AN:/ Two or three in this chapter have been changed since I had lost parts of it and I think it's much better and a ton more suspense. Basically it's the same just more meat to the story. As well as there being a never before read scene that wasn't in the original version! Even more reason to read!
Chapter 16: This Unexpected Something
The next morning Riley woke up to the hotel room basically dark except for the little bit of sunlight showing through the curtain. She looked to the next bed and saw that Kaitlyn wasn't there so she figured she had just gone down to breakfast. She had time to sleep. Just as she was about to close her eyes, she heard Metallica's "Frantic" erupted throughout the room. Riley sat up in surprise and fell out of bed.
"Well good morning sleepy head." Jeff said helping Riley off the floor and to her feet.
"Jeff how did you get in here?" Riley asked irritated.
"Kaitlyn went down to breakfast and she let me in so I could drag you downstairs."
Riley groaned and tried to climb back into bed. "But it's only eight o' clock."
"And I woke up at six so don't complain. Are you going to get dressed or do I have to drag you to breakfast in your pink PJs?"
Riley glared at Jeff and grabbed a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt and went into the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later Riley came out of the bathroom dressed with her hair in a ponytail.
"Well that took you long enough" Jeff said extending his arm to her. He took her arm in his and they went down to breakfast.
The cafeteria was packed full of wrestlers and it seemed that everyone on the roster was there. Jeff and Riley found Chris, Kaitlyn, Paul, Matt, and Amy sitting at one of the tables at the far end. When they sat down everyone said the good mornings and Amy handed Riley an extra cup of coffee.
"So, get enough sleep Riley?" Paul said not looking up from the newspaper in front of his face. When he didn't get a response he was met with a grape in the forehead. "Ow!"
Everyone started laughing but that was soon cut short by a familiar voice. "Nice aim Riley." She noticed there was a tall shadow looming over her and it was no one other than Test.
Jeff leaned over to her and whispered in her ear "don't worry about him. Just ignore him and he'll go away."
"So I here you two are joining us on the road" Andrew said motioning to Kaitlyn and Riley. "Let me know when you want to hang with the real superstars."
Riley bit her lip whispering something under her breath that sounded remarkably like 'asshole' taking a strawberry and leaving the table. Test smiled and began to walk away seeing that his goal for the morning of getting under Riley's skin was complete.
"I'll be seeing you losers around" he said as he headed to another table across the room and began talking to Lisa Marie (Victoria)
Every stared at each other with a mix of confusion and annoyance at the disruption of the morning. Riley walked back into the dining room in a seemingly more chipper mood than she had been in seconds before. Chris and Matt looked at each other and Chris mouthed 'talk about mood swings' and Matt nodded. Amy hit them both in the arm to their dismay.
"Come on guys we have a flight to catch!" Riley exclaimed already carrying one of her bags on her shoulder.
"That was quick" Jeff said as they walked to the elevator.
"I just want to get as far away from him as possible." Riley said as they headed to the elevator.
Jeff just nodded in agreement and followed his friend to the elevator.
Yes she did want to get away from him but that wasn't the entire story. She ran through the boarding gate the fastest she had ever run in her life. Riley had left for five minutes to use the bathroom and when I came out the guys had boarded the plane. She made it in the knick of time as the flight attendant was closing the door.
Riley looked around the plane to find Jeff sitting in the aisle seat reading a magazine. She went to my put my bags in the overhead compartment when she spotted Shay sitting in the window seat. This definitely caught her off guard and she dropped her bag causing Jeff and Shay to look at her strangely.
"Brock took Shay's seat and of course he was in one of his moods so I offered for her to sit next to me on the flight."
Shay of course found a way to chime in.
"I hope you don't mind Riley. There were no more window seats left. Isn't Jeff such a nice guy isn't he?"
"No, I don't mind. I can get some work done." To be honest she had lied. Of course in her mind it didn't make sense. If he was such a nice guy, why did he give up my seat?
She got her backpack and was very tempted to go over to Brock, throw him out of the plane, and tell Shay, "here's your seat enjoy the rest of the flight" but instead she found herself sitting in the empty seat next to Chris. This was going to be a long flight.
An hour into the flight she was going crazy. Chris was listening to another Fozzy album and was singing rather loudly. Riley scratched out her last sentence and hit Chris in the shoulder with her notebook. He rubbed his shoulder and turned his attention to her as she resumed writing. He leaned over so he was breathing on her neck and reading over her shoulder. Riley closed her eyes after several seconds and snapped her notebook shut. She got up and went toward the bathroom.
She passed by Shay and Jeff on her way to the bathroom and they seemed to be getting pretty friendly. They were thoroughly engrossed in some subject of conversation I didn't quite catch but the flirty laughs coming from Shay seemed to get louder and louder as she passed by.
She didn't quite understand her mood that. Maybe it's the jetlag; maybe she was just moody or it could have been what she had heard earlier on her way back to the dinning room.
After the little altercation with Test Riley went back up to her room to grab her stuff. She threw everything into a bag and was about to go to the elevator when she heard what sounded like Shay's voice and ducked around the corner of the corridor.
"Yeah she was with Jeff Hardy. What he sees in her I have no idea but..." she was interrupted by the person on the other side of the line. Riley peered around the corner and saw Shay who was talking on her cell phone.
"Riley shared her room with one of the new girls but I did see Jeff sneak into her room this morning and they went down to breakfast together." She paused again.
"Oh don't worry I'll have Jeffy eating out of the palm of my hand and Riley will be out of the picture. You get what you want and I get what I want...and a little bit more. I'll keep you posted. Okay, bye." Shay hung up and went toward the elevator. When she left Riley ran down the stairs and back to the dinning hall making sure to replace the look of worry and anger on her face with a smile.
She remembered then what everyone said about eavesdropping, "never do it or you'll be sure to hear what you don't want to know."
Now she remembered, now she wanted to forget. She splashed some cold water on her face and headed back toward my seat not even paying attention to Shay and Jeff. She looked expecting Chris to be sprawled out on his seat but instead she saw Tyler in his place reading. She looked at him in confusion but he laughs.
"I knew how miserable you were sitting next to 'Mr. Highlight of the Night' so I traded," he said turning his attention back to his book.
"With whom were you sitting with before?"
"Trish. If you ask me the traveling company and the view is much better."
Riley blushed at his compliment and slipped on her headphones sleeping until they landed.
Riley, Kaitlyn, and Tyler sat in the twelfth floor conference room of WWE headquarters surrounded by different members of the creative team, as well as Stephanie and Eric Bischoff who was now in front of the room talking about some of the plans they had in mind.
"And you'll need to go over the scripts with the creative team so you'll have all of your information on what's happening. Or you could just watch the show, whichever you prefer. Do you have any questions?"
Eric looked around the room, which was completely silent. "Okay then. To our interns, your first pieces are due 8 a.m. Monday morning to Tom Lowe the new head of the department. That's three days! I think it's time we adjourn so, have a nice day." He didn't have to tell anyone twice because in a blink of an eye everyone had gathered their papers and were on their way out of the room.
"Are you two heading to the hotel?" Tyler asked as he and the two girls filed into the elevator.
"No, I have to meet Rob for lunch to talk about the article. Did you know that he has someone customize his tights for him? I've seen a bunch of them up close and let me tell you they're amazing," Kaitlyn responded as she pushed the button for the ground floor.
Tyler turned to Riley. "What about you Riley? Do you have an interview or what?"
Riley yawned and pulled herself out of her sleepy daze. "What?" she asked looking at Tyler as if he were speaking another language.
"Interview RyLynn, I was talking about interviews. You know one of the main focuses of your job and what Mr. Bischoff was talking about for the past 3 hours."
"Um, now that I think about it I haven't scheduled a meeting with Brian yet but I'll get around to it. Anyone else have jet lag?"
The elevator finally hit the ground floor and the doors opened.
"Well I'd love to chat more but work to do." Kaitlyn said adjusting her laptop case on her shoulder.
"Ditto," Tyler said getting out of the elevator as well as Riley. "The longest hour of my life shall be spent with Andrew Martin and his 'Testicles'." Tyler paused as Kaitlyn and Riley began to laugh.
"And you have NO IDEA how wrong that just sounded coming from my mouth. I think that I'll be leaving now."
Riley waved goodbye to both of her friends as they left for the garage and went to explore more of the building. Riley walked the halls paying no attention to where she was going.
Tyler Kaitlyn had both received superstars that were well established and who had many accomplishments under their belts. Brian however was a rookie and hadn't received that much air time as far as exposure goes and there weren't very many prior articles on him so it was best that she stick to the usual questions. Things like:
"When did you get into wrestling?"
"How did you get your start?"
"Who did you most admire?"
And
"What are your goals in life?"
"Are you single?"
"Where'd THAT come from?" Riley thought to herself as she exited her thoughts and became more aware of where she was heading. She spotted the employee café and heard her stomach growl a little. "I guess I'll figure that out after I grab something to eat."
Riley entered the café and settled on pizza and a hot tea. She sat down at a table alone in a corner of the café and turned her laptop on to begin researching Brian.
Time flew as she pulled up some background on Spanky's career and some of his matches with SoCal Pro Wrestling. She yawned and saw that the light on her cell was flashing. She looked at the screen and saw that she had one missed message.
" Hey RyLynn, Smackdown starts in thirty minutes. I assume you're working so I got to go. Don't work to hard Riley. See you later." She heard Jeff's voice end on the recording.
"Thirty minutes?" She looked at her watch and saw that it was now nine o' clock. "You have got to be kidding me!" Riley looked at her watch. She had been sitting at the table for the past 3 hours in the café.
Riley packed up her laptop in record time and ran toward the parking garage but stopped in the lobby. She fished for car keys in her bag but she remembered she had come to the office with Tyler and Kaitlyn was probably getting a ride from Rob. This just wasn't turning out to be her day at all, she was sure of that.
She hit her head against the wall. "How am I supposed to get to the show now?"
Brian had exited the elevator on his way to the arena from a meeting with Tom Lowe about an interview he had with a new intern. He was in a hurry to get to the taping but was stopped by the sight of a brunette out of the corner of his eye. Brian looked at her worried as to why a young woman would be standing in the lobby in the middle of the night looking confused. Maybe she was lost or maybe she was crazy. The only way to find out was to approach her.
This wasn't Riley's idea of the first day of a new job. Usually there was a cake or at least a bagel. But she had no such luck this time. Instead, Bischoff gave her a lecture, she was stranded at the office, and she couldn't reach anyone and say that she was okay. She hung up her cell phone after getting Matt's answering machine a third time and a voice caused her to whip around in surprise.
"Are you going to the Smackdown taping?" a voice asked causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.
Riley was a little hesitant in turning around. Maybe this was another strange dream she was having. She really needed to get more sleep on the regular basis. When she turned around she saw the one and only Brian Kendrick standing behind her. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't believe that Brian was standing right in front of her. Talk about convenience.
"Uh, yeah I'm actually running late. I was supposed to meet my friend at the venue earlier but I lost track of time working on stuff for an interview. I'm Riley by the way," she offered her hand and he accepted the gesture.
Brian had an earnest smile on his face. "Brian," he said, as his smile grew wider.
"Well Riley, do you need a ride?" he asked taking the keys to his rental out of his pocket and clutching them in his hand.
Riley only managed to smile and nod, "it looks like this night is looking up" she thought as she followed Brian out to his rental.
The two drove for several miles in silence with the hum of the close to silent engine in the background. Brian kept his focus on the road the whole time trying to see through the blanket of fast falling snow.
Riley looked out of the window and into the side mirror that was frosted over with ice. She noticed the headlight of a car shining rather heavily on the mirror. Riley remembered the warning on the mirror that 'objects may appear closer than they may seem'. She stole a couple of glances out of the back mirror and noticed that the car was following closely behind them – dangerously close.
The snow was following faster and this made Riley nervous. Brian seemed not to notice because his attention was so closely focused on the road. She hadn't seen him glance into the mirrors once since they had left the garage twenty minutes before. She couldn't just sit there and say nothing. Her own nerves couldn't take it.
"Um Brian?" Riley said continuing to look out of the mirrors at the car that was still keeping pace with them.
"Yes Riley?" he said switching the windshield wipers so they were constantly on.
"Don't you think that car is following a little too close?"
Brian knit his eyebrows together in confusion as he took his first look out of the window to see what his companion was talking about. She was right.
"How long has it been following that close?" Brian asked still trying to keep his eyes on the road gripping the steering wheel.
"About three miles now," Riley said sounding nervous.
"This is weird, very weird. I can't try and out maneuver the car, it's too slick," Brian said.
At that time, there was a little bump to the back of the car causing Riley to jerk forward a little bit.
"Holy," Riley said as she hurried to fasten her seat belt. "What are they trying to do, kill us?"
Brian pursed his lips together as if trying to figure out a way to get away. He immediately changed lanes and the mystery car did the same. He switched back into the original lane and the car again followed suit.
"I have a feeling we're being followed," Brian said speeding up a little to put a little distance between themselves and the other car.
In a short time the car had covered the gap and was once again right behind them.
"Wow Brian, what a keen observation. I say we lose them before they kill us whoever they are," Riley said looking over her shoulder.
"Brace yourself," he said turning to Riley.
Riley clutched her armrest and secured her safety belt as Brian stepped on the gas pedal sending the car jetting forward through the clouds of snow. They put more and more distance between themselves and the other car until the headlights were just tiny orbs in the distance. Riley and Brian both sighed in relief as they had escaped. Riley relaxed into her seat occasionally looking over her shoulder to see no sign of the car. Brian took a turn into a rest area and gas depot.
"I'm almost out of gas. We'll stop here and then there's only another twenty minutes to the arena," Brian said as they pulled into a space in front of the gas pump.
Riley nodded and tapped her fingers against the dashboard. Riley closed her eyes to block out the harsh fluorescent lights but did not succeed. She watched Brian as he went into the convenience mart and paid for gas. A black Cadillac with tinted windows pulled up a few minutes afterwards parking near another pump on the other side of the building but Riley didn't pay that much attention to it.
She diverted herself by watching the passing traffic on the highway, but being that the highway wasn't very crowded, in fact it was mostly deserted meaning there was not very much traffic to watch in the first place.
Brian was gone for what seemed like eternity and Riley was relieved when they were back on the highway on their way to the arena. A mile or two passed before Riley and Brian realized that the headlights returned to the rear view mirror. Whoever it was had some how caught up with them.
Brian mumbled something under his breath and began to speed up. Riley secured her safety belt looking into the side mirror to see the other car keeping pace with them inches away from the bumper. There came a bump to the fender jerking the car forward. Brian tried to keep control of the car given the condition of the road and it wasn't easy. The bumping from the other car was becoming harder and more frequent. Brian lost control of the wheel due to a patch of ice causing their car to spin out of control. Riley held her breath and closed her eyes expecting a hard crash. The spun around several times, Brian clutching the steering wheel trying to turn into the spin. They finally came to a rough stop in a ditch on the side of the road. They saw another car presumably the one that had put them there zip by them and disappear in the night.
"Are you okay?" Brian asked looking at a shaken up Riley.
Riley could only manage a nod. They sat in silence for about a minute until Brian broke the silence.
"You have a tape recorder right?" Brian asked turning to her again.
"A...a tape recorder?" Riley asked looking at Brian strangely.
"Yeah, since we'll probably be stuck here for a bit you might as well get the interview done," Brian said smiling at Riley's bewildered expression.
Riley nodded and mumbled something before stumbling through her bag for the tape recorder she had. She hadn't remembered that she needed to get an interview with Brian so she could get her article in by Monday. She set the tape recorder on the dash, fished out her notes and questions and pushed play on the recorder.
"Are you ready," she asked as she adjusted her sitting position to become more comfortable.
"Whenever you are," Brian laughed. He had a feeling this was going to be an interesting interview.
It was her luck that Riley had gotten Brian as a first interview. It had been a good experience for her minus the earlier difficulties. Considering they were both freezing and shaken up by the near death experience the interview was pretty laid back. It was like chatting away with an old friend. She couldn't believe her luck. In all the day had been both a blessing and a curse and the jet lag was finally fading away though her head was hurting tremendously and her heart was racing with a rush of adrenaline.
Travis Gray for SoCal Uncensored did the following interview with Brian Kendrick. I own nothing. Please don't sue me.
Riley: I'll start off with the usual question. How did you get started in the wrestling business?
Spanky: Well I went over to my friend's house and they were renting Wrestlemania VI, which had Hogan vs. Warrior. I had never watched wrestling back then but while watching with my friends I became fascinated. I realized I'm way too small to be doing it but I'm stupid enough to be doing it. So you know, I just wanted to be like the Warrior one day. I was 11 then so you know, what can I say.
Riley: How'd you first get into training?
Spanky: Well, I'm from Washington State first of all and there are no schools up there. I tried calling several wrestling schools and nobody called me back. Finally, I got into NWA Southwest, trained, had a couple matches but realized I wasn't going to get any better and go anywhere. So I went back to Washington, saved up some money and was hoping that some how I could find Jose Lothario to train me, because he trained my favorite wrestler, Shawn Michaels. Well, word got out that Shawn Michaels was opening up a school with Jose Lothario, so I called a number that I found and they sent me a pamphlet. It mentioned the cost was $1300 to begin with. I didn't have nearly enough money to begin with but I told them I did, so from there I just moved to San Antonio.
Riley: The actual trainers there were Jose Lothario and Shawn Michaels?
Spanky: Jose Lothario retired by the time I got there, but the actual coaches were Shawn Michaels and Rudy Boy Gonzales.
Riley: What was it like training under your idol, Shawn Michaels?
Spanky: It was kind of scary at first and I was really nervous. I mean, what do you say to one of the greatest wrestlers of all time? It turned out he was the nicest guy you could ever meet. People can believe what they want to believe but he's generally a nice person. It's great learning from the greatest wrestler of all time. Rudy also puts in a ton of effort and I'd say he's the most underrated person I've ever met.
Riley: So what's the story with the stuffed animal promo?
Spanky: You saw that one?
Riley: Yeah.
Spanky: Well, I like to play those claw games. I used to go to Joe's Crab Shack all the time and got myself a duck, I think, a frog and I don't know what else. The guy in charge of promos, David Jett, said we have to do some vignette, so what do you want to do. I said I got these stuffed animals. He said, "So what are you going to do with them?" I said, "Well I'm going to pretend to have a match." Basically, a year after me badgering them about doing stupid stuff, he caved in, and there ya go, stuffed animal promo.
Jeff checked his voice mail for the third time that night since the show had ended. He had figured that the snow had held her up a bit or perhaps she was working late. Even if she were working late wouldn't she have called him by now? He remembered the conversation they had had in her apartment a few weeks before. She didn't need him to check on her every few minutes. But then again, that didn't mean she didn't need him at all did it?
Matt and Amy came into the room and saw Jeff pacing a hole into the floor and looked to one another for some answer as to how to make him stop.
"Stop worrying, I'm sure Riley just lost track of time. I think they had interview stuff to take care of," Matt piped up toweling off from his match and grabbing a bottle of water.
"I hope you're right," Jeff said still clutching his cell phone in hand. "I think I'll go back to the hotel and wait for her if she decided to turn in early."
Matt nodded, "good idea," he said as his brother grabbed his belongings and left the locker room.
Matt turned to Amy, "Just watch him for me and take Cena and Chris with you."
Amy nodded and left soon after collecting her things. Matt sighed and packed his duffle bag. As he went to leave the locker room his cell phone rang.
Jeff walked through the halls of the arena all the while trying to reason in his head what had happened to his friend and why she hadn't called him. He wandered toward the catering table bypassing the coffee to grab a bottle of water. His nerves were pretty shot though he didn't seem to quite notice it. Jeff proceeded grabbed a bagel for the road and felt a small hand on his shoulder. He smiled lightly to himself and his muscles relaxed a little but when he turned around the friendly face that his mind and his heart were expecting didn't meet him.
It was in fact the bubbly blonde that he had met weeks before and had shared a plane row with that morning. He again tensed and his smile faded into nothing but a forced friendly smile.
"Hey Jeff, what's wrong grumpy?" Shay asked stepping a little closer to him closing a little more distance between them.
When Jeff didn't give an immediate answer but glanced at his watch in a nervous manner Shay studied him and frowned.
"Well, I know what can cheer you up," the ends of her lips twitched upward into a slight smile as she thought.
"There's a party at my suite and..."
Jeff stared at his watched and sighed aloud. "Shay I'm really tired and I have to be somewhere but maybe some other time," he said quickly pushing his way past the girl and toward the parking lot.
Shay frowned and sat down at one of the mini tables thinking of where Jeff could have been hurrying. She smiled to herself and thought of her soon to be triumph "Only a matter of time."
