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“Laurel! What happened? Why was he here?” she is frantic, the wrap she’s using to cover her bald head sitting askew.
“I’m fine Mom,” Laurel assures her, standing and moving to wrap her in a tight hug. “The Reverant was simply kind enough to stop by to tell me he’ll have the Radiant God cure your cancer if I fuck him. Isn’t that lovely?” Marian’s gasp is filled with anguish.
“Did he touch you?” she asks, desperate for the right answer.
“He got… close.” Laurel leans back and adjusts the wrap, smiling calmly at her mom. “There was a knife next to me, so he wouldn’t have gotten to do much before he lost some blood." I shrug. "Lucky for me, though, Cas stopped by to fix a leaky pipe.”
“Oh good! I was afraid he wouldn’t get here in time.”
I’m not sure why she automatically thought my father being here meant danger, but I’m also not a woman. All that matters is that Laurel is safe, and my asshole father is gone.
“Can I help bring in the groceries?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“It smells great in here,” I tell Cas as he takes my coat. “What are you making?”
“Lasagna. It’s Mom’s recipe, I remember how much you loved it so I thought I’d try my hand at it. It’ll be ready in a bit.”
My eyes water for a second as I remember his mom cooking for us. I didn’t just lose Cas when he broke up with me, I lost his mom too. She was such a wonderful, loving woman who treated me like her own daughter from the day Cas and I met.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when she was sick. I’m even more sorry that I never got to say goodbye. I loved her too.”
“I know you did. What’s more important is she knows you did, and she understood why you were gone. She never wanted me to have to stay, but with my father being who and how he is, we didn’t have a choice. Dad wouldn’t allow the flock to care for her, and we have no other family that could step in. I regret not going with you, but I can’t regret being here to take care of her.”
I follow him to the living room and take a seat on the couch opposite him. Time for some truths. Time to lay all of this shit out on the table and make a decision. I can’t keep going back and forth and wondering if we will or we won’t.
“I understand that, Cas. I honestly do. I would have stayed for my Mom or Silly without hesitation,” I assure him. “I will just never understand how you could agree to act as a cleric. You believed as little, if not less, than I did.”
“It was Mom’s dying wish,” he shrugs. “I’d already let you down, I couldn’t let her down too.”
“She knew how you felt though. She knew you didn’t believe. Why would she ask that?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. Towards the end Mom was losing her mind a bit and kept telling me that ‘she’ would make sure it was all worth it in the end. She never told me who ‘she’ was, so I assume she meant herself and was just making herself believe that my life would end up how I wanted.”
“Odd that she’d say ‘she’ would make it worth it instead of referring to their god,” I muse.
A strange look passes over his face but he tries to play it off with a nonchalant shrug. He’s hiding something, but so am I so I’m not going to push it. Yet.
“After how aggressive he was today I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up. Mom threw a fit after you left and swore she’d never go back, she feels she has to. I also can’t believe your mom knew what a predator he was and stayed with him for as long as she did. You know I won’t tolerate that bullshit, right?”
“Come here,” Cas says, voice quiet.
“What? Why?”
“Come here, please.”
I stand to walk over to him, and instead of letting me sit beside him on the couch he pulls me down on top of him to straddle him, just like earlier today. In this position, we’re practically nose to nose, and he nuzzles me briefly before pulling back.
“I understand, trust me. I don’t get why she stayed either. And I’ll do whatever you want. If you want to stay and continue going to worship while your mom gets treatment, we’ll do that. If you decide you can’t do it anymore, we’ll leave. Shit, we can all leave. For the rest of my life, if you’ll have me, I choose you.”
“Do you mean that? You’ll choose me, no matter what?” He may change his mind once he sees what I’m hiding.
“Absolutely. I made the wrong decision last time. I won’t do it again."
I lean back slightly and lift an eyebrow at him as I reach up to unbutton my shirt. Catching my hands in his, Cas tries to stop me.
“Just wait. I need to show you something before you truly agree to that. If we’re going to do this we can’t have secrets, right?” He nods and releases me, leaning back and showing me a glimpse of the boy I loved when he wiggles his eyebrows.
