The characters belong to JE. I receive nothing from this, but it sure is fun. Possible spoilers to Wicked Appetite.
Chapter 9
Steph's POV
I spent the weekend at Tank's house almost entirely stress free, well almost entirely stress free. I still needed to decide what I was going to do with Ranger and Joe's behavior. I had turned off my phone for the weekend to avoid calls from Ranger, Joe, and my mother. Part of me wanted to stay hidden at Tank's a few more days, but by Sunday night I was about to go crazy with loneliness. Tank, Lester, Bobby, and Ella had all called to check on me over the weekend to see if I needed anything or just to talk, but it just wasn't the same. So Sunday afternoon I packed the duffle that Ella and Luis had dropped off on Friday, called Tank so he could pull whichever Merry Man was assigned to watch my apartment, and head back to my apartment. If I was lucky, I could make it to the Tasty Pastry before they closed. Someone always forgets to pick up a special order cake on Sundays. If I show up right before they close I can buy a cake at a huge discount. It pays to be a former employee and one of the Tasty Pastry's best customers.
I made to the Tasty Pastry with one minute to spare. I purchased a cake that looked like a large opened engagement ring box in Tiffany blue. The oversized ring band was made out of rice krispie treats covered in rolled fondant. A cupcake covered in white icing and edible glitter was used as the diamond. The cake was complete with a note that read 'Will you marry me, Linda?" Apparently the man that ordered the cake found Linda in bed with his best friend Saturday night. By the time he called to cancel the cake on Sunday, it was too late.
I was surprised to see Diesel leaning against Big Blue when I walked out of the bakery.
"Hello, Sunshine." Diesel grinned.
"Hey Diesel. What are you doing in Trenton?" I asked. "Let me guess….you need me to help you save the world."
"Not today. I have someone else that helps me with that. I was due for a couple of days of vacation, so I thought I would come to Trenton to visit one of my favorite girls." He said taking the cake box from me and walking over to the passenger side of the car and climbing in.
"One of your favorite girls, huh?" I asked attempting to raise one eyebrow, but raising both instead.
"You're definitely in my top two." He said lifting the cake box lid. "Who proposes with a cake?"
"A guy that didn't realize that his girlfriend has been cheating on him until the night before he planned on proposing." I explained.
"His loss is our gain." Diesel shrugs, taking the cupcake diamond and popping it into his mouth.
"Stop eating my cake!"
"Hey, I'm doing you a favor. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." Diesel grins "Lizzy's cupcakes are much better."
"Are you calling me fat? Because if you are, I can button my jeans just fine, thank you very much! Secondly, you can talk bad about me, but never talk bad about a cake from the Tasty Pastry!" Then I grin, "Thirdly, Is Lizzy the other on of your top two?"
"I plead the fifth." Diesel said closing the cake box lid.
When we reached my parking lot, Diesel insisted on carrying my duffle bag and the cake box up to my apartment. Diesel made no attempt to convince me to take the stairs, instead waiting patiently for the elevator with me. When the elevator door opened, Mrs. Bestler was missing.
"Where's the elevator lady?" Diesel asked.
"Mrs. Bestler usually eats dinner between five and six in the evening. She's probably in her apartment. She'll be back by six."
I cautiously opened the door to my apartment. I didn't want to have to deal with Joe if he was in my apartment. I knew Ranger wasn't here since I didn't feel that tingle on the back of my neck that I get every time he's near. My radar only works on Ranger, not Joe.
"They're not here." Diesel said walking in and setting the cake box on the coffee table.
"How do you know?" I whispered, glaring at Diesel. "Joe could be hiding out in my bedroom."
"I was here earlier. I've already deleted the messages from your mother. They were all pretty much the same anyway."
"Let me guess….'Mrs. Simmons' daughter, Tiffany, doesn't have cars that blow up or goes missing for an entire weekend." I sighed.
"See, nothing you haven't heard before. The rest are still there. There are a few from Connie, Lula, and your grandmother and one from your dad. The rest are from Ranger and Morelli."
"You listened to all of my messages?" I asked.
"How else would I know to delete the messages from your mother?"
"I assumed that you had some kind of magical unmentionable ability that could erase the messages from my mother without listening." I shrugged.
"Honey, I'm good, but even I'm not that good." He said walking into my kitchen and opening the refrigerator door. "What do you want for dinner?"
"We'll have to order take-out. I haven't been home for a couple of days and I need to go grocery shopping. I'm even out of peanut butter and olives."
"No, you're not." Diesel said pulling out a pan of chicken enchiladas. "Are you okay with this for dinner?"
The food fairy must have showed up over the weekend in the form of Ella. She must have stocked my refrigerator and cabinets. I opened a cabinet door to find a wide variety of TastyKakes, peanut butter, olives, and chips. God bless Ella!
Ella knows how inept I am in the kitchen, so everything was prepared where all I had to was reheat the enchiladas in the microwave. She also left some kind of bean and rice dish to have with the enchiladas. Ella always thinks of everything! Diesel fixed glasses of ice and poured cokes for us.
Once everything, including the cake, was on the table, we ate in silence. Once dinner was over with Diesel pushed his chair out and said, "So tell Uncle Diesel all about it."
"Ew! Don't call yourself Uncle Diesel. It's creepy." I told him wrinkling my nose.
"Fine, but you need to spill I want to hear what happened from your point of view. You were hiding out for a reason."
Diesel followed me into the living room, setting on the opposite side of the couch from me. I told Diesel about Tony Biancho blowing up my car and how Ranger and Joe acted at the scene and at my apartment afterwards. The entire time I told him my side of the story, tears were threatening to fall from my eyes. I finished telling Diesel my story with how Tank let me hide out at his house over the weekend.
"Well, I don't know if it helps any, but I think you did the right thing hiding out for the few days. Ranger and Morelli need to realize how their behavior is affecting you. Ranger thinks that he can't offer you want you need, so he keeps you at arm's length. Morelli on the other hand wants you to fit into a mold of what he thinks a perfect wife and mother should be. Neither one has ever asked you what you want. You've tried to tell Morelli, but he's so wrapped up in his own ideas that he refuses to listen. You've only told Ranger that you can't do sex with no strings attached. You've never actually spelled out for him what strings that you would expect him to attach to a relationship." Diesel explained. "The way I see it everybody is guilty doing something wrong in this whole love triangle thing you have going on here."
I was about to say something when Diesel's cell phone rang.
"Diesel." He said standing up and taking a few steps away from the couch. He listened for a few minutes then said, "I'm on my way." Then he turned around and said to me, "I have to go to New York for a few days. An unmentionable with x-ray vision is using his ability to look into women's apartments."
"An unmentionable peeping tom?" I asked. "Sometimes I think that your unmentionables have a lot in common with some of my skips."
"Yeah, but your skips look through windows and mine look through walls. I'll come back to see you after I take care of this guy." He said taking my hand and pulling me up to stand. "Listen, Ranger and Morelli need to learn to listen to you and to quit acting like children. When they learn their lesson, one will man up, the other will realize that he should step back and not stand in the way of your happiness."
"Yeah, but how long will that take?" I asked, letting my tears fall.
"Oh, it will happen sooner than you think." Diesel said handing me a tissue that he grabbed off of my Kleenex box on the coffee table.
I wiped my eyes with the tissue and looked up to say thanks, but Diesel had vanished. One of these days I'm going to convince him to tell me how he does that.
I watched Ghostbusters before getting ready for bed. While I got ready for bed, I began to think about what Diesel had told me. He's right. I've never actually sat down and talked to Ranger about what I wanted in life, mostly because I'm afraid that he still may reject me. And I have no idea what to do with Joe. I've told him over and over again that I'm not sure if I ever want to get married and have children. I do know that I haven't helped the rivalry between Ranger and Joe by running back and forth between them.
I went to bed feeling better now that I have a sense of clarity with the situation. I quickly feel into a deep sleep, but about three in the morning my eyes popped opened and I could feel a tingle on the back of my neck. I slowly sat up and looked over at the chair that was in the corner of my bedroom. Looking at my guest, I said, "I certainly wasn't expecting to see you tonight."