Chapter 14: Four Months of Peace
Four months passed.
The ash was scraped from the stones. The boarded windows of the houses on the hill were replaced with fresh, clean glass. A collective, stubborn energy took hold of Crockett Island, a will to scrub the darkness out of its grain. The old oil spill, that lingering curse on the water, seemed to have receded with the tide of evil, the water clearing to a deep, healthy blue. The fishing boats, the St. Christopher among them, went out each dawn and returned heavy with cod and lobster. Money, honest money, flowed again into the community coffers, into the pockets of weary men and women who could finally pay off debts and buy new nets, new boots, hope.
Paul stood before them all one Sunday, not in the pulpit but on the chancel steps, his hands trembling. He told them everything. The false angel. The blood. The manipulation. The terrible, desperate hunger. He laid bare his own cowardice, his complicity, his monstrous pregnancy. He offered his resignation, his removal, expecting stones.
Instead, Mildred Gunning, her arms still pink with shiny scar tissue, stood up. “Who else is gonna listen to our nonsense every week, Father?” she said, her voice rough. “Sit down.”
He was shooed back to his post, not as a perfect priest, but as their priest. Flawed. Forgiven. It was a grace that haunted him, a weight heavier and sweeter than any he had known.
He and Riley were married on the same beach where Paul had fallen. Erin was Riley’s best woman. Leeza Scarborough, walking steadily on her miracle legs, threw fistfuls of wildflowers. The child growing in Paul’s belly was a quiet, accepted marvel. A few of the older folks scratched their heads, but the joy was pervasive, a vaccine against doubt. It was a new testament, written in living flesh.
Erin’s daughter thrived, and the infant was joined by a twin brother, a surprise that filled the Greene house with chaotic, beautiful noise. The children were doted upon by the entire village, passed from lap to lap like cherished treasures. Ed and Annie Flynn, their son home and healing, found a quiet contentment that smoothed the worry from their faces. A kind of peace, hard-won and vigilant, settled over the island. It felt, against all odds, like a paradise.
In the rectory bedroom, the late afternoon sun poured through the lace, painting warm stripes across the tangled sheets and the two moving bodies upon them.
Riley was buried deep inside Paul, moving with a slow, liquid rhythm that was less about passion and more about profound possession, a repeated affirmation. Paul’s body was different now, lush and changed. His breasts had grown full and sensitive, and Riley worshiped them with his mouth and hands as they moved. Paul’s pregnant belly swelled between them, a perfect, firm curve that Riley’s stomach slid against with each gentle thrust.
“We need to decide,” Paul murmured, his head tipped back, his eyes closed. A soft moan escaped his lips as Riley angled his hips. “The room. For the baby.”
“I know,” Riley said, sucking a dark nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue until Paul gasped, his back arching.
“Joe Collins,” Paul breathed, his hands clutching at Riley’s shoulders. “He needs the work. And… oh, right there… and it’s a second chance. Stability.”
Riley released his breast with a wet pop and kissed his way up to Paul’s mouth. “Joe’s a good guy. But he’s still getting his land legs back. This needs to be solid. The Scarboroughs have the steadier crew.”
“You’re being a snob,” Paul teased, biting Riley’s lower lip. He rocked his hips up, taking Riley even deeper, making them both groan. “Since when did you become the practical one?”
“Since I knocked up my husband,” Riley grunted, picking up the pace slightly. The bedframe gave a soft, rhythmic creak. “Fuck, Paul. You feel… you feel so goddamn good. All tight and hot around me.”
“Language,” Paul whispered, but he was grinning, dragging his nails down Riley’s sweat-slick back.
“You love it.” Riley’s hand slid down from Paul’s breast, over the taut drum of his belly, and found his cock, hard and leaking between them. He fisted him, his strokes matching the pace of his thrusts. “Tell me you want Joe Collins’s hands on our nursery.”
“I want… Christ, Riley… I want you to stop being so fucking difficult about this.” Paul’s words were breaking apart, his breath coming in sharp hitches. His hips were moving with abandon now, meeting every drive. “It’s about community. It’s about trust.”
“It’s about a floor that doesn’t sag,” Riley countered, but he was losing the thread of the argument, lost in the clench and release of Paul’s body, in the way his husband’s face dissolved into pure, undone pleasure. He bent his head, sucking a bruise into the junction of Paul’s neck and shoulder, a mark of ownership and devotion.
The bickering melted away, replaced by the raw, wet sounds of their joining. Riley’s thrusts became harder, less controlled. “Gonna come,” he warned, his voice a ragged scrape against Paul’s skin.
“Me too. Don’t stop, please, don’t stop fucking me.” Paul’s hand covered Riley’s on his cock, guiding him, tightening the grip. His other hand fisted in the sheets. “Riley… fuck… yes!”
Paul came first, with a choked, broken cry, his seed spilling hot and thick over Riley’s fist and his own belly. The intense, fluttering clench of his orgasm pulled Riley over the edge. He drove in one last, deep time, groaning Paul’s name into the sweat-damp hollow of his throat as he emptied himself inside him, his own body shuddering with the force of it.
They collapsed together, a messy, breathless heap. Riley slowly, carefully pulled out and rolled to the side, gathering Paul against him, his front to Paul’s back, his hand instinctively splaying over the curve of his stomach. The baby chose that moment to move, a distinct, rolling kick against Riley’s palm.
“Feel that?” Paul whispered, his voice drowsy.
“Yeah.” Riley kissed his shoulder. “Scarboroughs.”
Paul laughed, a soft, exhausted puff of air. “We’ll ask them for an estimate. And then we’ll ask Joe.”
“Deal.”
The sun dipped lower, filling the room with a tranquil, golden glow. Outside, the sounds of the rebuilt island floated on the breeze—the distant putter of a boat engine, a child’s laugh from down the lane, the scent of salt and cut grass. Riley held his husband, his hand on their child, and felt the last, cold shadow within him finally retreat, burned away by a simple, ordinary heat.