Thirteen
Jude
Taking the plate of tacos, chips,burritos, rice, and black beans, which Sibby had wrapped up for me after the group meeting on Saturday night, over to Saylor served two purposes. One, I’d get to find out why she hadn’t come to the meeting. Two, I’d get to see her.
At least I’m admitting it, Lord . I wasn’t lying to myself.
She was never far from my thoughts. And yesterday, watching her with the lady who had come in for some clothes had not helped.
She had flashed those dimples, treated that woman as if she were a customer in a store, and acted like a saleslady, helping her shop. I had stood there, watching it, unable to look away. Even with Sister Mena right there, seeing me do it. I couldn’t help it. That had been beautiful.
When she hadn’t shown up tonight, I’d had a hard time staying focused. I had told myself all day that I’d get to see her at the meeting. Hear her talk. Watch her smile. Hopefully find a reason to sit by her so I could smell her and torture myself some more. The disappointment had caused the evening to feel long and Sibby’s behavior to annoy me further.
Since it was late, I decided to knock instead of using my key to walk inside and startle her. I waited for a moment, then heard the lock unbolt.
“What part of I need another hour—” She stopped midsentence when the door was fully opened and her eyes met mine. “Father Jude. Sorry. I thought you were…my cousin.”
I held up the plate. “You missed tonight’s dinner. It was catered by Papitos. I brought you some. You haven’t left, and I thought you might be hungry.”
She stepped back. “Um, come in. I mean, if you want to.”
I wanted to. God help me because of how bad I wanted to.
I stepped inside, and the scent of lavender hit me. That was new. Yesterday, it had smelled clean, but more citrusy. This was welcoming.
“I didn’t know the group had catered meals. I thought everyone took turns, bringing food,” she said.
“It was Sibby’s night. She bought a catered meal from Papitos and put it on her own serving platters, then claimed she’d made it. We all knew though,” I replied, closing the door behind me.
She took the plate from me and peeled back the foil to look underneath. “The tacos. She seriously tried to pass Papitos tacos off as her own?” Saylor asked incredulously.
I nodded. “Yep.”
Saylor picked up one of their homemade chips. “Lying to a priest at a church event,” she drawled with a shake of her head before popping it into her mouth.
Her plump lips were bare, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need gloss or lipstick to make them tempting. I was jealous of a chip. Jerking my gaze off her mouth, I walked farther inside to see what all she’d done since I had last been here.
“Thanks for feeding me. I’m starving.”
I kept myself from looking back at her by scanning the room. Five new shoe racks stood against the back wall. There were shelves along the far right, and over by the kids corner, there was a small table with chairs, along with a bucketful of crayons, a stack of coloring books, a basket with blocks and another with Legos. Behind that was a short bookshelf, full of children’s books.
“You set up a place for kids to play while their adult shops,” I said in awe at all the things she had thought of and made happen.
“We haven’t had any kids in yet, but when we do, we are ready for them. My mom never gets rid of anything, and that was all in our attic from my childhood.”
I stuck my hands in the front pockets of my jeans and turned to look at her, sitting on a stool she’d pulled up to a table in the unused portion of the space. It was what I wanted to do anyway. Take her in. See her smile. Watch her mouth when she chewed.
“You’re amazing, Saylor Rice.” There, I’d said it. At least I hadn’t called her Dimples.
Her cheeks pinkened, and she grinned, making the dimples pop. She ducked her head and picked up a taco from the plate. “I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just that I enjoy doing things like this. Gives me a purpose.”
Any other female on the planet with this one’s beauty would believe her purpose was to be worshipped and adored. How was it that Saylor Rice hadn’t grown up to be self-absorbed?
“You’re the most puzzling contradiction I’ve ever come across.” I said the words before I thought them through.
The taco in her hand stopped midway from the plate to her mouth. Her head tilted slightly as she stared at me. “Perhaps you should elaborate,” she said, lowering her hand and placing the taco back down instead of taking a bite.
I could stand in front of a congregation and speak with no issue. But females? Gorgeous, stunning females like this one? I was not so good with them. I’d not dated and flirted. There had been very little conversing with women who didn’t go by Sister, who weren’t thirty years older than me, who weren’t devout Catholics, or who I wasn’t related to. I was realizing I might suck at it.
Delana and I had fallen in love young. From the moment I’d met her my freshman year of high school, I’d known she was the one I would love. And I did. I’d loved her hard.
Saylor was waiting on me to say something.
“That was one of those things I should have said in my head instead of blurting it out,” I replied. “Talking to beautiful women isn’t my strong suit. I apologize.”
There was a flicker in her eyes of something that didn’t need to be there, but I wanted to see it again.
“What about me is a puzzling contradiction?”
She was going to make me explain that. She was determined. Another trait that I liked about her. If I hadn’t found her that first day in the sanctuary and witnessed the vulnerability in her eyes, the lost look, I wouldn’t have known she had any weaknesses at all.
I cleared my throat and tugged on my collar, which felt a little tight right now. “You drive a Bentley. What looks like a very new one. I’ve seen you carry a Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and what I believe is called a Birkin purse. You’re stunning, the kind of perfect that is intimidating, to the point of making a priest tongue-tied.” I smirked and rubbed at my stubbled jaw, embarrassed I’d just admitted that. “If someone didn’t know you, they’d assume you were…well, not one who would spend thirteen—and oftentimes more—hours a day in a free clothes closet, where homeless people come in, smelly and dirty. Not only that, but you also make those people feel important. Wanted. You give them a taste of dignity that many have long since lost. I mean, you have to know what you are doing. It’s not normal for anyone to work this hard for no pay. Not even the Sisters in our parish. But you want to. You enjoy it. I can see it on your face.” I stopped, although I could go on.
She dropped her eyes from me to the taco on her plate. When she said nothing, I replayed my words in my head to make sure I hadn’t been insulting in any way.
“I do enjoy it,” she said. “But I didn’t decide to do it because I was some selfless humanitarian. I did it because my life had no point. I held no meaning. When I woke up, I did nothing to benefit anyone. Not even myself. It was time I changed that. The void in my chest. The reason I came to your church to begin with was because I couldn’t find a way to fix what was broken in me. This was what was broken. I hadn’t even known who I was without Crosby. He had been my identity. And not only was he dead, but what I’d thought I had wasn’t real either.” She shook her head, then lifted her eyes back to meet mine. “If he hadn’t died and you’d met me, you would have seen that shallow, self-absorbed, spoiled girl. And it makes me sad that it took his death to open my eyes. To fix myself.”
This wasn’t something I’d ever considered eleven years ago, when I decided that my life would be best spent helping others, living alone, taking a vow of celibacy. I had never expected to feel anything remotely close to how I’d felt about Delana. Yet here I was.
I closed the space between us. A thirst drawing me in, the craving taking over everything I knew, controlling my actions, erasing and rewriting the rules, pushing me to taste her. See just how soft her lips felt under mine. Hear the quick intake of her breath as I delved inside her sweetness and experienced it.
Those almond-shaped eyes, the color of the deepest sea as the sun glistened over it, widened as I stopped with barely an inch between us before my legs brushed against hers. With her head tilted up, the angelic platinum hair, pulled up high on her head, swung gently. Her chest was no longer rising and falling. She’d stopped breathing. My gaze dropped to her lips just as the bottom one trembled. The tip of her pink tongue darting out to moisten them.
Leaning down close to her face, the warmth of her stuttered breath heating my skin, I could picture it. I could already taste her on my tongue. She would be worth a thousand lifetimes spent in hell.
“Jude.” My name passed her lips in a shaky whisper.
That was what saved me. That one word. Reminding me that I was not just Jude. Although the sound of her saying my name would replay over and over in my mind. It would be my favorite song, hymn. If I could record it, I would. Just to live in the same torment that I was experiencing right now.
With a strength that could only come from God, I fisted my hands, held my breath so that her scent didn’t weaken me, and straightened, stepped back, then took brutal strides toward the door. Not looking back. Not speaking. Because either could strip from me the sliver of a hold I had on my willpower. My vow.
The sound as the heavy metal door closed behind me made me wince. I sucked in a deep breath and locked my eyes on the rectory. I could not look back.