Chapter Two
The sound of a key turning, and then the sound of voices – loud voices, Steph thought with a groan – filled the hallway and overflowed into the lounge. Stephanie reluctantly opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder, where three young, tanned faces had just come into view, laughing and smiling broadly. Marco, Carlos and Lia Manoso.
"Hey, guys," Stephanie smiled. Ranger's fingers playing with her hair was still as distracting as ever, she mused, leaning contentedly into him. It never seemed to matter to him where they were; whenever they were together there was an almost constant contact between them. Not that Stephanie minded, but it would be nice to be able to think straight occasionally. Most of the time, however, straight thinking was definitely overrated.
"How was school?" Ranger said. You would've thought Stephanie would be used to his toned chest rumbling beneath her head by now…Damn those Hungarian hormones.
"Fine," Lia shrugged, going straight from the door to the stairs. She had dark wavy hair reaching almost to her elbows, and a skin tone somewhere between Stephanie and Ranger. Lia was the youngest of the three, having just turned twelve, and the only girl. Consequently, she had learned to hold her own with her two brothers. Of course, it didn't hurt that she had more than her share of Steph in her.
Marco spared a glance after her, before flopping down on a couch opposite his parents. Seconds later, he had lunged across the room for the TV remote, just as his twin brother had dived for the same thing. Carlos got there first.
"No!" Marco shouted furiously, as Carlos flicked it onto one of the music channels. "You can't have the remote, the Rangers are playing! Mom!"
"Carlos…" Stephanie started. So she was a Rangers fan too.
"But hockey's so boring," her eldest son – by 18 minutes – said, looking at Stephanie with chocolate puppy dog eyes. The twins – although not identical – both had darker skin than their sister, though completely different hair to each other. Carlos had dark curls, like Stephanie's but darker, that just brushed the shell of his ears and always looked like it needed a cut. Marco's, on the other hand, had his straight hair cut short. "I wanted to see Eminem's new video." Carlos replied.
"It'll be on later." Ranger's quiet voice of authority sounded, silencing the two fourteen-year-olds instantly. Shooting a glare at his brother, Carlos signed resignedly, and slumped next to his brother on the cream couch.
By the first break, both teams had scored and were currently drawing. Talk quickly turned to what was happening for dinner.
"A couple of friends of mine that I haven't seen in a while are stopping in for dinner." Stephanie told her sons. She grinned, "Joe had to work this afternoon, you can tell him all about the game, he was really disappointed he missed it. Him and his wife are coming."
"What are we having?" Marco cut in. The all important question.
"Well, it's Joe, so there's no discussion really." The boys looked wary. "Gotta be Pino's," Stephanie grinned. The boys beamed, and high-fived each other. Monica and her husband managed this building in the same way Ella and Louis Guzman did the Rangeman building. Stephanie's cooking hadn't needed to improve with Ella, then later Monica, around to do the cooking, so although she wasn't quite as inept in the kitchen as she had been, she'd be the first to admit she hadn't improved by much.
Stephanie'd already talked to Ranger about Joe Morelli coming over for dinner, and he was more than fine with it. Stephanie and Joe had been an item for a fair while years ago, but had broken up partly because of fear of commitment on Stephanie's part and partly because of fear of Steph getting herself killed bounty-huntering on Morelli's. Morelli needed someone to settle down with – someone who could cook and didn't spend her days dodging bullets; Steph could understand this, but wasn't ready to fill the role herself. Consequently, Joe was now married to someone else and the two of them remained friends, too close to cut off completely contact after they broke up. Joe had got transferred to New York when the twins were five, nine years ago, but they still spoke on the phone and met up occasionally for lunch or a Rangers game. He hadn't seen her and Ranger's kids since he moved, all three of them being too young to remember him properly.
Ten minutes into the second third of the game, Marco grinned suddenly, and turned to his brother.
"Did you see what was written on the wall that Leo D'Antoni was telling people about?" Stephanie tensed slightly against Ranger, but didn't say anything, feigning interest in the game when her focus had suddenly changed to her sons. Surely it couldn't be…
Carlos grinned, and looked fugitively at their parents, who both seemed completely focussed on the game. He lowered his voice slightly.
"What the poem? In Mario's Sub Shop? Yeah!"
Ok, I know nothing about hockey, so if any mistakes have been made please let me know and I'll change them. :) Thanks! Please review!
