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Summary: Jeff Hardy has got a lot more then wrestling on his mind lately, and it all centers around a certain WWE Diva. Will he admit his true feelings in time or will he lose his chance forever.
Authors Notes: I wanted to give fair warning in advance but this story should be ending in another five chapters. After going through the motions of what to do with this couple, the conflict with Matt still standing in the wind, I think I can only award a certain amount of punishment to this couple. So thats all I need to say, besides the normal, Happy Reading! Thank you all for the reviews, it means a lot that you took the time to do it.
He heard the knock before he realized just where he was and what he had done the night before. The evenings events came full force when he realized that he knew the person who was now on the other side of Ashley's hotel room door knocking. It was the last person he needed or wanted to see right now.
She stirred beside him then, hearing the knock as well and rising from the bed, grabbing the robe and throwing it around her shoulders. She threw him a look of concern, realizing just who was on the other side of the door as he called through it and panic started to set in.
"He can't find you here Jeff." was all she could say, knowing from the past experience of Matt seeing the two of them together kissing just what the older Hardy brother thought about Ashley and Jeff as anything other then familiar friends.
He nodded and headed into the bathroom, without so much of a word to her, but letting her know as he passed that he understood and would remain as silent as possible until the damage control with Matt was done.
When she was sure that he was securely hidden in the bathroom, and that her knot in the robe she wore was tight enough not to reveal what was hidden underneath, she went to the door and opened it slowly.
"Ash, good morning. I was hoping you hadn't gotten a flight out yet. Can I come in and steal a minute of your time?"
She nodded, not trusting her guilty filled voice to speak. When he passed her and came into the room she saw the clothing bunched on the floor by the bathroom door. In the middle of it was Jeff's shirt, something she hadn't thought about in her hurry to let Matt into her room and stop the incessant knocking.
She made her way over to the bed quickly and pushed it deeper into the corner, to hide as much of it from Matt as she could. When she was satisfied that one crisis had been averted, she turned back to face her ex boyfriend. Just what had brought him to her room this early in the morning was beyond her but she had no doubt she was about to find out.
"Whats on your mind Matt?"
He took a seat on the bed, which still contained the creases from where two bodies had just spent the night wrapped up in each other and she almost blushed with embarrassment. If he had any idea the way she had spent the night in the very bed he was sitting on now, he would surely lose his mind.
"Jeff. But more importantly what is going on between the two of you. I talked to him about it at the arena but I wanted to hear things from you."
She had a choice here now and she knew it was not going to be any easy one to make with Jeff standing on the other side of the bathroom door and only mere seconds from her. She could admit that there was something between them that she wanted to explore, explain it as best she could and hope for the best from Matt, or she could lie and pretend that the night before hadn't even taken place.
Her heart wanted her to be honest but her head told her she was not in the mood for a confrontation. She wasn't sure which one to hold out more stock in. She knew Matt and her had a past, but thats what it was now and there was never any way it could back to being anything more then it was and that had nothing to do with Jeff. She just didn't want to go back in time and recreate what just couldn't and shouldn't be done again.
She had been a Lita substitute, she knew it then and she knew it even more now and there was no words Matt could say to her to change it.
"I care about your brother Matt. I could lie and say that its purely innocent but then that wouldn't be fair to him or to both of us. I didn't plan on feeling anything for him but I do. I'm sorry if that hurts you. I never intended for that to happen."
Matt just nodded his head in silence and Ashley wondered if in his silence there was an anger brewing that was going to be taken out on her. Before she could speculate any further he stood from the bed then and made his way over to where she stood, not moving an inch in any direction, her feet firmly planted on the floor.
"What if I told you that I never got over you? Would that matter to you at all right now Ashley?"
She backed away from him, not feeling comfortable with the closeness he was trying to bring onto her shoulders. She wasn't comfortable at all with this conversation and the way it was heading either. Surely neither was Jeff as he listened on the other side of the door.
"It matters Matt because you will always matter to me, but it just isn't something I think is right and that has nothing to do with Jeff. You miss the feeling of having someone there with you all the time and it wouldn't matter if it was me or some other Diva, you just miss the one thing you can't have anymore."
She knew what she meant when she said it and was sure that he knew it too. The unspoken elephant in the room between them was Amy, and it was always going to be Amy no matter what Matt said to the contrary. She was the perfect woman for Matt, one that even though she had cheated, no other woman would measure up too. In truth they both knew that was the woman he really wanted. Not her.
"This is not about her, this is about you and me. I love you Ashley Massaro and I think we are perfect together. I miss you and I want to try again."
She wanted to tell him to leave, that her heart was with another man, his very own brother but she knew if she did then it was going to create more problems for the two family members, not only that but for her and Jeff as well because she hadn't been totally forthcoming with her feelings for him at this point.
"I don't want to try again Matt because it is about her. What we had was great and I loved being with you but too much time has passed and truth be told I have moved on with my life and I think you need to do the same. I'm so sorry for any pain you are going through but I cannot be the stand in when the real woman you want doesn't want you back."
it hurt her to say this, words she should have gotten up the courage to tell him when they had indeed been dating. It had been a hard time for her, letting him go when she had felt so much for the man. But he had loved another, was not over her and there was no way she could deny it anymore, not to herself and not to him. She was indeed better off now. Time had healed those wounds.
Jeff helped heal them you mean.
Jeff had no idea of it but that was the deepest truth she kept hidden from everyone, including him. When Matt and her had gone their separate ways, Jeff had been there for her as he was for his brother and he had done a hell of a good job of making her feel that she had done the right thing.
"You've moved on to my brother is what you are trying to say right? There is no use beating around the bush with it Ashley, if you love my brother then you might as well admit it."
He was angry she could tell but she no longer cared anymore. She was an adult, Jeff was an adult and if they wanted to see each other then some stupid promise Jeff had made to him shouldn't matter anymore. They weren't kids anymore and hadn't been for some time. It was time to start acting like it.
"Yes Matt, if thats what you want to hear then yes I do love your brother and I don't care if you accept it or not because its true."
Before Matt could reply to her statement she heard the door to the bathroom unlock and Jeff come out, his hair disheveled from the night before and his clothes still very much out in the open in the room, just his boxers and a towel to show for it. If there had been any doubt that he had spent the night here before, there certainly wasn't now and with the look in Matt's eyes she knew he knew it too.
They were busted. But before any one else could speak, Jeff did the speaking for them all.
"You might as well know that as much as she loves me, I love her too and nothing you can do will change it. It is what it is."