Having a wedding take place in a wrestling ring was a ridiculous concept in Jay's opinion. Tonight wasn't the first time it had been done though, and it likely wouldn't be the last. The happy couple on this occasion were Erin Voight and Adam Ruzek. They wouldn't be happy for long of course. Jay would be crashing their party with his big reveal that he was already married to Erin.
For now, backstage before the show, there was time to kill. Jay had read the part of the format for the show that applied to him, and had what he needed to say already memorised. Feeling a bit hungry, he had decided to go to the catering area and grab a bite to eat.
WWE always laid on top notch catering at every show, with plenty of variety on offer. On this occasion, Jay chose a salad platter and a couple of chicken breasts, allowing himself a bottle of cola to go with it.
With his tray loaded up, Jay turned towards the tables, hoping there would be an empty one. He didn't sit with his co-workers to eat if he could help it, preferring his own company. Pleasingly, there were two empty tables. He went over to one and sat down.
As she started eating, Jay realised he had timed his arrival just right. Catering was starting to fill up, and a line was forming as people made their food selections.
Minding his own business and eating his food, he was surprised when a tray appeared on his table without anyone even asking if it was okay to sit there. But when he looked up he saw Kevin Atwater, his only real friend in the locker room apart from Adam Ruzek. Atwater also happened to be the current WWE Champion.
"What's up, man?" Kevin said as he sat down.
"Not much. You good?" Jay asked through a mouthful of salad.
"Yeah, good. It's the wedding tonight then. Good thing they changed course on that. The romance storyline with Ruze and Erin Voight has been cringe."
"It has. And now I get a storyline with her instead," Jay replied, playing it very cool compared to how much he actually liked the prospect.
"I know, but you guys will be heels so it won't be cringe. Only thing is, will she be any good in that role?"
Jay shrugged. "Don't know. But I could hardly tell Hank I didn't want to take the storyline. 'I'm not working with your daughter.' That would hardly be a good career move, would it?"
"Suppose you're right," Kevin said.
Over his friend's shoulder, Jay saw three more people approaching. A group of three women know collectively on TV as the Lethal Latinas were coming over to the table. One of them was Bayley Martinez, a cute woman with black hair cut in a bob and one of the finest asses Jay had ever seen. She also happened to be considered by many as the best female wrestler in the world. She also happened to be Kevin Atwater's girlfriend.
Behind Bayley were her teammates. Firstly, Zelina Vega, a five foot tall fiery Puerto Rican from New York who had a gorgeous toothy smile and a great physique for someone so small. Her main talent on-screen was her character work. She was an outstanding actress and a great talker.
Next to Zelina was Raquel Gonzalez. At just over six feet tall and built like the side of a house, Raquel was by a distance the tallest and strongest woman in WWE. She was pretty too, Jay thought, although in his eyes not up to Erin Voight's standards. Rumour had it that Raquel and Zelina had recently started dating. He could only imagine what Raquel did with little 'Z', as she liked to called, in the bedroom.
Although the Lethal Latinas were heels, the fans secretly liked them because they were the super smooth, arrogant bad guys that everyone wanted to be at some point in their lives. Their entrance theme music helped. It was as smooth as their characters, with bass to die for and some great little guitar riffs worked in. Jay sometimes listened to it when he worked out, not that he would tell anyone that.
He snapped himself out of his thoughts as Bayley sat down next to Kevin and Zelina sat down next to him.
"Room for a little one?" Zelina asked rhetorically.
"Yeah," Jay said, giving up on eating his meal in peace. He sat back and drank some cola.
Raquel grabbed a chair from one of the other tables and used it to sit at the head of Jay's table, next to him, crowding him even more. The new arrivals all started eating, making themselves right at home.
"So, we just had a meeting with Hank," Bayley announced. "Got some pretty cool news. Once Erin turns heel and starts being the boss around here, the three of us are going to be her allies. Or her enforcers, depending on how you want to look at it."
"Us and Kim Burgess," Raquel said.
Burgess played a character who was described as 'a former corrections officer'. She wore all-black attire comprising body armour, shirt, pants, boots and leather gloves, and went around beating the crap out of people with a nightstick. She was one of the canniest, cruellest and most hated characters on the show. Jay liked the character, respecting the heat it had. He knew Kim quite well because she was Adam Ruzek's girlfriend.
"That's quite a group," Kevin said.
"Yeah. And you said they're going to write Erin as the boss? So Hank will be taking time off-screen?" Jay asked.
They all knew that no matter what happened in the storyline, Hank Voight would be very much still be there every show running things behind the scenes.
"Sounds that way," Zelina said. "So I guess by association you'll be the boss too. You'll be married to her, so you'll be in charge together. I think that's pretty cool."
Jay agreed, so long as Erin was capable of playing her new character well when the time came. He was done with his food, having wasted no time in getting through it once his table had been swamped. Mainly for the sake of getting out of there, he opted to go back to the locker room.
"Catch you all later," he said, getting up. He started walking away, before Raquel's voice stopped him.
"Hey. What do you think, all Latinas are housekeepers? Bus your tray."
Jay looked at her for a moment, holding his tray out towards him. He didn't like being challenged by someone who hadn't even been on the main roster long, but he couldn't escape the fact that she was right. And she was right in front of a table full of people.
"Right. Sorry, I'm distracted," he lied as he took the tray. He went over to bus it, and came across a rookie wrestler who was at maybe his third show. It was actually accepted, even required, for rookies to be given a hard time by the top guys. They had to pay their dues.
"Take care of that, will you?" Jay said, handing him the tray. It hadn't been a question.
"Yes, sir," the rookie said humbly.
When he walked out of the catering area, Jay almost literally bumped into Erin Voight, who was heading in the opposite direction. She had a simple blue top on, along with plain black pants. Still, it was a much better look than those hideous grandma outfits she had been wearing on TV since her debut.
"What are you looking so grumpy about?" she asked as a greeting.
"Huh? Oh, it's just busy in there. I get irritable when I have to eat around other people. Makes me feel cramped."
"Ah. Well, you can eat in my private locker room next time if... I mean... Never mind," Erin said, looking highly embarrassed. Her cheeks started turning red.
Jay kept his composure, but a lightbulb lit up inside him. Erin was into him. That was the only explanation for her getting so embarrassed by saying that. He certainly wasn't going to let it drop. "Really? That's good of you. I'll take you up on that some time."
"Uh, okay," Erin said awkwardly. "So, my dad is probably going to want to see you soon. I just had a meeting with him about what's going once we're... together."
"Yes, I just heard it from the Latinas. You, them, and Burgess. That's quite a group."
"Yeah, and the main opposition on the babyface side will be Sylvie Brett, Stella Kidd, Gabby Dawson and of course Hailey Upton."
Hailey Upton was the current WWE Women's Champion, and the most popular female wrestler with the fans. Dawson and Kidd were established names. Sylvie Brett was not.
"Sylvie Brett? She's not even on the main roster."
"She's soon going to be. I'm off to get a coffee. If I don't see you before, see you when you wreck my wedding later." With a little laugh, Erin hurried off into catering.
Jay stood there feeling smug. Erin was into him before they even got together on-screen. Now he was looking forward to it more than ever.
Later that night, with the wedding ceremony getting underway out in the ring, Jay stood backstage behind the curtain waiting for his entrance music to hit and make the interruption.
At the top of the show, Hank's character had given a backstage interview in which he had promised to fire anyone who dared to interrupt his daughter's wedding. That probably had the fans not expecting anyone to intervene.
As Erin had predicted, Hank had asked to see him to talk about where the storyline would be going. It turned out that Jay's next pay-per-view match was going to be against Hank, where the old man would get beaten to within an inch of his life, and Erin would turn her back on him, siding with Jay. That would write Hank's character off TV for the foreseeable, leaving Erin, billed as 'one of the owners of WWE', to run the place in his absence.
"Ready, Jay?" a producer asked him. It was a cue, not a question. In any case, Jay could hear the guy who was officiating the ceremony over the arena's sound system. There was hardly and noise from the crowd, who didn't much care about the Ruzek – Voight wedding.
"If anyone knows of any lawful reason why Erin and Adam should not join together in holy matrimony, they should speak now or forever hold their peace."
The noise from the crowd rose a little. They knew that if the wedding was going to get interrupted, now was the moment.
A couple of seconds went by in silence before Jay's music hit. The crowd actually popped for it. Although they hated him, they also hated the wedding, and liked it being ruined. Hank had made the right call in that first creative meeting on the subject.
Jay sauntered through the curtain onto the stage. More than fifty feet away, down the entrance ramp, the wedding party stood in the ring looking furious at the interruption. Jay had a microphone in hand to address them and the audience. He ignored the fact that he was being cheered.
"Hank, I know you said earlier tonight you'd fire anyone who interrupted the wedding, but I couldn't in good conscience stay back there. Before this thing goes any further, I've got some video footage that I think everyone needs to see."
He pointed up at the enormous video screen above the entrance, and the pre-taped footage from the drive-thru wedding venue in Vegas played. It would also be shown to the TV audience at home. It took a couple of minutes to play all the way through.
When the video ended, there was a mixture of cheers and boos from the audience. In the ring, Hank was so angry that he looked like he was about to have a stroke. Erin was on her knees in her wedding dress, crying and pleading with Adam that she hadn't even known what they had just watched had happened. Adam, meanwhile, stood there looking down at her, betrayed and disgusted.
It was up to Jay to close out the segment and the show with the final line, delivered with the kind of smugness that only he could muster.
"Have a good night... dad! Have a good night... honey!"
A/N: Erin and Jay continue to move closer to working together on-screen. And she let slip that she's attracted to him. We can assume she's not the best poker player.
Readers of my previous story Keeping it In the Family will have recognised the non-Chicago PD characters we met in this story, and of course you all know the Chicago PD ones. I hope you guys are going to enjoy seeing them as wrestlers.