4
CILLIAN
One week. Seven days of circling each other like planets caught in the same gravitational pull. She keeps coming to mass, sitting in the front pew where I can't avoid her gaze. I keep preaching sermons about self-control and discipline while my eyes drift to her face and my words lose their meaning. We haven't spoken since the alcove, since I told her to stay away and she responded by planting herself directly in my line of sight every single day.
Tonight's charity dinner is supposed to be a welcome distraction. St. Augustin's hosts it every year, a chance for the parish to mingle with potential donors while I make polite conversation and pretend I'm a normal priest with normal concerns. I've done this a dozen times before. It should be easy.
Then Waverly walks through the door in a simple blue dress that matches her eyes, and I lose track of my own speech mid-sentence.
"Father Brennan?" Mrs. Callahan touches my arm, concerned. "Are you alright?"
"Fine." I clear my throat and force my attention back to the donor I was speaking with, a wealthy widow who's considering leaving a substantial bequest to the parish. "Forgive me, Mrs. Patterson. You were saying?"
But I'm not listening to a word she says. I'm watching Waverly move through the crowd, accepting a glass of wine from a server, smiling politely at the parishioners who approach her. She looks beautiful and lost, like she doesn't quite know what to do with herself in this sea of strangers. My hands itch with the need to go to her, to stand beside her, to make it clear to everyone in this room that she's not as alone as she seems.
I have no right to feel this way. I keep reminding myself of that as I work the room, shaking hands, making small talk, being the priest everyone expects me to be. But my eyes keep finding her across the crowded hall. The way the light catches in her honey-brown curls. The nervous way she touches her locket when someone engages her in conversation.
Then I see him.
He's late twenties, slick in a way that sets my teeth on edge. New to the parish, I think, though I don't recognize him. He's cornered Waverly by the punch bowl, standing too close, leaning in to speak directly into her ear. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes, and there's tension in her shoulders that tells me everything I need to know about how she feels about this conversation.
She says something, tries to step back. He follows, touching her arm in a gesture that looks casual but isn't. I see the flinch, the way she pulls away without quite pulling away, trying to be polite even though every line of her body is screaming discomfort.
I'm across the room before I make a conscious decision to move, my feet carrying me through clusters of parishioners with barely a murmur of excuse me.
"Ms. Sinclair." My voice is pleasant, carefully pastoral, betraying nothing of the white-hot fury burning beneath my skin, threatening to consume my better judgment. "A word about your volunteer schedule for next month?"
The man turns, irritation flickering across his angular face before he registers my Roman collar and smooths the expression away into something resembling respectful neutrality. "Father. We were just talking."
"I can see that." I place my hand on the small of Waverly's back, a gesture that's possessive and wildly inappropriate and I don't care in the slightest. "Ms. Sinclair, if you wouldn't mind? This will only take a moment."
She lets me guide her away without protest, and I can feel the relief radiating off her in waves, the tension slowly draining from her rigid shoulders. I don't stop until we're near the main exit, away from the milling crowd, partially hidden behind one of the hall's ornate pillars wrapped in climbing ivy.
"You didn't have to rescue me," she says once we're alone, but her voice is shaky and her eyes are bright with unshed tears that threaten to spill over.
"Yes." I keep my hand on her back because I can't make myself remove it, can't break this fragile connection. "I did."
"He was just being friendly."
"He was being a predator." The words come out harsher than I intended, and I see her flinch. I take a breath, trying to softenmy tone. "I've been watching people for eight years, Waverly. I know the difference between friendly and threatening. Are you alright?"
She nods, but her hands are trembling. Without thinking, I take them in mine, warming her cold fingers between my palms. It's a gesture that could be pastoral. It could be comforting. It could be entirely innocent if not for the way we're both standing too close, breathing too fast, looking at each other like the rest of the room has disappeared.
"I should take you home," I say, the words coming out rougher than I intend, weighted with all the things I'm not allowing myself to say.
She pulls her hands away from mine, stepping back slightly, and the loss of contact stings more than it should—more than I have any right to feel. "You don't have to do that," she says, wrapping her arms around herself. "I can walk. I've walked that route a hundred times."
"It's dark outside. The streets aren't safe at this hour."
"I walk home alone all the time, Silas. Every shift I work at the diner ends late."
"Not tonight." It comes out like a command rather than a request, and I watch her eyes widen slightly, see the way her breath catches. I force myself to soften my voice, to gentle the sharp edges. "Please. Just let me make sure you get home safely. Let me do this one thing."
She studies my face for a long moment, and I don't know what she sees there. Whatever it is makes her nod, makes her fall into step beside me as we slip out a side door and into the cool night air.
We walk in charged silence for the first few blocks. The charity dinner glitters behind us, and ahead lies her apartment building with its darkened windows and narrow stairs. I'm acutely aware of every inch of space between us, of the way her arm occasionally brushes mine, of the soft sound of her breathing.
"That man back at the dinner," I say finally, needing to shatter the weighted silence before it suffocates me, before I do something foolish. "Has he cornered you like that before? Made you uncomfortable?"
