Epilogue
“Knock, knock,” a voice calls out before I hear the bus door close.
Heavy footsteps climb the stairs, making their way to the back of the bus, as I step out of the bedroom.
Brooks stands front and center with a large bottle of whiskey—the good bottle we like to share on special occasions. “Thought we could have a little toast.”
“What’s the occasion?” I ask, pulling two shot glasses from the cabinet.
“You officially joining the Has-Beens Club,” he says, untwisting the cap from the bottle and filling the glasses to the rim. “How’re you feeling?”
“I don’t think it’s hit me yet. I know it’s coming, but it doesn’t feel real.”
When I woke up this morning, I looked in the mirror and found a different person staring back at me.
I couldn’t tell if it was because twenty years of putting my body through the wringer (literally) was finally catching up to me or if it was just my imagination.
If Sloane had been here, she would’ve said I looked as handsome as the day she met me, which is exactly what she said on the phone, but I wish she’d been here to say it in person.
Our six-year-old twins came down with a stomach bug and don’t want anyone around but mom, which means the plans we had for Sloane to join me on the road for my last week in EWE went down the drain.
“Tell me, oh Has-Been, will I feel different when I wake up tomorrow?” The question is meant to be funny, but it triggers something in my best friend as the weight of the moment creeps back in.
His eyes lose a bit of their sparkle, and his smile falters ever so slightly before it all snaps back into place just as quickly.
“Yes.” Brooks lifts his glass in the air, and I do the same, touching them together.
I bring the rim to my lips and let the liquid slide down my throat, burning a path to my stomach and warming my insides instantly.
He fills his glass a second time, then replaces the cap on the bottle and shoves it into the back corner of the kitchen.
He swallows the amber liquid in one gulp, without so much as a flinch.
“You’ll wake up tomorrow and have to figure out who you are when all the noise is gone. ”
“You mean the crowd?”
He shrugs. “I mean everything: the crowd, the schedule, the chaos. When you walk out of here tonight, it all just disappears. You start to realize that you spent decades doing this one thing every night, and then you wake up one day, and it’s all just…gone.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No, not bad, just different. Unless you ask Brody, and then he’d tell you it sounds like a nightmare.”
“That’s because Brody is going to do this until the day he dies,” I say, and we laugh.
Brooks and Brody started wrestling over three decades ago, and while Brooks retired three years ago, Brody shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
Wrestling is his life—always has been, and always will be.
That’s part of the reason he and Raelynn split up not long after Sloane and I got engaged.
He wanted to do this forever. She wanted to settle down and start a family, and her vision for that life didn’t include him being on the road two hundred and eighty days a year.
We didn’t know it at the time, but they had already decided to separate before the annual New Year’s trip to Celestia when I proposed to Sloane, but they waited until after to tell us.
The first few years following their divorce put a lot of strain on the friend group, but over the last few years, they’ve reached a point where they can be cordial, if not friendly, with each other.
I think the hardest part for Brody was Rae getting back together with Nash, but I don’t think he’d ever say it out loud.
And now he’s with someone who’s on the same page as him: my sister.
That was something I never saw coming, especially given how their relationship ended the first time, but it has been much better this time around.
Lexi focuses on running her chain of yoga studios along the coast, while he focuses on EWE.
They meet somewhere in the middle two or three days a week when he’s off, but that’s a story for another time…
“Wouldn’t we all, if we could?” Brooks falls back onto the couch, crossing his arms. “You know, though, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Yeah, it was rough at first, but now, I get to spend every day with my wife and kids. Well, almost every day. More than I was when I was still on the road.”
“You miss it?” I ask.
“Every day,” he says, looking up from his hands.
“There are days I wake up, and I feel like I could do one more run, just one…But then I walk outside and see Savannah and the girls, and I could never leave them to do two hundred plus days on the road again. Listen, man, you’re going to wake up tomorrow and the next day and a few more after that, and you’re gonna feel out of sorts, like you don’t belong.
You have to find your place in their world, Wolf, because right now, you’re still just that guy who comes home two or three days a week before he up and leaves again.
You’re the fun parent. You’re the one who doesn’t have to handle the meltdowns and the issues and school and everything else.
They have to get used to you being there just as much as you do.
The good part for you is you’re going to be working at NextGen with Sav, so you’ll still have a small piece to hold on to. ”
A maelstrom of emotions swirls inside me with every word.
I guess I never thought about it that way.
I dreamed of this life my entire childhood, and I was blessed to spend the last twenty years as an Elite Wrestling Entertainment wrestler.
I’ve also been blessed with a family that has supported me beyond measure, but now it’s my turn to support them.
To support my wife, who has been my anchor for the last eight years, allowing me to continue living my dream while she’s been holding the rest of our life together back home.
“What if—What if they don’t want me there?” I ask.
“That won’t happen. It might feel like it, especially the first time you tell the girls no, and you and Sloane may have to get used to being around each other all the time again.
But, I promise, it will be fine. It will all work out,” my best friend says, and I believe him.
I have no choice, because after tonight, there is no more Wolf Bennett, Elite Wrestling Entertainment superstar; it’s just Wolf.
A knock on the door catches our attention, and my stomach drops.
“You ready?” Brooks smirks.
The girls asked me to stay home this weekend, and as much as I wanted to be there for Ben, how could I say no to two six-year-olds giving me their best “please” faces while being sick?
I made a deal with them, unbeknownst to their father, that I’d stay home as long as they agreed to hang out with his parents tonight, so I could at least be here for his last match.
Thankfully, they started feeling better yesterday, which made me feel a little better about putting them on a plane (courtesy of Savannah) to fly up north, where they could spend the day in Wexley Hollow, and I could make it to the city in time for the show.
That’s how I ended up here, watching the end of the Wolf Bennett era from the back of the floor section with his best friends.
It surprised me, but warmed my heart, that no one seemed to care that four of the industry’s biggest stars were standing five feet away from them. All eyes were on the man in the ring.
I gnaw on my thumbnail, watching him climb the turnbuckles to the top rope.
When he lifts his right fist into the air, the crowd does the same, and there’s a fleeting moment of acknowledgement in that gesture.
They know what this means. We all do. This is it, The Gladiator’s last fight, and I’m not sure it really hit them until this moment.
Colin Ryker wobbles in the middle of the ring before Wolf jumps from the top rope.
Midair, he encircles Ryker’s head with his right arm and drives his face into the mat—the Executioner.
“Wolf Bennett with the Executioner to Ryker! Will it be enough?” I can hear Scott Harrington’s voice in my head.
He took over for Jude last year as the lead commentator on EWE programming, while the other spot is filled with a rotation of EWE legends until they can find someone more permanent.
Tonight, it’s none other than “Top Dollar” Clarence Kennedy.
I told Callum he should try his hand at commentary—he’s funny enough—but he likes his place in the back, off-screen.
Callum Rafferty, the long-lost son of Amos, whose identity was revealed after Amos unexpectedly passed away almost five years ago.
Damn, has it really been that long? Sometimes, it still feels like just yesterday that I was walking through the halls of EWE Headquarters with him, and whenever we go back, I feel like I’ll look up and he’ll be standing there, waiting.
The crowd brings me back to the current moment as Wolf Bennett rolls his opponent onto his back, hooks the leg, and covers, but Ryker kicks out right before the three count.
Wolf jumps to his feet, kicks Ryker once, and scoops him up and onto his shoulders. His left leg buckles, not enough to cause concern to a normal viewer, but I notice, and it’s enough to give Ryker an opening.
Colin slips out of Wolf’s grasp and lands on his feet. He runs back into the ropes and propels himself forward, lifting his right leg and aiming the sole of his foot at his opponent’s face. The super kick lands clean, snapping Wolf’s head to the side, and the crowd gasps when he drops to the mat.