“For someone who doesn’t want to be around me,” I said, slowly making my way toward him, “you sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Really?” His lips crooked into a slight sneer. “Haven’t had any trouble this month.”
“Yes,” I replied, coming to a stop beside him. “That’s true. Why weren’t you at confession this past week?”
Alessio’s eyebrow winged up under the curtain of his hair, and I couldn’t help but admire the glossy shine to it. Again, I found myself wanting to touch it. Instead, I folded my hands in front of myself.
Out of the way.
Away from temptation.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was talking to my priest.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Who did you think you were talking to, then?”
Alessio scoffed. “You’re a real piece of fucking work, you know that?”
If he thought his cursing would shock me and send me running, he needed to think again. Listening to his brothers’ confessions over the years had accustomed me to the colorful language he was employing now. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Agreeing to marry them,” he spat out with much more animosity than I’d expected. “You could’ve said no.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, because your God thinks it’s a sin.”
“MyGod?” I paused and waited for him to look at me, and when he did I could see the turmoil in his eyes. The hurt and anger swirling behind the fire. “You’re not Catholic anymore?”
“Who cares what I am?” he said, and shook his head. “This isn’t about me.”
“No, it’s not. It’s about Kai and Lucien. They asked me and I said yes.”
“Because you’re all for gay weddings, right? Gay anything? Tell me,father, did you send up a quick prayer for them when they kissed? Or were you busy sending up a quick prayer foryourself, since the manyouused to kiss was sitting in the crowd?”
“Stop it, Alessio.”
If I thought that would somehow remind him of where he was and what he was saying, I was dead wrong. Instead, he took a step closer to me, so close our toes almost touched. “Or what?”
He was trying to get a rise out of me, trying to push my buttons. But I wasn’t about to be drawn into an argument with him at his friends’ wedding. We needed to talk, needed to have this conversation, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
“I’m not in the habit of making threats,” I told him, taking a step back and putting some much-needed space between us. “But I would like to try to work things out with you.”
“Work things out? Like, as in therapy? Because that’s usually reserved for couples. I’m fine with just ignoring you.”
“Well, I’m not,” I said with a little more force than even I was expecting. “You asked me once how I forgot about you, forgot about us, and the truth is, I never did. Never. But you are making it next to impossible to talk to you about that.”
I let out a sigh and turned to face the railing, bracing my hands on them.
“Every time I try, you leave?—”
“Yousent me away.”
“—or get angry. I just…” I tried to think of all the things I wanted to say, the words I’d practiced when I was alone in case a moment like this ever came up. But now that I was standing here, face to face with him and the opportunity was right there, all I managed was, “Can’t we bury this animosity between us and try to be friends?”
Andthatwas the exact wrong thing to say.
10
ALESSIO
