EPISODE 19 POINT TO THE SIGN

Before we could make it to the main event at WrestleMania, there was the Rumble. I was set to get my first match with the now SmackDown women’s champion and someone I regard as one of the greatest wrestlers out there: Asuka.

She is a dream to work with. Between broken English and sweet giggles, she comes with a plethora of ideas, and the most amazing footwork and finesse I’ve ever seen. When she goes through the curtain she transforms from the sweetest human on earth into an absolute killer, and it was my honor to face her for the title, and more so to put her over for the title. I was going to lose to her in the first match of the night and then enter the Rumble later that night.

I needed this match with Asuka to go well. If it didn’t, then people might not care to see me again that night. Or as the annoying voice in my head said, They won’t care to see me ever again.

When I landed in Arizona, the home of the Royal Rumble that year, Colby kindly offered to pick me up from the airport. He had gotten in earlier that day and rented an Airbnb to stay at. “You’re welcome to join,” he offered. I declined. I had to concentrate on my matches, damn it, and needed no man with a body built by the gods distracting me.

Though I may have topped up my makeup upon arrival and given myself a little perfume spritz before getting in the car.

The drive from the airport to the hotel took only ten minutes, but we stayed talking in Colby’s car for almost two hours. I hated how easy it was and would sporadically question what it would be like if we kissed. Derailing my own thoughts by arguing that his beard would likely leave a rash on my face and that would be very uncomfortable indeed. Indeed.

It was getting late and I had an early start time the next day. We hugged a hug that once again lasted a few moments longer than it should have before I retreated to my room, texting my friend Jay: “I think I may be in love with Colby.”

To which he responded: “I just turned on my phone and it appears to be broken. What? You literally just gave me a laundry list of all the reasons that would be a bad idea THIS MORNING.”

“What can I say? Single Becky is unpredictable.”

It is a bad idea, I would remind myself.

But you’re single, Becky. You can explore whatever you want. No attachments. You get what you want out of it. You strong, independent woman you!

Hell yeah. I wasn’t getting feelings. I was starting a goddamn movement. I was a regular Gloria Steinem, thank you very much.

The following day, which was the night before Rumble, Colby invited me out to dinner, but I didn’t finish my appearances until midnight. So he tried to entice me to come to his Airbnb with a selfie.

It’s the selfie game we’re playing, is it? Truth be told, I wasn’t much into the selfie game. I often scoffed at the kids for their willy-nillyness to send selfies. Quite conceited, are we? Arrogance, is it? Look at me; I’m soooo beautiful that you will fall madly in love with me from my beautiful yet only slightly edited picture of me pouting like a duck is how I imagine the inner monologue of the selfie sender goes. Whatever happened to wooing someone with wit? And intelligent quips? A joke, perhaps? I’m not quite sure. But this was how the kids were doing it these days, so I decided to get hip with the kids. And by “kids” I mean Colby, a full-grown adult male. I wasn’t sending any selfies to kids.

Anyway, my midsection had a hint of abs on this day, should I flex correctly under the right lighting, and I thought I should share them with someone. Even if I was thinking, I really shouldn’t, but that’s usually how the best stuff starts.

To which he responded with heart emoji eyes and we continued texting like excited teenagers.

I barely slept that night. Selfie adrenaline, nerves, and anticipation of what was to come combined were all taking chunks out of sleep time.

The date was January 27, 2019. The Rumble where The Man came around.

It took place in Chase Field, a large baseball stadium that held upwards of forty thousand people. I walked out to a roar from the crowd. Fans holding “The Man” signs illuminated the arena and I was overwhelmed with gratitude. My favorite PPV of the year and this time I would be winning the Rumble at the end of the night. Thirteen-year-old me wouldn’t believe it. Thirty-one-year-old me barely could.

Asuka and I took lumps out of each other for nearly thirty minutes straight.

We knew we would go over our allotted time, but towards the end we were being yelled at by the ref, “Take it home! You gotta take it home,” meaning we had to cut out a bunch of our false finishes and go straight to the end. There were still a lot more matches to come, including two-hour-long Royal Rumbles.

She hooked me in her finisher and bridged over to a chorus of boos. The Man couldn’t do it. I tapped out. There’s a weird thing about tapping out. That it can be argued for weakness, and especially with a strong character like “The Man.” But I also didn’t want to be “that guy.” The one who makes a fuss about tapping out or losing. At the end of the day, I was going to go on to win the night and potentially main event WrestleMania. The least I could do would be to make Asuka look strong on my way there.

And I still had to go out again in a little over an hour! The adrenaline dump and exhaustion from not sleeping the night before were catching up to me.

The plan was for Lana to be attacked by Nia on her way to the ring, thus rendering her unfit to compete and by proxy leaving a spot open in the Rumble. I made my way out summoning the energy of Zeus to a chorus of cheers, saw Lana crumpled on the ground, and wondered if anyone would mind if I joined her momentarily for a quick nap before getting on with business. No napping would be allowed, as I argued with Fit Finlay, who was attending our fallen comrade Lana and had suddenly become the authority on who was allowed in the Rumble for some reason. Whatever, it’s wrestling; we make up the rules as we go.

In the end it came down to me and Charlotte. However, not before I got pushed off the stairs and my knee was injured by a salty Nia, who had just been eliminated. I would have to overcome as many obstacles as possible on my way to the top.

The referees were about to call the match, declaring Charlotte the winner, before I valiantly hobbled my way into the ring and, after a series of blows, tossed her over the top and did the one thing that every wrestling fan turned wrestler dreams of doing: the classic point to the WrestleMania sign. Once you feel as though you’ve done it ad nauseam the referee will yell at you, “Keep pointing!” It’s a helluva shoulder pump, I’ll tell you that.

I came back through the curtain to an abundance of congratulatory hugs and back pats. As I made my rounds, I looked over to see that Charlotte was crying. I didn’t ask why; we weren’t close like that anymore. I assumed she thought her WrestleMania moment was dead and buried now. But I knew she would be included and knew she would always be okay. Not because she was Ric Flair’s daughter. But because she was good. And she had a work ethic that would never let her down.

The night was not yet over, though. I still had to watch Colby win his Rumble.

It felt so serendipitous that these two flirty friends were both having the biggest Rumble nights of their lives. A true love story… even if one of the characters in this particular story didn’t believe in monogamy anymore and the other was skeptical and guarded of the other’s intentions.

Anywhooooo. Colby had been having problems with his back; he had fractured his spine in a match a little while ago but hadn’t told anyone about it because he’s a machine that can fight through just about anything and didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity. He was also competing for that WrestleMania main event spot. I watched nervously, knowing he was going to go through a table midmatch, and I prayed to the heavens that he didn’t mess himself up too bad. That would have really put a dampener on all the flirting.

When he came through gorilla, there were camera crews there to capture him. I hugged him as I awkwardly tried to get out of frame. This flirtiness had become pretty obvious and I didn’t want to give the game away on camera.

“You coming to get food?” he asked.

“I’ve got friends in town, so I’ll probably go see them, but let me know where you end up.”

I was going to have to go to Raw the next day to choose my opponent for WrestleMania, and again, I didn’t want any distractions, so I knew this was a false promise of meetuppery, but one must keep one’s options open.

While out for dinner he was sending me pictures of his food, which looked far more appealing than ours.

“We’re still eating, so I might have to pass on tonight,” I finally bailed.

“I was supposed to get a red-eye tomorrow after Raw, but should I stay and hang out?”

“Yeah! Do that; that would be cool.”

“Except I have to be out of my Airbnb by tomorrow morning.…”

“You can just stay with me,” I responded while I’m thinking, What are you doing, Rebecca! This is a terrible idea, and then the devil on my shoulder would chime in, Relax, you don’t have to do anything. It’s just your friend Colby. You love hanging out with your friend Colby. It’s true, Mr. Devil, sir, I do.

“Cool. I’ll bring my bags over when I check out if that’s okay.”

“Sure is. See you tomorrow. Sleep tight.”

I was working out in the hotel gym when Colby said he was on his way. Flustered, I finished my set and ran upstairs to shower before meeting him at the elevator. My body language was signaling my nervousness as I desperately tried to fight it. You’re The Man, remember. You’re The freakin’ Man. Goddamn it, why can’t you just be The Man in real life? I argued with myself.

What the hell are you so nervous about? It’s your friend. You know it’s not going to go anywhere. Just have some fun and stop being so uptight.

“Mind if I get changed?” he asked as we got into my room.

Why do you need to get changed? I thought, but I responded, “Make yourself at home,” my voice cracking like that of a prepubescent boy.

He didn’t go into the bathroom or attempt any other form of modesty, just stripped down to his underwear there in front of me, quads glistening as the sunlight cascaded into the room.

Fuck. Well, it’s gonna happen, Rebecca. No use in fighting it now. Assert dominance! I thought.

“Would you like a kombucha?” I asked, the most millennial pickup line ever.

The minifridge in my room was just beside the bed, which was exactly where he was sitting.

“Sure. What you got?”

“Mint mojito, strawberry serenade, raspberry hibiscus…”

“I’ll try the raspberry hibiscus.”

I bent down to get the bottle, then stood up and gave it to him. The kombucha, that is.

Now is the time. You got this, Quin. You. Are. The Man!!!!!!

I stood directly over him, straddling his legs while he was seated on the bed.

He had talked a good game. Time to see if he could back it up.

He looked nervous.

I could tell I was right by the way he said, “I’m nervous.”

Our lips met and soon we were in full make-out mode.

So this was what it was like to kiss him, beard tickling, tongues rolling. My heart pounding. Years of sexual tension and energy went into this one moment.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said after.

Bitch, of course you were. You were laying the groundwork for months. Possibly even years, I thought. But I responded, “Me neither.”

We were both liars.

“We should go,” I said, finally putting an end to its progression. We had a whole night ahead of us.

Raw had an early call time and I was feeling like the new kid at school. I was a SmackDown resident and being in this new environment had me a bit on edge.

Colby and I didn’t see each other throughout the day but stayed texting and flirting, recalling those tender hotel moments earlier that day.

But back to the task at hand. This was the moment everyone was waiting for. I was choosing Ronda Rousey as my WrestleMania opponent.

Coming off the highs of the night before and events earlier in the day, I was feeling pretty darn good about myself.

Unfortunately for Ronda, she had just had a promo where the crowd had chanted for me and derailed her train of thought, followed by not her best match. However, it did make my entrance that bit more exciting. And we needed all the excitement we could get to earn that main event spot on Mania. But considering my emotional butterflies, what was at stake here, and days running on no sleep, I was jittery to say the least. Somehow I managed to deliver a promo that at least seemed like I was calm, cool, and collected, which was followed by a riled-up promo from Ronda in retaliation. This time, the anger she felt for the crowd and their unapologetic favoritism, and probably a bit for me, lit a fire under her.

And thus, my double duty on both Raw and SmackDown began and would remain in place until WrestleMania. TV time is prime real estate to a performer, but as a babyface, if you get too much exposure, you run the risk of the audience getting sick of you.

Which is also the risk I was running with escalating things with Colby. We work together; what if we get sick of each other?!

Nonetheless, I waited for Colby to be done in the hallway of the Phoenix arena, trying to make it not so obvious we were leaving together.

We made it back to my room, shut the door, and immediately began pawing at each other. Clothes were thrown across the room, and I kept thinking, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! My friend Colby’s gonna see me naked. What if he’s not into it and then it’s all just awkward from here on out? Abort mission! Abort mission, Rebeccaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Oh, but it feels so nice and he looks too good. You’re in too deep now, Beck. Well done, you failure.

But on the outside I tried to feign confidence and fumble my way through. This new level of intimacy could change everything between us.

Lying beside him felt so comfortable, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was in bed with such a longtime friend and had just experienced him in a whole new way.

I was less thinking, He’s the one, and was more thinking, I wonder how we’ll get out of this not feeling weird around each other.