Sorry guys for not uploading but I was without internet connection. Now I'm back so I hope to upload new chapter every two days or so.
Dean hasn't talked to Cassie since that time he sent her a message saying they shouldn't see each other anymore. Until then their conversations happened almost daily. Not anymore. He wrote he would attend the wedding after all. He wanted to get a decent goodbye. And the fact that they would be surrounded by other people helped. Privacy would feel awkward. But did she still want him to come? Was she mad? Was she sad? Dean had no idea how she felt. It was strange. He was happy. Right now he was really happy with Renee. But at the same time he felt as if he was betraying Cassie. Why? Wasn't there a way everybody could be happy? All three of them? It didn't seem so. But wasn't this what Cassie wanted all along?
He tried to reach her on the phone; he had called her several times in past few days. Still nothing. It rings but no one answers. Was she all right? Or did something terrible happened, other than him possibly breaking her heart? There was somebody who could give him an answer. Her brother. Any of them. But Dean already knew to whom he'd call. Josh. It was his wedding after all that Dean planned to attend.
He picked up the phone immediately. "Hey, Dean. What's up?" Josh asked the cliché question to which there's hardly an answer that'd seem right.
"I can't reach Cassie."
"Hmm. And I thought you just called because you wanted to know what's new with me. I haven't heard of you in weeks, and when you finally call, it's still Cassie that interests you."
"Right. So how are you anyway?" Dean tried to play it cool.
"I'm good. Thanks." Josh seemed to be satisfied now. He didn't need much; he never got offended for real. "So what's wrong with my sister?"
"She won't return my calls. Is she all right?" Dean worried.
"I talked to her yesterday and she sounded just fine."
"Fine like fine or girl fine?"
"Regular fine," Josh chuckled. "She's okay; don't worry. Why are you asking anyway? What happened?"
"I might have pissed her off."
"Nah," Josh said doubtfully, "I really don't think so. When she's pissed, I mean when she's seriously mad, you know it. She's not such a good actress. And I know her. Her voice sounded normal. She was happy as always," he added, and Dean knew he was smiling. He was as well. That was an interesting thing; just imagining Cassie smiling could bring a smile to your face too.
"Are you sure?" Dean wanted to check. He had troubles accepting her being happy as always.
"Yes."
"Then why doesn't she speak to me?"
"I guess you know better. But if you tell me what had happened between you two, then maybe . . . wait! You didn't sleep together, did you?"
"No," Dean almost shouted, as if it was the worst thing that could happen. Well, one of them for sure. Dean calmed his voice before continuing. "Quite the opposite. I told her we need to stop hanging out."
"Whoa. That's new." Dean thought Josh didn't grasp the importance of the impact that those words could have had on Cassie. It appeared that Josh was too struck by the fact that this happened in the first place to think about his poor little sister. "Why? Did Cassie become too annoying?"
"Josh!" Dean shouted. Dean was wrong about Cassie's brothers. No, they were far from being overprotective. They weren't even normally protective. At that moment Dean felt bad for Cassie. She might have been crying somewhere in the corner of her room and her brothers didn't give a damn. "Don't you worry about her?" Dean asked in hope to make Josh see how inappropriately he acted.
"Honestly? No. Dammit, Dean! Don't think I'm some heartless person whose only sister doesn't matter to him. She does; you know that. But I know Cassie; better than you do. This will not break her. She's strong. Moreover, wasn't she the one who kept telling you that you two needed to stop this pseudo-friendship?"
Cassie never called it that but Josh was absolutely right about this. When she moved to Vegas, she explained to Dean that it is in no way an attempt to win him back. "I didn't lose you," she said, "I let you go." She hated to compete. She was playful, nobody could deny that, and she loved to play all kind of games, but she couldn't stand competitions. When Renee appeared on the scene, Cassie suddenly had a rival. It wasn't written anywhere that Cassie would lose but the possibility made her anxious. Having to compete was making her nervous. And she was the kind of person who demanded calm and relaxed environment to be happy. Simply said, she rather chose to give up than having to lose. But that was a long time ago.
When they began their "friendship" – well, yeah, they were friends, no matter what some might say - a period of forgetting about the past began. Talking about their romantic relationship was a taboo. Dean had another girlfriend, and for Cassie respected that fact, she never, okay, maybe occasionally, mentioned something from the time she was Dean's girlfriend. But even when she said something that was not supposed to be said, she omitted the inappropriate part. She was very thoughtful. Not once she started a sentence with "If we were still together . . ." She knew very well those times were gone for good. But she was not blind; she saw what was wrong with their current relationship. Although she never tried to claim her right over Dean, she could imagine how others would perceive her due to being Dean's ex. Maybe there was something about what Josh said, that she was fine, even though it was rather illogical. After all she herself once said, "You have to decide."
It was a sunny afternoon. They were meeting at their usual spot to go jogging. No, it was running. Definitely running. They were going fast. Anyhow, that day she was late. It was strange. Whenever Dean arrived late, and that happened quite often, she got mad. Not really mad, but she punished Dean for not being on time. Punishments varied; from cooking dinner to going to bed without dinner - yes, she could control that. One time she made him watch wrestling with her - it was probably the only time they watched it together - but she made it special. It was The Shield's match,; against whom they were fighting was irrelevant. Cassie was sitting on her comfy sofa, with her legs crossed like those of a Bedouin monk, while Dean kept safe distance. He watched her; she was excited. More than usually. He wondered why. It was just a match, he thought. He had seen it; he had lived it. But he was sure of one thing. This was gonna be different. And it really was. It was a punishment, after all. So when the words Sierra, Hotel, India, and the rest of them announced the entrance of Dean, Seth, and Roman, Cassie viciously looked at Dean, grinning, and began. Began talking, pointing at the best and sexiest male attributes of Seth and Roman. Dean had to spend at least twenty minutes listening to why they are so hot. Not him. She spared flatter on him. "Look at Roman's tongue. I bet he knows how to use it," she said, almost drooling. Dean frowned, "Do I really have to sit through this?" He was already fed up. "Oh, oh!" Cassie cried, pointing at the screen vigorously but Dean still wouldn't look; there was nothing he wanted to see. He only glanced very shortly. She said, "That ass . . . Hey, Dean, have you seen that episode of the Simpsons where Ned Flanders goes skiing? He was wearing really tight skiing suit, or what you call it, and his ass was . . . literally blinding. So squeezable. Seth's got an ass exactly like that." To the screen, "Come on, Sethie, shake it. Shake that ass, shake it, shake it!" she started to sing. Dean murmured, "Please, stop." But this wasn't what he was originally thinking about. It had nothing to do with the end of their friendship. These punishments, or that last one in particular, could be a good reason to be mad at her but he never was. She liked having fun, and he was willing to be the target of the joke.
But back to the point. That afternoon she was late for their running session. She came twenty minutes late and not only that immediately raised suspicion. Her face was another problem.
"What the hell happened?" Dean got angry right away. It was the nasty bruise underneath her left eye. "Who did that?" he already had another question ready. But she was calm. She was smiling; what was there to smile about, Dean wondered, angrily.
"It's nothing," replied Cassie. But there was more. In the middle of that bruise she had a couple of stitches. Dean looked more closely; there were five or six. He was used to this look when he looked in the mirror, or at the guys backstage, but seeing this devastation on a girl, who besides had nothing to do with wrestling, was really suspicious and worrisome.
"Who did that?" Dean asked again for he didn't get an answer the first time. "Who hit you?"
Cassie still wouldn't take it seriously. "It's not like that."
"Then do you mind explaining to me how it is?" Dean countered.
She said, "Oh, Dean, get rid of those associations. Just because you see a scar on woman's face it doesn't mean a man beat her up. Maybe I hit him and he just hit me back." This possible explanation didn't help Dean relax, though. It sounded like she was joking. "All right; calm down. Don't get all protective. I don't need that. I can take care of myself." Dean knew she could but in was in his male nature to protect the weaker sex. Not in an I'm-a-man-and-I'm-stronger-than-you way; in a nobody's-gonna-hurt-you-as-long-as-I'm-here way. "I appreciate your getting mad at this unknown person, but nobody did anything you need to worry about."
"Please, don't tell me you bumped into a door or fell off the stairs. I'm not buying that bullshit."
She chuckled. Then she said ironically, "I would never. . . Fine, I'll tell you what happened. I got punched in the face," she admitted. Cassie was enjoying this stage when Dean had an image in his head that somebody hurt her and his brain was probably already coming up with ways of taking revenge on that stranger. At the same time it was funny; the event wasn't in reality dramatic at all and for Cassie, knowing precisely what happened, it was exciting to watch Dean and see how he would take learning that his assumption was wrong. "But it was not an attack," she said but immediately she corrected herself, "well, in a way it was. Anyhow, you know, now that I think about it, you can say it was a violent assault," Cassie joked as Dean was turning into Hulk.
"This is not funny."
"You don't like to be teased, do you?" His look was an answer. "Why are you so serious? Smile, Dean." Cassie did. And she tried to force Dean's mouth to mimic hers. "One day, your daughter will hate you."
"I don't have a daughter," Dean opposed, not getting her note.
"Oh, you don't say," she replied with sarcasm. "But really, if you're this serious and protective over somebody who'll soon become just some nobody that you used to know, how will you react when your future offspring will bring home a guy who . . . well, somebody like you? That would be perfect; I believe that you're exactly the kind of guy parents despise."
One, Dean didn't like Cassie talking about what was to him a distant future and two, he didn't like her changing the subject. "What happened to your eye?"
"Oh, we're still talking about that? When you do boxing, you get hit from time to time."
"Boxing? Since when you do boxing?"
"Jeez, I don't know. High school?"
"Why is this the first time I hear about it?" Dean asked, openly surprised to hear about her past-time activity just now. But he felt much better now that he knew it was a sport incident. He looked again at the injury; he even dared to touch it. She didn't move. She felt no pain at all. Then he looked in her eyes again, still waiting for that answer.
"I didn't tell you a lot of things. I don't like to brag," she joked.
"Why do you do it?" he wanted to know. "I mean boxing."
"Sometimes you just need to punch somebody in the face. As hard as you can. And I mean a real punch, not the fake ones you give each other in wrestling." Dean let that pass. "But I could ask you the same thing; why do you do wrestling?"
"It's my job," he replied. It was a good answer but it certainly wasn't the main reason why he was doing it.
"I don't get that much excitement in my job so I need to have something that keeps me alive." Cassie was enthusiastic to talk about it. She loved boxing. She loved all kinds of adrenaline activities.
"If you like it that much, maybe you could still make a career out of it. I know people . . ."
"I know people too, Dean. Remember? My brother's a professional boxer so I don't really need your connections. Besides, I used to do it professionally."
"Really?" Dean was still in a process of grasping this new information.
"I stopped. I chose something more serious instead."
"You used to be a boxer," Dean said, astonished.
"I don't get why it comes to you as such a big surprise. Have you never noticed the punching bag or the gloves in my living room?"
"I guess I thought they were your brother's."
"'Cause he keeps stuff at my place," Cassie said sarcastically.
Dean left that conversation. He focused on something else instead. "What will they say in a court room when they see you with this?" He touched the skin under her eye again.
"Probably they'll say 'Again?'"
"You look badass," he complimented her.
Cassie chuckled. "That's not what they'll think."
"So your boss is used to you looking a little damaged?"
"Not exactly. They make me stop; I'm gonna . . . eventually. My boss forbade me to do boxing. I could actually lose my job because of this." She pointed at the injury.
"But you don't give a shit."
"I do. I care about my job. But I'm a lawyer; I can argue. I'm officially on a holiday; I can do whatever I want in my free time. There was not supposed to be a case I'd be working on."
"But . . ." Dean predicted the change in the direction of that sentence.
"But they ended my vacation and I need to go to work tomorrow. And everybody will see the bruise and the stitches and they'll think I got into a fight."
"To be fair, you did."
"Irrelevant, Dean."
"You think you can still win despite this?" Dean showed little belief.
"Of course I can. And I will. Wanna bet?"
"What happens when I lose?" he was curious.
"Oh, I'll think of something."
"What if I win?"
"I'll show you that picture." Dean smiled widely. This was appealing. She kept that picture hidden from him for months; at times he even doubted it existed.
"So it's real."
"Of course it's real. And it's safely hidden in my house."
"Who's seen it?"
"Nobody. What do you think? That I put it on the internet?" She fell silent. She wondered. "Do you think someone has? Not mine but . . . You have plenty of fangirls. It's possible that at least one of them drew a picture of your junk, or what she thinks it looks like, and put it on the internet. Do you have a phone on you?" she didn't even try to hide her intentions.
"No!" Dean protested before she could process to look for it herself. "You're not looking that up."
"Fine." She could do that later, anyway. You always find interesting stuff when you look up Dean Ambrose's name. "I'll let you know when the case is over. If I win it, I'll . . ." She still wasn't sure what she'd prepare for Dean if she wins. "I don't know what I'll do but I feel like scaring the shit out of you," she grinned. "If I lose the case, you'll get the picture. Anyway I don't think I should keep it. But we'll resolve this when the case's finished. Now let's finally get to running. I need a physical activity when the days of boxing are over."
"Why are you willing to give it up?" Dean was curious.
"Because I'm a lawyer. I need to look like a lawyer. And as much as I hate it, I have to do what it requires me to."
"But you could have chosen boxing, couldn't you?"
"I couldn't do boxing forever. Moreover, you know that I hate to lose."
"You compete as a lawyer too."
"Technically it's not me who loses; it's my client," she laughed. "But seriously, you'll get to the point when you need to set straight your priorities. Law or boxing? Renee or me?"
"What's that?" Maybe Dean should have seen that analogy coming but he didn't. And it felt like a betrayal.
"It's not a blackmailing or anything; I'm not saying I'll stop being friends with you if she stays your girlfriend; nothing like that." She wanted to make that clear at the beginning. "But there'll be a point when we'll need to stop this. You need to choose what you want. Who you care more about. You have to decide. Or not. It's Renee; we both know that. And rather sooner than later she'll become the reason why you dump me. Maybe she won't even know. But Dean, when you fall in love, everything and everyone else becomes secondary –"
"I'm not in love," he defended himself.
"I know. If you were, we wouldn't be here right now. Whenyou fall in love, you don't have time and you don't have the will to keep friendships that aren't essential. Ours isn't . . . And then, when it's over, I'll just say, It was fun. And we'll continue living our lives, separately, as we did before we met. Maybe just a little differently."