Next morning Dolph rolled out of bed, his head spinning. "Oh shit!" He groaned. He rubbed his eyes and sat down on the bed. After a few minutes he heard knocks on his door. "Damn it…" He went to open the door and his eyes snapped open when he saw the older Hardy. "G-good morning." He greeted.

"Good morning Nick." The brunette stepped in and looked at him. "Are you scheduled tonight?"

"Tonight? Yeah. Not for a match though, just an interruption." He answered.

"Cool, so you don't have to go to the gym today. Have you had breakfast?"

"No, I…" he yawned. "I just woke up."

"Well, then go take a shower and we'll go to the restaurant to have breakfast."

"At the restaurant?"

"Yeah. But we can go anywhere else if you want to." He suggested: he should have imagined that the blond wouldn't want to go to the restaurant where everyone else would be.

"Starbucks?" The younger said.

"Sure. Now, chop-chop, let's go." The North Carolina native pushed him to the bathroom and then eh started to tidy up a little bit the room.

While in the shower, Nemeth shook his head: the Hardy had been completely serious about helping him. He felt weird, he wasn't used to have someone attention for so long, not even AJ's. He dressed up in the first think he found: jeans and a pink shirt. Uh… not that shirt. He looked into his bag and then decided to use a black shirt.

"You ready?" The auto-invited-guest said.

"Yeah." They went to the lifts and Matt pressed the button to the hall. "Matt?"

"Yes?" He asked.

"Won't Jeff say anything if you don't go to have breakfast with him?" He questioned.

"Nah. He's still sleeping." He answered, smiling and stepping out of the lift. "Hey guys." He greeted Adam and Jay, who were clearly discussing about something.

"Good morning Matt!" both chorused before realising he wasn't alone. "Hey Dolph." Both said.

"Hey." The blond said, trying not to sound as he would in the ring. Not an easy job.

"Where are you going?" Jay asked.

"Have breakfast at the Starbucks." Matt answered smiling.

"Ok. See you around then." Adam completed. Matt and Nick continued their way to the Starbucks and where far enough, the oldest Canadian pointed. "That was weird."

"Agreed. I mean, what's Matthew doing with his asshole? I never imagined that they could be friends." Jay said.

"Who knows? Matt is friend with everyone."

"Yeah, I know. But I had never seen them together until today." He objected and Adam shrugged, ending the topic.

The blond and the brunette were already in queue waiting for their turn. It was then than Dolph saw that Matt was shifting uncomfortably.

"Are you okay?" He asked, gently, not wanting to upset him.

"Uh? Yeah, yeah. It's just… too many people." He smiled. "I don't like too crowded places." He explained, justifying his shifting.

"Do you want to wait outside?" He asked, surprising himself: he wasn't that type of man. "I can take whatever you and bring it outside."

"Really?" The bleach-blond nodded. "Thanks Nick."

"It's nothing. What do you want?" He asked, shrugging.

"A cappuccino and a… chocolate muffin." He stated before leaving the building, waiting outside.

Around five minutes later the Ohio native came next to him and they sat down on a bench. "That's really good." Matt said, smiling.

"Please don't tell me you had never been to a Starbucks." Nemeth said, almost dramatically.

"Hey, I'm a country boy, you know? There isn't a Starbucks in Cameron. And Jeff and I usually eat at the hotel, so we don't have the necessity of going anywhere, but I would gladly came back." He answered. "Thanks for grabbing my stuff."

"No problem. You are trying t help, is the least I could do." Nick said, nibbling at his cookie.

They ate in silence, not an uncomfortable one, of course, just silence. Suddenly Matt stood up and threw the cup in to the trash bin.

"So Nick, what do you like to do out of the ring?" He asked when he sat down again.

"Ex-excuse me?" The younger stuttered.

"I asked: what do you like to do when you are out of the ring?" He repeated.

"Uh… Listen music, read, walk around the city… I don't know normal stuff I guess." He answered, not really getting the point. "And you?" He rather had a conversation with him than and interrogatory.

"Dirt biking, play video games, hang out with Jeff and if I'm home I play with Lucas." He said.

"Who is Lucas?"

"My dog."

"You have a dog?" Ziggler asked, pretty surprised.

"Yeah, Lucas." He smiled and the other, seeing the stupidity of the conversation right at that moment giggled. "Here." He took a picture from his wallet and showed it to him.

"Wow. He's really cute." He cooed. "Is that you?" He unexpectedly asked, pointing at a photo of Matt and Jeff when they were children: Jeff was hugging Matt and beaming.

"Yeah. That was on Jeff seventh birthday. I gave him one of my old motorbike replica he always wanted." He explained, smiling sweetly at the memory.

"So he's brunette." He stated.

"Yeah. Not many people do know that." He put the wallet inside his pocket again. "Do you want to go back to the hotel? I'm freezing here."

"Sure." They went back to the hotel in silence and then they went to their respective rooms.

The day passed with no major notice: during morning Jeff and Matt played videogames with Orton and in the afternoon Jeff went with Phil and Morrison to buy something so Adam and Jay went to talk to him.

"Oh. Hey guys. What brings you here?" He asked, moving to one side so the blonds could go in.

"We were just curious. How come you were with Ziggler this morning? We didn't know you were friends." Adam said.

"Oh well…" He didn't know if he should tell the truth or not. He decided that he could trust those two. "C'mon, sit down." Once they were on the sofa Matt started to talk again. "I'll tell you, but you have to promise you won't tell anyone. Not Ames, not Jeff, not Vince. No one, ok?"

"Ok. We promise." The both of them said, solemnly.

The American sighed. "So… That day that I was late at the club, the day you came back Addy, AJ asked to see me, she wanted to talk about something. Well, something ended up being Nick. Dolph." He said when he saw their confused faces. "He is having drinking problems and she asked me if I could help him."

"So, you are helping a guy to whom you basically have never talked?" Jay asked, sarcastically.

"Yeah. I am. Because I know for experience that the last thing you need is everybody making fun of you. And I know how to deal with drunk people." Matt practically growled.

"Ok, ok. Both of you calm down now. Jay, it's none of our business what Matt does with Ziggler or not. And you, we were just worried." Adam said, stepping in before they reached hands. "Shit! I need to go!" The oldest blond exclaimed when he so what hour was. "C'mon Jay. See you later Matty." He leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Love ya." He whispered. He didn't have a crush or anything on the oldest Hardy, but he loved him like a brother/best-friend.

"Me too." He answered softly, returning the kiss.

He closed the door and then slept about three hours on the couch, a weird feeling in his chest, something he didn't feel in a long time. When Jeff came in smiled when saw him, and covered him with a blanket. Matt dreamed during those three hours of sleep. It wasn't actually a dream; it was a memory, a memory of how miserable he felt during his drinking phase. When he woke up Jeff was already sleeping in his bed and the show was over so he guessed that the blond would be in his room already.

"We gotta talk." Matt said, serious, when the door was open.

"About?" He knew that any type of light and friendly conversation like the morning one wasn't going to happen.

"You and alcohol." He sat down on the sofa and motioned the other man to do the same. "Look, I'm not going to ask you yet why did you start drinking, but I want you to have something really clear: when I meant that everybody could leave you alone, I really meant everybody." The older sighed. "When I started drinking… at the beginning was fine, nobody noticed anything but then… I started to push everyone away, especially Jeff. I never picked up his phone calls, never answered his texts, didn't open the door when he went to check on me at home, and that me made me feel even worse, which led to more drinking… A vicious circle, you know? It sucked, but I couldn't stop."

"Then… how did you?" He asked, gently, sensing the pain coming from Matt.

"Jeff called Mark. He showed up, broke the door down when I refused to open it, beat the shit outta me. He said that if hadn't been stinking drunk I could've stopped him. He even broke my damn wrist. Damn thing is that he was completely right. Then we started yelling at each other and then I said something like "I want to die" or something like that." Matt could feel himself shaking from the memories, the pain of remembering all of this, but he knew it needed to be done, not only to make Nemeth realise what could happen, but he needed to explain someone how he felt. "I… I really wanted to die; I wanted to disappear, to go to sleep and never wake up, I felt like I did nothing useful in life, like I was a looser. And I was."

Swallowing hard, not knowing if it would be ok, he put his hand on top of Matt's and squeezed gently. Yeah, he always acted like an asshole, but he did care for people, at least for the people who he considered worth it. And, even though they weren't friends he knew Matt was it.

"You are not a looser, you are one of the best wrestlers when it comes to extreme and tag-team. I mean, you are part of the creation of the TLC matches, not everyone can say that his boss created a type of match because of him." He pointed out.

"Why don't you always act like that?" The brunette suddenly asked. "They would love you right away."

"It's just… I don't know." He mumbled, looking away.

"It's okay if you can't tell me yet, I won't push you." The older said, smiling softly. "Well, as I was saying, I yelled that to Mark and then I thought that he was going to punch me again. I was wrong, he only hugged me; just like a mother would hug her child and I broke. I broke in tears. I think I might have cried for about two or three hours before I passed out. Next morning when I woke up I remembered everything so I thought he would be gone. Again, I was wrong. He slept on the sofa and was making breakfast. Delicious, by the way. He stayed with me for a whole month, until I was better and stopped drinking. The same day he left, Jeff called me. And for the first time in five months I answered the phone." He sighed and blinked rapidly, not wanting to shed any tear. "He has never told me, but I knew he was crying." The oldest sighed and stared at the rug.

"I think you are an awesome man." He said softly and Matt knew he actually meant it, that it wasn't something to cheer him up.

"Thanks. Now, when was the last time you talked to your brother?" Matt questioned.

"Uh… I don't know, a three weeks or so." The blond answered.

"Who called?"

"Him."

"Ok. You should call him you know. I'm pretty sure that he called all the other times. Believe, he is going to love it if for once you are the one who calls him." He said and then stood up. "I gotta go. I'll see you tomorrow for breakfast, ok?" He asked.

"Sure." He quickly answered. "G-good night." He muttered.

"Good night." The oldest said, smiling softly.

When he closed the door he quickly went to the closet and took a bottle of whiskey, poured himself a glass and drunk, but for the first he didn't like it, the flavour wasn't right. He looked at the amber liquid and sighed, left the glass onto the table and went to bed.

He didn't want to deceive Matt, not him. The man really did care for him and those two days, for him, it felt like a lifetime. And then he knew it, he knew that he wouldn't drink anything else if Matt was closer to him, but that, if for any reason Matt went away or pushed him away he was going to lose it and start drinking again.

That was all Matt achieved in less than 72 hours and AJ couldn't for the last three months. He fell sleep with that thought in his mind.