Sorry for the delay - what midterm exams and Holy Week couldn't deter, problems with Wi-Fi and electrics apparently could. Your reviews/follows/favourites have been rays of light all along. Thanks for those and for your patience: I suspect I'm moving slow on this resolution for fear of rushing through it. Another step closer, now...
Assumpta waited on the stoop, feeling like a sucker. Peter was hiding something. For a moment Assumpta wondered if some other woman had already thrown herself at him in celebration of his impending freedom. Hadn't parishioners fallen for him back home? But it seemed absurd. Anyway, no one had followed him to the pub.
Perhaps Quigley had already evicted him, and he had three hours to gather his belongings. It wouldn't take three hours...
He opened the door again, now dressed for the cool air that threatened a sprinkle of rain. He pet the dog. "Can I walk with you lot instead?"
"Hiding something?"
He looked at Fionn again. "Not from you."
Assumpta frowned and shoved the lead into Peter's chest. He grabbed it and watched her storm into his quarters. With a sigh, he sat on the step, and the dog slumped beside him.
He didn't even hear the door when she emerged again.
"He's quite irresistible," she said. "Dressed in black, big green eyes, tough combination to say no to."
Peter turned to see Assumpta cradling the cat, bending down to let him sniff the dog. So far the two animals didn't seem terribly frightened, or even much impressed of one another.
"Come inside," she said. "The pair of you."
"I'd never seen Fionn round cats before," Peter remarked from behind the refrigerator door.
"Not true," said Assumpta, accepting a beer. "That fat red tabby that sneaked into the play rehearsal."
"Oh, right. Not a good precedent."
"Don't be silly. Enda Sullivan fell on his arse; what's not to like about that?"
Peter had to smile.
Assumpta leant against the counter, eyeing the violet paperboard box in the middle of the table. "Collected some alms, so."
"More impressive by weight than by value," he said.
Assumpta crossed to the table and nudged the box to test this. When it didn't move, she lifted it, startled by its heft.
"Porcelain pig might have been more structurally-sound," she joked.
As if to prove it, the bottom chose this moment to drop out, dumping the mass of coins and currency into a mound on the table. Assumpta gasped, face reddening. Peter could not stifle his laugh.
"I'll clean it up," she said, raising a hand in promise. "You have anything I can...?"
He tried to think of something he hadn't already packed, and suddenly remembered a biscuit tin in the cupboard.
He brought it down and checked its contents. "I'm afraid you'll have to help me empty it first." He arranged the ginger nuts on a plate and rinsed out the crumbs.
She smirked. "Perfect accompaniment to lager."
Peter watched as two bronze eyes took in the sight of the treats, then of the hill of mostly copper coins. Assumpta held one biscuit in midair, making it wait for the heaven of her mouth.
"Wonder how many of those coins carried a wish into a well at one time or another," she said, finally taking a bite.
"In a way, all of them." His voice wavered more than he'd have liked. She looked at him now, pressing for an explanation. He went on. "I tried to put a coin in the box every time I thought of you. I wished I could think about anything else."
She looked away and made a rushed exhale, the kind he'd come to recognise as masking her shyness when someone truly flattered her. Finishing her biscuit, she quickly began scooping coins into the tin.
He joined the effort. The soft percussion of colliding lightweight metals emboldened him to continue. "After a short time it was nearly full, so I switched to bills...sort of buying indulgences in advance," he admitted. "I knew that wasn't how priests were supposed to behave. I thought about living without the title, and I realised I could. I thought about trying to live without you, and..."
Their hands brushed over the last few pieces. They locked eyes.
"I can't," he said.
The tears in her eyes belied the soft chuckle that followed.
Peter felt an odd mix of panic and relief. "What?" he breathed.
"I was just thinking as I watched you this morning," she said, "how if they'd only made them like you when I was young enough, I might've stayed with the church."
They exchanged bittersweet smiles. "If I'd met you when I was young enough, I'd have never taken up the cloth."
She looked around - the cat, the bare walls, the rucksack propped near the door. "So what happens now?"
He shrugged. "Find a way to earn a living. Find a place to live that'll let me keep Joey."
She nodded uneasily. Both of them knew there were less-scandalous places for him to work and reside than at Fitzgerald's, at least for a start. Both of them also knew he had a place there if he needed it.
She rose unsteadily and crossed to the sink to wash the smell of small change off her hands. He followed, waiting his turn, accepting the soap, going under the stream just as her hands left it.
"I should go clean up," she said, nodding at the clock, then at the dog. "Get him a biscuit of his own as well."
"It's late. Let me walk you home."
She shot a look at him. "Says the strange man I once picked up on the side of the road."
He picked up Fionn's lead. "'Come in,' she said, 'I'll give you shelter from the storm.'"
"Bob Dylan, was it?"
He nodded. God, I've missed you.
The rain had come and gone during their delicate hour of nibbling and coin-scooping. The windows along the street were uniformly dark until they reached the pub, shuttered but still aglow. She loosed Fionn into the bar, but didn't yet follow him.
"Help you tidy up?" he offered.
She glanced up and down the road, checking for witnesses. "You're not worried about the neighbours?"
He dropped his eyes and gave a shy half-laugh. "They already know I'm in love with you."
It was the first time either one of them had said it aloud. It took her breath away; he seemed surprised to hear himself.
"Sure I could find some chairs for you to straighten," she managed.
Four paces into the pub, she heard him shut the door, and then felt his hand on her shoulder.
"'Sumpta," he whispered, pulling her close.
Not bothering to feign hesitation, she reached for him, lacing her fingers across the back of his neck. "Do we finally have the right to do this?"
"Long as you don't tell the pope," he said, leaning in.
"It's a wonder they kept you out of trouble as long as-"
The predictable end of the phrase was lost forever, from her mouth into his.