“Hi! You’ve reached Alanah, I’m not able to get to my phone right now but if you leave a message, I PROMISE I will get back to you as soon as I can!”
But before the beep even comes...
“The voice mailbox you are trying to reach is currently full”
“Dammit!” Bella screams, throwing her phone at the couch. It does a flip and lands with a thud on the floor. The sound brings Luka out of her nap, yelping and running for the kitchen.
Malachi sees this and comes out from the kitchen area of their home away from home, “Ok that’s your limit for the day.” he says matter-of-factly before swooping it down and tucking it into his pocket.
“Hey!” Bella protests trying to grab her phone from him but he moves out of the way just right.
“Uh uh, you have rung her phone practically non-stop. Let her breathe, macushla. ‘Lanah is many things including extremely hard headed, much like you. She’ll come around and you two will be back to driving Jack and I crazy once again.”
“I just...” she sighs, “I hate that...”
“I know. You bargained for a lot in that match with her and you two tore it down and for you it paid off.” he motions towards the table where the PWS United Title sits out in the middle of, Bella wraps her arms around her midsection not even looking at it, “But for her, you dethroned her after 270 days. It’s gonna sting for a little bit, but eventually she will come around. Until then, we need to celebrate your accomplishment AND prepare you for the next.”
Bella just shakes her head, “I don’t want to celebrate that. Not with how I’m feeling about it, I just finally brought it out of hiding.”
“But...this whole self-wallowing about you beating my sister? It’s gotta stop love. After the news we got on Sunday, your brother is back with your parents, Mattie is back with Mack...you need to get over this. We got a one hell of an opportunity and you being distracted before your one on one match with Johanna again? Do you really want that?”
“No, I don’t. I wanted to be able to see everyone again. I wanted to be back to a normal thing...instead I feel like a leper. I hate it, I hate not seeing my friends but...” she sighs, “You’re right. I have to keep going and eventually she’ll come around.”
Mal smiles at her and pulls her into a hug, “Good.”
She wraps her arms around him and squeezes, “You know...some people think that I’m having this effect on you. Like, almost defanging you to a point.”
Mal looks down at her with his eyebrows raised, “What?”
“Well, you holding your tongue around Mark and Christian at the threat of us losing our chances. You purposely duct taping your mouth shut last week, after that announcement, like you knew they were waiting on you...”
“To speak up and unleash? ....oh trust me love, I’m saving it.”
Bella smirks for a moment, “I know you were. People are quick to judge our whole relationship without getting what we do for each other.”
“Ah, here we go...the whole ‘I used to be shy and timid’ line.” he laughs as she pushes him back, making him sit on the couch.
“I WAS! Before, even with Jack and Chrissy, even...Milo...” Mal growls a bit at that, but he calms himself when she looks down at him with her blue eyes softening, straddling his lap, “But I didn’t know what it was like to feel in control of my own life. It took me to pull up my roots, go to Paris...meeting you, not dealing with people constantly trying to steer me in these directions I didn’t want to go. I got to make my own choices. I’d hate to think that I was doing that to you.”
He genuinely smiles at her, the way she only sees, “You’re not. I’m not in the business of screwing things up for us, love. If holding my tongue for only a little while means we get what we want out of it, so be it. But I feel like you are letting things boil up.”
Bella shrugs only a little bit, “Maybe a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I was always told to show respect where respect is deserved but I still feel like everything I’ve done, that we’ve done...still gets laughed at. A win over Johanna this week would be huge. Also...it feels like there are times I’m only a few steps away from people looking at me and petting me on the head going ‘Good Girl’ and then I haul off and bite their hand.” Mal can’t help but laugh a bit and she giggles too, “I’m serious. I get that I’m the good one out of the two of us but sometimes I just....”
Mal pulls her forward gently and leans her against him, forehead to forehead, “Feel like wrecking some shit?”
“That...exactly that.” she sighs and rolls off to the side of him and stands up and glares at the table with the title on it, “I’m not like Johanna by any stretch of the imagination. She’s got this intimidating nature about her. The first time I was across the ring from her, I felt like a dwarf. The second time...it was a little different. I went toe to toe as long as I could...but she was just so powerful...never mind what happened at Into The Void. But it’s like she’s this... impregnable fortress that I cannot seem to find a way through. I could watch HOURS upon hours of tape, I could study til my eyes go blood shot and all I have is a quick moment where if by some grace of God she slips that I can be fast enough and tenacious enough to pick myself up and do anything and everything to keep her down long enough to get that win.”
She reaches for the title belt but something stops her, “You also have an intimidating nature about you, you know?”
She looks over her shoulder and just rolls her eyes, “Bullshit.”
He stands up and walks over to her, “No! It’s true! You are an enigma...you have this graceful nature about you, you are friendly to anyone as long as they don’t cross you, but man...the minute they do...oof. It’s why I call you Hells Bells. I’ve seen what you are like when you are determined enough, I’ve seen what happens when you truly do not like someone at all. Johanna is human, Bells. She can’t make mistakes just like everyone else. Wolfslair is intimidating but since when have you ever backed down from something like this?”
She glances at him with a smirk, matching that wit and sass, “Never. I don’t back down from intimidating and I’m not about to start now. I didn’t with you, I took a chance and well...it paid off. I did it with Alanah and well....” she reaches down and grabs her title and looks at it, “We need this and having you there with me at ringside is only going to remind me how much we wanted this and need this. And this is only the beginning of it, I get that moment, I get that win and we finish what we started....and if I get petted on the head like some God damned Dog....I’ll show them that my bite is definitely worse than my bark.”
She sets her title down, turns around and reaches into his pocket and pulls out her phone so fast he doesn’t realize it til she has it in her hands, “Hey!” he tries to reach for it but she quickly pulls away from him with a smirk.
“You really need to get faster on the draw, babe.”
“Don’t try and call her again.” Mal warns her.
“I’m not, I’m gonna call for food. So we can finally get that celebration out of the way. I’m not waiting anymore.”
He smirks and gives her a kiss, “Tacos?”
“Is there any other kind of celebration?”
Mal smirks one last time, “That’s my girl. I’ll get the tequila”
