Midnight Confessions

Copyright © 2022 by J.L. KENNA

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

For more information, visit website:

www.jlkenna.com

Editing and Proofreading: Tori Ellis (Cruel Ink Editing + Design)

Cover Design: Okay Creations

Chapter Header Design (Paperback): Rotoscope Design

Cover Model: Andrew Biernat

Photographer: Wander Aguiar

Paperback ISBN: 9798846751774

Created with Vellum

For anyone who doesn’t believe

they deserve beautiful things.

For the hopeless romantics,

the scorned, and unloved.

Everybody is lovable to someone.

Your karaoke moment is waiting.

PLAYLIST

Elastic Heart ( Piano Version) - Sia

Hostage - Billie Eilish

Better - SYML

Only Thing (Alternative Mix) - Saint Nomad, Fleurie

Pieces - Andrew Belle

Cruel Summer - Taylor Swift

Don’t Let Me Go (Acoustic) - RAIGN

Motownphilly - Boyz II Men

Cherish You - Mikky Ekko

Sweet Dreams - Beyoncé

Control - TENDER

As Much as I Ever Could - City and Colour

Fallingforyou - The 1975

Midnight (Kygo Remix) - Coldplay, Kygo

Visit Playlist on Spotify

“We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.”

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

CONTENT NOTE

Midnight Confessions contains sexually explicit scenes, brief mentions of abuse of a minor and sexual assault, mentions of death, as well as mature content that is not suitable for all audiences.

* * *

Reader discretion is advised.

CONTENTS

1. Winter

2. Winter

3. Winter

4. Aleck

5. Winter

6. Aleck

7. Winter

8. Aleck

9. Aleck

10. Winter

11. Winter

12. Winter

13. Aleck

14. Aleck

15. Winter

16. Winter

17. Aleck

18. Winter

19. Aleck

20. Aleck

21. Winter

22. Winter

23. Aleck

24. Aleck

25. Winter

26. Winter

27. Winter

28. Aleck

29. Winter

30. Winter

31. Winter

32. Winter

33. Aleck

34. Winter

35. Winter

36. Winter

Epilogue

Also by J.L. KENNA

THANK YOU!

Acknowledgments

About the Author

ONE

WINTER

“This is ridiculous,” I say, rolling my eyes, hoping my friends don’t actually expect me to do this.

“It’s not ridiculous, Winter. Just pucker that pretty little mouth into an O, wrap your lips around the edge, then tilt your head back and let the salty liquid pour down your throat. You’ve got this.”

Sondra smirks with a glint of satisfaction in her eyes. She runs her fingers through her long, red curls, waiting for me to react. The rest of them are staring at me too. My best friends. Pfft, some best friends. Their need to see me squirm in front of Hot Bartender Guy overrides their need to see me leave this bar with my dignity intact.

“Go. Do it, Winter. He’s watching you.” Dottie arches her eyebrows and nods like we’re teenagers sneaking a smoke behind the bleachers.

“Jesus, fine. What the hell.” I shrug and throw my inhibitions—along with my self-respect—into a pile of sticks, douse it in lighter fluid, and strike a match.

Opening my mouth wide enough to clear the mountainous peak of whipped cream Hot Bartender Guy put on this shot, I lower my O-shaped mouth over the rim of the glass, tighten my lips, then shoot it back, swallowing the salted caramel flavored booze in one go.

“There you go, Win, elongate that beautiful neck,” Sondra purrs, making Dottie and Keith chuckle beside me.

My lips loosen around the rim of the glass, dropping it into my hand. Licking my lips, I dab the corners of my mouth with a napkin like the lady I am.

“And that is how it’s done, you little sluts,” I say, a gleam of satisfaction glinting in my eyes.

“And that is why they call it a blowjob shot, you little slut.” Keith chuckles into his extra dirty martini with six olives and an ice cube. “My Queen,” he praises, then pops an olive into his smiling mouth.

“You made that look angelic, Win.” Sondra laughs before taking a sip of her wine.

Sondra and I have been best friends since the womb. Her mother was best friends with mine…until her mother married Max Bose, founder and owner of Bose Hotels Corporation, that is. Her mom tried to stay grounded, even after marrying into an empire, but her schedule filled up quickly, leaving girls’ night with my mom a thing of the past.

Sondra and I stayed as close as sisters, though. And at the age of sixteen, when I lost my mother to a piece-of-shit drunk driver, throwing my life into an unmanageable tailspin, I started spending a lot of time at the Bose household. Especially when the air around my father became too dense to breathe. There were days I could tell he wished I hadn’t been there—being my mother’s twin must have made it hard for him to want me around.

Dottie and Keith came into our crazy mix five years ago when I got a job at Java House—a coffee hut on the East side of Port Blue. They quickly became my work wife and husband, hitting it off with Sondra the first night we all hung out. By the time I quit my barista gig to accept a full-time position as a publisher’s reader for Black Ink Publishing, we four were ingrained in each other—just like family.

Dottie lifts a napkin, wiping the corner of my upper lip, grinning from ear to ear. “Well, it worked, because he’s coming over…”

“You guys! I am not going home with him! Sondra, it’s your bachelorette party. I’m supposed to make sure you have fun, then get you home—”

“Lock it up,” she hisses through her smiling teeth. “He’s almost here.”

“Okay, but you all are going to hate yourselves when he turns out to be a serial kille—”

“I was wondering if you were ever going to take that shot,” Hot Bartender Guy’s deep cadence reaches between us and grabs my gut, awakening butterflies that have been dormant for quite some time.

He leans against the other side of the bar with his muscular arms crossed over his chest. Careless, but happy, and hopelessly sexy in a scruffy way. His sleeveless shirt showing a hint of what his hard abdomen might look like under its cotton.

“Ha…” I nervously produce sounds, trying to quickly unearth my cool. How long has it been since I’ve flirted? “Don’t you love it when you come out of the bathroom to find your friends have ordered you a blowjob shot to take alone in a bar full of watchful eyes?”

His piercing green irises scan my face, a predatory smirk of amusement tugging at his lips. “They were watching you before the shot… You’re beautiful.” Hot Bartender Guy’s smirk grows into a full-blown grin. “Was it good?”

The way he’s gazing at me through the dusty-blond hair swept across his forehead almost makes me melt into a puddle of stuttering nerves. Almost.

“It was your blowjob, you tell me...”

My friends chuckle around me. HBG licks his lips with a smirk, then leans forward, resting his elbows on the bar in front of me.

“My name is Dylan, and I live in an apartment above this bar. I’m twenty-two, I surf every morning at five—almost religiously—I’m a Cancer sign, I hate chocolate—some people think that’s weird—I’m not a serial killer, and I would very much love to take you to dinner. Blowjobs optional.”

“Twenty-two?!” Keith scoffs. “You’re just a baby. You better pick this one up, Win, or I’m going to do it for you. Mr. Surfer is. H. O. T.” He spells the word, dragging out each letter.

Christ. I’m getting nervous, hot, and bothered over a twenty-two-year-old surfer who hates chocolate. Who the fuck? One-night stands aren’t really my thing, but not having one with Dylan seems like a betrayal to women everywhere. It’d be a sacrilege not to take advantage of this opportunity.

But, my god, Dylan… He sounds like a teenage quarterback. And three years ago he might’ve been—Jesus, he’s young. I bet his surfer body is magnificent. If this guy even comes close to my bedroom, blowjobs aren’t just optional, they’re mandatory.

“Do you have a pen?” I ask.

Dylan smiles, blinding me with his perfectly aligned, whitened teeth that glow from the contrast of his tan. This guy is a lady killer, no doubt about it. He’s too good at this not to be. Every look, every flick of his eyebrow, the way his eyes watch my mouth when I speak… He thinks I’m in the bag. Any more time spent at this bar, taking shots that I have to wrap my lips around, and I will be in the bag. He’s supposedly not a serial killer, but he’s killing this moment. I feel like bro-bumping his knuckles with mine because he’s doing so well.

Dottie grabs Sondra’s arm in my peripherals, barely able to hide her amusement—they think I’m in the bag, too. These assholes have been trying to get me banged since Brian and I fell apart a year ago. Three years of dating a momma’s boy with a propensity for sexual trysts with the women in his office certainly did a number on my willingness to dole out trust. Especially since after his lies and infidelity, he broke up with me. The undeserving slug dumping the honest and cluelessly committed doormat still tastes bitter in my mouth.

They’re not completely wrong to urge me to move on. They love me—I know that. But a one-night stand with Dylan, the surfing bartender, will not reform my faith in men. It’s possible it would only spear it in its side before plunging a butcher knife in its back.

Dylan slides a pen across the bar in front of me. I grab a cocktail napkin from a nearby caddy holding straws, stirrers, and napkins.

“My name is Winter,” I say, jotting down a few things on the napkin. “Jokes, anecdotes, and cute little puns about my name being a season are unwelcomed. I’m twenty-six, a publisher’s reader for a small publishing company in Port Blue, where I live. I’m a Libra, which means you and I are a turbulent mix and will either result in something gravely passionate or as disastrous as a bull locked in a church made of glass. I love reading, and I hate when people claim they dislike rom-coms. Like, stop putting on a front. They’re entertaining and we all know it.”

Crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s on the napkin, I continue. “I’m going to spend this night with my friends because it’s my best friend’s bachelorette party, and I’d be a shitty maid of honor if I didn’t give her my undivided attention. Even if she irrationally wants me to take you home and ride you like a wave.”

With a flirty smile, I fold the napkin in half, feeling the burn of Dylan’s stare on my skin. I stand on my weak knees, desperately trying to hide my nervousness, and slide it in front of him. Sondra, Dottie, and Keith follow my lead, finishing their drinks, then getting on their feet.

“We’re going dancing now. Bye, Dylan.”

Dylan swipes the napkin from the bar top, mirroring my smile. “Have fun. It was lovely meeting you, Winter, girl of my dreams.”

With that, I turn around and make my way toward the exit, friends in tow.

“What do you think about Club Lux?” I ask over my shoulder. “The DJ is always on fire Friday nights.”

“Yaaass! Let’s Lux it up!” Keith holds the door open, while Sondra, Dottie, and I single-file through it.

“So, no Hot Bartender Guy tonight?” Sondra asks.

I shake my head, threading my arm through hers. “No. No HBG tonight. It’s your night. It’s your next three weeks. It’s not every day my best friend gets married. I am one hundred percent present and ready to serve you.”

“Aww, you’re such a good maid of honor,” Dottie says, threading her arm through my free arm, so the three of us are linked. “Will you be my maid of honor one day, too?”

“Hey!” Keith grunts. “You said I was going to be your man of honor.”

“You are…” Dottie looks my way, winking discreetly. “You totally are.”

“I saw that, bitch,” Keith spits out, rolling his eyes.

The pitch of our synchronized laughter bounces against the brick walls of the buildings we’re walking between to get to Club Lux.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…” Sondra says. “What did you write in the napkin?”

A smirk hitches my lips. “If you can find me, you can date me. Blowjobs guaranteed.”

Laughter erupts in waves between me and my friends as we approach the line to get into Club Lux where we’ll dance for the next three hours. Stopping only to order more drinks or pee. Then we’ll reemerge into Los Angeles’s nightlife to choose one of the countless places open at three in the morning to eat, then Uber back to my apartment in Port Blue—a night like many we’ve had before. Not the bachelorette party I imagined for Sondra Bose, daughter of Mr. Money Bags Bose, but it’s what she requested. Intimate, just the Fearless Four, and dancing… Check, check, and check.

“How the hell is he going to find you?” Sondra mutters through laughter.

“How many Winters do you know in Port Blue? If he’s interested, he’ll have to work at it.”

Maybe it’s because we’re quickly approaching three sheets to the wind, but Sondra’s evaluation of my current misanthropy is feeling pretty accurate. Although I don’t agree with her assessment that I need to “dust the cobwebs off my coochie and ride a dick,” I admit I could get back out there for a date or two.

But not now. These next three weeks belong to my friends. We’re sending our youngest off to get hitched to some guy we barely know—Sondra included—who she picked up at a club three months ago in Ridgehaven. The only substantial thing any of us have seen come out of Ridgehaven was a determined case of the herp our friend Vik got from a rando on a weekend party bender. So you can imagine our apprehension of letting our little Sondra legally bind herself to this guy forever. But she’s happy, so we’re happy for her. Plus, Preston adores her.

Three weeks, then I’ll consider lowering my firing squad on the male species. And if Hot Bartender Guy wants to work hard enough to find me? Well, maybe I’ll keep my promise and go on a date with him. Hell, if he finds me before Sondra’s wedding, maybe I’ll even ask him to be my plus-one. But I won’t hold my breath. Guys like Dylan are drowning in vaginas, so I certainly don’t expect him to put in enough work to Dick Tracy mine.

Absolutely zero male contact for the next three weeks.