Enoch’s truck was parked on the street outside his house. He’d left the garage door open for her. Corinne pulled her car in and closed the door behind her. They were still hiding. It was a new variety of hiding, more for her sake than his.
Corinne knocked on the door between the garage and the kitchen. When Enoch didn’t answer, she cracked the door and leaned in. “Enoch?”
He didn’t answer.
Corinne stepped in. The kitchen didn’t smell like anything. “Enoch?”
She walked through the kitchen and peeked into the living room. Enoch was walking down the hall from his bedroom. “Corinne, hey. Sorry.” He was still in his work clothes, his white pants and his MILLER ELECTRIC T-shirt. His face was long—he looked nearly as lost as he had last night.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I mean…” He rubbed his face. “Same thing. I probably shouldn’t have expected myself to be in great shape tonight, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Do you want me to leave?”
He reached for her hand. “No.” His eyes were plaintive. “No. But … maybe you should anyway. I’m not good company.”
“I don’t need good company,” Corinne said, squeezing his hand.
“I haven’t started dinner,” he said. “I haven’t even showered.”
She let go of his hand. “You shower. I’ll take care of dinner.”
He twisted his mouth down, like he wasn’t sure she could manage it.
“Take a shower,” she said, pushing his arm. “Then come out and be miserable near me.”
“It’s good to see you,” he said. A little less lost.
She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “It’s always good to see you, Enoch.” (She could be easy sometimes. When he needed it.)
He smiled with his eyes, and she pushed him again, and he walked away.
Corinne went back to Enoch’s kitchen to see what she could rustle up. His fridge was mostly full of ingredients—raw meat, milk, butter—which Corinne couldn’t really work with. But she found cheese and summer sausage. And there were crackers in the cupboard. Oh, and microwave popcorn. Corinne knew how to make popcorn. She found a jar of olives. And some oranges. She spent most of the time that Enoch was in the shower trying to arrange it all artfully.
She was putting the popcorn into a bowl when Enoch came into the kitchen. In jeans and a flannel shirt. Barefoot. Corinne still couldn’t look at his feet. He started laughing, with his chest and through his nose. “You made popcorn.”
“You like popcorn, I’ve seen you eat it.”
“I do—but it’s like I’m dating Charlie Brown.”
“It was actually Snoopy who made the popcorn.”
“Come here, Snoopy.” He took Corinne by her upper arm and kissed her. (She was never going to get used to this. The easy kisses. The fact that this was allowed. That Enoch was allowing it.)
“There’s also an antipasto plate,” she said.
“Show me the way.”
They sat together on the couch, eating cheese and crackers. Corinne liked the way Enoch ate. Like he was hungry and unapologetic about it. Even for a man.
“I’ve never really dated before,” he said, eating an orange wedge.
“You dated. You went roller-skating every Friday night. While I stayed home and washed my hair.”
He rolled his eyes. “You were invited—which is kind of the point. Do you know, Shannon and I weren’t ever alone until our wedding night?”
“Jesus,” Corinne said.
“Saves,” Enoch added, reaching for some crackers.
“Even when you proposed?”
“Her parents were in the next room. The day that I apologized to her for, well, everything, was the closest we ever came to being alone—we were sitting on her front porch. But her parents were just inside.”
“Did you ever … kiss?”
“We kissed a lot. When we said good-bye. But her parents were always keeping an eye on us.”
“That’s so weird,” Corinne said.
Enoch shrugged.
“Don’t you think it would have been different if you could have spent time alone together? And touched?”
“I don’t think she would have told me she was gay,” he said with a mouth full of crackers. “She didn’t even know.”
“No, but you might have realized that you weren’t supposed to get married.”
He swallowed. “The fact that I was in love with you probably should have been enough of a red flag.”
Corinne laughed. Helplessly. (Sometimes the ridiculousness of it all was overwhelming.) Enoch quirked up one side of his mouth. He reached for her. She was right there already. He put his arms around her waist and laid his forehead on her shoulder. “This was a nice dinner, thank you. Is this how you cook for yourself?”
“I never have olives in my cupboards. Or oranges.”
He shook his head. He rubbed his nose into Corinne’s sky-blue cardigan.
“Rough day?” she asked.
“Yeah.” His voice was muffled.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Enoch groaned and pulled away from her. He leaned back against the couch, covering his face with his forearms. Corinne touched his chest. She rubbed his flannel shirt between the buttons.
“I argued with Japheth.”
“About…” Corinne didn’t want to say it.
She didn’t have to. “Yeah,” Enoch said. “I told him a few days ago, before they announced it at church, and he was upset then—but now he says he can’t work with me anymore. Because I’m not good Christian association.”
“Is that a rule? That you can’t work with someone who’s been cast out?”
Enoch’s arms dropped to his sides. “You can work with someone. You’re just supposed to keep it professional. Nothing personal or spiritual.”
“Okay…”
“But Japheth says he doesn’t want to just stick to the letter of the law. That owning a business together is already too intimate.”
“You own the business together?”
“I started it. I mean, I restarted it, after my dad died. And Japheth joined when he got his license.”
“Then he can’t fire you.”
“He doesn’t want to fire me. He wants—” Enoch growled and rubbed his face, pushing up his glasses. “I don’t know what he wants. He says all the brothers we work with are going to be uncomfortable. That when you work with brothers, it’s an extension of the congregation.”
“Do you agree?”
“I think I can keep my head down and focus on the wiring, but it’s not really my place to tell people how they feel around me. If it bothers their conscience to have me around, I can’t exactly argue with them.”
“Pfft,” Corinne said.
He turned to her. “You think I should argue?”
“No. I just don’t believe that it”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“‘bothers their conscience’ to be civil to someone they already know and love.”
Corinne normally wouldn’t talk this way in front of Enoch. She wouldn’t be disrespectful toward the church. She wouldn’t be honest. But they were in some liminal space together now, someplace where the rules were blurry. Plus, she was pissed.
“Like,” she went on, “what sort of thing actually bothers your conscience? When you’ve hurt someone, right? Or cheated. Or maybe when you’ve done something that you truly believe God hates. But God is mostly reasonable—the Ten Commandments hold water. This … This is just performative nonsense. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night because I spoke to a sinner.’ Jesus sat down with sinners. He hung out with them.”
“Only to lead them out of sin,” Enoch countered.
“My point is—this isn’t real. Jesus isn’t going to get mad at them for being polite to another one of His children, no matter how fallen.”
Enoch laid his hand on her knee. He didn’t say anything to agree with her, but he seemed happy to have her on his side.
“What did you say to Japheth?” Corinne asked.
“I told him that I’d leave our usual jobs to him, and I’d bid jobs for worldly contractors.”
“Have you done that before?”
“I’ve never really had to.”
“Does it worry you?”
“It’s just … different. I wasn’t expecting this part of my life to change, too.”
“I’m sorry,” Corinne said.
Enoch reached up and thumbed the corner of her frown. “I can tell. It’s all right—I’ll get through it.”
“Japheth is a little twerp.”
“Huh,” Enoch laughed. “Not so little anymore. He’s as big as me.”
“No one’s as big as you,” Corinne said with conviction.
Enoch looked up at her. Something had shifted in his eyes. From lost to fond—to wanting. He spread his hand along her jaw, and she leaned into him. She kissed him. His mouth was warm and wet, and he tasted like olives, but she didn’t care. She kissed him hungrily. Generously. She couldn’t make up for all he’d lost; she wasn’t a fair trade. But she wanted him to know that he had her. For what it was worth. For what she was.
Enoch held her neck. He stroked her cheek with his thumb. He held her against him with his other arm around her waist. “I still can’t believe that you’re here.”
“I’m here,” Corinne said.
He opened his mouth to catch hers. Corinne licked his fat tongue, his gappy teeth. She was here. He had her. He always had.
They were still new to this. Kissing each other.
And so far they’d been more careful than their teenage selves. Once or twice, they’d started to get carried away, and Enoch had stopped them. Redirected them. Reached for pizza or taken a breath to stretch. As soon as they pulled up to the gates of Carried Away, he’d backed off.
But this kiss had started at those gates—and then it kept going. Corinne felt Enoch’s hand pulling at her waist. She remembered all the other times he’d pulled on her. She felt eighteen again. Urgent and wanton.
She’d never kissed anyone else like this. Like she might lose him before it was done. She’d never liked anyone else’s mouth this much. It took two kisses for Corinne to cover Enoch’s lips. She had to kiss him in double time to keep up.
She held his cheeks, his chin.
“Corinne,” he said. She inhaled it.
Enoch ended the kiss—a mile past the gates—by pulling her even closer. By burrowing his face between her neck and her shoulder. By groaning so low and loud that she felt it in her kidneys. She wound all ten fingers in his hair.
Then a familiar clock chimed, and Corinne jumped away from Enoch so abruptly, she hung in the air like Michael Jordan.
“What?” Enoch said. He was still panting.
Corinne was kneeling next to him on the couch. Her hands were over her heart. “Is that—”
“What?”
The clock was still chiming.
“Is that your mom’s clock?”
“Oh.” Enoch’s mouth was flushed berry red. “Yeah.”
“Where did it come from?”
“The hallway? It’s always been there.”
“I’ve never heard it.”
“I just changed the batteries.”
“Holy shit,” Corinne said.
“I can take them out.”
“Holy shit,” she said.
Enoch started laughing, his lips pressed together, his shoulders shaking.
“It’s not funny,” Corinne said. “I was ready for your mom to come down the stairs.”
“I don’t have stairs,” he said.
She scrubbed her face with her hands and finally let herself smile.
Enoch pulled her back against him. “We’re so messed up.” He sounded amused, resigned, tired, affectionate.
“I know you don’t like to swear,” she said, “but this is really a case for the F-word and none other.”
“Are you saying we’re fucked up, Corinne?”
She laughed. It was a little like hearing Mr. Rogers swear. Or the Jolly Green Giant. “I am.”
Enoch hugged her. He laughed, too, and he was holding her so tight that she shook with him. “I suppose we are.”