She was in my dream again tonight.

It was the third night in a row I had this dream, where she would show up at my hotel room door, dressed in a trench coat and heels. Her hair would be all messy because she would walk from her hotel and it would be windy out. But she made it look sexy, like it was completely natural to have hair like that, whereas any other woman would bitch and moan. Then, she would simply enter the room, push me down on the bed and take off the trench coat.

Now she would be wearing some black lace number. Push up bra; a garter belt, panty hose, and cute boy cut shorts. She would only pay attention to me, even though there were always distractions around us. Co-workers would be watching, or we'd be in a kitchen all of a sudden, it didn't matter because it always ended up just being her and I. Her kisses, her touch…

It wasn't my first sex dream…though it was my first sex dream with her, which was kind of exciting. But then I'd wake up, it would be over, and I'd have to go and get Lillian breakfast in the morning because she can't cook and get her complicated order of a vanilla latté and some fancy bagel. I got the hang of it after a while, and it helped to get my mind off of those dreams. I never would imagine Lillian would look that good in black, but then I reminded myself it was just a dream. Over and over and over again.

The thing that snapped me out of the dreams was usually my phone ringing because Maria would be calling from her balcony at three in the morning. She knew I was in New York and was super pissed off that I didn't meet her after Raw that one night, I heard about it often from those late night phone calls, how I left her 'dry' and how she had to actually talk to her fiancée about the wedding. Apparently they were getting married in the summer, which she wasn't pleased with. A beach wedding, I think she mentioned. She didn't want any of this because he wasn't me, and I didn't want any of this because it was keeping us apart even more. The idea of ending it crossed my mind, but she would cry when I brought this up. She was going to give a man her word, but yet she was still sleeping with me on the side. I felt horrible, not just for myself, but for Carlito. He didn't have a clue this was going on.

Lillian had fallen asleep in my arms. She wasn't budging, knocked right out, and my phone was upstairs. I stroked Lila's hair, so soft and delicate through my fingers while she slept, looking so peaceful and innocent. The lines on her face were at ease, and a very discreet smile was on her face. She was dreaming, I could tell from her small mumbles, but then the smile left her face and she was beginning to mumble more now, still incoherently, but as if it went from a good dream to a bad one. When she started to kick her feet and whimper, I figured I had no choice but to wake her up. She had only been sleeping for forty-five minutes, it was hardly after three in the morning, and yet I shook her gently. "Lil… hey, Lil…"

Her eyes flashed open with tears already brimming at the lashes. "Dave?"

"It's Jeff," I answered. "Are you OK?" When she was fully awake she had wrapped her arms around my neck and crawled into my lap. I didn't know what else to do except hold her. She cried for a long time, silently in my arms. I would hear the odd sniffle, and she was using my sleeve to rub her eyes, but it wasn't until around five did she finally stop, though she was still awake.

She sniffled again before she sat up to look at me. "I'm sorry," she apologized, rubbing her eye to get the sleep out. "I get these dreams because…" she let out a sigh. "Do you want to go outside for a bit?"

I was only in my boxers and my cigarettes were upstairs, along with my phone which probably had seventeen missed calls and thirty-two text messages, all from Maria. That was my rough estimate anyways. When Lillian got up to go outside, I told her I was just going to grab my smokes and that I would meet her out there. Which was true, I just wanted to see if Maria had called.

And she had. Thirteen times, I wasn't too far off with my guess, and only twenty-five texts. She must've gone out tonight. I called her since I still had time to kill before I met Lils outside.

"Jeff! Where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you all night!" I could hear the car horns from the street, telling me she was outside on her balcony. "Seriously, he's been sleeping for almost two hours, and here I am, just outside with a bottle of wine, trying to call you…"

"Maria, I'm not by myself anymore. I hang out with Lillian during the day, we made a tent tonight, ate cookie dough and watched a movie. She's a fun gal, I like hanging out with her. This is the perfect time for you and Carli…"

"Shut up, Jeff! All Carlito wants to talk about is the fucking wedding and where we should go on our honeymoon, who's in the wedding party, when we need to talk to Vince about it, it's all such bull shit." I heard her let out a sigh and gulp because she just had a swallow of wine; "I just want to be with you right now. Can I come over? I know where Lillian lives…"

"What? No! Think straight, baby. No one knows about us, and you want to come over while Lillian is still home? No, you can't. You need to go back inside and lay with your fiancée and plan your wedding. We can't last much longer, Maria. I'm calling it off the week before your wedding." And that was final. I hung up on her before I had to hear her cry again, and listen to her beg me not to leave. We hadn't seen each other since she got engaged, and if everything went well, it would stay that way.

I found my cigarettes and a shirt, threw it on, than walked downstairs and outside where Lillian was, lighting candles so the bugs wouldn't attack us tonight. She had a blanket covering her shoulders, but I could still see the white tank top and boxer shorts she had on underneath. At that moment, from how she was sitting and the expression on her face, she seemed comfy and content. This was the first time I had seen her like this since she took me in.

"Need anything while I'm still up?" I asked before I sat down. When she shook her head no, it was at that very moment that I decided tonight, I was going to tell her. I almost did earlier, but now I was sure of myself that I would tell her about Maria and I. From beginning to end, and I just wouldn't tell Maria. I sat down in a chair next to her and lit up my cigarette. This was one of very few secrets that she knew about, not even Matt knows I smoke. Imagine my surprise when I saw her reach for the pack and take one out for her. She leaned the stick into the flame and exhaled the smoke, completely relaxed and like a pro.

"I haven't had one of these since college," she confessed with a small cough. Okay, not too much of a pro. "I smoked like a chimney then. Well, actually, I had one the day before and the day of my wedding, but only one, and it was when I was absolutely sure no one was around." She inhaled again. "I forgot how relaxed they make me." Lillian blew a smoke ring in the air, then another, then another. Three perfect smoke rings one right after the other, it looked like something she mastered in high school.

"I won't tell anyone if that makes you feel any better," I told her with a smile. "I know smoking can mess with the vocal chords." Small talk. I was pathetic at small talk, and the conversation I just had Maria was in the back of my head. Was it right just to end it like I did? A week before the wedding, now she's going to expect something every night, days off or not. The moment Carlito leaves the hotel room she's on the phone with me.

We just sat there for a long time and smoked cigarettes. It was relaxing and something we both needed, but there was never a moment when I felt like I could just blurt out I was with Maria. I was with Maria. When was I with Maria? It could be taken like I was with her for a night, or a week. But it was two years I was "with" Maria.

"So, Mickie and Punk. What do you think?" Wow. The fact that I even knew that stupid tidbit of locker room gossip made me want to shoot myself. It was seriously the dumbest thing that had ever came out of my mouth. This tops all the times when I used cheesy pick up lines on girls at bars, or anytime I would hit on Trish Stratus when she still worked with WWE. I remember her last night with the company and I went up to her while she was in tears and offered her "one more chance", and she almost took me up on it too except she was getting married…

Déjà vu. "I think it's cute," Lillian said, which helped get my mind off of Trish. "Have you seen Mickie glow when she's around him, or after? What's he like after they hang out?" Lila sucked at small talk too.

"What was your dream about?" That was better. I knew that's why she wanted to come out here in the first place.

"Oh, it's just these pills I'm on, they sometimes give me dreams. It's a side effect that I've gotten used to…" She swallowed, hard, and she suddenly became very uncomfortable. "Dave was in my dream tonight. He always seems to pop up in them, and he had his suit from our wedding on… and he was with Melina on our bed. I don't even know if it was a dream because that's how I have found him, except he didn't have his suit on…" she took a huge drag from her smoke, put it out and lit up another one. "These pills give me mood swings too, so if I flip out on you for no reason…"

"No worries, Lila. I understand." And I did. I've been on pills that gave me hardcore mood swings, which ended a handful of relationships. So instead of blurting out about being with Maria I listened to Lillian talk about how hard she was taking to divorce, how she truly felt Dave was it, and the night that ended it for them. It was him that asked for the divorce, six weeks after their wedding so he could be with Melina. The pills she was on were antidepressants, but she also had sleeping pills for incase she couldn't sleep at night. I was on those too, but for recreational reasons. I stopped that habit when Trish asked me to, and she only had to ask me once. Maria hasn't even asked how I was doing after my overdose.

We stayed outside until the sun came up, and I was the first to give in and let out a yawn. When Lillian admitted she was tired too, we went back inside to our tent. The blankets were all kicked at to the bottom, but once we got those straighten out, she fell asleep in my arms again, and this time, she didn't wake up because of a bad dream. She woke up because it was three in the afternoon and Maria had come over, wanting to know if Lillian wanted to go shopping, only Maria entered the house on her own and found us in our tent, spooning.

I got an earful when Lillian got up to get dressed. Although she was talking directly at me, and even shoving me so I would pay attention to her, I just couldn't listen. But she did make one thing clear to me: Lillian needed me more than she did.