Lass Ride: Crossroads

Chapter 1

"Tech check," Roman announced as he entered the rental house, setting his grocery bags down on the floor. Since there were now usually eight of them travelling together at any given time—Sasha was working on a reduced schedule, but they always planned with her in mind—Roman had claimed it was easier and cheaper just to rent houses close to the events they were working, but Seth figured it was something else. Roman's nickname wasn't 'The Big Dog' for no reason: he was fiercely protective of his family and friends, and what better way to keep watch than to have them all under the same roof? "Hand them over, Rollins."

Seth had been watching football with Dean and Renee, but he heaved himself off the couch and dutifully went to grab his phone and tablet. After about three weeks of flip-phone purgatory, Roman had finally allowed him to graduate to a smartphone—a model that was a year old, of course, and with monitoring apps installed. Apparently they didn't do a good enough job in Roman's opinion, because he did random checks to make sure Seth wasn't still secretly in contact with WWE. "You're not going to find anything," he said as he handed the tech over. "I've looked up football scores and checked my e-mail. Nothing exciting."

"Especially since your Bears suck," Dean called out.

Roman was deterred. "Yeah, well, Charlotte and Sasha were both pretty sure they saw Randy Orton at our last event, so someone's clearly still leaking our schedule to WWE."

Renee turned around to peek over the back of the couch. "WWE also hasn't done anything about Seth violating the no-compete clause," she pointed out, "which is super weird, because normally the legal team will pounce on a wayward comma, let alone a big infraction like this. Plus they'd usually take any chance they can get to shut down some of these smaller promotions before they have an opportunity to gain any momentum."

Seth spread his arms wide. He knew it would take some work—make that a lot of work—to even get to a good place with The Shield and the Four Horsewomen, and he was willing to put in the work, but it was starting to get annoying. He had already moved most of his personal belongings to a rented house near Roman's and had arranged for a friend to housesit at his place for a few months while things calmed down. He took whatever matches he was given at the events, which usually involved jobbing to Roman. He endured the tech checks, the general lack of privacy, the constant wary looks—all so he could prove himself. In theory, he was trying to prove himself to Roman and the others, but Seth was really doing it more for Becky and, in a strange way, himself. The more he thought about what he had done—what he had been willing to do—for The Authority, the more ashamed he felt. Those weren't the actions of the type of person he wanted to be, and he was doing his best to move in the direction of something better. The constant scrutiny made it difficult, however.

Then he saw Becky come in, Bayley just behind her, and some of the bitterness turned sweet. She hadn't fully forgiven him either, not by a long shot, but they were at least talking. It felt weird to be going in relationship reverse, starting out with frantic sex and working up to casual conversations, but he hoped he might be able to enjoy the best of both worlds at some point. It wasn't likely to happen as long as he was sharing a roof with Roman, though. "What's going on?" Becky asked, noticing that all the bags Roman had been carrying were on the floor. Then she saw him swiping his finger across a phone screen. "Ro, come on. We just got home. Can't that wait until we've unpacked everything?" They didn't usually buy a lot of groceries, but since they had three upcoming events within a drivable radius, Roman had thought it would be nice to have a home base for a few days.

"Then he would have time to delete whatever he didn't want me to see," Roman pointed out. Seth thought Becky's reprimand might have got to Roman, though, because he gave the phone a few more swipes before handing it back. "Looks clean so far," he said grudgingly.