Sasha has always tried to play it safe, to keep her life as simple and risk-free as possible. Things change, however, when she garners the interest of a handsome, charming, younger man from a completely different world than hers. As she starts to qu...
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T.K. hitched his duffel bag on his shoulder and let out a deep breath. This was it. This was what he gave up Mason Hill University for. All that was standing in between him and his dream of making it in the WWE was the closed door to a building that looked like an abandoned warehouse. He wanted to ask himself what in the hell he was thinking, giving up college to do this, but the time for questions was long gone, especially now that he was now thousands of miles away from home and in Chicago, Illinois, home of the fledgling Black & The Brave Wrestling Academy.
It had been a very busy couple of months for the teenager prior to his graduation from high school. As soon as he recovered from his injury, he found odd jobs here and there, working hard to raise money for his near-three thousand dollar tuition for his training while studying for finals at the same time. It was tough, very tough...but he had already made up his mind that this was what he had to do, needed to do. Joe had been kind enough to chip in about half the money for his tuition, and two days after he graduated, T.K. kissed his tearful mother and his sister goodbye and embarked on the multiple-hour train ride to the Midwest. He arrived in the early morning, and then found a taxi to take him to his desired destination. And now here he was, two days after leaving home, all alone for the first time in his life, and truthfully, now that it was sinking in, he was petrified.
He'd never been anywhere so quiet. T.K. looked around the parking lot. There were only a couple of cars around. This town simply did not look conducive for wrestling training, or any form of social activity. Every street he'd turned on looked the same. Nearly every road was lined with trees, littered with cattle and sheep, tall grass, and the occasional farm – very different from the life he knew. But that was probably the least of his problems. There was the small matter of not getting his ass handed to him on the first day of training.
Taking another deep breath, T.K. advanced toward the entrance, lugging the carry-on he borrowed from Joe behind him. He was low on sleep but he was wide awake and alert. He just needed to stop his palms from sweating, because he knew he'd have to shake hands with someone and if they sensed he was nervous it could be a minus for him. He wiped his palms absently over his sweatpants and pushed open the front door.
The first thing he saw was the walls in the entranceway, decorated with pictures of Colby and his business partner Marek Brave as young men starting out in the wrestling business. He was amazed by how skinny Colby looked, which honestly by T.K.'s standards was still muscular, but it was nothing compared to what the WWE Superstar looked like now. A little further down the hall were pictures of Colby's individual accomplishments, as ROH champion, NXT champion, and as WWE tag team champion with Joe. It was obvious the Iowa native had come a long way.
T.K. dreamed that one day his own pictures would grace these walls when he made it big like Colby. The thought made his stomach flip and eased his nervousness. He could do it. It wasn't going to be easy – it seemed like an unfortunate coincidence that minorities, especially African-Americans, did not often ascend to the very top of the wrestling mountain, meaning he was already on the back foot, so to speak. But T.K was determined. He hadn't survived getting shot for nothing. He would prove everyone wrong, from his deadbeat-ass sperm donor to his skeptics. And he would start here.
