He laughed, as if to show he realized how slim the chances of that were, but that a fellow’s got to be ready, any time, day or night, if there was even a hint of a chance that stray women might wander over to their campfire.
“Coming with?” asked Wayne as he gathered his shaving things.
Kell didn’t have much of a beard, but he changed into his cowboy boots, found his disposable razor and a can of shaving cream, and trotted after Wayne.
Watching Wayne shave wasn’t at all like watching Marston shave, as Wayne slopped the shaving cream everywhere, and didn’t seem to care if he nicked himself, not at all like the quiet ritual that Marston had made of shaving.
Kell shaved quickly too, because now that he’d been given permission, by Wayne, of all people, to wear his new boots a lot, he wanted to show them to Marston and see if Maddy was right in that Marston had the same boots. And whether Marston would mind that they were boot twins.
Newly shaved, they dropped their gear back at their shared tent, then made their way in the lengthening shadows to the fire pit.
There, Gabe and Blaze were hunkered down, blowing gently on the kindling beneath the teepee shaped pyre. A trail of smoke, a gray and silver ribbon, rose from the top of the teepee, and Kell could see only the barest flickers of flame.
Up from the mess tent, Royce and Jonah walked, with Duane, Tyson, and Gordy trailing behind. They were all carrying supplies for s’mores, making Kell’s mouth water at the thought of it.
All of this activity left Wayne and Kell with nothing to do but stand around with their hands in their pockets, though Kell was secretly pleased to see that everyone was wearing cowboy boots and hats, as if the little impromptu campfire had turned itself into a celebration of sorts. As if the whole world wanted to acknowledge that Kell had made it through his first week, skin intact.
Well, except for a few bumps and bruises, but that was nothing. He was fine. He was going to be fine.
But where was Marston? Kell kept his focus on the woods behind him, turning to look every so often, but pretending he wasn’t, because the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that he was looking for Marston.
The woods grew dark and still no Marston. The wood in the fire pit caught, the orange and gold flames licking up into the darkness, woodsmoke drifting over to Kell as Wayne and the others settled into the Adirondack chairs or onto hay bales covered with cherry red wool blankets, their faces aglow. Only Kell was left standing, even though he could have taken a seat next to Duane on a hay bale.
Blaze headed off into the woods, pocket knife in hand, to gather sticks to roast marshmallows with, because some people liked using sticks rather than metal skewers, and Kell knew he was coming back from the crunch-crunch sound of his boots on the pine needles. Only when he turned it was Marston, with Blaze right behind him.
“Excuse me,” said Blaze, slipping past Marston with sticks tucked beneath his arm.
Marston’s face was aglow from the light of the fire, the hard planes of his jawline limned in gold and blue-gold, his eyes reflecting the flickering dance of the flames.
He wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat, but his skin was smooth from a recent shave, his neck bold and bare above the partially undone snap buttons of his shirt. Kell could smell the scent of his cologne in the cool night air, something dusky and low.
“Hey, there,” said Marston, and though his mouth didn’t smile as he said this, Kell sensed there was a smile in those hazel-blue eyes, and maybe that smile was for Kell, just for Kell.
“Hey,” said Kell, looking up at Marston.
He knew he was blocking the way, that Marston couldn’t get to the fire, either to sit or stand, without going around Kell or through him. But in this moment, he had Marston all to himself and, with his back to everybody else, he did not have to hide that he was looking. Didn’t have to hide the way his body leaned toward Marston’s, the height of him blocking the dark shadows from the woods, the warmth of him reaching Kell as though it meant to surround him.
“Everything okay?” asked Marston, his voice low and somber, as if he suddenly realized there might be something wrong and very much wanted to do something about it.
“I think we have the same boots,” said Kell, every other even remotely clever, funny, or insightful thing he might have thought to say running away like a field of escaping bunnies.
“Oh?” The surprise was evident in Marston’s voice, and it seemed for a moment, his eyebrows twitching down, that he meant to cover that surprise for he said, quite smoothly, too smoothly, perhaps, “Is that so?”
Then, in the next second, a bit of the smile Kell so longed to see finally broke through, a gentle, small curve in the corner of Marston’s mouth.
“Show me.”
Pleased, Kell went to the nearest empty hay bale and plonked himself down, with Marston sitting down at his side a second later. He hitched one ankle over his knee and pulled up the hem of his blue jeans to reveal the soft brown leather of his new boot, the low, curved inlay inside of which a pale, soft green showed.
“I didn’t know you had this pair when I tried them on,” said Kell, ready to make an apology, ready to run to the ranch’s store to exchange this pair for a different one, if needed. If Marston wanted him to.
Maybe he should have done that the second Maddy had told him about Marston’s boots. Then he wouldn’t be squirming with a kind of anticipatory embarrassment to be caught copying Marston. Or maybe he shouldn’t care?
It was all jumbled now, his pleasure that they were boot twins battling with whether Marston would be insulted or pleased.
Marston, in echo of Kell, hitched his leg up over his knee so their boots were just about sole-to-sole, and pulled up the hem of his blue jeans. He ran a slow hand down the length of the shaft, fingers curling over the instep.
“I picked these out last season,” he said. “They’re good and broken in now.”
