Happy Friday! Happy weekend! It's a snow day here in Tennessee! (It is SO SO SO cold!) and I wanted to give all of you another update so you could have something to read over the weekend!

Thank you to everyone that has reviewed, favorited and followed this story/me in the last few days! I have LOVED seeing some of the same people that were reading 'Reclaim' join me in this journey :) Feel free to PM me if you ever have any questions or just want to complain about something! Happy reading ahead, ya'll!

** I still haven't figured out the best way to represent a text conversation in my writing yet because I feel like putting a name in front of it is just too much clutter...so bear with me while I figure it out, please?!


Chapter 2: Better Than Nothing

Monday after noon, home from her brief trip to Indianapolis, Ren was in her kitchen in her home in Nashville, her music shuffling on her Spotify on her phone that was sitting docked in a speaker, as she darted around her kitchen trying to prepare dinner.

She heard the lock on the door rattling in the living room and the door open, followed by a small bark and her roommate's voice.

"Hi sugar cakes!" He roommate crooned at their dog before she appeared in the doorway. "Smells good, what are we having? And what's the occasion?"

Ren threw a look over her shoulder to her roommate and friend, Amber, "why does it have to be a special occasion for me to make dinner?"

"Because usually making dinner means we have frozen pizza, spaghetti or take out Chinese and hibachi that we reheat. And you've only been home for what, like five hours? Laziness is the perfect excuse not to make dinner."

Ren sighed, stirring one of the pots on the stove. "I cook for us…"

"You do but we're also really busy and don't feel like cooking…so what's the occasion?"

"Okay well yours truly is going to be in Nashville Lifestyles, it's some special 'women in the music industry' piece."

"And they chose you? They must have been running low on options…"

"You're a bitch."

Amber laughed, "You left yourself open for that one. That's great news, Ren."

"It's going to be me and Shelby and Amy from one of the other stations. We're going to have a photo shoot and interview and a big reveal, dinner thing when the issue comes out. It's all very ritzy and glamorous- be jealous."

"You're practically an A-lister now."

"Yeah, so I'm making us a celebratory dinner. Sun dried tomato chicken and creamy Alfredo sauce, with pasta of course because we eat all the carbs."

"All the carbs!" Amber crossed over and gave her friend a one armed hug, "I'm super happy for you Ren. I'll tell Tyler to bring home some wine or something."

"Perfect," Ren winked at her and then hip bumped her.

Amber and Ren had been friends since they were in middle school. Ren had moved in three houses down from Amber and while she was walking her dog around the neighborhood on the first day, she ran in to Amber and her brother. Amber had invited her over and as Amber's mom tells the story "she never went home". They had generally been inseparable since then. Amber was currently in Law School at Vanderbilt, her fiancé was an EMT and the three of them shared a house on the outskirts of Nashville.

The house belonged to Ren, she had bought it when she moved back to Nashville after graduating from college, but she had every intention of handing it over to Amber and Tyler once they got married the next spring.

She would move on to the next part of her life, whatever that part ended up being.

"What in the world are you listening to?" Amber asked, scooping up the cat and scratching its belly as she took a seat at the table in the bay window of their kitchen.

"Oh it's some new guy that Jonathan asked me to listen to. He's going to be on the new artist's corner show this week. He's not bad; he's got a good voice but…"

"He's too pop."

"Yeah it's bro country and I'm not a fan but what do I know? I just take pictures and ask questions off of a script…" Ren shrugged.

"Hmph well I'm going to go shower before the food is ready."

"Have at it. Let Cash out before you go upstairs please!"

Later that evening, Ren made her way into the living room, full glass of wine in her hand and her dog close at her heels. She was tired, not sleepy but tired, after a long morning drive back from Indiana and her Betty Crocker moment for dinner. She also had a full belly and the combination of the two feelings made her want to do nothing more than relax and have some wine. Amber and Tyler were perched on the couch in the room and she snuggled up in their oversized chair, propping her feet up on the ottoman while pulling the throw blanket off the back of it. Cash jumped on to the ottoman to lie at her feet. She situated herself and took a sip from her glass of wine before she realized Tyler and Amber were staring at her.

"What?" Ren asked

"You know it's Monday, right?" Tyler asked.

"Yes, I do."

"You know we watch Monday night RAW and Monday nights, right?" he added.

"Yes, I do."

"You never watch wrestling with us," Amber added.

Ren shrugged and took another sip of her drink, "I just felt like it tonight. I haven't really watched it since I was like nine…I want to see how it's changed…"

Tyler and Amber passed a look between each other and then Amber turned her attention back to Ren, eyes slightly wide, silently questioning and assessing her.

"Stop it," Ren said.

"Katherine…" Amber said, drawing out her name. "Explain, please?"

She sighed and frowned and gave her friend an exasperated look.

"I met one of the wrestlers in Indy at the Bluff's a few nights ago and I just wanted to watch tonight, ok? Can we not make a big deal out of this? I'm curious."

"What?" Ren looked at Amber and offered another shrug to her. "Wait, who?"

"Seth…"

Tyler chuckled next to Amber and shook his head. "Of all the people to meet him in a bar it was you."

"He was really nice. We watched the football game and had a couple drinks and talked. He told me about wrestling some and I just…wanted to watch tonight."

"Please tell me you didn't sleep with him."

"No, I did not sleep with him. You know I don't do that." Amber continued to give her friend an unbelieving look. "Can you stop looking at me like that, please?"

"Is that it? You just met him in a bar?"

"I followed him on twitter but he didn't follow me back. I also gave him my number and I haven't heard from him so yes, that's it."

Amber frowned. "I'm sorry, Ren…"

"You don't have to be sorry; we had a conversation in a bar. It's not a big deal."

"Well he's an idiot for not calling you," Tyler added.

"Thank you," Ren smirked, "but I'm serious that it's not a big deal. It's a good story to tell. I was just curious about watching an actual show."

"Well we have to tell you the storylines."

"I'm all ears."

Later that night, Seth was settled in the back seat of an SUV; Roman to his left and Dean and Renee occupying the front seat. He had gotten used to traveling on his own over the past couple of weeks but had decided to join his friends this week at their asking. He was pretty sure they just wanted an extra person to drive, neither of the guys trusted Renee, but he was fine with it.

Renee was either asleep, or almost asleep, her head was leaning against the window. Roman was doing the same thing Seth was doing, putting all of his attention on his phone.

He had realized that Ren had followed him on Twitter and had made the classic mistake of going to her profile which led to him reading through tweets and then looking through her media posts.

"Hey, who is that?" Roman piped in, interrupting Seth's solace and thoughts.

"Um, Katherine...or Ren...the girl that I met the other night," Seth answered.

"Bar girl?" Dean asked from the driver's seat.

"She has a name but yes, bar girl."

"Did she text you?"

"No, he's twitter stalking her," Roman answered.

Seth sighed and rolled his eyes. He was now regretting his decision to travel with his two friends.

Renee's head popped up, "who are we twitter stalking?"

"Bar girl," Dean answered.

"Who is bar girl?" Renee gave him a confused look.

"That girl that he was talking to the other night when we were in Indy."

"I don't remember her," Renee frowned and turned in her seat to look at Seth and Roman. "Is this a groupie or…?"

"You were drunk, Renee, of course you don't remember her," Roman commented.

"She's not a groupie; she's just a girl..."

"She gave him her number but I don't think he's used it yet," Dean piped in, glancing at his friend in the rear view mirror and giving him a cheek smile.

"Why haven't you text her? She gave you her number?" Renee asked Seth.

"She gave me her card that had her number on it. She said 'if you're ever in Nashville let me know'; so I haven't text her, or called her, because I don't really know that it was an open invitation to contact her at midnight while I'm out on the road being harassed by the three of you."

"Oh, he's grumpy," Dean laughed.

Renee reached over and playfully hit Dean before turning back to Seth,"Did she follow you or did you follow her?"

"She followed me."

"Let me see," Renee held out her hand and wiggled her fingers, beckoning for his phone. He frowned and reluctantly handed it over to her. Renee started to read her bio aloud, " RenBoltRadio – They let me boss people around. I take pictures and tweet things. Nashville – Columbia – Chicago . Oh, she has a sports blog! And she's a photographer and social media girl...marry her, right now. Also, I'm following her. She's super cute, Rollins..."

"Yeah I know she is. Can I have my phone back?" Renee handed it back to him before she pulled out her own phone. "You're really following her?"

"Yes I am. I feel like we could be friends, especially if you're going to be talking to her."

Seth started to speak and then stopped himself. He had a feeling this was going to be losing battle between him and the other three occupants of the car.

"You should call her or at least text her," Roman shrugged.

"Yeah I agree," Renee added. "She did give you her number and it's kind of a dick move to not even try and reach out to her. She followed you, so she looked up, so there has to be some kind of interest there."

"I will take all of your suggestions into consideration since I'm apparently not a goddamn adult that has spoken to a female before," he grumbled.

"And he's still grumpy..." Dean said.

Ren was settled in the living room by herself, going through some TV shows they all had saved on the DVR. They had more than enough room but Ren was almost OCD about clearing out shows that had been watched and she had several episodes of Ink Master to catch up on.

Her phone was lying in her lap and her screen lit up, a text alert sounding in the relatively quiet room. She glanced down at it and picked it up, assessing the number that she didn't recognize. She opened her screen and pulled up the message and then a smile formed on her face.

Hey it's Seth...
I hope it's ok if I text you. I know it's kind of late.

'Well, well, well,' she thought to herself as she looked at the two texts. She heard from him after all; even if it was almost midnight.

Kind of late? It's practically 'tomorrow' already... She responded.

Side effect of my profession, I'm up all night.

Sounds more like a hooker or stripper if you ask me...
Please don't tell me you're alone and sad in a bar again?

No bored in a car.

Do NOT text and drive. Seriously, bro.

I'm not I'm a passenger. Dean is driving, Renee is asleep and Roman is on the phone with his wife and it's kind of awkward.

Ren read his message and paused, thinking to herself. So he was bored in the car at almost midnight and he decided to text her. What did that mean? He had waited four days to acknowledge her after their conversation in Indianapolis. Was he just biding his time because nobody else had answered him? Was it really her that he wanted to talk to?

Her phone vibrated again before she had the chance to decide on a response.

I followed you back on Twitter. I may have timeline stalked you a little bit.

Why? Wasn't sure it was me?

I don't know anybody else that has the same nickname as a bird's name so I knew it was you. I was just curious about you...

Did your curiosity get satisfied?

Not at all. I have a few questions actually.

Ren smiled at her phone and bit her lip. She felt a little stir of butterflies and she sat her phone down in her lap and took a deep breath. Maybe he did really want to talk to her. Even if he didn't, the fact that he was texting her was exciting for her. She had really enjoyed talking to him in the bar and she had found herself over the last couple of days wishing she could talk to him more, hence the reason she had looked for his social media accounts.

Well I have time to answer them.

Are you sure? I don't want to keep you awake. I know you probably have to work tomorrow?

I do.

What time do you have to go to work?

I get up between 5:30-6 everyday.

Fuck that…you should go to sleep. I'm sorry…

It's okay. I just started an episode of Ink Master so you have at least 45 minutes to get your questions in before I go to bed.

That's better than nothing...