Ricardo limbers up, staring at the man he's helping to train. "Ready?" he asks, shifting and stretching out his knee while others linger outside, waiting for their turn in the ring. Upon receiving a focused nod, he rushes forward and locks up with him, directing him through the motions to sweep him over and into an armlock. Different people trade off against Ricardo and they continue working through moves of various difficulties until a good hour and a half has passed, Ricardo staring up at the clock as the latest student leans over and catches his breath, brushing his hair out of his eyes.
"Thank you," he says, shaking Ricardo's hand before leaving the ring. As the others file out of the room, Ricardo slumps down against the turnbuckles and stares up at the lights, lost in thought. His knee is good, being back in the ring makes him feel more worthwhile than he has in a long time. He can train again, he can learn and teach, he can do pretty much everything he's done before, but all of the drama is still weighing on him.
Alberto and he have a professional relationship because of MMA and are getting along somewhat better than they have been in awhile, he hasn't seen Paige in a couple of months, and things with Alicia are wavering between confused and tense as she continues accompanying Cedric to the ring. He closes his eyes and drifts somewhere between awake and asleep, finding it easier to sleep like this with the distant sounds of people wandering around, talking, than the quiet darkness of his bed. After a few minutes, he realizes that management wants to close the building for the night so he grabs the ropes and levers himself up, heading home where he sits and watches Raw while working on various things for future bookings and MMA business.
He looks up when he hears Alicia's voice, watching as she accompanies Cedric to the ring after Noam Dar's failed attempt at apologizing just to call her sweetcheeks, which leads into Cedric almost attacking him before Alicia pulls him away, reminding him about his match against Drew Gulak. Tony Nese is on the outside and Alicia pulls him off of the apron, getting in his face when he tries to get involved in the match, but this has the opposite result she probably wanted as Cedric gets distracted, Gulak taking advantage of it and pinning him.
Ricardo bites his lip, debating what to do, when he ultimately decides to click the TV off and turn his attention back to his paperwork. Alicia is tough, he knows that: she could probably take on most of the cruiserweight division without breaking a sweat (or a nail), but still. He can't help but mull over everything worriedly. Flipping his pen onto the table, he presses his fingers into his eyes and exhales roughly, wishing that things were easier, that he could do something to help Alicia, maybe see her more than a couple days a week. "I don't know how Mike and AJ makes this work," he mumbles. "But at least they're married and dedicated to each other... I don't even have that much going for me..."
Getting up, he heads outside and holds his arms out to either side of his body, letting the chilly air drift over him, comfort him. Sinking down into the sand, he closes his eyes and drifts, trying to meditate to clear his mind of all thoughts about what's going on backstage at Raw right now.
