I Want An Easter Egg

Disclaimer: nothing is mine

AN: This is part of my ongoing holiday series. It's not an unusual one but an idea came to me and wouldn't let me go. It didn't come out exactly as I expected but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Ranger's POV

It's been a bit crazy since Stephanie and I got together. At first it seemed neither wanted to admit what was happening between us, afraid to rock the boat, but we should've known there was no need to worry. We were both all in and it was good to be on the same page. The sex has been amazing but it's more than that, when we are together we make love. I know, it's not the way a badass thinks but Steph… she makes me so much more than that. She met my family a couple months ago and they loved her. I never thought they wouldn't but she hasn't had the best of luck with her man's family. We all know her issues with Morelli's family but Orr's family was no better. We spent yesterday at my parents for dinner, they had a big Easter dinner so my siblings could spend today with their in-laws or home with the kids. My parents didn't have to deal with sugared up kids and neither did I. They had an Easter egg hunt which I thankfully missed. The kids get a bit wild and want me to help. I have an unfair advantage because I know the places my mother puts them; she puts them in the same place every year. That's why the older kids aren't part of it.

Today we promised Helen we'd attend mass with the family. I knew getting my Babe up for 8:30 mass was going to be tricky, she only got up early with the promise of morning sex. I woke her slowly with soft kisses across her collarbone and shoulder. I watched her stretch like a cat and purr, "Good morning, mi amore."

I smiled she was trying to learn Spanish so she could converse with my Grandma Rosa, "Morning Babe. We need to get up so we can get to mass."

She slowly opened her baby blues and pouted. She was so adorable when she said, "no shower sex, I'm not showing up at church with afterglow plastered all over my face so everyone knows what we did this morning."

I had to chuckle, she had some funny inhibitions still, but she would still be sporting an afterglow, we'd made love well into the early morning hours and had slept only three hours. "Fine, but we can still shower together to save water."

She surprised me with a full out laugh, "Yeah right, we save no water and we'll wind up having sex and getting to church late. Get in the shower so I can take my time."

She nudged my shoulder and with a deep sigh I slid out from under the covers and walked to the shower; naked of course. I heard her moan of appreciation and smiled as I stepped under the spray. Ten minutes later I walked back into the bedroom to find the love of my life snoring softly. I walked over to the bed and kissed her awake again. "What time is it?"

"Babe, it's 7:00 you need to get moving or we'll be late," I answered.

She jumped from the bed and ran to the bathroom. I shook my head, walked to the dressing room and pulled on a suit. I decided to wear a light grey instead of my normal black with a pale blue shirt. I chose a blue and silver striped tie and black loafers to complete the look. Stephanie was wearing a pair of navy merino wool dress pants with a yellow sweater that had pastel pink and blue flowers embroidered along the hem. She was wearing three inch ankle boots with them. It hardly seemed like spring had arrived with the chilly temperatures continuing so far this month. I made my way to the kitchen to make coffee so Steph could function.

At 8:00 she breezed through the kitchen, looking beautiful as usual, grabbing her travel mug of coffee on her way out the door. We arrived at church and made our way to where her family sat near the front of the church. I saw Angie Morelli cringe as we passed them while Bella began muttering some curses. For people who claim to be so pious they have a funny way of showing it. I may have killed people but I don't claim to be religious in any sense of the word and I try not to say anything bad about others. Mass was long but not very crowded, I figured the next mass at 10 would be packed.

We made our way out of the church with Mrs. Plum fussing over her granddaughters only to come face to face with the Morelli women. They both had a haughty look on their face when Bella started, "You… you broke my grandson's heart to run off with another man. You don't deserve to step foot in the house of our Lord. You are devil woman." What a drama queen.

I heard Mrs. Plum suck in a breath and Grandma Mazur said, "How dare you…"

She was cut off by an unlikely source. "Shut up you crazy old bat. Where is your precious grandson? He is no where near a church and never shows for mass. How you can sit through mass and hear of the sacrifice our Lord made, mutter curses at my daughter, and call her names on the front steps is appalling. Maybe you should be locked away in a mental hospital because you ain't normal," Frank growled.

Grandma Mazur didn't like being cut off, "Yeah, maybe you should go out and get laid. You Morelli women are more repressed than my daughter."

"Just shoot me right here. Why do I have a sex crazed mother? Honestly, I think we need your hormone replacement adjusted," Helen cried.

I looked over at my Babe, my blank face firmly in place when I saw her let loose. She began to laugh so hard she cried. She tried to control her mirth, finally saying, "Okay, everyone. Break it up. You've gotten your show for the morning and Bella got her weekly curse in. Why don't you ask your grandson why he wasn't at church this morning? I heard he had a late night at The Boobie Bungalow."

Everyone around us either gasped in shock or downright laughed out loud. The Boobie Bungalow was the strip club that Joyce Barnhardt opened on Route 1. It was said the inside looked like a tacky whorehouse and the women wore skimpy g-strings. Even Lester had refrained from going there. The place was already noted as the cause of a divorce for the Trenton Mayor and several men were suing after getting an STD and one contracted MERSA. Bella and Angie sputtered before stomping red faced to their car.

We drove to the apartment and changed into jeans, sneakers and sweatshirts. Stephanie was helping her sister set up an egg hunt in the yard while Frank and I entertained the girls with Albert. Helen and Edna were making coffee and cutting up the four coffee cakes they had made for breakfast. They had made a lemon-raspberry, chocolate swirl with coconut, cinnamon and pineapple-coconut. They smelled really good and I knew that I'd need to spend extra time in the gym. This family ate a lot of carbs and a lot of fat.

The girls were watching an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where the Easter Bunny tricked Bugs into delivering Easter Eggs. Some monster kid kept crying 'I want an Easter Egg.' It was amusing. Angie wanted to turn on a Disney Princess movie instead. Mary Alice argued, "I'm not a princess. I'm a falling anvil kind of girl, just like Aunt Stephanie."

Thinking about it that was a good way to described Stephanie. Val was the Disney Princess type. I surprised everyone by saying, "Would you like help finding the eggs MA?"

She smiled shyly and said, "Oh yes Uncle Carlos. We can help Janie win."

Angie said, "That's not fair. I'm helping Lisa that would be 3 against 2."

Edna walked in saying she'd help Angie and Lisa. We all sat at the table and had breakfast, if you can call it that. There was no protein, good thing lunch was early. We could smell the ham baking. The girls were opening their baskets from Frank and Helen so I went to the car for ours to the girls. They had dolls, candy, DVDS and games. Our baskets for Angie and MA had an I-Pad Mini for each, An I-Tunes gift card for $100 and candy Ella ordered from Sees in California. Lisa and Janie had a milk chocolate foiled wrapped eggs, they were easier for their little hands to hold, a Leap Frog tablet each and age appropriate software. They each also had a gift card for Build-A-Bear to make their own stuffed animal and they could buy clothes for it. They squealed at the gifts and hugged both of us. Val tearfully thanked us. Their computer had died recently and the girls needed something for school. They had a wi-Fi printer and with an app the girls could write their reports on their I-Pad and print it out and there wouldn't be a fight.

We all went outside for the egg hunt. The girls found an egg with a Rainbow Bright wrapper on it. Val and Stephanie began to laugh, then showed Helen who laughed with them. "What's so funny Aunt Stephanie?"

"Well, MA, this egg was hidden by Grandma Helen 20 years ago and we could never find it. I can't believe it was still out here all these years later," Steph explained.

Val giggled, "Yeah, we looked for weeks and assumed an animal took it. It was the prize egg. Whoever found it would get $50. I guess you get it MA."

Angie sagely said, "What about interest? There should be interest on that money."

Helen was shocked and Val screeched, "Angie that was inappropriate."

I decided to play peacemaker, I know I had money in my wallet so I said, "How about I give MA $300 for the egg but… she has to save the money for college."

Angie and MA conferred and agreed to my terms. I handed the cash to Val who said she would take the girls with her to the bank to deposit the money in MA's savings account. With that settled we finished finding the eggs. Angie found the prize egg. It was a pink plastic egg with $100 inside. She decided to put that in her college fund.

After the fun outside was over we went inside for lunch, which meant we were going eat a big meal and graze the rest of the day. Helen had made ham, lasagne, mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and a whole stick of butter, salad which only I ate, corn and carrots with another stick of butter coating them.

Frank, Albert and I went to the garage for guy time while the women cleaned the kitchen. It was the same in my family. They didn't want our help. We smoked cigars, well Albert choked and sputtered on his. We drank some whiskey, again Albert choked and sputtered. Frank and I talked about our Army days taking turns telling stories more gruesome than the previous one. We enjoyed watching Albert turn green. Poor guy never had much male influence, his father ran off when he was an infant.

When we walked in the kitchen Val comforted Albert, Steph just smiled and Helen gave an exasperated, "Really Frank did you have to do that? And you, Carlos, I'm sure you could have exerted a little influence over Frank instead of joining in."

What. The. Hell. She sounds like my mother scolding me. These Plum women aren't afraid of me. Then Helen shooed us into the dining room for dessert. There was more coffee and a cake was set in the middle of the table. It was a demented Easter Bunny face. The ears were lopsided, one bigger than the other. The bow tie was also deformed, one side bigger than the other. Colored coconut was sprinkled over the tie so it was blue and the ears should've been pink but were closer to red. Jelly beans were used for colorful polka dots on the tie but the eyes, nose and mouth were also made with them. The eyes were red and the mouth was crooked like it was an evil bunny. Frank looked at the cake and asked, "Did you do the face MA?"

"Yes Grandpa, how did you know?"

"It looks like something your Aunt would do," he replied with a straight face.

A bark of laughter escaped me as Steph smacked my bicep with her hand. The cake was good, but sweet. We got ready to leave receiving hugs from all four girls, and thanks from their parents. Frank and I made plans for a round of golf. He would set it up with Congressman Juniak and I'd ask Governor Christie. It would be an interesting afternoon. Helen packed us some leftovers which would feed us for a couple of days and of course left over bunny cake and coffee cake. I had a feeling the food wouldn't make it past the fifth floor. Lester was on duty and he could sniff out cake almost as fast as Babe. That could be interesting to watch them fight over cake.

We were on our way home, about a block from Haywood when I saw a flashing light in my rear view mirror. I pulled over and looked in the side mirror, by the swagger of the man getting out of a POS Crown Vic I knew it was Morelli. No cop is going to pull me over except him. I'm the only one with a 911 Turbo in this neighborhood. I looked over at Steph as I heard her suck in an angry breath, "Relax Babe, he's just messing with us. He's probably angry about your comment this morning."

She angrily said, "Yeah but if he had no reason to pull you over that's abuse of his position."

There was a knock on the window, I pushed the button and it expressed down. I turned my head, hands still on the steering wheel. "Can I help you," I calmly asked.

Morelli looked like he tied one on last night. He smirked, "License and registration."

I had already pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and Stephanie pulled the registration from the console. I handed everything to Morelli asking, "Why did you pull me over?"

I saw that smarmy look on his face as he smugly replied, "Had a report of a stolen sports car, black, and you were doing 32 in a 30."

I wanted to wipe that look off his face. He knew I had this car, while he said a sports car he didn't say a 911. It was probably a Mustang and he knew I'd be in this area. He was seriously messing with my happy and my Babe's happy. We waited patiently, okay I waited patiently. Babe was fuming and on her cell. She was speaking quietly to someone and I knew she was using her contacts about this. Morelli was taking his time running the plates and information. He walked back over to the car handing everything back to me, "Everything checks out. You're pretty slick Manoso but someday you're going to screw up and I'll be there to catch you. Here's the ticket for speeding, illegal tint on the windows and incorrect address on your license."

I took the items from his hand, ignored his jabs and pushed the button for the window to go up. I watched him walk back to his car. Full swagger in his steps. God he's an ass I thought.

My Babe relaxed now that Morelli was gone, "God what an ass. I don't know what I ever saw in him."

I chuckled, "I'll take care of it Babe. He'll learn not to mess with us."

We pulled into the garage, stepped into the elevator with our leftovers. I fobbed us up to seven but the elevator stopped on five. "What the hell," she said as the door opened. I watched as she zeroed in on her prey. Hal and Binkie were on monitors, Lester and Bobby were standing by with big grins. "You are so dead Les. I'm calling your mother. If you think you are getting any of these leftovers you are sorely mistaken. I had to deal with Bella this morning and Joe a few minutes ago. Send this elevator to seven now. I need to get laid."

With that I saw Hal turn red while Les, Bobby and Binkie stood doing their impression of a fish as the doors closed and we proceeded on to seven. We made our way to the bedroom kissing after she put her leftovers in the refrigerator. She proved once again why she's my perfect woman. Happy Easter to me.

I'll deal with Morelli tomorrow, actually my lawyer will deal with it. I'll remind Tank never to leave those four on duty alone again after I deal with my Babe and her needs.

There really is a place called the Boobie Bungalow, I found it on line looking for a funny name for the club.