All familiar characters belong to Janet. Mistakes are mine alone.
My skip landed hard on the ground like the two-hundred-pound piece of shit he is.
"Go ahead, tell her to 'Fuck off' one more time and see how many organs you lose to go with the teeth in the dirt next to you," Hal told the guy, wiping the blood off his split knuckles along the seam of his pant leg.
I had to remind myself to first close my mouth before I could open it again to speak. "Jeez, Hal. That was overkill, don't you think?"
"No. It was justified. Ranger will agree."
Duh. Depending on the day he's had, Batman may have made Gromey McSmellsALot - my personal endearment for the bottom feeder - disappear rather than just ensuring he's harmlessly horizontal, missing an eyetooth or two.
"No doubt, but I'm wondering where Halosauras went. You're usually the nicest of the partners I get. Someone swearing at me comes with the job, especially in this neighborhood. You know that."
His buzzed head hung a little lower as he studied the steel toes of his boots. It says something about me that I feel worse for Hal than I do Gromey.
I risked making him uncomfortable by touching Hal's arm briefly before letting my hand drop. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad, I was trying to say that I'm worried. Are you okay?"
You'd think I'd shot him, the way his body jerked in reaction to my question.
"Hal?" I pressed. "Is everything alright?"
He put off a response by putting a knee to the ground to cuff today's FTA. He's not afraid of much so he didn't just ignore me and pretend nothing happened. He turned to face me once McSmellsALot was secured in the backseat of our fleet vehicle.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I waved away the apology. "I don't care about the skip or the punch. I'm only interested in how you're doing."
He rolled one shoulder and then the other. He's bracing for a fight but I'm guessing it's an emotional one.
"My old man used to tell my Ma to fuck off right before he did even worse to her."
"Oh, Hal!" I said covering my mouth as if that'd contain my feelings. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
He tried to shrug the memories away. "I wasn't the one he hurt."
"I don't buy that one at all." I pulled him further away from our SUV so there was no chance we'd be overheard by someone who doesn't deserve to witness Hal's pain. "You love your mom, so seeing her hurt in any way is going to affect you."
"I don't like seeing women disrespected. That's all."
I nodded. "That's why everybody loves you. But I'm sorry your low tolerance for assholes was caused by one so close to you."
"We were never close. He took off when I was twelve and was dead ten months later, shot by the husband of someone he was screwing around with. I couldn't have picked a better ending for him. My mom and I were finally free of him."
"But not his influence," I said almost under my breath, but he heard me.
"No. He fucked me up good without needing his fists."
I grabbed one of those fists - since I needed both hands just to hold it - and tugged, making him look at me. "You are not fucked-up. Next to Ranger, you are the sweetest, most gentle, kindest man I've ever met. I'm not giving your bad dad any credit for that either. You consciously chose to be the polar opposite of him, and everyone in Trenton has benefited from your decision to break the asshole cycle. I'm proud of you, even more so than usual."
His face went from strained to beet red with embarrassment. "Thanks," he mumbled.
"I mean it. Don't ever see yourself as damaged or messed up because you survived something horrible and came out with a vow to be different. I needed Ranger to help me see that not getting my mother's approval means I'm doing something right. I'm not claiming to know anything about your family, but I can't help but believe your poor excuse for a sperm donor treated you guys like crap because he knew you were better than him."
"I am a better man than he ever was."
That was said to his inner-kid-Hal, not so much to me. Though I did nod.
"The bar wasn't just set low on that one, it was left on the ground. But you're one of my favorite people … and I don't like that many people. Clearly you're special."
His boyish grin reappeared just as Ranger's Porsche glided to a stop feet from us. It's sad how distracted I still get watching Batman do anything, especially slip out of a sexy car and walk towards me looking even sexier.
He glanced past us to note our FTA in our vehicle and then he scanned Hal briefly before dropping an arm across my shoulders and pulling me close for a mostly chaste kiss.
"Gene told me this apprehension was taking longer than expected …"
"And since you always seem to be 'in the neighborhood', you thought you'd just swing by and see for yourself," I finished for him.
"I trust my assessment more than anyone else's … so yes, I drove here. What happened?"
"The usual. My skip was a jerk, my partner took offense to it, and I was making sure Hal knows what a good guy he is even though I can handle my FTAs myself."
Ranger cut his eyes to Hal. "What did the guy do?"
"I can answer that," I said but both men ignored me now.
"He told Steph to fuck off when she told him to put his hands behind his back. I didn't appreciate his attitude."
The look the two men exchanged told me Ranger knows waaaay more about Hal's history than what I learned here today.
"Leave the blame with the person who earned it," he told Hal.
Halosaurus nodded, the tension in his body starting to ease for the first time since he KO'd our skip. "Will do."
Their exchange felt heavier than what I'm used to handling so I went with my go-to mood changer, a joke.
"Hey, Hal? If I promise to be the one to deck the next guy, will you still consider being my partner? Though you wouldn't be the first Rangeguy who immediately requested Stephanie-free apprehensions."
"Lester swears he was only kidding about that," Hal pointed out.
"I wasn't when I told Ranger not to put us together again. I wanna teach him a lesson. I never fail to make stuff happen and he's going to miss out big time now."
"It won't be the first or last time the joke's on him, Babe."
That didn't shock me.
"Don't worry, Steph. Whenever you need me, I'll be there," Hal promised.
His daddy may have been an abusive douchebag, but Hal grew up to be a man who purposely protects the world from what he himself had to survive.