NaNoWriMo Story Snippets

24. Excerpt from FLAMES: BONUS SCENES

Subject to editing, etc. From a FLAMES: BONUS SCENES chapter about Father's Day 2020. It feels nice to be away from OATH OF RINGS, but I feel very out of shape when it comes to FLAMES.

"I was going to ask if I should technically be celebrating Father's Day since the baby won't be here for months," Seth said, reaching up and resting his hand on Becky's belly. It was still mostly flat, but he knew her body well enough to feel the slight changes there. "But I won't argue with good coffee."

Smiling, Becky set the two travel cups from 392 Davenport down on the bedside table and crawled back under the covers, snuggling up to him. "If you're not sure," she teased, "we don't have to do anything more than the coffee. That took some arranging, you know, finding a cafe that would deliver here. Good thing I have connections."

Seth kissed her and laughed. "Is it any place I know?"

Becky shook her head. "I doubt it. Seth Rollins isn't cool, remember? How could you possibly know about the best cafe?"She moved up a bit to kiss his cheek. "Happy Father's Day." Then she chuckled. "Notice how WWE put a pay-per-view on Mother's Day but not Father's Day?"

Thinking back to Money in the Bank, Seth felt a pang of guilt. At that point, they had already known for a few weeks that Becky was pregnant, but WWE was still deciding how to deal with the Raw Women's Title. Becky had advocated losing to Shayna—even before she had realized she was expecting—but that idea was shot down; then she suggested Asuka winning the Money in the Bank contract. Stepping aside while her career was at an incredible all-time high was hard for her, regardless of how happy she was to be pregnant, was difficult for her, and he saw it in her eyes each time he left for Florida and she stayed behind. "I still feel bad that we couldn't make the announcement earlier so you could enjoy Mother's Day," he said, hugging her close. They had celebrated on their own, of course, and Becky had received dozens of calls and texts from the family members and close friends who already knew about the pregnancy, but it wasn't the same.

"You did a wonderful job of Mother's Day. Besides, it's not like there was much to do." The virus, in a way, had been part of the reason she and Seth had started trying to conceive that year; since the touring had stopped and so many things were shutting down, Becky wasn't going to miss out on as much. On the other hand, the potential health complications were terrifying and she did her best to strike a balance between being informed and knowing not to read a hundred different articles on the same subject. "I got to talk to almost all the most important people in my life, and I got to spend it with you." Then she looked down at her belly and gave it a little pat. "And you."

"And you knew you wouldn't have to keep it a secret much longer," Seth teased. After a few more minutes of cuddling, he sat up and waited until Becky was sitting before he reached for their coffees.

"Mostly secret, anyway. It still leaked." Becky cradled her coffee lovingly. She had been cutting back on it ever since she found out she was pregnant, and she missed it.

Something about her tone made Seth suspicious. "Am I going to be tagged in another avalanche of posts and likes the way I was on my birthday?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. Just weeks ago, Becky had posted a sweet happy birthday wish to him on Instagram, complete with a series of pictures: some from WWE, some personal, most of them previously unreleased. Then she ended it with a picture of the ultrasound showing their baby. "You can't keep breaking the internet. It's 2020. We need it for . . . pretty much everything right now."

Becky gave a small shrug as she sipped at her coffee. She found if she took longer to drink it, she could fool herself into thinking she had more. "I can always call in our coffee orders. The cafe still has this weird thing called a phone. You talk in one end and listen through the other."

Seth rolled his eyes. "Most people do, you mean. You talk and talk . . . and talk and talk and talk." Even when they weren't dating, they had talked on the phone often, but once they started seeing each other and Becky had still technically been on the SmackDown roster, Seth was charging his phone every other day because of their long conversations. Not that he would change a thing, of course. Those early days of the relationship had made him feel strangely young again, reinvigorated and happy, truly happy, for the first time in years. "Maybe I should check the listening part of your phone—"

"Maybe you should keep your hands off my phone," Becky replied, poking him in the side, "considering you already dropped one of my phones in the ocean."

"Consider it an offering." Seth kissed the top of her head. "Like with the Trevi fountain. If you throw a coin in, it means you'll come back to Rome."

Becky raised an eyebrow as she eased out of bed. "I don't think that's how the ocean works. Or Hawaii."