Chapter 21

As we walked into church, holding hands, the following morning, I tried not to spend too much time thinking about the apparent disconnect between two unmarried people sharing a night of intimacy on Saturday night and then sharing Communion with the rest of the church on Sunday morning. On the other hand, I was fairly sure there were people sitting in pews across the world on Sunday morning who did worse on Saturday night than be intimate with someone with whom they are in a committed relationship.

Michael surprised us somewhat after the service by inviting us out to lunch, his treat. We followed him and Deborah to a small family-dining restaurant down the street.

“So...” Michael opened with. “Do you have any races coming up?”

I explained that I had put racing aside for a little bit due to my back issues, but planned to get back to it after the first of the year. One event already on our agenda was a 5K in nearby Cary during the first weekend of April. Beyond that, Lisa was still regularly hitting the treadmill but had decided she didn’t want to do any actual events without me.

“Very nice,” he smiled. “Now ... at the risk of sounding like both your parents ... when are you two going to be coming to me for premarital counseling?”

Lisa choked on her drink as I wa stunned silent. We looked at each other, then looked at him, both with equally bewildered looks on our faces, prompting Deborah to burst out laughing.

“How long have you been together?” he asked.

I backtracked in my head. “We’ve only...” – here I made air quotes with my fingers – “... ‘officially’ been a couple since the first part of September, but we met ... probably in early March? A little after I got here from Colorado.”

After a pause, I reconsidered. “Well ... wait...” I thought of the first conversation I had with Diana, a couple of months before my ill-fated trip to her hotel room. Certainly I could have pointed to that as a point where I considered the possibility that a relationship was developing.

Lisa interrupted my thoughts. “No ... maybe we haven’t officially called ourselves a couple for all that time, but for my part, I knew I was interested pretty early on after we started working out.”

“Okay, no matter,” Michael said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been doing this pastoring thing for a long time and I like to think I’ve developed a pretty good read on people. And I believe each of you is God’s intended for the other.”