Chapter 3:
Home Life
Three days after he was granted his WWE Championship rematch against Roman Reigns, Seth awoke in his own bed on a beautiful Thursday morning. The sun lit up his bedroom through the slats in the blinds, a perfect beam of light falling across his line of sight. With a big sigh, he tried to roll over and ignore it, but in the end, he opened his eyes and stretched out, swinging back the blue and grey plaid comforter and swinging his legs over the bed. Once he was in a seated position, with his feet on the floor, his eyes drifted down to the scar on his knee, a reminder that he had almost lost everything that he had worked so hard for. With a yawn, he stood and stretched, readjusting his black and blue plaid sleep shorts. Shuffling to the window, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Seth opened the blinds, his lips pulling back into a wide smile at the blue sky on the other side of the glass.
The moment his run as the first NXT Champion was over and the Shield was assembled to be shipped to the main roster, Seth packed up his apartment and left Orlando. All his life he'd heard the saying "home is where the heart is", and no matter where his travels took him, his heart always belonged to Iowa. Seth recalled a time just after The Shield disbanded, when Hunter approached him privately to try and persuade him to move back to Florida, to be close to the Performance Centre. He told Seth it was just a way to keep him at an elite level. Seth smirked; Hunter's pressing of the issue died the day Seth broke ground on his wrestling school.
It wasn't that he hated Orlando; how could he? The weather was always fairly nice, it was almost always sunny, and his apartment was walking distance to the beach. But being on the road three hundred and twenty days a year, he wanted to be close to his family when he had time off.
Walking into his kitchen, scratching an itch on the back of his neck, Seth mentally ran through his itinerary for the day. After coffee and breakfast, he was off for a CrossFit workout before stopping in at Black & Brave to watch the new recruits work. After that, he was going to come back to the apartment, have a hot shower, and get changed into something a little more fashionable before taking his mother out on a date night. The plan was to take her out for dinner and a movie. Then, he would come back to the apartment, pack his suitcase, and in the morning, he'd be back to the grind. He grabbed his coffee mug and set up the Keurig to brew.
Turning, he leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at his barren apartment, a place that had once seen and known the loving touch of a woman's sense of style. At one time it had looked so different, so well-decorated and filled with antique furniture he hadn't been fully comfortable in, though he'd admit that it looked nice. Now, it looked very much the part of a bachelor pad. He thought about the women he had lived with during the course of his career, how he had blown all of it. With a yawn, he shook the thoughts out of his head. It's too early and too beautiful outside to be thinking like this, dude. Get some coffee in you - stat.
"While I'm thinking about it, though..." Seth walked back into his bedroom and picked up his cell phone off the nightstand. While his coffee was dispensing, he walked back to the kitchen. Unlocking his screen - he always had a lock screen now; he'd never make that same mistake twice - he pulled up his Twitter app. Pulling up the search bar, he typed in her name but quickly found it wasn't Joanna. Every day you say you're gonna stop being so fucking self-absorbed, Rollins, and yet here we are, once again...
"Don't start your shit at this hour," Seth chastised out loud, rolling his eyes. He recalled seeing Renee deep in some kind of serious conversation with her on Monday, so he pulled up Renee Young's profile. He still followed her on Twitter; mostly because Dean couldn't be bothered to maintain a presence on the site. Since she was Dean's woman, their friendship had come to a screeching halt the night he left The Shield. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he missed their banter, the way they used to greet each other with eighties movie quotes and bad jokes. You took all of it for granted, man. Now you got nobody but yourself. For a moment, the Whodini song was stuck in his head and he snorted, grabbing his cup of coffee and moving to the table.
Looking through her following list, he cringed at some of her musical tastes. Scrolling down, everything clicked into place. "Jordana! That's it. It's Jordana Moody. What kind of a name is that?" Seth mused. He tapped his thumb on the screen and brought up her profile. All mentions and pictures of The Authority had long been scrubbed from her profile. He clicked on her media posts and looked through the pictures. Oh. That's why I don't recognize her. She used to be blonde. Wow. It didn't suit her at all. He went back and clicked on her profile picture, bringing it up so it took up his entire screen. It was a nice photograph. The first thing he noticed was how light her green eyes were, and the way the lighting in the photo left rings around her irises. Going back to her profile, he looked at the banner. It was obviously a song lyric, but one he didn't recognize. "My enemies belittle me, reminding me the penalty for all my deeds - despite my pleas - is death." He sipped his coffee, his eyes never leaving the phone.
"Let's see what she's into..." he mused to himself, clicking on her following list. It wasn't a giant list. Most of her coworkers were there, even some of the ones who hated her, like the Bella Twins, Sasha Banks, and Natalya. She didn't follow Hunter, Stephanie, or Vince, but she followed the company account, he noticed. She followed Dean, who never posted. There were wrestlers from other companies she followed, like Drew Gulak, Katarina Waters, Tessa Blanchard, Richochet, Mia Yim, and Kenny Omega. She followed other wrestling promotions like CZW and Ring of Honor. She followed bands he recognized, and some he didn't. She followed CNN, and an actor and an actress or two. There were unverified followers; he assumed they were friends and family.
Going back to her profile, he saw her last Tweet was a few weeks ago before he returned at Extreme Rules. He clicked the link to her Instagram. There weren't a lot of posts; she definitely didn't spend a lot of time on social media like some of the other girls he knew. He scrolled, coming to a stop when he saw her blonde hair and reddened face. He brought up the photo and read the caption.
Sometimes your enemies come with smiles.
The words hit Seth in the chest, knocking him breathless for a few moments. He saw the date of the post and realized that it was the night she had been ejected from The Authority. He recalled the back and forth between Hunter and Stephanie with Daniel Bryan - a guy Seth legitimately liked, and still kept in touch with, despite his forced retirement in February - and how they bullied him and shoved him around. He hadn't been surprised at all when Daniel's wife Brie stepped up for him. When she did, though, it became an all-out war, and instead of handling business herself, Stephanie tasked Jordana to handle it. Stephanie always had a complaint about the situation, especially after Stephanie got arrested and forced into the SummerSlam match with Brie. She didn't have to say it out loud, but Seth knew that she probably held Jory responsible for it. The McMahon Family never accepted their own failures; they looked to point the finger.
It occurred to him that Stephanie had done the same thing with Nikki that Hunter had done with him; the two of them had used someone close to blow everything up from within. He sipped his coffee. Even with the title opportunity promised to him, there was still an uneasy feeling in his gut like a shoe was about to drop.
"Stop acting like such a little bitch, Rollins. You're still The Guy. You're The Guy. You're not going to end up like her." He shut down the app. "You're far more important." Getting up, taking a big swig of his coffee, he placed the mug on the counter and went to the bedroom to get dressed and grab his workout bag.
"Friends...how many of us have them? Friends...ones we can depend on...God damn it."
Three hours away, in Chicago, Illinois, Jory stood alone in her bathroom, swinging her hips and her hair as she brushed her teeth, the song "I'm Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?" blaring from her phone. Outside, the weather looked beautiful, the sky bright blue with no clouds and a shining sun. Dressed in her usual sleepwear of a little black camisole and black boy-shorts, she jumped from foot to foot, stopping only to spit the toothpaste out in the sink and rinse.
Born at an army base in Virginia, Jory and her family spent a lot of time moving around until they finally settled in Chicago. She had been ten at the time, her older sister fifteen. Her childhood involved a lot of games at Wrigley Field with her father. She supported every Chicago team, from the Cubs to the Blackhawks to the Bears. There were so many places she had been in North America and overseas, but Chicago was the place she called home. Her favorite memories were there. Her best friends were there. And her father remained there, even after the death of her mother four years ago. Her sister had moved back to Texas to pursue a relationship with someone she met online, so it was just her father in the Windy City. When her time in The Authority ended and she was no longer under their thumb both personally and professionally, Jory returned home. She was happy to do it; she worried about him being alone so much. For now, the apartment was a close drive - she was getting ready to purchase places for both of them - and every week when she came home, they had Daddy-Daughter Date Night. They used to go out in public, but fan vitriol made it an awful time for both of them, so it usually consisted of her going to his home, making dinner, and the two of them watching a movie they had never seen.
Her day was busy, but she was bristling with excitement. Her high school friend Danica reached out; she was taking some photography courses and looking to expand her portfolio. She wanted to know if Jory would be available for a photo shoot. Jory had accepted; anything to help out a friend. She didn't want to admit it, but after the time she spent in The Authority, she came to love the flashing of cameras and the feeling of being a model. It had taken her a little while to find her inner diva in front of the camera, but when she had, she found she enjoyed the attention.
That doesn't make me a bad person, does it? She froze momentarily, but the thought and the mood that came with it disappeared quickly when the song changed. She already had a bag ready, unsure of what Danica wanted to do with the shoot. She asked about doing her own hair and makeup, but Danica said she had a friend willing to do all that, so she threw her long hair into a high ponytail. She went into the bedroom to get dressed, stopping to smile at the beautiful day outside.
She'd had the date night with her father the night before when she landed, but they'd made plans for dinner when she was finished her photo shoot. He said he wanted to talk to her about something. She was surprised he hadn't mentioned it the night before, but she agreed to meet him for dinner. He had mentioned there would be company. Part of her suspected he was going to tell her that he was seeing somebody. She thought she'd be upset about the idea, but she was relieved that someone would be close to her father while she was on the road so much. She knew he was lonely; she just hoped the woman was nice.
Jory changed into a pair of Misfits leggings and a long black tank top, something she could quickly change in and out of. She sat down on her couch to watch a few episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, a way to kill time until Danica sent her a message saying she was ready. There was also a stack of fan mail - and a lot of hate mail - to go through, so she wanted to take the time to sift through it. On days when she felt down, some of the nice things fans sent her, kind words or amazing fan art, always had a way of making her feel better. On a beautiful sunny Thursday in Chicago, Jory's good mood was indestructible.