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Yep? That was what I had? Twenty years of personality and I’d produced yep to a cute guy who was clearly checking me out.

He turned away, and that moth poofed out of my stomach like a bad fart. I watched him carry the boxes towards the administration building and admired those damn tan pants and what they could do for a man of his physique.

Trevor leaned closer. “You’re staring.”

“I absolutely am not staring.”

“You are.”

I turned and Trevor grinned. Little fucker.

My father cleared his throat. And the moth died again, this time as a shit stain you didn’t notice. Never trust a damn silent fart.

“You’re encouraging this by your leader? Do you not feel the need for proper structure?” Dad’s gaze had landed on Trevor, and everything playful disappeared from me.

“Encouraging what, Pastor… Carter?”

He nodded towards Trevor’s cheer top, and the poor kid immediately crossed his arms over himself, folding in like before I’d helped his butterfly keep from turning into a silent shart.

I stepped sideways. Between them. “He’s a fucking child,” I said through gritted teeth. “Crazy concept that kids can have fun.”

“He is a young man who needs proper education on etiquette.”

“He is a kid at summer camp wearing a piece of fabric, old man.”

“There are appropriate ways for young men to conduct themselves, Alvin. You should be ashamed of this silly behavior.”

I laughed. “Christ on a fucking stick. You mean I should teach him the real hetero way of shit so he can get laid and make more sheep for you to lead to slaughter, right?”

“Watch your mouth, son.”

“Or what?”

The silence showed it. A crack. Tiny. Invisible to everybody else. But I felt it as sure as I saw it.

My heart had started beating too fast. My father looked at me with the same calm expression he’d worn right before I’d feel the burn. Both real and metaphorical. Never yelling. That would have looked ugly, and Xavier Carter did not do ugly where anyone else could see.

He did Scripture. Lectures. Locked doors. Fingers digging into shoulders. Belts folded neatly over the back of dining room chairs. Fire searing into palms but never leaving a mark he couldn’t hide. He did prayer afterwards.

That was always my favorite part. Nothing said parental love quite like being instructed to thank God for the pain one of his disciples was inflicting.

“Alvin,” Dad said and the area around me disappeared.

I was sixteen. Standing in the church basement after choir rehearsal. A boy named Aaron had kissed my cheek. Barely. It had been stupid. Sweet and fast. Innocent to my virgin ass. But… my father had seen it.

I remembered the drive back. More specifically, the tense silence while his hands gripped the steering wheel. When we got home, he locked the door. My mother went upstairs. I could just make out the tears streaming down her face.

Dad told me to kneel before him and I refused. Once. Only once. His palm caught my face hard enough that my ears rang and my body slammed to the ground. Then he dragged me down by my shirt collar.

“You will kneel before God.”

I remembered staring at the carpet fibers. Green. That ugly vomit-green made for nursing homes. Not places where families lived together. One strand stuck beneath my thumbnail. I focused on that while Dad prayed out loud over me, blood dripping from my nose and lip. It was staining the ugly green carpet.

“Cast it out.”

“Cleanse him.”

“Remove temptation.”