This is a new story, and probably pretty angsty. But if you stick with me, I promise there'll be a happy ending. A lot of this will be motivated by reviews – so keep telling me what you think and where it should go.

Rating for language

I don't own them, make no profit, etc…

…

"I'm not in love with you."

Her head popped up. Joe looked as surprised as she felt. "What did you just say?" she said.

Joe blinked at her for a second. "I, uh, just realized – I'm not in love with you."

Steph looked at the TV, then back at Joe. "And the fact that the Mets are losing made you realize that?"

Joe laughed, a soft, embarrassed sound. "Uh no. I was just thinking and I realized—"

"That you don't love me after all," she said. She was trying to speak casually, to belie the way her heart was pounding and her hands were starting to sweat. But instead, it came out bitter, hurt.

"No. It's not that. I love you – I have for a long time, and probably always will. I just don't think that I'm in love with you." He stopped and frowned. "Is there a difference?"

She stared at him for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Unfortunately, yes. There's a very big difference." She drained her beer and looked back at the TV, having absolutely no response in this absurd conversation. She took another breath to stay calm and rubbed her clammy hands over her jeans.

"I'm just realizing," Joe said, "that we want different things out of life. I really want to settle down, have a family. And you'd be a terrible person to settle down with."

She had to take a shallow breath to stay calm when his words hit her. "What?"

"Wait," Joe said. "That didn't come out right. What I meant was that you don't want to settle down. And forcing you to do so wouldn't make either of us happy."

Steph leaned back and closed her eyes. She knew, deep down, that he was right, but there was no way she was letting go of this relationship without a fight. If she had stopped to think rationally, really examined her feelings, she'd know that her desire to hang on to Joe was more about having a safety net than a relationship. But at the time, at that moment, all she knew was that his words hurt.

"I thought it had been working okay," she said.

"Don't get me wrong, Cupcake, but I don't think we can describe our relationship as working. I mean, we're barely a couple. We're more like—"

"Fuck buddies?" she said.

Joe cringed. "I'd like to think we're more than that."

"So would I," she said. Though they both knew that they weren't.

"What about you," Joe said after a few minutes. "Are you in love with me?"

She closed her eyes before shaking her head. Joe didn't respond.

A few more awkward, silent minutes passed. "What brought all this on?" she said.

"I was thinking about something Ranger said yesterday."

"What? When did you talk to Ranger? What about?"

"I confronted him about the underwear."

"What underwear?" she said, even though the sinking feeling in her stomach meant that she probably knew exactly which pair of underwear he was talking about.

Joe rolled his eyes.

"So, what?" she said, her voice rising along with her defensiveness over the boy's little conversation behind her back. "You're breaking up with me because of a conversation you had with Ranger?"

Joe's eyes widened. "Is that what I'm doing? Are we breaking up?"

"Where exactly did you think this conversation would go?"

"I didn't exactly think it through that far."

"I gotta get out of here," she said, standing up. She started to walk past him, but he yanked on her arm, pulling her down into his lap.

"Hey," he said, kissing her on the forehead. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. "I know I told you I'd wait for you to be ready for a family, but…"

"But if you did that, you'd have to wait forever," she said. She looked up at him. He didn't look heartbroken, and she knew she didn't either. Maybe her heart had cracked a bit, but it wasn't broken.

"I'll never want a Burg life," she said. "And you always will."

"Yeah." He leaned down and kissed her.

The heady sensations that always came from one of his kisses warred with the pain in her chest. But the normal sensations shifted this time by vocalization of their feelings. She pulled him closer, not yet ready to walk away from something that had been so familiar for so many years.

"I love you anyway," he said with his lips still almost brushing hers.

"I know," she whispered.

He leaned back and poked her in the ribs. "Come on," he said. "You can at least say it now."

She smiled at him and tried to ignore the pain in her chest, because she knew that in spite of what her heart was telling her, her head was right. It was time to let this go.

She stuck her nose up in the air. "I like you too."

He laughed. "Good." He leaned forward to kiss her again. Shifting her on his lap, he got his hands under her shirt.

She pulled back from his kiss long enough to ask, "So we're definitely broken up?"

"Uh huh," he said, in between more kisses.

"Forever and ever broken up?"

"Uh huh."

"We both seem awfully happy about that fact."

He was still kissing her. "Guess it wasn't true love after all."

By then he had her bra off and her jeans unbuttoned. Her pain was quickly being replaced by desire, allowing her to laugh and enjoy his single-mindedness. "Guess not," she said. "So what exactly are we doing here?"

He leaned back to look at her, his face entirely serious, like he couldn't believe she even had to ask. "Break-up sex."

Oh, right. Why hadn't she thought of that? She grinned and kissed him again. "God, you're such a guy."

He gave her the same smile that had had her going weak in the knees for fourteen years. "And you're about to be a very happy woman."

"I'm going to miss this," she said.

"That's okay," Joe said as he got her jeans all the way off. "We can still have broken-up sex, and congratulatory sex, and rough-day sex…"

"You have this all planned out, don't you?"

"This part? Yes, I definitely have this part planned out." He proceeded to whisper exactly what his plans were, until she was squirming underneath him.

But the silliness faded as they both realized it would probably be the last time. She clung to him, and afterwards they cuddled together on the couch, something neither of them usually bothered with.

Joe threaded his fingers through her hair. "I'm going to miss this too."

She looked up at him. "We'll still be friends, right? I kinda like having you around, even if you lecture me."

"If you'd be safer, I wouldn't have to lecture you."

"I'm perfectly capable of tak—"

He cut her off by kissing her again. "This is why we're broken up."

She grinned. "Oh yeah. I forgot already."

He studied her for a minute, taking in her face. "I do love you, Steph."

"I know. I love you too."

"See!" he said, the moment broken. "It's not that hard."

She rolled her eyes and pushed at his shoulders, getting up off the couch. "I should get home." She looked around, and found her jeans sticking out from under the couch.

"You can stay here tonight," he said with the same damn smile that had gotten her into trouble more times than she could count.

"Nope. You dumped me – that means you have to sleep alone tonight."

"I did not dump you," he said.

She got the rest of her clothes on. "Regardless, you're still sleeping alone."

She headed out the door, but stuck her head back in. "I'll see you soon, right?"

"Yeah. We'll get Pino's and watch a game."

She grinned at him and then walked to her car. Just as she got in, Joe threw open the house door. She rolled down the window. "What?"

"You're sleeping alone tonight too, right?"

She gave him the finger.

"Just like old times," he said.

…

Ranger was sitting on her couch when she walked into the apartment. Normally, he loved Steph's expressiveness. But not for the first time, he wished he couldn't see that tell-tale flush, the intimate little smile…

"Nice evening?" he said.

She dropped her purse on the floor. "Actually, no."

He gave her a disbelieving stare, but she ignored it.

"What exactly did you say to Joe yesterday?" she said.

"About what?"

It was her turn to give a disbelieving stare. "Come on, Ranger. It was bad enough for Joe to dump me. Surely you remember."

He stared at her, trying to find someway to respond. He didn't believe for a second that they were over, really over. The cop hadn't even seemed upset yesterday. And she certainly didn't look upset now.

But she was waiting for him to respond, and was starting to look plenty pissed off at him. He didn't want to have this conversation. He'd had the day from hell and this was not the way he wanted to end it. He stood up and walked toward her.

"He showed me the black panties. I told him Ella had been having fun with her machine."

"That's it?" she said.

"He wanted to know why I was buying you underwear at all. I explained that Ella had standing orders to buy you whatever you need."

She tilted her head to the side. "I don't get it."

He shrugged one shoulder.

"You didn't say anything else?"

He debated the merits of answering, but he had never lied to her before, and didn't want to start now. "I might have said that if he were sure you were in love with him, he wouldn't care about a pair of underwear my housekeeper bought."

She sighed and plopped down on the couch. "That would have done it."

"I have a job for you if you're interested."

She blinked at his change of subject, but he wasn't about to continue talking about her fight with her boyfriend.

"Oh yeah," she said. "Sure. I didn't even ask you why you're here. Sorry." She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

He studied her for a moment. He was going to have to discuss this. Why did he always have to be the one to clean up the cop's mess? He tamped down on faint stirrings of anger and sat down beside her. "You okay, babe?"

She answered without opening her eyes. "He's apparently no longer in love with me."

"He figured this out before or after he fucked you?"

Her head popped up and she stared at him.

Shit. He took a shallow breath. "Sorry."

Her eyes opened wider. "What's with you tonight?"

He ran his hands over his face before speaking. "Two take downs went wrong. I've got one man in the hospital and one scumbag still on the street."

She leaned forward and put a hand on his arm. "Who? Is he okay?"

"It's Hal, and he'll be fine. Just a concussion. It just took him longer to wake up than I was comfortable with. He'll be released in the morning."

"Should we go visit him? Do you want me to go with you?"

He reached over and pulled her across the couch onto his lap. Just that was enough to restore his control and equilibrium. He tightened his arms around her and smiled into her hair. "I was there most of the evening. He has people staying with him. He'll be fine. But thanks."

She nodded and curled further into his chest.

He rubbed her arms and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "What about you, babe? Are you going to be okay?"

She nodded again.

"I didn't think what I said would cause a problem," he said. "I'm sure you two can work it out."

She shook her head, but didn't say anything else. Thank god. As much as he was always willing to make her feel better, he wasn't sure he could stand to hear the details of their evening.

She sat up and smiled at him. "You want some food or something to drink or watch TV or something?"

What he needed was to get out of there before he did something stupid. "I should probably get back to work. The cops are gonna want paperwork from this morning."

She nodded, trying to hide her disappointment and failing. "Okay."

He stood, lifting her off his lap as he did. He set her on her feet and brushed a kiss across her forehead. "I'll see you later."

"What was the job?" she said.

Shit. He needed sleep. "Right. A distraction, Friday night."

"Sure. Nothing better to do."

He tugged on a curl. "You two will work it out." He turned toward the door and was halfway there before he heard her quiet words.

"What if I don't want to work it out?"

He turned back and stared at her. He knew what she was asking, but he also knew he couldn't give her what she wanted. He took a step toward her, reaching for her. One arm he hooked behind her head, pulling her until they were flush against each other. The other arm he used to just hold her for a moment as he rested his forehead against hers.

Then he said the only thing that he could. "You will. You should."

He didn't look at her, knowing his words had hurt her, and instead turned and walked out before the instincts screaming at him to stay made him change his mind.

…

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