The next morning it became obvious to Paul that Stephanie was not going to show up. Clearly she was genuinely pissed off with him which whilst understandable due to the way he had been treating her still confused him. Why would she be pissed at him when she was also seeing someone else? It really did not make sense and something in the back of his mind was telling him that maybe he had misread what he had seen somehow but he could not imagine how. Stephanie had been hugging the guy and she had kissed him on the cheek. The only thing he could do was try to call her and hope she answered.

Picking up his phone he hesitated for a moment but then found Stephanie's name in his list of contacts and called her. As the ringing tone repeated itself multiple times in his ear he thought she was not going to answer but eventually she did although she did not sound pleased to speak to him, "Hello Paul."

Paul had not really planned out what he wanted to say so there was a pause before he went with, "Stephanie... about yesterday. I'm sorry okay?"

"Sorry for what?" she tested.

"Look I'm an asshole alright. Is that what you want to hear from me? I'm an asshole."

"You are an asshole. You didn't even try to call me or anything yesterday," Stephanie was clearly pissed at him, understandably so.

Paul wanted to find out who the guy was that he had seen with Stephanie but he did not want to talk about it over the phone in case it ended in an argument and she could easily hang up on him, "I didn't think you would answer, look can you come over so we can talk?"

"We are talking."

"Come on, you know what I mean. Please will you just come over?"

There was a pause on the other end of then phone and then a sigh as a decision was made, "Fine. Alright, I'll come over soon."

"Okay, thank you. See you soon," Paul was surprised by how relieved he sounded. What was this girl doing to him?

"Yeah." With that the call ended and Paul knew that he had at the very least a half hour to wait for Stephanie to arrive even if she left immediately which was hardly likely. He could now focus on the other problem he had on his mind. When he had woken that morning his knee had been swollen which confirmed that jumping up to deal with that stupid witch Trish had reinjured it. He awkwardly spent a few minutes wrapping some ice around it and settled down for another boring day on the couch in front of the TV. Scrolling through the many channels all showing nothing of interest he told himself that he really should buy himself an Xbox or something to pass the time. A few more weeks of this and he would be ready to attempt suicide.

Time dragged by and Paul began to wonder where Stephanie was and also he regretted the fact that he had not thought to ask about her eye. He felt sure that she would have picked up on the omission and it was another reason to consider him an asshole. As the memory of the sight of Trish punching Stephanie ran through his mind he began to feel angry but then it was followed by the memory of Trish hurling the envelope at him and saying something about divorce papers. What had he done with the envelope? Where was it? He remembered throwing it onto the breakfast bar but as he looked over he saw that it was not there.

Awkwardly he got up and used his crutches to made his way over there and growled in frustration, "Where the fuck is it?" Eventually he saw the envelope, it had fallen off the breakfast bar and resting against it on the kitchen floor. After making his way around into the kitchen he carefully bent down and picked up the envelope and then returned to the couch with it.

The next hour was spent rereading the papers several times and repeatedly muttering under his breath various insults aimed at Trish such as, "Fucking vulture," and, "Leaching bitch." She was pulling out all the stops to take as much as she could from him as she had promised. One fuck had cost him all of this. One fuck with Stephanie McMahon. That made him think; where the hell was Stephanie? She had said she would be over soon and that had been ages ago. Suddenly he worried that maybe her eye was still bad and had caused her to crash her car or something so he tried to call her but although the phone rang there was no reply until voicemail eventually picked up.

Pointlessly he immediately tried again with the same result. Where the hell was she? There was still no sign of her by lunchtime and Paul began to convince himself that Stephanie was off somewhere with her other man. He must have called her and made her a better offer. At the very least she could have had the decency to call him and say that she wasn't going to come over.

Paul's physiotherapist arrived a half hour later and spent some time examining the knee and recommended that Paul should go for another scan on it as there was a possibility of further damage. Even if further damage had not occurred no physio work could be done while the knee was swollen so the man recommended that he should come back no sooner than Monday. Paul agreed but he was furious. At the very least Trish had put his recovery back by a week with her stupidity and possibly a lot longer if he had worsened the injury.

After seeing the physiotherapist out of the door Paul slammed it closed in anger and growled to himself, "You fucking little bitch Trish! And where the fuck are you Stephanie, huh?" He returned to the couch and tried to call Stephanie again but this time the call went straight to voicemail. Paul threw his phone at the opposite end of the couch in frustration and raged, "Turned your fucking phone of now have you? God damn it."

Despite his anger he also still had the vague fear that maybe Stephanie had crashed her car or something so he picked his phone back up and checked the local news online to make sure there had been no serious road accidents. Finding nothing he turned on the TV and tried unsuccessfully to get Stephanie out of his head. Nearly another half hour dragged by before the doorbell rang.

Instinctively Paul knew that it was Stephanie. He got up as quickly as he could which was not very quickly at all and made his way to the door. As he opened it he started to demand, "You said you were coming over soon and that was..." He saw that in addition to Stephanie's left eye being a mess she had been crying and the anger instantly left his voice, "What's wrong?"

He moved aside so that Stephanie could enter and instead of answering the question she started to cry heavily again. Paul repeated, "What is it?"

"I got a call to go into the office to meet some guy, a temporary head of talent relations or something and..." She was unable to continue as she began to sob.

"And what Steph?" Paul asked tenderly, dreading the answer and failing to realise that he had just shortened her name for the first time.

"I got released," She managed between sobs.

Paul's eyes widened in shock, "Released?"

"I lost my job. This was my dream and it's over. I didn't even get a reason. It's just over."

Paul awkwardly hugged Stephanie as best he could while holding his crutches and balancing on one leg, "I think I know what this about."

Stephanie's confusion was obvious, "How could you know why they released me if they don't even give me a reason myself?"

"I need to check something." With that Paul released her and made his way back to the couch and his phone. He settled back onto the couch to rest his knee and went straight for the WWE website on his phone and saw exactly what he had expected. There was no announcement relating to Stephanie being released.

Confusion as much as anything had stopped Stephanie crying as she watched Paul, "What are you doing?"

Paul looked at her and she saw fury in his eyes, "Don't cry any more. You're not going to lose your job. I know what..."

"I already have lost my job, they released me," Stephanie interrupted sadly.

"No you haven't. This is Molinaro, the fucking bitch is using you to get at me. I got one over on her in her office the other week and she promised to pay me back for it and this is it. There's no announcement about you being released on the website so she hasn't made it official yet, she's waiting for me to go over there and kiss her ass and beg for you to get your job back."

Stephanie was incredulous, "She would use me like that?"

"You better believe it. I never should have mouthed off at her, she's obviously not the full fucking ticket to go this far to get payback on me."

"Oh my god," Stephanie gasped, "What are you going to do?"

"What can I do? I'm going to go over there now and beg for your job. There's plenty of time for me to get over there today."

Tears filled Stephanie's eyes again, "You would do that for me?"

"I'm not going to let you get hurt like this because of me, that bitch has won this one. I'm going over there now." As Paul stood Stephanie began to cry again as she hugged him, "Thank you Paul. You don't know what getting this job back would mean to me. Wrestling is my life, it's all I've ever wanted to do."

Paul returned the hug as best he could, "I know exactly what it means, wrestling has always been my life too. Don't worry I'll get you your job back no matter what hoops that vicious bitch has me jump through, I promise."

Stephanie looked at him and he saw the hope in her eyes, "You promise?"

Paul assured her, "I promise. I will not walk out of that fucking woman's office until she guarantees me you have your job back." All thoughts of Stephanie and the mystery man had vanished from Paul's mind for now, having been replaced by rage directed at Laura Molinaro.

"Thank you so much," Stephanie said as she hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder in an attempt to hide her tears which were flowing freely again but this time due to the prospect of getting her job back and the realisation that she had been right all along. Deep down Paul cared about her and now he had finally realised it for himself.