Joe's Promise Part 2
"Hello! Anybody home?"
"Hey, Steph. This is for you." Lester says as he hands her a pure white Lily.
"Wow! Thanks. What is this for?"
"Does it have to be for anything? I was just thinking of you, ALRIGHT?"
"Geez. You don't have to bite my head off. What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"It's obviously not nothing, but if you don't want to talk about it that's fine. By the way why are you here? I can't imagine that you would come here for the sole purpose of giving me a flower."
"What's wrong with bringing you a flower? "
"Nothing, just seems like a long distance to travel if that's your only purpose. Do I have another crazy after me or something?"
"No, God no. I just wanted to hang out with you and spend some time with you. You're a lovely woman and I would love it if you'd go out with me to dinner tonight."
"Dinner? Tonight? Like a date?"
"Yes, Stephanie, like a date."
"I can't imagine why you would like to date me, but sure I'll go to dinner with you tonight. There's only one slight problem. I'm waiting for Joe to call me back and give me an idea of when the best time to go after my skip would be, so we may have to work around that? Is that alright?"
"That shouldn't be an issue."
"But I may be." Tank walks into the living room.
"Tank? What are you doing here? They didn't tell me that you were going to be here. Wait a minute there was one other person besides Lester up here. Oh my god. I can't believe it. You're Mr. Teddy Bear." I collapsed on the floor laughing my head off.
"Steph." Pause. "Stephanie." Pause. "Steph. If you don't stop right this minute. There will be hell to pay."
"Aww. Come on, Teddy. You don't want to hurt me. Plus now that I know you're real name you've lost a lot of your intimidation factor."
"Stop it, Steph. Nobody's allowed to call me by my real name especially at work."
"Well, we're not at work, right now and I've never been good at following the rules."
"Fine, you can call me by my real name, but not at work and you can't tell anyone else my real name."
That just starts the laughter again, "You're a teddy bear. Just a great big teddy bear."
"Enough already, Steph, we have other things we need to deal with."
"Like what?" I ask, the laughs slowly subsiding.
"Like the fact that I also want to take you out on a date tonight."
"What? You do? Why? And why now?"
"Well, you've always been a special person, but I always thought that you and Ranger had a thing going. Morelli's been gone for a while, however, and Ranger still hasn't made a move. I finally got tired of waiting for him to come to his senses and decided that if he didn't know a good thing when he saw it that it was his loss."
"Ranger and me? An item? After the way he treated me? You've got to be kidding me."
"What did Ranger do to you?"
"You mean you don't know?"
"No, Steph we don't know. He hasn't told us."
"Well then maybe you should ask Mr. My Life Doesn't Lend Itself To Relationships, what he did to me. As for going on a date tonight, Teddy, I'm afraid Lester got here first, but I'd love to go on a date with you another night. That is as long as you don't have a problem with me dating Lester and you at the same time. Oh, and Lester if you have an issue with Tank dating me you may want to reconsider." I smile at them and put a swing into my step as I walk to my room.
Lester waits for me to shut the door, not realizing that I'm listening at the door and can hear the whole conversation. "Man, why did you have to come up here. I was hoping to have the Bombshell to myself for once."
"For once? What do you mean? You partner with her all the time."
"That's different and you partner with her almost as much as I do."
"This is so bothersome. I really don't want Steph to be dating anyone else, but I guess I have no choice."
"Me either."
"I'm just glad nobody else decided to show up to this party. Then it would have really been every man for himself."
"How many of the other guys do you think will want to date her once they find out that she's dating both of us?"
"I don't know, man. I would expect Bobby to and maybe Ranger will actually grow a set when he realizes she's dating both of us. Hal or Cal might throw their hat in too.
"That sucks. I better go make sure that everything's set up for my date with Steph, so that the once tonight is over nobody else will stand a chance. Later, man." Lester dashes into his room.
Tank watches Lester disappear and shakes his head before hurrying into his room to start planning his date, so that he'll be able to top whatever Lester plans.
Hearing both doors close, I flop down on the bed in my thinking position. Before I can even start to contemplate that other Rangemen may want to date me, blackness surrounds me.
&&&
My head hurts. Oh no, that's just the vibrations of the phone. "Stephanie here."
"Stephanie, it's your mother and what kind of way is that to answer the phone?"
"Hi mom." Sigh. What does she want now?
"What's this I hear about you being in New York?"
"I'm just out of town on a business trip."
"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving town? I shouldn't have to hear thru the gossip mill that my own daughter has left town whether it's a business trip or not. You never left town when you were with Joseph and if you did you always told me you were leaving. Are you going to get back together with Joseph? I hear he's in New York, now."
"I wasn't expecting to be here overnight. It was just supposed to be a quick trip and now maybe you'll understand how I felt when Joe left town without telling me and NO I'm not going to get back together with Joseph. Both he and I know we won't work. Why can't you just accept that it's my life and let me lead it? I'm 30 years old for Christ's sake."
"Well if you aren't getting back together with Joseph why am I hearing about you sharing a suite or double room with a guy or was it two? The gossip was a bit confusing."
"It's nothing to worry about. Some of my coworkers were feeling a bit overprotective and felt the need to join me up here."
"Overprotective? What do they need to protect you from? Oh my god. Do you have another crazy after you?" Only with my mother could a conversation get this screwed up.
"No, nothing like that. You don't need to worry. They don't need to protect me from anything that's why they're overprotective."
"Don't tell me not to worry. I'm your mother. I will always worry about you." Make it stop. Make it stop.
"Yes, mom, but I'm 30 now. It's my life and you don't need to worry about me. I will tell you if something happens that you need to know. Otherwise don't worry about it and trust me to take care of myself. Ranger trained me. And speaking of training I really need to get back to it. Talk to you later. Bye." Thank god that's over.