Coming Up Short

📸@satanjones is live July 11, 2026, 12:42AM

“Welcome, my little devils! And you are LIVE! WITH! MAIN EVENT WINNERS!”

This is a very late edition of Live With Satan. Not that the instagram account has office hours, but Satan usually maintains a live stream range of 10AM to about 7PM. This is well outside that zone. The venue is also well outside the expected range. Satan streams from a lot of different places, but he’s never live streamed from a dive bar.

But here he is in a dimly lit back room, screaming at us while Kris Roswell and Quinn Fleetwood play darts in the background. “I know it’s late, my little devils, but we are celebrating! After all, tonight was Kris and my first main event match in PRIME, and we were slotted against not one, but two Hall of Famers – including mystery opponent FLAMBERGE!”

“I called it!” shouts Quinn.

“He called it. You drew it,” corrects Kris.

“And we won it!” Satan shouts, throwing his arm around Kris’s shoulders. Kris, more enthusiastic than usual on camera, flashes a grin and returns the gesture. “Two of the best wrestlers PRIME has ever seen, and we came out on top!”

“Damn right we did,” Kris says.

“So the celebration rolls on! Kris, our hometown hero in Pittsburgh, has brought us to a fine establishment on the South side. My lads are drinking beers, and yours truly snuck into the boba place down the street right before it closed at midnight!” Satan raises his nearly empty boba tea and grins.

“Come on, have a beer,” Kris says, his tone and cheeks indicating that he’s had a few already.

“You know I don’t des the temp, brother.” Satan flexes. “Don’t want to do anything dumb because my decisions were altered.”

Kris shrugs. “Some people do that even without alcohol. Like Quinn, for instance.”

Satan laughs, but Quinn stares at Kris with an intensity that we rarely see from him. Grabbing the dart off the table, Quinn stands behind the line and raises the dart. “You know, Kris, guys have been underestimating me my entire life.”

Kris snaps out of his buzzed laughing fit. “What?”

“And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me.” Quinn continues to stare at the dart board. Kris and Satan share a look.

“Is he quoting…”

“But then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman…”

“He’s quoting Ted Lasso,” Satan and Kris say simultaneously.

“...and it was painted on the wall there. It said ‘be curious, not judgmental.’ I like that.”

In the scene from Ted Lasso that Quinn is ripping off, Ted hits a triple 20 on the dart board. Quinn lets his dart fly, and although Satan’s phone is positioned so that we cannot see the dart board, a sudden scream suggests that Quinn did not hit the triple 20.

“What the fuck, asshole?” a large man says, entering the shot with a dart sticking out of his forehead.

Before anyone can do anything, the large man floors Quinn with a punch. He drops to his knees to continue the damage, but Kris lunges forward to stop him.

“Hey, that’s enough, he’s already out,” Kris says, struggling to lift the big man back to his feet. After a moment someone from behind grabs the man and helps Kris. Satan moves his phone so his little devils can see the person, a short woman with auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, standing on her tip-toes and pulling the dart from her friend’s forehead.

“You all right, Barry?” the woman asks. She turns around to look at the carnage and her eyes lock on Kris. “K-Kris? Is that you?”

Kris’s eyes go wide. “Emma?”

There’s a beat of silence that is interrupted by the loud slurping of Satan finishing his boba tea. “Oooh, this is interesting! Should we have an impromptu interview with this mystery woman?”

Kris looks at Satan and shakes his head. “Can you…?”

The chemistry of the Foot Soldiers is good enough that Kris doesn’t need to finish that sentence. “Well, my little devils, we’re going to keep this celebration going, but keep following for updates this week! I’ll go live tomorrow if we get scheduled for the next ReVival!”

_______

July 11

I can imagine whatever drunkenness that man felt was expunged as soon as the dart went into his forehead. Even then, I don’t think it was as sobering an experience as seeing Emma was for me.

Emma was my first girlfriend. We met in algebra my freshman year. I made varsity as a kicker, the only Roswell boy to have earned that honor so early, though my brothers said it was due to my position rather than any skill I had. Not to perpetuate any stereotypes about athletes, but I wasn’t great at algebra. Emma became my tutor, then my friend, then my girlfriend.

We dated for almost two years. The last week of school was called Step Week for the juniors. The seniors had graduated, exams were done, and all that was left for us was to walk right past the trophy case and up the senior steps to symbolize our ascension to the last level. On that day Emma grabbed my shoulders and told me her steps were going to take her somewhere I couldn’t go, and that we had to part ways. I didn’t understand what she meant until summer ended and she showed up with a girlfriend.

We remained friends and despite the pain I was obviously supportive. Then I went to Duquesne, she went to Pitt, and we didn’t see each other much. I got swept up by college football and it’s almost like I forgot all about her.

Memories are funny. They’re like books in a massive library, and you recall them with an index system. Over time you check out some books more than others, and you eventually lose the index card that tells you where the memory is stored. As soon as I saw Emma the night we beat Hayes Hanlon and FLAMBERGE, it was like I found a lost section in the library. The memories came flooding back.

So that’s why, when she told me she was taking a staycation from work and had the next couple days off, I agreed to hang out with her every day that week. Even though I knew it wouldn’t be romantic. Anything to catch up with someone from my past who I actually missed. Anything to see someone in this city who didn’t fill me with dread.

_______

📸@satanjones is live July 11, 2026, 7:31AM

Jeez, Satan, another livestream outside of your normal range. Hopefully no one has notifications turned on for his show.

“Welcome, my little devils! I hope you got a good night’s sleep. I didn’t, but that’s okay, ‘cause there ain’t no rest for the wicked, nor is there any rest for your NEXT TAG TEAM CHAMPS!”

Satan holds up a piece of paper in his hand.

“Right here is the email from PRIME about the next card. In the main event – again – the Foot Soldiers take on Pop Culture Phenoms for the PRIME Tag Team Titles. And so–AGH!”

Satan shouts because Quinn Fleetwood is suddenly there, sporting a fresh black eye from his altercation the night before. “Why did you print out the email?” he asks.

Satan stares at him for a moment. “Because…my phone is here,” he says, shaking the phone (and camera).

“But you could’ve just told them about the match. You didn’t need to go to the lobby and pay a dollar to print out a piece of paper.”

“It was two dollars,” Satan answers, “and it was a visual aid!”

“You wasted money. You could’ve just–”

“Hey, is that a guy with a dart in his head?” Satan shouts, pointing behind Quinn.

“Oh shit!” Quinn yells, hiding under the bed.

Satan grins at the camera. “Anyway, it’s finally here: our golden opportunity. Against a team that has been hot lately, but a team we’ve beaten before. A team I know we can beat again. And even though they’re the champs, and even though Elise Ares is hotter than a million suns, and even though when she comes down to the ramp and her skin is glistening with oil and sweat and the lights and pyro smoke shine around her it creates little rainbows over her skin, making her look like gold at the end of the…” Satan blinks a few times. “Uh, despite all that, I know we’ve got this! I can’t wait to find a gym here in Pittsburgh to put the work in! I just texted Kris the good news, and I’m sure he’s as amped as I am. So I’m going to drag this guy out from under the bed, then we’re getting ready for the biggest match of my life. We’re so jazzed!”

_______

July 11

I was waiting for Emma downstairs when I got the text from Satan about our next match. My eyes went wide. And I think if I had been in any other city in the world, my reaction would’ve been excitement, eagerness, or confidence.

But I was in Pittsburgh, so I felt only dread.

It probably doesn’t make sense to anyone else why I felt that way. But we’ve talked a lot about my plan to leave this city and become a professional wrestler, and our match at the next show was the apex for tag team wrestlers. A chance to hold gold and say we are the very best team in this company. And outside of the city it’s easy to see the successes we’ve had.

But before last night, and besides wrestling, my entire history here was defined by coming up short.

“Where are we going?” I asked as Emma let me in. Despite the fact that we had partied together until only four or five hours previously, Emma looked remarkably put together. I felt like I had been shit out by the hangover monster, and based on the way she looked at me, I looked like it too.

“Let’s go back to where it all began,” she said, but wouldn’t explain any further until we were in the parking lot of Thomas Jefferson High School.

“It’s Saturday,” I whimpered.

“And I teach an elective here so I’ve got a key. Come on, let’s look around.” I let her drag me through the hallways that had faded from my memory. The Corner, a spot in the hallway that we’d eat lunch and hang out after school, inherited from my older brothers who had each occupied that spot before me; the classrooms, which had been updated with laptops and technology but still had the same maps and posters on the wall; and then we stopped at the trophy case. The first reminder of me coming up short.

Coming Up Short #1 The Trophy Case

TJ was a football powerhouse, and had been for at least a decade and a half. My brothers had all made their mark, and in the time since I had left they had dedicated an entire section of the trophy case to the Roswell family. State championships for Higgins, Haynes, Hercules, and Herbert, as well as each receiving a WPIAL MVP award. I looked to the right at the much smaller section of the Roswell family wall.

My name sat next to a small cleat-shaped trophy and a smaller “State Champion Runners Up” plaque.

“Such bullshit,” I muttered, feeling flooded with failure.

“What?” she asked.

“That trophy says best kicker.”

“So? You were the best kicker senior year.”

“Not in the WPIAL, Emma; best kicker on our team. I was the only kicker on our team.” I shake my head and look at the other trophy. “Do you remember that state championship game?”

“I remember you kicking the game-tying field goal.”

“Well, I remember kicking off the ball to end the game, then getting trucked by the kick returner on his way to a game-winning touchdown.”

Emma shrugged. “Ten other guys couldn’t take him down. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I kicked it to him. It was my fault.” I started to walk away from the trophy case, then stopped when I saw what was ahead of me.

Coming Up Short #2 The Senior Steps

“What’s wro–” Emma started, then looked at the stairs. “Oh.”

I tried my best at a casual shrug. “No, it’s not that,” I said. “I got over that a long time ago.” And I did. Emma didn’t like guys. That’s not something you can ignore in a relationship. I had convinced myself over the next five years that I was over it.

So why hadn’t I dated since? Scratch that – why hadn’t I even thought about women since?

Emma wasn't just my first girlfriend. She was my only girlfriend. I didn’t date in college. Other guys at the academy are dating, but I haven’t even tried to make myself available. And I’ve seen the way Satan looks at Elise Ares, but all I can think about when I see her is she’s someone I want to beat. She’s the only person in PRIME who stopped me from getting what I wanted, and I want to pay her back for that. She’s the one holding the tag title I desperately want my hands on.

Did Emma ruin me?

Maybe my ego was so wounded by that failure that I decided to never try again. And these senior stairs – just a set of winding steps that went from the admin hallway to the math hallway on the second floor – were emblematic of me never growing past that hurt. I was still on the bottom steps. I had never climbed.

“Can we leave?” I asked.

July 12 Coming Up Short #3 The NFL

The next day I got lunch with Emma and got another reminder of my failures.

“Yinz look familiar,” the server said.

“I’m not–” I said, but Emma cut me off with a grin.

“He’s a famous wrestler,” she said.

“Nah, that ain’t it.” The server sneered at me. “You’re a kicker. Din’t ya get signed by the Saints or something?”

I shook my head, looking down at the pierogi on my plate. “Practice squad. I didn’t catch on.”

“But he did catch on with wrestling. Ever heard of PRIME?”

“Hell yeah, we love our hometown hero RIA!” the server said, then walked away. I didn’t look up from my food until I felt a hand on mine.

I looked up at Emma, who smiled sadly at me. “You’re our hometown hero too,” she said.

I smiled. Satan had called me that too, but I certainly didn’t feel like a hero.

Everywhere we went, I was reminded of why I started this plan to leave in the first place. Even winning against FLAMBERGE and Hanlon didn’t erase all the memories of loss, of failure, of not being able to be the person I wanted to be. But even as I left, even as we kept winning in PRIME, even as we had an opportunity to beat Pop Culture Phenoms again and win the biggest prize in our division, I still wasn’t sure who I wanted to be. I didn’t know if I’d ever figure it out.

July 13

I met up with Emma one last time to get breakfast before she had to go back to work. Her staycation was over, and she wasn’t happy about it.

After a mostly silent breakfast, she looked up at me. “Do you want to come with me? Give me a little encouragement?”

I looked into her eyes and knew that I could never say no to her. So we drove towards her work, and it wasn’t until we hit a familiar stretch of highway that it occurred to me.

“Do you work where I think you work?”

Emma’s eyes, which had been hopeful when she asked me to come with her, now looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Kris. They wanted to see you.”

Coming Up Short #4 Impressing My Family With My Plan

I got out of the car and walked across the expansive parking lot of the original Roswell’s Deals Are Out of this World! Emma grabbed my hand and clasped it as we got close to the doors. “It’s going to be fine, Kris. If you believe in your plan, they’ll believe in it too. Show them your successes. Show them you made the right choice.” She kissed me on the cheek, then headed to the service department while I trudged to the reception desk.

“Welcome to Ros–” the woman at the desk started, then stopped when she saw my face. My mom stood up and brought me into a tight hug, then led me past the cubicles to a glass-walled conference room. After a few minutes, Harold Roswell walked into the conference room, his frame nearly taking up the entire doorway.

“Son,” he said. “Are you ready to come home and manage our store?” I didn’t answer, figuring that was answer enough. Eventually, he huffed and sat down in the chair opposite me. “I saw your match.”

I cocked my head to the side. “The tickets I left at will call were unclaimed.”

“It's hard getting Herbert out of the house." I winced. "We watched at home.”

“What did you think?” I asked in spite of myself.

“Your tag partner looks like an idiot,” he said, “and your opponents didn’t look nearly as intimidating as the guys I faced across the line of scrimmage in college.”

“Did they let you punch and kick back then?” I snapped.

“Kris,” my mom said from the doorway.

“Emma told us you stayed after your match. You didn’t even let us know. Are you ashamed of us?” My dad would alternate between intimidation and guilt trip. It infuriated me. And I usually hid it, because I was so used to enduring my dad’s abuse.

But the side effect of my plan was realizing I didn’t have to endure it anymore. So I stood up. “Am I ashamed of you? No, I’m not. You worked hard to raise us to adulthood. But now that I am an adult, I’m making my own choices. And I don’t know if you noticed, but those choices are bearing fruit. My tag partner and I, no matter how he looks, are undefeated. This weekend we sold out the arena the Penguins play in, and we beat two legends. In two weeks we’re challenging for the tag team titles. I’ve endured all of the attempts Hercules has made to make my life hell -- on my own dad's orders -- and I’m still here and still winning.”

I pointed behind me. “If I was following your plan I’d be wearing an ugly brown polo shirt and asking church moms if they want to add Sirius radio to their GMC Sierra, then coming home to family dinners, going to bed, and doing it all over again every day. Not for me, but for you and this family. This week I’ve spent with Emma has left me wondering why I’m so scared to try and find love again, and I realized when I walked in here that the reason I haven’t tried is that I’m deathly afraid that I’m going to fall in love, have children, and force them to live how I want them to live. Because that’s the only example I’ve ever been given.”

“Kris,” my mom said again.

“Thanks for not coming to the show, thanks for not believing in my plan, and thanks for trying to pull me back into your orbit, but I’m doing just fine without you.” I stood up and walked out, shooting a glare at Emma as I walked into the parking lot.

I texted Satan to meet me at the airport, and by the time my Uber arrived at Pittsburgh International, Satan and Quinn were there with our bags. “Why so soon?” Satan asked as I walked up.

“Got to get out of this city,” I said. “Everywhere I look I see signs of my failure. All the times I came up short. Advertisements for my dad’s dealerships. Evidence that I’m supposed to stay here, marry here, and die here.”

“It’s a nice city,” Quinn started, but I shot him a look that shut him up.

“It is, but it’s not my home. Not anymore. You know where my home is?” I asked Satan. “It’s wherever you and I lace up. Wherever our boots touch a wrestling canvas. The Foot Soldiers is my home, and in two weeks we’re marching into Detroit bringing those titles home.” I held my hand out for Satan to shake. “You ready?”

Satan lifted his shirt, rubbed one hand on his stomach, and used the other to shake mine. “Abs-solutely,” he said, grinning. “I should make that a catchphrase.”

I laughed, then headed towards the gate. “Let’s go home.”