Who Do You Love - Dean Ambrose

Taking The Stage

I wasn't sure if the worst part about telling Hunter was his glowering expression or the fact that he remained quiet – as in deathly quiet – as the tale of woe was painstakingly revealed.

We were in his office, crowded round the desk, with me in a chair and Hunter sitting opposite while Stephanie stood listening over his shoulder.

Although Dean was usually The Shield's main spokesman, Seth had taken over the reins of the narrative and instead Dean hovered close behind me, his clasped hands occasionally brushing the back of my neck. It wasn't an intentional touch – there was nothing obvious or bold about it – but the warmth fizzled through me nevertheless and gave us both a sense of physical contact. It was softly reassuring and it made me feel safe. His touch was at odds with Hunter's expression which bubbled dangerously over the desktop and threatened to erupt at any given second. It was the first time I had seen my father look anything other than sort of benign and it reminded me starkly that we were still as good as strangers.

Really it had been an evening of revelations.

Including that someone was potentially trying to kill me.

"So that's when we decided to come to you," Seth finished up having listed all of the incidents and hearing them laid out made the whole thing seem real.Hunter's head moved slowly in a nod and he looked up sharply across the steeple of his fingers,

"Was anyone going to tell me about this?" he sounded icy, actually he sounded murderouswhich was sort of ironic given the whole truck thing, "How long were you planning on lying to me?"

"Hunter – ," Stephanie began evenly, but he roundly ignored her and bellowed instead,

"How long."

His shout echoed in off the walls all around us and I could feel the guys physically stiffen in response. It was all so unfair. How could he blame them? I couldn't let that happen and maybe it was the shock or the adrenaline of what had happened but suddenly I found myself raising my voice back,

"Hey – no – it wasn't their fault. None of this was. Stop yelling at them."

For a second everyone simply stared back at me with varying degrees of pride and surprise. I continued to frown at Hunter however who – for his part – kept up the murderous façade,

"They lied to me – ,"

"Because I asked them to. I begged them not to tell you. They were doing it for me."

"Why?"

"I didn't want you to send me away."

Away from you.

Away from Dean.

Hunter's expression flickered slightly,

"You think I would do that?"

I shrugged,

"I don't know. I just – I mean, I pretty much turned up here out of the blue and I figured that I was already kind of pushing my luck being allowed to say in the first place, you know? So then when all of this stuffstarted happening I was worried you would think I was more trouble than I was worth and send me home or something – I don't know – I'm sorry."