Rose & Thorn: Renee/Seth

Chapter 2

For the first few days after that surreal visit in Las Vegas, Seth couldn't think about anything but Jon and Renee's strange request. A younger version of himself would have said yes without hesitation. Sex with a hot chick without worrying about her husband trying to kick his ass for it? It was hard to find a downside to that. Now that he was older and at least somewhat wiser, he knew that just because people agreed to something didn't necessarily mean they were truly okay with it. One only had to look at all the questionable gimmicks various wrestlers had been given over the years; to their credit, they usually ran with the idea, no matter how ludicrous, and did their best to make it work, but that didn't mean they enjoyed it.

As time went on, Jon's imminent departure took up more of his thoughts, and the only thing that reminded Seth of the agreement was the shiny membership card in his wallet, tucked behind his credit card and the now-defunct membership for a video rental store that he kept as camouflage—and maybe a hint of nostalgia. When it came time to film The Shield's Final Chapter, a special devoted to the dissolving faction, Seth figured that would be the night Renee or Jon would finally bring up their Rose & Thorn deal again. After The Shield's last match, though, Jon hugged his Shield brothers and said he wanted to chill out and no one saw him or Renee until the next morning.

A week or so after Jon's departure, Seth almost invoked the agreement first. Online chatter about his break-up with Sarah was getting on his nerves and the idea of going home to face more scrutiny—at his wrestling school, his new cafe, any of his regular haunts—was too daunting. By the time he mustered up the courage to talk to Renee, though, he discovered that she was already gone, off to a club with some of the girls.

After the next RAW, however, she came up to him, still dressed up from her last interview segment. "Hey. You busy?"

Seth glanced down at her side, looking for a microphone. "On or off the record?"

"I've had a rough day," Renee replied. "Some flowers would cheer me up."

Catching on to her hint, Seth nodded. "Same. I'm not sure where the... nearest florist is, though."

"I know." Then Renee laughed. "Don't worry. You can still drive. I know how you are about that."

After they were packed up and walking to Seth's rental, he finally asked her the question that had been nagging him. "You're sure Jon's okay with this? I don't want to cause problems between you two. Or us, for that matter, or me and Jon. I know I've burned some bridges in this company, but you two are friends I don't want to lose."

Renee bumped his arm gently, handing him her bag when they got to the SUV. "He's cool with it. You can call him en route if you like. I'll set up the GPS to the club."

Seth wasn't sure if that would make things better or worse, but he did it anyway, connecting his phone to the car so Renee could listen too. "Hey, man," he said when Jon finally answered. "What's up?"

"Trying to find the damn talk button on this thing," Jon groused. "I want goddamn buttons on my phone, not these stupid... outlines."

"Green means go, babe," Renee teased. Looking over at Seth, she added, "I finally got him to upgrade his phone to something that came out in the past three years."

"Champagne's on me," Seth laughed. Then he cleared his throat. "Hey. Yeah, so.. you probably guessed you're on speaker. Are you... ah, free to talk?"

Jon snorted. "I'm alone, if that's what you mean. And if you're calling to make sure I'm cool with you two going to Rose & Thorn, you know I am. Renee and I even went to the local branch a couple weeks ago and made sure all our paperwork was correct. So go forth and fuck and have fun, kids."

"Thanks, babe. Everything good back home? How's Blue?" Renee asked, adjusting the volume when someone with a booming stereo stopped beside them at a red light.

"Sleeping, of course. What else?" There was a sound like dinner plates being stacked before Jon spoke again. "So what kind of strap-on are you going to get? We saw some of those weird neon dragon things when we were there. I'm not sure how those fit anywhere in the human body, but it would probably be fun to try."

Renee laughed. "I don't want to eviscerate him on the first night, Jon. Let a girl have a learning curve, would you? Besides, I don't think Seth is a size queen. Quality over quantity, right?"

"Uh... sure?" Seth had only followed a fraction of the conversation and wasn't quite sure what he was agreeing to. "We can see what's there."

"You can bring stuff from home too," Jon reminded them. "Like brown-bagging it when you were a kid, you know? Those kids usually had the best stuff anyway. Hey, can you buy the shit there or is it just to rent?"

"Why? You want me to bring home a souvenir?" Renee pitched her voice deeper and held her hand just under her chin as if she were holding a microphone. "And this is the strap-on with which Renee Young fucked Seth Rollins."

Jon chuckled. "Well, if Japan doesn't work out, maybe I could learn how to eBay, you know?"

"Then you should have saved all those boxes of action figures rather than donating them to the second-hand store," Renee countered. Then she patted Seth's leg. "Satisfied?"

"Yeah. Uh... so... thanks, I guess?" Glancing at the GPS screen, Seth saw that they had almost arrived at the club. "We should go. Almost there. So... talk to you later."

"Yeah, sounds good." Jon sounded as cheery as a beer-league hockey player saying goodbye to his teammates until the next game. "Renee, make him pick a really ridiculous safe word, okay? Like cheeseburger or something like that."

"Take that up with him. Depending on when we get back to the hotel," she added, pointing out a turn to Seth, "I'll call you, okay?"

"Any time. Blue's snoring up a storm, so I'll be up for a while." Jon disconnected with no further ado, and Seth fumbled with the phone to sever the connection to the rental.

After a moment, Seth sighed. "He doesn't actually want... a souvenir or anything, right? I mean, I know we can't bring our phones in, so no pictures or any of that—"

Renee shook her head. "I wouldn't ask you for pictures anyway. And he's joking. Mostly. I'm sure if I found a toy we particularly liked, he'd be game to try it at home, but other than that, he doesn't really want a lot of details. He's just teasing you because that's his way of processing it, I guess."

Seth hadn't thought of it that way, but it made sense. If Jon thought of it as a joke, a game, then it wasn't really his wife sleeping with another man; if it was his idea and he had given them his blessing, then there was really nothing happening without his say-so. "Maybe we can find some fun condoms for you to take back," Seth suggested. "That's small enough to sneak in your luggage without raising too many suspicions, right?"

"Right." Renee waited until Seth had his card scanned at the parking booth, got instructions and his card, and started driving up a spiral ramp to continue. "And don't worry. I wouldn't use a monster dildo on you until at least our third solo fuck. That's only fair."