Page 85 of The Stars in the Sky
Trust
"JUST FIVE MORE DAYS," I whispered Sunday night, lying in bed, leaning up against Will. "The kids leave after breakfast on Friday."
"Yeah," he answered, in his low rumble, against my neck, as he sucked on it, gliding his fingers up and down my bare arm. Letting out a sigh, he wrapped his arms around me in a big bear hug. "They gotta get here first, though." He squeezed me tight. "We got this." I relaxed and enjoyed his comforting warmth, trying to not think any more about the self-imposed sexual moratorium, and then drifted to sleep.
The next morning, a group of kids arrived at Headlands. They were entirely different than any previous group. This time we had twenty-five twelve and thirteen year olds from a Boys and Girls Club in East Los Angeles. Given the demographics of the area, I expected that they would all be Hispanic like me, and they were.
When the bus arrived, the children and leaders spilled out and I repeated the drill that I had done with the other groups, waving and enthusiastically greeting them. I noticed, immediately, that this group seemed quieter than the group from Oakland, the kids keeping amongst themselves, not chattering as much, and giving each other space, rather than mingling together.
One nervous-looking girl came up to me in the bunkhouse hall after she had set her duffle bag, sleeping bag, and pillow on a bottom bunk in the room. "I don't want to leave my things here. The door to the room doesn't lock."
"It’ll be safe, don't worry," I said.
She just looked at me. "Don't you have someplace, you know, safe, I can put them?"
"They'll be safe here," I repeated, and she looked at me skeptically and took off back down to the room. But she made me think. What would it be like if I didn't feel safe? If I didn't trust? Like how I trusted Will?
When they finished we went outside.
"Okay, guys," I said. "We are going to play a name game so that I can know who you are and what you like to do." I explained the game. We would go around in a circle and take turns saying our name and our favorite hobby. "I'm Marie and I like to eat vegan food."
The girl next to me, pretty, with shoulder length dark hair and glasses, said, "I'm Josephine and I like to listen to music, and this is Marie and she likes to eat vegan food." Then we continued with the next child, and so on.
Once we had gotten most of the way around the circle, the kids were starting to giggle at everyone's hobbies: "I like to eat gummy bears," "I like to play video games," "I like to watch YouTube," "I like to sleep in." Will walked by toward the end and I invited him to join us. Because he came in late to the game, he didn't have the advantage of hearing everyone repeating all the names twenty times. He tried to remember the children's names and failed miserably. "This is, uh, Danny—"
"David!" piped up a tiny boy in a Dodger t-shirt.
"Yeah, David, and he likes to play baseball—"
"No, play football."
I could see Will trying not to swear.
But he played along, asking David why he wore a baseball shirt if he liked football.
"Because it’s baseball season."
God, I loved my cowboy.
When we were done, I strode over to Will and whispered in his ear, "I think that participation in a name game earns you an extra treat on Friday."
"Holdin' you to that one," he responded, looking me in the eye, making me shiver even though it was hot out, and then sauntering to his truck.
"FOUR DAYS, DARLIN',"Will whispered in my ear that night as he spooned behind me. His breath against my neck set off a chain reaction of sensations in my body that wound up making me tense between my legs. "Nice work with the campfire tonight."
"Thanks," I whispered back. I flopped over and ran my fingers over his nipples and his pecs. But then he kissed me and that got a little out of control, tongues touching tongues, and we both had to pull back, breathing heavy.
We looked at each other.
"Night," I said hastily, at the same time that he said, "Night." He tucked me into him to go to sleep, both of us ignoring the feelings that were building: I had a wet throbbing between my legs and my breasts were heavy, and I could feel him poking me in the back, poor guy. I sighed and went to sleep.
The next day after breakfast, I took the kids to the corrals and they rode the horses under the watch of the wranglers.
I needed a break, so I ran into the ranch house, wandered down the hall, and opened the bathroom door to use it and collided into a naked, wet, William Charles Thrash III, owner of Headlands Ranch, standing, dripping shower water on a bath mat.
Figured.
He took one look at me, and his immediate pissed off look morphed into a full-on, out of control, male laugh, making him hold his toned tummy.
