Reality (Linstead AU)

Chapter 49

Monday. Another stressful day for Erin. They all had been since Friday. She hadn't been sleeping well, since her brain had decided that night time was a good idea to consider every one of a million different problems or stressful situations that might be coming over the horizon in the near future. The most immediate potential source of problems was the upcoming business dinner with Lucy Thorne.

Erin needed Lucy to agree to become co-CEO under Erin's own chairwomanship in order to have a fighting chance of getting the board to vote the new power structure into effect. But what if Lucy said no? Then Erin would be left trying to make a deal with one of the other board members, who would be someone she didn't want to work with. And if she couldn't make a deal with one of them, who the hell knew what would happen then?

Before that crucial dinner, Erin had the stress of being backstage for Monday Night Raw. The show's formats and scripts had been gotten out on time, somehow, but there was still the chore of wrestlers wanting to see her to discuss suggestions they had for changes to their segments. Erin's decision was final, but she did give people the opportunity to make their case. Sometimes their ideas were an improvement on what the creative team had come up with, so Erin would implement them. Other times she had to put her foot down and say no, which wasn't easy with some of the personalities and egos on the roster. On this particular afternoon, she could have done without any of it, but equally it wasn't the employees' fault that boardroom drama was going on. It would be wrong to take it out on them.

"Send in whoever's next, please," Erin said to one of the male wrestlers, who was leaving her backstage office with his request denied and a sulky look on his face. He walked out without acknowledging the request.

Moments later, the door opened again. Clementine walked in, dressed casually in jeans, one of her WWE merchandise t-shirts, and one of the best selling merchandise items in the whole company, her baseball cap. Those things sold like hot cakes.

"Hey, boss," Clementine said pleasantly. She always called Erin that.

"Clem. Have a seat," Erin said. She genuinely liked Clementine, finding her to be a nice person, a professional employee, and most importantly a truly outstanding performer. She was one of the rare wrestlers who didn't just portray her character, she was able to live it in front of the cameras. Her performances were therefore so real for the fans, and that got them invested in her character, matches and storylines. They never quite knew what the extremely unpredictable Diamond in the Rough was going to do, but they invariably enjoyed watching it happen.

Erin prepared herself to talk about another one of the reasons that the timing of the revelations regarding her dad's behaviour had complicated her life. They had happened to come out the week before she was going to have her own character return to TV, which was happening on that night's show. Now people were inevitably going to say she was back on TV to try and distract people from the mess going on back at HQ.

"Wondered if I could make a quick suggestion for the segment tonight?" Clementine asked as she sat down in front of the desk.

"What's on your mind?" Erin asked. Her return was going to happen in that segment, which involved a match between Clementine and Raquel. A former wrestler, former Women's Champion, Hall of Famer, and current on-screen authority figure called Sam Miller would also be involved.

Clementine made her suggestion, which in truth was only a minor tweak. Erin saw no reason not to go with it, and agreed.

"Thank you. I won't take up any more of your time," Clementine said, getting up to leave. But she stopped halfway to the door and turned back around. "Boss?"

"Yeah, Clem?"

"You look really stressed. Share the load. Whether it's your dad, Jay, or someone else you talk to, share the load with somebody. Sorry if I'm out of line."