Page 31 of Blue Moon Love

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.

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