The segment that was going to see the formation of the unlikely alliance between Clementine and Raquel Victoria Gonzalez had been assigned to Jay to produce. He was glad, although he had expected it given that he did most of the producing for the women these days. A few hours before the show, he had called a meeting backstage with everyone involved.
The way the process worked was that the creative team wrote the talking segments of the show, known as promos, and decided the outcome of matches, including specific details of the finish if necessary. The plans were then given to the producers by Erin, who would often add her own requirements or instructions. The producer's job was to relay all of that information to the wrestlers, and to help them construct the rest of the match to lead up to the finish. Lastly, it was up to the wrestlers to actually go and deliver what had been planned, on live TV and in front of an arena full of people.
"Have a seat, ladies," Jay said after all of the women had followed him into an office that he had found to hold the meeting in. There was a wooden conference table in there, around which there were enough chairs for all involved. In addition to Raquel and Clem there were three other women: Hailey Upton, Stella Kidd and Sylvie Brett.
One of the other stories to come out of the previous night's Summerslam show was that Sylvie had turned heel, as Hailey and Stella had done a month or so earlier. The three of them were going to be aligned as a faction, with Sylvie as the leader.
A heel turn for Sylvie had surprised Jay, but he looked forward to seeing her try to pull it off. She had certainly come a long way from the timid woman who had shown up on the main roster doubting her own ability to be there.
As they all sat down, Jay took a seat next to Sylvie, opposite Raquel. He grimaced when he looked at his friend's face. Her eye was now even blacker than it had been earlier, although the swelling had reduced a little. But she wasn't his friend at the moment, she was a wrestler that he and Erin had a duty of care over.
"Before we start, Raquel and Clem, Erin wanted me to make sure you're both good to go tonight. You're both pretty beat up, and you're going to have to get physical again tonight if we go with plan A. If you're not up to it, we can write something else for tonight and save the physical stuff for next week when you've had a chance to heal up."
Clem and Raquel looked at each other, then at Jay. "I'm good to go," Clem said. "Just know that there's a good chance this cut on my head will open up again. It did once this morning."
"I'm good too," Raquel said, not surprising him in the least. "I've been through worse. Let's talk about what we need to do, and get it done."
Jay nodded. "Plan A it is. I had to ask." He went on to lay out what Erin and the team had written for them, which would lead to the formation of the Clementine/Raquel team.
The six of them put together the required segments in detail. In truth, the women did most of the work between them, with Clem taking the lead. She was experienced, looked up to by the other women, and had a good mind for the business. Jay was able to sit there and do nothing more than gently steer them, making sure nothing got off track from what Erin wanted. In about fifteen minutes, they were done.
Jay thanked them and broke up the meeting. He followed them out of the room, happening to be right behind Raquel. Before parting ways, she put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him.
"Just wanted to say you're very good at this new job. Don't think I've told you that yet. I'm proud of you."
"Ah, thank you," Jay said, feeling touched. Erin had already said something similar to him, but until now she had been the only one.
"Of course. Catch you later."
"Yeah," Jay said with a smile. They headed off in opposite directions. Raquel was likely going back to the women's locker room, whereas Jay's destination was Erin's office.
When he got there, Jay bypassed the line of people waiting outside, knocked on the door and entered. Unlike pretty much everyone who worked for WWE, Jay was permitted to do that. He found Erin at her desk, on the phone, with Carla Strong sitting nearby, tapping away on her ever-present tablet. Erin held up one finger to signal that she was almost done on the phone. Sure enough, she was saying her goodbyes to whoever was on the other end moments later. With that done, she offered Jay one of the smiles he adored so much.
"Hey. Everything okay?" she asked him.
"Yeah. I know you're busy right now, but I could do with a minute. Carla, do you mind?"
"Sorry?" Carla asked, having not been paying attention until her name cropped up.
"Give us the room for a minute," Erin instructed her.
"Oh, of course," the PA said, quickly making for the door.
"You sure you're okay?" Erin asked Jay as soon as they had privacy. There was some concern in her voice.
"Yeah. This is something that you'll probably think could have waited until you weren't so busy, but I got that thing going on where you want to talk about something and you feel like you have to do it straight away."
"Alright, what's on your mind?" she asked openly. Sensing that this was a personal conversation rather than a professional one, she got up and went to him.
"I want us to spend more time as Jay and Erin," he blurted out, thinking that it sounded childish as soon as he said it. "What I mean is, we spend a lot of time together at work. That's not the kind of time together I want. This is coming out so awkwardly. Shit, I wish I was better at communicating my feelings."
"You're doing just fine," Erin said, looking sad all of a sudden. Or maybe it was guilty that she looked. "Jesus, Jay, I'm so sorry."
"For what?" he asked, genuinely surprised.
"You have no idea how many times growing up I wished my dad would stop spending his entire life working for this company and instead spend some time being my dad. I wanted us to do regular father and daughter things, but it felt like we never did. My nanny would have to step in for him all the time. Now I'm doing the exact same to you: Putting all hours God sends into this company and not enough into being with you." She shook her head. "I'm ashamed. It's really not something I've done intentionally."
Now Jay felt bad. He hadn't wanted to upset her or make her feel guilty. "You don't need to apologise to me. That's not what this is about. The only reason I mentioned it is so that we might spend more time together. What I was thinking was maybe one day a month you might not go into the office, leave your phone off, and let your staff run the company for a day. Then we could go on day trips, or simply stay at home and chill. Whatever we wanted, we could do it simply as Jay and Erin, not as people who are running a company. Well, you're the one running it, but…" he was starting to ramble, as sometimes happened. He stopped himself mid-sentence.
Erin gave him a kiss on the lips. "I do have to apologise. And I do apologise, for the fact that you even needed to raise this with me. It's something I should have thought about and done before it got to the point where you felt badly enough about it to have this conversation. But now that you have, I'll make sure that happens. I'm going to take a day off at some point in the next couple of weeks, and I'm going to take you out somewhere. It'll be somewhere you'll enjoy, and we'll spend the day together. Just Jay and Erin. I love you, honey."
Jay's plan had been for him to come up with somewhere to take her, but she had now blown that out of the water, at least for the first of her hopefully regular days off. "You don't have to take me out," he said, his brain automatically trying to reject the thought of him being treated well. He hated the way that happened, but he couldn't stop it.
"Sshhh," she said gently, understanding full well what was happening. She saw his insecurities so well, and knew how to respond to them. That was just one of the ways in which he considered himself to be so blessed to be with her. "I'm going to plan the day out, and we're going to have a great time. Promise."
"Alright," Jay said, and gave her a kiss. "I'm, uh, going to get on with some work if that's okay?" What he was really trying to do was get away from the awkwardness he was feeling. He still felt bad for raising the subject, and at the same time felt awkward now that Erin had seen the problem and addressed it by insisting on taking him out for the day. Why his emotions had to constantly make no sense was beyond him. All he could do was go and be by himself for a while until his brain sorted itself out. Again, Erin realised what he was dealing with, and didn't try to persuade him to stay.
"Alright. Send Carla back in, will you? And, Jay?"
"Yeah?"
"We say it to each other all the time, but please know that I really do love you. You're the most important part of my life. You always will be. Never doubt that."
"I won't," he said quietly. That was a lie. He would doubt it often, but that wasn't her fault in any way. It was just how his brain worked. Or didn't work. That felt like a more accurate description.
Erin gave him one more kiss, then he left the office. The conversation had gone well, he knew that, yet he felt stressed about it all. What he tried to tell himself was that he ought to look forward to whatever Erin was going to put together for their day out. What that would be, he couldn't imagine.
A/N: I wanted to show a little bit of Jay working in his new role with WWE, managing to work in a supervisory role over people despite his lack of self-confidence. Raquel recognised how well he's doing, even if he doesn't give himself the same credit.
What do you Erin will come up with for their day out?
