Avra's God (13 page)

She melted into him, her fingers digging into
his biceps. His breath came shorter and faster on her cheek. She
arched closer to him. His hand on her back touched the exposed skin
where her T-shirt had shifted, and she moaned.

Cisco jerked away from her as though he’d
touched a hot manifold. He buried his head in his hands. His chest
heaved as he breathed.

Avra reached for his shoulder, not ready to
break the connection.

He pushed her hand away. “Avra, I am one
millimeter from breaking my promise to your daddy.” He stood and
paced the porch.

“You’re angry—”

Cisco stopped in front of her. “Do I have to
spell it out for you? I’m frustrated—being with you all evening,
touching you, knowing I can’t have you.” He stabbed fingers through
his hair.

“I’m sorry ... I’m not trying to make this
difficult for you. I like kissing you.”

Cisco crouched in front of her and took her
hands. “I love you. I want to be with you. Can you understand
that?”

“Better all the time.”

He nudged her chin up with his knuckle. His
lips touched down against hers and lifted off. “Good night
mí
vainilla
.” He vaulted the porch railing and disappeared around
the house.

She listened to his car peel down Murray
Street. Now she was the frustrated one. That feather-light kiss had
done nothing to dissolve the emotion backwashed on the porch.

She pulled her knees up in front of her and
wrapped her arms tightly around them. What if Cisco got so
frustrated with her that he walked? If he hadn’t stopped tonight,
would she have put the brakes on?

She should pray. But could she really ask for
God’s help, when she hadn’t consulted Him about going out with
Cisco in the first place? If God asked, was she willing to break up
with Cisco now? She’d pray. Later.

Kallie sat under her favorite tree behind the
theater building, watching an ant crawl full tilt across the sandy
grass toward her Pepsi. She flicked it away, then glanced at her
watch. Fifteen minutes till counselor training for the college’s
summer day camp. She folded her arms over the quiver in her middle.
She still couldn’t believe she landed the music team lead
position.

Why had Jesse texted her a photo of
Beach
Rats
’ trophy? She’d called to congratulate him, but ended the
call before he picked up, imagining Jesse texting from an after
party full of Screaming Pinks. No, she just realized this minute,
the picture had been taken at the shed, after dark, the trophy
displayed atop the hymnals. Had Jesse staged the photo to telegraph
irony? What was he doing in the shed on the night of the big
win?

She sighed. She would drive herself crazy
dissecting Jesse’s every whim. She needed a guy a little less
complicated, a little less dangerous.

A girl in a purple Mohawk locked her
ten-speed to a palm tree. A battered pickup rolled to a stop on the
sandy asphalt beyond the sidewalk. Kallie sipped her Pepsi and
watched a guy with strawberry-blonde hair slide out of the driver’s
seat. He padded across the parking lot toward the front doors, a
tennis bag slung over his shoulder. His eyes connected with
Kallie’s and he froze midstride like a kid caught in freeze
tag.

Kallie grinned and raised her can to him.
Caffeine zinged through her like she’d drunk a six-pack of Pepsi
instead of just one.

He stopped just outside the shade of the
tree, his eyes darting everywhere but at her. He shot her a glance.
“Hi.” He looked toward the neon green day camp folder on the grass
beside her. “You here for camp orientation?” he said to the
folder.

She nodded with a quick jab of her chin.

“I’m Zack, tennis staff.” Sky blue eyes
peered at her now. Fat freckles crowded his face, his muscled arms,
and legs. He didn’t look a day over sixteen. Of course, they only
hired college students, so he had to be at least eighteen.

Kallie smiled, trying to put him at ease.
“Singing. Kallie.”

A grin nudged one corner of his mouth. “Going
in, singing Kallie?” He held a hand out to help her up.

His firm grasp shot the caffeine up her
arm.

In the theater classroom, Kallie’s gaze
bounced from the notes she scribbled, to the camp director’s walrus
mustache, to Zack.

Zack’s eyes focused on her like a kid eyeing
an industrial-sized Hershey bar in the Winn Dixie checkout line.
Hair tousled, T-shirt slightly askew, he looked away, the flush on
his cheeks congealing his freckles.

Oh, yeah. He was into her.

Cisco backed Avra up against the lifeguard
stand. The gritty wood pressed into her back.

He grabbed hold of the planks on either side
of her. “I love you.”

Heat coursed through her. “I love you,
too.”

His arms enfolded her, melding them together.
He kissed her long and deeply, waking hunger in her that seemed to
nap under her skin all the time now.

Avra broke away. “Let’s walk.”

“I don’t want to walk.”

“Neither do I. Come on.”

“I want—”

“I know what you want,” she said.

Cisco smirked. “If you weren’t so hot.” He
stepped toward her and nuzzled her neck.

Fingers of desire flamed through her and she
melted against him.
Oh, God. Help me.
She yanked herself
from his grasp and ran for the surf. Cold water foamed around her
ankles below her rolled-up jeans—ushering in sanity.

Cisco walked toward her, a grin playing on
his lips in the moonlight. “What’s the matter, Avra? Am I getting
to you?”

He was enjoying torturing her. “Yes,” she
said through gritted teeth.

“And you’re upset, why?”

“Because I don’t know if I can stop, if I
want
to stop.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“Did he kiss you?” Aly said in a stage
whisper when Kallie pushed through the screen door.

Kallie’s gaze darted out the window to where
Zack idled at the curb, hoping he hadn’t heard.

“None of your business.”

She closed out Aly’s giggles with her bedroom
door and fell across her bed. Her mind reeled and her heart
stretched for some way to express the emotions caterwauling inside
her. She grabbed a pen and stationery from her bedside table.

Dear God,

A waterfall of feelings is cascading over me.
Avra says You care about what I care about. You’re the one who made
beauty—sunsets, oceans, mountains. Why not euphoria? Something so
huge, so beautiful, must come from You. Thank You, God. Do You hear
me?

From,

Someone Who Believes You’re the Creator of
Beauty

She slipped the letter into an envelope with
a daisy on the flap and dropped it into her nightstand drawer.

Kallie leaned on the fence, her forearms
pressed into the chain link, watching Zack serve the yellow ball.
His legs flexed. The ball pinged against his racquet, smacked
against the smooth asphalt in his opponent’s court. Her eyes
traveled from his pale hair to angular shoulders to an athlete’s
body.
How could a girl not appreciate such perfection?

“Game!” Zack said.

His sweat-drenched partner glanced at his
watch, waved, and exited by the far gate.

Zack saw Kallie. The court’s white light
bathed the smile that stretched across his face and into his
eyes.

Zack grabbed the fence near Kallie’s
handholds. “How long have you been standing there?”

When had the college put electric fences
around the tennis courts? “Long enough.”

Zack killed the lights at the switch and came
through the half-court gate.

They scooted side by side onto the hood of
his truck as the court lights dimmed to black.

Kallie’s eyes adjusted from the bright court
lights to softer lights dotting the campus. Their shoulders bumped,
an elbow, a knee. Quiet and dew settled on her windbreaker.

With Jesse, she’d known the man inside from
the beginning—partly through his music, but Jesse had cracked
himself open and given her glimpses. So, Zack wasn’t a talker. She
had to give him more than a week. And she had to quit comparing.
Jesse was history.

She liked the way the corner of Zack’s mouth
turned up, the wisps of blonde fuzz on his chin. She laid her hand
between them on the hood, willing Zack to cover her hand with
his.

What if that’s all there is to Zack—a guy who
eats, sleeps, and dreams tennis? And me. Is that enough?

Zack turned toward her and the sparks popping
between them drowned out her thoughts. Light from Cosmetology Hall
illuminated the question in his eyes.

Kallie shifted slightly toward him.

His hand settled on hers, and he crossed the
distance between them and pressed his lips to hers.

Not so shy after all.

His eyes fluttered open and mirrored the awe
she felt.

That night, she slipped a second letter into
her nightstand.

Dear God,

You must have invented kisses as perfect as
the one Zack gave me. I thought I would die waiting for him to get
around to it. Did the waiting make it all the sweeter? Thanks for
thinking up kisses. You must be pretty amazing.

Gratefully,

Someone Who Wonders What You’re Like

Jesse tilted his chair back on two legs and
looked up from his anatomy and physiology text. This was his spot
in the Daytona campus library Monday, Wednesday, Friday between his
one and three o’clocks. He looked through the window, past the
pickups and beater cars to the trees shading the parking lot.
Winter sun silvered the leaves as they fluttered in the breeze.

A blonde guy and girl walked arm in arm along
the road beside the cemetery. The girl pushed the guy playfully and
ran from him. Jesse scanned down the page on genetics to see where
he’d quit reading. He glanced up. The guy caught the girl around
the waist as they crossed the lot toward the library. They’d make
blonde babies. He went back to studying genetics, glad he wasn’t
sharing genes with anyone.

Recognition hit him like a slap out of
nowhere. Kallie. What was she doing with this jock? The guy swung
her in an arc around him. Kallie laughed. She looked younger
somehow, alive. With Jesse, she’d always been intense, guarded,
even cold, but somehow hooked into his core.

Kallie and the guy shared a kiss—not the
three-second variety he’d sampled from her.

Cisco tossed his books onto the table with a
thud. “What up?”

Jesse scowled. “Who’s that guy makin’ with
Kallie?” The kiss ended, and they walked around the corner of the
Karl Learning Resources Center holding hands.

“Frosh tennis player.” Cisco eyed Jesse.
“Jealous much?”

“Right.” But he was.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Jesse swiped at Cisco, but Cisco jumped out
of the way. “Get lost,” Jesse said.

“I’m just sayin’, if you’re into the girl,
fight for her. Quality girls take a lot of work—”

“Are you finished?”

“Sounds like it.” Cisco grabbed his books off
the table. “I’m not sticking where my most excellent advice is
unappreciated.” He held his fist up and Jesse knocked knuckles with
him. “Later, Bro.” Cisco disappeared around the end of the
stacks.

Jesse knew exactly what he’d do about
Kallie.

Avra tossed her scratch papers onto Kallie’s
bed beside her calc book. “So, you’re nuts about Zack. I thought
Jesse’s name was almost tattooed across—”

“I don’t want to think about Jesse.” Kallie’s
head jerked up. A splotch of late morning sun caught the
perspiration beading above her lip. “Jesse’s the kind of guy who’d
rip your heart out of your chest on his way to becoming rock god.
Zack ... Zack’s safe. He’s two years younger. He’s totally into me.
He’s not—”

“Jesse.”

“A player. I was going to say
a
player.”

Maybe Kallie can get past Jesse with this
guy.
“So, what do you guys talk about?”

“Who needs to talk?”

Avra opened her mouth but no words came
out.

“I’m kidding!” Kallie smacked her with a
pillow. “Seriously, you and Cisco are in love, don’t you—you
know—do stuff?”

“No ... I decided a long time ago to wait for
marriage.”
Before I had a clue.

“That could be years
.
”

“Part of me wants to do things God’s way.”
But the other part—not so much.

“Because God will zap you if you have sex
with Cisco?”

“Somehow—that I’m not getting at the
moment—God’s rules protect me.”

Kallie wrapped her arms around her knees and
stared through the jalousie window into the backyard. Flies buzzed
against the screen. She slid off the bed, pulled a crumpled plastic
package from her pocket, and dropped it into Avra’s hand.

Was Kallie giving her a condom so she could
have sex with Cisco? The misshapen purple wrapper burned a circle
in her palm.

“Zack gave me this last week.” Kallie pinched
the condom from Avra’s palm like she could catch an STD from
contact with the sealed wrapper. “The last time—the only time—I saw
one was in junior high health class the day they showed the
sexually transmitted disease video. Anyway, when I freaked, Zack
told me to keep it and think about it.”

Relief and a dust bunny of disappointment
swirled through Avra. “So, what do you think?”

“I could have been in
Fifty First
Dates
, only they would have been with fifty different guys.
I’ve been too scared of getting hurt to even see a guy twice, much
less think about having sex—until now.” Humid air puffed through
the window, ruffling the eyelet curtain. “God’s rules protect me,
huh?”

Avra stared through the jalousie windows at
the jumble of foliage overflowing the backyard fence. Did she
really believe that?
Lord, I know you love me and want the best
for me ... therefore your rules must be good for me.
Her heart
sighed. “Yeah, they do.”