Page 3 of False Comeback

I watched absently, my mind still churning and cloudy with anger, as Rafe hurriedly stood up with a grin and tucked his laptop under his arm. Dan cupped his chin and leaned down to kiss him before they began talking quietly. When Rafe glanced over at me with a concerned frown, I quickly looked away.

Corey drained the last of his martini before he snapped his binder closed and stood to pick up Cora from her mini throne. Taylor had hurried over, looking worried—which made my belly tighten with foreboding—and Corey stopped to speak quietly to him and Seb.

Taylor was going to tell Holt what had happened. Of course he was. Corey had agreed to give us “one last chance” to be civil with each other before he took the matter to the boss, but that didn’t mean the boss wasn’t going to find out sooner.

If Holt decided I was too much of a liability and fired me, I didn’t know what I’d do. I loved my job so much. More than anyone else here, I was pretty sure. It was everything to me.

I wasn’t good at anything else. I’d be fucked.

The smart thing to do would be—god, my stomach turned just thinking about it—to apologise to Crossbody. Be the bigger person. Show Corey and Holt that I was the one putting in effort and trying to make amends with that pompous asshole.

But I didn’t think I had it in me. I was too proud, and he was too much of a jackass. He’d gloat forever. He’d think he’d won.

Realising I was just standing here alone in silence, I finally headed for the door. I made sure not to stalk because I saw Corey glance at me with a brow raised, but once I was in my dressing room, I couldn’t stop myself from slamming the door.

Fucking Crossbody. It didn’t matter if he lost his job. He was obscenely rich. He was fae royalty, for fuck’s sake. He could just go back to his mommy’s palace in Otherworld and continue living in luxury without a care in the world. He didn’t even need a job.

Why the fuck was he even here? Why was he wasting his time wrestling professionally when he’d inevitably just end up going back to Otherworld and being a fucking prince?

He’d probably become Spring King one day. I didn’t know if he was next in line or whatever, but I could just see him lounging pompously on some ornate fae throne, bossing people around and smiling smugly to himself over how much better he was than everyone else.

God, I couldn’t stand him.

I looked around my dressing room with slightly wild eyes, part of me wanting to smash up everything in sight. It was pretty messy in here—I wasn’t the tidiest person—with dirty clothes piled on the small couch, make-up spilled on the vanity and used beakers littering every surface, many starting to smell pretty ripe.

Restless energy had me striding forward and swiping up all the clothes. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do—go and yell at Crossbody some more—so I made a conscious effort to use my time productively. I was bad at sitting still and doing nothing.

Eventually, the sounds of rehearsals taking place in the main room reached my ears, our coach Hogbody barking orders at Mads and Susan. Through the wall, I could hear the rumble of Biff and Gabe’s voices in Biff’s dressing room. I’d heard them fucking in there many, many times over the years.

I’d actually hooked up with them once, a couple years back. Well, I’d mainly fooled around with Gabe. Biff and I were too similar during sex, and neither of us had been willing to take on a less dominant role, so we’d both just bossed Gabe around and had fun making him come again and again until the incubus was nothing more than a quivering mess, unable to string a sentence together by the time Biff wrapped a blanket around him and pulled him onto his lap.

It had been fun, but that was back when they’d only recently started hooking up together and weren’t all that serious yet. I knew they still invited others to join them, but they were an established, solid couple now, and I wasn’t interested in getting in the middle of that.

Once my dressing room was somewhat tidy, I gathered up all the dirty beakers and took a deep breath before carrying them into the backstage area. I was feeling marginally calmer, but I knew if I saw Crossbody, my rage would spike again.

Luckily, he wasn’t in here. I relaxed a little when I saw that only Heidi, a faun who went by The G.O.A.T., was in the kitchen area. She wasn’t interested in deep conversations about how I was feeling or whatever. She was pretty no-nonsense.

“Alright, champ?” she said cheerfully when I dumped my beakers on the counter and reached down to pull open the dishwasher.

“Yep.”

“Phew.” She laughed and waved a hand in front of her nose when I unscrewed a lid to shove it in the dishwasher. Protein shakes smelled particularly horrific after a while. “How long have they been sitting in your dressing room, boyo?”

I managed a tight chuckle. “Dunno.”

“Exciting news about the new talent, right?” she asked, leaning back against the counter with her water bottle as she watched me.

The reminder perked me up a little. Corey had announced during court that Holt was hiring some new wrestlers, and we hadn’t had anyone new in a while. It wasn’t like there was a league out there Holt could pull from. He’d scouted most of us himself, while a few—like me—had come to him, asking for a chance to prove ourselves as professional wrestlers.

I was pretty sure he’d only hired me because of the roller-skating gimmick. I’d already been in a roller derby league then, so I was incredible on skates, and when I’d suggested a seventies disco theme for my persona, he’d eaten it right up.

Brian the werewolf had been our last new hire, a couple years ago now. He was shy and quiet outside of the ring, but once he got in it and became B. Were, he was a force to be reckoned with. I loved fighting Brian, though we weren’t paired up against each other often because our height and weight differences made the matches somewhat harder to believe for the fans.

“Yeah,” I answered Heidi, straightening and closing the dishwasher after shoving the last beaker in. “When do you think they’ll start?”

She shrugged her huge shoulders. “Soon, I think. I heard Taylor and Corey talking about it after court. Sounds like Holt has already found some folks.”

A hint of trepidation crept into my gut. If we had new people, there was less pressure on Holt to keep his existing wrestlers happy. To let things slide because he couldn’t afford to lose the talent.