“Brah, I got nothing. I’ll catch you tomorrow.” Kona didn’t relax until Ricky nodded.
“I’ll be back then.” He stopped, stretching his shoulders as his eyes shifted between Kona and Luka. “Make sure you got what I need.” Kona didn’t like the threat laced in his words or how Ricky had come into his home making demands, but there was too much to deal with, too many fires he had to extinguish.
The guy trailed out of the living room and Kona caught his twin’s glare, deciding it wasn’t the time to hear the lecture he knew Luka would give him. “Not now.”
He could feel the tension behind him, in the cool looks Tonya leveled at Keira but Kona didn’t let her start anything. Tonya’s arm felt weak, cold under his fingers when he led her out of the living room. Her skin was cold, despite the temperature in the house and Kona doubted it had anything to do with the fall air outside.
“I didn’t realize you and that Keira girl were together.” Even her voice sounded icy, like there was no warmth hidden between the syllables. When Kona’s attention kept shifting back to where Keira stood chatting with Luka, Tonya pulled on his face, made him stare at her. “So? What’s the deal?”
“Don’t fish, Tonya. It makes you look common.” And Kona realized that’s what he didn’t like about her, about girls like her. They were common. They were all the same, clones of each other trying to stick out, each one mimicking the other until their faces were indistinguishable.
Keira wasn’t like that. Keira would never be common.
And so Kona let common Tonya Lucas leave his house, pissed off that he couldn’t make his eyes stay on her, that he couldn’t be bothered to ask for her number; that he couldn’t think of anything else but getting back to Keira and apologizing for something he shouldn’t feel guilty about.
He caught Luka’s eyes first, not liking how close his twin stood to Keira, not understanding why Luka didn’t seem to make Keira feel nervous. But he couldn’t dwell on that; not when Keira stepped away from them, pretended to be interested in the team pictures lining the wall.
“Bad?” he asked his twin, but his brother only shrugged, telling Kona silently that he wouldn’t help him out of this one. “Thanks, brah. No really.” A small jab at Luka’s shoulder and his brother left Kona alone with Keira in the room.
She hadn’t moved, eyes still up at those row of pictures, decades of CPU players who had gone on to lives Kona could only dream of. He slipped in behind her, fingers aching to touch her hair, to pull what she’d seen of him and Tonya from her head.
“You missed class,” she finally said, making a slow turn that had Kona stepping away from her. He couldn’t read her expression, though he tried. Keira was so closed off sometimes; she was a shit liar, but sometimes, Kona had noticed, her temper would get so great that it bypassed rage and moved into simmering calm, hiding whatever she was thinking from her expressions. He thought this moment might be inching toward that calm.
“Yeah, I felt like shit this morning.”
She didn’t believe him and really, Kona knew it was stupid to lie to her. But he let the look she gave him pass—eyebrow lifted and a small tremor vibrating her top lip as though she was trying hard not to scowl.
“Better now?” Her gaze moved behind him to the front door where Tonya had left and Kona meant to say something, tell Keira it wasn’t any of her business what he’d done this morning or why he’d missed class, but before he could utter a sound, she shook her head, blinking twice before her expression shifted, became distant, hard. “Miller said if we don’t both have our rough drafts handed in by three this afternoon, then we’ll get points taken off.”
“Okay.” Kona hoped he could be cool, could let her know without sounding like a groveling asshole that he felt bad. He hoped his tone was sincere, that she could somehow read each inflection and would know that he wanted her, that he was sorry he’d touched Tonya. He failed miserably. “Listen, Wildcat…”
“Don’t call me that.” Simmering calm, he thought. This is simmering calm and Kona’s own frustration began to bubble. He took a step and she retreated, sidestepping until the coffee table separated them and Kona hated the distance, hated that her cool tone was affecting him. He opened his mouth, licked his lips to keep them from cracking against his hot breath, but Keira wouldn’t let him excuse anything away. Hand up to silence him, she let that distant tone fill each syllable. “Is your rough draft finished?” Kona nodded, not sure she’d let him say anything at all. “Good. Please get it to Miller in time. I’d appreciate it.”