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Within minutes, I’m dressed, and we’re both heading out the door.
Twenty-Two
Sage
“You must be joking.”
As Adam turns down the access road, avoiding the long line of traffic ahead, I realize he is, in fact, taking me to his father’s church.
On a Sunday morning.
“I am not,” he replies.
He reaches into his visor and pulls out a laminated card, rolling down his window as we pull up to a security station blocking the entrance to the back of the church.
“Morning,” he greets the guard waiting there.
“Morning, Mr. Goode,” the man replies. Adam waves his card at him while I try to duck down in my seat. As I sneak a peek through the window at the guard, he gives me a terse, furrowed glare.
“Morning, miss,” he says politely.
“Morning,” I chirp in response, trying to feign confidence, like I’msupposedto be here—which I’m not.
After a moment of clear hesitation, the man finally waves us through as the bar rises. Adam pulls into the massive parking lot behind the church.
“How on earth are we going to get through here unnoticed on a Sunday?” I ask.
Just as he pulls into the spot labeledA. Goode, he turns to me and gives me a devilish grin. “Who says I don’t want to be noticed? What’s he going to do? Beat me up in front of the congregation?”
My stomach turns as I imagine walking into that building. I haven’t been inside a church since I was thirteen and my aunt dragged me to Sunday school after I got in trouble at school for kissing a boy in the bathroom during PE.
She thought I needed Jesus. Likehecould somehow make me not love making out so much.
It didn’t work. I ended up getting to second base with a boy in Sunday school instead.
“And where exactly are we going to film this video?” I ask.
Adam appears far too cocky about this and I’m slightly concerned that the wheels are coming off the tracks of this plan. As if his anger at his father is clouding his judgment.
“I have an idea…”
He opens his driver's side door and hops out. Meanwhile, I take a long, heavy breath before following him. As we walk up to the back entrance of the church, I scurry along to keep up with him.
“Please tell me we’re not doing it on the altar during Sunday morning service,” I say.
He scans his card on the door lock and it unlocks with a click before he pulls it open.
“It’s called a pulpit, and no. I wish,” he replies with a laugh.
The inside of the church, from this perspective, seems more like an office building with doors on either side that are labeledMarketing Director, Treasurer, Outreach. The ceilings are enormous, giving the entry space alone a grand, larger-than-life sort of vibe.
It makes me instantly uncomfortable.
So far, there are no other people around, but I hear chatter in the distance. When we turn a corner at the end, I spot a group of people with headsets on who are dressed up for church but seem to be frantically speaking about something I can’t make out.
Adam grabs my hand and pulls me in the opposite direction.
Before long, we hear a “Mr. Goode!” in a woman’s surprised-sounding voice.
