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Katherine admonished her with an annoyed glare but continued peppering me with questions. “Do your opponents know you’re a priest? Surely punching a man of the cloth is morally wrong. I could never!”
Lyric rolled her eyes even though she wasn’t directly involved in the conversation. “I don’t know. I think I’d be more morally offended by someone taking three punches before they got their shit together enough to fight back. I could fight better than that in the third grade.”
“Lyric! Will you please stop, for just one second?” Katherine snapped in exasperation. “Don’t be so rude. I’m sure it wasn’t three punches anyway.”
I eyed Lyric, fighting back amusement. “My opponent this morning took me by surprise. Won’t happen again.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
Katherine glanced between the two of us like she was at a tennis match and eventually offered up an introduction. “Lyric, this is Father Zepherin. He’s our parish priest and oversees the new daycare program.”
I held my hand out to her. “You can call me Zeph.”
I blinked. I had no idea where that had come from. Not one of my parishioners called me that. Nobody did, apart from friends I’d had in high school.
Lyric wasn’t a friend, and somehow, with one look, I’d determined she would be.
Lyric watched me, her gaze lingering on my priest collar before she took my hand. “We’ve met before.”
Her grip was strong, her fingers were calloused and rough, probably from pole dancing, but who knew for sure? I’d been following her for weeks but I was under no assumptions I knew this woman. The punches to the face that morning had definitely come as a surprise.
The other woman let out a tittering laugh. “Oh, I don’t think so. You and Father Zepherin don’t run in the same circles, I’m sure.”
Katherine’s tone irritated me and a strong desire to defend Lyric rose inside me. “She’s right. We have met on a previous occasion. Twice, actually. Not officially though, until now.”
Lyric had the grace not to say, “I told you so,” to Katherine, but there was the sense of it in the air anyway.
A man reached through the middle of the two women, a little red-haired girl in his arms. “Hey,” he said awkwardly. “Uh, I’m Lleyton. This is our daughter, Amelia.”
Though it was clear the girl was Lyric’s biological child, Katherine beamed. “She’s starting here today, and she’s just a gem of a child. So smart and kind and respectful. She’ll be an absolute delight.”
I wasn’t much of a smiler in general, but there was a soft spot in my heart for kids. Maybe because I knew I’d never have any of my own.
“Hello,” I said to her, offering the little girl a high five. “I’m Father Zepherin.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Father?”
I nodded.
“So I call you Daddy?”
“No, but I might,” Lyric quipped beneath her breath, but plenty loud enough for all of us to hear.
Katherine choked and spluttered.
I checked to see if she was okay.
Lleyton shot Lyric a long-suffering glare.
Katherine, apparently recovered from Lyric’s crassness, reached out for Amelia and took her from his arms. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go show you around and introduce you to your teachers.” She shot a glare over her shoulder at Lyric. “Perhaps your mother will learn how to act appropriately while we’re gone.”
Katherine, Amelia, and Lleyton walked off to the daycare that ran on the church grounds, leaving me alone with Lyric.
She gazed up at me. “Sorry. Kat Wow is right. That was inappropriate and uncalled for. I’m really sorry if I made you uncomfortable. As you might remember, I kind of had a night, so can we please pretend I actually do have a brain-to-mouth filter?”
“It’s fine.” She wasn’t the first woman to make such a comment. I heard a lot of things people thought they were keeping quiet. The parking lot outside of mass on a Sunday morning was a hive for gossip, and my name often floated back to me above the chatter.
She nudged me with her elbow. “As a priest, you’re not supposed to lie, you know.”
