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Chapter One

Angela gazed at her father, a mutinous expression on her pretty face. She glanced over at Topanga who was sitting with her head down, pushing the food back and forth around on her plate, clearly uncomfortably with the strident overtones of the conversation between her best friend and her friend’s father.

They were all gathered at the Moore’s dining table consuming a meal which Angela had prepared that consisted of baked chicken, steam asparagus with cream sauce and brown rice. At the moment none of the diners was paying any heed to the healthy and very pretty dinner. Sergeant Moore was seated at the head of the table with Angela on his right and Topanga on his left, directly across from her best friend.

“I just don’t understand why you don’t want to meet him, Daddy,” Angela complained, visibly upset with her father. “I just assumed that you would want to meet the guy I’m going out with.”

“Angela, I’m hardly home, and when I am, I’d like to spend my time with you,” Master Sergeant Alvin Moore explained to his fulminating seventeen year old daughter. “Not meeting a parade of the young men you’re going out with at any given time. You know I trust you implicitly. Besides, even if I meet this—” He paused awkwardly, realizing that he didn’t even know the boy’s name.

Angela’s eyes met the amused gaze of her friend with consternation. “Shawn, Daddy!” Angela exclaimed, outraged. “You don’t even remember his name!”

“Yes, of course, I do. Shawn,” Alvin Moore said. “That was just a momentary lapse. Shawn—um—Munster.”

Angela looked about ready to explode. “Hunter! His name is Shawn Hunter!”

Topanga kept her eyes on her plate and tried to stifle the giggle that was rising up in her throat.

“That’s what I said, Shawn Hunter,” Sergeant Moore said smoothly. His lighter brown eyes roamed over his daughter’s beloved and outraged features. “Even if I do meet this Shawn Hunter, by the time I get back from another trip, he’ll be history, too, Angela,” Sergeant Moore shrugged. “What’s the point?”

Angela leaned to the side to where her father was sitting at the head of the table. “He will not be history, Daddy,” Angela ground out irately. “It's almost May now, and I’ve been dating Shawn since November of last year.”

Angela’s father blinked. “You have?”

His petite daughter actually growled. “Yes, Daddy, I have. And Shawn’s asked me to go the Prom with him.” She tilted her head. “I thought you said whoever I chose as my escort had to meet you before I could accept his invitation.”

Sergeant Moore looked even blanker. “I said that?” Angela’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he quickly added, “Um, oh, yeah. Of course I did. We were sitting in—ah—the kitchen,” her father improvised hopefully, “sharing a late night snack before bed. See, I remember it well. That was...that was last month.”

“You were outside in the garage fooling around with that smelly old car!” Angela corrected him. Her dark eyes flashed with annoyance. “And it was last week. Shawn came over to take me to the movie matinee. He wanted to meet you then, but you wouldn’t take the time to do it on account of that beat up hunk of junk. You said that the only guy you needed to meet was my Prom date.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Well, Shawn is my Prom date.”

Alvin Moore wagged a finger. He might have lost the battle, but he hadn’t lost a war in his own home yet. “Hold on, Angela. Okay, so maybe I didn’t remember the boy’s name, or realize that you’ve been dating the same boy for close on six months,” Angela’s father admitted with belated frankness, “but that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember meeting me being the sole criteria required for my permission to take you to your Prom.” He picked up his water glass and took a sip. “Shawn Muns-um-Hunter isn’t your Prom escort—yet. And he won’t be until I say so.”

Angela raised a dark eyebrow. “So you’ll meet Shawn, Daddy?” she asked eagerly. The skin of her dark cocoa face glowed, lit up brightly like an internal light had been turned on inside of her. “He’s really anxious to meet you.”

“He is?” her father asked skeptically. That was new. The idea that one of Angela’s “boyfriends” wanted to meet her, as far as they knew, stern military father was indeed a novel approach. None of Angela’s suitors had ever been “anxious to meet” him. They had been “anxious about meeting” him but that was an entirely different kettle of fish. He began to be intrigued by this Shawn Hunter. Perhaps there was more to this guy which actually required that he meet him even without the Prom date thing as the reason. He studied Angela’s face. She certainly had displayed more animation talking about this Hunter young man than she had any of the other boy’s she’d dated. Come to think of it, Sergeant Moore thought presently, she’d never mentioned any of the others beyond a brief detailing of their faults which he took comfort in knowing would lead to the inevitable break up after the requisite two weeks.

His eyes sharpened further as these new thoughts occurred to him. Angela was leaning forward, her dinner practically forgotten, as she talked to her friend. Alvin turned his head and gazed at Topanga Lawrence with approval. She was just the sort of young woman he would have chosen for his daughter’s best friend. Smart, polite, punctual, and she came from a solid family unit. True, she was white, and now Angela was dating a white boy, but although he could find no fault with Topanga, this Shawn Hunter it seemed was proving to be another matter entirely, especially if Angela’s unusual demeanor was any indication of her feelings about this particular young man.

He began to scrutinize her and realized if as for the first time that she was growing up. The scales which had been blinding him from the truth and had been allowing him to remain in his comfort zone finally fell from his eyes. Angela was now a young woman. She seemed to have grown up while he wasn’t looking—while he’d been occupied traveling this last year since the move to Philadelphia. Where had his little girl gone? In her place was a lovely young woman of face and form. And apparently he was the only one who’d noticed. Apparently this Shawn Hunter had succeeded where others had failed. He’d out lasted all her previous boyfriends and now was vying to be his daughter’s Prom date.

Alvin Moore groaned silently. His motherless daughter was on the verge of womanhood and this Shawn Hunter boy’s pursuit of Angela began to take on a more serious tone. The memory of his own years as a teenage boy came back to haunt him with a vengeance: he’d been perpetually randy as all eighteen year old boys were. And he had little doubt that Shawn Hunter was any different.

Angela felt her father eyes on her and she paused, turning to him. “Daddy?” She frowned in concern. “You’re glaring at me. Why?” Without giving him a chance to respond, she sighed with exasperation and added, “I thought it was all settled about you meeting Shawn?”

Sergeant Alvin Moore straightened his shoulders, his bearing stiff and as impressive as if he’d been standing in full military regalia, and lifted his head high as though he was observing someone under his Army command.

“Oh, that’s all settled, baby. Mr. Shawn Hunter is going to get his wish.” He dabbed at his lips and threw down his napkin before standing, his normally hearty appetite destroyed.

“Dinner at oh seventeen hundred this Friday night,” he announced briskly to the utter surprise of his daughter and their guest. He nodded to Topanga and turned around to stalk from the room. He had a lot to think about. More than he’d bargained for when he’d sat down to dinner.

Angela stared after her father, perplexed by his inexplicable behavior. “What’s the matter with him?” she murmured, talking more to herself than to Topanga.

She had also followed Sergeant Moore’s dignified and stately exit from the room with interest. However, she wasn’t as mystified as Angela was. She’d had a serious boyfriend for a lot longer than Angela had been dating Shawn and thought that she recognized the signs of a father’s dawning realization that his little girl wasn’t so little and wasn’t entirely his anymore. What’s more, he’d suddenly realized that he was sharing Angela with a guy he hadn’t even met. However, not wanting to worry Angela, she made a general comment and the moment passed. Nevertheless, Topanga wondered if Shawn would still be so anxious to meet Angela’s father if he knew what was in store for him this Friday night.

~*~

 

Angela turned her head, freeing her lips from the passionate kiss. As she fought to regulate her breathing, Shawn’s searching mouth trailed kisses down her soft cheek and neck. She raised tentative fingers to her swollen lips. She placed her hands on both sides of Shawn’s head and pulled his mouth from the base of her throat. His were cherry red and swollen too. Not only that, but the fair skin around his mouth was pink, flushed from a half an hour’s worth of intense making out.

“Shawn, I came over here to talk to you. It’s important. And we’ve done nothing but make out since we sat down,” Angela complained loudly. She slapped a wandering hand for good measure. She was attempting to scoot away when Shawn holding onto her, pressed her down onto the yielding seat cushions of the red leather sofa, the expression in his light blue eyes soulful and passionate.

“Just one more kiss. I promise, baby.” He said, bending his neck to kiss her smooth dusky cheek. “That’s all I want.”

Angela shut her eyes as his lips crept closer to her mouth, her resolve weakening. “Shawn—”

The rest of what she’d been about to say was lost as his mouth covered hers. His lips were persuasive and tender. Shawn nudged her lips open and slid his tongue inside the warm depth of her mouth. Angela melted against him with the softest of sighs and her hands slipped into his thick hair, holding his face to her. Before long, they were sprawled on the length the sofa with Shawn on top of Angela.

When Jack walked into the apartment, he was startled by what met his eyes.

Standing on the threshold stunned into immobility, Jack recovered and slammed the door shut hard.

The couple on the sofa hastily sat up. Embarrassed, Angela scrambled to pull both sides of her cardigan sweater together.

Hey! What’s going on here?” Jack demanded. He carelessly slung his book bag onto the chair near him, and stood with his arms akimbo, glaring at the mortified couple. Well, at least, one of the duo was sufficiently chastened by the untimely discovery.

“What does it look like, bro?” Shawn asked his older half-brother with studied nonchalance. He stepped into front of Angela, so that she was shielded from Jack’s view while she button and straightened her top as he rolled his black t-shirt from down around his chest and upper back where Angela’s small hands had hiked it up.

“Are you two kidding me?” Jack ripped off his cream-colored jacket with the brown velvet trimmed collar and threw that onto the chair with a force that gave a hint to his state of mind.

Before Shawn could say something flippant to make the situation worse, Angela spoke up.

“Jack, I’m really sorry. This wasn’t what I came here for.” She laid her hand on her boyfriend’s arm, prompting him to turn from his brother to her. “I-I think I better go, Shawn.”

Shawn picked up Angela’s coat from where it hung over the side of the sofa’s arm rest nearest the door. From behind her, he held it out for her to slide her arm into it, and then settled it in place as he wrapped his arms around her waist. He dropped a light kiss onto the nape of her neck.

“I’ll borrow Jack’s car and take you home,” he whispered for her ears alone.

The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up as Shawn’s warm breath wafted over her skin and Angela, fighting to suppress the little frisson of excitement that coursed up her spine, turned around in his arms and glanced a little self-consciously at Jack.

“Actually, I asked Topanga to pick me up at five, and it should be close to that time now.”

Jack confirmed that it was.

Angela nodded. “I’ll wait for her downstairs.”

“I’ll come and wait with you,” Shawn offered instantly.

Angela didn’t look over at Jack, but she could feel the impatience emanating from him.

“Shawn, I’ll be fine. It’s just downstairs.” She grabbed her purse from the coffee table, leaned in to kiss Shawn on the cheek. “We’ll talk later.”

Giving Jack a tentative smile as she passed him, she opened the door and left.

“Alright Shawn, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Shawn turned his head away from the closed door and sauntered over to the refrigerator. Opening it, he pulled grabbed a bottle of cola before turning his head to look at his fuming brother.

“What’s the big deal?” Shawn twisted the cap off while Jack exploded.

“How can you ask me that?” he demanded in his husky voice, eyeing his younger brother with disapproval as he swilled the cola. He pointed to the sofa. “I come in here, and you’re lying on top of your seventeen year old girlfriend, Shawn! She’s half out of her clothes, you’re clearly in an-an excited state, and you can ask me a question like that?

Shawn negligently leaned against the side of the high table with his signature cocky smile curving his lips.

“You know, this is really amazing. I get a lecture from my brother who has women coming in here and leaving here at all hours. I have one girlfriend, and I’m in love with her.” He shrugged off-handedly. “And so what if she’s seventeen? Both Angela and I are over the age of consent according to Pennsylvania law. What do you expect from me, man?”

Jack ran a hand through his spiky brown hair. “Shawn, I’m not talking about legalities,” he said advancing on him. “Or a possible unplanned pregnancy because I think you’re both too smart not to use protection. But what I am talking about is the fact that both of you need to slow down. I know you two think you’re in love—”

No!” Shawn exclaimed, standing up straight. “We are in love, Jack. But that aside, we weren’t going to do anything here.” He shrugged again. “I just got a little carried away for a second, but I had myself under control.” His look challenged Jack to contradict him.

Jack raised his eyes heavenward. He folded his lips between his teeth and stared at his defiant half-sibling.

“Shawn,” he said after a time, “I’m only telling you this because you’re my brother, and I care about what happens to you. You’re starting college this fall, but you’re still in high school right now.” He shook the hand he’d held out at him for emphasis. “You’re getting in a little too deep.”

Shawn stared hard at Jack from under the prominent ridge of his heavy eyebrows. Then he slowly shook his head.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he stated emphatically. He pushed the hair from his forehead and came around the side of the table to stand in front of Jack. “You think you know so much about me, Jack, but you don’t. I mean, we’re not exactly close, now are we?”

Jack was caught of guard by the new direction of the conversation. “Shawn, you’ve been living with me since my freshman year at Pennbrook. We’ve been living together three years now. So yeah, I think I know a little something about you after all this time.”

Shawn laughed harshly. “But what you left out is how we came to live together.” Annoyed with entire discussion, he brushed past him, heading for the stairs to where the bedrooms were located on the next tier of the apartment. “Dad couldn’t wait to dump the burden of his fifteen year old son onto you so that he could hightail it out of town and get back on the road. I wasn’t enough to hold him here. Only Mom could do that, and neither one of us was enough to make her stay. She wasn’t coming back, and once again, he needed to drop me off on someone else’s doorstep. Unluckily for you, you came along at the wrong time and got elected. So let’s not kid ourselves into believing that you weren’t forced into taking me in, Jack,” Shawn threw at him from over his shoulder. “I stopped believing in fairytales the first time Mom and Dad abandoned me.”

The bitterness in Shawn’s voice galvanized Jack. He started after him. “Shawn, that’s just not true. The main reason I chose to attend Pennbrook was to be closer to you—and to get to know you. You and Dad.”

Realizing that he wasn’t going to get away so easily, Shawn stopped, but his attitude was belligerent.

“Look Jack, there’re only a handful of people that really love me, and let’s not pretend that you’re one of them,” he said sharply from the landing; “but Angela is. Oh, and another thing. You’re not my Dad, so I’m warning you,” he pointed his finger at a stunned Jack, "don’t try to come between me and Angela.” Shawn’s retreating footsteps thundered onto the second floor before he disappeared through the open doorway just opposite the landing.

~*~

 

A few minutes later when Eric came home, Jack was still in the living room, pacing and thinking, unable to take his mind off his brother’s latent hostility, and his responsibility as Shawn’s nominal guardian to take the steps necessary to protect his brother from further hurt.

Eric burst into the room with his usual exuberance. “Hey, Jackie, 'sup?” He grinned and tossed his coat and books every which way as he headed for the kitchen.

With his hands lodged firmly on his hips, Jack stopped pacing and watched as his best friend and roommate passed him by on his way to the kitchen.

“Well, for one thing, I came home to find Shawn and Angela on the sofa making out,” he informed him. The residual emotions of his initial shock still finding expression in his soft voice.

Eric glanced over his shoulder and then pulled the jar of peanut butter and a box of cereal from an overhead cabinet.

“So?” He dropped them onto the table and went over to the refrigerator, pulling a loaf of bread from its top.

“So?” Jack repeated. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I meant, what’s the shocker in that? Young love. Ain’t it grand?” Eric sighed and began preparing his unorthodox sandwich.

“The shocker is that I found them doing the—the horizontal mambo!” he exclaimed, exasperated by Eric’s nonchalance.

Eric’s expressive winged eyebrows shot up in surprise. “No way!” he cried. He continued slapping peanut butter spread onto his bread. “Go Shawn and Angela!”

“Eric! You shouldn’t cheer for that,” Eric’s conservative friend griped. “This is my eighteen year old kid brother we’re talking about and his seventeen year old girlfriend.” He came over to sit on one of chrome swivel stools across from Eric. “And I may have exaggerated a little. They weren’t exactly doing the—the deed, but I wouldn’t want to bet good money on just how far they would have gone if I hadn’t come home when I did.”

Eric nodded, digging in the cereal box, and pulled out a handful of the sweet crunchy O shaped nuggets. He mashed them onto the peanut buttered bread and covered it with the other slice.

Jack watched him with fascinated disgust.

“So, what do you think I should do?” he asked, dragging his eyes away from the nasty looking creation to look up at his roommate.

“What do you mean what do I think you should do? Didn’t you just tell me a couple weeks ago that you thought Angela had a stabilizing affect on Shawn?” Eric countered around a mouthful of sandwich. The dark brown eyes that met Jack’s were a little quizzical. “I thought you liked her.”

Jack groaned and ran his hands over his hair. “I do like her, Eric. This isn’t about Angela,” he argued. “And she has been a good influence on my brother. His grades are up. He’s serious and even excited about going to college. Not even Cory could light a fire under him about attending college like she did.” Jack resumed his pacing as he thought of the ease with which his brother’s girlfriend had been able to guide him when neither he, Shawn’s brother, nor Cory, his best friend, had been successful. “He’s more focused, and if it hadn’t been for her, I don’t think he’d have been as gung ho about getting this job he has at the photography studio. It takes a certain amount of cash to afford a steady girlfriend. More than our Dad sends him anyway.”

Eric munched and gazed at him through narrowed eyes. “And that’s not all,” he said, preparing to add his two cents. He looked around to see if anyone, namely Shawn, was listening. “Since he’s been with Angela, we haven’t had to worry about him hijacking our girlfriends either. That chick Cindy that I was dating last week came out of the bathroom the other day when I forgot that Shawn was home for the evening—he’s usually with Angela or Cory like you said—and he didn’t even blink an eye. You'd have thought she was invisible." Eric slammed his hand down on the table to punctuate his point. “Shawn! I couldn’t believe it.”

Jack frowned. “So what?” he demanded in confusion. “Why should he get all excited about some strange girl coming out of the bathroom?”

Eric pursed his lips for a moment. “Duh? She was wearing one of the skimpy little towels I bought specifically for that purpose," he said with a leer, "and nothing else. And dude, Cindy is fione!

Jack sighed. Unwittingly, Eric had reinforced his point. “See? That’s what I’m saying, Eric. Before Shawn met Angela he was juggling two or three girls a week, and sometimes two in one night. An occurrence he actually named ‘Sharing the Wealth’,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll while Eric gave a short bark of laughter. Bits of peanut butter and bread flew from his mouth.

“Yeah, Shawn was the ultimate playa,” Eric reminisced with a sentimental light in his eye before adding with disgust, “Now he’s as whipped as my little brother.” He sighed regretfully and shook his head, wondering not for the first time what was wrong with those two young men who didn’t seem to understand that their youth not only gave them license to philander, but it made it almost a requirement.

Turning off his internal dialogue, Eric focused his attention on what Jack was saying.

“It’s not that I want him to go back to being—well, a dog, but can’t there be a happy medium between being oversexed and completely sprung?” he asked, unaware that he was channeling his roommates thoughts.

Eric didn’t have a pat answer and didn’t try to manufacture one.

Jack rubbed a hand over his lower jaw. “I don’t think I’m equipped to deal with this!” He threw up his hands in frustration. “But I’m all he has right now until Dad comes back, Eric. What in the world is wrong with our little brothers?” he asked curtly, his heavy eyebrows snapping together ferociously. “Two love sick, tame puppies. It isn’t normal, man. It’s just not normal!”

Eric shrugged and finished his sandwich. “You get used to it after a while.” He picked up a napkin and wiped his hands. “Cory’s been with Topanga for so long that it’s kinda weird now that they’re broken up. But I never worried about him getting in over his head, well, because let’s face it, Cory’s ‘safe’. Unlike Shawn,” he added pointedly.

Jack groaned. “You see, that’s what I’m worried about. Shawn’s hardly safe,” Jack agreed unhappily. “He’s more—more sexual than Cory, but up until now, I got the impression that while he may have experimented a lot, he still hadn’t quite gone all the way. And I took comfort in that. But now…” he trailed off, the direction of his thoughts obvious, “…Angela’s in love with him, or so he says, and that means that she’s not going to stand a chance against him if he wants their relationship to go to the next level. And from what I saw on that sofa, he does.”

Eric leaned forward eagerly. “You want I should tell my Dad to have a talk with him?”

Jack thought about that a moment, but wagged his head.

“No,” he replied disheartened. “Shawn would resent his interference.” Hard on the heels of saying that, Jack suddenly perked up. “Maybe I should talk to Angela’s Dad.”

Looking at Jack askance, Eric cringed. “And tell him what exactly?” He screwed his expressive face into a replica of Jack’s. “ ‘Sergeant Moore my brother wants to bone your daughter really, really bad,” he declared whimsically, mimicking his friend’s husky voice. Then adding in his normal one, “If you think that Shawn would resent my father talking to him, what do you think his reaction’s going to be if you go to Angela’s with something like this? Oh, and don't forget that your face is likely gonna be beaten into pulp.”

Jack didn’t need to be convinced further that his idea was a bad one. In fact, while he was reluctant to offend his brother and incur his wrath, he realized that he hadn’t fully thought out how awkward it would be to go to Angela’s military father with the news of his daughter’s impeding loss of virginity to his younger brother.

He winced and started to sweat just from the thought of that meeting. Shawn’s older brother looked up at Eric at little helplessly. “So there’s nothing I can do, is there?”

Eric shook his head and looked on sympathetically. “I’m afraid not, man.” He got up and came around to lay a supportive had on Jack’s shoulder. “It’s not easy being a parent is it?”

“No, it’s not.” He looked down despondently. “No wonder my Mom calls me everyday. Can't say I blame her now.” His expression changed abruptly as a horrible thought occurred to him. His dark brown eyes widened with shock. “So this means that I’m going to have to trust Shawn’s judgment.”

Eric inclined his head. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. But look Jackie, it’s not as bad as it seems. I’ve known Shawn a lot longer than you have, and he’s a good guy deep down. He’s been through a lot in his life, and he’s come through all of it.” Shawn’s best friend’s brother’s voice grew even firmer with conviction. “He has good in him that he doesn’t even know is there. And Angela seems like a smart girl. Try not to worry too much, Daddy. They’re goods kids.” Eric thumped him on the back and headed for the stairs.

Jack heard the door to Eric’s bedroom close and slumped over the table. He felt wholly inadequate to deal with having the responsibility for two love struck teenagers on his hands. For all of Shawn’s cocky bravado, Jack knew that he was emotionally fragile with major abandonment issues. So many things could go wrong with Shawn’s fledgling romance that could send him spiraling out of control that Jack, who at twenty-one was more experienced in the ways of the world, couldn’t suppress an involuntary shudder. So here he was like all parents and guardians before him having to just hope for the best. That was going to be easier said then done.










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