Disclaimer: The characters recognised were created and remain the property of JE. The storyline and characters you don't recognise are my own.
Warnings for language, sexual content and adult behaviour – the characters are adults and behave as such.
Note: This is the first piece of creative writing I have done in many years, so your constructive feedback is greatly appreciated. The main characters are a bit OOC because I think it is time that certain people grew up. Timeframe is after "the deal" but before Scrog. If anything defined S&R's relationship it was in the moment he walked into the room and took a bullet to save her. Most of the story is Stephanie's POV, alternate POV's will be marked. To save you from reading my poor English to Spanish translations, text in italics should be considered to be spoken in Spanish. I have used Australian spelling throughout (except for Mom/Mum).
Chapter 1: Comfortable
Most unmarried women of my age would be out on a Saturday night. Maybe a club, a bar, out on a date, a night with the girls, but not me. I haven't been out on a Saturday night for fun in…well, truthfully? I don't know how long.
My name is Stephanie Plum. I'm thirty-one years old, divorced, no kids. From my Italian father I have a full vocabulary of hand gestures, a hot temper, an insane appetite for rich food, child-bearing hips and long, brown, curly hair. My curls are, to be nice about it, kind of crazy looking first thing in the morning, but look pretty damn good after hot rollers and half an hour of hard work. From my mother's Hungarian genes I have blue eyes that can't seem to hide how I feel, a metabolism that allows me to enjoy the previously mentioned Italian food, the ability to hold grudges and ridiculous hormones. That part's important to bear in mind, since frankly? I blame my Hungarian hormones for my current romantic situation.
My on-off boyfriend for the last 3 years has been Trenton's own Italian Stallion, Joe Morelli. Joe is a homicide detective with the Trenton Police Department and he really is a good cop. He is also a stay at home, eat pizza and watch a game kind of guy, he's not into dinner, dancing or romancing. He's said it a million times, we've been together too long to go out on dates. Apparently all that stops once he got the girl. I grew up with Joe in the Burg, as the Chambersburg district of Trenton is known. In the Burg, dinner is on the table at 6pm sharp, a woman's place is in the home as a wife and mother, a man's role is to work, provide for the family and drive American cars. It's also a place where the gossip mill runs rampant and everybody knows everyone's business, private or not. My mother receives half a dozen calls within 5 minutes of any of my disasters occurring, whether it was me pretending to be Wonder Woman as a kid, or finding my ex-husband screwing the neighbourhood bike five minutes after we were married or one of my cars getting blown up. I think I have gone through maybe 11 cars now? But none of them were my fault, honest! Somehow, I attract crazies and for whatever reason, they want to kill my cars.
Anyway, Joe also taught me that I should have listened to my mother and the Burg rumour mill that would constantly harp like a broken record, not to follow one of "those" Morelli boys into their dad's garage at age 6. And I should have run away when he came back when I was 16 to teach me all about the birds and the bees. Literally. He was an asshole back then, aged 18, and he walked away without a backwards glance and left the next day to join the navy. I saw him again 3 years later and broke his leg with my dad's car. I think I won that round.
Joe and I hooked up again when I was twenty-eight when I had to track him down when he was FTA – failed to appear in court. I work for my cousin Vinnie Plum as a Bond Enforcement Agent (BEA). My job is to track down anyone who decided not to turn up to court on their scheduled date. For my efforts I get ten percent of the bond amount, which sounds great but if a skip was bonded for $500, I get a whopping $50 for my trouble. I managed to bring Joe in and not only gained $10,000 as my finder's fee, but also rekindled our relationship from long ago. Turned out, miracle of miracles, he was no longer an asshole. Overall our relationship is pretty good, aside from the fact that Joe and I regularly have "discussions" about my job. He hates it, wants me to be a stay at home wifey. I, on the other hand, love it and the thought of marriage and kids gives me the runs. We break up. A week later, he knocks on my door, he misses me, I miss the orgasms and we are back to square one. The on/off shit is getting old, but it has two advantages. Regular sex when we are "on" and I can live happily in denial about having feelings for someone else at the same time.
You see, there is another man in my life. Ricardo Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger, helped to train me as a BEA when I first started. He is an ex-Army Ranger who still disappears on contract based missions for the government and runs a security company called Rangeman that does security, body guarding, BEA captures and other miscellaneous work as required, whatever that may be. The guys who work for him are mostly ex-service men who have become my friends since I started working there part time. I run searches to look for FTA's or to do background checks, the occasional stint monitoring security cameras, and surveillance shifts. I also help with distraction jobs, which is basically me getting dressed in my most slutty outfit and FMPs and encourage a skip to follow me out of a bar. This helps the guys by reducing the risk to bystanders and often catches the skip unawares and drunk. Occasionally it goes to hell and I have been groped, punched, stabbed and knocked over, but mostly it's not too bad and it pays well.
Ranger is my mentor, my friend, my boss, my hero, Batman to my Wonder Woman and for one amazing night, the result of "The Deal", my lover. Unfortunately, that night ended with me going back to Joe (we were off at the time) and Ranger telling me I should try to fix that relationship. Since then he has poached kisses and a couple of gropes, but that's it. He told me he doesn't do relationships and I don't do casual sex so the occasional hot (steaming hot) kiss will have to do. As long as Joe is in the picture, Ranger will never cross the line and I will never have to admit I am head over heels in love with the guy. I mean, I love Joe, but am I in love with him? If I was totally honest with myself, the answer would be no. But he really loves me, we are comfortable together and he wants to marry me, so safe fall-back, right?
Joe is coming over tonight to watch the Rangers game and I had already ordered pizza from Pino's to arrive just before game time. I picked up a six pack on the way home from the bonds office after a fairly productive day. Connie had given me three skips that morning and I managed to bring them all in by 3pm, netting myself the cool sum of $1500. For the first time in a long, long time I was financially okay. My rent was paid, I have food in my cupboard, money in my savings account and my credit cards aren't maxed out. All in all, life is good.
I spent some time getting ready for Joe to come over. I had a shower, shaved and moisturised my legs then painted my toenails bubble-gum pink. I dressed in a Rangers jersey and sweats, turned on the TV and flopped down on the sofa with a beer to wait for Joe and the pizza.
Twenty minutes later I heard my locks tumble and Joe walked in with the pizza.
"Hey Cupcake. I met the pizza guy in the lobby so you owe me again."
"Hey Joe, beer?"
He nodded, kicked off his shoes and brought the pizza over to the coffee table while I grabbed two beers from the fridge. I handed one to Joe and gave him a quick kiss hello and flopped down next to him on the sofa. We dug in and ate the pizza while the game got underway.
At half time Joe turned to me.
"Stephanie, do you realise you haven't said anything to me, other than offering me beer, since I arrived?"
"Huh? I said hey and then we got straight into the game and pizza. Did you want to talk about something? Did you have a rough day?"
"How would you describe us, our relationship, to someone who doesn't know us?" Aah, shit. Wasn't it the guy's role to be wary of the dreaded "Talk"?
"Ummm," I hedged, wondering how guys usually got themselves out of this, "we're good together, and it's a comfortable relationship because we've known each other so long…"
"I would have said you are my girl, my best friend and the woman I wanted to spend my life with. Yeah, wanted. I was asked today by one of the patrol men if we were broken up, cause he'd seen you with Ranger again. Have you been with him?"
"What are you talking about Joe?" I felt my heart rate go up and I got butterflies in my stomach. Yes, I had been with Ranger while we were off, but that was over a year ago. Joe's impatience flickered over his face, so I knew we were treading in dangerous territory.
"The alley behind the bonds office, Steph. Ring any bells?"
I didn't say anything, remembering Ranger leaning towards me and our lips touching…
"Do you want to get married and have kids?" he asked finally, sombrely. "With me?" Oh, terrific! Irritation and fighting; that, I can work with.
"Geez Joe, you know how I feel about getting married again! We've gone over this a thousand times!"
"And we're going to go through it again!" Joe finally burst out. "I want to get married, I want kids. You don't. We break up because we want different things then we get back together without changing anything. Steph, for Christ's sake, I've had enough. I feel like you're using me for sex without having to work for it. You said it yourself, we're comfortable. In other words, we get together, we fuck and we go back to our own lives. Do you realise we've broken up and got back together more than fifteen times in three years? And we still don't live together? Are we just friends with benefits to you?"
"No, Joe listen, you know you're really important to me and…"
"No, I want you to hear me out. I know you hate talking about emotions and shit, and so do I, but I am sick of this. You need to just listen, please. I was in love with you for so long, but this manipulating shit you pull, where you run between me and Ranger? It's killing me. I want to get married. I want a bunch of kids. I want a wife who stays home and looks after my kids, not runs around catching criminals, getting shot at and blowing up cars." He leaned over and clutched my arm firmly and looked me dead in the eye. "Steph, you need to be honest with me. Have you been with Ranger since we've been back together?"
Tears filled my eyes and my cheeks flushed. I could picture Ranger and I just last week, behind the bonds office, locked in an embrace. He kept poaching, how could I stop him when I could barely remember my name when he was around? God, I didn't want to hurt Joe but it wasn't my fault!
"Joe, you know I love you, but…."
"Stop Steph. Don't say anymore. I just can't deal with this. You can't go between the two of us anymore. You are leading us both on and you are cheating on me. The one thing you swore you would never do after Dickie did it to you." He closed his eyes, but not before I could see the tears that had formed. "I don't want to do this anymore. We are over, completely. I'll drop your stuff at your parents place tomorrow. Goodbye Steph."
He got up and threw my apartment key down in front of me on the coffee table, took a deep breath and walked out the door.
Well, fuck.