A/N: Well, here's the sequel to A Night to Remember. I wasn't sure I was going to do one, but I had an idea. I'm debating making it a legitimate series. Tell me what you think please!
Lita looked at the hotel door wearily, digging her bare feet into the short carpet in the hallway. She hadn't taken a shower, so she still smelled like Hunter, and she had the worst case of sex hair that she'd ever seen. This was not going to be a pleasant conversation, but it had to happen. She couldn't leave Matt hanging like that, she cared about him too much.
She knocked on the door, smiling in faint surprise when Jeff opened the door instead of Matt. But he frowned back at her, crossing his arms. "Matt's not here," he said flatly, looking at her disheveled appearance disapprovingly.
Lita narrowed her eyes. "Yeah? Good, cause I kind of wanted to talk to you first." She pushed past him, and he let her. As much as he didn't want to talk to her right now, he wasn't raised to put his hands on a woman.
"Lita, I really don't want to talk to you right now. It's pretty fucking obvious that you cheated on Matt, and I think that needs to be dealt with before anything you have to say to me." His voice had softened, and he reached out to her.
"I get that it freaked you out when he proposed, but it's the next logical step baby," he added, glancing away. If Jeff was perfectly honest with himself, he didn't like the idea. He didn't think that they were well matched, but they were in love.
The redhead laughed sharply. "Oh Jeff. He didn't tell you the bullshit he was spouting before he proposed, did he?" She asked, her expression hard and angry. Lita didn't appreciate him jumping to conclusions, even if they were technically correct.
Jeff gave her a wary look. "Well, I'd assume not, since I don't have a clue what you're talking about."
Lita frowned, running a hand through her hair, disregarding the tangles that her hand caught. "This wasn't exactly the way I planned on telling you," she admitted quietly. "I wanted to deal with Matt first, but I suppose this is easier in the long run. It's best that you know before he comes back."
"You're kinda scaring me Lita," Jeff admitted, tapping his painted nails against his jeans.
"Jeff…Matt was trying to convince me to tell you that Team Xtreme isn't working anymore. He wants to try a solo career," she began slowly, waving a hand when he tried to interrupt. "Please, let me finish. Then, when I said no, he tried to force the issue. To make a long story short, it cumulated in him saying that if I didn't, our relationship was over."
Jeff was stunned. He knew that Lita would never lie to him, of course, but he couldn't imagine Matt acting like that. But…he had to be honest with himself. He kind of could. His older brother had always been emotionally manipulative like that, especially when they were younger. As they got older it had gradually gone away, and he had assumed that Matt had grown out of it. But maybe he'd only learned to hide it better.
"That…" Jeff coughed gently. "That doesn't explain the proposal."
Lita groaned faintly. "Jeff, when I said fine, we were over, he freaked out, said it was a bluff, told me he'd stop. But we all know that he and I haven't been working well with each other."
He nodded slowly. Yeah, it was true. They had been fighting more and more often recently, and although he would never tell Lita, he had caught her crying once after Matt had yelled at her for not interfering in a match.
"So, I told him that, and then he popped out the ring. But…Jeff, I never thought about marriage with Matt. Never. I…I couldn't handle it," she admitted, ashamed of how she'd reacted.
"I ran to Randy," she explained, "But he was rooming with the rest of Evolution."
And suddenly everything made sense to Jeff. "Including Hunter."
Lita nodded. "Yeah. I didn't mean to Jeff, I really didn't, but…I won't lie. I wanted to. I could have said no, but I didn't. So I cheated on him, and I'm sorry, but I suppose it doesn't matter now, does it?" She looked hopeful.
Jeff laughed shortly, without any humor. "I assume you're planning on breaking it off with him?"
"Well, I kinda thought I did that when I ran out on his proposal," she snarked, "But yes, I do plan on making sure he realizes it."
He sighed. "Then no, I guess it doesn't matter. I can't face him right now Lita, will you be okay on your own?"
She bit her lip. She wanted so badly to say 'no, please stay,' but she knew she couldn't be that selfish. She had already been selfish enough. "Go ahead," she murmured, sitting on the bed. Lita didn't look up when she heard the door shut, focused on the ugly pattern on the bedspread.
Lita glanced up when Matt came in though, and she stood up immediately. She wasn't willing to be at such a severe disadvantage when she broke up with him.
"I take it you reconsidered your reaction to my proposal?" He asked cockily, putting his coffee down on the side table.
She backed up a step, shaking her head gently. "No Matt, I haven't. I don't want to be married to you, I'd never even thought about it before you brought it up."
Lita saw his expression darkening and hurriedly continued, "But I thought you deserved some closure on this, so I decided to come over here and tell you flat out that we're over." She looked up at him sadly. "If we're honest with each other, we've been over for a long time."
It had been so long since they'd done anything other than have sex that she couldn't even remember the last time it had been anything other than that.
She tried to leave, but Matt grabbed her arm roughly. "Lita, we're not through here," he ground out through his teeth, shoving her back so her legs hit the bed. She stumbled and sat down, not daring to take her eyes off of him for even an instant.
"Matt, I've said my piece, now I need to go," she said evenly, trying to hide the trembling of her hands. But Matt knew her body entirely too well, and caught the small motion easily.
"Aw baby, you don't have to be scared of me," he murmured, leaning down to brush a strand of hair away from her face, only then noticing her appearance. "Where were you?" He asked, suddenly suspicious.
Lita sighed, pulling away from him. "Matt, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that I'm expected in the dining room soon, and I need to go."
Matt sneered. "Without a change of clothes or a shower?" He asked sharply, tugging on the strand of hair he still held captive in his hand. "No, I don't think so. You're in an awfully big hurry to get away from me," he mused. "I think you're hiding something."
"Damnit Matt, we're not together anymore, so I can't hide anything from you, because you don't have the right to know anymore," Lita exploded, immediately regretting it.
"We're not done until I fucking say we're done," Matt snapped, pulling back angrily.
Lita relaxed minutely, and made to get up. It was a mistake.
Matt backhanded her, knocking her back onto the bed again. "Would you fucking stay down?" He snarled furiously. "I am so fucking sick of you Lita. You always think that you know everything. You think that you can stand against any fucking man, but you're wrong. You think that you're a fucking amazing wrestler, but you're no better than any other woman back there you stupid bitch."
He backed up, breathing heavily. "I'm going to fucking kill you." It was a deadly promise that Lita had no intention of allowing him to make good on. She shoved past him, but she knew that she couldn't get the door open with him right there.
Lita caught sight of the coffee, still steaming lightly, and she grabbed it, throwing it in Matt's face.
He howled in pain, clutching at his face, which was already red and blistering. Lita could almost sympathize, because her hand was on fire from where she'd spilled a little bit on herself.
She sprinted out the door, not giving a damn who saw her. She skidded into the dining room, noting with relief that Hunter was obviously still sleeping, since he wasn't there yet. But Jeff was, and the way his face looked when he saw her made her heart ache.
"Damn Jeff," she muttered when she got close enough to talk without other eavesdropping. "You don't have to look so pissed to see me. Matt and I…talked."
He just looked even more furious. "Yeah, the way he talked is pretty obvious on your fucking face," he spat out, his green eyes flashing with an intensity rarely seen. Seeing the bruise on her face just brought everything into perspective for him. Jeff didn't have a clue what Matt was doing, but it was obvious that he wasn't the man that Gil Hardy had raised.
Lita paled. "Shit, I didn't realize he'd hit me that hard," she muttered, reaching up to touch her face gently. She flinched at the slight contact and swore. "Hunter's gonna be pissed," she said, frowning. "He'll try and beat Matt's ass."
Jeff nodded seriously. "And I'll help."
She gaped. "Jeff, you can't be serious. He's your brother."
"Well, he wasn't acting very brotherly when he was trying to kick me out of Team Xtreme, now was he? And honestly? No brother of mine would ever put his hands on a woman. It's not how we were raised," he explained quietly, looking pained.
Lita reached out to grab his hand, but he ended up grabbing her wrist instead. "Leets, what the fuck happened to your hand?" He demanded. She glanced down and winced. It had blistered.
"I…kind of threw coffee on Matt." She saw how he was gaping and hurried to explain. "Trust me, I wouldn't have done it, but he was scaring the shit out of me Jeff." She didn't want to tell him that his brother had threatened to kill her. She'd already done enough to ruin their relationship, she didn't need to do even more damage.
"Was that before or after he hit you?" Jeff deadpanned. "Red, I know you. You wouldn't have gone that far unless you…" he paused, and his eyes narrowed. "Unless you were scared for your life." Lita stiffened, and that was all the answer he needed.
"I'll fucking kill him," he swore furiously, making to stand up. Lita shoved him down, grimacing when she bent her burnt wrist.
"You'll do no such thing," she snapped, before softening at his hurt expression. "Jeffro, I love you. But right now, I just need to ignore him." She glanced down at herself and grimaced. "And a change of clothes."
Jeff frowned. "Matt'll probably still be in the room," he pointed out.
Lita shrugged. "Hopefully if I leave the door open and hurry he won't have the time or patience to do any more harm."
He snorted. "Right. I'll come up with you."
"Jeff, you said that you didn't want to face him right now," she protested. Jeff froze.
"You were going to ask me to stay, weren't you?" Lita didn't answer. "Fuck Lita, you know I would have stayed if you'd asked."
She sighed. "Jeff, I'd never ask you to do anything you didn't want to do, you know that. I never thought he'd be violent. It's just never been his nature."
He gave her a stern look. "I'm coming with you." And that was that. You just didn't argue with Jeff when he had that look on his face.
They headed up to the room, and Jeff got them in quietly with his room key. Thankfully, Matt wasn't there, although the coffee mug was still where she had dropped it, and the coffee was still in a puddle on the rug.
Lita skirted it carefully, just grabbing her entire bag. "I'll just shower and change in Hunter's room," she explained to his curious look.
Jeff nodded in comprehension. That was actually a really good idea. The less time they spent in this room the better, because there was less of a chance of meeting up with Matt again that way. If they saw him, Jeff wasn't sure what he would do. Either punch him or burst into tears like some little girl.
When Lita was done he headed back down to finish his breakfast, and she headed to Hunter's room, praying he was still asleep. No such luck. The only good thing was that the rest of Evolution hadn't come back yet, so there would be no one to witness their fight. 'Not even together a full day and we're already fighting,' she mused, vaguely amused by the thought.
Hunter's gaze travelled her from her toes to her head, his eyes fixating on the bruise that she had forgotten to glance at. But from the look on his face, it was bad.
"Where'd you get that?" He asked casually, as if he was asking what she'd had for breakfast. Lita's eyes narrowed. She recognized that tone. It was the one he used when he was looking for a fight. She dropped her bag by the bed, taking her time.
If they were going to fight, it would be on her terms. She'd had enough of men controlling the conversation for one day already. "I went to visit Matt," she said evenly. "I'm sure you read my note, I explained in it why I was going so I don't see any reason to repeat it."
Hunter smiled thinly. "Please do. I'm not quite sure I understood why you owed him any sort of explanation." He was pissed and letting her know it.
Lita sighed, heading over to the vanity to finally check out her bruise. She flinched when she saw it, a surefire reason for Hunter's fury. It was blossoming beautifully in blue and black, with a red outlay and puffiness as an extra. 'No wonder it hurt so bad when I poked it,' she thought, fighting down a smile.
"Honestly? I wanted it over with Hunter." It wasn't the explanation she had given in the note, but it was the more honest of the two. "I didn't want him to have the slightest claim over me anymore. I wanted to make sure he understood that we were over, for good."
She couldn't help her smile this time. "I met Jeff first though, and he was pissed when he saw me," she snickered. "He hadn't heard the full story and thought that I had cheated on Matt." She paused. "Which I technically did, since he didn't think that we were broken up, but I digress."
Hunter interrupted. "That's not what's important right now. What's important is who gave you that bruise." He gave her a stern look that was scarily similar to Jeff's.
"Matt did." Lita couldn't help but shudder, and Hunter moved to comfort her. No matter how pissed he was, she looked honestly terrified and that took precedence any day, every day. "He was fucking nuts Hunter, he just wouldn't listen. And…" She was mortified saying it, but she honestly believed that he had meant it. "He threatened to kill me Hunter."
Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, and he felt his anger melting away. "Believe me when I say that if I'd know he was that fucking crazy, I wouldn't have tried to talk to him at all. I would have just let him believe whatever he wanted." Hunter stroked her hair.
"I know you would have baby. And I'm pissed at him, believe me, but…wait." He had just caught something. "He threatened to kill you?"
Lita nodded, biting her lip a little bit. "Yeah, but I threw coffee in his face and ran." She held out her hand for inspection. "I don't think he's gonna be able to wrestle for a little while if his face hurts as much as my hand does."
Hunter fought the urge to push her aside and hunt out Matt. It was hard, but he knew he'd get his chance eventually. "But you and Jeff are okay?" He knew how important Jeff was to her. He was like her brother, but more.
Her smile was brilliant. "Yeah, we're good. He had some trouble believing it at first, and I don't blame him for that. I couldn't believe it when I heard it either. But after…" she trailed off and touched her face gently, and Hunter understood. It would be hard to not believe her when your brothers' handprint was on her face.
"I'm glad you and Jeff are good," he said gently. "But just promise me something, okay? Don't go off by yourself until we're sure that Matt's crazy is fully contained, alright?"
Lita laughed, a little bit hysterically. "Believe me Hunter, I won't be going to the fucking bathroom alone for a good long while."
He smiled. "Good. I need to make sure you're safe baby, otherwise I'll go as crazy as Hardy."
She gave him a sneaky smile. "Which one?"
Hunter boomed out a laugh. "C'mon babe, let's go to breakfast."
Lita still had to shower and change, and put makeup on to at least attempt to cover up her bruise, and Hunter knew that it would be a very long time before he would look at her and not be tempted to enlist Shawn and double team Matt, but this was the way it was meant to be.
She was using his shower, her clothes were in his room, and for the first time in a long while, he thought that things might just work out.