Kicking Eternity

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13

Drew glanced across the last sputtering embers at Rainey and Cal sitting on the bench on the seawall as Jesse jogged toward him.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be celebrating your anniversary with your wife tonight.”

“Yeah, but she’d have to be awake for that, right?” Jesse’s tone was wry. “I’m headed for Flagler Avenue, then over the North Causeway.”

Jesse sprinted past him. He caught up and matched Jesse’s stride. They sprinted up the Flagler ramp past the hamburger and beer scent of the Breakers. Jesse wasn’t talking tonight. Fine with him. Drew had been grumpy all week—ever since he’d walked in on Cal painting Rainey. They ran past Atlantis Bistro and Gnarly Surf Bar and Grill. 

Rainey’s portrait had laser-printed to his brain. Gold light washed Rainey’s face, deepening to burnt orange at the edges.  Her mouth was open as though she were talking. She leaned forward over a Bible that lay open in her lap. Cal had captured her passion for teaching the Bible, the spiritual light in her eyes. Even he could see Cal’s brilliance on the canvas—down to the intricate detail in the beaded rawhide bracelet Rainey always wore.

But the thing that bugged him about the painting was the sensual quality. Most people wouldn’t notice. Maybe he imagined it. Her flowered blouse gaped slightly at the neck, and there was something about the lay of the fabric across her breasts that bothered him. Maybe he plain didn’t like the fact that Cal had stared at her body for long stretches of time. 

They ran three-quarter speed over the bridge spanning the Intercoastal and stopped in Buena Vista Park. Winded, he bent at the waist, hands on knees, and sucked air into his lungs.

Jesse, backdropped by the choppy river, sluiced sweat from his face. “Did you see Cal and Raine on the seawall?”

Drew nodded.

“Cool, huh?”

Not cool. Very not cool. He didn’t know if he was the man for Rainey, but he knew it wasn’t Cal. That much he knew.

Jesse jogged in place. “A girl like Raine could do a world of good for Cal.”

“Right.” Drew rifled a rock into the water. A pelican sitting on a piling squawked. If Rainey fell for Cal, Drew wasn’t going to get a shot at her. “Let’s go.” He sprinted out of the park.

He’d run the edge off his anger. So, how about giving me a green light to go after Rainey? If he was honest with himself, he had to admit he’d always wanted to get married. He’d just refused to think about it since Sam.

As they headed back over the bridge toward Riverside Charlie’s, his mind drifted to his personal marriage cautionary tale: Meg Stanley. She directed Spring Break Bible Camp like a punctured balloon kamikazeing around the gym. One stint as her assistant had left him with whiplash and a vat of pity for Meg’s husband. What did it feel like to wake up next to Meg’s sleep-swollen face and the cobbled-together gel-packs of her body. Surely, Meg had been less lumpy and domineering ten years ago when Greg Stanley married her. But Geez Louise, he was glad it wasn’t him.

If God was protecting him from Greg Stanley’s fate, so be it. But it was impossible to imagine Raine morphing into that. He was going to trust God with choosing his wife. This was one decision he didn’t want to screw up. If God was testing him to see if he’d learned to submit to authority since the waterspout fiasco, he had.

No way was Cal going to Africa. What if— “Would God dangle a carrot to entice me to Africa?”

Jesse grinned over at him. “What kind of carrot?”