He touched her elbow and she started, so he pulled his hand back immediately. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting—”
“I just wanted to thank you for bringing me here. It was incredibly thoughtful.” It was a weekday, and there was a newer exhibition in the Modern Wing, so they were virtually alone in the gallery. There were no children to run between them and cut the tension. If he was allowed to, he would brush her hair back over her ear right now.
As it was, all he could do was stand there and look at her, but not for too long. He was here to see the art.
It was Sasha who ended his moment of weakness. “The dresses are in the next gallery.”
He followed her over, and she explained why several dresses that looked like they would be incredibly uncomfortable were rare and important and cost more to make than Patrick made in a year.
She was at home in a world where a dress could cost twice as much as the car he had use of as pastor. He used the opportunity to attempt to convince himself that they did not belong together— they wouldn’t even if he wasn’t bound by ordination to serve as a priest until he died.
If he weren’t a priest, he probably would have taken over Dooley’s from his father. He would work himself to the bone to keep the place open, occasionally arguing with his old man that they ought to update things, but losing most of the time.
Sasha wouldn’t look at him twice if he wasn’t a priest.
He usually didn’t dwell on his own shortcomings, but Sasha had him thinking in stark terms about what he’d chosen for himself. He never should have allowed himself to touch her. It had been untoward, and it was dangerous to his composure.
She seemed unbothered by it all as she wandered the room. She stopped at a photograph of Jared Leto carrying a duplicate of his own head. He stopped next to her.
The image reminded him of the Spanish Inquisition. Since they seemed to have a mind meld about everything else, he wondered if she was thinking the same thing. “In the past, there would have been much more barbaric ways to get you to accept Christ’s love.”
“That’s very macabre, Father.” He liked it way too much when she said that.
As he looked at the photo and listened to her talk about couture while he lit up from the inside just being with her, he knew he was screwed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PATRICK WASN’T READY TO see her again. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for days. Not after she’d dropped him off after their museum visit and he’d gone to his office to wait out his hard-on.
Not a short wait.
It was made shorter by Sister Cortona walking in and telling him about the backed-up toilet outside the sanctuary. Nothing like a graphic description of a fetid stench to take his mind off the way that Sasha had felt underneath him in the grass.
He was surprised that Jimmi Rafferty’s parents hadn’t called to yell at him about how he’d manhandled their kid. He’d been totally out of line. But something had come over him that he couldn’t explain and hadn’t been able to control. He hadn’t gotten in a fistfight since he’d entered the seminary almost a decade ago—bar brawls weren’t exactly becoming for a man of the cloth. And he hadn’t been much of a fighter before that. Most of his altercations had been in defense of his brother, who was a dipshit on the best of days. And his brother’s scrapes had never aroused the metallic taste of rage he’d felt when he’d seen that car coming toward Sasha.
An image of a world without Sasha Finerghty in it had flashed in his mind, and it made him angry. She might not be for him, but he needed her to be alive. It was imperative.
Still, his rough treatment of a careless kid wasn’t excusable. He could control his attraction to Sasha—he had to. But he also had to control the feelings that were fallout from those feelings—rage, confusion, and the idea that there was something outside the Church to hope for.
He knew all too well that hope for anything other than his faith would yield nothing but heartbreak. He would not—could not—indulge the idea that whatever he felt for Sasha and her kindness would be enough to sustain him.
Love was an illusion. People he loved either died or left him. The only thing that hadn’t left him was his faith, even though God seemed to be talking to him less and less now that he was the pastor at St. Bart’s. Or maybe he just wasn’t listening over the sound of his own ego and desires.
He knew that he could put Sasha out of his mind and keep her in a very platonic place in his heart. He had to.
Resolved, he walked out into the courtyard to make sure that all of the donations were in place. He fixed a smile on his face that he wouldn’t let falter, even if Sasha showed up with the guy that he’d been dumb enough to encourage her to continue dating.
Sister Cortona had a clipboard and was directing volunteers to put fabulous, layered confections on tables covered with linens a whole lot nicer than anything the parish could afford. They must have come from Sasha, and he said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t made the massive mistake of tasting her mouth the other day when they were almost run over. He’d been so tempted to lean over and kiss her that his lips tingled for hours after. She would have run screaming, and the pre-K program would be doomed. Besides, the flush on her cheeks and fast-beating heart had been all about the adrenaline.
None of it had been about him.
“About time you arrived.” Sister Cortona smiled when she said it. “We’re just about done setting up.”
Patrick nodded his head. “Thank you.”
“Who are you looking for?”
Patrick hadn’t even noticed that he was looking for anyone, but sure enough, his head was on the swivel. Luckily for him, Jack arrived. Patrick looked at the sister and winked, even though his charm never did any good with her. “I have to make sure my heathen friend spends plenty of money as penance.”
The sister rolled her eyes and walked away, sharply telling one of the volunteers to “keep her filthy mitts off the petit fours.”
Patrick approached Jack, who embraced him in a backslapping hug. “Hannah couldn’t make it. Apparently, the thought of baked goods is enough to make her ‘ralph’ these days.”
“I thought we left the term ‘ralph’ in the 1980s?” At least, Patrick hadn’t heard it in a while. Not that being a priest kept him up on the current slang. Latin phrases for a whole lot of shit, yes. But dead languages yielded no slang.
“So did I, but it seems pregnancy has caused all sorts of regression.” Patrick would have been concerned if Jack hadn’t been smiling while he said that. “She hasn’t been able to keep down anything but blue-box mac and cheese in weeks.”