Influenced: Seth Rollins

1

The rhythmic, rhythmic click of a tripod locking into place was the loudest sound in the room.

Kaitlyn George adjusted the angle of her phone, tilting the lens slightly upward to capture the heavy steel of the squat rack against the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. It was exactly 1:14 AM. In the influencer world, consistency was a religion, but travel completely shattered the sacrament. She had landed in Chicago three hours late due to a standard tarmac delay, checked into the downtown Marriott with a pounding headache, and realized her curated feed was entirely empty for the upcoming weekend's fitness expo.

For a mid-tier fitness influencer hovering right around four hundred thousand followers, an empty feed during a major expo weekend was a death sentence to the algorithm.

She wiped her palms on her black high-waisted leggings, pulling her long hair back into a high, secure ponytail. The hotel gym was cavernous, smelling faintly of lemon-scented disinfectant and industrial air conditioning. It was entirely empty, which was exactly what she had prayed for on the elevator ride down. Filming in a crowded gym was an exercise in public embarrassment; filming at one in the morning meant she could fail a rep, curse out loud, and fix her lighting without a single judgmental glance.

"Alright, let's just get through the recording," she muttered to herself, pressing the red record button on her screen.

She stepped into the frame, putting on her practiced, high-energy camera smile. "Hey guys, we are live from a very empty, very quiet hotel gym in Chicago. The travel delay tried to kill the leg day motivation, but we don't skip the routine. Tonight, we're keeping it simple but heavy-focusing on depth and time under tension."

She stopped the recording, checked the lighting, and nodded to herself. She loaded a pair of forty-five-pound plates onto the barbell, the metallic clank echoing sharply against the concrete walls. She positioned her wireless headphones over her ears, letting a heavy bassline drown out the low hum of the vending machines outside the door.

Kaitlyn stepped under the bar, settling the cold steel against her traps. She took a deep breath, braced her core, and stepped back. One. Deep, controlled, shattering the parallel line. Two. She felt the burn instantly, her muscles screaming from the cramped airline seat she had been trapped in just ninety minutes prior. Three.

The heavy glass door of the gym clicked open.

Gym etiquette dictated that you never look up immediately when someone enters, but the sheer weight of the footsteps drew her eyes toward the mirror. A tall man walked in, his shoulders hunched in a posture of absolute, bone-deep exhaustion. He was wearing an oversized black hoodie with the hood pulled low, dark gray sweatpants, and a pair of worn-out athletic sneakers.

Kaitlyn finished her fifth rep, racked the barbell with a heavy thud, and stepped back to catch her breath. As she reached for her water bottle, the man threw his duffel bag onto a nearby bench. The hood fell back.

Her breath caught in her throat.

It was Colby Lopez. Except the world didn't call him Colby; the world called him Seth Rollins.

Even if you didn't actively watch professional wrestling, it was impossible to miss his face in 2019. He was plastered on billboards, video game covers, and sports highlight reels. He was the reigning Universal Champion, the undisputed golden boy of the WWE, and arguably the most recognizable athlete in the entertainment industry at that exact moment.

Kaitlyn's heart did a sudden, violent flutter against her ribs. She was a casual fan-her older brother had forced her to watch pay-per-views since she was a kid-but seeing him in person was completely jarring. In the ring, he was a loud, flamboyant, larger-than-life character with cackling laughter and colorful gear.

The man standing ten feet away from her looked absolutely nothing like that character.

His dark hair was damp, tied up in a messy, chaotic bun. He had dark, heavy circles under his eyes, and his bearded jaw was tightly clenched. He looked like a man who had flown through three different time zones in forty-eight hours, spent the evening getting thrown onto solid wood and steel, and had nothing left in the tank. He looked entirely human. And entirely defensive.

Colby immediately scanned the room, his eyes instantly locking onto her phone mounted on the tripod. Kaitlyn saw the subtle, defensive shift in his posture. His shoulders squared, his eyes narrowed slightly, and a faint, tired scowl crossed his face. She knew that exact look; he thought she was going to ambush him for a photo, a video, or an autograph for eBay. He thought his privacy was about to be violated at one in the morning.

Kaitlyn didn't blink. She deliberately looked away from him, picked up her phone from the tripod, and hit stop on the video. She didn't wave. She didn't gasp.

Instead, she walked over to the side of the rack, unhooked her water bottle, and gave him a calm, casual nod.

"Hey," she said, keeping her voice entirely level, devoid of any fan-girl breathlessness. "If you're looking to use the rack, I'm just doing a few more sets of squats. We can absolutely rotate if you want to jump in."

Colby blinked, clearly taken aback. He stopped mid-stride, his hand hovering over his duffel bag. He looked at her, then looked back at the tripod, and then looked at the massive amount of weight she had just racked.

"Oh," Colby said, his voice incredibly deep, rough, and raspy from what she assumed was a night of shouting over arena speakers. "Uh. No, it's fine. Don't let me ruin your video. I can use the dumbbells."

"The video can wait, and the dumbbells in this place don't go past fifty pounds," Kaitlyn replied, offering a small, easy smile. She gestured to the lone barbell setup in the entire facility. "This is the only decent piece of iron in the whole room. Seriously, let's share. I take pretty long rest periods anyway."

Colby stared at her for a beat longer, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was waiting for her to say 'Aren't you Seth Rollins?' or 'Can you do a video shoutout for my brother?'

When she just reached down to adjust the safety bars without a hint of ulterior motive, the visible tension in his shoulders finally melted away. He let out a long, heavy sigh that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest since Monday night.

"Yeah," Colby said, a very small, genuine ghost of a smile appearing beneath his beard. "Yeah, alright. Let's do it. I'm Colby, by the way."

"Kaitlyn," she said, extending a hand.

His grip was massive, rough with calluses, and completely swallowed hers, but he held it gently. "Nice to meet you, Kaitlyn. Thanks for sharing the real estate."

"Don't thank me yet," she laughed, stepping back to let him approach the platform. "I'm doing heavy working sets, so you're going to have to do some heavy lifting just to change the plates."

Colby chuckled, a low, tired sound that felt completely removed from his television persona. "Trust me, lifting the plates is the easiest part of my day."

Kaitlyn watched from the side as he stepped up to the bar, her influencer instincts completely turned off, replaced by a quiet fascination with the man she just met.