14. Sam

14

SAM

"That boy's as confused as a mosquito in a mannequin factory." ~ Archie "Witty" Whitlock

One more night. That's it. Time was running out.

Tomorrow night, there was a very good possibility I'd be back in my own bed. My PT referred to me as Wolverine because I was healing so rapidly. He'd given me a ninety-five percent chance of getting my brace off at my appointment tomorrow and clearing me for driving and stairs. As much as I wanted to get back to work, there was another part of me that wished I had just a few more weeks before I was cleared so I didn't have to go home.

Now that I'd lived with Kenna, I didn't want to go back to living next door to her. I knew that I was being selfish. She'd made it clear what she wanted for her future, and I couldn't give her that. I needed to let her go and find her happy.

For the past four days, I'd been obsessing over the conversation we'd had last weekend over spaghetti. Every time I thought about it, I wanted to throw up. It made me feel physically ill. Even though I understood her reasoning logically, the illogical side of me wanted to forbid her from pulling away from me.

My phone buzzed, and I grabbed it, hoping it was Kenna. She was working tonight, and I missed her. And, not to be dramatic, but this might be the last night we'd ever be under one roof.

It wasn't her. It was Betty from the front desk at work.

Betty: You're on the schedule for the booth tomorrow night at the festival. Just wanted to check in and see if I should find someone to replace you. Are you up for it?

Every year, the police and fire stations had a kissing booth, and all the single firefighters and cops took shifts in it. The proceeds went to the city fund. I'd always enjoyed puckering up for a good cause. But this year, I wasn't excited at all about the idea of smooching randos, as Kenna had called them, even if it was for charity.

There was only one person I wanted my lips to touch, and she wanted to keep her distance from me. Maybe I was looking at this wrong. Maybe the kissing booth would distract me from how badly I wanted to break the one and only rule I'd ever made for myself and cross lines I had no business crossing with Kenna. Maybe it would take my mind off of how fucking depressing this situation was.

I quickly messaged Betty back.

Me: I'll be there. Fingers crossed, you'll be my first customer.

Betty, who was in her late sixties and was happily married, responded with a meme of Bugs Bunny's girlfriend swooning with hearts floating around her head.

I smiled as I put my phone back on the coffee table. I had just turned on Sport's Center when Winnie trotted up the doggy stairs beside the couch with a book in her mouth.

"Thank you." I grabbed a treat from the stash Kenna had provided for me on the side table, and Winnie dropped the book onto the couch cushions beside my thighs.

I gave Winnie the reward for her treasure, then picked it up and leaned forward to set it on the coffee table when it slipped from my hands. It dropped to the floor with a soft thud, falling open as it landed. I looked between my legs where it lay, and as soon as my eyes fell on the open pages, my Shawn Spencer spidey senses kicked into full gear. Like the lead character on Psych , I'd always been extremely perceptive and noticed details around me. In the couple of seconds that my eyes landed on the page, three things stood out to me.

First, the handwriting was Kenna's. I had enough cards from her to know exactly what her handwriting looked like.

Second, the date at the top of the page was recent; the entry was just a few weeks ago.

Third, several keywords jumped out at me. They were sprinkled across the page.

Birthday.

Virgin.

Sex.

Those thoughts all materialized in my head simultaneously as I closed the book and set it on the table like it was a hot potato.

This was clearly Kenna's diary, or journal, or whatever it was called. These were her personal thoughts. Reading it would be a major violation of her privacy. I stared at it like it was a live grenade about to explode. Which, in a metaphorical sense, I supposed it was. If I gave into temptation and read the contents, I could very easily blow up my relationship with Kenna. Any trust would be demolished.

I looked over at Winnie, who was now curled up against my thigh. My heart was pounding loudly in my chest, and my palms were damp. I wanted to know what was on those pages. My mind was racing trying to fill in the blanks. Virgin . Why would she have written virgin? I doubted she was referring to the drink since I'd seen the word sex several times as well. And birthday. Her birthday was coming up.

"Fuck it." I picked up the book and quickly flipped back to the page I'd caught a brief glimpse of.

As I read the entry, nothing it said made sense. Kenna was talking about her birthday coming up; she mentioned how much she'd always hated her birthday because of the date it landed on. She said that it sucked when she was a kid because it always landed during the break, so she'd be lumped in with all the other birthdays that kids had had while they were out. And, as an adult, everyone was either broke, recovering from the holidays or had just begun their New Year's resolutions to cut down on drinking, or eat healthier, or both. But this year, she hoped she'd have something to celebrate. She was going to have sex before January 2nd because she was turning thirty-four, and she refused to be a middle-aged virgin. The entry ended with her declaration that she would have sex in the next six weeks.

I checked the date in the corner. That was written three weeks ago.

"What the fuck?" I said aloud.

This couldn't be true. There was no way that Kenna was a virgin. How could she be?

She'd had boyfriends. There was Greg in high school. Rudy in college. And that dork Steve she dated when she was teaching. They were all long-term relationships. All of them lasted over a year, at least.

Maybe this was part of the book she was writing. Maybe this was fiction. Yeah, that had to be it. It must be her writing herself as her character. Her character that had the same birthday as her?

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice the headlights shining in through the front window. I had no clue that Kenna was home until I heard the key turning in the lock.

"Fuck," I murmured under my breath as I pushed the journal down between the cushion and the couch.

My back was turned when I heard the door opening, and I pretended to be adjusting my pillows.

"Hey," Kenna said as she closed the door behind her.

I turned around. "Hey, how was work?"

She was busy toeing off her shoes, but she stopped, looked up, and stilled. "What's wrong?"

"What? Nothing?"

Her brow furrowed. "Why are you breathing so hard?"

Was I? I glanced down and saw that my chest was rising and falling.

When I looked back up, her eyes widened. "Were you…?"

"I had a bad dream," I lied. I knew she'd believe me because I used to have them when I was younger. I still did sometimes. Not that I'd ever admit it to anyone. But a fictional bad dream was better than her thinking I was jerking off on her couch.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said with genuine empathy, which made me feel like even more of a dick. I'd violated her privacy, lied about it, and in doing so, garnered her sympathy. "I was, um, going to go to bed, but we can watch something."

I could see the dark circles under her eyes, and I knew she needed her rest. She'd been getting up early because she insisted on driving me to my PT appointments, and she was not a morning person.

"No, I'm good. Go get some sleep."

"Are you sure?" she asked as a yawn claimed her.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"Okay, night." She smiled at me before leaning over the couch and gave Winnie a kiss on her head. "Night, traitor."

Ever since I'd been here, Winnie refused to sleep with Kenna. She made jokes about it, but I could see that it did sort of bother her.

I watched as she headed down the hall to her room and tried to make sense of what the hell I'd just read. It had to be research or part of her book.

She wasn't a virgin.

But what if she was?

And what if she was planning on changing that before her birthday?

And, most importantly, who the fuck did she plan on being her first?

Jonah I-played-in-the-NFL Walsh.