How We Got Here (Final - Behind Every Great Man...)

9^th December 2010

I wake up, alone to the sound of a crying son, my son Michael. His attention seeking shouts crackle through the baby monitor in place by my bedside. I sit up and stretch my arms before climbing out of bed. No shock that it’s just the baby and I, usually is. I glance in the mirror quickly and head to the next room to my sons aide.

My name is Sharon Arnold, and suddenly, in the space of two and a half years, I’ve become a mother and a wife to one of the most difficult men I have ever met.

I stride into Michael’s room and give him some reassuring words, despite only being about eight months old he’s quickly understanding that nobody want him to keep crying, and once he’s been picked up for a cuddle he’s pretty happy to shut up. I’ve got pretty used to this life now, when Rob came home and we decided to start a family, I left my job as a full time writer in a newspaper to doing some part time PA work, mixed in with some freelance journalism. In my trade, it’s called being self employed and just picking up the odd bits of work you actually want. The reality is, I know my job is to be a full time mother now and I guess I don’t mind that.

The last twenty four hours however I’ve been somewhat worried. I guess I could call it worried. My husband appears to be up to something, and I don’t think I may like whatever it is. Yesterday afternoon I received an e-mail from a contact in the PA world, and he informed me that I should take a look at the attachment. What I found was that my husband, who hasn’t wrestled or shown any intention of doing so since 2008, is booked to face My-Ron Novaar, who I can only assume to be Myron Fox in a Reunion Show in the next few months. This was news to me, however I don’t wish to make accusations, and besides, this could be a fake.

The problem is, there was enough evidence to suggest otherwise. He’d been out of the office a lot more than he was letting on. Now on the face of it this could have been on business, or he could have been with Alex Reid on various expeditions. The problem with that he came back smelling too good. No man smells like they’ve come out of a shower after a day of work or hard play. So it left me with two options he’s either being going to the gym a lot more, or he was sleeping with another woman. Knowing Rob as I do, he wouldn’t be doing the latter.

So me being me, I’ve decided to do some more research on this. Having sorted Michael out for breakfast and the general morning, I sit in the office with the laptop on. Upon closer inspection, it does indeed appear my husband is booked to face the man formally known as Fox in a match with stipulations to be announced. My heart immediately sinks, not because he hasn’t told me yet, yes that’s disappointing, but I’m sure he’ll fill in the reasons. The main reason for my sadness is I have no idea now if he’ll want to keep wrestling, which puts the whole idea of family back to square one.

I choose to put this negativity to one side for the time being, and decide to tackle him head on upon his return hours later. I wait for him to put the baby to sleep, before I start probing. We sit in the living room, television on, when I make my opening gambit.

"So, have you heard about that Reunion Show coming up?"

"Reunion Show? For what?" He asks.

"CXA, it’s a TXA come CWA based show. Haven’t you heard about this? I would have thought you’d have got an immediate call!"

"Oh yes, that." He calmly brushes me off "I had a call from them, and told them to make me an offer. I doubt they’ll give me one good enough though, I don’t really need to wrestle anymore."

The bugger, he’s clearly lying to me, so I get a bit more intrusive with my questions.

"Surely the payoff wouldn’t be bad now Rob. Besides, you could get your match against somebody like David Shand, after all this time!"
"I could, but I really don’t think it would mean so much to me now, not after what I accomplished in XHF." He’s quite deadpan with his answers, I’m used to this of course, especially when he’s withholding information from me.

"I hear Joxide’s going to be there, and Chris. Wouldn’t it be nice to catch up?"

"I guess, but you know, they’re both private guys, we’ll catch up when we do, there’s no rush at all." This is true, Joxide in particular was declared missing by a number of people until lately, not that Rob and Joxide spoke much, despite coming from the same area, they never had much to do with each other, very much two different ends of social spectrums.

"I suppose though, if one was to prepare for an event like that though, that one would have to train for the event, and well, frequent at a gym perhaps? Wouldn’t you say so?"

He puts his paper down now, and looks at me with a slight frown, the look he always gives me when he knows I’m on to something.

"Well, depends on how long you’ve been out of the ring for…"

"How long have you been going to the gym again Rob?" I cut him off deliberately, is reaction isn’t at all defensive as I thought it may be though.

"Oh, close to six months, but that’s actually coincidental."

"Really?" Ring my sarcastic tones.

"Yes actually, it was providing me a good break away from the stress of work, the last thing I wanted to do was take the baggage home, last thing I want to do is infect a happy home with the murky world of marketing."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"Only if you asked, I never thought it was overly important worrying you on it otherwise!" Okay, I can accept that. I'll change my angle.

"So…you’re not doing this CXA thing then?"

"Oh, yes I am." He continues calmly.

"What?" I exclaim, mainly because I’m beginning to get confused, and it really isn’t often he confuses me. "But you said…"

"I said to them make me an offer, and I turned it down. They came back to me, and should the details and conditions I’ve made be accepted, then I will be wrestling."

"But you said…"

"I know, I know. I was going to only tell you when details were finalised, it was better that way. Still, it will be fine, one match, in and out, no problem."

I don’t say anything for the moment, instead I take all this in, he’s being remarkably reasonable, which in turn worries me, because he’s never reasonable about things like this, certainly not historically anyway. I fold my arms and ask him the only question I can think of worth asking, trying to still find the catch.

"What conditions?"

"Oh nothing over the top, I won’t be making appearances until late February, just promotional pieces until that part, I’m far too busy at JJB still to be getting that involved over a longer period of time."

And there it was, he’d actually beaten me, I could actually see that damn smirk in the corner of his mouth, he knows damn well that I’ve fired every single question off at him and have no cause to be angry at him because of his answers. He stands up and walks towards the kitchen, he stops, and turns back to me at the door.

"Listen, Shar, I’d have liked to have told you when everything was signed and sealed, but in all honesty I don’t blame you for doing some private eye work on this. I know what you must be thinking though, I don’t want you to worry though, I’m not going anywhere, this is a one time only thing. The bottom line is I’m a family man now, not a wrestler. At the same time though, I have to do this, we all have to feed some nostalgia once in a while." He smiles at me and returns with a small glass of milk.

"I’m more shocked you didn’t say about the gym sooner though, I’ve been in the best shape I have been for a few years, would have thought you would have noticed." He says coyly, fishing for a compliment.

"I’ve got more important things to deal with than your body and how it allegedly looks better, Rob."

Yeah, that’s for keeping things from me, you dickhead. I smile to myself, he doesn’t take it to heart at all, he knew it was coming I suspect.

For the next hour I sit there and think about all that’s been said, and frankly I’m not too upset any more. Providing he doesn’t get hurt I don’t see an issue of this, as long as he doesn’t make a habit of it. End of the day he is Rob Arnold, and Rob Arnold does one thing very well, and that’s wrestle. I don’t know what Myron’s been doing in the last few years, but he’ll have to bring his best. Rob doesn’t mess around any more, he won’t be taking this lightly.

Of course, they always say that behind a great man is a great woman. In all honesty Myron, by that definition, you’re screwed, because to put up with this man like I do, I think I’m bloody fantastic.

ooc: Nice work