"Oh, look here comes the other team," I exclaimed. "Warm ups, right?"

"Yeah," said Matty, who was next to me. He started talking to Janelle, who was on the other side of him, about some famous player or other, whose name meant nothing to me. And they were gigantic. I'd never seen an NFL game in person, but they looked of a size with those players to my eye.

We sat and watched them, and they were amazing. They looked part acrobat, the way they could manipulate the ball without their hands. And the strength in their legs was amazing. Like in water polo, they lined up for drills, taking turns kicking, sprinting, doing god knew what, it was mesmerizing.

"Wow, look at their thighs," I breathed. "They're like the size of my waist. Jesus."

Teddy turned to look at me. "You little minx, are you getting turned on by all these huge men and their massive muscles?" He nudged my shoulder, smiling.

"Huh? What?" I turned to him. "Are you out of your mind? They look deformed." I linked my arm through his. "I spent my formative years looking at swimmers. That's my standard, that's what looks normal to me: Broad shoulders, tapered waist, long, legs, flat stomach, six pack, and thin, thin, thin." I smiled. "Oh, and tan. And looks totally comfortable soaking wet in a Speedo."

I looked back at the men on the pitch. "Honestly, these guys look like gorillas in clothes. Kind of under-evolved, to be honest. Like cavemen."

Matty had turned and caught the tail end of our conversation. "Don't say that too loudly, Tinker Bell, you could get strung up for words like that around here. Feelings run high in stadium on game days."

I looked around. The stadium had been filling up around us while warm ups continued, and quite a huge cluster of Crushies had gathered behind our VIP section. They had obviously only come to see the boys, and to see Gethin play. They were in full UKC regalia, soccer be damned. I could hear all three boys' names being called, and, incredibly, Janelle's and mine as well.

I turned toward them and the pitch of their voices went up, with the girls waving desperately in our direction. "Tinker Bell," they screamed.

"Just ignore them." Teddy turned me back around. "If you acknowledge them, they'll never stop."

"But what could they possibly want from me?" I asked. "It's not like I'm you."

"No, but you know me, for them that's enough," he responded. "Sometimes they want to give you something to give to one of us, sometimes they want to be your friend, hoping that will lead to a friendship with us, who knows?" He looked at me. "What?"

"Don't you think it would be very nice and UKC like if you guys went over there for just a minute?" I asked.

He looked at me. "You think so? That would make you happy?"

"Well, it's something you guys would normally do anyway, isn't it?" I responded.

He considered. "I suppose you're right."

As he turned to the other boys, Ronan spoke from the far end. "Lads? How about we take a few minutes before things get too crazy and go say hello to the fans? There aren't too many yet, shouldn't take too long, what do you say?"

I smiled at Teddy and turned to include Matty and Ronan too. "Go," I encouraged. The three of them turned and climbed up the stairs, causing the screaming to reach fever pitch. Janelle and I turned to watch.

"Too bad for Gethin's fans," I said to Janelle.

"No, they'll get to watch him play football, which almost never happens," she responded. "He really loves it, and it shows, so that'll be really special for them.

"Wow, look at those girls, they're never going to forget this," she remarked. "That one looks like she might have a stroke, you see her? The one hanging on your Theo, just there, in the stripes?" She pointed. Indeed, there was a girl with long brown hair, who had grabbed onto Teddy and didn't want to let go. She seemed to be trying to climb over the barrier. Security stepped in and pulled her arms off him as he stood and tried to remain neutral, as he'd been taught in media training, but she had hold of his hair and his clothes.

I started to head over there. Janelle reached for me, but I shook her off. I hadn't had any media training, and I didn't give a shit, anyway. It wouldn't have mattered to me if it had been Ronan or Matthew or Geth, I couldn't just stand and watch one of them be hurt.

The girl saw me and began shrieking something which I couldn't understand. Teddy saw me coming and waved me away, shouting, "Get back, get back!" Matty saw me too, and and came to head me off.

"Tinker Bell, you shouldn't be here," he chided, taking my arm. Security had succeeded in pulling the girl off of Teddy and were now escorting her away, hopefully out of the stadium.

I shook his hand off my arm. "I'm not going, I'm not going, okay?" I said, hugging him to take the sting out my words. "Go." I waved my hand. "Go back to your fans, they're waiting for you. I'll stay right here."

He looked at me doubtfully.

"Honestly, I won't move," I promised. "Go!"

He walked back to the waiting fans, and went back to signing things and posing for pictures. I stayed where I was and watched. Nothing else went wrong, the rest was all happiness and rainbows, with the boys all smiling, posing, and writing.

One of the girls gestured and pointed for me to go over to them for a photograph, but Teddy emphatically shook his head no, explaining something to the girl. A few minutes later the UK team took the pitch for warm ups and the boys left, waving goodbye to the girls and blowing kisses as they left.

"Hey, Theo?" Ronan said, waving to the girls.

"Yeah mate?" Teddy responded while taking my hand and heading back to our seats.

"I think you're bleeding a bit on your neck from where that crazy girl grabbed you. You might want to take a swipe at it with a tissue or something when we get back to our seats, okay?" Ronan turned to negotiate the steps.

"Got it, thanks," Teddy said, moving aside to let me in to my seat before taking his. He turned so I could see his neck. There was indeed a scratch, very shallow, but with a streak of blood flowing down into the neck of his sweater.

I pulled a tissue out of my shoulder bag, licked it and wiped up the blood.

"I can't believe you just did that," he said, smiling at me. "Very maternal."

"You're the second person who's said something like that to me today," I said, returning his smile.

I was examining the collar of his sweater. It was very poorly made; the stitch work was very open and ragged, obviously done by machine, with cheap yarn. "This sweater sucks," I announced.

"This sweater is made by a very famous designer and was quite expensive," he said huffily.

"I bet you get chilled easily and it pills, too," I countered.

"Pills?" He asked.

"Yeah, you know, it gets little rolls of yarn all over it, like this?" And I plucked a couple off him. "Happens with poor quality yarn that isn't twisted tight enough." I patted his chest. "I'll make you a couple of new ones when we get back home," I told him.

"Thank you, darling," he said, kissing me. "That's very domestic of you, and very dear. Makes me want to go out and chop wood and build you something.

"But hey, I almost forgot, I'm very cross with you," he said, giving me a shake.

"What?" I was surprised. "About what?"

"When that crazy girl was grabbing me and shouting all that stuff about you and you came running, that's the last thing you should ever do," he said, looking at me. "She was out of her mind, a real nutter, you need to avoid people like that, not run right to them." He turned to Matthew, who had turned to listen. "Tell her, Matthew."

"Theo's right, Tink. Did you hear the stuff she was shouting?" Matty's blue eyes were narrowed with concern.

I shook my head.

"She was completely off her head, saying things about how Theo was actually hers, and you had stolen him from her, and she was going to kill you." He put his hand on my shoulder. "Most of our fans aren't like that, but every once in a while you get a really strange one, and when you do, you need to stay well away, not get closer, you understand? They rarely want to hurt us boys, but they do sometimes want to hurt people close to us, especially our girlfriends, and that's what you are." He gave my shoulder a little shake. "So when you see that, stay where you are or go for help, and never, ever, come any closer, do you understand?" He looked at me. I nodded, and looked back at Teddy, chastened.

"Understand?" Teddy repeated.

"Yes," I said. "Sorry. I just saw her hurting you, and it was a knee jerk reaction."

"Kind of like wanting to go to Ireland and punch the daylights out of a waitress in a pub?" Teddy said with a laugh.

"What?" asked Matty.

"Wait until I tell you, mate," Teddy said to him over my head. I tried to cover his mouth with my hand, but he just batted it away and held my hands down as he told the story. By the end they were both helpless with laughter, and of course Matty had to repeat it to Ronan and Janelle, which made them laugh, too, although Ronan did come and pick me up for a big hug and kiss, telling me that I was the "sweetest thing ever", which made it a little better.

"Oh, look, there's Geth," Janelle said, pointing, and there he was, in a uniform with his name and the letters "UK" emblazoned on the back, looking incredibly handsome in the sunlight, running with his teammates. Compared to the others, he seemed quicker somehow, more agile, because of his size. He could dart in and out; where they had to lumber around like bears, he was more like a wolf, getting quickly in and out of where he needed to be. The knot in my stomach loosened a little.

Teddy gave me a little squeeze. "Feel better now you've seen him in action?" He asked. I nodded.

The noise level had become frenetic as the stadium filled. Teddy pulled me close, so he could speak directly into my ear.

"I don't want anything to interfere with your fun today, I really don't, but I have to tell you this, yeah?" I nodded. "You need to be aware, every moment that we're here, that you might be getting your picture taken, or that someone might be recording you, from really far away. You can't see them, but the paps are all over this place, and they all know we're here already. So be extra careful about everything you do or say, okay? If we kiss, we can't let our tongues show. If we touch each other, it can't be in private places. We can't touch ourselves in private places. We can't pick our noses." By now we were both laughing. "All that good stuff. Got it? And for Christ's sake, don't pick today to eat ice cream with any of the boys, or god forbid, Janelle, for the first time, okay? Hmm?" And he kissed my ear, still laughing. I nodded.

"Can I just kiss you, like a regular kiss?" I asked.

In response he laid one on me, a nice one, one arm around me, one hand on my face, noses touching, very intimate, considering we were standing in the middle of 70,000 people.

"I love you, Birdie, so much, you make me so happy," he said. I took a deep breath, with a hitch in the middle of it.

"I'm dangerously close to giving someone a really inappropriate picture," I warned.

"Fuck 'em," he said comfortably, kissing me again, lots of tongues all over the place, making my stomach fluttery, making my knees weak.

Ronan grabbed Janelle and came to stand in front of us, putting his arm around her and cheering lustily for the home team as they cleared the pitch for the start of the match.

"Thanks, mate," said Teddy with a laugh, leaning forward to kiss Ronan on the cheek.

"Anytime," said Ronan with a smile, heading back to his seat with a laughing Janelle.

The game began and progressed with a confusion of whistles and players converging on the ball, with Gethin frequently right in the middle of a huge crush of massive players for the opposing team. It didn't seem like he was being very careful to me.

The crowd was like another participant in the game; they roared, groaned, swore at the referees. I had no idea if American stadium sports were like this, as I had never attended any, but the energy level was insane. I thought that selling alcohol at these events was incredibly shortsighted, if not down right dangerous; a call in the European team's favor caused a brawl to break out in the section right above us.

During half time Gethin jogged over to where we were. We all crowded over to the barrier to greet him. He was out of breath and all smiles, obviously having the time of his life. He hugged his sister first, kissing her cheek, telling her he was so glad she had come.

"You enjoying the match?" He asked everyone. "Everyone explaining things to you, poppet?" He asked me.

"As much as they can," I responded. "I'm not very sports minded at best, but it's so much fun watching you," I said with a smile.

"There's my lovely smile," he said, pulling me over the barrier to kiss me on the mouth.

Teddy held me around the waist so I wouldn't fall into the pitch, and he pulled me back over, saying, "No doubt that pic will earn some pap a pretty penny."

"Ah, sod 'em," said Geth. He was in a great mood, nothing was going to bring him down.

"Wren!" His coach bawled, and he jogged off to join his team in the locker room.

Teddy kept his arms around my waist. "Did you have to kiss him on his mouth?" He whispered in my ear.

"He kissed me," I whispered back. "What did you want me to do? Spit at him? Punch him?"

"Surely you could've thought of something in between? Hmm?" He kissed my cheek.

"Maybe a little ice cream?" I teased, rubbing my backside against his frontside with a little laugh. He squeezed my waist, tickling me through my sweater and lifting me off my feet. I laughed harder, struggling to get down.

"Matty, help me," I gasped. Teddy put me down, and I ran to Matthew. I sat in his lap and put my arms around his neck. Matty looked at me in surprise.

Teddy just shook his head, smiling, and sat down. "You love me, you have to come back sooner or later, I'll get you then," he promised.