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

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April
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Part 41

Post by April »

RiceKrispy: Oh, Max and Liz will get their reality check, but much later. And to answer your question . . . I've been continuing to write this as you guys read it so that hopefully I'll be able to keep posting it continuously and not have any big breaks in the update patterns. :D
Alien_Friend: Ha ha, yes, only Michael would use the threat of no more Maria nudity as his motivation to go to church. And yes, Max is very trusting of Maria and Michael's friendship. Probably a bit too trusting. :?
pookie76:
Isn't that what a relationship should be like? Besides sex etc it should be like the closest friendship and that's exactly what Maria and Michael have
Exactly! That's the ideal relationship, but it's also scary, because you run the risk of ruining a friendship if you start something romantic/sexual. I'm glad you enjoyed the last part so much! It was definitely a fun one to write, too.
Mag:
To answer your little note about Max, I doubt that he is in love with Maria. He seems more in love with the picture of her he has created in his mind. But that Maria isn't real.
That's very true. Max really truly is in love, but the problem is that he's in love with a girl who doesn't exist. I'm glad you thought the "fake sex" scene in the church was daring! It seemed appropriate for the fic. ;)
Sara: Yep, Michael and Maria are definitely getting close. And they've been pretty close since the beginning, so they're now getting VERY close. And they will get closer, eventually, I promise. :P
SweetnSpicy: I think that, within the next few parts, you'll have decided how you feel about Amy.
Tine: Well, to answer your question, as of right now, I have . . . brace yourself . . . 1,056 pages written. And it's not done yet. There's still a lot of stuff that I need to write. (Crazy, isn't it?) I think you guys are on page 370, so there's still a long ride ahead.
Elle: You have wedding plans? Aw, congratulations! That must be stressful, but exciting! I'm prolonging planning my own wedding. (I've been engaged for about a year and a half! lol) Oh, and you say I'm nudging you into Candyland? My mission in life! This must be a tough story for a Dreamer to read, so thanks for sticking with it.
spacegirl23: Yes, I had a feeling no one would miss Liz in the last part. And it's not really that Max is less hot than Michael, it's just that he's less confident. If he had some confidence, he would be a confident gentleman. And that would be very hot. Thanks for reading!
nibbles:
they're so going to burn in hell.
lol, well as long as they're burning together, they should be alright. ;)

Thank you ALL for the wonderful feedback and investment in this story!


THE SONG USED IN THIS PART IS "BIG CHAIR" BY TRAVIS.








Part 41








“Come on, Maria. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s one class. It’s not like I’m really gonna miss anything.”

“Oh, yeah,” Maria said sarcastically. “Just the day before a test, prime review time. No big deal. Yeah, skip it.”

Liz gave Maria a look. “Oh, come on, don’t act like you’ve never skipped a class before.”

“Exactly. And look at me now, Liz. Actually having to study my senior year to make sure I pass.” She made a face of disgust.

“I’ll be fine,” Liz assured her. “I’m smart. Not that you’re not. It’s just that you’re more, you know, street-smart.”

“I sure am,” Maria agreed. “Street-smart enough to know that crocs are a fashion red-herring. Seriously, Liz? Those are the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen.”

“They’re comfy,” Liz reasoned. She took off one shoe anyway and threw it at Maria. Maria laughed.

“Don’t skip class, Liz,” she warned then, turning serious again. “I want you to be popular, not dumb.”

“Maria, I have to,” Liz insisted, checking out her reflection in the mirror. “It’s Valentine’s Day. I need to find a dress to wear tonight.”

“Just buy one from Tess.”

“I tried. She’s all sold out, and she doesn’t have time to make another one.”

Maria sighed, resigning herself to the fact that her friend was mall-bound and would probably receive her first failing grade on her upcoming sociology exam. “So you and Michael are going out?” she inquired.

“Yeah, apparently to this really nice, really fancy restaurant.”

“Yeah, that’s code for Chuck E. Cheese,” Maria informed her, knowing Michael’s lack of refinement well.

Liz rolled her eyes and continued to look at herself in the mirror. “So what are you and Max doing?” she asked as she picked a piece of food out of her teeth.

“Sadly, nothing,” she replied. “He has a huge exam tomorrow and promised to lead this study group, so . . .”

“Oh. That is sad. A study group on Valentine's Day? That's the kind of thing I used to do in high school.”

“Yeah. But he did get me a nice present, though. See?” She held out the heart-shaped necklace she was wearing for Liz to see.

“Oh my god, that is nice,” Liz said as she looked over the necklace. “Are those real diamonds?”

“I think so, but he wouldn’t say.”

Liz smiled. “We have studly boyfriends, Maria.”

Maria smiled, too. “So what’d your so-called stud give you?”

“Nothing I can talk about,” Liz said coyly.

“What? Parker! He didn’t, did he?” Maria shrieked. “He lost the bet! He’s supposed to be abstaining!”

“Oh, and he’s all about the abstinence, trust me,” Liz assured her. “It’s driving me insane. No, he just used his fingers.”

Maria cringed. “Oh. Kay. That’s . . .”

“You wanted to know,” Liz reminded her.

Before either of the girls could say more, there was a knock on the door.

“Ooh, Michael!” Liz squealed, skipping over to answer it. Her excitement decreased noticeably when she saw that it was not Michael on the other side, but some random guy.

“Hey,” he said. “My name’s Brad. You don’t know me, but I know you. I’m on the sixth floor.”

“Oh. Hi, Brad.”

Maria rolled her eyes in annoyance. She had never understood the guys who just went around and knocked on dorm room doors to meet girls. It wasn’t romantic. Dorm rooms weren’t exactly the stuff dreams were made of.

“Anyway, I just wanted to invite you to this party at Alpha Sigma tonight. It’s gonna be pretty wild, but it’s only gonna be cool if you’re there.”

Maria raised an eyebrow. That was quite a bold thing to say to little Liz Parker.

Liz blushed and said. “Uh, yeah, maybe I’ll make an appearance.”

Maria couldn’t believe it. Liz was . . . playing it cool. Flirting, even.

Liz was officially popular.

Wasn’t that supposed to be a good thing?

“Awesome,” Brad said. He peeked into the room and said to Maria, “You can come, too, if you want.”

Something about the way he said those words didn’t sit right with Maria. Didn’t he remember who he was talking to? He might have the love-bug for Liz, she thought, but I’m still the queen of campus.

Aren’t I?


“Thanks,” she said, an uneasy feeling settling in her stomach. As crazy as it sounded, that was the first time ever in her life that a guy had been within ten feet of her and not focused on her. Maybe it was selfish and stupid to let it bother her so much, but she couldn’t help it.

“Alright. Bye, Liz,” he said.

“Bye!” she chirped, waving at him as he walked on down the hallway. She shut the door and turned to face Maria, her eyes and mouth open wide.

“You have a boyfriend,” Maria reminded her.

“Yeah, but I also have an admirer!” Liz exclaimed. “Actually, I think I have a lot of admirers now, Maria. It’s like, ever since I started dating Michael, guys have been noticing me. It’s like all of a sudden . . . people like me, Maria. I like me.”

I actually prefer the old Liz, Maria thought sadly, wondering how that girl had vanished so quickly, wishing she hadn’t played a part in it.

“Oh, I’m so excited!” Liz squealed, jumping up and down for a moment.

Maria just smiled, trying to hide her feelings on the matter for fear of bursting Liz’s bubble.

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

Maria stormed into the house that evening, bypassing her mother before she could ask any questions or toss out any infuriating remarks. She stomped down the hallway to her room, the events of the day still bothering her. After she had left Liz’s room and headed off to class, she’d heard a group of people talking about Liz. Not about her, but about Liz. Talking about how beautiful she was, how great of a dancer she was, how cool she was. Those were the things people said about Maria DeLuca, not Liz Parker.

Until now.

She slammed the door to her bedroom and tossed her backpack onto the floor. She wished Michael were home so she could take it out on him. He would end up making her laugh, somehow, and then she would feel a lot better.

She sat down at her desk and searched around the cluttered area for her favorite DVD, the one Michael had made her. She found it finally, opened up the case, and took out a permanent marker to write on the top of the DVD itself in capital letters: MARIA’S GLORY DAYS. Because that’s what they had been.

She shoved the DVD into her computer then, and leaned back in her desk chair, all prepared to watch it. But when she pressed play, nothing happened.

What the . . .? She ejected the DVD, even more angry now because nothing was going her way, and took a look at the shiny silver surface.

It was all scratched up.

“Uh!” she gasped in outrage, wondering how it could have gotten that way. She’d always been so careful with it, and it wasn’t as though anyone would do that on purpose . . .

. . . except her god-awful mother.

“You bitch!” she screamed when she stormed back out into the living room a few seconds later. “This was a gift!”

“It was a joke,” Amy said, standing up and backing away. “You know you’re never going to be a dancer.”

“I already am a dancer!” Maria roared, feeling tears stinging at her eyes. But she refused to let them fall. She refused to let her mother see her like that. It wasn’t worth it. It just wasn’t worth it.

“Maria, all you are is an immature, selfish--”

“Shut up!” she screamed, throwing the DVD at the wall, accidently cracking it in half. She almost broke down when she saw what she had done to the nicest, most meaningful present she had ever received, but again she refused. She didn’t cry. She didn’t.

“You know, I had a bad day,” she said. “And as usual, you just made it worse.” Shaking her head angrily, she walked past the broken remains of the DVD and out the door.

Alpha Sigma, she remembered. Precious Liz Parker might not be going to the party, but I sure as hell am.

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

Maria walked to the party in hopes that it would be in full swing by the time she got there. And it was. It really was. Alpha Sigma parties had always been notorious, and being that this was a holiday party, it promised to be a rager. Just what Maria was looking for.

I’m gonna get drunk and flaunt it to my mom, she decided, just to piss her off.

She headed straight for the keg, but a few people got in her way. Since when did people not clear a path for her? When had everything changed?

“Move,” she said, shoving past them. “Get out of my way.” She was not in a pleasant mood.

Finally, she got to the keg. She filled up a beer for herself and began drinking greedily. If she got drunk enough, maybe she’d forget what a suck day she’d had.

“Hey, is Liz here?”

She spun around and accidently spilled some of her beer on the person who asked her that. She recognized him from earlier that day. It was Brad, the guy who had stopped by Liz’s dorm room and been completely obvious in his intent to seduce her.

“No,” she said. “Sorry to disappoint, but it’s just me.”

Brad turned back around to a few of his male friends and said, “She’s not here.”

Maria grunted, drinking the rest of the beer out of the cup. What the hell was going on with the world? She was at a party. Why wasn’t she the center of attention? She realized that the thoughts racing through her brain were immature and selfish, but she wasn’t going to censor herself.

“She’s a little old,” she heard one of Brad’s friends comment as he eyed her, “but she’ll do.”

She got it. Liz was new meat, and suddenly Maria DeLuca didn't look so hot. Since when was she the girl guys settled for?

“What’s her name again?” another asked.

What’s my name?! she thought in outrage. Who the hell on this campus doesn’t know my name?

Angry and bitter, she was happy when a scrawny pledge wearing a wig and bra approached her with a tray of shots in his hand and offered her one. “Shot?”

Without thinking, she took two of them, vodka, and tossed her head back, downing them with no problem at all. Her daringness seemed to evoke a sudden intrigue among Brad and his friends, as they all began to smile.

But she didn’t want to hop into bed with them. She just wanted to forget about her problems for awhile. Just for a little while.

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

Liz had had her doubts about where Michael would be taking her out to dinner that night. She knew it would be nice, but she didn’t know just how nice it would be. He took her to a restaurant called The Palace that served all her favorite kinds of food. It was really expensive, too, but he promised to pay for the whole thing.

“I feel really bad,” she said as saw the waiter approaching with their dessert.

“What, food poisoning?” he asked.

“No, I mean, bad about the fact that you’re spending all this money on me.”

“Liz, it’s Valentine’s Day. You’re my girlfriend. I’m supposed to.”

“Yeah, but . . .” She trailed off as their waiter came by and set their desserts down in front of them. Michael had gotten cherry cheesecake. She had opted for lemon meringue pie. Once the waiter left, she finished what she was saying. “This is, like, really nice. How are you paying for this?”

“Why the hell else do I have a job?” was his response. “It’s all about keeping the female happy.”

“Ooh, I like that,” she said. “So in the interest of happiness, what’s next?”

“Next?”

“Yeah.” She took a bite of her pie, trying to read the expression on his face. “What do we do after dinner?”

He grinned. “Let’s just say there’s a reason why I told you to skip the chocolate pie.”

She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “Okay, remember, you’re talking to a former virgin here.”

“We’re all former virgins.”

“Yeah, but I was . . . recently. So you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

He set down his fork and leaned for. “Well,” he said, “I definitely see chocolate in our future, but . . ." He motioned between the two of them and said, "We’re sort of gonna be the pies.”

“We?” she echoed. “What . . .” She trailed off when it dawned on her what he was talking about. She had done numerous internet searches to figure out what kinds of kinky sex stuff people did so Michael wouldn’t think she was a complete virginal retard. “Oh,” she said. “That sounds . . . very fun.”

“It is,” he promised her. “We’re gonna melt down some chocolate, have ourselves a good time.”

“But are we gonna break any rules?” Liz asked.

“Nope. We’re not goin’ down on each other,” he said. “It’s not sex, but it’s sexy.”

Everything about you is, Michael, she thought.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll make you cum anyway.”

She blushed and smiled. He always did, and every time, it just got better and better. She couldn’t imagine going back to being a virgin now, not knowing what it was like to feel the way Michael made her feel with the touch of his hand or his . . . other body parts.

He grinned, picked up his fork again, and took another bite of his pie. “Save room,” he cautioned her.

She smiled. Something told her that chocolate-covered Michael would taste much better than this lemon meringue pie.

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

How long have I been here? Maria wondered dizzily as she looked around for some sort of clock. It couldn’t have been more than forty-five minutes, but she already felt so drunk and disoriented. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. Usually, she could handle her alcohol well. This felt different.

There was a group of guys around her urging her to keep drinking. But she didn’t know who they were. When had they gotten there? What was happening? She felt so out of it.

“No, I . . . I-I need to stop,” she struggled to get out. This was not normal. She felt strange. She felt hot, yet cold at the same time. She felt unsteady on her feet. She felt her breath coming in ragged pants, each one harder and harder to get out.

“No, don’t stop,” the guys chorused. “Just one more. Go for one more.” They handed her another shot glass.

“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head.

“Come on.”

Dazedly, she took the small glass from them and tried to toss it back in one shot, but she felt as though she were going to throw up, and she couldn’t do it. She spit some of it out and onto the floor, still shaking her head. “No,” she said. “I need to . . . go.” She could barely even think of the words she wanted to say. Go. She needed to go.

She stumbled away from them, trying to remember how she had gotten there. Had she driven? Or walked? Where were her friends? What was she going to do? She could barely stand.

When her vision started to blur, she became even more unstable. “Michael?” she choked out, reaching out her hand for him.

But it wasn’t Michael who reached out in return. It was that other guy, Brad. “Steady there, delicious,” he said.

“No,” she said, weakly pulling her arm away from him. “Max? Kyle?” She held her hand to her forehead and moaned. It hurt so much. “No,” she said again, not sure what she was saying no to, exactly.

“Come with me. I’ll take care of you,” Brad offered.

“Just . . .” She staggered away from him, really worried about herself. She had never felt this way before. She felt so drunk that she could barely think straight. And she couldn’t see. Everything was so blurry. And everything hurt. And why was breathing so hard?

Don’t pass out, she told herself as she stumbled through the crowd over to a wall. Even in her drunken state, she knew passing out was the worst thing she could do. She had no real friends there, no one to help her if the situation escalated too far out of control.

She leaned against the wall and took her cell phone out of her pocket. It took all of her unfocused concentration to remember the number to dial. 2. 3. 9. 6. Or was it 7?

She punched the numbers in slowly, unable to do anything fast. It took all of her strength and energy then just to hold the phone up to her ear and listen to it ring.

“Michael, please pick up,” she whispered, praying. She needed him. She needed him there.

After a few more rings, his voicemail picked up. No.

“Hey, it’s Michael. You know you want me. I'm probably busy gettin' laid right now . . .”

Pick up the phone, Michael, she thought. Please.

“. . . but leave me a message, and I’ll call you back.”

A beep signaled her to say something, but all she could do was whimper, “Michael, help me,” before her phone cut off. The call was lost. “No,” she cried, feeling tears stinging her already clouded eyes. She wanted to go home. She wished she’d never come.

She barely noticed Brad come up to her again and grab her arm. “You’re not leavin’ already, are you?” she heard him ask before his voice started to fade in and out. “Because . . . party’s . . . you.”

What? she thought. She could feel him dragging her over to the couch to rejoin him and his friends, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

She couldn’t do anything at all.

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

“So is it white chocolate or dark chocolate?” Liz asked as she and Michael arrived back home at his house that night.

“Dark,” he replied. “White chocolate would look like cum.” He stopped in place and raised his eyebrows when he thought of that. His girlfriend’s body covered in white chocolate . . . “Although that could be cool.”

“So who gets to eat first?” she asked mischievously, resting her chin against his shoulder as she stroked her hands across his stomach and back.

“That’s up to you,” he told her.

“Hmm, I think I’ll eat first,” she decided, surprising him.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I know I’ve never done this before, but I think I can figure it out.”

“Oh, I know you can,” he said. He leaned down to kiss her, but before their lips could meet, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. “Dammit,” he said. “Just a minute.”

Liz frowned.

He flipped open his phone and saw that he had one new voice message from Maria. “What the hell?” he said. He pressed a few buttons to access his voicemail and held his phone up to his ear to hear the message.

He heard a sound, her voice, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. There was too much noise in the background, and it was so brief that he didn’t have time to process it. “Huh,” he said, replaying the message. Still, he couldn’t understand what she said. “That’s weird,” he commented.

“What?” Liz asked.

“Maria left me a message, but I can’t understand what the hell she was saying.”

“Weird,” Liz agreed. “I thought she’d be home.”

“Yeah, me, too,” he said, suddenly getting a bad feeling. Max was off with some study group. Where would Maria be? It was Valentine’s Day. She had to be somewhere. “Hey, Kyle!” he called.

“He’s not home,” Liz reminded him.

“Crap. Amy!”

“No, not her,” Liz said.

He didn’t particularly want to deal with the mother from hell, either, but if she knew where her daughter was . . . “Amy!” he called again.

“What?” she said, walking briskly out of the hallway. She’d probably been snooping through her daughter’s bedroom.

“You know where Maria is?” he asked her.

“Of course not,” she said. “She went out about an hour and a half ago. I don’t know where.”

Michael didn’t want to hear that. He wanted to hear that she was safe and sound, because for some reason, he was really worried.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Amy asked.

“Nothin’,” he said, thinking about where she might be. There were lots of parties happening, but she rarely went to a party by herself. Usually he went with her, and he liked it that way, because then he could keep an eye on her. (His girl was practically a guy when it came to holding her liquor, but sometimes she went overboard.) He thought about calling Max, but then Max wouldn’t know where she was, either. Study group.

He turned to Liz and said, “I think I should go find her.”

Liz looked a little disappointed. “Michael, I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Yeah, I know, I just . . . I really . . . think I should go find her.” He couldn’t explain it. He just had a feeling that she needed him.

“Well, you have no idea where to look,” Liz pointed out.

“I’ll try callin’ her back. If I can’t get a hold of her, I’ll just check all the parties.”

Liz opened her mouth to say something, then closed it for a moment, then opened it again. “You know, she might have gone to the Sigma Alpha party.”

“Alpha Sigma?”

“Yeah, that one. This guy stopped by my room, invited me, sort of invited Maria, too.”

“Alpha Sigma,” he repeated, shaking his head. Those guys threw some wild parties.

Liz sighed heavily and said, “I’ll go with you.”

“No, you stay here,” he said. “Those parties get out of control. If Maria is in trouble . . .” He trailed off, hoping that wasn’t the case. “I’d just rather have you here.”

“But Michael--”

“I’ll call you when I find her,” he said, heading for the door. He should have given her a kiss on the cheek or something to make up for bailing on their Valentine’s Day plans, but he was too determined for that.

He had to find his friend.

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

What’s happening?

Maria felt hands on her, more than one pair. At least six or seven. Someone was inching her shirt upwards. Someone else was trying to pull her jeans down. But she didn’t want them to.

“No,” she said, trying to kick at the guys around her, but she was too weak to do anything much. “Stop.” She couldn’t open her eyes to see them. She could barely even squirm against them.

She could hear music, though. And talking. She was still at the party, still right in the middle of it. Why wouldn’t anyone help her?

“Help,” she cried, but she wasn’t sure if she spoke the word loud enough for anyone to hear.

She felt a chill hit her skin as her pants came off, but she was too far gone to do anything about it.

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

Michael started out walking over to Alpha Sigma, but then he thought to himself, Why am I walking? and he started to run. If Kyle hadn’t had the car, he would have driven . . . he just wanted to get there as fast as he could in case something really was wrong.

He tried giving her a call, but she didn’t pick up; so he listened to Maria’s voicemail at least four more times, but he still couldn’t understand it. All he knew was that she had him worried, and he was going to yell at her about it later.

When he got to the frat party, he was surprised that the cops weren’t there. It looked to be about the wildest party of the decade, from what he could tell, and he hated the thought of Maria being there all alone. She was a wild child, so it was her natural environment, but . . . he should’ve been there with her.

Please be alright, he thought as he walked into the house. The party-goers immediately stopped whatever they were doing and cheered when he entered.

“Michael, we loooove you!” a group of three drunk girls screamed.

“Dude, you bring your girlfriend?” the guys immediately asked. “Is she here?”

He ignored them all and glanced around for Maria. He didn’t see her, but this seemed to be the most likely place for her to be.

He spotted a girl who looked halfway sober and went up to her. “Hey, is Maria DeLuca here?”

“Who?” she asked.

“Maria DeLuca.”

She just shrugged.

Big fuckin’ help, he thought, looking around some more. And it was when the crowd cleared just slightly that he was able to see straight into the living room and find the girl he was looking for. Half-naked and with four guys.

It didn’t take him more than a second to realize that they were planning on taking advantage of her. Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. Her body was like a rag-doll’s as they lifted her up and removed her shirt.

“Hey!” he roared, storming towards them. “Get your hands off her!”

Two of the guys immediately ran away. One of them wasn’t fast enough, so Michael grabbed him and literally threw him to the ground, and the other just stood there like a deer caught in the headlights.

“We weren’t doin’ anything,” he insisted.

Michael shoved him back against the wall hard, gave him a good, solid punch to the face, and bent down to look at Maria. “Maria?” he said. “Maria?” She didn’t respond. Everyone was looking at her now. All she was wearing was her bra and panties. He took off his coat, wrapped it around her, and gently scooped her up in his arms. “You’re alright now,” he promised, cradling her close against him. The rest of the people cleared a path for him, and he carried her out of the house without any harassment.

Oh, Maria, he thought. Why were you here?

“Maria,” he said again once they were outside. “Maria, talk to me.” He slowed down to a stop and looked down at the girl in his arms, noting her appearance. She was pale. Her skin was bluish. She was cold, and she felt clammy to the touch.

“Maria, are you alright?” he asked, gently rubbing her, trying to elicit some sort of response. “Maria?”

He kneeled down and lay her down on the grass, starting to freak out. “Maria!” he shouted at her, shaking her more forcefully now. What was wrong with her? “Maria, wake up!”

Why wouldn’t she wake up?

“Open your eyes!”

Why wouldn’t she?

“Now you know that I . . . heart . . .
Everything about you.”


He leaned forward over her lips, praying to feel some air against his cheek, but he felt none.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Somebody call 911!” he shouted frantically.

A girl poked her head out the door. “Do you need help?”

“Call 911!” he said again, trying to remember what to do. CPR. How did you do CPR?

“And that’s why it’s quite . . . hard . . .
To get through this alone.”


“Oh, come on, Maria,” he said, tilting her head backward carefully, lifting her chin up. He pinched her nose in between his index finger and thumb and brought his open mouth down atop hers, releasing as big of a breath as he could into her. He felt her chest rise beneath him, and he breathed into her again.

“You’re the only one . . . I . . .
Can talk to about it.”


He sat back up then and pressed the heel of his hand against the middle of her chest. He placed his other hand on top, interlacing his fingers. “Breathe, Maria,” he ground out, pushing inward with his hands. “Come on, breathe.”

“In my darkest night
I . . . will be on my own.”


He compressed her chest about ten times, still unsure if he was even doing it right. Then he repeated the process, tilting her head backward, plugging her nose, and breathing into her mouth.

“These walls that we climb
Are hard to recognize.”


“Come on, Maria!” he shouted, still getting no response. He compressed her chest again, about ten more times, and kept doing the same thing over and over again.

“They fall when I say your name . . .”

“Maria!” He felt himself getting angry because he was so scared. “Maria, don’t do this to me!”

“Here we go
Fast and slow
On the big chair.”


A surge of relief flooded him as he finally felt her chest rise up against his own, and he sat back and looked down at her. She was breathing. Not well, but she was breathing.

“But we don’t know
Where we’re goin’
On the big chair.”


“Maria?”

Her voice was weak and so unlike her. "Michael?"

“Don’t you know it’s hard . . . quite . . .
In the time of confusion.”


By the time the ambulance arrived, everyone had gathered around outside. The paramedics lay Maria down atop a flatbed and loaded her into the back of the vehicle.

“To tell you that I . . . love . . . you . . .”

Michael didn’t even give them time to ask him if he was going along. He climbed in beside her and held her hand, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest as they sped towards the hospital, watching her breathe.








TBC . . .

-April :?
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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Part 42

Post by April »

RiceKrispy: Yeah, it's like Mag said in her response, Maria's life is like Hollywood. One minute, she's an A-list celebrity, and the next minute, everyone forgets about her because they want to learn about the new starlet (Liz) on campus. That sort of thing.
Mag: You're right, a girl does need to be careful, and Maria's not the careful type. She's reckless, but this time her behavior almost (and did, to some extent) backfire on her.
pookie76:
I'm surprised something like that never happened before to Maria considering her life style.
She always had Michael there with her before. Tonight, she made the mistake of going alone, but luckily Michael was there for her anyway. And you're right when you say that Liz is high on her popularity. She definitely is, but it won't last.
SweetnSpicy: Well, I'm glad the last part was able to surprise you! And I'm glad you liked the song, too. ;)
stinebiene:
So you have over 1000 pages writen already? Please tell me that M&M are a couple untill then or at least brooken up with
M&L.
Well . . . they're with Max and Liz for a long time, I'll admit. *runs and hides*
Michelle: Oh my gosh, I can see why you win all those feedbacker awards! Everything you said was spot-on! Especially this:
If only Maria would say the things she thinks. She's so out of touch with herself, and out of touch with the truth, that her natural instinct is to come up with a story -- a lie -- and to defend it with all her being. To other people who haven't gotten so out of touch wtih themselves, it's unimaginable, so they fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
THAT is the essence of Maria and Max's "romantic" relationship right there. I'm so glad to have you reading!
nibbles: Michael, boyfriend-by-numbers. Oh, that's such an awesome way to put it!
If people can forget who Maria is within weeks after four years of being the queen of the campus, Liz will be old news by summer time.
You don't know how right you are!
Alien_Friend: Those guys probably DID want Liz to be at the party, and if she had showed up without Michael, they probably would have done the same thing to her. And since Michael doesn't have natural instincts when it comes to Liz, he probably wouldn't have been there to rescue her. So in a way, I guess you can say Michael saved Maria and Maria saved Liz.
gnrkrystle: lol, now you want to kill Liz? Alright, I'll but that on my to-do list. Write you in to the story to have sex with Max and then kill Liz. Got it. lmao, you're so funny.
guel: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Oh, and I don't know if I've told you this before, but I love your avatar! It's so pretty!
tequathisy: Yes, Maria was VERY lucky Michael arrived when he did. He saved the day!
Antarian Chick: You're right. It took Micahel and Maria 8 years to reach the flirting stage of their relationship. That's why things can't be rushed. I think you'll manage to hang on until they finally do get together! Thanks for reading!
spacegirl23: Well, if you feel sorry for Liz right now, I think you'll definitely feel sorry for her a little later on, too. Although, she might reach a point where you feel absolutely NO sympathy for her as well. It's hard to say.







Part 42






Liz wondered if she was seeing things straight when she looked at the clock. It couldn’t possibly be that late already, could it? Michael had been gone for almost an hour.

“Who knows what kind of trouble they’re getting into,” Amy mumbled. “Churches beware. My no-good daughter and her no-good boyfriend are on the loose.”

That was it. Liz had sat with that woman for sixty whole minutes, and she couldn’t take it any longer. “Michael’s my boyfriend,” she said, not bothering to hide the bite in her voice.

“Well, regardless . . .”

Liz almost freaked out. Had she been more of an extrovert, she would have, but she managed to contain herself. “I’m gonna go eat some chocolate,” she announced, making her way into the kitchen. Just as she had bitten into her first Hershey’s bar, her cell phone rang. She felt relieved when she read Michael’s name on the caller ID and answered it. “Hey, where are you? Are you gonna be back soon, ‘cause it’s only me and Amy here and--”

“Liz,” he cut in sharply, forcefully. “Come to the hospital.”

She opened her mouth to ask him what was going on, but he hung up before she got the chance.

The hospital? she wondered, immediately worrying. What happened?

“Was that Michael?” Amy asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, her heart pounding in trepidation. “He’s at the hospital.”

Amy’s confused expression was the perfect partner to Liz’s worried one. Between the two of them, they didn’t know what was going on.

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

Michael sat in the waiting room with his hands clasped together, his forehead pressed against them. They had rushed Maria into a room about a half an hour ago and told him to wait outside. He hated not knowing what was going on. He wanted to be by her side.

She had to be okay. He didn’t know what he would do without her. She meant so much to him, and she didn’t even know it.

“Michael?”

He looked up when he saw Liz, and she came running towards him. He stood up and hugged her. She looked so worried.

“What’s going on?” she asked frantically. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. He glanced at Amy, then back at Liz. “It’s Maria,” he said. “I found her at the party, but I think she drank too much. Or some guys slipped her a drug, or . . . I don’t know. She . . .” He flashed back to CPR, the desperation he had felt while trying to get her to breathe. “She wasn’t breathing.”

Amy gasped and held her hand to her mouth.

“I did CPR,” he said. “I got her to start breathing again, and the ambulance came.”

“Oh my god,” Liz said, tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh my god. Is she gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything.” He glanced over at Amy again, halfway expecting her to say something, but she just stood there in a state of shock. He had to refrain from saying a few things to her. He had a feeling she was the trigger to Maria’s drastic binge drinking performance.

“Oh my god, Michael,” Liz said. “I can’t believe this.”

“I’m really worried about her,” he admitted. “I mean . . . she’s been my friend for eight years.”

“She’ll be okay,” Liz assured him. “You did everything you could. Don’t worry, Michael.”

But he could tell just by the shaky tone of her voice and the look in her eyes that she was worried, too. He hugged her again, and as he did, he saw a doctor coming down the hallway, approaching him. “Doctor?” he said, loosening his hold on Liz.

“I have news regarding Maria DeLuca,” he announced.

Michael took a step forward, ready to hear it.

The doctor sighed and said in a tone of disappointment, “She had severe alcohol poisoning.”

“What-what is that?” Liz asked.

“When someone drinks too much within a short amount of time, their body sometimes shuts down, stops working. They become completely unresponsive and often die if they don’t get treatment right away.”

“Wait, so . . .” Michael was a bit confused. “Nobody slipped her anything? She just drank way too much.”

“Way too much way too quickly. That kind of ‘binge’ is usually brought on by a significant amount of stress.”

Michael frowned. Stress?

“The unfortunate reality here is that no one did this to your friend. She, in essence, did it to herself.”

Michael really didn’t like the sound of that. “So is she gonna be okay?” he asked. “I mean, she’s gonna be okay, right?” Anything else was unacceptable.

“We were able to pump her stomach and get it out of her system,” the doctor said, “so yes, she should be fine. But from what I understand, she had actually stopped breathing at one point. Is that true?”

“Uh . . . yeah,” Michael answered. “When I . . . when I got there, she wasn’t . . .” He trailed off, unable to say it again. He didn’t want Maria DeLuca to ever stop breathing. Ever.

“And you resuscitated her with CPR?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah, I tried.”

“Well, you should be very proud of yourself,” the doctor said. “You’re a bonafide hero, son. You saved your friend’s life.”

Michael almost fell backwards hearing that. Saved her life? Him? How?

As if the doctor were reading his thoughts, he said, “People can do incredible things when they’re motivated.”

At last, Michael let himself breathe a much-needed sigh of relief. Maria was going to be okay. Thank God. Eight years, and this was the closest he had ever come to losing her.

He didn’t want to ever come that close again.

“Can we see her?” he asked.

“Only family right now,” the doctor said.

“That’s me,” Amy piped up. “I’m family.”

“No, you’re not,” Michael said. He refused to let Maria wake up and look into the eyes of a mother she didn’t even like. When she woke up, he wanted to be there. He wanted to be the one she saw.

“I’m her mother,” Amy said. “Doctor, I’d like to see her.”

Michael stepped in front of her, preventing her from going anywhere. “You’re the reason why she did this in the first place. She doesn’t need any more of you.”

“Michael,” Liz said cautiously, placing her hand on his arm, “maybe you should just . . .”

“No, this woman hasn’t been around for four years,” he said. “I have. I’m goin’ in there.”

The doctor sighed heavily and said, “I’ll let you two figure it out.”

“I’m goin’ in there,” Michael repeated, leaving no room for debate. He was going in, and he wasn’t leaving her side until she kicked him out. He’d sleep in the chair if he had to. Hell, he wouldn’t sleep at all. He’d just sit there and watch her. That was fine.

He turned and started down the hallway, but Liz called out to him and stopped him. “Michael. Does Max know?”

Oh, shit, he thought, rubbing his face in his hands. “I didn’t even call him.”

“I will,” she said. “What about Kyle?”

He was celebrating Valentine’s Day with Isabel and Tess, but Michael knew he would want to know. “Yeah, will you call him, too?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks, Liz.”

“Michael,” Amy said. “What can I do?”

He couldn’t believe that she would have the nerve to even ask that. Didn’t she get that she wasn’t helpful? “You can stay away from Maria,” he said, turning and walking on down the hallway again. He got to the room they had put Maria in, walked inside, and slowly pulled back the curtain they had pulled around her.

She lay asleep on the bed, hooked up to a lot of equipment, including a breathing tube and an IV, and a whole bunch of other stuff he didn’t recognize. She still looked a little pale, but she already looked a thousand times better than she had at the party.

She was going to be okay.

He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down, reaching out to take her hand in his. He wasn’t sure if she could hear him or not, so he said exactly what he would have said to her if he were awake. “We’re gonna have a fight about this when you wake up.” She had scared him half to death, and he had to make sure she’d never do it again. Because if something happened to her, something she couldn't survive . . .

. . . he wouldn’t survive it, either.

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

Max wasted no time getting to the hospital. One of the guys from the study group drove him, and the moment he got there, he burst into the emergency room, looking for anyone who could tell him what was going on.

Liz and Amy were in the waiting room. He went to them and asked frantically, “Where is she?”

“In a room down the hallway,” Liz said, pointing in the direction he needed to go.

“Thanks, Liz,” he said. Without another word, he rushed off down the hallway searching for her room.

That phone call from Liz had been the scariest one of his entire life. She’d told him Maria was in the hospital, that she’d drank too much and had alcohol poisoning. Max had been a nervous wreck the whole way there, even though Liz had assured him that she was going to be fine.

He walked into the room and found Michael sitting there with her. Oh god, he thought. She looks so . . . He had never seen Maria look so unlike Maria before.

Michael was holding her hand and talking to her. “Remember tenth grade biology?” he said. “You didn’t wanna dissect the frog, so you told me to do it. But I didn’t wanna do it either, so I stuffed it down your shirt.” He smiled fondly and laughed a little. “We always piss each other off.”

Max cleared his throat and stepped further into the room.

Michael noticed him, then, and looked up. “Oh, hey, Maxwell,” he said.

“Hey,” Max echoed, going around to the other side of the bed. He kneeled down and took her other hand in his. “How is she?”

“She’s gonna be alright,” Michael said. “It was a really close call, though.”

“Liz said you did CPR.”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know I knew how to do CPR.”

“Well, thank God you did,” Max said. “If something had happened to her . . .” He shook his head, not wanting to think about it. If anything bad ever happened to Maria DeLuca, he, Michael, and Kyle would not be able to live with it. She was the princess of their little household. She was special to them.

“Yeah,” Michael said quietly. “I can leave you alone with her if you want . . .”

“Thanks,” Max said.

Michael got to his feet and slowly released her hand. “Okay,” he said, leaving the room just as slowly. It was obvious he didn’t want to go.

Max sighed heavily once he was gone and allowed a few tears to fall onto his cheeks. “Maria,” he said, shaking his head again. He brought her hand up to her lips and kissed the back of it. “Don’t ever do this again,” he said. “I can’t lose you, Maria. I . . .” He trailed off, wondering if he should say the words he had felt for years. And he did. “I love you.”

The moment he said it, she started to shift around slightly. He hoped she was waking up. He wanted to talk to her. “Maria?” he said, squeezing her hand tighter so she could feel him.

She moaned sleepily, still holding her eyes closed, and murmured, “Michael?”

Although he wished it were his name, he knew he shouldn’t be jealous. He should be happy she was okay. He was happy. “It’s me,” he said. “Max.”

She looked as though she had to force her eyelids open. When she did, she squinted at him and barely managed to choke out his name. “Max?”

He smiled down at her and said, “Welcome back.”

She glanced around, but she didn’t seem to understand just what was going on. When the confusion wore off, he would tell her. Right now, he was just happy she was alive.

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

I almost died. Maria couldn’t stop thinking that while Max, Michael, Kyle, Liz, Isabel, and Tess stood around her hospital bed talking to her and to each other that evening. I can’t believe I almost died.

Kyle, Tess, and Isabel were trying to keep it light-hearted, acting as though nothing had happened. Liz was being supportive and reassuring, as was Max, who sat beside her, holding her hand. Michael sat on her other side, holding her other hand. He wasn’t saying anything, but he kept smiling at her.

“You guys, I feel really bad,” Maria said. Her voice sounded scratchy and sort of squeaky because of the tube they had shoved down her throat to give her oxygen. “I ruined everyone’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Tess said. “This is way more exciting than what we had planned.”

“No, I really do feel bad,” she insisted.

“Maria, don’t worry about it,” Liz said softly. “All that matters is that you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Max said, covering the top of her hand with his free one. “We wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

She smiled at him, then at the rest of them. And then she looked over at Michael. He was just staring at her.

“Why are you so quiet?” she asked him.

He shrugged.

She rolled her eyes. “Great. The one time I actually want you to talk, you won’t say a word.”

Kyle offered an explanation. “I think he’s still blown away by the fact that he’s your brand new guardian angel.”

That elicited a response from Michael. “Guardian angel? Couldn’t you at least make it masculine, like macho protector or something?”

“Alright,” Kyle said. “He’s your macho protector.”

“Yeah . . .” she said, rubbing her fingertips against the palm of his hand, smiling at him. When Max had told her what Michael had done for her . . . “So let me get this straight: your mouth was touching mine?” she said in an attempt to keep the mood light. “I think I would’ve preferred death.”

Nobody laughed.

“Kidding,” she said. “Am I not funny anymore?”

“You’re funny,” Max assured her. “We were just . . . all really worried.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”

“Maria, quit apologizing,” Isabel said. “Everything’s okay now. Everything’s good.”

“Yeah, except this ugly hospital gown,” she said, looking over the hideous blue garment they had dressed her in. “Very bad.”

This time, everyone did laugh. Good, she thought as it began to feel more normal again. Well, as normal as could be after a near-death experience.

“So, are you feeling okay?” Liz asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am a little tired, though.”

“Oh, well, we can leave,” Kyle said.

“Yeah, we’ll go,” Isabel agreed. “It’s only supposed to be family in here anyway.”

“Okay. Go home, guys,” Maria told them. “No sleeping in the waiting room. That’s just stupid.”

“I’m sleeping in the waiting room,” Michael said decidedly.

“Me, too,” Max said.

“Me, three,” Kyle added.

“Oh, my boys,” she said. “You guys are sweet, but you don’t have to. Just go home, and make sure my mom goes with you, ‘cause I don’t want her launching a sneak attack in here.”

Kyle sighed and gave in. “Alright,” he said. “We’ll go.”

“Speak for yourself,” Michael muttered.

“Michael,” she said. “Why do you always have to be such a pain in the ass?”

“A pain in the ass?” He looked down at her, smiling a big smile that time. “That’s my girl.”

Maria glanced at Liz when he said that and thought, No. That’s your girl.

“We should let her get some rest,” Liz said, coiling her fingers around his arm.

“Yeah. Alright.”

It took them at least five minutes to get out of the room. As they all said goodnight to her, Maria realized what good friends she had. Each and every one of them meant something to her, and she meant something to each and every one of them. It was a nice feeling, one that took away a bit of the sting of what had happened at Alpha Sigma.

Kyle kissed her cheek. Isabel and Tess each hugged her. Liz hugged her and promised to make sure Amy didn’t linger around, and Max kissed her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispered.

She nodded.

Michael didn’t seem to want to let go of her hand, but at last he did. He made his way towards the door with the rest of them, but he hung towards the back of the pack, always glancing back at her. She made eye contact with him, hoping to communicate nonverbally what she couldn’t say out loud.

Come back to me for awhile. Don’t leave me here alone. Jackass.

He didn’t nod or smile or do anything to indicate that he understood, but he did. She knew he did.

The entire group left the room and turned the light out. Maria waited for a few minutes, absentmindedly studying the IV in her left hand, and at last, the door to her room opened again, and Michael came back in.

“About time,” she said.

He sat right back down in the chair he had been sitting in and took her hand in his again.

“Michael,” she said, “my hand’s getting sweaty.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “How are you really feeling? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just a little bit of a headache, a little tired like I said. And my throat hurts.”

“Then you’re not fine,” he concluded.

“But I’m not dead.”

He sighed and said, “Maria, you scared me shitless tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, I just . . . I’ve never been that scared before,” he admitted.

She lowered her gaze to focus on their interlocked hands and confessed likewise. “Neither have I. I don’t . . . remember what happened very well, but I do remember feeling scared. And I remember . . . just wanting you to be there.”

He stared right at her and said, “You don’t remember the guys who were . . . gonna take advantage of you?”

She shook her head. Vague memories. That was all she had now. But she couldn’t remember what they had looked like or what they had done.

“Well, that’s good,” he said, rubbing her smaller hand between his two larger ones. “They didn’t. I didn’t let ‘em. But we could still try to get some charges filed if you want.”

She shrugged. “It’s no use. You got there before they did anything, so it’s not like they’ll actually be punished.”

“Dammit.”

She smiled appreciatively. “It’s okay, though. Macho protector.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said, laughing a little. Then he quieted back down again and said, “No, Maria, seriously, don’t ever do this to me again.”

“I don’t even know why I did it now,” she admitted, feeling embarrassed. “I just had a bad day. My mom scratched up that DVD you made me on purpose.”

“The dance one?”

She nodded.

“What the . . .” he spat. “I worked my ass off on that thing! I’m gonna kill her.”

“Be my guest.”

“And she thinks we’re immature?”

“I know, right?” She grunted, the mere thought of her mother filling her body with contempt. “Oh, and you know what else sucked about today? Today was also the first time I realized that I’m officially no longer popular.”

“What?” he said. “That’s not true, Maria.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “So I was just . . . pissed about stuff, and I wanted to go out and do something stupid; and, as usual, I went ahead and did it.”

“You’re not stupid, Maria,” he said. “You’re a brat, but you’re not stupid.”

“Did you just call me a brat?” she said, pretending to be offended.

“I think I did.”

She smiled. “Well, in the interest of exchanging fifth-grade insults, you’re a jerk.”

“Ah, there we go. A jerk who’s good at CPR, though.”

She laughed, glad that he was there. “Michael?” she said.

“Hmm?”

She stared right at him and practically whispered the words, “Thank you.”

He smiled, reached out, and tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear for her. His simple touch sent shivers up her otherwise sleepy spine, but she hid her reaction well.

Michael Guerin, she thought, gazing at him. You never cease to amaze me.

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

“So you’re all just gonna leave? You’re gonna leave her here?” Amy’s voice was shrill when she spoke. Max winced, barely able to tolerate it.

“Well, yeah, she’s asleep,” Kyle said. “There’s nothin’ we can do here. We might as well go home and get some sleep ourselves.”

“Or do other things,” Isabel mumbled under her breath.

“Yes, yes,” Tess agreed readily. “Maria’s alive. I think we should celebrate her life by performing the act of procreation without actually, you know, procreating.”

“This is ridiculous,” Amy complained. “I haven’t even seen her.”

“Well, she doesn’t want you to see her,” Kyle came right out and said. “I’m sorry, but you have to respect that.”

“Oh . . .” Amy sighed heavily, raking her hands through her hair. “This whole thing is so typical of her. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. She’s not a smart girl. She’s irresponsible. She acts without thinking.”

“I think she’s smart,” Max offered, but Amy didn’t seem to hear him.

“You know, I bet she won’t even learn anything from this. She’ll go right out tomorrow night and do the exact same thing. She’ll never learn.”

Max felt as though he should speak up, say something in defense of his girlfriend. The only thing that held him back was wanting to maintain the positive impression he had already established with her mother. If he was with Maria for a long time, which he intended to be, and someday ended up being a part of her family, he wanted to get along with the woman who had given birth to her.

Much to his surprise, it was little Liz Parker who said something. “Ms. DeLuca,” she said, “I think that after everything that’s happened tonight, Maria needs to be supported and understood, not insulted.”

Amy’s response was the shocked sound of silence. It wasn’t often that people stood up to her, and no one had ever done it in such a forceful, civil way.

Max looked at Liz and smiled. She was a good girl. He would have to remember to thank her later for saying exactly what he had wanted to say.

“Hmm,” Liz said, glancing around the hallway. “I wonder where Michael went.”








TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
Roswell Fanatic
Posts: 1557
Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
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Part 43

Post by April »

Tine:
In this chain of thought, where he was like if she doesn't survive and don't to either, that made me almost cry. I mean how can he think that and not admit his love for her, even if it was only to himself at first?
Michael is a really frustrating kind of guy. Hot, but frustrating. He's both stubborn and oblivious. It's a bad combination.
SweetnSpicy:
I think he finally realized what she really means to him.
Well . . . sort of. He hasn't realized his romantic feelings for her yet, but he has realized that she's the most important person in his life. He's realized how much he cares for her, but he hasn't realized that he cares for her romantically. He's dense. Oh, and you say your love for this story is nuclear loving? Awesome! :D My love for your feedback is nuclear loving as well.
Antarian Chick: It's interesting that you don't mind Max being portrayed this way. I have to admit, it's actually been kind of nice to write him like this. I've written fics before where he's really mean, and I actually really like the guy, so it's nice to write him as a gentleman. A hopeless, clueless gentleman, yes, but still a gentleman.
pookie76: I'm glad you think all the parts are exciting! :D Actually, today's part is probably going to be a little less exciting, but Wednesday's part involves an exciting conflict. Hopefully.
Elle: Yes, Maria was definitely irresponsible going out and drinking the way she did. She'll learn her lesson, though.
Alien_Friend: Maria won't be getting counseling (she'd probably be really stubborn and refuse), but she's going to start making some small changes in her life, and you just know her boys will help her!
crazysnape: Amy the dragon, lol! Liz definitely did a good thing standing up for Maria . . . but will she do it again, or was it simply a one-time thing that sprang more from her Amy hatred than her friendship with Maria? Hmm . . .
Krispy:
I think her reputation warranted more of a "What happened to that one slut?" than a "Who?"
lol! Michelle probably explained it better than I can, though. Maria wasn't nice. People pretended to like her when they probably really didn't, so now they're happy to ignore her. But Liz isn't being an authoritarian campus queen yet (and she might never be), so people are liking her a lot right now. Oh, and you say I make you want to sail a differnet ship? Wow, what a compliment!
spacegirl23: Oh, Michael's realization that Maria is the one for him is very, very gradual. VERY. I'm glad you like the Maria/Michael/Max/Kyle friendship. It's so fun to write.
nibbles:
I think that Max is so focused on the future that he is letting the present go by unnoticed.
Without a doubt! And this is probably one of many reasons why he's so eagerly blind to Maria's feelings for Michael. He is so excited about his future with Maria that he doesn't take the time to look at the present state of their relationship and see how much it . . . sucks, quite frankly.
starcrazed: You're right. Why should Maria care about popularity when she's got friends who care about her so much? She'll realize that.
tequathisy:
She's not a manipulative bitch who stole Michael. She's a sweet girl who has found her self in an unexpected totally alien state of popularity.
That's a great poitn to make. Liz didn't steal Michael. That would imply that Maria had been dating him, but that wasn't the case. From Liz's perspective, this guy asked her out on a couple of dates and became her boyfriend. Simple as that.
Michelle: Well, what can I say? Once again, you've managed to sum up the characters in the fic better than I have.
The only thing I can't understand is why they can't be together? There's no barrier at all, except the ones they make with their own hands, and keep repairing.
Exactly. Max and Liz aren't the obstacle. The only thing that's keeping Michael and Maria from being together are Michael and Maria. If Maria had pushed Liz towards Max, their love lives would probably be a whole lot easier. But then again, maybe Maria and Max and likewise Michael and Liz need to embark on these relationships with each other and do some growing up before they're ready to embark on relationships with the right person. ;)


Thank you so much, everyone, for taking the time to invest in this story and give me your feedback. I really, REALLY appreciate it!









Part 43








Michael wouldn’t have left the hospital that night had Maria not forced him to go. She said if he stayed, she wouldn’t get any sleep because he would be annoying her too much. So he went home, but he didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Not that there was much night left by the time they crawled into bed at 4:00 a.m.

That morning, he and Max went back to the hospital, and Amy, despite their protests and valiant efforts to keep her at home, tagged along. They met with the doctor, and Michael only had one thing on his mind.

“So what’s up, doc? Can we take her home?”

“Yes, she seems to be doing well,” the doctor answered.

“Awesome.” Michael tried to head into her hospital room, but the doctor held out his hand and stopped him.

“Not so fast. We need to discuss a few things first. Has she ever done anything like this before?”

“No,” Michael replied. “I mean, she gets pretty drunk once in awhile, but this never happened.”

“Then I’m hoping it was an isolated incident,” the doctor went on while looking over her chart. “Still, we can never be too sure. You should all be watching her closely, monitoring how much alcohol she intakes if she does decide to drink again, which, in my professional opinion, is not a wise idea. I’ll send home some literature, pamphlets, in case she decides to seek counseling. Now you’re her boyfriend, right?” he asked Michael.

“Uh . . . no, actually he is,” he said, gesturing towards Max. “But we both live with her.”

“Alright, then you should both be able to keep a pretty close eye on her, make sure she takes it easy today.”

“We will,” Max said.

“And one more word of advice,” the doctor said. “Usually when something like this happens, it’s because of some sort of trigger. Something set off this behavior. So if you can find out what that trigger is and somehow get rid of it, it would help your friend out enormously.”

“Oh, I think we already know,” Michael mumbled, casting a stern glance over at Amy DeLuca.

She averted eye contact, saying nothing.

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

Maria dug the side of her spoon into the chunky green Jell-O they had given her for lunch. She had forced herself to eat the sandwich and the green beans accompanying it, but the Jell-O was just too much. She’d taken one bite and had to spit it back out into her napkin; it was so bad.

“Guess what?”

She looked up when she heard Michael’s voice. He and Max came into the room, Amy slinking behind them.

“We’re gettin’ you outta here,” he announced.

“Good,” she said, making a face of disgust as she dug her spoon around her Jell-O a little more. “This is sick,” she said. “Taste this.” She held out a small bite on the tip of her spoon for him, and he tasted it. After a moment of contemplation, he made a disgusted face, too, and concluded, “That tastes . . . like beeswax.”

“I know, right? Max, you wanna taste?”

“Oh, no, I’ll . . . take your word for it,” he said.

“Okay.” She set her spoon down again and purposefully paid no attention to her mother. “So, when are we are leaving?” she asked Max and Michael.

“Right now, if you’re ready,” Michael said.

“Oh my god, I’m so not,” she said in a rush. “I haven’t even done my make-up yet.”

Michael made a face a confusion. “Where’d you get make-up?”

“From this girl next door. She’s in a coma, so I figure she’s not using it.”

“Thrifty,” he commented. “I like it.”

“So I gotta put that on,” she said, “and I also need some actual clothes to wear. Did you guys bring the outfit I told you to?”

“Yeah,” Max said, already reaching into his backpack. He took out her favorite pair of black capri pants and a yellow t-shirt.

Maria’s eyes widened in horror when he set the clothing down atop her lap. “Are you kidding me? Who picked this out?”

“Uh, he did,” Max said, pointing to Michael.

She shot him a look of disbelief. “Are you stupid or something?”

“What?”

“I told you to bring me a white shirt. This . . .” She held up the shirt he had brought instead. “ Yellow? Yellow? I can’t pull of yellow! And yellow and black, that’s, like, bumblebee colors or something!”

“I think you’d make a cute bumblebee,” he said.

She grunted. “That’s so not the point! You’re, like, fashion-retarded! Or just retarded in general, I swear.”

“Well, if you can’t pull of yellow, why do you own a yellow shirt?” he went ahead and asked.

“Uh, just . . . because,” she answered lamely. “Whatever. I’ll make it work.” She reached around behind her back and untied the thin strap holding her gown closed and slid it down her shoulders. She didn’t think much of sitting there topless in front of two guys she knew very well and the woman who had (unfortunately) given birth to her, but Max apparently did.

“Uh,” he said, clearing his throat. “Don’t you want him to turn around?”

She realized he was talking about Michael and reminded herself that only one of her friends was her boyfriend. “Oh,” she said. “Right.” She glanced up at Michael and said, “Turn around, perv.”

He chuckled and, seemingly reluctantly, did as she asked.

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

Amy lagged behind her daughter and her friends as they made their way out of the hospital into the parking lot.

“You guys, I told you, I don’t need to be in a wheelchair,” she said to Max and Michael.

“Just shut up and enjoy it,” Michael said as he pushed her. “You get two days of spoiling, then I’m goin’ back to being a pain in your ass.”

“Oh, I can’t wait,” Maria said. There was obvious sarcasm in the statement, but Amy got the feeling that part of her really couldn’t wait. Michael and Maria had always had such a unique bond. For eight whole years, it had never broken.

And that worried her.

“Besides, it’s hospital policy,” Max added. “Anyone who’s stayed overnight has to ride out in a wheelchair.”

Poor Max, Amy thought. In the few days since she had arrived there, it had become blatantly obvious how much he cared for her daughter, and how greatly her daughter’s feelings differed. She wanted it to work out between them, because Max Evans was a shining example of a dignified young man. But it seemed doomed. Maria spent most of her time with Michael. She always had.

“I guess it’s not that bad,” Maria conceded. “Just don’t steer me into a truck.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Michael said. “Thought about it, but . . .”

Maria rolled her eyes, and Max laughed.

Amy slowed down, dragging even further behind. She studied the dynamic between the three of them, thinking how odd it was. And then she noticed the dynamic solely between Michael and Maria. It was nonverbal, lots of the time. Like when Michael would let go of the wheelchair with one hand for just a second and stroke her hair, then go back to pushing as though he hadn’t done anything. Amy doubted he even realized how often he touched her.

“Hey, I got an idea,” Michael announced suddenly.

“What?” Maria asked.

“Wheelchair NASCAR, baby! Woo!” He took off then, pushing the wheelchair at a running pace, causing Maria to laugh and hold on tight. Max ran after the two of them, laughing as well.

Amy watched the three of them with ever-increasing interest. She had done her best not to say anything that day, but eventually, she wouldn’t be able to help herself.

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

Even though she lived with three sweaty guys, Maria couldn’t help thinking how her house smelled so much better than that sterile, awful hospital. The moment she stepped foot through the door with Max and Michael by her sides, she noticed it and smiled. “Home sweet home,” she said.

“Hey, DeLuca,” Kyle said. He was in the kitchen, rummaging around the refrigerator. “Nice to see you vertical again.”

“Not for long,” she said. “I’m couch-bound, as by order.”

“I didn’t order,” Michael said as he went to straighten out the pillows on the couch. “I suggested. Now lay your ass down here, DeLuca.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you still need to rest.”

“As suggested by Dr. Guerin.”

“As suggested by Dr. Whatever-his-name-is that pumped your stomach. Come on.”

She stepped forward, locking eyes with him. “You really are gonna spoil me, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

“Mm, I’ll take it,” she decided, plopping down on the couch. He covered her up with a blanket, and she felt very comfortable.

“I’ll go get you a white shirt,” Max said, heading down the hallway towards her bedroom.

“And some water to dump on her, make the shirt all clingy,” Michael added, grinning.

“Oh, ha, ha, ha. So funny,” she said.

He shrugged shamelessly.

Max came out a moment later with a white shirt in hand and gave it to her.

“Ooh, this is nice,” liking the feeling of being waited on hand and foot. “I should get alcohol poisoning more often.”

Michael laughed a fake laugh and said, “Yeah. No.”

Don’t worry, she thought, smiling at him reassuringly. I won’t.

Michael went to join Kyle in the kitchen, and Maria’s eyes followed him. It took her a minute to notice just what, exactly, Kyle was in the middle of. “What-what’re you guys doing?” she stuttered. Were they . . . they weren’t. They were! “You’re getting rid of all our booze? Now that’s just unfair to all of us.”

“It’s no big deal. Better safe than sorry,” Kyle said as he stacked bottle after bottle up on the counter. It was amazing how much beer and vodka and tequila they had kept piled in there.

“You guys, I’m not an alcoholic,” she reminded them. “I had one bad experience.”

“Near-death experience,” Michael reminded her.

“Okay, if you wanna get technical.”

“Maria,” Max piped up, “we just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Just shut up and watch Grey’s Anatomy,” Michael said as he helped Kyle clear out the fridge.

“Well, just one question,” she said. “What’re you guys gonna do? Just, like, throw all that away?”

“No, we’re gonna drink it,” Michael said decidedly. “Without you.”

All of that?”

Michael and Kyle both surveyed the large collection and nodded proudly.

“Fine,” she said, “but I am not doing CPR on either one of you.”

“Won’t have to,” Michael said. He raised his arms in the air and bellowed in a triumphant voice. “And in this corner of the ring, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world . . . Michael, the man, Guerin!”

Maria rolled her eyes and laughed a little.

“And in this corner, the challenger,” Kyle responded dramatically. “Kyle, the real man, Valenti!”

“Woo!” Maria cheered, clapping her hands together excitedly.

Michael shot her a look. “You’re not gonna root for the guy who saved your life?”

“You always have to root for the underdog, Michael,” she reminded him. “Hasn’t Rocky Balboa taught you anything?”

He laughed and said, “Good point,” as he unscrewed the lid to a bottle of Budweiser. “Somebody ring the starting bell,” he said.

“Ding. Ding,” Maria said, mimicking Apollo Creed’s sarcasm from the third Rocky installment. It’s so sad that I know those movies so well, she thought. I guess that’s what you get for living with three guys.

Kyle and Michael brought their beers up to their mouths, but before they could even begin to chug, Amy spat out, “You-you people are crazy.”

Everyone turned to face her, and Kyle and Michael both lowered their bottles.

“I mean it,” she said, looking at both Kyle and Michael before settling her eyes on Maria. “You almost died!” she said. “You weren’t breathing! You weren’t breathing, and you act like it’s no big deal. You come home and you make jokes and you have beer contests, but you don’t learn! You’ve never learned, Maria! And I’m beginning to think you never will!” Her eyes filled with a blaze of righteousness as she barked, “Grow up!” and stomped off into the other room but her angry rant lingered in the air long after she was gone.

But she's wrong, Maria thought. I know it's a big deal.

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

Since Maria was still recovering, Liz had to take charge at the scheduled dance team practice the next day. She supposed she should have been taking charge all along. She was the captain, after all. But it was so easy to let Maria do all the work since she was so willing to stick around and help the new team out, not to mention the fact that she was an amazing dancer.

“Okay, so, um . . .” Liz felt completely out of her element. “I guess we should just . . . go over it with music?” She glanced around at her team and asked, “Anyone got a CD player?”

No one said anything.

She sighed. “Great.” She was lousy and she knew it. Usually, Maria always brought the CD player. She knew how to do everything. Liz didn’t even know how to do a triple-turn yet. “Okay,” she said again, wishing her friend were there. “I guess we could just do it with counts then. Anyone wanna count? ‘Cause I . . . really don’t want to.” Maria always did the counting. She was good at that, too.

“Anyone?” she asked again, hoping for at least one volunteer.

“Liz,” one of the girls, Lucinda, said, “maybe we should just . . . take a day off.”

“Well . . . this was a scheduled practice.”

“Scheduled by Maria,” Lucinda reminded everyone, “and she’s not here, so . . .”

“Well, she couldn’t be here. She had a . . . a situation,” Liz said vaguely.

“Yeah, everyone’s heard all about it,” Lucinda said. “All I’m saying is . . . we practice a lot. Too much, it seems like. Can’t we just not practice for one day?”

Liz thought about it. What would Maria say? she wondered. Maria would have freaked out, no doubt about it. But she wasn’t Maria. This dance team business wasn’t as important to her yet. And she wasn’t such a naturally forceful leader. “I guess we could skip one day,” she conceded, swayed by her own personal desire not to have to be such a authoritarian captain.

“Yes!” the other girls all exclaimed. They skipped up to her, and Lucinda said, “Alright girls, let’s sit. Liz has to tell us all about Michael Guerin.”

Liz smiled and blushed a little, sitting down with them on the gymnasium floor. “Okay, what do you wanna know?” she asked them.

“What’s the sex like?” they all asked in unison.

She just laughed. The rare girls who had never slept with Michael. She should have known they would ask that.

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

Michael groaned and rolled over onto his back tiredly when he heard the sound of a small, ringing bell. It was a sound he had been hearing all afternoon. Max was studying and Kyle had stopped responding to it, so now it was all up to him. Getting to his feet, he headed out into the living room.

Maria rang the little hand-held bell forcefully in her hand. He wasn’t exactly sure where she had found it. Probably in the junk drawer. They had a lot of stuff in there doing nothing useful.

He stopped beside the couch and peered down at her. “You rang?”

“Yes, I did,” she said, smiling happily. It was good to see her look happy, even after everything that had happened, even though her god-awful mother was still there.

“You’re really enjoying this spoiling thing, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said.

“Well, what do you need?”

“Food. As tasty as that hospital lunch was, I’m kind of in the mood for spaghetti.”

He felt an alarmed look crash upon his facial features.

“Oh, come on, it’s not that hard,” she said. “All you have to do is cook the noodles and stir in the sauce.”

His expression did not change.

She sighed in resignation. “Then can you just open up a can of it?”

He nodded and headed out into the kitchen. He could do that.

“Not too much ‘spa.’ Lots of ‘ghetti,’” she said as he reached up into the cupboard.

He gave her a confused look, wondering what the hell she was talking about. She didn’t seem to know, either, because she just laughed.

God, it was good to hear that laugh. “As you wish,” he said, placing the can under the can opener.

“Ooh,” she said. “Now I just gotta get you to call me master. ‘As you wish, master.’ Then this might actually be sexy.”

“Yeah, right,” he grunted as he pressed the lever down and opened up the can. He would never call Maria master. Well, unless she was naked enough.

He dumped the can’s spaghetti contents into a bowl and warmed it up in the microwave, but when he went to give it to her, he found her to have fallen asleep just that quickly on the couch. She looked so cute; he could barely stand it.

Smiling down at her, he set her spaghetti on the end table next by the lamp. He reached down then, and brought the blanket she was lying under up to cover her arms. It wasn’t very often that Maria DeLuca looked innocent like this, but when she did, it was really a sight to see.

He gazed at her for a moment longer, watching her breathe, and then looked up when he heard movement. Kyle was standing on the top stair watching with interest.

Michael threw his hands in the air. “What?” Was watching him watch Maria really that interesting?










TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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Part 44

Post by April »

starcrazed: I'm glad you enjoyed Amy's insight. And even though she did open her mouth in the last part . . . that's nothing compared to how she's going to open it up in today's part.
pookie76: lol, oh, but it would just be way too simple for you to jump into the story and tell Michael and Maria what they need to hear, wouldn't it? Way too simple!
Alien_Friend: The boys definitely aren't going to let anything bad happen to Maria now! :D And Amy . . . she does love Maria, but she has a beyond crappy way of showing it.
Sara: ha ha, yes, even Maria's doctor saw that Michael and Maria are meant to be together! But it won't be Amy who brings them together. The only people who can get Michael and Maria together are . . . Michael and Maria, of course!
SweetnSpicy: So you liked Amy in the last chapter, huh? We'll see if you like her after this one. :?
Tine: You're right, Amy wasn't the ONLY reason why Maria almost drank herself to death. She was the main reason, but not the only reason, so to put all the blame on her isn't fair. And you're right when you say that she can't express her worries and fears. She tries to, and she just comes off sounding like a bitch, and that doesn't help anyone.
guel: If you're happy there was no Michael and Liz in the last part, then they must REALLY be a bad couple, because you said once that you were a little bit Polar, right? So Passion Michael and Liz must be COMPLETELY wrong! :D
crazysnape: To answer your question, the entire story takes place during college. It takes them up to graduation day. And M+M will have more modeling to do in the future, and a bunch of other fun things.
nibbles: Maria definitely needed somebody to tell her to grow up. Amy just has a tendency to go about it in a really bitchy kind of way. And you're right when you say that Maria and Michael need to go through these relationships with Max and Liz. It's not going to be fun for Max and Liz, but everyone will hopefully emerge a lot more aware and mature.
RiceKrispy:
[Liz] can claim to love Michael all she wants, but at the end of the day, she's still just a silly little naive girl.
Exactly! Liz isn't in love with Michael; she's in lust with Michael. And Max on the other hand . . . I must admit, he's quite confusing. He really is in love, but he's in love with this vision of Maria that doesn't exist, so he's really not in love after all. Ay, ay, ay. Oh, and I read other people's feedback to the stories I really like, too! :lol:
cassie: Glad to see you're still reading! And I'm glad you liked Michael taking care of Maria. He is most definitely surprisingly sweet sometimes.
spacegirl23: Oh, yeah, Kyle's figured it out. Kyle has everything figured out, because he's super awesome like that. ;)
Sarah: lol, amazing and frustrating? Thanks!
tequathisy: You make a great point in saying that Max is a sucky boyfriend. He's probably the nicest guy in the fic, but he really doesn't have a clue, and that probably stems from the fact that he has NO experience with girls. Michael at least had sexual experience, so he sort of knows what girls want. And Michael actually is a pretty good boyfriend, but nothing he's doing for Liz comes from the heart. You're right: Liz is going to come crashing down HARD.
Elle: Yep, it's like I said to tequathisy, Max is a good guy but not a good boyfriend. He's so inexperienced and reserved. Oh, and if Amy was getting on your nerves after the last part, I imagine she'll really infuriate you in this part.
Michelle: When are Michael and Maria going to let nature take its course? Oh, they're stubborn people, so it could be awhile. :wink: And I'll start putting the page number in the title, too. That's a good idea, and I never thought of it before. Thanks!


Thank you all for the wonderful feedback! Let's not waste anymore time, shall we?









Part 44








The next day, Maria forced herself to get up and go to class. As fun as it was to hang around and be lazy, she still had graduation to worry about. Nerds seemed less willing to do her homework than they used to, so now she actually had to take notes in lectures and pay attention and study. It was horrible.

She was only on her way to her first class when her cell phone rang. She had a feeling she knew who it was, but she glanced at the caller ID anyway.

Michael.

Smiling, she flipped her phone. “You’re calling me already? I thought you’d last a little longer.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were doin’ alright,” he said.

“Yes, because getting my stomach pumped hinders my ability to walk to class,” she said sarcastically.

After a bit of a pause, he asked, “So you’re doin’ alright?”

“Oh my god, somehow I’m surviving,” she said. “Michael, this is, like, beyond spoiling. This is practically parenting.” When she said it, she almost cracked up laughing, because she could never seriously think of her sexy friend like that.

“Just be grateful,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

“You’ll call me later,” she said matter-of-factly, knowing him well enough to know he would.

“Yeah, probably,” he admitted. “Bye.”

“Bye.” She closed her phone again and shook her head, unable to keep from smiling. As much as she acted exasperated with his caretaking behavior, she loved it. He was so adorable. Still annoying, but adorable, too.

She was still smiling and thinking about him when she heard someone say her name. She looked around for the source, but she quickly realized that no one was talking to her. Two sorority-type girls was talking about her.

Well, that’s good, she thought. At least some people remember their former campus queen. Except . . . they weren’t saying nice things.

“Yeah, and apparently she was throwing herself all over every guy in the room,” one of the girls said, apparently unaware that the object of her conversation was within hearing distance. “You know that Brad guy that lives there? He was practically peeling her off him.”

“Oh, that’s so desperate,” the other girl said.

Maria couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, but she knew that was a lie. That creep and his friends had been trying to take advantage of her. She remembered the fear.

“Well, the whole thing was obviously just an attempt to get attention,” the first girl went on. “She’s not that popular anymore, and her looks are definitely fading, so she was trying to get people to notice her again.”

“Yeah,” the other girl agreed. “She’s just jealous of Liz.”

Maria looked away, unable to believe what she was hearing. She knew she wasn’t as popular anymore, but she couldn’t believe that girls who had probably at one time idolized her were slamming her like that. Was everyone slamming her like that? There had been a time when she would have marched right up to them and had it out, but not anymore. Because for once in her life, she wasn’t sure she would win.

It was a suck feeling, what she felt. She felt like the Britney Spears of the university: screwed up and a has-been.

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

When Michael walked in the door later that afternoon, he found Maria sitting in the kitchen with an opened carton of ice cream in front of her. From what he could tell, she was already halfway through it.

“Uh-oh,” he said, sitting down across from her. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you always assume something’s wrong when I eat ice cream, huh?”

“Uh, ‘cause I know you.”

She groaned. “I hate you.”

He took her spoon out of her hand and took a bite himself. “What’s wrong?” he asked again, growing impatient.

“Everything,” she answered, seizing her spoon back again. “Everything sucks.”

He raised his eyebrows, instantly a little worried.

“Well, not everything,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. I’m indulging in ice cream, not booze.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. What the hell’s wrong?”

She sighed, digging the spoon around in the ice cream, not really eating it anymore. “Okay, let me ask you something,” she said, “and just answer in a totally honest, male way.”

“As opposed to that female way I’m so well known for?”

She rolled her eyes and said. “Would you get serious?”

“Would you get to the asking?”

She bit her bottom lip for a moment before inquiring, “Am I getting ugly?”

Had he not been sitting, the question would have knocked him off his feet. “What?” he spat in response.

“You heard me. Am I getting ugly?”

He just sat there, dumbfounded, wondering what had triggered the absurd question.

“Great, no answer. That means I am,” she concluded.

“No, Maria, I’m just . . . I’m shocked that you would even think that. Why the hell would you think that?”

I don’t think it, but apparently other people do. I heard these two girls talking today, and they basically said that I’m getting unpopular and ugly.”

“Well, then they’re either jealous or insane,” Michael said. “I’m not gonna lie, Maria. You’re, like, the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.”

She smiled a little, and her eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

She paused momentarily, then asked, “What about Liz?”

Shit, he thought. Forgot about her. “Well, that’s different. She’s got that whole sweet, innocent look goin’ on. You got the wild, passionate thing.”

She stared right at him and asked a question that he wasn’t expecting. “Which one do you like best?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. Because he didn’t know.

Just then, the front door opened and Liz walked in. “Hey, guys,” she said. She came to stand beside Michael and noted, “Ooh. Ice cream. What happened?”

“Nothin’,” Michael replied, hoping to keep the conversation between himself and Maria. It wasn’t something Liz needed to hear.

“Hey, so, how’d practice go yesterday?” Maria asked her.

“Oh, um . . . good,” Liz replied.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you guys drill it with music?”

Liz nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”

“So you think it’s gonna be ready in—gosh, a week?”

“Oh, yeah, it . . . looked good in practice.”

“Good,” Maria said. “Good job, Liz.”

Liz smiled. “Hmm.”

Michael could tell without doubt that his girlfriend was lying. That dance team hadn’t spent one second practicing. But it would only piss Maria off if she knew, and it sounded like she’d already had a bad enough day.

Just then, Michael heard someone else come into the room and clear her oh-so-religious throat. “Sorry,” Amy said. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”

“Ice cream,” Michael muttered, taking Maria’s spoon once again and delving in. Whenever that woman came around, his day always went to hell, too.

“Maria, can I speak to you for a moment?” Amy asked.

Maria didn’t move a muscle, but Michael could tell she was thinking about it. “Don’t do it,” he said.

She glanced down at him, then back up at her mother. It was obvious she didn’t want to, but she gave in anyway. “If I’m not out in five minutes,” she said, “come save my life again.”

He sighed heavily as she followed her mother into the bedroom. If Amy did anything to upset Maria, which she undoubtedly would, she’d have one very pissed off roommate on her hands.

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

Maria sat down on the bed a safe distance away from her mother, dreading the lecture she was probably about to receive. It was inevitable, though, and she knew it, so she figured she’d just get it over with.

Amy sighed and said, “You can blame me for your reckless behavior the other night all you want, but in the end it was your choice, so I refuse to feel guilty.”

“Great,” Maria said, not really caring. Contrary to what Amy obviously thought, she didn’t blame her. She just didn’t like her.

“I just wanted to get that out in the air,” Amy said.

“Before you lecture me?” Maria guessed.

“Maria, I just want you to make some changes,” she said. “How long have you been doing this now? Eight, ten years?”

“Doing what?”

“Being a selfish, spoiled little girl.”

“Selfish?” she echoed. “Spoiled? Okay, I have my moments, but don’t make me out to be a bad person. I’m not a bad person.” Was she?

“Well, you’re not who I wanted you to be,” Amy came right out and said. “When you were born, Maria, even though I knew it’d be difficult, even though I knew we’d have our troubles, I thought we’d be the best of friends. I thought we’d have that kind of mother-daughter relationship. I thought you’d be smart and compassionate and talented.”

“Oh, and I’m not any of those things?”

“If you are, I definitely don’t see it,” Amy said. “You’ve obviously put little effort into your higher education. You don’t seem to respect or care for anyone, except for your roommates. And you’re pursuing this dance thing as though it’s actually attainable.”

“Wow,” Maria said. “You really are a bitch.”

“One of these days, you’ll wake up and see that I’m right,” Amy went on. “You should have listened to me. You should have let me guide you.”

“No, thanks.”

“It just breaks my heart, Maria,” Amy said dramatically, holding one hand to her chest. “I wanted better for you.”

Maria shook her head in disbelief and asked, “What’s so bad about this? You don’t get it, Mom. I’m happy. I’m happy here.”

“Happy enough to almost drink yourself to death?”

“You see, that’s why I don’t want you here, Mom! Because when you are here, I’m not happy! Don’t you get it? You’re not a good mother. You’re not.”

“No, I am, Maria. It’s you who’s not a good daughter.”

“Why can’t you just accept me, Mom?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “I make mistakes; I have problems. Oh, well!”

“Oh well?”

“Yes! God, do you not understand that constant put-downs aren't motivation for leading a better life?” Maria groaned in utter exasperation and stormed out of the room. She couldn’t take another second of it.

Her mother followed her out into the living room. Michael and Liz were still there. Max, Kyle, Isabel, and Tess had joined them as well. They all stopped what they were doing and looked up when commotion flew into the room.

“Listen to me, Maria!” Amy yelled.

“No!” she shouted, whirling back around to face her. “I’m tired of listening to you! I’m tired of hearing about what a screw-up I am! I’m tired of being told I should be all these things I’m not! I don’t wanna listen, Mom! I hate it!”

“Well, I hate you, Maria!”

Maria froze, unable to believe her mother had just said that. She’d said some pretty awful things over time, but that had to be the worse. Maria couldn’t even formulate a response.

“I do!” Amy said. “I never thought I’d say that about my own daughter, but I do. I love, you but at the same time . . . I hate the person you’ve become. I hate that you won’t listen to me, that you won’t let me help you.”

Maria felt tears sting her eyes, but she tried to blink them away. “Stop,” she pleaded.

But Amy didn’t stop. She just kept going. “I hate that you drink, and you don’t go to church, and you treat sex like it’s not sacred, and you lie and you manipulate and you cheat and you steal. I hate all those things, Maria, so much!”

“Stop,” Maria said again, closing her eyes as one tear fell over. Her own mother hated her. It was something she had never thought was possible, no matter how bad it got.

“I won’t stop, Maria. You need to hear this! I understand now that you will never be what I want you to be!”

Maria cried harder, wishing she could stop.

"Ms. DeLuca . . ." Max tried to interject.

“Don’t defend her, Max. You have no reason to.” She turned her attention back to Maria then and kept hounding her. “You will never be successful; you will never be respectable.”

“Stop, please!”

“You will be what you are right now for the rest of your life, and that is a selfish, spoiled little whore!”

Maria choked out a sob, almost falling to her knees.

But before Amy could go on, Michael stepped in. “Hey!” he shouted, coming to stand in between them. “Don’t you ever call her that!”

“Why not? It’s true, and she knows it.”

“Shut up!” he roared, pointing a finger at her. “Shut your self-righteous mouth!”

Maria calmed down a bit when Amy was silent and managed to open her teary eyes.

“You think you’re some great person,” Michael went on, his anger towards her greater than any Maria had ever seen before. “You think you’re good. But a good person would never hate her daughter. So you’re a bad person, Amy. But you’re too deluded to realize it.”

She clenched her jaw and growled, “How dare you--”

“No, how dare you!” he cut in. “How dare you waltz in here, acting like you know everything, acting like you’re better than us! I’m fuckin’ sick of it! I am not gonna let you stay here and beat down my best friend!”

Maria’s mouth dropped open a little. Had he just said . . .

He opened the door with one hand, his eyes locked on hers. “So get the hell out of our house.”

Amy looked at him in utter astonishment for a few seconds, then turned and looked at everyone else pleadingly. No one made a move to defend her.

“Max?” she tried. Obviously she thought she could get through to him.

“You need to leave, Ms. DeLuca,” he said sternly. “Right now.”

She looked back at Michael again and protested, “But, my things . . .”

“Get out,” Michael said again, “or I swear to fucking God, I’ll throw you out.”

Maria bent down and picked up Amy’s purse from where it was sitting on the floor and threw it at her angrily. Amy caught it, staring at her in astonishment. Maria stood beside Michael, the two of them an unbreakable united front against her. She seemed to be understanding in that moment that it was really over, that she would never be welcome there again, and that this might be the last time she would ever see any of them.

“You two deserve each other,” she muttered in disdain as she walked out the front door and out of their lives. “You’re all going to hell.”

Michael slammed the door the moment she was gone, and nobody said anything. He still looked furious, and everyone else looked shocked. Maria wasn’t sure how to feel. Part of her was still stunned and saddened by her mother’s words. The other part couldn’t stop thinking about the way Michael had passionately defended her.

Max came up to her and asked, "Are you okay?"

She looked Michael in the eye and nodded mutely. She was going to be fine . . . thanks to him.

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

The door to Maria’s bedroom was slightly ajar that night, so Michael didn’t bother to knock. Not that he would have anyway. She never seemed to mind him walking in there without knocking.

He pushed open the door and found her lying on the bed, on her side. She looked up at him and said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” he echoed, shutting the door. “How you doin’?”

She sat up and smiled a little. “Do you realize how many times you’ve asked me that today?”

“Do you realize how many times you’ve avoided answering?” he asked in return.

She considered it for a moment and said, “Fair enough.”

He sat down beside her on the bed, unsure how to approach what was probably a difficult subject for her, so he just began with, “That was some pretty crappy stuff your mom said.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I always knew she didn’t like me. But now I know she hates me. It’s just kinda . . . but I guess I hate her, too, so . . .” She trailed off and shrugged.

Michael nodded. He was definitely a member of the Amy DeLuca hate-club as well. Most people were. “I’m sorry I got into it,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but . . .” He paused a moment, remembering the fury he had felt towards that woman in that moment, the strong desire to protect his friend from all her hurtful remarks. “Max should’ve said something.”

She shrugged. “He tried. It’s not in his nature.”

“I guess not.” Michael sighed. “Oh, man, Maria. In eight years, I’ve never once seen you cry,” he said, “and now that I have, I just . . . don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it, either,” she said. “That’s why I don’t do it.”

“Yeah,” he said, understanding. He never cried, either.

“I guess a small part of me feels sad,” she admitted, “you know, knowing that I’ll never get her approval. But the bigger part of me’s just, like, relieved that it’s all over, that she’s out of my life for good now.”

“Yeah. That’s kinda how I felt when my mom went to jail.”

“Oh, yeah, here I am complaining about my mom. Your parents are way worse. Remember when your dad tried to hit on me?”

“Yeah, I was so pissed.”

“Where is he, anyway?”

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. Last I heard, Australia. Maybe he’ll get bit by one of those poisonous spiders or something.” He chuckled. “I shouldn’t say that, but . . . whatever.”

“Whatever,” she agreed with one nod of her head. “Screw parents.”

“Screw parents,” he agreed. “We do just fine on our own.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she agreed. “Seriously, though, not to get all, like, mushy, but I don’t know what I’d do without you and Max and Kyle. I mean, without you, I’d probably be a lot less irritated, but . . .”

“Don’t lie. You like it.”

She didn’t deny it. She just smiled.

“Hey, listen, though,” he said. “I started thinking about something today. I know that I . . . say stuff sometimes. Like I call you a slut and whore and stuff, and I’m just kidding; but if it upsets you, you know, I’ll stop.”

“Oh, no, it’s different when you say it,” she said. “I know that you don’t really mean it, so it doesn’t bother me. Actually, I kind of take it as a term of endearment. Or a nickname.”

He chuckled. “Okay, I just wanted to make sure.”

“Yeah, so don’t stop.”

“Okay, I won’t.” He was glad he wouldn’t have to. He took a deep breath and said, “Hey, so I don’t . . . say stuff like this a lot, ‘cause it’s embarrassing, but . . . since you almost died and with all this mom stuff . . .” He trailed off and brought his gaze down to stare at the comforter, mumbling, “You are my best friend, Maria. You know that.” He looked back at her, then, and saw her smiling.

“You’re my best friend, too,” she confessed quietly. And after a moment, she added, “Dumb-ass.”

Now that was more like it. “Oh, slut.”

She smiled and laughed a little, and he just sat there and watched her. Now that Amy was gone, hopefully she’d be smiling a lot more.

She had a great smile.









TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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Part 45

Post by April »

Michelle:
Ranting, raving, foaming at the mouth aren't going to change anything, but being loving just might have.
Exactly. Amy's inability to understand that simple concept is the main reason why she and Maria have such a dysfunctional relationship. Don't worry, though. Maria will "get her groove back" eventually. It will be a different groove than she had before, but still a groove. :lol:
pookie76:
Though I fear it's still a long road for Michael and Maria
Well, I hate to say it, but you fear right. They've taken huge steps lately, supporting each other and admitting that they're best friends, but switching to something romantic and sexual is a huge decision, one that they're not quite ready to embark on yet.
guel: Hmm, well, we'll see if you like Max by the end of this. He's a good guy; he's just a wimp.
Alien_Friend: Yeah, Max definitely tried to defend Maria. I'm glad you gave him an A for effort! :P
Tine:
It's like there is an inner barrier stopping them where they both wanna go but aren't ready to, yet.
Exactly! It's like I've said all along, the only thing stopping Michael and Maria from being together is Michael and Maria. That's why it's so frustrating, but hopefully it will be worth it!
Sara: Oh, if Liz is making you crazy already, you might become certifiably insane as the fic progresses. :?
starcrazed: Yep, Amy always chooses the most destructive way of trying to get through to Maria. And you're right when you say that Maria's right . . . Michael's a dumb-ass. But hopefully a loveable one.
SweetnSpicy: lol, a Passion Michael groupie? Nice! I'm a Passion Michael groupie myself! He's my dream man, because he's so imperfectly perfect!
nibbles:
this situation could have been the perfect opportunity to not only mend her relationship with her daughter but to steer Maria towards a better path
And that was probably Amy's mission, her reason for coming to see Maria in the first place, but she went about it ALL wrong. She's a very bad devout Christian.
RiceKrispy: Actually, it's interesting that you asked about Tess, because you will see her take a more active role in this fic. Tess is pretty much like Kyle. She's really cool and she's really awesome. I think you'll enjoy her character.
Wendy Evans:
What a beautiful conversation between them in bedroom.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was definitely one of the highlights to write!
spacegirl23: I'm glad that you're loving M+M. They're going to continue to be frustrating and stubborn as hell, but . . . well, they wouldn't be Passion Michael and Maria if they weren't frustrating and stubborn.
teqauthisy:
Max and Liz may have official boyfriend/girlfriend status but they are just as meaningless to Michael and Maria as all the other random hook ups they've enjoyed over the years.
Interesting point. Michael's only interest in Liz is sex . . . and that's his interest with every other girls he's ever been with. And Maria and Max . . . well, that's a little different. Maria does care about Max; he's her friend. But she's consciously using him so that her feelings for Michael don't become any more apparent than they already are. But neither one of these couples has some epic romance by any means, although that's what Max and Liz are hoping for.

You guys remember our warning smiley? :twisted: Well . . . it might make another appearance. Not too bad, though.










Part 45








The next day was Maria’s first day back at dance team practice, and she wasn’t happy with what she saw. She stood there, watching in disbelief as the team struggled through a relatively easy dance with music. She understood that these girls were all new at collegiate level dancing, but they had all shown talent—or at least semi-sobriety—during tryouts. Where was that talent now?

She reached down wordlessly and pressed the ‘stop’ button on the CD player. The girls all stopped dancing and seemed to recognize her dissatisfaction immediately, because no one could look her in the eye.

“You guys,” she said, forcing herself to not yell. “You realize that you’re performing this in ten days, don’t you? It’s not ready. It looks bad. In fact, it looks worse than it did a week ago. What happened?”

No one said anything.

Maria turned to Liz for answers. “Liz, I thought you said you guys drilled this with music.”

Liz just looked at her feet, but her silence spoke volumes.

“You didn’t drill it with music, did you?” Maria guessed. She shook her head, disappointed in her friend, upset that she had lied about it. She’d have to talk to her about it later. “Great,” she said. “What did you guys do while I was on bed rest?”

“We . . . had a team meeting,” one girl in the front said.

“About what? Liz’s boyfriend?” No one had to answer for Maria to know it was true. All of the girls on the team were either freshmen or sophomores. They all thought Michael Guerin was the ooh-la-la cutest boy on the planet. Which he was, but it didn’t matter. “You guys are a whole day behind now,” she informed them, “and in addition to that, you’re a whole week behind because you haven’t been working hard.” She grunted angrily and threw her hands in the air. “I just-I don’t get this. When I was on this team, it was the most important thing in the world to me. Hell, it’s still the most important thing in the world to me, and I’m not even on it anymore. But I do more work than all of you combined. Tell me, does that seem fair?”

No response.

“Somebody answer me,” she said, “or I’ll make you run laps.”

“No,” a girl in the back piped up. “It’s not fair.”

“You’re damn right it’s not fair. Now you guys could be really good, because you have talent and you have me; and I am willing to do anything I can to help you. But if you don’t put in the effort . . .” She trailed off and sighed. It didn’t matter what she said. She could see it happening already. Her dance team, the one she had led to three consecutive state championships . . . it was dissolving, just like her popularity. Only this was worse. This meant more to her.

“When I was a freshman, I practiced for three hours a day, even on days when we didn’t have practice,” she informed them.

“Not everyone’s like you, Maria,” the girl in the front said.

“I’m not asking you to be like me. I’m asking you to treat the team I worked so hard to build with a little respect.” She glared at each and every one of them, even Liz, letting them know how unhappy she was. “From the beginning with counts,” she said. “Five, six, seven, eight.”

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

Maria lay sprawled across Max’s chest that night, struggling to keep her eyes open. She was tired not only because they’d just had sex (twice), but also because of the dance practice that morning. She’d had to go over every part of the dance over and over again for those girls to get it. She’d practically re-taught the whole thing. It had been a strenuous workout even for her.

“I meant to ask you how your day went,” Max said, running his fingers through her hair, “but then you started taking your clothes off and I just . . . forgot to ask.”

She smiled at his sweetness. “It was okay,” she told him.

“Just okay?”

“Yeah. Dance team drama. But I guess it could be worse. My mom could be here. I could be not breathing.”

“Way to put things in perspective.”

She trailed her fingers down his chest to circle around his belly-button, absentmindedly trying to remember if she had ever cuddled and talked post-coital with anyone besides Max. She didn’t think she had.

He was a really nice guy.

“What about you?” she asked, trying to reciprocate the conversation even though she wasn’t good at it. “How was your day?”

“Ah, boring,” he replied. “Until you came home.”

“Hmm.”

He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and said, “I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you, Maria.”

She sighed, thinking of Michael, of all the fun they could have simply looking through an old yearbook or playing a game of Go Fish. As much as she acted like she hated him, she liked him. She really liked him.

She closed her eyes and pretended as though she fell asleep for awhile, but she was wide awake. Wide awake and thinking about one person. One person who wasn’t Max.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~ :twisted:

As Liz’s boyfriend, Michael felt it his duty to make-out with her as much as possible. Besides being physically satisfying, it also served a purpose. The more they made-out, the better she got. And the more daring she got, which was always a good thing.

She lay on top of him that night, kissing him, in just her bra and jeans. She had begun dressing sexier and sexier every day. Good. He smoothed his hand down her back to dip inside the back of her jeans, shocked to feel what he felt.

“Liz!” he said, halting the kiss-action just for a moment.

“What?” she asked innocently.

“Since when are you goin’ commando?”

“Since tonight,” she said. “This girl on my floor and I were talking. She said guys think it’s a big turn-on.”

“Oh, it is,” he assured her, leaning in for another kiss. He just briefly brushed his lips against hers, though, when he felt himself starting to get hard. He closed his eyes and dug his head back into his pillow.

“What?” she asked him.

“Why’d I ever make that bet?” he wondered aloud. It’d been a stupid thing to do.

“Oh, spur of the moment decision.” She giggled a little. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay.” He was so sexually frustrated; sometimes he jacked-off so fast and hard, he didn’t think he’d have a dick left in the morning. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I think we’re both really good with our hands,” he said, interlacing his fingers with hers. “But I’ve never gone this long without sex.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And I’d just gotten started and then it was like—boom! No sex for Liz.”

“It was a stupid bet,” he admitted, pushing his erection up into her just slightly, just enough for her to feel it. He would give anything right now for sex with anyone. Didn’t matter who. He just needed sex.

She closed her eyes and gasped at the contact.

“How long do you think it’s been?” he asked her.

“What?” she asked dazedly, opening her eyes to look at him again.

“Since we started the bet.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Three and a half weeks?”

“Three and a half weeks,” he echoed. “Yeah.” He shook his head, knowing that couldn’t be true. “No.”

“Okay, more like two weeks,” she conceded.

“Two weeks?” He groaned. It was impossible. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t do two more weeks. “We should just give up now,” he suggested, rubbing himself against her jean-clad cleft suggestively.

“Yeah,” she agreed breathlessly. “We should just . . . give up now.”

“Yeah.” He kissed her almost violently and immediately flipped them over so that he was on top. In a matter of seconds, he was already tugging off her pants. No sense wasting any more time. He was horny as hell.

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

Maria found it hard to concentrate on her psychology homework while Isabel was watching America’s Next Top Model. She didn’t ask her to turn it off or even turn it down, though, because truthfully, she was engrossed in it, too.

“Oh my god, this show is so unnecessarily dramatic,” Isabel commented. “Maria, in your professional opinion, is modeling that hard?”

Maria shrugged, thinking back on the total of two experiences she’d had thus far. “I don’t know. It’s definitely harder than it looks, but it’s not like it requires some great intellectual talent.”

“Maybe I should do that,” Isabel pondered. “But I probably can’t. My boobs are too big.”

“Oh, I think Victoria’s Secret would love your boobs,” Maria informed her. “You could be the next Giselle.”

Isabel shut off the TV, declaring, “It’s a stupid show.”

“But addictive.”

“Yes, very addictive.” She got up off the couch and joined Maria in the kitchen. “Oh my god,” she said in astonishment. “Are you doing homework?”

“Shocking, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve never seen you do homework before.”

“That’s because I used to be on the A-list here at Santa Fe. Now I might as well be on that reality show with Kathy Griffin.”

“Oh, not true,” Isabel said, sitting down across from her at the counter. “You’re still popular.”

“Not as popular as my Frankenstein Liz.”

“Frankenstein?” Isabel frowned. “You’ve created a monster?”

Maria sighed, realize that she was still a little bitter. “No, she just pissed me off a little bit today. I found out she lied about dance team practice, and you know how I am about that.”

“Hmm,” Isabel said. “Well, honestly, I don’t know her very well. She seems nice, you know, and I’m sure everyone’s all about her right now ‘cause she’s Michael’s girlfriend, but you’re the real deal, Maria. You’re gonna graduate in a couple of months, and people are still gonna be talking about you years later.”

“Yeah, talking about my alcohol poisoning,” she mumbled. “That was really embarrassing. I can actually hold my liquor. I just . . . couldn’t that night.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Isabel said. “And who cares if people talk about you? People used to talk about me and Kyle and Tess all the time, especially at first. We just ignored it, and eventually it passed.”

Maria smiled at the younger girl and said, “You’re way too wise to be a sophomore, you know that?”

Isabel laughed. “Wise? Okay, sure. Why not?”

Maria laughed a little, too, and then asked, “So where are Kyle and Tess anyway? You guys are usually all together.”

“Usually,” Isabel agreed, “but once in awhile, we do two-person stuff.”

Maria raised an eyebrow. “Stuff?”

“Listen closely,” Isabel instructed.

Maria shut her mouth and did just that. It didn’t take her long to hear a mattress squeaking downstairs, accompanied by a couple of moans from Tess.

“It’ll get louder,” Isabel assured her. “Sometimes I have to get away from it or I’ll go deaf.”

Maria set her pencil down, thinking how, in a very weird, very subtle way, Isabel, Tess, and Kyle were very much like herself, Liz, and Michael. Where Max fit in, she still didn’t know.

“Isabel,” she said, “doesn’t it ever both you when Tess and Kyle go off and do something on their own? I mean, don’t you ever just feel like . . . I don’t know, excluded or pushed off to the sidelines or something?”

“Oh, I’m not sidelined,” Isabel assured her. “I love Kyle.”

“I know you do,” Maria said. “But, do you ever get . . . jealous, I guess, that he sometimes does things with Tess that he doesn’t do with you?”

Isabel thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “Not really. I mean, my relationship with Kyle means a lot to me, but I know it means a lot to Tess, too, so what right do I have to screw it up?”

“Huh,” Maria nodded a little, thinking about that. Her relationship with Michael was so important, but it was obviously important to Liz. She had no right. She had no right. Especially since she had been the one to set them up together in the first place.

“You okay?” Isabel asked.

“What? Oh, yeah. It’s just . . . all this studying. It’s not good for my brain.”

Isabel laughed a little, just as Tess let out a ferocious growling sound from downstairs. “Oh, Kyle, yes!”

You da man, Valenti, Maria thought, smiling.

A moment later, the bed squeaking stopped.

“Wait a minute,” Isabel said. “They’ll start up again.”

“Don’t they always?” Maria picked her pencil back up again, and merely a second later, the squeaking had indeed begun again. But it sounded different this time.

“Wow, that was a quick recovery,” Isabel commented. “Go, Kyle! Woo!”

Maria frowned skeptically, trying to differentiate the sound. “No, Isabel,” she said. “That’s not Kyle.”

“What?”

She held up her index finger, signaling for Isabel to be quiet. She was, and Maria listened closely. The squeaking wasn’t even coming from downstairs this time. It was coming from . . .

That bastard.

“No way,” she said, slowly starting back towards Michael’s bedroom. He wouldn’t, she thought. Oh, who am I kidding? He so would. “Michael Guerin!” she roared, stomping down the hallway. She threw open the door to his bedroom and walked in on quite a sight. Michael was on top of Liz, going at it full-force beneath the sheets. Liz gasped and pulled the sheet tightly against herself, accidentally exposing some of naked Michael in the process. But he didn’t seem to care.

“Go away; we’re busy,” he said, never breaking stride.

Liz placed her hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him off of her. He lay down on his back beside her, obviously disappointed.

“I knew it!” Maria shouted. “I could hear your kinky sex sounds from the kitchen!”

“It’s not kinky sex,” Michael said. “Although we should probably start lookin’ into that, Liz. I think you’d be surprised how much you’d like it.”

“What’s--”

Before Liz could ask what kinky sex was, Maria belted out, “Ha! Ha, ha! Oh my god, I’m so excited.”

“’Cause you got to see the goods?” Michael guessed, gesturing towards his erection.

Well . . . partly, she thought reluctantly. “You lost the bet,” she said emphatically. “You are a wimp. You couldn’t hold up your end of the deal. You are a loser.”

“Maria, I’m a guy. Did you honestly expect me to go a whole month?”

She made a sound of disbelief. “It’s not like you weren’t getting any. You were free to masturbate, which I’m sure you did. I already know you guys took the term ‘handling’ to a new level. Just admit it, Michael. You suck.”

He grinned. “Not as good as you.”

She gasped in mock outrage and said, “Okay! That’s it! I win; you lose. You know there’s gonna be consequences.”

“Worth it,” he decided as he climbed back on top of Liz and immediately resumed what he had been doing a minute before.

“Oh!” Liz gasped again. “Michael . . .”

Maria made a face of disgust and shut the door. Consequences, she thought to herself. Punishing Michael Guerin was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She had to get what she wanted out of it.

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

Maria sat on the couch that night, waiting until things had quieted down in Michael’s bedroom and until she had an idea in her head. It was a good idea, one that would hit him where it hurt most.

She flipped open her cell phone and called him. He answered gruffly.

“What the hell, Maria? We live in the same house. Do you have any idea how annoying my ringer is? You just woke Liz up. Aren’t you gonna say anything? I’m goin’ back to bed.”

“Get your ugly ass out here, Guerin,” she said. “I got a bone to pick with you.”

“Yeah, I got a bone, too.”

She rolled her eyes and closed the phone. He was going to freak out when she revealed what punishment she had in store. She couldn’t wait to break it to him.

He walked out of his bedroom a few short moments later, wearing nothing but a pair of sweat-pants. Oh, he is insanely hot, Maria thought, struggling not to stare at him. It was the shoulders that got her more than anything. She was so attracted to great shoulders on a guy, and Michael’s shoulders were broad and encompassing . . .

“You smell like sex,” she commented.

“So do you.” He took a seat beside her, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“That’s different. I’m supposed to,” she reminded him. “I wasn’t on sex probation.”

“You’re lookin’ at it all wrong,” he said. “See, the way you see it, you won and I lost. But the way I see it, I won, ‘cause no joke, that was the best sex I’ve had in my life.”

“Really?” Maria found that hard to believe. The best sex of his life, with someone who had been a virgin three short weeks ago? Uh-uh. “It’s just ‘cause you went you through a drought,” she rationalized.

“No, Liz is gettin’ really good, Maria. You’d be shocked, but it’s like they say . . . always the quiet ones. Plus, she’s got a really good teacher.”

“Oh, she wasn’t quiet,” Maria informed him. “I was actually trying to study. Yeah, that’s a little hard when you have a chorus of, ‘Oh, Michael, oh, Jesus,’ in the background.”

He smirked. “I’m Jesus.”

She rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“Well, that’s what you get for studying, Maria,” he said.

“Okay, shut up,” she said. “I called you out here to discuss business.”

“Business?” he echoed. “Okay, Miss Mafia Don. Give me all you got.”

“Oh, I’m about to,” she assured fervently. “You see you . . . couldn’t hold up your end of the bet. Led around by the dick. Big surprise.”

“Hey, I held out pretty long.”

“Oh, yeah, two weeks? Big hand, Michael.” She clapped sarcastically and shook her head. “You lost.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she didn’t let him get a word in edgewise.

“You totally lost, and I win and I rock.”

“So that’s what this is about, gloating?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no. You fucked up majorly, Michael. Now you have to pay the price.”

He stared at her for a moment and said, “Is this like a whip kind of paying the price, or . . .”

“Oh, you wish.”

He wet his lips, looking a little nervous for the first time since they’d started that conversation and tried to appeal to her emotional side. “Okay, the way I see it . . .”

“Is wrong,” she filled in.

“The way I see it,” he repeated calmly, “is that I saved your life.”

“Oh my god.”

“I-I sacrificed, Maria. I put my mouth on yours, which, now that I think about it, your mouth has been around a lot of cocks, so . . . like I said, sacrifice.”

She rolled her eyes.

“And I endowed you with some of my precious, holy, Jesus-breath.”

“Jesus-breath?!” she shrieked. “Oh my god!”

“So . . . obviously it negates the whole bet.”

“Oh, it negates nothing!” she promised him.

“Lose the bet; save your life. See how it balances out?”

“You saving my life had absolutely nothing to do with the bet,” she reminded him. “Don’t try to weasel your way out of this, Ugly Boy. I won’t let you.”

“Maria, it’s common logic. I--”

“Zip it,” she commanded.

“Maria . . .”

“Michael Guerin, prepare to suffer the wrath of Maria DeLuca, ‘cause here it comes: you’re giving up your bedroom,” she blurted.

After a moment of silence, all he said was, “What?”

She smirked. “Yeah. I thought about putting you on another celibacy period, but the chances you'd follow through with it are slim to none. So . . . yep, your bedroom. You know, the one that was always supposed to be mine all along . . . yeah, it is mine now. We’re switching.”

“No, we’re not,” he said.

“Oh, yes we are,” she said confidently. There was nothing else she wanted more in the world than Michael’s bedroom. Well, besides Michael himself. “And since I almost died, as you pointed out, I don’t think I’ll be doing any heavy lifting,” she added happily. Oh, yeah. Where’s your snappy argument now, you jackass?

“You’re insane,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“No, I mean it. This is . . . it’s unlawful, Maria.”

“Oh, unlawful?”

“Yeah. It’s the master bedroom. I’m the master of the house.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, rising slowly to her feet. “I’ve always been your master.” She grinned mischievously at him, then smiled pleasantly and said, “Goodnight.”

He said nothing as she pranced down the hallway. She felt so good about the punishment she was inflicting on him. And he’d give in. He always did. As pissed off as he was, he wouldn’t take much convincing. Somehow, whenever she asked him to do something, he always did it. He was sort of adorable that way.








TBC . . .

-April
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Part 46

Post by April »

Wow, I'm really loving this discussion, you guys. Honestly, I didn't know Passion was going to generate this much of a response, so I'm thrilled that it has. There's a lot of different ways you can look at this. You can hate these people or love them . . . whatever. In the end, there's no wrong opinion.

I think Michelle did a great job of describing Maria as "the puppet-master." She is a pathological liar. She keeps digging herself in deeper and deeper. The more she lies, the harder it is to even consider telling the truth. She is doing a horrible thing by using Max, and she knows it. Although he may be a wimp, he really is a nice guy, and he really does care about her. And Michelle also pegged it right on when she said that Liz is "the puppet, not the perpetrator."

Like nibbles said, Maria can't change who she is overnight. It's a very gradual process, and if you noticed, she was actually studying in the last part. That alone is a huge thing for her. But at the same time, should she have to do a complete 180 and change her entire personality? No. She's got a wild side, and that's what makes her who she is. Like Mag said, she finds sex healthy and natural, so if she wants to do it, she should do it. But she should do it for the right reasons, meaning that she shouldn't lie to Max by sleeping with him. Maria's lying is definitely one of the biggest elements of this story.

And Maria does love Michael. She doesn't want to, because he's not a very easy guy to love sometimes, but she can't help herself.

And I've come to the conclusion after reading all your feedback and reading through my own story that . . . Michael is the most confusing character in the story. Even more so than Maria, I believe. He's not dumb . . . but he is a dumb-ass. He does have depth, he does have layers, but the image he projects to everyone else is very one-dimensional. He lives a very easy, cool life. He gets to be the guy who gets laid all the time and goes out and has fun and doesn't worry about the future. It's an immature life, but it's a fun life. Why would he want to change just yet?

And a few of you pointed out a double standard here: It's the age-old 'guys can have all the sex they want to and be considered cool, but a girl is automatically labeled a slut.' And in Maria's case, now that she's acting less slutty, she's less popular. It's unfortunate, but true.

Anyway, those were just a few of my thoughts in response to all the wonderful discussion we had on the last part. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to really invest in this story! It means sooooooo much to me! Hopefully you'll stick with it, this story about imperfect people who do very imperfect things. On the surface, it's somewhat humorous and crazy, but there's definitely a darker edge to it.






(Okay, Maria and Michael briefly sing the lyrics of the song "Don't Wait" by Dashboard Confessional in this part. Very briefly, but I don't want to take credit for anything that's not mine.) :P








Part 46








The next day was pure torture for Michael. Maria woke him, Max, and Kyle up at 6:00 in the morning and demanded that they have all her things moved into Michael’s room and his likewise moved into hers by the time she got back from dance practice. Max was the only one who actually listened to her, though. Michael and Kyle both went back to sleep. When Maria got back, Max hadn’t made much progress yet, so she beat Michael and Kyle awake and put them straight to work hauling furniture and other items before they could even begin to protest.

Part of him had known something like this was coming. It was inevitable. He had technically stolen the room from her the day that they had all moved in. It was a miracle that he had kept it as long as he had.

Being the queen of the house, Maria, of course, chose not to partake in the rearranging process and opted to sit back and supervise instead.

“Michael, Michael,” she said scoldingly when he came back into the room with a box in his arms. “Only one box?”

“One heavy box. It’s got all your make-up and crap in it. It weighs a ton.”

Kyle came into the room next with two long drawers, carrying one atop each shoulder.

“What a stud,” Maria remarked. “What a strongman. Kyle Valenti.”

Kyle smirked.

“Give me that,” Michael said, seizing one of the drawers from him. “Yeah, 'cause it's lightweight,” he said, holding up one of the garments in it. A miniscule green thong. Ooh, and a red one. And a white one and black.

“Michael!” she hissed, taking the drawer from him. “If you’re gonna get turned on by my underwear, at least don’t do it when I’m in the room.”

He glanced at Kyle, who was grinning at him knowingly. It wasn’t the underwear that was arousing. It was the thought of her wearing it.

She set the drawer down on the bed and said, “Alright, halt the moving. Next order of business . . . taking down that hideous Metallica poster.”

“Oh, I can’t watch,” Michael said, dramatically turning away.

“It’s a sad day in Michael-land,” Kyle agreed as he walked over to where the poster was plastered on the wall.

“Motorbreath,” Michael said quietly to himself in an effort to stay calm. “King Nothing. Bad Seed.”

“Describing yourself again?” Maria asked.

“Those are Metallica songs, you . . . non-believer!”

His outburst was followed by a sharp ripping sound. He snapped his head around to see what had happened and found Kyle standing by the poster, which was now torn in two. “Oops,” he said.

Oh!” Michael cried in despair, running to the poster like a mother running to her child. He held both halves in his hands, horrified. “What did you do?” he yelled at Kyle.

“I was just tryin’ to take it down, man.”

“Holy . . . shit! This thing was autographed by James Hetfield, man!”

“Who’s James Hatfield?” Maria asked.

Hetfield!” he corrected. “You don’t know who James Hetfield is?”

“Uh, no.”

Ignorant! Michael thought in outrage. Ignorant bad music-listener. “He’s only the greatest music genius to ever live! Lead singer, guys, come on!”

“Oh, right,” Kyle said.

“Of course,” Maria added.

“He fuckin’ signed my poster!” he roared, pounding his fist into the wall with both words he emphasized.

“Hey, watch it, obsesso,” Maria said. “I don’t want you punching a whole in my new wall.”

Your wall,” he grumbled. “I have sex one time . . .”

“And lose the bet.”

“And lose my walls. I’m just sayin’, this is above and beyond the call of cruelty, Maria.”

She just smiled at him, and he wanted to stare. You’re lucky you’re pretty, Maria, he thought. Otherwise, I’d never let you get away with this.

Max came into the room then and said, “What’s all the commotion about in here?”

“Michael’s having a hissy fit ‘cause he’s a big baby,” Maria explained.

“Oh. Of course.” Max chuckled a little. “Alright, well, we got all the drawers of her dresser moved in, so I guess the next step is actually moving the dresser itself.”

“Oh, I can’t help with that,” Kyle said, raising his hand. “I have a note from my chiropractor.” He pretended to hand an invisible note to Maria.

She pretended to unfold it and read it. “Hmm, okay, Kyle. You’re excused.”

“What?” Michael spat.

“Michael, beef up those biceps and help Max out,” she instructed.

He grunted and, even though he was distraught about the Metallica poster and distressed about losing his room, he did as she instructed.

“Dude, how do you do it?” he asked Max when they were alone in Maria’s old bedroom, his new one.

“Do what?” Max asked.

“Date Maria.”

Max smiled. “It’s easy.”

“No, easy is, like, hopscotch, man. Actually, that’s not very easy. I used to fall on my ass when I’d try that. But it’s easier than Maria. Maria’s not . . . well, I mean, she is easy, but not easy to date,” he rambled on. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t say your girlfriend’s easy, but I think she’d be the first to admit it.”

“Okay,” was all Max said.

“It can’t be easy,” he went on. “She’s outta control, man.”

Max smiled. “Yeah. I love her.”

Michael wasn’t sure he’d heard his friend right, but . . . yeah, he had. He stood there for a moment, slightly stunned. Max bent down and sought to get a hold on his side of the dresser, but Michael just stood there, because he was still reeling from the sudden admission. Wow.

Max loves Maria, he thought. Not as a friend. Not as a roommate. As . . . love.

It was weird.

“You wanna grab that side?” Max asked him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” he said, snapping himself out of his thoughts. It really was weird, though. The whole Max and Maria thing had sort of sprung out of nowhere . . .

Michael was deep in thought as he and Max hauled the heavy dresser down the hallway. He was so deep in thought, in fact, that he barely held up his end, and poor Max had to do most of the work.

So if he loves her, he wondered, does that mean she loves him, too? Because that would be even weirder.

“A little to the left,” Maria was saying to Kyle when Max and Michael returned to the room with the dresser. They set it down, and Michael smiled a little as he watched Maria directing Kyle on where to hang her poster.

“No, a little to the right.”

But then he saw just what the poster pictured, and he felt disgust. “Dashboard Confessional, Maria? Are you serious?”

“Shut up. They rock.”

“They whine,” he corrected, singing their lyrics then in the whiniest, worst voice he could. “Don’t wait! Don’t waaaaiiiit!

“The road is now, a sudden sea!” she sang out. “And suddenly! The room is mine! For all time!”

“Very funny,” he said, noting her lyrical rearrangement.

She turned back to Kyle then and said, “No, Kyle, not so far up. Further down.”

He shifted it just gradually, and she said, “No, further up.”

He gave her an annoyed look and warned, “I’m about to bitch.”

“Just a little further to the right, and then left-ish,” she said.

He literally inched the poster over to the right, then back to the left, and it ended up in the same spot he had placed it before. He waited for her to tell him to stop, and when she did, he paused with such precision that it was almost creepy.

“Stop!”

“Right here?”

“Right there,” she agreed. She tossed Max a roll of hot pink masking tape and said, “Max, go tape it up, please.”

“On it,” he said, already heading over.

“Wait, tape?” Michael piped up. “You know that’s gonna peel all the paint off the walls.”

“Well, then, you can repaint it,” she said, shrugging.

“Oh, I can’t wait.”

She stood up on her feet on top of the bed then, bouncing from side to side, smiling excitedly. Everything about her dances, Michael realized. Her hands, her eyes, her smile . . .

“Alright, boys, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” she said, “but I think if we all just skip class today, we’ll be done by sundown.”

“Uh,” Kyle groaned tiredly.

“Happy to help,” Max said. Of course. "I don't have class today anyway."

Maria turned to Michael, then, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, what about you?” she asked. “Are you in it for the long haul?”

Always have been, he thought, gazing up into her sparkling green eyes. It was so great to see her like this, so lively and full of spirit. How Amy DeLuca could hate this girl, he did not know, because she was a great, crazy girl.

“I guess,” he answered, trying to sound flippant.

“Ooh, goodie!” she chirped, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Alright, well, get a move on, boys! We desperately need to feminize this room.”

Michael smiled. Everything about her danced . . .

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

That night, Maria stood in the doorway to her bedroom, feeling good about it. Truthfully, it hadn’t changed that much from when Michael had occupied it. Obviously now it would smell better and be cleaner. It was perfect for her, though. Way more spacious, so she’d have some room to choreograph dances now.

‘Bout damn time, she thought, smirking at how easy it had been to convince Michael to give up the room. Why she hadn’t made a no-sex bet with him years ago, she did not know.

She felt Michael come up behind her. He was quiet for a moment, then declared, “It looks exactly the same.”

“Different dresser,” she pointed out.

“Bad poster.”

“Different bedspread.”

“Bad poster.”

She gave him a look. Just because he liked unbearable heavy metal and was a total loser . . .

“Goodnight,” he said, heading down the hallway.

“Oh, it will be a good night,” she said. “Hey, watch out for the springs that poke up through my mattress. They really suck.”

He gave her a backwards wave before disappearing into the room.

She smiled and stepped into her new room as well. Yes, it was nice. It was only lacking one thing.

Michael himself.

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

Man, Maria wasn’t kidding, Michael thought as he struggled to fall asleep that night. This bed sucks. He rolled over onto his back, only to be poked with an uncomfortable spring. “Ow,” he said, shifting to the right slightly. But a spring got him there, too. “Dammit.” How did she ever manage to have sex on that bed? That was what he was wondering.

He tossed and turned for at least an hour. Nothing worked. He hated. That. Bed. Hated it. In addition to being uncomfortable, it was too short for him, too. His feet were hanging off the edge, freezing. He felt like a big baby, but he wanted his old bed back.

At 3:30 in the morning, just as he was starting to get delirious from lack of sleep, he crawled out of the bed and trudged down the hallway back to the best room of the house, his old master bedroom. He pushed open the door and went inside, practically asleep before he hit the mattress.

“What’re you doing?” he heard Maria mumbled as he crawled in beside her. She sounded half asleep, though. She probably didn’t know what was going on.

“Just shut up,” he said, settling in beside her, pulling some of the covers away from her. She pulled back, and a tug-of-war ensued for at least a minute until, exhausted, he gave in and let her have all the blankets. He fell asleep a moment later, happy to be back in his own bed.

And sleeping next to Maria didn’t suck, either.

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

Is there such a thing as studying too much? Max wondered as he got out of the shower the next morning. ‘Cause I think I do it. His brain literally hurt from all the hours he had put in on biology last night. He’d been up until the wee hours of the morning, but he still managed to wake up early at 7:30 in the morning. Unlike Maria. That girl had an awful time waking up. She never set an alarm because, if she did, she’d just sleep through it or press the snooze button. Max didn’t mind, though. The longer she slept, the longer he got to lie awake and watch her sleep. But that only happened if she slept in his bed, and she'd slept alone last night.

Instead of cramming in more studying that morning like he usually would have, he decided to surprise his girlfriend instead. Even though she hated waking up early, he figured she wouldn’t mind waking up early for breakfast in bed. It was time he showed her how much he cared about her.

He made French toast and a three cheese omelet the best way he knew how. He poured her a glass of fresh orange juice, fried up a side of bacon quickly, and put it all on a tray to bring into her. She was going to be surprised. But happy, too. He knew she would be happy. She’d never had a boyfriend who did things like this for her.

She’d never had a boyfriend. He was determined to make sure she never had another.

He walked down the hallway slowly, careful not to spill any of the orange juice, and balanced the tray in one hand while quietly pushing open her door. With a big smile on his face, he prepared to say, ‘Good morning, Maria,’ but the words never left his mouth. Because what he saw made him stop dead in his tracks and almost spill the entire tray.

Maria was indeed asleep, but she wasn’t alone. Michael was lying in bed with her, right behind her, in fact, spooning up to her. Whether he realized it or not . . . he was close to her.

The smile faded from Max’s face. Jealousy kicked in. It was inevitable. And it just got worse when Michael shifted even closer and draped his arm over her mid-section, touching even more of her.

Max wanted to physically separate them, but it wasn’t his place. Not really. He had no idea what was going on, if anything was going on at all. All he knew was that seeing them together like that really struck a nerve.

He quietly set the tray down in the chair beside her bed before he slipped out of the room. She would wake up sooner or later, see it there, and know that he had been in the room. And maybe then she would offer him an explanation.

That would be nice.

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

Maria couldn’t believe she’d slept so well. Her new bed was most definitely comfortable and warm, but she’d almost slept too well. She could barely open her eyes in the morning. She didn’t want to.

“Mmm,” she murmured, feeling so content. She shifted just slightly and thought she felt a familiar presence near her. Very near.

What? she wondered, tiredly turning her head to look over her shoulder. There were strong arms wrapped around her body a naked chest pressed against her back. Arms and a chest belonging to . . .

Michael?

He was still fast asleep. He looked different than she’d ever seen him look before. With his mouth just slightly open and that little snoring sound coming from the back of his throat, he seemed kind of . . . dorky. But it was great.

So that’s why I slept so well, she thought to herself, smiling. She didn’t remember him putting his arms around her or even getting in the bed with her for that matter. But she was glad he did. He was nice to sleep with. He’d even let her have all the covers.

For two people who didn't sleep together sexually, they definitely slept together a lot.

She was about to settle back down into his arms and pretend to be asleep for as long as he was asleep, but when she turned to look back at him one more time, she spied something on the chair by the wall. It was a tray full of breakfast foods.

Weird, she thought, wrinkling her head in confusion. Who would make me breakfast? Who would get up early enough to do that?

It didn’t take her long to figure it out, and when she did, she worried. “Oh, no,” she said, tossing the sheets aside and springing out of the bed.

Michael moved and said her name tiredly. “Maria?”

She ran out of the room and down the hallway to Max’s bedroom. She felt horrible already. He was such a good guy, and it sucked for him to walk in on that. Even though they hadn’t been doing anything. Even though she hadn’t even known he was in there. It was all Michael’s fault. It always was.

She sighed and opened the door to his room, but he wasn’t in there. His laptop computer wasn’t on his desk, and his backpack was nowhere in sight, either, so she figured he had already headed off to class. She was too late.

Max, she thought, genuinely feeling bad. I’m sorry.

She slinked back into her room a minute later, unsure what she was going to say to him. The truth was probably the smartest option, except . . . the truth was . . . she had really enjoyed lying next to Michael. Really. She couldn’t tell Max that. She should, but she couldn’t.

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked her as he stretched out on his back.

Why can’t you put a shirt on? she wondered. Why can’t you just put a shirt on and make this a whole lot easier on me? “Nothing,” she replied, hoping he was tired enough to find that convincing.

Apparently he was convinced, because he just smiled and said, “Then get back in here. You’re kinda warm.” He reached up, grabbed her arm, and tried to pull her back down onto the bed with him; but she knew that if she got back in there, she’d never get back out. And she had to find Max. He was her . . . boyfriend.

And Michael wasn’t.

“I can’t,” she said, reluctantly pulling her arm away from him. It took everything she had to walk back out into the living room and leave him in there alone, because she really wanted to stay.

She wanted to stay.

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

“Max!” Maria called once she finally spotted her boyfriend that afternoon. He was walking, on his way to class, and didn’t seem to hear her. Or maybe he was just ignoring her. She found that hard to believe, but regardless, he didn’t turn around.

“Max!” she yelled again, running to catch up with him. “Max.” She jumped in front of him hoping he might smile when he saw her like he usually did. But he didn’t. Bad. Just bad.

“Hey,” she said, hoping for some sort of response.

But all she got was, “Hey,” in return, nothing else as he tried to walk around her.

She stepped to the side, blocking him.

“Max,” she said, unused to this. “Talk to me.”

He stared at her, looking sad. His eyes were pleading with her when he said, “Why don’t you talk to me, Maria?”

Why didn’t she? Because she was always talking to Michael.

She didn’t stop him this time as he walked around her, away from her. She’d never seen him so sad, and she’d never felt so bad. Max was supposed to be her boyfriend, but she knew she didn’t treat him very well. She treated him horribly, and she hated that fact.









TBC . . .

-April
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Part 47

Post by April »

SweetnSpicy: I'm glad you liked the "Get back in here, you're kinda warm" line. :lol:
Tine:
Awwww to the M&M part their just so cute together when they aren't really aware of what they doing.
Oh, yeah, they DEFINIETLY don't know what they're doing! Maybe Maria does to an extent, but Michael doesn't! :P
Alien_Friend: My hugs went to Max on the last part, too. And sadly, he's going to need more hugs as the fic progresses.
nibbles:
Michael is so dumb. How did he even get into college?
Dumb luck? :lol:
pookie76: Thanks for reading!
guel: Max should just break up with Maria . . . but that's easier said than done.
crazysnape: Yeah, this won't be the last time Michael and Maria end up in the same bed together. ;)
spacegirl23:
Shirtless Michael! I LOVE HIM!
Me, too! :mrgreen: So when is Liz going to walk in on something like that? Within the next few parts! It won't be exactly like that, but it will be something that strikes a nerve.
Elle: You're right that what Michael did was innocent but unwise. The problem is, Maria isn't just Max's girlfriend; she's also Michael's friend. So she and Michael aren't just going to stop spending time together, but when they do spend time together it looks a lot less innocent than it is. Oh, and you asked when Liz will grow up? Um . . . eventually. :roll: She's the youngest character in the story. She needs a lot of time.
Sara: No Liz in the last part . . . no Liz in this part, either!
tequathisy:
Could these people be any more stubborn/blind/dumb/annoying/frustrating?
Probably not. ;) But I'm glad that you say their flaws make them believable.
BrieCrow17: A new reader! How exciting! I'm glad you're enjoying the fic!
RiceKrispy:
April, will you marry me?
Hmm, tempting, but no! lol


Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Looks like Michael's running away with this poll question, although Maria's giving him a run for his money!










Part 47








And the hits just keep on coming, Maria thought bitterly as she made her way into Fiona’s Model Management that day. She hated that place. Really, she did. Modeling wasn’t as easy as it looked, and the overall atmosphere was just unbearable.

She’d been all set on going home and sitting down for a marathon of General Hospital on SoapNet when she’d received a text message from Fiona pretty much demanding that she come in and do a photo shoot. Knowing my luck, Maria thought, it’ll last all night.

She was texting Max, telling him she’d be home later, when she accidently bumped into another model, one who was over six feet tall and doing the whole anorexia thing.

“What where you’re going, size five,” she said nastily to Maria.

“Eat a sandwich, bitch,” Maria shot back, continuing on her way. She sent the text message to Max, then hurried to catch the elevator just as its doors were beginning to close. “Wait, wait, wait,” she said, sticking her hand in between the doors, urging them apart. When she did, she found none other than her constant (and constantly annoying) companion Michael Guerin standing inside the elevator, heading up.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said, spinning around dramatically.

He smiled and just said, “Hmm.”

Why? she thought. Why me? She stood there staring at him for a moment, then gave in and jumped on the elevator with him just as the doors were starting to close again. She pushed them open once again and got on, too lazy to take the stairs.

“Wonders never cease,” he remarked.

“What?”

“I just mean . . . we always end up together,” he said as the doors finally closed and got to stay closed. “Have you realized that? We’re always around each other.”

“Yeah, it’s ugh,” she said as the elevator slowly began to rise upwards. “Did you get called in for a photo shoot, too?”

“Yep,” he said, shrugging. “Whatever. It’s probably one of those steamy ones. That’s why they called us both.”

Oh god, she thought. Not one of those. The last one had had a profound effect on her.

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t like it,” he said, grinning.

She said nothing. She definitely liked these photo shoots. In fact, she liked them a little too much. The last one had resulted in her going home and taking a long, cold shower.

All of a sudden, the elevator jolted. Maria almost fell over to the side, but Michael caught her. The overhead light flickered but didn’t go out, and the elevator stopped moving altogether.

“What did you do?” Maria immediately asked.

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

“You must have. We aren’t moving.”

He pressed the call button on the elevator, but it didn’t light up or anything. There was no indication that it was even working. “This sucks,” he said.

“We’re stuck in here?” she said. “Oh, great. You know what this means?”

“That we’re eventually gonna run out of oxygen?”

“Oh my god, these could be my last moments,” she said dramatically. “I can’t go out like this. I’m not even dressed cute.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “Are you serious?”

“Yes!” She laughed a little then, and admitted, “No. But I would prefer to be wearing cute shoes.”

“Which one of us do you think is gonna die first?” he asked.

“You.”

“Then you’ll have to smell my rotting corpse.”

“Probably smells better than your living one,” she retorted.

“Oh, Maria DeLuca,” he said, smiling, “you are a funny girl.”

“Duh.” She leaned back against the wall of the elevator and slid down to the floor. “This is gonna get really boring really fast,” she said.

“Not necessarily.” He grinned and slid down against the opposite wall, sitting and facing her. “You know what people do when they get stuck in elevators.”

“Funny,” she said, even though her heart beat a little faster at the thought. Hot, sweaty elevator sex with Michael Guerin. “We’re not gonna do that,” she said, mostly to remind herself.

“I know.”

She sighed heavily. This was not what she needed, being confined in such close quarters with a guy who drove her absolutely crazy . . . in a good way. She was supposed to be thinking about Max, about how to fix things between them, about how to explain sleeping in bed next to Michael. But she wasn’t thinking about any of those things.

“Bad day?” Michael asked her.

“How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I just do.”

You know I had a bad day, she thought, but you don’t know how I feel about you? Michael Guerin, you are so dense.

Good. She didn’t want him to know how she felt about him. It was embarrassing.

“I kinda . . . don’t know what’s going on with me and Max,” she confessed reluctantly.

“What do you mean?”

“I just think he’s mad at me . . . about something.” She didn’t want him to know that he was involved, so she deliberately didn’t mention it.

“About what?”

“Just stuff. I really don’t wanna talk about it, okay?”

“Well, we don’t have anything better to do. We’re stranded, babe.”

“It’s . . . complicated, okay?”

“Complicated,” he echoed thoughtfully. “It always is, isn’t it? You know what I’ve come to realize from eight years of knowing you, Maria? It’s that you’re a really complicated person. I used to think you were really simple. Oh, hell, no. You’re . . . all over the place.”

She wrinkled her forehead and said, “Thanks?” unsure if that was a compliment or not.

He scooted closer toward her and said, “So what the hell happened? Did you piss him off?”

“What? No. I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m sure it’ll pass,” he said. “Like time. Or gas. Stuff passes.”

She gave him a look. “Are you really comparing my relationship to passing gas?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Oh, speaking of . . .” He tilted over to one side, putting one hand on his butt as though he were about to rip one.

She immediately brought her hand to her nose and exclaimed in repulsion, “Oh my god, Michael, I swear if you fart in this elevator . . .”

“Relax,” he said, chuckling. He sat back down again and said, “No need to quicken our deaths.”

“Well, at least you admit they’re stinky,” she said, laughing as she said it. How unbelievable was it that she was sitting there having a conversation about farting? It didn’t really matter what she and Michael were talking about. It just mattered that they were talking. They always did. “You’re such a guy,” she said.

“And you’re such a girl. Which brings me back to my whole ‘you know what people do in elevators’ scenario . . .”

She rolled her eyes. “Please.”

“Begging, Maria? Is that really necessary?” He moved even closer.

“Stop,” she said, placing her hand on his chest, trying to keep him a safe distance away from her. As much as she loved being close to him, she could barely handle it. Maybe sex jokes were nothing more than jokes to him, but to her . . . it was just different.

He looked into her eyes and smiled at her, one of those smiles that just made her heart melt. “Yeah,” he said in agreement. “Old Maxwell probably wouldn’t be too happy if we hooked up in here.” He scooted backwards again to sit against the wall across from her. “He loves ya.”

“What?” she said immediately. What was that word he had used?

“He . . . loves you,” Michael repeated, slower this time. “Hasn’t he told you that?”

“No, we’ve only been dating, like, three weeks,” she reminded him. “Why? Have you already told Liz that?” She was going to be pissed if he had.

“No.”

“Yeah, so . . .”

“Well . . . Max might have said something to me,” he admitted.

“That he loves me?”

Michael sighed. “Just don’t tell him I told you, okay? I probably just ruined it.”

Maria was too shocked to say anything. She’d known Max had strong feelings for her. Really strong feelings. But love . . . that was just something she knew nothing about. No one had ever been in love with her before. That she knew of.

“You know, for what it’s worth, I think you and Max make a good couple,” he went on, not looking down at his hands when he spoke. “It’s weird. At first I couldn’t picture it. But now I can. You guys balance each other out, like a fuckin’ see-saw or whatever. Two people who are a lot alike . . .”

Like us? she thought.

“. . . it couldn’t work.”

It couldn’t?

“Maybe that’s why Liz and I make a good couple, too,” he pondered. “We balance.”

She raised an eyebrow at that remark. “You think you and Liz make a good couple?”

“Yeah, we’ve only had one fight.”

“But it takes more than not fighting to be a good couple.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s it take?”

Passion, she thought longingly. Loads and loads of passion. Now it was her turn to look away. I think you and I would make a better couple than you and Liz, Michael. She wished there was some way to say the words out loud and not feel terrified about them.

“Michael . . .” she started.

“I think it’s cool,” he cut in, “that you and Max are in love.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but the elevator jolted again and began to move before she could. It moved upward, and a few seconds later. “Hey, we get to live,” Michael commented, getting to his feet just as the doors slid open. He held out his hand to help her up. She placed her hand in his, and he pulled her to her feet. “That wasn’t too bad,” he decided, heading on in to the photo shoot arena.

She walked out of the elevator practically in a trance, trying to wrap her mind around the newfound concept of Max’s feelings. He loved her. He really loved her.

But she did not love him.

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

Just think about your homework, Max told himself, even though it was a struggle. Don’t think about Maria. You’ve got homework to do. Homework.

Maria . . .


He looked up when she came to stand in the doorway and immediately forgot what his homework was even about. She looked absolutely beautiful. She was wearing just a long t-shirt and, knowing her, probably nothing underneath.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey,” he echoed, forcing himself to return his gaze to the paper in front of him.

She slowly stepped into the room, and his senses immediately became hyperactive. She smelled so good. She looked so good. He could barely stand it.

She sat down on the bed beside him, close to him, and asked, “Whatcha doin’?”

“A paper,” he replied.

“About what?”

“It’s an analysis of, uh . . . The Great Gatsby.”

“What’s a gatsby?”

“Jay Gatsby. He’s the main character of the book,” Max explained.

“Oh,” she said. “So, what’s the book about?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, “social classes and the difference between social classes. Wrapped up in one of those complex romances, of course.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You see, there’s this girl named Daisy, and even though she acts really superficial, she has this deep, undeniable need to be loved. She’s married to somebody, but she’s in love with someone else. This guy named Gatsby. He’s pretty much famous, he’s so well-known, and even though he’s arrogant and vulgar, she loves him. And he loves her, too. But it doesn’t end well.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear and concluded, “It sounds really boring.”

“It’s not,” he said. “You should read it sometime.”

“Yeah, I haven’t read a novel for years.” she reminded him. “So . . . who wrote the book?”

He sighed and said, “Maria. What’re you doing?”

“I’m talking to you. Remember, that’s what you want. You want me to talk to you.”

“Yeah, but not about The Great Gatsby.”

“About what then?”

“About you and Michael.”

She sighed and looked away. “There is no me and Michael.”

“Yes, there is.”

“But not like that.”

“Then how do you explain the way you woke up this morning?”

“Oh my god, Max, I didn’t even know he came in there in the night. I swear,” she said. “I mean, I would’ve kicked him out, if I had known.”

“You would’ve?”

“Yes.”

She just . . . didn’t sound very convincing. “I don’t know, Maria.”

“Max.” She leaned in closer and said. “You have to trust me, okay?”

“I do,” he said. “I trust you, Maria. And I trust Michael. It’s just . . . I don’t know, sometimes I feel like . . . you’re closer to him than you are to me, or something.”

She glanced down for a moment, then looked right into his eyes. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you guys have this whole thing. You always have. It’s like . . . the two of you against the world.”

“Yeah, but Max . . . you’re my boyfriend,” she reminded him. “I’m with you.”

“I love you,” he blurted, surprising even himself when he said the words. He’d thought them many times, even said them to Maria when she was asleep. But he’d never ever said them knowing she could hear them. And now she had.

She didn’t seem anywhere near as surprised as he was. “I know,” she said.

“How did you know? Was I that obvious?”

“Well . . . a little,” she replied. “Plus . . . Michael told me. Feel free to beat him up if you want to.”

“I can’t believe he told you,” Max said. “I can, actually. You guys talk about everything.”

“Max,” she said, moving in even closer. “Let’s not think about Michael for the rest of the night.” She took his paper and his book and set them on the floor. “Or The Great Gatsby.” She leaned in, then, and kissed him and, as usual, he was completely lost. Any feelings of doubt or suspicion he’d had disappeared upon the first brush of her lips against his, and when he felt her fingers grab the bottom of his shirt and pull it over his head, the image of her and Michael asleep that morning completely vanished from his mind.

She’s my girlfriend, he thought as she pushed him down onto the bed and lay atop him, kissing him. I love her.

Maybe she loves me, too.

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

Maria lay next to Max that night, her head pressed against his chest. She’d had sex with him late into the night in an effort to make him forget about Michael and about the sight he had walked in on that morning. Needless to say, he forgot easily.

She could hear his heart beating. It was sort of fast, excited. Something told her it always beat fast around her.

She brought her hand up to rest against her chest and felt her own heart beating. It was a lot slower. A lot. It did beat fast, though, sometimes. Like when she’d just finished a dance, or when she was watching a scary movie.

Or when she was with Michael.

She rolled over onto her other side, facing away from Max, and wrapped her arms around herself. She felt her heart quickening just at the mere thought of Michael. That was all it took.









TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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Part 48

Post by April »

Sara: lol, MUCH DESERVED Candy action! I agree. By the time you get it, it's going to be MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH deserved! :lol:
nibbles:
What is it going to take for Michael Guerin to see the light?
Oh, lots and lots of time, my friend. He's like a normal dumb guy with even MORE stupidity than most guys! lol
RiceKrispy:
And I shall win your heart eventually!
Just don't tell my fiancee.
lmao! Okay, I won't tell yours if you don't tell mine. ;) Oh, and by the way, you're right when you said that it's a good thing Maria didn't tell Max she loved him back. That would have been a HUGE lie. And right now, she is lying by omission, but . . . well, it's better than saying untruthful words, I suppose.
Alien_Friend:
are you going to give us a lot of M/M time or are they just going to get together right at the very end?
Well, I can't tell you that, because then I'd spoil a lot of the story! But I will say that the story doesn't end with their first kiss or anything like that. And they might get together before they actually get their lives together . . . if that makes sense. :?
Mag:
A relationship isn't just about sex, it's about that magic connection between two people who recognize themselves as the two halves of the same orange
Two halves of the same orange? Cute! The problem is that, in Michael's twisted male mind, a relationship is just about having sex with one person. :roll:
Tine:
Kinda ironic that the only guy in the world (or at least your story) that does equate sex with love ends up with a woman that uses sex like Maria does. Poor guy.
I know! I feel bad for him, too.
SweetnSpicy:
Question...why was there no elevator sex?
lol, because that would be WAY too nice of me!
pookie76:
And what is up with Michael? In the elevator scene he seemed so comfortable with the way things are...no jealousy.
And herein lies the problem with Michael. He's even better at hiding his feelings than Maria is. He's not a very jealous guy to begin with (which I know is rare in a Candy fic). If he is beginning to feel any jealousy at all, then he's a master at hiding it. Michael is all about physical stuff. He hardly thinks about his own emotions at all.
BrieCrow: Wow, you think this story is a masterpiece? That is quite a compliment! I'm flattered, thank you so much.
spacegirl23:
I mean, here's this great stable loyal dependable boy who you've known your whole life and who's IN LOVE with you, but you're somehow pining for your uber-hot but oh-so-dense sparring partner.
lol, uber-hot but oh-so-dense! I love that! I think you're right when you say that part of Maria is hoping to fall in love with Max. It's never going to happen, but it would make her life a heck of a lot easier. Michael is sexy as hell, but he's so impossible sometimes! And Maria isn't used to chasing after a guy. She's used to having guys chase after her, so that makes the situation even more frustrating for her.
Elle:
So do Max and Liz talk to each other more??
Yes, they will be doing some talking, not in today's part, but maybe the next one? I can't quite remember, but it's coming up. And the Kyle-Tess-Isabel-Alex stuff will continue to subtly develop as well. Oh, and as to why Michael is such a good boyfriend to Liz . . . it's actually a good thing. He actually IS trying to commit to her and to be a decent guy with her, which is obviously frustrating, but I think actually commendable. Maybe he's trying to grow up a little bit? I'll leave that up to you to decide.
tequathisy:
And I feel sorry for Michael because he's so dumb. That's a lie, I don't feel sorry for Michael.
lol! Michael does have it really easy. He's just not a mature person yet. He doesn't give any thought to his feelings. Although he's made some strides in that he's gotten a job and he's realized that Maria is the most important person in his life, he's still living a sex-based lifestyle. I personally love him, but I understand how frustrating he can be!
ForeignLoveMonkey:
You said that Liz will be having a fall from grace soon so I'm thinking that the Dance competition is coming up very soon and lets face it, she suck ass. I bet she doesn't do will in front of crowds
Hmm, funny that you mention that, because this part features some dancing. But it's going to take A LOT more than that to knock Liz off her newfound pedestal.
krystle: I think Max still needs for you to be written into the story! :lol: But it won't happen. :( lol


Alright, well, since I'm going out of town and will be without the Internet for another weekend, I won't be able to update again until Sunday. But since that's going to happen, I'm going to give you a longer part today! 19 pages, I think. And can you guys believe that you're already on page 435? Thanks for sticking with it!

This is kind of a more playful part. :P Oh, and Pam Troy rears her ugly head! lol, I hate using her in fics, but I can't resist! :mrgreen:








Part 48








What the hell is she doing? Michael wondered sleepily when he felt Liz moving around a great deal the next morning. How could she even move a muscle? He was still practically paralyzed from all the sex last night.

He stirred for a minute, then forced his eyes open. He glanced to the right at his alarm clock. It wasn’t even 8:00 yet. Way too early for a guy like him.

He turned his head to the left then to look at Liz. She was moving her feet back and forth along with her shoulders. It almost looked as though she were . . . dancing?

“Liz, you okay?” he asked her. Maybe she was having a seizure . . .

“What?” She rolled over and whacked his stomach with her arm.

“Christ!” he swore.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized, waking up when she did that. “I’m sorry. Did I hit you?”

“Yeah, just a little,” he said, holding his hand to his stomach.

“Sorry,” she said again, resting her hand alongside his.

He placed his hand atop hers and asked, “Were you havin’ a bad dream or something?”

“The worst,” she said. “I was dreaming about the dance that I have to do tomorrow at the soccer game.”

“I knew you were dancing.”

“I was what?”

“You were dancing in your sleep,” he informed her.

She blushed. “Oh my god, how embarrassing.”

“Hey, it’s better than snoring or something.”

“Speaking of,” she said, “I’m thinking about getting you one of those plugs.”

“What? I don’t snore.”

“You do a little.”

Holy hell, he thought. You learn something new every day. “Alright, well, I snore, you dance. We should have some peaceful nights in store.”

She laughed. “Yeah. But it’s better than sleeping alone.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“Like the night before last. I had the hardest time sleeping alone. How about you?”

He thought back to that night. Well, he hadn’t slept with Liz, but he definitely hadn’t slept alone, either. Miss DeLuca had been quite the cozy companion.

“Oh, okay, so you slept like a baby,” she concluded when he didn’t answer.

He just chuckled a little and decided to change the subject. “Hey, uh . . . don’t worry about the dance tomorrow. You’re gonna kick ass. Everyone’s gonna be cheering for you.”

“Are you gonna be there?”

“Hell yeah, I’m gonna be there. Your big debut. Where else am I gonna be?”

“Aw . . .” she smiled, leaning in to give him a kiss.

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

Maria and Liz went to Tess’s and Isabel’s dorm room that day. Tess had racks of clothing that she had made set up and on sale for a special price. She said she was trying to get rid of some stuff because the room was starting to get crowded. Liz didn’t even browse through the clothing. She just stood there raving about Michael while Maria did all the browsing.

“He’s so sweet.”

“Sweet?” Maria echoed. “Michael Guerin is not sweet.”

Liz shrugged. “He is to me.”

“Sweet,” Maria echoed again, thinking about some of the things he said to her sometimes and the way it made her feel.

“You look like a Barbie.”

“You’re, like, the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“You
are my best friend, Maria.”

“I think you’d make a cute bumblebee.”


Some of the words that came out of his mouth were sort of . . . random, but they all resonated with her. “I guess he is a little sweet,” she admitted, quickly adding, “in an annoying way.”

Liz just smiled.

“You guys finding anything?” Tess asked as she approached them.

“Finding too much.” Maria sadly touched all of the shirts she couldn’t afford to buy. “I had to give all my photo shoot money to Kyle to finish paying off the car.”

“What’s wrong with the car?” Tess asked.

“Had to get a new engine. Don’t you remember when it broke down that night?”

“Oh, no,” Tess said. “I was very drunk.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Maria held up an especially cute pink off the shoulder top that looked like something from Charlotte Russe and said, “Listen, could I get, like, a good friend discount for this?”

Tess smiled. “Just take it, you bitch.”

“Thank you,” Maria said, hugging the gorgeous shirt to her chest. It helped having a friend who was destined to be a designer.

“Tess, do you realize how amazing this is?” Isabel asked out of nowhere. She sat at her desk, counting money. “You’re basically running a multi-million dollar fashion business right here in our dorm room.”

“Multi-million?” Tess echoed skeptically.

“Well, eventually.” Isabel smiled and proudly proclaimed, “A thousand dollars right here. That’s definitely a start.”

“A thousand dollars?” Maria couldn’t believe it. “I’m so envious.”

“Me, too,” Liz said.

“I get to be your secretary,” Isabel decided. “Ooh, and we need a sign for the door. You know, one that says ‘Tess’s Boutique.’ Or ‘Boutique de la Tess.’”

Tess made a face. “De la Tess?”

“Yeah, it’s catchy, isn’t it?”

“Isabel, maybe you should go into business,” Maria suggested, knowing her friend still hadn’t declared a major yet. “You seem really . . . enthused.”

“Well, I am. Tess is gonna be rich and I’m gonna be her secretary.”

“And Liz and Maria are gonna be my top-customers,” Tess added.

“Well, as long as I keep getting the good friend discount,” Maria said.

Tess laughed and made her way over to the door. “Alright, I think Boutique de la Tess is closing for the day.”

“That’s our hint to leave,” Maria told Liz.

“Oh, no, you guys can’t leave,” Tess said, shutting the door. “Store’s just closing. We are having some quality girl-talk time.”

“Ooh, fun,” Isabel said, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Money and girl-talk. Could this day get any better?”

“I just couldn’t help noticing that none of the guys are around,” Tess said, sitting down on her bed. “For once. We need to take advantage of this time.”

“Sounds fun,” Maria said, sitting down on the bed as well. Isabel joined them, and Liz squeezed in.

“So,” Liz said, “what does one talk about when engaging in girl-talk?”

Tess laughed. “Well, one talks about guys.”

“More precisely, sex with guys,” Isabel informed her.

“And since we all have guys and have sex with them, this should be a fairly inclusive conversation.” Tess smiled.

“Cool,” Liz said. “You know, a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to talk about this.”

Isabel and Tess shared a look. “She’s all grown up,” Tess said proudly.

“And deflowered,” Isabel added.

Maria rolled her eyes. Part of her was envious that Liz had had her first time with Michael. Maria couldn’t even remember what her first-time guy had looked like.

“Okay,” Tess started them off. “So last night, Kyle literally drove me insane with desire.”

“Oh, I could tell,” Isabel said. “The look on your face . . . I thought you were gonna lose it.”

“I did,” Tess said. “Three freakin’ times in a row. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

“Oh my god!” Isabel gasped. “Three?”

“Yeah. I could barely walk this morning.”

“What’d he do?” Maria asked, her interest piqued by an unfathomable three consecutive orgasms. She’d had two, but none of the guys she’d been with had the stamina to give her three.

“He went down on me, right,” Tess said, “but he just, like, did this thing with his tongue that was above and beyond the regular.”

“Thing?” Isabel asked. “What thing?”

“Oh, you know. That thing,” was all Tess said.

Isabel looked confused. Again, she asked, “What thing?”

“That thing.”

Liz turned to Maria and quietly said, “I’m not following.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Maria said. “Kyle tongue-talk is lost on me.”

“That thiiiiiing,” Tess said even more emphatically, swirling her hands wildly in the air, though it did little to facilitate understanding. “Okay, well, obviously if you don’t know what it is, he’s never done it to you. Trust me, you’d remember it. So just tell him to do it to you, ‘cause it’s pretty much the most amazing feeling I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Noted,” Isabel said with a nod.

“I’m not trying to brag or anything,” Tess said. “Uh, how ‘bout you, Maria? Does Max do any things for you?”

“Oh, keep the detail to a minimal, please,” Isabel begged. “He is my brother, you know.”

“I’m just wondering if it’s true,” Tess said, “you know, that it’s always the quiet ones. Is it?”

“Um, I don’t really know,” Maria admitted. “Max is the only ‘quiet one’ I’ve ever been with, so . . .”

“He doesn’t seem too quiet to me,” Tess said. “I hear things when I’m down in that basement.”

“Yeah, he makes this weird grunting noise,” Maria acknowledged.

“Venturing into TMI territory,” Isabel warned, cringing.

“Sorry,” Maria apologized. It was so easy to forget that Max and Isabel were related because they were nothing alike. Except that they were both a little . . . blind to what was going on around them sometimes . . .

“So the sex is good?” Tess asked.

“Yeah, it’s good.”

She seemed to be expecting a little more elaboration, because she gave Maria an urging look.

“Detail to a minimum,” Maria reminded her.

“Thank you,” Isabel said. “Alright, let’s hear about the really juicy stuff. Liz. What on earth is sex with Michael Guerin like? And feel free to get detail-y with this one, because that man has been my secret fuck fantasy for the past two years.”

“Oh my god, me, too!” Tess exclaimed.

Isabel smiled. “Yeah!”

Liz laughed a little. “Well, what do you wanna know?”

“Just, like, everything,” Isabel replied in a rush.

“Yeah, everything,” Tess agreed. “Remember, you’re talking to two girls who have never had sex with him. And one who probably hasn’t.” She subtly pointed at Maria.

“I have not had sex with Michael,” Maria replied emphatically.

Isabel grunted. “She says the night before the sex tape surfaces.”

“There’s no sex tape!”

Tess played along. “He is an aspiring director.”

No sex tape!”

Isabel and Tess just laughed.

“Uh, well . . .” Liz cut in unsurely. “Granted, I have nothing to compare to, but I can’t imagine anybody doing the things Michael does the way he does them.”

“So, in other words, yea Michael?” Tess summed it up.

Way yea,” Liz said. “Oh my god. I think that’s the most valley-girl I’ve ever sounded in my life.”

“Good job,” Tess exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Okay, so what’s your favorite sexual position?”

Liz blushed and said, “I don’t know.”

“Well, which one’s have you tried?” Isabel asked.

“Um . . .” Liz hesitated a moment, then started spilling. “Well, the one where he’s on top.”

“Missionary, yeah,” Tess said nodding. “What else?”

“Then the one where I’m on top.”

“Always a pleaser,” Isabel said, grinning.

“And we did it once facing each other.”

“Lying down?” Tess asked.

“Yeah.”

“Love it.”

“And . . .” Liz trailed off then and said, “That’s all.”

Tess and Isabel exchanged knowing looks, and Isabel said, “Oh, that’s not all, Liz Parker. What else have you guys done?”

“I don’t even know what you call it,” Liz said.

“Well, just describe it,” Tess urged.

“Don’t describe it,” Maria mumbled. Michael Guerin had quickly become her secret fuck fantasy, too, and the conversation was making her insanely jealous.

“What is it, 69?” Tess guessed. “‘Cause that’s a classic.”

“77?” Isabel ventured. “It’s, like, the new cool thing.”

“Um . . .” Liz seemed confused as to what those numbers represented.

Finally, Maria couldn’t take it anymore. She rolled her eyes and blurted out, “Doggie style.”

Isabel and Tess gasped and looked at Liz in amazement. “Bad. Girl!” they both said in unison.

“No, I’m not bad,” Liz insisted.

“No, you are, and it’s good,” Tess said.

“Very good,” Isabel agreed. “Maria, how did you know? Were you watching?”

“Sick, no. I just know Michael,” she explained. “He’s obsessed with doggie style. It’s like this whole primal, animal, guy thing.”

“Guys are animals,” Isabel agreed. “Kyle’s definitely, like, a tiger. Wouldn’t you say, Tess?”

“Oh, yeah. Meow.” Tess laughed. “And then there’s guys like Alex, who are, like . . .”

“Like a puppy dog or something,” Isabel filled in. “Or a kitty.”

“A kitty,” Tess agreed. “Alex is a kitty. What about Max?”

“Um . . .” Maria shrugged. “I don’t know. Like a playful deer. You know, la, la, la, and then sometimes he gets, you know, caught in the headlights.”

“And what about Michael?” Isabel asked Liz, grinning.

Liz thought about it for a moment, then smiled and said, “A horse.”

Tess, Maria, and Isabel all exchanged confused looks.

Liz laughed and explained her reasoning. “Because he’s got a big . . . you know.”

“Oh, there we go,” Tess said.

“Yeah, I like that,” Isabel agreed. “Very creative.”

“That’s hot,” Tess agreed.

“Very.”

Liz blushed. Maria sighed heavily, wishing they would stop talking about their boyfriends. It was hard to act unaffected.

“Don’t you love girl-talk?” Tess said.

“Yes,” Isabel replied.

“Yeah, I do, too,” Liz said.

“Yeah,” Maria replied lastly, because usually she did. If she hadn’t been so jealous, she would have liked this girl-talk, too.

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

Michael opened up another letter just to get another disappointment. Still no other film internship. He was at 1-4 now. Hope was dwindling, but he still had a few options left.

Max and Kyle, though they were sitting in the living room with him, seemed oblivious to the fact that he was upset about anything. Max was the one to break the silence that had engulfed them for quite some time when he pondered, “So what do you think the girls talk about when we’re not around?”

“Oh, you know,” Michael said. “Makin’ out with each other, having pillow fights in their underwear.”

“Hmm,” Max said. “I think that’s just what you’re thinking of.”

“Well, yeah,” Michael admitted with a shrug. He crumpled the rejection letter up in his hand and tossed it at the trash can. It bounced off the rim and onto the floor, but there was no damn way he was going to go pick it up. “What do you think, Valenti?” he asked. “You should know. You’ve got two girlfriends.”

Kyle’s eyes didn’t even leave the television screen. “Mostly they just talk about me.”

“Good job, man,” Michael said. “Really. I applaud you.” He clapped his hands four times.

“Yeah, I know. I rock,” Kyle said. “No, if I know my girls the way I think I do, they’re just talkin’ about sex. Horny little devils.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I bet my girl is, too.”

“Liz?” Max said. “Wow, you’ve really corrupted her.”

It dawned on Michael, then, that he hadn’t been thinking about Liz when he’d said that. He’d been thinking about . . . someone else. “Actually, I was talkin’ about Maria,” he confessed in the interest of full-disclosure.

Max immediately bristled. “Maria’s my girlfriend.”

“I know,” Michael said, confused as to why he would even say something like that in the first place. Sure, Maria had sort of been his girl . . . before Max and Liz.

She sort of still was.

“Hey, I bet Liz is talking right along with ‘em,” he said in an effort to ease the tension that had just arisen. “She’s got a dirty side, you know. Got her down on all fours the other night.”

“Nice,” Kyle said, laying out his hand for a high-five.

Michael slapped it. “King of the night.”

Kyle laughed at him. Michael laughed at himself. But Max didn’t laugh at all.

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

It was nice outside the next day, much to Michael’s relief. He would have hated to sit out at a boring old soccer game freezing his ass off. If Liz and the new dance team hadn’t been making their debut performance, he wouldn’t have even been there.

“I can’t believe I’m at a soccer game,” he mumbled as he waited in line at the concession stand towards the end of the first half. “It’s so lame.”

“Shut up,” Maria said. “You’re just jealous ‘cause you’re not athletic.”

“Hey, I’m the gold medal winner in the sport of sex.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh my god.”

“It’s true.”

“Just remember, you’re here to be a supportive boyfriend. Liz is trying to act all calm, but she’s completely freaking out, and so is the rest of the team.”

“I’m sure they’ll do fine,” he said. “I mean, it’s not that hard, right?”

She grunted. “Not that hard? You try doing a switch-leap.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“Something that’s hard to do, dumb-ass.”

He chuckled as the people in front of them got their food and headed off. “Okay.” He stepped up to the front of the line and leaned over the counter. “Yeah, I’ll have a cheeseburger, hot dog, two popcorns, one Snickers, two M+Ms, not Peanut, and . . . you guys got any beer back there?”

“Just pop. Sorry,” the guy behind the concession stand said.

“Okay, then . . . a Mountain Dew, I guess.”

“Coming right up.”

Maria stared up at him in amazement and remarked, “You’re gonna eat all that?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “I work up an appetite.”

“Sick,” she mumbled in response. “Get me a hot dog.”

“Uh, no.”

“Get me a hot dog, Michael.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Have Max get you a hot dog,” he said. “No pun intended, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” She rolled her eyes.

A minute later, the guy who had taken his order came back up to the counter with his junk food piled high. “Alright, there you go,” he said, handing it over. “Anything else?”

Maria jumped in front of him and said, “Yeah, what’s the most expensive thing you guys have?”

“That would be our super supreme nachos,” he replied. “Four dollars.”

“Sounds great,” she said. “He’ll take that, too.”

“Coming right up.”

Maria turned and smiled up at Michael, obviously pleased with herself.

He just shook his head. Four bucks was a little ridiculous for nachos that probably wouldn’t be super or supreme, but he could never say no to her.

“Don’t mess with the best,” she said confidently.

He raised an eyebrow and flicked a kernel of popcorn at her in retaliation. It went straight down her shirt.

“Hey!”

“Sorry,” he said. “Let me get that out for you.” He pretended he was going to reach down her shirt, but she smacked his hand away.

“Perv,” she said, reaching down herself and fishing it out. She held it up in front of her eyes for a moment, then threw it back at him. He caught it in his mouth.

“You’re sick,” she said, blushing a little.

He shrugged. “I’m a guy.”

“That you are.”

Her nachos were ready a few seconds later. The concession guy brought them up to the counter and once again asked, “Anything else?”

“Nope, that’s all,” Michael said, quickly handing his money over before Maria could think of anything else she wanted. “Thanks, man.” He stuffed his candy in his pockets and carried the rest of his food precariously back towards their seats.

“Mm, these are good,” Maria commented as she started in on her nachos.

“I’ll bet,” Michael said. He managed to get all of his food in one arm and reached over with his free hand to grab an especially cheesy nacho off the plate. He popped it into his mouth and nodded in agreement. It was good.

“Did I say you could have one?” she said.

“Nope.” He reached over and swiped another one. She tried to swat his hand away, but he was too fast for her. He took an even cheesier chip and, instead of eating this one, swiped it against her cheek, getting cheese on her face.

“Michael!”

“Yeah!” he said, laughing. “That’s how we do things in the O.C.!”

She gave him a confused look as she wiped the cheese off of her cheek. “We’re not in the O.C.”

“Well, we might as well be. We got enough drama.”

“That’s true,” she acknowledged, still wiping the cheese away. “Is it off?”

“Yeah,” he said as he started down the steps toward the front row bleacher.

“Is it really?”

He chuckled. “No.”

“Get it off, Michael.”

Still balancing all of his food in one arm, he turned back around, reached up, and wiped the rest of the cheese away with his thumb. Crazy, he thought. She’s gorgeous even when she has food on her face.

She smiled a little, then said, “You’re an ass,” and pushed him backwards just slightly. One of his bags of popcorn went flying onto the ground.

“Oh, nice, Maria,” he said. “You’re buying me a new one.”

“I’m so not.”

“Yes, you are.”

They continued bickering about whether there would be a replacement popcorn until they got back to their seats where Max, Kyle, Isabel, and Tess were waiting for them.

“What took you guys so long?” Kyle asked. “We thought you killed each other.”

“Maria got in a fight with the nachos,” Michael explained, sitting down next to Kyle.

“Michael subconsciously admitted to watching The O.C.,” Maria informed them, squeezing in between Michael and Max.

Kyle gave him a horrified expression.

“‘Cause the girls . . . on the show . . . are hot,” he said, quickly trying to recover some of his manliness.

“Who’s hot?”

He turned around when he heard his girlfriend’s voice and found Liz standing behind him. She was wearing black pants and a hot pink, sparkly midriff. The outfit was tight, and it looked good.

“Just you, Parker,” Michael said, reaching his hand up to rest a hand on the back of her leg.

Isabel stopped massaging Kyle’s shoulders long enough to complement Liz’s ensemble. “Liz, love the outfit. It’s so slutty.”

“Um, thanks,” Liz said unsurely.

“I picked them out,” Maria piped up. “You should see one of the outfits they’re getting for football season. Cute denim skirt, cowgirl hat, boots . . . the works.”

“Cowgirl, huh?” Michael said, picturing it. “You might have to wear that for me at home, too.”

She laughed a little and said, “Maybe I will.”

“Maybe I’ll kill myself,” Maria muttered.

Michael turned and gave her a look. “What’s your problem? You got your nachos. Aren’t you happy?”

“Why are you such a jerk, Michael?”

He leaned in closer so that no one else could hear and joked, “'Cause it makes you hot.”

She gasped in outrage and shoved all the rest of his food out of his hands. His popcorn scattered over the ground, and his cheeseburger and hot dog were gone before he could even enjoy them. “What the hell, Maria?” All he had left was his pop and candy. “What’d you do that for?”

“I don’t know,” she answered through clenched teeth. “Maybe it makes you hot.”

Well . . . it did.

“Um, Maria?” Liz said quietly.

Both Michael and Maria looked up, and Michael found himself greeted with the sight of the entire dance team now. Not just one girl, but eight girls, eight hot, in-shape girls wearing the same pink midriff. This was better than The O.C. Way better.

“What do we do?” Liz asked.

“Oh, um . . .” Maria glanced at the clock. “Alright, they’re gonna go into halftime in two minutes, so just go stand down by the field. Don’t jump around and talk to each other. Just everybody stand there in the parade rest position and wait until it’s time to dance.”

“What about the music?” Liz asked, obviously worried.

“I took it care of it. It’s all ready to go up in the sound booth. The announcer’s gonna play it, you guys are gonna kick ass, and everything’s gonna be great.”

“Right,” Liz said, wringing her hands together nervously. “So . . . what do we do?”

“Go stand down there,” Maria instructed again.

“Right,” Liz repeated. “Alright, girls, let’s go . . . stand down there.”

Michael watched as Liz nervously led the rest of the team down the steps to stand on the track. They all stood in the same position, but, unlike Maria had instructed, they were talking to each other.

“Not the quite the captain you were, is she?” he said to Maria.

“Not yet,” Maria said.

Not yet? Michael thought. He had a hard time believing that anybody could ever fill Maria’s shoes on that dance team. She had really invested herself in it for four years, and she was so good at it.

“Do you wish you were out there with them?” Max asked her.

“Yeah,” was all she said. She didn’t elaborate any further, probably because she didn’t want to. She ate her nachos until halftime started, and Michael helped her. Once the soccer team cleared the field and headed into the locker rooms, though, she stood up and set her plate down behind her.

“A valiant effort so far by the University of Santa Fe,” the announcer said, “but unfortunately, they haven’t been able to hold off Albuquerque. But now, for your viewing the pleasure, the real show begins at halftime! Give it up for the Sun Rays dance team!”

The crowd erupted in cheers, and Maria was the loudest of all. “Alright, dance team! Woo!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Michael stood up along with everyone else, and glanced at Liz. She and the rest of the team was just standing there, looking confused and afraid.

“Run out, dance team!” Maria shouted, gesturing them toward the field. “Run out! Run out!”

Liz hesitantly took to the field. She didn’t run so much as prance nervously, and the rest of the girls followed suit.

“Alright, Liz!” Michael shouted, hoping to encourage her. “Hot sex tonight!”

“Don’t distract her,” Maria hissed.

“Go, Liz!” Isabel and Tess shouted in unison.

“Break it down, ladies!” Maria called.

The crowd quieted down as the team took their starting positions. Maria gripped the railing tightly saying, “Oh, I wish I was wearing that outfit.”

Michael glanced over at her, imagining how hot she would look in it. “Yeah, me, too,” he said.

The music started in suddenly, and the team all began to dance. It was an energetic routine right from the start, fast hip-hop to an old-school rap song. Although it looked good from what Michael could tell, synchronized and the like, it lacked some of the passion and emphasis that Maria had always added to it.

“Woo!” Maria cheered. “Shake it, ladies!”

Even though he was supposed to be watching Liz, he found himself watching Maria instead. She was practically doing the dance right along with them. It was obvious how she longed to be out there with them.

Watch your girlfriend, Michael told himself. She’s doing good. And she was. Her movements weren’t quite as strong as Maria’s were, her showmanship not so vibrant, but she was kicking ass considering the fact that she had never danced in front of a crowd before.

Good job, Liz, he thought, though he found himself still wanting to watch Maria.

The crowd was really starting to get into the dance by the time Liz moved to the front and center of the formation. She was smiling more now, and it was obvious that she was feeling much more comfortable.

“You got it, guys!” Maria shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth to make herself even louder. “Woo!”

But suddenly, something happened. At first Michael thought it was part of the dance, but he quickly realized it wasn’t. Liz just stopped dancing, and the rest of the team, having been following her lead, stopped as well. The crowd gasped in astonishment.

“What?” Maria spat. “No, keep going!”

A few of the girls tried to get back into it, but the team as a whole was lost. They all stood there, looking at each other in a state of total panic. No one seemed to be able to remember what came next.

“This!” Maria screeched, doing the moves full-out in the stands now. “Ah!”

Holy shit, Michael thought. This was definitely not the dance team that had won state three years in a row.

Liz raked her hands through her hair, looking as though she were about to cry. Everyone in the audience started talking amongst themselves, saying things like, “They suck,” or “I can’t believe it.”

“Oh my god,” Maria said, sounding as panicked as the team was. When one of the girls brought out the robot as a joke and an attempt to keep going, Maria almost lost it. “Uh!” she screamed. She slid under the railing without a second thought and ran out onto the field. The audience fell quiet again and just sat there, waiting to see what would happen next.

Michael smiled and watched her run out towards them. He knew what was going to happen. He knew Maria, and he knew she would be damned if she let her dance team flounder.

She jumped in front of them and got right into the dance. Just like that. No problem. She had the attitude and the energy in spades. The moment she was there, the rest of the girls caught back on to the movements as well. Even Liz, though she was halfway in tears, got the rhythm back; but Michael got the feeling that, if Maria left, they’d be just as lost and confused.

“Yeah, Maria!” Isabel and Tess shouted as she showed all the other girls what a real dancer was. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was unbelievable. The way her body moved . . . was unbelievable. In a way, it was unnatural. Most people’s bodies didn’t roll up and down the way hers did, they didn’t pop forward and back. Most people couldn’t shake their hips so fast. Most people could never even attempt to master a dance the way she did. The rest of the team certainly couldn’t. She made them all look like amateurs. It wasn’t her fault. She was just so good.

The crowd erupted in cheers when some major hip-swirling came into play. Michael grinned. It was definitely his favorite part, too. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Those movements were followed by some shimmies and, Maria’s signature move, the butt-popping. She was so good. So good.

I wish I had my video camera, Michael thought as she and the rest of the team leaped and literally spun around in the air. He would have loved to film her.

They landed on the ground, in sync, as the music ended. Everyone applauded, seemingly having forgotten about the giant pause in the middle of the routine.

“Woo!” Tess screamed. “Good job, girls!”

“Sexy ladies!” Isabel called. “Ow-ow!”

Michael clapped along with everyone else and said, “Yeah, Maria!”

“Dude,” Kyle said, leaning over, “shouldn’t you be cheering for your girlfriend?”

Yeah, Michael thought, watching as the team rallied off the field. I should. “Good job, Liz.”

Liz was still crying when they came up to the bleachers. The rest of the girls just looked embarrassed, although there were two who seemed to be trying to laugh it off. Maria, needless to say, looked mortified.

“Just act like that was part of the dance,” he overheard her telling the girls. “Act like I was supposed to go out there. Behind the concession stand. Team meeting, now.”

“Wait, just a minute,” Liz said. “Michael!” She went running towards him and threw herself into his arms. “Oh my god, I was so bad.”

“You weren’t bad, Liz,” he told her, and that was the truth. She could have done a lot worse.

“I forgot half the dance.”

“It’s okay. It was your first time.” He grinned. “Remember how it gets better after the first time?”

She smiled a little, but she still looked really upset.

“Come here. You did great,” he said, pulling her into another hug. He looked over her shoulder as he embraced her and met Maria’s eyes. He smiled at her a little, just to let her know he’d been watching her the whole time. She seemed to understand the nonverbal message, because she smiled back at him.

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

Maria couldn’t contain her anger once she got the team rounded up behind the concession stand. If it wasn’t for the announcer doing the stupid halftime raffle drawing, the people in the bleachers would have heard her.

What the hell happened?” she demanded, marching back and forth in front of the girls. “There’s been a few dance team mishaps over the years, but nothing like that.” She waited for a response but got none. “Somebody tell me what happened!”

Sniffing back tears, Liz spoke up softly. “It was my fault. I just blanked out.”

“Okay,” Maria said, unwilling to let one person take all the blame for a team disaster. “So Liz stops dancing. Does that mean the rest of you have to? No, you’re supposed to keep going. Seriously, how could you all forget?”

“Maybe it’s not our fault,” one girl said. Her name was Pam, and she was quickly becoming Maria’s least favorite team member.

“Of course it’s your fault! Who else can you blame?” Maria shrieked.

Pam narrowed her eyes and said, “You.”

Maria was taken aback. “Me?” she said. “How the hell can you blame me? I was the one who got out there and got you guys back on track! If it wasn’t for me, you all would’ve done the robot for the last eight eight-counts! I saved you guys!”

“You also choreographed the dance,” Pam reminded her, “and even though it was okay choreography . . .”

Okay?” It took all of Maria’s willpower not to reach out and bitch-slap the girl. “My choreography was genius.”

“It was too hard,” Pam came right out and said.

“Well, the old dance team managed to do it.”

“We’re not the old dance team,” Pam reminded her. “In fact, you’re not even our captain. Liz is. I think she should choreography the dances.”

“Me?” Liz said in shock. “Oh, no, you really don’t want that.”

“No, I really do,” Pam said. “Maria’s choreography caters to her own strengths, not to anybody else’s.”

Maria frowned. “It does not.”

Pam threw her hands in the air, looking exasperated. “How many girls here can do the jumps that you can? Not one.”

“Then you should learn,” Maria suggested. “Emergency practice tomorrow. If you’re not there, you’re off the team.” She turned and started to stomp away, but Pam said something that stopped her.

“You can’t kick anybody off the team. You’re not even on the team.”

She stopped in her tracks and thought about it. Unfortunately, Pam was right. A decision like that, since the team had no active coach, would be left up to the athletic board. She spun back around, fuming. “What are you, Pam, a freshman? You think you know everything? You think you’re so hot?”

“Hotter than you.”

“What did you say?”

“Okay, okay,” Liz interjected, rising to her feet. “This isn’t solving anything. I think what we need to do is take a step back and figure out what we did wrong.”

Maria quieted down and watched Liz for a minute. For the first time since she had made the dance team, she seemed like a captain.

“I don’t think we can blame Maria,” she said. “Her choreography was really great. We just didn’t execute. So from now on, we need to do whatever it takes to make sure this never happens again. If that means extra practice, then it’s extra practice. I don’t . . . I don’t wanna be the team responsible for ending this dance team’s state championship streak, do you?”

A couple of the girls shook their heads. Even Pam had quieted down into submission.

“Good,” Liz said. “So practice tomorrow, same time as usual. You really need to be there. ‘Cause we’re gonna work hard. We’re gonna be a good team. I promise.”

A couple of the girls actually smiled, and Maria was amazed. Liz Parker did have some leadership qualities. Seemingly good ones, too.

“Alright, well, that’s it then,” Liz said. She turned to Maria and asked, “That is it, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Maria said.

“Alright. Go enjoy the rest of the game.”

The rest of the girls got to their feet and headed back in to the bleacher area. Pam brought up the rear, smiling at Liz and glaring at Maria as she went. Maria ignored her and addressed her friend. “Good job, Liz,” she said.

Liz grunted. “Yeah, right. It was all my fault today.”

“No, Liz, don’t take the blame for all of them,” Maria said. “They’ve all been on high school dance teams before. They should be better than you. But honestly, I think you were the best one out there today.”

“Really?”

Maria nodded. “Yeah.”

Liz smiled. “Well,” she said, “until you got out there.”

“Until then,” Maria agreed. “Come on. Michael's probably eating the rest of my nachos.”









TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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Part 49

Post by April »

RiceKrispy: You're right that Michael has his "foot in the door" when it comes to his feelings for Maria. I mean, his foot's barely in the door, but it's there. He definitely realizes that he cares about her; he just has to realize how DEEPLY he cares about her. ;) Oh, and by the way, I like your name, too! I was wondering how you came up with it! lol
nibbles:
Ok, maybe it's something about the house they are living in. Anybody who stays there automatically becomes blind and dumb to their true feelings.
lmao! It's the house! If all else fails, blame it on the house! lol, that's too funny. I like what you said about Maria, about her not being completely bad. She actually is a really good friend to Liz and she doesn't have to be, so that has to mean something.
pookie76: Oh, I know that Michael's frustrating. Maria's life would be so much easier if she didn't have feelings for him . . . but she does. She just does, and as much as she might like to have feelings for Max . . . she just doesn't. Sigh.
Elle: Well, you should be happy. Max and Liz are going to talk in this part. It's not a hugely romantic talk by any means, but it's a start. ;)
Tine: Kyle's "tongue thing" won't be elaborated on. You'll just have to use your imagination. :lol: And I agree with you, 77 does sound kind of complicated! I'm glad I was able to teach you something new. lol
SweetnSpicy: Oh, I didn't know you danced! Awesome! Dancing is the best! And I can't believe you predicted that Maria was going to get out on that field. Nice job! You must be psychic. ;)
Sara: Oh, you're right, Max is NOT happy right now. And Liz is most definitely trying to take over Maria's life, as you said. She'll eventually discover that Maria's life isn't all it's cracked up to be, though.
Brie: Yes, Michael is STARTING to figure out that he has feelings. But just BARELY starting. Most of all, he's still thinking with "little Michael" instead of his brain, so he's mostly realizing how undeniably attracted to her he is. But it's going to take him a lot longer to get to the point we all want him to be at. ;)
spacegirl23: Maybe because he's been around Maria for so long, he doesn't realize he's pretty much head over heels in LOVE with her. He thinks it's normal for himself to just like staring at her, and thinking of her as "his girl"[/QUOTE]
That's a very good observation! He's always thought of her as "his girl" before. Why think any differently now? Michael's kind of in a rut.
Alien_Friend: lol, another reader who learned something new with "77"! :lol: Who would have known this fic would be so educational? :lol: Oh, to answer your question, I'm not at all done writing the whole thing yet. It's insane how long it is, but there's just a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up yet.
krystle:
why is Maria so irritated by Max? She used to sleep with other guys, probably not half as good as him and get off on it...now she makes it seem like Max is too awful to fathom
It's not that he's horrible in bed or anything or that she finds him disgusting. Maybe he's a little inexperienced, but he's not horrible at all. It just doesn't feel right to her because she knows she's using him, so how can she gush about something that doesn't feel right?
tequathisy: Ooh, you're right. Max doesn't want to see the truth. Kind of like Liz.
Michelle: I made you like something about Pam Troy? lol, fascinating. And thanks for continuing to use the word masterful when describing this fic. That is quite and ego boost! :mrgreen:




Thanks for reading, you guys! Much appreciated!










Part 49








For some reason, Michael woke up early the next morning. He couldn’t get back to sleep, and he never felt like doing homework, so he figured he should go pay a visit to his favorite dramatic dance team.

When he walked into the gym, he found Maria once again up in front of everyone else, leading practice. She looked as though she were teaching a new dance this time. Nobody was really catching on.

“Okay, so you just have to make it really noticeable. Okay? ‘Cause, like, yesterday, shimmies didn’t really stand out. They need to.”

Your shimmies stood out, Maria, he thought, laughing a little.

She turned when he laughed and grumbled, “Oh, great. Keep practicing,” she told the other girls as she made her way over to greet him. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “What’re you doing here?”

“I came to watch my girlfriend and my best friend dance,” he said.

“This is a restricted area.”

“What, like Area 51?”

Even though she probably didn’t know what that was, she said, “Yes.”

He chuckled. “I’ll just sit and be quiet.”

“Oh, I find that hard to believe.” She sighed and gave in. “Fine, you can stay. But don’t distract Liz.”

“‘Kay,” he said. “I’ll just distract you.”

She rolled her eyes.

“With my good looks and . . . big package.”

She shook her head and turned to rejoin the team. “Alright, ladies, did you practice it?” she said. “No, of course not.”

Michael sat down on the bleachers and looked around the gymnasium. Maria’s picture was still painted on the wall, along with a picture of last year’s team. The girl was going to graduate a legend.

“Oh my god, that’s Michael Guerin,” he heard one girl whisper.

He turned to her and smiled. She squealed in excitement and bit her nails.

“Girls!” Maria snapped. “Eyes up here. On me. Not on . . . anyone else.”

Michael laughed. “No offense, but I think they’d rather look at me.”

“I knew you wouldn’t just sit there and be quiet,” she said. “Alright, let’s take it from that fourth eight-count.”

The girls reluctantly turned around to face her instead of staring at him.

“So you run . . . one and, clap two. Shimmy three, four. Rock it left, right, swirl on eight.” She turned her head to look over her shoulder at them and asked, “You guys got that?”

Michael shook his head. They definitely didn’t.

None of them said anything, though, so Maria continued on. “Alright, so then after that you’re all gonna do a right switch-leap. Then front line, you’re gonna slide down into the horizontal splits. Back line, you’re gonna go directly into a side leap. You should be right behind the person in front of you when you do it so it looks like levels.”

What the hell’s a switch-leap? Michael wondered. Why do dancers have their own language?

“You guys get it?” she said. “You wanna try it?”

“Um . . .” Liz raised her hand and said, “I could use a refresher on switch-leaps.”

“That’s okay. Come over to my house after class. I’ll help you then.”

“Actually . . .” Another girl raised her hand timidly and said, “I don’t know how to do them, either.”

“Seriously?” Maria said. “Weren’t you captain of your high school’s dance team?”

She shrugged. “Well, more or less.”

Maria sighed. “I’m guessing less. Okay, who else needs help?”

All of the girls raised their hands.

“Dammit,” Maria cursed. "You guys did these leaps in yesterday's dance."

"We did switch-hops," one girl informed her.

Maria sighed again. “Okay, line up on that side of the gym. I’m gonna demonstrate.”

“Great,” one girl in the back muttered. “More of Maria showing off.”

“I’m not showing off, Pam,” Maria said. “I’m trying to teach you. If you’d actually listen, you might learn something.”

Michael smirked. Pam Troy was one girl he didn’t want to have sex with. It was crazy, but she was just too much of a bitch. Not a loveable bitch like Maria. Just a bitch.

Man, I should come to these practices more often, Michael thought as he surveyed the girls when they were lined up. Spandex shorts. Rolled up shirts. Sweaty bodies . . . it was like soft-core porn.

Liz looked up at him, smiled, and waved. He waved back at her, noting the sheen of sweat covering her abdomen. He would have to bring her into the locker room after practice and lick it off her. Ever since he had broken the no-sex bet, he was practically an addict. But then again, he always had been.

“Alright, everybody pay attention,” Maria said. “Watch and learn.” She glared at Pam, then sprung forward, jumping into the air about as high as a girl without springs in her feet could jump. Her legs moved so fast in the air, he barely noticed it. It looked really hard, though.

“Okay,” she said. “You’re gonna step on your right foot and leap with your left leg out.”

“But I’m right handed,” Pam protested.

“Most people are. That’s why we’re doing it like this,” Maria explained. “Once your left leg’s out, swing it back, land on your right leg.”

“Whoa,” Liz said. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“You did a calypso jump yesterday, Liz,” Maria reminded her. “That’s just as hard. Just start out with, like, baby leaps, okay? Step, kick, switch, land. Alright, guys, all the way across the gym, two at a time. Ready? First two. Step, kick, switch, land.”

The first two girls attempted a leap. One of them looked like she sort of got it. She never quite reached the height Maria did, but then again, Michael doubted anyone would. The other girl obviously didn’t get it at all. That other girl was Pam Troy. Michael laughed at her.

“Alright, guys, point those toes,” Maria said. “Step, kick, switch, land.”

The girls kept leaping, some better than others. Liz was the last one to go. She went for it, and for a second, Michael thought she had it, but she ended up stumbling and falling flat on her face.

“Oh my god!” Maria said, rushing to her side. “Okay, ladies, stop leaping.”

“You okay, Liz?” Michael asked.

“Yeah,” she said, sitting up. “Just embarrassed.”

“It was sexy,” he lied.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Michael, we don’t need your commentary,” Maria said, checking Liz out for injuries.

“Sorry,” he said. “I tried not to be distracting.”

She gave him an annoyed look.

“It’s okay,” Liz said. “I’m okay.” She got back to her feet then and said, “I don’t know how I’m gonna do a switch leap, Maria.”

“You’ll manage,” Maria assured her. She looked around at the rest of the team, all who looked a little tired, and said, “Look, guys, this dance is only a little harder than the last one.”

“Which we fucked up,” Pam reminded everyone.

“Okay, Pam, if you’re gonna be a Negative Nancy . . .”

“I’m just tired of practicing,” she whined. “All those in favor of being done for today?”

Everyone raised their hands, including Liz.

“I think you guys look hot when you practice,” Michael piped up again.

Pam immediately changed her tune. “All in favor of more practicing?”

Again, everyone raised their hands, beaming with excitement at the compliment.

“Great,” Pam said. She, Liz, and the rest of the girls walked back over to the far left side of the gym, and they started practicing their leaps again.

Maria looked up at Michael and, even though she was trying to look irritated, smiled.

“That’s how we do things . . .”

“. . . in the O.C.,” she finished. “You loser.”

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

Liz was surprised that, when she showed up at Phi Delta’s fraternity party that night, people were even more excited to see her than they had been before she embarrassed herself horribly the day before on the soccer field. She didn’t understand it, but it was definitely a good thing.

“You did great yesterday, Liz,” a girl she didn’t even know said. “You were the best one out there.”

“Not really,” she said. “I messed up.”

“I couldn’t even tell,” someone else added, this time a guy she didn’t even know.

Yeah, right, she thought. The entire team had stopped until Maria got out there. “Well, thanks for saying that,” she said.

“No, it’s true,” the guy insisted. “If I may make a suggestion, though . . . don’t let Maria run out and steal the show again. She’s still hot, but she’s a has-been.”

Liz felt like she should stick up for her friend, but she was timid. “She’s a really good dancer.”

“But it’s your time to shine,” the girl to her left said. “You’re Michael Guerin’s girlfriend. You’re the captain of the dance team. Don’t let her take that away from you.”

I don’t think she is, Liz thought. I mean . . . she wouldn’t.

“By the way,” another girl standing in front of her asked, “where is Michael? Please tell me he’s here.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s around here somewhere,” Liz said. She had lost him from about the moment she had walked in the door and been swarmed by admirers an hour earlier. The popularity gig definitely took a little adjusting to.

“He’s so hot,” the girl squealed enviously. “You’re so lucky.”

“Yeah,” Liz said. “I know.” She was well aware how greatly Michael Guerin had impacted her life. Had it not been for him, she still would have been lonely and unpopular. And a virgin. As far as boyfriends ranked, he was pretty much the best in her mind.

Michael . . .

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

Is this really what I’ve spent half my life doing? Maria thought to herself as she walked around the party in utter astonishment. Even though the music was kicking and people were dancing and having a good time, it suddenly seemed so . . . lame.

Oh my god, she realized. I’m finally over the party stage of my life. It was a huge revelation, so she had to let it sink it for a moment. Wow.

She plopped down on the couch next to Michael, grumbling, “Parties are so boring when you don’t drink.”

“I . . . wouldn’t know anything about that,” Michael said as he took a sip of the beer in his hand.

She stared longingly at the bottle. Alcohol was a nice way to let loose and forget about everything else for awhile. But she couldn’t. Not anymore. Not after what had happened.

When he spoke again, it was as though he were reading her mind. “I think it’s good that you’re layin’ off the booze. You know? Not that I’d mind giving you mouth to mouth again; I just . . . really don’t wanna do that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t anyone gonna let me live my near-death experience down?”

“Nope.” He smirked and took another swig.

She sighed. “Well, I’m serious. I’m bored.”

“We could go out back and you could dance all over me like you did that one night,” he suggested. “Just a thought.”

“Well, maybe Liz should dance all over you,” she muttered. “People are raving about what an awesome dancer she is.”

Michael gave her a look. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“After that soccer game?”

“Yeah.”

He made a face of confusion. “That’s weird. I mean, she did good and all, you know, considering, but . . .” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I should probably praise my girlfriend a little more, shouldn’t I?”

She shrugged. “Everyone else already is.”

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

Max searched for Maria. The frat house was packed, and it was hard to find any of his friends.

He had a soda in his hand for her. It was warm by now, though. He’d been walking around trying to find her for what felt like forever. There was only so many places she could be.

Finally, he spotted her. She was right in front of his eyes, sitting on the couch. With Michael. Of course. Always with Michael.

Dammit, Max thought. Michael was his friend, and he knew Michael was Maria’s friend, too, but seeing them together so much really made him worry. No matter how much he loved Maria, no matter how strongly she felt about him, there was always that little nagging piece of doubt in the back of his mind, that doubt that said, She’d rather be with him than you.

Max watched as Michael said something that made Maria smile, and she in turn said something that made him laugh. Their interaction was effortless. It always had been.

Feeling upset, Max turned away and headed outside to the back of the house instead. He needed some air, needed to calm down.

You’re all friends, he reminded himself as he opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. You can’t have her all to yourself.

Much to his surprise, he found Liz sitting outside, too. She had a glass of beer in her hand, but she hadn’t drunk much of it.

“Hey, Liz,” he said, sitting down next to her on the steps.

“Oh, hey, Max,” she said. “Good, I’m glad it’s just you. I thought it was one of . . . them.”

“One of who?” Max asked.

“My admirers,” she explained. “Don’t get me wrong, the popularity thing’s really cool. I’m just not sure how to deal with it all the time.”

“Is that why you’re out here alone?” he asked.

She smiled. “I’m not alone anymore.”

“Oh, I can leave if you want me to.”

“No, you can stay,” she said. “I just needed a little room to breathe. I can breathe when you’re here.”

He nodded his head and said, “Good. That’s . . . good. Breathing’s a good thing.”

“A very good thing,” she agreed. She sighed and stared down at the glass in her hand, sloshing the beer around inside of it. “You know, even though I am popular now,” she said, “I don’t know how to be popular.”

“Oh, I’m afraid I’m not much help in that department,” he said.

“You’re popular, Max.”

“No, not really. I’m pretty much a nerd. The only reason why people even know who I am is ‘cause of the people I live with. They’re popular. I’m just cool by association.” He shrugged. “But that’s okay. I don’t really care.”

“I used to not care,” Liz said. “I’m a little different now.”

A lot different, Max thought, raising an eyebrow as he surveyed what she was wearing: a short denim skirt and a black, loose-fitting, low-cut halter. The Liz Parker he had first met was the kind of girl who wore sweaters and long-skirts.

“You know what?” she said. “I think you and I have something in common. Technically, I’m only cool by association, too. I mean, if Michael wasn’t my boyfriend, do you think anyone would know who I am?”

“Well . . . not as many people,” he admitted.

“And if Maria hadn’t made me the dance team captain?”

He nodded. Even less people then.

She smiled. “Ah, the advantages of knowing Michael Guerin and Maria DeLuca.”

“Yeah.” He set the Coca-Cola can he had gotten and never given to Maria down beside him, remembering how Michael and Maria had looked on the couch together. Or how they looked whenever they were together. Like there was a spark.

“Liz, can I ask you something?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He hesitated a moment, unsure. Michael and Maria’s friendship was the source of many of his sleepless nights. He didn’t want her to lose sleep, too, but maybe she already did. “Do you ever worry about Michael and Maria?” he asked softly.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Just . . . do you worry?”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “I mean, Maria almost died. And Michael’s not exactly a light drinker himself. Of course I worry.”

“No, I mean . . .” Again, he hesitated before explaining. “Do you ever worry that someday they’ll dump us and try to make a go of it with each other?”

“Oh,” Liz said. “Um . . . I don’t know. I used to a lot. I guess I still kind of do.”

“Me, too,” Max confessed. “It just seems like they have . . . a chemistry.”

“Yeah,” Liz agreed, “but I don’t think it’s really a romantic chemistry. Like I said, I used to. I thought Michael was, like, in love with her, and for awhile I wondered if Maria might feel the same way; but now I think it’s just more, like, a friendly chemistry. Or not even always friendly, ‘cause they argue so much. You know? I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

“You don’t?”

“No. ‘Cause, like, when I’m with Michael . . .” She smiled. “I feel on top of the world. You feel that way with Maria, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. He always had. “I just don’t know if she feels that way with me.”

“I’m sure she does,” Liz assured her. “You’re a great guy, Max; and if they did have feelings for each other, they would’ve acted on them by now. Don’t you think?"

“Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly. “They’re impulsive people. I just . . . I don’t know. I can’t help worrying.”

Liz smiled. “You’re in love, Max. So am I.”

I know that, he thought. Michael and Maria are in love, too. The question is, are they in love with us or each other?








TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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Part 50

Post by April »

SweetnSpicy: Yes, Max is starting to question his relationship, but since confrontations aren't his style, it's very possible that he might keep his doubts hidden to Maria.
pookie76: It's good to know that you enjoy this story, so know that I enjoy your ranting! :mrgreen:
Tine:
Do you actually enjoy to torment us with their slow pace af realizing... well, anything?
Yes. ;)
nibbles:
Poor Liz, she's been swept away by her 'popularity' and by Michael's attentions that she's just not seeing the blatantly obvious.
Oh, yes, she's definitely been 'swept away.' I try to put myself in her shoes as I write her, and I definitely think that so much has happened to her so fast that she hadn't really had the time to comprehend it and thus, like you've said, she's not seeing the obvious.
spacegirl23:
What's next for our adorable yet clueless heroine? Also, what's next with Izzy and Alex?
Well, Maria has a whirlwind of drama ahead of her (and that's all I'm saying about that!), and Isabel and Alex will continue to subtly develop.
RiceKrispy: Oh, you're totally right about Liz being in lust and not love. Liz is NOT in love with Michael, and I promise that she will come to realize that. With Max, it's a bit trickier, because he is sort of in love . . . but you're right. The first step to solvinga problem is admitting you have a problem, and Max has more or less admitted it. Now is he going to be brave enough to take the next step in the problem-solving process? Hmm . . .
Mag:
How ironic that Max and Liz talked more in this part, than with their so-called significant others.
Yep. :lol: Oh, and I'm glad you noted how Maria is slowly growing up. Slowly.
tequathisy:
I feel sorry for Liz, she's on a massive learning curve and she's doing it in the full glare of the whole college.
This is true. At the end of the day, as annoying as she might be, she's still just a young girl who is making some mistakes, trying to convince herself that her life is suddenly so great when, in reality, her life is going downhill fast and EVERYONE is poised to watch it happen.
Tinkerbell_Luvs_Roswell: A new feedbacker? Woopie! *does happy dance* I'm glad to have you reading, and I love your sig banner, by the way!
Sara: Good point, that Liz actually tried to stick up for Maria. It's kind of like when Max tried to stick up for Maria when Amy was around. It's an attempt, it's just a wimpy attempt.
krystle: Maria definitely probably made a mistake picking the girls that she did to be on the dance team. She can't give it up, though, because it means so much to her, and as pissed off as those girls make her, she doesn't want to see the team flounder. It's like her pride and joy. It's the one big, respectable accomplishment she's ever had in her life. lol, and no, Liz doesn't die in this next chapter! Sorry to disappoint you!
Alien_Friend: Oh, sick all weekend? That sucks! I'm glad that you're "back in commission" though and that you enjoyed the last part.










Part 50








Michael urged Liz into her floor’s bathroom the next morning, sensing her hesitance.

“Are we gonna get in trouble?” she asked.

“For having sex in the shower?”

“A public shower.”

He stopped and informed her, “Liz, dorms are like Mecca for sex. I guarantee you, people fuck in these showers all the time.”

She made a face of disgust.

“No, it’s cool, though,” he assured her. “‘Cause, like you said, it’s public, so . . .”

“That’s cool?”

“It’s very cool,” he assured her. He’d had his fair share of public sexual encounters and loved each and every one of them. “Come on. Let’s get horny.”

She giggled and followed him down the row of showers to the very end. “I’m already horny,” she said.

“Whoa. I like that.”

She smiled.

Michael pulled open the door and was just about to step inside when a shrill whistle sounded and stopped him in his tracks. He and Liz both glanced over and saw a girl standing there, whistle between her lips, intensity in her eyes.

“Shoot,” Liz said quietly. “That’s my R.A.”

“Dorms suck,” he decided. If Maria and Max hadn’t been occupying the shower at home, he and Liz could have just done it there. But since they couldn’t, they had decided on the dorm shower, a chance to get clean and dirty all at the same time. Not anymore.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the stern R.A. demanded, marching towards them.

“Well, I was planning on doing my girlfriend,” he replied honestly.

“Not in here. This is a women’s restroom, so unless you’re a woman . . .” She glanced down at the slight bulge underneath the towel wrapped around his waist and said, “Which you’re obviously not. This is gonna cost you.”

“What?”

The R.A. took a small slip out of her back pocket. Michael glanced over and read what it said. “Fine?” he shrieked. “I’m gettin’ fined for this?”

“You sure are.” The R.A. smirked. “Five-hundred dollars.”

“Five-hundred dollars?!”

She wrote out the slip and handed him one, keeping the yellow copy underneath for herself.

“Five-hundred dollars,” he said again, lowering his voice this time. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

“No.”

He wet his lips and applied a different tactic. “Okay, you know who I am, right?”

“Of course. You’re Michael Guerin.”

“Right, so . . . I know you don’t wanna give me this fine. You wanna give me something else, but you don’t wanna give me this fine.”

“Something else,” she echoed. “Men and sex. They’re practically synonyms.”

He grinned. “Damn right.”

“That’s not a compliment.”

He bit his tongue and cast a worried glance at Liz. He was having no luck weaseling his way out of his one. Liz wasn’t much help, either. She just shrugged.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t we just consider this a big misunderstanding, forget about it, move on down the road.”

“I don’t think so,” the R.A. said. “Five-hundred dollar fine, due next month, preferably sooner.”

Bitch, he thought. You’re a bitch like Pam Troy. I don’t like you. “And I can’t . . . convince you to change your mind?” he asked.

She smiled. “You’re not my type.”

“Not your type?” Since when? he thought. Since when am I not a girl’s type? And then it dawned on him. “Oh,” he said. “So you’re a lesbian.”

She didn’t say yes to that, but she didn’t say no, either. That was a pretty clear indication.

He glanced down at Liz and asked, “You wanna try?”

“Uh, no,” she said.

He let out a sigh, reluctantly accepting the fine, even more reluctantly accepting the fact that he wasn’t going to get the shower sex he’d been planning on.

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

“So tell me again, what am I doing here on my precious Saturday afternoon?” Maria said as Michael smoothed his hands up and down her sides. She could barely see because the cameraman was taking so many pictures of them, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was feeling his big, warm hands on her.

“You’re modeling, Maria,” he told her, leaning his head in close to her ear.

Oh, God, Michael, how can you do this to me? she asked herself as she struggled to maintain control. Luckily he was standing behind her, so he couldn’t quite see the full-blown desire in her eyes. “No, seriously,” she said, still trying to pretend that she was pissed off to be there. “I planned on doing some hardcore sleeping today until I got called in to help someone with a photo shoot. Wanna tell me why?”

Before he could say anything in response, the photographer snapped, “Focus, you two. We’re not getting the shot.”

Maria rolled her eyes and reluctantly looked straight at the camera, trying not to squint at its bright flash.

She shivered as Michael ran his hands up over the skin of her back to rest on her shoulders. “I need five-hundred dollars,” he said quickly.

“Why? Liz gettin’ high-maintenance?”

He just chuckled.

“No?” she asked.

“Focus,” the irritated photographer said again. “Eyes up here. No talking. Come on, now. Model the bra.”

How the hell am I supposed to model a bra? Maria thought. It’s not like I have Victoria’s Secret boobs like Isabel or breast implants like Tess.

Luckily for her, Michael seemed to know how to do it for her. He slipped his fingers underneath the bra straps and dragged them down over her shoulders, showing off even more of her skin.

Oh, Michael, your hands . . . she thought, hoping he didn’t notice her sharp intake of breath.

“Nice,” the photographer said as he snapped photo after photo. “Nice. I like that. Very good. Very passionate.”

Tell me about it, Maria thought, feeling her legs shake.

“I got fined,” Michael whispered in her ear, “for goin’ in the bathroom on Liz’s floor.”

“Why’d you even go in there?” she asked. “Was it a weak bladder thing?”

“No, it was a shower sex thing.”

“Ew!” she exclaimed, turning her head to face him. “You were gonna do it in a dorm shower?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Sick,” she said. “Gag me just a little bit more.”

“Uh!” the photographer groaned, practically throwing down his camera, looking furious. “We’re never gonna get this done!”

Maria smirked. That’s fine by me. She could model with Michael all day long and be perfectly content with that.

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

Liz didn’t get stopped on her way up to the main photo shoot room. She liked to think she looked like one of the models, even though she knew she probably didn’t.

I hope Michael doesn’t mind me coming to see him, she thought as she smiled and walked past a stick-thin girl. I’ve never gotten to see him doing the whole model thing. I bet he looks sexy. Plus, she wanted to know something about what he did. She wanted to know something about him in general.

She got turned around in one of the hallways and had to backtrack. The agency was a maze. She felt confused.

“Excuse me,” she said to a guy who walked past. He definitely looked like a model. “Do you know where Michael Guerin is?”

“Sorry,” he said, eyeing her with a look of interest that made her feel a little uneasy. “I don’t know who that is.”

“That’s a first,” Liz mumbled, quickly walking away from him and his mischievous gaze. She was well aware that she was a little more attractive these days, but she didn’t want to attract the wrong kinds of guys.

Finally, she rounded the corner and saw a photo shoot taking place. Maria was there in only a pair of jeans and a purple, rhinestone bra. It took Liz a moment to recognize that the guy behind her was Michael, because he had his face buried in her neck.

“Finally,” the photographer taking pictures of them was saying. “Now we’re getting it.”

Liz stood back, noting that neither one of them noticed her. They were both looked very . . . committed to what they were doing. Michael’s hands were all over Maria, and she was either damn good at faking pleasure or she was really enjoying it.

Suddenly, Max’s words from the night before came crashing back into Liz’s consciousness, full-force.

“Do you ever worry about Michael and Maria?”

She remembered being so sure, being so sure that they were just friends, that their chemistry was nothing romantic. But as she stood there, watching them model together, the lens was definitely steaming up. And she was worried. Just a little bit.

“Ten more frames,” the photographer said.

Of course, if I was half-naked with Michael, which I often am, then we could steam up the lens, too, she assumed. Liz turned and headed back down the hallway in the direction she had come. She didn’t want either Michael or Maria to know she had been there.

She walked outside and flipped open her cell phone. She dialed her parents’ number and waited as the phone rang. Finally, her father answered the phone.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said. “Yeah, I got the plane ticket in the mail the other day. I’ll be home this weekend.” She waited as he made a few sounds of excitement—both her parents missed her so much—then stated her reason for calling him. “Actually, I was wondering if you could get another ticket. I’m sorry, I know it’s really short-notice, but . . .” The image of Michael and Maria modeling together flashed into her mind and evoked her worry once again. “I’d like my boyfriend to come with me.”

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

Michael hadn’t expected the photo shoot to go on until evening, but for some reason, it had. The photographer was never satisfied. He would tell them they got it. Then, just as they were about to leave, he would change his mind and tell them they didn’t have it and shoot a few extra frames. Michael didn’t really mind. Touching Maria’s half-naked body wasn’t completely horrible. But he could tell she was tired, so he finally got fed up, told the photographer to shove it where the sun don’t shine, and took Maria home.

She was exhausted when they walked through the door. Her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, she murmured, “Mmm, I’m so tired.”

“Yeah, you look tired,” he agreed, guiding her through the living room.

“What, are you saying I look bad?”

He grinned and assured her, “No, you look good.”

“Right answer.”

He laughed a little. She was really something.

He looked up when he heard the door to Max’s bedroom open and saw Max come out. He immediately looked panicked as he rushed to Maria’s side. “What happened? Is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” Michael said. “She’s just tired. Long photo shoot today. I’ll go put her to bed.”

“No, I can take her,” Max said, grabbing Maria’s left arm, pulling her towards him.

“No, really, I can . . .” Déjà vu, hadn’t they done this before?

“Michael. It’s fine.” The decisiveness in Max’s voice left no room for argument, so Michael removed his arm from around Maria’s waist and let Max lead her into his bedroom instead.

“Mmm,” she purred, resting her head on Max’s shoulder now.

Michael watched them disappear into his bedroom, not sure why he didn’t look somewhere else. Once the door was closed, he walked down to the end of the hallway to his bedroom. It still felt like Maria’s bedroom, even though they had switched. He wasn’t used to it yet.

He walked inside and found Liz curled up on his bed. She was still dressed in her clothes, and she didn’t have any blankets on. He crawled in behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “You look like you need someone to wake you up,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck.

“Yeah,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind me crashing here. I don’t wanna stay in my dorm tonight. My R.A. keeps giving me these looks.”

“Envious,” he said.

“Yeah, right. She’s gay, remember?”

“Exactly. She’s jealous that I have such a beautiful, sexy girlfriend.” Oh, good job, Guerin, he thought, congratulating himself for his use of adjectives.

She rolled around to face him and smiled a little, placing her hand on his chest. But it wasn’t a typical Liz smile. It wasn’t even a normal Liz touch. She seemed a little hesitant, more so than she usually did.

“You okay?” he asked her, sensing that maybe something was wrong.

“Yeah,” she said. “I just had a weird day.”

“Why’s that?” he asked, mentally congratulating himself again, this time for taking an interest.

She shook her head and said, “Nothing. It’s better now that you’re here.”

“Girl, you stroke my ego so good,” he told her. “And you stroke my . . . well, never mind. That’s besides the point.”

She laughed a little and said, “Hey, so, um . . . I’m going home again this weekend to see my parents.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, they’re going through withdrawal. I feel bad for them,” she explained. “But I was wondering if maybe this time you wanna come with me.”

“With you?” he echoed. “To Nevada?”

"Nebraska," she corrected. “Yeah.”

“To see your parents?”

“Yeah.”

He thought about it for a moment and let out a heavy breath. “Whoa.”

“Whoa?” she echoed. “Why whoa?”

“It’s just . . . a big deal.”

“It is,” she agreed. “My parents have just heard so much about you, but they haven’t met you, and I think they really want to.”

“Seriously? They wanna meet the guy who deflowered their little girl?”

“Well, they don’t know about the deflowering part. And you probably shouldn’t tell them.”

“Oh, I don’t plan to,” he assured her. “Wow, so . . . meeting the parents.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” she said. “It’s a way to show them that, you know, it’s serious.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she seemed a bit alarmed.

“It is serious, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

“Right, so . . . you should meet them.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay, yeah, I’ll go.”

“Really?” She smiled a genuine Liz Parker smile for the first time that night. “Oh, I’m so glad. My dad already bought the ticket.”

“Thank God,” he said. “I was gonna say, I don’t have the money to buy a ticket. I can’t even pay off that stupid fine. I’m just gonna have to do another photo shoot.”

“Another one?” Liz asked.

“Yeah, they’re kinda stupid.”

“Yeah,” Liz agreed quietly. “Maybe you should find a different job.”

“Nah, that’s alright,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He took her hand in his and interlaced his fingers with hers. “Hey, so your parents aren’t like Maria’s mom, are they? They’re not gonna try to eat me alive?”

“No,” Liz said. “They’ll like you, I promise. Just as long as you don’t talk about sex or parties or, you know, cuss up a storm.”

“I won’t. I promise,” he said. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were a scout?”

“Hell no.”

She gave him a look, and he realized he had in fact done one of the things he’d just promised not to do. No swearing. “Dammit.” He held back another curse when he did it again and vowed, “I’ll work on it.”

“Okay,” Liz said, laughing a little. “Don’t worry. They’ll like you. They like everybody. My dad was actually a lot like you back in the day.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know, kind of a girl magnet. Bad boy.”

“You think I’m a bad boy, huh?” he said, leaning in closer. “Are you a bad girl?”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“Maybe?” He grinned and closed the last bit of distance between them to kiss her. No, she wasn’t really a bad girl. But she was a good enough girlfriend.

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

I’m so cold, Maria thought as she stirred. She was under a blanket and not alone in the bed, yet she was cold.

She rolled over onto her back and accidentally hit Max’s chest with the back of her hand. He was fast asleep and shirtless, but he didn’t look cold at all.

Maria thought back to the occasions she had shared a bed with Michael, and how she hadn’t been cold during those nights. She’d woken up those mornings feeling warm. Not too hot, but warm. Comfortable. She was comfortable with Max, to an extent, but she wasn’t warm.

It’s not your fault, Max, she thought, as she sat up and got out of the bed. I’m just too cold. She pulled the sleeves of her shirt down over her hands, wrapped her arms around herself, and quietly left the room. She made her way through the living room and down the hallway to her room, but she stopped outside her door and debated entering. She loved her new room and her new bed, but it was missing something. And that something resided at the end of the hallway.

She walked back to Michael’s room and gently pushed open the door. She had hoped to find him in bed by himself so that maybe she could crawl in next to him, be warm during the night, then wake up the next morning and get out of there before Max saw them again. But that idea quickly vanished. Liz lay with him, her head on his chest, a content smile on her face. They were both naked beneath the sheets and sleeping peacefully. There was no room for her there.

I wish I didn’t have all these stupid feelings, Maria thought as she shut the door and reluctantly trudged back to her own bedroom. Everything used to be so simple.

She crawled into her bed that night, alone. She got under all the covers and pulled them all the way up to her neck. She curled up in a ball and settled down into her pillows. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep.

And she shivered.

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

Alex invited himself over for breakfast the next day, said he was too cheap to go out and buy himself any real food. Michael knew better. He knew that Alex dropping by was only an excuse to see Isabel. He told him over the phone that Isabel wasn’t there, but Alex came anyway.

“So, this is a big deal then, isn’t it?” Alex said. “Have you ever met a girl’s parents before?”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Have you?”

“Well . . . no.”

“‘Cause you’ve never had sex.”

“I have had sex.”

Michael stifled his laughter at the obvious lie. He took two breakfast Hot Pockets out of the microwave, set one down on Alex’s plate, and shoved half of the other one in his mouth hungrily.

“I have had sex,” Alex mumbled again.

“No, you haven’t,” Michael said with his mouth full.

“I have!”

Michael swallowed and informed his misguided friend, “Second base does not constitute sex.”

“It wasn’t second base!” Alex exclaimed emphatically. He lowered his voice, then, and mumbled, “It was third.”

Michael chuckled, doubting that, too. “Whatever, man.”

“Hey, why are we even talkin’ about me? This isn’t about me. This is about you meeting Liz’s madre and padre. Okay? You gotta make a good impression.”

“I will,” Michael said confidently.

“Like you made on Maria’s mom?”

Michael set down the remainder of his Hot Pocket and said, “That’s different. That woman is out of her mind. Liz says her parents are cool, so I’m gonna take her word for it.”

“Well, I don’t know . . .” Before Alex could say anything more, the front door opened, and Isabel waltzed inside. She was wearing a red strapless top, and her breasts were practically falling out. Michael was definitely turned on by the look, so he knew Alex must be, too.

Alex spazzed out a bit—more than a bit, actually. He had just taken the first bite of his Hot Pocket when Isabel walked in, and everything that had been in his mouth literally spilled out as his jaw dropped to the floor. He tried to shove it back in, but that didn’t work, so he had to settle for vigorously wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Isabel,” he said, squirming nervously. “Hi.”

She smiled a radiant smile. “Hi, Alex. Hey, Michael. Is Kyle here?”

“Uh . . . yeah, he’s downstairs,” Michael replied.

Suddenly, there came a very loud, very distinct, lust-filled moan from that very downstairs domain.

“Oh, Kyle!”

Isabel’s eyebrows raised. “Is he alone?”

“Not . . . that I know of,” Michael sputtered out. “He and Tess . . .”

“Right,” she said. “Him and Tess.” She sighed heavily and flapped her arms against her sides. “Okay.” She smiled at Michael and Alex one more time, but she looked a little less happy. Nevertheless, she headed downstairs to join her boyfriend and her . . . girlfriend? Friend? Roommate? The whole thing still sort of confused Michael.

“You better make your move, Whitman,” he advised his friend. “Those three are about to implode.”

“No,” Alex said sullenly. “I’m not that lucky.”

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

Maria sat outside of Dina’s Deli that afternoon with Max, unsure why he had invited her out to lunch. He had a class, as far as she knew, and she could count the number of times Max skipped class on one hand. It was unusual to say the least, but she was hungry and he was paying, so she saw no reason to turn him down on the offer.

Their conversation as they waited for their sandwiches consisted mainly of small-talk. Maria kept wondering why they couldn’t talk about anything deeper. Before they’d started dating, they’d had a few deep conversations, mostly about the girl he was crushing on. She now knew that girl was her, but . . .

“It’s a nice day out,” Max commented.

“It’s perfect,” she agreed. And it really was. For once, the dry New Mexico wind wasn’t blowing out of control. She hated that wind. It wreaked havoc on her hair.

“Did you get some sleep last night?” he asked her.

She nodded. “A little.”

“You went back to your room, I noticed.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I missed you.”

She smiled in order to hide her guilt. “I won’t leave you tonight,” she promised.

“Okay.”

She sighed and leaned forward, glancing inside the deli. Did it really take that long to make two simple sandwiches? She needed food to eat because she couldn’t stand this small-talk thing anymore.

“Well, I’m glad you got some sleep,” Max said, “because I have a gift to give you, and I want you to be fully awake to receive it.”

“A gift?” she echoed. Was there an anniversary she didn’t know about? When was there anniversary anyway? First date? First kiss? First fuck? There were so many possibilities, and she hadn’t a clue. She’d never had an anniversary before. But then again, neither had Max, so . . .

Her thoughts ended abruptly when Max pulled a small box out of his jeans pocket, the kind small enough to hold something like . . . a ring. She tried to remain calm, but she felt her eyes grow wide and her heart beat faster out of fear. What kind of gift was this, exactly? She was worried.

“Here,” Max said, placing it into her hand.

He’s not getting down on one knee, Maria noted. That’s a good sign.

“Open it,” he urged.

With shaking fingers, Maria opened the lid of the small box. Inside was indeed a ring, a very big, shiny diamond ring. Again, her eyes bulged.

“Don’t worry. It’s not what you think it is,” Max assured her. “It’s a promise ring. Whenever you wear it, you can remember how I feel about you.”

He’s way too good to me, Maria thought, staring down at the diamond in amazement. She’d never had such a piece of jewelry before. It must have cost him a pretty penny. He didn’t have money like that to toss around. “It’s beautiful,” she told him.

“Not half as beautiful as you.”

She let out a shaky sigh, feeling worse than ever. I should just end things with him before it gets worse, she thought. I’m leading him on, and that’s not right. This guy’s my friend.

This guy loves me.


She felt like pressing her head to her hands and crying, but she couldn’t do that. She wanted to. She felt so confused, so angry with herself, so guilty for letting Max give her this gift. But even though she wanted to break down for a moment and let it all out, she didn’t. For some reason, she couldn’t.

“Here,” Max said, reaching over to take the ring out of the box. “Hold out your hand.”

She held out her right hand and watched as he slid the ring on her finger. It really was stunning. It shone in the sun like nothing she had seen before, and she felt privileged to wear it. But she didn’t feel like she deserved to wear it.

“You like it?” Max asked her.

“I love it,” she said, which was true. She did love it. She just didn’t feel good about it. “Thank you, Max.”

He smiled and nodded once, seeming relieved. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

I know what else you’re hoping I’ll say, she thought. You’re hoping I’ll say, ‘I love you.’ But she could never say those words.

Not to him, anyway.









TBC . . .

-April
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LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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