Thin Love (64 page)

“I’d looked for years.” He moves his hands from his face, but Kona still rubs the back of his neck, glancing at Keira as though his confession pains him. “I took a year off after… everything and when I got back to CPU, I was different. I was miserable. Nothing was good for me. And I just existed.” Kona’s shoulders sag, his eyes finally staring right at Keira’s face. “I tried for two years to convince your mother and Leann just to tell me where you were. To give me a hint. They weren’t having any of it. You’d gone off the grid and no one knew where you were. If they did, they weren’t telling me.” Keira moves toward him, but stops short when he shakes his head. “I need to get this out. Please.”

“Okay.” She waits for him to continue and hates that his mouth is drawn down, muscles around his eyes tensed.

When Keira sits on the bed, Kona pulls his fingers together staring at them, unwilling, maybe unable, to look at Keira when he speaks. “So I just lived, played ball, went to class, I lived like a monk, Keira. I didn’t drink or sleep with anyone, I didn’t do anything but work my ass off because I was so lonely, so miserable without you, without Luka.”

She’d never once considered what life had been like for Kona without them. She believed he hated her. She believed he blamed her for Luka’s death. But she never believed that he was alone. He was Kona Hale and despite the scandal of his arrest and the loss of his brother, Keira always thought that he’d pick himself up, that he’d go back to his life the way it was before her.

But as Kona keeps his gaze on his clasped fingers, she understands that her assumptions had been wrong. He felt the loss she did, but there was no baby there to divert his pain.

“A year after I signed my first contract, I had enough money, I hired a P.I. The guy was good. But not good enough. It took him four years and one day he finally hands me this thick file. But I just… I couldn’t touch it.” He manages to look at her, shame, guilt working in his eyes. “I was scared what I’d find. It sat on my kitchen table for a week and then, September 11
th
happened and I couldn’t get past the fear that you’d been there, on one of those planes, in one of those buildings. I kept seeing you dead over and over, Keira.

“The P.I. told me you were in Nashville and I drove there from Florida. All night. I got to your place and no one was there. I was exhausted and frustrated and so I stopped at a hotel, needing a rest.” Kona’s chest expands, his inhale deep, his exhale weighted and then he pushes off of the dresser, sits next to Keira on the bed. “I was checking out, ready to go back, mad, frustrated and then…” Without looking at her, Kona takes her hand, moves it to his thigh to rub his finger on her palm. His voice is low, as though the memory is too much, like he needs the feel of her skin to strengthen him. “I walk past a ballroom and there you were, up on a stage, looking like an angel, singing, smiling. All I could do was watch you.” A slow lift of his chin and Kona watches her, eyes on her forehead, her mouth, slight, easy smile on his face. “You were so beautiful, so talented, lit from the inside, Keira and I was so proud of you.”

Those last six words were so heartfelt that Keira feels the sweet burn of tears in her eyes. Had she waited to hear that from him? Had she always needed someone to say those words to her and mean it? She realizes now that she did; she wanted Kona to understand, to respect her for the efforts she made, for the strength it took to walk away from everything she knew.

“And then, you leave the stage, land right in the arms of some guy I couldn’t see and you looked so happy, baby. You looked like you were finally smiling and it was real and you…” Kona’s fingers still on her palm, lay flat and the small grin against his cheek isn’t amused, more critical than happy. “I thought you were with that guy. I thought you’d forgotten me and so I just turned around and left. I got back home and burned the file.”

She remembers the night; Mark had tried convincing her for months, years to step out of the protection of their home, to show the world her talent. But the fear had always been there—the same fear that crippled her father. Keira had always feared she’d need to numb herself like he did just to perform. She’d made excuses to everyone, Luann, Mark, herself, and then that horrible day happened when the Towers fell, and her life, everyone’s lives, changed forever.

“That was a songwriter’s showcase,” she tells Kona, staring down at their hands. “I remember because Mark told me I had to do it. All those people died on those flights and I was too scared to do what I loved. It gave me the motivation to get over my stage fright. That… that was Mark you saw me with me, Kona.”

A small head shake as though he knew and then Kona came to his knees in front of her, arms on top of her legs as he holds her hips. “If had any idea… you being there… if I’d know about Ransom… if you’d told me, I would have walked away from everything. I wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought because I loved you.”

“And you would have blamed me.” Despite everything; what they were, what they’d created together, Keira knew he would have blamed her. It was inevitable. “I would have been the girl that destroyed the life you could have had.”

“No. You would have been the girl that saved me.” Kona sits up on his knees, coming closer, bringing one hand to her back, the other on her neck. “You were the girl that saved me. I haven’t been a saint. In fact, I tried to drive you from my head, tried to erase you completely, but Keira, you’re a part of me. You and Ransom, you’re the best part of me.”

“Kona, we can’t—”

“You’re scared, I know,” he interrupts her, palm back on her cheek, voice strong, fierce. “I don’t care about what could happen, baby. I don’t care about all the shit we did to each other in the past. I only know that when you’re around, when I’m near you, in you, everything else falls away. You make it stop. You always have.” He moves closer, leaning his forehead against hers. “You still do. And it will never be enough unless you’re mine. I’ve always been yours, Wildcat. I’ve always belonged to you completely.” He comes back to her side, pulling her onto his lap. “I’m so sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry you were alone.” Kona’s voice cracks and his fingers against her hip tightens. “I’m sorry my son never knew me. I’m so fucking sorry I lied to you. Keira, I’m sorry.”

She had been waiting for those words. They’d become the tiny bud of expectation that fed her hungry soul. For so long, she had been wanting to hear “I’m sorry” and “forgive me” even as she sat in the back of a bus bound for Nashville, eighteen and frightened, lost to the comfort that she’d let vanish from her heart.

Now he was saying it like he meant it. Those precious words left Kona’s mouth like a promise, like the desperate appeal for absolution of a dying man.

Two simple words that she had chased, had kept brimming, stoking in her heart and until this moment with the giant holding her; her Samson humbling himself, waiting until she’d grant his pardon, Keira realizes that forgiveness had come to her a long time ago.

It came when she felt Ransom swimming in her womb, telling her with sharp jabs and quick thumps that he would fill the empty spaces left by Kona’s betrayal. He was the promise of something she thought had died.

It came to her when the nurse put a swollen, bright-eyed boy in her arms and she thought her chest would splinter from the thick love bursting in her heart.

Forgiveness came on the wings of time, when she forgot how deeply Kona wounded her, when she veiled the blinding pain his words had caused.

She forgave him and he’d never known it. She forgave him and in her mind, somewhere among the lost memories of the girl who loved him, she forgot that Kona’s betrayal had been a gift all along.

Keira has to know what today meant, what tomorrow would bring for them and so she lifts his head, hoping that in her eyes he sees the plea, understands that she needs a promise he won’t break. “Kona… do you… do you still love me?”

There is no tension in his face, no self-effacing frown that tells her his guilt has overwhelmed him. Kona looks, in fact, like a man who has been given a reprieve from his sin; like he’s been given another chance at freedom. “Wildcat…” he takes a breath, head shaking. “I never stopped.”

He leaves her in his bed, body exhausted, worn from a morning of touching, pleasing and then Kona kisses Keira on the temple, pulls her hair off her face.

“I’ll be back in two hours. Don’t you move from this spot.”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to.” She stretches, snuggles against those warm blankets that smell of them and lets Kona kiss her one more time. “Hurry home.”

“I like that. You saying home.”

She doesn’t know what her dreams were, can’t remember the details, but Kona’s arms were around her, his lips on her neck, down her back and Keira smiles in that half-awake, half-asleep bliss. Then, her cell on the bedside table screams her out of that languid dream and Keira sits up, naked, the sheets sliding down her body.

Ransom’s picture comes across her screen, him flipping the bird while blowing the camera a kiss and Keira accepts the call, yawns as she answers it. “Son, it’s only ten a.m. Why are you…?”

“Why’d he do it, Mom?”

His tone is elevated, shaking and Keira’s heart instantly starts thundering in her chest. He is upset, crying and the rattle in his voice tells her he is having an episode. “Sweetie, what is it? What happened?” She immediately leaves the bed, scrambling around the room to find her clothes with her cell sandwiched between her shoulder and ear. “I’ll come get you right now. I want you to be calm.”

“Calm? You want me calm? The hell with calm, Keira.”

He only called her by her first name when his rage had crested, when he was beyond the point of controlling it. “Ransom…”

“I am so fucking done with him.” She knows he is aiming for rage, anger, but the curse word comes out in a heavier shake, in a quiver that makes Keira’s stomach churn. “I thought he gave a shit. I thought Kona really…”

“Sweetie, I want you to breathe and tell me what’s going on. I’m in the dark here.”

“Turn on the television.” And then, the line goes dead.

Keira is torn, thoughts scattered by what she should do. She thinks of calling him back, but she knows her son, knows he’ll only ignore her call. She thinks of calling Kona, then Leann to make sure Ransom is okay, but sense returns to her and she pulls on her clothes, thumbing through her phone to see if Ransom had left any messages, if Leann had. When she finds none, Keira sits on the edge of the bed, clicking on the TV and she pushes her feet into her shoes.

The channel is on ESPN and Keira stands, phone falling to the floor when she sees the grainy video on the feed, playing over and over. The commentators are analyzing what they see, heads shaking in disapproval and Kiera pushes up the volume, stomach twisting as that damn video replays.

“… at the time he was fourteen.”

“Big guy for someone so young.”

“Just like his father.”

“And speaking of his father, Hale’s camp claims that Kona is aware of his son’s, and this is a direct quote, folks, ‘volatile, emotional problems’ that they are ‘trying to combat with medical and psychiatric treatment.’”

“Well, Bryan, that’s a lot for Hale to take on and I have to wonder if the Steamers will still consider a contract with him. Seems like he should be sticking closer to home than in New Orleans.”

“Absolutely, look, Bob, here it is again. Hale’s kid picks this boy up and bam, right through that plate glass.”

Keira didn’t need to see the highlights. She was too familiar with that stupid video. Ransom at fourteen, hands on the collar of Mikee Sibley, a junior twenty pounds lighter than her son. She closes her eyes, seeing it as it played out, just as the principal had shown her the day she’d been called into an emergency meeting.

“Ms. Riley, we simply cannot have this. He won’t be welcomed back.”

Keira’s body is shaking, fingers barely able to grab her keys, her purse as she leaves Kona’s house.

“Ransom could have killed him and the damage to the lobby…”

“Where is my son?”

“In the security office.”

Keira drives down the road, wiping her tears from her face, eyes flicking through her phone on her lap as she tries to find Leann’s number.

They’d handcuffed her fourteen year old son. To them, he was a monster, the bully whose rage had spilled out of him when he found his friend crying against the lockers, when that small girl told Ransom how Mikee had touched her.

“He tried to hurt her, Mom. She was so scared. I… I was so mad.”

“I know, baby. I know you were.”

They called him a psychopath. They told her Ransom was unbalanced, but all she saw that day was a scared boy who didn’t mean to get so angry. She only saw his body shaking from fear, from humiliation.

And now, it came back. Two years later. He’d gotten so much better, had learned to control his anger. And Kona. Why the hell would he say that about Ransom? Why the hell would he allow his people to release that statement? Kona didn’t know anything about what had happened. He really didn’t know much about Ransom at all.