Page 106 of Saint
The four-story glass curtain wall of the Kauffman Center looks out onto a dark sky and a brightly lit city underneath it. From my vantage by the glass, I can see the way the city churns up into a hill, capped with the pale spire of the Liberty Memorial. It looks like a buttress for the sky.
Please, God,I say silently in the direction of the hill.Please. Be with me tonight.
Prayer said, I discreetly use my reflection in the glass to make sure I look okay—the tux fits fine, but I feel silly wearing it, and I’ve shaved and the sight of my naked jaw is strange—and that’s when I see him.
Standing in the middle of the space with a flute of barely touched champagne, listening to guests chatter eagerly to his sister.
I turn to see him better, and my breath catches. Seeing in a glass darkly indeed—the reality as compared to the reflection is staggering. Even with the tense set of his jaw and the listless look to his eyes, he is gorgeous. His tuxedo makes the most of his long legs and his narrow hips, and the jacket accentuates the lean length of his torso and firmness of his chest. He is all geometry tonight, with the crisp seams of the jacket making a precise slope from the bottom of his neck to the ends of his shoulders, with the sharp peaks of his upper lip and the edges of his mouth in a straight line. Even the casual quirk of his eyebrow as he listens could have been drawn with a scale and compass.
Seeming to have had enough of whatever inane conversation he’s listening to, he lifts his champagne to his mouth. And that’s when he sees me.
He freezes like that, the glass rim set to his lower lip, his dark eyes wide as they lock with mine.
I send up one last prayer to God, and then I cut through the crowd in his direction, maneuvering as gracefully as I can when I’m the size of an armoire. I reach him, and then because he still seems frozen, I lift my hand and gently take the flute from his fingertips.
He lets me, swallowing a little as our fingers brush against each other’s. Swallowing more when I press the same part of the rim that had just been against his mouth against mine and take a long drink.
“Hi, Elijah,” I say, leaning in so the people around us can’t hear. Zenny gives me a quick wink and then launches into a new conversational tangent about her birthing center which has everyone’s attention. “You look incredible tonight. What are you doing after this?”
I see the bob of his Adam’s apple and the flick of his eyes as he searches my face. And then he says, quietly, almost hesitantly, “Aiden, are you flirting with me?”
I do the same thing I did that night we came together six years ago. I grin at him.
And up and down that Adam’s apple moves again, right over the perfectly tied bow tie at the base of his throat. “I have a few minutes,” he says. “I know a place where we could catch up.”
“I love catching up,” I say, and so just like that night, we wend our way through the lobby and up one of the walkways to the balcony entrances. The door hasn’t even closed behind us before I have him against the wall, my mouth slanting hot and urgent over his.
He makes a low noise into our kiss—a noise that usually comes with bite marks and tangled sheets—and wraps his hands around the lapels of my tux to pull me harder against him.
As if I need the encouragement. I’ve already got my dress shoes around his, my hips to his, my hands planted on either side of his head. I lick at his upper lip until he opens his mouth for me, and then I pillage inside, seeking him with the heat of weeks and months and years. And he kisses me back with the same heat, his desire palpable though the layers of our clothes, and all I want to do is suck him off right now, all the things unsaid between us be damned, all the pain between us be damned. I just want him panting and tensing and cursing under his breath; I just want our separation, our apartness, to be dissolved, obliterated with the kind of connection that can’t be ignored.
Patience, I remind myself. If the past five years gave me anything other than God, they gave me that, and I need to use it. And anyway, this was never where Elijah and I struggled. Everything always made perfect sense when we were hard and shuddering with pleasure.
It was the other parts that needed fixing. Maturing, maybe, like wine.
I break our kiss slowly, so slowly that I myself doubt I’m actually going to do it, but somehow I manage to lift my mouth off his. It’s physically painful, and my entire body keens for him again, reminding me with every beat of my heart how close he is, how handsome he is in the dim auditorium, how good his stubble feels against my lips and teeth when I kiss and nip at his jaw.
He lifts a shaking hand to my face. “You left the abbey,” he whispers.
“Yes.”
“For me?”
I can see the hope and the dread in his eyes, and I understand, I understand both.
“What you wrote in your article,” I say, instead of answering. “At the end, about how patience had given you the greatest gift you’ll ever receive...”
He bites the corner of his mouth. “I meant our trip, Aiden. I meant our time together when I thought we’d never have any time together ever again. I never thought—I didn’t write that thinking that you would leave—I didn’t want you to leave for me—”
I can feel the panic spilling through him, and I lean down to kiss his cheek, the smooth, warm rise of it above the line of his scruff. “Shh,” I soothe, “shh. That’s not what I mean. I’m telling you that I read your words and they made me see that I could have a great gift too, if I could practice patience.”
He stills a little, but his thick brows are drawn together and there’s a deep line between them, which I also kiss.
“Aiden, I...” He trails off, his eyes pinned to mine and glassy with emotion. “I feel so trapped. I meant what I said about competing with God, but I also can’t refuse you. If you’re here, then I can’t...I’m not noble enough to push you away again. And when I’d heard you’d left the abbey...you can’t imagine how hard it was not to come to you immediately. Beg you to forgive me and kiss me again, and every day that I didn’t felt a hundred years long.”
I like hearing that, and I tell him so, murmuring it low against his ear before I gently bite his lobe. I pull back and trace the line of his troubled mouth with my thumb. “There was a reason I didn’t come to you right away, and it was so I could stand here and tell you this: I’m still healthy and well after nearly eight weeks outside of the abbey, and I’m under Dr. Rosie’s strict supervision to make sure I stay that way. I’m helping Father Jordan explore a way for monastic life and liturgy to be available for everyone, and so I have a vocation out here too. And most importantly, you don’t have to compete with God. I’m so sorry that I ever let you think that was the case, and I’m sorry I couldn’t articulate the truth to you earlier. But you could never compete with God, because the two of you magnify each other in my heart. I know God and I feel God more keenly and more deeply because of you.”
I find his hand and press it over my heart, over the invisible scapular I’ll always wear for him. The glassy sheen in his eyes has started spilling over now, and tears are racing down his perfect cheeks.
