“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“I’m not worried. Like you said, I’m doing pretty well for myself.” I slid the milk on the counter. “So unless you have a magical Mary Poppins bag, I’m thinking you don’t own that many clothes outside your priestly attire.”
“I have a few things.”
“Then we’ll get you a fewmorethings.” I braced my hands on the counter. “Unless you prefer walking around naked?”
“Why not? That’s how God intended it, right?”
“If that’s the case, what’s with my sweats and t-shirt?”
“I woke up early, and being wrapped in something that smelled like you was the next best thing to being in bed.”
“Fuck.” I nipped at his lower lip then soothed it with my tongue. “That’s hot.”
Rafael chuckled and gently pushed me away. “See? Troublemaker. Go and make your coffee so I can drink mine.”
I backed away from him, taking in the domestic picture he made sitting at my counter drinking his coffee, and I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was.
Sure, it’d taken over a decade for me to feel that way, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, right? He was here now, and that was all that mattered.
With my coffee in hand, I gestured to the couch, and Rafael slipped off the stool to follow me into the living area. I sat facing the windows, and after Rafael took the spot beside me, curling up into me so our thighs touched, I took one of his hands in mine.
“Is it strange?”
“What’s that?” he asked looking at me over the rim of his mug.
“Waking up to St. Andrews from here?”
“A little. But at least I still get to wake up to it, and this view…” He softly smiled as his eyes shifted to the window. “It’s stunning.”
“I always thought so. But I didn’t really buy it for the church.”
Rafael’s eyes found mine, and the love swirling in them made my heart swell. “All this time, you watched. You waited for me.”
I put my mug on the side table and brought a hand up to cradle his face, and Rafael closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.
“Father—Archbishop De Vecchi told me I had to let you go, to let you find what you needed. It was the hardest thing I ever did. Broke my heart. But the fact it brought you back to me, here and now, makes every single night I watched and waited for you worth it.”
Rafael opened his eyes, and I swept a thumb over his wet cheek.
“No. Don’t do that,” I said, taking his cup from him and putting it beside mine. “This is the way our story was supposed to go. You needed to leave, I needed to let you go, and now we’re back where we belong.”
Rafael nodded and leaned in to capture my lips in the most breathtakingly gentle kiss I’d ever received. It was full of love and tenderness, an apology for breaking both our hearts and a healing of our souls, because while this was the way our story had needed to play out, it had put the both of us through the wringer.
But maybe that was how we were supposed to know it was real, how we knew it was meant to be—it was hard.
“I love you,” he whispered, and I nodded, feeling his love deep inside my bones.
“I love you too.”
“I feel like we’re just beginning. This new life of ours.” He pulled away and smiled at me. “It has endless possibilities, endless ways to love and serve, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.”
“Neither can I. But right now, I know exactly where it’s taking you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I got to my feet and took his hand in mine, leading him through the bedroom to the en suite.
