She reaches up and lifts my chin so I am forced to meet her gaze, "Only okay?" she asks quietly."I mean, um, well, uh, it's really nice," I can feel m... breathing become a bit ragged as I am unsure what she means to do. Part of me secretely hoping that my fantasies might come true, part of me scared to death that someone might walk in and see us, afraid that maybe I am misunderstanding what she means."Ah, I see. Do you have a girlfriend Tim?" she whispers as she caresses my cheek."No," I reply. Football was really the only thing I ever had going for me. My sister has had the same boyfriend since the eighth grade, and being two years younger than myself didn't help the way I was feeling, I had never even kissed a girl! Not really kissed one anyway. I didn't even have a car, and my dad was on his second by the time he was my age.All this had really made me feel that I was behind in my own life. The only real accomplishment I've made is my football scholarship. Dad says I should take. One day I saw an add for someone to help maintain keep up an outside part of a large estate owned by an older single lady. Pay was "free rent" in the basement of a large home that had been converted to an apartment. I thought that it would cut back on a number of bills for an afternoon of work. I called the number and made an appointment with the lady. On arriving at this large property, I rang the doorbell and a woman in her late thirties answered the door with sweat pants and a tank top. She. “Chicago to San Francisco to Japan to Guam. It’ll take forever! But I have a week before I start duty to get settled into base housing.”“And you’re coming back in January?”“If everything goes according to plan. The Lieutenant Commander I’m replacing is having shoulder surgery in Japan and won’t fly back until he’s completed his initial rehab.”“How is little Nicholas going to handle that flight? He’s only two months old!”“He’ll sleep most of the way, I hope. But I couldn’t really leave Bethany.