“Oh, you mean my real father?” Ransom says, but he laughs, slapping Kona’s shoulder and the melancholy and nervousness he felt instantly disappears.
Keira jabs the boy in the side and his laughter increases. “That is not funny, you little shit.”
Ransom kisses the top of her head, has to bend down to reach it and Kona’s chest pinches for a different reason. They love each other, that much he can tell and the thought that his boy has turned into someone so laid back, so seemingly willing to make others comfortable pulls a wider, honest smile to Kona’s face.
“Ugh. Go take a shower. You smell disgusting.”
Ransom rolls his eyes, grinning at his mother when she moves his shoulders and pushes him toward the hallway. “Easy, woman, I’m going.” He glances at Kona. “You sticking around?”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
“Cool. Maybe we can sweet talk Mom into making chili.” He pulls the sweat slick shirt over his head and winks at his mother before he grins at Kona. “You ever have her chili?” Kona shakes his head and the boy shrugs. “Well, it’s awesome. I call it her Bless Jesus Chili.”
“Your mom had me blessing Jesus a lot, but not for her cooking.” Kona bites his lip, realizing too late that he probably shouldn’t have said that. Keira glares at him, looks like she wants to smack him hard, and he thinks Ransom is insulted, maybe thinks Kona is disrespecting his mother. But after a few seconds that lingers, Ransom laughs hard and loud.
“Oh shit.” He holds his stomach, gives Kona a fist bump. “I like you, Kona.”
And with that, Kona’s son leaves the room, his laughter bouncing off the walls of the hallway.
“Asshole,” Keira says, but Kona catches the small smile she tries keep off her lips.
The lake house smells wonderful. Kona’s mouth waters, his eyes moistening as the smell of chili powder and cornbread perfumes the air. If the smells were any indication, then cooking is a skill Keira has acquired and she is damn good at it. She’d already slapped Ransom’s hand from the simmering pot twice when the boy tried stealing a taste and Kona couldn’t blame him. The smell alone is making Kona’s stomach grumble.
He excuses himself, walking down the hall to the bathroom and that smell follows him. He slips in and out quickly and hits the light, starts to make back for the dining room where his son is talking to his cousin Tristan and Leann while Keira takes a phone call. But then the light from the back of the house glints against the framed photos on the wall and Kona stands in front of a row of pictures, all of Keira, her as a child, graduating high school, her on the docks outside with her Gibson on her lap.
Fleetingly, he wonders if she still has it, but the thought has him feeling guilty, remembering how she’d almost lost her father’s prized Hummingbird; how it had been his fault.
Kona rubs a thumb over the scar on his cheek and is about to leave the hallway and the shameful memories those pictures had pulled from his mind, but he hears Keira’s voice, steps silently toward it as she talks on the phone in the office.
A slip of light falls onto the hardwood at his feet through the crack in the door and Kona looks down at the grain and edges of that oak wood. He knows he has no business listening. Nothing she says has anything to do with him. He shouldn’t care that her voice is affectionate, pitched high.
“Oh, I know, sweetie, don’t worry about that.” Southern folks call everyone sweetie. Or honey. Or sugar. It is custom. It is habit, but Keira saying that word, saying it with that soft tone, sets Kona’s teeth on edge. He doesn’t know the woman she is now, but as a girl she’d reserved her pet names for him. He leans his head against the wall, listening, praying that the tone will harden, that she’ll stop using those endearments.
“No,” she says, clearing her throat. “I don’t know. He’s here now and it’s okay. Well, it got okay after we screamed at each other.”
Walk away. He isn’t eager to hear Keira insulting him, talking about him like he is an asshole. But you are an asshole, he tells himself. Hello, DNA test! Still, the small chuckle Keira releases keeps him rooted to that shadowed space next to the door. He wants to hear a name. He wants to know what she’d say to the guy who brings out Keira’s pacifying, sweet tone.
“The end of summer, at least. I think Ransom is going to try to get into a camp, maybe one at Tulane and I’ve got to settle all the shit with Steven’s estate.”
Tulane? Hell no. No son of his would be practicing at freaking Tulane.
“Are you going to be okay for that long? I hated leaving you.”