Page 27 of Preacher Man
There he went.Driving off toward that little trailer with the peeling siding and the shitty vinyl blinds that never quite closed right.Back to pretending.Back to praying away what we did in the dark.
I stood there watching until his taillights disappeared, fists clenched at my sides.My chest ached with something that wasn’t just frustration.It was grief.Grief for a man who wasn’t even gone.
And I knew I couldn’t keep doing this.
Not like this.
Because if I let Ethan keep hiding me in the shadows, I’d lose him.And worse, he’d lose himself.
* * *
I didn’t plan to come.I swear I didn’t.
But around eleven, I found myself on my bike, gripping it like it owed me answers, and the next thing I knew, I was pulling into the gravel lot beside the church.The sun was high in the sky and hot.The kind of heat that pressed on your chest and made every breath feel like a sin.
I walked up the rickety steps to the trailer and tried the knob.Locked.Fine.I knocked.
No answer.
I circled the building and pushed open the side door to the church.It creaked like a warning, but I ignored it.He was in his office.I just knew it.I could hear papers rustling, and that tiny fan humming uselessly against the heat.
I pushed open the door without knocking.
Ethan sat behind his tiny desk, blinking up at me like a deer caught in headlights.“Jake,” he said, voice low, cautious.“What are you doing here?”
I closed the door behind me, slowly.
Ethan swallowed.Hard.
I didn’t say anything right away.Just looked at him.
Looked at the man who had spent the past few weeks in my bed every single night, trembling and needy, whispering “God help me” against my throat while I held him so tight I could feel every beat of his heart.And now he sat there, all buttoned up again, shirt pressed, cross around his neck like armor.
I walked toward him, slow and steady.“We can’t keep doing this, Ethan.”
He flinched.“I know.”
“No, you don’t.Because if you knew, you’d be done pretending.”I leaned both hands on his desk, knuckles white.“I’m done sneaking around.Ethan, I’m not your dirty little secret.”
“Jake, please—”
“No,” I snapped.“You don’t get to ‘please’ me.Not when you sneak out of my bed like you’re ashamed.Not when you walk into this church, like nothing happened.Like I don’t mean anything to you.”
His eyes turned glossy.
Shit.
If Ethan cried, I’d lose it.
He stood and backed up, breath catching.“I can’t keep doing this either.”
Those words?They broke something in me.
“What does that mean?”I asked, my voice low.“Are you ending this?”
He turned, wiped his eyes.“I think we have to.”
“No,” I said, flat.Firm.“You think you have to.Tell me why.”
