„Okay," Seth said after they shot the segment. He sighed, smiled, although he was not amused. In reality, he was rather amazed. „I've got no idea what happened there," he expressed his confusion.
"What are you talking about?" Roman wondered, with his hand going through his long black hair. Not showing any real interest, he placed his hand on his neck to massage it. He got enough time to move it to either side before Seth finally decided to respond.
But first he looked at Renee who already knew she screwed up. Again. "Do you ignore us on purpose?" he asked her, not being really mad though, just curious.
"No. I. . . ." she tried to find the right words instead of saying first thing that would come to her mind. "I don't know why I did it."
"Or, more like didn't do it," Seth corrected her.
"I'm so sorry," she apologized, but she would prefer to disappear and avoid talking about it.
"Seriously," Seth continued, "there's gotta be a reason. And it cannot be my poor delivery because you did the same thing to Roman last week. We cannot both suck."
"Yeah," Roman agreed with his teammate. "And don't say it's just your professionalism because in that case you put your values aside when you reacted to Dean on Smackdown a couple of weeks ago," he stated, what brought Dean to the conversation.
"Well," he said confidently, "I guess she likes me more."
At the moment Renee hated Dean for two reasons. Firstly, for the arrogant way Dean pronounced it, and secondly, because it was true. But that was something Renee couldn't admit because she didn't want anybody, and especially not Dean, to know.
"That's bullshit," Roman shouted in Dean's face.
Seth reacted differently. He kept quiet and couldn't put that thought away. It seemed to him that it would be a legitimate reason for Renee's reaction. There were other options to explain it, but there was something about her liking him more.
"It's true," Dean opposed. "The way I see it, I'm her favorite member of The Shield, deal with it," he told them, and to make them believe in his "special" powers, he placed his arm on Renee's shoulder and pulled her toward him.
Renee was feeling very uncomfortable; this time she didn't even enjoy being so close to the person she had feelings for. He made it look like he owned her, and, in some way, he certainly did, but that was something Dean was not aware of. His only goal was to prove his colleagues that he was better at flirting than they were. There could be an explanation to it. Since Dean was not in a serious relationship, when he wanted to hook up with some chick, he had to charm her first. And after all the years of trying, failing, and defining the best plan to get a girl to sleep with him, now he was sort of an expert in the field of seduction.
He didn't need to explain facts to Seth and Roman, he didn't want them to realize relevant reasons for his success and their fails; the only important thing was that he was the only one who triumphed in this little competitive game.
"And once again, I am the master. Right, darling?" The way he put it, he sounded like he was in his character and forgot he was not on TV anymore. He sounded like an asshole type of guy. He usually wasn't like that, but when he realized he won, his jerk side got the better of him. He treated her like his property, like a trophy he won.
But Renee wouldn't leave it like that. She showed all of them that Dean didn't really win her, and pushed first his arm and then him away, looking all disgusted by his selfish behavior.
"Don't worry, Dean, next time I'll ignore you too," she said, squeezing his ego and showing her powerful side. One thing that she wouldn't let him see was that he hurt her.
He was surprised by her saying that, but he didn't let that show in a real way, rather as an act which he would normally use in a promo.
"See, Dean," Roman addressed his words to the man standing in front of him, "you took it too far. Now you scared her," he joked.
At that point, Renee was fully aware of their heights and felt intimidated by it. She started to feel like a pet they were playing with.
"Leave her alone, guys," Seth suddenly spoke up after a long moment of contemplating.
"Sorry, Renee," Roman apologized to her immediately, unlike Dean who didn't feel like apologizing even though he knew he was the one that should. He played with her like a cat with a mouse and he knew he made her uncomfortable on more than one occasion during past few minutes.
"Dean?" Seth turned to him to get him say sorry as well.
When he still didn't say anything, Roman looked at him too, very seriously, to make him realize that the fun was over and that he should man up, swallow his pride and do the right thing.
"That's alright," Renee interrupted, as she knew Seth and Roman's afford was useless.
"Dean," Roman whispered to him in a persuasive voice, and gave him one last chance to act adequately to his age.
Instead, Dean just nervously bit his lip. Then he turned around and left.
"What the hell was that?" Roman asked Seth, but he just shrugged his shoulders in disbelief of what all of them just witnessed.
"I don't know, man. That was weird even for him."
"He crossed the line. He went too far."
"Guys, guys!" Renee tried to make them listen to her. "It's okay. Nothing happened. Just leave it."
"No," Roman refused. "He cannot act that way. I'm gonna talk to him," he informed them, and then followed Dean into the locker room.
"Well, we can be sure that Dean won't explain his behavior," Seth told Renee. "But now that we're alone, maybe you can explain me yours."
Renee got even more uncomfortable than before. Did Seth suspect something? It seemed so. But how could he know?
"I told you I was focused on the interview. When I realized what you said, it was too late to give you a proper reaction," she lied to him.
"Renee," he made her look him in the eye, "tell me, was Dean right?" he demanded a direct answer.
She was about to say that she had no idea what he was talking about, but that would only make it worse for her. He would immediately know that was another lie. She couldn't stay quiet either, she had to say something. There were many sentences on her mind that she could use, but none of them was good enough. She had to come up with something clever, preferably distracting. She looked around for some inspiration but Seth quickly noticed he was in charge.
"Okay. Just answer this question. Is there a particular reason why you reacted differently to Dean than to Roman and me?"
Renee had no choice but to confirm it by nodding silently.
Although Seth expected his suspicion to turn out to be true, now that she admitted to him than he was right, he was surprised. He was imagining Renee with Dean. He was confused but also curious. He wondered how that would work out for them.
"Are you in –"
Renee had to interrupt him before he could finish that sentence. "No!" she shouted, but quietly so that nobody except for Seth could hear it. "I'm not in love," she said as if it was something bad or forbidden, "with him."
"But you like him, don't you?" he asked, all happy about the news.
"Yes," she admitted but then added, "but I also like you. And Roman. And many other people."
"You know what I mean. . . ." Seth smiled at her.
"It's just a crush, ok?" she tried to convince him as well as herself. "It'll go away."
Before Seth could pose her another question that she didn't want to hear or answer, Summer Rae came to them to talk to Renee. For once, Renee was glad she didn't have to talk to Seth anymore. She really liked him, but now he knew too much and he became a person she would avoid, if she could.
"Hey, Summer, what's up?" he welcomed her. Then he looked at Renee one more time. "We'll get back to it later," he smiled as if it was something pleasant. Well, it was for him. Renee, on the other hand, hated that he knew the truth. It meant that she could not pretend everything was normal and her feelings for Dean didn't exist.