smile but that just seemed to make him more anxious. “I, uh… I owe you an apology, Deyva.”
Oh. “No, you don’t.” Okay, maybe he did, but I didn’t want him to have to give it.
He finally stepped inside, bare feet shuffling across the floor, his body landing heavily on the edge of the bed next to me. “Yes, I do.”
“Zach, I wasn’t really expecting you guys to roll out the welcome mat for me, you know? I get...I get why you were suspicious.”
“I wasn’t just suspicious, Deyva, I was cruel. I accused you of horrible things, I let myself be biased against the very idea of you, against everything you demonstrated yourself to be.”
“I poked at you, and I antagonized you—”
“You teased me,” he said, smiling and glancing at me. “Which...at the time I thought you were trying to shake my faith, but now I realize that you—you actually—”
“I like your faith,” I said, bumping my shoulder into his. “It’s doing the world good, doing everyone here in this town good. And I’m sorry if the stuff Az said yesterday changes anything for you. I don’t think it should. I have...some comment cards I’d like to submit to Heaven, but I’ve got zero real clue what comes next, and Az doesn’t either.”
“You don’t have to do that, you know?” Zach said. He was hunched over, staring at his hands folded on his knees as if he were praying, and he frowned at me as he turned to look up. “You don’t have to...to cover God’s ass when I’m struggling with doubt.”
“Okay, fair enough.”
Zach sat up, his frown tangling deeper. “I know everyone wants to see me as all shiny and sure and full of faith, but I’m struggling too, same as everyone else. I’m coping with the same shit pile everyone else is and I...I’m struggling with...sinful urges too,” he rushed out, voice strangled and color filling his cheeks. “I’m not the golden boy everyone wants to see me as.”
I bit my lip. Zach was absolutely the golden boy, but I understood where he was coming from. “Zach, no one expects you to be sure every second of every day,” I said, and then I thought of the town. “At least, not here.”
“Kais and Stavros—”
“Kais and Stavros might like to believe you’re not struggling, but they would absolutely want to be the ones to support you when you did,” I said quickly, watching that frown melt a little bit.
The anger started to fade, but the shame replaced it quickly.
“I’m sorry if I...interrupted something I shouldn’t have yesterday, by the way,” I said softly, testing the waters.
Red flooded Zach’s cheeks and his jaw clenched. “No, you were right. I was in a weak moment and I would’ve regretted giving into—I should’ve known an angel wouldn’t—” His hands clenched to fists on his lap and I cracked, reaching over and taking one in mine.
“That’s not what I meant, look...I...I know I’m probably not the authority on the subject that you’re looking for, but—”
The door opened and Stavros paused in its frame. “Oh, shit. Sorry, I can—”
“No, I should go,” Zach said on a gasp, rising up from the bed, his shoulders up to his ears.
“Wait, no, both of you stay!” I said, jumping up and dashing between them. I raised one hand to hold Zach in place and used the other to tug Stavros inside. “Okay, listen. We’re gonna rip the band-aid off on this one, alright? Zach, it is not a sin to be bisexual, or gay, or just anything other than hetero. Stav, back me up on this, cause I know it’s kind of weird to take seriously coming from a succubus.”
Stavros blinked and I glared at him. “Oh, well, yeah. I’m bi. I don’t really advertise it because...you know, priest. I should. It should be talked about more. Zach, really, you’ve been worried about being gay?”
“I’m not gay,” Zach spat out and then groaned, turning his back on us, and covering his face with his hands. “I’m not gay. I just haven’t ever been with a woman, or anything.”
Stavros’ eyebrows jumped. “Wait? You’ve been with a man?”
“No. No, not like that. It was...we were messing around. We got caught,” Zach squeezed out, head still shaking. “I begged God for forgiveness and I swore it would never happen again and then yesterday, that fucking angel… Fuck!”
“Whoa! Whoa, okay.”
I backed up as Stavros headed for Zach, his hands settling on the younger man’s shoulders, turning him and pulling him easily into