"Of course I'm enjoying the concept of traveling the world. The thing is, it's just that – a concept. You're treating this like I've got the luxury of going out every night to a Michelin restaurant before popping in to the hottest club and then retiring to my five-star hotel. It just doesn't work that way."
"Then how does it work, Meg? You never call. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what you're not doing. Your 'concept' is an excuse to be an away from me – away from us. And don't act like there aren't any perks to the job."
Meg pulled a latex glove from a nearby box in the triage bay and tied it into tight, thick knots while she listened to Jackson talk. If she didn't keep her hands busy, she'd squeeze her phone until the screen cracked. Dave's constant chuckling in the background didn't help her irritation, and once the glove was reduced to a series of lumps and chunks, she threw it at him. Granted, Dave had earned the right to mock her taste in men after two decades of friendship, but his timing in doing so was always awful. Grinning, Dave ruffled her hair and wandered out of triage toward the monitors.
"We don't even stay at the same hotels as the talent, Jackson, and I'm not even clear if this is a job or an internship. If I'm not cut loose after six months, then it might be a job, and then we can have this discussion. Maybe."
Meg was rapidly losing patience with the conversation. Pointless, really – the company had given no concrete indication of what, exactly, she was supposed to be doing. She stitched, stapled, iced, taped, and generally kept functional some of the hardest working bodies in sports. Er, sports entertainment. What hadn't been made clear was how long her internship-cum-job would keep her working, and what her on-again, off-again boyfriend thought of that arrangement from six time zones away wasn't what she needed to be focusing on at the moment. What was going on two monitors away from the triage bay was an entirely different story.
Had Meg been paying attention, she would have noticed down the hall, through gorilla, past a ramp, and inside a steel cage that had no business being over a ring in the middle of an arena hosting a simple house show in Glasgow, a snap scoop bodyslam collided with a spear in the most awkward of all possible ways. The referee threw an "X" along with the impact and hoped for the best while the two wrestlers sorted it out quietly on the mat. The ending was largely on script, both men remained professional and calm, and the finish of the match lacked any more exertion than was absolutely necessary. One, two, three, quick poses, heat and pop, up the ramp, done and done.
Getting out of the ring and to the backstage area quickly was absolutely necessary for Randy, who was vacillating between fear and rage due to the ridiculous cage gimmick of the match, the lack of space for the move set he and Joe had attempted, and the overall disaster of the whole thing. He replayed the entire scene in his mind. Was Joe too close to the cage when they started their run? Was there enough space, or not? Was the gash as bad as it looked, or was that the adrenaline taking over in the moment and warping things? Randy didn't see which medic had met Joe backstage; if it wasn't Dave, it would be Meg. He was in good hands either way. Experience and skill with the former, tenacity and a no-bullshit attitude with the latter. Actually, Randy thought, it might be better if Joe had been stitched up by Meg. Joe's size and stubbornness were equals. Time to go see whose hands ended up on him.
The quick exit was an even better break for Joe. The few hundred feet up the ramp were tolerable if uneven; even the majority of the walk toward triage was manageable. Slowly, or was it suddenly – he wasn't sure – he couldn't see out of his right eye given the blood pasting it shut no matter how much or how often he wiped at it. He couldn't stand without tilting for sake of the floor that refused to stay level or still for any length of time, and couldn't hear because of the static, shrill, inescapable ringing in his ears. Even the walls seemed to slant away from him, and Joe didn't understand why any of it was happening. The overhead lights grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him, and slammed him toward the floor.