I can feel him smile against me. He shakes his head.
"I know what you're thinking. ‘Rayne is obsessed with my ass’. And I’ve gotta say…I think that's fair."
Yeah, my guy is definitely smiling. I kiss his hair again.
"What do you want for today? You want me to wear something special? Clothes or...otherwise?" I swallow after I ask. He looks up at me and cups my face, looking tired but happy.
"Just be with me."
Just be with him.
Shit. Well that's something I can do.
3
Luke
Rayne’s hand squeezes mine as I pull into the pastor spot in the parking garage.
“So, first up is that board meeting at ten, right?” he asks me. “That’s the big thing…with the P.R. team?”
I nod, squeezing his hand back before I let it go. When I look over at him after parking, I can tell he’s watching me closely.
It makes me smile, even though I feel like I might be sick. “You doing your Luke Status Assessment?”
“Yeah.” Rayne lets a breath out, looking down for just a second before giving me a slightly strained smile. “I think it’ll be fine. But I don’t like the idea of you listening to them talk about ‘retention’ strategies.”
I told Vance that the board plans to discuss the various ways my coming out will impact business, and how they should be handled. They want me to lead the discussion, but still, that’s the discussion.
“I don’t know how it’s not going to make you feel like shit,” he says. “I still think they should maybe meet without you. But I get why they can’t.” He runs his hand over his short, dark hair.
The board can’t meet about this without me because that would end up being undermining. They know that; that’s why no one suggested it, even if to spare my feelings.
“They’ll be tactful,” I tell Rayne.
“I know.” But he still looks worried. I haven’t told Rayne as much as I probably should about my…problems. But I think Pearl has. And he knows something went down during the time I had the flu, before he found me septic in my bedroom. I just can’t bring myself to say it—at least outside of Derek, my new therapist. But Vance knows. He gets me. That’s why he’s worried.
“If you get fucked up, will you come and find me?” he asks.
I can’t help smirking at his foul mouth. “I will.”
“Will you? Any time? I just want to know you’ll tell me if you get the underwater feeling.”
That’s how I told him I feel when I’m “fucked up.”
“Yeah. I promise.”
He looks at my left hand, still wrapped around the wheel, and I wonder if he’s thinking about our rings.
“I forgot it.” I frown as I steal a glance at his hand; I wonder why he didn’t wear his.
“Just taking cues from you, my buddy.” He slaps my arm lightly with knuckles, and I can’t help wrapping my arms around him, pulling him close enough so I can feel him up against me once more before we go in. His soft mouth, even right now, gives me a stomach-flipping, vaguely shivery feeling.
“Thank you,” I whisper against his jaw.
“This is what we do.” He kisses my cheek, and I feel his hand move up my arm so it’s cupping my shoulder. “You’re okay, you know? Remember what the book says—about what God thinks. Everything about you is perfection, McD.”
I shut my eyes. Say it enough and I hope I’ll believe it.
“I know,” I manage. I’m pretty sure he’s referencing Genesis, which says God made humans in His image. Other than that, I can’t think of a single place in which the Bible insinuates that I’m perfect.
Vance’s hand caresses my hair—bleached pale from the sun, and slightly too long. “I know you know.” He touches my chest. “I want you to feel it, too, though.”
This man… There’s no one like him.
He smiles like he knows what I’m thinking. “I know you, Sky. That’s what I’m good at.” He brushes his lips over mine again. “After this, we’re going home together. Eyes on the prize.” He waggles his brows.
“Thank God for that.”
I walk around to his side of the car as he gets out a tool box full of sculpting stuff. We walk side by side through the church, Rayne winking at me a few times and giving me his little sweet smiles. We stop for a moment in the atrium where his mural covers the wall—so vibrant that it almost looks like something off of a computer screen.
“You’re incredible. You know that, right?” I ask him.
He rolls his eyes as his cheeks color. “You’re the pope. I’m just the artist.”
“Michelangelo.” I catch his hand. “Remember what the New York Times said?”
Vance snorts. “I’m not even gonna say what that was.”
He’s told me this story before, though. The best profile a publication’s ever done on him—the Sunday edition of the New York Times—and Vance insists the reporter, a woman, was more interested in him than in his art.