Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(123)
“He plays? Football?” The muscles around his mouth relax and Kona smiles at Keira, excited.
“He’s really, really good. Defensive back. He’s been scouted since the end of last year. Us being here is stressful. He loves his school, it’s exclusive, but he’s doing correspondence courses until we get back home. He misses being on the field.”
When she shakes her head, laughs easy at his expression, Kona scoots closer, smile stretching. They don’t speak and he likes the easy comfort that has replaced the thick tension that filled the room the second she walked through the door. One look at her, at the way she brushes her hair behind her ear, the dimple forming with her smile and Kona knows he will forgive her.
But what about his son? How will he take the news that the father he never knew about would be entering his life? Does he hate Kona? Does he resent him? Kona’s smile leaves his face as he thinks of his own absentee father. His mother had never even let his name slip. The man died five years ago and the first time he got a look at him was in a large coffin.
He didn’t want that for his son. He didn’t want Mark Burke to continue filling in for him. “What will you tell him? About me, I mean?”
“The truth. I don’t lie to him. I may not always offer full disclosure, but I’ve never lied to him.” Kona looks away from her nodding, unusually nervous. Just the idea of meeting his son has made up, tension-filled scenarios racing in his head, but then Keira touches him again, pulls on his fingers and offers him a comforting smile. “I’ll be honest, this is going to blindside him. I don’t know how he’s going to handle it. But Kona, I’ve never once spoken badly about you to Ransom.” She squeezes his fingers. “He really is amazing and very kind.”
“When?”
Keira pulls her hand away and Kona misses the warmth from her fingers. Her shoulders straighten and she fiddles with the small ring on her pinky as though her nerves have resurfaced to niggle at her calm. “I’ll need some time. I have to tell him gently. I don’t know what he’ll say, how he’ll feel. He’s going to be mad at me, but he’s fiercely protective. I don’t know how he’ll react to you, to be honest.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Kona, I already feel like an *. There’s no need for you to make me feel worse. If you’re going to be in his life then you and I are going to have to act like civilized people. You can hate me on your own, not in front of my son.”
“Our son,” he corrects her, but his voice doesn’t shake, isn’t lifted in a shout. His gaze drops down to the floor, to Keira’s small feet, and Kona feels nervous for a different reason. “I don’t hate you. Not… not even then, I didn’t hate you.” He manages to glance at her, to push a quick smile onto his mouth before he looks back at the floor. “I was so angry about… about Lu, about me getting everyone into that shit. It took me a long time to figure that out. But this… all of this screws with my head. I’m confused, I’m disappointed that I’ve missed out on so much, but I don’t hate you, Wildcat.”
Keira doesn’t hide her smile. It is instant, seems like the quick recall of something she’d forgotten on purpose. He returns that grin, and it stays, deepens when she slides closer to him. “Can we be civil, Kona? Can we be, I don’t know—”
“You wanna be my friend?” And just like that, the zip returns. It is faint, barely recognizable, but it still crackles between them. Kona had felt the buzz of it when she touched him, trying to reassure him, but as their gazes catch, Kona feels the whip of energy return. Keira licks her lips and Kona cannot help leaning toward her; the anger and devastation of the day slips from his mind, leaves him completely as he stares at Keira and those beautiful flecks of gray in her widening eyes. “I was never your friend, Keira, you know that. I always just wanted you.” An easy lean of his shoulders and Kona’s mouth hovers near hers and Keira does not back away. “Then I needed you.”
Kona moves the small wisps of hair from her forehead with a slow drag of his finger over that soft skin. It is the same. It is exactly the same. So is her reaction to his touch, to the slow movement of his fingers against her forehead. He wants to kiss her. Despite himself, despite the anger and betrayal he feels, Kona wants to kiss Keira.
“I never asked, but you married?” His anger, his frustration at her silence had kept the question out of his mind. Now with her sitting next to him, smelling the way she does, looking the way she does, has Kona eager to know if she’d forgotten him completely.
That lulled, comfortable expression on Keira’s face relaxes further, transforms her mouth into a smirk. “No time.” Bottom lip dented beneath her teeth, Keira meets Kona’s gaze. “You?”
“No desire.”
Her eyes catch his before she closes them, before she leans away and a frustrated groan sounds from her throat. She is slow, calm and stands from the sofa, an easy nod of her head telling Kona that she isn’t really rejecting him.
“I need to go.”
He follows her, his lips tingling from that almost kiss and Kona can’t help himself, is eager to tease her now that the anger and tension has left them. “Still running, Wildcat?”
She stares at him, then down at his hand when he grabs her wrist, but Kona can tell she isn’t angry; not with that smirk on her face. Keira opens the door, but doesn’t shut it, not until she looks over her shoulder and the pretty blush he hadn’t seen in far too long warms her skin. “Don’t call me that, Kona.”