Thin Love (49 page)

She couldn’t risk her mother’s intrusion on the life she wanted to give her baby.

Keira had to leave and so she kissed Leann goodbye without telling her what she planned. She let Mark hold her, console her for the loss that had broken her down completely. She let him insist that she take his money, that she form a Grand Plan that didn’t involve their parents and the world they wanted them to emulate.

And then, just a few blocks from the bus stop on the CPU campus, Keira had made one last goodbye.

Keira thought that Kona should see. He should know what she meant; how destroying something so perfect, so beautiful, was the greatest sin anyone could commit. After all, he had done that to her.

His words were poison. His screams were a sharp point, piercing, tearing straight into what remained of her heart. This felt like a death. That great big solid thing in her heart had been shredded until only the fine wisps remained. It felt like she had been ripped apart, bits of her body and her spirit, torn to pieces and then quickly moved together again, but wrong, not as they had been, not as they should be.

Her reflection in the driver’s side window of the black Camaro looked odd, unfamiliar, and Keira moved her head, inclined to see her face clearer against the yellow street light blinking in and out above her. She looked at her lips, the curve of her neck, felt the cold, untouched plane of her chest and realized, with a shudder, that was where Kona’s mouth would always belong. That was where he would never be again.

And then, just then, the elusive hook came to her. She wanted to smile, to let the bunch of worry tightening her shoulders free. It was a song she’d been writing for months. It was what she’d toyed with anytime Kona made her angry; anytime she felt the bite of his accusations, his anger. Staring at herself in the reflection of his car, the words trickled into her mind, then grew and surged like a wave. She had it all. Kona had given her a child. And he had given her enough heartache that her song came to her.

How dare you

Trample with your words

Tatter who I am

Poison with your lips

Give it gram by gram.

How dare you

Steal what’s left of me

The parts already thin

Toxic to my heart

Broken through my skin

Pretty words hide the truth

Fracture all my hope

Poison in every sound, lies in what you spoke

How dare you?

She watched herself as though she drifted above everything, as though that was not her threading her keys between her fingers. That was not a calm, rational or even moderately sane Keira kneeling down next to Kona’s beloved Camaro.

She didn’t care that the letters were too big, white scratches against that midnight black paint. She didn’t care that she was destroying something precious, something that mattered, because Kona had too. He had crushed her heart under his heel and this act, this callous, juvenile act, would be a companion to her curse. He wouldn’t soon forget her words just as he wouldn’t be able to quickly be rid of the large letters marring his car.

Keira dug in deep, funneling her despair, the crushing bend of her heart into every line she made and when she was done, she didn’t look back. Just picked up her bag and stuffed her keys in her pocket and left her mark on Kona’s heart, on the pristine effort he’d made to make that car beautiful.

The bus station was five blocks away and despite the slow drizzle overhead, Keira set out on foot, leaving behind everything she knew, the one person she loved with the angry letters; the solitary reminder of how much he’d hurt her.

THIN LOVE scratched into that black paint and “never again” whispered to her shattered heart.

The Market hasn’t changed in the eight years that Kona has been away from the city. There are still the bunched assortment of vendors; smiling salespeople pawning their beads, their silver jewelry and food. It is cleaner now, somehow bursting with more exuberance than had been the vibe in Market before Katrina hit. But since that time, the city, the people, the entire attitude of
New Orleanian
pride has heightened and everything is shiny in its own way; smiles, stores, enthusiasm. Kona really loves this
new
New Orleans.

Despite the few glances of recognition he draws, Kona feels good with his mother on his arm, taking in the bustle of activity around them; her with a wide-brimmed hat covering her small face, and Kona smiles with the memory of his childhood here, the times he and Luka would run away from their mother to see if they could lift a loaf of French bread or a square of fudge from a distracted vendor. Kona shakes his head, lets a cool breath expand his lungs. That is the second time his brother’s memory has come back to haunt him. It is the city, the stinking recollection of the life he once knew that ushers in his twin’s ghost.

The air is cool with the sweet snap of heat just on the edges of the breeze, and the humidity and moisture that Kona has missed living up north. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed home; the bipolar weather, the rich, decadent scents that hang on the breeze and the easy laughter of the folks around them all make him feel like returning to the place where it all began is the right decision. California had been great. Colorado had been freezing, but New Orleans wraps him up in its heavy arms and reminds him that he hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place.

“Oh look, Keiki kane, they’ve got the hydrangeas in.” He means to follow his mother, make good on those promises of buying her whatever she wants, but more attention comes his way and two boys stop him, thrusting a chewed up pencil and slip of bare paper into his hands and his mother nods, walks ahead to pick out a bundle of flowers.

“What’s your name, buddy?” Kona asks the smallest boy, smiling at the missing teeth on the top row of his mouth and the snotty nose that needs a wipe.

“Matty,” the boy says, running his sleeve across his face.

“You like football, Matty?”

“I like you, Mr. Hale. Is it true you’re gonna play for us? You coming back home?”

He pauses while several women drift nearer, holds an arm over Matty’s shoulder while phones and cameras snap pictures, then he returns the gnarled pencil and paper back to the boy. “You never know, man. I just might.”

Kona signs several more autographs and moves away from the crowd, tossing a wave to Matty and his friend and he smiles at the widening of the crowd, at the occasional nods he gets here and there.

Ten tables ahead, Kona’s mother is speaking animatedly to a vendor, likely haggling over price and Kona rolls his eyes, wanders toward a kiosk of Mardi Gras masks, thinking idly that his manager’s twelve year-old would like one, when a glimpse back at his mother catches the sight of long hair waving down a slender back.

The woman is petite with a tiny waist and luscious, wide hips that has Kona biting his bottom lip. Simone, his girlfriend of two years, had left him, moved back to California the month before and Kona has been busy with the options his managers keep feeding his way. He hasn’t had time to put much effort in dates or women. But the woman not fifty feet from him reminds Kona just how long that month has been.

There is something there; something in the way the woman shakes her head, the way she moves her hands when she speaks to her friend standing at her side, that reminds Kona of the past; of the things he left behind all those years ago. He doesn’t know why those gestures, that silhouette gives him pause or what about the woman has his hands shaking, but he steps closer, needing a clearer look, needing to answer the question he hasn’t asked himself. Her profile is strong, it always had been and when she turns, looks over her shoulder, Kona stops wondering, stops guessing about things that are familiar and forgets how to breathe.

It has to be the light in the Market. The low yellow bulbs above him, the graying skies or his wild imagination. That can’t be Keira. He had just read about her mother’s death which sent him straight back to memory lane, recollecting each moment of their past and holding those minutes close to his chest.

Something catches her notice, that has her smiling broadly, that has her moving her chin as she waits for a greeting and Kona hangs back, steps behind the kiosk and watches Keira and Leann laughing at whoever approaches.

It
is
her. She is just feet from him after nearly two decades. Instinctively, he touches his chest, just over his heart. It’s where his tattoo is… the one he got for her. They’d been inked together and even though they’d left things badly and years and distance had separated them, he’d never been able to remove the tattoo. She’s always been his beloved.

Sixteen years later and she looks the same. She is still elegant, radiant; her legs strong, toned, her waist has expanded but Kona is certain he could fit his fingers around it easily. God, she is still so beautiful; large, blue doe eyes, smooth, lineless skin. Time had taken away the soft curves from her hips, the slight bulges that seemed delicious to him as a twenty-year-old are enhanced, heighten with her growth.

All those years searching. All the time and effort wasted on tracking her down and she stands feet from him; a ghost coming back to capture his clear thought.

He’d looked for her. A year after he returned to CPU when his anger had vanished; when his grief stung him less, but no one would tell him where Keira had gone. Leann wouldn’t even look at him then; her mother had slammed the door in his face and after a while, Kona reminded himself that he had done that damage to himself. After a while, he stopped searching every crowd, stopped hoping fate would have them meeting again.

But he’d heard the rumors. He’d hired professionals. She left the city after his arrest, had settled in Nashville, worked two jobs until she caught a break. She’d made it without him. She wrote songs that were full of angst and fire, a few that cut a little too close to home for him, but he was proud of his Wildcat, happy that she’d followed her dreams. He could have called. He could have approached, Kona is a coward where Keira is concerned and the words, he knows, would never come. He just didn’t know what to say to her.

Seeing her now, knowing that she is here, feet from him, has that tremble in Kona’s hand worsening and he instantly wants to touch her. He wants to taste her again. He manages a step, but just one before she seems to sense him, to feel the crackle of energy, of eager sensation that they’d always shared. She has to know he is close, that he is drawing her in. How could he not? She’d been his first love. Sometimes he thinks, his only real love.

The smile on her face dims somewhat as her eyes move all around the Market, to Kona’s left, above his head until finally their eyes met. For a moment, time is held captive by the tug of her stare, by the primal desire he feels to move toward her, to touch her, just to see if she moves the same; if she makes the same noises when he runs his hands down her body.

In the clamor of the Market and the stricken heat that flows between them, he touches on those fresh memories, the ones he’d pulled from his mind just this morning and instantly it comes back; how beautiful she was when she sang; the low, soft rasp of her voice when she was sleepy; the arcs and dips of her back, her hips when they moved together.

God. He still wants her. Has he ever stopped wanting her?

Her expression is open; shocked, and he wonders if she has the same quick flash of recollection, if all that they had been is coming back to her as it is to him in the gravid moment that they stare at each other.

He offers her a smile hoping that by now she has forgiven him. It has been a long,
long
time, but she had a temper, always held a grudge. He hopes she has stopped hating him.

Tentatively, her shocked expression changes and a small shake moves her mouth. He thinks it will be a smile, something sentimental, something he can commit to memory in case they never see each other after this moment. But then, her eyes fly to the left, to a kid jogging toward her and then her almost smile turns quickly to horror.