Chapter 2: Love and Beepers

*PREVIOUSLY: She walked up the stairs to her front door and watched Eric drive off. She smiled and opened the door to a major surprise.*

"What the hell happened?" Grace screamed as she kicked the mess of the house into piles. "Who.What.When." She muttered.

Instinctively she pulled out her cell and dialed Eric's cell quickly.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end said.

"Eric? It's me. Gracie. My.h.house was thrashed, sometime when we were gone or something. I.don't know what to do." She managed to stutter out.

"What? Do you want me to come over? I only got 2 blocks away. I'll just make a U-Turn.." Gracie hears the tires screech. "Okay, I am 3 houses away now." Eric told her. "And.." Tires screech again. "I'm right in front. I'll see you in a second."

"Okay." Gracie said, hanging up.

Within a few seconds, Eric was ringing the doorbell. Grace ran from the kitchen to the door and fell into his arms.

"Shhhh, it's okay baby. I'm here for you." Eric cooed.

Gracie pulled herself from his arms and stood up against the wall. "Baby? Where do you get off calling me 'baby?'" Grace said sarcastically.

"Sorry. It's the first thing that came to mind."

"I'm not mad. I was just wondering." she smiled.

Eric grinned back and bent down to start to pick stuff off the floor and throw them into the nearest trash can.

About 20 minutes later the apartment was almost totally clean.

"You know," Grace started, reaching over to get a trash bag, " I really appreciate, you helping me clean like this."

"Of course. You're my girl." Eric smiled.

10 minutes later, at 5:30 PM, the whole place was spotless.

"So, Gracie, now that the place is more spotless, then you'll probably ever see it" Eric winked, and Gracie punched him playfully on the arm, "are you still up to the date?"

"Uh.Sure, but I don't have time to get to the mall. It closes in half an hour. Oh well. I still have my dress from the pageant." She thought aloud.

"Hey, that dress makes you look very sexy, anyway." Eric winked again.

Grace punched him lightly on the arm again and smiled coyly. "Well, I have to run to the drugstore, and get a brush and makeup." She said running around the apartment.

"Relax. Go slowly." Eric reassured her.

"Okay." Grace said kissing him on the cheek. She shut the door behind her and walked down the steps and to her silver Ford 4 door. Eric laughed, plopping down on the sofa.

6:00

Grace returned distraught, carrying 2 plastic bags

"I just have to find my dress, and get this makeup." Grace told Eric, as she ran around the room looking for the dress.

"No worries. Would you rather go to Le Petite Café or Big n' Beefy Steak House?" Eric asked.

"Take a wild guess."

"Steak?"

"Yeah. So in that case I'll just leave these clothes on. I'll just brush my," Grace tries to run the brush through her hair," extremely knotted hair, and throw some make up on." She trailed off, getting her hair into a sloppy ponytail. "You know what? Screw makeup. Let's go get our blood rare meat fest on."

Eric laughed. "Didn't that pageant affect you? I mean Gracie Lou Freebush would never order a blood rare steak." Eric teased.

Grace flashed back to when she had met Victor Melling and the whole 'yes not yeah' speech and her bad earing manners.

"What? What's wrong?" Eric asked.

"I just remembered the day I met Victor Melling, and my "bad" habits."

"Right."

"You know something else? Just screw that day. It has been weeks. Let's just go and get meat faced."

Eric laughed again. "Okay."

They got back into Eric's car and drove the 15 blocks to the Big n' Beefy Steak House.

About halfway through dinner their pagers both went off simultaneously. Grace whipped out her cell phone and dialed Agent McDonald.

"Uh huh. Another one? Your kidding, right sir? You're not. Okay, see you soon."

"What was that?" Eric asked.

"That was Agent McDonald. There has been another citizen-letter type threat. And you never guess where." She said sarcastically.

"Hmmm" Eric said between bites of steak.

"Another beauty pageant. Yeah. And guess who's going undercover again? Me."

"Again? Oooh. Poor you." Was the muffled response.

"Shut up. Anyway, we have to go in now. Agent McDonald wants us for briefing. Let's just get this to go." Grace said.

"Okay." He laughed. "Waiter!" Eric called.

A waiter appeared.

"I need this to go. Now! We are in a hurry." Eric almost yelled.

A couple minutes later the waiter appeared with the steaks to go, and the check. Eric paid it and he and Grace exited quickly. Eric had left a generous tip.

Outside Grace pulled out the siren and they sped down the streets of New York.