Chapter VII: Make It a Good One
"I hope so, because there he is now," Leila pointed out.
"Excuse me a moment," Cheryl quietly stated and made her way over to Edge.
"Cheryl, hey," he said. "I didn't think you'd be up for coming out tonight. You looked really tired today. Hey, where's your sunglasses?"
She slightly blushed since it was the third time that day that a handsome man was concerned with her welfare. "It's dim enough in here. Anyhow, I just really needed to get out. But can we, uh, talk a moment?"
"Um, yeah," he answered, glancing around the place. "I'm supposed to meeting Chris here to discuss some travel arrangements for this week but he's not here yet. What can I do for you?" he asked, leading her to a table.
"We're not exclusive, are we?"
He sighed and then replied, "I've been wanting to talk about 'us' too. I just didn't want to do it this way and especially after the wreck." Cheryl licked her lips that were suddenly dry. "I don't know how else to put this but…maybe we should just be friends."
"I was thinking that too," she said with a sigh of relief. "I'm really sorry but I just don't feel that way for you."
"No need to be sorry because, frankly, I don't either," Edge replied with a nervous laugh. "Well, I mean, you're a great friend and all and I want it to stay that way."
"Yeah, me too," she exhaled.
"And, by the way, I think there's someone who might feel a bit differently about you though," he said, glancing over his shoulder in Batista's direction.
"You know, I'm sorry he th—"
"It's no problem. Well, it is but I'd probably have reacted the same way if I felt about a girl like he feels about you."
Edge was being so nice that she almost felt guilty for the conversation but then glanced in the direction he had nodded to see Dave talking with his friends. "Has he said something to you?" she asked.
Edge shook his head. "I can just tell. So, don't keep him waiting. Besides, I'll get him back," he added, cracking his knuckles with a devilish grin.
"Promise you'll go easy on him."
"I'll try," he teased.
Cheryl beamed a grin that split her face. "You're the greatest friend. See ya," she replied, squeezing Edge's hand and slipping out of the table as Chris Jericho strolled up to the table.
The second Cheryl had walked away to talk to Edge, Batista pulled Leila aside. "You knew she was dating Edge and didn't tell me?"
"I come here with you guys to get away from work," the petite blonde replied. "Of course, I didn't say anything. I didn't even know you liked her until I saw the look on your face when she walked up."
"Sorry," Dave muttered and then returned back to the group.
"You're not gonna beat him up, are you?" Orton whispered and Batista only glared at him. He had tried not to watch Cheryl and Edge talking but his jealousy was getting the better of him. Her face still bore tiny marks from the cuts and her forehead sported a new red scar, all of which reminded him how much more mad he was at Edge. He was surprised to see her coming back towards him at all. "Well, we just broke up," she whispered in his ear with a tiny laugh.
"Sorry," he quietly replied, holding the sympathetic look on his face until Cheryl turned away to be seated.
It was then that Randy caught the unsubtle change. "They broke up?" he asked where he thought only Dave could hear him.
"Broke up?" most everyone in the group began to echo.
Cheryl turned red, not meaning for the entire group to know what happened, as if they wouldn't figure it out on their own. "Well, uh, we just decided that we, uh, needed to just be, you know, friends…" she stuttered, embarrassed and caught off-guard. Leila's smile was something between smug and hopeful but she nor her group of girlfriends shot her another look after that night in which Cheryl got to know Leila a little more.
Dave could barely contain his excitement at the diva's proclamation. He had to change his strategy in mid-plan, which basically consisted of throwing it all out the window and going with his emotions. After a round of drinks, he casually slipped his arm over the back of her chair. Cheryl instantly grew quiet but leaned back to absorb the feel that already sent shivers down her spine. She glanced at him shyly and his hand slid over to caress her back. The corner of his mouth twitched in a half-smile and she returned to paying attention to the story one of the guys was telling.
After a few round of drinks, the alcohol was lulling her into a sleepy haze, along with Dave's hand lightly massaging her neck. It seemed that the gang wasn't slowing down, so she excused herself for the night. Dave offered to walk her up to her room and she accepted. They stopped at her door and her shy smile returned. "Can we go out some time?"
"That would be great," she answered with a grin.
"Have a good night," he said, squeezing her arm.
"You too," she whispered, her heart racing over wondering if he would kiss her or not.
"See you later," he replied and headed down the hall, wishing he would have kissed her but the wrestler didn't want to put too much on her after just 'breaking up' with Edge. Waiting a little longer would only make it sweeter.
Cheryl sighed heavily as she entered the hotel room to find Lita flipping through the book of poetry. "Hey, where have you been? I was about to send out a search party."
"Boy, have I got news for you. Nidia and Victoria around? It'll be easier to tell all of y'all once," she said, hardly containing the excitement in her voice.
Back downstairs, Dave slid into the chair he had recently vacated. Randy leaned over and whispered, "Damn, that was fast! Either you're getting better or losing your touch."
Dave closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance but then broke out into a grin. "You're gonna get it," he muttered, trying to sound threatening but failed when he started laughing.
Monday was the first time Cheryl and Batista saw each other again. Her character was being grilled by Triple H about what happened the previous week after Orton vehemently denied that he was involved.
"I've seen the way he's been flirting with you ever since you got here. Tell me what happened," Helmsley said, as he paced the floor in his charcoal suit.
"I can't remember!" she screamed once again at Hunter as he got in her face. "Just leave him alone until I can."
"Are you trying to cover up for him for some sick reason?" he angrily asked, staring down at her seated form. If this hadn't been a skit, she would have peed on herself from the way he was glaring at her.
"I think you're just using me as an excuse to beat the hell out of him."
Triple H stopped his pacing to glower at her. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"Look, if it is him, you have my blessing to kick his ass," she said, gesturing at her face that Nick has made look much worse than it was.
"I found him hovering over you. Who else could it be? Until you tell me otherwise, I plan on beating a confession out of him," Hunter finished and stalked out of view.
"If you weren't my brother…" she muttered loud enough for the microphone to pick up.
With one vignette down, she was heading off to prepare for the other when Batista stopped her. "So, is the, um, what was it—junk food club—meeting tonight?"
"Every Monday," she said with a smile.
"You know, we've got an open day between the house show and RAW next week. What say we do something?"
"That would be great."
"So what are you doing now?"
Cheryl sighed. "I've got to film a scene with Stacy. My storyline's all screwed up right now. I'm supposed to be fighting with her instead of this stuff with Randy but…well, you get it. Give me a call, we'll work on Sunday, okay?"
On screen, Stacy Kiebler accused her of intentionally getting hurt so that she wouldn't have to wrestle her on RAW because she was afraid of her. Words were exchanged and it was all over with quickly. The point was just to keep the feud going.
With the camera off, Stacy straightened to her full height and snipped, "So, you took my advice and dumped Edge, huh?"
Gossip travels fast around here, she thought. "It was a mutual agreement. Why should it matter to you?"
"Just looking out for your best interests. We've got to look out for each other," she sarcastically replied.
"No," Cheryl stiffly replied and began talking before she realized the words were out of her mouth. "I heard what you said about me the first day I was here but I let that slide. I let the orange lipstick slide 'cause everything turned out alright. But I'm sick of your comments. What exactly did I do to piss you off?"
Stacy's eyes narrowed to slits and she walked off, shaking her head. "Don't get too comfortable with Dave with your track record around here," she called out behind her.
Cheryl was fuming. She wanted to attack the blonde bimbo but it wasn't in her to start trouble. The next week might have gone easier had she not thought often of how pissed she was at Stacy, which left a ball of anger in the pit of her stomach. To combat it, the redhead reminded herself that she had a date with the sexist man in wrestling on Sunday.
Dave said he would pick her up early afternoon and had told her to dress for a work-out, which slightly disappointed her in that they weren't going out for a night on the town. The suit he had on briefly for RAW had bowled her over and she was hoping for more. Either way, it didn't really matter when he showed up at her hotel door just that they were going to spend the day together.
The two should have been beyond their nervousness after the impromptu "bar date" that led to Cheryl and Edge breaking up but it was as if they were starting over again. They sent each shy glances throughout the drive to wherever it was Dave was taking them. She pressed her face to the glass with a slight gasp when they pulled up in the parking lot of the local recreation center. Of the five fields, four were occupied with teams either practicing baseball or softball.
"You said it's been almost three years since you played. Thought it was something we could do. I don't have a whole team to go with the field but I play too." She turned surprised eyes on him. "Never collegiately but with my sister's company's team." He slid out of the truck and pulled out a ball bag from the extended cab. "You ready?"
"Are you kidding?" she enthusiastically replied and jumped out the vehicle. "I could have brought all of my gear," she said, catching the glove he tossed to her. "I don't even have my cleats."
"We're not playing a game. Just thought we could field some and maybe hit the cages."
"Good enough," she said, pulling the glove on with a sigh. They began warm-up tosses and Batista was surprised at the strength and snappiness of her throws. "I may not be a guy but I can play ball," she replied with a grin when she noticed the slight surprise in his eyes.
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to," she replied and heaved the softball back with a grunt that smacked into his glove.
"You do know the fall get-together thing that the McMahons throw to try to 'foster relationships among the employees'," he made rabbit ears with one hand after a toss, "is a cook-out and softball tournament?"
"Oh, really?" she said, obvious enthusiasm showing through and making Dave chuckle.
"Yeah, god forbid they give that to us in a bonus or relax the dress code…Don't tell Hunter I said that."
"Cross my heart…"
"If you love softball so much, why didn't you do something with it?" he asked, tossing the ball back.
She took several steps back to third base and motioned for him to go the first. "Just in case you haven't noticed," she started and then hurled the ball across the diamond, "there's nothing to do but the Olympics and I'm so far away from that level, it's pathetic."
"You could have coached," he said, whipping the ball towards her.
"I was the assistant coach of the local high school until I started training to wrestle. I didn't have the right degree, not a P.E. degree, to be a head coach but it was a tide-me-over in between seasons with the church league."
"Why'd you quit ball for wrestling?" he asked in mid-throw.
She shrugged with the catch. "I don't really know what started it. Always watched wrestling, always thought it'd be neat to try. When this local guy offered to train me because he was looking for more women, I blew him off until Pierce pushed me into at least trying. I promised I'd do it for six weeks and somewhere in there I got hooked. It was like having a license to take out my aggression since they wouldn't let me do it at work," she explained between grunts and snaps.
"Work?"
"Yeah, I had the official title of bouncer and had more black clothes than I knew what to do with but I was somehow relegated to calling cabs, settling lovers' quarrels, and watching the security tapes. The best nights were when I got to stand in the corner and glower at everyone before I threw some woman out."
"I knew a couple of women bouncers in D.C. I did some bouncing myself," he replied. Catching her throw, he interjected, "You wanna take fielding now? I'll hit."
"Sure," she replied and slightly shifted in the infield as he took up a bat. "We'll have to compare notes sometime but I don't plan on going back to bouncing any time soon."
"How long did you train?" he asked, tossing up a ball to send a grounder her way.
She slightly laughed and replied, "Three months."
"What?" Dave blurted in surprise.
"Three months the first time. I broke my ankle and had to take time off," she said with a laugh again.
"What's so funny about a broken ankle?"
Cheryl's eyes followed the high pop-up as she replied, "Because that was two weeks before my wedding." With a basket catch, she fired off the ball where the first baseman would have been. "I had my dress let out to hide the caste and somehow managed to stay on my feet without the crutches the entire hour. Needless to say, we were fairly late in getting around to the first dance." The line drive that came off the bat caught her off-guard and she hurled the ball slightly above Dave's head, causing him to jump. "Pay back for the liner," she said with an impish grin.
He shook his head and smiled back. "Seriously, how long did you train?"
"Three years before I got a call from a WWE scout. I came in for a try-out and then got a call two weeks later with an offer for a developmental contract that almost didn't happen be—" She stopped abruptly, realizing she had said more than she meant to.
Batista popped another hit off to her as she cut herself off and he watched her scoop it up with enthusiasm. The shadow that had passed over her face was instantly gone as she focused on the ball and hit her target behind first base.
"One more and I'll hit some to you. Make it a good one," she said, wiping sweat away from her forehead.
"What were you about to say?" he asked, popping off the hit. She dropped her stance to catch the ball but it bounced off a rock, hitting her on the inside of one knee and ricocheting off to bang the other one. Her knees buckled as instinct drove her to pick the ball up and hurl it to the imaginary first baseman. She got the throw off and tried to stand upright but her knees buckled again.
"You okay?" Dave asked for the second time.
"Yeah, that hit clipped both of my knees but I'm alright," Cheryl answered, a little through clenched teeth.
"Let me look," he said, starting to bend over where she was crouched on the balls on her feet.
"It's not like this is the first time I've been hit," she said, rubbing a hand over one of red spots. It had been a long time since she had taken a hit like that and had forgotten how bad it could hurt.
"Let me look," he firmly replied. "I don't want to put you down on the ground."
"Fine," she snapped and landed on her butt with a thud.
The insides of her knees were starting to swell. "Does it hurt?" She rolled her eyes and shot him a look that said, 'What the hell do you think?' He poked one and then held out his hands to help her up. "Let's get some ice from the rec house."
"I'm fine. I'll show you. You take fielding practice. Better yet, I'll keep doing it."
"Don't you have a photo shoot coming up?" Dave asked, crossing his arms from where stooped.
She looked down at her knees that were sporting splotches of red and pink. "Alright, only because I can't have them turning interesting shades of blue and purple for the photographer, not because I'm some girl in need of a guy to help her."
"Fine, but know I'm not being a chauvinist when I ask if you need help getting to the truck."
"And know that I'm not being a femi-nazi when I tell you I can get there myself while you get the ice," she replied and held out a hand for him to help her up.
TBC…