Hope Begins to Fade

On the Road Again

In the end it was simultaneously easier and more difficult to hide Matt's and my relationship when we travelled for the shows. Obviously there were less people to catch us but there were also fewer people to for us to hide among. It also didn't help that all the guys, other than Matt, were in grumpy moods because their significant others were no longer with them so they seemed to have come to collective decision that I was to be their surrogate source of female companionship – minus the naked sexy times.

Of course my new found popularity with the other guys had Matt looking thunderous. When he tried to remonstrate with the others for their attempts to monopolize my time Brian had responded by telling him not to be so greedy and that he should share his little buddy. I couldn't help giggling when Johnny slid an arm around my waist and said, "Don't be so greedy Shadows. You gotta share the little buddy love." I looked down at the top of Johnny's head and asked, "Just exactly who's little buddy?"

That even had Matt cracking a smile although most of the time when the others were around he was watching me like a dog guarding a bone. I began to feel bad. Although I, and Matt, knew that none of the other guys would make a move on me, their neediness was because they missed their girls, it became apparent that Matt wanted to claim me as more than just his assistant and friend.

We were in Germany and I'd taken the Stallyns out for a day of sightseeing before taking them back to the hotel to finish up some of the school work their teachers had sent along. It felt good to be using my professional skills even though I'd focused on high school art and not teaching small boys the basics in my former working life. I'd had to bribe the Stallyns in order to avoid a temper tantrum and get them back to the hotel. Although I'm not sure taking them to buy their father a present as a way of having them smilingly agree to head back and complete a few pages of their workbooks could even be classed as a bribe.

Matt's gifts were wrapped and sitting on the coffee table as we worked our way through a set of maths problems. We were tackling a tricky problem when Bill piped up and told me that he didn't need maths because he was going to play sport when he grew up.

"Which one?" I asked with interest.

"I dunno," he shrugged, "maybe football, or baseball, or basketball. Or maybe," his eyes lit up, "I'll be a surfer!"

I gave him a fond smile. His brother had his tongue poking out the edge of his mouth as he endeavoured to colour between the lines of the drawing project I'd given him.

"You know," I said to Bill, "my husband was a fantastic surfer and he still was great at maths. In fact he taught kids maths at the school where we worked."

"You have a husband?" Bill asked me wide eyed.

"I had a husband, he died," I answered gently.

"Like mommy," he gave a decisive nod.

"That's right, like your mum." I wanted to slap myself for taking them down this path.

"That's sad," Ted spoke up.

"It is sad," I agreed.

"It's okay though because Daddy is the Dread Pirate Roberts and you're Princess Buttercup!" Bill said sunnily and went back to concentrating on his maths problem.

Holy crap. Is that how they saw Matt and me? Westley and Buttercup were a love story for the ages and my favourite happy ever after of all time. If things went bad it looked like I wasn't the only one who was going to end up hurting.

We were enjoying dinner as a group before Brian, Johnny and Zacky were heading out to hit the town. Much to Matt's displeasure they were trying to persuade me to go with them.