The Fry
A week later, Judah knocked on my apartment door. It was seven-fifteen. Which was earlier than he'd said, and I wasn't ready, which he'd probably anticipated.
I'd been ready at seven. Then I'd looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and taken my hair down and started over, which cost me ten minutes I didn't have.
And now I was standing in the kitchen with one earring in and the other between my teeth when the knock came, and I said one second loud enough that he'd hear it through the door and then immediately regretted the intimacy of that.
Of him knowing I was in here, not ready, doing the things women did before they went somewhere with a man.
I wondered why it bothered me. Was it a Christian thing? Was it how my father had been with my mama?
I couldn’t tell you — I’d have to sleep on it to figure it out.
I put the second earring in. Took a breath.
Opened the door.
Judah was in a white linen shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow — the ink on his forearms catching the evening light; I wondered for a second whether he would leave them like that.
Whether he would let others see the tattoos.
But I didn’t dwell on it too long. I noticed the dark trousers, no tie, and realized the only word to describe him right now was…
bespoke. Louisiana old money, but with a twist.
His eyes moved over me.
“You're early,” I said.
“Hmm,” he hummed, eyes going down my body.
That was it. That was all that left him, and that was enough to make the heat climb up my throat. I guess I shouldn’t have bothered with blush. Hindsight was, as they said, 20–20.
I reached for my bag on the counter; he didn't move from the doorway, which meant I had to pass close enough to catch that cedar-vanilla scent of him. But he closed the door before I could squeeze past him and stepped inside the apartment, pushing me back in with his mere presence.
“Is that lipstick smudge-proof?”
I froze, bag clutched in my fingers. “What?”
“Your lipstick,” he repeated, his voice lower this time. “Is it smudge-proof?”
The question hung between us like summer lightning — dangerous, electric. My apartment suddenly felt too small, the air too thick.
“I don't think so,” I managed. “It's just regular—”
His hand came up, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth in a gesture so light I might have imagined it if not for the heat it left behind. “Shame.”
I swallowed hard. “We should go. Aren't we already late?”
“Fashionably,” Judah said, but didn't move. His hand was still lingering by the corner of my mouth. Then he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek — so gently I hardly felt it. And then gentler still, moving toward my mouth.
His arm went around my back, and he steadied me against him. “Be still. I don’t want to ruin your makeup.”
I held my breath, frozen between his touch and the warning. The kiss never quite landed on my lips — instead, his mouth hovered a whisper away, our breaths mingling in the narrow space between us. Time stretched like molasses in July.
“Judah,” I whispered, the word escaping before I could catch it.
“Where can I kiss you?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “What do you mean?”
“Where can I kiss you that won't leave evidence?” His voice was soft as a confessional, but there was nothing holy about the way his fingers traced the line of my collarbone.
I knew what he was asking. The careful dance of appearances. The fish fry was not just a fry — not in the South. Everything had to be immaculate.
“My wrist,” I finally said, extending my arm between us, offering the pale underside where blue veins mapped their delicate course.
His eyes darkened as he took my hand in his. When his lips pressed against my pulse point, I felt it everywhere — a current running from that single point of contact straight to my core. I pressed my knees together and pretended I didn’t.
“We really should go,” I whispered, though I made no move to pull away.
“Yes,” Judah agreed, but his mouth moved higher, placing another kiss at the inside of my elbow.
“We should.” At this point, his lips were at my shoulder.
“And you shouldn’t have worn this dress.
Two things can be true at once,” he said, his words vibrating up my neck.
He lifted me up from the ground in one smooth motion and pressed against the wall.
It wasn’t even anything special — the dress. Just a white, floral summer dress.
My breath caught as my back met the cool surface. His body was firm against mine, one hand cradling the back of my head to protect it from the impact. I could feel the ridges of his tattoos against my bare skin where his forearms supported me.
“The fish fry,” I managed to say, but it came out breathless, unconvincing.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
The words struck me like a physical blow. Not because they were unexpected, but because of how he said them — like a fact he'd been carrying around, a truth he'd been waiting to confess.
“Judah, we can't—” I started, but the protest died on my lips as his mouth brushed the hollow of my throat. My head fell back against his hand, exposing more of my neck to him.
“Can't what?” he murmured against my skin. “Can't be late? Or can't do this?” His teeth grazed my collarbone, and I bit back a sound that would have betrayed just how much I wanted this.
“Both,” I whispered, even as my fingers curled into the crisp linen of his shirt. “Everyone will be waiting. You’re the pastor…”
He let out a heavy sigh against my neck and let me down slowly, making sure I found my footing before he released me. “If anyone looks at you wrong today, I will get into trouble.”
I looked at him.
He reached into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out a wallet. Inside, I saw crisp banknotes. He pulled out a few, and when he turned them over, I saw they were all 100-dollar bills. “Here.”
I frowned. “What? Why?”
“So you can bail me out when they lock me up.”
I stared at him for a long moment. And laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m serious. Take the money.”
I slid the bills into my purse, still smiling despite myself. “Has anyone ever told you that you're a touch melodramatic?”
“Mrs. Arceneaux. Every Sunday after service.” His smile was quick, almost boyish, before it settled back into something more controlled. He glanced at his watch. “Come on. Better make our entrance while there's still fish to be had.”
The drive out took fifteen minutes on roads that narrowed as we got further from town.
The oaks closed in overhead and the Spanish moss shimmered amber in the last of the day's light.
He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, one on my thigh, and didn't fill the silence, which I'd learned was simply how he was.
“Your hair,” he said. “The dress is… something, sure, but your hair…”
I glanced over.
His eyes were on the road. “You did something different.”
“It's just down.”
“It's not just down.”
I'd taken the time to actually style it for once — dark waves that sat against my shoulders, a few pieces pinned loosely back from my face with a clip I'd been saving for some occasion I hadn't named yet.
Something about the way he'd said it's not just down made me feel like the clip had been obvious.
Like the occasion had been named after all, without my consent.
“I didn't realize you tracked my hair,” I said.
“I track everything about you.” Still on the road. Completely unbothered by the admission. “You know that.”
I suppose it would’ve been a lie to claim otherwise.
I looked out the window and said nothing, which was either wisdom or cowardice. I've stopped trying to tell the difference.
Woodsmoke was the first thing I smelt. Then something frying — the low green rot-sweetness of the bayou underneath it all.
We came around a bend in the road and the gathering opened up in front of us: the church families, half the town, folding tables draped in checkered cloth, string lights run between the trees, and at the far end of the field where the ground started going soft and dark toward the water, a line of oil drums converted into smokers with men standing around them performing the serious civic function of arguing about fish.
That should’ve been a religion of its own.
Before Judah pulled over, he lowered his sleeves to hide his tattoos.
Appearances, I told myself.
The car stopped softly. I smoothed out my dress, checked my makeup, caught a smile from Judah, pretended I didn’t, and got out. The heat wrapped around me like a hand. And then came the actual hand. Judah didn’t even try to act coy. He touched me. Publicly.
The first person who saw us was Sister Ruth, who had the instincts of a hawk and the social velocity of a freight train. She covered the ground between us in under a minute.
“There she is,” she said — to me, but her eyes went to Judah first, did something quick and satisfied, and came back. “Mercy, sweetheart, don't you look beautiful.”
“Thank you, Sister Ruth—”
“That dress.” She took both my hands in hers and held my arms out and looked at me the way a grandmother looked at their grandchildren. “Lord in heaven. Judah, doesn't she look beautiful?”
“Yes,” Judah said, beside me.
No hesitation. No qualifier. Sister Ruth's smile went three sizes.
“Come on,” she said, and folded my arm into hers like she'd been doing it for years. “There are people you haven't met yet and I intend to fix that.”
Judah's hand had lingered on my back for exactly half a minute before I was swept away.
The next hour was an education.
Sister Ruth introduced me to eleven people in forty minutes, and every single introduction had a certain undertone to it.
Not this is Mercy, she works at the food bank.
That would have been simple. That would have been the job posting, which is what I was.
Instead, it was: this is Mercy, with a specific weight on the word, a pause after it, and then everyone who heard it looked at me. Like they knew something I didn’t.