Father Charlie's palms are wrapped around a warm ceramic cup. He comes here to escape, but as always, the thoughts follow him.

His eyes fall upon the vision of sin. She is beautiful in a way that feels almost dangerous, sweet like a flower blooming in the shadow of ruin. The girl looks at him, her lashes throwing soft shades over her cheeks. That single glance undoes the careful calm, and beneath his priestly collar, his pulse quickens.

The stranger tilts her head, a slight smile playing on her lips. She is playing with him, knowingly or not—it doesn't matter. She has him trapped. Charlie shifts in his seat, his body tense, the collar around his neck feeling tighter, choking him.

He shouldn't be here.

The café door swings shut with a soft click, and he thinks she's gone. He exhales slowly, grateful for the momentary reprieve. But then, a flicker moves in his peripheral vision, and before he can fully grasp what is happening, she is beside him.

She plomps down. The scent of her perfume— honeyed, heavy—washes over him in waves, mingling with the bitter aroma of coffee. Her dark, after-rain hair frames her pretty face like a halo of sin, cascading over her shoulders. The girl is dressed in a black dress: short, with a neckline plunging too low.

But it isn't her body that unsettles him most—it's her eyes.

They aren't the eyes of a hardened woman of the night, someone who wears her darkness on her skin like war paint. No, her eyes are wide, curious, soft. She looks almost innocent, as if unaware of the game she is playing, the danger she's in by meeting someone like him.

She looks at him questioningly, begging him with her eyes to sit here, next to him.

He swallows hard, fighting the instinct to recoil, though part of him, the one he hates most, wants to lean closer, to drown in the warmth of her embrace.

“You already have,” Charlie mutters. Her leg brushes against his beneath the table. “I don't need your services if you've come to ask.”

What are you hiding under your cassock, Father?