She's come to apologise, Jay thought, watching Erin for a second through the peephole. She's come to apologise, and we may well have sex right away. It turned him on before he even opened the door. He made like he hadn't used the peephole, looking surprised to see her.
"Erin? How did you get my room number? I know I didn't tell you it."
Erin ignored him and got straight to her point. "You don't like people playing games with you? Well, neither do I. You think I don't know what all the hot again, cold again act is? You're angry because I'm better at those kinds of games than you are. Here's the deal, Jay. If this is ever going to become a thing between us, I'm going to be the dominant one in the couple, not you. You're going to have to decide if you're man enough to handle that. Have a good night."
Jay was rendered speechless as she turned and walked away. He had never been spoken to like that by a woman in his life. Part of him was affronted, but a much larger part of him found it a powerful turn on. He wanted to go after her, force her against the wall and fuck her. But of course he couldn't do that, so he closed the door and sat down on the bed, still processing what she had said.
Where was the Erin he had first met? That was what he wanted to know. Only a few months ago, when their storyline had first been pitched, she had seemed shy and retiring, wandering about backstage like a fish out of water around the wrestlers. Now she had transformed into some kind of alpha female.
The former had been in a professional setting, the latter was in a personal one. That was the difference, he realised. She hadn't had a lot of confidence about being on the road with WWE, although that was changing quickly. In relationships, however, she seemed to have all the confidence in the world. For Jay, it was a challenge and an experience like no other. With every intense encounter they had, his desire for her only grew stronger.
His mind turned to the question of what to say the next time he saw her.
To Jay's frustration, the next non-televised show that Erin worked was Thursday night, meaning that he had gone three days without seeing her by then. She and her alpha female attitude had gone swanning off to her big house and her fancy office job. But now she was back on the road, and he had just set eyes on her at a junction at the end of a hallway, talking to Zelina Vega and Raquel Gonzalez. He had no hesitation in deciding to go down there and interrupt.
Zelina saw Jay coming and said something to the other two. By the time Jay got to Erin, Zelina and Raquel had walked off along one of the hallways, leaving them to it.
"Ah, there you are," Erin said brightly.
This time, Jay was determined to seize the upper hand, after glancing around to make sure no one might be listening in. "You want no more games? Fine. But I can't see myself having a woman in charge of me in a relationship. I don't roll like that."
Erin burst out laughing at him, which wasn't exactly the reaction he had expected. "I knew you would take that seriously."
"Sorry, what?" he asked, having no idea what was going on.
"Jay, you really had better stop the games because I'm tying you in so many knots that soon you won't know which comes first, your head or your ass. I don't want to be in charge of you. What kind of nonsense even is that? I just said that to you so that you'd hopefully spend three days thinking about it. And you obviously did."
He held up his hands in defeat. There was no denying it – she had him beaten at his own shtick. "Okay, okay. You've made your point. No more games. Honestly."
"Alright," she said with one of those dazzling smiles. "I'll go get changed then. We should start training, right?"
Jay looked at her blankly. "What?"
"You're still up for training me, right? Dad said we should do it pre-show at non-TV events. I guess that means today is when we start."
Get yourself together, Jay told himself. He had to find a way not to always be thrown off his game by being around Erin, and he had to find it now before she started to think he was just an idiot. "Yes, training. Of course. Let's do it. You go get changed, I'll meet you down at the ring."
"Great!" she said, setting off towards the women's locker room.
As Jay made his way through the backstage areas to get out into the arena, he wished he had a close friend to confide in. Talking over the situation with Erin would help him a lot. However, he had always actively avoided getting close to people.
"Probably for the best," he muttered. After all, a secret wasn't a secret once somebody knew about it. And the fact that there was something personal brewing between him and Erin definitely needed to remain a secret.
A couple of young mid-card guys were using the ring to train when Jay went out there. He walked down to ringside and called out to them. "Two minutes, guys. Erin Voight is coming out here, and we'll be training."
"You got it," one of them said. When it came to Jay Halstead or the boss's daughter, there was no room for argument.
The two guys wrestled for a couple of minutes before breaking up their session, as they had been instructed.
"Jay? There's a couple of waters over there on the steps. Neither of them have been opened," one of the guys said. It was fairly obvious that he sought acknowledgement from Jay. He likely looked up him, but was a bit reticent about talking to him because everyone knew Jay wasn't sociable.
"Thanks, man," Jay said, managing not to sound as disinterested as he felt.
"Sure thing," the young guy said, seeming happy enough with the response.
Jay didn't think any more of it, for he noticed Erin walking down the entrance ramp. She was wearing black gym pants and a black t-shirt with the WWE logo on it.
"Ready to wrestle?" Jay asked in a tone that was way more upbeat than those young guys could possibly have gotten out of him.
"Sure," Erin said, walking straight by him and rolling into the ring under the bottom rope. He headed in after her.
"Okay, I won't bother giving you drills on how to land when you take moves. They can do that with you when you're in Florida. What I'll start by doing is teaching you how some simple moves are executed. Let's start with... a body slam," he decided after a moment. "As you know of course, it's a simple move where you lift your opponent up and slam them onto their back."
"Right. Show me how to do it," she said eagerly.
Only then did Jay realise that his selection of move to try was a bad one. In order to lift the opponent correctly for a body slam, one hand to be placed between their legs. He was used to doing it with other guys, and touching someone's junk didn't make him think twice. It was just part of the job. But with a woman it would be a lot different. "I, uh, need to put my hand..." he glanced between her legs.
"You can go ahead," she said with confidence.
"Alright. So you're going to put one hand on your opponent's shoulder, and the other between their legs like this. And lift." Jay scooped her up with ease, used to throwing guys around who were twice or even three times her weight. But all he could think about was that he had his hand right over her... He had to stop thinking about it before he got hard. "Then you slam them down like this."
He deposited her fairly lightly onto the mat on her back. She got straight up, a smile on her face. "Show me again."
"Okay. Hand on the shoulder. Other hand on the, uh, I mean between the legs. And lift. Then slam."
"Got it," she said, looking up at him from the mat. Her cheeks seemed a little flushed, maybe as if she had enjoyed it.
The training session ended up lasting over half an hour before one of the backstage crew tentatively had to evict them from the ring so that some preparations could be made.
Erin had worked a bit of a sweat up, which made her look like she was glowing to Jay. No matter what state he saw her in, she always, always looked gorgeous.
"That was fun. Looking forward to the next session," she said as they walked up the ramp together.
Jay suddenly felt brave. He decided to go with it. "Me too. You know what I'd look forward to more? Dinner tonight, me and you after the show."
She looked at him. "Thought we weren't doing games?"
"I'm not," he protested. "I want to take you out for dinner."
Erin considered it for a moment, stopping near the curtain before going through. "Okay, you can take me out. I'll make sure to wear some leather for you."
"I thought we weren't doing games?" he asked, enjoying being able to echo her.
"I'm not. I know you like it."
"You know what I liked? That vintage look at the opera. That was hot."
Erin smiled at him seductively. "I'll keep that in mind."
A/N: They've decided to start acting a bit more like grown ups, they've had their first training session, and they've arranged what may well be a date. Have Jay and Erin turned a corner?
