Avra's God

by Ann Lee Miller

  The camera click of his phone echoed in the shed’s attic.

  He sent the photo to Kallie.

  Sender’s remorse settled on him like dew. Kallie would take one look at the pic and know he was alone in the shed, connected to no one. Morose, that was the word she’d use.

  Only Kallie would recognize the irony of the trophy sitting on Dad’s hymnals. In two seconds she’d figure out he wouldn’t risk hauling it home and having Dad find out he fronted a rock band.

  Ice cold, nice—so fine—she’s Ice Girl. Kallie’s personalized ring sounded from Jesse’s phone.

  Chapter 12

  Avra hadn’t moved from the kitchen chair in an hour—since the last of her armies bit the dust in Risk.

  Between turns of taking over the world, Cisco rubbed the spot on the back of her neck that turned her body to jelly.

  “Yeow!” Kurt dropped the frozen pizza onto the oven rack and stuck a knuckle in his mouth.

  Cisco glanced up from moving five cannons onto Western Australia. He jerked his thumb at Drew. “You’re outta there. Game over.” Then he jumped up and strutted around the room like a rooster, fingers splayed on top of his head and under his chin. “I rule the world!” He scrubbed his scalp till curls sprung out in every direction. “I the man!”

  Avra laughed. She’d probably fallen in love with Cisco’s sense of humor before anything else.

  Pasting a crazed expression on his face, he took another lap around the table.

  Kurt hooted, and finally, a smile cracked through Drew’s disgust. The more they laughed, the more Cisco played the rooster. Kurt slumped over the stove in spasms. Avra clutched her stomach. Even Drew laughed out loud.

  Cisco yodeled one last cock-a-doodle-doo and collapsed into his chair.

  After pizza and a game of Scattergories, Avra walked Cisco to the front door. She reached to turn on the front porch light. He laid his hand over the switch, stopping her.

  They moved through the doorway and settled onto the deeply shadowed swing.

  Cisco’s fingers found the spot on her neck and massaged it.

  “Mmm.” Avra lifted her face to his.

  “A good spot, huh?” Cisco said against her lips.

  Her mouth trailed to his cheek, and she murmured, “A very good spot,” in his ear.

  He kissed her again, more demanding.

  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.”
r />   “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.

  Chapter 13

  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.”

  “I’m all about being safe.” Kallie slid the crinkled plastic back into her pocket. “You gave me a lot to think about.”

  I gave myself a lot to think about.

  Jesse wheeled the car around the corner. He spotted Kallie in her neon orange jeans walking the berm away from campus. A ponytail of white-blonde hair swished nearly to her waist as she moved. His heart raced as he mashed on the brake.

  She turned toward the sound of his car, cradling her knapsack in her arms.

  Jesse leaned out the window. “Hey.”

  Kallie’s eyes met his and darted away.

  Jesse rolled ahead of her. “Where’s lover boy?”

  Her lips thinned.

  “Or, maybe I should say, ‘boy toy.’“

  “You’ve got half the underclass girls in your fan club—”

  “Yeah, but I’m not holding their hands between classes or playing kissy-kissy in the parking lot.”

  “What do you want, Jesse?”

  He searched for their connection in the green of her eyes, willing it to be there. “Would you look at some songs for me?”

  “Why should I?”

  Ouch. Maybe he deserved that. He dropped the car into park and reached for his knapsack. He yanked a manila folder out and passed it through the window.

  Kallie flipped open the folder with one hand. “‘Ice Girl.’ I’ve heard this.”

  His brows shot up in surprise. “How? When?”

  “At the Battle of the Bands.”

  Shock pinged inside him. “You were there?”

  “You were really on that day. It’s the best I’ve heard you.”

  Her grudging praise stroked him more than a coliseum full of cheers or the trophy that had taken up residence in Cisco’s trunk. He grinned wryly. “I guess the song’s not true anymore. You’re only Ice Girl to me.”

  “I guess.” Emotion he couldn’t read flared in her eyes and roughened her voice.