My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella

by Eden Butler

  “I like Riley-Hale.” Ransom’s voice was low as he leaned against the armrest on the plane, head inclined toward Keira.

  Kona was snoring softly, slouched against her, his phone forgotten in his lap as they flew toward Hawaii. When he’d asked her to marry him two days before, Keira had thought that surely, they would have months to plan. She didn’t want anything overwhelming, just Kona standing in front of her with a minister blessing their marriage and a hurried family dinner so they could get on with the honeymoon. But Kona, as he’d said repeatedly over the past forty-eight hours, had waited “sixteen years to marry the woman of my dreams. We’re doing this big and we’re doing it now.”

  Kona the man got what he wanted so Keira didn’t fuss when he stayed on his phone for two hours straight making plans with his family back in Hawaii. He wanted Ransom to meet everyone, all those people who Kona had been telling tales about for months. And he wanted to show off his son. So Keira let him plan whatever he wanted. She let him make phone calls and direct his aunties and cousins on venues and photographers. Keira didn’t care about any of that—he was all she wanted.

  “Riley-Hale?” she asked Ransom.

  “Yeah. It’s just that, I like our name. It’s who we’ve always been.” He glanced at Kona when he let out a particularly loud snore. Ransom chuckled, head shaking as he moved his gaze back to her. “But now Dad’s a part of us. Now we’re Hales too.”

  Keira hadn’t considered what this marriage would mean for her son. She knew Ransom loved Kona. She knew the feeling was mutual and tentative plans of splitting time between New Orleans and Nashville had been made; that was, until Kona postponed the coaching position at CPU to offer commentary for the NFL. It kept him active in the league and, though there was nothing really to be done about it, it kept their names on the news and the media interested in their lives. The press loved their “second chance love story” and seemed unable to let go of the story of the man who’d abandoned his football career to devote his energies to his son.

  “It’s temporary, Wildcat. Just until the end of the season.” That promise Kona made a month before and already Keira didn’t like how often he was gone, how consumed he was becoming with the attention he received.

  She also didn’t like how Ransom had given up his life back home in Tennessee and Kona seemed totally unaware of the sacrifice. She suspected that beautiful little redhead her son spent most of his free time with eased the sting of uprooting himself from Nashville. But as she watched her son stare out the window, his eyes focused and wandering over the expansive sea beneath them, she realized that her son’s concern was real, that he wanted them all together and happy. His needn’t be the only sacrifice. “So you don’t think we should just take Kona’s name?”

  Ransom shrugged, leaning against his seat. “I think that I’m just as much you as I am him, Mom. Besides, isn’t that what a marriage is? Two people becoming one?”

  “Yes.” A smile threatened against her lips but she held it back, not wanting Ransom to see how ridiculously proud she was that he understood things better than some men twice his age. That pride usually only embarrassed him.

  “So Riley-Hale is who we’ll be.” It wasn’t a question. Ransom shrugged his shoulders again, leaning his head back against the seat as though the matter was settled.

  Her son was so like his father and sometimes when they were together those similarities were almost eerie. But in moments like this one, when Ransom’s opinions were logical, far too sensible for a kid of sixteen, Keira found he reminded her of her father, of the man that had raised her to mimic his ideals.

  A small ache smarted in her chest at the thought of her dad, gone now for so many years. Her wedding, like all the other milestones in her life, was one he’d never see. And Bobby, the woman who’d become very much like a mother to Keira, would miss it too, not being healthy enough for such a long flight. But Bobby had been there when Ransom was born. She’d been there for so many happy moments, even more sad ones. Her father had not. His death robbed him of his only grandchild’s birth, the successes Keira had earned in the industry he’d so loved and that twinge of sadness, disappointment hit her unexpectedly as she thought about walking alone down the aisle. Then an idea came to her.

  “I want to ask you something.” Turning to Ransom, shaking his arm to keep his eyes open, Keira felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. “Would you give me away?”

  Her boy looked just like Kona. They shared the same walk, had the same laugh, but his tender heart, the emotion he let slip onto his features? That was purely a Riley trait.

  Ransom tried to recover, coughed as though her question had knocked the breath from him and flashed a casual grin over his mouth. “I thought you wouldn’t want anyone giving you away. I figured you’d see it as one man giving you away to another man like cattle or something.”

  Keira didn’t hide that proud smile and ignored Ransom when he rolled his eyes at her. “No. I see it as my son finally leading me to his father.”

  “Umm…” He was mildly flustered, Keira could tell, but true to form, the smart ass rolled his eyes at her. “I mean, if I have to.” Then he faced the window, eyes closed for just a moment with a smile denting his cheeks. But he slipped his hand over Keira’s and squeezed her fingers as though he’d liked her asking him more than he could admit. “It’s cool, Mom. I’ll do it.”

  Kona loved Turtle Bay. As a poor kid in Kahuku, before his mom moved him and his brother Luka away from the island, Kona would watch the tourists along the beach, flooding Oahu with cameras, with white, pasty bodies looking for a little R& R. He loved the ocean, the way the cool blue water disappeared behind the horizon, how the stars at night were brighter than anywhere else in the world. Luka and Kona had spent many late nights sneaking into the pools at the resort, back when it was a Hyatt, as his Auntie Malia folded towels and cleaned rooms for barely enough money to keep them all fed.

  Their plane made its decent and as Kona reached over Keira, glancing around Ransom and the island as it came into view, he was transported back to when he was a kid, before he knew what poverty was, before he knew to be embarrassed of how they’d lived.

  Things were different now. Kona was successful, famous, and was there to marry his Wildcat, to do something he knew he should have done when he was twenty. He damn sure wasn’t a broke kid anymore.

  “I need to warn you two.” A small nod of his chin and Keira and Ransom stopped to look at Kona, coming to a halt before they left the plane. “My family—our family—they’re a little… well, they’re a lot.”

  “You think they won’t like us?” Ransom’s face took on an expression Kona had never seen before. He’d told his boy all about the cousins, Auntie Malia and her husband Frank, a haloe—foreigner, she’d married when Kona and Luka were ten. He’d told Ransom that Malia’s daughter, Malaine, had two boys his age, that they played football for Kahuku High, on the defensive line, just like him. Just like all Hale men. Ransom had seemed anxious to get there, excited to meet his kin. But Kona hadn’t thought his son would be nervous. Not until that moment when his first response to Kona’s warning was defensive.

  “Brah, they’ll love you.” A pat to his shoulder and the tension left Ransom’s face. “They’ll love you both,” he said, kissing Keira’s hand as he led them down the aisle. “I only warned you because, well, neither of you have experienced a big family.”

  “And yours is big.” His Wildcat winked at him, tried to act casual, but just missed pulling it off. Kona knew why she was worried. This family, their family, knew about his mother and the shit she had tried to pull to keep them apart. Malia was his mother’s sister and he knew that worried Keira.

  “Baby, not every woman in my family is like my mom.” She tried protesting, letting that worry come back, but Kona stopped her, shut her up with his mouth on hers. Ransom groaned behind them.

  “Man, is this what it’ll be like all week? You two mugging each other down like kids?” He walked on ahead of
them, long legs stretching to keep his distance as though he wanted to avoid any other PDA Kona might give his mother.

  “You won’t see it, son. You’re staying with Malia and Frank.” Kona slapped Ransom on the back, laughing at the boy when he mocked gagging as Kona stole another kiss from Keira. But she didn’t join them in their laughter.

  She stopped just before they left the gate, pulling Kona back with her fingers on his sleeve. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  Kona could only blink back at Keira, trying to figure out where her worry came from. “You want Ransom to stay with us in our room?” Kona opened his eyes wide, some mild attempt at incredulity, hoping the nod he gave Keira hinted about him wanting some alone time and it seemed to register.

  Keira’s face flushed, but Ransom saved his mother from being too embarrassed with his overdramatic gush of, “God, no. I’ll be fine away from any disgusting displays of parental affection.”

  “That parental affection is how you got here, son.” Ransom screwed up his face, as though he didn’t want the image in his head. A quick wink at Keira and Kona enjoyed Ransom’s horror when he continued. “The shower, right? When you were sick?”

  “That was it. You took advantage of me when I had the flu and I got landed with that little Kona clone.” Ransom’s grunt of annoyance barely registered as Kona whipped his gaze to Keira, shocked at how easily she bent the truth.

  “Me? Please, baby. You practically begged me.”

  “Really? Dad, I can’t hear this. Seriously, I don’t want to know the details. Like, ever.” Ransom jogged ahead of them as they walked toward the exit.

  “I was never the one taking advantage,” Kona told Keira, wrapping his arm over her shoulder to pull her close. “I was gentlemanly and sweet.”

  “Ha! And how is everyone in Middle-earth? Frodo and Sam doing well?”

  “I’m not making shit up, Wildcat, I just think your memory is—”

  Kona’s teasing was interrupted by the crowd that quickly surrounded them. He stopped short, pulling Keira closer to his chest when an excited photographer shoved his camera in his face. “Kona! Over here, Kona!”

  “Aw, shit.” They had barely made it more than a foot into the terminal when the photographers and autograph hounds descended. The crowd wasn’t big and Kona could tell they were all local, but he still didn’t like how quickly they approached or how Keira’s fingers tightened against his shirt. “Ransom, get over here.”

  Kona and Ransom hid Keira from the pushing arms, the blast of blinding flashes as they weaved through the terminal. Kona hated this part of his fame, wanted this trip to be for them alone, private, something they’d deserved after years of shit they’d put each other through.

  He blamed himself. Kona knew his abrupt retirement and even faster agreement to commentate at a few NFL games would keep his name in the media. It didn’t help that whenever he was mentioned, some asshole had to comment on the video of Ransom throwing a kid through a glass door that Kona’s mother had leaked a few months before in her attempts at keeping Kiera and Ransom out of his life.

  “Back up, man,” Kona yelled at an over eager guy as he stood in Kona’s way. The photographer barely moved, ignoring Kona to direct his lens right in front of Keira. “Hey asshole, you wanna get out of her face?”

  “Easy, brah, I’m just trying to get a shot.”

  Kona stopped, glaring at the short man, his greasy hair slicked back into a ponytail, as he stood in front of Keira. “Not of her. You hear me? Not gonna happen.”

  The photographer stepped back, still shooting his camera at Kona and the linebacker looked behind him, making sure Ransom wasn’t being hassled or tussled out of the way.

  “I’m good,” Ransom said when Kona caught his eye. “I’m almost as big as you. You’re not gonna lose me, Dad.”

  “Kona when are you and Keira getting married?”

  “Keira, will you stop writing music to be a housewife?”

  The questions were endless and only got louder, ruder, more intrusive the further they walked through the airport. Kona tried appeasing them, moving Keira next to Ransom to sign a few autographs and answer the barrage of questions, but more fans approached and Kona broke away, eager to get back to his family. He knew Keira hated this, didn’t want Ransom around the drama that followed Kona and he made a mental note to make it up to them both just as soon as he got them out of the airport.

  Plate lunch, he thought, his stomach growling at just the thought. Keira told Kona she’d taken Ransom to Hawaii when he was fourteen, but the trip had been short and their activities preplanned by a hotel tour guide. They had never seen the real Hawaii, had never visualized it as anything other than tourists. A plate lunch with scoops of rice and macaroni salad from Zippy’s would ease them into island life nicely.

  “Shouldn’t there be some sort of security here?” Kona didn’t like how scared Keira’s voice sounded or how panicked her eyes became as she looked up at him.

  “It’s okay, Wildcat, someone will come. Just hold on to me.”

  They made it past the terminal and into the airport proper before Kona spotted a group of security personnel jogging toward them with radios in their hands. But Kona didn’t relax at their approach and he had to hold himself back, to keep himself from punching the asshole who asked, “Kona is it true you’re only marrying Keira because you got her knocked up again?”

  “You motherfuc…” Ransom surged forward.

  “Easy, brah,” Kona told him, pulling the boy back by his collar when he charged toward the photographer. “Not worth it,” he whispered into his son’s ear.

  “That’s enough, back up, yeah.” The guy with the blue coat, gripping a radio in his massive hand, made Kona pause. He looked familiar, could have been one of the dozens of relatives Kona had never had the chance to meet. He certainly had the build to be a Hale. “Sorry about that, Kona,” the guy said, directing his security team to block the photographers from the baggage claim area.

  “It’s cool, man.” Another quick glance at the guy’s face had Kona squinting. “I know you, brah?”

  “Ano. Malia’s third cousin.” He stuck out his hand and smiled at Kona, then grinned at Keira. “She said it would be lolo when you got here.”

  “Always is, brah. Sorry.” Kona’s phone chirped, alerted him to five text messages and he thumbed through them, ignoring all the ones that weren’t about the wedding. His agent could wait. Devon would be on the island in two days anyway and Kona needed a break from him. Ransom moved toward the baggage claim, arms folded and a frown pinching his eyes. Kona tensed, his own disappointed expression wrinkling his face when Keira pulled away from him to help their son. “Baby, we can get someone to do that.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, giving Kona a smile that didn’t make her eyes shine like every other one she’d ever given him. That smile wasn’t real, it wasn’t Keira.

  “Your pretty haole not liking this?” Ano asked him, pointing one of his team toward a photographer who’d climbed on top of a row of chairs to steal a picture.

  “She’s just not used to it.”

  Kona felt bad that this trip was getting off on the wrong foot and he hoped once they made it to Malia’s and both she and Ransom could relax with his family, that Keira’d feel better. At least, that’s what he told himself, trying like hell to disregard how Keira held her arms across her chest, how tight the muscles around her mouth had gotten in the brief steps from the plane to baggage claim.

  She’ll be okay, he told himself, believing the small lie for what it was: a fool’s hope.

  Hawaii was another world from the one Keira knew. There were pressures—the mad dash from the airport to the resort, trying to outrun the local media and excited fans and then the quick getaway that Kona managed toward his aunt’s home. And maybe Keira would have been worked up, would have let Kona know just how annoyed the attack of photographers and fans at the airport had made her. But as they drove through Kaneohe, on the Kamehameha Highway, Kei
ra felt the breeze, smelled the scent of ocean water from the limo’s open window, and she let that persistent worry leave her. They were in paradise. They were in a paradise that made Kona smile a bit wider, a bit easier. He was home and he loved it.

  But he hadn’t been wrong about his family. Kona’s family, our family, she corrected herself, were a lot to take in all at once. There had been aunties, dozens of them, whose names she’d never remember. Some of the women were neighbors, but, Kona explained, were still “aunties.” There had been cousins, it seemed Hale blood ran deep in the island and every last relative even remotely related to Kona had squeezed into Malia’s back yard to welcome him home.

  All afternoon at Malia’s, a smile stayed constant on Keira’s face. She’d loved seeing Kona so treasured, so welcomed. Dark and light, thin and large, gentle, eager hands and arms wrapping Kona in their embraces; kisses on Keira’s cheeks that she didn’t think, even hours after they’d returned to the resort, that she’d ever be able to wipe dry from her cheeks. Kona’s family was nothing like what Keira had imagined. They were nothing like his bitter, racist mother.

  Thank God.

  She didn’t mind being called haole or that Ransom, who was only half Polynesian, was called hapa, or mixed. No one said those words viciously. No one sneered at her or asked Keira why she’d come between Kona and his mother. She’d been expecting an interrogation. She’d expected judgment, but even Malia, who was the sister of the woman who had tried to destroy Kona’s relationship with her and Ransom just months ago, seemed to hold no anger toward Keira.

  “My sister, Lalei,” Malia had started, shaking her head as though just the thought of Kona’s mother was a struggle she’d rather not bear, “she always wanted something more, something we couldn’t give her. We weren’t good enough for her.” Then the woman took Keira’s face, eyes examining, smile real, certain and kissed Keira right on the lips. “You make my nephew happy.” Malia moved her head toward Ransom who held audience with his father, telling his newly met cousins about life on the mainland. “You gave him back what we all lost. Mahalo, niece.”