15. Eve and The Better Karma
What was it about hangovers that made every sound so monotonic yet so deafening? The ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall sounded like a bass drum thudding, and the sound of a seltzer tablet plopping into Eve's glass of water and fizzing into nothing could easily have been mistaken for a bomb going off. Evidently Mike and Roman's big party had taken its toll.
Eve heaved a laborious sigh and doubled over the kitchen table, resting her aching head on her folding arms. What a night. Just like they did back in school, the girls had all returned back to Eve's place for the night and taken residence in her room. But unlike those good old days, this night was passed in an awkward, tense even, silence in lieu of the usual gossip sessions that would carry on into the early hours of the morning. Eve, Maria, Alicia and Kaitlyn were all quick to hop out of the taxi, into Eve's house, out of their fancy clothes and swiftly into their makeshift sleeping arrangements. Considering there was so much to talk about, it was surprising how little was said.
Kelly's absence was certainly felt. After her surprise encounter with Dolph Ziggler, the blonde was quick to jump into a taxi of her own and head back to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend; barely even exchanging a word of goodbye with her friends. With Alicia being unaware of the ins-and-outs of the situation and Maria too drunk to be aware of anything, Eve was left to cope with a distraught Kaitlyn; forcing her evening to be cut even shorter.
It had taken everything in her power not to slap Dolph Ziggler upside his peroxide blonde head, but out of respect for Mike she had bitten back the urge. Besides, she was sure Kaitlyn had already done so plenty of times that evening alone. It enraged her that even after all these years Dolph still had the ability to mess with her friends, and she knew that there would be hell to pay if he was to be responsible for any rifts in Kaitlyn and Kelly's friendship. Thanks to Eve's meticulous work all those years ago they had managed to prevent this from happening, but the look on Kelly's face at that moment the night before was far too knowing; whether or not she knew the exact details, Kelly was certainly intelligent enough to put two and two together. And seeing two of her best friends with the man who was the first to break her heart was more than enough for anyone to deal with.
Eve groaned again as her hangover sent another rush of nausea through her. All of this hassle, and she didn't even manage to do as much as get Roman Reigns' number. Typical.
"No, Eve. You're being selfish."
She sighed and pressed her palms flat against the table, pushing herself up with a strained effort. Wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her, she stumbled over to the counter, making a fresh batch of coffee.
"Morning."
Eve jerked around to see Alicia floating into the room, dressed in a pair of her Latina friend's pyjamas and giving her a small smile.
"Alicia, hey. I can't believe you're up already." Eve grinned and put the pot onto boil. "And you're looking surprisingly fresh too."
Alicia shrugged, taking a seat at the kitchen counter. "I woke up a little while ago and figured I'd better get myself up for the day. Plus I had nowhere near as much to drink as the two blondies up there –" she gestured towards the stairs with a nod – "so I'm doing pretty good this morning."
"I don't think anyone at that party had quite as much to drink as those two," Eve giggled. The smile then faded from her features as she gave Alicia a concerned look. "Have you heard from Kelly yet?"
"No," Alicia sighed. "I don't know what happened to set her off last night but she seemed pretty upset when she got in the taxi."
Eve looked down quickly. "Yeah, she did."
"Maybe..." Alicia started, but quickly trailed off.
"Maybe what?" Eve responded with a frown.
Alicia took a deep breath and shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe she was just missing Justin. You know how she gets."
"Yeah. I guess."
The two women shared a knowing look and a long sigh. Alicia rose from the counter and wandered over to the cupboards by the sink to retrieve two mugs, quickly busying herself with helping Eve make the coffee. The two swiftly got to using this time alone together to catch the other up on the events of the night before. Eve was surprised to hear of Alicia's brief encounter with a handsome bodybuilder who refused to be setback by the sight of the glistening diamond on her ring finger, while Alicia squealed in glee as Eve gushed over her interactions with Roman Reigns.
"Maria was so right," Alicia giggled. "He is an absolute dreamboat. Please tell me you got his number, at least!"
"Nope," Eve pouted as she poured creamer into the two mugs of coffee. "I had to run off to stop a very drunk Kaitlyn from making an ass of herself and didn't get the chance to see him again after that."
"You should totally get Mike to hook you up."
"God, the irony," Eve snorted. "No, I think I should do it myself, y'know?"
Alicia grinned.
"He's gorgeous, he's rich, he's young and successful..." Alicia drifted off dreamily. "If you don't snap this one up..."
Eve laughed and shook her head.
"I'll do my best. But that's enough of this for now; I need at least another twelve hours in bed."
The two women laughed and linked arms as they headed out of the kitchen and back upstairs to Eve's room, laughing even harder at the sight of Maria and Kaitlyn still in a crumpled heap on the spare mattress on the floor.
It was already mid-afternoon by the time Kaitlyn, Maria and Alicia had all finally left Eve's house. After shutting the door behind a bleary-eyed Maria around half two, Eve let out a long sigh and pressed her back against it. Once again she was grateful that a business trip had taken her mother out of town, as a part of her felt she had already had more than enough human contact for the weekend. She tied her long hair up into a bun as she heaved herself back upstairs, grabbing her laptop from her desk and curling up in bed with it. As stressed out as she was from last night's drama, she had to quickly remind herself of the numerous jobs she had sent resumes out for, hoping that at least one potential employer was ready to offer her the time of day.
"Nope," she muttered to herself as she scrolled through her inbox. "Of course."
She was just about to give up for the day and go straight back to sleep when her eye was caught by an email address she didn't recognize. Her breath hitched in her throat as she read the sender's information: romanreigns . She instantly clicked open, practically bouncing in excitement as she did so.
"Dear Eve,
I got your email address off of Mike, I hope that's okay. It was great meeting you last night; I really enjoyed talking with you. I just have a little favour to ask of you. I remember you mentioned last night that you were trained in BJJ and my usual instructor just informed me that he has to take a couple of weeks of sick leave. Now I'm down a class instructor and BJJ is an extremely popular class at the gym so cutting it for the time being would be a pretty awful business decision. Mike was telling me that you have a lot of experience teaching BJJ and leading fitness classes so I would love to have you on board on a temporary basis. Obviously you'll be paid for your time. Please let me know if you're interested; the next class is supposed to take place tonight. If you could come down to the gym this afternoon to have a proper chat about it and maybe take this class as a trial shift I would be so grateful.
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Roman."
Eve let out an excited squeal, complete with a fist to the air. A temporary training job at a gym wasn't exactly what she had in mind for her future, but her situation was getting dire and she needed something. Besides, if the opportunity arose to make a little bit of money out of one of her passions, why not? Within seconds Eve was eagerly tapping a response to Roman's email and jumping out of bed to rummage through her wardrobe for an outfit. Somehow her hangover and desire to be alone had seemed to disappear. Her email notifications buzzed as she was laying some of her favourite (and most flattering) workout gear across her bed, and she was more than pleased to see Roman offer his gratitude and a meeting time of 3:30 in his office at the gym.
Okay, so it was all business... but that didn't mean it couldn't quickly divert into pleasure. She was sure that the girls would be saying the exact same thing. Speaking of which...
Eve had rushed over to her bedside table to grab her phone before stopping herself with a frown. With this kind of advancement, it was practically Girl Code protocol to send out mass texts, but for some reason Eve just didn't really feel like sharing it all today. Whether it was her awareness of all the issues the others were going through or just wanting to work through the Roman Reigns question all by herself for once, something made her put her phone down and hop into the shower instead of calling Maria.
Before long she was shoving on a pair of sneakers and getting into her car, reflecting all the while. The whole car ride Eve couldn't stop going over in her mind all the possibilities for her meeting with Roman. She was determined to stay strong; no squirming, no blushing, no swooning. No, today she would handle her business. She was there to do a job and she wanted him to know how dedicated to that job she was. A man as gorgeous and successful as Roman probably had countless squirming, blushing, swooning women falling at his feet and Eve wanted to be different. Her attraction to him was obvious and last night he had shown more than enough interest, but there were levels to dealing with a guy like Roman. If she was to take any of Maria's advice, there would be no hope whatsoever.
Continuing her internal pep talk, Eve walked into Believers. With a friendly grin she approached the receptionist at the front desk who mouthed 'two seconds' at her as she continued her phone call.
"Sorry about that," she said finally, putting the phone down. "Welcome to Believers; how can I help you today?"
"I'm Eve Torres. I'm here to see Roman Reigns about filling in for the BJJ instructor?"
"Oh, right, Mr Reigns mentioned you earlier. Unfortunately he's had to step out last minute, but he's asked one of the other trainers to come and show you the ropes. I'll go and get them now."
She left her desk and headed to the offices behind her. Eve sighed and dumped her bag by her feet. After all that went down last night she couldn't even deny how much she was looking forward to seeing Roman again. She was sure she wasn't imagining how much they'd hit it off and-
"Hey, Eve right?"
She snapped out of her thoughts and looked up, half-consciously giving the man before her the up-and-down. She was sure he was doing the same, making her self-consciously fold her arms across her chest before responding to his question.
"Yep, that's me."
The dirty-blonde man smiled.
"Awesome. Roman's told me a lot about you."
"Has he?" She said quickly, before biting her tongue in embarrassment. The man seemed to be very perceptive, picking up on her response and grinning.
"Yeah, apparently he's heard on the grapevine that you're some sort of bad ass martial artist."
Eve laughed to herself. "Not quite but something like that."
The man shrugged and gestured towards the offices he'd come out from; heading over as she followed closely behind.
"Take a seat anywhere; I'll get out the paperwork Roman prepared for you."
She nodded politely and perched on a seat by the desk, eyeing the blonde man suspiciously as he rummaged through the desk's drawers. Why did she recognize him?
"I'm sorry," she suddenly piped up, clearing her throat. "I don't think I got your name?"
"I'm Dean," he replied, barely looking up from what he was doing. She nodded, frowning to herself. "Here we are."
He pulled out a neat booklet and placed it on the desk in front of her.
"Roman is all about presentation, so he always puts together this little pack about the gym and ethos and code of conduct yadda yadda yadda for new and potential employees. He'll probably talk to you about contracts at some point later on-"
"Um, this is cool and all but I'm just here to do a couple of classes. Like, on a casual basis..."
Dean smirked as he sat in the chair opposite her, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back casually in his
"Going by the way he was going on earlier I think he's got a little more in mind for you than that."
"He hasn't even seen me give a class.""
"That's Roman," he said with a shrug. "He's all about intuition and I guess he's got a good feeling about anyway, that's between you and the big guy; I'm just here to fill in as the middle man. I'd be lying if I said I understood what his thought processes are when it comes to business."
Eve frowned, eyeing the paperwork in front of her cautiously. Why did she feel somebody was playing some sort of trick on her?
"Are you a trainer here?" She asked Dean, eyeing him with just as much caution.
"Nope," he shook his head. "At least, not really. Me and Roman are good friends; I help him out in the gym on occasion and I guess he trusts me enough to help him out on the business side of things here and there. So when I said I wasn't too sure about hiring this random chick off the street..."
"Excuse me?"
"Kidding." He grinned at her and straightened up his posture. "Like I said, he's got a good feeling. He sends his apologies for having to run out last minute."
"I just appreciate the opportunity," she said with a shrug. "I don't know him that well but he seems like a pretty good guy."
"He is," Dean nodded. Always perceptive, Dean eyed the woman before him as she looked off around the room with a dreamy glaze in her eye. He knew that look well.
"So anyway," Eve cleared her throat." Tell me about this class."
She nodded along politely as Dean went through the details: dates, times, the kind of clientele and so on. Eve's eyes perked up particularly as he began discussing pay; giving her the best news she'd heard in a long, long time. It was just as he stood to give her a tour of the gym that realisation spread across her face
"Dean Ambrose."
He stopped, giving her a look of confusion.
"You're Dean; Maria's Dean."
"Huh?" He frowned again.
"Sorry," she giggled. "Girl talk. You know my friend Maria; I think she pointed you out at that party last night.
A look of realisation spread across his own face as he began to chuckle to himself.
"The perky redhead, you mean?"
Eve laughed and nodded. "Sounds about right."
He leaned against the desk again, folding his arms.
"So you're friends with Maria, huh? That would explain why you're so... odd."
Eve gaped at him, reaching over the desk to lay a light shove on his arm.
"Excuse me?"
The two of them laughed as he cowered away from her.
"Hey – save it for the class!"
Still giggling, she shook her head and grabbed her bag from her feet, again following Dean out of the room.
"So..." he sighed nonchalantly, leading her towards the trainers' rooms.
"So...?" Eve repeated with a knowing grin.
"That Maria's a pretty interesting chick, huh?"
"Something like that," Eve giggled, noticing his attempts to appear as nonchalant as possible. "She's been my best friend since we were in diapers, pretty much. She's nuts but one of the most loyal friends anyone could ever have."
She gave a satisfied smirk as she watched Dean's face; the look that spread across it was one she recognized all too well. The smirk did not once leave her face as the two continued their tour around the gym; ending back at the reception area where Dean offered to leave Eve to go and get warmed up for her class.
"Thanks for your help," she called out as he turned to leave. He turned back and gave her a warm smile.
"Anytime."
"By the way," she continued, making him stop again. She placed her hands on her hips and gave him a knowing wink. "Maria's single."
Dean looked down and ran a hand through his floppy hair. Finally, he looked back up at her and gave a shrug.
"Good to know," he replied simply. "Roman is too."
She gave a sheepish look of her own as he winked and went back into the main part of the gym; leaving Eve stood alone in the reception area clutching her gym bag at her shoulder and biting her lip in thought.
As she led the hour long class, taking the large group through the self-defence techniques she had learned from training in BJJ back in college, Eve felt a newfound glee and pride at how much she had missed doing things. Since graduation, admittedly much of her time had been spent in front of the TV, or curled up with a book, or just in general doing anything that required as little effort as possible; but now as she moved around the fancy gym, sweating and panting as she congratulated her new students on a job well done, she had practically forgotten about how miserable she'd been lately.
She grinned at each of the students as they piled out of the class. When the last of them had finally left after stopping to chat to her briefly about her techniques, she collapsed onto her mat and let out an audible sigh of relief; smiling proudly to herself.
"Mike was right."
She quickly sat up in shock, staring wide-eyed as Roman approached. Grabbing a towel she hastily wiped the sweat off of herself and went to get to her feet.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he said with a sheepish grin, holding out a hand to help her up. With a sheepish look of her own, she placed her small hand in his larger one and thanked him as she got to her feet.
"I had no idea how much fun this was going to be," she admitted, looking around the now empty room in awe. "I haven't done something like this in a long time."
"It doesn't show. From what I saw you did a great job. You're a natural at teaching."
She blushed and gave a casual shrug. "It's a walk in the park when you're passionate about you're teaching, I guess."
Roman nodded, his stare making her shift uncomfortably where she stood.
"But like I said, Mike's told me a lot about you and after meeting you last night I just got a really good feeling and I'm glad I stuck to that intuition. I heard nothing but good things as all those people left the class today." He grinned and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I'm so grateful for you helping out so last minute. I don't know how much Dean gave away earlier, but I'd love to have you back again."
Eve beamed and without even thinking jumped forward and threw her arms around Roman's neck in excitement. Almost as quickly as she did so she jumped back and placed a hand against her forehead in embarrassment.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry."
Roman grinned as he was finally able to catch her eye and the two of them laughed.
"Let's just say this may or may not be the best thing that's happened for me in a long time," she giggled.
"You've earned it," he replied. His face then turned serious. "I treat Believers with so much pride and the only people I want on my team are people who can do the same. Luke, the guy who usually takes the class, is going to be away for a little while so I'm more than happy to take you onboard for as long as we need you. How does that sound?"
She nodded, practically breathless. "It sounds perfect. Thank you so much."
"It's nothing. What do you say we head to my office and I get you all the paperwork?"
"Great," was all Eve could muster up as a response as her mind raced over everything that was happening to her right now. She wasn't sure where her good karma had appeared from over night, but she definitely was not complaining.