2nd December

The next morning Maia overslept and her uncle's family let her sleep. When she woke up she could hear them in the dining room downstairs and she hesitantly took the towel, that Sophie left for her, and checked a few doors before she found the shower. It felt refreshing to have the water run over her fur and make her fur silky and smelling nice with shampoo. She even put on a bit of perfume after she dried her fur and after returning to her room, she put on an orange dress before she slowly went down the stairs.

"Good Morning" her uncle smiled and waved with his paw to signal her to close in to the table and sit down on an empty chair. Next to her uncle Maia saw Sophie, who was just standing up to go into the kitchen and a boy, a bit older than herself. Like his parents he was a red fox, standing a head taller than her and his physics was strong for his age. It was clear that he was getting the physics of his father. They both looked like athletes. Maia blushed a bit. While she had admired her uncle as an handsome adult, seeing someone her age that stunned her with his looks made her extremely shy and embarrassed. "Good Morning Maia. I will get the eggs and beacon for you." Sophie said. "Sit down and make yourself at home." And with this she left the room and Maia could hear her in the kitchen. Maia hesitantly sat down between her uncle and the boy. "This is my son Derick, your cousin." Introduced Patrick the boy to her. "Hello, I am Maia." Her voice sounded a bit shaky and she raised her eyes with the blood shooting into her head to look at the boy. His blue eyes were a perfect fit for his handsome face and the boy as well seemed to be a bit shy and embarrassed. "Hi." He just whispered and both kids quickly looked back at their plate. In this moment Sophia came in with the eggs and bacon and Maia could soon distract herself with eating a tasty and plenty breakfast. It tasted good but for some reason Maia could not concentrate on her food. It was not just the older boy next to her that made her nervous and her heart race, but also her uncle. She had always been very shy and introverted, but in this new environment together with two males that were built like a dream was a bit too much so early in the morning. While her mother was a beauty, her father was rather average. As an artic fox he was always seen as being exotic, because of his white fur, the same way Maia was seen, but Maia was so used to him that she never really thought about the looks of her father. With her uncle and cousin this was totally different. She got into the age where boys and men became interesting. She loved romantic movies and for some reason both relatives just looked like actors might look. Partly this also came from Maia not being used to spend breakfast with others without her parents sitting next to her. In the city she had not have much opportunities to stay over at a friend's house. One of the reasons was, that the house of her parents was so big, that often she had friends over instead of going to them. The only time she had spent a night alone with a school mate was her best friend Mimi, a goat, whose father was dead and who lived with her two sisters, her mother and the grandparents. The atmosphere at this breakfast was much different. Her uncle and aunt seemed to not notice the reservation at all, explained her a lot about the town, most of it Maia forgot instantly, and asked her if she wanted to have more food or cocoa. Her cousin seemed to have the same reservations at first. When Maia forced herself to look at him from the corner of her eye, she saw him focus on his plate as strong as she did.

"The weather is not so nice today." Sophie ripped her out of her thoughts. "I think we will have to wait until the next days to show you around. Are you going to church with your parents Maia?" It was much easier to talk to Sophie and Maia finally found back her courage and her heart slowly stopped racing. "Only sometimes." She admitted. Her parents were very busy even on the weekends and even though they were religious, they were not very regular in the church. "Well, we go to church every week here. It is only a short mass. I imagine you would not even call it a church, because it is more a small chapel what we have here. But pastor Park is very nice and I am sure you will like it." Maia smiled at her aunt. She never had had much interest in the church, but she also did not hate it. "Derick, are you ready? Have you packed your things?" Maia looked surprised from her aunt, to her uncle and finally to Derick. The boy also seemed to get out of his frozen state. "I told you before mom that I am ready. I packed everything before I came down for breakfast." His mother made a gesture with her paw to calm him down. "I only asked. If you are ready wash your plate and get your bag. Your father will bring you twenty minutes." - "Where are you going?" curiosity won over her anxiousness and Maia looked at her uncle. "Derick has a soccer match today. Not the best weather for it, but it is the last before the winter holidays. After that they will have no training anymore and the game is also very important, because if they win..." his voice, that sounded very proud, was cut short by the now more energetic and annoyed voice of Derick. "... I know dad. Do you want to make me even more nervous?" With these words he went up the stairs to get his stuff. "Do you want to go with them?" aunt Sophie asked and Maia nodded. She had never been interested in soccer much, but she thought it would be the best opportunity to watch Derick, and his father, without feeling stupid or embarrassed all the time.

In the car Maia slowly lost the nervousness around her uncle and Derick the same way the boy did towards her. It turned out that they had a similar taste in music and her uncle asked Maia about the life in the city, how her parents were doing and how school was for her. Maia told them about the tennis and athletic club that she went and that she barely missed the cut to get into the finals with her team this summer. It turned out that Derick was a very passionate soccer player and his father also played in the past. Now Patrick worked as an accountant in a city that was around fifty kilometers away, but he took off for the whole month to spend the holidays with his family. The soccer game was something completely new for Maia. It seemed to be as popular in Europe as Baseball or Football in America and Maia learned the rules very fast. The rain even picked up a bit and She sat next to her uncle, who protected her from the rain with an umbrella. Maia's admiration of Derick grew, when she saw him in action. He had been right that he was very athletic and strong. He was the striker of his team and the other team had to cover him with three players to keep him in check. Even with this strong defense they could not prevent him getting two goals in the first half. In the second half, the enemy team swapped one of their defenders for a bulky and strong ox. Maia was a bit concerned about this matchup, because even if Derick was big, for a fox, he was no match in size and weight for the heavy defender. But it did not faze Derick a bit. Where he had shown his strength and steadiness in the first half, he changed the tactic and used his speed and agility against the rather stiff ox. He had much more problems in the second half, and his team even received one counter goal, but in the end, he got the hattrick and scored a thundering shot into the goal that sent the goal keeper, a big shepherd, flying. The final whistle had his team cheering and circle the field once to thank all the guests, who cheered them on despite the rain, and then they took a shower and half an hour later Maia sat in the car, next to Derick again, and they were on their way home. While Derick and his father went through the moves in the game excited, a very technical conversation that Maia had problems to follow even though she had seen the game, because she barely learned about soccer, her mind drifted off a bit because she noticed the strong smell of Derick and it made her heart beat strong again. He had a perfect masculine scent of shampoo from the shower, sweat from his still heated body of the activity and the acid smell of wet fur from the rain. Maia did not notice that she, at one point, fell asleep and tilted to the side against the strong shoulder of her cousin. He just made a short pause, in which he looked into the cute sleeping face of his white girl cousin, before he continued the conversation with his father. But the boy felt his heart starting to beat faster than even during the game from the light feminine smell of her perfume.