A/N: Thanks to everyone for the great reviews! I took all your suggestions into practice with the story so I hope you like where it's going (see the power of the review :P) and reviews are always loved and appreciated, thanks, enjoy...oh and keep on the lookout for updates, I'm going to update at least one story a day for the next week or so until all my stories are updated. :)

“Hey, guess what!”

Stephanie looked up as Chris peeked his head into her office. It was such a pleasant surprise to see him that the smile came naturally to her face, as if it were supposed to be there all along. It was always nice to see Chris, but to see him just pop in, like he belonged here, like he was with her and just wanted to talk to her was something special. She really needed to quit with those thoughts. They were starting to become too commonplace in her brain and if she wasn’t careful she was going to start believing things that weren’t true.

“What?”

“No, you’re supposed to guess,” Chris said, walking into her office and sitting down.

“Where are your kids?”

“You know who is actually taking care of them right now?” Chris said, tilting his head to the side to incite her to take a guess.

“Barbie?” Stephanie wondered, figuring that if Chris were to leave his children with anyone it would be with his girlfriend. It would probably be a good opportunity for Barbie to get to know them and for them to get accustomed to her. As long as Barbie didn’t forget one of them somewhere, but Stephanie was fairly positive that Barbie could count to three, fairly positive, if she didn’t count Cheyenne or Sierra twice because they were identical twins…

“No,” Chris said, his eyebrows knitting a little. “They’re not with her, no.”

“Oh, then I’m stumped,” she shrugged, hoping he would just tell her. For a moment, she wanted to think that the kids weren’t with Barbie because they’d broken up, but that was probably wishful thinking. She would hope the rumor mill would reach her of that was making the rounds.

“Ted DiBiase Jr.,” Chris chuckled. “Can you believe that? Ted, Ted is taking care of my kids right now.”

“You sound incredulous at that, which is weird since I’m guessing you were the one to entrust them to him.”

“He offered, I was at ringside because they were getting stir-crazy so I was letting them run up and down the aisles and generally be nuisances for the set-up crew. Ted was out there, I don’t know why and Ash took a liking to him and showed him the ring and the girls became fascinated with what they were doing and Ted offered to watch them and when you’re with your kids as much as I’ve had to be, you cut and run.”

Stephanie laughed, “Actually, Ted is really good with kids, you wouldn’t think so, but Aurora and Murphy both know who he is.”

“And you didn’t let me in on this secret, thanks a lot and I thought we were friends,” he told her, shaking his head.

“Sorry?”

“I’ll only leave them with him for twenty minutes, that’s about their attention span right now. I won’t make him chase them around the entire backstage area and then inevitably lose one of them and then I have to go search for one of my kids,” he said, obviously joking and rambling and she found it endearing, like he got tongue-tied around her or something. She didn’t think someone like Chris ever got tongue-tied though. He always seemed to have words for everyone.

“I understand,” she told him. “The girls are here tonight, they’re with my dad. He bought them presents while he was out of town the other day and he’s giving them to them, making sure they’re completely spoiled.”

“Grandparents do that, my dad definitely does that with them. I think it’s like a rite of passage when you have grandchildren, you have to spoil them. Someday, my grandkids are going to be the most spoiled brats that ever lived, then I’ll ship them back home to their parents.”

“You’ve got it all planned out, huh?”

“Well, when you’re divorced, you have a lot of time on your hands unfortunately.”

She would’ve figured he’d be out every night with his girlfriend, his much younger girlfriend who probably wanted to party all the time and then go back to their hotel room and have sex until dawn. Now she was grossing herself out over the imagery. “Yeah, you do, then you start thinking about where you went wrong and what you could’ve done better or more often or--“

“Timeout! We’re not heading down that path,” Chris said. “We are better than that and we are not wallowers. Now, I never even got to tell you what I really came in here for.”

“I thought it was to tell me that Ted was watching your kids,” she told him.

“No, no, no, I have news, so guess it, guess the news.”

The way he was acting so giddy, she was almost afraid he’d done something stupid like proposed to Barbie or something, but she wasn’t about to say that. “I don’t know, you’re winning the World Title?”

“Wouldn’t you know that before I did?”

She laughed, “Yeah, yeah, I guess I would. So what is it?”

“Guess,” he insisted.

“Chris, I have no clue what it is,” Stephanie told him. “I’m not good at guessing games so if you would please just tell me instead of keeping me in such suspense.”

“Fine, but you’re no fun,” he told her, but then became giddy again, “I took your advice and rented out a bus for the next month!”

“What?”

“We can be a convoy now, you can honk your horn and I’ll honk my horn and it’ll be like a huge road trip!”

She just stared at him, like the words coming out of his mouth were gibberish and she was trying to decipher them. “You rented a bus.”

“Yes, and it wasn’t cheap, let me tell you, but I figured, you travel this way with your girls and it gives you your own space, you know, you have space for them to walk around and color and do what they like to do, but you’re still traveling, you know. Sierra is really prone to ear infections so it’s not a great idea for her to fly a lot and I just took Ash out of preschool for the month so we’re all onboard. I told them it’s going to be like going on vacation for a month. In between shows, we’ll just do a ton of sight-seeing and just vacation type stuff, I think it’ll be fun for all of us and if they get seriously cranky, we can fly home for a few days.”

“You’ve really thought this through.”

“I have, plus, you’re on the road, right?”

“Yeah, I’m on the road.”

“So the kids won’t get bored and your kids will have other kids to play with too so they won’t get bored and everyone wins, right?”

“Aurora and Murphy do sort of get sick of me at times when we’re on the road for a while, Aurora more so. She’ll be glad to have some kids she can play with.”

“We can hang out all the time,” Chris said, acting like a little kid who was going away to summer camp or something. He was so excited that she could start to feel some excitement creep up inside of her. If they were all on the road together, that meant she’d get to spend time with him, a lot of time with him…unless Barbie was traveling with him. She cringed a little at that and Chris picked up on it. “Or we don’t have to hang out…I mean, I was just saying…speculating.”

Stephanie snapped to it, realizing that she’d just looked like she wouldn’t want that when she very much did. “No, no, no, I’m sorry, I was just…my mind was wandering. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. It can get lonely when we’re in the middle of one of the trips, you know, from place to place. It would be fun to have the company, I definitely think we should hang out.”

Chris brightened up considerably and took a deep breath, “Great, because I think I would go crazy if I didn’t have another adult to talk to. I don’t think I should talk to the bus drivers since you know, they’re working and everything and I really do want them to keep their eyes on the road. We can even have like, dinner together, I can invite you over to our bus for dinner.”

She laughed, “That sounds like a plan.”

“Come on, I want to show you the bus.”

“It’s here?” she asked.

“Yeah, tonight is the inaugural night,” Chris said, standing up and holding out his hand. “Come on, let me show it to you. It makes me feel like a rock star or something. Well, it would if I didn’t have three kids tagging along.”

Stephanie laughed and stood up. Before she could do anything, Chris’s hand was curled around hers and he was pulling her towards the door. She tightened her grip on his hand then followed him. She had to admit, his grip was strong, yet there was a gentleness to it that she really liked. They were walking down the hallway hand-in-hand and she could see some people raising their eyebrows at the two of them and she couldn’t help the haughtiness she was feeling. She wondered if this was what it would be like if they were really dating. Them just walking down the hallway.

She passed by Hunter and he nearly stared a hole into her and she raised her head just a little bit more. It wasn’t a revenge move or a look at me move, she just wanted Hunter to be clear that he could not step into whatever this was right now, not that there was anything. Chris was dating Barbie so it wasn’t like he was holding her hand because he liked her. He was just anxious to show her the bus he’d gotten. They walked out the back and into the loading area. She saw her own bus and then a bus of equal size right behind it.

“There she is,” Chris said, trying to sound gruff. “Ain’t she a beaut?”

“You’re crazy,” she giggled as he unlocked the door to the bus. He pulled open the door and then let her go first. She took a few steps inside and just hoped that Barbie wasn’t waiting naked to surprise him or something. That would be awkward to say the least.

Suddenly, Chris’s head was right over his shoulder and he was whispering, “Isn’t it awesome?”

She was a little startled by his closeness, but she’d stopped on the top step and there was really no room for Chris to be anywhere else. The interior was really nice, beautiful even, with hardwood floors and leather couches and everything. “This is really beautiful.”

“It’s called the Presidential, pretty sweet, huh?”

“Yeah…”

“Come on, come see the bedroom. Now the couches are fold-outs, so the kids are going to sleep there. The girls will probably want to share, but there are enough beds for all of them. Now, being the dad, I get the master bedroom.” He pulled her into the back of the bus where there was a master bedroom, including a large bed with cream sheets and a multitude of pillows. Chris jumped on the bed, laying back. “You have got to feel this mattress, it’s better than the one I have at home.”

She looked at him, lying on top of those covers and she was tempted, so very tempted, but if she was on a bed with him, could she really keep her hands off him? What if she just jumped him without thought of repercussion. She tentatively reached out and pressed her hand down on the mattress. “Seems very soft.”

“Steph, you can’t judge by that, just hop on,” he said, patting the spot next to him.

“It’s fine, I believe you.”

“You’re not going to get your hair messy, come on,” Chris said, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her forcefully towards the bed. She landed on her face with a squeal and Chris started laughing as she lay there, her face on the mattress.

She turned her head, her hair falling in her face and making her look like she’d just woken up. “Thanks a lot.”

“You look good like that,” he told her and she wondered what he meant by that, did he mean she looked good with her hair like that or she looked good being on the bed?

“Gee thanks,” she settled for the ambiguous response. She turned on her side to face him and he was grinning at her.

“So?”

“So what?”

“The mattress, nice, huh?”

“It’s very nice.”

“I am going to have a good time sleeping on this,” he winked and she didn’t like the implications of that, but surely he wouldn’t have sex with Barbie when his kids would be sleeping not ten feet away, surely he wouldn’t…couldn’t. No, he wouldn’t, that would be too weird. “This whole set-up is swank. I should’ve thought of this ages ago. And did you see the dining room table out there? We can have dinner in there sometimes, if you want to.”

“That’d be fun, you cooking?” she asked.

“Sure or we can get fast food and just eat it in here, whatever we want,” Chris said. “This is going to be great. Are you excited?”

“I am,” she told him with a nod. “So it’ll just…” she was going to ask if Barbie was coming alone, but why ruin the moment? “Just be a long road trip for us.”

“Exactly, I never really got to do that when I was a kid, though my dad always promised to take us, but you know, he never really had the time, what with playing hockey. When I’m not working, I’m going to be such a tourist.”

“Even though you’ve probably been to every place we’re going for the next month?”

“Yeah because I never get to see a city from the tourists’ point of view. I’m always here for work and then I’m gone, but since we’ll be driving, I can take my time and let my kids see a bunch of interesting stuff they wouldn’t get to see otherwise. Jessica thought it was an awesome idea too, she was all for it, said that it got them out exploring new things and how it’s especially good for Ash.”

“I never looked at it that way.”

“So you want to be tourists too?” he asked eagerly.

“Yeah, I guess you can sign me in.”

“I knew you would want to,” he said.

“So you planned this whole thing then?” she wondered, staring him in the eyes, completely forgetting the setting they were in at the moment. It seemed he was getting lost too because it took him a few moments to answer and she became uncomfortable under his intense gaze.

“Maybe, maybe not.”