sarammlover: Lol, it’s funny as long as you are not the one naked and outside.
keepsmiling7: Hm, you never know… there is still one BIG waiting, huh?
Janetfl: Hi Jan! Lol yep, I think you got that right.
Well, that’s true… what is this little “lie” of Max compared to that huge asteroid waiting?
Thanks!
Alien_Friend: I am sure you wanna hug him again after today, hehe.
True, the longer Max keeps his true identity to himself, the harder it will get to bring the truth towards Liz. Not an easy decision to make.
Thanks.
xilaj: We will find out what Michael has to say to Maria today and where he tells her all of those things.
Hm, how Max gets the truth out has yet to be seen.
I wouldn’t feel all too comfortable in Alex shoes!
Chapter 4G
“You sure you don’t wanna sit while you eat that?” Michael asked, amused as he watched her from the corner of his eye when she ate her fries.
“No, I’m good,” she mumbled around a bite and made a waving gesture with her hand when she swallowed. “Damn, that was hot.”
“You spilled cheese sauce,” he mentioned.
“Where?” Maria looked all over her clothes, but couldn’t find a spot anywhere.
He stopped and walked up in front of her, using his free hand to wipe it away from her chin. She followed his movement when he then licked it from his finger and smirked at her.
Damn, that was sexy, she thought and distracted herself with looking back at the food. “Knew you were hungry, buddy.” She took one fry and held it up to him until he opened his mouth and took it in, deliberately touching her fingers with his lips.
Their eyes met for a very long intense moment, but neither of them moved. It would be so easy to kiss her now, he thought, but didn’t go for it. Yet. Before he would put a real move on her, she had to know who he was and what is life was like. If he was lucky enough and she didn’t run away screaming, he would kiss her.
“Come on,” he nudged her slightly and winked before they continued their way. “We’re almost there,” he pointed at something in a distance.
“We’re going to Yacht Harbor?”
“Yep.”
“Well, okay.” She didn’t really know why, but let him guide her. Maybe there was a deeper motive behind it or maybe he just liked the place.
It only took another few minutes before they reached their destination. Michael led her to the very end, along a small jetty until the dead end. He rested his lower arms on the railing and stared out over the ocean while Maria leaned her back on it to eat the last of her fries. “Want some more?”
He shook his head. “No thanks.” Right now he was really too nervous to eat.
“Okay,” she said, but somehow had the feeling something was wrong. He was even more quiet than earlier that day and didn’t say anything while they stood there, watching the birds catching fish out of the water.
She walked over to a nearby trashcan and tossed the empty wrappings away, wiping her hands on her jeans before she joined him again.
Michael tried to find the best way to start this conversation, but it was really hard to find something fitting. He had never really told anyone about his life, except the few people who knew about it anyway.
“Is everything okay?” Maria asked after a while of silence that started to get uncomfortable. He turned his head to look at her intensely. “I mean, you seem to be a little… off.”
“Everything’s okay,” he said finally and straightened up a bit and scratched his eyebrow. “I guess…”
Maria turned and hopped up to sit on the railing, wrapping her feet around the lower one to steady herself. “You guess…” An uneasy feeling was washing over her. What did that mean?
“There is something I need to tell you,” he pushed himself to continue. “You know… before we…” He pointed between the two of them, not knowing how to describe it. He didn’t want to call it a relationship yet.
She nodded. “Okay.” Fear was creeping up her spine. What could he possibly tell her that was so serious on a first date? Was he sick maybe?
He looked over the ocean and pointed to a small yacht in the distance. “My family used to have a similar one when I was younger.”
“That’s cool.” He didn’t strike her as a guy with a rich family though and those things cost a fortune.
“My mother loved to dive. She had worked pretty hard since she was very young to afford it and once she was able to buy it, she spent every free minute out on the ocean.” He cleared his throat. “Took me out a lot too, but I kinda hated diving. It just creeped me out.”
“I know what you mean,” she admitted quietly. “I’m not sure I could do that either.”
“One day she was out there. Alone, like she had been countless times before.” He shook his head. “It’s never really been resolved how it happened, but she drowned that day. It was probably some defect in her equipment.”
Maria held onto the railing to not fall while she tried to come up with some words. She was really surprised to hear something like that on a first date and she wondered if it was just the beginning of more. “I’m sorry, Michael. How old were you?”
“Six,” he said hoarsely. “The Coast Guard took three days to find her and my father was going crazy at home. She would probably still be alive if she hadn’t been out there alone again. My father had told her countless times he didn’t want her to go out on the water alone but she didn’t listen.”
His tone was angry and she wondered if the anger was aimed at his mother or the situation in general.
“My mother had always been the head of the family, the one who held us all together, the one who worked the hardest. When she was suddenly gone, my father felt totally swamped. He had never cooked in his life before, never used a washing machine. Having to raise me alone, earning money, and taking care of the household was too much for him.”
She could imagine what a hole his mother had left in the family, but life had to go on, right? Though her father wasn’t dead and had just left them, her mother had done that all alone as well.
“He fell into a depression, started to drink and lost his job over it.” The wind was picking up and he moved his head to look at her. “Are you cold?”
She actually was cold, but shook her head. Somehow this seemed to be more important than finding a warmer place. “I’m okay.”
Nonetheless, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and got a beanie out. “Here,” he gave it to her.
“I’ll look stupid with it on,” she complained, but took it from him anyway. She grasped her hair all together and whirled it up to sit under the beanie when she pulled it over her head.
He laughed quietly when he looked at her.
“See, told you I’d look dumb.”
“You don’t,” he shook his head. And she really didn’t in his eyes.
“You wanna continue?” she asked gently after a moment.
“Yeah…” he agreed, preparing to get to the more important things he wanted to tell her. “It didn’t take long until we lost our house and had to move into a small crappy apartment at the other end of the city. I was hoping my Dad would someday snap out of it, but…”
“Never happened, huh?” Maria said when he didn’t say anything and seemed to be so lost in that moment.
“No”, he affirmed. “It pretty much went downhill from there. I was bad in school because when I got home I was confronted with a mess and at one point I didn’t care about anything anymore either. I met Kyle in our apartment building and he had a pretty similar family situation, so we started to hang out together and the older we got…” he shrugged, “let’s say we weren’t up to anything good.”
She felt sorry for him, but wasn’t sure how much of it he would appreciate. “That’s a tough childhood you had.”
He breathed deeply. “Yeah. We didn’t have any money, so we came up with a lot of shit. I mean, we were hungry you know and there was never a warm meal waiting for us or anything at home.” He snorted loudly. “To be honest, there was never anything good waiting for us at home. The only things our fathers had for us was beer and a beating.”
Damn, what should she say to that? Her heart clenched tightly at his confession and she felt incredibly sad about what had gone on in his still young life. She reached out to place her hand over his on the railing and squeezed it slightly instead of saying anything.
“You ARE cold,” he remarked and stepped away from the railing to stand in front of her, blocking at least a bit of the wind blowing at her.
Maria let go of her hold and rested both of her palms against the sides of his neck, waiting to see if he had anything else to say.
“Okay, M, what I’m trying to say is you’re probably way too good for me.” He shook his head when she wanted to protest. “I finished school finally, I got a small apartment and a job and I’m trying to be better than that now, but the truth is my money is hardly enough for food and the monthly rent, my apartment is anything but fancy and …yeah, I also have a criminal record.” He met her gaze while his heart was pounding like crazy in his chest. Never ever had he admitted so much about himself and especially not to anyone he hadn’t even known for more than 24 hours. This was crazy, but he didn’t regret it and at least she wasn’t running away - yet. “You know what Kyle said last night?”
She shook her head. “What?”
“That you’re way out of my league and I guess he’s right, but it didn’t keep me from coming here anyway.”
Maria studied his features, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Was he trying to tell her they couldn’t be together or was he saying they could? “So, if you think I’m too good for you… why are you here, Michael?”
He shrugged and avoided looking at her. “Maybe I had to hold onto the first good thing that’s happened to me in a damn long time.”
His words saddened her. She squeezed her hands on his shoulders to get his attention. “Wanna hear my way of looking at this?”
“Sure,” he nodded, although he wasn’t sure how much he’d like it.
“Okay,” she played with the collar of his jacket while she thought about a way to start. “To my way of thinking, you won’t find out about deserving each other by comparing your life status. I mean, more money or less money, it doesn’t say anything about who you are. Of course appearances blend people and I wouldn’t exclude myself from that, but in the end there is something else that counts the most. It’s the way you treat people.”
He frowned when he wasn’t sure what that meant for them.
“When we met each other yesterday, I guess it was obvious that Tess and I don’t normally go to bars like that, right?”
“Yeah,” he smirked. “You strike me more like cocktail bar girls.”
She laughed. “We normally are. But the point is you didn’t make fun of me or treat me bad just because you were angry with the whole world and the more wealthy people. You treated me an’ Tess right and without prejudice and that’s really all that matters to me.”
He only could hope that she meant what he thought she meant because it was still hard to make out if she was okay with his background or not.
“Michael, you really don’t have to worry about not being good enough for me or whatever, okay? As long as you treat me right it won’t matter what happened in the past or where you live, or what you did.” She smacked his head slightly. “Of course you better stay out of any trouble with the police, buddy.”
“Will do that,” he promised and felt incredibly relieved that it was finally out. Kyle had called him insane when he had told him about his plan to tell her the truth, but now he was just happy he hadn’t let his best friend change his mind about it.
“It looks like you carried that around with you all day,” she said slowly when she detected his more relaxed features.
He shrugged. “I wanted to tell you right away what you got in front of you and I wasn’t sure how’d you react.”
“I’m glad you did,” she admitted, knowing it would have led to complications if he had tried to hide parts of his past.
They stood there for several minutes in silence. Michael watched her as her eyes followed a bird sitting on the railing. He had a small stick clinging to his leg and was trying to pick it away in frustration. A smile played around her lips while she watched the animal.
“You are the cutest woman on earth,” he said, amused when her features showed off all the emotions running around in her head.
“Cute?” she asked and turned to him, noticing that he had been watching her the whole time.
He nodded.
“I’m not sure I like being cute.” She made a face. “Couldn’t you have said something like sexy or something?”
He laughed out loud and stepped closer, bringing his arms around her waist. “What if I tell you cute is really my type?”
Maria could feel the warmth coming from his body and let her own arms slip around his neck. “Then I guess I could live with being cute in your eyes.” Every part of her body was reacting to his presence. Her arms and legs were tingling, her stomach was feeling just as weird as the day she got her first kiss in fifth grade and her cheeks felt like they were on fire.
“I’m sure that beneath all those layers of clothes,” he brought his face closer and nudged the collar of her jacket with his nose, “I will also find sexy.”
“So, about what we talked about last night,” she said and used her index finger to swipe along his lips.
“’ven’t been smokin’,” he mumbled against her finger.
She had to smile when he remembered immediately what she meant. “Then you know what to do.”
“Pretty sure,” he mumbled and tipped his head up, nudging her nose with his playfully, and then finally pressing his lips against hers in a gentle manner.
He felt incredible soft, was the first thing she thought and suppressed a frustrated groan when be backed away again already.
Michael only moved away an inch or two, widening his stance and using his arms to settle her more fully against him before he closed the distance again and let his lips sweep over hers - first only in slow motion and then a little faster. He kept the kiss tender, ignoring the desire for more deep inside of him for now.
His kiss feels so different compared to everything before, Maria mused. One of her hands swept over the bare skin of his neck, her thumb stretching out to drive along his jaw. The way he kissed was different too. While most teenage boys tended to be overheated, stormy and well… way too wet, he was gentle and just altered the intensity to make it more thrilling. Yeah, it was the first time she had the feeling that it meant something not only to her, but him also.
They were both ready to take the kiss further when a loud grumble from his stomach interrupted and made Maria laugh. “You sure you’re not hungry?”
“Well maybe a bit now,” he admitted, his gaze wandering down to her lips.
“Thank God I’m a genius and took a few burgers with us, huh?” She pressed another light kiss on his mouth and nodded over his shoulder. “They’re over there on the bench.”
He turned slightly to detect the bag out of the corner of his eyes. “Ya sure? I probably won’t taste that good afterwards.”
“I told them to leave the onions off,” she replied with a wink and ran her hand along his temple with a nod. “Guess we have lots of time for the rest later.”
“Yeah,” he agreed and brought her closer for a hug once more. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
He shrugged. “Not judging me for… you know, my life.”
****
Maria smiled sadly at the pic on her cell and the memory attached to it. They had stayed on the harbor for another few hours, talking, kissing and taking a few pics with her cell to remember.
It was several years ago now, but she could still remember it as if it had been yesterday. “I love you, Michael. Come back to me,” she whispered quietly into the dark.
