AN: All familiar characters/etc. belong to Janet Evanovich. I am not making any profit from this.
Thanks for reviews and to everyone who's been sticking with the story so far. Your support keeps me going.
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SP POV
"Hey," Mare whispered as she leaned across the center of my BMW M3 to give me a hug. "How are you holding up?"
From her slightly bloodshot eyes I could tell that she'd been crying earlier, same as me. "I'm hanging in there. I had a pretty full morning between getting Krista ready, my mandatory hour of gun range time and taking care of a quick client meeting, so I haven't really had any time to get caught up in memories of V. You?" I parroted her question as I pointed my sleek company vehicle towards El Diablo, a highly rated tattoo parlor.
"I'm doing the best I can, it's just weird that it's her birthday but we're not planning a surprise party or visit to Boston or something," Mare replied.
"I know. She loved surprise parties. What gets me is that the world is just chugging along like it's any regular day while for us it's such a huge day. I mean, it's V's 30th birthday, it's a big deal!"
"Yeah, it seems wrong that the world just keeps going on like it's nothing," Mare agreed. "I think it's really nice that you're getting V's tattoo. I kinda wish I was brave enough to do it too."
"You can, I mean you were brave enough to get the first one back during college. Do you want to?"
"No, I couldn't!" Mare exclaimed. "I'm a mom and well, it's not really the mom thing to do…"
"I'm a mom, sorta, and I'm getting it. Don't let the wonky Burg morals dictate how you live your life, you'll miss out on waaay too much that way."
"I know you're a mom too, but you're a cool mom with a fulltime job and fancy car who had a fling with Batman. I'm a stay at home mom. And, well, the first one hurt like a bitch. I'm not sure I could make it through another."
"Yeah, it did hurt, but almost in a good way, you know?" I asked as I pulled into an empty parking spot in front of El Diablo. Gotta love that RangeMan parking karma.
"There's no such think as good pain, Steph," Mare asserted as we headed into the tattoo parlor which had black tiled floors and walls painted a shocking crimson. The walls were adorned with sketches of tattoos ranging from the trendy and common to the extravagant and unique. We ambled up to the desk at the front of the parlor where Mike, according to his nametag, was seated and assiduously reading a copy of Inked magazine while fidgeting with the spacer earring in his left earlobe.
"Hi, I wanted to get a tattoo," I announced, drawing Mike's attention away from his magazine.
"Cool, did you need to look at our designs or did you have something in particular in mind?"
"I want this," I said, pulling up a picture of V's tattoo on my phone "on the front-ish part of my right hip."
"Okay, let me just get Jace up here and he'll take good care of you." Mike picked up the front desk phone, hit an extension and told Jace to come up to the front of the shop. A few minutes later, a slight man in his late 20s or early 30s with full black ink sleeves displayed prominently by his wife-beater tanktop sauntered up towards Mare and me.
"Hey, I'm Jace," he said, tossing his head to the side causing his shoulder length hair to follow.
I shook his outstretched hand and introduced Mare and myself before following him into the labyrinth of work stations that populated El Diablo until we reached the one with Jace written next to it in a very elaborate gothic font.
"Why don't you undo your slacks and pull them and your panties down a bit on your right side and I'll just get the tattoo image mocked up and printed," Jace suggested, getting straight to work on recreating V's tattoo.
"Okay," I said, getting situated and settled on the black customer chair table thing.
A short while later, Jace had transferred the tattoo from a printed image to my skin and was starting the tattoo. I kept my eyes focused on the design and my mind focused on V and why she got the dandelion with blowing seeds inked on herself. I was lost in a haze of memories of one of my best friends and barely registered that Jace had finished inking me until Mare slightly shook my shoulder and told me we needed to get going.
I listened to Jace's spiel on tattoo care, paid and dropped off Mare before heading to Tasty Pastry to pick up a mini birthday cake for Krista and my picnic at Point Pleasant. "Hey Clara," I greeted upon entering the pastry shop. "Is the cake I ordered ready?"
"Yup, let me just ring you up and then I'll grab it for you. Let's see, " Clara said, entering information into the old, gray cash register that had been around back when I worked at the Tasty Pastry. "You're total comes out to $17.95."
I handed Clara $20 and told her to keep the change. A few seconds later, she emerged from the back room with the cake I'd ordered. It was a two layer, 5in diameter chocolate cake with fresh raspberry filling and thick buttercream icing with violet and blue flowers around the edges and 'Happy Birthday Mommy' written on it.
Once I'd collected the dessert for my picnic with Krista, I headed home to pack a quick lunch of PB&J and PB&O (peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter and olive) sandwiches, fresh pineapple, chips and salsa and water bottles. I also tossed on pink tailored shorts and a black tanktop over a modest black bikini and packed the rest of the essentials from sunscreen to towels into a large canvas RangeMan tote.
I had a little while before I needed to start loading up the car to pick up Krista, so I gave Becks a call to check in and see how she was holding up. Hopefully she's not having too tough of a time, especially since she lives by herself. I knew how lucky I was that another of our band of four lived in Trenton with me and was always available to talk or just to give a much needed hug. I imagine I'd be struggling much more if I didn't have Mare with me to lean on.
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SP POV
"So, Krista, are you ready for our celebration today?" I asked as I helped her buckle into her carseat.
"Yup Aunt Stephie! Where are we going?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, remember how we talk about today being your Mom's birthday? I thought we should celebrate it by doing something that she would've liked, so we're going to the beach!"
"Okay, I like the beach too!"
"Perfect, so how about you eat a small snack," I said, handing her a bag with apple slices in it, "while I drive and when we get there we'll have a picnic on the beach."
"Mkay Aunt Stephie," Krista agreed and started munching on the apples.
A little over an hour later we were laying out a hibiscus covered blanket on the beach and settling down to eat our lunch. I handed out the sandwiches, pineapple and water and set up the chips and salsa between us so we could both snack on it. We spend a relaxing lunch taking in the scenery and discussing the epic sandcastle we'd build when we were through eating. The sound of the waves crashing into the beach provided the perfect soundtrack to our meal. I loved the beach, the beauty and serenity had a way of recharging me, making me feel like there was nothing too arduous for me to conquer. And making it through V's birthday was definitely something I needed a little extra help with.
"So Krista, do you know why we're celebrating your Mom's birthday?"
She shook her head no and looked down at her plate and sniffled. Crap, I didn't want to make her sad, I just wanted to keep the memory of V alive.
"Your Mom was a very important person to me, and I think it's nice for us to remember her and spend the day doing something she would have enjoyed. Also, I want you to know that if you ever have any questions about her or anything or want to talk about her, I'm always here. Okay?" I asked, brushing away a few errant tears and trying to keep from crying.
Krista nodded in response and scooted over to me to give me a hug. "I just miss her," she mumbled into my chest, holding on tight.
"Me too," I agreed, reveling in the warmth from the sunlight bearing down on us. It almost felt like a warm, reassuring hug from the clear blue sky above us.
After a few moments Krista broke from our hug and looked up at me with a pensive expression. "Aunt Stephie, how can we celebrate Mommy's birthday without any cake?" she asked in a small, brittle voice.
"Well, let's see here, I'm pretty sure I remembered cake," I said, making a show of checking in all of our bags before bringing out the mini-cake I'd picked up from the Tasty Pastry. "Tada!" I exclaimed, placing the cake in between us, sticking in a handful of candles (30 would be a fire hazard and likely to get wax all over the delicious confection) and lighting them.
We both sang happy birthday, made wishes and blew out the candles together. Then I cut us both a generous helping of the chocolate and raspberry cake and we settled in to eat our cake as we watched the foamy waves roll in.
"Mmmm, this cake is sooo yum!" Krista observed, with a slight smear of purple icing on decorating cheek.
"I agree, it's the best!" I said around a bite of cake.
"I wish Mommy was here to celebrate with us," Krista admitted timidly.
"I do too munchkin, and I'm sure she wants to be here too, but she can't. But, I bet she's looking down on us from heaven and us celebrating at the beach and doing something she would've loved is making her smile and feel like she's here with us."
"Really?" Krista asked, her voice raw and filled with awe.
"Really," I answered as we continued eating our huge pieces of cake in silence.
"Aunt Stephie, I forgotted my swimsuit. How can I play in the water without it?"
"Oh, it's in the bag with the towels, we'll get you changed once we finish up our cake."
A few hours of splashing in the ocean and engineering an impressive sandcastle later, we decided to check out the boardwalk. We dried off and put some shorts and tank tops, donned flip-flops, loaded our picnic supplies into the car and headed for the boardwalk.
We spent the next several hours playing in an arcade, snacking on vendor food and going on rides (our favorite was the large swing ride that spun us around in circles) before deciding on the Boardwalk Bar and Grill for a quick dinner. By the time I had pointed the car towards home, an exhausted Krista had fallen asleep in the backseat with a small, satisfied smile playing on her lips.
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RM POV
Finally, I thought as I checked the tracker on Babe's car for the tenth time today. Babe and I assume Krista were on their way back to Trenton. I knew it was a slight violation of her privacy, but I couldn't help myself from keeping tabs on how she spent her day off today.
She came into RangeMan this morning for her mandatory gun range time and a client meeting then headed to El Diablo, a tattoo parlor. I had lost several hours imagining what she'd gotten tattooed on her alabaster skin and, more importantly, where. I hoped it was somewhere outside of her swimsuit areas because I didn't want to have to harm a tattoo artist for getting handsy with my Babe. Ugh, I needed to seriously lock down the my Babe inklings. I had been pleasantly surprised when I first saw the Wonder Woman tattoo on the inside of her delicate ankle. It was definitely hot and telling that she chose that particular emblem to have inked permanently on her body. I wondered if I'd get to see the new ink she got, if she did indeed get some.
After the tattoo parlor, she'd gone to Tasty Pastry, home, The Milano Academy and finally Point Pleasant. I guess she wanted the day off to lounge at the beach and work on her tan. And probably eat crap boardwalk food, I thought with a grimace. Finally after spending most of the afternoon and evening at Point Pleasant, the tracker on Babe's RangeMan car was headed back to Trenton.
Now that Steph was headed home and her day off was culminated I moved on to my list of things to do for the day which only had one item pending. Find a date for the Homeless Shelter Benefit this Saturday. I'd been putting it off, but now it was just three days away and I had to ask someone or risk going stag. Which would be especially embarrassing with Babe having a date. And there was the added complication of needing a date as a cover for part of the collaborative effort with the FBI and TPD to help put away the Capellos.
I had been waffling between either asking one of my sisters or asking an actual date to attend the benefit with me. As nosy as my sisters tended to be, I figured it would be easier to take care of everything that needed to be handled that night if I didn't have to worry about an actual date at the same time. I pulled out my phone and dialed Marcella, my sister who was a year younger than I was. She was the sibling I had been closest to growing up and we'd managed to remain close despite my being shipped of to Abuela Rosa in Miami after I was sent to juvie. We'd somehow even managed to regain our closeness after the years I'd cut myself off from her and the rest of the family while I was deployed and regularly running black ops missions for Uncle Sam. She was also the only person from my family outside of Santos that knew about Babe. I'd had to keep my burgeoning friendship with Steph a secret from my well-intentioned yet nosy family to avoid pressure from them wanting to meet her or for me to pursue a traditional relationship with her. Not that they intimidated me, I'd just rather not have to defend my life choices the few times a year I actually saw them.
"Hi Carlos," Marcella answered after three rings.
"Hey Marcella, how's it going?"
"Well, the museum has been doing great. We're getting ready to start a new exhibit on India as part of our Around the World Campaign." Marcella had a PhD in Anthropology and was the curator for the Children's Museum in Newark. She loved planning new events to get children excited about other cultures.
"Mhmm, and how're things with the guy you've been seeing? Enrique, right?" I asked.
"Oh him, yeah, I cut him loose. I only went out with him a few times at Mama insistence because he was a friend of a friend and prominent in Cuban society in New York. Between the distance and his chauvinistic attitude, it was pretty much doomed."
"Do I need to pay him a visit?" I asked darkly.
"Nope, I took care of him myself. I gave him an education on female superiority that I'm sure he took to heart!" she said with a self-satisfied chuckle.
"Okay. Let me know if you change your mind. So is there anyone new?" I asked, hands poised at my keyboard ready to run a detailed background check on any new guy my sister was dating.
"Not right now, so you can stand down! So Carlos, what do you need?"
"Why would you assume I just called because I needed something?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure you didn't just call to talk about my dating life, so spill, what is it?"
"I need a date for a benefit this weekend, and I was wondering if you were free?" I finally spit out.
"Sure, but why don't you just ask Stephanie?"
"Well, she is going, but with her own date," I reluctantly admitted.
"What?! Why?" Marcella demanded.
"Well, it's mostly because the tables seat ten, so the core team plus Steph and our dates are going. So can you come?"
"Well, if you're not going with Stephanie and she's bringing her own date, would you rather go with a friend of mine that I'm sure you'd hit it off with?"
"God no, it's sort of a working date, and I'd rather not have to worry about some chic's feelings or making small talk with everything going on." Also, things were complicated enough with me figuring out how to handle my growing attraction and need for Babe to throw another woman into the mix.
"Okay, fine." Marcella huffed.
"Okay fine you'll go with me?"
"Yeah, I will. Besides, I've been wanting to meet Stephanie since you first mentioned her to me almost two years ago."
With my luck they'd end up being best friends and sharing everything with each other, including embarrassing stories from my childhood. "Thanks, sis. I'll email you the details and I'll see you Saturday," I said before hanging up.
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SP POV
After realizing I had waaay too much to carry back into the apartment, I decided to make a second trip for all of our beach supplies and start by carrying a still sleeping Krista up. I had just entered the apartment when Krista shuffled in my arms and woke up a bit.
"Goodnight Mommy," she said, laying her head back down on my shoulder and instantly falling back asleep. I walked in shock towards her bedroom, laid her down on the bed, changed her and tucked her in as I replayed the moment she called me Mommy over and over in my head.
Did she mean to call me Mommy or what she thinking about V? Had I gone from Aunt Stephie to Mommy over the past few weeks? Or would she go back to calling me Aunt Stephie in the morning? And why did that thought feel like I'd been sucker punched. Oh gosh, and what would V think about her precious baby girl calling me Mommy?
These thoughts were swarming my brain as I brought up our beach supplies. I decided I needed to decompress a bit so I ran a bath for myself in my amazing white bathtub that contrasted sharply with the dark blue walls of the bathroom. I tossed in some bath salts and turned on the jets before grabbing a glass of red wine from the kitchen and V's letter. It was time.
I stripped and settled into the luxurious bathtub and closed my eyes for a second to drink in how amazing and relaxing it felt. Then I took a long sip of wine, wiped my hands on a towel I'd kept in reach and carefully opened the letter V had left for me in her will.
Steph,
If you're reading this, I want you to know how sorry I am and that I love and miss you terribly. I know this isn't something we expected to have happen, but since it has, there are a few things I want you to know. Things I probably should've told you but just never got around to.
I love you, very much. You're like the sister I always wanted. Someone who always got me, was always there for me sans judgment and just wanted me to be happy, no matter what. Seeing how much you cared for me taught me to love, especially after growing up in a frigid house where love was treated as a reward for compliance and living up to outrageous expectations. And thanks to you, I've had a slew of wonderful friendships and an amazing husband and partner in life.
Also, you inspire me to be fearless. The way you picked yourself up after Morelli's poems detailing the Tasty Pastry incident, Dickie's infidelity, being let go from E.E. Martin and every time something terrible happened during your stint as a Bounty Hunter is inspiring. You have an indomitable spirit, which is something I hope to mirror. I hope that you continue to forge your own path forwards and never let anyone dictate how you will live your life. You are truly one of a kind, and I am honored to call you a friend.
Finally, I'm sure you're wondering why I chose you as Krista's guardian should something happen to Dom and myself. Well, it's because of everything really. Krista's the most important person in my life, and I want her to grow up strong and independent and loved. And I know that of my friends, you're the person I trust most to raise Krista and help her to grow into the amazing woman I know she will be.
Courage is grace under pressure. I got that quote in a fortune cookie the other day and immediately thought of you. You always rise to the challenge, no matter what, and you do it in an inspiring way. It's something I want Krista to learn from her Aunt Stephie, to display courage in a graceful manner, even in the face or insurmountable odds.
I also don't want Krista to get caught up in the past, and I think you'll find a way to balance remembering Dom and I while allowing Krista to grow without regrets or bitterness that we're no longer with her but rather watching over her. I want you to be Krista's Mommy, in the truest sense of the word. You're not just a filler parent or Aunt assuming a more hands on role, you are her Mommy, in the same sense that I am or rather was.
I know it will be an adjustment and challenging at times, but I know that together, you two will be capable of anything. Dom and I are deeply thankful for your friendship and support over the years and your dedication to raising Krista with unconditional love and support in the same manner that we would have.
Love,
V