We arrive at the hospital and we go up to the floor my dad is staying on. I knock on the door, and am told to come in. We walk through the door and my parents look over and then they have a surprised face. "Hey guys this is my friend from work, Gionna. She's gonna stay with me in my old room.", I introduce my parents to Gi. "My stepmom gets up and comes over and gives her a hug when Gi went for a handshake. "No babygirl I'm a hugger. Hi, I'm Michele. This is his Dad, Gino.", my step mom says. "A hugger? You? Shit, I want one.", I announce as I walk towards her with my arms open, only to be met with a punch to the gut. That was typically what happened when I went for a hug. That was just our relationship. We laughed. "I didn't say I was gonna hug you kid", Michele said. "You gave her a hug", I exclaimed as I held my stomach. This dynamic drew out a laugh from Gionna. My Father and her met each other and we all sat down. My dad winced as he sat up. "When you said you were bringing a friend with you from work, we didn't expect it would be a lady friend.", my dad pointed out. My cheeks became red as I give him a look. "Dad!", I whispered. "Well he said he felt overwhelmed coming home after being gone for so long, so I told him he needed a bit of work to help him feel balanced out.", Gionna explained to my folks. "Well thanks for looking out for my 12 year old boy.", Dad pokes fun at me. He always said that I was a 12 year old trapped in a whatever age I was body. "Jokes aside we do appreciate the fact that you're looking out for him.", My stepmom said. They always felt like I had to have someone to keep an eye on me. "I can see that. He was so anxious that had to force him to eat. He also needs to get some rest whenever we get back to the house. He drove so that I could rest and sleep on the way here. He's really sweet and watched out for me as well.', Gionna mentions. We converse a bit more before I began to yawn and my road trip partner decided it was time for me to get some rest since I've been up for so long. My parents agreed as we said our goodbyes and headed back to the house. As I drove home the Mrs. Money In The Bank winner started conversation after examining my arms. "Have I ever mentioned how much I love your tattoos?", she asks. I take a quick glance at the art work on my arms before responding, "I don't think you've mentioned it." I think of it as just a throw away question but she decides to go into further detail. "They're so well done. Very well shaded and colored. I love them.", she starts before she looks at my left wrist as it's on display by being the only hand I have on the steering wheel. She kinda leans in a small bit and adjusts her glasses to read one of them. "That spider web one. The one that says 'You're My Path'. Is there a meaning to that one?", she inspects. I look down at it and grin a bit. "Uh yeah it has meaning to me but it's kind of dumb. I wouldn't wanna bore you with the silly details.", I claim. "Fine", she responds. With my focus on the road, I can see out the corner of my eye she's crossed her arms and faces toward to window. She's pouting. "Gi?", I ask. I'm met with no response. "Gi stop it's not a big deal.", I call out to her. She hasn't budged. She insists on keeping it up too. She's good. "Gi would you talk to me?", I plead with her. After a few moments I give in. "Fine I'll tell you." She immediately turns back and smiles with her adorable laugh. "I knew I could break you. Okay spill", she said. "It's gonna sound dumb, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is one of, if not, my favorite movie of all time. It's a very hot take but ever since those movies came out, Andrew Garfield has been my favorite Spider-Man. His chemistry with Emma Stone, who plays his love interest Gwen Stacy, is unmatched. That's the kind of love and relationship I've always wanted. At the end when he tried to catch her from falling when he shoots the web it kind of forms a hand reaching out to her. 'You're my path' was one of the last things he said to her when he decides he wants to keep her in his life instead of pushing her away. That's another thing that wasn't a cause of us breaking up, obviously, but that was a sore spot for me with my ex girlfriend. She didn't like the movie. She claimed it was dumb and the ending sucked and the whole 'you're my path' thing was dumb. Yet she wanted to get upset cuz I told her she wasn't MY path. I don't know. It's silly", I reveal. It's quiet for a moment again. And I glance at her for a second to see it looks like she's processing what I told her. "Seb that's beautiful. I like that a lot. You HAVE to show me this movie. I'm dying to see it now that you've told me about it.", she demands. I'm taken aback by this statement from her. She wants to do something I enjoy without me having to convince her? That never happened in my previous relationship. "Sure. We can watch it after I sleep or something.", I offer. She agrees claiming she's excited for a movie night as we get back to the house. Once we get through the doors she orders me, "To your room mister! Go to bed immediately!" She uses a kind of babysitter type tone with it that makes me laugh. "What? No bedtime story?", I joke to her. I head to my room and switch into comfortable clothes and begin to lay down. Gi is in my chair watching tv before she ends up laying in bed with me. The blushing from earlier comes back within an instant. "I hope this is okay. I wanted to get more sleep too.", Gionna says explaining her action. "No problem at all", assure her. We end up slowly drifting off into that comfortable cloudy world in our minds.
After a few hours I wake up in an unusual position. My arm is around the shorter woman. Gionna is cuddled into me as she sleeps soundly. I immediately blush and am confused on what to do. I hear her phone go off and my natural reaction was to pretend to be asleep. I have my eyes slightly open but closed enough to where it looks like I'm sleeping. Gionna slowly opens her eyes then she realizes our position. As I did she began to blush. For a moment though, she took a minute to smile and enjoy the cuddling situation before rolling over and grabbing her phone. She stays in my arms for a bit as she scrolls through to see notifications and check what she missed during her slumber before she decides to wake me up. "Seb. Seb? Time to wake up Sleeping Beauty", she begins to slightly shake me awake from my faux sleep. I keep the act up as I pretend to just barely wake up. And move my arm from on top of her. "Oh hey Gi, thanks for waking me up. If you hadn't, I would've slept all day.", I say. We both know how we were sleeping but neither of us mentioned it. It wasn't awkward but you could feel that there was something between us we both knew about and were avoiding. My friends invited us to go bowling. That's why Gionna woke me up. She saw the text on my phone and told me so I could get ready. The quote read, "hey seb, it's been a while since we all just hung out. We're going bowling and wanted you to come. Also heard you brought a friend. 😉 bring her too. She welcome to come." I made sure to ask before telling her to come with. I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable with people she didn't know but she was all for it. After getting dressed and ready we got in the car and made our way there. Gi played music as she usually does but then turned it down to signal she had something she wanted to say. "Somethin on your mind Gi?", I ask watching the road. "Yeah Seb, there is. We gotta talk about the elephant in the room", she revealed. My heart sunk. My eyes widened as my mind raced on how this conversation was gonna go. Was she going to want to sleep in a hotel now or somewhere else? Was she mad? Upset? Disappointed? Did she think I was trying to make a move on her? I swear I was just sleeping. While this chaos was going on in my mind there was silence. It was broken by her saying, "We gotta talk about how you have creases in your sneakers! How can you have such good sneaker taste and let them get creased like that? It just, ugh, it breaks my heart to see those babies like that", she exclaimed. Relief drained the feeling of worry in my chest as she brought up that pretty much every pair of Jordan 1's or Air Forces I had were creased. It actually earned a laugh out of me. One of the first topics Gionna and I talked about was sneakers. It was something we were both very interested in. Which ones to wrestle in, which ones look good in general and ones we wanted but decided to wait for. "Gi I'm more of the classic look kind of guy. I like the creased look. It looks more natural. Plus, no matter how hard you try, they're going to crease. Trust me sweetheart, I've tried", I defend myself. She looks over to me. "Sweetheart? Gasp!" I did not mean to say that. It kind of came out naturally. I didn't think she'd pick up on it. "I'll have you know, unless I wrestle in them, none of my sneakers have creases. But you know what? Do it your way. That just means my sneakers will always look better than yours.", she declared. I nod and replay with a, " If you say so. She bites her lip slightly before saying, "You looked nervous when I mentioned an elephant in the room. What did you think I was gonna bring up?" I get a nervous look again and scramble for some kind of excuse. "Uh nothing. I'm just...um....scared of elephants?" Scared of elephants? What's wrong with me? I'm a horrible liar. "Ah okay. You're a horrible liar by the way", she remarks.
We arrive at my towns small, but very popular bowling alley. There weren't many things to do in town besides bowling or going to the movies. I park the car and we get out and are met by my friends. My longest and closest friend, other than Jorden and Cristian,was Brandon. He was more like a brother to me. I consider all my guy friends brothers but our families were friends. That meant every barbecue we hung out. Spent countless nights staying at each others houses, texted nonstop, and we just had a different kind of bond. He literally felt like family. He became an NBA Player and was drafted to the Dallas Mavericks. So you can understand my surprise when he was standing there with the rest of them. We gave each other a big hug and nearly squeezed the life out of each other. "What the hell are you doing here man? I thought you'd be home 4 hours away?", I asked. "Well i heard about your dad and that you came to town so i figured I'd go see him and get to see you too", he replied. Whenever I ever had shows or live events in Dallas or close to that area and didn't wanna go home or make a 4 hour drive here, I would usually just crash with Brandon. It was a good was to spend time together. "Okay big shots, now that your love fest is over, Seb why don't you introduce us to the beautiful woman standing next to you?", Jorden requested. I take a set back from NBA point guard and gesture over to Gionna. "Guys, this is Gionna. She's my friend from work. Gionna.....", I point to each one as I introduce them. "This is Jorden, my cousin, Brandon, Cristian, Joseph, Robert, Noel, Connor, Jarrod, Chelsie, and Josh. These are my friends.", I inform her. She smiles and waves. "Hi it's so nice to meet you guys. Seb has really told me a lot about you guys. He even showed me a few of your YouTube videos", she greets them. What she's referring to is the guys each have a YouTube channel and even a group one. I have one too, but when becoming a wrestler became a very real thing I kinda took a break.....for 4 years. On their channel they game. We started getting big but more like The Goons (TheDooo, Soup, Grizzy etc) to where we were popular and it was able to become our jobs but not mainstream enough to be recognized everywhere we went. "He probably didn't show you any of the videos back in the day when he was apart of it.", Joseph laughed. I was bad a most first person shooter games, except for overwatch, which was most of what we played. Call Of Duty, Apex, and others like it. Growing up I always played fighting games like Dragon Ball, Injustice, Naruto, and obviously the WWE games. "No he hasn't. Seb I feel so betrayed!", she gasps. "I'll show you eventually. I started streaming and uploading videos cuz I thought we were funny. Not cuz I was any good.", I reply. That's what the main point of our channels were. Funny Let's Plays.
After the introductions and exchanges of conversation we went inside. Joseph and Noel were also fans of wrestling, not huge but they like to keep up with it and watch when they could, so they asked the Money In The Bank winner questions. She was kind enough to answer them. We got our shoes and our bowling balls and took out a few lanes. Brandon thought it would be a good idea to split up between guys and girls for the first couple games, which was weird cuz there was only 3 females, those being Jorden, Chelsie, and Gionna. Everyone liked the idea tho so we went forth with it. "You gonna be okay without me for a bit?", i ask. "Yeah go be a guy. 'Dude' it up. I'll be fine.", she answered. "If you need me, I'm literally a few steps away." , I assured her before giving her a hug and going to the neighboring lane with the guys.
(Gionna's POV)
Getting to meet Seb's friends and family has been fun so far. I've only met his Dad and his stepmom family wise though. His friends were very accepting of me. One of his friends suggested we split into girls guys for the first couple games, so I went to a lane with his cousin Jorden and his friend Chelsie. I was nervous a bit. I don't know what reason for it was but sometimes I can be a bit shy. I needed to take a relaxing breath and calm down. I told Seb I'd be fine and I don't want him to worry about me. He's been so worked up between work and his dad that he needs to chill a bit. We got to the lane and began putting on our shoes when Jorden decided to engage in conversation. "So are you getting tired of him yet?", she jokes. I laughed a bit before responding, "No, not at all. I've enjoyed myself getting to know him better and spending time with him. He's really different from other guys I've met. Something about him make it easy to talk to him." We watch as Chelsie goes up to begin bowling. We hear pins crash and a bunch of laughter and trash talk from the guys. "They are rowdy though aren't they?", I mention. Jorden and Chelsie look at each other with a "you don't know the half of it" look. "They're boys. They've been friends since high school. Seb is actually the one who brought most of us together.", Jorden informs me. I look at Seb at his lane getting ready to bowl but also goofing off and messing with the other guys. I can tell he's having a good time. This was something he really needed. "Gionna? It's your turn", Jorden says coming back from the end of the lane, snapping me out of my trance. "Oh I'm sorry. By the way you can just call me Gi if you want.", I tell her. She nods as I grab my ball and go up to bowl. On my left, Seb is also getting prepared to take his turn. "Oh my apologies madam. Please, go ahead and take your turn first.", Seb graciously offers in an English accent before proceeding to bow before me. "Why, thank you good sir. Aren't you a gentleman", I return the favor and giggle. I take my turn and get a strike. I turn to him and give him a high five before uttering, "beat that" with a wink. "Oh so that's how it's gonna be? Alright. If you insist.", he responds. The guys cheer him on in the spirit of friendly competition as he winds it back, and let's it go. The crash of the pins sounds and he only gets 7 out of 10. "Come on Seb! What a choke!" They call out to him. One of them even says "You're gonna let your girlfriend top you like that?" It makes me giggle as I walk back to my seat. I'm feeling really cold and chilly and Seb seems to take notice. He walks over, takes off his hoodie and hands it to me. "Here, take this. Wouldn't want you to freeze now would we?", he says then heads back to his lane. "So I assume you put him in that shirt?", Chelsie asks referring to the black and blue Liv Forever shirt he's wearing with my face on it.
"Well i was going through his shirts and saw he had it and forced him to wear it. I thought it would be funny", I explained. They share a look and laugh and agree that it was a good idea. "So when did this happen? You two getting together?", Jorden asks. I blush and then look down and start to nervously laugh. "No we aren't dating. We're just good friends", I explain. They once again share a look. I can tell they both know more than I seem to know. I look at them and Jorden noticed what they're doing and apologizes. "Sorry. We just know him a lot better than you do. Not in a rude way, what we mean is like little things he does and his mannerisms. Little ticks he does and such. More importantly, how to know when he likes someone. Gi in all honesty, you haven't noticed yet? He wears his heart on his sleeve. Him giving you his hoodie is a dead giveaway. He only does that to girls he really likes. I haven't seen him this happy with someone, ever. Not even his ex girlfriend.", she explains. I blush more and think about it. "Well.....", I begin. They both lean in with anticipation. Our game ended a few minutes ago. We're just waiting for the boys to finish theirs before we start our next one. "We took a nap together earlier, we fell asleep on separate sides of the bed, but when I woke up he was cuddling me. His arms were around me.", I reveal. "Have you guys talked about it? Did you tell him? Does he know?", Chelsie asked. "No he moved his arms when I got up and then I woke him up.", I said. "Do you like him like that? Did you like it?", Jorden interrogates me. "I did like it. I do have feelings for him. I mean who wouldn't? In the short few weeks we've been spending time together, this has just happened naturally. But I don't want to risk hurting him like the last girl did.", I explain. Jorden looks at me with a surprised look. "He told you about her? He doesn't like to talk about that. He almost never speaks about it. Gi, that means something.", she insists. "Let him make the first move. Obviously he likes you and you like him. Don't rush it. He used to fall too hard too fast. After 'her' I'm surprised he went so long being single. She really hurt him. I think you'd be good for him.", Jorden advises me. We converse about it a bit before before we continue to play our game. Eventually we get back together in one big group and play a few more games. Afterwards we decided to go see a movie the guys were really headstrong about seeing. Spider-Man:Across The Spider-Verse? We all agreed to go and Seb made sure he got our tickets together. The whole time I can't stop myself from stealing looks at him. I really am head over heels. I just need to take it at a slow pace like Jorden said. He might not be ready to move forward. I stare at him as he gets in the snack line with the guys and they all sort out what everyone wants and how they split it. He comes walking back. "You good Gi?", He asks in concern. "Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just glad I get to see your world. Let's go in.", I respond. We go in and watch the movie. He's enjoying every bit of it. He's such nerd but I love that about him. On the way home we talk about the film and he's just so passionate. "Sorry I'm probably rambling.", he starts to say before I cut him off. "No, no it's fine. I love hearing how passionate you are about this.", I say and urge him to continue. We get back to the house and have dinner. The rest of the night is us showing each other movies in then living room. I begged him to show me the Spider-Man ones he talked about but he said we'd wait until the next day. It wasn't much but it was a nice calm night after our eventful day. A lot of what Jorden told me really stayed with me. I do want us to be together but I don't wanna mess this up. Unintentionally I fall asleep on his shoulder. I slightly wake up to the feeling of being picked up. I pretend I'm still asleep and I see Seb lifting me from the couch and carrying me to his room. He lays me down on his bed and covers me up and makes sure I'm comfortable. Afterwards, he puts on a headset and plays video games with the guys. I'm half asleep but i can still slightly hear him tell them he's trying to be quiet since I'm asleep. He also says something else that really makes me smile. "Gi? Oh yeah she's cool. She's one of my favorite people. Well I'm glad you guys liked her. I really enjoy spending time with her. She's really made all of this easier." I feel the happiness fill my body. He looks so cute when he plays games. I take my phone out of my pocket and take a picture of him. After watching him a bit, I slowly drift into sleep.
(Author's Note)
So I decided this would be a personal life chapter. Figured it would help get to know Seb and his life and show Gionna's thoughts on it in her perspective which led to the first time we had Gionna's POV. Back to wrestling matters next chapter. I already have ideas for story arcs and where I wanna go with their personal lives and their wrestling careers. I also have ideas on how to intertwine their work lives with the more day to day part of things. Hope you enjoyed and leave a comment if you have anything to say! Thanks!