Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(9)
“Me.” He earned a nudge and laughs from his friends around him.
“You’re an *, you know that, right?”
“Hey, calm down. I missed one meeting.”
“It was the first, dumbass.”
Kona would put up with most of the shit girls gave him. He took their whining, their constant complaints of him being a player. Hell, he could even handle the teasing his friends gave him when he couldn’t shake an attached female following after him. He could even handle his mother’s bitching about working harder on his GPA. What he wouldn’t take, not from anyone, was being called dumb. That was below the belt.
This girl didn’t know him and she made assumptions. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let her treat him like shit in the middle of the cafeteria. Not when his classmates and friends were all watching. He looked down at her when he stood, hands relaxed at his side, but he widened his stance, just in case this girl was the dramatic sort and thought she could get away with slapping him.
“You might wanna watch what you say.”
She didn’t blink, didn’t move back like most would do when they heard that hint of warning in his voice. Normally, people found him imposing and a little intimidating. Especially girls. But this chick didn’t seem bothered by his height or size. She seemed, in fact, too pissed off to care about anything but insulting him.
“Don’t you threaten me, Kona Hale. I don’t give a shit if you’re on the football team or weigh as much as a Volkswagen. You’re messing with my grade.” She took a step closer and jabbed her finger into Kona’s chest and suddenly he wasn’t so relaxed. “No one screws with my grades.”
Around them, people were staring, leaning back and over each other to watch the small outburst, so Kona attempted calm, to keep things light, to keep this uptight chick from making more of a deal about him missing their meeting than she already had. “I’m not threatening anything. You just need to calm down.”
The girl closed her eyes, rubbed her fingers over the bridge of her nose as though she needed a moment to cool her simmering fury. Finally, she looked back at him, but the anger was still there and her expression remained tense. “Let me make this as simple as possible… and you’ll have to forgive me since it’s been a long damn time since I had to speak idiot.”
He took a step toward her, not threatening really, but just on the edge of a notice that he knew would seem like a warning.
“Carry your ass to the library tomorrow night at eight or I tell Miller about what a slacker you are and you’ll fail. You need to keep a certain GPA to play, don’t you?”
He didn’t know why she was asking and he didn’t like that she was. “What of it?”
The girl—Kona wished he could remember her name— lost the tension in her face and looked smug, calculating. “My cousin works in the office of the Dean of the English Department and she has no problem changing grades.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said, crossing his arms. “You don’t have it in you.”
That seemed to set her off. She mirrored his stance, moved her arms together over her chest before she stepped right up to him. “You have no idea what I have in me and I promise you, you don’t want to find out.”
The way her cheeks colored, from anger, maybe from the run she clearly taken, had Kona’s mind reeling. He liked her anger, it did something to him he didn’t recognize, something that had his stomach clenching. “I don’t know, sweetheart, I think I might.”
“Tough shit. You’re not going to.” Next to them, Luka laughed, joined by the smart assed little comments Nathan made about this girl kicking Kona’s ass. She was put off by both of them, whipped her gaze to the table and leveled a frown at Kona’s brother. “Something funny?” They were immediately quiet, eyes on anything but the scowling face on the girl in front of them. “I mean it,” she told Kona, returning her attention to him. “Tomorrow night. Library. Eight o’clock.”
He couldn’t even manage to respond, to open his mouth before she walked away, arms swinging as she disregarded the stares she drew as she slammed open the dining hall door. When she marched away from him, Kona’s eyes trained onto her long, muscular legs and that lush, round ass that bounced with each stomp she made. He had to adjust himself just watching her body move.
“Who the hell was that?” Luka asked, standing next to Kona.
“Dude, I have no clue, but I’m sure as hell gonna find out.”
The woman was unreasonable. Keira slammed Professor Alana’s door not caring that the she might be annoyed by the rattle of the wood on the hinges.
“Ms. Riley, the deadline cannot be extended,” she’d said.
“Ridiculous.” Keira marched down the hallway before she came to the large wooden staircase that led into the Kenner Hall lobby. “Two hours. I asked for two freaking hours.”
Her History professor had changed the assignment and with Keira’s practice schedule doubling in preparation for that weekend’s meet against Loyola, she had forgotten about her journal entry on The War of 1812.
The tile lobby floor was wet with slick puddles of water collecting around the entrance as students ran inside, trying to avoid the storm. Keira looked through the glass doors, toward the dark clouds, the quick strikes of lightening as they broke across the sky and she thought the murky look of the dark day matched her mood. It hadn’t been a good week so far; not with her late run the night before, being so angry that Kona Hale had skipped their meeting that a few laps around the track seemed the only way to cool her anger. Not that it helped much.