The three of us sat on the bed, again with me in the middle, laptop on my lap, and started by googling "UK Crush". That's all it took, pictures of the three of us from last night started popping up, most featuring me prominently with captions like "Who is she?" and "Who's the mystery girl?", with a few more imaginative writers coming up with headlines like "UKC crooners step out with mystery girl".

    The stories had very little information in them, basically stating that Teddy and Matty were seen arriving and leaving the club with an unknown woman last night. Some of the stories went into detail about what I was wearing, discussing my cleavage, the height of my heels, and most described me as "cute", with one going so far as to call me "lovely".

    "See, Birdie, you're 'lovely', haven't we been telling you that for months?" said Teddy, giving me a squeeze. He then clicked on "videos", and a bunch of videos of us from inside the club popped up, of me dancing with Teddy, with Matty. There was video of Teddy and me kissing, and the comments section was filled with speculation on who I was "with", with opinions split about eighty-twenty for Teddy and Matty, probably because of the kissing.

    We then went to "UKC Madness", their official website, which was relatively calm, since it was run by their own people, but Twitter was another story. There must have been over a hundred different stills and videos of just Teddy and me kissing, with curse filled comments numbering in the thousands under them. Some of them even knew my name.

     "I know her name is Tinker Bell," one had written. "What kind of name is that? I hope she gets her period while swimming in a tankful of sharks!!"

    "OMG, she's so fat! Theo must have been desperate..."

    "He could have anyone, and he chooses her?"

    "What a slut! There are pictures of her making out with Matty a little while later."

    "She's probably screwing the whole band."

    "The lads wouldn't do that!"

    And on and on.

    "Oh my," I said in a shocked voice. Knowing it was going to happen and seeing it in black and white on a screen were two different things. Matty put a comforting arm around my shoulders, grabbing Teddy's arm in the process, so that they were both holding me.

    "I'm so sorry, darling. I told you, but there's really no way to prepare yourself for the first time, is there?" said Teddy sympathetically, kissing my temple.

    "I don't understand, though. Isn't it just a matter of time until they find out who I really am?" I asked in confusion. "I mean, I look really different, but eventually someone will recognize me as your interpreter from those pictures in Japan, and someone from the tour can check the paperwork and tell my real name, right? I mean, how hard would it be for someone who didn't particularly like me, someone like Nancy, or that dick Randy, to just call up one of these newspapers or reporters or whatever and just tell them my name is Aileen Foster and I was a music student at USC?"

    I felt Teddy and Matty look at each other over my head, and I looked from one to the other. "What?" I asked suspiciously. "You two aren't telling me something." I closed the laptop, set it on Matty's lap, and turned to face them, stretching my legs between the two.

    "Well, we wanted to protect you from this kind of thing while we were in Japan, you know?" It was Matty who spoke. "This was before we knew that there would be anything lasting between you two, so we thought it was just going to be for the five weeks of the tour and movie shoot. After the whole swimming thing, Randy was really angry, he acted like Geth and you had tricked him, and we were all worried that he would try to do something to get back at you, because he couldn't really do anything to hurt Geth, you know? So the four of us went to Betsey and told her that we wanted the crew to know that if any word of your real name got out to anyone not associated with the tour, the person responsible for the leak would be fired immediately and never be rehired to work with us again, effective immediately, like the day we found out." He paused for breath.

    "You had the power to do that? And to enforce that? To make it stick? Wow. Thanks, guys." I didn't know what else to say. "You really went to bat for me. Do you know what that means?" They nodded, smiling.

    "So no one on the tour will be spilling your name to the press, that's for certain sure, Birdie. All they'll ever know of you is that your name is Tinker Bell, and that will never trace back to Aileen Foster, unless one of your USC friends recognizes you from one of the photos from last night and tells a newspaper, and what are the odds of that happening? I mean, if any of your friends recognized you from video or photos from last night, they'd probably keep mum, wouldn't they?" Teddy looked any me interrogatively "No one back at USC hates you that much, do they?"

    One online news site had taken an aerial view photo of Teddy's house, and had recognized Matthew's blue Aston Martin parked out back. They figured that if the "mystery girl" was still here after Matty left, then I had to be "with" Theo, but that if I disappeared when the car did, then I was obviously with Matthew. Pretty good deductive reasoning, actually. And apparently a bunch of paparazzi had taken up stations at strategic locations all around the front of the house, hoping for photos of us, so leaving the house for the next few days would involve getting our pictures taken, no matter how careful we were.

    "So I'm afraid our cover's blown, Birdie, my darling, the whole world is going to know we're an item before long, okay?" Teddy looked at me.

    "Well, it's true, so who gives a fuck?" I shrugged.

    "You certainly have changed," Matty remarked. "I can't help but feel like the girl we met a few months ago would have said something about how this was all very private and having other people know would be embarrassing. Those seemed to be your two favorite words for a while."

    "Yeah, well, living with you exhibitionists has changed me, lowered my standards or something," I said with a smile, nudging their long legs with my feet.

    "Wow, Tinker Bell, I never noticed before how tiny your feet are!" Matty said. He put his foot against the bottom of mine. "What size are they?"

    "Um, I don't know, I think about a size six and a half? Which in England is like a four and a half, I think?" I looked at him. "Isn't that about average for a woman?"

    "Yeah, I guess, if she's, like, twelve years old," Matthew said, laughing. I kicked him, and he moved away, mouthing the word "ouch" and giving me a wounded look.

    "I guess they could be a little small," I conceded.  "My coach was always lamenting the fact that I could be so much faster if only my feet weren't so little. I can't help it, half my genes come from very tiny people."

    "So, I'll gather my stuff and get out of your hair, okay?" Matty said, looking from Teddy to me. "I've imposed on you long enough, and I do apologize again for just showing up, such bad manners on my part--"   

    "Oh, come on, Matthew, you just got here two days ago," Teddy objected. "We've got nothing going on until we go see my parents on the third, at least stay until then! They'd love to see you, it's been ages."

    "Nah, I should get back and see my own family for a bit before I head out again. I think I'm going to go diving with Geth in a few weeks, head down to Bermuda for a bit after he finishes up with this UNICEF football match he's in. I think Ronan's going to Wales to catch the match, you two should see if you can head over when he does. If the timing's right with my sister's birthday party, I'm going to try to go myself. It would be fun for all of us to be there to cheer him on, don't you think?" Matty got up off the bed. "I think it's at the end of August, well before you have to buckle down to your piano studies, Tink," he said to me with a smile.

    I turned to Teddy. "Do you think we could? That would be so much fun!"

    He smiled at me. "Since when are you such a fan of football, hmm?"

    "Oh, come on!" I shook him. "Think of it, the five of us, together again, in Wales, watching Geth play soccer, how fabulous would that be?"

    He pulled me in and hugged me. "We'll see what we can work out, okay? I think it's sold out."

    "Anyway, guys, I really should go, I think my mum wants me to help plan Mathilda's party, help with carting stuff around, you know? Matty walked to the door. "I'll just get my stuff together, give a shout when I'm ready to go." He waved from the doorway.

    I turned to Teddy, settling comfortably against him. "Can I ask you something? Does it bother when I kiss the boys on the mouth?"

    He took a breath. "Honestly? I have two answers. Ronan and Matthew? No. Even knowing how Matty felt about you, it never concerned me. And kissing Ronan is like kissing a puppy, isn't it?" His chest moved up and down as he laughed. "But Gethin, for some reason...the thought of you and Geth together in any way kind of bothers me. Is that strange?"

    I considered. "Maybe not. There was a time, way back at the beginning, when there could have been something between us." I felt him looking down at me.

    "Really?" he asked cautiously. "Like, seriously?"

    "No. Yes? I mean, it's hard to explain. Once I started to have feelings for you, all of the other weird stuff I was feeling went away. It was a strange time for me. Most girls go through all that when they're, like, thirteen. I was twenty-two. I'd never kissed anyone. I'd never had an orgasm. I'd never even held anyone's hand. And then I got thrown in with you guys, who kissed each other when you passed in the hallways. It was nuts.

    "Matty made me feel adored. Ronan made me feel entertained. I didn't know what you made me feel, frankly. Uneasy, I guess. Especially after the fight." I felt his arm tighten around me. "Gethin made me feel protected. Safe. And he's very attractive, too. It was a potent combination.

    "But that feeling of falling into someone, of wanting to just melt into someone else? You know that feeling?" I turned my face up to his. He stroked my cheek, giving me a soft look.

    "Yes, I know that feeling. Very well." He pulled me up for a very, very, gentle kiss.

    "I never had that feeling with him, even when we kissed, and it was a very tender kiss. He's a lovely person, but that last link, whatever it is, it's just not there, it will never be there, as long as you're here, in my life, with me. Okay?"

    "Okay." His voice was barely audible. We just looked at each other, then we looked away, him out the window behind him, and me down at my lap. He gathered me into him, and we fell asleep, remaining in that position until we heard Matty calling, telling us he was ready to leave.