Flames

Valentine's Day, part 2

The date wasn't going as planned. Seth wasn't even sure if it was a date. He hadn't come right out and asked Becky on a date, so she wouldn't be wrong to assume it was just two friends having coffee. Wrestlers hung out after shows all the time, and it was a struggle to find some place private. He didn't mind signing things for fans or taking pictures with them, but he needed time to himself too.

And Becky's hair was like a damn beacon. If he wore a toque and his glasses, he could often walk around unrecognized, but her fiery hair drew attention no matter what. After they had bypassed a cafe to narrowly avoid a gaggle of fans, Seth finally tugged off his toque and handed it to her. "Your hair's too noticeable, Irish."

"I'm getting that feeling, yeah." Becky gathered her hair as best she could in a messy bun and pulled the toque down over it. "Better?"

When it came to Becky, there really was no 'better'. There were some of the female wrestlers Seth hardly recognized without their ring makeup, but Becky was almost always resolutely herself. It was part of what held her back for so long, and equally part of why she was shining so brightly now. "Good." Then he pointed down the block to a red and white sign. "Want to try there? Looks smaller."

"Sure." If she was cold, she wasn't showing it. "Not to pry or anything," Becky added, glancing at him quickly before looking back at the icy sidewalk in front of them, "but what happened with you and . . . Sarah?" Her nose crinkled a bit as if she wasn't sure of the name. "I thought you two had been together for a while."

Seth took so long to reply that Becky started to stammer out an apology—sorry for asking, none of my business—so he quickly shook his head. "Nah, nah, it's okay. It's fine. It's amicable and everything. We actually split a little while ago, but kept it quiet because we didn't want it to become a big thing. It's just hard juggling a relationship with someone when you're in a different place every week, you know?" He tipped his head back and looked at the stars for a moment. "Not that I want to give any of this up. It's just. . . ."

"I know." Becky's slow nod almost looked like her head was bobbing in time with her steps. She edged closer to him to avoid a slick patch of ice and it took Seth a moment to notice she stayed closer too. "And it's hard because it's part of the deal. It's part of us, and no matter how often we tell our partners that, they never really get it until they haven't seen us for a month and to them it feels like it's been forever, but for us it's normal."

They were in front of the small cafe then, and it looked like a family-owned place with hand-lettered signs in the window. From what Seth could see, there were no other customers, so he held the door open for Becky and followed her in. A girl in her early twenties stopped wiping down a table and headed back to the main counter. "Good evening. What would you like?"

And then Seth had an idea. "You're only open for another two hours, right?" When the girl nodded, he took out his wallet and put a few bills on the counter. "Would that cover having it to ourselves for the rest of the night?"

The girl's eyes went wide as she saw the numbers on the bills. "Yes. Definitely. But . . . that's too much. Honestly, unless there's a game on or a concert in town, we're usually dead for the last hour anyway."

She tried to push at least two of the bills back, but Seth refused. "Please. We'd be grateful for the quiet and the privacy."

"Of course." The girl pocketed one of the bills and put the other two in the cash register before going up to the front, locking the door, flipping the OPEN sign to the CLOSED side, and pulling down the cover for the front window. "What can I get for you?" she asked as she made her way back around the counter.