Page 33 of Blue Moon Love

He hadn’t had a bad dream, but I was having one. This was my living nightmare.

I’d always heard the phrase getting the rug pulled out from under you, but I’d never actually experienced it before. Sam had violated my privacy. He read my journal. He knew I was a virgin.

If I thought I’d been close to a breakdown before, that was nothing compared to what I was experiencing now. So many emotions overwhelmed me, but the main one was embarrassment. No one—not Taylor, not Delilah, not Kelsi, not my mom—no one knew that I was still a virgin. But I’d rather the entire town know my status than Sam. He’d slept with hundreds of women. He already looked at me like a kid sister or something, and now, now what would he think of me?

The longer I stood in my front room holding my journal, the more my humiliation morphed into anger. I’d opened up my home to him. For two weeks, I’d waited on him hand and foot. I cooked for him. I took him to PT. I did his fucking laundry. And how does he repay me? He snoops through my things and reads my innermost thoughts.

My innermost thoughts.

“Oh shit.” I flipped through more pages, making sure I hadn’t written his name anywhere. The only thing worse than Sam knowing I was a virgin was if he knew about my feelings for him. I scanned every page, but thankfully, his name was never mentioned.

I’d kept a diary since I was eight, and since I had two brothers, I’d never actually used anyone’s name when I journaled for fear the twins would find it, read it, and expose me. Even as an adult, I’d kept that same level of security out of habit, and thank God I had.

I checked the time and saw that I had about twenty minutes until I was due to meet Jonah. The right thing to do would be to put this discovery on the backburner and go have a lovely evening.

The problem with that plan was that there was no way I could enjoy myself. I had to speak to Sam. I grabbed my phone and messaged him.

Me: Where are you?

I waited for his reply, flipping through the pages. All of my deepest insecurities, worries, and dreams were in this book. The pages not only revealed my virginal status but also revealed how insecure I was about my writing, my past, my present, and my future—everything.

My phone buzzed, and I looked down to see Sam’s response.

Sam: At Xmas fest.

Perfect. That was perfect. Two birds. One stone.

I grabbed my purse, threw on my coat, said a quick goodbye to Winnie, then hopped in my car and made it downtown in less than two minutes; it usually took me five. Unfortunately, it did take me five minutes to find parking. By the time I pulled into a spot, my anger levels had spiked off the charts.

The more I thought about what Sam had done, the more violated I felt about it. And embarrassed. Yeah, I was definitely still embarrassed.

I got out of the car and slammed the door. I started to walk away but was jerked back. The motion caused my neck to snap.

“Ahh!” I cried out as I looked over my shoulder and saw that my coat was in the door.

Seriously. Only me.

My righteous indignation deflated slightly as I pressed the fob to unlock the door and pulled my jacket out. Once I was freed, I began searching the festival. Sam was nowhere to be found. I texted him asking exactly where he was—but got no response.

He’d been out of commission for two weeks, so where would Sam Whitlock go on his first night back in the wild? I asked myself, and an answer instantly materialized. A dark corner to do dark deeds.

There was an out-cove where kids used to make out away from prying eyes. As I rounded the corner, I heard the sounds of two people and expected to find Sam and his flavor of the week, but instead, I found Taylor and Remi. They were making out like teenagers under the bleachers at a Friday night football game.

When they noticed me, a wide smile spread on my cousin’s face.

“Hey, guess what—” Taylor started to say, but I spoke over her.

I wasn’t in the mood to hear about how in love they were.

“I’m looking for Sam. Have you seen him?”

“No, I haven’t.” My cousin shook her head and looked up at Remi before turning back to me. “What’s wrong?”

I ignored her question and directed my inquiry to Remi; “Have you seen him?”

“He’s at the Santa Kissing Booth?—"

The kissing booth. Right. Of course, he was.

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