A Lily Among Thorns

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚁𝚃𝙴𝙴𝙽

✞ C E L A I   L a C R O I X ✞

"Come on, Celai. I told you I have a feeling Brian's eating my leftovers as we speak," Kassima says as she puts on her coat.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Celai says as she grabs her Bible as slow as possible. As she's grabbing her purse, equally as slow, microphone feedback pierces the air.

"Come up here, Celai, I need you," Julian says before quickly correcting himself. "...To talk to you- I need to talk to you." He shakes his head as he puts the microphone down and Celai ignores the couple of laughs and stares they both receive.

Kassima groans. "Look, if you go up there, get him to drop you off. I gotta go."

"Kassima, I promise Brian isn't gonna eat your food," Celai chuckles.

"You don't know that man like I do. Are you coming with me or not?"

Celai looks over at Julian, who has his dark brown eyes set on her. An involuntary smile appears on her face. "I guess I'll see what he wants," she shyly says, the tips of her ears warming.

Kassima waves her off. "Find your own way home then," she sighs.

They part ways and Celai meets Julian at the pulpit. "You good? You seem to need me pretty urgently," she teases.

He chuckles. "Guess our little secret is out," he says before shrugging.

"And you don't care?"

"Why would I? You think the congregation will hurt me for talking to a beautiful woman?"

Celai laughs softly. "Talking, that's all it is. When will you take me on that date you promised?" she asks as she crosses her arms.

"I said as soon as we finished business which was the reason I called you up here. I got permission from Bernard to cancel all group events going on this week apart from Bible study and the worship team's practice."

"For what?"

"To get this church remodeled and over with, I want to take you out," he says, a trace of urgency in his tone.

Celai grins and bats her eyelashes to be funny. "Oh really, Pastor?" she says, throwing in a southern-belle accent.

He looks disgusted. "Your accent is horrible. And don't call me that."

"We're in a church, right?" she sweetly says, looking around.

Julian blows out air through his nose and acts as if Celai didn't say anything. "It's been a week since I picked which sketch plan I wanted, can we get started now?"

"You're so impatient," she jokes, going back to her normal voice. "I had to order the stuff for the church— we call this the waiting process. Luckily for you, nothing is being shipped from overseas or being custom made so everything should be here before the end of the week if it's not at my house already."

"Good. So, if we were to work on the church every day for at least three hours, how soon do you think it'd be done?"

Celai looks around the church, trying to gauge an accurate estimate. "I'd say I could get it done by Friday or Saturday. This church is huge."

Julian cringes, not satisfied with her answer. "With the both of us, it'll still take that long?"

Celai furrows her eyebrows. "The both of us?"

"Yeah, I want to help."

"Julian, I am a professional and a perfectionist. Why would I let my client do the work?"