John turned and showed me his back without a word. The silence dragged on and with every passing moment I knew that my chances with John were dwindling. I felt more defeated than I ever had in my life. You would think that numerous losses in the ring would have given me some experience with the feeling but no match had ever mattered this much.

"Why do I still love you? Why did I even fall in love with you in the first place? You were a prostitute, you sold sex for money. Everything that I am should have rebelled against you but you had my heart from the beginning. When I showed up at your door and saw you for the first time I knew I was in trouble. I should have known loving you was a mistake after you rebuffed me repeatedly when I tried to tell you how I felt but I kept coming back because I knew that you were the person I had been looking for all my life."

John finally turned to look me in the eyes.

"Phil, I love you, even though I know I shouldn't; that I should just walk away and close my heart to you, but I know I can't do it. I can't just carve you out of my heart and move on. I hadn't been with anyone for a few years until I showed up at your door. I didn't realize how much of my life was missing until you showed me. I can't conceive of being with anyone else but you. How am I supposed to go on after everything we've been to each other? It doesn't change the fact that you lied to me over and over again. I still love you but that doesn't mean I can trust you. I'm not going to try to cut you out of my life like I did before but I need time. I need to work through this on my own."

"Whatever you want. I'll do whatever you want," I said, relieved that John wasn't going to throw away everything we had together because he was rightly angry at me. I didn't care how long it was going to take for him to decide if he could trust me again, just the fact that he was going to try was so much more than I had when I walked into this arena. I hesitated and then stepped closer to John, moving slowly so he had the chance to stop me at any moment. My hands framed his face and I leaned in and kissed him softly. It was just a chaste press of lips but it felt like every nerve ending was lit up and connected to my lips that were softly caressing John's. I started to step back but John pulled me close, wrapping his arms around my waist and gave me a deep kiss. I let John take the lead as our tongues tangled briefly before John pulled back, resting his forehead against mine.

"I know I'm supposed to be thinking about something but for the life of me I can't remember what it is," John whispered.

I had spent the last few years manipulating men. I could kiss John again, take it farther, until we were naked and tangled up in each other on the ground. John had never turned down sex with me. I could fog his mind with pleasure, play his body like an instrument, but I knew in my heart that I didn't want John that way. I pulled back, letting my fingers briefly caress John's lips.

"I'm going to go now."

"Phil...wait…"

"I'll give you all the time you need. I don't just want you to want my body. I don't just want you to love me; I want you to figure out if you could try to trust me again. I'll be waiting," I said, slipping out the door. When I found Colt I didn't need to even say anything, it was written all over my face.

It had only been a week since that moment in the locker room. I was experiencing an emotion that was completely foreign to me, foolish optimism. John's words have given me reason to hope but the kiss John gave so freely, even in the face of all the problems that lay between them, gave me certainty that one day John would come back to me.

Every knock on my door sent me tripping over my feet to open it, hoping it was John on the other side. So far the UPS man, the Chinese delivery guy, and a neighbor asking me to turn down my music were greeted with hopeful smiles and then disappointment when none of these people turned out to be John. John had made it clear that he needed time to think, and considering the large scale of the lies I told, it was only rational that it would take more than one week to forgive my transgressions. I was expected in Philadelphia in two days for a Ring of Honor show and was seriously considering calling the bookers and pretending to be afflicted with some sort of highly contagious viral plague but I held back that urge because wrestling was the only thing that could somewhat alleviate my constant thoughts of John.

I went one hour with Chris Hero, and although it wasn't my hand raised in the end, the standing ovation after felt more fulfilling than adding another number in my win column. The feeling of professional accomplishment was short lived because while going through the disaster of my kitchen table, in the middle of junk mail and bills I'd yet to pay I found the envelope that John had given me in Tampa with the brochures and applications for enrollment for art programs in Florida. It may have been a pointless exercise but it didn't stop me from filling them out. I went so far as to start going through my work, trying to decide what would be best to submit with the applications when I heard a knock on my door. I knocked over the chair I had been sitting in, rushing to answer the door. When I opened the door, I found myself struck dumb when I saw it was John on the other side. I found I couldn't speak, couldn't move, and just stared at John whose facial expressions weren't giving away the reason for the visit. I watched as John pulled something from his back pocket and held it out to me. It was a plain envelope, reminiscent of those countless envelopes John had given me when John was paying me for sex. I saw red. I ripped the envelope from John's hand, shredding it and throwing it in John's face. I was even more dumbfounded when John started laughing and looked down at the pile of paper at our feet. I looked down and instead of seeing the mix of white and green; there was a kaleidoscope of colored paper. I bent down and gathered some of the paper. Looking through the tiny pieces it was obvious what it was.

"It this fucking Monopoly money?"

"Yeah," John said with a highly amused smile on his face. "I'm not the type to pull a guilt trip on you but I wanted to screw with you just a little bit. Can I come in?"

"Of course," I said, stepping to the side so that John could enter my apartment. He sat on my couch and the playful smile he gave me when he answered the door was wiped away and replaced with a serious expression. I wanted to join him on the couch but my nerves we stretched so taut I paced in front of the coffee table, never taking my eyes off his face. Both of us were silent for a few minutes until John stood up, wrapped his hand around my bicep, stilling my movement.

"Phil, come sit down."

I sat down next to John, leaving a space between us. The silence continued but I felt John's thigh brush against mine, his hand making its way to curl around me knee. My mind immediately went back in time to the first time John came to my apartment, this exact moment a mirror to that one, only with the roles reversed. I was the skittish one now. My life and any possible chance of happiness was hinging on what John said.

"So, I thought this through…"

"John, it's only been a week and a half. Please don't say something rash that you might want to take back."

"Why are you trying to talk me out of the decision I made?"

"I don't think my heart could stand to be given a taste of something I want more than anything else ever in my life, only to have it ripped away from me again. If you don't want me, can't find a way to trust me again, I'll have to find some way to survive the choice you've made. I want you to be sure of me, of us, and if that takes months I'm more than willing to wait for you."

"Thank you for being so understanding but there's no need to wait. When I really thought about what happened between us, the decision came so easily even I was surprised. I love you and there's not anything that's going to change that, even though you lied to me. When I really thought about it I can understand why you didn't tell me the truth. It would have changed everything between us. I probably would have walked right out of the door that first night. In some crazy way, you lying to me was probably the best thing that could have happened. Every other action I could have taken would have lead us to never seeing each other again. I would have ruined my life without ever knowing it. The idea of that scares the hell out of me. Making a decision was simple after that. I want us to be together. I trusted you with my secret, with my love, and that means more than knowing you know how to put someone in a sleeper hold."

I threw myself into John's arm and buried my face in the crook of his neck, "Thank you…thank you…"

"Phil, you one told me not to thank you and I'm saying the same thing to you. It's not some hardship to love you."

"Are you sure about that? The secret of my past won't stay that way forever. Will you still love me when people find out you're dating an ex prostitute?"

"I couldn't possibly care any less if I tried. It'll be rough but I'll have you there to get through it. I do have this thing about loyalty."

"What now?"

"What do you mean, what now?"

"How is this going to work?"

"It would sure as hell be a lot easier if you took the WWE up on that try out."

"I would do anything for you, you know that. If that's what you want I'll do it."

"No, you won't. It would make you unhappy to work someplace you don't want to be. You belong in Ring of Honor, just like I belong in the WWE. In every way, we're exactly where we ought to be," John said, turning his head to place soft kisses down the side of my face from temple to the base of my neck.

"Not quite."

"Hmm," John whispered, while he continued to lavish my neck with kisses. I pushed John back and ran into the kitchen, grabbing the applications off the table. I spread the applications over the coffee table.

"I want to come live with you in Tampa…If you still want me to that is?"

"You never had a choice in the matter. We are not starting over; we are picking up exactly where we left off. I want to know that you're in my house, our house, and if I jumped on a plane I could find you there. You could come on the road with me when you didn't have work or classes."

"And be threatened by Randy Orton every time I turned around?"

"Don't worry about Randy. I showed him a YouTube video of you locking some poor guy in the Anaconda Vise and he didn't look like he wanted to chance being that guy anytime in the future."

"There's only one thing left then."

"What's that?"

"This," I said with a smile as bright as John's, crawling into John's lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling his head down until our lips met. Our kisses were slow and deep, relearning each other after all the time we had spent apart. John pulled back and I reluctantly leaned back so that I could look into his eyes, that smile on his face that made me love him.

"You know you owe me," John said.

"For what?"

"All those envelopes…"

"I still have most of them in a shoe box in my closet if you really want them."

"You kept them?" John said with surprise in his voice.

"I guess that makes me a romantic. If not money, how precisely am I going to pay you back?"

"Take me to your bedroom and I'll show you."

I stood, leading John to my bedroom, shedding my clothes along the way. When we reached the doorway John pressed his body against my back, just as naked as I was, his hands caressing every bit of skin he could reach.

"How long will it take to pay you back?" I said, my voice catching as his hands started to slide lower.

"All your life. I'm very expensive."

In February I promised that I would see this story to the end…and it only took 7 months to get there. I want to thank all of you that kept reviewing and messaging me, encouraging to come back to this story. A special thanks goes out to my twitter support group, you make Mondays the best night of the week.