Chapter 26 #2
Cal nodded. “Yeah, he asked for us to come to his house. He said urgently. Like, ‘don’t even bother putting on actual clothes, come in pajamas’ urgent,” Cal said, his composure slipping as his mind started to do the same spiral mine was.
Anxiety sank into the bottoms of my feet, feeling like lead pulling me down into the depths of nothing. My gut was telling me this wasn’t a good thing, that we’d fucked up, and I knew Cal was feeling the same way.
“You don’t think—” I started.
“I think Tate Martin wouldn’t be inviting two guys he hasn’t seen in years to his house before nine in the morning for no fucking reason,” Cal said as he scrubbed a hand over his face and threw the blanket off of him, standing and going toward the bathroom without even waiting for me to catch up.
Cal and I got ready in record time, both of us fearing the worst, but neither having the balls to say it.
We were downstairs in the rental car within fifteen minutes of that phone call.
I hadn’t even dared to open the messages left from Tate.
I couldn’t, because I knew if I did, the panic would ensue, and right now I really did not have the time to break down, not for my own sake, not for Cal’s.
We drove down the highway with the windows down, like we were begging the air whipping through the car to release the tension we were feeling. This wasn’t good. We knew it wasn’t going to be.
Cal’s grip on the wheel looked painful. He was anxious, I could see it, his jaw clenched, his grip tight, the way he was chewing his bottom lip. He felt it too. Fuck, this was bad. Bad, bad.
I finally broke the silence. “How the fuck does he know…” I mumbled.
Cal’s eyes shot to me quickly. “I have no fucking clue. There weren’t ever cameras in that facility on the inside—”
We looked at each other.
Oh. Fuck.
There had to be cameras we didn’t see.
“There were cameras…” I said like a confession.
“There’s no fucking way. I looked. I always look for that shit,” Cal said, raking fingers through his loose strands of hair that he didn’t bother to try and slick back this morning.
“Well, apparently there fucking were because there’s no other reason Martin would want to ‘urgently see us’ at his fucking house,” I said with a stressed out laugh.
“Fucking Christ,” Cal said as he smacked the wheel.
The realization of our stupidity hit us both. We let our guard down. We thought we were safe. We didn’t think ahead like we always did. We were consumed by the moment, and we fucked it up. We probably just fucked everything up, and there was no going back now.
We entered into a large neighborhood just outside of the city soon after.
The houses were massive and sat close to the water.
Luxury cars lined the driveways. These were houses I didn’t see around where I was from unless we drove into the nearest city which was still forty-five minutes away.
This felt alien, and fuck, it wasn’t making that all-consuming sense of wanting to freak the fuck out any better.
We pulled into the driveway of a large two-story home. It was luxurious, Spanish style, and in the driveway sat three different kinds of BMWs.
This was it. We knew it.
We didn’t speak as we got out of the car, and we didn’t speak as we rang the doorbell. Too torn up to really say anything else, because we knew the most likely outcome of this situation. We were going to lose every fucking thing we’d busted our asses for.
A woman answered the door. She was older, not as old as Tate, but not as young as us either. She had light, clearly dyed blonde hair and wore a full set of Lululemon with a massive diamond ring on her finger you couldn’t ignore.
“You guys must be here for Tate,” she said with a smile.
We nodded. Before we could answer, Tate appeared behind the woman. He wasn’t dressed in his typical suit; he was in sweats and a T shirt, and looked like he hadn’t slept all night.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “Come in.” He and the woman stepped aside so we could enter the home. “This is my wife, Shelly. Shelly, this is Silas Reed and Callum Kincaid.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you guys,” she said, shaking our hands.
“Let’s go into my office,” Tate said, motioning for us to follow him through the home.
It was decorated like the perfect beach getaway. It looked staged, like it wasn’t even lived in. But I guess that’s the glory of not being stuck on generational land, in generational homes. They didn’t have walls that told stories of the other lives they’d witnessed before.
We walked into an in-home office down a long hallway.
It had a small desk in the center and a small grey loveseat.
Plastering the walls were old wrestling promo posters, images of Tate when he was an active wrestler in the eighties and nineties, and title belts in clear glass cabinets.
This place didn’t feel like an office; it felt like a shrine to a life Tate Martin once lived.
“I’m sure you guys are wondering why I called you here so early,” Tate said as he leaned against the desk.
“Uh, yeah, could say that,” Cal said nervously.
“I think you should both really take a seat,” Tate said as he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.
He picked up the laptop that was resting on his desk and opened it.
Fuck. This wasn’t happening. There’s no way we fucked up this bad.
“So, last night, I got a phone call from the fire department that our alarm was going off,” Tate said.
“Shit, man, I’m sorry, we didn’t mean—” I started.
Tate raised a hand. “It was nothing. The damn alarm has been doing it for months, likely because it’s so old and Presley’s cheap fucking ass is refusing to fork over the money to upgrade it right now.”
We continued to listen to the story, praying for a better outcome than we were expecting.
“When the alarm goes off, I have to go to the center, so I did. But whenever it goes off, just as a precaution, I check the security footage, just in case on the off chance someone is attempting to break into the facility.”
This was my nightmare. Fuck, it happened.
“I was skimming the footage. I knew you guys had been there until late, so I didn’t really feel the need to look through it all. I really assumed it was just you two setting it off and not realizing it on the way out,” he said, his tension clearly building.
Tate didn’t want to say it, I could tell. Whatever he had to say, he didn’t want to, but it was clear he had to. There was no way around it, and Cal and I knew that too.
“First I went through our lot footage, and I saw you guys leave, and then nothing after,” Tate said.
“But, recently, Presley insisted that the inside of the PC needed cameras now in case of anyone breaking in. Honestly, I’d forgotten about them at first, and remembered as I was walking out of my office that I needed to check them. ”
Yep, this was my literal nightmare. And honestly, I didn’t give a fuck if Tate called in the Chairman or the rest of the heads in the UWF.
They could fire me, humiliate me, I didn’t give a damn what punishment they chose for me.
But I didn’t want them going after Cal. But how would I even begin to protect him in this?
A Champion that was sleeping not just with a man, but with a man they’d been building as enemy number one?
There was no fucking way to spin that, or to even attempt to ease the blow of it to those old fucks who still scoffed at the idea of a champion that wasn’t the ideal.
Cal’s face dropped, his head falling into his hands.
I sat frozen, unable to speak, or to know what to say.
Tate turned the laptop screen around. There it was. A grainy, horribly lit video of me and Cal kissing in the middle of the ring last night, like nobody around us was looking. But there was. We just didn’t know it.
“Oh god,” I choked out, my color draining from my body.
Before we could say anything else, Tate clicked DELETE. And shut the laptop.
Cal and I looked to one another, dumbfounded, and utterly confused.
“Technically,” Tate said, rubbing his temples, “security is supposed to log and archive all footage for liability purposes. I intercepted this before it hit the main server.”
He closed the laptop.
Tate looked between us. He looked like a man who needed a drink.
“I need to know what I’m dealing with here,” Tate said, leaning back. “How long has this been going on?”
Cal shrugged, leaning back in his chair with infuriating ease. “The first time or the second time?”
Tate blinked. “Excuse me? What do you mean, the first or second time?”
“It’s complicated,” Cal said.
“It’s not that complicated,” I interrupted, feeling the need to ground this in reality before Cal gave him a migraine. “The easiest way to explain it is… I’ve been in love with him for almost a decade.”
Tate stared at me. He looked at Cal. He looked back at me.
“Oh god,” Tate exhaled, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Okay. So this isn’t a hookup. This is a big thing. Not a little one.”
“It’s the only thing,” Cal confirmed, his voice serious now.
Tate nodded. “Jesus, you two have been doing this for that long?”
Cal and I shared a look and a small laugh.
“Oh god no. He fucked me over seven years ago. I hated him, still kind of do, and when I went to his ass at Front Lines? That was real,” Cal confessed as he grabbed my hand. “But we worked through it. We got back together officially in January.”
Officially.
That word rang in my ears. I don’t think either of us had ever used it. Officially. Callum Kincaid and I were officially… Something.
“Okay look,” Tate said. “When Mark Murran was running the show, he didn’t give a damn.
He never did. As long as you made this company money, he didn’t need to know the inner workings of his talent.
But the people under Murran? The old vets in the locker rooms that swore kayfabe was sacred in a way it isn’t now, that thought keeping the predetermination of this industry secret was the most important part of their job description?
Those guys were the ones that cared. And those old fucks went from locker room assholes to production assholes. ”
Tate sighed, pacing a little.
“I know because I was in the locker room with them, and I moved to a production role like they did. Even though Murran didn’t care, he tried to reign that kind of bullshit behavior in, and normally he could, at least to a degree.
But guys, we’re not living in a Mark Murran era anymore.
This is Presley’s world, and honestly, I’m not sure what he’d do about it.
But I have a bad feeling it wouldn’t be handled like his old man would have.
The dirt sheets will be vicious, and the fans can be too, that is, if it gets out before you two can control the narrative. ”
Tate looked to Cal. “Does anyone know?”
“Wilder does,” Cal said. “My family wouldn’t give a shit either. Hell, my mom will probably just ask why it took us so long.”
Tate nodded. “Good, that’s good, you’ve got some kind of support system there.” He turned to me. “Reed? What about your people?”
I hesitated. I thought about my dad, my uncle.
How they were in that old school locker room.
How I didn’t really know what they’d think, or how they’d take finding out their son, the one that was supposed to rewrite the Reed tragedy, was gay, and in love with the biggest name in professional wrestling today.
“I don’t know,” I admitted quietly. “I haven’t told them anything. You know I don’t have a great relationship with them.”
Tate looked sympathetic. I knew he probably recalled bits of my time on the road with my dad and uncle, even if he never admitted it. He was active on the roster back then, and I spent a hell of a lot of time around him when I was trying to hide from my high ass uncle and shit faced father.
“You need to get your circles tight,” Tate said firmly. “You need to make sure the people who matter know before the people who don’t find out. I can delete security footage for you guys, but I can’t delete rumors, unfortunately.”
He leaned forward, serious.
“And don’t worry, this doesn’t go past us.
I’m not going to Presley, or anyone about this.
You two are our best men, and I don’t agree with those high and mighty assholes who will attempt to undermine what you guys have done for this business just because you two ended up being more than just coworkers along the way. ”
I looked to Cal, who I could tell was holding back tears. Relief washed over us both. The fear settled. We were safe, at least with Tate anyways.
“Here’s what I can do for you guys right now,” Tate said.
“You two are supposed to take your week break before Wrestle Empire. I’m going to put in a call to Harlow and tell him that after watching you both train yesterday, we need to send you guys out for it as soon as possible.
That I could see the fatigue from you two busting your asses to get to what you need to be for the pay per view.
You two are going to go along with it, because come the end of Showdown tonight, he’s going to tell you guys to fly home for the week, and to return the Thursday before Wrestle Empire weekend in Sacramento.
I expect you both to go home, or to the fucking weird ass field the Reeds live on, and get your shit straight, are we clear? ”
I stood from the couch and went up to Tate, hugging him, trying to keep my own tears in.
“Thank you,” is the only thing I could manage to say right now.
Cal stood as well and extended his hand to Tate, who pulled him in for a hug too.
“Don’t thank me. You guys are going to be good. Just please, keep it in hotels for now.”