They're not mine, and I don't own them…
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What Happens in Vegas…
Chapter 4
Ranger had kissed me senseless and then he left to save the world. I won't admit how long it took me to regain my composure, but then again, I'm not quite sure myself. Checking the clock, I saw it was late, but between that kiss and napping on the plane I was too wired to sleep. Instead I said hello to Rex and confirmed that Hal had taken care of him before starting to unpack from the trip.
By the time I put away the last few items, though, that my natural affinity for sleep kicked in and I felt myself getting tired. A short shower, quick peanut butter and olive sandwich and I fell to sleep like a baby.
Crawling out of bed the next morning, I stretched and stumbled my way to the bathroom. Once there, it took me a minute to remember the events of the past few days, but when I did, I pulled my hand up to my face and spent a good five minutes just staring at the rings that were still on my finger. I'd really married Ranger. At least the freak out factor was diminishing each time I realized it had actually happened.
I took a quick shower just to freshen up, since I'd showered last night. Once out, I dressed and got ready for the day. I knew Ranger had an early appointment and I figured he'd call me when he was through. I couldn't just sit around here waiting on him or I'd go crazy thinking. I may be taking this marriage thing well, but a long stretch of time to think would not be a good thing.
Deliberating over what to do, I discovered I really only had two options. Office or my parents. The office won out easily because I was in no way ready to face my mother.
It wasn't until I was heading out the door, however, that I remembered the rings. I couldn't go to the office wearing them, so I turned around and walked back into my apartment giving them a death stare. How to get them off…
Giving them a gentle pull, I found they still wouldn't slide over my knuckle. I'd learned from last time, though, and didn't continue pulling. Instead, I headed for my bathroom and smeared a little lotion over the knuckle. After that the rings slid off pretty easily.
That left me with another problem. What to do with them. I felt bad leaving them sit in the bathroom and was irrationally worried they'd fall down the sink. When I tried to leave them in my jewelry box, I couldn't stop thinking about them. In the end, I only felt at ease when I slipped them into the small pouch inside of my purse. That way, I wouldn't misplace them but also wouldn't be wearing them…
That done, I headed for the lot, hopped into my Mini. The trip to the office was over much more quickly than I had been ready for. Before I knew it, I was parked out front having a stare down with the door. What I was really worried about was whether or not the girls would immediately be able to tell what had gone on in Vegas. Or they may know already if Tank had updated Lula on the weekend… if so, it would be all over town. I hadn't checked my messages, so I didn't know what the Burg vine was circulating.
I was still having my stare down when my phone rang, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin.
"Hello," I answered.
"Hey, white girl," said Lula. "Are you going to get your skinny ass in here or am I gonna have to come out there and get you?"
"I'm coming," I sighed, then hung up.
Taking a deep breath, I climbed out of my car and headed for the door. I could do this. Then I saw Connie and Lula sitting in wait. They looked like predators ready to pounce. I couldn't do this. Too late.
"You got married to Ranger?" they shrieked at the same time.
"How did you hear?" I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.
"Tank showed me the pictures," Lula said, glaring at me. Uh oh. "You got married and you didn't feel the need to tell us?"
"Uh, I wasn't exactly planning on getting married. Then I was dealing with waking up really hung over and married," I answered.
"You're Mom's freaking over the drunken, Vegas wedding, by the way," Connie interjected. "She's called five times already this morning looking for you."
"So the entire Burg knows?" I asked praying it was only my mother.
"Yep. We've already gotten calls from all of the biggest gossips in the Burg. You've done it again."
"Ungh," I said, plopping into a chair in front of Connie's desk. And today would be the one day there wasn't a box of doughnuts sitting there. "So any files for me."
"Yeah, but you're not getting them till you tell us everything," Connie said, handing the files to Lula for safe keeping.
"There's really not much to tell," I said, praying it would work.
"Nuh uh, Girlfriend," Lula said, giving me an intimidating glare.
"Really," I argued. "I was incredibly drunk. I don't remember."
"Well, how about telling us how you ended up drunk with Batman and the Merry Men," Connie suggested.
"We'd been looking for our skip for a few days; we caught him, and then went out to dinner to celebrate and according to the guys we went out to a club. I don't remember anything after shots before dinner."
"Damn," Lula said.
"What about the next morning?" Connie asked.
"Woke up in severe pain. Fell back asleep. Woke up again. Ranger and I ordered the cure. We freaked out a bit about waking up together. I went to shower and calm down and then I noticed the rings and we freaked out some more. We were just getting around to talking when we had to leave."
"Wait!" Lula exclaimed. "You woke up with Batman. That means you must ha…."
"Stop right there," I cut her off. "I was probably the most drunk I have ever been in my entire life. I don't remember anything."
"Dayymn," both she and Connie chorused.
"So, can I have my files now?" I asked.
"No. Show us the rings," Connie demanded.
"I took them off. They didn't feel right," I said, holding up my bare left hand.
"Girl, if you two finally figured it out and got yourselves together, you oughta hold on tight," Lula advised.
"Lula, we're friends. Friends who got drunk and made a mistake. I wouldn't press him into that, and it's not what I want either." But a little part of me told me I was a liar, because a little part of me did want it.
"Humph," she responded.
"Files?" I asked again.
"Sure," Connie replied, motioning for Lula to hand them out. "You sure know how to make a potentially great story boring."
"I'm sorry," I said, seizing my files, "but that's what happened."
With that, I beat a hasty retreat out of the office and drove a couple of blocks before pulling over and looking through my files. There was nothing too extraordinary and nothing I couldn't handle myself.
Closing my eyes and picking a file, I came up with Harriet Lizki, who looked like nothing more than a housewife on edge. She was accused of multiple counts of shoplifting, the latest being a pack of diapers, various cleaning supplies and a 1 pound chocolate bar. Checking the address, I drove slightly outside the Burg and found her house.
I got an answer almost as soon as I knocked on the door. Too bad it wasn't Harriet, but a six year old boy dressed as Batman and his twin dressed as Superman.
"Hi, is your Mom home?" I asked.
They just stared up at me until Batman yelled, "To the Batcave," and they both took off running.
Knocking again, I called a 'hello' into the house and got an answer moments later.
"Sorry," I said, "some superheroes answered the door then took off. Are you Harriet Lizki?"
"Yes, sorry about that. Can I help you?"
"Umm, yeah. I represent your bonds company and I need to take you to reschedule your court date."
"I forgot to reschedule?" she gasped. "My two youngest had a stomach flu that day then it must have slipped my mind!"
"It's okay," I assured her. "We can go down there now and get you rescheduled.
"I can't," she said, looking back into her house. "There's no way I could find a babysitter that quickly."
And we can't take the kids with us, I though. Wonder how many she has in there? After some more thought, there was only one thing I could come up with.
"My mom could watch them. She loves kids and would feed them cookies and do all that grandmother stuff."
"Your mother?" she asked, looking a bit skeptical.
"Oh, sorry, I just suggested you leave your kids with a complete stranger," I said feeling like an idiot.
"Yeah," she agreed.
"It's all I can think of though. How about I call Connie at the office, get her to meet us at the station. You can meet my mom, you'll like her I swear, and then we can go get you rebooked. We'll have everything done in twenty minutes."
"Uh, okay," she said, still looking a bit hesitant. "Let me just get the kids. It may take me awhile to get the boys out of their costumes."
"Don't worry about it," I assured her. "One of my nieces thinks she's a horse so my Mom won't even bat an eye."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Definitely."
"All right."
After that, she showed me into the living room while she rounded up her children. Batman and Superman reappeared along with a little girl who looked to be about four. It wasn't long after that that Harriet came back carrying a toddler and baby bag.
"We're all ready to go," she announced, then started herding her children out to her van. Looks like my FTA is driving us to the station.
The loading process took longer than I would have ever believed, but we eventually got all of the kids into seats and buckled in. Then, I gave her directions across the Burg and in moments we were at my parent's house.
"This is it," I said and we hopped out and got the kids unloaded.
My mom's ability to know I was coming was fooled by the mom-van, but before we made it up the walk she was waiting for us.
"Stephanie?" she asked, looking sufficiently thrown off by the kids that she didn't immediately start going on about my behavior in Vegas.
"Uh, hey Mom. This is Harriet Lizki and I need to take her to the station to rebook. Could you watch her kids? I wouldn't be for more than a half an hour."
"Of course I'll watch them," Mom said, going over to Harriet who was holding the smallest child and introducing herself before making faces at the child. Then, she straightened up and from the look she gave me I had an instant feeling of dread. "But I'll do it on one condition. You have to come to dinner tonight."
Damn. I knew that had been too easy. She hadn't immediately brought up my behavior in Vegas. She hadn't criticized my job, which I was dragging her into, and there had been no mention of me being married. She'd just been calm. Calm isn't good
"Yes, I'll come to dinner," I sighed.
"Good," and with that, she went back to talking to Harriet about the kids and their likes and dislikes. We'd only been there a matter of minutes but I could see Harriet had really warmed up to my mom.
After a few more minutes of talk, Harriet looked to me and told me she was ready to go. She thanked my mom and warned the kids to behave and we were on our way.
"I'm sorry I got you roped into dinner if you were avoiding it," Harriet said once she was driving us to the station.
"I was trying, but it wouldn't work anyway," I replied.
"Your mother seems like such a great woman though," Harriet said.
"She is. I'm just in trouble right now," I answered with a small grin. Right now, I could feel all the humor in a 32 year old being in trouble with her mother.
"Oh," Harriet said, obviously wanting to question more, but restraining herself. She definitely wasn't from the Burg.
The rest of the ride was in silence until we arrived at the police station where we found Connie waiting and with most of the paperwork filled out. Like I had predicted, we were in and out of the station in twenty minutes.
To my relief, I didn't know the desk sergeant and we managed to avoid Joe. If the whole Burg knew I had married Ranger in Vegas, he must have heard by now also and I wanted to avoid that confrontation for as long as possible.
Deciding to worry about that later, I got Harriet back to my mom's so she could pick up her kids. The kids had loved Mom and Mom had loved the kids. Before we left, Harriet even lined Mom up as a back-up baby sitter. Only in my life.
Picking up the Mini, I looked at the clock on the dash and decided it was late enough in the day to pay a visit to Mooner. But first I needed to make a doughnut stop and I should get some gas.
I got two doughnuts at the Tasty Pastry and ate one on the way to the gas station. I was just starting in on the other one when I heard a sound I never liked. A gunshot, followed by a bullet hitting my car. I got as low as possible and floored the gas, speeding away from the shooting.
Probably I'd just gotten in the way of a drive-by I told myself. Or probably not I admitted a moment later. I was still debating what to do when my phone started playing the Batman theme song.
"Yo," I answered.
"Yo, Babe. How's your day going?"
"Pretty good. Got a skip, had my mom baby sit her kids and she agreed to baby sit them again. I was just getting doughnuts and going for gas when my car got shot at. How was your meeting?"
"Your car got shot at?" I hoped he'd miss that since I hid it in the middle of my ramble.
"Uh, yeah, but it only got hit twice."
"Babe," Ranger said in a pained voice. "Will you come to Rangeman so we can take a look at it?"
"Sure," I agreed, knowing I wasn't getting out of it.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
Half an hour later, the guys had extracted the bullets from my car and Ranger and I were heading up for the 7th floor. At least the talk about us getting married was being deferred for the talk about me getting shot at…
"Any idea who?" Ranger asked as we walked into the apartment.
"Nope," I answered, flopping onto the couch. "As far as I know, I haven't ticked anyone off lately."
"How many people know about us getting married?"
"Well, Tank told Lula so… probably most of the tri-state area by now. Do you think this could be related to that?"
"I don't know, but we can't rule that out."
"Gah!" I exclaimed, flopping sideways on the couch. Is it really too much to ask not to have some crazy target me for more than a month?
"That pretty much sums it up," Ranger said, sitting on the cushion beside my head and moving my curls off my face.
"I need a nap," I announced.
"Go ahead," Ranger said standing and nodding towards his bedroom.
"I meant at my apartment," I said.
"Babe, you got shot at.'
"Yeah, but that happens pretty frequently."
"Just be careful. And I'll be by later and we can go out for dinner and have our talk."
"No can do," I said. "My mom's condition to watch the kids earlier was I had to come to dinner. You can come if you want."
"Not really," he said, and then looked thoughtful. "But we're going to have to do dinners soon because Tank also told my mother and she's demanding to meet you."
"Oh," I said, sitting up again.
"She's not that bad, Babe, and if you can survive you family you'll be fine."
"That's good to know," I said.
"But before we do the dinner thing," he said taking my hand, "we need to get our stories straight."
"I know. I just don't want to do it right now. Okay?"
"Okay," he agreed, once again playing with my fingers.
Looking down, I realized he had paused at my bare ring finger before moving on. Watching his hands, I saw he wasn't wearing his ring either. I don't know why I'd thought he would, since they didn't really mean anything to us.
"Uh, I'm gonna go have that nap now," I said as I stood up.
"Alright, but be careful," Ranger said standing with me, not letting go of my hand.
I didn't have the heart to pull it free, but the whole idea left my brain when he lowered his mouth to mine. Before I knew what was happening, I was melted into him kissing him like a starving woman. By the time we parted we were both breathing hard and his eyes were pulling me in. I was just stretching up to kiss him again when something inside of my yelled 'no.' And even though it was painful to do so, I listened to it.
"I'm sorry," Ranger eventually said, resting his forehead against mine.
"Yeah, me too," I agreed, wrapping my arms around his waist.
I had a feeling we were both sorry for more than the kiss. I'm not sure what it was for Ranger, but I was beginning to regret what couldn't be between us.
We stood holding one another until a yawn from me reminded us that I had been going home to take a nap. So, with a few more warnings to be careful and no more kisses, I left the apartment and took off in my poor Mini.
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A/N: Please review and let me know what you thought! I love all of your wonderful feedback!