/quattro/

In Father Cesar's two day absence, Luke was put fully in charge of the community. The first day was a Monday and he didn't have much to do around the church. He only gave the morning service at eight in the morning and had the rest of the day to himself. Then he would supervise the youth group which were rehearsing every Monday until Christmas Eve for a play they were going to put on about the Nativity Story. 

It was a tradition at the church that had been going on for decades. 

During the morning service, he saw Fiorella and her mother sitting in the front row. This time she was unaccompanied by her boyfriend Rubens. And though Luke tried hard to keep his eyes off her, it was virtually impossible. He was drawn to her big brown eyes and the look of innocence on her sweet face.

After the morning service, he followed Antonella and her seventeen year old daughter to their restaurant where they cooked breakfast for them. 

He rushed out of the restaurant as soon as he finished eating, willing himself to avoid Fiorella. When the seventeen year old returned to his table to ask if he needed anything, the young priest was long gone. She was beginning to fear that he didn't like her or even found her pleasant, as much as she was trying to make him feel welcome in the village. He continued avoiding her, and never meeting her gaze. Fiorella was a firm believer in God, and having a priest dislike her made her feel like she was doing something wrong. He was a man of God, representing God in human form during religious services, she did not want his disapproval.

Luke had several hours to kill before having to supervise the teens at their rehearsal, and since he had nothing else to do, he decided to tidy one of the storage rooms down the hall from his room. 

He left his bedroom and went to the small closet like room and didn't even know where to start. Everywhere were boxes upon boxes labeled marriage documents, baptism records, first communion records, and other things in Spanish.

The young man with blonde hair and blue eyes went for one of the boxes with the most papers sticking out of it. He grabbed the stack of disarrayed baptism forms and sifted through them, one by one, thinking that he could probably separate them by the year in which they were submitted. The box he had picked up first went as far back as nineteen ninety six, which was the same year he was born on. 

He separated the documents into different piles by year, and eventually went through the whole box and started on another. In the new box, there was the same mess of papers. And he took them all out to arrange them.

There was a specific baptism form that came in its own manila folder, separated from the rest. On the front was the word confidential stamped in big red letters. Luke found it interesting how out of all the other forms, that was the only one that had a folder and apparently was meant to conceal what was inside. But he opened it anyway.

And what his eyes saw surprised him. 

It was the baptism form for Fiorella Vanella. 

Name: Fiorella Maria Vanella.
Date of Birth: September 19th, 1998.
Province: La Pampa, Argentina.
Mother: Antonella Carolina Vanella.
Father: -----

Her father's name was missing on the baptism form. But as he turned the form around to inspect it further, he saw a scrap of paper taped to the back. Pulling it off and turning it over, he saw that it was an official government record, printed in Buenos Aires, and it was for Fiorella's birth. 

On there, it had all her information again, but this time, the one space that was empty on her baptism form was filled out.

Parents: Antonella Carolina Vanella & Cesar Diego Romani.

Father Cesar was Fiorella's biological father.

If Luke was merely sinning in his thoughts, Father Cesar was doing far worse than that.

-

That afternoon, he finished organizing everything in the storage closet, but he took Fiorella's documents with him and hid them under his mattress. For one, he didn't think it was very smart for Father Cesar to just leave them lying around, even if no one ever went into that room. And also, he thought the information could one day be of use to him.

Luke didn't like what he was becoming. Since arriving in Argentina, he had become a sinner in his thoughts and a cold person who sought his own benefit. It had only been three days, but he already felt like leaving the seminary was one of the worst things that happened to him.

The world was a cruel place, and it was planting the seeds of sin in his heart.

At seven in the afternoon, when the sun had already gone down, he walked to the other side of the church grounds where there was a sports gym with a big stage in the far back. On the stage was a group of teenagers, each with their little booklet in hand. They all ceased in their rehearsal when they heard footsteps along the grey linoleum floor. 

"Don't mind me, children." Luke said to them with a friendly smile. Though he thought it was strange to call them that, seeing as though he was about the same age as most of them. "I'm taking over for Father Cesar tonight."

"Thank you for joining us, father. Its a pleasure to have you here." A voice spoke up, and he froze when he figured exactly who it belonged to.

Just the person he was trying so hard to avoid.

His blue eyes looked up onto the stage and scanned the group of teens until they fell upon her. She was smiling at him, and in her eyes he could see how happy she looked to see him there. She stood to the far side of the stage, furthest from him, wearing a red robe and a blue veil that covered her long brown hair. She was supposed to be the virgin Mary. Suddenly, he felt as though his clerical collar were suffocating him, and he pulled on the white material to loosen it. The suffocating sensation was followed by a tightening of his pants, and he hurried to take a seat at one of the chairs before the stage in order to hide his current problem.

Of all the characters to play in the nativity scene, she had to play the most holy one. 

The teens resumed their rehearsal with the priest watching them. When he was back in Australia, they never had traditions like that. Everything was strict, and dull. Normally they just had a service on Christmas day and that was it. In Argentina the birth of the lord and savoir was like a huge celebration. 

Every now and then, he caught Fiorella shooting glances at the exit in the back of the gym. And when the time came, Luke found out why that was.

They were forty five minutes into their two hour rehearsal when their group leader, a young man who seemed to be the oldest of them, asked her, "Ellita, are you sure your boyfriend's coming? We've been waiting for almost an hour."

She quickly nodded her head in response. "Rubens will be here. He promised."

But they waited several more minutes, rehearsing the scenes that didn't include him, until they could not wait any longer. 

Luke was distracted in his own thoughts and watching Fiorella when someone's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "Father," The group leader called. Once he had Luke's attention, he continued, "Would you mind filling in for Rubens, just for today? Fiorella needs someone to practice with her."

Luke gulped nervously. 

Being so close to Fiorella...

Before he could think things through or before he could even stop himself, he was already nodding his head in agreement. Moments later he found himself on stage next to the beautiful girl dressed in a Virgin Mary costume. He was then handed a booklet with the play's script in it and rehearsal continued. At first it was difficult for him to keep up with everything, as his spanish wasn't completely fluent yet. But he eventually got the hang of it and was able to follow the script without a problem.

Each time it was more difficult to avoid Fiorella, the one who would be his end.

-

luke getting a little too excited about seeing fiorella, if ya know what i mean ;) lol. so that's one of the big things revealed in the story. fiorella has no dad because father cesar is her biological father and obviously he didn't want anyone to find out.

so anyway, i really hope you're liking the story. 

im having an interesting time writing it.

have a blessed day/night/afternoon!

-clary xx