Could it have gone better? Duh! Should it have gone better? Eh, maybe not. With how busy he was and how little time he got to himself, Lance played off the whole event as if it were nothing. Another bridge burned, he told himself. Yeah, such things took a toll on you, but he was a cop. Not everyone liked him and he assumed it to be the natural way of life.

As she went back into her place, Lance followed up with his elevator incident. He cleaned out all the spilled magazines and successfully lugged the useless end table to the curbside. While he was out beside the streets, Lance got this weird feeling. He did his best to rid away the thoughts but they were relentless, each idea coming back with more detail and rigor.

"Fine," he muttered to himself. "You win, I'll cough up the dough and put this misery to rest."

A kid nearby cocked a brow at the man talking to himself. Lance's gaze dipped down and he laughed. "The things you'll get to look forward to, kiddo. Men do crazy things for women, don't you forget that." Ruffling the lad's hair, the mother (nearby) glanced up and giggled. "Hello Mrs. Thomson." With a light tip of the head, he scooted away before getting pulled into one of her long-winded chats about her liquid diet.

In minutes, he was ordering up two pizzas. While he waited, Lance took a seat and paged through the paper. With Sam being new, he figured the girl might like to know about some great deals in town. Page after page, he circled different numbers, locations, and things. He even highlighted the local theater which costed half the price. How? Well, the movies it played were two months late. It was well worth the wait though, at least in Lance's mind.

Onto another page, he started glancing down the wanted and looking ads. He saw a few things that he thought the woman might like, but decided to play it smart and just leave those pages alone. He didn't want to assume anything and, god forbid, piss her off anymore.

When his order was called, he advanced forward and tipped the family. "Thanks," he chirped before pushing is way out the door and down the sidewalk. He successfully dodged a cyclist and chided him for using the sidewalk. Naturally, the rider just flipped him the bird and Lance made a mental note of the guy and the time. He would write a formal report so someone else could pursue the bratty rider.

Once back into his own building, Lance took the stairs up. As he was going to eat some pizza, the guy figured he might as well burn off some calories before indulging in the food. Granted, the sweat on his brow was really starting to make his question the whole 'exercise' thing. Why was it so important anyway? Did he need to be fit? He rode a horse after all! Still, the idea of being a hefty cop with rolling curves and tummy's tucked under tummies didn't seem appealing. In fact, it would kill his game.

Pfft, if he had game.

Tiptoeing past his own door, he skittered down the hall and quickly placed the pizza outside Sam's door. The newspaper and magazines were properly placed atop the still warm box. Slicking back his hair (wait, why was he trying to impress the door?), he knocked. Before any movement stirred from within, Lance was running down the hallway, his pizza still in tow. Forcing the door open, he reeled inward and quickly but quietly slammed it shut.

He exhaled before draping a hand across his brow.

"Uh," his roommate stood before him.

Having to think fast, he grasped at straws and started to develop a probable story in his mind. "I saw Granny's door opening and, well, decided I didn't need to spend the rest of the day hearing about her dead husband or anything." His forced himself to shutter, which caused his roommate Kellie to smirk.

"Totally understand. The old hag needs to croak before I choke." Seizing the pizza, she brought it into the room and helped herself to, well, nearly every slice. Lance tried to hold back his curled lip of disgust as he watched Kellie's grimy fingers tramps over nearly ever slice. Thankfully, two remained unscathed. Pulling them from the pile, Lance moved out onto his back balcony that overlooked the city.

"Days off are tough," he sighed before biting into the pizza. So cheesy, so fresh, so... delicious.

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//sorry for the lack of color and fancy. I'm on an ugly version of Mozilla that strips away color and images. ^^;