Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(55)
Kona took a breath, avoiding my eyes before he spoke. “Leann told Keira what she saw at the studio the other night.” Before I could start in with a list of made-up excuses, Kona held up his hand, silencing me. “It’s not my business, sweetheart. But I can’t say I wasn’t happy hearing it.”
I turned, sitting on my leg to look Kona square in the face. “You don’t think that it was, I don’t know…inappropriate?”
“Why the hell would I think that?”
“Because I’m…well,” moving my hand around did nothing to help me think of the right word. “Kona, I’m the hired help.”
When his laugh came, it was so loud Koa stepped back into the living room, looking first at me then at his dad. “Oh, Aly Cat, you are a hell of a lot more than just the help.” He brushed my arm when I only stared at him, not joining in his humor. After a pause, the laughter stopped but he still kept that smile firmly in place. “My mom and aunt both cleaned houses and worked as maids in Hawaii before either of them got ahead. We come from a long damn line of people who aren’t ashamed to break a sweat.” He paused to let Koa back on the sofa and sat the boy in his lap with a new book. “And I shouldn’t have to remind you that Keira worked as a waitress at some dumpy diner for ten years before she caught a break. She’s scrubbed toilets, waxed floors, degreased disgusting stovetops and broke up more drunken cowboy fights than you’d ever believe.” He shrugged again. “Every penny we have, we worked our a-s-s-e-s” he spelled the curse word out while Koa flipped through the pages of his monkey book, “off to get where we are. Keira’s family may have been old money, but we aren’t.”
I knew this about the family. Of course I knew about Kona, who didn’t? Keira’s history came to me in the afternoons she and I would sit out on the patio and chat, watching the slow waves brush against the lake shore. Still, that didn’t mean this whole situation with Ransom was ever going to go anywhere. No matter how much his parents liked me.
Kona didn’t relent, though, nodding here and there as Koa pretended to read his book, the whole while watching me, as though he wanted to make sure I understood what he was hoping for. “It’s good Ransom kissed you. I’m glad for it. Maybe that means he’s starting to let go of all of…that. He’s beaten himself up for so long about it.”
I looked out of the window, debating the wisdom of telling Kona anything about what I felt. He was Ransom’s father and they were close. Instead of giving in to how good it would feel to confess my feelings for Ransom, I tried to be logical.
“I’m happy to help him as much as I can, Kona, but please, don’t get your hopes up. It didn’t exactly end with us holding hands and skipping out to the parking lot.”
“Leann mentioned that too.” He didn’t look remotely ashamed that he sounded like a huge gossip.
“Oh,” I said, letting Koa sit in my lap when he crawled onto it. “I guess she did.”
“Look, I’m not expecting anything, but I can’t help hoping that my boy can get past the stuff that’s been weighing him down.” Kona stretched out his arm, brushing my shoulder so I’d look at him. “I know better than anyone about guilt. But if he doesn’t learn his lesson and move forward, I’m afraid he’ll be stuck. I don’t want that for him.”
“I don’t either.”
“Good.” He smiled again, this time longer, seeming satisfied as he watched my expression. “Then maybe you give him some wiggle room? Maybe be patient while he sorts out the stupid sh…stuff in his head. He’s my kid, very stubborn and a little hot-headed.”
“A little?”
“Fair enough.” Kona shook his head, as though it was hard to admit his own flaws, but that smile remained and he continued to watch me. I didn’t know what he wanted from me exactly, but I was certain in the end, one of us would be disappointed.
The smile lowered, as though Kona debated if he should say what came next. “I see the way he looks at you.” My eyebrows came up, curious, a little surprised but Kona didn’t change that expression, as though he knew more about what Ransom was thinking that Ransom did. “He might not know it yet, but he wants to be your friend.”
“Friend?” Koa asked and Kona laughed again, picking up his boy.
“Let’s go see Mama.” And they disappeared out of the room.
The patio door gave easily when I opened it and I stood under the awning, watching the waves on the lake, not really seeing anything but the distant reach of the sun across the water.
Kona was concerned about his son, I knew that. Keira was as well. I’d caught the way her gaze followed Ransom when he’d talk about school or the exhaustive football practices and games. They loved him very much, anyone could see that. And the touch of that ghost, the one that came to him out on this lake had kept Ransom from the promise of the person he could be, and instead had made him the boy who had withdrawn from the world.
Ransom had kissed me, then pulled away. I had a feeling I knew why, but if Kona and Keira’s concern were real and they needed me, I could put aside what I had kept hidden from Ransom, couldn’t I? Isn’t that what you do when you care about someone? You put their needs before your own?
I wasn’t sure what Kona thought about my very thin connection with his son, but if Ransom needed a friend, that’s what I’d be. As much as it may hurt me, as much as I wanted Ransom to kiss me like he had again, to be more to him than simply a friend, I could push aside what I felt and be what he needed—either as myself or as the dancer.