EPISODE 20 THE SLAP

“Do you want to hang out again?” Colby texted me about the upcoming loop we were both on.

This is already too much, I thought, but of course responded: “Sure, let’s do it.”

I arrived in Portland, where he was watching the Super Bowl with Bayley and a tag team called The Revival, everyone polite enough not to say anything, even though we were obviously getting cozy.

Later, I tried to fight my instinct to get close to him. I knew I needed to keep my distance. But being with him was so effortless. Everything clicked. Conversation, interests, outlook. We had every type of chemistry firing on all cylinders. And while we lay there talking, he interrupted me to tell me I looked gorgeous. “Aww,” I cooed as my heart melted—feeling like a princess. Maybe there was potential there.

But I was worried about getting distracted. I needed to be well rested, head fully in the game. And though it was also easy to have someone who understood my concerns, in many regards he was my competition. We were both aiming for that top spot, and the main event of WrestleMania.

The next day at Raw, I was set to do a promo with Stephanie McMahon. Usually you’re onto something big when the McMahons are in the story line. It is the ultimate rub from the company.

The story was that my leg was clearly hurt from the Rumble and she needed me to sign a hold-harmless agreement, which my character’s paranoid mind took as them trying to screw me over.

It was so awfully orchestrated that I’m not actually sure what it was intended to do. Stephanie couldn’t look too much like the bad guy, but in turn, I looked like an asshole. She came across as compassionate and concerned about my well-being, whereas I was fired up about her being a rich daddy’s girl and refused to sign the hold-harmless agreement. In turn she took me out of the match and I attacked her mercilessly.

I will say, even though the story and the execution made me look like a petulant child, I was pumped to be in a story line where I got to beat up Steph. She nails every role she plays and is a dream to work with.

All this is to say, my immense violence against Vince’s daughter and the chief brand officer of WWE forced Vince to suspend me in story land, giving me yet another obstacle I would have to overcome.

That night, Colby found a hip vegan Portlandy spot for us to go where we could go incognito. As we chatted and played footsie over hummus and cucumbers, he asked what my expectations were in all of this.

There were none, really, other than I expected not to get hurt at the end of it. I was concentrating on wrestling and that had to be my number one priority.

“When I said you were gorgeous yesterday, and I saw the look on your face, I thought, ‘Oh no!’ ” he said, implying that he was worried about me catching feelings.

It felt like a revelation: Well, that’s it, then. We really shouldn’t go any further.

He asked if I wanted to stay the night and drive in the morning, but I declined. Despite the fact that I was about to drive in a wild snowstorm that just hit the area, I thought it better to begin my distancing now.

Especially because this episode of SmackDown was going to be a big one for me. Because I had been suspended the night before, I was going to make my entrance through the crowd tonight and interrupt a promo by the one and only HHH.

Was I dreaming? A promo with Stephanie McMahon and Triple H in the same week? The most powerful couple in all of wrestling? HHH had gone from the person I had watched at home as a kid and despised because of his great heel work to the person I loved because of his booking of women in NXT, and I was about to go face-to-face with him. And slap the crap out of him.

I was led up to the stands and hid out in a janitor’s closet with all of its glamour and jumped up and down like a giddy three-year-old about to get ice cream.

I got my cue and started to make my way down through the stands, feeling like the most badass person on the planet. And the crowd kindly treated me like I was too. Thankfully, the awful segment the night before hadn’t done too much damage.

I got in the ring running my mouth, Triple H and me trading shots back and forth until it was time for my big moment. The slap that was going to set the world on fire. I cocked my arm back, ready to deliver the slap of a lifetime. I lined up my target, taking bearded surface area into the equation.

As my hand got closer, I realized I had completely underestimated my own wingspan, missing the mark, with only the tips of my fingers gracefully fluttering against his cheek—ah, fuck.

God bless him, he’s a pro. He sold it like I clattered him, the crowd graciously cheering as if I had drawn blood and taken out an eye.

I swaggered back through the crowd, back through the swanky janitor’s closet, and made my way to gorilla.

“That was great!” Vince remarked, giving me a hug before adding, “But we’re gonna need Steph to teach you how to slap.”

I left content regardless. My shameful night on Raw had been turned around by a big victory on SmackDown.

The next day, at home in LA, I took a hot yoga class to sweat the remaining stench of Raw out of me. When I had complete clarity, I needed to tell Colby immediately that we couldn’t continue any more of this malarkey. It would be the biggest mistake ever! I can’t do casual and he isn’t looking for anything serious. But I could be the best friend he ever had! We just had to end this right this second and be BFFs forever!

Mid–downward dog, I became so consumed that I grabbed my mat and water bottle, dabbed the sweat off my body, and rushed out of the studio to text Colby.

“What are you up to?”

“Just teaching class,” he replied. He owned a wrestling school and taught there regularly. “How are you, sweetheart?”

Ugh, swoon. I loved that he called me sweetheart. But still, clarity! I now had clarity!

“I’m great! So great! I won’t bother you. I’ll talk to you after!”

“You’re never bothering me. What’s up?”

“Well, I just had an epiphany. We can’t do this anymore! We just have to be friends!”

“Wait, what? No! Why?” he responded.

“You don’t want to get into anything and this has the potential to get messy, so we’re better off ending it now!” I was so excited to tell him how terrible this all was.

“That’s not what I want! Is it something I did? If you don’t like me you can just tell me.”

“No, I think you’re the best. But it’s like this. If I go in with no armor, I’m begging to be pummeled, but if I go in all suited up, I don’t feel anything, so what’s the point? This is a great thing! You’re not looking for anything right now and this way we can be the best of friends and you can sow all your wild oats.”

“I guess you’re being smart. I hate that you’re being smart.”

He might have hated that I was being smart, but I loved it for me and went to bed happy as a clam.

When I went to go train with our mutual friend Joshy G the next day, he had already heard about our conversation.

“What are you doing?” Josh asked me judgingly.

“He’s not interested in me, Josh! He wants to be single for a while. This is the smartest thing!”

“You guys just make sense, though.”

“Nooooo. Honestly, this is the best for everyone!” I argued.

Colby texted me later that day, still downtrodden by this decision.

“Can we still hang out this weekend?”

“Of course!”

“Do you want to stay in my room?”

“I can do that.” I love a slumber party! Who doesn’t love a slumber party? That’s totally something BFFs do!

And so, after a loop where, because I was suspended, I would just show up and beat some people up and then leave, which really is a great gig if you can get it. I rocked up to the Hilton in Grand Rapids. He had left me a key at the front desk and had prewarned me: “This room is huge.” Great, I thought, all the better for the separation!

I put my key in the door. True to his word, the room was huge. I walked down the hallway and rounded the corner to find him in bed already. In THE bed already, I should say. No twin beds, as would be customary for this grown-up slumber party. And he had his shirt off. His pecs sitting above the sheets, an acceptable amount of chest hair highlighting his definition. My god, he looked good.

Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

“I’m gonna shower real quick,” I said while thinking, Fuck, fuck. Stand your ground. It’s better to just be friends. You’re smart, Rebecca. Be smart.

I came back and hopped in dangerously close beside him. I had already gone too far, pheromones acting like unstoppable magnets. My body had a mind of its own. A horny mind of its own.

We talked for over an hour, our faces being drawn together until we were mere centimeters apart. And that was it. We were passionately making out. Clothes were off.

We were in too deep. The connection was too strong. And it felt so right.

The next day, as we walked through the icy Grand Rapids street en route to coffee, we actually held hands. He didn’t strike me as the hand-holding type.

“What happens from here?” he asked.

“Ah, I don’t know. Fuck it, we’ll figure it out.”