Page 27 of Saint
I don’t need to look over to see that it’s Elijah, but I do anyway. I’m finally brave enough to look at him...now, when he’s furious with me. Go figure.
“Can I sit?” he asks in a low voice. The words are as hard and smooth as pebbles. I have no idea if he’s here to continue our fight or tell me he’s leaving, but it doesn’t matter because I want him to sit. I want him to stay. Even if it’s only to tell me things that will hurt me again.
“Yes,” I say, and then I can’t help it, I smile.
He looks startled by that smile, his eyebrow lifting and his eyes intense on my mouth as he sits.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, ducking my head and smiling harder.
“Lying is a sin,” Elijah replies. “Or at least that sounds like something I’ve heard before.”
It must be the impending firefly show making me giddy, because I decide to say it. “I was thinking about how strange it is that I used to lick the sweat off the back of your neck, and now you have to ask if it’s okay to share a bench with me.”
It’s dark enough that when I look back over at him, his eyes are nothing but glitter and shine. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but once—just once—I see a muscle jump in his jaw.
“Why are you sitting here?” he asks finally, wisely not addressing what I said. “Isn’t it bedtime?”
“I’m waiting for something, but you’re welcome to wait with me, if you’d like.”
His shoes shift on the flagstones beneath the bench. He’s uneasy. Or unsure. “Okay,” he says after a minute, and then we sit.
It is not silent—silence is never silent after all—but it is quiet. The Knights of Columbi are gone, the other brothers are either in bed or far away from the cloister. Even the slow weep of the fountain is hushed and small, halfway to slumber.
And next to me, I can hear the steady whisper of Elijah’s breathing, the scuff of his shoes on the stones as he tries to stifle whatever he’s feeling right now.
I wonder if the quiet is hard for him. It used to be nearly impossible for me.
The first firefly comes without warning, a soft flash from somewhere in the lavender. It takes a few minutes for the next one to show itself, and a few minutes more for the next after that, but then the lights come faster and faster, until we are surrounded by them. Until the air itself is hung with soft glimmers, until it feels like the world is hung with stars.
It is so simple a thing—fireflies in the cloister. And yet every time, I’m humbled by it. By the magic God so casually lets loose for us, by these sweet moments which are so freely given.
For nearly an hour, the air is aglow, shimmering from between flowers and above the purling water of the fountain. For nearly an hour we sit there, not touching, not speaking, barely moving.
But yet my skin prickles with his nearness. My heart speeds. A continually thwarted erection pushes futilely at my cage.
I’m as aware of him as I would be if I were crawling over him in bed.
Slowly, the lights fade, the fireflies vanishing back into the night. I’m not sure what I expect when I look over at my ex-boyfriend, but I’m still arrested by it. Arrested by the shine of his eyes and the part of his mouth. The gentle, vulnerable awe that lingers in his expression as he turns to meet my gaze. My heart jumps again, and I very nearly reach for him, because he is lovely and because he trusted me enough to wait and because he saw what I saw too. The gorgeous, playful magic of it all.
His eyes don’t leave mine, and then something changes in his face. It’s something almost like...longing. Or maybe he’s mirroring my expression, which I know has to betray everything. That I crave, I dream, I love—that I am a garden of him to this day.
“Aiden,” he says softly, and I relish hearing my secular name from him, because it was the name that belonged to him, to his lips and thoughts and even his fingers when he was scolding or flirting over text or email.
I don’t realize I’m leaning toward him until my cage presses into my thigh. I stop, because he’s leaned forward too, and we are only inches apart.
What if...?
His long eyelashes flutter over his cheeks as he blinks fast, drawing in a slow breath. “You...” he murmurs, and then closes his eyes, and he’s leaning in, and I’m leaning in, and I can feel his breath on my lips—
A low laugh breaks the quiet of the cloister, followed by another, and then a not-so-quietshhhh!
Both Elijah and I jerk back like puppets yanked by the strings, our eyes wide as we stare at each other. I look quickly at the covered walkways to make sure no one saw, and then shudder out a relieved exhale when I see that we’re still alone. The laugh is coming from the cloister just beyond—the brothers returning from their pre-bed beer, I think—and they haven’t reached us yet.
My shoulders slump and I pass a shaking hand over my face. I hadn’t been about to kiss Elijah, I definitely hadn’t, because I took a vow never to kiss anyone again, and if Ihadbeen about to kiss Elijah, then what did that mean?
What did that mean about my vows?
