He started down the aisle, the soles of his boots thudding against the old wood. At the door, he paused, glanced back over his shoulder, and flashed me the bird with all the fondness of a brother who’d been through hell with me and still couldn’t resist the last word.
“Later, Reverend Emo.”
The door creaked shut behind him.
And I was alone again.
But this time…I wasn’t retreating.
I was getting ready.
CHAPTER 11
June
I didn’t knowwhy I was nervous.
I’d been to dinner at the Ward house plenty of times at this point…I’d married Rhett and Willow, for fuck’s sake, eaten at their table, blessed their house. Delilah would be there—one of my best friends in the whole world. Willow and Rhett, who had entrusted me with their lives and, though I hadn’t known it at the time, with their future child.
But there was one person I was incredibly anxious about seeing.
Silas.
We hadn’t spoken since I woke up from the snakebite, since I’d laid everything bare: my past, my fears, the fractured theology scarred across my soul. I’d told him I needed to pump the brakes…not that I needed him to bail for good.
And he’d just…shut down.
I didn’t blame him—I had a hell of a lot of trauma, and so did he. Maybe he didn’t want to be with someone as fucked up as I was, underneath the charisma, the vestments, the sermons.
Delilah was in the kitchen, slapping together a pitcher ofhurricanes for tonight. She was being far louder than she needed to for mixing up an easy drink—but that was Delilah, always loud andalwaysover the top.
“Can you hurry?” she shouted from the kitchen. “I’m sure Silas will be blown away, no matter what you wear!”
I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly gave myself a migraine.
“I’m not dressing for Silas,” I called back. “I’m dressing for me. And foryou, punk rock queen…and possibly Willow, because she always looks like she stepped out of a cottagecore fantasy novel and I refuse to be the tragically unfashionable friend.”
Delilah popped her head into the bathroom. “What about Hazel? Let’s be real, she knows how to rock a onesie and a giant hair bow.”
I snorted. “She’s got that baby glam locked down. I’m just trying not to show up looking like the before picture in a makeover montage.”
Delilah looked me over, smiling. “You’re the after picture, babe. Always have been.”
I gave her a look, but didn’t argue—and especially tonight, maybe she was right.
Tonight I’d left the jeans behind for once. My dress was soft cotton, charcoal gray with a low V-neck, cinched at the waist with a turquoise belt I’d picked up a few years back at a flea market in the Bywater. It hit just above the knee, long enough to saypastor’s kid,short enough to saybut not the repressed kind.I wore it with a pair of broken-in leather ankle boots and a forest green flannel slung over my arm—Silas’s flannel, the one he’d left in my room at the clinic.
My hair was loose tonight, the way I wore it when I didn’t want to think too hard—long, wavy, and swept over one shoulder.
And…yeah, I didn’t want to think too hard.
Because I was nervous.
Because I couldn’t think too much about the guilt and the fear and the overwhelmingneedto kiss Silas Ward again.
The drive out to the Ward house was quiet and serene, golden hour turning the trees into silhouettes of stained glass. Delilah fiddled with the radio in her Jeep, finally settling on outlaw country that thumped beneath the hum of the engine. She tapped the rhythm on the steering wheel, glancing over at me every so often.
“You okay, babe?” she asked. “I mean…seemed like things were pretty tense between y’all.”
