Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,32

response to that.

“I get it that you try not to come down too heavy on people, but you have to admit that a lot of the rules are pure bullshit designed to control the sexuality of marginalized people all the while the institution at large is basically a child sex abuse ring. How is someone with common sense supposed to get their head around that?”

“I’ve never come up with a good answer to that. The only thing I know—” He hated how she’d turned the tables on him and made him feel vulnerable. But he also wanted to be honest with her because he felt as though a lot of people blew smoke up his ass and didn’t tell them how they felt about his faith or his vocation. “I can only try to be a good priest. For me . . . I’ve always been a man of faith.”

His mother had brought him to daily Mass with her every morning before he’d started school. He’d learned to pray rosaries and novenas from her. Chris had rejected all of it, but Patrick had stuck with it because his mother’s religiosity had been their only point of connection.

From the time he was five or six, she’d encouraged him to consider becoming a priest. He’d resisted it for a long time, feeling like Catholicism was just something he did with his mother—that it wasn’t really the sum total of who he was.

He was interested in girls and video games and hanging out with his friends. If it hadn’t been for two things that happened during his senior year in college, he probably wouldn’t be here. He might even be a piece of shit like his baby brother.

First, his mother had gotten sick. She hadn’t told anyone she hadn’t been feeling well for a long time. By the time his father had insisted that she get checked out by a doctor, it was too late. She was gone so fast that it felt like she’d slipped through his fingers—almost as though she could slip back up through time at any moment.

And then, the woman he’d been in love with, the one he thought he would marry, decided that he wasn’t good enough. Or maybe she’d gotten tired of dealing with him when he was deep in his grief.

His father and brother were silent types. On the outside they looked strong, but they were just masters at dissociating. Patrick never felt like he could talk to them. So, he’d thrown himself into his mother’s religion. It had felt like his only remaining tie to her. He’d just inquired about seminary school, and they had sort of pounced on him.

Although there was a lot of lip service about discernment, everything picked up momentum and—even though he had doubts pop up about committing his life to serving the Church—it had become harder and harder to think about leaving.

Because, honestly, what would he have if he did leave?

He didn’t have a useful major in college, a plan for his life, or even any desire to come up with one.

And so he was here. Talking to a woman who aroused the same doubts—only they seemed intensified. “I just want to help people the way that the Church and my faith helped me.”

It was the answer he always gave when people questioned why he’d made the rash leap into taking holy orders.

But Sasha wasn’t going to let him get away with that. “You know that there are better ways to help people, right?”

“What turned you sour on the Church?” He knew, through casual conversations over the years and stories that Hannah had told, that Sasha’s family were Irish American and Catholic and total nightmare human beings. But he didn’t know any specifics.

“I don’t think anyone in my family ever believed or had faith. We went to Church every Sunday because it would look bad if we didn’t. Sacraments were less about the ritual and the changing relationship with God than they were about who spent the most on the luncheon after everyone had their first communion.”

That made Patrick sad, but he also sensed something deeper behind it. Was that why she was here? Was she not a believer, but God-curious?

He was probably reading too much into this. She was probably dropping by for some totally unrelated reason, but he’d pulled her into this meandering conversation about the meaning of faith.

“How did you turn out to be such a sweet person, then?” He’d never seen her be anything but exceedingly