Earlier this year I read an interview with JE, where she seemed pretty happy to get rid of the number centered book naming thing. It made me wonder about coming up with 27 number themed titles, and then pairing up story ideas with them. In the end, I came up with 31 story ideas (more, if you count the multiple ideas for several of the numbers), and The Number Series was born. Some stories are longer one-shots, some are short, and some developed into multi-chapter offerings. All have the title somewhere in the story. I have no set posting schedule for them.

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All recognizable characters belong to Janet Evanovich, I'm just playing.

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A continuation of Twelve Angry Men, a sort of epilogue to check in on the happy couple.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

RPOV

The sun is setting outside the window behind me as I save the contract on the computer and then stretch my arms over my head. A quick call to Ella confirms that she'll be taking dinner up to seven in a few minutes and leave it in the warming drawer. It's been a long day, starting with a break-in at a warehouse on the waterfront during the night. By the time I got back to Haywood, Steph was already awake and down in the gym using one of the Peloton bikes she convinced me to bring in. Our schedules have been out of sync ever since; I was out of the shower and eating breakfast before she made her way back upstairs, and then I was in a client meeting off-site for most of the morning.

Hearing her laugh out on the control floor as I stand up brings a smile to my face. It's been nearly three months since she saved Jasmine Canto. Nurses never did kick me out of Babe's hospital bed, and in the morning, we were both still there, both still on the same page.

I kept up my end of the bargain; as soon as she was released from the hospital, we headed to a small beach house that the Core Team shares. We bought it for a song when we left the Army and chose Trenton as a base of operation, needing a place to decompress when we returned stateside from the contracted missions we did to earn seed money for what would become Rangeman. It wasn't grand or a showplace, but we had renovated it to bring it up to code.

Steph took in the white walls and the various shades of blue that were spread throughout the house and her eyes sparkled with happiness and a bit of merriment. There was not a hint of black anywhere in the house; I would have probably thrown in a leather couch or two, but I was outvoted 3-1.

She spent most of her time there sleeping, and I spent most of my time watching her. I almost lost her before I ever really had her, a fact that has never fully left my mind. She tried to be patient with me when I tried to baby her, and I tried to be patient when she tried to do too much, too soon.

It took some effort to get her to agree to come to work with me; once I made the clear distinction that it was with and not for, she accepted that it really wasn't a pity job and relaxed; that's when the real negotiations started. I meant it when I said I was offering her everything I was and everything I had. Even if we never had the ceremony to formalize it or the rings to express it, we were in this together as partners. Period. The end. We hammered out what various duties her job would entail, and while I expected some push back on what she could do in the field, she accepted the limits I put in place until she had the proper training. At first it seemed too easy, until she gently eased herself into my lap and admitted that she had never stopped to consider what how her mishaps affected other people. If I could learn to bend, then so could she.

At the end of three days, she pouted a little at leaving until I promised to bring her back on our next free weekend. I was a little sad to be leaving, too. We were in a bubble there, like Hawaii; just the two of us with no outside interference.

When we got back to Trenton, she asked if we could make a stop before we spent the night at my place. Not one to deny her much of anything, I followed her directions, surprised to end up at a small cemetery overlooking the river just outside of city limits. She waited for me to come around and help her slide out of the Cayenne before slowly leading me down a small path. As we neared the end of a row, she stopped in front of a well-tended headstone.

Edward Plum

Beloved Husband, Father, and Grandfather

"He was just a little boy when they moved here from Italy. He was Eduardo Plumeri, but his father wanted a fresh start. I guess they were allowed to do that."

As we stood there, she crossed her arms over her chest. When a little sniffle escaped her, I gently wrapped her in my arms from behind, mindful of her stitches. "I used to go to their house after school and he always made time for me. No matter what was going on, he always made me feel important. Over the years, I had forgotten what it was like to have him in my corner." She pauses, then clears her throat before fidgeting. She stills a little with a kiss on the top of her head. "I really thought I went to their house. He was so real, his hug felt so real. He told me it wasn't my time and to jump and I'd land where I was supposed to. Am I crazy?"

There was no good way to hug her tight like I wanted, so I had to settle for carefully angling her face to me. "Not crazy, Babe. Loved."

She smiled before leaning into me, her head tucked up under my chin. We stayed a little longer, the peace and quiet of the area wrapping around us.

Steph had agreed to stay at my place while recuperating, and she just never left. I think she knew I'd try and talk her out of it if she even tried. I liked having her where I could see that she was safe and still here with me; Ella liked having someone fully appreciate her cooking, and the guys were extra attentive. I think, like me, they were trying to make up for assuming the worst before we knew the whole story.

In the days that followed, we learned that little Jasmine was not the first little girl that Douglas Rhiner had grabbed. His prints and photo were matched to three other kidnappings, including two in which the victim's bodies were eventually found. Steph was embarrassed by the article in the paper that lauded her as a hero, and unsure what to do with the nearly $60,000 in private and Crime Stoppers rewards that came her way. The money is still sitting in her bank account, minus the money for a top-of-the-line office chair that she refused to expense to the office.

We're slowly learning each other's quirks. She's still not a morning person, and not very functional without coffee, but she dutifully heads down to the gym at 0700 for as much of a workout on the Peloton as her healing muscles will allow. Bobby even had to yell at her when she tried to walk on the treadmill before the doctors had cleared her for physical fitness, and even she admitted that she likely wouldn't have gotten on there if she hasn't been told she couldn't exercise.

When there's more work than hours in a day and I'm not comfortable leaving it until morning, she brings her computer into my office, and we work companionably until she heads upstairs to sleep. Not once has she complained about the long hours. I've lost count of how many times I've caught her staring at my all-black wardrobe and shaking her head, much in the same way I eye her impressive shoe collection. I think at first, she was leery of relaxing and being herself, worried that her little messes here and there would clash with my neat-freak tendencies; honestly, I didn't give a shit if she left hair products all over the counter or a water bottle on the nightstand. She was here, and that's all that mattered to me.

Work is done for the day, so I move closer in case I need to remind her of that. She's passing out the skip files she spent the afternoon searching and I'm close enough to hear her chatting with Ramon and Vince on monitors while Tank and Lester look over their shoulders. A few of the other guys settle in around them, as tends to happen when Steph's out on the floor.

"How's he settling in?"

"Who?"

"Michael. The new guy."

The guys exchange a few glances before the proverbial lightbulb goes off above their heads. Lester puts his arm around her shoulder. "You mean Buzz."

Steph chews on that. "How come I've never heard a nickname before now?"

Vince laughs. "We usually call him Newbie or FNG."

"And it's working out, pairing him with Woody?"

Les shrugs. "Seems to be."

Steph starts to walk toward me, but suddenly stops. "Oh, my God!"

All the men immediately tense, waiting for Steph to let them know what's wrong. She looks at Tank. "You paired him with Woody?"

"Got a problem with that, Bomber?"

"Nooooo." She tries to stop the snicker that escapes. "Are they on patrol with Mr. Potato Head and Rexy?"

I should have anticipated some smart-ass comment from Steph when I approved the work roster. Tank and a few of the other men are still clueless, but Les and Vince are already laughing. Tank patiently waits them out.

"Dude, have you been living in a cave?"

Tank raises an eyebrow in Lester's direction before looking at me. "Toy Story. Kids movie. Buzz Lightyear and Woody the Cowboy?"

The laughter continues around him, and with an eyeroll worthy of any Burg girl, Tank mutters, "I work with children."

"Ah, don't be like that, dad." If they were standing any closer together, that one might have earned Les a slap upside the head. Tank does cats, not kids.

Steph's head is tilted to the side. It didn't take me long to learn that that was a sign she was sensing that there's a story here somewhere. "Do they know about the whole Buzz and Woody thing?"

Lester smirks. "They know, and like good little mercenaries, they're using it to their advantage. We went out last weekend and they were already working the team angle at the club and took a girl home."

Steph's eyes get wide before looking contemplative. "I try not to be a prude, but I'm not sure how to take them warping my niece's favorite movie."

I pull her to me. "Let them have their fifteen minutes of fame, Babe."

She shrugs. "How does one even work that into a conversation? Oh, by the way—"

"There's a snake but it's not in my boot." Woody is standing behind us with a shit-eating grin on his face. His new partner joins in. "And then I remind them that I can take them to infinity and beyond."

"And that works?" Steph asks after the laughter dies down. She's looking between the two of them; Woody, with his sandy blond hair, All-American looks and Texas twang is a perfect foil for the darker, square jawed Buzz with the slight Bronx accent. Yin and yang. They look at each other before giving her twin killer grins and stepping toward her with a loose-limbed swagger. A glare aimed in their direction gets them to back off and Steph tucks herself into my side with a muttered, "Cripes."

The guys shoot the shit for a bit longer; Steph spends that time running her finger up and down my side, making it hard to not throw her over my shoulder and head upstairs. It took the doctor nearly eight weeks to clear her for physical activity and we've been making up for lost time. All the joking and innuendo, mixed with her touch, is too much and I angle Steph toward my office. As soon as the door is closed, I have her pinned against the wall, my mouth on hers. Rather than complain, she uses her hands fisted in my shirt to keep me close to her and a leg hooked up around my hip to anchor me in place. When breathing becomes imperative, I nibble over to her ear and whisper, "Tell me, Little BoPeep…have you lost your sheep? Do you need to come up to seven to see if my staff can find them?" I punctuate the statement about the sheep crook with a grind of my hips against hers.

She lets out a little breathy moan before hooking a finger under my chin and bringing my face back to hers. "The fact that you know the movie makes me love you more. But I've always been more of a Jessie than a BoPeep. You know, one of the guys, out there fighting and getting into trouble…"

"Jessie, huh. Does that mean you can ride like a cowgirl?"

She laughs. "We are so going to hell for corrupting a kid's cartoon."

"Maybe, but we'll have fun on the trip."

"You know what I think?"

"What's that, Babe?"

She kisses me hard before sauntering toward the door. "I think we should take this discussion upstairs where you can properly judge my riding technique. Cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, side saddle, bareback…"

She's escaped the room before I can even react, leaving me stunned and more than a little turned on. I didn't ever expect to be here, with her, but if anything good came from her near death experience, it's that we both stopped looking forward to someday when things might be perfect and started living in the now when we still have time to be here with each other. I can hear her laughing by the elevator and as I take the stairs to head her off at the pass, I realize that the imperfect now is a hell of a lot more fun than a potentially perfect someday.