Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(91)

“Hey.” She brought her hand to his cheek. “Where are you tonight?”

“I’m here, baby.” Kona’s small peck that Keira guessed was supposed to be reassuring only made her worry even more. When she moved her lips away from another attempted kiss, his shoulders fell and Kona leaned on his elbow to hover over her. “Ricky called me.”

“Kona…”

“I know. You don’t have to get mad. I told him I was out, after this last job.”

Keira refused to let that small hint of anger simmering around her mind grow. She took a breath, deep enough to fill her lungs until her body forced it out. It was an attempt at calm. The day had been too good, that dream, too prophetic. She wouldn’t pick a fight with him tonight.

Keira toyed with the hem of Kona’s hoodie, wrapping the drawstring around the tip of her finger just as he’d done all those months in Miller’s class. “When?”

“A week after Christmas.”

She laughed, rolling her eyes at how closely Kona watched her, as if he were waiting for her to explode. “At least he’s giving you the holiday off.”

“It’s the last job,” he said, ignoring Keira passive aggressive jab. He pulled the drawstring off her finger and laid on her chest, tapping her hand once so she’d move her fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to do it, Wildcat, but he’ll hurt… the people I care about.”

She wasn’t stupid and Kona knew it. She heard the lingering threat, the one she knew he tried to hide from her. “He’s all talk, bebe. People like him work off of fear and me getting hurt, he thinks, is your greatest fear.”

Kona sat up, moving his hands on either side of her head. “It is. Nothing scares me more. It would kill me if something happened to you because of me. It would kill me if something happened to you in general, but especially if it was my shit that got you hurt.” Kona lowered over her, hands back on her face, so close she could feel the heat of his breath moistening her skin. “My love’s too thick, Wildcat.”

She couldn’t help herself, she kissed him then, harder than before, wanted to say what had flirted on her tongue for weeks; what her logic and defenses forced back down her throat each time Kona told her he loved her. Kona had never asked her to say it back to him. He waited, like always, never pushed, but just then, when he backed away from her, when he simply stared at her, she saw the question in his eyes, that quick flicker of need she knew had nothing to do with his fear for her safety or the ache for her body. He wanted the words.

“Why don’t you sing for me?” he asked, and Keira had not expected that question.

“What?”

“You never sing for me. I’ve heard you through your door and I know you play for Leann, but you never give me that. You let me inside, Wildcat.” Kona fingered the neck of her t-shirt and let his palm rest over her heart. “But you never let me inside. Why?”

They’d slept together in her tiny dorm bed and some nights, when Kona snored at her side, Keira would look at him, really look at him—at that perfect, chiseled face and the small brown spots that dotted over his cheeks—and she’d mouthed the words she’d written just for him. Other times, she’d hum them, sliding up the notes, hoping that they filtered into his dreams; a soft whisper of everything she felt for him. But she had never been brave enough to sing when he was awake.

When Keira didn’t answer, Kona rolled onto her pillow, moving his arm across his forehead. “It’s fine, Wildcat.”

Now who’s running?

He held her hips when she straddled him, but the worry was still in his eyes, the worry and the frustration and Keira wanted that tension gone. It was time. It was past time.

“Kona?” His eyes came up, caught hers and he waited. “I’ve never loved anything like I love you.” The corner of his mouth lifted and Keira smiled at the release of some of his worry. “Mine is thick too and sometimes it scares me. Sometimes I think I know what Paul D. meant.” Keira settled lower over him, chin on his chest and she liked that Kona played with her hair, that he pretended she couldn’t feel how quickly his heart pounded. “I love you like a song,” she said, knowing he’d understand what that meant, knowing he knew she couldn’t love anything more. She kissed him and sighed against his mouth when Kona’s arms came around her waist, loving how tightly he held her to him. “My father taught me this song when I was eight and it broke my heart. I only sing it when I wanna remember how good that felt.”

Keira left the bed with Kona sitting up against the headboard. She sat in front of him with her Gibson on her lap and her fingers strumming against those familiar strings. “This is how much I love you.” The intro came back to her easier than blinking, that heart plucked vibration she’d heard in her dream. She kept her voice low, the strumming light, but her eyes didn’t move from his face as she sang about the love she wanted to give him; about the crazy love that was meant for him alone.





Keira felt stupid. Her head throbbed and she swore she could see her pulse pounding in her eyes. Small flurries of black dots flicked across her vision and for the third time in a row, she sneezed. It was dumb to huddle in the stadium, near the fifty yard line right alongside the other idiots, just to watch her boyfriend running around the field.