Disclaimer. See Chapter 1.
Going down…
I stood in front of his door, my hand balled into a fist. At first I had lightly tapped on the door, trying to find the courage deep down inside to face him and after the second went by without being answered, I was all out pounding on the door, making a fool of myself. Like usual. I'd finally given up, and took the elevator down, listening to the familiar dings of each floor when I heard the elevator ding and stop, opening up to see Ranger standing in front of me, his eyes intense and directly focused on my face.
Everything about Ranger was dark. His hair, his eyes, his skin tone, his wardrobe, the color of his cars, the lifestyle he had chosen for himself. He walked in the shadows and let very few people in to his inner circle of trust. Until his daughter was kidnapped, I didn't realize just how much he'd let me in. Which was saying something because I still didn't know that much about him. I knew enough to trust him with my life. The jury was still deciding if I could trust him with my heart. Today he'd skipped out on his usual monochrome wardrobe in favor of a white cotton oxford cut shirt and blue jeans with a designer rip at his knee.
"Looking for me?" He asked, hand against the door to keep it from closing.
"Actually, I came by on the off chance you might be home. You weren't. So I'm heading back to my apartment to get dinner." I bit down on my lower lip.
"Try again, babe. You don't cook. You order take out." He stepped off the fifth. The doors hissed shut behind and we were moving. "Are you going to tell me why you're here?"
He paced towards me, gaze locked on mine until I was trapped in a corner. His hand rested on my shoulder, "your pulse is racing, you're as twitchy as hell and you're gnawing down on your lower lip. I won't ask you again, babe. What's wrong?"
"Or what, you'll have to kill me?" I said. I didn't mean to sound like the fourth grade bitch who got the most Valentine's cards. But when in doubt, avoidance was the one thing I had to get me out the elevator and safely on Morelli's Ducati, away from Ranger. And away from the nine levels of hell I was about to send myself to.
He sighed.
"Sorry, that was uncalled for. I'm just up to here with everything and I need to talk to you before I do anything rash."
Ranger flashed me a grin, as quick as it came it was gone, replaced with more of a serious face when I failed to smile back in return.
"What's going on babe. It's not like you to be—"
And then the elevator came to a screeching halt, the cart wavering from side to side as it slid past the stoppers and ground out a high pitch squeal in the effort to heave into the emergency stop. I gripped onto Ranger, holding onto him for dear life, scared out of my mind, only thinking of the things I hadn't admitted to and things that I wished I'd said, which was funny in a way. I never thought I'd die in an elevator.
Ranger looked down at me as the cart came to a stop finally and brushed a wayward curl out of my eyes. Our eyes held for a moment, and I held my breath. He didn't have to ask if I was alright, he already knew the answer.
"Fuck." He said, looking up at the ceiling. "I always thought it'd be your elevator I'd get trapped in."
An hour later, we'd made all the emergency calls and were still waiting on a rescue. Tank was taking care of things on Ranger's end and I'd called Morelli to let him know I was going to be late. "Only you Steph, only you."
Nice to know his faith in me is the same as always.
"Where are they?" I shrieked, pacing in the elevator, now that I was sure it wasn't going anywhere. "I feel all caged up—"
Ranger patted the ground beside him. "Sit down. We'll be out of here soon enough."
I shot him a look, "Fine." I huffed and puffed and finally sat down beside him slowly. I was wearing black leather pants and a matching biker jacket. Thanks to the helmet my hair was flat and had taken on the consistency of micro noodles. Leave in conditioner my eye. As such, it took some evasive maneuvering to get a suitable sitting position. I ended up legs stretched, jacket tossed on the floor, leaning against Ranger's hard shoulder. "You'd be a bit more comfy if you didn't work out so much. Maybe you should skip out on the gym and try a month on nothing but junk food."
"That stuff would kill me." The tips of his mouth turned upwards.
"Right now I could do with a pillow and you're not exactly soft are you?"
"It'd ruin my image." He said, slinging his arm around me, pulling me in closer, "I've got to keep up appearances, you know. Ain't nothing worse than some old fat guy dragging criminals back in to the system."
"You'd be able to outsmart most of the bad guys if you had a large hole in your stomach and were running around with an extra two hundred pounds of Jell-O on your middle."
"Realize you just compared me to your favorite snack."
"Forget it. I'm just hungry." I ran my fingertips inside the neckline of my shirt and skimmed the edge of my chain with my nails. "Did Tank say how long we'd be stuck in here?" Denial, denial, denial, was always going to be my best friend.
His breath warm on my ear. "What scares you more…being stuck in here with me or marrying Morelli?"
My mouth slacked open a tad, and I slammed it shut. Lula struck again! She's definitely due a kick in the shin the next time she buys a new pair of boots.
"Do you really want me to answer that?" I wanted to know, getting dangerously close to the bone.
With barely a perceptible movement, his lips were centimeters from mine, his hands on my hips. The moment he touched me everything changed. I closed the gap and caught his mouth in a soft kiss. My arms wrapped around him; the kiss deepened. I ran my fingers through his short black hair curling at the nape of his neck. The tip of his tongue lightly grazed the top of my mouth and I opened up, letting it in. Letting him in. No sooner had his tongue touched mine than I was moaning in satisfaction. I pulled back instantly. How? I will never know. The only thing making sense to me was making out with Ranger was not why I'd come to see him. I came here to sort my life out.
"Shit." I said backing away from him. "I can't do this."
"What now?" He replied.
"We have unfinished business," I quoted to him. "We've got to talk."
"So talk."
"Why did you start helping me? I mean, I know you owed Connie a favor, but after you took that bullet from Dodd most people would have wiped their hands clean."
"Notice you missed out the part about rescuing you from your shower pole." He said giving me a cool stare. "I wasn't taking you seriously - I should have. Trained you properly in all the procedures from the beginning. The bullet was my own fault. I underestimated the little fucker and look where it got me."
That's the thing about Ranger. Most people don't see past the Cuban coloring; they see a street thug, but in truth, he was more like Batman than a gang banger. Ranger played on the way the outside world envisages him. Hell, when we first met he was all swagger, gold chains and 'fo shizzles…then I got to know him better. He answered what questions he chose and avoided anything that may reveal his secret identity. Fair enough. I may never know every little detail about his life but I wasn't brushed off that easily.
"That still doesn't answer my question. Why didn't you just feed me to the wolves?"
"Stephanie, I've told you countless times, I have a certain reputation to uphold. I keep up the badass image and the street respects that. If my crew lose any bail hoppers, the street cred goes down and I don't like it when that happens. So when I took you on, I was partially maintaining my image. You didn't know the ropes and people were already talking. We'd been seen together, too many times and they put two and two together."
"You son of a bitch," I stood up and stalked into a facing corner. "This was all about how the outside world viewed you? You were only helping me, so you kept your rep. You didn't giving a flying fuck about me or my safety. Tell me one thing; have you been lying to me this entire time? Is this was all about how you look? Tell me you haven't gained the slightest bit of admiration for the jobs I do, without you? Tell me that and I'll walk out your life and never bother you again."
Silence. Ranger thinking before he spoke. "You had my admiration the moment you 'borrowed' Morelli's car. The little white bread girl stealing a cop car. That took balls. You had my respect when you dragged his sorry ass to the police station in the back of the truck. That's when people started talking. And you gained my trust when you didn't want to leave me behind with the church crazies."
He stood up slowly, coming towards me. Making every moment known - this wasn't like him. I thought for a split second he might scream at me or shake me, instead he brushed a few loose curls away from my face.
Ranger's eyes held me in an eyelock. He'd caught the look of doubt in my eye. "I'm sorry."
"I was trained never to leave a member of my team behind. You didn't want to go, and I knew in that moment I had your loyalty."
I let the last five minutes sink in. His words and gestures. "I'm sensing a but here?" I stated, matter-of-factly.
Ranger sighed. "Morelli." Was all he said.
"Morelli?" I repeated. "What's he got to do with this?"
"After three years of dragging you through the mud, babe, you should be able to answer that yourself. It doesn't take Dr. Phil to tell you the unhealthy behavior patterns and games you both twist each other with. You just need to realize that for yourself."
"Do you think I'm here to have you analyze everything in my relationship?"
"No. I think you're here looking for a get out clause."
That stung a bit. I swallowed back a sob. "Is that honestly what you think of me?"
He shook his head. "What I think doesn't matter. I interfered the first time because it suited my purposes. I was attracted to you and thought it may give you another option to consider. I wasn't looking for any permanent commitment. Just a window of opportunity that you would think about someone else when you close your eyes at night. Someone that wouldn't treat you the way he does."
"So now Morelli's all the bad bastards under the sun. What gives you the right to judge him like that; you love 'em and leave 'em."
"I left because I had to work. I told you that. I loved you and left you because there is only room in your soul for one man Stephanie. And it's not me. Suddenly Morelli realized just what he had in you and he didn't want to lose you. That's why he has asked you to marry him."
I sat there dazed and confused. There was nothing to be afraid of. This is just another one of those conversations telling me I am oil and he is water, I told myself. Deal with it and move on. "The one difference Ranger- that he loves me. And he's showing me by offering a lifetime commitment. I thought I'd finally figured everything out. I came here to speak to you. I'm not looking for an excuse to break up my engagement. I haven't said yes, yet. I came here to find if there's even a remote chance of anything ever happening between us."
"How can you repeatedly go back to a man that treats you the way he does? All those years of swinging back and forth between each other." He let out an audible sigh, "You only put up with someone like that if you love them, there's no other excuse for putting up with behavior like that. You're the reason I hold back Stephanie because you don't know what the hell you want."
"So you put all this together and knock me back before I even get a chance to say what I have to."
"Pretty much."
"So much for the badass." I muttered under my breath.
Ranger spoke firmly. "It's not about being a badass, it's called self preservation. Survival. But by all means, say what you have to say. We're not going anywhere."
"Well your self preservation sucks, big time! Maybe if you didn't have so many fucking walls up I would get in. More than the little tit-bits you throw at me. I want you to know the first time I told Morelli I loved him, was last summer. Right after I'd watched you take those bullets. He scraped me off the floor and took me to the hospital to see you. You. You hear me? I didn't give two shits about anyone else in those moments. And I realized then, I couldn't not have you in my life."
"And this is supposed to make me feel better?"
"No Ranger." I mocked. "It's self-preservation. I want to tell you something, something, which you've told me dozens of times. But it's always been dealt with as a joke in a way, justified so you don't freak me out."
"Babe, stop." He said.
"I love you damnit. I love you more than I'll ever love him. Than I'll ever love anyone. And if you can't see that, then you're the fool. Not me." Let the ground swallow me up.
"I wish I could believe you but I've watched you go back to him too many times."
As if hearing my silent plea, the elevator suddenly started moving. Thank you God. The doors opened smoothly on the first floor to a bunch of burly men in RangeMan shirts. Tank was standing at the forefront. He opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off. Holding onto my last shred of dignity, I dug inside my pocket and ripped the RangeMan entry fob card from my own set. That was all it took for me to come undone.
I stood, jaw tight, fists balled until my nails dug into the palms of my hand. Ten faces turned to face me. Eyes laced with a mixture of shock and concern. I couldn't take the looks of sympathy; in those seconds sympathy did not help matters. I threw the key card across the room, narrowly missing several of Ranger's men. It bounced off the foyer wall directly above Tank's head. I watched with satisfaction as it shattered to the floor in a ball of broken pieces. I fled the elevator. And took solace in the only bathroom on the first floor, away from the prying eyes, and broke down.
I sat against the locked stall door with my legs crossed and my arms clamped onto my elbows. I was shuddering. I'm not sure whether I was cold, I only had on a t-shirt or whether it was the anger, brewing slowly throughout my entire system. My body was fighting against it; waves of tension flew through my body trying to stiffen the shudders. The shaking became violent and I had to run my hands down my arms, pulling them into my body. To try to console myself. I curled my body into itself and stared at my feet.
How could he reject me? I said to the empty room. My voice bounced off the walls and echoed against me. A million questions where flying through my head. Why? I'd broken down confessing how I felt and he didn't believe me. Had he simply had enough of me and this was his excuse to get his kicks somewhere else?
I pulled out my cell phone.
"Joe." I said into the receiver. "I'm really shaken up; can you come pick me up at RangeMan?" He may have his faults, but he's always there when I need him.
I'd like to think I have control of my emotions. This was just too much. The image of Ranger turning away from me at my most vulnerable burned in my mind. His strong words of skepticism. I tried to subdue the shaking, I couldn't. I stood up and sank against the door. Tears pooled in my eyes. Damn him, the absolute bastard. Fat tears were tumbling down my cheeks, dripping onto my shirt. As fast as I swiped them away, the faster and fatter the tears fell. Get a grip, Stephanie I told myself. Nothing worked. I just couldn't get control. I was shaking and sobbing and I couldn't catch my breath. Every slice of anger I felt was smashing against me, pulsating inside, and pouring from every available channel. My heart was breaking in anguish, shattering into a million pieces inside me. My breathing was erratic. There wasn't enough air or space in the closed toilet stall to get myself into line.
I gave into the silent screaming and sunk to the ground. Bile was welling in the pit of my stomach. Weakly, I clambered onto my knees and crawled towards the toilet. I was howling non-stop and trying to bite back the raising vomit. Inevitably, my body collapsed. I used the last of my energy to heave up into the toilet and then, I fainted.
The End
If you'd like a happier ending, trying Going Up :)