19 - Used To Be Mine
It was a shitty apartment and she knew it. The decor looked like it hadn't been updated since the seventies, all browns and burnt oranges. The bathroom looked like it could be an exhibit in an interior design museum. Not to mention that if she got the place she'd be the youngest person living in the building by about thirty years, aside from the superintendent, Dylan. But it was Dylan who made the apartment a possibility. He'd managed to convince the owners to keep the rent at the same price the previous tenant had been paying, which meant it actually fell within a price range Steph was pretty sure she could sustain while she figured out the rest of her life.
In light of the training setback discovering Ranger to, in fact, be Carlos caused, Steph had taken the morning off to go apartment hunting while she procrastinated on next steps with Morelli's file. Something about it felt off, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Sure Morelli had been a dick to her in high school, but she never would have pictured him as a murderer, and there were details about the altercation that lead to his arrest that just weren't making sense to her.
And, of course, the best way to figure these things out was to let the ideas and information marinate in the back of her mind while she focused on other things.
Like the apartment. She looked around at it and sighed. It was better than nothing, and it got her out of Deb and Bear's hair with plenty of time. She didn't exactly have a lot of options. Her savings were dwindling every day, so the low rent was a big draw card. It just sucked that she was back in Trenton, and the Burg was a stone's throw away.
She would have preferred never returning to live in such close proximity to her mother and her busy-body neighbours, but some things couldn't be helped. This was the hand she'd been dealt and she was going to do her best to not pick up any more shit cards from the deck. She was already staring at too many of those. Besides, her work was here, so it made sense she was too. Close. Convenient. She just had to keep reminding herself of the positives.
"I can probably get this sorted this afternoon and you can pick up the keys tomorrow morning," Dylan explained as he walked her back downstairs after locking up the apartment, the papers she'd just filled out under his arm.
"So soon?" she asked, looking over at him with a frown. "Is there something wrong with it?"
Dylan shook his head. "It's just been sitting empty for a while. The owner doesn't like empty apartments. More occupancy, more money, right?"
"Right," Steph agreed.
Dylan paused at the door to the superintendent's office and leaned on the handle. "I'll give you a call if there's any issues. If not, I'll see you tomorrow for the keys."
Steph nodded, hitching the strap of her handbag a little higher on her shoulder. "Thank you."
Dylan sent her a smile that lifted only one side of his mouth, the fullness of cheek lifting his glasses so they were slightly askew. "Honestly, having someone in the building who isn't about a week from death on any given day would be a load off my mind. Every time I'm called to investigate a smell, I'm worried I'm gonna find another resident dead on their couch."
Her eyebrows shot up. "Another? How often does that happen?"
"More often than I think is necessary," he assured her. "Once was more than enough for me." At that moment, his cell phone rang and he glanced down at the display. "I should take this."
Steph nodded and he ducked into the office, leaving her to make her way back out to her little red Miata that she'd loved so much when she first bought it, but was now leaving a sick feeling in her stomach. If she didn't figure out how to make a steady income off this fugitive apprehension schtick, she'd be forced to sell the car for rent money far sooner than she cared to think about.
That's why she wanted to bring Joe Morelli in. Well, one of the reasons she wanted to bring Morelli in. The pay off would bolster her bank account enough to put her mind at ease while she continued to figure things out. The fact that she had a visceral reaction the second she saw his name on the file, an urge to be the person to put him back behind bars, was inconsequential .
Slipping behind the wheel, she pulled her phone out of her purse and navigated to the to-do list she'd made in her notes app and crossed off "apartment". One down, what felt like a billion to go. Everytime she got something in her life sorted, something else fell apart, taking more of her than she wanted to give. Her life was completely unrecognisable from what it had been six months ago.
And if she was honest, it looked nothing like she thought it would look like when she was younger and daydreaming about the future. She couldn't quite recall the specifics of those daydreams, but it certainly didn't look like a broke, homeless woman with a tenuous employment agreement. She had a few days left to prove to Vinnie that she could do this job, and she was already doubting her own abilities. Her determination to show Carlos that she didn't need his help would only get her so far without training, so she dialed the number for the twenty-four hour gym Bear had recommended here in Trenton, and organised a session with a trainer for first thing the next morning.
She'd go to the session, collect the keys from Dylan and then go shopping for the things she needed to kit out the new apartment. She was still waiting on the insurance payout from the fire at her old apartment, but if she shopped around and budgeted right she could tick off a couple of the essentials, like a fridge, a bed, and some groceries.
With the plan forming in her head, she pointed the Miata in the direction of the Tasty Pastry. Donuts would help her think, she reasoned, nodding to herself as she got out of the car, and the Tasty Pastry was the only acceptable place to get donuts on this side of town. It had been years since she'd stepped inside, but the second she did, a wave of nostalgia washed over her.
She's spent a lot of time here in high school. She'd lost her virginity here, for crying out loud. But what stuck out to her most, was the memory of Carlos, tucked into a chair in the corner of the shop with a coffee, waiting for her shift to finish so she could drive her home, since she didn't have her own car yet, and her parents needed to use theirs. He didn't think it was safe for her to walk home in the dark. She didn't think it was safe for him to taunt her mother by dropping her off at the curb, but of course, like all things when it came to Helen Plum, he didn't care.
In fact he thought it was funny to wave to her when she inevitably peered out at them from the storm door.
"Ma'am?" the teen behind the counter prompted her, sounding bored, "You gonna order, or what?"
Steph blinked the memories from her mind's eye and focused back on the case of sweets in front of her. "I'll take a Boston Crème," she said automatically. And when they picked up the tongs and headed for the case, she added, "From the front row near the glass, please." The teen gave her a heavy dose of side eye, but she just lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. "I worked here when I was your age," she explained. "I know they're fresher further in."
They shrugged like they didn't care, handed her the pastry bag after ringing her up, and she took it and the bottle of coke she'd grabbed to go with it, over to what she had referred to, at one point in time, as Carlos's chair to continue making her shopping list for the following afternoon.
*o*
The next morning she was a little winded, but feeling pretty good about herself as she made her way from the locker room at the gym to the door that lead to the parking lot. She wasn't as out of shape as she thought she would have been given her dwindling dedication to her physical fitness over the last few years, which was a major win as far as she was concerned. And the techniques that the trainer showed her weren't all that different to those she'd picked up at the self defense classes Deb had dragged her to over the years. She just had to get comfortable initiating them if she had a hope of getting anywhere with this bounty hunting schtick.
She had her hands behind her head, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail as she used her hip to push through the door to the outside world. The bright sunlight temporarily obscured her vision as it peeked over the buildings opposite the gym and straight into her eyes.
Not wanting to cause injury to herself or others due to her temporary blindness, she paused as she finished tying off her hair and dug her sunglasses out of the depths of her handbag. When she could see again, though, she wished she couldn't, because leaning against the side of her red convertible, was none other than Ricardo Carlos Manoso, looking hotter than was reasonable in black basketball shorts and a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, exposing every tense, bulging muscle of his arms where they were crossed over his chest.
Steph stood frozen on the sidewalk, caught between fight and flight, and resisting the urge to lick her lips. There was no way she would allow herself to be attracted to the man who had abandoned her. No way.
The problem was, the attraction was anything but new. She had always enjoyed the sight of him, especially after the summer he was forced to attend military school and came back filled out in all the right ways. Add to that the genuine connection they'd shared and twenty year old Steph had been sure she was in love. The problem was, Carlos had never given her any kind of signal that he felt the same way. They were friends, and nothing more. And the night he'd run away instead of coming to the Phi Beta party where she was planning to confess her feelings for him had ensured that.
"What are you doing here, Ranger?" she demanded, putting a little heat behind his moniker as she finally surged forward, crossing the distance between them. Even as she grew physically closer to him, though, they remained miles apart, separated by the expressionless mask he watched her with.
"This is the gym I go to," he pointed out, holding up a swipe card like the one she'd attached to her own keys a little over an hour ago when she signed up for a membership.
"Go to it, then," she instructed, waving towards the building with one hand as she unlocked the rear passenger door to toss her gym bag inside. "There's no reason for you to be loitering near my car."
"I think we need to talk," Carlos countered, pushing off the driver-side door and turning to watch her over the roof of the car.
Steph narrowed her eyes, slammed the door closed and and fisted her keys as she crossed her arms over her chest. She didn't want to be anywhere near him. And not just because she was still dealing with the renewed anger of his abandonment. The more she looked at the thirty year old version of her best friend, the more she wanted to say fuck it and offer herself up to him for a single night of passion and pleasure. Maybe if she could get the lust for him out of her system she could ignore the rest of her feelings enough to claw back some equilibrium in her life.
"Please, Steph," Carlos uttered solemnly. "Just give me three blocks."
Her forehead crinkled in confusion. "Three blocks?"
He nodded. "When we first met in high school, you were worried about how your mother would react to you hanging out with me, so you'd only let me walk with you for-"
"Three blocks," Steph finished for him, her chest tightening at the reminder of their beginning, while their ending still spiralled through her memories like a tornado, leaving behind a hellscape of devastation that she thought she'd done well to get over. "I remember." She wasn't sure she was ready to start over like that, though. She wasn't the same naive girl, clueless to the power she had to make her life her own. Carlos had laid the foundation for her to break free of that mold, and Deb had ensured the mold was thoroughly shattered and disposed of by the time they graduated college.
The girl Carlos had known was gone. But as she continued to eye the man over the hood of her car, she realised that perhaps the same could be said for him. He wasn't her's any more than she was his, but there was still that insistent pull that tugged at something behind her belly button, urging her towards him, not to mention the insistent tingle on the nape of her neck whenever he was around. She thought she'd imagined it at the diner. Had been too distracted to really take note of it when he'd turned up at Deb and Bear's apartment that evening, but now she couldn't ignore it. It seemed to sizzle against her skin as he held her gaze, waiting for an answer.
"Fine," she finally bit out, clicking the button on her key fob to lock the car and pivoting on her heels to start walking towards the street, leaving Carlos to catch up. At the very least, she could use the three blocks to try to wrap her head around this new version of Carlos.