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

[April]

Oh my gosh, it's been more than 48 hours without an update. It's been . . . I don't know, 51 hours or something. So bad of me.






Part 21






Maria waited outside the house on the steps for Michael. He’d gone somewhere, and he didn’t drive up in the driveway until almost 7:00.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

“Had to go get a box,” he replied. “You know, for my dick.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What? You gave me the idea.” He held up the box and studied it. “You think it’s big enough?”

She shook her head in exasperation.

He sauntered towards her. “You don’t think it’s big enough?”

“A little too big,” she said. “Might be just the right size for your ego, though.”

“Oh, Maria.” He sighed and sat down beside her on the steps, holding the box on his lap. He smiled at her, then reached out and touched one of her curly spirals of hair in his hand.

“Stop,” she said, leaning away.

“You look like a Barbie doll,” he commented, smiling. “Without the boobs.”

“You look like an ugly Ken doll,” she retorted.

“Hey, he couldn’t have been too ugly. He fucked Barbie.”

She laughed at that for a moment despite her desire not to, then abruptly silenced when she thought about the context. Was there supposed to be some hidden meaning in that? Was he trying to get her to imagine . . .

Oh, gross.

“What’re you still doin’ here anyway?” he asked her. “I thought you and Maxwell had a date.”

“We do,” she said. “I was waiting for you to get back, though.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .” She swallowed her pride and forced the words to come out. “Alright, I’m not, like, proud to be saying this, but I need your help.”

“Here we go,” he muttered.

“No, Michael, this is serious, okay? I’m worried about Liz.”

“What, you two get in a fight?” he asked.

“No.”

“Bad lesbian experience?”

“No, Michael!”

He shrugged.

“No, I just . . . I think I might have upset her a little bit. Or a lot. Look, I just . . . I really need you to go out on a date with her.”

“Fuck, Maria, how many times do I have to tell you . . .”

“Look, you don’t have to actually date her, okay? Just ask her out tonight, flirt with her, kiss her, make her feel good about herself. Have sex with her if she’s willing to go that far. I don’t think she will be, but--”

“Then what’s the point?”

“The point is that she’s my friend and she has a crush on you. Or, she used to anyway.”

“Used to?” he echoed, sounding both shocked and offended. “What, you mean she doesn’t anymore?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, that’s just insane.”

She saw the perfect opportunity to appeal to that self-centered ego of his, so she took full advantage of it. “Right, so this is your chance to reignite that crush and prove what a big stud you are.”

Surprisingly, though, he was still reluctant. “I don’t know, Maria,” he said. “She’s kinda--”

“She’s a virgin,” Maria blurted.

“What’s her phone number?”

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

4215. Michael dialed the last four digits of Liz’s number and held the phone up to his ear, waiting impatiently as it rang over and over again. Maria stood beside him, her hands folded together as though she were praying.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know she was a virgin,” she said.

“I figured she was slutty since she was hanging out with you.”

She whacked him on the shoulder, and he laughed.

Finally, just as he was about to give up on the call he was placing, Liz picked up her phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Liz,” he said. “It’s Michael.”

“What?” she said. “Why?”

He chuckled. “Why?”

“Well, I just mean, why are you calling? Not that I mind. Not that it’s the highlight of my life, either, which it isn’t. I mean . . . I don’t mean to be rude.”

So she was a spaz. He could handle that. “Yeah, it’s alright. Listen, I was thinkin’ we could hang out tonight, do something. You know, just the two of us.” He cast a glance at Maria and grinned.

Her stunned silence was all the answer he needed. He had her hook, line, and sinker. Definitely.

“Liz, you still there?” he prompted.

“What? Oh-oh, yeah. I was . . . just . . . wow, I . . . oh my god.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, “I mean, if you’ve got something else goin’ on.”

“No!” she shouted. “I mean, uh . . . no, not really.”

“Alright, so why don’t you come by then? We could hang out over here, watch some movies.” Have some sex, he thought to himself.

Maria shook her head, mouthing “movies” sarcastically.

“Uh, yeah. Okay,” Liz agreed. “Sure. Um . . . but Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you wanna hang out with me? I mean, we’re not, like . . .” She trailed off, obviously nervous.

“Liz, relax,” he said. “I think you’re a nice girl. I just wanna get to know you a little better.” And if that knowing came about in a sexual way, he was perfectly fine with that. He loved deflowering virgin girls.

She giggled softly and said. “Cool.”

“Yeah . . . cool.” He wrinkled his forehead and shook his head. Typical freshman adjective. “So I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there really soon, I promise.”

“Alright.”

“Bye.”

“See ya.” He ended the call and set the phone down on the back of the couch. Before he could even get a word out, Maria squealed and threw her arms around him, hugging him excitedly. “Ooh, yea! Michael!”

He smiled.

“Okay, it’s official: You are, like, the best worst friend ever! Ah!” she exclaimed, taking a step back.

“Brag me up, babe.”

“No, seriously, I really . . . appreciate it.”

He smirked. “Ha, ha. You owe me.”

Her eyes grew wide and she fearfully asked, “Uh, owe you what?”

He laughed, surprised she’d even let her mind wander there. “Relax, not that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I mean, unless that’s your preferred payment.”

She smiled and hit his shoulder playfully. “Stop it. You’re so gross.”

“Part of my charm,” he reasoned.

“Mmm-hmm.”

He leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. “So what exactly happened with you and Liz anyway? You still haven’t told me.”

She sighed heavily and replied, “It’s . . . complicated, okay?”

He shrugged. “You got time to explain it. Max is still gettin’ ready. He’s like a girl.”

“Sexist,” she remarked.

“Sexy,” he corrected.

She rolled her eyes. How many times did she roll her eyes per day because of him? The number had to be staggering.

“So what happened?” he prodded.

“It’s nothing, okay? I think she was just feeling a little lonely, and I know you like making girls feel . . . less lonely, so I figured I’d play matchmaker.”

“Matchmaker?”

“Yeah, you know, kinda like you did with me and Max.”

“Right . . .”

Just then, Kyle came stumbling upstairs, his facial expression indicating that he was shocked . . . about something. “What’s this I hear about you and Max?” he spat.

Maria looked up at Michael and said, “Yeah, Michael. What’s with that gay vibe?”

“You bitch,” he said, pinching her side. “Nah, this one right here . . . she and Max are goin’ out on a date.” He smirked. “Thanks to me.”

“What?” Kyle shrieked. “Am I the only one here who sees how bad this is?”

“Whoa, Valenti,” Michael cautioned. “That vein, on your forehead. It’s kinda--”

“Well, that’s ‘cause I’m pissed!” Kyle roared. “Roommate-roommate relationships are bound to be disastrous. There’s no way this can end well!”

Maria gave him a look. “Well, thanks for that vote of confidence, Kyle.”

“I’m just saying . . .”

“Kyle, Kyle, Kyle,” Michael intervened, understanding his friend’s reaction. Kyle was the one who kept everything under control in their house; he was the rock. “The way I see it, it’s a good thing. Maria’s goin’ out on a date, and Max might actually get laid. I mean, those are two things that have never happened before.”

Maria shot him an angry look and said, “Don’t help.”

Kyle threw his hands up in the air and backed away. “Fine. But don’t blame me when this whole thing blows up in your face.”

Michael shook his head as Kyle retreated back downstairs to his bedroom. “What a drama queen,” he muttered, eliciting a small smile from Maria.

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

Maria knocked on Max’s bedroom door, confused as to what was taking him so long. “Max. Did you die in there?”

“No, I’m just finishing up getting ready,” he replied.

“Okay, well . . .” She glanced up at the clock on the wall. “It’s almost 8:00.”

“Just one more minute. I’ll be ready,” he promised.

She sighed. Something told her this wasn’t going to be the world’s greatest first date for either of them.

She strode back into the living room just as Michael was coming out of his bedroom. He had changed from his plain grey t-shirt into a black shirt with a collar. He looked . . .

“How do I look?”

Good. “Sickening,” she replied, unwilling to give him that much of an ego boost.

“Maybe that’s what I was goin’ for.”

“Seriously, Michael . . .” Before she could say more, there was a knock on the door. “Must be Liz,” she said.

“Yea,” Michael muttered as he went to open the door.

“Hi!” Liz squealed, jumping a little. “Sorry I’m late.”

Maria glanced at the clock again. It had only been ten minutes since Michael had called her . . .

“No, you’re fine,” Michael assured her, stepping aside. “Come in. Come in.”

“Okay.” Liz stepped inside, took off her shoes like any other good houseguest, and waved at Maria. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Maria echoed. It was quite obvious seeing Liz like this that her crush on Michael had never truly gone away. She could deny it all she wanted, but she still had the hots for him. And Max.

Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum, Maria thought to herself. Ay, ay, ay.

“Well, Liz, I’m really glad you came over,” Michael said. “I’m sure we’re gonna have a great time.”

“Oh, definitely,” she agreed. “I brought this.” She handed Michael a VCR tape.

Maria almost laughed as Michael read the title. “The Notebook.”

“Yeah. It’s my favorite.”

He nodded. “Hmm.” He looked back at Maria, and she just smiled at him. He would never make it through that movie. He’d already tried. After five minutes, he always fell asleep.

The door to Max’s bedroom opened then, and he came out with flowers in his hand. “Sorry I took so long,” he said to Maria. “Oh, hey, Liz.”

“Uh, hi.”

He stepped up to Maria and smiled, holding out the flowers. “These are for you.”

Had she ever received flowers before? Probably not. Most guys just gave her orgasms and assumed it was enough. And usually it was. So Max was trying to go above and beyond. He was a really nice guy. Always had been.

Michael would never get me flowers, she thought, taking the pretty red and yellow roses from Max. But in all honesty, she wasn’t exactly a flowers kind of girl. Michael knew that. “Thank you,” she said, smelling them anyway. She looked Max over for a moment as she did so, thinking that he did look really nice, nicer than she’d ever seen him look before. He didn’t look like a study-nerd. He looked like . . . a boyfriend. But Michael still looked . . . like Michael.

Then she remembered that Liz was in the room, though, and she felt bad. She wasn’t trying to rub this date in Liz’s face or anything.

“Um, we should get going,” she said.

“Yeah, you should,” Michael agreed.

“Or . . .” Max gestured between the two of them and Michael and Liz and suggested, “we could make it double, if you guys want.”

“What?” Maria shrieked, thinking that nothing could possibly be a worse idea at that point in her very messy life.

“Yeah, it’d be fun,” Max insisted. “We’re all friends.”

“Or enemies,” Maria reminded him. “Case in point--”

“Oh, DeLuca, you know you love me,” Michael cut in, grinning smugly.

“I do not!”

“Maria,” Liz spoke up quietly, “I don’t really think it’s that big of deal. You know? If the guys wanna double, let’s double.”

Maria forced herself to calm down and think about it. If Liz could do it, so could she. Right?

“I’m down,” Michael said, tossing The Notebook down on the couch cushions.

“Me, too,” Liz agreed.

Max turned to Maria. “Well?”

She sighed, giving in. At least a group date would eliminate the possibility of any awkward silences she might have if she were just out with Max. She and Michael never stopped talking.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s double.”

“Awesome,” Max said. “So what do you guys wanna do?”

“Movie,” Michael said, grabbing his jacket.

“The Notebook?” Liz asked hopefully.

“Or Saw IV. You know, whatever,” Michael replied, leading her towards the door.

“I’m not watching that,” Maria said decidedly.

“We’ll find something we can all agree on,” Max said democratically.

“Like Saw IV,” Michael muttered, heading out to the car with Liz by his side.

Max held the front door open for Maria, and as she walked past him, he promised, “We’re gonna have so much fun tonight.”

She smiled, but somehow, she really doubted that.






TBC . . .

-April

(he he he, well, Alien_Friend, you mentioned a double date! Little did you know, one was right on the horizon!)

[April]

Hey, guys! Thanks for the feedback! You're all so nice!
Tequathisy, I must say, you completely came up with the perfect adjective for Liz right now: fickle. It was on the tip of my tongue, and I couldn't think of it. But you did, so good job!
Well, you guys seemed to be eagerly awaiting the double date, so here it is!






Part 22






Since Maria refused—absolutely refused—to watch a scary movie, she ended up sitting in an uncomfortable theater seat at something almost (maybe even equally) as bad: an action movie. Even worse, it was the latest Die-Hard movie. The Rocky saga she could handle, because Sylvester Stallone still looked fine. But Bruce Willis had never been appealing to the eye. At least not to her eye.

She sat in the movie theater, bored. Everyone around her looked completely engrossed in the film for whatever reason. Except Michael. He obviously had other things on his mind.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he casually lifted his right arm and put it around Liz’s shoulders. He touched her right arm with his fingertips, and she smiled, seeming to like it. She handled it a lot better than Maria had anticipated. No freaking out. No hyperventilating. Just calm, cool, and collected excitement.

Good for her, Maria thought, determined not to get jealous.

She sighed heavily and wondered how close the movie was to being over. She was already done with her popcorn and her M+Ms and couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Once the on-screen gunfire died down, she noticed Max start to attempt the same maneuver Michael had, the arm maneuver. She tensed at the awkwardness of it all and almost bolted out of the theater when he clumsily reached back too far and knocked the popcorn out of the hands of the man sitting behind them.

“Hey, watch it!”

“Sorry.”

Badness, Maria thought. Just badness.

“Sorry,” Max said again.

“Stupid kid.”

“Hey, leave him alone,” Maria snapped at the man.

“Ooh,” Michael said laughingly. “Miss DeLuca defending her man.”

She gave him a look. If they had been at home, she would have gone off on him just for the hell of it.

“Shh!” a person in front of them hissed.

“Fuck you,” Michael muttered.

Unbelievable, Maria thought. We can’t even go see a movie in peace. Clumsy Max and crazy, stupid, arrogant, sort of sexy in his own way Michael.

Ew, why do I have to think things like that?

Just as the action sequence was picking up again, Max made a second attempt. Again, it was a blatant sort of awkward attempt, but Maria didn’t know what to do to escape it. She could have leaned forward, but that would have been too obvious. So she just sat there in her seat and let Max put his arm around her. It was sort of heavy on her shoulders, didn’t feel quite right.

Or maybe she just wasn’t used to it. That was always a possibility. She was used to sex, but she wasn’t used to dating.

And clearly Max wasn’t either.

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

“That was an awesome movie,” Michael proclaimed as they left the theater that evening and headed out to the car in the parking lot.

“Yeah, it was really good,” Max agreed.

“Hello?” Maria piped up. “Am I the only one who thought it sucked?”

“Yes,” Michael grunted.

“You know, next time, we might make a better compromise. Like a comedy or something. Everyone likes comedies.”

“You’re just pissed ‘cause you ate all popcorn and broke your diet,” Michael said, placing his arm around Liz as they walked. Maria noticed it and tried not to let it bother her.

“I don’t have a diet. I’m naturally thin,” was her response.

“Whatever.”

“Shut up!”

“Where’s the car?” Max asked absentmindedly.

“What about you, Liz?” Michael asked, glancing down at his date. “Did you like the movie? I mean, I know it’s not The Notebook or anything, but . . .”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed, “but I actually thought it was semi-interesting.”

Or she thinks that because he thinks that, Maria thought to herself.

“See?” Michael said. “You’re the only one who didn’t like it, DeLuca. Why do you think that is?”

“Because I’m the only one with sense.”

“Because you’re a bitch.”

She whirled around to face him, fuming. “You know what, Michael? One of these days I’m just—I’m gonna do something drastic! I swear! I’m just gonna, like, rip off one of your testicles and throw it in the river!”

“No, you’ll sleep with it every night.”

“Oh my god, is it possible for you to get any more despicable?”

“Oh, I’m despicable?”

“Yes!”

He dropped his arm from where it was around Liz and pointed a finger at her. “You know what, Maria?”

“You’re a freak! That’s what I know! You’re a sick, annoying freak!”

“And you’re a spoiled little--”

“Hey, guys?” Max cut in timidly. “Car’s over this way.”

“Max, back me up here,” Maria said.

“Uh, what’re you guys fighting about?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came. “I don’t know.” It was so easy to get lost in an argument with Michael. It happened daily. Hourly, actually.

“I think it all stems back to the movie,” Liz volunteered, “but I’m not sure.”

Max stepped forward bravely and said, “Alright. I’ll settle this. Maria’s right and Michael’s wrong. How’s that sound?”

Maria smiled at him. “Perfect. Thank you, Max.”

“Of course.” He cleared his throat and said. “If you two wanna set aside the hostility for a minute . . . where do you guys wanna go eat? I mean, unless the popcorn filled you up.”

“Well, since I’ve already broken my non-existent diet . . .” Maria said, glaring at Michael. “I don’t know. Somewhere Italian.”

“Chinese,” Michael countered.

“Chinese?” she echoed in disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She wanted some cheesy goodness, Italian, so he deliberately picked just the opposite. “Ass!”

“What? I’m in the mood for rice.”

“Like hell you are! No one's ever in the mood for rice! And you know I don’t like Chinese food!”

“I just want some fucking rice!”

“Well, I just wanna kill you!”

“Go ahead and try, baby!”

“I will!”

“Um, guys?” Max cut in courageously again. “You’re really . . . scary right now.”

“What do you wanna eat, Max?” Maria asked him.

“Oh, I’m fine with anything.”

“Well, what about you, Liz?” Michael asked his date.

“Um . . .” She didn’t seem to want to be included in the discussion. “Burgers and fries maybe?”

“Sounds good,” Max said cheerfully. “Hey, let’s go to that new club downtown. Burgers and fries galore.”

“But no Italian,” Maria muttered.

“No Chinese,” Michael added.

She groaned and said sharply, “Okay! I think maybe it’s time we split up this oh-so-fun double date and go our separate ways.”

“No, Maria.” Liz shot her a pleading look. She would probably be uncomfortable without Maria there. First-date syndrome. All insecure girls experienced it. “Why don’t we all just stick together tonight?" she suggested. "I know what club Max is talking about. There’s dancing.”

Maria frowned, wishing Liz wouldn’t have said that. Now she was all tempted.

“Come on, Maria,” Liz urged. “Dancing.”

Maria sighed heavily and gave in. “Fine, but if I hear one more word about Chinese food or stupid action movies, I’m outta here.”

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

“I’d eat Chinese food every day of the week if I could. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. I think my ideal scenario would be eating Chinese food while indulging in a Die-Hard marathon. Because you gotta love those action movies, you know? They’re awesome. Just like Chinese food.”

Maria just glared at Michael, resisting the urge to lean over the table and strangle him. From the moment the four of them had sat down in their booth at The Underground, a club that was literally underground and apparently all the rage these days, Michael had made it a point to talk about the two things she had specifically said she didn’t want to hear about. Maybe he was trying to get her to leave. Or maybe he was just being his usual annoying self.

“I’m gonna put a gun to my head,” Maria muttered, her eyes locked on his.

“My mission in life,” he said with an awe-struck look on his face. He threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, “Quest fulfilled!”

“Or maybe I’ll put a gun to your head,” she pondered.

“Whoa, that’s two homicidal threats in one night,” Michael commented. “Right, Liz?”

Liz smiled at Maria good-naturedly and agreed with Michael. Of course. “I think so.”

“But you’d protect me, right?” he asked her. “I mean, if Maria tried to shoot me or strangle me or lick me to death.”

“Lick you to death?” Maria shrieked, repulsed by some of the ridiculously random things he said.

“Would you protect me, Liz?” Michael asked again, flashing her a trademark smile, totally laying on the charm.

And obviously, it was working, because Liz’s cheeks got so red. Maria had never seen anybody get so red before.

“Of course,” she said, smiling right back at him.

He leaned in closer to her, his face merely inches away, and simply said, “Thanks.”

Maria watched the interaction with interest. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think Michael was actually enjoying flirting with Liz.

Probably because he was. He enjoyed flirting with everybody.

Oh, well, she thought, shrugging. At least he’s not rambling about Chinese and Die-Hard anymore.

“Now back to what I was saying about Chinese food . . .”

“Michael, I swear to God . . .”

He chuckled. “No, relax, Dramarama. I’m through.”

She raised an eyebrow at that unique nickname. “Dramarama?”

“Yeah. Or do you miss Dirty Girl?” He grinned. “You wanna be Dirty Girl again?”

“Sure, Ugly Boy.”

“Okay, it’s on.”

It’s always on, she thought, feeling energized suddenly. Fighting with Michael always awakened something within her.

“I wonder where the bathrooms are around here,” Max said, more to himself than to anyone else.

“Oh, I think they’re in the back,” Liz replied, pointing them out.

“Oh, yeah, I see ‘em,” Max said. “I think I’ll just . . .” He trailed off and stood up from the booth.

“Me, too,” Liz said, standing up alongside him.

Michael chuckled and pointed at Max. “You just get more and more feminine all the time.”

“What do you mean?” Max asked innocently.

“Aren’t girls supposed to go to the bathroom with other girls?”

“Shut up, Michael,” Maria said, reaching across the table to smack his hand. “Just ‘cause Max has a sensitive side . . .”

“Oh, no, it’s not sensitive, really,” Max said. “I just have to pee.”

“Same,” Liz said. “Maria, you wanna come with?”

“No, I gotta watch my drink,” she said, wrapping a hand around her margarita glass.

“I’ll watch it for you,” Michael volunteered.

“You’d probably slip something in it, you sick pig,” she said.

“See? I try to do something nice, and what do I get? Backlash.”

“Because you deserve it,” she reasoned.

“Oh, give me a break.”

They were both too busy bickering with each other to even notice Max and Liz leaving the table. Once Maria noticed it was just her and Michael left, she felt weird. For some reason, this felt more like a date—a very dysfunctional date—between her and Michael than a double date with her and Max and Michael and Liz.

She sat back in the booth and asked him, “Why’d you agree to this?”

“Agree to what?”

“This whole double-date thing.”

“’Cause I didn’t wanna watch The fuckin’ Notebook.”

“It’s a good movie,” she mumbled.

“It’s stupid,” he insisted. “People don’t fall in love like that.”

“Then how do they fall in love?”

He shrugged. “I really wouldn’t know. But my heart goes out to all the poor fools who honestly believe they can be with one person for the rest of their lives. It’s just not realistic.”

“Gee, that was uplifting,” she muttered sarcastically. “You know what I think? I think you could have forced yourself to Notebook it just one more time. Max and I might actually be having fun if you weren’t here.”

“Speaking of fun . . .” Michael leaned forward, his arms pressed against the table, and grinned. “Are you gonna fuck your date tonight?”

She leaned in, too, and inquired in return, “Is that really any of your business?”

“Well, I mean, you don’t have to tell me. But if you do it, I’ll probably hear it. Thin walls and all.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. No, probably not.”

He seemed surprised to hear that. “Really?” giving her a raised eyebrow look. “Something new and different for you. What’s up with that?”

She shrugged.

“Oh, come on, don’t get all non-verbal on me now, DeLuca. I wanna know,” he urged. “Why aren’t you gonna fuck him?”

She sighed. “It’s different with Max. He’s not just some guy; he’s a friend. I freakin’ live with him. I don’t wanna mess things up.”

“Okay,” Michael said, nodding while continuing to look skeptical. “That’s one story. What’s the other?”

“There is no other,” she responded exasperatedly.

“Is it ‘cause he’s a virgin? You think he won’t get you off?”

“No, I don’t care about that.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause most guys—myself excluded, of course—tend to fuck up their first fucks, you know what I mean?”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she said. “It’s just . . .” She looked at Michael, at his crooked-ass smile and those impassioned eyes, and she thought she felt her heart rate increase. “Never mind.”

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Maria, I swear to God, I’ll talk about Chinese food the rest of week,” he threatened.

Oh, great. He had her with that one. She groaned and let out a resigned sigh. “Alright, maybe I . . .” She didn’t know how to go about saying it. It felt so strange. “Maybe I might not be in it just for sex anymore. I mean, maybe I’m finally at that point in my life where I’m . . . actually looking for a serious relationship.”

Michael was silent, staring at her for a moment before saying, “Whoa.”

“It’s all hypothetical,” she reminded him.

“So hypothetically . . . you really wanna start a relationship with Max?”

“With Max,” she echoed slowly. “Yeah.” Or with you, she thought. Hypothetically. Why couldn’t she just say the words out loud?

“Crazy,” he said, never taking his eyes off hers. “Maria DeLuca: girlfriend.”

“Can you just drop it?” she asked in annoyance.

“Nah, I can’t. I’m amazed,” he said. “And Max is gonna be thrilled.”

“Just, like, don’t get involved, okay?” The last thing she needed was more Michael in her love life.

“Okay,” he said, smiling a little. “You know, you’re like an onion, Maria. You have layers.” But, of course, he couldn’t just leave it at that, so he added, “And you’re smelly.”

She slapped her hand down on the table in anger, and he just laughed. "Relax, dirty girl."

She couldn’t help but smile. Michael may have been out on a date with Liz, but he didn’t have any nicknames like that for her.






TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Hey, guys! Thanks for the great feedback! Really, I love that people are taking an interest in this story. Would you guys believe that you're now on page 202? Nice.

Pookie76: Another new reader? Or at least a new feedbacker! Yea! Thanks for reading. And by the way, your icon is meltdown-inducing.

Well, this next part is probably going to continue the big theme here . . . and that would be, what else? Frustration!






Part 23






Although she’d been nervous at the start of the date, Liz had calmed down significantly by the end of it. The truth was, as much as she liked Max, her infatuation for Michael had never completely gone away. That phone call from him had been the single best event of her life. Until the date, of course, which had been even more magical. Even though he had spent a lot of the time bickering with Maria, he had put his arm around her during the movie and held her hand walking out to the car and even danced with her at the club a bit. (He wasn’t a very good dancer, but he was cute enough to get away with it.) As far as she was concerned, it was a great first date.

But of course, she didn’t have anything to compare to.

Granted, seeing Max and Maria together had been a little bit uncomfortable, but they hadn’t been very intimate. Besides, her mind was on Michael.

He walked her up to her dorm room that night. It must have been after 2:00 in the morning. She had a 7:30 a.m. class the next day, but . . . oh, well. She could deal.

“Did you have fun?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I did.” She smiled as a few girls came out of the bathroom and stared at her and Michael in disbelief. Yeah, that’s right, she thought. We’re holding hands. I, Liz Parker, just went out on a date with the most popular boy on campus.

“Yeah, so did I,” he said. “Which room’s yours?”

“Oh.” Liz glanced up and down the hallway and realized, “We passed it, actually.”

He chuckled. “Okay.”

“Um . . .” She backtracked down the hallway to room 531. “This is it.”

“And you’ve got it all to yourself?” he asked. “Huh, that’s nice.”

“Sometimes,” she agreed, making no effort to open the door just yet. She didn’t want the date to be over. She was so afraid there wouldn’t be another one, even though they’d both had fun. Insecurity was horrible.

“What do you mean ‘sometimes’?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Well, I mean, sometimes I get lonely.”

“Like for a roommate or a friend or . . .”

“A boyfriend,” she filled in, surprising herself by her straight-forwardness. Too brazen? she wondered.

Michael didn’t seem to think so, because he just smiled. And then slowly, he leaned in, closer, closer, his eyes fixated on her lips.

Oh my god, Liz thought excitedly as she let her eyes fall closed. I’m going to be kissed!

When Michael’s lips touched hers, she felt . . . there weren’t even words to describe how she felt. He wasn’t too insistent, nor too withdrawn. She was no expert by any means, but it seemed like an amazing kiss. Michael Guerin definitely was good at what he did.

Part of her wanted him to keep on kissing her, but part of her was glad when he pulled back, too. With him, it would be so tempting to just give in and lose whatever morals she had left.

“We should do this again sometime,” he said.

“Kiss?” she asked hopefully.

He laughed. “Well, I was gonna say go out, but kissing, too.”

She smiled, unable to believe that this all was happening. It had looked hopeless. No, it had been hopeless. And now, out of the blue, here he was, kissing her goodnight and asking her out on a second date. Stuff like this happened to Cinderella, not Liz Parker.

“You up for tomorrow night?” he asked. “Same time?”

She nodded. “Yeah. For sure.”

“Alright, we can go out to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinkin’ . . .”

“Chinese,” she filled in. “Sounds good.”

“Alright.” He reached up and touched her hair with his hands, sending shivers through her body; and then he started backing away. “Bye.”

“Bye,” she echoed, watching longingly as he backed up down the hallway, smiling and looking so . . . immaculate. Did he know what kind of an effect he had on her, on all girls?

The minute he turned the corner, though, before she’d even had the chance to insert her electronic room key card into the lock on her door, almost every girl on the floor burst out of their bedrooms and came scurrying towards her, all yammering and asking questions at once.

“Oh my god, are you dating Michael Guerin?”

Liz smiled from ear to ear, so happy, and replied, “Uh, yeah. I guess I am.”

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

“Well, I had a really good time tonight,” Max said as he walked Maria down the hallway to her bedroom.

“Yeah. Yeah,” she agreed somewhat less enthusiastically.

“I mean, I know the movie was a little . . .” Max made a face. “Most movies are, you know?”

“Yeah.” Was that the only word she could say? She opened the door to her bedroom and sort of hoped he wouldn’t follow her in. But he did. She sighed and sat down on her bed. He hesitated for a moment, then sat down beside her.

“I know it’s weird,” he said, “being friends for all these years and then trying to be something more. But I . . . I don’t know, I really wanna give it a go if you do. I really care about you, Maria.”

“I know you do,” she said, looking away from him.

“And . . . you like me?”

She paused only a moment before replying, “Yes.” It was true. She liked him. She just didn’t like him like him.

“Good,” he said. “That . . . works out well then.”

Funny, she thought. It seems to me that nothing’s worked out well. Nothing seemed to happen the way she wanted it to. Hell, she didn’t even know what she wanted.

Just call me Confusion DeLuca, she thought. I’m so pathetic.

“So . . . do you wanna go out on another date sometime?” Max asked nervously. “I’m sorry. I’m not really used to this. I don’t know how to make it all romantic and--”

“No, Max, you’re fine,” she assured him. “I’d, uh . . .” God, what was she supposed to say? She didn’t want to break his heart. More so than that, she actually wouldn’t mind developing feelings for him. If she could. Which hopefully she would. Because she had been all-out honest when she’d told Michael that she wanted a serious relationship these days. Max would be a good, solid guy to have that kind of relationship with. Michael was not good and solid. He was just . . . Michael.

“Yeah, I’d like to go out again sometime,” she said. “But maybe just you and me this time. No more Michael Guerin. I’ve seriously had my fill.” Or maybe, she thought, I haven’t had enough.

Sick.

Max laughed. “Okay. Just you and me. I think that sounds good.”

“Sounds good,” she agreed.

“Alright. Well, I’ll let you get to sleep.”

“Okay.”

Much to her surprise, he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. It was the first time Max Evans’s lips had ever touched a part of her body and it had been . . . a little bit forgettable. It wasn't his fault. There was just no electricity.

Maybe it’ll get better, she thought as he got up off the bed and headed out of the room. First kisses always suck.

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

“It was the best first kiss I could possibly imagine,” Liz raved to the group of girls who had congregated in her tiny dorm room. Most of them she had never spoken to before. But now, there they all were, piling up on her floor, squeezing in on her couch.

“That’s incredible,” a girl named Bethany raved. “You’re so lucky.”

“I think I kissed Michael once,” another girl piped up, “but I was drunk, so I really don’t remember.”

“Then be quiet,” Bethany snapped. “This is Liz’s night.”

“Yeah,” a girl named Melanie said wistfully. “You’re so lucky.”

“I’ve been waiting for Michael Guerin to kiss me for years.”

“I’d give anything to be you, Liz.”

“I bet he really likes you, Liz.”

Liz just smiled at them all, still in a bit of a state of shock. Twelve hours ago, she’d been about to sink into a mild depression thinking about Maria occupying both Max and Michael’s hearts. But apparently it was just Max after all. Because Michael had asked her out on a date. And a second date, too.

“Alright, let’s get to the point here,” Bethany cut in. “Liz, you’re officially Michael’s first girlfriend. That makes you just about the coolest person ever.”

“I second that,” Melanie said, reaching over and giving Bethany a high-five.

Coolest person ever, Liz thought, letting those words sink in. Now I know how Maria feels.

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

Michael walked home from Liz’s dorm room that night, thinking of what he’d done. Or rather, what he hadn’t done. Liz Parker would have slept with him. No doubt about that. No girl, virgin or non-virgin, had ever been able to resist his allure. Oh, yes, he had allure. But for some reason, he had decided not to sleep with her. Weird.

It wasn’t because of her. No, she was a pretty girl, had a nice valley-girl look going on these days, definitely wasn’t horrible on the eyes. She was sweet, innocent, and obviously virginal. There was nothing he loved more than deflowering virgins, and as far as he knew, he held the campus record. So why . . . why on earth had he settled for the oh-so-tame goodnight kiss instead?

The answer was an obvious one, but one he didn’t quite want to admit.

He walked inside around 2:30 and found Maria still awake, sitting at the kitchen counter, covered in a black, silky robe and eating some leftover spaghetti.

“Finally gettin’ your Italian food, huh?” he joked as he shut the door.

“No, thanks to you.”

He took his jacket off, kicked off his shoes, and made his way through the living room to sit down beside her. “So where’s Maxwell?”

“Asleep.”

He nodded. She really was serious about the ‘serious relationship’ thing. The girl never ceased to amaze him . . .

“You were only gone forty-five minutes,” Maria commented, carefully twisting the spaghetti around her fork. “Was it a quickie?”

“A quickie?” he echoed.

“Yeah, you and Liz. You weren’t too rough with her, were you? She’s my friend.”

“Maria . . .” Part of him wanted to lie and tell her he had boned the girl, but Liz would tell her just the opposite. And who would she believe? Not him. Never. “I didn’t sleep with Liz,” he admitted.

She set her fork down in the middle of her plate and gave him a look of disbelief. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

“But . . . you wanted to, right?”

“Well, yeah, sure. But I think I . . . I don’t know, I think I might . . . try something different with her.”

“What, like cyber?” She made a face. “Not as fun as it sounds. I wrecked my keyboard doing that.”

“No, it’s . . .” He trailed off and licked his lips, really struggling to say this, because it was something he didn’t want to say. But if he was going to tell anyone, he was going to tell Maria. He told her everything. “It’s like what you said about a serious relationship, how you want one with Max.” He shrugged. “Maybe I want one, too.”

“With Max?”

“No, with Liz.”

Her look of disbelief changed to one of shock.

He let the admission float about in the air for a moment, surprised at how good it had felt to say it. “Wow. Never thought I’d say that about anyone.”

“Me, neither,” she said. “How many times did you tell me and Alex and everyone that you were never gonna get a girlfriend?”

He shrugged again. “Things change.” He stood up and patted her on the back before heading to his room.

“Yeah, things change,” he heard her mumble quietly as he walked out of earshot. She sounded sad, and that concerned him; so he stopped, turned around, and asked her, “You alright, Maria?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be alright?” she asked in return.

He shrugged. Part of him had been hoping that she might show some opposition to him and Liz, that she might tell him to stick to his old tricks, just sleep with her and be done with it. Because he felt as though he were about to get in deep on something, and deep wasn’t exactly his style. But she didn’t say anything.

“Alright, ‘night, blondie,” he said, disappearing into his bedroom for the night.







TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I really appreciate it. The good news is that this part is a little longer than the last. The bad news is that . . . this part is probably going to be even more frustrating than the last. Stick with it!







Part 24





Much to Maria’s surprise, Liz showed up late to debate class the next day. Liz was never late.

She slid into an empty seat next to Maria, obviously trying to be unnoticed by her professor, and Maria couldn’t resist finding out what had kept her. “Sleep in?”

“Yeah, a little,” Liz admitted. “Some girls came by my room last night, and we were up talking until, like, four in the morning.”

Maria nodded. Liz was finally starting to get the valley-girl thing. It was weird, though, to think of her having a sort of slumber party. “What’d you talk about?”

Liz smiled. “Michael.”

“Hmm, so the crush is back in full force, huh?”

“Oh, definitely. I mean, it was never really gone. And it was just so out of the blue that he called, but it was perfect.”

“Hmm.” Maria nodded again, seeing no reason for Liz to know that she had been the one to organize the coupling.

“Max is nice and all, really sweet and good-looking,” Liz said, “but Michael’s just . . . Michael. He has this power over me.” She sighed dreamily.

Maria didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t want to. She couldn’t really fault Liz for her feelings for Michael. He had the whole bad boy thing going for him that was just impossible to resist.

“We’re going out again tonight,” Liz chirped excitedly.

“So I’ve heard,” Maria said. “Max and I might, too.”

“Aw, that’s great, Maria. You guys make a really good couple.”

“You think so?” Maria couldn’t help being confused by that. Twenty-four hours ago, Liz had still been completely convinced that Michael was the one who had feelings for Maria.

As if reading her mind, Liz said, “Yeah, I do. You know, I think I was wrong about my whole Michael theory. I get it now. Operation: Snag Michael worked right from the start, just like we thought it would. He was just too afraid to admit his feelings, so he kept his distance from me. And that freaked me out, so I started seeing things that were never there between the two of you.”

Things that were never there? Maria thought, feeling slightly disappointed. “Like what?”

“Like . . .” Liz hesitated for a moment, concocting the right word. “Passion.”

Maria frowned at that. She and Michael were the most passionate people she knew.

“I mean, sure, you guys fight a lot, but you don’t have the romantic passion,” Liz elaborated. “I think Michael and I have it, like an opposites attract kind of thing. I’m really excited to see where it goes.”

Maria looked away, feeling a little hurt by that remark.

“Sorry,” Liz apologized as if she could tell something was upsetting Maria. “I don’t mean to sound, like, arrogant or bitchy or . . .”

“No, it’s fine,” Maria assured her. “I’m . . . relieved, you know. Just the thought of me and Michael . . .” Intrigues me, she finished internally. “I’m really happy for you, Liz.”

“Thanks,” Liz said. “Oh, dance team practice tomorrow, right?”

Maria nodded wordlessly. If being with Michael made Liz want to be the dance captain again, then at least one good thing would come out of this fiasco.

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

When Alex first heard what Michael told him about Liz, he almost freaked out. Actually, he did freak out. Loudly. “What?” he shrieked. “What the fuck, man?”

“Dude, calm down.” Michael walked ahead of him casually, not glancing back as he spoke.

Alex scurried along beside him, trying—and subsequently failing—to get himself under control. “Oh, I’m sorry. Forgive me for being a little surprised by this development. I mean, you swore you were never gonna get a girlfriend, and all of a sudden . . . oh, Liz!”

“She’s not my girlfriend. We’re just testing the waters,” he reminded him. “She might be my girlfriend. Man, that sounds weird.”

“Well, what about me?”

“What, you wanna be my girlfriend, too?” Michael smirked.

Alex gave him a look. “Oh, real funny, man. You know what? Maria’s right about you. You’re an ass.”

“Alright.”

“I mean, what about my auction, huh? I was gonna make mucho money off that.”

“Well, find somebody else,” Michael suggested.

“There is no one else!” Alex wailed. “Dude!”

Michael just chuckled, shook his head, and kept walking.

“Oh, you think this is hilarious, don’t you?” Alex said, dropping back to follow him. “Well, I’ve got news for you! It’s not hilarious!”

Michael stopped and spun around to face him. “Whitman, you really know how to overreact, you know that? It’s simple. Just turn Michael Gets a Girlfriend into Alex Gets a Girlfriend. Who knows? Maybe you could get Isabel to participate.”

Alex threw his hands up in the air in exasperation and shook his head in disbelief. “Am I that obvious?”

Michael chuckled and started walking again. “Oh, yeah.”

Alex kicked at the pavement and reluctantly followed him. “Son of a . . .”

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

Oh god, I can’t wait for this day to be over with, Maria thought as she trudged through Sampson Hall on her way to her last class. Her senior year of college was jam-packed full of essential studies courses that she absolutely loathed. She knew it was her own fault. She shouldn’t have slacked off so much those first three years. Still, she felt the right to complain.

She stopped in the middle of the hallway, glancing to her right at the closed-double doors leading to the lecture auditorium. Stupid calculus . . . Who could learn calculus in a lecture classroom? Who could learn calculus at all?

She groaned. Now she was really in a pickle. She had agreed to go out on a date with Max again, so she couldn’t very well sleep with any random nerd to get him to do her homework. Even she knew that was wrong. Max didn’t deserve to be one of many guys.

She turned and stared straight forward again for a moment, debating her options. Calculus or . . . no calculus. But then again, slacking off and skipping class had gotten her into this gross academic situation in the first place . . .

She was just about to head in to the lecture auditorium when something to her left caught her eye. She went over to the student bulletin board and saw that someone had posted a picture of her and Max from The Underground club last night, dancing. It was a bright pink flyer that said Beauty and the Geek? up on the top.

Her mouth gaping, she tore down the flyer and looked it over some more. It was unbelievable. She knew she was practically a campus celebrity and everyone wanted to know everything about her, but . . . her and Max? People knew about her and Max?

She crumpled up the flyer in her hand, livid. Popularity sure had its benefits . . . and its downsides.

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

Michael was stoked when he picked up the mail that day and saw a letter addressed to him from one of the many internship programs he had applied to. He tore open the envelope before and took out the letter inside, eager as he’d ever been.

Mr. Guerin . . . He skipped the first paragraph thanking him for applying and got down to the good stuff. Yes or no?

We reject to inform you that our internship positions have already been filled . . .

He didn’t have to read any more. He didn’t want to. He tore the letter in half and tossed it into the trash can, along with the envelope. Cum-Hungry Coeds here I come, he thought bitterly.

He walked inside, hoping Maria would be around. He needed to vent his frustrations, and fighting with her was always a great way to do it.

“Maria!”

“Oh, great,” he heard her mumble from the laundry room. He set his backpack down on the couch and made his way through the living room to find her. When he saw her standing by the laundry machine taking wet clothes out of the washer and tossing them into the dryer, he almost laughed out loud. “Since when do you do household labor?”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I’m not a total spoiled princess.”

“No, you’re not a princess. Just spoiled.”

She gave him a sharp, angry look. “Don’t fuck with me, Michael.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I’m serious. I’ve had a really bad day.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he said. “Wanna hear about it?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.” He watched as she kept transferring her clothing from the washer to the dryer and couldn’t help but exclaim, “Christ, Maria, how many thongs do you own?”

“Like a lot,” she said.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

She sighed agitatedly and said, “You know, you could feel free to, oh, I don’t know, go away.”

“What crawled up your ass and died?” he demanded.

“Nothing.”

“Is this about Max? Did something happen with him?”

“Why do you care?”

He shrugged. “It’s either talking to you or doing homework.”

She tossed the last of her washing in the dryer and shut the door. “It’s not about Max.”

“Then what’s it about?”

She glanced at him for a moment but didn’t say anything at first. Finally, she braced her hands on the dryer and said, “It’s just . . . I’m on my period.”

He immediately cringed, hating that word. Although, it was a beautiful thing. It meant no kids. But still . . .

“Yeah,” she went on. “And it’s just like this volcanic eruption of blood and emotionality.”

“Maria . . .” That was just too much information.

“Sick, gooey blood.”

“Maria, don’t say that.”

“And I can just feel it, like, squirting out and--”

“Ah, Maria, stop!” He slapped his hands over his ears and fled out into the living room again.

“What?” she called after him. “You don’t wanna hear all the gory details?”

“You’re one sick bitch, you know that, DeLuca?” He flopped down on the couch, knowing that she had just said that period stuff to get him to leave her alone. And hell, it had worked. The girl knew him well.

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

Maria holed herself up in her bedroom that night to watch the dance team montage DVD Michael had made her for her birthday over and over again on her laptop computer. It wasn’t exactly making her feel good, though. She felt wistful, longing for the good old days when her whole life had consisted of dance team and random hook-ups and nothing more. Everything had felt so simple then. Nothing felt simple now.

She was in the midst of re-watching the DVD for about the tenth time when her cell phone rang. She paused her DVD before answering the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, Maria, it’s me.”

She recognized Liz’s voice immediately. “Hey, Liz. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much.”

“You excited about your date tonight?”

“Oh, yeah,” Liz said. “But a little nervous, too, you know? I mean, this is gonna be our first date alone together.”

Maria frowned, happy that Liz couldn’t see her facial expression.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could get a favor,” Liz said. “Again. Sorry, I know I’m always asking for your help.”

“No, it’s fine,” Maria said. Truthfully, at times like these when she already wasn’t in the greatest of moods, she hated being helpful. But Liz was her friend. What choice did she have?

“Do you think you could come over and do my makeup, maybe help me pick out an outfit to wear?” Liz asked sweetly. “I’m still sort of clueless, and really nervous.”

Maria sighed and closed her computer. “Yeah, I’ll head over.”

“Really? Thanks, Maria.”

“Happy to help,” she mumbled, but that was a little bit of a lie. The truth was, a very large part of her wouldn’t have minded being the one to dress up for a date with Michael Guerin.

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

Liz couldn’t stop smiling—or talking—when Maria was at her dorm room that night. It made it very difficult to apply her makeup.

“It’s funny how things change, you know. One minute, I thought I had no chance. Now it’s like all my dreams are coming true.”

“Eyes open,” Maria instructed.

Liz obediently obeyed but kept her mouth going. “Seriously, that phone call from Michael last night was the biggest surprise of my life. I almost died of shock.”

“Over-exaggeration,” Maria noted as she gently pressed the eye-liner pencil against Liz’s lower lid. “You’re even starting to talk like a valley-girl.”

Liz laughed, causing Maria to mess up slightly.

“Shit,” she cursed, reaching for a Kleenex. She wiped at the mess-up until it was gone, discarded the tissue, and got back to work.

“I’ll try my own makeup next time,” Liz vowed.

“There’s gonna be a next time, huh?”

“I hope so.”

Maria finished with the eyeliner and took a step back. “Well . . . I’m glad for you, Liz. You deserve this.”

“Thanks.”

Maria set the eyeliner pencil aside and grabbed the lip-gloss next. “What about Max, though?”

“I told you . . . it was just a passing thing. Besides, he’s yours now.”

Maria didn’t say anything to that. The thought of it was still too weird.

Liz cut the chatter as Maria rolled the gloss onto her lower lip and pressed her lips together when Maria commanded, “Smack.”

“How do I look?” Liz asked eagerly.

“Awesome,” Maria assured her, thinking that the girl before her looked nothing like the girl she had met in debate a few weeks ago. She exuded so much more confidence in her appearance now. It was obvious.

“Is Michael gonna love it?”

“He’ll pitch a tent,” Maria assured her. It didn’t take much.

“A tent?” Liz echoed.

“Uh, never mind.” She didn’t want to explain it. Michael’s erection was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

Liz bypassed it and concentrated on her appearance again. “What about the clothes? They’re good?”

“Very,” Maria replied. Tess had designed Liz a number of dresses for Liz, all of which Maria wished were hers. Tonight, Liz was wearing a mid-length strapless white dress that ballooned out at the bottom, along with matching white heels. Maria had suggested cinching a black belt around the mid-section, and it ended up looking really great. Still, Liz started to get nervous.

“Oh my god, Maria. He’s gonna be here any minute. And it’s just me and him tonight. What if we run out of things to say? You wanna come along?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Well, you guys always talk. But then I guess I don’t get a word in edgewise. So maybe you should just stay home.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Maria agreed. Liz was a big girl . . . sort of. She could handle it.

“I’m nervous,” Liz stated. “I have to pee.” With that, she grabbed her room key and literally ran out of the room across the hallway into the bathroom.

The door shut, and Maria flapped her arms against her sides, unable to understand Liz’s nervousness. Flirting and interacting with guys was something that had always come naturally to her. Of course, that wasn’t always a good thing. It resulted in a lot of overtly risky sexual behavior. She’d lost track of how many times she’d contracted Chlamydia over the years and had to take antibiotics to get rid of it.

She had just sighed and sat down on Liz’s bed when there was a knock on the door. She got right back up, walked over to it, and opened it up to see Michael standing outside in the hallway, flowers in his hand.

“You’re not my date,” he said.

She was very well aware of that fact. “Flowers,” she commented. “That’s almost impressive.”

He shrugged. “Almost.”

“Well, Liz is in the bathroom, so . . .”

“Cool. I get to pick on you for a minute,” he said, easing his way past her and into the room.

“Did I say you could come in?” she said, exasperated.

“It’s not your dorm room.”

She rolled her eyes in annoyance and shut the door again.

“So,” Michael said, walking into the center of the room and looking around. “This is the inside of Liz’s room.” He nodded. “That bed’s a little small, but . . . I can make it work.”

Maria looked around as well, realizing that she had never really paid much attention before. But now that she noticed, Liz had pictures of her family scattered all about, her mom and her dad mostly. Her graduation diploma was hanging up on the wall, framed. There was a medal up there, too, that said Class Valedictorian.

“She’s smart,” Michael noted, gesturing to the medal. “I’ve never known a smart girl before.” He grinned smugly.

“You’re exasperating,” she told him, taking a seat on Liz’s bed again.

“I know.” He came to sit down beside her, and Maria wished he hadn’t. She didn’t want to be close to him.

“You think she’ll like these?” he asked her, holding up the flowers, a nice bunch of white daisies.

“Yeah,” she replied, knowing quite well that Liz would like a box of bugs if Michael gave it to her.

“I didn’t know what kind to get.”

“Well, you’re new at this.”

“Yeah.” He turned to look at her and said, “It doesn’t suck so far.”

She smiled a little, still amazed that he was even attempting a real relationship. “That’s good. If it sucked already, you'd have a serious problem. You guys have only been dating for, like, a day.”

“Testing the waters,” he corrected.

“Michael, you went out on one date with her and then you asked her out on a second. It’s not testing the waters.” She hated saying that.

Just then, the door swung open and Liz crashed inside. “Oh, I’ve never peed so much in my life!” she exclaimed, but she froze when she saw that Michael was there. “Oh.”

Maria laughed lightly when she watched Liz’s cheeks grow red.

“Hey, Liz,” Michael said, standing up from the bed. “You look great.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

Maria looked down at her own attire, suddenly feeling inadequate. She was practically wearing her pajamas. Didn’t matter. Michael had seen her in everything. And nothing.

“These are for you,” he said, handing the flowers to Liz.

“Oh, I love them,” she cooed, taking them and smelling them. “That’s so sweet.”

Maria raised an eyebrow. Michael, sweet? What alternate reality was she living in?

Michael looked down at Liz and smiled, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips. It was just a simple kiss, but Maria didn’t want to see it.

“I’ll just make myself scarce,” she said, grabbing her purse and heading for the door. She thought Michael wasn’t going to notice her leave, but he did. “Later, Maria,” he said.

Later, she thought. After your date with my friend. “Later.” And with that, she left the room.

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

Michael brought Liz to a drive-in movie that night. He wasn’t an expert in the field of dating by any means, but he figured she would like it. The ‘theater’ they were at was the only drive-in theater in a sixty-mile radius.

He bought her some food and something to drink and watched her settle in, noting that, the more time she spent around him, the less nervous she became. Maria had said she was a virgin, and that was pretty much obvious. So in that case, he couldn’t blame her for being nervous. It was actually somewhat appealing.

How she and Maria were friends, though, was beyond him. As far as he could tell, they were complete opposites. Liz was tame; Maria was wild. Liz was shy; Maria was outgoing. Liz was quiet; Maria was constantly saying something.

Michael sighed, bored out of his mind with the movie by the movie that was playing within the first five minutes. It was one of those infamously retarded D-rated movies with a ridiculous plot. Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman or something. Or maybe it was forty feet. He couldn’t remember. It was too stupid.

“This movie’s . . . kinda weird,” Liz commented quietly.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Sorry, I should’ve taken you to see something with substance. Like Die-Hard.”

“No, I’m having fun,” she assured him.

“Well, that’s all that matters.” He smiled at her and watched her blush.

She eventually returned her eyes to the movie screen ,but they didn’t stay there for long. He watched her look around at all the other couples, most of whom were too busy fogging up the windows to pay any attention to the fifty-foot woman.

“I don’t get it,” she commented. “Why do all these people come here to make-out?”

“Because the movie’s stupid,” he replied, staring right at her, “and ‘cause they can’t resist.”

Her lips parted when he said that as if she knew what to expect, and he didn’t disappoint. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her for the second time that night, but a deeper kiss that time, one that he happily prolonged and intensified, urging her mouth farther apart, brushing his tongue against her bottom lip. He scooted in closer and cupped the side of her face in one hand, tangling his fingers in her hair. He pulled back only slightly to allow her some reaction.

“Wow,” she breathed. “You wanna know something?”

“What?”

“I’ve never kissed anyone else before.”

He grinned. “Don’t worry. You’re good at it.”

She smiled, and their lips met again. By the time the movie was finally over, they were too busy kissing to realize it.

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

Maria had just fallen asleep when she heard the front door open and woke up again. Dammit, she cursed internally, wishing she hadn’t woken up. She was about as sleep deprived as one could possibly get.

“Michael!” she heard Liz squeal.

She sat up in bed and ran her hand through her hair, glancing at the clock. It was 1:00 in the morning, and they were just getting back now? They had headed out to the movie at 8:00. That meant they were having a good time.

Great.

Maria got out of bed, stepped into her fuzzy bunny slippers that, regardless of what people said, were the most adorable things in the world, and plodded out into the hallway.

“Michael, stop.”

“You really want me to stop?”

“No, but we’re gonna wake everyone up.”

Maria peered around the corner of the hallway into the living room, and saw that Michael had his arms around Liz, and they were staggering all about. They didn’t look drunk; they just looked like they were having fun. Liz couldn’t stop smiling, and Michael couldn’t keep his hands off her. He was such a guy.

“No, they’re asleep,” he told her. “Just screw them.” He flung her down on the couch and landed on top of her, causing her to giggle. Maria felt a tightening in her chest as he brought his lips down atop hers and kissed her deeply, much more deeply than he had at the beginning of the night.

It was getting serious.

Great.

And it had all been thanks to Maria DeLuca. Had it not been for her coercion and inability to not screw things up . . .

Even though she was trying to be as unnoticeable as possible, Michael opened his eyes mid-kiss, glanced up, and saw her standing there. He stopped kissing Liz and spoke to her. “Hey, voyeur.”

Liz craned her head back and said, “Oh, hi, Maria.”

She shifted around uncomfortably, hating that the sight of Michael with another girl was affecting her so much. “Could you guys keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”

“Oh,” Liz said. “We’re sorry.”

Michael shook his head. “We’re not sorry.” He crashed his lips down on the side of Liz’s neck again, causing her to laugh even louder.

Maria rolled her eyes partially in annoyance, mostly in . . . jealousy.

Great.

She whirled and headed back into the bedroom, slamming the door. But even that didn’t drown out the sound of Liz’s laughing. So she crawled back into her bed and pressed her pillow over her ears, but she didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Because she couldn't stop thinking about Michael.







TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Hey, guys! Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you guys were able to make it through that last part.

Now, as for Michael needing to "suffer" . . . as I'm re-reading through this fic, I'm beginning to realize that this Michael character is very different from all the other Michael's I've written in my fics. He's really just not the most jealous guy in the world, which is strange, I know. Jealous Michael has become a staple in a lot of fics, it seems, ever since Behind the Music aired. But Passion Michael is . . . well, he's not the kind of guy to sit back and examine his feelings. So even if he is feeling jealous, he's not likely to realize it (at least for awhile) because he's so oblivious to his own emotions. It doesn't mean that his feelings for Maria are less than her feelings for him in any way. She has simply become much more aware of how she feels over the course of this fic, while he's stuck in a rut. So while you'll find Maria agonizing over her feelings for Michael, you'll find that Michael just notices a lot of little things about her and doesn't dwell on it too much. Did that make sense?

Alright, well enough babble from me. This next part should be a little easier to stomach than the last. And it's a little longer than most parts have been, too. 12 pages! Enjoy!








Part 25






The next morning, Maria was a zombie. She could barely move, let alone think or do anything worthwhile. She spent at least a half an hour sitting at the kitchen counter eating her way through a bowl of cereal. It was so soggy by the time she got down to the bottom of the bowl that it didn’t even taste good.

“Whoa,” Michael said when he walked into the kitchen. “You look . . . really bad.”

“So does your face!” she spat.

“Hostility in the morning. I like it.” He stood across from her and leaned in, resting his arms on the counter. “How many times have I told you, Maria? If you’re up all night fingering yourself, you’re gonna be tired in the morning.”

“I wasn’t--” She didn’t even bother to finish. They’d gotten in this fight more times than she could count. “This is all your fault,” she informed him.

“My fault?” he echoed in disbelief. He stood up straight and tossed his hands in the air. “Why is it that whenever something bad happens to you, you blame me?”

“Because whenever something bad happens to me, it’s your fault,” she explained, pointing her spoon at him.

“How the fuck is it my fault that you didn’t sleep?” he demanded.

“Because you and Liz were having loud, obnoxious sex.”

“We didn’t have sex,” he informed her.

“Fine, then you were having loud, obnoxious kissing,” she amended, actually really relieved that they hadn’t gone that far yet. “The point is, it was annoying.”

He smirked and said, “You’re just jealous.”

Jealous, she thought. He’s on to me? “What?” How did he know? Had she slipped up? Was she really that obvious?

“You’re just jealous,” he repeated, “’cause I’m well on my way to gettin’ laid, and you’re stuck in a no-sex rut.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I could fuck any guy right here, right now.”

“Except me.”

She grunted. “Like I’d want to.” Well . . .

No. She didn’t. Did she?

Oh, god.[/i]

“You know what, Maria?” he said. “I think I’m just gonna follow your lead. From now on, everything shitty that happens to me . . . I’m blaming you.”

“Fine,” she said.

“Great.” He opened up the breadbox and casually noted, “Huh, no bread. Your fault.”

“Your fault,” she snapped back.

He closed the breadbox again and came back to the counter, running his fingers over the surface. “What’s this?” he said. “Chink in the marble. Maria’s fault.”

“Michael’s fault.”

“Look, it’s raining outside,” he commented. “It’s ‘cause of you.”

“’Cause of you.”

They were both so busy acting immature that they didn’t notice Kyle in the kitchen until he groaned and said, “Oh, god. It’s like kindergarten all over again.” He shook his head in disbelief and retreated back downstairs.

“Dammit, Maria, you made him mad,” Michael assigned the blame.

And her response? “You made him mad,” of course.

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

Maria lay outside on the grass that day as other students passed her by on campus. She noticed a few people, mostly guys, pointing at her and talking about her, so she figured she’d give them something to talk about by taking her shirt off and lounging there in her bra and jeans. What the hell? It was hot outside, and she looked good.

The Sexual Response Cycle: How Your Body Gets Turned On, she read to herself from her psychology book. Sounded like an interesting chapter.

She lay back farther, holding herself up on her forearms and tried to remember a time when she had been so engaged in psychology. The sexuality chapter was the only worthwhile part of the book, in her opinion.

Sex is a natural and biological function, she read. Damn straight. She flipped to the next page, and her eyes bulged when she saw a rather detailed drawing of a penis. It looked sort of . . . puny.

“What are you looking at?”

Maria glanced up and saw Liz standing beside her. “I’m just studying,” she said.

“Seriously? You're studying a . . . thing. Half-naked. Outside?”

Maria nodded.

Liz laughed. "Wow, Maria, I don't think I've ever seen you study before."

Maria understood her surprise. “Yeah, it’s strange, I know. I’m just trying to get my mind off of . . . other things.” And there was no way in hell she was going to elaborate on what those things were.

Lucky for her, Liz didn’t ask. She just sat down beside her and said, “If you need a distraction, I could really use your help.”

Maria shrugged and set her book down, careful to leave it open to the page. She could look at a penis any old time. “What’s up?” she asked, pushing her white-framed Chanel sunglasses up on top of her head.

“Well, actually a lot,” Liz answered. “I mean . . . you saw Michael and me and last night. Things are starting to progress kind of . . . rapidly. I mean, I think he wants them to progress kind of rapidly.”

“How rapidly?” Maria asked. In all honesty, this was a snail’s pace for Michael, but Liz didn’t need to know that.

“Well . . . I’m thinking about having sex with him.”

Maria raised an eyebrow, suddenly feeling a lot like a high school guidance counselor who didn’t know how to react.

“Yeah, it’s a big step, I know,” Liz said. “Especially for me. I mean, I always thought I was gonna wait until marriage, but it just seems right, you know?”

Maria wasn’t sure how she felt about the thought of Michael and Liz having sex. Or Michael and anyone having sex. It was all just too confusing in her head. “Well, you just have to think about it, decide what’s best for you.”

“Yeah,” Liz said. “I just . . . I don’t really know how to go about it.”

“Having sex?”

“Yeah. I mean . . . it’ll be my first time. I want it to be good; I want it to be memorable. I just want it to be perfect.” She turned to face Maria directly and asked her, “What was your first time like?”

“Oh, god,” Maria said, thinking back. “You don’t wanna know.”

“No, I do,” Liz insisted. “How did it happen? What was it like?”

Maria cringed, remembering the awkwardness. “Not great.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I was, like, fourteen,” she pointed out. “Fourteen year-olds shouldn’t be having sex. I get that now.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. And the guy . . . he was disgusting, practically a pedophile, but I just had this huge crush on him.” She shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Well, how did it happen?” Liz asked again.

Again, Maria cringed. Recalling her first time wasn’t something she enjoyed doing. “We were just hanging out at his house and we started kissing and then we were doing it. Nothing romantic.”

“But what did it feel like?”

No sense lying to her, Maria thought. She’s gonna find out sooner or later. “Painful,” she replied. “But again, I was fourteen. But when you do decide to . . . you know, with whoever you wanna . . . you know with . . . it’ll probably hurt. There might be some bleeding.”

“Bleeding?” Liz echoed in horror. “I’m not good with blood.”

“But after the first time, it’s so much better. You’re not so awkward, not so self-conscious, and it doesn’t hurt nearly as much. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you can’t imagine life without it.”

“Like you?” Liz asked.

“No, sex for me is like an addiction. It’s this whole other level. You don’t wanna go that far,” Maria told her.

“With Michael, I wanna go that far,” Liz assured her.

“Oh, you say that . . .”

“No, I do. I really do, Maria. I wanna—I’m going to have sex with Michael, and it’s gonna be the greatest moment of my life.”

Maria raised a skeptical eyebrow, thinking that even the famous Michael Guerin wasn’t skilled enough to make a virgin’s first time enjoyable. “Don’t count on it.”

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

Michael happily skipped class that day and stayed at home, waiting for the mail. When the postman dropped it off, though, he was disappointed that there were no letters for him. There were still at least a dozen film internship programs he hadn’t heard back from yet, and the anticipation was killing him.

Meanwhile, his Cum-Hungry Coeds acceptance letter was hidden away in his sock drawer, definitely as a last resort.

He was glad when Maria got home later that afternoon. Life was just so boring when she wasn’t around.

“Liz is gonna have sex with you,” she blurted as she tossed her backpack onto the couch.

“I know,” he said, smirking.

“Arrogance personified,” she muttered, shaking her head.

“Sex appeal personified,” he corrected readily.

“You know what, Michael? My tolerance for you is at an all-time low,” she informed him. “I’m not even kidding.”

“Great.”

She sat down on the couch and opened up her backpack. “I swear to God,” she muttered, “it’s gotten to the point where it’s not even funny. I mean, I’m funny, but you’re not. You’re just annoying.”

He saw that she was distracted talking to herself and seized the opportunity to seize his video camera from where it sat on the end table beside him. It was never far from his reach. He turned it on, went to film mode, and quietly crept toward her.

“And I’m gonna attempt calculus now,” she continued, oblivious to him as he moved closer, “but if I hear one fucking little comment from you, I swear to God, I’m gonna-I’m gonna do something homicidal. I’m gonna--”

He leapt in front of her, shoving the camera in her face.

“Kill you!” she shrieked, swatting the camera. “Michael!”

“Come on, you like it,” he said.

“No, no, I don’t like it,” she insisted. “I don’t like always being the subject of your stupid little suckumentaries.”

“Suckumentaries?”

“Yeah, ‘cause they suck.”

“So do you,” he retorted. “And you know what I mean by that.” He used the zoom in feature to focus in on various parts of her face. “Ooh,” he said. “Ooh, Maria’s nose.”

“Oh my god.”

“Don’t complain. You’ve got a decent nose.”

“Better than yours.”

“Yeah, mine’s a little big,” he admitted. “I just got everything so damn big over here.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock and she shook her head. “How many times do you talk about your size per day, Michael? It’s ridiculous.”

He shrugged. “Can’t help it. When something’s that big and glorious, you gotta brag it up.” He quickly zoomed out again and plopped down beside her on the couch, turning the camera so that he was filming both of them together then.

“You think it’s glorious?” she said, seeming to find amusement in his choice of adjective.

“It is.”

“Whatever.”

“What about you?” he asked, staring right at her instead of the camera. “What you got that’s glorious?”

She thought about it for a moment and replied, “Everything.”

“Be specific, babe.”

Again, she thought about it before answering, “My legs, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s true,” he agreed freely. Maria had long, slender legs. He loved looking at them. “What else?”

She shrugged. “Well, all the dancing’s made my ass pretty nice.”

“Yeah, your ass is glorious.” He almost couldn’t believe the words as they came out of his mouth, but what the hell. Didn’t matter.

She gave him a look. “Did you really just say that?”

“I did. I’m a guy. It’s my job.”

“You’re a jerk. That’s what you are,” she informed him.

“What the hell? I give you a compliment and I’m a jerk?”

“You’re always a jerk. It’s your default setting.”

He chuckled. “Okay, and what’s yours?”

She shrugged. “Goddess.”

“You wish.”

She laughed, too, and he couldn’t help but think what a vibrant smile she had. He brought his camera down to focus solely on her again, and she turned away and pressed her hand against the lens. “God, I hate being filmed.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” he said, pulling her hand away. “At least you’re not naked this time.” Which is sort of a shame, he thought. For some odd reason, naked Maria was his favorite Maria to film.

Maria tried to glare at him, but eventually, it just turned into a smile. It usually did.

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

“So you’re on the pill?”

Liz nodded affirmatively. “Yes.”

“Good,” Maria said. “We wouldn’t want you getting knocked up first time out of the gate, would we?”

“Oh, that would be just my luck,” Liz mumbled.

“And Michael as a father . . .” Maria cringed. “Let’s not and say we did.”

“I don’t know,” Liz said. “I bet he’s good with kids.”

“Oh, you must have missed the episode where he ran around the park and terrorized kids just for fun,” Maria said. “God, he’s so weird.”

“He’s amazing, Maria.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Before she threw up, she reached into her nightstand drawer, rummaged around a bit for what she was looking for, and said, “Aha!” when she found it. God, she was almost out.

She slapped a small foil package down into Liz’s hand and said. “Note, young lady, what you have in your hand is totally importante.”

Liz wrinkled her forehead and looked at it. “What is it?”

Did she seriously not know? “Liz . . .”

Liz looked over the package more thoroughly and read the writing. “Standard condom. Oh, condom. Right. Got it.”

“Open it,” Maria instructed. “Chances are, Michael’s gonna be too lazy to put it on himself, so he’s gonna make you do it for him.”

Liz eyes widened in horror. “You mean I’m supposed to be . . . touching him down there?”

She’s still so innocent, Maria thought, almost laughing at the juvenile way she phrased that question. “Yeah, Liz, and he’s supposed to be touching you. It’s this whole touching thing. And trust me, it’s good.”

“But I don’t know how,” Liz said fearfully.

“Relax, it all comes naturally. Kissing came naturally, didn’t it?”

“Well, yeah,” Liz admitted.

“See? You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Liz sighed shakily. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I say so. Now unwrap the damn condom.”

“Okay.” Liz tried to tear the little foil package, but she had no success. She wrinkled her forehead in concentration and tried again, yanking on the little package with all her might, groaning with the effort, her face quickly becoming distorted as she fought to emerge victorious. “Maria!” she whimpered. “It’s childproof!”

Maria gently took the package from her and opened it effortlessly. “You’re not a child, Liz,” she reminded her friend.

Liz made a sound of distress. “Oh, what am I thinking? I’m in way over my head. I’ve heard things. You’ve told me things. Michael Guerin is a sex god.”

“I never said that,” Maria responded emphatically, throwing her hands up in the air.

“No, but everyone else has. And you told me how experienced he is. My god, how long’s he been doing it?”

Maria shrugged. “It’s hard to say. He was probably at least thirteen.”

“At least?” Liz shrieked. “At least? Oh my god, Maria!”

“Liz, you’ll be fine,” Maria assured her friend again. “Just let him take the top. All you have to do is lay there.”

“I just . . . I just lay there?”

“Yeah.” Maria doubted Michael would need any more than that. “He’ll be happy. You’ll be happy.” And she felt fairly confident about that, too. As far as anyone knew, Michael Guerin had never left a girl unsatisfied. Honestly, he had all the right in the world to brag about his sexual prowess.

“Happy,” Liz echoed nervously. “That sounds . . . happy.”

“Of course it does. Here you go,” Maria said, handing Liz the unwrapped condom.

Liz held it up in front of her, and her eyes bulged. “Oh my god,” she gasped. “Are they really that big?”

Maria gave her a look of confusion. “That’s just a regular condom, Liz. A lot of guys are bigger than that.”

“Bigger?” Liz shrieked. “Is Michael?”

Maria thought back to the first time she had ever seen Michael naked, way back during their freshman year of high school. Even back then he had been . . . endowed. She nodded, remembering how shocked she had been.

“Oh my god,” Liz said for the umpteenth time. “What if it doesn’t fit?”

“He’ll make it fit,” she promised. “Liz, it’s really . . . it’s not a big deal. I mean, it is a big deal; it’s just not, like, something to stress out about. As long as you’ve got your condom and your man, you’ll be fine. Although . . .” She trailed off, thinking that Liz didn’t need to know any more about the dirty world of sex yet. “Never mind.”

“What?” Liz prodded.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

She sighed, knowing Liz wouldn’t give up now. “It’s just . . . after awhile, you get kind of tired of condoms.” She shrugged. “Or at least I did.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know, they just get boring. But they’re a good thing, don’t get me wrong. I just . . . I don’t know. I guess it all depends on the guy’s performance.”

“Performance?” Liz echoed. “Is there singing and dancing involved?”

Maria couldn’t resist laughing out loud at that clueless remark. “No, Liz, their sexual performance. Sheesh!”

“Oh, right.” She set the condom down on the bed and eagerly asked, “So what’s Michael’s performance like?”

“Ew, I don’t know,” Maria responded. “Nowhere near as good as he claims it is, I’m sure.” Or maybe better, she thought, literally shaking her head to rid herself of the thought. “I don’t even like to think about it.”

“Well, do you think . . . do you think he’s gonna make it romantic for me?” Liz asked quietly. “Or, I mean, is he just gonna go for it? ‘Cause I’ve heard he just goes for it.”

Maria nodded slowly and said, “He does. But you’re his first girlfriend. I’d say anything’s possible.”

Liz smiled excitedly and clasped her hands together. “He’s gonna make it romantic,” she said, sounding confident for the first time that night. “I just know he is.” Her eyes sparkled, and Maria could tell she was already envisioning it in her little, innocent mind. “Oh, it’s gonna be the best night of my life.”

Maria smiled slightly, feeling envious. When was the best night of her life going to be?

“Okay,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m gonna go get you a banana.”

“A banana?” Liz echoed. “For what?”

“Well, you’ve gotta have something to practice putting that condom on.”

Liz’s eyes almost bulged out of her head again. “A banana?”

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

Michael never ceased to amaze himself. Every day, he just got better looking. Liz Parker was a lucky girl.

He laughed at the thought and straightened out his hair one more time before heading out into the living room. It was a big night he had planned for himself and Liz. First a party, then . . . whatever they felt like. Hopefully she would feel like sex, because he was horny as hell. It had been at least a week since he’d been properly laid. Too long. Too long for any respectable guy.

He found Maria sitting at the counter, flipping through the pages of her latest Cosmopolitan magazine as though she really needed the sex advice. He would bet good money that she had invented half of the positions described in those articles.

“You look nice,” he said, noting the short denim skirt and loose fitting black halter. The girl sure knew how to look good. Always had, as far as he could recall. “Goin’ out?”

Her eyes shot up from her magazine, and she gave him a look of confusion. “Did you just say I look nice?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Nice and slutty.” He chuckled and added, “Then I asked you if you were goin’ out.”

“Yes, I am,” she replied, returning her gaze to her magazine. “I’m taking Max to a frat party. I think he needs to socialize more.”

“Oh, you’re gonna be a bad influence on that kid.”

“Look who’s talking,” she spat back. “You’re such a good influence on Liz.”

He nodded, keeping a serious facial expression, and said, “This is true.”

She rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“So which frat you goin’ to?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. That one on P Street.”

“Delta Phi?”

“Yeah, I guess. Omega, Delta, Sigma, whatever. I don’t know. I don’t do Greek letters.”

“I’m takin’ Liz to that party, too.”

Again, her eyes shot up, but this time, she glared at him. “Don’t fuck with me.”

He laughed. “How many times do I have to tell you? I wouldn’t dream of it, baby.”

“You can’t go to that party,” she stated simply. “You have to go somewhere else.”

“Why?”

“Because you annoy me.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“I’m not doing another one of those double date things. That was stupid.”

“Man, you freak out about everything, DeLuca,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a double date. You can still have Max all to yourself.”

“It’s not that . . .” she mumbled.

“Then what is it?”

Before she could even begin to respond, Kyle came upstairs, looking dressed up as well. He rubbed his hands together, grinning, and said. “Thirsty Thursday. Party time.”

“Delta Phi?” Michael guessed.

“Hell, yeah, man.”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Maria groaned, closing her magazine. “Why don’t we all just get on an ugly bus and go? I mean, there’s enough of us.”

“Well, if you want a private evening with Maxwell, just stay home,” Michael suggested.

“You stay home.”

“No.”

“You’re stupid.”

“You’re stupider.”

“More stupid,” came the correction as Max joined them in the kitchen. He placed a hand on Maria’s back and said, “You look nice.”

Maria cast a glance at Michael. “So I’m told.”

He smirked.

“Well, Tess and Isabel and I have the car, so . . .” Kyle started to head off with the keys in hand.

“Uh, no, Max and I have the car,” Maria informed him.

Michael started to laugh. “No, no, no, you guys don’t get it. Liz and Alex and I have the car.”

“Alex?” Maria echoed. “Since when do you do male-male-female threesomes?”

“And you call me perverted,” he muttered. “No, Alex is just tagging along. Liz and I are still gettin’ it on tonight. Alone.”

“Well, regardless,” Kyle said, jingling the keys in his hand, “I have the car.”

“What? No!” Maria whined. “Why should you get it?”

“Because I paid for it.”

“Well . . . whatever,” was her only response.

Kyle sighed heavily and gave in. “Alright, me being the diplomat I am . . . we can all go together.”

“No!” Maria shrieked. “That’s even worse!”

Michael cringed and covered his ear with his hand.

“Shut up!” she shouted, hitting his shoulder.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Oh good God,” Kyle groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. “Do you guys have to dramatize everything?”

“It’s her fault.”

“No, it’s his fault. It’s always his fault. Kyle . . .” Maria stood up and walked over to the decision-maker of their group. “Look at us. Four’s a crowd, right? Eight’s just ridiculous.”

“Maria, I think it’s fine,” Max spoke up quietly. “Once we get to the party, we can all just go our separate ways.”

She waited a moment, then tossed her hands into the air in exasperation and went to plop down on the couch. “Living with three guys,” she muttered. “Why do I even try?”








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

(I KNOW THIS IS MOSTLY A DREAMER BOARD, BUT THERE'S A GREAT CANDY FIC HERE CALLED "BETTER MAN" BY CANDYGAZERDREAMER87 THAT'S OFF TO A GREAT SO FAR AND HAS ALL THE OTHER CHARACTERS IN IT, TOO. CHECK IT OUT IF YOU'RE IN THE MOOD FOR A GREAT READ!)

Alien_Friend: I’m glad you enjoy Michael’s odd complimentary comments. Those little comments he says to Maria are the only subtle thing about Michael Guerin in this fic. Otherwise, he’s completely over-the-top.
crazysnape: I’m glad you liked the chapter. You will see Kyle throughout this entire fic and probably come to realize that he’s about the only sane one of the bunch.
pookie76: You completely nailed it. Maria is definitely suffocating, and Liz is definitely just pretending she’s ready to have sex because of Michael.
guel: Posting every day? Ha, ha, you wish! I’m glad you enjoy the fic so much, though. I definitely enjoy your feedback.
nibbles: Yep, Liz is definitely innocent. Way too innocent to be thinking about moving things forward with Michael so rapidly.
ForeignLoveMonkey: A new feedbacker? Yea! I actually really enjoyed your rant about Liz here. You nailed so many aspects about her character. She lacks self-confidence. She’s living in this fantasy world where Michael’s perfect and is completely ignoring reality. Liz’s character is probably going to be the one that people grow the most frustrated/angry with. She’s succumbing to peer pressure, trying to fit in, and therefore getting in the way of Michael and Maria. Liz has her own journey to go on, though, and you’ll see it happen throughout the course of the fic.

Okay, so before I post this part, I feel it necessary to warn readers that . . . something of a slightly more graphic UC nature could be happening in this part. So how about we have a warning system? I'll put this little devil thing up in the part where I think some people might feel more uncomfortable reading, and then I'll put another little where that part ends. So you can make the choice to either read that part or skip it, and if you skip it, I'll post a brief summary of what happened at the bottom. Sound good? Good!






Part 26






Alex, Liz, Isabel, and Tess all came over that evening, and Isabel and Tess romped around with Kyle downstairs for fifteen minutes before they were ready to go. Michael used that time to flirt with Liz. She seemed very receptive, and he had no doubt that they would be rolling around naked in his bed that night. No doubt.

Once it was time to pile into the car, the drama started. It was agreed that Max should be the designated driver since he wouldn’t be drinking, and Michael made sure Liz was comfortable in the front passenger’s seat. Alex, being the smallest guy, had to cram in between them with one leg on either side of the gear shift. He joked around with Max about watching what he grabbed onto for a moment, causing everyone to laugh. But the laughter stopped as the backseat began to fill up.

“There’s not enough room,” Maria complained as she peered inside. “Why don’t we have a bigger car?”

Michael plopped down next to Isabel, who was sitting next to Kyle. Tess was sitting on Kyle’s lap, her hands all over him, as usual, the lucky bastard.

“Wait!” Maria whined. “No fair! I don’t have a seat!”

Annoyed, Michael grabbed her arm and yanked her into the car and onto his lap.

“What-what’re you doing?” she sputtered.

“I found you a seat,” he said, shutting the door.

“Why do I have to sit on your lap? Make Liz sit there.”

“She’s already in the front,” he reasoned. “Besides, if anyone’s gonna not wear a seatbelt and fly through the window, I’d want it to be you.”

“You jerk!” She smacked his chest. “I don’t wanna sit here!”

“Well, would you rather ride in trunk?” He was willing to stuff her in there.

“Yes!”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Floor it, Max.”

Max, being the responsible guy that he was, gently pressed his foot down on the accelerator and pulled out of the driveway at a reasonable, safe speed.

Alex reached out and turned on the radio, and Isabel and Tess started moving around in the car. “Oh, I can’t wait to party!” Tess exclaimed.

“Party!” Kyle shouted, opening his window and sticking his arm out. “Woo!”

Man, Michael thought, laughing inwardly. If this is how we act before the drinking begins, what the hell are we gonna be like after?

“I feel like Santa Claus,” he said, speaking directly into Maria’s ear.

“Why? ‘Cause you’re fat?” she guessed.

“’Cause you’re sittin’ on my lap,” he explained, secretly giving her props for insulting him like that.

“Well, then, you should feel like the luckiest guy in the world,” she said haughtily.

He chuckled. “Right.”

Just then, she leaned forward to talk to Liz, and the shift of her weight caused her to rub up against his . . . lower half. “Shit,” he said, feeling himself tense and harden just slightly.

“What?” Maria asked, turning around again. “What’s--” Her mouth dropped wide open in what appeared to be disgust as, obviously, she felt it, too. “Are you getting hard?”

“Whoa,” was all he could manage in reply.

“Ew! Oh my sickness!” She freaked out and practically vaulted off of him and onto Isabel’s lap instead.

“Ow!” Isabel said.

Michael just grinned and shrugged. He couldn’t help it if that thing had a mind of its own.

Everyone started to laugh then, even Max and Liz. Everyone but Maria, who, as usual, appeared to be furious with him.

He loved that.

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

What happened to just me and Max? Maria wondered as she marched up the sidewalk to the Delta Phi fraternity house, leading the way. The guy’s supposed to be my boyfriend. Or he’s supposed to be becoming my boyfriend. Oh, hell if I know.

“I’m gonna get so drunk tonight,” Tess was saying.

“Me, too,” Isabel agreed.

“Alright,” Kyle said, rubbing his hands together excitedly. “Let’s get some girl-on-girl tonight, huh?”

Isabel, Tess, and Michael all laughed at that. Maria even thought she heard Liz’s slightly awkward, uncomfortable laughter joining the mix. It was obvious that she still wasn’t used to the wildness yet, but if she dated Michael, she would have to adjust.

Michael, Maria thought, contempt seething through her just as she mentally spoke the name. Fucking Michael Guerin. That impromptu hard-on in the car had just been too much. He was such a guy, it wasn’t even funny. And why was it that she was and had always been the target of his weird guy antics, of his annoying guy behavior?

Or his sexy guy charm . . .

Stop it. She had to stop thinking those things.

When she walked in the door, she paused in the middle of the main room and observed the crowd. “Awesome,” she said, noting the gender ratio. “It’s a sausage party.”

Liz stopped beside her and said innocently, “Mmm, I love sausage.”

“No, Liz, sausage as in cock,” Maria quickly informed her. “It means there’s lots of guys here.”

Liz’s eyes widened as she said, “Oh.” She looked around as well, then said, “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m only interested in one guy.”

Maria watched with a slight pang of envy as Liz curled her fingers around Michael’s arm and squeezed it gently.

Boyfriend and girlfriend.

“Yeah,” she said, scooting in a little closer to Max. “Me, too.”

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

Liz smiled, feeling elated when Michael put his arm around her and led her into the midst of the party. A few weeks ago, if someone had told her that she would be dating the most popular guy on campus, getting ready to have sex for the first time in her life, and attending a frat party, she wouldn’t have believed them. This was all insanely good. Unfamiliar, but . . . good.

“Guerin,” some guy said, raising his hand in the air.

“What’s up, man?” Michael said, giving him a high five. Numerous others greeted him as he walked on by.

“Alright, Michael in da house!”

“Damn straight, man.”

“Let’s get this party goin’! Guerin’s here.”

Liz couldn’t help but enjoy the way some of the other girls looked at her so enviously. Yes, she was with Michael Guerin. Girlfriend. That was her.

“You know everyone,” she said to Michael.

“What?”

She stood up on her tip-toes to speak directly in his ear, louder this time. “You know everyone.”

“No, everyone knows me,” he corrected, smiling.

“I feel sort of out of place,” she admitted.

“No, don’t worry. You’re fine,” he assured her. “Just be yourself.”

That was the problem. Herself was a nerd, someone he wouldn’t pay two seconds of attention to.

“You want some beer?” he asked her as he filled up a glass for himself from the keg.

“Oh, uh . . .” She’d been to parties before, but she’d kept close to Maria’s side and felt no pressure to drink at all. “No, that’s okay,” she stuttered. “I don’t really . . . drink a lot.” At all, she thought. “I mean, I have. Previously. Who hasn’t?”

He chuckled. “You can just say no.”

She sighed, thinking about what he said. Be yourself. That was easier said than done. Be yourself, she thought again, this time adding on her own advice. But fit in.

She glanced around and saw Isabel and Tess already doing shots with Kyle. They were popular girls. Liz wanted to be popular, too.

Screw it, she thought, reaching for a shot glass on the table. She brought it to her mouth and downed it, not caring what it was, just so long as it was normal. Drinking. A normal college thing.

“Uh,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “What is that?”

Michael stared at her in shock and said, “That would be vodka.”

Good God, she thought. The first thing I ever drink and it’s vodka? “Mmm,” she said, reaching for an identical glass. “Tasty.” She poured that shot down her throat, too, resisting the urge to cringe at the horrible taste.

Michael’s shocked expression slowly turned into a smile. He seemed to like this version of her a lot.

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

Alex Whitman was not a party animal. Not at all. In fact, he liked to avoid fraternity parties whenever possible. The only reason he had asked Michael if he could tag along was to spend some time with Isabel, even though he knew she’d be spending most of her time with Kyle and Tess. He deliberately stayed in the background that night until he saw Kyle and Tess head out into the middle of the room to dance, leaving Isabel standing by herself by the food table. Alex seized the opportunity to approach her and make conversation.

“Hey, Isabel.”

“Oh, hey, Alex!” she exclaimed, obviously a little tipsy already. “Having fun yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Me, too!” She threw her hands in the air and shouted, “I’m having so much fun!”

He chuckled. Just how many shots had she done already? They’d only been there twenty-five minutes.

Alex cast a glance out onto into the living room and watched Tess and Kyle. His hands were all over her breasts. Some of the inflation from surgery had died down now, and they looked a lot more real. Obviously, Kyle liked.

“So why aren’t you out there with them?” Alex asked Isabel, hoping to find a chink in the armor of the threesome, something that might just give him an inkling of hope.

“Oh, you know. Sometimes Tess and Kyle get in their own little word,” she answered. “It’s best to just let them be.”

That’s it! he thought excitedly. Kyle has a favorite. “Well, that’s not fair,” he said, hoping to drive some subtle hints into Isabel’s mind. “You shouldn’t have to settle for the sidelines. Don’t settle, Isabel.”

“I’m not settling,” she insisted. “I’m happy. And well on my way to getting drunk.”

“Or already drunk,” he said.

“Or that,” she agreed. “You know what, Alex? I’m really glad you came.”

This piqued his interest. “Really?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I wanna get to know you better.”

Beautiful words. All of them, beautiful words that could hold deeper meaning. He had to know. “Why’s that?”

“Because,” she said, leaning in closer. She pressed her index finger to his chest and poked him as she said. “You . . . are like a loveable brother.”

His excitement immediately faded, and had she not been intoxicated, she would have questioned the way his face literally dropped. Loveable brother? Story of his life!

“Woo! Sexy Kyle!” she yelped, waving at her man.

Alex sighed heavily, disappointed. There he was, getting his hopes up again.

“Oh my god,” Isabel said, looking in another direction now. “Are Michael and Maria fighting again?”

Alex followed her gaze and observed that, indeed, the two most thick-headed people on the planet had once again found something to argue about. “I think they always do,” he said, sympathizing with poor Max, who was just standing there, taking up space, having no role in Michael and Maria’s ongoing feud.

“God, when are they just gonna realize they belong together?” Isabel groaned impatiently.

“I know,” Alex said, wondering the same thing. “Some people can't see what's right in front of them."

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

“The reason I got pissed is ‘cause you won’t admit I’m right!” Michael roared.

“Because you’re not right! You’re never right!” Maria shouted back.

“It’s simple mathematics, DeLuca. The more you weigh, the more you can drink. What are you, like a hundred and thirty pounds?”

She stomped her foot, angry that he would overestimate like that. “A hundred and fourteen and a half!”

“Whatever. The point is, you’re a lightweight. So foamy beer might not actually be a bad for you.”

“Sick!”

“Less foam equals less beer. Less beer equals less drunkenness. Less drunkenness equals less of a hangover in the morning. You see where I’m goin’ with this?”

“Shut up!” God, he never shut up.

“I’m just trying to look out for you!”

Max cleared his throat timidly and intervened. “Uh, Michael? You might wanna start looking out for your girlfriend. She’s climbing onto a table as we speak.”

Maria directed her gaze to the back of the room, and Michael whipped his head around as innocent (and obviously intoxicated) Liz Parker clamored up onto a medium-sized table, staggering and swaying her hips to the beat of the music. “Woo! Dance team captain!”

Michael pushed his way through the crowd and went to stand by the table. Maria and Max followed him. Maria expected him to react immediately, but he just stood there and said, “Sweet,” as Liz began to lift her shirt.

“What are you doing?” Maria exclaimed in outrage, slapping him upside the head. “Get her down!”

“Oh. Right.” Michael reached upward, grabbed Liz’s hands, and pulled her down and into his arms.

“Ah . . .” the congregation of guys groaned in disappointment.

“Sorry, show’s over,” Michael told them.

No one seemed to protest it, not since Michael Guerin was the self-proclaimed king of campus and could do whatever he wanted.

“Michael,” Liz whimpered. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Can we go someplace?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. He looked at Maria and Max and proudly announced, “We’re gonna go someplace.”

I hope Liz is sober enough to remember what I taught her about the condom, Maria thought as she watched Michael practically carry Liz out the back door of the frat house. Just pretend it’s a banana Liz. You’re just putting a condom on a banana.

A very big banana.

She shook her head, not wanting to think about Michael’s . . . banana.

“Maria!” one of the guys who had been prepared to watch Liz practically growled. “How ‘bout you get up on this table, shake that sweet ass of yours?”

“Yeah!” the other guys chorused.

“No,” she said, firmly crushing their hopes.

“Come on, bitch.”

Maria glanced up at Max, expecting him to say something, maybe defend her in some way, but he didn’t. He probably wanted to, but he had a tendency to be timid. She groaned and pushed past him. “I need a beer,” she grumbled. And not a foamy one.

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

Michael carried Liz out back behind the house, down a slight embankment and, to his surprise, found a small lake, quite a rarity in New Mexico, especially on campus. Delta Phi had everything. Even though it was only February, it was warm enough out that the water was thawed. He brought her down on to the dock and gently set her down on her own two feet. “Can you stand?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh,” she said, staggering from side to side. “I can stand.”

He laughed a little, prepared to catch her if she fell forward or backward or any which way. “Okay.”

“I just think . . .” She pressed the heel of her right hand against her forehead and closed her eyes. “I just think that vodka hit me a little hard. You know, you might not believe this, but I’ve never drank before.”

“No. Really?” he said sarcastically.

“Really. I’m kinda . . . a nerd.”

“I don’t think you’re a nerd,” he told her, even though he sort of did. It was okay. The quiet ones always had a lot to offer in the sack.

“Thanks,” she said, turning around to face him. “You’re so hot.”

He grinned. He never got tired of hearing that. “You wanna go for a swim?” he asked her, glancing out at the calm water.

“Should I?” she asked. “I’m drunk; I could . . . drown or something, just like that.” She tried to emphasize her fingers to emphasize 'just like that,' but she was too drunk to do even that much.

“I won’t let you drown,” he assured her.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, but . . . I don’t have a suit.”

He shrugged. “Neither do I.” He reached down and pulled his long-sleeved black t-shirt up and over his head, noting her somewhat surprised reaction, then kicked off his shoes, shoved down his jeans, and even discarded his boxers. It only took him seconds to undress. He was a master.

“Oh my god, it’s so big,” Liz said, her eyes bulging as she stared at his penis.

He grinned again. Talk about an ego boost . . . Not that he really needed one.

He turned and jumped into the water. It was cold, of course, at first, but his body adjusted to the temperature almost immediately. “Come on, Liz,” he urged.

“Oh-okay,” she said. “I’ll get naked now.” She staggered around up on the dock for a little while longer, struggling to unbutton her shirt and unfasten her jeans. Michael thought about getting out and helping her, but she finally got the shirt off and got her jeans pushed down. She struggled to get them off her feet, though, and ended up sitting down on the edge of the dock and kicking them right off her feet and into the water. “Oopsie,” she said as they gradually floated away.

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said. “Pants are stupid, anyway. Get in here, Liz.”

“But, I’m not naked yet,” she said, holding on to the straps of her bar.

He shook his head, planning on taking that off her once she was in the water. It would be quicker that way. “No, that’s okay. Just jump in.”

“Okay!” She was all smiles as she struggled to her feet again and started back up on the dock, seemingly to take a running start. But she accidently backed up a little too far and shrieked as she fell into the water on the other side. “Ah!”

“Shit,” Michael cursed, quickly swimming over to see if she was alright. He found her kicking her feet and flailing her arms furiously, proclaiming, “I’m too drunk. I’m too drunk.”

“Yeah, you are too drunk,” he acquiesced, slightly disappointed. “We’ll get out.”

“Oh, I’m so cold,” she whimpered.



“I’ll warm you up,” he promised, a variety of scenarios running through his mind as he hoisted her back up onto the dock and climbed up after her. She lay down flat on her back staring up at him through half closed lids.

“Do you like me?” she asked him innocently.

“Yeah, I like you,” he told her, which was strange, because he usually went for nasty girls. Like Maria.

That girl was just a bitch. She could never accept the fact that he was right or that she was the one at fault. She was absolutely exasperating, but at the same time, the hottest girl he’d ever seen.

What the hell? he wondered. Why are you thinking about Maria when you’re naked on top of your girlfriend? Prioritize, man.

He shifted so that he was directly on top of her, propped up on his forearms. Then he leaned in and kissed her, noting the somewhat drunken response of her mouth. Liz Parker was actually a better kisser than this. A little inexperienced, sure, but she had potential.

He ran one hand up her side, stopping at the side of her breasts. She didn’t have the best body of all the girls he’d fucked, but she had her assets, namely her little waist and smooth skin.

But still . . . something didn’t feel right. Which was weird, because sex always felt right. But somewhere deep inside as he kissed her, a little nagging voice reminded him that when she did sleep with him, it would be her first time. Ever. The only first time she would ever get. That kind of thing was important to a girl.

Beyond that, Liz Parker was sort of like an experiment. A girl he had some semblance of feelings for, a girl he enjoyed looking at and spending time with, the epitome of a first girlfriend. What he did with her had to be different than what he did with other girls, otherwise it wouldn’t work. That meant no first-time sex when alcohol was involved.

He stopped kissing her and stared down at her, hoping to find a way of conveying his thoughts to her without hurting her feelings.

“What?” she asked. “Don’t you wanna have sex with me?”

“Yeah, of course I do,” he said, “but . . ."

"Am I not pretty enough?"

"No, it's not that. It's just . . . Liz, I know you’re a virgin.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

She let out a sound of distress.

“No, it’s okay,” he assured her before she started feeling too bad. “It’s kinda cool. I just don’t really wanna deflower you in a public place like this while you’re all intoxicated. Trust me, you’d rather wait, too.”

“Wait until when?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done the whole dating thing before,” he admitted.

“Well . . . what do we do while we wait?” she asked curiously.

He thought about that for a moment and smiled. No, he wouldn’t pop Liz’s cherry that night under those circumstances, but he could give her her first orgasm. “I’ll show you,” he replied, slinking down her body, stopping at her center. He hooked his thumbs under the sides of her panties and said, “Lift up.”

“What?”

“Lift yourself up.”

She managed to, with some effort, and he quickly slid the panties down her legs, off her ankles, and set them down on the dock with the rest of her clothes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Something you’ll like.” He urged her legs apart and lowered his head in between them, dipping his tongue into her un-tasted folds.

“Oh!” she gasped, her eyes immediately flying wide open. “Oh my god! What?”

For the next few minutes, Liz made several sounds of pleasure, some that were extremely loud, in fact. She came and didn’t seem to know what had hit her. When it was all said and done, she lay there, looking completely dazed and awe-struck, and confusedly asked him, “What was that?”

“That, my tasty girlfriend,” he said, “would be an orgasm.”

She giggled and rolled over onto her side. “Cool . . .”

He grinned. Liz was going to be so hung-over that she probably wouldn’t even remember this in the morning.

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

Max made the mistake of glancing out the window and saw something he wished he hadn’t. “Oh, wow.” He quickly looked away, as Michael and Liz were out there on the dock doing . . . what Michael liked to do with girls. Max was actually a little disappointed in Liz. She was quickly changing from the sweet, nice girl he enjoyed talking into another girl who surrendered herself completely to Michael.

He couldn’t really fault Michael. He was a jerk to woman, sure, but he was upfront about it. Any girl who knew him knew what he was like. He’d hoped that Liz would be smarter . . .

He sighed, pulling the blinds closed so that people wouldn’t be able to look out and see her all exposed like that. If she had been sober, she would have been mortified by her own uncharacteristic behavior.









TBC . . .

-April

(Okay, so if you chose not to read that part . . . Michael was hoping to have sex with Liz, because he's a guy and he enjoys sex, right? But since Liz was drunk, he decided not to, because he actually does have a conscience and he's trying to do things a little differently with her. But that didn't stop him from going down on her and giving her an orgasm. He's a guy. He's just . . . a guy.)

[April]

pookie76: So you can understand Max but not Liz? That’s probably how everyone is feeling right now. Liz is definitely just about the most confusing character in this fic. Thanks for reading!
Alien_Friend: Ha, ha, you know, I thought about having Maria look through the window and see Michael and Liz, but then I was like . . . no, Maria’s agonizing enough already. Poor thing. Thanks for the feedback!
RiceKrispy: Michael + Liz = NO has got to be one of the best math equations ever! Nice! Thanks for reading.
nibbles: What Michael did do with Liz was even worse than what he didn’t? lol, I know, it’s so nasty. Any chance we'll get a Gold Diggers update soon?
tequathisy: I’m glad you enjoy the fic so much! Thanks!







Part 27







Three beers into the night, Maria still felt as sober as ever. It sucked.

“I think the party’s kinda dying out,” Max commented.

She looked around. People were starting to leave. It was only Thursday after all, and some people actually cared about their classes a little bit.

“Are you even having fun?” Max asked her.

Max. Poor Max, she thought. He had stayed by her side all night, even though she’d given him no reason to. She had been about the most un-fun person on the planet. She hadn’t even danced. She’d just sat there being pissed and trying to get drunk without much success. What great company she was.

“Maria?”

“No,” she replied finally. “I’m not having fun. But it’s not your fault. It’s Michael’s fault. Everything is Michael’s fault.” And she said that with one-hundred percent conviction.

“Well, not everything,” Max said.

“No, everything. Trust me on that, Max.”

“Well, what’s wrong?” Max asked.

“Just . . . stuff.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” she blurted a little too emphatically. “No.” She shook her head vigorously, refusing to go that far. Thinking about her semi-feelings for Michael was bad enough. Actually verbalizing them made her want to vomit. Besides, she couldn’t talk to Max, the guy she was supposed to be dating, about Michael, the guy she was supposed to be hating.

And she did hate him. To a degree.

She groaned and tried to take a gulp of the beer in her hand, but it was already gone. That was her fourth, her fourth beer within the time span of about an hour and a half. That was almost binge drinking. Why did she still feel like such a stick in the mud? This wasn’t like her.

Freaking Michael!

“You wanna just go?” Max offered.

“Yeah, I think so,” she decided. “I’ve got a calculus quiz tomorrow, too. Not that I care, but . . .”

“Yeah, you should get some sleep,” Max agreed. “I’ll go get the others.”

“The others?”

Maria looked up and saw Isabel, Tess, Kyle, and Alex hovering above them.

“That would be us,” Kyle said proudly. “You two ready to go?”

“We were just gonna ask you the same thing,” Max said.

“Where are Michael and Liz?” Kyle asked.

“Oh, who knows,” Maria grumbled. “Somebody should go find them.”

Her friends nodded, and one by one, they turned to look at her, except for Max, who looked at the floor instead.

What, they wanted her to go find him? “No!” she whined, freaked out by the thought of interrupting a Michael/Liz sexcapade. “No! That’s not—why me? You guys know I don’t—no!”

“What’s she bitchin’ about?”

Maria spun when she heard Michael’s unmistakable voice. He stood behind her, his hair damp, holding a very passed out Liz in his arms. Her hair was wet, too, and she was only partially clothed.

“Where are her pants?” Maria demanded.

“Hell if I know,” he answered flippantly. “We leavin’?”

“Yep,” Kyle said. “Wheel man, Max. Lead us out.”

“Okay.” Max jingled the car keys in his hand and led the way out the front door.

“As a unit,” Maria mumbled discontentedly, noting the number of pairs of eyes that watched their group go. These other students were practically paparazzi.

Michael, of course, just had to hang towards the back of the group with her. “Hey,” he said. “You think I slept with Liz tonight?”

“I know you slept with her tonight,” she stated emphatically.

“Well—surprise, surprise—I didn’t,” he said, looking smug. “I guess that means that deep down, I’m a good guy after all.”

Maria laughed out loud at that, unable to control it. Michael Guerin, a good guy? In what alternate reality?

He laughed a little, too. “Yeah, I can’t even keep a straight face on that one.”

“What’s goin’ on back there?” Kyle called from the front. “Are you two making babies or just being annoying?”

“Michael’s just being annoying,” Maria said. “Ew, I would never make babies with him.”

“Amen to that,” Michael muttered. “Hey, so where are we goin’ anyway?”

“Home,” Kyle replied.

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Night’s young, guys,” Michael said. “I got an idea.”

“Oh, great,” Maria muttered. Michael’s ideas usually ended with her wanting to pull her hair out.

“You know that place up by that one place?”

Everyone gave him a confused look.

“You know,” he said. “That place. There’s a-there’s a place. It’s a good make-out place. Some clearing or something. We should all go.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Maria said. “Are you suggesting an orgy?”

“No,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh my god, sick.”

“I’m just saying, the three of you . . .” He motioned to Kyle, Isabel, and Tess. “Might spice things up a bit by gettin’ out of that basement.”

Kyle looked from Tess to Isabel and acknowledged, “That’s true.”

“No shit. I’m down,” Tess said, making an upside down peace sign with her fingers.

“Tess, you’re not black,” Isabel told her.

“Whateva, yo. I’m just drunk.”

Isabel laughed. “Me, too!”

Maria cleared her throat and tried to direct attention back to the ‘idea’ at hand. “Actually, I’m really tired. I just wanna go home.”

“You just wanna disagree with me,” Michael said. “Come on, you and Max could do it in the grass. How cute.”

“How itchy.”

“And if my girl wakes up,” Michael said in reference to Liz, “I could definitely find some satisfaction up there. Outside. Great outdoors.”

“Your girl,” Maria muttered under her breath. For some reason, she didn’t like the sound of that. She herself had never been Michael’s girl, not in the romantic sense. But somehow, she always had been his girl in a different sense. It was weird.

“Somethin’ you wanna share with the class, Maria?” Michael said.

“I’m just mumbling about how much I hate you.”

“Good. Hey, Maxwell, you’re just gonna wanna head out on Highway 9. It’s not that far out of the way.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Max said.

Yeah, sounds good to you, Michael Guerin, Maria thought. I know you think you’re gonna spark an orgy.

“Uh, issue,” Alex said quietly, raising his hand. “I don’t have anyone to make out with.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll find you someone,” Michael assured him. “There’s gotta be a slut somewhere . . .” He trailed off and looked around, and Maria knew his eyes were going to land on her before they even did. “Oh, Maria.”

She glared at him and shook her head before continuing on out to the car. “One of these days, Michael Guerin . . .”

“One of these days,” he mimicked, chuckling as he followed her.

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

It was a good thing Max was driving, because everyone else was drunk. Well, not Michael, but he was so stupid, he might as well have been, in Maria’s opinion.

Isabel and Tess were so wasted that they tossed their shirts out the window and made it a point to flash every car they passed by on their way down the highway to the make-out clearing Michael had described. The highway was sort of deserted, though, so they didn’t get many opportunities and settled for shoving their breasts in Kyle’s face instead.

Alex seemed to be enjoying the sights. Though he wasn’t drunk on alcohol, he was definitely drunk on half-naked girls. His eyes were so wide, Maria wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to close them again. Kyle, too, wasn’t functioning at his best, and Liz . . . well, poor Liz wouldn’t know what hit her in the morning.

“On the road again!” Isabel sang, sounding very off-key. “I just can’t wait to be on the road again!”

Maria grimaced. Drunk singing was rarely enjoyable.

“Oh my god, I love that song!” Tess exclaimed, her words slurring. “What’s it from?”

“Shrek,” Isabel replied. “Donkey sings it.”

“Oh my god, I love that movie!” Tess leaned her head against her boyfriend’s shoulder and said, “Kyle, can we watch Shrek tonight?”

“We can take over the world tonight,” he replied confidently.

“Yea!” Tess clapped her hands excitedly, seeming to lose more and more grasp on reality every second. “Wait, where’d my shirt go?”

“You threw it out the window,” Kyle reminded her.

“Well, how can I take over the world without a shirt?”

“Don’t worry. It’s better like this,” he assured her.

Maria rolled her eyes. She could appreciate her fair share of sexuality, but this was just too much. Thankfully, she wasn’t stuck sitting on Michael’s lap anymore. A small miracle in the scheme of things. Liz was passed out and sprawled there now, and Maria had happily settled in the front seat by herself, anxious for this oh-so-sarcastically fun night to come to an end. Never again was she going on a group date. Or at least never one where Michael was involved.

“I don’t see why we can’t just go home,” she grumbled.

“I don’t see why you have to bitch about everything,” Michael said, sounding exasperated with her.

“You know what, Michael? I really don’t like you.”

“Perfect!”

“You’re such an ass.”

“Tell me somethin’ new, baby.”

She closed her eyes when he said that. Baby. He always called her baby. And he always said it with a sort of . . . sensuality . . .

No, she told herself, abruptly ending her thoughts. Just . . . no.

Suddenly, the car lurched forward. Isabel practically flew into the front seat, but Alex caught her. Maria had to brace herself on the dashboard as the engine sputtered and the car came to an abrupt stop right out on the middle of the deserted road.

“What the fuck?” Michael exclaimed. “Max, did you do that?”

“Uh . . . no,” he said.

“No?”

“A light did come on,” he admitted, gently easing the keys of the ignition. “The oil pressure light.”

“What the hell’s that?” Michael barked.

“It means we need more oil in the car, dumb-ass. Our engine just blew,” Maria snapped. “Great. Just great. You know, I knew this was a stupid idea. Now we’re stranded on a lonesome road."

“Somebody call a tow truck,” Kyle said. “I’m too drunk.

“I’ll do that,” Max said, getting out of the car with his cell phone in hand.

Maria groaned and rested her head against the window. This had been a disastrous night.

“I need to stretch my legs,” Tess said, untangling herself from Kyle and tumbling out of the car.

“I can help you with that,” Kyle offered.

“Okay,” she chirped, skipping around to the back of the car. “Do me!”

Maria felt the car jostle as Tess climbed on top of the trunk, and only a few short seconds later, she felt it jostle again as Kyle climbed on top of her. Moments later, they were going at it full force, a rhythmic, loud chorus of groaning, grunting, and gasping.

“Wait for me!” Isabel cried, running out to join them.

“Wow,” Alex said, glancing at Maria. “You guys are . . . really wild.”

“Oh, this is nothing,” Michael piped up from the backseat. “You should’ve been there last year when Kyle and I vandalized the gymnasium.”

Maria whirled around in her seat, her mouth agape. “The dance team gymnasium?”

“Uh . . .”

“Oh my fucking God!” she shrieked, hitting him right in his face.

“Oh my God!” Tess yelped from atop the hood.

“I can’t believe you!”

“You’re unbelievable,” Tess moaned.

“Shut up, Tess!” Maria roared. She directed her attention back to Michael then, seething with anger. “Do you know how long it took to get that place cleaned up? Why the hell did you guys do that?”

“We were drunk.”

“Oh, and that’s always an excuse, right? Michael! I swear to God!”

“I think I should have stayed home tonight,” Alex mumbled.

Just then, Liz moaned sleepily and started to move from where she still lay in Michael’s arms. “Mmm, what’s going on?” she croaked out.

“Car broke down, Kyle and Tess are fucking, and Maria’s freakin’ out,” Michael explained to her.

“I am not freaking out!”

“Plus, you had your first orgasm tonight,” he added with in a smug tone.

Liz smiled sleepily. “Hmm . . .”

“I bet she faked it,” Maria wagered.

“Trust me, she didn’t. No one fakes it with me,” Michael responded confidently.

“I would.”

“You’ll never get the chance.”

Alex made a sound of distress and said, “I really should have stayed home.”

Maria looked out the window impatiently. Max was still talking on his cell phone, seemingly having no luck with the towing company.

“Stupid car,” she muttered under her breath. “Stupid idea. Stupid Michael.”

“I heard that.”

“I wanted you to.”

Just then, Isabel let out a loud, “Oh, shit!”

“What?” Maria asked, opening the door and climbing out.

“Shit!” Isabel pointed down the road. “I think that’s a cop car coming this way.”

“What?” Michael shrieked, clamoring out of the car with Liz as well.

Maria followed Isabel’s gaze and saw that, indeed, there was a police vehicle not far away from them. The officer inside would most likely stop for a bunch of young people stranded on the road.

“I don’t have a shirt!” Isabel cried.

“I’m . . . gonna cum!” Tess wailed. "And I don't have a shirt, either."

“Shit, Liz has been drinking,” Michael said, glancing down at the still relatively unconscious girl in his arms. “Bail.”

With that single word, the group took off running. Michael, carrying Liz, bolted onto a narrow gravel road leading off into . . . apparently nowhere, and Isabel and Tess, who were also underage, sprinted down the highway and jumped into the ditch. Miraculously, Tess and Kyle never broke form. Alex, of course, even though he was neither intoxicated nor underage, ran along after Isabel.

Maria just stood there, shaking her head. Her friends were ridiculous. Hiding in a ditch? Fleeing into the night? Ridiculous. Ridiculous and stupid. All of them.

Especially Michael.

“Tow truck’s coming,” Max announced, coming to stand beside her as the cop pulled up behind them. “Are you gonna stay?”

She shrugged. “What do I have to worry about? I didn’t break any laws tonight.”

“Yeah, but I thought you’d go with Michael.”

Maria wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything at all.

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

Michael ended up at an old gas station/diner with Liz, figuring he’d done her a big favor. Had they been around when that cop decided to stop, she would have been charged with underage drinking. Because she was only eighteen. Wasn’t she? Or nineteen. He didn’t know.

He didn’t dwell too much on the not knowing. They had only been dating a few days.

He set Liz down in the booth, sat down beside her, and ordered himself a cup of coffee. It was starting to get late out, and he was feeling wiped. All that running had really exhausted him. He kept waiting for a phone call from Max, telling him that the tow truck was there, but he didn’t get one. The night just kept dragging on.

Not that it was a bad night, but it wasn’t the best, either.

He wished Maria were there. He was a rather talkative guy, and she was his favorite person to talk to. Liz was a bit too . . . unconscious to carry on a conversation.

He glanced down at his girlfriend, slumping forward on the table, and felt a little bad. She was obviously an inexperienced drinker. He probably should have monitored her more carefully, but part of him had been turned on by the fact that she was so willing to impress him. And her drinking actually had impressed him. It had showed him that she wasn’t quite as tame as he’d thought she was. She had a wild side, too. Not quite as wild as Maria, but . . .

“Mmm.”

Liz began to stir slightly beside him. He set his coffee down and watched her.

“Mmm,” she said again, her eyes remaining closed. “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Uh, my head hurts.”

He chuckled slightly. “Yeah. Yeah, I bet it does.”

“I had fun tonight.”

“You sure did.”

“But I’m . . . I’m worried.”

He wrinkled his forehead, trying to decipher whether she really knew what she was saying or was just talking drunk. “Worried?”

“Uh-huh.”

“About what?”

“That you’ll forget me. I don’t want you to forget me.”

Again, he wrinkled his forehead in confusion and echoed, “Forget you?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That you’ll-you’re-you’ll . . . you’ll think about her,” she stuttered.

“Who?”

And when Liz answered, it was so quietly that he could barely hear the name she said. “Maria.”

Wait a minute, his mind said, screeching to a halt. Maria? Was that really what she had said? Why would she think that? Why would anyone think that? Maybe he had just heard her wrong. “Maria?” he said, confused by all of this. “Liz--” But when he glanced down at her again, she had fallen back asleep. He wouldn’t be getting any answers out of her tonight. And that was probably a good thing.

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

Maria sat on the hood of the car, wondering how long it had been since the police officer had stopped, asked if they needed help, and then carried on his way. That was at about the same time Max had called the tow truck. But still, they sat atop their car with the blown engine, waiting, mostly in silence except for the sex sounds Isabel, Tess, and Kyle were making from their spot in the ditch up the road a distance. Alex had come back to the car, tossed himself into the back seat, and attempted to go to sleep.

“I was . . . kinda hoping the tow truck would’ve been here by now,” she said to Max.

“Me, too,” he agreed. “But you know tow trucks.” He sighed. “It’s my fault. I should’ve remembered the last oil change.”

“Kyle and I should’ve, too,” Maria admitted. “But not Michael. His brain capacity’s not big enough.”

Max laughed. “I think you guys were goin’ for a record number of fights tonight.”

Maria groaned. “Oh, he’s just so annoying.” And good-looking, she thought, in an annoying sort of way.

“I should probably give him a call,” Max said, “find out where he is.”

“No, just let him die out there,” Maria said.

“Liz is with him.”

“They’re fine,” she said. “Just . . .”

“Just you and me then,” Max filled in. “That sounds good.”

Maria smiled a little, but it wasn’t a happy smile. For a moment, she contemplated ending the whole charade before it became even more dramatic. It was becoming easier and easier to manufacture ‘feelings’ for Max, but they still weren’t developing on their own the way she had sort of hoped they would. “Max . . .”

“Maria, are you okay with us trying to be more than friends?” he asked suddenly, surprising her with his directness. “’Cause, I mean, if I have feelings for you and you have feelings for me, it should be pretty simple, but . . . since we’ve been friends for so long, I realize it might not be simple.”

She sighed, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to let this go just yet. She had already gotten his hopes up now. She had already given him the idea that something romantic really existed between them. The least she could do was follow through with it a bit, see if anything actually evoked. “Yeah, I just . . . I want us to always be friends,” she told him.

“Well, we will be. I promise.”

“Okay,” she said. “Yeah, that’s . . . that’s just what I needed to hear.”

“Well, that’s good,” he said. “I, uh . . .” He glanced around at their surroundings and chuckled a bit. “I know you’re not real thrilled being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere like this, but I actually kind of like it. It’s more time I can spend with you.”

He was such a nice guy. He always had been.

“And if you think about it, it’s actually a good first kiss opportunity.”

She tensed a bit. Kiss? He wanted to kiss her? Of course he did. Who didn’t?

“I mean, we don’t have to, by any means,” he added quickly. “But if you want to . . . hood of the car, great outdoors . . . it could be nice. Romantic.”

It could be, she told herself. Maybe you’ll kiss Max and feel electricity. Maybe it’ll be a whole lot better than the peck on the cheek he gave you. Maybe this whole thing doesn’t have to be a sham after all. Maybe it can be real. Maybe you can forget about Michael. There were so many maybes.

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do it.”

“Uh, do it?” he echoed.

“No, not it. Just the kissing.”

“Okay, okay. Uh . . .” He tilted his head to the right, seeming unsure. Maria did the same, though she much rather preferred tilting to the left. She let her eyes fall closed and leaned in, waiting for her lips and Max’s lips to touch. And when they did . . .

Nothing. Nothing electric. Nothing impassioned. It wasn’t his fault. By technical standards, it was a good kiss. Not too dry, not too sloppy. Lots of girls would revel in it.

But not her. It didn’t resonate with her. And all she could think about as she kissed Max was what a kiss with Michael might feel like instead.

Max pulled away slightly, just enough to look into her eyes, smiled happily, and then leaned in again for another kiss, but the tow truck came rolling down the highway just as he did so. Maria got up off the hood, preventing a second kiss, and tried not to look him in the eye as the towers hooked the car up to their truck and prepared to get them out of there.

She had meant what she said about wanting to make sure they stayed friends forever, but if they kept kissing like that, they were going to become very awkward friends.








TBC . . .

-April

[April]

Oh my gosh, Passion was pruned! I had forgotten about that little board policy until recently. Luckily, I managed to save your guys' amazing feedback just in time. Phew.

Ah, another new feedbacker! Hi, Buddha-boy! I'm glad you're enjoying the fic!

I'm not going to ramble too much this time. Here's the next part, which is actually page 252. Nice, you guys! You're speeding through the 200s of this fic!







Part 28







Whimpering, Liz rolled over onto her back, struggling to open her eyes. She wanted to wake up, but her eyelids felt like they weighed ten pounds. And her head . . . her head was throbbing.

At last, she managed to open her eyes, but she was very disoriented. Where am I? she wondered, looking around the room. It looked somewhat familiar, but not totally. Then it dawned on her. Michael’s house. Michael’s bedroom. Michael’s bed.

She looked down at herself and saw that she was still dressed. She couldn’t remember all the details, but she was pretty sure they hadn’t had sex last night.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

She looked up and saw Michael standing in front of his mirror, putting some gel into his wet hair. He didn’t have a shirt on, just a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked so good.

“Oh my god,” she croaked out, holding a hand to her forehead. “My head hurts.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I don’t even remember getting drunk,” she said.

“Do you remember . . . something else?” he asked her.

“You mean . . .” She thought back to his tongue and the wonderful things it had done to her. “How could I forget?”

He chuckled. “Good.”

“We didn’t . . . we didn’t have sex, though, did we?”

“No, not really.”

She propped herself up on her elbows, but as she did so, the room started spinning. “Oh god, is it always like this?”

“Ah, the first hangover’s the worst,” he assured her. “You should see Maria. She’s so used to drinking, she can barely get drunk anymore.”

Just then, Maria came into the room. “What’re you saying about me?”

“Just talkin’ about what a bitch you are.” He smirked.

Maria rolled her eyes.

“Hey, Maria,” Liz said quietly.

“Liz. Glad to see you functioning again.”

“Well, barely.”

Maria sat down on the side of the bed and said, “If you feel like you need to puke, just make sure you puke on Michael.”

“You’re a riot, DeLuca,” he said as he sauntered out of the room.

Once he was gone, Liz lay back on the bed, groaning. “Oh, Maria, I’ve never felt like this before.”

Maria smiled. “That’s right. This is a double whammy morning after, Liz. The morning after your first orgasm and your first binge drinking experience.”

“Did I binge?” Liz asked innocently.

“You binged.”

Liz groaned again and brought her hand back to her forehead. “Oh, I didn’t mean to. I just wanted Michael to like me.”

“Yeah, he likes you.”

“Oh, and I like him, too, Maria. He’s so . . . oh my god. Last night . . . do you wanna hear all about it?”

“Uh, no,” Maria replied at once.

“Well, can I tell you anyway?” Liz smiled and didn’t wait for an answer. “We went down on this dock and got a little . . . naked, and he . . . I don’t even know what it’s called. But he, like, put his head down there, you know, and--”

“He ate you out?” Maria cut in.

“Is that what it’s called? That’s so crude.”

“Fine, he went down on you. That better?”

“Well . . . I guess,” Liz resigned. “Oh, Maria, it was so incredible. It just felt like an explosion.”

“First orgasm always does,” Maria mumbled. “Listen, you’re gonna wanna get Michael to take you home soon. Don’t go to class today. You’re hung-over. It’s not like you’re gonna be really productive no matter how hard you try.”

“Okay,” Liz said, liking the sound of that plan. “Maria?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Whoa, trash can to the left!” Maria exclaimed, shooting to her feet.

Liz leaned over the side of the bed, grabbed the trash can, and let go.

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

Max was simply walking to class the next day, just like he did every day, when a group of guys he didn’t know came up to him, formed a circle around him, and started bombarding him with questions about his personal life.

“Are you dating Maria DeLuca?”

“Have you fucked her yet?”

“Is she gonna sleep around anymore?”

“Whoa, guys, guys,” Max said, wishing they would all slow down. “I don’t . . .”

“Maria DeLuca, hottest whore on campus.”

“She’s not a whore,” Max said, upset that people thought of her like that.

“Whatever, man. You got real feelings for her?”

Max looked at the crowd around him and nodded. “Yes.”

“And she feels stuff for you?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“So you guys are dating?”

Max smiled. “Well, I mean, we’ve only gone out twice, nothing one-on-one yet. But, yeah, I’d say we’re dating.”

“So she’s off the market?”

Max felt pleased to say, “Yes. Yes, she is.”

The guys all looked extremely disappointed and started to slouch away. “Dammit.”

“Better luck next time.”

“Nice work, man,” one of the guys congratulated Max before he left, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” Max said, feeling ecstatic. For once, every guy on the planet wanted to be him. That was a great feeling.

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

Maria felt like talking to Michael that night, so she went into his room and sat down on the bed. He was asleep, but he stirred and opened her eyes when he felt her sit down.

“No Liz tonight?” she asked.

“Gave her the night off,” he replied, yawning. “She’s too tired to do anything.” He sat up, leaning against the headboard.

Maria sighed and said what she had gone in to say. “I’m sorry I was so pissed at you last night. I’m just kind of a disaster right now, and I like to take it out on you.”

He smiled a little and said, “Well, you’re a pretty disaster.”

She felt her heartbeat quicken a bit at that remark and felt her distress kicking in. “Don’t say that.”

Michael looked insulted. “I give you a compliment, and you can’t even take it? I try to say something nice to you and--”

“No, I . . .” She trailed off, unwilling to explain that his compliment was just too much of a good thing. So instead, she just said, “Thank you.”

He wrinkled his forehead in confusion and jerked his head backwards, surveying her curiously. “Did you just say--”

“I know, it’s weird,” she said. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Oh, I won’t.”

“Okay.” She relaxed having said that and leaned back against the headboard as well, looking at her hands instead of him. He was a very attractive guy, and that attractiveness did nothing to help her situation.

“So why are you a disaster?” he asked her.

“Just . . . you know.”

“No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

She sighed, feeling nervous again. Her feelings for him . . . they weren’t dying down. “It’s just . . .” Hesitantly, she turned her head to gaze at him, into his passionate brown eyes. “For the first time in my life I have real . . . feelings for this guy,” she said slowly, “and that scares me.”

He grunted. “Don’t be scared. Max likes you, too, Maria.”

“I know,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I know he does.”

“So don’t freak out. Just go for it,” he said. “Look at me. I’m goin’ for it.”

“You always do.”

“I mean, first girlfriend, goes against every plan I ever had planned for myself . . . I’m just goin’ for it.”

“Well, that’s the difference between you and me, Michael.”

“It’s not that big of a difference,” he said confidently. “Face it, Maria: you and I are like the same person, except I’ve got a penis.”

“We are not the same,” she said adamantly.

“Yeah, we are. Stubborn as hell, really passionate, sort of crazy. Not to mention hot.”

She smiled, blushing. “I’m way hotter than you.”

“Okay, you tell yourself that.”

She laughed a little. These sorts of conversations with Michael were rare but enjoyable. “Okay, we may be ‘the same person,’” she acknowledged, “but we can’t keep going on the same dates.”

He chuckled.

“No, I’m serious, Michael. I swear to God, I can’t stand going on dates with you.”

He gave her a look and said, “Now that just sounds wrong.”

“Wrong?” she echoed, looking down at her hands again. He thought the idea of going out on a date with her was wrong? “It is wrong,” she practically whispered, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and standing. She headed for the door, but he stopped her. Of course.

“Hey, wait.”

She spun around to face him, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. There was no reason to get worked up around him. No reason.

Except his gorgeous looks and fantastic body.

“You and Max doin’ anything tonight?” he asked her.

“No, I don’t think so.”

He smiled. “Then stay here. Hang out with me.”

She inhaled suddenly, willing herself to appear calm.

“Come on,” he urged. “You know you love this room.”

“That’s ‘cause it was supposed to be my room, you jerk,” she said, grabbing a pillow from the floor and tossing it at him.

He swatted the pillow away, laughing.

She smiled despite herself and went to join him on the bed again.

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

Max considered himself to be a studious guy. Always studied hard, always read ahead of the syllabus schedule. A+ all around. But that night, he found himself struggling. All of his good study habits had suddenly been replaced with a remarkable lack of focus.

Maria DeLuca.

He closed the book he was reading and thought of her, of sitting atop the hood of the car the night before with her, leaning over, and kissing her. It had been a great kiss, full of passion and electricity and all the things a kiss was supposed to have. He had imagined kissing Maria DeLuca various times, various ways. But nothing compared to the real thing.

He smiled. Now that he’d kissed her once, he just wanted to do it again and again.

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

Maria and Michael lay side by side on their stomachs facing the foot of his bed that night with their old senior year high school yearbook open in front of them. They had spent the majority of the night looking through their freshman one, their sophomore one, and their junior one already.

“Oh my god, I totally forgot about that girl!” Maria exclaimed, pointing to a photograph of a girl who had never showered and always smelled of cat pee and B.O. stench. “She’s so nasty.”

“Yeah, she is,” Michael agreed.

“Didn’t she have a crush on you?”

“Baby, everyone had a crush on me. This guy right here . . .” He pointed to the one guy in the class who had been the outrageously gay guy. “. . . had a crush on me.”

“Gay Jose! I remember now!” She laughed, liking this trip down memory lane. “Didn’t he, like, put roses in your locker for Valentine’s Day?”

“Yeah, that was the queerest thing ever. And you, if I recall, tried to convince me to go out with him.”

She shrugged innocently. “I thought it’d be funny.”

“You’re such a little bitch.”

She laughed again and flipped the page. “Oh my god! Senior year homecoming! Do you remember that?”

“Barely. I was so hammered.”

“Me, too! That’s the night I had sex with three guys at once.”

“I know. I watched.”

She smacked him on the shoulder then remembered something else. “Oh, and Kyle popped his hip out of place during that football game. Remember? And he had to be in a wheelchair for a few days. He was so pissed ‘cause he couldn’t fuck properly.”

“Man, we were all really horny,” Michael remarked.

“Well, we still are,” she pointed out.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “Wow.” He turned to the next page and started laughing. “Oh, prom. I know you remember that.”

She groaned as it all came flooding back. “Oh my god, that was ridiculous. I still don’t understand why we got king and queen. Doesn’t it, like, baffle you?”

He shrugged. “Popularity contest.”

“Yeah, but still, I would’ve much rather had it be me and Kyle.”

“Still, prom’s all about romance, you know? You and I are like the least romantic couple ever. Why would people vote for us?”

Least romantic couple ever? she thought. I wouldn’t go that far. “Who knows,” she said.

“Remember our slow-dance?” he said. “Ended up with you kneeing me in the groin.”

“Well, you deserved it.”

“Well, you’re a--”

“Little bitch, I know,” she cut in. She turned to the next page and proudly remarked, “My god, Michael, the senior yearbook is, like, the story of us.” When she realized how that sounded, she quickly added, “You know, you, me, and Kyle.”

“Damn right,” he said. “Hey, you remember that girl?”

“Who?”

“Audrey what’s-her-name.” He laughed. “She belonged to that Bible club, had that whole ‘lifelong virgin’ t-shirt.”

“Oh, yeah!” Maria exclaimed, remembering her after that description. “She was weird.”

“Yeah. Well, needless to say, she wasn’t a lifelong virgin. I did her.”

“Needless to say.”

He laughed again. “So I’m fuckin’ her, right? Everything’s goin’ great. She’s about to cum. I’m about to cum. Her mom walks in.”

“Oh my god.”

“I know. And I’m still fuckin’ her. I didn’t stop. We both came. I think her mom disowned her after that.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Oh, good times.” Suddenly, he turned to look at her then with an expression of confusion on his face. “Are your feet touching mine?”

“What?” She quickly pulled her feet away when she realized she had been subconsciously playing footsie with him, feeling totally embarrassed. “They were cold,” she lied. Oldest excuse in the book.

“Okay, whatever.”

Oh god, what am I doing? she thought. She glanced at the clock and realized she had been hanging out in there for over three hours. That was just absurd.

“I have to go take my pill,” she said, springing up from the bed.

“What pill?” Michael asked.

“B.C.”

He thought about it and said, “Ah, birth control. The greatest development of mankind. Yeah, you better take that, Maria.”

She walked down the hallway to her bedroom, and to her surprise, he followed her. “Can I see it?” he asked her.

“What, the pill?”

“Yeah, I’ve never actually seen it before.”

She popped out the next little blue pill in her cycle and held it out in the palm of her hand for him to see.

He squinted and asked, “Where is it?”

“Right here.”

“What the hell?” He reached down into her hand and picked it up between his thumb and index finger. “Whoa. Are you fucking kidding me? This is what keeps a girl from getting knocked up, this little . . . thing?”

“Yep. Scary, isn’t it?”

“Holy fuck.” His fingers started to shake a bit, and he accidently dropped the pill onto the floor.

“Michael!” she shrieked, immediately dropping to her knees to find it. “You ass! Help me find it!”

“It’s too small, Maria.”

“Then why’d you fucking drop it? Oh my god.” On her hands and knees, she searched the carpet for it, but she couldn’t find it. “Would you help?”

He squatted down and swept his hands over the carpet. Thankfully, he located it quickly. “Oh, here it is. Her e it is, Maria.” He handed it back to her.

“Oh, thank God.” She popped it into her mouth and swallowed it without water. “Jesus, Michael.”

“Sorry, it just freaked me out,” he said. “Is Liz on the pill?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She shook her head at him and said, “I can’t believe you. You dropped my pill . . . you almost got me pregnant!”

He raised an eyebrow, and she cringed and laughed out loud when she realized what she had just said. He started laughing, too, and before too long, they were both laughing so hard that they didn’t even notice Liz enter the room.







TBC . . .

-April

[April]

pookie76: Thanks, I’m glad you’re so hooked! Don’t worry, Michael is definitely interested in Maria. He’s just too interested in sex and immaturity right now to figure it out.
starcrazed: lol, yes M+M moments are much less painful, I agree. I’ll be honest, though. Max/Maria and Liz/Michael aren’t going away for a long time. I think you can tough it out, though!
nibbles:

I've come to believe that their relationships with Liz and Max is actually a good thing for the pair. For one thing it's put a halt to the endless promiscuity of the horny twosome. It's allowing them to hang out and get closer and it's helping them to grow up and gain some much needed maturity.

And, it' helping Liz and Max to come out of their shelves and in Liz's case leave the cocoon and experience real college life.

So maybe it's torture for Maria now and Max and Liz will probably get hurt but hopefully at the end it'll be all worth it.

Yes! That’s a great way to look at it. Thanks for reading!
Alien_Friend: Oh yeah, Max definitely keeps falling deeper. I’m glad you continue to enjoy this story! There’s a lot of stuff left for me to write, so you’ll get to enjoy it for a long time.
RiceKrispy: lol, It’s going to take a lot more for Liz to understand the Liz + Michael = NO math equation. Thanks for the feedback!
grnkrystle: Hi, grnkrystle! Glad to see you’re loving the fic! You want more love for Max, huh? Well, he isn’t going to get any love for awhile, but he’ll be getting some action.
ForeignLoveMonkey: A preference for drunk Liz? Me, too! Thanks for reading!
guel: I’m glad you enjoyed the last part. Thanks!



Alright, so this WHOLE part is basically a warning part. Remember our little warning smilies we had a couple chapters ago? Well, I'm not even going to put those up this time. THIS PART CONTAINS STRONG UC, so read at your own discretion. I know that this part will suck for Candy fans, but if you can make it through this, you can make it through the rest of this fic. Again, if you choose not to read, though, I'll post a brief summary at the bottom and brace myself for the onslaught of fury in the form of feedback.








Part 29







Liz stopped in the doorway when she saw Michael and Maria on the floor of Maria’s bedroom, collapsed into a heap of laughter. It was strange. Usually she saw them arguing. This was new. And a little uncomfortable.

Of course, there were worse positions she could see them in. In fact, this wasn’t all bad. If anything, it was a little extra incentive to get her to do what she had planned to do with Michael the night before, before she’d gotten so drunk.

“I can’t believe you just said that,” Michael said to Maria, actually wiping tears from his eyes. He was laughing so hard.

“I know, I’m so disgusted with myself.”

Liz cleared her throat to alert them of her presence. Both of them looked up at her after she did and quit laughing.

“Liz,” Michael said, getting to his feet. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just thought I’d stop by,” she told him. “It’s Friday night.”

“Uh, yeah, but don’t you think it’s a little late to be going out?”

She moved in closer to him and forced her inner seductress out. “That’s why I wanted to stay in.”

A look of intrigue shined brightly in Michael’s eyes for obvious reasons. “I’ll see you later, Maria,” he said, taking Liz’s hand and leading her from the room.

Liz cast a quick glance at Maria over her shoulder. She wasn’t laughing anymore.

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

Michael thought Liz looked good as she came into his bedroom with him. She still had the valley-girl look going on, but it was sort of a slutty valley-girl. Of course, Liz Parker was by no means a slutty person, but the knowledge that she was going out of her way to try to impress him really turned him on.

Her skirt was shorter. Her top was tighter. All in all, good stuff.

“So, I had no idea you could be so straight-forward,” he remarked.

“What do you mean?”

“Comin’ over here like this, tellin’ me you just wanna stay in. That’s the stuff fantasies are made of.”

She blushed. “I’m you fantasy?”

Truthfully, she wasn’t. She wasn't his fantasy. His fantasy chick was probably blonde and fiery and . . . whoever the hell that was. But he felt he should lie to her. “Well, this is pretty fantastic. Come here.” He circled his arms around her waist and pulled her against him, covering her mouth with his. Liz Parker was a good kisser, getting better and better all the time.

He thrust his tongue into her mouth, hoping to give her ideas about other parts of his body thrusting into hers. He doubted she would take much convincing.

“So what did you have in mind for tonight?” he asked, kissing his way down her cheek to her neck.

“Uh,” she moaned as he sucked, nipped, and licked at the skin there. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“No,” he said, making sure to leave a mark on the skin. “You tell me.”

She smiled. “What do you think?”

He stopped kissing her for a moment, placed his hand under her chin, and lifted her face to look at his. “You have to say it.”

He watched as her bottom lip quivered nervously and she quietly said, “I wanna have sex with you.”

“What was that?”

“I wanna have sex with you,” she repeated.

“Just one more time . . .”

“Michael!”

He chuckled, moving his hands lower to cup her ass and moved her forward a bit to press against his forming erection. She gasped at the feel of him through his jeans, and he leaned forward to speak directly in to her ear, “That can be arranged.” He kissed her again then, and brought his hands up to grasp the bottom of her shirt. He urged it up gently at first, then grew impatient and just yanked the damn thing over her head.

Even though she had been naked with him just the night before, she seemed nervous as she reached out to undo the buttons of his shirt with trembling hands and lift it over his head. Understandable, he reasoned, lifting his arms to assist her with the removal of the garment. She’s not drunk this time. Which was one of the reasons why he wasn’t going to prolong sex anymore. His girlfriend was ready, willing, and sober. He would be a disgrace to man not to go for it.

“You nervous?” he asked her, smiling slightly.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Don’t be,” he told her, reaching down in between them to push her skirt down past her hips. It pooled at her feet, and she hesitantly stepped out of it. She stood before him then in just a bra and panties, and he couldn’t wait to smash her.

He growled hungrily and lifted her up into his arms. She lacked the experience, he could tell, because she didn’t instinctively wrap her legs around him at first. But after a moment, she did just that, and he walked her backwards toward the bed. He lay her down and lay down atop her, surveying the already forming hickey on the side of her neck with pride. By the time the night was over, she would have lots of marks on her, but she’d enjoy every single one of them. He would make sure of it.

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

Maria sat on her bed, the only sound in the room being the sound of silence. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Liz right now. She was still her friend, of course, but she had sort of intruded earlier.

Or maybe I’m the intruder, Maria considered. Liz and Michael are dating. It’s not like she doesn’t have the right to spend a Friday night with him.

Maria sighed heavily, not liking this feeling. It sounded strange, but before Liz, she had sort of felt like Michael’s girlfriend. Not in the romantic, sex-having kind of way or anything, but in the sense that she was a girl and also Michael’s friend. Granted a friend, who fought with him a lot and enjoyed spewing insults at him, but a friend nonetheless. As far as she knew, she was the only girl whom he had ever been close to. Until now.

You’re the one who set them up, she reminded herself. You shouldn’t feel like this.

She ran one hand through her hair, stressing. Her situation was getting more and more complicated by the day, and she felt powerless to stop it.

Deciding she needed to do some emotional eating, Maria got up off the bed and headed down the hallway towards the kitchen. For some reason, though, she stopped in front of the closed door to Michael’s room and listened a bit to the sounds coming from inside. It was mostly Liz moaning, probably enjoying the foreplay.

Michael foreplay. Her muscles flittered at the thought. Sure, he could be disgusting, but it was common knowledge that he had amazing hands. And lips. And other body parts.

“Oh, Michael,” she heard Liz moan. “I need you.”

I need you, too, Maria thought, though maybe she needed him for something else. She needed somebody to look through old high school yearbooks with, somebody to fight with, somebody to get annoyed with and pissed off at.

She needed Michael.

Scary.

“Oh, Michael . . .” Liz moaned again.

Maria tried to push her feelings aside, but they just wouldn’t go. She headed out into the kitchen and opened up the freezer in search of ice cream, but part of her knew that wouldn’t do the trick. She was beyond eating her feelings. She had to do something else.

She felt the need . . . to retaliate.

She slammed the freezer door, determined as hell, and marched over to Max’s small bedroom. She threw open the door and found him asleep with a open book lying atop his stomach. He jerked awake when she came inside, though, and groggily croaked out, “Maria?”

She shut the door, grabbed the book from him, and tossed it onto the floor.

“What’re you--”

Before he could say more, she climbed on top of him, straddling him, and pulled her shirt up and over her head. His eyes grew wide then, and even wider when she reached behind her back to unhook her bra and toss it to the floor.

“Holy . . .” he choked out. “Maria?”

Don’t talk, she thought, leaning forward to kiss him deeply. Please don’t talk.

She gave him the most passionate kiss she could muster, one that he barely knew how to respond to, and rubbed her lower anatomy against his suggestively. He was already hard. He must have been dreaming about her before she came in.

She broke away from the kiss then, and just stared down at him, trying to fully grasp the concept of what she was doing. The guy pinned beneath her was someone she had known for almost eight years, someone she had been friends with for eight whole years. And now she was going to sleep with him? Once she did, there was no turning back.

Even knowing that, she brought her hand down in between them to unfasten his pants.

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

“I need you,” Liz kept whispering shakily, holding onto him tightly. “I need you.”

“I know,” Michael said, a little impatient. “That’s why you have to spread your legs.” He loved foreplay as much as the next guy, but there came a point when it was just time to get the show on the road. He hadn’t had sex in over a week. He was practically dying.

“I need you.”

“Spread your legs, Liz.”

“Michael.”

He pressed his knees against her thighs, urging them farther apart. She moaned as he did so, then gasped as he positioned himself at her entrance, rubbing just the tip of himself up and down her folds. He was already sheathed in latex, ready to go. Really ready to go.

“Michael?” she said, tensing suddenly. “Wait.”

“You just have to relax, Liz,” he told her. He had deflowered many virgins in his day, and they always got nervous. But never too nervous to continue. Not with him.

“But . . .” She glanced down at his erection again and said, “Oh god, it’s so big.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“It’s gonna hurt.”

He sighed, struggling to keep himself form just raging into her. “I’ll go slow, okay?” he told her.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Slow?”

“Very slow.”

“Okay.”

He rubbed himself against her again, waiting for her to start relaxing. “Just don’t worry.”

“I’m not.”

“Just relax.” She didn’t seem to understand that it would be a lot less painful if she did that.

She dug her head back into the pillow and closed her eyes, looking as prepared as she’d ever be.

“Okay,” Michael said, slowly easing himself forward.

She bit her bottom lip and tensed as he began to enter her, and he halted a bit.

“You okay?”

She nodded wordlessly, but he could see her trembling.

Poor girl, Michael thought, actually feeling a little bit bad for this. She hasn’t even started to feel it yet.

He pushed in further, still careful to take it slow.

She whimpered and tried to move her legs closer together, but he kept them apart. She just had to go for it, or she’d never get over the fear.

“You’re okay, Liz,” he told her, but honestly, he couldn’t imagine how much pain she was feeling. Her passage was as tight as any he’d ever felt, and, like she’d said, he was huge.

She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his, making sounds of distress, literally digging her nails into his back, clinging to him.

He closed his eyes and thought, Here goes, as he entered her the rest of the way, fully penetrating her, breaking through the barrier that proved her innocence. She cried out in pain, and it was such an awful sound, he actually thought about pulling out for a moment. But he was a horny, horny guy. He couldn’t do that.

“It’s okay, Liz,” he said.

“Oh,” she whimpered, a few tears flowing down her cheeks. “Michael . . .”

Although his hips instinctively wanted to thrust, he forced himself to stay still for a moment while she adjusted to the feel of him. She cried and her body shook, so he ran his hands over her to try to calm her down.

“I’m sorry, Liz,” he apologized.

“No,” she choked out. “It’s . . . it feels good; it just . . . it hurts.”

“Are you okay to . . . continue?” he asked hopefully.

“I . . . I think so,” she stuttered. “Just keep going slow.”

“Okay,” he said, slowly starting up the movement of his hips. She kept her eyes closed, but gradually, the look of agony receded from her face, and a smile replaced it.

Of course.

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

Maria tossed her head back and moaned gutturally as she sank down atop Max’s leaking cock. He was a nice fit. Not perfect, but who really was anymore? He was large, wide, and didn’t seem to object to the fact that she didn’t roll a condom onto him. Good.

“Oh, wow,” he said, his eyes filled with an awe-inspired wonder. “Maria? Don’t you think we’re taking things a little fast?”

She leaned forward and pressed her hands against his bare chest. “Fast is good,” she said, and in response, she quickened her pace atop him.

“Oh, god,” he said, pressing his hips up against her. “Maria . . .”

She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the cock inside her. Not anything else. Or anyone else. Just Max. Max’s cock. Gliding against her. Getting her off.

She was getting off, wasn’t she?

She moved faster, desperately seeking an orgasm that seemed so elusive in that moment. Max wouldn’t last long. She could tell. He was a virgin, and virgins never had much stamina. Plus, he was a guy, and the same held true.

She leaned back, pressing her hands against his thighs, and rode him furiously, shifting slightly so that he was rubbing right against her g-spot. There. That was it. She was on her way.

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

“Oh!” Liz cried out, struggling to hold onto him as he moved in deeper. He was trying to go slow, really, but he couldn’t go too slow. His hormones had kicked in fifteen minutes ago, and he couldn’t resist thrusting into her rather quickly.

“Oh!” she cried again.

He bent his head and sucked one of her breasts into his mouth, causing her to arch up off the bed slightly. “Oh, Michael!”

That’s right, he thought, trailing one hand down between them to pinch the little nub at her center. Cum for me. Girls always cum for me.

It only took a few seconds of that touching for her eyes to snap open and her orgasm to rip through her. She spasmed around him, choking out his name and many other sounds of pleasure. “Michael! Uh!” She dug her head back into the pillow, and he watched her ride it out. He gave a few desperate thrusts into her exhausted in an effort to get himself off as well and managed to without much extra effort. He closed his eyes and came wordlessly, feeling satisfied. It was by no means the best orgasm ever, but it also wasn’t the worst.

He stayed inside her for a moment once it was over, needing to collect himself, and said, “Congratulations, Liz. You’re no longer a virgin.”

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “That was incredible.”

He grinned smugly and eased out of her slowly, noting her disappointed groan at the loss of his presence in her. He moved to lay beside her and took his cock in his hand, trying to pump himself up an erection again. “Just let me get hard again. We’ll go for round two.”

“How many rounds are there, typically?” she asked.

“Depends,” he answered. “Most guys, one to three. Me? I could go for five.” Actually, he could go for more than that, but he wasn’t sure Liz could. No, he’d probably just do her two more times. That seemed reasonable for the former virgin girl.

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

Maria lifted herself up all the way to the tip of Max’s cock and sank back down again, still rubbing strategically against her g-spot. She was close, but not close enough.

“Maria,” Max said, reaching up to place a hand on her hip. “I’m gonna . . .”

“Not yet,” she said, needing him to stay with her.

“I’m gonna . . .”

“Not yet, Max,” she breathed out, feeling his member start to twitch within her. No . . .

“Maria . . .”

“Not yet.”

“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

She closed her eyes tightly, trying so hard to get there, to find that one piece of stimulation, to find that on evasive thing . . .

She pictured Michael standing in his room in only a towel that morning, and she was gone. She flew over the edge, bringing Max with her. Her vaginal muscles clamped down around him, and he released himself eagerly inside her. She rode out the sensations as long as she could, trying to forget the image of Michael, trying to forget that it was solely responsible for getting her there.

She collapsed on Max’s chest afterwards, the sweat of her body mixing with his. Breathing deeply, she gave a moment’s thought to the fact that two virgins had been deflowered in that house that night. It wasn’t very often that that happened (she liked her men experienced), but whenever it did, she and Michael were responsible.

Max brought one hand up to tangle in her hair and stroked the other along her spine. “Oh god, Maria,” he said. “That was . . . god, that was amazing.”

She stayed resting atop him, but she didn’t say anything. She was horrified, absolutely ashamed of herself for using one of her best friends that way.

Oh my god, she thought. What did I just do?







TBC . . .

-April



(Okay, so if it was just TOO much for you and you needed to skip it, here's the summary: Liz and Michael go into Michael's bedroom, and she comes right out and says she wants to have sex with him. So Michael, of course, being the sex-loving guy he is, really likes that idea. Maria walks by the room, hears a couple of sounds that make her even more jealous than she already is, and, without thinking, goes into Max's room. She knows she shouldn't do it, but she has sex with him because she's upset about Michael and Liz. And even though Max wants to take things slower, he doesn't tell her to stop, because it's pretty much his dream come true. And while Max and Maria are doing it, Michael and Liz are doing it. Max and Liz are no longer virgins. Michael is proud of himself; Maria is ashamed of herself.)

[April]

Wow, you guys! Seriously, I really appreciate the time you took to provide such thought-provoking feedback. I've never posted a fic that has gotten such an invested response, and I'm loving it! And stinebiene, I'm glad to see you're still reading! I missed reading your feedback!

As promised, you get another part today. I think you guys will like this one. It's much more comedic and gives you a much-needed break from the UC-factor. Hopefully you'll enjoy the M+M interaction in this part, too. Even though they've just made some really bad choices with Max and Liz, their dynamic with each other doesn't change. They're still Michael and Maria!

Again, I really appreciate the feedback. As much as you guys might miss reading this story over my spring break week, I think I'm going to miss reading your feedback even more!







Part 30








Liz hobbled into the bathroom the next morning, surprised at how sore she was. She had expected some pain afterwards, but not like this. She attributed it all to Michael’s impressively large masculinity, not that she had anything to compare to.

She stepped into the bathroom and untied the bathrobe Michael had given her to wear. She looked down in between her legs and gasped. Blood had dried there, and there were bruises on the insides of her thighs from where Michael’s knees had held her legs apart. She winced and stroked one of the bruises, hoping it would go away soon. It just looked as though he had hurt her, and he hadn’t. Not really. Not at all. She had been willing, very willing, and in the end, very pleased. Maria had told her that sex was wonderful, with the exception of the first time. But even Liz’s first time had turned out to be wonderful. Michael had made sure of it.

She smiled dreamily as she stepped into the shower, remembering the way he had touched her, the way he had asked her if she was okay as he had taken her.

Taken. She had been taken.

Michael was a great boyfriend. More than that, he was her boyfriend. Last night, he had made her feel so unbelievably beautiful and desired. No one had ever made her feel that way before.

She turned on the shower water and didn’t even flinch when the cold water poured down on her. Her skin was still hot from the three times they’d had sex last night, and she welcomed the contrast. Gradually, the water warmed up, though, and she began to work on wiping the blood away.

Yeah, it hurt, but it was worth it.

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

Michael smoothed his hand over the clean sheets on his bed, easing out the wrinkles. Usually, he avoided changing his sheets like the plague, but considering what had transpired last night . . . yeah, they needed changing. Blood, sweat, and semen wasn’t exactly something he wanted to sleep in, and he doubted Liz would, either. And if he had his way, she would be sleeping over much more often now. Or not sleeping so much as . . . well, fucking. That was his way.

“Laundry day?”

Michael looked up and found Max standing in the doorway. “Not exactly,” he replied.

Max smiled and made his way into the room. “So I take it you and Liz . . .”

“Yeah,” Michael replied, deciding not to go into detail this time. Normally, he would have bragged it up, made it sound a little better than it actually was, but not this time. Everything had to be different with Liz. He needed to take it more seriously if it was going to work.

Max chuckled and said, “That’s funny. I, uh . . . I actually had a similar experience myself last night.”

Michael gave his friend a skeptical look. “You’re shittin’ me.”

Max’s face grew bright red, and he shook his head. “Nope. I, uh . . . I don’t even know how it happened. One minute I was just laying there, and the next . . .” He trailed off.

“Maria jumped your bones, huh?”

“Well, yeah, pretty much.”

Michael stared at Max, taking that in. One of his best friends sleeping with another one of his best friends. And then he couldn’t help but ask, “How was it?”

“Um, well, pretty incredible,” Max said. “Maria definitely knows what she’s doing.”

“Years of practice,” Michael said. Hell, he was the same way.

“I just feel like the luckiest man alive,” Max went on, looking completely euphoric. “I mean . . . alright, don’t tell anybody, but that was my first time.”

“Dude, it’s obvious,” Michael informed him.

Max frowned.

“Sorry, but it is,” Michael said, shrugging.

“Well, I’m glad I waited,” Max declared triumphantly. “Maria’s . . . she’s like no other girl in the world. And being with her . . .” He paused for a long moment, smiling affectionately as his eyes glazed over with fondness. “That’s the best feeling in the world.” He smiled at Michael, then turned and walked out.

The best feeling in the world. The words reverberated through Michael’s head for some reason, and he found himself struggling to understand them. “I guess I’ll never feel it,” he muttered, tossing his comforter onto the bed.

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

Maria poured about a teaspoon of instant coffee into a mug and, upon noticing how exhausted she felt, poured in half a teaspoon more. Over the years, she had become a heavy coffee drinker. She was so sleep-deprived, it wasn’t even funny.

As she was pouring a small amount of nearly boiling water in with it, Max came up beside her, startling her, almost causing her to spill the hot water on her hand. “Hey,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek.

“Hey,” she said, unsure how she felt about the greeting. Sure, they had gone a lot farther than pecks on the cheek last night, but it still felt unnatural. She put her spoon into the coffee and started to stir, concentrating on that, wondering if he would get the subtle point to give her some space for a minute.

But he didn’t. “How are you?” he asked her.

“Good,” she said, finding it hard to even look into his eyes for more than a second at a time. “You?”

“Good,” he replied.

“Good.” The more they said it, the more she started to hate the word. She nodded, waiting for the silence to end, but she got the sense that it was just going to continue as she stood there, stirring her crappy coffee. But thankfully, Kyle came upstairs and offered salvation.

“Kyle, hi!” she chirped too excitedly, her voice squeaking.

“Hi,” he said, giving her a slightly confused look. “Are you sure you need any more coffee? You sound pretty chipper already.”

“Well, I had a . . . busy night last night,” she admitted, taking one sip of the oh-so-strong beverage and cringing. She set it down on the counter, deciding she didn’t like it.

Kyle stopped in front of her and looked back and forth between her and Max, surveying them both suspiciously, and it didn’t take him long to figure it out. It never did. “Oh my god,” he said. “You two had sex.”

“Kyle!” she hissed.

“If you’re doin’ it, Maria, you should be able to talk about it,” he reasoned.

“Yeah, Maria. Talk about it.”

Maria groaned as Michael’s annoying voice entered the fray.

“We all know it happened,” he said as he sauntered out into the kitchen with that usual arrogant, irritating, sexy expression on his face.

Maria shot a look up at Max.

“I kinda . . . told him,” Max admitted sheepishly.

At first, she was mad, but then she thought to herself, What’s the point of having sex with Max if Michael doesn’t know about it? and she wasn’t mad anymore.

“Apparently it was incredible,” Michael went on to say.

“Duh,” she muttered. It was her.

“I still think it sounds like an incredibly bad idea,” Kyle put in his two cents, “but congratulations. And Michael, did my ears deceive me last night, or is Liz Parker officially de-virginized?”

Michael grinned and took Maria’s coffee from where she set it on the counter. “Good ears, man,” he said, taking a sip of the beverage.

“Didn’t take much,” Kyle said. “She was kinda loud.”

“Virgins always are.”

Maria looked to Max, and he blushed.

“So how was the little girl?” Kyle asked.

Michael cringed. “Dude, don’t make me sound like a pedophile.”

“What should I call her?”

He smirked. “Liz, the girl who made me pop like warm champagne.”

“Uh, he stole that line from Buffy,” Maria mumbled. “Not that he’ll ever admit to watching it. Hell no. But he does.”

“Would you shut up?” he barked. “No, Valenti, Liz was great. You’d do her. I won’t let you.”

“Was it the best sex she’s ever had?” Maria asked with a smug look of her own.

“Oh, laughin’ out loud, DeLuca. Truly,” he responded. “Even if she slept around like you, it’d still be the best sex she ever had. That’s just how I operate.”

“Well, in that case, smooth operator,” she said, turning to face him directly, “where is she right now?”

“In the shower.”

“And why aren’t you with her?”

“Gotta take it slow,” he replied.

“I don’t know,” Max spoke up. “Someone last night told me fast was good.”

“Bad girl,” Michael teased her, not even looking at Max. “Where’s your sense of romance?”

She gave him a look of disbelief and said, “Hearing you say that makes me wanna gag.” She grabbed her coffee back from him, not because she particularly liked the taste of it, but because she was stubborn and didn’t want him to have it. She headed into the living room then, and to her surprise, he followed her. “Stalker,” she teased, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“You like it.”

So maybe she did. A little. It didn’t mean anything.

Of course it means something, she thought, rolling her eyes at herself.

“Oh, crap,” Kyle swore suddenly.

“What?” Maria asked, whirling around to face him.

He stared down at an opened letter in his hand. “Shit.”

“What’s up, man?” Michael questioned.

“Holy fucking shit!”

“Kyle!” Maria shouted.

He held up the letter for them to see, and Maria recognized it to be a billing statement.

“Auggie’s Repair Shop,” he said. “Twenty-five hundred bucks for the car.”

“Huh,” Michael said flippantly.

“Why does it cost so much?” Max asked.

“’Cause we have to get a whole fucking new engine!” Kyle threw the bill down on the floor and stomped on it angrily. “Uh! God-dammit! Fuck!”

“It’s okay, Kyle,” Maria assured him. “Don’t, like, have an aneurism.”

“It’s okay?” Kyle echoed. “It’s okay? Do you guys not get it?”

“I get it,” Max said.

“I don’t,” Michael admitted. “We’ve got the money.”

“No, we don’t have anything,” Kyle corrected. “I have money. I work. But my paycheck goes toward the phone bill and the electricity bill and the god-damned plumbing bill, and everything fuckin’ else. Hey, like the mortgage.”

“Which is almost paid off. Yea,” Maria reminded him.

“Yeah, thanks to me!”

Maria shrugged. Kyle liked his job at the rec center. Why was he complaining?

“I could get a job,” Max volunteered.

“No, Evans, you’ve had your fair share of jobs,” Kyle said. “You’ve brought home your share of the bacon. Now you’re on your way to bein’ valedictorian. I wouldn’t wanna screw that up.”

“It’s not a problem, really,” Max assured him, always as nice as could be.

“No, I’m puttin’ my foot down,” Kyle said, always the authority. “Two people in this house have never worked a day in their lives. I wonder who they could be.”

Maria looked from side to side, pretending to not know who he was talking about, and Michael gazed up at the ceiling, doing the same.

“You, and you,” Kyle said, pointing at each one of them in turn. “All that time you guys spend arguing or . . . fucking, you could be working, bringing home some money, helping me pay for the expenses. Or at the very least, Maria, your wardrobe.”

“Fashion is a necessity, Kyle.”

“Fine, but I’m sick of being your piggy bank!”

“I’m sorry,” she said, jutting out her bottom lip in an over-exaggerated pout.

“Don’t do that,” Kyle said.

“I’m really sorry, Kyle,” she repeated, hoping to appeal to his soft side.

“No, I’m not fallin’ for it,” he said, his eyes blazing with determination. “You guys need to get jobs!”

Michael and Maria both grunted. “No, I don’t wanna do that,” Michael grumbled.

“That doesn’t sound very fun,” Maria mumbled at the same time.

“Deal with it,” Kyle said, bending down to pick up the billing statement. “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll pay exactly half this bill. No more. No less. The other half . . .” He walked past Michael and shoved the bill against his chest. “Paid by you.” He smiled crazily and said, “Welcome to the working class. Enjoy your stay.”

Maria grinned smugly at Michael as Kyle stomped off downstairs. “You hear that?” she said. “Paid by you.”

“You, too, princess,” he told her.

“He gave you the bill.”

He grabbed her hand and forced the bill into it. “And now I’m giving it to you.”

“Michael, I barely even drive the car.”

“Well, you can still pay for it.”

“I don’t wanna get a job!”

“I don’t, either!”

“Here, guys, I’ll just pay for it,” Max said, taking the bill from Maria.

She barely even noticed him. She was too fixated on Michael. She felt the familiar fire blazing in her soul, and she couldn’t douse it. “You’re despicable, Michael, you know that?”

“New adjective.”

“No, guys are supposed to be the bread-winners, and girls are just supposed to look beautiful.”

“Any other day, you’re practically a feminist,” he muttered.

She placed her hands on her hips and looked him right in the eye. She was vaguely aware that Max had retreated into his bedroom. Only vaguely. “You don’t think I can get a job, do you?” she said to Michael.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I can,” she promised. “And I will. Just to prove you wrong.”

“Okay, I’ll see you at the nearest strip club.”

“No, it’ll be a good job,” she vowed. “A respectable job. You just watch.”

“Good luck with that,” he said. “You wanna make it an official bet?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Alright. If I win . . .” He paused for a moment to think about it and smiled when he came up with something. “You make-out with another girl in front of me.”

She gave him a look. “Say what?”

“Preferably Liz,” he added, wriggling his eyebrows and licking his lips.

“Aren’t you worried she’ll find out I’m the better kisser?”

“Actually, I’m just worried it’ll be too sexy.”

She smiled a little, and felt her heart flutter in her chest at the remark. “You think I’m sexy?” she almost whispered.

“I think Liz is sexy,” he amended. “And you’re dirty. You're my dirty girl. Dirty and Sexy making out . . . that’s what I wanna see.”

I’m sexier than Liz, she thought before agreeing to it. “Alright. You win, you see. If I win . . .”

“Which you won’t.”

She set her coffee down on the end table, getting serious. She thought carefully about her options and quickly came up with something that she would love to see him try. “You go without sex for a month.”

“What the hell?” he spat. “No!”

“Wimp.”

“No, I . . .” He lowered his voice. “A whole month, Maria?”

“Yep.”

“God, you’re such a bitch.”

“So you game?”

“Hell yeah,” he mimicked. “I’m gonna win. You’re not gonna get a job.”

“Oh, I am gonna get a job,” she assured him.

“Within the next week?” he asked, elevating the bet.

“You bet your ass. In this case literally.” She stuck her tongue out at him and pranced down the hallway. Liz came out of the bathroom wearing one of her bathrobes, and as she passed her, Maria chirped, “Hey, Liz. If you wanna have sex with Michael again, better do it now. After this week, he’s going celibate.”

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

Maria skipped all her classes the next day to concentrate on the job search. She went around and filled out applications at various places, mostly high-end fashion boutiques, and she even got a call back that very day from a place called The Seine, a boutique dedicated to providing all the hottest fashions from Paris. If she absolutely had to work, it was her top choice, so she hoped the interview went well. And when she saw that her interviewer was a man, she had a feeling it would. She could use a flirtation tactic. It would be easy.

“So, Maria, what are you skills?” the man asked her.

“Well . . .” She thought about it and replied, “Dancing, mostly.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, no, not like pole-dancing or something,” she quickly elaborated. “Hip-hop, primarily, and jazz, which is basically like less uptight ballet.”

“I see,” he said slowly, jotting something down on the question sheet in front of him. She tried to lean forward and see the comment, but he kept it out of her view.

“What else?” he asked.

She tried to come up with something else, but she only came up with something inappropriate. “Well, if you really wanna know, I can tell you,” she said, “but it’s not exactly G-rated.”

He kept his face blank this time as he jotted something else down on the paper. He set his pen down then, looking a little frustrated with her, and said, “I guess what I’m looking for is, customer service skills, a dedicated work ethic, punctuality . . .” he said.

“Oh, no, none of those things,” she said flippantly.

“A knowledge of fashion?” he searched desperately.

“Well, actually, my friend Tess is, like, way more knowledgeable, but I definitely like it. Especially some of the clothes you’ve got here. Very minimal in the fabric department. The way I see it, the sluttier, the better, you know?”

Her interviewer sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead in what appeared to be distress.

Oh no, she thought. I don’t think I’m doing so good. Foot-in-mouth syndrome. It was a killer. “Look, I know I may seem a little . . . unprepared,” she acknowledged. “Honestly, I thought I’d just come in and look pretty, and you wouldn’t be able to resist hiring me.”

Slowly, he leaned back in his seat, maintaining direct eye contact with her, and then he sternly said, “I’m gay.”

Shoot, she thought, wondering why she hadn’t considered it before. A man running a fashion boutique? There were only so many explanations. “Oh,” she said, knowing then that there was no way she was going to get that job. She pushed her chair back and stood up. “Bye-bye now.” She smiled at him and left, unhappy that her first choice wasn’t going to work out.

On to option number two . . .

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

“So, Maria, why do you want this job?”

Maria glanced around at her surroundings, the fast-paced business setting at the administration building for the College of Arts and Sciences. She had only applied there because it was the college from which her dance major derived, and she thought that might gain her some favoritism. “Well, my first choice was this little fashion boutique off Main. The Seine. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. But this would be good, too.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

Maria wasn’t sure what to make of that response. Her interviewer was a female this time, and that sucked.

Oh! Maria thought. Maybe she’s a lesbian! That would work in my favor.

“Any weaknesses?” the interviewer asked.

“Oh, you know. Chocolate. Laguna Beach. Gorgeous guys. The usual.”

The woman gave her one of those raised eyebrow looks she had become so accustomed to seeing and asked, “Any strengths?”

Maria decided not to give the answers she had last time. Obviously, they hadn’t been effective. “Well . ..” she started, but she couldn’t think of anything besides dancing and sex. She decided to play it safe and asked, “What kind of strengths are we talking about?” Clever chica! she congratulated herself.

“Strengths as a secretary. Such as . . . phone skills, filing skills, computer skills.”

“Oh, I’m good on the computer,” Maria assured her. “I Facebook all the time.”

The woman laughed slightly and said, “Actually, I’m more interested in knowing, for example, how many words you can type per minute?”

Hell if she knew. “Oh, like, a hundred,” she answered confidently. How hard could it be?

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you mind giving me a demonstration?”

Maria smiled nervously, having been afraid that she would ask that.

She found herself sitting in front of a computer a minute later, ready to embark on a test that would show how many words she could type per minute and her level of accuracy.

Oh, god, what was she getting herself into?

“Whenever you’re ready,” the woman urged.

Maria tentatively placed her hands on the keyboard, not sure if her right index finger was supposed to be on the H or the J. She had never really paid attention in typing class, and even when she did type on Facebook or MySpace, she kind of had her own strange way of doing it.

She started typing, trying to go as fast as she could, but she found herself making a lot of errors, so she had to resort back to the only method she truly knew: the hunt and peck method.

She hit the backspace repeatedly, cursing often as well. “Shit.” And by the time the clock ran out, she was only two lines down in the paragraph. When she saw the results, she was embarrassed.

Thirty words per minute. Sixty-seven percent accuracy. She tried to smile nonetheless.

The interviewer looked at her critically, obviously unimpressed, and said, “Miss DeLuca, I think you’d be better suited elsewhere.”

Maria sighed, trying not to get too depressed. Unfortunately, though, her ‘elsewheres’ were dwindling.

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

Last resort. A restaurant. Pizza Barn.

“Why do you think I should hire you, Maria?”

“I think I’d make a really good waitress,” she said confidently. “I’m outgoing and I’m pretty, and I’m not afraid to let guys slap my ass.”

Her interviewer, a straight male this time, thankfully, considered that answer for a moment, then shrugged and said, “We do get a few of those.”

Maria laughed a little, feeling that this was going much better. This guy was younger, much more lighthearted, and more open to the possibility of hiring her, it seemed, than the last employers she had met with.

As he looked through her application, he said, “Okay, and where are your references?”

“References?” she echoed.

“Yeah, previous employers, professors maybe.”

“Oh, I don’t . . . actually have any previous employers,” she admitted. “And I’m not really close to any of my professors. I mean . . .” She trailed off, thinking about how close she got to some of the male ones, but didn’t put her foot in her mouth this time. “Not in the academic sense.”

“So, you have no references?”

She shrugged. “Guess not. Oh, you know who you could call, though? Kyle. He’s my roommate. Or Max, my other roommate. Don’t call Michael, though, he’s an ass.” She grunted. “All men are.” Then she remembered who she was talking to—a man—and saw the offended look on his face and realized that her foot had found its way into her mouth again. And all she could say was, “Oops.”

She sulked out of Pizza Barn that afternoon without a job, worried for the first time that Michael was going to win the bet after all. That was just unacceptable.








TBC . . .

-April