I stared straight ahead, not really seeing anything. Maybe.
“Let me get Layne.”
“No, it’s fine.” I didn’t want to talk to a woman about this. Telling Keaton was humiliating enough.
But Keaton was already on his feet, heading for the house. A moment later he came back with Layne in tow. She had donned a pair of sweatpants and one of Keaton’s shirts.
“King David slept with another man’s wife, then orchestrated said man’s death,” she began after settling next to me. “King Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Lot’s eldest daughter made him drunk and—”
I held up a hand. “Yeah, I know those stories.”
“And what’s the conclusion?” Layne shook a black curl out of her forehead, her warm gaze resting on me.
“That the consequences are brutal.”
She pursed her lips. “Fair enough. What else?”
“None of them was a monk,” I balked. “I made my Solemn Vows four years ago.”
“So, a king has a lower accountability standard than a monk in God’s eyes?”
She got me there.
“What else is the conclusion of their stories?”
I gripped my rosary. The woman was persistent. “God forgave them.”
Keaton cupped his ear. “What’s that?”
“Okay, okay, I hear you.” The frustration coiling around my gut turned into resignation. Mostly anyway. Layne’s point was valid. Sexual immorality was all throughout the Bible, and some very important people had done stupid stuff. Yet I couldn’t just drop what I’d done, even though I had repented a hundred times.
Layne placed her hand on my lower arm. “David did horrible things, and God still called him a man after His own heart.”
I dipped my chin to my chest. Nodded. I knew that, too. Grasping the concept with my heart was a whole other thing. One I apparently wasn’t capable of.
“There’s something else.” Might as well tell them everything. “I almost kissed one of the brothers.” Heat crept up my neck. Could this conversation get any more uncomfortable?
Keaton coughed. “Holy Hades, champ. Can’t say I’ve done that.”
“I meant he tried to kiss me, not that I kissed him. He talked about having feelings for me. It came out of nowhere, and I still have no idea how to handle it.”
“That’s bizarre.”
“Not really.” Layne looked at Keaton. “Imagine living in a monastery and only spending time with the same seven people. You bond emotionally on a level that’s hard to comprehend for anyone outside that living arrangement. Think of our brothers in the military. They share a bond we as civilians can’t comprehend. The difference is they aren’t cut off from the world and can have a partner of the opposite gender. Monks and priests, on the other hand, have to repress their romantic andsexual desires. So it doesn’t come as a surprise if those desires get redirected or eventually surface.”
Her words, hearing that someone else thought Matt’s feelings had to do with the circumstances rather than something I’d done, put me at ease. “That’s my conclusion as well. Us brothers really do have a strong bond.”
“Guess that makes sense,” Keaton said.
A chime broke into our conversation, and he picked up his phone lying on the lounge cushion. He frowned at it. “There’s a guy on a motorcycle at the gate. You know him?” He turned the cell to Layne, who shook her head.
“Can I see?” I asked. Might be Rome.
Keaton passed it to me.
Sure enough, it was him. What was he doing here?
My heartbeat slowed. Had something happened to Harley?
