Read Thin Love Online

Authors: Eden Butler

Tags: #Contemporary

Thin Love (4 page)

BOOK: Thin Love
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Of course, his good looks didn’t make up for his arrogant, full of himself attitude. She’d seen that firsthand in his indifferent presence during class - and that time during the first week of the semester when the girls on her cross country team thought it would be funny to push Keira into the football locker room.

She hadn’t expected anyone to be there, maybe a coach or two, maybe a water boy, but as she banged on the door and then walked away from it trying to find another exit, Keira heard a low grunt spilling out from the showers. Instinct told her to ignore it. She knew better than to walk around the lockers and peek into the open shower. But the room was fogging, and she had Poli Sci homework; she needed out of that locker room. And so she followed the groan, the billowing steam and stopped short to find Kona Hale standing in the middle of the shower, water pouring over his head, down his large shoulders, onto those massive arms, and the fist that was threaded
in the wet blonde hair of the girl on her knees in front of him as she sucked him off.

Keira’s little yelp of surprise had his eyes open and staring right at her. The jackass didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. An easy smirk and lick of his lips, and then Kona muttered, “Come get wet with us or fuck off” and Keira darted through the locker room until she found an open door.

The boosters and coaching staff and the rest of the entire university might have adored Kona. Keira thought he was an egotistical jackass. An egotistical jackass that she’d probably be partnered with in her favorite class.

Keira stared a bit longer than she had intended and Kona’s eyes suddenly opened, then stared directly at her. Before a full blush could completely take over her face, Professor Miller called her name and she spun around in her seat to answer him.

“Yes, sir?” She said a small prayer under her breath that Kona’s name wouldn’t leave Miller’s mouth.
Please not him,
she thought.
Please, please not Kona Hale.

“You and Mr. Hale will be partnered together since Ms. Marquette has dropped the class.”

What?!
When had her cousin decided that? She was going to kill Leann. Murder her between snores tonight after lights out.

“Um… okay.” Keira dismissed Miller’s smile and shifted her eyes across the classroom again, back to Kona. He wasn’t even paying attention. She could see his profile, eyes closed once again, head still bobbing. She didn’t understand why he was even in this class. Keira assumed since he was first string on the football team that Kona’s major was something soft like Basket Weaving or Studies in Pigskin. She was sure that Arthurian Legends wasn’t a requirement for his major.

She didn’t need this. She already had a full plate with her cross country practices and the double load of classes she was taking. Besides, this project was a big one; one she knew she couldn’t handle on her own.

“Okay, guys, I’d like you to meet with your partners. Set up your schedules and delegate tasks. I expect a full outline by next week so use your time wisely.”

The class broke apart after Miller’s instructions, desks sliding against the tile floor, backpacks falling down in thumps.

Kona didn’t move.

Keira hated this; the approach, the awkward dance of silence that always followed speaking to someone she didn’t know. She was introverted by nature, kept to herself because most of her peers thought she was a music nerd who spent way too much time writing songs or playing her Gibson Hummingbird behind her closed dorm door. Maybe she was. But being an introvert didn’t mean she’d cower under whatever glare Kona gave her when she spoke to him. Being introverted was one thing. Being a doormat was something altogether different and Keira had no intention of letting this human Volkswagen walk all over her. Mainly, she prayed he didn’t recognize her from the locker room.

When Keira approached him, Kona’s eyes remained closed, his head still in that stupid bob. She stood in front of him and waited. A full minute passed and he still hadn’t moved before Keira bumped his desk.

Kona’s eyes opened slowly, and he exhaled, as though annoyed by the disturbance. “What?” His voice was loud as he spoke over the music still working in his ears.

She only glared at him, expectant, nodded to his headphones. Professor Miller walked up the row of desks and finally Kona silenced the music.

“You need something?”

“You and I are partnered for the Elements in Modern Versions presentation.”

He looked around the classroom as though trying to confirm Keira’s claim. “Why?”

“Um… I don’t…” She couldn’t even finish, instead she offered him a weak shrug. She swallowed down her nerves, reminded herself about this class, how badly she wanted to excel in it, and tried to settle the annoyance bubbling in her stomach at Kona’s flippant attitude before she pulled a desk next to him and brought out her notebook and black pen. “Let’s get a few things straight. I’m not doing this by myself. It’s going to be a hard project and it requires a lot of research.”

“I got practice.”

“So do I.”

“For what?”

“Cross country. We’ve got four meets in the next month.”

Kona’s lips bounced against each other when he tutted. “Track? Come on. I’m sure running doesn’t require a lot of effort.” He sat up, pushing his book sack under his large chest before he rested on it. “We do five miles a day and that’s just a warm up. Besides, we’ve got two away games. That requires a little more work than your little meets.”

Keira closed her eyes, trying to tamp back the instant desire to knock Kona across his head, hoping that she could hold her temper in check.
Bitch
. That was another name she’d earned in her short first semester at CPU. She knew she could be bitchy. She knew that her buttons were easy to push, but she hadn’t meant to make enemies. The girls in her dorm had labeled her a bitch when she refused to join in with them every Monday night to watch “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and again when she claimed no interest in pledging a sorority. Looking at Kona Hale, seeing the way his eyes slipped over her face, dismissing any interest at all, told Keira he was probably going to think the same thing about her.
Nerdy Bitch.
She was fine with that, but she didn’t need Professor Miller to see it. If college was the afterlife, then the professors were gods and the eternal reward was a high GPA. She wasn’t going to let Kona threaten her 4.0 glory.

“When do you practice?”

“Every damn day.”

“Yes, well me too.” She looked across the classroom, trying to think of the best time to work Kona and this stupid project into her schedule. “I’m through by seven. Can you meet after that?”

“I guess. Except for Wednesday nights. I got shit on Wednesdays.”

“It’s just for a month. You can do your shit another time?”

Kona’s gaze moved over Keira’s face then down, making her lean back against her desk. She didn’t know what he was looking at or why she felt underdressed in her jeans and oversized hoodie, but the way Kona’s gaze took her in had Keira feeling the sudden urge to shower.

“Listen, sweetheart, maybe there’s something we can work out.”

“What do you mean?”

Kona scooted closer to her and pulled on the ties of her hoodie. Keira felt instantly hot, as though the temperature in the classroom had increased by twenty degrees. She didn’t like the way Kona stared at her mouth, or how he kept running the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip.

“I know this project is going to be a pain in the ass, and I’ve been watching you in here. This is your kind of thing.” He pulled on the string again, wrapping it around his large finger. There were ridges on his clean fingernails and so Keira stared at them, trying to avoid the intensity of Kona’s gaze, trying to ignore the deep lull of his voice. “You’re always answering Miller’s questions, always debating him about all this shit.” He wrapped the tie tighter around his finger, pulling Keira toward him. “You get off on this stuff.”

“And?” Keira cleared her throat before she pulled the string from Kona’s hand and tugged on the ends of her hair, trying her best to keep the warm flush on her face out of his view.

“And,
Guinevere
, I told you. I got practice and other shit I need to take care of. You help me out on this project and, well, I can help you out too.”

When his tongue flicked out again and his eyes went back to Keira’s mouth, she felt her entire neck heat and knew her face had colored close to pink, as always. She wanted to kick him, hard. The insinuation was there, right in the smug grin on his face and the warm blaze of his eyes.
He can’t be serious,
she thought.

She didn’t mean for her laugh to echo around the classroom. She didn’t mean to draw the attention of Professor Miller, who frowned at her like she was some sort of thug, but Kona Hale was more of an entitled asshole than she thought if he expected her to take his bait.

“Let me see if I get you. You want me to work on this project, a project that’s worth 40 percent of our grade in exchange for what? You lowering yourself to fuck me?”

Kona seemed surprised by her crude language. He even looked around the classroom, a small chink in his cool composure fracturing just a bit. “Knew you wouldn’t be down.”

“Yeah, you got that right.” Her awkwardness vanished under the weight of her anger - something that tended to happen when Keira’s temper flared. She inched forward to invade Kona’s personal space. He didn’t flinch at all. “It might shock you, but not every girl on campus is impressed by you.” She was unsurprised when Kona lifted his eyebrows. “And not all of us want to fuck you.”

“Oh… okay. If you say so.”

“I do and I don’t care what you offer. I’m not doing this on my own.” Keira scribbled down a time and date and shoved it at Kona’s chest. “Be at the library tomorrow night at eight.”

He didn’t bother to look at the paper she’d given him. Kona just pulled his headphones back on, acting as though Keira wasn’t there at all. But as she packed her bag and moved her desk back, she felt him watching her.

 

 

“That bitch is nasty. Stay away from her.”

Luka’s smile disappeared from his face and Kona knew he’d dashed his twin’s hopes of seeing more of Amber Thomas. Luka sat back in his chair, pushed his plate away and let his gaze move over Kona’s face. He recognized the look. That was Luka sizing him up, trying to guess if Kona was lying. “How do you know? You didn’t hit that.” He looked behind him before he whispered to Kona. “Did you?”

“Brah, please.”

When Kona smiled, shrugging like he wasn’t confirming anything, Luka hit him on the shoulder. “Shut up, man.” His brother tried to deflect his unease, dropping his shoulder once when their teammates Nathan and Brian slammed into the seats across from them. “You think I don’t know what’s up with her?”

“You don’t,” Nathan said, throwing a French fry at Luka.

“Mind your business.” Luka returned the fry and it landed in Nathan’s shirt. “You don’t even know what we’re talking about, asshole.”

“Ha. Amber Thomas.” Nathan’s laugh was low and it came out around the nuggets in his mouth. “You’ve been whining about her for two days.”

“More like a week,” Brian said.

Kona thought Luka really was a dumbass sometimes. Everyone with eyes and a small attention span knew Amber Thomas’ game. She liked players, specifically first string players. Both Lu and Kona were linebackers, sophomores, sure, but they’d been courted by the CPU scouts since they dominated the sport in middle school and were signed by high school. They worked hard and earned their time on the field.

The girls on campus were pretty much the same to Kona. Beautiful, yeah, sure; he’d discovered a long time ago that southern girls were something special, but most had one agenda: find a man with potential. And Amber saw a lot of potential in Kona two weeks back. She
potentialed
him hard right after practice one night and then gave Nathan the same treatment just two days later. He didn’t want his brother messed up with her. Lu was too soft, still hanging on to the fat kid he’d been at ten. He was always surprised when girls wanted to get with him, despite how he’d grown, despite the fact that the weight he carried now was all muscle. That fat kid was long gone and Luka still hadn’t realized it.

“Whatever.” Kona hoped his insult would make his brother disinterested, at least make him second guess the attention Amber gave him. “If you want your dick to fall off then that’s your problem.”

Across the table Nathan and Brian laughed between bites of French fries. When Luka didn’t join in with the laughter, Kona tried to defuse his temper, scanning the dining hall for an easy target. He smiled at Bethany Johnson, sitting next to her friends, just two tables over. “Hey.” He knocked his knuckles against Luka’s arm and moved his chin in Bethany’s direction. “Sophomore. Chem major. She likes big boys.” Luka moved his eyes, gave a long look at Bethany and then returned Kona’s smile. “See? That one’s clean, trust me.”

“You do her too?”

“No, brah.” He shrugged, leaning back against his chair. “Brian tried to at the KA party, but she turned him down flat. Said she doesn’t like horny blondes.” Luka laughed when Brian shot him a middle finger and Kona knew why. It wasn’t often that Brian got turned down and when he did, it was usually by good girls. Kona thought that was what Lu needed. A good girl.

BOOK: Thin Love
5.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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