Keira kept avoiding the woman’s stare. She wasn’t surprised she was getting it. Her gaze went up, over Professor Alana’s face to the smattering of gray that grew along her temples and at the top of her scalp. Her ears protruded slightly, were large and long, and her eyes were dark brown, a touch lighter than Kona’s. Surrounding those familiar eyes were creases that only deepened as she watched Keira; those eyes stared over square glasses that had slipped to the edge of her nose. There was an excess of skin around her nose, lines that pulled hard in a frown that made her large mouth seem broader, more pronounced. Professor Alana had the look of someone who had once been very beautiful, but time and disappointment had transformed those soft features, made them sharp and severe.
The cool, quick frown and those big, dark eyes didn’t exactly make Keira’s history class pass by quickly, but she made attempts. The woman was her boyfriend’s mother. She tried smiling, doing her best to look sincere, but Professor Alana’s face remained impassive.
“Whatever,” Keira said, just above a whisper, and continued her exam.
The clock on the wall told her she still had five minutes, and with only two questions remaining, she knew the exam was an easy A. Still, she could feel Professor Alana’s eyes staring, cool glances on the top of her head as she bent over her test. The woman was ridiculous and had acted, if possible, even more distant toward Keira since their small confrontation at the hospital. Kona had told her that his mother had taken issue with Keira talking back to her, ignoring her command that she leave them to deal with his grandfather’s surgery privately.
“She’s not big on outsiders,” Kona had mentioned when Keira complained about how his mother ignored her in class, and how, on the rare occasions that she glanced at Keira, her expression was indifferently insulting. “My mom’s not generally a fan of, you know, couples like us.”
Keira hadn’t understood him, but she could tell by the way he tried distracting her with his mouth on the back of her neck—something he often did when he was trying to stay Keira’s irritation or get what he wanted—that Kona didn’t really care what his mother liked.
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘couples like us?’”
When she’d pushed him away from her neck, Kona’s shoulders fell, and he returned to his side of the Camaro. They’d been parked in front of her mother’s house, waiting for the lights inside to go dim. She didn’t want Kona to meet her mom yet; she wouldn’t put that on anyone she liked, but Keira was getting low on cash and needed to hit the safety net envelope full of twenties hidden under her dresser.
“Um…biracial couples? Specifically, Polynesian and Samoan men that date white women.”
Keira’s mouth had slipped open, and she felt cold, freezing despite the hard burst of heat coming from the vents. “Kona, you’re saying your mom is a prejudice?”
“No. Of course not.” He shrugged, trying to pull Keira across the seat and onto his lap.
“But you said…” she was staggered. She hadn’t ever really considered it an issue to anyone but the out-of-touch, racist idiots that made muttered comments from time to time when they were together in public. Those came mostly from older folks who must have forgotten it was the twenty-first century, or the random stranger in the grocery store. She wouldn’t have cared if Kona’s skin was purple with green polka dots. She wanted him. She cared about him, not the color of his skin, and she was pretty sure Kona felt the same way. It had never been an issue for either of them. “You said she didn’t like us together.”
“She doesn’t want me dating haoles.” He cleared his throat, realizing the slip he made. The term itself wasn’t derogatory. Kona had told her it just meant “mainlander” or “outsider,” the few times he reverted into using some of the slang his family on the island used. Still, she didn’t like it, and Kona knew that. “She’d just rather I be with a Hawaiian girl, Wildcat. That doesn’t make her a racist.”
Keira had learned Kona was a little stupid when it came to his mom. She caught him frequently defending her when she’d cut Keira a particularly hard glare in class. “Kona, anyone who doesn’t like someone because they are a certain race is, by definition, prejudice.”
He relented, tried placating her. “Nani, I don’t care what she thinks.” He finally managed to pull her onto his lap. “Neither should you.”
Keira finished her exam just as the clock hit 9:59, and she followed the other students to the front of the class, depositing their exams on the professor’s desk. She looked over the woman’s head, not eager to catch her eye and be served another disapprovingfrown, but as she turned around to leave the class, Professor Alana cleared her throat.
“Just a minute, Ms. Riley.”
Awesome, she thought, mentally preparing herself for what she was sure would be something dramatic and ridiculous.
“Yes?” she asked Professor Alana when she made it back to her desk.
Eyes on the retreating students, Keira assumed watching for the last of them to leave and close the door, the woman’s gaze moved to her face and then she leaned back in her chair, arms crossed tight, as though she was trying to restrain herself. It was a gesture she’d seen Kona do a hundred times.
“Your GPA is now the highest in the class.”
“Okay.” Keira didn’t know where this was going, but the professor had made the statement as though it was more accusation than fact.
“I find it interesting that your performance in my class improved when you began, well, when you became friendly with my son.”
Keira closed her eyes, knowing the woman’s insinuation was weak, a stupid excuse to dig for information about what she and Kona were doing together. “Professor Alana, if you’re implying that Kona is somehow feeding me exams before we take them, then, I’m sorry. You’re wrong.”
“Then would you care to explain the sudden improvement?”
Silently, Keira started to count. Small numbers that were meant to help her control her anger, but as she watched the professor’s eyebrows lift and the stark dip of her mouth, Keira let her concentration from each number slip.
She leaned against the woman’s desk brimming with irritation. “My performance improved from the 3.95 average to the 4.12 average when the cross country season ended, and I had more time to study. That freed up at least seventeen hours a week, and I was able to devote more time to all of my classes.” She stood up, smiling when some of the professor’s conviction waned. “I carry 21 hours, Professor Alana, which means I have to find some way to study for a huge course load, and yet, by some miracle, this stupid haole is able to maintain a 4.0, same as I did in high school when I graduated as Valedictorian. If you’re going to make assumptions and accuse me of cheating, then maybe you should have actual proof first.”
She didn’t wait for whatever was threatening to leave the woman’s mouth. Keira knew what this was about, and she knew fighting with Kona’s mother because the woman wasn’t getting all his attention would only cause drama between them. Things had been great for the past three weeks, and other than the occasional moody comment each of them made when practice and classes had them snapping at each other, she and Kona hadn’t fought once. She didn’t want his mother to change that.
She was almost to the door when she heard the professor’s chair scratch against the floor. “How do you know I don’t have proof? I’m a professor, Ms. Riley. Proof is fairly easy to come by.” There was a threat in that statement, one that made Keira pause, one that had her balling her hands into fists until her nails bit against her palm. There was no way she was going to let this woman screw with her grade.
Keira turned around, took the steps slowly, tilting her head to watch Professor Alana. “Why not discuss the thing that’s really pissing you off?” When the professor’s expression remained blank, Keira shook her head, finding it difficult not to laugh at how the woman seemed to force herself not to frown. “You want to know about me and Kona?”
“I want you to realize this won’t have a happy ending.” She left her chair, movements elegant, easy, before she sat on the edge of her desk. “What do you imagine will happen? You and Kona date through college and then what? You get married?” The women brushed her long, black braid off her shoulder, and a weird flush colored her dark complexion. “Have children? Struggle when the pressures of his career—and your lack of one—chip away at something that should have never happened to begin with? I don’t know what your intentions are, but I can promise you I won’t let you or anyone else threaten my son’s future.”
It took Keira a few seconds to let the professor’s words sink in. She and Kona had known each other for two months and had only been officially dating for less than half of that time. His mother had never liked her, even before she met Kona. Keira didn’t know or care why, but now she had them married with children in something that resembled a bitter, loveless union. Keira hadn’t even slept with him yet, much to her frustration, so why would she even be thinking about their future?
What the hell is this woman’s problem?
“Lady, get one thing straight about me right now.” She stepped forward and the professor’s easy lean against her desk became straight, uncomfortable. “I don’t give a shit about money and fame and all that bullshit. I don’t believe in marriage and I’ve known for a long damn time that happily ever afters only exist in Disney films. If you’d get your nose out of the air for five minutes, you’d realize I’m not some football groupie and I’m nothing like most of the girls on this campus. My plans are my business and if they concern a life with Kona, then great. Right now I like being with him and whether you believe it or not, he likes being with me.”
When the woman’s gaze slipped to narrow slits that barely revealed the whites of her eyes, Keira let her anger go, realizing that arguing with this lunatic was pointless. “This whole Oedipus vibe you’re giving off is stupid and pointless. I’m not trying to steal your boy from you, and I have no ideas about the potential wealth he might have one day. I’ll make my own way. I always have. That won’t change just because Kona is in my life now.”
She was done with this woman. Done with the territorial claim she wanted to make over Kona. Keira turned on her heel, took three steps toward the door before the woman’s voice stopped her.
“You are an insulting, disrespectful brat, Keira Riley, and I promise I can make things very difficult for you.” Keira looked over her shoulder, watching Alana as she stepped away from her desk. “Starting with your academic standing.”
It was rare that Keira used her “rich bitch” card, but this woman was trying to use her teaching position as a tactical advantage, trying to scare Keira with the flagrant threat of claiming she was a cheater. Instead, Keira let a wide, lethal smile pull her mouth until her cheeks ached. The Cheshire smile, as Kona called it.
“Oh, you can try it. It might actually be funny to watch you accuse me, of all people, of something I would never do.” She turned around and dropped down one step. “I can imagine you going to the dean, or as my mom calls him, Mikey. They’re second cousins. Did you know that? Or,” she said, taking another step, “maybe the Chancellor, you know, Uncle Bobby. He was my dad’s best friend in college. They were frat brothers, and he made sure that I landed the room I wanted when I applied here, and that my cousin and I didn’t get stuck in the smallest freshman dorm.”
Keira’s smile lowered, but it wasn’t because she felt less confident or was no longer amused by the ridiculous way Professor Alana seemed to have been completely deflated as she fell back against her desk.
“You’re on a tenure track, right? I’m sure you’ve been working your ass off jumping through all those little hoops you academic types have to navigate to make sure you’re approved for the whole ‘job for life’ gig.” Keira used her fingers to air quote the phrase. “Let’s see, History Department…the head of the tenure committee would be Sarah Broussard. Nice lady who also works with the Alumni Services, specifically the fundraising board, an organization that my mother and her husband…you know, the cardiologist who saved your father’s life? Yeah, that’s him. Well, they both donate substantially to the university.”
Professor Alana’s face had gone pale, but the shock didn’t make Keira feel good. She wouldn’t mention to the woman that Keira had nothing more than passing acquaintances with the people she mentioned.
“I want you out of my class.”
“Not a problem.” Keira had planned on heading to the History Department office for a drop slip just as soon as she left Professor Alana’s classroom, anyway. Keira jogged up the steps, but before she opened the door, she leveled one last warning at Kona’s mother.
“One more thing. If you ever threaten me again, make sure you’re ready for a fight. I might be a kid, I might even be a trust fund brat, but lady, I’m not a coward. I’m a CPU Legacy with a very bored mother who likes to start shit. I promise you, you don’t wanna mess with either of us.”
Keira was going to do something for love. Well, not love, she didn’t think. Not yet, anyway, but she was going to do something she never thought she would because her boyfriend—she was still getting used to the term—asked her to.
She was going to a Blue Devils game.
Kona had been giddy—mildly ridiculous— when she agreed, and he promised her a great seat, two of them, since Keira bribed Leann into going with her. She was fifty bucks poorer, and somewhat surprised at how excited she was to watch Kona play. Not that she’d tell him that. His ego was too inflated already.
The temperature was frigid for November, especially this early in the month, and Keira pulled her scarf closer to her neck, leaning back when Leann slipped her hand in the pocket of Keira’s wool peacoat.
“Where are the tickets?”
She slapped her cousin’s hand away and reached inside her pocket to hand Leann her ticket. “Take this. I’m gonna go wish Kona luck. He said the team would be lining up a half-hour before the game, and the girlfriends usually come by for good luck kisses.” Leann looked at her like Keira was sporting horns and a halo. “What?”
“You. Oh, my God. Are you turning into one of those sports groupies?” She stepped closer, grabbing Keira’s hand. “Are you gonna start following the team to all the games and then steal Kona’s sweaty, stinky jersey so you can wear it while you get off?”
“Shut up.” Keira looked around them, hoping no one had overheard her cousin and then decided she didn’t care if they had. Leann’s smile and high laugh had her returning the grin. She started to step away, but then pulled her cousin close, whispering in her ear. “FYI, I don’t need to jerk off. Kona does it for me.”
Keira loved the open-mouth, wind-knocked-out-of-her expression that crossed Leann’s face. It made her laugh, and when her cousin called after her as she walked toward the locker room, that laugh only got louder. “Who are you? What have you done with my sweet, innocent cousin?”
“Some big Hawaiian corrupted her!” she shouted over her shoulder.
She was still smiling when she walked down the corridor leading to the player’s locker room, ignoring the looks she got the closer she came to the doors. There were girls sporting team jerseys, blue and white scarves, and hats that made them look like everyone else in the stadium.
A few of the girls Keira recognized from the two times she’d gone back to the team house while Kona grabbed a book or changed his clothes before they went out. She’d never been in his room, never wanted to be in the place where he’d defiled one girl after another, but she had waited on the den sofa, sometimes with Luka, sometimes with a few of these girls staring her down in the corridor.
Feeling a little excited and still giggling to herself about Leann’s reaction, Keira wiggled her fingers to a particularly gawky girl as she passed the bathrooms. The brunette with tiny, hooded eyes rolled them at Keira and then she leaned next to her friend, hurriedly saying something that Keira thought sounded like “crazy bitch.” She didn’t care. Her time with Kona, their relationship, his rough kisses, his tender, sweet touches had transformed Keira so that the looks she got didn’t matter. She had Kona. He was all she needed.
There was a wave of blue and white, more girls, some blatantly gawking at her that filled around the locker room doorway, waiting for their men, or who they hoped would be their men. Keira hated leaning against the wall, hated that she was among the same vapid, eager girls who congregated at the team house hoping for an empty bed, but she kept her eyes on the line of players as the doors opened, ignoring the high screams and the grabbing hands, moving her head and gaze over each body, looking for Kona.
When the last of the players—Nathan and Brian, who winked at her in between quick kisses from the groupies—filed down the corridor and Kona still hadn’t emerged, Keira frowned, worried that she’d missed him. Gazing back toward the players and the girls trailing them, Keira was about to leave, to try and see if she could spot Kona before the players took the field, but the door opened again and Luka emerged, stopping short when he saw her.
“Keira.” He said her name like a point of fact, not a question that told her he was surprised to see her. Then, sounding oddly relieved, he said it again. “Keira.”
“Hey.” She met him just in front of the door, worried when Luka’s expression read hard and anxious. “Where’s Kona?”
Keira had never seen Luka when he didn’t have a wide, welcoming smile on his face. But he stood in front her, head moving between her and the door behind him, with his mouth set in a harsh line. There was something in his eyes, some small glint that Keira understood to be concern, perhaps indecision. He finally exhaled and closed his eyes as though what he was about to say pained him. Instantly, Keira’s thoughts went back to Lucy’s and the angry scowl Luka carried on his face when he pointed Kona out across the bar. When Kona took a shot from the redhead’s cleavage.
“Tell me.” When Luka didn’t quite meet her eyes, she jerked on his arm, bringing his attention back to her. “Who is she?”
His fingers went through his hair. It was longer, wavier than Kona’s, and Keira absently wondered if Luka kept his hair long to stand out from his brother.
“Not a girl.” He took Keira’s hand, threaded his fingers with hers and sighed. “You need to know and, Keira…” he looked at her then, eyes glassy. Luka’s voice shook, like he could keep control of his emotion. “I just…” he rubbed his palms into his eyes and Keira caught his desperation, the weakened way his shoulders slumps. “I just can’t do this alone anymore. I need your help.”
“Luka, what…”
A nod toward the door and Luka rubbed his eyes against his palms. “He’ll hate me for this. He never wanted you to see.” She opened her mouth, was determined to get an explanation, but Luka shook his head and moved his palm to the small of her back, urging her toward the door. “Go.”
At first, she didn’t see him. The lockers near the door were the same garish blue of the team colors: too bright, too in your face. A quick flash came to her then, brought her back to that first week of the semester and Kona in the showers naked and moaning. Luka was behind her, keeping his distance and when she looked at him, needing some direction he nodded beyond the lockers, to the row of benches in front of them.
She took four long steps, hurried, anxious, then stopped on her next half step. Kona stood with his back to her, his pants and pads on, but his chest bare, his jersey, shoulder pads and helmet were on the bench next to a black leather satchel with a row of silver-topped, glass vials. The liquid in them was thin, tinged yellow.
Kona didn’t know she was watching him. He was too focused on the skin pinched between his fingers and the needle that sunk into his flesh.
Keira covered her mouth, fingers already shaking, and a swift weight of disappointment, of disgust and fear sank in her stomach. Steroids. That’s what this was about. That stupid, arrogant idiot she couldn’t stop kissing threatened everything offered to him with those damn vials. If he was caught, being off the team would the least of his worries. There would be no pro career. There would be no future for him in the game he loved so much. Worse still, he was killing himself to be the best. The disappointment she held was nothing compared to her anger and the growing dread of what he was doing to his body.
“You stupid, selfish idiot.”
Kona jerked around, dropping the syringe to the floor when he heard her, eyes rounded and terrified. “What the hell are you…” he stopped when Luka walked to Keira’s side and that small flash of fright morphed into rage as Kona’s top lipped curled. “You motherfucker.”
Luka set his helmet on the bench in front of his brother, bending down to pick up the needle. “She has a right to know.” When he straightened, grabbed the leather satchel, Kona moved, slammed Luka right against the lockers.
“The hell she does! I told you to watch the door. You stupid asshole! I cannot believe you’d let her see!” Kona grabbed Luka’s jersey and his twin let him. He took what Kona gave him like it was an absolution, a punishment for being too weak to hide his brother’s sin. “Why would you let her see?”
“Because he’s worried about you.”
Keira’s voice had Kona dropping his hands from Luka’s jersey. He stared at her for a few seconds that felt weighted, that thickened the slap of tension in the room. “Keira,” he said, voice so low that she heard the warning in it. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t understand this, so please,” he closed his eyes, as though tamping down the fuel of anger and betrayal that made his breath rough, “don’t you fucking judge me.”
All these months, and Kona still didn’t understand her. And Keira thought, as Luka picked up the satchel and stepped away from his brother, that there was still so much Kona would never understand about her.
“Luka, give me a minute, okay?” He didn’t acknowledge her, but Luka did grab his helmet and shoved the steroids in a locker just behind them—Keira assumed it was his own locker—before he left the room.
Kona watched her, gaze flicking to every movement she made—when she took a breath, when she crossed her arms and stepped back from him. Keira could smell the musky stench already drifting from his body. Sweat covered him, was on his forehead, sliding down his neck and chest, and he hadn’t even made it to the field.
Why would he do this? He has talent, he has options. Why is he throwing everything away?
So many questions ran through her mind and Keira decided only one would suffice. It would at least be a beginning. “Why?”
Kona picked up his jersey, fiddled with the straps on his pads. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
“Oh, I want the answers, Kona. You will give them to me.” She stood in front of him, not caring how her voice carried, or how the taunt of fury came out with each word. And then Keira kicked the pads off the bench. “I want to know why you’re so eager to throw your life away, to kill yourself.”
“That’s not going to happen. What I use is top of the line, and I cycle carefully. I know what I’m doing.” When her frown only dipped deeper, Kona glanced at her, nostrils wide as he took in several deep breaths before he shook his head at her. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“Liver tumors, internal bleeding and a condition called peliosis hepatis, which will make your favorite pastime a little tricky considering most women wouldn’t be down for contracting Hep. God knows I wouldn’t.” There was something in the glare he gave her; it wasn’t pure anger, wasn’t completely cold, and Keira recognized it. That was the same expression he wore anytime she tried convincing him she knew what size engine he’d put in his Camaro or how long she could hold her breath underwater. That was Kona doubting her.
“Senior year, Cameron Walsh, fastest runner in the school had a heart attack. He was seventeen, Kona. He’d been on juice since freshman year. He wanted to be an Olympian by the time he was twenty-five and instead ended up in the morgue. Coach made us visit former users who could barely get out of their chairs by themselves because their bones were too brittle to work anymore.”
“That’s not gonna happen to me.”
That’s what all those old juice heads had told her too. “I didn’t think it would get me. I thought I was invincible.” Kona never thought anything would touch him—most kids their age did—and Keira had seen it herself in how fast he drove his Camaro and how reckless he was playing pick-up games with Nathan and Luka. He always played like every game was his last. He always lived like he knew tomorrow wouldn’t be waiting for him.
Keira wasn’t so confident, was often worried about how fast and easy Kona liked to live, and she knew she’d never get through to him. “Your balls will shrivel up and you’ll probably never be able to father children.” An image of Kona old and lonely flashed into her mind, body frail, skin covered in acne scars. It scared her even more. It also made her want to slap him. “But then I guess that would make your first years in the NFL pretty exciting, right? Not having to worry about a string of baby mamas. That is, of course, if you can even get your dick hard.”
“Keira…stop…don’t…”
“Shrunken testicles. Not very attractive from what I hear.” She stepped back when he reached for her, knowing if he touched her, she wouldn’t be able to get away from him. “But wait, you won’t have to worry about any of that. They don’t take users in the NFL, and they drug test any incoming draftee. In fact, so does CPU.” Head tilted as she stared at him, Keira could see Kona hiding, eyes on the jersey in his hand. “How are you getting past that?” His eye flicked to the door and she understood. “Your brother is a good person.”
“I know that.”
“He’s a better man than you are.”
Kona kicked his shoulder pads, sending them flying across the locker room. “I fucking know that!”
She had to push back that ridiculous desire that rose up at his rage. This was different. This wasn’t them fighting out of jealousy or lust. Her fury at his stupidity was sticking and sharp and despite the undercurrent of wanting him, of fueling his already burning anger, Keira was too disgusted, too disappointed, to acknowledge what her body wanted. She watched Kona’s trembling hands, the unrestrained way he released breaths through gritted teeth, and she still could not stop herself from asking questions. “So answer me. I want to know why.”
“It doesn’t matter why.”
“It matters to me, you greedy son of a bitch!” That small thread of patience, of resistance, snapped quickly, and Keira swung, hoping her palm would leave a mark, hoping he could feel her slap despite all the dulling chemicals coursing through his veins. But Kona’s reflexes were heightened, and his response was swift. He grabbed Keira’s arms, jerked her against his chest and tried to kiss her. In the middle of this devastation, Kona tried to kiss her.
She jerked free of his touch and pushed herself away, raising a hand when Kona immediately darted toward her. “No. Don’t you dare.” Keira wondered how much time they had. The game would start soon, and someone would come to fetch Kona and Luka, but she had to know. She was desperate to know why this beautiful, pigheaded giant would gamble his future, his life, on something so common and clichéd. “You tell me now.” She pointed her finger at him, and Kona’s gaze moved right to that naked nail. “You tell me why you do this shit.”
“Because I need it. This Keira,” he said, slapping his bare chest, growling when she stepped away from him, “this is all I am. Bone and muscle and speed. This.” His fist on his chest, hard, stinging and Keira noticed the bright red mark on his skin. “This is all I am! I’m not smart, Keira. I need it. It’s what they expect of me. Be strong, Kona. Be fast. Be more, train harder, work, work until you can’t breathe.”
She didn’t know who he was speaking to, but it wasn’t to her. This was an exorcism—words and desperation and sheer fury that he seemed to need. His voice was so loud, his anger so heightened that Keira pitied him. It dulled some of her rage, but only some.
“Train and focus, fucking focus until you feel nothing but agony, until your fingers and hands bleed from the metal of the weights, until you don’t feel like such a failure! This,” three hard slaps against his chest, each one harder than the last, and the skin on Kona’s chest welted up, began to redden. “This is all I am! A body, Keira. A fucking machine. No one cares about me, not what’s in my head.” Kona’s voice broke, cracking, and his eyes shone bright, glassy. “One body made to please—the team, the coach, women who don’t give a shit what I think, what I feel. There is only this body, this strength, and if I don’t have this, I am nothing. If I don’t win, don’t tackle, can’t play, I have nothing.”
She could have held him then. She could have let Kona use what he needed to feel his best, to feel as if he had tried everything to excel. It would have been easy just then to cave. Kona’s face, drenched in sweat, hands and fingers still trembling like a dry leaf, it cost Keira greatly not to reach for him, not to give him even the smallest comfort. But she had heard excuses like this before. She had heard them a hundred times. “Daddy needs this, sweetie, to take away the pain.” At nine, she believed her father. Pretending to understand why he snorted white powder, why he drank from a bottle of Jack every night. He was weak, and Keira grew up with that weaknessand making excuses, defending him. The comfort she gave her father had not saved him, and she knew it would not save Kona.
“You’re right,” she told him, two steps back, just feet from the door behind her. She would never be an enabler again. She wouldn’t have Kona’s blood on her hands too. “You don’t have anything.” Keira saw the sting of hurt in Kona’s eyes, saw how her words left him wounded, stricken. “You use that shit, you damn well don’t have me.”
“Don’t you even think about it.” Kona ignored how she held up her hands, trying to keep him away. He ignored her small yelp when grabbed her by the waist. His breath was hot, damp, and on it Keira smelled that airy scent she loved so much, something primal, something that only smelled like Kona. “Don’t you walk out on me when shit gets heavy.”
She twisted away from him, but he barely let her put an inch between them. Still, she wasn’t scared. She knew that poison in his body could make him dangerous, and she guessed, just then, that’s what he had been on the night she clocked him with the bottle at Lucy’s. Kona moved his head, and Keira’s gaze flicked to his wide, desperate eyes and then down to the scar on his cheek. This time, the guilt did not come.
“I’m not going to watch you kill yourself.” She took a breath, was fueled again by rage, and she pushed against his chest, stepping away from him until she was against the door. “I’ve had one man I cared about give up on life after destroying himself. I don’t want another one.”
He only stared at her, hands at his side and his face marked with hurt, confusion. She’d never told Kona much about her father. She felt that day and what she had endured was private, for her alone, and in that locker room with Kona’s body marked red and his breath coming in short bursts, was not the time for history lessons.
Hand on the doorknob, Keira opened it. Kona’s steps were small and tentative, but she saw the threat of attack beneath his movements, in the shake of his bottom lids and the tremor moving his mouth.
“Goodbye, Kona,” she said, slipping out of the room before he could follow. She moved quickly, breaking into a run when she thought Kona would surely pull from Luka’s hold, when she thought his loud screaming of her name would silence the roar in the stadium. Then, face wet and hot from her tears, she ran, ignoring the coaching staff and assistants as they headed toward the locker room, ignoring the loud, desperate call of her name behind her.