Steph's Own Distraction
Disclaimer: Not my own and being used without permission.
Steph stepped into the Bond's Office and dropped down what was left of the dozen donuts she picked up on her way over here.
"Damn, girl where all the donuts?" Lula asked opening the lid and seeing almost half of them gone.
"Urgh." Steph said pulling on her hair.
"Since you and Joe split four months ago, there have been less and less donuts in this box when you bring it in." Connie commented as she fixed one of her nails.
"Are there any new skips, Connie?" Steph asked hoping for one that would help her burn off some of the extra energy she had.
"Yeah, it's a new one for you. Name's Pete Masco, total athletic junkie. Works out for four hours everyday down at the Y. "
"Four hours?" Lula questioned. "Who the hell works out for four hours every day?"
"What did he do?" Steph asked.
"Stole gym equipment."
"Of course." Steph grabbed the file and trudged back out to her current car. Actually her jeep worked well considering the usually state of her vehicles. It had only one problem and that was that the driver's side window got stuck once in a while. Sometimes it wouldn't go down, but if she did get it down it wouldn't go back up. She had gotten a car that worked this time and was now looking for pennies under her couch cushions to come up with her rent this month.
She looked through the file and saw from the photo that was stuck in there that the guy was almost too buff. His muscles had muscles, his neck was thick and it made his head look almost too small for his body.
The easiest place for her to try and get the guy would be at the Y, she needed some kind of slutty gym outfit. She drove back to her apartment and found a pair of navy short shorts that she used to wear in her college days. She held them up and thought she could squeeze into them again. Now she needed to wear something that looked like she could work out in but catch his eye at the same time.
Steph went through her entire closet not really finding anything suitable. She held up a couple of items but had no clue, she needed a test subject. She needed Ranger.
Steph grabbed a duffle bag and put the shorts in to along with some shirts she thought might work with them. She went down to her car and drove over to Rangeman, she rode the elevator up to five and got out and saw Bobby and Cal sitting in front of the monitors. Gene walked out of the break room and gave her wave as he walked back to his desk.
Steph peeked in Ranger's office disappointed to find it empty.
"Problem, Beautiful?" Lester asked from behind her.
Steph just barely managed to stop herself from jumping. "Yeah, trying to put together a distraction outfit and I needed some input."
"Well, I'm available." Lester said a cocky grin appearing on his face, looking confident that he'd give her better advice than Ranger could. He also didn't think she would take him up on his offer, Steph might hang out with the guys but she never hangs out with only one of them. Never sought out one of them individually for any thing.
Steph almost immediately said no, but then thought about where she might be living at the end of the month if she didn't make enough money for rent.
"Sounds good." Steph smiled at him and had the pleasure of seeing his grin falter.
"What kind of outfit are we talking about?" Lester asked nervously looking around to see if Ranger was coming to rescue him.
"I need to lure a guy out of a gym." Steph explained about her disgustingly muscular FTA.
Lester led her down to his fourth floor apartment. "Okay," Lester clapped his hands together as Steph walked around his apartment looking around. "You can just change in there." Lester pointed to his bedroom.
"Okay." Steph said closing the door behind her.
Lester walked around nervously wondering what he had been thinking, Ranger was going to kill him. He hadn't thought she would take the bait, and surprisingly she did. Why she did was a mystery to him but he would give her advice, she would leave and Ranger would never have to find out. Calmed down somewhat Lester sunk down in a chair to see what Steph came up with.
Steph pulled on a halter top that she had used for distractions sometimes and the shorts and stepped out of the room. "What do you think?" Steph asked turning around.
Lester burst out laughing. "No way Beautiful, people don't wear shirts like that to the gym. Let's take a look at what you brought." Lester got up from the chair and followed Steph into his bedroom. Her duffle bag was on his bed with half of the contents strewn across it.
He quickly gathered all of the tops together looking everywhere to make sure he had them all. He stuffed the rejects right back into the bag, amazed at the amount of shirts she had fit into the duffle bag. Finally he was left with a tank and a t-shirt, both were old. The t-shirt had stains down the front of it and the tank had a couple of rips. Normally he would have gone with the tank, but the rips were not in the right spots to pull off a sexy look.
Lester looked around the room hoping for inspiration. He saw his gym bag sitting on floor by the closet and got an idea. He opened up a draw in his dresser and pulled out a white tank and tossed it to Steph, "Put that on."
"What? This won't fit me."
"Just try it."
Lester left the room and Steph held up the tank and looked unfavorably on it, there was no way it was going to look good. Steph pulled off the halter she had on and pulled the tank on. Okay Steph thought looking at her self in the mirror definitely needed a bra with this one.
She grabbed the bra she had been wearing early and put it on under the tank and looked at herself in the mirror. "It might work." She murmured to herself.
Steph opened the door and stepped out, Lester smiled from his seat in the chair. "See I told you that it would work." Lester couldn't believe how good Steph looked. She had a black bra underneath the white tank and the shoulder kept slipping down. The tank was slim enough to look right on her, it might have been a little long but it looked good, almost covering the shorts completely.
"I don't think this is going to work."
"Sure it will, come on I will show you." Lester grabbed her wrist and Steph grabbed her purse. Lester led her out of his apartment and down to the third floor and into the gym. There was a thunk across the room as Hal dropped a weight. "See." Lester smiled.
Tank and Hector were sparring in the ring, but both had stopped and were gapping at Steph. Brett was running on the treadmills and turned to see what had been dropped, he took one look at Steph and he went flying. He landed with a thud at the end of the treadmill, but was up immediately eyes locked on Steph.
Steph went running over to him, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah Steph I'm fine. Actually, I'm all set, I'm going to go. Yeah shift starts soon, got to get ready." Lester watched Brett hobbled off to go get ready for his shift that started in six hours.
"Hey Bomber." Tank called walking over, "What's going on?"
"She's got a skip, she's going into a gym to lure him out."
"Think this will work? Lester helped me out." Steph said looking down on herself.
"Yeah it'll do." Tank swallowed.
"Great." Steph smiled. "Lester I'll pick up my stuff after I bring in the skip okay?"
Tank watched Lester's grin fade. "Sure beautiful, no problem." And then Steph was off.
Lester ran a hand down his face, "Ranger's going to kill you if he finds her clothes in your apartment." Tank commented as he went back to sparring with Hector.
"Shit." Lester said leaving the gym.
Steph sat outside of the Y preparing to go in, she picked up her phone and dialed Lester.
"Yeah."
"Do me a favor?"
"For you? Anything."
"Call me in ten minutes?"
"Sure thing, you don't answer I'm coming for you."
"Sounds good." Lester hung up without a goodbye, Steph stared at her phone as she walked inside. She couldn't believe that another one of them had terrible phone manners.
Steph paid to use the gym and walked in, she passed Pete who was using the weights and went to the Stepper. It was easy enough that she wasn't out of breath by the time Pete had switched to the treadmill. Steph let him run hoping it would tire him out enough that he would be easier to capture.
Her phone rang as she stepped off the Stepper. "Hello?" She answered.
"How we doing?"
"I just got to the gym, how important is it?" Steph ran a hand through her hair, leaning against the Stepper. She was aware of Pete's eyes on her but she didn't make eye contact.
"You need me there?"
"Can you wait about …?"
Steph looked up and met Pete's eyes, he was staring at her. But it wasn't in a lustful type way it was more of a glare, he hopped of the treadmill and came toward her.
"Uh-oh."
"What does that mean?" Lester asked.
"You." Pete grabbed her and slammed her into the wall.
Lester heard a squeak and then a thud. "You're the bitch that is after me?" The voice was quieter than it had been the first time, so he was thinking that thud he heard was the phone being dropped.
Lester turned to Bobby, "I'm heading to the Y, Steph is trouble, and Gene is coming with me."
Lester raced to the Y, Gene was holding on to the 'oh shit' bar hoping that he lived through the ride to be able to help Steph.
Bobby was monitoring Steph's cell phone relaying the conversation to Lester. So far it was just a whole lot of swearing and cussing from Pete. Steph tried to tell him once that he had to reschedule his court date and he heard the smack of an open palm hitting her face.
"What's going on?" Ranger asked from behind Bobby.
"Situation with Steph."
"Report."
"Uncooperative skip, Lester and Gene are on route."
"Where is she?" Ranger asked.
"How is she doing?" Lester asked at the same time.
"He hit her but so far they haven't moved."
"Where are they?" Ranger asked again.
"The local Y." Bobby said harried.
Ranger went peeling out the door.
Lester arrived and together with Gene went bursting in through the door. It looked like the brute was going in for another strike but Lester brought him down. He fired a shot, the bullet purposely missing the target. The skip froze and turned to meet his new adversaries.
Steph reached into her purse and pulled out her stun gun and pressed it into his leg hoping that it was charged. Pete fell like a ton of bricks straight down on top of her. The air was knocked out of her and she saw black dots floating in front of her.
Gene pushed the muscle man off of Steph and cuffed his hands behind his back.
"Beautiful you okay?" Lester asked crouching over her.
"Yeah, now that I can breathe again." Lester smiled at her and helped her up.
Ranger ran in through the door and saw Lester standing with Steph she was nodding her head and smiling at him. Ranger felt a stab of jealously go through him, she is finally free of Morelli she was supposed to be his now.
He shouldn't have given her time after the break up to get over Joe he should have just moved in. All that time had accomplished was one of his men moving in on her.
That stopped now.
Ranger walked over and pulled Steph into a hug, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine."
Ranger pulled back to look her over she already had a bruise forming on her face from where she had been hit. He smoothed his thumb over it before pulling away.
Gene and Lester got the skip into the back of there SUV and drove him to the station. Ranger got Steph bundled into his truck and drove her back to Haywood so she could get looked over by Bobby.
After being given the all clear from Bobby, Steph spent the rest of the day holed up on seven. Ranger refused to drive her home and told her that she needed rest and to keeping icing her cheek.
"Otherwise it might look like I beat you." Ranger told her as he handed her an ice pack.
"No one would believe that." Steph told him, wincing as she pressed the ice to her cheek.
"You'd be surprised, Babe." Ranger told her gathering the folders he needed and started to head downstairs.
"Everyone knows I'd kick your ass if we fought." Steph called out after him.
Ranger grinned at her over his shoulder and went down to five.
"How is she?" Lester asked as he stepped off of the elevator.
"Mouthy."
"Good, she's alright then." Lester opened the door to the stairwell and went down to four, his shift had been long since over.
Ranger went dropped the folders on his desk and began to work on them.
Steph flicked through the channels for a second time, there was never everything good on daytime television. She wondered around the apartment for a little while before deciding to go down to four and grab her stuff out of Lester's apartment. She had left her clothes piled up in his room so she tucked the ice pack back into the freezer and went down to four.
Ranger was on his way up to seven stopping in the control room to make sure things were running smoothly. One of the monitors caught his eye, showing that Steph was on her way down in the elevator. Ranger turned towards the elevator, but it didn't stop.
Ranger turned back to the monitor and watched as she got off on four, she walked down the hall and stopped in front of Lester's door. Ranger's knuckles turned white as he clenched down on the back of the chair. He watched Lester invite her in, shutting the door behind her.
Ranger took the stairs down to four two at a time. Hector looked over at Woody and watched as Ranger pounded on Lester's door.
Lester was making sure that Steph had gotten everything, when the pounding started. He left her to shove everything in to the duffle to answer the door.
"What's wrong man?" Lester asked seeing the look on Ranger's face.
"Where is she?" Lester nodded his head in the direction of his bedroom.
Ranger stood there frozen, she was with Lester. She was in Lester's bedroom. He should have acted quicker.
"Lester?" she called out. She walked out of the room carrying her duffle. "Oh hey Ranger."
"Thanks for the help, Les." Steph smiled at him. Then she looked at Ranger. "What's wrong?"
"He didn't think you were just here to pick up your stuff." Lester told her.
Steph frowned at Ranger, "Lester just helped me put together an outfit to wear to the gym. I shouldn't have to explain myself to you." Steph said getting angrier.
Steph pushed past both of them and made her way down to the garage.
Ranger stood in staring at Lester, "I thought…"
"It was kind of obvious what you thought." Lester told him also leaving the apartment to go up to five to see where Steph was headed and that she got there safely.
Ranger stood there for a minute trying to formulate a plan, first he had to locate Steph so he could apologize. And then… and then… well he would figure that out later.
Ranger ran out of the apartment and up to five, he found Lester leaning over a monitor in the control room. The very monitor he had been heading for.
"About time you got up here, I already have her on screen." Lester told him moving so he could see the monitor. "She's on her way to her apartment."
Ranger got to Steph's apartment in record timing; he pounded up the stairs to the second floor. He hesitated for a second in front of her door not knowing if it would be better if he knocked and waited for her to answer of if he should break in as he usually does.
Turns out he didn't have to decide, Steph whipped the door open and almost plowed into him.
"Good you're here. I was just on my way back to give you a piece of my mind. How dare you assume…" Ranger didn't let her tear in to him, he was already regretting what he had done.
"You're right."
Steph stuttered to a halt, "What?"
"I got scared. I was waiting for you to come to me and thought you went to Lester instead."
"You were… but you said that if my bed was empty for too long you would be in it. I was waiting for you."
"I've said a lot of things."
"Yeah, and most of them make as much sense as that does. None."
"How about we start over?"
Steph smiled and nodded then held out her hand. Ranger's brows drew together but took it. "I'm Stephanie."
Ranger smiled. "Let's not go that far back."
A/N: I just read about Gene the Rangeman in Plum Spooky so I decided to stick him in here.