It had been the same as always. Jeff went with Adam after the show. I came back to the hotel, showered, changed into comfortable lounging clothes, and was ready to start watching the Stanley Cup finals. It was the first game, about half way through the second period. I dextrously grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed with my feet and fed it to my hands to prop myself up with. I guess I could go to sleep early tonight, after the game. Too bad Jay was still mourning Toronto's loss. Speaking of, there was a petulant knocking on the door.
"Let me in, man."
I grinned as I got up to answer the door. Maybe he'd changed his mind about the hockey game. I opened the door, grinned at Jay, and went back to the bed to watch the game.
"Hey, I'm -"
"Not durin' the game," I warned with a smirk. Before I knew what was going on, Jay had snatched the remote from my hand and turned off the T.V. "Hey!"
"Carolina's gonna lose, let's go."
I looked up at him confused. "Where are we goin'? And how d' you know Carolina's gonna lose?"
"Wal-Mart," Jay announced unceremoniously. "And because they're a bunch of chumpstains."
I looked at him blankly.
"I'm hungry. There's a Wal-Mart across the street. We're getting food."
"At a Wal-Mart?"
"Any better ideas?"
I shrugged, still confused, and Jay headed towards the door.
"Coming?"
I looked back to the T.V. with a sigh and rolled off the bed. "I think we should place bets on the game."
"I'd hate to take money from a poor, unlearned, new hockey fan," Jay said with a smirk as I slid on some shoes and followed him.
"Oh, so you were plannin' on bettin' on Carolina, too?"
-
And that's how we ended up at Wal-Mart. Somehow, though, we weren't in the food section. We were in the magazine section. The store was surprisingly empty and we'd mostly been left alone so far. Jay was flipping through a Maxim magazine and I had picked up the latest Rolling Stone. Looking up from my magazine, I noticed that Jay was flipping past the pictoral spread of Jamie Pressly and was diligently skimming the articles. I'm not sure why that amused me. Setting the magazine back in the rack, I looked at Jay.
"I thought y' were hungry."
"Are you in a hurry?" Jay asked, not looking up from his magazine.
"Well, no, but..."
"Then let's go look at the toys," Jay answered quickly, shutting the magazine and returning it to the shelf.
"Toys?"
"Yeah," Jay responded over his shoulder as I caught up with him.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty -... Fuck you, Matt."
I grinned.
"Hey, you're not objecting too much, are you?"
I shrugged and started to respond, but we came to a row of action figures and Jay's eyes lit up. "Ooh, Star Wars!"
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and leaned against a display of salad shooters, waiting for Jay. After looking over the action figures, he noticed my bored look. "Don't tell me you've never killed time in a Wal-Mart, Carolina."
"In th' South," I overly drawled for effect, "We use Wal-Marts f' functional purposes, like shoppin'. Not novelty, like y'city folk."
Jay rolled his eyes, "Fine. I'll just have to teach you. Come on."
"What?" I asked, following Jay down an aisle of toddler toys. There were about forty mechanical Elmo dolls all lined up. Jay grinned, and started activating the toys one by one. Soon, there were forty Elmo dolls talking, wiggling around, and practically falling off the shelves. I shook my head with a grin. "You are too easily amused."
Jay shrugged, still grinning. "Maybe."
"All they have are Undertaker ones!"
Jay and I looked up at each other as some kids' voices drifted over the aisle. I raised a brow at Jay, and he nodded with a smirk. We went to the end of the aisle and looked for the kids and the wrestling toys. The kids kept talking.
"Hey! Here's an Edge one!"
Jay and I rounded the corner, smirking, as the two boys - probably twelve or thirteen - dug around the messy display. They didn't notice us right away.
"Yeah," one kid responded to the other, pointing to the package the second kid was holding. "But you have to buy the Christian one with it."
Jay's smile dropped and he jokingly - I hope - cocked his arm back. I set a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"What's wrong with the Christian one?" I asked. The kids froze, jaws dropping. "Edge has t' beat up someone."
Jay's jaw dropped this time, as he turned to me. The kids' looks of surprise dissolved into smiles.
"Holy crap, it's Matt Hardy and Christian!"
"Dude, you totally rule!" Jay started to smile, but the kid continued. "And Jeff! You're the best tag team ever!"
I grinned and started respond, but his friend, still holding the Edge and Christian action figures, beat me to it. "No way! Edge and Christian are so totally better! They're, like, eight million time tag team champs!"
Jay finally grinned. "Thanks, man -"
The first friend cut him off, pointing to me. "How can you say that? He's standing right there!"
"Dude, he's standing right there!" he answered, pointing to Jay. Jay and I laughed.
"Did you guys see the show tonight?" Jay asked, interrupting them.
"No," one kid groaned. "The tickets sold out too fast, my dad said. But I think he was just too cheap to buy them."
Jay and I laughed.
"Was it a good show?"
"I'd like t' think so," I smiled.
"Man," Jay's fan answered. "I wanted to go so bad. That so totally scrapes the bowels of sucktitude."
We laughed again.
"Aaron? Kyle?" A lady pushing a cart looked down the aisle and sighed when she saw the boys. "I should have known to look here first. Let's go."
"Mom! Mom! Can I buy this? Please? Look!" The kid holding the action figures held up the Edge and Christian set and pointed to Jay. "It's Christian! And Matt Hardy!"
"Aaron, you have enough..." she trailed off, finally noticing the uncanny resemblance between the action figure and the man standing before her. "Oh. Hello."
Jay nodded slightly, with a smile.
"I suppose we can make an exception, then," she smiled softly at Aaron.
"Mom! Mom!" The other kid, Kyle, I assumed, interrupted. He had unearthed one of my action figures. "Can I get this? Please? I'll do the dishes for a week!"
"Hey! I didn't see that!" Aaron announced. "Maybe there's another! And another Edge and Christian one for you."
"You guys can share," their mom stopped them. "You can get one of each."
"Ok," Kyle sighed, grudgingly.
Aaron turned to Jay. "Can you autograph this?"
Jay patted down his pockets with a surprised look. "I don't think I have a..."
I took a Sharpie out of my pocket and held it out to him.
"Do you always carry those around?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah," I shrugged, as if it were normal to carry around markers. "Y' never know when you'll need it."
The kids grinned, and Aaron held out the box to Jay, which he signed and handed back. Kyle held out my action figure to me and Jay handed me the marker back. Signing it quickly, I handed it back with a smile. "It was nice t' meet you, Kyle."
I shook his hand, and Aaron held his out to me as Kyle shook Jay's hand. "I'm going to make sure that Dad gets tickets next time you guys come to town! You are so cool!"
"Thanks," I grinned, taking his hand. "I'm glad y' enjoy it."
"Oh, these kids love wrestling," their mom sighed. "They never miss a show."
"This is the coolest thing that ever happened to me," Aaron said, awestruck, as he shook Jay's hand.
"It's nice to meet the fans," Jay grinned. "I'm glad you like the show."
"Love it," Kyle corrected, grinning back.
"Well, come on, boys, let's go," their mom ordered.
"Aw, man," the boys gripped in unison. Jay and I grinned, and waved as their mom lead them away. When they got past the end of the aisle, we could still hear them talking. "That was the coolest thing. Did you hear Matt call me Kyle? He knew my name!"
"Whatever, dorkzilla. I made Christian laugh!"
Jay and I laughed again as the kids' voices trailed off.
"Dude!" Jay started again, looking at the action figures. "Look at the moronic grin on Angle's action figure!"
I grinned. "Hey, didn't we come here for food?"
"Oh, yeah," Jay shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets, "I'm not really that hungry."
"What?"
"I dunno. We can get a bag of chips or something, if you want."
"Jesus, Jay."
He grinned. "Come on, we can go back to the hotel."
"Are y' sure you're done here?"
He shrugged again. "Yeah."
"Let's just go back, then."
-
Back at the hotel, we went to Jay's room first, since it was closer.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Check out the hockey scores, I guess," I answered, shrugging. "Then go t' sleep."
"Come on in for a while, you can turn on ESPN here."
"All right." I watched Jay curiously. I wondered if he was just bored or not tired, or why he wanted me to stay. Not that I minded, of course. I wasn't really that tired and was enjoy spending time with other people, not just by myself. He unlocked the door, flipped on the light, and we went inside.
"Turn that off, you son of a bitch," Adam mumbled. I guess he was sleeping already.
"In a minute," Jay answered, smiling. Apparantly he was used to Adam's polite comments upon waking up. When we got into the room, we found Adam in bed, with a pillow over his head, and another motionless figure in bed next to him. I didn't have to guess who that was. Jeff could sleep through a hurricane, we didn't have to worry about waking him up.
"Jay, y' can stay with me t'night, if y' want."
Jay looked up to me with a crooked smile. "You don't mind?"
"No, he doesn't," Adam answered for me from under the pillow. "Now get the fuck out and turn off that goddamned light."
Jay grinned at Adam again, then picked up a duffel bag and we left.
"Awfully nice," I commented.
"He doesn't really like to be woken up," Jay laughed as I started to unlocked my door.
"Looks like Jeff's been here," I commented, noticing what looked like an explosion on his half of the room. "Y' can have my side, I'll deal with Jeff's mess."
"Thanks, man," Jay said, dropping his bag on my bed as I tried to clear a space on the other. I ended up just shoving all Jeff's clothes on the floor. He'd just have to deal with that later. I heard the T.V. flip on, and Jay flipped right to ESPN.
"What the hell!"
I turned to see what he was looking at. They were talking about the hockey game, naturally. Carolina had won.
"That's shit," Jay muttered, and flipped the T.V. back off again. I just laughed and went to brush my teeth. When I came back, Jay was laying prone on the bed on top of the covers, still fully dressed, and fully out of it.
"Jay?" I asked hesitantly. His only response was steady breathing. Huh. Guess he was tired. That was understandable. It had been a long and random day. I took off my shirt, turned off the light, and went to sleep myself.