Winny’s POV:

I rolled out of the bunk, landing on the floor with a light thud. The carpet angrily scratched at the back of my bare leg as I laid there, staring up at the ceiling. Although the lights were on inside, the main light source came from the back lounge window. A shadow stood over me, making me crane my neck back a little to see who it was. It was only Matt, looking as busy as ever but still having the time to raise his eyebrow at me. I could only give him an overly cheesy grin back before he stepped over my body to get to the front of the bus.

You see, I couldn’t roll out of my own bunk. That would have been a proper safety issue. It wouldn’t have been a light thud, it would have been a floor shaking thump, a possible concussion, and if the angle was right, maybe even a broken bone. But Jack’s bunk? That one was close to the floor. If anything, rolling out of the bunk was more efficient than climbing out.

By now, it was pretty obvious to everyone what was going on between Jack and me. Nobody explicitly spoke about it. Or at least not to me. But everyone knew. Jack and I weren’t exactly discrete about it. We didn’t necessarily put it out there either. We just often happened to disappear at the same time and leave the same random room a bit later. It was pretty easy to put one and one together.

I got up and brushed myself down to rid myself of floor lint. Although all the guys on this bus loved walking around in just their boxers or less, I did still try to cover up a little. I did still have some decency. So, I went to the bunk that had my suitcases in it to find something to wear. The pair of jeans on the top of the pile reeked of beer and were quickly thrown to the side. I scavenged for something else, but was met with the horrific discovery that I had absolutely nothing to wear anymore. Everything needed a wash.

I quickly spun around to find another solution. The shirt I was wearing could work for the day, but I could not get away with spending the day in just my panties. Especially outside of the bus. Luckily, I happened to see a pair of blue sweatpants sticking out from Alex’s belongings and put them on.

Once I was covered up, I walked into the front lounge, where Alex and Rian were sitting at the table. Alex’s eyes immediately fixated on my lower half.

“Are those my pants?” He asked with a horrified tone.

“Yeah,” I nodded back, “you spilled beer over my last pair of jeans last night, remember?”

“I did?” He frowned in confusion. “Oh, wait, yes I did.”

“Anyway, can anybody tell me where we are so I can figure out where to do my laundry?”

“New York,” Alex shrugged as a reply.

Electricity ran through my entire body in excitement. “New York as is New York City New York, or the state New York?”

“Both.”

“You mean to tell me I can go home to do my laundry?!” I beamed. Not only did I love New York City and seeing some familiar places, but doing my laundry just the way I liked it sounded like a perfect comfort to have on tour in a smelly tour bus.

“Home?” Rian questioned.

“Yeah…” My eyes widened at how easily I had slipped up as I tried to think of a cover up. To be fair, I knew Matilde as an art student in New York, not some stable girl at the royal palace of Dalewin. “Dalewin’s a summer job. I spend the rest of my time in New York being a student.”

He gasped jokingly. “Damn, how much do they pay you for you to afford that?!”

“Umm,” I had to come up with yet another lie on the spot. But I found a way to bend the truth. “They sort of sponsor me in a way.”

“Can I come work with you?” He luckily kept it very light, but was also being half serious.

“You can try to ask the royal family, but don’t ask the princess. She’s a real bitch.”

“Is she?’ He sounded unsure of whether I was joking back or if I meant it, and pulled out his phone. Immediately, alarm bells started going off in my head.

“You don’t have to google them, Alex and I are experts,” I blurted out. Alex didn’t even notice what was happening at first, but his head snapped towards Rian as if he had just hit a self destruct button.

“A wikipedia page!” Rian announced in delight, but then his face dropped. “Oh, it’s a shitload of text to read. But there’s a family tree!.

I was waiting for Alex to do something. To grab the phone and throw it out of the window or something. But no, he was just sitting there in shock. It was just a matter of time before he would find a picture of me. I didn’t know what the wikipedia page looked like, but there were definitely recent images of the family because of my grandfather's death online.

“Aerowyn Matilde George Rothchester…’ Rian read out loud. “Sounds– hey, Matilde. Same name! What are the odds?”

“Like there aren’t any William’s, Henry’s, or Charles’ in the UK.” I managed to roll my eyes nonchalantly despite freaking out on the inside. “If anything, I’m sure there are many girls with any of those names my age or younger.”

“Original… anyway–” He went to go find out some more. “My phone’s dead.”

Relief washed over me. It was so close. Actually, I was kind of surprised that I hadn’t been googled by any of them before. I mean, we did have Mark. But he was the only one so far. Or the only one who had made his knowledge known. Maybe Dalewin just seemed too small and irrelevant for anybody to want to know more about. Except Mark. He liked his random facts about random things.

“Well,” I clapped my hands together and gave a big grin, “I gonna go do my laundry today then.”

Before Rian could try to change the subject back to the forbidden knowledge, I skipped back to the bunks and started to go through the messy pile of clothes I had, trying to at least organise it a little so it would fit in my suitcase to take back to my apartment. It wasn’t exactly the nicest thing having to fold up dirty socks, sweaty t-shirts, and bear-soaked jeans, but it was necessary.

“What’s going on over here?” Jack suddenly appeared behind me, a little too close for people that were just friends.

“I’ve got no more clothes,” I giggled lightly, practically feeling his energy bouncing off my skin.

“Oh, what a shame,” he sighed in mock empathy.

“But I get to go home and do my laundry today.”

“Home?”

I interrupted, “don’t even ask. I usually live here, summers are for Dalewin.”

“Well,” he dropped the subject, “would you like some company? I think I might have some of my own laundry lying around.”

“I could always use an extra pair of hands,” I exhaled loudly as if I was complaining. “I’ve got so much to wash. I even have to wear the good stuff now.”

When Jack saw me pull out the red lingerie set I hadn’t worn yet this tour, he was completely sold. “I am definitely coming with you.”

It was just over half an hour later that we were ready to go. If I had been the only one to go, I would have left way sooner. But I had been courteous and extended the offer to the others. Surprisingly, not many people took up on it. The crew were mainly too busy to quickly get their stuff together. But Rian and Alex did decide to grasp this opportunity.

“We’re gonna go now,” I announced with my bag in tow.

“I left my stuff at the door,” Rian responded, jerking his thumb in the direction of a black duffle bag.

While I nodded, Alex jumped up, “lemme just get my bag.”

Jack and I waited at the door for Alex to bring whatever he wanted to get washed. I picked up Rian’s duffle bag since he wasn’t going to be joining himself. After all, I did ask if anybody wanted me to take their laundry along, not whether they wanted to join. So, I was also fully expecting Alex to drop his stuff at either my or Jack’s feet. But he just kept his stuff on him and nodded to signal that he was ready.

“Oh, you don’t need to come along, we can just take everybody’s laundry,” I quickly told him.

He shook his head. “No it’s cool, I’ll carry it myself. You’ve already got a lot and it’s quite heavy.”

“No, really, it’s cool, it’s probably going to take the whole day.”

“That’s cool, I wanted to see some of New York anyway, I can do that while waiting.”

Although I did want to continue to try to get him to leave us, I knew it wasn’t going to work. Jack and I shared a look, and we both knew it. So, I gave in and let him come along. You can bet I tried multiple times to shake him off on the way to my apartment by telling him what things he could see if he wanted to leave at that moment. Not because I didn’t want to go sightseeing with him or because I didn’t want him to see my apartment. Just because Jack and I already had plans for what we’d be doing.

But he came with us all the way to my apartment.

He was even standing right behind me and I was grabbing my mail from my mailbox on the ground floor. It was almost as if he was reading along with me. The letters really weren’t all that interesting. Mainly bills addressed to me, Matilde. I got them all online as well, so they weren’t really relevant.

We went up the stairs all the way to the top floor since the building didn’t have an elevator. Granted, I lived on the third floor (UK third, not US third), so it wasn’t that bad. The building just happened to be an old industrial building. Not exactly a place for elevators.

I unlocked the glossy dark green door and opened it. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

“Fuck, you live here?!” Jack’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as we walked in. Alex wasn’t as fazed though.

“Yeah, lot’s of natural light for all my painting.” I pointed at the large windows that spanned over two floors.

Living at the very top of the building had some perks, including getting the loft. The large open space was mainly used as my studio. There were materials scattered around including used canvases and canvases yet to be built. My kitchen was relatively small for the size of the apartment, but it was still new. I just wanted more space for my art than for cooking. My bedroom was up the metal and wood stairs.

“Here’s the room of the hour,” I opened a small hidden door that revealed my washing machine and dryer. “Or should I say of the day. It’s going to take quite a while to do all these loads.”

“Speaking of which, we should probably get started soon,” Jack urged.

I nodded in agreement and dragged my suitcase to the washing machine. Luckily, I had already organised which clothes I needed to keep away from colours and which ones were delicates, meaning I could stuff everything in relatively quickly.

“You should really just go sightseeing if you want to still do that,” I told Alex while I sat on my knees to get everything out. “I’ll stay here to do all the laundry.”

“I feel bad for just leaving,” he chuckled and shook his head.

“I don’t have anything to entertain you with here. No food, no drinks. Nothing.”

“Then it’s even worse to leave you here by yourself!”

“She’ll have me,” Jack shrugged, trying to give Alex a look to get him to leave.

Alex frowned in confusion. “You guys don’t want to come with me? I can see New York another time.”

Jack sighed in frustration. We had been trying to give hints to Alex ever since we left that bus, but he either didn’t understand or was trying to be way too oblivious. Either way, it was starting to get on our nerves. And Jack had enough. He carefully took Alex to the side and tried to convince him one last time.

I tried to listen in as much as I could without raising suspicions. But whenever I threw something into the washing machine, the voices drowned out. I couldn’t stop throwing things in, or else they’d know. But I could hear the words such as “seeing”, “a bit’, and the all mighty “cockblock”.

“Oh…” Alex sucked in a breath.

It was quiet for a second after that, the only sound coming from my clothes hitting the drum.

“I’ll go see some sights then…” He suddenly said louder so I could hear as well. But he also sounded so unsure. “I guess… Thanks for– thanks for doing my laundry, then. Umm, I’ll be off.”

And with that, he left. The door shut just a little harder than he probably intended to. That pesky door looked heavier than it was.

Notes