Kicking Eternity

Kicking Eternity Chapter One

                                                                        Kicking Eternity

                                                                      By Ann Lee Miller

                       For Luke & Lauren, who are living the love story and the future God wrote

Chapter 1

Raine pushed the beads on her African bracelet back and forth like the balls on an abacus. Her stomach kneaded, gurgled. She could almost feel sweat dampen her upper lip.

Drew’s forehead creased as he stared at her. Fluorescent tubes hummed overhead in the night air. Shouts and back-slapping ricocheted around the Canteen porch in the sticky-sweet scent of orange blossoms. If she wasn’t fighting to keep her dinner down, she’d tell him where they’d met.

His frown melted into a smile of recognition. “Rainey. Hey. Welcome to Triple S Camp.”

She bristled at the nickname her brothers used to irritate her. “It’s Raine.”

 “I remember you as Rainey from the skit you did in junior high youth group. You cried all over the place—a pun on your name.”

“That was my total acting career… and ancient history. Better off forgotten. Please.”

“Sure, Rainey, whatever you say.”

“Drew!”

“You remember my name.”

“You weren’t exactly low profile either.” She, like every girl in the youth group, had spent way too much time mooning at the high-school-Drew hunched over his guitar.

Jesse, the camp director, gave a shrill blast on his whistle. “Welcome to New Smyrna Beach Surf and Sailing Camp orientation.”

The noise ratcheted down. Thirty staffers in aquamarine shirts settled onto the benches lining the porch.

Raine swallowed and unclenched her fingers from the camp handbook. She refused to heave like she had at college orientation four years ago. Her thumb ran over the ridges in her palm where the spiral wire had dug into the flesh. Why had she never been to camp like any normal kid?

A guy in surf shorts and flip-flops came up the steps laughing with the girl beside him. Sun-white cords of hair, crimped like he’d worn braids, brushed his thick shoulders. He caught Raine staring. The interest crackling in his blue gaze jolted through her.

She let her chin-length hair fall like a dark curtain between them. A guy was one complication she didn’t need this summer, not when Africa was nearly in her grasp.

Jesse, who’d hired her, dragged a podium across the porch to the snack bar window. He cleared his throat. Out of the corner of her eye, Raine saw the surfer and the girl take seats halfway around the porch.

Jesse read the camp rules and Raine highlighted them with a pink marker. His voice blended with the drone of the crickets. As he launched into the sailing rules, her stomach calmed.

Across the dirt road, yellow floodlights bathed a wall of the dark dining hall. The camp office and cabins flanked the building like dark-skinned children marching in a row all the way to the hulking gym. She had Africa on the brain.

Drew’s elbow jarred her ribs. “Rainey, introduce yourself,” he whispered.

She sprang to her feet. “I’m Raine—” She just stopped herself from saying Rainey. “Zigler. I’ll be teaching Bible.” She shot a glare at Drew and sat down with a thump. Was that a snicker coming from somewhere near the snack bar?