December 17th- College Boy by LilyK

“Big enve­lope for you, Starsk!” Hutch called out as he entered their canyon home. Some­thing smells good!”

Hutch shrugged out his light­weight jack­et and duti­ful­ly hung it on the hook beside the door. Some­thing he’d learned from his 20-plus years liv­ing with a house hus­band: keep things tidy, and you don’t have to pick stuff up twice. Hutch smiled.

Turn­ing, he walked into the arms of his lover. They kissed.

“Uhmm, nice,” Hutch mur­mured. “Been cook­ing.”

“Yeah, I want­ed a good meal.” Starsky smiled at him, a beam that nev­er failed to bright­en up Hutch’s day.

Hutch grinned back. “Let me guess.” He sniffed the air. “Meat­loaf, made with that good organ­ic ground round steak you bought from the farm­ers’ mar­ket the oth­er day. Pota­toes, dit­to on the organ­ic, and… Wait!” He held up a fin­ger while sniff­ing deeply. “My favorite! Brus­sels sprouts!”

“Those are all yours. I made green beans for myself.” Starsky took the tea tow­el from his shoul­der. “Din­ner in ten. Want a quick show­er?”

“Please.” Hutch plant­ed a loud smack­er on the side of Starsky’s face, mak­ing him gig­gle. “Oh, this is for you.” He hand­ed his lover the mani­la enve­lope. Head­ing toward the bath­room, Hutch glanced back to find Starsky star­ing down at the enve­lope. Starsky would tell him in good time if it was some­thing he want­ed to share. Hur­ry­ing off, Hutch quick­ly stripped, show­ered, and changed into com­fort­able sweats.

When Hutch returned to the kitchen, he saw the table set, with sev­er­al casseroles on hot pads. Every­thing smelled fab­u­lous, and he was starv­ing.

Starsky was sit­ting at his usu­al spot. He start­ed chat­ter­ing the sec­ond Hutch sat down, dish­ing up the deli­cious food as he spoke.

“How was the police sta­tion? Did many kids show up for the D.A.R.E. pro­gram? Did you bring home some extra ice cream? Did Aman­da dress up as Daren the Lion?”

Hutch forked a Brus­sels sprout into his mouth and closed his eyes. He chewed slow­ly. “Jesus, Starsk, organ­ic makes every­thing bet­ter.”

Starsky grinned. He cut up his meat­loaf and poured gravy over it. “Noth­ing would make Brus­sels sprouts taste bet­ter, but… since I cooked them–” He speared a sprout and ate it. “They’re okay. If I were starv­ing, I’d eat them, but since I ain’t, I got green beans!”

Hutch helped him­self to a spoon­ful of the beans. They ate in silence until hunger was sat­ed. When Hutch had his fill, he leaned back and pat­ted his flat stom­ach. “You’re a mas­ter, Starsk. Deli­cious.”

“I made peach cob­bler for dessert from the peach­es you picked over at Kiko’s the oth­er day.”

“Wow, what’s the spe­cial occa­sion? Not that I’m com­plain­ing, mind.” Hutch put a hand on Starsky’s shoul­der and squeezed. “Some­thing’s got you excit­ed. I can tell.”

Starsky shrugged, jumped up, and went into the liv­ing room, return­ing in a few moments hold­ing the mani­la enve­lope. He unclipped the lit­tle met­al clasp and slid the con­tents into his hands.

Hutch watched expec­tant­ly. It was a large white doc­u­ment, mea­sur­ing rough­ly eleven by four­teen, with what he could see was a gold bor­der around the text. “Starsk?”

Starsky took in a deep breath before huff­ing it out. He held the doc­u­ment toward Hutch so he could read it. The head­line was from Bay City Vir­tu­al Uni­ver­si­ty in large black let­ters. Hutch had heard about this from sev­er­al peo­ple when they attend­ed the police offi­cers’ annu­al pic­nic and oth­er Bay City events. He also remem­bered see­ing a kiosk from this orga­ni­za­tion at the Bay City Fourth of July street fair.

Hutch rose slow­ly. “Starsky, this is amaz­ing!” He read the con­tents. “You grad­u­at­ed with hon­ors? Wow. Why did­n’t you tell me?”

Starsky gave a crooked grin. “I want­ed to sur­prise you. I know all those years we were on the force, that some of the oth­er cops thought I was too dumb to be your part­ner, col­lege boy. Remem­ber when we played Scrab­ble at that par­ty, and I did­n’t win?”

“Christ, Starsk, nobody thought that! Scrab­ble? That was years ago!” Hutch put the diplo­ma down. “Lis­ten to me. You were amaz­ing on the street. Besides,” Hutch said, hold­ing Starsky’s hands, “you were a crack shot, and you got com­men­da­tions for brav­ery! You were the best part­ner a fel­low cop could have.”

“Thanks, Hutch,” Starsky said, unable to keep from blush­ing. “You, too. The best.”

Hutch looked down at the diplo­ma. “Com­put­er Sci­ence with a minor in Span­ish.” He raised his head to hold Starsky’s gaze. “I can’t tell you how impressed I am.”

“Ah, geez, Starsky said, “thanks. I believe com­put­ers will be the future, and know­ing a bit of Span­ish means I can help peo­ple learn how to use them effec­tive­ly. I’m gonna vol­un­teer at the job train­ing cen­ter for a day or two a week.”

Hutch pulled Starsky into his arms. They kissed until both were sway­ing on their feet.

Hutch put a hand on Starsky’s cheek. “Let’s take this to the bed­room, Pro­fes­sor.”

Starsky laughed. “I’m going to teach you a few moves, bud­dy boy.”

Hutch always did like how seri­ous­ly Starsky took hands-on demon­stra­tions when he taught gun safe­ty at The Acad­e­my. Now he would enjoy being cleaned and pol­ished by a mas­ter.

“I’ll get the gun oil, er, lube, and meet you in two min­utes!” Hutch rushed off, the grin on his face enough to make the Grand Canyon look small. “Proud of you, col­lege boy!” he called over his shoul­der. He took a moment to glance back at his world wrapped up in a pack­age called Starsky. The plea­sure he could see etched on his lover’s face made him the hap­pi­est man in the uni­verse.

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