Just As Quiet When I Leave (2/3): Stephanie Plum
Title: Just As Quiet When I Leave (2/3 of the Quiet Series)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2016
Pairing/Charcter: Ranger/Stephanie
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Janet Evanovich. I’m only borrowing for fun.
Summary: Ranger’s POV, immediately following Lean Mean Thirteen. Part 2 of 3 of the Quiet series, follows Oh, Lately It’s So Quiet: the first time I was aware that I was no longer just business Ranger or street Ranger was right around the time I realized Stephanie Plum wasn’t going anywhere
Spoilers/Warnings: up to Lean Mean Thirteen just to be safe
Author’s Note: Ask and ye shall receive - that’s how it goes, right? Not only did y’all get a sequel but y’all got a story arc. They’ll be one more Quiet story to follow this one - I hoped to get across another side of Ranger in this one. I’d love to know what you think!
You may hate me, but I'll remember to love you. Goodbye - don't cry - you know why? It'll be just as quiet when I leave as it was when I first got here. I don't expect anything - Quiet, Rachael Yamagata
There was a time when the only reason anyone called me was for business. Calls about job requests, jobs pending, jobs past. No one called about anything but business -- because that’s all I was. There was little to no personal Ranger. He didn’t exist. There was business Ranger, predator Ranger, street Ranger, with-the-family Ranger, sexual Ranger - at the girl of choice’s place, never at mine - but there was no personal Ranger.
I never had the desire to be personal with anyone. Sure, some of my guys saw me off the clock. Same with my family. But they didn’t seem to know me. They were always a little wary - I could see it in their eyes. Always a little unsure of who I was, who I could be. I never gave them much of a reason to end their speculation. I was a lone wolf, just another stranger to those I was with almost every day.
The first time I was aware that I was no longer just business Ranger or street Ranger was right around the time I realized Stephanie Plum wasn’t going anywhere. Of course, that’s who drew personal Ranger out of me. And while I firmly believe I have absolute control over my life, sometimes personal Ranger would get the best of me and dole out little tidbits that could be deemed dangerous in the wrong hands. Like when I told Stephanie about my daughter. I went home that night and wondered what the hell I was thinking. I hardly knew her at the time. And hardly anyone knew about Julie at the time. And later, the whole friggin’ nation would know about Julie and Stephanie would be one of the few that wasn’t surprised.
She still doesn’t understand what an important group she was a part of.
Since then, I’ve allowed her small insights into my life. I’ve told her about Celia and about my scary Grandma Rosa. I’ll be the first to admit that I absolutely keep her at arms’ length but she’s privy to things about me that hardly anyone else knows. She’s not my best friend in the way that Tank is and she doesn’t know what makes me tick in the way my brother Alec does but there are times when she looks at me and I swear, she can see my soul.
I still don’t know how she managed to make me … human. That’s really the only way I can describe it. If I had to guess, it would probably be the little things she does. Like the messages she leaves on my answering machine. I saved her “are you ok?” message for months after the Ramos situation. I laugh out loud at the occasional “you’re nuts” message I get when I’m trying to protect her. I try hard not to smile when she tells me to get a grip at odd hours of the night because there’s a man outside her door.
Tonight, I was the man outside her door. I was fed up with all the personal calls to my cell phone. From everyone. RangeMen, street informants, Connie. I hated that I was no longer business Ranger when it came to Stephanie and 95% of Trenton knew it. Apparently, the latest break-up between Stephanie and Morelli had the markings of being permanent and everyone in Trenton wanted to let me know.
It wasn’t that I wanted her just for sex, although that’s what I’m sure everyone else thought. I also wanted her for her intelligence, for her humor, for her. It was just that I didn’t know how to convey that to her and make us stick. We were two different breeds of people, like oil and water. Always floating nearby, never mixing. She didn’t know how to shut down parts of herself and I didn’t know how to open up.
And, ok, fine. The sex was damn good.
I told her once to go back to Morelli. She followed my advice as best she could but I also had told her that I was an opportunist. I planned on following my own advice as far as she’d let me tonight.
She was curled up in a blanket on her couch, watching Ghostbusters like a zombie. The break-up was already two days old but I still searched her cheeks for tell tale signs of tears. I found none and instead, received a small smile as I shucked my shoes by the door. I sat down next to her and put an arm behind her, along the couch’s end, not touching her. She snuggled into me, like I had hoped, and kept watching the movie.
We didn’t speak until the credits were almost done and a clock ticking was the only sound in her apartment.
“What’s up?” she asked me.
“Just wanted to see how you were,” I answered and it was a half truth.
She shrugged. “Fine, I guess. It’s been a long time in coming.”
I stayed silent, the blue screen illuminating her face with an eerie glow. I flashed back to a few weeks ago, when I was alone in my apartment after the Dickie debacle. I had thought about her and us and imagined things I could say to her, to change the way we were. Now, she was right in front of me, single and waiting, and I couldn’t think of one thing to say.
Stephanie started tracing patterns on my bicep, soft barely there circles that did not go barely noticed by my body. I placed a hand over hers. “Be careful, babe,” I warned and there was an edge to my voice.
Her hand dropped.
We sat in silence for a few more minutes. She turned from leaning her back against me to facing me, sitting cross legged on the couch, still wrapped in blankets. “Why did you make that deal with me? The one night deal in exchange for helping me with DeChooch?”
The question was out of left field and left me speechless. I was torn with simply not answering and answering with a flippant answer when a small part of my brain urged me to answer honestly. I was aware that this could be a first step to rectifying all the problems I had identified between us a few weeks ago, the first step towards both giving her what she needed and getting what I wanted. It scared me.
“Honestly?”
Stephanie nodded.
“I thought it was the only way you’d actually go through with it and sleep with me. We’d been dancing around it for so long, I thought if it was in your face, you’d either accept it or run far away. It wasn’t my finest hour,” I told her and I meant it. “And then, I thought after we finally got the obvious attraction out of the way, we could go our separate ways. Be done with it.”
“You told me to go back to Morelli,” she accused. “Was that all part of the plan? To do me and be done with me?”
“Yes.” I saw the flash of hurt in her eyes, the way she shrunk back from me slightly with just one word. “I can’t give you what he can. What you need. I’ve always known that.”
“What do I need?” Stephanie asked, her eyes narrowing. I recognized this as a major warning sign that Hurricane Stephanie was on its way but I was in far too deep now.
I listed the things I had drafted in my mind weeks ago. “A stable home life, unrestricted love, the option of a family.” I left out the bit about a man who would allow her desire to fly. I was already that guy.
“Why can’t you give me these things?” her voice cracked and naked emotion danced across her face. There were so many emotions there I was not used to seeing on anyone’s face when they looked at me. Love, trust, desire, apprehension, fear. None were a surprise to me but very few were deserved of me. When I didn’t answer her question, she continued. “Why can’t you give me these things because you want to? You do want to, don’t you?”
I sighed, hating the words that were spilling out of my mouth but having no earthly power to stop them. “My life is extremely dangerous. There’s no guarantee I will be alive in the next five years to support you or a family. I’m a private person and I have a very hard time opening up to people, letting them in to my life. I’ve done horrible things in the past that would make your stomach turn. Believe me, you’re better off with someone like Morelli.” Excuses, excuses I told myself. You’re doing it again. And suddenly, I was extremely angry. And I wasn’t sure if it was with her for forcing me to confront these issues or myself for making them issues.
“You, of all people, should know better than to tell me how I’m better off.” She spoke with cold fury and climbed out of the blankets and off the couch. She was wearing a pair of short shorts and a cotton tank top. I felt my body react immediately.
I followed her towards the bedroom. I stopped her at the threshold, holding her arm like a vise. “Don’t make this harder than it already is Stephanie,” I told her in a low, dangerous voice and now I knew. I was mad at myself for being unwilling to try.
“I’m not making this anything, Ranger. As far as I can tell, you seem to have it all figured out.” She took a ragged breath, her eyes cobalt with anger. As I watched her lips part, getting ready to verbally flay me, I felt something inside of me snap. I pressed my lips against hers harder than necessary, my tongue angrily seeking entrance, my teeth nipping at her bottom lip. She hesitated for less than a second before flinging her arms around my neck and bringing us flush against each other with a passion that almost knocked me backwards.
I walked her blindly to the bed and had her divested of her clothes in a second. I wasn’t giving her a chance to stop this or my brain time to catch up and realize this was a Bad Idea. It felt so good to be this close to her after months of imagining. Her hands were everywhere, touching, stroking, kneeding. My control was at a very fine line.
Her bedroom was deathly quiet, with the exception of Stephanie’s heavy breathing and low moans. As she thrashed on her sheets, I drew her to the edge and watched with lidded eyes as she flushed pink under my skillful hands. It was exactly as I remembered and not something I’d forget for a long time.
When it was all over, Stephanie fell asleep curled into my side. One hand was tucked into her chest, the other possessively across my chest. I laid there next to her for a few minutes, relaxed and boneless, listening to Rex run on his wheel and Stephanie’s even breathes.
Slowly, the fury I had felt at myself returned. Stephanie had handed me a silver platter of ways I could fix everything between us tonight and I had simply returned it with the same excuses I always had. This was the golden opportunity I hadn’t known how to find a few weeks ago, the beginning of a long future with the only person that ever haunted my quiet apartment, and I had let it slip through my hands because I was all thoughts and no action.
Because I was a coward.
Because I had finally found someone who made me vulnerable and I was unable - no, unwilling - to allow someone that kind of power over me.
Because business Ranger always won.
I untangled myself from Stephanie, ignored her sleepy sigh of protest, and put all my clothes back on. The only sound I heard was a roaring in my ears as I left her apartment.