Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(92)
Winter camp held over the long weeks between the end of the regular season and the playoffs. At least, that’s what she’d gathered from Kona’s promise that the camp was very important. His enthusiasm made her want to be there, despite the worsening sickness that clogged her sinuses and made her lightheaded.
She was pretty sure she had a fever, was even more certain that those frowns Kona wore each time she sneezed were meant for her. But he had worked so hard since he’d been benched and wanted so much to play and play well. Kona had sworn he hadn’t touched a needle since she caught him in the locker room. His doubled efforts and late nights in the weight room had been proof enough for her. So what if she felt a little shitty? He was her boyfriend and she wanted him to know she supported him. Even if it was in something as mind numbing as football.
The stadium wasn’t filled to capacity, but the open practice had drawn several pro scouts and a large cluster of alumni, many of whom gave passing greetings to her and made brief, superficial inquiries about her mother and stepdad. Still, despite the small crowd, Keira felt out of place.
She pulled the wool blanket further around her shoulders and when she caught a whiff of that scratchy texture, another sneeze shot out of her mouth. Keira didn’t bother to watch for Kona’s glare, she could feel it as he rounded the corner of the field and ran past her.
“You sound like death.” Luka had lost his uniform and was bundled up in a thick jacket and dark jeans as he slumped in the seat next to her.
“I’ll live.”
“So this is what love looks like?” Keira shook her head at Luka’s wrinkled nose as he waved his hand in her direction. “I’ll pass, I think.”
She felt another sneeze threatening, itching in her nostrils and Keira dug a Kleenex out of her coat pocket. “Is… is…” She closed her eyes, trying to fight back the sensation in her sinuses and the urge to sneeze passed. “Is that your way of saying I look like shit?”
“What? Me, insult a beautiful girl? Are you crazy?” Keira wiped her dripping nose and waved off Luka’s small nudge against her shoulder. “Especially not my twin’s beautiful girl.” Kona ran past them and both Keira and Luka followed his quick movement. “Um, don’t tell him I said you were beautiful.”
“You’re such a chicken shit.”
“Nah, but my brother is stupid when it comes to you.” When Kona turned a corner and his eyes flew back to them, Luka moved to a seat in front of her. “Okay, maybe I’m a little bit of a chicken shit.”
Kona and Luka had gotten past their anger from the locker room, from Luka filling Keira in on Kona’s juicing, but that hadn’t stopped her boyfriend from glaring at his twin when he spoke to her in the cafeteria or offered her a plate at Thanksgiving. Kona knew Keira would never look at Luka the way she did at him, and with any other guy that smiled at her or nodded a greeting, the ones Kona barely noticed. Still, she hadn’t thought it important to tell him that Mark Burke sometimes called, just to check up on her. She didn’t think there was a need to invoke Kona’s jealous tendencies. Besides, Mark wasn’t interested in anything but friendship with her and Keira wouldn’t look twice at him anyway. But Luka, Keira thought, seemed like a threat to Kona. She didn’t know why, though she guessed some lingering anger at his twin and more than a little bout of sibling rivalry had something to do with Kona’s attitude.
Keira also thought Kona might be a little jealous that Luka had played in every game that season.
“Why are you out of uniform?”
“I didn’t slack. Haven’t been pulled off the field, and this shit,” he pointed to Kona beginning to struggle as he ran, “is because he’s gotta earn back his spot. Plus,” Luka’s gaze flicked to the left and he nodded in the direction of two men dressed in dark suits and long coats. They didn’t fit in with Robins’ relaxed gray slacks and CPU jacket. “The scouts are starting to hunt for fresh blood and I think Coach wants to show Kona off a little.” Luka looked up at Keira smiling. “Just don’t tell him that. He still needs to sweat a little.”
“You still pissed, Luka?” Another drip and Keira swiped at her nose again with the Kleenex. “You barely said anything about me giving your brother stitches, but you’re still pissed at him for making a mistake?”
Luka turned around, moving his arm to the back of his seat. “Keira, no offense, but you’re just his girlfriend. He’s my brother. He’s my twin and he put me in a shitty position. And he acts like I’m trying to steal you or something.” Luka looked back at the field to watch Kona talking to Robins, sweat coating his t-shirt and jogging pants. “I can almost understand you knocking the shit out of him because I know how he can push buttons, but I don’t get how he could get messed up in that shit for so long or put me in the middle of it.” Keira sneezed again and this time her entire body bent forward, moving her hair over her face. Luka tried to repress his laughter, tried to brush off how ridiculous Keira knew she looked by moving his hand against her forehead. “You alright?” She nodded, hurrying to clean her face before Luka’s laughter got too obnoxious. “Anyway, we still need to have words. I don’t completely believe that he can stay away from that shit or what Ricky wants him to do.”
Keira’s eyes flicked to the field, to Kona shaking hands with one of the scouts on the sidelines and then her gaze moved right, straight into the wide, calculating smile on Professor Alana’s face who sat quite a few rows away. Keira didn’t like how the woman grinned at her or how her eyes flicked between Keira and Luka.