Chapter X: Strawberry, Chocolate, or Vanilla? With Sprinkles?

Therese survived her first pay-per-view and was not looking forward to the first full SmackDown! pay-per-view. Stephanie had fallen silent after their talk about Triple H and the subsequent verbal attack by her father and was still not talking much as they readied to leave the arena. Therese didn't try to pull the thoughts out of her again, being positive that they were still the same. She wasn't sure but maybe a little sympathy was creeping in as she thought of ways to perk Stephanie up. McDonald's always took care of Evan, but she knew Stephanie would not be so easily satisfied with a Happy Meal. A big bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup always did her well. Stephanie carefully watched what she ate, rarely indulging herself. Therese wasn't much better, but when ice cream was needed, no further thought was given to it. However, she didn't want to offend Stephanie by having ice cream sent up through room service. Maybe she just didn't like sweets or was allergic to chocolate. Therese realized that she knew very little about Stephanie the person, only about Stephanie the General Manager, the…well, I'll leave Jericho's and Triple H's words in the past.

The limo pulled up outside the hotel and the chauffer held the door for them. Once on the sidewalk, Therese casually asked, "You like ice cream?"

"Well, yeah. Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering," Therese commented as they headed into the lobby. "I'm a fan of vanilla myself. You seem to be a chocolate person to me?"

"Actually, I do like chocolate but prefer my ice cream to be strawberry." Stephanie eyed her funny.

Therese kept talking as if they were having a normal conversation about nothing. "Interesting…" The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. "Sprinkles?"

"Sprinkles?" Stephanie echoed.

"Yeah, do you like sprinkles on your ice cream too?"

Stephanie smiled. "Who doesn't?"

"Je ne sais pas," Therese responded.

"Moi aussi."

"You speak French?" Both of them threw out at the same time.

"Go ahead," Therese said, gesturing towards Stephanie.

"I can speak French fairly fluently. I was sort of groomed to be the 'ambassador' between French-speaking Canada and our offices. I only speak 'proper' French. I can't speak slang. Et tous?" Stephanie answered, eagerly.

"I don't really speak French. I can do enough to survive for a week in Paris."

"Wow, we have something in common besides wrestling," Stephanie commented. "All hell is going to break loose now," she added, quietly laughing.

After the rooms were clear, the two went about their ways of settling in for the night. Stephanie was mentally and physically exhausted. However, she was still in GM mode, making mental notes about the show while critiquing it. She groaned out loud when there was a knock at her door. Therese bounded around the corner, yelling, "Coming." She checked the peephole and turned to Stephanie.

"You ready, man?" Nash asked, pulling a black T-shirt over his head and smoothing down his still damp hair.

"I changed my mind. I'm not going," Shawn replied, flipping through channels on the television.

"I said I'm sorry. What else do you want me to do? I didn't realize it was you. I was tossing everybody out of the way." Nash held out his hands apologetically.

"I know," Shawn said indifferently.

"You're not mad at me for putting Hunter through that table, are you?"

"No," Shawn replied, tossing aside the remote control and focusing on the television show.

"You want to talk to me in complete sentences?" Kevin asked, sitting down on the side of his bed that was closest to the other one.

Shawn rapidly spoke. "I am not mad at you for pushing me aside. I accept your apology even though there is no need for one. I am not made at you for putting him through the table. I didn't think it was necessary—"

"Even after what he did to you at SummerSlam last year?" Nash asked, his voice rising a little in anger.

"That's another issue for another day. I just changed my mind, that's all." Shawn's eyes stayed focused on the television.

"No, that's not all," Kevin replied, getting up and heading over to the closet. "I know you, Shawn, more than you realize. Give it up." Nash picked up a shirt off the shelf and tossed it at him. "Get dressed while you talk."

"Are you that desperate to see her?"

"Just talk," Kevin demanded, pulling on a pair of socks.

"She's still got something for Triple H." Shawn finally looked over at Kevin but only for a brief moment.

"Stephanie?"

"Who else?"

"How do you know?" Nash asked, settling back on the bed.

"She stopped him before y'all's match and was making eyes at him." He shifted his pillows to avoid eye contact.

"And because of this, she's still wants him?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"You're an idiot," Nash answered, shaking his head.

"You enjoy reminding me of that every day, don't you?" Michaels cracked a small smile.

"Are you saying you like her?" The smile was quickly wiped away.

"No. I just don't want her to think I'm trying to get into her pants and then her feel all bad about it because she's still in love with her ex-husband," Shawn quickly replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

"No," Kevin remarked nonchalantly.

"'No' what?" Shawn rolled over on his side to face Kevin.

"No. You like her."

"Can we act our age here? Besides, does it matter?" Shawn asked, flipping over to his other side, facing away from Kevin.

"Something matters because you were 'all fired up' to go earlier and now you don't want to."

"It's exactly as I said. I don't want her to think that I'm preying on her vulnerability since she obviously had an emotional run-in with him earlier," Shawn responded over his shoulder at Kevin.

"Can it," Nash replied, throwing Shawn's flip-flops at him. "Let's go." Michaels sullenly agreed and slid off the bed to follow Kevin out the door. The farther down the hall he got, the more he cheered up and was almost back to his bouncy self when they arrived at their destination.

When Therese went to answer the door, it wasn't exactly the surprise she had been waiting for. "Stephanie, it's Kevin and Shawn."

"Just a minute," Stephanie yelled out loud and frantically glanced around the room. She then whispered, "Help me." Therese hadn't a clue what to do, so she stacked files and cleared off the table. Stephanie threw miscellaneous articles into her suitcase and then pulled out a red satin robe to draw over her black gauzy nightgown. From her cue, Therese opened the door to be face to face with a grinning Shawn and a fanned out deck of cards waving in front of his chest.

"We already gave at the office," Therese said and started to shut the door. When Shawn's mouth dropped open, she beamed a smile at him and pulled the door back open. Shawn strode into the room and wrapped Stephanie up in a hug. Therese smiled shyly at Kevin and she gestured for him to come in. "How're you feeling?" she asked.

"Great right now. Still too much adrenaline pumping. Ask me tomorrow and you'll get a different answer."

Stephanie gestured for the two men to have a seat at the table. Therese pulled in another chair from her room and asked Stephanie if she wanted it. When she accepted it, Therese settled on the edge of the bed since there was little room around the table. Kevin pulled the table closer to the bed and they all shifted chairs.

Shawn shuffled the cards as he spoke. "So, what are you ladies up to?" Stephanie flipped her belt robe at him with a 'what do you think?' look. "I guess we've interrupted your beauty sleep."

"I thought you told me that I didn't need any," Stephanie said with a grin.

"Yeah, but no matter how many times you tell a woman she's beautiful, she still doesn't believe it." For someone talking about beauty, they weren't shining pillars of it at the moment. However, they were adorable in lounge/pajama pants. Stephanie thought that Shawn was just too much with his bare feet in yellow flip-flops.

Shawn was still shuffling cards like picking at an errant thread. Kevin reached over and grabbed them from him, setting them in the middle of the table. Shawn pulled them back to him and started dealing cards. "What're we playing here?" Everybody just shrugged their shoulders. He stopped at five cards and then asked, "Poker?"

Stephanie glanced down at the cards and then back up at Shawn. "I don't know how to play very well."

"Oh, we'll teach you," Shawn laughed loudly, sounding on the verge of maniacal.

Therese felt a mean streak coming on. Poker was her forte and she would save that revelation for another night. "I don't either. It won't be as much fun trying to teach both us this late at night. Let's do something we all know how to play."

"Go fish?" Shawn asked. Kevin rolled his eyes and took the rest of the deck away from him.

"Rummy?" Nash asked.

"Come on, man. Go fish." Shawn snatched a card from the top of the pile and stuck it in his waistband.

"You're on your own," Kevin commented to Shawn. "Ladies, Rummy? Hearts? Any suggestions?"

"I'm good with Rummy. Steph?" Therese said, ignoring the dejected look on Shawn's face while he pulled the card from his orange and yellow striped pants and tossed it on the table. Stephanie nodded, trying to keep a straight face over Shawn's antics. The best thing to do was not do anything to goad Shawn any further.

Kevin finished the deal and, for a brief moment, the room was quiet. A knock at the door startled them in their silent reverie. Therese jumped up from the bed before anyone could offer to answer it. "I'll get it," she barely got out before she made it across the room to peak through the peephole. The door opened to room service bearing two large bowls of ice cream. She slipped the guy an extra bill and told him to hang on a minute. Three pairs of eyes stared at her intently waiting to find out why and what room service had. "Um, guys, what's your favorite kind of ice cream?"

"Chocolate," both answered simultaneously.

Therese turned back to the man and requested their demands. When he had gone, she gave in to their questioning looks. "I ordered us, me and Steph, some ice cream. It was a long night and I was hoping to cheer her up," she looked at the guys apologetically while setting the strawberry ice cream with sprinkles in front of Stephanie. "Yours is now on the way though."

Stephanie stared at her in surprise. Her first thought was that Therese had poisoned it. In all reality, she was mystified as to why Therese was being a normal person that day. Either way, she wasn't going to sit there and let it melt. "Um, well, thanks," she responded and took a big bite. She rolled her eyes in pleasure. "This is good," she mumbled over the ice cream. "Want some?" They both declined, stating that they would wait for theirs. After a couple of bites of the best vanilla ice cream she had ever had, Therese knew she would be good for the night. Before the girls were halfway done, the chocolate arrived and all four traded bites as they argued over whose was best.

For the next couple of hours, the ordering of cards after a deal and eating the last of the ice cream were the only times the place was silent. They talked about the pay-per-view at first then conversation moved on to nothing in general except for whatever happened to come up. Flirting abounded between Shawn and Stephanie. Kevin attempted to be more subtle with Therese but it was obvious to the others nonetheless. Therese was having a hard time skirting Nash's comments and not initiating a little herself.

Shawn was having himself a "good ol' time." He knew the billion dollar princess could be fun when she lifted off that façade. He could definitely see why the two of them hooked up in college. Therese seemed to be the instigator of their antics. Little did he know that she and Stephanie were repeating their own college stories and replacing their friends with each other. In his ignorant bliss, he realized that only recently had his mood changed. When Kevin went out injured, he had been fairly depressed and threw himself into his work. The coming back of his best friend had lifted his spirits and the duo was back together again. He thought it couldn't get much better, other than he or Nash winning the title from Triple H, but, for some reason, it had. He was enjoying Stephanie's company and plotting with her. He was definitely having fun nagging Kevin about Therese. Or maybe it something else… The heartbreak kid was trying to convince himself that it was nothing else but just being a man that made him so attracted to Stephanie at the moment. She looked amazing in red satin. His eyes would linger when the robe shifted to reveal the concealed nightgown and a bit of flesh. He thought little of Stephanie's encounter with her ex-husband earlier in the night.

Stephanie wasn't oblivious to Shawn's attentions. She was hoping he was getting the drift from hers. There was something about him that smelled heavenly. She thought it was his aftershave but then decided it was his shampoo because it was sweeter and his hair was still damp. She found ways to lean over, trying to sneak a peak at his cards, faking needing help with a hand, picking at a thread on his shirt… She was thrilled to see Kevin and Therese getting along because it meant that she and Shawn would be getting closer. They had begun to plot on getting the two of them together and this was the first of their joint venture. Of course, she had no idea that he had almost bailed earlier. Stephanie probably would have understood but then would have set him straight only to "make"it up to him later. In her ignorant bliss, she kept trying to make him laugh just to see the smile that made her melt.

Kevin watched the two of them cutting up together and, at times, trying to gang up on him and Therese, even though they weren't allowed, when the game moved on to Hearts. He was getting in with her, he could tell it. He only wished she would just relax around him, or at least be honest as to why she wouldn't. As stupid as it sounded, his thigh was still hot from where her knee had touched earlier in the night. That wasn't the only thing that was hot in his mind. She wore a New York Rangers hockey jersey that was probably big enough for their goalie. His thoughts had definitely drifted when he thought that she wore very little underneath. When she stretched her long legs out across the bed, the jersey moved enough for him to see her plaid shorts with the Rangers' emblem. It wasn't enough to cool him off as he stared at her legs that he was sure were longer than Stacy Kiebler's and probably just as perfect, except for a small scar mid-way up her thigh. He wanted to ask her about it but didn't know if it would bother her, so he passed on it.

In those couple of hours, Therese wished that circumstances were different. She wanted to date Kevin more than she had wanted to date someone. He was sexy beyond compare, even in pajama pants…oh, yeah, and he has a great personality. He wasn't as "passionate" as she had thought him to be outside of the ring, which had scared at her first. He was pretty laid back but could still be fun without being immature. She found herself blushing every time he would smile at her for no reason. There was no point in trying to play hard to get at a card game between friends in a hotel room, so she just quit trying for those few moments.

All were disappointed when Stephanie announced that it was bed-time because they were leaving earlier in the morning than they were willing to get up. Once again, she had to cancel a flight and reroute her travel plans. She stopped Shawn while Therese was telling Kevin 'goodbye.' "Can you pass something on to Bischoff for me? I mean, just sneak it in his mail or something. You don't have to say a thing."

"Sure, doll. What is it?"

"Just a second." She whipped out some letterhead from her briefcase and scribbled a short note on it, signing her name in large letters. The GM grinned evilly as she handed Shawn the note. "If you happen to see his reaction, give me a call."