Avra's God Read online

  “Hey, so next time maybe I’ll keep you awake. The name’s Jesse. Catch you later. Gotta run.” He waved and headed across the parking lot, his guitar case thumping against his leg. Kal-lie, Kal-lie, Kal-lie. It had touched the back of his tongue and the very tip, brewing a song.

  He shook his head to dislodge the memory as he followed the ribbon of streetlights toward home. He didn’t want one girl stuck in his head.

  Cisco hadn’t been to mass in years, since he told Mamá the whole deal was a farce. So, why had he put on his best jeans, his only clean T-shirt—even socks—and climbed into the Martins’ minivan? Avra’s dad invited him, that’s why. Told him to save his gas, ride with them. He regretted the whim as he bumped along in the middle seat next to Avra.

  Behind him, Kurt and Drew argued about their favorite bands. Where did they find these God tunes? They sounded like his music. Strange.

  His gaze snagged on Avra’s legs. “I’m not too sure about this church thing. Don’t leave me hanging by myself.” Avra grinned at him, and he thought—not for the first time—how much he liked her smile.

  “What’s the matter, cool boy? Afraid a bunch of church people will eat you for lunch?”

  “Afraid?” He acted wounded. “I’m not afraid. It’ll just be weird.”

  “Okay, stick with me. I’ll protect you.”

  They piled out of the car onto the blacktop. The sun beat through the muggy air, baking his shoulders as Kurt and Drew headed toward a group of friends. Avra motioned with her head for him to follow her toward the church. He fell in step with her several yards behind her parents.

  A guy in a pinstriped shirt and wide tie stood out from the students in jeans and untucked shirts surrounding Avra’s brothers. The guy’s gaze fell on Avra and his mouth dropped open.

  “Bingo. That must be your Morgan.”

  “He’s not my Morgan,” she said between her teeth.

  Morgan marched toward them.

  “Maybe it’s you who needs to stick by me for protection.”

  Avra’s face reddened, curling a corner of his mouth.

  Morgan’s gaze raked across him and settled on Avra’s blush as he halted in front of them. “I see how things are.” He rubbed his chin. “So, who are you?”

  Avra opened her mouth to correct Morgan, but Cisco caught her eye, silencing her.

  “The name’s Cisco.” He scanned Morgan from the haircut, better suited to a man twice his age, to the shine on his dress shoes.

  He watched Morgan survey his shoulders, beltless jeans, untied Champions.

  “Morgan.” The guy extended his hand as if he were a homeless guy missing his shopping cart.

  He read Morgan’s expression and shook his hand harder than necessary. I’m not a homeless guy missing his shopping cart. “Hey, is this a church thing, shaking hands? Any more odd little customs I gotta know? At my mom’s church you have to kneel, sit, stand—and if you don’t get it right, you’re a doofus.”

  Morgan hesitated, a decision taking place in his eyes. He laughed and slapped Cisco on the back. “This is going to be cake.”

  Cisco shot Avra an I-won-that-round look over his shoulder.

  She shrugged as if it was no big deal and followed them.

  Morgan hauled open one of the heavy wooden doors and morphed into church tour guide. The next time Morgan took a breath, Cisco scanned the sanctuary for Avra. “Hey, where’d Avra go?”

  Kallie peered at the Sunday morning blue sky through half-closed eyes. The sunshine warmed her skin, blanketing her with lethargy. A gull squawked. Laughter drifted toward her from a group of children down the beach. In front of her the ocean tumbled onto the hard-packed sand.

  She thought of Jesse’s Friday night voice lesson. In exchange for the lesson, he had given her a glimpse of the man inside. But it wasn’t the first time. Puffs of air smelling faintly of salt, seaweed, and fish, lifted the hairs on her arms. Her mind arched lazily back to the day they met.

  She’d slipped out the back door and washed packing dust and guilt from her hands in the spigot outside the kitchen door. Aly was precious little help and she hated to abandon Mom in the middle of unpacking. But she needed a break. They’d been up till three a.m. shoving the last of her girlhood into the U-Haul.

  Mom landed a job on the night nursing staff at Bert Fish Medical Center, and Kallie decided to move with them. Her high school friends had scattered. She might as well get her degree at Daytona State College as anywhere. Her love for Miami had died with her parents’ marriage seven years ago. Mom’s cramped condo in Coconut Grove had never been home.

  Kallie speed-walked away from the aging bungalow that huddled over the boxes of their lives. A few blocks away, she turned onto a sandy path that led through a piney lot. She breathed in the clean, green scent.

  The path opened into a clearing where a tin shed stood. The sky purpled and spat fat drops of water in her face. Music drifted through the half-open door. She ducked inside and heard a male voice accompanied by guitar.

  She stood on the dirt floor, listening to the melody speak her language. A mower, rakes, and a hose coiled on a hook beside a plastic gas can materialized from the dimness.

  The voice cascaded through the trap door and down the steps, sweeping her into the soul of a guy she’d never seen. Caught in the music, she moved toward it and settled on a small landing. She stilled, not wanting to disturb the web the music wove.

  The rain slides down the windowpane.

  I’m falling, slipping away from you.

  Why did you push me away?

  I never wanted to let you go.

  I’m sliding down the pain,

  Sliding down the pain.

  Daddy, I never wanted to let you go, either. Why did you push me away? The stranger read her heart, and he didn’t even know she was there. The music washed through her and waned. The singer shifted into a ballad. Her eyes had grown heavy in the half-light.

  She smoothed her beach towel on the sand and rolled to her stomach, breaking off the memory. Jesse plumbed all the way to her soul—untouched since Daddy dumped it, twisted and bleeding on the gravel outside the Grove condo. Thick clouds moved across the sun, casting her in shadow. She burrowed into the warmth of the sand, and it molded to the contours of her body. She didn’t want some guy walking around inside her heart. He didn’t have her permission.

  Cisco watched Morgan lift one side of his unibrow.

  Morgan thumbed toward the rear of the sanctuary. “Avra’s in the sound booth. Didn’t she tell you she runs sound every Sunday?”

  “Later.” He waved Morgan off and headed toward Avra. He poked his head through the sound booth doorway. “You ditched me with the freak. What were you thinking?”

  Avra chuckled. “You could sit with my brothers.”

  “They’re too busy scoping church chicks.”

  Avra wheeled her chair around and punched up the mics for the worship band assembling on the platform. “What’s wrong with church chicks?”

  He dropped into a folding chair. “Nothing. I’m all about girls. I’m just feeling a little insecure.”

  Avra shot him a yeah-right smile.

  When the girl smiled, she took his breath away. Tiny blue flames danced in her eyes. Pink warmed her classic cheekbones. His gaze dipped to soft lips.

  “You’ve never had an insecure moment in your life.” she said.

  “I was afraid the bros would go sit with some hottie and leave me with your folks to make an idiot of myself.”

  “We’re not getting any monitor here,” a guy in a mullet said over the mic from the front. Avra turned two knobs.

  “I always wanted to be a techie.”

  Avra adjusted the output on mullet’s mic. “A major in automobile science isn’t enough?”

  “Ask me when I graduate.” If he graduated.

  He watched Avra work for the next twenty minutes. Smart girl. Bet she wasn’t pulling a D in Humanities like he was. A girl like that would be good for a guy. Wait. T
hat made her sound like a vitamin or two-a-days during football season. He hadn’t played since New Smyrna Beach High, but they weren’t something you forgot.

  No, Avra was class—and she didn’t have a clue. What would it be like to kiss class like that? It had to be different from the girls he usually made out with. He wasn’t stupid. He went after those girls because they dished a whole lot more than kisses.

  Avra sat back and opened a pink leather Bible in her lap.

  He fumbled through the hardback Bible she passed him. She reached over; flipped open the book to the Table of Contents; ran her finger down a column to Luke and across to page eight hundred seventy-three; found the page near the back; and tapped a clean round nail on a large fifteen, then a small eleven.

  The whole process took maybe five seconds, long enough to inhale something that reminded him of the gardenia bush in his yard at home. When had he ever been this close to her? He leaned closer, elbows on his knees, Bible held between them, and breathed in again.

  The pastor said, “The father stood on the porch waiting for his son to come home. It didn’t matter that his son had wished him dead; spent his inheritance; and lived a wanton, sinful life. The father still loved him. When the son came home, the father threw his arms around him, put a ring on his finger, and threw a party. Your heavenly Dad loves you that much.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the music faded and people funneled into the aisles. Cisco leaned his chair on its back two legs and watched Avra shut down the soundboard. “The father represents God?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’s the son?”

  “You and me.”

  “Me,” he corrected. “I’m all about that wanton sin stuff.”

  Avra smoothed her denim skirt toward her knees and crossed her legs. “We can’t do anything to make God love us any less than he does.”

  He pried his eyes from the soft tan of her legs. It was just wrong to talk about God while you were looking at a girl’s legs. “I thought we had to, like, do stuff to get in good with God. But, why try? I can never do enough good stuff for God.” He glued his eyes to her face.

  “Nobody can.” Avra sounded so certain.

  He’d plunged into some parallel universe discussing religion. Jesse would never believe it. “Not even nuns and priests? How fair is that?”

  “But He made a way for us to be His kids.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. How?”

  Avra leaned toward him, the intensity in her eyes burned through him. “Through Jesus.”

  But he wasn’t buying. “Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. I felt hope right here—” He thumped his chest. “—while the preacher was talking about the dad welcoming the son.” He clamped his lips together. Avra had no clue. “I’m that kid. Hell, I spent the whole summer drunk or stoned on the beach, making it with as many girls as possible.”

  Avra swallowed and her eyes widened, but she didn’t look away.

  Why was he getting steamed about God? He ran his finger under the neck of his T-shirt. “Like your God would care about someone like me. He’d whoop my tail like my old man did.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you deserve.”

  So much for hope. Cisco dropped his face into his hands. Chill, man. This is ridiculous. He studied the soundboard knobs—anything but Avra’s eyes—and stood. “I’m outta here.”

  Avra’s hand closed on his arm.

  “God does love you like the dad in the story. That’s why Jesus took what you deserve.”

  Her blue gaze pierced clear to his gut. He broke the connection, squirming like he did when he still thought Mamá could read his mind. “That’s all?”

  Avra nodded and gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her fingers clenched white on her Bible. A pulse throbbed in her neck. This religion stuff was mega important to her.

  He slipped an arm around her and squeezed her tense shoulder. “It’s a lot to think about. Thanks. Maybe there is hope.”

  In that split second of contact he felt Avra relax and saw Morgan stop in the doorway, do a double take, and move on.

  Chapter 5

  Jesse leaned against the glass auditorium doors of the J.M. Goddard Center; Cisco sprawled on the cement beside him, watching the rain. Kallie stood in the corner of the alcove rubbing her arms for warmth. He wouldn’t mind helping her out with that. At Kallie’s feet, Avra leaned against the bricks, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  Jesse twisted to look at Kallie. Why wouldn’t she just tell him what she thought about their first band practice? She was driving him crazy. “So, how do you think it went?”

  Kallie stared at him, surprised. Then she smiled. “Cisco was great.” But she kept her eyes on Jesse. She knew what he was asking, and she wasn’t going to give it to him.

  “Yeah, man!” Cisco punched the air.

  Kallie glanced at Cisco. “I especially liked the twirling drumstick thing.”

  “You mean this?” Cisco demonstrated.

  “Yeah, cute.”

  Cisco smiled smugly.

  “Billy will be fine when he learns the music.” Kallie slid down the glass door and tucked her arms close to her body. The rain poured down in sheets now, blowing from the north, but the alcove stayed dry.

  Okay, so she wanted him to work for it. “Vocals?” Jesse eyed Kallie. “I’d sound better if you sang with me.” He looked at her, hoping he didn’t sound as pathetic as he felt.

  “I’m not singing with a boy band.”

  “We are not a boy band!” Cisco was indignant. “Do you see us up there doing line dances, shaking our hips together?” He finished with a huff.

  Avra laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?” Cisco fired his balled-up sweatshirt at her. “You’re insulting my manhood here.”

  Avra caught the sweatshirt. “Thanks!” She clutched the sweatshirt to her, breathing in Cisco’s scent, then slipped it over her head. Yeah, more was going on with them than Cisco spilled.

  He elbowed Kallie. “You won’t sing with me because you’re chicken.”

  “So, what if I am?”

  “Seems to me that if you’re not going to sing with us, you shouldn’t criticize,” he said.

  “Ooooh,” Kallie screeched. “I haven’t criticized. Besides, you asked me, remember?”

  He grinned at her. “Relax, Kal, I’m just pushing your buttons. Bring it on.”

  Kallie crossed her arms.

  He followed her gaze across the parking lot. The sun ducked out from behind the clouds sparkling on the easing rain.

  “You did fine. The vocal coaching is working.”

  Jesse let out the breath he’d been holding.

  Kallie watched the steam rise off the blacktop as she headed toward home. She wished she hadn’t told Jesse she walked for exercise. A ride home would feel good about now.

  If she didn’t already know Jesse’s ego was supersized, she’d think he needed her praise. Why had he asked her to be the band’s consultant? Who ever heard of a band having a consultant? But, she wouldn’t question Jesse about it. She wanted to be part of the band, but not on stage—a nut case voice major who didn’t like to perform.

  She turned the corner onto Magnolia Street, glad for the shade now that the temperature had returned to normal after the rain. Maybe she should rethink a few things in her life. Like why she hung out with Jesse when she didn’t want him to get to her heart.

  Cisco rubbed down the side of the black Camaro with a soapy rag. He glanced over the hood at Kurt. “Sweet car. Hanging with the church car wash wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  Kurt ducked down to scrub the hubcap. “Told you.”

  Something stung Cisco’s arm. “Hey! What the—” He grabbed his arm.

  Avra stood nearby holding a rat-tailed towel. “Got you back for mud-sliming my nose.” She gave him a satisfied smile. “Now we’re even.”

  He rolled up his T-shirt sleeve. “No way, Avra. I didn’t cause you bodily harm. Look at that welt. It must be the size of a baseball.
”

  “Quarter.” But she looked uncertain, eying the angry stain on his arm.

  He pointed at the splotch. “I need a little TLC here.”

  Avra blushed.

  Cisco tapped his finger on his arm. “Come on.”

  Panic flashed across Avra’s features as she stared at his arm. She took a deep breath and planted a loud kiss on his skin. “Big baby.” She stalked away.

  “Now that’s what I call even,” he said to her back, savoring the feel of her lips on his skin.

  “I haven’t seen a move that good since college,” said a guy in his late twenties with close-cropped blonde hair. “Tad, college-career pastor.” Tad held up a hand for him to slap.

  Cisco squinted down a couple of inches at the wiry pastor. A pink scar zigzagged from a cheekbone into his hair. The guy looked normal enough. He slapped Tad’s hand. “Cisco.”

  “So, you think fast on your feet. How good are you on the basketball court?”

  “Is that a challenge?”

  Tad hiked a brow. “Could be.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  “You’re on. Tomorrow, four p.m., at the old junior high courts.”

  Voice lessons evolved into Saturday afternoon duets of Jesse’s songs with Kallie. Fine by him. There were worse ways to spend a Saturday. About nine hundred million. And his singing was getting better.

  Kallie’s eyes warmed and fastened on Jesse’s as they captured an elusive harmony. One hand, one foot, kept time, while Kallie’s hair swayed behind her.

  Sweet, sweet September sun shinin’ down.

  Splashin’ light on things I hide inside ...

  As their voices faded, Jesse reached for Kallie’s hand, grasping for the musical bond that lingered in the air between them. He ignored the wariness in her eyes and led her down the steps of the shed, out the door to the clearing, and into the filtered light of the pine-canopied woods. He memorized the foreign feel of Kallie’s sweaty smooth hand in his.