…What? Maybe he had been… that was a strange thought. Linus had loved him in his own way, but to think that someone could ever love him like Tully loved Lewis – it was an absurdity that even Malachi, in all his sensitivity, could not fathom and did not expect.

It was still a sweet thing to say, even if he doubted that he had meant for it to be.

He settled on a quiet, “maybe.”

The reality was that he was a man with vows he’d shed more often than he’d kept. There was no other end to the lonely path.

Malachi took a breath, considered Tully for a moment. No one else might have loved Lewis, but Linus had been loved by more than Malachi. Missed by more when he disappeared, and grieved too when he never returned.

“He’s the reason why I became a priest,” he admitted. “I joined the seminary soon after he died.”