Chapter 6: Crosswalk

Abel stood looking down at his phone, posture stooped shorter than Luke, with his free hand rubbing at the back of his head.

Luke swallowed down a ball of nerves in his throat and tried not to look directly at the guy beside him, instead transfixing his eyes up at the red light and avoiding the buzzed head in his peripheral vision.

As the steady stream of cars passed through the busy street despite the late hour, Luke shifted his weight between his feet. His mind raced with whether or not he should greet Abel, and what he would say if he did.

Before Luke could make up his mind, Abel glanced sideways and then did a double-take. "Oh, hey!"

"Hey," Luke said, his voice coming out unsure and his pulse jumping as Abel lit up in a smile.

"Are you heading home?" Abel asked, sliding his phone into his back pocket and standing up straight to look at Luke.

"Yeah, I just finished at work," Luke said, the lump of cash in his jeans feeling more ostentatious than before.

The light turned green, and Luke vaguely gestured across the street.

"Headed that way? Me too," Abel said, his friendly expression not faltering despite Luke's awkward demeanor.

As they walked across the street, shoulder to shoulder, it occurred to Luke that he was with a stranger. It was after three in the morning. The downtown area was rampant with crime and with vampire attacks. He squared his shoulders and scanned the area around him, but the only person around was Abel.

"Are you following me?" Luke asked plainly, unable to suppress his paranoia.

Abel looked at him and stifled a snicker behind his hand. "What?"

Luke ignored the heat creeping up his neck and looked forward, steadfast. "Do you have, like, nefarious intentions?" Even he couldn't help but crack a smile at that, realizing how ridiculous the question sounded once it floated in the air in front of him.

His shoulders shaking with quiet laughter, Abel paused in thought. "I guess that depends on what you consider nefarious."

Luke's head whipped towards him with wide eyes.

Abel's head tipped back and he laughed aloud, his hand on his stomach.

Luke's face burned, and he frowned at his own embarrassing gut reaction. He scanned his surroundings, closed shops and quiet apartments, but he and Abel were the only people around.

"I'll walk you home, that's my only intention," Abel said, a spring in his step.

Luke glanced at him, suspicion crawling over his skin. "Why?"

He shrugged. "You don't seem used to walking at night, but I am."

Luke's brows knitted. "How do I not seem used to it?" he asked, self-conscious and defensive.

Abel's eyes shined with amusement, lighting up like honey in the warm passing streetlights. "Well, to start, you have a bunch of money sticking out of your pocket."

Luke looked down at his pocket, and the cash wad had ridden up his leg without him noticing, the edges of the bills sticking out of his pocket. Mortified, he stuffed it back down.

Abel grinned.

"Fine," Luke muttered, silently fuming with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Also, I don't have anywhere to be right now and I'm not tired enough to go to bed, so," Abel pushed his hands into his pockets and shrugged with his shoulders all the way up to his ears, "going for a walk seems nice."

A protest died at the tip of Luke's tongue.

"If I'm not a bother," Abel added on, looking at him sideways with a wry smile.

Luke shook his head, and then second-guessed himself.

Abel's smile grew, his dimples sinking into his cheeks, and Luke looked at the sidewalk in front of him.

Silence stretched between them, only the sounds of their sneakers against the concrete, cars whizzing by, and distant sirens filling the air. Luke expected to feel suffocated in it, but walking with Abel wasn't uncomfortable. After the whirlwind couple of days starting his new assignment, Luke welcomed the quiet walk, even though it was with a stranger.

As they walked, Luke noted that Abel was just slightly shorter than him. His hair looked like soft fuzz, and after seeing him touching it earlier, Luke wondered what it felt like. He'd never had hair so short; the Doyens coveted his light, wavy hair and made him grow it long as a child. His rebellion had always been chopping at it with cheap scissors in his bathroom and horrifying them at service, but now self-doubt settled over him. It'd been a while since he'd cut at it, the jagged snips grown out and softened, but maybe it was still glaringly ugly.

Luke ran his hand through his hair and then stopped midway, a glint of clarity coming through the unease about his appearance. He didn't need to care about how he looked. He was just walking home with a stranger he'd met once at a bar.

Luke's head felt muddled and he was so aware of Abel beside him.

The steeple on the church looked more garish than ever over the residential rooftops as they approached Luke's street. Anxiety crept over Luke at the thought of anyone at The Faith seeing him with Abel, and then it poured over him like a bucket of ice.

Everyone should be asleep, since it was after three in the morning and service started at seven. The Doyens lived in a building past the church, so he and Abel wouldn't come near it. The Herald was in his cottage behind the church. No one in his apartment building worked late or stayed up—that he knew of.

If anyone saw him, if anyone asked who Abel was, Luke didn't really have an answer. A friend? Barely. A guy he'd just met? Suspicious. Someone whose spirit he was trying to save by introducing him to The Faith? It was disingenuous, and the thought of bringing a stranger into a world where they had to live under the Doyens' thumbs made his stomach turn, but it would work as an excuse. If pressed by the Doyens, lies generated in Luke's head as easily as truths did.

Luke and Abel turned down his street and Luke was wound tight.

"You live here?" Abel asked.

"Yeah," Luke said, and when he glanced over, his stomach fell.

He'd yet to see Abel with an unsmiling expression, without humor dancing in his eyes, but now a dark cast fell over him, brows drawn together. His lips parted around an unasked question.

Luke had been so concerned with The Faith finding out about Abel that he hadn't considered that Abel didn't already know about his affiliation with The Faith. He wiped over his face. "Sorry," fell from his lips, though he wasn't sure it was the right sentiment. "I should've said something before."

"No, I just—" His face relaxed as he spoke, though his steps slowed and his voice went a notch quieter. "I didn't realize."

Luke didn't know what to say. He wasn't completely naïve to how many people disliked The Faith, and after years of breaking himself away from services and building his own hatred, he agreed with a lot of them—the church was haughty, the community outreach was overbearing, the hate spewed from the Herald's teachings made people feel unsafe.

He almost wanted to spill the truth to Abel, that deep down he wanted to leave The Faith behind, that he fantasized about life away from the Doyens and the Herald, away from the expectations to accept any assignment from them: his apartment, his wife, his mission to kill a half-vampire he'd never even seen.

The words bubbled up in him, and as he took a breath in, they went flat. Instead, Luke said, "You don't have to walk any closer to the church if you don't want to."

"No, Luke, it's not like that," Abel said, looking over at him with a reassuring, but not smiling, expression. "I was just surprised."

From the corner of his eye, Luke saw Abel's hand reach out to touch his arm. A spike of panic hit and he jumped away before Abel could touch him. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Sorry," he said.

Abel put his hand in his pocket and shook his head. "It's okay."

Luke stopped in front of his building and every inch of him was on edge, praying that no one was awake to see him with a stranger. "Uh—see you later," he said.

"Yeah, I'll come to the bar again sometime soon," Abel said, and the nonchalance in his voice sounded forced, his posture tense like he was itching to get away. "Goodnight, Luke."

"Goodnight," Luke mumbled, and felt more awkward than ever before in his life as he walked up the stairs to his apartment. As he unlocked his door, he chanced a glance to the sidewalk again, and a sigh of relief fell from his lips when he saw that Abel was gone.

Luke shut the door behind him and stood against it in the dark, covering his face with both hands. He let the night replay back in his head, certain that he would never see Abel again.