“Yeah… but I mean it as a compliment.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No one would know if you didn’t tell them. The girls must have been crazy about you in high school,” Paul said.
“I guess so. My friends were always girls. They weren’t girlfriends, though.”
“You never had a girlfriend?” Paul asked.
“Nope. Not interesting.”
“I thought you’d have tried it at least once,” Paul said.
“You think I’d change my mind?”
Sensing they had moved on from Titanic, Paul picked up the remote and turned off the television. “No,” he said. “I just thought you’d have tried it.”
“Have you tried it?”
“What do you mean? Yeah, I had girlfriends,” Paul said, setting the remote back down.
“No,” Ian said, “the other direction. With a man.”
“Oh. No.”
“Never thought about it?”
“Ah, thought about it….” Paul fumbled. “Well, thinking, that’s… um….” Paul couldn’t find the right words. Since he met Ian, he thought about it all the time—and that was the one thing he couldn’t share with him.
“I’m sorry,” Ian said. “I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s okay,” Paul said, pulling himself together. “Yes. I’ve thought about it.”
“Ah,” Ian said with a laugh. “Minister’s true confessions.” Paul could see Ian’s raised eyebrows all the way through the phone line. “You’ve never told anyone that before, have you?” Ian asked.
“No.”
“What did you think?” Ian asked. His tone was flirtatious.
“What?”
“When you thought about it, what did you think?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe we could change the subject.”
“Okay. What made you decide to become a minister?”
“That is a change of subject!”
“Guinness Book!”
“Why I’m a minister….” Paul got up and started to pace. “Well, when I was in school, I found Christ, and it meant a lot to me. It became the most important thing in my life, and I wanted to share that and make other people feel that way.”
“You found Christ?”