Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(5)

She squatted down next to him, caught the mop before it fell to the floor. “I feel like I should apologize.” She nodded toward the end of the hallway where the blonde had disappeared. “I don’t hold out much hope for my generation. There are too many like her running around campus like they own it.”

The old man laughed and the sound had Keira returning his smile.

“I’ll give you that, darlin’. Not many good sort that I’ve seen.” He took the mop from Keira and they both stood straight. “But pretty little things like you give me hope.” At his wink, Keira felt her cheeks warm. “Thank you for the offer, but I think you best be off to your studies.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, wiping her damp hands on the leg of her jeans.

She put her mother and the janitor out of her mind as she walked into the classroom. Keira loved this room. She loved the large wooden desks, lined in a semi-circle around Professor Miller’s larger, cherry table. It felt homey, almost cozy, and she smiled when she entered the room, taking her seat right at the front.

Arthurian Studies.

Just the roll of the class name off her tongue made Keira giddy. She loved the legends; she loved the melodrama, the purpose behind each journey, every damn Campbell cliché that was born from the study of a might-have-been-real King who reigned centuries before. She loved this class and Keira suspected that her classmates did as well. For the most part, anyway.

There were, however, three exceptions: Skylar Williams and her boyfriend Dylan Collins were two. Skylar seemed unable to release high school habits and spent a huge portion of the class doodling over her notebook. She wasn’t an artist. Keira thought she was vapid. She thought anyone who drew “Skylar loves Dylan” a hundred times on perfectly usable paper, was vapid. “Skylar loves Dylan” or “Mrs. Dylan Collins” covered today’s page alongside hearts and clouds and geometric shapes. Dylan slept through every class.

The third exception was the tall linebacker who sat two rows away from her, hiding in the back of the classroom. Keira knew him. Not personally, but certainly by reputation. Kona Hale and his twin brother Luka were the proverbial golden duo. Their presence on the football team assured that CPU was headed straight to the Sugar Bowl.

Keira had never been to a single football game. She didn’t care about football. She didn’t care about vapid girls and their snoring boyfriends. She especially did not care about massive football players with wide shoulders and dark eyes who tuned out Professor Miller for fifty minutes straight.

Today, though, she cared a little about all three of them.

Her cousin Leann had missed another class. That was two in a row and since Profess Miller was handing out partner assignments—and Leann was the only other person in the class Keira ever felt comfortable enough talking to—she was worried about those three exceptions.

She hated group projects. They seemed so pointless. There was never a measure of real participation because despite the number in each group, there was always one person that did the majority of the work. Usually, it ended up being her, even if Leann was in her group. Blood didn’t overrule her cousin’s incessant need to slack.

This was an early class, eight a.m. on the nose and so Keira didn’t bother with fixing herself up; she was always too pressed for time, coming straight from her early morning cross country practice. If her mother saw her today, or any day really that she didn’t bother with more than a hoodie and a ball cap with her long ponytail sticking out the back, Keira knew she’d get a lecture. But her mother was forty-five minutes away, in Mandeville, so Keira dressed how she wanted in New Orleans. It wasn’t like she was trying to impress anyone, anyway.

She was always the girl in the front of the class that teachers seemed to call on. Her hand usually shot up first and there was generally a book, usually poetry, in front of her face before class started. It was natural that the others in a group project would gravitate toward her because they knew she’d take on most of the work.

A group, she could handle.

A group, she didn’t mind.

But partners? Well. No.

Skylar and Dylan were isolated near the door; him drooling on his desk, her drawing hearts and “I love Skylar” in looping script on the back of his hand. There may have been a few bubbles, possibly a “4-eva.” Skylar seemed like the “4-eva” type.

Keira’s gaze landed on Kona Hale.

He had his ball cap lowered over his eyes and the hood of his sweatshirt covering his head. Occasionally, he’d bob to whatever funneled through his headphones, but mostly he sat upright with his eyes closed as though Professor Miller couldn’t tell he was completely tuned out.

Kona was massive, even at twenty, and Keira would be a liar and a blind idiot if she denied how beautiful he was. She’d heard rumors, mostly from the girls on the cross country team and a few in her dorm who had screamed like banshees when she casually mentioned she had a class with him. Kona Hale was a stereotypical jock—hot tempered, eager to party, ready for a good time. Mostly, the rumors Keira had heard trailed along the “will screw anything” variety.

They acted like he was a rock star. Of course, this was southeast Louisiana. Football players, even college football players, were treated like gods. Especially if their performances produced bowl trophies and good SEC rankings.

She could see the appeal. He was exactly the kind of guy most girls her age fell over themselves for. Keira guessed he was inching toward 6’4 and he had a typical linebacker’s frame: large, wide shoulders, thick, sculpted arms like a marble statue and thighs that reminded her of tree trunks. It was bad enough that his body looked like something out of a “Muscle & Fitness” magazine, that certainly would give him reason enough to strut around campus like he usually did with a cluster of stupid groupies chasing after him. But no, to make matters worse, Kona had a flawless, exotic face. A dark, gorgeous complexion that reflected his Hawaiian heritage; strong, high cheekbones that offset his deep, penetrating black eyes and a small cleft in his chin that saved his face from being too perfect. He carried himself with a confidence and swagger and that made him that more intimidating. Not that Keira had ever tried approaching him.