Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(4)
They all want something. They say they are trying to help. But it has been a long time since he’s believed that anyone truly needed him. Still longer since he was convinced anyone wanted him.
Not since her.
“If you insist on being stubborn, Keira, then perhaps your father and I will rethink you living on campus.”
Keira tried to withhold her temper, fingers tight on her phone as her mother’s biting voice whined sharp. She withheld the small wish that her mother had never bought the damn thing for her. Everyone else had beepers. But Keira, and the well-funded sports teams at her private university, all got phones. She hated hers. Especially when her mother used it to pick a fight with her at eight a.m.
“Mother, Steven is your husband, not my father.” She heard the heavy sigh and knew by the clicking of her mother’s tongue that her comment wouldn’t be overlooked. “And I didn’t say no… exactly,” she hurried to say, hoping to forego a truly heated fight so early in the morning. “You don’t need to threaten me.”
“Surely you see that I am only trying to look after you.”
Keira walked past two girls standing in the middle of the hallway and tried to bite back the sarcastic retort itching to leave her mouth. Her mother always thought she knew what was best for Keira and if she didn’t agree, a quick slap changed her mind. Her mother picked out her clothes, had final approval over the classes she took, hell, she’d even insisted that Keira major in something “less frivolous” than music. Keira had agreed. She always agreed because that’s what good daughters did. She would not, however, easily agree to a date with Mark Burke.
“I don’t see how dating your canasta partner’s son is for my own good.” The same hall-blocking girls barged in front of Keira like she wasn’t there at all. Keira had to step back quick when one of them flung her purse over her shoulder.
Still, her mother yammered in her ear. “… decent boy from a good family and you’re eighteen now, Keira. It’s time you begin thinking about settling down.”
That had her coming to a stop just three doors from her English classroom. “Are you serious? I’m a freshman, Mother.” Behind her, Keira heard the two girls’ laughter moving along the dull beige walls, straight toward her. She stared right at their too perfect, overly made up faces, but they just rolled their eyes, dismissing her. Her gaze trained on their retreating forms, Keira continued her argument. She felt pathetic. She could mean mug some stupid sorority bitches but she couldn’t stand up to her mother. “I’ve been in college a total of two months and you’re already nagging about me settling down?”
Her mother’s voice was tense and Keira could hear the exaggerated sigh she blew right into the phone. “I just believe it would behoove you to make smart connections now. Mark is pre-med at Tulane. He’s mature and has a bright future ahead of him. You’ll want to snag him up before someone else does.”
Keira wanted to scream. Her mother had antiquated, ancient ideas about how Keira should live her life. Cora Michaels had managed at least one successful marriage, to a heart surgeon no less, and had considered that some great accomplishment. The woman liked to pretend she’d never been married to Keira’s father—a handsome musician with stage fright. She expected Keira to marry well. She expected Keira to be her clone. She expected a lot of things from Keira that the girl would never manage to live up to.
Taking a breath, Keira leaned against the wall, her attention distracted by a janitor mopping up a spill someone had abandoned on the gray tile floor. “I don’t want to snag anyone, Mother.”
“But Keira, he’s so fit and handsome and his parents…”
She knew all about Mark Burke’s parents and ignored her mother’s recap. They were the same as all her mother’s friends—wealthy, connected and the height of proper North Shore society. They fit among the elite, the disgustingly rich, the groups and gaggles of the affluent that looked down their noses at anyone who wasn’t just like them. She didn’t know Mark, but if he was anything like his parents, Keira knew they’d only clash. As her mother always said, usually when she was angry at Keira, she was too much like her father. The woman had never known that Keira didn’t consider that an insult.
Already tired of her nagging, Keira interrupted her mother and whatever ridiculous thing she was saying. “Mother, I have to go. My class is about to start.” She didn’t wait for a dismissal. She knew the rudeness bothered her mother, she’d mentioned once or twice that Keira had changed since she began living on campus. Since her move, the threats had been particularly venomous. But the idle threat of making Keira return to their lake house forty-five minutes from the city was weak at best.
Keira deposited her red Nokia in her pocket, glaring at the backs of the two girls who’d walked in front of her, when she noticed one of them intentionally bumping the janitor’s full mop bucket. The dirty yellow contraption tittered on its wheels before it toppled over, spilling murky, brown water over the floor.
“Stupid bitch,” Keira said to the girl’s back before she stepped next to the janitor to set the bucket right. “Can I help?”
The old man blinked at her, a wry smile pulling across his face when he registered her offer. “No, cher, don’t you trouble yourself.”