Page 31 of Divine Temptations

Had someone seen us? Heard something? Smelled the fucking sin still clinging to my skin?

Or maybe it wasn’t about today.

Maybe they knew about the last time. About the affair with the married man. The reason I got packed up and moved out like a scandalous family secret.

God, I thought, hands gripping the wheel. Why now?

I stared into the side mirror, waiting for Brother Thomas to pull out so I could follow him. His truck growled to life like a beast roused from slumber, and I fell into line behind him, watching the road but barely seeing it.

What was I walking into?

An ambush? An inquisition? A meeting where they’d smile all sweet while planning to strip me of my position, my title, my last scrap of dignity?

The deacons knew everything. They had to. Even if they didn’t have proof yet, they knew what kind of man I was. The kind who couldn’t keep his pants zipped up. The kind who chased desire straight into damnation, begging to be consumed by it.

And all I could think about was Jake.

Under my desk. His mouth still wet with me. His hands trembling with love and defiance.

What the fuck had I done?

What the fuck was I about to do?

And was there still a way to claw myself out of this hell, or had I finally fallen too far to climb back up?

The air in Brother Thomas’s house was thick with some kind of artificial lemon scent, the kind that clung to your throat and made you wonder what sins they were trying to scrub out of the walls.

Esther Thomas appeared from the shadows like a buzzard in a floral muumuu. Her lips were drawn in a line so tight they looked stapled shut, and her eyes raked over me like she was hoping I’d combust into flames right there on her linoleum.

“Brother Ethan,” she said without a hint of warmth. “This way.”

No greeting. No offer of sweet tea or polite small talk. Just that look. The one that said she knew exactly who I was and wasn’t impressed.

She turned and started down the hall, her orthopedic sandals slapping the floor like judgment itself. I followed her past dusty doilies, framed Bible verses, and a painting of a blond, blue-eyed Jesus so pale he could’ve passed for a country club tennis pro.

The dining room was already full.

Members of the Board of Deacons lined the long oak table on both sides, and every last one of them looked like they’d been carved out of stone.

None of them smiled.

They just stared.

Some with open disdain, some with mild disappointment, but all of them with that same brittle, sanctified coldness that only lifelong churchgoers could truly perfect.

There wasn’t a single empty chair.

Not one.

My stomach flipped.

I was here to be talked to, not heard.

Esther cleared her throat like she was about to spit something out, then turned on her heel and disappeared, leaving me standing like a scolded child about to be handed a ruler to the knuckles.

Brother Thomas stood at the head of the table. His hands were folded over his bloated belly, and his eyes were closed. He let out a long, dramatic sigh.

“Let us pray,” he announced, and dove into the most long-winded, self-righteous invocation I’d ever heard.