Tame

Chapter Fourteen

I offer to pay the taxi driver who pulls up in front Charleston International Airport, but Ada gives him her money instead. I know she's mad that we beat up Bryan and Kane again tonight, but the situations out of my hands. It's not like it's personal, fully. We walk into the airport and are quickly shuffled through security, cutting everyone who was in line to get checked. It's one of the perks for being wrestlers on tight schedules even if we're going home for our days off. These people don't need to know that.
Just as we finish with baggage claim, our plane is called and we hand our tickets over to a lady.
"Carl," she calls out to a man standing in the tunnel connecting the building and the plane. "Can you show these people to First Class?"
"First Class?!" Ada exclaims, her eyes twinkling in delight. I stifle my laugh. Someone hasn't experienced that luxury, I guess.
After arriving in the WWE, the first thing the guys and I did to travel to the next place was buy First Class plane tickets. It was awesome.
The lady smiles at her as if she's an ignorant little kid. I don't like that look. "Yes, First Class." Now she's talking to Ada as if she's a first grader. I try not to let my skin crawl.
The lady gestures to the guy named Carl who jogs up to us. "Have a nice flight," the lady says and as I pass her, I catch a glimpse of her name tag. Lucy. Such an innocent name for a bitchy ass person.
Ada has a spring in her step as she follows Carl past all the people sitting in commercial toward the front of the plane. First Class on this plane is nice. The seats are more comfy and the TV affixed into the back of the headrest in the seat in front are nicer.
When Ada and I get settled, the flight attendant offers us champagne. I take the flute while Ada requests a Coke.
"Oh come on," I say as the attendant walks away. "She thinks you're 21, live a little."
I offer her the flute of champagne but she leans away. "Nope. I've seen what alcohol can do to people," she says stiffly before looking away out toward the window. We're off the runway, slowly making our way higher into the sky.
I grab her chin and make her look at me. "I'm sorry, okay," I tell her. "But Kane and Daniel are big boys. They can handle a little beat down."
Ada rolls her eyes. I quickly kiss her cheek and she freezes. To distract her before she gets on me I turn to her family. Hopefully, I don't hurt her feelings by asking for names.
"So, tell me about your family," I say and she gets stiffer...if that's even possible. "How many of you are there?"
Ada looks at me from the corner of her eye. It makes me sad that she can't look at me head on. I shouldn't have asked.
"I have both of my parents, a grandma, and six older brothers," she says.
I feel my eyes widen. "Six?"
"Yeah." Ada smiles. "My parents were really trying for that girl."
"What are their names?" I question. I hope I'm not pushing it.
Ada looks up at the ceiling for a moment. "From oldest to youngest: you have Izaiah, Isaac, Israel, Idionee-never met another human being with that name-and then you have Iman and Ivan as twins."
"Wow," I can't help but say. "How do you live with that?"
Ada shrugs and I know the hard part is coming. "They basically just ignored me. The only time they acknowledged my existence  was by thanking me after I served them food or cleaned their rooms. I was more of a maid than a little sister."
I frown. That's pretty mean. In all honesty, if I had Ada as a little sister, I'd talk to her every day about the smallest things and protect her from any guy that even looks at her shoes. Not caring if I'm crossing the line, I gently grab her head and place it on my chest. She sighs happily and I swell a little in pride.
"I was seven years old when my mom and grandma tried to mold me into this perfect housewife. Always cleaning up after her husband, obeying everything he ordered her to do, being at his beck and call. Don't get me wrong, if I had a boyfriend I'd spoil the hell out of him, but that's not all I want to do with my life, you know? And at first I loved catering to my brothers, it was fun, but that was before I found out they wanted it to be a permanent thing. Something that made my entire existence. I just couldn't do it. That WWE contract was my ticket to freedom."
Stroking her head, I nod, completely listening. "Any family members that aren't shitty?"
She clears her throat and that makes me wonder where the attendant is with her drink. "Grandma Tiana." The way Ada says the name, with so much admiration and love, brings a smile to my face. "I swear, she's the best grandma ever. She totally gets me, you know? She was always telling me I was her favorite grandchild and she was always giving me nice things that later my parents would throw away after she died."
My hatred for her parents just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
"The house that I live in," she continues, "it was the house of her first love, Mark Warren. He left the house to her in his will. He knew he was going soon with the cancer getting bad and everything. Now she's left the house to me. It's so beautiful and looks new even after all these years." She smiles. "You should've seen the look on my family's face when the family lawyer read out the will. I mean, Carson City is really far from Brownsville, Texas, you know?" She nods, nuzzling her head into my side. It feels good. I rub her arm.
"I'm glad you're out of there," I tell her.
"I'm glad I'm out of there," she replies making me chuckle. "So what about you? What about your family?"
I give her a tight smile. The last thing I want is to tell her about my screwed up family. But, she just spilled her guts to me, so I have to spill mine.
"Your Coke, ma'am?" the flight attendant hands Ada her glass of Coke.
Instead of fussing about how late she is and how her limbs are working just fine so there shouldn't have been any delay, Ada smiles and takes the drink, thanking her. I start to relax. If Ada's not making a big deal about this, then neither should I. Once the lady leaves, Ada looks at me expectantly. How do I tell her that while her parents had enough decency and care to try and mold her into their image, my parents-especially my dad-gave up on me as soon as I came out of the womb basically. Do I even want to tell her that? Should I edit some stuff out? But I know I can't. She told me the whole truth about her family and her thoughts on them, I can't chicken out. I sigh.
"Well, my family life wasn't great at all," I begin truthfully. "My dad was, like, the biggest alcoholic on the planet and my mom was really hooked on crack cocaine. So hooked that one time she overdosed and almost died and still went back to it. My dad was always putting me down, saying how I wouldn't amount to anything while my mom just sat there, never coming to my aid." I stop to breathe and chance a glance in Ada's direction. The look she gives me isn't at all filled with pity or even sympathy like I feared. She was just waiting for me to continue. I made the mistake of telling this story to a past girlfriend and she left, knowing I was turning out to be an abuser even though I barely touched her while we had sex. I threw her on the bed, like, one time but she totally deserved it for slapping me.
I couldn't imagine myself doing that to Ada. She's slapped me a couple of times and I never take to kindly to that from girls, but with Ada, I don't mind because I know I deserve it. The others just do it to add more to the drama.
"Well?" Ada presses softly, pressing circles into the part of my back that isn't pressed up against the seat.
"That caused me to do poorly in school. I didn't have any friends, I was always getting in trouble for fighting with someone for something I didn't start and my grades were turning into dust. They sent me away to military school the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, but Mom pulled me out because at that time, Dad was starting to hit her. She wanted me to protect her, but I just-I just couldn't. Not after she let me take all the heat from Dad. I remember when I was first introduced to wrestling." I smile as I remember that day perfectly. The day that started my ticket to freedom.
"I was walking to work and came across this video store that's been around since before I was born but I never went in. I had an hour to kill before work so I went inside to check the stuff they had out. I came across this old WWF DVD and thought it might be cool to watch since it had violence and stuff in it. When I got home that night and popped it into my player I was hooked. I went to that store once a week from then on to buy some more wrestling stuff. Long story short, I went to this HWA wrestling school and was trained. Later on once I was 18, they gave me a contract and that started my career in the independent circuit. I'm telling you, it was amazing. Especially the girls that threw themselves at you."
"You would be the one to name girls as one of the perks," Ada says, rolling her eyes.
"Trust me, none of them compare to you." I kiss her temple and she starts squirming making me chuckle. Even though it was in a teasing way, I want her to know that what I said was actually the truth. Every girl I met was fast paced and immediately wanted to get in bed with me, but Ada seems like the type of person to slow down and enjoy the seemingly insignificant in-between moments of a relationship.
"You're being really kissy faced with me tonight," she observes.
I shrug. "What can I say? My lips are attracted to you."
She rolls her eyes. "Well, I'm going to put some music in," she states, pulling out her phone and earbuds, "and try to get some sleep for the next three, four hours. Wake me when we get there if you're awake?"
"Sure," I tell her before she plugs her ears. I can't help but peek over her head at her phone as she goes into her music and presses play on "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx. So she's an oldies fan. And big oldies fan for an 18-year-old. As the music's playing in her ears, she scrolls through her other songs. Some are recent artists like Adele, Ellie Goulding and some girl I've never heard before, Alessia Cara. And some recent rappers like K CAMP-I never pegged her as the rap music type-but most of her music is made up of old love songs from Celine Dion, Michael Bolton and Anita Baker, whoever that is.
This girl continues to surprise me. At first I didn't think too highly of her. I thought she got in the business by sleeping around with the superstars who put in a good word for her to come here and when I met her at Big Al's I thought I could easily get in her pants, too. But as soon as she shot me down, I knew all the things I once thought were wrong.
As Richard Marx comes to an end, I find his song fitting. I'm willing to wait for Ada. Even though I'm a very impatient man and like things to be decided and handled at that moment, I'm willing to love her from a distance until she's willing to let me love her up close. I don't know how I'm going to do it. There's no doubt in my mind that I'm going to screw up a few times, but at least I'll be trying and I can't expect anymore from myself than that.