“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

“You did well.” Søren ran two fingers down the center of Kingsley’s back, and his spine sang at the touch.

“Merci,” Kingsley sighed. He’d been aching to hear three words from Søren, the same three words Kingsley had said to him after their first night on the forest floor. But for whatever reason, “You did well” seemed a bigger thing, a better thing than simply “I love you.”

“It’s late. You need to sleep. Get dressed. I’ll take you back to bed.”

“Yes, sir.” Kingsley rolled up off of Søren’s lap and slowly stood. Everything hurt. Not like the first time. The first time, he’d been torn open and apart. Tonight he’d only been broken. This was good. Give him a week and he’d be ready for another night like this.

“Sir?” Søren repeated. Kingsley laughed again as he pulled on his clothes. “You’re a teacher now, but not one of the priests. I heard your students calling you ‘sir.’ Seemed to suit you. I could call you ‘monsieur.’”

Søren cupped the side of Kingsley’s face and he immediately stopped laughing.

“I like ‘sir.’”

He traced Kingsley’s bottom lip with his thumb. Kingsley said nothing, only nodded.

Søren dropped his hand and stepped to the edge of the cliff. Dressed now, Kingsley came and stood at his side.

“It’s Maine,” Kingsley said.

“Is it really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Kingsley suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “I mean…it will get cold soon. Too cold at night to meet like this.”

Søren’s face remained implacable. “You assume this is an ongoing arrangement?”

Kingsley’s heart dropped to the bottom of the valley. Or started to, until he noticed the smile lurking at the corner of Søren’s lips.

“You blond monster,” Kingsley said, shoving him.

Søren laughed and shoved back with twice the grace and ten times the force. Kingsley ended up on his back again, with Søren straddling his thighs.

“Say it,” Søren ordered. “Apologize.”

He pinned Kingsley down hard to the ground.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Good boy.”

Kingsley groaned as Søren dragged his aching body off the ground.

“We’ll find somewhere,” Søren said. “If I have to build a house with my own hands…we’ll find somewhere to be together.”

Together...That one word healed every wound inside Kingsley. The bruises remained on his body, the welts and the cuts. But the pain evaporated. He became whole again.

“What about there?” The first rays of dawn light started to peek over the tops of the hills. At the base of the valley stood a tiny cobblestone cottage nearly swallowed up by ivy and weeds.

“That’s the old hermitage. It hasn’t been used since Father Leopold in 1954.”

“It has four walls, a chimney...” What else did they need? Nothing but shelter from the elements when winter came.

“It’s a hellhole. I’ve seen it.”

Kingsley stared down at the tiny cottage.

“Hell is fine. Surely God wants nothing to do with us, anyway.”

NORTH

The Present

Kingsley found Søren in the chapel, sitting at the piano and playing before a spellbound audience of twenty teenage boys. In this day and age, Kingsley could hardly imagine teenagers being so enthralled by classical music. Baroque music, he corrected, as he recognized the piece—Vivaldi’s “Winter,” the Allegro for Piano. Søren did have a fondness for Vivaldi, the Red Priest, as he was known in his day. Kingsley lingered at the back of the chapel, closed his eyes and let the music wash over him.

Antonio Vivaldi...Kingsley had written a paper on the composer thirty years ago for Father Henry’s music appreciation seminar. Søren had suggested that composer. Kingsley remembered little about the man. He did recall Vivaldi suffered from asthma so severely he couldn’t say Mass. In lieu of parish life, he’d been sent to an orphanage, where he taught music to the illegitimate daughters of courtesans. When Kingsley read that in Vivaldi’s biography, he’d understood why Søren had thought Vivaldi and he would get along so well.

The piece ended, and Søren stood up and gave a self-deprecating bow to the herd of boys who’d gathered to listen. A few came up to him and chatted as he tried to work his way to the back of the chapel. They’d probably never met a priest like Søren before—one who could so obviously have had any woman or man he wanted, could have had a career in any field he desired, but instead had taken a vow of celibacy and poverty and given his time and his talents to God. Or at least, most of his talents he’d given to God. A few he’d reserved for his Eleanor. Lucky bitch.

Søren came to him and Kingsley said nothing, only nodded, indicating his readiness to leave. Søren waved a polite farewell to the boys, shook hands with a few priests as they departed. Once safely inside the car, with the glass up between them and the driver, Kingsley finally felt safe to speak freely.

“You know something,” Søren said before Kingsley could even open his mouth.

“I know nothing,” he replied as he watched Saint Ignatius disappear behind them. “But I have a theory, at least.”