Leo McCarthy stuck his head through the loft door. He surveyed the barking contraption of a dog at his feet and growled at it, sending the robotic dog into a fit of sensor chip overload as he jumped past it’s scurrying metal legs and looked around for human life.

"Rollie!"

"He’s not here," replied the voice of Rollie’s assistant, Angela Ramirez from above him somewhere in a maze of contraptions hanging from the ceiling and he then realized, she was sitting in a small area above the actual loft working on her computer. Her tone seemed somewhat annoyed, but then, she always seemed that way around him. He didn’t get it. He was a lovable kind of guy, all women told him that, that is, except for her.

"Well, where the hell is he?" he replied, just as annoyed.

He saw the top of her blonde hair above her computer, but not her face;

"Hell if I know!" was her response.

Jeez, she could freeze hell with her voice, he thought sarcastically as he came closer to the steps that lead up to her icy domain.

"Look, if you see him, tell him I got the tickets."

He frowned, there was no response.

"Hey! Did you hear me?" he asked, putting his hands on his hips, his jacket opening enough to reveal his police issued shoulder harness and revolver.

"Yeah, yeah…what am I, Rollie’s freak’n secretary?" she replied, suddenly standing up and returning his stance.

"That’s who he told me you were, kiddo," he retorted, grinning.

"I oughta…" she started to say but he put his finger out in front of him, staring up her youthful defiance as a warning.

"You oughta just shut your mouth and tell him what I said, okay?" he told her.

"If Rollie knew the way you talked to me, he’d never do another thing for you!" she warned him, stepping around from the computer and looking down at him. He could see the color in her cheeks. Now he had her going…

"Go ahead! He loves me more than he loves you!" he replied, grinning and winked at her. He turned around and walked back through the door, shaking his head; "women!"

Angie raced down the stairs, her rage at the point that Leo McCarthy had envisioned as he got into his car. He chuckled as he took a swig of his cold coffee and waited in his car.

Angie stood at the door, Bluey barking furiously at the policeman with no manners. Angie looked down at Bluey and commanded him to stop at which he promptly obeyed. She took a deep breath and turned around, growling herself as she threw up her hands in a gesture of futility. No matter how much she tried to tell Rollie that Leo McCarthy was going to be the death of him, Rollie just couldn’t help assisting Leo or being his friend.

"Creep!" she said, passing the phone booth as she grabbed a small electronic screwdriver from Rollie’s bench. She had started back for the staircase when a voice came up behind her;

"Why am I a creep?"

Angie turned around, startled. Rollie was staring at her, eyebrows raised and a bag of groceries in his hands. He had come in through the phone booth door and overheard her.

"You’re not!" she replied, as she started up the stairs then, her back to him.

"Well then, who is?" he asked, his tone somewhat amused.

"Your friend who just left, that’s who…" she replied with a huff and sat in her seat, rolling her eyes.

She heard Rollie come up the stairs, having put his grocery bag down on the floor at the base of the steps.

"Angie, was there something he wanted?" he asked, imploringly.

"Yeah, to harass me…"

"Oh, and you don’t trade the insults?"

"Let’s not go there, Rol…"

"Let’s DO."

"Look, I don’t have time to waste talking about this, anyway…got the sequence run for the alien ship explosion down. Wanna see?" she asked, changing the subject.

He started to say something about her continued feud with Leo, but his attention was drawn to the screen and he smiled;

"Whoa, that’s it! You got it!"

"Yep, despite inconsiderate interruptions about some stupid tickets, I got the whole thing down to under 15 seconds…"

Rollie grinned, leaning forward as she looked up at him waiting, her blue eyes waiting for his approval with one look.

"So, should I wear the green turtleneck or my Yankee sweatshirt?" he asked, still staring at the screen and sinking his teeth into his lower lip. He was teasing her, knowing her hot temper.

"Oh, definitely the green…it compliments your lovely brown eyes," she replied, sarcastically as she stood up and walked away, heading back downstairs.

"Okay then, Yankee sweatshirt, it is!" he shouted to her below and walked over to his bedroom.

By the time he had changed and come downstairs, she was putting on her bike helmet and heading for the door with her ten-speed.

"Did you put the groceries away?" he asked, observing her with his arms folded across his chest as she pulled open the loft door.

"Sure boss, all put away. The beer’s getting nice and cold, just like you and Leo like it and hey, whipped up a little five-course meal as well. Don’t thank me, it’s just part of my job," she quipped, pushing her bike through the door.

"Angie!" Rollie said, firmly as he started for the door but she had already mounted her bike and was speeding off down the alley into the night.

"Why is she so angry all the time?" he asked out loud. He knew that she and Leo were not exactly chummy but lately, she had been down right hostile to him. She had even had an outright fit the last time he had helped Leo with a jewel heist.

Leo McCarthy stepped out of his car as Rollie was about to shut the door;

"Hey, ready for the best game of the season?" he asked, grinning as he flipped the tickets in front of Rollie’s face, greeting him

"Yeah, you bet, mate. I could use a bit of friendly talk and a game," Rollie answered, as he turned to look at the disappearing form on bike as it turned the corner.

Leo followed his gaze and then slapped Rollie on the shoulder;

"She got pissed when I told her you loved me more than her! She’ll get over it."

Rollie shook his head, looking at Leo’s comical expression. He lived to torment Angie, Rollie knew that.

"Leo! Why’d you go and do that?" Rollie asked, rolling his eyes as he leaned inside the loft door and grabbed his jacket. He groaned slightly as he looked at the calendar behind the coat rack. It was February thirteenth, and a day before Valentine’s Day; a day that would also be the fifth year anniversary of Manny Ramirez’s death.

"Oh, because I could and because it got Miss smarty-pants with her ass up over her shoulders!" he answered, as Rollie followed him to his car.

"Let’s not talk about Angie’s as…uh, rear" Rollie began as he got in the car.

"Damn, Tyler- don’t be a drag, it’s such a cute - !" but Leo shut up as he saw the look in Tyler’s eyes. He never knew when to stop kidding when it came to talking about Angie with Rollie. Those two had some sort of connection that went beyond employer and employee but he couldn’t figure it out. He once had mentioned it to Colleen in bed one night but she had grinned that woman’s all knowing smile; the silent, ‘I know something that you will never be able to grasp’ kind of look.

"What?" he had asked her, his hands up in the air, shaking his head.

She had responded by slamming her pillow over his face as he laid back perplexed for a brief second but that was all that he was willing to spend on it. He had a full weekend ahead with Colleen, not a time to spend thinking about those damn F/X people.

Angie had taken a long, hot shower. Her skin was slightly red as she gingerly towel dried herself and rubbed the steam from the bathroom mirror off to look at the face in the mirror. Her hair, almost shoulder length dripped trickles of water down her chest and back as she blinked, rubbing her swollen, red eyes.

"Great…you look like you’ve been in a fight with Mike Tyson," she said out loud, sniffing as she leaned over and wrapped the towel around her head in a semi-turban, and returned to see her reflection in the clearing mirror.

Leo McCarthy was such a male chauvinist and to make matters worse, he carried around such a bravado…swaggering, big bad cop attitude and Rollie just fell for it. To make matters worse, he had taken Rollie out on a night that was extremely emotional for her, one that they had spent together each year since her father had been killed. It had always helped her through the next day, a day she had once loved as a child….a day that her father had always made special for her growing up. Valentine’s Day had become a dark and depressing day to be dreaded. Now Rollie had even deserted her.

Looking on top of the toilet tank, she saw her scissors resting beside a bottle of shampoo. Looking back at herself, she pulled off the turban, letting the towel drop to the floor. Grabbing the scissors, she reached with one hand and pulled out a strand of her damp, towel dried hair. She was tired of looking so soft and vulnerable. She would cut her hair, maybe even punk it, she thought, a wicked grin appearing on her face. At least, it was not going to be a total washout tonight. What would Rollie think? Would he even notice? She rolled her eyes and tried to suppress a giggle. Manny would have noticed and probably would have made some sort of grand story about it. He had always supported her no matter what she did to herself….

"You like that pink, eh Angela..? I like the one stripe down the middle…sort of like a pink Pepe la Pugh…huh?" he had said when she had sprayed her hair in high school smack down the middle at a slumber party in exuberant defiance of whatever at the time. He hadn’t told her to wash it out or punish her or anything. That was her father…he just kidded her and let her find her own way. Rollie….well, that had been another story.

"What the bloody hell did you do to your hair?" he cried out, looking up from under a car he was working a gag on as she handed him a screw driver from above.

"Like it?" she had asked, coyly.

"God awful! Get that bloody stuff out of your hair, Angie! Your father will kill you!" he had replied, rolling out from under the car and sitting up, his face all scrunched up and showing his disapproval.

"Go back to Australia!" she had told him angrily and stomped off, really angry that she had seen him flirting with a young actress on the movie set. He never took her seriously as a woman or an adult.

The hair began to fall on the floor beside her feet as she industriously started to cut. Seriously, she had forgotten her depression and her anger now as she bit her lip and continued her work. The doorbell rang, startling her from her scissors slashing haze and she looked at the mirror and opened her mouth, no sound coming from her throat.

Finally, it came and it was not something she was proud of, a shriek of sorts and loud.

"Oh God!" she finally uttered as words finally came out but she jumped back, pulling up the discarded towel from the bathroom floor as she heard her front door being kicked open, a crashing sound as the thud of the wooden door landed on the floor inside her apartment.

"Angie!" Angie?"

She knew that voice; "Rollie?"

He saw her there, standing in her bathroom, a towel in front of her, covering her bareness. She was trembling and backing away as he came toward her.

"What? What’s happened?" he asked almost hoarsely as his eyes wildly searched the bathroom as she backed into the wall. He pulled back the shower curtain as if he was expecting some intruder.

Angie finally came to her senses and gripped the towel against herself but stepped away from the wall, her anger overcoming her shock now;

"What the hell are you doing? You broke down my door! Why are you even here?" she yelled out.

His eyes then fixed on her, her near nakedness and her swollen eyes but as he looked to the floor and saw the strands of hair and then back up to her head, his mouth opened slightly;

"I…well, I got worried at the game…I knew that this was the night, you know before Valentine’s Day…and Manny…I couldn’t stay there…I didn’t enjoy it and I came back here to well, damn it! I thought someone was in here, trying to…" he stammered out, his hands out, his eyes falling on hers as she lowered her eyes and put her hand on the top of her head, a tear dropping off her cheek.

"I butchered my hair!" was all that she said, her chin almost against her chest as she began to cry in earnest.

He started to agree with her but held his tongue as he looked at the short, waif like cut she had done to herself. Some strands were long and others were short. The hair on the crown of her head stood up in an uneven row.

"Oh sweetie," he exclaimed then, as he came over and held out his arms, folding her inside his embrace tightly. He rested his chin on top of her damp head and just held her as she cried.
 
 

Some moments later, she felt him tighten slightly as she held on to him and heard him mutter;

"You know, you’re quite naked, Angela…let’s get you a bit of clothes on?"

"Yeah…good idea," she replied, smiling a bit and looked up, releasing his waist as he pulled away from her. His face was flushed slightly as he backed out of the bathroom, allowing her to go to her bedroom as he headed to her living room.

She was telling herself what an idiot she was for showing him her weakness and her stupidity all the while she was dressing back into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She could hear him putting the door back on the hinges and doing a little bit of cursing to boot.

"Serves you right for busting down my door, Rollie," she told him as she entered the living room, seeing him kneeling by the hinge that had been ripped off from the frame.

"Okay…I’ll pay for it but tonight, I’ll stay here with you, what with the door not back on right…I insist," he replied, standing up as he propped it against the frame. A nosey neighbor peered out from her door across the hall and he waved back at her;

"Terrible things…termites…call the super tomorrow! I’d condemn this place if it was up to me," he told the woman, shaking his head.

She gasped and shut the door immediately, much to his delight as Angie groaned and sat down on the sofa, running a hand through her newly shorn locks.

"How bad?" she asked as he turned around to face her.

"Not too bad…a couple of replacement trim pieces, some new hinges and back in business…" he told her and sat on a small ottoman not far from the sofa, facing her.

"No, I meant this…" she replied, pointing to her head.

"Hmmm, mind if I go down to the van. I need to get something…" he said, not answering her.

"Hey, it’s your dime," she replied, shrugging her shoulders as he smiled and then slid between the propped door, leaving her alone.

"Oh God, what he must think of me!" she moaned, sinking back against the sofa, embarrassed. It wasn’t enough that she constantly made a fool of herself behind his back, thinking those school girl thoughts…the crush that never ended since meeting him so many years before but now, she was beginning to do them in front of him. She had almost let him know several years ago when she had brought Steve home for Christmas and they had kissed in what he thought was her drunkenness. It took all of her willpower not to just tell him how she felt. She fought it by being his buddy, his aide, his comic relief and at times, his mother.

"Get over it," she told herself, out loud, resigning herself that he would always see her as that, and just that, a little girl and what had she done to change that image, not a thing, especially not tonight!

"Get over what?" Rollie asked, stepping through the doorway with a small athletic bag in his hand.

"Um, my hair…I was telling myself to just get over it," she replied, clearing her throat, covering for herself.

"Well, I have some help there," he replied, almost beaming and put the bag on her kitchen table and motioned for her to come over to him.

"Ta-da!" he announced and whipped out the electric clippers he used when removing hair around the neck when they applied masks. It saved the pain of pulling the latex away from the hairline.

"And what are you going to do with that?" she asked, her eyes widening as he reached out for her arm and she backed away.

"Awh, now Angie…come on, let me just trim it up a bit, in the back and even it and maybe get it even on top, I’m good at this!" he begged as she shook her head.

"NO! I’ve seen pictures of those sheep you shorn in the outback with your father….no way!" she protested.

"Teenage training…I’m much better now, sweetie!" he pleaded and took her hand, pulling her forward, "besides, what have you got to lose?" he added as he pushed her down on a chair and turned on the clippers.

"How about all of my hair?"

"Not gonna happen, I swear…"

"What about Regal 9?"

"What about that movie? It called for flat topped Androids with exploding heads…I did a great job…"

"That’s what I mean, the sheep…the Androids…they all had the same hair-do by you!"

"Believe me, Angela! You’re too gorgeous for a flat top…"

"Gorgeous?" she snorted back.

"Yep, and by golly, you know it… so shut your trap and be still!" he warned, a twinkle in his eye as the clippers came over her head.

Some time later, he stopped. He grabbed a clean kitchen towel and began to dust the back of her neck, letting her lift the neckline of her T-shirt up to shake the loose hair down through her shirt and out.

"And now…hey…Ange-lo…whoa!" he exclaimed as Angie’s eyes glared up at him and she ran to the bathroom, expected sideburns and the infamous flattop.

Instead, she found he had evened her short layers on the crown of her head and by taking a hand mirror, found he had evened her neck line and given some layering that softened her whacks to the sides of her head.

"Yeah? You like it?" he asked, stepping behind her and the two looked at each other from the mirror’s reflection.

Angie closed her eyes for a moment. Rollie had done the impossible and fixed her hysterical attempt at defiance and what? She wondered why she had acted so impulsively. Her father would have laughed and let her suffer but Rollie…

"Yeah, thanks…" she said, softly as Rollie put his arms around her shoulders from behind.

The small clock in her living room struck twelve and she realized as the stupid thing clanged twelve times that it was late and they had an early call.

"Happy Valentine’s Day, Ange…" Rollie said, releasing her as he stepped out, leaving her alone in the bathroom.

Some moments later, she had the couch made up for him and watched as he laid down, his tall, lean frame a bit scrunched up on the old sofa as he turned on his side and punched the pillow she gave him. He laid his head down and looked up at her in the darkened apartment as she stood there, not saying anything.

"No worries, right?" he asked, yawning

"Yeah, no worries…" she answered, taking her hand and resting it slightly on his soft, unruly hair.

His hand came up and held on to hers then and she took in a sharp breath;

"Your father use to tell you something…umm, Happy Valentine's Day, Angela…" Rollie said, softly but he pronounced her name like Manny used to say it; An-He-la…

"Yes, he did…thanks Rollie," she replied and touched his cheek with the palm of her hand, "thanks for being here…"

"Don’t ever think I won’t be…" he replied, his voice drifting off but the memory of her touch against his cheek reminded him of that time; that Christmas several years before, and the feel of her lips against his, the softness of her against him. It was same warmth that began to fill his belly and groin in memory as her hips had pressed against his, her legs had wrapped around his; what had almost occurred.

"Night then," she said and left, thinking of how he had pronounced her name, like her father…but also, like Rollie. She ran her hand through her newly shorn hair and smiled. She had gotten a Valentine’s gift from Rollie after all- sorta priceless, she thought and she grinned as she walked back to her bedroom.

Leo McCarthy was waiting for the van as it pulled up to the loft early that next morning. He had been disappointed that Rollie had left early in the game the night before and also, he figured he would try and be a little more decent to Angie. Colleen had gotten on his case again last night. ‘What the hell?’ he thought, gritting his teeth as he coughed and threw his nasty coffee cup in the alley; ‘things could be worse’.

It was Rollie who got out first, looking a bit rumpled and tired. Leo started to approach and Rollie already was forming an apology for last night when the policeman saw Angie jump out from the back of the van and grab a box of equipment.

Leo squinted slightly, knowing there was something different about her and as she got closer, he realized she had cut all her hair off. What the hell? he thought as looked at Rollie who only smacked his shoulder and said;

"Sorry mate, about last night…"

"Yeah…yeah…hey, Angie…what the hell happened to your hair? You go to some kinda butch party last night and get drunk?" Leo suddenly asked, forgetting tack, diplomacy and just acting on pure Leo-ism.

"Happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Leo…" Angie said, kissing him swiftly on the cheek and then continuing on her way as Rollie held the loft door open for her.

"The girl has the hots for me, Tyler…I told you!" Leo said, winking and smiling as he pulled out a piece of gum and put it in his mouth. Great replacement for brushing your teeth, he thought to himself, marveling at his ingenuity as he followed his friends inside.