Jay had ended up sleeping in Erin's bed with her after they'd had sex twice. Seriously hot sex in his opinion. In fact the best he could remember, he thought as he stood in the bathroom having a pee the next morning.

When he walked back into the room, he discovered that he had woken Erin. She was now lying facing him, her head propped up on her left hand.

"Hey," she said in a sleepy voice.

"Hey. Didn't think I woke you."

"Well, you did," she replied, stating the obvious.

"Last night was so hot," he said as he got into the bed. He lay facing her, looking into her beautiful eyes.

"Yeah, it was. Fully hot." Then her tone became less positive. "Here's the thing though, Jay. I don't want to be with someone just for hot sex. I'm not that kind of girl. When I'm with someone, it's a serious thing for me. That's what I want with you. I have real feelings for you. Strong feelings. Feelings I can't stop thinking about whenever I'm around you. My problem is I think this is nothing more than a game to you."

"What? No!" he objected instinctively.

Erin continued regardless. "Yes, I'm guilty too. I know that. I've done my share of game playing the past few weeks. Honestly? I enjoyed it. Kind of got sucked into it. But now, how I mostly feel is sad. Sad because I don't think this will ever become what I wish it could become."

Jay felt sadness descend on him too in that moment, and it panicked him. This wasn't at all how he had expected the morning after such an incredible night to go. Now he was in a situation that he wasn't at all prepared for. If he didn't manage to get his damn socially awkward brain to come up with something meaningful to say, this might be where things ended between him and Erin. That was not what he wanted at all. The nightmarish problem was how to get that across to her.

"Erin, I don't just want sex. I don't. I want something more serious too."

Erin sighed in disappointment. "You're just weakly repeating what I said back to me. Maybe you should go?"

She began to turn towards her side of the bed, about to get out. But Jay put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. "No. No, I shouldn't go. I'm not just repeating what you said, I meant it. The thing is..." He faltered for a moment, struggling to get the next thing he wanted to say to come out.

"Jay?" Erin asked, looking at him expectantly. He didn't detect impatience in her voice, which gave him some confidence.

"The thing is I suck at expressing my feelings. Like, putting them into words. It's something I've always struggled with. Lately I've been trying to improve, but it's hard for me. So when all I say is I want something more serious, it's not because I don't mean it. I totally mean it. I want us to try a relationship. If we can, I mean."

"Jay," Erin said softly.

'Get the fuck out of here,' he imagined her say. But that wasn't close to what happened. Instead, she put a hand affectionately on his cheek.

"That's possibly the first time I've seen the real Jay Halstead open up to me. I could see in your eyes how difficult that was for you, and that makes it truly mean something to me. You said you've always struggled to express your emotions and feelings?"

Inside, Jay breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't blown it. In fact, he had apparently done well, somehow. But she had given him a much tougher question to answer. "I... I, uh... had a tough childhood. Talking about feelings and emotions wasn't a thing in our house. Life for me when I was growing up was about having borderline alcoholics for parents, who beat me and Will when they weren't beating each other. I never wanted friends over to our place because it was a shithole, and in any case I wasn't allowed. They would never take me to a friend's place to hang, so I ended up without any friends. I had no one to talk to most of the time, so I didn't learn to do it properly. To talk to people, I mean. So now, when I want to be able to talk to someone I want to be with about how they make me feel, I can't do it."

To his immense embarrassment, he felt himself tearing up. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried. Now he was on the verge of doing it in front of Erin. He hurriedly got out of the bed and went through to the bathroom, basically hiding from her.

"Shit," he hissed at himself, glaring into the mirror. Part of him wanted to put his fist through it, but he held back.

Then Erin walked in behind him. "Jay."

"Sorry, Erin," he mumbled, turning to face her but unable to look her in the eyes.

"Come here," she said, pulling him into a hug that he totally had not expected. She held him tightly. "Thank you for telling me that. Thank you for trusting me with it. What you told me about your parents beating you is awful. I'm so sorry. It took real courage to tell me that, I know."

Jay held her tighter. He appreciated the words a lot, but he didn't have words of his own to reply.

"I need to apologise to you, Jay," she said after a long moment. "I judged you incorrectly. It's my own fault for not trusting my gut. I almost always trust my gut."

Jay looked her in the eyes. "What does your gut say about me?"

"It says you are a person I need to get to know. It says you're a person I need to let into my life. It says maybe, just maybe, you might be the first guy I can have a relationship with who wants me for me, not because he knows my dad owns a company worth nearly five billion dollars. My gut says I should give us a chance."

Her words made Jay feel so many emotions that he couldn't process them all in the moment. Happiness was the most powerful of them. He kissed her on the forehead. "That's what I want. Definitely. We need to get to know each other. Properly."

"We could order room service breakfast and make a start?"

WWE had a non-TV event that night. Unfortunately for Jay, Erin wasn't there. Her job at the office had required her to go back to New York. After everything that had happened between them in the space of twelve hours, Jay's mind was spinning. Spinning in a good way, but still spinning. What he badly needed was someone to talk to about everything, to help him work it all out in his head.

There was only one person he could seriously consider approaching. None of the few guys he got along with, such as Adam Ruzek and Kevin Atwater, were what he would call friends. There was respect and a sense of camaraderie between them. But friendships that he could absolutely trust? No. He couldn't risk word spreading about him and Erin backstage. If that happened, it would likely only be minutes before someone was whispering in Hank Voight's ear.

Raquel Gonzalez was the only person he felt he could open up to. Part of him wondered if he was totally sure he had known her long enough to put that kind of trust in her, but two things persuaded him to track her down backstage. Firstly, trying to follow Erin's example, he was listening to his gut. Although he wasn't sure his gut was as fine tuned as Erin's, his gut feeling about Raquel was that she could become a close friend in the future. And secondly, Raquel had apparently defended him from strong criticism from Zelina Vega, her girlfriend. Only someone who was serious about a friend would take up for that person in a conversation with their partner. At least, he assumed that was the case based on his limited social understanding.

Decision made, he set about trying to find Raquel. She wasn't in catering, or down at ringside. That meant she was likely in the women's locker room, which in turn meant that he was going to ask one of the other women to get her come out. Even that basic social interaction was something he instinctively wanted to avoid, but he needed to get it done.

As he walked down the hallway towards the locker room, Zelina, of all people, walked out and headed in his direction. Jay wondered what he had to do to catch a break.

"Ah, Jay. I wanted to speak to you today," Zelina said, marching up to him.

'Going to talk shit to my face now instead of behind my back, you little bitch?' That was what the spiteful side of him wanted to say. But even with his poor social skills he knew that he was going to have to try and find common ground with Zelina if he wanted to become good friends with Raquel.

"Hey, Zelina," he said, stopping walking. He kept his tone neutral, waiting to see which direction she wanted to take the conversation in.

"Glad I've run into you. You got a minute?"

"Yeah," he replied, trying to be positive. So far, her tone and body language were not giving much away about what she wanted. They stepped off to the side of the hallway. As ever, there were people passing by, going about their business.

Zelina wasted no time in saying what she wanted to say. Ney Yorkers were like that, Jay knew. Even the Puerto Rican ones. Maybe especially the Puerto Rican ones.

"I'm sure you've heard from Raquel that I'm not exactly a fan of yours. Your reputation and some of the ways I've seen you behave have rubbed me the wrong way."

"Zelina..."

"I'm talking," said the fiery Latina, raising a hand to emphasise that he needed to shut up. He decided to humour her, figuring an argument wasn't going to help matters. "If you'd have let me continue, you'd have heard that my next word was however. So... However, I can't deny that forming a friendship with you has made Raquel happy, and that's what matters to me. She has asked me to give you the benefit of the doubt and see how things go. I'm prepared to do that."

Jay felt pleased. Not really because he gave a damn about whether Zelina wanted to be friends with him or not, but because it removed an obstacle between him and Raquel, whose friendship he was starting to care about.

"Okay, that's great," he said with a smile. "I'm really not a bad guy, you know?"

Zelina raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly. "Don't say that. That's what bad guys say."

"Right," Jay said with a chuckle. "So, uh, I was actually coming down here to ask someone to get Raquel to come out of the locker room and maybe go for a coffee or something. I've got something I need to talk to her about."

"Alright, I'll go get her for you."

"Thanks, Zelina."

"Call me Z. You sound like my mother," she said as she headed back to the locker room.

Jay smiled to himself. Suddenly, life seemed to be heading in the right direction. What he needed to do was talk over what had happened with him and Erin, and how he ought to handle the next step. He figured Raquel would have some advice. After all, she was already in a successful relationship.

A/N: Erin made it clear that she is not interested in just sex, and it led to Jay telling her something very personal about his childhood. At least the basics of it.

He also agreed a truce with Zelina, which should help his friendship with Raquel, and might lead to one with Zelina also, in time.

Now he wants some advice on the next step to take with Erin. If you were Raquel, what would you advise him?