Page 29 of Saint
But what he says is so unexpected, that I nearly stagger back with it anyway.
“I’m sorry,” he says, lifting his head to look at me. A brow is lifted ever so slightly, but there’s a knot above the bridge of his nose too, as if I’m some kind of puzzle he can’t decipher right now.
“You’re sorry?” I repeat, and it occurs to me that I should be the one apologizing—I left him years ago after all, and I was equally culpable for the muscle-memory moment last night and...
“For what I said in the hermitage yesterday afternoon,” he clarifies. “I have some complicated feelings about how this kind of life relates to our responsibilities in the world, but I realize now that I hadn’t untangled those from my complicated feelings about you. What I said—the way I said it—I meant it to hurt. And I’m sorry for that. You didn’t deserve that. Not from me.”
I huff out a short laugh—barely audible over the patter of the rain. “I think I deserve a lot more than that, Elijah. Especially from you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want it to be that way between us.”
I should say that there is nobetween usand there won’t be. He has a few more days of research and then he’ll be gone, and then eventually I’ll be gone too, donning a white Trappist robe instead of my black Benedictine one, and working even harder to be a good man.
Instead, I ask, my voice low, “What way do you want it between us, Elijah?”
His lips part, just a touch, and his eyes darken. For a moment, there is only the rain and that intense stare. There are only the memories of how it used to be.
Hot. Urgent. Dirty as hell.
What if...
Abruptly, he shoves himself off the railing and takes a few steps in the opposite direction. When he turns back, though, his face is composed.
“Jamie is coming to the abbey later today.”
I must have heard him wrong. “Sorry, what?”
“My fiancé,” Elijah says, and there’s a stubborn set to his mouth now. “He’s a microbrew enthusiast, and when I told him about the beer here, he was really excited, so I invited him to come up this afternoon and spend some time in the taproom. He knows who you are to me, so it’s not a secret or anything.”
“Ah,” I say faintly. How did we go from him looking at me likethatto Jamie coming here today? “Well, I can be present as little or as much as you’d like while he’s here.”
“There’s no need for that,” Elijah says. “I’m perfectly comfortable having you around.”
Right. Because I’m not just an ex, I’m amonk-ex. I should be the safest ex who ever exed. And I’m definitely not swallowing down acrid thoughts right now at the prospect of meeting Jamie; I am definitely not already prickling with jealousy.
“Just let me know when he arrives, and I’ll be happy to give him a tour of the brewery and bottling room before we go to the taproom.” I manage to sound almost normal when I say that.
Now just to manage that normality for hours and hours while Jamie and Elijah hold hands and smile at each other in front of me.
Job from the Old Testament was tested less.
Elijah gives me a nod. “I’m going to write until he gets here, I think,” he says. “But I’ll see you this afternoon.”
He starts to walk away, and I step forward.
“Wait,” I say, and I have to say it again, because the rain drowns out my words. “Wait.”
Elijah stops and turns, eyebrow arched perfectly.
“I’m glad you said the things you said,” I tell him. “In the hermitage. I’ll be thinking about them. Truly.”
He studies me a moment longer and then gives me a slow nod.
“Okay,” he says softly. And it’s a long time after he disappears into the office building before I can make myself follow him. So long as I don’t move, I don’t have to start living the rest of my day.
The rest of my day which now includesJamie.
19
