Avra's God (10 page)

Jesse laughed. “I love it when you’re right.”
For a second he stood and grinned at her. “Gotta tell Cisco and
Billy.” He disappeared into the crowd around the portable
stage.

She was so whacked. She couldn’t even finish
a spontaneous hug. How could she be afraid of a guy who told her
the good news before the rest of the band?

High-pitched groupie screams bottle-rocketed
from the stage area.

Plenty of reasons.

Avra parked on an orange crate behind the
sound equipment.

Isabel shimmied to the music, her eyes locked
on Cisco as if she danced with him.

Avra’s chest tightened.

Isabel’s dark hair swung, hiding and
revealing olive skin between the girl’s slim hips and blouse.

Cisco looked at Isabel for the first time all
evening. No reaction registered on his face.

She’d pay money to know what he was
thinking.

He shifted his gaze to Avra.

Her eyes shot to the sound controls. When she
looked up, he smiled at her. She smiled back, her insecurities
fizzling like Roman candles in the night sky.

Cisco put his head down and bobbed with the
beat, his skin shiny with sweat. He twirled the sticks one last
time. Even without eye contact, she felt the high voltage wire
running between them.

The applause and yells died down. People
filtered away from the stage.

She unplugged cords, coiled them, and tossed
them into the Tropicana Orange crates she and Kallie had used for
seats.

Out of the corner of her eye she followed
Cisco as he broke down the drum kit and hiked back and forth across
the parking lot to Billy’s van to stow it.

He wiped sweat off his face with the crook of
his arm and grabbed a T-shirt off Billy’s front seat. He walked
toward her, slapping high fives with the stragglers along the
way.

Jesse hauled off the card table, and she
stood in the empty spot where it had been.

Cisco reached for her hands. He leaned in and
kissed her on the lips as though he’d done it a hundred times. She
darted a self-conscious look at the handful of cars and kids in the
lot.

Isabel strutted toward them.

So, the kiss was Cisco’s
I have a girl
text to Isabel. Fine with her.

But Isabel wasn’t reading. She stopped in
front of them.

Cisco’s jaw tightened. “Hey.” His hand
tightened on Avra’s.

“Who’s this?” Isabel said, as though Avra
were a dead grouper rotting on the beach.

She could feel Isabel’s eyes crawling from
her Converses to the gold balls in her earlobes. She glanced at
Cisco. She must look like a steroid-fed Olympian next to Isabel,
who was nearly a foot shorter.

“Isabel, this is Avra. Avra, Isabel.” Cisco’s
voice was flat.

Avra nodded to the other girl.

Isabel looked at Cisco. “Where’d you find
her—at Goodwill?”

Okay, that hurt.
Avra fingered her
favorite Daytona State hoodie.

Cisco drew Avra closer till their elbows
bumped. “What do you want, Isabel?”

Isabel’s taunt beaded up and rolled off Avra
like seawater off a well-waxed surfboard.

The girl’s fingers circled Cisco’s bicep. “I
need to talk to you.”

Cisco folded his arms across his chest, his
shoulder pressed against Avra’s. “So, talk.”

Isabel flicked a glance at Avra. “In
private.”

Avra lifted her chin a fraction. She shot a
glance at Kallie where she leaned against Jesse’s Neon at the ocean
edge of the lot. “I need to tell Kallie something.” She brushed her
lips across Cisco’s cheek in the briefest of touches.
He’s
mine.
She turned her back on Isabel and Cisco.

“I want you,” Isabel said as though Avra’s
overhearing meant nothing to her.

Now there’s a surprise.

“What part of
get lost
didn’t you
understand at Jenna’s party?” Cisco answered before she stepped out
of earshot.

She squared her shoulders and walked a little
taller across the lot. But the possibility Cisco had slept with
Isabel niggled at her.

“Cisco’s yammering like he’s had it with
that—” Kallie peered over Avra’s shoulder and kept the play-by-play
coming. “She’s got her hand up to slap him across the face. No, he
saw it coming and grabbed her wrist. Now, she’s screaming something
ugly at him. I think she’s coughing up a fur ball.”

Avra started to turn, but Kallie grabbed her
arm. “It’s a figure of speech. Now, her face is screwed up like she
has a mouth full of curdled coconut milk. She’s saying something
and looking at you like she’d like to commit mayhem.”

Avra laughed. “Mayhem?”

“You know, mutilation, disfigurement, ripping
off a limb. Hush. Here comes Cisco.” Kallie cocked her head to one
side. “So,
Beach Rats
landed a standing gig every Friday
till the end of the semester.”

“Hey, Kal.” Cisco tossed her a smile that
didn’t reach his eyes. He motioned for Avra to come with him.

Avra fell into step beside Cisco. He walked
with his head down. She waited for him to speak first.

“Isabel’s, like, stalking me. I’m not talking
to her, smiling at her—nothing.”

“Who is she?”

“A girl I partied with last summer.”

Her jaw clenched. “And?”

Cisco looked down at his tennis shoes.
“And.”

Picasso-like caricatures of Cisco and
Isabel’s nakedness—heavy black lines and garish colors—sprang to
life in her head. Okay, she just got why Tad warned them not to go
out with people who didn’t share their faith. She folded her arms
across her chest.

He stopped and lifted her chin with the back
of his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you then. Avra. It’s you I
care about, not her.”

She looked into his eyes, then away, but she
saw it. He did care about her. But how could she choke down his
past—especially when she’d seen her face? And Cisco’s past had more
faces.

He dropped his hand. “I’ve been true to you
in every way since I even
thought
of going out with
you.”

He’d been hurting over his parents’
divorce—doing whatever he could last summer to make the pain go
away. She knew that. “Okay ... I believe you.” She pressed her lips
into a small smile and willed the gallery in her mind to blank.

Cisco heaved in a breath and let it go.
“Thanks.” He gripped her hands, gratitude dampening his eyes. “I’ve
messed up plenty, but at least I tell the truth.”

“Yeah, you do.” Maybe she could have gotten
by with a little less truth.

Cisco stared at her with somber eyes. “I want
to do it right this time—with you.”

It was too late to bail now. She already
cared—maybe too much. “Then, let’s do it.” She coughed. Now, there
was a poor choice of words.

Jesse slowed as Kallie zigzagged away from a
wave arcing toward her sneaker. The water receded and moonlight
bounced off the slick sand. He searched for a hand to hold, but
Kallie had buried them in her sweatshirt pockets.

She caught his eyes on her. “How much is
Beachin’ Willie going to pay you?”

He grinned. “Two hundred bucks a Friday.”

“I’d have to serve a pile of eggs at the
Beacon to make that.”

He veered toward the dunes—overgrown
pitchers’ mounds sporting Charlie Brown tufts of saw grass. Kallie
followed him across the hard-packed sand of the daytime traffic
lane. In the distance, the headlights of an occasional car crawled
down North Atlantic Avenue.

He peered at the constellations in the quiet
that had settled between them. A breeze played with his hair,
tickling his forehead. Kallie stood close enough to touch, her chin
tilted skyward. Frayed wires sputtered inside him.

He hooked an arm around her shoulders and
sucked in a breath, hoping to catch her scent. But the wind whisked
it away. He pointed. “There’s the North Star, Big Dipper, Little
Dipper, Scorpius, Leo, Virgo.” He traced each with his finger. But
his mind was on the feel of Kallie in the circle of his arm, her
shoulder brushing his chest.

Kallie’s silence weighed on him. He turned
toward her, his hand cupping her shoulder. Moonlight shadowed her
eyes and caught on her glossed lips. He could almost taste
strawberry.

Kallie slipped away.

His hand dropped to his side. He stared at
the spot where she’d stood, rejection churning into anger in his
gut. She’d almost hugged him earlier when he told her Willie was
hiring
Beach Rats
. He’d caught her eyes on him too many
times to count. He might be pathetically unpracticed, but he knew
when a girl was into him.

So, why did she keep shutting him down? Two
strikes. He wouldn’t give her a third. What was her problem? The
need to know gnawed at his gut. He kicked an empty Budweiser can.
It caught air and clattered down the other side of the dune.

He hiked out of the dunes and scanned the
beach. Where had Kallie gone? He stared at the blackness, the
crashing waves. Had she returned to the car? He looked down the
beach in both directions one more time and headed toward Beachin’
Willie’s.

He paced the beach, squinting at every dark
form, every movement. His heart thumped in his chest. The beach
wasn’t the safest place for a girl alone.

He called her cell. It went right to voice
mail. Had she shut off her phone because she didn’t want to talk to
him? Maybe she was calling somebody for a ride. Would she have the
sense to wait at the 7-11? Maybe she had a friend who lived on the
beachside.

He texted.
Where r u? I’m freaking. Forget
about r issues. Let me take u home. B safe.

Should he knock on her door and alert her
mother? Call 911?

He doubled back, scanning the swath of beach
illuminated by a nearby condo—a couple making out on a blanket, a
mound of seaweed, a runner plowing through the surf. The minutes
ticked by. His fingers clenched around his keys. He pulled out his
phone and checked the time—over a half hour since he’d seen her.
Panic bubbled to the surface. A girl had been raped and killed in
Daytona Beach last month.

Beachin’ Willie’s parking lot had emptied,
spilling pockets of kids onto the beach and Flagler Avenue. In the
distance Avra heard cars stuffed with students gunning their
engines while they waited for the drawbridge to come down. Cisco’s
shoes scuffed across the sandy lot beside her as they headed toward
the benches lining the seawall. A quiver of excitement nestled
between her ribs.

Cisco stopped and peeled off his sweat-soaked
T-shirt.

Avra’s eyes widened.

He laughed and handed her the shirt. “You
should see your expression. I can read exactly what you’re
thinking.”

She pinched the shirt with the tips of her
fingers, her gaze slipping down his smooth chest to the sliver of
blue and yellow plaid showing above the waistband of his jeans. Her
eyes darted to the waves breaking on the beach.

“What’s the matter? You’ve seen my chest
before.”

“That was swimming.”

Cisco poked his head through the clean shirt.
“Pretty fine, huh?” He grinned and pushed his arms through.

Avra shrugged, unwilling to admit this
glimpse of skin seemed so much more intimate than the day at the
beach.

He took the shirt and stuffed it in his back
jeans pocket like a tail. “That’s why you’re blushing, right?” He
threw an arm over her shoulder.

She smelled Bounce and sweat and Right
Guard.

They moved toward the beach ramp outside the
circle of light from Breakers hamburger joint and lounge. Grease
sizzled in the night. They settled on one of the benches that lined
the cement walkway. Other benches held dark forms wrestling like
amoebae that had been through mitosis and wanted to be one cell
again.

“Mí vainilla
.” He tugged a lock of her
hair, traced her ear. His face inched toward hers.

Her heart raced. His lips pressed hers
deliberately, exploring—not a first kiss, not a public kiss—urging
her down an unknown road she wasn’t sure she ought to travel. His
fingers threaded through her hair. The kiss lengthened and
deepened. His lips trailed to her cheek, eyebrow, ear, the tender
skin below her earlobe. She sucked in a breath.

Cisco stopped. Want kindled in his eyes like
a forward shooting on goal.

Fear and warmth wrestled inside her.

He sat back. “What? What’s wrong?”

Her gaze darted from the white on pink of the
Breakers building to the dark waves tumbling onto the sand, to the
lifeguard stand and back again. “I feel weird. I’ve never done this
before. It’s a little much.”

“I promised your dad I’d behave. And I am.”
He slid his fingers from her hair and held his hands out.

She jutted her chin. “I didn’t say you were
doing anything wrong.” A beach patrol pickup crept by on the sand
at water’s edge. “I’m just saying how I feel.” She stared at a dot
of light from a distant boat, feeling like a naïve
middle-schooler.

“Avra, look at me.”

He shifted from the shadow and the
streetlight turned the black pools in his eyes to molasses. “You
can trust me to keep my word.”

“I trust you.”

He waved his arm toward the couples down the
row. “This is what people who are going out
do
.”

She leaned forward and peered at the couple
three benches away. Her eyebrows shot up. They were seriously going
at the one-cell thing.

Cisco followed her gaze. “Okay, so
everybody’s not into our promises.” He angled her chin back toward
him with his finger. “How about we show them how to do it right?”
He dropped his hand to her waist. His other arm lay across the
weathered slat behind her. The question hung in his eyes.

She felt the weight of his hand resting on
her stomach. His thumb traced tiny circles on her sweatshirt,
stirring up dust devils of warmth. Her gaze flitted to his chin,
his eyes, his lips, and back to his eyes. “I don’t think they’re
paying attention.”