Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(166)
Kona broke her heart once. But it was Keira that left the remains tattered and frayed inside her. With his touch, his body, his brilliant, blinding love, he pulls it back together.
“I love you, Wildcat, so much I can’t breathe.”
She smiles against his mouth, rocks into his body as he moves. “Mine,” she says, stroking her fingers over his heart and Kona pauses, expression open, sweet.
His fingers are large, and when he slips his palm over hers, Keira’s hand disappears. “Yours, baby. Always.”
Ransom was better than Kona. At everything. He was bigger, stronger and at eighteen, as a freshman at CPU, his boy was about to play his first game. No redshirts. No year of ineligibility.
Kona didn’t know who was more nervous; him, walking up and down the sidelines in his coaching garb—Blue Devils cap and polo; or Ransom bouncing on the balls of his feet a hundred yards away from him as their offense tried to earn a few points.
It could have been Keira who had the most frayed nerves. Kona turns around, squints through the crowd until he spots his wife. She is gorgeous, lit up with a glow that has nothing to do with game day excitement. It’s that baby; the one that’s rounded her belly, the one she holds with her arms around her stomach.
Kona smiles watching her, loving that he can see her eyes all the way from the sidelines. And when she stares back at him, gives him a wink, something twists in his chest. It always does anytime she looks his way. It’s habit, him moving his hand to his chest, resting it over his heart. “Yours,” he silently tells hers and he gets choked up, a little flustered when she returns the gesture, moves her hand over her heart. “Yours,” she mouths.
The moment is wrecked, interrupted by the fussing two year old on her lap, that bushy haired boy who looks just like his older brother, acts too much like Kona. Little Koa spills his drink and Keira rushes to clean up his mess, her cousin Leann at her side, hurrying to sooth the boy. She waves Kona off, nods to the sideline and he follows her direction, sees Ransom sitting on the bench, knee bouncing.
“Brah, you alright?” Kona asks his son and they both turn when the whistle blows, when CPU takes a penalty and the ball returns to LSU.
“Shit,” Ransom says and Kona tries not to laugh at him. The kid has been worked up for a month, worried how he’ll perform at his first game.
The defense is summoned, return for their turn on the field, but Kona holds Ransom back, pulls on his mask to get his boy to look at him.
“You got this, son. Just do your best.”
His boy looks down, frowning. “That shadow, Dad. It’s freaking big.”
Kona takes Ransom by the collar, hopes his voice is easy, calm. “Son, it’s just a shadow. Time to make your own.”
And Ransom takes the field, running toward something Kona remembers, taking on his path with his eyes wide open. When the line forms and his boy immediately runs through two offensive linemen and heads straight for the quarterback, easily sacking him hard, Kona joins the rest of the crowd, jumping up and down.
Kona’s attention immediately returns to Keira, to her hands over her mouth, that wide smile again. That beautiful woman loves him. She loves him in whispers, in lyrics and rhyme. Keira loves Kona with a fierceness that rattles him, only hurts when she pulls away. She’d stopped running, stopped fighting the ghosts of the past and the guilt they used to cripple her. And when she stopped, when she let Kona hold her, love her and believed that he meant it, their life together began. It would continue. Kona knows the only time love really dies is when we stop trying to revive it.
Keira and Kona, they never would.
I’m going to forget someone. I know it. If you are that someone, please know that the exclusion is not on purpose. I’m old now and forgetful.
For S., the greatest, most loyal friend I’ve ever had. You let the dragon take you, but I still love you. My heart breaks for all beauty you never got to see.
Thank you to Angela McLaurin and Steven Novack for making this book pretty. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Chelle Bliss for being such a great support and for those beautiful headers. Your Tater Tot loves you big.
Karen Chapman is my biggest supporter. I honestly don’t think I’d be able to publish a single word if it weren’t for her. She is also quite smug when she thinks she’s right and, yeah, so okay, she was right and the last scene got change. Still gloating, woman. Thank you, friend, for all your hard work, all the brainstorming sessions and the eleventy billion sighs you have to listen to everyday.
Sharon Browning, thank you for your friendship, for your encouragement and for always listening to my insane, likely frustrating ideas. Nothing I write would make even the slightest sense if you didn’t edit and make my rubbish shiny. Love you, lady!
Penelope Douglas, Lila FREAKIN Felix, Chelle Bliss, Ing “Hooker” Cruz and Sarah “Hooker” Leal: I love you all to levels that are mildly manic and scary. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your love, support and most especially your friendship. You’re all the bright, shiny glitter sparkling my gray world.
To my betas and “sweet” team: Trish Leger, Judy Lovely, Leighanne Sisk, Jessica Shamburger, Emily Gould, Heather McCorkle, Janette Mapp, Carla Castro, Naarah Scheffler, LK Westhaver, Lorain Domich, Melanie Brunsch, Michelle Horstman-Thompson, Laura Agra, Allyson Lavigne Wilson, Emily Lamphear, Chanpreet Singh, Heather Weston-Confer, Betsy Gehring, Sammy Llewellyn, Dr. Risie Preston-Llaneta, Christopher Ledbetter and K. Imani Tennyson: You are the most amazing, generous, supportive people I know. I am so very blessed to have you in my life. I’m so calling dibs on each of you in the event of Z day.