A familiar heat prickled and burned at his collarbones and up his neck, hopefully not making an incursion onto his cheeks. Damn his pale English skin. Being flustered, he didn’t answer, which was a mistake.
“That’s it, isn’t it? There’s a woman you’re interested in.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, not looking up from his plate.
“Ah!” Mrs. Symes exclaimed, clearly delighted with her not-so-psychic abilities. “Who is she and why haven’t you wifed her up yet?”
His brows rose involuntarily and he shook his head. Mrs. Symes needed to stop watching so many TikTok videos.
“She doesn’t know I’m interested, and I don’t think she’s interested in me.”
“How is that possible?”
Her belief that he was quite the catch was flattering but it wasn’t that simple. For all the barista turned his blood up to a simmer, his vocation made dating complicated, as did his intimate proclivities. And the combination of the two? It wouldn’t surprise him if his longest and deepest relationship were with the ministry.
“You’re very sweet, but not everyone wants to marry into the church. I don’t think she’s religious.”
“So what? My Walter was agnostic at best but he came to church with me every Sunday until he died. Helped build the sets for the Christmas pageants year after year, flipped pancakes for the youth group breakfasts. Believing in God doesn’t have all that much to do with how good a community member you are and that’s all you really need. Someone you love, who will support you, and be willing to lead a relatively public life.”
That was true. Some of the most “Christian” people he knew weren’t religious at all—they were simply good people who thought it was important to serve their community. And some of the people he knew who thought they were themost“Christian” ignored what he considered to be the most important teachings of acceptance and love and charity in favor of enforcing archaic and arbitrary teachings.
“You should ask her on a date,” Mrs. Symes prodded.
“I’m quite sure she’d decline. I don’t think she believes I’m her type.”
“But you think you could be?”
He shrugged, feeling more exposed than he had in quite some time. Most people thought of clergy as sexless and didn’t care to imagine them as having romantic or sexual lives. Which was frankly for the best as he didn’t think much of his congregation would particularly approve of what got his rocks off, what made the pleasure pathways of his brain light up.
“Then maybe you need to show her who you are under that stodgy collar.”
“I’ll think about it,” he promised, trying to conjurethatconversation. He didn’t even know her name, and now he was going to ask her on a date and confide his decidedly non-vanilla predilections to her? That would take some doing and might result in him needing to find a new café if he couldn’t show his face at Caffeinatrix anymore.
Which would be a real shame because they had the best flat whites within a six block radius of All Saints. He’d checked.
“Or you could do something about it,” Mrs. Symes pointed out. “Don’t tell me you’re busy tonight.”
Gideon opened his mouth to protest. He did actually have dinner plans although Father Andrew preferred to eat on the early side.
“Don’t wait, Gideon. What if sheisthe right woman for you and you waste all this time worrying she doesn’t think you’d be a good fit? Show her you could be. And if she doesn’t want to ride that ride—”
Oh dear God in heaven. Gideon closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t sure whether lowering his lids was more to get the image of Mrs. Symes riding any ride out of his head, or to see the fantasy of the mouth-watering barista more clearly in the theater of his mind. He blinked his eyes open as Mrs. Symes went on.
“Then she doesn’t and you can move on. But it’s worth a shot, don’t you think?”
Mrs. Symes raised her brows and pursed her lips, the very picture of impatience.
“Just go do it would you? Make an old woman happy for fuck’s sake.”
“Well in that case…” The corner of his mouth tipped up because Mrs. Symes really was a delight. “I will.”
“Tonight,” she insisted.
“Yes, tonight.”
“Good,” she said, nodding. “Now go make me some tea before you leave.”
More imperious than the Queen this woman was. He could’ve responded that he only took orders from God, but in truth he could use a cuppa himself so he stood and cleared their lunch plates to the kitchen, thinking how best to call on the sugar-and-spice-tongued woman behind the café counter.