“I’m going to sleep over at Matt’s house. Is that okay?” I hold my breath through Dad’s responding silence.
“Let me talk to your mother,” Dad says.
“Well, you know where to find me.” I hang up and turn to Matt. “They’re going to say no, because it’s a ‘church night.’”
Matt frowns. “I thought only Catholics went to church on Saturday night.”
“I mean ‘church night’ like ‘school night.’ Gotta wake up and go.”
“I thought you stopped going.”
“It’s temporary.”
“Yeah?”
“Church is more mandatory than school in my house.”
Matt touches the back of my hand. “That’s intense.”
The phone rings.
“Fuck it,” Matt says. “Tell them we’ll go.”
“We?” I raise my eyebrows, then pick up. He waggles his brows right back at me, like a low-rent Groucho Marx.
“We’d like you to come home,” Dad says. “We’ve been patient with your need to come back to church on your own, but if you’re not going to church you need to be home. Sunday mornings are reserved for prayer and reflection, not being out with your friends.”
“How about if we meet you there?” I blurt out.
Silence.
“You and Matt?” Dad says. “Meet us at church?” Repeating the latter is no doubt for Mom’s sake. She’s probably listening in.
“Mm-hmm.”
“On time for the service?” Dad says.
Matt waggles his eyebrows, slowly leaning toward me.
“Yeah. We’ll be on time, I promise.”
Dad sighs, then there’s a pause. “Well, okay, then. We’ll take you at your word.”
I hang up. “It’s going to be an hour of hell,” I inform Matt. “I don’t know why you would subject yourself to that.”
He leans in until our foreheads meet. “An hour of hell for a whole night all to ourselves?” he whispers. “Totally worth it.”