Page 8 of Unbound
My pulse quickened.
No. This was wrong. This was a test. A temptation sent to lead me astray, and I would not—Icouldnot—fail it.
I forced myself to recite scripture in my head, the familiar verses I had memorized as a child."Flee from sexual immorality..."But the words felt hollow, rote, like a recording playing on a loop without meaning. They couldn't drown out the memory of dark eyes and that infuriating, perfect smile.
I turned onto my other side. Punched my pillow. Rearranged the blankets.
It didn't help.
He was still there, burned into my mind like an afterimage. And worse—far worse—was the traitorous warmth that had crept back into my chest, lower, insistent. My body didn't care about scripture or righteousness or the future I was supposed to want. It only cared about the way he had looked at me.
Like I was interesting.
Like I waswanted.
I pressed my face into the pillow and prayed for forgiveness I wasn't sure I deserved. For a sin I wasn't entirely sure I regretted.
Sleep, when it finally came, was restless and full of dark eyes and knowingsmiles.
ADRIAN
I couldn't sleep.
The house had quieted around me hours ago, the usual weekend revelry fading to sporadic bursts of laughter down the hall, then to nothing but creaking floors and the distant hum of the ancient refrigerator. I'd tried reading my ConLaw notes. I'd tried scrolling mindlessly through social media. I'd even tried the breathing exercises Elijah swore by when his anxiety kicked in.
Nothing worked.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that preppy protester's face—the shock when I'd caught him in our bathroom, the flush creeping up his neck, the way he'd looked at me like I was simultaneously the devil and the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.
I gave up on sleep around 2 AM, propped myself up on my pillows, and pulled my laptop onto my thighs. Time for some detective work.
"Topeka Covenant Church protesters Kansas City," I typed. An image search brought up dozens of photos from various protests—the usual hate-filled signs, the grim-faced believers, the circus of bigotry they called faith. I scrolled slowly, eyes straining in the blue light of my screen.
There.
Standing slightly back from the main group, looking uncomfortable but determined, was my bathroom boy. He held a sign proclaiming something about damnation that I couldn't fully read, but his face was unmistakable—those anxious blue eyes, that full mouth pressed into a disapproving line, the clean-cut blond hair. A caption below the image listed several names of "faithful protesters."
I skimmed the list, looking for a match to the face. "JesseMiller," it said. The name suited him somehow—wholesome, biblical, forgettable. Except he wasn't forgettable at all.
"Jesse Miller Kansas" I typed next.
Nothing interesting came up initially—social media accounts locked down tight, no public profiles. Smart kid. Or, more likely, terrified kid.
I refined my search: "Jesse Miller university Kansas City."
A hit. A brief mention in the university paper from last year—a list of new students joining the campus chapter of Young Conservatives. There he was, third from the right in the group photo. "Jesse Miller, first-year pre-law, joins the University of Missouri-Kansas City Young Conservatives alongside Rebecca Jones..."
Pre-law. My program.
This just got a lot more interesting.
I dug deeper. Another hit—the membership directory for Sigma Alpha, one of the old-school fraternities known for their "traditional values" and legacy admissions. Listed among the current members: Jesse Miller, junior, pre-law.
By 3 AM, I had a decent dossier. Jesse Miller, 21, pre-law student, member of Sigma Alpha, raised in the Topeka Covenant Church, currently dating a girl named Rebecca Jones (also from the church, based on photos). No public social media, but tagged in a few church community posts and fraternity functions. Always wearing the same careful expression, like someone might be watching and taking notes.
Someone was now.
The more I looked, the more I wondered. What was it like to live that way? To believe you were surrounded by sin and damnation? To spend your Friday nights standing in the rain holding a sign condemning people you'd never met?
