Page 74 of Priest

Lila stays quiet, eyes on me, letting me hear myself without trying to steer where I’m going.

“No,” Evan says gently. “It doesn’t make it okay.” He tilts his head, careful now in a way that makes me brace because I know he’s about to step onto dangerous ground wearing glitter heels. “But it does sound like a man who panicked. Not one who wanted to hurt you.”

I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Intent doesn’t erase impact.”

“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t. I just don’t think he realized how much he’d already lost control of the situation. Or of himself.”

I look at him. “That’s not my responsibility.”

“It isn’t,” Evan says immediately, leaning forward now, all the teasing gone from his face. “And it shouldn’t be. I am not nominating you for the unpaid position of Biker Emotional Translator. That job sounds hazardous and underfunded.”

Despite myself, my mouth twitches.

His expression softens. “I’m just saying, from the cheap seats, I don’t think this was about power for him. I think it was about fear.”

Lila finally speaks, her voice quiet but edged. “Fear can still hurt people.”

Evan nods, accepting that without flinching. “Yeah. It can.”

I sit back, arms crossing over my stomach. “Which is why I don’t owe him understanding just because he finally figured out what he wants.”

“No,” Lila says. “You don’t.”

“I’ve had time to unpack it,” I admit, staring at my hands now. “And the thing is, I do understand why he did it.” My throat tightens around the next part, and I hate that it does. “I just don’t forgive it. But I do unfortunately understand it.”

There’s a difference. I’ve lived long enough to know that.

I close my eyes for a moment, letting the memory rise without flinching. “He told me Sadie isn’t pregnant with his baby. That she set the conversation up. That she knew exactly how to phrase it so I’d hear what she wanted me to hear.”

Evan’s reaction is immediate and visceral.

“That bitch,” he says, standing halfway out of his chair. “That manipulative soap-opera-villain in maternity wear.”

“Evan.”

“No, I’m sorry, but absolutely not.” He points one elegant finger toward the ceiling like he is addressing a courtroom only he can see. “If she didn’t already have her own basketball under her shirt, I would drop-kick her into next week.”

Lila winces. “Violence is not…”

“I said it hypothetically,” Evan snaps, then exhales and sinks back down, tugging an invisible wrinkle from his shirt with wounded dignity. “Fine. Spiritually drop-kick. Emotionally launch. Continue.”

“He said she wanted me to believe she was carrying his baby,” I continue. “That she knew what that would do.”

Lila’s expression hardens in a way that always surprises people who mistake quiet for soft. “That’s not insecurity. That’s strategy.”

“Yes,” I say. “And it worked.”

The room goes quiet.

Evan reaches for his coffee, then apparently thinks better of it and sets it back down untouched. “And Priest?”

I open my eyes. “He said when he realized I was gone, it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room.”

Evan doesn’t joke this time.

“That he broke all his rules for me,” I add. “That he was lying to himself. That he thought he was protecting himself when really he was just afraid.”

Lila’s gaze stays on me, warm and steady. “What did that feel like to hear?”