Disclaimer: All
characters are owned by Janet Evanovich.
I’m borrowing them for my own amusement and am not making any profit
from this story.
AN: This story was inspired
by a comment from Stephannie at the PSFF Group.
Thanks Babe!
Language alert – Some foul language in this one folks…
Never Get Dressed In The Dark
(01/18/08)
It was half-past OhMyGod in the morning when Morelli’s cell phone
rang. He wasn’t moving, so I reached
over and picked it up. “Hello”.
Robin Russell was on the other end, “Sorry Steph, but we need Joe
down on 3rd and Mercer. Some
guy just got ventilated outside the Stop n’Shop.”
“…k, hang on,” I muttered.
Rolling over, I poked Morelli in the back. “Hey, phone,” I said as I pushed it into his
hand.
“Morelli,” he mumbled. He
listened for a minute then added, “… be there in 15.” He threw back the covers and started pulling
on clothes from the floor. “Looks like
I’m gone for the night, Cupcake. I’ll be
up to my ass in paperwork until at least 7am.”
He zipped up his fly and pulled on his t-shirt. He leaned over and kissed my cheek, “I’ll
leave the lights off…go back to sleep.”
“Mm-kay,” I said as I rolled over.
“See you later.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I had just turned in my last body receipt of the day when my phone
rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw
it was Ranger. “Yo,” I said.
“Yo Babe. How is your day
going?”
“Good. I just got my body
receipt for Stella Kowalski a little while ago.
She was eating her way through the chocolate glazed at the Tasty Pastry,
so I picked her up and had a few Boston Cremes at the same time.”
“That stuff will kill you,” Ranger said. I could tell by his voice that he was
amused.
“Yeah, but I’d go with a smile on my face.”
“Bet I could put a smile on your face and I wouldn’t need sugar to
do it,” he said.
There was no doubt in my mind.
I felt like saying something flirty, but I know better than that. Playing with Ranger could be trouble…fun, but
still trouble. “So, what are your plans
for today?” I asked.
“I’m heading back to the office.
You?” he replied.
“I’m close to Pino’s and thought I’d stop in for lunch. Want to join me?”
“Sure, see you there.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Pino’s Pizzeria is the best place in The Burg, maybe all of
Five seconds after I walked through the door, it was as if someone
had hit the mute button. I looked around
the room and everyone was looking at me.
Carl Costanza had stopped with his glass half-way to his mouth. His partner Big Dog was looking at me as if I
had an extra head. I checked myself over
to make sure I didn’t have a boob hanging out or anything, but my clothes were
fine. I spotted Ranger at the booth in
the back and wondered briefly how he always gets there before me. I made my way through the silent room to meet
him.
Once I slid into the booth, the familiar sounds of lunch-time
chatter resumed. I looked over at
Ranger, “What was that about?”
Ranger shrugged, “Don’t know, but I got the same reaction when I
walked in.”
Jean, the lunch-time waitress, stopped by to take our order. She
did the usual once-over on Ranger that all women do and then turned to me, “Hey
Steph. What are you having?”
I looked over to Ranger. “Pepperoni?” He nodded so I added, “A medium Pepperoni and
some beers. Thanks.” Jean wrote up the
order and winked at me. “Nice one on
Morelli,” she said with a grin. Before I
could ask what she meant, she moved over to another table. A few minutes later, a runner dropped off our
beers.
Ranger gave me a mischievous smile. “What’d you do to
Morelli? Put Ex-Lax in his beer?”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?”, I said not even bothering to hold
back the smile. Playful Ranger was a
rare thing.
“Don’t know…would it annoy him?” he asked sipping his beer. “I’d like it if it annoyed him. He annoys me enough.”
I leaned a little over the table and said, “He annoys you? How?”
“Was he in your bed this morning?”
I nodded. “That would do
it.” I sat back and looked at
Ranger. I wouldn’t say he was jealous,
exactly, but there was definitely an edge.
“He’s in my bed a lot of mornings.
Didn’t seem to bother you before.”
“You weren’t paying attention.”
We didn’t say much after that, mostly because I didn’t know what
to say and Ranger doesn’t do small talk.
Jean brought our pizza and left the check on the table. I had gotten about half-way through my second
piece when Carl sauntered over.
“Steph,” he said. He nodded
to Ranger, who nodded back.
“Hey Carl, what’s up?”
“Seen Morelli yet today?” he asked.
“Nope, not since 2:00 this morning. Why?”
“You want to stay clear of Morelli for awhile, Ok?” He looked over at Ranger, “If you got
business out of town, now would be a good time to check it out.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Carl looked uneasy and shifted on his feet. “Look Steph, you know I love you like a
little sister, but this time…I gotta side with Morelli. What you did went way over the line this
time.”
That didn’t tell me a thing.
“And what is it that I did, exactly?” I said.
Carl just shook his head and stepped back. “I don’t want to get in the middle of it,
Steph. Just, steer clear OK?” He turned and walked back to the bar to sit
with Big Dog.
Ranger and I exchanged puzzled looks. I did a mental inventory of my last encounter
with Morelli. It was
same-old-same-old. He came over, we ate
some meatball subs and watched the game.
We had sex. He got called and
left. Nope, nothing different than a
hundred other nights.
“I smell smoke,” chuckled Ranger.
I gave him my sweetest smile, “Bite me.”
A wicked grin crossed his face.
“Don’t tempt me.” I could feel
myself blush. He always did this to
me. Before Ranger started flirting with
me awhile back, I hadn’t blushed since 7th grade. Now, just a sexy grin or double-entendre and
I was beet red. I flipped him off, which
only amused him more.
I heard a few of the cops at the bar yell “Eddie!” so I turned to
see my friend Eddie Gazarra walk into the room.
Eddie was married to my cousin Shirley-the Whiner, which should have
earned him a special commendation with the department. My family considered him a hero. I waved Eddie over to our table and he
hesitated a moment when he spotted Ranger, but made his way over. I motioned him to take a seat and he slid in
beside me.
He gave Ranger a nervous glance and then turned to me. “Steph,
why’d you do it? You had to know it
would send him over the edge.”
“Maybe if you told me what I did, I’d have an explanation. Last time I saw Morelli it was 2:00 in the
morning and he was leaving.”
Eddie frowned, “So maybe you didn’t do it on purpose then.”
I was getting the urge to smack someone. “Would you just freakin’ tell me what this is
about?!”
“Morelli was called out to 3rd and Mercer this morning
for a homicide,” he began. “As he was
leaving the scene, the coroner’s wagon hit a deep pothole and splashed oily
water all over him.”
Ranger looked interested in this, and I still wasn’t getting how I
was involved, but I said, “OK, I’m following so far. Then what happened?”
Eddie cleared his throat and shifted a little. “So, Morelli heads
back to the station to change clothes.
He went into the locker room and everything was OK for a few
minutes. Pretty soon, though, he started
swearing in two languages.”
I kind of cringed a little. When Morelli starts swearing in
Italian, he’s usually ready to do someone damage. Eddie saw my face and said, “Yeah, you know
how that can be. Anyway, I know some
Italian,” he glanced over at Ranger and cleared his throat again, “and ‘killing
that cazzo di merda’ was probably the cleanest thing that came out of his
mouth.”
OK, so Morelli was having a hissy fit about something. Why he would threaten to ‘kill the fucking
prick’ and who he was talking about is beyond me. “Eddie, I still don’t know how I’m involved
in this.”
Eddie replied, “Well, I was getting to that. So, Carl & Big Dog went in to see what
was going on with Morelli and found him standing next to his locker wearing
just his white gym socks and holding up a pair of black underwear.”
I had to think about this for a second. Morelli doesn’t own any black underwear. It was dark when we got undressed last night,
but I was pretty sure Morelli had blue boxer briefs. And, I had on a green thong, but….Oh crap! I felt sick to my stomach and pushed my plate
away.
Ranger looked at me, “Babe, you OK? You’re looking a little green.” I knew I had to hear the rest, but I didn’t
know if I wanted Ranger to hear it.
Eddie kept on with the story, “Carl & Big Dog walked up to
Morelli and went to ask him what was wrong when he turned his back to them and
punched the locker next to his. Left a
big-ass dent in it. Instead of talking
to Morelli they turned around and walked out – figured it was safer. When we asked them what his problem was, Carl
said that Morelli had “underwear issues.”
Ranger raised an eyebrow, “Underwear issues?”
Eddie shifted in his seat, “Uh, apparently the underwear that
Morelli was holding was women’s boyshorts that had ‘RANGEMAN’ written on the
butt in red.”
Ranger was nonplussed for a moment and then threw back his head
and laughed. This wasn’t a chuckle
either, but a full-on belly laugh. The
visual of Morelli in my Rangeman boyshorts made me nauseous, but apparently
Ranger thought it was hysterical. He
looked at me, still laughing, “Babe, you want to add anything here?”
“It wasn’t my fault!!” I practically yelled. “I only wear them in an emergency when I
haven’t done laundry. So I had them on
yesterday morning, but I was dressing quickly and I kicked them off on the
floor when I went to shower, and I guess I forgot to pick them up! Morelli must have grabbed them when he was
getting dressed in the dark.”
Eddie looked between me and Ranger. He leaned over and whispered to me, “Why are
you wearing Ranger’s name on your ass?”
“It’s his housekeeper!” I said, pointing at Ranger. “She writes his name on everything!” He, of course,
said nothing. All the sexy jerk did was
grin at me. This whole situation was
obviously amusing the hell out of him.
“You two got a thing goin’?” asked Eddie motioning between me and
Ranger.
I looked across the table at Ranger. Did we have a thing going? We had a….something. We were friends. We had each other’s back (well, mostly Ranger
had my back), and there was some flirting.
So, there was a hell of a lot of flirting and some kissing
occasionally. Ok, and there was some
groping…sometimes. He was the first
person I thought of in the morning and the last person I thought of before I
went to sleep. When my locks tumbled in the
middle of the night, I knew who it was.
Sometimes he came in to talk about work, sometimes just to sit and take
a break and talk about nothing at all.
When someone asked me who the best person I knew was – he was the first
person that came to mind. When something
bad happened, my first instinct was to call him. For help, for safety, just because I wanted
him to tell me it was going to be OK.
And he did…and it was.
“Steph?” Eddie said with a little nudge.
I looked at Ranger and wished I could read his mind. What answer would he give? Ranger smiled at me and gave me a little
shrug. This could mean “Yes, Babe we
have a thing” or it could mean, “I don’t know” or hell, it could mean his
shoulder holster was itching. Finally, I
turned to Gazarra and said, “I’m not sure how to answer that one, Eddie.”
“Cripes,” said Eddie. “I
think you just did.” He looked over at
Ranger. “You know what you’re getting
into, Manoso?” Ranger nodded. “And
you’re OK with it?” Ranger gave me a
sexy smirk and nudged my foot under the table.
Eddie extended his hand to Ranger and Ranger shook it, “Well, you’re one
of the good guys so I know she’ll be alright .
Keep her clear of Morelli, yeah?”
“I’ll make sure she stays safe,” Ranger said.
Eddie leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Behave,” he said, then he got up and went
back to the bar.
Ranger leaned over the table slightly, “What do you want to do
here, Babe? If Morelli’s as pissed as
they say, you aren’t going back to your apartment alone. I can go, or I can send Tank with you.”
“Morelli won’t hurt me.
He’s not that type of guy.” Ranger
raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He’s not,
seriously. Stuff might get broken or
thrown across the room, but he’s not a hitter.”
I let out a sigh. I did not want
to fight with Joe. The underwear was a
stupid accident. I really only did wear
them when all of my others weren’t clean.
I’m the one who left them on the floor, but Joe’s the one who put them
on and didn’t notice they weren’t his.
And if he really couldn’t tell the difference, maybe I need to make use
of Rangeman’s gym. I looked down at my
stomach – it could probably be smaller.
“You’re stomach’s fine.
Morelli didn’t notice it because he was in a hurry and he was half
asleep.”
I looked up at Ranger and he was giving me the half-smile. “I think I’d like to borrow one of your
apartments tonight, OK?” I asked. “I’ll
catch up with Joe tomorrow.” That should give Morelli some time to cool off.
“One of my apartments or
my apartment?” asked Ranger.
I gave that some thought.
What did Ranger’s apartment have the the 4th floor
didn’t? Well, for one it had
Ranger. Hard to beat that. It also had 1000 thread count sheets and it
had Bulgari in the shower. It also had
Ella delivering both dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow. Ok, so I was justifying.
“Have you put in a guest room yet?”
“Babe,” he said as he laid a $20 bill on the check. “Let’s get out of here and you can figure out
the sleeping arrangements later.”
That was Ranger’s way of giving me an out. He doesn’t do it often so I took it. “Thanks.”
We got up and headed toward the front. Ranger had his hand on my lower back and he
reached around to open the door for me. He ushered me over to the Porsche Turbo and opened the door
for me. “What about my car?”
“Leave it. I’ll have one of
my men pick it up.” He slid in behind
the wheel and fired up the engine. He
laid his hand on my thigh as we motored out of the parking lot.
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