As promised here is the next chapter :)
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Seth heard a knock on the door of his locker room and assuming it was Carter called out to come in as he pulled a shirt on over his ring gear pants. He had caught a glimpse of her and Renee at the end of his match and he was slightly surprised she had made it backstage so quickly since people were already crowding around them to get a picture. Watching the two of them together made him smile. He was busying himself with taking off his kick pads when he heard the "hello."
He froze momentarily and looked up at his ex-girlfriend standing in the doorway.
She smiled down at him as he stood up slowly, giving her a blank, cold stare.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well that's not the greeting I expected," she looked taken back. "Nice to see you, too."
"How did you get back here?"
"I still have friends around here you know? Even if I don't work here anymore."
He crossed his arms across his chest and simply looked at her.
"I'm living down here again…"
"Great." He moved to walk past her and open the door to his locker room, leaning against it so it didn't close. "You need to leave."
She smirked and rolled her eyes, "seriously?"
"Yes," he cut a cold look at her. "I don't want or need you in here."
Zahra took a few steps to stand in from of him and looked at him, trying to give him a slight pout. She reached for his arm, "Colby…"
"Don't. Don't do that," he shook his head and moved her hand away from his arm. "That doesn't make you special and it doesn't make me give any more of a shit about what you want than I already don't."
"I just wanted to see you. That's all."
"Of course, very convenient."
"What does that mean?"
"It means it's convenient that you decided to show up out of nowhere the night I was main-eventing a show considering I haven't spoken to you in 7 months."
"I saw you were going to be here. I missed you. We can't talk? We can't catch up?"
"No."
"Look…I know I-"
"Zahra, I'm serious. I'm not interested in an excuse or a story or an apology. You walked out on me a month after I had surgery because you lost your meal ticket and that was it- that was the end. I don't want to catch up and I sure as fuck don't want you here."
She studied him, folding her arms. "That's not what it was about."
"I don't really care."
She tilted her head slightly, frustrated by his responses. "I expected you to at least let me talk to you."
"I don't know why you would expect that."
"Because we have a history. Because we lived together. Because you loved me. Because-"
"Stop," he cut her off. "I'm not going to do this with you. There's been more than enough time to talk or catch up and get whatever it is you feel guilty about off your chest. Months ago, I would have cared, but now I don't, and the last thing I ever wanted was for you to show up out of the blue at one of my shows. I'm not going to help you with your career, I'm not going to be your friend. This isn't the past; we aren't going to hook up, this isn't going to be a thing."
Zahra looked hurt and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. She looked at him for a moment and then narrowed her eyes at him, "you're dating someone, aren't you?"
"It's not really any of your business."
"That girl that used to hang around the twins?" She made a face, "I saw her on your Instagram but I didn't think you'd get wrapped up with her. She's not your type."
He closed his eyes, sighing and running his hand over his hair that was still down, willing her to leave in his head. He didn't need this, he didn't want this, and all he could think about was whether or not Carter had seen her. He had a brief flash of panic that his world was about to end up right where it was a year before and it was the last place he wanted to be. He had already ruined one relationship in his past and that was one too many. That thought angered him and he shot a blistering, angry look at the ex standing in front of him.
"She's not, at all. She's better than 'my type' and she's better than I deserve."
"Or maybe she's just a rebound?"
"You can find your way out of here since you found your way in and I guarantee moving forward whatever friend you have in security won't be letting you backstage again." He started to walk away from her and paused, still glaring at her, "and don't fuck with her like you did Leighla. I'm serious."
He had stepped away from her and started down the hallway before she could even speak again. He didn't even know where he was going, he just knew he needed as much distance as possible at the moment and he wasn't going back in his locker room until he knew she was gone.
When he returned to the locker room a while later, Carter was sitting in a chair, waiting on him.
He paused in the doorway.
She looked up at him, able to read the worry that was plastered all over his face. She didn't really know how she felt at the moment. Her and Renee had gotten backstage to witness the tail end of the conversation between him and Zahra, from a distance, as well as him storming off. Seeing him angry had been a bit of a relief, but she was still curious as to whether or not he had known she was going to be there. Was he still talking to her?
Carter cleared her throat, breaking the silence. "Are you going to shower still? Because Dean and Renee are waiting."
"No, I can do it whenever we get home," he responded, a muted tone to his voice.
The familiar tingle started to rise inside of her at hearing him say 'home' in regards to her house and she mentally pushed it away. Now wasn't the time. She stood up, sighing heavily. "Ok."
"Carter, I-"
She held up her hands to stop him from speaking. "I know, I saw her, I spoke to her."
"You spoke to her?" He asked.
"She spoke to me but that's not really relevant. We'll talk, Seth, but honestly I don't want to do it here. Backstage. I got enough looks walking in here and I would just rather be...not here."
"Fair enough," he mumbled. "I still need to change but I won't take long..."
"We'll be at the car."
He nodded, stepping to the side to let her leave the room. He grabbed her hand as she walked by him, getting a quiet look from her before she pulled away and headed down the hallway.
She spotted Renee and Dean waiting on her.
"Everything good?" Dean asked.
"Yeah, he's changing and then we'll be set."
"So...?" Renee implored.
Carter shrugged and folded her arms, "I don't know. I told him I didn't want to talk about it here. I actually had people stare at me when I walked into his locker room to wait for him and I just want to not be here, it was so uncomfortable. It can wait an hour..."
Dean pulled Carter to him and gave her a hug, giving her an extra squeeze for emphasis.
"Do you want Dean to drive?" Renee asked.
Carter looked at her friend and then up at Dean, "do you mind?"
"Hell no, I'm still pumped up. I got you."
Carter chuckled slightly and let Renee link her arm in hers as they headed out to the Jeep in the parking lot. She tossed Dean her keys and watched as he and Renee loaded their bags in to the back hatch before they all climbed in to their seats. The back opened again a few minutes later and they all turned slightly to look as Seth added his own bag to the group, closed the door and then quietly took his place in the back passenger's seat.
The first ten or so minutes of the drive was quiet with only the radio playing in the background. Renee finally broke the silence by turning to Carter and asking her about the upcoming trip to Hawaii and Japan. Renee wasn't coming, the only one out of the four of them staying behind, but she was still excited and happy for her friend.
Carter tried not look at Seth as she chatted but she could feel his eyes on her occasionally and she could feel the tension radiating off of him. When Renee got distracted by a question from Dean, Carter took the moment to sit back in the seat and look over at him. She couldn't really make out his features in the darkness of the backseat but she could see the silhouette of his face, and his hat with the bill pulled lower than he would normally wear it, and see that his eyes were closed. She didn't know if he was thinking or sleeping.
She frowned. It seemed like they couldn't go 24 hours without some kind of nonsense happening and this wasn't how she wanted it to be. She knew this wasn't his fault, or hoped it wasn't his fault at least, and she wanted the comfortable routine from earlier back; the heat that she felt from his kisses, but she couldn't ignore the fact that his ex-girlfriend had been at his show that night and in his locker room. The ex-girlfriend that had played a big part of breaking up his engagement.
Although, to be fair, he had to see her ex-boyfriend almost every night out of the week. Was it different?
She couldn't resist herself and she stretched her hand across the small space between them and lightly brushed her fingers against his arm.
His eyes opened and his head turned to her. She could feel the tension leave his body and she gave him a weak smile. His hand found hers in the dark and they sat hand in hand, in silence, for the rest of the drive to the house.
"Same room as always?" Renee smiled as she and Dean entered Carter's house behind her and Seth.
"Yes. Dean has to sleep outside, though."
He gave her a wink as he passed by her with Renee, heading to the guest room they were familiar with. It wasn't uncommon for them to make in appearance in Tampa, especially now that they were filming Total Divas and John and Nikki weren't too far away. They had plenty of room, but Dean claimed he felt uncomfortable in such a big house.
Carter's was smaller, more of a family home, but it came with the same great ocean view.
She tossed her keys on the kitchen counter and looked at Seth.
"Lead the way," he said.
She led him across the kitchen and turned down a hallway that led to the master bedroom, giving him a condensed version of the tour along the way. It was dark, it was late, and he could get a better feel for everything in the morning.
She padded across her dark room to turn on both of the bedside lamps and turned to look at him. "If you don't want to stay with me there's a loft upstairs."
"Why wouldn't I want to stay with you?" He responded. Carter responded with a shrug and bit her lip. He couldn't stand how sad she looked in that moment. "Come here."
She met him halfway across the room and he pulled her into a tight hug, resting his head against hers. The both fell in to a natural sway as they hugged.
"I don't want to be anywhere else, Car. It took me long enough to get here."
She pulled away from him and inhaled deeply, puffing her cheeks a bit as she exhaled and patted his chest with her hands. "Go ahead and take your shower, get settled...then we talk."
When Seth emerged from showering, he found Carter in the kitchen, refilling a glass of wine. She had pulled her hair up in a top knot as much as the length of her hair would allow and changed into shorts and an old cut off 'We Are NXT' shirt.
She looked over at him, sensing his presence, seeing him leaning against the door frame of the large opening to the kitchen. "Do you want some?" She raised the bottle slightly.
"I'm not much of a wine drinker."
"There's some beer in the fridge that Jacob sent me from Tennessee, it's one of our local breweries. They only sell it there so he sends me some when he knows I'll be home. It's in a growler, there are chilled pint glasses in the freezer."
Seth crossed to the refrigerator and Carter watched him over her shoulder. He had a tank top from his wrestling school on and she couldn't help but stare at every muscle in his arms that flexed as he moved. She turned her head away and took a sip from her glass of wine. She paused for a moment, thinking, and topped off the glass before she turned around.
"Outside?" She posed the question to him, nodding in the direction of the double doors that led to her back patio. It was her favorite part of her house.
"I'm following you."
Carter led him to the back patio that was lined with white and blue Christmas lights for soft lighting but enough light you could still see. Her upstairs had a balcony directly over it that gave a cover and there was a railing with a bench attached to it that ran around it before it gave away to a staircase that led to the small backyard and then the beach. She inhaled the salty air and immediately felt relaxed.
Carter stepped up on the bench to sit on top of the railing and Seth leaned against it close to her. They were both silent, taking in the night view of the ocean in the distance.
Carter looked at him, "did you know she was going to be there tonight?"
"No," he responded quickly, shaking his head. "I had no clue she was there until she knocked on the door of the locker room."
"How did she get back there, anyways?"
"She sweet talked one of the security guys that's been around for a while. It's handled, it won't happen again. I may or may not have taken my anger out on our head of security. I wasn't nice."
Carter smiled to herself. "Poor guy..."
Seth shrugged, taking a sip of the beer. "It had to go somewhere and I didn't want it to be you."
"Do you two still talk? You and Zahra?" She asked.
"No," he turned sideways so he could face her, "I haven't spoken to her since around Christmas...before tonight."
"So she just showed up?"
"I'm assuming she thought she could show up out of the blue like she used to and I would just be okay with it."
"What did she say?"
"She missed me, she wanted to catch up, she wanted to be friends..."
Carter frowned slightly. "I remember seeing her around some last year. I remember seeing Leighla, too."
"I didn't make a lot of good choices, Carter, and I don't really have an excuse for them other than I was stupid. I got really wrapped up in my ego and my lifestyle and the attention that I was getting from everyone around me."
"Except Leigh?"
"Yeah," he nodded, "she hated all of this and the further I got in to WWE, the worse we got. I'm not even sure why we stayed together so long, looking back on it. Zahra gave me the attention I needed at the time and I fell for it and once everything blew up I tried to make it work with her. I hurt my knee and had surgery and I came home from a checkup in Birmingham about a month after and she told me she was leaving. I didn't even really fight it. I threw myself into rehab and she would call or text occasionally but I just ignored it."
"You didn't love her?"
Seth smirked, "I tried to convince myself that I did but no, I didn't."
"You know this is the first time we've ever really talked about her?"
"It wasn't intentional. I haven't been trying to keep any of it from you, I just never really thought about talking about it. I really just tried to block it out and move on from it. It wasn't my finest moment and I know it's cliché but I'm a lot different now than I was 10 months ago. The whole experience was very humbling. Very humbling."
"I know," she replied.
They fell in to a silence and Seth watched Carter zone out as she looked past him and sipped her wine. He could tell her wheels were spinning.
"What's in your head, C?" He asked.
Carter looked at him, "am I a rebound?"
"What?" His face dropped.
"When you left she saw me and Renee standing at the end of the hallway and she told me that I needed you more than you would ever need me."
She could hear him drop a few cuss words under his breath before he sat his beer down on the railing and closed the small distance between them. He leaned against the railing, one hand on either side of her and looked up at her. "You are absolutely not a rebound, ok? This is more than that. Don't let her make you doubt yourself because that's what she does."
"Well, I did tell her to go fuck herself," she shrugged.
Seth cracked a smile, "you have a little venom in you when you need to."
"I'm sorry about...all of this. I don't want you to feel like I'm badgering you but I have bad decisions from my past, too, and I know you have to see Dolph every day almost and it's almost like a double standard but I couldn't help but have questions. I don't care about her as long as that's not part of what's happening now."
"It's not, it won't be. Please don't doubt me on that. And seeing Ziggler doesn't bother me, I'm prepared for it and it's a different situation. He doesn't try to interfere for the most part. You don't need to apologize for anything." Seth paused for a moment as Carter reached out to scratch his beard, giving him an affectionate smile. "Do you remember the first time I actually called you instead of texting you?" he asked.
Carter smiled, "yeah, you were in Orlando and you were mad at the doctor because he wouldn't clear you to do more things and you pretty much cut a promo on me in your car."
"And I cried like a baby," he added.
Carter tried to hold back her smile, "you realized that you were going to miss WrestleMania."
"I don't show a lot of emotion and I sure as hell wouldn't have done that with you if you weren't special."
"When did you realize all of this..." She motioned with her hands, "that...this was more."
"When I saw you getting coffee the morning after I came back. I think I had been feeling it for awhile, for a few months, maybe since Mania...but when I saw you I knew it. You were so irritated and so cute."
"Really?"
"Really."
Carter sat her almost empty wine glass to her side and studied him for a moment. She would almost call herself crazy, and she couldn't say it but she could feel it; she loved him and she knew it without a doubt. She slid down from her perch to stand in front of him and snaked her arms around his neck to pull him down in a kiss. She parted her lips for him and as soon as he tasted the lingering traces of sweet wine a low moan escaped him. It seemed like an eternity before he broke their kiss to trail kisses down her jaw line before reaching her neck and biting it softly.
She stuttered his name breathlessly and he raised his head slightly to look down at her. The look in his eyes burned a hole straight through her. There was no mistaking where his thoughts were.
"Do you want to stop?" he asked.
"No," she shook her head slowly.
He kissed her again and then lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around him, and he carried in to the house towards her room.