Thin Love (3 page)

She’d cursed him.

He can still see the pain in her eyes, the hollow shock that had transformed her features that day. He’d told her to leave. He’d told her he never loved her. All the grief he’d felt at that moment, Kona laid at Keira’s feet. Blame was a dagger he sliced into her heart, his own sorrow, his own pain, directed at the only girl he’d ever loved. He’d told her to walk away, he told her so many lies that went against everything he felt. But she had a future. At the time, he thought his was over. She deserved better than him, better than the uncertain fate he’d fallen into at twenty.

Keira’s curse stayed with him. There had been women; sometimes he cannot remember even one of their faces, but with her, the image is clear. Her soft, pale skin. Eyes like the sky, like the ocean trapped in a hurricane. That long, thick chestnut hair. There was no erasing her from his memory.

But now? No. It was too late. That bridge was ash by now, not even the splinters of its remains could be felt. She’d been gone from him for too long. But some nights, when the games are too rough, when his body aches from damage, from age, from too many years of exertion; he remembers how she would hold him, how every rake of her fingernails on his scalp brought him calm, how good it felt to protect her, love her completely. How she’d hum, her low, beautiful voice strong, comforting, as he lay on her chest finding the only real relief he’d ever felt, in the arms of the girl he loved.

No woman could erase her completely and nothing would ever compare to the sight and feel of his Wildcat.

The phone in Kona’s pocket chirps twice. The messages are endless, all saying much the same “meeting with the Steamers coaching staff at noon tomorrow,” or “interview with ESPN at five.” His manager is relentless. His fans are enthusiastic. His mother refuses to be rebuffed about him spending the morning with her.

They all want something. They say they are trying to help. But it has been a long time since he’s believed that anyone truly needed him. Still longer since he was convinced anyone wanted him.

Not since her.

“If you insist on being stubborn, Keira, then perhaps your father and I will rethink you living on campus.”

Keira tried to withhold her temper, fingers tight on her phone as her mother’s biting voice whined sharp. She withheld the small wish that her mother had never bought the damn thing for her. Everyone else had beepers. But Keira, and the well-funded sports teams at her private university, all got phones. She hated hers. Especially when her mother used it to pick a fight with her at eight a.m.

“Mother, Steven is your
husband,
not my father.” She heard the heavy sigh and knew by the clicking of her mother’s tongue that her comment wouldn’t be overlooked. “And I didn’t say no… exactly,” she hurried to say, hoping to forego a truly heated fight so early in the morning. “You don’t need to threaten me.”

“Surely you see that I am only trying to look after you.”

Keira walked past two girls standing in the middle of the hallway and tried to bite back the sarcastic retort itching to leave her mouth. Her mother always thought she knew what was best for Keira and if she didn’t agree, a quick slap changed her mind. Her mother picked out her clothes, had final approval over the classes she took, hell, she’d even insisted that Keira major in something “less frivolous
”
than music. Keira had agreed. She always agreed because that’s what good daughters did. She would not, however, easily agree to a date with Mark Burke.

“I don’t see how dating your canasta partner’s son is for my own good.” The same hall-blocking girls barged in front of Keira like she wasn’t there at all. Keira had to step back quick when one of them flung her purse over her shoulder.

Still, her mother yammered in her ear. “… decent boy from a good family and you’re eighteen now, Keira. It’s time you begin thinking about settling down.”

That had her coming to a stop just three doors from her English classroom. “Are you serious? I’m a freshman, Mother.” Behind her, Keira heard the two girls’ laughter moving along the dull beige walls, straight toward her. She stared right at their too perfect, overly made up faces, but they just rolled their eyes, dismissing her. Her gaze trained on their retreating forms, Keira continued her argument. She felt pathetic. She could mean mug some stupid sorority bitches but she couldn’t stand up to her mother. “I’ve been in college a total of two months and you’re already nagging about me settling down?”

Her mother’s voice was tense and Keira could hear the exaggerated sigh she blew right into the phone. “I just believe it would behoove you to make smart connections now. Mark is pre-med at Tulane. He’s mature and has a bright future ahead of him. You’ll want to snag him up before someone else does.”

Keira wanted to scream. Her mother had antiquated, ancient ideas about how Keira should live her life. Cora Michaels had managed at least one successful marriage, to a heart surgeon no less, and had considered that some great accomplishment. The woman liked to pretend she’d never been married to Keira’s father—a handsome musician with stage fright. She expected Keira to marry well. She expected Keira to be her clone. She expected a lot of things from Keira that the girl would never manage to live up to.

Taking a breath, Keira leaned against the wall, her attention distracted by a janitor mopping up a spill someone had abandoned on the gray tile floor. “I don’t want to snag anyone, Mother.”

“But Keira, he’s so fit and handsome and his parents…”

She knew all about Mark Burke’s parents and ignored her mother’s recap. They were the same as all her mother’s friends—wealthy, connected and the height of proper North Shore society. They fit among the elite, the disgustingly rich, the groups and gaggles of the affluent that looked down their noses at anyone who wasn’t just like them. She didn’t know Mark, but if he was anything like his parents, Keira knew they’d only clash. As her mother always said, usually when she was angry at Keira, she was too much like her father. The woman had never known that Keira didn’t consider that an insult.

Already tired of her nagging, Keira interrupted her mother and whatever ridiculous thing she was saying. “Mother, I have to go. My class is about to start.” She didn’t wait for a dismissal. She knew the rudeness bothered her mother, she’d mentioned once or twice that Keira had changed since she began living on campus. Since her move, the threats had been particularly venomous. But the idle threat of making Keira return to their lake house forty-five minutes from the city was weak at best.

Keira deposited her red Nokia in her pocket, glaring at the backs of the two girls who’d walked in front of her, when she noticed one of them intentionally bumping the janitor’s full mop bucket. The dirty yellow contraption tittered on its wheels before it toppled over, spilling murky, brown water over the floor.

“Stupid bitch,” Keira said to the girl’s back before she stepped next to the janitor to set the bucket right. “Can I help?”

The old man blinked at her, a wry smile pulling across his face when he registered her offer. “No, cher, don’t you trouble yourself.”

She squatted down next to him, caught the mop before it fell to the floor. “I feel like I should apologize.” She nodded toward the end of the hallway where the blonde had disappeared. “I don’t hold out much hope for my generation. There are too many like her running around campus like they own it.”

The old man laughed and the sound had Keira returning his smile.

“I’ll give you that, darlin’. Not many good sort that I’ve seen.” He took the mop from Keira and they both stood straight. “But pretty little things like you give me hope.” At his wink, Keira felt her cheeks warm. “Thank you for the offer, but I think you best be off to your studies.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, wiping her damp hands on the leg of her jeans.

She put her mother and the janitor out of her mind as she walked into the classroom. Keira loved this room. She loved the large wooden desks, lined in a semi-circle around Professor Miller’s larger, cherry table. It felt homey, almost cozy, and she smiled when she entered the room, taking her seat right at the front.

Arthurian Studies.

Just the roll of the class name off her tongue made Keira giddy. She loved the legends; she loved the melodrama, the purpose behind each journey, every damn Campbell cliché that was born from the study of a might-have-been-real King who reigned centuries before. She loved this class and Keira suspected that her classmates did as well. For the most part, anyway.

There were, however, three exceptions: Skylar Williams and her boyfriend Dylan Collins were two. Skylar seemed unable to release high school habits and spent a huge portion of the class doodling over her notebook. She wasn’t an artist. Keira thought she was vapid. She thought anyone who drew “Skylar loves Dylan” a hundred times on perfectly usable paper, was vapid. “Skylar loves Dylan” or “Mrs. Dylan Collins” covered today’s page alongside hearts and clouds and geometric shapes. Dylan slept through every class.

The third exception was the tall linebacker who sat two rows away from her, hiding in the back of the classroom. Keira knew him. Not personally, but certainly by reputation. Kona Hale and his twin brother Luka were the proverbial golden duo. Their presence on the football team assured that CPU was headed straight to the Sugar Bowl.

Keira had never been to a single football game. She didn’t care about football. She didn’t care about vapid girls and their snoring boyfriends. She especially did not care about massive football players with wide shoulders and dark eyes who tuned out Professor Miller for fifty minutes straight.

Today, though, she cared a little about all three of them.

Her cousin Leann had missed another class. That was two in a row and since Profess Miller was handing out partner assignments—and Leann was the only other person in the class Keira ever felt comfortable enough talking to—she was worried about those three exceptions.

She hated group projects. They seemed so pointless. There was never a measure of real participation because despite the number in each group, there was always one person that did the majority of the work. Usually, it ended up being her, even if Leann was in her group. Blood didn’t overrule her cousin’s incessant need to slack.

This was an early class, eight a.m. on the nose and so Keira didn’t bother with fixing herself up; she was always too pressed for time, coming straight from her early morning cross country practice. If her mother saw her today, or any day really that she didn’t bother with more than a hoodie and a ball cap with her long ponytail sticking out the back, Keira knew she’d get a lecture. But her mother was forty-five minutes away, in Mandeville, so Keira dressed how she wanted in New Orleans. It wasn’t like she was trying to impress anyone, anyway.

She was always the girl in the front of the class that teachers seemed to call on. Her hand usually shot up first and there was generally a book, usually poetry, in front of her face before class started. It was natural that the others in a group project would gravitate toward her because they knew she’d take on most of the work.

A group, she could handle.

A group, she didn’t mind.

But partners? Well. No.

Skylar and Dylan were isolated near the door; him drooling on his desk, her drawing hearts and “I love Skylar” in looping script on the back of his hand. There may have been a few bubbles, possibly a “4-eva.” Skylar seemed like the “4-eva” type.

Keira’s gaze landed on Kona Hale.

He had his ball cap lowered over his eyes and the hood of his sweatshirt covering his head. Occasionally, he’d bob to whatever funneled through his headphones, but mostly he sat upright with his eyes closed as though Professor Miller couldn’t tell he was completely tuned out.

Kona was massive, even at twenty, and Keira would be a liar and a blind idiot if she denied how beautiful he was. She’d heard rumors, mostly from the girls on the cross country team and a few in her dorm who had screamed like banshees when she casually mentioned she had a class with him. Kona Hale was a stereotypical jock—hot tempered, eager to party, ready for a good time. Mostly, the rumors Keira had heard trailed along the “will screw anything” variety.

They acted like he was a rock star. Of course, this was southeast Louisiana. Football players, even college football players, were treated like gods. Especially if their performances produced bowl trophies and good SEC rankings.

She could see the appeal. He was exactly the kind of guy most girls her age fell over themselves for. Keira guessed he was inching toward 6’4 and he had a typical linebacker’s frame: large, wide shoulders, thick, sculpted arms like a marble statue and thighs that reminded her of tree trunks. It was bad enough that his body looked like something out of a “Muscle & Fitness” magazine, that certainly would give him reason enough to strut around campus like he usually did with a cluster of stupid groupies chasing after him. But no, to make matters worse, Kona had a flawless, exotic face. A dark, gorgeous complexion that reflected his Hawaiian heritage; strong, high cheekbones that offset his deep, penetrating black eyes and a small cleft in his chin that saved his face from being too perfect. He carried himself with a confidence and swagger and that made him that more intimidating. Not that Keira had ever tried approaching him.