Hey, sorry for the radio silence. My lack of posting was simply because I still kept feeling awful. My body was screaming at me to just stop. I guess I was trying to do too much, too soon. A nasty migraine that lasted over a week really hindered my already limited free time, causing an extra delay in posting. Because I didn't trust my jumbled brain with the 'edits' I did while not feeling at my best, I went back to review everything. Steph's part was already nearly 4k. I didn't want to cut up Ranger's piece on his quest to look for Babe so there'll be one more chap to wrap this short up. I also have updates for other stories that I'll have up throughout this week. I had a Halloween oneshot to accompany last year's How to Survive Halloween: Stephanie Edition, but I'm unsure if I'll have it done in time.
Disclaimer: The Plum universe belongs to JE. Typos are my bad; or Google's for the Italian phrases.
Stephanie's POV
Being called a whore, repeatedly in one night, by the biggest Burg manslut to ever roam New Jersey is quite infuriating. Even though Morelli's trying to instigate an epic fight, I don't find it in me to scream, yell or shout. That's never worked before. He only listens to what he wants to hear.
"Pay attention, because I'm not going to repeat myself after tonight." I ordered Joe, glaring at him heatedly. "We are over. O-V-E-R. Over." Before Morelli could attempt an objection, I added another verbal blow. "Noi siamo finiti!" Morelli blinked in surprise, clearly reading the change in me.
For me to switch to Italian means that I'm not playing. Growing up, my paternal grandmother drilled the Italian language into my sister and I. In her eyes, we had to master 'the mother tongue' to compensate for the fact that Val and I are only half Italian. I hated the mandatory lessons with Grandma Plum, because she always nitpicked everything! Valerie got praised, as always being perfect in everything she did, whereas I was constantly berated for sounding 'too American' or for my penmanship not being to her liking. I always did something wrong according to Grandma Plum. It got so bad and I became so frustrated that the only way I could pronounce 'properly', according to Grandma Plum, was when I was already heated. Due to the traumatic lessons, I don't speak the language on a regular basis. Sure, a curse word here and there like the rest of my Burg generation but that's it. In fact, most of the Burg busybodies assume I don't understand Italian because they've never heard me speak conversationally. I've caught them talking shit on more than one occasion, because they talk freely in Italian assuming that I won't understand them. Sure, I could have corrected a Burg gossiper a time or two and interrupted their snide tirades, yet decided not to. It's been difficult more times than not, but instead I smiled sweetly before I gave in to the urge to throttle the gossiper. It's been a heavily guarded Ace up my sleeve all these years.
"Che due coglioni!" Morelli responded in kind, his pronunciation of 'what the fuck!' absolute shit. See, Morelli has always advertised that he's Italian through and through. It's common knowledge that he uses what he considers a perfectly mastered language as a form of pick up. He was quite successful during his short stint in the Navy. If only the poor unsuspecting ingenuas knew that he was full of shit, recycling the same three pick up lines he memorized as a teen…
If Morelli wanted to switch to Italian, fine! Maybe a change of verbiage will help clarify a thing or two for Joe. Maybe, just maybe, this time it'll stick and he'll let me be once and for all.
"Stephanie speaks Italian?" I heard someone squeak behind me. It sounded like Gia Gallo, but I couldn't be sure. Gia has worked at Giovinchinni's even before she married Giovanni Gallo over a decade ago, usually manning the register. She's one of several Burg busybodies that has talked smack by switching from English to Italiano in my presence.
We continued our back and forth… Okay, it was mostly me ripping him a new one and Morelli recycling the same curse phrases as his lame comebacks. Eventually, his face got so red when it became obvious that he could no longer hold the conversation in Italian. Even Reed, whose lineage is half English and half Irish, caught on that Morelli wasn't really on par with the discussion. It clearly killed Morelli inside to have to revert back to English. He's not one to take defeat gracefully.
"We can talk about this in private, Stephanie." The way he gritted my name out made me wince. Not because I was afraid of him. No, it was because I pitied his poor molars.
"No, we can't and we won't." Once again I made it clear that we're done.
"We've been in an off phase before, dating other people…" Morelli scoffed, saying that it was only a matter of time before we were back together. "It's who we are." His shrug downplayed the events of the last several weeks. As always, Morelli was trying to shift the blame of our breakup on me.
"No." I shook my head vehemently. For what felt like the millionth time in just a handful of weeks, I encouraged Morelli to live his best life while I did the same. Separately, of course. There's no use in trying to force ourselves back together when time and time again we've found that we just don't work. It's insane to repeat the same cycle over and over knowing that the outcome will always be the same: spectacular failure.
Morelli let out a mocking bark of laughter, a bitter sound that caused a shiver to run down the length of my spine. "Manoso only wants you, because you're with me." As a final Morelli swing, he made sure to remind me that he's my last and only shot at settling down. In his mind, that equates to happiness but not in mine. That's why we were never able to cohabitate peacefully long term. I need and want more than the bare minimum. It took me a long time to come to terms with that realization.
"You're wrong." Reed butted in, glaring at Morelli darkly before shifting a softer gaze to meet mine. "It's simply your personality that captivates attention. You. You're desirable, not who you are or aren't with."
I rolled my eyes, snorting out a humorless laugh.
"Rumor has it that I'm a magnet for disaster." Personality my ass! I've been told all my life to cram myself back into a tiny box. To fit and to conform. Now Reed's saying that's exactly why I catch others' attention? No! What a shocker! Not!
"You've always had this brightness about you." Reed smiled, sharing that my usual breaking of sacred Burg rules along with my natural shine are just two of the qualities that make me so unique in his eyes. "Despite all the crap thrown your way, you still forged on. I admire that. I didn't profess my feelings for you to get you to finally look my way." Reed murmured, effectively ignoring Morelli's heated glare and the Burg's curious murmurings. "I figured you deserved to finally know." Reed shrugged, a sad smile twisting his usual friendly demeanor.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" I couldn't help but ask. Mary Lou has been my best friend since we were in kindergarten. In High School, she clicked with Lenny and they were all lovey dovey as an official item shortly after. I became a third wheel of sorts for them. Eddie and my cousin Shirley became an item too at around the same time, leaving Reed in the same role. We had several classes together and hung out during our lunch breaks. While the other two couples sucked face seemingly nonstop, we conversed. Back then I had a crush on him. He was cute, funny and nice. What wasn't to like? Mary Lou told me to go for it, but I debated how wise that move would be. What if he didn't like me that way? Then what? The dynamic in the group friend would switch, turning awkward. I didn't want to be responsible for that permanent shift. So, I never told Reed how I felt about him.
"I thought you didn't like me that way." Was Reed's sheepish reply. His shy smile showed he understood how silly it all seems now. Too late.
"I did." I confessed, earning me several simultaneous roaring whispers behind me. Now, looking at the man he's become I couldn't help but wonder how different my life could have been if Reed would have spoken up. We all know I wasn't going to be the one to say anything. I suck when it comes to talking about my feelings.
"Oh, for god's sake!" Morelli grumbled, still bitching. I ignored him, knowing that public humiliation might just be the thing that gets him to leave me the fuck alone once and for all.
"I wanted to tell you, but I just…" Reed shrugged, admitting that he never found the right moment. "And then when I did…" His gaze hardened, shooting Morelli a look that could kill. "…I didn't want you to think that I was just like the other assholes who wanted to take advantage of the rumors."
Ah, yes. After the Tasty Pastry incident, I got grounded while Morelli got to go off to the Navy without any consequences. Life in the Burg was always difficult for me, yet it became a lot worse after Morelli's 'poems'. It was a living nightmare. I was treated like some type of slut, ridiculed by the girls and harassed by the boys. Junior and Senior years were absolute hell for me. To this day, entering a public restroom is hard for me. I avoid them like the plague and when I can't hold it, I'm on instant alert from the moment I reach for the restroom door to the moment I exit. Psychology would have a field day with my disastrous life, no doubt having a term for why despite all the hurt and pain Morelli inflicted on me from a young age I still somehow got 'romantically' involved with him.
Getting lost in the painful memories of the past is something I try to avoid at all costs if possible. Missing part of what Reed said was the perfect example of why I shouldn't allow myself that luxury, especially in public.
"Tonight when I saw him coming into the bar, his eyes immediately straying to you, I knew that I had to step in to keep Morelli from further hindering your future." Reed's eyes softened when he said that I deserved better.
"Pffft!" Morelli's scornful scoff redirected my attention away from Reed.
"It's possible that I don't deserve better." I glared at Joe, making sure to nail the coffin on our deader than dead relationship. "Even so, I want better. The only way to get that is by raising my standards and creating healthier boundaries." I've found that some people turn against you when you're no longer willing to put up with their crap.
"I'm the best you'll ever get." Morelli ground out, obviously lashing out because I refused to stroke his ego and put up with his shit.
"I highly doubt that." I flashed him my best grin. "You set the bar so low that it's on the ground. It can't get any lower than that." Before Morelli could refute my declaration, I listed all the shit he's ever done to me. The choo choo train, Tasty Pastry and leaving me handcuffed to my metal shower rod were only the highlights on a long list of his special brand of crap.
"He left you naked, defenseless and cuffed when there was a deranged rapist stalking you?!" I didn't have enough of a heads up to react quickly, completely missing Reed's murderous intention until it was too late.
"Patrick, no!" I screamed, trying my best to diffuse the situation. Joe got a blow or two in, but Reed had years long pent up anger on his side. Morelli will look and feel like shit for days to come.
"I got him." Cal's massive arms wrapped around Reed's broad shoulders from behind, pulling him off of Morelli with ease.
"Thanks, Cal." I gave my Merry Man a nod of gratitude while I reached out to touch Reed's right forearm, hoping it would somehow ground him. Patrick's always been a pacifist. "This is your cue to leave." I said to Joe, not bothering to spare him another glance. If Morelli wanted to argue, he must have thought better of it since I watched him from the corner of my eye gingerly rise to his feet before he hobbled over to his SUV several parking spaces away.
"I'm happy that you're finally staring at a future that won't include him in it." Reed said to me before he looked over his shoulder at Cal. "I'm good." He assured as Morelli sped out of the lot, clearly forgetting that he arrived with company. Ooops.
Cal's beefy hold loosened only after my nod for him to do so. Before the stunned silence could turn awkward, another Merry Man saved the night.
"First round's on me!" Vince hollered the moment I spun on my heel, effectively and definitively closing the door on my rollercoaster relationship with Morelli. Scratch that. It couldn't have been a real rollercoaster when we had more lows than highs.
"I'm going to hold you to that." I said to Vince, flashing him a grateful smile when I noted all the Rangemen that stuck around weren't wearing their earpieces either. I appreciate their intention to give me privacy, even if it was partial. The nosy Burg gossipers will most definitely fill in the gaps as they pass on tonight's developments on the grapevine.
"Second round's on the house!" Lester shouted, earning him a killer glare from Matt Lipnicki, the current bar owner. "Okay, so round two's on me." Lester amended quickly.
I glanced at Matt, wondering if it was going to be an issue for the Rangemen to have a drink at his bar. It's been a running tradition since his father founded it that this is a Burg locals only type of establishment. I honestly have always thought that if the atmosphere was more inviting to outsiders, there'd be more profits for the Lipnicki family.
When Matt gave me a curt nod, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders knowing that my Merry Men were welcomed.
"Third one's on me." Reed announced as he nudged me with his shoulder, encouraging me to forget about the night's encounter with a delusional Morelli. Time to look at the future and only the future. Got it. "I hope he is really worthy of your love and time." With another shoulder bump, I understood that Reed was no longer talking about Morelli.
"Fourth's on me." Ram added, inadvertently cutting through my thoughts about Ranger.
"Me, the fifth one." Hector grinned, signaling the fact that this was going to turn into a Rangeman celebration.
And so on, the guys kept upping the round count.
"Shit, we're gonna be wasted, wasted by the time we go all ten plus rounds!" I chuckled as we ambled back into the establishment. A handful of other Burg patrons returned to their booths, probably on their quest to get more details to pass on through the grapevine. Whatever. I ignored them, solely focusing on my group.
"Tank says we're still expected for our next scheduled shifts." Slick shared Tank's message from Rangeman HQ.
"I have tomorrow off." Lester shrugged.
"I just swapped shifts with Rodriguez." Ram beamed, winking at me as he announced that he's good to go for all rounds.
"I have a graveyard shift in about twenty four hours, so I'm good too." Vince proclaimed that it was time to get started as he signaled the bartender, Constance, to pour our first round of drinks.
The guys weren't messing around, slamming back drink after drink. By my third shot, because yes the Merry Men insisted on Tequila shots as our first handful of drinks, I was starting to feel a little woozy.
"So, wait, you're saying Stephanie hasn't changed since High School?" Lester asked Reed, leaning forward to talk to him around me. I leaned slightly back on my precarious perch on the stool to give them more space to talk without me blocking the way.
"I so have." I protested weakly. Damn this alcohol is hitting too fast. I've heard it from a person or two in town that I may or may not still look like I did in High School. I call total bull! There's no way my facial features haven't changed in all these years.
"Nuh uh." Reed shook his head before reaching for his cellphone. He swiped a few times before he flashed me a photo from Junior year.
"Nope." I held my ground, but to be honest it was hard to tell since I was already a bit tipsy. Okay, very tipsy.
"Let me see." Hector sat on the stool on the other side of Reed. His smile reached the teardrop tattoos when Reed passed his cell over, making me grimace.
My phone, along with the Rangemen's all around me, pinged as the alert from Hector's airdrop message came in. As the Merry Men were busy unlocking their cells, I reached for mine in the pocket of my coat.
"What the fuck!" Several Rangeguys blurted out in unison.
"How the hell do you look the same at sixteen and now, Beautiful?!" Lester wasn't holding back and neither were the other guys, quickly pointing out that nearly twenty years later I look identical.
I studied the side by side photos Hector compiled on the fly and sent. The 'before' photo was me wearing a Trenton High gym uniform. My T-shirt wasn't form fitting, yet it wasn't too loose either. The shorts fell at an appropriate length just above my knees. My hair was up in a ponytail. I was smiling wide, with Mary Lou standing beside me. My eyes flicked to Reed beside me, wondering how many candid shots like this one he took over our school years.
The 'now' photo was one that was taken just last week. After a successful capture, the apprehension and research teams got together at Shorty's for dinner. I was laughing at something Bobby replied to Lester's innuendo. My smile was big and just like my teenage photo, I wasn't wearing any make up aside from my trusty mascara. My black Rangeman T-shirt was a similar fit to my Trenton High shirt. All in all, I admit that yes I look very similar in both photos. I wouldn't say identical, because my younger self wasn't fully tainted with life's darkness at the time. The teenage Stephanie pic had to be just before that painful night at the Tasty Pastry, because I never got to smile again for the remainder of my High School days.
"Hard to believe that was seventeen years ago." I muttered before reaching for the next drink that was suddenly waiting before me. Matt is raking in bills tonight, so he's making sure we're getting round after round in a timely manner.
"If we had a baby, imagine how lucky he or she would be! Genetics lottery for sure." Lester's huge grin told me that he was giving me a compliment, as well as joking good-naturedly.
"The world is not ready for a mini Santos." Ram shared, making Lester grimace. Yeah, a mini Lester isn't someone the world is ready to handle just yet. Nevermind a mini Stephanie!
My gaze strayed back to the photos, flashbacks of my past inevitably flooding my tipsy brain in full force. As I focused on younger Stephanie, my heart broke. It felt as if a hole had appeared in the middle of my chest. I felt sadness for not being able to protect her that night at the bakery or that afternoon in Morelli's garage. The boogeyman doesn't look like the monsters portrayed on TV. Nope, he looks like your neighbors and 'upstanding' members of your community. The real boogeyman looks like someone you know and trust.
"Eddie and I destroyed all those fucked up poems around town." Reed whispered in my ear before he clinked his freshly filled glass against mine in a silent toast.
"Oh my God." I gasped, asking him if that's why he had to spend the summer doing community service around town.
"Yeah." Reed shrugged, saying he had to break several tiles in one particular restroom stall. "Eddie's dad struck a deal and got him off." Another shrug. "My parents said that if I did the crime, I had to pay the price". His smile told me that he didn't mind.
"I'm sorry." And I really was. He spent his summer the same I did mine that year: paying for something that Morelli should have had to answer for. Instead, Morelli got to enjoy his freedom and life uninterrupted. Joe's had a free pass in the Burg all of his life.
"It's okay." Reed's face split nearly in two as he smiled wide. "That's why my dad didn't arrest you when you 'accidentally' jumped the curb and clipped Morelli when he came back from his short stint in the Navy."
It was my turn to smile. "Yeah, I always wondered why Officer Reed let me off scot-free." I laughed when Reed said his father thought it was the least of what Morelli deserved.
As the time passed and we drank some more, sharing stories about our younger selves, my mind wandered to the 'what if'. On one hand, I could somewhat picture what my life could have been like as Mrs. Patrick Reed. On the other, I couldn't imagine my life never meeting Ranger or the Merry Men. If I suddenly had to go back to a life where we didn't know or interact with each other, I don't think I'd be able to function like I do now. If I have to choose, I'll pick the here and now any day.
Drink number seven… or maybe it was number eight? I've lost count. Anyhow, Constance placed yet another glass in front of me some time later. The low cut of her tank top, plus the way she leaned towards me as she placed my drink gave me a front row seat of her generous cleavage on display.
"Bomber!" It sounded like Slick's voice, but it was hard to tell. My brain's kind of a jumbled mess right now.
"Damn, Beautiful." Lester chuckled beside me.
"What?" I shrugged before I reached for the drink, taking a generous gulp of the lime margarita. The boobs were right there! What was I supposed to do? Not look? Kinda hard to accomplish that when they're so in your face. Wait, that makes me no better than the guys. "Sorry." I said to Constance, flashing her what I can already tell is my drunken smile.
"You're good, Sweetie." Constance batted her eyelashes at me before she moved to collect the used glasses from our group. "Trust me, everybody looks." With a wink, she went back to her tasks behind the bar.
Before the guys could rib me some more, a loud crash outside caught everyone's attention. Quickly after, everything went dark. I felt as the Merry Men shifted from relaxation to full on alertness.
"Stay here." Lester's voice sounded surprisingly sober for all the drinks we just had. I nodded even though he couldn't see me in the darkness. The whole room is spinning, which feels very weird in the darkness, so there's zero chance I'll be able to stand much less walk right now.
"Car crashed into an electric pole." Reed correctly predicted the cause of the blackout long moments before the Merry Men corroborated it.
Within seconds, the Rangeguys whipped out their Military grade glow sticks to illuminate the space around them.
"These are so cool!" I giggled as I took the offered glow stick, waving it in front of my face experimentally.
"Better call your ride." Reed snickered, saying the fun was over for the night.
Perhaps calling Ranger right now wasn't such a good idea, but then again I've never been praised for having good ideas. Haha!
"Babe." As expected, Ranger answered before the second ring, his deep voice sending shivers of anticipation along the length of my spine.
I took a deep breath as the levees overflowed with the feelings I've kept mostly bottled up. When my mouth opened, I didn't bite my tongue. I let my words flow uncensored. Perhaps it was the copious amounts of alcohol, the semi-darkness or the growing commotion around me that were responsible for my impromptu challenge.
Come and get me, Batman. Or miss your chance.