He waved a hand through the air. “Not the same.”
“If you really feel that strongly about it, why not seek some kind of penance?” I was genuinely curious.
“Because I madevows.” He took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling, and then gave me a small, bitter smile. “Because when I joined the Morellis, I made vows, Aidan. I took an oath of silence and I won’t go back on my word once I’ve given it.”
That hit me hard.
“Except for you,” Teo added. “For you, I’ve broken those vows. Told you things I shouldn’t have.” He looked at his arm, at the chain of greening, wonky daisies with the raised bumpy middles, and I understood then.
I went to him and took up his arm gently. “These are the cigarette burns.” It was a statement, not a question, but he nodded anyway. “And your sister made them into something different.” I ran a delicate finger over the old scars, remembering his words.Those ones still hurt a bit.
He hadn’t meant physically.
“Mari’s always…she’s loved me something fierce over the years for what I did. Called me a hero. And that just made me—makesme sick. I know you think God can fix it, if I just say I’m sorry about it—”
“I don’t think that,” I said, looking into his beautiful face. “I don’t think God is a magic wand, Teo. But confession, penance—these are old tools that can help us, as humans, come to terms with the things we’ve done. They allow us to be reconciled to God, and that’s important. But they also allow us to forgive ourselves.”
He swallowed hard. “Maybe,” he muttered. “But maybe I’m not ready for that yet.”
I nodded. “Well. Whenever you are, I want you to know you can come to me.”
He put his hand over mine where it lay on his forearm, and pulled it up to his mouth. He kissed my palm and I closed my eyes, concentrating on the feel of him, his warm breath in my hand, wishing I could hold on to that moment, to his breath, forever.
Before I was ready, he let my hand drop, but he pulled me into his arms and kissed my mouth. And then, almost as soon as he’d gathered me up, he released me. “I can’t when you’re—” He looked down at my robes.
“Then help me get this thing off.”
He was less impatient than me, helping me slide the robes up over my head again with a reverence I didn’t feel, and then he hung it up in the closet. I was glad to see the door shut on it; I wanted no witness to our goodbye.
It was only when he put his hands back on me that I felt peace again, when his mouth was on mine that I felt whole. I led him over to the bed, where we lay down and wrapped our bodies together, rocking gently to a slow melody only we could hear. I pushed my nose into his neck and breathed in the faint note of cologne, and focused on the gentle stroke of his hand up and down my back. He was solid and real and I wanted my body to remember the feel of him against me, hoped that hugging him harder and harder might encourage some of his atoms to stay with mine.
He kissed me, his lips as soft as his caresses, and between kisses we just looked at each other, let our eyes soak up what we would never, could never see again. I’d been worried I might cry, might be angry or upset or regretful, but all I felt was a deep reverence. I traced over his skin, let my fingers twine into his hair, let my tongue taste his salty tang as I ran it up the side of his neck and made him shiver. When I reached down I found him hard, but it was the kitten-soft skin of his shaft that I wanted to remember most, the velvet feel of him as he lay heavy in my palm.
We took our time pulling languorous pleasure out of each other, unhurried, compassionate, each of us giving more than we took, and when I reached bliss, it flowed out of me in bittersweet, protracted waves, contracting and expanding in the same rhythm as my heart. Teo gave a low, soft sigh into my neck as his warmth spilled over me, anointing my thighs, and then we stayed there for some time, breathing in tandem, building a memory meant to last us each a lifetime.
I wanted to tell him I loved him, but the words seemed so small next to everything we’d just shared.
Still. I’d never have the chance again. “Teo, I—” I began softly, but he touched his fingers to my lips.
“Don’t say it, please,” he begged. “I can’t…I can’t hear you say that.”
It hurt, but I understood. We lay there for a long time before Teo spoke again. “You have to promise me something.” He swept my hair off my forehead and then cupped my face. I could feel the coarse hairs along my jawline rubbing against his palm. “You have to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Take your Holy Orders.”
He was as serious as I’d ever heard him. “Why are you saying this?”
“’Cause I can feel how you’re thinking maybe you won’t. It would kill me, baby, to think that anything I’ve done took you further away from God. So you promise me, you go in there tomorrow with your whole heart and you let God have you. And then you stay the hell away from us Morellis, because we ain’t good people. But you—you are.”
I couldn’t stop the tears that gathered hot in my eyes. Teo brushed them away, but he didn’t take back what he’d said. He didn’t tell me it would all be okay.
Because it wouldn’t.
“If that’s what you really want,” I said, stumbling over some of the words, “then I’ll do it. I will. But Teo—I can’t do it if you’re there in the Cathedral, if I turn around and see you there. I won’t be able to.”
He nodded, and I was almost relieved to see that his eyes were shining with tears as well. “I figured,” he said, his voice rough. “So I’ll get O’Hara to be with you tomorrow. He’s the best they got. If it can’t be me…” He took a deep shuddering breath. “Okay?”
