He Called Me His Plaything in Front of His Men, So I Left Carrying His Heir novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: Gardner Road
The creek ran low and brown between two banks of cottonwood roots, a few steps wide, over flat stones.
It was the first warm afternoon of the year.
My mother had taken the cousin's old pickup into Gardner at noon to find the Catholic church and the priest, and had said she would be back by dark.
She had looked at me for exactly as long as it takes to count to three, and then she had gone.
I had a quilt from the farmhouse bed over my arm and a thermos in my hand.
Aurelio carried nothing, and walked with his hands in his pockets, looking around him at the sky as if he had never seen so much of it.
"I've been in Kansas City my whole life," he said. "I didn't know it came out this size."
"The sky?"
"The quiet."
I spread the quilt in a patch of dry winter grass under the biggest cottonwood.
The sun came through the bare branches in long gold bars.
I sat down and patted the quilt beside me, and he sat, and I put my hand on the back of his neck.
"Lie down," I said.
He lay on his back with his eyes on the branches.
I knelt over him and looked at his face in the daylight.
I had never seen him like that, outdoors, with nothing behind his head but sky.
There were lines at the corners of his eyes I had not noticed.
His mouth looked younger.
"What?" he said.
"You look like somebody's brother."
"I'm somebody's brother."
"I know. I mean somebody's who isn't scared." I bent and kissed him, slow, with my hand flat on his chest.
He kissed me back, and his hands came up to my waist and stayed there, light, waiting.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Called Me His Plaything in Front of His Men, So I Left Carrying His Heir are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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