EPISODE 17 HEAVYWEIGHT

I was going to be facing Ronda at WrestleMania.

It would likely be a triple threat including Charlotte because Ronda would be leaving WWE after Mania and they felt that it would be better to have two main eventers after she left instead of just one. That or they had already promised Charlotte that she’d main event and wanted to follow through with it. Likely the latter.

The singles match would have been the better call from a story-line perspective, and it was the match most fans wanted to see. But any way you slice it, it was going to be the first time women main evented Mania and I was going to be in it; better yet, I was most likely the person who was going to win it. A year ago I was in the preshow battle royal, thrown out unceremoniously by someone who wasn’t even on the main roster.

It was just a matter of how the hell do we get there? We were on two different shows and I still had the title. One idea was that I carry the title until Mania but also win the Royal Rumble and choose her.

You can’t give a babyface too much these days. The fans see the machine getting behind you and they resent that. They tend to favor the underdog. The rebel with a cause. The one who rages against the machine.

That’s what I had to be.

It took a few more weeks for me to be cleared to get back in the ring. My nose hadn’t fully healed and I wasn’t passing the standardized concussion test.

We were a long way from WrestleMania, so we couldn’t keep the rivalry between me and Ronda going until then, especially with us on different shows, so Creative pivoted to me losing the title to Asuka in a triple threat (again, Charlotte was involved) in the first women’s tables, ladders, and chairs match at its namesake’s PPV.

While my brain was healing, so was my heart. My friendship with Colby had been growing since October. He was unhappy in his relationship and had been for quite some time and I had been unceremoniously ghosted by my latest fling. Colby and I had always had a connection, but now we were spending more time together due to booking circumstances and were bonding over our respective love life woes. His tended to be “maybe monogamy isn’t for me,” while I was “I love the idea of one person, but I don’t seem to be matching with the right people.” We talked openly and honestly about our thoughts and feelings with no judgment on either side. It was refreshing.

He was flying into LA after a tour in South America and had the day off.

“Do you have a spare room?” he asked.

“No, but I have a couch if you need somewhere to stay,” I responded, being aware that as one of WWE’s biggest stars, he could afford a hotel room.

“That sounds good.”

I was nervous about him staying. There was clearly something there, and if not handled with care things could get messy.

I picked him up from the airport, and as we rode over to the gym for a quick workout somehow the movie Heavyweights came up in conversation.

“I’ve never seen it,” I admitted.

“You’ve never seen it?!” he balked. “We have to watch it.”

“I don’t have a TV, or rather, my TV doesn’t work.”

“You don’t have a goddamn working TV?!” he scoffed.

“I never watch it. I live in LA, man, too much to do. You can try and get it working if you like.”

“Right, that’s what we’ll do tonight,” he said, taking charge.

As we got back to my one-bedroom Marina del Rey apartment and he went to work repairing my broken television to no avail, he confided that he and his girlfriend had taken a break. I tried to counsel him through it, even though, after my shitty engagement and being recently ghosted, I was hardly feeling optimistic.

After realizing “TV repairman” was likely not something Colby could add to his résumé, he relented: “I guess we’ll watch it on my laptop.” Which would force us to sit closer to each other on my sectional couch as he held the laptop on outstretched legs.

The movie had just started when he put his hand on my leg.

Oh no, oh no. What do I do?! I’m not ready for this. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, I thought on repeat for almost the duration of the one-and-a-half-hour movie. At one point, I attempted to match this body contact rather awkwardly, my hand finding its way to his arm rigidly while I hoped he didn’t move any farther. How was a newly single me expected to resist this giant brooding hunk of a man? But he was also my buddy. My pal. My colleague. And I did not want to complicate that.

When the movie was over, we shifted our rigid hands and recited hilarious Heavyweights scenes without ever commenting on the awkward body contact.

As we both got tired and prepared to go to sleep on our respective furniture items, I gave him a hug that lingered a few seconds too long. If anything was going to happen, this would be the time for it to happen. But he would have to make the first move; I couldn’t be charged with ruining our friendship.

He did not.

Probably for the best, I thought as I made way to my bedroom while he stayed on the couch.

I woke up the next morning to him poking his beardy head through the door.

“You up?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I am now, I thought, along with Get out of here; I look awful in the morning and I haven’t brushed my teeth!

He got into bed beside me.

“Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah, did you?” I asked as I tried to keep my mouth shut in order to preserve him from my stank breath.

“Yeah… I sent you a text, but you were probably asleep already.”

“Oh, I didn’t see it.” I picked up my phone to see a “You still awake?” text from my hot friend Colby.

He admitted he had contemplated making a move. Luckily, I was already asleep.

I wasn’t ready for anything. And neither was he. He was just testing the waters. And they were choppy.

We eventually got moving, already running late to meet our mutual friends for breakfast and workouts.

We were back to normal. But maybe a little closer than before. And I was hopeful that if a guy as smart, cool, and competent, not to mention handsome, as Colby was interested in me, maybe I’d find someone right for me outside of my work/friend pool.