My Number One Fan

“I know Jeff,” I said, sitting next to him on the bed. Tears had started falling from Riley’s eyes again. “I’ll be here for you, no matter what. Me and Amanda both.”
“Absolutely.” Mandy said, sitting next to Riley. Riley jumped and looked around, as if finally realizing she was inside a building and not staring at the charred remains that was her home. She stood up so suddenly we stared at her. We watched her run from the room and heard the bathroom door shut a second later.
“Try to get some sleep Jeff,” I said, tapping his back. He nodded, but I knew he would have about as much sleep as I will, barely to none at all.
“This is terrible,” Amanda muttered while we were in our bedroom.
“I know,” I said, sitting on the bed and cupping my head with my hands. “Two months before the wedding, and Riley lost all her mother’s things, not to mention all their stuff together and Jack.”
“And the house itself.” Mandy added. I nodded, taking in a deep breath.
“They’re shaken up now,” I said. “Give them time and they’ll be rebounding back. They’re both strong.”
“I know,” Amanda said, sighing. “It’s just hard to see them like that.”
“I know,” I told her. “Believe me I know.”

~POV: Jeff~
Riley came back into the room of Matt’s house, looking determined.
“We need to call Vince and let him know,” she said. That’s when I noticed the phone in her hand. “The house wasn’t insured, so we don’t have to worry about them.”
“We did have insurance for your car though and it was destroyed, well have to call the company and inform them.” I spoke up. She nodded and I could see her mentally add it to her list.
“We’ll start with McMahon though, I know your on suspension again, but I’m not and I can’t just not show up.”
“What about your title though?” I asked. “You have a match this Monday to defend it.”
“Jeff, this is more important,” She replied, sitting on the bed next to me. “It’s a good thing we decided to take it to show the guys at the parlor.”
“Yeah I know,” I said, sighing. “What are we going to do Riley? We can’t come back here to Matt’s house after our wedding.”
“We’re going to have to, not unless you want to post pone it.” Riley said. “There’s no way they can get a new house built in 2 months.” She placed her head in her hands, sobs escaping from her again.
“I miss Jack,” she said, looking up at me. I couldn’t help but smile at how innocent she looked by saying that.
“Hey, let’s be thankful we weren’t home, or else we would have been joining little Jackie.” I said, grabbing her hand. She understood, I knew she did, but it didn’t comfort her any. “Let’s try to get some sleep sweetie, we’re going to need as much energy as we can get in the morning.”
“What we saw tonight is going to be so much worse in the morning,” she groaned.
“I know, but your family will be there, Matt, Mandy, my Dad. Hell it’s probably all over town now that our place burnt to the ground. Half the town will probably show up to see what they can do.”

The next morning, I didn’t realize how right I was. Shannon, Shane, Tricia, and nearly everyone else from around here that knew us as friends and not just wrestlers from this town showed up to see what they could do to help. They showed up after we saw the house fully though. Matt brought Lucas out this time, letting him run around to get fresh air, but I knew it was also to see if he could sniff out Jack’s scent.
“This place is gone,” Riley muttered, staring at it. There was nothing left to it. Only a few inches of the support beams remained standing, along with part of the floor. Riley was walking around the perimeter while I was walking inside with Matt.
“Jeff!” She called, so suddenly I nearly lost my balance. Stopping myself from falling through the destroyed floor, I quickly walked to where she was standing.
“What?” I asked, following her gaze to see what she was staring at. My heart stopped beating as I stared at it.
“Find something?” Matt asked, walking up behind me. He stared as well as Riley picked it up.
“It’s part of the Aluminummy that I put up here.” I said, gazing at it.
“The Hardy Gun,” Matt said. It was perfectly fine. No burn marks, smoke damage, not even water damage. It was just laying on the ground, close enough to where the fire could of melted it, but there was nothing. I looked down at Riley, who looked up at me. We knew it was a sign. Lucas started barking out of nowhere, digging at a certain spot of the house.
“Lucas, what you got boy?” Matt asked, walking over to the dog. He pulled Lucas back as Riley and I walked up to him. I pulled back the floor board, and froze. I looked over my shoulder to make sure Riley didn’t see anything. She was still walking around.
“Take her,” I whispered to Matt, who had seen what I saw. He nodded and grabbed Riley’s hand just as she walked up to us.
“Don’t leave me out of anything,” she said, pulling her hand free from Matt. “I can handle it.” The look in her eye told me she really could. So I pulled the floor boards back more, and Matt reached under it. Riley gasped at what he pulled out.
“Jackie,” she whispered, staring at the black object in Matt’s hands. I took him from Matt and pointed what should have been his face to me. I could see his eyes, lifeless and dull.
“Jack,” I said, hugging the dog to me as tears rolled over my cheeks. Riley wrapped her arms around me and stared at him.
“A-at least we found him.” I said, walking toward the grass and laying him down. A car coming up the drive had us turning around. It was Shane and Shannon.
“Goddamn,” Shane muttered when he looked the house over. “You guys weren’t home?”
“No, they were with me at the shop.” Shannon answered. “Good thing too.”
“Everything’s gone,” I muttered, looking back at the house.
“What about Jack?” Shane asked, looking around. I just pointed toward where we laid him. They looked over, probably saw the mass in the grass, and understood right away.
“Sorry man,” Shane muttered. “What’s going to go on, I mean, your wedding’s in two months, Riley’s Women’s Champion.”
“I’m turning the title over,” Riley said. “I can’t go back while this is going on.”
“And so far the wedding’s still on, but we’ll have to talk to everyone about it.” I said, rubbing my eyes. Riley and I got about an hour of sleep last night. Every time Riley got to sleep, she had a nightmare of Jack and her old cat Pickles coming after her as zombies, so she woke up screaming, and I stayed awake with her until she fell back asleep.
“Well, let us know?” Shannon asked. We both nodded. They walked around with us, pointing a random things that we seemingly missed. Mark joined us a half hour later, telling us he called Vince to tell him about the fire.
“So did we,” Jeff said. “Late last night.”
“I called early this morning and he didn’t say anything.” Mark replied.
“Probably busy,” Matt said.
“Could be.” he agreed. “There’s a lot the WWE has to do.”
“No there’s not. I’m going to hand Vince my title, tell him to do or say whatever he wants, and I’m walking out.” Riley said. “Jeff’s on suspension again, so they don’t have to worry about him.”
“Yeah well, there’s still stuff they have to figure out.” Mark said. “What exactly to say, who’s going to take the title.”
“Oh yeah, forgot about that stuff.” Riley muttered, smiling slightly.
“So, what are you two doing?” Mark asked. “Where are you staying, you know Sara and I have an extra room..”
“And a toddler and infant in the house.” Matt added.
“Thanks Dad, but we’re going to stay with Matt. He’ll be away on the road and Amanda works all day, so there’s really no one there.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “We’ll just stay there until we can get a new place built.”
“Okay,” Mark said. I thought he would be disappointed, but he didn’t seem to be.
“We’ll be fine,” Riley said. “We just have to everything a day at a time.”
“Yep, like she told me before, we have to find our little beam of moonlight in the nighttime storm.” I said, wrapping my arms around her shoulders.
“That’s exactly right.” Mark said, nodding his head at the same time. “Find that little bit of hope, and hold onto it.”
“We already have,” Riley said, looking up at me.
“Where?” I asked her, confused. She smiled and ran around the house, toward the Aluminummy hand.
“This,” she said, bringing it back.
“How the hell did that happen?” Mark asked, staring at the hand.
“And the fact that we found Jack,” she continued.
“Did he…” Mark started asking. She nodded, looking toward the grass. “I’m sorry you two,” he said.
“We found him, that’s all I cared about.” I said, looking back toward the grass as well.
“We should go put him with Liger,” Riley spoke up, looking up at me. I nodded, agreeing 100 percent.
“Think we should go do it now?” she asked.
“We’ll wait for Dad to go with us.” I said, kissing the top of her head. “Everyone’s right though, we should be thankful it was just the house. If you were in the house…”
“I know. I would have been so lost if I lost you,” Riley said, rubbing her forehead against my arm.
“So would I,” I admitted. An hour later we went to get Legend, telling him we found Jack and that we were about to go bury him. He agreed to come. Mandy and Riley locked arms while Matt and I dug a hole, Mark holding Jack wrapped in a blanket from his house. When the hole was deep enough, I stood next to Riley, who let go of Amanda and clutched onto me. Matt put his arms around Amanda as she began crying silently.
“Jack was a special boy.” I said, sniffling slightly. “He was originally Legends, but for some reason the dog couldn’t stay away, so I ended up getting him, and he was one of the best friends I ever had. When Riley moved in, Jack fell in love with her at once. He actually preferred her more than me.” I felt Riley shiver, so I ran my hands up and down her spine. “You will be missed Jack ole boy. There’ll never be a dog like you.” Mark leaned over to put Jack in the hole, making sure he was covered by the blanket. Matt and I covered him with the dirt, which nearly killed me to do.
“H-hello?” I heard Riley said. I turned and she held up a finger, her cell phone pressed to her ear. She groaned and turned away.
“Now’s not a good time,” she said. “Because my house burnt to the ground last night and we’re in the middle of b…” her voice cut off as she listened to the person on the other line. “No, I’m staying here, where I’m needed.” I walked up to her at the same time everyone else did. I grabbed the phone from her hand and pressed it into my own ear, hearing McMahon’s voice on the other end.
“…or you’ll be fired missy!” I caught at the end.
“Vince, we all know you’re not going to fire her because you’ve practically crawled on all fours to get her back in the company, so don’t go threatening her like that.”
“Jeff, where is she?” Vince asked, sounding pissed. It entertained me.
“Busy,” I replied. “In case you missed it from her last night and just now, and also her father this morning, we are out of a home at the moment. Our house caught on fire last night, and burned to the ground. We lost our dog in the fire, and we’re a little over a month away from the date we set the wedding, so we need to figure out what we’re doing about that. So sorry, but you’re going to have to find a new Women’s Champion for a while.”
“I heard all about that.” McMahon said impatiently. “I was asking her when she was bringing the belt over.”
“Didn’t sound like you were too worried about the belt when you threatened to fire her, or when she said she was staying where she was needed.” Vince started to say something, but I cut him off. “Okay look, she decided that she’s staying here, we’ll get the belt to you as soon as we can, but if I hear you threaten her like that again, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“Jeff,” Riley said.
“Fine,” Vince snapped. “I’ll give her the leave, but your still on suspension.”
“I know.” I said before snapping the phone shut. “Your on leave.” I told her, handing the phone back to her. “Don’t let him intimidate you like that Riley.”
“I wasn’t.” she said, stuffing the phone in her pocket.
“Then what was with everything you was saying to him, and then me catching him threatening to fire you?” I asked him. She looked around, blinking back tears. “Look, Ri, I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just, we’re all going to be so much more stressed out now.”
“I know.” she said. “We should go through with the wedding.” She looked up at me. “I mean, nothing in the house was for the wedding, so we don’t have to completely start over.”
“No, we don’t,” I said. “But we were going to put Jack in the wedding walking with you down the aisle, will you be okay without him?”
“I’ll be fine, I’ll have someone. You know, I think Little Man has a thing for me.” she winked at me as I laughed.
“You are one crazy girl, but that’s what I love the most about you,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and kissing her temple.
“So, I haven’t had a dress fitting in weeks, and I know I gained a little muscle weight,” Riley said, flexing her arm.
“I doubt biceps will alter your dress.” I said.
“And how would you know that?” she asked me. “You’ve never seen it.”
“Well, I will, when you wear it.” I said.
“Not until May,” she said, running her hand under my chin.
“You’re a little devil you know that?” I asked her, catching her at the waist. She giggled and tried to fight away from me.
“You two never cease to amaze me,” Mark said suddenly. “You two really were meant for each other.”
“Seriously,” Matt spoke up. “Here we are, burying Jack after we lost him in the house fire that destroyed your home, and you’re both laughing and having a ball.”
“Well, of course we’re upset about everything,” Riley said. “But we know it could have been worse. I could of lost him, or he could of lost me. Going through with the wedding will be as much a celebration of life as much as it will be a celebration of our love and commitment to each other.”
“Like I said, you two never cease to amaze me,” Mark said, shaking his head and smiling.
“We have a long day a head of us,” I said, turning back to Riley.
“I know. We have appointments for wedding stuff, plus we have stuff to discuss about the fire.”
“And we’ll all be here with you every step of the way.” Matt said. Amanda nodded her head.
“Well then,” I said, looking around at everyone. “What are we waiting for?”