Page 64 of The Friend Game

I’M WRIST DEEP in layering a lasagna the following evening when Luke calls. I’ve got my phone propped up on a makeshift stand made up of a stack of books so that I can follow along with the recipe as I layer (for the life of me I can never remember the order of the layers when making lasagna—sauce, noodles, cheese or noodles, sauce, cheese?) so I attempt to use my elbow to accept the call and accidentally hit the FaceTime button instead. A second later Luke’s face is on my screen and my torso is on his—giving him a complete view of the apron I stole from Jill’s kitchen. The one Max got her that says, French Kiss the French Cook. (Which, by the way—Jill isn’t even French. She just studied abroad there for a semester and when she came home she declared herself Parisian at heart. And, as the apron implies, Max indulges her on thisbecause he’s a fan of the kissing…something he points out every time she wears this apron. My bad for grabbing it I guess, but in my defense I was trying to get in and out as quickly as possible before Liam or Ellie asked me to play with them. I can never say no to them, and tonight I don’t have the time because I’m making lasagna).

“Nice apron,” Luke predictably comments on this first. Lucky for me he can’t see my answering blush.

“Sorry!” I cry. I attempt to use my elbows to adjust the angle of the phone, but end up giving him a view of my ceiling instead. “One sec!” I say loudly as I dash over to the sink and rinse my saucy hands off. “Here I am,” I say a little breathlessly as I scoop up the phone a minute later.

“Well, hello,” Luke says with his familiar grin. The one that makes me want to grab a sharpie and scrawlmineacross his chest.

Thankfully so far I’ve managed to restrain myself. Impressive given the number of markers I have near constant access to as an art teacher—err substitute.

“Hi,” I chirp, slightly thrown by this FaceTime development. We’ve never done this before. I don’t actually like FaceTime very much, because I find the tiny screen with my own face on it a bit distracting.

Okay, a lot distracting.

I mean there I am with my messy bun, French kiss apron, and—oh! Is that cheese in my hair? Surreptitiously I remove a piece of shredded cheese from my hair.

“Hope you don’t mind that I’m calling so early,” Luke says as I toss an eager Holly the errant cheese. “I have that benefit dinner tonight, and I didn’t want to miss talking to you.”

“Oh right, I forgot about the benefit dinner. Of course I don’t mind. I hope you don’t mind watching me make lasagna though. I’m on a bit of a time crunch.”

“Not at all. Make away.” He gestures for me to get back to what I was doing, so I put the phone back on my stand and resume layering. “I didn’t know you liked to cook,” he comments as I do so.

“Well, it’s not a top ten favorite activity, but I don’t mind it. I usually cook twice a week for the Bernards since I crash their family dinners so much.”

“So that’s what the lasagna is for?”

“One of them. I’m taking the other to the Bolerman family. Did you know Deanna just had a baby last week? I’ve got their oldest, Thomas, in my class and he is so excited about having a new sister.” I smile at the memory.

“I did know that. I went by for a visit, Sunday afternoon.”

“Such a nice family,” I say as I get back to sprinkling cheese. “Poor Deanna looked completely exhausted when I saw her at church on Sunday, what with having a newborn and two other young kids to take care of.” I switch my cheese sprinkling over to the other lasagna.

“You saw Deanna at church on Sunday?” Luke asks, and I freeze. Here’s the thing. I started attending Grace Canyon on Sundays. It’s been really nice going to church with my parents this last year that I’ve been back in Arizona, but with teaching at Grace Canyon and, you know, Luke being the pastor at the church, it made sense to me to attend a service.

And once I’d gone once, I knew I wanted to keep going. I firmly believe that you can experience intimacy with Jesus at any church regardless of how good the worship team is or whether or not the church has all of the programming you’d like or how hot the pastor is—wait no, I meant how good the pastor is at teaching. Goodness. Anyway, the point is that God is not limited by the work of human hands. That being said, when I sat in that pew that first Sunday, I felt a tug on my spirit. Like this was where I was meant to be.

Not because the worship had me lifting my hands in the air (which it did) or because of all the people I knew from school (so many) or even because of how much I got out of Luke’s sermon (alot). No, it had more to do with a stirring inside me, a stirring that told me this was a place where I could be part of the body of Christ—using my giftings for His glory alongside others doing the same and building one another up along the way.

But I haven’t told Luke any of that. Didn’t even tell him I’d been going. I always sit way in the back, hiding behind the tallest person I can find.

“Hannah, have you been coming to Grace Canyon on Sundays?” Luke rephrases his question.

“Maybe,” I admit carefully.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have loved to see you.”

I chew my lip, trying to figure out how to say this. “Um, that’s why I didn’t tell you,” I explain. “Because I knew that you’d come find me if you knew I was there.”

“And you didn’t want to see me?” Great, now he sounds hurt. I’m really botching this. Also, the Bolerman’s lasagna officially has too much cheese.

“No, of course Iwantedto see you! I mean that was half the reason I came in the first place: to see you. But, I also knew it would be bad to see you, see you. You know, like have-a-conversation-with-you-in-front-of-all-those-people type of see you.” I blow out a breath. Frustrated by my inability to verbalize this well.

“I see,” Luke nods, a smile tugging at his lips. “So you were worried people would see us talkingand immediately know that we have a date scheduled for March 1?” His voice is teasing.

“Well,” I huff, “thatiswhy we’ve been avoiding each other for the most part at school, isn’t it? It’s like Belinda said, it’s obvious there’s some romantic tension between us.” I’m blushing furiously as I say this. “And I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Luke, but you’re very charismatic and, you know, magnetic and, and easy on the eyes or whatever when you’re up there talking about Jesus.” I finish this pronouncement with a little puff of air, my whole face as red as if I went to the equator and laid on the beach the whole day without applying sunscreen even once.

“Ah, I see,” he repeats, and I can feel his amusement and pleasure all the way down the phone line. “So what you’re saying is, you think my preaching’s sexy,” he says the last few words to the tune of Kenny Chesney’s “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” and I can’t help it, I laugh.

“Luke!” I exclaim through my laughter. “I don’t think you’re allowed to say that word!”

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