Thin Love (37 page)

Kona couldn’t remember seeing anything more beautiful.

He watched for several minutes, loved the long, planes of her neck, the defined arch of her shoulders, but would not approach, wouldn’t touch. The song was familiar, something he didn’t think she’d written, and as she continued, humming just above each note, Kona realized it was, “Dark End of the Street,” a song his mother often sang when he was a kid.

Another pass of thunder rolled and a streak of lightening broke through the dark morning skies. Keira turned to watch through the glass wall, fingers still dancing across the keys and that’s when he saw it; the long bruise across her cheek. He felt sick, instantly thinking that somehow he’d left it on her face, but he couldn’t remember touching her, not like that.

He let the flashes of memory from the night before sort and play in his head, remembering nothing but the feel of her skin, the smell of her, how tightly she clamped around him, how eagerly she let go, how being buried inside her felt like home, freed him, how it felt like a high. But none of those flashes explained that mark on her face.

Kona shot for calm, for patience, as he crossed the room, kneeling behind her. He wouldn’t bombard her with questions; he didn’t want to fracture the peace that swam in the house since the moment he told her he loved her. It had been spoken so easily, a second nature that felt instinctive, necessary. Honest.

Keira continued to play, the slow refrain of “Dark Side of the Street” eerily haunting, mesmerizing, but she arched her neck, let her head fall to his shoulder and Kona got a better look at the bruise. Two long, purple lines, faint, but clear. Finger marks. Thin, feminine finger marks.

Motherfucker,
he thought, trying to calm the fury building, the mounting speed of his heart.

Her eyes were closed, her smile easy, content, and Kona hated to pull her out of that emotion, hated that those moments of happiness Leann mentioned had been fleeting, were fleeting. Keira deserved happy. She deserved a hell of a lot more than the shit her mother gave her.

Cautiously, he leaned forward, barely touched his lips to the bruise. Even that careful gesture made Keira wince.

“Baby…”

“It’s not a big deal.” That sounded too practiced, thrown out too casually, like she’d spent years brushing off marks and scratches she’d received. But even as she uttered the platitude, Keira lowered over the keys, head resting against the top of the piano.

Kona couldn’t take her silence or the small shaking movement of her shoulders as she cried. “I’ll kill her.”

Keira laughed, but it was harsh, mixed between tears. “You can’t kill the devil, Kona. Trust me, I’ve thought about it.”

He slid next to her, pulled her onto his lap and Kona kissed her face, drying the moisture as quickly as it surfaced. “You can’t stay here.”

Keira pulled away from her comfortable spot on his chest, her eyes glassy and an expression on her face that made him feel small, made him feel like she thought he was naive. “Where would I go?” She wiped her face dry. “Your house? Bet your mom would love that. The team house? My dorm? Everything is temporary, Kona.” He closed his eyes when Keira brushed her fingers against his cheek, thumb rubbing over the scar she’d put there. He hated her frown when she looked at it. He hated that she felt so guilty, still, even after his goading. “This scared me. I did this to you. I lost it. How many times have I slapped you? Just last night…” She tried taking her hands from him, tried pulling away and he meant to stop her, to cover her wrists so she’d keep her touch on him, but then Keira smiled, kept her fingers against his face as though she needed the contact. “Am I any better than her?” Her voice broke and the wobble of her chin, that pained, crumble of her smile gutted him, had his own eyes burning.

“Baby…” He pulled her close, held her as she cried and he felt the slow trickle of her tears on his bare chest. He cleared his throat, tried to remove the knot that made him sound lost. “You’ve slapped me when I pissed you off. You lashed out because you know what it does to me. We do it to each other. It’s this… this weird thing between us and you’ve never hurt me.” Kona adjusted her on his lap, pulling on her waist to bring her closer. “That night at Lucy’s, I was coming off my shot. I was still full of that shit and high on adrenaline. I was out of my head jealous when I saw you with Luka because with you, shit, baby, most of the time I can’t think straight.” She started to speak and Kona knew there would be an excuse, something Keira would say to make herself seem unhinged. “No. It’s true. We both have issues. We’re just the same. I never got over my mom keeping our father out of our lives because he hurt
her
. You’ve had to deal with a bitch who gets mad and can’t keep her hands off you. But when I’m with you, when we’re together, none of that shit matters. I forget everything.”

“So do I.”

“Good. See? We’re the same. Tempers and stupidity and sometimes we do shit we don’t mean to.” Kona bent his head, kissed the exposed skin below Keira’s collarbone. “Last night, I threw you onto your bed because I was mad.”

“And I liked it.”

His smile was quick, moved across his mouth because he was happy he hadn’t hurt her, because he knew how much she’d liked it. But that smile disappeared when he lowered his eyes, when he brought his fingers to the bruise. “This isn’t the same thing. Not even close. That bitch is an ugly drunk, you’ve made a few comments that had me guessing that.” Kona tilted her chin to get a better look. “And I doubt this was the first time. Right?”

Keira looked over Kona’s shoulder and he knew she was remembering something. “She didn’t drink as much until my dad sold his practice.” Her stare unfocused, eyes unblinking. “When they married, he was a lawyer. He did what everyone expected and then, one day, he stopped caring about what they expected. He started doing what he wanted, following the passion that consumed him. My mother didn’t like him quitting. She didn’t like the cash cow going away and they fought so much.” Lids moving, Keira glanced back at him. “They threw chairs and plates and TV remotes… whatever they could find that would inflict the worst damage. She started drinking, he did everything else. It got so bad she didn’t even cry at his funeral. Or the next week. Or the month after that and when I tried to stand up to her, or said something that sounded too much like him, I got popped.” She took Kona’s hand from her face, and patted it once when he made a fist. “I learned to keep my nose down, stay out of her way and usually that worked. Usually if I do whatever she says, let her get her way, then she’s fine. But you came over yesterday and she started asking questions, starting flapping her White Power flag and I mouthed off to her. And then… this.”

Keira waved her hand, pointing to the bruise like it was nothing; something mundane and usual. He hated her attitude about being knocked around. He hated that she thought this was normal behavior. “It’s not safe for you to be around her. What if she really loses it?”

“Kona, I can fight back. I just never have before.” He leaned up, moving his head to watch her and Keira must have seen the question in his eyes. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. I have. But I know that if I do what she asks, if I play the pacifying daughter, she’ll leave me alone. I’ve got three years, Kona and most of that time will be spent on campus or at Leann’s. Things have just been bad the past year or so because I rebelled, because I moved to campus,” Keira’s cheek dimpled with her quick smile, “and being around you has made me a little ballsier. She doesn’t like that. She doesn’t like that she can’t control me when I’m at school. This has been coming for a while.”

“I still can’t let you stay here.” The thought of this happening again made Kona feel sick and he grabbed her arm, holding onto her as though he needed the focus she gave him. “What kind of man would I be if I let you stay here unprotected?”

“The kind that knows I can take care of myself.”

“Keira…”

She shook her head, stopping him. “I hate her. I hate everything she stands for, everything she believes in. But I have three years. I have to bide my time for three years. When I’m twenty-one, my inheritance kicks in.” Keira shrugged, picked up Kona’s hands and locked their fingers together. “It’s not much, but it’s what my dad wanted me to have, what’s left of what he didn’t put up his nose, but it’s enough to get a place, to get me through my last year of college without her help.”

It all sounded too simple, too perfect. Kona didn’t know Cora Michaels. That brief conversation with her the day before told him she wasn’t the kind of woman who just took whatever came her way. He had a feeling she’d spend the rest of her life trying to control Keira and Kona wondered, despite Keira’s claim that she could walk away, if she really would. She was strong, she was a fighter, but Keira ran away from things when she thought she’d be hurt. Would she run away from the person who could hurt her most?

“Hey,” she said, voice light, as though she hadn’t spent the past few minutes crying on his chest. “Let me make you some French toast. It’s my specialty.”

More of that running. It’s what Keira did. She was done exorcising her demons, for now at least, and Kona loved that smile, how open it was, how happy she seemed to show him another side of herself he didn’t know existed.

“Sounds good, Wildcat.”

But as she walked away from him, looking far too good for someone who was so broken, Kona wondered if she would fight when the time came. He wondered if she’d let him fight for her. He wondered how far Keira would have to run to keep that smile on her face.

Kona wondered if you could O.D. on tryptophan. He thought that might be happening to him. He was in his bedroom, two doors from the loud sounds of his tutu kane and Luka killing each other in a quick game of dominos, thinking that either the delicious Thanksgiving turkey sitting like a rock in his stomach was going to kill him—or else Keira was.

He pulled his yellow phone up for the fourth time and grunted when there was still no message from her. He hadn’t wanted her to leave. Karma was a ruthless bitch and that little lie she’d told her professors about being sick when she’d avoided him had come back to bite Keira in the ass. CPU had been ravaged by the flu and Kona worried that Keira’s sneezes and tiredness were clues that’d she caught the crud Leann had been battling for a week. Keira had come to his house for Thanksgiving, sniffling and coughing, but still giving him that sweet smile of hers. True, the dinner had been awkward with his mother and girlfriend pretending to be civil as they glared across the table at one another, but for the most part, shit didn’t start. That, he knew was due to his tutu kane.

His grandfather had asked him about Keira before she arrived. It was rare, something the old man didn’t normally do, but since neither Luka nor Kona had ever brought a girl home, he was curious.

“Does she have all her teeth?” Tutu kane had asked and Kona stared at the man for five full seconds, thinking his heart meds were making him loopy.

“What kind of question is that?”

The old man only shrugged and slapped Kona on the back. “A woman with all her teeth takes care of herself. I’m just wondering,
Keikikâne
, if your
milimili
is gumming it.”

Kona laughed him, smiling wider at his tutu kane called Keira his beloved, shaking his head at how serious the old man stared at him. “She’s beautiful and smart and talented. She writes music and sings and yeah, she has perfect teeth.”

He should have never told him about the music because his grandfather spent the better part of the day hitting his bongos, which he never learned how to play properly, and asking Keira to guess what song he sang. Most she knew, others, the sly bastard tricked her with by singing island songs no one had ever heard. By the time he started in on “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” Kona’s mother trailed off deeper into the house, claiming she wanted to get the kitchen cleaned. Kona wasn’t sorry she left. All afternoon he’d noticed his mother’s overly calm stares at Keira; how both women ignored each other, how cool, indifferent his mother was to Keira.

His mother didn’t stay out of the way all night, but she played indifferent, kept throwing looks out toward the fire pit, watching him and Keira, curious. Kona caught Tutu kane’s wink when the woman left and Kona smiled, settling Keira on his lap and the bongo playing stopped while the football games came on.

It had turned into a great night, with Kona, Keira, Luka and Tutu kane sitting around the fire pit, listening to stories that Kona suspected his grandfather had invented. Each one had made Keira laugh and Kona was glad. It took her mind off of what she’d have to go home to; it kept her distracted from that long ride back to Mandeville and her mother who was still angry that Keira had chosen to spend Thanksgiving with Kona and his family and not her and her fake, wasted friends.