Right Here Waiting

In his locker room, Hunter Hearst Helmsley sat on a steel chair, wrapping athletic tape over his wrists, while his iPod blasted rock music from it's docking station. His mind was on his match coming up later that night against Umaga as he went through the simple motions of preparing himself.

He wasn't nervous about the match, or even excited for it. He'd beaten Umaga before...many times. The Samoan Bulldozer wasn't very smart, but he could be mean. If Hunter wasn't faster that the fat beast he'd take a couple hard hits. But the Game had no doubt he'd prevail by the end of the night, so he wasn't anxiously strategizing. He was just getting into the mind of the King of Kings.

Stephanie McMahon (Helmsley) emerged from her office and started down the hall towards her husband's locker room. The Billion Dollar princess has spent all evening filing paperwork and now wanted nothing more than to relax for a few minutes and talk to Hunter about some new ideas she had been tossing around. The Game wasn't only one of the best technical wrestlers in the industry, he was business smart too. He knew how to work the crowd in a way that not only pleased the fans, but increased revenue. He was better than several members of her Creative staff.

Entering without knocking, she was instantly greeted by the sounds of Motorhead and sighed. "Do you ever listen to anything else?" She asked, turning the volume down slightly.

Triple H looked up once his music was turned down and grinned at his wife. "What else would I listen to? Opera?"

"No." She agreed with a slight laugh. "I suppose not. Am I breaking your concentration or anything?"

He shook his head. "No. It's just the savage beast tonight. How was your day?"

Stephanie shot him a look. "Half my staff is smoking some very bad weed with their storyline ideas."

Hunter laughed. "That bad, huh?"

Stephanie sighed. "I just feel like I'm surrounded by idiots. I mean, I hired other people to help me out, so I could also juggle onscreen appearances and be a mother, yet I'm still having to change or fix almost every storyline going on right now. I'm just glad ECW has such a small roster, it's my only saving grace."

"Baby, you do a wonderful job with all the storylines. Even with the US economy in such shitty shape, people are still buying tickets and coming to see us." Hunter assured her. "That's in large part to you. You know which superstars to push, and which still need to develop. Don't worry so much."

Batista knocked lightly on the door, before entering the locker room. "Hey guys."

"What's up, Dave?" Hunter greeted his arrival with a nod.

"Hello Batista." Stephanie offered him a smile.

"Not much...just getting ready for my match later tonight...I've got the Sisqo wannabe in about an hour." Dave joked, referring to Shelton Benjamin. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"I hope not...cause I want to interrupt too." Soraya said, coming in behind Dave.

"Soraya!" Hunter leaped from his chair and crossed the room to embrace her. "I heard you were back, but I haven't gotten the chance to see you yet! You look great!"

"Thanks Hunter!" Soraya beamed. "I feel great. You look timely as ever, which is always good."

"Hey, Raya." Dave hugged her in greeting once Hunter released. "Not that I didn't see you over the weekend." He joked.

"You'll see a lot of me since you married Candice." Soraya chuckled.

Dave grinned. "As long as you don't help her tease me like Kelly does, we're cool. I don't think I could handle the three of you together."

Hunter chuckled. "They're worse to me than to you. So I guess we're like partying in my locker room."