Page 26 of Gay for Pray
“Okay, I guess. Better. Almost normal, I think. How long is this supposed to effect me?”
He shrugs. “It can vary from person to person. Some people say they feel the after effects for a few days.”
“A fewdays? I need to be normal again.”
“Relax, you’re normal. It’s not like you aren’t yourself. You just might be a little nicer than usual.”
He smirks, but unlike all the previous times I’ve endured that expression, today it sends my stomach into hysterics. I look away quickly, keeping my gaze forward. Once this stuff wears off, maybe I’ll be able to look at him again, but for now, it feels far too fraught.
Jude falls silent beside me, and it’s weirdly comfortable. It reminds me of sitting on his bed eating all that greasy breakfast food before falling asleep against his shoulder. I’m not sure I’veever been so relaxed in my entire life, and it’s weird that the source is a guy I should have nothing in common with.
I chance a look from the corner of my eye. Jude’s hair is wild and free, his smile light. He walks next to me as though there’s nothing strange about being here with me. It’s like that kiss didn’t even happen for him, or maybe he’s kissed so many people that my clumsy attempt simply didn’t rank.
That bothers me way more than it should. I don’t want to be nothing to him, but that’s all wrong. I should be purging this from my system, begging for forgiveness, promising God and myself that it’ll never happen again. It shouldn’t have happened once, but I slipped up in a moment of ultimate weakness and…
Jude stops me with a hand to my arm. We’re on an offshoot of the main path, the branch that winds toward the church. It’s the same path I showed him early on in the semester when he announced he was trying out for the choir. If I’d known what that simple interaction would lead to, I might have run screaming instead of showing him the way.
“Are you okay?” he says. “Really? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
I feel like I’m going to be sick, but I don’t think it’s from whatever was in my drink Saturday night; I think it’s him. The light filtering between the tree tops pours into his pale eyes and turns them into stained glass. His hand on me is a point of burning warmth. All of this is so, so wrong, yet I stand frozen before him, caught in his eyes, caught in his touch, caught in the memory of sitting on his bed with my head against his shoulder.
Then I’m falling toward him again. Just like the first time, it’s me initiating this, me causing this, yet it feels like something bigger than me, something outside of my control, a force greater than man or nature.
Something divine.
My mouth landing against his is a holy creed, a writ fromon high. Jude gasps and catches me, his hands going to my shoulders. I press against him, intoxicated by the warmth of his lips and sweetness of his taste. I didn’t know you could taste a person, that it was something distinct and tangible, but the sweet, warm, mellow flavor that is Jude is something I could identify with my eyes closed now.
I pull away, but this time, there’s no dorm room to run to. I’ve made this choice right out in the open, and all I can do is gape at him while he stares up at me in shock.
“Wow,” he says, breathy, quiet.
My whole body reacts to that word. I move as though to kiss him again, senseless with desire, but this time he stops me.
“I doubt you want to do this out here, Choir Boy,” he says.
He scans the path. Thankfully, we’re alone, a factor I didn’t even consider before lunging for him.
“Isn’t the church close?” he says.
My stomach drops. It is close. I was heading there before he interrupted me. He can’t possibly be suggesting…
When he bites his lip all argument dies on my tongue. He takes my hand.
“That way, right?” he says, nodding his head.
I nod as well, terrified of speaking, and he pulls me toward the church. It takes a couple steps before any of my neurons are firing again.
“Are we really…” I say.
“The practice room will be empty at this time of day,” he says without so much as a glance backward. “And I don’t think we have time to get to my room.”
There are a thousand filthy promises caught up in those two simple sentences, promises that belong nowhere near a church, yet as Jude tugs me along, I follow without a word of protest.
It would take divine intervention to stop this.
Chapter Fifteen
Jude
