Kicking Eternity (8 page)

He had the skill set to be a good music director. He already loved those kids. He tried to shake off the thought. But the smiles of the children had been stuck in his head for months, their singing voices, like phantoms he couldn’t bat away. He stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees.
Okay. I’ll ask You what You want me to do. But would You take Your time answering this one?

He stood and wiped his face on the neck of his T-shirt. It wasn’t like this was the only big-ticket item on his plate. Jesse had shoved marriage front and center—getting Kallie and Jillian to pray for a wife for him. He smiled. That was underhanded, recruiting a three-year-old. God had a soft spot for kids.

Would he ever love and be loved? Yeah, he wanted that, a relentless tide of realization was coming in. He was going to have to settle things with Sam. He looked down the beach illumined by the full moon. Another sprint down to the jetty and back sounded good.

#

Raine walked along the asphalt road beside Missy. She rubbed her arms. The wind coming off the Atlantic was cool tonight. Maybe it would rain.
Corrie
, Missy’s co-counselor walked ahead with their campers strung between them.

“Do you think my brother is hot?” Missy looked over at Raine, her chestnut mane
bunched in her fist
against the wind.

She grinned at Missy. “I guess—for an old, married man.”

“Raine!”

“Oh, you mean Cal.” She pursed her lips, and rubbed her chin. “If you like the surf-bum type.”
Cal was gorgeous no matter what kind of guy you liked, but she sure wasn’t telling his sister.

Missy’s shoulders slumped. “So, what about Jayson? He’s so amazing!” Missy chattered the rest of the way back to the cabin about Jayson.

Raine waved to Missy and headed across the athletic field toward the laundry. She felt her back pocket to make sure the note was still there—like she’d need a ticket to get onto the laundry porch. Aly had left a note on her pillow inviting her to hang out. Things had been better between them since the driving lesson, but this was the first time Aly had asked her to do something. No way
was
she going to miss this.

She could see two dark forms as she came around the back corner of the building. Cal sat on a crate leaning against the building. Aly lay on her back with her feet propped against the wall next to Cal.

“How was campfire?” Aly said.

Aly must have told Cal
she
was coming since he wasn’t surprised to see her.

“Cold. Wind’s kicking up.”

“Kicking eternity,” Cal said.

Aly nudged Cal with her foot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m reading
Sacred Hoops 
written by Phil Jackson when he coached the Chicago Bulls. Jackson kicks against his parents’ take on eternity.”

Aly reached for the bottle beside her and took a drink.

“Sounds like a yawner.”

Cal took a drink from his bottle. “Want some?” He held it out to her.

She knew the no alcohol on camp property rule, but drinking after Cal was too hard to resist. Wine cooler, she read on the label. This tasted more like soda, but with some foreign taste, like cough medicine, but not quite. She handed the bottle back.

Cal peered at her as if he expected a repeat performance of her spitting out the beer. She made herself swallow. There.

“Aly, what’s the book about you’re reading?” Raine had seen the book spread open on Aly’s bed for the last few days.

Aly’s legs were crossed now, one propped against the building, one keeping time to
an imaginary tom-tom. “Jodi Pi
coult’s
My Sister’s Keeper
.”

A laugh burst out of Cal. “That ought to jam the can opener into your issues.”

Aly
shot
him a dirty look.

She looked between Aly and Cal. They were at ease with each other, almost like siblings. The way it used to be with her and Eddie.

“It’s not your business whether I get along with my sister.” Aly said, lightly.

“Or anyone who reminds you of Kallie.” Cal looked pointedly from Aly to her.

“What—”

“Where’s Gar?” She didn’t know exactly what Cal was getting at, but she wasn’t going to let Aly storm off again.

“He’ll be here soon.” Aly.

“The guy has low-life written all over him. Al, when are you going to get some taste in
men
?” Cal
said.

Her eyes narrowed at Cal. “I liked
you
until two minutes ago.”

“Case in point.” Cal held his cooler up to her and took another swig.

“What do you think about Gar?” Aly turned toward her.

“Eye candy.”

Aly burst out laughing.

Cal’s crate thumped to the porch from where he’d been balancing on one edge. “Raine! I can’t believe you said that!”

Raine shrugged. “An honest opinion.”

“What do you think about Cal?” Aly asked.

Aly’s question
wrenched on the adrenaline spigot in her stomach and she could feel it snaking through her body. She scrounged for a normal tone.
“You’re the second person to ask me that tonight.”

“Who was the other person?” Cal said.

“Your sister.”

“Figures. And your final answer is?” Cal moved from the crate to the floor bringing him to her eye level.

Never mind that Aly was sitting two feet from Cal, the bungee cord of attraction stretched taut between them. She shrugged as though she didn’t have a monster crush on him already. “…if you’re into surfers.”

Cal smirked. “I’ll see if I can upgrade by the end of the summer.” He finished off the wine cooler with his eyes on her.

Gar came around the edge of the laundry. “Hey.”

Aly startled. “Mother of God!” She spun around on her seat to face Gar. “You scared me!”

He looked at Aly, blinked once. “You ready?”

Aly slid off the porch. “Later, you guys.” She walked into the shadows with Gar.

Raine shifted uncomfortably on the rough bo
ards of the porch. She looked
at Cal, at the play of the moonlight on the waxy croton leaves, back at Cal. “Aly asked me to stop by—”

“Don’t stress, Raine
.
I’m not dangerous.”

That’s what he thought
.
“Tell me about the book you’re reading.” That should be a safe subject.
The wind intensified, and she tucked her hands into her jacket pockets.

“The guy is a preacher’s kid—”

“I see the connection—”

“A thinking man. He explores Zen Buddhism, Native American religions, and—of course—basketball. He colors outside the lines.”

“Like you.”

“I don’t get how you believe without checking out the options.”

“I know God’s real. I talk to Him, and He answers me.” How did you explain God, especially to someone who’d seen it all and was still shopping?

“One of my buds hears God talking to him, too, but not till the bottom of a jug of Southern Comfort.”

“I don’t mean I hear His voice audibly. It’s more of an impression.”

“Anyway, if Christianity is
the
option—it will stand up to scrutiny. Or it won’t. Is that what you’re afraid of?”

Raine looked at him evenly. “It’s true.”

“Whatever.”

Wind gusted across the porch, and
the sky opened up
, spitting
mist against Raine’s face. She scooted against the building and pulled her knees in tight
to
her chest. She shivered.

With the rain sheeting against the porch roof, she didn’t realize Cal had slid over next to her till she felt the weight of his arm drop across her shoulders. She went still, almost afraid to breathe as the warmth of Cal’s body crawled through their clothing to her skin.

It wasn’t like she’d never been this close to a guy. She’d had a boyfriend. But this was different.
Jud
wasn’t looking for a religion that would let him be his own boss.

“You smell good,” Cal said somewhere near her ear.

She
felt
the rumble of his voice in his chest. “Aly’s shampoo,” she blurted.

The rain hammered the porch’s tarpaper roof, the sandy dirt, a two-foot swath of the weathered boards. She watched the water bounce crazily off the slick planks
,
memorizing the firmness of Cal’s chest against her arm, the feel of his fingers gripping her shoulder. For this moment, it was okay to be this close to Cal.

“Sitting here with you in the rain makes me think of something Douglas Coupland said in
Shampoo Planet.
”

Raine turned her face toward him.

“He said we tempt fate by accidentally feeling too happy one day.”

“Like if you’re completely happy, something’s bound to go wrong?”

“Right.”

She couldn’t see his eyes in the cloud-obscured moonlight. “You’re happy?”

“Yeah, yeah I am.” His serious tone told her he was no longer toying with her. His fingers tightened on her shoulder. He leaned toward her, their lips inches apart.

Raine didn’t breathe. She was caught in
now,
a willing prisoner.
Her eyes found
Cal’s jaw
—
dark with a day’s worth of stubble
—
his eyes
,
darker still.

Part of her heard the rain pull out as quickly as it
had come
, retreating across the athletic field behind them.

Cal leaned his head back against the slats of the building, his arm going slack around her. “Something will go wrong like the rain will stop.”

The air emptied out of her lungs, and she breathed in reason. Maybe God’s stopping the rain was something going
right
. She eased away from Cal. Goose bumps along the path where Cal’s body had been cried for his warmth. But her brain was slogging to life now.

“Thanks for being a gentleman and keeping me warm.” She rolled up onto her knees and stood, stiff from sitting so long. When Cal didn’t say anything, she looked back at him.

“Being a gentleman was not what I had in mind.”

“Good night, Cal.” She walked quickly back to her cabin, attraction and caution a jumble of
sparking
electric wires inside her.

She tiptoed between the girls’ bunks trying to remember where the squeaky boards were till she got to her room. She didn’t bother turning on the light. Aly was usually out late. Raine slipped onto her knees.

Forgive me for breaking the camp alcohol rule.
She sighed
. Lord, I need Your help to kill this crush. I should have asked a whole lot sooner!
She stayed there on her knees wishing God would fry her feelings with a cosmic bug zapper. And why did she think she was a missionary when she couldn’t explain God to a guy who’d grown up with Him? Her words to Cal had been dead, sun-baked bits of bougainvillea scraping across the four-square court.
Give my words Your power. Life.

The door opened. Aly slipped into the room. The door shut.

Aly tripped over Raine’s legs. “What the—are you praying?”

“Not anymore.”

Aly scooted onto Raine’s bed.

She
crawled onto
the other end next to her pillow. She felt Aly move, heard the thunk of her shoe as it hit the floor. Was she drunk? The other shoe tumbled to the floor.

“I have a question that’s been bugging me all evening.” Aly was still whispering. They both knew better than to wake up the younger girls in the next room. She didn’t sound drunk.

“If you won’t disobey a speed limit sign, why did you take a drink of Cal’s wine cooler on camp property?”

It
felt like Aly had knocked all the air out of her lungs. “I was tempted, and I gave in. I asked God to forgive me right before you came in.”

“Did He?”

“Yeah.”

“And you feel great now, no guilt, no regret?”

“I still feel bad about it.”

“Well, I don’t—feel bad about breaking a camp rule. There are too many other… never mind.
Why
were you tempted?”

“I don’t know—”

“Doesn’t wash. I can always remember exactly why I was tempted.” Aly leaned toward her. “Cough it up.”

“
I wanted to fit in?”

“Lame.” The sound of Aly tapping her fingers against her arm
sounded
loud in the silent room. “You’ve got the hots for Cal! And drinking after him was like—swapping spit.”