He watched her pull a first aid kit down from the shelf. She couldn’t have been that tall. Five two, three tops, he guessed. He greedily drank in the sight of her large breasts and generous curves, filling out her knee-length shorts and “God’s Work Youth Missions” tee.
“Here, take the whole tube.”
Electricity zapped through him when she pressed a tube of Benadryl anti-itch gel into his hand.
She eyed him worriedly. “And you’ll be needing sunscreen too. You’re already turning red.”
Back to the shelves, and she returned with a bottle of Cal-Mart brand sunscreen.
“You didn’t bring any of this stuff with you?” she asked, pressing the 50-proof block into his other hand.
“I didn’t even think about sunscreen,” he admitted, finding his voice. “I brought some Off with me, but it was in my luggage…”
Her face lit up with understanding. “Oh wait, are you Benjamin Keane? We got a phone call about your suitcase a few minutes ago. My mom’s going to grab it at the airport after she picks up the next batch of kids.”
Her mom…This must be the daughter of the squat little Black woman who picked them up from the Port Columbus International Airport. That meant they’d be spending the entire summer together. And no one knew him here. He could be whoever he wanted. Pursue whoever he wanted without judgment from his teammates.
“What’s your name?” he asked again. Not because he was confused this time. He just wanted to know. He needed to know.
“Brady? Brady, man, is that you?” a voice asked behind him.
A familiar voice.
Benjamin turned to see Donovan, their hockey team captain at Boston Glenn, the Catholic boarding school they both attended. Though Donovan wasn’t there on scholarship.
He was everything Benjamin only pretended to be. Rich, confident—the kind of guy who created shadows for his younger brothers instead of living in them, as Benjamin did with his older brother.
And now he was here in the mission director’s office.
“I was worried when my parents made me go on this stupid mission trip at the last minute. I’m supposed to be building character or whatever. But Halverson said he thought you might be on this trip too. Glad he was right.”
He slapped palms with Benjamin and pulled him in for a quick bro hug. “Those Southies in your cabin weren’t much help finding you. Come hang with me and my Connecticut crew, if you’re done with whatever you’re doing here.”
He cast a quizzical look between his teammate and the chubby black girl he’d been staring down like a meal he planned to eat.
“Brady?” the girl asked before he could answer. “I thought your name was Benjamin.”
“Everybody on my team calls me Brady,” he explained quickly. “Usually, we use last names. But my older brother was this huge hockey star when he was there, and he just signed with the Boston Hawks, so it would be weird to call me Keane. I mean, he holds so many records at our school, they retired his jersey and hung it up on the wall.”
He was babbling. He could hear himself babbling. This girl made him lose track of his tongue. But he wrapped up his unnecessarily long explanation with, “Anyway, that’s why everyone—even my own cousins—call me by my middle name. Brady. But you know, call me whatever you want…”
Then he asked a third time. “What’s your name?”
“Countess,” she admitted with a grimace. “But everyone calls me Tess. So please don’t make any Moesha or The Parkers jokes.”
Okay, he might have caught an episode or two of those UPN shows. “I won’t, as long as you don’t compare me to Tom Brady.”
She laughed. It was a beautiful laugh, and the smile that accompanied it lit up his entire chest.
“I dunno. I don’t look that much like Countess Vaughn. But if you lightened up your hair, you could play young Tom Brady in the Lifetime movie.”
Now, it was his turn to laugh.
“Brady, you coming or what?” Donovan demanded behind him.
Reminding him about the world beyond them.
“I—I’ll let you know when your bag gets here.” Tess took a step back and cast him a flustered look. Was she feeling it too? All the fireworks exploding in the background of their conversation?
