It had been a long night for Riven but that didn't stop him from waking up early to workout. Even in his off season Riven spent a good amount of time in the gym to maintain and build upon his strengths and weaknesses. Riven had been so ready to start working out that he had left his phone upstairs in his room at his shorefront villa. After a 3 hour intense workout Riven emerged from his at home gym and went straight up to his private bathroom for a much needed shower. Riven took note that one of the house maids had cleaned his room and left his phone on the nightstand next to his bed which had way too many pillows for the young fighters liking.
After his shower Riven turned on his T.V., laid down on his freshly made bed and picked up his phone, he was surprised to see how many notifications he had, most of them had been from Instagram and twitter, but Riven had no memory of posting on social media the night before or even this morning. There had also been a few missed calls from numbers he didn't recognize. With all of his notifications that he received that day it was the text messages he got from his agent and the text message he had gotten from Brandon.
'Come to my office around 2 o'clock, I have some things to discuss with you.'
'DON'T ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT MUSA!'
'DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HE UNTIL YOU SPEAK TO ME!'
'TO ANYONE!'
Riven rolled his eyes at the messages from his agent; as if Riven would even want to think of the little bitch of a diva, but it was the text from Brandon that really made him question if everyone had lost their minds.
'Why didn't you tell me you were dating Musa? She' smoking hot bro'
Had everyone gone crazy? Just as Riven was about to respond to Brandon, the previous texts rang through his head. Right he was not to speak of Musa until he spoke to Kate. Deciding to take his agents advice and ignore his friend's text for the moment. Going through his apps on his smartphone we was curious to see what had sent his Instagram a buzz. Tapping the heart on his Instagram page to see what photo of himself everyone had been liking he was surprised to see that it was not likes from a photo that he was receiving notifications from, but him being mentioned in the comments of another photo.
The champion fighter tapped the photo which lead him to the GQ magazine's Instagram page's most recent picture that had been posted earlier that morning. It was a photo of Musa with the caption of 'Grammy nominated singer Musa is our #WCW 3'. Riven recognized the photo, it was one of the solo shots that Roxy took of the popstar.
Musa was sitting on the floor in an oversized button down shirt with her hair tousled to one side. Her bright azure eyes shined bright in contrast to her thick dark long eyelashes, her skin looked perfect, smooth with no blemishes in sight; her lips were full and pouty. All and all the picture had sex appeal written all over it. As much as Riven would never admit it to himself, let alone anyone else; he thought she looked beautiful. So beautiful that he double tapped the picture making a white heart appear above her face.
"Shit." The fighter cursed, he hadn't really meant to like the picture, just as he was about to unlike the photo when the sound of his name coming from T.V. caught his attention. Riven reached over to his nightstand grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. One of the housemaids must've been watching T.V. in his room while she cleaned Riven thought to himself. Usually his T.V. was set to ESPN or some other sports channel. The four women on the screen told him that this was far from Sports Center, actually this was one of the daytime talk shows that focused on fashion, home, love, and celebrities; something that Stella Solaria would watch if she had free time to watch T.V. at home. Not something a rugged three time champion fighter would watch
.For some odd reason Riven was actually curious to see what these women would say about him."So last night Riven Sheffield stepped on to red carpet, usually he's not present for events like this but he blessed us looking ever so scrumptious, right ladies?" Krystal Taylor one of the T.V. hosts said to the panel of women sitting next to her. The other women nodded in response. Riven shook his head, of course they would be talking about how they found him attractive and not for his skill. Losing his attention all together Riven focused back on his phone.
Unlocking his phone, he was still on the picture of Musa on GQ's Instagram. Riven scrolled down to read the comments that he were tagged in.
' TheRivenator and Musa are the cutest #teamMuRi'
'#MuRi is my favorite couple 3 3"
'Ahh TheRivenator liked the picture!1!1'
' Musa is suuuppper preetttyy!111!'
'I think Musa could do better than riven hes a asshole'
'check my page out for designer gear and authentic electronic! Fair prices'
' JustJarred and Musa should be together'
What the hell was wrong with these people why did everyone think he and Musa were a thing; and what the hell was MuRi. In the midst of his thoughts the sound of his name caught his attention once more.
When Riven looked up from his phone to his T.V. he saw his face next to Musa's with pink and red hearts surrounding him, just his luck. Riven listened intently as a new woman he knew as Wendy began to speak.
"So we have a new couple alert!" The women squealed as she took a seat away from the other hosts and next to a T.V. monitor. "MuRi is here!" The audience awed as a photograph of Musa and Riven from the night before on the red carpet. The fighter instantly regretted his petty actions from the night before.
"We first spotted the couple last week at the UFC Championship fight were Riven was amazing. Can we agree on that?" The audience applauded and nodded in approval.
"Our very own Krystal Taylor even caught up with the singer before the match and it looked like she came to support her beau check out what she had to say." As the video roll began
Musa let out a small giggle. "I'm just kidding; I'm here to see Riven win of course." Musa said with a wink as she walked away from the celebrity reporter.
"Ugh she was so supportive and Riven seemed grateful to see her there for him." Krystal chimed in. The camera switched back to the T.V. monitor with a video of Musa and Riven at the fight played.
Riven let out a quick whistle which caught Musa's attention and unknowingly made a couple of reporters and cameramen around the fighting cage turn to Riven.
"Thank you." The three time champion said lowly to Musa and gave her a wink.
Musa not used to having an attractive, hot, sweaty, shirtless fighter talk to her did what only a normal person like herself would do…be smiled, bit down on her bottom lip lightly and blushed then shrugged lightly as to say 'no biggie.' Riven gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement before he turned around and walked to the other side of the fighting cage to exit it and claim his title for the third year in a row.
"And this is why I'm not nice." Riven said out loud to no one. He continued to watch the T.V. as Wendy spoke.
"We also have these super cute pictures from GQ of the couple, just then some of the images he had taken with Musa appeared on the screen. The young man shook his head he really needed to clear this up fast.
"But that was mostly speculation, we got confirmation from the couple themselves last night at the VMAs red carpet last night, don't believe us? Well we have video proof." Wendy said as she directed everyone's attention back to the monitor.
While Musa was poses for the cameramen Riven snaked his arm around Musa's slim waist. Riven bent his head down so his mouth was next to her ear, he then proceeded to nibble on her ear a bit which made Musa blush something fierce. "I'll catch you inside Muse." Riven said aloud and then gave the songstress a kiss on the cheek then walked off to go inside the venue. Leaving a blushing Musa to answer a thousand and one questions.
Karma is a real bitch ain't she.
"Riven didn't really strike me as the whole PDA, affectionate, lovey dovey type but I guess all of that changes for Musa." Wendy said "Mhm, and he even gave her a cute pet name, Muse.. Why didn't we think of that." Krystal gushed. Riven couldn't handle hearing anymore of this nonsense and decided to turn off the T.V., he didn't even know the girls last name for crying out loud.
He glanced at the time and decided it was about time to start heading down to Kate's office. Usually he would've took his bike down to her office but today he needed to do some research on Musa and driving a motorbike and being on social media was very frowned upon in the state of California; so having his driver drive him down there was the best option.
Riven left his villa and got into the awaiting car on the other side of the gate to take him to his agents office. "Good afternoon Mr. Sheffield." The driver greeted when the fighter entered the vehicle. "Simon, I told you its Riven." Riven said getting comfortable in the backseat of the luxury car. Once settled Riven took out his phone, opened up his google app, then typed Musa's name into the search engine. Riven's first click landed him on Musa's website page, that wouldn't do. The fighter clicked off that page and scrolled down to Musa's Wikipedia page.
Clicking on that link he was met with the information that he wanted. 'So her last name is VanderBelle.' Riven thought to himself; which made sense her father is Ho-boe VanderBelle. Musa didn't really look like her father the only similarity the two shared was the blue hair color. There was a link for Musa's mother Matlin, the fighter was taken aback by the striking resemblance between mother and daughter.
The fighter hadn't really known much of the songtress's mother and was curious to know more about her, as he read her profile he learned she was a classically trained opera singer. He clicked the link that directed him to a YouTube video of Matlin, she was at an opera house singing. She sounded amazing, organic, and all natural. 'Unlike Musa.' Riven said to himself silently. He went back to Matil's page and continued reading.
He scrolled until something caught his attention.
"….Killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas." Riven eyes widened in shock. No wonder the popstar hated him, he had disrespected her deceased mother. Riven face palmed himself, he knew the next time he would have to apologize to Musa the next chance he saw her.
Riven kept reading on the death of Matlin
" Matlin and the members of the record company boarded a twin-engine Cessna 402B at the Marsh Harbour Airport in Abaco Islands, The Bahamas, to travel to the Opa-locka Airport in Florida,...The designated airplane was smaller than the Cessna 404 on which they had originally arrived, but the whole party and all of the equipment were accommodated on board. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff, about 200 feet from the end of the runway and exploded..."
The more he read the more he felt like an asshole.
Matlin's funeral was held on August 31, 2003, at in Manhattan. Her body was set in a silver-plated copper-deposit casket, which was carried in a glass horse-drawn hearse. An estimated 800 mourners were in attendance at the procession... After the service, 37... white doves were released to symbolize each year of Matlin's life...the inscription at the bottom of Matlin's portrait at the funeral read: 'We Were Given a Queen, We Were Given an Angel.' .
Riven let all that information sink in when it hit him, Matlin died in 2003 which means Musa was only 13 or 14 when her mother died, yup he was definitely scum for saying that about the young woman's mother. He knew first hand how hard it was to grow up with out a mother.
The car came to a stop as Simon parked the car in front of a tall office building. "I'll be back to pick you up Mr. Sheffield." Simon said looking through his rear view mirror.
"Ok cool, I'll see you then." Riven said as he climbed out the car. "And Simon, I already told you its Riven." Simon only nodded and drove away when Riven closed the door to the car.
Walking up to the tall building, Riven felt nostalgic remembering the first time he came there. Walking pass security and the front desk the fighter went straight for the elevator. The ding signaling that the elevator was here was one of the only sounds that could be heard in the lobby.
Taking the elevator to the top floor Riven walked to Kate's office and opened the door. The fighter didn't bother to knock years ago when he barged in and demanded representation from Kate and he sure as hell wasn't going to do it now. Riven and Kate had a weird understanding of each other.
The fighter wasn't surprised to see Kate, after it was her office and she did call him to it, but to say Riven was surprised to see Ari sitting on Kate's desk would be an understatement.
"Riven, you made it." Kate greeted as her client walked in. "I'm not sure if you two have officially met yet; Riven this is Ari, Musa's agent; Ari, this is Riven."
Ari hopped off of Kate's desk and extended her hand to Riven. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise." Riven said in response as he shook the agents hand. Just as Riven was about to ask what was going on the door to Kate's office opened once more. Two rather large men walked in the office with a much smaller hooded figure in between the two men. Just as quickly as they came was as quickly they exited leaving the hooded figure behind.
Once the door was closed the hooded figure pulled off its hood to reveal to long midnight blue pigtails, then removed the sunglasses the figure was wearing to reveal deep blue eyesthat were breathtaking.
"Musa didn't I ask you to be discreet?" Ari said to the newly unveiled Musa, who was now zipping down her hoody and taking it off completely.
"Do you know how hard it is for me to do anything discreetly here with the papz watching my every move?" The popstar said in response. "Hey Kate, nice to see you again." Musa said smiling at the women without even glancing at the young man next to her.
"Ok well since you're both here now I guess we should explain why we called this meeting." Kate began and motioned for the two stars to take a seat in their respective chairs.
"So for the last week you two have been receiving a lot of attention from the public eye, which has caught the attention of a few sponsors." Ari said to the two stars sitting in front of her.
"Pepsi has extended their sponsorship with Musa to you Riven." Ari said speaking directly to the fighter.
"Hey! That's not fair I worked hard for that and now he just a piece of my sponsors?" An outraged Musa cried out.
"No worries Musa, Nike extended their sponsorship with Riven to you." Kate replied in an attempt to soothe the songstress, which seemed to upset her client as he emited a low growl from his throat.
"And BeatsbyDre has extended sponsorships to both of you." Kate said to top it off.
Riven was growing impatient waiting for the catch, this all sounded a little too good to be true and Riven knew when something seemed too good to be true it was.
"So what's the catch for all of this?" Riven voiced his question. There was a pause before anyone spoke which didn't sit well with Riven or Musa.
"Well all this new found publicity and interest comes from the fact that people thing that you two are in a relationship with one another; I've talked this through with Kate, and we both think you guys should go with it." Ari said rather casually, so casually Musa had thought she had miss head what her agent was imposing.
"Excuse me?" Musa asked hoping she really did mishear what Ari had just head. "We think you guys should date...well pretend date each other." Kate said "We drew up a contract that will stay between us..." Kate was cut off by musa standing up and putting her hoodie back on.
"No." Was all the blue haired girl said before making her way to the door.
"Musa just wait and hear us out." Ari called out to her, when she was sure Musa wasn't leaving she began again. "This would be good for you, the both of you."
"How would this be good for me?" Riven challenged from his chair.
"Easy, this makes you seem less of a cold hearted person and much more approachable and representable, plus the Pepsi sponsorships is one of the biggest deals ever." Kate explained.
"One of the biggest deals ever huh? That doesn't sound too bad. I'm in" Riven said, thinking of the endless possibilities and doors this could open.
Musa scoffed at the thought of helping Riven further his career, which did not go unnoticed by Ari.
"This could help you out too Musa." Ari chimed in.
"Oh really, enlighten me on how." Musa said sarcasm dripping with every word she spoke.
"This will make you appear as more human, isn't that what your second album is about; relating to people. And what's says im just like you than having a boyfriend." Ari tried to reason with the girl.
"Only half of the album, and don't you think me dating someone average seems more like 'regular girl' than dating someone more attractive than an Abercrombie and Fitch model?" Musa said pointing at Riven.
"She's got a point, I am rather devilishly good looking," Musa looked over her shoulder and casted a dirty look at Riven before turning back to the agents in front of her.
"This was all so lovely and I would really love to sit and chat with you guys but I have much better things to do, other than wasting my time here." Musa said, voiced laced with feigned disappointment. An eye roll and a toss of hair was all Musa was going to give this whole situation.
"Musa cut the diva act." Ari said before she could stop the words from coming out of her mouth.
"Excuse me?" Musa raised an eyebrow at her agent. "Did you forget you work for me and not the other way around? Musa threatened. This was very much out of character for Musa but she had had just about enough of this crap that was presented to her.
"I'm sorry Musa, but please here us out." Ari began but Musa was already at the door.
" Musa wa..." Kate called out only to be interrupted by Ari who had put a single finger up to stop the blonde agent from speaking. Musa was now at the office door reaching for the door knob when Ari spoke.
"Anagon called." This slowed down Musa's actions. Did she really care if he called or not...no no she didn't. Musa grabbed the door knob and twisted it.
"He thinks you want him back." Now this made Musa let go of the door knob and turn back to Ari.
"Dating Riven would show him you moved on to someone better." Ari said to her client
Musa scrunched up her nose. "Dating Riven would be half a step up from dating Anagon, not really worth it."
Riven knew what he had to do to get Musa to agree to this arrangement but he would be damed if he did it in front of everyone. "Can I speak to Musa...alone." Riven said rather than asked as he stood up from his chair. Kate was completely fine stepping out of her office to let the two speak.
"Whatever you have to say to me you can say with Ari." Musa said as she folded her arms against her body. Riven walked over to Ari and stood well more like towered over her in an intimidating stance, he could tell it was working by the scared glances Ari was giving Musa, silently pleading to leave.
"Ugh ok, fine go." Musa caved
"Oh thank God." Was the only thing Ari managed to say as she quickly scurried out of the office. Once the door was fully closed Riven focused his attention on Musa.
"Look, I'm sorry." Riven said earnestly
"For?" Musa questioned, she didn't need a half assed apology from the fighter just so they could fake date.
"I'm sorry for what I said about your mother, I had no idea that she passed away, granted that's gives me no excuse to say what I said in the first place, but I really truly am sorry, especially because I know what it feels like growing up without a mom." He said in a rather soft tone.
Musa scanned the fighters face for any signs of deception and couldn't find any. 'I guess he really is sorry.' Musa thought to herself.
"Thank you." Musa responded to the fighter. The two sat in silence for a bit before Musa sat on Kates desk thinking about everything she heard today. Intrigued with her action Riven followed the songwriters actions and sat on the desk with her.
Musa looked at the fighter taking in all his features like his hair, and eyes which were both uniquely colored and his chiseled jawline. Before she could stop herself she had already voiced her question. "Is that their real color?"
"Eyes or hair." Riven asked
"Both." The singer responded giving her shoulders a little shrug.
"Yeah they're both my natural color, it's some weird gene that runs in my family." The violet eyed man said. The two sat in silence once more until Riven spoke.
"So Anagon huh?" Riven half joked and half asked.
"Ugh don't say his name!" Musa half yelled as she through her head back in exaggeration.
Riven smirked at the young woman's action, he had an idea of how to get her on board.
"You know Anagon hates my guts, and I can tell you hate his guts, and he wants you back apparently. Imagine how upset he'd be if everywhere he went he would have to see our faces together." Musa thought about the possibility of torturing Anagon and this didn't seem like bad way to do so. Riven could see a hint of mischief in Musa's eyes and a small smirk forming on her face, she was in.
"Ok, fine I'm in, but I'm in but I'm not sleeping with you." Musa said as she hopped off the desk and stuck her hand out for Riven to shake. Riven gladly accepted but not before a sly remark. "Ok that's fine but if you change your mind on sleeping with just let me know." He winked
Musa shook her head and walked to the office door and let the two agents back in.
"So do we have a couple?" Kate asked nervously.
"Yes!" Riven stated proudly.
"Yes we have a happy couple!" Ari cheered.
"A happy FAKE couple." Musa clarified. "So should we tell our families that this is fake?"
"No the only people who will know will be us four, for this to be real everyone has to think this is real." Ari said. "Ok lets sign these contracts."
Riven pulled out his phone to look at the time and finally decided to text back Brandon.
'She likes to keep quiet about things like this so don't go blabing all over the place, and I know she's smoking hot, one of the reasons im dating her ;)'
