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01
They're sitting on the steps outside the church. Esther's leaned back on her hands, enjoying the feel of sunshine on her face, the breeze that plays with her sweater. A strand of hair has caught itself in her eyelashes and Jake leans over to pull it away. She opens her eyes and looks at him. "My answer's still no," she says firmly, but he can see the hesitation in her expression.
"It's just coffee." His grin is irresistible, his posture inviting, and it's all Esther can do not to just nod and follow him to the narthax, to sit down at a table while he waxes enthusiastically about her homemade muffins. His mouth quirks slightly and she can tell that he knows what she's thinking. "We wouldn't even have to call it a date."
"I told you, I'm not deciding. I like the simplicity of my life now." She crosses her arms with a small smile on her face. She can almost convince herself it's true, even in the face of Jake's charisma. She does like coming home to a quiet house, only responsible for tuna bake and laundry. Her kids have found some kind of routine in the face of the separation, and it's a relief to not worry about them.
"But it's just coffee, not a lifetime commitment. We can even get it iced if you're still afraid of getting burned." She laughs at that, relaxing a little. Her arms come down and she's almost ready to give in to that boyish charm. It would be so easy to just sit with him, be with him. But she can't shake the feeling that something could go wrong, that he could decide she's too small for him, just like Michael, even though she knows Jake is nothing like Michael. Inside, she's screaming, "Just do it! Go for it!" but she just bites her lip instead, watching Jake.
"Esther, do you have moment?" Olive's head comes around the door frame. "Nemenja's got a question for you."
Esther smiles apologetically at Jake, ducks her head and follows Olive, away from him. She steals one last look before she leaves and he's still watching her, still grinning.
02
After choir practice, Jake comes into the rehearsal space and watches Esther clearing away stands and music. She's humming to herself and he thinks he can make out the tune of "Move Along." He chuckles audibly and Esther jumps.
"You're always around, aren't you?" She's not angry, he can tell, from the way she's smiling shyly to the way she's stopped in her tracks to watch him. Anything that can give Esther pause is something that she cares about, and he finds it reassuring.
"It's my job." He moves toward her, and she resumes activity. Again, he finds this reassuring. She needs the distraction from him, he can tell. He starts to organize the music her choir members have left behind, and her humming starts again. He joins in, softly at first, but when he sees her smile, he picks up some volume.
"I thought you said you didn't sing," Esther comments, not looking up from the piles of paper in front of her, but he can hear the amusement in her voice.
"Humming's not the same as singing," he responds matter-of-factly, handing her his stack of music. She faces him then, giving him that look that's half amusement, half confusion, and he knows that if he kissed her now, she wouldn't stop him.
"You could join the choir. Back-up singer," she says before he can make another move toward her, and he's grateful for her common sense. He doesn't want to rush her, despite what his actions have implied.
"I'll join the choir if you go out with me." He's joking, of course, but she doesn't laugh, seeming almost to consider his offer before turning back to sorting music. Jake doesn't know what that means, and so turns back to walk away from her down the aisle.
"Wouldn't be a fair trade," she calls after him, and he turns around to see her let out a small laugh and he knows they're okay.
03
There is a knock on her door late one night, and she knows it's going to be him because he knocks on her door every Tuesday night. Somehow they've started sitting in her kitchen on a weekly basis. She makes coffee and muffins, and they just talk.
It's nice, she thinks, to have someone to talk to. She and Michael never talked as much as she and Jake do, which is maybe why she was pregnant when they got married. She knows Jake's birthday now, and where he went to school, and how long he's been snowboarding. He knows her favorite book, and what she wanted to be when she grew up, and how long it's been since she had coffee with a man.
"What'd you do today?" he asks. That's always the first thing out of his mouth as they walk to her kitchen. He says it with genuine interest and a smile and she finds it winsome and charming, which is probably why she let him into her house in the first place, many weeks ago.
"Nothing much. Read a bit, went for a bike ride. Yourself?" She busies herself with the coffeepot while he puts some food on a plate. He's almost as acquainted with her kitchen now as she is.
"Worked around the church. Nemenja's doing some painting still – you've still never told me your idea of heaven, you know that, right?" He never lets up on this subject, brings it up almost every week. It's a game now, between the two of them, and she's not sure if she even has an answer for him.
"I'm still thinking," she answers, pouring two mugs of coffee and bringing them to the table. She smiles at him as she warms her hands around the cup in front of her. "I'll let you know, someday." He likes the promise of that. They have a someday.
"Some people might call this dating," he says, as an abrupt subject change.
"What, this?" she asks, gesturing to her kitchen, to the coffee, to the two of them. "Who says that?"
"Loads of people." Not that he's asked anyone, but he knows Sofia and Nemenja always find something to do when he starts talking to Esther, as though they need privacy. And Olive has been shooting Jimmy meaningful looks whenever Esther laughs at one of his jokes.
"Well, I highly doubt that anyone thinks sitting around my old kitchen table is a date." He likes that she has no idea how nice it is to sit with her at her kitchen table. And he likes that she doesn't think it's a date, otherwise she probably wouldn't let him in anymore.
She's grown an aversion to the word "date." It's something she did in high school, before Michael. As if it doesn't already seem ridiculous that someone of her age could be dating someone of Jake's age. Somehow it was okay when Michael did it with Layla, but she just can't get her head around it.
Jake's hand under her chin draws her attention upwards. She'd never tell him, but she likes the gesture, the care and affection it implies. His fingers briefly take a detour into her hair, resting on her cheek, before dropping back to the table. "I know what you're thinking." She's pretty sure he does know; he always seems to know.
"That I'm old. Older than this kitchen table. Older than you." The words fall out of her mouth, unbidden. She may have changed, since Michael left, but she hasn't abandoned all sensibility. She's still a mother of three and Jake's still a skateboarder.
"I hadn't noticed." And it's true, it was never something he thought about when he thought about her. His hand goes back to her cheek and she leans into the touch, looking at him with those slightly weepy eyes and he leans forward to place a kiss on her forehead. "I really hadn't."
She doesn't stiffen at the touch of his lips. She finds herself enjoying the brief contact, missing it when he moves away. Wiping at her eyes, she takes a sip of the coffee. "Have a muffin," she says, her voice a little shaky.
"So, is this a date?" he asks with a smile as he unwraps a cranberry and walnut treat, taking a bite.
"No," she says, simply, because she doesn't like the word date, and she thinks this might be more meaningful anyway.
04
Kyle's just said, "I do," and Esther's eyes are filled with tears because she can't imagine that her oldest son has just gotten married. His eyes are filled with hope, and Grace's eyes are sparkling and she looks over to Jake, sitting next to her. He holds out his hand and she takes it, squeezing slightly, smiling a watery smile.
"I'd kill to see what you looked like on your wedding day," he whispers in her ear and she jumps slightly, turning to face him with her mouth in an 'o' of shock. "Bet you looked great." He grins cheekily, knowing that she's not really surprised.
"I looked pregnant," she says, but doesn't let go of his hand as they stand to follow the newlyweds out of the church. He takes that as a good sign, giving their joined fingers another squeeze and he sees Esther's smile before she ducks her head.
The reception is a small event, held at Esther's house. Jake helped decorate the day before, hanging Christmas lights about the backyard, running errands for her when she got too overwhelmed. Michael's there, in the back. He's been quiet ever since Esther told him no, ever since Jake and Esther started spending more time together. He still conducts the choir, still comes over some nights to see his kids, but he's not trying to get Esther to take him back anymore. He sees the change, and Jake's just glad he respects it.
There's dancing, of course, and Jake makes sure that Esther spends a lot of her time dancing with him and not worrying about what might go wrong. She enjoys the feel of his arms around her, lets herself sink into the feeling of pleasantness that comes from champagne and swaying to music. Then Blink-182 inevitably begins to play and Esther murmurs that she feels silly dancing to that kind of song.
She leads him inside, to the kitchen, where a few party-goers have taken residence. Olive and Jimmy, Nemenja and Sofia. There's coffee and laughter, and she can almost convince herself that's there's normalcy too. She lets Jake put his arm around her waist, makes herself not react to his touch, even though she can see the looks her friends are sharing.
"Want to go dancing some other night?" he whispers, because he likes how it startles her, likes the way her face looks before she's managed to compose herself enough to answer him.
"I don't have a dress for that," she answers, and he'll take that for an answer because it's not a no, even though it's not a yes.
05
It's movie night at the church, much to Ethel's contempt. Monthly Movies was all Jake's idea, something to get the youth more involved, and a way to get Esther to watch a movie with him. Not all of his plans for the church revolve around getting Esther to go out with him, but some of them do, and this is one of his great successes.
They're showing Dogma because Ethel didn't know what it was about, only approved of the title. Jake's regaling Esther with the tale of asking the committee's permission to show the film, and she's laughing, leaning against him slightly, and he likes that she's comfortable enough with him to do that.
"So you didn't tell her that Alanis Morissette plays God, then, I take it," Esther says, bumping him with her elbow.
"And I didn't tell her that Selma Hayek plays a stripper, or that Jay and Silent Bob aren't actually wayward monks trying to find salvation." He enjoys the sound of her incredulous laughter and the way her eyes dance. They're sitting in the back of the room, trying to be quiet, but they still get looks from the teenagers who have arranged themselves over the couches and floor.
"We should be quieter," she comments in a whisper, moving closer to him so she can drop her voice another notch. His arm goes around her shoulders and she lets her head fall back against it with a small, but satisfied sigh. His free hand rests on her knee, and she doesn't seem to mind his thumb moving back and forth across the fabric of her dress.
"If we were in a real movie theater, I'd be trying to kiss you right now," he admits, because he's never tried to hide his intentions with her. He doesn't want her to think he's forgotten, in case she's ever ready.
"Good thing we're not then," she says, but it doesn't sound like she means it and she hasn't moved away from him at all. He squeezes her shoulders and she smiles at him, a sleepy sort of smile that makes him wonder what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning. Perhaps he'll need to plan a youth sleepover that the two of them will need to chaperone.
"I could get used to this," she murmurs, tilting her head towards him.
"Does that mean you'll go to a real movie with me, then?" he asks, and her lips curve into a smile and he thinks she's about to say yes.
"Not on your life. Have you seen how much it costs to go to theaters these days? Outrageous." But she leans forward and places a quick kiss on his mouth before settling her head against his shoulder, and he thinks he'll take what he can get.
06
She's sitting alone in a pew, staring at the altar, lost in thought, hands folded in her lap. He comes in behind her, quietly so as not to interrupt whatever she's doing.
"I was thinking about you," she says after a while, her voice sounding loud after so much silence. "It's probably wrong to think about a chaplain while I'm sitting in church." He chuckles and moves to sit next to her.
"Depends on what you were thinking, I guess," he answers and she looks at him with a glint in her eye.
"What I was thinking was definitely not appropriate." Her voice is serious but her eyes are smiling now. Jake feels a thrill of shock; Esther has never been one to be explicit about what she feels about him. She lets out a disbelieving laugh, as if she can't quite believe what she's just said.
"You know, lots of important things have happened in this sanctuary." Jake thinks she's talking about weddings and funerals and baptisms when she continues. "Michael left me in this church. I directed a choir for the first time. You kissed me." Her head is tilted now, contemplative.
"I did, yeah." He doesn't know what to say to that. He remembers the kiss. He remembers how she forgot what was happening and let herself kiss him back. He remembers when she stiffened and pulled away. But now, she's leaning into him, and her lips are on his and he's forgetting about when she stopped and focusing on this, and his hand is in her hair and her hand is in his, and all he can think about is that maybe they need to leave the sanctuary before things get out of hand.
"Want to continue this over dinner?" she asks, and he can't believe his luck. He doesn't know what's changed, but he's sure she'll tell him.
"'Course I do," he answers, holding out his hand to her as he stands. She takes it firmly, like she's sure of what she's doing.
"It's a date," she says, and he thinks he might have to redefine his own definition of heaven.