Hannah: I like Jack in person much better
Jack: you like me in person?
Hannah: stop fishing
Hannah: if you want to come, please pick up a tux today before five
Jack: I have a tux.
Hannah: a 1920s vintage one?
Jack: that sounds uncomfortable
Hannah: if you want to see me festooned in sequins, pick up the tux like I told you
Jack: I like it when you order me around
Hannah: of course you do.
Jack: so, I’m forgiven if I pick up the tux
Hannah: see you tomorrow night
Jack: send pictures of the sequins
Hannah: I’m busy. Have a caterer to menace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JACK HADN’T BEEN TO confession since the time he had to go before his First Communion. But he couldn’t just lay everything out for Patrick during their weekly basketball game. He didn’t want Chris, Joey, or Michael to hear about how guilty he felt and about how much he felt for Hannah.
Any one of his friends and family would help him move. They’d bail him out of jail. They’d help him bury a body. But they would give him a rasher of shit if he told them that he was so in love with Hannah that he couldn’t see straight and that he was thinking about tanking his career—again—just for a shot at being with her.
Patrick would get it because he’d made the same type of hard choice when it came to becoming a priest, and Jack had been there for his friend when it had come time for him to make that choice.
He got in the little confessional booth and waited until Patrick’s silhouette appeared through the metal mesh screen. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“Nolan?” Patrick’s surprise was certainly unpastoral. “What are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you supposed to ask me how long it’s been since my last confession?”
“I know it’s been at least twenty years, because I was waiting in line behind you the last time.”
Jack laughed. His friend was right. And he’d been waiting a long time. That last/first confession had happened around the time his parents were divorced. The priest had taken a long time trying to convince him that it wasn’t his fault, that he had nothing to do with his mom not being there when he got home from school, or the fact that his father never laughed anymore.
“Seriously, what did you do?” Patrick asked.
“I lied to Hannah.”
“That’s not new. You’ve been lying to her since you met.” Maybe Patrick couldn’t keep his judgment tamped down because they’d been friends for so long, but still.
“You’re kind of shitty at this, Padre.”
“Don’t swear in the confessional.”
“Aren’t you just supposed to give me a thousand Hail Marys or something and send me on my way?” That wasn’t really what Jack was expecting; he certainly deserved to crawl across a floor of nails for what he’d done to Hannah—what he was thinking about doing to her.
Patrick sighed. “Why is this just bothering you right now?”
“I think I could be falling in love with this girl.”
“You can’t know that, dude.”
He certainly felt like he knew it. The idea of losing her made him feel like shit. “I think I know myself.”
“I beg to differ.” Patrick had the nerve to sound bored.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Language. House of God. C’mon.”
“Sorry.”
Patrick paused before continuing. “You say you’re in love with this girl, but you hardly know her.”
“I know enough.”
“You know you have a healthy amount of lust for her.”
“About that, I should probably confess to more than the lying—”
“Jesus Christ, Nolan.” Patrick must be disappointed in him if he was taking the Lord’s name in vain while performing his priestly duties. “You slept with her?!”
“No. Kind of.” Jack decided to come completely clean, with the likely effect of making pre-priesthood Patrick very, very jealous. “There was some sodomy—some mouth sodomy—and some very impure thoughts exchanged via sext.”
He wasn’t going to say anything about the sex-toy thing because that might blow up his friend’s brain.
“You have to tell her the truth,” Patrick said. “And I’m not just saying that’s the way to get right with God. You’re barely even Catholic anymore.” True. Jack just wanted someone with some authority to tell him how to fix this. Patrick being the smartest guy he knew and having God on his side, he thought this was the right place to come. “But you have to tell her the truth if you want a chance of finding out if you’re in love with her.”
Damn. Patrick was right. “What if I tell her the truth and she never wants to see me again?”
“There’s a chance that will happen, but it’s not like you have anything to lose here if it does. If she won’t listen to you and accept an apology, then what do you really have now?”
“I’ll lose my job if I tell her the truth.” Patrick knew that Jack had made most of his academic and career moves because of whatever woman he was dating at the time, so that was a big deal to him.
“I wouldn’t say this to any of my parishioners, and definitely not to any of my other friends, but maybe think about yourself and what’s best for you for once?”
Part of Jack wanted to do that. If he could turn off his feelings for Hannah and go through with the story, he would take that opportunity right now. He didn’t like feeling as much as he did about Hannah and not knowing whether he could make things work.
On the one hand, he was afraid that she was just like every other girl he’d ever been involved with. He was afraid that he would never be enough for her, no matter what he gave up to keep her. Just like he hadn’t been able to keep his family together by being a good little boy. Maybe he was done being a good guy altogether.
But still, selfish didn’t fit him. It wasn’t the man he was raised to be, by either of his parents.
“I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you this—” His friend paused and breathed. Oddly, even though Jack wasn’t a real believer anymore, a sense of calm came over him just sitting there for a beat waiting for his confessor to speak—to give him his penance. “You have to figure out if this thing with Hannah is different from your things with Maggie, Katie, and Lauren. If she’s the other half of you and not just a way for you to work out your mommy issues.”