~29~
Steph's head jerked up and she gasped. "Lester?" "Hey Beautiful!" Ranger growled and walked to the back of the room and pulled Lester up by his shirt collar. He stared at Lester, not saying anything but Steph could see that he was getting angrier as each second passed. "Hey boss man! How's it hanging?" Steph walked over and pulled Lester away from Ranger. "Les, what are you doing here and are you trying to get yourself killed?" "Beautiful, I missed you. There is some actual business I need to talk to Ranger about and when I heard about your distraction job tonight, I wanted to watch but my flight was late so I came here and caught the end of it in the control room. You were brilliant, as usual. But I have to know, do you really want another partner in bed? I'm up for anything you want to try. Ranger might be related to me, but I can overlook that for one night."
Steph looked over at Ranger who was taking deep breaths and pacing back and forth. "Les, I think you should go back to the control room right now. We need to debrief the guys and I think Ranger needs some time to calm down before we talk to you again." She pushed Lester out the door and locked it behind him and then turned back to Ranger and the room full of guys. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Let's get on with the dissection of the distraction." She started video and went over every little bit of the night with the guys.
By the time they were done, Ranger had calmed down and Steph just shook her head and led him out to go upstairs for the night. "Ranger, you need to calm down when we go out and see Les. Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't heard from him before now." Ranger took a deep breathe, grabbed Steph's hand and walked out into the control room. He looked at Lester and said, "Upstairs" and then pulled Steph to the elevator. Lester followed behind and they rode upstairs to the apartment in silence.
Ranger opened the apartment door and walked straight to the kitchen. He pulled a bottle of water out and drank it completely without stopping. He grabbed a second one and headed out to the living room. Steph and Lester were sitting on the couch, gossiping about the Trenton office. They looked up at Ranger and Steph smiled at him. "I think tonight went very well, don't you? The skip was easy to deal with, the numbers showed the guys they need a female employee and I got a new pair of shoes." Lester laughed and looked at Ranger. "I know you are upset that I'm here, but in addition to catching the end of the show, I do have some business to discuss with you." He looked at Steph, looked at the bedroom door and then back to her. She said and said, "Ok, I get it. Top secret shit, if I tell you I have to kill you, blah blah blah. I'm going to shower and then go to bed. Les, I'll see you in the morning. You're welcome to stay here on the couch if there aren't any open beds downstairs." She gave Lester a kiss on the cheek and gave Ranger a much longer kiss. Once the kiss was over, she sashayed out of the room. Lester made kissy sounds and asked, "Hey, you never told me if you were really engaged." "Good night Lester."
Ranger sat down in a chair across the where Lester was sitting on the couch. He raised one eyebrow and Lester started talking. Lester talked nonstop for about twenty minutes and then stopped. He looked at Ranger and said, "Well, what should we do?" Ranger looked at him and shook his head. "What should we do? This is all you, you dumbass. You figure it out." Lester looked at him and said, "Aren't you going to help me?" Ranger stood up, shook his head and said, "No, you didn't keep it in your pants, you figure it out." He turned and walked to the closet and pulled out a pillow and blanket and threw them at Les before walking into the bedroom. Once the bedroom door closed, Les could hear Ranger laughing again. Lester shook his head and quickly stripped out of his shirt and jeans and laid down on the couch. He let out a big sigh, heard Ranger still laughing and eventually feel asleep.
~30~
Steph looked up from her laptop when Ranger opened the bedroom door and then smirked when he started laughing. "What did Lester do?" Ranger couldn't stop laughing and it took him a few minutes to catch his breath and calm down enough to talk. "Babe, it's good, but I'll let the dumbass tell you himself in the morning." He went into the bathroom and started the shower. Steph turned off her laptop and laid down to wait for Ranger to come to bed. Ranger got into bed with her and pulled her close to him and together they fell asleep, Ranger with a smile on his face.
The next morning Steph bounced out of bed and went out to get the story out of Lester. She stopped short in the living room when she found it empty. The rat had even put the pillow and blanket away. She sighed and went into the kitchen to start the coffee. Ranger came into the apartment from the gym, took a cup of coffee with him into the bathroom. Steph joined him a few minutes later and together they got ready for the day. They only had two more days in Boston and she wanted to meet one more time with the guys and help them find the perfect woman to work in the office. She had previously requested all of the applications from women that had applied in the past year and that were not even looked at because they were female. Together, Steph and Ranger headed down to the control room and she found Lester sitting at an empty cubicle pounding away on his laptop.
He looked up when she approached and gave her a small smile. "Did he tell you?" She shook her head and said, "Nope, he said I was supposed to let the dumbass tell me about it. What did you do?" He shook his head and said, "Not here, let's go out for lunch." She agreed and then went into the conference room. Ranger, Gunner and a couple of the other guys were already seated at the table and a good sized pile of folders were spread out on the table. She sat down and dug into a stack. Together, they had come up with a small stack of possible candidates, and Steph was impressed with how well the guys from this office worked together and came up with the list. She decided to make the calls herself to the candidates and in the end, came up with 5 that were still interested and could come in the next day for interviews. She set up a schedule and helped put the group of guys together that would lead the interviews. She planned to be in the room, but would not lead.
When lunch time came, Lester met Steph and Ranger in the garage. Lester groaned when he saw Ranger, but Ranger just laughed and said, "I want to hear your explanation to her." Steph shook her head at them and got in the car. They ended up in a small, family type restaurant and once they ordered, she looked at Lester and said, "Well?" Ranger chuckled and she looked at him and glared. "You be quiet. This is not your story. Les?" Lester looked at her and said, "Well Beautiful, I've screwed up. I…"