Lust Is the Thorn

by Jen McLaughlin

Blinking, she swallowed and laughed. “Because you’ll always look at me like I’m Mikey’s little sister, maybe even yours, and nothing will change that. Not even that bath, and what you saw. If anything, it only drove it home more, judging from the way you reacted directly after.”

  The last thing I saw her as was my little sister, but if she thought that I did, maybe it would help me keep my hands off her. Maybe having her think I didn’t want her would put an extra barrier between the two of us, since I obviously needed one. “When I first met you, you still wore pigtails in your hair and had a snotty nose. You were literally a snotty-nosed brat.”

  Quickly, she lowered her head, but I didn’t miss the disappointment in her expression. “I’m still a brat, I just know how to blow my own nose now. Baby steps.”

  I laughed. She was always good with a quick comeback, and it’s something I appreciated about her. “Glad to hear it.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I need your help.” Rose pointed a finger at me. “I’m a fighter, not a crying chick in a tower. Don’t think one crappy night is going to change that. Change me.”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m not trying to insinuate you can’t take care of yourself. You’re stronger than anyone else I know, myself included. You were an amazing girl, and now you’re an even more incredible woman. I’m not trying to save you because I think you’re weak, I’m trying to help you because I care. I don’t want to see you get hurt again, like you did last night. I want to be there for you.”

  She froze, staring down at her sandwich, and blinked.

  If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn she blinked away tears. If she’d cried, I would have lost it. Rose never lost herself in tears, so if she cried…it would be because someone had broken her, and I would hunt down that man every second of every day and kill him with my bare hands. In cold blood. It would be worth going to hell for.

  She finished off her sandwich and stood without another word.

  I stood, too. “Rose, there’s something—”

  “I’m going to go take a nap,” she blurted out, gesturing for me to sit back down. “I’m tired, and, well, I don’t have anything to do, so I figured I could take advantage of peace and quiet for once. I never get a chance to nap like this.”

  My phone lit up with a text I’d been waiting for. Nodding, I flipped it over so she couldn’t read it and grabbed her plate before she could, sliding it under mine. “Good. Enjoy it. I’m going to run a quick errand, but I’ll be here when you wake up. And then we’ll talk some more.”

  “Okay.” She started for the door, but paused. “Thorn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you for bringing me here. For always worrying about me, even when no one else does. For trying to help me, even when I tell you to stop.” She took a deep breath. “When you take those vows, you’ll make a great priest. One Mikey would have been very proud of, even though he once joked that you would burst into flames if you stepped foot on holy ground…and I thought it was true.”

  I laughed. “It probably was, at the time.”

  “Yeah.” She gave me a smile. It was, hands down, the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “No matter what happens after this—where you go, or where I go—I’ll always care about you, too. More than I’ve ever cared about anyone else, besides him. I…I love you, and I’m not afraid to admit it out loud.”

  And then she just walked away.

  —

  Three hours later, I was in the kitchen cooking baked ziti, and I hadn’t heard a peep from Rose since she’d told me she loved me…and left. I couldn’t stop wondering what she’d meant by those three words that no one had ever said to me before. I mean, I knew what she’d meant. I’m not an idiot. She wasn’t saying it in the family sense. She meant it in that all encompassing, give-my-life-to-you, I-can’t-live-without-you sense. The type of love I could never accept from her.

  Maybe I was wrong, though.

  After all, I didn’t really know what love was, or what it meant, or how it changed a person, if at all. I only knew the ways it changed them for the worse. I’d seen it in my mother. Watched her fall apart, piece by piece, till there was no hope of ever putting her back together again. But could love be a good thing, too? Was I wrong to assume it was a weapon that one person used against another person when they walked away?

  It was so easy to do.

  To leave.

  Staying was the hard part.

  Loving someone for life was next to impossible. I couldn’t name one couple besides the Gallaghers who had been married to each other their whole lives, and they weren’t a shining example of normalcy. Neither one was faithful to the other after a few shots of whiskey or tequila.

  So I didn’t know what to do with those three little words, and I wouldn’t be saying them back, even if I might love her, too…whatever that meant. Love. Such a tepid word, thrown around like it means nothing.

  But no one had ever said they loved me.

  Not until now.

  My mother certainly had never spoken those words to me because she hadn’t loved me. If she had, she never would have wasted her life—and mine—because Dad walked away. She would have remembered she still had one man in her life who needed her.

  She would have remembered me.

  If she’d loved me, she never would’ve hooked for money, and she never would have offered me to her pimp as collateral for heroin. And when I’d refused to perform the horrible things she’d asked me to do, she never would have kicked me out.

  Not if she loved me.

  That had all gone down a couple of days before I turned eighteen, and it was also the night I’d started reading the Bible again. I’d run to the Gallagher house, and after Mikey fell asleep, I pulled my tattered old copy out of the small bag I’d packed. Around 3 a.m., I left his room and sat on the couch for better light, reading through passages while trying to make sense of my messed-up life.

  Rose was hardly more than a kid back then, but she’d come down and seen me. After she noticed what I was reading, even though I tried to hide it, she nodded once, sat beside me with her feet tucked under her, picked up her book, and didn’t speak. Just kept me company as I searched for answers. She was good at that. At knowing when to just be there, and when to actually talk. We’d always had that connection, even when she was nothing more than a girl, and I was already a man. She just…knew.

  Maybe that’s what love was.

  Knowing when to be quiet, and when to speak.

  As much as I trusted Rose, I’d seen firsthand what love does to a person. It isn’t a gift to be bestowed upon your “soul mate.” It is a weapon of mass destruction. And I refused to use that against her.

  The church was my safest bet, and hers. It was what had saved my life, and what would continue to save my life, if only I let it.

  Her door opened upstairs, and she came down the stairs. I rolled my shoulders and shook my thoughts off, making sure to keep my face as neutral as possible—which probably wasn’t very neutral at all. Something inside of her called to something deep inside of me, and it was getting a lot harder to ignore with each passing moment I spent with her. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

  “Afternoon, you mean?” She walked into the kitchen, sniffing. Her hair was down, and was a little smoother, as if she had brushed it, and her cheeks were still rosy with sleep. “Okay, this time something really smells good. What is it?”

  “Just your favorite meal ever.” I tossed the dish towel I’d been wiping my hands with on the counter, and leaned against it next to the refrigerator. “Baked ziti and apple pie.”

  She moaned and pressed a hand to her stomach. “You’re spoiling me to death. When did you learn to cook?”

  Try as I might, I couldn’t look away from that hand, or stop myself from remembering what it had done in that bath just a little bit lower on her body. I’d showered after she left the room earlier, and even gone to confession while she napped, but I swore I could still smell her all over me. Feel her.


  “It’s a side class on campus. Figured since I’m not going to be getting married and sharing kitchen duties equally with a wife, cooking is kind of all on my shoulders, so it was best to learn how. Turns out, I’m pretty good at it.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, coming around the island and opening the fridge. “But isn’t pride a sin?”

  “It’s not pride. It’s the truth. I even won an award.”

  I leaned against the cabinets and crossed my arms, watching as she eyed the wine selection. I’d put some white in the fridge, and left a few bottles of red on the counter. In all our Starbucks dates, I’d never asked her which wine she preferred.

  She laughed. “They have cooking competitions on campus?” She leaned into the fridge, bending just slightly and playing with her lip ring. Her nose stud twinkled in the light coming out of the fridge. Of their own accord, my eyes dipped lower and zeroed in on her butt. She wore a pair of baggy sweats, but man, she wore them well.

  I forced my attention off her butt and back to her face just in time for her to turn around and face me. “Yeah. I came in first.”

  “Wow.” She pursed her lips. “I definitely think you’d do well in the suburbs if you’re already rocking cooking contests. I bet your chili would win any cook-off.”

  “You wouldn’t know, since you don’t eat meat.”

  She held the door open with her hip and pulled out a bottle of Moscato wine. “You can make it with meatless meat.”

  I made a gagging sound and took the bottle from her. “Not in my kitchen.”

  “Dramatic much?” she teased, closing the door and watching me twist the cap open. “It’s not so bad.”

  “Says the vegetarian.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” She tugged on her hair with her good hand and shifted on her feet. She gazed at my arms for a second, but turned back to the bottle quickly. “Isn’t the church all about saving lives and being a good human? Treating all life fairly, even the cowards and killers?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged and tossed the cap on the counter. “Guess that doesn’t extend to cows, chickens, and pigs, though.”

  “Guess not,” she murmured.

  I opened the cabinet and took out two wineglasses. I didn’t often drink alcohol anymore, but something told me I would need it to get through tonight. After pouring two healthy doses, I held a glass out to her. “My lady.”

  Snorting, she took it, our fingers brushing in a way that sent a rush of heat coursing through my veins. “I am in no way, shape, or form a lady.”

  “Sure you are.” I picked mine up and held it out to her. “To making new starts, and keeping open minds about the future?”

  She eyed me skeptically, but clinked her glass to mine. “And to taking your vows, and being the best fucking priest to ever grace Chicago?”

  I stared at her, knowing all too well that I’d been seconds from forgetting all about those vows back in that tub. If my phone hadn’t rung when I had my hands on my fly, with her kneeling at my feet, I wouldn’t have stopped….

  And we’d probably be naked in bed right now.

  Instead, we were in the kitchen, fully clothed, and I was trying to pretend that I didn’t know about the sexy sounds she made when she came, or how dusky pink her hard nipples were underneath that sweatshirt she wore.

  I was failing. I am human. I was weak. I was a sinner.

  But she wasn’t for me. She was for some other man, in some other place, at some other time. The idea of her with another man? Yeah. It didn’t sit well. “Do you want to get married someday? Have kids?” I asked. “Set up shop in a nice little house, with a fence and a dog?”

  She scrunched up her nose. “I don’t know. Kids are nice, I guess, and so are dogs, but then you have to deal with the man who comes with them. Men are jerks.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “The ones I’ve met are.” She traced a pattern on the countertop, one I couldn’t follow. It was all over the place. “Well, minus present company, anyway.”

  Oh, I was a jerk. Besides the fact that I was keeping secrets from her, I felt a sense of relief that she seemed to think she was planning on spending the rest of her life single—and that made me a jerk. She deserved to be happy, to live a full life, but the idea of her falling in love with someone else made me want to punch a hole in someone’s face. Repeatedly.

  Once, back when Rose was only fourteen, right before Mikey died, a boy had shown interest in her. We had caught them kissing on the porch, and Mikey sent him off with a warning. That wasn’t good enough for me. I’d followed the boy home. On the porch of the kid’s home, I threatened to cut off his balls, one by one, if he even so much as winked at Rose again. He never came back.

  Word was, he skipped school for a week.

  Rose had forgotten all about him in a day or two…

  Give or take.

  “Remember Joel Mitchell?” I asked. “The red-haired kid who had a crush on you?”

  She choked on her sip of wine, but lowered it. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she spluttered and her cheeks flushed red. “Yeah…what about him?”

  “Remember when we caught him kissing you on the porch?”

  She nodded, pressing her fingers against her throat absentmindedly. “Very clearly, yes.”

  “I scared him off after that first kiss.” I took a drink of wine, letting it wash over my tongue. “That’s why he didn’t come back, not because of something you did. Just thought you should know.”

  She laughed. Actually laughed. Clutching her stomach, she swiped away a tear that escaped because she was laughing so hard. “Oh, that’s rich.”

  I stiffened. “What is?”

  “That you think you scared him off.” She laughed again. “He came again. A lot of times. In lots of ways.”

  “Wait.” My brows slammed down. “What?”

  “Do you honestly think a tiny little threat like that would scare off a Mitchell boy for good? You didn’t stand a chance with that.” She smirked and swirled her wine in her glass. “As a matter of fact, he was the guy who took my virginity a few years later.”

  I was the one to choke on my wine that time.

  She laughed, set down her wine, and patted me on the back.

  This, of course, left her face inches from mine, and she was smiling up at me with dancing blue eyes, and her nose stud was shining from the overhead lights, and that did nothing to help me catch my breath. “Rose.”

  “What? I’m almost twenty-two.” She grinned. “I mean, look at me. I hardly scream innocence. You didn’t think I was still a virgin, did you?”

  After what I’d seen in the bath? Nope. But that didn’t mean I wanted to know who’d had her, when I couldn’t. “Why did he return? I was pretty clear about what would happen if he didn’t leave you alone.”

  And there was no statute of limitations in my book.

  “Mikey died, and you left for school, so there was no reason he had to stay away anymore.” She lifted a shoulder, then winced. “He was my boyfriend for a year or so in high school, until I left.”

  I stiffened, because no matter how many years had passed, I still wanted to hunt him down and teach him that when I told you to stay away, you stayed away. “Did he at least treat you well?”

  “He was okay. Better than most. He never hit me.”

  Her soft words made my fists and knuckles ache for contact with something hard. If only Father John had a punching bag here. Working out, and boxing, kept my mind off my more animalistic urges. Fighting. Sex. Those urges needed to be kept at bay with an outlet that worked, and for each seminarian, what worked was different.

  For me, it was boxing. Weight lifting. Pushing myself physically. And judging from the thoughts running through my mind, I really needed to punch something. Hard.

  Maybe Joel Mitchell was the perfect item.

  “No man should ever hit you. Or treat you poorly. The only way a man’s knuckles should ever touch your skin�
�—unable to resist, I reached out and ran my knuckles over her soft cheek—“is like this. In a soft caress meant to please, not harm.”

  Her eyes drifted shut, and she bit her plump lower lip, leaving a white mark in the tender flesh upon release. I’d have done anything to lean in and kiss that bite mark away. To run my tongue over it, slowly and tenderly, and soothe the sting. To trace my way to the corner of her mouth, right over her lip ring, and slip my tongue inside her.

  Literally. Anything.

  She was the only light in my dark life besides the church. That wasn’t why I couldn’t have her. I couldn’t have her because she deserved better. I could think of at least ten reasons off the top of my head why she shouldn’t be with a guy like me.

  Like the time I’d gone to a party and taken enough Ecstasy to take down a village, and that night I’d slept with a virgin I’d known had feelings for me. Real feelings. When she told me how happy she was that we were together, I’d laughed at her. Like her feelings meant nothing. She’d cried and run out of the room. I’d gone to sleep without a second thought for that girl.

  Or the time I beat up Kenny Greenburg because he’d forgotten to pay me back the five dollars I’d loaned him the day before.

  Or, you know, the time I killed her brother. Rose deserved better than me. Always had. Always would. “Rose, I was the—”

  The timer dinged, announcing that dinner was ready, and the bell saved me once again. Or damned me. I couldn’t decide which one anymore.

  “Dinner’s ready,” she said softly.

  Clearing my throat, I tightened my grip on her, not wanting to let go but knowing I had to. For her sake. “Yeah.”

  She stepped away from me, doing what I hadn’t been able to, and picked up her wine, chugging it without taking a breath. “It smells delicious. I can’t wait to taste it.”

  Not saying anything, I bent down, picked up a pot holder, and removed the ziti from the oven. There was only one thing I ached to taste in this room, and it wasn’t the ziti. She awakened a longing inside of me that I wasn’t so sure I could ever overlook again. A raw, aching, open need for her, and what she could make me feel.