3. Kenna

3

KENNA

"Always give a hundred percent…unless yer donatin' blood." ~ Archie "Witty" Whitlock

Another date. Another dud. And I'd had to drive all the way to Dallas for this dud. With traffic, it was a four-hour round trip.

I wanted to give up. Throw in the towel. Abort my mission. But if I did that, another birthday would come and go, and I would still be holding my V-card.

Never in my life would I have expected to relate to the cinematic greatness of Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin , but I was beginning to think that was going to be my destiny.

When I got to the restaurant, I was lulled into a false sense that everything was going to be okay. For two hours, there was one green flag after another green flag flying. Andrew looked exactly like his photos. Green flag. He pulled out my chair for me. Green flag. He was friendly to the wait staff. Green flag. He asked questions and actually listened to my responses. Green flag. He was funny. Green flag. Smart. Green flag. Appropriately flirty. Green flag.

It wasn't until the check came that he pulled the oh-shit-I-must-have-left-my-wallet-in-my-other-jacket move that I saw my first red flag. But things had been going so well that I gave him the benefit of the doubt and pulled out my card. In addition to procrastination, I also misplaced things on a regular basis. My mom liked to say that I'd forget my head if it weren't attached to my body.

After I paid the check while waiting for the leftovers to be bagged up, I went to the bathroom, and the hostess, Melissa, followed me in. Apparently, Andrew was a regular at the rooftop establishment. He came in at least once a week, always with a different woman, and always ‘forgot his wallet.' The man was using the dating app for free meals at nice restaurants. I was scammed.

I thanked Melissa for the information, left the restaurant without returning to the table, got in my car, and left. Andrew didn't text to see where I was or where I'd gone, so he must have figured out that I was on to him.

I checked the clock on my dash and realized it would be midnight before I would get home. Not that that really mattered. I'd always been a night owl. It was one of the reasons I'd stopped teaching. That, plus the money was laughable. Oh, and every year, the workload, requirements, and expectations raised significantly without reflecting those increases in our paychecks. I earned more in one week bartending than I did in a month teaching—especially when you consider all the supplies I purchased for my classroom and students out of pocket.

For a while, just being a bartender and hanging out with Sam, my friends, and my family had been enough for me. But lately, it wasn't. Like I said, most of my friends either owned businesses or were working doing what they were passionate about and were in serious relationships. Both my career and personal life were not exactly skyrocketing; they were on cruise control.

I liked bartending, but I wasn't passionate about it. I had tried writing. I'd had an idea for a romance novel, one that I'd started and stopped dozens of times. The problem I was having was that I didn't want to sound like Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin when he talked about a woman's breasts and compared them to a bag of sand during the poker scene. How was I supposed to write about passion, about sex, when I'd never experienced it myself?

In college, I took a lot of writing courses. In one, the professor told us that although writers needed to experience life to be good at their craft, connecting with readers was more about imagination, skill, and empathy than anything else. Horror and thriller writers didn't actually murder people to write compelling stories.

I'd hoped that was the case for me. That even though I didn't have personal knowledge of an overwhelming, all-consuming passion, my characters could. So far, it hadn't panned out that way. Which was yet another reason I needed to finally hand in my V-card. Inspiration. And my birthday was the perfect target date. If it weren't for that, I feared my status could remain unchanged for years.

So, as badly as tonight had made me want to give up completely and throw in the towel, I knew I couldn't—not if I wanted to reach my goal, which I did.

I had a tendency to romanticize things; my obsession with the ‘80s was proof of that. As was my unrequited love for Sam Whitlock. The best way to describe loving him was the lobster in the boiling pot metaphor. I was the lobster, and he was the boiling pot. The temperature of the water increased so slowly that I didn't even realize I was dying until it was too late. I'd spent the past thirty years of my life living in Delusion Land, trying to convince myself and others that I wasn't head over heels, madly in love with my best friend.

They say admitting you have a problem is the first step, and I'd taken it. Step two; have sex with someone. Someone who was not Sam.

In fairness to myself, I had tried. In high school, I had a boyfriend named Greg. We dated my entire senior year, but he turned out to be batting for the other team. In college, I had another boyfriend, Rudy. He was a frat boy, and every time we tried to hook up, he was drunk, and it, well, it didn't work. Then there was Steve, whom I dated in my second year of teaching. He was the superintendent of the Clover County public school system. We tried several times, but it just didn't happen. That relationship was when I realized that it wasn't just the guys I was attempting to be intimate with; there was an issue with me.

Steve wasn't drunk all the time, and he liked women, but the anatomy didn't work. I went to my gyno and found out that I had an imperforate hymen, which basically meant there was tissue blocking things, making it impossible for penetration. Some numbing cream and a quick procedure later, I was good to go. But by then, Steve and I were no longer seeing each other.

And, ever since, I just hadn't met anyone I wanted to be with. Well, anyone but Sam, that is.

As I turned onto my street, my phone vibrated with a text from my mom asking if I was home yet. After I pulled into my driveway, I texted back, yes, even though I knew she was using the find my location app and was aware I'd made it home safely.

I grabbed my purse and got out of the car when my phone buzzed again. I looked down to see that it was my mom asking how it had gone. I was walking up the steps of my porch as I texted back.

"How was the date, pretty girl?" A deep voice sounded from the darkness.

"Ahh!" I screamed, and my phone flew out of my hand.

Adrenaline raced through my body even though a part of my brain registered that the disembodied voice belonged to Sam and I was not in imminent danger. I glanced over to his porch, where the voice had come from, but the motion sensor lights that Sam had insisted on installing at my house were blinding me. I squinted and was able to make out his shadowy figure sitting on his porch swing.

"You can't do that!" I yelled at him while turning to search for the phone I'd just thrown in the grass.

"I didn't do anything," he asserted as he casually walked down the steps of his porch.

I let out an irritated sigh, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him bend over and pick something up. I straightened up and saw that he was holding my phone.

I reached out for it, but he lifted his arm.

"Give it to me," I demanded.

He grinned. "Or what?"

Growing up with the twins, I was used to this sort of taunting. Typically, I enjoyed a good barbing session with Sam, but tonight, I was not in the mood.

The date had been a total crash and burn. Time was not my friend. I wanted to date someone at least a couple of times before I popped my virginal cherry. I didn't want my first time to be a one-night-stand but at the rate I was going, I wouldn't have a choice.

Instead of verbally sparring with him, I grasped his forearm for leverage, hopped up, and snatched the device out of his grasp.

When I did, I noticed the time. It was one minute until midnight.

"Who were you texting?" he asked, his tone sounding more serious than normal.

I chalked his mood up to the fact that in sixty seconds' time, it would be his least favorite day of the year.

"None of your business," I told him as I turned and headed up the steps. "Wait there."

As soon as I opened the door, Winnie rushed past me to greet her second-favorite person in the world. I'd love to say that I was her first, but my brother Milo held that honor. I was Winnie's third favorite person. I understood that Milo and Sam were both pretty great, and she loved their calm, alpha energy, something I did not possess.

I grabbed the cupcake from the counter, and I was happy I'd taken the time to frost it before I left. When I returned, Sam was sitting on my porch swing with Winnie curled up in his lap.

"Merry Christmas," I said as I handed it to him.

As he took it from me, a wide smile spread across his face, revealing his two deep dimples, causing my heart to flutter. "Thanks, pretty girl."

I'd always loved it when he called me that. Pretty girl . I'll never forget the first time he had. I was six; he was eight. I was riding bikes with him and my brothers, tagging along with them like always. I'd gone off the ramp they built and crashed. My knees got the brunt of it. They looked like Freddy Krueger had tickled them. They were bleeding, and gravel was embedded in whatever skin was left.

Having two older twin brothers, I'd learned at a very early age that if I wanted them to include me in things, I could not, under any circumstances, cry. So even though I was in excruciating pain and could barely walk, I stood up, grabbed my bike, and started walking home. The twins, Milo and Mason, didn't even seem to notice, but Sam did.

He walked home with me, and then, since my mom wasn't there, he cleaned me up. A few tears did slide down my cheek, but I never actually started crying. I'll never forget the searing pain when he poured hydrogen peroxide on the wounds, picked out all the pieces of gravel and poured the disinfectant again before putting on the bandages. Or the look of concentration on his face as he painstakingly removed the debris from my knee.

When he was done, he looked up and said, "You should have your mom check that when she gets home, pretty girl."

I was six, and I was toast. I think I fell hopelessly in love with him in that moment. And then I spent twenty-eight years in denial. Yeah, it was definitely time to move on.

"Come on, Winnie."

"You wanna watch a movie?" he asked as he stood from the chair. " The Princess Bride ?"

"I'm tired," I lied. I wasn't tired at all. And there was nothing more I'd like than to curl up on the couch with Sam and watch one of my favorite movies of all time. But I couldn't. If I thought he was asking because he didn't want to be alone on his birthday, of course, I'd say yes. He'd made it clear for years that it was just a day that he did not want to draw any attention to.

Still, I could see the disappointment in his eyes. But then again, he had big puppy dog eyes, and like Winnie, he knew how to use them.

"Goodnight," I said as I went inside.

"Night." I heard him say softly as I closed the door behind me.

I listened to his retreating steps and nearly caved. I almost threw the door open to tell him that I was going to rally, and we could watch the movie. But if I did that tonight, where would it end? Dr. McKinney had been very clear. I had to set boundaries. I had to make room in my life for something real. For something romantic. Even if it broke my heart to do it.

Like any goal, I had to give up what I wanted most now for what I wanted most in the future . Except, in this case, I wanted Sam in the future. I just knew I couldn't have him.