Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(73)
“You’re on a tenure track, right? I’m sure you’ve been working your ass off jumping through all those little hoops you academic types have to navigate to make sure you’re approved for the whole ‘job for life’ gig.” Keira used her fingers to air quote the phrase. “Let’s see, History Department… the head of the tenure committee would be Sarah Broussard. Nice lady who also works with the Alumni Services, specifically the fundraising board, an organization that my mother and her husband… you know, the cardiologist who saved your father’s life? Yeah, that’s him, well, they both donate substantially to the university.”
Professor Alana’s face had gone pale, but the shock didn’t make Keira feel good. She wouldn’t mention to the woman that Keira had nothing more than passing acquaintances with the people she mentioned.
“I want you out of my class.”
“Not a problem.” Keira had planned on heading to the History Department office for a drop slip just as soon as she left Professor Alana’s classroom, anyway. Keira jogged up the steps, but before she opened the door, she leveled one last warning at Kona’s mother.
“One more thing. If you ever threaten me again, make sure you’re ready for a fight. I might be a kid, I might even be a trust fund brat, but lady, I’m not a coward. I’m a CPU Legacy with a very bored mother who likes to start shit. I promise you, you don’t wanna mess with either of us.”
Keira was going to do something for love. Well, not love, she didn’t think. Not yet anyway, but she was going to do something she never thought she would because her boyfriend—she was still getting used to the term—asked her to.
She was going to a Blue Devils game.
Kona had been giddy, mildly ridiculous when she agreed and he promised her a great seat, two of them since Keira bribed Leann into going with her. She was fifty bucks poorer, and somewhat surprised at how excited she was to watch Kona play. Not that she’d tell him that. His ego was too inflated already.
The temperature was frigid for November, especially this early in the month and Keira pulled her scarf closer to her neck, leaning back when Leann slipped her hand in the pocket of Keira’s wool pea coat.
“Where are the tickets?”
She slapped her cousin’s hand away and reached inside her pocket to hand Leann her ticket. “Take this. I’m gonna go wish Kona luck. He said the team would be lining up a half hour before the game and the girlfriends usually come by for good luck kisses.” Leann looked at her like Keira was sporting horns and a halo. “What?”
“You. Oh my God. Are you turning into one of those sports groupies?” She stepped closer, grabbing Keira’s hand. “Are you gonna start following the team to all the games and then steal Kona’s sweaty, stinky jersey so you can wear it while you get off?”
“Shut up.” Keira looked around them, hoping no one had overheard her cousin and then decided she didn’t care if they had. Leann’s smile and high laugh had her returning the grin. She started to step away, but then pulled her cousin close, whispering in her ear. “FYI, I don’t need to jerk off. Kona does it for me.”
Keira loved the open-mouth, wind-knocked-out-of-her expression that crossed Leann’s face. It made her laugh and when her cousin called after her as she walked toward the locker room, that laugh only got louder. “Who are you? What have you done with my sweet, innocent cousin?”
“Some big Hawaiian corrupted her!” she shouted over her shoulder.
She was still smiling when she walked down the corridor leading to the player’s locker room, ignoring the looks she got the closer she came to the doors. There were girls sporting team jerseys, blue and white scarves and hats that made them look like everyone else in the stadium.
A few girls Keira recognized from the two times she’d gone back to the team house while Kona grabbed a book or changed his clothes before they went out. She’d never been in his room, never wanted to be in the place where he’d defiled one girl after another, but she had waited on the den sofa, sometimes with Luka, sometimes with a few of these girls staring her down in the corridor.
Feeling a little excited and still giggling to herself about Leann’s reaction, Keira wiggled her fingers to a particularly gawky girl as she passed the bathrooms. The brunette with tiny, hooded eyes rolled them at Keira and then she leaned next to her friend, hurriedly saying something that Keira thought sounded like “crazy bitch.” She didn’t care. Her time with Kona, their relationship, his rough kisses, his tender, sweet touches had transformed Keira so that the looks she got didn’t matter. She had Kona. He was all she needed.
There was a wave of blue and white, more girls, some blatantly gawking at her that filled around the locker room doorway, waiting for their men, or who they hoped would be their men. Keira hated leaning against the wall, hated that she was among the same vapid, eager girls who congregated at the team house hoping for an empty bed, but she kept her eyes on the line of players as the doors opened, ignoring the high screams and the grabbing hands, moving her head and gaze over each body, looking for Kona.
When the last of the players—Nathan and Brian who winked at her in between quick kisses—filed down the corridor and Kona still hadn’t emerged, Keira frowned, worried that she’d missed him. Gazing back toward the players and their following groupies, Keira was about to leave, to try and see if she could spot Kona before the players took the field, but the door opened again and Luka emerged, stopping short when he saw her.