Who Do You Love - Dean Ambrose

Chapter 11: I'll Be Home For Christmas

To say I was excited about my first very Christmas in Vegas with Dean was the biggest understatement known to man. I was more than excited. I was childlike about it and had been for days – no, scratch that – for months.

Christmas in my world was magical and beautiful, all fairy lights and cosiness and hot chocolate and wintery fun. I enjoyed almost everything there was about the holiday, from buying and wrapping presents through to eating way too much. Life just felt more special at Christmas and I was pumped to be spending it with the person I treasured most.

Dean Ambrose.

Wrestler, one third of The Shield and international god of love.

Well, at least to me he was – I certainly wasn't sharing him around.

Not six months earlier my festive plans had been bleak ones. I was going to spend the day depressed and alone. My best friend would have invited me over and made me feel welcome – I would have counted on that – but it would never have chased away the knowing little feeling that I was only hanging out there to keep from feeling sad.

Now however, my life had changed completely and so much for the better I didn't know where to start. I had a boyfriend, I had a house – okay, so it was his house – but most of all I had a real family as well, as in an honest to goodness blood relation family that wanted to spend time with me and do family type stuff. Apparently that also included at the holidays and general seasonal being together-ness,was why when the tapings had ended on the Tuesday, I had flown to Connecticut to spend some time at their house. Dean hadn't come – well, he hadn't been invited and I doubted he would have taken up the offer if he had – but it was okay though, I honestly didn't mind that. Things were weird for him with his boss being my dad.

What it did mean however was that when I started sickening, I was more than super keen to keep it under wraps. Shrugging off the gradual swelling of my lymph nodes and focusing on getting back home to see him. If I let on to Hunter or Stephanie that I was ailing, they probably would have grounded me then and there with them and as nice as it would have been to be fussed over and cared about, I only wanted to be at home with my Dean.

That was my goal.

I had to get to Vegas.

Then and only then would everything be okay.

Initially when I had waved my goodbyes at the airport, it had been nothing more than a headache, a scratchy throat and rare sneeze. Not exactly pleasant but not do or die stuff, although somewhere over Chicago everything changed and not only had the full-force chills hit in suddenly so too had coughing, itchy eyes and the sweats. By the time the plane had passed over Colorado, I had been shaking and sniffing and generally feeling crap and on top of all that my snooty seat buddy had started eyeing me and glaring like I was carrying the plague.

Touching down in Vegas some two hours later, was one of the greatest reliefs of my life and I practically slithered from my seat like a jellyfish as my weak and achy limbs briefly struggled to keep me up.

"Get to Dean," I murmured hoarsely, pulling down my carry-on and hacking out a bubbly cough, "Get to Dean, get home, feel better – get to Dean, just get to Dean."

The amount of people milling in the arrivals lounge briefly made my addled head spin and I squinted into the sea of excitable faces, trying to pick out the one that belonged to me.