Decker pressed a finger over his lips, muffling Laurie’s sudden jolt of surprise. “Youdo.” He leaned forward until he could feel the shuddering breath the preacher dragged into his lungs and see the reflection in his iris before his gaze darted away. “I will make a deal with you, Mr. Lane.” Decker dropped his finger away.
Laurie’s throat worked. He nodded.
“Tell me why you left seminary, and I will tell you what I know of your uncle.”
Laurie flushed, shaking his head, as if trying to throw away memories. “It’s shameful—”
“You said once, no one was to blame but yourself, but there’s always another side, Mr. Lane.”
His flush deepened.
“A priest requires a vow of chastity. It would be hard for a young man to fully commit if there was someone else.” Decker’s lips twitched in amusement.
Laurie set his jaw, and Decker knew he’d hit and opened an oldwound. “I almost was—”
“But you’re not.”
Laurie’s eyes flashed. “I would have been a priest if it wasn’t for men likeyou.”
There you are.
Laurie’s slamming heartbeat crowded the space between them.
The saloon door banged against the wall downstairs.
“Men like me,” Decker said softly.
Laurie spoke like he was grasping at marbles that slipped out of reach. “Men thatseeme. You see all of me, you speak with me like—”
“I’ve barely spoken to you.”
“It’showyou speak to me,” Laurie snapped.
Decker’s eyes narrowed. “And how do I speak to you?”
Laurie’s heart thundered, and Decker watched him like a hunter, searching for what Laurie buried inside of him on his way out West and knowing damn well he understood, but wanting him tosay it.
“You speak to me like you know the deepest parts of me. Like youwantto know me.” Laurie’s lips parted and his chest quivered with each breath. “Do you want to know me, Decker?”
The world narrowed to the blood pulsing through Laurie’s veins, and,god.
Sun-sickness was a powerful thing.
I want to know you.
Wanted to know what Laurie would sound like, what he tasted like.
Decker thought he knew.
The thought repulsed him, and he recoiled like a viper, but once he started he could not stop.
Laurie would taste like the warmth of incense and the sweetness of communion wine he’d never had, like the hush of wings in an attic and the bite of a pious man in a pulpit.
Decker wondered if the silver hanging at his neck would brand a cross into his hands when he dragged him forward, wondered if Laurie was so lonely he wouldn’t even mind. Wondered what sounds he’d make with teeth in the crook of his neck, turning white collar to crimson.
Heat thickened the stale air in the bedroom and Decker’s tongue flicked out against his own dry lips.
Safine clattered up the stairs and Laurie’s gaze turned pleading, even as Decker backed away.
At the door, his steps faltered and Laurie’s blood slowed in his ears to a stuttering trickle, no longer a beckoning, raging force. The preacher still wrote his own death sentence, but Decker couldn’t decide if his confession dripped ink across his pardon or his punishment.
“Tread carefully, Mr. Lane. Past lives have a habit of catching up to people who settle in Ender’s Ridge.”
