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I didn’t wakethis morning thinking that everything was going to go to shit. In fact, I’d been positive and hopeful that, at last, mine and Fox’s lives could be turning a corner. Fox had his friends, working hard on homework, and I’d spent two hours with estimates for materials, balancing the books to make sure I could afford any renovations and order in supplies, and so far, I was coming out on top.
Yes, there was another article in the media about Briggs and his girlfriend, an interview talking about how hard it’d been to have gone through a divorce.
Fuck that—I wasn’t even going to give over any space in my head to his shit.
I was costing out the menu when the bell above the diner door chimed.
“Mr. Bennett,” someone snapped, and I glanced up, the door was wide open, blustery wind and the hint of snow curling into the space. “You have yet to remove the sticky flag.”
Ah, yeah, Pastor something or other, McKenna I seemed to recall. No, I hadn’t removed the flag, and no, I wasn’t going to remove the flag, if anything, it was on my to-do list to replace it.
“Please, shut the door, Pastor,” I said, calmly. I didn’t add that he should leave and shut it on the way out.
“I’m not staying,” McKenna scoffed, which must have meant he was happy to let my diner heat the sidewalk. “I’m sure this is just an oversight.” He peered at me, and I wondered what he saw.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Sorry?” I pretended I didn’t understand.
“The flag is offensive,” McKenna repeated, glancing at each corner of the diner as if he were cataloguing any other queer representations he could comment on. “Lily never listened to me about the children who might see this and turn from the true path.”
“Shut the door. Please.” I added thepleasewhen the icy breeze hit my warm skin, but he raised a single eyebrow and moved further into the diner, the gusts of wind even more pronounced after his tall bulk no longer blocked the doorway. He was trying to intimidate me, and by extension, Fox, but I was done being intimidated. I might be a foot shorter and probably a hundred pounds lighter than the pastor, but I stepped around him and shut the door. I wanted to usher him out, but it was clear he had something to say, and he might as well get it off his barrel chest.
“You said you were removing the item,” he said with a disappointed tone.
“I didn’t say that at all.”
He frowned, as if trying to recall the conversation in which I’d let him ramble, and he’d assumed I was listening.
“If it isn’t taken down, then I’ll have no option but to report you.”
Who to? The flag police?
McKenna narrowed his gaze on me and sneered, righteous anger brewing behind his eyes, and I wondered if I’d said that out loud, or maybe it was just written in my expression.
“Also, it has come to my attention that one of the Sheridan boys is trying to cause issues for you of a serious sexual nature that goes against the scripture.”
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of using Chris’s name. “By offering kindness and friendship?”Take that and fuck off asshole.
McKenna sniffed. “His brother has lost his way,” he announced with great drama, “fornicating and disrespecting the sanctity of a proper marriage.”
“Love is love.” I kept it simple.
His eyes narrowed, and he pointed at the flag. “This symbol goes against sacred scripture!” he almost yelled, then made an obvious effort to calm his temper. “You will remove it. You have one day.” Then he turned, brushed past me, and left—withoutclosing the freaking door behind him.
“Come back any time,” I deadpanned as I went to shut him out and lock up. He must have caught my words because he turned back to me and stared, and it was creepy as fuck, this big guy staring me down and threatening me, over what? A flag? Fuck knows what he was attempting to do, but if that stare was supposed to unsettle me, then he didn’t know the kind of intimidation I’d already had to deal with in my life.
I’d been married to a manipulative asshole for eight years, and Briggs was ten times worse than a pastor with an agenda.
As soon as he was gone, my polite facade crumbled, and a mix of anger and determination flooded me. The Pride window decal Lily had put up at some point was faded, and torn in one corner, but the pastor’s visit had pushed it up the priority list. Going online, I ordered not one, but two rainbow flag clings for the diner’s window, and they would be with me tomorrow. If anything, McKenna’s visit had only solidified my resolve to stand up for who I was and to honor Lily’s legacy, regardless of what people like Pastor McKenna thought. Whisper Ridge might not be “that kind of town” in his eyes, but as long as I was here, this diner was going to be a place where everyone felt welcome, no matter who they loved.
I didn’t recall anything in the ordinances that spoke of the wrong kind of window decal or supporting queer anything. Maybe I’d mention it to the sheriff—he seemed to have no time at all for our pastor foe.
Whatever.
Fuck Pastor McKenna and the horse he rode in on.
“Look at me using ranch talk,” I muttered to no one, and relaxed back into my costings. The blinds had been put up today, they gave the diner space some privacy, and I’d even started to relax a little.
But then, Fox arrived home from school.
