It all started with a simple little aside from Vince Mahon.
"Roman, we've got a special guest coming tonight," WWE's chairman said. As much as anything else, it was a way of making a little bit of conversation after a meeting they'd had to discuss a segment for that night's Smackdown episode.
Roman Reigns found nothing out of the ordinary in what he had been told. WWE often had famous people as guests at their events. Anyone from actors, to sports stars, to military heroes could be invited. The guests would be given a backstage tour, meet some of the wrestlers, then sit ringside for the show. WWE would of course make sure to get them on-screen at some point to show them off to the audience. Occasionally, guests were even allowed to have a small spot in a match.
"Who's coming?" Roman asked, expecting some actor or actress from a show that he had no interest in watching.
"Mandy Rose," Vince said. "She's..."
"I know who she is," Roman said. Mandy Rose was the woman who had won the prestigious World Series of Poker Main Event earlier in the year, becoming the first woman ever to do so, and winning more than ten million dollars in the process. The win had made Mandy a star overnight. Roman had seen her on chat shows and in commercials over the past few months. He supposed it helped that she was so hot that it bordered on the ridiculous. She would certainly stand out in a room full of nerdy, mostly male poker players, he thought. And now she was going to be a guest of WWE for the night.
"You do? That's good," Vince replied. "Maybe I can get you to show her around then? I was going to have one of the women to do it."
"No, I'll do it. I'll be happy to," Roman said. As a hot blooded, single man, there were worse ways to kill some time before a show than with someone like Mandy.
"Then it's agreed. I'll send someone to find you when she gets here."
"Alright, see you later," Roman said. He left Vince's office and went back to the locker room. By the time he got there, Mandy Rose was still on his mind. He had actually watched some of the TV coverage of the World Series of Poker main event, thanks to his interest in the game and the many, many hours of travel and airport hours that his job left him to find entertainment in. He could remember pulling for Mandy, partly because she was a hot chick, but also partly because she had seemed to him like she was a very good player. One hand in particular stood out in his memory. It was the one that had become famous after the event as the one that had set Mandy on the road to victory.
Sitting down in front of his locker, Roman put in his earbuds and took his phone out of his pocket. He wanted to watch the hand again. Typing Mandy's name into YouTube brought the hand in question up as the first item in the search results. 'Mandy Rose wins a monster pot' was the title of the video. Roman tapped on it.
The video started with a shot of Mandy's cards as she checked them. The first card was the queen of spades. The second was the queen of clubs. She made a bet.
Several players folded, until the action got around to a guy named Cole, who the last one in the hand apart from Mandy. He had the second largest stack of chips at the final table, where five people remained. Mandy was in third place, not far behind him. Cole turned up the corners of both of his cards simultaneously. He had the king of spades and the king of diamonds.
"I'm all in," Cole announced.
"I call," Mandy said immediately, flipping over her pair of queens.
The crowd watching live in the arena cheered in excitement. Just like that a colossal hand was taking place.
"Yes!" Cole said, clenching a fist. With his other hand, he turned over his pair of kings. He was poised to bust Mandy and take an almost unassailable chip lead.
Across the table, Mandy got up, putting her hands on her head in anguish at what she had just done. She was now staring down the barrel of elimination.
Sections of the arena had been reserved for friends and family of each of the nine final table players' friends a families. Mandy went over to her section, shaking her head.
"Don't worry, there's a queen coming," a dark haired older woman said, possibly Mandy's mom, Roman suspected.
"You think so?" Mandy asked doubtfully. She had to get back to the table, for the dealer was about to put down the first three community cards, known as the flop.
"Come on! Queen!" Mandy shouted, trying to be upbeat about it. All of the players wore microphones for the benefit of the TV audience.
"Good luck," Cole said from the other side of the table, also standing up. Roman was positive the guy didn't mean it, he was just being nice to the pretty lady. It made him wonder how much of an advantage Mandy's looks were for her at a poker table.
"Queen!" Mandy called again as the female dealer peeled off the three cards.
The TV coverage got an overhead shot as the cards were put down on the table. As the dealer slid her hand across to spread them out and reveal them, the first one was the queen of hearts. The other two cards were both sixes.
A literal roar of delight came from Mandy, and from her section as she ran over to celebrate with them. Roman shook his head slightly, smiling. He couldn't begin to imagine what that moment must have felt like for her. Maybe something like winning the Wrestlemania main event, if it relied on luck and paid out ten million dollars.
But the hand wasn't over. Cole, understandably gutted by what had just happened, could still win if either of the two remaining cards were a king. His section of the crowd started chanting for a king.
The dealer put down the next card. It was a ten. Mandy's section cheered again, as she nervously watched on.
"Come on," Cole said quietly. There was one card to go in the hand, and only two cards left in the deck that could save him. His odds were terrible, and he knew it.
The dealer put down the final card. It was a three.
Mandy clenched her fist and cheered loudly, before turning to face her friends and family. She spread out her arms in what would end up being the iconic moment of that year's main event. "This is the greatest game in the world!" she shouted.
Roman scrolled down to see the comments on the video. The top one was: 'Now I know why people call her the queen of hearts.'
The next one was something perverted, which presumably had a lot of likes from sweaty, sexless teenagers.
The third most popular comment was: 'This bitch calls off all her chips with a pair of queens, gets lucky, and everyone acts like she's a great player. Yeah, right.'
It seemed like there were people who weren't fans of Mandy Rose. Roman wondered what their chances were of lasting seven days in a poker tournament, beating eight thousand other players and winning ten million dollars.
Now that he had watched the hand again, Roman was happy that he had it fresh in his mind as something to make conversation about when Mandy arrived.
The offer of an all expenses paid trip to Friday Night Smackdown had been an easy one to accept for Mandy Rose. She had been a WWE fan since childhood, and still tried to keep up to date with their content as much as possible. Of the two main roster brands, Smackdown was her favourite, which made it even better that it was the one she had been invited to.
WWE's hospitality had included a car to pick Mandy up from the airport. Over the past few months, she had found herself experiencing a lot of that kind of treatment. Even so, she wasn't yet really getting used to it. Winning the World Series of Poker Main Event had changed her life completely. Before the win, which had comes as a surprise to Mandy as much as it had to anyone else, she had been an ordinary woman who made her money playing online poker most days of the week and live streaming to an audience of maybe two thousand people on a good day.
Now, by stark contrast, she had been able to pay off her parents' mortgage, buy herself a new house, and still be in a position to never have to worry about money for the rest of her life unless she was incredibly stupid. In addition to the ten million dollars she had won, Mandy was now making additional money from a big sponsorship by the online poker company PokerStars, and from a couple of other companies who had paid her to appear in television advertisements.
The latest advertisement of sorts was the trip to Smackdown. Vince McMahon wasn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart, of course. The reason he wanted her there at ringside was so he could stick a camera in her face for a few moments and basically go, 'Hey, look who likes our show!' Mandy was okay with that. After all, she did like the show.
A backstage tour had been promised, too. Arguably, Mandy was looking forward to that as much as the show itself. "I might get to meet Roman Reigns, or Baron Corbin," she had enthused to her poker-playing friend Clementine, who also happened to watch WWE.
"Or Otis," Clementine had said, laughing.
"Don't laugh at the fat guy, I'm sure he's lovely," Mandy had said, also laughing despite what she had just told Clem off for.
In truth, while Mandy would have liked to get the guided tour from one of the stupidly hot guys, she expected Vince to get one of the women do it. Maybe Bayley or Alexa Bliss, she thought.
It wasn't long before she arrived at the arena, where she was met by a backstage staff member, who escorted her to Vince McMahon's office.
"Mandy, thank you for coming," McMahon said, smiling broadly as they shook hands.
"No, thank you for having me," Mandy said, smiling back at him. "I've always wanted to come to a WWE show live, but somehow I never have. This is going to be a lot of fun."
"We've got a ringside seat waiting for you, and if it's okay with you, we'd like to give you a little something to do in one of the matches tonight."
"That sounds awesome!" Mandy exclaimed. "What will I be doing?"
"We're going to have Sami Zayn in the ring cutting a promo. His attention will end up on you, and he will talk you down a bit, getting out of the ring to talk smack to your face. You'll slap him, and he'll turn around. At that point, Elias will have appeared and he will smash a guitar over Sami's head."
"That'll be great," Mandy said, laughing at the image his description had conjured up in her mind.
A knock came on the office door. "Come in!" Vince called.
The door opened, and Roman Reigns walked in. Mandy's breath caught in her throat. He was even more handsome in person, and looked bigger too. She felt herself swooning.
"Roman, meet Mandy Rose," Vince said. "Mandy, Roman Reigns."
"Hi, Mandy. It's very nice to meet you," Roman said.
"It's nice to meet you too, Roman."
They shook hands and looked into each other's eyes. It was love at first sight.
A/N: Thank you for checking out this piece. It's just a one shot for now, but there could be more if there's sufficient interest. Let me know what you think.