AN: So this is just a short piece that came to mind during a little perusal of Ten. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: Joe Morelli doesn't belong to me. Nor does anything in the Plumverse. Which is a little depressing considering some of the ideas I have in mind for Ranger.

Rotten Trust

"You trust me."

He didn't. Not really. Ranger oozed the same alpha male appeal that he did, but Ranger had more of it, and Ranger was dangerous and probably a loose cannon. He trusted Stephanie to weigh her fear of Ranger above her obvious desire for him. And he trusted Ranger to continue to throw his lone wolf lifestyle in Stephanie's face, effectively keeping her at arms length, even though it was obvious to anyone who had ever been within a hundred feet of them when they were together exactly what they really wanted to do. "Yeah," he replied.

He could see her frowning at him through the phone, lounging back on some expensive looking couch Ranger had probably sat on once in his life, playing with a remote she had no idea how to work. "That's really rotten."

Maybe that was why his stomach was still churning at the thought of his girlfriend cohabitating with Ranger Manoso. "I know. Live with it."

He disconnected, trying not to think about sleeping arrangements now that Ranger was back in town. There was no way he was going to think about whether Stephanie slept on the couch, or whether she trusted Ranger so much as to sleep in the bed with him - he wouldn't think about what she meant about the shower gel comment.

If he wasn't careful, one of these days he was going to miscalculate, and Manoso's subtle poaching was going to win out over Joe Morelli's love. He knew it. Stephanie had always wanted something different than most burg girls, and Ranger tended to fit the bill of different. He was mysterious, had unknown sources of money, expensive black cars, and was able to bleed money at every opportunity in an effort to keep Stephanie safe. And probably Ranger loved her, too.

There were things Ranger could give her that Joe had never even dreamed of.

Someday, a line was going to have to be drawn. Stephanie was going to have to choose, if merely to keep Joe and Ranger from killing each other.

Someday Joe was going to have to put everything on the line, to risk in a way he'd never risked before, because for some unknown reason he was madly in love with Stephanie Plum.

And he could only hope that, in the long run, he had enough to offer. For now, all he could do was continue to trust in his rotten system, and hope that Ranger never felt the need to commit.

Or that Stephanie got over her fear of Manoso.