It was almost noon when the two blonde women finally came downstairs. After picking them up from the club, they had been inseparable so Dean actually opted to sleep in the nursery while Natalya and CJ cuddled in the master bedroom, but he honestly didn't mind. CJ got to let loose with one of her best friends, and he didn't get a single text from her the whole night which meant that she was having a good time. The two blondes were laughing and having a grand time when he came to collect them, so all of the worrying he was doing was for nothing and that made him quite happy.
"Hey there, sleeping beauties. How was the night out?" Tyson greeted once they sat down at the table, Natalya laying her head down on the wood while CJ greeted Olivia with a kiss to the head as the infant ate her cheerios.
"Three jagerbombs." Was all Natalya muttered, Dean and Tyson sharing a grimace as Dean brought breakfast to the table for the women.
"And two Long Islands." CJ added, smiling as Dean sat down beside her and kissed her cheek. "Thanks babe."
"My pleasure." He assured, smiling when she grinned up at him. "The coffee tastes better today for some reason."
"Probably just your hangover talking." Dean murmured, taking a sip of his girlfriend's coffee to make sure. "Tastes the same to me."
"Whatever." CJ mumbled, enjoying her coffee all the same as Natalya picked her head up off the table so she could eat. "But, to answer your earlier question Tyson, the night out was really nice. Definitely something I needed, but didn't know that I needed until I was three drinks in."
"Do you even remember half of last night?" Natalya asked, grinning when CJ slowly shook her head.
"After that second round of jagerbombs, I don't have a damn clue what happened."
"The internet probably does." Tyson suggested, already scrolling through his twitter feed.
"If you were even recognized." Dean commented, shrugging as he took CJ's hand in his. She just rolled with it, taking her fork in her left hand instead so she could continue eating. "This is Vegas, after all. Do you know how many blondes are here and clubbing? That's probably half of the people here. I'm sure you're fine and, if people did recognize you, you're humans too and allowed to have fun every once in awhile."
"I'm not too worried about it." CJ shrugged, knowing that if someone were to try the "bad mother" card that she had Dean to politely inform the public that he suggested that she go out and have fun with her friend. She was still young and allowed to have fun every once in a while. "I'm an adult, and not even problematic. Things will be fine. I dare somebody to say something so I can deal with it my way."
"The mature way, I hope." Dean added, smiling when she playfully swatted at him.
"The adult way."
Going into work on Monday had CJ surprised to see Adam sitting in their locker room chatting with Paul and Brock, and she stood stunned as her dad took her daughter from her arms before sitting back down on the couch with the infant.
"Don't feel like I'm not happy to see you, but why are you here?"
"Your contract signing is tonight. I told Paul that I was going to be here, we wanted to surprise you."
"Color me surprised." She murmured, sitting atop the table in the room as Dean unpacked the clothes she needed to wear for her contract signing.
"Can you beat a bitch's ass in heels, babe?"
"If it's those sneaker heels then yeah, but I'd rather wear flat shoes if I'm going out there in jeans."
"Dress jeans." Paul corrected, Dean nodding his acknowledgement as CJ shrugged. She was quiet after that, her eyes focusing on a section of the wall that was slightly off-white in comparison to the rest of the wall. Tonight meant a lot of things for her and she just needed to collect it all before going out to in front of Stephanie McMahon, the one woman in the company who would know without a doubt if there was any uncertainty in her demeanor and the last thing CJ needed was Stephanie finding any insecurities to exploit.
But she knew that whether she won or lost, she wanted to head into the end of her career. She wouldn't be re-signing with the company when her contract expired, because she needed to be at home and be a mother to her daughter and be there for their dog while Dean was out providing for the family and giving her heart attacks on a weekly basis. Getting off the road would get her away from Seth, especially after their upcoming tour schedule that would have her and Seth doing almost everything together, which would get Dean to relax a bit.
"She's thinking hard." Brock commented, directing the attention of everybody in the room to the blonde. She didn't even budge, not even as Dean set her clothes down beside her on the table before heading off to get changed into his ringwear. "Probably about the match."
"Or still recovering from that hangover." Dean suggested on his way out of the room, missing the surprised looks on the three older men's faces at the thought of CJ having a hangover. Having a hangover meant that she had been drinking over the weekend which meant that she was out having fun with somebody because they knew that Dean wasn't leaving their child with a sitter.
"I didn't even know she drank hard liquor anymore." Adam murmured, pulling out his phone to text Beth with this new information. "Probably jager, knowing Chrissie."
"She's a jager girl?" Paul asked, a bit more composed than the stunned silent Beast, and Adam nodded with a proud smile.
"Girl can hold her liquor for sure, but she's been working on it since before she was legal so I'm not exactly surprised."
"You let her drink before she was legal?"
"She spent her breaks from school on the road with me and I didn't want to put any more constraints on her." Adam reasoned, shrugging when Brock nodded.
"Did you let her go out with Trish?" The Beast asked, watching as CJ blinked a few times before grabbing her clothes off the table and heading into the bathroom to change.
"Only person other than Jay that I trusted to take care of her." Adam reasoned once the door shut, smoothing Olivia's hair back as he thought about the fact that CJ didn't even like most of the people on the roster at that time so his options on who to trust were limited and constricted by her taste in people.
"Life makes sense now."
It was go time. CJ was dressed and ready, flanked by Adam and Paul as they walked down to the ramp. Stephanie was already in the ring with her husband and her father, Michael Cole in the ring to facilitate the contract signing as well. The crowd was roaring, either for her or Adam but she didn't care who because they were cheering for her team and her team was the only team that mattered at this point.
Sitting across from Stephanie in the plush office chair had her in a mental state twelve times calmer than she was heading down the ramp. She was ready to lunge regardless, not afraid to throw a punch at Vince if it came to that.
"You look tense, CJ." Stephanie commented, smirk on her face as she watched the blonde look through the contract. "Is it the fact that your little Heyman Family will be banned from ringside making you nervous?"
"Nah, I'm always kinda tense before I beat somebody's ass in a big match." CJ commented, not even bothering to look up at her opponent at SummerSlam. "You think I'm tense now, you should've seen me before I had the match with Chris."
The smug smirk was wiped off of Stephanie's face, and Adam had a smirk of his own as he picked up the microphone that CJ had set down.
"Since I'm not a member of the Heyman Family nor am I an active superstar on the roster, technically I am allowed at ringside and I would love to be if you all were comfortable with that." He spoke, taking in the looks of surprise on the faces across the ring from him. Vince was first to recover, taking the mic from Stephanie and squaring his shoulders as he prepared to speak.
"I'll accept your request and, since known Authority members are also banned from ringside Hunter cannot be there but I will to keep things fair between the two."
Paul nodded from where he was scanning over the contract with CJ, giving the Canadian the go-ahead to sign the contract when she was ready.
"Before I sign this, Steph, I just wanted to thank you." She started, looking the Billion Dollar Princess in the eye for the first time since entering the ring. "Growing up, I loved watching WWE. Living with my dad gave me the opportunity to tag along on tours during my break and I made a list of people I wanted to have matches with on any scale. You were on that list, along with Chris Jericho and we know how that one turned out, and so were a few other names I'm not going to bother to mention. I had a sanctioned match with and have beaten every person on that list, and now you're going to finish that list."
"CJ, I-"
"I wasn't finished yet." She interrupted, smiling sweetly as Stephanie stared at her in shock. "Thank you, for giving me this opportunity to beat you at SummerSlam, to beat you with my dad and greatest inspiration at ringside. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to show my daughter how real women handle business and thank you for being another name to add to my list of people who just weren't good enough to take my title away from me."
She was waiting to sign the contract because one of the clauses in the document forbid malicious physical contact between her and Stephanie, and she had noticed that Stephanie hadn't signed yet meaning that she was ready for physicality should there be any. CJ didn't want to sign an agreement that bound her to keeping her cool until SummerSlam in Brooklyn even if Stephanie decided to pull some shit.
"That was extremely touching CJ, I'm honored. But while we're thanking each other, I should thank you." Stephanie spoke, smiling when CJ rose an eyebrow in confusion. "My girls look up to you, y'know? They get so excited to see you kicking down doors for women in this company, kicking ass and taking names, they idolize you. You, of all people, and not me. My oldest told me that she'd like to be the Women's Champion just like you, and not me despite the fact that I held that title long before you. So thank you, CJ. For giving me the opportunity to beat you and give my daughters a real woman to look up to."
CJ didn't even react. She knew that Stephanie wanted a reaction so she wasn't going to give Stephanie what she wanted. She just watched as Stephanie stared her down, Hunter in her ear about something as Paul set the contract back down on the table.
"No malicious physical contact doesn't start until midnight tonight." Paul whispered as Stephanie signed the contract. CJ nodded her understanding, clicking her pen in anticipation. She really didn't want to throw down tonight, but they were in the main event spot so it would definitely be entertaining to the crowds to watch Stephanie get beat up.
"I'm really going to hate the next three weeks because I won't be able to smack the taste out of your mouth like I desperately want to."
"After the way you hit me at Payback, I'm not afraid of you slapping me because it didn't hurt me." CJ shot back, standing when Stephanie did and sending a smirk in her direction. This had the Billion Dollar Princess irate, pushing the table to the side so there was no barrier between her and the Canadian. Adam and Paul stepped back, neither wanting to get tangled in the two women should they start brawling, and Adam was glad that they did because when Stephanie lunged they hit the mat right where he had been standing.
Fists were flying, the two women rolling around the ring as they continued to throw punches and Stephanie ended up in position to pedigree CJ but the blonde shook her off and got space between them. She was on the ground, but got up just in time to hit Stephanie with the Code Breaker as the crowd roared and Hunter shouted with disapproval despite his wife being the one to start the fight. Paul handed her the contract as she stood, CJ wasting no time in signing the page before dropping the contact beside Stephanie's limp form and taking her belt from Adam to hold up high while smirking at Hunter.
"This will be the scene at SummerSlam!"