My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella (15 page)

The lake house was cold. Late that Christmas night, with Ransom in the city—likely trying to see Emily, the cute little redhead he’d been pining over for months and trying to convince her father that he wasn’t some pervert for sexting his daughter naughty pictures—and Kona already snoring, Keira debated whether she should start a fire. It was a distraction, she knew.

She’d waited all day, two weeks really, wanting their first Christmas together as a married couple to be perfect, and it had been. Christmas Eve had been at Leann’s house with her husband Will trying to understand Kona explaining what the purpose of an on-side kick was, and Christmas Day had been at the Lake House, opening presents with Ransom and, being ridiculously spoiled with the overkill gifts Kona had bought for them. Less than a month of marriage hadn’t taught him that he didn’t need to overcompensate for all the holidays he’d missed with them. But Keira knew there would be plenty of time for that. There would be years to teach him about simplicity and focusing on moments, not money spent.

But with their son gone and the mess of boxes and wrapping paper squared away, Keira had chickened out on giving Kona his final gift. He knew she was hiding something, she could tell. She kept biting her lip, kept glancing at him, then quickly away again when her nerve would rise up and then suddenly leave her.

“You okay, baby?” he’d asked as she brushed out her hair and he tucked himself under their thick duvet. “You’ve been acting weird all day.”

More like, for weeks,
but she didn’t tell him that. Instead she shrugged, climbed in next to him and rested against his chest. “It’s just been an exhausting day and, um… I miss Bobby.”
Lame and stupid, Keira. He’ll never buy that.

Kona yawned, still suffering from the carb overload he’d gorged down at dinner. “One week, Wildcat. Nashville is eight hours away and we’ll spend New Year’s with her.” He kissed her temple, pulling her close to him as he rolled over. “You’re worrying.”

Actually, she wasn’t. She wasn’t worried. She was maybe a little apprehensive about giving Kona his gift, wondering how he’d react. She knew he wanted this. He’d talked about it for months, but there was still that small voice reminding her of the last time something like this happened. It hadn’t been the best experience of her life.

She let the minutes tick by and soon, Kona’s light snore fell on her ears as Keira stared at the ceiling, rubbing her fingernails against Kona’s knuckles. Then, he turned, rolled away from her with those snores deepening and Keira watched the rise of his large, beautiful body, the dips and curves of all that round muscle. He loved her. That beautiful man loved her so much. There would be no way he’d be upset.

A quick roll to her side to open the drawer on her bedside table and Keira sat up in bed, spinning the tiny box in her hand and watching Kona’s back, his large arms, trying to muster the nerve to wake him.

Maybe I should wait until morning
, she thought, biting her bottom lip.
Maybe that would…

“I swear to Christ, Wildcat, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to spank you and it won’t be in the fun, hot way you like.” He rolled over, lifted onto his elbows and the teasing smile on his face vanished when he noticed the way Keira nervously chewed on her lip. “Baby, I’m picking.” He sat up, flicked on the lamp and scooted next to her. “Come on, talk to me.”

“Here,” she said, handing him the small white box tied in a red ribbon. “My last Christmas present to you.”

Those dark eyebrows moved together as Kona grabbed the box. “You can’t sleep because of a Christmas present? Baby, I’d love anything, everything, you give me.”

Keira covered her nervous laugh with a cough that didn’t hide her anxiety. When Kona put the box on the mattress to fold his hand over her fingers, she shook her head. “Just… God, sweetie, just open it.”

He looked wary, concerned, but Kona grabbed the box and loosened the ribbon. Before he lifted the lid, Keira held her breath, watching his face closely, measuring his expression for any sign of disappointment or fear. There wasn’t any.

It took just a few seconds, then Kona’s gaze jumped to hers. He wiped the ball of his palm inside his eye and then sat up quickly, pulling the pacifier from the box. Keira caught the play of emotions on his face, expressions shifting from confusion, then worry, then straight to joy.

“You…” he sat up straighter, tilting his head to stare right in her eyes. “Are you messing with me, Keira because that would be so fucking low?”

She shook her head, squeaking out a “no” when his full lips curled up.

“How long have you known?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“What? You’re serious?
Two weeks
and you didn’t tell me?”

Kona jumped off the bed and when Keira caught that quick streak of fear drawing down his mouth, her worry leveled up until her chest felt tight.

She hated that he wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t keep his eyes on that pacifier, stared at it like that small piece of rubber and plastic would clear away his confusion. “You’re… why are you mad?” she asked him, hating how weak her voice sounded.

“What? Mad?” And then he was back on the bed, dropping the pacifier, filling his hand with Keira’s hips, kissing up her neck, over her face. “Baby, my heart is about to crack through my chest.” Kona brought those big hands Keira loved so much to her face, and he held them there. She’d never seen him look so happy. She’d never seen that his eyes well up so quickly, or him be so dismissive of the tears that spilled down his face. “I think I’ve never been happier in my life. A baby? You’re giving me another baby? Oh, Keira why in God’s name would I be mad? This is better than winning the SuperBowl, better than being first round on the draft! This is like my birthday and orgasms and chocolate ice cream all smashed together! Mad? Are you crazy? I told you months ago, if it was up to me I’d have a thousand babies with you.”

And Keira knew why his face had become so wet, why Kona kissed her so hard, held her hips still so he could lift up her shirt and lean his ear against her stomach as though he might be able to hear the tiny baby growing inside of her. He’d missed all of this with Ransom. Circumstance, pride, ego, fear, they had all taken Ransom’s start in life from Kona. Keira knew he’d have given anything to get those years back and now they had the chance to relive it, to experience this all together.

“Baby,” he said, sliding up her body, flippantly wiping his face dry. “I’m just… thank you.
God.
Just thank you so much.” Kona pulled Keira down against his chest curling his arms around her back tight as though she would fly away if he didn’t keep her there. “Only you, Wildcat, only you could give me this. Only you could make my heart this damn full.”

And Keira knew what he meant, how those low spoken words were small compared to the well of joy that moved through them both. He was hers. He belonged to her completely and Keira was happy to never be meant for anyone but Kona.

Their lives might not always be easy, God knew it certainly had been a tortuous, hazardous road to get to that Christmas night snuggled against each other in their bed. But Keira knew she wouldn’t have traded a second of the fight she and Kona had given themselves.

Each struggle was a lesson in learning how to manage without the hope of tomorrow. Each disappointment taught her what mistakes to correct, which to avoid and every moment that they had been apart, every time that she had felt lonely, desperate or scared, each and every time had led her back to Kona, back to her always, to the arms of her beloved.

Shadows have weight. They reach and cover, devour and sometimes, when the shadows are so big, they seem insurmountable and you fear they will consume you. They feel thick, clot in your chest and every time you fail, every time you have to struggle to win, those shadows grow.

My father’s shadow was massive, just like him, just like I was going to be someday. He was not an easy man to follow. His records, his successes were overwhelming achievements fueled by the fear of loss, by desperate ambition. He’d struggled. He’d lost some mighty big battles and somehow those hurdles in his way urged him, made him want more, need more. He’d told me once, “If you’ve ever been hungry, you’ll never be full.” That didn’t come from him. My father isn’t a philosopher. What he is, what added weight to that shadow of his, was accomplishment, gratification and the seemingly impossible reality of honest, real, consuming love.

He found that kind of love with my mother. She, too, cast a large shadow. Even more than my father, my mother struggled, but she did her struggling alone, almost a kid herself, with only the minor support of friends that were equally as lost as she was.

And together? When my parents finally found each other for good and that uncontrollable, blind love that had begun when they were just kids in college, ripped apart anything I thought I knew about love. The shadow they cast together was impossible to walk behind.

I didn’t struggle like them. I had issues, who doesn’t, but other than the desire to seek out my parents’ approval, there was no impetus urging me, no drive motivated by loss or betrayal or the soul-crushing hollow that poverty offers.

I had never had my heart broken.

I had never lost.

I had lived my life, loved fiercely, completely, surrounded by people who thought I could manage anything, be whatever I wanted.

But I had never felt the sting of life’s bite.

Not until her.

Not until my stupidity, my ignorance cost me… it cost me her.

And so I took that loss, that aching, never-healing pain and used its weight to bury myself behind guilt, behind anguish. The spring before I turned seventeen, on one ordinary day when we were out doing things that were stupid, I lost my first love. I lost her forever.

That day, the boy my mother raised, the one my father claimed to be so proud of, died. He died and I won’t revive him. I can’t. But I use that pain, the worst heart rending ache there is, to finally understand what my parents had learned on their own: our struggles define us. They make or break us. And now at eighteen it’s that long held pain, that sobering loss, that keeps me running, keeps me fighting, gives me the motivation I need to build something that casts its own shadow.

And there isn’t even the hint of light breaking through it.