Chapter Four

I woke up to a throbbing sensation in my ankle. When I had fully woken up I heard slight snoring coming from either side of me. Wait, both sides?

That was when I realized how hot I felt, it was an overwhelming heat enveloped me. As I blinked I felt someone's hand on the inside of my thigh and my head was rising and falling at a steady pace.

Somehow, or some way or another, I found myself in bed between Cesaro and Seth Rollins. My left leg was over Colby's lap and I was using Claudio as a pillow, with his arm pinned under my right shoulder. This was a delicious outcome, except for one small fact, they weren't wearing much in way of clothes but at least I was.

This friendship I had with these guys was getting even more complicated.

I shifted, at which point Colby's hand went up further on my leg as he groaned in his sleep. Claudio, instead, grunted as he lifted his head.

"What time is it?" He asked, which was followed by Swiss German words that may have been curse words.

"Early." Seth stretched.

"How is the ankle, Hope?" Claudio asked.

"Still hurts. I may need to ice it again." I said as I froze in place. "Rollins, stop rubbing my thigh."

"No."

"Sex pest." I said as I removed his hand.

"Only for you." He still had his arm over his face.

Claudio was the first to get up. He was wearing boxer briefs and my eyes traveled as he strolled over towards the hotel bathroom with a handful of clothing. I clamped a hand over my face and groaned. I was beginning to miss my human pillow.

As I found my glasses, there was a knock on the door, which made Colby groan. He lifted my leg off of his and I sat up to watch him.

"Oh, hey, Ferg." Colby said.

I watched the Demon King walk into the room and sat up straighter when he turned his eyes on me. Colby went to get some ice as Fergal walked up to me.

"How ya feeling?" He asked checking my still bruised ankle.

"Hurts but it's less today than it was last night."

His hand was cool when he lightly touched my ankle. I hissed, and when I did he looked up at me. His jaw was set hard, his eyes narrowed as well and I could see he wasn't all too happy. But slowly his face softened.

"You'll be all right." He said, his thumb rubbing the top of my foot. "You're strong."

"Hell yeah, she is." Colby said as he walked back to the bed. "She fought Claud when it came to his pet name for her."

"Princess? Why do you hate that name, Hope?" Fergal asked.

I hissed when the cold ice pack was placed on my ankle. "I just don't care for it. That's all."

"Did you keep her warm last night?" Fergal asked as he sat down in the nearby hotel chair.

"Yeah, we did. Claudio didn't want me jacking up my back so we shared the bed together. It was lovely to wake up as a footrest."

"You were groping my thigh." I countered Colby's statement.

The bathroom door opened and out came Claudio. He was wearing sweatpants and an athletic sports tank top. With no hair on his head, at least he didn't have to brush it. Colby claimed the bathroom next, him grabbing some clothes for himself on the way in.

"Prinzessin," Claudio said as he approached the bed. "Good, you have more ice on it."

I looked down at my foot. "Yeah, I do." I didn't really know what to say about that. "And stop calling me Princess."

He only offered me a smile as he went for his phone.

"So, what are we doing today?" Fergal asked.

"Workout and then head out. Are we all heading out together?" Claudio asked.

"I think so. We still have the SUV." Colby said.

"Good." Claudio said.

"Are we heading out soon?" Fergal asked as he sat down on the bed next to me.

"Yeah, when Shey gets here." Claudio said.

Of course they were all talking workouts, which was over my head. I of course wouldn't be able to go anywhere and I was more than happy to lay around and get some more sleep before we had to leave. So I didn't say anything.

Until the three men turned and looked at me. I felt the heat rise to my face and I tried to sit up on the bed. Fergal was the first to touch me. I flinched, my knee jerking up.

"Come on, Hope." His thumb rubbed my knee. "You're coming with us."

"I'll be dead weight. I can't walk."

"We're not leaving you alone, Babe." Colby said.

"I don't even have a change of clothes."

"I called Shey to bring over a change for you." Claudio said as he found his shoes under the nearby table.

"Why? I can stay by myself for a little while, can't I?" I asked. Why was I asking, of course I could.

"Nope, you're coming with us." Fergal said.

There was a knock at the door, which turned out to be Stephen when Claudio answered.

"Anderson just passed by." The redhead Irishman said to his fellow Irishman. "He's headin' out to go see his kids."

"Great. He and Gallows need to see their families." Fergal said. "Speaking of, my parents are coming in for Mania." Of course he was looking at me when he said this.

"Last time you had them around, you got injured." Colby said.

"Yeah, I know. Mam doesn't want that to happen again."

"No more running powerbombs, got it." Colby held up two thumbs.

Stephen tossed me some sport shorts and one of his work out shirts, a gray one. I flinched when he went to inspect my ankle.

"Bleeding," he mumbled. "Don't look too bad now. Last night was awful."

"It doesn't hurt as bad as before." I said as I gathered up the offered clothes. "Now, if I am going to go with you guys, either all of you get out of here or someone helps me to the bathroom so I can change."

Just after saying that, I was lifted up by Colby. I yelped, not out of pain, but I did latch onto a well defined arm and felt another arm slide around my waist, lifting me up off the bed. My feet were only on the floor long enough before I was being half carried across the room towards the bathroom.

"Got her, Rollins?" Fergal asked from the door.

"Yeah. Come on, Hope."

"No." I grabbed his wrist. "Stop, please, don't." I started reimagining what had happened before, images of the man and me together in a bathroom and it felt like my chest was going to explode.

He stopped, hands holding my shoulders. "Hope, hey, I was just playing with you. You know we horse around like this a lot."

"Something happened to me the last time some guy took me into a bathroom." I felt the prickling of the tears, the burning at the corner of my eyes. My heart was in pounding into my ribs and my throat had gone dry.

The nearby men stared at me. Colby still had his hands on my shoulders but Fergal was making his way towards me with a look I didn't comprehend.

"We'll leave you to it then, Hope." He said. "Come on, man. I think she can do this on her own."

"Yeah, sure." Colby dropped his hands. "Just holler if you need some help."

Using the counter as a makeshift crutch, I closed the door behind me and looked into the mirror at myself.

Sure my usual dirty blond hair was hanging around my face, my odd dark blue eyes looked back at me from behind glasses and I was slightly overweight, nothing new there. But why, why the hell did I have these guys as friends? Where was Pam when I needed a female friend.

I could hear the guys talking outside in the main room, though muffled by the closed door. I grabbed the cloths off the counter and sitting on the toilet, I redressed into the more athletic attire that was given to me. I was thankful that Stephen had a larger torso than the others, I couldn't possibly fit into their clothes if they offered.

When I opened the door, Claudio was standing there waiting. But he was alone, no one else was there in the room like I had thought they would be.

"Where's the guys gone?" I asked.

"I asked them to head out before me. I wanted to talk to you alone." He slipped his arm around my waist and with the other eased my arm around his shoulder. "Up we go, Prinzessin."

He picked me up as he had done before even when I could have limped over to the bed myself. Claudio only took a handful of steps to get me to the bed where he lightly put me down on it. I still felt that my face was hot, so I ran my hands over my cheeks just to cool them down.

"What happened, Hope?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Claudio." I said as I glanced at him. "It was a while ago, something happened in a bathroom somewhere and I've tried to forget about it."

"You can tell me, Prinzessin, you know none of us would ever hurt you."

I looked at my hands. My fingers were laced together and I was playing with the simple plain metal band that was on my right pinky finger.

"Please?" Claudio dipped his head a little closer to me.

"I was attacked in a bathroom." I said, though it sounded more like a whisper to me. "By an ex of mine."

I heard him say something in German, which wasn't all that funny. Knowing him, he was cursing again but tried to hide it with his Swiss German language.

"I know it's strange that I am friends with a group of guys that would otherwise not even look twice at me." I said. "I just like you guys. You've proven time and again that you aren't going to hurt me, even when my brain goes to that dark place."

"We would never hurt you, Hope. That is the last thing we would want."

"I want to tell the guys this, this fact, later." I wrung my hands a little. "I will, Claud, I just don't know how to bring it up."

"I'll stop touching…" I stopped him when I took his wrist with my hand.

"I adore your hugs, even with what Colby does I don't mind it. I know it's harmless fun and that you guys just want me to feel like a part of something. But don't stop hugging me, Claudio."

He pressed his forehead into the side of my head and wrapped one of his long arms around my shoulders, drawing me closer to him. This made me smile. We shared a moment of silence for something he didn't totally understand, but was aware of.

But I didn't tell the truth, I kept my mouth shut and would have to wait until the best time to tell these guys the whole truth about what had happened to me in a bathroom.

When I wrote this I was a little worried about where the story was going. But I liked it for the most part. I hope you guys did, too.