The Devil approves.
This is why I have you decorate, Neamhchiontach. This is inviting.
I don't know if he's being ironic so I thank him for the compliment nonetheless and usher him back down the steps. We have church.
Why does Sam insist on his early service being so early?
Because if he does it late less people come. People like to get God out of the way early and then they free themselves up to do other things. Half of my sentence comes out in an unrecognizable yawn and I laugh because I can't understand myself.
Sam seems very busy lately doing other things.
My gaze is a warning. I don't say a word.
Interesting that he can lead you to sin and then redeem you all at once. One-stop shopping.
Caleb. Please.
No familiar nicknames, no casual teasing. My formality is a second warning.
What is Lochlan doing, Bridget?
You'll have to ask him. Maybe things are smoothing out. Maybe he's able to release his hold just a little. He's relaxing. I don't know. Like I said, ask him.
(Don't ask him if he spent last night clutching me so tightly against him while he slept that I couldn't breathe and didn't care and he lashed out with a fist when Ben tried to untangle me but he was mostly sleepfighting and didn't know so Ben settled for wrapping a hand around the back of Lochlan's head and spooning behind me. That seemed to calm Lochlan back down. I didn't die overnight. I was still breathing this morning but I was flushed and overheated. I woke up not even knowing where I was for all the lush colors I forgot about while I slept.)
(For the curious, everything else in the house is white. Jesus. Five shades of white paint. White carpets and rugs. White trim. White white white. Matches the snow. Hard to keep up with when you have a black cat and ten people with impossibly dirty fingers living in the same place but I try my best.)
(I should learn to stop telling stories in parentheses.)
I might, Caleb says.
I've forgotten what we were talking about.
When we get downstairs Ben is ready. Lochlan is working for Batman today and forgets Sundays are church. He hasn't liked church since I was ten and we went to ad-hoc open-air tent revivals, lead by whoever felt the need to spread the Word. Those were confusing to me, riveting only in a sense that I couldn't understand people's devotion to something so seemingly intangible. They told me I would get it when I was older. That I would feel it. I'm still waiting for that day to come.
Ready? Ben is holding his keys and wearing his boots.
(The ground clearance of the R8 means it is staying home now until the snow and ice is gone. Caleb says if this keeps up he'll go back to driving a Bentley. I asked why he doesn't just get a truck and he said he wasn't a savage.
Just a snob, then.
Probably, yes. I'm not a truck person.
No, you certainly aren't.)
We are ready, I tell Ben and we grin at each other. I know the minute he turns the key in the truck the full-volume Amon Amarth (best hair in the business) CD I had playing when we came home last will fire up and blow Caleb's horns right off. I can't wait.
