Page 77 of Priest (Priest 1)
And that was mostly my life—arguing with my brother, eating shitty food, generally having no idea what to do next. I thought about Poppy constantly, whether I was researching graduate programs or whether I was with my parents, who were supportive but tentative, as if afraid that saying the wrong word would make me have a Vietnam flashback and start crawling on the floor with a knife between my teeth.
“They’re afraid you’re going to hulk out, because of all that stuff on the internet and they think maybe you’re repressing your feelings about it or something,” Ryan had helpfully explained when he’d overheard me mention it to Aiden and Sean. “So, you know. Don’t hulk out.”
Don’t hulk out. How funny. If anything, I was hulking in, shrinking and folding into a smaller man, a weaker man. Without Poppy, it was as if I had forgotten all the things that made me into Tyler Bell. I pined for her like a person would pine for air, incessantly, gaspingly, and it left so little room to think about anything else. I couldn’t even watch The Walking Dead because it reminded me too much of her.
“I’m lost,” I admitted to Jordan one day after Thanksgiving. “I know I did the right thing by leaving the clergy, but now there’s so many choices—so many places I could go, so many things I could do. How am I supposed to know which one is the right one?”
“Is it because they all feel wrong without her?”
I hadn’t mentioned Poppy to him at all, so his acuity unnerved me, even though I should know better by now. “Yes,” I said honestly. “I miss her so much it hurts.”
“Has she tried to contact you?”
I looked down at the table. “No.”
No messages. No emails. No phone calls. Nothing. She was done with me. I supposed this meant she’d seen me that day in her house, that she knew I knew about Sterling, and that almost made it worse. No explanation? No apology? Not even the charade of feeble excuses and well wishes for the future?
I knew she’d moved away from Weston—Millie called to give me weekly updates on the church and my former parishioners—but I had no idea where she’d gone, although I assumed it was to New York City with Sterling.
“I think you should try to find her,” Jordan said. “Get some closure.”
Which was how I ended up at the strip club with Sean that December. He’d practically imploded with excitement when I had asked him to bring me, talking about getting me laid, getting him laid, and also about how we should bring Aiden, but not tonight because he wanted to focus on my game.
“I don’t want to hook up with a stripper,” I protested for the ten thousandth time as we rode the elevator up.
“What, they’re too good for you now? You were fucking one just a couple months ago.”
God, had it been two months already? It felt so much shorter than that, except the times when it felt longer, the times when I was sure it had been years since I’d last tasted the sweetness of Poppy’s body, since I’d felt her cunt so warm and wet around my dick, and those were the times I’d found myself so painfully erect I could barely breathe. Luckily, Sean was desperate to climb the ladder at his job and worked lots of late nights, and so I had the penthouse to myself most of the time. Not that jacking off ever helped—no matter how often I came into my hand thinking of her, it never dulled the ache of losing her, it never softened the blow of her betrayal. But betrayal or not, my body still wanted her.
I still wanted her.
“That was different,” I told Sean now in the elevator, and he shrugged. I knew I’d never be able to explain it to him, because he’d never been in love. Pussy is pussy, he would say whenever I tried to make him understand why I didn’t want to be set up with some random girl he knew, why I didn’t want to date at all. What was so special about hers?
The club was busy—it was a Saturday night—and it only took a couple vodka and tonics to convince Sean to go do his own thing. I stayed near the bar, sipping a Bombay Sapphire martini and watching the dancers out on the floor, remembering what it was like to have Poppy dance for me and me alone.
What I wouldn’t give just to have a few of those moments back—her and me and that goddamn silk thing around her neck. With a sigh, I set my drink down. I hadn’t come here to reminisce. I came here to find out where Poppy went.
The bartender came down my way, wiping down the bar. “Another?” she
asked, gesturing to my martini.
“No, thanks. Actually, I’m looking for someone.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A dancer? We usually don’t give out schedule information.” For safety reasons, I could see she wanted to say, but she didn’t.
I couldn’t even be offended, because I knew how it looked to her. “Actually, I’m not looking for schedule information per se. I’m looking for Poppy Danforth…I think she used to work here?”
The bartender’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh my God, you’re that priest, aren’t you?”
I cleared my throat. “Um, yeah. I mean, I’m not technically a priest anymore, but I was.”
The bartender grinned. “That picture of you playing Frisbee in college—it’s the background on my sister’s work computer. And have you seen the Hot Priest memes?”
I had indeed—for better or for worse—seen the Hot Priest memes. They were made using the picture that used to be on St. Margaret’s website, the one that Poppy admitted to looking up all those months ago.
I thought maybe it would be easier if I knew what you looked like.
And is it easier?
