Mike sits outside of the house, listening to the wind in the trees, the sounds of George and Sara Louisa playing around in the yard a few feet away. He taps his fingers against his knees, lost in thought. Things went so quickly south Monday, he still can't believe it. Things had started out great, he'd been put on commentary due to McAfee's absense, which hasn't happened in so many years, he can barely remember when he'd last been on commentary.
That had been amusing, sending him back to the old days of Main Event when he used to commentate with Ricardo. But it had only lasted until he saw Liv Morgan faking out R-Truth and getting a tag title opportunity from him for Judgement Day. By the time Mike had gotten backstage, it'd been too late. The match had been made.
Going from bad to worse, they had lost the titles despite Mike's best attempts to outlast all of the numbers game and everything else going on. He hadn't said a word to R-Truth since, not even sure the man was aware of what had happened, or what he'd done to place them in this position.
Mike isn't surprised when the door opens a few minutes later and AJ settles down next to him, wrapping an arm around him. "Hey," he greets her quietly.
"Hey. You ok?"
Mike sighs. "Not really," he admits. "Which is weird, right? I told you just a couple weeks ago it was almost tempting to just throw a match and let the tag titles go, but now they're really gone, and I'm just... I hate it. I think we could've been champions for so much longer if he hadn't ruined everything. Like I knew he would. Dammit, I shouldn't have taken on tonight's commentary."
"You couldn't babysit him all the time," AJ says consolingly, rubbing his back. "I know it hurts that it happened, but maybe you need to make some distance from Truth. You've been so stressed lately, even the kids have noticed."
"I'm sorry," Mike says with a grimace. "I never meant..."
"No, no, I wasn't saying that to make you feel guilty," she says. "The kids are fine, I'm fine. I just... you know, I hate to see you suffering. You were happier before you became tag champs with Truth, maybe you should try going back to that."
"Yeah, maybe," he says. "I just don't know what I'll do next without those belts." He sighs.
"I know you'll figure it out," she says, leaning in to him and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "I have all the faith in the world."
He smiles wearily and squeezes her arm. "Thank you, sweetheart. Dunno what I'd do without you."
She shrugs, kissing him again. "You'll never need to find out," she murmurs, pressing closer to him. "Wanna go play with our kids before the sun sets?"
"Yeah, sure," Mike says, allowing himself to get pulled to his feet. "They're not going to bully me, are they?"
She laughs. "No, I'll protect you."
He winks. "Great. Let's go."
Hand in hand, they run across the yard to the kids and Mike hoists Sara up high as she squeals and clings to him, George watching, wide eyed, as AJ kneels down next to him, winking at him before they grab buckets of water and douse the other two with it, amused when they yell and both twist to get revenge at first opportunity, the four of them settling into a water fight with lots of laughter and screaming to break up the monotonous heat.