Mike's got his hands full. Juggling George's toys, trying to listen to Sara Louisa's excited babble as she clings to his pant leg. He glances down at her and has to take a second look- she's growing so much, so fast. Heading to preschool soon, and my god, what a sobering thought that is. He's been around more, since there aren't weekend live events right now, but it still hits him sometimes just how much he really did miss of the formulative years of her life. George has it a little better, but Mike still feels like he's missing too much. Giving up on the toys, he drops down next to her and hoists her into his arms, kissing her forehead. "And then what happened?" he asks, giving her his full attention as she continues going on about her latest cartoon obsession.
Her eyes grow so bright and enthused that he can't help but grin even as her rushed explanation for the most part goes over his head. She has a beautiful imagination, with so much creativity that there isn't enough hours in the day for all that she wants to do, and he hopes she never, ever loses that. She settles against his chest, still content to talk and talk and talk, when his phone rings and she immediately falls quiet, looking up at him with some curiosity in her gaze.
It's John so Mike answers, pushing her gently towards the abandoned toys. "Play for a little bit, sweetie, I'll be with you in a minute." She makes a face, not really liking George's toys, but she settles in on trying to pick them all up anyway. Mike watches for a few moments before turning back to the phone. "Hey, John."
"Hey, Mike." He sounds off, a little distracted, and unease creeps up Mike's spine.
"Are you alright?" he asks when John doesn't continue speaking right away.
"Oh," John says. "Yeah- yeah, I'm ok." He hesitates again and Mike considers driving over to his apartment to smack him, but then John continues, "I'm not going to be at Raw this week." He sighs. "Sorry, Mike, you're going to have to go it alone this time. Think you can do it?"
Mike thinks he should be offended. After all, he'd gone for years without John's presence, and had done just fine, thank you very much. But he's settled, used to John feeding off of him, playing along with his ridiculous claims and whatever else. Nothing, apparently, can be done about it this week, however. "Yeah, man. That's fine, don't worry about it." He hesitates. "I'll see you for EC, right?"
"I'll do my best," John says, still not fully with it. "Thanks for being so understanding, Mike. I'll see you around."
"Yeah, sure, man, see-" Mike frowns when the phone clicks in his ear, the call ended. "Huh," he mutters.
He's distracted the rest of the time he spends at home, trying to weave together an explanation for John's absence. What he thinks of is half-hearted, not all that believable, but he says it with his usual fire and determination, claiming that John is off putting together a diss track for Bad Bunny, and no one seems to think twice about it. But he announces also that he's going to take himself out of the running for EC and he'd like Morrison to take his place.
It's a perfect solution in his opinion- as long as John will be back by then, anyway- but Adam Pearce, of course, has other ideas, and Mike finds himself in a match against Kofi and he fights with everything in him, but unfortunately so does Kofi, and Kofi's always had this strange sort of advantage when it comes to competing against Mike, so he's not fully surprised when he ultimately loses, but it doesn't really stop it from hurting. He rolls out of the ring and lowers his head, hits the mat a few times. "Dammit all," he grumbles, feeling disappointment in himself, and for John. "I wanted to win this for you," he mumbles. "I'm sorry, John."
He pulls himself upright, exhaling shakily, and makes his way slowly backstage to either wait for his best friend's call or just give up and call him himself.
Not knowing what's going on is really eating at him.