Page 90 of Wild Side
I click the program on and take an aggressive bite of my cucumber, ready to be entertained… or hurt. Depending on what happens tonight.
The show opens with Rhys’s entrance music. The heavy bass and ominous tones blare through the stadium as the lights go black. A bright white strobe light illuminates the crowd in pulsing flashes. Rhys’s hulking silhouette appears at the top of the ramp, the crowd screams, and butterflies erupt in my stomach.
I scoot closer to the edge of my couch as I watch him take a leisurely stroll down the ramp. Electricity sizzles around him, every step almost lazy in its confidence. His sleeve of swirling black tattoos shine on his tan skin, and his dark hair has a wet look to it where it frames his face.
He trails his fingers over fans’ outstretched hands as they scream and reach for him. Signs in the stands boast his name. Shirts on their chests proudly display his logo.
It chokes me up. I watch in awe, shaking my head with a soft smile on my lips. I wonder if he realizes how loved he is. Iwonder if he knows thatthismight be a part of his family—his roots.
I’m not sure he does. I don’t know if Rhys has the confidence Wild Side possesses. It seems like he might hold the two versions of himself in such different regard that he doesn’t recognize they’re just two parts of one complex, perfectly lovable whole.
With practiced fluidity, he leaps into the ring, sliding under the ropes before popping up with ease. He steps up in the corner, holding a fist in the air as the beat to his music changes. The attendees hold their fists up too, mirroring his pose while singing along to his music so loudly that I almost can’t hear the original. Every corner follows suit.
Goose bumps roam up my arms. It’s magic.
Finally, someone hands him a mic, and the lights brighten as his music wanes.
“Minneapolis!” His voice is all gravel over the speakers. “Welcome to the Wild Siiide.”
The cheers are downright deafening, and the absurdity of the entire thing makes me laugh out loud in the privacy of my own living room.
A fucking professional wrestler.
He chuckles into the mic. His black-and-green mask conceals his face, but I can see his eyes, and the way his tongue pops into his cheek. For me, it’s obvious it’shim. I wonder how no one else sees it. His lips curve seductively, and it sends a zing of awareness down my spine that lands right in my core. I cross my legs and settle in to watch.
“I’ve been away for a few weeks, and I’ve missed you. But I’ve been busy.” The odd hoot sounds out, but Rhys carries on. “Busy preparing to take back what that spoiled goof in a suit has been playing with. What I’ve let a lesser man—if you can even call him that—borrow while I’ve been recovering. He may have knocked me down… but not. Hard. Enough.”
He turns to look into the main camera and points, my eyes snagging on the flash of his wedding ring. “That’s right, Will. You should have hit me so hard that I couldn’t get back up. You should have finished the goddamn job. That was your first mistake, because now I’m back—in my house, with my people—where you’ve been living comfortably for far too long. If you’d finished the job, I wouldn’t be here. Back for blood. Because everything you thought was yours? By the time Pure Pandemonium rolls around, it’s going to bemine.”
The crowd surges again, partly due to the message, and partly due to the two men who’ve popped up behind him.
One takes a cheap shot while the other one circles. Rhys folds under the blow, hitting the mat with a heavy thud as the mic goes flying. But he’s not down for long. He pops back up in an agile kip-up that a man his size should not be able to execute so gracefully.
He turns to the man who kicked him without missing a beat, lifting him into a chokeslam. The move takes the man high and curves him into a rainbow shape over Rhys’s body, his signature move that has everyone chanting, “Over! The! Mountain!”
When the guy hits the mat, he rolls from the ring, writhing and holding his neck.
The second goon has the good sense to look concerned. He’s overacting his response, but that doesn’t bother me one bit. It adds a dose of humor, a dose of drama that has me internally cheering even harder for Wild Side.
Rhys doesn’t hesitate like him, though. He turns fluidly into a high kick aimed at the other man’s head that drops him on the spot.
I lean closer, trying to see where he holds back. He’s masterful. Where some wrestlers are obvious with the space they leave to prevent injuring their opponent, Rhys is not. He’s a technician. It’s seamless, believable, and I’d say he’s so good thathe makes the other two guys look a hell of a lot better than they are.
One is on all fours outside of the ring, pretending to cough and crawl away, while the other lies prone on the mat. Rhys climbs the ropes at the turnbuckle, and with his back to the man he just kicked, he circles a finger over his head in alet’s fucking gomotion. Then he does a massive backflip off the top rope that has me shooting to standing, sandwich and cucumbers flying across the floor.
“Oh shit!” My hand flies to my chest as he lands on the man, lifting his hips ever so slightly, letting his elbows and knees take the brunt while the announcer screams about him having the best moonsault in the company.
But the celebration is short-lived when guy number two pops back up and kicks Rhys right in his very sizable penis. He doubles over with great theatrics, and I have to remind myself that he’sprobablyokay.
The guy is readying his attack when a flash of blond hair flies into the ring with a metal chair in her hand. She winds up and slams it into the face of Rhys’s attacker. I know I’m not supposed to like this storyline with Elle, but the anxious part of me is relieved someone came to help him. Because watching him throw himself around and take hits doesn’t feel fake at all. In fact, I’m more stressed by it than ever before.
The two of them make quick work of their foes, and once they’re both sprawled on the mat, she turns to grin at Rhys. He doesn’t return the gesture. Instead, he scowls, failing spectacularly at acting like she’s his partner.
And because I know him well enough to recognize the glare, I find it oddly… amusing? Reassuring?
But she doesn’t back down. She reaches for his hand and hefts it high in the air, pointing at him and mouthing, “That’s my man,” over and overagain.
I twist my wedding band on my finger, relieved he’s leaving the ring unscathed.
