I knew I hadn't drunk that much, but my headache the next day was telling a different story. Guess drinking in order to not talk to old high school classmates sort of does the trick and makes you lose count on your glasses.

I fished my cellphone from my bedside table to check the time and was surprised to find it way past noon already. I know Mary Lou and I didn't leave the reunion too early, but it certainly wasn't too late either when we made our way home.

After having dropped Mary Lou at her place, promising we'd do lunch soon, the cab took me home and I had spent the ride across town calling Ranger and leaving a voicemail. I know he was still somewhere in the middle of god knows where doing god knows what, and he wouldn't get back to my call soon. That wasn't my intention anyway. Whenever he had gone on one of his missions I had started leaving occasional voicemails, telling him what was going on in my life when his mission took very long. It was as if I didn't want him to miss out on much. And then when he made it back into the land of the living he'd have a recap of everything worth mentioning.

My voicemail had made it past four minutes when we pulled up in front of my place and I finished the call, handing the driver his fare.

On my display I could see I had several messages from Lula, mainly revolving around food and asking whether I'd be up for Cluck in a Bucket.

"Perfect hangover food," I replied after having dialed her number. "Can you pick me up?"

"Sure," she agreed. "I was in yo neighborhood anyway. 10 min away from yo, be ready…"

I jumped out of bed, threw on whatever was closest and made myself halfway presentable by putting my curls in a bun. Grabbing my purse I took the stairs down and was just walking out of the building when Lula arrived.

Lula ordered herself two full buckets, making me wonder who of the two of us was hungover. I ordered one of the menus and figured that should be enough for the moment.

"So how was the reunion-thingy?" she asked me between bites of chicken.

I just shrugged as answer at first. "Okay, I guess. I didn't kill anyone and most of them left me alone. But I guess it wasn't as if either of them needed to come and ask what I had been up to these past years. I'm often enough in the papers for everyone to know. But I saw Marilyn Swanston."

"Them actress? You went to school with her?" Lula asked surprised and I just nodded.

"Yeah, she showed up and honestly looks close up even better than in all of these pictures."

"Did you get her autograph?" she asked excited at which I shook my head no and laughed slightly.

"It wasn't a promo-event for her latest movie."

"Well… why not? And that movie of hers is really good. I didn't get the end though…"

"She dies," I answer smiling, wondering how Lula could not have understood the ending,

"Did the cop come with you last night?" she asked and I wondered how she had gotten the idea. Then I remembered that when the event started to get planned and people were notified of possible dates I had shortly entertained the idea of dragging Joe with me. Mainly because I had at that point figured it could be fun and Mary Lou hadn't been able to make the initial date work. Then things got changed, the reunion, which had started out as a casual get together was all of a sudden turning into this big, fancy thing and dates got changed. Mary Lou all of a sudden could work with the new date and Joe couldn't. Not that I minded too much, since I wasn't sure I would have been prepared for showing up with Morelli.

Joe had not been in my class. He had been two years ahead of me and had been Mr. Popular with girls and guy both. He was playing football and girls left and right fawned over him. He had been a wild child of a different kind and the skirt he didn't chase didn't exist. Compared to back then he had quieten down a lot these past years but I wasn't particularly keen on him rekindling old relations with woman who I might or might not despise. Never mind that he probably saw them on a daily basis when working his job as homicide detective or doing his grocery shopping where most of them were found as well. Yeah, my theory needed some working on.

"Speaking of Joe, do you mind dropping me off at his place on the way back? That way I save myself a trip."

"Sure, white gurl. It's in my direction to my nail designer…"

"I thought she was on Stark Street?" I asked confused.

"Girl moved to saver areas."

"Where is she now?"

"Point Pleasant," Lula said and at first I thought she was kidding.

"That… is on the way? That's more like an hour drive from here. Wouldn't it be better to find yourself a new designer a little closer to home?"

"We ex-ho's gotta support each other. And if girl moved to Point Pleasant I follow."

I just shrugged not caring one way or another. Personally speaking I'd seen Lula's nails and while they were unconventional and nice to look at I wouldn't really get my nails like that nor would I say that her designer was out of this world talented. But who was I to judge? If she wanted to drive to Point Pleasant… it was her business.

So half an hour later I was dropped of on Morelli's front door and had to find out he wasn't home. Great, here was me all prepared to be grown up and have a conversation with him about the past few weeks and his miserable mood and he wasn't here to be part of that conversation.

So I called his cell. Not for the conversation, but to find out here he was about and whether he'd be back sooner or later. He picked up after three rings and there was a lot of background noise. Great start already.

"Cupcake?" I heard Joe's rather strained sounding voice.

"I'm at your place and was wondering when you'd get back? I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks," I started, feeling like my best approach would be not to confront him with the fact that we needed to have a conversation.

To a certain degree I understood Joe's foul mood in the past few weeks. I figured if I had his job and would be looking at dead people all day long and spending the remainder of time interviewing questionable characters and seeing only the worst of humanity I'd get cranky as well. But then again… there are different forms of cranky. And Joe's was insufferable from a certain point forwards.

Oddly enough Ranger had a job just as glamorous as Joe and never was really cranky. Well, not with me. And even with his men he was ok. They all were from military backgrounds and therefore used to a rather harsh tone in conversation and general commands, but even at his what I'd figure would be Ranger's worst he still seemed harmless. And that was the difference between Joe and Ranger. It seemed like Carlos was able to reign in his frustration or anger. Joe…wasn't quite as capable.

"I should be back at my place in about an hour or two. Want me to stop by Pino's on my way and grab something?"

I hadn't really planned on staying that long if I was honest, but figured I hadn't any other plans and was sort of stuck here anyway seeing as I had come without my car.

"Sure, sounds good," I replied, already wondering what to do for the next hour or two.

"See you then," and then the line went dead and he was gone.

I guess I could spend the next hour or two thinking about how to breach the topic of Joe and his mood. Or I could lie down for a nap, seeing as my aspirin was slowly losing its effect and Lula's hangover-breakfast was feeling like it could maybe make a return soon.

I lied down, but instead of falling asleep anytime soon I spent the two and a half hours I was in the end waiting for Joe's arrival to think about my life. It isn't like I was living with the assumption that my life was amazing and I was living the dream. I knew that my life was chaotic and mayhem at best. But something about reunion I guess always brings out the "what if" questions in a person. I hadn't really spoken to most people last night and it wasn't like my conversation with Marilyn had all of a sudden thrown me into a deep crisis, but I couldn't help and wonder if this was it? If my job as a semi-successful bounty hunter and my sort of "get-by"-relationship with Joseph Morelli. We had split up so often and gotten back together that I had stopped counting.

It wasn't like I hated the point where I was right now at in my life, but I wasn't like I had really fully reached my potential and was wondering whether that had really been it. Whether that was all there would ever be? I had a business degree that I technically had paid a lot of money for and only used for a couple of months before the company I had worked for went bankrupt and I was left with a job as bounty hunter. Somehow I remained at that and never looked for a new job. Not that I think I would have been very successful at finding one to begin with. The economy was in a low and it wasn't like I had any skills no one else possessed of.

Maybe it was time to come to the conclusion that this was my life and there wouldn't be a change anytime soon. Of course, there were options and there had been options since years. Mainly Ranger who had continuously offered me a job at RangeMan, but which I had always declined. It felt too much like charity or a job he'd only offered me to help me out or just do it as a friend. He had tried arguing his case several times, but for once I actually had managed to be the stubbornest one out of the two of us.

Still deep in thought about my life and my previous choices, I realized a car door slamming and a moment later the front door opening and Joe was all of a sudden here. The scent of Pino's best pizza was filling my nostrils moments later and I heard Joe's familiar greeting.

"Hey Cupcake."

I took the pizza as well as the sixpack of Corona of his hands and carried it towards the kitchen while Joe got out of his coat and shoes. By the time he made it to the kitchen himself I had the pizza already on plates and the bottles separately on the table.

"How was your family?" I asked, figuring from the background noise that there weren't many possibilities of his whereabouts.

"The usual chaos as always," Joe replied, biting into one slice of pizza.

Joe came from a rather large family with quite a lot of nieces and nephews. There was never a quiet time when the Morelli's got together and everyone knew it. I had been to enough of their family get-togethers to know this personally myself.

There was a long and comfortable silence with us just eating the pizza and drinking the beer and as much as I liked that silence I knew I needed to address the reason why I had come here initially: Joe's mood of the last few weeks.

"How… how is your job going?" I asked a little tentative.

"The usual as you can imagine. The same crap and mayhem and useless investigations as always. Half my cases will get cold eventually because witnesses disappear or change their stories. I think I start getting tired of this job."

This wasn't the first time I was hearing about it. Every couple of weeks Joe would start on a debate whether or not his job was still worth the trouble. Personally I didn't see how doing something good couldn't be worth the trouble. But then again I wasn't looking at dead bodies all day long.

"Well, maybe a vacation would do you good. A bit of distance sometimes helps gaining perspective."

"Where do you want to go?" he asked and I was perplexed for a moment. I had made the suggestion for him only. I wasn't having the monetary possibilities for an impromptu vacation out of the blue right now.

"I was thinking more along the lines of it just being you. Getting away for a few days, and I don't just mean Point Pleasant, but… further away. Somewhere where you have to fly."

"Do you want to get rid of me?" he asked now perplexed himself.

"What? No. Why would you think so? I just think you need to get away. Far away. Somewhere where you are so far away that a phone call alone won't have you come back and where you can relax and let go. You always said you wanted to go to Mexico. Why not now? There's beach and tequila and good weather and even better, it should take your mind off everything work related without much problems."

Joe looked at me for a long moment, thinking about my suggestion.

"I think you might be right, I actually might do that," he finally contemplated before grabbing his phone. "Maybe I'll get Carl or Jimmy on board and we can make this a guy trip."

OK, not what I had imagined when I made my suggestion, but, well It was better than nothing. As long as it worked, who was I to complain?

"How was your reunion by the way? Anything exciting happened? Did you see Anna Nebkowiz or Jane Burtiton?"

I looked at him questioningly for a second, finding it odd how he specifically asked about two of the most annoying of my past classmates. But then again… Joe had always been friendly with the ladies. Back when we were in school he was one of the ones every girl wanted to date or get kissed by. And kissing he did a lot. As well as dating – if that's what you wanted to call it. As much as he was popular with the girls, girls were also popular for him. I think Joseph Morelli saw more action during his last two years in high school than most of his male classmates.

"Nothing exciting happened except that I seemingly got drunk. Or more drunk than I had assumed I was. And I don't remember seeing either Anna or Jane. Or their respective husbands."

I wasn't really keeping up with my classmates, but living in the Burg you sort of heard of things. And things could be put in three categories: weddings, births and funerals. Living in the Burg there was no way of escaping these events.

"Why do you ask?" I inquired confused. It wasn't like Joe to keep up very much with Burg-gossip or most people living there. Despite the fact that he was the Burg's golden boy, never seeming to be able to do anything wrong, and being loved by everyone there, he was very little involved. Of course he heard the chatter – either through me, my family or his – but he usually didn't care much unless it was connected to his job and a murder case.

That was Joseph's Morelli life and that is how he liked it. Involved to some degree and uninvolved for the most.

"No particular reason," he just said, shrugging and then continuing to eat his pizza. For it not having had no particular reason his question was oddly specific. He could have asked about almost anyone, hell, I wasn't even sure how many people Morelli actually really could name that I went to school with, but over the years I sort of figured out when it was worth continuing an interrogation and when to simply let things be.

"But I met Marilyn Swanston."

"The movie star?" Joe asked surprised and I just nodded. "I didn't know you went to school together let alone that you had been friends."

"I wouldn't call us friends. We were… classmates and that was it. Both having to fight our daily nemeses was the only thing we probably had in common. I never had a problem with her like others had, but I wasn't hanging out with her either."

"What is she up to?"

"Apart from shooting movies with everyone who's anyone in Hollywood and being generally fabulous? Not much I guess. But she said I should call her up when I was in LA."

"Yeah, sure," Joe just snorted, finishing his last piece of pizza.

"What?"

"As if you ever make it to LA: You haven't even ever really left Trenton, let alone the state of New Jersey."

He had a point. A point I was awfully well aware of. And a point I was almost certain wouldn't change anytime soon.

Unfortunately.