Chapter 18: Deck the Halls Part II

Riley awoke to the sound of running water and a sliver of sunlight peaking through curtains and into the hotel room. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the mild darkness and turned on her side to see Jeff's messy bed vacant.

"What time is it?" Riley said to herself, searching for a clock in the room.

The red lights of the clock showed seven thirty-five in the morning. She wondered if anyone else was awake this early considering the events of that earlier morning. There was a faint knock at the door. Riley groaned and pulled the sheets over her head. In her opinion it was too damn early for guests. There was a louder knock and realizing that Jeff was going to spend quite a while in the shower she decided to answer it. She threw the sheets off of her and climbed out of the bed. She realized she was still dressed in her outfit from the previous night as she walked to the door. The person on the other side of the door knocked once more before Riley unlocked the door and tore the door open. She came face to face with a surprised Kaitlyn, clad in a running suit and sneakers.

"Where were you Riley? Tyler and I spent forever looking for you last night," she lightly scorned as she stepped through the doorway. Riley closed the door behind her and yawned.

"Yes, it is to early for any of this," Riley thought as she sat on her unmade bed and Kaitlyn sat at the table. She noticed the box of doughnuts sat on the table from hours before. Riley nodded.

"Help yourself. Matt thought it'd be a good idea if we grabbed some sugar on our way back to the hotel."

Kaitlyn opened the box and grabbed a doughnut. "So," she said in between bites, "what happened to you last night? You never told me where you were going before we left."

Riley sighed and entertained Kaitlyn with the story of how she missed Jeff's call, her encounter with the man in the lobby, her chance meeting with Brian, getting stuck in the snow, and Kaitlyn got a huge laugh out of hearing about the events of earlier that morning.

"I was surprised Jeff...speaking of the devil, where is he? I came to retrieve you two for breakfast," Kaitlyn asked seeing the bed next to Riley's messy and slept in but no Jeff in sight.

Riley had noticed that the water from the shower had stopped running and the bathroom seemed completely quiet. Riley saw a crack in the door out of the corner of her eye and tried to hide the smile that was now tugging at her lips.

"Um, I assume that he's in the bathroom and quite busy...when's breakfast again?"

Kaitlyn checked her watch and sighed, "well considering it's already eight o' clock and just about everyone was still screaming at me to let them sleep, I'll give them another half an hour to at least wake up."

Riley shook her head and stealing another glance at the bathroom door. "Figures," she said still noticeably suppressing a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Kaitlyn asked finishing up her doughnut.

"Oh nothing. I think I should get dressed though if we only have say twenty-six minutes left. And after breakfast I was thinking we can go shopping for presents," she added thinking of some way to get Kaitlyn out of the hotel room without breaking down into a fit of laughter.

"That's a good idea," Kaitlyn agreed with Riley who was now searching the room for her shoes.

"I'm going to go back to the room as soon as I find my shoes."

Riley looked under both beds with a confused and frustrated look on her face. She could have sworn that she had put her shoes on the floor next to the...she sighed and shook her head and continued to "search" for her shoes.

"Okay." Kaitlyn got up and headed toward the door. "I think I'll give waking up Mr. Cena again. That should kill at least the next twenty minutes of my life."

Riley heard the door close behind her friend and got off of her hands and knees.

"She's gone now," Riley yelled and took a seat on Jeff's bed and yawned again. "You can come out now Jeffy," Riley added still trying to contain her laughter by biting her lower lip.

She saw the bathroom door open slowly and the steam that had built up in the bathroom floated into the main room and hit Riley like a fog. The feel of heat and the faint scent of very masculine shampoo and aftershave now surrounded her. Jeff soon walked out wearing a towel around his waist and carrying Riley's shoes in his left hand.

"Thank you very much," he said dropping them at the foot of the bed and started to rummage through his suitcase for something to wear.

Riley nodded absently and inhaled the overpowering scent of Jeff's aftershave. Truthfully it was beginning to make her dizzy. She thought to open a window or step onto the balcony, but that would mean nearly freezing to death. The next best thing would to be to taunt her best friend. It may have been quite early but seeing him clad only in a towel and considering the fact that he had stole her shoes it was pretty well deserved.

"Well Jeffy, tell me something," Riley began to grin and lay on her stomach.

"Yes?" Jeff was still intent on looking through his suitcase. He hadn't picked up on the fact that she had called him Jeffy twice already.

"Why did you steal my shoes?" she asked still trying to clear her head of the scent of aftershave.

Jeff cleared his throat and continued to sift through his suitcase. "I have no idea what you're talking about," came the flat reply.

Riley would have let it go but she saw him edge slowly away from the foot of the bed where his suitcase was placed. She finally could not take it anymore. The wide smile that had been pulling at the corner of her lips had now succeeded in making an appearance on her face.

"Please don't tell me that you were embarrassed to come out of the bathroom wearing just a towel were you?"

Jeff finally grabbed a pair of jeans and t-shirt and sprinted into the bathroom with the sound of Riley's laughter following him.

"Aw Jeffy's modest," Riley gasped for air in between fits of giggles.

By the time she had gained some breath her sides were hurting and tears had now streaked down her cheeks. Feeling that she had calmed down a little bit, Jeff emerged from the bathroom now fully dressed and a little red in the face from his embarrassment. Riley bit her bottom lip rather hard to stop whatever laughter threatened to escape. She had had her fun for the morning and it made up for the lack of sleep that she had gotten.

"Well are you done now?" Jeff asked sitting next to his friend on the bed brushing a loose piece of hair out of her face as she looked up to face him.

Riley could only manage to throw a cheesy grin at him still trying to stifle the laughter that wanted to get out. He took note that her lower lip was swollen from her biting it so much.

"And speaking of getting dressed, you should get going. Kaitlyn should be looking for you in the next few minutes."

They both glanced at the clock that showed that it was three minutes past the half way mark.

"Holy crap, I'd better get dressed!" Riley grabbed her shoes and bolted out of the hotel room letting the door slam behind her.

Jeff collapsed onto the bed and sighed. "This can't be happening."

He had to admit that his and Riley's relationship had gotten a little weird since she had come on the road with them in a matter of a few weeks. It was hard to explain but he just loved having her around. He could have kicked himself last night when she wasn't anywhere to be found. If he didn't know better he could have thought she was mad at him about what had happened on the plane with Shay. Jeff had noticed whenever Shay had been around them Riley had been a little on edge. Maybe it was a girl thing that he wasn't able to understand. But whatever it was he didn't want anything bad to happen between them. Her friendship meant everything to him. He guessed that he would be mad if she would give away his seat and made him sit next to Chris – or worse though there wasn't much worse than Chris.

He had to think of a way to make it up to her. And he hadn't even asked her about what had happened to her the previous night. Not taking his calls wasn't very characteristic of her he had to admit and he had rationalized it to be because of the storm, but if she really was mad at him he was in it deep.

Riley had showered and dressed in record time and sprinted toward the elevator to get down to the hotel dinning room. As she turned the corner she literally ran into none other than Tyler. The impact was like running into a wall; sure Tyler wasn't huge like Brock, but he was still pretty muscular. She was about to fall backwards when Tyler grabbed her by the hands and helped her regain her balance.

"Whoa there, are you okay?" Tyler asked as Riley slowly gained stability on her feet.

"Yeah, I think this whole running into people while going around blind corners is becoming a habit," she laughed.

"Well, it would be if you were always in such a hurry. Where's the fire? Not that I'm complaining about beautiful girls running into me this early in the morning."

Riley laughed as she loosened her hands from Tyler's grip and put a little bit of distance between them.

"Actually we were just heading to the dinning room for breakfast," a voice said behind the pair. They turned to see the one and only Jeff Hardy walking out of his hotel room and toward them.

"You're more than welcome to join us, but we have to hurry before the slow and grumpy beat us to the table."

Riley gave Jeff and strange look and nodded in agreement. She checked her watch again.

"Uh oh, now you know exactly why I'm in such a hurry," Riley laughed as Jeff stood behind her.

"Oh, um I actually have to work on my article that's due Monday and I have a lot of packing to do but I'll be seeing you two around," Tyler said as he prepared to make his exit.

"Ok, I'll see you later," Riley responded as she smiled and waved.

Both Jeff and Tyler nodded to one another in regards and Tyler headed off in the other direction toward his hotel room. Jeff gently slipped his hand into Riley's as they waited for the elevator. She didn't notice the contact until the elevator arrived. She shot him a strange look and he only gave her a laughing expression as to ask 'what?'

They rode wordlessly down the elevator and walked into the dinning room that way until they were in plain sight of their table of friends. It looked as if everyone was there, much to some people's dismay and exhaustion. It was evident by looking at the faces of everyone in the dinning room that they weren't the only one's that hadn't gotten the recommended hours of sleep last night.

There were two empty seats next to Chris and a third next to John. They took the two next to Chris and looked from each person at the table to the next. Chris was poking at his French toast, John was writing something on his napkin, Matt looked as if he was pissed off at the world, despondent, and about to cry at the same time, and Amy looked as if she was about to fall into a food coma. Just then Kaitlyn approached the table and sat down, a glass of orange juice in hand. Riley gave her a look as to say 'what's going on?'

Kaitlyn sighed, "well, Chris is just being a grouch, Amy had about five more doughnuts since she's woken up this morning, John's writing new lyrics, and Matt, well..." she leaned in closer to the two and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. "He's been mumbling all morning about Rachel breaking up with him."

Jeff and Riley let out simultaneous "Oh's".

"Note to self: stay away from Matt and no mentions of Rachel, relationships or...find a third thing to not mention" Riley thought to herself as her eyes scanned the rest of the dinning room in boredom.

Brian was next to approach the table. "Here's your fifth cup of coffee," he said to Chris as he sat the mug in front of him. "Four sugars, three vanilla creamers and whipped cream. Chris' eyes lit up until Riley snatched the cup away from him.

"Yummy, just the way I like it. Thanks Brian," Riley smiled at the man before taking a sip.

Everyone stared at her wide-eyed as she continued to drink the coffee and Chris' mouth seemed to hang close to the ground.

"YOU!!!! Why can't you get your own coffee," he half yelled. She put the coffee cup down and slid it toward Jeff so that Chris couldn't grab it.

"Chris, you've had five cups of coffee. Lord knows you're high strung enough. Besides, I'm just looking after your health, because I care".

This received laughter from everyone at their table and the table next to them. Even Matt snapped out of his sadness and smirked a little bit.

"Whatever you assclown. I'll get my own damn coffee."

Chris got out of his chair and went to find more coffee. Riley continued to sip her coffee and engaged in a conversation with Kaitlyn and Brian who was sitting at the table right next to them. Unfortunately, so was Test who they tried to ignore to the best of their abilities.

"I'm surprised we haven't run into Shay yet. She's been stalking around here and specifically Jeff since yesterday afternoon," Kaitlyn said taking a sip of her orange juice.

"Well hopefully, it stays that way. The less I see of her the better. I don't trust her. She's suspicious and she hangs around way too much," Riley said stealing a piece of bacon from Matt's plate without any resistance.

"Maybe I could get used to this 'Matt being upset thing,'" she thought to herself as she ate the bacon.

Brian laughed as he ate his French toast. "I don't understand you women and your cattiness. Besides, what has Shay ever done to you. She seems like a perfectly nice girl to me."

"She's a leech if you ask me. And besides, it's not what she has done to me, it's what she COULD do," Riley had a deadly serious look on her face.

This gave Brian a laugh. "Whatever you say RyLynn, I'm sure you can take her if she really could do anything."

"I agree with you Riley, there's something fishy about her," Kaitlyn chimed in again.

A few minutes went by until Mr. Bischoff entered the dinning room and whistled to get their attention.

"Excuse me! For all of you who missed the ever so eventful party that took place last night I have a special announcement to make."

The six at the table plus Brian exchanged looks of confusion with one another.

"There had been a party the night before? That explains why everyone else in the room looked exhausted and without a doubt," Kaitlyn amused herself with the thought as she continued to listen to Mr. Bischoff speak.

"I would like you to congratulate a new employee and RAW diva, Miss Shay Patterson," Eric announced and began to applaud. People around them began to stand and applaud as well some hooting occurred as well as Shay stood and smiled at the crowded dinning room. Now it was Riley's turn to have her jaw drop as well as Kaitlyn. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Shay was now working for the company?! Though it was almost nine-thirty it still qualified as WAY to early to hear bad news of this magnitude.

"Oh no, here she comes again!" Riley thought to herself as she finished off her coffee. Over the brim of the cup she could see Shay making her way through the crowded dinning room receiving congratulatory remarks as she made her way in their general direction. Sure enough she spotted them and sauntered towards them with a cocky smile on her face.

"There goes my Shay free morning."

After about five seconds she could hear Chris laughing in her ear as he returned to his seat with his fresh cup of coffee, replacing the one that she had taken away. He could see the look of dismay on her face and decided to make light of the situation.

"Deck the ho you know you want to falalalalalalalala!" he sang in her ear lightly.

"Shut up Chris before I hurt you falalalalalalala," she sang back hitting him in the leg with her balled up fist.

He grimaced and rubbed his now sore leg. She was more bothered by Shay than he had originally thought. He inched his chair away from hers slightly so he wouldn't be subject to becoming a punching bag during the rest of the meal. He would leave, but then again this could be way too entertaining to watch.

"Hi everybody, Shay said as she approached the table," Jeff, Amy, John, and, Chris all had chipper 'hellos' while Riley barely managed a smile.

She turned to Riley and smiled, "RyLynn, I'm so happy to see you made it back...Jeff was so upset that he couldn't find you. I was more than happy to comfort him though."

Riley truly smiled a sarcastic smile and spoke low so that only Chris and Jeff could hear her.

"I'm sure you were..." the last word was muffled and Chris fought not to laugh. Jeff's eyes widened and he instantly began to panic.

"It's too early for a cat fight. Please let Riley control her temper PLEASE," he tapped his foot nervously as he looked from Riley to Shay and back again. Shay looked confused yet still perky and Riley – well she looked annoyed. He knew that there could be an explosion at any given moment.

"Excuse me honey, I didn't quite hear you," she said her eyes closing into visibly tiny slits and staring Riley down in contempt.

Riley laughed slightly and her smile grew wider "I said..."

Jeff made the save by popping a huge chocolate covered strawberry into Riley's mouth. Everyone at the table had resumed what they were originally doing but had looked up. Amy didn't know whether or not to applaud Jeff for sparing the whole room a show of hair pulling and biting. Whatever the issue was they could at least resolve it in the wrestling ring. That would be a sight.

Riley shot Jeff a look and began chewing on the strawberry.

"That's alright, I have some training to catch up on anyways. See you at the arena Jeff," Shay said obviously winking and flirting. Brian had been listening and nearly choked on his juice. Kaitlyn patted him on the back and tried to make a save of some sort. Riley's patience was obviously being tried and to the trained eye it looked as if she would snap

if she hadn't already done so.

"Um, congratulations Shay on the...thing. I think it's time we left anyhow. Busy, busy, busy. Right guys?" Kaitlyn asked giving everyone looks signaling that it was time to go.

Everyone caught on and a simultaneous 'yea' rang out. Shay walked in the opposite direction. Riley sank down into her chair, snatched up another strawberry and chewed on it slowly.

Everyone gave Kaitlyn an appreciative look and was thankful that a crisis had been averted for now at least.

AN:/ Well my computer is a jerk (internet wise) so I'm trying to work on the next chapter during my free time (due to school). All the old uploading is finished so look out for new chapters soon. And if you know about Darling Nikki, I'm working on a chapter for that too. Well, nothing more to say but read and review!