She was still cursing when she exited the restroom minutes later and headed back to the already emptying conference room. Before she could enter, Mike stepped in her way. Not wanting to add another embarrassing scene to the growing list of those that had already occurred today, she cleaned up her act and tried for a friendly smile.

"Listen, Mike, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am...," she started.

"Cut it," he told her.

"I really am. You might not want to hear it right now, but..."

"Oh, please spare me!" The words were not said with viciousness, but rather with a great deal of annoyance. "You wanted the job. You got it. Now stop making excuses about it. That's so annoying."

"Fine," with that single word all her enthusiasm and her determination to make this right went flying out of the window. "Dickson wants us to work on the storyline," she stated matter-of-factly.

"We don't have to meet up in person for that," he told her and she tried not to be affronted by that.

"Okay, if that's how you want to do it..." she supplied, her voice carrying a mixture of disappointment and resignation. She reached into the pocket of her trousers, produced her business card and held it out to him. "Let's get in touch later today then."

He took the card from her fingers and was off. She watched him go with a strange expression on her face, unsure whether she should file away their interaction under total disaster or a minor catastrophe.

"Nina!" Dickson called her from inside the room, leaving her no time to mull over the precarious situation. She could already see Stephen standing next to him. The Irishman was smiling a cheeky smirk at her through the see-through window pane of the conference room.

"There you are," Dickson commented upon her arrival. "Stephen, meet the young lady who will from now on supply your alter ego Sheamus with witty comebacks and interesting story-lines."

"Hi, I'm Nina, Mr Farrelly," she told him. She held out her hand to him, leaving the decision up to him of whether he wanted to go back on his offer of calling him by his first name.

After a brief moment of hesitation he took her hand and shook it. "It's still okay to call me Stephen," he told her, no longer smiling. Perhaps she had left a worse first impression than she thought.

"Still? You've met before?" Dickson was regrettably fast on the uptake. Gosh, she so didn't want to explain that to him! "Yes, we have, but only briefly," she said quickly, lowering her head.

Her answer was noncommittal and didn't give anything away, but Stephen seemed to be determined not to let her get off the hook that easily. "Yeah, we sort of bumped into each other earlier."

His remark let the faintest of blushes appear on her cheeks, but apart from that her facade remained all businesslike.

"No offense, Richard, but whatever happened to Mike?" Stephen inquired now focusing his attention on Dickson again. His question was not at all uncalled for, nevertheless it made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.

"Nothing. Mike's great. One of the best writers we've got, but look at the guys he usually supplies with lines: Orton, Lesnar, Ryback... He can cook up a mean storyline. He brings the action... But I think what we need for Sheamus is a little more than that. Nina here might actually get the job done. She comes with the best credentials and I was quite impressed with her pitch today. Why don't you give her a chance and see if you like her material?"

Talk about discomfort, Nina felt even more put on the spot now. She didn't know how to handle praise. And let's face it, what Dickson had just dished out had been praise of the highest variety. Nevertheless his intention of selling a product to his client, namely her, was painfully obvious. To make matters worse, both men were currently staring at her.

"Right," she broke the uncomfortable silence, "thank you, Mr Dickson. May I say something too?"

The men nodded at her encouragingly and muttered phrases like "Go ahead!" and "Of course you can."

"I'm sorry about Mike. I really am," she addressed Stephen directly there, meeting his gaze without flinching. "When I came here, I didn't plan to replace him. In all honesty I was sure I screwed up my interview because of my inability to keep my big mouth shut." She paused not sure how to continue from there. He was still regarding her expectantly.

"So here's what you can expect of me: I blurt out anything that goes through my head, I'm driven, I do things properly and not in half-assed way, I'm honest and I have a sense of humour. Let's face it, anyone with my amount of klutziness would have to have a decent sense of humour..."

She paused again and looked at the two men questioningly. "Is that enough?"

Dickson grinned at her forwardness. "Don't ask me. Ask the big guy here." He pointed over his shoulder at a pensive looking Stephen.

A pensive looking Stephen who said nothing and regarded her silently. "Okay, I'll give it a go," he said after a while and by the time the words left his mouth, she almost wanted to hug him because she was so relieved.

"Does that mean we can go back to the initial plan? Can I leave you two crazy kids alone, so you can get to know each other better?" Dickson asked with a satisfied grin, already moving towards the door.

Nina was bit overwhelmed right now. A little too much had happened in a too short period of time, nevertheless she nodded mechanically. She could hear Stephen say something like "Yeah, fine, mate," besides her. Then, quite to her surprise, she found herself alone inside a conference room that bore an eery resemblance to a large glass cage with a roughly six-foot-tall wrestler.

"Let's sit down," she said because she couldn't think of anything better to say. They both did. She noticed how the chair seemed kind of small for him. He really was a big guy.

"So how long do you have?" Nina asked trying to break the silence that was threatening to settle upon them.

"About 30 minutes," he replied, after having checked his wristwatch.

She nodded. "I wish we could go somewhere else for this. This room makes me feel like I'm some kind of lab-rat." She crinkled her nose while making that statement. "It's a lovely room. But sort of clinical..."

"Yeah, I get what you mean," he said, despite the fact that he didn't look too uncomfortable, as he leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. The gesture made the muscles in his upper arm appear even more pronounced. With his stature it had to be tough picking out clothes. Promptly she made that comment and immediately after wished she didn't have such a huge blabbermouth.

Luckily he didn't seem to be offended by her remark. As a matter of fact his smirk told her that he was quite amused by it. "You have no idea. I spend hours crying in front of me wardrobe."

There was a mischievous glint in his eye that let her hope that once they would have gotten over their little Mike problem they would get along quite well.

A wide selection of retorts popped up in her head: "And here I thought wrestlers were quite the masculine bunch", "'Cause apart from the outfit you're wearing right now there are only those little wrestling trunks inside your wardrobe?", "I had no idea you were that sensitive"... She bit her tongue instead, taking a bit longer with the response than she normally would have. It was too early in their acquaintance to be making any of those comments. She opted for a tame "I can relate" instead.

A pause again. Awkwardness would get them nowhere. She decided to take charge. "So ten minutes for me. Twenty for you?"

"Me ego isn't that big. How 'bout 15/15? That should work out nicely," he suggested.

"Alright," she conceded. "Shoot!"

"How much do you know about me?" he swiveled around in his chair, now facing her.

She shrugged. "I've done my homework. You can ask me something if you like."

"What's the name of the fella I had my debut match against?"

"WWE or before?"

"Humor me?" he said with a lopsided grin.

"Bryan Kelly with WWE and back with the Monster Factory it was Robert Pigeon."

He whistled through his teeth, clearly impressed. "So you already know all that stuff," he summarized. "Perhaps we should fall back on that 20/10 idea, except that I'll use those 20 minutes to drill you with questions...," he checked his wristwatch, "make that 18 minutes."

"Nice try, funny guy," she smirked and noticed with a certain satisfaction that he hadn't taken offense at her far too personal form of address. After how they had met, it simply didn't seem appropriate to stick to the unwritten protocol of how to go about getting to know someone. "But no, I'd rather stick with the initial plan," she continued. "What I'm interested in is stuff like preferences and dislikes. If I don't know anything about those things, I might end up cooking up a storyline you're not comfortable with."

"What do you think I wouldn't be comfortable with?" He was doing this on purpose - asking her questions that would put her on the spot.

She arched an eyebrow. "I don't think you're keen on playing the stereotypical drunk Irishman or dressing up as a leprechaun every night. And what about a nice spray tan, huh?" With the last question she was leaning herself pretty far out of the window, but their conversation was supposed to help her get to know him better and she had a limited time frame at her disposal.

While he had calmly taken in her first two questions, the last one made him smirk and stroke his beard. "Cute, very clever."

"I figured those mayonnaise jokes are getting pretty lame by now, so I wanted to try something new for a change."

"Cause you sympathize? Are you hearing a lot of those jokes yourself?" he inquired with a devilish grin.

She smiled. "Sometimes... I'm like a vampire. I don't get a tan or a sunburn. No use fighting it. A couple of years ago I was so desperate to get a tan, I used self-tanning lotion. I looked like a Peking Duck afterward. Just less delicious."

"Well, I reckon I drew the short straw. I start looking like a lobster after 20 minutes under direct sunlight."

"Well, if it's any consolation, lobsters are way more classy than Peking Ducks," she told him, smiling good-naturedly.

He smiled at her remark.

Her eyes were fixed on him as they spoke. They focused on his facial features, scrutinizing them closely. She had seen pictures and tapes of him, but seeing someone face to face was a lot different than staring at a screen. Now that she was talking to him, he seemed more and more like a real person and less like some cardboard cutout wrestler.

He had an intimidating physique, but five minutes into their conversation that wasn't what struck her most about him anymore. He was lively, talkative, outgoing, had a decent sense of humor, all of which he communicated with his words and his body language. On top of that he was fairly easy to read. His eyes sparkled when he was amused, they narrowed when he disapproved of something. Talk about eyes, something occurred to her while she was staring at his face. His beard and his eyebrows were the same color, but his lashes were almost white.

"They make you dye your hair for the show, right?" she blurted out, which was an odd interjection considering they had just been talking about Europe and how she had attended London University for a year.

Stephen shot her a perplexed look, blinking at her a couple of times before he decided to answer her question. "A bit random, but yeah. I'd say that's pretty obvious."

"Yeah, but the beard and eyebrows too? That must suck..," she remarked.

"Well, it does. But I'm not complaining," he shrugged. "That isn't your natural hair color either, right? So you know it's not a big deal," he indicated her pixie haircut that was blonde and longer on top while the sides were closely shaved and therefore displayed her natural dark brownish color.

"What's your natural color?" she insisted.

He shook his head and hit his flat hands on the table for emphasize. "Not gonna tell you, lass. A man's gotta have his secrets."

"Come on, I'm just asking because we could slowly go back to the original color. Wouldn't that be something? That way you wouldn't have to go through all that trouble every other week..."

"I don't think so." He held up his index finger. "One word: trademark."

"Hmmm," she made a sound of disappointment. "Is that why you're wearing the cap, because otherwise you'd get too easily recognized?"

He laid his index finger on the tip of his nose while he pointed at her with the other.

"Somehow I think your theory is flawed though. The fact that you're 6 foot tall and muscular like hell is not that inconspicuous," she joked, while she gave him a sweet smile.

"Oi!" Nina recognized fake indignation when it stared her right in the face like that. The fact that he muttered something about not having been able to do his hair properly this morning added to that impression.

Amidst his muttered words of protest, his cellphone made a chirping noise. Inevitably two pairs of eyes were drawn to the display. They had already exceeded their time by five minutes. Apparently he realized that as well because he cursed softly under his breath, already getting up from the chair with a slight groan.

She shot him a perplexed look which he took as an invitation to explain. "Paul accidentally hit me in the back during training yesterday. Happens."

"So it's not all fake then...," she concluded standing up as well.

He looked at her inclining his head a little to the side. "I'd explain, but that would take way longer than we've got. You've never been to a show, have you?"

"No," she shook her head.

"Then you should come tomorrow. It's just an one-hour-drive from here and you could meet Stu as well," he suggested, already walking towards the door.

"Stu as in Stuart Alexander Bennett?" she asked.

"You really are quite the overachiever, aren't ya?" he observed with a smirk.

"Yeah, and aren't you lucky to have me on your team?"

"Well, I hope I am," he said noncommittally. "So see you tomorrow at the show then?"

"Yes, but wait a sec," she walked up to him. "Take my card, so you can get in touch with me in case we need to talk." 'Need to talk' was code for 'in case you need to complain about something to me' and they both knew it.

"QR code on the back. Neat!" He grinned as he inspected the card and turned it over.

"Yeah, it creates an entry with all my contact information in your address book once you scan it," she explained. "Or you can just type it in like regular people," she shrugged.

He pocketed her business card, letting it disappear in his vest. "Alright, I'm off then," he pointed over his shoulder. "Go to the back entrance tomorrow and tell them your name's on the list. That should get you backstage."

"Okay, thanks. Bye then." They shook hands again and with that he was off.


On the walk back to her office she went over what had happened in the last hours. It was all a big jumble in her head. How had the day started off again? Right, with her turning her wardrobe upside down in search of that one single blouse she owned, then she had noticed she had run out of milk, later embarrassed herself in front of one of the WWE's superstars, met with one angry coworker that hated her, heard her boss sing her praise and finally gotten to know the aforementioned superstar a little better. That already sounded exhausting in her head. Exhausting and slightly surreal.

Nina opened the door to the office she shared with Maria and Luke. Both literally dropped whatever they were doing as soon as she had stepped inside.

"So how did your talk with Sheamus go, huh?" Maria wiggled her eyebrows, obviously taking note of her slightly dazed facial expression.

"You look totally out of it. Like someone hit you over the head. Has someone hit you over the head?" Luke asked swiveling around in his chair, his fingers steepled in a perfect Doctor No pose.

"No, I'm fine. It went fine," she reassured them as she sank down in her chair, feeling drained. It was a nice chair, she noticed, very comfortable. Because she was someone who was easily distracted by minor details, she spun around in it once, then nodded in satisfaction. Not only comfortable, but functional.

"You keep saying the word 'fine' a lot," Maria pointed out shrewdly. Her comment steered Nina's thoughts away from comfortable swivel chairs to the matter at hand.

"Well, meeting Mike wasn't fine. Is he always in such a bad mood?" Nina said, switching on her computer. Speaking of Mike, she needed to see whether he had already sent her an email.

Luke inclined his head pensively, giving her question some thought, while Maria tried to remain relatively neutral. "He's not really known for his good sense of humor."

"No, he isn't," Luke agreed, taking a sip from the Batman cup that was standing on the desktop next to him. "He usually writes for the serious and slightly grumpy type, just like himself. Maybe he's pissed you took away Sheamus from him because it was his one chance at something remotely resembling lightheartedness. Well, as lighthearted as writing for someone called 'The Celtic Warrior'", he air quoted that particular title, "can get."

"I'm thinking you might be onto something there." Nina's tongue poked out through her lips as she concentrated on typing in her password to the company's server. It was a long sequence of numbers and letters.

The first thing she did was open up her emails, only to find that there wasn't a word from Mike. She checked the time on the sidebar of the computer desktop. She had three hours until the deadline was up.

"Any ideas how I can reach Mike? Email's not fast enough," Nina asked into the room.

Instead of a verbal response, suddenly a window popped up on her screen with a message.

LukeWWE: We've got in-house messaging.

NinaWWE: Thanks for the heads up.

After having typed those words, she threw Luke a smirk over the edge of her computer screen which he reciprocated by flashing her a Joker-like grin, barring his teeth at her.

Maria just shook her head and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "nerds" under her breath.

NinaWWE: She's just jealous we're so cool. ;-)

LukeWWE: That's got to be it. :-)

With a grin on her face she minimized her conversation with Luke and started typing a message to Mike.

NinaWWE: So when are we going to work on the storyline for Orton and Sheamus?

The question sat there on the screen for a while before it received an answer.

MikeWWE: Not gonna happen. I've got more important things to do right now. The boss says you can do it on your own.

Nina's eyes widened in disbelief. Write the whole thing on her own in only three hours? That was close to impossible. She wasn't familiar with Randy Orton. Nina had no clue who he was and what he talked like. She ran her hand through her hair before she began typing away furiously at the keyboard.

NinaWWE: The boss says I'm supposed to do it? When did he say that? You're only telling me now?

MikeWWE: After the meeting. I'm on the Ryback/Cena storyline right now. Kinda trumps Orton/Sheamus, wouldn't you say?

Nina let out a string of curses that made her coworkers look up from their current tasks. "Mamma mia," Maria commented. While Luke just whistled through his teeth.

Nina WWE: Don't bother. I'll take care of it.

Her index finger pressed down on the mouse with a bit more force than necessary as she closed the window.

"The deadline's over tonight at 8, right?" she carefully inquired. "Can we get any extra time if we can't make it?"

Maria pushed back from her desk, looking at her with a sympathetic expression on her face. "Mike has screwed you over, right?"

"Yeah," Nina admitted with a sigh.

"In extreme cases we get till 8 in the morning of the following day," Maria told her opening the top drawer of her desk from which she produced a chocolate bar. She took it in her hands for a moment, looking down at it pensively before she tossed it over to Nina. "Here, you're going to need this," she smiled at her encouragingly.

Nina caught the flying chocolate missile, aimed in her direction with a smile. "Thank you, but why are you being so nice to me?"

At that Maria grinned. "I'm not being nice. The chocolate is going to make your culo bigger and not mine."

"Does 'culo' mean what I think it does?" Nina quirked an eyebrow.

Maria chuckled. "You can bet your sweet culo on it, girl."

Nina laughed. The tiniest smidgen of hope blossomed up inside of her. Perhaps she would be able to do this after all and manage to have everything ready by 8 in the morning.

"By the way the coffee machine is in the break-room. Down the floor, second door on the right. Take the white cups, they don't belong to anybody," Luke informed her.

Nina nodded and went to work. Several hours and cups of coffee later, around the time everyone else was closing shop, Nina had a vague idea about how to write Randy Orton. She had watched as much video material on him as possible and read up on him online.

She was so engrossed in her work she almost jumped out of her seat when Maria laid a hand on her shoulder. "Time to go home," she told her.

"Just a few more minutes," Nina tried to negotiate.

"Suit yourself, but you're going to end up locked up in here if you don't leave before 8," Maria admonished.

"Okay," Nina grabbed her cellphone. "I'm setting up an alarm."

"Brava!" Maria nodded in satisfaction. "See you tomorrow then!"

Nina just made a humming noise to acknowledge her words, already concentrating on her work again, so she didn't even hear Luke's nonchalant 'goodbye'. When she looked up from her screen again several moments later, she briefly wondered where he had disappeared off to.

The moment of truth came when she opened up her writing program. The little black bar was pulsing rhythmically on the white screen. She was so jittery from the coffee and chocolate she had ingested that she had trouble forming a single coherent thought. Nevertheless she kept staring at the screen like she was trying to stare down a foe on the battlefield.

Suddenly her cellphone let out a shrill peep and she jumped in her seat. She reached for it quickly. That wasn't the alarm. It had been the message tone and quite predictably there was a text waiting for her. Stephen? For a moment she actually went through her mental address book before it occurred to her that she had given her phone number to none other than Stephen Farrelly this afternoon.

Her eyes flitted over the screen. The message was simple and had a rather practical purpose. "Now you have my number as well," it said.

"Thanks," she typed back and after a moment of hesitation she added: "Looking forward to tomorrow's show." Nina narrowed her eyes critically at the screen. Instead of pressing 'send' straight away, she first erased the last words again. It just didn't seem professional enough.

His answer came promptly. "You're welcome. And you'd better be wearing a Sheamus T-shirt to the show tomorrow..."

She smiled. "Seems kind of unfair to Stuart," she quickly wrote.

"He'll live. ;-)"

"Yeah, but maybe I won't live to see tomorrow night," she muttered to herself and put her cellphone back in her bag.