January 19, 2015

As Eleanor maneuvered her way throughout the halls of the WWE Performance Centre, she tried to perfect her juggling act of carrying a tray of four coffees in one hand, her own coffee in the other, her constantly buzzing and pinging and ringing iPhone between her thumb and index finger, and her notebook under her arm. And even though her boss was expecting her, she kicked on the door politely anyway instead of barging into his office. She never knew whom she was going to find in there, and she didn't want to take any chances.

None other than William Regal, who had a pleasant smile on his face as he saw her juggling act, opened the door. She smiled politely at him before seeing her boss sitting as his desk in the same position she left him in: phone in his ear, papers scattered across his desk, and the top button on his dress shirt undone (what she called the 'getting shit done' look). He looked to the door and saw her walk towards his desk, placing the coffees down, and abruptly ended the conversation. "That's the last time I'm gonna ask you to go on a coffee run this week, I swear," he said apologetically.

Eleanor snickered at his sentiment. "Paul, how many times are we going to do this?" she asked rhetorically. "You say that, then two days later I'm back at Starbucks ordering everyone their venti non-fat soy triple shot extra hot no foam macchiatos."

Paul Levesque, otherwise known as Triple H, laughed at her. "Come on. What do you get?"

"I get a simple latte on the company card and call it a day," she said, handing him his coffee. She looked over at William Regal. "I take it this grande Earl Gray, one sugar, splash of milk is for the classy Englishman."

"Right indeed," Regal smiled, taking his tea from her. He looked at Paul, "How'd you find her? I'd like to get one too."

Paul shook his head. "She used to be Stephanie's assistant. Don't even think about it. You're not taking her from me if you tripled her salary."

"Why not?"

"I'd quadruple it."

Eleanor stood awkwardly as the men talked about her – even though it was all glowing and implied praise, she still felt uncomfortable. "What else do you need me to do?"

Paul turned on his business demeanor again after taking a sip of his coffee. "I think Dream is out with the kids in one of the rings. Go get him, and then take minutes for the meeting we're going to have."

Eleanor nodded her head once and departed the room, on her way to find the good old American Dream, Dusty Rhodes.

Eleanor wasn't too sure how exactly she came into this position, working for the WWE in Florida and being directly in constant contact with some of the most powerful people in the company. All she did was answer a job advertisement one day – a pretty vague one, to be honest – to be an executive assistant for the boss of a major multi-million dollar company. When she was hired for the job, she found out she would be assisting Stephanie McMahon from the WWE. The rest was history.

Eleanor had worked with Stephanie for about one year. They got along great, much like she and Paul did now, but when Paul began to take care of NXT, Stephanie knew he would need more help than she did. So, one day Stephanie approached Eleanor and asked if she would mind being transferred to work for Paul, mostly down in Orlando at the Performance Centre, but still travelling for some Raw shows. Eleanor agreed, and before she knew it, she was living in a condo in Orlando with a company car, taking meeting minutes sitting next to Dusty Rhodes.

The switch was about a year and a half ago now, making it almost three years working with the WWE, and she couldn't have asked for anything more. Of course there were grievances, particular things she didn't like about how things were run or handled, or people she didn't like to work with, but she enjoyed getting up every morning and working with the people she did like. Better yet, she enjoyed the traveling she got to do, however long or short it was: flying out Monday mornings to a random location in the States, only to fly back to Orlando on Tuesday; accompanying Paul on international tours. Not a lot of people were as lucky, and Eleanor constantly reminded herself to thank her lucky stars.

As she walked to the area where the rings were set up, the familiar sound of bodies pounding the mats filled the air. A lot of familiar faces were hovering around, and some unfamiliar faces, but she scanned to see where Dream was, and found him chatting with Rami and Ben, NXT's Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville. She approached them timidly; always self-conscious about interrupting what could be an important conversation between mentors and new wrestlers.

When Dusty Rhodes noticed her approaching, he couldn't help but smile. "Has the boss lady come to take me away?" he asked in his distinct accent.

"Unfortunately, the boss-man has sent to me retrieve you," she said. "Your meeting starts in five."

"Stop calling him the boss-man, lady," Dusty said as he got up from his seat. "Everybody knows you be running the show around here. Paul would forget his head in the morning if you didn't screw it on for him."

Rami and Ben looked amused at the blushing Eleanor. "Keep sweet-talking me Dream and maybe one day I'll sneak in a treat when I go on my coffee runs."

Dusty winked at her before someone she didn't recognize approached him and began asking him a slew of questions, prompting her to turn towards Ben and Rami. She had known both Rami and Ben for a while now since being employed with WWE and they were always very pleasant with her, which is more than she could say for some others. Although everybody was generally nice, Ben and Rami would always go the extra mile in chatting her up and offering to help carry Starbucks cups if they saw her in one of her juggling acts. "How are you guys doing?" she asked.

"Good as always, love," Ben answered in his Geordie accent.

"Can't complain," Rami replied. "What's Paul got you doing today?"

"Coffee runs, meeting minutes," she shrugged her shoulders. "The usual. What's Dream having you do?"

"Oh, uh…nothing," Rami responded. "We were just discussing -"

"Dream and Rami were just discussing possible spots for his next match. I was just tuning in," Ben interrupted him.

"Oh, that's cool," Eleanor smiled. "Is this the one against Kevin?" she asked.

Rami nodded his head. "Will you be there?"

"Of course I will be," Eleanor replied to a smiling Rami. She noticed Ben nudging Rami, trying to be inconspicuous. Did he want to ask her something about Paul? Did he want to talk to her about something Dusty said? Did he want her to reveal some insider info on what the meeting was about? Everybody always wanted her to reveal insider knowledge from all those meetings she always attended, but she was sworn to secrecy. Who knows. Rami was never one to ask, ever. In order to not continue staring at Ben nudging Rami, she looked at Dusty, who was still talking with the random man. "Two more minutes Dream or my head's on a chopping block."

"So…uh, how long does Paul make you stick around here for?" Rami asked, trying to sound nonchalant, like he was just making small talk.

"My day usually ends at around 4:30 or 5 when I'm here," she shrugged her shoulders. "I get a pretty good deal."

"Oh, that's cool…sometimes we stay here till the sun goes down," he laughed nervously. Eleanor noticed Ben trying to discreetly nudge Rami again. "What uh…what are you up to tonight?"

Eleanor paused. Although she considered herself friends with Rami and Ben, and other NXT talent, absolutely none of them had ever asked her to hang out outside of the Performance Centre before. The question threw her for a loop and she didn't quite know how to proceed.

The lack of response from Eleanor sent Rami into overdrive. He needed to reword what he just said. "Only because…well, Ben's organized for some of us to go to dinner tonight, and we've been meaning to ask you for a while, but every time we see you you're kind of running around like a chicken with its head cut off and we don't want to bother you so -"

"My cousin is in town from Newcastle," Ben interrupted Rami again, rolling his eyes at his rambling. "We just wanted to extend the invitation to you, Eleanor. I mean, you're allowed to hang out with us, right?"

"Of course I am," she said quickly, shooting down immediately the notion that just because she was Paul's executive assistant that she wasn't able to be friends with any talent. "And at any point, I would love to go out with you guys and get to know you guys more."

"So you'll come?" a hopeful Rami asked.

"Unfortunately, not tonight. I'm really sorry," she apologized. "I…I know it's really weird, and it probably sounds a bit ridiculous, but I've promised my nephew and nieces I would Skype with them tonight. They've been looking forward to it for ages."

"That doesn't sound ridiculous at all! That's adorable!" Rami smiled.

"Look at you, being such a good auntie," Ben commented.

"Yeah…so I'm really sorry. If I cancelled on them they'd be heartbroken. I don't think they'd speak to me again."

"That's alright love. There's no need to apologize when it comes to family," Ben said.

"But please let me know the next time you guys go out, or just do anything in general," she said, smiling at the two men. "I mean…it would be really great to know people in Orlando other than Paul...and Paul's not even here half the time."

"Will do," Ben said again, while Rami stayed grinning from ear to ear. "Here, let me give you my phone number, just in case you finish early and still want to be out and about. I'll text you where we are," he said. Eleanor agreed and handed her phone over to Ben, who punched in his number. Eleanor stuffed her phone back into her pocket. Before she could say anything else, Ben pointed behind Eleanor to a wandering Dusty Rhodes. "You better get him now before he wanders off into a park and starts to feed the pigeons."

Eleanor whipped her head around and saw Dusty about to walk through the wrong door into the wrong hallway. "Dusty, NO!" she shouted, running after him.