Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(125)

In those deep dark eyes Keira sees so much. They flash sweet memories of frustration, of laughter, of sick, consuming obsession. But on the surface, in the soft curve of his cheeks, Keira sees only her boy, that chubby little four year old too scared of the height and looming depths of the park slide to even attempt climbing the ladder.

She pushes his thick hair out of his eyes and another memory flashes forward, this one of a boy who wouldn’t let his brother walk into danger; one that asked for Keira’s help. “He had a twin. He died. I never told you that. Luka was his name and he was a good man. Sometimes you remind me of him, but really you’re… you so like… like Kona.” She waits for his reaction, for his surprise, but it doesn’t come.

“Finally,” Ransom says, his features, his body all lowering, relaxing as though all the weight of what he’d know has left him.

Keira, though is surprised, confused by his reaction. “What do you mean, ‘finally’?”

One quick laugh and Ransom rests next to her, shoulders on the wall. “Mom, I’m pretty smart. Hello, 4.23 GPA.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m still paying off the ‘Oh Look How Smart We Are’ camp.” She nudges him. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve known since I was thirteen.”

It takes her a moment, a few brief seconds as she watches him, the easy smile, the wave of his hand, before she believes him. “Excuse me?”

“Shit, Mom, you never wanted to talk about it. And then Hale got signed to the Broncos. I was thirteen and we flew up to Englewood for my Beta convention and the Broncos were doing spring training, open to the public.” Ransom flips his bangs out of his eyes and Keira notices that his dismissive tone is rehearsed; that he must have practiced this little speech for years. “I begged and begged you to take me but you freaked out. We had to miss the rest of the convention because you hustled us back to Tennessee.” He crosses to the island and grabs the rubber ball again, squeezes it in his hand. “But, Mom, that wasn’t the first time. I know how to Google. Why do you think I wanted to meet him so badly? You know how many times guys on my team called me Lil Kona? I’m not blind. I saw the similarities and a few online interviews told me you and Hale were at CPU together. It all added up.” Ransom shrugs, waving off Keira’s frown. “The year of the convention Leann came up to visit and I asked her about it. She only confirmed what I knew.” Ransom bounces the ball once on the floor, but then stops, folds his arms over his chest. When he speaks again, his mouth is straight, serious and there is no playful tone in his voice. “She made me promise not to mention him to you. She said he destroyed you. She said I was better off not knowing anything about him. So I let it go.”

All these years later and Leann still didn’t know how to stop meddling. She wanted to be angry at her cousin. It wasn’t her place to tell answer Keira’s son’s questions. But Leann has always been braver than Keira and she knows her intentions weren’t spiteful. She still wants to pop her in the head, though. “She shouldn’t have told you.”

“Does it really matter now? That was three years ago, Mom and I’ve dealt with it. Kona Hale is my father. I’m okay with it.” Again Ransom bounces his ball, and that somber tone is replaced again by his easy humor. “It sucks that he’s never been around, but I got you. That was always more than enough for me.”

Ransom always did that; saw the upside in every situation. She often told him he was born old and Keira knows his maturity, the way he reasons and speaks comes from the role of confidant she’d forced him into. Sometimes she feels guilty that she’s depended on this kid for so long, that’s she’s asked him to bear the weight of her emotional upheaval, but he’s never complained. Just like now, Ransom takes what comes and deals with it.

He was so different than her. His heartache, pushed down, sacrificed for her and she feels pathetic, useless that she could not protect him from this loss, that he had to question and wonder in silence.

Keira’s heartache all those years ago had been raw and she didn’t have anyone either who could help her tamp it down. Back then, she’d only wanted to remember her breath, remember what it was to feel her lungs expand, to let the air shoot from her chest and out of her nose. But she couldn’t. The air had been too thick. Each inhalation was a battle and she wore her wounds inside, beneath the hard bristle of weight born the day she walked away from Kona. And it stayed there, grew larger, heavier until she forgot what breathing was, until she forgot what it was to relax, to rest, without the crippling weight caging her to the ground.

And then, one July morning, she remembered. She remembered to bear down, to hold steady, to push and so she did. And all that she buried in those eight short months—his touch, his warmth, the breath he gave her—sped forward in the blood and sweat and blissful pain of ten small fingers, ten perfect toes and then, just then, in a hospital in Nashville, Keira remembered to breathe.

Ransom had reminded her how.

Keira can’t help the small collection of tears that form in her eyes, and she blinks them away, knows that the one thing Ransom can’t ever take is her crying. “You are not a normal teenager.”

“Well, you’ve never been a normal mom. Besides,” he grabs her hand, gives her fingers a squeeze. “What have you always told me?”