Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(113)
Kona leaned back, hand on the back of his neck. He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to call her all the stupid, insulting things in his head, the ones he’d silently whispered to her when he was supposed to be sleeping. It helped. It took away his grief. It made seeing her sting less. It made wanting her seem disgusting; a betrayal to his brother.
“Last question…”
“I have to tell you something.”
He watched her again, ignoring the smile she tried to force. How could she be happy? How could she think that their lives weren’t over? Luka was gone. His future was hopeless and this bitch smiles? What the hell does she have to be happy about?
Keira needed to understand how irrevocably they’d screwed up their lives. She needed to see that he had nothing to offer her; that he didn’t want her, not now, not ever again. If she’d just would have listened. If she’d just stayed back in Mandeville, Luka would have never… he would still be here.
“Unless you’re going to tell me my brother is alive, then I don’t wanna hear it.”
“But Kona…”
“No!” Another slam of his fist, this time on the glass and a guard closed in, his presence a small warning that Kona should get a handle on his temper. The desk under his elbow was Formica, an ugly harvest gold color that reminded him of bad seventies sitcoms. He leaned against it, taking cool breaths, trying to calm. “Why the f*ck didn’t you stay, Keira? Why couldn’t you let me handle this shit on my own? Why didn’t you stay home?” He looked up at her pissed off when his eyes burned. “Why?”
“Kona, please…” Keira put her own hand against the glass, leaned on her arm and Kona had to shut his eyes again. He couldn’t stomach seeing her like this. He couldn’t stand the anger he felt, that deep, alien need to attack her. It felt abnormal, it felt like defeat. “I’m so sorry about Luka, but he told me… months back when I found out you were on that shit…” she sniffed again, her fingernails scratching against the glass. “He told me if I ever thought you were in trouble to call him. I… I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to protect you. I still want to protect you.”
She blamed Luka? His paranoid, anxious brother? Keira took her own guilt and shoved it at the feet of someone who couldn’t defend himself. Convenient, insulting and when Kona acted, moved to scream at her, the guard to his right leaned against the wall, his cocked eyebrow all the warning Kona needed. He pulled the phone in both hands, lowered his forehead against it as he let his breath come in quick, pull away the urgent desire to slam his fist against the brick wall behind him.
He cleared his throat, let one last deep inhalation move out of his lungs and Kona was able to meet Keira’s eyes again. “It’s done. There’s nothing left for you to protect me from, Keira, except yourself.”
The pale skin darkened and the lips Kona had grown so used to kissing, pulling comfort from, stopped shaking. Keira sat up, shoulders straight, attention unwavering as she watched him, analyzed every frustrating twitch he tried to still on his face. “What?”
“You heard me. I’m done with this shit.” He waved his free hand between them. “I’m done being your little bitch. I’m done pretending that I feel something for you.”
I’m a f*cking liar, he thought.
“What did are talking about?”
“You’re a stupid bitch, you know that? You think I only wanted you? You think I was only seeing you? You actually believed that whole ‘I love you’ bullshit?”
Kona should have found some sick pleasure from the expression on Keira’s face. He should have laughed at her. He should have felt vindicated somehow that his words moved like poison over her features—fractured the impassive frown until fury made her mouth dip hard. But there wasn’t satisfaction in that look. If felt, instead, like a gut punch, one of his own design. But he had to try. He had to make her walk away before he forgot his anger, before her tears, the smile she’d tried mustering up for him, made him forgive what she’d cost him. If he didn’t have that rage, he’d be left unprotected.
“Kona, don’t do this. Please.”
“Don’t f*cking beg, Keira. It makes you look common.”
She saw his lie. He could tell; it was in the slow way she closed her mouth, how her tears dried. How no more spilled down her face.
“Walk away, Keira. Walk away from me and don’t look back.” When she hesitated, kept staring at him as though she expected him to change his mind, like his heart wanted him to do, Kona hung up the phone, moved his chair back not wanting to hear any arguments. He barely offered her a glance and even that was dismissive; an afterthought she didn’t deserve. And it was that disregard, the way Kona acted as though she meant nothing, that had Keira reacting.
Then, his Wildcat broke, kicked her chair back and screamed, interrupting the conversations all around them. Keira swung back, beat the receiver against the holder over and over and over again until it was only shards of plastic hanging together by gauges of wire. Her rage shocked Kona, had him reaching forward, knocking against the plate glass to calm her. “Stop it! Are you crazy, Keira?”
“Oh I’m crazy you selfish *.” The guards had her, struggled with her before she had finished screaming, but Kona could not tear his gaze from her face; her rage was primal, had him fighting back that unnatural desire to hate her; had him desperate to touch her, to forgive her.