She had been sitting there for ten minutes, at least
It was quiet, she knew that much. With a four-year old little boy, there wasn't a whole lot of quiet in her life. And with a thirty-seven year old man who acted like a four-year old boy, well, there was a whole lot of noise in her life. But this was quiet. Her car turned off, the windows rolled up and Stephanie sitting in her red dress and high-heeled shoes; it was a picture, that was for sure. But it was also quiet and for a moment she relished in it.
The quiet was something new for her though, as was what she was about to do. She hadn't been on a date in so long, not without Chris being the one to sit across from her and she didn't know if she was crazy or what. Maybe she was making a futile attempt at moving on with her life that would never pan out and she'd be stuck alone for the rest of her life. That was a sad thought, but she wasn't quite as sure if it was sadder than being in a marriage that only one person wanted to be in.
That was a sad truth. Perhaps she should've talked to Chris somewhere down the line. Maybe that's where she had made her biggest error, but that thought did something that not much else in this world could do, and that was scare her. Of course, her biggest fear was something happening to Finnegan, but this was a different kind of fear. She was afraid to hear what Chris would have to say about them if she told him what she had overheard those many years ago, and what she felt when she heard them, and how she had chosen to live her life afterwards.
She had been terrified he would leave, and if he left, it wouldn't be just her that he was leaving. Yes, it was stupid to think that Chris would leave Finnegan because Chris loved their son so much, but maybe it was every woman's fear that the father of their children will leave them high and dry. She didn't want him to say that yes, he was only proposing because she had bore him a child, no woman ever wants to hear that, so she had held back and held back until Chris could no longer take it.
He trailed his finger around in circles on her stomach. She lay there, reading a script and making changes every so often. She was taking her new position as the head of creative seriously, and as such she was working nearly around the clock, integrating herself into the position. She had been a writer for a while, but to be the head of both divisions was way different. She had two shows to take care of now and she couldn't let her pregnancy stop her from doing that.
Chris, on the other hand, did not have anything to do and so he was lying down near her stomach and trailing his finger around the slight bulge created by her growing mass in the form of their baby. She was just over four-and-a-half months pregnant and starting to show a little bit more, at least to the knowing eye, and Chris was certainly a knowing eye. Her t-shirt was bunched up right under her breasts and she could feel his warm breath on her stomach.
"Are you going to continue doing that all afternoon?" she asked as she peeked over the top of her script.
"Yeah, I think so," he told her.
"It tickles," she replied. "And you keep doing it and I'm trying to review the script, I need to fax it out to the people who need it."
"Who cares about the rookies, you should send them out there like they did to me way back in the day. It's a sink or swim kind of business, Steph, and they should learn how to swim on their own."
"Like my dad is going to allow that to happen. He trusts you, Chris, well, sort of, he's not too crazy about you knocking me up," she laughed under her breath.
"Yeah, I know, I think that all the losses I've been having have been an indicator to that," he said, rolling his eyes.
"He'll get over it soon," she told him. "He's just a little bit upset that you impregnated me and we're not married or engaged, not that I personally need any of those things." She took a moment to glance at him and see if he had any reaction to those two things, but he seemed indifferent and she sighed and went back to her script. "It could be worse, he could've fired you."
"Don't joke," he said, swirling his finger so it got closer and closer to her belly button. "This wasn't my intention, you know."
"You don't think I don't know that," she responded. "Chris, we both know that this wasn't planned and we both accepted that and the consequences that come along with that. I wasn't going to consider an abortion or adoption or any of those other avenues, and everyone is just going to have to accept that."
"I know that," said Chris. He rested his hand on top of her stomach. "I don't think I could've lived with myself if you had had an abortion."
"It wasn't an option" she told him, going back to her script. "So you really are just going to lie there and touch my stomach all afternoon, aren't you?"
"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"
"I don't know," responded Stephanie. "All I know is that it's either one or the other, and as long as its one of the two, and it's healthy, then I'm totally cool with that."
"You don't even have a tiny preference?"
"No, I don't," she told him, and gave him a look that said she didn't. "Now can I please get back to the script before your antics get the both of us fired and then we'll have no jobs and we'll loaf around and nothing will ever get done ever?"
Stephanie went back to looking at the script and it was quiet for a few minutes before she felt Chris's finger circling her stomach again. She glanced down at him and smiled to herself, unbeknownst to him as he kept his eyes trained on the bulge of her stomach. She reached down with her free hand and ran her hands through his long, blond hair. She could get used to moments like this.
The moments had ended for Stephanie, and she had to find new moments. With a resolve that only came from being a McMahon, she got out of the car and walked into the restaurant, asking for the reservation. The hostess told her that the rest of her party had already arrived and she smiled and nodded as was appropriate. If there was anything Stephanie was good at, it was acting the part. The hostess led her to a table and she saw a man standing up.
He didn't look like Chris. So help her God, that was the first thing that she thought of when she saw him. She quickly blasted that thought from her mind, but it kept coming back. But then, nobody looked like Chris. Nobody could ever have those same eyes and that lazy smile of his that made your heart flutter and your knees weaken. And nobody would ever have Chris's soft, silky hair that she was still trying to convince…no, sorry, that she had been trying to convince him to grow back just so that she could run her hands through it again.
Craig was tall, taller than Chris, and he had a dark hair, almost black, and it was short and very business-like. He was wearing a nicely tailored suit which she appreciated, and he had brown eyes, almost hazel. He smiled at her and she smiled back, which was how she would play the part and shook his hand.
"Stephanie, right?"
"And you're Craig," she said as he pulled her chair out for her. Chris never pulled her chair out for her. But that was only because she told him that she didn't need him to do that for her. But she thought it was sweet on the first date. She sat down and he went over to sit down.
"Yeah, I remember we met briefly last year at the rehearsal dinner for Trish's wedding," he told her.
"Yeah, I remember meeting you that night, if only for a few seconds since I was one of the bridesmaids and you were the--"
"Best man," he finished for her. "I don't remember if we talked at the reception, though…"
"It was a crazy night that I really don't remember," Stephanie said with a laugh, feeling a little more at ease with this man since they at least had Trish in common. "I was just a tiny bit drunk…or a lot drunk, but I hardly ever have that opportunity to get drunk and I'd never do it around my son, so you know, three sheets to the wind that night."
"Yeah, Trish mentioned that you have a son, how old is he?"
"He's four, he's…my everything," Stephanie said, grinning. If there was one topic she loved to talk about, it was her son.
"That's great, and you work for your family, WWE right?"
"Yeah, I'm the head of creative actually," she told him, "And what do you do?"
"I'm a Junior VP of a marketing firm here in Toronto, been with the company for about seven years now, it's not fun or glamorous, but it pays the bills and it can be pretty fulfilling, but I'm sure your job is about a million times better than mine."
"Well, it has its boring moments," Stephanie told him. A Junior VP, she thought to herself that this was the type of man her father envisioned her with when she was still in college. Once she had entered WWE though, her father knew she was destined for a wrestler. Weird how she came back to what he originally wanted.
"But you get to be on television and everything like that."
"When I want," she shrugged. "You get over it, no, that's a lie, you never get over it, it's a blast."
"Now I'm jealous," he said good-naturedly. "Does your son travel with you?"
"Yes, he does," Stephanie answered. "I don't think I could bear to leave him behind, although when he starts kindergarten next year, he's going to have to stay with his grandma on Mondays, which is going to probably hurt me more than it'll hurt him."
"Sounds like you love him a lot."
"Understatement, he's the light of my life and has been since the minute he was born," Stephanie answered. "He's the sweetest, most thoughtful, smart little boy you could ever want to meet. I'm sorry, I sound like I'm gushing."
"No, he's your kid, it's natural, I like hearing about it anyways. I don't have any kids, but I've always liked them. What's his name?"
"Finnegan, I call him Finny though."
"Wow, that's a very bold name."
"Yeah, it was…I heard the name one day on the television and it was just, it caught me and I wanted to name him that. He has a regular name for a middle name though, we didn't want to saddle him with a truly crazy name," she laughed.
"What's his middle name?"
"His full name is Finnegan Aaron Irvine," Stephanie said.
"Oh, Irvine, so he has his…father's last name?" Craig asked curiously.
"Yeah," Stephanie said, "We thought it best if he took his last name and not mine. We were never married or anything."
"Trish mentioned you were just coming off a serious relationship, that had to be hard. I'm kind of coming off one as well. I was with my girlfriend for just about two years and then we broke up when she had to move to Sweden for business. It was rough, but it was the right thing to do."
"I know how that goes," Stephanie said. "Sometimes, it's just the right thing to do."
After that, it became easier to speak with him. He ended up being a really interesting, really nice guy. Stephanie even found herself enjoying herself. Now could she say that she didn't think about Chris for a few minutes? No, she couldn't say that. Chris was always going to be in the back of her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Then when she brought out a picture of Finnegan to show Craig, she was faced with a couple pictures of Chris, and there he was again. She wasn't just going to escape him.
Yet, this date had been a lot easier than she had thought it was going to be. Once she and Craig got into the groove, she found that she could do this, she could really do this. If it came to it, she could date some other guy that wasn't Chris. Was it necessarily going to be Craig, no, but it could be anyone that wasn't Chris. She thought it would be harder, but maybe it just meant that she and Chris weren't meant to be.
As she was back in her car later that evening, it washed over her again that she wasn't with Chris. Why it decided to pop in and out of her head at random, she had no idea. But now that the date was over and she had let Craig kiss her cheek, the guilt was suddenly flooding into her veins. This horrible guilt like she had done something wrong. Her fingers itched to call Chris on his cell phone and apologize for cheating on him. But then she would remember herself, and the fact that she and Chris were not together anymore, and it brought a pain to her chest that emulated getting pricked with a needle. It wasn't a pain that she couldn't withstand, but it was a constant pain that just pricked her over and over again.
She felt guilty for having a good time with a man that wasn't Chris, and she felt guilty for allowing herself to have a good time. It's funny the things we blame ourselves for. Even when we've done nothing wrong, the implication that someone else might be hurt by our actions was enough to make that pricking more of a stabbing feeling. She clutched her stomach as she sat in her car, a perfect way to bookend her date.
She could still feel Chris's finger twirling its way towards the center of her stomach, and she could still feel the way that he would lean his chin on her shoulder when he was thinking. Chris had burned his way into her body's memory. His skin had burned into hers, leaving a lasting impression that she couldn't get rid of just yet, and since his body had become something of one with hers, she had betrayed him.
But she had had a good time regardless. And that hurt her because she knew it hurt Chris. But they had to let this go. She had to let him go and this was the first step. She would just have to get over the memories she had of Chris and their time together. She knew it was easier said than done, but it was a necessary consequence. She was at least glad to know that she could have a good time with someone other than Chris, it was a comfort to know that she probably wouldn't end up alone. She smiled at that and pushed the guilt out of her brain for a little while. She shouldn't feel guilty for moving on with her life. She should be proud that she had been able to do this tonight. She had done what she thought was impossible. She should be patting herself on the back for that.
She could get over Chris, she was already doing so by taking this first step. Yes, she could do this, she could really find her soul-mate because after all this time, and all this confusion in her life, maybe Chris wasn't the one after all. Maybe he never had been and Finnegan had just been the glue to tie it all together. Maybe she and Chris had just hung on too long, and now was her time to really find the true person she was meant to be with. She could find her true soul-mate and have many moments to come.
They were lying in bed. Stephanie was lying down with a script in her hand. She was holding it over her head and reading it over. In her absence she had left her right-hand man in charge, but she wanted to see first-hand the kind of work that he was doing. She felt a squirming on her stomach and she looked down.
The two-day old Finnegan was curled up on her stomach, a position that was still familiar to him after only being born two days before. He was lying on his stomach on Stephanie's stomach, which was warm and inviting to the little boy. Chris was lying down there face to face with his son. He marveled at the little boy, clad only in a t-shirt and a diaper, a pacifier in his tiny mouth, sucking away at it as his hands were curled up in little fists.
"Are you just going to lie there all afternoon staring at him?" she asked.
"Yeah, I am," Chris said. "Look at him, just look at him."
"I see him," she said, "and feel him, he's warm on my stomach, he's like my own personal blanket."
"He's all curled up," Chris said, running his finger over Finnegan's foot. "But man, check out that dark hair."
"It could lighten up," she answered, putting down the script for a second. "I think he misses being inside me, he's probably all cold."
"He'll get used to it," Chris said, running his finger over her stomach. "Hard to believe he was in there only two days ago huh?"
"Yeah, it is," she answered, reaching down to softly caress Finnegan's head. "Hard to believe I got him out of me just two days ago. Hey there Finny, you're awfully cute."
"He's ours," Chris said, looking up at her. "He's all ours."
"I know," she said, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair.
She just wished the old moments hadn't been so good.