For the second time in just over twenty four hours, Zelina found herself sitting in the lounge at a hotel, drinking a cup of herbal tea. This time she wasn't waiting for Seth, she was waiting for Paige. A car would be arriving soon to drive them to the Barnes and Noble store for the first of their meet and greet appearances to promote Fighting with My Family.
With the hotel being designated as the pickup point, Zelina had needed to get a taxi over there from where Elena had parked the bus, making sure to leave plenty of time in case of any traffic issues. That was one of the very few down sides of staying on the bus. But, on the bright side, she had arrived in plenty of time to enjoy the cup of tea before the car arrived.
Paige had just sent a text to say that she was on her way down from her room and asking where she was. Zelina had replied to tell her that she was already at the hotel, sitting in the lounge. While she waited, she found herself idly looking at her Women's Championship belt, which she had lying on her lap for safekeeping. She had been the champion for four days now, yet it still didn't seem real. Every female wrestler out there had the dream of being in the position that she was privileged to find herself in. That thought made her shake her head in wonderment.
The belt looked even better now, too. On Tuesday night, before Smackdown had gone on air, her custom side plates had been put on for her. They were a fairly simple design with a black background and the initials ZV in the now familiar fancy gold lettering that WWE used for everything Vega.
"It's a sweet-looking belt. Love the new side plates, too."
Zelina looked up at the sound of Paige's voice and smiled. "Hey. That's exactly what I was just thinking. I love the side plates they made for me."
"They're awesome," Paige agreed. She made no effort to sit down. "I think our driver is waiting in the lobby. I'm sure I recognised the guy. We can get moving, if you're ready?"
Downing the rest of her tea, Zelina set the cup down on the table in front of her and got up. "Let's do it," she said as she slung the title belt over her shoulder. She was at least starting to feel more comfortably carrying it, even though it didn't quite fit on her shoulder very well. "I'm still getting used to carrying this," she said with a smile. "Being small is a pain in the ass sometimes."
Paige grinned as they started walking across the lounge towards the lobby. "You'll soon get used to it. The pain in the ass for me when I had the old Divas Championship was when you take it through airport security and they recognise you, so they make a point of choosing your case to open 'to check it', then asking you if they can get a photo with you and the belt."
"I know they do that, I've seen it happen with Seth. I've not had it yet, though. People rarely recognise me unless I'm with him." That fact illustrated that while she might be thought of highly by Hunter, and could maybe considered one of the company's bright prospects, she was a long way from being a star like Paige, and she certainly wasn't a household name like Seth. "Frankly, I'll settle for fifty people turning up today to see us."
Chuckling, Paige shook her head.
"What?" Zelina asked, grinning self-consciously.
"Girl, you're the Women's Champion. I know it's all coming quite fast for you, but I also know you use Twitter, so I know you saw how it blew up Sunday night when you won at Summerslam. You have a lot of fans out there. Wait until we get to the store, then you'll see."
Zelina had enjoyed the twenty minutes sitting in the back of the car with Paige. The English girl was a lot of fun to be around. They had shared some jokes and funny stories, the last of which ended with them both laughing.
"We're almost there, guys," the driver told them pleasantly. "Just up ahead," he added, pointing as Zelina leaned forward between the seats to look.
"Holy..." she breathed, not adding the swear word that would have followed.
"I told you," Paige said with a laugh.
Zelina was stunned. She had seen big crowds for meet and greet events, of course, especially when Seth was the one she had happened to be with. What stunned her was that the one she could see up ahead looked to be not much smaller that what he might have gotten. It was unreal. "There are hundreds of them," she said in wonder.
"Yep, and you did as much to draw them here as I did," Paige said, giving her a playful punch on the shoulder.
Zelina glanced at her and smiled, but she found the words hard to believe. It didn't matter that Paige had been forced to retire, she still had a massive fan base. Plus there was the fact that the entire purpose of this event was to promote a movie about Paige's life.
"Can you drive past slowly?" Paige asked the driver as they neared the back end of the crowd. The car slowed, and Paige moved over to Zelina's side of the car.
Figuring out what she had in mind, Zelina lowered the window and they both stuck their heads out, shouting happily at the fans to alert them to their arrival. A cheer quickly went up, and people starting waving and shouting in their direction.
"We have to park around the back," the driver said, making a turn at the intersection which the store stood on the corner of, cutting off their sight of the crowd.
"Paige, that's insane," Zelina breathed, still awestruck. "All those people. There's no way they can all have gotten wristbands."
"Nope," Paige agreed as the car pulled into the staff parking lot at the back of the store. "I don't know about you, but I like to stay and meet everyone when I come to one of these things."
"Wait, we can do that?" Zelina asked, surprised to say the least. At all of the events she had done so far in her time with WWE, as soon as the allotted time or number of wristbands had run out, she had been quickly led out of there by whoever she had been with. She had assumed that was just how the company expected things to be done.
"Sure you can. Not in the store; they'll have to start getting ready to open for business again. But we can speak to the security guys and have them come out front with us. Fans appreciate it so much when you do that for them."
"I'm sure they do. I'm definitely up for it," Zelina said as they got out of the car. After thanking the driver, she continued. "The way I look at it, they've been standing in line for hours to see us. The least we can do is make sure they go home happy."
As they walked towards the staff entrance, which a Barnes and Noble employee had just opened for them, Paige said, "Thank you. It's so hard to make a lot of the guys see it that way." She slapped the title belt that Zelina had just put over her shoulder. "That's why you'll carry this so well, Zelina. You'll be a great champion outside the ring. So many of them underestimate or even ignore that."
"I'll do my best," she promised with great determination.
A short time later, Zelina and Paige were walking out of the staff area into the main body of the store. Since the event was simply a photo op, not a signing, the preparation had been simple from the store's point of view. A small area had been set aside for the few people at a time who would be let into the store to wait for their turn to come forward for their picture. Several yards away from that stood a large backdrop promo board for Fighting with My Family.
"We'll be standing there, then," Paige said unnecessarily.
"We should tell the security guys we're going to stay behind before we get started," Zelina suggested.
"Yep. Also, don't mention to any of the fans who come in that we're staying after the signing or some of them will end up hanging around. The idea is to see everyone who waited in line, not to have a party for three hundred people in the street."
"Got it."
Paige approached one of the two burly security team who were standing one either side of the large backdrop board. Zelina watched on while some words were exchanged, then Paige came back over to her. "We're good," she reported.
After the staff made some final preparations, one of the store's front doors was opened and the first small number of fans were admitted inside. Zelina saw that the first couple of people were wearing Paige's merch. "See, they're all going to be your fans," she said playfully.
"Yeah, okay," Paige chuckled. "I can see a 'I'm a Zelina Vega girl' shirt back there."
The first few fans got their pictures with nothing particularly of note happening as far as Zelina was concerned. That changed when the fan wearing the Vega girl shirt came forward. She had short blonde hair and looked to be in her late teens. As soon as she was sent forward by the staff member in charge, she burst into tears.
"Hey, don't cry," Zelina said soothingly, hiding her surprise as best she could and stepping forward to meet her halfway.
"I knew this would happen," the girl said through her tears as Zelina embraced her. Unsurprisingly, Zelina was the shorter of the two. "It means so much to me to meet you."
"It's my pleasure to meet you," Zelina insisted. "What's your name?"
"Amy. You mean the world to me, Zelina," she replied, holding on to her for dear life. "I'm so happy you won the title. I still can't believe it, even though I knew it would happen one day. I love you so much."
Amy was really rambling. Zelina was humbled beyond words that she meant so much to someone, so much so that she felt herself on the verge of tearing up, but she knew she had to try and calm her down so that they could get a picture. "Thank you, Amy, that's really sweet of you. I don't know what to say."
"I'm sorry for crying," Amy said as the hug ended. "I knew it would happen. I couldn't even sleep last night, knowing I was going to meet you."
"Do you want to get a picture with the belt?" Zelina offered, trying to gently move things on.
"Yes, please," Amy said, wiping her eyes and taking a deep breath to try and find some composure.
Paige stepped forward then to introduce herself, while Zelina got the belt ready to hand to Amy.
"Would you mind if I just got my picture with Zelina?" Amy asked Paige after some pleasantries were exchanged.
"Of course I don't mind," Paige said, stepping off to the side so that she wouldn't be in the shot.
Zelina offered the belt to Amy and said, "Hold it however you'd like and we'll get the picture."
"I'll copy your pose," Amy said. Holding the belt in both hands, she held it high in the air above her head.
Although she had done that pose after being presented with the title on Smackdown, Zelina hadn't decided that it was going to be 'her pose.' She felt like Amy had just made that decision for her.
They posed for the photo with Zelina pointing to Amy as she held the belt up. After a staff member took the picture, Zelina said, "I hadn't decided that would be my pose, until now, that is. So I guess I can thank you for that," she smiled sweetly.
"Oh gosh, really?" Amy asked excitedly. "This is unreal, Zelina. Thank you so much." She took her phone back from the staff member.
"Tweet me the picture later, please," Zelina said.
"I will. Thank you so much for being so good to me. I'll never forget it, I swear."
Zelina smiled and gave her another quick hug. "Neither will I. Thank you for coming to see me."
Looking tearful again, Amy walked slowly away. Meanwhile, Zelina approached Paige and puffed out her cheeks. "Wow, that was really something. She nearly had me crying."
Paige had a broad smile on her face. "You were amazing with her, Zel. You have a fan for life right there now. Like I said earlier, keep being like that with fans and you'll make a fantastic champion."
That evening, just after the tour bus had set off on the journey to the next town, Zelina finally had time to check her Twitter. She found searching her own name to be easiest way to see what people were saying about or to her, since her personal feed was always spammed with so much stuff.
The most popular recent tweet with her name in it was from a dirt sheet account. They had apparently written a short article about the fact that she and Paige had stayed behind for over an hour after their photo op session had ended to make sure that they met everyone and to ensure that no one went home without getting a picture.
She tapped on the tweet to see what some of the comments were, and what she found made goosebumps come up on her arms. Someone had apparently posted a picture they had gotten outside the store as a reply, and others had then followed suit. There had to be at least thirty different pictures posted under the tweet. Everyone was talking about how amazing she and Paige had been.
"Looks like you had a good time," Seth said, sitting beside her and peaking at her phone's screen. "You and Paige both look like you're having the time of your lives in those pics."
"We were," she smiled at him as she quoted the dirt sheet account's tweet and started typing out a quick message to thank everyone who had come to see her. "I could have gone on longer if there had been more people. I had several girls crying their eyes out today just because they met me. It's unbelievable that I mean so much to them. Like, I'm just an ordinary girl who wrestles for a living."
"Not to them you're not," he said with a little smile. "To them you're an idol, a role model, someone they inspire to be like one day."
"I know. This is so surreal, Seth. It's all happening so fast for me, I feel like I'm not keeping up with it myself." While she was speaking, she had been scrolling through some more of the tweets she was tagged in. One stood out, and she tapped on it. It was from Amy. "This girl was one of the first ones through the door today," she told him, showing him the picture. "She was absolutely in bits at meeting me. That was when it really hit me that I'm those things you just said for people. If I'm a role model, I want to the best one possible. I want to give my time to the fans whenever I can."
Seth gave her a peck on the lips. "Just one reason I love you, muñeca."
"I love you too," she replied softly. Returning her attention to her phone, she opened Amy's profile page and hit the follow button. Then she sent a quick direct message, saying that it had been nice to meet her. "I might not be the best woman WWE have in the ring," she said to Seth. "But I can try my hardest to be the best out of it."
A/N: Thanks as always to everyone who left a review last time.
I hope you enjoyed Zelina's first time meeting fans as a star in her own right, despite the fact that she doesn't fully realise yet that's what she is now?
Next time we're back to Smackdown, where Zelina has a huge target on her back now that she's champion. Who do you think will want the first shot at her? And more importantly, who will get the first shot at her?
