Rainy Day | Rhea Ripley

Chapter 4

The worst had yet to come

Needed that fix to let my mind go numb

- Cannibals by Of Virtue

"Hey sleeping beauty, you think you're going to get up any time soon?" I stirred and pulled the blanket over my head. "What time is it?" I asked the Australian who was standing next to my bed with her hands on her hips."It's 9:30 and I honestly don't know how you're still asleep. We went to bed at like ten pm, I've been up for hours"

I chose to ignore that statement and kicked off the blanket sitting up."Have you already been to the gym?" I yawned and stretched out my arms. Demi shook her head."I've been doing promo stuff since 6 am, me and the guys are going now and I was wondering whether or not you'd like to tag along to film some of it. Not that I particularly like that idea but I guess it is what you're here for" she explained and I had to suppress a smile.She was clearly doing her best to make sure that I didn't think she actually wanted me there but I was not sure how much of that I believed.

"Give me ten minutes" I rushed into the bathroom after grabbing a set of gym clothes. I wouldn't be the one actually working out but I didn't want to look out of place.When I returned shortly after, Demi was holding two to-go cups of coffee, handing me one of them. "Thanks" I took it and gathered the rest of the things I wanted to bring when I could feel her eyes on me."Are you staring at my ass, Bennett?" I pretended to be appalled. To my surprise, Demi actually played into the joke.

"Of course, I am, since you have so generously displayed it to me" she winked. If it had been a guy saying that I would have been disgusted. But her saying it gave me a strange feeling of... excitement?At least she seemed to not be mad at me anymore so maybe we actually had a shot at getting along without getting pissed at each other all the time. Maybe her style of showing affection was playful fighting.

I turned to look at her and took my time making sure she could tell how intently I was watching every centimeter of her body. "I haven't even checked if you will look good on my camera yet but I think... yep, that'll do" and with that, I opened the door to leave.Of course 'that'll do' had been the understatement of the century. I had rarely seen a body as perfect as hers but if she wanted playful fighting then two could play that game.As she passed me she pretended to "accidentally" slap my butt with her phone and I pretended to gasp in shock.

"Well see how you do at the gym," she said, smirking."Don't worry I know how to work a camera, that's kind of my job" I was confused.Demi just nodded as though she had other plans and held open the door of the Uber for me, which had just arrived to pick us up.

We got to the gym and the boys hadn't arrived yet so Demi started warming up while I took a seat on some kind of workout machine with my camera. I started filming when she did a strange movement I couldn't place but that looked insanely hot. She was standing with her legs spread apart and her hands on the floor and then, in one fluid motion, brought her upper body close to the floor and went back up.

"What's that one called? The worm 2.0?" I asked, trying not to giggle at my very stupid joke."No that's a lion pushup. You want to try?" she came back up and looked at me expectantly. I just shrugged."Sure. That looks like something I can actually manage" I put down my camera and stood in the spot where she had previously been, mimicking her motions.

I realized my mistake when I face-planted on the floor and heard her laugh louder than I ever had before."Alex, what are you doing?" I heard Damian's voice "Have you ever done a lion pushup before? That's a very advanced thing you know" I got myself up in a halfway graceful fashion and shook out my hurting arms.

"No, somehow Demi must have forgotten to mention that" I glared at her, only to realize that she was holding my camera and had filmed this very awkward display of my athletic abilities (or lack thereof)."I'm sorry, I couldn't help it" she handed the camera back to me.

They got on with their training and I made it my day's mission to make Demi laugh whenever she was the most concentrated (of course not in potentially dangerous situations). It was only after she had chased me through the entire gym and threatened to brutality-stomp on my camera that we got some actual work done.If I was being honest I was mesmerized. Everything about this woman and the way she moved was a work of art and I had to remind myself to take some footage of the guys as well.

All in all their workout went on for about three hours and afterward, we sat down in a little lounging area in the back of the studio so they could have a protein shake and I could have them record some voiceovers explaining what exactly they were doing in the clips I had taken (partly because it would be well received and partly because I wouldn't have been able to explain it if my life depended on it).

I wanted to go get some lunch afterward but the guys had a meeting with some official WWE people and Demi had to go do more press so I ended up going to a little cafe by the hotel on my own.I had just gotten my food when my phone rang. It was an unknown number but I decided to pick it up anyway in case it was one of the boys.It wasn't.

"Well well well, finally." An eerily familiar voice snarled on the other end."Did you really think that you could just block me like a child and I would be off your back? This is not over by far and you can't run from it forever so I suggest you come home and own up to your shit" Xav said with a voice so low that I was scared he was about to crawl to the phone."What are you going to do Xav, huh? Call the police?" it wasn't a smart move to talk to him like that but something about the past couple of days gave me a false sense of security. I hung up before he could say something else and threw out my food.I wasn't hungry anymore.

Instead, I went back to the hotel and locked myself in the room, trying everything I could to keep myself from going out and digging myself even deeper into this hole I was in.

A/N

I did a stupid thing I wasn't going to do and posted all of my pre-written chapters basically in one go so I hope I can make myself stick to some kind of an upload schedule assuming anyone even actually reads this 😂 

Also if you have any ideas or requests feel free to let me know