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“I respect that.”
Her eyebrow shot sky-high. “You aren’t going to try to convince me otherwise?”
“No. What and who you believe in isn’t my business.”
“Huh. I thought it was your job to turn me into a believer.”
I could understand why. So many religious people did push their beliefs onto others. I wasn’t one of them. “People make lots of assumptions about priests, Lyric. Most don’t come close to being the truth.”
People assumed priests were all good, noble, and holy. Sometimes that was the truth. Some of the people I’d met after joining the priesthood were good right down to their toes.
But there were always rotten apples.
Men who used their positions of power for evil instead of good.
They could stare you right in the eye, smile, and preach from their Bibles. Everyone assumed they were decent, humble men.
Lies. All of it.
Not that I could talk.
I was sure people looked at me and took in the priest collar, the neat, tidy clothes, and quiet demeanor, and assumed I was one of the good ones too.
Not a man who’d put his hands around a priest’s throat two nights earlier and squeezed until the color drained from his face. And not a man who had the most impure thoughts about a woman.
Everybody had their secrets. Including me.
“Take the job, and the free care. Open a new bank account and give me the number. I’ll have Lleyton put his payments into that. Consider it child support.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What? That’s illegal.”
So were a lot of things I did in the name of righting wrongs. “I know,” I said simply.
She took a step back, holding up one hand. “What’s the catch?” She eyed me up and down, suddenly wary of me. “You aren’t just going to take that money and put it in my account without me owing you something.” Her gaze narrowed. “I won’t suck your dick, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You won’t…” I squinted at her. “Why would you think I want that? You’re doing me a favor in cleaning this place. I’m doing you one in return.”
Getting a blow job hadn’t been my intention. Far from it.
But now the idea planted itself in my head, in bold, vibrant color. What she’d look like, kneeling before me, submissive and sweet, naked, her lips slightly parted, ready for me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, sucking in a sharp breath. “I just want to help.”
It was all I ever wanted. To be the sort of person who did good and helped make this fucked-up world a little bit better for the people who deserved it.
Lleyton and Katherine could keep their obnoxious convertible if Lyric let me help her in this way instead. The legalities of it didn’t concern me. As far as I was concerned, I was in the right here. I was settling a wrong. Giving a woman and her child what should have been freely given from the girl’s father.
God would have liked that, I think.
It was a selfless act.
Apart from the fact getting to see Lyric every day felt like the most selfish, decadent act of all.
5
ZEPH
Father Byron’s elderly mother was a regular at our meetings. The woman had to be in her eighties but took the greatest pride in serving each of her son’s friends homemade cupcakes and little sandwiches cut into triangles. She moved around the room quietly while he read from the Bible, insisting that each of us try the food she’d prepared.
