Then forced himself to turn away and slouch back
as if he were comfortable. He heard her jog down the stairs and
cross the doorway.

“I’ll get plates and napkins. What do you
want to drink? Pop, tea, water?”

“Pop,” he called after her.

Seconds later she returned, carrying a blue
plastic tray loaded with drinks and utensils. The brand of pop he
preferred was on the corner of the tray, and he felt his throat get
tight. Why would she remember what he drank?

All the knick-knacks on the coffee table were
removed, and the pizzas and drinks were spread out. Gina looked up
at him across the table. “Are you going to sit over there? You
can’t really see the TV from that spot.”

Matt knew she was right, so he moved to the
opposite end of the couch from her. The couch itself was good
sized, but he still felt like he was going to break it. He sat on
the edge of the cushion and waited while Gina flipped open the lids
and pulled out several pieces to put on a plate.

“Do you mind watching the news for a while?”
she asked as she handed the plate over.

Matt shook his head. He didn’t care what they
did as long as he was with her.

Gina filled her own plate, then curled up in
the corner of the couch with the plate resting on her folded knees.
Matt tried not to stare but she was just too cute. The scrubs were
gone, replaced by soft black jogging pants and a t-shirt which
hugged her breasts. It was an effort to drag his eyes away from her
shape to watch the flat-screen above the fireplace. The news droned
on about chaos in the Middle-East, but he really didn’t pay
attention to it. The subtle movements of Gina’s body to the left of
him were driving him insane. Shoving a huge piece of crust in his
mouth, he tried to concentrate on the screen. And almost choked on
the giant knot of dough. Chugging the pop, he forced the
obstruction down.

It seemed like Gina was doing her best to
distract him. She kept making these little mewling sounds as she
enjoyed her pizza and other sounds when she saw something
distressing on the TV. He kept the plate over his lap in the hopes
to disguise the constant hard-on he had, imagining the sounds
applied to some other task. Forcing himself to watch the news, he
tried to concentrate on Brian William’s words.

The news was depressing, of course; a
hurricane skirting Florida, another bank in trouble with mortgages.
At the end of the show was an article about the correlation between
paternal alcoholism being passed from fathers to sons.
Great,
another reason to hate Rick
.

And another reason to stay away from Gina. He
would not see her end up like his mother had, bruised and bleeding
and eventually walking out the door. Rick’s rages had come on
suddenly, out of nowhere sometimes. Matt couldn’t remember ever
being unable to restrain his own anger in a situation, but he knew
the Calvin volatility ran strong in his blood. Rick had always
talked about heritage when he’d gone into rages, and Matt knew it
wasn’t something that could just be brushed aside and avoided.
Gina’s well-being was worth more to him than his own pleasure. He
was a selfish ass to even be talking to her, let alone spending
time with her like this.

The problem was, his desire to do right by
Gina and his desire to be like a normal person with a normal life
were at cross-purposes.

Gina shifted forward enough to set her plate
on the table.

“That was really good, Matt. I love pizza.
And Carlino’s--” she motioned to the box top, “--has the best
around here.”

“Yes, they do. They’ve been around as long as
I can remember.”

Gina looked at him in surprise. “That long?
Wow. I mean, I’ve seen the signs at the restaurant, but I didn’t
realize the ‘three generations’ was true.”

Matt shoved the last bite in his mouth and
set the plate aside. “It is,” he mumbled.

A sudden flash of memory made him close his
eyes as he swallowed. His father had ordered a pizza from there
once. Matt had been about ten, then. The mouth-watering smell had
pulled him out from his room and down the stairs, to the doorjamb
of the living room. He’d peeked around the jamb, hoping, praying
for some nibble. It had been a long time since he had eaten
anything. His father saw him as he crept up, and those cunning,
bloodshot eyes had known what he planned to do. Rick pulled the
pizza box onto his lap and ate every single God-damned piece
inside. When he was done, he flung the box at Matt, clipping him in
the side of the head. Matt was too hungry to care, though, and had
run back to his room, box in hand, and peeled the melted cheese off
the cardboard. Hell, he’d even eaten some of the cardboard. It was
delicious.

A soft hand on his shoulder reminded him
where he was, and when. Gina had shifted closer, and smiled at him
in gentle concern. “You okay? You kind of zoned out there for a bit
and got this really strange look on your face.”

Matt clenched his jaw and forced himself to
swallow through his tight throat. “I’m fine,” he growled.

Gina pulled her hand away and started to
scoot back, and Matt cursed himself for snapping at her. He caught
her hand in his. “Don’t.”
Pull away
, he finished to himself,
but he didn’t dare say it to her. Shaking his head, he looked away
from her caring eyes. “Don’t mind me, just be comfortable.”

Relaxing back into the middle cushion, she
tightened her hold when he started to pull away and turned his hand
over in her lap. The tips of her casted fingers ran over a splinter
in his hand he hadn’t taken the time yet to dig out, and she tsk’ed
at him. “This looks painful.”

It was, but he didn’t say anything. The pain
was so every day and inconsequential that he hardly noticed them
anymore. When he tugged at his hand again, she released him, but
she didn’t move back to her side of the couch. Instead, she turned
her body, crossed her legs and returned her attention to the
TV.

Matt’s whole left side was prickling with
heat from her body. His erection was harder than ever. She had to
know what she was doing to him, but she seemed unconcerned. He
turned his head to the screen and tried to lose himself.

An elbow bumped him in the side. “Reach over
there and push the button on the side of the couch. There’s a
recliner at both ends.”

Matt pressed the button, and his booted feet
flipped up in the air.

“Now scoot those big lugs over.”

Gina raised her tiny socked feet next to his
on the foot rest.

For the first time in his life, Matt felt
like he belonged somewhere. It wasn’t true, of course, but from the
outside looking in they would look like a regular couple, just
cuddling on the couch and watching the tube after work. Gina got up
at one point to use the bathroom, and when she came back, he
automatically raised his arm to hold her to his side. She paused
for a long second, obviously surprised at the invitation, and he
started to lower his arm in embarrassment at what he had done. But
she stopped his movement and snugged herself in to his side.

“Oh, this is much more comfortable,” she
murmured.

And he agreed.

For an hour and a half they watched TV that
way, prolonging the night as long as they could. They watched one
show after another, taking turns on choices. When the game shows
were on, Gina blurted out answers and laughed good-naturedly when
they were wrong. Matt preferred more informational programs and was
fascinated by an old ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ with a large
Victorian.

“That kind of looks like my house,” he
admitted.

“Really?” Gina asked, ashamed that she didn’t
even know if he lived nearby or in town.

Matt nodded and sat up straighter on the
cushion.

“Big old thing with so much decorative
filigree I dread having to paint it every year.”

Gina was surprised he offered the
information. It seemed like everything she learned she had to drag
out of him.

“Is it in good shape?” she asked.

Matt nodded and eased back against the
cushions. “Surprisingly good condition considering the neglect it’s
been through.”

“Is it your family home?” she dared to
ask.

Matt was quiet for a long moment. “No, it was
just a house I bought after Rick died. I grew up in apartments and
rentals for the most part.”

Gina hummed softly in her throat. “A house
was probably a big adjustment after that, then, huh? All that
space, deciding how you wanted to decorate.”