Page 3 of Gay for Pray (Arport Sacred Sacrament University #1)

Chapter Three

Jude

OH HELL NO.

No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be true. Anything but this. Anything but him . This is supposed to be my foolproof plan for finally getting laid at this dismal university. I can’t imagine a bigger cockblock than Church Boy over here.

Of course he sings in the choir. Of course he does.

What else would a guy like Theodore have to do on a Sunday morning?

He’s certainly not hungover from partying the previous night.

Even so, the thought of Theodore singing is hard to reconcile in my brain.

For me, music has always been freedom. It’s always been joy.

There was nowhere gayer in my high school than the theater club.

All of that is the absolute antithesis of Theodore.

He takes off, and I fall into step beside him.

I wasn’t lying. I really don’t know where the church is.

I know in theory, but I’ve never gone there myself, and I don’t want to miss my try-out time.

I’ll just have to hope Theodore isn’t leading me on a wild goose chase, but he doesn’t seem like the type.

He does everything with an annoying amount of sincerity.

“Why are you following me?” he grumbles after a few steps.

“Because you know where the church is.”

“You’re serious?”

He shoots a glare at me, quickly looking away as though he hopes I might vanish. Tough luck. I’m not going anywhere. I’m certainly not letting this guy run me out of town. I walk beside him as though we’re friends, refusing to slow or speed up to put space between us.

Theodore mutters beside me. You’d think he was marching through a landfill and not strolling down a literally cobbled path beneath beautiful, flowering trees.

Students filter around us, oblivious to our conflict as they soak in the perfect California weather.

I won’t lie. Going to a Catholic university was a way easier sell when I learned it was in southern California where the weather is perfect all year long.

Amid the sunshine, Theodore is a thundercloud.

“Do you have to follow me?” he snaps.

“Yes. I don’t know where I’m going, and you’re my tour guide.” I flash a toothy smile just to irritate him. I have to look up a little to do it, but I’m not going to let him lord his height over me. I’m the one with the power of obnoxiousness on my side.

“Do you even care about the choir?” he says. “This isn’t theater club. It’s serious.”

“Theater club was serious,” I retort, though his perceptiveness surprises me. He saw through my motivations quicker than I would have guessed. How does someone like him know what goes on in theater club?

“We aren’t singing for fun,” Theodore says. “We’re praising God. It’s part of the church service. You realize that, right?”

“I do, in fact, understand what a liturgical choir is.”

“Then you understand why you don’t belong there.”

This time I hit him with a glare, a real glare. No playful grin after that remark. Theodore has the decency to seem ashamed, refusing to meet my eyes.

“I just mean,” he backtracks. “You know.”

I refuse to give him the out. “No, actually. I don’t know. What do you mean?”

His mouth twists into a scowl. I try not to notice the fullness of his lips or the way the sunlight makes his stubble shine golden.

It would be a lot better if my enemy was ugly, instead of looking like some kind of golden Greek god.

All the more reason I need to get into this choir.

If I’m thinking about Theodore this way, I am truly desperate.

Theodore huffs. “I just mean that this is important to those of us who actually believe.”

“And you assume I don’t believe.”

He glances at me. “Do you?”

I think about lying, but a laugh bursts out before I can compose myself. “No, not really.”

The scowl returns. “Exactly. So why bother joining a church choir? If this is all one big joke to you…”

“It’s not a joke to me. Can I simply enjoy singing?”

He only scowls deeper.

“This is one of the best places for me to sing at this school,” I continue. “It’s the biggest choir, and you get to perform every Sunday. I’m trying to actually enjoy my college years, okay?”

I don’t add that I’m hoping I’m not the only queer person attracted to the liturgical choir. It will only cement everything he already believes about me.

“College isn’t about enjoyment,” Theodore says.

“That is genuinely the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Of course it’s about enjoyment.”

“We’re here to study.”

“You can have fun while you study.”

His pouty mouth says he disagrees, but he doesn’t fight the statement. He doesn’t have to. Disapproval rolls off him in waves, a cloud passing before the sun.

In spite of myself, pity stabs through my chest. I knew Theodore was sad; I didn’t know he was this sad. It’s like the guy has never had a single day of fun in his entire life. One day he’s going to wake up middle-aged with a wife and three kids and wonder what happened.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I say, “but it’s not a sin to have fun. Never saw that one in the Bible.”

“I’m not debating theology with you,” Theodore says.

He refuses to say anything further, apparently considering the matter closed. Part of me wants to believe he’s scared I’ll actually sway him. If someone like me could shake his faith, everything he’s ever known, everything he’s built his life around, would collapse like a house of cards.

He turns off the broad main path, and I follow. This path is also cobbled and quaint, but more narrow, a tributary branching off from the main river flowing through campus. It twists and curls, and then, around a bend, we finally come to the church.

It feels wrong to call this thing a church.

My hometown has a church. It’s a little building with a single room.

This is a church . It towers, two stone spires flanking a central structure.

Massive windows arch around it, freckled with stained glass.

Stone steps lead up to big, heavy wooden doors that open into a space like a cavern.

The interior is no less magnificent. Pews march toward a dais at the far end of the church.

The crucifix behind the dais towers, the Jesus hanging there far taller than me.

There’s an area to the side for the choir, as well as carved images along the sides of the room.

I think they might be Stations of the Cross or something, but I’d have to actually understand what that is to say for sure.

Columns create shaded recesses at the sides of the room, the arches between them vaulting toward a ceiling made for perfect acoustics.

This is an incredible place to sing…minus all the religious stuff.

I can set that aside and appreciate the beauty of the structure, however.

There’s no denying that Catholics are on point with their aesthetics.

If I believed at all, this place would probably be even more awe-inspiring than it already is.

Theodore is apparently so accustomed to it that it doesn’t affect him at all.

He marches on ahead while I’m still standing in the doorway gaping.

A few people speckle the pews, and a woman is singing on the dais.

I shake myself and follow Theodore up the central aisle between the pews as the woman belts out her audition.

I spot Nick among the people waiting to try out and slide onto a pew beside him.

“Dude, this is insane,” he whispers. “Are we seriously doing this?”

I can’t fault him for balking. Now that I’m actually here, my silly plan is feeling a lot more slippery. My lack of belonging grates on me. It’s a fly buzzing around my head. Maybe any other queer person tempted to join this choir felt the same and bolted.

“It’s gonna be fine,” I whisper back.

The woman on the dais finishes up her song. No one claps or reacts. A man I assume is the director thanks her and calls out another name.

Nick is up. He glares at me as he passes me in the pew, but when he gets up there and sings, his voice rings out through the church.

He absolutely nails the audition, so he must not be as skeptical about this as he seemed.

He could have tanked it and claimed nerves, but instead he belts out some song about Jesus or whatever and returns to the pew triumphant, apparently intending to watch my audition.

Right after Nick is Theodore.

I brace for some reason, as though I actually care about how his audition goes.

I don’t, of course. Why would I? Yet I watch him stride onto that dais with a confidence I’ve never witnessed in him.

He’s a completely different guy than the one I walked over here with, instantly transformed.

He stands straighter, showing off his height, his shoulders back and relaxed instead of hunching.

He doesn’t scowl at the world, but wears an almost peaceful expression that makes his whole face lighter.

I shake myself. He’s probably just happy to be on his home turf. The religious nut should feel at ease in a church compared to a classroom.

Nick nudges me with his elbow.

“Isn’t that the guy?”

He knows all about my Theodore woes. I complained at incredible length about my fellow philosophy major, though Nick and Theodore have never had a reason to be in the same room before this.

I nod instead of answering, pretending I’m being considerate of the audition process. The director instructs Theodore to begin, and he takes a deep breath and opens his mouth.

The sound that comes out nearly knocks me off the pew.

Theodore’s voice fills every corner and crevice and crook of the church.

It wriggles into the tiniest crannies and reverberates in my ears, in my throat, in my chest. And it’s…

perfect. I don’t know how else to describe it.

I’ve been singing for my whole life, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever come face to face with a voice quite like this.

He sings in a deeper register than me, his voice caressing every note like velvet.

Sitting here listening to him is like drinking a cup of thick, rich hot chocolate on a cold day.

It warms my throat and fills up my belly before I have time to realize I’m utterly entranced.

“Holy shit,” Nick mutters beside me.

I take some comfort in the fact that I’m not the only one affected by this performance, but it is a very small comfort considering what Theodore’s singing is doing to my body.

I’m warmer than the mild day calls for, my heart racing even as I sit perfectly still and gape.

I wasn’t even remotely prepared for this, and it thunders over me like a tsunami.

The church is utterly silent as Theodore’s voice fades away. It was quiet in here before; now it’s like no sound exists except the memory of his singing.

The director calls the next name, apparently unimpressed, or at least unsurprised.

I can’t say I share his nonchalance…which is why it probably takes a few minutes for my brain to process the implications of what I just saw.

If I make it into the choir, and I absolutely will, I’m going to be singing with Theodore all year.

There’s no way the director is going to pass on a voice like that.

That should inspire dread, but the emotions swirling in my stomach are a lot more complex than that. With Theodore’s voice ringing in my ears, I’m not prepared to untangle that.

It’s going to be a very interesting year…