Short favor

How the fuck was he doing better than me on every level?

I’ve fought all my life to not be in a shadow; to unquestionably be the best. When I walked away, I could sleep at night knowing that was the case. Nobody could question me whatsoever.

Coming back might have been a mistake. Well, maybe not the coming back, but the company I decided to work for. Seeing him make his way up their rankings made me wonder what they would have done for me. If he was given the opportunity to get to the top, then I'd have been given the red carpet treatment.

The stop-start of the traffic in front of me was starting to annoy me. My Lamborghini was my pride and joy but I was finally starting to see why people thought it was impractical for an everyday road car. People pushed for me to get a Prius but I would rather staple my nutsack to my gooch than drive one of those.

I never understood the celebrities that do. They fly around the world all of the time, planes sending bad emissions into the atmosphere. They get driven to Premiere’s and whatnot in fancy cars that aren’t eco-friendly. Yet they try and act like snobs because the four times a year they drive themselves somewhere, they drive a Prius? Fuck that noise.

I looked down at my Lacklan shirt. I’ll be honest; I didn’t really know anything about the guy. All I knew was that I wanted him to absolutely obliterate Corey Ashton.

I’ll be honest; Lacklan looked like a scary dude. His face on the T-shirt alone had people giving me a few weird looks. I just hoped he could live up to the image I had of him in my mind when he steps through those ropes. I wanted to see the destruction of Corey Ashton.

Corey was everything bad about the wrestling world. Everywhere he laid his hat, drama was soon to follow. It was the story of his career. He had a knack for making the headlines. Putting a world championship around his waist would not only be a slap to the face of previous Sin Wrestling champions, but to world champions everywhere.

Getting out of San Diego for a while was going to be good. I didn’t regret moving there – it made things a lot easier for me – but I hate being holed up in one place. From travelling the world to working the same arena every night was a bit of a culture shock.

After finally making my way through the cluster fuck of traffic, I managed to find myself a parking space. I hopped out of the car and headed towards the airport entrance.

I didn’t need any luggage or anything; as long as I had my credit card I was golden. Being thrifty with the money I’d made over the years was something I liked to pride myself on. Some of the investments I had made over the years came good, and some of the commercials I’d been in, while admittedly questionable - “Does your dingle just dangle? Then try Mycoxafillin!” – had paid top dollar for my face on their products.

I could admit that Corey wasn’t always the cause of all of the problems that surrounded him. I remember his time in New Era Wrestling quite well. He kept his head down, got on with his own thing and even earned himself a World title shot against Morgana. It was the pinnacle of his career. Everything he worked for was about to come good. His whole life he had trained for that moment, gave up any childhood he could have had to stay in a dusty basement and train, just so one day he could be a champion.

Then when that opportunity was given to him, he was screwed out of it by management.

People didn’t see Corey as someone who should be the face of a company. They didn’t want him to represent them, regardless of his ability. They all wanted his brothers instead. He was overlooked at every turn because the other people in his family had more likeability, even if he was out-performing them at every turn. Week in and week out he did the only thing a professional wrestler could do to get the recognition he deserved – win matches.

But people still didn’t look.

Come to think of it, I could kind of understand the way that Corey was when I took everything into consideration. I’m not trying to say he was a saint and everything he’s done in the past was the fault of others – it wasn’t, he didn’t have to rise to the bait – but a lot of the time he was just giving back what people threw at him. People just tended to ignore how they treated him in the past and then acted like they had no idea why he was an asshole towards them.

When Corey started in the wrestling business, he’d always try and put his good foot forward first. As time went on, he stopped trying to make that good first impression, either because he had it into his head that no matter what he tried he wasn’t going to be accepted and treated right, or maybe for some other reason, I don’t know.

I had to admire the fact that while he always had his knockbacks, he kept on trying. You could look at the man and could see that he wasn’t going to give up on his dream of being a world champion.

Now that I think of it even more, how could I not want somebody like that to succeed?

How could I not be supportive?

How could I not be proud of him?

I looked down at my Lacklan shirt once again. It wasn’t right. I reached down and peeled it off, leaving myself in a vest. People think I’m an asshole for the sake of it, but it’s not true. If I wore that T-shirt, then it would be. I dropped it on the floor and carried on walking towards the gate.

The stewardess met me with a plastic smile. “Name please?”

“Andrew Ashton,” I replied, handing over my ticket and passport.

Before too long, I stepped on to that plane as not only a Corey Ashton fan, but a proud brother. Destiny awaited my brother and I was going to be there to watch that dream come true, just like he always had been for me.