Chapter Six
Change of Plans
The hour was moving fast, and it'd given me time to cool down from the rather, explosive confrontation I had at Gorilla Position with one of the rather, uncouth newcomers named David. Part of me felt guilty for interfering with the backstage quarrel between Jay and David – but the other part felt it was necessary to get out and speak my mind every once in a while; Sure, the boys were new acquaintances, but I knew Mercy pretty well…and anyone who was going to get in her face and do something so outrageous and unscripted – I itched to jump in. I had shuddered just watching David. He bothered me so bad that he was antagonizing the others, so I simply had to say something.
The boys truly appreciated my help, and David sure didn't…but I was currently content. David did, however, mention something quite creepy at the end of our verbal bout, something I didn't quite understand. Take from me, and I take from you? Sounded like a modern day Robin Hood, but his apparent agenda was up to no good. It kind of scared me, to be honest.
I was now dressed in my red tube-top and black lycra pants, which was finished off by a nice touch of leather (boots)—borrowed from Terri! I was standing near the entrance with the guys who were also in wardrobe: My dad in his mask and red suit, Jay in his Brood pants and mesh top, and Adam with his green EDGE pants and long black leather trench-coat. The opposition, DX, were in their usual attire of black and green; they were like a blur of neon, on a black backdrop. The men were talking over the critical moves and what was going to happen with the match, and I stood across the hall from them, leaned up against the wall, sipping on my water bottle.
"Are you alright?" Jay asked as he approached and leaned up against the patch of empty wall next to me.
"Yeah I'm fine. Hand stings a little. I haven't really hit someone that hard in a real situation – and, well…meant it…but I'm fine. Good luck on the match. I think I know what's going on." I laughed softly, trying to change the subject, as not to alarm my dad of the on goings of unscripted dramas of the backstage. (I should write about that: Unscripted Drama. It's too bad reality TV was starting to make its way around the television circuit.)
Jay couldn't help but smile. "Yeah...well--you're going to be with us now…Trust me--we'll have tons of fun together. If you just stick with me and Adam – well…we'll have a blast, I'm sure."
I wasn't sure what kind of vibe he was trying to send me, but anything would do. I simply melted into his dark eyes as I looked over, comforted by his unusual welcome to his team and nodded in concurrence. "Yeah, you can count on that."
My eyes diverted to the backstage Manager who was watching the monitors. He had one of those official headsets on, a headset that Adam would always mess around with when they were setting up the show. He would put it on and pretend like he was bossing everyone around, that crazy Canuck. The Manager gave the two mark to Adam and Jay, who were apparently up next in the entrance line.
Jay turned and saw him as well. "Well, I have to get going..."
"Sure. Don't let me stop you." Leaning in, I made yet another bold move and kissed him on the cheek, which easily distracted my father. "Good luck." I winked, as I pulled away. It was a wonder why this one hadn't already been taken.
An awe-struck Jay was dragged away by his eager sidekick Adam, and he reluctantly took off to start the match.
I looked to my father who had quite the curious and furious glare on his face, and I couldn't help but give him that faux-angelic grin as I walked up towards him. I nudged him a bit, as Terri and the boys helped divert his attentions towards the monitor. Their music started to blare, fog filled the arena and the cheers rumbled through the air as the crowd caught sight of their favorite Brood bombshells made their entrance. It was definitely going to be an entertaining match, since I knew the boys were quite fueled by the backstage mishap from earlier on.
After DX made their run-in, I was left alone with my dad who was now watching attentively. The match ensued and they went through a gauntlet of kicks, power-bombs, spears and slams, until finally X-pack hit the spinkick on Jay. My dad's pyros were soon lit and the Stage Manager motioned for us to head on out.
I nodded and jumped up and down a few times before quickly exhaling and entering the open arena. I ran out and pointed to the crowd, and soon reached out and tugged on my dad's arm. I was now leading him out and down the ramp, on our 'trailblaze to kill', as JR would say. The crowd, pumped as ever, cheered us on. The arena was filled with red light as we reached the bottom of the ramp, and gestured for him to hop into the ring. Assessing the situation, I realized that Adam and Jay were on either side of the ring, knocked out cold. Sean motioned to Brian, and we were going to have this all go as planned. Terri caught up with me and we had a little brawl, ourselves, outside the ring. Moving fast, and looking as real as possible, I grabbed her by the hair.
"Push me into the stairs.." She suggested, muttering under the veil of hair that we had created between us.
"What?!" I half-heard her and was half-surprised she suggested that sort of thing.
"Just do it!" she replied.
With a loud, ear-piercing scream, I lunged at her with all I had, using whatever power I could to push her into the stairs. It gave a shockingly loud THUD as the stairs crashed and came apart, leaving me standing and Terri somewhat broken. With a smile and a nod, I immediately ran to help my dad who was being double teamed by Brian and Sean.
The official bell-ringer of the matches started going crazy on the bell, giving us the alarm that there'd been an interruption in the scheduled match. It was actually the call for refs and other officials to come to the ring and try to stop the massacre…but it hardly ever worked.
Double-clothesline! I could hear JR screaming at the announce table.
The 'Big Red Machine' hit the canvas with a heavy thud. Right on schedule! Taking the chair I'd fetched from beneath the ring, I slid into the ring and swung and hit Brian in the head with a chair. Letting it slip from my hands, I shoved Sean out of the way and knelt down to help my dad recover from the heavy double-teaming he'd gotten from the steel force of DX. It wasn't long before Sean grabbed me from behind and mercilessly threw me to the turnbuckle.
Blond hair shined from either side of the ring. Both Adam and Jay had managed to stand up from where they'd been thrown, and they climbed into the ring to stop Sean with a Spear before he could Bronco Buster me. Thank God!
Jay helped me up and turned to help me out of the ring and up the ramp, and Adam was left behind to tend to my dad, to help scare away DX. A guitar riff hit and Kane's music hit over the sound system. I smiled, nodded and kept in character for the cameras, and for the crowd as I gave some threatening words to Terri and Brian who were trying to be the crutch from the nearly-broken Sean. Brian easily returned some nasty remarks, only to make me break a smile, a devilish smile.
Turning around as the camera's faded away from us, Jay and I stood just beyond Gorilla position and waited for the other two of our party to join us. Quite surprisingly, we were joined by Mercy and Matt who seemed quite anxious to see how we were, given the outcome of the match.
"Are you alright?" Matt asked, throwing me the towel that I had set aside for myself.
"Yeah. Thanks." I hung it on my shoulder for the time being, leading the panting blond on my other shoulder towards a bench.
Adam soon tore through the curtains and leaned up against the wall, obviously off-balanced with everything. He looked like he was incredibly hurt, slumping down and trying to catch his breath.
"Whoa there…you alright there, Bimbo?" Matt raised his eyebrows. I had to double-take to make sure Matt wasn't talking to me. Resting assured, his eyes were fixated on Adam, with a huge, animation type smile. Oh, how evil it was.
"I think he hit his head," I explained, easily diagnosing his condition just by looking at him.
I heard a snicker, "Well, that's just a given for Adam," it was Mercy, breaking her silence and, crackin' her jokes. It was good to see she'd recovered from what had gone down before; it was good to see that the bitter dialogue that was thrown around didn't put a damper on her humor.
"You have no idea… what we… just went through," Jay panted, almost refusing to sit still as I tried to wipe the sweat off of his face with the towel Matt had given me.
"Looks like the usual to me," Matt chuckled, twisting open a bottle of water from where he stood and taking a drink from it.
Adam looked up and glared. "You're so young. So naïve. So…American."
I raised a brow and stopped in my tracks at his comment. What the heck was that supposed to mean? Of course, I wasn't going to take too much of what the Canuck was saying to heart because he had just endured this long, stamina consuming match. Yes. That's what I was going to blame it on. His delirium.
"Yeah, I feel like I just ran a marathon," Jay agreed with a nod.
"Sit still!" I quietly complained, and shook my head with an irritated pout. I put my forefinger and thumb to his chin, hoping to pinch it in place and move it whenever I pleased – continuing to dab the towel on his sweaty forehead until I'd noticed a cut. "Oooh, honey you should probably get that checked out."
Jay pouted and whined, pretending to be affected by the slight grazing over his baby-cut. "Owie."
"You two are getting old," Mercy laughed and rolled her eyes, walking over to Adam. She extended her arm to him and helped him up off of the ground and slung his arm over her shoulder, acting as his crutch. "Kaylin, would you get my sweaty stinky brother and drag him along with me to the locker room?"
"Sure, no problem," I winked and without hesitation grabbed Jay's arm. "Come on, big baby."
He whimpered and feigned pain as I threw his arm over my shoulder…but it was a matter of time before he started laughing and we had joked a bit during our trek down the hall. Matt was quietly keeping watch behind us, poking a bit of fun at us but we just brushed the remarks off like this school-yard crush between us was just rubbish.
It wasn't long before we reached our destination and Adam and Jay were dumped into their locker room.
Mercy smiled as she noticed us, getting some sort of motion from Matt who was more than obviously saying stuff behind us. "Well. You two seem to be getting along quite famously?"
Jay raised his eyebrows, almost like a deer in headlights. I just smiled bashfully.
"That's my cue to leave. Try to behave and don't do anything I would do, er is that wouldn't do," She smiled at her brother.
"You better not be doing anything that I shouldn't," Jay quickly retorted, and gave his sister a snooty look.
"I'm a perfect angel," Mercy grinned innocently, backing up a few steps as Matt wrapped his arms around her. "By the way, since tomorrow is Toronto and we'll finally be home I'm going to drive Matt tonight—"
"To the house, then?" Jay asked.
"Sure, why not? We have rooms. Why don't you and Adam and whoever else meet us up there tonight? I'll make sure the oopidstay ericanmays get there safely," Mercy jerked her head back at Matt, obviously mocking him with her pig-latin skills and taking another shot at nationality. This was some sort of racist joke I was going to have to catch onto, sooner or later. Hell, it wasn't like we (we being: my dad, his pals, and my good ol' pals) didn't make bad references or rips on the Canadians anyway. So it was all good.
"Fine with me," Jay answered Mercy and turned to me, immediately interrupting my thoughts. "Kay, you think you can possibly go?" he asked.
I realized I was still latched onto the cutie Canadian, so I nodded and gave him a little squeeze. "I'd love to, but I have to check with my dutiful parent. I don't think he'd mind traveling without me for a few days. We'll see."
Leaning in a little bit, Mercy motioned over at her big brother and whispered, "Hey, Kaylin, I feel your pain. Jay is like a non-stop personal planner. Always I have to clear, EVERYTHING with him!"
I laughed, shaking my head. "Oh it's not that. He's cool about things, but it is short notice and all. Like I said, we'll have to see."
"It's a great place, hope you can come." Matt chimed in. Well, at least it was pretty much unanimous. They were accepting me.
The ever-quiet Adam now made his presence known as he scrambled about the room, throwing his gear into his bag after changing out of his ring attire. He coughed, "Jay's too dumb to plan ahead!"
The random outburst was deserving of a laugh and I looked up at Jay who obviously took offense to his stage brother's remark.
"Shut up Bimbo!" Jay called, turning his head toward Adam.
"Well, I have to go pack some stuff and find Mel and Stace. We'll see you at the house," Mercy waved and made her exit from the locker room area that Adam and Jay had claimed as theirs. Jay and I waved, finally detaching from one another, giving that nervous, awkward laugh to each other.
"Yeah…" I made my way back to the door, where Mercy was once standing. "Your sisters pretty cool."
"Sure. She's such a treasure." He rolled his eyes and chuckled, starting to pull the gear out of his duffel bag and throwing it down on the bench before him.
Adam reappeared from the back part of the divided room, dressed completely in fashionable street clothes. "If you think she's the greatest now--" he approached and put his arm around me, taking me back into the room a few steps. "You have a lot to learn, but trust me, these next days will be the time of your life! I mean, now I have someone to talk about Jay with, play jokes on Jay with--and maybe I can show you a few things about Jay when he's sleepin' later--"
"Ha, ha!" Jay was obviously unimpressed and quite unappreciative of the thought. "Yeah, Yeah, I'm blond--but I can still hear you."
Bickering brothers. I couldn't help but giggle. Being their new valet sounded a lot more appealing now that I'd gotten a taste of what it was like hanging out with them backstage prior to and post show. "Sounds like fun, I can't wait."
"What? Is this guy filling your head with his bimbo junk??" Jay glared at Adam from across the room as he returned from the back area, and carelessly threw his tights and shirt into his duffel bag.
"Hey!" Adam jumped at his remark. "This girl's gonna have a lot of fun with us, man, I'm just opening her eyes to it all! Oh, and not to mention, our valet's almost always have a way with Jay..." His voice faded off.
"Oh really?" I lifted an eyebrow. "I guess we'll just see about that. But for now, I must bid you adieu. I'll hit you up when I'm done changing, alright?" Waving at the two blonds, I moved out of the locker room and headed to my own, to finally peel out of the constricting clothing. Ugh, it was so hot. They'd probably smell like hell in the morning.
"Ok!" Jay's smile soon faded into a mock-glare at Adam, in clear and present dismay at the last remark he made. His cheeks were slightly red, but I assumed it was either embarrassment or just the fact that the blood hadn't quite rushed out of his face yet. "Oh-- You're SO cute when you try." he patted Adam on the head. "I'll kill you later."
"Geez--is it Steal Adam's Line Day, or what?? Did I miss it?" Adam screamed as I disappeared down the hall.