Thin Love (58 page)

The last time Keira sat in these bleachers, she was sick, working up to a flu and Luka told her love made her stupid.

Now her son runs around the field, right alongside hundreds of other players, sprinting a 40 yard dash, pushing his body beyond its limits. Keira can tell he is making attempts, trying like hell to impress his father. She doesn’t blame him. Ransom always excelled, she guesses, because he wants to draw attention to himself, maybe subconsciously prove that he is worthy of love.

He doesn’t need to lift a finger to do that. Not with her and not now with Kona.

The big Hawaiian watches their son on the side lines, a smile broadening his mouth as he chats with Brian, his old football buddy, now assistant coach of the CPU team.

Keira doesn’t feel comfortable here. This campus and its memories are like a bruise to her, something that has faded but still aches if she brushes too close. But Kona had insisted, made Keira promise to cheer Ransom right along with him. It wasn’t hard. She’d been cheering her son in everything he’d attempted over the years.

Except that damn race.

When the boy beats the clock ahead of two larger, stronger players, Kona shouts, brimming with pride and Keira snorts, rolls her eyes at his excitement.

Kona had been doing that for a month now; every time Ransom played a particularly complicated chord on the piano or guitar, every time he tackled Kona as they practiced, the man’s excitement was palpable.

Often, Ransom told her, Kona would offer him rewards—new clothes, expensive shoes, a tour of the Steamer’s stadium and, two weeks ago, Kona announced he wanted to throw Ransom a big sixteenth birthday party.

“I don’t need all that, Mom. What do I tell him?” Ransom had asked and Keira sympathized with him. But she knew Kona. He’d be disappointed if Ransom turned down the opportunity for Kona to spoil him a little and when she mentioned that to Ransom, the boy stopped complaining about his father’s plans.

“He’s just excited to be around you, son. He’s making up for lost time.”

On the field a whistle blows, signaling a break and Ransom looks up at her, offers her a quick wave before he falls to the ground, exhausted, excited, with a huge grin on his face.

Kona notices the move, says something in Brian’s ear, then runs up the steps to sit next to her in the stands.

“He’s great.” Elbows on his knees, Kona focuses below them, to the players, to their son as he downs a bottle of water. “Seriously, two more years with him improving and he can write his own ticket.”

She notices the way he bobs his head, as though he’s planning, scheming, what their son could accomplish, what would be available to him with a little bit of hard work.

“Have you talked to him about that?”

He looks down at her, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“Have you talked to Ransom about what he wants to study? Where he wants to apply to?”

Kona turns his attention back to the field as the players are lined up for drills. “Business, he said.” Kona stretches back, slinks down into the seat. “CPU has a great Business department. I think Professor Walker is still the Dean, but I’m not sure. It’s what my degree is in.”

“Yes. Business. That’s what it is this month.”

“What?”

Keira smiles, sitting up straight in her seat, folding her hands in her lap. “Kona, he’s almost sixteen. Last year he wanted to go into the military.” His mouth drops open, eyes big and shocked. “Three months ago he was determined to go to LSU because of their Communications program and when he was eight, he wanted to be Thor.” Kona’s frown is deep and she almost feels bad for him, for the disappointment she sees paling his dark complexion. “He’s a kid, Kona. He has a lot of grand ideas, but Ransom has no clue who he is or who he wants to be.” When he continues to frown, rubs the back of his neck, Keira sighs. “One thing that hasn’t changed though is how much he loves to play. Don’t worry about that. Wherever he goes, he’ll be on someone’s defensive line.”

Kona’s eyebrows move up and his smirk is deep, exaggerates the cleft in his chin. “You know positions now?”

“Don’t look so surprised.” Keira watches Ransom’s move on the field, that focused, steady stare he narrows as he tackles a kid twice his side. “My son has been playing football since his was big enough to carry the weight of peewee shoulder pads. I’ve had to learn.”

When he wasn’t practicing with the Steamers, Kona had spent nearly all his time with Ransom. Keira didn’t mind, she was still dealing with lawyers, making sure Ransom was up on his correspondence work and trying to fit some writing in for the deadline waiting for her back home.

They hadn’t spoken much and when they did, it was always about Ransom, about his party or if it was okay with Keira that Kona take him for a weekend. She’d been reluctant about that one, but their time together was important. They needed that time before the end of the summer when she would take her son back to Nashville. But she had caught Kona staring at her, sometimes just in a glance, sometimes a long stare when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Kona was conflicting her, confusing her with the clash of his focus on Ransom and those heavy stares that she didn’t understand. Stares like the one he was giving her now.

Eyes shifting to the right, Keira cocks up a brow. “What?”

He moves his head, a brief shake before he returns his attention to the field. “I never got to tell you, with me training and spending time with Ransom, but I’m sorry about your mom.”

Her laugh is small, bitter. “Kona, that was a month ago. Besides, You hated my mom.”

Kona shrugs, can’t seem to help the smile of agreement. “So did you.”

Ransom moves faster, strides wider down the field and a flash of wind shoots in front of them as ten players whip past the bleachers, setting a chill over Keira’s skin. In her peripheral she notices Kona laughing to himself, shaking his head.

“What now?”

“Nothing changes, not really.”

“Oh things change alright.”

“That’s true enough. But you getting cold in seventy degree weather? Still the same.” He moves closer, pulls his arm around her shoulder like him touching her was natural, normal.

The scent of his cologne drifts from his skin, that delicious tang that never failed to make her heart pound like a machine.

She guesses he is right. “People don’t change. Things do.” She feels him watching her; the dip of his chin, the way his hot breath skates down her cheek, but she won’t look at him. That kindling needs to remain in its ember state. It scares her, the return of the blaze; that mad, desperate fire that they were together. She moves away from him, but gives him a smile so he doesn’t think her rude.

“You’re not a coward.”

“What?”

A small lean, a whisper against the shell of her ear and Kona’s voice is deep, drugging. “I was just trying to keep you warm. I wasn’t trying to move in on you.”

“I know.”

“Liar.” Then he sits back, sets his elbow on the armrest right next to Keira’s hand. She watches him. There isn’t a smile on her face and the scrutiny has him running his fingers over his forehead, down his high cheekbones. “You scared of me, Wildcat?”

She laughs. “No. I always knew Samson wasn’t a monster.” She looks away, returns to watching Ransom move around the field. “A bastard sometimes. A jealous prick, but not a monster.”

“Right back at you, sweetheart.”

She can’t deny it. She was just as insane as he had been. The
it
factor again, seeping in to destroy them, to enable them to destroy everything good that they were. “We were kids. We were pathetic, wild kids.”

“We were in love.”

Kona’s expression is light, but in the quick glance he gives her, Keira sees a fire, a determined confidence that tells her he remembers the past differently. “You think that’s what it was? Love?”

His face loses all semblance of calm. He frowns, his forehead wrinkles and a small part of her feels an instant wave of guilt. Had she devastated him? Had she shattered all he remembered about them?

“You don’t?”

Mouth opening, words stuck in her throat, Keira can’t watch him, not that intense stare or the slow dip of his eyes when they land on her mouth. “I think we were bad for each other. I think we were stupid for thinking that passion and insanity and jealousy had anything to do with love.” She looks at the vestiges of his shock, how they are replaced with annoyance, perhaps a dab of anger. “We always fought. Always.”

Kona is silent, staring at her, jaw working, but then he nods and his grin returns. “We were always pissing each other off, true enough.”

“You had too many groupies.” She can’t help the little dig at him, loves the way that grin transforms into a wide smile.

“You were always trying to break up with me.”

She laughs. “I had a temper and you loved pissing me off.”

“Fine. We were insane.” Again he moves closer to her and she feels warmer. “But not all that was bad. Not all that fire was bad.” He moves her hair off her shoulder and she wonders what he’s thinking, but doesn’t ask. “I thought it was love. I thought I’d die from how much I loved you.” When she refuses to return his heavy gaze, he takes her pinky and moves her hand onto his knee, running his thumb over her knuckles. The gesture is simple, subtle but it pulls a lot of unexpected, forgotten sensation into Keira’s heart. “It was love to me.”

“You have a selective memory.”

“Why do you think that?”

She pulls her hand from his leg. “You don’t remember how many scratches and bruises I gave you? Or how many times maintenance had to patch the drywall in my dorm because you’d gotten pissed at me for one thing or another and punched the wall? You don’t remember the bottle in my hand outside of Lucy’s?”

“Oh I remember. Still have the scar.”

“Exactly.” Keira curls her arms together, tightens them over her chest. “That’s not healthy. That just wasn’t healthy.”

“Maybe not, but I remember a few other things too.” For a moment, Ransom is forgotten. Kona leans forward, shifts around to face her leaning on his elbow, gaze catching her, making her still. “I remember you staying with me at the hospital when my grandfather had his heart attack, even while my mom made it clear she didn’t want you there.” He moves closer still, pulls her arms loose so he can rub the inside of her wrist. “I remember you being the only one who told me I wasn’t pathetic. No one ever loved me like you did; unconditional, unwavering. You never set limits. Not once.”

Keira knows he’s right. She knows that amid all that insanity, that crazy, dangerous passion, there was real love. They were unhinged. They were volatile, obsessed, but all of that desire came from what they felt for each other.

Still, age, maturity told her passion didn’t mean healthy. It didn’t mean that something so wild and manic could be normal. “That was the problem. No limits. Having no limits meant I was reckless. We were both reckless. It’s how we got him.” She nods toward Ransom doing laps on the field and Kona turns away from her as they both watch their boy.

“You sorry about that?” he says, eyes still on their son.

She doesn’t hesitate to answer him. “Not for one second.”

“And neither am I.”

It’s the cymbals that stop her breath.

Three small taps that break across the crowd of well-wishers—Kona’s friends, the players he practices with, Leann’s that have come to wish her son a happy birthday, that hum a soft, sweet melody straight into Keira’s heart. She knows this song. So does Kona and it takes only the small movement of her gaze, weaving around dancing bodies, right to his dark eyes for Keira to understand he recognizes it too.

He doesn’t watch her, not immediately. Body relaxed against his chair and that wide, long arm outstretched on the table as he moves his glass of scotch between his fingers, Kona’s expression is blank, perhaps bored for the three long breaths Keira can’t seem to release.

And then, a twist of his bottom lip and his eyes flick right to hers.

She knows he’s remembering it—the song, that night, them alone in her too pink bedroom.

Above her, the lights of the ballroom dim, the party slowing to welcome the heat of dancing bodies and the soft seduction that Dave Matthews whispers out from the speakers. But Keira only half notices how dark the room becomes, how thick the air grows. Kona’s gaze is heated, leveled at her like a kiss across her skin and Keira can’t take it; not the rush of memory or how the man sitting across this ballroom seems to remember what this song, what that night, had meant to her. How it had changed them both. Keira stands, backs away from the table in search of lighter air and freedom from the look Kona gives her.

She needs a reprieve from him, from that song that shoots flashes of memory heavy in her mind. She still sees it all so clearly, feels his large hands on her naked thighs, the way his teeth raked across her collarbone. How he cupped her, teased her, how wide he felt inside her.

Keira suppresses the shudder that chills her skin and she slips through the crowd, finding the quiet of the city below her on the balcony. New Orleans shines in front of her—slow activity of blinking headlights, the low, almost unrecognizable refrain of a trumpet in the distance and for a moment she closes her eyes, focuses on that horn, hoping it will vanquish the flash of overwhelming memory.