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“Before we get started,” Adam’s now-familiar voice says from the other side of the confessional, “I brought you a pumpkin spice latte like we talked about last time.”
Michael frowns. “Food and drink are not permitted in the confessional. And we didn’t talk about that. You asked if consuming one every day was a form of gluttony.”
“Yeah, and you said you’d never had one, which obviously can’t stand. I left it on one of the pews.”
Michael bites his lower lip as it attempts to curl into a smile. “That’s almost as bad.”
“Then that’s the first thing I’ll have to confess. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been one week since my last confession. I brought a delicious but unhealthy coffee drink into the sanctuary. Hoping the generosity keeps me in the good books. Do you have any idea how much these things cost?”
Michael does; he reviewed the Starbucks website in detail after Adam’s last confession, and if he weren’t utterly overwhelmed by the knowledge that Adam was thinking about him when he wasn’t around, he would be uncomfortable with how much he must have spent. He clears his throat, doing his utmost to shake away unproductive thoughts. “Adam. This is a sacred rite.”
“Fine, fine, just trying to keep it light.” Adam lets out an unconvincing laugh, then goes silent. Michael is used to these silences. He likes to think of himself as a good listener, though the truth is less flattering: he’s a bad talker and usually says the wrong thing when he has to use his own judgment. His resulting tendency to let a silence drag on seems to be an asset in the confessional in a way it isn’t in the rest of the world.
“I am so angry. All the time,” Adam says finally. “Everyone keeps telling me to give it time, but I’ve done that. My mom’s been dead a year, and I still get so… I have these dreams where I find out who killed her and I just take them apart. And I have these other dreams where she comes back and she’s hugging me and she’s talking but the whole time she’s bleeding and it’s just this red stain spreading and spreading. And I try to apply pressure but I can’t save her. I can’t ever save her.” Adam pauses to compose himself, his breathing loud and ragged. Michael resists the urge to press his hand to the divider between them.
When Adam speaks again, he’s managed a sardonic sort of calm. “I yelled at my boss yesterday because he was complaining about having to go to his mom’s for Thanksgiving. So I might be getting fired, on top of everything. I think I could handle it if it were just that I miss her, but it's not fair. She didn’t deserve it.”
“Of course she didn’t,” Michael says, proud of himself for recognizing this as the type of silence that requires filling.
Adam scoffs. “Aren’t you going to say something about God’s plan?”
“That was not well received the first time.”
Adam huffs out a laugh, and Michael knows they're both remembering his outburst, for which Michael should technically have assigned penance. "Yeah. I guess I should apologize," he says, and doesn't. “It’s just that she was a good person. She spent her whole life working her ass off—sorry—to take care of me. Graveyard shifts, never enough to pay the bills. And I was just, just at the point where I could start helping her out. I got us tickets for a cruise, and it left two weeks after she died. She was a good person, and she sacrificed, and what did it get her?”
“It got her a wonderful son and thirty years to spend with him,” Michael says. He’s never been good with emotions, but he’s spent a lot of time thinking of Adam and his struggles, trying to script words that might help. Adam makes a strange noise; Michael can’t tell whether it’s a gasp or a half-swallowed sob. “Your mother’s death was a tragedy. But her life wasn’t. Yes, she struggled, but she lived.” A sense of melancholy nearly overtakes Michael as he speaks. What does he know about living? He’s spent his life locked away, first in his father’s house, now in the church. “I know how you feel, but—“
“Oh, yeah?” Adam says, suddenly challenging. “How do you know how I feel?”
Michael has been strict about not giving away personal information. His sessions with Adam are already well out of bounds; the least he can do is stick to one simple rule. But now, thinking of Adam on the other side of the booth, alone and miserable, he hears himself say, “My brother passed a few years ago. He was very troubled. I often wonder why his life should have played out as it did. By the end he was. Difficult to love, but I did.”
“I’m sorry, Michael, I shouldn’t have pushed. I’m sorry about your brother.”
“No apology necessary.” Michael hasn’t mentioned Lucifer to anyone in years. His heart aches, but it feels full at the same time. This is no longer just his shameful secret, the brother he couldn’t save. It’s something he and Adam have in common.
“But that’s what I mean. I’m so angry all the time, and it’s turning me into an asshole. Sorry, sorry. I’m out of practice with being in church. My mom used to take me when I was little. It was so important to her that she made time for it whenever she could. But then she started working Sundays, and I was supposed to go on my own, but, I don’t know, I was a teenager, and she was too busy to make me, and I had just started to figure out I liked guys.” Adam always sounds so defiant when he mentions his sexuality, and Michael can’t pretend not to understand why. He stiffens every time it comes up, the same way he does when his father raises his voice. “I never got to tell her, but she would have understood. I know she would have.”
“I believe that,” Michael says, trying not to choke on his words.
“I just. I thought being here would help me find answers, or at least make me feel closer to her. But I’m as angry and confused as ever. So what’s the point? Isn’t there supposed to be a reason?”
“I don’t know,” Michael admits. His faith used to be the simplest thing in his life. He grew up in the church, and he believed without question. It carried him through his difficulties with Lucifer and his distance from his father, but it has never been a comfort, just a clear set of rules. He doesn't have to worry about judging right and wrong for himself because there will always be someone or something to tell him. This is all he has to offer to Adam, and it isn’t enough. “I don’t have an answer. I wish I did. I’m sorry.”
Adam sighs. “Don’t be sorry. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but I like talking to you. Honestly, you're the only reason I'm still coming here.”
“Oh,” Michael says. He touches a hand to his cheek and feels it burn. This is a sin, he knows. This is pride, pride mixed with something unnameable.
“Sorry if that’s weird," Adam says, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. "Or blasphemous or something."
“No, that is. Quite flattering.”
“Good. So why don’t you tell me how many Hail Marys I need to do so we can get out of here before your coffee gets cold? I’ll see you next week.”
— — — — —
Michael tries to avoid church events whenever possible. He didn’t go to seminary school to oversee bake sales and fish fries, but as he’s been told over and over, it’s part of the job. He minds the obligation a bit less since meeting Adam, because there is always the possibility, not yet realized, that Adam will be in attendance as well. He tries, sometimes, to picture this thing he supposedly wants. He imagines Adam calling out to him, enthusiasm audible, and he imagines turning to meet him. This is as far as his mind ever takes him; here it meets a brick wall behind which hides something that might ruin him.
At the annual bazaar—musty, loud, and crowded into the church basement—Michael hears Adam’s voice, unmistakable even from across the room. He's speaking to someone Michael can't see over the crowd. He scrambles to look busy, turning toward the closest table and picking up the first thing his hand lands on, which happens to be a waterlogged paperback. He flips through it blindly, shoulders hunched, head down.
He imagines he can feel the moment Adam spots him. It’s something in the air, a sudden shift. Then there are footsteps coming toward him at a steady clip, making him feel like a prey animal. And finally, with too much warning and not enough, Adam is next to him, warm and solid and real. He's a couple inches taller than Michael and several shades lighter. He's wearing tight black jeans and a button-up covered in tropical birds. He looks like the essence of a modern man, and Michael feels very dowdy next to him in his plain black clothes and white collar.
“I guess even you need some light reading now and then, huh?” Adam says, grinning from ear to ear. His smile is blinding, so captivating that Michael finds himself unable to speak. No number of confessionals could have prepared him for this. In the confessional, there are rules, even if he’s broken many of them. There’s a script he can fall back on. Now there’s nothing but him, nothing but Adam. He only realizes he’s been staring when Adam reaches out with the hand not balancing two white cups and taps the cover of the book he’s still holding. “I would’ve pegged you for a non-fiction guy, myself.”
Only then does Michael look down to see that the cover features a shirtless, improbably-muscled man clutching a well-endowed woman. He throws it back down on the table and wipes his hands on his pantlegs. “Heaven forgive me,” he mutters.
“‘Tall, Dark, and Naked’? Not quite what I expected.”
“I wasn’t— You must know that I would never—“
“I’m messing with you. We both know you’re too uptight for that. Here.” Adam hands him one of the drinks, and he smells the familiar chemical scent of the pumpkin drink Adam’s been raving about. “I hoped I’d see you here. Figured if I didn’t, I’d have the perfect excuse to drink two.”
Truthfully, Michael didn’t enjoy the latte. It was too sweet and artificial, but he drank the whole thing, just like he’ll drink this one. “Thank you.” He processes too late that Adam said I hoped I’d see you, but has to concede that this is probably for the best, since his thanks already sounded embarrassingly sincere.
“No problem,” Adam says, apparently undisturbed. “So I’ve never been to one of these before. Why don’t you help me get the lay of the land?”
Michael takes a sip of his drink to buy himself time. “This is my first time as well. Are you interested in—“ He looks around. “Old clothes, chipped dishes, or half-melted candles?” Adam laughs, though Michael didn’t mean to make a joke. The laugh is accompanied by a pat on the back, and the feel of Adam’s hand on his skin—even briefly, even through a shirt—makes Michael forget to ask questions.
“I figured you did this kind of thing all the time. Or do they not let priests do anything fun?”
Michael raises an eyebrow. “Is this your idea of fun?”
“Sure.” Adam turns to a table full of demented-looking knick knacks. He picks up a ceramic dog wearing a tutu and galoshes. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be half of a salt and pepper shaker set, with the holes in its rear end. When Adam shakes it, one of its ears falls to the floor, and he replaces it on the table with exaggerated care. “Are you seriously telling me that wouldn’t, uh, spice up your life?”
Michael wrinkles his nose, but he can’t help letting out a laugh. “I do not want that.”
“Fine. Then what about…” Adam scans the tables around them, then leans over, his shirt riding briefly up, to grab a doll in a knit pink dress. He flips it over so that its dress falls over its head to reveal an empty space where its legs should be. “Toilet paper cover. Discretion is next to Godliness, right?”
Distracted by the memory of the strip of skin above Adam’s waistband, Michael says, “I already own several.”
“What? Who are you, my grandmother?” Somehow, Michael doesn’t mind being laughed at when Adam’s the one doing it, and he has to fight to keep a goofy smile off his face. “Tell me they look like this. Oh, maybe exactly like this? Was this your donation?”
“It is not, and they do not. Mine are a tasteful grey, with no dolls involved. I find knitting to be…restful.”
He expects another laugh, but Adam nods thoughtfully. “I’m glad you have a relaxing hobby, to be honest. You seem pretty high-strung. No offense.”
“None taken. I have heard that before.”
“Yeah, I bet. Uh, no offense again.” Adam's lips are startlingly pink. Michael doesn’t think anyone has ever smiled at him for this long. “Is it presumptuous to ask for a tour? Not that the basement isn’t thrilling, but most of the time when I’m here, I’m locked in a tiny box with you. Wouldn’t mind a bit of sightseeing.”
“The confessional doesn’t lock,” Michael says, brow furrowed. He recognizes the joke seconds too late and expects Adam to get exasperated with him, but he just keeps smiling. He has a kind smile, and so Michael agrees to the tour, though he knows it’s foolish.
They’re in the hallway leading to Michael’s office when Adam asks, “Hey, would you want to get lunch sometime? Unless that’s weird. I know every other time we’ve hung out, you were technically getting paid to, but." He rubs the back of his neck. "Like I said. I like talking to you. Maybe we could try it with something other than my mom's violent death?"
"We also talk about how often you take the Lord's name in vain," Michael says. Adam lets out a laugh that ends in a rather startling snort, but Michael barely has time to bask in the satisfaction of a successful joke before he hears the creak of the stairs at the end of the hall. Panicked, he looks around and then tugs Adam with him into a supply closet, shutting the door behind them.
“Uh,” Adam says from the shadows.
Michael shushes him. He can feel Adam’s too-fast pulse in his wrist. He knows he should drop Adam’s arm, but he doesn’t. They listen together to the sound of footsteps approaching and then, wonderfully, moving past them.
“So,” Adam says once they’re alone again. “That was kinda weird.”
The closet is, as closets go, fairly spacious, but something about the velvety quality of the dark makes the situation feel intimate. “I’m sorry. I. Do not know why I did that.”
“I don’t mind. I guess you were feeling nostalgic for the confessional, huh?”
“I was startled.”
“It happens.” Adam’s grin is somehow audible. “So do we have to stay in here? Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving the behind-the-scenes tour, but when I asked if you wanted to get lunch sometime, I meant I might actually starve to death in the next twenty minutes. What d’you think?”
Michael is on very dangerous ground. He has been called naive more times than he can count, but he isn’t so naive that he can’t see the risk he’s taking. He’s been so careful for so long, but Adam’s skin beneath his fingers practically burns, and for a second he thinks he might never let go. “Yes,” he hears himself say. “Yes, I would like that very much.”