Always a Ranger - Part 23
A Friend in Need
By Jeannine Trevizo
Once the team
had split up after the latest threat, Tommy turned and headed home. After
everything that had happened recently, he’d been sidetracked into skipping his
calls to Kim. When he got home, he saw the tell tale signs that he had two
messages waiting for him as he walked into his living room.
Sighing, he
ran a hand through his short locks and picked up the phone without bothering to
listen to them. He had a pretty good idea who they were from. Walking to the
kitchen, he dialed Kim’s number and cradled the phone to his ear with his
shoulder as he opened the refrigerator with one hand, the other reaching in to
grab a MGD from his left over stock from his visit with Zack and Adam.
Which
reminded him that he still hadn’t called to see if either of them had gotten a
job offer from their San Francisco trip.
As Kim’s
phone rang, Tommy scrounged the freezer for a frozen pizza and turned on the
oven. The life of a bachelor wasn’t the greatest, and while he could cook,
cooking for one person wasn’t any fun. Still, he just had to wait until Kim
moved in, and his cooking problems would be half solved.
Finally, just
as Kim’s machine began to pick up, he heard her frenzied voice on the other
end. It was a bit strange, hearing her recorded message and her at the same
time. Sort of like a Doublemint gum commercial.
“Tommy? Hold
on, I have to turn off the machine,” Kim said as her recorded voice announced
she wasn’t available and to leave a message. Finally she returned after a short
squelching sound pierced his eardrum as the machine shut off. “Hey there
handsome. Where have you been? I’ve called like…”
“A few
times,” Tommy interrupted humorously. “I saw there were two messages on the
machine, and I’ve been busy so I assumed…”
“That I had
called and left a few messages. Yeah, guilty as charged. You know why though…”
“I do, and
I’m sorry Kim. We had some stuff going on and I got sidetracked,” Tommy
replied, chagrined as he sat at the kitchen table and pried the top off his
beer.
“Just like
always,” Kim said with a light tone, a smile obvious in it. “Still, I get
worried. After the last time you didn’t call…”
“No,
actually, Trent’s been keeping himself scarce these days. I don’t know if
that’s good or bad.”
“Any luck on
breaking the evil imprint on his dino gem?” Kim asked, curious.
“Not that I
know of. Hayley’s put it on her list of things to do, but we have had other
recent concerns… ones that took precedence since Trent seemed to be out of the
picture at the moment.”
“You mean
Zeltrax.”
“Come on Kim.
You need to look at this from my point of view. If it was me in trouble, and
you could keep me safe…” Tommy tried to suggest, hoping that his innate
understanding of the woman he loved was still as accurate as it had been for
the last nine years.
“I would do
what you’re doing now,” Kim said resigned. “God, how do we keep getting into
things like this?”
“Well, it
helps that I have a uniform these days,” he joked.
“And a very
flattering one at that. I’m still looking forward to seeing just how easy it is
to take off without unmorphing you know.”
Tommy groaned
and licked his lips as he imagined his petite lover doing just that. Before he
knew it, his mind was threatening to run away with the images, and he took a
long gulp on his beer to cool off his slightly rising temperature and wet his
dry mouth. Just then the oven beeped to let him know it had reached the
prescribed temperature for his food to begin cooking.
“You are a
wicked woman, you know that Kim?” he said as he went and opened the oven,
shoving the pizza inside, letting the door slam shut.
“I’ve just
been without my lover for too long now,” she answered with a smoky voice that
made Tommy wish he could just ignore Mesogog and his plans to change Earth into
a dinosaur paradise and run to her.
“I know what
you mean.”
“So what had
you all sidetracked this week?”
“Kira got an
internship with the local TV station, and Mesogog’s thugs kidnapped one of the
kiddie show characters to turn into the latest monster.”
“Oh no… but
you rescued everybody, right?”
“Don’t we
always? But yeah, we did. Unfortunately in the process Kira almost got found
out – she forgot there were video surveillance cameras in the room when she
morphed,” Tommy explained, taking another sip of his beer and checking his
watch to see how much longer he had on his dinner.
“How did you
guys make sure no one saw the footage?” Kim asked, surprised that Kira had been
so reckless, and then shrugged it off. The new yellow ranger did have that careless
trait, just like she did.
“Luck. Devin,
one of my students who is also interning at the station had a tape of the
surveillance cameras, but he ended up dropping it into a punch bowl.”
“Video tape
flavored punch anyone? Ugh.” Kim laughed, and then turned serious. “So once you
rescued the TV show person, everything got fixed?”
“Kira was
thinking about quitting the internship, but changed her mind. I guess that she
decided to stick with it. Sort of like giving the thing a second chance…” Tommy
started, and then trailed off as he realized where he was unconsciously
heading.
“Tommy, is
there something you want to tell me? You can talk to me about anything you
know.”
“I told the
team about you and me.”
“What do
you…”
“Conner asked
me about what Hayley said to you about you breaking my heart,” he explained,
taking another gulp of his drink and then opening the oven door to peek at his
dinner.
“Oh,” she
said simply, silence filling up the line for a moment before she continued,
“and what did you tell them?”
“That you and
I had broken up a long time ago, and that I got luckier than I deserved when we
were able to find our way back together.”
“I think we
were both lucky,” Kim remarked, her voice filling with the love she felt for
this man.
“Well, it’s
all in the past anyway. I got my second chance to have you back in my life, and
as I told Jason, I wasn’t going to do anything to need a third one.”
Kim laughed
on the other end, and as she did, Tommy checked his pizza once again, and
seeing the slightly burnt edges, carefully balanced the phone again while he
slid on some oven mitts to pull the pie from the oven and set on the counter to
cool enough to eat. Shutting off the oven, he pried the phone from his shoulder
and went back to the conversation.
“Still Kim,
it’s true. I have had so many second chances; being accepted by the team after
Rita made me the green ranger, being given the white ranger mantle after losing
the green ranger powers, finding my way back to you after all those years… I
don’t think I could ask for much more without being greedy.”
“Well, where
I’m concerned, you can be as greedy as you like.”
“Sounds good.
Speaking of you and greedy, when are you leaving for Greece?”
“The games
start August 13th, so we’ll be arriving about five days before that,
so we’ll probably leave on the sixth. Why?”
“I just
figured I better make sure I clear my calendar for when your stuff should
arrive,” he remarked with a smirk as he took a knife of the pizza and started
cutting.
“You really
want me to ship my things to Reefside before I leave for Greece?”
“I did tell
you this before, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but I
thought you were joking,” Kim replied soberly, still getting used to the idea
that in less than two months she’d be living in Reefside with Tommy *permanently*.
As it was,
she hadn’t even figured out what she was going to do about a job when she got
there. Or what to do about her furniture, if she should sell it or donate it to
charity. And then there was her computer. Should she take that, or just back up
her personal information and load it all up on Tommy’s computer… it was a lot
of stuff to consider.
“No joke
Beautiful. I want you to send out whatever you need to live here before you get
on that plane to Athens. I’ll make sure everything finds a place here and then
*you’ll* find a place here when you get off the plane from Greece. Deal?”
“I guess… I
just have a lot of stuff I have to figure out what to do with.”
“Well, I can
tell you that the twin bed is something you *don’t* need to ship.”
On her end of
the line, Kim fought a blush and went quiet. As Tommy slid a few pieces of
pizza onto a plate and headed back to the kitchen table, he noted that she
hadn’t replied to his comment, and that worried him.
“Kim?”
“Hmm? Sorry
Tommy, I was just thinking of being there, when I’m still here… it’s lonely,
you know?” she answered, her voice relating just what she meant.
“Intimately,”
he remarked in a near whisper, and they both felt the ache fill them as they
longed to close the distance that was part of their everyday life… for the
moment.
“Two months
handsome…”
“I know,” he
said, and then took a bite out of a slice of the pepperoni and sausage pizza,
his stomach finally pleased at being fed.
“I love you,”
she said, and Tommy felt his heart swell at the soft spoken words.
“I love you
too Beautiful.”
“Did I hear
you munching something?” Kim suddenly asked, and Tommy realized his attempt at
eating and talking hadn’t gone unheard.
“Uh… no?” he
tried to bluff, but knew on the other end Kim had to have figured out what he
was up to.
“You haven’t
eaten, have you?”
“I was trying
to, but…”
“Hang up the
phone, and eat your food and call me tomorrow,” she insisted.
“But I don’t
want to…”
“Tommy,
you’re being silly. You have the rest of your life to talk to me.”
“I know, but
I miss you,” he responded, hoping his pitiful little boy voice would grant him
a slight reprieve.
“I miss you
too, but you need to eat.”
Hearing the
steely determination in her voice, he sighed and knew he wasn’t going to win
this round.
“Alright,
I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you Kim.”
“Love you
too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.”
With that,
Kim hung up, and Tommy pressed the button on his phone, hanging up his end of
the line. Setting the phone aside, he turned towards the pizza, and quickly ate
three pieces, washing them down with the rest of his beer. Another two pieces
later and he felt full. Getting up, he dumped the bottle in the trash and
rummaged for some foil to wrap the leftover pizza to store for another meal.
As he shoved
them into the mostly empty fridge, he was reminded again of the fact that in
two months time he’d be sharing this house with Kim. Just that simple thought
had him on the edge of bouncing off the walls with happiness. Yet, when he’d
always dreamed of living with Kim 24/7, it had always been as husband and wife.
When Kim had
sent that letter, that dream had been put on the shelf, only coming back out
after they’d made peace after Trini’s funeral and he and Kim had admitted their
feelings for one another almost a year ago now. It hadn’t become such a big
deal until he’d put her on the plane after that first visit, and now, after
knowing that Kim had been thinking in the same general terms, he knew that soon
he was going to have to ask her.
Which still terrified
him.
For a man who
had seen what he had seen, done what he’d done and been who he was, to be
afraid of asking the woman who had always been in his hear to marry him simply
scared him shitless. What if she said no?
But why would
she say that? She had all but admitted that she wanted to be married to him
months ago. And from the times they’d seen each other and their calls and
e-mails, nothing in her attitude suggested that had changed. All he had to do
was figure out how to do it.
Which brought
him to where he was now… knowing that someday soon he was going to have to ask.
Except he had no idea what to say.
And he didn’t
have a ring…
“Damn,” he
said out loud to his empty house.
Who could he
ask for help?
The same
person he always asked when he couldn’t talk to Kim, he reminded himself.
Grabbing another beer from the fridge, he popped it open and took a long
swallow as he picked up the phone in his free hand and headed to the computer
desk and his address book. Setting the beer and phone down, he flipped through
the book and after a few seconds he found what he was looking for. Phone in one
hand, he punched in the number with the other. As the line ran on the other
end, he brought the phone up to his ear and waited to see if he got a human being
or the answering machine.
“Talk to me,”
said a male voice, and Tommy let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been
holding.
“Jason?’
“Tommy! Hey
bro, what’s news?” Jason asked, curious at his friend’s out of the blue call.
“Not much. I
just wanted to check in.”
At Tommy’s
words, Jason felt his eyebrows raise and skepticism fill him. He’d known Tommy
for over nine years now, and for as much as they were best friends and brothers
in all but blood, he couldn’t remember more than a few times that Tommy called
for no reason. Of course, the hesitancy in his friend’s voice told him what he
really needed to know - his friend had a reason for calling and was stalling.
“Come on
Tommy. I know you better than that. What’s going on?”
“I have
something to ask you,” Tommy said, grabbing the bottle and taking a long gulp
to grant him courage to ask his friend his advise on this issue.
“Shoot.”
“What do you
know about picking out engagement rings?”
-End-
tbc…
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