"Cody, Vince wants to speak with you. He's in his office." Cody's mind began to race. 'What could I have done? Vince never asks to see me. Am I being fired? Given a title?' Cody Rhodes was backstage at a taping of Smackdown, being filmed in London, England. He was enjoying being there as he had always been a sucker for the English twang, though after his break up with Layla a couple of months earlier he had kind of gone off the accent – too many bad memories, he told himself.
Cody quickly made his way to Mr McMahon's office, brushing himself down and checking himself out in his pocket mirror before knocking on the door and entering the room. Vince was sat on the edge of his desk with his arms folded, awaiting Cody's arrival.
"Nice to see you, Rhodes, how're you doing today?" Vince said with a hand outstretched. Cody shook his hand firmly,
"I'm good thanks, you wanted to see me?" Vince didn't seem in a bad mood; surely I'm not getting fired Cody thought.
"Well your Dashing gimmick is getting a lot of heat form the Universe, so we wanted to add another angle to it," Vince continued, "We are giving you an valet, girlfriend type character to work with." Cody was quite shocked at this; he didn't know how he would react to working so closely with a girl this soon after his breakup.
"So who is this girl?" Cody asked tentatively. Vince glanced behind Cody. Cody quickly spun round to see who Vince was gesturing at. Before him stood a young brunette, with curls cascading down to her waist, and the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen. Her hands were laced together with her arms hanging loosely in front of her. She had one leg crossed over in front of the other, and was wearing white Converse trainers with a flowery blue dress which stopped just above the knee. She had freckles across her nose and cheeks, and wore no make up apart from a hint of mascara. In the second Cody had been looking at her, he had already noticed every little feature of her appearance. Why hadn't he noticed that she was there when he came into the room? "This is Amber," declared Vince. Cody hadn't taken his eyes off her.
"It's really nice to meet you," Amber said in a warm Northern English tone, stepping closer towards Cody, "I'm really looking forward to working with you." She sounded nothing like Layla, which was a big positive for Cody. He wanted to reply, but his mouth was dry and the words just wouldn't come out.
"Cody, how about you take Amber and show her around backstage?" Vince asked, probably trying to get rid of the awkward silence in the room, "Get to know each other, we want this to be believable"
"S-sure, I'd love to," Cody said, hesitating slightly, glancing at Vince before firmly placing his gaze back towards Amber. 'What's wrong with me? I've never acted like this with a girl before,' Cody thought. He had always been so confident around girls. Cody opened the door for Amber, placing a gentle hand on the bottom of her back to lead her out. He felt like a teenager again, with his first crush, like it was the first time he had ever touched a girl. "Thanks Vince," Cody said as a passing thought, too preoccupied with trying to stay cool, as he let the door swing shut behind him.