Helms Household
Hollywood Hills, CA
Late February, 2020
When it came to the perils and pitfalls of professional wrestling, David Helms was a firm believer that he had been through just about everything that the business could possibly put someone through. He’d had the injuries, the squabbles, the falling outs. It got him a divorce, it found him love, a marriage, success, fame, fortune… the whole smorgasbord of feelings, experiences, trials and tribulations. And yet, despite twenty plus years of experience in the business, it still never failed to surprise him when he found himself going through the same song and dance that he had gone through so many times before, that he was walking down scarily similar path’s that he were already well-travelled in his long and storied career from unknown nobody to veritable superstar. If one thing was for sure though, it was that as much as things change, they really do stay the same in the pro-wrestling world, because despite the fact he was away from the ring for a whole four years, his return already had him right back where he was before his ‘retirement’. In truth, he was shocked that it took as long as it actually had for him to find himself in the middle of some sort of bullshit or other; his every experience, not just of the business but of life in general, had taught him that there was no such thing as a peaceful existence and boy had that turned out to be true. It wasn’t as if he had expected everything to be different this time around, he wasn’t even remotely naive enough for that to be true, but maybe he would grudgingly admit that he hoped for an easy ride at least while he got back into the swing of things for want of a better way of putting it?
Perhaps he was naive. Perhaps he should have known that his return would automatically drawn out the assholes and douchebags of the world, giving them an easy out for the attention that they so desperately wanted… only it wasn’t just things at ‘work’ that had him scratching his damn head. If it was, he had… well, okay, he had never been particularly good at compartmentalising things in that regard, but at least it would have been easier to swallow if it was just stuff with SCW that was getting to him. But truth be told, it wasn’t. Yes, Giovanni Aries and his Branch Douchidians Alice Ames and Cain Adams were proving to be a thorn in the side for him and Jason, but if it was just that stuff, he could handle it. It wasn’t though, was it? Because on top of his issues with The Wonderland, he had trouble brewing at home too. Admittedly, it wasn’t actually at home, because aside from her being annoyed that he hadn’t told her he was returning to the ring, things between him and Regan were actually really fucking good… but in the more catch-all sense of the word, things at ‘home’, or more accurately, away from the business, were starting to heat up.
Now Dave would be the first to admit that, despite being best friends for a good eleven years now, he and Tommy may not exactly be the tightest they’d ever been as friends at present, but while they weren’t exactly knocking back the whiskey every night anymore like they had done back in the days of being neighbours in Raleigh, David had laboured under the illusion that things between the two of them were as good as they’ve been for at least the last couple of years. Yeah, maybe they were a world apart from how they had been, back when they were thick of thieves, wrestling together week in week out, but David had expected some sort of shift once he stepped away from the ring; David hadn’t just stopped wrestling, but he stopped travelling with Tommy, stopped training with him regularly, everything associated with the bond of being on the road had come to an abrupt end with Dave’s retirement and that had caused a slight shift in the bonds of their friendship, but they still owned god knows how many businesses between them, they still ran AnteUp Academy together and David had thought that everything was fine until the blowup that Tommy had with him at the Academy earlier in the week that seemingly came from fucking nowhere! It wasn’t the first argument the pair had had, that went without saying. In fact, it probably wasn’t the worst either, given some of the rage-fuelled diatribes the two had hurled at one another over the years… but at least in the past, those events had seemed logical or had at least been somewhat expected. This though, had come so far from left field that David couldn’t help feel that it had come from somewhere beyond the stadium rather than just a certain part of the pitch! His best friend had given him so much shit about his wife’s promo for their match that anyone would think that it was David that had said those things, when in truth, David hadn’t even been aware of most of what was said until things turned ugly on twitter of all places, and even then he hadn’t seen it as his place to interject. He wasn’t a peacekeeper, he wasn’t an official or someone with the position to make judgement calls, he was trapped in the fucking middle of a situation that was both nothing to do with him and everything to do with him at the same time!
“You weren’t there bro, you didn’t hear the shit he was coming out with,” David told Matty stone as the pair sat out on the deck of Dave’s home several days after that very argument, sharing a bottle of Infamously Dangerous. He had been so wrapped up in things since the argument happened that he hadn’t really had time to tell any of his friends, and he definitely wasn’t going to bring it up with Regan any time soon, because then the whole thing would only escalate further. “It was just so outrageous, he was blaming me for everything Regan said that he either didn’t like or didn’t agree with, saying she went too far… does he think I write the fucking script for her or something?!”
“Well, we both know that Regan can get a bit… spicy, when she’s hot brah. Maybe she just overstepped the boundaries a little in Tommy’s mind and he was hoping for some backup. Where is Regs anyway? Figured she’d be here with us, sharing this fine tipple with us.” Matty asked, but David shook his head. Regan wasn’t home when Matty came over for originally for a couple brews as he’d put it when he suggested it because she’d already arranged to go to dinner with Jenni, a mother-daughter bonding thing and she wasn’t gonna cancel that just to see Matty’s ugly face while having a drink. Dave saw this as his opportunity to try and work his way through everything with one of his oldest friends though so he wanted to use it to his advantage. And Matty also happened to be one of the few people in David’s life that was older than David was. That automatically put the burden of being a good listener on Matty’s shoulders as far as David was concerned; it was like a bunch of kids looking for an adult when a situation gets out of hand… only David was an adult too, and Matty was probably way too immature for the task at hand. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they? “Fair enough,” he added as David explained where his wife was. “And it’s not like she doesn’t know how good this stuff is I guess; you guys must have drunk plenty of the stuff during the process of nailing the recipe down, huh? Good shit though brah, can’t deny it… as for Tommy, look broski, I haven’t watched the promo so I dunno what was said, but surely Tommy will have calmed down by now?”
“Given I thought he was gonna fucking deck me at one point bro, I’m not exactly sure about that…” David said, frowning as he picked up his glass and took another drink. “Honestly dude, he was pissed! Seriously Matty, I’m not talking pissed but he’ll have calmed down by now kind of pissed her, I’m serious when I say I think he was gonna go for me. You didn’t see the look in his eyes bro, it was fucking disturbing…”
Matty thought on that for a second before answering; he knew the implications as well as Dave did, yet neither one of them wanted to say it. “So he legitimately wanted to blame you for what Regan said in her promo?” the Bostonian finally asked, after they both thought about what Tommy’s rage could mean if it was what they feared.
David nodded. “He did,” the New Jersey native said, sitting forward and sighing in effort to keep his frustrations in. “Or I guess he wanted to blame me for not publicly admonishing her the minute it aired is probably a better way of putting it… he claims I’m picking sides and that I’ve picked a “Piece of ass” over my friendship with him again,” David told his oldest friends, resisting the urge to spit on the ground as the words came from his mouth. Matty’s eyes widened at that remark, that one truly surprised him. “And then he told me that he wasn’t going to let Regan get away with what she’d said without facing the consequences, as if we’re not professional fucking wrestlers that make people do that for a god damn living!”
“You don’t think he,” Matty started, his voice trailing off because he didn’t want to say the rest of that sentence.
“Think he means outside of the ring?” David asked before shrugging. “I’d like to think not bro, I really would… but the look in his eyes the other day? That’s something I haven’t seen in Tommy in a long time. And if he is gonna overstep that boundary then what choice do I have at that point?”
“Shit brah, I’m starting to see where you’re coming from,” Matty said, heavily. Until now he wasn’t sure why David was making such a big deal out of it; so best friends had had a lovers tiff, that was nothing new, especially between David and Tommy who had a somewhat fractious friendship at times anyway… but this sounded different, and it brought a few old worries back to the forefront too. “Have you tried talking to him since?”
“Sent him a couple texts, even called round to his earlier today to try and talk. Either he wasn’t home or he pretended he wasn’t,” David said with a shrug, grabbing the rum bottle to refill his now empty glass before standing up to walk over to the railing on the edge of the deck. He looked out over the canyon below, the lights of Hollywood below and downtown beyond that providing a hell of a lightshow as he lent on the wooden railing. Matty joined him at the rail, leaning his arms over the edge of the railing as he cradled his own glass by fingertips, watching the liquid swirl around the glass. “He obviously isn’t interested in talking about this shit, because it’s easier to blame Regan for everything and turn it into a grudge,” David told him, his eyes still locked on the lights of Los Angeles far below. “Am I over the moon that he’s dating Kandis? Not really. I told him that too, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything. But… and it’s a big but, no pun intended; I also told him that I was happy as long as he’s happy. Does he automatically want universal fucking acceptance for what’s going on? That’s not possible. Nobody is universally accepted, that’s part of fucking life!”
“I mean, I watched Regan’s promo after I saw the fuss online,” Matty said with hesitation in his voice. He knew he had to tread carefully now, because it was obvious that it had become a hot potato. “She was a little hot, you know?” he suggested, and David nodded.
“Look, I’m not saying Regan’s a saint,” David admitted, bringing his glass up to take a sip but the tumbler didn’t actually touch his lips before he sighed and lowered it again. “Did she go too far with some of the things she said? Sure. If the shoe was on the other foot, I probably wouldn’t have been too pleased either,” he said before turning to look at his friend. “But Tommy has said his own fair share of shit over the last year or so, and I haven’t once told him to dial it back, so why should I tell my wife the same? It’s like freedom of speech, isn’t it? Yeah, sure, you have that freedom, but it isn’t freedom from the consequences of it. If you piss someone off you have to deal with it as a result. Tommy knows that the only real way to get even with people in this business is inside the ring, and if he thinks I’m gonna grovel in apologies for what Regan has said then he obviously forgot who I am because he should know better!”
“And if he thinks Regan is gonna apologise he’s barking up the wrong tree,” Matty added, mentally laughing at just the idea of that one. “When Regan says something, she believes it. The shit she said about Kandis may not have been nice, but some of it didn’t hit too wide of the mark from what I hear…”
“I guess that’s half the problem, a lot of what she said cut too close to the bone, at least in Tommy’s eyes…” David said, turning to rest his back on the railing as he looked up at the house. When did life stop being simple? Years ago, if he needed to make Tommy hear him out he hopped over a fence to next door and let himself into his house. Now he had to drive ninety minutes just to stare at a locked door. The fuck happened? “But I’m not going to judge her lifestyle bro, that’s not me. Kandis can do whatever or whoever she wants… long as Tommy’s happy, then so am I… but he has to understand that not everyone is gonna see it that way, surely?!”
“His problem is clearly not what people think but what certain people think,” Matty suggested as he turned to mirror Dave’s posture, leaning back against the railing but looking at his friend instead of at the house. “Put it this way; a hundred trolls tell me on twitter that I’m an old, hair and ugly bastard, I don’t give a rats ass. You tell me that, chances are it hurts.”
“Well you are an old hairy ugly bastard,” David said playfully, but it was half-hearted and barely got a rise out of the Bostonian, short of a small snort of derisive laughter, which he quickly moved past.
“Point is, you don’t need everyone to validate you, just the people who matter,” Matty went on, ignoring the insult. “You’re as good as a brother to Tommy-”
“Was as good as a brother,” David corrected him, interrupting, but Matty brushed that off too.
“You are as good as a brother to him, you’re family, and Regan is your wife so she’s family too,” the Bostonian went on, refusing to let David derail him as he tried to explain. “So hearing Regan throw around the kind of insults that wouldn’t bother him from the vast majority of people? It has to sting, y’know?”
“So now you’re saying he was right to lay the blame on my door?” David asked, turning to look Matty in the eye.
The Bostonian shook his head though. “Not what I said brah, don’t get defensive,” Matty told him, before pointing a finger while holding onto the glass in the same hand before he took a drink. “What I’m saying,” he went on as he swallowed, “Is that he was hoping you’d understand where he was coming from.”
“And I did! I told him as much!” David said, frowning. “But I also told him that I’m not gonna tell my wife what she can or can’t say. He’s a grown-ass man, if he really has a problem with Regan then why not confront her himself?!”
“Maybe he was hoping he didn’t have to,” Matty suggested. “Maybe he was hoping that you’d talk to her. Not to chastise her or give her hell before you say anything, but talk to her and get her to see that maybe she had gone too far,” he added. “Wouldn’t be the first time Regan’s one track mind and her temper got her in trouble, would it?”
“So now you’re having a go at her too?” David asked, unable to believe that this was where Matty was going but the Bostonian shook his head.
“I never said that,” he replied as he stepped away from the railing and made his way back over to the table and chairs to refill his glass. He uncorked the bottle with a small pop and filled his glass up with another healthy measure before turning to fill David’s too as he made his own way back to where they’d been sitting. “I’m a strong believer in saying what you feel, even if it has consequences. If Regan said it, she believes it. Can’t fault her for calling a spade a spade, even if the more tactful way of doing things would have been to tone things down a touch. What I’m getting at is that Tommy probably hoped you’d see both sides, not that you’d take his side in all of this…”
“I see every side, that’s the problem,” David told him as he retook his seat and crossed his right leg over his left thigh. Was this what life was going to be like all over again, now that he had returned to the ring? Where had these problems been when he was sitting out? Where had this anger or resentment been when he was content to run AnteUp? Where was the melodrama when he was GM and part owner of UWA? No, it just had to wait until he had made a return before fate started conspiring against him by pitting his loved ones against each other, didn’t it?! Fuck fate! “I see why Tommy’s angry, I really do. Was Regan the most tactful in that promo? Not really. At the same time, Kandis doesn’t have a reputation for nothing bro, so I see where Regs was coming from too! I even get where you’re coming from, even if it only pushes me further into the middle of them, but I can’t make everybody happy bro, you know that! I’m either gonna piss Tommy off by not jumping to his defense, or piss Regan off because I do jump to Tommy’s defence… so I’m trying to be the fucking Switzerland of the extended family by staying the fuck out of it!”
“But my being Swiss cheese, you’re not really dealing with shit, you’re avoiding it,” Matty told him as he sat back in his chair. “You’re burying your head in the sand and leaving everything to play out without acknowledging what’s wrong and that’s kind of a dick move brah. Sorry, but it is.”
“I’m not ignoring it bro, I’ve already acknowledged that there’s a problem,” David told his friend with frustrated annoyance emanating from his every fibre of being. “It’s not that I’m in denial bro, it’s that I don’t think this is something that should be handled with me running around as a fucking mediator. I’m not gonna keep going back and forth trying to settle somebody else’s issues when Tommy can be a grown ass man and tell Regan her words upset him!”
“And if it gets worse?” Matty asked, wondering whether David would be prepared to step in if things did continue to boil over and Tommy decided to take up his issues with Regan personally instead of going to him about them.
“If what gets worse?” A voice from the door to the kitchen asked and both David and Matty turned to look over their shoulders to see Regan standing in the doorway of the house, cast mostly in shadow thanks to the kitchen lighting behind her. She stepped out onto the deck and slowly walked over to where David and Matty sat and her features slowly came into view the further she stepped away from the lighting behind her. “Okay, so someone needs to answer and quickly, because you two look like you just got busted having dinged up dad’s car while driving without a permit and that troubles me,” Regan said as she came to a standstill in front of both guys and put her hands on her hips.
David looked at Matty and the Bostonian returned the look before he stood up, offering Regan his seat. “I think I’d better grab another glass,” Matty said as Regan sat down and David turned to face her.
“Maybe a second bottle,” David half-joked as Matty turned to head back into the house. Dave was under no illusions that Matty was only offering to be helpful so that he didn’t have to be involved in the conversation that was about to happen, but in that moment he hated Matthew Stone more than anything, because this didn’t need to be a husband and wife discussion, it needed perspective from people on all sides and now David was an island of one, with sharks swimming on all sides. “So how much did you hear?” he asked, turning back to look at his wife.
“I literally walked in on Matty asking what happens if it gets worse,” Regan told her husband as she sat forward in her chair and leant her arms across her knees. “Then you two got your stupid sheepish looks on your faces when I asked what was going on and here we are. So babe, wanna tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?”
David looked at Regan for a second or two before sighing, his head dropping momentarily before he steeled himself and looked up again. “Earlier this week, I got a text from Tommy, asking if we can catch up,” He started to explain. “He came to the academy but damn near tore me a new one… because of you…”
Regan’s eyes widened momentarily before narrowing as she started to figure out why. “He went to you because of what I said in that promo, didn’t he?” she asked, and David nodded. “Jesus fucking Christ…”
“I know,” David said, before quickly trying to calm the situation before Regan lost it. “Look, he didn’t do anything, didn’t really say anything that I couldn’t handle either, but… well, it seems like I’m to blame for what you said as much as you are because I didn’t give you hell for saying what you did…”
“He’s got some fucking front,” Regan said as she stood up and started to walk away before turning again. “He realises that you’re not my keeper, right? That you may be my husband, but you don’t run my career?!”
“That’s exactly what I said to Matty!” David told his wife as he stood too. “That you’re both adults and that you’re responsible for what you say or do, more or less… I mean, no offence babe, but until I saw shit go off on twitter after it aired, I’d not even seen your promo. We don’t live in one another’s pockets, I know you don’t want every single video I post as soon as it goes up on youtube too. Does he expect me to full on Scott Mossier your work and act as your producer?!”
Regan laughed, but it was practically humorless. “Evidently we need to add producer, script writers and editor to your list of accomplishments babe,” she told him sarcastically as the snap of a Zippo caught their attention momentarily and they turned to see Matty walking back out to them with an empty glass and a second bottle of rum hanging from one hand as he took a drag on a cigarette he held in the other.
David couldn’t help but feel a little guilt as Matty returned, placing the bottle and glass down so that he could use the first bottle to pour a generous slug of rum for Regan too; he hadn’t cut and run to leave Dave alone after all, and he felt bad for assuming that that was the case. “So he’s given you the tee ell dee arr version then, doll?” Matty asked as he held the glass out to Regan, who nodded as she took it from him, before reaching up to take the cigarettes from his mouth too. “Hey!” he said, convinced that she was gonna stub it out, but instead she took a drag from it herself and that left Matty confused and David outright annoyed. She was the one who had stopped him from smoking and now there she was, doing just that?!
Chuckling to himself, Matty pulled out his pack and shrugged before taking out another two smokes, lighting both before handing one to Dave. He looked out of the corner of his eye at Regan but she just shrugged. “Don’t get used to it,” she told her husband, half still annoyed but half amused at the same time. “It’s not a habit that I’m gonna let you get back into… but under the circumstances…”
David didn’t need to hear any more, and he took a long slow drag on the Marlboro before exhaling just as slowly through his nose. He didn’t even need a second drag before the nicotine rush hit him. “Fuuuuuuck…” David said, the word lingers several seconds longer than necessary as he sat down in his chair and closed his eyes, the stress falling from his shoulders with that first drag. “Okay, so you see this? This is me when I’ve actually got a coping mechanism for stress,” he joked as he took another drag and exhaled the smoke into the air above his head before lowering his head to look at Regan again. “So you wanna shout at me too or shall we skip that part so I don’t have to feel any more in the middle than I already do?” he asked Regan and she rolled her eyes at him.
“Why the fuck would I shout at you, it was me who said that shit about Bubble Butt,” Regan told him, shaking her head. “Like you said, you’re not my editor, you don’t write the shit I say. If he has a problem, he should have come to me about it, not go running off to you to lay blame or have a pop…”
David turned to Matty and gave him a look. ‘See, my point exactly!’. Matty read the look perfectly and just shook his head before looking at Regan. “And if going to David was his way of trying to handle it without the animosity that’s already built up, doll?” the Bostonian asked but actually laughed.
“Animosity?” She said with a scoff. “Matty, everything I said in that damn promo was based in fact, he just didn’t like the way I said it or the fact I didn’t sugar coat it or whatever… but if he had a problem with it he should have spoken to me about it, not blame Dave for something he had no hand in!”
“Maybe he should, but who the fuck acts rationally when they’re angry, doll?” Matty asked, taking a drag on his cigarette before flicking ash from the end of it. “And from what Dave’s told me, Tommy obviously felt hurt by the fact that he didn’t say anything to you about what you said in that video… so he clearly feels like Dave’s picked a side already!”
“Well, I am his wife!” Regan said, somewhat defensively but Matty held a hand up, trying to defuse the situation before it went somewhere nobody wanted.
“I know that doll, and I’m not saying I’m with Tommy on this so please don’t bite my head off, okay?” The Bostonian asked and she held an apologetic hand up before deciding she didn’t want the cigarette after all. She stubbed it out and flicked it over the edge of the railing to gravel below. “I’m just trying to add some perspective, that’s all. I’m not on a side, and I’m sure as fuck not caught in the middle either, but I can see things from the outside so to speak… I’m trying to be objective rather than subjective, that’s all.”
“Yeah well, good luck with that,” Dave told him, laughing sarcastically. “Because if this lingers, sooner or later we’re all gonna have to pick sides, and you know that’s not exactly an exaggeration given past events…”
Matty opened his mouth to say something but then thought twice about it; he hadn’t forgotten how things got several years earlier when Tommy found out the truth about David and Zoe. If this turned into another situation like that one had, David’s assessment wouldn’t be far from the truth. “Alright, point taken,” Matty said, before stubbing out his own cigarette in the gap between the planks on the decking. “But this is early enough to nip in the bud, surely? I mean, he feels like Regan went too far, you’ve told him that you’re not gonna tell Regan what to say or do, surely a conversation between you and Tommy would sort this out?” Matty said, aiming it at Regan but she scoffed at him.
“Yeah, because that’s gonna fix things, isn’t it?” Regan said, walking over to pull a third chair out from beneath the table. “We both know that at a minimum he’s gonna want a public apology to Kandis for what I said and I don’t think I said anything that warrants an apology! I call things as I see them and if Tommy wants to fall in love with a slut then so be it but I’m not gonna hide the fact that I think she’s one to protect his fragile fucking sensibilities…”
Dave looked at Regan and straight away knew this was a battle that Matty wasn’t going to win before they’d even got going. Regan believed in what she’d said, and there was no way that Tommy was gonna let it slide when he already thought that David had picked a side and that it wasn’t his. This had disaster written all over it and he felt like he was the only one that could see that. Matty definitely couldn’t, because he continued to try and argue the point. “I’m just saying that it wouldn’t hurt to talk to him, doll…” Matty said to Regan, as David savoured the final drag on his cigarette before there was only butt left, and he lent over to stub it out before flicking it into the fire pit a few feet away. “He may be angry, but taking time to call him or even drop him a text at least shows that Dave was right when he told him that you guys would patch things up down the road…”
“I told you Matty, all Tommy is gonna want is an apology and I’m not sorry,” Regan told him, shaking her head. “As far as I’m concerned everything I said in that video was the truth, why should I apologise for stating facts?!”
“Because then at least you can say that you tried, and that--” Matty started to say before David finally had enough.
“Jesus, can you give it up bro?!” David said, staring at Matty and even looking at Regan before finally looking away, sitting forward to hold his face in his hands as he took a deep breath. Matty and Regan exchanged a look and Matty had the sense to actually keep quiet instead of attempting to ‘fix’ the situation.
Regan looked at her husband for several long seconds before turning to Matty. “Can you give us a minute, Matty?” she asked and he nodded.
“I need to take a leak anyway,” the Bostonian said, reaching over to put his glass down on the table before standing to take his leave.
Regan watched him, waiting for him to walk into the kitchen and close the door behind him before turning to David. “Hey,” she said softly, reaching over to put a hand on his knee. “Hey, look at me,” she told him and to his credit, David did take his hands from his face to look his wife in the eye. “If this is actually getting to you as much as it seems, just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it, okay? If you want me to call Tommy, or even Kandis, I’ll do it. If you want me to publicly apologise for the shit I said then say the word, I’ll go live on Youtube, twitter, wherever I need to in order to do it. How can I fix this? Tell me what I need to do and it’s done, I mean it,” she told him, and David’s heart was three times bigger by the time she was finished speaking; the fact that she was willing to even go there despite knowing how proud Regan was meant more than he’d be able to explain to her… yet he shook his head.
“I don’t want you to do anything babe,” He told her, knowing full well that Tommy would call him out for showing sides once again. In a way, it would be right, he could just tell Regan to apologise and everything would no doubt sort itself out, but he didn’t want her to do that. He wouldn’t tell Regan to do a single thing that she herself didn’t want to do. “That’s the point; I told Tommy under no uncertain terms that I wasn’t in the habit of dictating what you could or couldn’t do, I didn’t tell you what or what not to say. What kind of asshole does that, huh? What kind of douchebag dictates what their significant other can or can’t do?! Fuck that,” David said, scowling before another sigh escaped his mouth. “I just don’t get his problem… it’s not like he hasn’t made his fair share of enemies out of people he once considered friends, is it?! Some of the shit he’s said, he has no right to complain…”
“Yeah well, Tommy hasn’t been himself for a long time now babe,” Regan told him, giving his knee a squeeze. “I know he’s your best friend, but until recently, I don’t think you’ve paid enough attention to see it…”
“Maybe,” David admitted. He had to be honest, even while wrestler under the mask as El Lucho Venti, he wasn’t exactly the most observant over what was going on around him, and given that he and Tommy weren’t exactly as close as they had once been had played a part in it too.
“Listen to me though, I’m serious,” Regan repeated. “If you want me to try and fix this, I’ll do everything within my power to do it, just say the word…”
He could have said yes, he could have told her to try and do it and see what happened; with the overreaction from Tommy, maybe a token apology from Regan would be all it took to placate him enough to move past what he saw as such a major slight… but that would be sacrificing Regan for the sake of keeping the peace with Tommy, and was that any better, really? David didn’t think so. “Don’t you dare,” he told her, finally managing to crack a smile, even if it was weak at best. “Look… you just do you, okay babe? If Tommy wants to take exception with you for what you said, that’s on him. But unless he’s gonna be a big boy and take it up with you personally then I dunno what he expects to happen. I’m not some fucking go-between, passing messages between people like it’s the second grade and I wouldn’t dream of trying to tell you what to do, you know that by now. If Tommy doesn’t want to be an adult, then let him act like a damn child!”
The words were out of his mouth before he even realised what he was saying, but Regan clearly appreciated what he was saying because she leant forward and kissed him before leaning her forehead on his. If he wasn’t quite as logical as he was, David may have decided there was more meaning to that, but in truth he just wanted to let people deal with their own issues. He had enough on his plate to begin with, he didn’t need Tommy trying to drag him into a war between him and Regan because Tommy had gotten his underwear bent out of shape! If Tommy wanted to deal with it, then he would have to go to Regan himself and address it, because David wasn’t going to do it for him. Not this time. He’d stuck by his friend time after time, just as Tommy had done for him. But when it came to making a choice between his brother from another mother and his wife, it was one he wasn’t going to make. Not unless somebody forced his hand. And if that happened, then all bets would be off. Hopefully it wouldn’t get to that point though. Hopefully.
