Page 74 of The Dating Game

I chuckle. “You’re probably right. Either way, I’m glad you decided to stop avoiding God.”

“Yeah,” she agrees softly, her cheek brushing my arm, “me too.”

I want to press further, to somehow see if I can gauge if any of this has to do with her bet. Or with me for that matter. But before I can, the door opens and Pastor Keith bursts inside, a man in gray coveralls marked Clyde’s Critter Control following behind him carrying a net with a long handle in his hands. Yep. That’s right. The animal control guy’s name is Clyde.

Can’t make this stuff up.

“Clyde’s got you now!” Human Clyde mutters, his eyes immediately zeroing in on the squirrel—aka his namesake. In what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite gestures of all time, Brooke presses her face to my shoulder and snort laughs into it.

I bite my lip against laughter of my own. The urge to turn my body to hers and capture her laughing mouth with my own swells through me, but now is not the time.

There’s still a squirrel to be captured.

And we’re still in the girls’ sleeping quarters.

Oh and we’re also still chaperones on a mission trip.

Although…I’m pretty sure that we’re no longer needed for the squirrel, and being chaperones doesn’t mean we can’t hang out.

“It looks like Clyde’s got Clyde under control,” I say to Brooke. “What do you say we take a walk?”

Her shining amber eyes gaze up at me and she nods. “I’d like that.”

So we take a walk.

And though we refrain from kissing, I do take her hand in mine and hold it the whole way down the beach as we laugh and talk.

It’s a perfect fit.

Chapter 27

Will

“Pleasewelcometothestage our guest worship lead, Will Barrett,” Pastor Keith booms and the room full of kids and teenagers erupts in applause as I hurry up the steps to the stage. There’s a guitar waiting for me by the mic stand, and I pick it up and sling it over my shoulder as I stare out at the sea of faces. Almost like a sunflower turning to the sun my gaze is immediately drawn to Brooke in the fifth row. She’s surrounded on either side by girls from her group and they’re each holding one of her hands; in fact, I notice dragging my gaze off her and down the line, their entire row is holding hands—teens and elementary students alike. All holding hands and beaming. It’s the sweetest sight, and I lose focus for a beat as my heart swells with affection for her. She’s just so full of life. Effervescent. Everything about her countenance is comfortable, like she’s content with whatever circumstances God puts her in because she knows she can shine His light anywhere.

It’s amazing to behold.She’samazing to behold. And quite suddenly I’m overcome with the desire for her to be up here with me. For her to bring some of that joy and life to this stage as we worship together.

“Before we begin,” I say into the microphone, “I’d like to invite a friend of mine up here to help round out the vocals. I’m a baritone, after all; I’m in need of my soprano.” I hear a softawwtravel around the room, followed by whispers of the name “Brooke” and realizebelatedly that instead of the indefinite article "a", I used the possessive adjective "my"…An accident, yes.

But a wholly accurate representation of how I feel about her.

She is rapidly becoming the soprano to my baritone. The person that rounds me out.

I should be terrified considering this may all just be a bet for her. But if it is a bet—she’s worth the gamble.

“Brooke, would you join me?” I ask over the murmur of the crowd. She looks around, like there might be some other Brooke I’m talking to. Even from this far away I can see the faint pink that colors her cheeks as the little girls on either side release her hands and start pushing her forward. Her eyes find mine as she reaches the aisle, and I hope she too feels the strong tether connecting us. I smile and she smiles back, her pace picking up as she hurries toward me. She takes the stage to applause and, though I wish I could pull her in for a kiss, I settle for bending down to whisper in her ear, “I hope this is okay. It’s been entirely too long since I’ve had you next to me.”

Brooke’s lips part and her pink cheeks darken to red as she nods and smiles up at me.

I pull away and step up to the mic. “Alright, now that our band is all here. Let’s get to praising our amazing Creator. Put your hands together and lift your voices to our King!” I strum my guitar and start singing the opening words of our camp theme song: “I Thank God”.

Next to me Brooke joins her voice to mine, and I lose myself in the emotion of worshiping God. The sense of His presence fills my body the way it always does when I’m praising Him. But there’s something special about this time. Knowing that Brooke too is pouring out her heart to God gives the moment a new significance. This is what it feels like to pursue Jesus with someone. Even at our best Kimberly and I never really had that. Sometimes we would praytogether, but she typically ended it quickly, wanting to move on to other things. She wasn’t a performer, but even when I would find her in the crowd on Sundays she wouldn’t be singing. “I don’t have a good voice,” she would say defensively when I brought it up.

She read her Bible and loved the Lord, but it wasn’t a central part ofourrelationship. More often it felt as if we were on parallel tracks, moving closer to God, yes, but on our own. This moment with Brooke feels as if we’ve hopped in the same train so that we can grow closer to God as a couple.

I glance over at her to find her hand in the air as she belts out the refrain. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. The joy of the Lord is alive and well in this place.

The song comes to an end and the room erupts in raucous cheers. I bring the day’s festivities to an end with a word of prayer, then release the kids.

---