Disclaimer: The characters and their world belong to Janet Evanovich. I'm just playing with them for fun, and all mistakes are my own.

AN: Thanks to Angela Mueller – your comment on chapter 1 inspired Mary Lou's comment about Valerie.


Chapter 2

What would you do for love?


Previously:

I groaned as I turned over on my side, punching my pillow repeatedly in frustration. I hated to admit it, but yes, my life was a bit of a train wreck. My sister was right. I, Stephanie Plum, am a hot mess. The million dollar question was, did I purchase a one-way ticket back to Denial Land, or did I do something about it?

After my epiphany, I'd like to say that I slept like a baby, but I'd be lying. I finally dropped off to sleep sometime around dawn, only to be awakened by my alarm at the ungodly hour of 10 AM. A quick shower and a stop at the Tasty Pastry, and I was pushing open the door of the Bonds office a little after eleven.

Lula was the first to notice me. "White girl! I thought you was my friend." She grabbed the donut box from me. "Hunh. We wanted to take you out for your birthday, but you went out and got wild without us?"

I grabbed a Boston crème from the box and propped myself up on the corner of Connie's desk. "What? I was home and in bed by eight!" Sure, I hadn't slept much, but still….

"No one looks like that goin' to bed early. Unless…" She fanned herself with the purple feather boa that she'd paired with a pink sequined mini-dress. "Batman stopped by and gave you some birthday nookie, didn't he?"

I grabbed Connie's compact off the desk and did a quick check in the tiny mirror. I was in my usual work uniform - stretchy T-shirt, jeans and CAT boots. Since I'd been in a hurry, I'd gathered my hair up into a sloppy ponytail, skipped the makeup and called it good. Hmm…. Maybe I did look a little rough.

"I haven't seen Ranger in a week." According to his right-hand man, Tank, he'd been at his Miami office. But I figured he'd been back in town since at least yesterday, judging by the presents he'd left me.

Connie stopped filing her nails and looked me over. "Well, my sources still have Morelli out of town, so it's a fair question."

I snorted. The Burg grapevine put the CIA and the NSA to shame. "Nope, sorry, no birthday nookie here." In fact, I was having trouble remembering my last social orgasm. Morelli and I had both been pretty busy lately.

Lula grabbed both of the jelly donuts I'd gotten her. "Well, you didn't have that look about you, but a girl could hope."

"Ranger and I are just friends!" Unfortunately. I huffed out a breath when Connie and Lula both shot me a skeptical look. I knew that look, and it called for a retreat. "I just have a lot on my mind," I offered, which was exactly the wrong thing to say. I grabbed a donut for the road and began to back away before they could start the interrogation. "Got any new files for me?"

Connie put down the bottle of nail polish she'd been about to open and handed me a file. "Just Jimmy Palowski, again. Same charges as before."

I groaned, but took the file. "Great. Maybe I won't have to see his junk this time." But I was never that lucky. Jimmy had a habit of watering his neighbor's flowers without a watering can when he was drunk.

I made it out to my car without any further incident, and as I pulled away from the curb, a sleek black Porsche pulled up in front of the Bonds office. Most of me was glad I'd just missed Ranger's visit, and I could ignore the parts of me that wanted to turn the car back around.

R&S~R&S~R&S

I made it to Pino's with a few minutes to spare, but Mary Lou was already waiting for me. "Hey!" She pushed the pitcher of Coke and a glass toward me as I slid into the other side of the booth. "Long time, no see. I ordered the usual."

I took long, grateful sip of my soda. "Remind me again why we don't do this more often?" There was something comforting about knowing that in about five minutes, two meatball subs and a basket of fries would be plunked down on our table – just like every other time ML and I had shared a booth at Pino's.

She shrugged. "Life happens."

She was right, but I had to admit that it was mostly my crazy life that had kept us from getting together much these last few years. Getting kidnapped or covered in garbage on a regular basis can keep a girl busy. We spent the next few minutes playing catch up – I admired the pictures of her oldest in his peewee football uniform and she laughed with me as I told her about one of my latest captures. I'd been in rare form that day and Ziggy Gillepsie had ended up in the dumpster instead of me.

I'd was just about to bite into my sub when Mary Lou stopped me. "I didn't want to say anything, but you don't look like yourself. You OK?"

I rolled my eyes. "Geez, skip the mascara one time and everyone's a critic." When ML just looked at me, I put the sub down. "I didn't sleep too well last night."

Mary Lou's eyebrows flew upward. "You never lose sleep over anything."

I shrugged. She was right. I've been divorced, stabbed, shot, and thrown off of a bridge without losing a minute of sleep. I sighed and stuffed a couple of French fries into my mouth. They were hot and salty, but they might as well have been carrot sticks, as much as I enjoyed them. I took a bite of my sub next as I tried to work out how to answer her. Was I OK? I wasn't too sure.

One thing I knew was that if I couldn't trust ML, I couldn't trust anyone. We had a lifetime of history - from swapping lunches and clothes to covering for each other when we wanted to break curfew; and she'd never told anyone that I'd thrown all of Joyce Barnhardt's clothes into the boys' locker room back in tenth grade.

I took a deep breath. "Tell me the truth, am I a hot mess?"

Mary Lou blinked. "What brought this on?"

So I told her all about dinner at my parents' last night and what Mary Alice had overheard. I even told her about some of the conclusions I'd reached the night before.

When I'd finished, she just shook her head. "Two things – when has your Mom ever been happy about your life and why are you listening to your sister? It's not like her life has been all sunshine and roses lately, either." She snorted. "Seriously – how can you not even get the house when your husband leaves you for the baby sitter? And how did she end up with the Kloughn, again?"

I tried, but I couldn't hold back my grin. Mary Lou told it like it was. "Don't know, and Val's never been that great with birth control." We giggled for a few more moments, before I finally sobered. "You got a point, but so do they. My life is seriously messed up, Lou."

Lunch was getting cold, so we tucked in and polished off the subs and fries. Mary Lou caught me up on the neighborhood gossip until our milkshakes came out.

Mary Lou studied me for several seconds and finally broke the silence. "Look, the only one who really gets to have an opinion about your life is you, but I have noticed that you don't look all that happy lately. Are you happy, Steph?"

"Not really." I'd come to the conclusion last night that I needed to make a few changes. I had a couple of ideas for my job, but I didn't have a clue what to do about my love life. I took a big gulp of my chocolate shake for courage, and finally just spit out the main question that had kept me up the night before. "How do you really know that you have the real deal with someone – that it's forever and all that crap?"

Mary Lou smiled. "For me, it was realizing that I would follow Lenny anywhere."

I shot her a skeptical look. "No offense, but that sounds a little too 1950's to me."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not talking about meeting him at the door with his slippers and a martini every night. I just mean that when you love someone, their needs are just as important as yours, and they should feel the same way about you."

I powered through half of my shake as I digested her words. "What if you both have different dreams?"

She shrugged. "If you love each other, you make it work." She finished her shake and pushed away the cup. "If Lenny's lifelong dream was to be a yak farmer in Tibet, as long as the kids were going to be OK, we'd find a way to make it happen."

"Wow. That's pretty deep." Mary Lou was as much of a Jersey girl as I was, and if she could contemplate living thousands of miles from the nearest mall or pizza parlor, that was something else, all right.

She grinned. "It's the old cliché – what are you willing to do for love?"

R&S~R&S~R&S

Mary Lou's words stayed with me over the next week. On the surface, life went on as usual. I got up every morning, showed up at the Bonds office, had a couple of donuts and then went after my skips. I'd somehow managed to bring in Jimmy Palowski without seeing his boys on Monday, and I'd since hauled in a minor gang-banger, a shop-lifter and a few drunk and disorderlies. I'd rolled in garbage once and ended the week without my Escape blowing up.

But every night, I made plans and mulled over Mary Lou's question. What would I do for love? Trouble was, I sort-of loved two men. Luckily, I could safely ignore my feelings for Ranger, for now, since we weren't in a relationship and probably never would be.

But Joe Morelli was another matter. Joe's a Trenton homicide detective, and we've been together off and on for a few years, now. On paper he's perfect for me. He's a couple of years older than I am, has a good job, a house, a dog, and arguably the best ass in Trenton. He also shares my love of cold beer, hot pizza, and a good game on TV.

I've always been drawn to Joe, which explains why I gave up my virginity to him on the floor of the Tasty Pastry when I was 16. And since collecting cherries had been Joe's main hobby in high school, my first time was pretty decent. It was the morning after that wasn't so great. Joe left for the Navy, but not before writing about our encounter on men's room walls all over town. I got my revenge a couple of years later, though, when the front bumper of the car I was driving just happened to meet his leg. The vehicular assault was probably overkill, but we'd tacitly agreed to call it even, I guess, because we hadn't crossed paths again for almost ten years.

The next time I saw him, he was my first big skip. I brought him in, and helped him clear his name of a murder charge in the process. We started dating after that and it was mostly good – except when we argued about my job or one of my cars blew up. I knew I loved Joe, but I wasn't sure I loved him enough to go farm yaks in Tibet, so to speak.

I probably would have continued to overthink everything, but Joe called me the Saturday after my birthday. "Hey Cupcake, I just got back in town. Want to come over tonight?"

"It's good to hear from you," I answered. Huh. I guess that meant we were in an on-phase.

Joe laughed. "Hell if I know, but Bob misses you and there's a game on."

Shit. I'd said that aloud. "I've missed you, too. Whose turn is it to bring the pizza?"

It was my turn, so I jumped in the shower and showed up at Joe's a little after 7 PM with a Pino's box. Joe's dog, Bob, met me at the door. I managed to keep the pizza out of his way as I patted him on the head. "Who's the good boy, Bob?" I put the sub I'd bought him in his bowl before going in to greet Joe.

The game wasn't on yet, but Joe already had the beer in a cooler next to his couch, and the paper plates and napkins were on the coffee table. Joe put the remote down, and gave me a quick peck on the lips as I put our dinner down.

As we dug into the pizza, I took a good look at the both of us. Joe was in a Trenton PD T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that hung just so off of his hips. I'd gone easy on the mascara, but I'd curled my hair and put on one of those tank tops he really liked. We'd watch the game, maybe fool around a little during commercial breaks, and afterward, we'd go upstairs and have sex. Since it'd been a few weeks for us, we might even go a couple of rounds before falling asleep. Our relationship was comfortable, and that was a good thing. Usually.

I blame Mary Lou for what I said next. "Are we happy, Joe?"

Joe's head turned toward me so sharply that a string of cheese landed on his chin. "What the hell kind of question is that, Cupcake?"

I sighed. "A pretty good one. Look – I love you, and you love me, right?"

Joe nodded warily. "Of course I do. What's brought all this on?

I shrugged. "It's been a hell of a year, that's all. You spent part of the summer on crutches, I got tossed off of a bridge by your godfather's goons." Before all that, I'd spent ten days in Hawaii with Ranger. Joe hadn't been happy when he'd shown up at the resort Ranger and I had been staying at, but things had settled down pretty quickly between us.

Joe snorted. "Don't forget that your apartment got blown up – twice, and you almost got killed by a madman – twice."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "But at least we got the bad guys." Some good had come of all of the mayhem, at least. Ranger's friend Kinsey had gotten married – after the guy who'd been after him and Ranger had blown himself up in my apartment. Joe and I had busted a ring of organ harvesters, and though I couldn't take all of the credit, at least Vlatko hadn't poisoned half of Atlantic City.

Joe rolled his eyes. "If you say so."

"What do you mean by that?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "It wasn't always pretty, but I got the job done."

Joe shook his head. "I don't want to get into this with you tonight, Cupcake, but no, you really didn't."

I took a deep breath and counted back from ten. I really didn't feel like arguing with him tonight, either. "You haven't complained about how I do my job in a while."

He knocked back the rest of his beer and grabbed another bottle from the cooler. "Jesus. It's not like it would've done me any good."

Oh my God. I had to fight to draw air into my lungs as the truth of his words hit me. Over the last few months we hadn't argued all that much about me bounty hunting or where our relationship was headed, but it wasn't because Joe accepted my job or we were ready to settle down. At some point we'd given up and we hadn't even realized it.

Beside me, Joe sighed. "Look, forget I said anything."

"I'd really like to, but I've been thinking a lot, lately." I swallowed around the lump in my throat. "Val called me a hot mess the other day." I took a deep swallow of my own beer and wondered why I couldn't just shut my big mouth.

Joe shrugged and then leered at me. "Maybe so, but the operative word is 'hot', Cupcake."

He leaned in toward me, but I managed to turn my head so that his lips landed on my cheek instead. I pulled back slightly. "Tell me the truth, what do you think about my skills as a bounty hunter, Joe?"

Joe raised an eyebrow. "Skills?" When I just glared at him, he slumped back against the couch cushions and raked a hand through his hair. "You're like a dog with a bone when you're after something, and you have the damnedest luck, but Jesus." He sighed. "I wouldn't exactly say you have skills, Cupcake."

Ouch. That hurt, but I'd unfortunately come to almost the same conclusion, so I couldn't really get mad at him. "OK," I said slowly. "How would you feel if I got serious about my job – you know, started carrying my gun and got some training?"

Joe squirmed slightly. "I wouldn't hate it..."

"But it's not exactly what you want, is it?" I leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, letting him know that we'd be OK, no matter what. "If you could have anything you wanted in life, right now, what would it be, Joe?"

He grinned, crookedly. "Besides a few million dollars and you in a bikini right now?"

I socked him in the arm, lightly. "Be serious, Joe."

He took a deep breath and looked me right in the eyes. "I'd like to get married and raise a family."

With you. He didn't say those words outright, but I heard them just the same. I sat back and looked at him steadily for several seconds. Joe was a handsome man, with strong Italian features, eyes the color of melted chocolate, and unruly brown hair that I loved to run my fingers through in bed. I loved him….

But Mary Lou's words were echoing through my head. Joe wanted a wife and the mother of his children, and as much as I hated to admit it, I wasn't ready for that and maybe I never would be. I loved Joe, but not nearly enough to make it work. And if his feelings about my job were anything to go by, maybe he didn't love me enough, either.

"That's a good dream, Joe, and you deserve to have it come true. But…" I bit my lip, not sure how to continue.

"But it's not going to be with you, is it?" He asked, his expression going from determined to bleak in a split second.

I blinked back the tears that suddenly threatened. "No." I pasted on a wobbly smile. "Could you imagine what we'd be like, married to each other? We fight over peanut butter, for Christ's sake!"

His answering grin was equally wobbly. "Yeah, we'd probably kill each other within a year." His gaze hardened, then. "And if we didn't, you'd probably try to chase crooks with a baby strapped to your back and I'd have to wonder if Mañoso was sneaking into my bed when I was working nights."

OK – that really hurt, but I didn't want this to get ugly, so I bit back the torrent of angry words that I was itching to let loose. Besides, my conscience wasn't exactly clear when it came to Ranger. Yeah, Joe and I had been off more than we'd been on, and I'd hid behind our non-commitment agreement, plenty. But, if I'd really wanted to commit to Joe, I wouldn't have ever let Ranger poach. Joe and I had been just marking time for a while, and it wasn't fair to either of us.

I stood and shook my head sadly. "I may not want to get married and have kids, but I hope that you know Ranger doesn't have a thing to do with it. With us."

Joe's jaw clenched. "Whatever. Tell Mañoso you're his problem, now."

I closed my eyes briefly. I'd probably cry as soon as I got home, but right now, I just felt numb. "I won't, because, guess what, Joe? I'll be my own problem from now on, and I'm good with that." I grabbed my purse off of the end table and made my way to the door.

"I'll leave all the stuff you've left at my apartment and your key here while you're at work on Monday. I'm sorry, Joe. I hope you find what you're looking for."

The last thing I heard as I walked out of Joe's life was the sound of his beer bottle breaking against the wall.


AN: So – that's my version of Steph and Joe's breakup. I never get tired of writing them. I tried to write them true to character, but how I think Steph would be with just a teensy bit of self-awareness.