A/N: I put chapter 3 out about a week ago... But I thought it was missing something, so I added some stuff into the chapter. If you did read it before I pulled it down, reread it :) I added a little bit. Sorry if it confused anyone.
"What are you doing?" Text from Fergal.
He was supposed to be in Daytona Beach. I was laying across the couch, watching reruns of Ghost Adventures. It was getting late, I guess they could be done by now. I just figured they'd go out for drink or something after jet skiing.
"Watching TV. Thought you were jet skiing." Text to Fergal.
Hamlet was snuggled into my side, sleeping soundly.
"On my way back. It was great, you should have come. Want company?" Text from Fergal.
I thought about it for a moment, knowing that I should just say no but for some reason my fingers typed something else.
"Sure. Door is unlocked." TExt to Fergal.
About a half hour later I hear the door swivel and Fergal walks inside, shutting it and locking it behind him. Hamlet pops his head up, snorting at Ferg when he walks around the couch.
"Hey buddy." He chuckles, scratching his head. "What are you watching?" He asks me, sitting down by my feet. I move my legs before setting them down on his lap, his fingers trace over the skin, making little circles. The small action literally gave me butterflies.
"Ghost adventures." I grin, "It's my guilty pleasure." I tell him.
"I haven't seen it." He admits.
"Then I guess you should pay attention." I smirk, redirecting my attention to the TV. My stare stays on the TV but my focus is elsewhere when I feel his fingers trace the length of my legs that were on his lap. They would feather lightly glide to my knee and back down, every once in a while he'd massage the calf muscle.
"This has to be fake." He chuckles after about a half hour.
"Probably." I shrug, "Still fun to watch though." I tell him.
"Have you been watching this all night?" He questions, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow at me. His fingers start to knead into my foot, and I literally had to bite back a satisfied sigh because it felt so good.
"Yep." I admit. "I shouldn't have invited you over, it's super late." I comment, glancing at the clock. It was just past 1 am now.
"You want me to leave?" He asks softly, his fingers still pressing circles into my foot. "Or I could tuck you into bed." He suggests, with a look of lust in his eyes. I'd never seen that look before.
"Calm down cowboy, you're not getting anything." I roll my eyes.
"I wasn't assuming I would." He chuckles with a big grin, "But if you wanted a snuggle buddy I wouldn't say no." He says suggestively. Ugh... This was a bad idea. He'd just moved several levels way past 'friends'.
"I think you should probably go..." I murmur, biting on my bottom lip. His face never falters, but I could swear I saw a look of disappointment in his eyes for a split second.
"Do you want me to go?" He questions, looking for a real answer.
"No." I sighed softly.
"I'll leave if you want me to. Really, I will." He assures me, his eyes serious.
"I want you to stay... But I don't want to feel pressured into anything." I tell him honestly.
"I would never put you in an uncomfortable situation like that." He says, very wide eyed. I feel bad because he seriously thinks that I may think he'd put me into an uncomfortable situation. "Maybe I should go..." He starts to agree. I'm sure that my face look concerned, or scared, or maybe a bit of both. It wasn't just the fact that I worked for this guy, my horrible history with boyfriends hasn't been that awesome either. "You look terrified." He comments.
"I'm sorry..." I murmur.
"Don't be sorry. Tell me why you're scared, and don't tell me it's because you work for me." He says. His tone was very gentle, and soft. I just stare at him for a moment, what about this man made me feel so comfortable.
"I just haven't had an awesome history with guys." I finally sigh. "I'm not assuming at all that you're interested in me like that... But the last guy I dated was horrible to me." Why would he be interested? I wasn't anything special. I was short, curvy, probably a little over weight if we're being brutally honest and I didn't think I was that pretty either. I mean, I knew I wasn't ugly, but there's no way I was pretty enough to land a guy like him.
"Don't assume I'm not interested." He corrects me. "And it's extremely unfortunate that you had such a bad experience that you keep men reguardless of their intentions at a distance." He adds.
"It is." I agree, with no potision to with him. "Stay." I finally murmur.
"Are you sure?" He questions.
"Yes." I nod.
"I don't want you to be uncomfortable." He tells me.
"You don't make me uncomfortable, promise." I reply. I was wringing my fingers the whole time I was talking to him and hadn't even noticed until his put a hand on top of mine.
"Could have fooled me." He chuckles, offering a warm smile.
"I'll explain it another time." I say softly. I grab the remote and hit the power button, making the TV go black.
"Ok." He agrees, pushing himself up off my couch. He put one of my arms around his neck and scooped me up into his arms, "Where is your bedroom?" He questions.
"Down the hall on the left." I grin after letting out a little laugh. I hear Hamlet hop off the couch and trot along behind us to the bedroom. He laid me on the bed and I slid under the covers since I was already in my pajamas.
"How'd he get on the bed?" He laughs, looking at the pig that was making a bed up by my pillow.
"There's pet stairs over on this side." I smirk, knowing that it may have sounded a little ridiculous. He slid into bed next to me, in his shirt and sweat pants and his fingers played over my thighs before traveling up the length of them to my hip.
"Come over here." He murmurs, using a muscled arm to pull me over to him. It was amazing how easily my body molded right to his and I rested my head on his shoulder. "Are you ok?" He asks.
"Yes." I let out a content sigh.
When I woke up the next morning there was light coming through the curtains. Hamlet was softly snoring in the crook of my neck while Ferg was softly snoring behind me, making my hair move with each breath. At some point last night I'd turned over onto my side and he was flush up against my back. Hamlet had noticed that I was awake and he pushed his cold little nose against my cheek.
"Are you hungry?" I murmur to the pig.
"I could eat." Fergal answers smartly behind me, making me chuckle.
"I could make us some breakfast." I suggest. My stomach twitched as his finger traced a line around my belly button. "I still have to pack for our road trip." I grumble unimpressed. NXT was taking a week to go up to Ohio and Michigan and since Ferg wanted to do a night where he's painted I was going along for the ride.
"We could go out if you don't want to cook." He shrugs.
"I'd rather cook." I chuckle, slipping out of bed.
***...***...***
"Are you ready to go in there?" Fergal calls from the other side of my bathroom door. I'd agree the other day on this date and it wasn't like I could back out now. I was staring at myselfin the mirror, trying to think of a way to hide the flaws that littered my body.
"Almost." I say back. I pull a tshirt on over my head, it was loose and baggy and it hid most of what I wanted to hide with the exception of a long, ugly scar on my thigh. "It'll have to do." I sighed to myself, pulling open the door.
"Ready?" He asks, giving me a once over. 'Please don't ask about my scar...' I said to myself when his eyes locked onto it for a brief couple seconds.
"Yeah." I nod and smile. I slide into his mini cooper, feeling a little bit awkward but it would pass soon.
"I've only had my license a year." He smirks. My eyes get wide and I look at him a little suprised. "Yeah, I had no reason to drive in Ireland or England and I'd car pool in Japan. Just never needed a license." He shrugs.
"Oh..." I reply, suddenly feeling like we maybe should have taken my car.
"Did I just make ya nervous?" He grins.
"A little, actually." I nod, pulling my seat belt on.
"Don't be, you're safe with me." He winks, glancing over at me. I had the urge to tell him to keep his eyes on the road, but I controlled myself. "So which beach do you like?" He asks me.
"I love Canaveral. There's no condos or anything, it's just beach and a wild life reserve." I tell him. "If you hop the 408 and then take 50 all the way to the end basically." I answer.
"Ok." He agrees. "What will Hamlet do while you're gone all day?" He questions, looking over at me with a smile.
"He'll sleep." I chuckle. We end up at canaveral about a half hour later and park in lot 10, which at the moment was empty. The best beach, is an empty beach. "It's really a nice day for this." I comment, laying my towel down next to his.
"I was afraid it might rain." He makes a face. He pulls off his shirt and tosses it to the side by our bag and glances at me then down at my own shirt. I wasn't taking it off, and I was hoping that he wouldn't say anything about it. "So..." He murmurs, sitting down on the towel next to me. He pulls out a water from the cooler we'd brought and hands one to me before grabbing one for himself. "Tell me about you." He says.
"I don't have much to tell." I shrug simply. We hadn't had a chance to really talk to each other about our lives, or our pasts besides my shitty boyfriend history. Honestly I was ok with that.
"That's a lie if I've ever heard one." He chuckles. "Come on, tell me about where you grew up, what your parents are like, what you were like as a kid... How you ended up in Florida. Anything." He shrugs, wrapping both hands around his knees. I sigh, looking over at him.
"I grew up in a town called Sioux Falls South Dakota. There's not much up there unless you're into corn and cows, I grew up on the boring side of South Dakota, the flat end." I smirk. "I was a really bad kid, I got in trouble all the time, I was super disrepectful to my parents until I was about 20 and started to pull my life and shit together." I sigh. "You really want to hear this junk? I wasn't an awesome person... Really until I got the WWE job." I admit a little ashamed.
"I want to hear all of it." He nods for me to continue.
"I don't know... I moved down here when I was 22 for a freaking nanny job." I chuckle, thinking back about that. "Turns out it's actually not my destiny to be a nanny. It actually wasn't even the kid that was the problem, her mom, who was a sigle mother and an ER doctor turned out to not get along with me at all. Or I didn't get along with her, maybe it was me." I shrug simply. "Anyway, I parted ways with them. Couch hopped for about 2 months before I finally fell into the WWE make up job. It really was the reason I was able to pull my shit together and start being a fucking adult. Then when it didn't work out I took the Disney job, and now here I am with you." I finish.
"Shortest life story ever." He grins.
"Yeah." I nod, "So what about yours?" I ask him.
"Mines shorter." His grin gets wider. "I grew up in a little Irish town, playing football, or soccer as you call it. My mom stayed at home with us kids and my dad worked at the station. I would wrestle just for fun on the side, you know as like my "hobby"." He uses his fingers to make quotes and lets out a little chuckle. "Anyway I started putting all my time and money into wrestling, hopped around to a few different companies, started a wrestling dojo, lived in Japan for like 8 years of my life before I ended up here in NXT."
"I like your story better." I smile. "You've done so much good for so many people that it's ridiculous." I tell him.
"I'm not that great." He shrugs. I chuckle, and shake my head. He had no idea the things he'd already done for me, this job being one of them.
***...***...***
"I forgot about my mail. Do you mine grabbing it when you get off work?" Text to Kelly.
I was in the passenger seat of Fergals blue mini cooper, he was of course driving and Ben and Sami were in the back seat. Seemed like a lot of people for one little car, but some how we got everyone's bag in the back. It actually took a while for Ferg to convince me to ride up with them, I was perfectly ok with driving myself, or shit I'd have even flown and gotten a car but these guys would rather road trip.
"No problem. Hey, why don't you try having some fun while you're gone?" Text from Kelly.
"Listen. I'll hurt you. ;)" Text to Kelly.
"Will you get really upset if I put my feet on your dash...?" I ask Fergal softly. I was a little nervous with Ben and Sami (Zayn) in the car, on top of not knowing Ferg very well I didn't know the other two hardly at all.
"Not at all." He grins cheekily at me.
"Do you need more room? I can pull the seat forward some more." I say, looking back at Ben who was sitting behind me. Sami was already passed out in the seat behind Finn, none of these guys were overly tall anyway.
"No sweet heart, I'm fine." He winks. "I'm the shortest of the bunch... Besides you." He chuckles and I smile. I did like Ben. He was laid back, and easy going and people like that are exactly the kind of people I needed to be around. I turn back around and kick my bare feet up on the dash, my toes making little prints on the inside of his windshield.
"You'll let me know if you need me to drive?" I ask Fergal, leaning my head against the seat. Hamlet came with us, he was curled up in Ben's lap in the backseat. Thankfully all the guys in the car loved him, because if not I would have definitely been riding solo. Yeah, he could have stayed home and Kelly would've taken him to her house but I just didn't feel right leaving him. Plus Fergal made a big deal out of bringing him before we left, saying how the hotel we were staying at allowed pets so there wasn't a reason to leave him behind.
"I will." He agrees. Another reason I was skeptical about riding up with these guys is because the only person who passed the driving test on the first try in the whole car was myself. Sami failed twice, Ben a few times along with Fergal. Not only did he not pass it the first time, but he's only been driving for about a year. I get that he had no use for a license in Ireland and Japan, but still, it was little nerve racking for me. About 15 hours later we're pulling into the Marriot in Detriot. "We made it." He grins, stretching himself out when we got out of the car.
"He's great. I want one." Ben laughs, hooking Hamlet up to his harness.
"He's fun. Smarter than a dog and cleaner than a cat." I tell him honestly. I reach into the trunk to grab my bag but Ferg beats me to it, slinging it over his shoulder. "I can carry my bag." I tell him.
"I know, but you don't have to." He shrugs. I follow along behind him into the hotel and stand a little awkwardly, waiting to check in.
"How was the drive? Did I miss much?" Sami asks me with a grin. He'd legit slept nearly the whole way here, only getting up when we stopped for gas and food. While the whole trip I was a little on edge riding with Ferg, Sami clearly had no problem with his driving.
"Not really, unless you're into corn fields and cows." I shrug playfully. "And almost wrecking, twice." I add remembering that Ferg had nearly rear ended two guys on the interstate while I was talking to him.
"Nah, not really." He shakes his head.
"So do we want to do anything tonight?" Fergal asks, walking back up to where Ben, Sami and I were standing. He hands me a room key, "We're right next door." He motions to the three of them.
"You're all sleeping in one room?" I ask skeptially.
"Yeah. Two beds and a pull out couch." Ben shrugs like it's no big deal. "We always share a room on the road, cheaper that way." He states. Aparently these NXT guys were on a budget, which I totally get if you're on the road like they are.
"It's not because I'm here?" I look right at Fergal, expecting the truth.
"No. We always share a room, unless there's some kind of deal." He states.
"Ok..." I murmur still a little uncomfortable. "But if you want to stay with me you can." I tell him, earning a wide grin.
"I got you a king size bed." He says, as if it was an explination why he wasn't going to. Not like we haven't shared a bed at this point, but I wasn't going to say that out loud with Ben and Sami right there.
"So?" I shrug, hitting the up button on the elevator.
"She's begging you without actually begging you to stay with her and you're saying 'no'?" Ben asks him, making me about choke on my own spit.
"I just don't want you guys to be cramped when someone could room with me." I explain quickly, making all three men grin. "God shut up, I hate all of you." I grumble playfully, my cheeks were on fire right now.
"I'll text you in a little bit, and we'll figure out what we're doing today." Fergal tells me, when we got to the rooms.
"Ok." i agree, pushing the door open. I'd barely set my bag down on the couch, opened the blinds and the sliding patio door before there was a knock on my door. "It's only been five minutes, I'm not ready for anything." I chuckle, looking at Ferg.
"I'm going to room with you." He smirks. "Ben and Sami wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't, and I enjoy your company." He smiles. I only step to the side to let him in and he tosses his bag down next to mine.
"Ok." I agree again. "But you're sleeping on the couch." I tease him, "I'm just kidding." I add when he smirks at me. "I'm going to shower. Do I need to dress nice for anything tonight?" i ask him.
"We'll probably go get dinner somewhere. I'm sure it won't be anything fancy though." He says, watching me dig through my bag. I pull out a shorter leopard print dress along with matching bra and panties before retreating into the shower.
These next three days could be interesting.