Page 26 of Blue Moon Love

“How was your date?” I hadn’t planned on asking that. In fact, I was about as interested in talking about her date as I was talking about me taking a shit, but I had to ask. I needed to know.

She bent down as she greeted Winnie, who was standing up on the back of the love seat to get her attention. “Good. How is your pain level? Did you take your medicine?”

“I’m fine.”

When she straightened, she saw the pile of treasures that Winnie had brought me piled up on the coffee table. There was a hair tie, a sock, a lip gloss, and a slipper.

“Someone’s been busy.” She smiled as she walked around the loveseat and bent over to grab the items. When she did, I got a very nice view of her cleavage. Fuck. Had she bent over like that in front of Jonah? Had he gotten a peek at her red lace bra?

“So, is there going to be a second date?”

She stood back up, and the smile that pulled at her lips told me all I needed to know. “Why? Why do you care?”

Because the thought of you seeing Jonah again is more painful than my fucking leg, which was on fire.

I shrugged casually. “We always talk about this stuff.”

“No.” She shook her head as she headed down the hall to her bedroom with her hands full of Winnie-treasures. Winnie trailed behind her, clearly proud of her haul, as her nails clicked on the hardwood floor. “We don’t talk about this stuff. You talk about this stuff.”

Yeah, I talked about it because she never dated. Until recently, that is. She’d had a few boyfriends. Three, to be exact. Greg in high school. Rudy in college. And Steve when she first started teaching. I hadn’t loved any of them, but I’d never felt like my heart was being put through a meat grinder, which is how I felt now.

Maybe it was because, deep down, I knew that she couldn’t actually be serious with any of them. Maybe it was because even when she was with all of them, it had never affected our relationship. Maybe I was feeling this way because, for the past few months, I’d sensed her pulling away from me.

I still hadn’t been able to talk to her about what she meant when I saw her in the parking lot on Thanksgiving and asked her to watch a movie. She’d said that she didn’t think we should hang out so much and started to say that she needed to make room in her life for something—I didn’t catch the rest because I got called away.

I’d called her that night when I got home, but she hadn’t answered. I’d tried to talk to her about it before the game, but we got interrupted again. And then, all the shit happened to my knee, and here we were.

Kenna walked back out. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in a messy bun, her face was scrubbed clean, and she was wearing her tattered gray University of Texas T-shirt and cutoff sweats.

This was my favorite Kenna. This was the Kenna that I wanted to climb into bed with and keep her there. This was the Kenna I wanted to wake up every morning to for the rest of my life. The soft, all-natural, comfy, cozy Kenna.

After she let Winnie out back to use the bathroom and filled up the Stanley water bottle that I’d given her last Christmas, I expected her to curl up in the corner of the couch and snuggle under her favorite blanket so we could watch a movie.

Instead, she stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “I’m gonna go to bed. Do you need anything?”

Go to bed? It was only ten o’clock. She’s always been a night owl. It was one of the reasons she’d hated teaching—because of the early mornings. The bar schedule worked a lot better for her circadian rhythm.

“You’re going to bed?”

She nodded. “I’m tired.”

“It’s ten o’clock.”

“I didn’t sleep last night. I’m just down the hall if you need me,” she said before padding off to her bedroom.

As I watched her retreating form, questions filled my head. Why didn’t she sleep last night? Was it because Jonah had been over here? Was that why she’d brought up me not bringing random girls here because she’d had a sleepover?

I ran my hands through my hair. I needed to stop overanalyzing everything she said and did and just speak to her. I was driving myself crazy.

I’d never been the sort of person to avoid a conversation. If there was a problem, I addressed it. I’d rather talk things out than pretend everything was fine, only to have it fester before finally blowing up. That was the pattern I’d witnessed in my house between my parents, and I promised myself I would never be like that.

So why hadn’t I said anything to Kenna? Why had I just let her go to bed without asking her what was going on with her? Why hadn’t I faced head-on what was going on with us?

Because I was scared that once we had that talk, everything would change. We would change. I would lose her. And if there was one thing in my life I couldn’t lose…it was her.

13

KENNA

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