Taken from Chapter 13 of The Thin Line

I had just gotten to the fifth floor for my scheduled shift of watching the monitors when my phone rang. Taking it off my belt, I saw that it was Bobby; punching talk I answered him on my way for a drink in the kitchen.

"Santos have you seen Stephanie?" he asked and my ears perked up when he said her name

"No not since earlier when she left to go to that appointment for her foot. What's up Brown?" I asked making my way out of the kitchen and over to the bank of monitors

He told me that when he came up to take Steph to the doctors she had left already. He then told me how she flew off the handle and left him standing in the parking lot of the doctors. When he told me that he couldn't find her, I rolled my eyes at this being another one of their fights. They had been having a lot of them recently.

"You two need to fuck each other and get it over with" I said to him

"Damn Lester this is no joke"

"I'm fucking serious man, when you two are in the same room together lately there is this tension just bouncing off of you and her. I'm telling you angry sex is hot, you two can work out everything between the sheets"

"No it would cause more problems and I don't think of her that way" he told me and I knew that was a bunch of bull shit, everyone thinks of her that way.

"Are you going to help me or what?" he asked me. The more Bobby went on the more agitated he got which got me feeling that I needed to help him find Steph. When I finally thought about her my heart felt heavy and worry started creeping in.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch" I told him booting up the computers "do I need to sound the alarm?" meaning all hands on deck

"No she's pissed off or upset. We can drive around and look for her"

"Ok I'll pull up her trackers but you know Bombshell"

"Yea"

"Ok, I'll call you in a few and if I find her too. I'm leaving now" I told him punching keys on the keyboard trying to locate Steph. When nothing came up my heart sank.

I grabbed a set of keys and got Cal to cover my shift for me explaining about Steph. He threw his hands up and told me say no more, to go find her. Thanking him, I ran the stairs down to the garage and beeped one of the trucks unlocked. As I got in and pulled out of the garage I called Bobby back to let him know about her trackers.

It was going on four hours of us looking for her and with her trackers being off it was impossible to locate her. I was getting more worried with each passing hour with no word of or from Steph. She always gets herself in bad trouble and how she's feeling and acting right now there is no telling what she could have gotten herself into.

"Damn Beautiful where are you?" I said cruising past her parents on my way to Stark Street one more time. I just turned onto Stark when my phone rang.

"I'm going to go see if she's home one more time before we call out the Calvary" Bobby said

"Ok let me know" I said and felt this was not good

Driving aimlessly, hoping for a glimpse of her my phone rang again "yea?" I asked

"She's here" Bobby said

"Thank God" I said relieved but felt a little disappointed that it was him that was near her

"Ok, I'm going up to talk to her. Thanks for helping"

"Not a problem, I love her too" I told him. No one ever needs to ask me to help when it comes to Stephanie. I'll be the first to step up and go to the front line where she is concerned "Bobby" I called before he hung up.

"Yea?"

"Think about the angry sex thing. You can relieve a lot of tension and you two have a lot" I said. I just couldn't help ribbing him a little now that I knew Steph was safe and because I knew he'd never actually do it.

"Shut the hell up Santos" he said as I cracked up laughing, causing Bobby to hang up on me

I turned my truck around and headed back to RangeMan. I'm glad Stephanie's home but it sucks that it was Brown who found her.