Blaze of Glory
A/N: Alright, so you guys can't possibly know how much your reviews have meant to me today. They always mean a lot, but today was especially hard, and reading all of your kind words made it so much better! You all rock out, hard core! This chapter is a lot of exposition, so I hope it's not too cumbersome. For a little bit of a change, I do own one character in this story - Carter - but nobody else. Enjoy!
Trish groaned as the morning sunlight reflected off the snow-covered Connecticut earth, and hit her directly in the face. If there was one thing she loved about every WWE Christmas bash, it was the day-off that followed. The party, Vince told them, was his way of saying "thanks" for all of their hard work during the year. The day after, he went on with a smile, was his gift to all of them. And knowing full-well that they would all be too tanked to do anything constructive, it was really the only option from a business perspective, as well.
With a grunt, she sat up and pushed her tangled hair from her face. Did I forget to the pay the electric bill? she shivered as she stumbled out of the bed and headed for the bathroom. With a roll of her eyes, she sat on the toilet and covered her throbbing head with her hands. No wonder I'm freezing my ass off, she thought when she finally realized she was naked. Her dress from the night before was in a heap on the tiled floor, soaked in what appeared to be a rainbow of regurgitated alcohol.
What the hell did I do? Another groan escaped her lips as the night before came floating back to her clearly, but in disconnected pieces. There had been tequila. Oh, and dancing. Rum. She remembered the rum. There had been Orton. Maybe some vodka?
Rolling her eyes, she finished up in the bathroom and thought about Randy, about the smooth way he had worked her at the party, and how it had almost paid off.
"Trish, I'm not playing," Randy insisted as he draped his arm over the back of her chair.
Sweat clung to her curves, causing her hair to stick to her neck and her face. It had been a long time since she had danced with, or had the freedom to flirt with, anyone. And knowing that her value was still high, even after five years off the market, put a little bit of a confident spring in her step. Enough that she was willing to keep playing Orton's game, at least for a little while.
"I believe you," she lied, sitting as close as she could to the young Legend Killer without actually climbing into his lap. She was fairly certain he wouldn't have minded if she had, though. "I just don't think that you're sober enough right now."
Randy raised an eyebrow and looked down Trish's shirt without so much as a pink hue in his cheeks. "Baby, if there is one thing I can promise you about Randy Orton," he licked his lips and put his finger under her chin, drawing her eyes to his, "it's that he is never too drunk, too tired, too grouchy, or too unprepared to pleasure a beautiful woman like you."
Trish answered his claim with an eyebrow of her own, moving closer and resting her hand on his thigh. "You think you can pleasure me, Orton?" Her hand slid up his leg and rested beside the hardening bulge in his pants. "You think you can satisfy someone with as much experience as me?"
He moaned and lowered his face to hers, claiming her mouth hungrily. He wasn't about to give her some slow, tender lip-dance. He was bound and determined to show her that he was fully capable of out-performing anyone she'd ever been with. His finger ran from her chin to her throat as he licked the roof of her mouth and then pulled away.
Trish opened her eyes slowly to find a smirk on his lips, and his finger inching dangerously close to her breast. Scraping her manicured nails across the fabric of his pants, she licked her lips and reached for the beer bottle on the table before her. "Not bad, Kid," she winked.
He grinned non-chalantly and leaned back in the seat. "Not bad," he scoffed. "Alright, Trish, how 'bout this?" He propositioned her so easily, that she nearly missed the implication of his words. "How 'bout we go back to your place? We'll get out of these sweaty clothes, huh?" Leaning close, he whispered in her ear. Trish closed her eyes as the sultry tone washed over her. "And I'll prove to you that I'm not too drunk to make you scream."
They both knew it wasn't so much Trish, as the alcohol, that said "okay" and led him out of that club. They both knew that, as soon as she woke up, she would kick herself for falling into his harem. But Randy was not the knight in shining armor, and he wasn't going to decide, at the last minute, that he couldn't take advantage of her inebriated state. Hell, he was the one that had got her inebriated enough to take him home in the first place.
Trish spent the entire car ride kissing his neck, running her nails down his back and over his legs. In the glare of oncoming traffic, she unbuttoned his dress shirt and sucked at his soft, salty, sweat-covered chest until he was ready to pull the car over and just fuck her on the shoulder of the busy highway. Trish knew that, once they got to her house, they probably wouldn't even make it inside, and she didn't fuckin' care. Until they pulled into the driveway.
The sight of the dark motorcycle, resting on its side near the front door, sobered Trish up faster than any pill could have. As Randy parked the car in the circular driveway, she straightened her dress and put a hand on the door. "You have to go."
He laughed incredulously, but when Trish turned a serious expression on him, he dropped the grin. "What's goin' on, Trish?"
She wanted to tell him, to tell someone, but the words wouldn't come. It was more complicated than any of them would ever understand. "Just," she licked her lips and then shook her head, growing flustered, "You just have to go, okay?" Opening the door, she hopped out of the car and into the cold, night air. "I'm sorry, Randy. Maybe some other time?"
He shrugged, threw out a 'whatever,' and sped away, leaving Trish in the driveway to take deep breaths and convince herself that it wouldn't be as bad as she feared.
In the light of day, though, things seemed no better. She was hungover, angry, sad, and confused all at the same time, and she had nothing to keep her mind from recent events. Her dream of a luxurious day off was quickly becoming a nightmare as she stumbled down the stairs and headed for the kitchen.
Leaping off the bottom step, her foot caught on something lumpy and sent her flying, face first, into the hall carpet. It took a few seconds to realize what had happened, and then another couple to sit and brush the hair out of her face. "God dammit, Carter!" The man stirred from his sleeping place and looked at her with groggy eyes. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Pulling himself to a seated position, Carter Schaefer's shocked expression mirrored Trish's. He wiped a thin line of drool from the corner of his mouth and looked around, as if unsure of where he was, or why he was there. "Trish?"
She huffed and stood, motioning for him to do likewise. He had been her best friend since fourth grade, when his family moved in down the street from hers. He had been her first crush in junior high and her first boyfriend in high school. After graduation, they had gone their separate ways, but fate seemed to bring them back together just before Trish signed her WWE contract. They had been inseparable, completely in love, ever since.
But somewhere along the way, the threads of happiness began to unravel, at least for Trish. The traits that seemed attractive when they were teenagers turned annoying as they entered adulthood. His excessive weekend parties, obnoxious jokes and pranks, and inability to hold a job started to grate on her nerves as they both neared thirty.
Worse yet, he seemed completely oblivious to the problems. Anytime she tried to bring up their future, he would tell her it wasn't the right time. He would always say something like "Trisha, baby, we're young and we're hot. Why you so worried about settling down yet?" And after what felt like an eternity of planning her life as Mrs. Carter Schaefer, she had broken up with him.
He hadn't taken it well, insisting that she couldn't have just fallen out of love with him over night. For the next month, he kept telling her that he was sure they could make it work – that he would change, and everything would be okay. He had tried to convince her that losing her had kicked his ass into gear, and that he was going to be better for her in the future.
She wanted to believe him. Lita and Victoria had both told her they didn't understand why she would even consider taking him back, and Trish knew that they were right. There was no evidence to prove that Carter had changed. But he had been a part of her life, practically a part of her family, for over twenty years. They had always been Carter and Trish, and she really couldn't imagine a future without him in it.
She had tried, all during that party, to forget about him completely. Taking Orton home was supposed to be the final send off to all things Carter. But he had been there, waiting for her to get home. He had been waiting to wiggle his way back into her life again. And fuck all if she didn't fall for it again.
"When you said you needed a place to stay," Trish started, leading him into the kitchen while rubbing the back of her head, "I didn't know you meant at the foot of my stairs."
He rolled his eyes and fell onto the bar stool at her counter, resting his head against the cool marble top. "I was on the couch," he answered. "But I had to pee."
Trish stood at the refrigerator, contemplating its contents, but at the sound of his words, she whipped her head around. "If you fuckin' pissed on my floor, I swear to God," she started.
Carter waved her off with a lazy hand and turned his face toward the wall. "Made it to the can," he assured her, his voice muffled by his sleeve. "Just not back to the couch."
He was out of money again, and didn't have a place to stay. He had promised her, on his knees, that he just needed to stay with her for one day, and then he would be gone. With puppy dog eyes, he had pulled the "you're my best friend" card, and she had caved like sandcastle at high tide.
"What time do you have to be at work?" she asked, pouring orange juice for both of them. From what she remembered, through the drunken fog, he had called almost a week ago to tell her that he had landed a new construction job and that he was saving to put some money down on a little house in the country, the kind she had always wanted.
With a snort and the roll of his head, Trish realized he had fallen asleep again. Irritated with the hangover and the sight before her, she nudged his arm until he awoke with a start. "What?" he shouted, bumping his head on the cabinets above him. "Fuck, Trish. What the hell?"
She narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips, ignoring the toast in the machine behind her. "I'm not in the mood for your bull shit, Carter. What time do you have to fuckin' be at work?"
He closed his eyes again, and then rubbed his hands over his stubbly, unshaven face. "I don't," he sighed.
"Huh?"
"I don't have to be at work today," he answered, not meeting her eye.
"Why not?" Trish wracked her brain for a legitimate excuse that a man working construction wouldn't have to be at work on a Friday. "Is it some American holiday that I forgot about? You workin' 4 ten hour days? What is it, Carter?"
He cringed and looked at her through his fingers, giving her his best "little boy" face. It was the one that had gotten him out of so many predicaments when they were together. "I kinda quit."
But he wasn't a little boy. And they weren't together anymore. And in that moment, Trish remembered why. Slamming her juice to the counter top, and ignoring the shattered glass, she took a step back to stop herself from getting physical. "You know what? Fuck you," she shouted. "Fuck you for coming over here in the middle of the night, crying about how you don't have a fuckin' place to stay when you can't keep a fuckin' job for more than two weeks. What the fuck was wrong this time? Huh? Was there even a reason? Do you realize that you are thirty fuckin' years old? This is not cute anymore!"
Letting out a sigh, her shoulders sagged as she watched him growing defensive. "Well, I'm sorry I can't get a fuckin' job where I lift weights all day, and strut around being beautiful," he accused.
She had folded to that argument before, but this time was different. Something inside Trish was tired of giving in to him. "I'm sorry, too, Carter. I'm sorry that you can't get a job where all you have to do is being fuckin' pretty." Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at him. "And if, after five years, you still think that's all I do for a living? Then don't you ever ask my why the fuck we broke up again." Narrowing her eyes, she pointed to the door. "I think you better go. Now."
Standing, he gave her an indignant stare, as though he was the one with a right to be mad. "Fine," he shouted, like a child throwing a tantrum. "But you remember who loves you, Trisha. You remember who has loved you since back before anyone else knew you. You remember who loved you before you had the fake tits and the new nose!" His eyes filled with tears and his lip quivered. "I'm not givin' up on us, Baby."
When he was gone, Trish found herself overcome with emotions she couldn't understand. She knew she was doing the right thing. So why did it hurt so much to throw him out? She knew that he had been able to cry on cue since high school drama classes. So why did seeing his tears break her heart? She knew that he had always been against her cosmetic "enhancements." So why did his insults make her think he still cared more about her as a person than anyone else? And why the hell was she considering calling Randy Orton at a time like this?
Come on, Trish. Randy likes your boobs. He likes your nose. Hell, he likes everything about you. He wants you – has for years. And he's not gonna want anything in return. You don't have to get attached. He can't break your heart or make you cry. If he's half as good as everyone says, you can have great sex, and no threat of disappointment. Isn't that what you really want?
It was stupid, with all of the potential in the world to end badly. No, tragically. Catastrophically. But dammit if she didn't pick up her cell and dial the number he had entered after his first proposition, two years ago.
