You Can Keep Your Seat

Lisbon, Portugal

Hours before Tropical Turmoil, Night Two

You can’t sit with us.

Hayes nearly painted his face with his gin and tonic, coughing mid-sip upon reading the latest news blast flash across his phone screen. Wiping his mustache and placing his shades on top of his head, he leaned over to share his phone screen.

“Yo, take a look at this. ‘Maaaajor’ match at 51.”

The dark eyes of FLAMBERGE, hidden behind bronzed frames of his own, glanced toward Hanlon’s phone. The Lizard King offered a minimal scoff, hugging his elbows and feet crossed in his lounge chair.

“Major,” The Lizard King scoffed, arms folded across his chest, feet crossed in his lounge chair. “Another hoof for Mustache to grind.”

Hayes smirked, settling back into his own lounge chair. A year ago, Hayes would be chewing a few Xanax after being benched by the Queen of the Ring. His heart would be beating erratically, he’d be sweating uncontrollably, and he’d be nearly hyperventilating in the dark of his bedroom.

But not now. Not this year.

Instead, he sat comfortably poolside at the Lisbon Marriott. A smile on his face behind his gold lenses, skin soaking up Portugal’s sunshine, and eyes feasting on its beautiful people. A stark contrast to the Neck Collector, licking his wounds inside a nearly visible aura of salt. Julien had now tasted defeat at the hands of Nate Colton for a second time. The lizard brain had taken over completely, and he chose to join Hayes in relative silence. Hayes didn’t mind.

“We’ll see,” Hanlon replied, resting his head against the backrest, but keeping one eye on his Brother in Glue. FLAMBO remained frozen. Just…existing. Their friendship had been a quiet one since Hayes took his infamous left turn, nearly a year ago. It was moments like this that pushed their companionship-needle forward; both had propelled themselves to the top of the roster in quick fashion since the birth of the ReVival, and both had suffered the agonizing sting of defeat.

And it would seem, that each had a diamond-shaped monkey they just couldn’t get off their fucking backs.

“A return to the spotlight,” said Hayes, returning to the news post on his phone, glancing over the image of Clay Byrd’s big bearded face. “Maybe Troy figured out that benching me was a mistake after all.”

Julien offered a quiet snort. Hayes couldn’t wipe the grin from his face. The Cowboy Colossus had just earned another pin over Brandon Youngblood; something Hayes had failed to do in his otherwise successful career.

He hadn’t missed the bright lights the last couple of months. But here they were. Calling him back.

He turned his head to the Bearded Dragon one more time. He knew what Julien was feeling, and he didn’t want to open the wound any further. But the loss had surprised him. FLAMBERGE was nearly synonymous with perfection at this point. His inability to take Colton’s neck, followed by Cecilworth’s failure to take Cancer’s, was a tough look for the Boys in Glue. Hayes had grown to support his team over the year, but the intrusive thoughts persisted.

Hayes could beat Cancer. Hayes could beat Jared Sykes. Hayes could beat Nate Colton.

Why couldn’t they?

He shook the thought, and flicked through the article one more time.

“You can’t sit with us,” he sneered, turning his phone off and letting it fall to his chest before lacing his fingers behind his head.

“I’ll sit wherever the fuck I want.”

2010.

“Get the fuck out of my seat, freshman.”

Hayes lifted his dark gaze to the tower of meat standing over him. Eddie Hodge was a big boy, six-foot five at age seventeen and weighed at least two-sixty. He’d had a growth spurt early in life and had no signs of stopping. The senior first baseman for the West Linn Lions learned quickly now to take advantage; he was a bully since elementary school, and had his way with his parents and teachers alike.

Hayes, aged fifteen, had not yet grown into his own juvenile frame, and wasn’t going to fair any better.

“Sorry, Eddie,” he said, pushing himself from the dugout bench and sheepishly ambling to the other end, doing his best to ignore the snickers of his teammates.

“That little shit thinks he’s gonna take first base from me!” Eddie laughed, earning a rise from the older boys on the team. Hayes sat heavily in his spot at the end of the old dugout bench. His best friend Zach was waiting, and offered a quick pat on the shoulder.

“Don’t let him get to you,” said Zach, shaking blonde locks from his face before adjusting his green ball cap. “Everybody has to ride the end of the bench their freshman year.”

“I should be at first,” Hayes declared, digging into a bag of sunflower seeds before chomping them into oblivion.

“We’re freshman, dude,” Zach replied. “Freshman almost never start varsity. Just be patient, man…”

“It's different for me!" Hayes interrupted, silencing Zach mid-sentence. "I walked on to varsity! You had to go through tryouts and barely made it on..."

Hayes caught himself as soon as he watched Zach's eyes fall. It wasn't his first faux pas. If only he knew how many more were to come.

"Sorry," he said, pulling the brim of his ball-cap low. "I didn't mean it like that..."

"It's cool," said Zach, flatly. "I know. I barely made it through.”

“You earned it,” said Hayes, in a weak attempt to recover. “Wait ‘til they see you pitch! Nobody our age can throw a curveball like y…”

“Dude. It’s cool.”

The young Hanlon took the hint with a quiet nod, and spat sunflower seeds into the dirt.

“Just…don’t let Eddie get to you,” said Zach, glancing his baby blues to his dejected friend. “You’ve got a better bat. Everyone knows it. So beat him with it.”

Hayes couldn’t help but smile, and Zach wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He lifted his chin toward the other side of the bench, and gave Hayes another pat on the back.

“Before you know it, you’ll be sitting in his spot.”

Hayes turned his eyes to the far side of the bench, where Eddie and the older boys sat laughing.

“Honestly, dude?” said Hayes. “I don’t care where I sit...”

The young Hanlon flashed his eyes to the field, where the rest of the team fielded grounders and fly balls.

“...as long as I get to be out there.”

“Well?”

Sofia blinked away the clouds in her mind and vision, flashing her sharp blue eyes up from the kitchen table.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to sign?” asked Gregory, for the hundredth time.

She set her jaw, but she couldn’t help but let her gaze fall to the stack of divorce papers sitting on the table. They’d been there for weeks. Months, maybe.

“I still need to consult with my lawyer,” she said, lifting a glass of wine to her lips.

“God damnit, Sofia!” Gregory seethed, fists clenching, turning his head away in attempt to keep his composure. “You’ve had the papers for months. Just sign them so we can both…move on.”

“I didn’t realize you were in such a rush to tear our life apart…” she muttered, pulling cabernet through her teeth.

Gregory ground his teeth together behind his dark, heavy beard. It had turned gray on his chin over the last few months. Endless phone calls with news reporters after “The Incident on Skyline Drive,” and countless meetings with lawyers would do that to a man.

Looking across their dining room table, a table he built by hand, you wouldn’t know that anything had happened at all.

“This isn’t on me, Sofia,” he declared, soft but firm. “I didn’t keep all your secrets and lies. I didn’t bring your psychotic father to our home to kill our son. I wasn’t the one fucking…”

He forced his own pause, breathing in sharp through his nose and sitting back in his dining room chair. He built those chairs, too.

“Go ahead,” said Sofia, steady and cold. “Finish that thought.”

“Sofia…I don’t want to…”

“No. NO,” she said, forcefully. “Finish. Your. THOUGHT.”

“You’re ridiculous. You’re so fucking ridi…”

“FINISH THE THOUGHT!”

“I WASN’T THE ONE FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE!!!!”

A painful quiet blanketed the dining room. Their screams almost echoed off the walls. Sofia lifted her sharp chin. Gregory’s nostrils flared with quick breaths. Rays of golden sun filtered through their windows, shining in defiance to the darkness of their words.

“Just…sign the papers and let’s move on,” he said. “We both deserve that, at least.”

“Yes,” she agreed, pushing her auburn hair over her ears. “We do. It’s just that…there’s a lot to balance. Our finances, the trusts for the children…”

She lifted her glass for another sip of wine, along with her cold eyes to her soon-to-be ex-husband.

“...the house.”

The words shot through Gregory like shock. His eyes narrowed, and he turned his head slowly.

“What about the house?”

“I feel that I deserve…”

“I BUILT this FUCKING HOUSE!” he roared, slapping his palm against the table. “I DROVE EVERY NAIL! TURNED EVERY SCREW!”

“AND I RAISED OUR FUCKING CHILDREN HERE!” she screeched, leaping from her chair.

“CHILDREN THAT YOU LIED TO FOR YEARS, SOFIA!”

“DON’T,” she shot, pointing rigid at Gregory. “You’re not high and mighty. How many birthdays did you miss for your projects? How many baseball games? How many graduations…”

“Ohhh, kiss my ass, Sofia!” he rejected. “I was putting food on the table! I was sending them to college! All the while you were spending your afternoons getting fucked like a WH…”

He bit his tongue, and another heavy silence fell as Gregory and Sofia Hanlon drew heavy breaths. For all the rage and sadness he felt toward his wife, he still saw the mother of his children. A painful paradox for a father, and a husband, to face.

“I built this home,” he said, stern, but soft. “Every inch of it.”

“We’ll see what the lawyers think,” she whispered.

“Sofia, I swear to God…”

“I think you should go, Gregory.”

Gregory couldn’t comprehend it. The audacity. The brazen, boundless, bullshit.

But he had no choice.

“I’ll let you know about the signatures after I meet with my lawyers next week,” she said, sitting gently into her chair.

“You won’t take this place from me,” said Gregory, quiet and low.

He turned to the front door, collecting his hat before glaring back to his wife.

“I’ll burn it down before I let you take it from me.”

Sofia offered nothing. Only the sharp edge of her jaw. Gregory shot hot air through his nose, and slammed the door behind him.

“What the fuck do you mean it’s not the main event???”

Hayes stormed through Las Vegas International, dragging his luggage behind him as he weaved through hungover visitors and travelers gawking at the lights of penny slots. He swapped his phone from his ear to the front of his face, piecing together what he was seeing on his news feed.

It read “Hayes Hanlon vs. Clay Byrd.”

Before “Brandon Youngblood vs. Tony Gamble.”

And before “Ivan Stanislav vs. Hessian.”

Hardly the “return to the spotlight” he was expecting.

“Is this fucking serious?” he scoffed into his phone, stepping onto a descending escalator. “Is this their idea of good booking?” 

“Hayes, you’re literally asking the worst person on Earth,” came the voice of his sister on the other end.

“I don’t get it,” he said, throwing an arm to the air. “They post this special news post about this “major” match between me and Clay Byrd, and they put it in some bullshit mid-card slot? So what, everyone can watch Youngblood flatten Gamble? And then watch Ivan and Hessian lumber around the ring in slow motion? What the fuck…”

“I don’t understand a word you just said.” 

“This is why I need you out here, ‘Liv,” he said, stepping off the escalator and striding along the porcelain floor. “You’re good at negotiating. You could work this shit out and talk some sense into these fucking morons.”

“I’ve literally watched like, one of your matches, Little Bro.”

“You don’t need to watch my matches to be a good manager, Sis.”

“I told you I’d think about it.”

“You’ve been thinking about it for months,” he shot, stepping out of the airport and onto the sidewalk, eyes scanning for a cab or shuttle to take him back to the MGM. “If you haven’t said ‘no’ by now, then you’ve gotta be considering it.”

A dead silence on the other end.

“Olivia?”

“Win this next match, then call me.”

“‘Liv?”

He pulled the phone away to see “Call Ended” on his screen. But still, a smile crept behind his mustache.

A shuttle pulled up shortly after, and Hayes was on his way back to his Las Vegas suite.

It felt good to be back.

“Hanlon! You’re up!”

Hayes loved batting practice.

Especially today.

He stepped out of the dugout, adjusting his helmet and squeezing the grip of his thirty-ounce bat.

Stepping into the batter's box, his dark eyes glanced out to his team, noting their positions.

Zach at left field. Not his favorite spot.

Corey Wells at third.

Ryan Metzner at short.

And Big Eddie Hodge, at first base.

Hayes planted his feet, and lifted his bat.

“Let’s see it, freshman!” hollered Eddie, pounding a fist into his glove. “Let’s see ‘Home Run Hayes!’”

“Oh I’ll show ya, said the young Hanlon, barely hiding a smirk.

Their coach lobbed one in from behind the pitching net.

Hayes shuffled his feet, twisted his hips, and swung hard.

The PING of the bat and the SMACK of a baseball on skin sounded out in unison.

"AH, FUCK!" screamed Eddie from first base, his big body fallen to the ground and clutching his nose as the infield ran over to help.

Hayes glanced to left field, where he saw Zach smiling.

"I'll sit wherever the fuck I want," he whispered.

He took over first base the next week.