Maybe he was a nice guy when you got to know him, heaven’s knew first dates were hard and that could explain some of the awkwardness, but she couldn’t bear the thought of sitting through dinner with him. Not after what had happened with Anatoly.
As she sat in her normal parking space at her apartment, thinking about him, she realized she didn’t want to be here either. She wanted to see him again…
She squeezed the steering wheel, staring at the clock for several minutes as she tried to figure out what to do. It was early enough that if she left now, they could talk before he needed to show up for midnight mass.
“What the shit am I thinking? He’s a priest,” she chastised herself, but that didn’t stop her from backing the car out of place and starting in the direction of the parish.
All the way, she second guessed herself. More than once she nearly turned around, feeling foolish and presumptuous. It was easy to convince herself that she had imagined the way he’d looked at her tonight, that the way he’d comforted her hadn’t meant anything. But there was a voice in her head whispering that this was the right direction, that it was her turn to finally show up for him.
She had seen the expression on his face, the dread and uncertainty, when Desmond had arrived, and she wished more than anything that their impromptu date hadn’t been interrupted. What might she have said to him in that moment? She honestly didn’t know.
On one hand, he was the most genuine, real person she’d ever met, but on the other, she often got the sense there was something he was keeping from her. It was probably just her cynical instincts working over time, making her think that he was lying when he wasn’t. Maggie had never met a man she considered perfect and her mind was trying to protect her from something it knew was too good to be true.
She kept telling herself that he was a priest, he hadn’t been flirting with her, and this visit was nothing but foolishness. Just because a man treated her decently didn’t mean he was romantically interested in her.
Was she even interested in him that way? He was becoming a good friend, that was it, and she just wanted to make sure he knew how much she appreciated his presence tonight.
“Yeah, this is just one friend dropping in on another to say thanks,” she lied to herself in the rearview mirror. She had just pulled into the church parking lot, which at this hour was mostly empty.
Against her better judgement, she turned the ignition off and slipped out of her seatbelt. Then, she froze, unable to bring herself to open the door and step out. She wanted to, more than anything, but so many thoughts were roving through her mind. She couldn’t tell anymore what was right and wrong, especially where Anatoly was concerned.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” Maggie leaned forward, resting her forehead on the wheel. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea after all. Even if he enjoyed her visiting, he was probably busy or upset that she’d let him leave. She should have tried harder to get him to stay, shouldn’t she have?
Conflicted, Maggie reached for the key that was still in the ignition, and made to start the car. She could just drive away and he’d never know how stupid she was for coming down here at this hour of the night. Hadn’t she wanted to be home alone anyway? Why did going home feel so wrong now?
“Fuck, I’m really doing this…” She pulled the key free of the slot, grabbed her purse off the passenger’s seat, and shoved open her door.
Rain still poured down, drenching her in seconds as she hurried for the church entrance. She barely noticed, she was too wrapped up in her own thoughts, hoping she wasn’t about to make another foolish mistake.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to find inside that church.
Chapter Seventeen
What a fool he had been. Anatoly couldn’t get Maggie off his mind even as he settled into his favorite armchair in his quarters. So much of his feelings were tangled and knotted, he needed to find some way to focus on anything else. No matter what he tried to do, study, pray, even pace, she was not far from his thoughts.
The priest was afraid to put a name to these foreign emotions and so he leaned his head back, rubbing at his eyes, trying in vain to center himself. The strong ache in his chest was enough to drive him mad and yet being with Maggie eased it. Being away from her, knowing she was talking and laughing with another man, made him crazy in and of itself.
“I am not just man, I am priest,” he told the empty room. That had always defined him, and yet when he was near her, when she smiled at him or touched him, that clarity evaporated.
She had come into his life and turned everything upside down. What was worse, none of this felt wrong. It was new and frightening, but when he gazed into her deep, brown eyes, all was right with the world. She was right. They were right.
Anatoly jumped at a knock on the door and a not insignificant part of him hoped it was her, come to see him, come to tell him that she too felt this strange flurry of mixed-up affection and fear.
“Enter,” he called, trying to keep the eagerness from his tone.
A second later as his deacon slipped inside with a polite, “Good evening, Father Anatoly,” he forced a smile to cover the disappointment.
“Ah, dobryy vecher, James,” he greeted, realizing that he had completely forgotten their usual appointment.
“Am I intruding, Father?” So James had picked up on his distracted mental state or perhaps it was that Anatoly still hadn’t bothered to dry himself off. He barely noticed the damp clothes he wore or the stray strands of hair that fell out of his soggy ponytail.
Anatoly shook his head, grateful for the company even if it wasn’t Maggie’s. “Not at all. Please, come in and we will get started. How are you this evening?”
Their pleasantries continued even as James came further into the room, rolling his sleeves up as he took a seat on the coffee table closest to where Anatoly sat.
It was a favor James had performed for him since he became deacon six years ago. That’s when Anatoly’s secret of being a vampire had come out to the other man and they made this arrangement.
“Better for you to feed on me than members of our flock,” James had said, and Anatoly wholeheartedly agreed.
