Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2023 23:26:22 +0000 (UTC) From: Samuel Stefanik Subject: Stolen Love. Chapter 41 Hi there. Well, another week has gone by and like The Beatles said, 'It's Getting Better All The Time.' I'm feeling better. Not 100%, but better. Thank all you lovely readers who wrote in with your well wishes and kindness. Also, thanks to all of you who wrote in, excited about getting more story. I've actually had second thoughts on the rewrite. What I might do is just tell more stories from different periods in the Church and Shawn saga. Would you be interested in a story from Bem's perspective? Maybe Comet or Andy? Is there a story that you'd like me to tell? Write me and let me know. I make no promises, but I love new ideas. Disclaimer: If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you. Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips 41 Giving up? By lunchtime I was getting worried. The ten of us sat around a long table at a beachfront eatery. We were under the cover of a crank-out canopy, just beyond the structure of the building that housed the restaurant. The walls were open all around so there was no barrier between us and the traditional seating area. Neb had selected the canopied outdoors for us simply because it was the only place where we could all sit together at a single table. We sipped tall, cold drinks that sweated in their glasses as we waited for our food. Andy leaned back in his chair, his head rested on the seatback and his eyes were closed. Leah was in the seat on the far side of Comet from Andy. She looked similarly exhausted as she rested her head on her left forearm that was sprawled across the table while her right arm hung at her side. Each searcher had taken four shifts. We'd made slightly better time than Neb had planned, but even if that trend continued, we'd only manage to shave ten minutes or so off the six-hour search. Neb also warned that she expected the last leg of the search to be a bit slower due to narrower streets in the residential zone that was the `dog's head' area of the map. There was a chance we wouldn't even have to search that section. We might find Shawn at any time, but there was no way to know that. I was also starting to worry that the dream I'd had, of Shawn shouting at me to find him, was just that, a hopeful dream. The whole morning I'd expected Andy or Leah to suddenly perk up and say `I found him,' but nothing happened. The more time that went by with nothing happening, the more I started to doubt. I'd even started to doubt that Shawn was in the city we were searching. I was worried about finding him and worried about Andy and Leah. I didn't know how much search time they had left in them, but I knew they'd never be able to stand another two shifts each. It was too much to ask of them. I worried that even a night's sleep wouldn't be enough to get them ready to go again. I knew that, when they were on the estate, they routinely kept their abilities active all day long. I thought that would equate to greater endurance for the search we were doing, but it didn't seem to be the case. I guessed that the non-existent population on the plains and the fact that I wasn't usually `overdriving' them for hours on end, made the normal demand on their ability much different than what we were doing that day. It seemed so, anyway. I'd never seen either of them look as exhausted as they did just then. Paul must have seen the same level of exhaustion in the cousins as I did and drew the same conclusions that I had. He asked what I thought was a desperate question. "Young man, could I do what they have been doing?" Andy cracked a weary eye open without lifting his head from the seatback. "No offense Mister Paul, but you're not ready. There's so much interference out there...it's all I can do to stay focused on finding Shawn. You'd need to be very comfortable with your magic, not a beginner." "I'm sorry I can't help." Paul muttered in frustration, the self-loathing clear in his tone. I threw a grateful arm over his shoulders and rested my head on the one closest to me. "You have helped. You've been my rock. You're carrying the heaviest load here...me." Paul uttered an appreciative chuckle and a resigned sigh. "Thank you for the compliment, young man." Andy spoke up again. His voice sounded as tired as he looked. "I'll be alright after lunch. There's not much left to do." Comet glanced at his exhausted boyfriend and raised pleading eyes to mine. I nodded my agreement with him and spared a glance to my brother. His face was as worried as Comet's, but I could tell he didn't plan to say anything. I tried to say it for both of them. "I don't think it's right." I forced the words passed the lump of sadness that choked my throat. "I can't ask you guys to go on. It's too much." Andy sat up so fast I worried he'd given himself whiplash. He pointed an angry finger at me and talked to me like I was an insubordinate employee. "You're not ASKING me to do anything. We're going to eat lunch, and rest here a while, and then we're going on. If you think you're going to stop us from doing whatever we can to find Shawn, you're mistaken." "What he said." Leah said to the table without lifting her head. "But..." I argued. Leah took up the fight and Andy laid his head against the seatback, seemingly content to let his cousin have her turn. She still didn't raise her head, so she gave me a talking-to with the words half-muffled by her arm. "Uncle Church, we're just tired. I'm not even as tired now as I've been at the end of a day of training with daddy. We're adults and we know our limits and we're not there yet. And...if you think I'm going to let that undisciplined civilian down there outlast a future member of the Protectorate Police Force, you're wrong." Andy cracked an eye open and raked his cousin with it while he rubbed a hand over his close beard, the skin making a scratchy sound with the hair against his palm. "Uncle Church, tell the toy soldier down there that if the day ever comes that she shows me up, let's just say that WILL be the day." "Witty, Andrew...very witty." Leah teased into the table. I ignored their exchange and racked my brain for possibilities. "Maybe we can get Hannah and Altus to come help." I thought out loud as I looked for options that didn't include asking the exhausted empaths in front of me to keep going. It was Leah's turn to snap at me for that suggestion. "Un-cle CHURCH!" She barked and dragged her head off the table to glare at me. Her glare was amazing. I'd never noticed before, but her glare was more like Mary's than Andy's scowl was like Joe's. "They're HOURS away and probably busy with statements and reports and debriefings. WE are the searchers here. You WILL let us do our jobs. Enough." She admonished me and flopped her head back down to rest on her arm. Andy got his voice working long enough to encourage his cousin. "That's tellin' him Leah." "Oh fuck." I grumbled and let my right-hand wrap around my bracelet as I acknowledged defeat in my mind if not aloud. I felt antsy and wanted something to do that wasn't sitting there brooding over my missing husband or worrying over my exhausted niece and nephew. I stood up with a vague plan of finding our waitress to check on lunch. As I stood, my improved field of vision let me see that the waitress and another guy were coming our way, carefully carrying trays laden with lunch plates. They got to the table while I was still on my feet. The guy with the waitress was a middle-aged red-head with a full ginger beard. As he got closer, I noticed that he had green eyes and the paunchy, but big-armed build of an athlete gone to seed. He smiled at me with a crooked smile that favored the right side of his mouth. "Harder!" He exclaimed and cast a quick glance up and down the table. "Where's The Beast?" I dropped my face in my hands as recognition and a vague sense of dread struck me at the same time. "Oh fuck." I said to my palms as I realized who the man was. It was the bartender from the seashell hotel restaurant from all those years ago. He looked exactly the same as he did then. I lowered my hands and raised my head to see the man make quick work of handing out the lunches so he could get around to me. He set the last lunch from his tray in front of Neb and walked right to me. "Harder!" He exclaimed again with the same crooked smile and held his hand out for me to shake. "It's been like f'rever! How are ya'? You remember me, don't ya'? Cerasus...Cera? Remember, huh? I'm the Cherry! Cera the Cherry, Cherry Cera, you remember!" I clasped his hand to shake it, but he wasn't satisfied with just a handshake. He pulled on my arm like he wanted to pull me into him, but since I was heavier than he was, he jerked himself off balance, stepped into me, and gave me a backslap hug that made me cringe. I suddenly remembered why I didn't like him. He was a `bro,' a middle-aged frat boy, a true meathead without the physique. I couldn't stand guys like him. Cera stood away me and knocked a tight fist against my right pec. "Still solid's a wall." His enthusiasm swelled as he spoke, like we really were long lost friends. "No wonder you put The Beast on top. Body like y'urs, you'd top him inta' itty bits. Where'd ya' say he was, anyway?" "I didn't." I replied to the onslaught of bro-ness the man subjected me to. Cera's crooked smile didn't waiver at my obvious distaste for his presence. The man was impervious to it. He had been when I knew him before. I remembered him mixing and serving up drinks all night with the same level of boisterous camaraderie for everyone who took a seat at his bar. I remember thinking it was an act when I first met him, but after I watched him maintain it, night after night without wavering, I figured it had to be his real personality. The ginger waiter, former bartender, was filling his lungs for another round of unwelcome familiarity when the waitress appeared next to him to take him away. He went reluctantly, walking backwards as she dragged him so he could smile and wave at me as he went. "I'll see ya' b'fore ya' leave." He called and disappeared through the swing door between the eating area and the kitchen. "CHRIST!" I complained as I flopped in my seat to have my lunch. Paul shoved a teasing elbow into my ribs. "You have a fan." He smirked with his face and his voice. "The man is insufferable." I objected to Paul's teasing. "It never ends. He'd go on like that for hours if you let him. Cherry Cera, he calls himself. He told me his name, Cerasus, means `cherry.' He calls himself Cherry Cera, which if he used his whole first name, he would basically be calling himself Cherry Cherry, but he shortens his name, so that means he's calling himself Cherry Cher." I shook my head in disgust and took the toothpick out of my club sandwich so I could eat it. I ate a quarter of my sandwich in silence. I was hungry in spite of the full pound of nuts I'd consumed during the course of the morning. I figured I was using more magic than I realized and was glad Neb had the foresight to make me refuel. I was reaching for the next quarter of sandwich when Paul spoke again. "You know, young man, men like that aren't immune to dislike. He seems pleased to see you. You could at least pretend to be pleased to see him." I turned my face toward Paul to see if he was kidding. He wasn't. His jaw was set with a kind of grim determination that I didn't understand. "When he comes back, I want you to be thrilled to see him. Make his day." Paul directed...practically ordered me. "Fine." I huffed, willing to do anything to placate the strange anger in my friend the priest. I figured he'd chastised me as a lesson of some kind, but I was damned if I knew what it was. My experience with Paul taught me that he usually knew what he was doing, so I went along. I admit that I was a bit resentful at the way he admonished me on behalf of the truly insufferable Cherry Cera. I didn't see why it was my job to make his day, especially when mine was going the way that it was. It wasn't like anyone was going out of their way to make my day. I looked up and down the table with bitterness as I finished my sandwich and crunched on the chips I had left. As I watched my friends and relations eat their lunches and talk to each other, I remembered that all of them were there, trying in their own way, to make my day for me. Even my brother, who I wanted to choke more often than I wanted to hug, was there for me, sort-of. `Alright, Paul.' I thought as the presence of the people I cared about, and who cared about me, drove the resentment from my heart. `Wait till you see me in action when Cherry Cera comes back.' In due course, the man came back when it was time to clear away the lunch dishes. I took a better look at him the second time that I saw him and noticed something I hadn't before. The crooked smile that he wore didn't seem to reach his eyes. I saw in those unsmiling eyes that Paul had been right. Cherry Cera was not impervious to my dislike. I felt bad for being a dick to him when he greeted me before. To make up for it, I took a deep breath and sprang to my feet to meet the man when he got near me. "Cherry Cera!" I boomed at him through the biggest smile I could muster. I threw my arms wide. "Bring it in Big Man!" I grabbed Cherry and hugged him right off his feet. I spun him around once and set him down. I released him from the embrace but not from my possession. I physically turned him to stand next to me so I could throw an arm over his shoulders. I pulled him against me like he really was my dear friend and used my free hand to gesture around the table. "Meet my friends and family." I started at the head of the table and worked my way around. "Cherry," I guided him over to Neb, "this is Neb Torolus, lead singer and guitarist of Divided Light. Neb, this is my friend Cherry." I introduced them and gave Cherry just enough time to shake hands with Neb before I pushed him along down the table. "This is Cy and Vulp Dux," I leaned down to stage whisper right into Cherry's ear, "billionaires." I said. He shook hands with the beefy brothers, and I pushed him further along the table to Paul. "This is my great friend, Paul," I leaned down to whisper again, "he's from another world." I raised my voice to normal and stood up to introduce Met. "Met is a partner in my husband's, or I should say, The Beast's medical practice, and around here," I walked Cherry around the foot of the table, "this is Joe, my brother. Next to him is Leah Ecclesia," Cherry reached his hand out toward Leah and looked very bashful about offering it to her, "you might have heard of her. She and her twin, they're the daughters of my sister Mary and the famous Bem Ecclesia, also a billionaire." I guided Cherry around Leah and over to Comet and Andy. I introduced Andy first. "Cherry, this is my nephew, Joe's son, Andy, and his boyfriend Comitis. You might know Andy from his line of designer clothes. This is THE Andy Philips. That's everyone." I announced. "Everyone," I turned Cherry and me broadside toward the table, "now you know Cherry Cera." "Harder...Harder," Cherry hissed at me. I leaned down to hear what he wanted. "You fuckin' wit me, right?" I physically turned Cherry to face me and looked him directly in the eye. "Every word I said was true." "But...but Harder...how'da ya' know `em?" Cherry pleaded. I decided to try to blow the man's mind the rest of the way and introduce myself to him. When Shawn and I had been to the seashell hotel before, we weren't famous yet, and we weren't billionaires yet. It was likely Cherry never connected who we were then, with who we became later. That would have been especially true if he continued to think of us as Harder and The Beast instead of as Church and Shawn Summas. I held my hand out toward Cherry, and he clasped it to shake. "Nice to meet you, Cherry Cera." I primed the introduction I was about to make. "I am Church Summas and my husband, who you know as The Beast, is Shawn Summas, who is the son of Lenis Summas, the financial wizard, and the nephew of..." Cherry finished my statement, "Steward Ars Summas of The HALL Organization. A-fuckin'-mazin'!" Cherry dropped my hand like it was a hot piece of metal and ran to where Andy lolled in his chair. "Y'U'RE ANDY PHILIPS!" Cherry shouted at Andy and grabbed the boy's hand to shake like he wanted to wrench his arm from his body. "I'm wearin' y'ur underwear!" Cherry celebrated then dodged around Andy to Neb. "And y'u're...y'u're...Y'U'RE INCREDIBLE!" He shouted at her. "Thank you." Neb said, for lack of anything else to say. Cherry gushed around the table and was a complete fanboy to all the wealthy and famous people. He even gushed over Joe, Met, and Paul even though it was obvious that Cherry wasn't completely sure how they fit in with the rest of us. When he finally ran out of hero worship, Cherry came back to me. "But where's The Beast?" He asked me. "We're looking for him." I admitted and tried to hide the gravity of the situation in plain sight. Cherry grinned ecstatically at me. "You find `im, you bring `im here. I wanna say hiya." "Will do, Cherry." I grinned back at him. "Do be a big favor, please?" "Sure, Harder, anyt'ing." "Don't tell anyone you met us for a couple days, please? You know how it is, the way people can get around people like us." Cherry put his hand up to stop my talking. "No'ne get a word outta me." He swore with firm conviction. I thanked the boisterous man, who smiled with his whole face. I left him and went to settle the tab with the waitress. I grossly over-tipped her, apologized for monopolizing Cherry, and told her that Cherry was a dear friend. She seemed dubious about my claim but didn't say anything that told me whether she believed me or not. When I got back to the group, we gathered ourselves and left the eatery. Cherry followed us out and waved goodbye until we were on the bus and gone. "You did a nice thing." Paul observed as we rounded the corner of the next block, out of Cherry's line of sight. "It made me feel good too." I admitted to Paul. I almost didn't want to admit how much of a boost it gave me to make Cherry's day, probably his whole week, but I couldn't hide it. Seeing Cherry and indulging him had lifted my spirits from the depths of brooding despair up to the relative heights of the delight of seeing a fellow creature enjoying himself. "I'm glad." Paul observed and let the event close on itself. He didn't remind me how much of a shit I'd been to Cherry when he first recognized me, or that he'd had to `speak to me.' Paul was too classy for that, and I loved him because of it. He opened Fidum's Bible and busied himself with the text. Neb drove us a few blocks until we got back to where we'd left off the search. When we broke for lunch, we'd just finished the route through the leaping dog's body and only had a little more to go before we were ready to move into the head. The display on the dashboard-mounted-tablet had highlighted where we'd been in a different color from where we still had to go, and the dog had changed from yellow to blue almost up to its neck. Neb pulled the bus over to prepare the team to get started again. She questioned both Leah and Andy very carefully before she granted her permission for the search to continue. She exacted a second promise from each of them to speak up if they felt anything...anything at all. The cousins promised and we went back to work the same way we'd been doing it before. Leah went first.