Someone, Anyone (M&M, CC/UC, AU, Adult) COMPLETE, 01/20/16

[keepsmiling7]

what a part.......
first, Skype sex.....not that will be interesting
I can't believe Max actually thinks he's gonna be part of Dylan's life now. That doesn't seem fair after 4 years. I don't care how messed up he was with drugs or whatever.
Engagement......wasn't expecting that quite so soon. But, Michael did have the ring.....
Can't wait to see what bomb you drop next.
Carolyn

[Eva]

The way he asked her to marry him, was so Michael in every way possible! It was like the only positive thing in those lasdt two chapters and I'm still holding my heart what Max will do next.

[sarammlover]

Ugh...Max and Isabel ...the naughty brother and sister. And I don't hang around my brother in my bra and underwear....Isabel is a weirdo. I really hope this engagement doesn't blow up in their faces....I think its a good move. We will see how everyone reacts to the news!!!

[April]

Carolyn:

I can't believe Max actually thinks he's gonna be part of Dylan's life now. That doesn't seem fair after 4 years. I don't care how messed up he was with drugs or whatever.

Max kind of has this superiority complex, and even though getting to know Dylan wasn't his reason for coming to Roswell in the first place, now that he's here, he's just going after the idea full force, because his ego won't allow him to let up.

Engagement......wasn't expecting that quite so soon. But, Michael did have the ring.....

And Michael is impulsive, so of course he just asked!

Can't wait to see what bomb you drop next.

There are quite a few bombs left to drop, some bigger than others.


Eva:

The way he asked her to marry him, was so Michael in every way possible!

Wasn't it, though? I wanted it to feel like a very authentic Michael proposal.

and I'm still holding my heart what Max will do next.

We'll see, we'll see.


Sara:

Ugh...Max and Isabel ...the naughty brother and sister.

Neither one of them is a good influence on the other.

I really hope this engagement doesn't blow up in their faces....I think its a good move. We will see how everyone reacts to the news!!!

Reactions will definitely vary, that's for sure.



Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it!








Part 71








Since it was inevitable that word would get out about his and Maria’s engagement, Michael figured he would beat the wild gossip to the punch and reveal it himself. School was as good of a place as any to start. It would give him a practice round before he told the person he was really dreading telling.

“Hey, guys, shut up,” he barked at the breakfast table that morning. “I got somethin’ to say.”

But Jase was too busy regaling the guys with a story about this random chick he’d supposedly hooked up with the other night, and everyone was hanging onto every word of the way he described how she’d given him a blow-job in public. Like that had ever happened. Jase was all talk and everyone with half a brain knew it.

“Hey, guys, listen up!” Kyle called. And since he was still technically king around there, if only for a few more weeks, everyone fell silent. “Michael wants to say something.”

Do I really want to? Michael wondered. No, he didn’t. Not really. But at least this way he could get the facts out there before the rumors started flying. He cleared his throat, getting a sense of what Kyle must have felt like at his press conference, where he had revealed the college he intended to sign with. All eyes on him, all of them expectant and curious. But this wasn’t like that. People wouldn’t react to this the same way.

“Alright,” he said, “so I just wanted to let you guys all know . . . I got engaged last night.”

The guys all just stared at him as if they didn’t understand.

“Engaged?” Bubba echoed. “You mean . . . engaged?”

“Yeah.”

“To get married?” Antonio gasped.

“Yes.”

“What?” Jase spat. “To your girlfriend?”

“Who else?” These guys were his friends, but they were real idiots sometimes.

“Holy shit,” Kyle swore. “Are you serious, man?”

“Yeah.” He’d been hoping to tell Kyle earlier this morning, away from the other guys, but after dropping Dylan off at daycare, he’d run a little short on time this morning and hadn’t gotten the chance.

By now, other tables were listening in, and people already had their phones out and were texting the news to their friends who weren’t out there.

“Wow,” Kyle said, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. “I . . . I’m speechless.”

“You get it, though, right?” He was really counting on his friend to understand where he was coming from, why he’d done what he did. Because he highly doubted many others would.

“No, I get it,” Kyle assured him. “I just . . . wow, you actually proposed to Maria?”

“Yeah, I kinda screwed it up,” he admitted, “but she still said yes.”

The other guys started snickering and talking in low whispers to each other.

“What?” Michael said, wanting to know what they were saying.

“Nothin’,” Jase said. “It’s just . . .” He chuckled. “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but we don’t really understand ‘cause we’re not . . . we don’t got what you got with your bitch.”

Michael bristled. “She’s not a bitch.” He didn’t feel like he could relate to these guys anymore. He was at a different point in his life, and they weren’t thinking about things the way he was.

“Sorry,” Jase said. “You know what I mean.”

“I think it’s cool,” Kyle declared. “You found the girl you wanna be with for the rest of your life--”

“For the rest of your life, man,” Bubba cut in. “What’re you thinkin’? Aren’t you gonna get bored with the girl?”

“No.” Michael was starting to grow frustrated. “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t,” Bubba admitted. “But congratulations or whatever.”

“Yeah, congratulations,” Jase and Antonio added quietly. And then, as if they couldn’t change the subject soon enough, they were talking amongst themselves again.

Michael frowned. What was this about? Did they really just not get it to such a degree? Or were they upset to know that he wasn’t the same guy he’d been at the beginning of the year, the one whom they’d looked up to for all of his wild antics and womanizing ways? Or were they jealous that he had something real and they didn’t? He had no way of knowing, and he wasn’t about to ask them. Because he honestly didn’t really care. There were only a few more weeks of school left, and then he would be off to Alabama soon enough, where he already knew he would never speak to any of these guys again. Kyle was the only one at that table who was really his friend.

“Hey, seriously . . .” Kyle held out his hand for a shake. “Congratulations, man.”

“Thanks, Kyle.” Michael started to shake it, but his friend pulled him in for one of their bro-hugs instead.

“Although I gotta tell you . . . you’re kind of a hypocrite, you know? You ragged on me when I said I wanted to marry Tess, told me I was too young, shouldn’t be thinkin’ about that kind of thing.”

“I know. But I get it now.”

“Yeah, you do. I know you do.” Kyle narrowed his eyes and nodded. “That’s how I know you’re doing the right thing. People are gonna talk, you know?”

“Oh, yeah.” They already were. The cafeteria was buzzing. Good old gossip. There was probably already a Twitter post.

“But don’t listen to ‘em, alright? You know what you feel and what Maria feels. That’s all that matters.”

“It is.” He planned on telling his dad today, and he knew that wouldn’t go well. But he had already made up his mind to not care. His dad’s stupid opinion didn’t matter, and neither did Maria’s mom’s (because she was undoubtedly going to have a pretty negative reaction to the whole thing, too). Even his mom . . . as much as he loved her and was glad that she’d managed to put on a happy face this morning, he could tell that she still wasn’t completely thrilled about the news. She was wary, based on her own experiences. But even that didn’t matter. None of that would change the fact that he was in love with Maria DeLuca and always would be. Fuck everyone else.

Tess came stomping towards the table suddenly, flapping her arms about wildly. “Ohmygod!” she exclaimed. “I just heard. Is it true?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my god!” she screeched. “No fair!”

“What? You wanted me to propose to you?” he teased.

“No!” she whined, pointing to Kyle. “I wanted him to propose to me!”

“I still will,” Kyle promised. “I didn’t know he was doin’ this.”

Tess whimpered. “Congratulations and all, but this, like, totally steals our thunder! Kyle, we were supposed to be the engaged-in-high-school couple. That was gonna be our legacy!”

“Pretty sure Kyle’s legacy’s gonna be football-related,” Michael informed her.

“Shut up, Michael!” she snapped. “Congratulations, again, in all seriousness. Maybe this will be good for you.”

He gave her a confused look, wondering if she realized how bipolar she was sounding right now.

“Tess, just wait ‘til graduation,” Kyle told her. “Okay?”

“Yours or mine?”

“Mine.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, momentarily, then glared at him accusatorily. “Oh! So that’s when you’re gonna do it, huh? Graduation?”

“Shit,” Kyle muttered. “No, I didn’t say that.”

“No, you can’t do it then!” Tess shrieked. “Not when I know it’s coming! God, this sucks!” She started to storm off, then turned back around and said, “Congratulations,” one more time to Michael before huffing and puffing away.

“Oh god,” Michael muttered before teasing, “You’re really gonna propose to her?”

Kyle slugged his arm playfully. “I know she can be a little dramatic . . .”

“A little?” She was having a meltdown about not being proposed to first. “Is she on her period right now or something?”

“Who knows?” Kyle reluctantly got up and patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy. Your sudden burst of romanticism’s really killin’ my love life.”

“Sorry about that,” Michael said as his friend walked away, probably to go find and console his overly-emotional girlfriend. He wasn’t really sorry, though. Kyle was used to dealing with Tess when she was in her moods, and Tess, despite the fit she was throwing now, would gladly accept Kyle’s marriage proposal whenever and wherever it happened, even if she knew it was coming.

Once Kyle was gone, people started to swarm around Michael and around the whole table, most of them just asking if it was true. He got tired of telling them over and over again that it was. Why didn’t they just believe him the first time?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Isabel walked out of Ms. Alvarez’s room that morning after finishing a make-up quiz, she nearly collided with Roxie and Ryan in the hall. They looked like they’d just emerged from an all-morning fuckathon in the eraser room, and they smelled like it, too.

“Oh my god, congratulations!” Roxie exclaimed. Ryan just chuckled.

“On what?” Isabel asked, suspiciously. Had the word that she wasn’t going to be valedictorian spread around already? Were they making fun of her?

“Everyone’s talking about it,” Roxie said. “Michael got engaged.”

“What?” Michael? Her Michael? Engaged?

To Maria. Oh, this was fucking great.

“Yeah, he got engaged,” Roxie chirped. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“It’s crazy,” Ryan agreed uber-cheerfully. He seemed well aware that Roxie was just being a ditz and was more than happy to sit back and enjoy it.

“So congratulations,” Roxie said again. “On being engaged.”

“Oh my god, does your brain even function?” Isabel wondered aloud.

“What?”

“He’s not engaged to me, Roxie. I’m not his girlfriend anymore.”

“Oh.” Roxie made a face of utter confusion, then giggled. “Oops, I forgot.”

“You sure did,” Ryan said, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Hey, listen, Isabel, I know this is a hard time for you, so if you need a shoulder to cry on . . .” He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Or a dick to ride on . . .”

“I have a new boyfriend for that,” she informed him, pushing him away.

“Well . . . this one here . . .” He pointed to Roxie. “She’s into threesomes.”

“Threesomes!” Roxie echoed, licking her lips.

“And judging by your video, you’re not all that shy about group sex.”

“Fuck off, Ryan.” She pushed past the both of them and ducked into the nearest bathroom, needing to be away from people. She locked herself into the largest stall and dropped her books, pacing around a bit. The bell rang, and she didn’t know how she was even going to make it to class. She felt too emotional, and she probably looked like a wreck. How was she supposed to sit just two seats away from Michael, knowing about this, hating it, nearly hyperventilating over it?

She took a few breaths to try to calm herself down as the halls started to fill up with students. Their conversations were so numerous and so loud that she could barely distinguish one from the next, but whenever she did pick up on what someone was saying, it was something about Michael.

What he did still affected her. All day, people were going to be asking her how she felt about it, what she thought about it. And she was going to have to act like she was okay, like it didn’t bother her. But it did, and it always would. This was heart-wrenching. Knowing that Michael had moved on and was in love with another girl was bad enough, but knowing that he intended to marry her? Why did she have to deal with that? What other eighteen year-old girl was having to deal with that right now?

With shaking fingers, she took out her phone, and though she thought about calling Jesse, she figured there was someone else who might better understand how she was feeling. So she texted Max with a short, simple message that would have him texting her back in no time: Worst news ever.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria was so thankful when Krista suggested they go out for lunch instead of eating the food provided at the literature conference. The room they were shoved into was smaller than her high school classrooms had been, and there were at least three dozen people in attendance. Most of whom were incredibly boring. And the subject matter wasn’t interesting, and it wasn’t like she intended to be a librarian for the rest of her life anyway.

They went to a small sandwich shop where Krista revealed she and Andy had had their first date. It was just a little hole in the wall nowadays, but the sandwiches were still good. The service was a little too speedy, though, since neither one of them was in any big rush to get back to the conference. Maria ate slowly on purpose, asking between bites, “Do you think anyone would notice if we don’t go back?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Krista replied sympathetically. “Only three more hours. You think you can make it?”

“I hope so.” Mid-way through the second presentation, though, her eyelids had started to feel heavy. “You were right when you said it’s boring.”

“And let me ask you, as someone who could technically still pass as a young adult, do you feel inspired to read any of these books they’re showing us?”

“Well . . .” Maria took a drink of water and admitted, “To be honest, I can’t even remember the last time I read a book.”

“You’ve just been so busy,” Krista said.

“No, plus, I really just don’t like to read.”

“Even working at the library?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never been a book person. I like poetry, though.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Krista said. “Poetry’s very musical.”

“Yeah. Poems are just like song lyrics.”

Krista smiled at her and asked, “Have you ever written any songs before?”

“Uh . . .” She laughed a little, embarrassed by some of the stuff she’d written back in fourth and fifth grade. A cheesy song about a time capsule to romance sprang to mind, as did a song about her great love . . . for a stray cat. “I don’t know, I’ve tried before. I wrote some decent stuff as a freshman. You know, before I kinda fell in with the wrong crowd.” Contrary to popular belief, drugs did not make your songwriting better. Kurt Cobain was an rarity in that way. “It’s never been my strong suit. It’d probably help if I took some songwriting classes or . . . you know, finished tenth grade English for starters.”

Krista looked at her sympathetically. “Do you think you’ll get your GED someday?”

“Yeah, hopefully.” She just had to find the time for it. “But until then, I’ll just keep working wherever I can, doing whatever I can. And then who knows? Maybe someday I’ll get my GED and be able to take a couple college classes. The music stuff’s kind of a far-fetched dream, so . . .”

“I don’t think it’s far-fetched,” Krista said. “I’ve heard you sing.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. Sometimes I hear you singing and playing the guitar, and I know you’re probably singing to Michael.”

Maria blushed. Some of those songs were wildly inappropriate, so hopefully Krista wasn’t able to make out the lyrics.

“I bet he likes to listen to you sing,” she said. “You have a great voice.”

“Oh, thanks.” Always nice to hear that compliment. “Yeah, Michael always says he realized he had feelings for me when he heard me sing for the first time.”

“Aw . . .”

“And sometimes he tries to sing, too, but it’s usually really bad. So the other night I was trying to teach him how to play the guitar instead.”

“Really? How’d that go?”

Maria shook her head. “Not so good. But he tried.”

“He has been trying lately,” Krista acknowledged, sounding the slightest bit proud of her son. Wasn’t often that Michael’s parents sounded proud of him, but whenever they did, there was usually only one of them who felt that way.

Maria finished off her sandwich, glancing back up to the front counter, seriously contemplating ordering another one. She wasn’t overly hungry, but she didn’t want to go back just yet. She seriously had no problem with arriving back at that conference fashionably late by at least twenty minutes, maybe even half an hour.

“Okay, let me see that ring again,” Krista said, apparently just as content with biding her time.

“Oh.” Maria held out her hand, still getting used to seeing it there herself. It was so great that it didn’t need to be resized. Perfect in every way.

“My goodness, he did a good job, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “He won’t tell me how much it was, though.” Which probably meant he’d spent more on it than he should have.

“You’ll have to watch that when you two are out on your own together,” Krista cautioned. “Michael’s not used to managing his money. Not that we have a whole lot of it to manage, obviously, but we’ve always had enough. So he’s never actually had to budget and cut back before.”

Maria nodded, knowing that this wasn’t a jab; Krista just wanted her to be realistic. Things would be tight for a while. They were going to have a few expensive things to finish paying off in addition to paying rent and paying everyday expenses for both themselves and Dylan. And she would probably be the only one working.

She didn’t want to think about that stuff right now, though. She thought about it enough. She just wanted to be happy about the ring on her finger.

“Were you surprised,” Krista inquired, “when he asked you?”

“Oh, yeah.” It had been so sudden, so out of the blue. But that was Michael. He was probably the only guy who would attempt to calm her down during the middle of a rant by popping the question.

“Had you two talked about it or . . .”

“No,” she replied at first before backtracking. “Well, kind of.”

“Really?”

“Well, he just told me at one point that he was probably gonna ask me to marry him someday. But I didn’t realize someday was gonna be yesterday.”

“Wow.” Krista stared at Maria in astonishment. “That’s really something, isn’t it? If you’d asked me five or six months ago if Michael would ever wanna get married, I would’ve said you were crazy. And now here he is, proposing to you.”

“Yeah.” She remembered that utterly immature version of Michael who would have avoided marriage like the plague. He wasn’t all gone, but he’d definitely grown up a lot, too.

“He must really love you,” Krista said.

“I think he does. And I really love him. I know you probably feel like it’s all happening really fast, but . . .”

“Well,” Krista cut in, “it is happening really fast. There’s no denying that. You haven’t even known each other for a year, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’ve been together how long?”

“Well . . .” That was always hard to say. When exactly were they supposed to mark that on the timeline? From the moment they first kissed? First had sex? “I don’t know, it was kind of complicated at the beginning. I mean, I had feelings for him for almost as long as I knew him, probably. He’s kinda charming.”

“Oh, he is,” Krista agreed. “Which can be a good and a bad thing.”

“And he started to figure his feelings out at Christmas. But we didn’t actually kiss or admit it to each other until my birthday. That’s when he first kissed me.”

“That’s sweet,” Krista said.

“No, not really. He was still with Isabel at the time, so . . .” She trailed off, letting that fact speak for itself.

“Oh.” Krista made a face. “Yeah, that’s less sweet then.”

“Yeah.” The start of their relationship would always be a bittersweet one, no matter how much time passed or how much the guilt over it faded as Isabel made it more and more impossible to feel sorry for her. “They were apart before we ever . . . did other stuff, though.”

“Did other stuff,” Krista echoed. “Maria, relax. I’m well aware that you and my son have a lively little sex life. As much as I’ll miss you guys when you move, I won’t miss knowing what’s going on just down the hall.”

“Watch out for Tina, though,” Maria cautioned. “And Todd, or whoever her boyfriend is in a few years.”

“Oh, I think she’ll be alright,” Krista dismissed. “She’s just eleven.”

“I was fourteen when I had sex for the first time,” Maria pointed out. “Fifteen when I found out I was pregnant. That’s not that much older than she is.”

“Hmm.” Krista considered that, shuddering in alarm. “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

“Just be very vigilant,” Maria suggested. “Tina’s a great girl, and she’s really smart, but it seems like she’s been trying to find her place this year. And she’s a little boy-crazy. I know Michael’s worried about her.”

“He is?”

She nodded.

“Well . . . I wouldn’t mind if she didn’t have a boyfriend for a while, or if she wasn’t so concerned with being friends with that Hannah girl.”

“Ugh, Hannah Crown?” Maria made a face of disgust. “She and her little brat friends came into the Crashdown the other day and left me a two-cent tip.”

“Oh, that’s just snobby,” Krista said. “I don’t care how young they are.”

“Well . . . it’s better than the first tip Michael ever gave me,” she admitted. “He didn’t leave one.”

“What?” Krista laughed a little. “Oh, things change, don’t they?”

“Yeah, things change.” Michael certainly had, and Tina probably would, too. And Maria was starting to realize that even she herself had changed. Because she used to believe that a happy ending just wouldn’t be possible for her, wasn’t in the cards, that her life would never even resemble a normal one. But now, with the move to Alabama on the horizon and a ring on her finger, she was starting to let herself believe that she had been wrong all along.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael rarely ever set foot in McDonald’s. Not the one in Roswell, at least. It was a tourist trap, like so many of the other places they had there. It was shaped like a flying saucer and had a space playground area for kids, complete with Ronald McDonald himself and his chicken nugget friends flying through the solar system. And there was a flying box of fries back there that claimed the fries were out of this world, which Michael personally didn’t understand since the fries he got there were usually cold and undercooked.

He had to go there, though, whether he wanted to or not, after revealing his big news to everyone at school. People were going to be talking about it. Word would spread all over town, and his dad would find out sooner or later if he didn’t tell him himself.

When he stepped up to the register, his dad didn’t even glance up. He just stood there and mumbled, “You know what you want?”

Michael sighed, taking in his pitiful appearance. “So this is it, huh?” he said. “The new job?”

His dad looked up, and for a second, there was a flash of embarrassment in his eyes. But then he just shrugged and said, “Gotta take what I can get.”

And this was all he’d been able to get? Employee at Mickey D’s? Damn, that had to suck. “Mom told me you’d be here,” he said.

“Full-time.” Again his dad shrugged. “Is what it is.”

Michael couldn’t quite find it in himself to feel bad for him. The guy was a jackass, and working here was probably karma in some roundabout way. Now he’d have to deal with customers being jackasses to him every single day.

“You gonna order or just stand there?” his dad grumbled.

“Well, clearly you didn’t get hired for your customer service skills.”

“I’m serious. I wanna go on my break. So either order or--”

“I need to talk to you,” Michael blurted.

His dad grunted. “During my break? My one and only break of the day?”

“Yeah.”

His dad sighed, punched in an order for himself, and said, “Go sit down. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Michael ended up waiting for about five minutes until his dad came and sat down at a table with him. At first, he looked more interested in eating than he did in talking. And his eating was accompanied with complaining, too. He complained that his burger wasn’t well done enough, wasn’t thick enough, and that his fries weren’t salty enough. “Dogs eat better shit than this,” he grumbled.

“Just be happy you’re gettin’ an employee discount,” Michael reminded him.

His dad grunted. “Employee. Yeah, that’s great.”

Michael rolled his eyes, not in the mood to attend another one of his father’s self-hosted pity parties. “Listen, Dad, there’s somethin’ I gotta tell you,” he said.

“You get that girl pregnant?” his father guessed.

“No.”

“Some other girl pregnant then?”

“No.” Michael looked at him angrily. Wasn’t it obvious that he was pretty damn devoted to Maria? He wasn’t sleeping around with other girls.

Chewing his food with his mouth open, his dad asked, “Then what is it?”

Michael took a breath to brace himself for what couldn’t possibly be a pleasant reaction, and then he came right out and said it. “I asked Maria to marry me.”

His dad stopped chewing, a piece of bread dropping out the corner of his mouth.

“She said yes.” There. There it was. Big news revealed.

“Oh, of course she did.” His dad swallowed the food in his mouth and gripped the rest of his burger so tightly that he nearly flattened the bun out. “Why wouldn’t she? Now she doesn’t have to raise her kid alone. She’s got you roped into that.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?”

Wasn’t it obvious? Wasn’t there one overarching reason for asking somebody to marry you? “We love each other.”

His dad laughed indignantly at that. “Yeah, now. But love fades. It’ll fade for you, just like it did for me.”

“Thanks for your support,” Michael mumbled sarcastically.

“Well, what do you want me to do? Sit here and act like I’m happy, tell you congratulations?” His dad’s voice was rising in volume, and the mother and son a few tables away turned to look at them. “I’m not gonna do that. You’re makin’ a big mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake,” Michael argued. He had never felt more sure about anything than he did about the idea of being Maria’s husband. He couldn’t explain it, but he just knew that was what he was meant to be.

“Did she ask you to do this? Did she trick you into it?”

“No!”

“ ‘cause that’s what women do. They manipulate.”

“No one manipulated me. I went out and got a ring and asked her to marry me ‘cause I wanted to. That’s all.”

“You wanted to?” His dad scowled at him. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Haven’t you learned anything from my mistakes? Why the hell would you do that? You’re eighteen!”

“You and mom were eighteen when you got married,” he pointed out. Wasn’t it kind of hypocritical for his dad to judge him for making the same decision at the same age?

“Yeah, and look how that turned out. You wanna end up like us?”

“We’re not going to.”

“Yeah, you think that now. But marriage and kids and all that crap . . . it changes stuff. It changes you. I only married your mom ‘cause you were on the way. Thought I was doin’ the honorable thing.”

“Yeah, you’re a real honorable guy,” Michael muttered derisively.

“Oh, and you think you’re different? You think you’re gonna end up different?” his dad challenged.

“I am.”

“Why? ‘cause you love her so damn much?”

“Exactly.”

His dad laughed angrily. “You don’t get it. You’re livin’ in a fantasy world. You think you’re gonna have this great, easy life together, but you don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s like to be out there in the real world where you got bills to pay, and kids to take care of, and . . . a job you hate.”

Michael wanted to have some snappy comeback for that, but he couldn’t come up with one. Because it was sort of true. He didn’t pay bills, and he didn’t work. And even though he helped take care of Dylan, his mom was always there as a safety net whenever they needed assistance. “Maybe I’ll end up at a job I like,” he said, “and maybe money won’t be an issue.”

“Oh, yeah, maybe. And maybe Maria gets pregnant again within the year. Mark my words, she will.”

Michael shrugged. “That’s fine.” He realized what a mistake it was to say that right after the words were out.

“That’s fine?” his dad echoed incredulously. “Oh, no. No, don’t tell me you’re tryin’ to have a kid with her now.”

“Not trying, but if it happens, it happens.”

“Oh . . .” His dad shook his head. “You’re a fuckin’ goner.”

“I’m gonna have kids with her someday. I don’t care when it happens.”

“Well, it’ll happen before either one of you is ready,” his dad claimed, as if he was all-knowing or could see the future. “Trust me. You’ll knock that girl up, and then you’ll realize I was right.”

“Oh, ‘cause kids are such a burden, huh?” Michael growled. “Like I was such a burden to you.”

“You were! You got in trouble all the fuckin’ time . . .”

“Well, that’s shocking, ‘cause, as my dad, you were such a good influence.”

“You shut the hell up!” his dad roared, shooting to his feet. He towered over him, pointing an accusatory finger at him. Everyone was staring at them now. “You don’t know! You sit there and you act like you do, but you don’t know what it’s gonna be like! You don’t know what it’s like to be so fuckin’ unhappy!”

Michael stood, too, not backing down. “Well, I’m sorry Mom and I made you so unhappy, Dad. Sorry you would’ve had this amazing life without us tying you down.”

“I don’t know what I would’ve had! See, that’s the point! I’ll never know!” his dad yelled. “I’ll never know what else is out there, ‘cause all I ever got was this. And do you think I like havin’ to be the one to say all this to you?”

“Yeah, actually, I do.”

“Well, I don’t. I don’t like it, but if I’m not brutally honest with you, who the hell’s gonna be? I tell you this stuff ‘cause I actually do give a damn about you, and I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made. There’s somethin’ better out there, and if you get your head outta your ass, you might actually find it.”

Michael shook his head defiantly, noticing that a few people were leaving the restaurant there, not wanting to witness this. “No, you’re the one who doesn’t get it, Dad. There’s nothin’ better than Maria.”

“Maria? She’s a . . .” His dad threw his arms around, sputtering furiously, “She’s a girl you like to fuck! That’s all!”

“She’s not just some girl!” Michael yelled back.

“She is just some girl. She’s got no future ahead of her, and she’s gonna drag you down with her!”

“No.” Michael refused to believe that. Historically, he was the one who people thought had no future. If anyone was going to drag the other down, it would probably be him. But he was going to try really hard not to.

“You know what? Then fuckin’ marry the bitch!” his dad shouted. “Five years from now, when her beauty fades and the thrill of the sex wears off and the only time you feel any better is when you’re gettin’ drunk, then you’ll know I’m right. You’ll know you wasted your whole life on some stupid whore!”

No way. Michael couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t stand there and listen to it. He decked his dad right in the face. One punch wasn’t enough, though, not when he was calling Maria a bitch and a whore, so he grabbed him by his uniform so he could steady him and hit him again. His dad started to fight back, though, and soon enough, their verbal argument had escalated into a physical one, and other McDonald’s employees were attempting to break it up.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Well, this is just lovely,” Krista bemoaned when they arrived home early that evening. “A great way to spend my afternoon, bailing both my husband and my son out of jail after they got arrested for fighting. With each other!”

“Don’t look at me,” Andy said as he edged his way past his wife and on into the house. “I didn’t throw the first punch.”

“Oh, fuck you, Dad!” Michael shouted. “The only reason I hit you is ‘cause you wouldn’t stop talkin’ shit!”

Maria, immediately concerned that Dylan was overhearing all of this, looked to Tina and said, “Can you take him into his room to play?”

“Sure,” she said, grabbing hold of his hand and quickly leading him away.

Michael frowned as if her were pained and apologized, “Sorry. I didn’t . . .”

He was angry. He wasn’t thinking. Otherwise he never would have said something like that in front of Dylan. She knew that.

“What were you thinking?” Krista ground out at her husband. “I can’t believe you hit our son!”

“He hit me first!”

“That defense only works in the third grade, Andrew.”

Maria grabbed Michael’s arm, pulling him away from his parents slightly. “Michael, you shouldn’t have done this today,” she said, trying to keep her voice soft and patient-sounding.

“I had to tell him at some point.”

“No, you shouldn’t have fought with him,” she clarified. She glanced over at his parents again. Krista was lecturing her husband now about responsibility, and letting him know how upset she was that he had lost his new job already.

“Maria, you don’t understand,” Michael said. “He was bein’ a jackass.”

“I know, but you both paid the price for it,” she pointed out. “You’re trying to make it onto a college football team, Michael. The last thing they need to see is a brand new arrest on your record.”

“Uh-oh,” Andy cut in, leering at them. “Trouble in paradise already?”

Maria rolled her eyes, not even bothering to hide her annoyance the way she usually did with him. She saw that Michael’s jaw was clenched shut, and his hands were in fists at his sides. He was holding himself back.

“Okay, let’s just go upstairs,” she said. “Okay?”

He nodded, and as they walked past his dad, he gave him an extra little shove, to which his mother scolded, “Knock it off, Michael.”

“Come on,” Maria said, taking hold of his hand. She scampered into their bedroom quickly and shut the door to cut him off from the whole toxic situation.

“Dammit!” Michael roared, kicking his computer chair over.

Maria startled a bit. Seeing Michael mad at his father was nothing new, but seeing him so mad less than twenty-four hours after he’d proposed and been so happy was a little upsetting. “Are you okay?” she asked him.

“No, I’m fuckin’ pissed.”

“Obviously.” She picked up the chair and pushed it back towards the desk again.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t mean for Dylan to have to hear any of that. It’s just . . . my dad, Maria. He makes me so angry sometimes.” He sat down on his bed, bending forward with his arms on his knees.

She sat down beside him and rubbed his back.

“I mean, I knew he was gonna react bad,” he said, “but I didn’t know it was gonna be that bad.”

“What did he say?” She wasn’t even sure if she should ask; he probably didn’t want to rehash it.

“Just the same old shit about how it’s not gonna work out, I’m gonna be miserable, end up like him—blah, blah, blah.”

Maria bristled. There was just no easy way to take that. Knowing that your future father-in-law was so vehemently opposed to you becoming part of the family . . . it sucked, even if she didn’t require his approval.

“But if you’d heard some of the stuff he was sayin’ about you . . .” Michael shook his head. “That’s when I lost it.”

“What was he saying?”

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

She probably didn’t, but she could take an educated guess in her mind. Bitch. Slut. Something along those lines.

“Listen,” she said, angling her body towards his, “I know you don’t care what he thinks, but . . . if something he said made you change your mind, I would understand.”

“No, I’m not gonna change my mind,” he said, looking slightly hurt that she would even think that was a possibility.

“I mean, I just know that sometimes people start to rethink things,” she said, trying to sound calm.

“I’m not rethinking anything,” he assured her. “I wanna marry you, Maria.”

She breathed a small sigh of relief. Thank God. Because she’d spent all day looking forward to it.

“In fact . . .” He reached over and put one hand on her lap. “I don’t think I wanna wait.”

She stared at him curiously, and her heart started to beat faster in anticipation. What did he mean by that?








TBC . . .

-April

[keepsmiling7]

Of course Tess would accept Kyle's proposal.....
And Michael is ready to get married right away despite the lovely conversation with his father.
Thanks,
Carolyn

[sarammlover]

I love that Tess was upset but still congratulated Michael about 10 times. She is going to be ok and I am still rooting for her and Kyle. I don't necessarily condone fighting but I feel like Andy and Michael were eventually going to come to blows and the only good thing is they didn't do it at home where Tina and Dylan were. I call that the silver lining! All I can think right now is poor Krista.....

[April]

Carolyn:

And Michael is ready to get married right away despite the lovey conversation with his father.

It's probably partly because of that conversation that he wants to get married sooner rather than later.

Sara:

I love that Tess was upset but still congratulated Michael about 10 times. She is going to be ok and I am still rooting for her and Kyle.

It's hard not to root for Tess and Kyle.

I don't necessarily condone fighting but I feel like Andy and Michael were eventually going to come to blows and the only good thing is they didn't do it at home where Tina and Dylan were. I call that the silver lining!

Yeah, that's definitely one way to look at it!


Thank you for reading and leaving feedback! I really appreciate it.








Part 72








Max was a good big brother. He was generous when it came to serving up the alcohol, even though both he and Isabel were still underage. He didn’t lecture or judge. He gave her an even bigger glass than he gave himself.

“Thanks,” she said as he took a seat next to her on the couch that night.

“Well, I figure we both need it,” he said, raising his glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” she echoed in a disgruntled way. Today had been horrible right from the start. There was really nothing to toast about.

He took a large swig, then set his glass down on the end table. “I can’t even believe it,” he said. “My little Maria, gettin’ hitched.”

“I think it’s safe to say she’s not your little Maria anymore,” Isabel pointed.

“Ah, she hasn’t been for a long time. And Michael’s definitely not yours.”

“He never was,” she admitted. “Just like he was never the type of guy who would settle down with a girl. Until Maria. Dear, sweet Maria.”

“Maria’s not all that sweet,” he said. “She slapped me the other day.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Hell if I know. Pent-up rage, perhaps. Or maybe she’s just sexually frustrated.”

“Pretty sure she’s not.” If there was one thing she couldn’t fault Michael for, it was his abilities in the bedroom. The guy knew what he was doing there, even if he didn’t know what he was doing with the rest of his life.

“Well, whatever,” he dismissed. “They’re our past, Isabel. Let ‘em get married. There’s really nothing we can do about it.”

“No, I suppose we can’t do anything to stop them,” she said, but even so, she was trying to figure out some way. It was beyond just jealousy at this point. She knew she and Michael weren’t getting back together, but she didn’t want him to be so together with someone else. At least not until she was long gone from this pointless little town and onto bigger and better things.

“They’ll be miserable,” Max proclaimed.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. What’re the chances they’d actually last? No marriage lasts anymore. Just look at our parents.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said, thinking about how many parents in this town were divorced. “Jesse said his mom was a single mom. And even Kyle’s parents aren’t together anymore.”

“Who’s Kyle?”

“Town golden boy. And Maria herself . . . her parents split.”

“See? Failed marriages all over the place.” Max smiled.

“But ironically enough, Michael’s parents are still together. I mean, granted, they make each other completely miserable, so they might as well be divorced . . .”

“They won’t last,” Max reiterated. “They’re just humiliating themselves.”

He sounded so sure that it made her feel sure, too. “Yeah, they are, aren’t they? They just look stupid and naïve.”

“Exactly.”

So if that was true . . . why was she envious of them? Why would she be envious of Tess when Kyle popped the question at graduation? She had other stuff going for her. A boyfriend of her own, Princeton . . . she didn’t need any of this high school soul mate crap. She was above it. Had to be. Yet lately, it seemed to be consuming her.

“You know the writing’s on the wall, though,” she said, “with Dylan.”

Max frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, once Michael and Maria are married, there’s nothing to stop him from making it official, making Dylan his son.”

“You mean adopting him?”

“Yep.” It spun her head just to even contemplate it, to accept the fact that Michael was at a point in his life where he felt like he could actually do that, like he actually wanted to. That would probably end up being a disaster, too.

“Hmm.” Max picked up his glass again and took another drink. “I don’t really like the thought of that.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what was gonna happen to him?”

“Well, yeah, I wondered, but I always just thought Maria would be a single mom for the rest of her life.” He shrugged. “Didn’t think she’d ever get over me.”

“Oh, well, she has. And if she has it her way, Dylan’s never even gonna know you.”

“Huh.” Max downed the rest of what was in his glass. “That upsets me more than I thought it would.”

“Is there anything you can do to stop it?” she asked. He was studying to be a lawyer, so maybe he had some legal tricks up his sleeve.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But if nothing else, I could at least make things a little harder on them.”

She smirked, raising her glass for another toast with his now empty one. “Cheers to that.” Those two liars deserved anything they got.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria felt like she was melting into Michael’s arms that morning. She’d been attempting to make breakfast when he’d sneaked up behind her and put his arms around her waist. And then they’d started kissing, and talking about the marriage stuff in between kisses, and now she totally felt like butter.

“You know I’m being serious, right?” he said as he rubbed her back.

“I know.”

“I wanna get married as soon as possible.”

He’d made that perfectly clear last night, and now that she’d had a chance to sleep on it . . . she really did kind of like the idea. At first it had seemed crazy, but really, why not just do it? What was the point of a long engagement? They already lived together, knew they could put up with each other at all hours of the day. They already knew each other so well, knew all their little quirks and habits.

“Do you think it’s even possible, though?” she asked, playing with the hair at the back of his neck. “I mean, weddings take a long time to plan.”

He shrugged. “Not necessarily. We could do it.”

“So you wanna get married this month.” There weren’t that many weeks in the month of May left, and he had graduation to be thinking about, too. But of course Michael wasn’t thinking about that.

“Like, within a month’s time,” he clarified. “You know, I was thinkin’ we’d move out around mid-June, ‘cause that’d give us some time to get settled in there in Alabama before football stuff starts up.”

“Okay.” At least he’d thought that through. That sounded like a good idea.

“And wouldn’t it be so cool to go there, and you could be like, ‘Yo, this is my husband.’”

“Yo?”

“And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, this is my wife. Isn’t she hot?’”

She smiled, blushing a bit. Thank God his arms were still around her, because all this talk was making her go weak in the knees. “That would be really nice.”

“And I know we can’t exactly afford a honeymoon right now, but we’ll be in a new state, so it’ll be . . . new. For the newlyweds.” He grinned playfully.

“Oh, Michael . . .” He was so cute sometimes.

“And we can save up money and go on a real honeymoon next summer.”

“Save up money,” she echoed. “I think that’s gonna be easier said than done.”

“Come on, let’s just do it,” he urged, stroking her hair. “Let’s get married soon.”

She rested her hands on his shoulders, looking at her engagement ring. Honestly, it wasn’t a horrible idea. It was kind of romantic, in a way, just the whirlwind factor of it all. And being married had its financial benefits, too, when it came to things like taxes. “Okay,” she agreed, “but let’s not go overboard with it. Let’s just do something small.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Well . . .” She had a lot of ideas in mind, but not all of them were feasible. “We could just go to the courthouse sometime and do it there.”

He frowned and sputtered, “The—the courthouse?”

“Yeah.” Plenty of people got married there. It was convenient and inexpensive and laid-back.

“Maria, I’m not gonna marry you in the courthouse,” he declined.

“No, Michael, it’s fine, really,” she insisted. “I don’t need a big, fancy wedding.”

“You deserve one.”

“I wouldn’t even have a lot of people to invite.”

“So you really wanna get married in the courthouse? With criminals walkin’ all around? I’ve done time with some of those guys, Maria. They’re not nice guys.”

“I’m sure you don’t see criminals walking around,” she said, although she wasn’t sure. Not like she had a lot of experience getting married. “Do you?”

“I don’t know. But I know I’m not gonna marry you there. That’s like what you do for a shotgun wedding.”

“Well, it kind of is a shotgun wedding,” Maria pointed out. “Except I’m not pregnant. But I bet everyone’s gonna think I am.”

“Yeah, probably,” he admitted, but he was still determined not to go along with her idea. “No, Maria, we’re gonna have a real wedding. Alright? We’re gonna get married somewhere—maybe not a church, though, ‘cause I always feel like I’m gonna burst into flames if I walk through the door.”

“Big sinner,” she teased, kissing his cheek.

“But maybe outside somewhere,” he proposed. “I don’t know where. Anywhere. Anywhere nice. You gotta have a nice wedding, get a nice dress.”

“Oh god, a dress.” She hadn’t even thought about that. Some brides spent months searching for the right one. She would have weeks at most. “And food. And bridesmaids. Michael, I don’t have enough female friends to be bridesmaids.”

“Ask Tess to do it,” he suggested.

“She’s more your friend than she is mine.”

“You guys are becoming friends,” he said. “And Kyle can be my best man, and it’ll be perfect. And Tina can be the flower girl and Dylan can be the ring-bearer. It’ll all work out.”

“Well . . .” That sounded plausible enough. “I guess it would.”

“So . . . not a total shotgun wedding,” he recapped, “but we still don’t have to waste any time.”

“Yeah.” Time was a terrible thing to waste, especially when it was time with Michael. “People are gonna think we’re so crazy, Michael.”

“I don’t care what people think.” He kissed her again, and she nearly collapsed into his embrace. If she couldn’t even kiss him now without getting all tingly inside, how was she going to survive the wedding kiss?

It brought a smile to her heart just thinking about it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael sat in the office that morning, waiting for his turn to see Topolsky. Some greasy freshman was in with her right now, ranting about his horrible life and the fact that he couldn’t get a date. He was shrieking often, and Topolsky came out multiple times to grab a new box of tissues. Michael didn’t mind that it was taking a while, though. The longer he waited, the more of English class he was able to miss. He was in no great hurry to get there and discuss . . . oh, what were they discussing again? Was Hamlet done now? He had no idea.

As the first bell of the day rang, Isabel came into the office, completely ignoring him. “Can I speak to Principal Forrester?” she asked the secretaries politely.

“He’s with someone right now,” one of them replied. “You can have a seat and wait. He’ll write you a pass to class.”

Great, Michael thought, contemplating moving one seat down. But that would just make it more awkward, so he stayed where he was at as she sat down in the chair next to him. At first, he wasn’t going to say anything, but then he couldn’t resist asking her about a rumor that had been spreading. “So I heard you didn’t get valedictorian.”

“No, I got it,” she claimed. “I just got it taken away.”

“Oh. ‘cause of your porno?”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes, trying to look unbothered by the fact, but he knew her better than that. It would upset her for the rest of her life that she wasn’t graduating as the valedictorian of her class.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked. “Did you get in trouble again? Cheat on a test? Punch a teacher?”

“No, I’m just here to talk to Ms. Topolsky.”

“About what?”

“I just wanna tell her . . . you know, my news.”

“Oh.” She stiffened. “The big engagement. Yeah, she probably already knows. It’s all anyone around here can talk about.”

“Yeah, but . . . I wanna tell her anyway.” She was, after all, the only staff member he actually liked.

“I think it’s a huge mistake, by the way,” she told him.

“I don’t remember asking for your input.” He had his dad for this.

“I just think it’s really nuts that you’re gonna marry a girl you haven’t even been dating half a year yet. You’re practically setting yourself up for failure. But then again, you’re used to failing, so . . .” She trailed off, smiling viciously.

“Ooh, jealous much, Isabel?” he taunted.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Get over yourself, Michael. I may always be attracted to you, but I won’t always be in love with you.”

Are you still, though? he wondered, hoping for her sake that she wasn’t. She needed to move on, because she had plenty of things ahead of her in life to move on to.

The door to the principal’s office opened up, and the kid Forrester had been talking to came staggering out. He looked high, which was probably what he’d been sent in there for.

“I still think you’re making a mistake,” Isabel reaffirmed as she got up and headed into the principal’s office, “and you’re gonna regret it for the rest of your life.” Before the door was even shut, Michael heard her complaining about how unfair the valedictorian decision was. She had to be smart enough to know he wouldn’t change his mind, though, so she must have popped in here to just vent and give him a piece of her mind. Just like she’d given Michael a piece of hers.

It was just her opinion, though. He didn’t have to listen.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria ate lunch at the Crashdown with Tess that day, even though Tess wasn’t a senior and technically wasn’t supposed to be leaving school grounds for lunch anymore. Apparently a few of the juniors had abused open lunch privileges a few months ago, and Principal Forrester had decided to do away with them for the entire class. Yet Tess was still there. That was probably one of the advantages of being super popular. You got to do things other people didn’t get to do.

“How long does your break last?” Tess asked.

Maria glanced at the clock. “Not much longer.”

Tess sipped her soda through a gurgly swizzle straw. “So everyone’s talking about you and Michael,” she said.

“Oh, I’ll bet. Seems like people are always so interested in what he’s doing.”

“Well, it’s a small town. We have to make our own fun.”

“What’re they saying?” Maria asked, not sure if she wanted to know.

“Everyone thinks you’re pregnant.”

She rolled her eyes. “Figures. God, do I look pregnant?”

“No, but it’s hard for people to fathom an eighteen year-old former player proposing to his girlfriend if she’s not. Most people just don’t understand. But Kyle and I do. We get it.”

“Yeah.” Maria wrapped up the rest of her burger, not in the mood for it. She had to eat way too much food here. “So I heard you were a little upset when you found out, felt like we stole your thunder.”

“Oh, yeah, I freaked out,” Tess admitted. “I always thought Kyle and I would be the first to do the proposal thing. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not like we had dibs on it.” She sighed. “I’m just a bit of a drama queen sometimes.”

“You don’t say?” Maria had figured that out upon meeting her for the first time.

“Well, you can’t blame me. I’m a cheerleader; it’s in my DNA.”

Maria laughed a little. “Well, I’m glad you and Kyle get it. Michael really needs that. His dad was horrible about it.”

“Ooh . . .” Tess made a face. “He’s horrible about everything.”

“Yeah.” The sad thing was, he probably wouldn’t even be at the wedding. He wouldn’t attend. He wouldn’t want to. And it would probably be better that way.

The wedding, she thought. The one that they were going to attempt to throw together in a few weeks’ time, the one Michael refused to have done at the courthouse because he was convinced she deserved more. “Okay,” she said, “Tess, I need to ask you for a favor.”

Tess just stared at her for a moment, then deduced, “You want me to be a bridesmaid, don’t you?”

“I don’t really have anyone else I can ask. Not that you’re a last resort or anything.”

“I’m a last resort.”

“It’s just . . . I need a bridesmaid . . . soon-ish, ‘cause we kinda wanna . . .” She lowered her voice so no one would overhear, not that there was anyone else there who would set the halls of West Roswell High a-buzzing. “We kinda wanna get married before he starts college.”

“What?” Tess shrieked. “Oh my god, not only are you guys getting engaged before me and Kyle, you’re getting married before me and Kyle?”

“Sorry,” she apologized.

Tess took a breath, flapped her hand in front of her face as if to quell tears of disappointment, and declared, “I’m over it.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. You need a bridesmaid. We’re . . . sort of friends. Becoming friends, at least, since my supposed best friend isn’t the best at anything besides making sex tapes now.”

“Oh.” Someone was bitter.

“I’ll do it,” Tess declared. “On the one condition that my bridesmaid’s dress is extremely beautiful.”

“It will be,” Maria assured her. “I’ll let you pick out the color and everything.”

“Well, what time do you get off work?” Tess asked. “We could go shopping today.”

“Today?” She hadn’t been prepared to do that today, but if Tess was offering . . . well, it would be nice to get another girl’s opinion. Besides, she couldn’t waste any time. She needed to find a dress for herself and find it soon. “Okay,” she said. “I’m off at 3:00 today. We could shop until 4:30, but then I need to go pick up Dylan.”

“I’ll meet you after school, around 3:30,” Tess said. “Maria DeLuca, we might just end up being good friends yet.”

Maria laughed a little. As different as she and Tess were, she sort of hoped they would be.

They met up at a small bridal boutique just off the main drag. Tess knew all the employees there by name, which probably meant that she went in there and browsed and tried on wedding dresses for fun a lot. The workers seemed surprised when she revealed that she was only searching for a bridesmaid’s gown today.

“Ooh, I love this one!” she exclaimed, lifting a sequined dress of the rack. It was a pink and purple floral pattern, and the sequins made it look like a disco ball. Or a Jersey Shore outfit.

“I don’t know about that one,” Maria said.

“You said I could pick it out,” Tess reminded her. “That’s a definite maybe. Ooh! Oxymoron!” She clapped her hands in excitement.

“Oxymoron,” Maria echoed, trying to recall if she’d ever learned what that was. “Is that like . . . jumbo shrimp? Pretty ugly?”

“Living dead, Icy Hot,” Tess went on. “Look at you go, Maria. Maybe it doesn’t matter if you dropped out.”

“Hmm.” No, it did.

All the wedding dresses were a bit overwhelming to her. She wasn’t the type of girl who had drawn out a design of her dream dress back in the sixth grade. She hadn’t ever given it much thought. Plus, some of these gowns were rather pricey. She couldn’t afford many of them.

Tess found one on the bargain rack and told her to try it on. It was strapless, which Maria was nervous about, but Tess assured her that the right push-up bra could work wonders. “Try it on,” she urged. “See if you like it.”

Maria sighed. It actually looked a lot like Tess’s prom dress, but less expensive. “Okay,” she said, ducking into one of the changing rooms.

When she came out and saw herself in the long row of full length mirrors, it was a surreal feeling. A wedding dress. She was wearing a real-life wedding dress. For a real-life wedding that she was going to have. Sooner rather than later. This was all really happening.

“That looks so good!” Tess raved.

“You think?” Maria smoothed her hands down over her sides. The dress fit well and only cost one hundred and fifty dollars. It was marked down by seventy-five percent.

Still . . . one hundred and fifty dollars wasn’t just pocket change to her. It would take her at least two weeks at the Crashdown to make that much in tips. And it wasn’t like this would be the only expense she had to pay.

In the midst of contemplating whether or not she should buy a dress here or just go to the thrift store and try to find a nice one, regardless of what color it was, the worst possible thing happened. Out of all the people who could have walked into that store . . . her mother did.

“Oh my god,” she gasped in a whispered tone. She picked up her dress and tried to hustle back into the dressing room, but she tripped and fell down instead.

“Graceful,” Tess teased. “Tell me you’re not gonna walk down the aisle that way.”

Maria just closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. That hadn’t exactly been a quiet fall. She knew it had attracted her mother’s attention.

“Maria?”

And there it was. Fuck, she thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She stood up, tugging upward on the top of her dress, and tried to smile pleasantly. “Hey, Mom.”

Her mother looked her up and down suspiciously. “What’re you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Maria turned it around.

“I’m gonna be a bridesmaid in my friend Susan’s wedding.”

“Susan?”

“Yes, she’s in my book club.”

“You have a book club?”

“Yeah, we meet every Wednesday at 5:00 and—Maria. Is this really the most important topic of conversation here? You’re in a wedding dress.”

Maria flapped her arms against her sides. “I am.”

Her mother’s mouth dropped open. “Are you getting married?”

Wasn’t it obvious? In fact, could it possibly be any more obvious than it already was? “Yes, Mom,” she answered calmly.

Amy clamped her hand over her mouth, but her silence spoke volumes.

“Doesn’t she look pretty in this dress?” Tess chirped obliviously. “I picked it out. I think she should get it.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Amy asked her.

“I’m Tess. Kyle’s girlfriend. We met once when you were dating Jim.”

“Oh, well, I’ve tried to block out that part of my life,” Amy said before returning her attention to Maria. “When did this happen?”

“Just a couple nights ago,” Maria told her.

“Michael proposed?”

“Yeah . . .”

“Well, it’s a modern world we live in. Sometimes the girl initiates it. I didn’t know if you’d--”

“No, Michael proposed, and I said yes. We wanna get married before he starts college.”

“What?” her mother screeched. “Oh, Maria!” She scowled at her disapprovingly. “You should know better. This isn’t a good idea.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” She was getting pretty damn fed up with the harsh judgments.

“If everyone’s saying it, maybe you should listen,” her mother suggested. “Maybe everyone’s right. I don’t know what you’re thinking. You’ve barely even been in a relationship with this boy.”

“I love him, Mom. I live with him. He’s my best friend. We’re as close as close can be.”

“But with your situation . . . “

“I don’t wanna hear it,” she grumbled. She had thought about it all from every angle. She knew what her mom’s objections would be, because she’d considered them.

“I’m gonna go try on that sequin dress,” Tess said, quickly slipping away from all the hostility.

“Maria, you need to think about what you’re doing. You are forever altering that boy’s life if you go through with this.”

She blinked back tears, forcing herself to hold it together. “He wants this just as much as I do, Mom.”

“Does he even know what he’s getting into? Really?”

Maria looked down at the floor. Truthfully . . . she wasn’t sure.

“You know as well as I do that you’re being very selfish, Maria.”

“Selfish?” she repeated. “For wanting to spend the rest of my life with a guy I love?”

“It’s his life, too, Maria. I might not be his biggest fan, but if you marry him, you’re limiting his possibilities. And I don’t think that’s fair.”

Maria couldn’t help it. A tear spilled over. She looked away, but when another one fell, she just scurried back into the dressing room. She didn’t want her mom to see her cry. But it was hard not to. Everything she was saying was Maria’s worst fear. She didn’t want to hold Michael back. Not now, not ever.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Michael was in a decent mood when he got home that day. His after school workout with Kyle had gone well, and he’d bench-pressed five pounds more than his previous maximum. He hoped he would be able to keep up his good mood all night. Probably best to avoid any and all contact with his dad if that were to ever be possible.

Unfortunately, when he spotted his mom in the kitchen, she didn’t look to be in such high spirits. She was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, crying.

“Mom?” he said, slowly approaching her. “You okay?”

She sniffled, wiping the tears off her cheeks. “Hi, honey,” she said, smiling shakily.

No, that smile wasn’t going to convince him that she was alright. Not by a long shot. “What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting down beside her.

“Oh, you know . . .” She clasped her hands together, pressing them against her mouth. “The usual.”

“Dad?” he guessed. Didn’t take a genius.

She nodded sadly. “I tried to get him to go look for another job today, but he went out and got drunk instead. And then apparently he started making these harassing phone calls to the school.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he was fuming with your principal and your guidance counselor, because he said they should’ve stopped you from getting engaged.”

Michael made a face. What the fuck? Didn’t the guy know when to stop? No, of course not; that was why he was an alcoholic. But he was just going way too far with this now. Fighting with him about it was one thing, but bringing someone like Ms. Topolsky into it, a woman who had done nothing but help him this past year . . . that really pissed him the hell off.

“I had to leave work early to go get him today,” his mother relayed. “He was so drunk he couldn’t even walk straight. Now he’s sleeping it off so he can go out again tonight and do the same damn thing.” Her whole body shook as she continued to weep. “Oh, Michael, I just . . . I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

She’d done it long enough in his estimation. “So don’t,” he suggested. “Dump his ass. You’re better off without him.”

“He’s my husband, Michael. It’s not that simple. We’ve been married for eighteen years.”

“You’ve been unhappy for eighteen years,” he corrected, desperately wanting her to take a stand for herself. He hadn’t always been the greatest son, but he loved his mom, and he wanted more for her than this. She deserved better.

“But we always said we’d try to stay together,” she protested, “try to stay a family for you and for Tina.”

“We’re better off without him, too,” he said. “Come on, Mom, if you don’t wanna be with him, don’t be with him. It doesn’t bother me any.”

“But Tina . . .” she whimpered. “She’s so young.”

“She’ll be fine,” he insisted. “You guys don’t need him.”

“Oh . . .” she groaned, holding her forehead as if she had a headache just thinking about it. “Don’t tell her,” she said. “I don’t want her to know I’m thinking about any of this.”

“No, I won’t say anything,” he promised. But he was definitely going to keep working on his mom, urge her to file for divorce and just be done with it. It was the best thing for everyone involved.

“Thank you,” she said, reaching over to hold his hand. “Oh, Michael, promise me . . . you have to promise you and Maria won’t end up like this.”

Michael shifted uncomfortably. He was getting really tired of people comparing his and Maria’s perfectly healthy relationship to his parents’ dysfunctional one.

“Promise,” she reiterated. “I know you’re not your dad, but if you sense that something’s going wrong, you have to fix it. You can’t let it fester and grow like I did.”

“Mom, we’ll be fine,” he assured her.

But she was still insistent. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” Eighteen years from now, Maria and Dylan would not be having this conversation.

She smiled at him tearfully, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. “You’ll be a good man,” she said, brushing his hair off his forehead.

He was sure as hell going to try.

Glancing over his shoulder when he heard footsteps on the stairs, he met eyes with Maria, who looked upset just like his mother did. Her makeup was smeared and her eyes were red and puffy. Shit, she’d been crying, too?

“Hey,” she managed to get out.

“Oh, no.” He got up from the kitchen table and followed Maria into the living room. “You, too, huh?”

She grabbed a tissue from the Kleenex box on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. “Yeah, your mom and I are quite the pair, huh?” She blew her nose and scooted over to make room for him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, getting a sense of what it might feel like to be Topolsky on a daily basis, always asking other people about their problems. “Did my dad say something?”

“No.” She looked down at her lap, a few more tears falling over. “My mom. I told her today.”

“What? I didn’t know you were gonna do that.” This was good, though, in a way. Now at least both of the people they were dreading telling knew.

“I didn’t, either,” she said, “but we just happened to be in the same place at the same time, and I just happened to be trying on a wedding dress when she walked in.”

“Oh.” He winced. “Damn.”

“Yeah, it was awful. I didn’t even have the chance to plan out what I was gonna say.”

“So was she . . .” He didn’t even really have to ask how she had reacted, because her tears told the whole story, but he did anyway. “Was she pissed?”

“God yes,” she mumbled. “Maybe not as pissed as your dad, but still . . . she definitely wasn’t happy—not that I expected her to be—but . . .” She balled up the tissue in her lap, her shoulders slumping. “It’s not fun to know the people who gave birth to us don’t support what we’re doing.”

“My mom’s fine with it,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, but even she’s skeptical.”

He sighed. Yeah, that was true. But at least she wasn’t using every opportunity she had to point out all the ways in which this marriage would not work.

“It just sucks,” she cried. “We should be able to be really happy right now, and they’re ruining it.”

He frowned, wishing there was more that he could do. Personally, it didn’t bother him as much as it was bothering her—he really didn’t care what anyone else thought. But it upset him that it was upsetting her. “They’re not ruining it,” he said, cupping her cheek. She tilted her head against his hand, staring at him with sad but appreciative eyes.

“We could tell Dylan tonight,” he suggested. “He’ll be happy.”

That got a small smile out of her. “Yeah,” she agreed.

“Yeah.” He stroked his thumb beneath her eye, wiping the tears away, and moved in closer so he could kiss her forehead. Then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up onto his lap so he could hug her, hold her close for a while. She wasn’t crying anymore, though she was probably still sad. She wouldn’t be, though, after they told Dylan the big news. Happy couldn’t even begin to cover how thrilled he would be. And that was good, because after all, wasn’t his opinion the only one that really mattered?








TBC . . .

-April

[keepsmiling7]

It appears that Max is going to make things harder on Maria........I hate to see that.
Now Maria's mom tells her she is going to hold Michael back. That's not fair.
It's obvious, there's no support from the parents here.
But we know Dylan is going to be very happy.
Thanks,
Carolyn

[sarammlover]

April....why so much drama????? AH HA HA HA but seriously...we need something good to happen...don't you think? Isabel....the master manipulator....she is such a pain in the ass. I don't think Max would have given a shit about Dylan if she hadn't said a thing.....too bad. I agree wth Michael...DUMP ANDY'S ASS!

[April]

Carolyn:

It appears that Max is going to make things harder on Maria........I hate to see that.

I know, that's not what she needs. He's made things hard enough on her already.

Now Maria's mom tells her she is going to hold Michael back. That's not fair.

It seems like Maria's mom is always saying something like that to her.

It's obvious, there's no support from the parents here.
But we know Dylan is going to be very happy.

No support from 2 out of the 3 parents at least. But yes, Dylan will be very happy.


Sara:

April....why so much drama?????

Because it's my calling card.

Isabel....the master manipulator....she is such a pain in the ass. I don't think Max would have given a shit about Dylan if she hadn't said a thing.....

Isabel is so resentful and miserable right now that she has manipulated Max into getting involved with this situation, a situation that wasn't even his radar before he came back to Roswell.

I agree wth Michael...DUMP ANDY'S ASS!

You've been lobbying for that for a long time!


Thanks for reading and leaving feedback. I really appreciate it.








Part 73








It took some major convincing, but Isabel finally convinced Jesse to come over for dinner. She figured it was better to get it out of the way while Max was still staying there, because her mom would still want to put her best, most loving self forward in front of the son she’d only recently reunited with.

It was awkward, though. Extremely awkward. No one said a whole lot. Just random small-talk here and there, accompanied by the scraping of silverware on plates as they all pushed around the steak they didn’t want to eat. Max had grilled it, but it was a bit too well done, and he readily admitted it.

Isabel sat on one side of the table with Jesse, proud of him for dressing nicely, at least. Michael had never even had the common sense to do that. He had never bothered to even try to make a good impression. But Jesse had the cards stacked against him because of the sex tape. Isabel knew that was all her mother saw when she was looking at him, the guy who had corrupted her daughter. Even though, technically, that guy had probably been Michael, not Jesse. Although . . . she wasn’t really corrupted. Just changed.

Max sat on the other side of the table, looking like he would rather be anywhere else, except for when his mother glanced over at him. Then he put on a smile and did the good son routine. Their mother sat at the head of the table, of course, barely eating anything.

Towards the end of the meal, Jesse cleared his throat and spoke up, but wisely, he chose to address Max instead of Diane. “So Max,” he said, “Isabel tells me you’re studying to be a lawyer. How are you liking it?”

“I’m loving it,” Max replied. “Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’ll be a pretty successful one.”

“I’m sure you will be,” Isabel agreed. Even though she and her brother were still getting to know each other again, she knew that he was very shrewd and probably equally—or at least almost—as smart as she was.

“I used to study law, before I went a different direction in life,” Jesse said, taking another bite of what remained of his chewy steak.

“And what exactly do you do now?” Isabel’s mother asked sternly.

“Well, I run a business.”

Isabel bristled, wondering how into detail he would go about just what that business was. Hopefully not very. He had put his best foot forward so far.

“What kind of business?” her mother prodded.

“Sales,” he answered smoothly.

“What do you sell?”

Lie, Isabel thought. Don’t bring up the porn.

“Just many beautiful things,” he replied vaguely.

“Hmm.” She stared at him as though she were inspecting him. But was there any point in that? He had already failed before he’d walked in the door, just because of what they had done together as two willing, consenting adults.

“What do you do, Mrs. Evans?” he asked.

She didn’t respond. She was too busy glaring at him with narrowed eyes.

“She’s in real estate,” Isabel supplied on her mother’s behalf.

“Well, that explains the house. It’s lovely,” he complimented. “I’ve always wanted to live in Roswell’s historic district.”

Even though it looked like it was painful for her to do so, Isabel’s mother swallowed her pride and offered up a quiet, “Thank you.” But clearly that was all Jesse was going to get. “Does anyone want dessert?” she asked as she got up from the table.

“I do,” Max answered quickly.

“Dessert sounds great,” Jesse agreed.

“I’m full, but you guys go ahead,” Isabel said, pushing her plate aside.

“Do you want some help, Mom?” Max asked.

“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” She cleared her plate and Max’s off the table but left Jesse’s and Isabel’s in front of them.

When she had slipped into the kitchen, Jesse leaned forward and spoke in low tones as he recapped everything Isabel had told him on the drive over. “Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this straight: Your ex-boyfriend . . .” He pointed to Isabel, then to Max. “. . . is dating his ex-girlfriend.”

“Engaged,” Isabel corrected, rolling her eyes. What a bunch of bull.

“Right. And you . . .” He gave Max a questioning look. “You have a son with your ex-girlfriend? Who’s engaged to her ex-boyfriend.”

Max shrugged unabashedly. “It’s a tangled web we weave around here.”

“I’ll say,” Jesse agreed.

“Did Mom interrogate you?” Isabel asked her brother.

He chuckled lightly. “Yeah. She wanted to know everything. His name, his age, his hair color. I don’t think she can quite come to terms with the fact that she’s a grandmother.”

“Do you know your son well?” Jesse inquired.

“Not at all,” Max admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

“Well, you’d better act fast,” Isabel urged. “Dylan’s got a new dad now.”

Max’s jawline tensed. He looked genuinely upset when she said that. “Michael’s not his dad,” he declared adamantly. “He’s just a substitute.”

“Well, he’s gonna be substituting all the way to Alabama,” Isabel warned.

Max shot her a confused look. “What?”

“You didn’t know? They’re moving there after he graduates.”

Max bristled. Apparently he hadn’t known.

“Moving and getting married,” Jesse said. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” Isabel wasn’t trying to be insensitive, but it didn’t hurt to light a little fire under her brother’s butt. He’d said he would make things difficult on them, but he had yet to express any sense of urgency. “I’d say they’re planning on cutting you out of the picture for good, Max.”

His brow furrowed as he stared down at the table, fixating on nothing, even when their mother came back in with the bread pudding dessert. When he got that look on his face, Isabel couldn’t tell if he was fuming mad, scheming, or both. But she really hoped it was both, because that would be the most entertaining.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Try cutting me out of the picture now, bitch, Max thought as he walked into the Crashdown the next day. He couldn’t have scripted it any more perfectly. Maria was there, apparently on her break, because she sure as hell wasn’t working. Rather, she was sitting in a booth in uniform with Michael and Dylan. Michael was tickling the kid, and Dylan was laughing loud enough that the people a few booths down were starting to look annoyed. But Maria just sat across from them and smiled and didn’t even notice Max walk in.

Excellent.

He strode toward them, pulled a chair away from one of the tables, and set it down next to their booth. He swung his legs over it and sat with his arms on the back of it, completely ignoring Maria’s stunned look and Michael’s pissed one, opting to smile at his son instead. “Hey, Dylan,” he greeted. The kid had his ears, but Maria’s eyes and mouth. He was a cutie, though, would probably grow up to be a girl-magnet.

“Hi,” Dylan squeaked out.

“Dylan, don’t talk to him,” Maria said.

“Oh, come on,” Max groaned. It wasn’t like he was Freddy Krueger or something. He was the kid’s biological dad.

“Just get outta here, Max,” Michael snapped, putting his arm around Dylan.

“Sorry, Guerin, I’m not one of your high school cronies. I don’t take orders from you.”

“Max, leave,” Maria growled.

“Now, now, don’t cause a scene,” he cautioned.

“I’ll go get my manager, and he can make you leave,” she threatened.

“Ooh.” What did he care if he got thrown out of this crap restaurant? He wouldn’t even eat there if anyone paid him.

“I can make you leave,” Michael offered.

“Yeah, I’d like to see you try.” The beauty of it was . . . he wouldn’t. Not with Dylan sitting right next to him. He couldn’t, otherwise he’d be the guy who was setting a horrible example for the kid.

“Daddy . . .” Dylan cooed, pressing his head into Michael’s side. He looked a little afraid.

Hearing that was like a knife in the heart. It wasn’t Dylan’s fault. He was just a little boy who didn’t have a clue what the reality of the situation was. He saw Max as a stranger and Michael as family. His world was twisted.

“Fine, I’ll leave,” Max decided, standing up. But he wasn’t about to go without getting some parting words in there. “But listen, Dylan,” he said. “I’m your daddy. Don’t ever forget it.”

“Max!” Maria yelped.

“Shut the fuck up, man,” Michael ground out.

“Shh.” Max pressed his index finger to his mouth, then pointed at Dylan. “Language.” He turned his back on the trio and, with a satisfied smirk on his face, walked out the way he’d come in.

Instead of going home or even going back to his car, he slipped into the side alley next to the café and waited for the inevitable. Michael was clearly a hot-head. Guys like him couldn’t resist a good confrontation, and that was exactly what Max was hoping to provoke. Because confrontations . . . they could rattle people, stir up doubt. They weren’t something to be avoided; they were something to be utilized to your advantage.

He leaned back against the wall, counting down until Michael emerged. “Three, two, one . . .”

A few seconds later, Michael came storming around the corner. Fucking predictable. “Hey!” he shouted. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’ showin’ up here? I thought Maria and I were pretty clear about not wanting anything to do with you.”

“Oh, you were clear,” Max assured him. “I just don’t care.” Nobody bossed him around, especially not his ex and her pathetic excuse for a new man.

“Do you care about Dylan?” Michael demanded. “Because you probably just confused the hell out of him.”

“I didn’t confuse him,” Max denied. “You did. You and Maria. You’ve brainwashed that kid into thinking you’re his family.”

“I am his family,” Michael insisted.

“No, Maria’s his family. You just happen to be the guy she’s boning right now. I just happen to be the guy she boned in order to create Dylan three years ago. You know . . . I’m his real dad.”

Michael snorted with laughter. “You think you’re his real dad, huh?”

Max shrugged simplistically. “My sperm.”

“Then that’s all you are is a fuckin’ sperm donor. ‘cause you’ve never been a dad to him for one day of his life.”

“Oh, and you have?”

“Yeah. I tuck him in at night—in a room I made for him, by the way. I play with him. I taught him how to play football.”

“But with my genes, he’ll probably be more of a basketball player.” Max smirked. “You know, Michael, believe it or not, I actually feel sorry for you. You’re in pretty deep, but I just—I don’t see this having a happy ending for you.”

“Not gonna have a happy ending for you, either,” Michael warned.

“I think you’re in way over your head, and I can relate to that. But see, the difference between us is, I knew I was in over my head, so I didn’t even try. You’re gonna try . . . and fail.”

Michael looked away for a moment, a sure sign that he was trying to mask his reaction to that.

“But I’ll give credit where credit’s due,” Max acknowledged. “You really are trying hard, even though it’s not gonna be enough. I mean, asking Maria to marry you? That’s ballsy.” He grinned, loving every second of this. He felt like was in a courtroom, grilling some stupid witness up on the stand. “Although I find it terribly convenient that you just happened to propose to her right after I came to town.”

Michael made a face. “That has nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, really? Because a person might think you proposed because you were feeling a little insecure, wanted to lock down your relationship with Maria so I wouldn’t be a threat to it.”

Michael shook his head and laughed. “Oh, Max . . . if you think you could ever be a threat to me and Maria, those drugs must’ve fried your brain a lot more than you realize.”

“I just call it like I see it,” Max said. “I have a hard time believing you and Maria are completely rock solid after . . . how many months of dating?”

“You really think you can split us up?”

“Michael . . .” Max put his hand on Michael’s shoulder, only to have it shrugged away. “I don’t have to do that. You’re gonna do it all on your own.”

Michael didn’t have any quick comeback for that.

Slam dunk, Max thought. Let him mull that one over for a while. Sometimes, he liked to just light a metaphorical bomb and watch it explode, toss a grenade and let it do its damage. He moved past Michael, pleased with himself, but as he was rounding the corner, he collided with Maria. She had Dylan with her but immediately pushed him behind her as if to try to conceal him.

“Michael, can you take him home?” she asked, peering around Max’s frame.

Michael looked a little shaken, which Max loved, but he snapped himself out of it pretty quickly. “Sure,” he said, giving Max a good shove on his way past. “Come on, buddy,” he said, reaching down for Dylan’s hand. Max watched enviously as he walked him down the sidewalk and helped him get in the car.

“Same old Max, aren’t you?” Maria said, watching as they drove off.

“Same old Maria,” he returned.

“No, actually, I’ve changed a lot. Had to, once I realized I was a single mom.”

“I’m not saying you haven’t changed,” he conceded, “but fundamentally, you’re still the same.”

She took off her ridiculous antennae headband, stuffing it into the waistband of her apron. “How am I the same?”

He smirked, amazed that she’d taken the bait so easily. “Well, you tend to ride your man’s coattails, if you know what I mean.”

She sighed impatiently. “I really don’t.”

Perfect. That meant he got to explain it to her. “Well, when we were together, it’s safe to say you would’ve done anything for me. You did. I mean, you got high for me, got wasted. Skipped school, skipped goin’ home at night. If I asked you for sex, you gave it to me. Asked you for head, you were already down on your knees.” He never had gotten to try that backdoor, though. Not with her, anyway.

“I was naïve,” she said, “clueless.”

“And you followed me. Wherever I wanted to go, whatever I wanted to do . . . you never questioned it, just went along for the ride. And now I hear you’re doing the same thing with Michael, riding along with him all the way to Alabama.” He did an unenthused surfer motion with his hands. “Roll Tide.”

Maria crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “Oh, that Isabel. She just fills you in on everything, doesn’t she?”

“Well, someone’s got to. Imagine my surprise when I learned my child’s mother was planning on moving him a thousand miles away.”

“Michael’s going to college there,” she said, as if that somehow made it all okay.

“And you’re not. You’re just following him. I’m sure that’ll work out for you.”

“You can’t stop me,” she snarled, standing up straighter now. She obviously was trying not to be the pushover he was so accustomed to dealing with.

“Who said anything about stopping you?”

“I know you, Max. I know that’s what you’re thinking. And it has nothing to do with wanting to get to know Dylan. You just wanna cause mischief because you have nothing better to do.”

Damn, he thought, licking his lips as he looked at her. This feistier Maria took a little getting used to, but she was pretty damn sexy. A lot hotter than the mindless, impressionable freshman he’d first met.

“If I wanna move and take Dylan with me, then I can move,” she said confidently. But what she really confident? Or was it all just an act?

“You sure about that?” he challenged. “What if the biological father objects?”

“Well, that could be a problem, if the biological father played any sort of role in the child’s life at all,” she said. “Lucky for me, that’s not you. It’s never been you, Max. You’ve never held him, never been there to watch him grow. You’ve never even forked over a dime to help with any of his expenses.”

“Because you didn’t want me to.”

“Exactly.” Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “See, you may be the hot-shot college guy now, but you’re still not as smart as you think you are.”

“And you think you’re smarter,” he guessed.

“Smart enough to know that if I never took any child support from you, you’d never have any power over me.”

“Hmm.” To be quiet honest . . . he hadn’t seen this coming. He thought he’d be able to use some of his fancy lawyer-in-training double-speak as leverage to get in her head, make her worry about threats he couldn’t possibly carry out. But apparently she’d done her research. She knew there was nothing he could do to stop her from taking Dylan away.

“I’m his legal guardian,” she said. “I have sole custody. You have nothing.”

“Fine, then I have nothing,” he said. “But if I can’t be his dad, Michael sure as hell can’t be, either.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, Maria.” He reached out to stroke her hair, but she took a step back and swatted his hand away. “Don’t think I don’t know where this is headed with you and Michael. First you get married, shotgun style; then, before you know it . . . there come the adoption papers.”

She tucked her thumbs into her apron, failing to appear nonchalant as he poked and prodded a little deeper.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he gathered. “That’s the plan.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Because that’s what Michael wants, or at least what he thinks he wants. And of course it’s what you want. You rope this poor sucker into throwing his whole life away for you, but hey, at least you don’t have to go it alone.”

“That’s not what I’m--”

“But that’s easier said than done, Maria,” he informed her, taking a step closer, really trying to invade her personal space. “Because even if he is a stepparent, I’m still a birth parent. I still have rights. You still need my consent for any adoption to take place.”

Her tough act started to waver, and she looked worried again. “No,” was all she could say.

“I’m gonna be a lawyer, Maria. I know how this works.”

“So do I,” she insisted. “I’m not gonna let you get in the way of my life anymore. Or Dylan’s. We’re better off without you, and we will be without you.”

“I’m his father.”

“When have you ever acted like his father?”

He flapped his arms against his sides. “Maybe never. But it’s my name on the birth certificate, isn’t it?”

“Just a name.”

“It’s my blood in his veins. If you and Guerin want a kid so bad, just fuck a lot. Make your own. He can’t have mine.”

“He can,” she insisted. “He will. You’re not stopping us.”

“I might not be able to stop you,” he acknowledged, “but I sure as hell can make sure it’s not easy.”

“Then give it your best shot,” she urged. “I will get a lawyer when the time comes, if I have to. But I promise there will be a day when you stop claiming to be Dylan’s father and accept the truth.”

“And I promise . . .” Max leered at her. “. . . that your happy little family’s gonna self-destruct.” He smiled at her, glad that he could leave his conversation with her on the same note he’d left his talk with Michael. “See you around, Maria.” He made sure to brush his body against hers as he walked past, just to remind himself what it felt like. Still good.

It all felt pretty good, actually. Even though it hadn’t been his intention to come to Roswell and start up any of this, he had to admit, reconnecting with this family was a hell of lot more interesting than reconnecting with his other one.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria peered over Michael’s shoulder that night as he scrolled through a lengthy Internet page’s explanation of stepparent adoption procedures. She’d been thinking about it all day, barely able to concentrate on her work because of her little run-in with Max Evans. She hated that he could get to her, make her worry so much, but it was pretty much one of his talents. He did it effortlessly, with ease. Even though she’d tried to be all confident and strong in front of him, behind closed doors, she was a nervous wreck.

“Okay, it says you gotta have consent of the other birth parent,” Michael read.

“Crap.” Max would never give that to her. And not because of any desire to be a father. Just because he was stubborn and would hate letting someone else have their way for a change.

“If the other birth parent refuses to consent,” Michael continued to read, “the adoption will not be allowed unless that parent’s rights are terminated.”

“How do you terminate them?” she asked eagerly, needing to know. If anyone was a candidate for having his parental rights stripped away, it had to be Max, right?

“Oh, this is good,” Michael said, dragging the cursor over a line of text to highlight it for her. “Look, abandonment, failure to support the child.”

“That is good,” she agreed. Maybe she’d been right on the money with what she’d said to him today.

“Proving the birth parent has abandoned the child,” he read on. “Most state’s laws allow termination of parental rights when a parent has willfully failed to support the child or has abandoned the child for a period of time, usually a year. Generally, abandonment means that the absent parent hasn’t communicated with the child or supported the child financially.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God.” For once, Max’s abandonment would prove to be a good thing.

“I think we’ll be fine,” he said, bookmarking the website. “He doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“I’m so glad I never let him pay child support.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Michael spun his computer chair toward her and pulled her down on top of his lap in a straddle position. “You did good today.”

“I did kinda stand up to him,” she said, smiling proudly. “Oh my god, I was freaking out, though. It was, like, a fake bravado the whole time.”

“You still did good, though.” He ran his hand through her hair, letting it roam down to her chest, and asked, “What else did he say? About us?”

She shook her head, not wanting to tell him. “He’s just jealous,” she mumbled, scrunching the bottom of his shirt up in her hands.

He made a face of disgust. “Everybody’s jealous.”

Was that it? Was that why everyone was going out of their way to tell them that their relationship was basically doomed? First his dad, then her mom, now Max? Were they all just painfully jealous?

“You know what?” he said, sliding his hands around to rub her back. “Maybe this whole adoption thing’s another thing we shouldn’t drag our feet on. ‘cause maybe everyone will stop being jealous once it’s official.”

She doubted it, but it was a nice thought. “Maybe,” she said. There were definitely some advantages to getting the ball rolling as soon as they were married rather than waiting much longer. The longer they waited, the more time Max would have to make his annoying, twisted effort to finally be a part of Dylan’s life. Or to start offering to pay child support. If they were going to claim abandonment as their reason to terminate his rights, they had to make sure Dylan was still . . . abandoned.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized suddenly, the words just bubbling to the surface.

He frowned. “For what?”

“Just . . . the fact that you have to deal with all of this.” He’d started off his school year as a wild, carefree adolescent. Now he was having to think about things a lot of guys didn’t even start thinking about until their thirties. “I know it sucks.”

“No, it’s fine,” he assured her.

“It’s not; it’s stressful. And I mean, most guys your age are just thinking about frat parties and hot college girls, and you’re having to think about marriage and adoption.”

“Maria, this is what I want,” he reminded her. “I want it all with you.”

“I know.” Sometimes, she wasn’t sure why, though. It wasn’t like she was some great catch. She had so much baggage to deal with. She could never be carefree, even if it was tempting to be that way with him.

“In fact . . .” He slipped his hand further down to dip into the back of her jeans. “I wanna do it all with you tonight, after we go to that party.”

“God, you’re so horny.”

He grinned. “It’s my trademark.”

“Constantly horny.”

“I know. I’m like a fuckin’ Energizer bunny. I love that about me.”

She laughed lightly, draping her arms over the back of his chair. “I don’t know. After all that happened today, I’m not sure if I feel like going to that party tonight.” She didn’t know the person who was hosting it, but it was supposed to be some end of the year bash. Michael had been talking about it at the Crashdown before Max had shown up. “I think I’d kinda just like a quiet night in with Dylan.”

“Oh.” He withdrew his hands, resting them on her hips instead. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” She just needed to spend some time with her son.

“That’s okay,” he said. “We’ll just hang out here.”

“You can still go if you want,” she told him. “You don’t have to stay.”

“No, I’ll stay.”

She remembered a similar situation, back when they’d first gotten together. They had gone to a basketball game, and he’d avoided sitting in the student section just so he could sit with her. This felt just like that, and it didn’t feel particularly good. “I know you really wanted to go,” she said. “End of the year thing and all.”

“No, I don’t wanna go without you,” he said. “It’ll probably be stupid anyway.”

No, it would probably be fun. Michael, for as much as he claimed to hate high school, loved a good high school party. He just hadn’t gone to many lately.

He lifted her off his lap and got up. “I’ll go see what’s on TV,” he said, giving her a quick kiss before he headed out of the room.

She sighed, wondering if her little encounter with Max was making her feel worse about this than she otherwise would have. It just really sucked that, even though she’d gotten past feeling guilty about what she’d done to Isabel, now she was starting to feel guilty about what she was doing to her own boyfriend. But Michael didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, staying home tonight. So maybe it wasn’t. And maybe it was best to just leave it at that.








TBC . . .

-April