Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(103)
That twist in her stomach grew heavier and when Keira hesitated, frown deepened, Kona picked her up, kissing her as he walked her back to her bed.
“Go to sleep, Wildcat and I’ll call you in the morning.” She couldn’t let him go, couldn’t make her arms untangle from their spot around his neck. Keira wanted him to know her fear, to take it seriously. That unnamed sensation of dread crawled into her chest, made breathing difficult and her fear must have been etched across her face. Kona’s small temper faded and he took her face in his large hand. “You worry too much, baby.” A small kiss that lingered and Keira felt the small whip of electricity move between them. Kona reared back, smiling. “I love you.”
He was off the bed and out on her balcony before Keira could reply. That burning dread in her gut only simmered more and Keira watched Kona leave around the side of her house, hurrying across her back lawn. She couldn’t let him do this on his own. She couldn’t be the only sensible voice telling him he was in danger.
Shaking her head, fighting back that lightheaded sensation, Keira dug in her bag, fishing for her phone. She thumbed through the contacts, skipping past Leann’s name until she got to the number she wanted and quickly punched the call button. Two rings, three and then her mother pounded on the door.
Keira unlocked the door and her mother didn’t wait for an invitation.
I don’t have time for this, she thought holding up her hand when her mother opened her mouth to speak.
The caller answered, a quick “Hey you,” but then her mother jerked her phone out of Keira’s hand and ended the call. “You will not ignore me, you little shit and Keira, that is the last time…”
“Mother, will you please shut up?”
She reached for the phone, sidestepping when her mother swatted at her and Keira could feel the anger billowing between them. The woman had chosen the wrong damn time to pick a fight with her and Keira’s temper rose past the feeling of worry and fear that Kona’s departure had caused.
“Don’t you talk to me like that. I know what you were doing, Keira Nicole, I heard you and…”
When her phone rang, Keira darted forward, catching the bottom half of her mother’s palm on her chin. Keira leaned back, stretching her neck to look up at the ceiling, praying that the fury in her chest wouldn’t have her doing something stupid. But as she look back at her mother, the Nokia in her fist ringing like a siren, Keira decided, just then, that she didn’t care about her mother’s anger or the drunken rage that had her sneering at Keira like she hated her.
The feeling was mutual.
Taking a breath, her mother tossed the phone on Keira’s bed and curled her arms over her chest. “You and I are going to have that conversation now.”
“No. We’re really not.” The woman tried stopping Keira when she hurried toward her bed. She slapped the back of Keira’s head, punched her shoulders, but the girl was too focused on stopping Kona from doing something epically stupid. She had the Nokia in her hand when her mother yanked on her hair, tugging her backward and that pinching ache on her roots had her yelling, jerking back to send and elbow right in the center of her mother’s chest.
The woman staggered, then fell on her ass and Keira didn’t take time to enjoy the rounded eyes or the way her mother’s mouth dropped open in shock. It was a memory she’d store for another moment, when she had time to cradle that happy sight. “You ever hit me again and I swear on Daddy’s grave I will knock you into next week. Better still, I’ll take all those pictures Leann’s taken of me for years, sporting your handiwork straight to the cops, Mother. You think your friends would be interested in those? Now back off and leave me alone.”
Keira ignored the low sob her mother released and the rattle of her door as the woman slammed it shut. She hit the call button once more and stared out onto the lake as the moonlight shimmered across the still water. Her prayers were silent, pleading as the call kept ringing. Finally, that deep voice answered and Keira exhaled.
“Hey. It’s me. I really need your help. Can you meet me outside your house in an hour?”
The hotel smelled like bleach. It was a filthy by-the-hour place a few blocks from N. Rampart Street, fringing the outskirts of Treme. Kona stood outside, leaning against the dirty brick wall waiting for Ricky’s delivery, trying to look small, hiding in the dark shadows of the alleyway that backed up onto a row of rusted dumpsters. The smell was unbelievable—raw, moldy food, a stray needle or two on the pavement and floods of black trash bags tipping the tops of the trash bins. All around him was graffiti, some beautiful, haunting skulls and crossbones, most tags of gang names that marked territory.
Ricky was inside that small hotel room that Kona had only stepped in and then quickly abandoned a half hour before. It smelled like burnt hair and submission, but that didn’t seem to bother Ricky. He was only there to catch a nut before his shipment arrived. Kona heard the man moaning, finishing up with a hooker from one of the mob strip joints somewhere in the Quarter. Kona could hear them inside, Ricky calling the girl a dirty slut, the smack of his hand on the girl’s ass and her high-pitched squeal each time he smacked her. Heroin, Kona figured. What else would make a girl that tiny, that pretty sweat herself raw every night on a pole or give herself over to a pox-marked, rail thin * like Ricky?
Kona didn’t want to be there. He wanted his Wildcat, wanted this favor he owed Ricky to be over. He really wanted to drown out that slap on skin and the squeak of the rusted springs on the bed inside that room.