Everyone and everything familiar belongs to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.
Two-forty-three A.M., the clock said. Great, only ten minutes have passed since the last time I looked at it. Clearly trying - or pretending - to sleep isn't working for me. I pushed my blanket away from me and got out of bed, not even bothering with a light since my eyes had become accustomed to the dark hours ago. I made my way out of my bedroom and into the kitchen, trying not to disturb Rex while I grabbed an already opened bottle of wine and a glass before heading back down the hall. I walked through the bedroom again, but this time ... climbed out of the window and onto my little fire escape.
By now, I know a brain-draining TV show won't help me sleep. Neither would magazine-flipping, hot chocolate, a box of Tastykakes, or anything else. The half-empty bottle of Cabernet is really a last ditch effort to get in an hour or two of sleep before the sun starts poking its stupid happy rays into my windows again. When my ass hit the metal step, I poured myself a glass of wine and tried to focus on the outside quiet instead of the noise going on inside my own head.
I guess it isn't entirely accurate to say the world around me is quiet ... even at this hour. Police sirens are blaring a few blocks over, Mrs. Delgado's cat gave me a few pissed-off meows for intruding on its search for a tasty building rat, and an occasional car horn was pressed by someone who's just as impatient as I am to be somewhere else. For all that company, I still feel completely alone. At least it's by choice, though, because I'd rather be stuck amusing myself than share airspace with someone who makes me feel way worse about myself and my life than I do right now.
I could call Ranger. He'd answer on the first ring even if he was asleep already, but that could be dangerous for both of us. We have a friendship that easily slips into something more at the right ... or wrong ... times. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ... I really, really want that something more with him. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and the weekends Ranger has free, I get terrified all over again at what I feel for him.
Stupid me keeps flashing back to the disaster that was my ill-conceived marriage and also on whatever the hell you'd call the dysfunctional nightmare I'd had with Morelli. I've spent my life to date trying to be the exact opposite of my mother and of the woman she and men like Dickie and Joe yelled at me to be, but I'm getting a horrible feeling that my paranoia about losing myself in someone else's role for me could eventually cost me the one person I've already let further into my life and my most vital organ.
I forcibly pushed that thought into the black hole I call my brain, before taking a sip from my glass. My fear of a major rejection is really what's keeping me from calling Ranger, not just tonight but during the others like this one that I've been having lately. I'm actually less thrilled with my days than I am with my nights, but I haven't decided what needs to be changed first. My 'career', my current living space, and my poor excuse for a car, are all overdue for an upgrade. And my non-existent love life could definitely be improved on. Which brought to mind Ranger's face and what it'd be doing as he tried not to grin at my indecision ... the corners of his eyes would crinkle as he watched my gears turning all at once.
Sure ... some of those barely noticeable lines by his eyes and mouth were caused by him laughing at something I've said or done, but I know he's not laughing at me like Morelli used to really enjoy doing. Getting to be Ranger's friend has allowed me to see a little of how he thinks and feels, and I soon realized that he only teases me to get me to focus on him so I can stop overanalyzing and overthinking things and just enjoy whatever it is we're doing at the time; eating lunch, waiting for a skip to make his move, or going for a drive around town after one or both of us has had a shitty day.
I don't think he gets how much I love spending time with him, which isn't his fault at all. I have a real hard time conveying what I'm feeling around him. Displaying emotion of any kind is difficult for me, but just when I begin thinking there's hope that I'm making progress with it, and him, I end up out here wondering if I do something different than I have been ... will I just make more of a mess of things?
What if I go after Ranger, but see that I'm changing him more than he changes me? If I turn the calm, cool, collected, and caring, man he is into one who's short-tempered and miserable like Morelli accused me of doing to him, that's something I couldn't live with. I also wouldn't be able to forgive myself if being with me made Ranger hate everyone around him ... including me. Stop it, Stephanie, I ordered myself. He isn't Morelli.
Now that I'm out of it, I understand what I'd been thinking when I was with Morelli. Joe had picked up right where Dickie left off, using my iffy self-esteem to get me to stay with him. Neither man actually physically hit me, but my confidence took a major hit. Both of them telling me they were the best I'd ever be able to do, had me believing exactly that.
My thinking is different now. Ranger respects confidence. He'd never want or expect shame to be the emotion that drives me to go to him. He'd only want me to give him the green light when I'm ready for a full throttle ride with no brakes or airbags. I'm more hesitant than he is about a lot of things, but I know he's a hundred times the man Morelli bragged about being. If there's anyone out there strong enough to love me, it's Batman.
For all of thirty seconds, I thought about going to get my cell so I can call him and tell him all that, but my ass felt fused to the metal under it. I continued to sit there for God knows how long staring at the hem of the same t-shirt I'd had on when I tackled Ranger in my living room during the Ramos investigation. I can still feel his big body pressing me into the carpet, and if I close my eyes ... I can taste him on me like he's here right now kissing me.
I knocked back the last of the wine in my glass and fanned my face as the alcohol and naked Ranger-thoughts hit me simultaneously. I feel exhausted, but not in the way that would let me sleep. I glanced up at the sky, trying to spot at least one star through the smog until I heard the sound of a quiet but powerful car slowing down on my street. I'm glad that I'm in the back of my building. I don't want to be the subject of anymore 'friendly' gossip or become a target of something worse if somebody was out tonight looking for trouble. I have enough of that on my own, I'm not borrowing any more of it.
A black vehicle turned without a directional into my lot and my breath got lost somewhere between my lungs and my heart. It's like I'm reliving another time ... when I'd been sitting out here with a beer instead of wine and had Joyce breathing down my neck. Her warped personality and multiple STDs put the 'itch' in royal bitch, but luckily I haven't seen the skank since she found and quickly isolated her latest victim who only weeks ago lived with his wife over in Hamilton Township.
I watched Ranger cut the engine and slide out from behind the wheel of his Cayenne. I don't get how we both always know where the other one is, but his eyes picked me out easily from the metal and brick surroundings that I thought were doing a good job of hiding me. I had to inhale the typical Jersey combination of car exhaust and oxygen, when I realized I'd completely stopped breathing as I was caught up in his laser-like stare.
"Shit," I whispered to myself, even though my insides instantly turned to mush knowing he's here specifically to see me.
I tensed as I waited to see what he'd do next, but relaxed again when he looked towards the front of my building before disappearing from view. About two minutes later, I heard my deadbolt being unlocked and the chain somehow being slid open from the outside. I was equal parts scared and excited.
Only two people on the planet have a key to my place, but only one of them needs it. Despite her best efforts, Grandma Mazur still can't pick a lock to save her life ... or mine, so she's stuck relying on a key. Ranger, on the other hand, has never used the key I had made for him. He never touched the metal aside from slipping it into his wallet for symbolism's sake. Showing off by not touching it again after that is more fun to him.
I'm not sure what to do now. If I fly through the window and throw myself at him, it'll be really awkward if Ranger's here for some other reason besides wanting me. I sighed. I suppose I could just go on in and ask him why he's at my apartment in the middle of the night, but then I may not want to hear the answer. I've spent the last hour analyzing the unsettled state of my personal life, and being close to Ranger when I'm feeling friendly or embarrassingly vulnerable usually leads to an uncomfortable morning after as we try to figure out what to do with each other once our clothes are back on.
While I was debating how not to screw this up again - and calling myself five kinds of pathetic for not coming up with an answer fast enough - he had already walked through my entire apartment. I'd left the place dark, but the lamp he flipped on by my bed backlit his built body as he came to the window, giving him an avenging angel-like glow. I physically felt the impact of his eyes when they landed on me.
"What are you doing out there without a jacket, Babe?"
The shiver that ran through me was caused by the presence as well as the voice of this particular man. The slightly chilly night had nothing to do with it. Even though I know a lecture on taking care of myself is likely coming, I couldn't have been happier at that moment. I thought I missed him an hour ago, but now I'm actually struck dumb just from the sight of him standing in front of me. He's hot as hell despite the 'why are you putting your health in jeopardy?' stance of his body.
"I couldn't sleep," was the lame answer I finally got out.
Apparently he wasn't any more satisfied with that answer than I was, because he came out onto the fire escape, pulled me to my feet, and then crashed his mouth down hard on mine. It's lucky I put my glass down earlier or it would've crashed or crushed in my hand. My mouth had been open in surprise at how fast he can move, and he quickly deepened what had already been a pretty overwhelming kiss. His arms felt like steel around me, as if he was afraid I'd protest or pull away from him, but I'm sure as hell not doing either one.
The utility belt still on his waist told me he hadn't been asleep in bed as I'd pictured earlier. He'd been working well into the night again, and I'm guessing from the clenching his hands are doing on my hips and the force behind the kiss, it hadn't been a pretty job. I wound my arms tightly around him and kissed him back just as desperately. Maybe he really does need me as much as I do him if he came here instead of going straight to seven, or hitting the control room to spend the remaining predawn hours going over the gory details with Tank.
"You taste like wine," he said, lifting his head after what felt like an eternity.
His forehead was resting against mine, and we were breathing in each other's air, creating an intimate atmosphere in a pretty crappy environment.
"I thought it would help me sleep."
"Guess it didn't work," he told me, bringing his hands up to cup my face.
I straightened my spine which resulted in a distracting breasts to chest rub that I tried to ignore. If I can stare down a flamethrower, I can totally do this. Ranger came to me all on his own so it's my turn to take a risk. Now that he's here, I have to do whatever I can to make him stay.
"Nothing has helped. Tonight I finally figured out that the only way I'm going to be able to sleep ... is beside you," I told him. "I was trying to work up the nerve to call and tell you that. It's good that I didn't, I would've ruined a capture."
"Or made it move faster."
"No one's hurt?"
"Only the FTA, but he knew what I'd do to him if he didn't listen."
Okay, then. No one's better at judging a person's character than he is, so I'm not going to feel bad for the FTA he'd just apprehended.
"So ... you were on your way home to bed?" I asked him.
"I was headed here. Whether I'd get a couple hours of sleep at home or in your bed was up to you."
"Do you think it's a coincidence that I couldn't sleep and you think seeing me helps you get some?"
"I don't believe in coincidences. And I don't think I need you in order to relax, it's a known fact that I do."
"A little while ago, that admission would've scared the crap out of me."
"How do you feel about it now?" He asked.
"Well ... the only reason I'm shaking right now is because it just dropped two degrees and I don't have a coat on, so that's a promising sign."
"We can take this a day at a time if you need us to," he told me, brushing my lips gently with his.
"I don't. We've wasted too much time already. I really missed you today. I know I haven't put it all out there before, but I have loved you almost as long as you've loved me. I hate saying things like this, but since it's to you, I'm going to try ... I don't think I'll ever be able to love anyone else the same way I love you."
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" He asked, in between placing kisses to key hormone-release spots along my neck.
"Yeah ... it was. You may have to excuse me for a minute so I can go throw up."
"You're okay, Steph."
I took a deep breath of Bulgari-tinged air. "I do suddenly feel much better."
"You shouldn't, because even if you change your mind about being with me, I'm not leaving tonight or leaving you ever again."
"Sounds perfect to me," I told him.
His arms are back around me, lifting me up.
"What are you doing?" I asked the skin my lips are pressing into.
"You're freezing ... and the fastest way to raise someone's temperature is shared body heat through direct skin-to-skin contact."
"Isn't that how you treat hypothermia? I'm not that cold."
"You could be. And by the time I'm done with you, Babe, I guarantee you'll be ready for some sleep ... with you on me and me still in you where we belong."
I smiled to myself. Maybe being wide awake when the rest of the world appears sound asleep isn't so bad after all.