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Supercard Roleplays / Re: RYAN KEYS (c) vs ZAYVION LYONS vs CIARAN DOYLE - ROULETTE ULTIMATE X
« on: June 26, 2026, 10:35:04 PM »
THE BEST PART
Princess Cruise Ship
Ryan and Harley’s Cabin
At Sea
Friday, June 26, 2026
11:42 PM
OFF CAMERA
Ryan reached their cabin door first and tried the handle twice before Harley could get the keycard out of his pocket.
“Still locked, genius.”
“I thought it might’ve missed me.”
Harley stopped with the card halfway to the reader. “The door?”
“Yeah. I’ve been good to it all week.”
“You’ve kicked it at least three times.”
“By accident.”
Harley swiped the card. The light turned green, and Ryan pushed the door open before it finished clicking.
He stepped inside carrying two drinks in one hand and a greasy paper bag under his other arm. Harley followed with a napkin-covered plate and Ryan’s shoes hooked through two fingers. Ryan had decided he was done wearing them somewhere around deck nine, then kept walking as though handing them over had been part of the plan.
Ryan dropped the bag onto the small table.
“Everything made it.”
“You ate half the fries on the way here.”
“That was quality control. They were getting cold.”
“They’re fries. That happens.”
Ryan looked at the covered plate. “What’s under there?”
Harley lifted the napkin. Two slices of cake sat underneath it, one chocolate and one layered with enough fruit to make Ryan suspicious.
“Where the hell did those come from?”
“You were talking.”
“That doesn’t explain the cake.”
“It explains why you didn’t notice me getting it.”
Harley took a bite from the chocolate slice. Ryan stared at him.
“You got cake without me?”
“I got two pieces.”
“One of them has fruit in it. That’s not cake. That’s a salad trying to sneak into dessert.”
Harley held out the fork. Ryan accepted the bite, chewed, then leaned in for more. Harley pulled the plate away.
“That one’s mine.”
“You offered.”
“One bite.”
“You should’ve explained the limit.”
Harley laughed and moved to the bed with the chocolate slice, leaving the other for Ryan.
Ryan picked up the second fork and sat beside him. “I still don’t trust this.”
“Then leave it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Music came through the walls in a low thump while people passed the cabin talking loudly enough for Ryan to catch pieces of conversations he knew nothing about. His phone had buzzed several times since they came inside, but he left it in his pocket.
Harley had his phone out, going through pictures from earlier. He showed Ryan one from the pool with a small group of fans around them.
“That one’s good,” Ryan said.
“You barely looked.”
“I look good, you look good, everybody looks happy. We’re good.”
Harley rolled his eyes and moved to another picture. This one was only the two of them. Ryan was looking toward the phone. Harley was looking at Ryan.
“You weren’t paying attention.”
“I was paying attention to you.”
“You ruined it.”
“Shut up. I like it.”
Ryan sent it to himself anyway and handed the phone back.
“You saved the ruined one,” Harley said.
“I can appreciate your mistakes.”
“That is very generous of you.”
Ryan grinned, then reached for the paper bag.
“There are still fries in here.”
“You carried them all this way. I figured.”
Harley tried to take the bag. Ryan moved it to the dresser.
“Those are for later.”
“They’re going to be awful later.”
“Cold fries have their place.”
“Where?”
“Later.”
They sat quietly for a minute while the ship carried on around them. They had spent the cruise moving from one thing to the next together, usually staying longer than either of them planned. Ryan liked meeting fans, especially the nervous ones who relaxed after a few minutes. Harley joined the conversations, wandered into his own, came back with food, and sometimes agreed to something before Ryan had even heard the plan.
They had been together the whole time, but almost never alone.
Harley looked up. “So what now? Are we going back out?”
Ryan glanced toward the balcony. Beyond the glass, the ocean was dark except where the ship’s lights reached it.
“We could.”
“There was something happening by the pool.”
“There’s always something happening by the pool.”
Harley raised an eyebrow. “That usually works for you.”
“It still does.”
Ryan did not move. Harley set his phone down and took another bite of cake, comfortable where he was with his feet near Ryan’s leg.
Ryan reached into his pocket, silenced his phone without checking the messages, and put it facedown on the table.
“I did a lot today.”
Harley nodded. “We did.”
Ryan smiled. “Yeah. We did.”
He looked at Harley.
“Now I get to do my favorite thing.”
Harley glanced at the cake. “Finish mine?”
“That’s up there.”
“What’s the favorite?”
“Spend time with you.”
Harley smiled. “Good answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You look very proud of it.”
“I found the right answer without help.”
“You’ve had thirty-four years.”
Ryan pushed his shoulder. Harley laughed and almost dropped the fork, but Ryan caught his wrist before the cake landed on the bed.
“Careful.”
“You shoved me.”
“You insulted me.”
“You’ll recover.”
Ryan took the fork while he still had Harley’s wrist and stole the bite.
“That was my cake.”
“You were distracted.”
Harley watched him finish it. “You know I’ve been with you all day.”
“I know. That’s what made it fun.”
Ryan handed the fork back and leaned against the headboard.
“But everybody else got us too. I want you to myself for a while.”
“That sounds a little possessive.”
“It is.”
“How long is a while?”
“Until morning.”
Harley looked surprised. “That long?”
“Food gets temporary access. Everybody else can wait.”
Harley reached for the room-service menu. “Then we’re going to need more food.”
They ordered burgers, more fries, another dessert, and fruit they both knew they would probably ignore. While they waited, Harley found a movie with a badly made shark bursting through the side of a ship.
Ryan leaned closer. “That one.”
“It has one star.”
“Somebody liked it.”
“That may have been the director.”
“He deserves support.”
The movie opened with a ship that looked nothing like the one around them.
“That is not how ships move,” Ryan said.
“You’ve been on one for less than a week.”
“I’ve seen ships before.”
“You also thought the door might miss you.”
“That’s different.”
They had barely made it through the opening scene when somebody knocked. Harley started to get up, but Ryan put a hand against his chest.
“I’ll get it. You picked the movie, so make sure nothing important happens.”
“The shark hasn’t even shown up.”
“Exactly. I don’t want to miss that.”
Ryan answered the door and returned several minutes later pushing the cart toward the balcony.
“That took a while,” Harley said.
“He watches SCW with his brother.”
Ryan said it like that explained everything, and for Harley, it did.
They carried the food outside, made room on the small table, and restarted the movie because Ryan insisted hearing the opening was not the same as seeing it.
They talked through most of it. Sometimes about the shark, though neither understood what it was supposed to be doing. Mostly, they talked about the cruise.
Ryan told Harley more about a nervous fan they had met earlier who ended up talking about the first SCW show they attended with their father.
“They kept apologizing for taking our time,” Ryan said, stealing a fry from Harley’s plate.
“You told them to stop.”
“They were already there. I wanted to hear the rest.”
Harley stole two fries from Ryan’s plate.
“That was retaliation.”
“That was sharing.”
“You have your own.”
“Yours looked better.”
“They came from the same kitchen.”
Harley took another one, so Ryan moved his plate closer.
They kept talking, filling in parts of the day they had seen differently even though they had been beside each other for most of it. Harley reminded Ryan of things he had missed while talking to someone. Ryan corrected parts of Harley’s stories that Harley had made worse on purpose.
Ryan’s phone lit up inside the cabin.
“You curious?” Harley asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Neither got up.
A few seconds later, Harley’s phone lit up beside Ryan.
“That one could be important,” Ryan said.
“It probably isn’t.”
“What if somebody found more cake?”
Harley started to move. Ryan caught the back of his shirt and pulled him into the chair again.
“No. You agreed to this.”
“I was testing you.”
“You failed.”
Harley stole another fry while Ryan still had hold of his shirt.
“That was dishonest.”
“I used the opening.”
“That is not a defense.”
“It worked.”
Ryan let go and looked back at the movie just as the shark appeared in a place no shark should have been able to reach.
“How did it get inside?”
“Maybe somebody held the door.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“You picked the movie.”
Ryan watched the shark move through what looked like an air vent.
“I may have made a mistake.”
Harley smiled. “Want to change it?”
Ryan settled farther into his chair. “No. Now I need to see how bad it gets.”
The music above them kept going. People were still moving through the ship, eating, laughing, and finding new things to do.
Ryan would be back out there soon enough.
For now, he stayed where he was, listening while Harley finished another story and keeping one hand close to his fries in case Harley tried again.
Their phones lit up once more inside the cabin.
Neither of them moved.
Princess Cruise Ship
Pool Deck
At Sea
Saturday, June 27, 2026
1:36 AM
ON CAMERA
The pool deck had mostly cleared out, but the ship was still wide awake. Music came through the doors whenever somebody passed, mixing with the water and the low rumble beneath everything.
Ryan Keys stood a few feet back from the pool with the SCW Roulette Championship draped over his shoulder. His shirt hung open, his hair was loose around his face, and he looked comfortable enough that the match might have been another event on his cruise schedule.
He ran his thumb across the faceplate and smiled.
“I’ve carried this thing everywhere on this ship. Karaoke, the Pride Ball, dinner, parties, the pool. It’s been in more pictures than some of the passengers, and I swear one fan talked to the belt before they even said hello to me.”
Ryan laughed quietly.
“I respected it. I waited my turn.”
He shifted the championship higher on his shoulder.
“I love having it. I wanted it, I won it, and now I’m greedy as hell about keeping it. Winning this didn’t settle me down or make me feel like I checked something off a list. It made me worse. Now I know what it feels like walking into a room carrying the Roulette Championship. I know what it feels like when somebody sees the champion before they see Ryan Keys, and I like that.”
His smile widened.
“They still get plenty of Ryan Keys once I start talking. Nobody needs to worry about that.”
Ryan kept one hand over the title.
“I’m proud of this, and I’m proud that I’m the one walking into Ultimate X with Ciarán Doyle and Zayvion Lyons coming after me. I already talked about why they belong in the match. They heard it, I meant it, and I don’t need to spend another night introducing either one of them.”
He glanced toward the water.
“Tonight is about what happens when the three of us stop talking and somebody has to fall.”
Ryan began walking slowly along the pool.
“Ciarán, in Copenhagen, I was the referee for you and Bill Barnhart. I was right there in the ring, close enough to hear every hit and see what happened before anybody watching from farther away could react.”
A grin crossed his face.
“I looked good in the stripes too. That matters.”
Ryan kept moving.
“I had to stay out of your way that night. I had to make the calls, keep an eye on both of you, and stop myself from becoming part of the match whenever one of you gave me a reason. I did better with that last part than I expected.”
His gaze moved toward the pool.
“Sunday, I get that job. I don’t have to be neutral or stand close to you with my hands to myself. You’re coming after my championship, so now I get to be part of whatever happens to you.”
Ryan turned forward again.
“That changes the whole thing for me. Copenhagen gave me a close look at you, but it was still a look from somebody who had another job to do. I wasn’t trying to stop you from moving, force you into a bad position, or find out what happens when Ryan Keys refuses to leave you alone.”
His smile returned.
“I get to do all of that on Sunday.”
Ryan rested one hand on the back of an empty lounger.
“I’m not going to pretend one night in a referee’s shirt told me everything about you. It didn’t. What it did was give me enough to know I can’t treat you like somebody standing off to the side while Zayvion and I deal with each other.”
Ryan pushed away from the lounger.
“You know what you want, and you don’t need my permission to throw yourself into the middle of everything. What I care about is what you do when the moment stops looking like the one you pictured.”
He continued along the deck.
“I got to watch you from inside the ring in Copenhagen. Sunday, I get to feel you for myself. I get to find out how much weight you put behind something, how you move when somebody crowds you, and what you do when the person in front of you refuses to give you the space you thought you had.”
His tone stayed light.
“I don’t need those answers tonight. I’ll know them when you give them to me.”
Ryan glanced toward the water.
“You might get the better of me early. Maybe you catch me with something I wasn’t ready for. Maybe you get enough room to move and suddenly I’m the one trying to hang on while you get closer to the championship.”
He looked forward.
“That is where I start learning you. I don’t mean studying every little thing you do like I’m taking notes. I mean being close enough to feel when you’re sure of yourself, when you reach a little farther, and when the title looks close enough that part of you starts thinking about the ending.”
Ryan smiled.
“That part of you is what I’m waiting for.”
He took another step.
“I want to be the man who puts you in the water, Ciarán. Not because I don’t respect you or because I want to embarrass you. I want it because I don’t want your night ending on a slip or because Zayvion happened to be closer.”
Ryan tapped his chest.
“I want you to know I was the reason. You are coming after something I care about, and I want to answer that myself.”
He shifted the championship.
“And I meant what I said about liking you. I can see the two of us working together somewhere down the road, and I’m not talking about one friendly drink after the match before we never mention it again.”
His grin widened.
“I would actually like to see what happens if somebody puts our names beside each other instead of across from one another. We might work frighteningly well together, or we might become the reason management starts screening our ideas before putting us on the same show.”
Ryan laughed.
“I would be happy with either. You know how to work a crowd, you know when to turn something up, and you know how to make people remember you were there. Put that beside everything I bring, and I think we could make a lot of people very uncomfortable.”
He looked toward the doors, then back toward the pool.
“I think our energy could work. You know how to make yourself part of a room without begging people to look at you. You can have fun without forgetting why you’re there, and I don’t think either one of us would be interested in being the sensible half of the team.”
Ryan rested his hand across the championship again.
“But that does not buy either one of us anything on Sunday. You are not my partner in Ultimate X. If you start to fall, I am not reaching down to save you, and I know you would not do it for me.”
He nodded once.
“That is how it should be. I can like you and still want to hear the water when you drop. I can think we might make a great team and still make sure you do not leave this ship with my championship.”
His smile returned.
“Actually, if we ever do team up, I would rather start without you being able to tell everybody you took my title the first time we fought over it. I’d never hear the end of that.”
Ryan looked ahead.
“So bring everything you have. Give me the Ciarán Doyle who believes this can be his night. Do not stand back waiting for Zayvion and me to make the match easier for you, because I don’t want the careful version.”
His expression became more focused.
“I want the one who makes me work. When that version is hanging there, one hand starting to slide while the championship is still out of reach, I want him looking at me. I want him to know exactly who is sending him down.”
The smile returned.
“Then, after you dry off, we can talk about teaming.”
Ryan’s attention shifted.
“Zayvion, you and I don’t need a referee standing between us to know what happens when we get our hands on each other.”
His voice carried more familiarity now.
“I remember how hard it was to move you when you planted your feet and decided the space belonged to you. I remember how quickly you could take away room I thought I had, and how many times I had to change what I was doing because you were already there.”
Ryan glanced toward the pool.
“Last time, we had fire. This time, they gave us water. Somebody wanted balance.”
His smile faded only a little.
“I remember the heat, the furniture breaking, and how little either of us cared about finding the easier way through once the match got going. I remember you making me pay every time I stayed close for too long. I also remember that none of it made me want out. It only made me look for another way back at you.”
He moved closer to the edge without getting too near it.
“I remember more than the finish. I remember what the match felt like. I remember the pressure of trying to keep you from settling into something you liked, because once you did, everything got harder.”
His hand tightened around the championship strap.
“You don’t need me to remind you how it ended. You were there. I was there. What matters now is that we are not walking into the same match.”
Ryan moved along the water again.
“The first time, I was the man trying to take something from you. That gave me one kind of hunger. Now I’m the man carrying it, and that changes me.”
He rubbed his thumb along the faceplate.
“Not because I suddenly think I’m untouchable. You already proved I’m not, and I would be stupid to forget what you can do. It changes me because I know what I’m fighting to keep now. Before, I knew what I wanted. Now I know how it feels when I have it.”
Ryan smiled faintly.
“I like this feeling. I like waking up knowing the division has to come through me, and I like that the next strange match is mine until somebody takes it away.”
He looked forward again.
“You know what I’m like when you’re standing across from me. You know I do not stay where you put me just because something hurt, and you know a bad position usually makes me more irritating, not less.”
Ryan laughed.
“You’ve had enough Ryan Keys to know that part very well.”
He lifted one shoulder.
“But I know you now too. I know what it feels like when you close the space. I know how quickly you can turn one small mistake into something that hurts for the rest of the night, and I also know I can survive it.”
He continued before the thought could sit too neatly.
“I already did. That means you do not get to come into Sunday wondering whether I can take what you bring. You know I can, so now you have to bring something different.”
Ryan adjusted the championship.
“I expect you to. I would be disappointed if you didn’t. You have had time to think about what failed, and I have had time to get comfortable carrying the thing you want back. If either of us walks in trying to repeat that night exactly, then we learned nothing from it.”
He glanced to one side.
“The problem is that whatever you bring for me has to work while Ciarán is there too. I’m not saying you are going to forget him. You are too good for that. But you and I have something sitting between us that he does not share.”
Ryan tapped the title.
“When you see me up there, you are going to feel what happened at King For A Day. Maybe it lasts half a second. Maybe it lasts longer. You are going to see the man who left with your championship.”
Ryan shrugged.
“That would pull at me too.”
He took another step.
“You can come straight for me and try to make sure I hit the water before either of you goes near this title. That makes sense. It also gives Ciarán room to move while you are busy making sure I stay gone.”
Ryan held up one hand.
“I’m not pretending I know which choice you will make. I’m telling you I will be there when you make it. If you look toward Ciarán because he starts getting close, I am still beside you. If you keep your attention on me because you need to finish what we started, he is still moving.”
He rested a hand against his chest.
“I don’t carry that split. I have both of you coming for the same thing, and my job does not change depending on which one is closer. I stay in the match, keep the championship out of your hands, and make sure I am there when the ending comes.”
Ryan looked toward the water.
“You are going to get me close. I know that because I remember what it felt like when you had me in trouble before. There will probably be a moment where you think this is finally the second you correct what happened between us.”
His gaze returned forward.
“That is the moment I want. I want you at your strongest. I want you sure that you have me. I want the people watching to start reacting because they think the next sound is going to be Ryan Keys hitting the pool.”
Ryan smiled.
“You know what happens when somebody believes I’m finished too early. You have felt me come back from places where the match should have moved on without me.”
He tightened his grip on the title.
“If you do not hear the splash, I am still there. If you are not looking at me, I am still there. If you think Ciarán has become the bigger problem, I am still there. And if I am still there, I can take the whole thing away from you again.”
Ryan’s tone softened slightly.
“I want to be the man who puts you in the water too, Zayvion. Not because I hate you, and not because I think your reign meant nothing.”
He looked down at the faceplate.
“You were good enough. That is why taking it from you mattered.”
His eyes returned forward.
“I want to eliminate you myself because I want Sunday to end with both of us knowing this reign continued through you. No accident, no Ciarán doing the work for me, and no question about whether I only stayed champion because the two of you got rid of each other.”
Ryan’s pride came through more strongly now.
“I want to look at the man I took this from, send him into the pool, and keep climbing. I want you to know I did not survive you once and spend the rest of my reign hoping somebody else would handle you for me. That is personal. It does not have to be hateful.”
Ryan stepped away from the water and opened his attention back to both challengers.
“Ciarán gives me somebody I have watched closely but have not dealt with in a match like this. Zayvion gives me somebody whose strength I already know and whose mistakes I already survived.”
He adjusted the championship.
“One of you wants to turn his opportunity into something bigger. The other wants another ending to a story we already started. I’m the man standing in front of both of those things, and I like that.”
Ryan glanced toward the structure above the pool.
“I know this is going to hurt. I know one of you will catch me somewhere I do not want to be, and I know there will be a moment where the match stops looking like anything we expected.”
He looked forward again.
“That is the part I trust myself in. I have been doing this long enough to know the night does not have to make sense for me to keep moving through it. I do not need Sunday to be clean, easy, or fair. I need to stay involved until neither one of you is.”
Ryan rested his hand across the faceplate.
“Then I take this back down.”
His expression stayed bright and confident.
“When it is over, the invitation is real. Ciarán, come find me. We can talk about whether teaming up still sounds fun after we have finished trying to throw each other into the pool.”
Ryan smiled.
“Zayvion, you come too. We can eat, dance, complain about how sore we are, and argue about who came closest.”
He raised one finger.
“I’ll buy the first round. Mine will be nonalcoholic, because nobody is turning this into the night Ryan Keys tries rum.”
The doors opened behind him and music spilled across the deck.
Ryan glanced toward the pool.
“You two can compare notes on how cold the water is. I’ll listen from somewhere dry with this still on my shoulder.”
Ryan started toward the doors, then slowed.
“Until I have it back in my hands, there are no favors. If one of you starts falling, I am not catching you. If both of you are in the water, I am not wasting time waving goodbye.”
His grin widened.
“After that, we’re good.”
Ryan turned toward the music, then looked back over his shoulder.
“Meet me at the party.”
He smiled.
“After you dry off.”
Princess Cruise Ship
Ryan and Harley’s Cabin
At Sea
Friday, June 26, 2026
11:42 PM
OFF CAMERA
Ryan reached their cabin door first and tried the handle twice before Harley could get the keycard out of his pocket.
“Still locked, genius.”
“I thought it might’ve missed me.”
Harley stopped with the card halfway to the reader. “The door?”
“Yeah. I’ve been good to it all week.”
“You’ve kicked it at least three times.”
“By accident.”
Harley swiped the card. The light turned green, and Ryan pushed the door open before it finished clicking.
He stepped inside carrying two drinks in one hand and a greasy paper bag under his other arm. Harley followed with a napkin-covered plate and Ryan’s shoes hooked through two fingers. Ryan had decided he was done wearing them somewhere around deck nine, then kept walking as though handing them over had been part of the plan.
Ryan dropped the bag onto the small table.
“Everything made it.”
“You ate half the fries on the way here.”
“That was quality control. They were getting cold.”
“They’re fries. That happens.”
Ryan looked at the covered plate. “What’s under there?”
Harley lifted the napkin. Two slices of cake sat underneath it, one chocolate and one layered with enough fruit to make Ryan suspicious.
“Where the hell did those come from?”
“You were talking.”
“That doesn’t explain the cake.”
“It explains why you didn’t notice me getting it.”
Harley took a bite from the chocolate slice. Ryan stared at him.
“You got cake without me?”
“I got two pieces.”
“One of them has fruit in it. That’s not cake. That’s a salad trying to sneak into dessert.”
Harley held out the fork. Ryan accepted the bite, chewed, then leaned in for more. Harley pulled the plate away.
“That one’s mine.”
“You offered.”
“One bite.”
“You should’ve explained the limit.”
Harley laughed and moved to the bed with the chocolate slice, leaving the other for Ryan.
Ryan picked up the second fork and sat beside him. “I still don’t trust this.”
“Then leave it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Music came through the walls in a low thump while people passed the cabin talking loudly enough for Ryan to catch pieces of conversations he knew nothing about. His phone had buzzed several times since they came inside, but he left it in his pocket.
Harley had his phone out, going through pictures from earlier. He showed Ryan one from the pool with a small group of fans around them.
“That one’s good,” Ryan said.
“You barely looked.”
“I look good, you look good, everybody looks happy. We’re good.”
Harley rolled his eyes and moved to another picture. This one was only the two of them. Ryan was looking toward the phone. Harley was looking at Ryan.
“You weren’t paying attention.”
“I was paying attention to you.”
“You ruined it.”
“Shut up. I like it.”
Ryan sent it to himself anyway and handed the phone back.
“You saved the ruined one,” Harley said.
“I can appreciate your mistakes.”
“That is very generous of you.”
Ryan grinned, then reached for the paper bag.
“There are still fries in here.”
“You carried them all this way. I figured.”
Harley tried to take the bag. Ryan moved it to the dresser.
“Those are for later.”
“They’re going to be awful later.”
“Cold fries have their place.”
“Where?”
“Later.”
They sat quietly for a minute while the ship carried on around them. They had spent the cruise moving from one thing to the next together, usually staying longer than either of them planned. Ryan liked meeting fans, especially the nervous ones who relaxed after a few minutes. Harley joined the conversations, wandered into his own, came back with food, and sometimes agreed to something before Ryan had even heard the plan.
They had been together the whole time, but almost never alone.
Harley looked up. “So what now? Are we going back out?”
Ryan glanced toward the balcony. Beyond the glass, the ocean was dark except where the ship’s lights reached it.
“We could.”
“There was something happening by the pool.”
“There’s always something happening by the pool.”
Harley raised an eyebrow. “That usually works for you.”
“It still does.”
Ryan did not move. Harley set his phone down and took another bite of cake, comfortable where he was with his feet near Ryan’s leg.
Ryan reached into his pocket, silenced his phone without checking the messages, and put it facedown on the table.
“I did a lot today.”
Harley nodded. “We did.”
Ryan smiled. “Yeah. We did.”
He looked at Harley.
“Now I get to do my favorite thing.”
Harley glanced at the cake. “Finish mine?”
“That’s up there.”
“What’s the favorite?”
“Spend time with you.”
Harley smiled. “Good answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You look very proud of it.”
“I found the right answer without help.”
“You’ve had thirty-four years.”
Ryan pushed his shoulder. Harley laughed and almost dropped the fork, but Ryan caught his wrist before the cake landed on the bed.
“Careful.”
“You shoved me.”
“You insulted me.”
“You’ll recover.”
Ryan took the fork while he still had Harley’s wrist and stole the bite.
“That was my cake.”
“You were distracted.”
Harley watched him finish it. “You know I’ve been with you all day.”
“I know. That’s what made it fun.”
Ryan handed the fork back and leaned against the headboard.
“But everybody else got us too. I want you to myself for a while.”
“That sounds a little possessive.”
“It is.”
“How long is a while?”
“Until morning.”
Harley looked surprised. “That long?”
“Food gets temporary access. Everybody else can wait.”
Harley reached for the room-service menu. “Then we’re going to need more food.”
They ordered burgers, more fries, another dessert, and fruit they both knew they would probably ignore. While they waited, Harley found a movie with a badly made shark bursting through the side of a ship.
Ryan leaned closer. “That one.”
“It has one star.”
“Somebody liked it.”
“That may have been the director.”
“He deserves support.”
The movie opened with a ship that looked nothing like the one around them.
“That is not how ships move,” Ryan said.
“You’ve been on one for less than a week.”
“I’ve seen ships before.”
“You also thought the door might miss you.”
“That’s different.”
They had barely made it through the opening scene when somebody knocked. Harley started to get up, but Ryan put a hand against his chest.
“I’ll get it. You picked the movie, so make sure nothing important happens.”
“The shark hasn’t even shown up.”
“Exactly. I don’t want to miss that.”
Ryan answered the door and returned several minutes later pushing the cart toward the balcony.
“That took a while,” Harley said.
“He watches SCW with his brother.”
Ryan said it like that explained everything, and for Harley, it did.
They carried the food outside, made room on the small table, and restarted the movie because Ryan insisted hearing the opening was not the same as seeing it.
They talked through most of it. Sometimes about the shark, though neither understood what it was supposed to be doing. Mostly, they talked about the cruise.
Ryan told Harley more about a nervous fan they had met earlier who ended up talking about the first SCW show they attended with their father.
“They kept apologizing for taking our time,” Ryan said, stealing a fry from Harley’s plate.
“You told them to stop.”
“They were already there. I wanted to hear the rest.”
Harley stole two fries from Ryan’s plate.
“That was retaliation.”
“That was sharing.”
“You have your own.”
“Yours looked better.”
“They came from the same kitchen.”
Harley took another one, so Ryan moved his plate closer.
They kept talking, filling in parts of the day they had seen differently even though they had been beside each other for most of it. Harley reminded Ryan of things he had missed while talking to someone. Ryan corrected parts of Harley’s stories that Harley had made worse on purpose.
Ryan’s phone lit up inside the cabin.
“You curious?” Harley asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Neither got up.
A few seconds later, Harley’s phone lit up beside Ryan.
“That one could be important,” Ryan said.
“It probably isn’t.”
“What if somebody found more cake?”
Harley started to move. Ryan caught the back of his shirt and pulled him into the chair again.
“No. You agreed to this.”
“I was testing you.”
“You failed.”
Harley stole another fry while Ryan still had hold of his shirt.
“That was dishonest.”
“I used the opening.”
“That is not a defense.”
“It worked.”
Ryan let go and looked back at the movie just as the shark appeared in a place no shark should have been able to reach.
“How did it get inside?”
“Maybe somebody held the door.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“You picked the movie.”
Ryan watched the shark move through what looked like an air vent.
“I may have made a mistake.”
Harley smiled. “Want to change it?”
Ryan settled farther into his chair. “No. Now I need to see how bad it gets.”
The music above them kept going. People were still moving through the ship, eating, laughing, and finding new things to do.
Ryan would be back out there soon enough.
For now, he stayed where he was, listening while Harley finished another story and keeping one hand close to his fries in case Harley tried again.
Their phones lit up once more inside the cabin.
Neither of them moved.
Princess Cruise Ship
Pool Deck
At Sea
Saturday, June 27, 2026
1:36 AM
ON CAMERA
The pool deck had mostly cleared out, but the ship was still wide awake. Music came through the doors whenever somebody passed, mixing with the water and the low rumble beneath everything.
Ryan Keys stood a few feet back from the pool with the SCW Roulette Championship draped over his shoulder. His shirt hung open, his hair was loose around his face, and he looked comfortable enough that the match might have been another event on his cruise schedule.
He ran his thumb across the faceplate and smiled.
“I’ve carried this thing everywhere on this ship. Karaoke, the Pride Ball, dinner, parties, the pool. It’s been in more pictures than some of the passengers, and I swear one fan talked to the belt before they even said hello to me.”
Ryan laughed quietly.
“I respected it. I waited my turn.”
He shifted the championship higher on his shoulder.
“I love having it. I wanted it, I won it, and now I’m greedy as hell about keeping it. Winning this didn’t settle me down or make me feel like I checked something off a list. It made me worse. Now I know what it feels like walking into a room carrying the Roulette Championship. I know what it feels like when somebody sees the champion before they see Ryan Keys, and I like that.”
His smile widened.
“They still get plenty of Ryan Keys once I start talking. Nobody needs to worry about that.”
Ryan kept one hand over the title.
“I’m proud of this, and I’m proud that I’m the one walking into Ultimate X with Ciarán Doyle and Zayvion Lyons coming after me. I already talked about why they belong in the match. They heard it, I meant it, and I don’t need to spend another night introducing either one of them.”
He glanced toward the water.
“Tonight is about what happens when the three of us stop talking and somebody has to fall.”
Ryan began walking slowly along the pool.
“Ciarán, in Copenhagen, I was the referee for you and Bill Barnhart. I was right there in the ring, close enough to hear every hit and see what happened before anybody watching from farther away could react.”
A grin crossed his face.
“I looked good in the stripes too. That matters.”
Ryan kept moving.
“I had to stay out of your way that night. I had to make the calls, keep an eye on both of you, and stop myself from becoming part of the match whenever one of you gave me a reason. I did better with that last part than I expected.”
His gaze moved toward the pool.
“Sunday, I get that job. I don’t have to be neutral or stand close to you with my hands to myself. You’re coming after my championship, so now I get to be part of whatever happens to you.”
Ryan turned forward again.
“That changes the whole thing for me. Copenhagen gave me a close look at you, but it was still a look from somebody who had another job to do. I wasn’t trying to stop you from moving, force you into a bad position, or find out what happens when Ryan Keys refuses to leave you alone.”
His smile returned.
“I get to do all of that on Sunday.”
Ryan rested one hand on the back of an empty lounger.
“I’m not going to pretend one night in a referee’s shirt told me everything about you. It didn’t. What it did was give me enough to know I can’t treat you like somebody standing off to the side while Zayvion and I deal with each other.”
Ryan pushed away from the lounger.
“You know what you want, and you don’t need my permission to throw yourself into the middle of everything. What I care about is what you do when the moment stops looking like the one you pictured.”
He continued along the deck.
“I got to watch you from inside the ring in Copenhagen. Sunday, I get to feel you for myself. I get to find out how much weight you put behind something, how you move when somebody crowds you, and what you do when the person in front of you refuses to give you the space you thought you had.”
His tone stayed light.
“I don’t need those answers tonight. I’ll know them when you give them to me.”
Ryan glanced toward the water.
“You might get the better of me early. Maybe you catch me with something I wasn’t ready for. Maybe you get enough room to move and suddenly I’m the one trying to hang on while you get closer to the championship.”
He looked forward.
“That is where I start learning you. I don’t mean studying every little thing you do like I’m taking notes. I mean being close enough to feel when you’re sure of yourself, when you reach a little farther, and when the title looks close enough that part of you starts thinking about the ending.”
Ryan smiled.
“That part of you is what I’m waiting for.”
He took another step.
“I want to be the man who puts you in the water, Ciarán. Not because I don’t respect you or because I want to embarrass you. I want it because I don’t want your night ending on a slip or because Zayvion happened to be closer.”
Ryan tapped his chest.
“I want you to know I was the reason. You are coming after something I care about, and I want to answer that myself.”
He shifted the championship.
“And I meant what I said about liking you. I can see the two of us working together somewhere down the road, and I’m not talking about one friendly drink after the match before we never mention it again.”
His grin widened.
“I would actually like to see what happens if somebody puts our names beside each other instead of across from one another. We might work frighteningly well together, or we might become the reason management starts screening our ideas before putting us on the same show.”
Ryan laughed.
“I would be happy with either. You know how to work a crowd, you know when to turn something up, and you know how to make people remember you were there. Put that beside everything I bring, and I think we could make a lot of people very uncomfortable.”
He looked toward the doors, then back toward the pool.
“I think our energy could work. You know how to make yourself part of a room without begging people to look at you. You can have fun without forgetting why you’re there, and I don’t think either one of us would be interested in being the sensible half of the team.”
Ryan rested his hand across the championship again.
“But that does not buy either one of us anything on Sunday. You are not my partner in Ultimate X. If you start to fall, I am not reaching down to save you, and I know you would not do it for me.”
He nodded once.
“That is how it should be. I can like you and still want to hear the water when you drop. I can think we might make a great team and still make sure you do not leave this ship with my championship.”
His smile returned.
“Actually, if we ever do team up, I would rather start without you being able to tell everybody you took my title the first time we fought over it. I’d never hear the end of that.”
Ryan looked ahead.
“So bring everything you have. Give me the Ciarán Doyle who believes this can be his night. Do not stand back waiting for Zayvion and me to make the match easier for you, because I don’t want the careful version.”
His expression became more focused.
“I want the one who makes me work. When that version is hanging there, one hand starting to slide while the championship is still out of reach, I want him looking at me. I want him to know exactly who is sending him down.”
The smile returned.
“Then, after you dry off, we can talk about teaming.”
Ryan’s attention shifted.
“Zayvion, you and I don’t need a referee standing between us to know what happens when we get our hands on each other.”
His voice carried more familiarity now.
“I remember how hard it was to move you when you planted your feet and decided the space belonged to you. I remember how quickly you could take away room I thought I had, and how many times I had to change what I was doing because you were already there.”
Ryan glanced toward the pool.
“Last time, we had fire. This time, they gave us water. Somebody wanted balance.”
His smile faded only a little.
“I remember the heat, the furniture breaking, and how little either of us cared about finding the easier way through once the match got going. I remember you making me pay every time I stayed close for too long. I also remember that none of it made me want out. It only made me look for another way back at you.”
He moved closer to the edge without getting too near it.
“I remember more than the finish. I remember what the match felt like. I remember the pressure of trying to keep you from settling into something you liked, because once you did, everything got harder.”
His hand tightened around the championship strap.
“You don’t need me to remind you how it ended. You were there. I was there. What matters now is that we are not walking into the same match.”
Ryan moved along the water again.
“The first time, I was the man trying to take something from you. That gave me one kind of hunger. Now I’m the man carrying it, and that changes me.”
He rubbed his thumb along the faceplate.
“Not because I suddenly think I’m untouchable. You already proved I’m not, and I would be stupid to forget what you can do. It changes me because I know what I’m fighting to keep now. Before, I knew what I wanted. Now I know how it feels when I have it.”
Ryan smiled faintly.
“I like this feeling. I like waking up knowing the division has to come through me, and I like that the next strange match is mine until somebody takes it away.”
He looked forward again.
“You know what I’m like when you’re standing across from me. You know I do not stay where you put me just because something hurt, and you know a bad position usually makes me more irritating, not less.”
Ryan laughed.
“You’ve had enough Ryan Keys to know that part very well.”
He lifted one shoulder.
“But I know you now too. I know what it feels like when you close the space. I know how quickly you can turn one small mistake into something that hurts for the rest of the night, and I also know I can survive it.”
He continued before the thought could sit too neatly.
“I already did. That means you do not get to come into Sunday wondering whether I can take what you bring. You know I can, so now you have to bring something different.”
Ryan adjusted the championship.
“I expect you to. I would be disappointed if you didn’t. You have had time to think about what failed, and I have had time to get comfortable carrying the thing you want back. If either of us walks in trying to repeat that night exactly, then we learned nothing from it.”
He glanced to one side.
“The problem is that whatever you bring for me has to work while Ciarán is there too. I’m not saying you are going to forget him. You are too good for that. But you and I have something sitting between us that he does not share.”
Ryan tapped the title.
“When you see me up there, you are going to feel what happened at King For A Day. Maybe it lasts half a second. Maybe it lasts longer. You are going to see the man who left with your championship.”
Ryan shrugged.
“That would pull at me too.”
He took another step.
“You can come straight for me and try to make sure I hit the water before either of you goes near this title. That makes sense. It also gives Ciarán room to move while you are busy making sure I stay gone.”
Ryan held up one hand.
“I’m not pretending I know which choice you will make. I’m telling you I will be there when you make it. If you look toward Ciarán because he starts getting close, I am still beside you. If you keep your attention on me because you need to finish what we started, he is still moving.”
He rested a hand against his chest.
“I don’t carry that split. I have both of you coming for the same thing, and my job does not change depending on which one is closer. I stay in the match, keep the championship out of your hands, and make sure I am there when the ending comes.”
Ryan looked toward the water.
“You are going to get me close. I know that because I remember what it felt like when you had me in trouble before. There will probably be a moment where you think this is finally the second you correct what happened between us.”
His gaze returned forward.
“That is the moment I want. I want you at your strongest. I want you sure that you have me. I want the people watching to start reacting because they think the next sound is going to be Ryan Keys hitting the pool.”
Ryan smiled.
“You know what happens when somebody believes I’m finished too early. You have felt me come back from places where the match should have moved on without me.”
He tightened his grip on the title.
“If you do not hear the splash, I am still there. If you are not looking at me, I am still there. If you think Ciarán has become the bigger problem, I am still there. And if I am still there, I can take the whole thing away from you again.”
Ryan’s tone softened slightly.
“I want to be the man who puts you in the water too, Zayvion. Not because I hate you, and not because I think your reign meant nothing.”
He looked down at the faceplate.
“You were good enough. That is why taking it from you mattered.”
His eyes returned forward.
“I want to eliminate you myself because I want Sunday to end with both of us knowing this reign continued through you. No accident, no Ciarán doing the work for me, and no question about whether I only stayed champion because the two of you got rid of each other.”
Ryan’s pride came through more strongly now.
“I want to look at the man I took this from, send him into the pool, and keep climbing. I want you to know I did not survive you once and spend the rest of my reign hoping somebody else would handle you for me. That is personal. It does not have to be hateful.”
Ryan stepped away from the water and opened his attention back to both challengers.
“Ciarán gives me somebody I have watched closely but have not dealt with in a match like this. Zayvion gives me somebody whose strength I already know and whose mistakes I already survived.”
He adjusted the championship.
“One of you wants to turn his opportunity into something bigger. The other wants another ending to a story we already started. I’m the man standing in front of both of those things, and I like that.”
Ryan glanced toward the structure above the pool.
“I know this is going to hurt. I know one of you will catch me somewhere I do not want to be, and I know there will be a moment where the match stops looking like anything we expected.”
He looked forward again.
“That is the part I trust myself in. I have been doing this long enough to know the night does not have to make sense for me to keep moving through it. I do not need Sunday to be clean, easy, or fair. I need to stay involved until neither one of you is.”
Ryan rested his hand across the faceplate.
“Then I take this back down.”
His expression stayed bright and confident.
“When it is over, the invitation is real. Ciarán, come find me. We can talk about whether teaming up still sounds fun after we have finished trying to throw each other into the pool.”
Ryan smiled.
“Zayvion, you come too. We can eat, dance, complain about how sore we are, and argue about who came closest.”
He raised one finger.
“I’ll buy the first round. Mine will be nonalcoholic, because nobody is turning this into the night Ryan Keys tries rum.”
The doors opened behind him and music spilled across the deck.
Ryan glanced toward the pool.
“You two can compare notes on how cold the water is. I’ll listen from somewhere dry with this still on my shoulder.”
Ryan started toward the doors, then slowed.
“Until I have it back in my hands, there are no favors. If one of you starts falling, I am not catching you. If both of you are in the water, I am not wasting time waving goodbye.”
His grin widened.
“After that, we’re good.”
Ryan turned toward the music, then looked back over his shoulder.
“Meet me at the party.”
He smiled.
“After you dry off.”