I shut my eyes and took in a breath, wondering again why I’d agreed to this. I’d known it was a bad idea, a terrible one.
Maybe I should just end it?
“You know what I did tonight?” he asked, a deep chuckle rumbling from his throat. “I went to a sex club.”
The barrage of emotions that slammed into me at his confession shouldn’t have been shocking.The surprise wasn’t.Neither was the irritation.
It was the stab of anger and twist of jealousy that had me reaching for my rosary and wondering exactly why he’d felt the need to come here tonight to tell me this. Because there was more to it. There had to be.
This couldn’t have been the first time Alessio had visited a place like that. His brothers had talked at length about the different kinds of establishments their organization housed.
So why was he bringing this up tonight? With me?
If I were anyone else, I could ask. But I wasn’t anyone else. I was a priest, his priest, and right now my job was to sit there and listen. Something that was becoming more difficult with every word out of his mouth.
“I thought it would help, you know?” he said, tapping his fingers on the wood. “All those hot, sweaty, naked bodies. I thought it would help get some kind of reaction from me, butnooooo, not my dick. And you know why?”
My hand tightened so hard around the rosary that I could feel the imprint of the cross as it dug into my palm.
“Because my cock, my cock wants you…fatherrr.So I’m fucked.” He snorted. “I mean, not literally, obviously, because, you know, God and all that. Which is why I went there. I was trying toforgetyou. Forget your fancy robes and whatever’s under them and the fact you smell so fucking good I just want to rub my face all over your naked skin. And…”
Alessio paused for a second.
“Wait, where was I? Oh, right, naked skin. This guy on the stage, he was in the tiniest, skimpiest thong. Oh my God,” he moaned, and then his forehead thumped against the confessional. “You’d look really good in them. Whatdoyou wear under that robe?”
Not enough to stop my wayward body from reacting to Alessio’s ramblings.
It was like the tequila had burned through whatever filter was usually in place and every thought he’d had for the last fifteen years came tumbling out.
“Do you ever think about me? You know, when you’re alone?” He pushed back from the screen and took a seat on the small bench inside the booth. “I think about you all the time. That’s my biggest sin of all, right? That I want you? So fucking stupid. How can it be wrong to want someone as good as you? Oh, wait, I know, because you can’t want me back. Or don’t want to.”
He scoffed, and it took everything I had not to speak. But what could I say?
Nothing that would ease his burden. Nothing that would be true.
“How do you do that?” This question was much softer, the bluster and alcohol now morphing into confusion and incredulity, tinged with sadness. “Just forget what we meant to each other? Forget the way I made you feel, how you mademefeel when we touched each other? It’s not fair. Not when I can’t.”
Alessio fell silent, the only sound I could hear now the ringing of blood in my ears as my heart beat out a rapid tattoo. All the years, all the memories he was talking about, rushed back to the surface like a tidal wave about to drag me under if I didn’t get out of this booth.
“You didn’t choose me,” he whispered, and sat forward and put his hand flat on the screen. “And I chose you forever. So where the fuck does that leave me?”
I opened my mouth, sure I was about to answer, but before I could get any words out, he was gone.
5
RAFAEL
FOR A LONG time, I sat in the booth, trembling and unable to breathe. I didn’t trust myself to leave, didn’t trust that my legs would support me on the short walk to the rectory. Even though I’d heard the door that led to the tunnels shut, signaling Alessio’s departure, his presence still lingered here, and that terrified me into staying hidden away, hoping any moment now I’d unhear his words.
I made silent prayers to God on my knees, begging him to help me. In Alessio’s wake he’d left me in turmoil, and it was so confusing and overwhelming that I didn’t know how to alleviate it.
It wasn’t until I’d forced myself to leave the booth, the sanctuary, and head home that I realized the feelings he’d stirred up weren’t going to go away so easily.
My hands shook as I tried to unlock the rectory door, unable to get the key lined up, and I dropped my arms and took in a deep breath of the cool night air. I tried again and rushed inside, closing the door firmly behind me before falling back against it.
I closed my eyes, my heart racing and my breathing coming in shallow pants, like Alessio had been running after me or would come bursting through the door any second.
Ridiculous.
