Thin Love(113)

Keira moved her head slowly, knowing he’d see the warning in her eyes the second he looked at her. “Get out of my room.”

He jerked his hand away from her, standing as he moved to Leann’s side of the bed. “Here she goes, little coward running away.” Keira stood, shoulders set when Kona kicked one of Leann’s wedges across the room. “Just tell me the truth!” Keira watched him come undone, how his gaze went around the room, how his fists squeezed so tight his hands shook. He was looking for something to hit, something that would take away the tension, and Keira didn’t think, did nothing more than stand in front of him when he darted toward the bookshelf next to Keira’s desk.

“You wanna hit something, then come at me, Kona.”

“Keira, get out of my face.” He stepped away from her, nostrils flaring, breath coming faster when she didn’t move. “Back off!” And when Keira didn’t budge, when she followed him, Kona bent his elbow and slammed his fist into the drywall over her head. She felt the dust and chunks of the wall in her hair, against her neck. “He wouldn’t say anything, just like you. Why not, Keira? Why the hell not? If you aren’t doing anything, why wouldn’t he just tell me? Why won’t you?”

“Because you’re being ridiculous. Because you’re being insulting.” She watched him stomp around the room, shaking his hand to clear the dust and dirt from it. “Because you let that stupid bitch get into your head.”

“That stupid bitch loves me. She would never lie to me. She would never tell me something that was bullshit, especially not about my own brother!”

“Oh my God, Kona, of course she would.” Keira couldn’t believe how blind he was. He didn’t see how easily she manipulated him and part of her felt sorry for the big idiot. “She hates me, you know that and from everything you’ve told me, from little comments Luka’s made, she doesn’t like him either. If she wanted you away from me, why not focus on the other person in your life that she hates?”

“She does not hate him. You don’t… you don’t know…” and then Kona went for her guitar. Keira moved fast, tried wrestling it out of his massive hand, but he held her off.

She could only step back in shock, hands over her mouth, tears flooding her eyes as Kona held her father’s Hummingbird by the headstock. “Please. Oh God, Kona, please don’t—”she heard the crack and fell to her knees, catching the guitar before it fell to the floor.

Keira cradled it, held the loose strings in her hands, shuddering when she saw how the headstock dangled from the neck, the silver pegs loosened. Her father was in those strings; he was in every fret, every worn groove and Keira ran her fingers over each one, hopeless, vision blurred and foggy with the thick cluster of her tears. The first man she loved died all over again and no matter how much she tried to pull the strings back, no matter how she moved the headstock back into place, it was ruined.

Kona knelt beside her and Keira closed her eyes not wanting to see the tortured way he looked at her. His refrain of “baby, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it” was a screech to her ears that made her sick and when he tried to touch her, Keira jerked his hand off her shoulder, pulled the broken guitar closer to her chest.

“Just go,” she said, bending her forehead to the cold neck. “Please just go.”

And for once, Kona didn’t argue. For once, he left Keira alone with her tears.





“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a few weeks.” Mark’s breath beat into the phone and Keira stopped on the first flight of stairs of her building. He was a friend, would never be anything more than that, but he kept calling her, kept up with whatever stupid thing she and Kona were arguing about on any given week and informed her of every drunken gripe her mother made to his. Those usually included more than one reference to Keira. But the way Mark hesitated, how he flirted around his words, had Keira worried that he was trying work up to something that made him anxious.

When only silence met her on the line, Keira sat down on the stairs, pulling her bag between her feet. “Mark? Whatever it is…”

“I know. Hell, I don’t know why I’m so nervous to tell you.” He laughed then, clearing his throat. “It’s not like you’ll judge me, I know that and it’s not like our mothers schemes are gonna work out.”

Keira smiled, the first time in the week since Kona broke her father’s guitar. “Okay then, so why are you nervous?”

“I’m kinda new at this shit. Hell, I um, wanted you to know that I have a date this weekend.”