Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(111)

“He and Aly what?” I asked, whipping my gaze at my mother.

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

I blinked, trying not to think about how heavy my chest felt. “She sent me a text about three months ago.” When my mother frowned and I could feel that glare simmering in her eyes, I hurried to explain myself. “Mom, we’ve had mostly away games all season and she’s trying to get the cash together to open a studio in Baton Rouge. We’ve both been busy.” The crowd’s low, amazed sound moved from a whisper to high pitched squeals that brought me back to the stage. To Aly looking down at Ethan as he knelt in front of her. “Shit.”

“Keiki kane, it looks like she’s been busier than you,” I heard Kona say, sounding more annoyed than I’d heard from him in a long while.

“Aly, I adore you,” Ethan said and I felt my stomach knot. “Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

“Shit,” Mom said, grabbing my hand.

At the same time I heard Dad’s loud, “Son of a bitch” then, finally, Koa’s amazed, “What the hell?”

“Um…” Aly started, eyes blinking, head turning toward the audience as they cheered her on. There, right then, I saw the panic. Aly’s blinking stopped and she lifted her chin, held her shoulders straight. She didn’t like being put on display. She didn’t really like attention. That had been another reason she wanted to leave Florida. She hated being Ransom Riley-Hale’s girlfriend when the cameras and fans were around.

Looking at her now, trying like hell to fight back the inclination to jump up on that stage and pull her away from this Ethan jackass, I caught the worry, that strained panic bunching up the corners of her eyes.

“Um…” she said again and her mouth got tighter, the smile so wide and worried that I almost wanted to laugh. Almost. “Yeah…yeah sure,” she finally managed and I stepped back, dropping to the seat behind me when my knees hit the cushion.

Mom’s fingers on my shoulder were tight. The crowd was stupid with cheers and noise. All around me there was sensation, sound, the thrill of activity and the hope of what would happen for Aly in the coming months. It all made me want to vomit.

“Ransom…sweetie,” Mom started, kneeling in front of me. “Are you okay?”

No. I wasn’t. I’d had the most beautiful, the sweetest woman in my arms for six damn years and I’d let her walk out of my door. I didn’t chase after her.

“Keiki kane…”

“I’m…it’s fine,” I said, fighting to keep the shake out of my hands.

“She’s only known him for a few months,” Mom offered and the idea that she’d say yes to this jackass after three months and no to me every time I’d asked her for six damn years had me more than a little confused.

“Months?” I asked, shaking my head when my mother nodded.

“It’s not…serious.”

“No?” I stood, stretching my neck when my mother touched my arm. “Saying yes to a proposal sounds pretty damn serious to me.”

I started to walk away, head for the Exit, but Mom grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at her. “She doesn’t love him, Ransom.” I moved my head back as though I couldn’t stand hearing that from my mother, but Mom pulled on my arms and I knew the glare on her face wasn’t made because she was angry. That was the Determined Keira Glare. “She loves you.”

I could have argued. I could have told my mother that she was meddling, that I didn’t need her telling me how to run my life. But of anyone in the world, Mom knew what it was to want someone you couldn’t have. She knew what it was to walk away and know you can never go back again. I wasn’t an idiot. I was stubborn and distracted and maybe a little selfish, but as my mother’s glare got harder and I looked up on the stage to find Aly nervously showing off the ring on her finger, I knew time had long passed for me to get back what had slipped through my fingers.

“The question is,” Mom started, “What are you going to do about this?” She nodded to the stage, ignoring the people around us leaving the auditorium. We were four rows back, right in the center and as Aly nodded to her dancers, at their parents up on that stage with that poor bastard’s hand draped possessively around her shoulders, she searched the audience, finally stopping on my face.

“Ransom?” Mom asked.

I kept my gaze at the stage, focused on the beautiful features of Aly’s face and the way she fought the relief I knew she felt. Someone spoke to her, got no response and divided Ethan’s attention so that Aly could return my stare uninterrupted. I didn’t know if she meant to hide her hand, but it curled into a fist and then moved behind her back as though Aly had moved it unintentionally.

“Keki kane, you got a plan?” Dad asked.

Finally, when she didn’t seem able to stand my gaze on her, or the way I moved it over her face, down that lush, beautiful body, Aly shook her bangs out of her eyes and plastered another grin onto her face, pretending like she actually cared what her new fiancé was saying.

“Oh, I have a plan,” I told my parents, grinning at my mother when she laughed.

And I did, one that I’d put into action that night and I didn’t care if Aly wasn’t ready for me, if she thought being with some * she didn’t know was easier than staying with me. I didn’t care if she thought she’d gotten over me, if she expected me to have gotten over her. I hadn’t. Neither had she, I saw that plainly just seconds ago.