Kicking Eternity

Chapter Ten

Chapter 10

Aly looked up from the kitchen duty schedule she was working on as Cal flung into her office. He yanked the MP3 player headphones out of her ears.

“Twister!” was all he said between sucking in air. When she didn’t move, he grabbed her biceps and shoved her under the desk. “The whole camp is holed up in the dining hall. Waterspout gone wild.”

Cal’s shoulder smashed up against hers in the gloom under her desk. Her head spun. Her tailbone smarted from hitting the floor. The scent of Cal’s deodorant and the sound of his short, loud breaths filled the cutout between the side drawers of her desk.

“I came looking for you when I didn’t see you in the dining hall.”

Good thing. Obviously, Gar hadn’t given her the same consideration.

“Is the spout going to hit us?” She twisted her head toward Cal.

“You’re shaking.” He slid his arm around her. “Even if it hits us dead on, there are two blocks of land between us and the ocean to slow it down. Besides, this dinosaur of a desk must weigh three hundred pounds. You’re safe.”

Cal’s breathing settled into its normal cadence, smelling faintly of mint. She’d never been this close to him, and it felt right somehow. To Raine, Cal was a risk, but to her he was security. Cal’s friendship had been constant for the past six years when boyfriends changed with the shades of her lip gloss.

Cal rubbed the fabric of her short sleeved jacket between his fingers. “Man, Aly, you look all grown up this summer. Fancy duds. I’m used to little Aly in shorts and T-shirts.”

Pretzeled into the small space, she still managed to elbow him in the ribs. She was only two years younger. “You see me stuck at fourteen when we met.”

Cal laughed, and she felt his chest rumble against her. “Maybe, but you sure didn’t look fourteen when we met. I had to keep reminding myself you were only in eighth grade.”

She swiveled her head so she could see his eyes in the shadow. “Really?”

“Let’s see,” Cal ticked off on his fingers, “freshman year you went with Grant Fallon—”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Soph it was Geoff Ramirez and Jon Archer. Then, I graduated and tried not to know who you were going out with.”

“You liked me?” Warmth bubbled up in her like a pan of homemade fudge on the stove. “—when you were painting me?”

“Duh.” Cal’s smile was lopsided.

And now he was painting Raine. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against Cal’s arm. It was firm under her neck. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“So I could get in line?”

She didn’t move. The back of her head pressed against the desk. “Maybe there wouldn’t have been a line if you’d told me.”

The howl of the wind startled her alert. A shutter banged on the outside of the office. Then, rain pelted the building with the force of a pressure sprayer. She curled into Cal and he held her. The fear crept out of her body. She could stay here forever.

The rain eased off first, then the wind, until everything went eerily quiet.

She crawled out from under the desk and crossed herself. Thank God they were okay. Nothing like a twister to turn a girl religious. Raine would laugh at that.

Cal stretched, tugging his T-shirt taut across his chest.

Her breath caught. Something had changed for her during the twister. She’d always known Cal was an attractive guy. But Cal’s searching for her and protecting her in his arms had woken up emotions that had been sleeping on the floor of her soul for a very long time.