Thin Love (51 page)

Kona doesn’t speak to her when she offers him a smile. He doesn’t return the smile either. He just steps back, walks her to the sofa in the sitting room.

If the years have taught him anything, it was patience and control. You can’t be a hot head and expect to play with penalties and fines racking up. The NFL forced Kona to mature, to level his anger into calculated reasoning. And it was that reasoning that Kona draws on now as he sits opposite Keira in the recliner. He is relaxed, calm, his elbow on the armrest and his fingers covering the hard frown on his face. He doesn’t move them when he speaks, is content to keep his demeanor mildly cold.

“You want a drink?” he says, eyes boring into hers and he feels slighted that she won’t look directly at him. “There’s Scotch, I think beer in the fridge.”

“No. I’m good.” Her voice is soft, polite and her posture is ramrod straight as she fidgets with the straps of her purse.

Good. Be nervous,
he thinks.

But he can’t take the tension, the awkward way that she examines the room, her fingernails, the view from the balcony behind him. He needs a distraction, something to keep him level and calm and Kona doesn’t bother to look at her when he walks to the bar to his left and quickly makes himself another drink.

“Got a lot of questions,” he finally says, staring at the picture above the bar—Jackson’s statue in the Quarter at night, the old war hero’s head silhouetted against a bright moon. Another sip, deeper than the last and Kona turns, leans against the bar and crosses his feet, swirling the ice in his glass as he watches Keira. Her eyes narrow, run up his legs, over his hips and come to rest on his hands. Still, she won’t look at his face.

“I’m sure you do,” she says, leaning back against the sofa. She rests her temple against her fist and looks down as though she’s bored, as though she’s ready to take whatever punishment he has for her.

Kona forgets his drink, leaves it behind him on the bar and doesn’t care that her back stiffens when he sits next to her. “What’s his name?”

She seems surprised about his first question and he guesses that it is odd, that it came before “how could you?” and “why?” but it seems best to start out small.

“Ransom. He’ll be sixteen at the end of July and he—”

With Kona’s uplifted hand, Keira goes quiet. “You wanna say that again?”

For the first time Keira gives him an effortless smile, as though his surprise at hearing her son’s name is expected, something she’s heard more than once. “Luka Ransom Riley.”

Kona threads his fingers together, an effort to stop himself from touching her. There are emotions that overwhelm him; thoughts and questions that run through his mind like a wave; confusion, gratitude, disappointment. “You named him for…” he can’t finish the thought. He won’t. His twin, that loss, it is something Kona tries never to think about. He refuses to acknowledge what his brother’s death had done to him; what it continues to do to him.

“Luka was a good man, Kona, and his death was senseless.” Keira turns, moves her arm along the back of the sofa, her hair brushing back, sending the sweet scent of jasmine straight into Kona’s nose. “I couldn’t give Ransom your name so I did the next best thing.” Keira looks to her left, to the chandelier above the dining table, but Kona doubts her thoughts are on the ornate fixture. “He was the price I paid for walking away from my life here. He was the ransom for everything I could have had.” When Keira looks back at him, that small quirk on her mouth is faint, barely there. “It was a price I’d pay a hundred times over, Kona.” He holds that stare and tries not to let his mind wander to the gray flecks in her eyes or the determined set of her fine chin. And then, when Kona remains silent, when his gaze lingers, Keira turns away, breaks the small spell that caught between them in those quick seconds. “He’s an A student, spends most of his summers building houses with Habitat.” She scoots up, mimics him by resting her elbows on her knees. “He’s a great kid, an old soul and he doesn’t know you’re his father.”

He watches her, sees the worry, the fear again and some small measure of his anger leaves him.

“What have you told him about his father?”

“Not much.” Kona hates that she sits back. He hates that she’s retreating away from him; in the next moment, he curses himself for caring that she is. Keira’s shoulders relax, but she fiddles with the seam on the back of the sofa, running her fingernail along the brown suede. “He knows I was young. He knows I quit college when I got pregnant with him. He knows you are a Hawaiian, that you’re a giant, but I was never comfortable talking about the past.” She looks away from him and Kona wishes he knew why. He wishes those cluster of thoughts he can see working in her eyes would surface. “Not any of it, and he hasn’t pushed much. He’s never asked for your name.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

Keira always ran. It was her thing. When she was angry, when she was frustrated, she closed off from him, from everyone. She was doing the same thing now, clearly uncomfortable with his questions, maybe with him moving closer toward her. “It’s complicated.”

He’d let her breathe, give her some space, but Kona is determined not to relent. He wants answers and even if he has to run after her if she decides to take off, again, he’d have his damn questions answered. He pushes back, near the other side of the sofa and moves his elbow against the pillows, his fingers almost touching her shoulder.

“Then uncomplicate it for me. I think I have a right to know why you never told me I had a son.”

“I tried to, Kona. That day? At the jail?” She moves off from the sofa, paces next to the coffee table and Kona watches her, gaze hard, eyes shifting back and forth catching every step she makes. Finally, Keira curls her arms around her middle and when she works up enough nerve to stare at him, Kona is leveled by the hard glare narrowing her eyes. “You told me unless I could bring Luka back, you didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. You pushed me away, you remember that? You told me you didn’t want me that you never loved me.”

He remembers. Kona had spent years recalling her expression, the rage in her fists, in her screaming voice when she destroyed the parish’s telephone. He remembers her struggling against the guards. He remembers her curse. But he knows this woman. Or, at least, he knew the girl she’d been. She’s deflecting, trying to hold back whatever it is she doesn’t want to tell him. “That was you and me. That had nothing to do with the kid.”

“His name is Ransom.”

Keira’s shout has Kona’s eyebrow arching up, has him standing in front of her, looking down with a poker stare he’d perfected years ago during contract negotiations. He wouldn’t yield. “Stop procrastinating. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” When Keira hesitates, rubs the back of her neck and Kona sees the small beads of moisture on her upper lip, he grows worried, curious about where her fear comes from. “What is it?”

She waves her hands toward him as though she’s decided to give up. “I was asked not to tell you about the baby.”

“By who?”

“Who do you think?”

Keira doesn’t have to elaborate. That scowl on her face tells him everything he needs to know. Kona closes his eyes, silently cursing his mother and all the damn interfering she’s always sworn was for his benefit. “What did she say?” he asks Keira, expecting more anger, not expecting the laugh that works out of her mouth.

“I recall her telling me I wasn’t worthy of you; that I would ruin your future. That I… I’d already taken one son from her and she wouldn’t let me take you too.” Keira turns away from him, walks to the large window overlooking the city. She still keeps her arms wrapped around herself and her shoulders are set again hard, severe.

“She wanted me to get rid of him.” Kona’s stomach drops and he dips his head, thinks of fixing another drink, but is held motionless by Keira’s voice; those revelations he professed he wanted are like slaps against his face. “She wasn’t the only one that gave me that advice and maybe I would have. I was scared and after I left you that day at the jail, I realized I was very alone.”

He comes next to her, leans against the window and watches her profile, spots how her eyes reflect the city lights outside. “That was my mother’s plan for me too, but she and I had a fight.” Keira squeezes her eyes shut as though she is trying to erase whatever memory is running through her mind. “She’s the one who called the cops. She overheard us in my room and she made the call.” Keira glances at Kona and he can see her guilt, the heavy weight of what she’s felt for decades. Just then, he wants to reach out to her, he wants to tell her that none of this is her fault even though he isn’t sure he believes that. Instead, he folds his arms, pulls that wrinkle of concern from his eyebrows and watches Keira’s face as she again faces the window.

“Even after I kicked her out of my room at the hospital, I wasn’t totally sure about what would come next. I didn’t know what I’d do. I thought maybe telling you about the baby would help you heal. I was so naive. But then the doctor comes in, lets me hear the faint, barely moving heartbeat and I knew, I just knew, there was no way I could destroy that life.” Keira lowers her forehead, rests it against the glass and when she speaks, her voice drops as though forcing the words out is like extracting a tooth without anesthesia. “I’d made it with you. You were everything to me then and we’d made this perfect little soul together. There was no way I was getting rid of it.”

Kona is surprised to see her tears; they are brief and she doesn’t let them linger on her face, but he sees that the memories consume her, that for her they are still real. “So I went to see you at the jail. I was going to tell you. I thought you’d get past… everything. I thought we could start over.” She looks at Kona, gives him a small frown. “You were so angry. You hated me. You blamed me for Luka. I understood that. And then you break up with me, tell me you don’t want me anymore and I knew. Right then and there—after the argument with my mother, after your mother telling me I’d never be good enough for you, that I’d ruin you—I knew the only thing I had left in the world was our baby. So I left.”

“You carved up my Camaro.” It is pointless, stupid to even mention, but Kona too has gone back to the past. Keira’s words fill in what he didn’t know, the moments after he made her leave. “You went to Nashville?” She nods and Kona can only watch the dip of her chin and the straight line of her mouth. “But your car was totaled and you walked away from your family… how did you…”

“Mark Burke.”

She says the name with a smile, with a fondness that Kona doesn’t like. The jealousy is irrational and he tries not to let it consume him. Keira isn’t his. She hasn’t been his for a long time, but part of him hates that Burke was the one she turned to. He can’t push down that instant whip of anger deep enough and he knows his frown gives away what he’s feeling. Keira’s gaze follows him as he moves back toward the bar.

“Burke?” he finally says, trying to keep his voice even.

“He gave me three grand, put me on a bus.”

Kona works his jaw, unreasonably annoyed, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. “Burke did that for you? What did you have to do in return?”

She didn’t expect an insult. That much he can tell and as soon as it leaves his mouth, Kona regrets it. Keira lifts her chin, steps in front of him, comes too close. “Fuck you, Kona, it wasn’t like that. I had
nothing
. I had absolutely nothing. I certainly didn’t have you. Don’t you dare judge me, especially when you don’t know shit about what I was going through and you damn sure don’t know why Mark did anything for me.”

He should apologize. He knows that. Kona feels the weight of emotions he thought he’d buried a long time ago, but Keira being here, right in front of him, her laying out the truth he doesn’t believe he’s ready for, has him consumed with anger. He isn’t a kid anymore. He isn’t the boy Keira knew. So why does being around her for less than a half hour have Kona reverting to the hot headed asshole he used to be?

Still, they have a son. Kona may have not been there for either of them, but that doesn’t mean he’d continue to play absentee father. He has to know that the boy will be protected. “So Burke helped you. He’s in your life? He’s in my son’s life?”

“Yes. He has been for years. He’s a good man.” Kona nods, steps away from Keira and walks back to the window to lean against it, hands on the glass. He can feel her stare, hears the soft steps she makes as she moves beside him, as she rests her back on the window. “So is his boyfriend, Kona.”

Kona’s neck pops when he whips his head toward Keira. “What?”

“Mark is gay,” she says, a smile quirking on her lips. “He came out to me before you and I ever broke up.” Kona lets his shoulders fall with a relief he has no right feeling. Keira had hurt him, she’d kept his son from him, but he was beginning to understand why. He was beginning to remember things the way they’d happened and not how he’d organized them in his memory. Keira’s half smile falls and she looks down at her hands, a distraction for what, he doesn’t know. “Mark didn’t want me to have to live under my mother’s thumb. He didn’t want me having to pretend like he was having to do. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had and he loves Ransom.”

Kona joins Keira against the window, hands rubbing down his face as he processes everything she’s told him. His mother, the lies, Mark freakin’ Burke and finding out he had a son—it is information overload and Kona looks down at Keira, watches the way she rubs her neck, how she leans her head against the glass, taking it all in. Could he forgive her? Had she forgiven him? Kona isn’t sure what comes next.

“Why not later? Why haven’t you told me since then?”

“And have everyone thinking I was a gold digging groupie? Please, Kona, give me some credit.”

Just as quickly as his anger faded, it comes back, flashing into his head as he glares at Keira. “So, you’re saying your pride kept my son from me?”

“No. Of course not.” Even Keira’s sigh has Kona angry. Why the hell is she frustrated? Why is she the one that can’t keep her hands still, lets her patience slip? “I’m saying that I worked really hard for a really long time to build a reputation, to build a name for myself so that I could feed and clothe my son. You don’t have any idea how hard it is for a woman in the music industry. You have no clue how many hands I’ve had to slap off my ass or how many redneck singers and producers that offered me a shot if I’d sleep with them when I was trying to get my songs recorded.”