Collared(48)

I step back because I still haven’t gotten used to people touching me.

“You want to hear a stupid question, Covington?” Torrin’s voice breaks the silence. He’s beside me like he’s been here the whole time. Trent tips his head, but Torrin turns toward me. He lifts his elbow. “Wanna dance?”

“What?” I ask, able to fill my lungs again. “Really?”

Torrin’s eyes lighten. “Really.”

“There isn’t any music.” I wave around the room because not only is there no music, there’s not really even a dance floor.

“Already taken care of.” Torrin tips his head toward the front of the room where I see someone hooking up something that looks like it could play music. “The guy even has the song I requested.”

“No one else is dancing.”

“So? That doesn’t mean we can’t.”

The guy with the machines up front flashes Torrin a thumbs-up. Torrin returns the gesture.

“Costigan, dude”—Trent shifts closer—“you’ve got balls.”

This time a couple others join Paige in hissing a warning at him.

Recognition flashes across Trent’s face. “I mean, Father Costigan, dude. You’ve got . . . testicles.”

I bite my cheek to keep from laughing, but the others don’t. They just laugh. It’s a nice sound. A real one. It takes me back to a time when I used to hang out with these people and watch movies and eat pizza. I relax a little more.

“Come on. Dance.” I don’t think Torrin even heard anything Trent said. “You promised to go to Sadie Hawkins, winter formal, and prom with me. We missed all three. I’m willing to exchange three dances for one song.”

“Are priests allowed to dance?”

“I don’t know—I think so. But Torrin Costigan’s allowed to dance.” He reaches out his hand like he’s going to drop it onto my lower back. At the last second, he changes his mind and holds out his arm for me instead. He’s not going to push me—he’s letting me make the choice. “I’m not just a priest. There’s more to me than that.”

I take his arm because he’s giving me the choice and I want to. I want to be with him in whatever way we’re still allowed. “Kind of like I’m not just the missing girl?”

“Kind of like that,” he replies.

Static breaks through the room right before a distantly familiar melody filters around us. Torrin leads me a few feet away from the group but not far. Stepping around in front of me, one hand reaches for mine and the other slides around my back. It lowers until it’s fitted into the small of my back. Then it presses deeper. My body slides against his, not quite so close that they’re touching. But I’m so close I can feel the lapels of his jacket rubbing against my skin

The song plays, and people start to turn so they’re facing us. I feel like everyone’s been watching me all night anyway—at least now I’m doing something I want to do while they stare at me.

“Tell me this.” I rest my free hand against his chest, slipping it just beneath his jacket. He still has on a vest and a dress shirt, but the motion feels intimate. “Did you ask me to dance because you wanted to or because you didn’t like the way Trent was looking at me?”

Torrin’s chest rises against mine. It falls a moment later. “Both.”

He looks a little ashamed, but I don’t. “Good.”

“Trent Covington’s had a thing for you since freshman year—I caught him talking about what he’d like to do to a certain part of your anatomy in the locker room after practice. Ten years later and I can still remember what he said—word for word.”

I feel almost normal. So close I can feel it trying to cling to my skin. “Is that jealousy I detect in your voice?”

“No, it’s loyalty. Which Covington doesn’t know the first thing about.” When I continue to look at him, saying nothing, he sighs. “And maybe a little bit of jealousy.”

I focus on the shiny button of his dress shirt so he doesn’t notice my eyes lighten. “Good.”

After that, we dance. Or I think this is what dancing is. It’s been so long, but I know this is the same feeling I used to have when Torrin tucked me close to him while music played in the background. Sometimes he’d hum the tune in my ear. Sometimes he’d whisper something else. Sometimes he’d just tip his face against mine and breathe me in like he was trying to keep a part of me inside him forever.

I focus on the lyrics of the song because if I don’t, I’m afraid I’m going to do something that I don’t want a hundred people to witness.

“That’s why you like the song, isn’t it?” I say as we sway together. “Because we’re lost souls?”

Torrin’s hand tightens around mine. “No, we’re not lost. We’re right here.”

He pauses to make sure I’m looking at him. I am. When I look at him like this, I know I’m here. I’m real and not some apparition that comes and goes.

“I chose this song because I used to listen to it day in and day out after . . .” He doesn’t say anything else—he doesn’t have to. “I thought that if I just listened to it enough, thought it enough, wanted it enough, the wishing you were here would become real. Now you’re here. No more wishing. It’s kind of cathartic, you know?”