Thanks for all the great response to the first chapter! I'm loving this story and I've got a lot of ideas lined up so updates are gonna be coming fast and furious. The next few chapters are already written out and how quickly they're posted depends on how much response I can get in the form of reviews, just so I know people are actually reading and wanting more, ha. So the first chapter was more of a prologue than anything; from now onwards I'll be getting into the present day, with the thick of the story really beginning. I'll be teasing pairings over the next few beginning chapters but nothing is set in stone yet :) The first few chapters will be quite short, just to warn you guys.

Enjoy!

2. Eve and the Chance Encounter

With her hair tied back into a messy bun, dressed in casual workout clothes and her face minimally made up, Eve Torres trawled the aisles of the supermarket her family had frequented since before she was even born. Consulting her list every now and again, Eve would carefully select items off of the shelves before throwing them into the shopping basket in her other hand. It had been les s than two months since she had returned home following her college graduation, and she was already quickly growing tired of her parent's home not having any of the wholesome variety of foods to which she had spent her college life growing accustomed. She had admittedly adopted this habit while dating her first college boyfriend, wannabe bodybuilder Chris Masters, but she had gotten so into his world of fitness and nutrition that she had carried on pursuing these interests herself long after they had broken up.

Being back at home was, as she would constantly reassure herself, temporary. Everyone said it was normal for recent graduates to move back into their parent's homes briefly following graduation, hell, most of her college friends had returned to their hometowns to do the same. Most of her old friends from home were back too.

At the same time, there was something pretty weird about being back in the town you had grown up in, now as an adult. Sure, Eve had come home plenty of times throughout college, but now that she had finished her degree, and there was no promise of returning to Southern California at the end of the vacation to keep her spirits up, she had to admit that she felt a little... lost.

Eve sighed as she finally picked up the right kind of natural yogurt and placed it in the basket.

"All I've gotta do is get one job offer in Cali and then I'm out of here," she muttered to herself.

"Eve? Eve Torres?" Eve's head shot up and she could feel her eyes rolling almost instinctively at the sound of the voice calling her name.

"Mike Mizanin." Just my luck.

She spoke through gritted teeth and forced a smile as her ex-boyfriend rushed over and pulled her in for a hug.

"Eve Torres." He stood back and looked her up and down, shaking his head in disbelief. "I haven't seen you since..."

"Not since high school graduation."

Mike grinned.

"Oh man, high school. That feels like so long ago now."

"Yup."

"Hey, you must have finished college by now. You went to school in SoCal, right?"

She nodded.

"Yep, on both points. All done now and back home in good ol' Connecticut."

He laughed at the sound of sarcasm in her tone. She hadn't changed a bit.

"Man, tell me about it. I spent the past four years living it up in LA so being back here is bizarre to say the least."

She nodded again, preparing herself for whatever he was about to start bragging about.

"So, how was college for you? What are you up to now?"

Her eyebrows rose. She was fairly surprised to hear him affording the spotlight to somebody else. She quickly looked over him again, finally noticing how different he looked, too. His classic spiked hair-do had been flattened down and grown out into a flattering, mature coifed look. The California sun appeared to have blessed him with a natural, attractive tan and he had some light stubble dotted across his jaw. He was dressed in a dark blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, paired with grey slacks and expensive looking shoes. Damn, Eve thought to herself. The Miz is looking pretty damn good.

She cleared her throat quickly and smiled at him, tucking a loose tendril of wavy brown hair behind her ear.

"College was great, Mike. I made a lot of good friends, had a great four years and learned a lot. Now? I guess I'm back home for the time being, until I get the job in California I really want."

He nodded and smiled as she spoke.

"What about you?" She asked politely.

"Just like you said, I loved college. It gave me the chance to grow up a lot, y'know? I definitely feel like I learned a lot too." A uncharacteristically shy smile swept across his face. "And I met the love of my life."

Eve's heart sank. Of course Mizanin found someone. Of course.

"Her name's Maryse and she's the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on. She looks like a supermodel. She's from Montreal but she's getting all the paperwork done so she can move down here and I think there's a real future for us. I've never felt this way about a woman before. No offense."

Eve laughed and shook her head. "None taken. I'm sure she's great and I'm very happy for you, Mike."

"Thanks, Eve."

He looked down at his watch.

"Oh crap, I better get going. I've got a meeting in a little while so I've got to go get ready." He gave Eve another small smile. "But I'd love to see you again, while we're both still in town. Do you wanna go get coffee sometime?"

Eve took a deep breath and smiled courteously.

"You know what, Mike? Sure. I'd love to."

"Great!" He grinned.

The two quickly exchanged numbers before Mike had to rush out of the store, leaving Eve standing alone in the cold section, confused and a little shaken up by the interaction that had just taken place between her and her asshole of an ex-boyfriend... who really didn't seem to be the asshole she had remembered him as. Oh, she could not wait to catch Maria up on this.

As she finished with her shopping and left the store, still reeling from her chance encounter with Mike Mizanin, Eve couldn't help but chuckle to herself. Of course it would go down like that. She was fresh off a workout and looking like a hot mess while The Miz looked like a million bucks. For a second, it was almost as if high school had never ended.

Instead of driving straight back home, Eve decided to take a brief detour, driving a few blocks away to the Starbucks she used to frequent. As she stood in line, her mind would not leave Mike alone; almost as if she was still trying to figure out whether that really just happened. Then as if by clockwork, her phone buzzed in her hand.

"Hey Eve. Was nice seeing you today. Sorry I had to rush off earlier; I would have loved to have spoken to you for longer! Like I said earlier, it'd be great to see you again. Maybe we could get some lunch tomorrow? Mike x"

Eve sighed and read the text over a couple of times. Oh well, she thought to herself.

"Hey Mike. Was great seeing you too. Lunch sounds good :) Eve x"

He quickly texted back a time and place to which she agreed with slight hesitation. The lunch spot he had chosen was a cute, local diner; the exact same one in which they had had several dates back in high school.

A part of her wondered why she had even agreed to such a thing. After all, Mike had broken her heart and her trust just a few years earlier.

"We're not in high school anymore," Maria had reminded her some years earlier as they spoke on the phone about Eve's budding relationship with Chris Masters. "Yeah, Miz broke your heart and was and probably still is a total asshole, but you're done with him. He's away at college, you're away at college, you have no reason to still be dwelling on him. If I can get over Punk, you can deal with getting over Mike. After all, we are now mature young college women with the whole world at our feet. We can't keep letting guys slow us down."

Eve laughed, thinking about how the girls had had this exact conversation with Maria just a few months ago, following a break-up of her own.

As airy-fairy and optimistic as Maria was, she was right. Mike had slowed Eve down for a long time; making it difficult for her to properly move on even at college. Chris Masters was her first post-Miz boyfriend, and although their relationship was relatively short-lived, it had reassured Eve that not only did she not need Mike anymore, but that she could date or even sleep with men and not worry about how far she could trust them. Even when briefly dating the goofy but loveable Zack Ryder after Chris, and the gentlemanly Shad Gaspard after him, Eve's main concern for the time being went it came to the dating game was being able to assure herself that she could dip her toes in several different ponds instead of worrying about the future and settling down. And it worked. But now, something about seeing Mike again after all these years, the self-professed ladies' man who had now apparently found his 'one', made Eve feel as if he had won the unspoken battle of the exes.