Chapter 4

The next day as we were walking around Campus I noticed that there was another football team playing on the same field as us, and they looked a lot better than ours.

'What's the deal with them?' I asked Stella, who was hanging on to my arm, swinging it back and forth.

'That's the Cardinals, Stanford's football team.'

'Huh?'

She laughed musically, 'mmm, I didn't want to say anything, but you're like the B-Team, most of these guys were recruited out of high school and most of them will probably go pro. I don't know if you realized it, but college football is kind of a big deal.'

'So I'm just a B-Team kid?' I sniffed.

'Aww, ' she planted an excessively wet kiss on my cheek. 'You're an A-grade man to me and you always will be. Who cares if you're the B-Team?'

I was shattered, 'I thought I was so cool for a minute there, those girls in the hallway, my dreams... '

She punched me in the arm. 'Dumbass, you would get checked out wearing a potato sack and school tie for a belt, you're sexy. Besides, the Wolverines are popular as well. It's like the fun version and there is less drama than the real deal.'

'Ahh well.' I sighed. 'At least I won't get a big head now.'

'Uh huh, well, you will be happy to know, though, that there is a bitter rivalry between the two teams and they are always doing pranks and all that to each other. Since you still love acting like a little kid I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself. '

'That IS good news.' I felt my chest swelling. And here was I thinking college was just going to be sleeping in lectures and going to training.

Stella smiled, 'You're so funny, you're actually more excited now than you were before, aren't you?'

'Maybe a little.' I admitted.

'Do you think they have a mascot we can kidnap?' I asked hopefully.

'Not sure. Would you really want to kidnap an old priest, though?' she said dubiously.

'All in good time, my love, ' I slapped her firm behind.

We wandered down to the cactus garden for a bit and watched the clouds rolling in from way over at the bay. Looked like there was going to be a storm some time soon.

'Hey, Hunter, ' Stella said suddenly, 'can I ask you something?'

'Of course.'

'What's it like to have a family?'

'Well my family isn't probably the best thing to judge against, the whole thing with Keira... ' I frowned.

'I know, but not that, it just feels like I've always been alone before we moved in together, and now I wonder what it was like to be growing up with parents that talked to you, and getting lectures about life. I just feel like I lost a lot of what I could have had.

?Do you think I can make up for it with them?'

I held her hand. 'I think so, your parents don't seem like bad people. They just don't have a sense of priority as to what's important to them. Drinking fancy booze and eating expensive dinners is probably how they feel like you want to be treated. They don't realise that if they came over for a beer it would be what you really wanted.'

'Maybe... ' she let her voice drift off.

'But to answer your question, it's great. If I didn't have to go to college I probably wouldn't have ever left home. Sometimes when I was younger we used to fight, but when I realised they were just as new to being a parent as I was to being a kid, we helped each other out. There is something reassuring to know there are people in your life who will never judge you, never betray you, and always do their best to be there for you.

But even if you never get that with your parents, you'll always have it with me. No matter what happens, if we are together or not, I'm always going to look after you, whether you need it or not.'

'You are so getting lucky tonight.' She smiled.

'I get lucky every night.' I pointed out.

'I know, but this time I'll think of something special.' I could see the ideas flashing past on her face. I liked the look of it.

Lucky for us, Pepper was out when we got home.

Stella put a finger on my chest, 'You, go take a shower and wait for me in bed. I'll be up soon, but you can't come down until I say so, deal?'

'Okay, deal.' I could already feel the excitement rising up in my cockles.

I went up and took a quick shower, cleaned up our room, and got into bed.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited a bit longer, I looked at the clock dubiously, it had been almost forty minutes and just as I was abut to give up and see what the hell was going on the door opened a crack.

Stella entered with a wicked smile, but that wasn't what caught my attention. It was what she was wearing, actually, wearing probably wasn't the best description. The only way to describe it is that it was like those body paint shows they do when you have the hot model with a painted on bikini.

Well that was what was happening here, in shades of red, blue, brown and yellow Stella had a perfectly crafted one piece swimsuit that covered her chest, ran in a diagonal line down her hips and across her crotch. It looked amazing, and there was a tent in the sheets just from my looking at her.