"Your pig misses you." Text from Ben.
Ok, so Ben stole my pig last night. He really liked Hamlet for some reason, but who wouldn't, he was a sweet adorable little thing.
"So bring him back lol." Text to Ben.
A minute or so later there was on a knock on our hotel room door.
"I think he's hungry, and I didn't take any food." Ben explain, handing him to me. He walks in after me, Fergal was in the shower right now and I was just lounging around in my sweats and a tshirt.
"Well, he skipped breakfast." I chuckle, setting him down on the floor and rummaging through my purse for the food I'd packed him. "You hungry sweet thing?" I ask Hamlet who was snorting at my feet.
"If I wasn't on the road so much, I'd get a pig." Ben sighs, watching him eat. "Maybe I can convince my girlfriend to enjoy them like I do." He says hopefully.
"Unless she's a farm animal hater, it shouldn't be too hard." I smile. "I'll let you borrow Hamlet to help your case."
"Hey Ben." Fergal greets him, walking out of the bathroom. He had thrown on a pair of loose fitting basketball shorts and one of his DoJo tshirts.
"Hey man, any plans today?" He asks him. The show wasn't until 8 tonight and we didn't have to be there until 6. Well, actually Ferg wasn't getting a paint job tonight so really I didn't have to go at all. Anyway, we had all day to do something if we wanted, it was just past 11 now.
"Nah, not yet." He shakes his head.
"Sami and I were going to take a walk downtown if you guys wanted to join us." He suggests casually.
"I'll see what she wants to do." He nods.
"You can go if you want." I shrug, "I'm perfectly ok lying on the bed watching TV."
"Let me know." Ben states, starting to excuse himself from the room.
"I don't want ya by yourself." Ferg states, furrowing his eyebrows at me.
"I told you that I didn't want to keep you from your friends. Go and hang out with the guys, go to the show with them... You don't need me there tonight. Have fun." I encourage him.
"I may not need you there to paint me, but I want you there as a supportive friend." He argues lightly with me.
"You're going to make me go to this aren't you?" I sigh, leaning back up against the wall.
"Why are you fighting with me about hanging out? I thought we've been over this." He comments. "I don't want to walk around downtown. I was hoping you'd want to go with me to that history museum and we could grab lunch or something. Ben would go, but it's not really anything Sami is interested in." He shrugs.
"I'm not too entirely interested myself." I grumble, "But yeah if you want to go I'll go with you." I agree.
***...***...***
Sometime after 6 I was sitting on one of the couches backstage, munching on some apples that I'd gotten from catering. Paul walks around the corner and I couldn't help but grin. I hadn't seen Paul since I quit the make up position.
"I didn't think I'd see you! He's not getting painted tonight, is he?" Paul asks, wrapping me up in a hug. Despite what a lot of people said, me included, and even though the roster had a hell of a lot of assholes on it, there was still a lot of family mentality that went on around here.
"He's not, I'm just here to be here." I shrug.
"I knew you'd like him." He comments, giving me a once over. I'd changed before I came to the arena with the guys. Now I was in a pair of tight blue skinny jeans with a pair of black high heels and a simple black top that scooped low in the front.
"I mean, he's a nice guy." I try to play it off.
"If that was just the case... You wouldn't be here on your day off." He argues with me. "Don't think that just since you haven't been around in a while, means that I forgot who you are. I know you pretty well." He comments.
"Alright... Alright." I roll my eyes. "So he's a really nice guy." I smirk.
"Speaking of, where is he?" Hunter asks.
"I have no idea. He walked off with Ben a while ago, that was in catering." I say, glancing behind me. Almost as if he had been summoned he walks around the corner in his wrestling trunks and his brand tshirt on.
"I was lookin' for you, disappeared out of the catering room." He says to me, then looks up at Hunter. "Hey Paul." He greets him with a wide grin.
"How are you?" Paul asks him, shaking his hand.
"Very well." He tells him.
"Well I wish you a good match tonight, I have to find my wife... Who seems to have disappeared herself." He grumbles, glancing around the hallway.
"What are you doin' out here?" Ferg asks, motioning to the couch.
"I was eating apples." I shrugged. He chuckles, picking up the plate. "Where are we going?" i ask following my apples down the hallway.
"Somewhere quiet." He answers. I follow him around a few corners till we were in a back hallway, had I not had him with me it would have been a little creepy. "I like to stretch, sit, meditate, get myself together for the show." He explains, setting my apples down on an empty amp box and setting himself down on the floor. I hoisted myself up on the box, watching him stretch.
"Wow... WHo are you?" A voice says, appearing from the dark. Fergal glances at him, and immediately looks away, clearly annoyed. One of the NXT guys comes into view and leans himself up against the box I was sitting on. He was extremely attractive in his own very different way. "I'm Sami." He introduces himself (Solomon Crowe NOT Sami Zayn)
"Annabelle." I smile, taking his hand.
"Nice to meet you." He returns the smile. "Like, really, nice to meet you." He flirts.
"Did you need somethin' mate?" Ferg asks him, not trying to hide how annoyed he was.
"Nah man, i was just passin' through. Figured I had nothing to lose if I introduced myself to the pretty girl." He shrugs simply, pushing himself off the box to look down at Fergal.
"I'm preparing for my match, peace and quiet would be nice." He comments. I could see the annoyance on Fergal's face, but Sami really didn't seem to care, smirking down at him instead.
"You want to walk with me Annabelle?" Sami offers, motioning to the hallway. "I was going to go find my own dark quiet spot." In my peripheral vision I see Ferg's head whip up and jealously flash across his face for a quick second.
"No thanks." I smile at him, "But I'm sure I'll see you around." i add.
"I hope so." He grins, walking off down the hall.
"Who was that?" I ask Fergal, looking down at him.
"That's Sami Johnston. Or Solomon Crowe." he sighs. "You know, I pretty much get along with everyone. I might not be friends with everyone, but I just can't like him. We don't vibe, and now that he has eyes on you it really makes me not like him more." He grumbles. I don't respond, and I play around on my phone as he does his pre match routine. "Where do you want to sit while I wrestle?" He questions
"It doesn't matter, I can go back to my couch." I shrug. I see him grin, and try to look at what he's smiling at.
"This is Bayley. Bay this is Annabelle." He introduces me to the girl he was grinning at. "Bayley will take care of you while I'm gone." He grins cheekily.
"Yeah!" She exclaims, wrapping both arms around me. "We'll watch Ferg's match together! Are you his girlfriend? He talks about you all the time." She tells me, making Ferg blush a deep red.
"I have to go to the gorilla." he mumbles, disappearing down the hallway.
"He really likes you." She giggles.
"I'm just his body painter." I shrug simply.
"You guys seem like pretty good friends to me, after such a short period of time." She comments, raising her eyebrows at me. She was too cute, with her hair up in a side pony tail like it was.
"You sound just like my best friend..." I chuckle, shaking my head. "I work for him." I say to her. Yes I was torn between letting things go farther between us and keeping my job like it should be.
"He's a good guy." She states.
"I know that." I agree with her.
***...***...***
"Hey girl." I greet Kelly, via facetime. She was calling pretty late, it was just past 11 at night. We were leaving for home tomorrow morning since the tour here was over.
"Hey..." She greets me nervously.
"Oh god. What?" I sigh, knowing immediately that something wasn't right.
"What's wrong?" Ferg asks, his face entering the screen.
"Well, it looks like David was in your house. Should I call the police?" She asks me nervously. "Like I came for your mail, and your front door was busted open... Your stuff is everywhere. I don't know what to do." She shrugs desperately.
"Shut my door and I'll deal with it when I get home tomorrow." I tell her with a long sigh. Exactly what was he hoping to accomplish if I had been home?
"Are you sure? I can call the police." She offers.
"That won't do any good with me here." I tell her, "I'll take care of it tomorrow." I insist.
"He broke into your house?" Fergal growls, glancing at Kelly.
"I will deal with it tomorrow." I insist, looking over at him. "Just get yourself out of there." I say to Kelly, who nods.
"I'm sitting in my car, leaving now." She tells me.
"Alright. I'll call you tomorrow." I tell her before we hang up. I toss my phone onto the bed in front of me with a sigh. Why couldn't David just leave me alone? It's been months. "Please don't look at me like that, I don't want to talk about it." I tell Ferg. He purses his lips but chose to not say anything more about it. The fact that he'd broke into my house freaked me out a little. Did he know I was gone... Or was he hoping to find me there?
***...***...***
We didn't get back into Orlando until late at night, we had to drop off both Sami and Ben at their houses before hand too. It was almost 2 am before we pulled up into my driveway.
"Let me walk you up." He murmurs softly, pulling his seat belt off. I didn't argue with him, I was just tired and I knew that I was about to have to clean up some ridiculous crazy mess from David.
"Jesus, really?" I scoff, looking around my absolutely destroyed living room. It wasn't just the living room, he'd literally trashed the entire house including my bedroom. "Asshole." I grumble, picking up some stray clothes.
"Did he know you were going to be gone?" Fergal asks. He was looking around my disastrous apartment wide eyed.
"I don't know. I don't think so." I shrug. "I'm sure he was hoping to catch me at home so we could 'talk' as he likes to call it." I mutter. It scared me. I'd never admit that out loud, but this was a little scary. I can handle the notes, the texts, the calls and even breaking my window but showing up at my house is border line crazy.
"Put some clothes in a bag. I'm not leaving you here." He tells me seriously. I glance up at him, and serious blue eyes meet unsure green ones.
"Oh no. It's not that bad, I just need to clean up a little bit." I assure him.
"What would he have done if you'd have been home?" Ferg exclaims, "I don't feel like it's safe for you to be here, and it's not going to be me that leaves you here for him. Please put some clothes in a bag and get back into my car. Hamlet can come too, I'll pack up some more of his food." He insists, already starting for the kitchen.
"I don't want to intrude into your apartment." I tell him. Tears had started to form in my eyes. I was trying really hard to keep myself together while he was still here but I'm not sure it was going to happen.
"You're not intruding. I've already told you I enjoy your company." He mumbles, digging through my cupboards. I hastily wipe the tears from my face, and pull out the plastic container that I have Hamlet's food in before handing it to him. "Thank ya." He says, glancing up at me. He sets the container onto the counter before reaching both thumbs out to my face, wiping away whatever I had missed. He wraps both arms around me, pulling him against his chest while I failed to not cry. "Don't cry... Go pack yourself some clothes."
"Ok." I finally cave, turning for the bedroom. I threw some clothes into a bag and picked Hamlet back up to head over to Fergal's.
"It's not much..." He warns me before pushing open the door to his little one bedroom apartment. "I'm not accustomed to big spaces." He shrugs, taking my bag from me. I fall down onto his couch and watch him take my bag back into his bedroom. I was staring off into space when he came back out and sat down next to me. "Come here." He murmurs, pulling me against his chest. That was pretty much all it took for me to break down. Again. "Oh god... Don't cry." He says against my hair, wrapping both arms around me. I straight cried for a good ten minutes before it finally ceased.
"I'm sorry..." I manage to tell him. I didn't even bother to move, my head was basically throbbing from my headache from crying.
"You have nothing to be sorry for." He assures me. "Why isn't this guy in jail? I'll never feel comfortable with you being there knowing he's broke in like that." He states. His fingers were running through my hair. There was a giant wet spot on his shirt from where my face had been.
"Because I never pressed charges, and it's too late and pointless to do anything now." I sigh, sitting up on the couch. "Can we just go to bed?" I ask him hopefully.
"Yeah." He agrees. A deep red creeps into his cheeks when he sees me eye his kitchen table skeptically. It was littered with Legos and drawings and various other things.
"What's all this?" I ask curiously, picking up a small lego tower.
"Uhm, me legos." He says shyly.
"You play with legos?" I narrow my eyes at him.
"I do." He nods. I wasn't sure what to make of that, but who was I to judge?
"Neat." Was all I could come up with. He still looks a little embarrassed as I walk towards what I'm assuming was the bedroom to his little one bedroom apartment.
"Do you need anything?" He questions, following me into the bedroom.
"Just your shirt." I point to it, earning a confused look. "I want to sleep in your tshirt." I clarify. He only shrugs, pulling it off and handing it to me. "Thanks."
"Bathroom is right there when you need it." He states, pointing to it just outside the doors. A few minutes later I was changed into his tshirt, that smelled just like him and crawling up the length of his king size bed.
"You live in this tiny little apartment with this big ass giant bed." I mutter mostly to myself.
"It's the only real thing besides the car I've actually spent a good amount of money on. It's really comfortable." He explains.
"Thank you... For letting me stay here." I say softly, propping an arm under my head.
"You act like I was going to leave you there." He basically scoffed. "It's no issue having you here. I like having you around. You're welcome, but you're definitely more than welcome here any time. I'll get you a key." He chuckles.
"Please don't." I reply with a quick shake of my head, "Our relationship is definitely not work appropriate after this tour and now... Keys and shit, will only make it worse."
"I just want you to have a place to go where you feel safe." He says seriously. I don't respond to that, and he uses the pad of his thumbs to wipe the tears from my face. I curl up next to him and he turns off the light before wrapping his arms around me.