Until I Met You

~aubree~

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I felt my insides slowly start to disintegrate as Raina walked out of the room. I couldn’t go to dinner with Matt! He was famous and I would never be. I didn’t deserve to have a guy as great as him outside of my imagination. I took a deep breath. What would I say? What would I do?! If it was so obvious I liked Matt why couldn’t he figure it out for himself? As I began to head towards the door, tell Raina to cancel the whole thing, the door swung open, hitting me straight in the face.
“Owwww…” The door pulled back and Nick bent down, helping me up again.
“Wow, this is not a good second impression to make.” He teased. “Are you alright?” I nodded, but he grabbed my jaw and pulled my face dangerously close to his, making me more than a little uncomfortable. “Alrighty, sorry about that.” He smacked me across the back again, which took the pain away from my face for a few seconds. “So, are you sure you’re alright? Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“Please, don’t open doors near me.” I quietly muttered. Nick laughed as he sat down in the makeup chair. I grabbed my makeup kit and got lost in my own little world.
When I do makeup it’s like I’m completely at peace in the middle of the sky. I feel completely calm and serene. I don’t think about Matt, Molly, my next client, it’s just me and a brush and a human canvas. However, I couldn’t help but notice how Nick stared at me as I colored in his eyebrows so they would show under the stage lights.
“You’re really good at this.” He said, breaking my Zen mode and sending me crashing back into reality. I felt my face get warm, I wasn’t really used to praise.
“T-thank you.” I said as I powdered everything down so it wouldn’t melt in the heat of the lights. I smiled slightly. A masterpiece. “You’re good to go.” I assured him. He stood up and looked in the mirror his jaw about hitting the floor.
“No wonder Matt always looks better than me, he’s got you for a secret weapon.” Nick turned back to me, there was something in his eyes that I didn’t trust and I didn’t want to be alone with him for another second. He stalked over to me and I kept backing up until I was pressed against the wall. He smirked and put his hands up on either side of me, I was trapped. “So, explain to me why he gets to see you all the time and I don’t.”
“B-b-because…” Nick raised his eyebrows, waiting for my answer. “You have Susan, he never did, he got deferred to me when I first started, y-you know, when he was n-never on. Then he g-got famous and he j-just never left.” My heart was racing as Nick didn’t bat an eyelash. Then he grinned and started to chuckle.
“Well, I’m going to tell Susan that I’m making you my permanent makeup person. So I can see you every week. Nick pressed his finger lightly to the tip of my nose. “And you get to hang out with me every Monday, won’t that be fun?”
“Tons.” I squeaked. Nick pushed himself off the wall, shaking his head as he kept laughing and opened the door and walked out. The second he left I slid to the floor, my heart still thudding frantically in my chest. What was that?! As if freaking out about my dinner with Matt wasn’t enough now I had to deal with psycho blonde every week? I let out a giant sigh.
The rest of my day went as usual until Phil walked in. I smiled.
“Hey Mouse.” He greeted as he walked in.
“Hi Phil.”
“So, I hear that you’re the makeup person for the new diva Raina.” I felt my face get warm, remembering how she’d invited Matt to dinner with us. How I’d have to have dinner with Matt tonight and…
“Yes, I am.” I finally said. I would cross that bridge when I came to it.
“So, did she say anything about me?” He asked with his normal smile.
“No.” I saw Phil’s face fall the slightest bit and tried to cheer him up. “She didn’t really talk about anyone though. She a-asked me about myself and stuff like that.”
“Hmm.” He got the thinking look and I bit my lip. It was total payback time.
“Phil.” He snapped out of his thought and looked up at me. “She and I are getting d-dinner with Matt. Do you want to come with us?” Phil blinked a few times then grinned from ear to ear.
“Mouse, are you asking me out?” I felt my face burst into flames as I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.
“Well, considering Raina asked Matt out for me…”
“Wait, Matt Matt?” Phil new that I was crazy about Matt, along with Susan and now Raina. I nodded. “Way to be Mousey! So, do you think he’ll let me be his best man?”
“Phil…”
“It’s a question. You’ve been obsessed with the guy since you got here.”
“Very funny. Well you can have a nice time with Raina tonight.”
“Does she know I’m coming?”
“Nope.”
“Are we going to tell her?”
“Nope.”
“Excellent.”
Phil was the last person I had to work with tonight, so when I sent him on his merry little way I went into the greenroom to wait for Raina. Her match went great, it was the second match, so when she grabbed me afterwards to leave I was a little surprised.
“A-Aren’t we going to wait for M-Matt?” I stammered as she dragged me to the divas locker room. She pulled me over to a mirror and sighed.
“I’ve got to make you a bombshell first.
“W-what!?” I stuttered.
“Let me change, then I’ll take a look at that outfit.”
“You really don’t have to do this…”
“I want to.”
“W-Why?” Raina stopped and turned back to me.
“You remind me of someone I used to know.”
“Wh-What?”
“Just trust me Aubree. Matt won’t know what hit him.”
Neither will Phil. I thought. Raina quickly changed into her street clothes and ran me to the hotel. I sighed as I opened the door to my room. Raina immediately went to one of my suitcases.
“Oh, not that one. That’s makeup, the other one is clothes.” I said.
“You have a bag of just makeup?” She asked. I shrugged.
“The intern keeps all the stage makeup. That way Molly gets to yell at me if it gets lost.” Raina looked like she was going to say something, but changed her mind as she rummaged through my clothes. I started to walk towards her to help, but she just held up her hand.
“Sit on the bed.” I obeyed and meekly plopped down on the foot of the bed. I sat there for what felt like forever when I heard a muffled squeal.
“What is this?” I looked over and Raina was holding up my little lace ruffled nightgown. She had this mischievous smile on her face. “Saving this for Matt?”
“N-No!” I started, but she just held up her hand and I stopped talking.
“I’m sure he’ll love it.” Within a few more minutes she stood up and walked over to me, plopping some clothes on my lap. “Go try this on.” I went into the bathroom and when I looked at myself in the mirror I had to hold my breath. I actually looked kind of pretty. Part of my stomach showed in this shirt, I usually wore it with a tank top underneath, but it showed off just the smallest peek of my stomach. I walked back out and Raina smiled.
“Can we go now?” She shook her head. And pushed my right back into the bathroom.
“Time for you to get the celebrity treatment.” She said, sitting me down on the ledge of the tub as she grabbed my small personal makeup and started to work. When she finished with that she just looked at my hair for the longest time. She then took out my bun and started brushing and pinning and braiding until I was a little worried. When she was finally satisfied she led me to the mirror, covering my eyes. When she finally let me see myself I gasped. I hadn’t looked this pretty at my senior prom! But it was so simple that it seemed effortless. I felt like I was going to cry. “Hey, no tears, you’ll mess up your eyes.” Raina said. I looked at Raina and gave her a huge hug. She didn’t quite seem comfortable, so I let go.
“S-Sorry.”
“No problem, I’ve got to go get ready, I’ll be right back.” I shook my head as I heard Raina leave. I looked, I looked beautiful. I smiled and went back to my suitcase and rummaged through until I found my nightgown. It had been a present from my eccentric aunt who was convinced it would help me catch a man. I just wore it when we were in Australia or Florida and it was too hot to wear anything else. I thought about Matt seeing me in this and felt my face get bright red.
Matt.
Oh my God. I had to go have dinner with Matt, I’d totally forgotten! I bit my lip. Now I was nervous again. I shoved my nightgown back in my bag and zipped it shut, sitting on top of it with my head in my hands. I stayed like that until I heard a knock on the door and I looked out to see Raina. Wow, she looked absolutely great! Phil was going to have a stroke. She smiled.
“Ready to get you a man?” She teased. I smiled as we walked back to the arena just as the show was wrapping up. We both waited for Matt, but when he showed up I told Raina I’d forgotten something in the makeup room, and I would be right back and ran off to find Phil. He was sitting on the tabletop in my makeup room.
“I didn’t know where else to find you.” He teased. “You look nice.”
“Wait until you see Raina.”
“Alrighty, where are they?”
“Follow me.” I said as I lead him to where I’d left Raina and Matt. When Raina saw I had Phil with me she looked a little confused. I shrugged. “You invited Matt for me, so I invited him for you. That way you don’t have to feel awkward.” I looked at Matt and felt my face get warm again.
“N-not that M-Matt and I would m-m-make you feel awkward…” I sighed and stopped talking as we headed off to go get dinner. I couldn’t help but notice as we were headed down the street Raina and Phil seemed like they were having a pretty intense conversation. I was about to join in when I felt Matt grab my shoulder.
“So, how was Nick?”
“Huh?” I asked, remembering him pressing me into the wall. Did Matt know somehow..?
“He’s not a very trustworthy guy. Did you make it out alive?” I bit my lip.
“Well, he made me his permanent makeup person…so…”
“Hmm.” Matt looked back at me. “Do you want me to kick his ass even harder next week?” I giggled as Matt smiled at me. “There’s that smile. I haven’t seen it since Nick showed up this afternoon.” We just kept chatting until we got to a small bar and grill that Phil said was incredible. We went inside, grabbing a booth in the back so we wouldn’t get bugged for autographs every five seconds…Well, so Phil, Matt, and Raina wouldn’t get bugged for autographs every five seconds.
Not me.
As we sat down Phil slid in next to Raina and I blushed when Matt sat next to me. He and Phil talked for a long time about number one contenders and Nick came into the conversation a few times. Both of them went on about how much they hated him. Raina and I talked a little bit more about her and how she got to the WWE and how we both thought Beth was secretly a man. I couldn’t help but notice that as dinner went on Matt slid his hand under the table until it was resting on my knee. I blushed and looked up, but he just smiled. I don’t know what came over me, but I slid my hand over and placed it on top of his. He looked at me with a bit of surprise, but then just flipped his hand over and twisted his fingers together with mine, both of us acting like nothing had happened.
And it was perfect.