27. Kenna

27

KENNA

"Y'all can't plant a seed, then clutch your pearls when a tree shows up." ~ Archie "Witty" Whitlock

The only time I was a morning person was when I'd stayed up all night, which is exactly what I'd done last night. Six hours. That's how long I'd spent wide awake while wrapped in Sam's arms. I'd allowed myself the luxury of suspending the reality that what we were doing was okay. That neither of us would get hurt. That we could just live in our own reality. None of that was true. I knew that in my head, my heart and hormones were just trying to drown out the voice of reason.

When the break of dawn sliced through the slats of my window coverings, the fantasy bubble I'd been floating in popped. The morning sun shed an entirely new light on the situation, and I began to panic. I'd slid out of bed and came to the front room to try and clear my head. It worked. Sort of. I knew what I had to do; I just wasn't sure I had the strength to do it.

Footsteps sounded coming down the hall, and I took a deep breath. This was it. I had to tell Sam that we couldn't keep doing this. Winnie, who had followed me out of the bedroom earlier this morning to go potty and get fed, trotted her down her puppy stairs off the couch to go over to greet Sam. His hair was tousled, and my fingers itch to run through it. His upper body could have easily been chiseled out of marble, and now I knew what it felt like on top of me, wrapped around me, inside of me.

How was I ever going to go back to a world of just being his friend? Not that I'd ever been really good at that. I'd always loved Sam. Always wanted more. But, now… I was falling even deeper in love with him. So deep that I was scared it would destroy me. Destroy us. I had to protect myself and our relationship. If there was any chance of us being able to be friends, this had to end now.

"Hey, pretty Winnie-girl." Sam bent down and gave Winnie head scratches.

When he stood back up and noticed me on the couch, a sleepy, sexy smile slowly curled on his talented mouth as he stalked toward me and started to bend down to kiss me. "Hey, my pretty girl."

Pretty girl . Sam had always called me that. But now that he'd added the ‘my' and said it to me while he was inside of me, which occurred the third time we had sex last night, it held an entirely different value and a new meaning. One that I was about to blow up.

"We can't keep doing this," I blurted out.

Sam straightened and then stared at me for a moment. He blinked three times before lowering down onto the loveseat across from me. Lifting his arms he ran his fingers through his thick hair, and I did my best not to drool at his triceps. Damn. He truly was a perfect male specimen.

"I thought you said you and Jonah were just friends."

"That's not…" I felt a lump form in my throat as I stared into the deep brown windows of his soul. He looked confused and hurt, but I absolutely could not fall for his puppy dog eyes; they were my Achilles' heel, but I had to be strong for both of us. "We are just friends, but that's part of the problem. I don't know if the reason I friend-zoned Jonah was because I just wanted to be his friend or if it was because of you."

"Me?" he questioned.

He clearly wasn't getting it. I knew that I couldn't tell him the truth—that I loved him. That I wanted to marry him and have his babies. That I'd never loved another man and was scared I never would.

From the time we were kids, Sam always said he was never going to get married. He never wanted kids. He never even wanted a girlfriend. Yes, we hooked up a couple of times. But he'd hooked up with half the women in Texas. That didn't mean anything.

I wasn't going to be one of those delusional girls who started changing the rules on him. It always ended the same. I'd seen it happen more times than I could count. He'd be upfront and honest about what he wanted. He only did casual. No strings. No commitment. No attachments. No expectations. Women always agreed at first. But then, like clockwork, a couple months in, they would want more. They wanted serious. They wanted strings. They wanted attachment. They had expectations.

Inevitably, they would tell him they wanted more, that they were either falling in love with him or they were already in love with him. Once that talk happened, Sam would distance himself from them. Most people probably thought he was heartless and didn't care. But I saw the toll it took on him. After one of those ‘breakups,' he'd be depressed for days, weeks, sometimes longer. He hated hurting people's feelings. He never wanted to be the cause of anyone's pain.

There was no way I was going to let him think he was the cause of mine.

Forcing myself to smile, I attempted to sound as casual as I possibly could. "Listen, I know what this is and what it's not."

He sat up straighter, and a tiny wrinkle appeared between his brows as he furrowed them. "What does that mean?"

I could see that he was getting defensive.

"I'm just saying, this isn't going to be a relationship."

Sam didn't respond. He typically had a lot to say, so I assumed he knew I was right and had no rebuttal. On a loud exhale, he hung his head in a defeated position as he stared at the ground in front of him.

"I am so happy that you were my first," I explained. "And so grateful, but if we keep doing this, then how am I supposed to find an actual boyfriend? I mean, before this, I wanted space so I could have a relationship. Now, if we keep doing this, that would be impossible."

"That's really what you want? You want us to stop?" he asked as he lifted his head.

I stared at him and was surprised at what I saw. I couldn't tell if he was hurt or not. If he was mad or not. If he was relieved or not. His expression was oddly blank. I'd always been able to read Sam, but now it seemed like he'd dropped a curtain over the windows of his soul. This is exactly what I'd been scared of. I'd been scared he was going to get distant from me. To put up walls and shut me out, and now he was.

Waves of panic rose in me like a high tide.

"I mean…" I started to speak, but I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say the wrong thing and make this even worse. "I just want us to still be us, to still be friends. I don't want anything to change ."

He looked down at his hands, and he took a deep breath. I waited, thinking he was going to say more. But instead, he stood up and went into the kitchen to gather his shirt, wallet, and keys that he'd left there the night before.

"Sam?" I said his name as I followed behind him.

He didn't answer me. He didn't say anything. He was putting on his shirt when his phone rang.

"Whitlock," he answered it. After a few seconds, he said, "Yeah, I'll be right there."

When he hung up, I said his name again. I'm not sure why or what I expected him to do; I just didn't know what else to say. "Sam."

"I gotta go." He stepped into his shoes, grabbed his keys, and kissed me on the top of my head. "Bye, pretty girl."

We were back to pretty girl. No more, my pretty girl. I'd never wanted to belong to someone so bad in my life. I stood in my kitchen, cemented in place, as I watched Sam walk out of my front door, and I feared for my life.