Hey all. No significant happenings in this chapter and I apologize. Once again, I got carried away with myself and I had to split it, so next chapter will have the more interesting stuff. Maybe.
Thanks again to morrowsong and Idcam for the reviews.
Later that day, Heather sat in catering, inwardly loathing the tangled mess that made up her emotions. She couldn't grasp these seemingly misleading cues that were being delivered to her. She glanced around the space for any sign of the blonde giant but found none. When he had spoken to her in private, he appeared amiable and charming. Conversely, as willing, as he was to offer her a genial expression, he seemed to become quite indignant at the mere mention of her. She questioned how his disposition could possibly convince her to assume that he harbored any measure of affection towards her.
She was not an authority on the matter. Her only knowledge came from books she had read and movies she had seen, which proved to be unreliable. She had never put much stock in romantic notions – until recently. Now she felt torn with conflict and no one to turn to for answers. Ideally, every quandary could be answered within a book, but she had a feeling she wouldn't find any solutions inside printed pages.
"What's with you?" Reves asked only half concerned. Her sister was always sulking about one thing or another. "Your boyfriend break up with you, already?"
"He is not my boyfriend," Heather muttered.
Reves rolled her eyes. "Sorry. That boy who is your friend. You know honestly, it wouldn't kill you to date, someone."
"Why must I? At any rate, that would require an individual to actually wish to have something to do with me," the younger girl said, bitterly.
Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of their older friends. "So, word around the locker room is you two are now property of one, Vincent Kennedy McMahon," Matt teased as they sat down.
"Word travels fast," Reves grinned.
"It's also rumored that he threw you into the nWo," Amy added.
"Like I said, it travels fast," Reves's coy expression remained.
"So it's true?" Jeff asked, almost in disbelief.
"I'm afraid so," Heather muttered, sinking down in her chair.
"You don't sound too enthusiastic about any of this," Amy noted.
"Eh, she's just miffed because we had to rehearse in front of McMahon and everyone else and she botched first time around," Reves answered dismissively.
"Miffed? I was humiliated and each of you went about jeering and taunting me," Heather retorted quietly.
Amy frowned. "Vince can be an intimidating person. He even gives me the jitters sometimes," Amy confessed. "We could help to train you if you want."
"Oh, no need. Not only did we get to join their little group, but now Nash -and probably his buddies- get to train us as ordered by Vinnie Mac," Reves informed them.
"You're kidding, right?" Jeff questioned.
"I wish," Reves replied, edging on the dramatic. "As you can probably guess, Nash is basically pissed about the whole situation. Like something crawled up his ass and died. He is such a douche."
Heather glanced at her friends who seemed to sympathize with her sister. She sunk even lower into her seat. It was blatantly clear that Kevin Nash was not well received within the confines of the locker room. She hypothesized that the prospect should have aligned her view of him with that of her friends and others. Curiously, her perspective of him did not correlate with the majority of his acquaintances, even despite his ever-shifting temperament towards her. If anything, his personality seemed…misconstrued. Perhaps that was a trait they shared, though they may be of opposing comportments.
"Anyway, fuck that dipshit. Heather, tell 'em about your boyfriend," Reves commanded as her elbow met sharply with her sister's side.
Heather's posture straightened immediately. "He is certainly not taken with me in any such manner!" Heather asserted; her face suffused with a crimson heat. Her thoughts had been fixed on the ill-reputed blonde man, but she quickly realized it was her new association with the upbeat teenage boy her sister was referring to. "I mean, we're just friends," she murmured as her shoulders sagged. "I met him at this horrendous party back home."
"Hmm, seems like just friends to me. Or is your face always that red?" Matt teased.
Her eyes flickered passed her friends and promptly returned to focus on the tabletop as the color painting her visage intensified. He had swaggered into the room. His charismatic charm and appeal demanded her attention, even just for a moment.
"Oh, she's been talking to this guy every night for at least an hour," Reves offered.
"Ohhh," Amy taunted playfully.
Their conversation had pervaded Heather's ears, but the nature of it was inconsequential to her. Her chest tightened with an overwhelming sense of yearning. This foreign emotion struck her and rendered her vehemently unable to cope. So much so, she leaped from her seat and fled the room promptly.
"Hey, I was only kidding!" Reves called after her.
Nash's vision caught a flurry of violet-black as the girl sprinted across the room and quickly exited. What could be the issue now? His eyes were drawn to her sister as she shouted across the room. He wondered what Reves had said to her to make her so upset. He hoped she wasn't giving her shit over her blunder earlier.
Everyone was trying to force her out of her skin, but the more they did, the more she imploded into herself. Why couldn't people see that? Hell, he barely knew her and he could see that. He had to control his impulse to follow after her, knowing it was best to keep as much distance as possible. He could only fathom what would happen in the weeks and months to come.
Heather slowed her pace once she felt she had put enough distance between herself and the large man. She moved to round the corner and came to a screeching halt when she nearly collided with Sean Waltman. "Oh!" she yelped with wide eyes as her body jerked. "E-excuse me."
"My bad," he said. He had a surprisingly gruff voice that Heather had never really noticed, which seemed to be a paradox to his smaller stature. He was by no means tiny in comparison to herself, but he was certainly dwarfed by many of the other men.
Heather only nodded silently and began moving around him.
"Oh hey," he caught her attention. "Um, I just wanted to say, like I'm sorry for laughing at you earlier. You know, when you tripped on the rope."
Her face reddened when he brought it up once again. How could she have forgotten, as it were? "That's quite alright," she mumbled. "T-thank you." She turned quickly, intending to rush away as she wasn't too well acquainted with him and didn't feel comfortable speaking with him alone.
"I just tend to laugh at stupid, immature shit I find funny. I don't mean anything by it, really," he continued, missing her cue and obvious discomfort.
"There you are, girl," her father's rough voice called to her as he approached. "Where's Reves?"
Heather was startled a bit by the sound of his stern tone. "She's in catering, speaking with Amy and the boys," she replied meekly.
Satisfied, he turned to Waltman. "Where's Nash?" he asked, glaring down at him through narrowed eyes.
As if the prospect needed to be reiterated, Heather witnessed just how intimidating her father was to many people. A sense of weariness, along with revered respect was displayed on not only Waltman's face but in his whole demeanor. "He's in catering. I was just heading there," his reply was curt, if not intimidated.
"Good," he said, then looked at his daughter, "Let's go, girl." He canted his head towards the direction of the catering area.
Heather's heart fell into the pit of her stomach as she trudged along, just behind her father. She had just fled the vicinity. What could possibly call the need for her return?
Mark entered catering and located the man he was seeking. "Vince wants to see you," Mark told him, as he pulled out a chair and took a seat at the table.
"I don't see why. No disrespect man, but I'm not wasting my time on a couple of kids that have no business even being here," Nash said, looking at him with an air of indifference.
Mark stared at him a moment. While he couldn't disagree with the latter part of his statement, the fact remained this is what Vince wanted. This sure as shit wasn't the ideal situation for him either, but the less people caused a stink, the easier it would be for everyone. Nash could be a great guy, but there was a reason he had earned a reputation of being a whiny bitch at times. "Well, you'll have to take that up with Vince," Mark retorted with an air of annoyance. Nash, could argue otherwise, but if it didn't benefit him or his boys, he usually wanted no part of it.
"Fine," Nash growled. He cut his eyes across the room. He could feel the curious gaze fixed on him. She had rejoined her friends, but her stare was focus on her father and himself. Once their eyes met, hers flinted away and he was overcome with a sense of guilt due to how he had reacted earlier. He had seen her flinch and look upon him with terror when he had his ridiculous outburst. Most people thought he was a straight-up prick. Truthfully, most people were right. Regardless, he didn't want to be painted that manner in her eyes, even if it was probably better that way.
He stood up before he could be beaten down by his thoughts anymore. "I'll talk to Vince, but that doesn't mean I'm agreeing to shit," he told Mark as he walked away.
Kevin found Vince in his office. "You wanted to see me?" he asked, trying not to let his voice reveal the contempt he felt.
"I did," Vince replied as he cleared away his current work into a neat pile on the side of his desk. "Have a seat," he gestured to the chair in front of his desk and Nash obliged. "I want you to know that I am willing to overlook your little tantrum earlier if you agree to the terms of training and preparing the girls for their debut."
Tantrum? Where did this man get off? Yeah, he overreacted. He had already owned up to that. Still, he couldn't understand that he was the only one that saw how cracked out all of this was.
"And, if I don't agree?" Nash challenged.
"Well, I could always suspend you. Without pay." Vince shrugged his shoulders in a show of irrelevance, although he knew that would stick in the big man's craw.
Nash could feel his blood begin to boil while he struggled to maintain his blank expression. Of course, he would resort to some shit like this. Nash had a reputation for being all about the Benjamíns. Perhaps he was, but money didn't make his wife stay. Nor did it make him a very good husband. He pushed the memories from his head. What did any of that matter now?
Vince continued, "Look, Kevin, you know I don't want to do that, but there is only so much time before they get put on television. Our particular issue is the dark-haired one. You know yourself, she is a disaster."
Our issue? Buddy, that's all you! Kevin thought. "How is any of this my problem?" he asked in a snarky tone before he could stop himself. "I told you it was an awful idea to bring them on. What's the point really?" Besides driving me to the brink of insanity?
"I've already made that clear," Vince answered with irritation, "You guys were in a rut already and those girls needed to make themselves useful if they were going to be loitering around here. If they're not up to par, the rest of you will look like shit."
Will look like shit? As opposed to when? This man was infuriating. "I'm telling you, this isn't going to work," Kevin stated. "Especially with the younger one. You said it yourself: she's a disaster," God, he felt like an ass for speaking about her that way, but he had to keep face.
Vince looked at him keenly. "I don't think you should be so sure. Something in her attitude changed after your little talk." Kevin's face fell, but Vince went on as if he didn't notice, "I don't know what your little conversation entailed. Frankly, I don't care too much, but you may be the only one who can get her to do what we need."
"But I don't know the damn kid," Nash argued. "All I did was tell her to think of it as singing a song like she had that ni…"
He stopped, realizing that while he may not know everything about her, he had a lot more knowledge than he ought to. During every encounter, he had snatched up little bits of her and committed them, subconsciously to memory. Things such as her love of classic literature and music. As well as her eclectic taste in more modern tunes such as 80s synth-pop to gothic rock. The way she always adjusted her glasses when she thought she was right - although she was too modest to tell anyone so. He assumed her favorite color was purple because that's what she chose for her hair, but he could be wrong. She practically lived in those grody Chuck Taylors of hers. He also had it on good authority, that she wore baggy, unflattering clothes because she was ashamed of her body, probably due to the bullying she endured. Regardless of what those little bitches tried to sell her, he knew the way she felt in his arms and under his touch. He knew she was something else because just the thought of her lit him on fire, and he used to spend night after night looking at dozens of women and hooking up with many of them too.
He suddenly remembered he was sitting in Vince's office and snapped out of his dirty thoughts. How had he come to be so seemingly obsessed with her in such a short amount of time? It had taken several months of dating for him to even begin to notice these small details about his ex-wife. Of course, the primary attribute he focused on was how hot she had been.
"Everything alright?" Vince asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Nash sighed. He was beginning to wonder if his hard opposition was raising more questions than if he just played it cool and nonchalant. Unfortunately, he was finding it increasingly difficult to reign in his urges each time he laid eyes on her. His anger was undoubtedly a product of that struggle. "So, let me get this straight. You want me to be responsible for teaching those little ankle-biters to wrestle?" he asked.
"Well, no. Not at this time. Right now, I just want to focus on the way they carry themselves and react to the crowd. As well as learning to take a couple bumps.
The big man expressed a growl. "If I do this, we're going to need Scott's help as well."
"Why?" Vince asked, genuinely curious.
"Because, he's got patience in spades compared to Mark or myself," Kevin said flatly. Although that was true, his primary reasoning was to create a less tense situation, but even that hinged on how Scott and Reves interacted with one another while they were around Mark. Rationally, he shouldn't give those two an in, but they already fucked like jackrabbits.
Vince chuckled. "That's true. I think that's doable, as long as Mark approves."
"Anything else?" Kevin asked peevishly as he stood up.
"We're good. I'll let you know when the first training will be."
"Sure," Nash muttered and left. Once out of the room, he released an exasperated groan and dragged his hands down his face. Why the fuck had he just agreed to that? He needed a degree of separation, not to draw nearer to her. If just the thought of her was enough to eclipse his logic - even for a few moments- he was royally fucked.