19. Andrea
CHAPTER 19
Andrea
Cry - James Blunt
Diana: Where are you?
Me: What are you… my mother? :P
Diana: No, I’m just worried about you.
Me: You won’t approve lol so it’s best if I keep you in the dark.
Diana: Now, I really am worried.
U nsurprisingly, she patches through a call.
For a moment, I hesitate to answer, but knowing her concern is genuine, I huff and hit the ‘connect’ button.
“Talk to me, Andrea.”
I grimace at her tone of voice. It’s half-kicked puppy and half-terrified.
“I’m fine, Diana.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not!”
“How can you be fine? You discharged yourself from the hospital months early?—”
“I get headaches easily,” I attempt to appease. “But aside from that and needing to take it carefully when I walk, I’m okay. I promise.”
Her heavy exhalation blows in my ear. “Why won’t you tell me where you are? I have to assume you’re not in your Airbnb.”
“You wouldn’t approve and I don’t want to lie to you.”
“You can tell me anything.” She tuts. “You should know that by now.”
A wicked smile dances on my lips. “I’m in the presbytery?—”
“The WHAT?!”
“Sheesh, calm down,” I chide, tugging my phone away from my head. “If I didn’t have a migraine, then I would now, Diana!”
“Fuck. Sorry. I just… What are you doing in a presbytery, Andy?”
“What do you think?”
“Now is not the time for joking!”
“I think it’s the perfect time.”
“Did you faint?”
“No.” I snort.
“Then why are you in a presbytery?”
“Father Martin let me stay here.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to.”
She groans. “What are you doing?”
“Tempting a priest.”
“That’s sooooo wrong.”
“Life’s for living.”
That earns me another groan. “I swear you’re more trouble than Isabella and Erica—” Her kiddos. “—combined. Tell me what happened.”
Now, I hedge for real. “He hurt himself. Neither of us felt comfortable leaving him alone.”
More like I clutched at my head when a throbbing pain attacked my temple and he offered me a bed for the night.
Not his bed, but that will come with time.
Savio is mine.
I just need to show him the way.
“My God, you’re in his house,” she hisses. “I don’t believe you!”
“I know. It’s… nice. ”
“Do priests sleep naked?”
A laugh escapes me. “Diana!”
“Oh, you . This is your fault.”
“How is it my fault?”
“You opened the doors to dirty thoughts.”
“Should I tell Jason to buy a cassock so you can play naughty parishioner and priest?—”
“The next time I see you, I will hit you.”
I grin. “You really are into corporal punishment, huh?”
“I’m going to hang up if you’re not careful!”
Though my grin widens, I merely say, “I don’t know if he sleeps naked but he should. I saw beneath the cassock?—”
“Holy shit!”
“Holy something. He’s gorgeous.” Scars and all. There are many of them, though. So fucking many.
“How did he hurt himself?”
Anxiety hits me. “You want to know?”
“Of course.”
“It’s bad.”
“Oh… Private?”
“Yes. But you’re right. We have few secrets between us.”
“Aside from the massive headaches you were having and the wings you thought you had.”
“I’ll be the one hanging up if you?—”
“Fine, fine. Sorry. Okay, what happened?”
“He was whipping himself and I knocked on his door and stopped him. He was bleeding so I helped tend his wounds.”
“Crap on a corndog!”
“Yeah.” My fingers tangle in the coarse sheets. Nothing luxurious here. Just basic fabric that makes sackcloth look silky.
“The monk in The Da Vinci Code did that. I thought the practice had died out.”
“Self-flagellation isn’t encouraged, but how would the higher-ups stop it?”
“It’s sick.”
“Yeah. He is, I guess. The years haven’t been kind to him. Remember I told you about how Linda’s ex dipped her hand in bleach to punish her for flirting with a partner of his at his law firm?”
“Yes.”
“The father’s back was worse than that. He went hot and heavy with the whip. There was a lot of blood.”
“God.” She clears her throat. “Didn’t it scare you?”
I choke out a laugh. “That he’d come after me with his whip? No. He’s more of a danger to himself than he is to me.”
“Oh, Jesus, you really are going to try and fix him, aren’t you?”
“You know me too well,” is my dry retort. “He needs me, Diana. As much as you did.”
“H-He’s safe?”
“I’m telling you he’s more of a danger to himself than to me. It was self-harm?—”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.” With my body aching from the day’s adventures, I can’t withhold my yawn when it breaks free. “He wouldn’t classify it as that but it is.”
“You should get some sleep.”
“It’s been a crazy day,” I admit.
“Sounds like I’m only hearing the half of it.”
I just chuckle. Tiredly. “The worst part was cleaning his back.”
“I’ll bet. I’m not sure how you do it, Andrea. You have a good heart.”
“Nah.”
“ Yes . I wouldn’t be here, right where I am now if it weren’t for you.”
I know that.
We both know that.
“He’s farther along the path than I expected. Farther than even you were.”
“Wow. You expected him to be fucked up?”
“You know what he endured as well as I do.”
“True, but… would the Church let him be a priest if he were that bad?”
“They shield pedophiles, Diana,” I grumble. “What do you think?”
“Ugh,” she whines. “You’re not encouraging him to resign so that you can be with him, are you?”
I can’t stop myself from cackling. Though she’s right, I just say, “You think I have more power than I do.”
“No, I’ve seen you at work. You’re half-guardian angel, half-bulldozer. People think because you’re blonde and beautiful that you’re a pushover. But they’re the ones who get railroaded into doing whatever you want them to.”
“You make me sound despotic!” I cry.
“Only when it comes to someone you care about.”
Though I purse my lips in annoyance, I confess, “I want to have sex with him.”
“Didn’t think you wanted to gaze adoringly at him for a lifetime.”
“Diana!”
She sniffs.
“Sex isn’t a salve. Plus, I’m probably shit in bed so it’s not as if I even know how to help him.”
“God, I wonder if he’s a virgin too.”
“Maybe. He wasn’t exactly a baby when he entered the seminary though. Still, if any man needs an orgasm, it’s him?—”
“Andrea!”
I smirk at the wall that separates me from my man. “He oozes testosterone, Diana.”
“If you did get him between the sheets, he’d be so ready to explode, you wouldn’t have to worry about being inexperienced,” she says wryly. “Not that it’d be much fun for you.”
“I’ll take one for the team this time.”
“Big of you,” she drawls. “Sex isn’t a cure—you were right about that.”
“I know.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.” I huff. “Man, he’s gorgeous. His pictures don’t do him justice. Even covered in blood, he was fine?—”
“Weirdo.”
“Don’t yuck my yum. He must work out a lot.”
“Sounds like you.”
“I’m not muscly. Not anymore.”
“Give it time, honey.”
Though I pout, I accept her words as the fact they are. It’s already a miracle that I’m lying under his roof. My muscles will come back eventually.
“He had those veins running down his biceps?—”
“Yum, but equally, wouldn’t they be pumped up because he was whipping himself, so eww ?”
“Stop being rational.” He’s not mega stacked but plenty enough for my overactive imagination.
“It’s a failing of mine. Why on earth he puts himself through that?—”
Before I can tell her that I don’t get it either, I hear a shout.
Immediately, I bolt upright, ignoring the dots dancing at the peripheries of my vision.
“What was that?” Diana demands.
“You heard it?”
“Yeah.”
“It sounded like a nightmare. I should go see if he’s?—”
“Don’t check on him! What if he dreams he’s back in…”
“Oran,” I provide when she doesn’t finish the sentence.
“He could think you’re his captor. He might hurt you.”
“I can’t let him suffer.”
“Andrea!”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Sure I do,” I tell her as I carefully clamber out of bed.
There’s no way I’m letting him deal with this on his own. A part of me must have anticipated this happening because why else would I be awake when my head aches like a piledriver’s hammering it into the ground and my eyes are burning from staying open?
With his past, nightmares are to be expected.
And all this time, he’s been dealing with them alone.
Another shout makes itself known to me and, hurriedly, I tell Diana, “I have to go. I’ll call you in the morning.”
I don’t let her get a word in edgewise—just disconnect the call and drop my cell on the bed.
Savio needs me and there will never come a day when I’m not here for him.
No one knows better than Diana that I protect what’s mine.
And he is—mine.
The sooner he accepts that, the better.