“Oh come on, Ash. You’re acting like it’s the end of the world. Trust me, you’ll feel better after it’s all said and done,” I said, trying to get her in a better mood. “Please be good for me?” I asked, throwing in my infamous puppy pout for good measure. No one is immune to the puppy pout, especially her.

“Fine,” she said, aggravated at defeat. When she turned to rest her head on the window, I heard her mumbled something about “stupid doe eyes”, “irresistible”, and “always tricking me”.

I tried to rest my head on her shoulder, but the bumpy ride on the bus made it nearly impossible. Every time I would find a comfortable position, we would ride over a pothole and my head would lift up and come crashing down into Ashley’s shoulder, so I just opted to rest my hand on her knee. When my hand slowly began to travel farther up her leg, she turned toward me and smirked, looking into my eyes, to my lips, back up to my eyes again. Leaning over, she placed a kiss on my lips, then on my jaw line, down towards my neck. I pulled her closer into me when she latched onto pulse point. My hand moved from her thigh to the bottom of her shirt, caressing her abs. She moaned into my neck.

“I told you the back of the bus is better,” I breathed out.

She responded by biting my neck, making me squeal.

All of a sudden, the bus came to a halting screech.

“All right people! Let’s go. Let’s go. We have work to do,” Ms. Anita Moorehead yelled from the front of the bus.

Ashley groaned in frustration.

“Don’t worry. We’ll finish this later,” I promised.

We slowly got up and filed out the door, grabbing rakes from Ms. Moorehead as we stepped outside.

Looking around, I saw oak trees lined the block and leaves completely coated the ground, probably for three layers or more.

“Who’s great idea was it to come out here in the middle of nowhere?” Ashley huffed.

Ms. Moorehead told us to gather around in a circle.

“I want all of you to get in pairs, then the pair get into pairs so we have a group of four.”