______________________________________________________
There was a Supershow for that evening, so Ashley knew to be prepared. She braced herself for it and knew it was inevitable. At some point during the night, either she would run into Matt, or else he would make a point of going to see her.
The latter ended up happening. She was at catering with some of the other girls - Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Melina Perez and Jillian Hall. They were catching a quick bite to eat, chatting and laughing. Ashley was in mid-sentence when he suddenly interrupted.
She looked up as a hand tapped her on the back of her left shoulder. And she groaned inwardly the second she saw him.
"Oh... Hi, Matt."
"Hey, Ash," he returned the greeting. He glanced at the other four women at the table. "Hi, ladies."
They all said hello back, some more half-heartedly than others. All were friends of the blonde and each knew the story of her breakup with the dark-haired man. A couple of them knew more details than the others.
"I was wonderin' if I could have a word with you?"
Ashley cast him a fake smile. She couldn't help it due to their friendship having deteriorated over the last couple of months or so. He was a real piece of work... And now he wanted to 'have a word' with her? He didn't deserve that, unless the words were 'fuck you' and were uttered by her to him.
"Kind of in the middle of something here, Matt," the blonde retorted. "Gabbing and grubbing with the girls." She gestured to her four friends. Melina and Jillian giggled, but Candice and Mickie merely glared up at Hardy.
"This is important, Ash," Matt said.
"Oh well. I'm sure it can wait. If it's that important, you won't forget to mention it to me later, when I'm not busy." Her tone took on a hint of sarcasm. She was getting annoyed, and all she wanted was for him to go away.
Matt stared at his former girlfriend in disbelief as she turned her back to him. She resumed her conversation with the other divas as though he wasn't even there, and his mouth fell open at her rudeness. How dare she act this way toward him! She'd never done that before, but it sure made his blood boil.
"So, you're going out there tonight to give us-"
"Ash..." the older Hardy said between clenched teeth. He was beyond angry now. "... Don't make me do this here, right in front of your friends."
"Hey, why don't you just leave her alone?" Candice exclaimed. The brunette glared up at him with consternation on her pretty face.
"Shut up," Matt replied, which drew gasps of shock and anger from Ashley's other three friends.
Melina shook her head with disgust.
"Don't you have anything better to do than verbally abuse women?"
The dark-haired man ignored her. At this point, he was focused solely on his ex-girlfriend.
"So.. I guess we may as well get this all out in the open," he spat. "It's true, isn't it? You've been fucking my brother." His last sentence was spoken as a statement, not a question.
The four other women again expressed surprise.
Ashley pursed her lips as she stared up at him with hatred. Yes, she'd done an excellent job at keeping her still new relationship with Jeff a secret - so much so that she hadn't even told her friends.
"You're pathetic, Matt," she muttered. In her mind at the moment were other times such as this - although all of those instances of him blurting out details of other people's private lives had been done over the internet.
"I'm pathetic?" he countered. "Well, I'm not the one spreading my legs for my ex-boyfriend's brother." Matt grinned maliciously. "No, that'd be you."
Pushed past her limit, Ashley rose from her chair so quickly, it toppled over behind her. She came to stand face-to-face with the bitter dark-haired man, her blue eyes glittering with rage.
"No is not the time nor the place," she said in a low voice. Of course, it was already too late, as her friends had heard, and she knew a few other wrestlers had gathered in catering and had to have heard some of it as well.
"Why the hell not?!" Matt shouted. "You have no secrets from these people, do you?" He glared at her, his gaze harder than ever as he continued on his rant. "No, you only have secrets from me! You really make me sick!"
"You gave up your right to hear about my 'secrets' the second you posted that damn blog about me!" the blonde cried, no longer caring that they had an audience. She was too angry to care about much of anything at this point. "And in case you didn't realize it, Matt, you're not my boyfriend anymore! You're not even my friend anymore, so who I date is none of your fucking business!" She jabbed a finger into his chest for emphasis as she concluded. When she was done, she glanced around and caught her breath. She couldn't stand being there any longer - so she ran from the room.
"Ash - wait!" Mickie called, hurrying after her.
The brunette caught up to her in the hallway, en route back to the women's locker room.
"Ash! If you need to talk-"
The blonde woman turned slightly, grabbing hold of her hand briefly.
"I appreciate it, Mick... Just... not now." She met her friend's concerned brown eyes, giving her an apologetic
look before releasing her hand and rushing away.