Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(32)

Kona liked Keira’s smile. He liked her relaxed, but he knew she’d been heading toward something, moving close to an admission that would fill in the pieces she always kept from everyone. The time at the hospital had them both bare, exposed and Kona took a leap, wanting her with him, honest, just as raw as he was.

“How’d he die?”

Her shoulders fell as she released what was left of her indecision. She didn’t trust him, he knew that. They were barely classmates, but this was life, this moment when death lingered, when emotions are heightened by fear, by the worry that tomorrow would irretrievably change life as you know it.

“Bloody.” The word came out behind a long breath.

Kona was caught in her stare, in that steely way she challenged him, told him he was skirting too close to what she wanted to keep to herself. But he still moved his arm behind her shoulder on the seat. It was all he could do. Even when he was weak, even when he thought she could be a tether to what little grip of sanity he was clinging to, Kona wanted to shield her from the pain that her father’s death still caused.

Keira didn’t brush his arm away, she didn’t reject the small, useless comfort he offered, but she did sigh, did rub her neck as though she didn’t like remembering that day. “He took the easy way out, Kona. He was sick and couldn’t face it. I told you, I don’t like to talk about it.” He didn’t push. He didn’t want to do anything that would have her retreating again. He didn’t want her walking away, so he nodded, looked up at the ceiling and tried to ignore Dr. Michaels slipping out behind that curtain.

“So I went to see Babyface with Leann and I spent years beating myself up, telling myself that if I’d just spent the weekend with him, maybe he would still be here, like a ten year old has any freaking idea how to handle that shit.” Eyes back to her, Kona kept his gaze on those quickly moving lips. “The point is, what happens, happens the way it’s supposed to, when it’s supposed to and unless you got your medical degree in high school, there wouldn’t have been anything you could have done. We all get to where we are the way we’re supposed to.”

Kona didn’t know if he agreed with her. Maybe he would tomorrow. Maybe he never would, but Keira had a way, small gestures that made her seem so confident, convinced that whatever she said was fact. “So you’re saying everything happens for a reason?”

“Yeah, but I like my way better.”

Dr. Michaels moved out to the nurses’ station, starting scribbling something into a chart and Kona straightened in his seat, ready to move if the man continued to ignore him. But again, Keira deflected his anxiety, mimicked Kona with her elbows on her knees and her body inching closer to his.

He took a breath, started his countdown again when the doctor retreated back into the ICU, but Keira’s wrist in the dip of his elbow made him stop. She didn’t sit back, didn’t make that touch something brief, something only done to pacify him.

He caught the small movement of Keira twisting her silver ring around her pinky. Her fingers were long, thin and the nail beds were smooth and trim. He shifted his eyes up, trapped her stare. There were only inches separating their faces and Kona took that moment to watch the gray flecks in her irises, at the smooth arch of her eyebrows. That face took away his worry, made him forget where he was, why he was there. “So what happens, happens, huh? And… you being here right now?”

Kona was fascinated by the small gleam on her lips. He thought she was going to argue, to tell him this meant nothing, but then Keira’s mouth closed and those big eyes softened. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Around them, other families congregated into the waiting room. More sickness, more chaos, but Kona couldn’t make himself focus on anything but the sweet smell of her breath and how warm it felt against his face.

“I’m sorry I stole a kiss.” He wasn’t sorry. In fact, just then, he wanted to try again. That night in her dorm, just the hint of her on his tongue had nearly wrecked him and Kona spent the rest of that night telling himself it wasn’t as unbelievable as it was. He was getting good at lying to himself.

Keira’s grin was sweet, wasn’t mocking, and he liked how close there were, didn’t want her brushing off the flash of energy heating between them. “You told me. Before I even went there, you told me not to expect anything and I jumped you.”

“That was you jumping me?”

“Well, no.” His laugh was the break they needed, pulled them apart so that he could breathe again, so that he wouldn’t be tempted to kiss her. “You get what I’m saying.” She still had no idea what she did to him. “I never have to try with girls. You… shit, Keira, you make me work for it.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“True enough,” he said, bringing his shoulder to hers, just a small bump that brought back the flash. “The chase.”

“Freaking Lancelot.”

She leaned toward him and he thought it was another moment. He thought she was giving in, telling him with the dip of her eyes on his mouth that she didn’t think he was less; that she wanted him to meet her, take her lips again. But she’d kept him calm. She’d taken the frays of his panic and held him together.

What am I doing?

He couldn’t mess that up. She’d stood by him without him asking and he knew, because of who he was, because of the rules he’d given himself, that he couldn’t have Keira Riley. He couldn’t be enough for her.