Phoebe and Heather were talking at a booth towards the middle of Island Boi in the restaurant area, sharing a shrimp bowl. The long haired blond was reclining back a little, her arm resting behind her head while she picked up the battered shrimp with the other to eat. Heather was sitting more upright, her back straight against the cool leather of the booth but still enjoying the fact that she had someone to talk to.

"So you grew up here in Pensacola?" Phoebe asked taking a drink of the ice water she had ordered.

Heather nodded. "I did. I uh, I went to the same high school as Joe Anoa'i."

"Is he the Roman Reigns guy? Sorry, I'm not all that well versed with wrestling or wrestling history. I only just got introduced to that world today. I've never heard of those men who were sampling our drinks. Only from what I heard the other women said."

Heather pushed her hair from her face as she took a drag of her Ice Tea. "Then you would probably be the first. Most of the people here are related to Matt and Joe in some way or another. One of the potential hires is actually Joe's wife's sister. Anyway, how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-one, I'll be twenty two in August. How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-six."

This whole getting to know you thing was Phoebe's intention with Heather. She may have been younger than Heather but Heather definitely was just like herself when she was younger. The only reason why Phoebe was the way she was at that moment was because she wanted the success, she needed to be assertive when she needed to be and if it meant achieving her dreams then that was what she was going to do.

"Hello, Ladies." Dean Ambrose said as he came to stand next to their table.

"I was wondering if you would catch onto that, Mr. Ambrose." Phoebe said, sitting up a little.

"Oh, only Dean Ambrose will fly at the bar, Rapunzel. But right now, I'm just Jon Good."

"Good, that's your last name?" She asked moving over in the booth. "Wanna join us? I have a feeling that's why you're even here. And no, you may not touch my hair."

He smirked, showing off his dimple in his left cheek. "I can't promise that but sure. So, what is it that brought you here?"

"To Island Boi?" He nodded. "I want to be a bartender, but one day I want to be a bar owner and this is the right place to begin. You can't start out at the top unless you work your butt off to get there."

"I think you have the right attitude." Seth said walking up. "I'm Colby Lopez by the way. Mind if I sit next to you?" He asked looking at Heather.

"Yeah, sure." She pushed her drink down the table and saved him enough room. "We were just talking about wrestling before you showed up." She blushed and looked down at her glass.

"Oh yeah, so you both are wrestling fans huh?"

"Sorry to burst your A-List bubble, honey, I'm not familiar with you at all. Matt told me he was related to some guy called The Rock and Roman Reigns, but I had no clue who they were. Still have no clue about who The Rock is, but I figured out Joe was Roman."

Colby chuckled. "That's actually kind of cool. We don't usually meet people who don't know who we are."

"Nevertheless, you're sitting with the best of them. At least that's me." Jon boasted, draping an arm around the back of the booth, just behind Phoebe's head.

"Funny, at least I'm getting a push." Colby retorted

"I'm in a movie."

"I'm in a free video game." A third voice said, making Phoebe jump a little.

Joe walked up with his brother Matt. Phoebe smiled at them, but being stuck on the inside of the booth seat, she didn't try to stand up.

"I came by to tell you two that we're going to try something out." Matt told the two women as his brother looked at the four sitting at the booth. "For a week, you will work here, paid work, that way I can assess if you are good enough to work here permanently. How does that sound for you two ladies?"

"That sounds perfect to me. It gives me a chance to get better acquainted with how the bar is run." Phoebe looked at Heather, kicking her foot underneath the table. "You'll be great, Heather."

"Think so?" She asked.

"Oh, honey, I know so."

"All right you two, time to get out of here." Joe said, pointing out his two friends. "Thank you for keeping an eye on them, ladies." He smiled at the women. "We'll let you get back to your meal."

Jon reached out and stole a few pieces of shrimp, stuffed them in his mouth and then patted Phoebe's knee before getting up. "Thanks for the awesome service and great company."

Phoebe smiled at him, swiping at the crumbs that he left on her slacks. "Don't mention it, Sweetie."

"Mom is going to love her." Joe mumbled to Matt.

Not quite sure of what she just heard, Phoebe watched the three men that had once been The Shield walk out of Island Boi BBQ. Heather, though still awfully quiet, looked a bit more relaxed when it was just her, Phoebe and Matt.

"Is that Jon Good guy always so flirtatious?" Phoebe asked.

"Only to those he likes." Matt said.

"What about the other two? Colby I can tell is a nice guy, and Joe, your brother, I'm not sure what to think about him."

"Well, he's married, so…"

Phoebe held up her hands and waved them slightly. "No, that's not what I was getting at. He's calm, he's serene, but he's, guarded? Yeah, I'm not sure if I described him right. I don't really see him as a bar guy."

Matt sighed and ran his hand over his face. "That's because he's married and has a daughter."

"Yeah? What about you, sir? Do you have a family to go home to?"

"I got three kids of my own. I'm newly divorced." Matt smiled at the picture of his kids in his head. "Koa and Joe's daughter Malia go to the same school and everything. They are best friends and cousins, close friends and the same age. Koa will do his first grade homework over at Joe's house or Malia will come over to mine."

Phoebe smiled. "I wish I had that close of a family growing up. My life was usually moving around from one place to another, my dad trying to find work in different things that never usually panned out. It wasn't all that good."

"What got you interested in being a bartender?" Matt pulled a chair from a nearby unused table so that he could sit facing the two women.

"Math and chemistry, more so chemistry because mixing things to make a whole new substance seemed to fit what I wanted to do. And it's not just alcohol, I like to make frozen drinks, soda drinks, non-alcoholic cocktail drinks, experimenting. Just because I like what I pursued as a career."

"You have as much passion for bartending as my family has it for wrestling."

Phoebe merely shrugged in response.

"What about you, Heather, why did you want to become a bartender?"

"I, uh, well, I'm probably like the other women who tried out. I knew your family years and years ago. I went to high school with Joe. But bartending, I've been doing that sort of thing on and off since I was eighteen I think. I'm good, but I'm not great like Phoebe is."

"Practice makes perfect." The other woman responded. "I'm five years younger than her."

Matt laughed. "You are one interesting woman, Phoebe."

He wasn't that far off.


Rochelle wasn't home when Joe got back home. Grateful for that, he decided to go about trying to find something to do. Joe was not really a home body but he figured since he'd been on a the road for a long time that he needed to do something. On the days that he was home, he'd be home and wait for Malia to get off the bus. Otherwise Jordan, his seventeen year old nephew, would be out there waiting for the bus. Joe and Matt lived six houses from each other, so it wasn't uncommon for Matt's son to watch not only Malia but his own siblings.

The one thing that Rochelle did not like doing was vacuuming. She hated the bulky machine. While most of the downstairs was wooden, the upstairs was carpeted. So while he was vacuuming up the upstairs, he kept an eye on the time to pick up Malia. Her bus dropped her off at two fifty in the afternoon, he had plenty of time to pick up around the upstairs.

"Oh, Princess." He chuckled seeing his daughter's room.

Malia was a girly girl, she loved her pretty pink, purple and frilly girl things. But there was a rather interesting collection of Disney princess stuff, with a minor exception of The Shield action figures. Seth was have a tea party with Cinderella, Dean seemed to be reading a book in the Cinderella Castle doll house with Belle and Roman was hanging out with Simba's Pride on Malia's bed.

"I'll never understand this." He said looked at the fact that Rapunzel from Tangled was also sitting on the bed with Roman and Simba's pride.

Picking up a few of the stuffed animals with no Disney association, he put then down on the window seat where they were supposed to go. After that, Joe left his little girl's room.

The door opened and slammed shut. Oh Rochelle's home, Joe thought as he started putting the vacuum back up in the hall closet near the master bedroom.

"Chelle, that you, Baby?" Joe called out as walked down the stares.

What he was greeted to was a retail therapy result. Rochelle was heading towards the stairs with several bags of cloths on each of her arms.

"Chelle?" He asked.

"I took my day off today, Joe. Then you ran away so I had to do something. And no, I didn't spend any of your money." She walked up towards him.

Not wanting to start another fight, Joe stepped aside for his wife to get by. Keeping his mouth shut was hard to do, especially when Rochelle seemed to be off on a tantrum over something again. First it had been with his co-worker Paige, who he gave a ride to the arena with and some fan filmed it. So, what, nothing happened. And then it seemed like her sisters and cousins were all about him cheating.

At least that was how the first fight of the day had gone. Now it was him in general, running away.

"Where did you go?" Rochelle asked, knowing that Joe had followed her to the bedroom.

Their room was large, with a large California king four poster bed at the center of it. There was a walk in closet that was split in half for both him and Rochelle, though if she got any more cloths then she was going to get the majority of the closet.

"It started as a walk but then Matt called and asked to help see if the guys and I could judge a group of potential bartenders."

"Kathy, she doesn't know how to run a bar."

"Then why does she work for my brother?" Joe asked.

"I don't know." She threw down the new shirt that was in her hands. "I'm just sick of it all."

"Sick of what? You know I would never step out on you. I was raised better than that, Chelle." He walked up to his wife.

"You and Malia are my life, I don't want to ruin that."

Touching her back, she looked at him. He leaned down and kissed her, pushing his fingers into her hair. Shoving the bags of new cloths off the bed, he eased her down onto the bed, growling as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

But the annoying alarm on Rochelle's phone went off, at the same time his did. Groaning into the kiss, Joe reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone.

"Malia is going to be home soon." He looked down at his wife, seeing her dark and curly hair fanned out across the middle of the bed. "God, you're so gorgeous, Chelle."

"So are you, hot stuff." She reached out and tugged on his belt, pulling him down into a kiss. "Go pick up out little girl."

"Okay." Giving her one last kiss, he stepped back from the bed. "Sorry about the cloths, Babe."

"Nothing is ruined so it's no big deal. I can forgive you for that. But you're going to pay me back tonight, right?"
"You better believe that."

Heading downstairs and then out the front door, Joe stood outside on the front porch waiting for the yellow school bus that came through the neighborhood.

"Hey Uncle Joe!" He looked around and saw Jordan riding by on his bike.

"Hey, Kid. You're late!"

"I know!" He rode on by heading towards his house he stayed at during the week with his father and two younger siblings.

That was when the yellow school bus that Malia rode came down the street. There was a bus stop at the stop sign in front of Matt's house and that was where the bus stop was for the neighborhood kids. Joe started down the sidewalk and saw a little girl in a pink dress and a Cinderella backpack came off the bus. Her dark curly black hair was up in two pigtails and she carried a pink little tote bag that probably held more school library books.

It wasn't hard to surprise Malia because Joe was the largest man in the neighborhood, muscle wise and had long black hair. So when she saw Joe she squealed and ran to him, nearly dropping her tote bag.

"Daddy!" The six year old yelled.

"Princess!" He laughed leaning down to hug her.

There was no better feeling than having his daughter hug him. Well, there was but he wasn't going to think about it.

"How was school?"

"Okay, Mrs. Thompson took us to check out books for this weekend to read. See." She held out the tote to him.

"Do you want me to take it for you?" He started to reach for the handles.

"No, I got it." She jerked it back and started for the house.

Joe shook his head and followed his daughter. She tried to skip, unfortunately the tote bag nearly caused her to face plant into the sidewalk. At least he was there to catch her as she fell.

"Thank you, Daddy." She smiled at him as he put her back down on her feet. "Is mommy home?"

"Yeah, she is."

"Daddy, Aunt Kathy says you looked at her funny." Malia said as she held his hand.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know but she told Mommy that. Aunt Kathy talks about you a lot. Something about being loose. That you sleep with rats on the road. Rats are gross, Daddy."

Sighing, he Joe held the door open. "Sweetie, I'm not sleeping with rats. And yes they are gross."

This was another thing that Joe was going to have to talk to Rochelle about. But not when they were back to some normalcy.

Besides she had him to pay her back for knocking her bags of cloths off the bed later that night. He could wait pay what she wanted.


Well, it's a slow go but I managed to get this chapter done for you guys. Hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back again soon.