Disclaimer: See Chap. 1
Author's Note: Sorry about the delay folks... holiday season and all. I hope you enjoy. I know I made a lot of stuff up, but it is fiction.
Please Review!!
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The very sophisticated dining room I'd seen this morning was transformed into a happily, bustling eating area.
Lacey and Mama-Bat were setting out plates and bowls of food. The two older boys were setting out the fork and knives, while Lane set out plates and glasses. Tony and Ralphie each had one of the candle holders in their hands—moving it over to that side counter I'd seen earlier. Marcus was moving the flowers.
"Oh good, you're here," Mama-Bat exclaimed, "Have a seat. Lane go get the pitchers from the kitchen."
Lane still hand a stack of plates in her hand.
"I'll get it." I offered and moved to do it before any one could object. I chose to ignore the pause in the busy-work that occurred as I headed out of the room with all eyes glued to me.
On the island I found two crystal pitchers full of what looked like iced tea. I grabbed them both, then quickly lowered one, as my shoulder didn't appreciate having to do hard labor.
Lacey was there suddenly, taking the one I'd lowered, she smiled at me. "Come on we're about to start."
I frowned a little as I followed her. I liked food to, but these people all looked really happy to be having dinner.
I entered the room again and found that everyone had taken there seats. The entire table was not occupied, in fact only one end was, but that end was full; with food, with people, with laughter. Lacey set her pitcher down at one end of the group so I followed suit and set it down at the other end of the group.
Mama-Bat was sitting at the head of the table. At her right was Marcus, at her left Tony. Sitting at Marcus's elbow was Ranger. The seat next to him was empty.
Lacey took the empty seat next to Tony, her son sitting next to her. Lane sitting next to Alex, her husband on her other side, her son across from her.
Marcus's oldest sat next to Lucas, his younger brother across from him next to Richie. Tank sat next Paul, with a woman I hadn't met sitting across from him, next to Clark.
Where was Veronica?
I had the sudden urge to pull out the seat next to the unknown woman, or next to Tank. I didn't want to sit next to Ranger. If I sat next to Ranger I'd be right in the center of the family group.
"Come sit by me, Steph." Richie called.
I sighed quietly, no hope for it now.
I sat down.
Mama-Bat smiled.
"You haven't met Suzie have you, Steph." She pointed towards the unknown woman, "She's Eddie's wife. She's a nurse and had a shift to get through before she could join us."
I leaned forward so I could see her, "It's nice to meet you." She called out, "I've heard a lot about you… bombshell."
I blushed. Great.
I shot a resentful glare down the table at Tank, who grinned unrepentantly.
"Let's say grace."
Mama-Bat said and I watched as around the table, hands were held and heads lowered.
Richie immediately latched onto my hand and I looked over to my other side to find Ranger staring at me, with his hand outstretched.
Without looking around me, I could feel everyone's eyes on us. I placed my hand in his and watched as it engulfed my own.
He turned and bowed his head.
"Dear heavenly father, I want to thank you not only for the food you've provided my family, but for blessing of having us all under one roof. I want to thank you for bringing them all home safe and sound, for new stories and new friends; and I ask that you're guiding hand be present in the days to come. May you open the hearts and eyes of those who refuse to see, and may you bring peace and understanding where it is needed most. I ask that you keep us all safe. In Your name, I pray. Amen."
Interesting prayer…
A chorus of soft amen's followed.
There was a pause, then conversation started up full-throttle, along with the passing around of food.
I filled my plate,but found that the food didn't appeal tome that much,and thanked all the gods in existence that no one directed any conversation to me…except maybe Richie.
"This is so great." Lacey enthused suddenly.
Everyone nodded, I glanced around in bafflement.
"We don't all get together often. In fact the last time we were all together like this must have close to three years ago." Lane explained.
"Yeah, Richie was just a baby." Lucas.
"We all come here on a regular basis, but we don't all come at the same time… most often absent, is your buddy over there." Tony.
"Eddie doesn't come as often as he should either," Mama-Bat.
"It's your son, he's a slave-driver." Tank.
"I was here like four months ago." Ranger, kinda whiney, though, and Ranger didn't do whiney. Of course Ranger wasn't allowed in this house.
"You were here six and a half months ago." Lane.
He scowled at her, "You're not here all that often either."
"More often than you."
"Jus, cause you live closer."
"Am I going to have to mediate this?" Tony asked, wryly.
Everyone burst out laughing.
Mama-Bat grinned at me, "When they were little, the twins could never, and I mean never agree on anything. If she wanted stay up late, he wanted to go to be early. If she wanted to rollerblade, he wanted toride bikes. If she wanted tuna, he was Peanut-butter and jelly. And Tony, was the one in charge of mediating."
My eyes shot to Tony, he too was grinning, "Some of the most dangerous moments of my childhood were lived trying to find common ground between those two."
"Oh I don't know there was snow on the ground that time Rick threw you off the roof." Ralphie interjected.
"Yeah, and that time Lane pushed you into the alligator tank, they'd already eaten…" Ranger added.
"And you had a helmet on that time they threw sticks in front of you're bike as you were going down hill." Mama-Bat.
Tony was looking at me. "I'm lucky to have lived."
"They were a menace to society." Marcus, but his voice was more amused than I'd ever heard it.
The conversation changed again, and I lost track as I tried to envision Ranger as a small dark-haired boy pushing someone off the roof. The hardest part was imagining him as a little boy. I couldn't picture Ranger as anything other than Batman.
The conversation around me was loud and full of laughter and was making something inside me ache. I wanted to be part of the jokes and understand the dynamics that ran in this family.
I was feeling left out.
When I decided I couldn't eat anymore – the feeling had spread to include my stomach - I turned to Ranger; if I was miserable, I wanted him to join me in my misery. "Where's your daughter?"
He'd been laughing at something Tony had said and I almost felt bad that I was the cause of the mirth disappearing. His smiled vanished and he met my gaze seriously.
"She doesn't feel well, and asked to be excused."
"Oh."
"Did you enjoy the food?" Mama-Bat, asked kindly, but her eyes were sending me a message of sorts. I refused to understand it.
"Yeah it was great." Truth was I could hardly remember what I'd eaten. I was upset.
Ranger got up suddenly, pulling me with him.
"Desert, Ricky…"
"No, thanks Mom."
I would've protested, but I just didn't feel like it.
He dragged me back to "my" bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind us. I pulled away from him as soon as I could and sat down, pulling my legs up and tucking them under me. Then looked up at him with a WHAT expression on my face.
"I do trust you, Babe." He said seriously, continuing our last conversation without any warning.
Fine, I could play like that too.
"Nope, you don't; not really. I thought you did. But the truth is, you don't. I would follow you around blindfolded, because I have this complete and utter belief that you'd never lead me to harm. I know it sounds stupid but it's the truth."
"Then why-"
She shrugged, cutting him off, "I want to know, Ranger. I don't need to, I just want to. Because if you tell me, than that means that you trust me. And not just with a job…" she added quickly when he opened his mouth, "… but with everything… it means that you trust me with your secrets, the way I trust you with mine."
"Stephanie…"
"I know it seems kinda silly, but it's just the way I feel. I wish you'd believe in me enough to understand that if… if you would follow me around blindfolded… I'd never lead you to harm."
He didn't say anything, just looked at me and the longer he stared, the more like an idiot I felt.
I was about to speak, when he spun around from me.
"I do trust you like that, Babe. I believe in you like that. I just… I don't want you to be hurt and it seems like every time I bring you into something personal… you do."
I scowled, "Not true."
He turned back around, "Yes, true. You got hurt with the Ramos thing and now you got hurt with this. You have this amazing knack of just… drawing bad shit to yourself. And I understand, it's not your fault, but I just… I don't' think I could live with myself if something happened to you because of me."
I stood, up from the bed, feeling the grip on my temper loosening, he was so good at justify it, of finding reasons for not telling me. It was freakin annyoying, "Fine then!! Don't tell me anything! Don't let me in!! We can do this for eternity… this almost-but-not-quite friends shit! If that's what you want fine! If that's enough for you! If that's all you want from me-"
All conscience thought ceased to exist as he grabbed me, pulled me against him, and kissed me.
I swear I heard ringing in my head, nothing existed but him… his scent, his feel, his taste…
Then he was gone, staring at me with so much ragged emotion in those dark eyes it made my already pounding heart, speed up.
"Can you feel what I want from you, Babe?"
It was a rhetorical question. I hope.
He released me and took several steps back; I concentrated on breathing and not collapsing.
"I shouldn't have done that. I know you're with Morelli. I understand you're committed to-"
"What!!??!!"
I did collapse then, fell right back onto the bed.
My eyes had bugged out of my head at the word "Morelli" but when "committed" had come up, they practically popped out.
He turned to face me. "I know about you're engagement."
"My what??"
Was it hot in here??
Were those spots supposed to be there??
"Your engagement to Morelli."
I felt the world tip a little, "Joe and I broke up like two months ago. He's dating a girl named Jennifer, hasn't taken her to the Burg yet. She's nice; we had pizza the other day."
Even to my own ears, my voice sounded dull.
"What!!??" Now it was his turn to sound horrified.
"Where did you hear we were engaged?"
He said nothing, his face still shocked, before the blankness took over. I hate the blankness. "You're mother thought you were engaged."
I rolled my eyes, "My mother thinks I actually filled out that job application for the button factory last week."
Silence.
More Silence.
"He did propose," I said softly, deciding that probably I should explain, "…but I never said yes. We argued. It was bad. I went home. And things just… fell apart. I cried, he broke in, and somewhere along the line we realized that this was getting to be a pattern, that we were both miserable, and that we were in grave danger of losing the best thing about our relationship – the friendship. So we ended it, for good."
I paused, letting him absorb that. "Anyway, for the past two month Morelli breaks into my apartment every other Thursday with a pizza and we watch a game together. That's the extent of our relationship- well except for last Thursday when we went to a pizza place outside of Trenton so I could meet Jennifer. He really likes her; they've been going out for almost a month."
Still the Silence.
I was getting tired of hearing my own voice.
"Are you gonna say something? 'Cause I'm kinda tired, and if you're not gonna say anything I'd like to go to bed."
Jeez, maybe he'd gone mute.
"Probably you should go to be too." I said.
"Probably you should go make sure they saved some desert."
"Probably I'm gonna want that desert tomorrow."
"Pro-"
His voice cut me off, "Probably you should lean back against the headboard and listen to me for a while."
Uh… okay…
I silently did as he commanded. Why? Because I had the sudden feeling I was going to get what I wanted.
He didn't sit.
"Since you're tired, you can listen until you fall asleep."
Yeah-right, like I was going to fall asleep…
"When we were kids, we didn't know. We were a lot like the kids you see here now. Understanding, but not really understanding. We had to be extra careful, not because of who we were, but because of who we'd been."
It was my turn to say nothing.
"Lane was the first one who ever questioned that statement."
"Dad sat us down in a row and explained it. Our great-grandfather, his grandfather, had been the younger of two sons living in Cuba. He was raised in a family whose main source of income was organized crime."
Whoa.
Maybe he saw the whoa on my face because he stopped.
"I can stop now, if you want, Babe. It doesn't get better from here, it gets worse. More complicated, more messy, more impossible to get out of."
"You can never go back," Mama-Bat's words, hit my brain full speed.
He was willing to tell me. Wasn't that good enough? I didn't really have to know what it was. Just the idea that I could know if I wanted to, was enough, wasn't it?