I've known things wouldn't work out between Joe and I for awhile now, I guess I just hoped I could get over my need to have more freedom than being a burg woman could bring me. I wouldn't mind having a partner, friend and lover stand beside me through life but I needed someone who wanted the same things out of life as me. And not the whole homely package of marriage, kids, a dog and a white picket fence. The only thing remotely interesting in that scenario is the dog and I'm not sure I'm ready for even that much responsibility in my life yet. They all felt like restraints made specifically to hold me back from life.
Unfortunately, my current other half Joe Morelli, a sexy Italian cop with a bad temper didn't feel the same and had just asked me to marry him…again.
This leads me to my most recent predicament. Sitting on a park bench behind the bonds office with wide eyes, knowing that it was now or never. I could accept the role of a woman born into my position and become a typical burg housewife and settle down with Morelli or I could end things now and so we could both move on with our lives. It was a sad revelation for me to learn that I would choose the second option, no matter what the consequences were, even if one of them was breaking the heart of the man kneeling front of me.
So, I took a deep breath and said "I'm sorry but-"
"You can't accept the role of a normal burg housewife and all its trappings." I nodded my head but I knew I looked confused. Joe was so calm and accepting. This was nothing like all our old break ups that ended either with Joe yelling or waving his hands around usually both at the same time.
"I'm sorry." I said again knowing it wasn't good enough but not having any other words to assuage my guilt or his hurt over what had just happened and what we knew would never happen again. It was over for good this time and I think we both knew it,
"I know you are cupcake, and that's why I'm not angry. Well, that and I think we both saw this coming?" I simply nodded; he was echoing my previous thoughts.
"I just wanted to try one last time before we ended things for good Steph." He said quietly.
With that last confession Joe leaned up, grabbed my face, and pulled it down to him. He first kissed my forehead then my nose before he stood up and walked away. I sat there on the bench watching him as he walked toward the car, slid inside, pulled his keys out of his pocket, slid them into the ignition and took off. He didn't glance back, not even once. I smiled to myself knowing he would eventually move on.
Now there was something I still had yet to deal with if I was serious about the changes was making to my life. So I took a deep, fortifying breath, stood and made my way across the park and into the alley. I walked slowly thinking of all the fond memories I had with a certain someone in its dark mysterious shadows. I smiled and shook my head, trying to quickly make my way to my car before I got caught.
I had just made it to my car and was about to slide my key into the lock when heard somebody call my name. And I groaned knowing just who it was.
Lula was one of my best friends but she couldn't keep her mouth shut if her life depended on it. Lula is a…heavy-set black woman with enough cleavage to drown a man, skin dark as night, and hair that constantly changed colors. She was an ex-ho who had become a file clerk at the bonds office after she had been brutally assaulted by a, now dead boxer named Benito Ramirez.
Today it seemed Lula was in animal friendly mood if her outfit was anything to go by, she had on a skin tight jean skirt that barely went past her ass, a bulging spandex, tiger striped tank top, and four inch leopard print knee-high boots. And her hair was streaked black and orange to match her top.
"Yo Stephanie, what's going on with you and Officer Hottie? When I saw ya'll two walking back to the park I thought you might have been going on a real date for a change, but when he came back through he looked like somebody done went and shot his dog."
"Look Lula, I don't want to talk about it ok?"
"Hunh!" Lula said sounding offended, and not hiding it very well. "Well fine, I suppose you wanna let them thoughts rattled around in your brain a bit before you spill. But maybe I should come with you to pick up some of your skips, you know just in case you suddenly get in the mood for talking, you hears what I'm saying?"
"Yeah, alright, fine. Come on!" I said waving Lula into my beat up old Chevy truck. She grimaced but climbed in anyway, too curious about what was going to be worried about people seeing her riding in my POS truck.
"So where's we goin'?" Lula asked.
"We'll go after Eddie Paccini a 38-year-old divorcee who got drunk and attacked his ex-wife's house with a crowbar."
"Damn, what kinda damage did the boy do?"
"He yanked out some shingles from the edge of her roof, broke some windows, and tore her yard up. Said it was his house first, before he married her, and it was his right to do whatever he damn-well pleased to it."
"Fuckin' A!" Lula said.
"But, I do have an errand I have to run first, and you're going to have to stay in the car."
I could tell Lula was gearing for a heavy speech about how she demanded to come with me, but one look at my face and she swallowed her words.
"Hunh, guess I can stay in the car just this once, a'ight white girl? Just this once."
I breathed a sigh of relief then and started driving toward Haywood on auto pilot, thinking about how I was about to end things with a man I loved dearly and who was one of my best friend's next to Lula and Connie, and I could only hope I wouldn't lose my friendship with him when I ended whatever twisted form of a relationship we had.
The man I was ending things with was Ricardo Carlos 'Ranger' Manoso. His street name is Ranger given to him for being the best of the best of army rangers in the military, but my name for him was Batman man of mystery. Ranger is book smart and street smart, and while he lives is life and conducts his business in a somewhat gray area, he lives with a code of honor and integrity.
Ranger is a gorgeous Cuban-American solider who owns a security company known as Rangeman, he wears all black, painted on black t-shirt, black cargo pants, black combat boots, and a black utility belt full useful, sneaky tools.
He's got a constant aura of mystery surrounding him; he keeps all his feelings off his face and close to the vest, he always has at very least two guns and a knife on him and he claims to be in love with me…in his own way.
By the end of my inner monologue I was confused thinking about his behavior and words around me, and incredibly turned on picturing him in my head. He's a half a head taller than me, with melted chocolate eyes, rich mocha latté skin too dark to be pure Caucasian and too light to be pure Cuban, and hair so dark brown it's almost black and recently shaved shorter than I liked but he was still damn sexy. He's standing tall and proud, confident, his legs are braced apart, his arms crossed over his chest showing his muscles thick, but not bulging. His head is tilted just so, where he can look me in the eye and he's smiling that incredibly rare, sweet smile at me that I suspect I'm the only who's ever seen it since he joined the army-
"Yo, white girl, you ok?" Lula said loudly.
"Huh?" was my so very eloquent answer.
"Girl we been sitting in the Rangeman parking lot for the last five minutes with you string out the window with this dreamy ass expression on your face. What you thinking bout?" Lula said sounding concerned.
I tried to reassure her with my best denial smile but I don't think she was buying it.
Finally I decided I would tell Lula about what I was going to do. Maybe telling Lula was the best thing to do because if I told her and then chickened out and it got spread around and Ranger found out about it before I could tell things would not end well.
"Ok, look Ranger and I have been trapped in this relationship limbo for way too long, and I don't think I can keep it up so-"
"Holy crap, you're breaking up with Officer Hottie and Batman? All in one day? Damn, girl how you gonna get any?"
"That is what the clubs are for." I said with what I know had to be a crazy ass smile on my face. So sue me, I was starting to get nervous who wouldn't?
"Alright girlfriend whatever you say. You sure you don't want me to come up there with you?"
"Yeah, I got this." I said.
I took one last deep breath before crawling out of the car, and only leaning back in for a moment to say "Wish me luck?"
"Good luck!" Lula said. But right before I left I could have sworn I heard her say "Gonna need a whole lot more than luck…gonna need a god damn MIR-A-CLE…" under breath.
And with that cheerful thought I head onto the elevator toward level five…and Batman's office.