Tuesday, July 21st, 2020 – Charlotte, NC

It's been 2 days since the Extreme Rules Pay-Per-View and the man who failed to walk away from that match sat on the couch in his estate with his baby boy in his arms currently asleep. It was fairly early at about 6 AM and normally he would be in his private gym working out to keep the built stature that he had but today he needed a little motivation before he worked out. And that motivation was in the form of his son. The past few weeks had been a little rough for him. Especially considering that he had lost his title match at Extreme Rules. And the way he lost was because of himself. He cost himself the match because he wanted to hurt EC3. He had already used his automatic rematch clause which meant now he had to earn his way back into the Intercontinental Title Picture.

And another form of motivation for him just walked into the living room in the form of his fiancée.

"Morning baby."

"Morning."

"You want a cup of coffee?"

"Nah baby, I'm good. I was just about to get up and go in the gym to get a few reps in. He was crying so I just decided to get him up and hold him."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. You looked so beautiful sleeping; I didn't want to wake you."

"My knight in shining armor." She said as she walked over to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Here you wanna take him, I'm gonna go ahead and head to the gym." Cedric said as he stood up and walked around to his fiancee and gently handed the sleeping baby off to her.

"Alright have a good workout. Eggs and Pancakes afterwards?"

"Yeah, you know how I like to do it?"

"Yeah, no mushrooms and turkey bacon, right?"

"You know it babe." Usually after a workout in the morning he would sit down and enjoy a nice stack of Pancakes stacked with protein or a scrambled bowl of eggs with red bell peppers, onions, spinach and some more mixed vegetables. He didn't know what Kala did whenever she cooked something but 9 times out of 10 if she made it, it was damn sure gonna be better than it would be if he made it.

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Cedric was inside his gym sitting on the bench after getting a few reps in. The workout was supposed to get his mind off his lost at Extreme Rules but the only thing it was doing was reminding him of his failure. His lost kept going on repeat in his head. All he ever wanted to do was be the Intercontinental Champion once again. Hell, he just wanted to be a Champion. That was the whole reason he got in the business. To be the best. To be the absolute greatest of all time if he could. It's like the LL Cool J song, "The G.O.A.T."

So far in his career Ced had a pretty good resume. Former 2-time Intercontinental Champion, former SmackDown Tag Team Champion, former NXT North American Champion. He made his debut against Ricochet at NXT TakeOver: Phoenix in one of the most anticipated NXT TakeOver debuts ever. He had wrestled on 9 Pay-Per-Views and had a record of 6-3 in Pay-Per-Views. He accomplished all of this and he was only 23 years old and he still had a way to go.

One thing Cedric did was keep replicas of all the titles he won in his gym so that he could stay motivated. He had the Pay-Per-View posters that the was featured on hanging up. One thing about Cedric he always had something to motivate him. Success he wanted, failures that he had, the money he's made over the years to get the lavish lifestyle he had, Kala, Baby CJ whatever you wanted to bring up it motivated him. Although it be jokingly, Mercedes always said that Cedric was like the Michael Jordan of WWE. Even if it was in a joking manner, that still surprisingly had an impact on him.

Cedric wiped the sweat away from his head and stood up from the bench to go inside and have breakfast with his fiancée. The last thing he wanted to do was lose himself in his thoughts and lose the opportunity to have breakfast with his bae.

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Cedric walked into the kitchen now after finishing up on a shower. Today was set to be a pretty chill day around the house so he could relax before he would have to leave out for SmackDown. He saw his fiancée at the kitchen island putting together a plate for him. It was a plate with a large stack of Pancakes packed with protein, an Egg Scramble mix with onions, red bell peppers, spinach and other various mixed veggies with a side of fruits and a strawberry post workout smoothie.

She took damn good care of him in only a way she would. She put up with his shit. Shit that honestly no other woman would possibly deal with. His career that took him away from the family 90% of the time. She allowed their two clothing brands to merge when they got back together. She dealt with his immature spending whether it be on cars, sneakers or whatever. She was the girl of his dreams and it took him a while to realize that but luckily, he did before it was too late.

"Man, you are just too damn good to me."

"I know." She giggled making him chuckle as he gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

"So how much is this wedding gonna cost me?"

"I e-mailed you everything last Friday."

"You e-mailed me on a Friday?"

"Yeah, then I can go ahead and tell you I didn't see that. When I-"

"When you have something wrestling related going on, you keep your head in the game."

"You know me so well."

"It's okay. We can look at it together since your home."

"Good, I'm hoping that's not the only thing we can do together." He whispered in her ears in a husky tone of voice making her giggle a bit.

"Who knows maybe if you play your cards right." She said as she grabbed their plates and walked them on over to the table in the dining room making him smile as he watched the woman who he would marry walk off to the table. Today was gonna be a good day. It was gonna be a day to be with his family.