“It’s your grail quest.” He frowned, confused. “You and your teammates are like the Knights of the Round Table. All of you doing your part to grab the grail, the football, and to win. See? Everything goes back to the Legends.”
He smiled and sat up with his back straight. “I like that.” Kona’s mouth took on a stupid smirk and he puffed his chest out. “I’m a Knight.”
“Yeah,” Keira said, turning back to the computer. “Lancelot.”
“Why am I Lancelot?”
She laughed, trying to keep the sound low before she leaned toward him, narrowing her eyes. “Because he couldn’t keep it in his pants either.”
Kona’s laugh was loud, sudden and earned him another glare from Miller and quick shush from the librarian walking around the lab.
When Miller rumbled his paper again, Keira stopped laughing, but kept the smile on her face before scrolling through another list of article. “Okay, so we have to connect one Legend or at least a theme in it to a contemporary work.” Kona opened his mouth and she shook her head. “Not Die Hard.”
Keira came across an article from 1985. The piece was useless, but one particular word caught her eye. Betrayal. “We could explore Lancelot’s infidelity and how he and Guinevere’s betrayal impacted Arthur with the elements of betrayal and forgiveness in Les Mis.”
“What’s that?”
She stared at him, but was speechless. “You’ve never heard of Les Miserables?”
“Is that on the syllabus?”
She laughed. “No. It’s about the aftermath of the French Revolution… it’s about several different… it’ll work.”
Kona squinted and he wore a frown that Keira suspected was forced and mocking. “You expect me to put all my faith in you on this?”
“You have another suggestion… aside from Die Hard?”
“No, but I need more information.”
“You can always read the book. Victor Hugo. I’ll even help you check it out.” When Kona wrinkled his nose, Keira held back the urge to search the racks. “Fine. Um…” she clicked onto the keyboard, pulling up the library’s media database. “We can rent the musical.”
“Musical?”
“God, Kona, you really should invest a little more attention into stuff off the field. Les Mis is one of the longest running Broadway musicals of all time and has the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.” He seemed dubious, so she hurried to explain. “We can rent it and watch it in my room and I’ll explain the stuff you don’t get.”
“Okay.” When he said that too quickly, Keira was surprised to see a crack in his constantly cool composure. He’d seem too eager, too willing to relinquish his argument. “I mean, whatever. You’re the Word Lady.”
“Good. When are you free?”
“Tuesday night. That good?”
“Yeah. That’s cool.”
“Sweet. It’s a date.”
Keira frowned. Whatever this was between them, it wouldn’t add up to much, she knew that. The mild flirtation with that tart Tonya made that clear. Kona Hale was beautiful, an athlete, part of the crowd that Keira would never be welcome in. No matter what she thought she felt that night in her dorm, the two of them together would never be a good idea. With one glance at Kona that invented idea of something between them deflated and Keira was brought back to reality. Kona wanted physical connections, not attachments. An attachment was all Keira wanted, just once in her life. An attachment that stuck. Love that didn’t leave. So she took a breath and watched Kona’s smile twitch until it disappeared when she shook her head.
“It’s not a date. It’s research.”
“Is your mom coming to campus or something?” Leann’s voice was a little worried, anxious as though she was concerned Keira’s mother could be showing up. Leann was her mother’s only niece, the only person left of the brother she lost years before. But Keira’s mother always had a somewhat Scrooge/Fred relationship with Leann. They’d never gotten along.
Keira lowered her guitar, pulling her fingers from the frets in order to give her cousin her full attention. “Not that I know of. Why?”
“You cleaned my junk.” Leann glanced around the room. It had taken Keira an hour to put away Leann’s things, to organize her cousin’s mess so that their room didn’t look like a tornado had touched down in it. It always bothered Leann when Keira did this, as though the tidiness was some sort of insult to the weird, unkempt way Leann filed her belongings. “Your stuff is always sorted because you’re an OCD clean freak, but you cleaning my shit? Something is up.”