Disclaimer, etc., in part 1.
Thanks to everyone that stuck with this one. :-)
Part Twenty-Six
Thankfully, after they all reconvened in the main room they'd been in the night before, it wasn't too terribly much longer before Booker T called them, the man checking in on them and telling them that the major roads had supposedly all been cleared. The worst of the storm had hit the city they'd been in the night before, and once they got clear of there, it shouldn't be too bad. The live SmackDown that they were supposed to have that night was still scheduled to happen, and they were all expected to be there.
Which meant they had to get their things together and haul butt to the next city.
So it was that they'd gathered all of their things (Cena glaring at Eve when she'd tossed his phone back to him and Zack Ryder just glaring at her in general), the group dividing up what was left of the snacks so they would have something on the road. After all, odds were that a lot of places would either be opening late today, or they wouldn't open at all. They'd gone through all the rooms they'd been in the night before, checking to make sure that they had everything, then they'd made their way out to the parking garage. Thankfully, Orton had managed to keep tabs on the key to the padlock and chain he'd used on the door leading to the parking garage, which meant that he'd only had to unlock and unchain the door and they hadn't had to go and find some heavy-duty bolt cutters or something to take care of it.
"Thank goodness this place has a covered parking lot, or else we'd all be having to dig out our damned cars," Randy Orton muttered, the man putting his things in the trunk of his rental car. Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns had gone to the exit of the parking garage, the men reporting that, thanks to the high walls around the exit and the way the wind had been blowing the night before, a lot of the snow in the exit lane had drifted to one side... The other side had some snow on it, but not nearly so much, and it appeared that they should be able to get out without any real problems.
"That would be a disaster," Eve muttered, shaking her head, then looking over at Kaitlyn and Lilian, who were currently packing up their own vehicle. She knew that Kaitlyn was listed as being from Houston, Texas, and she knew just as well that the city of Houston was not known for seeing any amount of snow. It definitely wasn't known for snowstorms. Arching a brow, Eve called out a question to the two women. "Kaitlyn, Lilian... Are you two going to be okay to get to the next town? I mean... With the snow and everything?"
Lilian raised a hand. "I'm driving; Kaitlyn isn't. I have more experience driving in the snow than she does," the blonde woman said, then looked around, frowning slightly. "Is there anyone who *isn't* going to be okay with driving in the snow?"
Ambrose shrugged, glancing at his fellow Shield members. "We're good. I think all of us are okay to drive in crappy weather."
Orton glanced around, and Eve could practically see him mentally going through where the various people that were there were announced as being from... Every group had at least one person that was announced from being in an area where snow was pretty common in the winter... Of course, Shield was just announced as a group, no individual hometowns listed, but Ambrose had just said they'd be fine, so really...
"If anyone's not okay with driving in potentially crappy conditions like this... Speak now or forever hold your peace," Eve said, looking around as she spoke, but no one else seemed concerned. "Okay then... I guess we're all good. Once we get everything loaded, anyway."
"I think we're just about ready to go," Punk said, the man slamming the back of the SUV that they had rented with Paul Heyman.
"We should make sure everyone else gets out okay, too, though," Eve said, then shot a look toward Zack Ryder, who was still sending her nasty looks. "Well, almost everyone."
"I'd laugh my ass off if someone disabled Cena and Ryder's car and they couldn't get out of here," Punk replied, and Eve smirked at that, then shook her head.
"Unless it was Orton, that didn't happen. He's the one that had the key to that padlock, and I'm pretty sure no one would consider going to the effort of picking that lock just to get out here and do that... Except maybe you."
"Definitely not," Punk replied, then sent Eve a look. "Is it just me, or are Cena and Ryder glaring at you even more than usual?"
"Well, I don't think they appreciated having a couch dumped on them earlier, and apparently, it's easier to blame me than it is Daniel Bryan or Dean Ambrose, both of whom were there at the time and took part. Of course, both of them also happen to have tag team partners that could help make Cena and Ryder's lives miserable if they so choose, so there is that, too."
"Yeah, well, you've got me, so they'd better watch it. Especially since I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that would take offense if they said or did something to you," the man said, a somewhat dangerous look on his face as he flicked a look over at Zack Ryder, who visibly flinched when he saw Punk's expression. Yeah, Ryder could act like a tough guy when it came to talking smack about her - since she was a woman that was probably a good eighty pounds smaller than him - but if someone his size or bigger backed her up? He backed off pretty quickly.
She was so looking forward to getting somewhere with a decent internet connection so that she could post the picture she'd taken of him and Cena earlier on Twitter. He was the type to be embarrassed by something like that, and if anyone deserved the embarrassment, it was him. Shaking her head, she turned back toward Punk, and the man nodded toward the car.
"Ready to go?"
"I think so," Eve said, slipping her hand in her jacket pocket to make sure her phone was there... Cursing when it wasn't. "Damn it."
"What?"
"My phone. It must have fallen out of my pocket or something. I need to-"
"I think it's here, actually," another voice said, and Eve turned to find Seth Rollins a few feet away, the man bending over to pick something up from the ground near the back of the rental car. He held it up for her inspection, and Eve made her way over to him, taking the phone from him... Breathing a sigh of relief when she noted that it didn't appear to be damaged.
"I guess it really did fall out of my pocket," Eve said, wiping a little bit of dirt off of it, then slipping it into her pocket again, though this time she chose an inside pocket that had a zipper to close it, meaning the phone was a little bit safer there. "Thanks..."
"All I did was manage to spot it," Rollins told her, his gaze moving over her face, and Eve got the weirdest feeling that there was something he wanted to say... Or possibly do... And that the only thing keeping him from acting on it was the fact that everyone else was around them.
The diva cleared her throat. "We should probably... get going."
"Yeah. Roads are probably still pretty lousy, and we all have a pretty long drive, so-"
"Oh, just kiss her already!" someone shouted out, someone that Eve was about ninety-nine percent sure was Dean Ambrose, and Seth sent a glare over his shoulder at his Shield teammate.
"Not with all of you jackasses around!" Rollins shouted back, then turned his attention back to Eve. "Obviously, we just can't take Dean anywhere," he said, and Eve gave him something of a smile.
"I don't know. He's pretty useful when it comes to tipping couches over onto idiots," she said, and Seth smiled.
"I guess you've got a point there," he said, then cleared his throat. "I should probably..."
"Yeah, we probably should," the diva replied, taking a step back, then rolling her eyes, stepping forward, and grabbing a fistful of Seth's shirt, pulling him toward her. "Oh, screw it," she muttered, able to see the flicker of surprise in Seth's eyes before she took the unsolicited advice that Ambrose had just tossed their way, the woman pulling Rollins in for a kiss, deciding she didn't give a damn who saw it happen. Given the way that Seth Rollins was responding to the kiss - pretty enthusiastically - apparently, he'd decided that he didn't really care, either. However, that didn't mean she was going to turn the whole thing into a makeout session, so after a few seconds, she pulled back, the diva meeting the man's eyes.
"See? Good things happen when you take my advice!"
"Shut up, Dean," Eve and Seth said at almost exactly the same moment, but Ambrose apparently didn't care to pay attention to that, the man instead continuing.
"And now you should ask her out!"
"I'm planning on it!" Seth called back, giving his friend another glare, then turning back to Eve. "This is not going how I pictured it."
The woman laughed. "You didn't think we'd have an audience, or that one of your tag team partners would be yelling advice across the parking garage?" she asked, and he shook his head.
"Not exactly, no. And, uh... With the weather like it's been and all of us having to get to the next show, I'm thinking that, if I did ask you out, uh... It would be a little hard to plan anything right now."
"There's always this weekend. Live events are in the south, where being snowed in is far less likely. And I happen to know that we're on the same set of live events," she said, and Seth arched a brow.
"Really? How do you know?"
"Assistant to the SmackDown GM. I know a lot of things."
"I'm sure you do. So, uh... Maybe this weekend... We could grab some dinner or something? The show's early on Saturday. We could go out afterwards."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Eve replied, leaning forward to give him a quick kiss, then arching a brow. "We should probably go."
"Yeah. Before Dean does something really embarrassing," Seth replied, the man heading off to where his tag team partners were, Eve making her way to the passenger seat of the car she, Punk, and Paul were renting. Settling in, she looked over to see Punk giving her a smirk.
"What?"
"Nothing... Just... I just don't think this the past twelve hours or so went how any of us expected it to," he said, and Eve nodded.
"Can't deny that," the woman said, pulling out her phone, flipping through it for a moment... Smiling when she realized that she now had a decent signal and that she could access the internet again. Quickly, she posted the picture she'd taken earlier to Twitter, no explanation or caption with it. Putting her phone back in her pocket, she looked at Punk. "We getting out of here or what?"
"We're getting out of here," he replied, then arched a brow, nodding toward her phone. "What did you just do?"
"Oh, I'm sure you'll hear all about it later," she replied, settling back in her seat as CM Punk put the vehicle in reverse, the man pulling out of the parking spot, then joining the line of their coworkers' rental cars heading out of the parking garage.
"So you and Rollins, huh?" Punk said after a moment, and Eve shrugged her shoulders.
"I think there's something there. I'd like to see what it is," she replied, flicking a look in the rear view mirror, the diva able to see the arena as it grew smaller and smaller, the distance between them and it ever-increasing. "It felt like longer, you know. How long we were stuck there."
"A lot happened," he said, and Eve nodded, her mind not just on Seth Rollins now, but also on Kaitlyn and everything that had happened with her.
"Do you think it changed anything? Like... Really changed things?" she asked, and Punk gave a slight smile.
"I hope so. I guess we'll see soon enough. We've got a whole 'nother show tonight," he said, then made a face as a thought struck him. "Let's hope we don't get snowed in at that arena, too."
"I'll check the weather report."
The End
Yes, this one's over. The story was always intended to cover just the night they were trapped together, and since that night is over... So is the story.
Hope you enjoyed.