Day 73

"Are you hungry?"

"Starving," Chris said as they walked into the living room. Stephanie had her arm wrapped around his waist, and if she could have continued hugging him as they walked, she would have, but she'd have to settle for this. "I hate airport food, and it's way too expensive."

She smiled at his predictability. Maybe that was what went wrong, they'd become too predictable to one another, and they took that for granted. Just because you knew someone really well didn't mean that you weren't in love or that things wouldn't ever be different or exciting. That was probably one of their issues. She knew they had a lot to talk about, but it could wait a little while. It'd waited 73 days already, what was an hour or two?

"I was about to make you a grilled cheese, you up for it?"

"One of your famous grilled cheeses, you know I'm up for it," he smiled as they walked into the kitchen. "Well, I see you haven't done much redecorating around here, nice to know you didn't demolish the place because it reminded me of you."

"I had the wrecking ball scheduled for next week," she joked as he she put the pan on the stove. Chris looked like he was going to take a seat on one of the stools, but then rethought the idea, and walked up behind Stephanie and hugged her. She smiled, even if he couldn't see it, and she could feel him resting his cheek against the back of her head. "Luckily I showered this morning."

"I wouldn't have cared if you stunk."

"Sure you would have," she joked. "I don't think BO is the best way to get a guy back…"

Her voice trailed off because she realized she didn't know exactly what this was. Were they getting back together, was she trying to win him back? Did he want her back? Their positions right now indicated that he did, and he told her that he missed her, but they still had stuff to sort out, and at the end of it, there was the very real possibility that they would end where they started, which was them living two separate lives.

"It's not like I'm not used to it."

"Hey!" she acted offended.

"Because we work out together, that's why," he told her, "and we've showered together."

She rolled her eyes at his playful tone, "I'm well aware of what we've done together, Chris. Definitely well aware of it all."

"Good." She felt him kiss the back of her head before going back to resting his cheek against it. "You smell nice, like you. You smell like you."

For some reason, that struck a nerve with her, and she took a deep breath that let out a lot of tension she'd been holding for a while now. He felt it and hugged her tighter, anchoring themselves together. She flipped the sandwich over and tried not to start crying because she'd felt so alone for the past three months, and to suddenly feel full again was overwhelming.

"Thanks, whatever that means."

"It means I missed you," he whispered.

"You said that already."

"Because I mean it that much," he told her, and she hated how he had such a way with words. It was what made him an all-around great wrestler, but it also made her weak in the knees a lot. "We need to talk."

"Shh, not right this second, you can eat first, and we can…can we just enjoy this for a little bit, just for a short bit before we mess it all up again?" she asked, pleaded rather. She just didn't want to make this fall apart before they even got a chance to enjoy each other's company.

"Hey, look at me," he pulled away, and she felt cold without his body there. He turned her around and stared her down, his eyes intense and serious. "Yes, we have a lot of shit to work out, I know it, you know it, but I'm not leaving until we do—"

"Fozzy…"

"Fuck Fozzy," he told her, and her eyes widened. "If I've learned anything over the last three months it's that a career is just that, a career, but you mean more to me than any career move. I could become as big as the Beatles, but what good would it do if I miss you all the time."

She was warmed by his words, and this time she couldn't stop from tearing up. She tilted her head a little bit as she looked at him, unable to really say anything that would be sufficient enough to say what she felt in that moment. He nodded because he understood and she just leaned up and kissed the corner of his mouth before grabbing his sandwich, and cutting it in half with the spatula.

"Thanks," he smiled, taking it over to the table and sitting down. She turned off the stove and followed suit, sitting next to him, watching as he ate. "This is weird."

"I'm sorry, it's just been lonely around here without you," she looked around, "too quiet. It was like…I don't know, it just didn't feel right without you here. Where are you anyways?"

"Right now, California," he told her. "I didn't exactly commit that much though because I'm only renting this two bedroom apartment, and it's like, small and not even decorated. I've been busy, but other than that, I really haven't done much in terms of…unpacking."

"You haven't even unpacked?"

"No, I mean, I bought some sheets to put on my bed, but that's about it," he told her, "I just didn't feel at home there, or in California in general. I just felt too far away from…everything."

He looked at her when he said that, and she understood his meaning instantly. He scarfed down the rest of his sandwich then there was just them. She got up and took his plate, taking it to the sink and rinsing it before putting it in the dishwasher. She looked over at him when she was done, hemming and hawing and wondering what came next. Sure, she wanted to take him up to bed and get reacquainted, but that probably wasn't the right reaction right now.

"So you want to talk now?"

"Now?" she asked.

"I think we should get it over with, I think we should tackle it right now before we do anything else. Why wait for that conversation when it's why we're both here right now?" He was right, of course, but that's how Chris was. He bowled into things without caution. She took a more methodical approach, but not him, never him. She wanted to think, maybe write out what she wanted to talk about, but Chris just wanted to jump right in without any kind of preparation.

"Okay, living room?" she asked. He nodded and followed her in there, the both of them sitting on the couch. "So, biggest issues first or last?'

"My band," he said, tackling the biggest one right off the bat.

"I felt marginalized," she could jump into things when necessary. "I felt like I was the second choice, and that the band meant more to you than I did. Then there were times when it was clear that it was, when you would leave me because of some Fozzy thing or when you would make a tour without discussing it with me first, like I had no say in what happened, and I just had to be happy when you'd go away for a couple months."

"I'm sorry, that's on me," he admitted readily. "I think I did take for granted what you were to me. I mean, we'd been together for nine years, and I figured that I knew you, and that I knew what you were about. I just figured, okay, you won't care what I do, so I'll just go ahead and do it."

"That made me feel horrible."

"I'm sorry," he told her, "I know it doesn't change it, and it's only the first of five million apologies I owe you, but I just…I got so excited over where Fozzy was going, where it is going that I focused too much on it."

"We also became complacent," she told him, "so it wasn't on you. I mean, I always kind of expected you to come back to wrestling, and I know that I pushed you into it a couple times. I just thought, hey, he's with me, he'll come back, and I didn't really give you a total choice in that."

"I think the length of our relationship was a little bit of a detriment, so when we get back together," she grinned, "do we start at day one or do we forget these three months happened?"

"We don't forget, but I don't think we get day one over again. We just have to work on it, Fozzy felt like…it felt like this mistress you had. I know I've been to a million of your concerts, but towards the end, you barely even invited me."

"Because you were always working and I know that you've taken on more responsibility with the company, and I didn't want to interfere with that," Chris explained. "I know your dad will probably never die, but at some point, he might retire and I've seen you taking on more duties, so I didn't want you to have to step away from that for me."

"See, this is what was wrong, this is what went wrong, we didn't talk to each other, and look at us now."

"Well, at least we're here."

"But not together, not yet."

"Nine years is a lot of time, it was too much time to just give up like we did. We're not quitters, and yet we took it like we were getting spanked and liked it," he said while she laughed. "We shouldn't have pulled that."

"I just didn't want it to get to a point where I hated you," Stephanie bit her lip, "because I could feel myself getting there, and it was really scary to think about hating you because I would never want to hate you. I never wanted to ever resent you because I love you so much."

"I never would have resented you," Chris said, "but with you working so much more, I think I would have just been…hurt."

"Yeah, see, we both had our failings, it wasn't you or me, it was us."

"So we work on it."

"And we keep talking," she added.

"Together though," he reminded her, and she readily agreed with a nod. "Fozzy will never be more important than you, and I'm sorry I made you think it was. Fozzy is just a band, but half the songs are about you anyways."

"So you're just getting back together with me for the material then?"

"Hell no, do you know how much material I got when we were apart, I think I have enough lyrics to make five albums now."

Stephanie groaned, but it wasn't in horror, but a playfulness that they needed to keep in this conversation so it didn't devolve into fighting, "So that means a million more tours."

"You can come, or I can schedule them around your schedule," he conceded. If they were going to make this work, if they were going to get past all this crap that kept them apart temporarily, they both had to compromise and make changes, and this was a start.

"I would love that." Maybe this was really going to work this time. They still had to talk, this was only the start of it, and there were nine years of things to talk about, and it felt like they maybe hadn't even scratched the surface, but this was something. If they could both work together, nine years didn't have to go down the drain. They might even come out stronger. She might get to make a very happy call to her mom later.

"Done."