Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(71)

The cool, quick frown and those big, dark eyes didn’t exactly make Keira’s history class pass by quickly, but she made attempts. The woman was her boyfriend’s mother. She tried smiling, doing her best to look sincere, but Professor Alana’s face remained impassive.

“Whatever,” Keira said, just above a whisper and continued to finish her exam.

The clock on the wall told her she still had five minutes and with only two questions remaining, she knew the exam was an easy A. Still, she could feel Professor Alana’s eyes staring, cool glances on the top of her head as she bent over her test. The woman was ridiculous and had acted, if possible, even more distant toward Keira since their small confrontation at the hospital. Kona had told her that his mother had taken issue with Keira talking back to her, ignoring her command that she leave them to deal with his grandfather’s surgery privately.

“She’s not big on outsiders,” Kona had mentioned when Keira complained about how his mother ignored her in class and how, on the rare occasions that she glanced at Keira, her expression was indifferently insulting. “My mom’s not generally a fan of, you know, couples like us.”

Keira hadn’t understood him, but she could tell by the way he tried distracting her with his mouth on the back of her neck—something he often did when he was trying to stay Keira’s irritation or get what he wanted—that Kona didn’t really care what his mother liked.

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘couples like us?’”

When she’d pushed him away from her neck, Kona’s shoulders fell and he returned to his side of the Camaro. They’d been parked in front of her mother’s house, waiting for the lights inside to go dim. She didn’t want Kona to meet her mom yet, she wouldn’t put that on anyone she liked, but Keira was getting low on cash and needed to hit the safety net envelope full of twenties hidden under her dresser.

“Um… biracial couples? Specifically, Polynesian and Samoan men that date white women.”

Keira’s mouth had slipped open and she felt cold, freezing despite the hard burst of heat coming from the vents. “Kona, you’re saying your mom is a racist?”

“No. Of course not.” He shrugged, trying to pull Keira across the seat and onto his lap.

“But you said…” she was staggered. She hadn’t ever really considered it an issue to anyone but the out-of-touch, racist idiots that made muttered comments from time to time when they were together in public. Those came mostly from older folks who must have forgotten it was the twenty-first century, or the random stranger in the grocery store. She wouldn’t have cared if his skin was purple with green polka dots. She wanted him. She cared about him, not the color of his skin and she was pretty sure Kona felt the same way. It had never been an issue for either of them. “You said she didn’t like us together.”

“She doesn’t want me dating haoles.” He cleared his throat, realizing the slip he made. The term itself wasn’t derogatory, Kona had told her it just meant “mainlander” or “outsider,” the few times he recalled some of the slang his family on the island used. Still, she didn’t like it and Kona knew that. “She’d just rather I be with a Hawaiian girl, Wildcat. That doesn’t make her a racist.”

Keira had learned Kona was a little stupid when it came to his mom. She caught him frequently defending her when she’d cut Keira a particularly hard glare in class. “Kona, anyone who doesn’t like someone because they are a certain race is, by definition, a racist.”

He relented, tried placating her. “Baby, I don’t care what she thinks.” He finally managed to pull her onto his lap. “Neither should you.”

Keira finished her exam just as the clock hit 9:59 and she followed the other students to the front of the class, depositing their exams on the professor’s desk. She looked over the woman’s head, not eager to catch her eye and be served another stupid frown, but as she turned around to leave the class, Professor Alana cleared her throat.

“Just a minute, Ms. Riley.”

Awesome, she thought, mentally preparing herself for what she was sure would be something dramatic and stupid.

“Yes?” she asked Professor Alana when she made it back to her desk.

Eyes on the retreating students, Keira assumed watching for the last of them to leave and close the door, the woman’s gaze moved to her face and then she leaned back in her chair, arms crossed tight, as though she was trying to restrain herself. It was a gesture she’d seen Kona do a hundred times.

“It’s my understanding that your GPA is now the highest in the class.”

“Okay.” Keira didn’t know where this was going, but the professor had made the statement as though it was more accusation than fact.

“I find it interesting that your performance in my class improved when you began, well, when you became friendly with my son.”

Keira closed her eyes, knowing the woman’s insinuation was weak, a stupid excuse to dig for information about what she and Kona were doing together. “Professor Alana, if you’re implying that Kona is somehow feeding me exams before we take them, then, I’m sorry. You’re wrong.”

“Then would you care to explain the sudden improvement?”

Silently, Keira started to count. Small numbers that were meant to help her control her anger, but as she watched the professor’s eyebrows extend and the stark dip of her mouth, Keira let her concentration from each number slip.