Thin Love (5 page)

He was convinced his brother was going to make his move. He thought the quick smiles he’d exchanged with Bethany had been encouragement enough to get Luka on his feet to walk over to her table, but then his twin’s face lost all expression and he frowned at something behind Kona. “You piss off anybody lately?”

“Not today, I don’t think,” Kona said to his brother.

“What about you two?” Luka asked Nathan and Brian, getting a quick head shakes from both of them. “Well, head’s up. Some girl is coming this way and she’s glaring at you like you pissed in her coffee or something.”

Instantly, Kona bent his knees, tried to make his body relax. He ran through his interactions, the girls he’d talked to lately and the last time he pissed off anyone.

Susan Decker, three weeks ago got mad at him because he didn’t want to take her to her family’s barbeque out in Covington. But Kona, ever the peacemaker, sent Dougie Michaels to her dorm with a dozen roses and made sure the guy told Susan how much he liked barbeque and being out of the city. Dougie thanked him two days later for the hook up. He didn’t know who the girl behind him could be. Most of the girls he was with knew how he rolled. Casual hookups and nothing more. He just didn’t have time for the bullshit games that came along with being with a girl more than twice.

Luka’s eyes went wide, slipped up and down before Kona looked to his right and up at the girl that glared down at him.

Kona had to squint, look at the smooth contours of her face, the bright blue eyes, the high cheekbones and the creamy skin before realization hit him. This was the girl from his English class.

Kona remembered, as she stared down at him—looking like she wanted those slim fingers of hers choking his neck—that he’d missed their meeting for the project. She wasn’t dressed in her usual hide-me-from-the-world clothes. She mentioned being on the cross country team and so the tight running shorts she wore and a CPU track t-shirt tied at the hem made sense to him. But he’d never seen her when she wasn’t huddled under jackets and hoodies that were too big for her. Moving his gaze down her body, over those nice, high tits and flat stomach, that plump, luscious ass, Kona realized she’d been
way
under his radar. Her hair was pulled up in one of those high messy buns girls always seem to make look good and sweat dotted along her collarbone. It was her expression, though, that had Kona trying to keep the smile off his face.

She was pissed.

Those big, bright eyes of hers were stern, shining with anger as she glared at him and her thick, pink lips were curled up. God, he couldn’t remember her name but if she’d looked like that in class, he’d have paid more attention to her.

“You,” she said, voice little more than a growl.

“Me.” He earned a nudge and laughs from his friends around him.

“You’re an asshole, you know that, right?”

“Hey, calm down. I missed one meeting.”

“It was the first, dumbass.”

Kona would put up with most of the shit girls gave him. He took their whining, their constant complaints of him being a player. Hell, he could even handle the teasing his friends gave him when he couldn’t shake an attached female following after him. He could even handle his mother’s bitching about working harder on his GPA. What he wouldn’t take, not from anyone, was being called dumb. That was below the belt.

This girl didn’t know him and she made assumptions. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let her treat him like shit in the middle of the cafeteria. Not when his classmates and friends were all watching. He looked down at her when he stood, hands relaxed at his side, but he widened his stance, just in case this girl was the dramatic sort and thought she could get away with slapping him.

“You might wanna watch what you say.”

She didn’t blink, didn’t move back like most would do when they heard that hint of warning in his voice. Normally, people found him imposing and a little intimidating. Especially girls. But this chick didn’t seem bothered by his height or size. She seemed, in fact, too pissed off to care about anything but insulting him.

“Don’t you threaten me, Kona Hale. I don’t give a shit if you’re on the football team or weigh as much as a Volkswagen. You’re messing with my grade.” She took a step closer and jabbed her finger into Kona’s chest and suddenly he wasn’t so relaxed. “No one screws with my grades.”

Around them, people were staring, leaning back and over each other to watch the small outburst, so Kona attempted calm, to keep things light, to keep this uptight chick from making more of a deal about him missing their meeting than she already had. “I’m not threatening anything. You just need to calm down.”

The girl closed her eyes, rubbed her fingers over the bridge of her nose as though she needed a moment to cool her simmering fury. Finally, she looked back at him, but the anger was still there and her expression remained tense. “Let me make this as simple as possible… and you’ll have to forgive me since it’s been a long damn time since I had to speak idiot.”

He took a step toward her, not threatening really, but just on the edge of a notice that he knew would seem like a warning.

“Carry your ass to the library tomorrow night at eight or I tell Miller about what a slacker you are and you’ll fail. You need to keep a certain GPA to play, don’t you?”

He didn’t know why she was asking and he didn’t like that she was. “What of it?”

The girl—Kona wished he could remember her name— lost the tension in her face and looked smug, calculating. “My cousin works in the office of the Dean of the English Department and she has no problem changing grades.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said, crossing his arms. “You don’t have it in you.”

That seemed to set her off. She mirrored his stance, moved her arms together over her chest before she stepped right up to him. “You have no idea what I have in me and I promise you, you don’t want to find out.”

The way her cheeks colored, from anger, maybe from the run she clearly taken, had Kona’s mind reeling. He liked her anger, it did something to him he didn’t recognize, something that had his stomach clenching. “I don’t know, sweetheart, I think I might.”

“Tough shit. You’re not going to.” Next to them, Luka laughed, joined by the smart assed little comments Nathan made about this girl kicking Kona’s ass. She was put off by both of them, whipped her gaze to the table and leveled a frown at Kona’s brother. “Something funny?” They were immediately quiet, eyes on anything but the scowling face on the girl in front of them. “I mean it,” she told Kona, returning her attention to him. “Tomorrow night. Library. Eight o’clock.”

He couldn’t even manage to respond, to open his mouth before she walked away, arms swinging as she disregarded the stares she drew as she slammed open the dining hall door. When she marched away from him, Kona’s eyes trained onto her long, muscular legs and that lush, round ass that bounced with each stomp she made. He had to adjust himself just watching her body move.

“Who the hell was that?” Luka asked, standing next to Kona.

“Dude, I have no clue, but I’m sure as hell gonna find out.”

The woman was unreasonable. Keira slammed Professor Alana’s door not caring that the she might be annoyed by the rattle of the wood on the hinges.

“Ms. Riley, the deadline cannot be extended,” she’d said.

“Ridiculous.” Keira marched down the hallway before she came to the large wooden staircase that led into the Kenner Hall lobby. “Two hours. I asked for two freaking hours.”

Her History professor had changed the assignment and with Keira’s practice schedule doubling in preparation for that weekend’s meet against Loyola, she had forgotten about her journal entry on The War of 1812.

The tile lobby floor was wet with slick puddles of water collecting around the entrance as students ran inside, trying to avoid the storm. Keira looked through the glass doors, toward the dark clouds, the quick strikes of lightening as they broke across the sky and she thought the murky look of the dark day matched her mood. It hadn’t been a good week so far; not with her late run the night before, being so angry that Kona Hale had skipped their meeting that a few laps around the track seemed the only way to cool her anger. Not that it helped much.

That morning, she’d forgotten her umbrella, something she knew better than to do. No kid raised in Louisiana should ever be without their umbrella during hurricane season and she was thinking of making a dash through the torrential weather, possibly hide out in the library just across the street when she heard someone behind her whistle. It was an sloppy rendition of “Hypnotize” by The Notorious B.I.G., and the way the guy’s whistle was a beat too quick only made Keira’s already gray mood darken.

“You could probably make it across the street,” the guy behind her said, “but you’re gonna get soaked.”

She hadn’t mentally prepared to see him yet. The hours between now and their planned meeting would have given her time enough to calm her frayed nerves. But there Kona was, leaning next to her on the window, backpack thrown over one shoulder and a ridiculous smile on his face.

“What do you want?” She didn’t care that she sounded angry. She didn’t care that Kona’s smile faltered or that his eyes slipped nearly closed at her attitude.

Again he whistled, but this time it wasn’t a song. He was mocking her. “Are you always so bitchy?”

“No.” She turned back, eyes drifting up the stairs to glare at Professor Alana’s door. “That witch pissed me off.”

Kona turned, gaze shooting up in the direction of Alana’s office. “She does that.” The grin returned and he shrugged.

Keira ignored him for a moment, directing her attention back to the clouds outside, to the way sheets of water were now flooding the sidewalk. “She doesn’t like me for some ungodly reason. I can’t get her to give me an extension on my assignment.”

“She won’t do that. She isn’t into tardiness. She’s kind of a Nazi about it.”

“You had her before?”

“No, thank God.”

“Then how do you know?”

That grin was dangerous now, stretching so wide that the deep,
deep
dimples in his cheeks were the only things she noticed on his tan face. “She’s my mom.”

“Oh.” Keira saw the blush on her face in the window and she tried to make her voice softer, to par back her harsh tone. “I… I didn’t know. Sorry I called her a witch.”

With that, Kona laughed, two small chuckles before he followed Keira’s gaze and stared out of the window, watching the stream of rain as it slid against the glass. “Don’t be. She
is
a witch. She’s tough, but she’s good. And she’s always right.”

It didn’t seem logical to her. How could Alana have a son who was so flippant about his classes? She didn’t seem like the type of woman who tolerated anything but perfection. So where had she failed Kona? “You know, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

Keira let her eyes inch to the side, then right into Kona’s gaze. “You being her son. I’d think her son wouldn’t be such a slacker.”

He exhaled, pulled his backpack further up his shoulder as though he was tired of hearing that insult. “I’m not. Not really. And you really need to let that shit go. I forgot about our meeting. I didn’t do it on purpose. Practice ran over.”

Excuses. Keira hated them and she wasn’t surprised that Kona had one readily available. “Whatever. Are you going to make it tonight?”

“I’ll be there.” She couldn’t see her own expression in the window, but she knew something in it told Kona that she didn’t believe him. When she frowned at him, he rolled his eyes. “Jesus, I’ll be there. Don’t worry.”

Keira was done listening to him. Kona Hale was an obnoxious jackass and she had no idea why he was standing next to her a little too close, smelling too good. Head against the cool glass, Keira closed her eyes. If she concentrated, wished hard enough, maybe she’d open her eyes and he’d be gone. Maybe she would. “Positive projection,” Leann had told her, would manifest whatever she wanted. Right then, with Kona Hale’s thick, distracting scent fanning down against her, Keira decided to let the day go. There were no bitchy professors being unreasonable. There were no drenching rainstorms for idiots who forgot their umbrellas. There was no slacker football player waiting for her to blush, to stick her foot in her mouth so he could leap in with an insult or a dismissive excuse why he couldn’t help with their project.

One calm breath and her gaze went to him. Disappointed that Leanna’s new age juju hadn’t worked, Keira moved through the lobby door. Outside, she leaned against the brick surface of the building just under the wide alcove, debating how quickly she’d have to run to get across the street. Kona slid next to her, his elbow bumping against her arm. She couldn’t help the frown. One seemed to always be on her face.

“What do you want?”

“God, you’re the most uptight person I’ve ever met.”

“We haven’t met, not really.” Then, she decided to be smug, see how his ego would deflate if she embarrassed him. “Oh wait. We have. I seem to recall you in the locker room getting serviced.”

For a moment, Kona looked at her as though she was speaking Klingon, but that confused low squint stilled, and then laughter bubbled from his chest. “Oh shit.” He grabbed his stomach, bending over. “Oh, man. That was you?” His humor was annoying and he still had zero shame. “Damn. I’m sorry,” he said, smile widening as she shook her head at him.