Joe's POV

During my workout at the gym, I realized how fucked up I was for walking out on Ammika after that conversation. I was just speaking my mind and after I did that I just felt like I kind of overstepped my boundaries by saying some of the things that I did. I feel like I sprong that conversation up on her when she's clearly not ready.

I walked into the living room, and I saw Lobo sitting on the sofa. She was watching wrestling. I smiled to myself as I walked over and sat down next to her.

"Are you watching wrestling?" I say surprised.

"I'm watching you." She answers.

I smile, "What are you watching me for? I'm here with you."

"If I'm going to travel with you this week, I need to understand this stuff. I don't know the first thing about wrestling. The only thing I know is that you look hot doing it."

I laugh, "You don't need to understand anything. I just want you there with me." I sat down next to her. "You've become a pretty prominent person in my life these last few months and I'm getting to the point where I don't wanna be without you."

"I've noticed." She smiles. "You wanna marry me."

"Yeah, about that... I didn't mean to scare you or anything like that. I was just doing something that I never really do and that's put my feelings out there. I don't like to take risks or anything like that. I'm sure you've noticed that about me but I just feel free when I'm with you and I feel like I can express myself with you and I just wanted to be honest."

"There's nothing wrong with being honest and I appreciate your honesty 100%. You've done so much for me and I'm grateful for you but I'm just scared. I've never experienced this before so it's very new to me. I have deep feelings for you and everything and in my head, it's too soon. I guess I just keep having this internal debate with myself. I'm living in your house. You're literally taking care of me right now and I appreciate that. You've done for me more than some people have ever done for me and I've literally known you for five months."

"Well, you're very special to me. I only want to make you happy. So whatever you want to do, I'm fine with." I say

"Okay." She says

"And I really want you to meet the kids. I just have to run it by my ex. I'm not looking forward to that conversation. She just makes me so miserable and I hate her for it."

"You hate her?"

"She's not being a nice person to me right now, and she hasn't been for a long while and there's parts of her I hate."

"But Joe, that's not you."

"That woman drains every bit of my energy when I think about having to deal with her. She just makes me miserable sometimes. I don't know what happened. She's not the woman I fell in love with, and that's an understatement. I don't like that I hate her, but I do. She's done some messed up things to me."

"Baby you deserve happiness. You have everything, you should be happy but you're not. I just don't get it. Don't let this woman get to you and ruin you like this. Joe, I knew you were broken from the first real conversation we had. When you opened up to me, and damn near cried to me after knowing me for only a few weeks. I knew you needed someone like me. I know I have a calming spirit and I knew you needed that to calm you and keep you calm. Just like I needed you to stabilize me. Am I right or wrong?"

"No....You're absolutely correct."

"Maybe if we both just try to let go of our problems and trust in each other, we would be okay."

"I really wanna marry you. I love you." I say

"Joe, I don't think you want that. I think you're just a little blinded by sex right now."

"The sex is really good." We both laugh.

"It's perfectly fine for you to lust after me and I love it but I don't necessarily think you want to marry me. I think that's your other head talking."

I laugh, "Maybe. But I do know I wanna wake up to you every morning and go to sleep with you every night. I love when you let me hold you in my arms. I love being around you and I love you helping me through the hard times that I've been going through. I don't want to be away from you for long periods of time. I always want you with me. I don't think that's lust, I think it's love."

She smiles. "I agree with that and I feel the same way most of the time. I just have some things I need to tell you about me. Besides my family and their issues, I also have a few things you should know before we get really deep into this. I'm just not comfortable with telling you right now and I eventually will, but just know I'm working up the courage to tell you." She says

"Is it serious?"

"Yes." She answers

"Does this have something to do with your family telling me you have issues and that I don't know you that well?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Whenever you're ready, I'll be here to listen."

"Thank you. So when are we leaving?"

"Tonight!" I say

"Tonight? Joe, I have to pack."

I laugh, "Well, go pack."

"I will...." She reached for her phone on the coffee table and quickly walked upstairs.

I'm happy we were able to get the conversation out-of-the-way because she was going with me this weekend. I just don't know how awkward it would've been if we hadn't had that convo.

About 20 minutes later, she comes walking back down the stairs. She was dressed like she was about to go somewhere.

"So I grabbed your phone by accident." She placed it on the table and picked up hers.

"I never noticed we had the same exact phone."

"Well I changed my phone case the other day...I should change it back." She says

"Are you going somewhere?"

"Yeah, I just have a couple of things I need to take care of before we leave later. I should be back within two hours."

I stood up, "Okay. I'll be waiting for you to come back. I have a jet taking us to LA. We need to leave here by 9."

"I'll be back way before then. I said two hours." She says laughing.

"Okay. Keys are by the garage door. Be safe." I kiss her on the lips and she leaves.

Ammika's POV

I have been here at the bar for about five minutes and I saw her walking in. I didn't tell Joe but I took his phone on purpose. Our phones are very much similar but I completely lied to him. I knew I was taking his phone because I wanted to get in contact with Galina. I wanted to meet with her because I think that we have some things that needed to be discussed and I didn't want to tell Joe that I was going to do it because I didn't want him to tell me it was a bad idea. I may be completely out of line right now but I feel like if anyone needs to take up for him it has to be me because in this situation I'm the only one he has.

I'm super nervous because anytime we have been around each other she's been a complete bitch to me and I don't say anything because I know Joe wouldn't want me to react so this is going to be different for her to sit and hold a conversation with me. But she agreed to it so we'll see how this goes.

She walks over and slams her purse on the table, "What?"

"Hello to you too." I say with a smile.

"What?" She sits down at the table across from me.

"First off, thank you for coming. I didn't think you would. I didn't tell Joe I was meeting with you because he would've tried to talk me out of it."

"You know I'm telling him right?"

"I'm going to tell him, it's not a secret. I just didn't want him to try to change my mind." I say

"Okay, so what do you want?" She says irritated.

"I wanted to try to come to you woman to woman and I might be overstepping right now but I wanted to ask you to please try to be a little nicer to Joe."

"Excuse me? Yes, you're overstepping." She says with an even bigger attitude.

"I don't mean to, but he's really struggling with everything and he's trying to mask it by pretending everything is great but it's not. What you're putting him through isn't right and I only want him to be happy. He deserves to be happy." I say

"He doesn't need to be happy. He put me through just as much if not more. You don't know anything about our relationship or our marriage. You barely even know him, you've known him for two seconds. I think you should keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself." She says

"It's not about who has known him longer. I know his heart and he's not okay. And if I'm being honest, you're really getting to him and he is in a lot of pain. I'm not necessarily saying you caused that pain but you are making it worse."

She scuffs, "His heart? You're like 12, you don't know anything."

"Listen, I'm not a malicious person at all and I just wanted to sit down and talk to you and try to understand you. I know you don't like me because he and I are together but I'm not a bad person. I only want to get to know you because we're gonna be in each other's lives regardless. Maybe we could be somewhat cordial, even friends. But what I want to know is why are you so hurt that he left when you weren't happy in your marriage in the first place?"

She rolls her eyes but she doesn't say anything.

"He told me neither one of you guys were happy in the relationship that you were in. He told me when he brought it up to you that you became very mean and kept the kids from him. What did he do besides present to you what was already there?"

"All I'm going to say to you is, Joe is mean, evil and spiteful. I know you're in this little honeymoon phase with him and he seems perfect but he is far from it. That man will suck you dry and leave you on the side of the road with nothing." She says and I don't believe her.

"No...that's not my Joe. Joe is all about his kids and he's all about trying to make a better life for himself. I'm not gonna let you make up lies about him. But if this is true and if that was how he was towards you, he's not that way towards me. All I want for you to do is be a little bit easier on him."

She leans in and look me directly in my eyes, "Fuck Joe."

"Well that's not nice. He was your husband and he is the father of your kids. You should have a little respect for him." I say getting a little irritated.

"I do respect him. I respect the check I receive from him every month for spousal and child support. He left his happiness at my house. So I'm going to make sure he doesn't have it."

"That's so mean. I believe you're the evil one." I say

My phone starts ringing and I look down to see it's Joe. He must've seen the text between her and I. I didn't erase them because as I said earlier, it wasn't a secret.

"Is that him? Answer it." She says sitting back holding her arms.

I just look at her while I answer my phone.

"Hey baby!" I say

"Why would you do that?" He asks and I can hear a little irritation on his voice.

"I needed to talk to her." I say

"About what, Lobo?" He asks

"The way she treats you, and how she makes you feel. I don't like it, so I came to try and rectify the situation." I answer

"He's a big boy. He doesn't need his mommy fighting his battles." Galina laughs.

I ignore her.

"I just wanted to make sure everything can be smooth from now on, so I came to speak with her woman to woman." I explained

"More like a woman to a child." Galina says

"Alright, come on, let's go." Joe says, through the phone, but I can hear him close by.

I look up and he's walking in our direction, so I hung up the phone.

He reaches the table, and grabs my hand off the table.

"Come on. We're going home." Joe says, looking at me.

I grab my purse and stand up.

"And you, why would you come here?" He asks Galina. "You only came to be an ass to her. Stop being so rude all the damn time." He adds

"Stop being rude?" Galina takes offense. "The only rude thing here is your little chihuahua thinking she can holds conversation with me, telling me how to treat my husband. I--"

"EX-Husband." Joe corrects her.

A stunned look washes over her face before quickly being replaced with a scowl.

"And as far as her asking to meet with you, that was done out of the kindness of her heart. Something you wouldn't know anything about." Joe says, and I can see him getting worked up.

"Hey, babe. Let's go. I'm sorry, okay." I say trying to defuse the situation, not wanting it to get out of hand.

"Yeah, okay. We are leaving." He says to me, not taking his eyes off of her. "Stay away from her, Galina. I mean it." He says firmly, before walking backwards.

We get outside and he walks me over to the car.

"Don't do that again." He says

"Baby I hate that she's so mean to you. I just thought if I talked to her I could get her to understand where I was coming from." I explain

"I see what you were trying to do and thank you, but there's no reasoning with her. Just leave it alone. She's probably going to make my situation worse now." He says

"Aww baby. I'm so sorry. I was only trying to help."

"I know you were and you're so sweet for that but leave it alone." He says opening the car door for me.

I get in a car and walks away. I think he's upset with me. Maybe I shouldn't have done this. Damnit.

I watched him drive away and then there was a knock on my window. I turn around and I see Ty.

I haven't seen him since I was at home. He hasn't tried to reach out to me or anything. But this is weird how he just randomly popped up. Fuck.

What did you think about this chapter? What do you think is going to happen next?