Page 33 of Saint
“Precisely,” I reply. Gravely. “I had yet to eat my Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. It was tradition. A superstition even. What if I didn’t eat them after this game and then I never won a game again? Also I was hungry.”
Brother Denis cuts in, his English accent making his dry words even drier. “And there were no breath mints around? Before the kissing?”
Elijah starts laughing. Silently but uncontrollably. “Oh, this”—he chokes out—“this is much worse than kissing.”
I glare at him again.
“What can be worse than kissing someone after eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos?” Brother Thomas asks. Too innocently, in my opinion.
I glare at him too. “I just want to remind everyone that hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“Especially if you were four-twenty,” Elijah teases.
“I wasn’t—” I huff. “For better or worse, no drugs or alcohol were involved in this. Just hormones and a genuine love for the crunchy heat of Cheeto’s brand Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.”
“So what happened?” Brother Denis asks. Everyone is leaning forward now, totally rapt, even Jamie. Sweet, bespectacled Jamie, who’s probably never even tasted a Cheeto. He probably ate granola bars in high school, the really crumbly ones, and actually liked the way they tasted and never got the crumbs caught in his crotch and also never forgot to throw the wrappers away when he was near a trash can and shoved them in his best friend’s backpack instead.
And now he’s a librarian-slash-Sunday school teacher who makes the world a better place, and I’m a former millionaire who wears polyester and cries when he chops wood.
“Chelsie crawled into my lap as I was finishing up my traditional bag of spicy, cheesy victory,” I continue, my voice grim now. “She didn’t seem to mind thekissingbeing Flamin’ Hot flavored. And I kind of forgot all about the Cheetos in the moment, because I had Chelsie Lynch in my lap, and the kissing was very excellent, and then she—” I flush, so aware of Jamie and his healthful healthiness that I could die. “She pushed my hand under her skirt.” And then because the people at the picnic table aren’t reacting—aside from Elijah, who is shaking with silent laughter again—I add, “MyCheetohand.”
Horrified silence reigns across the beer garden.
Until it explodes with laughter. Brother Thomas collapses sideways into Brother Titus, eyelashes wet with tears of joy. “And then you...you...?”
“Yes,” I confirm wearily. “I knew her in the biblical sense with my Flamin’ Hot Cheeto hand.”
Everyone is outright howling now, even Jamie, who is laughing but also looks like he’s worried about Chelsie Lynch.
(She’s fine, by the way. After I attempted to finger her with Flamin’ fingers, she slapped me in the face and ran to the bathroom with her best friend, and emerged twenty minutes later clearly furious, but at least no longer in Cheeto-related discomfort.
She’s married to a dentist now. They have ninety-seven Catholic babies. They go to Sean and Zenny’s church, which Tyler’s best friend Father Jordan Brady pastors.)
“So she told everyone about how much I sucked, and that’s how I got the nickname Flamin’ Hot Aiden. And I guess I leaned into it a bit.”
“A bit?” Elijah asks. “You customized your license plate to say FLMNHOT.”
“Just while I was in college!”
“Andyou custom-ordered T-shirts with your face printed on Chester Cheetah’s body and gave them to all your friends.”
“Everyone likes a free T-shirt!”
“And then there is the tattoo,” Elijah points out, and I sigh, defeated.
Because yes.Then there is the tattoo.
The table is still laughing when I stand up and push my scapular to the side so I can unzip the zipper on my habit, which goes from my neck to my stomach. Plenty of room for me to extricate an arm and—since I’m wearing nothing but boxer briefs under the habit—show the table my bare shoulder. Show the table my shame.
“It’s hideous!” Brother Thomas says with glee as he stands up to get a better look.
“Cursed,” says Brother Titus.
“Brother Patrick,” Brother Denis says carefully. “Is that the dove of the Holy Spirit on your shoulder?”
“And is it carrying a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto in its beak?” Brother Amos asks. Everyone else joins Brother Thomas in standing up to get a better look—everyone except Elijah, who has seen it before. But just before Jamie leans in closer and blocks him from my sight, I notice that Elijah’s eyes are not on my tattoo but on the exposed parts of my body. My lightly furred chest. My wood-chopping shoulders and arms.
I can’t decipher his expression in time before he’s blocked from view. Curiosity?
