Chapter 2
JESSE
The wipers scraped across the windshield, a rhythmic screech against the quiet hum of the engine.
Rain traced jagged paths down the glass, blurring the streetlights into watercolour smears.
Rebecca kept both hands on the steering wheel, her knuckles pale against the dark leather.
The silence in her car felt heavier than the protest signs I had carried for six hours. It was a thick, accusatory quiet.
“Someone could have seen you, Jesse.” Her voice was small, tight. “You cannot just walk into a place like that.”
I stared at my own reflection in the passenger window, a ghost superimposed over the rushing night. I looked pale. Guilty.
“I had to use the washroom. It was an emergency.” My own voice sounded hollow, a weak defence against an unspoken charge.
“There was a gas station a few blocks over. We talked about this. We have contingency plans for a reason.”
“I know. I am sorry, Rebecca. It was a moment of weakness. It won’t happen again.” The words were automatic, polished by use. An apology was always the first step.
“What if someone saw you lingering in there longer than you needed to and tells your father?”
The question hung in the air, a physical weight that pressed on my chest. I pictured my father’s face, not angry, but disappointed. That was always worse. The quiet, heavy sadness that meant I had failed him again. Failed God.
“No one will.” A lie. One person saw me. Not just saw me, but looked at me. The real me. “It was dark. I was quick. It meant nothing.”
She let out a long, slow breath, and some of the tension eased from her shoulders. Her hand left the wheel and rested for a moment on my knee reassuringly. Her touch was cool, a brief pressure before it was gone.
“I know. I just worry. For you.”
She pulled up to the curb outside my apartment building, the engine idling.
I leaned across the console and pressed my lips to her cheek.
The gesture felt rehearsed, a scene played for an invisible audience.
Her skin was soft and smelled faintly of soap.
There was no spark, no fire, no draw, and no magnetism.
There never was. That was the point. It was a safe, clean, righteous affection in the eyes of the Lord.
“Goodnight, Jesse.”
“Goodnight, Rebecca.”
Inside my apartment, I stripped off my damp clothes, but the chill of the rain couldn't touch the warmth that had sparked low in my gut. It was a vile feeling, a traitorous pulse of heat that had answered his gaze without my permission. I needed it gone. I stepped into the shower and turned the handle all the way to cold. The icy spray hit my chest like a punch, stealing my breath. I gasped, doubling over, bracing my hands against the tiled wall as the frigid water assaulted that specific, damning warmth. I stayed under the punishing stream until my skin was numb, scrubbing myself raw as if I could wash away my own body’s betrayal.
When I finally stepped out, my teeth were chattering and my skin had turned an ugly, mottled red.
I towelled off mechanically, pulled on clean pyjamas—flannel pants and a t-shirt from a church youth retreat three years ago—and went through the motions of my evening routine.
Brush teeth. Floss. Rinse. Set the alarm.
Check the door was locked. Place my phone on the nightstand, face down.
I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin, willing sleep to come quickly. To erase the night. To reset me back to who I was supposed to be.
But my mind wouldn't quiet.
I kept seeing him. Not the whole picture—not the bar, not the graffitied bathroom stall, not the context that should have horrified me.
Just... him. The way he had leaned against that doorframe like he owned the entire building.
The dark hair that fell just slightly into his eyes.
That smile. God help me, that smile. It had been knowing and amused and entirely too confident, like he could see straight through every lie I had ever told myself.
"You look lost."
I rolled onto my side, squeezing my eyes shut. I should be thinking about Rebecca. About her patient smile, her gentle concern, the future we were building together. A righteous future. A godly future.
Instead, I was thinking about the way his voice had sounded. Low and smooth, with a trace of laughter underneath. The way his gaze had tracked down my body and back up again, slow and deliberate, like he was cataloguing every detail.
My pulse quickened.
No. This was wrong. This was a test. A temptation sent to lead me astray, and I would not—I could not—fail it.
I forced myself to recite scripture in my head, the familiar verses I had memorized as a child. "Flee from sexual immorality..." But the words felt hollow, rote, like a recording playing on a loop without meaning. They couldn't drown out the memory of dark eyes and that infuriating, perfect smile.
I turned onto my other side. Punched my pillow. Rearranged the blankets.
It didn't help.
He was still there, burned into my mind like an afterimage. And worse—far worse—was the traitorous warmth that had crept back into my chest, lower, insistent. My body didn't care about scripture or righteousness or the future I was supposed to want. It only cared about the way he had looked at me.
Like I was interesting.
Like I was wanted.
I pressed my face into the pillow and prayed for forgiveness I wasn't sure I deserved. For a sin I wasn't entirely sure I regretted.
Sleep, when it finally came, was restless and full of dark eyes and knowing smiles.
ADRIAN
I couldn't sleep.
The house had quieted around me hours ago, the usual weekend revelry fading to sporadic bursts of laughter down the hall, then to nothing but creaking floors and the distant hum of the ancient refrigerator.
I'd tried reading my ConLaw notes. I'd tried scrolling mindlessly through social media.
I'd even tried the breathing exercises Elijah swore by when his anxiety kicked in.
Nothing worked.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that preppy protester's face—the shock when I'd caught him in our bathroom, the flush creeping up his neck, the way he'd looked at me like I was simultaneously the devil and the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.
I gave up on sleep around 2 AM, propped myself up on my pillows, and pulled my laptop onto my thighs. Time for some detective work.
"Topeka Covenant Church protesters Kansas City," I typed. An image search brought up dozens of photos from various protests—the usual hate-filled signs, the grim-faced believers, the circus of bigotry they called faith. I scrolled slowly, eyes straining in the blue light of my screen.
There.
Standing slightly back from the main group, looking uncomfortable but determined, was my bathroom boy.
He held a sign proclaiming something about damnation that I couldn't fully read, but his face was unmistakable—those anxious blue eyes, that full mouth pressed into a disapproving line, the clean-cut blond hair.
A caption below the image listed several names of "faithful protesters. "
I skimmed the list, looking for a match to the face. "Jesse Miller," it said. The name suited him somehow—wholesome, biblical, forgettable. Except he wasn't forgettable at all.
"Jesse Miller Kansas" I typed next.
Nothing interesting came up initially—social media accounts locked down tight, no public profiles. Smart kid. Or, more likely, terrified kid.
I refined my search: "Jesse Miller university Kansas City."
A hit. A brief mention in the university paper from last year—a list of new students joining the campus chapter of Young Conservatives.
There he was, third from the right in the group photo.
"Jesse Miller, first-year pre-law, joins the University of Missouri-Kansas City Young Conservatives alongside Rebecca Jones. .."
Pre-law. My program.
This just got a lot more interesting.
I dug deeper. Another hit—the membership directory for Sigma Alpha, one of the old-school fraternities known for their "traditional values" and legacy admissions. Listed among the current members: Jesse Miller, junior, pre-law.
By 3 AM, I had a decent dossier. Jesse Miller, 21, pre-law student, member of Sigma Alpha, raised in the Topeka Covenant Church, currently dating a girl named Rebecca Jones (also from the church, based on photos).
No public social media, but tagged in a few church community posts and fraternity functions.
Always wearing the same careful expression, like someone might be watching and taking notes.
Someone was now.
The more I looked, the more I wondered. What was it like to live that way? To believe you were surrounded by sin and damnation? To spend your Friday nights standing in the rain holding a sign condemning people you'd never met?
I thought about the look on his face in the bathroom—panic, yes, but something else too. Curiosity? Longing? Whatever it was, it wasn't disgust. Not really.
Dawn was breaking by the time I pulled up the pre-law course registry.
We were in the same year, which meant we likely shared classes.
I scrolled through the junior requirements—Constitutional Law with Professor Okonkwo, Monday and Thursday mornings.
Criminal Law with Bautista Tuesday afternoons.
Ethics and Judicial Process with Williams on Wednesdays.
I checked my own schedule. Bingo. We shared Okonkwo's class.
I closed my laptop and stretched, a plan forming. Jesse Miller thought he had his life figured out. Jesse Miller thought he knew exactly who he was and what was right. Jesse Miller was about to get the rudest awakening of his sheltered life.
Morning came too quickly. I dragged myself out of bed after two hours of fitful sleep, pulled on a grey Henley and my leather jacket, and headed to the kitchen.
Phoenix was already there, hair sticking up in purple spikes, drinking coffee straight from the pot.
Elijah sat at the kitchen table with his laptop open, probably working on a psychology paper, square glasses reflecting the screen's glow.
"That's disgusting," I said to Phoenix, grabbing a mug from the drying rack.
"Says the man who looks like he got hit by a truck." Phoenix handed me the pot. "Late night?"
"Research."
"On our little church mouse?" They grinned. "Find anything juicy?"
"His name's Jesse Miller. Pre-law student. Member of Sigma Alpha."
Phoenix whistled. "Sigma? Those guys are practically a cult. All tradition and secret handshakes and 'upholding masculine virtues' or whatever horseshit they're peddling these days."
"Perfect fit for our repressed and closeted friend," I said, pouring coffee into my mug. "We share Constitutional Law this morning."
"Moving fast, aren't we? You've got a month."
"I like to be thorough." I took a long sip, letting the caffeine hit my bloodstream. "Besides, this isn't just about the bet anymore."
Phoenix raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I'm curious," I admitted. "He's living a complete contradiction. Standing outside our bar with hateful signs, then sneaking in to use our bathroom. Being part of a church that thinks we're abominations, but looking at me like..."
"Like he wants to climb you like a tree?"
I laughed. "Not quite that obvious. But something's there, I'm sure of it."
Elijah looked up from his laptop, his expression serious. "Adrian. You know what it's like to live as someone you're not, right?"
The question hit differently coming from him. "This isn't the same thing, Eli."
"Isn't it?" He closed his laptop with a quiet snap. "This kid's been programmed from birth to hate himself. You're treating his identity crisis like it's a game."
"I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?" Elijah's gaze was steady, unflinching. "What happens when you realize this isn't about winning a bet anymore? What happens to him when you figure out you actually care?"
Phoenix looked between us, their usual chaos energy dampened by the sudden tension. "Shit just got real."
I grabbed my messenger bag from the counter, suddenly eager to escape Elijah's knowing eyes. "I'm going to be late for class."
But his question followed me out the door.