He tries a bite, and his eyes flare. "Jesus."
"You like it?" I ask.
"Fuck, yeah. Good shit." He wipes his mouth with a napkin. "It bother you when I curse?"
I shake my head. "No. Not at all."
"You don't curse."
I shake my head, cutting a section of toast, avocado, and egg whites. "I was raised very, very religious. I've moved on from that for the most part, but I never picked up the habit of cursing."
"So you grew up going to church and all that?" he asks.
"Yup. Every Sunday and most Wednesdays."
"Wednesdays too?"
I chew and swallow, sip coffee. "Youth group."
"Dunno what that is."
"Like church but just for kids your age. We’d sing songs, hear a message about God, and hang out. It was fun."
He hums a sound that's neither yes nor no, just sort of acknowledging what I said. "Don’t go church at all anymore?"
I shake my head. "No, not really."
"Why?"
I consider what to say and decide that if I'm going to ask him about prison and being in gangs, I can darned well talk about Brennan. "I was married. His name was Brennan. We started courting—dating—when we were freshmen in high school. I loved him. We were together for… gosh, how long? Twelve years? Or close to that, at least.”
He blinks at me. "You were with the same guy for twelve years?"
I sigh, laughing a little. "The world I grew up in was…well, as far from the world you grew up in as you can get, I suppose. In my world, you didn’t date, you courted. Our first four years of dating, we had chaperones."
"Don't know what that means," he says, around a mouthful of French toast. He's devouring it, inhaling it. "This is the best shit I ever had. Legit."
I grin. "Good! I'm glad you like it." I take my time cutting, chewing, and swallowing. "A chaperone is just someone who goes on a date with you to make sure you remain pure. No hand holding, no kissing, none of that."
"Weird," he mutters. "Sounds lame."
I cackle. "It really was, honestly." I laugh again. "Anyway. After high school, the church we went to went through some changes. Things loosened up a little with the new pastor, Pastor Timothy. Less strict, not as many legalistic rules. After that, our parents let us go on dates alone, as long as we continued to remain pure until marriage.”
He does some mental math. "You'd have been…what, twenty?"
I nod. "Yes."
"And your parents still controlled who you went out with and how?"
I nod again. “Oh yes. Very much so. I lived at home. Obeyed their rules." I blush, preparing to discuss things I'm uncomfortable discussing. "We, um, we didn't, you know…um, sleep together, like that, until I was twenty-one.”
He shakes his head. "And you were with him for another how many years?"
“We were married for eight years, and together in the sense of dating or courting or whatever you want to call it for fifteen—from the time I was fifteen until I was twenty-nine last year. My one-year anniversary of being divorced is this month”
"A lot of marriages don't last that long."
"I know."
