“I spoke to your father to ask permission. He will give us his blessing whenever you’re ready to make it official.”
Oh, no, her father already knew. He was in on this too.
“You take some time and think about it. I just wanted you to know I’m serious about you, about us. I’m not just fooling around.” He hesitated a moment before he leaned over and kissed Lovey.
They’d kissed before. The sort of chaste kisses shared with someone you were not yet intimate with. Lovey had tolerated those kisses for the sake of the cover her friendship with Joe provided. But this was a different sort of kiss. Joe put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He was insistent on deepening the kiss. Rather than make a scene, Lovey gave in to him. She placed a hand on his chest to keep some distance between them. They couldn’t fully face each other, seated the way they were, side by side, but Joe had partially turned toward her.
As kisses go, this one wasn’t terrible, but Joe certainly wasn’t Royal. She longed for the soft press of Royal’s lips against hers and the smell of her skin.
Joe finally released her. He smiled broadly and turned his attention back to their route. He left one arm along the seat back, just behind Lovey’s shoulders. Lovey tried to appear relaxed, but inside she was a churning mess.
How far was she willing to go to cover her feelings for Royal with Joe’s courtship? Joe had kissed her and she hadn’t felt the slightest romantic inclination for him. She tried to access the feelings she’d once had for men, the feelings she’d had for George. She knew that these were the feelings she should naturally feel. As a woman, she should desire a man. Should, should, should.
She noticed that Joe was looking at her and so she tried to give him a reassuring smile. But inside, she was anything but sure of anything. What am I going to do now?
❖
It was late by the time Royal finished her run to North Atlanta. The drive had been easy and uneventful. If the federal boys had been out tonight they were on someone else’s route because Royal never saw them. It was around two in the morning, so rather than risk waking her mother, Royal decided to stay at her place.
The room was just as she and Lovey had left it—with rumpled sheets on the bed and empty glasses on the table. She walked to the basin and splashed some water on her face to rinse away a little of the road dust. It would take a while for the adrenaline in her system to ebb enough for sleep so she decided to sit and write. She poured herself a dash of whiskey, little more than a sip, and sank into the chair in front of her typewriter.
Lines of poetry had been floating through her head all along the drive back to the hills. She wanted to write some of them down before they were lost to her.
Desire’s flame burns across my skin
I long for relief
Only your lips can bring
My body holds a space for you.
Sometimes lines of poetry would present themselves to her all at once, in solid stanzas. This was one of those nights. She heard whispered phrases in her head as if she was channeling a voice from some other place or had connected with a deeper part of herself.
What resides in my chest is real
Set against the relentless unreal
Defying convention.
Royal pushed her chair back and studied the words she’d just typed as she sipped at the whiskey. She might actually be able to sleep now that she’d gotten the words out of her head.
She moved across the room shedding her clothes as she went, leaving things where they fell until she reached the bedside in only boxers and an undershirt. Royal flopped onto the bed, careful not to slosh the whiskey from the glass. She slid down onto the pillow, keeping her head elevated just enough to sip without being hindered to swallow. The other pillow she pulled to her face smelled like Lovey. She breathed deeply. The scent of her caused a throbbing ache in Royal’s chest. She wondered what Lovey was doing right at that moment. Probably sleeping. But was she craving Royal’s body the way she was craving Lovey’s? She hoped so.
God, she was in trouble. She’d gone and fallen for Lovey. With iridescent clarity, she knew it. She knew it as sure as she knew the sun would rise. What am I going to do now?
Chapter Twenty-five
Lovey tried to shore up her energy for a long day. First there’d be the Sunday sermon, then lunch on the lawn, and then the decoration of the graves in the old cemetery next to the narrow wood-framed white church. Relatives would return today for the homecoming celebration, so no doubt her father would take this opportunity to reach people he didn’t normally see at his regular weekly service.
From her usual second row, Lovey heard the shuffling of feet as folks settled into the hard wooden pews behind her. Men’s hats lined the walls, hanging from pegs. Mostly, as was the tradition, men sat on one side and women on the other. Lovey fidgeted with the drape of her dress. She just wanted to get through this day and have some time to herself.
Her father announced the theme of his message for the day, the “sins of the flesh.” You’ve got to be kidding. She adjusted herself against the straight-backed seat and prepared for the worst.
“Of grave danger to Christians are the works of the flesh.” Her father held his Bible aloft in front of him as he read
