Chapter 20: The Hotel Room, Part One

Thechilly atmosphere in her hotel room hardly thrilled Trish, as Randy and Matt chattered between themselves across the room from her. She turned her attention to the TV set in the room and flicked around the stations randomly to try and find something worth watching. It proved to be a fruitless task, as the programming was as mundane as the gibberish coming from the men.

She was tempted to interrupt them and spit out the burning question in her mind; she wanted to know what all the shady behavior was about. She had a motive for not doing so though and it was right before her. Whilst the conversation coming out of his mouth was pretty boring to listen to, he certainly wasn't boring to look at. She couldn't deny that she was deeply jealous of her best friend. Randy Orton was the kind of good looking guy she coveted. And Molly had him.

'Where is Molly?' she wondered. She checked the time on her cell phone; it had been a good twenty minutes or so since Molly had called her and the hotel wasn't all that far from the arena. Her plan of action had been for Molly to distract Randy for long enough so that she could interrogate Matt, who seemed like a bit of a soft touch. To her, Randy looked like a tougher nut to crack, but that was another good facet in her eyes.

"Hey Trish... why don't you join with us? You look a bit bored over there." Matt said, disturbing her evaluation of Randy.

She pretended to be engrossed with the images on the TV screen, when she was anything but interested in them. She wasn't in the mood for small talk.

"Leave her to it Matt, the TV is bound to be way more interesting than us anyway." Randy said dryly.

Trish felt his words cut into her, as if he could read her mind or something. 'Try telling that to Molly.' she thought. Her friend was completely besotted with him; she couldn't really fault her for that, but it still didn't sit kindly.

"Any idea how long Molly is going to be?" Matt asked, ignoring Randy's suggestion.

Trish felt compelled to shoot back her own cynical response. "Why don't you ask him?" she replied, referring to Randy.

Matt looked over to Randy, who grimaced in the direction of Trish. He turned back and shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he had no idea. He hadn't even spoken to Molly since his match. He suspected that things would be tense between him and Trish and it hadn't taken long for him to be proven right.

As Matt tried to re-engage in discussion, Randy couldn't help but glance across to Trish who lay on the bed on the opposite side of the room to him. She rested her cute face on the palm of her left hand, her blonde hair flowing over her shoulders. 'Why does she have to open her mouth?' he thought to himself, as he watched her twiddle strands of hair with her right hand. He tried not to be seduced by her, but he could not help it. She was stunningly attractive and he had always been a sucker for fair haired girls like her.

"Randy! Are you listening to me?" Matt shouted, which distracted both Randy and Trish.

"Can you keep the noise down! I'm trying to watch this!" Trish said scathingly, which only served to elicit another scowl from Randy.

"Sorry." Matt apologized.

Randy thought on his feet, because he didn't see what Matt had to be sorry about. He questioned whether Trish was paying any attention to the TV at all and he wanted to find out, "What is it about then Trish?"

"Huh?" she answered irritably. She stared right into Randy's eyes and became lost in them instantly. 'Why am I feeling like this!' she berated herself, as Randy pressed for an answer.

"The show on the box. What's it about?"

Silence descended on the room, as Trish fidgeted and squirmed; she had no idea what the topic of the show was. She considered looking back and making something up, but she became lost in his gaze and found herself mesmerized by it. Her body even tingled as she detected the hint of a smile on Randy's face.

Matt felt more bewildered than the other two people in the room, as he watched them staring each other out. "Come on guys, does it really matter?"

The focus quickly shifted to Matt, as both Randy and Trish scowled at him. Before either could vent any further fury in his direction, there was a sound at the door; Molly had finally arrived back at the room.

She walked in breezily with a big smile on her face, but that happy expression quickly turned into one of consternation when she saw the battle lines that had been drawn in front of her. After speaking with Trish earlier, she had been optimistic about the evening ahead. 'Serves me right for believing that!'

"Hey Molly!" Trish said brightly, her pout turning to a far more mellow complexion in the blink of an eye.

"What's wrong guys?" Molly asked, after dropping her bags to the ground. Trish's smokescreen reaction was not enough to curb her curiosity.

"Nothing honey." Randy said, as he made a move over to the door to welcome his girlfriend. He tried to shut out the images of Trish that had polluted his mind minutes earlier to focus on Molly's beauty. Thankfully for him, one glimpse of her girl next door charm was enough to jolt his heart back in the right direction.

Molly shunned his advances however, as he made a play to kiss her. She backed away and stepped aside, showing him up. She wanted any animosity cleared up before they went any further.

"Whatever has been going on here, I want you all to cut it out. Now!" she said forcefully. Matt nodded immediately with no fuss whatsoever. Trish and Randy glanced back at one another; Molly knew that getting them to agree on a truce was going to be very difficult indeed.

Randy swiveled back round to face Molly and gave her a sheepish look. He tried his hardest to look remorseful in the face of her demand for peace. "Sorry." he said, almost pathetically. Molly cringed, but swiftly accepted his apology and in turn rewarded it with a quick kiss on the cheek. After she had left her mark on Randy, she marched over to Trish to ensure that she was willing to let bygones be bygones too.

"Trish?"

"Oh, Molls... do I have to?"

"Yes! We're going out together, we can't keep fighting... it's not fair on me!" Molly said, imploring Trish to take her feelings into account.

Trish hesitated; it galled her to sit back and allow Molly to have everything her own way, but a little flash of inspiration in her head made it a tad easier. She nodded bashfully, then turned away in a huff. Her external petulance hid the quiet confidence she had inside that she could turn the tables on both Molly and Randy.

In the meantime, Molly walked over to Matt and made sure he was happy. "These two been giving you grief?"

Matt smiled when he heard Molly's playful question. "Nah. They love each other really!"

"Yeah... right." Molly said in return, dismissing Matt's joke out of hand. What she couldn't see was the sly glance of her best friend in the direction of her boyfriend. And the sly glance that was returned.