Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Jimmy
Headlights braided into rivers. Billboards slid past—injury lawyers, fireworks, Jesus Saves.
The driver’s window was cracked, and the evening air rushed in—sticky and warm, full of pine, asphalt, and the ghosts of a million other decisions made at eighty miles an hour.
My fingers hurt from gripping the wheel, but I couldn’t make them loosen up.
Every time I blinked, I was back in his bedroom: the soft spill of lamplight, Lucien’s shirt coming off in one effortless motion, the heat of him when he covered me on the mattress—careful, and then not careful at all.
I could still feel the drag of his mouth, the question he asked without words and the way my body answered yes, yes, God yes before my brain slammed on the brakes.
The memory came with a current, something low and electric that seized me in the spine and made my foot waver on the gas.
Pure attraction—that was too small a phrase.
I wanted him like a fish craves water.
And that was the part that scrambled me even more than the sight of his body: Lucien wasn’t just beautiful.
He was good. He had a steady, generous nature you only feel around very few people.
Lucien fed strangers, and he truly listened to others.
He was everything the Bible said a good man should be.
But Lucien belonged to the Temple of Satan, and every sermon I’d ever had spooned into my mouth told me that was wrong. Full stop. I could hear Daddy’s voice climbing a pulpit in my head: There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
“Then why does Lucien seem filled with light?” I murmured to the empty cab, and the sound of my voice made me flinch.
I passed the exit for Emporia and tried to breathe through the tightening in my chest. Shame ran next to my desires, matching it stride for stride.
I was ashamed of running like a frightened rabbit when Lucien asked me if I wanted him.
Guilt coursed through me for how my hands had been on his shoulders one second, on his chest the next, and then flat against him, pushing—no, pleading — Stop, I can’t.
I was twenty-eight years old, and I’d run away like a child.
God knows what Lucien thought of me now.
By the time the sign for Rocky Mount glowed up out of the dark, my eyes burned and the muscles in my jaw had locked into a steady ache.
The exit ramp curved off the interstate like a bent knuckle.
I took it too fast, tires rasping, and had to correct twice before I straightened out on the service road.
The strip malls gathered their fluorescent light to themselves, harsh islands in the night—AutoZone, a closed nail salon, the twenty-four-hour gas station where I used to buy gummy worms.
“Almost home,” I mumbled.
The words didn’t comfort me. My pulse ticked up, fast and thin, like it was trying to get my attention before it was too late.
I turned onto our street and saw that the porch light was on.
The driveway gravel crunched under my tires.
I killed the engine, and the sudden silence felt like a held breath.
My stomach rolled, and I sat there a full minute, hands on the wheel, listening to the ticks of the engine cooling and the slow, mean voice in my head cataloging my failures.
Daddy’s going to yell, and you deserve it. You ran from Lucien because you’re a coward. You’re going to hell because you want him so badly.
I got out of my truck and walked to the door. The lock stuck, like it did in humidity, and for a stupid second I nearly laughed. Even the deadbolt knew better than to let me in.
The foyer light was on, and Daddy’s home office door stood half open down the hall, blue TV light flickering against the wood paneling. I had one foot on the carpet when his voice rolled out, irritated.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” He stepped into the doorway, a shadow cut out of light, and folded his arms. “Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Richmond, digging up dirt on the Satanists?”
My mouth opened, and nothing came out. My tongue felt thick, my throat dry.
I swallowed and tried again, piecing the lie together as gently as I could.
“The leads… uh… I lost the trail. I thought it might be smart to regroup, you know, get my head right. I’ll head back up to Richmond first thing in the morning. ”
Daddy’s face did that thing where it smoothed out—flat as a leveled cake—right before the temperature dropped.
“Regroup,” he repeated, like it was a vulgar word.
“Son, this isn’t a vacation, or a school project with a tidy deadline.
This is warfare. We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
” He shook his head and sighed. “You think the Devil is going to hand you a schedule?”
“I just—” The words were out, and he was already talking through it.
“No.” He raised a hand, palm out, and the gesture stopped me the way it had since I was a boy.
“You were sent on a mission. To expose the unfruitful works of darkness. Ephesians five. You were sent to rescue souls from devil worshippers using pentagrams. And you left.” His mouth curled around the words as if they tasted foul. “Empty-handed.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “I was scared,” I mumbled.
“Scared.” The laugh he gave was airless.
“The righteous are bold as a lion.” Daddy stepped closer, voice dropping into the cadence that worked on crowds.
“Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Joshua, chapter one.
The verse I’d been force-fed so often it had the texture of chalk.
“Where is your faith, Jimmy? Where is your spine?”
I tried to answer, but Daddy rolled on.
“This family has a calling. People look to us for guidance and wisdom.” His eyes glittered. “And you think you can walk off the battlefield in the middle of the fight?” He shook his head, almost pitying. “No. That’s not how we run this house.”
Shame and anger fought in my stomach until I couldn’t tell which was winning.
Daddy took a deep breath, then changed keys. “And since the Lord is not the author of confusion, let me be specific.” He put his hands behind his back and sighed. “The ministry is in trouble.”
I looked up. He watched my face like a hawk, satisfied to see me flinch.
“Rent on the studio’s going up next quarter,” he breathed, the money talk reserved for when there wasn’t an audience to applaud.
“The signal lease is increasing, and the cost of insurance is a nightmare. We’re down dozens of donors because the economy is soft and folks are spending on sin instead of the Lord.
” He gave a small, mirthless smile. “And we both know your little sabbatical up in Richmond hasn’t paid dividends. ”
“I’m—” I started, but the word snapped under his next sentence.
“If you don’t bring me a story,” he said, enunciating each piece like a stone set into mortar, “Tanner Ministries is going under.” He let that hang a beat, then added the hook: “And if it does, it will be because you failed.”
The floor tilted under me. It was the old rhythm, the one he’d taught me so well I didn’t know where it ended and I began: mission, fear, obligation, blame. He didn’t raise his voice the way he had when I was sixteen; he didn’t need to.
“I—” I blinked hard, and hot tears streamed down my face before I could be ashamed of them.
Shockingly, Daddy softened his tone by a hair.
“You can fix this,” he said. “You can make me proud. Faith without works is dead.” Another verse, another nail.
“Get back in that truck. You go back to Richmond and walk into that den of vipers with the armor of God, and you come back with truth. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, the words tumbling out fast, tripping over each other to get to a place where he wouldn’t say the next thing. “I’ll go back tonight. I’m sorry. I got scared. I shouldn’t have left. I’ll—” I wiped my cheek with the heel of my hand. “Daddy, I’ll fix it.”
He clapped me once on the shoulder, hard enough to sting. “That’s my boy,” he said, and the endearment landed like a bruise. Then, brisk again: “Put your faith in the Lord. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Now go, and do the Lord’s work.”
The conversation was over because he’d decided it was. I stood there another second, breathing in the faint, sweet tang of whiskey he thought I couldn’t smell, and tried to remember how to be big in my own skin.
I couldn’t. Not here. Not with his voice still echoing in the hall like the after-ring of a slammed door.
So I nodded like an obedient son, turned, and walked out of the house. The screen door whispered against its frame behind me. I moved down the steps like a man twice my age and crossed the short distance to my truck on legs that didn’t quite feel like they belonged to me.
My hands shook when I slid the key into the ignition. I set them on my lap and waited until the shaking had passed. In the windshield, the house looked peaceful as a postcard—porch light glowed, curtains still, the shadow of my father pacing in his office.
I’d never felt so small.
I started the truck, and the engine coughed, then caught. I wiped my face with my sleeve. “Back to Richmond,” I sighed.
I pulled out of the driveway and turned toward the interstate.
The truck hummed under me as I eased back onto the road, gravel popping under the tires before it gave way to asphalt.
The interstate lights shimmered ahead, and my stomach let out a loud growl that cut through the engine noise.
I hadn’t eaten since I’d been with Lucien at the food kitchen.
My chest tightened remembering it. Maybe food would settle me.