Thin Love by Eden Butler Read Free Book Online Page B

studying. “You plan on working all weekend?”
    “No, I have a meet on Saturday morning. After that I plan on working.”
    He shook his head and leaned back against the chair, one arm resting behind him. “Not going to celebrate our win?”
    When Keira only frowned, Kona thought he might have annoyed her. She did this funny thing with her mouth—a twitch of her bottom lip and then a deep frown—when she was debating something; as though whatever she was thinking had to be weighed and sorted in her head before she decided to speak. Yep, crazy uptight, he thought.
    “That statement implies a lot of assumption.” Keira pointed at him with her pen to emphasize her argument.
    “We’re going to win.” That shouldn’t have been in doubt. Even though the season had just started, everyone on campus knew that had yet to lose a game. This weekend they played LSU. Gerry DiNardo’s team was having a shitty season. They were currently ranked at 15 and CPU, at 3, was faster, more elusive. No way would the Tigers beat them.
    “That’s one assumption,” Keira said, waving her pen as though she didn’t care about the game. “But you assume I follow football. I don’t.”
    Kona blinked at her, astounded. “What?” She leaned back when he rested his elbows on the table and worked his gaze over her face. He wanted to see if his bullshit detector went off. She had to be messing with him. Even the most self-absorbed gold diggers on campus followed the team. Everyone did. It was a given. “You do know you’re attending the university whose football team has won the Sugar Bowl the last three years straight?”
    “No, I’m attending the university whose English department has a sister program with Oxford.”
    “That’s… seriously?”
    “Seriously.” Keira’s expression remained controlled. There was no twitch moving her lips, no understated tic in her composed expression that told him she was joking.
    It made sense when he thought about it. He’d watched her in class, watched how she and that Leann girl kept to themselves, only speaking to Miller when she wanted to argue a point. She got off on the literature shit their professor droned on about endlessly. And what he’d learned about Keira today when he flirted for information with a few girls on the cross country team had only confirmed what he had guessed. Keira didn’t have many friends, she kept to herself, seemed to always be in the library or locked up in her dorm. “That explains so much.”
    “What does?” For just a second that control slipped, her unflustered expression fractured, the relaxed set of her features jumped to worry, but it disappeared before Kona could mention it.
    “You. Figures someone like you wouldn’t be into sports and would have a hard on for old dead white guys who wrote plays and sonnets.”
    That earned him a smile, but just a small one. Keira dropped the pen and folded her fingers on top of the table, just inches from his hands. “And what about you? I bet your major is something like Advanced Spear Throwing or Caveman Studies.”
    Her dig surprised him, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. “You’re funny. No seriously, you’re freakin’ hilarious.”
    “Right back at you.” Kona laughed at the exaggerated roll of Keira’s eyes and he decided right then he liked her relaxed. He liked the way her normally stoic expression softened the hard stretch of her cheeks; how when she found something funny those blue eyes of hers seemed lighter, nearly gray. But then he stared a second too long and Keira stopped smiling. That newborn softened expression melted from her face. “What?” Her voice was sharp, defensive.
    He sighed and moved his head in a shake. “You got a real problem interacting with people, right?”
    “I’m fine with people. It’s you I’m not crazy about.”
    “What did I ever do to you?” The glare she gave him told him she still hadn’t forgiven him for standing her up. “Aside from