For more effect, I was sure of it.
I could never play it cool like she did. I ran from the hard questions because every single thing I felt read on my face like a map to my stupid broken heart.
“So?” she urged.
I huffed, sipping once myself before throwing her another bread crumb. “It was horrible. It was a terrible, awful time in my life, and I kick myself almost every single day that I let it continue for so long.”
Lucy’s eyes grew wider than the manhole covers on the street after I’d blurted my half confession. “Oh, sister. This is definitely way more than complicated.”
I nodded, catching her gaze before avoiding it again.
I wanted to share, wanted to be open, but this pain was too raw even for me to handle, and I had a lot of experience with handling pain.
“Sometimes saying the words out loud takes away their power.” Lucy stirred then sipped.
I narrowed my eyes. “What’s with this sage and wise stuff? Are you the second coming of Mary? This isn’t a virgin birth, is it?”
Lucy’s laugh shot across the four tiny walls of the coffee shop and directed attention our way.
“Oh, nothing as complicated as what you’ve got going on.” Lucy sipped again, as if pondering her next words. “Casey and I ran into each other at a party. It was one of those stupid one-night things, really. I wasn’t in a very good place, neither was he, we used each other for warmth for a few nights, and that was it.” Her eyes caught mine. “A single blink in time was all it took to leave a mark.”
I sighed, her words ringing far truer than I wanted to believe.
“I worked in the psych department for two years.” I sucked in a shallow breath. “Far longer than a blink, and I should have quit the first time he asked me to come into his office and lock the door behind me.”
Lucy’s eyes bled with compassion, one hand reaching across the table to lock a finger with my own.
I shook my head, trying to swallow back the tears.
“I thought I could control it. I know it’s stupid to think that I, this naïve nineteen-year-old girl, could have any control over a fifty-year-old man!” I held a hand over my mouth to lock in the rest of the story, painfully aware of every person within earshot.
“That shouldn’t have happened. It sounds like he should be hung up and publicly shamed. I’d force-feed him his balls if I met him in a dark alleyway for what he did. But just because you stayed doesn’t make you at fault, or him any less culpable.”
“I stayed for two years.”
“Did you have another place to live?”
“Not without the scholarship.”
“A place to work?”
I shook my head. “I looked, but he just kept piling up my workload, practically forcing me to work after hours with him. I needed the money. I was living off a twelve-pack of stovetop noodles and condensed soup. I couldn’t turn down the work, but every time I tried to turn him down…”
“Tressa.” Lucy came around the table, wrapping me in her arms and holding me fiercely. “If I find him, I’ll kill him for you. That bastard needs to suffer.”
A weak smile split my cheeks. “I’m okay. Finish your drink before it’s cold.”
I wiped at the tears wetting the corners of my eyelids, some odd, newfound sense of calm settling into my bones from sharing even a fraction of the most horrible time in my life.
Correction.
Just one of the most horrifying.
There wasn’t enough coffee in all of Philly to get me through the rest of it.
Not now, maybe not ever.
“I’m gonna miss you so much when you’re gone.”
“If I don’t leave, Bastien and I will destroy each other.”
“Yeah.” She popped her head to one side. “There is that. And you’re sure leaving me to fend off the ghosts of St. Mike’s alone is the right thing to do?”
I laughed, thankful as ever for her wit. “I’ve been up and down all the halls of St. Michael’s far into the night. Anything lurking in the shadows is friendly.”
“Oh?” She quirked a naughty eyebrow up and winked. “How friendly are we talking? Do I need birth control?”
I nearly choked on the hot latte. “I think you’ve got birth control covered for at least a few more months.”
She whistled softly, patting her tummy again beneath her dark puffer coat, and we both laughed until at least half a dozen eyes were on us and happy tears were stinging my eyelids.
Maybe I could find a place sort of close to Lucy; the thought of her all alone the next few months while her baby grew was almost unbearable.
And losing one soul mate who made me laugh this hard felt like a tragedy anyway. I didn’t think I could bear to lose two.
SIXTEEN
Tressa
“I hate to ask, but just how friendly were the dark hallways at St. Mike’s, T? There aren’t any virgin births in your future are there?”
My heart flipped at the thought as we walked the few blocks from the bus stop.
Bastien’s babies.
I couldn’t even fathom.
“You’re certifiably insane because there is a zero percent chance anything holy is finding its way inside this temple.”
She spat out a giggle before I joined her, thankful for some release from the ever-present gravity that floated around the topic of Bastien and me.
“But those hallways…” I sighed, the memory of Bastien’s thumbs working against my skin almost more than I could handle. “I would definitely be knocked up if they were any friendlier.”
Lucy whistled, rubbing her belly with both hands. “Ai, Papi!”
“You are ridiculous.” I rolled my eyes, utterly grateful for every over-the-top inch of her.
“Oh! I have my first baby appointment. Since you’re pretty much my work wife and my roomie, wanna come with me? It took forever for the free clinic to get me in, but—”
“Yes!”
“I haven’t even told you when it is yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be there.”
“We should make sure Father Bastien’s okay with you being gone that day, too.”
I waved a hand at the church, gothic steeple rising above the naked tree branches, spindly fingers imposing on the neighborhood shrouded at its feet. “I’ll probably have a new and amazing job by then anyway.”
“It’s next week.”
“Oh. Well, he’s going to have to get used to me being gone sooner or later, right?”
Lucy’s eyes fell. “When are you gonna tell him?”
“When I have a job.” My gaze drifted back to the cross poised at the top of St. Michael’s. “Is that wrong?”
Lucy slowed her steps, tilting her head to the milky clouds above. “He’s not gonna take it well.”
“He’ll be fine.”
In all honesty, I hadn’t thought about what Bastien would think.
I guess I’d been too busy planning my own escape route to think about the wreckage I might leave in my wake.
“Should I tell him I’m looking? Would it really help soften the blow?”
Lucy shrugged. “That’s something only you can answer.”
I scrunched up my face, deflecting her wisdom.
I didn’t have time to learn lessons in all of this.
If I stopped to think about Bastien now, I might never muster the courage to leave.
“Morning, ladies!” The heavy wooden doors of St. Michael’s swung wide, Bastien’s smile open and almost blinding in its genuine amity.
“I swear,” Lucy whistled under her breath, “he looks even better today than he did yesterday.”
“Tell me about it.”
Lucy’s grin deepened, stroking her absent belly through the coat, and then taking Bastien’s arm when he’d reached the icy steps and offered.
Such a gentleman.
I would miss them both more than I could say.
I rubbed at my heart, the pain of their absence alrea
dy cutting like a knife.
“Just in time for Mass.” Bastien’s touch at my elbow sent a chill skittering through me.
A pang split my heartbeat. The desire to brush him away was strong, the desire to soak up just one more touch so much stronger.
It was an odd feeling, orchestrating an exit while trying to leave someone none the wiser. I felt like a double agent, decades of Catholic guilt sweeping through my bones in an instant. Too ashamed to even glance into his friendly, penetrating gaze.
“I can’t wait for you to hear this morning’s liturgy.” His grin quirked to one side, my heartbeat leaping erratically along with it. “I think you’ll approve.”
“Yeah?”
I hardly heard his words, the tears clawing at my throat as if I’d just swallowed rusted nails.
If he were any kinder, I couldn’t stand it.
I’d have to stay.
I’d break down at his feet and beg him to…what?
Leave his God for me?
Bastien’s steps slowed, as if sensing my unease. His little finger caught mine, fireworks exploding through my veins when he leaned so close, his breath ghosted the shell of my ear. “Consider it my love letter.”
A near-audible moan slipped past my lips.
My lungs gave out as I willed the forces of the universe to halt everything right at that second and drop us into another world. A world where we could share each other, explore what existed without shame or guilt or fear of life-altering upheaval and utter disgrace.
If God was real and he was here, how the hell did he explain this?
“I’ll look forward to your thoughts.” The pad of his thumb brushed my lip, a tornado of ravaged emotion spiraling through my center, before I took another breath and he was gone.
My Bastien.
Father Castaneda.
The holy man I was fighting so hard to unlove, one and the same.
I lifted my head defiantly, pushing through the last set of doors before finding my place alongside Lucy in the last pew.
“I’m gonna need to know everything about whatever that was, mama.”
I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have the heart to.
“It was goodbye.”
Her eyes grew wide, mouth opening and closing like a sad little fish as she contemplated my meaning.
Bastien appeared from the small alcove behind the pulpit then, his eyes traveling over the small crowd until they locked with mine. He cleared his throat, nodded once, and then began to read from the scripture.
Twenty minutes into Mass and I still couldn’t discern why Bastien had thought I’d find it so interesting. It wasn’t until he tied the teaching together with his homily that my blood began to bubble and burn beneath my skin.
“Rebels play an important part in our history,” he began. “For example, this church. Right on this very soil, one son of God decided to go against tradition, to eschew dogma, in order to be on the right side of history. Some of you may know that St. Michael’s, leading up to and during the Civil War, was a stop on the Underground Railroad for dozens and dozens of former enslaved men, women, and children. Many of them went on to bigger cities like New York or Detroit, some even as far as Montreal, but for one brief moment, they were comforted with open arms and love right here. Many of you also know I was born in a country with revolution woven into its history, and my ancestors fled or fought persecution in their homelands. Some of them fought to colonize other nations, while others fought colonial oppression. Some days, I can’t help but take a step back and wonder what side of history I would find myself on if my circumstances had been different. What would be my belief if I were born German in Germany in 1930? Or Italian in a Rome ruled by Mussolini? We all hope that, by the strength of our own moral fortitude, we would make the right decision. But what exactly constitutes right? Genocide is evil incarnate on earth, but what of God’s morality and judgment in a situation with murkier underpinnings?”
I shifted in my seat, the wooden pew biting into my back and causing ants to crawl through my bloodstream.
Or was that his words causing the discomfort?
My head began a slow pound, splashes of light filtering through the elegant stained-glass windows like an awful strobe light out of my worst nightmare.
I did my best to tune him out, thinking about the application I’d dropped off this morning and of the three jobs I’d applied to that I most wanted, but his voice… That gravelly cadence pulled me back into his web, wrapping me up in his silky words.
“Love”—his voice deepened—“is the purest of all emotions.” His voice rattled me right between my thighs. “God doesn’t sit in judgment of us—not now, not ever—so long as we live with love in our hearts, the purest of all intentions. Sometimes it’s impossible to determine the greater moral good for all from afar. We can only look within and know the nature of our own true hearts to discern what is right and wrong. This is a moral contract you’ve already made with God, but also with yourself. Why are brave souls able to stand on the right side of history when the tidal wave beats them back again and again? Because true knowing of self is true knowing of God. They are one and the same.”
Bastien’s dark gaze brushed up to the highest peak of the ceiling, where I imagined Christ hung from the iron cross atop the steeple, piercing the heavens. Tears pricked my eyes as I watched him standing all alone, the center of an entire universe of hope, surrounded by a halo of love.
My skin began to itch, tiny pricks of lightning jolting my legs, urging me to run because all of this was too much pressure.
I’d come to St. Michael’s to escape a disaster of my own making, only to walk myself into an even bigger one.
My vision faded to dark with the realization, heart sinking as my fingers bit into the pew, tears scorching my eyelids.
“It is only when,” Bastien continued from the pulpit, “we walk through the dark night of the soul and face every fear, that we can we truly begin to know ourselves enough to stand strong in our beliefs.”
I sucked in a breath, clutching at the flesh of my thighs to prevent myself from standing.
To run to him or away, I wasn’t even sure myself.
If we’d been alone, no one there to watch us love, maybe then I would have found out. But instead, I was chained.
Chained to the possibility of us.
Anchored to the pain of holding what didn’t belong to me.
Writhing with the agony of letting it go.
“Are you okay?” Lucy whispered at my side.
Bastien’s gaze hung heavy on mine across the pews, jaw working back and forth before I murmured, “I’ll never be the same again, Luce.” I shook my head, tears spiked with helpless rage streaking my cheeks. “Never again.”
SEVENTEEN
Tressa
“The dark night of the soul? Mind telling me what the hell that was about?” The sound of the heavy wooden door closing echoed through the tight chamber when it slammed against the doorjamb.
Bastien remained still across the small sacristy, head bowed as he continued to work quietly, deft fingers sliding thin, golden ropes of sacred fabric through his fingers. “I’d rather know what you think.”
Frustration thickened my blood. “I’m your dark night of the soul?! I think you went a step too far.”
“If that’s what you call a step too far, I’d hate to hear what you call indecent.” His body was against mine in an instant, my breasts heaving with shallow irritation and grazing the fabric of his vestments.
This profoundly infuriating man was under my skin like no one else had ever been, and just like a bad tattoo, I’d pay a professional to gouge him out of my soul if I could.
“This, for instance,” he hissed, “is surely a step too close to your precious comfort zone.” His body pressed tighter, the deep ridge of his arousal cutting at my hip and causing my throat to crack and turn to dust. “Don’t trick yourself into believing that you know you more than I do, Tressa.”
His dar
k eyes glinted in the dim light, my heartbeat vibrating in my ears the only noise in the room. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I couldn’t catch my breath, his fingers crawling their way past my wrists, grazing the underside of my elbows before his thumbs dug in and he was as far deep inside my own heart as he could possibly go.
“You like the dance, dove, but just when things get intimate, you pull away.”
His scathing truth cut like a hot blade.
“No,” I squeaked.
His soft chuckle was his only reply, my eyelids already glued shut in opposition to his words.
“My sweet dove…my greatest temptation. I have already dishonored my God and broken my vows of faith with you in more wicked ways than I care to admit. I’m a fallen priest, and yet I can’t bring myself to repent.” Bastien’s thumb danced across the arch of my brow. “You think you only show me the side of you you want me to see, but I see more than that, sweetness.” His eyes flicked down to my lips, hips working softly against mine, and then harder.
So much harder I felt the ridge of his cock biting at my hip.
“I’m trained to see the broken parts you’ve spent a lifetime hiding. I’m trained to be your light in the darkness, Tressa. But all that darkness—” his thumbs worked inside my elbows, swaying me against his body as he gritted out against my neck “—it weighs on me some days. Seminary doesn’t teach a flesh and blood man how to channel all that darkness into…” His cock flexed behind his sanctified robes, my body humming with pure desire for anything more he had to give. “…productive activities.”
I didn’t have a reply for him. The way he swallowed my space and caused my heart to thrum like a hummingbird was distracting enough, but his skin setting flame to mine was beyond unbearable.
“What about you, then?” I summoned my earlier anger. “You fancy yourself some sort of holier-than-thou saint? Forgive me, Father, but I call bullshit.”
Bastien’s eyes held mine, the amusement chasing through his chocolate irises giving me enough satisfaction to live on for days.
I squared my shoulders. “You’re a prisoner to your belief.”
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