SOrry I haven't updated in a while. i haven't had any ideas...but maybe this will spark some.

Zero down, Four to go

Okay I guess I messed up. In my other stories Ranger's daughter's name is Jazz. In this one his niece is named Jazz. (hey I like the name Jazz, so sue me) Anyway, just pretend that this is a parallel universe and that in this universe his daughter's name is…Bernadette or something. I have different names for the same characters in different stories, but once again, this is a parallel unviverse.

"So does anyone wanna play monopoly?" said James when Ranger, Jazz and I tromped down the stairs.

We were all sitting on the floor playing monopoly. I was the shoe, of course, Ranger was the battleship, James was the dog, and Jazz was the hat. The deal was that if Erin wasn't going to be sociable, she had to watch Felix.

Ranger, of course, was winning. "You landed on Boardwalk," he said to me, "You owe me fifteen hundred."

"Why do I owe you fifteen hundred? Isn't the rent only sixty?"

"I have a hotel on it, Babe, pay up."

"Dammit." I shoved a bunch of bills at him. "You have the advantage. You're already a business man. You should let me win."

He half smiled and added my money to his pile.

It was Jazz's turn next. She rolled a three and landed on James's property.

"Ha! Give me five hundred!" said James, reaching for her money.

"Five hundred? No way. You only have a house," said Jazz, slapping his hand away.

"It says the rent is five hundred if I have a house," said James.

"No it doesn't."

"Yeah it does."

"Doesn't."

"Does."

"Doesn't"

James grabbed a handful of Jazz's money. "Does."

Jazz lunged at James. "Give me my money back!" she yelled.

They wrestled around for a minute and Jazz got James in a choke-hold. "Money." She said.

"Urk," said James.

"Uh, Jazz, he can't breathe," I said.

"He has to give me my money back first."

"Ferk 'ou," said James.

"Give me my money."

"No."

"I'll tell everyone about your crush on Lucy—oof!" James elbowed Jazz in the stomach, wriggled out of the choke hold and bolted up the stairs.

Jazz was curled up in a ball, holding her stomach. "Can you breathe?" Ranger asked her. She nodded and made a dismissive gesture with her hand. Finally she sat up and grinned at us. "Jamesy-poo gets a little shy when you talk about his dear Lucy Freeman."

"Who's Lucy Freeman?" I asked.

"She's a pretty little blond who James is obsessed with," said Jazz, "So what you all say about going to get some ice cream?" We couldn't really continue monopoly seeing as Jazz and James had kind of ruined the board from wrestling.

"I don't think Ranger eats ice cream," I said. Probably Jazz already knew about the body-is-a-temple thing.

"Yeah well he'll eat some," said Jazz, standing up. She hollered up the stairs for James and Erin to come down and after bundling Felix up properly we were on our way.

There was Baskin Robins a few blocks away, so we walked. It was pretty dark out so Ranger made us all walk close together. "Paranoid." Jazz muttered.

"Cautious," said Ranger.

Erin was holding Felix's hand, walking behind us and still sulking from this evening's events. Felix removed his hand from his sister's and toddled to the front, next to Ranger.

"Hi unca' Ricky," he said, taking Ranger's hand, "We gonna get ice cweam?"

"Yup," said Ranger, "ice cweam, indeed."

Ranger was being so unlike himself this evening. He was being almost normal…which is a big step for Ranger. I looked from Felix to Ranger and noticed they looked surprisingly similar. Felix was a baby-Ranger. "Omigod. You two look exactly alike." I said.

Ranger glanced over at me. "Babe."

My cell phone chirped. It was Morelli.

"Hey Cupcake where are you?" he asked.

"I'm batsitting," I said before I could stop myself. Ranger raised an eyebrow at me and almost smiled.

"Batsitting?"

"I meant babysitting."

"Babysitting who? Valerie's kids?"

I winced. I didn't want to lie, but I didn't want to tell the truth either. "Eh…no,"

"Well who are you babysitting?"

"Um…"

There was a beat of phone silence while Morelli digested this information, if you could call it that. "You're with Ranger, aren't you?"

"Maybe…"

"Why are you babysitting with Ranger?"

"His sister needed a babysitter tonight and she has a lot of kids so Ranger needed some help," I said.

"Christ."

"Yeah…so what's up?"

"Nothing. I have the night off tonight. But since you're already occupied I guess it's just me and Bob tonight."

I diconnected with Morelli and dropped my phone back in my bag. Jazz looked over at me. "Batsitting?"

"Yeah well Ranger is Batman so I you guys are bat-kids, right?" I said. I couldn't make anymore of a fool out of myself as I already had.

Jazz shook her head like she was trying to communicate with a mentally challanged person and knew it was futile.

We arrived at the Ice Cream place and piled inside, looking into the class counter at all the different kinds of ice cream.

"I want bubblegum," said Erin.

"Chocolate," said James.

"Peppermint Candy with gummi worms," said Jazz. (A/N that's my favorite flavor)

"I wanna eveyting!" said Felix.

Felix ended up getting a scoop of chocolate peanut butter ice cream. I got Rocky Road, and Jazz made Ranger get a scoop of Mango Sorbet.

We were all sitting at a little table against the wall eating our ice cream. Felix was having a little trouble maneuvering the spoon to his mouth so James was assigned to cleanup-duty.

"Why me?" he groaned, scrubbing at Felix's shirt with a napkin.

"Because you're closest to him," said Erin.

Right then a big, mean looking kid came in. He was overweight and looked like he belonged in a correctional facility. I noticed James was sending him death glares.

"Who's that?" I asked James.

"That's Mitchell Roberts. He's an eight grader and a bully," said James, clutching his plastic spoon with a vengeance.

Oh…boy. Mitchell Roberts went up to the counter and stood behind a couple people ordering. He looked in the glass at the ice cream flavors and looked like he was having a hard time thinking. James meanwhile a huge scoop of ice cream in his spoon and was bending it back.

"Uh James…" I began but it was too late. James let loose the scoop of ice cream and it hit the back of Mitchell Robert's head, slid down and went down his sweatshirt. Mitchell whirled around and glared right at James.

Uh oh.