Paradise City

A WWE Superstar.

To be honest, I had to look up what a WWE Superstar was. I was sure that it was some kind of sport, and even then I was guessing, because I honestly had no clue. After that, I spent countless hours on Youtube watching video after video of Dean Ambrose the "Lunatic Fringe". The Shield. All that shit, I watched all of it. However, it didn't matter how famous he was. It didn't matter to me if he was the best wrestler in the world, which he wasn't. Apparently that was a guy named CM Punk.

He was still a smirky bastard.

And besides, this kind of wrestling is fake.

"He's a WWE Superstar." Alisha said with stars in her eyes.

I scrunched up my face. A what? What's that supposed to mean? He's famous? "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I don't like him, he's still a jerk, and a bad neighbor."

I ended the conversation there.

Thankfully Roger made good on his word and called me a few days after my interview and officially hired me. I had been too immersed in my new job to really give any thought to Dean, which was nice. I had truly missed the feeling of being busy. However, scrounging for all the hours that I could possibly get meant less time to hang out with Alisha who had really gone off the deep end since her break up with Reece. When I say she went off the deep end, she really dove off.

She had called me four times in the last two weeks around two in the morning, drunk, asking me to come pick her up. She had practically begged me to either come sleep over at my place or for me to come over to her house because she "didn't want to be alone". And not only that, but the worst of it all was that she was being used as a booty call to the scumbag who broke up with her in the first place.

It was my day off. I was thankful, because as much as I wanted to work, my feet were extremely sore and my lower back was killing me. I rolled out of bed, pulling my hair up on the top of my head, and made my way into the kitchen for some breakfast.

I opened the refrigerator door and pulled out my carton of milk, cursing under my breath after noticing that there was only a few chugs left in it. As I closed the fridge, something caught my eye. "Hi neighbor". I stared at the note for a moment, thinking back on the little games we had going on.

Who knew professional wrestlers could be so childish?

Almost on cue I heard the elevator ring and the sound of a suitcase being pulled down the hallway. I bolted to my front door, milk carton still in hand, and peaked through the hole to see Dean passing my door.

"Hey!" I yelled as I threw the door open.

He jumped, dropping his keys on the floor, holding a hand over his chest. "What the fuck?!" He turned around and just stared at me for a moment, a smirk tugged at his lips.

I looked down at myself, remembering that I was wearing a t-shirt that was three sizes too big for me and a pair of men's boxers. I was also holding a carton of milk. And my hair was in a sloppy bun that was partially falling apart.

"Can I help you?" He asked as he picked his keys up.

I couldn't think of what to say. I stuttered for a few moments before I finally managed to squeeze out, "uh, welcome home."

"Thanks?"

"No problem. See you around."

I turned around quickly, shutting my door behind me. My heart felt like it was in my throat.

What was that, I scolded myself.

For the rest of the day, I kept to myself in the apartment, staying occupied. I dusted, vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen counters. I even made my bed, which I never do, because I had always felt like it was a pointless waste of energy.

I was sitting on the couch, reading a book and listening to Janis Joplin, when a soft knock came from the door. I quickly ran to the hallway bathroom and checked myself in the mirror. I tugged at my hair, letting it fall loosely from it's bun, and took a piece of toilet paper to my face so that it didn't look so oily.

Before I opened the door, I checked my reflection in the picture frame that hung on the wall one last time.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked Dean as he leaned against the threshold.

"Do you want to like, I don't know, hang out or something?" He held up a six pack of beer. "I've got beer."

"You want to hang out with me?" My eyes narrowed at him. This was probably another prank. This time he was probably going to throw me out the window to see if I'd land in the pool. I wouldn't put it past him, honestly.

"Well, yeah."

"Um, okay."

I swung the door open, allowing him to come inside, thankful that I had changed earlier after having cleaned.

He took one look around the apartment and said, "Wow, you actually cleaned."

"If you're going to be rude you can just see yourself out, sir."

"It was a compliment." He says as he went to put the case of beer in the fridge. "Well look at that." I heard him say as he cracked a can open.

"What?"

He pointed to his letter that was still pinned to the front of the refrigerator for some reason. "You kept my note."

I immediately ripped the note down and tossed it in the trash can. I could hear him pull it back out of the trash and un-crinkle it, as I walked back to the couch. I plopped down and marked the page on my book, setting it on the table. The silence was deafening as I watched him look around my apartment. He scoped out my DVD collection, obviously displeased with it. And then thumbed through my dad's records.

"Impressive." He says. "They yours?"

"They were my dad's."

"Were?"

Shit.

"He gave them to me." I replied, saving myself.

"He has good taste."

"Mhm."

The silence settled in again. Dean took a sip of his beer and sat down on the couch next to me. He seemed so out of place. Not that he wasn't comfortable, because he was making himself right at home, but I couldn't get over the fact that he was here. Again, I mean, he had been here before. But I wasn't thinking clearly then, and I let him wipe jelly off of my face.

"Why'd you move to Vegas?" He asked. It surprised me.

"What?"

"You're obviously not from here." He replied, taking another swig of his beer.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"I threw a dart on a map. It landed on Vegas twice."

"That's really funny."

"Why?" I asked, standing up to also grab a beer from the fridge. I pulled the Doritos out of the cupboard, too.

"Because I kind of did the same thing. Only, I was in Germany and I just got on a plane and decided to fly to Vegas. I never left."

I passed him the bag of chips. "Germany? Were you wrestling there?" He cut me a look. "Alisha told me you were a wrestler."

He sighed, setting his beer on the table, and ran a hand through his hair. "Fuck."

"What?" I asked. He seemed upset by it.

"No wonder you've been so different."

"Excuse me?"

"All you girls are the same, man." He stood up like he was going to leave. "You find out a dude is famous and you could give two shits about is personality or who he really is. It's just money, money, money after that."

"Whoa, hold up. It wouldn't matter to me if you were Donald Trump. I invited you in my house because you were very nice to me the last time I saw you, and I figured that there would be no harm in getting to know you. I watched your little wrestling videos. It's dumb. I'm not a fan. Cool for you, you're a famous wrestler, that's awesome! But I don't have a single fuck to give."

Dean stood there speechless for a moment before slowly sitting back down.

"Sorry." He mumbled. "I don't go around boasting about my profession. It makes meeting people hard. Especially genuine people."

"How'd you get into it, anyway?"

"I just kind of knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and then I worked my ass off. No one just falls into professional wrestling. It takes a lot of fuckin' hard work and a lot of dedication."

"Do you ever get tired of it?" I asked.

"It gets tiresome, and there have been a lot of moments where I sat down and really asked myself what the fuck I was doing, you know? But have I gotten tired of it? Nah."

"I think that's really cool that you kind of achieved your dream."

"Yeah, what about you?" He asked. "Are you achieving your dream?"

I fought the urge to laugh and hid it by taking a sip of beer. "Not at all."

"Why not?"

I thought about it for a moment. There were so many things holding me back. Things that I couldn't let go of. That I refused to let go of. I was a business major who dreamed of owning her own bookstore one day; where people could buy, sell, and trade books like a Gamestop. Yet I have been working in bars since I was seventeen. Was I scared? Did I just get lazy and settle?

I shrugged, crossing my legs to sit Indian-style. As I did so, my knee briefly rested on Dean's leg. The unintended contact stopped my breathing momentarily, but I didn't move. I stayed where I was, letting our bodies touch in the most innocent way, and felt absolutely guilty about it. Dean's eyes dropped to the knee that softly touched his thigh, and then dragged his eyes back to mine.

"Uh," I said clearing my throat, deciding to shift myself in my seat. "are you hungry or something?" I changed the subject quickly, begging for him to stop looking at me like that. His bright blue eyes were like crystalline swimming pools that I wanted to dive in to.

The tension that I felt the night he carried me home from the club had settled in the space between us once more.

"Where are you from?"

Now isn't the time for the question game.

"A small town in Tennessee." I replied, still caught in his stare.

Is he getting closer?

"Why'd you move here?"

Why are his eyes so blue?

"I needed a change of scenery."

The record that had been playing began to skip sporadically. I got up to fix it, and heard Dean clear his throat. I could see him going back to the fridge to grab another beer. As the music began to softly play again, I softly swayed to the rhythm. I could feel Dean watching me, but I didn't care. This was one of my favorite songs.

A hand sneaked around my waist and I jumped to the touch. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"That wasn't an invitation?" He asked.

"If I wanted to dance with you, I would have asked."

A smile tugged at his lips, but he turned away as he tried to hide it. "Oh, I'm sorry." He replied as he gulped his beer. He belched loudly, causing me to scrunch up my nose.

"You're gross." I said. He smiled and plopped back down on the couch. I moved to stand in front of him and held my hand out, sighing dramatically. "Since there isn't anyone else, would you like to dance?"

"Oh now you want to dance? It's only after I show you my awesome burping skills."

"One, you're a pig. Two, I can top that any day." I grabbed the can out of his hand and chugged the rest of the sour liquid, letting out a gnarly burp afterwards.

"You're sick."

"What!?" I held my hands up. "So it's okay if you do it because you're a guy, right?"

"Precisely."

He took my hand and pulled me to him as we slow danced to the melodic voice of Janis. It was nice. The only other person I had slow danced with was James. And of course my dad at my parent's wedding. I never got to slow dance with douchebag Jared, because he dumped me before the school dance.

We danced in silence. I could hear his heart beat as I rested my head on his chest. It was calm, just like he was. I could practically feel mine about to jump right out of my chest. I had no idea what was happening. We were just two neighbors- friends- just two people slow dancing. It was totally normal to slow dance with your neighbor, right?

"This is nice." He said softly.

I went to reply, but my phone rang loudly before I could get out a response.

I sighed when I saw the caller I.d. "It's Alisha."

"Don't answer it." He replied. "She'll leave a voicemail."

"She's probably drunk." Dean looked confused. "She's been going through a lot."

I held the phone to my ear and listened to the obvious club music in the background. I was right.

"Alisha?" I asked.

"Callie!? Hey! Hey girl, how are you doing?"

"Lish, are you okay?"

"Cal, I'm- I'm at Hakkasan. I am so drunk, Cal." She was laughing. "What are you doing!? You should come hang out! Drinks on meee!"

"I'm going to come get you, okay?" She mumbled something before the line went dead. I sighed as I slid my phone into my back pocket. Dean watched me with eyebrows raised. "I have to go get her."

"Want me to come with?" He asked.

"No, it's- I got it. I appreciate this, hanging out, it was fun."

He nodded and followed me out, taking a few steps down the hallway to his own door. "See you later."

I smiled at him as I boarded the elevator, making a mental note to kick Alisha's drunk ass for ruining my night.