Sunday night, Erin thought. Monday morning, and another busy work week, were fast approaching. The weekend had flown by, with the enjoyable company of Jay, Zelina and Raquel. It had been a busy weekend, which now had her feeling very tired.
Now that the guests had left, Erin's plan was to curl up on the couch with Jay and enjoy some relaxation, along with a drink. She had consumed too much wine over the weekend, but she figured indulging for one weekend wouldn't hurt. Hitting the gym hard during the coming week's workouts would make up for it. At least, that was what she was going to tell herself.
Returning to the living room with a beer for Jay and a green tea for herself, Erin handed Jay his bottle. "I was just thinking how bad this weekend was for us, with all the food and drink."
Jay shrugged and chuckled. "I'm out of shape anyway. Not much point worrying about it until I can train properly again. A stupid elbow injury affects you way more than you think it will."
"I'm sorry you've had to suffer with it," she said, getting onto the couch beside him and cuddling up to him.
"Thanks, honey. It's just part of being a wrestler. The more you do it, the more beat up your body gets. I guess that's one reason why some kind of backstage job seems appealing."
"Have you thought about what kind of job you might like to do?" she asked, looking at him. "Please take this the right way. I couldn't give you a job that involved managing people, or that required a lot of working as a part of a team."
"I know," he cut in, speaking in an understanding tone. "My people skills aren't anything like as good as yours. Honestly, I wouldn't want to be on a team or in charge of people anyway. The thought of constantly having to deal with groups of people sends a shiver down my spine. What I'm good at is wrestling. I know all of the skills, and I think I did an okay job of teaching you the basics ahead of your match with Brett."
"You did," Erin said, nodding thoughtfully. "Maybe a trainer would be a suitable job for you. I don't want to give you that though because the Performance Center is in Florida, and I need to be up here for the office. We'd hardly see each other."
"That's right. So that's not an option," he said without even wanting to consider it further.
"Severide suggested we do more talent scouting. His idea was to resume sending people to small, independent shows and try to snap up promising young talents. He said he has no idea why my dad stopped doing that, and I have to admit I agree."
"Well, I can answer that. Hank changed tack from signing young wrestlers to signing young athletes and training them to become wrestlers. I'm not sure that's an approach I agree with though. Severide's idea is better, and since he's in charge of talent now, I guess his opinion carries some weight with you."
"It does, as does yours. And in any case, I too think that's how we should recruit new talent. Are you saying you'd be interested in some scouting work?"
Jay looked at her as he thought about it. Erin tried to use her expression to encourage him with verbalising his feelings. By now she well knew what helped him, and she was only too happy to do so.
"I think I would," he eventually said. "Wrestling is what interests me. It always has been. Showing you some skills was fun, and I always like to see up and coming wrestlers improve their skills and evolve as performers."
"Really?" Erin asked happily. That was something he had never told her before. But she wasn't surprised. Until she had come into the picture, wrestling had been Jay's entire life, by his own admission. "Who would you say you've seen improve the most since they joined WWE?"
"Ruzek, probably. He was a mouthy little punk when he first showed up. Thought he was great when he was a long way from it. But he got himself straightened out, and he put the work in. Then there's Clem, of course. As far as the women are concerned, she's a generational performer in my opinion."
"Who fucking Kelton was about to lose for us," Erin said venomously. Cursing was rare for her, but it seemed to come so easily when thinking of Kelton.
"Yes. Thankfully you sorted that."
Erin put a hand on Jay's cheek and kissed him on the lips. "So, how about a second job as a talent scout? If you take it, you'll only wrestle televised shows and occasional non-TVs. That'll put less of a toll on your body too."
Jay laughed. "You're saying I'm breaking down?"
Erin grinned. The fact he could enjoy that kind of humour without worrying if she was really putting him down was another way in which she saw the personal growth he had made since they had been together. "Maybe a little. I've noticed a grey hair or two, sir."
"So have I," Jay said, pointedly studying Erin's hair.
She was immediately horrified at the thought of having any grey hair coming through. "You had better not have! Seriously?"
Jay laughed even harder. "No, not really. But you should have seen your face. That was hilarious."
"Asshole!" Erin cried, playfully slapping his chest.
"And then some. You love it, too."
"I love everything about you, Jay. You know that." With that, Erin quickly moved to sit on his lap, facing him, and started to kiss him.
The next morning, Erin had Kelly Severide in her office for a meeting. Since she had hired him as Head of Talent Relations, they had talked to each other a lot. Now that she was Chairwoman, Erin was free to run the roster as she wanted; pushing some wrestlers up towards the top of the hierarchy, moving others down it, and before too much longer letting some go if she didn't see a future for them.
In the past, her job had been to write the shows according to Hank's pecking order. Now it has up to her to form her own pecking order, one of many new responsibilities that she hadn't really had a chance to think about ahead of time thanks to how quick her father's downfall had been.
"There's one more thing before we wrap this up," she said. "I was talking with Jay last night about the possibility of him taking on a backstage role. It's something we've been talking about for a while. As you and I both know, people skills aren't his strength, which limited the roles he's interested in."
"Hmmm," Severide said, understanding.
"We also ruled out anything at the Performance Center. In the end, he decided he might like a scouting position. I explained the change in approach we're going for in recruitment, and he liked it."
"Why don't you create a new department and have Jay head it up? Make him Vice President of Recruitment or something."
"Again, managing people isn't Jay's strength. He doesn't do well talking to people, or relating to them. Managing a department wouldn't be for him."
Severide shrugged. "I don't think that matters as much as you might imagine. It would be a relatively small department, with people dotted around the country watching shows. He could manage it via email if he wanted to, and he'd be reporting back to you. That would hardly be a problem for him."
"It might work," Erin conceded, deep in thought. It was worth putting the idea to Jay at least. From her point of view, having her man occupy a senior position in the company appealed greatly. But she wasn't going to pressure him into taking on something that was too much for him, or that he wouldn't enjoy doing.
"I think it will," Severide said confidently.
"I'll talk to him tonight," she decided, making a final note on the pad she had been writing on during the meeting. She closed it, which served to bring proceedings to a close. "Thanks, Kelly. That's all."
"Boss," he acknowledged, getting up to leave.
Erin waited until she and Jay were eating dinner that night before she brought up what she now had in mind for his new job.
"This food is incredible," Jay was saying through a mouthful of it. "What did Kayla say it's called?"
"Carrot caponata spaghetti," Erin reminded him.
"She's an unbelievable cook. Or chef. Whatever you call it."
"I think either works," she said, smiling across the table at him. "So, Jay, I've been doing some thinking about the job we talked about. Don't react instinctively to what I'm about to say. Hear me out."
"Alright," he agreed, somewhat warily.
"My idea is to create a new department. Let's say for now it'll be called Talent Recruitment. It'll consist of a few people we'll take on to work as talent scouts. I'd like you to head it up."
"Erin, wait..."
"Let me finish," she said gently, knowing exactly how to talk to him. "I'm well aware that you don't want a job that involves sitting around in stuffy meetings all day, and a lot of face to face interaction with people. My vision is you running this primarily via telephone and email. You've have your small team based in locations around the country, maybe even overseas, while you're at the office in New York. I'd get you fixed up with an office on the top floor, near to mine. I think it's a job you'd be great at, that you'd enjoy, and it would allow us to continue seeing a lot of each other."
They ate their food in silence for almost a full two minutes as Jay thought it all over. Erin knew to be quiet and let him think rather than trying to convince him. The decision had to be his.
"No face to face meetings?" he asked eventually.
"I can't promise none. But rarely, yes. Most of your communicating would be long distance. And you'd get to do your own scouting too, which I know you'd enjoy."
"Alright, I'll take it on," he decided, with surprising enthusiasm.
"You will? That's great!"
"I'm looking forward to it actually. And I know this makes you happy too, so I have double the reasons to do it."
"That's really sweet, Jay." Erin got up, went around the table to him and gave him a full kiss on the lips.
"What was that for?"
"Because I love you," she said happily, returning to her chair. "WWE is a family business. You helping me run it keeps it feeling that way."
"Then let's drink to the family business," Jay said, picking up his wine glass.
Feeling incredibly happy, Erin clinked her glass against his. "To the family business."
END OF BOOK TWO
A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read this story in its entirety. Book one was primarily about Jay's personal growth. Book two was mainly about Erin's professional growth.
I do have an idea for a third book. However, I also have an idea for a new Jay and Erin story that would be a lot different to this one. All I can say at this stage is keep an eye on my account for future updates.