Page 3 of Soaring and Steadfast

“How did you know my name was Louis?” he asked, stunned. “Hello? Hello? Father?”

Louis stood up in the confessional and pushed on the door, feeling it catch slightly before it opened. He glanced around the church and boldly opened the other panel where the priest should have been – and wasn’t.

There was no one else in the church.

He swallowed back tears, feeling choked with emotion of amazement as he looked around silently hoping for something to validate the thoughts racing through him in that moment… only for his eyes to touch on the crucifix at the front of the church.

If he needed a nudge – he just got shoved.

“My mind and heart are open… thank you.”

Louis stood there for several moments, pulling himself together and taking several deep breaths as he replayed everything in his mind – only to hear Shellac walk up behind him.

“Are you going to be here much longer, buddy? Trophy is practically foaming at the mouth to hit the bars, and it’s getting wild out there.”

Clearing his throat, Louis turned and smiled at his friend, nodding. He met the other man’s easy gaze and tugged down his crisp jacket as if to say, ‘I’m ready’ without offering up the words.

Shellac had removed his jacket at the last bar and had left it with Orion. Oh yes, they were planning on having a drunken evening while in port, maybe meeting a few girls, and he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he was trying to get ahead of the evening he was hoping for… because he was lonely and struggling.

“Let’s go.”

“That’s my boy!”

An hour later, things were falling apart.

“Keep going! You got this!” Ohio was screaming beside him, hollering excitedly as Louis held the funnel, laughing wildly as Trophy was doing a keg stand in the middle of the bar, getting rip-roaring drunk as the night continued. Minutes later, Trophy did a somersault off the keg and looked like a trampoline artist in the Olympics – if they were sweaty, drunk, and three sheets to the wind.

“WHOOOOOO YEAH! Take that! Your boy’s got mad skills!”Trophy screamed wildly above the din of the crowd, letting out another wild shout as Louis and Ohio looked at each other, laughed, and returned to the bar to get another beer. Some other sucker rushed forward to do the next keg stand… as Louis turned and looked at the crowd, pausing.

He saw a woman with wavy blonde hair making her way through the crowd with a beer bottle in her hand, and couldn’t help but stare. She was beautiful… and completely drunk.

He could see it from here.

Turning back to the bar, he tipped his glass against Ohio’s once more, smiling and laughing at the scene unfolding aroundthem. The night swirled like a fevered dream—laughter and shouting, the clinking of glasses, the hum of a thousand conversations rising into the rafters like smoke. He swayed slightly, feeling the weight of the moment pressing into him, though whether it was from the beer or something deeper, he wasn’t sure.

“Pasteur!”

The familiar call broke through the din, and Louis turned to see Trophy waving at him, his grin splitting the chaos like a beacon. Louis started to wave back, then paused, staring down at his hands. Two steins of beer. Where had they come from? And where had Ohio and Shellac disappeared to? The night blurred at the edges, yet something in the air felt sharp—like the hush before a storm.

“Hey, Pasteur!” Trophy hollered again.

Louis lifted one of the steins in salute, his balance wavering slightly. He took a deep sip, the cold bitterness grounding him.

“Hey—are you still licensed? And it’s current?”

Louis blinked at him, processing the words. “As a pastor? Yeah. Why?”

“I’m getting married—right now.”

The words crashed into him like a tidal wave. The bar erupted in chaos, voices lifting in shock and exhilaration. Louis felt his chest tighten—not in disbelief, but in something much deeper. A flicker of hope? Maybe. If Trophy—a man who swore he’d never be tied down—had found love, then maybe, just maybe, love wasn’t as distant as Louis sometimes feared.

“Heck yeah!”

“That’s my boy!”

“Trophy is getting hitched?!”

“Drink up, boy-o! We’re celebrating!”

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