Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(138)

She laughs. “No. I always knew Samson wasn’t a monster.” She looks away, returns to watching Ransom move around the field. “A bastard sometimes. A jealous prick, but not a monster.”

“Right back at you, sweetheart.”

She can’t deny it. She was just as insane as he had been. The it factor again, seeping in to destroy them, to enable them to destroy everything good that they were. “We were kids. We were pathetic, wild kids.”

“We were in love.”

Kona’s expression is light, but in the quick glance he gives her, Keira sees a fire, a determined confidence that tells her he remembers the past differently. “You think that’s what it was? Love?”

His face loses all semblance of calm. He frowns, his forehead wrinkles and a small part of her feels an instant wave of guilt. Had she devastated him? Had she shattered all he remembered about them?

“You don’t?”

Mouth opening, words stuck in her throat, Keira can’t watch him, not that intense stare or the slow dip of his eyes when they land on her mouth. “I think we were bad for each other. I think we were stupid for thinking that passion and insanity and jealousy had anything to do with love.” She looks at the vestiges of his shock, how they are replaced with annoyance, perhaps a dab of anger. “We always fought. Always.”

Kona is silent, staring at her, jaw working, but then he nods and his grin returns. “We were always pissing each other off, true enough.”

“You had too many groupies.” She can’t help the little dig at him, loves the way that grin transforms into a wide smile.

“You were always trying to break up with me.”

She laughs. “I had a temper and you loved pissing me off.”

“Fine. We were insane.” Again he moves closer to her and she feels warmer. “But not all that was bad. Not all that fire was bad.” He moves her hair off her shoulder and she wonders what he’s thinking, but doesn’t ask. “I thought it was love. I thought I’d die from how much I loved you.” When she refuses to return his heavy gaze, he takes her pinky and moves her hand onto his knee, running his thumb over her knuckles. The gesture is simple, subtle but it pulls a lot of unexpected, forgotten sensation into Keira’s heart. “It was love to me.”

“You have a selective memory.”

“Why do you think that?”

She pulls her hand from his leg. “You don’t remember how many scratches and bruises I gave you? Or how many times maintenance had to patch the drywall in my dorm because you’d gotten pissed at me for one thing or another and punched the wall? You don’t remember the bottle in my hand outside of Lucy’s?”

“Oh I remember. Still have the scar.”

“Exactly.” Keira curls her arms together, tightens them over her chest. “That’s not healthy. That just wasn’t healthy.”

“Maybe not, but I remember a few other things too.” For a moment, Ransom is forgotten. Kona leans forward, shifts around to face her leaning on his elbow, gaze catching her, making her still. “I remember you staying with me at the hospital when my grandfather had his heart attack, even while my mom made it clear she didn’t want you there.” He moves closer still, pulls her arms loose so he can rub the inside of her wrist. “I remember you being the only one who told me I wasn’t pathetic. No one ever loved me like you did; unconditional, unwavering. You never set limits. Not once.”

Keira knows he’s right. She knows that amid all that insanity, that crazy, dangerous passion, there was real love. They were unhinged. They were volatile, obsessed, but all of that desire came from what they felt for each other.

Still, age, maturity told her passion didn’t mean healthy. It didn’t mean that something so wild and manic could be normal. “That was the problem. No limits. Having no limits meant I was reckless. We were both reckless. It’s how we got him.” She nods toward Ransom doing laps on the field and Kona turns away from her as they both watch their boy.

“You sorry about that?” he says, eyes still on their son.

She doesn’t hesitate to answer him. “Not for one second.”

“And neither am I.”





It’s the cymbals that stop her breath.

Three small taps that break across the crowd of well-wishers—Kona’s friends, the players he practices with, Leann’s that have come to wish her son a happy birthday, that hum a soft, sweet melody straight into Keira’s heart. She knows this song. So does Kona and it takes only the small movement of her gaze, weaving around dancing bodies, right to his dark eyes for Keira to understand he recognizes it too.

He doesn’t watch her, not immediately. Body relaxed against his chair and that wide, long arm outstretched on the table as he moves his glass of scotch between his fingers, Kona’s expression is blank, perhaps bored for the three long breaths Keira can’t seem to release.

And then, a twist of his bottom lip and his eyes flick right to hers.

She knows he’s remembering it—the song, that night, them alone in her too pink bedroom.

Above her, the lights of the ballroom dim, the party slowing to welcome the heat of dancing bodies and the soft seduction that Dave Matthews whispers out from the speakers. But Keira only half notices how dark the room becomes, how thick the air grows. Kona’s gaze is heated, leveled at her like a kiss across her skin and Keira can’t take it; not the rush of memory or how the man sitting across this ballroom seems to remember what this song, what that night, had meant to her. How it had changed them both. Keira stands, backs away from the table in search of lighter air and freedom from the look Kona gives her.