Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Psalm 85:10

I TOOK A DEEP BREATH as I walked into Pastor Tony Spencer's office inside the small church he pastored in the heart of New York. It was a small, cloistered space, but I didn't mind that. The coziness of the office only reminded me of an art studio I'd had a long time ago, one where I'd been mentored, feeling the warmth of the brush in my hand and seeing the vivid colours splash across the canvas.

"Hey," I said, clearing my throat. "I wanted to ask you about something if you're not too busy."

Pastor Tony looked up, then winced as the sunset's orange rays slanted across his mahogany skin, and got up to close the blinds. "Take a seat, George. What did you want to talk about?"

I knew what I should have said. I should have told him about the wedding that I was planning, the troubles that I'd been through, the fact that I was about to marry a woman not because we loved each other but because we needed each other. Or rather, I needed her. I couldn't picture Georgia Philips needing anyone at all.

"It's about..." I cleared my throat as I sat in the rickety folding chair across from his heavy oak desk, the only thing of any sizeable value and imposing stature in the room. The rest of it was worn, well-loved, and faded, even the paperbacks having cracked spines and the notebooks tattered. "It's about Georgia."

THat was the truth, and it wasn't. After all, she was the source of my waking dreams and sleeping worries, of my sleeping dreams and waking worries. Georgia. A girl I'd been unable to eradicate from my mind since we'd met. No matter how I tried, she was an indelible mark.

"What about her? The two of you are... friends, aren't you?" he raised a brow as though unsure of whether he was even using the right word. I didn't blame him for that. I wasn't even sure where I stood with Georgia most days.

All I knew was that she'd be my wife soon, barring any complications. "We're... We've been everything but friends."

Tony cocked his head to one side. "Explain."

That was one thing I liked about the older man. He lent a listening ear in a way that never made me feel judged or criticized, as my own father had often done. Despite the fact that I hadn't stepped foot in a church, willingly, in a long time, the moment that I'd walked into Tony's, I'd felt welcome. Whether it was his Southern accent, since he was a Texas transplant, or his gentle, fatherly demeanour, I couldn't be sure. All I knew was that it made me say far too many things i probably never should have confessed to anyone, let alone wanted to.

"Well..." I shrugged. We were a tangled series of knots woven into a tapestry. To start at the beginning required me to know where it was, and she felt like a thread woven into the very tapestry of my being. "We met before alexander and Katerina were ever engaged."

He rested his chin on his palm. "interesting. I always thought the two of you became acquainted when she went to Los Angeles with Katerina and alexander."

I shook my head. "We had a... a brief meeting in Italy, a year before that ever happened. It was right around the time my father died."

"Ah, your father." Pastor tony rubbed his balding head. "I knew him. He was a great man. He had his own share of flaws, but I know he cared deeply for you and your sister."

I was no longer enraged by simple mentions of my father. That anger and passion had cooled into a quiet grief that lay mostly dormant, biding its time until some strange fit of melancholy would overtake me. "I know he did his best, especially after my mother died."

"But you're not here to discuss your father, are you?" he said.

I shook my head. "No, I suppose not. It's only that, I was wondering if you would help me with something related to Georgia."

"Ah, yes. You'll forgive me for leading you on a tangent, then. What is it?"

"We wanted someone to be a witness to our wedding." The two of us had suggested a date and a time already, at city hall, and only needed a witness. Someone trustworthy, who wouldn't sell the news to the press, so a photographer was out of the question. Someone who wouldn't have too many questions, such as Abigail or Katerina or even Alexander, though I couldn't imagine my stoic brother-in-law being a witness to anyone's wedding.

"Your wedding?" Tony now seemed shocked. I'd never seen him look surprised before, not by anything.

He always seemed to trust endlessly in God's will, and that left no room for any surprise or doubt, merely curiosity and humor.

"Yes," I said. "I've decided to marry Georgia Philips."

More like she strong-armed me into the decision and I could do nothing else but to say yes.

"I'm just surprised," he said, clearing his throat and taking a sip of water. "I thought she was unattached. After all, only three months ago, my son told me they had gone on a date together."

His son?

I tried to picture the man. Affable, a gentleman, someone kind and good and stable, a rock to lean on when times got hard. The opposite of me.

Someone who might deserve Georgia.

Lord knew I didn't.

"Your son," I said. "They were on a date together?"

If she'd gone on a date with this guy only three months ago, and things hadn't worked out between them...

Well, I didn't want that to be. I didn't want to be a jealous bastard, but I was. I wanted to be the one taking her on a date, and if we went through with this marriage, we'd never have that. It would never be real to her. It would be nothing more than pity and transactions. Something clinical and broken and never capable of being reconciled.

"Please, just forget I ever brought this up." I stood up from the desk so quickly that my chair tilted over, and I grabbed the back of it to steady it–or myself. "Just... just please, don't breathe a word of this to the others."

I couldn't marry Georgia Philips. Not because I didn't care for her, but because I cared too much.

Tony took in everything I was saying with the same air of shellshock. "But George, I don't understand..."

"This is between me and her," I said. "Thank you for your time, Pastor."

+

THREE MONTHS LATER, I found myself single, employed, and wearing a suit to my sister-in-law's wedding.

Abigail Steele was a radiant bride, no doubt, but I only had eyes for her cousin. Georgia Devereaux was wearing some kind of light purple dress that wrapped around her and made her appear like a woodland fairy stepped out of the pages of a fantasy book, only needing a flower crown to complete the look.

"You look exquisite," I said to her, like it mattered, like she didn't hear it a thousand times a day, like she cared about my opinion at all. None of them were true, yet I tried anyway. God knew I did.

"You must be under the impression that I care about your opinion," she snapped as she walked past me, snagging a champagne glass from a passing waiter.

I caught her wrist, because I knew what I wanted. Even if I knew nothing else, I knew I wanted her. "Georgia. Let me explain."

"No. I'm not interested in your explanation of why or how you broke things off with me, moved out of my apartment, and disappeared, only to reappear here, at this wedding, like nothing ever happened. I'm tired of being strung along by you and getting my hopes up. Here. Take your bracelet back–"

My fingers curled around the silver band I'd made just for her. "I don't want it back."

"I don't care what you want," she said, downing the champagne in one gulp and jerking her arm out of my grasp. "It's my cousin's wedding, and I'd rather have a good time."

Somehow, we'd walked closer and closer toward the restroom, allowing her the opportunity to push it open and escape from me.

In all my twenty-seven years on earth, I'd never done anything as stupid as what I was about to. I guess she just had that effect on me, because I pushed open the bathroom door, a gender-neutral single stall with a changing table and a hand dryer and Georgia, standing there looking like she wanted to murder me. She opened a stall door and walked inside, but I grabbed the door before she could close it. Inside was a second sink and toilet, along with a small chair.

"I said, go away."

"Fact check: you never told me to go away. You just said you didn't care about what I wanted," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "

"Well, both are expressions of my feelings toward you." She gave me the kind of sweet smile that had graced magazines and half a dozen canvases I'd never finished. It was too cool, too fake, her eyes a flat blue and her dimples not showing. "Get. Out. George."

"Do you know why I broke things off?" I said, leaning against the cool porcelain of the sink."

Georgia's smile became a scowl as she pulled stuff out of her purse and began touching up her face. "No."

"I broke up with you because I wanted to be with you."

"And I broke my leg because I wanted to run a marathon. What other illogical lies do you have to tell me, George Devereaux?" She stroked something over her eyelashes, her lips twisted into a pout as she did so.

"We were never going to be real!" I snapped, unbuttoning the top button of my shirt in my frustration. "Not in that marriage. It was fake. It was business. Why would you want to be with me for any other reason than pity, Georgia? I'm not a good guy. I'm not the kind of guy you should be with–"

"If you believe those things, then why are you here?" She put the mascara wand away, turning to face me, blinking so rapidly that black streaks appeared on the tops of her cheekbones.

"Because I can't stay away from you. I've never been able to." I threw my hands in the air. "Is that reason enough for you?"

"Even ICE couldn't keep you away?" she said, her voice as frigid as a Canadian winter, when the cold burrowed under three layers of socks and froze your toes, when the wind whipped against your cheeks until they were numb.

"I got a job."

"Congratulations. Is it your first?" She applied a fresh coat of lipstick, something halfway between pink and red that made me want to kiss her. I didn't, fearing that she'd slap me.

"I'm going to be a guest lecturer at NYU, teaching a course on Christian art," I said, resting a hand on the mirror next to Georgia.

She froze, dropping her lipstick cap, its embossed, interlocking C's winking at me as I bent down to pick it up. "No."

"Yes," I said, confused by her insistence that I didn't have that job. "I assure you, I'm plenty qualified."

I scrabbled for the cap, crouching at her feet as I rooted around the tiled floor beneath the sink. Where could it be?

"I'm in that class," she said. "I just enrolled in it."

I hit my head on a pipe as I extracted the cap, handing it to her as I bit back a curse.

She took it from me with a look of revulsion and rinsed it off in the sink, drying it with a paper towel. "You deserved that."

"What, the bump on my head?" I fell onto the chair. "You're going to be my student? Wait, why are you in an art class? I thought you were an anthropology major."

"I have to take one last option to graduate, and your class was the only one available at such short notice." Her pout deepened. "You're sure they're going to let you teach? I mean, what teaching experience do you have, besides teaching everyone what not to do in life?"

"Ouch." I touched a hand to my chest. "You sure know how to flatter a man."

"I don't waste time on flattery. Now, let me out of this stall, you frickin' hulk." She gestured for me to get out of the way. "I can't believe–"

Her words were interrupted as she opened the stall door and we both saw Alexander and Katerina standing there with Mattias, my nephew, and inches away from kissing.

I cleared my throat as Georgia made awkward excuses and fled. By the time I got out of the bathroom, she was already at the bride and groom's table, making a toast.

As if nothing had ever happened between us.

Lord... I need Your help to win her over. To win her back.