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What the hell? No way. He looked the same as he had three years ago, only somehow more gorgeous. That wasn’t a word I casually tossed around to describe just any run-of-the-mill guy. There were certain qualifications a man needed to meet to earn the accolade. Draven Alistair surpassed nearly all of them. I once had a thing for his name alone.
“You remember me?”
His pristine teeth made an appearance as his smile grew.
“How could I not? You were the first person to befriend my cousin after she switched schools.”
“Well, me and a few others. How is she?”
“She’s good, much better where she’s at now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I appreciate how genuine that sounds coming from you.”
“Of course,” I replied with a smile.
I’m sure he got loads of fake sympathy from people who only inquired about her because they needed something to gossip about. I for one had honestly liked Gwyneth.
She had come rolling into Pravus Prep in the middle of my freshman year, resembling an actual barbie doll with the bubbly personality to match. Me and two of my closest friends brought her into our fold. All was fine and dandy until senior year. She had an epic meltdown in the locker room after volleyball practice.
The girl screamed about rituals, the woman’s body, and the consumption of flesh. Half of us were shocked and the rest were terrified. It had been like something from the exorcist movies.
Draven was always the one who picked her up at the end of the day. Once she lost her shit, I never saw her or him again. That was honestly for the best. Our school was full of over-privileged bitches that would’ve ostracized and bullied her for the rest of her years.
I’d tried to check on her a few times after graduation, but the Alistairs lived within a gated community that was better armed than Fort Knox. On top of that, her phone had been disconnected.
It was all quite weird. Not the gated community thing. Unlike me who had gotten into Pravus thanks to my grades earning me a scholarship I damn near sold my soul to obtain, the Alistair family was loaded.
It was her vanishing into thin air I found concerning. I guess when you had money you had options to do things like that.
“Special occasion?” Draven fluidly changed the subject, gesturing to the contents in my cart.
I almost scoffed. “Something like that. What about you? That is a lot of meat. Do you have something going on at the church?”
“I do. We’ve found the location for our new expansion so now we celebrate.”
“You’re expanding?”
I had heard through the grapevine that he was looking to do just that, but I didn’t put much stock in the rumors around here. It was said that the Rothwell church was so big it couldn’t fit on any plot of land in Cottonwood. Supposedly that’s why it had been built just outside our township lines.
I couldn’t verify this info. I had driven by a sign for the place once or twice, but I’d never seen the building itself.
“There’s been some heavy interest from others.”
“Oh, that’s good…”
An awkward silence stretched between us after that. The polite thing would have been to ask about his church, but I just couldn’t bring myself to dredge up the necessary enthusiasm.
My father had been super into religion before his early passing. The guy thought he was an actual deity himself. One of my most vivid memories was him forcing me to write scriptures over and over to ‘repent’ for my daily sins.
It never aligned with the usual seven you would find in a bible. No, dad has his own version of right and wrong and rules to be followed. Call me heartless, but I was one of the only people who didn’t shed a tear at his funeral.
I wasn’t sure which faith Draven and his family adhered to, but I knew it didn’t include an open-door policy into his congregation.
He certainly didn’t look like any other priest, pastor, reverend, or whatever he was deemed.
He had a jawline that could cut glass, a dimpled chin, and hair as dark as a starless sky always groomed to perfection.
Those pretty eyes of his were like a silent lure. He always smelled good too—like spice and something woodsy and warm. I had never seen an inch of his body beneath the suits he wore, but I imagined whatever was covered by the perfectly tailored fabric was just as visually appealing as the rest of him.
Draven, being such a respectful soul, simply stood there and let me ogle him as if I’d never seen a man before. When I realized what I was doing, my face exploded with heat.
Now more than ever I was grateful for being blessed with my parents’ naturally warm skin tone.
“Well, it was good seeing you,” I said politely, grabbing for the handle of my cart.
