No, I've not gone religious; this title is one of my favorite Bon Jovi songs and has (as always) nothing to do with the story. Well, not per se.
Muchas Gracias to Stayce for all the help. If you like this story, it's because of Stayce's editing, if you hate it, it's my fault...
All characters belong to JE
Hey God!
Part 1
Did you know the mouth of the Statue of Liberty is three feet wide? Me neither, and I still don't care, but that's what it said on my Snapple cap just now. And the fact that I was even thinking about it showed me I was trying to put off thinking about what actually mattered.
And that in itself was wrong. I don't put off, as a rule, I'm a 'now' kind of guy. A decision needs to be made; I make it, plain and simple. I never regret that decision and I can always justify it.
So why was I sitting here in my chair at my desk reading a bottle cap? Two words: Stephanie Plum.
Hard to say when my view of Stephanie changed form 'nice piece of ass' to 'woman I love'. I cringed at my own words. Love? Where had that come from? I didn't do love. I didn't do relationships, and I sure as hell didn't do love. Love was something for nine-to-five guys with secure office jobs, for men with safe lives. Not for guys like me who never actually knew for certain if they'd come home at the end of the day or end up in a morgue.
OK, so lately, my life wasn't all life or death situations, and the last time I was injured it was a flesh wound that didn't even require an overnight hospital stay, but still. My life was most certainly not nine-to-five and that's what women want.
Granted, not all women, and Steph certainly didn't fit the description of an average woman, but in general. Although she's never said it, I'm sure that deep down, she wants a secure relationship with a dependable man. OK, so I was dependable, but not in a relationship. I was the kind of man women spent a hot night with before they went back to their safe and predictable lives.
I took a deep breath and slammed my fist down on the desk in frustration. That's just what happens when you get emotional. You think too much. And then you start questioning your decisions, and pretty soon, you start doubting yourself. Downward spiral. Slippery slope.
This had to end. Now.
The first time I decided that and tried to get her out of my system, it backfired on me. I quickly found out that fucking Stephanie was not the surefire way to get her out of my system. That was a mistake. It turned out to be the surefire way to think about her all the time.
To be honest, I hadn't been convinced it would work, but it's what everybody tells you to do to get over someone: sleep with her. As long as she's a fantasy, she'll live on. Once you've had her, you'll get over her.
Yeah, right.
That's like saying the worst part about a category 5 hurricane is the wind. Once that's over, everything is fine. I was on too many cleanup crews to believe that. And yet, I was more than willing to believe sex would get Stephanie off my mind.
OK, so I'd wanted her. I'd wanted her for a long time, longer than I've ever waited for any woman. It had gotten so bad, I got hard when she looked at me a certain way. But I kept telling myself it was only physical, that I wanted to fuck her until she couldn't walk for a week and then I'd move on. Since I didn't do relationships.
And then I had her. For one long sleepless night, I had her.
Yeah, I've had sex before Steph and I've had sex after. Getting a piece of ass into my bed was never a problem. Sex was not a problem. It never is. Love is. Sex is physical, instant gratification. Wham, bam, thank you Ma'am, as they say. Sex is emotionless. You don't need a vow of eternal love to have an orgasm, a smile will do.
So, long story less long, here I was, midnight on a Sunday evening, brooding in my office because I couldn't get a girl out of my head. If any of my men found out, they wouldn't believe it. And if they did, they would laugh their asses off.
Good god, I may have sighed. I had to watch that. If I wasn't careful, I'd be writing poetry before too long. I snorted. Yeah, that would happen.
Not that what I was going to do was too far removed from it. I took the small box from my desk and flipped it open. When was the last time I gave a woman jewelry? Had to have been the wedding band I gave Rachel. It had never meant anything. This meant too much. I swore under my breath. Did I know what I was doing?
I studied the fine metal on its black velvet cushion and couldn't quite suppress a smile. No way would I ever tell a soul how many stores I had to visit to find this perfect pendant. The necklace was so cheesy, it should have disgusted me. But it didn't and that meant I had it bad.
I snapped the box shut and shook my head. "Losing it, Manoso," I said out loud, storing the jewelry in a desk drawer and getting up. This called for a couple of hours in the gym, the one way I knew to stop mulling this over.
By 3 AM, I had reached a decision. This was the last night I had wasted brooding, that was for sure. It was going to be do or die, shit or get off the pot, all money on one horse, and every other proverb the English language had for this type of situation.
I was going to tell Steph. I was going to tell her and then I was going to give her the necklace, to 'prove that I'm no joker'. As if I needed any further proof that I was losing it, now I was hearing lyrics from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that I didn't even know I remembered. Just because I thought about giving her the…well, I didn't know what to call it, really. It wasn't a diamond ring, I wasn't proposing marriage. Neither one of us was ready for that. But it wasn't just a gift from a friend either. It was a piece of me I'd never offered.
It was more than I'd ever given anyone, because it meant more. It meant forever. I wanted Steph to wear it, I wanted her to think of me every time she felt its weight against her collar bone, wanted her to feel she was mine. Because I wanted her to be mine, like I was going to be hers. There, I said it. Well, so far I'd only thought it, but later in the day, I was going to say it. To her.
Me. Ricardo Carlos Manoso, son of a bitch and badass, preparing to tell a woman he didn't want to spend another day of his life without her. It was the only way, the alternative was to go insane. Because I'd tried not telling her for over a year now and I'd just about reached my breaking point.
I couldn't run this plan by anyone because I knew I wouldn't do it if I thought about it another minute, it was just too crazy. Absolutely unlike me. My men probably talked about me and Steph, speculating on what our relationship was. I'd never tried to hide the resources I offered to her, the men I assigned to her or the time I spent with her. But I never talked about it either.
And now I was going to. Steph would be the first to know, the world would follow, so to say.
She only had two ways to answer, yes or no. If she said yes, I would seal the deal in my bedroom all night long, and every night from then on. If she said no, I would stay away from her for the rest of my life.
It made me feel a little better that, one way or another, I would know for sure. I would know if she wanted me, wanted to be with me, or not. And I told myself I could live with a no, just as long as I knew.
We'd been dancing around this decision for too long. I had made up my mind, now I needed her to do the same.
Morelli or me, who was it going to be? Right there and then, I would know.
I woke up at 5 AM, ran my usual five miles, showered and got dressed. The whole thing still seemed laughable to me, but I knew I had to do it. I couldn't deal with the uncertainty any longer.
Steph never got up before nine. If I went over to her apartment, I could talk to her before she left for the day.
To verify, I stopped by the control room and brought up her car's GPS.
She was not at home. Or rather, her car wasn't at home. It was parked in front of her parents' house in the Burg. Fuck. No way could I do this in front of her parents.
But if I didn't do it right away, there was a chance I wouldn't do it at all. Something might come up. I might have to leave town. Or, most likely and painful to admit, I would lose my nerve or talk myself out of it. I might decide that it's not so bad to have the occasional stolen kiss in the alley that left me with blue balls until I got a cold shower. That it was OK I was dropping Steph off at the cop's house after a job, where she would crawl into his warm bed.
Fuck.
I took a deep breath, told Santos at the monitors I was going offline for a couple of hours and headed downstairs. I had to stop this; I was turning into a wimp. And I couldn't even say I was pussy whipped, Steph had no idea she was the cause of all of this!
"This ends now," I told myself again out loud as I stepped off the elevator in the garage and remoted my Turbo open.
My plan was to wait for Steph outside the house and talk to her alone. And my plans usually work.
Of course I could have called her to arrange a meeting, but I didn't want to. This was not something I could set up like a date. I wouldn't be able to tell her what it was on the phone and then she'd get curious. There were too many ways it could go wrong from there, a curious Stephanie was like a dud.
Sometimes you picked one up and it lay nice and quiet like in your hand, and sometimes you picked one up and it exploded and ripped off your arm.
I started the car and ran my palm over my chin as I exhaled. The term 'over thinking' came to mind, I definitely had spent way too much time going back and forth about it from a million different angles about this the past couple of days.
"Less talk, more action," I told myself as I backed out of the parking space.
I could feel the little box in one of the pockets of my cargo pants, pressing against my leg as I shifted.
This was it. Go time.
TBC
A/N: Do you think Ranger made the right decision? Should he tell Steph how he feels or will it put her in danger if everyone knows??
