Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as Brady entered his hotel room, Shawn jumped to his feet and grabbed a large, puffy jacket off of one of the beds. Shawn had been wearing that jacket a lot lately but for some reason, it appeared to Brady that Shawn only seemed to wear it when Brady was around. Shawn had been a little bit skittish around Brady ever since Brady had confessed to being in love with Lucas. Shawn hadn't even wanted to share a hotel room with Brady after hearing Brady admit to loving a guy but eventually, he had backed down only because he and Brady were related. And now Shawn had covered his upper body completely in the puffy jacket and was making his way towards the door, looking more at the floor than at Brady.
"Hey, Brady. It's good to see you. I was just leaving." Shawn told Brady, chuckling nervously. He made a move to step towards the door but Brady immediately blocked his path.
"Hang on a second, Shawn." Shawn stopped in his tracks, waiting for Brady to speak again, "Where were you last night?" Brady asked finally, "You didn't come back to the hotel and I had no clue what had happened to you."
Shawn smiled genuinely, snapping out of his state of discomfort, "Yeah, I was one busy man last night. Nicole and Jan handcuffed me into their room and got into this huge cat-fight over my cherry."
Brady felt his heart stop beating for a split second and a twinge of jealousy sliced through him at the thought of Nicole fighting for anyone other than himself, "Your what?"
"My cherry." Shawn clarified, the cocky grin on his face making Brady want to slug him, "They both wanted to deflower me. They beat each other up pretty bad. It was kind of hot though. Made me wish I had two cherries. Then, I offered to let them share my cherry but they didn't really go far that."
Brady frowned, "You actually antagonized them like that? What about my sister?"
"I'm through with your sister." Shawn returned, "And they had hand-cuffed me to their bed. I was going to get my cherry popped, whether I liked it or not, so I figured I might as well enjoy myself."
"Really?" Brady leaned against the door and smiled back at Shawn, not surprised to see Shawn's smile fade, "Well, take off your coat. Stay a while."
Shawn shifted his weight uncomfortably, "No, I don't think so. I really have to go."
"Why are you wearing that jacket? It's boiling outside. You're going to suffocate in that thing." Brady commented.
"There's nothing wrong with my jacket." Shawn said in a highly defensive voice, pulling the jacket tighter around himself, "I like my jacket and I'm sorry if you have a problem with it. But then again, the less clothes guys have on, the more you probably like it and-" Shawn stopped talking abruptly, his face reddening when he realized what he had just admitted.
Brady rolled his eyes, "I thought that might have been the problem."
Shawn's eyes widened earnestly, "Well, Brady, I've been told that I'm very attractive. Now, the less I have on, the more you're probably going to notice and get some very wrong ideas."
Brady snorted with disbelief, "Shawn, I'm in love with Lucas, not you. And you're my cousin, for God's sake. Take off the coat, Shawn. Just take it off."
Shawn grumbled a little bit but reluctantly shrugged out of the coat, watching Brady warily every second, "That's a good boy. Now, I promise you, I have absolutely no urge to jump on you and rip the rest of your clothes off. Are we clear?"
"I guess so." Shawn muttered, kicking the carpet with his foot and backing away from Brady.
"So," Brady couldn't stop himself from asking, "Who ended up getting your cherry?" Jan, Jan, please say Jan, Brady silently pleaded with Shawn.
"It was pretty close." Shawn said, grinning broadly, "But in the end, Jan ended up getting it. That was one great night, let me tell you."
Brady resisted sighing with relief and opened his mouth to respond but the sound of his cell phone ringing stopped him. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the caller ID, "It's my dad. I can't believe he's actually calling. After Nicole told him all that stuff about me and Lucas, he hasn't tried to call at all. I wonder what he wants."
Brady answered his phone tentatively, "Yeah?"
"Hello, son." John's voice sounded forced, like he was trying to sound like everything was normal, "How's everything going?"
"Fine." Brady said, not understanding the point of this phone call.
"Are you sure?" John pressed, "How are you holding up?"
"Fine." Brady repeated, his eyebrows creasing in confusion, "Why wouldn't I be?"
"I just thought it might be hard for you lately because of your... condition." John croaked, as if he couldn't manage to get any more specific than that. All at once, Brady understood.
"Oh, right, the pregnancy." Brady smiled somewhat wistfully to himself, "Well, it hasn't been easy but I'm handling it pretty well. Lucas has been so supportive of me and I'm grateful for that. I wouldn't be able to do this if it wasn't for him."
"Brady..." John's voice was a hoarse whisper as the door behind Brady swished open.
"We've been talking." Brady continued in a dreamy voice, unable to understand how all these lies were rolling of his tongue so easily, "About what we're going to name our child. I want to name it after Lucas, so I was thinking that Lucinda or Lucifer would be good names."
"Lucifer? You know, that works. A baby produced by you and Lucas would definitely be a devil child." Brady turned to see Jan and Nicole standing in the open doorway of his hotel room.
"You can't go through with it, Brady." John spoke suddenly.
"What?"
"You cannot have Lucas' child." John told Brady in a firm voice, "I can't let you do it. I've been spending the last few days looking for an abortion clinic that will help you get rid of your problem. I've already found a few but none of them take me seriously after I tell them I'm there on behalf of my son."
"Dad, how could you?" Brady demanded, horror-stricken, "I am not going to kill my baby. You had no right to start looking for abortion clinics without asking me if it was what I wanted first!"
"Aw, come on, you know this isn't what you want. Do you really want to be remembered as the first man to give birth to a baby? It's completely unnaturual for men to do this sort of thing. Have you ever thought about what it would be like when you have to give birth? They're going to cut you wide open. And think of the stretch marks it's going to leave." John reasoned.
"I don't care about any of that." Brady retorted stubbornly, "Lucas is worth it. I'd sacrfice anything for him."
"Geez, Brady, this isn't real. You don't actually feel this way about Lucas. You're not gay." John shot back.
"Shut up." Brady squeezed the phone so tightly his fingers began to ache, "Just stop talking to me. We don't have anything to say to each other anymore, you- you- homiphobe!" he finished emphatically, pressing the off button on his cell phone aggressively.
Shawn whistled, "That was... interesting."
Nicole scowled at Brady, "You do remember that we just made that up and that you're not really pregnant, don't you?"
"What? He's not pregnant?" Shawn looked shocked, "And I was so looking forward to seeing Brady get fat."
"Between you and John, Salem must be home of the world's most gullible idiots." Jan muttered under her breath, not loud enough for Shawn to hear.
"Of course I remember that we're pretending. I'm not crazy. I guess I got a little carried away but he was trying to tell me what to do and it was annoying. So I kind of lost it."
"You lost it the minute you decided you were in love with Lucas." Nicole returned, then changed the subject, "Shawn, Jan and I were bored so we were wondering if you wanted to come do something with us. We could go swimming or something."
"Okay." Shawn grinned and began heading towards the door, "See you later, Brady." Shawn said. Jan and Nicole didn't bother saying good-bye to Brady as they left the room. Brady frowned, feeling extrememly wronged.
"Since when did Shawn become the super-stud around here?" Brady said aloud, then inwardly answered his own question, When you decided you liked a guy and when Sami made it clear she would hospitilize anyone who made a play for Lucas.
Sighing, Brady left the hotel room as well. Once he got outside, he saw that Sami and Lucas were also outside their hotel room. Lucas had Sami's hands raised above her head and was kissing a trail down the side of her neck.
Sami is definitely getting on my last nerve, Brady thought, Why couldn't she like someone else? I bet I like Lucas more than she does.
Lucas stopped kissing Sami's neck and grabbed one of her hands. He twirled her large diamond ring around her finger and grinned, "You know, as soon as this is over, I'm going to take you back to Salem and find you a real engagement ring. Not just this fake one that Nicole let us use."
"What are you talking about?" Brady asked. Sami and Lucas jumped in surprise at the sound of his voice and turned to look at him. Both of them just stammered incoherently for a few seconds before answering.
"Oh, Nicole just gave us this one to use because the real engagement ring Lucas gave me... got stolen." Sami finished quickly, looking around the hallway nervously. Lucas nodded in agreement.
"Let's see the ring." Brady said, grabbing Sami's hand before she could protest. When he saw the ring, his eyes widened.
"This was the ring I was going to give to Chloe."
"Are you sure?" Lucas asked, taking another look at the ring.
"Of course, I'm sure. Either that or it's the exact replica. I can't believe Nicole would do that. And I don't even know why she's helping you guys with your publicity campaign. None of this makes sense at all. I have to go talk to Nicole. I want to get some answers." Brady said, storming away before Lucas and Sami had a chance to say anything else. Forgetting that Nicole had left with Shawn and Jan, Brady burst into her room. When he found the room empty, he turned to leave but he noticed something that made him step futher into the room.
Sitting on the desk in the hotel room, was Nicole's laptop, which she had left open. Next to the laptop, sat a closed binder with 'Lyric Wilson' written across the front. Brady picked up the binder and flipped through it. Inside were pages filled with Nicole's hand-writing. Brady squinted to read the writing and realized that most of the pages contained rough notes that sounded like a plot in a story. Brady noticed three romance novels lying on the other side of the laptop and then discovered that each page in the binder had one of the titles of one of the novels. Brady set the binder aside and sat down at the laptop. Nicole had used her laptop so frequently in the recent past, Brady had always wondered what kind of things she did with her laptop.
Brady began searching through the files on her laptop, looking guiltily towards the door every few seconds. He found three documents stored on the laptop with the same names as the novels. There was also a few other documents, each document named more suggestively than the last. Every document was password protected so Brady went into Nicole's email inbox. Most of the emails were from someone named Elora Martin and after reading several of the emails from Elora Martin, Brady realized that she was Lyric Wilson's literary agent. After a few more seconds, it sunk in that Nicole was the real Lyric Wilson, not Sami. Which meant he was probably Lyric Wilson's incredibly popular muse, not Lucas. And Brady would be damned if he let Lucas take any more of the attention Brady deserved, no matter how infuated with Lucas he was.