Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.


Any Number Can Play

He had gone from dreaming about a big wedding to dreaming about a little ceremony in the backyard, to simply enjoying the little time he was able to spend with his fiancée. Two days ago, for their date night, they had cuddled on the couch watching a ridiculous western about cowboys and dinosaurs, eating popcorn and gossiping about family life. It was the best night they'd spent together in weeks. Of course her mother had to come home right when he was about to kiss her, and then they got swept up in a whole debacle about Dotty's mysterious boyfriend.

It looked like life in the King-West-soon-to-be-Stetson household would never be simple, no matter what they did or didn't do. Somehow his future mother-in-law had gotten mixed up in blackmail and hot defections, and they couldn't even tell her about it. They had just missed finding her and her pseudonym of a boyfriend at a high-profile CIA employee's house, for crying out loud.

Now they all sat around the table on the patio, drinking coffee and discussing the future. It was an unexpected bonus that Dotty just accepted his presence as a matter of course, even if she did have a knowing twinkle in her eyes when she looked at him. Clearly she had her own ideas about his relationship with her daughter, especially when Amanda knew he took only cream in his coffee.


He rang the doorbell, delighting in the fact that he was coming to the front door to pick Amanda up on a real date. He kept the flowers hidden behind his back — a lovely bouquet of all Dotty's favorite flowers. He'd asked Amanda for specifics.

He put on his most sultry expression for the moment when Amanda opened the door. To his horror he heard Phillip's voice approaching to answer, and he rapidly shoved away from the door frame and snapped upright just in time.

"Hi, you must be Phillip," he said, and started kicking himself. Why would he know that, if he only worked with Phillip's mother?

But the boy only nodded and stepped aside for him to enter, saying, as he did so, "And you work with my mom?"

He nodded, in his turn. "Yeah, Lee Stetson."

A silent "Ohhhh" formed on the boy's lips, but all he said as he shook Lee's hand was, "Phillip King."

Amanda appeared, her hand outstretched.

"Hi, come on in."

Apparently he had been accepted as simply a part of Amanda's life now.

Would it have been this easy, years ago, if he had just introduced himself? Would he be an unquestioned part of the family, maybe invited over for Sunday dinners? Would their engagement and their upcoming marriage have to be a secret at all, if he had only had the courage to come to the door one day?

He would never know for sure.

He let go of Amanda's hand, turning away from her and toward Dotty, still keeping the bouquet of flowers hidden behind his back.

She tried to pull herself together, but the disappointment of the previous few days still lingered in her eyes. "Well... Mr Stetson. I'm surprised. Er, I mean, I'm delighted."

He stopped her there. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.

"Would you please call me Lee?"

She looked pleased, in spite of her surprise. "Oh, uh, of course, Lee."

"All right," he said, dimpling at her as he pulled the flowers out to hand to her. "These are for you."

Her sudden bashfulness was charming, and she glanced past him to look at Amanda with a thousand questions in her eyes. "Well... Thank you."

He turned back to his fiancée, and he caught the tail end of a smile he wished he'd seen.

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah. Let me just grab my coat," she said.

As Amanda left, Dotty asked the question that had clearly been uppermost in her thoughts. "Is this, ah, another premiere?"

For one second he considered saying yes. But if he was going to do this right, it needed to seem natural.

He shook his head and spread his hands. "No, just dinner."

The thousand questions reappeared in her eyes, along with a glimmer of triumph. "Dinner," she repeated. "Dinner. That's nice."

Amanda slipped back next to him, and he allowed himself to smile at her the way he always wanted to. Dotty seemed to approve of him; that was a weight off his shoulders. He smiled at Dotty, too, and her eagle eyes shifted to Amanda.

"Have a wonderful time," she said, knowingly.

"See you later, Mother," Amanda called over her shoulder.

He said his goodbyes to both Dotty and Phillip and followed Amanda out the front door.

Maybe a real relationship could work out, after all.