I Don't Have a Lot of Domestic Instincts

This story is the 3rd in a series. It can be read as a standalone, but if you want the backstory of how everybody got to where they are now, Start with If I Put My Mind to It and then Ruining You For All Other Men. If you want to know the characters better, they're all playing around in a series of One Shots called Maybe You Should Teach Him to Bark.

Only Adrian and 32 are mine; any other recognizable characters belong to Janet Evanovich, but I'm just borrowing them for fun.

PROLOGUE – last week of June

STEPHANIE

"Once that's up and running, then we'll be able to fully utilize the Microsoft Suite, plus we can create additional teams for brainstorming both for temporary assignments as well as long-term, like all the Managing Directors, to give them a place to store the documents via One Drive and make them easily accessible to each other, as well as keep records of the conversation."

Hector had been going on and on about this damned Sharepoint, Microsoft, One Drive software conversion we'd been going through these past few months. And while I appreciated every single thing that he did to save the company money and resources while increasing communication and productivity, I was beginning to wonder why I couldn't just fucking read a report on this after the fact. It was times like these I wished I wasn't on the Leadership Core Team. I took a sip of water and my eyes slid slowly closed. I was so tired. Ranger and I had taken turns waking each other up overnight, and I was now starting to regret the lack of sleep. I'll just rest my eyes for just a second and then maybe beg off for a bathroom break and snag a cup of coffee on my way back to the Conference Room. Yeah, that's a good plan.

I jolted in my chair and sucked in a quick breath. Seven sets of eyes met mine, and I realized with a start that Hector was no longer at the front of the room, but Bobby was, with a presentation on the screen that showed Rangeman Atlanta's overall fitness review scores. Holy shit, how long was I asleep? I tried to non-chalantly shuffle my papers to get onto the same report we were discussing, but for the life of me, I couldn't find it. Ranger relaxed his blank face just long enough to send me a sexy smirk. He was taking this as a damn compliment. Well, he wasn't wrong. But still, couldn't he have a little humility?

An hour later, the meeting finally ended, and since it was after 6, I decided to call it a day and headed up to the Penthouse. Ranger said he would be up in 15, so I set two places at the bar top and debated if I should open a bottle of wine. I had a Cabernet Sauvignon that I'd been dying to try. I peeked under the foil on the dish and decided on water when I saw the seafood medley pasta I loved so much. Ella had taken months to make a sauce similar to alfredo, that wasn't completely fat and calorie laden. Of course, I still indulged every now and then, but for the most part, I stayed on top of my diet to keep my tummy happy. I slid salads onto the counter and sat down on the couch to wait for Ranger. Clicking on the TV, I immediately locked in on my favorite guilty pleasure, Bachelor in Paradise. They'd brought Demi back this season, and stirring shit up is what she does best. It might not bring Demi love, but it brings great entertainment for the viewers. Two ridiculously hot people were doing some sort of tantric breathing date. This show is gold.

Next thing I know, I opened my eyes to a dark, quiet living room. I sat up and realized the thick blanket from the back of the couch was tucked around me, and my shoes were sitting on the floor beside me. The television was off, all the lights were off, except for the one over the sink in the kitchen, and I was starving. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes to see the clock on the cable box. 11:21pm. Holy shit! How in the hell did I just sleep for five hours?! Where is Ranger? Why didn't he wake me?

I made my way into the kitchen and saw two plates stacked in the sink. In the fridge, was a foil covered plate and my salad, covered in plastic wrap. I pulled them both out, tossed the pasta into the microwave, and tore off the plastic to chow down on the salad. I grabbed a fork and carried the bowl to the open bedroom door. Ranger was in the center of the bed, lying facedown on his stomach, naked from the waist up and covered with a sheet from the waist down. The slow rise and fall of his back told me he was really asleep. The microwaved beeped, so I quickly went back to the kitchen to finish off my dinner. Ten minutes later, I was pleasantly full, and I stripped and slid into bed next to Ranger. He immediately rolled and curled his body around mine, but he didn't wake.

I was just getting out of the shower when Ranger came up from the gym the next morning.

"You know," I said. "It's Saturday. You can take a day off every now and then."

"Babe," he said, smiling. "We just had time completely offline a few weeks ago. I was thinking we should at least wait until next quarter to schedule another trip." He pulled off his shirt and tossed it into the hamper, and I made no effort to hide my ogling as he walked into the shower.

I followed him into the bathroom and continued talking while he lathered.

"Sorry I fell asleep on you last night. Why didn't you wake me."

"You were sleeping like the dead, Babe. I tried to wake you when I got home, after I ate, and before I went to bed."

"Damn," I said. "Maybe we shouldn't have sex on worknights."

"Negative," Ranger said.

I gave him a cheeky grin. He knew that was as much a punishment for me as it was for him. I only debated for about half a second before I tossed my pajamas in the direction of the hamper and joined him in the shower. The weekend ended abruptly with a break-in at one of our major accounts in Boston, and Ranger decided he wanted to handle it personally, since it was a long-time client, and one of the first ones to sign after that branch opened up. In Trenton, it was business as usual, though we were currently running without Tank since he'd taken a long vacation and then was spending some time at the Miami office to see some of the day-to-day for himself. I'd been surprised when Ranger told me the plan, but I knew Tank was originally from the south and probably was pretty keen to get back there.

Of course, Tank and Ranger both being gone met that the Payroll and HR paperwork would fall to me. I was hoping that Ranger would make it back before the 4th of July early next week. Desk work was my least favorite part of the job, so I made plans to head out with the apprehension team tonight. I was heading for the breakroom for a mid-morning cup of coffee when Bones stopped me in the hallway.

"Steph," he said. "There's a delivery in the lobby for you, Ma'am."

"Okay," I said, not sure why this was something that I needed to know about. Although, last time the Front Desk called up for me to come personally receive a delivery, we'd discovered Adrian had ordered a mail-order bride. I'd hoped that 32 would teach Adrian some manners, but we quickly learned she was the more devious of the two! It had been several months since their last stunt, and I was finally beginning to think we'd managed to train them, at least away from doing shit like pulling fire alarms and using voice software to impersonate people. Yeah, I'm not joking. That actually happened.

"It appears to be a food order," Bones continued. "And it's, um, cash on delivery, Ma'am." He shuffled his feet and looked a little embarrassed.

"Let me grab my wallet and I'll be right down," I said, making the about-face to my office. We entered the elevator together and Bones pressed the button for the ground floor. "Doesn't the desk keep some cash on hand?" I asked.

"We do," he said. "But this is a rather large order."

I stepped off the elevator and my eyes went wide. Stacked on the counter were six large white bags and 4 pizza boxes, all stamped with the very familiar and homey Pino's logo. I looked at the delivery driver and raised my eyebrow. Yes, I finally learned how to do it!

"That'll be $183.94, please," he said. I handed over $220 in cash and thanked him. Once he was gone, I turned to Bones.

"Leave Ray at the desk and help me carry these up to the breakroom, I guess."

"Are we celebrating something?" He asked as he started picking up the bags.

"Not that I know of," I said. "What was the name on the order?"

"Stephanie," he replied. "See here on the receipt – it says Stephanie at Rangerman.

"RangERman?"

"Maybe they heard you wrong?"

The doors opened and we exited, carrying the bags and boxes across the Control Room floor and into the break room. Once we set it down, there were at least 6 men poking their heads in, wondering what was going on. I pulled out one of the containers and opened it. Meatball sub.

We had 4 Meat Extravaganza pizzas and 30 meatball subs. I was just thinking Les probably would do something like this when he came strolling in.

"Ordering in for the office, Beautiful? What's the occasion?"

"I figured you ordered this," I said.

"Not me, Beautiful."

A flurry of wings interrupted what I'd planned to say next.

"32!" Adrian cried. "Food's here!"

"Adrian!" I said. "Did you order this?"

"No," he said, bowing his head, and tipping it from side to side, almost like he was shaking his head. "No Pretty Stephanie."

"Do you know who did?" Lester asked.

"Snitches get stitches," Adrian said in a singsong voice.

Cal opened the freezer and pulled out one of the frozen whole chickens Ella used to make soup. "And birds get eaten, fucker. Start talking."

"It wasn't me I swear!" he cawed. "It was 32!"

We all looked around, but 32 was nowhere to be seen. I blew out a sigh. "Well, no sense in letting them go to waste," I said. "Can we call this a Sharepoint Project Celebration and give them to the men?"

Les and Cal both nodded their agreement, and I went out to tell the men on the monitors so they could spread the word. I sent them in to grab a bite while I watched the monitors. Fifteen minutes later, I headed back into the Breakroom. Ace was there, looking sternly at 32 and Adrian.

"No more calls. No more credit cards. No more cash on delivery. No ordering ANYTHING! Got it?"

"Yes, Master," Adrian said.

"Si, senor," 32 said, and I marveled that a damn bird was bi-lingual.

"I'm going to start working with them every day again," Ace said to Les and Cal, who were both chowing down on a sub.

Cal nodded, and Les broke off a piece of his sandwich and set it on the table in front of 32 and Adrian.

"Gracias," 32 said primly and began eating.

"Can I ask a question?" Adrian said. He took our silence as affirmation and continued. "What did the chicken do wrong?"

Lester and I burst out laughing and Cal rolled his eyes. I grabbed a sub and headed back to my office. I needed to complete some employee reviews before the take down tonight, so I closed the door behind me and settled into my desk chair. Eagerly I opened the container and picked up the sub. I bit into it and chewed slowly, fully prepared to savor the entire experience. And yet, somehow it didn't elicit my normal reaction. I swallowed and tried another bite. This time, my nose actually wrinkled and I had to work hard to actually swallow the meatball. I opened the sandwich and inspected it – meatballs, sauce, cheese, everything looked ok. Maybe the sauce went bad or something.

I gave it a quick sniff and my stomach churned. I dropped the sandwich, caring less where it landed and dashed into the small bathroom Ranger had insisted we install in my office. I'd been against it at first, but since I was the only female that regularly worked on the floor, I had to agree, it did kind of make sense to have it. Today, I was immensely glad the bathroom was only steps away. And private. When I finally got my stomach to stop retching, I rinsed out my mouth at the sink and splashed some cold water on my face. I returned to my desk and quickly scooped the sandwich off my desk and into the trashcan. I used a couple Clorox wipes to clean off the grease it left behind and headed out of my office. The floor looked like everything was running business as usual as I meandered towards the Monitors. Brett and Ram spotted me first.

"Thanks, Steph!" Brett said.

"Yeah, Bomber, for real. That was awesome!" Ram said.

"You're welcome," I said. "Everything good? Taste ok?" I got nods from Brett and Ram as well as 3 other guys who happened to be walking past adding their thanks.

OK, so maybe it was just mine that was bad. Oh well. I went back to my office to finish the reviews and a thought niggled at the back of my brain. No way. What are the chances?

I finished three complete reviews before I finally gave up and headed back into the bathroom. I rummaged under the sink, sending up a prayer of thanks that Ella seriously plans for every single remote possibility. Tampons, pads, pantyliners, personal cleaning wipes, an entire extra uniform with bra, panties, and shoes, and finally I spied the little blue box I was looking for. I read the instructions, pulled down my pants and waited for the performance anxiety to pass.

When I finished, I washed my hands and walked back to my desk. The instructions said 5 minutes, so I might as well catch up on some emails. I had just sat down when Les came barreling through my door.

"Steph!"

I jumped to my feet. "What's wrong?"

"It's Manny. He was running a patrol on Sloan Street and caught a slug in the leg. They're prepping him for surgery. Bobby's in route and I'm heading there now, and I figured you'd want to come."

I grabbed my messenger bag and followed him down the stairs at a sprint. The drive to the hospital was so slow it was excruciating, as Bobby was texting updates that he couldn't get any access to Manny or his physicians. The charge nurse was out on vacation, and the replacement was from another hospital across the river in Pennsylvania. She wasn't familiar with the process for a Medial Power of Attorney being an organization instead of a person, and she wasn't budging on letting Bobby have any information. Well, since she wasn't from here and didn't know Rangeman, that also meant she didn't know me.

"I'm here!" I said, bustling up to the counter. "I'm here. Where's my husband?"

"You're Mrs. Manuel Ramos?" she asked, looking me up and down. I flashed my wedding set at her, and her eyes got huge.

"Take me to my husband!" I demanded. She motioned for me to follow, and Bobby and Les were hot on my heels.

"Family only," she said.

"Bobby is Manuel's personal physician," I said easily. "And Lester is my emotional support therapist. I can't go anywhere without him, or I will have a panic attack." Sometimes I surprise myself with the lies that come tumbling out of my mouth. This one sounded pretty fucking good though.

She nodded slowly. "Right this way."

We quickly learned that Manny's injury wasn't life-threatening, and the surgery would only take about an hour. While we waited, I texted an update to Ranger and then the rest of the Core Team. Once Manny was out of surgery, settled into his room, and resting comfortably, Les and I made our way back to Haywood.

"Well, that was a dramatic afternoon," Lester said.

"Indeed," I agreed. "Here's hoping things are quiet for a bit."

We stepped off the elevator and saw Adrian and 32 in their normal perch on the cubicle walls. Junior walked past them, and I heard 32's delicate voice over Adrian's wing flapping.

"Are you pregnant?" she asked Junior.

He laughed and shook his head, not even slowing his stride.

Rodriguez walked by and got the same question, responding with a simple "Nope."

Lester laughed. "I wonder if they found a website or a book about the birds and the bees," he said as he walked towards them. I followed since it was on the way to my office. When we got closer, I noticed Adrian had something clutched in his beak.

"Are you pregnant, Clown?" 32 asked.

"Negative," Lester replied as Adrian flew towards me. I put my right arm up instinctually and he landed on my forearm. My eyes went wide when I realized what it was that he had clamped in his beak, and I reached up with my left hand to grab it. My heart was hammering in my chest when I flipped it over and looked at the little screen, and the tiny word written in the center.

Pregnant.