Seth smiled as he watched Ronda savour the first taste of the wine that he had ordered for her. He knew the restaurant that he had brought her to quite well, and would always eat there when he was in town. Fine food was something that he had always appreciated, and the food here was always top drawer. Apparently the server's recommendation of which wine to try had been equally good.
"That's some real nice wine," Ronda smiled tiredly after the long night at the arena. "Shame I'm limited to one glass by driving; tonight was quite stressful."
"As I said earlier, you did a really good job tonight," Seth smiled back. "The first night is always tough, but you'll soon get into the swing of it. Soon enough it will only be the travelling that bothers you because the rest of this job really is a blast. Relax, order some food and unwind."
A few minutes later they ordered food and then they spent the time whilst waiting for it to be prepared getting to know each other a little, discussing their family backgrounds and where they grew up as children before moving on to talking about how Seth got into the wrestling business. He told her about how he had worked his way up through Ring of Honor to NXT and then onto the main WWE roster. It was not his usual thing to spend so much time talking about himself, but Ronda had been keen with her questions and had seemed to be enjoying listening to his answers and his story, so he went with it.
The break in conversation that was caused by their food arriving gave him the opportunity to finally ask something that had been bugging him all night; he thought that he had heard Ronda's name before somewhere. It had been the first thing he had intended to ask her about when they had met in the parking garage back at the arena, but he had clean forgotten as he had been so taken by how incredible she looked in her short black dress. There was no doubt about it, she was a stunner.
"Hey, I meant to ask earlier," he began after finishing his first mouthful of steak. "I've had the feeling all night that I've heard your name somewhere before?"
Ronda was cutting her chicken breast into pieces and did not look up at him as she answered. "I guess you watched the two thousand eight Olympics. I got bronze for Judo."
"That must be it," Seth considered. "That was before your injury, obviously."
"Yeah," Ronda almost mumbled, now absently pushing her food around her plate with her fork rather than starting to eat it. The memories relating to her injury clearly troubled her, but Seth knew from personal experience that if you let certain things eat away at you like that there was no way to put them behind you and move on. The best policy was to talk about it. Maybe not with an almost total stranger though, he acknowledged. What the hell, he decided, he might as well make an attempt. "Tell me about it. Trust me, it will help."
For the first time in a couple of minutes, Ronda looked across the table at Seth and into his deep brown eyes. As she did so, she wondered what it was about this guy that made her instinctively want to trust him and do what he asked. It was a very alien sensation for her, but there was nothing but warmth in those eyes that looked back at her. There was also a small but encouraging smile on his face that seemed to echo his words: trust me. Her neck injury was the one thing in the world that caused her to experience fear, an emotion that had previously always been foreign to her.
"I don't talk about it, Seth," she said quietly. "I don't even like to think about it."
"But you do think about it, don't you?" Seth asked as gently as he could. "You think about it a lot, I can tell. You need to talk to someone about it. I totally understand if you don't want that person to be me. After all, we only met tonight, but believe me when I tell you, this is not going to go away until you talk about it and let someone help you."
He carried on with his meal, not wanting to put more pressure on Ronda as she ate her food for a couple of minutes because he could tell that she was thinking about what he had said, maybe fighting a battle in her own head. When she made the decision she did not announce it, the story just began to flow from her lips as if it had a mind of its own and was eager to escape.
"I don't know what scared my horse. We were hardly even walking at the time. There was nothing around that I could see that might have frightened him, but something scared him and he reared up. I fell off the back of him and landed right on the top of my head. Although I was stunned for a moment when I hit the ground, I figured that I would be fine because I had my helmet on. But that's when I realised... I'll never forget those few seconds of my life. I've never been so scared, and I never could be again. My legs wouldn't move, and I couldn't feel them. I was paralysed. I lay there on the ground and thought I'd never move my legs again."
Ronda's voice had gotten quieter before trailing off altogether, but Seth knew that now she had trusted him and had gone this far with the story, she needed to continue and let it all out. He reached out and gently took her right hand which had been resting on the table in his left, pleasingly meeting with no resistance and feeling her fingers tighten around his own.
"Don't stop," he urged gently. "Let me guess, it took a couple of minutes for the feeling to start to come back to your legs, right?"
Ronda was surprised; he was exactly right. "Yeah. I just lay there and my mom was talking to me and trying to encourage me to move. We had been out riding together, you see. I told her that I couldn't move, that I had no feeling in my legs. She began to panic because we were out in the countryside and a long way from anywhere. I don't think she knew what to do next, but then the feeling gradually started to come back to my legs. I've never been so relieved in my life, but I'll never forget those minutes lying on that grass. Unless it's you, there's no way to imagine how it feels to think that you're facing the rest of your life in a wheelchair."
"But you got up," Seth pointed out. "You got up and you walked away with your mom's help, right? You got surgery, and you're fine now. Yes, you can't wrestle or go to UFC, but it could have been so much worse. And one I do know is, they come up new surgeries every day. They might come up with something that they can do to fix your neck so than you can compete in the WWE one day."
"I don't want to talk about this anymore, Seth," Ronda said. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. It does feel good in a way to open up, but let's change the subject now, okay?" Saying the words made Ronda feel a little guilty but at least this way she would avoid directly lying to him. The truth of it was that no surgery could possibly help her to recover from the neck injury and compete as a wrestler, because the truth of it was that the problem she had was mental, not physical.
Respecting Ronda's wishes, Seth changed the subject and the mood quickly lightened as they finally got down to eating the amazing food. They shared laughter as Seth dished the dirt on some of his fellow wrestlers, telling her some amusing behind the scenes stories. Ronda knew that she approached life too seriously sometimes, but it was the way that she had always been, and it was the reason that she had made it to the Olympics and won a bronze medal. It was only by being serious, dedicated and committed that it was possible to achieve something like that.
Although Seth had obviously required a similar level of dedication to get to where he was at the top of WWE, he still seemed to have so much fun doing it, she realised. There was a lot that she could learn from this guy and his approach to life and she could enjoy his company while doing so as she had done tonight. It was a pleasant change to meet someone so genuine. Sure, he was a great looking guy but personality was what she looked for the most and Seth's was exactly the kind of personality that she liked; kind but not overbearingly so, with a keen sense of humor, but not to the point of being irritating. Before the meal was over she had already decided that, providing he asked her out again, this would not be the last meal or date they shared.
Seth might not have been the most experienced dater in the world, but he had learned that the best way for both him and the woman of his choosing to have a good time, and ultimately to impress her and have her want to see him again, was to actually not try to impress her. He knew that he was naturally a nice guy and good fun to talk to, so he used his strength for what it was and merely enjoyed the night as himself. If the woman liked him for who he was and wanted to see him again that was great, but if not then it was clearly not to be. That was fine too.
Ronda declined his offer of dessert for the same reason that he didn't want one; diet requirements. Therefore, after Seth insisted on picking the entire check, it was soon time to leave. "I didn't invite you to dinner so that you could pay for it," he had grinned.
The pair walked out into the cool night air of the parking lot, knowing that they now had to part ways, having driven to the restaurant separately in their rental cars. Ronda had decided that she wanted to see Seth again, but she was definitely not going to sleep with him after their first date. She had never slept with someone after a first date before, and she was not going to start now. What she was going to do was give him a taste of her, which would hopefully leave him wanting more. When they reached her rental car, she turned to face her date who once more had that warm smile on his face. She was already falling for that smile after one night.
"Thanks for a lovely evening, Seth, and for the meal. I really enjoyed it."
"My pleasure, it was a good night," Seth said. "Maybe we'll do it again soon?" Seth had naturally hoped to be asked to follow Ronda back to her hotel, but it was apparent that it was not going to happen. Still, there was a smile on her face and a twinkle in her blue eyes, and that was what mattered most. Her face was positively radiant under the lights of the parking lot, telling that her words about enjoying the night had not been said for the sake of being polite.
"Very soon," she said softly, reaching up ever so slightly to kiss him. The kiss lingered for a second longer than it needed to if she simply wanted to wish him goodnight. Ronda allowed a very slight sound that was somewhere between a purr and a moan to escape her as their mouths were joined together. With that, she backed away, wished him goodnight, and got into her car.
Seth's own walk back to his car was not a comfortable one because he had the taste of Ronda on his lips and a huge erection straining against his pants.