any better when she’d showed up at his door. She’d disappeared so fast he was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with him.
Now, here she was in church. He felt as though God was giving him another chance.
As he approached, her eyes fixed on him.
She wore a nice skirt and blouse with matching shoes, a far cry from the dusty jeans, T-shirt and battered sneakers she’d worn the last time he’d seen her. Some kind of pink fabric thing that matched her blouse adorned her hair. But what really made him take notice was the Bible beside her.
He stopped, then crouched down to speak to her. “Hi, Celeste. It’s great to see you here today. Is this seat taken?”
Her pretty eyes widened at the question, holding his attention with their vivid jade-green color.
In the blink of an eye, she lowered her head, scooped up her Bible and the bulletin and stiffened. Her voice came out in a tight squeak. “No, it’s not taken.”
At the first scripture reading during the sermon, Adrian leaned closer to Celeste. “I left my Bible up at the front with my friends. Can I peek at yours?”
She paged to the correct passage and held her Bible between them. He could have read it better if it hadn’t been shaking so much, but Adrian didn’t dare move to steady it.
During the sermon, he tried his best to pay attention to the pastor’s words, but Celeste’s presence distracted him.
She was still scared of him. He wanted to know why, but this wasn’t the time to discuss it, not in the middle of the service. However, if he waited till it was over, he’d be back up front, with the worship team, and she would be out the door before he had a chance to find out what was wrong.
When Pastor Ron drew his sermon to a close, just before everyone was instructed to bow their heads for the closing prayer, Adrian touched Celeste’s arm. He tried not to feel hurt when she flinched. “Please,” he whispered as he leaned closer to her. “I’d like to talk to you after the service. I have to go up to the front now for the closing hymn. Promise me you’ll wait. Don’t be so nervous. I don’t bite.”
Her eyes drifted to the front, then back to him. “All right,” she whispered.
He was the last one to arrive at the front, and he played terribly. Paul kept turning away from the congregation and toward him, going as far as nodding his head in rhythm to get Adrian to slow his tempo to match everyone else.
Adrian fought to slow his pace, repeating in his head that the music was to help everyone in the congregation center their thoughts on God; they didn’t want to be distracted by an impatient guitar player.
Still, instead of watching his music, he watched Celeste. The closer they got to the end of the song, the more Celeste kept glancing at the door. On the last repeat of the chorus, she began shuffling in her chair.
After the last chord, Pastor Ron closed the service and dismissed the congregation. Adrian should have kept playing as the sanctuary emptied, but he dropped his guitar into the holder and walked off as his friends stared at him. This time, he couldn’t let her get away.
He arrived beside Celeste just as she tucked her bulletin inside her Bible. Her purse was already slung over her shoulder. All the bravado he’d worked up dissolved into a little puddle at his feet.
She looked up at him. “I really enjoyed the service. Your pastor is quite a dynamic speaker.”
Adrian nodded. A neutral topic. Perfect. “Yes, he is. Since this is your first time here, I’d love to introduce you to him.”
“Maybe another time. I think it’s time for me to leave.”
Adrian stepped aside, but he couldn’t let her go. He cleared his throat. “If you’re not busy, why don’t you join me for lunch? My treat. So we can talk.”
The chatter, background music, the scraping of chairs, and the voices of little children echoed behind Adrian, but between the two of them, the silence was almost tangible. She looked up into his eyes and studied his face as he’d never been studied before.
Finally, she gave him a weak smile. “That would be nice. I’m new to the area and obviously new to this church. I do have some questions.”
He tried not to appear too eager or too relieved. “Great. I just have to go get my guitar before we leave.”
Back on the stage, Adrian mumbled a quick apology for not helping pack up the sound system, slipped his guitar into the case and hurried away.
This time, Celeste’s old car was running fine, and she insisted on meeting him at the restaurant. Since he’d left the building sooner than he’d ever left before, they arrived before most of the regular church crowd, and got a table right away.
The waitress quickly took their orders and left them with a decanter of coffee. Adrian folded his hands on the table, and smiled at Celeste. “Welcome to the neighborhood. I think you’ll like it here. It’s very peaceful. The residents are mostly people who have owned the same homes for years and have retired here, or younger families starting out with their first home.”
She nodded. “That sounds nice. Have you lived here long?”
“It depends what you call ‘long’. I bought my house five years ago, and I’m still here. Maybe I’ll be the next generation to stay until I retire.”
“What about your church? What’s it like?”
Adrian smiled politely. He felt more as though he was being interviewed than having a friendly chat. At least now, unlike a week ago, Celeste was talking openly. Interview or not, anything was better than the scared rabbit she’d been last time they talked.
“It’s a good church, with good people, good fellowship and the pastor delivers a strong message. It’s a church plant, started from the big church where I grew up, not far from here. We’ve only been in this building a few months, but I guess I’ve been with the same crowd all my life. As I understand it, my mother brought me to my first service at the parent church when I was one month old. I became a Christian when I was twelve. When they started the church plant, the associate pastor at the old church, who is now the only pastor here, asked me and my friends if we would go with the core group and put together a worship team, because we all grew up together in the church and all play an instrument.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow… You’ve been a Christian for seventeen years. And always been with the same people.”
He almost asked how she figured out the time frame, but then he remembered she’d been in possession of his driver’s license. The math was easy. He tried not to be flattered that she’d memorized his birthday.
“For the most part, yes, it’s really been a great church family. All of us guys on the worship team grew up in this neighborhood. We’ve been together all our lives, except Paul, briefly. He moved away for a while, but came back. Do you remember him? He was at my house when you dropped by with my driver’s license.”
Celeste nodded. “Yes. He’s the one who plays the bass guitar right?”
“Bob and Randy live close by, too. Bob’s the drummer. He’s as Italian as he looks.” Adrian grinned, thinking of his friend. “But don’t tell Bob I said that.”
Her eyes widened, and Adrian hoped he hadn’t given her the wrong impression. All the guys teased Bob endlessly with jokes about his large family and ethnic roots, but Bob, being Bob, took it all in stride.
“Randy’s the one on the keyboard. I should probably warn you about him.”
“Warn me? Why?”
“He tends to fool around a lot, and most people don’t take him seriously, but he’s a great guy. He just needs to settle down a bit.”
Since he’d mentioned Bob’s ethnicity, he tried to think of some way to set Randy apart. If he had to narrow it down to one thing, he