Who Do You Love - Dean Ambrose

Chapter 23: Trust No One

The bar I choose was a twenty minute walk away, not that I'd had a particular spot in mind. When I'd left the hotel I had simply started walking, trudging along as I replayed my hopeless night. I was crying as well but given that it was night time, I was able to hide my distress pretty well. For the most part those who were still out were all drunken, or loved-up or hurrying to wherever they had to be. I knew that Dean would probably be going crazy thinking of me out there all on my own and that thought both fortified and compounded my sadness.

I didn't like thinking about Dean being upset.

I didn't like thinking about Dean being anything other than happy and safe and calm. His mood had the most amazing ability to regulate and influence my own and in the end I felt like I was probably crying because I knew he would be feeling horribly bad.

Had I been too hard on him?

Okay, maybe.

What did I expect dating a member of The Shield? The most dominant force in the wrestling business – so they liked to keep telling me – who arbitrated right and wrong. How did I honestly think they would react to slyly being attacked on the orders of their boss? Regardless of who he was and what Hunter meant to me, in their cutthroat world that simply didn't work and part of the reason that I felt so safe and loved by Dean was because people were scared of him.

He couldn't lose that front.

Besides, what other options did The Shield boys have anyway? A conference? Mediation? To sit down and have a chat? In wrestling grudges were sorted with knuckles and I was an idiot to have imagined another way.

But that didn't change Dean keeping his plans from me, or sending me away believing everything was fine. He must have known I would be watching the taping and he hadn't even warned me, or explained how it would work. He was right, he hadn't laid a finger on my father but they had outnumbered him and watched him get beaten down.

Dean was more in the right than my father but I still felt betrayed.

They'd both hurt me somehow.

Which was why when I looked up and saw the flashing bar sign, I swung a left and pushed my way in through the door, thanking my lucky stars that the place looked like a nice one. It would have been embarrassing to have had to turn and walk straight back out.

"Whisky," I mumbled, sliding into a corner booth as the bartender looked up, "Double please."

"Sure."

The place was small but it had a nice vibe to it, with a handful of clientele grouped slightly further down, gathered in a small ring around a raised platform where a scruffy looking guy was strumming a guitar. No one bothered to look back in my direction where the tables were empty and that suited me fine. Slumping down I rested my head against the woodwork not even looking up as my whisky was placed down,

"Thank you."

"You alright miss?"

I dug around one handed, pulling out some money and passing it across,

"Uh huh."

Only when I heard his feet shuffle off again – accompanied by a very world weary sort of sigh – did I finally lift my head off the table top, alarmed to find it was stickier than I thought.