For a while now, Jay had wanted an opportunity to talk to Hank Voight face to face. A lot had happened since the last time they had done that outside of social occasions where Erin and Mandy had been present. Part of him had always looked at Hank as a father figure, probably because he had never had a worthwhile one in his life before joining WWE. Hank himself was far from perfect of course, but he was an angel compared to Jay's real dad.
The conversation between the two men after Hank had found out that Erin was in a relationship with Jay had lived in his mind ever since. Hank had said that Erin was too good for him, and while Jay still wasn't totally convinced that wasn't true, Hank saying it to him hurt deeply. He wanted the man to be proud of him, and to want him as a part of the family. For that reason, he wanted Hank to know about his accomplishments of late.
It had been several weeks since the last time Jay had seen Hank. That had been for a meal, with Erin and Mandy also present. Even with his comparative lack of social skills, he had been able to pick up on that occasion that no one else at the table wanted to talk about work, so he had stayed clear of the subject. What to do now though? Call Hank? Or go over to his house?
Go over to his house, Jay decided. It was a definitely a conversation he wanted to have in person, and with Erin in the office he had the opportunity to go alone. With the plan settled upon, he got ready and set off in the Ford Mustang he had recently bought. Erin's Ford GT had converted him to American muscle cars, although she was talking about letting hers go and replacing it with an Aston Martin.
Only just before he arrived at the Voight mansion did Jay consider that there was a rather obvious flaw in his plan. What if Hank wasn't home? He ought to have called ahead to find out.
The gates were open when he arrived, so he was able to drive straight in. He found a van from an interior design company parked out front of the house, its rear doors open and a man inside getting ready to unload some supplies.
Jay parked up nearby. As he got out of the car, Mandy and another employee from the interior design company came out of the house. As soon as she saw Jay, Mandy came over.
"Jay! This is a surprise. Hope everything's okay?"
"Hey, Mandy. Yeah, everything's fine. Decided to come over and see Hank, if he's home? I should have called ahead."
She smiled. "You're in luck then. He's home, in his favourite chair, reading over some business documents. I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."
"Thanks. You're having work done?" he asked, although the answer was blatantly obvious.
"Yeah. Having a couple of the bedrooms pretty much started over from scratch. I've got my supervisor hat on. Not literally. I should have asked Hank for one for Christmas."
Jay laughed. He didn't know Mandy too well, and he still hadn't gotten to the point where he could spend time with her and Hank, who was more than twice her age, and not find their relationship odd. That made him feel a bit awkward around her.
"Go in, Jay. You know your way around the place, and you know you're welcome here any time. Give me ten minutes or so and I'll bring some coffee in."
"That'll be nice, thanks," he said. Weird relationship notwithstanding, Mandy had always seemed like a nice and well-meaning person to him, so he had no animosity towards her, and he was glad Erin had been able to get over hers.
He went into the house, smiling to himself at the surprise Hank was about to get. As Mandy had said, Jay found his old boss and mentor in the large living room, sitting comfortably beside a fire. It wasn't a roaring fire, but it was still kicking out some heat.
"Morning, Hank," he said cheerfully.
Hank turned to look at him and took off his reading glasses. He look surprised, which was unsurprising. "Jay. Everything okay?"
"Everything's great. I just wanted to come over and see you."
"Alright," Hank said, still showing surprise. But he set his paperwork aside on a table and stood up to greet him, offering a handshake.
"How are you?" Jay asked as they shook hands.
"Doing okay. Not looking forward to workmen being in the house for the rest of the week, in and out and making noise. Might get the hell out of here tomorrow."
Jay had to try hard not to grin at the familiar Hank Voight grumpiness. Still, he had to make an effort to sympathise. "I hear that. Wouldn't enjoy that happening at our place."
"Have a seat, and tell me what brings you over here, other than wanting to see my ass."
Taking the chair opposite Hank's, Jay suddenly second guessed his reason for the visit. Was it going to come across as though he was telling Hank about his recent accomplishments because he was fishing for compliments? Hell, maybe part of him was fishing for compliments from Hank, who was notoriously hard to get them from if you weren't named Erin or Mandy.
Once he was settled in, Jay got right into the subject he wanted to discuss, as was his style. He went through everything he was doing with WWE these days, from working with the women's roster, through writing creative and laying out matches, to taking on the role as agent for Clementine. And lastly he talked about his idea to sign Alexa Bliss and how he had managed to pull it off.
Hank listened attentively, making a few brief encouraging comments along the way, and they enjoyed some very nice coffee that was delivered by Mandy. When Jay was done, it was his turn to speak.
"I liked hearing that from you, although I knew it all already."
"You did?" Jay cut in, although he instantly realised he shouldn't have been surprised. Of course Erin was telling him everything that happened in WWE.
"Erin and I talk all the time. I don't ever advise her, WWE is hers to run now. But she does keep me up to date on what's going on, and she's so proud of everything you've been doing. She's proud of you, I should say. I am too."
That came from way out of left field for Jay. His father had never once said he was proud of him. The opposite, in fact. And Hank never had either because under his leadership WWE hadn't been the kind of workplace where things like that were said to anyone, at least in Jay's experience. Now Hank had said it from out of nowhere. It made him feel emotional, so he looked away in case he teared up. He couldn't show a weakness like that to the old man.
"Are you okay?" Hank asked.
"My dad never said that to me," Jay mumbled, looking at the floor. He hadn't been able not to say it.
Hank took a moment before he replied. "Look at me."
It took effort, but Jay complied with the request.
"When I first found out Erin was dating you, I was against it. Didn't think you'd be the right person to support her or make her happy. Didn't think the relationship would last, and she'd get hurt. And even if it did last, I didn't think you'd be the right person to help take WWE forward when her time came to take the big chair. I'm happy to admit I've been proven wrong on all fronts, and I'll be damn proud to have you marry Erin."
"You have no idea how much that means to me," Jay said. People said that often, but in this case it was true.
"Alright. Want another coffee?" Hank asked, grabbing his cup and getting to his feet.
Jay recognised it was about giving them a both a way out of the conversation that hadn't been easy for either of them, and he was glad to take it. "Sure," he said, handing his empty cup over.
As Hank left the room, Jay sat back and took a deep breath. Processing what had just happened was going to take some time.
That evening after dinner, Jay had recounted the conversation with Hank to Erin as they sat together on the couch, enjoying winding down together at the end of the day. It wasn't easy for him to talk about it, but even so he wanted Erin to know about it. Naturally, she was supportive of him and delighted to hear what her dad had said. She enquired as to how he was feeling about it, but he said he wasn't ready to get into that yet and she let the subject rest immediately, as ever in tune with what was best for him.
With that subject happily out of the way, Jay moved on to something else he had thought of during the day.
"When I asked Alexa to bring Clem up with her tomorrow, I said we'd go out for lunch after our meeting. I think you should join us."
Erin looked him in the eyes, studying him for a few seconds. "Why?" was her eventual response.
"You know why," Jay said evenly. "It's time to talk things out with Clem. It's illogical for two very good people to be at odds, and it's illogical for the owner of a company to be at odds with one of her most important employees. That was a mistake your dad made. And let's be honest, if at all possible we want to be keeping Clem in WWE even when she's retired from wrestling, if at all possible. Whether she's a trainer, producer, whatever she wants to do, she's a presence we want in that women's locker room or at the PC. That's unlikely to happen if the two of you can't get past your differences. And again, there shouldn't even be any differences. It annoys me quite a lot when I think about it."
"Yes, you made your thoughts clear on that. You said you think I've unfairly blamed Clem for what happened around her contract and so on right after I took over from my dad, and I promised to think on it." She sighed. "I don't like the timing of what happened. Don't like it at all, and it seems mighty convenient for Clem. She got a big pay rise out of me, and I feel like I was naive and taken advantage of. Having said that, my dad and some of his staff did treat her wrongly, that's definitely true. I asked myself how I would have reacted in her situation, and to be honest I would have wanted to leave too. So, maybe the timing was simply unfortunate."
"Right! And you're not overpaying Clem at all. If you had a man doing everything she does, and drawing fans the way she does, she'd be paid twice as much. So you weren't naive. You offered her what's the bare minimum she deserved, and she decided to reverse her decision to leave and show faith in your leadership by staying with WWE. Since then, you've drifted apart and ended up on different pages. That's what needs fixing. Sorry, I'm ranting."
"You're not ranting, you're passionate. I appreciate that passion and I take it seriously because I know you wouldn't be critical of me lightly. What you say makes sense, I can't deny it. Tomorrow, I'm going to try and mend fences."
"There you go," Jay said, nodding his approval because she had seen sense. It showed how smart she was and how much integrity she had that she could admit her error in judgement to him, and commit to acting on it. But admitting it to him wasn't enough. He decided to be brave. "I'm real happy to hear that. You owe Clem an apology. That's all it'll take to clear the air, I'm sure of it. I say all, but I know it's not an easy ask."
He watched Erin's reaction as she chewed on that. She didn't like the taste of it. She was a proud woman, and she was a Voight. A lot different to her dad in terms of personality for sure, but there was some traits in common, albeit not as strong in her as they were in the old man. Apologising and humbling herself to someone did not come easily.
"You're probably right," she grudgingly admitted. "And having to do it in front of Alexa too. Ugh."
"My advice? When you're talking around her, tell the truth. She sees everything."
Erin laughed. "Right. Actually, forget doing it in front of her, or you for that matter. If it's truly going to be a conversation where the air is cleared, it should be one on one. I'll invite her into my office for a sit down."
"Thank you. This is important for me."
Now Erin smiled. "I've been able to tell that, Jay. As I said, that's why I took it so seriously and put a lot of thought into this thing. It's important we can hold each other to account when it's needed. Shows how strong our relationship is."
"And how much we love each other," Jay said, leaning in and giving her a kiss.
"Yes, that too. In fact, that most of all."
A/N: Next time, a big day at WWE HQ when Clementine and Alexa are in town. How do you think things will go?