Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(24)
She never had.
Keira’s voice was low, an alto with a hint of a rasp, and it followed the notes, slid along B flats and Cs like she was trying to catch up to them, to make them settle.
She didn’t watch her fingers when she played. That was a habit of a newbie guitarist Keira had long since abandoned. Eyes closed, the vibration of the guitar against her chest, and then Keira was taken over by the words, by the refrain in her mind, flickering from her throat.
Her lyrics were a spell, magic woven from her father’s blood that she would never be able to define. She didn’t know why the sounds in her head never matched the notes she played or where those haunting, melodious words came from, why they fit together so perfectly.
Little girl I used to be
Shadows covered broken dreams
Forgot the promise I made to me
And then, Keira reached the bridge, climbed through the music like it was a mountain. She didn’t have to watch Leann’s expression to know that there were tears in her eyes.
No first kiss
Small last breath
Little girl gone, put out to death
The song continued, weaving through that small dorm room and Keira felt the bed move, the tremble of Leann’s body as she tried hold back her shuddering breaths. When the vibration from the last note ended, Keira finally looked at her cousin, shaking her head at the sloppy way Leann wiped her face against her thin sweatshirt.
“Damn. You’re too good for CPU.”
“You’re biased.”
“Of course I am, but I mean it.”
Keira didn’t let Leann’s look stagger her. It was a compliment she’d heard from her cousin for months, years before when they were eleven and Keira had written her first haunting melody, her very first lyric filled with melancholy.
Leann looked at the door when the knock sounded and offered Keira a glare, her emotions transformed in moments. “Be good,” she told her before she jumped off the bed and grabbed hold of her bag. “I have rehearsal until ten. Ten, Keira.”
“Are you still here?” She waved her cousin off and leaned her guitar against the footboard of her bed.
Kona’s smile appeared when Leann opened the door. He dwarfed Leann, was at least a foot taller than her, but that didn’t seemed to bother her cousin in the least. The girls shared that ‘you can’t intimidate me’ gene.
Kona heard the music before he knocked. The voice had him resting against the doorframe, listening. He knew it was Keira singing, her natural tone evident in each note. Just the sound had him punch drunk.
The door opened and Kona’s gaze shot down to the petite girl in front of him. She looked a lot like Keira; they both had the same fierce scowl, the same fine, pale skin, but this girl was bolder, her eyes sharper as she glared at him.
“Kona Hale.” Leann said his name like a curse, each syllable a dirty clip that she didn’t seem to want on her tongue.
“What’s up?”
“You tell me.” Her eyes lowered, her gaze sliding down past his hips before she jerked her attention back to his face. He caught her meaning, didn’t find her stupid joke funny.
“Leann, leave him alone,” Keira said, moving her cousin aside so Kona could walk into the room.
Keira’s cousin whispered something to her, something Kona thought might be a warning, but Keira pushed Leann toward the door before he could make out the threat.
“Well, kids, have fun.” Leanna stepped up to Kona, eyes fierce again, mouth quirked in a humorless smirk. “Not too much fun you hear me, Hale?” She looked behind Kona, at Keira putting her guitar up. “My cousin is a good girl. I expect her to still be a good girl when you leave here.”
“Jesus,” he said, barely able to finish the word before Leann slipped out of the door.
“Sorry.” Keira’s face had gone blotchy and pink again and Kona smiled at her expression. “She’s a little overprotective, but she’s harmless,” she said, waving her hand to direct Kona toward the foot of the bed. He followed her, rested against the make-shift sofa of thick cushions and pillows as Keira opened the cover and slipped the DVD into the player.
“It’s cool.” It wasn’t the first threat he’d ever received from overprotective friends. God knew, it wouldn’t be the last.
His eyes moved around the room, watched Keira as she knelt in front of the TV, skipped through the intro. She sported well-worn jeans and when she bent to lift the remote higher, Kona had to shift his gaze from the pale skin that peeked between her waistband and the tight t-shirt she wore. He was torturing himself. He knew it and he wondered if Keira had any idea what just being in the same room with her did to Kona. He doubted it. The girl had no idea the power she had. She had no clue how badly he wanted her, how being near her had him forgetting every steadfast rule he’d given himself about women.
Blinking away the image of that skin, Kona shifted over, made room for Keira when she sat next to him. The area was comfortable and Kona figured that the girls seemed to have set it up when the common room downstairs didn’t invite shared TV watching. Their set was decent, not really that big, but the color was great. At that moment, Kona could really concentrate on the damn TV or the music spilling out from the speakers.
Keira smelled different, another flowery scent he couldn’t place and he tried hard to keep his inhales short and brief, to focus on what was happening on the screen. But damn it was hard. It was also giving him a headache.