Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,34
I actually came here to invite you to the Art Institute. They’re doing an exhibition of some of the items that were at the Met Ball the year that they did Catholicism as a theme, and I couldn’t think of anyone who would enjoy it more.”
* * *
—
SASHA HELD HER BREATH waiting for Patrick to answer. Once they’d started talking about God, she’d immediately regretted coming here. They had been flirting about God, and now she’d basically asked him out on a date.
He was definitely going to say no. He had to say no. He probably had plenty of generous, virtuous shit to do. And she’d asked him on a date.
Well, if the mortification killed her, she would at least know that she was headed straight to hell for asking a priest on a date.
“I’m sure you have other things to do—”
“I’d love to,” he said. “It’ll get me out of here and away from the clutches of Mrs. O’Toole’s rhubarb muffins.”
“That actually sounds really good.” She stepped out of the confessional, stretching her arms over her head. Those things had been built when people weren’t as well nourished in their youth—and thus they were too small for twenty-first-century Americans.
She caught Patrick’s gaze on the exposed skin between her sweater and jeans. At the same time that she delighted in the fact that he noticed her, she felt a stab of guilt.
She shouldn’t have come here. They were friends. He’d saved her life. She was helping him out by raising money for the preschool. But he was still a priest, and she was still a woman who had a crush on him despite the fact that he was a priest.
All of this was a very bad idea. “Are you sure you have time to play hooky?”
His gaze snapped up and met hers, and he smiled the smile of a man who hadn’t taken a vow of celibacy. Did he even know the effect he had on her and other people who liked black hair and green eyes and a cut-glass jaw?
“You can’t take the invitation back now. I am all excited about seeing the pieces on loan from the Met.”
Sasha decided to just go with it. He knew his limits, and he was the one bound to follow the rules. If he could keep this friendly and platonic, then she could as well.
CHAPTER TEN
SASHA MIGHT NOT BE a fan of Catholicism as an institution, but she was impressively knowledgeable about Catholic art.
“I was an art history major at Notre Dame, so half of the required courses dealt in iconography,” she said.
“I was an art history major, too.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked away from the tryptic taken from ruins in an old Eastern-sect church and stared at him with a narrowed gaze. “I thought priests weren’t supposed to lie.”
“I’m not lying. I took the first class to meet girls freshman year.” Sasha’s cheeks pinkened, and he wondered if she was thinking of him trying to meet girls. He would have been trying to meet a girl like her. If he was a betting man, he’d put money that they would have gotten together, given the right time and the right place.
Sasha looked back at the piece, which depicted the Madonna and Child, surrounded by rudimentarily rendered farm animals.
He touched her elbow and she started, so he pulled his hand back immediately. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting—”
“I just wanted to thank you for bringing me here. It was incredibly thoughtful.” It was a weekday, and there was a newer exhibition in the Modern Wing, so they were virtually alone in the gallery. There were no children to run between them and cut the tension. If he was allowed to, he would brush her hair back over her ear right now.
As it was, all he could do was stand there and look at her, but not for too long. He was here to see the art.
It was Sasha who ended his moment of weakness. “The dresses are in the next gallery.”
He followed her over, and she explained why several dresses that looked like they would be incredibly uncomfortable were rare and important and cost more to make than Patrick made in a year.
She was at home in a world where a dress could cost twice as much as the car he had use of as pastor. He used the opportunity to attempt to convince himself that they did not belong together— they wouldn’t even if he wasn’t bound by ordination