Passion (M&M & CC/UC, AU, Adult, ) (Complete)

[April]

nibbles:

Tess is so dippy, she makes Maria look intelligent. But I love her.

So do I! Tess is a ditz, but she actually has some wisdom.
killjoy: I had a feeling you would like Tess's role in the last part. And yes, Michael is a mean drunk for sure!
Sara:

I can't believe Max and Liz let Michael drive....

Yeah, they didn't want him to, but when Michael decides to do something, there's no stopping him sometimes. He's very stubborn.
Alien_Friend:

Michael, Michael, Michael, he really does have dysfunctional down to an art form.

Oh, that's a great way to put it! In fact, I don't know who is more dysfuctional, Michael or Maria.
art_junkie: A new reader? Yea! Thank you for the feedback. I'm glad you have enjoyed my portrayal of Michael and Maria, because I know they're not the most likeably sometimes.
Krista:

I'm not fond of drunk Michael.

Me, neither. He and Maria should just not drink. It never goes well when they do.
spacegirl23:

I'm kinda glad Maria and Liz are fixing their friendship

It's kind of crazy that they're becoming real friends just now after everything that has happened, but they're actually quite a bit alike (in some respects) so they might end up being pretty good friends for each other.
starcrazed:

I'm with Kyle on this one...I don't know how they're going to get together either.

They've really gotten themselves into a sticky situation, haven't they? They've set themselves up so that, no matter what decisions they make, they are bound to make some mistakes.
CandyLand:

Drunk Michael is a bastard, plain and simple. Michael's hatefulness to Liz is just above and beyond unneccessary

I agree, and this stems from the fact that Michael is the type of person who is unwilling to accept responsibility for a lot of his actions.
tequathisy:

Until Michael does some serious growing up, they'll never be able to have a proper functional relationship.

Exactly. They care about each other more than anything in the world, but they just can't seem to function together right now.
Christina:

I thought, "Aww, now how cute would it be if Max and Liz watched a documentary on the history channel or something on the discovery channel together?" And lo and behold, they watch a documentary on flatworms. How boring. But how freakin' cute!

You must be psychic! You predicted it! I know, flatworms, right? Sounds so boring. But I actually watched a flatworm documentary years and years ago, back when I was still in middle school, I believe, and it was awesome! I haven't forgotten it since! lol
lilah:

I actually felt just the slightest twinge of hope when Michael was doing his drunken, concussion mumbling, but then..no of course not!!

Ha ha ha, what were you hoping for? That he'd tell her he loves her or something?


Thanks for the feedback, you guys, and thanks for the congrats on nominations. (Thanks for nominating me in the first place!) Congrats to any of my readers who also have fics nominated!








Part 112








When Liz walked into the apartment that night, she felt really good for the first time in a long time. Not the faux kind of good she had felt while dating Michael, but the real kind of good. The hopeful kind, the optimistic kind, the energetic kind.

“Hey, Max,” she said as she practically skipped into the kitchen. “Something smells good. Are you making dinner?”

“Yep,” he replied. “I bought one of those stupid George Foreman grills today, thought I’d make some burgers.”

“That’s nice of you.” She sat down at their kitchen counter and watched as he flipped both of the burgers over to brown the other sides.

“You want cheese on yours?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

He cast a glance back at her and remarked, “You’re in an awfully good mood. I take it dancing went well?”

“Very well. So well, in fact, that I got a new dance choreographed.”

“Really? All by yourself?”

“No, not by myself,” she admitted. “Actually, I got a lot of help . . . from Maria.”

“Maria?” Max echoed in question as he laid a slice of cheese down atop Liz’s burger.

“Yeah, it’s strange, but I feel like she and I are gonna be better friends now than we were before. Even after everything that happened . . . her and Michael, you and me . . . I think we’ve both made some positive changes lately, and, I don’t know, hopefully we’ll keep doing that.”

Max smiled and remarked, “You sound like a motivational speaker.”

“Shut up, I do not!”

“Yes, you do.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe I do. But I can’t help it. I’m just feeling good right now. New dance, new beginning of a new friendship with Maria . . .” She smiled and added, “New roommate.”

“New roommate who grills burgers.”

She laughed. Oh, you’re so endearing, Max. Although Michael had qualities that Max didn’t have, Max had qualities that Michael didn’t have, as well. She was glad she had finally realized that.

“So is the dance good?” Max asked.

“Oh, it’s the best. Wait ‘til you see it, Max. It’s gonna, like, knock your socks off.”

He glanced down at his bare feet and gave her a look.

“Well, it’ll knock your socks off anyway,” she assured him. “Granted, I still look a little awkward doing it, but Maria promised I’d get better.”

“What kind of dance is it?”

“Oh, like this fast, hard-hitting hip-hop routine, only we’re doing it to a rock song. It’s so cool. I can’t wait to teach the other girls.” She realized what she’d said only right after she’d said it and quickly amended, “No, on second thought, actually I can. They’re gonna complain because it’s really hard, but I’m gonna be captain-ly and tell them we’re not taking the easy way out anymore.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Max agreed.

“Oh, you know what else, Max? Maria taught me how to do a triple turn.”

“A triple?” He gave her a confused look. “I don’t even know what a double is.”

“Well, double’s heard enough, spinning around twice. But the triple . . . here, let me show you.” She stood up again, very excited, and spun around on the tile floor of the kitchen. She knew it wasn’t a good turn, though. She hadn’t found a good center of balance, and the tile wasn’t like the gym floor. She slipped and shrieked as she fell, but she didn’t hit the ground, because Max lunged forward and caught her.

“Oh, thanks,” she said. “Lost my balance on that one.” She stared up into his eyes, realizing that this was the first time his hands had been on her body since the locker room hook-up. The knowledge sent pleasurable shivers up her spine.

Max set her back down on her own two feet and replied, “It looked good.”

“Yeah, right. I fell out of it.”

“Give yourself some credit. It can’t be easy.” He smiled at her again.

Oh, Max, she thought, I think I’m really going to like living with you.

“As opposed to making burgers, which is very easy,” he said as he used a spatula to lift one patty off the George Foreman grill and set it down atop a hamburger bun. He handed the plate to her and gestured toward the counter. “Ketchup, mustard, pickles, onions . . . anything you want right there.”

“Thanks,” she said as she placed the second bun atop the beef patty. “But I think I’ll just eat this plain cheeseburger.” She was feeling sort of . . . cheesy, so to speak. The whole moment she and Max had just shared, her falling and him catching her, was about as cheesy as it got, but it had been so nice.

Max prepared his burger and sat down beside her at the counter. He took a bite out of his and nodded his head in approval. “Not bad, right?”

“Chef Max,” she teased as she took a bite out of her cheeseburger. “Mmm, no. Not bad at all.”

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

Dancing had worn Maria out, so when she fell asleep that night, she fell fast and hard. Dreams came instantly.

The letter. The big letter. The one that had a lot to do with her future, not that she gave her future much thought. Maria held it in her hands, staring down at the address in the top left-hand corner. University of Santa Fe New Mexico. Administration Building. Holy shit.

Why am I just standing here? she wondered. Letters were meant to be opened. She tore open the envelope flap, careful not to tear the inside contents, pulled out the letter, and eagerly unfolded it. All she had to do was read the first line to find out that she had gotten in, that she was going to college after all. A smile lit up her face, and bounced up and down excitedly, squealing. “Oh, yes!” She laughed and tore downstairs with the letter and envelope in her hand.

“Guess what, Mom?” she exclaimed. “I got into college! A real one!”

Amy looked both shocked and thrilled. “What? Oh, that’s great.”

“Heck yeah,” Maria agreed as she stuffed the letter back into the envelope and slid on a pair of sandals. “Four years of frat parties? Count me in!” She laughed and ran out of the house, noting her mother’s disappointed expression.

There was no question as to where she was going. Where else would she go on a day like this? Who would she tell before him? No one.

She ran all the way to his house, doing a few joyful leaps and jumps on the way. College was going to be awesome. She was going to dance and party all the time. No more of this juvenile high school crap. As fun as it had been, she was ready for a change, ready to go on to bigger and better things—and hopefully bigger and better guys. If it was possible, she could be even more popular at the university than at her high school. That was definitely a goal. Be the queen.

She ran up the porch steps to Michael’s house and threw open the rickety door. “Hi, Mr. Guerin!” she chirped to Michael's father, stepping over the trash and empty beer bottles lying discarded on the floor.

“You wanna take off your clothes?” the disgusting, couch-potato man asked her in between drinks.

“Not for you!” she exclaimed in a sing-song voice as she climbed the stairs. She skipped down the hallway to her annoying friend’s bedroom, opened the door, and found him lying asleep in his bed. She giggled and ran forward. “Michael!” she exclaimed as she jumped up on the bed and pounced on him.

“Oh,” he groaned, immediately jolted away. “Crap. Watch the package.”

“What package?” she joked as she sat atop him, straddling his body with her legs.

“Oh, funny.”

“Michael, guess what?”

“You got laid last night?”

“Well . . . yeah. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“I got laid, too,” he said, suddenly looking around. “Where’d that girl go? I thought she’d still be here.”

“Michael, it’s like 3:00 in the afternoon,” she informed him. “That’s a little late, even for you. Your fuck buddy’s probably gone.”

“Well, good thing you showed up then,” he joked, grinning mischievously.

“Ew, don’t be disgusting. Come on, seriously, can I tell you why I’m here?”

He rubbed his forehead tiredly and yawned. “Oh, I guess.”

“Good. Look at this.” She proudly held up her acceptance letter.

He squinted his eyes at it and asked, “What the hell’s that?”

“Duh, University of Santa Fe. What do you think it is?”

He smiled. “Did you get in?”

“Hell yeah, I got in! I’m going to college. I’m college bound.”

“Ah, Max and Kyle will be happy to hear that.”

“You should be happy, too,” she said. “Listen to this.” She unfolded the letter, cleared her throat, and read the first part aloud. “‘Dear, Maria. We received your fall application and are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted for attendance at the University of Santa Fe in New Mexico during the 2004/2005 academic year.’ God, isn’t that, like, poetry?”

“Pretty poetic.”

“Can you believe it. After all the no’s, I get a yes. I’m so freaking out right now.”

“I can see that.”

“And college, I mean . . . it’s gonna be like one non-stop party. Get drunk, have sex . . . those are two things I’m very good at.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Oh, and I’m gonna try out for the dance team, too, add some sexiness to that.”

“Definite sexiness,” he agreed. “Well, I’m happy for you, Maria. Shocked, but happy.”

“Yeah.” She stuffed the letter back in the envelope and said, “What about you? Have you gotten a letter back yet?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“You don’t know? Seriously, Michael.” She leaned over his head and reached over onto his cluttered desk, trying to find a letter from the university.

“Nice,” he remarked, causing her to realize that her breasts were dangling right in his face.

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped, still rummaging through all the papers on his desk. “Oh, here it is. Right here. I can’t believe you haven’t even opened it! You’re stupid!”

“Open it for me,” he suggested.

She sat back up again and made a face. “Why do I have to open it? If you didn’t get in, that means I have to be the bearer of bad news.”

“I got in,” he said confidently. “I got a higher ACT score than you did.”

“Oh, because of dumb luck!”

“Still . . . my grades were better than yours.”

“Uh-uh!”

“Yeah-huh.”

“Yeah-huh?” She grunted. “Whatever. I had extracurriculars.”

“Just dance team.”

“Of which I was an award-winning captain. What do you have? Ooh, president of the sex club.”

“That’s a good idea, the sex club. I should form that. You could be my secretary.”

“Oh my god, you’re obnoxious,” she said as she slid her fingernail under the envelope flap and slowly opened it. “You’re so obnoxious.”

“But can you picture me any other way?”

Reluctantly, she smiled. No, she couldn’t.

“Come on, open it faster,” he said.

“Okay, don’t have a hissy fit.” She tossed the envelope aside, unfolded the letter and read what it had to say. “Oh,” she said. “Wow.”

“What?” There was only a hint of worry in his voice.

She looked him in the eye and told him, “You didn’t get in.”

“What?” Now the worry had evolved into full-blown panic. “But this was my last shot! This was my back-up plan!”

“Looks like your back-up plan just got shot to hell,” she remarked.

He studied her for a moment, wrinkled his forehead in contemplation, then said, “No way, you’re kiddin’ me.”

“I’m not,” she insisted.

“Give me that.” He seized the letter from her, and she smiled as he read it. Eventually, he smiled, too, and said, “I knew I got in. You little bitch.”

“I just had to freak you out,” she said, giggling.

“It didn’t work.”

“Yes, it did. You were freaking.”

“I was freaking?”

“Yeah, you’re a freak.”

“A freak who’s goin’ to college with you. Come here, baby.”

“Michael!” she squealed when she felt his hands on her waist, lifting her off him and setting her down next to him. She lay down beside him, allowing him to toss the covers over her. “What’re you doing?” she asked.

“Goin’ back to sleep,” he replied as he turned to face her.

“Seriously? You don’t wanna celebrate college?”

“I’ll celebrate by sleeping,” he said. “I’m tired. I got laid hardcore last night, alright?”

“Yeah, I can tell. Your sheets are so gross.”

“Are they?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to shower, like, twelve times to even begin to get rid of the grossness.”

“I’ll shower with you,” he offered, grinning that stupid horny grin he was so famous for.

“Uh, no, you won’t. I object.”

“Overruled.”

“Not overruled. Your naked body is coming nowhere close to my naked body. There are just some things I will not do.”

“Well, that’s a relief. But you’re missin’ out. I got a good body.”

“I got a better one.”

“Yeah, but I got a friend down south. His name’s Richard; people call him Dick.”

“Oh my god,” she groaned, halfway exasperated and halfway amused. “Is this really what I’m subjecting myself to for the next four years? Annoyance and dick talk?”

“Well, we gotta talk about my dick. It’s divine.”

“Divine?” she echoed in disgust. “Oh, spare me. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”

“You don’t know how you’re gonna do my dick?” he asked. “You just get on it and ride it like a cowgirl, babe.”

“No, not that—I’m not gonna do that.”

“But it’s divine,” he reminded her.

“Ew, gross. No. I was saying I don’t know how I’m gonna do the next four years, like living with you. I might go out of my mind.”

“You’re already out of your mind.”

“But I might really go out of my mind.”

He smiled. “Awesome.”

She rolled her eyes. He was such an unbelievable lunatic.

“It’s gonna be more than four years, though,” he assured her.

“You think?”

“Oh, I know. Even after college, I’ll still be pissin’ you off. It’s gonna be more like forty years. No, four-hundred years.”

“Four- hundred years,” she echoed.

“Of annoyance and dick talk. How’s that sound?”

Horrible, she thought, and kinda nice. “I could think of worse things,” she admitted.

“Damn straight. Let’s go to college, baby.”

“Let’s,” she agreed, excited for the experience. “I have a feeling those are gonna be the best days of our lives.”

Maria’s eyes snapped open, and the dream was immediately cut short. She glanced at her clock. 4:30 a.m. Great. Too early to wake up, but probably too late to go back to sleep. She was bound to suffer from insomnia for the rest of the night.

She sighed, thinking about the dream, the memory. That had been a good day. She and Michael had just lain in that bed for hours, sort of talking, sort of sleeping, definitely making fun of each other. And all that time, she’d had a feeling that the future was going to be full of only good things.

It was true that some of the best days of her life had taken place at the university. But some of the worst days had taken place there, too.

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

Michael felt someone walk into his bedroom that night more than he heard it. He opened his eyes, squinted into the darkness, and called quietly, “Maria?”

She just stood there for a moment with her arms crossed over her chest, a frown on her face, and then she slowly stepped forward into the room and came to stand beside the bed. She glanced down, seemingly debating whether or not to sit down on the bed, but eventually she did. She let out a heavy sigh, stared down at her own hands for a moment, then turned to look him right in the eye and ask, “Do you remember four-hundred years?”

It only took him a moment to know exactly what she was talking about. They’d had a lot of conversations over the years—some good, some bad, some calm and some crazy—but he remembered each and every single one of them.

“Yeah,” he answered quietly as he propped himself up into a sitting position. That had been a great day, finding out that they were going to college together with Max and Kyle.

“That’s how long we were gonna make fun of each other and annoy each other.” She sounded nostalgic.

He nodded, remembering.

“I was just dreaming,” she told him, “about that day. And we were so happy. And now we’re here. And we’re not happy.” She sighed again. “I guess I’m just kinda wondering what happened to four-hundred years.”

What was he supposed to say? He felt horrible about what was happening between them, and no matter how hard he tried to make it right . . . was it too little too late? Too much too soon? He’d never been so confused in his life, so he decided to play it safe for once and just point out the obvious. “Maria, we’re not gonna be alive in four-hundred years.”

She made a face. “No, I know that. But that’s not the point. I mean . . . when you said that to me . . . I know I was all, like, rolling my eyes and acting irritated . . . but it was so stupid and romantic. It made me feel warm. And now . . . I feel so cold.”

He felt pretty cold himself, but just having her sitting next to him was heating him up. He refrained from saying ‘I’m sorry, Maria,’ because he knew how it would infuriate her, and sat there in silence instead.

“I just don’t understand,” she said, “why it’s gotten so bad between us. I mean, me and Liz . . . Liz. Liz Parker, the girl I haven’t been friends with for . . . awhile now. She and I might actually be friends again, like real friends this time. But why should we be, right? I stole her boyfriend, she slept with my ex . . . but crazy stuff happens. You know? Even me and Max . . . there’s hope there, so maybe that’s even crazier. But then there’s us, and we couldn’t possibly be any more screwed up, could we?”

He lowered his gaze, feeling guilty for making her suffer. But he had tried, hadn’t he? She was the one who was making it difficult, telling him to go, telling him to go alone.

“Maria . . .”

“It just sucks,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have relied on you so much. I mean, you were my best friend.”

He winced when she used the past tense.

“But then I started having all these feelings for you, and you were my best friend and more . . .” She sighed in distress.

“Kyle and Tess are best friends,” he pointed out in the same manner Kyle had pointed out that pertinent fact to him.

“Yeah, but we’re not Kyle and Tess. Or Isabel and Alex. Definitely not Liz and Max. We’re Michael and Maria , and we . . . really have a problem, don’t we?”

“Maybe we wouldn’t have a problem if you’d come to L.A. with me,” he suggested, still holding out hope for that.

“No, we’d still have a problem.” She looked him right in the eye and sadly said, “It’s us, Michael. We’re the problem. For eight years, we worked so well as friends. Why’d we have to screw that up?”

“Maria . . .”

“Michael.” Her voice cracked, and she suddenly looked as though she were about to cry. When she spoke again, he couldn’t believe what she said. “You have to forget about me.”

Forget? His confused brain seemed to not know the meaning of the word, or at least not in conjunction with Maria DeLuca.

“Because I’m at the point,” she went on, “where all I can really do is forget about you.”

Forget? Forget? Was she crazy? Clearly she was, but this was just ridiculous. “Maria . . .” How could she even suggest such a thing? Forgetting about her was the last thing he wanted to do. “That’s not possible.”

Somehow, she held back her tears, though there was no mistaking how hard this was for her. “Well, try, okay?”

No. No. He refused. The girl had shaped his entire life for the past eight years. Hell, she was his life. He could go to L.A. if that was what she thought he should do; he could even go alone if she was so adamant about it. But he could not and would not forget about her. She was . . . Maria.

She stood up and hurried out of the room wiping her fingers against her eyes as though to push the tears back. He tried to stop her . . .

“Maria.”

. . . but she didn’t look back.

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

The next day was graduation rehearsal. Even though there was still about a week left until the ceremony itself, the rehearsal was being held to prep the class of 2008, make sure they knew where to walk, what paths to take when going up on stage to get their diplomas, what path to take on the way down. Maria was a bit bored out of her mind. Stupid students didn’t seem to get it. They kept asking the coordinator questions. Being that she had years and years of dance team experience under her belt, though, memorizing a simple walking path wasn’t that hard.

“Now, when you walk up on stage, it’s important that you go behind the curtain, and no one should be standing out ahead of the curtain. We want the focus to be on the student receiving the diploma,” the coordinator said.

Maria glanced around at the hundred-some students of the thousand-some students in the graduating class. They all looked . . . hung-over, mostly. All except for Max, of course, who was standing by himself, and Alex, who just looked plain sex-happy.

“This is so boring,” she said to Kyle.

“Yep,” he agreed. “Aren’t you kinda sad, though? It’s almost over.”

Graduation wasn’t what she was sad about. She was sad about the other thing in her life that was almost over.

“I told Michael we need to forget about each other,” she blurted. “Do you think that’s possible? Because he doesn’t think it’s possible.”

“It’s not possible,” Kyle agreed readily.

She sighed in frustration and tried to listen to the coordinator again.

“Now after you get your diploma, please do watch your step when coming down the stairs. Every year the paramedics end up being the guest of honor because someone falls and breaks their neck.”

Maria rolled her eyes at the lameness of it all and returned to conversing with Kyle. “So, don’t tell me you’re still walking with that one girl . . . ah, what’s her name?”

“Stacy. Darcy. Macy. Marcy.” Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know I slept with her back in the day. She asked me to walk with her a long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

“Uh, years ago. And I was drunk, so I agreed to it. And she still expects me to.”

“Just say no. Tell her she’s a skank from skankland and you don’t want to catch—or re-catch—any of her wide array of skanky STDs.”

“I’m too nice.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway. They should just go alphabetically. Remember our high school graduation? That thing didn’t go alphabetically, and it was a disaster. But then again, that probably just has something to do with our high school.”

She hung her head as she remembered that. She had been in a very nostalgic mood lately, and as nice as it was to reminisce . . . it was also painful. “Who do you think Max is walking with?” she asked in an effort to get her mind on something else.

“Well, he’s salutatorian, so he has to walk with the valedictorian. Arlene Ross, or whoever.”

“Super nerd,” she declared. “I wish Max would’ve gotten valedictorian. I feel kinda responsible for that.”

“You can’t take the blame for everything, Maria.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Before she could say anything, the coordinator caught her attention.

“Okay, that’s it for today, unless there’s any questions . . .”

“Oh, I have a question,” she announced, raising her hand. “Yeah. Hi. Um . . . what happens if, due to some unforeseen and sucky circumstances, the person you were supposed to walk with doesn’t graduate? Or, he’s graduating, but he’s just not actually gonna be at the graduation ceremony, and then you have no one to walk with.”

“Uh, well, you could try to find somebody else,” the coordinator suggested.

“Somebody else?” she echoed in question. For some reason, when she pictured walking into that auditorium to that ridiculous Pomp and Circumstance song, she could only picture Michael walking with her, just like high school. She didn’t want to picture anyone else. “But what if there’s not someone else?” she asked.

“I’m sure there’s someone. Just ask around.”

“No, but that’s not fair. I mean, come on, this is my college graduation. I’ve worked really hard—I haven’t worked really hard, to be honest, but still . . . it’s this culmination moment and doesn’t everybody deserve to, like, share it with someone they really care about? Not that I don’t care about you people here, but I just . . . don’t care about you. No offense or anything, but . . . I don’t care what you think about me anymore and I don’t think about you guys at all. Probably because I’m too busy thinking about this one person . . . and he’s such an ass. I mean, he’s not even gonna be here. That’s an ass-like thing to do. And did he even consider the fact that I’d be walking alone when he took his porno film internship? No. He just made an impulsive decision, ‘cause that’s what he always does; he acts on impulse. But maybe he should’ve stopped and thought about it, because I know I’m not the best person in the world, but do I really deserve to walk alone? Do I really deserve to be alone? Because if he’s in L.A. and I’m here, that means I’m gonna be alone, because he’s so horrible and wonderful, and everyone else is gonna be second best. Doesn’t he know that? I just wanna forget him. I can’t do that. So I just wanna walk with him. Is that too much to ask?”

Following her rant, everyone just stood there and stared at her, even the rehearsal coordinator. Finally, Kyle cleared his throat and piped up, “I’ll walk with you, Maria.”

“Uh, Kyle!” Stacy-Darcy-Macy-Marcy whined. “No bueno. You’re supposed to walk with me. You promised, remember?”

“Yeah, well, I un-promise. Maria’s my friend. You’re . . .”

“Herpes,” Maria muttered.

“Herpes,” Kyle filled in. “What? Yeah!”

The girl rolled her eyes and stomped her foot in annoyance. “Some people . . .”

“Is that alright?” Kyle asked Maria. “I can walk with you instead.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks, Kyle.”

“Don’t sound so excited.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. Don’t take this wrong way; it’s just . . . you’re not . . .”

“Michael,” he filled in. “That’s alright. Right now, he’s the last person I wanna be.”

She tried to smile, but it didn’t work out.

The coordinator cleared his throat and asked, “We got that straightened out? Nobody’s in need of any . . . psychological counseling?” He looked at Maria when he said that.

“Nice. Real subtle,” she told him before glancing up at Kyle pleadingly. “Can we go now?” Her little outburst had left her feeling quite embarrassed.

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

Michael was busy looking up some hotels in L.A. near the location where the movie was shooting when Maria and Kyle came home that afternoon. Maria didn’t even look at him. She walked through the living room, down the hallway, and into her bedroom without a word. She slammed the door of course. Of course.

“Wow,” Kyle remarked, taking a seat beside him on the couch. “Could that shoulder get any colder?”

Probably not, Michael thought bleakly. “She wants us to forget about each other,” he told his friend.

“So I’ve heard.”

“But how am I supposed to do that? I’ve known her for eight years; she’s my best friend. She’s . . . Maria. I mean, this is the girl who was the queen to my prom king, you know? The yin to my yang . . . or what-I don’t know. I don’t know Chinese stuff. Whatever. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, nodding. “She completes you.”

Michael sighed heavily. That sounded a little touchy-feely, but as long as he wasn’t the one saying it . . . plus, it was true.

“I can’t forget about her,” he admitted. “I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t,” Kyle said simply. “I guarantee she’s not gonna forget about you. Well, maybe when she’s really, really old. But even then, she’ll remember you long after she’s forgotten everyone else.”

Maybe . . . Michael thought, but he couldn’t help having is doubts. Maybe not. Maria was a beautiful girl, and she had a fiery, crazy personality to match. At the end of the day, whether she was the queen of campus anymore or not, she could have any guy she wanted.

“So are you for sure leaving tomorrow?” Kyle asked him.

“Well, I kinda have to. She thinks I should. But I lose either way, you know? I leave, and I upset her. I stay, I upset her.” He sighed. “So I’m just gonna go, maybe upset her less.”

“Well, it’s your mistake to make.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Kyle just shrugged.

Michael shut his laptop and set it aside, tired of looking up hotels, tired of thinking about his future. “So, uh, how was that rehearsal shit today?”

“It was a disaster, as predicted,” Kyle replied.

“That bad, huh?”

“Just boring, mostly. Although it did get a tad more exciting when Maria let loose, had a little rant in front of our whole graduating class.”

“What?”

“Or maybe rant isn’t even the right word for it. Meltdown. Yeah, it was a miniature meltdown,” Kyle amended. “She went off about how it’s not fair that she can’t walk with the person she really wants to and yelled about what an ass you are. And then she said she can’t forget you, even though she wants to. It was a whole moment.”

Michael frowned and glanced at her closed bedroom door. How had he messed her up so much? That had never been his intention.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Kyle said. “Maria DeLuca is a massively tangled psychological network. You get involved with that, and you don’t get uninvolved, especially not when you’re in it as deep as you are. It doesn’t matter if you go to L.A., China, fuckin’ Africa . . . it’s always gonna be Michael and Maria.”

“You sure about that?” Michael asked.

“Of course I’m sure,” Kyle answered affirmatively. “After all, that’s how it’s always been.”

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

Maybe I could get a job at the library, Liz pondered as she strolled across campus that evening. It felt kind of strange walking around there when so many other students were leaving, but since it was emptying out for the summer, she figured her chances of getting a job might be better. Hmm, or maybe I could work at the bookstore. Anything involving books she felt confident about. She used to be really good with books.

“Well, well, well, look who it is.”

Liz spun around when she heard a familiar voice, and she saw her ex-neighbors Claire and Carrie striding towards her with some of the other girls who used to gush about how pretty she was and how cool she was and how lucky she was to have such an awesome boyfriend.

Carrie smirked. “The little bitch.”

Liz knew she should fight back, come up with something snappy to say. Bullies supposedly went away if you put them in their place. But she didn’t know how to do that. Her fall from social grace was different from Maria’s. This was more hostile. People hadn’t ostracized Maria like this because she had Michael, Max, and Kyle in her corner.

“You know, I never liked living next to you two,” Liz said. “You played your music too loud and always left trash in the hallway . . . and you were always really annoying, too.”

Claire grunted. “Look who’s talking.”

Liz began to back up as the group stepped ever closer to her, invading her personal space. “Don’t you all have anything better to do with your time, or is picking on me the highlight of your otherwise dull lives?”

The girls formed a menacing circle around her, and one of them, Sophia, said, “I’d say your life’s gonna be a lot duller now that Michael’s not in it.”

“It’s a good thing. Trust me.” Liz was trying to act calm, trying to keep it together, but as they circled around her like vultures . . . it made her nervous.

“Trust you?” Carrie gritted out. “Trust the liar, the cheater, the whore?”

Okay, that does it, Liz thought. This was just ridiculous. Weren’t they all in college? Weren’t they supposed to be somewhat adults? “You know what? You guys don’t know anything about me, so go ahead and think that. But you’re wrong. And if I may suggest, go home and take a good, long look in the mirror, and think about how well you know yourself. Because FYI, liars and cheaters and whores . . . you all match that description perfectly.”

The moment after they said those words, Claire, Carrie, Sophia, and all the other girls snapped. They grabbed at her and escalated the verbal bullying into physical bullying.

“Let me go!” Liz yelled. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

The girls were a mass of shouts and screams as some of them held onto her arms, some of them scratched at her with their fingernails, and some of them pulled at her hair.

“Ow, stop!” Liz cried. They were really hurting her. They were horrible!

Carrie laughed as she tore Liz’s necklace from around her neck, a beautiful diamond necklace her mom and dad had given her for her high school graduation, threw it on the ground, and crushed the diamond with the heel of her thick boots.

“Stop it, you guys! This is so stupid!” Liz shouted. “Please, just stop!” She felt as though her life was a scene out a book some psychologist would right about female aggression. She had never known girl to get like this before, so terrible and ridiculous and catty. They weren’t letting up.

“Hey!”

Liz felt them let up on their assaults and felt their grips on her arms loosen when a familiar voice rang out in the air: Max.

“Uh-oh,” Claire said sarcastically. “It’s big, bad Max. Everybody run and hide.”

The girls all giggled. Despite the apparent humor they found in the situation, though, they did step back from Liz as Max came forward to confront them.

“Oh, Max, thank God you came by,” Liz said, throwing herself into his arms when he opened them for her.

He hugged her against him and asked, “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Liz admitted as she watched the girls all walk away, looking so happy with their horrible selves. “One day they loved me, and now they hate me. It’s so . . .”

“Liz, they were hurting you,” he said, running his hands over the fresh scratch marks on her arms.

“I didn’t even know girls like this existed,” she thought, horrified by the idea that, had she not left Michael and left that whole lifestyle, she might have become one of these girls.

“Just a minute. Stay here,” Max said as he took off after the group of girls. “Hey!”

Oh my god, Liz thought. Max is getting into a confrontation. Voluntarily. This was so unlike him, but she was thankful for it. As selfish as it sounded, she really wanted a knight in shining armor. Michael had never been able to be that for her, not like he was to Maria.

She couldn’t hear all of what Max was saying, but she did hear him ground out, “Don’t even come near her again.” He went on to say that if they ever tried to hurt her either verbally or physically, he would have them reported to campus authorities, and then they would be subject to being expelled from the university. He managed to scare them without coming off like a creep who was going to hurt them. The looks on their faces were priceless, though. They seemed so surprised to hear Max Evans of all people putting them in their places. As they hurried away, though, Liz felt pretty confident that he had just done her a huge favor. Those girls probably wouldn’t try to attack her anymore. She may not have had Michael and Kyle in her corner the way Maria did, but she had Max . . . and that was enough. Enough for her, anyway.

“Thank you so much,” she said when he made his way back over to her. He was an incredible guy. The more she saw, the more she liked.

“No problem,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She nodded mutely. She would be fine when the shock of the events wore off. Being bullied by girls and rescued by Max . . . stranger things had happened, she supposed.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

That sounded like a very, very good idea.









TBC . . .

-April

[April]

nibbles:

How the hell did it end up that Michael - of all people - was sainted and Liz has to deal with that?

I know, right? It's totally and completely unfair. Michael can screw up and be a jackass, and people still think of him as "the man." But if Liz screws up, she instantly loses her popularity and gains the title of "slut." It's really not fair, but I think it's reflective of some of the double standards that exist in our society.
starcrazed:

I hope he stays so Maria gets to walk with the one person she really wants too.

That would be sweet, wouldn't it?
Christina:

Those are the only parts lately that I'm actually liking Michael. He needs to apologize to Maria, let her know what she means to him, and apologize to Liz for the way he was treating her.

If you're pissed off at Michael right now, know that you're not the only one. You're right, he needs to apologize. He needs to just do something right, becasue he's doing everything wrong. He's . . . I don't even know how to describe him right now. He's just all over the place.
Sara:

I love that kyle is still the voice of reason and I think he is the whole reason those two haven't self destructed yet

Oh, yeah. Kyle is definitely the the rock of the core four's friendship. He's got a good head on his shoulders. It's really hard for him to have sit back and watch the agony that Michael and Maria are inflicting on themselves, though. These people are like his family, so seeing them hurting hurts him as well.
lilah:

Maria's ideas are just getting worse and worse "Forget about me...and while you're doing that lift a car over your head, and end world hunger, and bring gas prices back to normal"

That's too funny!
Alien_Friend:

So Michael leaves tomorrow? Are you really going to make him leave April? Say it isn't so.

My lips . . . are zipped. I'm not saying anything!
art_junkie:

aww! i love those dreams/flashbacks, thyre so cute! makes me remembr the fun michael and maria - i cant wait for them to come back!

It's sad, isn't it? They are in such a bad place right now.
Ashley: Oh, I'm sure Maria is aggravating a lot of people right now.
Krista:

Thing is, he's not loved because he's got passion. He really only has that with Maria, and as you can see, that's going badly for them. He's loved because he's the campus man-whore. And now all the girls hate Liz because she had him "tamed" and they think she blew it big time because Michael is expected to always be a man-whore, but Liz has to be the perfect girlfriend at all times and she failed to be up to par on that. It's just a classic case of the good ole double standard.

Nice. Really couldn't have said it any better myself.
killjoy:

I thought Michael was an ass when I read the very first chapter.And to be honest my thoughts on him haven't changed much since than

You know what? That's actually a good thing. Michael is the type of person . . . a tiger can't change its stripes, and Michael can't change who he is. He's always going to be arrogant, rude, perverted, you know, a little self-absorbed. So the fact that you thought he was an ass at the beginning of the fic and still do means that I've kept his character consistent, which is very important to me.
tequathisy:

Max and Liz are so cute and sweet and totally cheesy and corny. I love them in a I-hate-them-because-they're-so-cute-and-falling-in-love-while-Michael-and-Maria-are-faling-apart kind of way.

Yeah, who would have thought that Max and Liz could be getting it together before Michael and Maria?
CandyLand:

It is impossible to love and be wise. -- Francis Bacon

Oh my gosh, I've never heard that quote before, but it's perfect! That could easily be one of themes of this fic. Thanks for sharing it! I like it.


Thanks for the awesome feedback as always, you guys! You'll be happy to know that there will be a Sunday update once again! Enjoy this part and have a good weekend!








Part 113







Michael pushed open the door to Maria’s bedroom that night, happy that she didn’t have it locked. Maybe she’d just forgotten, or maybe on some unconscious level, she wanted to see him. No, probably not. He knew she probably wanted to be left alone, probably didn’t want to be anywhere near him, but he had to see her. He couldn’t not.

She was standing in front of her mirror, dancing. She had her music going and her hips shaking, but when she saw his reflection in the mirror, she stopped dancing and turned around. Their eyes locked, and suddenly he wasn’t sure what he was going to say. He didn’t exactly have it planned out. He wasn’t a planner.

She reached over and shut off her CD player. “What’re you doing?” she asked as she picked up a t-shirt from her bed. She threw it on over her head since she’d just been wearing a sports bra and Capri pants while dancing. The horny as hell part of him really wished she wouldn’t have put that t-shirt on, but his newfound emotions prevented him from dwelling too heavily on that.

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” he reminded her. “I’ll probably be gone before you even wake up.”

She lowered her eyes, stared down at her own feet, and muttered, “Okay.”

Okay? This wasn’t Maria. She was determined right now, but determined to get him gone. This was the Maria that was hurt, that was scared, that thought she wasn’t his friend anymore. But she was. She always would be.

“Do you still want me to forget about you?” he asked.

She kept staring downward and kept her voice low and distant. “I guess.”

She guessed. So that meant she didn’t really want him to. She just thought he should forget. Suddenly she was so concerned with the should aspects of life. Maria was a smart girl, smarter than anyone gave her credit for. Her mind was always working, always thinking, and right now, she was clearly thinking that the only way to salvage their relationship was to break it off entirely. It made no sense, but then again, she was a nonsensical girl.

“Well, I can’t do that,” he told her. “I can’t forget about you, so I’m not gonna. I just thought you should know that.”

She reluctantly raised her eyes once again to meet his, looking frustrated with him. “Well . . . whatever.”

Where’s my girl? he wondered desperately. What have I done to her? He’d never meant to confuse her so much, drive her so far away.

“I’ll stay if you want me to,” he offered. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she’d change her mind . . .

“No, you have to go.”

Maybe not. She was stubborn as hell, just like him, maybe even more so. She gave him a run for his money in every argument, never backed down. She drove him crazy in the best possible way.

“I’m gonna miss you, Maria,” he told her.

She shifted around a bit uncomfortably and said, “You’ll find some other girl. You always do.”

He hated himself for giving her reason to think that. “No, there’s never been another girl,” he assured her. Because there never really had been. Not Liz. Not any one of all those girls he’d slept with over the years. Maria was, always had been, and always would be the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning, the last thing he thought about when he fell asleep, and the thing he dreamed about all night long. She was his constant.

She looked like a mixture of nerves and sadness as she hung her head again and mumbled, “Alright, so I guess this is goodbye.”

“Yeah.” Something about this just wasn’t right, though. It felt underwhelming. How could an eight-year friendship that had been so strong just fizzle out like this? It couldn’t. This was screwed up.

“Goodbye then.” She wouldn’t look at him.

He didn’t want to say goodbye. He didn’t want to. Maybe that was what he should have said, maybe that was what she thought he should say, but try as he might, the stupid words wouldn’t come out of his stupid mouth. The only word that came out was her name. “Maria . . .”

For whatever reason, that got her to look up at him again. She raised her eyes slowly, but when they met with his again, there was something instant and intense. No, more than intense. Electric. No, more than that, too. They stared at each other with undisguised sexual desire, desire that stemmed from the passion they shared. He suddenly felt so stupid. He’d just been having sex all these years when he could have been having this, when he could have been having passion.

Passion was happening tonight.

He strode into the bedroom just as she was coming towards him. They met in the middle, and their lips crashed together in a searing kiss. It reminded Michael a lot of the first one—sudden, unexpected, maybe happening at the worst possible time, but he didn’t care. It felt so good. It was all that existed.

She balled his shirt up in her fists, holding onto him that way, and he cupped her face in his hands as he kissed her long and hard, making sure she knew how strong his feelings were. It didn’t matter that he had tried to keep them buried for all these years. They were there, they were real, and they were exploding.

There’s my girl, he thought as he felt her tongue brush against his bottom lip. He shoved his own tongue into her mouth at the same time he brought his hands down to cup her backside and push her groin into his. She moaned as his top half gave her hints about what his lower half could do if she would just let him.

Oh, she’d let him. She wanted it. She wanted it all, just like he did. Well, they were gonna have it. Finally.

He spun her around, and together they walked clumsily towards the door, still kissing, still grabbing at each other desperately. He slammed her back against the door, effectively shutting it, and she moaned. He pressed his forehead against hers as he reached over and locked it and listened to her heavy breathing. She wanted him. She really wanted him. And he wanted her, too, more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything before. His screaming libido was rivaled only by her own. They couldn’t hold out any longer.

He had his mind set on undressing her, but before he could even start on that task, she surprised him by placing her hands flat against his chest and pushing him backwards. He stumbled into the center of the bedroom, smiling. He knew she wasn’t pushing him away; she was just taking control of things. He was more than willing to let her. A girl who took charge was sexy as hell.

She stalked forward, all fire and gorgeous insanity in her eyes, and pushed him backward again. She had him pinned up against the mirror now, and she wasted no time. She tore open his shirt, ripping the buttons off, and he could have cum right then and there. They weren’t going to stop this time, and that knowledge was enough to drive a man over the sexual edge.

He shrugged his over-shirt off his shoulders, and she scrunched the bottom of his white tank up in her hands and literally yanked it over his head. He loved the way she just threw it on the ground and was kissing him again instantly. She had an amazing mouth, did great things with it, made him selfishly wish that he’d kissed her years ago. Better late than never. They were kissing now. And soon they would be doing more than that.

Oh, yes.

She smoothed her hands up and down his bare chest before dropping them even lower to unfasten his belt. She didn’t fumble around. She knew what she was doing. She had his pants undone and pushed down around his ankles in seconds. He stood there then in only his boxers and watched as she gazed at him mischievously. She took a step back for a moment and didn’t do anything, didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t asking permission. She was just wordlessly and motionlessly telling him what she was about to do. Oh, and he knew it was coming. Hell, he welcomed it.

She grabbed hold of his boxers and slid them down fast. They grazed over his erection, and he groaned at the semi-painful yet somehow pleasurable sensation. His entire body had turned into one huge erogenous zone for her. He felt crazy good.

It was strange, being the completely unclothed one while she still had everything covered. Usually he managed to get a girl undressed before he shed anything himself, but Maria managed to turn the tables on him. His girl . . . his wild, crazy girl . . .

When she grinned at him and sank down onto her knees, he was sure he’d died and gone to heaven. Or at least heaven for horny guys.

Oh god, he thought, she’s so hot.

From the moment she grasped his length in her hands, he had to fight to maintain control. He had stamina; he could do this. Couldn’t he? He wasn’t so sure. Maria wasn’t just some random girl, and this wasn’t just some random hook-up. This was more, way more, and if he lost it early . . . well, he had an excuse. Maria . . .

She seemed to enjoy the look on his face as she pumped him, because there was a gleam in her eyes, playful yet deliberate. She liked seeing him squirm.

Oh, you little bitch, he thought as he reached down and grabbed at the t-shirt she had put on only minute sago. How can you do this to me? He pulled upward on the t-shirt, and she let go of his cock and lifted her arms above her head just long enough for him to remove her shirt and throw it to the floor. Before she could grip his throbbing member again, he reached down and pushed her sweaty sports bra down beneath her breasts. He wanted to start seeing her body the way he’d always been meant to see it.

Her mouth was sliding down around his cock before he even realized it. All thoughts vanished from his mind at the feel of it, her soft lips, hot cavern, velvet tongue. No way was this happening. But it was. It finally was.

He had to stare at her, stare at the unbelievable sight, him in her mouth. There was only one place he would rather be.

She was the best at this. Had to be. As she bobbed her head up and down along the length of his cock, he watched in amazement as her small, perfectly-sized breasts bounced. He was going to lose it. Really. He couldn’t go on like this. She was too talented, too enticing. He was going to blow his load in her mouth, and that wasn’t where he wanted to blow it.

Oh god, she’s so sexy.

He groaned gutturally as she circled her tongue around the head of his penis, teasing him. Oh, dammit, he thought as he felt himself moving closer to the edge. Not yet. Too soon.

He reached down and grabbed her by her hair, pulling her head backward. With her neck craned, she looked up at him. Her eyes were a stormy shade of green, swirling, out of control. It took every ounce of strength he had not to hold her head at the right angle and violently thrust himself into her mouth. But he didn’t want to force himself into her like that, make her feel uncomfortable or used in any way. He just wanted to give her some of the pleasure she was giving him.

She was stubborn, though, and he should have remembered that. She wasn’t ready to stop working her magic on him yet. The little vixen. She used the current position he held her head in to reach out with her tongue and trail it along the entire underside of his shaft. The sensational maneuver sent a shiver up his spine, and all he could was smile and shake his head. She was going to be the end of him this way.

He loosened his grip on her hair, and she smiled back at him, obviously not done yet. She opened her mouth once again and took in an impossible amount of him, deep-throating him. It felt incredible, and just the sight of it was enough to arouse him for all time; but he had to put an end to it if he was going to hold out. So he grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her up onto her feet. For a moment, she seemed surprised, but when he crushed his lips onto hers, she didn’t hesitate to kiss him back. He could faintly taste himself on her lips, and that was exhilarating. In addition, feeling her breasts pressed against bare chest sent his head spinning.

“Mmm,” she moaned as their mouths mated together furiously. She seemed incapable of saying any actual words, just like he was. She moaned again as he slid both of his hands down her sides to her waist. He pulled out on the waistband of her pants and urged them down over her hips. She shook her legs, eagerly assisting him in removing the garment. Once the pants were at her feet, she stepped out of them and literally slammed her entire body against his, pressing him back hard against the mirror, rubbing wantonly against him. He could feel her miniscule thong, soaked with desire, all for him, and that knowledge . . .

Oh god, she’s so gorgeous.

Hooking his arms around her waist, he whirled the two of them around so that he was the dominating one again, pinning her back against the mirror. He had to just stand there and watch her for a moment, watch the way she extended her arms above her head to increase the sight of seduction, watch the way her breasts heaved with each and every labored breath she took. Seeing her like this made him feel absolutely primal.

He brought his hands up behind her to unhook the clasp of her bra. She lowered her arms and shrugged the garment off, keeping her eyes locked with his as she did so. Oh, even now, when he was wanting to ravage pleasure on her, this sight, the sight of her gradually losing her clothes, was the utmost pleasure to him.

He brought the back of his hand up to brush against both her erect nipples. She gasped and tensed at the brief contact and closed her eyes momentarily before opening them once again to stubbornly stare into his eyes. She looked so in control of herself, in control of her body. Why couldn’t he be like that?

He brought both his hands down to grasp her hips and held them in place as he ground his erection into her, against her. He was sure he could thrust right through the barely-there fabric of that thong if he wanted to, if he tried hard enough, and then he could be inside of her in seconds.

Inside of her. Oh, hell yes.

She made a face of what looked like pain, but he was sure it was concentrated pleasure. She deserved to feel better than this, though. He could make her feel better.

He slid his hands around to cup her bare ass, kneaded her flesh for a moment, and then hoisted her up into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his mid-section instinctively and looped her arms around his neck. He sought out her lips and kissed her as he carried her over to her bed. He stumbled over a few discarded clothing items on his way, but eventually, he got her there. He lay her down on the bed and crashed on top of her. She let out a whimper, and he quickly propped himself up on his elbows so as not to put so much weight on her. She was so small. So perfect for him.

There was certainty in her eyes, so he pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked down at the last barrier in the way, that sexy yet annoying as hell thong. Had to get it off. He hooked his thumbs underneath the side strings and pulled it down over her thighs, legs, and feet. He tossed it back over his shoulder, not caring where it went, and that was it. Nothing left between them. There was just Michael and Maria and lots and lots of skin.

He noticed a blush sweep over her body as she lay before him, and the thought crossed his mind for the first time that she was actually self-conscious about her physical self. But why? She had an amazing body, better than any he’d ever seen. All he wanted to do now was fit his body into hers and show her how much she meant to him. Really.

He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head with one hand. A rush of air escaped her lungs, and she looked . . . nervous. It took him a moment to understand why. It wasn’t the physical part she was worried about. It was the emotional part.

He gazed into her eyes and forced himself to tone down the raging hormones. As he did that, the reality of the situation dawned on him: this wasn’t just sex. It could never just be sex with her, and he was glad for that. He wanted to ravage her, make her feel special, because she was special; and he had a feeling that, despite all the men she had been with in her life, no one had ever ravaged her before; no one had ever made her feel like she was the most important person on the planet. She was his most important person.

There she was, Maria DeLuca, lying in bed with him. Naked, beneath him. And he was naked and on top of her, and any minute now, they were going to do something that would change their relationship forever. This was a huge moment for both of them—eight years of friendship-masked foreplay was culminating right here, right now. It was exhilarating, but it was terrifying, too. Suddenly, he wanted to do something he had never done before: he wanted to slow down.

Maria, you’re so beautiful, he thought as he leaned down and kissed her again, gently this time. Slowly. He was going to make this last. He was going to take his time. Maybe the only internship he had received had been a porn internship, an opportunity to make a movie all about sex, but the director in him couldn’t help but scream, This is a love scene. There was a difference, and he was determined to show Maria that difference.

It amazed him how right kissing her felt. If it felt so right . . . kissing every other girl he’d kissed over the years must have been wrong. There could be more than one wrong thing, but there couldn’t be more than one right thing. This was the right thing for him.

He brushed his lips against hers, not really kissing her then, but just keeping the contact. He could feel her mouth curve upward to form a smile, and that was just as good as the blowjob. Maybe even better, because she hadn’t smiled in a long time. Not with him anyway. To be able to make her smile again . . . he could do more than that, though.

He trailed a path of kisses across her cheek and down to her neck. He took an expanse of skin into his mouth, sucking hard, licking, biting gently, drawing blood towards the surface so that he could mark her, let everyone know that she was his. Because really, had she ever been anyone else’s? No. They belonged to each other.

“Uh . . .” she moaned, rubbing her hands up and down his back. she didn’t have to make all sorts of fake-sounding noises to let him know that she appreciated his ministrations. He knew she did.

He lifted his head and looked down at her face once he was confident that he had left the passion mark, and when she looked up at him, he was happy to see that her nerves were fading away, and fading fast, too. As her nerves fled, his followed. There was nothing to be afraid of.

He eased himself further down her body then and lapped up the sheen of sweat between her breasts with his tongue. Then he covered her right breast with his left hand, massaging the flesh, and took her left breast into his mouth, suckling on it. She gasped, and her back immediately arched up off the bed. She pressed herself into his mouth and tangled one hand in his hair, massaging his scalp and silently urging him to pleasure her harder. He circled his tongue around her nipple as rapidly as he could and quickly realized that her breasts were a gigantic trigger point for her arousal. She could probably reach orgasm simply by having them stimulated. He would have to do that later.

He switched his attention over to the other breast then, but instead of using his hand to massage the uncovered one, he trailed that hand downward to touch an even more sensitive part of her, her molten hot core.

“Oh!” she gasped at the sudden contact. He cupped her mound in his hand and traced his middle finger along her soaking wet folds. Oh, he couldn’t wait to taste her. Hell, he’d waited for eight years already.

Excitement got the best of him, and he released her breast from his mouth to travel farther downward. He made sure to stop on her stomach, though. Another neglected body part of a woman. He wasn’t going to neglect anything of hers, anything at all.

Still touching her center with one hand, he brought his lips down to rain soft kisses on her stomach. Her abdominal muscles fluttered in reaction, and he liked it. She was shuddering, shuddering in a good way.

He swirled his tongue in circles around her beautiful bellybutton before letting it dip inside and tease her even more. As much as she might have liked it, though, it seemed to be a sweet form of torture to her. She pushed on his shoulders, trying to push him down even farther. Oh, she wanted that, did she? Well, who was he to deny it to her?

Down he went, just a little bit farther, and there was her sweet feminine haven right in front of him. He cast a glance up at her and saw the look of extreme anticipation in her eyes, and he knew he couldn’t disappoint.

He never did.

He brought his mouth down atop her mound and pressed his tongue in between the folds. A few weeks ago, having his head in between Maria’s legs had just been a wild fantasy. Now it was real, and it was amazing. From the very first taste, he was addicted. Never wanted to taste anything else ever again.

She bucked her hips up so high that they literally lifted off the bed. As much as he enjoyed her enthusiastic response, he had to press her hips back down so that he could do this properly. He held her hips down gently with one hand and urged her legs father apart with his other hand.

“Uh . . .” she groaned. “Oh . . .”

Not enough, he thought, dissatisfied with the job he was doing. He knew he could do better, so he sat back and rearranged the position just slightly. He hooked his hands under her knees and bent her legs back to press against her chest, exposing her more fully to him. She shuddered again, but when he leaned back in to press his mouth into her center again, she moaned in contentment.

This was much better. This was how he could get her off. He thoroughly tongue-fucked her, reveling in the taste of her. She tasted so sweet, but so spicy, too. She tasted absolutely amazing. Fascinating. His girl was fascinating.

He wanted her to explode into his awaiting mouth, let it all out, lose control, but she seemed to refuse to do that. She rubbed her feet and legs adamantly against his sides, and somehow he knew that meant that he was supposed to come up, stop doing what he was doing no matter how much she enjoyed it. He wanted to join with her, and she wanted it, too. She had pleasured him, and he had pleasured her. Now it was time to just go for it, do the one thing that they had never done together. Ever.

Passion. Passion, passion, passion. It wasn’t just something they had, but rather was something they were. Time to be who they really were. No more waiting.

He climbed upward, hovering above her body, and stared down at her. Her breathing was coming very quickly, heavily, but she looked sure; and he felt sure. He glanced over at her bedside drawer, wondering if he should open it up and look around for a condom first, but she wasn’t reaching for it; she didn’t look concerned.

Fuck it, he thought. If he was going to be inside her, it was going to be natural. He was really going to feel her. All of her.

I don’t think I deserve this, he thought confidently as he took his length in his hand and guided himself towards her sweet opening. But she does. Instead of pushing into her at full throttle, he slid the tip of his cock up and down along her folds, hoping to make the slide in as comfortable as possible. She wasn’t a virgin by any means, and neither was he, but then again . . . this sort of felt like the first time.

He was just about to penetrate her when she shocked the hell out of him by pushing him over onto the other side of the bed, pushing him down flat on his back.

What the . . . ? he thought, confused as she crawled on top of him. She wanted to be on top? Oh, he definitely wasn’t against that, but selfishly, he wanted to dominate.

He should have known it would go like this. They were an argumentative pair, never quite agreed on anything, so it made sense that they couldn’t agree as to who would be on top during sex.

She seemed to think that she had it in the bag, that she had won, because she positioned himself right above his rock-hard erection and prepared to lower down and impale herself on him . . .

Oh, no, you don’t, he thought as he sat up suddenly, much to her surprise. They sat together in the midst of tangled sheets then, gazing at each other and gasping for air, her in his lap, her legs wrapped around him, pulling him in close. Here it was, a compromise. Neither one of them had to be on top for this first time. No one had to submit. They could envelope each other.

They wrapped their arms around one another and held on tight as they prepared themselves for the moment that was about to happen. This was it, the moment. At last. Finally. After eight years. They were surrendering to the passion; they just couldn’t ignore it. They were going to become one person.

She angled herself in his lap and closed her eyes, waiting.

Open your eyes, Maria, he thought. Open your eyes. He wanted to see how she felt when he entered her.

As if she could hear his thoughts, she did open her eyes to gaze into his. He smoothed his hands over the skin of her back and pressed his hips upward just slightly, easing the tip of his erection into her again. Momentarily, he debated whether to slam into her to the hilt or take his time, and he decided it best to just glide in.

A shuddering breath escaped her as he put himself inside her, all the way, neither quickly nor slowly, hard nor soft. Her eyes grew wide and filled with awe, and her entire expression registered shock and inspiration. He had to take a moment to adjust to the sensations himself. They fit so well together, him, her. Warmth spread throughout his entire body at the feel of being encased within her, held, snug. She was tight. Even though she’d been with many men, the walls of her inner sanctum clamped around him and made him feel like he was home, like he was the only one who would ever be here again.

She let out a small, barely-audible whimper, and he worried that he was hurting her. She seemed just slightly uncomfortable as she adjusted to the feel of him, his size. He was filling her as much as one person could fill another, and it didn’t surprise him that even a girl as used to this as she was might be taken aback.

He smoothed her sweat-soaked hair back from her face and whispered, “Shh.” He wanted her to know that he was still there.

She pressed her forehead against his as her breathing steadied and the tenseness in her body died down. He kissed her rather sloppily as he began to move inside of her. He took it slow this time, willing to let her dictate the pace if she wanted to. Once she ground her hips back down into his, though, he knew that she was ready to go faster, so he pressed himself inside more rapidly.

“Uh . . .” she moaned, tossing her head back. He watched her in awe. She was captivating. The way she moved, the subtle sounds she made . . . he couldn’t get enough of her. Ever.

She draped one arm over his shoulders and held onto him while pressing her other hand back onto the mattress. The angle of penetration they had conjured was a rather impossible one, but somehow they made it work. As he thrust up into her, she pushed herself down onto him, causing their pelvises to meet and smack together as her body tried to swallow him whole. They undulated together in perfect synchronization. No awkwardness. No hesitance. They were made for this.

He tore his eyes away from her face long enough to glance down at their union. The sight of her body accepting his was absolutely astounding to him; he almost lost it right then and there, but he forced himself to hold out. Together. They had to cum together. They did everything together.

He wanted to watch himself slide into her over and over again, but that image was just too arousing. He had to close his eyes for a moment and stop moving just to recompose himself.

“No,” she said in protest to the lost of movement. She sat upright again, holding onto his shoulders with both hands and circled her hips seductively, rubbing her groin against his while he was still inside her. The maneuver was enough to snap his eyes right open again. He just wanted to sit back and watch her work for a minute before going at it full force.

She moved her hips in every direction, up and down, side to side, in a circle. He rather enjoyed the look of frustration on her face as she waited for him to move. Eventually, that frustration turned to anger. She was mad at him for just sitting there and making her do all the work right now. He smiled. That was his girl. If she wasn’t mad at him, she wasn’t Maria.

He wrapped both his arms around her and thrust up into her sharply and suddenly, shocking the hell out of her. She collapsed into his arms as he pounded into her, thrashing wildly, taking their union to a more animalistic level.

“Uh . . .” she groaned loudly.

“Fuck,” he cursed. This was crazy. This felt insane. And he never wanted to stop.

He brought both his hands down to cup her ass for a moment, then brought them up and around to grasp her hips and literally lift her up, up so far that only the tip of him was inside of her again. She stared at him in confusion for a moment, then threw her head back and moaned as he pushed her hips back down against his again. He continued like that, lifting her up and setting her back down on his length, and she let him. It made for long, hard, almost full penetrations every single time. Every time he set her back down, she would grunt low in her throat, a sound that really drove him mad with desire. Finally, he lost his patience and had to return to his animal ways.

He thrust up into her wildly again, really doing her, and a literal scream escaped her lungs. “Ah!” She held onto him for dear life, clawing at his shoulders, her hands slipping because of the sweat. She dug her fingernails into his skin, undoubtedly leaving marks. “Oh god,” she gasped as he pulled her even closer to him, mating his entire body to hers.

He was so close, but she was just a little bit farther away. Just a little bit. He kept one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, securing her to him, and sneaked the other down in between them to touch her. He pressed his thumb against her clit, and her eyes shot open. Fireworks.

Oh, yeah, come on, baby, he thought as he circled his thumb over the little bundle of nerves. Cum for me. He was going to get her there.

“Oh . . .” she cried. “Uh!”

Almost there, almost there. He kept touching her and thrusting into her, knowing he only had a few seconds left in him. He could feel his balls tightening, drawn up. Any second now . . . any second . . .

He pinched her clit in between his thumb and index finger, and that stimulation sent her flying into sexual oblivion. With one deep, final thrust, he joined her in the climax, shooting his seed straight into her as she exploded around him. Their mutual orgasms consumed them. It was so powerful, Michael was convinced he lost consciousness, although he didn’t. Sight and sound faded out, and all he could do was feel. He’d never felt this way before.

She collapsed against him after their incredible orgasms had died down, burying her face against his neck. He held her dazedly, still inside of her and stroked her hair, too spent to think about anything. All he knew was that he had just had sex with his best friend. And they still had the rest of the night to do it all over again.









TBC . . .

-April

[April]

I'm so glad you guys were satisfied by that part! I've said it once and I'll say it again, that those kind of scenes are the ones I struggle writing the most. And you guys had no idea how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut this past week. I wanted to say something like "Wait 'til Friday!" but I forced myself not to just so it could be a surprise! Well, it finally happened. After 1,209 pages.

Thank you to:

Christina
Elle
starcrazed
Sara
nibbles
Alien_Friend
art_junkie
killjoy
mrs_guerin
Mag
tequathisy
lilah
Mercedes
Wendy
pookie76
and Krista

for the feedback!

I haven't included any music for awhile, but I'm going to in this part. If you've never listened to Mogwai's beautiful "I Know You Are But What Am I?" (which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX_-IBcsRtk&fmt=18 ) try listening to it when you see the smiley.








Part 114








Michael walked down the hallway of his high school, happy to be there. Middle school had been a joke. There were no great opportunities to get drunk and get laid there. This place would be different. He was going to make sure everyone knew who he was.

He walked past one classroom and peered in the open door at some of the more attractive girls. Seniors. Nice. He would have to rack up some phone numbers at lunch. For now, he had to get to his math class. Math wasn’t his strongest subject to begin with, and since he was already ten minutes late . . . well, he anticipated making a bad impression on his teacher. Hopefully she was a woman. He could charm any woman. It didn’t matter that he was only fourteen. He had it, that thing that couldn’t be named. It. It was his. He had everything.

He stopped walking and turned around when he bumped into someone, and he came face to face with a girl he’d never seen before. She was blonde, small, couldn’t be any older than him. She wasn’t like so many of the other girls in that school; she wasn’t trying to be conservative. She wore a short denim skirt and a tight black midriff, and she seemed confident, maybe even a little crazy.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

She smiled a little, though she didn’t seem impressed with him, grunted, and said, “Fuck you,” before she turned and walked away.

He stood there alone in the hallway, watching her leave, staring after her even once she was gone. He wanted to know her name. He wanted to know everything about that crazy beautiful girl. She stunned him.

“Wow.”

Michael awoke suddenly, without warning. He squinted his eyes against the sunlight shining through his window and let the memories of last night come flooding back to him. Maria.

He glanced down beside him and laid eyes on her. She was curled up against him, nestled in close with her hand lying atop his heart. He had his arm around her, touching the soft expanse of skin on her back as it was exposed by the thin sheets surrounding them.

I had sex with Maria, he realized. More than once. More than sex. His mind was a mess of thoughts at the moment, and his body felt limp and exhausted. But waking up next to her like this, seeing her asleep, listening to her breathe . . . it put a content smile on his face. He wanted to wake up like this every morning and then never get out of bed. She was so warm.

He turned his head to the side and lifted it just slightly, careful not to wake her as he peered at the alarm clock. No wonder he was so tired. It was only 7:15 in the morning. He had just fallen asleep a few hours ago. He and Maria had stayed up late.

He lay his head back and closed his eyes, remembering everything that they had done. They hadn’t spoken much—hadn’t spoken at all, really. There was no need. Everything they had done had been based on pure feeling. Desire. Emotions. He had promised himself at a very early age never to let emotions into his life, but when he was with Maria, his emotions were all he had. Logic went out the window; it didn’t exist with her. Maybe that got him into trouble sometimes. Maybe a little logic wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

Her hands, her lips, her breasts . . .

She was his.

Her moist heat . . .

And he was hers. He knew that.

Nothing in the world could compare to what he and Maria DeLuca had done last night.

Now if only they could do it again.

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

Liz yawned and stretched her arms above her head as she headed out into the kitchen that morning. “Morning, Max,” she greeted her roommate.

“Hey. How you doin’?” He was leaning back against the refrigerator, eating a bowl of cereal.

She shrugged. “Fine, I guess. I’m still not quite sure what to think about my run-in with those girls last night, though.”

“Well, school’s out,” he said. “They’ll be heading home.”

“Yeah, that’s good.” She sat down at the kitchen counter and cast a glance at the couch. It was clear that Max had slept there again, even though she’d assured him that wasn’t’ necessary. “Max, I never knew you were so stubborn,” she said.

He gave her a confused look. “What?”

She pointed at the couch. “You slept there again, didn’t you? Don’t try to deny it. It has that slept-on look. But I’ve told you over and over again, you can sleep in the bed with me.”

“Oh . . . I wouldn’t want to crowd you.”

“Max, it’s a big bed,” she pointed out. “I wouldn’t feel crowded.”

“Yeah, but . . . I wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, either.”

“Why would I feel uncomfortable?”

“Just . . . I wouldn’t want to cross a line or make things awkward.”

“What line?”

“You know.”

She didn’t know. In fact, she didn’t understand any of this. Maybe Max didn’t realize it, but he was sending her mixed signals. He had rushed to her defense the other night; he had even made her the cheeseburgers before that. Didn’t that mean anything?

Listen to yourself. You’re being stupid, she thought. Cheeseburgers? Seriously. If Max didn’t want to sleep in the same bed with her, that probably meant he wasn’t thinking of her that way. She wasn’t going to obsess over him the way she had obsessed over Michael. She and Max had something she and Michael had never had: a friendship. And she was determined to enjoy it.

“So, today’s the day, huh?”

She snapped out of her thoughts. “What?”

“The day,” he repeated. “Michael’s leaving.”

“Oh. Right. The internship. I kinda forgot about that.” She frowned, unsure what to think about his departure.

Max must have noticed the frown, because he said, “You’re gonna miss him, aren’t you?”

She thought about that question for a moment, then shook her head. “No, not really. Not at all, actually. Michael and I are so over, and that’s a good thing. I get it. But . . . just the thought of him not being here . . . that’s kind of weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s just . . . weird.” She wasn’t sure how else to explain it.

“Well, the thought of you not being here was pretty weird, too,” Max said. “That’s why I swooped in and stopped you.”

She smiled. “Yes, you swooped.” That was another thing. If Max didn’t feel anything for her, wouldn’t he have refrained from swooping?

“I wonder how Maria’s doing,” Max said.

“You miss her, don’t you?”

He shrugged and admitted, “A little bit.”

She gave him a knowing look.

“Okay, more than a little bit,” he confessed. “It’s not that I want to get back together with her now that Michael’s gonna be gone. I just don’t want to see her in any kind of pain.”

“Hmm, well, once Michael’s gone, my guess is she’s gonna be hurting.”

Max nodded his head in agreement.

Liz felt bad for Maria. She had gone through a lot already, and now she had to go through this, losing her best friend. She sighed and added, “I bet they had a hard time saying goodbye last night.”

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

It’s cold in here, Maria thought as she slowly awoke in the morning. She felt as though she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, so she kept her eyes closed for a moment, hoping to drift back into dreamland, but then it occurred to her: for the first time in a long time, reality wasn’t so bad.

She opened her eyes slowly as memories of last night hit her, and she took a look around. She was in her room, but since she was lying naked in the bed, she knew that it had in fact happened. She and Michael . . .

She rolled over, expecting to find him fast asleep beside her, but he wasn’t there. That side of the bed was empty.

She smoothed her hand over the mattress, understanding now why she hadn’t woken up feeling warm. He wasn’t there. He had to be around there somewhere, though.

“Michael?” she called quietly, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She clutched the sheet to her chest and looked around the room. His clothes were no longer scattered all over the floor. Maybe he was doing laundry? Although that seemed highly unlikely, especially at 8:15 in the morning. Besides, her clothes were still there.

“Michael?” she called again. Where was that guy? Shower, maybe? But she didn’t hear the water running.

She stood up on semi-shaky legs—he had really given her a workout last night, one she had enjoyed immensely. She understood now why Michael always bragged about his sex abilities. He definitely delivered.

She wrapped the sheet around her body and held it together in the front. Of course he picks this morning of all mornings to wake up early, she thought as she made her way out into the living room. He’s so annoying. She couldn’t wait to see him, though. Talking was on her mental to-do list. They hadn’t talked at all last night. Of course, after talking came more . . . non-talking. Things were finally looking up. They had taken the plunge, and it had felt so good.

“Michael?” She strode down the hallway and out into the living room. She heard the television, so she thought maybe Michael was indulging in cartoons, but the only person out there was Kyle. He was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating breakfast and watching TV. When he saw her, he looked noticeably surprised.

“Oh, Kyle.” She clutched the sheet tighter, self-conscious about this. It wasn’t that Kyle seeing her naked was such a huge deal; it was just that he wasn’t a dumb guy. It wouldn’t take him long to figure out that she had gotten that way because of Michael.

“Maria.”

She took a few tentative steps toward him and asked, “Do you know where Michael is? I really need to talk to him.”

Kyle stared at the sheet instead of her face when he said, “Yes, I can see that.”

She rolled her eyes and again asked the question. “Do you know where he is?”

Kyle looked her right in the eye then and sighed. “Yeah.”

Go on, she thought, giving him an expectant look. “And?”

Kyle . . . didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked sad. And when he answered her question, Maria understood why. It wasn’t a fun answer.

“He’s either at the airport or already on the plane. I’m not sure which.”

Maria stood there and stared at him in disbelief. She couldn’t feel her heart beating. It must have stopped. Airport? Plane? “What?”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t understand. Hadn’t they . . .? They had. But how could he leave? Why would he leave? Why would he leave now?

Maybe she was still sleeping. Maybe she was having a nightmare. “He’s leaving?” she choked out.

It wasn’t a joke. It would have been a pretty cruel one if it was. Kyle looked at her in all seriousness and said, “He already left.”

Oh my god. She raced back down the hallway to get dressed and get out of there. She had to stop that dumb-ass before she lost him forever.

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

Michael watched as his bags were loaded onto the conveyor belt. Great, he was really doing it now, packing up his life and getting on a plane. Getting out of that bed and leaving Maria alone in it had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life. But he had to do it. She’d told him to go over and over again. She said she wanted him to forget about her. He definitely couldn’t do that now, not after what they’d done . . . he couldn’t forget about her, but he could still leave. She’d told him to leave.

I shouldn’t have slept with her, he thought as the airline agent printed out his plane ticket. But I wouldn’t take it back to save the world.

“Here you go, sir.” The agent handed him his ticket and robotically pointed out the pertinent facts. “You’ll be boarding at Gate 43 in Concourse E. Thank you for choosing Southwest Airlines, and enjoy your flight.”

Michael didn’t say anything as he took his ticket and his carry-on bag and left the counter to head towards the security gate.

Maybe this was a bad idea . . .

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

“Kyle, are you ready?”

“Uh . . . yeah, I guess.” Kyle stepped into his shoes, shocked by how fast Maria was moving. When she was motivated, the girl could definitely haul ass. And she was definitely motivated right now.

“I just have to get my shoes on.”

“Okay.” Truthfully, he didn’t understand why Michael had left in the first place. He’d heard the noises in the bedroom last night; he knew exactly what they had done. He hoped that Michael hadn’t slept with Maria as a sort of bon voyage. Obviously Maria had expected him to still be there in the morning. They were best friends and they knew each other better than anyone else, but they didn’t have the greatest communication as of late.

His cell phone rang, and he answered it, knowing right well who it was. “Hey, Tess.”

“Hey, you’re up. Ready to get started soon?”

“Started?”

“Yeah, you’re supposed to help me move all of my crap out of my room and into the house, remember? It’s gonna be a process.”

“Right.”

“Kyle, I can’t find my second shoe!” Maria yelled.

“Shoe?” Tess echoed. “Is there a shoe problem?”

“Uh . . .” Kyle lowered his voice and said, “It’s not so much a shoe problem as it is a relationship problem. We might have to postpone today’s plans.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Tess said. “What’s going on? What could possibly be bigger than our moving day?”

“Michael and Maria had sex,” he blurted.

Tess’s stunned silence indicated that she got it. That was way bigger.

“And you know Michael and Maria. Can’t ever just be simple. Michael’s still going to L.A., and now Maria’s gonna stop him. I get the lucky job of driving her to the airport. It’s a thing.”

“Thing and a half,” Tess corrected. “Oh my god, I can’t believe they had sex.”

“I know. It’s earth-shattering.” Before he could say anything else, Maria stomped out of the bedroom and demanded, “Who’re you talking to?”

“Uh, Tess.”

“Oh, tell her I said hi.”

“Maria says hi,” he told his girlfriend.

“Oh, tell her I said hi, too,” Tess said.

“Tess says--”

“Pedal to the medal, Valenti!” Maria interrupted as she headed out the front door. “Seriously!”

“Gotta go, honey,” Kyle said. “Sorry about the change of plans.”

“No, that’s fine,” Tess said. “Go. Drive Maria to true love.”

Kyle smiled and hung up the phone. Hopefully they would get there in time . . .

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

Michael sat down in an empty seat in front of his gate and sighed. He was really getting a bad feeling about this. He knew he was probably screwing everything up once again. When Maria woke up and learned that he was gone, she was going to think he had just used her last night to get his rocks off. And it had been so much more than that.

The smartest, simplest thing to do would have been to wake her up that morning and talk to her, find out if she still wanted him to go to L.A., or maybe if she wanted him to stay now instead. But, in typical Michael Guerin fashion, he hadn’t done the smart, simple thing. No, he’d done the idiotic, difficult thing and slipped out without so much as a proper goodbye. Sex wasn’t a goodbye.

Dammit.

“Not much of a flyer, are you?”

He turned and noticed a girl sitting beside him, blonde, attractive, about his age. “No, not really,” he mumbled in response.

“I can tell,” she said. “You look nervous.”

Strangely enough, the flying wasn’t what was making him nervous. It was thoughts of his current relationship status with Maria that had his stomach in knots. What were they now? They weren’t just friends.

Shit.

“I don’t really like flying, either,” the girl kept on. “I know they say you’re safer in a plane than you are in a car, but give me four wheels and a stereo any day.”

Under normal circumstances, on any other day, he might have asked her why she had chosen to fly just for conversation’s sake, but right now, he really didn’t care.

Apparently the girl didn’t get the hint that he wasn’t in the mood to talk, because she actually moved a seat closer and kept jabbering. “Hey, maybe it’s not so bad, though. Now that we’ve met, maybe we can keep each other company on the flight.”

“Alright, listen,” he cut in, “I’m not trying to give you the brush off or anything; I’m just trying to, you know, give you the brush off.”

She frowned, apparently not used to being rejected. “What?”

“No offense, you’re hot enough, but I just slept with the girl of my dreams last night. You really can’t compete with that.”



Her facial expression indicated that she got it, that she understood. “Oh,” she said, looking away. “Okay then.”

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

“Kyle, stop the car!” Maria shouted as Kyle drove towards the main entrance of the Santa Fe airport.

“I can’t.”

“Just . . . pull over!”

“I can’t pull over! There’s nowhere to pull over!”

Maria looked out the window in panic, hoping that she would see Michael standing in line at one of the airline counters still. But she didn’t see him. “Kyle, I have to . . . go!”

“Go?”

“No, stop!”

“You have to stop?”

“No, stop the car!” she screeched.

He pressed down one the brake, gradually slowing the car to a halt. “Maria, if you go runnin’ through that airport like a Tasmanian Devil, people are gonna think you’re dangerous or something.”

“Oh, yeah. Small, blonde terrorist. Gotta watch out for that.” She threw open the door and jumped out of the car. “Thanks, Kyle,” she said before slamming the door and racing into the airport. She pushed past people, ran into people, took impoliteness to a whole new level as she rushed towards the flight monitors. She wanted to run faster; she felt like she was going in slow motion.

She stopped at the flight monitors and looked up at all the flights with impatience. Where was his flight? Which plane was he getting on? Had it already left? Was she too late? Knowing her luck . . .

She scanned all the flights, looking for the ones that were going to Los Angeles. Kyle had mentioned that it was a flight on Southwest Airlines.

Southwest, Southwest . . . She felt like this was taking too long and had half the mind to just take off running again and call out to Michael, hoping he would hear her. But then she saw the flight she was looking for, the one that just had to be Michael’s. It was a flight to L.A. on Southwest. Gate 43, Concourse E. She drilled that into her head. Gate 43, Concourse E. Where the hell was Concourse E?

The worst part was, the flight was listed as on-time. Not delayed. Delayed would have been nice. And if it was on-time, it was supposed to be leaving . . .

Now.

She ran.

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

32F.

Michael surveyed his seat in astonishment. Unbelievable. There it was, very back of the plane. Maria had bitched and complained about having to sit in seat 32F all through spring break, even though she had ended up stealing his seat. Maria . . .

Fate must have been playing a sick joke on him right now. He glanced down at his ticket again. No, 32F. That was his seat. Of course.

He slid into the seat and sat down. He took out the safety booklet, prepared to read through it, but he couldn’t read. Not right now, not when his entire life was so up in the air. He put the safety booklet back into the seat pocket in front of him and glanced up at the exact wrong time.

Several girls made their way onto the plane, all pigtails and laughter. They were definitely younger than Maria, but they reminded them of her because they were all wearing matching dance team shirts.

Great, he thought in dismay. He had the feeling that, from now on, everything on the planet earth was going to make him think about Maria.

The flight captain turned on the fasten seatbelts sign way too soon. Wait a minute, Michael thought, restless. I don’t know if I can go.

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

Gate 43, Concourse E. It was all Maria would allow herself to think as she tore through the airport like a madman. Or rather mad-woman. She couldn’t wonder whether the plane was still there or not, whether Michael was still there or not. Worries like that would slow her down, and she didn’t have a second to spare.

She collided with people who could best be classified as innocent bystanders to her out of control determination, and other people slammed right into her, almost knocking her off her feet a couple of times. She shoved people aside, not caring, and raced forward. She ran down the escalator, squeezing past other travelers because it was too slow. And when she rounded the corner, she saw exactly what she didn’t want to see.

The security gate.

Her feet skidded to a stop as she surveyed the huge line in front of her. It was like a Disney World line, or at least what she imagined a Disney World line looking like. And she was at the end of it. It was going to take her forever to get to the front.

She didn’t have forever.

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

Michael held his head in his hands, trying not to think about Maria. Everything—absolutely everything—was making him think about her, and that was torture.

Despite his best efforts, memories of the last night seeped into his mind. All he could was picture the look on her face as they moved together, remember the arch of her back, the feel of her skin, the taste of her . . .

Dammit. He scrunched his eyes shut, but that just made the memories more vivid.

Her lips whispering his name as he hovered above her . . . her delicate hands dancing atop his chest . . . her long legs wrapped around him, pulling him in close . . . her dazed but happy smile . . . her long hair falling forward, hiding them from the rest of the world . . . her exquisite mouth mated to his . . .

Shit. It was all he could think. What was he doing? What had he already done? Since when did he think these poetic thoughts? He didn’t. But since when did he let himself fall for his best friend? He didn’t do that, either. Until now.

He glanced out the window and watched as the workers loaded the last item of luggage onto the plane. He was really doing this, really leaving.

Fuck.

He slid the window shade down and sat back in his seat to close his eyes and think about his girl some more.

Maria . . .

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

Michael . . .

This wasn’t going to work. The line was too long. For all she knew, the plane was already leaving. She didn’t care if she had to get out on that runway and hitchhike. She was going to get to her friend.

With fire and determination coursing through her veins, she made her way down to the front of the line, ignoring the shouts and complaints people shot out at her. She didn’t care about them. The one person she cared about more than anything was on the other side of that security gate, either on the ground or in the air, and she prayed to God he was still on the ground.

When she got to the front of the line and tried to squeeze in front of a few people, one of the security gate workers placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Miss, you need to go to the back of the line.”

“No, you don’t understand. I have to get through here.”

“Just return to the back of the line.” The worker tried to grab her arm and pull her out of the line, but she wasn’t that complacent.

“No, listen to me!” she shouted, jerking her arm away from him. “There’s a guy, and I need to be with him.”

“Save me the soap opera. Don’t make me move you to the back of the line.”

“Just-can’t you let me just go through? Is it really that big of a deal?”

“Miss, do you even have a plane ticket?”

“Uh . . .” Oh, shit. She didn’t.

“Without a ticket, you don’t pass through,” the man said.

“But . . .” She felt close to tears. “Hello? Extenuated circumstances!”

“No such thing. Now leave the security checkpoint before I’m forced to escort you away.”

For a moment, all hope vanished from her body. This was it. If she couldn’t get through here, she couldn’t stop Michael from leaving. She had been at the physical end of the line a moment ago; now she was at the metaphorical end of the line. Nowhere to go. No hope. All in all, it looked pretty dismal.

She stepped out of the line and allowed the people behind her, the people who actually had tickets, to continue their forward progress through the electronic scanner.

Michael . . .

One by one those lucky people walked through. One by one . . .

I can’t lose him.

Her feet burned with impatience . . .

I won’t.

All logical thought vanished from her mind as she sprang forward, past the gatekeepers and through the scanning gate. Her shoes or her belt or her jewelry or something set off the alarm, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even look back. She dashed forward and slipped past all the workers, but they immediately took off after her. They were basically police officers, and she was running from them. She must have lost her mind.

She ran as fast as she could, as fast as her feet would take her. Even though she wasn’t quite sure where to go, she got there somehow. Concourse A, Concourse B . . . she ran all the way through C and D, too, and then she finally got to E. She didn’t slow down. She couldn’t. She had momentum on her side, so she stayed in front of her pursuers. It was stupid to run. They were going to catch up to her eventually and she knew that, but . . .

Michael . . .

She ran past all the gates, looking for Gate 43. It had to be coming up soon. Had to be. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and all she wanted to do was find him, throw herself into his arms in the most sappy, cheesy way possible and tell him that she loved . . .

When she turned the corner and saw Gate 43, her heart dropped. It was empty. Just . . . empty. All the seats were empty. No one was there. Not Michael.

She ran towards the window and peered out at the runway just in time to see a plane taking off, a Southwest plane that she somehow knew was Michael’s.

No. She was too late. He was gone. Michael . . .

How could he leave her?

She didn’t get much time to contemplate the question as the people chasing her—police officers, security scanners, whatever they were called—plowed into her and literally tackled her to the ground.

“Ah, stop!” she yelped.

“I got her. I got her,” one man said as he pulled her arms behind her back at an uncomfortable angle and held her wrists together. “Cuff her.”

“No, don’t cuff me; I’m not bad!” she insisted. “I just had to get back here! I didn’t do anything wrong!” She realized that none of her pleading mattered when she felt the cold handcuffs snap into place around her wrists. “Oh my god.” She’d done a stupid thing. She got that. Of all the places to go and break the rules, the airport was probably the worst possible venue. “Look, I just ran. For Michael. Who isn’t even here. Don’t arrest me!”

“Take her in.”

“No! Please, can you guys just un-cuff me and we can have a conversation? Please? Ow!” She winced as her captors yanked her to her feet mercilessly.

“She talks too much,” one man said as he led her away.

“Oh my god.” Half of her felt like crying about Michael, and the other half felt like screaming about this. How did she get herself into these situations? “Oh my god!”








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Christina:

he may have made the smartest decision of his life and gotten off the plane to go back to Maria.

He may have.
chanks_girl:

I think it was the first time that I really liked even loved Maria in this story, because she went to the airport for fighting for the man she loves. she followed her heart and that is something that Michael wasn't able to do.

I'm glad to hear this! You know, Maria may have a lot of flaws, but she is most definitely a fighter.
killjoy:

She'll be lucky if she doesen't go to the pen for ten years

Well, she wasn't carrying a weapon of any kind, so they can't really charge her with anything. Funny story, really quick: One time, my friend went running through security and they arrested her. She didn't go running after a guy so much as a dog, but . . . It was funny.
Krista:

Betcha he got off the plane. Like Ross and Rachel.

Hmm, we'll see if you're right.
nibbles:

There's still a tiny, tiny sliver of a chance that he got off the plane but when have you ever made it that easy?

Never!
starcrazed:

Side note...yesterday I started reading My Romance...it is excellent Although very bad for my school work

Yes, My Romance is another one of those long and frustrating stories. Where did you start reading it? CID? It's all messed up over there, because when the board got moved, all quotation marks and apostrophes got deleted. It's a lot easier to read on Electric Candy.
Ashley: Maria's always in trouble!
Alien_Friend:

Well I can't wait to see Maria get pissed at him for this one. He so deserves it.

Maria is going to be furious! I think you'll enjoy it.
singerchic4:

awwww! I saw the pain on her face when Kyle gave her the news...standing there in her bed sheets, looking for Michael, and she had just thought "reality wasn't so bad this time"...

Kind of sad, isn't it?
tequathisy:

April, I'm not talking to you anymore. I knew you were going to do that.

Sara:

just a tasty morsel and now disaster

Yep! That's how I do things on the Passion thread! lol
lilah:

April, why do you do this to us?

Because it's SO fun! Oh, but don't worry, Maria's not going to federal prison.
art_junkie:

one more thing, why is it that no one in these situations thinks of using a CELL PHONE?

I was wondering when someone would ask that! Really, it's going to become a little running joke, everyone asking Maria why she doesn't just call Michael.
simplyshiny: Hi! Thanks for reading! I'm thrilled to have a new reader after all this time! So you skipped straight to the sex, huh? Well, that's one reading strategy!








Part 115







Max pushed open the door to his old house and was immediately flooded with the sense of familiarity. It hadn’t been long ago that he had lived there; just a couple of days, really. His new apartment already felt like home, but this still sort of felt like home, too. Sort of. Except for the fractured friendships that might never be repaired. That excluded.

“Kyle?” he called, wondering why the house seemed so empty, lifeless. “Maria?” Maybe they had taken Michael to the airport. Max assumed he was flying. “Hmm.” It was probably a good thing that no one was home, though. He didn’t want any confrontation. He just wanted to slip into his bedroom, pack up the remainder of his things, and be on his way.

Just as he was heading into his bedroom, he heard a slight noise downstairs, sort of a scuffling sound. He peered into the basement, squinting into the darkness. “Kyle?”

“Max!”

That definitely wasn’t Kyle. “Tess?”

She walked up the stairs carrying a box, a smile on her face. “Hey, Max. Long time no see.”

“Sure seems like it.”

“Don’t mind me. I’m just moving some of Kyle’s things out into our apartment because . . . well, he’s a little preoccupied right now.”

“Yeah, I’m just here to pick up the rest of my things, too,” he told her. “Do you want some help with that?”

“Please.”

He took the box from her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks, that was getting heavy. I was trying to carry it with my boobs, but I think they’re shrinking.”

He couldn’t help but cast a downward glance at her chest. They looked as huge as ever to him, but if she claimed they were shrinking . . . “That’s a shame.”

Her face lit up in surprise. “Max Evans has a perverted side? Who knew?”

He shrugged. “Well . . .”

“Is living with Liz corrupting you?”

He chuckled and set the heavy box down on the couch. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, either,” she agreed. “I think it’s really cute that you’re living with your new girlfriend, although I have to admit, it all seems like it’s happened really fast. Is she pregnant?”

“No,” he answered emphatically. “She’s not . . . and she’s not my girlfriend, either. She’s just a friend.”

“Right,” Tess said skeptically. “Just like Michael and Maria are friends.”

“No, not like that.”

“Not like that?” She smiled. “Good. Trust me, you and Liz are better off doing your own thing than being M+M reincarnated. Right now, those two are turning regular drama into dramarama. It’s a thing.”

“Drama . . . rama?” he echoed confusedly. Sometimes Tess’s speech needed translation.

“You don’t wanna know.”

“No, I do,” he insisted. “Michael and Maria are my friends. Or at least they used to be.”

“Yeah, but Maria also used to be your girlfriend . . .” She trailed off and shook her head. “No, dramarama. Just leave it at that.”

“They slept together, didn’t they?” he guessed.

“How did you know?”

He shrugged. “Inevitable. I guess that means they were telling me the truth when they said they hadn’t done that before.”

“Yeah, well . . . now they have.” She sighed. “Sorry, Max.”

“No, it’s fine,” he assured her. “I mean . . . I’m fine, I think. But I take it Michael and Maria aren’t fine?”

Tess grunted. “Who knows? I have tried to get through to them. The word impossible comes to mind.”

“Where are they now?” he inquired.

“Well, apparently last night’s pyrotechnics didn’t change anything. Michael still pulled a Houdini this morning. Gone. Totally.”

“He’s still doing the internship? Even after . . .” Doing Maria? his mind thought semi-bitterly. He knew what that was like. It wasn’t something you just forgot about.

“Kyle drove Maria to the airport to stop him, so . . . who knows what’s gonna happen,” Tess said with a shrug.

“Oh, that’ll seal the deal,” Max replied confidently.

“You think so?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, what if she’s too late? What if he’s already gone?”

Max shook his head. “No, it won’t happen that way. When things are meant to work out, they work out. I did the same thing a couple of days ago. Liz was gonna leave, go back to Nebraska. I ran through the airport and stopped her just in time.”

“How romantic,” Tess said, smiling. “And you say she’s not your girlfriend.”

“She’s not. I’m just saying, if the mad dash through the airport worked for me and Liz, it’ll work for Michael and Maria.”

“I hope so,” Tess said. “Sorry, I know you and Maria . . . you guys were good together; it’s just--”

“No, Maria and I were horrible together,” he cut in. “I get that now. She and Michael, as much as it may bother me . . . they have something, the same thing I always dreamed of having with Maria. Nothing can get in between that. Not even an airplane destined for Los Angeles.”

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

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Maria repeated her mantra as she was led into a jail cell. “I can’t believe I’m going to jail. Again.” She stood still as her favorite airport police officer uncuffed her wrists before sliding the bars shut. “Why me? Why me? I mean, I know I’m not a perfect person by any means, but seriously? Seriously? What, was I a serial killer in a past life or something, because I honestly don’t see how I can deserve all of this.”

“Shut up, doll-face,” the officer barked as he locked her cell shut. “I’ll be back for you later.”

“Hey, I want my phone call,” she told him as he walked out of the holding area. “I want my phone call!”

“Chill out, sweetie. This ain’t so bad.”

Maria glanced across the corridor at the junky-looking woman in the holding cell across from her.

“Hell, it’s nicer than my house.”

“Where the hell do you live? The streets?” Maria snapped.

“Well . . . yeah.”

Now she felt a little bad. “Sorry.”

“Don’t matter. My own fault. Yo, I’m Shelly, by the way.”

“Maria.”

“Pretty name. Wish that was my name. Wish I could get a job, too, you know?” She rubbed her face, looking a combination of high and tired and said, “If I could just lay off the drugs, I might make somethin’ of myself, but . . . nah.”

“Drugs?” Maria echoed. “Is that why you’re in here?”

“Uh-huh. I was tryin’ to smuggle some hash for my grandma.” Shelly laughed. “Funny, huh?”

“Not really,” Maria said. “You know, drugs . . . that’s, like, the one bad habit I’ve never picked up. I mean, granted, I’ve tried a few in my day, but I just never got addicted.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah. That’s probably the only smart thing I’ve ever done in my life. Now sleeping with Michael, on the other hand . . . oh, that was less smart.”

Shelly pressed her forehead against the bars and asked, “Who’s that?”

“Michael? Oh, just a dumb-ass. Chances are, if you live in Santa Fe, you’ve slept with him.”

“Oh, honey, I burned so many brain cells, I couldn’t remember him if I tried. My own fault.”

Maria rolled her eyes. She kept saying that. If everything’s your fault, why don’t you do something about it? she wondered.

“He your boyfriend?”

“Michael?” She thought about it. Was he? “No.”

“Boy-toy then?”

“No. Well . . . no.” She groaned. “Oh, Shelly, it’s this big, complicated situation. Trust me, you don’t wanna hear about it.”

Shelly glanced around at the empty cells adjacent to them and asked, “You got something better to do?”

“Yeah, actually, I do. But these stupid cops are, like, holding me back. Do you realize that I came all the way here to stop him? I ran all the way through the airport, and newsflash, I don’t run. Dance up a storm, sure, but running . . . not so much. Oh, but I ran. Ran right through the security checkpoint, in fact. At least I gave those fat cops a workout.”

“That why you’re in here? Rule-breaker?”

“Rule-bender,” she corrected. “Look, it was a desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures sort of thing, and my measure was desperate . . . but apparently not desperate enough.” She snorted angrily. “Michael got laid and then he got gone. And where am I? Oh, I’m right here, giving my jailhouse confession to a self-admitted drug addict.”

Shelly shrugged. “My own fault.”

“And you know what the worst part is? This is the guy who’s supposed to be my best friend. Like my best friend. And he is, but . . .”

“I thought you said you guys fucked.”

“Well, we did. I told you it’s complicated.”

“Want some pot? Makes everything simpler.” Shelly smiled.

“No, thanks. I’m too busy getting furious to get high. I mean, can you believe him? To just leave without even saying goodbye!” She huffed. “I mean, sure, I told him to leave, but he shouldn’t have left, you know? Wait.” She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “Okay, actually I told him he should leave, but he still shouldn’t have. God, he’s such a guy.”

“What’s he like?”

She groaned. “Oh, arrogant, selfish, annoying as hell. Rude, disgusting, sex-obsessed. I could go on.”

Shelly grinned. “Sounds sexy.”

“No, he . . . totally is,” Maria reluctantly admitted. “And he can be really sweet sometimes, too, and funny. But right now I am so mad at him. I swear to God, I just wanna strangle him, yell at him, kill him, and kiss him. In that order!”

Shelly laughed. “How long you known this jackass anyway?”

“Like eight fucking years!”

“Really? Ain’t it weird to screw someone you known for that long? It’d creep me out.”

“No, it wasn’t weird,” Maria told her. “Actually, it all just felt really . . . natural. And perfect. Like every part of my body was just made for a part of his, and oh my god, I can’t believe I’m saying this to a crack-whore.”

“My own fault.”

“I guess there’s no one else to say it to. Except for Michael. But wait a minute, where is he? Oh, he’s flying high as we speak. And not your kind of high, Shelly.” She sighed heavily, suddenly realizing that she was . . . missing him. He wasn’t where she was, and that just didn’t feel right. “Oh my god, this is such a disaster,” she said more to herself than to her jail-friend now. “Lies, manipulation, betrayal. Fights, and not the fun kind. Nothing good. Except the sex. And the eight-year friendship that’s probably down the drain now.” She laughed at herself a little despite her frustration and her sadness. “And here I thought my big, dramatic run through the airport was gonna change something, convince him to stay. I’m such an idiot.”

“Why didn’t you just call him?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was trying to be . . . you know, romantic. For once. Didn’t work out so well. I don’t have Michael, but I do have a nice leg cramp and cuff marks on my wrists. Those are always fun.”

Shelly smirked. “Hey, no, listen, if this dude’s your friend, he’s your friend. It’ll work out, right?”

“I don’t know,” Maria answered honestly. “All I know is . . . god, I hate that I do this. I just can’t let him go, no matter how much I want to. So I do this whole unattractive clinging thing, I chase after him even though guys are supposed to chase after me, and I end up having these random Dr. Phil conversations with whoever’s around. You. Jamie at the dance studio. Tess.”

“Who’s Tess?”

“Oh, she’s my friend,” Maria explained. “My friend’s primary girlfriend. Well, his only girlfriend now. He used to have two; now he just has one. Definitely his future fiancée.”

Shelly gave her a confused look, and Maria realized she had gotten a bit off topic.

“She has breast implants.”

Shelly nodded in understanding.

“And then there’s Kyle, my friend, Tess’s boyfriend, and about the only solid male companion I’ve got left in my life. And then there’s Liz, my little Frankenstein, the girl who’s in the process of redeeming herself and probably hooking up with Max as we speak—and yes, that would be the same Max who’s my ex-boyfriend, even though it was all a lie. Ex-friend, too. I really screwed that one up. And last but not least, there’s me, good old puppet-master Maria, and my feelings for Michael, the complete dumb-ass I can’t resist.” She smiled. “Nice, huh?”

Shelly stood there in silence for a moment. Then she stumbled back from the bars and sat down on her cot, looking as if a train had just hit her. “Whoa, I’m way too high for this.”

Maria stomped her foot impatiently and pressed her face into the bars, trying to see out into the station. “Hey, where’s my phone call?” she demanded loudly. “Where’s my fucking phone call?!”

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

Kyle looked all throughout the airport, but he didn’t see Maria anywhere. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had somehow hopped on a plane—crazy girl. He would have called her, but she had ran out of the house without her cell phone.

“Where’d you go, DeLuca?”

Just as he asked the question, his cell phone rang in his pocket. He took it out and noted that an unfamiliar number was calling. He flipped open his phone and answered questioningly, “Hello?” If this was another damn telemarketer . . .

“Kyle, it’s me.”

“Maria, where are you? I’ve been lookin’ all over for you.”

“Yeah. I’m kind of having a bit of a situation here.” She laughed nervously.

Oh, no, he thought. This can’t be good. “What kind of situation? Are you alright? Did you get Michael?”

“No. But I did get arrested.”

“Very funny.”

“No, I’m serious.”

All he could do was be silent for a moment. Honestly, as surprising as it was . . . it wasn’t. The day Maria managed to avoid getting into trouble was the day hell froze over, and that would never happen.

“I was running through the airport . . . like a Tasmanian Devil,” she explained.

“Like I told you not to.”

“Yeah, but I did it anyway. So then I kinda blasted through the security checkpoint without actually getting checked. Oops, my bad.”

“Maria, have you lost your mind?”

“Blame it on Michael, not me! I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him, the fucking loser . . .”

“Alright, Maria, where are you?”

“In jail. Weren’t you listening?”

“Which jail?”

“It’s, like, literally attached to the airport. They can't charge me with anything since I don't have a weapon. Could you come bail me out?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“No, you won’t.”

“No, I will.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, Maria, I don’t even know what to say right now.”

“Just say you’ll get here fast. This guard keeps giving me shifty looks.”

“On my way.” He closed his phone and stuffed it back in his pocket, still shaking his head in disbelief. “Oh, good lord.”

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

Maria only took a moment to say goodbye to Shelly, then gladly left her jailhouse confines. She had stuff to do, and she couldn’t very well do it behind bars.

“Kyle, seriously, I promise,” she said to her friend as they made their way towards the Southwest Airlines ticket counter. “I’ll pay you back tenfold.”

“That’d be the day.”

“No, this is like a real promise. Not the flimsy kind I usually make.” Maria walked right towards the front of the long line, bypassing all the people who were waiting in line faithfully.

“Maria, what’re you doing?” Kyle asked as he hesitantly followed her.

“Waiting in line . . . not my style.”

“Hey!” some people whined. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Family emergency,” she lied.

“You can’t just--”

“Family emergency!” She put a smile on her face long enough to charm the counter attendant and try to get what she wanted. “Hi. I need to get on a plane to L.A. Like now. Like I need to get there as soon as possible. Think you can help me out with that?”

“I don’t need a ticket,” Kyle piped up. “I’m just here for the fun.”

The man behind the counter said, “Uh, alright. Santa Fe to Los Angeles . . . you want direct or layover?”

“Direct, I guess. I just need to get there now.”

“Okay.” The man typed in some information on his computer, and Maria wished he would type faster. After a moment, though, he said apologetically, “Sorry, the only direct flight we had to Los Angeles today left forty-five minutes ago.”

“No, that’s just unacceptable,” was her immediate response. “There are no other flights going to L.A. today? On any airline?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Well, there’s a flight at 12:30 this afternoon that stops in Phoenix and continues on to L.A. at midnight, but there are no available seats.”

“No seats?” she shrieked. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Um, no, unfortunately.”

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. “There has to be a way to get me on that flight. I’m one person. I don’t take up that much room.”

“I’m sorry, there’s no way.”

“Well, can’t I just, like, sit in the bathroom? Or I could ride down below with the luggage and the pets and stuff. Seriously, I’d do it. I’m that desperate.”

"Why don't you just call him?" Kyle asked.

"No," she snapped decidedly.

“I’m sorry," the counter agent apologized, "the best I can do is get you on standby. If a seat opens up, you could take it, but it looks like the standby list is already quite large . . .”

“Oh my god, Kyle,” Maria groaned. “What do I do?”

“Do what he says. Get on standby.”

“Okay, stand me by,” she said disappointedly. “God, I hate this.”

The counter attendant cleared his throat and said, “The good news is, we do have a flight tomorrow afternoon at 3:30.”

“3:30?!” she screeched. “Isn’t there anything before then?”

“No, if you don’t get on the 12:30 flight today, tomorrow’s afternoon flight is going to be the quickest way to L.A. from Santa Fe on this or any other airline.”

“What about a flight to Dallas?” Kyle asked.

“Dallas?” she echoed. “Why would I wanna go there? Michael’s flying in, like, the opposite direction.” She tried to picture a map of the United States in her geographically-challenged head and started second-guessing that assertion. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Kyle said. “I’m just thinking, you get to Dallas, that’s a bigger airport, maybe you could get to Los Angeles from there.”

“I would encourage you to do some Internet searching,” the man behind the counter said, “but the chances of you finding a flight during this time of year of rare. It’s graduation time for a lot of high schools and colleges, not to mention, Mother’s Day is coming up . . .”

“Oh, pessimism. Wonderful,” Maria remarked, “‘cause we can always use more of that.”

“Would you like me to book you a seat on tomorrow’s 3:30 flight and put you on standby for the 12:30 one?” the man asked.

She glanced at the much more level-headed Kyle, and he nodded. “Sure,” she resigned. “He’s paying.”

After a brief and frustrating exchange of personal information and a swipe of Kyle’s favorite credit card, Maria held a plane ticket in her hand. 3:30 tomorrow afternoon, Maria thought unhappily. That would never do.

“Enjoy your flight and thank you for choosing Southwest Airlines,” the ticket agent said pleasantly. “I can help whoever’s next.”

Maria sulked away from the counter with Kyle, but she still had her mind set on getting to L.A. and getting to Michael as fast as she possibly could. Nothing could stand in her way when she was determined. Nothing ever had and nothing ever would.

She leaned in and mumbled quietly to Kyle, “We gotta con someone out of their plane ticket,” and Kyle laughed in response.

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

The plane ride wasn’t that long. Wasn’t that bad, even. A little boring. Michael arrived in L.A. around 9:45, picked up his luggage, and took a taxi to his hotel room. It wasn’t a nice hotel by any means, nothing like the room he’d had in Vegas. No, it was just a standard Holiday Inn, but it was all he could afford.

He stepped into the room around 10:30 and thought to himself, Maria’s probably awake by now. Probably. The girl could sleep when she was exhausted, though, and he had definitely exhausted her last night. Hopefully she knew it was more than just sex, though. She had to know.

He set his suitcase down on the floor and shut the door. So this was it, his home for the next . . . however long it would end up being. Even though it was a crappy room, it was going to get pricey after awhile. Maybe he would have to do some modeling jobs to scrape up some extra cash . . .

Damn, this being an adult thing really sucked.

He pushed open the door to the bathroom and peered inside. Hmm, that was definitely lacking, too. He’d never realized how nice his house was until now. And he’d never realized how lucky he had been to have people like Kyle taking care of him. He really did feel like a kid all over again. He hadn’t felt like that in a long time.

Damn, this really, really sucked.

He made his way through the room and flopped down on what looked like the comfier of the two beds. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture of Maria. It was an old picture, one of her senior pictures from high school, but he’d held onto it all these years because it was his favorite picture of her. Yes, he had a favorite picture of her. He was crazy about her, and he was finally realizing that.

He set the picture down on the table in between the beds, leaning it back against the landline phone he would never use. It would’ve been nice to have her there instead of just having her picture.

Maybe I should call her, he thought. If she had woken up already, chances were she was fuming, confused, probably both. He took his cell phone out of his other pocket, flipped it open, and slowly dialed Maria’s number. If she hung up on him, he didn’t blame her.

As he was dialing, his phone rang. Shit. He pressed the talk button and said, “Hello?”

“Michael Guerin?”

He wrinkled his forehead in confusion upon not recognizing the voice. “Yeah?”

“Cameron Fleming here. You in L.A. yet?”

“Yeah. Wait . . . Cameron Fleming? You’re the director of the movie . . .”

“No shit. And no talky. Just get your ass down to the studio. It’s the first day of filming and everyone needs to be there. God, I hate making these phone calls. Studio, now. Comprende?”

“Uh, yeah,” Michael replied unsurely. “I mean, I think I know where the studio is.”

“You should. You got the address. Move fast, muchacho. We don’t got all day.” The director abruptly ended the call.

Michael sat there, slightly stunned. He had just talked to a real director. Not a very friendly one, but a real one. For some reason, the guy seemed to think he understood Spanish. Whatever.

Michael stuffed his phone back in his pocket and sighed. Shouldn’t he have been more excited about this internship?

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

“And my grandma’s dying, and my grandpa’s dying, and my mom just got shot. And my dad has tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and cancer. And my brother’s dying, too. He needs a liver transplant.” Maria lied through her teeth. It must’ve been all that practice she’d had, what with lying to Max. She could do it so easily now. She could even lie to an old woman if she had to, which was exactly what she was doing now.

“Oh, you poor thing,” the old woman, Loraine, consoled Maria. “Your whole family?”

“Yes,” Maria whimpered, bringing on the crocodile tears. “And all I wanna do is get to them so we can have our one . . . last . . . family reunion.”

“Oh, sweetie . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping the fake tears off her cheeks. “I don’t mean to get all weepy and emotional. It’s just hard not to when you’re whole family’s, you know, dying.” She pretended to sob.

“Oh, honey. It’ll be okay. You’ll find your way to them.”

“I don’t know. Dad says Mom’s only got a few hours left, and I can’t get on the flight. The flight you’re on . . . I’d give anything to be on it. I’d give my own life. That’s how close I am to them, my family. Oh, I love my family so much! Why do they have to die?” More fake sobbing.

“Oh, this is just so horrible,” Loraine said, placing a comforting hand on Maria’s shoulder.

“I know. But don’t feel bad for me. And don’t even think about giving me your plane ticket. That’s yours. You hold onto it.”

Loraine glanced down at the ticket in her hand and said, “I’m going to a bingo convention.”

“Oh.” Maria nodded. “Bingo. My grandma likes to play bingo. I wish I could play it with her one last time before she goes off to that big white light in the sky.”

“You know, I’ve seen the white light,” Loraine said. “It looked a little pink to me.”

“Really?” Maria subtly glanced at the clock on the wall behind Loraine. Shit, it was already coming up on 11:00. She was quickly running out of time. She had tried and tried to get someone to give her their seat on the flight, and Loraine was her best hope so far. “Do you have any grandchildren, Loraine?” she inquired.

“Why, yes, I do.” Loraine smiled and glanced behind her. “Henry, come here.”

Shit, bad question, Maria thought as a young twenty-something man approached. He had been standing in the security checkpoint line this entire time, holding his grandmother’s spot. He was going to be much harder to convince, and he looked impatient already.

“Grandma, let’s get a move on. Who is this?”

“Oh, this is . . . uh, what did you say your name was, dear?”

“Maria.”

“Oh, that’s right. Maria.” Loraine smiled at her and then at her grandson. “Isn’t she pretty? You two would make a good match.”

Oh, the dreaded grandma matchmaking, Maria thought, forcing a smile.

“Grandma, let’s get back in the line. I’d like to have lunch before we get on the plane.”

“There’s no meal on the plane?” Maria asked, disappointed. “That sucks.”

“Henry, honey, Maria’s whole family is dying, and she has no way to get to them. It’s so sad.”

Henry surveyed her skeptically and said, “I bet she’s just trying to con you out of your plane ticket.”

“Oh, I would never do such a thing,” Maria lied skillfully. “I just saw her and felt like talking to her since, for all I know, my grandma could already be gone.” She choked on a fake sob and said, “Oh, well. At least I’ve got a seat on an afternoon flight tomorrow. Of course, they’ll all probably be dead by then, and the reunion will long be over, but . . . you take what you can get, I guess.”

“Henry, my heart just can’t handle this,” Loraine said sympathetically. “We should give her one of our tickets.”

Henry grunted. “No way, grandma. We can’t just give her a ticket. She’s gotta do something to earn it.” He grinned at Maria and licked his lips.

Ew, Maria thought, gross. “Okay,” she said sharply, slipping out of tragedy mode for a second. “Do you realize your grandson just propositioned me?”

“Oh, he has a bad habit of doing that. Stop that, Henry,” she said, whacking his arm. “Now tell me, Maria, would you like to be on our flight?”

Maria sniffed and replied, “Well, of course I’d like to, but . . . unfortunately, liking something doesn’t make it happen. I like my mom and my dad and my grandma and my grandpa, and even my brother most of the time, but death’s still knocking. Stupid death. I don’t like death.”

Henry rolled his eyes and said, “Just spit it out. You want the ticket.”

“Fine, I want the ticket,” she blurted. “Just . . . let me—oh, Kyle, come here!” She called to her friend and waved him over. “Come here!”

Kyle hesitantly came to join the group and smiled nervously.

“This is my friend Kyle,” Maria said, introducing him. He waved. “Kyle, this is Loraine and Henry. I told Loraine all about the recent death plague in my family, you know, and she wants to give up her spot on the plane. Isn’t that sweet of her?”

“Very sweet,” Kyle agreed. “That’s very sweet of you, Loraine. If I was just fifty years older . . .”

Loraine blushed and laughed. “Oh, what a charmer.”

“Grandma, don’t get sucked into this,” Henry said. “It’s a scam. You give up your spot on the plane, we have to buy a new ticket if we want to travel together . . .”

“Oh, no, not even,” Maria jumped in quickly. “You take the 3:30 flight tomorrow, you get my seat and I’ll buy the other seat for you.”

Kyle cleared his throat loudly.

“He’ll buy the other seat for you,” Maria corrected. “Oh! And . . .” She reached into Kyle’s pocket and pulled out a small wad of twenty dollar bills he probably didn’t even remember he had. “You can take this. I don’t know how much it is, but it’s gotta be over three-hundred. Free money. Cute, huh? And you can take my shoes if you want. They’re worth thousands in some countries.”

“She doesn’t want your shoes. What she wants is to get on a plane at 12:30 and get to her bingo convention on time,” Henry snapped.

“Well, what Maria wants is to see her dying family!” Kyle roared suddenly. “Sorry. It’s just . . . so sad.”

“So sad,” Loraine agreed. “Look at her, Henry. Such grief, such misery.”

She stuck out her bottom lip, giving him the pleading puppy dog look. No one could resist that.

“This is insane,” Henry muttered, but he was obviously giving in. “Fine. But we’re taking the money and you are buying us that other ticket.”

“Great!” Maria chirped, smiling. “I mean . . . thank you from the bottom of my broken, devastated heart. This is so generous of you. Both of you.”

Henry waved her off.

“Uh, let’s go back up to the airline counter, get everything rearranged there,” Kyle suggested.

“Whatever,” Henry grumbled. “Use your walker. Where’s your walker, Grandma?”

As Henry and Loraine hobbled on ahead, Maria hung back with Kyle and mumbled, “I am so going to hell for this.”

“Save me a seat.”

“And I’m bringing Michael with us,” she decided. “No way am I suffering an eternity of fire and brimstone without him.”








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Sara: Yes, they definitely all would have perished by now without Kyle!
Christina:

how will Michael redeem himself after all of this? And, even more importantly, will he ever grow a brain?

Probably the only way for Michael to redeem himself is to grow a brain and figure out what a frustrating dumb-ass he has been this whole time!
Krista:

I bet Michael's gonna hate LA and that Cameron asshole and fly back to Santa Fe within the next day and then Maria's gonna be in LA and they're both gonna be like "Well fuck."

Oh, that would be funny!
nibbles:

But why is she doing all the work, why?

Well, if she doesn’t, then who’s going to? She knows Michael isn’t going to do any of the work. Sex with Michael has really motivated her (big surprise) to fight for what she wants.
chanks_girl:

It is a wonder that Kyle isn't broke now because he is paying for Michael's and Maria's mistakes.

I know, right? I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Kyle is just awesome. He always has lots of money, and he always knows what to do . . . dream guy right there.
Alien_Friend:

This is so much work she's putting into getting there. I just hope it's worth it and she doesn't end up with more problems when she gets there.

Well, you know it’s not going to be smooth sailing!
lilah:

Listening to Maria explain the whole situation to Shelly in the jail, made me realized what this story has sounded like to my husband for the past couple months that I've been reading it. No wonder he always looks so confused

You’ve told your husband about this story? He must think it sounds like a bad soap opera! lol
Ashley: I liked the whole-family-dying lie, too. So fake, pretty funny.
singerchic4:

Omg, SO FUNNY! I didn't know you were so funny April

Aw, thanks! I try my best!
starcrazed:

I can definitely see Michael heading back home while Maria's on her way to L.A. and them missing each other again, although I really really really hope that doesn't happen.

Well, wait and see.
tequathisy:

I can't say how much I love seeing spunky, fiesty, funny Maria once again. This girl knows exactly what she wants and nothing is going to stop her from getting it. I love her.

Yeah, you know, there are so many bad things you can say about this Maria, but there are good things, too. Like you said, she is spunky and feisty and funny and determined. It seems like, now that she and Michael have done the nasty, she’s woken up again!
mrs_guerin: Well, I’m very happy to hear the fic is your addiction. I’ll admit, it was my addiction while I was writing it.
killjoy: I have to say, it has been my PLEASURE to drive all of you FREAKING INSANE.
art_junkie: Yeah, the characters are acting more like themselves now, aren’t they? Except for Michael, who now feels like he’s stuck doing something he doesn’t want to do.
simplyshiny: Wow, you’re already at the first kiss part? You’re making progress!








Part 116








Michael arrived at the studio and was . . . underwhelmed. Weren’t interns supposed to be in awe of their new surroundings? As far as he was concerned, the studio was crappy and the movie would be crappier. Nothing awe-inspiring about that.

It looked as though filming were already underway. Some of the crew members were putting some last minute touches on a fake dorm room set, and the “actors” were standing around in typical porn star attire, preparing. They were laughing and talking and even flirting with each other, but it was strange to think that they would be having sex probably within a few short minutes. The wonderful world of porn.

Man, my life really used to be a porno in enough itself, Michael thought as he looked around some more. He used to hop into bed with different girls every night, and even though it had been kind of fun in its own male-chauvinistic way . . . he was glad he wasn’t doing that anymore. He was glad that what he had done with Maria had been different, even if he would probably never get to do it again . . .

“Yo!”

For some reason, he knew that ‘yo’ was directed at him. He caught sight of the man he presumed to be the director, Cameron Fleming himself. Had to be him. Who else would be sitting in the director’s chair? Cameron gestured him over, and Michael suddenly felt intimidated. He wasn’t liking this, having a boss, and he’d barely even gotten started yet.

“You Mikey?”

“Michael Guerin. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand for a shake, but Cameron ignored.

“What the hell took you so long, kid? I called you an hour ago.”

“Ten minutes ago,” Michael corrected. “I had to take a cab.”

“Yeah, yeah. Truly tragic. Here.” He handed Michael a couple of dollar bills and said, “Go down the street to Starbucks, get me a Caramel Macchiato, Grande, tell ‘em not to skimp on the foam. I hate that.”

Michael dazedly took the money and stared down at it in confusion. “What?” was all he could say. Inside, his mind was screaming, Oh, it’s one of these internships? Well, fuck me!

“Coffee. Go get some!” Cameron commanded.

“Coffee,” Michael echoed. “Caramel Macchiato.”

“Yeah. Did the light bulb click on? You get it now?” Cameron laughed. “Kids are so stupid these days. Hurry up now. I ain’t got all day.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Michael suddenly wasn’t so sure if he could do this. Being away from Maria was one thing, but being away from her and having to take orders from this guy . . . it was no man’s fantasy.

Reluctantly, he turned and headed out. Starbucks down the street. Got it. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Shouldn’t be too exciting, either.

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

Maria stood with Kyle in line for that damn security checkpoint. She and Loraine and Henry had worked out the whole flight situation. They were really good people, and she felt a little bad for lying to them, but . . . oh, well. Grandma Loraine would get to her bingo convention eventually. Michael Guerin’s stupid ass took precedence.

“Thanks for helping me out today, Kyle,” Maria said quietly.

“What, for bein’ Money Man?” He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

“I really seriously do promise I’ll pay you back.”

“Hey, if you and Michael work things out, that’s payment enough. I hate it when you guys fight.”

“Yeah, me, too.” She sighed. “No, you know what I hate? The fact that I’m so crazy about this guy that I would literally tear through the airport for him. I hate that.”

“That is pretty crazy,” he agreed.

“Would’ve been romantic had it worked out. But of course it fucked up. Of course.”

Kyle smiled as they moved forward in the line. “Maria, if life was easy on you . . . I would die of shock, so . . .”

“Hmm.”

“So, since you were in jail--”

“I wasn’t in jail,” she cut in quickly. “I was in . . . airport jail.” She made a face, wondering if there was really a difference.

“Yeah, so did you get charged with anything?”

“No. I told you, they said since I didn’t have any weapons on me, they can’t do anything. The most they could accuse me of is being a kooky girlfriend. Except that I’m not a girlfriend. I’m a girl who’s a friend. Although I don’t even know if I’m that anymore. So maybe I’m just a kooky girl.” The line moved forward again.

“Well, Guerin likes his girls kooky,” Kyle pointed out.

“No, he leaves his girls kooky. That’s what he does,” she corrected matter-of-factly. “God, he pisses me off more than anyone else.”

“I noticed. What’re you gonna say when you find him?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But it’s gonna involve yelling.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, grinning. “You let him have it.”

“You know I will.”

“Here’s the thing, though: how are you gonna find him? ‘Cause he didn’t leave me an address. He just said he was staying at the Holiday Inn.”

“What’re you saying, Kyle?”

“I’m saying you might have to break down and call him.”

She immediately shot down the idea. “No. And you better not do that, either, Kyle. I don’t want him to know that I’m coming. He needs to be surprised. Kind of like how I was surprised when I woke up a few hours ago alone in my bed.”

“Damn.” Kyle shook his head in dismay. “I can’t believe you two finally screwed.”

Part of her wished they hadn’t. It would have made him leaving a hell of a lot easier. But the other part of her, the majority part, was so glad they had, because she’d never felt anything like it before.

“Well, here.” Kyle reached into his pocket as the line moved forward even more and pulled out a small wad of twenty dollar bills. “I hit up the ATM. It’s not much, since you already stole from me, but it should be enough.”

Maria took the money skeptically and asked, “For shopping sprees?”

“How about cab fare?”

“Oh. Right.” She counted through the money and felt relieved that she wouldn't arrive in L.A. empty-handed. “You are Money Man,” she said. “Thanks, Kyle.”

“No problemo, blonde one. Just make it worth it.”

Maria smiled, wishing he was going with her. Kyle made things simpler. He was still the rock of their fractured household. But she knew in her heart that this was something she had to do alone. She had to find Michael, tell him how she felt . . . and kick his ass.

“You better get goin’,” he said, gesturing towards the security gate.

“Oh.” She hadn’t even noticed that she was the next one in line. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you, Kyle.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

She waved goodbye and stepped up to the gate. A few of the scanners gave her nasty looks, apparently recognizing her from her recent sprint, and she just smiled at them. She walked through the security scanner, got frisked because they still suspected her of something terroristic, and then continued on to her gate. She wasn’t going to jail this time. No, she was going to Los Angeles.

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

Michael had broken out into a sweat by the time he got back to the studio with Cameron’s Caramel Macchiato in hand. This was ridiculous. So ridiculous.

“Where the hell you been?” Cameron demanded, throwing his hands in the air. “What took you so long?”

Breathing heavily, Michael handed Cameron his coffee and said, “That Starbucks wasn’t just down the street. It was twenty blocks away. It’s sweltering out there.”

“Cry me a river, kid.” Cameron took a sip and made a face. “What? What the hell is this?”

“What you wanted.”

“I said I wanted a White Chocolate Mocha. Is that too much to ask?”

“No, you said you wanted a Caramel Macchiato.”

“I know what I wanted, Mikey. You ain’t a good intern, you know that?”

It took everything he had to bite his tongue. Had Cameron’s cell phone not rang, he might have let loose.

“Ah, fuck,” Cameron cursed, taking his phone out of his pocket. He handed it to Michael and said, “Answer it.”

Michael rolled his eyes, wondering why it would be so hard for Cameron to answer his own damn phone. He took the phone from him, flipped it open and said, “Hello?”

“No!” Cameron yelled. “That ain’t how you answer the phone! You say, ‘Cameron Fleming’s cell phone. How can I help you?’” He grunted and shook his head. “Dumb-ass.”

Keep it together, Michael told himself, though it was hard. “Cameron Fleming’s cell phone,” he amended. “How can I help you? Dumb-ass.”

Cameron’s eyes almost bulged out of his head, and Michael got a laugh out of that. “Give me that!” He seized the phone and calmly said, “Cam here. Yo, Rusty, good to hear from you. Yeah, we just shot the first scene a minute ago. Got the money shot.”

Michael shook his head. The porn industry really left something to be desired.

“Yeah, just ignore that kid,” Cameron went on. “Another frickin’ intern.”

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

Although she couldn’t get to sleep on the short flight from Santa Fe to Phoenix, Maria did manage to snooze on the way from Phoenix to Los Angeles. She got off the plane late that night—2:30 a.m. to be exact—but she felt revitalized. Ready to fight with Michael once she found him.

She didn’t have any luggage, so she was able to head straight outside the LAX airport to try to wrangle a taxi. She made the mistake, however, of taking out all of the money Kyle had given her and waving it around in the air, yelling, “Taxi!” Los Angeles was a little different than Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, it was highly unlikely that anyone would run by and seize all your money right out of your hands. Apparently it happened in Los Angeles, though, because it happened to her. A kid who looked to be about all of thirteen years old zoomed by, and the money was gone before she could even realize it.

“What the . . . shit!” she yelled as the taxi pulled to a stop in front of her. The driver opened the door and said, “Hop in, sweet cheeks.”

It dawned on her that she was penniless in a strange city, and that frustrated her more than it scared her. Why the hell did she always have such horrible luck? Some people—cough, cough, Michael—got whatever they wanted when they wanted it. All she’d wanted to do was hold onto that money long enough to get a cab. Didn’t happen.

“Sir,” she said as she leaned down into the car, “I was just mugged!”

“Yep.”

Her eyes bulged in shock. “That doesn’t mean anything to you? Look, all my money . . . it’s gone! I can’t pay you.”

“You can’t?”

“No. Can I just, like . . . like an IOU? Could we do that?”

“No.”

“No?” She wished she were wearing some kind of expensive jewelry or something so she could try to sell it to him. “Oh!” It dawned on her. “My belt! She lifted her shirt up for him to see. It was bedazzled with all sorts of fake rhinestones, but they looked real enough. Sort of. “You can get, like, a hundred thousand dollars for this. Seriously. I can take it off. It’s yours.”

“Honey, I’m not stupid,” the cab driver said. “I’ll tell you what, though. You take that off, and you take everything else off, and I’ll drive you wherever you wanna go.”

She made a face, immediately understanding what he was proposing. “Oh, forget it, I’m not gonna have sex with you!” She slammed the door, and the driver drove away.

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. It was cold out, and she didn’t have a coat. No coat, no money, no Michael . . . she was really up a creek without a paddle. Hell, she was up a creek without a boat! Maybe coming to L.A. on a spur of the moment impulse wasn’t the best idea. But she was here now, and she was determined to get what she’d come for; and that was a combination confrontation/reconciliation.

“Time to go beg for money,” she mumbled as she ambled back inside the airport.

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

Michael yawned and rubbed his forehead tiredly. It had been a long day, and he just wanted to sleep. “Man, do you realize how long we’ve been here?” he groaned in complaint to this guy named Timmy. Timmy seemed like a decent enough guy, kind of reminded him of Alex. He was an intern, too, and claimed to still be a newbie in the porn business, though he lamented that he would be a veteran with the next few years if he didn’t receive a better job offer soon.

“This is nothing,” Timmy assured him as he got up on a ladder and repositioned a hanging light.

“We’ve been here sixteen hours.”

“Sometimes we’re here twenty. It’s a tough business, Michael. Are you sure you’re cut out for it?”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said confidently. “I’m cut out for making movies. I just don’t know if I’m cut out for taking orders from a jackass.”

Timmy slowly climbed down the ladder and agreed. “Yeah, Cameron likes to think he’s brilliant, but he’s not. Don’t tell him I said that.”

“I won’t.”

Timmy sat down and said, “You know what? I can sympathize with you. Last year, I was the one in your position: director’s bitch.”

“What? I’m nobody’s bitch.”

“No, you are. You’re Cameron’s bitch. And what can you do about it? Well, that’s the rough. Not a damn thing. All you can do is wait on him hand and foot, try not to go insane. Maybe next time you’ll get promoted, and you can become Susan’s bitch like I am.”

Michael gave him a confused look.

“Oh, she’s the lighting designer,” Timmy explained. “Yep. Two years interning with these people and I still have yet to get my hand on a camera.”

“What?” Michael spat. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. Well . . . okay, there was that one time last year when I got to shoot a scene that was all of three seconds long. And they didn’t even put it in the movie, so . . . a lot of good that did.”

“Well, what the hell’s the point of taking a directing internship if you don’t even get to direct?”

Timmy shrugged. “Get paid, get your name out there a little bit, get at least some experience. It’s better than nothing. Plus . . .” He motioned to a big-breasted blonde “actress” in the film as she walked by. “Porn stars aren’t ugly.”

Michael made a face. He had already scoped out the females on set, and they weren’t attractive to him at all. Good bodies, sure, but they were probably loose as hell. And STDs . . . he didn’t even want to venture into that territory. “Nah,” he said. “I know girls who’re a lot hotter than this.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He pictured Maria, of the way she had looked last night riding on top of him, and he couldn’t believe it had only happened twenty-four hours ago. It felt like another life already, and he was missing it. Missing her.

“Can you introduce me?” Timmy asked hopefully.

“No, they’re back home in New Mexico. Besides, they’re all taken. Well, I mean, I don’t know, Liz is kinda taken by Max right now; and Isabel’s taken by Alex. Tess is taken by Kyle. She’s got boob implants. She’d fit right in here.”

Timmy grinned. “Cool.”

“And Maria . . . “ He shook his head and said, “You can’t have Maria.”

“Oh, she must be your girlfriend then,” Timmy concluded.

“No, she’s . . . I don’t—yeah, I don’t-I don’t know. No. No, she’s not.”

Timmy grunted sarcastically and said, “Yeah, that was convincing.” Before he could say anything else, Cameron’s voice rang out in the air.

“Hey, Tommy! What do you think you’re doin’? I told you to oil that girl up! Do you people wanna get this scene done within the hour or not? Jesus Christ!”

“I’m on it, sir!’ Timmy called back promptly, shooting to his feet.

“Wait a minute, I thought you said your name was Timmy,” Michael said, confused as to why Cameron had just called him Tommy.

“It is.” Timmy rolled his eyes and scurried off to oil up a porn star. It was probably the poor nerd’s fantasy.

Damn, I don’t know if I can do this, Michael thought once he was left alone again. The internship, the director, the town, being away from Maria . . . Maybe he really wasn’t cut out for this. Maybe he’d made a huge mistake in coming here. But could he really go back now? No, it’d only been one day. He had to give it more of a chance.

“Mikey!”

“What?” He was so annoyed by the sound of Cameron’s voice.

“Where’s my pizza? I told you to order me pizza.”

Michael got to his feet and stomped over to the disillusioned director, furious. “You didn’t tell me to order pizza, otherwise I would’ve. You didn’t tell me to do anything. Just like you didn’t tell me to get you a White Chocolate Mocha today. Just like you didn’t tell Timmy to oil up that girl. And yeah, his name’s Timmy, not Tommy.”

“Oh, you’re a smart-ass, huh?” Cameron said. “Great, see how far that takes you. Look, kid, as far as you’re concerned, I’m your Messiah, capisci? I tell you to get my coffee, you get it. I tell you to answer my phone, you answer it. I tell you to shine my shoes, you shine ‘em.”

“Shine your shoes?”

“I tell you to jump, you say . . .”

“You first,” Michael muttered.

“What was that, smart-ass?”

Michael groaned and relented. “How high?”

“Exactly. Maybe you ain’t as dumb as you look.”

“Yeah, I’m not. In fact, I’m smart enough to know that when you’re promised a directing internship, you’re supposed to actually be able to help direct something.”

“No, Mikey, you don’t get it. You’re at the bottom of the totem pole, kid. You ain’t an intern for the movie; you’s an intern for me. And you know why that is? ‘Cause you ain’t got what it takes. At least Tommy’s got a halfway decent chance.

“Wow. You’re a great motivational speaker, Cam.”

“I don’t know what the hell your problem is. But you really wanna direct? You think you can do it?”

“I know I can.”

“Alright then. Say we work something out. Where you stayin’?”

“A hotel.”

“Perfect. I’ll tell you what: you got a camera?”

“A crappy one.”

“Fine. You take that crappy camera, you take Nikki home with you.” He pointed out the actress Timmy was oiling up. She smiled at Michael and waved. “You film a short scene. Nothin’ special. Nikki walks into the hotel room, grabs a wallet off the table, walks out. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Take you all of two minutes. Then you turn off your camera, you hop in the sack with Nikki tonight, you come back tomorrow morning at 8:00 sharp. Bring the scene.”

Michael was skeptical about it, especially after his conversation with Timmy. “But is this scene actually gonna make it in the movie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care,” Cameron said. “It’s irrelevant. Nothing you do matters unless you’re doin’ it for me. Film the scene kid, bring it in. And then stop complainin’.”

Michael crossed his arms over his chest, still nowhere near satisfied with this so-called ‘compromise,’ but he had a feeling Cameron wasn’t going to offer him anything better.

“Kids are so stupid these days,” the director grumbled as he pulled out his lighter and lit up a cigarette.

Michael glared at him angrily and said, “You know, I left a lot behind to come here.”

Cameron puffed smoke out into his face and was completely unsympathetic. “Boo-hoo,” he said. “Semantics.”

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

Maria didn’t like begging, but if she had to do it, she was determined to do it well.

“So do you see the predicament I’m in?” she said to a white-collar business-type man who she’d learned was set to board a private airplane in ten minutes. “No money, no debit card. I mean, what kind of karma am I reaping if I get mugged during my first five minutes in L.A.?”

“You should report it to the police,” the man suggested.

“No, it wasn’t that kind of mugging. It wasn’t violent; just annoying. And that wasn’t even my money to begin with. That was my friend’s money. And now I’m stranded here without a single cent of it.”

“And you’re asking me, a lonesome traveler, to give you, a complete stranger, compensation?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

He made a face.

She rolled her eyes and groaned, “Oh, come on, don’t act like you can’t afford it. I know you’re about to get on a private jet. And you’ve got a briefcase with you.”

“Having a briefcase makes me wealthy?”

“Uh, most likely. Poor people don’t carry brief cases. They carry tin cans.”

He sighed reluctantly and asked, “How much do you want?”

“Oh, you know, just . . .”

“Three-hundred dollars?”

Her face lit up. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, three-hundred dollars would be . . .” Karma, she thought. This bad luck was only happening to her because she’d done things over the years to deserve it. She had to put an end to it. “No, that’s too much. I only had a hundred and twenty dollars stolen.”

“Just take it,” the man said, shoving the money into her hands. “Like you said, I can afford it. I have a briefcase.”

She smiled, reluctantly taking all three-hundred dollars. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate it.” She surveyed him for a moment and then asked quizzically, “Should we hug?”

“Something tells me I’d enjoy that a little more than you would.” He laughed and said, “I better get a move on.”

“Okay. Thanks again.”

He waved goodbye, turned, and strode off. She squealed and did a momentary happy dance. Now she had money, more of it than she’d had originally, and she was off to find Michael. It was late, and she was a little tired, but she had more energy than exhaustion coursing through her veins. That dumb-ass wasn’t going to know what hit him once she let him have it. And maybe he’d come home . . .

With three-hundred dollars in hand, Maria left the airport once again and went back outside to try to flag down a cab. “Taxi!” she yelled, waving her hand in the air again, concealing the money this time. She spotted her favorite mugger racing towards her again out of the corner of her eye, and she spun to face him and snapped, “Uh-uh. Not this time.”

He wasn’t much of a mugger, apparently, because he slouched his shoulders and slinked away.

A few seconds later, a taxi skidded to a stop in front of her, and the driver pushed open the door.

“Hi,” she said. “I need to go to the Holiday Inn.”

“Which one?” the driver asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

He gave her a confused look. “You don’t know?”

“No.” She hopped into the backseat and shut the door. “Look, I have to find this guy, and all I know is that he’s staying at the Holiday Inn. I don’t know which one.”

“Well, it’s about the most popular hotel chain in America,” the driver informed her. “Findin’ the one you want’s gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I have money. Let’s go.”

He shrugged and gave in. “Alright, if you say so.” He pulled back out onto the street, and the meter immediately started to run.

“What’s your name?” Maria asked her driver.

“Ernie,” he replied.

“Hi, Ernie. I’m Maria,” she said. “I figured we should get acquainted. We might be in for a long night.”

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

Michael brought pornstar Nikki back to his hotel room that night, feeling pretty crappy. His first day interning for Cum-Hungry Coeds had sucked, plain and simple. He didn’t want to go back there, but in a few short hours consisting of little sleep, that was exactly what he would have to do.

Was this really what his life was going to be like from now on? Fuck, he’d never realized how good he had it in Santa Fe.

He lifted his bag up onto the bed and rummaged around inside for his camera. He wanted to get this stupid scene filmed.

“Are you sure you and L.A. are a good match?” Nikki asked, making her way towards him flirtatiously. “You don’t seem very happy. I think you could use a little pick-me-up.”

“Let’s just get this done,” he said.

“What’re we doing again?”

“Filming a pointless, irrelevant scene that won’t even be included in the movie,” he mumbled. “Like I said, I just wanna get it done so I can try to get some sleep.”

“Wait,” she said. “So that means you don’t want me to stay?” She seemed surprised. “Wow. Most of the directors I’ve worked with one-on-one like me on my knees afterwards.”

“Well, I’m not a director,” he reminded her.

“No. But most of the interns like me on my back.” She grinned and went to lie down on one of the beds, hiking her skirt up to show him all of her long legs. “You know, L.A.’s not so bad,” she said. “City of Angels and all that. I haven’t seen any angels yet, but I think I will someday.”

“You think?”

“Mmm-hmm. The thing about this place . . . you just have to know how to network; that’s all. I could help you out with that.”

“Oh, yeah, you networked your way into the porn industry. Great job,” he muttered sarcastically.

She frowned and pulled her skirt back down again. “Uncool, gorgeous.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say that.” He didn’t know her reasons for being in the porn industry, just like she didn’t know his.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I’ve heard worse.”

He didn’t doubt that.

“So you don’t wanna sleep with me,” she said. “That must mean you’re either gay or you’ve got a girl back home. And you don’t strike me as the gay type.”

There was a girl and she was back home alright, but she wasn’t really his. Not really. Not anymore. He’d screwed that all up.

“Is this her?” Nikkie asked, reaching over onto the bedside table to pick up the photograph of Maria he had set out.

“Put that down,” he snapped.

She smiled and looked over the picture some more. “She’s hot,” she said. “I’d do her. Is she good?”

He flashed back again to being in bed with her, being inside of her. She was good, maybe even better than him.

Nikki set the picture back down and smiled. “Pretty girl you got there. You must care about her a lot.”

He really did.

“It’s probably a good thing she isn’t here with you, though,” Nikki acknowledged. “She wouldn’t last a day in L.A.”








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

simpyshiny: Wow, you got caught up fast! Enjoy the rest of the fic and don't do too much *palm* forehead slapping!
Sara: You're right, Maria is definitely resourceful!
nibbles:

I actually don't know if I want her to fight for him anymore. After everything she's done to find Michael, isn't his turn?

It probably is. But you know Michael; he's a little slow to catch on.
Krista:

$300 to go to every freaking Holiday Inn in Los Angeles? Psh, good luck with that. Probably only get to like 2.

Are you serious? Wow, $300 could get you across the entire state of Nebraska! Not really, but . . . almost.
Alien_Friend:

I wish Michael would be smart enough to know that if things didn't feel right perhaps it isn't something he should be doing.

I know. It seems like simple enough logic to all of us. He's making things a lot harder than they have to be.
art_junkie:

but, oh no. Michael, a slutty porn girl, a dingy hotel room, and Maria looking for him does not look like its going anywhere good. She going to see them and jump to conclusions isn't she...

Well, you'll find out in this part.
starcrazed:

I want more happy Michael and Maria moments

I know, I'm evil, right? I gave you guys the sex chapter and then a bunch of really dramatic Michael-leaving-town chapters.
killjoy:

I bet when she barges in and sees slutty on the bed we'll have us a nice cat fight

Maybe, maybe. Or maybe not. You'll see.
Christina:

Speaking of Michael, I like that Cameron is an ass. He's a freakin' director, and Michael's never had a (real) job before. He needs to have set-backs. After all, he's been up way too high on his luck throughout this whole fic. So I for one, think it's refreshing that Cameron is putting him in his place.

Yeah, that's a good point. Cameron is a total jerk, but Michael sort of needs someone to be a total jerk to him right now.
tequathisy:

This is one of those fics where we have to wait for the very end before they finally get together and then we don't get to see them be happy. *Resigns herself to this.*

Could be. Although it makes it much more dramatic, I think!
lilah: It might not be an impending mess. Or . . . it might be.
Ashley: Yeah, Nikki's just a minor character. I don't even think you'll see her again after this part, but you're not really supposed to like her.
singerchic4: I must not be up on my Broadway or political knowledge, but your comment gave me a laugh!









Part 117









“God, I hate this town,” Maria groaned as she halfway sat and halfway lay in the backseat of the cab. Ernie had been driving her around for a long time now. He’d taken her to the Holiday Inns located near the airport and near studio lots, but so far, she hadn’t found Michael. She kept having to get out of the car, go inside, and ask the front desk clerks if he was staying there. It was a pain in the ass, and part of her considered getting on the phone and calling him, but the other part of her was still determined not to let him know she was on her way.

“Luckily the traffic’s not so bad tonight,” Ernie said. “You gotta look on the bright side.”

“Fine, the traffic’s bright,” she acknowledged, “but my love life isn’t. God, could Michael be any more absurd? I mean, by the time we find him, I’m gonna owe you, like, a million dollars in cab fare.”

“Relax,” he assured her. “I shut off the meter awhile ago.”

“Oh.” She sat up straighter and said, “Well, it’s nice to know not everyone in L.A.’s a jerk.”

“Mmm-hmm. Twenty-five percent of the people here aren’t trying to seize the spotlight. People like me just try to put food on the table.”

She smiled sympathetically and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sit here and complain about my life. You’re probably ready to get rid of me.”

“Nah, you’re not so bad,” Ernie said. “At least you treat me like a human being. Most of the people I drive around treat me like scum. Or worse, paparazzi.”

She laughed a little at that claim but stopped laughing when she spotted a Holiday Inn up the street. “Oh, up there. We haven’t checked that one, have we?”

“I don’t think so. Let me get in the other lane.” Ernie changed lanes quickly and expertly and pulled up in front of the hotel building.

Maria opened the door and crawled out. “Ernie, you know the drill,” she mumbled.

“Good luck.”

She shut the door and trudged inside. It was 3:30 a.m. Even the sleep she’d gotten on the plane hadn’t prepared her for this late night.

“Welcome to the Holiday Inn,” the front desk clerk said cheerily as she approached him. “How can I help you?”

“I just need to know if you’ve got a guy named Michael Guerin staying here.”

“Michael . . .”

“Guerin. G-U-E-R-I-N.” She rubbed her forehead as the clerk did something on the computer, trying to ease the headache she felt coming on. Frustrated, she muttered under her breath, “He’s probably not here. He’s not anywhere I look. It’s like, for the first time in his life, he’s trying to be quiet and invisible. Like Max used to be. Only Michael’s totally not Max, which is why we work together. Or maybe we don’t work, because, hell, if we worked, would I really be tearing through this city like a lunatic, getting mugged, begging for money, chatting up cab drivers, standing here rambling to myself while--”

“He’s here.”

“What?” Her eyes grew so big, she felt as if they were about to pop out of her head. Had she heard this guy right?

“He’s here,” the clerk repeated.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, Michael Guerin checked in this morning.”

She looked around the lobby in a state of shock for a moment, trying to fathom that she had finally located the major pain in the ass. He could run, but he couldn’t hide; that was for sure.

“Oh my god,” she said. “This is . . . well, what room is he in?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information.”

“Why not?”

“It’s against policy.”

“Well, screw policy!” she shrieked. She didn’t want to go through all these floors knocking on doors unless she had to. “No, you know what? Just wait here.” She bolted back outside to her cab. She opened the door and said, “Ernie, you’ll never believe it. He’s here.”

“Really?” Ernie seemed happy for her.

“Yeah! About time we found him, huh?” She pulled her money out of her pocket and asked, “How much do I owe you?”

He shrugged and said, “Just give me a hundred. That’s fine.”

For some reason, she felt a little generous and very grateful to him for keeping her company that night, so she gave him a full two-hundred instead. Besides, like he’d said, he was trying to put food on the table.

“Thanks,” he said. “You straighten this guy out now, you hear me?”

“I will,” she promised. “Thanks, Ernie.”

He waved, and once she shut the door, he drove off. She turned and ran back inside then, back to the desk clerk who had told her Michael was there. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get something straight: I’ve been on the go since the last a.m. I’m tired, and I’m cranky. I’m totally embracing this ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’ philosophy. So I’ll tell you what: you tell me what room Michael Guerin’s in, and I’ll fuck your brains out.”

The man smiled. He wasn’t quite a man, though, not really. He looked like a college kid, sort of nerdy, had a little acne on the face, probably hadn’t gotten laid within the last year, if ever. She wasn’t surprised that her promise enticed him.

“Um, okay,” he said, looking at this computer screen again. “Just don’t tell anyone I told you.”

“My lips are sealed. Unless they’re wrapped around your cock, that is.” Didn’t hurt to give him a visual.

He smiled, grew a little red in the face, and gave her the answer she was looking for. “He’s up on fourth floor, room 419.”

“Awesome,” she said. “Thanks.” She turned and skittered through the lobby, but she spun back around quickly to inform him, “You know I was kidding, right? About the sex thing.”

The poor guy just sighed and hung his head as though he were used to it.

She shrugged and kept on walking. Hell, that kid had been stupid enough to fall for her lie. He could only be disappointed in himself.

The elevators were taking too long, so, impatient as ever, she took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor. When she got there, she had to spend a minute navigating the maze of hallways looking for room 419, but at last, she found it. She took a deep breath, realizing that she and Michael were going to be face to face for the first time since they’d slept together, and knocked on the door.

Much to her surprise, it wasn’t Michael who opened the door but a busty, clearly silicon-loving and collagen-injected blonde girl. She was only wearing a denim mini-skirt and a hot pink tank top, so Maria’s suspicions were immediately aroused. What, had Michael picked up a hooker on the way home or something?

“Hi,” she said slowly. “I think I might have the wrong room.” She was hoping she did.

“Hey, you’re the girl back home.”

Maria wrinkled her face in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, he’s got a picture of you. He likes you.”

“Michael?”

“Yeah, that was his name.”

“He’s here? This is his room?”

“Mmm-hmm. He’s in the bathroom. He’ll be out in a minute. You should come in.” Busty blonde opened the door wider for her.

Maria stepped inside, hesitantly stepping past the girl who could very well be her sexual rival right now. If Michael was planning on getting busy with her tonight, she was going to be so pissed off at both of them.

“So how do you know Michael?” Maria asked quietly.

“I don’t,” the girl admitted, “but something tells me I will soon.”

Maria narrowed her eyes in fury. That bitch had another thing coming if she truly thought that.

Maria heard the toilet flush, and then she heard the running water of the sink after that. A few moments later, the door to the bathroom opened, and Michael came out saying, “Alright, Nikki, let’s do it.” He froze immediately when he saw Maria, though, and stared at her.

Michael . . . Her first reaction to seeing him was lusty and longing, of course. Even though it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since their last . . . interaction, it felt as though it’d been a damn long time. Too long. “Surprised to see me?” she asked.

He just kept staring at her and asked, “Why are you here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” She thought he looked tired, not like himself. Then she remembered that they weren’t the only two in the room, though, and added, “Or better question, what’s she doing here?” She motioned towards the interloper, Nikki or whatever he had called her.

“Work.”

“Like prostitute work?” She grunted. “I knew it. But seriously, Michael, she looks like a porn star.”

“Uh, that’s ‘cause she is a porn star.”

“My god,” she gasped. “Do you have, like, no standards? A prostitute and a porn star? How low can you go?”

“No, she’s not a prostitute. She’s here on work, as in work for the movie. Remember, Maria? That’s why I’m here, the movie.”

“That’s your story.” She wasn’t so sure she believed it anymore. Maybe he was just there to ditch her. It was hard telling with Michael. For someone who was supposedly such an open book, he could be so enigmatic.

“Hey, I’ll have you know, I’m a very successful porn star,” Nikki piped up. “I’ve won awards.”

“For what? Best array of STDs?” Maria shot back.

“You know, you’ve got some nerve,” Nikki said, coiling her fingers around Michael’s arm, “walking in here, insulting me, acting like you’re all that after you’ve devastated this sweet, innocent man’s heart.”

Maria grunted in disbelief and said, “Okay, first of all, Michael is neither sweet nor innocent; and second, you think I devastated his heart? Wow, you must’ve missed a few episodes, ‘cause that’s not how it happened.”

“I know what I know.” Nikki smirked confidently.

“Then you don’t know much. In fact, I’m starting to think you’re the reason why the dumb blonde stereotype exists.”

“And I’m starting to think you’re the reason why the jealous ex stereotype exists.”

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me, bitch.”

“Whore!”

“Skank!”

“Slut!”

“Alright, would you two just shut up?” Michael roared, placing himself in between the two of them as the claws threatened to come out in the form of a hair-pulling, skin-scratching catfight. “Holy fuck.”

“That’s right. Holy fuck,” Nikki said. “That’s what we were gonna do before this bimbo showed up.”

“Hello, you’re a porn star! If anyone’s a bimbo, it’s you!” Maria pointed out. “Aha, you were gonna fuck!”

“No, we weren’t,” Michael insisted. “Alright, Nikki, you need to leave. Just get outta here.”

She rolled her eyes and resigned. “Fine, I’m outtie. We’ll meet up tomorrow night after work, though, and then you can be innie.” She smiled at him suggestively and tried to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he pushed her away, towards the door. She frowned and left the room, looking a little defeated. Good.

Once Nikki was gone, it felt . . . more serious somehow. Maria felt the catfight urges start to subside, and it dawned on her that it was just her and Michael now, and anything could happen. She was a pissed off emotional wreck, and she wanted him to know that.

“Nice to see you again, Michael.”

“Look, this isn’t what it looked like.”

“Oh, really?” She spied the video camera set up next to the bed and said, “‘Cause it still looks to me that you were gonna get nasty with a nasty porn star tonight in this nasty motel room. I mean, let’s be real here, we all know you enjoy having sex with blondes.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you have faith in me.”

“And why should I? What reason have you given me to believe that you’re ever gonna do the right thing?”

“Maria, I don’t need this from you. I’ve got enough people telling me what a screw-up I am lately.”

“Tough.”

He ran his hand through his hair, looking stressed, and went over to turn off his video camera. “I still don’t know what you’re doing here.”

“I still don’t know why you’re here, either,” she reminded him. “I still don’t know why a sorry substitute for me was here a minute ago.”

He groaned in frustration and explained it to her. “Dammit, Maria, Nikki’s no substitute for you. She’s part of the movie I’m interning for. The ass-face director I’m working for told me to bring her back here and shoot this completely meaningless, pointless, worthless scene, and that’s what I was gonna do.”

She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.

“And before you even ask, no, it wasn’t a sex scene. It was just a boring scene, worthless like I said, but hell, it was the one thing I was gonna get to direct this summer, and now I’m probably not gonna get to direct anything. So thanks for showing up unannounced.”

“Uh, well, thanks for just up and leaving this morning, unannounced,” she retorted.

“I knew you were gonna make it into a whole issue.”

“That’s ‘cause it is a whole issue! My god, Michael, do you know how crazy my day’s been because of you? I fucking got arrested because I ran through the airport like a fucking maniac!”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because . . . I don’t know! I thought I would get there in time to stop you. I thought it would be, like, romantic and fairy tale; but, oh, I should’ve known better. No such thing as a fairy tale when Michael Guerin’s involved.”

“Great.”

“And that’s not even the half of it, Michael. I had to con this nice old woman out of her plane ticket. I got mugged the minute I stepped foot outside the LAX airport. This poor guy named Ernie had to drive me around for hours looking for you. Oh, and I totally got this kid at the front desk all worked up by fake-promising him sex in exchange for your room number. So you know what, I’m a little pissed off! I’ve had this crazy, terrible, never-ending day because of you!”

He just stared at her in silence for a moment, then came out and asked her, “Why didn’t you just call?”

“Oh my god, why do people keep asking me that? Seriously, does nobody understand that this isn’t a conversation I wanna have over the phone?”

“This isn’t a conversation at all, Maria. This is you, screaming your lungs out, blaming all your problems on me.”

“Hello, newsflash, buddy, my problems are your problems.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You know, we had sex last night. Kind of a big deal.”

He looked slightly offended. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Oh, it’s hard telling, Michael. In case you haven’t noticed, you have the emotional maturity of a five year-old. I, on the other hand, have a big problem with having this said-sex and then waking up alone. So yes, my problems are your problems. Deal with it.”

“Fine, I’m dealing.”

“No, you’re not. You ran away to L.A. and obviously you weren’t dealing. That’s why I came.”

He grinned. “You came last night, too. A number of times; I lost track.”

She made a face. “You’re disgusting.”

“You like it.”

She did, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing her admit it. “Michael.”

“Maria.”

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Do you not get it?”

“Apparently not.”

“We had sex.”

“Well, I get that much.”

“No, but . . .” She was having a bit of a difficult time expressing her frustrations. She’d planned out dozens of things to say while flying in the plane and riding in the cab, but now that she was actually in this room with Michael, arguing with him, all her preparation went out the window. “Was it just sex to you?” she asked. “I mean, eight years of friendship, of pissing each other off and making each other laugh . . . was last night just about sex?”

“What? No! What . . . why would you even think that? You must really think I’m a jerk, Maria.”

“You are a jerk.”

“Not like that. Not with you.” He definitely sounded genuine. “You’re not just some girl. It wasn’t just sex.”

“Then what was it?”

“I don’t know!”

“Use your god-damned words, Michael,” she told him.

“Maria, I don’t know! I don’t know what it was. All I know is it’s not something I did alone. You were there. It takes two.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying . . .” He sighed in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m not like you, Maria. I can’t put everything I’m feeling into words.”

“What, and you think I’m a words expert?”

“I think you’re doin’ a hell of a lot better than I am. I just . . . I don’t know how to describe stuff, alright? I’m just . . . confused.”

“Join the club.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve been confused for a long time. I haven’t.”

She frowned and spat, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before he could answer, there was a knock on the door. Maria’s first thought was that Nikki had returned. “Oh, if that bitch is back . . .” she grumbled, pulling open the door. It wasn’t Nikki she came face to face with, though. Rather, it was a woman who was the complete opposite of a porn star. Plain, heavy, not glamorous. “Hello,” the woman greeted.

“Are you another one of his sluts?” Maria asked.

“You’re the only slut I have,” Michael mumbled under his breath.

“Oh, you don’t have me,” she informed him.

“I did last night.”

She shook her head in disbelief. This is what shocked her about Michael. He could talk about sex in such serious and simplistic terms all at once, effortlessly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt,” the woman said quietly. “I’m staying in the room next door. I heard some yelling, just wanted to make sure everything was okay over here.”

“We’re fine,” Michael told her. “We’re just arguing.”

The woman leaned in towards Maria and whispered to her, “Is everything really okay?”

What did this lady think, that she was investigating a case of domestic abuse or something? She couldn’t be any more wrong. “Oh, back off, Nosy Sue!” Maria exclaimed, unconcerned with being nice. She slammed the door in the woman’s face and groaned. “God, these L.A. people!”

“Tell me about it.”

She whirled around to face him and warned, “Oh, watch out. You’re one of them now. You left, remember? You left Santa Fe. You left me in that bed all alone.”

“Hey, thanks for mentioning that over and over again. That’s nice of you.”

She shrugged. “I really don’t care about nice right now. You messed up, Michael. It’s that simple.”

“Oh, it’s that simple, huh? No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” she insisted.

But he didn’t back down, either. “No, it’s not. Weren’t you the person who told me to leave? Didn’t you say that on more than one occasion? ‘Go to L.A. Michael.’ Well, I did. And now I get bitched out for it?”

“Yeah, you get bitched out because . . . you didn’t even wake me up to say goodbye or anything. I mean, seriously, that’s pretty cold-hearted even for you.”

“I thought it’d be easier.”

“Well, it wasn’t. It just made me feel used, Michael.”

“I didn’t use you.”

“But that’s what it felt like. And I don’t expect you to understand, but . . . look, understand this: When I told you to go to L.A., I meant it. I thought you should go. But that was before we had sex.”

“I thought you still wanted me to go.”

“No, I wanted you to stay.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me to stay?”

“‘Cause we were busy having sex.”

“Yeah, so I went because you’d told me to go.”

“Prior to the sex!”

“Yeah, but I thought--”

“Forget it!” she snapped. “We already went full circle.”

“Miscommunication, I guess,” he decided.

“Michael, we haven’t been communicating for awhile now. Ever since we kissed . . .”

“You know you wouldn’t take back that kiss to save the world,” Michael said matter-of-factly. “Neither would I. Just like we wouldn’t take back last night.”

He had her there. As much drama as sleeping together was causing them, it had still been the most thrilling thing . . . ever.

“What do you want from me, Maria?” he asked her. “I mean, in a perfect world, how would this morning have happened?”

“In a perfect world?” It was hard telling since their current world was so far from perfect. “We would’ve laid there and talked about it, about L.A., about what we did together. And yeah, in my perfect world, you would’ve stayed.”

He made a face and said, “That doesn’t sound like us.”

“What?”

“Laying in bed talking about it. Not us. We can’t just talk. We have to fight about something. We’ve always had to fight about something. Doesn’t matter whether it’s about who has to do the laundry or who gets to have the master bedroom, we gotta have something to argue about.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and muttered, “You cheated me out of that master bedroom for years.”

“Yeah, well, it’s yours now, so I don’t wanna hear any complaining.”

“Not complaining; just stating a fact.”

“Fine.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and said, “You know, you should’ve known I’d steal that bedroom from you.”

“No, what I should’ve known is that you’d be gone in the morning. That’s what I should’ve known.”

“Here we go again.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Here we go. You know what, Michael?”

“What?”

Before she could give him an even bigger piece of her mind, there was another knock on the door. Maria groaned and peered out the peephole. It was that woman again. “Ugh, go away!” she shouted.

“Is everything okay in there?”

“We’re fine!” Michael told her again.

Maria kept watching through the peephole as the woman reluctantly headed back to her room. “Gossip-monger,” she decided. Maybe the woman was just desperate for some entertainment. She knew her arguments with Michael were always entertaining, always heated. And this one was no different. “I don’t think she likes you, Michael. I think she thinks you’re a bad guy.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“You’re not the quintessential good guy, either, though, are you?”

He shrugged. “Nice guys finish last. Chivalry’s dead. Look at Max.”

“Right. Look at Max. And look at you. You’re hanging out in a dingy motel room with an STD-infected porn star. He’s living it up in a high-class apartment with your ex-honey. Oh, yeah. Chivalry’s gotten him nowhere.”

“Then go be with Max.”

“I don’t wanna be with Max. I wanna be with you. For whatever reason, God help me, I just can’t get over you. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“You have?”

“Oh, yeah. All the time.” She felt tears spring to her eyes and said, “Congratulations, Michael, you have really worked a number on me.”

He gazed at her, took a few steps forward, and said, “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Well, you did. I know I told you to leave, but somewhere deep down inside, I didn’t think you would.”

He flapped his arms against his sides helplessly and said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Just tell me why. Was it really just because I told you to go? I mean, is that the only reason? Because I don’t buy that. I know you, Michael. There’s gotta be another reason.”

“You think I left because of you?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“No, I didn’t leave because of you,” he assured her, “but maybe . . . maybe I did leave in part because of us.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed and raked his hand through his hair again. “What we did . . . Maria . . . it was easily the best night of my life.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It definitely cracked my top five.”

“Yeah. What?” He gave her an astonished look. “Top five?”

She gave him a look. Didn’t he know better than to fall for her teasing? “No, it was the best night of my life, too.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I’m saying. It was so huge—no pun intended . . .”

“No pun intended?”

“Yeah, I really didn’t mean it that way. But I guess if you wanna take it that way, that works, too.”

She rolled her eyes.

“No, but I’m saying . . . what was I saying?”

“I don’t know. You haven’t actually said it yet.”

It took a moment, but then he remembered. “Oh, I was saying . . . I loved every second of it, Maria, being with you that way, but . . .”

But? she thought, panicked. There was a but?

“It freaks me out.”

She made a face. “It freaks you out?”

“Yeah, somethin’ wrong with that?”

“No. It just sounds so . . . high school.”

He thought about it for a minute, the kind of active thinking where she could actually see his mind working, but apparently he didn’t get it, because he just looked at her and said, “What?”

“Good God, Michael, you were inside me and all you can say is it freaks you out? Eloquent, really.”

“What? I’m just tryin’ to be honest. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yeah, honest and, like, adult.”

“You want me to get adult, huh?” He grinned, shuffling towards her.

“Would you tone down the hormones for, like, a minute? Please? Get over yourself. I’m not some doe-eyed sorority girl who’s gonna surrender to your charm. I don’t want you to get adult; I want you to be adult, as in act like one.”

“Like you? Is that what you are? No, face it, Maria, we’re still the same crazy kids we always were. Always will be.”

“We’re not the same,” she informed him sternly. “Do you realize how much we’ve changed? No, of course not, ‘cause guys aren’t capable of existential thought.”

“You sure about that?”

“Oh, yeah.” She was absolutely sure. “If there’s one thing I’ve come to realize, it’s that the male brain is so inadequate compared to the superior female brain. It’s not even funny.”

“So you think guys are stupid?”

“I think guys have the advantage of being able to think about sex ninety-nine percent of the time. If he does that, he’s normal and cool. If a girl does that, she’s a slut, right? That’s the double-standard. So girls get stuck dealing with all the emotional crap, spending all their time thinking about the stuff that really matters. Do you have any idea how agonizing that is? We think about the important stuff, you think about sex. So unfair.”

“If you don’t think sex is a big deal, then why are you gettin’ so worked up about it?” he countered.

“It’s not the sex I’m getting worked up about; it’s the fact that we just took our relationship to a whole new level, and I’m . . .” She trailed off before using words to describe her feelings that she really didn’t want to use.

“What, freaked out?” he filled in. “See?”

“No, I’m beyond freaked out. I’m, like, completely all over the place, Michael.”

“You think?”

“And meanwhile, you’re just freaked out.”

“No, you don’t get it,” he insisted. “How long have you known about your feelings for me?”

“How long have I . . . known about my feelings or had them?”

“Known about them,” he repeated. “A couple of months, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, exactly. You know how long I’ve known about my feelings for you? A week and a half, baby.”

She tried to figure out where he was going with that argument, but she was a bit too pissed to try to understand. “Well, whose fault is that? If you hadn’t been so stupid and stubborn--”

“Fine, I was a stupid; I was stubborn. The point is, it feels a shitload of different for me than it does for you. I haven’t had months to sit back and figure out exactly how I feel about all this stuff. I haven’t had all the time.”

“Boo-hoo.”

“Why are you so determined to be so fuckin’ pissed at me?”

“Because you’re pissing me off!”

“Oh, fuck me,” he muttered, turning his back towards her.

“Michael!” She was losing it. This guy did this all the time, sent her over the edge with rage.

“What?” He whirled around to face her again, his eyes blazing. Funny, he’d looked exhausted a minute ago. Now he looked so energized.

“Look, I’m not pretending that I have all the answers, okay? I so don’t. I’m just saying . . . Michael, we can’t just ignore what happened. You can’t just expect it to go away because you ran off to L.A.”

“Ran off,” he echoed. “You make me sound like a coward.”

“Well, you kind of are.”

“Well, you’re kind of a bitch.”

“Okay, Michael, I’m just gonna say this as simply as I can: I know I’ve made my fair share of mistakes these past few months, but one thing I’ve learned for sure is that it’s one thing to have sex; it is something else entirely to have passion, and last night we had passion. We always do. That’s why we never would have worked out with Max and Liz, ‘cause it’s just not there. But Michael, it doesn’t matter if we’re laughing or fighting or talking or fucking or just not doing anything at all; we never don’t have passion.”

He didn’t say anything. He had to know she was right.

“And last night . . . I don’t know what we did, Michael, but I have never done it before. Even with all the guys I’ve been with . . . last night was something else, and I don’t know how to describe it or if there’s even words for it, or if you even felt the same way, but we did something different last night, and it was full of passion, and Michael, I think we made love.” The words came out in one gigantic whoosh, but what followed them was simply silence. Stunned silence. She wanted him to say something, but he just gazed at her, and all she could do was stare right back at him, silently begging for him to just take her into his arms and kiss her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that they would always be friends, that this wasn’t the end, but rather just the beginning.

Instead of doing all that, they both got distracted when there was another knock on the door to the room. Way to ruin my moment, Nosy Sue, Maria thought unhappily, expecting that it was the annoying busybody woman again. But when the knock on the door changed into a full-on fist-pounding followed by a man’s voice booming, “Police! Open up!” she frowned and gave Michael a questioning look. What reason did the police have to be there. Michael walked over to the door, looking just as confused as she was, and opened it. “Problem?” he asked.

“Look, I don’t know what you heard about me, but I am not a terrorist,” Maria told the two officers, holding her hands up in the air to show them that she wasn’t a threat. “I ran through one security checkpoint. Big deal. I did my time . . . briefly. Paid my debt to society.”

Michael gave her a look and said, “I doubt that’s why they’re here.”

“Would you shut up?” she snapped.

“You shut up!”

“Both of you shut up,” one of the officers growled. “Now we’re here ‘cause we got a call about a domestic disturbance.”

“Domestic disturbance?” Maria echoed in shock. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, what the fuck?” Michael agreed. “We’re just talking.”

“The caller reported lots of yelling; she said the situation seemed like it might get violent.”

“Violent?” Michael shrieked. “What the hell? I’d never hurt her.”

“I’ll hurt him,” Maria volunteered.

The officers turned to each other and one of the mumbled, “A reversal of aggressors? Is that what we’re dealing with?”

“Mmm-hmm,” the other concurred.

Maria rolled her eyes and made her way towards them to set the record straight. “No, there’s no aggressor. Look, there’s no violence here. We’re just arguing; it’s a thing we do. We’re actually kind of famous for it. You guys can leave now so we can finish.”

“Miss, we’d like you to just step outside for a moment.”

“Sorry, no can do.”

“Miss, we need you to step outside.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she said.

“Then explain it to us. What’re you two fighting about?”

“It’s kinda private,” Michael informed them.

“We had sex last night,” Maria blurted, not really caring who knew about it. “First time ever. With each other, I mean. Yeah, we’ve known each other for eight years, and all of a sudden last night . . . wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Michael denied.

“Oh, really? ‘Cause you whammed. You bammed. You thank you ma’amed when you up and left this morning without so much as a word of goodbye.”

“I said goodbye,” he insisted before quietly adding, “while you were asleep.”

She stared at him in disbelief and shouted, “You’re a dumb-ass!”

“You’re insane!”

“Well, at least I’m not a dumb-ass!”

“Well, at least I’m not insane!”

“Alright, that’s it. We’re separating you two,” one of the officers proclaimed.

“Uh, no, you’re not,” Maria said defiantly, taking a step back from them. “I’ve been tracking this guy all day, and now that I’ve finally found him, there’s no way I’m letting you take me away.”

“We’re not taking you away. We just want you to step outside.”

“I don’t wanna step outside!”

“Just until we figure out what’s going on . . .” The policemen grabbed her, each of them taking hold of one of her arms.

“We already told you what’s going on!” she shouted as they tried to lead her out the door. “We’re fighting! Non-violently! Who’re you gonna believe, us or the nosy little woman who called you?”

Neither of the officers said anything.

“No!” she roared, trying to jerk her arms free of their grasps. What the hell were these guys thinking? She wasn’t done yet! She wasn’t done with Michael! She hadn’t gotten to say everything she needed to say . . .

“Hey, just do what she wants!” Michael yelled.

“Come with us, Miss.”

“No!” she shouted again as they pulled her out into the hallway. She dug her feet into the carpet, furious that nobody seemed to be listening to her. “Let me go!” She tore one arm free and, without thinking, slammed her elbow upward and backward into the face of one of the officers. He yelled and fell backward, and the second officer acted immediately, pressing his hands against her back, pushing her against the wall. “Assault on a police officer,” he claimed as he pulled her wrists behind her back to cuff her.

“Hey, don’t touch her!” Michael roared. Out of the corner of her eye, Maria could see him curl his hand into a fist, swing at the second officer, and punch him square in the jaw. Probably not the best idea, and he paid for it, too, as seconds later, he was right next to her, likewise slammed forward against the wall. Both of the police officers had recovered and were putting them in handcuffs, both claiming assault on an officer as their justification.

“Ah, shit,” Michael cursed.

“No,” Maria groaned, feeling the now somewhat familiar feel of cold metal handcuffs around her little wrists. “Michael . . .” She looked right at him and he looked right back at her, and neither one of them said anything more. As usual, what could have been a relatively mundane situation had escalated out of control. Now their very important argument was ruined, and they probably had jail to look forward to, too.

God, she thought, as the officers led them both down the hallway of the hotel. Could this day get any worse?









TBC . . .

-April

[April]

killjoy:

I don't think I've ever read a bigger pair of dumbass in Roswell fanfiction in my life

That's probably why they're meant for each other. No one else can put up with them.
Christina:

How are they gonna get out of this one when Kyle's all the way in Santa Fe?

Well, they can try to explain themselves and see if it works.
tequathisy:

It's one thing to be stupid in affairs of the heart, it's another to just be plain stupid and that's what they are.

They might get smarter one of these days. But of course they'll never be scholars or anything like that.
singerchic4:

B. April, I think you're in denial that this fic might eventually end one day I think you're actually trying to string it out as long as possible

Well, it's true that I don't want it to end, but trust me, I could stretch it out a lot longer than I actually am.
starcrazed: Well, Maria's day could get worse. Or it could better. Or it could get worse and then better, or it could get better and then worse. Sorry, that made no sense.
art_junkie:

oh my god are you serious?! heaven help them... this is getting NOWHERE!...

Well, at least they talked in the last part. Believe it or not, it actually is getting somewhere. Wednesday's update is going to bring things to a head.
Wendy:

I don't know why but this part is pissing me off with Michael and Maria.

Oh, well, that's actually a good thing, because they wouldn't be Passion Michael and Maria if they weren't pissing people off.
simplyshiny: That would be a funny phone call, wouldn't it? She's not in jail yet, though.
Alien_Friend:

He's so frustrating, She has way more patience for him than I ever could. Though loving him helps.

Yeah, if Maria wasn't in love with Michael, she would have kicked him to the curb already.
Krista:

I gotta say, I'd be pretty pissed at that woman for calling the police.

I know. Some people just need to mind their own business.
pookie76:

Maria should have just called the hotels and asked if a Michael Guerin had checked in. Wouldn't that have been the easiest way and the cheapest to find out were Michael is?

Of course that would have been the easy thing to do, but Maria never does the easy thing! Plus, she's stuck on this whole gotta-make-it-romantic thing, no phone calls involved, but that's not working out so well for her.
mrs_guerin:

I thought the same thing, but it seems maria has it in her head that there was a certain way this should play out and was going to do her best to follow through.

Yep. She wants it to be romantic somehow.
Morgan8: I'm glad you liked that part you quoted! I had that speech planned out back when I was writing the first kiss part.
lilah:

What could have been a 5 minute conversation with the cops has turned into being hauled off to the clink for assault on police officers...just another day in the life of Maria and Michael

Exactly. Nothing is ever simple with them, is it?
spacegirl23:

Luck's not on their side.

It's really not. But then again, everything that is happening is their own fault, so maybe luck doesn't have too much to do with it right now.



Thanks for the feedback everyone! Why not a little more musical inspiration for this part? Try listening to the Vitamin String Quartet's version of Taking Back Sunday's "Cute Without the 'e' (Cut from the Team)" when you see the smiley. I couldn't find it on Youtube, and the link I tried to provide you wouldn't work, so if you want to listen to it, Google "listen to vitamin string quartet cute without the e" and click on the first result that pops up. Or just don't listen to it. Enjoy this part!









Part 118







“Mmm,” Isabel murmured as she settled in next to Alex, enjoying the smooth sheen of sweat on his skin. “I think this is the best day of my life.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “But we just stayed in bed all day.”

“Exactly.” She giggled and tilted her head up for a kiss. One little touch of his lips sent sparks shooting up her spine.

“I guess we didn’t just stay in bed all day,” Alex admitted. “We . . .”

“Rolled around in bed?” she filled in.

“Yes, we rolled around.”

She laughed and lay her head against him again, loving his coziness. Loving him. Her thoughts turned a bit more serious, though, when her thoughts drifted away from her and Alex and more towards their friends for a moment. “Speaking of rolling around in bed . . .”

“Michael and Maria,” he said. “Yeah, that was long overdue, wasn’t it?”

“Very,” she emphasized. “When Kyle told us they did the nasty, my jaw literally dropped to the floor. And when he told us Michael just left this morning, it dropped again. And then when he said Maria was gonna chase him down in L.A., my jaw officially became unattached.”

Alex chuckled a little. “Those two crazy kids.”

“Yeah,” Isabel agreed. “I feel kinda bad.”

Alex made a face of confusion. “About Michael and Maria?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, should I be having one of the best days of my life when they’re probably having one of the worst of theirs?”

Alex shrugged as well as he could in his currently lying-down position on the bed. “Well, why shouldn’t you? No one’s asking you to be a sort of hypochondriac.”

“I know, but . . .” She sighed, unsure what she was really trying to say. “I’m just worried that they’re not gonna be friends anymore by the time this is all over, and Michael and Maria’s friendship is, like, the one solid, reliable thing in this crazy universe.”

“We’re solid and reliable,” Alex promised her.

“Well, besides us. And besides Kyle and Tess. And besides Max and his books. The point is, you can’t have Maria without Michael, and you can’t have Michael without Maria. And . . . I don’t know, I’m just really worried for them, I guess.”

Alex curled his arm tighter around her and held her close. “Well, you don’t have to be,” he assured her. “Like, you said, you can’t have one without the other. When Maria flies back to Santa Fe, I guarantee Michael will be on that airplane with her.”

“That’d be good,” Isabel said, hoping Alex’s prediction would come true. “And while they’re flying, you know what I’ll be doing?’

“What?”

She rolled on top of him and smiled down at him, a big, cheesy, happy smile. “My boyfriend!”

“Who’s that?” Alex joked.

“You, dummy.”

“Me? You’re gonna do me?” he asked in mock surprise.

“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded.

“Right now?”

“No.”

“Now?”

“Maybe.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

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

Maria was supposed to be answering questions for Deputy Alvarez, the officer the station had assigned to question her, but she found herself ranting to him instead. Even more surprising was the fact that he was listening.

“I mean, it just isn’t fair. When two people make love, which is what he and I did, by the way, it’s supposed to be all flowers and smiley faces and rainbows afterwards. There’s no rainbows! And there’s no flowers, and there’s not even any smiley faces.” She frowned, so fed up with the endless day she’d had. Technically it was the next day now, since it was already 4:30 in the morning, but this day wasn’t looking any better than the last one so far. “I mean, if you knew a girl for eight years—if she’d been your best friend for eight years—and all of a sudden you ended up sleeping with her, would you get up and fly to another state the next morning without saying a word to her?” she asked the deputy.

Deputy Alvarez contemplated the question for a moment and, like any normal guy, seemed unsure. “Well . . .” It seemed to dawn on him then that he wasn’t doing his job, because he shook his head got back on track. “Tell me again what happened at the hotel.”

“Oh, okay, so I knock on the door, and this total blonde blimbo answers. She’s practically wearing a button that says, ‘Hi, I’m a pornstar. Spread my legs.’”

“No, just skip to the altercation with the officers this time,” Deputy Alvarez said.

“Oh, come on, I already told you. They were trying to get me to leave the room, by force, might I add; I didn’t want to, so elbowed one of them in the face. I wouldn’t say he has a black eye, but he definitely has a blue eye. I have a strong elbow. I’m a dancer; my limbs go everywhere.” She lifted her arms in the air to demonstrate that notion, but since her wrists were still handcuffed together, she couldn’t demonstrate it well.

“And you say the officers weren’t hurting you?”

“No, they were just annoying me,” she acknowledged. “I acted on impulse. See, I’ve been doing that lately, like when I impulsively ran through a security gate at an airport, or when I impulsively slept with the dumbest person to ever walk the planet.”

Michael, who was sitting only a few feet behind her with his back to her, piped up and informed her, “I can hear everything you’re saying.”

“Good,” she shot back. She couldn’t see him since they were back to back, but she could just picture the look on his face, him rolling his eyes.

Deputy Alvarez cleared his throat, and Maria was reminded of the fact that she could be facing time behind bars. Yet again. Second time in twelve hours. “So,” she said a little nervously, “what’s the sitch, coppo?”

“I think this entire incident sounds like a misunderstanding,” Deputy Alvarez concluded. “You certainly acted impulsively, but then again, so did our officers. Let me go talk to the deputy who questioned Mr. Guerin, and we’ll see if we can get you two out of here with monetary fines instead of jail-time.”

“Much appreciated,” she told him.

He nodded and got up to go discuss with another deputy just as he’d said he would. That left Michael and Maria sitting in the middle of a bustling police station, back to back, both still handcuffed. The cuffs are probably a good thing, Maria reasoned. They’ll keep me from hitting him.

“It’s nice to see the L.A.P.D. aren’t completely incompetent,” Michael mumbled.

“No, but you are.”

“You must be gettin’ tired, Maria. That’s a suck insult.”

“You suck.”

“No, actually--”

“If you say something about me sucking cock, you’ll lose yours.”

“Fine, I’ll make a kinky remark about the handcuffs then.”

“Please don’t.” Usually she had a high threshold for Michael’s perverted humor, but it was cut short right now.

“No need to beg.”

“Oh my god.” She sighed in frustration.

“What’re you gonna do when we get outta here?” he asked.

“Duh, I’m gonna yell at you. What else?”

“Well, I’m goin’ to sleep,” he told her.

“Going to sleep?” she shrieked. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“No, not really. I gotta work in a few hours. I’m exhausted.”

“What, and I’m not? Michael, how can you even contemplate going to sleep?”

“Well, see, I’m tired, and I can barely keep my eyes open, so yeah, sleep sounds pretty good.”

“You know what else sounds pretty good? Santa Fe. I wouldn’t even be here in this god-awful town if it wasn’t for you. City of angels,” she scoffed. “Yeah, right. City of devils is more like it. I hate it here.”

He didn’t say anything, and for a moment she wondered if he hated it, too. Before she could ask him if that was true, he asked her, “Where’re you gonna go?”

She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “What do you mean ‘where?’ You’ve got two beds in that crappy little room of yours. I’ll take one of ‘em.”

“No, you can’t stay there,” he said quickly.

“Why not? ‘Cause we might have sex again?”

“Well, you never know with us!”

“And then you’d have to wake up in the morning and hop on a plane to some other overrated city.”

He groaned impatiently and asked, “When are you gonna let me live that down?”

“Try never.”

“Fantastic.”

She glanced over at the deputies who were discussing her and Michael and decided to cut into their conversation for her own benefit. “Hey, Deputy Alvarez!” she called. “You never answered my question: if you slept with your best friend, would you be there for her when she woke up?”

Deputy Alvarez smiled, grew a little red in the face, and replied, “Probably.”

Maria narrowed her eyes, majorly miffed. “Probably?” She grunted and shook her head in disbelief. “You men are all alike.”

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

Liz wrapped her bathrobe around herself and walked out of the bathroom after a long, relaxing, thirty-minute shower early that morning. It was 6:30 in the morning, and she was only awake because she had to be at work by 7:30. (She’d gotten a job at the library on campus.) Much to her surprise, she found Max in the kitchen making breakfast. He had probably woken up early by choice. She had come to learn that Max was an early riser.

“You are unlike any man I’ve ever met, Max,” she said smiling. “You’re up early and you’re making pancakes. You’re venturing into God-like territory.”

He chuckled and said, “Well, I don’t know about that. I just thought I’d make you breakfast to start your day off right.”

“That’s nice of you,” she said, taking a seat at their counter. She took a look at her reflection in the metal coffee pot and tried to make her wet hair look a little better. Strangely, she wasn’t that self-conscious around Max, didn’t care if she looked perfect or not, but she still wanted to look good.

“So, uh, ready for your first day of work?” Max asked her.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. “It shouldn’t be too hard. It’s just the library.”

“I think it’d be fun,” Max said as he opened up the refrigerator and took out an orange juice container. “In your spare time, you could do some reading. Of course, that probably only sounds fun to me.”

“No, Max, you’re not the only bookworm in this house,” she assured him. “I used to be into that. I still am. I’m gonna try to get back into it. I miss it, you know?”

“Reading?”

“Reading, studying, everything. Actually working hard, actually being a good student . . .”

“Has its benefits,” Max agreed as he poured some orange juice into a glass. “Sorry, it’s not freshly squeezed,” he apologized as he handed it to her.

She smiled and took a sip. “Max, you’re too much.”

“Too much?” he echoed. “This is too much? I’m sorry. I did the same thing to Maria, kind of suffocated her, I think. And I don’t mean to do that. I just wanted to start your first day of work off right. I don’t mean to go overboard.”

“Max,” she cut in. “It’s not overboard. It’s pancakes. It’s very sweet.”

He seemed relieved. “It is?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean you were literally too much. Besides, it’s not like we’re dating, so technically you can’t . . . suffocate me.”

“Right,” he agreed. “It’s not like we’re . . . dating.”

We’re just totally doing things backwards, she thought. Michael and Maria were completely crazy, but at least they were following a logical sequence of a relationship: friends first, lovers second. Max and I, on the other hand, slept together first, moved in together second, and are currently good friends, she thought, wondering if that meant that all possibility of a romantic relationship was gone.

“Oh, um . . .” Max turned away and motioned towards her. “You’re robe’s kinda . . .”

She glanced down and noticed that the damn thing had been opening up a little bit, showing off more chest area than she had intended to. “Oh, god,” she said, immediately tightening it around herself. “That’s . . .” She was going to say ‘really embarrassing,’ but she shrugged instead and said, “Nothing you haven’t seen before, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Well, that was a long time ago.”

“Not really,” she reminded him. “A week or so.”

He put the orange juice back in the refrigerator, looking contemplative for a moment, and said, “I guess it just feels like a long time ago.”

“Yeah, it feels like a different life,” she admitted. “I was practically obsessed with Michael, obsessed with being popular. Looking back, it just seems so stupid.”

Max leaned back against the refrigerator and said, “I get that. I was so desperate to hang onto Maria, I couldn’t understand that it would’ve been best to let her go. It might’ve been easier to salvage our friendship if I hadn’t held on for so long.”

“Well, you can’t blame yourself.”

“Sometimes I do.” He shrugged. “Oh, well. Past is past, right? What’s done is done, and the truth is, I don’t regret any of it. Being with Maria, being with you . . .”

“Being with me?” she echoed. They had rarely ever talked about their one-time sexual encounter, but when they did, the heated memories threatened to destroy her.

“Yeah. In retrospect, it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened. It opened my eyes. Literally and metaphorically.” He smiled.

She blushed and stood up, slowly making her way towards him. “You know, you have a nice sense of humor, Max. Most people don’t know that about you. They think you’re just a one-dimensional valedictorian.”

“Salutatorian,” he corrected.

“Should-be valedictorian. Just like they think I’m a one-dimensional less hot version of Maria.”

“Less hot?” he echoed. “Don’t sell yourself short, Liz. You’re just as beautiful as she is.”

Her heart fluttered a bit in excitement, and she hoped her face portrayed a calmer façade. “Max,” she said as she stood in front him and gazed up into his eyes. She liked him. She really did. The attraction was there, and she was pretty sure it was mutual. And it wasn’t just a physical chemistry, either. It was the other one, too, emotional. He felt it, didn’t he? He had to feel it.

He leaned in just slightly, and she thought he was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to. But at the same time, she was nervous. What if he kissed her and thought about Maria? What if he was still in love with her, or rather with his perfect fantasy version of her? Would she, Liz, only be his second best?

He didn’t kiss her, and she wondered if he was asking himself the same questions about her and Michael. At least that way they would be on the same page. Until they could be sure that they wouldn’t be each other’s relationship runners up, they had to keep their relationship strictly friendly. Strictly.

“Max,” she said again. “The pancakes are burning.”

“Huh?” He looked over his shoulder and quickly lifted the pan off the stove burner. “Oh. Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly feeling very awkward standing there wearing just her bathrobe. What was she thinking? Max was her roommate, not her boyfriend. She couldn’t parade around nearly naked and have it be okay.

“I’m gonna go . . . get dressed,” she said, hurrying into the bedroom suddenly. She needed to put some clothes on, because she and Max ran the risk of being surprisingly impulsive at times. After all, they had had sex in a locker room before. How many people could say that?

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

Maria sulked into the hotel room, wondering if she still looked good. She hadn’t checked her reflection in a mirror for hours, and she was pretty sure she had bags under her eyes the size of Texas. Or possibly China.

She glanced at the clock and yawned. It was 7:00 in the morning on L.A. time, and she was definitely tired, but not too tired. She still had a couple of good rounds of yelling left in her. She could still dish it out to Michael if that’s what it took.

“Dammit, I gotta be at work in an hour,” Michael groaned as he shut the door.

“Well, I’m not even gonna make it into work today, on account of me working in New Mexico and currently being in this horrible town,” she reminded him. “So don’t complain.”

“Just stating a fact.”

“Which is?”

“That I’m gonna die of sleep deprivation, thanks to you.”

“Oh, sleep deprivation won’t kill you,” she assured him. “I might.”

“Well, thanks for the warning.” He flopped down on his bed and draped his arm over his eyes. “You wanna turn out the light?” he asked.

“What?” She glanced at the light and then at his less than energetic form. “You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re really gonna go to sleep?”

“I’m just gonna rest my eyes.”

“Rest your eyes?” She grunted, angry that he seemed so determined not to talk about what had happened between the two of them. “Come on, Michael. You said it yourself; you’ve gotta be at work in an hour. You might as well spend that hour, you know . . .”

“What, fighting with you?” he spat, sitting up. “I’d rather not.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause I don’t like fighting with you.” He got to his feet and headed towards the bathroom.

“Yes, you do,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Not like this.” He ran his hand through his hair and stepped into the bathroom.

“What’re you doing now?” she demanded. Why wouldn’t he just stop and talk to her? Why was he so damn stubborn?

“I’m takin’ a shower. Care to join me?”

She made a face of disgust. “Oh, please. I’m not your typical over-zealous slut. You can’t have me on my knees whenever you want.”

“I did last night,” he muttered just loud enough for her to here.

Her first instinct was to scream at him for that remark, but she was too smart for that. She saw through his flimsy plan. “Oh, I know what you’re doing,” she told him, following him into the bathroom. “You’re trying to make me mad at you so I’ll leave the room and leave L.A. Aren’t you?”

He said nothing.

“Aren’t you?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he confessed.

“Why? Are you that freaked out by the fact that we slept together?”

“Maria, the only thing I’m worried about right now is the fact that we might no longer be friends,” he admitted as he stared down at the sink, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. “That’s all.”

She shook her head with equal stubbornness and tenacity and said, “No. No, don’t play the friends card.”

“It’s not a card. It’s the truth.” He looked up into her eyes, and she could see that it was. Michael was, for one of the few times in his life, being honest-to-God serious. “You have to get out of here.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You’re kicking me out?”

“Pretty much.”

For a moment, all she could do was stare at him in disbelief. Maybe this shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. “I don’t have anywhere to go!”

“Go home,” he suggested.

“But I’m not done here yet!”

“Then get done and go home, Maria. You can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.” He reached into the shower/bathtub and turned the water on. Mostly cold water. Interesting choice.

“Michael, I’m not going anywhere,” she said decidedly.

“You can’t stay in this room,” he mumbled as he pulled his shirt over his head.



She forced herself not to stare at the tense muscles in his back and keep yelling at him instead. “Well, what if I do, huh? What if I stay? What’re you gonna do about it? Drag me out like those police did? Is that what you’re gonna do?”

“You gotta get out of this room.”

“Why? Why the hell do I have to leave?” she roared. “What’s gonna happen if I stay?”

He was kissing her before she could comprehend it, and not just a small kiss, either. A big kiss, a forceful one, the kind that literally swept a girl off her feet and made her heart stop beating for a minute. She kissed him back, because it was the only way her body knew how to respond, the only way it wanted to respond. Their mouths mated together in a frenetic dance of moans and breathlessness, and his hands plastered against her back, pulling her in close to him and slinking up the back of her shirt.

“Oh, you bastard,” she mumbled in half-hearted protest right before he yanked her shirt over her head. It was happening again, the sex, the making love, the whatever it was, and she was powerless to stop it, because she really didn’t want to stop it. She wanted to recapture the glorious sensations they had created twenty-nine hours ago, and she wanted it rough this time. Apparently, so did he.

He undressed himself with lightning speed. She couldn’t keep up. She unhooked her own bra and let it fall to the floor, then plastered her bare chest against his. He smiled, pressed his lips against hers in a searing kiss, and backed them up towards the shower. He stepped over the side rail of the bathtub and hauled her in with him. The cold water shot at her skin, hitting her like pleasurable bullets, immediately soaking her jeans. (But then again, her jeans had already been soaked in one particular area. Hot and bothered and the like.)

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he murmured, trailing his hands down her shoulders and arms. His words all meshed together to sound like one big word, but she understood it, and her skin heated up under his touch. He brought his hands back up to cup her breasts then, and she arched her back into his touch, craving it, loving it. When he replaced his warm hands with his even warmer mouth, she gasped and tangled her hands in his wet hair. This was why Michael Guerin had a hold on her, and on every girl, for that matter. He was so good.

He dropped down to his knees, trailing his lips down to her stomach, kissing her fluttering abdominal muscles while undoing her soaking wet jeans with his hands. He had them unfastened and sliding down her hips in merely seconds—those talented fingers. She helped him push them down, stepped out of them, and kicked them out onto the bathroom floor. Her thong came next, easily, willingly, and then they were both naked, the way they were always meant to be around one another.

He grinned up at her and pressed a kiss to her throbbing clit, shooting sparks up her spine, and then easing his tongue in between her folds. She groaned and pressed the tips of her fingers against the slippery shower wall for whatever support it could provide her. Her legs were going to give out if he tongue-fucked her standing up like this. She had to be horizontal for it, because he was way too amazing.

Michael rose to his feet almost suddenly and crashed his lips onto hers, slipping his tongue into her mouth—way too amazing. She held onto his shoulders, wishing that he would just pick her up, because there was only so much a girl could take before she literally melted down. Her body was built for two things, sex and dancing, but it was possible that his was built even better. For sex, not for dancing.

He ended the kiss suddenly, pressed his forehead against hers, and asked, “You still my girl?”

Oh, he definitely has the upper-hand in this encounter, she thought enviously. He was still able to say words and use sentences, even, two things she was sure she was incapable of at the moment. “Huh?” she managed. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” He spun her around without warning and ground himself against her from behind, rubbing his stiff member up and down her folds. “You want me?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she choked out, nodding.

“What was that?”

She groaned gutturally, loudly as he snaked one hand down between her legs to fondle her clit. Oh god. “Yes,” she gasped. He was totally dominating her, not something she usually enjoyed, but she was enjoying this. Immensely. Michael Guerin was the only person who could do this to her. For her. With her.

He leaned forward with his chest pressed against her back, causing her to bend over. She grabbed onto the shower knobs to steady herself.

“You want me to fuck you?” he spoke quietly in her ear. He didn’t wait for an answer, but rather pressed his hips forward, pushing the tip of his cock inside of her.

“Uh,” she gasped, gripping the temperature knobs tightly. She accidentally turned one of them slightly to the right, causing the water falling on them to become hotter. She turned it back to the left, trying to get the cold water back. There was only so much heat a girl could take, and Michael was providing all of it.

“Dirty girl,” he teased, laughing a little.

“Fucker,” she ground out, unable to keep from smiling. She let go of the temperature knobs and pressed her hands against his hips, pushing him backward just slightly. He didn’t ask questions as she straightened up again and turned around to face him. If they were going to go crazy, she needed to be looking at him, seeing him, or else she might get lost in the passion. Because there was so much of it.

He backed her up into the corner of the shower and lifted one of her legs, holding it up with his hand hooked under her knee. He brought his other hand around to cup her backside and pull her in close, positioning himself at her entrance again. For a moment he paused and just looked at her, looked her right in the eye, and she thought he looked primal. Sexy primal. He looked how she felt, and she wanted to feel him inside of her. Again.

He entered into her, made her shudder, made her ache, and made her feel like heaven again. This was what sex was supposed to feel like, and this was what she had been missing with all the other men she’d been with. This feeling, this perception of being complete when joined with someone else . . . this was what it was really all about. She could never deny herself this, not anymore.

He wasted no time thrusting his hips forward. This was different than last night, faster, harder, more animalistic. They really were animals, both of them. At the end of the day, they could talk and joke and cry and yell, but this was what they were made for. No doubt about it.

She dug her nails into his back, and he hoisted her up into his arms, pounding her against the wall of the shower. So this is why he wanted me out of this room, she thought as he pulled out of her and plunged in again at full force. Oh, thank God I stayed.








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

nibbles:

Max does all the cooking, sleeps on the couch and lets her take thirty minute showers without saying anything? He's doing the same thing all over again with Liz, only she seems to enjoy it.

Hey, I take thirty minute showers sometimes! I can’t help it, I’ve got a lot of hair to wash! lol, you’re right, though, Max kind of is spoiling Liz the way he’s spoiling Maria, but he is enjoying it because Liz actually appreciates it and let’s him know that she appreciates it.
killjoy:

Yeah you keep telling yourself that hon.... and one day you might believe it

Yeah, no girl can tolerate looking imperfect around a guy she’s developing feelings for.
Sara: You feel naughty after reading that? lmao, Mission accomplished!
simplyshiny: Yeah, Michael going to work now . . . probably not going to go over all that well with Maria.
art_junkie:

i can't wait for them to finally talk and fix all (or most) of their problems! but, on the other hand i don't want them to talk because that means the story is close to ending... *worried expression* aaah, emotional conflict

Well, there is still a lot of story left to tell (obviously, because Michael and Maria are still in limbo), but you’re right. It is getting closer to the end.
Krista:

April, you must have based Maria's fast-talking, trouble-avoiding capabilities on your own smoothness, didn't you? Getting out of a run-in with the law sounds like something you've confessed to doing.

All I’ve done is wriggle my way out of speeding tickets! I a little crying here, a little flirting there . . . it gets the job done, you know? I’ve never had to talk my way out of an arrest or anything! I don’t think I could, I’d be too flustered.
CandyLand:

The M&M passion is simply outrageous and the only time I don't want to slap both of them.

Hence the title of his fic!
Alien_Friend:

Please tell me there will be no crazy airport dashing or find Michael hunts after this encounter.

Nope, none of those. Michael can’t run away this time.
mrs_guerin: You’ll get a glimpse at the other couples (K/T and A/I) in this part, too.
lilah:

Well, that's one way to solve their problems.

Probably not the smartest way, but definitely the most fun way!
starcrazed:

I don't think the steamy shower sex is going to work to solve their problems

Oh, you’re right. Shower sex does nothing to solve their problems. They just . . . really couldn’t resist.
Christina:

Ooh, ooh... are we gonna get a Kyle and Tess proposal before the fic is over?

Yes, you will see Kyle propose to Tess, and he does it in a very unique, adorable, Kyle/Tess-suited kind of way.
tequathisy:

I wish Liz would stop harping on about the fact that she had sex in a locker room and how impulsive it was. The door was locked and nobody could see them. She let Michael go down on her ugh on a jetty, in full view of a house full of people. Max saw them!! Kind of puts locker room sex in it's place.

You’re right, Liz did a lot worse with Michael. It’s probably not the fact that she had sex in a locker room so much as the fact that she had sex with Max that she’s constantly thinking about. They weren’t even dating; they’re still not. So it is a big deal.
Ashley: Glad you thought that last part was hot! It was meant to be!


As for sequels or spinoffs . . . you wish! Sorry, there will be none of those. After writing nearly 1,400 pages of this fic, there is no way I could write anything connected to it that would be at all satisfying. I guess I'll leave the spinoffs up to your guys' imaginations!









Part 119








His phone was ringing. He could hear it. Didn’t wanna answer it, but had to.

Michael reached over onto the end table to pick up his phone, but it wasn’t there. He forced his tired eyes open and remembered where it was. It was in the pocket of his jeans, and his jeans were in the bathroom. Because he and Maria had . . . in the bathroom. And on the bed.

He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and untangled himself from her, slinking out from under the covers. She stirred slightly but didn’t wake up. Good. He wanted her to keep sleeping.

He made his way into the bathroom, wondering how he had even heard the phone ringing in there; and when he bent down, got the phone out of his jeans, and glanced at the Caller ID, he knew why he’d heard it. It was that son-of-a-bitch boss, probably pissing and moaning and yelling at him for being late.

“Yeah?” Michael answered.

“Where the hell are you? Do you know what time it is?” Cameron demanded immediately.

“Not really,” he admitted. He had actually intended to go to work that day, get there on time, even. And then his plans had changed.

“It’s almost fuckin’ noon, kid. I’ve been callin’ you for the past two hours. I’m about to fire your pathetic ass. You want me to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Michael grumbled.

“What?”

“No.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Was he getting stress migraines these days or what?

“Are you comin’ in? I need my White Chocolate Mocha one of these days.”

Dammit, I really don’t wanna leave this room, Michael thought, peeking a glance out at Maria again. He just wanted to crawl back into that bed, wrap his arms around her, and hold her tight while dreaming dreams that were . . . well, sex dreams.

“What are you, deaf, kid?” Cameron spat. “I said--”

“Yeah, I’m on my way,” Michael told him. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”

“You’s a little shit-faced intern, you know that? Real smart-ass, too.” With those insults, Cameron ended the angry phone call.

Michael flipped his phone closed and sighed again. The last thirty-six hours of his life had been . . . crazy. Sex with Maria, fly to Los Angeles, first day on the job, no sleep, fighting with Maria, getting arrested, more sex with Maria, just a little bit of sleep, and now he was going into work again.

“Fuck me,” he mumbled, getting to his feet. He left the bathroom and got dressed in the other room, trying not to watch Maria sleep; because if he looked at her, he wouldn’t walk away. As he walked out the door, though, he had to turn and cast a glance at her. Hopefully she would sleep all day, and then when he got back, she wouldn’t be too mad at him. Hopefully.

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

“Here,” Michael said as he handed Cameron his not-so-early-morning beverage. “White Chocolate Mocha, aka: exactly what you asked for.”

Cameron gave him a smug look and said, “You fuckin’ idiot. I told you to get me a Caramel Macchiato.”

“No, that’s what you told me to get you yesterday. I did, and you said I was supposed to get you a Mocha. Today you ask for the Mocha. I in turn get you the Mocha. Now you want the Macchiato. You see why this is pissin’ me off?”

“You think you’re pissed?” Cameron spat, seizing the drink. “I got porn stars who can’t get it up, interns showin’ up four hours late . . .”

Michael clenched his jaw and forced himself to remain as calm as possible. But he hated this guy. Really hated him. “I told you, I was busy.”

“That better mean gettin’ busy,” Cameron said warningly. “The only acceptable excuse for being four hours late to work is if you were gettin’ laid. Were you?”

“None of your business,” Michael grumbled, determined to keep his private life with Maria private.

“Ah, you were,” Cameron said. “Good for you. At least you got a worthy reason for being so useless today.”

“I didn’t get much sleep,” Michael informed him.

“Firecracker chick, huh?” Cameron grinned. “Hey, she don’t happen to be an aspiring actress by chance? Is she? ‘Cause I got an orgy scene at the end of this movie, need a couple more girls.”

“Maria’s not gonna be in your fuckin’ movie.”

“Maria? That her name?” Cameron grinned again. “Hot name. Tell her if she ain’t satisfied with you, I’m willing to pick up the slack, fuck her brains out.”

Michael clenched his hands into fists and wondered why Cameron was provoking like this. Was he trying to piss him off, enrage him, make him fly off the handle and do something that would give him a reason to be fired?

“Does she have brains?” Cameron asked. “Or is she just cunt?”

“Shut the hell up,” Michael told him.

“You wanna get fired?”

“Wanna get murdered? ‘Cause if you call her that again, I swear to God it’ll be the last thing you say.”

Cameron raised his eyebrow and said, “Ah, a little passion. ‘Bout damn time. You’re gonna need that if you wanna make it in this industry.”

Michael scrunched up his forehead in confusion. Had Cameron, is his unorthodox, offensive way, been trying to teach him something, been trying to make a point about passion?

“What else do you need me to do?” Michael asked, wanting to not talk about his personal life, about Maria anymore.

“I don’t know,” Cameron replied. “Just go get us some pizza. We’re gonna be here for awhile.”

Great, Michael thought unhappily. Hopefully Maria’s still there when I get back.

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

Michael and I had sex again. It was the only thought that crossed Maria’s mind as she woke up that morning. She didn’t move, just lay there, didn’t even open her eyes. She didn’t need to reach over and feel the empty space on the bed to know that he wasn’t there. She was cold. Again.

At last, she did open her eyes and stared at the empty space for a moment. The sheets were still wrinkled from where he had lain. She would’ve given anything for him to still be there.

She sat up slowly, clutching the sheet to her chest, and glanced around the small hotel room. Why? It wasn’t like she’d find him there at all. He’d probably gone to work. Get laid, get paid . . . all in day’s work.

Here I am alone again, she thought bitterly. She didn’t regret sleeping with Michael again. When they were connected in that literal sense, everything seemed so simple. Powerful, but simple. It was once they literally disconnected that the feeling of . . . disconnect settled in.

She sighed and shook her head, completely and utterly emotionally exhausted. This whole dramatic thing, her and Michael, the sex, the friendship, all of it . . . it was time to figure it out once and for all.

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

Since they all had free afternoons, Tess, Kyle, Isabel, and Alex, all gathered at Alex’s apartment for a relaxing afternoon of movie-watching. Tess found that she couldn’t really concentrate on the movie, though, so she sat in the chair on her boyfriend’s lap staring down at her hands instead of ahead at the TV screen.

“You okay?” Kyle asked her.

She nodded mutely.

“You’re not watching the movie,” he pointed out.

“Well, it’s a boring movie,” she informed him.

“What? It’s The Godfather. It’s a classic.”

“Classically boring.”

“Oh, I’m outraged,” he said. “Non-believer.”

“Well, I for one am enjoying Marlon Brando,” Isabel piped up from where she and Alex were spooning on the couch. “He’s hot at any age, can act everyone else under the table. It’s too bad he’s all . . . dead now.”

“Too bad,” Alex agreed. “You know, Tess, it really is a good movie. We can rewind if you want.”

“No, don’t do that,” she said quickly. “Really, I just can’t concentrate on any flicks right now. To be honest, I’m more concerned about what’s going on between . . . well, you know.”

“Michael and Maria,” Alex said knowingly, pressing the pause button on the remote. “Is it weird that the four of us think about the two of them so much?”

“Well, they’re very entertaining,” Isabel said as she sat up on the couch. “I for one think my life would be a lot less complete without its daily Guerin-DeLuca drama.”

Tess cast a glance up at Kyle and asked, “You haven’t heard from her?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Ah, don’t worry,” Alex said. “She’s a brave little toaster.”

“What about Michael?” Tess asked Kyle.

“Well, I can’t call Michael, ‘cause I’m under strict orders not to do that. Maria wants to surprise him, sort of a sneak attack, I think.”

“I hope she lets him have it,” Tess said. “What a jerk, just up and leaving her post-boink.”

“Well, in the defense of mankind everywhere . . .” Alex started in.

“Oh, no, don’t you give me that, Alex,” Tess cut in warningly. “This isn’t a gender thing. This is a coward thing. Michael can’t face up to his own feelings and Maria can. Girls rule, boys drool.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a gender thing.”

She shrugged. “I lied.”

“Somebody’s got her feet firmly planted on Maria’s side,” Kyle remarked.

“I don’t even know if there are sides,” Tess admitted. “All I know is that Maria’s become somewhat sisterly to me over the past couple of months. If they don’t end up together, you guys are gonna have a homicide on your hands. That would be me killing Michael, for those that didn’t know.”

“I don’t know. Maria did lie to my brother mercilessly,” Isabel reminded her. “She’s not completely innocent, either.”

Kyle grunted. “Right about that. Trust me, as someone’s who’s known the Dynamic Duo for eight years, the last thing they are is innocent.”

“Then what are they, Kyle?” Tess asked him.

“Ah, entertaining, like Isabel said. And stubborn. A little stupid. Pretty much insane. Really confused. I could go on.”

Tess sighed and said, “It’s just . . . they’re crazy about each other. They make each other so happy. And miserable. That’s love, you know? I don’t know, I guess I just want them to get it together, and I’m gonna feel really bad if they don’t.”

Alex waited a moment before blurting out an odd suggestion. “Maybe we should pray.”

Isabel, Tess, and Kyle, all gave him confused looks. “Pray?” Isabel echoed. “For what?”

“Well . . . maybe we should pray that Michael and Maria . . . are having sex.”

“What?” Tess shrieked. “You think God answers that kind of prayer?”

“Maybe I should pray that I’m havin’ sex,” Kyle contemplated.

“Oh, don’t worry. Your prayers will be answered tonight,” Tess assured him. “No, wait a minute, seriously, why are we praying for Michael and Maria to get pelvic? They’ve already done that.”

“And they need to do it again and again and yet again to realize they can’t live without it,” Alex explained. “Can’t live without each other. As long as they’re fuckin’, they’re not fightin’, they’re on the road to relationship.”

Tess considered it and decided he was right. “That’s true. I mean, unless they’re fighting while they’re . . . ‘cause you know, they could do that.”

“True,” Kyle agreed. “Maybe we should pray.”

“Okay,” Alex said, folding his hands atop his chest. Isabel, Tess, and Kyle, all folded their hands, too, and shut their eyes—Isabel even bowed her head. Alex cleared his throat and prayed, “Dear Lord and . . . heavenly father . . . please let Michael and Maria be . . . getting it on. Right now. And let them not be arguing while they . . . do that.” He made a face but still spoke with absolute conviction when he said, “Amen!”

“Praise the lord,” Kyle added.

“Hallelujah,” Isabel put in.

Tess clapped her hands. “Yea, prayer!”

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

This is hopeless, Maria thought dismally as she sat on the bed blow-drying her jeans with a hair-dryer. The fact that manly, macho Michael had brought a hair-dryer to L.A. with him was laughable. The fact that her jeans were still damp from climbing into the shower while wearing them was not. Squeezing into jeans was bad enough. Squeezing into wet jeans was like putting on a wet swimsuit. Not fun. But it wasn’t as though she had any other clothes to wear. Jet-setting to L.A. had kind of been a spur of the moment decision. To say the least.

Michael didn’t get back until evening. 7:30. The sun was just starting to set. They locked eyes with each other, and Maria turned off the blow-dryer, waiting for him to say something.

“Hey,” was all he said.

“Hey,” she echoed in response. She laid the semi-dry jeans down on the unmade bed and set the hair-dryer next to them. “This is getting to be kind of habit with you,” she remarked. “Fucking and fleeing.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” he insisted immediately. He shrugged off his jacket, tossed it to the floor, and explained, “I had to go to work.”

“You didn’t have to; you chose to,” she corrected.

He rolled his eyes and conceded to that. “Fine, I chose to. Hate me for it if you want. It was my second day. I didn’t wanna get fired.”

“Since when have you ever cared about a job?”

“Since I actually got a real one? I don’t know.”

He seemed like he was in a bad mood. He must’ve had a bad day, Maria thought. She doubted her ranting was going to make it any better, but . . . oh, well.

“You don’t even like your job,” she said knowingly, shaking her head. “You don’t like it here.”

He just stared at her for a long moment, didn’t deny it, and out of nowhere asked the question, “Are you wearing my shirt?”

“What?” She remembered that she was wearing one of his long, grey t-shirts and said, “Yeah. Why?”

“Nothin’,” he replied. “You just look . . . really good.”

Her first instinct was to let herself become breathless with that compliment. Better judgment told her not to, though. “Uh-uh, mister,” she said. “Don’t even try to make me blush. We’re not screwing again.”

“Ever?”

“Not until we get this figured out.”

He halfway groaned, halfway sighed, and flopped down on the other bed. “And how’re we gonna do that?” he asked her, rubbing his head and yawning.

“We’re gonna have the talk.”

“What, like birds and the bees? I think I’m pretty knowledgeable already. Thanks.”

“No, the talk that all people in a relationship have eventually.”

He still looked confused. “Which is . . .”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Michael. The conversation where two people decide if they’re gonna be together forever or for-never. It’s inevitable.”

“Not necessarily,” he mumbled.

“No, necessarily,” she persisted. She stood up, made her way over to him, and nudged his legs with her knee. “Come on, sit up.” She couldn’t talk to him when he was lying down like that. “Sit up.”

He reluctantly did just that, his face coming eye level with her breasts. She immediately realized the awkwardness of that fact and took a few steps backward, leaning back against the dresser with her arms crossed over her chest and her feet crossed at the ankles. She noticed Michael eyeing her lower half, though, and when she glanced down, she realize that the t-shirt she was wearing wasn’t as long as she’d thought. She was showing a lot of leg, and somehow, that didn’t seem appropriate for ‘the talk.’

She swiped her jeans off the bed and forced herself to step into them, even though they did still feel a little damp and disgusting.

“Maria, you don’t have to do that,” Michael told her.

“Yes, I do,” she mumbled. Too much nakedness and they were bound to end up in another bedroom romp. She zipped and buttoned the pants and then glared at him. “Talk,” she ordered.

“About what?”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you want?”

He made a face of complete and utter confusion and resounded with likewise perplexity, “What I want?”

“Yeah. What the hell do you want in your life, Michael? ‘Cause I can’t figure it out.”

He sat there in silence for a moment, apparently contemplating it, and then responded, “I . . . want you, Maria. You know that. I want you to be my best friend again. And I want you to be more than that. And I wanna be a director, and . . . well, yeah, I wanna get laid. That’s about it. What about you?”

“What do I want?” She shrugged. “Lots of stuff. You, mostly. Unfortunately. You know, my life would be a thousand times easier if I didn’t even know who you were. But I don’t have that luxury. So I want the friends and lovers thing, too. I wanna dance. I want Max to be my friend again. I guess I even want my mom to like me. I want Liz to not turn out like me, and I want this new pair of shoes I saw in the Sears catalog. I guess I’m just selfish like that.”

“Ah, you are who you are,” Michael said with a shrug. “Nothin’ wrong with that.”

“Yeah, but here’s the problem: Who I am and who you are . . . can’t seem to make it work. I mean, the friends thing . . . we were really good at that. And fighting . . . hell, we’re masters. And then there’s the sex, and that’s obviously something we both really excel at. So why can’t we be together? I mean for real. What’s stopping us?”

He grunted and said, “You expect me to know?”

She strolled over to the window and said, “Oh, Michael, I don’t except you to know what two plus two is.”

“You know, I’m not stupid,” he snapped, shooting to his feet.

She turned around to face him again, her arms still crossed over her chest argumentatively, and said, “No, you’re not. So why are you acting so stupid?”

“What the hell’s stupid about taking an internship? What’s so stupid about getting up and going to work in the morning?”

“The fact that you’re putting our entire relationship on the line! That’s what’s stupid, Michael!”

“Then let’s take it off the line!” he suggested emphatically as though it were that easy.

“How?”

“I don’t know! Let’s have sex again or something.”

“What?!” she shrieked.

“Come on, you said it yourself, we’re good at that.”

“So what, am I just sex to you nowadays?” she demanded angrily.

“No! Maria! I didn’t say that!” He clenched his jaw, clearly furious about the way this conversation was going, and raked one hand through his unruly hair.

“What, and you think this is some stroll in the park for me? I don’t wanna do this, either! I don’t wanna have this conversation!” she informed him. “I would much rather be back in Santa Fe right now, but I have to yell at you. Again! And I just . . .” She curled one hand into an angry fist and growled, “I feel like we’re on Dawson’s Creek, and we’re just talking about everything, and I never even liked that show that much to begin with!”

“What do you want from me, Maria?”

“I just want you to tell me . . .” She trailed off and dug one hand through her hair, feeling about as frustrated as she had ever felt in her life before. She was so jealous of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White in that moment. They all had their perfect little fairy tale romances. She had this. “I can’t keep doing this,” she told him, choking back tears. “I can’t survive in this whirlwind of drama, okay? I just . . .” She trailed off, closed her eyes, and swallowed down her sadness. She refused to cry again. Had to be strong. “I called the airport today, got a seat on a flight back to Santa Fe,” she told him. “I’m leaving tonight.”

The shocked expression on his face was . . . nice to see. It made her feel as though she’d really accomplished something.

“Don’t act so surprised,” she said. “You told me to go home.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think . . .” He let his sentence fade.

“I’d actually do it?” she filled in. “I will. I’m going to. I’m not the jilted ex-girlfriend. I can take a hint. If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave. And then you can know what it feels like to wake up alone.”

He stared at her with raw emotion in his eyes. It was the first time she had ever seen Michael looked truly scared before. Scared of losing her.

“I’m leaving in a few hours,” she said, “and there’s nothing you can say or do to stop me. I’m going home.” She nodded her head affirmatively as she said it, because she was mentally forcing herself not to back out, melt into Michael’s arms, and just stay. “And I guess my question is,” she added fearfully, “are you coming with me?”

He stared at her in stunned silence, didn’t say anything. Didn’t say no.

“Or are you staying her in L.A.?” she asked, her voice quivering as she spoke the words. It just didn’t seem right, her in one place, him in another.

He swallowed hard, glanced down at the carpet, and answered hoarsely. “Yes.”

She felt the nervous lump in her throat upon hearing his ambiguous answer. “Which one?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he slowly lifted his eyes to look at her again, and he resumed his silence. Not one word. She knew what that meant.

He wasn’t going with her.

“Oh,” she said, frowning, forcing the tears to stay in.

“Maria . . .”

“I guess that pretty much answers the forever or for-never question then, doesn’t it?” She felt so sad.

“No, it . . . Maria, it doesn’t have to. Just ‘cause I’m staying here, it doesn’t mean that we can’t--”

“Oh, it really means that,” she growled, glaring at him. She felt so angry. “You know what, Michael?” she barked, stomping towards him. She got right up in his face and said, “I hate you.”

He looked taken aback, blown away by that remark.

“And not the fun, hilarious kind of hate, either. The real kind. I hate you.”

He shook his head dazedly and said, “No.”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I hate you, Michael! Pay attention!”

“You don’t hate me.”

“Yes, I do!”

“You’re just a little upset . . .”

“Are you not hearing me? I hate you!”

“You don’t hate me.”

“Michael!”

“You don’t.”

“I hate you!”

“Maria . . .”

“I hate you!”

“Don’t . . .”

“I hate you!”

“Please . . .”

“I hate—I love you!”

Silence. Shock. There was no taking that back now.

She had never planned to say those words ever in her life. To anyone. And now she’d said them loud and clear. To Michael.

Dammit.

She loved him. Really did.

He just stared at her in complete disbelief, looked as though he were about to have a stroke or something. He didn’t say anything at all, and she wasn’t sure why part of her thought she might hear him say the same words in return. She should’ve known. This wasn’t Prince Charming. This was Michael Guerin. Maybe he just wasn’t capable of loving somebody. Anybody. Even her.

She blinked back tears, tried (and failed) to smile, and slowly turned to leave the room. The wistful part of her hoped he would stop her, but he just let her go. Just let her go.

She walked out of the room feeling humiliated and horrified and infuriated all at the same time. And in love. She felt that, too, despite everything . . . and she could admit it now. She was . . . hopelessly in love with the most impossible guy on the planet.

“Goodbye, Michael,” she whispered as she shut the door. He was staying in L.A. and he hadn’t said ‘I love you, too.’ That could only mean one thing.

They were for-never.









TBC . . .

-April

[April]

I'm not feeling the greatest, so I'll have to make this a hit and run update today. A big THANK YOU for the feedback to:

Krista
nibbles
lilah
starcrazed
Ashley
simplyshiny
Sara
Alien_Friend
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and spacegirl23









Part 120








Michael couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn't move. Couldn’t do anything. He just stood there, trying to regain some function again, trying to figure out what had just happened. But he couldn’t do that either.

It was all a huge blur. Everything that had just happened . . . it was just . . . blurry.

Fuck.

There’d been yelling and . . . well, and then more yelling. Throw in some accusations, some hormones . . . perfect recipe for disaster. And then she’d said . . . what she’d said. No guy anywhere ever in the history of the world was prepared to hear those words. It didn’t matter how strongly he cared for the girl, that four-letter word was bound to make his head spin.

He thought about running after her, but would that do any good? They weren’t getting along. They were finally getting it on, but they weren’t getting along. And what would he say if he caught up to her anyway? What was he suppose to say after . . . what she’d said?

There was a knock on the door, and for some reason, he thought it was her.

“Maria?” He was at the door in two long strides, throwing it open only to come face to face with . . . a short man in a suit. Looked like an employee.

“Good evening, sir,” the short man said cheerfully, a smile on his face. “The matter of your bill.” He held out a sheet of paper.

“My what?” Michael spat. He could barely understand the guy over his heavy accent. Sounded sort of French.

“Your bill,” the man repeated.

Perplexed, Michael took the bill and looked over it. “What the hell am I gettin’ billed for?” he asked.

“Room service charges for the day.”

Michael made a face of confusion and asked, “The Holiday Inn has room service?”

The man smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

Michael grunted and looked over the bill some more. “What the hell? I didn’t order room service.” Some of the charges listed were ridiculous, especially the ones listed under the food and beverage charge. “What is this? Root beer float? Banana Split? Ice Cream Sundae? I didn’t order this.”

“You are Mr. Guerin, yes?”

“Yeah.”

The man just smiled again. “Ah, yes. It is your bill.”

“But I wasn’t even here,” Michael protested. “I wasn’t here all day . . .” He trailed off when it dawned on him. Hell, it probably should have dawned on him a lot sooner. Maria liked ice cream, and she always pigged out on it when she was upset about something. “Oh, let me guess. This person who ordered room service . . . she a girl? Blonde, about yay-tall?”

“Ah, yes.” The man’s ever-present smile turned into a smile of recognition. “Uh, Miss DeLuca. Beautiful girl. She said you would pay.”

He grunted again and shook his head. That was definitely Maria, definitely something she would do. “Yeah, well, I’m not gonna.”

“Is Miss DeLuca due back to the room tonight? Perhaps a small discussion on the matter would be of, uh, benefit.”

“Miss DeLuca’s not coming back here,” Michael said, shoving the bill against the short man’s chest. “Sorry.” He shut the door, leaving it at that.

“Uh, very good, sir,” the poor man said while on the other side of the door, obviously not quite sure what to do in this situation. “Have a good evening, sir. We’ll deal with this tomorrow, sir.”

Tomorrow, Michael thought bitterly. Tomorrow wasn’t something he was looking forward to. Tomorrow he had to work again, and Maria wouldn’t be waiting for him when he got back. From now on, all of his tomorrows were probably going to suck.

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

Maria’s airport journey was turning out to be a lot simpler this time than last time. She wasn’t running around like a crazy woman, chasing after an impossibly guy. She wasn’t barging through security checkpoints and getting chased by cops. No, she was just walking. Sulking, really. No Michael. No luggage, even. Just her, all by herself. All by herself.

She stepped through the security checkpoint without setting it off and sulked towards her gate. She spotted a couple of payphones on the way, though, and she made a detour. There was someone she needed to talk to.

She managed to find a couple of loose quarters in her pocket and inserted them into the phone. She dialed a familiar number and listened as it rang. She was worried she might end up getting his voicemail, because she really didn’t want to leave a message.

“Hello?”

She breathed a sigh of relief when he answered. “Max?”

The silence that followed was filled with confusion. She hadn’t spoken to Max for awhile, so he probably hadn’t expected to hear from her. After a few seconds of bewilderment, though, he said, “Maria. How are you?”

“Not so good,” she admitted.

“I heard you were in L.A.”

“Yeah. I’m coming home, though,” she informed him.

“Oh.” Max hesitated for a moment before asking, “Alone?”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, hating that she felt this way, hating that she had probably made Max feel much the same way. He was her friend. Friends weren’t supposed to hurt each other. But they did. They always did.

“I’m sorry, Max,” she apologized sincerely. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

He paused a moment again, then said something that surprised her. “You healed me as much as you hurt me, Maria. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she insisted. “And how did I heal you? I broke your heart.”

“You did,” he admitted, “but my heart was broken long before that.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed and explained, “Back in high school, middle school, even . . . any time I’d notice a girl and she’d forget to notice me back . . . yeah, that pulled on the heartstrings a little bit. Somewhere along the line, my confidence just got shattered. It wasn’t there anymore. I got injured, and you were my crutch. Because you were the only girl who ever noticed me. I put all my weight on you, all my hopes and expectations . . . and that was unfair of me. You’re a great girl, Maria, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the girl for me.”

She felt tears stinging those eyes when he said those words. Great girl. He still thought she was a great girl.

Could he be any more wrong?

“I’m not a great girl,” she said. “I feel so screwed up.”

And then Max said something that really resonated. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Yeah, she thought in response to that rhetorical question. Everybody does.

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

Maria got home at 1:00 a.m., a half an hour earlier than she had expected to. She didn’t want to bother Kyle more than she already had, so she took a cab home. She gave her cab driver all the money she had left and sulked into the house. She couldn’t really say that it felt good to be home. As much as she was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed . . . that house just wasn’t the same without Michael. Or Max, even. It was starting to feel very empty.

She had just shut the front door when she heard Kyle and Tess coming upstairs. Kyle was carrying a box in his arms and saying to Tess, “Okay, I think that’s the last of it.” He stopped at the top of the stairs when he saw Maria and said, “Hey. I was wondering when you’d get back.”

“Hey, Maria,” Tess said, attempting to smile. Obviously, though, the fact that Michael wasn’t with her was blatantly obvious. Both her friends noticed it and looked sad about it. Tess even came up to her and asked her, “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Maria lied. But god, she was far from fine. She’d said ‘I love you.’ And unlike when she’d said it to Max, she’d really meant it this time. She’d never said those words before, so it was a big deal. And Michael hadn’t said them in return.

Michael was a dumb-ass.

Kyle set the box down on the kitchen counter and asked, “How was the flight back?”

“Good, I guess,” she replied. “Actually, my whole journey from L.A. to here was, like, way less exciting than my journey from here to L.A., so I don’t wanna bore you with the details. Thanks for being my ever-present piggy bank, though.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “I just found out I got promoted today, so funds-a-plenty.”

“Kyle’s assistant manager at the rec center now,” Tess said proudly. “Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah,” Maria said, happy for her friend. “Congratulations, Kyle.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Hey, you know, we rented some movies earlier. We’re gonna watch some tonight. I know it’s kinda late, but you can join us if you want.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Maria said. “Actually, I’m kinda tired. Plus, it looks like you guys are kinda . . . moving out.” She motioned towards the box.

“Oh. Right. That,” Kyle said. “You know, we can postpone that, if you want, hang out here tonight. There’s no rush. The house is still gonna be there tomorrow.”

“Unless a tornado hits,” Tess said, “but that’s highly unlikely in New Mexico.”

“Highly,” Kyle agreed.

“Thanks, guys, but I’m okay, really,” she insisted, even though she really wasn’t. “Just . . . tired.”

“Right,” Kyle said. “Alright, then, you can just get some rest and we’ll just . . . head on out.” He picked up the box again. “If you’re sure . . .”

“I’m sure.”

“We’ll stop by tomorrow,” Tess promised.

“Thanks.” Maria turned and headed down the hallway, wrapping her arms around herself. The house, being so empty, felt very cold.

“Should I talk to her, try to make her feel better?” she heard Kyle ask Tess quietly on their way out the front door.

“No,” she heard Tess respond. “She’s glass half empty girl right now. It’s gonna take more than a motivational speech to pull her out of the dumps.”

“What’s it gonna take?” Kyle asked.

“Michael.”

Maria slipped into her bedroom and shut the door. Tess was exactly right. Michael was the only person who could make her feel better right now. But then again, he was the only person who could make her feel worse, too.

Great, she thought, staring at the bed in front of her. It was still unmade, still exactly the way she and Michael had left it. How am I supposed to sleep in that thing?

How am I supposed to do anything?

She was definitely glass half empty girl. And she was starting to worry that she might stay that way forever.

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

The sound of the phone ringing jolted Isabel out of her sleep. She reached over across Alex, who seemed all too content to just ignore the shrill ring, and picked up the phone sleepily. “Hello?” she managed. It was Kyle. He didn’t say much, but what he did say wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She set down the phone after he was done, and Alex asked, “Who was that?”

“Kyle,” she replied. “We should’ve prayed harder, Alex. Maria came home alone.”

Alex’s eyes widened in true surprise. The fact that Maria was home and Michael was still in Los Angeles . . . yeah, that was enough to shock anyone.

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

Max lay on the couch that night, unable to fall asleep. He was starting work at the biological research center tomorrow. He wanted to be well-rested and raring to go, but that didn’t seem as though it would be an option. He just had too much on his mind to rest.

He tossed the blankets onto the floor and got up, stretching. He’d try to go to sleep again in a half an hour. He’d read once that it was best to sleep in intervals of three. Three hours, six hours, that sort of thing. If he fell asleep in half an hour, he could get three hours of sleep before waking up at 5:30. It was simple math.

He plodded into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. It was fairly empty. Lately he’d been so busy cooking food for Liz in an effort to make her feel comfortable in their new home that he hadn’t bothered to go out and buy more groceries. They still had a couple of apples, though, so he took out one of those and bit into it.

“Max?”

He glanced up and saw Liz coming out of the bedroom. He was immediately conscious of the fact that he was shirtless and she was only wearing a t-shirt, but he didn’t make a big deal out of it. They were friends, and friends didn’t freak out when they saw each other . . . half naked. Especially not when they’d seen each other fully naked before. Especially not when the female friend looked so nice.

“Hey, Liz,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Oh, I’ve been all restless,” she told him. “You, too, huh?”

“Yeah. I just can’t seem to get to sleep. Thought I’d have a midnight snack. Or a 2:00 a.m. snack, I guess.” He shrugged and took another bite of the apple.

“A snack should be something tasty, like a cookie,” Liz said. “You’re eating fruit.”

“Mock the apple all you want, but there’s nothing un-tasty about a high fiber diet.”

Liz smiled and laughed a little. “Okay, if you say so. You’re the genius.”

“You want one?”

She shook her head.

“Okay.”

She yawned a big yawn and asked, “So did Tess and Kyle get moved into their new place?”

“I think so.”

“They’re, like, across the street from us. Or down the street. I can’t remember which. Well, they’re close anyway.”

“Yep.”

“And Isabel and Alex are pretty much living together, right?”

“Joined at the hip,” Max said with a smile, happy that his sister had found Mr. Right.

“And you and I are living together,” she went on. “But platonically.”

“Right.”

“Right.” She looked around, seeming a little nervous for a minute, and he wondered if he alone was having that effect on her. It would be an interesting development if he was. Girls didn’t usually get nervous around him. He usually got nervous around girls.

“You know, you can sleep with me, if you want,” she blurted suddenly.

He literally dropped the apple and stared at her in shock, thinking he couldn’t possibly have heard her right. “What?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “God, that came out really wrong, didn’t it? I meant in the same bed. Sleep, like the kind where you actually have your eyes closed and your clothes on.”

“Yeah, I knew that,” he lied.

“I mean, it just doesn’t seem like you’d be too comfortable out here on the couch. So I don’t mind if you wanna . . . snooze in the same bed as me. Platonically. ‘Cause . . . it’s a big bed. And it’s comfy. A lot comfier than the couch.”

As tempting as the idea was, Max felt the best thing to do would be to exercise some self-restraint in the situation. He and Liz were building a nice, strong friendship, and as much as he wanted to develop a potential romantic side of it, he wasn’t willing to compromise anything just yet. “I’m okay out here, really,” he assured her. “Usually I sleep fine. It’s just tonight . . .” He sighed and shook his head.

“What?” she asked, coming closer to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just . . . I talked to Maria tonight.”

“Oh.” Liz made a knowing face. “You’re not getting back together with her, are you?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s over with.”

“Oh. So, bad conversation?”

“No, not at all. Actually, I think Maria and I are gonna be able to work our issues out. Eventually, of course, but . . . it’s her I’m worried about. She and Michael aren’t doing so good.”

“I heard about her going to L.A.”

“Yeah, but she’s coming home alone, so . . .”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened, but when I talked to her . . . just the sound of her voice . . . I could tell how much she was hurting.”

“What do you think Michael said to her?”

“I don’t know,” Max said, considering the possibilities. “It’s probably something he didn’t say. Michael isn’t exactly a wordsmith.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Max chuckled a little and said, “Yeah, I guess you would. Well, I don’t know what happened, and maybe it’s strange that I actually care, but . . . I do care. I know they lied to me, betrayed me. But deep down, they’re still my lifelong friends. I just want them to be happy. And I think they need to be together to be happy.”

“But they’re not together right now,” Liz said. “This is so weird, Max. A few weeks ago, the thought of Michael and Maria being together was my worst fear. Now . . . that’s actually what I want for them.”

“That’s selfless of you,” Max remarked.

“You, too.” She smiled and placed a comforting hand on his arm. “Hey, listen, I know you feel bad for Maria, but she’s gonna be okay.”

“It’s not just that I feel bad for her,” he explained. “I’m worried about her Liz.”

“You still love her?”

He bit his bottom lip, trying to think of a way to answer that question. “Kind of.”

She scrunched up her face in confusion.

“I’m not in love with her anymore, but I do still love her, and I always will. So yeah, I’m worried about her. Maria doesn’t handle stress very well, and let’s face it, this whole debacle with Michael has to be pretty stressful.”

“She’s strong,” Liz reminded him.

“Yeah, I know, but . . .” He kicked at the apple on the floor, suddenly wishing he and Liz were standing in a different kitchen, in a different home.

“But what?” Liz prompted.

He bent down, picked up the apple, and threw it into the trash. “I just hate the thought of her being in that big house all alone.”

“She’ll be okay,” Liz assured him again. “Don’t worry, Max, she’ll be okay.”

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

Maria wrapped her arms around herself, trying to get warm. She should have been burning up by now. She was wearing long-sleeves. She had a blanket over her shoulders. She’d turned the air conditioner off. Hell, she’d even turned the heater on. It was supposed to be eighty-one degrees in the house, and maybe it was, but she still felt ice cold.

The kitchen and the living room looked the same. No big differences there. The bathroom looked . . . cleaner. Less guy-like. Their razors weren’t in their cabinets. That much was weird. But still, the bathroom looked relatively the same.

The bedrooms were what really got to her. First she went downstairs and looked around where Kyle had always slept. For four years, that basement had been his domain, and now it was mostly empty. His clothes weren’t in his closet. His sheets weren’t on his bed. His stash of pornos he always kept stored in his bottom dresser drawer weren’t there anymore, and neither were the wrestling medals he’d won in high school. Kyle had officially moved out of the very house he had paid for.

Next, she went back upstairs and peered into Max’s bedroom. That one had been becoming emptier and emptier over the past week or so, but she’d been too busy to notice it. Now, though . . . now that she wasn’t busy doing anything, now that she had all the time in the world to look into that bedroom and remember what it used to look like, she saw just how empty it was. His computer was gone. He did lots of smart things on that computer, typed up papers and took notes. His books were no longer scattered about. The room didn’t even smell like him anymore. It just smelled like . . . empty.

At least Kyle’s departure had been gradual. Max had moved out so suddenly, and it had been all her fault. He probably would have still been there had she not toyed around with his feelings in the first place.

She shut the door to that room and made her way through the living room and down the hallway to the hardest bedroom to look at. Michael’s bedroom. She wasn’t sure whether he had left suddenly or gradually. It kind of seemed like a combination of both. She’d known he was leaving, taking that internship, and she tried to prepare herself for it, but it just seemed as though all of a sudden he was just . . . gone. And now that room was empty, too.

Michael was a messy guy, so seeing his room look so spotless was quite a shock. Maybe it wasn’t really spotless—it probably wasn’t even really clean—but it looked clean without all his clothes laying on the floor. His Metallica posters weren’t cluttering the walls anymore. All the videos he had made over the years were gone, too. Usually he kept them in a bookshelf, because he would never actually keep books there. But now the bookshelf was empty. And Michael was kind of gross in that he’d let used condoms hang out in the trash can beside his bed for weeks without emptying it. Those were gone, too, and in a very strange way, that made Maria sad.

Everything about her best friends was gone from that house, and all that was left were the memories.

She shut the door to Michael’s room and decided that she needed to go to sleep. She was tired. She was cold. A warm bed would be . . . well, warm. And she could sleep. And she could wake up in the morning and forget for a minute that she was in an empty house, that all her friends were gone, that she was all alone, always alone.

The day had pretty much sucked.

She opened the door to her bedroom, and nothing was gone from that room. Of course not. Why would it be? She hadn’t gone anywhere. But still, the room was hard to look at for the simple reason that . . . it was exactly the same. Exactly the same as she and Michael had left it. Clothes on the floor, both his and hers. Sheets tossed aside, pillows strewn all about. She looked into that room, and all she could see was the two of them making love. She loved him.

She slammed the door to that room and took a deep breath to steady herself. She had to get control of herself. She was a wreck, a complete emotional wreck. It wasn’t like her to let some guy affect her so much.

But therein lay the problem. Michael wasn’t just some guy. He was her guy. Or . . . at least he had been.

She headed back out to the living room and sat down on the couch, figuring she could manage to sleep there. Sure, she and Michael had memories on that couch, too, mostly TV marathons, remote control fights, and some conversations, but nothing like the memories they’d made in her bedroom or . . . or on that counter in the kitchen.

Don’t even look over there, she told herself. She didn’t want to remember right now. She wanted to go to sleep, and she couldn’t sleep if she was remembering.

She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, not really caring what she turned it on to. Late night cable TV was nothing to brag about, so she settled on an infomercial—it was for the Pampered Chef Food Chopper, or something like that, something a non-cook like her would never need to use. She lay down on her side, huddling beneath her blanket, shivering. She hoped Michael was cold, too. If she was cold, he should be cold. It was only fair.

She had just closed her eyes in an effort to fall asleep when there came a knock on the door. She shot straight up into a sitting position, startled. Who would be knocking on the door this late at night? Was it too much to hope that Michael had caught an even later flight back than she had?

Suddenly, it occurred to her that everything was different now. She no longer had three big, strong men in the house to protect her. No, she was living alone now. She really had to take care of herself. Maybe it wasn’t so smart for a young, small, home-alone girl to open the door in the middle of the night. Maybe she should just stay put.

Whoever it was knocked again, and she gave in, got up, and went over to answer it. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t smart, but the way she was feeling, no robber or rapist would dare mess with her.

She opened the door slowly, and she only truly became afraid when she saw the person who was standing on the other side. Not Michael. Far from it.

She opened her mouth and forced her voice to work. “Mom?”

Her mom smiled at her and said, “Maria.”








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Ah! I'm late with the update today! Thanks for the feedback to:

chanks_girl
Krista
Christina
starcrazed
nibbles
Alien_Friend
simplyshiny
art_junkie
Sara
mrs_guerin
killjoy
tequathisy

And thanks for the get well wishes, too! I'm feeling a little better.


Now, some of you might think I'm on drugs after you read the first scene of this part. I PROMISE I've never done drugs in my life. The first scene is just a little strange.









Part 121







Michael wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get to sleep that night or not. On the one hand, he was exhausted, but on the other, his life had recently gotten as dramatic as a French film. Insomnia was always an option. In the end, though, the physical exhaustion won out, and he fell asleep right after his head hit the pillow.

He was walking through a house. He knew it was a dream, but he walked anyway. No, it wasn’t just a house, though. Hell, it was his house. Lived there for four years. Yes sir, that’s exactly what he’d done. He didn’t live there anymore, but it still felt like his home. It even still looked like his home, kind of. It was a little empty, but other than that . . .

He saw something on the kitchen table, a familiar object, so he went to it and picked it up. It was his camera. His video camera. That was his. He tried to turn it on to film something, but nothing happened. It didn’t turn on. He couldn’t film anything if it didn’t turn on.

“Are you stupid or something?”

He turned when he heard a familiar voice. He saw Max standing in the doorway to his bedroom wearing his blue graduation robe. It probably wasn’t his bedroom anymore. Max was gone. Max didn’t live there anymore. But there he was anyway.

“Or something,” Michael replied in confusion. “I’m not as smart as you.”

Max glanced at the camera and said, “You press the power button. Don’t make it any harder than it is.”

“I’m not,” Michael insisted. “That’s what I’m doing.” He pressed the button, but the camera still didn’t work. “I can’t turn it on,” he said.

“Yes, you can.”

He turned his head to the side when he heard another familiar voice. Liz. She was lying on the counter wearing black lingerie and high heels. Her wrists were bound in handcuffs above her head, and she was smiling at him.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked her. She didn’t live there.

“When you really turn it on, it hurts sometimes,” she said, suddenly becoming quiet. “I didn’t say anything.”

He stared at her in confusion.

“You didn’t care if you hurt me,” she said.

“No, I did.” He wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but it sounded true.

“Hey, Guerin!”

He looked around again when he heard someone else talking to him. This time it was Kyle. He was sitting on the top stair of the staircase leading down to the basement. Tess was beside him.

“Kyle, what’s going on here?” he asked. “I haven’t done drugs for a long time. It shouldn’t be weird like this.”

“You’re only dreaming,” Kyle assured him. “You got that camera working yet?”

Michael glanced down at the object in his hands and tried pressing the button again. “No,” he said.

“Ah, you will,” Kyle said confidently. “I know you will.”

“How do you know?” Tess asked him.

He smiled at her and claimed, “Well, I know everything. So do you.”

“Yeah,” Tess agreed, giggling. “But Michael, you don’t even know how to turn on your own camera. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Michael admitted. “I’m trying . . .”

“Try harder.”

He whirled around and saw Isabel and Alex sitting at the table. They hadn’t been there before, but now Isabel was sitting in his lap.

“Try harder,” Alex repeated. “Come on, Michael. You’re a director. Direct something.”

“I can’t.”

“You won’t.” Alex shook his head in disappointment.

“This is sad,” Isabel said, snuggling in close to her boyfriend. “It’s all gone.”

“What’s all gone?”

“You have to turn the camera on, Michael,” Max cut in sternly.

“What’s all gone?” Michael asked again to anyone who would answer this time.

“Everything,” Liz said, a lifeless expression on her face. “And it’s really hard to get it back.”

“Man, it used to be better,” Kyle muttered, shaking his head sadly.

“I don’t understand,” Michael said, frantically pushing the power button on his camera. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly,” Alex said. “Maybe you should.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Just turn on the camera,” Max repeated again.

“I don’t know how. I don’t . . .” All of a sudden, the scene changed, and he was somewhere else. Same house, different room.

Maria’s room.

He glanced over and saw her on the bed. She rolled over, stretched out her limbs, and smiled at him. “Michael.”

He smiled back at her. She was his best friend. She was his girl.

“You’re always filming me,” she said. “Why are you always filming me?”

He didn’t understand. How could he film her if his camera wasn’t even on? He glanced down at the object in his hands, though, and it was on. He wasn’t filming anything, but it was on. It worked again.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

He didn’t know what she was talking about. “What?”

“I’ve been waiting,” she said. “I hate you for making me wait.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear her shouting ‘I hate you’ with a much different intent, but he didn’t want to wake up yet.

“Michael,” she said. “I’m cold.”

That wasn’t good. Maria being cold was not a good thing. He set his camera down and made his way over to her, crawling into bed beside her.

“Wanna snuggle?” she asked, sounding innocent.

“No,” he answered honestly.

Her innocence vanished right away. “Good.” And then they were kissing. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but all of their clothes came off, and he was on top of her. He could feel her, all of her. She was letting him in. She was . . . surrounding him.

“Are you still cold?” he asked her as he melded his body with hers.

“No,” she answered. “Not right now.” Her fingernails dug into his arms as she moved with him, and she choked out his name. “Michael?”

The angry ‘I hate you’ chorus echoed throughout the room again, and he wanted to ignore it so much.

She opened her eyes wide, and they were filled with tears when she said, “I love you.”

Michael woke up suddenly, his body literally jolting at the sensation. It took him a moment to remember where he was. Hotel room. L.A. Real life. Everything was pretty fucked up in real life.

What the hell kind of dream was that? he wondered, gasping for air. Whatever it was had really knocked the wind of out of him. Made him break out in a sweat, too. He didn’t have dreams like that. He had dreams about sex and . . . well, there had been sex in it, but it wasn’t just about that. It was about . . . something. He wasn’t sure what. It was confusing, and he was already forgetting it now.

He glanced over at the clock and groaned. The alarm would go off in fifteen minutes. “God-dammit,” he swore angrily. There was no point in going back to sleep now. He got up out of bed and headed over to the table to pick up his camera. It had been charging all night, so he took out the charger and tried to turn it on. It turned on just fine, but the problem was . . . what did he have to film?

Another day as Cameron’s lap dog, he thought bitterly as he turned off his camera again. I can’t wait.

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

Maria rubbed her tired and eyes and forced them open. Where am I? she wondered for a moment. It was disorienting, waking up in all these different places. In the past few days, she had woken up in her own bedroom, on an airplane, in a hotel room, and now on the living room couch. She knew where she was; she was in her own house. But it didn’t feel the same anymore. It felt different, like . . . not like home.

She heard sounds from the kitchen and sat up. She furrowed her brows and squinted at the odd sight of her mother standing in front of the stove, greasing up a frying pan.

“Good morning,” Amy chirped. “Sleep well?”

Maria didn’t answer. Hell, the fact that she’d slept at all was cause for celebration.

“I hope you don’t mind me making breakfast,” Amy went on. “You looked hungry.”

I don’t feel hungry, Maria thought, still trying to adjust to the fact that her mom was standing within walking distance of her. It was creepy and unnatural.

“You like your eggs sunny side up, right?” Amy asked.

“Sunny side up eggs look like boobs,” was Maria’s response. “I like my eggs scrambled.”

“Well, scrambled it is, then.” Amy smiled and reached into the refrigerator to pull out a carton of milk and three eggs.

Something’s totally different about her, Maria thought. Her mother had changed from the last time she had seen her. She was certain of it. Whether the change was genuine or just a façade remained to be seen.

“Your hair,” she blurted.

Amy looked at her in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Your hair’s different,” Maria elaborated. “Longer. I like it. It makes you look like less of a stuck-up tight ass with no sense of fun.”

Amy pursed her lips together for a moment, and Maria knew she was just itching to say something lecture-like. Instead, though, she just said, “Well, good. That’s the look I was going for.”

Unnatural, Maria thought again. Who is this woman and what has she done with my mother?

“We didn’t really get a chance to talk last night,” Amy remarked as she cracked open the eggs and dumped them into a bowl.

“The a.m. hours are a little late for a drop by, let alone a conversation,” Maria informed her.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up in the middle of the night,” Amy apologized.

“You didn’t wake me up.”

“My plane landed late. I just thought it might make more sense to see if I could stay here than to spend money on a hotel room.”

“Bad things happen in hotel rooms,” Maria mumbled, not loud enough for her mother to hear her. Spontaneous sex was had and confessions of love were confessed, and all you ended up with was a broken heart.

“Is it okay if I stay here for a few days?”

Maria shrugged, not really caring at this point. “Whatever. Casa de Maria, open for business.”

Amy carefully poured just the right amount of milk in with the eggs and commented, “I noticed.”

“You did?”

“It’s hard not to. I can count on one hand the number of times this house has been quiet; and right now, the silence is almost deafening.”

“Nice description, Mom.”

“It’s true.” Amy tossed the egg shells into the trash can and took out an egg beater to whip the eggs. “Casa de Maria seems to have some vacancies.”

“Well, that’s ‘cause it’s vacant,” Maria said in a smart-ass fashion, “and now that I think about it, it’s funny how you picked exactly this moment in time to drop by for a mother/daughter visit.”

“I didn’t know your friends had left, Maria.”

“Oh, really?” She had her doubts about that claim. “Because if you ask me, it seems a little too convenient. This is probably your lame attempt to become my best friend now that I no longer have any.”

“Oh, Maria, you and I will never be best friends,” Amy said with a slight laugh. “I’m well aware of that fact, and I’ve accepted it. I only came here because I know you’re graduating in a couple of days, and I thought, if it isn’t too much of an issue, you might like your mom to be there.”

“Actually, I might like my mom to be away.”

Amy sighed heavily and momentarily forgot about the breakfast she was preparing. “I knew you were going to make this into an argument. I don’t have any ulterior motives. My daughter’s graduating college just this once, and I’d like to see it happen.”

Maria laughed a little and said, “Wait, what was that last part? I’m still trying to get over the ‘no ulterior motives’ part.” She laughed again.

“Maria, I’m being serious.”

“Oh, come on, Mom!” Maria tossed her blankets aside and stood up. “You always have an ulterior motive. Why don’t you just lecture me about walking in the light of the lord right now and be on your merry way.”

“Maria, this might seem like an impossible concept to you, but people can change,” Amy asserted. “I have.”

Maria grunted. “So what, you worship Satan now instead of Jesus?”

“Maria, why do you insist on making this difficult?”

“‘Cause you’re a difficult person, Mom!”

“And you aren’t?”

“Listen, I have my reasons, okay? You have no idea what my life has been like lately. While you’ve been off in Africa playing with the elephants and the giraffes and . . . whatever other animals they have in Africa, I’ve been right here losing my friends one by one by one. First Liz, then Max, and now Michael; and before you even ask, no, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Amy stared at her for a moment in silence, then cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you feel so alone. But you’re not alone. I’m here now.”

“Oh, and that really helps,” Maria muttered sarcastically.

“I’m here, and I’m determined to fix this rift between us.”

Maria almost lost it upon hearing that remark. “It’s not a rift, Mom! It’s a Grand Canyon! You can’t fix that with scrambled eggs and faux sympathetic words!”

“I know it’s gonna take work, but Maria, I have made some changes.”

“Like what? Like you’re not gonna call me a whore this time? Like you’re not gonna tell me I’m going to hell? Because that’s what you did last time!”

“And you embarrassed me and disrespected me, but I’m willing to forgive you.”

“I don’t care if you forgive me!”

“Maria, one thing my mission trip to Africa taught me was that my problems—our problems—are not that big in the scheme of things.”

“Here we go, the supposedly inspirational portion of the lecture . . .”

“Now if families who have nothing, absolutely nothing, can find a way to help each other and love each other, so can we.”

“Africa must have kicked your ass out of the country,” Maria concluded.

“I came home for you, to let you know that I still love you.”

“Wait, a minute, flashback,” Maria cut in. “Didn’t you tell me you hated me last time you were here? Mmm-hmm, yeah, you did.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

“I don’t know, Maria. Why did you date Max when you clearly had feelings for Michael?” Amy retorted. “Sometimes people do things they can’t explain.”

Maria tightened her jaw in fury, resisting the urge to let her inner turmoil run rampant and tear her mother apart. “Don’t you dare say a word about either of them,” she ground out. “This is my house. I invited you in, so I can kick you out. And I will if you pretend to know anything about me, because newsflash, I don’t care if you’re at my fucking graduation!”

“Maria, you shouldn’t be so flippant. Graduation’s quite an accomplishment.”

“Shut up!”

“Why?”

“Just shut up!” she roared. She couldn’t stay in that house right now. If she did, she’d tear her hair out. “I am so on edge right now, it’s not even funny. If I were you, I’d steer clear of me.”

Amy considered that brazen statement for a moment and said, “Fine. I’ll just make the eggs, then.”

Maria grunted and shook her head at her mother’s annoying persistence. “Don’t bother,” she grumbled, marching towards the door. “I’m going to work.”

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

Maria stomped into the Charisma Dance Studio that morning, still enormously pissed off at her mother for . . . being her mother. She would have to set aside those feelings for now, though. She had a class to teach.

“Maria!”

She stopped in her tracks when she heard Janet shout her name and remembered that she had an angry boss to deal with, too.

“Where have you been? You had a class to teach yesterday! You weren’t here! I had to send your students home and promise their parents a free lesson! Maria, if you weren’t going to come in, all you had to do was call me. I couldn’t reach you on the phone at all. Where were you?”

“Well, I didn’t have my phone with me,” Maria explained. “I was in L.A. It was a total spur-of-the-moment thing. I would’ve called if I hadn’t left in such a hurry.”

“Well, what were you doing in L.A. on a day you knew you had to work?”

Maria cringed and said, “Okay, this is gonna sound really cliché, but I was there . . . for a guy.”

“What?”

“Yeah. But I’m here now. And I’m totally committed. And it’s not gonna happen again, ‘cause the guy . . . well, he’s out of my life now.” Saying those words felt like a knife to her heart, but she tried to remain composed in front of Janet.

Janet sighed heavily and said, “I don’t know what to do about you, Maria. You’re a brilliant dancer, and you seem to have a good rapport with your students, but you’re so . . . irresponsible sometimes.”

“I’m not,” Maria assured her. “I mean . . . okay, I kind of am, but I’m working on it, I promise. And I’ve just had so much going on lately, but . . . please, Janet, please don’t fire me. I love this job, and it’s about the only thing I have left.”

Janet pressed her lips together and looked at her with some compassion. Maria could tell she wasn’t getting fired, but it was still a relief to hear her boss say, “Alright. I’ll give you another chance. But this is strike one, Maria. You know what that means.”

“No more strikes. I promise,” Maria said. “I hate strikes. Hate ‘em.”

“Well, why don’t you get into the studio room. You’ve got a new set of students waiting for you. Intermediate jazz.”

“Okay,” Maria said, trying to remember the dance she had choreographed for these students. “Thank you.” She literally hugged Janet, so relieved that she hadn’t lost her job as well, and headed into the studio room. There she saw her new students. They were a lot older than Jamie and the other girls in her hip hop class. High-school aged, maybe a few who were still in middle school. Mostly girls, but there were even a couple of guys. Hmm.

“Hi, you guys,” she greeted. “I’m Maria. I’m gonna be your instructor for this class.”

Mostly everyone just smiled, but one girl, a ballerina-type girl, stood up and said in a very specific tone, “You’re our instructor?”

Maria wasn’t sure what to make of the way she said that. “Yeah, and you are?”

“Lainey Friedman,” the girl said confidently.

“Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you, Lainey. You look very . . . ballerina.”

“That’s because I am a ballerina.”

Good for you, Maria thought, unsure why she sensed hostility coming from that girl. Maybe she’s just jealous ‘cause I’m prettier than her, she figured. “Okay, so if you guys are ready to begin, we’ll get in a circle, turn on some mood music, stretch out and warm up.”

“We already stretched out,” Lainey said with a nasty bite to her voice. “We were here on time.”

Maria laughed a little and said, “Okay, I don’t know what your problem is, but seriously, tone down the attitude; because if you don’t, we’re gonna have to verbally battle it out, and trust me when I say I’m gonna win.”

Lainey just grunted and said, “You don’t look so tough. You don’t look like much of a dancer, either.”

“Okay, I don’t know what your problem is . . .”

“My problem is that I’m trying out for the Rutgers dance team this summer, and I’m supposed to have an experienced professional teaching me, not some straight out of high-school girl. Do you even have credentials?”

Maria raised her eyebrows in interest and laughed. “Oh, I’d say so. I may not be exactly what you had in mind, but if you actually shut up and listen to me, I’ll get you on that damn dance team. See, I was on a team in high school. Good times, right? Then there was the college dance team for four years, captain for three. And was it any coincidence that, during those three years in which I was I was the Queen Bee, we won the national championship? No, I don’t believe it was. And was it any coincidence that I won the choice choreographer award two years in a row? No, non-coincidental. So, yeah, credentials? I’ve got ‘em. And guess what else I’ve got? A really low tolerance for people who waste my class time asking if I have credentials.” She smiled.

“I won’t believe it until you prove it,” Lainey said stubbornly. “Right now, I still think, I’m probably a better dancer than you are.” She smiled, too.

Maria opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get another word out, she was cut off by a familiar voice.

“Actually, Maria’s the best dancer I know.”

She spun around to see Liz walking into the room.

“Hi, you guys. I’m Liz,” she said. “Maria transformed me from a non-dancer into a semi-decent dancer within a matter of months. She could probably out-dance every one of us put together. She’s really good, and that’s a drastic understatement.”

Where the hell did this girl come from? Maria wondered in astonishment. I like her.

Lainey just grunted and said, “Whatever.”

Did little Liz Parker just bail me out of a confrontation with one of my own students? Maria asked herself. Stranger things had happened. “Okay, then,” she said. “I want this environment to be friendly, comprende? So no insulting each other, and no insulting the teacher. Everyone form a circle. We’ll stretch out and warm up.” She went over to the CD player to turn on an upbeat aerobic type song, then, and was relieved that Lainey had followed instructions and taken a place in the circle. And she wasn’t the only one. Liz was in the circle, too.

“Liz,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Are you taking this class?”

“Uh-huh,” Liz said with a nod. “If that’s okay with you.”

Maria smiled. Of course it was okay. She was getting a glimpse of the old Liz Parker again, the one who was eager to learn. The difference was that this Liz Parker wasn’t too eager, wasn’t going to go overboard and do a complete lifestyle 180.

“Alright, everyone follow along with me,” Maria said, stepping into the center of the circle. “On five, six, seven, eight.” She began dancing, just simple moves, moves that her students could mimic easily. This felt good. Really good. As long as she was dancing, she didn’t have to think about all the other shit in her life. And once she stopped, there would be plenty of shit to think about.

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

Michael went on his usual coffee run that day for Cameron. He was starting to get a rhythm down, figure out the shortcuts to Starbucks, cutting into the front of the line without regard for the other customers. (They didn’t have an uptight porn director to please.) He brought back both a Caramel Macchiato and a White Chocolate Mocha that day as a form of insurance.

“You can’t accuse me of getting the wrong thing this time,” he said, holding out both beverages for Cameron, who was taking it upon himself to lounge in his director’s chair and bark out orders at everyone. “I got both.”

Cameron raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why?”

“Because you told me to get you a Caramel Macchiato. Knowing you, that means you want a White Chocolate Mocha. So that’s why I got both.”

Cameron grunted and said, “I told you I wanted an Espresso.”

“What the hell?” Michael spat, dropping both beverages on purpose. “No, you didn’t! Words came out of your mouth, but Espresso wasn’t one of them! Can you-can you not hear yourself when you’re talking? What’s your problem?”

“My problem’s that I coulda crapped a better intern than you,” Cameron retorted. “Go get me my Espresso.”

If the situation had been any different, any different, Michael would have hit the guy. If they were back in Santa Fe, back on his campus, he’d knock his lights out without a second thought. But he was here, in L.A., at work. So he resigned himself to heading back to Starbucks to get the Espresso, muttering under his breath, “I hate this job.”

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

Liz couldn’t stop raving about Maria’s choreography when they left the studio that afternoon. “Maria, that dance was so awesome. How did you make that up?”

Maria shrugged as she pushed open the doors and headed outside. “Comes naturally.”

“Lucky,” Liz said enviously as she followed her out into the parking lot. She would have loved to be able to choreograph and dance like that. “Seriously, though, I really love it. Do you mind if I use a couple of those moves for dance team?”

“Use the whole dance if you want,” Maria encouraged her. “Just credit the choreographer.”

“Will do,” Liz promised. “It’s so cool.”

“Speaking of cool . . .” Maria stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face her. “What’s with the new and improved Liz Parker who came rushing to my defense in there today? You put that Lainey girl in her place. I was proud of you.”

“I was proud of me, too,” Liz admitted. “No, I just figured I should help you out, though. I’ve asked you for help so many times; it was time to return the favor. Besides, I’ve been dealing with my fair share of mean girls lately. I’m really tired of ‘em.”

“They’re exhausting, aren’t they?” Maria agreed. “Is it just verbal attacks, or are they actually getting into physical bullying?”

“Both,” Liz admitted. “Aren’t we all supposed to be in college? I swear, sometimes it feels like middle school.”

“Tell me about it,” Maria muttered in contempt. “Well, regardless, I think you’ve been making some really good changes lately. I’m glad you dropped the bitchy persona. It just didn’t suit you.”

Liz scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Really didn’t.”

Maria smiled and said, “Well, I think I’m gonna head home now. My mom’s probably snooping around as we speak. I should go play watchdog.”

“Wait, your mom?” Liz echoed in horror. “Your . . . Amy mom?”

“No, my other mother, who lived in Guadalajara for twelve years where she raised baby howler monkeys as pets and lost all ability to speak the English language.”

Liz wrinkled her forehead and again asked the question. “So . . . your Amy mom?”

Maria laughed a little. “The one and only. She claims she’s reformed. I really don’t believe her.”

Liz shrugged and said, “Well, you might try giving her the benefit of the doubt. I know she’s no picnic, but it might do you some good to start mending your relationship with her. Plus, she’ll give you some company.”

Maria gave her a confused look. “Company?”

“Yeah.” Liz sighed, wondering whether it was a good idea to bring this up or not. “Listen, Maria, I heard about Michael . . . him being in L.A., not here . . . that must be rough on you.”

Maria looked away and quickly said, “I’m alright.”

“I just . . . I know what it’s like to have Michael in your life one moment and have him gone the next,” Liz went on. “It hurts. And I can’t imagine how much it hurts for you. You’re his best friend. You guys are so close.”

“Apparently not close enough.”

“It’s hard when relationships come to an end,” Liz said knowingly. “But maybe this isn’t the end. Maybe it’s just a rough spot. Or maybe you don’t even wanna have this conversation with me. Or maybe you don’t wanna have it at all. I’m sorry, Maria; I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s fine,” Maria assured her. “I’m fine. I’ve got my dancing and . . . stuff. I’m good.”

Could she sound any more unconvincing? Liz thought to herself. “Maria . . . I know you hide your feelings a lot, but you can talk to me. Or Tess or Kyle. Or even Max. There are plenty of people willing to listen if you wanna divulge.”

“I don’t wanna divulge,” Maria said hastily. “I wanna . . . well, whatever the opposite of divulge is, that’s what I wanna do.”

“Are you sure?” Liz couldn’t help but be worried about her former friend. No, not former. Her friend. She was back to considering Maria a friend now.

“I’m sure,” Maria said with an affirmative nod. “I just wanna . . . Liz, I’m okay. Really. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Yes, I do, Liz thought. We all do. Maria DeLuca in emotional turmoil inevitably led to badness.

Maria smiled a smile that looked too forced and turned, heading further into the parking lot.

“Maria!” Liz called.

“What? Do you need a ride home?”

“No, Max is coming to get me,” Liz informed her. “I just wanted to say . . . if you’re not okay . . . that’s okay.” Did that make sense?

“I’m okay,” Maria repeated, her voice wavering. “Okay?”

Liz didn’t say anything. Maria had many talents, and although lying usually was one of them, it wasn’t right now. She clearly wasn’t telling the truth.

“Okay,” Maria said, apparently accepting Liz’s silence as an answer. “I’ll see you, Liz.”

She’s not okay, Liz thought, concerned as she watched Maria head for her car. She’s definitely not okay.








TBC . . .

-April