“Bingo.” Cisco swiveled his head toward her on the grass. “Get with the program.”
“Are you going to ask me out again?”
“Do you want me to?”
She stared at the clouds, unseeing. She didn’t hear his breathing. “Not yet.”
Cisco let his breath out. “So, I should ask in five minutes? Half an hour? Next week? Next month? If it’s anything less than not in this lifetime, I’ll wait. I’m not going anywhere. I’m patient. Now.”
“I promised Morgan I’d go to the Fall Fling with him.”
“You what?” Cisco popped up like a piece of toast from the toaster. His eyes pinned her to the ground. “Are you going to start playing games with me now? Come on, Avra, you can’t possibly like that dweeb. You’re trying to get back at me.”
She sat up. “If you would just wait a minute for me to finish what I was saying—without going zero to red hot in five seconds flat. Oooh, you make me so mad.”
“Like I don’t have a good reason—the girl I love just told me she’s going to a dance with a guy who’s been stuck on her since elementary school.”
He loved her. It was the first time she’d heard the words in five months. Her cheeks flushed. She opened her mouth, closed it. “He asked me before classes started.”
“What kind of whack job asks a girl to Fall Fling before the semester opens?”
“Maybe he was just smart. He knew we broke up, and he took the opportunity.”
“So what? I have to ask you to the graduation after-party now?”
Cisco’s mention of graduation struck her as funny and she broke out giggling. “You— you—” She quit trying to tell him what was so funny and gave in to the laughter.
“Uh, Avra.” Concern replaced his anger. “Are you okay? You’re having a meltdown—laughing in the middle of an argument.”
This sent her off into another paroxysm of giggles. She held her stomach and took deep breaths. Finally, she wiped the tears from her face. “I was just going to say that if you want to ask me to the graduation after party, you’ll have to do it more nicely.” Laugher bubbled up again.
Cisco gave her a soft smile and shook his head. “Come here.” He opened his arms to her. She scooted into them. “It’s been an emotional roller coaster for the past month since we started talking.”
She nodded against his chest that smelled like sweat, deodorant, and dryer sheets. The laughter left her. Tears welled up in its place. She wanted to stay in Cisco’s arms forever; she’d missed them so much. Then, gentle sobs rose up from deep inside her. These tears were different from all the ones she’d already cried over Cisco—healing.
Cisco stroked her back. At last she calmed and tried to pull away. He held on to her a moment longer and kissed her forehead before he released his grip.
She sniffed. “You’re getting my emotions the first time around instead of after I’ve analyzed them. Are you disappointed to find out I’m just as emotional as your sisters?”
He brushed the hair from her face. “I like seeing who you are inside.” He leaned back on his arms. “So tell me the rest of the story about Morgan.”
“I told him no at first, that I still didn’t have romantic feelings toward him, probably never would. But he said we’d go as friends—that I couldn’t lock myself away for the rest of my life just because my heart got broken. So, I said yes, and I’m going.”
“Oh.”
“Just oh?”
“Uh, would you go to the graduation after party with me?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On whether we’re together or not.”
“This conversation is starting to go in circles. Let’s pray.” He leaned his arms on his bent knees and stared across the field. “Jesus, you know I love Avra, but I don’t deserve her. Whatever You want.” He didn’t speak for so long, Avra thought he’d finished praying. “Maybe Morgan’s the better guy for her—he’s loved her longer, been into You longer, he’s not a screw-up. But You’re my Dad, so I’m asking.”
“Show me what You want me to do at the right time,” Avra prayed.
Cisco gave her a hand up. They rode back to Avra’s the way they’d come—not speaking or touching—but everything had changed.
Kallie tapped her foot. “What’s your answer, Jesse?” She folded her arms tightly across her chest. “You’ve kept me hanging for a week.”
He dropped his head, sighed, faced her. “Yeah, I’ll escort you to Fall Fling.”
“Okay.” She pressed her lips together in a thin line and turned on her heel.
What was Jesse’s problem? If she hadn’t been so stubborn sticking to her first choice, she could have spared herself the humiliation. Avra had been right, as always. She was breaking her own heart.
The yearbook photographer positioned the Fall Fling candidates and their escorts on Echo Plaza. Kallie saw what she had to do—place her hand in the crook of Jesse’s arm. Nervousness shot through her veins like a can of Red Bull. Why did she have to touch him? He already thought every girl on the planet had the hots for him.
At the last moment she slipped her hand into Jesse’s barely offered arm. She placed her fingers on the folds of his sleeve. As soon as the camera clicked, she dropped her hand and stepped away from him. While Jesse made a big show of getting out of his suit coat, she slipped into the bookstore.
If she didn’t need a guy to parade around the gym with, she’d tell Jesse to forget it. And she did want to stick it to God’s-gift-to-music Olivia Marsden. She was so stuck. In more ways than she cared to admit.
Chapter 27
Cisco came around the corner of the Lemerand Center and stopped in front of Jesse. Why had he bothered to put on his black jeans and the only dress shirt he owned to spy on Avra and Morgan at Fall Fling? It feels like a bad idea already.
Jesse sat on the edge of a metal picnic table. His jacket and the top buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned. His tie hung loose around his neck.
“Seen Avra?” Cisco said.
“No. Why don’t you go in and see for yourself?”
He glanced at the door as some students pushed out into the artificial lamp light. “Can’t. Avra would be ticked. Sitting home imagining Avra with Morgan was driving me loco. Better to see the worst and deal with it.”
“Is she trying to make you jealous?”
“Avra doesn’t play games. She promised Morgan she’d go after we split. The timing sucks. Just when we were putting the thing back together—” He paced back and forth in front of Jesse. “I had this coming, but I don’t like it.” He dropped his chin on his chest. “Jesus, I know I don’t deserve any favors, but if You could just keep Avra from falling for Mr. Clean-living, I’ll owe You. But even if Avra ditches me, I’m not checking out. You’re the Man.”
Jesse stared at him. “What’s with you? I thought you were going to swear, not pray.”
“I got God. I didn’t show up at your church for half the summer just to get my cheeks pinched by old ladies.”
“I don’t want anybody telling me what to do, especially God.” Jesse clamped his mouth shut as though he’d said too much.
“I had nobody telling me what to do for too long, and I was set on self-destruct. You’re running from God?”
“Can’t run far when your old man’s a preacher.”
“I hear ya. Spending all that time with God people—He’s catching up, huh?”
“Yeah, like right now. I’d have to be blind and stupid not to see the change in you.”
“Don’t run forever, bud.” Cisco knocked knuckles with him. “I’m going down by the cemetery to walk and pray this night into the ground.”
The Lemerand doors opened, spilling music and a stream of students, Kallie at the rear. Jesse focused on the palms silhouetted by the moon behind her, bracing himself. Beside him, the teen refreshment booth attendant shot paper wads into a trash can.
The heels of her shoes clicked on the concrete as she drew ne
ar. “Come on, Jesse, come inside.” The breeze, smelling faintly of fish and salt, lifted the soft neon green folds of her dress.
Did she wear that color because of the song?
“Dance with me.”
Jesse spread his arms in a helpless gesture. “I can’t dance.”
“What’s so hard about it?”
The refreshment booth attendant chimed in, “Yeah, all you do is drape your arms around the girl’s neck and lean to the right and left till the song is over.”
Kallie glanced at the kid, glared at him, and spun back toward the dance. Her dress flared around her and swished at her ankles as she sped away, her back rigid. Jesse’s eyes followed her across the porch. A hand slipped up and she wiped something from her face before she opened the door and disappeared into the dimness and noise.
He grabbed the back of his neck as the attendant prattled about the high school football game against Seabreeze. Every few minutes the doors belched a new group of students in search of liquid and cooler air. Twice he walked to the door without going in.
Much later, he looked up from the pool table in the Student Center to see Kallie standing in the doorway.
Her hair mussed, and skin shiny with sweat, she motioned him toward her. “Thanks for being my escort, for picking me up and stuff.” She had wiped expression from her face and voice. “I’ve got a ride home.”
“Don’t you want to ride home in the Lexus?” With me?
“You’ve done enough. I’ll be fine.” She slipped out the door.
They both knew her house was on his way home. He tossed his pool cue on the table, startling his opponent, and stalked out the door.
He crawled past Kallie’s house in the Lexus he’d borrowed from Marty Simon. Funny how Kallie’s ditching had sapped the enjoyment out of driving the car. How had things gotten so twisted between them? Maybe they were a train wreck.
Her bedroom light at the back of the house bathed the croton bushes white. Whichever guy gave her a ride home hadn’t lingered. He pulled up to the curb and hit her seldom-used speed dial number on his phone. Talking couldn’t make things worse. “Hi.”
“Jesse.”
“Did you wear neon green to make a point?”
“Yeah.”
“The point was—?”
“That I understand you’re not into me. I just needed an escort.”
“Come out and talk. I’m at the curb.”
Silence. Sigh. “Okay.” Click.
Kallie walked down the front steps and let herself into the car.
His gaze ran over the faded T-shirt that filled in the V of her pale yellow terrycloth robe, the yellow flip-flops, and stopped at her eyes. Everything warmed and ran together inside him. “You were right. I took so long to give you an answer about Fall Fling because I wasn’t sure what you were asking.” He looked away. “I’m not ready to sign my life away.”
Kallie sucked in a breath. Her eyes flashed.
“But I would have been ticked if you asked some other guy.”
The anger in her eyes melted into hurt. “Would it have killed you to dance with me once?”
“I’ve never danced before.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Did you think I’d laugh at you? What?”
She would never understand. “My pa’s preached all my life that dancing is evil—all dancing but Mom’s ballet, that is. The tapes keep playing in my head.”
“Oh, please.” Kallie raked her hair back. “What do you call what you do on stage when you’re performing a song?”
Jesse opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything. He held his hands out helplessly. “I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself.”
“At last, the truth.”
His jaw clenched. How did Kallie bulls-eye the guy inside, the one he hid at all costs? “I’m sorry I was such an—” He cut himself off. “It was my fault it didn’t go well tonight.”
Kallie sighed. “At least you talked it out with me.” She fingered the stretched-out neck of her T-shirt.
He tried to read her eyes in the shadow from the street light. “I don’t want to be responsible for another train wreck.”
She smiled. “No more train wrecks for us.”
The guy inside smiled back. “So, get out of here, already. I can’t look at you much longer in your pj’s without kissing you.” He ran a hand over her hair, resting his palm at the back of her neck.
Kallie glanced down at herself. “I’m decent.”
His lips softened, melted as he stared into her eyes. “It’s just the thought.”
Kallie searched his eyes for another second. “I’m gone.” She shut the door on his chuckle.
Cisco stood on the walkway below the porch as Avra pushed through her front door. “You’re up.” He was too wound to be relieved.
Avra dropped the blankets in her arms on the floor. “Yeah.”
He dug his hands into his jeans pockets and paced the walk. “How was Fall Fling?”
“You were there.”
“For a while. This thing with you and Morgan—are you going out again? Are you choosing him? What?”
“How does it feel?”
“Don’t play me, Avra.”
“I’m not playing you. I want you to understand a little bit of how I felt when you were with Isabel.”
“This is whacked. I’m outta here.”
She planted her feet and glared at him. “Fine. Leave. Don’t get your answer. Let it eat your gut for a couple of months. Maybe you’ll find out what I went through.”
He lowered his voice. “What’s up with you and Morgan?”
“I’m not going out with him again.”
He stood at the bottom of the steps looking up at her. “You got your pound of flesh.” Jealousy and relief warred inside him. “I watched him touch your back, hold your hand, lead you into the Lemerand Center. You looked so pretty all dressed up, like a stranger—not like the soccer jock I fell for. I tortured myself imagining you slow dancing. I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about him kissing you good night.”
Avra sat on the top step. The pull between them crackled in the morning air. He could see her breath as she spoke.
“Did you kiss him?” He had to know.
“None of your business.”
“I told you every disgusting detail about me and Isabel.”
“But, I am not cheating on you,” Avra said through clenched teeth. “You and I are not going out. We may never go out again. Let’s talk about whether you have AIDS, herpes, venereal disease ...”
He winced.
“Genital warts.”
He hung his head. “Tad sent me to the clinic back in July.”
“And?”
“So far nothing has shown up.”
Avra’s face contorted with pain. “I hate that you’ve had sex, something I’ve never even experienced.”
“I was an idiot.”
“Do you have any children?”
He stared at the porch step. “Not that I know of.” He could barely hear his own voice.
“I could beat you till you hurt as badly as I do.”
His head jerked up. “Go ahead.”
She stared hard at him, her anger rocking him back as if she had actually struck him. Her words landed the next punch. “I wish I had never met you.”
Seconds ticked by.
Shame oozed out of him like pus. He looked down the street for the yet-to-appear garbage truck and back at her. “I hate what I’ve done to you. I wish I could live the last two years of my life over. I’m so far beyond sorry, I’ll regret it the rest of my life.” He sat on the step across from her and rubbed his stubbled face in his hands. “Cut me some slack. I’m dying here.” He pled with his eyes for her forgiveness.
Avra’s gaze raked over him, and he made himself sit there. Finally, her shoulders slumped. “There was no kissing.”
His body froze as the information sunk in. The air emptied out of his lungs, and he fell back against the pi
llar, his eyes slipping shut. The knowledge was bittersweet. What did it matter? No way would he get her back.
Chapter 28
Neon light from the Denny’s sign spilled into the car across the open Bible in Kallie’s lap. A tremor passed through her. She ran her finger across Isaiah 41:10 Avra had shown her. “So, do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” She needed to tell Jesse how she felt. Whatever happened, God would hold her up.
She checked her hair, her makeup—a touch of mascara, lip gloss—in the rearview mirror. She took a deep breath. I believe You want me to do this. Give me the strength.
Jesse glanced up at the doorway again. Kallie. As always, he had that breathless sensation, only this time he doubted he breathed at all. She wore a denim skirt—cinched at the hips with a western belt—and a cream oxford like one hanging in his closet. A loose ponytail caught her hair at the shoulders. As she walked toward him, the fear in her eyes dispelled the fashion-model effect.
He smiled at her. “Hey.”
Kallie slid into the booth. “Thanks for meeting me.” She sat stiffly under the brighter-than-day lights.
He laced his fingers around his coffee cup and waited for her to spit out what was on her mind. But she didn’t. They talked about nothing important for twenty minutes. He cracked jokes that didn’t loosen her up. They slid into quiet.
The color drained from Kallie’s face. Her eyes closed. Grease sizzled in the kitchen. Voices rose and fell.
Kallie took a deep breath. “It’s like this, Jess. Every relationship I’ve had dead-ended because you were standing in the way. Part of me has always loved you.”
Loved him? She threw it matter-of-factly on the table like change for the tip. His mind reeled.
“I’m stuck.” Her eyes clamped onto his. “I’m embarrassed to even admit it. You’re going to think I’m one of your groupies.” She looked down at her coffee and laughed uncomfortably.
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