Paul was in the shower, singing just loud enough that Steph could hear it from where she was, resting on the hotel room bed, flicking through different things on her phone. He was purposely off-key, she knew, and just trying to get on her nerves. Too absorbed by her phone, however, when she absently heard the shower turn off, she didn't tell him to keep it down or remind him that they weren't at home; rather, she only talked his head off, through the closed door, about how that had to have been, by far, one of the best RAWs they'd had in quite a long time.

He was mostly ignoring her though, because he could turn that shit off; easy. Stephanie, rather, was rather obsessive over shows immediately following them. Which, he could be too; just not four hours out.

Four hours.

It was two in the morning and Steph was still scrolling through shit about the damn Festival of Friendship.

Sigh.

"You know," he grumbled as he came out of the bathroom in only a towel. "There was a time when, following me being on TV, I could count on you lavishing me with praises."

"I'm on TV all the time now and you never lavish me with anything."

"Uh, yeah, because you're not very good at it."

Ignoring him, she only glanced up with a frown as, in only the light of the lamp she still had on by the bed, he wiggled right out of the towel and moved to get into bed.

"Why did you even wrap it around your waist, if you were going to-"

"So you could watch me take it off. You know, tease you before I please you or whatever."

Steph made a face. "I'm pretty pleased as it is, thanks."

"Your mouth says no, but those eyes your giving me-"

"I'm busy." Her eyes fell back to her phone. She was resting on her side, facing the center of the bed, with the device sat between them. "Maybe if you can without disturbing me-"

"Can what? Fuck you?" He snorted as she made a face at him. "No way. You can't even concentrate on anything else when I'm just speaking with you."

"Your loss."

"Your loss, you mean."

"That's literally what I said."

"Not my loss." He shook his head. "Nope. Not at all. Definitely yours. Missing out."

"I'll live."

"Could go out, right now, in this city, you know. Ask any woman out on the street if she wants a Valentines fuck-"

"That's tomorrow, babe." She grinned a bit from the thought. "Not today. You'dda been in trouble if it were today."

"But it's not today anymore. It's tomorrow. I mean, right now is tomorrow. Today."

"What?"

Confusing himself then, Paul shook his head a bit, shifting so he too was on his side, facing her. "It's two in the morning. Past it now, even. It's Valentines Day. Do you really not know what time it is?"

Steph blinked before shrugging. "I haven't even looked; besides, we're from the east. You still have, what? Another hour before the 14th there?"

"Pretty sure you have that backwards."

"And aren't you romantic? Remembering without prompting?"

"It's hard not to remember when all I've heard at home was about how three little girls have been begging me to just give them their candy early. You know, when I was a kid, I don't remember getting a special box of candy from my mother or father."

"You were a boy."

"That's sexist."

"Would you give your son a heart shaped box of chocolate?"

Paul snorted again before saying, "Guess we'll never know, huh?"

"Thanks to somebody-"

"Hey, I could put another kid in you right now, if you'd let me."

She scrunched up her face at the suggestion, using it more as an excuse to think up a retort than that the idea truly disgusted her.

"You could put another girl, you mean," was what she finally came up with and he snorted one last time before falling silent.

She thought he'd given up and was just about to put her phone away so that she could settle down for bed, but then Paul was speaking again.

"Get all romantic and shit for you and you're still on your phone."

That got her off. Fighting a grin, she asked, "What are you talking about? How have you been remotely romantic?"

"I sang that song. In the shower."

"It sounded like you were singing Ride the Lightning."

"By Metallica, yeah."

"How is that romantic?"

"I didn't say the song was romantic. I said I sang for you."

"Paul-"

"Then I did that strip tease-"

"There was no tease. Or strip. You came in here, dropped your towel, and began making passes a me."

"Not to mention, I remember Valentines Day when you didn't."

"Oh, I remembered it. I just didn't bring it up at two in the morning for no reason."

"There was a reason."

"Yeah, hey, didn't you bring it up when you were threatening to go out and sleep with another woman?"

"I don't see your point, Steph." It was his turn to make a face as she started giggle, unable to control herself then as she tried to hide it in her pillow. "This isn't funny. I'm talking about cheating on you and you're laughing? No wonder I have to go to other places to fulfill my needs. Spread my seed. You know-"

"Enough, enough." she giggled as he continued staring heavily over at her. He was always so much better at staying in character than her. "I surrender."

"Surrender to my need for sex?"

"Make that sound more rape-ish, babe."

He finally just moved to pick the phone up from where it sat on the bed, Steph making no move to stop him as he leaned over her, to where the end of her charger was waiting to be hooked into the device. When he finished though, he didn't roll away from her. Nope. Stayed right over her as Steph giggled some more, running a hand along his jawline, against the grain of his beard.

"You don't think I told you yet, how good you were, talking to Kevin and Joe and all that?"

"Don't recall it if you have." He was reaching out again, though then it was to get at that pesky lamp, to flick it off. "Plus, wouldn't hurt to hear it again. I have a pretty damn big ego."

"Needs stroking?"

"If only it was that simple." He shifted a bit, so he wasn't squashing her as much, but Steph made sure to keep her hand against his chin, still stroking. Grinning in the darkness, he whispered, "Like my beard, baby?"

"I like the little gray in it, yeah."

"More than usual," he remarked more than questioned. Still, she nodded.

"You gonna admit it yet?"

"What?" he whispered, expecting her to ask something stupid and mushy about it being the day of love or whatever.

"That the reason you cut off your hair was because I found that gray hair-"

"It was coincidental."

"Liar."

"You like me better this way though, huh?"

"Mmmm." Her free hand came up to rub at his fuzzy head. "I like you any way."

"You do?"

"I stayed with you through your chubby phase, didn't I?"

"I wasn't chubby. Ever."

"Okay."

"And you're one to talk."

Both her hands fell. "You're about to ruin this."

"You started it."

"I can end it too."

Groaning, his head fell a bit, so that he could rest it in the crook of her neck. "It's so late, Steph. I got shit to do in the morning."

"Then go to sleep."

"I'm too wired now." Not to mention, his hands were pretty busy tugging down the panties she'd worn to bed. "You know what helps with sleep?"

That got her to giggle again, thankfully. And the clock hadn't even struck three before they were both able to drift off.

Paul's alarm went off far too early the next morning, but he'd set his phone that way on purpose. Even as Steph griped at him about it, he only yawned as he shut it off and got up make a very important phone call, just to be sure that his girls had been given their candy that morning as well as listen to all of their before school troubles.

Which there always were, but it being a holiday that grade schools loved to exploit (he grumbled to Steph each year they had to buy overpriced cards with cartoon characters on them, just so his girls could give them to other children who they only liked a handful of and who all would only throw away in the end, that the schools were definitely in cahoots with such companies), there was more drama than usual abound.

They were so pumped about their respective class parties, however, that he didn't get any requests to just stay home or lies about feeling ill. Steph slept through it though and none of the girls exactly asked to speak with her, so he didn't wake her for them.

He did, however, wake her for himself, after splashing some water on his face and getting a bit more conscious.

"Stop it," she complained, batting at his hand as he tapped her on the head. "I don't have to get up until ten."

"How do you figure?"

"Same way I figure everything; my daddy owns the company."

"Not yet I don't, princess. Give me a few years, huh"

"Stop hitting my head," she whined as she rolled onto her back, blinking up at him. "What do you even want?"

"What I want and what I'm trying to get you to do are two very different things."

"No riddles."

"I wanna take you to breakfast."

"No."

"Come on. Get up."

"No."

"Valentines breakfast."

"But we're having dinner on Saturday to celebrate. I don't have to get up right now, so don't make me."

"Engagement anniversary breakfast then."

That got her to stop blinking and just stare at him. "You wanna celebrate our anniversary by getting breakfast?"

"Better than not celebrating it at all, I'm sure, in your opinion."

Meh.

"Can't you just go get us breakfast? And we can eat in bed?"

"So you're saying," he said slowly, staring heavily down at her, "that if I go get us breakfast, I won't have to hear anything about how much it sucked we couldn't be together tonight? Or about our engagement anniversary thingy? Or any of that?"

"If I can sleep for another thirty minutes and you'll have food when I wake up, yes."

Paul nodded at this before leaning down to brush a kiss against her lips. Softly, he said, "Gonna get dressed and get us something then. Back in thirty."

"Make it forty."

"Make it thirty or else I'll eat all the food in front of you and not let you have any."

"I'd be asleep, but whatever. And that's how you got chubby, by the way."

But he was well prepared for the trap that time around and knew better than to truly get into a comparison about who gained more weight over the years. Even had a quip ready about how, after a year, it's no longer just baby weight.

But he wasn't as stupid as he looked.

Which meant he wasn't at all, considering Steph frequently thought, in his sharp suits he wore in those days, he looked far more intelligent than he actually was. Probably an insult, but that he'd take what he could get.

If fourteen years after a proposal, you could still get away with little jabs that came out of a place of love rather than resentment, you had little room to gripe.

Steph wasn't up, when he got up, but it only took a bit of coaxing to get her that way. She played up the exhausted angle far better than he, making him lay down on the bed with her while they ate.

"I'm not feeding you," he warned, as he drew a line there, of places, leery of her intentions as she had him lay flat on his back, the takeout container on his stomach. "And I'm not being fed. I don't care what we're celebrating."

"You don't feed one another pancakes, Paul. Or eggs." Stephanie even rolled her eyes as she sat up a bit, using him more as a table than anything else (again, probably offensive, but after fourteen years…) "You feed one another fruits. Sensually."

"Sexually? This is a sex thing? You gonna poor syrup over my co-"

"Sensually, jerk."

"Syrup jerking sounds pretty sticky, Steph."

"You're impossible."

"You're grinning."

"Well, I didn't say you're not funny."

They shared a grin then and he showed some teeth too, because Stephanie loved it so much when he did that. When he tried to reach for one of the forks though, to dig into the takeout box she had on his chest (there was another they hadn't opened yet which was supposed to have her food in it, but for some reason, she seemed to want to be sharing), he made the mistake of sitting up a bit, which caused Steph to reach over and shove him back down.

"Steph-"

"Don't sit up."

"Do you know how hard it'll be to eat at this angle?"

"Well, I could have fed you if you didn't pitch such a fit-"

"I knew that was your plan."

"Oh, shut up."

Steph couldn't hang around forever. And neither could he. He had work shit to do and Steph was going back to Connecticut and…

"I can't believe," he grumbled when, after eating and showering with some fooling around mix in there, Steph was getting ready to head out, "that you're leaving me here. In the City of Sin. On the most romantic night of the year."

"You got some at, what, two in the morning? And kinda sorta did, like, an hour ago."

"Kinda sorta?" Paul blew air in her face as he glared down at her. "I was all into taking that further. You weren't."

"Yeah, well, given those two factors, I think I can rest assured that you're pretty much sated for the week."

"Babe, I can go back to back."

"What? Days?"

"Right after, get ready right again, right then and there. No wait time."

"You're so stupid."

"Be stupid with me. Here." She was trying to pull on a jacket, but he wasn't letting her. Each time she slip a sleeve on, he shove it right back down and it was more of a game than anything else. "Come to Smackdown with me."

"I'm sort of a RAW person these days, babe. Remember? The draft?"

"Mmmm, I think Hunter was in hiding or something back then, so no."

"You wouldda heard about it."

"Why?"

"We sorta poached your silly little baby company. Remember?"

"Is that what it is?"

"That's what you're being, at least, right now," she grumbled as, apparently, the jacket game was getting old. "Paul, I have to go."

"Why?"

"Because I'm home on Tuesdays. And I have office stuff."

"Fuck office stuff and home."

"I gotta see the girls."

That one got a bit of a groan out of him as, bending over a bit, he rested his head against the top of hers. "Why did we have kids again, Steph?"

"Mmmm...love or lust. A mixture?" His arms were around her shoulders then, preventing her from getting the jacket on in any way then, so she only dropped it back to the ground. "Plus your ego."

"Stroke it for me."

She titled her head back, just right, so that her lips were pressed right where chin and neck met, whispering there, "But baby, we're all out of syrup."

Paul didn't laugh, but he did have to bite his lip when they broke apart. He found Steph very funny times. He just didn't like for her to know that.

"Yeah, well," he sighed as she bent down to pick up her jacket and slip it back on. In farewell, he said "I'll text the fuck outta you when I'm bored."

"If you think that's the new way we're going to say that we love one another, forget it."

"Two separate things, Steph. You just didn't give me a chance to say the love part."

"And I'm not just someone you can text when you're bored."

He laughed, but it wasn't at her but rather himself, so it was alright, that deep bellied one as he said, "Then, babe, you better expect to get very few text from me."

"You should text me every time I cross your mind."

"I do. It only happens when I'm bored."

"Paul."

"What do you want from me?" he fell into the bed again, on his back, and mimed holding a phone in both hands before tapping his thumbs against nothing, as if texting. "Hey, Steph thought about you. Oh, wow, Steph, you were in my mind. Steph. Thought of you. Cool. I mean, what? You need that much attention these days?"

"I always needed it, I just suppressed it."

"Hey, Steph, just took a shit. Thought about you."

"I don't need descriptions of what you're doing when you think about me."

"Stephie, saw your father. Thought of you. I'd save that one and have to send it to you every single time I ran into the old man. Which is...a lot. You really want that?"

"It would be nice."

"Hey, baby, just saw a really hot chick. Would bang her, but then I was married to you. Think of you always, Paul."

Steph had been busy buttoning up her jacket, but that got her to glare over at him. "You're about to lose your imaginary phone rights."

"You're such a dork."

"Be a Star, Paul."

Grunt. Then, letting his hands fall to his sides, he said, "Well, maybe I'd like to get text when you think about me. Ever think of that?"

"You wouldn't want that."

"How come?" It was a crooked grin he presented her with then. "Because you think about me constantly and would have to send me sixty messages a minute?"

"No," she hummed. "Because I hardly ever think of you."

"Bullshit."

"I don't. Out of sight, out of mind."

"This is not the obssessive stalker I know and married."

"I stalked you?"

"You made your father put us together so that you could use your feminine wiles to lore me into your devious clutches."

"I'm not a super villain, Paul. And I didn't do that."

"That's how I tell the story."

"How often are you talking about us getting together?"

"Think about it more than tell." Eyes on the ceiling then, he hummed as he said, "Whenever a chick hits on me and I'm out on the town, away from you-"

"You're not going to keep getting away with these jokes, so realize how thin the ice is getting, buddy."

"-I get this, like, mental thought of the last time I hooked up with a chick because she wouldn't stop hitting on me and then I had to marry her and father her children and I just… You want me to text you that? Or-"

"Text me when you're bored. Like normal."

Victorious then, he sat up a bit before saying, "I love you, you know."

She faltered again with her buttons, as she always wound, no matter how many more years that they tacked on. To the floor, she replied softly, "I know."

"And if you're not going to stay with me and have sex in the middle of ring to start the second hour of Smackdown-"

"What?" Steph choked a bit, caught off guard. "Paul-"

"-then have a safe trip back home, huh?"

"Thanks, baby," she giggled as she looked up at him again, grinning. "I-"

"And I mean that," he kept right up. "If you die in a horrible, fiery plane crash, before I inherit this damn company, when I've gotten this close, I will never forgive you."

"That...got a lot less sweet."

"What? You think this was all lovey-dovey shit? No way, babe. I look out for number one."

"You're, like, trying so hard to make this end on a bad note that it isn't even funny."

"Maybe I do want it to," he agreed with a nod of his head as she came over to stand at the edge of the bed, to kiss him goodbye. "End badly. So that when you get home, you're so surprised by my gift."

"You got me something?"

When she leaned down, he wrapped his arms around her and about pulled her down atop him. "Of course I did. What kinda husband would I be otherwise, huh?"

"Probably the type that mentions multiple times in one sitting that he wants to sleep with other women."

"What? Me?"

"Yeah, you."

"Never." Groaning lowly as their lips brushed and she stood straight once more, he said quite cleanly then with no play in his voice whatsoever, "I love you. And if I could go back fourteen years, wouldn't do. It'dda already been done. Way before. Maybe even a decade back."

"Okay, you go too far back, I'm still in high school and definitely not going to win you in favors with anyone."

"I would make a crass joke here, but I don't really want you to leave mad at me."

"Good choice."

She stroked his beard a few times and he offered to carry her bags out for her, but she declined. With one more kiss, she was gone and he was alone to use his actual phone to not bother his wife, but rather make some real calls. Not to mention he had his own flight to catch, to California, as he and Steph stuck around in Vegas that night.

He actually only text Steph twice that day. Once to make sure she didn't die in a fiery plane crash (asking got him a bunch of annoyed emojis) and the other to tell her that he just saw a hot chick walk by, got turned on, and then thought of her.

That didn't even get a reply, but he was sure it got a rise.

Paul took a flight back home that night and got in so late he didn't expect Steph to be up. And she only halfway was, as he found her on the couch, her laptop having been set on the coffee table, and Andre, their huge mastiff, sleeping on the floor beneath the woman.

"Mmmm," she groaned, batting at his hand, much like she had that morning when he came to tap her head. "What do you want?"

"Well, what I want and what I-"

"Paul."

"Did you like your gift?"

"The chocolate?"

"No."

"The flowers?"

"No."

"The little charm for my bracelette that I already put on it and everything?"

"No."

That got Steph to lift her head. "Wait, you got me something more?"

Giving her a shocked look, he said, "Well, yeah, I had the maid lay all of you guys stuff on your beds. The girls got their little gifts to go with their chocolate when they got home and you were supposed to get yours. Do you think- Oh, no. You don't think that… Andre, did you-"

"What was it?" Steph was shoving up then to stare down at their pooch, who, at the moment, didn't move in the slightest. "Do you really think he got it? It wasn't more chocolate, was it? Do I-"

"No, he has it. Right there. See?"

"What?"

Paul bent down then, in the darkness of their living room, to snatch the bone from under neath the big behemoth's right front paw. Andre hardly moved, but Steph's face turned first into confusion and then into a deep glare.

"Paul-"

"Why'd you give Andre your new bone, Steph? Did you think it was sat on your bed with your gifts so that you could give it to him? Please. What kinda man gives his dog a Valentines Day gift?"

"What kind," she muttered lowly, "gives his wife a bone?"

"One that wants her to chew on that rather than chew him out all the time."

"Paul-"

"You like your charm, Steph?"

Finally fully shoving up from the couch to follow him to the bedroom (though he'd stop to check in on the girls first), she said, "I mean, compared to a bone?"

"You never answered my last text, you know."

"I know. It was on purpose."

"I thought about you a lot, but after the no response, figured my deep personal thoughts are left to myself."

She had to reach up to do it, but Steph knocked her fingers against his forehead in the dark, shaking her head as she said, "Given all you've said to me today, yeah, I think I can do without hearing any of those for another year."

"Happy Valentines Day, Steph."

"You're back in the east now, babe. A day late on that."

"Hey, it's always Valentines Day somewhere."

"Not even remotely true."

"Coming from the woman that got her time zones confused-"

"You make one mistake in life-"

"College education? More like daddy paid to get her through school, the way I see it."

"I didn't even know you when I went to school, so there."

He couldn't help it that time. Steph was so funny to him and yeah, he hated her to know it, but it was so late and he'd had so little sleep that he actually giggled at the way she'd played his line from the previous night back on him.

She was so perfect.

He didn't even mind that he woke up the girls and one of them somehow managed to weasel their way in bed with them that night because of it, which meant a horrible night of sleep as, of course, it was the one who kicked in her dang sleep.

A pretty fitting ending to a pretty great day.

Oy, so apparently, Linda actually spent the day getting sworn or whatever and the whole family was there, including the kids, but I really have zero desire to write about anything relating to that. Plus, I'd written a sizable chunk of this before I saw that she got sworn in today anyways and no way was I fucking tossing it all. Then I fucking forgot to check to see where SD was tonight, so when I saw it was in Cali, I just kinda did a throw away line about Paul having to catch a flight and…

This was mostly just a clusterfuck of an excuse to have the two of them verbally go back and forth at one another. Which, really, is that not most of my one-shots anyways?