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Drafted, part 1

In the past year, lot of things that had happened in WWE didn't make much sense. Brock Lesnar winning Money in the Bank when he was basically handed a title shot whenever he wanted one. Not making room on the pay-per-view schedule for a second all-women's event. Seth knew even his seemingly whirlwind romance with Becky would make that list for some people. But the way the WWE Draft was designed was right up there. He could see the wisdom in having two different selection pools—otherwise all the big names would be taken on Friday night, leaving only the mid-carders to be announced on the following Monday—but that also took some of the luster off the coveted number-one spot since there would technically be two of them. Like always, there was the caveat that tag teams could be split up, but with the current state of the tag division, that didn't seem likely.

And then they scheduled a match between him and Roman on Friday Night SmackDown to determine which show got the number one draft pick. Suspiciously, while they had both been told the outcome of the match—Seth would win, securing the first pick for Raw—they weren't given any other details. Seth wasn't in Friday's pool, but Becky was. Even though the brass assured him that the policy of keeping committed couples together was still intact, he wasn't convinced: Becky had had a phenomenal year, and if whoever won the first pick didn't choose her, it would look highly suspicious. When he told Roman that in the locker room, his friend laughed. "You saying I'm not a catch anymore, bro?"

"Nah, man, you know what I mean. She's one of the first women to main-event WrestleMania. She's been on two magazine covers this year. She's the first woman on a WWE 2K cover. Whenever WWE wants a representative at an event, she's one of the first people they ask." Seth had found that exhausting at first, but the more he watched Becky interact with fans—especially kids—the more he realized how genuinely good she was. If I had just gotten my shit together sooner, he thought, I could have had so many great years with her already. He wouldn't let himself dwell on that, though; they were together now and he was happy and, more importantly, he could see a life beyond wrestling for the first time in years. "If you had first pick, who would you take?"

Roman held his hands up in surrender. "Am I allowed to answer that honestly without you hitting me?" When Seth rolled his eyes and nodded, Roman went back to lacing his boots. "Then yeah, of course I'd pick Becky. Inside the ring or outside, she's a draw. That's a quality not everyone has." Then he stood and shook out his arms. "You worried they're going to split you up? Don't be. Even if they don't have you two in storylines together, they know you're a draw as a couple." Heading for the locker room door, he winked at Seth and gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder. "Or are you just worried that you won't be picked first on Monday, and that you'll never live it down at home?"

Running a hand through his hair as it wet it down, Seth chuckled. "I'd say I'd never hear the end of it, but if Becky thought it bothered me, she wouldn't say a word. She's good like that. When Lesnar cashed in on me, she wasn't going to put her belt out. . . ." He trailed off, not sure how to explain that Becky liked to set out her titles. "As long as we're together, she'll be happy," he said at last. "Same with me."

With a nod, Roman held out his fist for a bump. "Me too, if only because you're a mopey ass when you haven't seen her for a few days. See you out there, man." The locker room door had barely shut behind Roman when Seth heard him burst out laughing, and then the door inched open. "Hurry your ass up, Rollins. Don't keep The Man waiting."

"Yeah, yeah. Be right out, Becks." Seth tied his boots quickly, grabbed his wrist cuffs, and headed out into the corridor, where Becky and Roman were both looking at her phone and laughing at something. Draping an arm around her shoulder, Seth shook his head when he saw that Becky was showing Roman the video of a bulldog that obsessively carried metal bowls around the house. Thanks to her, he had already seen it four times. "If you think this is going to help your campaign to get a dog. . . ."