Faith

Trust

Jamal sat pouring over the sports section of the newspaper when Sawyer appeared for breakfast the next morning. 

Sawyer smiled, trying to make friendly conversation with the older man, he wasn't giving in - he was determined to build bridges with Ariana's father.  "Beautiful morning?" 

Jamal nodded, acknowledging that Sawyer had spoken, but not engaging in any chit-chat. 

Sawyer inhaled a cleansing breath and tried again, "Ariana tells me you're both big Celtics fans, Mr Omari?" 

Jamal looked up from the paper, annoyance barely disguised as he nodded just once, "Yep, local team." 

Sawyer felt his jaw tick as he swallowed hard; this was proving to be fairly torturous. 

He went back in for Round Three, "Great result for your team last weekend, Sir." 

Jamal looked back up from the paper once more, "It was.  And your team are...?" 

Sawyer smiled affably as he told Jamal that he wasn't a huge basketball fan, given that Montana didn't have an NBA team, but if he had to pick a team it would be the Yellowjackets, the college team in Billings. 

Jamal looked remotely interested for the first time, "So what is your sport if it's not basketball?" 

Sawyer's eyes lit up at the engagement; maybe he was finally starting to break down some walls...
"To be honest, Sir, the sport I love more than anything else is rodeo; but if I were to watch sport on TV, it would probably be football.  I used to play at high-school.  I had a good chance of getting into the Bobcats team at Montana State, but I was more interested in pursuing rodeoing and supporting my dad on the ranch after my mom passed away." 

Jamal looked slightly taken aback - he didn't trust the kid, but it would be a pretty shitty thing to do, not to acknowledge that he'd lost his mother, and clearly at a young age, "I'm sorry to hear about your mother, Sawyer.  Never easy." 

Sawyer dipped his head, looking down, "No, Sir, it's not.  But... You keep going...  My mamma would have loved Ari.  She only had two boys, you see..." 

Jamal gave Sawyer a terse half-smile as he gestured to the counter, "There's coffee in the pot, if you want one."

---

Ariana and Sawyer had been texting through the bedroom wall half the night. 

Ariana had lain awake half the night, feeling cold and lonely, missing the feeling of Sawyer's body close to hers, the rhythm of his heartbeat lulling her gently to sleep. 

In his final message, Sawyer had asked Ariana to give him a little time before she headed downstairs in the morning, to give him a chance to use his 'country charm' on her dad...  Of all the things that Ariana had discovered about Sawyer that tugged at her heart-strings, his tenacity and the amount of fight he displayed when he was hell-bent on achieving a goal, had to be in her top five favourites... 

She pulled on her jeans as she smiled, her stomach full of butterflies thinking about him; how kind and gentle his heart was, the way his strong arms felt around her body when he pulled her close to him, how peaceful he looked when he was asleep, the heat and intensity of his stare when they made love... 

She was torn from her musings as the door knocked, quickly throwing her cream sweater over her head, she shouted, "Come in?" 

Louise poked her head around the doorframe, "Hi sweetie..." 

She walked over and pulled Ariana into a warm hug, whispering, "I missed you..." as she laced her fingers through Ariana's sitting down on the end of the freshly-made bed.