Chapter 25
It was the last Wednesday for the month of January and Emilia was in Full Sail University in Florida for WWE NXT. Since it will be her first time working on the show, she arrived at the venue at twelve noon to have enough time to explore the place and familiarize herself with the equipment. In just a couple of hours, she'd learned everything there was to know thanks to the show's floor director. He's the first person she's met when she arrived, and the second one was the show's General Manager, William Regal.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon and she was having a late lunch by herself in William Regal's office when she heard three loud knocks on the door. She almost choked on her food because she was surprised by the sound.
"Mr. Regal's not here!"
Emilia said after swallowing the food in her mouth and quickly wiping the corners of her lips with a piece of light brown tissue. She placed her Chinese food and tissue on the glass coffee table in front of her. She was about to stand up but she stayed in her seat when she saw the man letting himself in.
He looked intimidating. His body was toned, his shiny black hair was sticking up on all directions, and he had facial hair. He looked familiar and she knows she's seen him from somewhere before, but she couldn't remember where.
"If you're looking for Mr. Regal, he'll be back soon. You can wait here if you like."
Emilia told the expressionless man as she wiped her palms on her black skinny jeans. The man walked towards her. He took a seat on the space beside her. She scooted away from him, not caring if he saw her do it.
"Actually, I was looking for you, Emilia."
Emilia swallowed. She felt uncomfortable being alone with this man in a small room because she doesn't know him but he knows her.
"Me? Why?"
"Dean hasn't mentioned me to you? Ouch."
The man placed a hand over the left side of his chest, pretending to look hurt. After hearing Dean's name come out of his mouth, she recognized who he was in an instant.
"Sami Callihan?"
The man smirked as he crossed his arms. He nodded.
"That's me, but I go by Solomon Crowe now."
Emilia smiled. She didn't mind being alone with him in a room anymore, because Dean knows him and he knows Dean and from what she's seen before, they seem like really good friends.
"I saw pictures of you with Dean on his phone before. You two looked much younger in those pictures."
The man chuckled.
"Seems just like yesterday when we were tag team partners. Now we're working for the world's most popular wrestling promotion."
"I'm sorry for interrupting your trip to memory lane, but why were you looking for me?"
Emilia asked.
"There's nothing to be sorry for," Solomon waved his right hand dismissively. "Dean told me over the phone that's it's gonna be your first night working here so I wanted to welcome you. And oh, he also told me to look out for you."
Emilia blushed. She shook her head as she laughed.
"Of course he'd ask you to do that," she replied. "Thank you for welcoming me."
"You're welcome. I guess that's it."
Solomon stood up from the red couch and walked towards the door.
"Nice to meet you, Sami! Oops, I mean Solomon!"
Emilia said, feeling embarrassed. Solomon turned around and smirked.
"You too, Emilia," Solomon answered. "And oh, I hope there won't be any technical difficulties tonight."
Emilia bit her lower lip.
"I hope not, either."
Solomon didn't say anything. He reached for the doorknob and got out of the room. Emilia started eating again to get enough energy for tonight's show.
WWE NXT is going to start soon. Emilia had five minutes left before she starts working and she chose to text Dean.
Show's gonna start soon. I'm nervous.
Emilia pressed send. In just a few seconds, she got a reply from him.
Wish I was there. I miss you.
Emilia bit her lower lip as her heart swelled from delight and longing. She swiftly composed her message.
I miss you, too. Can't wait to see you on Monday.
She ended her message with a heart and kissy face emoji. She sent it and it took a little longer for her to get a response. When she got it, she giggled because Dean sent her three emojis of the smiley doing the kissy face. She put her phone in the right front pocket of her jeans and pulled down the hem of her black collared shirt. It was the crew's uniform. She had more than one of it and all of it had the new WWE logo printed on the left side of the chest area.
As Emilia sat on a swivel chair in the production area, Renee stared at her as the gay make-up artist applied blush on the apples of her cheeks. She couldn't see what Dean saw in her. She shook her head and stared at her reflection on the vanity table's mirror.
"What's wrong? What's this?"
Emilia screamed at everyone as an unidentifiable video clip appeared during Tyson Kidd's ring entrance. She pressed several buttons on the control table, but none of them seemed to be working. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Fortunately, the show didn't encounter any more technical problems until it ended.
After the show, Emilia went to the ladies room to change. When she was done changing into a blue button up cotton shirt, she went out of the stall she was in and gasped when she saw Renee washing her hands in the sink. When Renee looked up in the mirror, her eyes connected with Emilia's.
"Hey."
Renee greeted her with a smirk. Emilia took a deep breath and stood in front of the sink next to hers.
"Hi."
Emilia said with a small smile. Renee might've been with Dean and she doesn't like it, but she found no reason to be hostile towards her.
"How's your first night here?"
Renee asked as she turned the faucet off while Emilia turned on hers.
"It was okay. There was technical difficulty but it was nothing we couldn't handle."
Emilia rubbed her hands together, washing it under the running warm water. Renee pulled out a piece of tissue from the dispenser and wiped her hands with it.
"That's good. I'm gonna go now. Good night, Emilia."
Renee balled up the tissue and tossed it in the trash bin. Emilia nodded with a smirk.
"Good night, Renee."
Renee nodded back and went out of the ladies room. Emilia sighed and just realized that she was holding her breath the entire time that she was with Renee. When she was done washing her hands, she dried it under the hand dryer.
When she got out of the ladies room, Emilia saw Solomon leaning against the wall beside the door. Standing in front of him was a ginger in a hat who had the NXT Championship over his left shoulder and a man with bright, almost translucent eyes. She jumped a bit, feeling surprised.
"Solomon! What are you doing here?"
She asked him. Her eyes drifted to the two men with him. The ginger tipped his hat to her, while the bright-eyed man smirked. She nodded with a smile at each one of them.
"I'm your ride to the hotel, and these two will be with us - this is Sami Zayn, the current NXT Champion, and Finn Bálor, also known as Prince Devitt."
Solomon said, gesturing to Sami then to Finn. Sami and Finn extended their arms to Emilia for a handshake at the same time. Emilia shook Sami's hand first then Finn's. They withdrew their hands when she was done shaking them.
"Nice to meet you two! I've heard nothing but positive things about you. But Solomon," she turned her head to look at Solomon. "Are you serious about me riding in a car with you three? I can just take a cab."
Solomon shook his head.
"Dean won't like that. Let me carry your bag for you."
Before Emilia had time to protest, Solomon took her bag from her and started walking towards the exit. Emilia sighed and followed him. She heard Sami and Finn's footsteps behind her as she caught up with Solomon. When she was walking next to him, she took a deep breath.
"Tell me about him."
Emilia told Solomon. Solomon's eyes met hers.
"Who, Dean?"
Emilia nodded.
"Has he always been..."
Emilia bit her lower lip as she tried to think of a word to accurately describe Dean. But she couldn't find a word to use that's not negative.
"Eccentric? Unusual? Odd? Yeah, he's always been that way. He actually toned himself down but when he was still known as Jon Moxley, he was way worse."
Emilia nodded as she took the information in. When they made it to the car, Solomon brought the keys out and unlocked the doors. Emilia opened the door to the passenger seat and got in as Solomon sat on the driver's seat. He gave her bag back to her and she placed it on her lap. As Solomon slid the key in the ignition, Emilia looked over her shoulder. Sami and Finn were still far behind and they were playfully shoving each other. Emilia faced front and looked at Solomon. The car was roaring now.
"His ex-girlfriend... did he really kill her?"
Emilia whispered even if no one else would hear her aside from Solomon. Solomon stared at her with a blank face for a long time until he shook his head.
"Dean's messed up, but not that messed up."
Silence filled the car but when Sami and Finn opened the doors of the backseat, their laughter filled the car. Solomon drove out of the venue's parking lot. Instead of getting lost in her thoughts about Dean and his past, she engaged in a fun trivia game with Sami and Finn until they got to the hotel.
Author's note: You can see the technical difficulty that Emilia encountered in this chapter in the January 28episode of WWE NXT and it happened during the start of the Adrian Neville versus Tyson Kidd match. Based on my research, Solomon Crowe's character is supposed to be a hacker but he hasn't debuted yet and on WWE's Twitter, they tweeted about the technical difficulty and apologized for it. Anyway, thank you for all the reviews, favorites, and follows! I appreciate all of you; you keep me and this story going and look how far we've come - 25 chapters and 50k+ words! Unbelievable. Let me know in your review what you think of this story so far, what you would like to happen, what you would like to see, and everything else you wanna say. And oh, how would you feel about a flashback chapter for this story? I'm also planning to post a Finn Bálor/OC/Sami Zayn story so be sure to check out my profile if you wanna read it. But I think if you follow me you'll get an e-mail saying I have a new story up. So just wait for that I guess.
This is getting too long and I don't even know if anyone reads this part but I just wanted to get this off my chest: someone posted nineteen chapters of this story on Wattpad without me knowing and I only found out because I sometimes Google Love Gone Mad. I already talked to her and asked her to take it down and she did. I promised her that if she took it down I wouldn't let anyone else know what she did but I think I should because what she did wasn't right and let this be a warning if you're a writer like me. Okay, this ends here and here's the songs I listened to while writing this chapter.
Rise Against - Savior
OneRepublic - Something I Need
Semisonic - Secret Smile
Hooverphonic - Mad About You
The Bravery - Hatefuck
Kodaline - Autopilot
C x