#new updates

Of course, MacAvoy looked away first. He’d only actually interacted with the man once and it had not gone well for him. Now, having been arrested yesterday and separated from Belle today, MacAvoy didn’t harbor any hope that Nosty might be in a loving mood. 

“Sorry!” Belle lurched out of the car, then ran to the back to grab something while Nosty did the same. When the car was shut and all the bags were out, Belle carried a small duffel and all Nosty had was a tote slung over his left shoulder. That wasn’t right—what was Nosty doing making Belle carry his bags?

“Morning.” MacAvoy trudged over to Belle to take the bag from her, trying not to glare at Nosty as he did.

“Morning!” She pecked him on the cheek, and it did go a ways toward soothing his ire. 

“Morning, Nosty.”

Nosty grunted, following him and Belle into the church. After what felt like the longest walk of his life, the three of them stood in a line in the sanctuary entrance, Belle in the middle.

“Well,” Belle said. “I’m late for work.”

Nosty’s head snapped to look at her, and MacAvoy felt for him then—for all his bravado, the declaration that Belle was leaving put real fear in his eyes.

“No time for a coffee?” MacAvoy asked, afraid of her leaving but surely for different reasons than Nosty.

“No, sorry. I know we haven’t had the chance to talk but I’ll come by after work, okay? Nosty, walk me out?” 

She was already heading for the doors, and even though she hadn’t asked for him, he trailed after her and Nosty. 

“Belle, wait—did you go on your date last night?” 

Belle turned to stare at him blankly, and her confusion might have been the only thing keeping Nosty from blowing up. 

“A date?” he asked. “Last night?” 

“Shit.” Belle squeezed her eyes shut, then threw her hands up. “Oh well, it’s not like I wanted to date him anyway. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Before he could respond, Belle was hurrying out, Nosty on her heels. He caught the sanctuary door as it was closing, then waited until the front doors shut before following.

Figuring spying was okay as long as Nosty didn’t see him, MacAvoy peeked through one of the windows. Nosty had a hold of Belle’s waist, head bowed. He couldn’t see if anyone’s lips were moving, but then Belle rested one hand on Nosty’s cheek and another on one of his pecs. MacAvoy wrinkled his nose. In the parking lot?

Nosty touched his forehead to Belle’s, and MacAvoy’s stomach lurched. Were they going to kiss? Did Belle have no common sense? Was he the only one who remembered the heartache of the past two weeks? If she kissed Nosty, he deserved a drink.

She didn’t, though. She wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug, then pulled back, brushing her fingers along his pec again before lifting his hands off her hips and getting in the car.

Nosty stood in the parking lot watching well after the car was out of sight. Should MacAvoy go out to him? They were, for all intents and purposes, about to be roommates. It would be nice to start off on a good foot.

He didn’t go out. He finished his coffee, staring out the window like a peeping Tom while Nosty stood statue-still, as if he planned to wait there until Belle returned.

MacAvoy’s knees were sore and his feet ached from standing by the time Nosty moved, and instead of coming in, he paced sweeping laps around the parking lot. From somewhere, he produced a pack of cigarettes, and MacAvoy watched him suck down two before he’d had enough.

He set his empty mug on the floor and then pushed the door open. Nosty glanced up but didn’t pause his circuit, so MacAvoy stood out of the way. He regretted not sitting down.

“Why don’t you come inside and eat something?” he asked. Probably a stupid question, since MacAvoy hadn’t cooked anything in two weeks, and he could not imagine that his egg technique had improved.

Nosty ignored him and lit a third cigarette. MacAvoy licked his lips. He didn’t want to work this hard for nothing, but if he lost Nosty today, Belle would be devastated. 

“Coffee?” MacAvoy tried. At least that, he couldn’t ruin.

“Leave me alone.” Nosty pounded by, kilt swishing. 

A car drove by, and MacAvoy gulped. They must have looked ridiculous—a priest watching a kilted nutjob stalk around a parking lot, smoking. 

“Are you coming inside at all?” 

Nosty’s jaw pulsed, and he blew smoke toward MacAvoy, but the wind carried it away. “Maybe.”

Was MacAvoy even cut out to be a priest anymore? This one man was frustrating him beyond measure—what would he do with a flock of frustrating parishioners? 

He breathed deep, reminding himself that he was still irritable and would be for probably at least a month. His body craved alcohol and it was just lashing out. He would try one more time with Nosty, and then go inside.

“You know, if you leave, Belle will be—”

Nosty rounded on him, teeth bared, body tense like a jungle cat. “I haven’t fucking gone anywhere, have I? I’ve just been here walking around your fucking lawn like a caged animal, and I could have left just as soon as she did, so let me fucking be.” 

MacAvoy swallowed. If he didn’t show fear, Nosty wouldn’t attack him. Probably. 

“Right.” His voice and hands both shook. He couldn’t help it. “Well, I’ll be inside if you need anything. Your room’s ready.”

“Fine.”

MacAvoy went back inside, debating how soon was too soon to call Belle.

****

Belle cried the whole way to work, repeating over and over to herself that she was not abandoning Nosty and he would be okay. When she parked, she sat in her car for a minute even though she was late, and touched up her lipstick and mascara. 

“Rough morning?” her friend across the street called. 

“Just a little under the weather!” she called back, waving from the door while she unlocked it. “I’ll have coffee out as soon as I can.”

She opened the library, brewed the coffee, checked in the returned books, brought out his cup and a banana, sat back down, and was out of things to do.

A good idea would have been to sort through her feelings while she was alone and in her favorite place. She had at least an hour before the first storytime event of the day, an hour which a wise person might spend journaling or decompressing.

Instead, Belle filled a cart online with dresses she couldn’t afford, then some Scottish regalia now that it was relevant, and emptied the carts at storytime.

After, she realized she had never actually checked her phone. Lo and behold, in addition to Joseph’s millions of attempts to contact her, she had about five texts and a missed call from a number she didn’t recognize whose first text identified it as Clive Gaston. The last one said I guess something came up. Hope we can reschedule.

She dropped her forehead into her hands. How could she reschedule? She hadn’t wanted to see him before Nosty came back, and she certainly didn’t want to see him now. 

To avoid it, she scrolled through Joseph’s texts, all variations of what’s going on and please respond. Maybe this was why she couldn’t hold onto friends—she couldn’t focus on more than one person at once. 

Maybe if Nosty lived with Joseph, she’d be able to keep up with both of them.

Her phone rang and she almost dropped it in surprise. It was just Joseph, thank god. Unless that meant something had gone wrong?

“Hello?” she said, sure she sounded like he’d already delivered bad news.

“Hey!”

He was too cheerful. Suspicious.

“How’s it going?”

“You first. What happened last night?”

She chewed her lip. How much was okay to tell Joseph now that Nosty was with him? She’d put them all in a weird position, but it was better than being tempted into Nosty’s arms every minute she spent at home. 

“I bailed him out and brought him home.”

“Bailed him out for what?”

She pressed her lips together. She knew the charges because the officer had told her when she paid, but she and Nosty hadn’t discussed it. She didn’t think Joseph needed to know that he’d been in for assaulting a police officer. She didn’t want to assume what had happened, but the officer who’d tried to stop her from posting bail was the alleged victim, and he’d seemed a lot more smarmy and pleased than someone who had been feloniously assaulted should have.

“Belle?”

“Nothing major,” she said. 

Joseph heaved a sigh she could feel across the city. “Was it violent?”

“He won’t be violent to you, if that’s your concern,” she said. At least, she didn’t think he would be. He had to know that that would be a dealbreaker.

“He hasn’t even come inside yet,” he said. “He’s been in the parking lot all morning.”

“But he’s there?”

“Aye, he’s here. Pacing and smoking.”

“I’ll come over after work, okay? I’ll bring dinner.” 

“Are you rescheduling your date?”

What was the point? There was no way that Coach Gaston could compete with Nosty, whether that was a sensible position to take or not. She would just be putting herself through torture for the sake of leading a poor man on. 

“Probably not.”

“Are you sure?”

Joseph sure did want her to go on a date now that Nosty was back. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I have some books to shelve, okay? I’ll see you tonight.”

They hung up and she dropped her forehead to the desk. What was she doing? 

She’d been buying so much takeout, she didn’t want to get herself lunch, so she made a meal out of things scrounged from her office and the snack cart, and that would have to do until dinner. What was she going to bring? She didn’t know what Nosty particularly liked, other than sweets like her, because he was easygoing when it came to food.

She distracted herself whenever she needed to by looking through takeaway menus at places nearby the church. There was another story time, a local bookclub meet, and then Belle sat at her desk reading from an Indian menu to kill the remainder of her final hour when the shadow of a person appeared in front of her.

“Can I help—you?” She swallowed, hoping the shock wasn’t written on her face. Coach Gaston stood before her in his letterman jacket, a winning smile on his face.

“I was in the area, thought I’d stop by and see if everything was okay.”

It was definitely not okay now. She forced a smile, wishing anyone else was there with her. 

“Very kind of you,” she said. “I’m so sorry for standing you up—something did happen last night.” 

Clive rested his elbow on her desk, and she forced herself not to recoil. There was at least a meter of desk between them, and he was unlikely to leap for her throat like that. As long as he stayed there, and she stayed where she was, she was safe. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Fine, yes, it was a family emergency.” When he didn’t respond, she smiled harder and said, “Thanks for checking.”

“Maybe we could go out tonight instead?”

What she wouldn’t give for a natural disaster to strike the library right then. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to make it any time soon. I have to go back tonight.” If he thought that “going back” meant to the hospital, then even better.

“Bummer.” Coach Gaston rapped his knuckles on the desk and she clenched her fists in her lap so she wouldn’t flinch. “Sometime soon.”

“Sure.” She smiled again, hoping this would be enough, and that he would go home and forget about her. “Did you want to check anything out?” 

He eyed her for a second, and she hastily added, “Any books?”

“Nah.” He rapped the desk again, then turned to leave. “I don’t really read.”

****

MacAvoy tried to do things other than stare at Nosty through the window all day, but the truth was he didn’t have anything to do otherwise, so it was as good an activity as any. He did set a bottle of water outside the door at one point, and when he next checked, Nosty had retrieved it, but they didn’t interact.

A little after five, after Belle texted that she was on her way, Nosty emerged into the sanctuary, surprising MacAvoy where he sat in the confessional.

“Father,” Nosty said in greeting as he plopped himself into a pew. 

MacAvoy didn’t know what to say. He wished he was drunk. He was glad there was no alcohol.

“Belle’s on her way,” was what he came up with, and for the first time all day, Nosty’s shoulders relaxed. MacAvoy knew what it was like to sit and pine for her presence, but he didn’t think he would ever know the restlessness in Nosty’s feet, the drive to move, move, move. 

He hoped, with time, that restless drive dissipated. He also hoped that it did not involve physical harm to his person, being that he was Nosty’s closest potential victim.

“Feeling sinful, Father?” Nosty asked, sounding like a half-assed impression of the Nosty who’d threatened him the first time they met.

“What?”

“Confessing?”

He feared, for a second, that Nosty knew he’d kissed Belle, but it was only because he was in the confessional. He found it comforting now, less alone when no one was there with him.

“Just making sure it’s ready for use,” he said.

“What, d’you think I’ll be confessing?” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” MacAvoy muttered, and he thought he saw Nosty grin. “I’m reopening the church soon.”

“Aye?” Nosty stood, walking between the pews away from his booth. “When?”

He didn’t know. He had always just assumed Belle would tell him. It wasn’t her church though, was it? She was a librarian. She wasn’t even Catholic.

“Sunday,” he said firmly. “I’m holding mass this Sunday.”

“Good for you.”

MacAvoy couldn’t tell whether Nosty was making fun of him or not, but he decided to take him at face value. 

“Do you want to put your stuff in your room before Belle gets here?”

Nosty glared at him like he’d just suggested they ambush Belle with knives, so he raised his hands. “Never mind. We’ll just sit here.”

Belle arrived half an hour later and he might not have realized had Nosty not leapt from his pew at the first sound of a car and raced outside. If MacAvoy ignored the fact that he’d abandoned Belle for no reason and broken her heart, it was almost sweet.

She was taking two stuffed paper bags out of the car, batting Nosty’s hands away when he tried to help her. 

MacAvoy frowned, jog-shuffling over. 

“I can hold a bag, Belle, me arm’s not broken,” Nosty said just as Belle thrust a bag at MacAvoy. 

“There’s no need to aggravate it when there are two people here perfectly capable of carrying in groceries.” 

Nosty pursed his lips while MacAvoy peeked around the bag, trying to find evidence of this mysterious injury on Nosty’s arm.

“Oi, take a fucking picture,” Nosty said, giving him the finger. MacAvoy looked down, ears warming.

As they walked, Belle inched closer and closer to Nosty’s side. Without a bag to occupy him, he wrapped an arm around her waist, curling his fingers possessively around her hip. What was their situation now? Was Belle ever going to actually tell him?

Something felt off, though, and when Nosty pushed the door open for them and Belle remained glued to his hip instead of going in first, MacAvoy knew he was right.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, trailing after them.

“Nothing!” Belle chirped.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep!” 

Nosty cut a glare at him over Belle’s head and he clenched his teeth. How could he already be such a third wheel? It was him who had comforted Belle these last two weeks; him, Joseph MacAvoy, into whose arms she’d fled any time she was upset, any time Nosty made her upset. He had held her while she cried, she’d held him, and she’d kissed him. 

Belle stopped at the front of the pews. “Nosty, all your stuff is still here.” 

MacAvoy had tried to tell her that all he wanted to do was pace around outside, but apparently she wasn’t interested in him anymore. 

“I’ll take it up later. Come on, you look tired.” He glanced back at MacAvoy. “Cuppa?”

“Sure.” MacAvoy tried not to sound bitter. Here he was, hauling a bag full of god knew what while Belle and her boyfriend ignored him unless he could make them tea.

Belle left Nosty’s side to climb the stairs, then led the way to the kitchen. Nosty took in everything, and it was with savage satisfaction that MacAvoy noted the touches of Belle around the room—one of her sweaters over a chair, a vase of wilting flowers. He knew Nosty was a jealous man, and if he drove Belle away with his personality, that wouldn’t be as devastating to her as him leaving. 

“You said you wanted tea?” Belle asked, setting her bag on the table. “Start putting groceries away, I’ll make some.”

MacAvoy set his bag down with hers, and as soon as she turned on the sink to fill the kettle, Nosty bent to his ear.

“If you calm your fucking tits, she’ll tell you what’s bothering her, hey?” he hissed. 

MacAvoy blinked, sure he’d misheard because by the time he processed that Nosty had spoken, he was already pulling bags of frozen vegetables out and shoving them in the freezer. 

Then, all at once, MacAvoy’s stomach roiled with guilt, hunger, and withdrawal. How could he think so ill of Belle so quickly? She was happy Nosty was back. So what if she paid more attention to him right now? And something was clearly wrong. Her hands jerked as she moved, like she was holding herself too stiffly to function.

He sat, leaving the unloading to Nosty, and closed his eyes, only opening them when Belle plopped a mug in front of him and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

“Coke?” he asked, and she smiled because she knew what he meant, as he’d known she would. Because they were friends. 

She replaced his mug with a bottle of soda, then added bags to two more mugs while Nosty grabbed the whistling kettle to fill them.

Once they were all seated, hands wrapped around their drinks, Belle fidgeted.

“Something strange happened,” she said. 

Nosty shot him an I told you so look. “What kind of strange?”

She glanced at MacAvoy and bit her lip. What did that mean? 

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t strange?”

“I don’t know that we’re the best judges of what is and isn’t strange,” MacAvoy said, and Nosty snorted. An odd surge of pride filled him for amusing Nosty. 

“Well, I guess I should tell you, Nosty, a man asked me out for drinks yesterday. Coach Gaston,” she said. 

MacAvoy expected Nosty to rage, almost hoped he would with Belle there to ensure no one got hurt, but all he did was clench his jaw and jerk his hand for her to continue.

“So I accidentally stood him up and then didn’t respond to his texts today because why bother?” She shrugged.

“So did he call?” MacAvoy asked. 

She shook her head. 

“Did he come to the library?” Nosty asked, looking far more scandalized than MacAvoy thought the question warranted.

“It’s weird, right?” 

“Is it?” MacAvoy asked. He was missing something, surely.

“You don’t think it’s weird that he came to find me at work after we chatted for ten minutes one day and then I ignored all of his texts?”

The way she and Nosty watched him for his answer made him sure that he had misunderstood something. Was he that out of touch? 

“Maybe he thought you were hurt?”

“No wonder you took your vows, you’d be fucking swindled left and right if you tried to date,” Nosty said. 

Wounded, MacAvoy sipped his soda. “So did he do anything?”

She shook her head. “He just said we should go out again and then that he didn’t read.”

Nosty snorted and stretched back, tilting his chair. “Och, now I know I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

MacAvoy didn’t really read either. It was a good thing he was definitely for sure one hundred percent over any romantic feelings for Belle. 

“What if he comes back?” Belle looked between them. “It’s not always empty in the afternoon, but it could be, and then I’m all alone.”

“Don’t be daft. I’ll come with you to the library.” Nosty bared his teeth and wiggled his eyebrows. How could Belle find that attractive? Perhaps she’d never been on the receiving end of Nosty’s suspicion like MacAvoy had. 

“You can’t just attack people in the library, especially if they haven’t technically done anything.”

“Belle, if you feel unsafe—”

“Why not?” Nosty shrugged. “I’ve kept half a dozen creeps away from you without you even noticing.”

If only MacAvoy had been drunk instead of hungover for their first meeting, then maybe he wouldn’t keep remembering the way Nosty had yanked his chin, made his eyes water, reveled in his pain. But then, if he’d been fending off creeps, a naked priest was probably the worst offender of all.

“You have?” Belle asked. “When?”

He shrugged. “Dunno, I don’t keep a fucking calendar on me.” 

Belle pursed her lips. “Real creeps, though? Not just people you didn’t like?”

MacAvoy snickered while Nosty pressed a hand to his chest in overdramatic offense.

“Yes, real creeps, and you’re fucking lucky you didn’t see most of ‘em. There was a bloke I’d seen flashing out in the park a few blocks over, and another one who just wandered around fuckin’ staring at you. Oh!” He snapped his fingers, and MacAvoy leaned forward in spite of himself. “The worst was some fucker hiding behind a shelf unzipping his fly while he peeped at you through the books.”

Belle’s hands flew to her mouth. “No!”

“Aye, so I told him if he wanted to stay here and have his ham shank, he could have a wee rib shank to go along with it.” He wiggled his eyebrows and pinched Belle between the ribs, startling a genuine laugh out of her.

“Did that really happen?” MacAvoy asked. He didn’t know if he believed it.

“What, you’d think I’d scare her about her own library for fuck all?” 

He thought he might scare her about her own library in an effort to be invited back, but he didn’t say that, because Belle hadn’t looked as happy as she did right then—Nosty’s hand on the table next to hers while telling her that her favorite place in the world was more dangerous than she realized—since before Nosty had stood her up for their lunch date so long ago. 

He would have to watch Nosty closely, catch him in a lie. 

“Well, Coach Gaston hasn’t done anything,” Belle said. “So you can’t threaten him.”

“I’ll come with you,” MacAvoy said.

Nosty barked out a laugh. “You? What’ll you do? Fucking pray for him?”

Drunk MacAvoy would have cowered and hungover MacAvoy probably would have as well, but detoxing MacAvoy was annoyed, and he wrinkled his nose.

“People are often unwilling to behave badly in front of a priest.”

“Yeah?” Nosty’s lip curled. “Wanna bet?”

“Okay!” Belle stood, slamming her hands on the table. “Dinner?”

MacAvoy swallowed, guilty for wanting to egg Nosty on. He needed to get a hold of himself. If Belle caught him goading Nosty, she’d be furious.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.

She bent to rifle through her bag, then slapped a book onto the table. MacAvoy and Nosty both leaned forward to read it.

“Easy Cooking for Two,” MacAvoy read, then frowned. “Who are the two?”

He and Nosty looked at one another in horror as Belle said, “Well, you’re about to be roommates, and I can’t cook for you every night.” 

He’d gotten used to Belle’s cooking, and he’d looked forward to her cooking when she wasn’t too sad to do more than throw things from the freezer into a pan. The only things he ever cooked were eggs, sausages, and packaged noodles.

“I’m out of lockup for one day and cooking me own food?” Nosty asked.

“Come on.” Belle picked up the cookbook, then Nosty’s hand. “We’ll cook together tonight.” 

MacAvoy wanted to be relieved that he didn’t have to learn anything today, didn’t have to partner up with Nosty, but all he felt was an itchy jealousy creeping up the back of his neck. 

“Fine.” Nosty heaved a lusty sigh, but plucked the book out of Belle’s hands. “What page?”

MacAvoy would have to keep an eye on him.

****

Belle let Nosty instruct her using the book’s recipe for roasted sausage and potatoes with herbs and wine, though she reminded him that tomorrow, he would be the one getting his hands dirty. 

The food turned out well, and the three of them sat in what would have been awkward silence had Belle not decided to relay every second of what had happened that day, up to Coach Gaston’s arrival. By the time they finished, even Joseph looked bored. Joseph had never looked bored around her.

“Should we bring your stuff upstairs?” Belle picked up the three plates, but Joseph stopped her.

“I’ll clean up. You two go.”

Nosty was out of the kitchen before Belle had finished squeezing Joseph’s shoulder in gratitude, and when she made it to the stairs, he was already climbing with both bags.

“I could have helped you,” she said. 

He shrugged, though his jaw clenched in pain. “I’d be carrying me own shite if I was out on the streets anyway. Where am I going with it?”

She relieved him of the book tote, then led him to what had been her room next to Joseph’s. Though she’d made the bed before leaving, it looked lived in, rumpled, and her cheeks heated. Nosty deserved a new room, not her reject room.

“What’s wrong?” He dropped his bag with a thud.

“Sorry, this is the room I slept in, but you should be in a fresh one.” She picked up his bag and pushed past him. He moved as if to stop her, but then let her through. She led him to a room a few doors down, dropping his bags off so she could find sheets and blankets.

Once she’d dumped them in a chair to make the bed, Nosty grabbed her wrist, pulling her to sit with him on the bare mattress.

“Nosty.” She chewed her lip. 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” He leaned back on both his hands, stretching his chest slowly with a grimace. “I just—”

If he wasn’t looking at her, it probably meant he wanted to say something. To give him a sense of privacy, she laid back, staring up at the ceiling.

“You just?”

He laid back next to her and linked his pinky through hers. She swallowed down the hot feeling that came with this. Someday, they’d hold hands again, kiss again. She had to believe.

“What am I doing here?” he finally asked.

She twisted to look at him, then remembered why they were laying like this in the first place and twisted back around.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—” He waved a hand at the ceiling. “You want me to stay here. Fine. Why? I don’t want to live in a church forever. Am I a prisoner here? I won’t stay. Might as well live on a street corner.”

She didn’t want to give him false hope, didn’t want to say if you do x, y, z, you can come live with me instead. Because the truth was that there was no set x, y, z. She just needed him to prove that he wouldn’t leave her again. 

“Do you want to be with me?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

She swallowed. Be brave, Belle, she told herself. She’d already given her heart to Nosty once—it wouldn’t hurt her any more to lay it bare again.

“Well, I want to be with you,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“But I can’t until I can trust you.” 

The mattress rustled by his head, so she turned hers again and their eyes met. “You can trust me,” he said.

She shook her head. “I trusted you before and you broke my heart. I need to really know I can trust you this time. I won’t—” She swallowed, closing her eyes to gather her words. “I won’t let you throw me away again.”

His forehead brushed hers. “So what do I do?” He touched his thumb to her chin with the same tenderness she’d craved in his absence.

“I don’t have a list. I just need you to prove you’re not going to just disappear again.” She opened her eyes, but his were closed now. “I need to trust that I can rely on you.”

“I don’t know how to prove that.” He trailed a finger down her neck. “I don’t know if it’s true.”

Belle squeezed her eyes shut, then rolled out of his reach to stare up at the ceiling. “Well, I can’t know for sure until you do.”

Nosty sat up, and Belle was half relieved, half disappointed that he didn’t roll after her and touch her more. She needed to get off this bed. Instead, she clasped her hands across her stomach.

“I think it would be a good idea for me not to come by for a few days.”

When he looked at her, it reminded her of how she’d found him in the cell, the lost boy who hadn’t believed she was there for him. Then, his face was hard again.

“Fine.”

She sat up with him. “Nosty, I’m not trying to punish you or be cruel. I just think that if we spend all our time together, you’ll never be able to think about what you want, and we’ll never be able to figure this out.”

He stood, paced for a second, then headed for the tote full of books. “When will you come back?”

All she wanted to say was as soon as possible, and she wanted that to be tomorrow. She forced herself to consider the question instead.

“When I hear from your new solicitor,” she said. When she’d bailed Nosty out, he’d had to sign affidavits that he would be reachable at her phone number and address. The public defender information would come there.

He dug around in the bag and came up with one of the books she’d picked out for him. She bit her lip, trying not to smile. There was no way of knowing if he’d picked that one as some sort of symbol that he trusted her or if it was just coincidence. She couldn’t assign meaning to every little movement or she’d go mad.

“Okay,” he said. “What if they haven’t called by the weekend?”

“I’ll see you first thing Saturday morning.”

That was just three days they’d have to be apart. She could do that without guilt overwhelming her. After all, Nosty had left her for two weeks, and if she hadn’t gone after him, she’d probably have never seen him again.

“Come on, I’ll put the sheets on.” She stood, but when she headed for the chair, Nosty blocked her.

“Nosty—”

He cupped her cheeks, and she swallowed, her whole body suddenly hot. “I’ll miss you,” he said. “I miss you when I’m gone.”

She blinked, the tears sudden and surprising. “Really?” That was a boundary they’d never crossed, talking about time spent apart between Nosty’s library visits.

“Since the minute I met you.” 

He touched his lips to hers, and when she didn’t pull away, slid a hand into her hair to pull her against him. If Belle had been able to form thoughts, she might have thought this was a bad idea, but her brain just fired electricity to every part of her body while Nosty pushed her up against the wall, his kiss as hungry and desperate as she’d been for weeks. One little kiss couldn’t hurt, right?

Then, just as her common sense broke through the fog, he stepped back, kissing the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, until he could no longer reach her at all. She swallowed, sure she looked more ravaged and undone than she ever had. Nosty grinned at her like he knew a dirty secret of hers, and she bit her lip.

“Sheets?” he said, as innocent as she’d ever heard him. Bastard. 

She wobbled to the bundle of bedlinens and scooped them up, clutching them to her chest like a shield. “Sheets,” she agreed.

****

She and Nosty made the bed, put his clothes in drawers, lined his few toiletries in the bathroom sink, and arranged her books on the dresser like a makeshift bookshelf. He didn’t kiss her again, and she tried not to want him to. She had drawn this boundary. The kiss would just be a nice thing to think about while she forced herself to stay away, maybe even a promise of more in the future.

“Okay.” She wrung her hands together in the doorway of his room. “I have to go home.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Slowly, steadily, he picked up his jacket and slipped into it, moving with such control, it looked painful.

Belle shook her head. “I need to talk to Joseph. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

The look in his eyes might as well have been a knife to the gut. How could he abandon her and then look at her like this when she just wanted to protect herself? Hadn’t he always said that he was too dangerous for her?

“I’ll see you soon,” she repeated. “And I’ll bring you some more books if you want.”

Nosty’s jaw pulsed, and his eyes darted from the window to the door and back again before he all but exploded with, “I don’t want to be stuck here!” 

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, and she heard the click click click of him fidgeting with something that she hadn’t heard in weeks. “I’m not some fucking churchmouse. I felt trapped just putting sheets on this stupid bed.” 

What could she say? She wasn’t forcing him. She drifted toward the door, blocking his exit, which didn’t feel great to do when he was panicking about being trapped, but it gave her time to think.

“Look.” Nosty paced, but the room was so small, all he could really do was twist back and forth and watch his kilt billow. There was no real momentum to be had. “If the choice is stay here or never see you again, I don’t want to never see you again. So I’ll try, okay? That’s all I’m saying.”

“Nosty—you don’t have to stay here forever and always.” 

“Right,” he said. “You’ll let me in your flat again sometime and then I’ll just be a prisoner there.” He pressed a hand to his forehead.

“You’re not a prisoner! You can go places.”

He paused, turning his anguished face to her. 

“You don’t have to literally sit in this church twenty-four hours a day. You’re free to come and go.” She took a step toward him. “But now you have a safe place to sleep and somewhere to get your bearings.” And a legal requirement to be reachable or I’ll be out a thousand pounds, she wanted to add.

His brow furrowed and he watched her for a few seconds. “I can leave?”

“Of course.” Nosty knew so much pain and badness, it hurt to see when he didn’t grasp kindness. “I just want to know I can trust you to come back.”

He swallowed, then nodded. “Okay. Is the library off limits?” 

“At least this week,” she said, though she didn’t want to. “But there’s a lovely park a few blocks away.”

He loped over, and then his arms were around her, squeezing her to him in a way that had to hurt his injury. 

“I’ll miss you too,” she said, and he squeezed tighter before groaning and stepping back, rotating his shoulder. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, and at that, she couldn’t help standing on her toes and pecking him on the cheek.

****

She found Joseph in the common room, sipping a bottle of ginger ale with the intensity of watching a horror movie. When she squeezed his shoulder, he jumped. Nosty was going to have a field day scaring the piss out of him.

“Belle!” He searched her like he expected to find injuries. “Leaving already?”

“Walk me out?”

She took his arm as they walked because he was looking a little green. When she could supervise him all day, he drank plenty of water, but she got the impression from his report earlier that he had spent most of the day watching Nosty pace around outside.

They were silent through the rectory, all the way out to Belle’s car. Joseph still had the look of a person walking around in wet socks, so Belle squeezed his arm.

“Do you want to sit and chat for a few minutes?”

“In your car?”

She opened her door, gesturing for him to do the same, and then they were alone together for the first time since Nosty’s return.

“Joseph, I’m so sorry—” she said just as he said, “Belle, I don’t know—”

He laughed with no humor. “Why are you sorry?”

“I know this has been a real burden on you.” She laid a hand on his arm. “You’ve had to hold together all the loose ends while I figure out what to do with the rest of the threads. What don’t you know?”

Joseph covered her hand with his, watching them both on his arm. “Nothing. I misspoke. It’s no trouble.”

“Joseph.”

He pursed his lips. “I’m in a foul mood. That’s all. It’s not your fault.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Is it not my fault because you’re blaming Nosty instead?”

He shook his head. “It’s my fault for being so insecure.” 

Guilty—why was she always letting Joseph take the brunt of her emotions?—she wrapped both her arms around his shoulders and squeezed. “I didn’t mean to ignore you yesterday, I just really needed to be with him.”

“Can you please tell me what happened?” Joseph asked. “He’s right across from where I sleep.”

That was fair. Belle clasped her hands together so she could fidget. “He’s being charged with assaulting a police officer.”

“Assaulting—ouch!” He rubbed his head where he’d hit it on the ceiling in surprise. “Assault?”

“It’s not like it’s domestic assault,” she said. “And if you’d met this constable, you’d have wanted to assault him too.” 

“Maybe.” Joseph squeezed his eyes shut, still rubbing his head. “But the difference is I wouldn’t have.” 

“Well, you’re lucky enough to not have to be in that situation.” She folded her arms, not caring how she sounded. She refused to let Joseph, a priest who was all but scamming the diocese out of money, judge Nosty.

“What was the situation?” 

She licked her lips. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He’ll tell me when he’s ready.”

Joseph laughed humorlessly again, running a hand through his hair, and she was surprised at how mean he sounded. “Right. And what happened to his arm? Was that just another chance encounter with the law?”

The hot feeling in her throat wasn’t guilt this time, but anger. Who was Joseph to judge him? To judge her? “No. It’s on his chest, and it was a suicide attempt.” 

Joseph quieted, and Belle felt savage pleasure at the sudden softening in his face. Weren’t priests supposed to be nonjudgmental?

“I’m sorry, Belle,” he whispered. “I’m afraid—I’m afraid I’ve been horribly jealous.” When she didn’t respond, his eyes widened. “Not—not like that! Just of your time. I don’t want—I don’t mean to say that we’re—that we should—”

She laid a hand on his shoulder. “I understand. I’m sorry. I just need to spend time with him. And now I need you to spend time with him.”

“What? Me? Why?”

She explained the solicitor plan, and Joseph’s face drew into an even deeper frown. Would she ever see him happy again? 

“Fine. We’ll—cook together, I guess.”

Belle kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Joseph. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”