Page 102 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
And they saw us having sex.
Fuck.
“Georgie,” Becket says, his voice warm, but also laced with uncertainty. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she asks, still looking over to me. I’m sure she recognizes me from Mass. From the front pew, where I sit holding hands with Auden.
God, what she must think of me.
I’ve so rarely felt shame that isn’t the fun kind that I almost don’t recognize it at first. I don’t recognize the feeling like my stomach has sunk between my feet and like my cheeks have caught fire and like I want to cry.
It’s only as I press my thighs together even harder—the insides of them growing slick—that it hits home.
I’m ashamed.
Ashamed and guilty—because judging by the look on Georgie’s face, she knows exactly what we were doing, and the unhappy shock in her eyes tells me she’s not going to forget about it any time soon.
And maybe she shouldn’t—maybe no one should forget a misbehaving priest. Maybe no one should forgive one.
God. Why didn’t I stop us? Why didn’t I fight harder to move somewhere else? To go somewhere private? We’re so used to being the gods of our own little world that we’ve forgotten the real one, and now we’ll have to pay for our hubris. We’ll have to reap what we’ve sown, except it will be Becket doing the reaping, it will be Becket paying the price for both our sins.
I blink back hot, guilty tears as Georgie says, “As you can see, we were just out for a stroll. It was good seeing you.” She and her husband start walking again, their dog running back up the path to meet them, tail wagging. They don’t look back at us.
As farewells go, it’s rather brusque, but I’m relieved nonetheless. I don’t think I can stand here another minute with Becket’s seed running down my thighs and my skin burning like it’s already been dipped in brimstone.
Becket finally turns to me, exhaling heavily. His eyes downcast.
“Becket,” I say softly, and then stop. I don’t know what I can say to make this better. We fucked up.
And th
e cost—the cost could be something it would kill him to pay.
“Do you mind driving me to the rectory?” he asks, not meeting my gaze. “I don’t feel like running back just now.”
“Of course. Do you—would you rather come to Thornchapel instead?”
He shakes his head. “I think I need to spend some time alone right now.”
“Okay,” I say. I want to hug him, hold his hand, do something, but what can I do? Haven’t I already fucked things up enough by touching him in the first place?
We start walking down the farm’s side of the ridge, through the wildflowers and down the lane to where the car is parked.
“Will it be okay?” I ask. “Do you think it will be okay?”
Becket takes a long time to answer.
The silence between us is filled with bleating sheep and trilling birds and a playful, tossing wind, and it’s so hard to believe that anything could be bad now, not with the world sounding like this.
“I don’t know if things will be okay,” Becket says finally, his voice hollow.
“But I also don’t know if they should be.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
St. Sebastian
At first, it was like gin, the feeling of loving him after knowing the truth.
