When Peter had finished telling his story, all Angela could think to do was lean back in her seat and gasp.
"So other Priests, do they take this break as well?"
"Apparently so," her brother replied. "Father Mac even took one, or so I'm led to believe."
Angela shook her head with incredulity. "That old stick in the mud you're always writing about? I didn't think he had a warm feeling from the waist down."
"Angie!" Peter begged. "Besides, that's not what this is about – for me, at least."
"Could've fooled me."
"Really," he snapped back defensively. "What you saw, back at the house, that wasn't what it looked like."
"It looked like an extremely good second date to me."
Peter rolled his eyes slowly in attempt to disguise his feeling that she was probably right.
"At any rate," he began. "Assumpta and I, well. We're not about that. It's not about that."
Angela scoffed, "For you maybe, little brother but I'm telling you, there's nothing of the Madonna in that woman." Just as Peter was going to snap back, his sister added with a smile, "The singer maybe..."
"You're wrong!"
"So you're telling me that this woman, this publican, hasn't once propositioned you in such a way."
Peter remembered the goading nature of Assumpta's kiss; her choice of attire this evening – hell, her choice of attire every evening they'd been alone – but he still refused to dignify Angela's crude line of questioning with a response.
"She's a red-blooded woman, Peter. You can't just lead her on like this."
"I'm not leading her anywhere," he snapped back tetchily.
With a shake of her head, his sister put her key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. "Fine," she relented eventually. "You'll just have to find out the hard way."
Peter was going to leave it there – everything told him to leave it there, but ever the inquisitive, he relented. "Find out what?"
Angela smiled weakly, as if she too had been on the receiving end of this predicament. "What it's like to break someone's heart."
"That's not going to happen," and Peter meant what he said. But a nagging voice inside of him reminded the curate that things seldom work out how we intend.
It was a little after midnight when the front door opened again. Although she was hours from sleep, Assumpta made a good show of it by extinguishing all of the lights in the house and closing shut her bedroom door.
She heard soft mumblings as the siblings crept up the stairs, their heated discussion relegated to hushed tones. Although the publican couldn't hear the entirety of the argument, she was able to pick up the odd word here and there – finish, hurt and Assumpta being the most prominent.
Assumpta crept over to door in attempt to make out their conversation better, just in time for her to hear the slam of their unwitting host's bedroom door.
Soon after, she heard footsteps approaching her own door. Assumpta expected a knock to follow but instead, a chorus of laboured breaths just sort of hung there, on the other side of the panelled wood.
Peter… her head screamed. Peter… just open the door.
But still, the curate didn't move an inch.
Peter…
Assumpta's breath caught in her chest as she heard his hand reach for the door handle. As she glanced down, she saw that Peter had turned the door knob half way; just one push and the door would be wide open.
"Peter," she whispered involuntarily as her head pressed against the door.
At the sound of her voice, the Priest took his hand off the handle sharply and stepped away from her room.
Damn…
Assumpta tapped her head against the wood in frustration. Why did this have to be so difficult? This evening was meant to belong to them – they were meant to, at last, find a resolution to their years of yearning.
Immediately feeling selfish, Assumpta quickly banished her objections and vowed to be of more support in the morning.
For now though, all she had was this door and Peter, impotent and unwilling on the other side.