The Bones of Love (A Last Responders Romance)

chapter 1

Gus, Beltane

Downstairs was packed with bodies.

The blue room and the mauve room and the chapel. Spilling out into the grand and gleaming mahogany-paneled foyer of Smythe Company Mortuary.

At least they were all live bodies, thank God.

Though today, I probably would have been able to breathe easier in a room full of caskets than at a party.

Thisparty.

They all meant well, those bodies. But they were here for me, and I wasn’t used to this kind of suffocating attention.

All the talking. The laughing. The cheek-pinching and back-clapping. The low roar of conversation punctuated by a sudden barking laugh, of forks scraping across fine porcelain.

My carefully arranged smile was as frozen as if it had been embalmed in place.

I was born in this house. I had descended from generations of morticians, I only knew what it was like to exist quietly. Always on the periphery of death.

From an impossibly young age, I’d known all the right things to say if I accidentally ran into a grieving guest on my way out to play ball with friends. I knew to ask questions and get people talking about their deceased loved one, because even as a kid, something inside me understood that people just needed a warm body to tell their stories to.

But no matter how hard I was grasping for that same quick compassion I’d always had for others, when it was time to apply it to myself, it eluded me.

A carrot just out of reach.

The whole time Mrs. Drakos had been talking to me, I’d been eyeing the main staircase, waiting for my chance to bolt. I could only joke, and charm, and keep people at bay for so long.

I balled my hands into fists behind my back when there was no one to see me do it. My shoulders ached from the strain of holding them erect for so long. I’d exhausted all the ways to covertly wipe coffee and half-masticated graduation cake spittle off my cheek.

Finally, Mrs. Drakos stopped cooing about her lovely granddaughter, who’d be “just right for me,” and turned to acknowledge something her husband said.

There it was. The lull I’d been looking for.

“Mrs. Drakos—” I placed a hand on her shoulder. Lovingly, gracefully. I hoped.

“Marina.”

“Marina. Would you excuse me for a minute? I… need to check on my father.”

Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. A liar.

“Bravo, Kosta. I’m so happy we have men like you in the church. Time to get married now, yes? I’ll bring Anna next Sunday. You don’t want to waste such a handsome face.” She patted my cheek again.

Her Greek accent was the same as my Yia-Yiá”s. It should have comforted. Instead, her words slithered in the pit of my empty belly and dug deep.

When I entered seminary, it certainly hadn’t been my intention to waste my handsome face on celibacy. I thought I’d be married by now; entering the priesthood side-by-side with my wife, my presvytera.

I’d never expected I’d end up a monk. I liked women. Liked fucking. Way too much. I was good at it.

It was fucking ironic.

It made sense for Ma to throw this party here at the mortuary. My old life was ending.

This was my wake.

I backed away, trying to look nonchalant while inside, my heartbeat thudded in my throat. Checking one last time to ensure no one had been paying attention, I turned the corner and flew up the staircase, my black robe billowing behind me.

If I could get a minute to myself, I’d be okay.

I could swallow again; stick my head out a window and suck in the humid spring air instead of the humid interior air, recycled from too many sets of lungs.

A moment alone was all I needed. It was all the time I could afford, since I was the guest of honor.

I couldn’t ditch them for long.

Pausing at the top of the narrow attic steps, I took a deep breath and blew it out in a long, audible huff. I straightened the high collar of my robe. It still chafed after years of classes and services.

A heavy ornate cross hung just past my heart. It came with the uniform. A single point of ostentation. The filigreed setting of the jewels cut into my hand as I clutched it, but I didn’t loosen my grip as I turned the knob to the solitary attic space.

I took a step into the room and stopped.

Mottled colors from the stained-glass window painted a fractured portrait over a woman’s lithe body, and the long black hair that hung loose down her back.

Decca.

She spun around. Impossibly big, sage green eyes met mine. “Gus!” She huffed out a breath. “You scared me. I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be—“

“No, it’s fine,” I lied. “I’m the one who’s not supposed to be up here.”

“It’s… crowded down there.”

“Yeah.” I nodded once, slowly. “It is.”

I loosened my grip on the cross. The movement caught her attention. Her eyes glittered as she studied the silver and ruby emblem hanging from my neck.

“Everyone’s trying to set me up with random women in a last-ditch effort to get me married off before ordination.” I said it lightly, trying to hide that I felt like I was on a gallows; the rough fibers of a noose scratching my neck, compelling me to scream out for my executioner to just kick the damn stool out from under me already.

The deadline loomed. If I wasn’t married by the time I entered the priesthood, I’d be forced into a life of monasticism.

“None of the women you dated at seminary…?”

“No.” I smiled half-heartedly.

Something flashed in her eyes. “But then you… you’ll just have to put off your ordination. Until you’ve found someone.”

“Decca.” I stopped, searching for any words that didn’t make me sound pathetic. “It’s time.”

She nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

What was she apologizing for? For bringing it up? Or was she feeling pity because my dick would never get wet again?

We stood in silence for long, empty minutes. But slowly, the knots in my shoulders uncoiled. It was easier to breathe, and I felt like myself again.

Because of Decca.

She took a step closer as she adjusted her necklace, the emotion on her face unreadable.

Why wasn’t she leaving? She needed to leave. She couldn’t be here.

I had to start living my life without her.

Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled. She looked the opposite of how I felt.

“I was looking at your books. You have an enviable collection.”

Fuck.The books.

She moved to the bookshelf. It was weighted heavily with the texts I’d needed in school: dusty volumes written in Koine Greek, the original language of the Gospels. But there were also modern Bible translations, liturgies, and services—both Orthodox and Protestant. I owned a healthy amount of secular and religious philosophy and important translations of major religious texts: the pristinely translated Clear Quran, the Babylonian Talmud, Zohar, and Mishneh Torah, the Canaanite Baal Cycle, the Vedic writings of Hinduism.

I glanced feverishly to my left with a sinking feeling in my gut. The second shelf from the top was entirely devoted to Wicca, Druidism, Neo-Paganism, witchcraft, and various folkloric, indigenous, and heritage practices, especially those concentrated in Appalachia and the United States.

Where Decca’s people came from.

How long had she been in here? Had she noticed how cracked those spines were compared to the other books? How dogeared the pages were in the Foxfire series of Appalachian oral histories?

I’d started acquiring the books in the “witchy” subsection after meeting her a couple years ago. Decca and I had become instant friends and since then, we’d spent several nights a week on Zoom calls, talking about philosophy or religion. Her cases. My papers. She’d listen to me humming a chant that constantly ran through my head as she read.

Sometimes, we’d work independently in silence.

Sometimes, we’d watch something together on Netflix.

Once in a while, she’d casually mention something her granny had done or said. Or, a surprisingly rural, old-timey phrase would slip into her mostly academic discourse. I’d say nothing at the time, but later I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my head. I’d comb through my books, looking for vestigial examples of what she might be referencing.

All to learn more about this mercurial woman who’d broken through my walls and forced my friendship.

Now that woman was here, and something told me she’d been waiting for me.

“You have a Satanic Bible?”

I shrugged. “I like to know how all God’s children think.”

I took a few tentative steps into the room but didn’t shut the door.

Decca noticed. Her eyes remained on the open door for a split second before she turned back to the books.

“What are these?” She pointed to the Greek on the spines.

“Different liturgies. Services,” I clarified, when she looked up.

I moved closer to her and bent low, looking for a specific book, running my fingers over the tops of the spines. “Here.” I wrenched it out from its tight squeeze and handed it to her. “The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. That’s what you’ve seen. When you’ve come to church with my sister.”

She held it like a Holy Relic, like the tip of Saint Barbara’s desiccated pinky finger. A fragment of Saint Anna’s skull. I half expected a beam of light to shine up from the pages and illuminate her face.

I laughed. Her sweet reverence was all too endearing. “It’s just a guidebook for service. It’s not even blessed. A textbook, really.”

“May I borrow this?”

“Keep it. I have a hundred copies.”

She narrowed her eyes skeptically and opened to the beginning. “‘To Kosta.’ I can’t read the rest. It’s in Greek.” She closed the book and held it out to me. “Gus, I can’t keep this. It was a gift. An expensive one, considering the age of its still-intact leather binding.”

“It was. And I’m giving it to you.” I felt for the slits in my robe to pocket my hands in my slacks underneath.

She sighed, but hugged the book close to her chest. “Why did he inscribe it to Kosta? I’m assuming that’s you.”

I nodded. “The Greek nickname for Constantinos is Kosta. The American nickname is Gus. The Greek Kappa and Gamma don’t sound as different from one another as they do in English. It’s my grandfather’s name. You can blame him.” I smiled.

“What does it say? The inscription.”

“Congratulations.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

I grinned. “No. It doesn’t.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

I shook my head.

“Then I won’t accept it.” She laid it on top of the other books on its shelf.

I sighed. “It’s from my mentor at school. Father Nikiforos Giannapoulos. He was… he helped me start to overcome a lot of condemnation about myself. Things that came from me, rather than from God.” I opened the book to the inscription. I wouldn’t translate it directly, though I wasn’t quite sure why I wanted to hold those cards so close to my chest. “It’s about not losing the light of Liturgy.” I closed the book and handed it back to her. “There’s a reason our church hasn’t altered its Sunday service in almost two thousand years. It’s meaningful.”

She looked at the book, then looked up at me. Her lips pressed together in a line, her mind obviously conflicted.

“Take the book, Decca.”

She nodded. “I’ll treasure it.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that serious.”

“It is to me.” She swallowed and had trouble speaking her next words. “This is the expression of your faith. I want to become familiar with yours. You’ve obviously spent quite a bit of time trying to discern mine.”

I winced. She’d seen the books then, realized their significance. Heat rose in my throat and face. My little secret had been exposed.

“Why?” I sneered.

“Because we’re friends.”

I snorted.

“Because I do everything for my friends. Your God said, “‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’”

“John chapter fifteen, verse thirteen.”

“Well, I didn’t know that part. You’re lucky I got the quote right. Granny loved that verse. She would’ve laid down her life for her friends, and I would do the same.”

Her words—the sincerity behind them—hit me viscerally. My ribs collapsed around my heart, squeezing it so that every beat hurt with the thought of losing even the small part of her that I’d gotten to know. But a monk couldn’t be friends with a woman. Not how we were friends.

I stared at Decca. I allowed myself this one final moment to see her not just as a friend, but as someone I wished could be… mine.

“Were you coming here to pray?”

“I…” I cleared my throat. It was exactly what I’d thought to do, only I hadn’t expected anyone to have noticed.

Of course, Decca had. She noticed everything. She noticed me. Always.

I straightened my shoulders, knowing there was nothing I could hide from her. I’d never hidden anything before, when our conversations had been over the phone or through a computer screen. But here I was… vulnerable. Raw.

“Yes, I came here to pray.” Though now it seemed silly. I already felt calmer just being here, talking to my friend.

“This is your safe place?”

Was it? Was this attic the reason I’d rushed up here in a panic to get away from all the well-wishers? I didn’t normally need to rush out of a crowd. I wouldn’t make a very good priest if I’d need to escape my congregants that quickly.

No. Something had called me up here. As though I were drawn.

But it wasn’t these four walls.

It was her.

I gritted my teeth and swallowed. “There’s nothing special about this room. Just that it’s far enough away from all the people downstairs. Even in school, with deadlines and the rigor of academia, times of prayer and reflection were carved into our schedules. A theologian once said, ‘When I prayed, I was new. When I stopped praying, I grew old.’ I guess once I got used to praying ceaselessly, I feel… old whenever I stop.”

She nodded and smiled tightly. It was meant to convey connection, but I’d never felt so disconnected from everything in the world. The foreignness of my future loomed before me.

A gaping hole.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

I nodded, barely hearing her. Her shoes clunked slowly over the rough boards of the attic floor, the liturgy book gripped tightly in her arms like it was something precious to her.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. She was leaving, and all the air and light and peace in the room were leaving with her.

“Decca,” I blurted out, not knowing what I even wanted to say.

She stopped and looked back.

“Would you like to pray with me?”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what her response would be. Her face was always so expressive, it displayed all her conflicting emotions at once. I waited for them. Slowly, her lips parted. A smile broke out, expansive and sunny, like dawn over the mountains. She nodded, striding back toward me.

“Always.”

I took a slow breath, basking in the relief that flooded back into my system. Like an alarm had been blaring and someone had finally turned it off. Or smashed the mechanism with a sledgehammer.

I took her hand. It was so warm and soft. I resisted the urge to brush my thumb across her knuckles as I led her to the bed, where it was easy to lean and face the icons in the corner of the room. “I’m going to kneel. You don’t have to. The floor is… hard.”

She knelt.

I hid my smile and knelt next to her, pressing my thumb and first two fingertips together, making the sign of the cross. She’d been to my church with my sister enough times to know she didn’t need to follow my lead. “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Glory to you, O Lord, glory to You.”

Her head bent low in reflection as I recited the prayer of Saint Basil.

“You grant us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh. And though we were sunk in despair, you have raised us up to glorify your power. Open our mouths and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God, the eternal Father, with your only begotten Son, and your all holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.”

I crossed myself again three more times and rested back on my heels.

We were both quiet.

The party continued below. The voices created a low din, almost felt more than heard as they filtered through the walls and the cracks in the floors.

The sun had set, and we were now shrouded in darkness. I turned to her. There was just enough residual light to bring out the contrast in her features. Those dark-painted lips. Hollowed cheekbones. Large, round eyes rimmed in smoky black. In the dark, she looked vampiric and almost… Greek.

“Open our mouths and fill it with your praise.” She repeated quietly before going silent again. “I can feel how that would calm a tormented spirit. It’s not enough to ask that he take away our pain, leaving us with a gaping wound. But to give us something to fill it up with.”

Her eyes flickered around the room, growing wider and glossy.

I reached for her before thinking better of it, dropping my hand. “Dec, I’m sorry. If I’d known it would affect you, I would have chosen something different.”

“I think anything you prayed would have this effect on me.” She put an elbow on my bed and ran her fingers through her long black hair. I didn’t see her wear it down very often. “Gus, did you…? Never mind.”

“What is it? You can ask me anything.”

“Do you think, maybe, I was the reason you came here?”

To my room,she’d implied. Where she had already escaped.

I thought for a moment, remembering that inexplicable transparency we shared. I could keep nothing to myself. She’d know somehow.

But I couldn’t keep her. I had to break away.

Yes. You drew me up here. I will always be drawn to you.

“No. I think it was just good timing.”