Page 63 of Priest (Priest 1)
She wasn’t staying with me? Fuck. “Poppy, I’m so sorry. I don’t know—”
“What came over you?” she finished for me. “By the looks of it, half a bottle of Scotch. But,” and here she lowered her eyes, “I guess I deserved that.”
“No,” I said firmly, but not very firmly because now that I’d settled into the pillow, I’d realized the room was spinning around me. “You didn’t deserve anything of the sort. I feel so ashamed of myself right now, and I don’t deserve you even being here. You should go.”
“I’m not going,” she said with the same firmness I hadn’t been able to muster. “You are going to take a nap and I’m going to read a book, and when you wake up, I have a way for you to make it up to me. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered, not sure if I deserved a chance to make it up to her or not. But also I wanted her to know why I’d been such an ass, why I’d acted like such a phenomenal bastard. It was that stupid human desire to justify one’s actions, as if I could erase the wrong of it all if only she saw my reasons.
As someone who heard people’s wrongdoings and the reasons for said wrongdoings on a professional basis, I should’ve known better. But I was desperate for her not to hate my guts, and yes, maybe there was a tiny part of me that also wanted to shift the blame, because let’s face it, she’d spent the night with Sterling and then showed up in her day-after state, and how the fuck was I supposed to react?
“I know that you were with him last night,” I blurted and then held my breath, terrified that she’d confirm it and even more terrified that she’d try to deny it.
But she didn’t really do either. Instead, she sighed and drew the blanket up to my chest. “I know you know,” she said. “Sterling told me that he sent that picture.”
And then she looked away. “I fucking hate him so much.”
That heartened me a bit. Maybe last night had been sex-free after all. Maybe this wasn’t all an elaborate prelude to her telling me that she was leaving for Sterling.
“I didn’t screw him, Tyler,” she said, noticing my look.
And I believed her. Maybe it was the clear, open way she said it. Maybe it was her eyes, wide and innocent. Or maybe it was something more ephemeral than that, some spiritual connection that knew her words to be true.
Either way, I chose to believe that she was telling me the truth.
She took a deep breath. “We’ll talk more when you wake up. But I didn’t—nothing happened. I didn’t touch him…he didn’t touch me.” She found my hand and squeezed it, and that squeeze was the axis on which the room drunkenly tilted. “I only want you, Father Bell.”
“Wake up, sleepyhead.”
The voice pierced through the smoky, smudgy veil of heavy sleep, sound waves and nerve receptors working together to rouse my brain, to coax me awake and back into the world of the sober living.
My brain wasn’t having it. I rolled over, but rather than finding one of my ancient, flattened pillows, my face found bare flesh. Bare thighs. I wrapped an arm around them in an automatic gesture, burying my face in the smooth, sweet-smelling skin.
Fingers twined through my hair. “It’s time to wake up.”
It was the thighs more than the request, but I finally managed to force my eyes open, and once I did, I regretted it.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “I feel like shit.”
“Because of the booze or because of the way you acted?”
I kept my face against Poppy’s thigh. “Both,” I mumbled.
“That’s what I thought. Well, time to feel better. I’ve laid out some clothes for you on the bed.”
The thighs moved away, which made me sad. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, stretching her arms as if she’d been in the same position for a long time, but she wasn’t naked any longer, she was wearing a short tunic belted at the waist and gladiator sandals.
“You left,” I accused.
She nodded. “I couldn’t go where
we’re going in one of your undershirts and I certainly wasn’t going to go in my dirty clothes. I was only gone for a few minutes, I promise.”
I sat up slowly and took the water and Advil she offered. “Now get dressed,” she said. “We have a date.”
Thirty minutes later and we were pulling on the interstate in the Fiat. I was wearing dark jeans and a soft pullover sweater Sean had given me last Christmas in his continuing quest to improve my closet. It was a casual outfit—despite the sweater’s ridiculous price tag—and I wondered why we were driving down to the city if not to go to someplace dressy and expensive.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
