I disclaim. Why is for you to judge.
Stud-U-Like
Part 1
There had never been a man like Shawn Douglas Brady. Only he had that peculiar combination of pride, obstinacy, occasional pig headed-ness, stupidity, jealousy and a real Irish temper.
He would have been unbearable except he also had gentleness, kindness, a heart the size of Asia, humour, common sense, tenderness, respect for everyone around him, brown eyes that melted with compassion and, though God forbid anyone use the word around him, sweetness that made honey seem bitter by comparison.
Belle knew that now. Seven long and lonely years without him had been too long. Ten microseconds without him would have been too long. He was the only man she had ever loved, would ever love, could ever love. He had been her best friend. Without him, she was less than whole.
Now, she would see him again at last. Oh, she was sure he would have changed since their last meeting, so long ago, she knew she had, but now she would know what had happened to them. They had left each other. Neither was to blame. They had each had their own lives to lead. She couldn’t have known then that she would become the internationally famous fashion designer with her own label, Bella, or that for seven years the communication between her and her best friend would dwindle from phone calls to the occasional letter, to not even a card at Christmas with the only information one would get about the other coming from their families, and that only sporadic.
She didn’t know if he was successful now, but she guessed he was. She only knew one thing about him: he was still living in Salem. Two things actually, but she didn’t think she properly understood the second.
She leaned back, letting the Amtrak train take the strain - Salem Airlines having gone bankrupt after the departure of Stefano Dimera, the need of having to take a plane at any time of the day or night to anywhere in the world going with him- as she was thundered over the American countryside from her stop at Chicago from New York, fantasising briefly about what he would look like now at the tender age of twenty six, his dark hair longer or shorter, his frame thinner or even more filled out, but his eyes always the same dark pools of passion as they had been in high school.
She wondered if he still used gel in his hair, if that lock still fell over his eyes, and most importantly of all, if his arms were the same warm ones they had been when she was eighteen. Oh, how she had fantasised about those arms after they had decided to return to being ‘just friends’ when she was offered a scholarship to New York State University halfway through her freshman year. That had been even worse than his previous proclamations of being ‘just friends’ with her. Then she didn’t know that he loved her, the depth of his passion, the way his eyes half closed and simply smouldered right before he kissed her. Or that their fights would be so horrible, that she could feel so utterly miserable, or that the making up would be the best time she ever had.
Now she was being ricocheted back to Salem by plane, train and automobile, flung back into his arms, and if her mother’s words were not inaccurate, into his heart.
God, how she had missed him.
For Shawn, Belle had been the world, and everything in it. Then they had chosen her education over their relationship, and Armageddon had come to Salem. Again.
His mother had told him only that morning that by the evening Belle would be back in town. Her subtle reference to the fact that Belle was still single and very available had made him blush, but as he was talking to her on his cellphone, she could only guess at his physical reaction. When God had made Horton women, though, he had equipped them with radar for the blushes of their men-folk and the slight stuttering that had accompanied Shawn’s reply that no he didn’t have a date for that evening, missing out the fact that he hadn’t had a date for months, had led her to tell him about the raffle and the prize.
He was still blushing seven hours later.
Belle climbed off the train with her luggage weighted unevenly around her. The three hour ride had not been too pleasant, but she had met a very sweet couple, Mr and Mrs Jones, who had been married for sixty years and were even more in love than they were on the day they were married.
Her mother and father were there to welcome her home, coming as she was, not only for a visit, but if things went well, to stay for good. She had missed her home town, missed the people and the places, missed Alice’s donuts and wisdom, and if truth were told, missed Shawn so badly that she felt she had lost a part of herself when she’d moved to New York. Not that she hadn’t been happy there, she had been very happy for much of the time, but returning night after night to an empty apartment, saying goodbye to yet another date at the door, not because they weren’t charming, intelligent, interesting men, but simply because they weren’t Shawn, had made her wish for home.
Feeling her father take the bags from her hands and her mother smooth her hair, Belle smiled. She was home now, and the emptiness would go away as soon as she saw a particular pair of dark brown eyes.
"Belle," her mother kissed her cheek and her father started turning red. "We have something to tell you, dear."
The Belle of seven years ago would have panicked. As it was she only said, "Yes?" her cool businesswoman demeanour serving her well in what could be the latest crisis in her always hectic life.
Her mother smiled, and Belle felt the tension in her stomach loosen a notch.
"Well, do you remember when you were given that Christmas present, and we said we were holding part back as it wasn’t quite ready yet?" She nodded and her mother continued. "It’s ready."
She handed over a white envelope, which, when Belle opened and examined the contents, caused her to scream in the middle of Salem Station.
Shawn shook his head slowly as he buttoned up his blue shirt over his white wifebeater and replaced his cap. Who knew a raffle with the name ‘Stud-U-Like’ could have raised fifteen thousand dollars for a cancer charity? His mother, that was who. Apparently tickets had not only been bought by every unattached woman in Salem, but also everyone in the rest of the state as well. At two hundred and fifty dollars a throw, they weren’t cheap, but some women had bought up to four, others clubbing together to buy as many as possible to increase their chances of winning.
He checked himself in the mirror and then strolled out of the changing room, his uniform left behind in his locker. He had just finished his last day as a rookie. When he came to work tomorrow, he would be the latest fully trained officer for the SPD, and it felt good. He would have been going for very legal beers with his fellow officers if it hadn’t been for his mother’s other arrangements for him.
He considered every blind date, dumb date, bad date, mad date and plain weird date she had set him up on since Belle had left Salem. Some of the women, it was true, had been very pleasant company. He even numbered a few among his friends, but no one could ever compare to the girl who had taken his heart all the way to New York, and had never chosen to Fed Ex it back to him.
On second thoughts, considering the last date he’d been on at his mother’s insistence, he went back to his locker and collected his handcuffs. He didn’t know when he might need them.
"You bought me a raffle ticket?" Belle gasped, staring down at it, "For ‘Stud-U-Like’?"
John growled something unintelligible, but Marlena hit him gently in the chest. "It was for a very good cause."
Her blue eyes narrowed as she stared at her mother. "What cause?"
"Cancer research," Marlena said swiftly before John could blurt out that they had bought fifteen tickets to increase Belle’s chance of winning, and that the other, secondary good cause they were talking about was ‘Shelle’, the Horton women and his wife’s pet name for the once and future couple.
"Oh," Belle deflated. Perhaps her mother hadn’t been meddling. "So what do I get?"
John and Marlena looked at each other, and Belle stared at both of them intently.
"No way," she started, "I did not win…"
Shawn lifted his dark head and stared at the limousine parked outside the police station.
"Victor," he began to say to the silver haired man in front of him, "you didn’t have to do this…"
"I didn’t. The organisers of the raffle," Victor chuckled at the very idea, "convinced me to donate this as part of the prize, or rather, one night in it along with dinner at Tuscany’s courtesy of your Aunt Maggie."
"She’s a beautiful car," he stopped his remonstrance instantly, instead taking in the silver car’s sleek lines and chauffeur at the wheel.
"Only the best for this night," Victor, with fifty years of business dealing with sharks, cowards and criminals behind him, could only just suppress a chuckle as his biological grandson swept his long fingered hands over the car and whispered at the polish on it. Boy, was he ever in for a surprise. "So are you ready for your big date?"
Shawn sighed, shoulders drooping a little. "As I’ll ever be. I can’t believe my own mother put me up for this."
"Don’t forget your grandmother, your cousins, your great-grams, and I do believe my daughter in law Chloe all had a hand in it." Shawn smiled in response.
"I’m still not used to calling her Aunt." Victor laughed out loud at last. "I don’t think I ever will be."
"You’re good for an old man, Shawn Douglas," the name stuck in his throat even now, knowing that this handsome lad was his flesh and blood, not the grandson of Shawn Brady, but his respect for the family meant he did not try to force their relationship. These days, however, Shawn simply acted like he had three grandfathers, no one of them more important than the others. "Now get going. You don’t want to keep that young lady of yours waiting."
"So she’s young, is she?" His eyes glinted with amusement. "Thanks for the hint, Grandpa."
Victor muttered something, but smiled happily as he watched his grandson climb into the back of the limo and disappear from sight. ‘Stud-U-Like’ had been a grand success, one of his daughter in law’s best ideas, he thought. Almost as good as her idea to continue the Horton / Brady / Kiriakis line after JT was born with a baby sister for Shawn Douglas. His smile widened thinking of his small, dark haired, dark eyed granddaughter. Perhaps after tonight, great grandchildren would be on the cards.
He stared up at the heavens for a moment, ignoring how strange he must look, and said in a calm voice, only a little trembling with longing, "You see, Isabella, everything’s working out just perfectly."
"Mom, I can’t believe this!" John grimaced. The high pitched squealing, which had been going on for the past two hours as his wife and step daughter (sort of) had helped his daughter unpack into the Loft and change her clothes, had yet to cease. He was getting a headache, and only Brady looked as pained as he felt, while Sami seemed far too happy for his liking, and Eric watched his twin sister for signs of plotting.
"Are they always like this?" Will asked from his reclining position on the sofa, his comic book temporarily ignored.
"Always," Eric, Brady and John said as one person.
"I’m ready!" Belle called down at last.
She walked slowly down the steps, showing off her outfit, a red dress that covered her from neck to ankle but suggested her figure even more provocatively than a dress that was low cut and short in the leg.
The fact that both her brothers, her nephew, her father and her brother in law Mike all tried to cover her up at once told her that her outfit was stunning.
The usual arguments all over with, the men stared down by their women, Belle checked herself in the mirror one last time and smiled. "Well, this is it. Time to meet my date."
"He’ll love you in that," her mother reassured her.
"He’ll love her in whatever she wears," Mike murmured to Carrie. "It’s practically genetic."
"This is it," Shawn muttered to himself as the limo drew up outside a tall apartment building. He found the address with ease and stared at the door before knocking. "Huh, this is the Loft. John must have rented it out. Well at least I know she isn’t a Dimera!"
He raised his hand to knock, but before he could, the door swung open and he offered the single rose he had brought as a gift to the woman behind it, plastering his best smile on his handsome face and waiting to find out who exactly he was supposed to be romancing that night.
"Shawn?" Belle had rather expected it would be him, for in a town of gorgeous men, he was one of the few she wasn’t related by blood to, but the change in him stunned her. She had thought, foolishly as it turned out, that at nineteen he was the most handsome man to ever walk through Salem Place, but at twenty six she found herself agreeably mistaken.
"Belle?" The air rushed out of his lungs. He was used to seeing her picture, in fact he’d secretly bought every magazine that had ever featured a picture of her or one of her designs, but seeing her in front of him, in that red dress, was a shock, a wonderful shock, but a shock nonetheless. The world revolved under his feet and didn’t warn him when it did it.
Marlena hurried from her place with John and prompted them both with a look, "What a beautiful flower. Let me put it in water for you, Shawn. I’m sure you and Belle want to be of on your date."
Shawn finally remembered his manners and offered Belle his arm. She took it gratefully.
They made it all the way into the elevator before the ultimate question was asked:
"So how far were you planning to go on this date? To the door? To the couch? Or all the way to bed?"
"With you," the kiss was sudden, tantalising, passionate, and a promise of the wonderful things to come, "all the way to the end of eternity."