Disclaimer: I don't own or know anybody in this story.

Author's Note: I said it in the last chapter, but I'm sorry that it's taking me longer and longer to update. But thank you for being patient. And thank you to everyone who has reviewed. Please continue to do so. Or if that doesn't apply to you, start to do so, please. So here's the next chapter!

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Chapter 7: Cute Date - June 18, 2003

"Hey," Rob greeted, spotting Ella making her way towards the table over his menu.

"Hi," she returned, taking her seat across from him.

"How was your flight?" he asked.

"Painful," she replied, rolling her neck side to side. "It left around 11:30 last night and I had to sleep on the plane."

"What time did you get in?"

"Around quarter to 7," she replied picking up the menu that was waiting in front of her. "So what do you think of the place?"

"It's nice," he said, glancing around the room. "Good choice."

"Thank you. Stephanie actually told me about this place."

"We'll have to thank her for sharing. But anyways, tell me a little about you. I just realized we don't actually know each other that well," he grinned.

"Well, I was born in and lived in Greenwich until I was 11. Then we moved to Boston. After a few years there, we moved back to Connecticut. I went to Berkeley College in Stamford after I graduated. And now I'm here," she said, cutting out chunks of her story.

"So you kept in touch with Stephanie?"

"No. Actually when I moved to Stamford, I didn't really think about whether or not Stephanie still lived there, with school and everything," she partially lied.

"So are you an only child?"

"Yeah. What about you? Tell me about yourself."

"I was born in Michigan. I've always loved wrestling. After high school I trained with a guy that my friend knew. Then I made my pro debut when I was 20. I made my ECW debut when I was 26 and my WWE debut when I was 28."

"And how old are you now?"

"30. And you?"

"The two things you never ask a women are her age and her weight."

"The first only applies to more… mature women."

"Are you calling me immature?"

"In the best, non-insulting way possible."

"I'm 25. 26 in about a month," she laughed.

"Really? When's your birthday?"

"July 19th."

"Almost exactly a month."

Ella nodded.

"Hello," a waiter said, smiling at Ella. "I am Brian. I'll be your waiter this afternoon. Would you like to start off with a drink?"

"Water's fine," Ella replied.

"Same here."

"Then do you know what you'd like to order?"

"Can we have a few more minutes?" Rob requested, noticing Ella frantically scanning the menu to make a choice.

"Of course," he obliged, walking over to another table.

"So…" Rob trailed off.

Ella glanced up at him from her menu. "So."

Rob tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds.

"Is something wrong?" she questioned, setting her menu down on the table.

"Wrong? No. Nothing's wrong," he replied.

"Well you seem a little nervous."

"It's just, I got divorced recently. So it's kind of weird for me to be out on a date."

Ella laughed.

"Don't laugh at me!" Rob grinned.

"No, no, no. I think it's cute."

"Oh. Well in that case…"

"So how long ago was your divorce?"

"It was finalized about 9 months ago."

"What happened?" Ella inquired sympathetically. "If you don't mind me asking," she added quickly.

"I don't mind. We had been married for about 4 years. And the last year and a half was basically hell. ECW went out of business so I was home for a while. Then I joined the WWE and I was gone again. And she got used to me staying at home really quickly. So I would be gone for long periods of time and when I was home, we never did anything because she was always mad at me for one thing or another. And when I was on the road, I'd try calling her, but then it'd always end up in an argument about how I'm never home. I married her around the time I joined ECW, so she knew that I would be gone, and she still wanted to marry me. But then I don't know. I think she was used to having a normal life for the short amount of time we had one. And then when I started leaving again, she couldn't deal with it."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I realized that I spent more time with a locker room of guys than with her. And I was probably a lot closer to them than I was with her. You know? I traveled with them, trained with them, wrestled with them. I mean, if she was second to a bunch of guys, I'm really not that sad about letting her go."

Ella smiled. "So you were a lot… 'closer' to a bunch of guys than your wife? How close?" she asked suggestively.

"Not that close. That's the one form of closeness where she had no competition with the locker room," Rob assured Ella.

"That's comforting to hear. But don't you think that with the time you spend away from home, that whoever you're with is always going to come second to a locker room of guys until you quit wrestling?" Ella pointed out.

"No," Rob replied almost immediately. "If we were meant to be, then nothing could come between us. She's be the most important person to me, no matter how much time I spend with a bunch of friends."

Ella nodded. "Point taken."

Just then, Brian returned and the couple gave him their orders.

"So, have you had any ex-husbands?" he joked.

"No," she replied, smiling.

"What about ex-boyfriends?"

"Nothing to tell," she retorted, smirking to hide her guilty look for not telling him the truth.

"Come on. There has to be something," he insisted. "Like, how long was your last relationship? Why'd you break up? How long ago was it?"

Ella hesitated before answering. "My last relationship lasted a few years. And we broke up because he cheated on me. And that was about 7 months ago."

"What an ass," Rob commented.

"Yeah. But he's gone now. So everything's fine."

"That's good."

"So tell me about your storylines," Ella requested. "I guess I should know a little more about those before I go changing things."

As Rob proceeded to explain what was happening with all their characters, their food arrived. Rob continued explaining as they began to eat.

"Sounds like a soap opera," Ella laughed, taking another bite of her food.

"Basically is except with more fights, extra-buff guys, and supermodel women," Rob agreed.

"So have you been in any of those romantic angles?"

"No. I think they tried to keep me out of it because I was married. And then once I got divorced, they had enough young and single guys to do the romantic angles. I think a couple of the married guys are doing angles, but not many. Kurt did a while back, but it wasn't serious. And Dwayne did too, but it lasted about a week or two."

"Well that's nice of the writers."

"I think it's because they don't want to be held responsible for any couples who end up going to counseling, but that's just my opinion."

Ella smiled.

"You have a beautiful smile," he said without thinking.

Blushing, she replied, "Thank you. Yours isn't too bad either."

"Oh stop it," laughed Rob. After a few seconds he asked, "Why'd you stop?"

"I just didn't think that I should continue to inflate your already oversized ego," she teased.

"How kind of you," he said sarcastically, flashing her a half grin.

"Well, I'm full," she told him, setting down her fork and leaning back in her chair.

"Me too," Rob said, swallowing his last bite.

"So now what?"

"So now, I pay, and we leave," Rob answered, as the waiter handed Rob the check.

"I can pay for my half," Ella insisted.

"It's a date and I'm paying," Rob countered. "It's not like I can't afford it." Rob placed his credit card inside the small black folder, waiting for the waiter to take it. A few minutes later, he returned with the receipt and Rob's credit card.

"Have a nice day," Brian said before leaving to tend to other customers.

"So, I better get back to the arena," Rob began, walking Ella out to the parking lot.

"Yeah. And I'm supposed to be at Stephanie's in a couple hours."

"This was fun."

"Yeah," Ella smiled.

"Yeah," Rob breathed, leaning closer to Ella, closing the distance between the two.

Before their lips could meet, a car alarm went off, causing Ella to jump back in surprise.

Looking around, Ella noticed that a guy only a few spaces down had set off his own alarm. Sighing, she said, "We should do it again."

"What? Have lunch or almost kiss."

Ella blushed. "Both, but drop the 'almost.'"

Grinning in agreement, Rob said goodbye to Ella and made his way to his rental.

"Hey!" Stephanie cried out, opening the front door wider, allowing Ella to enter.

"Hey. I can't wait to see your mom again!"

"Well good," Linda laughed.

"Hi Linda!" Ella exclaimed, hugging the older woman.

"Hello Sweetheart. It's good to see you again. You've definitely grown."

"Well, it has been about 14 years," Ella grinned.

"Where's my hug?" Shane whined, joining the trio of women.

"It must have gotten lost in the mail," Ella teased, making her way towards him.

"Ha ha," Shane replied sarcastically, pulling the smaller woman into his arms.

"It's good to see you too," Ella said with a tone of seriousness.

"Yeah. It is, isn't it?" Shane bragged arrogantly with a smile.

Ella gave Shane a small smack on the arm once he released her.

"You know I'm kidding," Shane said in his defense, taking a step back as a precaution.

"I know. Where's your wife?" Ella inquired.

"Damn you have a big mouth, Steph," Shane joked.

"Shut up. We had catch up time, and we talked about you in that period of time. Besides, if I hadn't told her, she would've gone on with her plan to seduce you," Stephanie said acutely.

"Stephanie!" Ella exclaimed. "You weren't supposed to tell him that!"

Shane's eyes widened after hearing Ella's comments.

Stephanie noticed and began giggling, unable to contain them any longer.

Realizing why Stephanie was laughing, Shane's look of shock turned to one of embarrassment and annoyance. "Very funny."

"You're still as gullible as ever," Ella said, pinching Shane's face.

Childishly, Shane stuck his tongue out at her.

"She's right Shane," Linda confirmed with a smile.

"Oh, so now you're all going to gang up on me," Shane pouted, crossing his arms and separating himself from the three women.

"This wasn't as bad as the time that you thought my nonexistent older brother was going to beat you up because you ruined my sand castle," Ella reminded him.

"Hey, I had just met you. How was I supposed to know that you were making up your brother?" Shane retorted.

"Or the time that I told you that Mom and Dad were going to sell you to the circus," Stephanie added.

"I was 7! And Dad was in on it with you! He even brought out this big box and told me that he was going to mail me to the circus as soon as he got his money." Shane protested.

Linda was merely watching the antics as the two girls kept bringing up embarrassing Shane moments.

"Can we eat now?" Shane interrupted his own bashing.

"I supposed," Linda grinned and the four people made their way to the dining room.

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Ending Author's Note: Ok… I'm really sorry that this took so long to post like I said at the top. But thank you for staying with the story. And I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update with school starting in a few weeks. This was a really short summer too, or at least for me. But anyways, back to me talking about the story. Thank you for reading it and please review this chapter. Or the whole story if you haven't review at all yet! Again, thank you! Kiss, kiss!