"You stay there. Let your dishwasher open the door," Stephanie pretended to grumble as she walked over to the door. Paul chirped back, "Yeah and hurry up about it."

"Asshole," Stephanie said jokingly and then opened the door.

Trish stood waiting for her cheating bastard husband to open the door. When it opened and she saw Stephanie she could not believe her eyes for a half second. She saw Stephanie's own eyes widen in surprise, "Trish..."

Paul's head snapped around at the mention of his wife's name and he was just in time to see the punch go in. Trish had seen red and lashed out, catching Stephanie just below the left eye. Stephanie had certainly not expected the punch and had not reacted to it at all. Stephanie may have been the bigger of the two but Trish was still a strong woman and her punch knocked Stephanie down and almost out. She lay on the floor with her head spinning and a ringing sound in her ears.

Instinctively Paul jumped up, ignoring the stab of pain from his knee as he did so and made it across to the door as quickly as he could, holding one of his crutches in his right hand. By the time he managed to get over there Trish was inside the condo and was bending over the dazed Stephanie who lay on her back on the floor, "Come on bitch! Get up!"

As Trish drew back her right hand to strike Stephanie again Paul yelled at her, raising the crutch in the air, "You hit her again I hit you! Fuck off out of here Trish! Now!"

Trish thought better of striking Stephanie again and instead hissed at Paul, her face red with anger, "You're actually living with this piece of trash now?"

Purely to spite Trish the reply was, "Yes I am, now fuck off. I'm not going to tell you again."

Stephanie groaned and began to sit up, covering the left side of her face with her left hand. Trish still held the brown envelope containing the divorce papers in her left hand and she hurled it at Paul who instinctively caught it as Trish spat, "There's the divorce papers you miserable son of a bitch. I hope you enjoy your time together."

With that Trish stormed out of the condo and slammed the door as hard as she could. Paul tossed the envelope onto the breakfast bar but it slid all the way across the polished surface and fell onto the kitchen floor. Meanwhile Stephanie moaned groggily, "She punched me."

"Yes she did. Get up, let me take a look at you," Paul was as surprised as Stephanie by the tenderness in his voice.

Uneasily Stephanie did as Paul said and got to to her feet. She removed her hand from her face and Paul saw that although she was not cut her eye was beginning to swell already. "Go sit down. Luckily I've got a lot of ice left from this stupid knee."

With her head still spinning as she walked unsteadily over to the couch Stephanie repeated, "She punched me."

A few moments later Paul limped over to her with an ice pack and sat next to Stephanie and pressed in onto her cheek carefully, "Hold that there. Your eye might swell shut. The bitch caught you with a good one."

Still shocked by what had happened Stephanie repeated for a third time, "She punched me."

"Yeah I know," Paul managed to make it not sound sarcastic.

"Why?"

This time Paul could not help himself, "That's not really hard to figure out Stephanie is it? If you're honest."

He regretted it as soon as he said it, then Stephanie said sadly, "Everything's a joke to you isn't it? Even me getting hurt is amusing to you."

"No. I'm sorry, I don't find this funny at all." Again the tenderness in his tone confirmed that he meant what he said.

Stephanie also saw in his eyes that he meant it and again she saw that he had feelings for her. Even if he was trying to deny it she could see it in his eyes. Naively she pushed much too hard and immediately leaned forward to kiss him.

Paul in turn saw in Stephanie's eyes that he had just given her much more encouragement than he had intended to and he pulled away, "What are you doing? I keep telling you this isn't going to happen. We're not in a relationship, we never..."

Finally after so many attempts and after spending so much time trying to get Paul to admit his feelings for her and also after getting a punch in the face from his wife this rejection was too much for Stephanie who felt tears filling her eyes as she angrily threw the ice at Paul and said angrily, "Just forget it then. Forget all of it."

She stood and grabbed her coat and Paul realised she was going to storm out, "Wait. Where are you going?"

"Away from you. Away from your crazy wife. Away from all of this. I'm done being rejected by you. If you want to hide your feelings that badly hide them up your ass," Stephanie was almost in tears as she hurried towards the door.

As the door slammed behind her Paul remained on the couch and angrily punched himself several times in the forehead, "Fucking idiot." He knew he could not move fast enough to catch up to Stephanie before she got in her car and drove away especially as his knee already hurt from hurrying over to Trish. Why did the stupid bitch have to show up? This was all her fault.

That was what he spent the next few minutes telling himself but then he shook his head. Who was he trying to kid? This whole mess was his own fault. Why had he been so desperate to convince himself not to get close to Stephanie? Yes it had started out as a purely physical thing, wanting to fuck the most beautiful woman he had ever seen but she was more than that to him now. She had been spending all of her free time with him, keeping him company, cooking for him, cleaning for him, running errands for him and all he could do was treat her like crap. He told himself that he was exactly what Stephanie had jokingly called him just before she opened the door to Trish. He was an asshole.

Now Stephanie had stormed out and she probably would not come back. They had exchanged phone numbers but he knew that even if he called her she would not answer. He hoped she would be okay driving home as he felt certain her eye would swell shut. He decided that he owed Stephanie an apology and he should be the one to make the effort for once. He did not knew her address but it would be easy enough to find out.

There was a guy in the personnel department, Mike Thomas, who would help people out with things like this for a few bucks on the side. Everyone knew about it apart from Laura Molinaro. Paul smiled, another reason that she wasn't as smart as she liked to think she was.

It was then that Paul realised something. He had never given his new address to Trish. That bastard Mike must have given it to her. At least this would save Paul from having to pay him anything for the info he needed. He took out his phone and was soon connected to the man, "Mike. I'll make this simple. I know you gave my new address to Trish so you've got two choices. Either you give me Stephanie McMahon's address or I go to Molinaro. I know which I prefer, how about you?"

After a brief pause the man's reply was simple, "You know me, always happy to help." A minute later Paul had Stephanie's address and he was calling for a cab as driving was out of the question with his knee injury. As he waited for the cab his knee injury was on his mind because the knee was starting to throb painfully again. He wondered if jumping up to deal with that idiot Trish had set his recovery back. It seemed likely as the pain was a lot more noticeable than it had been before. "Just perfect Trish, thanks a fucking lot," he moaned to himself.

Forty five minutes later Paul climbed awkwardly out of the cab in front of the correct address. As he tried to sort his crutches out he scanned the building in front of him in an attempt to figure out which condo belonged to Stephanie. He saw a man with short dark hair knock on a door to a condo and then a few seconds later the door opened and he walked in. Paul was about to look away but then he saw Stephanie through the window of the same condo. This guy had just walked into Stephanie's condo and she was smiling at him. Now they were sharing a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then he could tell that the man was asking about Stephanie's swollen eye.

Paul felt jealousy like almost never before in his life. This bastard was hugging Stephanie. She had another guy on the go. She was obviously spending her days with Paul and her nights with this asshole and when she had stormed out on Paul she had obviously called the prick and had him come over right away. Just when he had started to feel guilty for using Stephanie he now saw that she was in fact using him. Just when he had convinced himself to stop trying to suppress his feelings for her she had shown him that he actually meant nothing to her.

His first instinct was to walk over to the condo, knock on the door and knock this guy's lights out but he convinced himself not to. The cab driver had not pulled away yet, he was sitting there counting his change so Paul got back in and made the seemingly bizarre request to be taken straight back to where he had came from. He decided that if Stephanie had the nerve to show up at his place the next day he would tell her exactly what he thought of her.