Part 4—Stolen

A/N: Go to Youtube and watch the video—search Dashboard Confessional Stolen. Near the end, the guy with the long hair on the beach could be Carlos. And if her hair were curlier, the girl could be Steph.

oOo

We watch the season pull up its own stakes
And catch the last weekend of the last week
Before the gold and the glimmer have been replaced,
Another sun soaked season fades away
You have stolen my heart

—Chris Carrabba

1

"We're going back to Trenton," Dickie asserted as he and Stephanie walked across the parking lot toward his car. "Your mother sent me to bring you home, and I'm bringing you home."

Stephanie stopped behind the Jag, her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed on her chest. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I need to talk to my mother first."

Dickie opened the passenger side door for her. "Then call her, right now." Stephanie remained behind the car, catching a faint whiff of beer mixed with breath mint emanating from Dickie.

"Not from here," she said. "Let's go back to my apartment. It'll give me a chance to call Mom, plus I need a shower. I can't go anywhere smelling like this." Stephanie didn't trust Dickie not to just take off once she was in the car, but she remembered how her Crabster's smell had offended him the last time he was there. He wouldn't want to drive all the way back to Trenton with that smell, even with the top down.

Her eyes, flickering yellow reflections of the parking lot's sodium vapor lights, held Dickie's until he nodded. "Okay. We'll go back to your place for a few minutes."

Stephanie didn't fasten her seatbelt, and kept a hand on the door handle, just in case. But five minutes later they were walking through the door of her apartment. "Have a seat." She gestured to the couch and handed Dickie the remote control. "I'm going to call Mom from my room."

She locked the bedroom door behind her.

oOo

As soon as the Jaguar shot out of the parking lot Carlos was on his feet and out the door, listening to the muscle car revving up through its gears and back down again to stop at the stop sign at the end of the block. He stood in the middle of Third Street watching the Jag's taillights as it stopped at the next stop sign, and the next.

And then the blinker went on for the left turn onto Green Street.

Carlos stayed very still and heard the deep burble of the engine as it rolled on at low speed. He sighed in relief. They were going to Stephanie's apartment.

Julio, Lester and Tank stood just behind him in the street. "Got it bad for the skinny white girl, huh?" Tank muttered, a smile in his voice. Carlos turned to face them.

"Dickie's a bastard," Julio burst out. "He hurt her. I think we should go and make sure she's okay and that he doesn't hurt her again."

Carlos took a split second to evaluate, analyze, strategize, and then he spoke with authority. "Julio, Lester, wait for Tina and Mary Lou and walk them home. I'm going to the apartment, just surveillance for now unless there's some reason to intervene. Tank, you with me?"

Tank's shining black globe of a head inclined in a nod and they set off down the street.

oOo

It was almost eleven o'clock, but Mrs. Plum answered the phone on the first ring.

"Mother, how could you?" Stephanie sat on the edge of her bed and kicked off her sneakers, her voice shaking with fury. "I told you I'd call you in the morning. You have no right to interfere."

"Stephanie," Mrs. Plum began, but Stephanie interrupted.

"What in the hell were you thinking?" she gritted out through clenched teeth, jumping up from the bed, adrenaline pumping, too agitated to sit. "I'm so angry right now that I could scream. Whatever in the world made you send Dickie Orr of all people down here after me?"

"He's your boyfriend," her mother said. "He should take care of you."

"Mother, he's not my boyfriend. We dated a few times, but it's over. I haven't even talked to him in more than a month. And I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Her mother appeared to be speechless, so Stephanie plowed on, pacing from door to window between her bed and Tina's. "The last time I saw Dickie he got drunk and was a real ass. I was well rid of him, and now you send him down here to manhandle me? To hurt me and try to drag me back to Trenton? I don't think so."

Mrs. Plum's voice was high and scratchy. "I didn't know…"

"Furthermore, I have a job here. This is the biggest, busiest weekend of the year and Uncle Tommy Rosolli is counting on me to be at work. Would you have me walk out on him with no notice, just leave him in the lurch? Do you think I'd ever get another job from anyone in the Burg if I did that?"

"But Stephanie, everyone's talking about you and that, that hoodlum. They say he's in a gang…"

Stephanie interrupted again, on a roll. "Let's straighten this out once and for all. Carlos Manoso is a friend, a very good friend of mine. He's not a hoodlum or a gangbanger or any of those things. He's Cuban American, and he's a lifeguard. His brother and his friend work with us at Uncle Tommy's, so we see them every day. Carlos won a big swim race today, and I was so happy for him that I hugged him on the beach. That's all it was, although if I decide I want to date him I will, and nothing you say can stop me. He's infinitely nicer than Dickie Orr and treats me much better."

Stephanie was out of breath and out of arguments, so she waited to see what her mother would say.

"Stephanie…" her mother began, but Stephanie was no longer listening. A chill worked its way up her spine, leaving her nipples tingling and heat low in her belly. She stepped to the window and pushed the curtains open.

oOo

Carlos and Tank turned onto Green Street, striding down the opposite side of the street from the big white house that contained Stephanie's apartment. Even from the corner Carlos could see the shadow pacing in Stephanie's room, getting larger as it approached the window and smaller as it retreated. The hair on his arms stood up as they got closer, gooseflesh working its way up to the back of his neck.

"There," he muttered to Tank, gesturing at the window.

When they reached a position across from the house they could hear the faint rise and fall of Stephanie's voice through the open window. Carlos merged himself into the tree across the street from the white house, Tank silent and invisible behind him.

Then Stephanie was at the window, pushing open the curtains with one hand while holding her phone to her ear with the other. She stared at the tree and raised her hand.

"How the hell did she know we're here?" Tank rumbled from behind him as Carlos stepped away from the tree and raised his hand in response.

"She just knows," Carlos answered, stepping back to the tree and leaning against the trunk.

oOo

Stephanie dragged herself away from the window after seeing Carlos. "Mom, could you repeat that? I didn't hear you."

"I said I'm sorry Stephanie. What do you want me to do?"

Stephanie's mouth hung open in shock, but she pulled herself together enough to answer. "Tell Dickie you made a mistake. Tell him I'm staying here and that you're sorry you wasted his time."

Mrs. Plum heaved out a big sigh. "Put him on."

Stephanie walked back out into the living room, saying, "My mom wants to talk to you," as she handed Dickie the phone.

She went back into her bedroom, straight to the window to stare out, Dickie's voice drifting in through the open door. In a minute he was finished and walking into her room. She spun to face him as he advanced toward her holding out her phone. "Here," he said. "Your mom apologized, said she made a mistake."

Stephanie reached out her left hand to take the phone and Dickie grabbed it, turning it to study the blackening bruise circling her wrist. "Did I do this to you, Sugarplum?" He brought the wrist up and lowered his head until his lips brushed over it. "I'm sorry."

Stephanie yanked her hand away and took a step backward, her butt hitting the window sill. "It's okay," she said.

Dickie stepped closer and his breath mint must have worn off because the beer smell was a lot stronger. "Since I'm already here, how about going out? We could go to Mac's and dance."

Stephanie squirmed, caught between the bed and the nightstand, up against the window with nowhere to go. "No thanks. I think it's best if you go home now."

"So sweet," Dickie murmured, brushing his forefinger over her lips.

She jerked her head to the side and brought up her arm to knock his hand away. "Dickie, don't touch me. Whatever little there was between us is over, and it's time for you to leave."

He sighed, the odor of his breath in her face causing her to shrink away. "Okay, Sugarplum, whatever you say. Goodnight." He grabbed her shoulder with one hand and her ponytail with the other, jerking her toward him, his lips smashing into hers.

TBC