"Hey, where's AJ?"

AJ usually ate lunch with them, so to not see her here, gulping down whatever was offered, was unusual. Dolph slid his tray in next to E and across from Kaitlyn, grabbing the pepper shaker to start drenching his entire meal with the spice. Whenever he did that, it always elicited an eye roll from AJ, although he could never really figure out why, he just liked pepper, it was no big deal.

In truth, he was in a pretty good mood today. He'd be winning his match later on tonight during Raw, which was always cause to celebrate, especially now, and he and AJ spent three whole days together in Florida. He'd gone to the new Performance Center to meet with some of the NXT guys, and AJ had the weekend off from house shows so it only made sense for him to stay with her at her place.

They'd never spent so much time together, and he'd never really had the opportunity to have her there when he went to sleep and when he woke up without her having to dart out of the room or sneak away. He smiled as he recalled the languid mornings before he had to get up and they could just lie in bed without talking. He was always a big talker, never shutting his mouth and never letting silence reign. He didn't know why, but he always felt awkward during long pauses, which was why he was always joking, always trying to avoid those silent moments.

With AJ, it was different, the silences never bothered him because he felt comfortable in them. He felt comfortable just being around her, and the feeling of her snuggled against his side as she stared up at the ceiling, hearing her sigh softly every now and then as she rested comfortably, it was such a nice feeling, and one he wanted to repeat often. He wondered how often he could come up with excuses to get to Florida just so he could be with her. Maybe he could pretend like he was going to visit his brother there, but that his brother had so many roommates there was no room for him.

"She's hanging out with Punk or something," Kaitlyn answered, effectively shattering Dolph's plans as he sharply turned his head towards Kaitlyn.

"What?"

"Yeah, they're off somewhere," Kaitlyn said dismissively, not paying attention to the way that Dolph's face fell a little bit. Kaitlyn, God love her, was completely in the dark about the way things were between Dolph and AJ, so she couldn't be blamed for the cavalier way she dropped that bit of information off on her.

"Oh," Dolph took a bite of food just to try and calm his nerves, but the mashed potatoes felt like glue going down his throat, and he had to force himself to swallow before grabbing his bottled water and taking a long swig, helping the mush go down.

As trite and vain as it was to think this, but Dolph had never had to contend with someone else for the affections of a woman. In high school, he hadn't necessarily been popular, but the girls he fell for always returned his feelings, and in college, when he'd been a minor big shot because of his impressive wrestling records, girls were never a problem, and now, well, now he knew how many women wanted a piece of him so to have someone to fight against was foreign to him. How does one fight for a woman when that woman isn't even your girlfriend and only thinks of you as her friend and more?

"They've been hanging out a lot," E threw the sentence out there as Kaitlyn nodded, and Dolph watched the two of them.

"I really need to get to the gym more," Kaitlyn said, dropping the subject so abruptly, but Dolph didn't want to let it go, but also didn't want to draw attention to himself.

"You look great, girl," E gave her an appraising look then nudged Dolph hard in the side.

"Yeah, you look good," Dolph said idly, his eyes scanning the area, hoping that AJ would magically appear and tell them that Punk was a douchebag and she never wanted to see him again.

"Gee, thanks," Kaitlyn told him, rolling her eyes. "I just wasn't happy with that last photoshoot, the one with the day off theme, like I don't know, I just felt like I looked too thick or something. I just don't feel like I…I don't know."

"You looked good, I thought," E told her.

"Yeah, that was a really sexy shoot," Dolph told her, being honest this time. He liked Kaitlyn, and he didn't want her getting down on herself.

"If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell AJ?" Kaitlyn asked. "It's not that I want to keep secrets from her, but this one, I don't know, I just think she'd be upset, and I don't want that for her right now when her career is going so well."

"I can," E said, turning to Dolph to agree with him. He nodded, but was thinking about what Kaitlyn could possibly say. Was he going to say something about Punk's interest in her being false? Oh, if that was the case, there was no way he was going to let AJ be around that guy, not if he could help it. He'd fucking propose to her tonight if that were the case.

"I'm thinking about leaving," Kaitlyn told them, shrugging one shoulder as she focused on her food for a moment, letting it sink into the boys' heads. E's eyes widened and Dolph set his fork down slowly.

"What do you mean leaving?" E asked redundantly.

"I'm just not as happy here as I was before," Kaitlyn confessed to them both. "Plus, I'm getting married and all that, you know, and it's like, I kind of want to start my life off right, and I want to be around him, not just a few days a week, but all the time, I just need to be around him, and like I said, I'm just not as happy here, and I kind of don't like myself when I am here."

"Wow, I had no idea you felt that way," Dolph said, "I'm really sorry you do."

"It's okay, don't worry about it, alright," Kaitlyn said, "it's not set in stone, it's just a thought that I've been having and a conversation that PJ and I have been having for a while now. I haven't made any final decisions yet."

"Whatever you decide, we'll support you," E told her. "You know that."

"I love you guys," Kaitlyn said as AJ flopped down into the chair next to her.

"What did I miss, guys?" AJ asked, looking around, noticing that they seemed to clam up the second she sat down.

"We were just talking about how Dolph gets to win tonight," E easily lied, "we figured it was cause for celebration so we were wondering where we might get some beer before the show, but then if he's drunk out there, he might forget that he's supposed to win given the recent past."

"I love you so much," Dolph said sarcastically, turning his attention back to AJ. He really wanted to bring up Punk, but he didn't want to do it directly. He needed to be subtle about it because if he wasn't, he would tip off their friends to what was really going on between the two of them, and he couldn't risk that.

He felt like if the world knew then the pressure would be on them to really define their relationship. If that were the case, Dolph was afraid AJ would retreat. She didn't seem in any sort of rush to define what they were or become something solid, and it would only get worse if she was forced to do so. So he needed to just play this cool.

Thankfully, the question didn't even come from him, "So how was hanging out with Punk?" Kaitlyn teased.

"He asked me out, again," AJ said, "so I just said yes because I'm so sick of him asking, I figured, what the hell, right? It can't be that bad, I mean, I know he just got out of a relationship with Lita, but maybe he's lonely, and he is really nice, and he's always been such a nice guy to me, ever since I came up to the main roster, so you know, so I'm sure we'll have fun."

Dolph's hand started to shake a little bit and he had to put his fork down before it clattered to the plate. He suddenly didn't feel like eating at all, and even if he did eat, he wasn't sure he'd be able to taste what he was eating. She'd accepted, after all the times he'd asked, after all the times she said she wasn't interested, she'd finally said yes. He suddenly felt everything between them flush down the toilet. Loath as he wanted to admit it, Punk was better suited for her. They had more in common, they shared more interests together, he was a bigger name, a bigger presence, he was successful where Dolph was continuously crawling to get any kind of standing, and usually he failed.

"I forgot that I had to meet with Sheamus for my match, I've gotta go," Dolph suddenly stood up, his chair scraping against the floor loudly. "Sorry, I've got to go find him."

"I'll walk you," AJ said, hopping up from her chair too. "I wasn't that hungry anyways, I had a big breakfast." She gave a secret smile to Dolph because her breakfast was in bed with him earlier that morning, and they'd shared two plates of French toast.

"You don't have to," he said, wondering how she could be so cavalier about her date with Punk when she was giving him little looks regarding their days spent together. Didn't she understand what she was doing? And if she started to date Punk, would she believe she could continue what they were doing? He wasn't willing to be someone's side ho so to speak.

"It's cool, I want to," she said, linking her arm through his as they left the dining area. When they were out of the room and in the hallway, she noticed finally that he seemed especially tense. It couldn't be because she had her arm linked through his, they did that all the time, and it wasn't like anyone would be suspicious. They were close, everyone knew that. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just can't believe I'm going to win tonight," he told her, trying to deflect away from what was really wrong. Opening up that can of worms right now would be awful. There were too many people around, and his feelings felt way too raw to have a coherent discussion about them.

"You should be winning every week," she said with a bitter note to her voice. His biggest champion, and she didn't even know how much it truly meant to him. "So, hey, about that date…"

So she was thinking about his feelings and their relationship, "What about it?"

"I wanted to ask you about it first," she said quietly, "because I know we're…and more, and I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't weird, I mean, me going out on a date with some other guy while we've been sleeping together and everything. I wanted to ask you about it."

"It's not a big deal, you can do what you want, I'm not the boss of you," he said quickly, saying the exact opposite of what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her he loved her and it was killing him even just imagining her going out on a date with another man.

"I know you're not, but I just didn't want to—"

"Didn't you already accept?" he asked.

"I did, but that was just to get him off my back because he kept asking me, you know like when people poke you and poke you and you just kind of say yes so they'll stop, it was kind of like that," AJ said, "and I immediately thought of you and I just, if you don't want me to go out with him, you can say the word, and I'll go tell him right now that it's off."

"You don't have to, I'm not your…boyfriend, I'm just a guy you sleep with, I mean, we said this wasn't really a relationship, that was how it was from the start, we agreed, didn't we?"

She paused a moment and she almost looked upset, but he didn't press to know why, "Yeah, we did, but still…neither one of us has been in this predicament before. I just wanted to make sure, I mean, Punk is a nice guy—"

"And you have a lot in common," he finished, and why the hell was he doing this! He should be begging her on his hands and knees to love him back because he didn't think he could live without her, but no, he was pretty much pushing her into Punk's arms.

"Yeah, but that's not always what someone might need," she admitted quietly, "Dolph, really, if you don't want me to, just give me the word."

"I don't want to stop you from doing what you want to do," he told her again, "you said yes, you should honor that, unless…unless you don't want to…"

"I mean," she looked up at him shyly, "Dolph…"

"Yeah?" He looked down at her and her eyes held something, but it was gone in a moment. She gave him a small smile.

"Thanks, I'll go."