Author: Jenny
Disclaimer: Do I own it? Nah, don’t think so.
Pairing: Kyle-centric, Kyle/Maria (Michael/Maria implied)
Rating: MATURE
Summary: Both feeling depressed about their love lives, Maria and Kyle seek comfort in one another.
Author’s Note: It’s official. I am a Kyle shipper whore.
This takes place in the same universe as my story, To Sunrise from Indigo, but it’s not really necessary to read that in order to understand this one (though I won’t stop you from reading it if you want to 
). In that story, Kyle confesses to Isabel that he and Maria once shared a special evening together, which is what this little ficlet is. It’s about five years after Alex’s death, Maria and Kyle are 22-23 years old, living on their own. Maria is still caught in her on-again/off-again relationship with Michael, and Kyle has just been casually dating an endless string of women. Title comes from the Better Than Ezra song of the same name.Thanks to kerri240879 for beta-ing!
***
From Part 4 of To Sunrise from Indigo
“All righty, so the score is tied,” Kyle said.
“The score?” Isabel questioned.
“Yeah, in our little secret sharing game. Care to keep going?”
Isabel rolled her eyes and said, “Fine, you go.”
“Okay, let’s make this round a little more interesting,” he said, rubbing his hands together as if plotting some evil ploy, and Isabel laughed despite her apprehension.
“One night about five or six years ago, Maria and I made out.”
“What?!” Isabel practically screeched.
Kyle laughed, as if that was the reaction he’d been expecting from her. “Yeah, it was during one of her off periods with Michael, and I’d just gotten back from a really bad date. We were both feeling a little lonely and depressed, and one thing led to another… and she’d kill me if she knew I was telling you this.”
“Oh my god. What happened?”
“Well, it didn’t go any further that a little fooling around, and we both felt pretty weird about it the next day. We chalked it up to a one-time thing, and never talked about it again.”
***
A soft summer breeze rustled the leaves as Kyle Valenti wearily walked up to his apartment door early on a Friday night. He’d been hoping to have a pleasant, relaxing evening with a nice, interesting girl, but things hadn’t exactly gone as planned, and now he was home before ten o’clock on a Friday night. Just the perfect capper to an already horrible week, he thought to himself disdainfully.
He stopped mid-stride when he arrived at his apartment to find his friend, Maria DeLuca, sitting outside his door, her arms resting on her knees and her head in her hands.
“Maria?” he questioned, and she looked up at him with sad eyes.
“I locked myself out of my apartment,” she explained pitifully in answer to his unasked question. “I was just taking out the trash. But dummy me left my keys and my cell phone inside.”
“How long have you been sitting out here?” he asked, holding out a hand to help her up.
She shrugged. “About an hour, I guess.” Kyle opened the door to his apartment and she followed him inside. “How was your date? I’m guessing not great since you’re home so early.”
Kyle sighed as he dropped his wallet and keys on the kitchen counter. “Date from hell,” he answered. “You want a beer?”
“Please,” Maria responded, taking a seat on his couch.
Kyle grabbed two bottles from the fridge and popped the caps, coming over to join Maria on the couch.
“So what happened?” Maria asked him, taking the beer that he offered to her.
“She seemed so normal when I met her at the barber shop,” Kyle said with a sigh, referring to the young woman he’d met when she’d cut his hair a couple of weeks earlier. “But apparently her job is her life. It was pretty much all she talked about. Different kinds of hair products, different ways to style my hair… total snorefest.”
“Ouch,” Maria responded with a laugh.
“Where are all the normal women in this town?” Kyle asked with a groan. “Do you realize that I haven’t had a steady girlfriend since Liz? And that was like six years ago.”
“Maybe you and Liz should just get back together,” Maria teased. “She and Max broke up.”
“Again?”
“I think it’s for real this time.”
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” Kyle responded with a roll of his eyes. Changing the subject, he asked, “What’s up with you and Michael?”
“Michael who?” Maria asked with disdain.
“Uh oh,” Kyle responded, knowing instantly that all was not well in DeLuca-Guerin Land. He never could keep up with those two. “You guys broke up again? What’d he do this time?”
“He is just never going to be ready to settle down. We’ve been doing this dance since high school, Kyle! Why can’t he just commit to me, once and for all?” Maria threw her hands up in frustration.
“God, aren’t we a pair?” Kyle asked mournfully, taking another swig of his beer.
Maria scoffed. “You and I should just hook up,” she joked. “Say to hell with all of them.”
Kyle glanced over at Maria and chuckled. What happened next was much too quick for his mind to even process, and later he wouldn’t even remember which one of them initiated it. But the next thing he knew, Maria was straddling his lap and his lips were attached to hers.
Their tongues tangled together furiously, Kyle’s arms wrapped tightly around Maria’s waist. Her hands cradled his head, and their bodies rocked together sensually.
Barely breaking for air, Maria grasped the hem of Kyle’s polo shirt and lifted it over his head, tossing it behind the couch, then peeled her own tank top off. Kyle’s hands roamed everywhere – her back, her stomach, her shoulders, and finally, her breasts.
Their lips still attached, Kyle reached around and unclasped Maria’s bra with ease, tossing it aside. Without any hesitation, his lips found her nipple, and she arched her back against him. “Oh my god,” she breathed out. It was the first time that anyone other than Michael had touched her like this, and it was electrifying.
“God, Maria, what are we doing?” Kyle mumbled, kissing a trail back up to her mouth.
“I don’t know,” Maria moaned breathlessly, grinding her hips against the bulge growing in Kyle’s jeans. “But don’t stop.”
Letting his raging hormones be his guide, he flipped their bodies so that Maria was lying on the couch, his body atop hers. His hands fumbled with the tie of her track pants, and she helped him pull them down her legs. Then he stood up long enough to divest himself of his own jeans before rejoining her on the couch.
He kissed her hard, his erection rubbing against her heated center through the thin fabric of their underwear. They were so close… a tiny voice in the back of Kyle’s mind told him that he should stop this, but he wasn’t exactly thinking with the head on his shoulders anymore.
Just as his hand was snaking inside her panties, mere centimeters from touching her heated flesh, the shrill ring of his telephone pierced through the cloud of lust hanging over them. “Fuck!” Kyle cursed in frustration.
He reached over and grabbed the cordless phone off the coffee table, taking a quick glance at the caller ID. His heart (and his erection) fell when he saw whom it was. “It’s Michael,” he told Maria.
Maria immediately sat up, and Kyle calmed his breathing before clicking the on button. “Hey, man,” he answered.
“Hey,” Michael said hurriedly on the other line. “Have you seen Maria? She’s not answering at home or her cell phone.” If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that Michael sounded worried.
Kyle looked over at Maria, who had already stood up and was pulling her clothes back on. “Yeah,” Kyle responded dolefully with the disappointing realization that he wasn’t going to be getting any tonight after all. “Yeah, she’s right here. Hang on.”
He handed the phone off to Maria before gathering his own clothes and getting dressed. Then he quietly slinked off to his bedroom, leaving Maria to once again patch things up with Michael.
***
Kyle rose early the next morning, stumbling out of his bedroom to find Maria in his kitchen making a pot of coffee. “Morning,” she greeted him with an awkward smile.
“Morning,” he responded.
They both fixed their coffee in silence, neither one of them willing to look the other in the eye. Kyle felt like he should say something – anything – about what had happened between them last night. In the light of day, he felt like he could kick himself for letting things get so out of control.
“So thanks for letting me crash on your couch,” Maria said, finally breaking the silence. “I’m gonna go to the office and have them let me back in my apartment.”
“No problem,” Kyle answered, and they sat in silence once again. He took a sip of his coffee, and then he asked, “You and Michael talk?”
Maria nodded. “He wants to meet for lunch, to talk about some stuff.”
“Good… I guess,” Kyle said.
“About last night…” Maria said tentatively, finally acknowledging the elephant in the room.
“Hey, let’s not worry about it,” Kyle interrupted her. “It was a moment of weakness for both of us… a one time thing.”
“Right,” Maria agreed with a nod of her head, and the silence fell over them once again.
Maria was again the one to break the silence, voicing aloud the same question that had been running through Kyle’s mind all night. “If Michael hadn’t called, do you think we would have…”
“Probably,” Kyle answered before she could even finish her question. “But you know, it’s best that we didn’t. Because you’re one of my best friends, Maria, and I’d hate for these sex and dating games to ruin that.”
Maria gave him a genuine smile this time. “Yeah, you’re right.” Then she put her empty coffee cup in the sink. “Well, I’d better go,” she said, heading for the door. “Oh, Kyle?” She turned back around. “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kyle said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You know you’re always welcome to crash here.”
“No, not for that. Just… thank you for making me feel wanted,” she said with a smile. “And hang in there. I know there’s a special girl out there just for you. You’ll find her when the time is right.”
“Thanks, Maria,” Kyle responded. “I’ll see ya later.”
“See ya.”
After Maria was gone, Kyle finished his coffee in thoughtful silence. Despite their constant bickering and breaking up, he knew that Maria and Michael were in it for the long haul. As much as they both tried to deny it sometimes, neither one of them would ever be happy with anyone else.
He hoped that Maria was right. He hoped that there really was a special someone out there who was meant just for him. Because he was tired of just casually dating an endless string of lackluster women, and playing all the games that went along with it.
More than anything, all that Kyle desperately wanted was to fall in love.
The End
AN: And if you’ve read To Sunrise from Indigo, you know that Kyle eventually gets his happy ending.
Thanks for reading!