Roswell Fanatics

Hello my darlings

Update coming your way

But first;

Alison
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Laira
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Chad
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Coccy - And I just have to say that I adooore your avatars!! I'm always using them
roswell3053
behr_able
guel
mareli
paper
MissyMM

and

Elizabeth

You all rock socks (as Chad would say)!! Thank you!!


This one's for Laira. Happy belated birthday!!

Updated Timeline

41. Dream a Little Dream of Me

The Apartment
(2003) Max is 18, Liz is 17

“Liz. Liz!”

The urgency in his voice woke her up. His face was hovering closely above hers, his breath hot on her face.

Heat dried her voice as she croaked, “What?”

She could feel how his grip on her upper arms, which just seconds prior had been used to shake her back to consciousness, began to loosen. Soften. Until his skin only made the contact of a breath against hers, drifting slowly up her bare arms.

“You fell asleep,” he whispered urgently.

Trying to clear the cobwebs from her head, Liz felt the urgency jolt her. “I’m sorry.”

Her slowly awakening brain was working fervently in attempt to decipher why it was such a bad thing that she had fallen asleep. What had she missed?

She shivered as his hands moved further up her arms, creating symmetrical lines of fire that surrounded her.

Her breaths were shallow, strained, as she asked, “Why are you here?”

“The girl’s not real,” he answered, his eyes boring into hers as if begging her to understand.

She blinked. “What?”

His fingers moved with the lightest touch across the skin of her neck. “It’s just a trick.”

Despite herself, a quiet moan escaped her confused lips as his hands anew moved downwards, sliding softly across the top of her collarbone. The dark flicker in his eyes put a halt to her automatic desire to breathe.

Trying to control her erratically beating heart, Liz whispered, “What are you talking about?”

Suddenly he was seated on the couch, the side of his thigh burning against hers, while one of his hands whispered down her neck, down the side of her upper body. His touch sent electrical currents through her body and she tensed in bittersweet anticipation.

Before she had a chance to register what was happening, she was being pulled into a seated position. She blinked, her breath freezing on her lips as his movement brought her face within millimeters of his.

“It’s you I want,” he breathed, the warmth of his breath combined with the passion in his words causing her to tremble in his firm grip.

“Max, I-“ she began, but his blazing lips on her neck put a stop to her words.

“Don’t speak,” he murmured against her shivering skin.

“I-“ Liz gasped, her muffled head trying to make sense of what was happening.

“You never shut up, do you?” Max breathed, his fingers trailing underneath the bottom edge of her navy blue cardigan.

His words ignited something familiar in her and a fire that would normally have her pushing him away now served to fuel the opposite emotion.

Her dazed body was filled with life and without wasting another second, she pushed her hands into his dark hair, urging his head backwards. A sigh of protest whispered across her lips as the motion momentarily separated his lips from her skin. But as soon as his lips lost their contact with her neck, they were desperately recaptured by hers.

Like a starving woman, she frantically molded their lips together. Her heart stumbled as he responded just as fervently to her actions.

His hands were everywhere, but like a well-coordinated dance their hungry hands never bumped into each other, their arms never tangled impossibly.

She shivered as his warmth enveloped her, his hands moving up her back underneath her cardigan. Not really knowing how, she suddenly found herself on his lap, her fingers caressing his neck restlessly as her mouth made love to his.

Her hips rocked against his, trying to get closer in frustrated attempt to alleviate the ache she was feeling.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Max breathless voice brushed against her cheek as his body pushed her onto her back on the couch, her thighs falling to the sides to accommodate his body. Gasping for air, Max pulled away from Liz’s bruised lips and instead initiated a trail of kisses down her chest, down the center of the modest cleavage her V-shaped cardigan presented.

His fingertips burned her skin as he opened the top button of her cardigan, the wetness of the subsequent kiss momentarily soothing the burn until only a fraction of a second later burn with the lingering passion.

Unbuttoning another button, an action immediately followed by his lips, Max made his way down her front in an oddly orderly fashion, making her back instinctively arch up against his touch.

Reaching her bellybutton, Max slid his hands inside the cardigan from the center, flushing his palms with the fair skin over her ribs, the sides of his thumbs pressing up against the underside of her breasts.

His blazing eyes met hers and her heart fumbled in its automatic task. A slow smile spread across his lips as his eyes flickered between her red lips and her half-lidded eyes. “Lizzie Parker.” She whimpered, the huskiness in his statement making her weary with want. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

Her cardigan was still covering her up, but his hands had discovered that she had put all of her bras in the laundry that morning, leaving none available for her to wear.

A blush so strong that it burned against her skin flushed her cheeks and her body trembled as she managed a weak shake of her head.

Keeping his eyes locked with hers, she felt his hands leave the flatness of her ribs and move upwards, softly encasing her breasts in his hands. Something flickered in his eyes and her chest rose and froze with the next breath, afraid of the sensations she might feel if she moved again.

Then his thumbs swept once across her nipples and she couldn’t stop the clenching of her thighs around his hips or the soft groan from escaping her being.

“Max…”
“-no fucking idea what they’re doing,” Michael’s voice drifted through the opening door, his incomplete statement followed by the noise of his keys hitting the table.

Max walked in behind him, a lollipop in his mouth as he absent-mindedly listened to Michael’s spiel of frustration.

He was to become even less in tune with Michael’s words as his eyes drifted to the couch and the sleeping beauty occupying it.

Michael was just a second behind in noticing. “She asleep?”

Max gave a vague shrug of his shoulders in response, his eyes lingering on Liz Parker’s face sleeping face, as his tongue absent-mindedly swirled around the sweet lollipop.

Michael gave a short nod and started walking towards his room to get what he had come for. “Don’t wake her up, okay?”

“Sure man,” Max agreed, not having heard a single word Michael had just said.

A small smile on his face, one plan after the other of how to wake her up flickering through his head, Max slowly approached the couch.

It was when he was standing there, gazing down at her sleeping features, scheming and finishing off the last of his lollipop, that one word drifted past her lips, the single syllable shaped in a groan of pleasure.

“Max…”

He froze, for a second wondering if she knew that he was there and was playing a trick on him, until he noticed the REM-flicker of her eyes beneath her eyelids indicating that Liz Parker was completely at the mercy of her dream world.

The desire rippled through him so suddenly it weakened his legs as his breathing became shallow in his ears and his eyes grew darker.

“Kitten?” he said softly and watched to his amazement Liz arch her back tantalizingly slowly upwards in response, a repeat of his name on her lips.

Shooting a quick glance down the hallway to make sure that Michael was not on his return yet, Max dropped to his knees next to the couch.

Hesitating only for a brief second, he placed his hand against her cheek. His heart clenched and his body tightened as she leaned her face into his hand. Licking his lips, he kept his hand cradled against her cheek while his other hand brushed through her hair.

“Don’t stop…” she murmured, causing his heart to hammer away at an even faster speed in his chest.

Leaning in close, so close that his lips brushed against her skin with each syllable, he whispered, “Are you awake?”

“Touch me,” she whimpered and he swallowed.

Feeling like he was doing something wrong, Max stretched his neck to look over the back of the couch to make sure that Michael was not anywhere close, before he refocused his attention on Liz.

Placing his index finger gently against her upper lip, he slowly began to trace it, his eyes following the movement of his finger with enthralled fascination.

He watched as her lips shaped themselves around his finger as she kissed his touch.

“I can’t find it.”

Max’s hand ripped away from Liz’s body as Michael’s voice drifted across the hallway and he quickly stumbled to his feet. He managed to get himself to a safe inconspicuous distance from Liz by the time Liz’s big brother reached the living room.

In the same second as Michael crossed into the living room, Liz’s eyes flew open.

Having glanced in her direction at the right time, Michael saw her wake up and grinned, “Morning, sleepyhead.”

Captivated, Max watch Liz’s face turn bright red as she fumbled herself into a seated position, disoriented eyes scanning the situation she had found herself in.

Raising one eyebrow and having no great success at keeping the knowing tone out of his voice, Max asked, “Sweet dreams?”

Liz’s head snapped into Max’s direction so abruptly that she was at risk of dislocating her neck and her face turned if possible an even deeper shade of red.

“Wh-what are you guys doing here?” she breathed, trying to get her emotions under control.

It didn’t help that the main person of her dream was standing across the room, darkness in his eyes as he casually leaned against the wall, surrounded by a field of sex. Trying to ignore the flashes of the still very present dream in her head and struggling to ignore the feel of Max’s hands and lips running across her body, Liz’s hands were trembling as she brushed them through her tousled hair.

“Do you know where my phone is?” Michael asked.

Liz swallowed and tore her eyes away from Max’s. Her thoughts were all on Max as she tried to figure out what her brother had just said. “Sorry?”

Michael sighed. “My phone. Have you seen it?”

Shaking her head slowly, Liz’s unseeing eyes dropped to her lap.

Michael frowned and concern tightened his stance. “Are you okay?”

He had suddenly noticed that she looked a bit flushed.

As Liz raised her head to assure him that she was fine, Michael pressed a cool hand against her forehead.

“Mike?” she whined, partly embarrassed, partly annoyed as she pulled away from his hand. “What are you doing?”

“Are you sick?”

“I’m fine, Michael,” she bit out.

“What crawled up your ass?” Michael bit back, not appreciating her attitude.

“Yeah, Shorty,” Max inserted. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

Liz didn’t have to look at him to know that he was wearing his patent-proofed smug right now. How in the world did she end up having a sex dream about Max Evans? She frowned. Maybe she was sick.

“Peachy,” she snapped, directing her venom in Max’s direction.

As her gaze stumbled against his dark eyes, a shiver of fear trickled down her spine. Had she been talking in her sleep? Had she unknowingly provided them with information about her dream?

Flickering her eyes into Michael’s direction and watching him give up on her with a sigh and walk into the kitchen area to continue the search for his phone, she was pretty certain Michael didn’t know anything. But with Max’s burning eyes at the back of her neck, she was equally certain that Max knew exactly what she had been dreaming about.

“Do you wanna come with us, Lizzie?” Max asked, watching her profile intently for every flicker of emotion. Her face was mesmerizing. Liz Parker always carefully guarded every emotion except anger on her face. But she was currently too busy trying to figure out what was going on to remember to put the guard up, instead providing Max with every emotion known to man as each and every one of them were dancing across her face.

Before she could reply, Max added, “Or would you rather go back to your dream?”

With the sound of drawers being pulled out and content being rummaged through, Liz lowered her voice to a hiss as she faced Max. “Whatever you think you know-“

A slow smile twitched his lips. “I bet it was a good dream.”

Her fists tightened next to her body as the anger propelled her to her feet. With ten rapid steps she was standing right in front of him.

Resisting the urge to jab her finger into his chest for emphasis, she practically growled, “Do you think it was about you?”

Confidence soaked into each well-planned detail of his face as he leaned in close, making sure that her eyes could not evade his. “Yes.”

His confidence bit into hers and she felt herself faltering, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were having a wet dream, weren’t you?”

She knew she should be disgusted with his words, but instead of tempting her to hit him, the words tempted her to wrap her legs around his waist and have her way with him.

She swallowed.

He observed.

She unconsciously bit her lower lip as she considered what to say next.

Her unconscious movement curled his hands into tight fists to stop himself from reaching out and kissing her.

Pushing her feelings down to her feet, she took a deep breath and said with feigned resignation, “Okay…fine.”

Max heart stilled. She was going to admit it?

“I was having a…dream,” Liz squeezed the words past seemingly reluctant lips. “About Brad…Pitt.”

Fighting the need to roll his eyes, Max took a deep breath. So, that’s how she wanted to play this. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “I had no idea Brad’s nickname was…Max.”

Liz visibly paled.

Had she actually said his name or was he just testing her? Noticing the twinkle in his eyes she suddenly felt very weak. God, she had said his name.

“It’s not what you think,” she whispered.

He placed his index finger against her forehead and slowly slid it down the side of her face. His voice was husky as he murmured, “Lizzie Lizzie Lizzie.”

“It wasn’t like that,” she continued, not sure if she was getting through to him or if she was just digging herself a grave.

“What was I doing?” Max whispered, honest curiosity briefly lighting his eyes. “In your dream?”

Her breaths felt strained in her chest. His presence was boiling around her, almost suffocating her with sexual magnetism.

“I wasn’t dreaming about you,” she tried again, her voice weak this time. Completely devoid of confidence.

His voice dropped another octave, the intimacy of his tone softening the word sensually. “Kitten…”

“Ha! Found it!”

Liz took a big step backwards and Max straightened, worriedly looking into Michael’s direction as he first now realized just how close to Liz he had been standing.

“Are you coming with us, Lizzie?” Michael wondered, walking blindly towards the front door where Liz and Max were standing, his full attention on his phone as he checked his messages.

Liz took a deep breath, emotionally distancing herself from Max. “Where’re you goin’?”

Michael looked up from his phone. “Cinema.”

Liz rolled her eyes. Of course. “What are you seeing?”

“The Matrix,” Michael answered with an obvious ‘duh’ expression on his face.

Liz gave her brother a tight smile. “Surprise.”

“You wanna come?” Michael asked.

Avoiding the burning look Max was sending in her direction she firmly shook her head. “Nah.”

Michael shrugged non-committedly. “Cool.” Facing Max, Michael pushed his phone into his back pocket. “Let’s go, man.”

As Michael lead the way out the door, Max turned around just as he was about to close the door behind them, making sure that Michael was well out of ear-shot. “Sweet dreams, Lizzie.”

Liz’s heart dropped to her chest as goosebumps spread across her body and then his eyes left hers and the door closed in front of her.

Taking a deep trembling breath, Liz’s fist tightened in search for self-control. Not finding it, she kicked the wall. “Stupid!”

Then she went to her room and turned her music up as loud as it would go as she hid her still flustered face underneath her pillow and tried to wish the fantasies about the boy she dearly wanted to just hate out of her mind.


TBC...

my last update as a veterinary student

hopefully you won't have to wait too long for the next update, but my exams are coming up and I won't be writing anything in the next ten days.

Laira
Ashley
guel
Kris
Alien_Friend
Natalie36
Alison
Christina
yayaliens
trulov
roswell4life
scorpio6
destiny
Emma
MissyMM
booboo
bella_svetlana
roswell3053
Christable
Eve
carolina_moon
heavenli24
coccy
Sara
Nikki04
behr_able
Carrie
Ronnie
Egyptian_Kiss

and

Elizabeth

Thank you everyone!!!

This chapter is slightly in the same time era as the previous one.

Updated Timeline

42. Painters

The Apartment
(2003) Max is 18, Liz is 17

“Hey pancake, do you wanna help us out?”

Liz slowly looked up from her book. “What did you just call me?”

Max was leaning against the doorway, his arms folded casually across his chest, his left ankle crossed over his right. Cocking his head to the side, he asked with a curious grin, “What? You don’t like it?”

She stared at him as if he had gone insane. “Pancake? Yeah, right. What’s there not to like? Let’s see. Pancakes; Round. Floppy. Smeared with sticky syrup. You’re right.” She broke out in a wide sarcastic grin. “I absolutely adore that nickname.”

“Come on, Parker. I thought girls loved being called food things. Like…” His voice lowered huskily as he pushed off the doorframe and walked into the room; his movements slow and deliberate with a seductive crooked smile on his lips. “Honey.” An involuntary shiver raced through Liz’s body and she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from his advance as he was gradually got closer to the bed she was occupying. “Sugar.” Max stopped in front of her, looking down at her, unmasked hunger in his eyes. “Sweet pea.” Every nerve in her body began to quiver and an uncontrollable blaze warmed her from the inside out as his gaze began to wander unhindered across her body, pausing in places that had her struggling not to moan out loud.

She tried to pull herself out of his spell, tried to look away from his transfixing eyes, but part of the curse he was placing her under was the knowing smirk on his lips. The fact that he knew exactly how much he was affecting her in that very second.

He bent down, bringing his face within breathing distance from hers, and slowly traced the line of her jaw to place an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “How about Pumpkin?”

“I-I think…what are you…No…”

Max’s eyes twinkled in amusement as she struggled to string together a proper sentence. The twinkle effectively snapped Liz out of her temporary daze.

Max instantaneously saw the change in her eyes as her defenses went up and the challenging air of her stubbornness leaked into the tightening of her facial features.

Calmly, he awaited the explosion.

But Liz merely smiled at him, telling him in a sweet stable voice, “If you don’t get out of here right now, I’m gonna hurt you.” She hitched her chin in the direction of her knee, where it was perfectly positioned between his legs. All she had to do was kick upwards and Max would be wishing he had never gotten to know Liz Parker.

Max’s face paled as he followed her silent directions, cleared his throat and took a step back. To a safe distance from her dangerous legs. “So… You don’t want to help your brother out? It’s your apartment after all. Maybe you should chip in.”

Appearing bored, Liz shook her head. “You have to try harder than that, Evans.”

Max licked his lips slowly before assaulting her senses with another crooked smile and drawling, “You want me to smear you in syrup, pancake?”

Her heart missed a beat before she forced herself to scrunch her face in disgust. “Ew. Get out of my room, pervert.”

But Max thought it was way too much fun to bother Liz. Ignoring her orders was only part of the fun. He gestured towards all the moving boxes cluttering the floor. “When are you gonna unpack? Shouldn’t you unpack before you start reading your erotic novels?”

A faint blush spread across her cheeks at Max’s insinuations and she pushed the book closed, waving it threateningly in his direction. “At least I can read. Unlike some people.”

“Just because I appreciate the art of pictures more than boring words doesn’t mean I can’t read, pancake.”

Something snapped in her and she shot to her feet. “Stop calling me that!”

Max started to laugh as Liz’s face turned redder as she got increasingly angry and the embarrassment turned deeper.

“Michael!!” she yelled.

“Michael,” Max imitated in a high-pitched voice, still recovering from his fit of laughter. Seriously, Liz Parker was hilarious when she got angry.

Liz stepped up and slapped him on his arm with her book. “I don’t sound like that!”

“I don’t sound like that,” Max parroted in the same falsetto voice.

“Okay, kids,” Michael announced from the doorway. “Could we kiss and make up now?”

Max wiggled his eyebrows in interest at Liz at Michael’s words, causing Liz to squeeze her lips tightly together against another scream and thereby preventing herself from afflicting Max with another book attack.

Michael, having missed Max’s flirtatious gesture, stared at his sister. “Looks like you need to paint, Liz.”

Liz’s eyes opened wide. “What?”

Seeing Max’s wide smile, she started to shake her head. “No. No, Michael. I don’t want to paint.”

“It needs to dry for at least a day,” Michael said. “So we need to get it done now. We can’t move stuff in before it dries.”

“I don’t want to paint,” Liz whined.

“Come on, pancake,” Max said.

Liz raised her book to slam it against Max when Michael stepped in between and removed the weapon from his sister’s hand.

“Okay, you’re driving me insane. Stop it.”

“Yes, mom,” Max and Liz said in unison and then looked at each other with a ‘oh come on’ look before Michael interrupted their silent conversation by grabbing a hold of Liz’s elbow.

“Let’s go paint, sis. This is what the people who can’t afford painters do.”

Liz resisted the temptation to step on Max’s foot as she walked past him, reluctantly trotting after her brother. “Then why are we doing it? We can afford painters.”

Max’s voice was close, too close, as he said, “It’s for the bonding experience.”

Liz shivered as his warm breath brushed against the back of her neck. Swirling her head around to stare at him with dark hatred she bit out, “Then what are you doing here?”

With a wink, Max refrained from answering her question and instead looked up at Michael. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah?” Michael asked, only mildly interested as he pulled Liz into the middle of the living room.

“We should paint the apartment in our underwear.”

Liz gaped at him while Michael rolled his eyes. “Dude. That would be an excellent idea if there was some hot chicks here-“

“Hey!” Liz protested, causing Michael to look at her oddly.

“You’re my sister!”

Liz pouted and mumbled, “Still.”

“Come on,” Max said, crushing Liz to his side. “Liz is hot.”

Liz narrowed her eyes at the joking quality of his voice and had the sudden urge to push his head into one of the buckets filled with paint. What he said next didn’t exactly help to smother that urge, “You know Tess-“

Liz rolled her eyes as she was attacked by the familiar suffocating feeling of not being able to breathe which happened every time Max mentioned his newest love interest. Warping her voice, she mimicked, “You know Tess.”

Taking no notice of her behavior, Max continued, “She has it as a rule that whoever paints her apartment with her has to be in their underwear. And apparently she repaints like every second week or something.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “Sweet. You should invite her over, man.”

“Should we paint or what?” Liz interrupted before Max could seriously consider inviting the blonde over.

Michael handed her a paintbrush. “Here.”

Liz walked over to one of the paint buckets and stared down into it. “Did you know that red makes you eat more?”

“Red is the color of love,” Max swooned from the other corner of the room as he used a screwdriver to pry the lid off another bucket of paint.

Liz looked at her brother in plead for salvation. “Does he have to be here?”

Michael just shrugged. “We’re just painting one wall in red. Apparently it’s the in-thing.”

“Says who?” Liz wondered.

“Maria.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Whipped.”

Max looked up from dipping his paintbrush in the light chocolate color and nodded in agreement.

Liz sighed. “So, which wall is supposed to be red?”

Michael pointed her in the right direction and she pulled her bucket of red paint up to the wall, immersing the brush into the paint and was just about to put the brush against the wall when Max appeared behind her, putting his bucket of brown paint next to hers.

She looked at him in annoyance. “Do you have to be so close?”

He nodded. “Sorry, but yes.”

“I hate you.”

He smiled. “Right back atcha, pancake.”

“Why’s he calling you pancake?” Michael asked curiously.

“Because it’s just so fitting,” Max answered before Liz had the chance to.

Liz shrugged and stated in an obvious tone, “He’s an idiot. He can’t see the difference between me and something you eat.”

Max took a step closer to her and whispered in a volume that only she could hear, “I bet you’re delicious too.”

She flushed a bright red and took a step away from him. “Can’t you paint over there?”

As she went about pointing with her paintbrush, she accidentally flung some of the paint from the brush into Max’s direction.

The paint landed beautifully smack in the center of Max’s face, a sprinkle of small red dots across his nose.

“Whoops,” was the only word Liz got out with a straight face before she started laughing.

Having felt the cold droplets against his skin, Max slowly moved his hand across his face as Liz continued to laugh at him, picking up the paint and unbeknownst to him, spreading it just a little bit more over his face.

Which had Liz laughing even harder.

“Oh man, you’ve got paint on your face,” the helpful friend pointed out, which had Liz doubling over, holding her already aching stomach against the laughter that was making her abdominal muscles cramp.

“Thanks for the news flash,” Max said sarcastically, the feeling of revenge boiling underneath the surface as he watched Liz laugh herself silly over his appearance. “What’s so funny, Lizzie?”

But Liz could merely shake her head, the laughter disabling her from forming any eligible sentences.

Staring at her for a second, trying to decide if he found her incredibly adorable or infuriately annoying, Max walked up to her, raised his paintbrush in front of him and to Liz’s utter shock made a perfect stroke of the brush down her cheek.

Liz’s laughter came to an abrupt halt.

Michael looked away from his careful painting of the wall at the sudden silence, noted Max’s triumphant smirk before seeing the paint dripping off Liz’s face about the same time that he saw the raw fire in her eyes. Disaster was on its way. “Oh shit…”

Without a word, Liz shoved her paintbrush into Max’s face. Fortunately, he had his mouth closed when this happened otherwise the war might’ve taken a dangerously serious turn rather quickly.

“You little…” Max mumbled through layers of paint, the words causing paint to touch the insides of his lips and he almost gagged at the metallic taste.

Wiping his face with the back of one hand, he used the other to dip his paintbrush back into the paint bucket.

Michael could see catastrophe unfold before his very eyes. “Eh…guys?”

Max landed a drenched brush onto Liz’s chest, the impact sending a wet noise of danger bouncing off the walls.

Liz took one murderous look at Max and then all hell broke lose.

Liz lunged herself at Max, causing them to fall to the floor in a frenzied tangle of limbs. Wasting no time, Liz reached for the closest paint bucket with an animalistic growl, shoved her whole hand into the thick liquid and before Max had a chance to react she was smearing paint all over his face, everywhere.

“Hey, don’t waste the paint!” Michael ordered to deaf ears.

Max looked up at the tigress straddling his waist, with something that fittingly could be war painting on one side of her cheek, and against his self-control felt the hot blaze of desire building up in him. Her weight on his body was temptingly frustrating, the fire in her dark eyes was unnervingly mesmerizing and the blush on her uncolored left cheek was passionately red.

“You really want to do this?” Max asked slowly.

Liz narrowed her eyes and bent down, bringing their faces close. “Bring it on, baby.”

Two red-painted eyebrows rose in appreciative amusement before he pushed her off him, causing her to roll to her side and look up at him a second before he plastered recently paint-covered hands across the exposed part of her chest.

Liz gasped at the cold sticky sensation, mixing with the previous paint that was already starting to stagnant on her skin. “You bastard!”

“Oh come on, Shorty,” Max cooed. “You started it.”

Her hands flung to her side in the optimum of frustration, she practically yelled, “It was an accident!”

Max laughed. “Just because I’m winning, you’re not liking the game anymore?”

“Guys?” Michael sighed tiredly. “Could we not do this? We need to finish painting.”

But Michael might’ve just as well been invisible.

“Fine,” Max said, opening his arms in a gesture of resignation. “Do your best.”

Too angry to listen to the voice that told her he was winning by giving her a handicap, Liz grabbed a bigger brush and thoroughly drenched it in red paint.

“Lizzie…” Michael said, his voice strained with warning. “What are you-“

Before he had a chance to finish that sentence, Liz pushed the paintbrush in Max’s direction with a warrior scream echoing around her. Before the brush made contact with Max’s T-shirt, his hand came up and he pushed the brush backwards. Straight into Liz’s unexpectant face.

She gasped around the color as Max started laughing. Not being able to resist how ridiculous Liz looked, Michael joined in shortly thereafter.

Trying to stop the paint from getting into her eyes, Liz tried wiping the paint off her skin between screamed curses and ‘I hate you’s.

Blindly, she reached for the closest paint bucket, filled her small hand with the thick liquid and threw in the direction of his laughter. The silencing of his laughter told her that she had hit her mark.

The war was on.

She removed most of the paint from her face with the front of her T-shirt so that she could see the opponents.

Everyone against everyone.

Ten minutes later, Max tiredly sank to the floor, exhausted laughter drying on his lips along with the paint. Liz laid down next to him, taking a deep breath. Michael sat down next to his sister, looking over the paint now covering his two days old jeans.

Three pairs of eyes looked in silence at the walls surrounding them. The walls that had previously been white were now sprinkled in different colors in the most disorganized pattern.

“We should keep it like this,” Liz said.

“Yeah,” Max agreed.

“It’s actually kinda cool,” Michael stated.

The ringing of a phone interrupted their quiet reflections and Max fumbled through his paint covered pants for the ringing object.

Glancing at the caller id, Liz noticed him freeze a fraction of a second before he jumped to his feet.

“Hello?” His voice gradually reduced in volume as he disappeared down the hallway.

Liz turned to look at her brother whose frown was matching hers. “What was that about?”

Michael shrugged. “Dunno.”
Twenty minutes later

She found him in her room. His head was resting heavily in his hands. His phone had been discarded next to his still form.

Her voice was cautious, softly breaking through the silence. “Max?”

He lifted his head and looked at her, weariness radiating out of his eyes so strongly that she felt sadness grip every cell of her body.

“Liz,” he said equally softly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take your room.” He grabbed the phone and rose from the bed. “I’ll be out of your hair-“

Liz frowned. When had Max ever apologized for being in her room? “What’s wrong?”

Max stilled and scratched the back of his neck, doing an excellent job at avoiding her eyes. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Normally she wouldn’t care, but “Who was that one the phone?”

“My dad’s lawyer.”

“Oh,” Liz breathed warily. “Why is he calling you?”

Max sighed. “Because my dad won’t pick up the phone.”

Liz looked at him oddly. “Why not?”

Max grimaced. He didn’t really feel like going into the details right now. No one really knew how bad things were between him and his dad. No one really knew how his father spent hours and hours locked up in his study, avoiding reality. No one really knew that Max had been working two jobs over the last couple of months to be able to pay bills. Not that he minded the work. That and arguing with Liz were the only things distracting him from thinking about his dead mother.

“Let’s just say he’s not that chatty nowadays.”

Liz observed him closely. For some reason, he suddenly looked different. He looked tired. She noticed every evasive movement and every tired line across his forehead.

Neither of them had broached the subject of his mother’s death since the funeral and Liz didn’t want to force him to talk about it if it was too hard for him. She just thought that if he couldn’t talk to her about it, he would talk to Michael about it. She hadn’t realized that instead of talking to her brother about it, Max might’ve just closed everything inside of him.

She swallowed. “Since your mom…?”

He nodded mutely and pushed the phone into his back pocket. “Anyway…” Looking up, he met her eyes for a second, the anguish she momentarily saw in his eyes pushing sharply into her chest. “I’m gonna go.”

Her hand on his arm stopped him as he walked past. “Max…”

As if knowing what she wanted to say, he turned to her and smiled at her softly, “It’s okay, kitten.”

“I know we always play rough, but if you ever need to-“

Her heart fluttered as he pressed his index finger against her lips, putting a halt to her offer. “Thanks.”

Her eyes begged him to unload on her, but the bittersweet agony in his eyes told her the likelihood of that happening was very low. A warmth spread from the tip of his finger where it was connected to her lip, down her neck, straight into her heart making her want to cry. Cry for his pain.

“Sorry about your hair,” he whispered as his finger slowly slid down her lips causing her breath to tremble in her chest.

Being a stranger to a situation of this character, Liz produced an insecure smile while her hand touched the dried paint in her hair. “Yeah, I might have to shave my head if I can’t get the paint out.”

He smiled. “I hope not. I like your hair.”

A tentative thrill rushed through her erratically beating heart and she looked at him curiously. “You sure you’re alright?”

The smile slowly fell off his lips and he nodded before leaning in towards her.

Her heart almost stopped.

Was he going to kiss her?

The shock paralyzed her to the spot and then he planted a soft lingering kiss against her forehead. “See you later, pancake.”

There was a twinkle in his eyes as he straightened up and her arms itched to hug him. Her whole soul itched to put her arms around him in a tight hug.

But she didn’t.

“It’s Liz,” she corrected without the regular venom, the concern for him softening her voice into a near whisper.

“Whatever you say,” he whispered back and if she was not mistaken there was gratitude in his eyes as he with one final wink turned and walked out the room, leaving her stunned and unsure of where she stood with her arch nemesis.

TBC...

So, I momentarily escaped my cramming to check my emails. The emails lead me here, which had me discover that the results of the RF Awards had been released.

And guys... I'm speechless. This is like the best graduation present ever. Thanks to your votes, this story was given 6 awards. I'm...I don't know what to say. Thank you just doesn't seem enough for what I'm feeling right now.

I'm so happy you're enoying this story, because I'm so enjoying writing it and it has probably been the only thing stopping me from going insane this year. Thank you thank you thank you thank you and so on. I love you, guys <3












for Max and Liz in the closet (Prologue)

You all rule!

If I survive the exams I will be returning before the end of next week. Hah, probably even if I don't survive the exam I'll be back because depression tends to make me want to write.

xoxo
Jo

Hello!

I'm so sorry it's been so long since the last update. Life has been...fun, for once And now half of you probably won't know I'm updating because there seems to be something wrong with the notifications on this board...

But anywho... I'm here, and I'm updating.

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paper wrote:Did they leave the paint job as is? I'm thinking of doing that type of thing on my cement basement floor.
Can you send the three over to me. I'll send at least two back.

Yep, they just left it like that. Uhm... I have a feeling if I send them over to your place, the rest of the story will be about how they try to escape from your basement.
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Elizabeth - for editing. You rock, as usual

THANK YOU everyone!! And thank you so much for the congratulations on me finishing school

Updated Timeline


43. Ain’t No Sunshine

The Parkers’ Residence
Thanksgiving
(1992) Michael is 8, Liz is 6

Liz jumped with the sound of the vase smashing into the wall and she clutched the stuffed bunny closer to her chest as the angry voices continued downstairs.

Her mother was upset about something. Crying and screaming. She seemed angry. But mostly sad. Her father was screaming at her mother and there was so many frightening sounds coming from the first floor that Liz was clutching her small hands to her ears in attempt to drown it out.

Pulling her bunny by the ears, she climbed off the bed and walked up to her walk-in closet. There was already a large pillow on the floor from when she used to sit in there and play with her stuffed animals and she plumped down on it, burying her face into the fluffy fur of Mr. Big Ears.

She tensed as she heard the door to her room open but quickly relaxed as his voice drifted through the dim light of her bedroom.

“Lizzie? You in here?”

She slid the wardrobe door to the side and poked her tear-stained face out. “I’m here.”

Her big brother had a blanket wrapped around him and was carrying a flashlight in his hand. He crawled into the closet next to his little sister, closed the sliding door and wrapped the blanket around both of them, constructing a hiding place from the rest of the world.

As the blanket came to sit over them and the darkness became more palpable, Michael turned on the flashlight. He smiled comforting at his little sister as she blinked up at him with large wounded eyes. “You want me to tell you a story?”

She nodded quickly, wanting Michael to make the scary outside world go away.

“Do you have Mr. Big Ears?” Michael asked and Liz nodded seriously.

Liz had more or less grown out of the bunny, but it was during times like these that she reverted back to her younger insecurities and the stuffed animals provided her with some comfort.

“Okay,” Michael said and took a deep breath. “What do you want to hear?”

“Tell me again about the time when you and dad went fishing,” Liz replied and then her eyes widened as she remembered the last story Michael had told.

It had been one of the few times that Mr. Parker had spent some quality time with Michael and Liz loved hearing him tell that particular story because Michael always sounded so happy.

“Again?”

“Please?”

He smiled. “Alright.”

Liz relaxed against him, curling into his side while she clutched the bunny in her arms. “How does it start?”

“It was raining that day,” Michael began and Liz squeezed her brother’s T-shirt in her small hands, already listening intently. “Dad woke me up when it was still dark outside…”

The quarrel downstairs was quickly drowned out.
13 years later

The Parkers’ Residence
Thanksgiving
(2005) Michael is 21, Max is 20, Liz is 19


“Elizabeth, please tell Gabriela to replace that wine glass. It has a fingerprint on it.”

Liz sighed, “Yes, mother,” having no intention of telling Gabriela that.

There was no need for the already overloaded Gabriela to replace slightly dirty wine glasses as well when Liz was perfectly able to do so herself.

Ridiculously enough, Liz automatically felt like she was doing something wrong while walking over to the mini-bar where the different types of wine glasses collected from various places around Europe were displayed through glass doors of numerous cabinets. If her mother had seen her doing the job of a servant, Liz would have been firmly scolded.

Setting the table or helping out with the cooking did not suit a lady.

She grabbed a new wine glass, made sure it was clean, put it on the table and then walked in the direction of the kitchen with the smudged glass.

The rich smells of the delicious Thanksgiving dinner Gabriela and three other cooks had spent the whole day preparing filled her nose as she entered the kitchen.

An instantaneous smile spread across her lips and the glass forgotten on the counter, she walked up to Gabriela and threw her arms around the old woman’s middle.

Gabriela laughed in surprise and lightly patted Liz’s hand with one of her drier hands. “How are you, Miss Liz?”

“Eh,” Liz sighed non-committedly and dropped her chin on Gabriela’s shoulder.

“Ahh,” Gabriela nodded with insight, “How’s your mother doing?”

“Ready to blow a gasket,” Liz answered.

Gabriela nodded slowly, not really sure what that meant, but understanding the gist of it anyway. “Ah. But dinner ready soon.”

Liz smiled and pushed onto the tip of her toes to stretch across Gabriela’s shoulder and plant a kiss on the woman’s cheek. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Gabriela answered with a smile as Liz let go and stole a cookie, still warm from the oven, on the way out of the kitchen.

The cookie barely touched her lips before it was taken out of her hands.

“Hey,” she protested and looked up to see her mother looking at her with a disapproving expression.

“Sweetie,” she said with sugary sweetness, “There’s a reason why they say ‘A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips’.”

Liz blinked and was just about to retaliate when the door bell rang.

“That would be Michael,” Nancy smiled and disappeared out of Liz’s view.

Liz closed her eyes for a second, trying to build up the reserve energy that had been depleted a long time ago, and inhaled deeply.

As she started for the voices from the hallway, she squared her shoulders and told herself that she could do this. It was just one night. She didn’t even live here anymore. It was just one night.

But then she heard his voice and her steps faltered. Her mother’s fake exclamation confirmed what she had already feared. “Oh Max. How nice that you were able to come!”

There was always mixed feelings whenever Max was around nowadays. There used to be something strange going on between them before that night as well, she couldn’t deny that. But after that night, everything had been so not awkward. She almost wanted it to be awkward. She wanted Max to acknowledge that they had ended up in an impossible situation, and considering that they’d had sex he shouldn’t be acting like nothing had changed.

Granted, he had tried talking about it with her, and she had been the one refusing. But why couldn’t he just leave it at that? Did he have to pretend and go back to how things were before they had mind-blowing-out-of-this-earth sex with each other?

A fresh blush spread across her cheeks as the thoughts brought along a fresh set of memories. It had been almost ten months since that night, but still her body reacted in the most sinful of ways to just the slightest thought trailing in that direction.

It was with rosy cheeks and feigned nonchalance that Liz circled the corner and her eyes automatically fell upon the man that had always had her heart beat irregularly.

Michael spotted his sister and yelled out a, “Hey sis!”

“Michael,” Nancy Parker immediately chastened. “Where are your manners? Didn’t you just see your sister earlier this morning?”

A slight smile tickled Liz’s lips as Michael sent her a look of silent communication, words that were privy to them. Michael’s excitement had obviously been a result of Liz’s entrance saving him from being further assessed by his critical mother rather than seeing Liz herself. Something Liz completely understood.

Max remained in the shadows, silently observing the family dynamics of the Parkers. Thanksgiving with the Parkers was nothing like the Thanksgivings he had grown up with. The love, laughter and warmth was simply lacking in the ridiculously too big mansion. But compared to spending Thanksgiving alone in his apartment, the Parkers were still the better alternative.

Then Liz looked in his direction and he got the strongest feeling that she wasn’t that happy about his presence. Things had been strained between them lately and she hadn’t spent much time at the apartment; instead spending a lot of time with Sean. Something that Max tried not to think too much about.

“Sorry, mother,” Michael said and walked up to Liz to give her a big hug.

“Thank you for coming,” Liz whispered in his ear knowing that he had a standing invitation to spend Thanksgiving with Maria’s family and he could’ve just as easily chosen to escape their mother this Thanksgiving.

“I wouldn’t leave you alone,” Michael replied.

Liz’s arms tightened with gratitude around him and she was smiling as he pulled away. Wearily meeting Max’s eyes, Liz said, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Elizabeth,” Nancy hard voice interjected before Max had a chance to open his mouth. “That’s no way to speak to a guest.”

Liz snapped irritated eyes to her mother and said defensively, “I was just saying-“

Nancy turned to Max with a polite smile, her words cutting Liz’s off, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with her today.”

Her words ripped through Liz’s heart with humiliation and hurt. Her fists tightened along her sides and she bit down hard on her bottom lip to prevent herself from fleeing in tears.

Max’s eyes briefly wandered in Liz’s direction and his attention was only briefly on Mrs. Parker when he responded, “No, that’s okay. I must’ve taken her by surprise. She didn’t know I was going to be here.”

Nancy’s smile was a tad more strained as she said, “Oh well.” Gesturing with her manicured thin hands in her daughter’s direction, Nancy commanded, “Elizabeth, come and say ‘hello’.”

Feeling like she was three years old, Liz’s shoulders slumped as she with heavy feet walked up to Max, making sure not to get too close. Her eyes briefly looked up into his, but the look in his eyes had her quickly look away before the sympathy so evident in his gaze would make her lose the tight control on her emotions.

“Hello, Max,” Liz sighed and saw Max grin out of the corner of her eye.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” Max answered with a tone of mockery that Liz had a feeling her mother would not take notice of.

Before she had a chance to react, Max hand was against her back sending a shiver down to the very tips of her toes, urging her body slightly closer to his. He leaned down to press a greeting kiss on her cheek, but Liz misread his directions and in her distress turned her face towards him rather than away, causing his lips to end up on the corner of her mouth instead of on her cheek.

Her next breath stilled in her chest as she froze on the spot; every nerve ending in her lips being utterly and completely aware of the warmth of his lips as it spread currents of enticing electricity down the side of her face, tickling her lips and tempting the muscles in her neck to turn her head so that she could feel his lips completely against hers.

It only lasted a second before he pulled away. His eyes were searching and emotional as they locked with hers and she exhaled the breath she had been holding, trying to keep herself steady on her feet.

Her fists tightened along her sides and she attempted a smile, which fell flat on her face. Christ, pull yourself together!

His voice was low enough that only she could hear him as he whispered huskily, “You okay there, Parker?”

“What are you doing here?” she whispered back, the words scratching against her suddenly dry throat.

He shrugged, cocking his head to the side in interested amusement. “It was either this or the TV.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Should’ve picked the TV.”

Leaning slightly forward, his voice dropped another octave as he murmured, “But then I would’ve missed out on watching you.”

Warmth spread through her body and she opened her mouth to retaliate, when Nancy interrupted them. “Let’s move into the dining room.”

Liz almost jumped at the sound of her mother’s voice, having momentarily forgotten that she was not alone with Max. Max had the uncanny ability to make her do that.

The slight jump in Max’s features, however, told Liz that she might not be the only one guilty of forgetting their surroundings.

With an almost audible snap, Liz straightened her spine and walked into the direction of the dining room, leaving Max to stare at her retreating figure.
“Michael,” Nancy said, breaking the silence that had descended on the table at the arrival of the food, “How’s the new job?”

“It’s great,” Michael answered before shoving another mouthful of turkey into his mouth. To Nancy’s appall, his next words were spoken around that same mouthful, “The people working there are fantastic.”

Nancy attempted a smile, trying to see beyond the table manners of her son. “That’s really good, honey.”

Chewing away, Michael nodded. “Yeah, it’s great.”

Liz started to make herself look busy by refolding her napkin to avoid the question she knew was coming. But Nancy’s piercing eyes eventually landed on her daughter, something Liz could feel even though she was determined to stare down at the table surface.

“How’s school, Elizabeth?”

Sliding the stuffing around on her plate with her fork, Liz answered, “Good.”

“Don’t play with your food, honey,” Nancy said.

Liz bit her bottom lip and slowly put the fork down on the plate.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Nancy implored.

Liz shrugged. “I don’t have much of an appetite today.”

“Is something wrong?”

Three pairs of eyes snapped to Nancy in surprise. Not that she never uttered a word of concern, it was more that she rarely showed any concern about Liz.

Unsure how to deal with this situation, Liz blinked, “I’m fine, mother.”

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Michael’s fork dropped with a loud ‘clink’ against the plate, Max pretended to be very interested in covering all sides of his piece of turkey in the gravy and Liz blanched while her mouth fell open.

Staring at her mother in disbelief, Liz’s voice was tense and irritated as she wondered if she had heard correctly. “What?”

“You’ve been moody lately,” Nancy said, causing color to slowly rise on Liz’s cheeks.

“I haven’t been-“

“And all the cookies you’ve been eating,” Nancy continued.

Liz gave a short humorless laugh, looking at Michael for help. But he was just staring at her. Her gaze inched towards Max who was eating like he hadn’t heard a thing. Feeling the coldness spread through each cell of her body, her voice was dry as she said, “I haven’t had more than usual.”

“You look like you’re filling out your clothes more,” Nancy remarked.

Almost being past humiliation right now, Liz was struggling between leaving the room and clawing her mother’s eyes out. “How dare-“

A ring tone interrupted Liz and looking towards the sound, she met Max’s sheepish smile. “Sorry.” Pushing out of his chair, he put the phone to his ear while he mouthed another ‘sorry’ to Nancy.

“She’s not pregnant, mom,” Michael said as Liz watched Max disappear from the room.

“Are you aware of how much a child would ruin your future right now?” Nancy continued.

Liz sighed. “I’m not pregnant.”

The familiar Nokia sms-notification tone followed her words, causing Nancy’s face to harden in disapproval as Liz reached for her cell phone.

“Elizabeth, we do not have our phones on during dinner.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, frowning as she saw the sender ID.

Meet me in your room.

Anger she was barely restraining slowly bubbled to the surface. Deciding not to answer, she turned the sound off and put the cell phone away.

“Who is this boy anyway?” Nancy asked.

Liz sighed tiredly. “His name is Sean.”

“How come I haven’t met him yet?”

The phone vibrated on her lap, announcing the arrival of a new message. With only part of her attention on her mother, Liz mumbled, “Because I didn’t want you to ask him to not knock me up,” as she opened her message.

Come on. You know you want to.

Liz missed Nancy’s dismayed gasp as her thoughts were occupied by the internal battle of answering Max’s message or not.

“Of course I wouldn’t ask him that!”

“I don’t know, mother,” Liz said without looking up as she chose ‘reply’ on the phone, “You just humiliated me in front of a non-family member. How do I know you won’t do that in front of my boyfriend?”

You’re pissing my mom off. She doesn’t like phones at the table.

“I’m only looking out for you, Elizabeth,” Nancy said and with a raised voice added, “Elizabeth! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

Reluctantly, Liz looked up and as she did she felt the phone vibrate on her lap with another message. “What, mother?”

“Don’t use that tone with me.”

“You used that tone with me,” Liz said evenly and glanced down at the message.

Say it’s an emergency. You really need to make a phone call. Make something up.

“All I wanted to know was if you are being careful with him,” Nancy said, looking appropriately wounded.

Liz fought the temptation to roll her eyes. Sometimes her mother was embarrassingly transparent.

“I know how to use protection,” Liz said tightly. She really didn’t want to discuss this in front of her big brother. She didn’t want to discuss this, period. What have ever given her mother the idea that she needed a lecture about sex and birth control at the age of 19?

Her fingers moving easily across the buttons, she answered Max; What are you up to?

“Is he treating you alright?” Nancy wondered.

“Mother, please,” Michael said. “I think that’s enough.”

“Gee, Mike,” Liz murmured. “A little bit late, but thanks.”

“Why are you in such a foul mood?” Nancy asked.

Her phone vibrated again and Liz clutched it like a lifeline.

Just come.

The prospect of going into a room with Max was frightening in its own spectacular unfamiliarity, but staying in a room with her mother was even more daunting.

Nancy and Michael looked up at her in surprise as she pushed the chair backwards. “I have to make a phone call.”

“In the middle of dinner?” Nancy said incredulously. “Oh no, you don’t.”

“Is everything okay?” Michael wondered, having seen her sending messages on her phone.

“Something’s happened,” Liz lied. “It’s an emergency. I have to call Sean.”

Catching onto the concern in her son’s voice, Nancy changed tracks. “Is he okay?”

Liz mustered up a smile for her mother, needing the lie to run over smoothly. “I hope he is. I just really need to talk to him.”

“Of course, honey,” Nancy said, true worry in her eyes that had a pang of guilt move through Liz’s heart before she nodded and turned towards the stairs.

Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears as she ascended the steps and her hand was shaking as she pushed open the slightly ajar door to her room.

Max was sitting on her bed.

As she stepped inside, he looked up at her with a half-smile that had her faltering in her beliefs that leaving the table had been the wisest decision.

“You’re difficult to convince,” he said.

She looked at him cautiously, staying close to the door which put ultimate distance between them. “What do you want?”

“Maybe you should thank me,” he said simply.

Her eyes narrowed. “Thank you for what?”

“For pulling you out of there,” he replied with an air of obviousness.

“I didn’t think you noticed,” Liz said tightly, “You seemed so engrossed in your turkey.”

Raising an eyebrow, he dropped his head to follow the movement of his finger tracing the white bed cover of her bed. “I haven’t been in your room since we were little.”

She frowned. “Okay?”

“It feels different,” he said softly.

Not really sure why, her heart skipped a beat and she inhaled deeply. “Max, what-“

“You should tell her off,” Max said and Liz blinked. It would be a miracle if Max could stick to one topic for longer than one minute.

“Yeah, like that’s easy,” Liz said sarcastically and left the safety of the door. Walking up to her bookshelf she absent-mindedly ran her index finger along the back of some of her favorite books.

She heard the unmistakable shuffle of Max standing from his position, but still she nearly jumped out of her skin when his front brushed against her back.

“Max…” she whispered, her finger freezing against the back of Pride and Prejudice.

She moaned softly as his lips pressed into the joining curve between her shoulder and her neck, her body fighting with the dilemma of staying or walking away.

“I miss you,” he whispered against her skin.

“Don’t,” she said softly.

“Does it make it easier for you to push me away if you keep telling yourself that it was just sex?”

It was difficult to concentrate as his warm breath caressed her skin. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Will you ever talk about it?”

The last time they’d had this conversation, they had been yelling. Liz didn’t want to do that now. Not after what had just happened at dinner with her mother. She didn’t have the energy to fight with Max. But unfortunately, if that was what it took to get him to understand, then so be it.

Taking a step to the side, away from his body, she turned to face him. “I don’t want to do this now, Max. Please.”

His gaze was so penetrating she had to avert her eyes. “It wasn’t just for fun.”

She sighed. “Could we please stop repeating this conversation?”

He stepped closer to her, trapping her between the bookshelf and his body. His eyes were almost hard as he said passionately, “Not until you get it.”

“I get it,” she mumbled, trying to stop her body from trembling; from betraying her.

He shook his head slowly before leaning in closer. Large brown slightly frightened eyes looked into hot black eyes as their shallow breaths touched the same air.

“No, you don’t,” his husky voice whispered against her lips.

She swallowed. “Leave me alone, Max. I’m with Sean now.”

“Does it feel the same?” he asked darkly.

Her heart missed a beat and she asked even though she knew exactly what he meant, “What are you talking about?”

As he raised his hand and let his fingers feather down the side of her face, she struggled to stop her eyes from closing. “The way he touches you…”

There was not enough air in her lungs to produce an answer and so her body merely shivered, the tremble making their bodies brush against the other, causing his pupils to dilate, his gaze growing darker.

His index finger slid down across her lips and she went rigid, her complete attention on the sensation of his finger against her lips. Her heart was beating uncontrollably in her chest and she was starting to feel dizzy.

“The way he kisses you,” he murmured and his lips brushed lightly over hers, just the slightest touch, enough to make her body feel weak.

“Don’t,” she repeated faintly.

“He doesn’t?” Max asked just as softly, twisting her words with a touch of amusement.

Fuzzily, she caught onto his teasing and mumbled, “Stop it, Max.”

“Does he make you feel like I made you feel?”

“Get over yourself,” Liz said in a tone that was meant to be venomous but was bordering more on dreamy, the soft emotions of his touch coursing through her body, distorting her voice.

“I know I’m good,” Max said, the ever present arrogance seeping into the conversation. That was his way of making sure that whatever she said wouldn’t hurt him too much. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

Placing her hands on his chest, she forcefully pushed him away. He took a step back and looked at her with a curious expression. “What, Parker, I’m making you feel things you’re not comfortable with? Especially not when you have a boyfriend?”

She looked at him darkly. “See? That’s why I can’t believe you.” She watched his expression fall, regret creeping into his eyes when he realized his mistake. “Because you make comments like that. Comments that make me feel like just another girl and that I was lucky to be screwed by you. As if you’re this God’s gift to women or something.”

“Kitten,” he said softly, regretfully, “That’s not what-“

“Mother and Mike must be wondering where we are,” Liz cut him off. Her voice was cold and business-like as she continued, “I suggest you wait a while before returning. It’d probably look a bit suspicious if we come back at the same time.”

His hand reached out for her but she danced out of his reach. “Liz, let me ta-“

She turned fiery eyes on him and said forcefully, “I’m with Sean. Why can’t you just leave me alone? What are you trying to prove by all of this? If you’re trying to make a conquest out of me, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that won’t happen. I made that mistake once, I won’t do it again. Now leave me alone.”

“Fuck,” Max cursed softly as she disappeared out the room. How had he managed to push her away again?


TBC...

This soon

Before going shopping with my mom and my cousin...

Laira
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sunrise102

sunrise102 wrote:*sigh* I think I'm ready for a happy chapter. As much as I love the angsty ones ( ) I much prefer seeing M and L be real with one another. We gonna see more damage being undone right? Random question: has Liz seen a therapist?

First question: Coming right up
Second question: Nope, she hasn't. Maybe that's her problem

guel

guel wrote:But one special part I would love to read! I so hope you're gonna write a snapshot of their "first" time after the reunion? when they come close again? I hope you do, because I'm gonna die if you wont. you dont want me to die, do you?

I really really don't want you to die. So....take a look at the chapter...

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Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Updated Timeline


44. Happy Birthday, Max

Max’s apartment
July 2nd, one day before Max’s birthday
(2009) Max is 23 (going on 24), Liz is 23

Max stopped shortly inside the door, unused keys dangling from his hand completely forgotten as his jaw became slack and his eyes scanned the dark apartment.

From the unlocked door, he already knew that Liz was here, but the mixture of darkness and occasional candles flickering around the room had anticipation fluttering in his chest. It was not unusual for Liz to spend her nights at his place, more than willing to avoid the tension between her and her brother at their apartment, but the darkness was anything but usual.

“Lizzie?” he asked, wincing as his voice echoed too loudly in the quiet room.

He frowned as he put the keys on the kitchen counter. What was she up to?

“Parker? You’re here?”

Instinctively knowing where to go, he pushed the bedroom door open and poked his head inside. The warm yellow hue of burning candles swam before his vision again and he had to squint to make out her quiet shape in the semi-darkness.

She was on the bed, her body pulled together in one of his football sweaters that had the ability to drown her tiny shape. Her head resting against her pulled up knees she looked up at him with tears hanging off her dark eyelashes. The tears on her cheeks threw a reflection towards him in the humble lightning and his heart skipped a beat.

His gym bag slid off his shoulder to the floor by its own force and Max was crawling across the expanse of the bed towards Liz before she had the chance to take her next breath.

Red eyes blinked closed as he put his hand against her wet cheek, concerned fingers trailing down the flushed skin.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, concern fluttering against each syllable.

“It’s just…” Liz mumbled and then shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

His expression sharpened further with concern. “Why are you crying?”

She shook her head, her closed eyes avoiding his concern which would only make her start to cry again. After one hour of crying, she had almost managed to establish a state of control. She was not going to let this ruin the night. She’d had plans for tonight.

His hands pushed her hair away, his thumbs brushing along her hairline and edging her head backwards, forcing her to look up at him. “Did something happen today?”

Pushing his hands away, causing him to rest back on his heels, Liz brushed the tears off her cheeks and looked up at him with an overly optimistic expression that only served to further dig the worry into Max’s heart. “I’m fine. I just had a breakdown or something. I just needed to let it out. And I’ve done that now. I’m fine.”

Max took one long look at her, noticed the pain and unspoken sorrow in her eyes, before easing her into his lap. Her thighs encased his as her soft body folded itself against his. Curling up against his chest, she inhaled deeply, letting his arms envelope her and immerse her in safety.

“I know that you love your brother,” Max said softly against her ear, his voice edged with possessiveness, “but if something he said made you feel this way, I’m gonna-“

Before he could work himself into an angry knot, Liz interrupted, “It’s not Mike.”

He relaxed, relieved that he didn’t have to put himself between Liz and Michael again, but confusion at what had happened itched the edges of his mind.

Before he could open his mouth to utter his next question, Liz pulled away, angrily brushing her face free of tears. “You know what? I’m not gonna let her win. She’s not gonna destroy this for me.”

He looked up at her as she rose on her knees in front of him, brushing her hair away from her face in a cathartic manner, taking deep breaths and rubbing her cheeks free of tears. “Who?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said, speaking more to herself than to Max.

His hands moved back and forth along the sides of her thighs, not really concentrating on what he was doing, his motion an automatic gesture in trying to calm her down. “Of course nothing’s wrong with you.”

Liz’s breath hitched and she stilled as she became aware of the heating of her skin being created by the friction of Max’s palms gliding repeatedly across her naked skin where the sweater failed to cover her up.

Her eyes met his and he stilled at the raw expression in her eyes. His fingers paused and seemed to melt into the softness of her skin as his eyes traveled from the dark hungry look in her eyes to her moist lips.

“I had it all planned,” she whispered, her breathless voice surprising both of them.

There was caution in his movements as his hands moved up the sides of her thighs, still underneath the sweater. His breaths were burning the insides of his airways, his hands trembling with barely contained desire. “What, kitten?”

His heartbeat came to an abrupt stop as his fingers encountered lace underneath the sweater. With a stumbling triple beat, his heart re-started and his eyes widened as he looked into her eyes; the understanding clear in his eyes even though he wasn’t sure he dared to believe it.

Wrapping his hands around her hips, his fingers digging possessively into her pliable flesh, he pulled her back onto his lap with a strong tug. She gasped at the sudden movement, a thrill running through her as her chest brushed against his. Their breaths mingled together as a slow smile spread across Max’s lips, his eyes burning into her trembling lips with anticipation of their taste. “What are you up to, Parker?”

“Well,” she whispered, her voice shallow against the heat of his hands curling around her back. “There’s a reason for the candles, you know.”

As if he had no idea what she was talking about, his eyes widened in interested surprise. “Is there?”

His hands continued to travel across the expanse of her naked back, occasionally encountering areas of lace, trying to map a picture in his mind of whatever she was hiding underneath that oversized sweater of his.

She nodded seriously. “It’s your birthday tomorrow.”

A slow seductive smile spread across his lips causing her body to flush with hungry lust, and her body tensed with anticipation as firm pressure against her shoulder blades pushed her flush against him.

“Oh yes,” he murmured, as if this was something new, “that’s right.”

He dropped his head; the stubble on his cheek brushing against her flushed one as his lips brushed against the junction between her neck and shoulder. A soft moan drifted across her lips.

“Only two hours to go,” she got out in a breathless whisper as Max’s lips drifted teasingly, slowly, across her skin. Tracing the outlines of the collar of the sweater.

“Are the candles my birthday present?” Max whispered, causing vibrations to entice her skin.

She arched her head backwards and Max immediately took advantage of her new position, by trailing his lips across the front of her throat up to her chin. Her voice was strained as she responded, “They’re part of it.”

“Mmm,” he said against her skin. “I like the sound of that.”

“Max,” she whispered, a whining quality to her voice caused him to smile against her skin. “You’re destroying my plan.”

She immediately cursed herself for saying too much as he almost instantaneously pulled away and looked at her curiously. “What’s your plan?”

Liz swallowed. Her throat felt dry and goosebumps covered every single millimeter of her body. “It’s a surprise.”

Ever so slowly, with a crooked smile trailing across his lips and eyes watching her intently, Max let his hands slide down her body the same way they had come from. Liz’s body tensed with sexual expectation, arching up against his chest, pressing her aching lower body close against his, as his fingers teased their way down her willing partly exposed skin.

An eyebrow raised in question and his head cocked to the side as he withdrew his hands from underneath the sweater. “What do you have in mind?”

She looked at him, the insides of her bare thighs quivering against the warmth of his jeans-clad muscular thighs, and bit her lower lip as sudden insecurity draped over her.

The sight of her transparent vulnerability melted his heart and his eyes softened. “Will I like this present?”

The purpose of the question was to soothe her nerves and make her more comfortable to precede, so he was not prepared for the confusion he felt as her eyes dropped from his and with two hands against his chest for support she started to slide off his body.

His hands wrapped themselves around her wrists resting against his chest and he bent his head downwards so that his gaze could capture her evading one. “Liz?”

Taking a deep breath and squeezing her eyes together she started to shake her head. “It’s silly.”

He let her go as she further removed herself from his body, staring at her as she walked off the bed and straightened out the sweater so that it once again fell to cover her body to her knees.

“What is it?” he wondered, watching her hands tremble as she brushed them through her dark hair.

“This was Maria’s idea,” she mumbled avoiding his eyes.

He straightened, following each nervous movement of her body intently. “The candles?”

She bit her lower lip anxiously. “Not just the candles. The present. Your present.” Taking a deep breath, her voice quivered slightly as she added, “Maria took me shopping and it all sounded great when we were planning it. I came home and I lit all this candles and…and I…” a faint blush colored her cheeks as she looked towards the ceiling in embarrassment, “I wanted to look attractive…sexy…”

His voice was soft, his eyes burning as he mumbled, “Liz…”

“Then she called and…” She inhaled deeply, her eyes squeezing close to stop the next round of tears. “She made me feel stupid. And ugly and…”

Her voice trailed off as he moved from the bed, taking a seat on the edge in front of her. A surprised gasp was squeezed from her chest as his strong hands took a firm grip on her hips and pulled her into the circle of his legs. Looking up at her, he looked almost angry as he said tensely, “You’re not ugly. You’re stunning.”

Her body stilled and she looked at him in surprised shock. “Max, I-“

“Who told you that?” he asked, already planning to find this person and tell her a thing or two about how much she was about to regret ever making his girl cry.

She swallowed, a tear rolling down her cheek. “My mother.”

He sighed and pulled her body close to his while he pressed his head against her abdomen. His comment was muffled as Liz’s hands automatically reached down to slide through his dark hair, which was damp from the shower he had taken at the gym. “I hate that woman.”

“I know I should ignore what she says, but she’s-“

He looked up at her sadly and nodded in understanding, “-your mother.”

She grimaced. “Exactly.”

“She’s wrong, you know. Whatever she said, she’s wrong.”

Liz smiled sadly. “How can you be so sure that everything she said is wrong?”

He looked at her seriously. “Because she doesn’t see you.”

Her eyes warmed and she asked gently, “Like you?”

Max nodded. “Uh-huh.”

She exhaled tiredly. “I hate that she ruined my night.”

He shook his head in protest. “It’s not ruined.”

“I feel stupid,” she whispered. “I was supposed to…” a warm blush that went straight to his heart spread across her cheeks as she quickly mumbled the end of that sentence, “seduce you.”

Warmth hit his heart and he felt his chest overfill with love. “You still have time.”

She almost rolled her eyes at him, an amused smile playing across her lips as she contained the temptation to throw herself at him and kiss him senseless. “You really want me to?”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “Hell yeah.”

She laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Well… I did shop for it.”

Desire tightened his body as he watched her step away from his body. Smiling shyly, causing his heart to constrict, she reached for the bottom of the sweater and slowly trailed it upwards.

She looked so nervous that he almost reached out to stop her, but he was afraid that would send the wrong message. That she would think he didn’t want her to continue.

As her movements started to reveal dark red lace underneath the shapeless sweater, his fists tightened around the mattress to prevent himself from rising to his feet and assisting her in removing that sweater from her body.

With two hands she pulled the sweater over her head, revealing the lacy panties, the matching lacy bra and the transparent veil attached to the bottom border of the bra, floating sensually around her soft curves.

Max’s breath caught in his throat.

She was gorgeous. Heart-stopping, outrageously stunning. The sexiest part was that she had no idea of just how sexy she was standing there nervously clenching her fists and worrying her bottom lip.

“Kitten,” he breathed.

The emotion in his eyes overwhelmed her and she reached for the discarded sweater, stuttering, “It’s stupid.”

Max shot up from his seat and grabbed the hand that was reaching for the safety of the sweater, pulling her hand towards his and effectively pulling her up against him.

“Damn Lizzie,” he murmured, his eyes eating her up. “Are you trying to kill me?”

She looked at him, bewildered, “I’m sorry…” wondering if she had done something wrong.

He chuckled and shook his head. “You wear clothes that alone have the capacity to give me a heart attack only to seconds later decide to cover yourself up again.”

She smiled softly. “I don’t look stupid?”

He rolled his eyes, before cradling her face and placing heated lips against hers, pouring every ounce of desire and love into that one kiss.

They broke apart gasping, Liz fumbling for a hold on his arms to stop herself from stumbling, and Max winked at her. “That’s how you make me feel.”

She took a deep breath and nodded, dropping her eyes to fumble with the front of his T-shirt.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m nervous,” she asked truthfully, causing his heart beat to falter once again. She never failed to surprise him.

His voice was gentle as he asked, “Why are you nervous?”

Her cheeks blushed the warmest of colors. “I’m your birthday present, Max.”

Max inhaled deeply, his steady grip on the floor faltering. His voice was lacking in strength as he tried to put words on how much that meant to him. “That’s more than I could ever wish for.”

She nodded, still afraid to meet his eyes. “It’s just… this is the first time since…you know, the last time.”

Not being able to contain himself any longer, he leaned in and gently captured her lips with his. His words were merely a whisper but shot straight into her heart. “I love you.”

She nodded, the emotions rendering her speechless. “I’m scared.”

Max frowned. “Why?”

“Last time was just sex-“

“It wasn’t just sex.”

Liz looked up at him, seriousness drowning her expression. “We were drunk-“

“You were drunk, sweetie.”

Her eyes darkened and he got a glimpse of the rebellious girl he was so used to. “Are you trying to say that you were completely sober?”

“You were really drunk,” Max smiled.

“So were you,” she countered stubbornly.

“You were worse.”

“Come on, you were just as bad.”

“I had some self control.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Was that before or after you attacked me?”

His mouth fell open in shock. “I did not attack you.”

She smiled, a twinkle in her eye. “No?”

Max’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the mischievous smile play on her lips. “You provoked me.”

It was now Liz’s turn to be shocked. She blinked. “I provoked you?”

“You were comparing me to some other guy.”

“Awww.” Her mouth pouted as she leaned in and patted his head, her act the picture of innocence, but in response Max’s groin tightened with desire. This woman had no idea how sexy she was and how deeply she affected him. She was totally unaware of the power she held over him. “Did my big bad words bruise your ego?”

She had a chance to see the miniscule narrowing of his eyes a second before his attack.

Pushing himself to his feet so rapidly it almost made her dizzy, Liz inhaled sharply as he was suddenly towering over her, his body exuding dangerous sexuality.

She didn’t even have time to follow the temptation to lick her lips before his fingers curled forcefully through her hair and with a sharp tug snapped her towards him, their lips meeting in an explosion of sensations. Melting into his touch, her hands moved restlessly across the front of his shirt, while his hands moved down her neck, following the curve of her back while leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

She didn’t notice how he moved their entwined bodies up against the wall until her back pressed up against the hard unyielding material.

Max’s hands slid down the sides of her body, brushing along the sensitive skin of her thighs before encircling the flesh in his hands and hefting her upwards. Liz followed his silent directions, wrapping her legs around his hips.

“You have no idea how sexy you are, do you?” he murmured against her lips.

In the midst of the heavy sexual atmosphere, Liz almost rolled her eyes and said disbelievingly, “Come on.”

He grabbed a hold of her hand and brought it to the front of his jeans, where her appearance and innocent sexuality had worked its magic. Her sharp inhalation got stuck in her throat and she stared into his challenging eyes. “Still don’t believe it?”

Taking a shuddering breath, which was followed by a nervous swallow, Liz moved her hand slightly upwards, the slow brush of her fingers causing Max’s breathing to falter as well. Reaching the top of his jeans, she manipulated the button out of the button hole and took a hold of the zipper. The slow caress of her tongue across her lips signaled her nervousness as she slowly pulled the zipper down.

“Relax,” Max whispered softly, with his own heart hammering in his ears.

A weak smile tickled her lips as she nodded slowly at the same time as she brought her hand up along the outer seam of his boxers. With the thick denim material out of the way, her touch almost had him losing his grip on her.

A tad too forcefully, he pushed her harder up against the wall to keep them from falling, causing her to gasp and her exploring hand to press firmly against him. He pressed his forehead against her, fighting for control with shallow breaths.

“I love you,” he said breathlessly.

Her hand whispered up underneath his sweater, encountering the firmness of his chest. She sighed. God, she loved his body.

“And I you,” she whispered back, tugging on his sweater to make it move upwards.

He put an inch or two between their entwined bodies so that she could pull the sweater over his head, facing her with the glorious expanse of his naked chest.

She stared at his chest and mumbled, “God.”

Max kissed the tip of her nose before pulling back and asking seriously, “What?”

“You’re so…” Liz shook her head in disbelief, “…freaking hot.”

He laughed at her exclamation, causing her to smile along with him and her nervousness faded some. He kissed her smiling lips. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for years. You just wouldn’t believe me.”

“Funny,” she mumbled, lost in the details of his chest. She was being held up by Max’s hips supporting her thighs, the wall he was pressing her up against, and his arms pressing into the sides of her body, leaving her own arms completely free to do what they wanted.

She wanted to touch every part of his body, kiss every inch of his skin. The need was burning strong inside of her and she had a suspicion that she had already lost her control of the situation. She was no longer the seductress; she was now the one being seduced.

As her hands moved slowly across his bare chest, Max used his thumbs, while the rest of his hands grabbed her firmly so she wouldn’t fall, to part the silky veil hanging from the bottom of her bra. His hands itched to touch her soft skin. But he knew that touching would very soon not be enough.

Liz laughed in exhilarated laughter as he spun them around and they fell onto the bed in a bundle of limbs. Her laughter slowly quieted until it disappeared as Max stilled above her, looking down at her with serious eyes.

A smile remaining on her face, she asked softly, “What?”

“Still nervous?” he wondered and the intensity of his gaze had a current of pure heat course through her.

“I really want it be perfect,” she answered.

His eyes turned amused. “Keeping the pressure up, huh?”

She shook her head slowly. “Sorry, it’s not like that-“

His gentle smile interrupted her. “I know what you mean.” As he spoke, his hands parted the veil yet again, baring her abdomen to him. She momentarily looked down at what his hands were doing, before glancing up at him again as he spoke. “I want it to be perfect too.” He lowered his head and placed the most gentle of kisses in the center of her abdomen, just above her bellybutton. “I don’t want to disappoint you-“

“You couldn’t disappoint me,” she objected quietly, her hands tightening in their hold on the sheet on either side of her body to stop them from attacking him and pulling him even closer.

His lips trailed slowly up the middle of his abdomen, causing her breathing to turn almost non-existent and her body to writhe in pent-up anticipation, stopping only when he reached the lace of her bra.

“I mean,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her words, “we had that one perfect night-“

Her smile was evident in her voice, “You think it was perfect?”

He lifted his head from worshipping her body and met her eyes, his stare piercing and filled with emotions that sent a tremble down to the center of her body. “It was perfect.”

“I wasn’t too…” she bit her lower lip, feeling the nervousness again now that he was looking at her, “…inexperienced?”

“Well…” he said, a slow smile spreading across his lips, which had her eyes narrowing and before he could put words to what his teasing silence was already saying a disapproving expression fell upon Liz’s beautiful features.

“Max Evans,” she said with clear warning, causing Max to smile. He knew exactly what game he was playing.

So did she.

“There was a certain level of…innocence,” Max said slowly, his voice deep and soft, caressing her very soul, making it hard for her to be angry with him as the familiar waves of desire flooded her senses.

She barely felt his expert hands behind her back, unclasping her bra, instead gasping in surprise as the familiar support loosened around her breasts while the air chilled the skin Max’s hands were slowly exposing to his eyes.

“Which was incredibly…” he pulled the bra straps free from her arms and threw the undergarment on the floor, his eyes traveling to her exposed breasts, “….sexy.”

She shivered beneath his eyes, her breast rising in a deep intake of air, the movement causing Max’s eyes to widen with hunger and Liz’s heart to flutter weakly underneath her left hardening nipple.

“You found me not knowing what to do ‘sexy’?” Liz asked, trying to sound incredulous, but the sensation of his wet lips encircling her nipple making it anything but incredulous.

“Oh, you knew what to do,” he whispered, sound waves vibrating against her breast.

“God,” she moaned, her fingers in his hair, sliding through the damp tresses with a desperate need to hold onto something.

“You were not all that innocent with alcohol in your system, sweetie,” Max said, sliding his chest up against hers as he caught her lips with his.

Her breath pushed out in a staccato motion as she clung to his lips, her thighs moving up to press against the sides of his body, trapping him between her legs.

“Maybe that’s what I need,” she said between kisses. “Booze.”

His hands slid behind her back yet again, this time to move them into sitting position as he sat back on his knees, pulling her with him. Brushing her tousled hair away from her flushed cheeks, he placed one kiss on each cheek and finished with one on the tip of her nose. “If I hadn’t been so drunk myself, I probably would’ve listened more to the warning bells.”

Catching onto the seriousness in his voice, she frowned, her hands moving slowly up and down the warm skin of his back. “What do you mean?”

Giving her a gentle smile, Max answered, “You were absolutely perfect, kitten. But I knew at the back of my head that something was off. You didn’t act like someone that’d had sex before.”

Looking at him seriously, Liz whispered, “Would you have stopped? If you had listened?”

He barely hesitated before nodding.

She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “So if you had known I was a virgin, you would never had let it go that far?”

His eyes begging her to not take it the wrong way, his reply was soft, “No.”

She dropped her eyes and stared unseeingly at how her hands by their own force were sliding along his collarbone.

“Liz, listen,” Max said. “I wanted your first time to be with someone you loved. So I would never have done that to you if I had known. Because I wanted all the typical romantic stuff for you. I wanted your first time to be…” he gestured to the surrounding flickers of the candle lights, “…this. Candles, a nice bed, with someone you loved. Someone you had decided to give your virginity to.” He shook his head regretfully. “Not in a dark house, with someone you hated, while you were drunk.”

She shook her head, a humorless smile on her lips. “I never hated you. I’ve loved you for longer than I wanted to admit. And that night, I really loved you. When you made love to me that night, I felt really loved. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

He looked guilty. “I still didn’t want that for you. Even if you had feelings for me back then, you probably didn’t want to end up in that situation with me and I shouldn’t have used my…uhm…experience against you and used you that way just because I desperately wanted you.”

She laughed softly, amused by how stupid they had been back then. “I wanted you too. I wanted you so much it scared me. So I drank more. And more. And then some.”

“So I didn’t scar you irreparably?” Max wondered without a trace of humor in his voice. That question had in fact haunted him for years. Ever since that night. Had he killed something in Liz that night by robbing her of that innocence? By robbing her of her choices?

She shook her head, reassurance bright in her eyes. “Apart from the fact that I was trying to kid myself into believing that it hadn’t meant anything to me and that it had been a mistake, that night is very close to my heart. It still is.”

The hint of a smile grazed his lips before he leaned in and tenderly kissed her. Pulling back he said quietly, “Thank you, Parker.”

Looking down in chaste shyness that had his heart missing a beat, Liz asked, “Make love to me, Max?”

He smiled. God, how he loved her. And then she added, “I can’t wait any longer,” while looking up at him through dark eyelashes and his resolve broke.

Crashing her mouth to his he lowered her onto her back, kissing down her chin, continuing down her throat, trailing between her breasts and feathering down the middle of her stomach.

“Deal,” he mumbled as he reached her bellybutton and she closed her eyes as the desire bordered on painful, needing him inside of her right that second or else she would very possibly spontaneously combust.

As his mouth moved past her bellybutton, his hands hooked into her panties and pulled them downwards.

Her body trembled in a combination of desire and nervousness as his hands brushed up the insides of her thighs, being acutely aware of how his burning eyes kept their hold on her half-closed eyes, carefully watching her every reaction.

“I think you should take your pants off,” she whispered into his ear as it passed by her lips.

Max smiled in interest. “Really?”

“Really,” she replied. “It’s unfair with just one of us being naked.”

“I’m not complaining,” Max said.

“I know,” she sighed in pleasure. “But I want you…inside of me.”

At her words, he lifted his head and looked straight into her eyes, the surprise evident in his eyes with a completely different emotion darkening his gaze.

“Why, Miss Parker,” he murmured, “I must say…I love it when you talk dirty.”

She rolled her eyes since she knew that was not really talking dirty by any standards, and teased her tongue around the shell of his ear, saying, “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you’re a naughty girl?” Max wondered with amused curiosity.

His words made her laugh, but the laughter ended on a determined note as she said, “Pants off. Now!”

“Charming,” he murmured, but there was a hunger in his eyes as he rolled off her and rose to his feet next to the bed.

His stomach grumbled with desire as his eyes landed on her naked form on the bed. She had carefully followed his every move from the bed to the floor and now she was popping her head up to rest against her supporting elbow after having rolled onto her side.

A fresh blush rose over her cheeks as she realized what his starving eyes were surveying and her uppermost leg automatically fell down over the other, her knee covering her delicately.

Deciding not to comment on her newfound shyness, Max brought his hands to his already undone pants, courtesy of Liz Parker, and pushed them slowly down his muscular thighs stopping halfway to wriggle his eyebrows suggestively in her direction which had her blush turn a deeper red.

She had seen him naked before. This wasn’t their first time.

Still it felt like it.

The situation had all of the newness, the awkwardness and shyness of a ‘first time’. Even though Liz would always remember their first time like something beautiful, she didn’t mind seeing this as a second first time.

He threw his pants to a corner of the room and they were quickly forgotten as they both focused their attention on his boxers. She bit her lower lip while watching him. Just as he was about to push them down, she moved into sitting position in front of him. The surprise was evident on his face as she reached out, the light from the candles flickering across her pale skin, and grabbed a hold of the front top of his boxer, pulling him towards the bed by the elastic material.

Licking her lips, she gazed up at him through her lashes. “Let me.”

Suddenly speechless, Max swallowed and nodded.

She inched her fingertips inside the waistband of the boxers, moving slowly along the edge of the material while noticing his abdomen move with gradually increasing breaths out of the corner of her eye. She felt the hardness of his muscles underneath the skin, felt the goosebumps spread across her own skin as she pushed her small hands inside his boxers, brushing her palms flat over his ass.

His well-defined abdomen was at the level of her eyes and she simply leaned forward and pressed a kiss above his bellybutton, much the same way he had done earlier. As she hooked her thumbs over the upper edge of the boxers and started to inch them downwards, her lips slowly dragged along his abdominal muscles intermittently shaping her lips into small kisses along the trail.

She was starting to feel faint from all the sensations, not really sure how much more of this she could take. Before she had a chance to get stable on her feet, his mouth attacked hers with an intensity that put a serious dent in her heart beat. Suddenly she was on her back again, on the bed, his mouth still devouring hers, but now she could feel him in all of his naked glory brushing up against her while he laid between her legs.

One hand against her shoulder blades, he pushed her upper body up against his while in one stroke he pushed inside of her.

She gasped, her fingernails digging into his shoulders while his hand moved from her back to the back of her neck, melting their lips together. Her ankles locked into each other across his lower back as he pulled back only to immediately push back in again.

His hands caught a hold of her upper arms, tugging until her nails came undone from his shoulders and he redirected her hands above her head, moving them into a restrained position against the pillow while he pushed into her again, his tempo adhering to her command.

Her body arched up and met his every stroke, feeling oddly aroused by the fact that he was possessively restraining her hands over her head, in a way controlling her body.

Sweat trickled down between her breasts in response to the heat building in her body. Goosebumps came and went across her skin as his skin brushed repeatedly against hers. As the friction of him inside of her started to reach its peak, she dug her heels into his ass, urging him on.

As the last word left her mouth, he released her arms, put his hands against her back and pulled them into a seating position.

A tear rolled over the rim of her eye and down her cheek and Max brushed his hand up along her arm until he reached her cheek and gently pushed it away.

She sniffled, smiled and bent her head to kiss his lips. Pulling away, they watched each other’s expressions as their bodies moved together, once again working towards the final release.

Their bodies moved slowly against each other as they came down from the high, foreheads pressed tightly together, lazy kisses being placed on the closest patch of skin.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks as she tightened her arms and legs around him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. His fingers brushed lightly up and down her spine, causing havoc to her body while he placed small kisses on her damp shoulder.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered, her voice broken with emotion.

His arms encased her in a tight embrace as he pulled his head slightly backwards so that their mouths would line up. Kissing the tear tracks on her cheeks away, he finished with her sweet soft mouth that was swollen and full.

“You were perfect,” he replied, eliciting a smile from her. “Absolutely extraordinary.”

“You did a pretty good job yourself,” she said and nuzzled her nose under his chin, pressing a slow kiss against the short stubble he was acquiring.

“Yeah, we should do it again,” he answered.

“Uh-huh,” she nodded against his skin. “What do you feel about…now?”

Being still inside of her, she could feel his answer before he put it into words.

She pulled back and looked at him in surprised shock. “Evans, I thought guys needed…recuperation or something.”

He rolled his eyes, “Recuperation, schmuperation,” and scooted them over to the edge of the bed where he with some impressive elegance managed to get them standing, Liz’s legs tightly wrapped around his waist.

“We have a whole apartment to christen,” he added with a mischievous smile.

She frowned, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Isn’t that only when you’ve moved into a new place?”

He looked appropriately appalled. “Says who?”

A second thereafter, his foot caught hold of the threshold and he stumbled, falling into the wall which had her back slam into the hard material.

“This could be dangerous,” Max mumbled.

Liz, still trying to catch her breath, ignored the whole danger factor and stated, “Let’s start with the kitchen.”

TBC...

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A/N: And some of you might be wondering about protection (thanks Laira for reminding me). Liz, since she had planned on doing this, had it taken care of. So there... But on the other hand, you already have the future and know that they don't get kids until some time in the future

Hiiii!

So...good news. I have an update.

But before that I'm just gonna try and explain why my update has been dragging behind. I won't give you all the details, but as you know I went on vacation (without my computer) for about a month so I couldn't write anything then. Things happened on this vacation that I hadn't planned for though. This story is based on my own life (surprise surprise...) and even though I'm not really Liz (she's unconsciously based on my best friend), Max is very similar to this guy I've been in love with for the last five years. He became my best friend from the go when I was put in the same student accommodation house as him when I got to Australia. We've always had this banter going on and he teased me to tears in the beginning before I got that it was not personal it was just what he did to people he liked. After I got that, I learnt to retaliate.

Almost three years into our friendship I told him that I had more than friendly feelings for him (in a letter, because I was too chicken to tell him face to face). He tells me that he doesn't love me that way, but that there's been so many times when he's just wanted to kiss me. I always thought it was weird that he said that. But that was what he was all about. Mixed messages. Then three days before he is to leave Australia (which would be the last time I saw him because I was going back to Sweden before he returned to Australia again) he tells me that he's loved me since the break of dawn. That it's breaking his heart that I'm going back to Sweden. That he told me that he didn't love me that way when I revealed my feelings two years ago because he was in a relationship with someone else and he felt like he really needed to push me away. And even though I'm happy that he finally told me the truth, it's frustrating that he didn't have the guts to until the end.

So my life was kinda turned upside down. This story that I'd written about this made up continuation for a concept that I had based on reality became a bit too real and it was really hard to get back into the right mood to write this. It was too close to my heart and too close to the fact that my Max is now separated from me by thousands and thousands of miles...forever (until further notice). It hurt too much to write.

But I hope I'm back now. I really want to see this story through. Hopefully I can turn it around and make this story my therapy session instead

Thank you to all of you that have stuck through my longer than usual absence. I won't leave you for that long again.

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and my dear beta, Gigo

Thank you for all the bumps, for the feedback and the birthday wishes. And it's really nice to see some new faces - and some that have returned that I've missed.


I hope this is kinda worth the wait

Updated Timeline

45. Happy Love Day

The Apartment
14th of February, Valentine’s Day
(2007) Max is 22, Liz is 21


She stopped short at the sight greeting her as she stepped through the doorframe.

Max.

Half-naked.

She unconsciously licked her lips as she watched the muscles move beneath the skin of his back while his arms shuffled through the laundry bin.

“Where the fuck are you?” he mumbled and a small amused smile spread across her lips.

Propping herself casually up against the doorframe, she sang, “Lost something?”

His arms froze and his head slowly turned to face her. The surprise at having her appear behind him quickly turned to the darkest desire as his eyes scanned down her body.

She tried to remain casual as his eyes made her heart beat faster and her stomach tighten. “You seem a bit stressed.”

Max’s eyes narrowed at her nonchalant tone, and his voice was sweet albeit suspicious as he asked, “You wouldn’t know where my white shirt is, would you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t keep track of your shit, Evans.”

He slowly straightened and cocked his head to the side. “You find this funny, don’t you?”

Her eyebrows slowly moved northwards. “You being stressed out? Of course.”

In fact, it was amusing. Because Max Evans, the ever so suave and cool Max Evans, was never stressed.

“Going out?” he asked, his voice dark. He didn’t really appreciate her sense of humor at the moment.

She glanced down her red dress hugging her waist, only to flow out around her hips, her two-inch heels as she felt her newly curled hair brush over her strapped shoulder. “Good guess, Evans.”

Max smirked. “Lover Boy made some plans, did he?”

“Of course,” Liz said, confidence radiating off her every word.

She could read from his body language that he wanted her to ask about his plans. But she already knew that story. He was probably going out with yet another blonde and she was really not interested in hearing him brag about it.

They looked at each other in silence for awhile, until Liz started to feel her confidence turn to quivering desire. She was just about to push off the doorframe and leave when he said, “So, if you don’t have my shirt with you…”

She looked up, registered the knowing wink her way, and felt the familiar anger bubble up to the surface. He really thought she was there to ogle him.

She sighed, deciding to be the better person in the situation. For once. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Max.”

Liz got a mild satisfaction out of the surprise that her words caused. Quickly recovering from her out of character behavior, Max closed the small distance between them, and before she had a chance to register what was happening his hand softly pressed into the small of her back while he pressed his lips to her cheek.

It was a short kiss and in other circumstances it would have been completely platonic. However, Liz felt her knees go week and was glad that she was still supporting her weight against the doorframe.

“You too, Shorty,” he said as he pulled back, his eyes strangely compelling.

She automatically licked her lips, watched his gaze briefly flutter to those same lips, before he non-ceremoniously returned to the laundry basket and continued to ruffle through it.

Feeling oddly rejected, Liz waited for a second or two to see if that was it, before she straightened on shaky knees and walked into the living room.

To wait for her date.
Four hours later

The Apartment

Her tears were brimming on the edge of her eyes as she walked through the dark apartment towards her room. Putting her black bag on the desk, she inhaled deeply as she reached over and clicked on the small table lamp on the desk.

She started to shrug out of her jacket as her eyes fell upon her bed.

She froze.

Contrasting against the black bedspread was a blood red rose.

Millions of emotions waved through her body as she walked up to the single flower and gently picked it up from the bed.

No card.

But there were only two people that had access to her room. And one of them thought tickets to a basketball game was considered romantic, while the other…

The catastrophic end to her date was quickly repressed to the furthermost corners of her mind as a warm fuzzy feeling started to spread inside of her, causing a smile to bloom on her face.

She was so entranced with the flower and its meaning that she almost jumped straight out of her skin when the ceiling light came on.

“What are you doing in the dark?”

His voice was dark and enticing, forcing her to take a deep breath before she could turn to face him.

The white shirt, which he had obviously eventually found, was open at the top three buttons, leaving an alluring glimpse of his dark skin, while a black tie had been pulled down and was hanging very loosely around the neck. The cuffs of his shirt had been rolled up, almost to his elbows, and the arms looked strong as he under her gaze folded them over his chest.

Her heart was beating a hysterical beat in her chest. Right that second, she really wanted him. She had to use everything she had available as self-control to stop herself from attacking him.

When she didn’t answer, he nodded towards the rose in her hand. “Stalker Boy got you a rose?”

His voice was meant to be sarcastic, as it always was whenever he spoke about Sean, but it wasn’t difficult for her to hear the true emotions underneath the sarcasm. Apprehension and anticipation.

“Actually,” she said softly, looking at him carefully, “I found this in my room.”

“Awww,” Max said, “That’s sweet of him. You’ve got the nicest brother, Parker.”

Raising a disbelieving eyebrow at him, her eyes challenged him to cut the crap.

He was putting on the whole show when he noticed the skepticism on her face. “Wait… You don’t think that I…?”

Not saying a word, she cocked her head to the side and looked at him disbelievingly.

His voice dropped an octave and smoothened out, “Kitten,” causing her to shiver in the brightness of the ceiling light, “I appreciate the gesture, but you should give your brother some more credit.”

Swallowing back the argument this could be the start of, she said softly, “Thank you, Max.”

Not prepared to acknowledge any truth about the mysterious rose, Max changed the topic. “So, what are you doing here?”

Literally feeling the air shift around them, Liz put the rose on the desk next to her. “I live here.”

Max brushed past her, letting a whiff of his cologne brush against Liz in the process, and plopped down on her bed. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Shouldn’t you be with your boyfriend right now?”

“Did you know Valentine’s Day was named after a martyr?” Liz said as she started to remove the hairclips that held her curls up, letting them fall softly down her shoulders.

Arranging the decorative pillows on her bed against the wall so that he could sit comfortably, Max placed one leg over the other and apparently settled in for the long haul. “A martyr that married people that couldn’t be married otherwise. That’s romantic, isn’t it?”

“Whatever,” Liz mumbled, brushing her fingers through her hair. “It’s just a money-making machine now anyways. Forced love.”

He gave her an amused look. “’Forced love?’”

“On that one day you have to buy each other a present or show your love…and blah blah blah.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Do I sense some resentment?”

“Fine, if you love Valentine’s Day so much, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home, screwing some girl you barely know in your attempt of showing your undying Valentine love?”

Max whistled. “Whoa… what did he do?”

“And it’s just typical of you to assume that I had a bad date and that’s why I’m not overjoyed about the concept of Valentine’s Day.”

He gave her a look of pointed incredulity. “Am I wrong?”

She sighed as she reached behind her neck to remove her necklace. “Just…it’s none of your business, okay.”

“That’s a ‘yes’.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wipe that smirk off your face. You don’t know anything about my life.”

“Oooh,” he exclaimed. “Really? Not a single thing?” He was quickly on his feet, wrapping an arm around her waist and easily pulling them down onto the bed.

She gasped as she found herself on his lap, wrapped in his unyielding arms. “Max! What the fu-“

His warm breath against her neck killed her voice and she barely heard his voice above the sound of her breathing. “Baby, I have to disagree with that.”

Baby? She frowned. “’Baby?’” She definitely wasn’t his ‘baby’.

Ignoring her questioning, he continued, “I would claim I know quite a lot about you.”

She squirmed. “Max. Let me go.”

His voice lightened with amusement, “Maybe you shouldn’t move around like that.”

She grimaced. “Eww… Groooss. Let me go.” And squirmed some more.

He had to bite his lower lip to control himself, because kidding aside, her moving around like that was bordering on torture. “Lizzie…Not helping.”

Her eyes opened wide with annoyance as she turned to face him. “Then. Let. Me. Go.”

“You look very pretty tonight,” he mumbled and she froze.

He always had a tendency to make it hard to stay mad at him. “Don’t do that…”

He looked appropriately innocent. “Do what?”

“For some reason you’re not at your own place having gross bimbo sex,” his eyebrows rose at this, repressed laughter twinkling in his eyes, “which can only mean two things…well, no. In your case, it can only mean one thing; She rejected you. So you’re stuck with your horniness and thought you could come to me and get some remedy for that-“

His expression had slowly turned annoyed as he listened to her and his arms were loosening their tightness on her body.

“-problem. And now you’re trying to sweet talk me into having sex with you. But if you really think I’m gonna be having sex with you tonight you’re-“

Her words reached a halt as he lifted her off his lap, as if she weighed nothing more than a sugar packet, and rose from the bed.

His action surprised her to the degree that she couldn’t think of anything better to say than, “What are you doing?”

“You really think I’m here to have sex with you?”

Her confidence was rapidly plummeting to the ground at the dark annoyance in his eyes and the tenseness in his stance. “Isn’t that what you’re always looking for? Friends with benefits?”

He broke eye contact and her eyes caught how his fists tightened as he took a deep breath before mumbling, “Fuck, Parker. I…”

At a loss of words, Liz frowned. What was he so upset about? She was the one that had just been harassed. He had no right to be upset. Did he think he could just come here and play with her emotions and not expect her to be upset about it?

“I have a boyfriend, you know,” Liz said, as if it was not common knowledge.

He met her eyes and the assurance she felt about of how right she was and how wrong he was evaporated instantaneously.

“Sometimes I just want to strangle you,” he said evenly and her mouth fell open in shocked surprise.

What the hell?

“What the hell?” she whispered, her voice failing her.

His jaw tightened spasmodically as he continued, as if he was having difficulties even speaking. “Sometimes you’re such a princess.”

“Princess?” she spurted. “I just don’t find it appropriate that you talk to me like that, and touch me like that, when I’m in a relationship with someone else.”

“Why?” he challenged. “You don’t trust yourself to not go along with it?”

“Right,” she huffed. “I’m the princess. You’re so full of yourself. You think that just because you throw yourself at me, I’m gonna take the bait. Just because it’s you.”

“Come on, Parker,” Max said, stepping closer to the edge of the bed where she was sitting. “If you even remember a tenth of that night, I know you are itching like hell to re-explore it.”

A shiver raced down her spine, a consequent tremble contradicting her response, “It’s in the past, Max. I put it behind me ages ago. You should try and do the same.”

He sighed. “Jesus, Parker. You looked gorgeous tonight and I wanted to tell you that. But I guess I can’t even give you a fucking compliment without you trying to use it to push me away.”

“You did a little bit more than to just give me a compliment,” Liz huffed, persistent in proving him wrong because his words had struck a nerve of truth.

“What?” he wondered, and stepped in between her knees. She wordlessly followed his descent as he sank to his knees in front of her. He put light hands on her thighs and whispered, “This?” as he feathered his touch up the naked part of her legs, just above her knees.

She inhaled sharply, so sharply that he looked up at her with anticipating wonder on his face.

Dropping his eyes to follow the trail of his fingers, he reached the hem of her dress, but didn’t let that physical border stop him. Continuing his trail upwards, the red fabric floated up over the back of his hand as his fingers explored the softness of her skin.

“Max…” she warned.

They both knew that she could easily stop this. All she had to do was reach down and remove his hand or even push him away. But she appeared as frozen as his touch was alive.

“I’m serious, Liz,” Max said softly, “Why are you here? I wouldn’t leave you alone on Valentine’s Day.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Liz whispered.

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Let me ask you a question, Max. Does anyone deserve me?”

His lips curled in a smile, the one of an inside joke. “No.”

“So if you had it your way, I would end up alone.”

His golden eyes twinkled as he looked up at her, his hand having stopped half-way up her thigh where his fingers were lightly pressing into her flesh. “Not completely alone.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No?”

He shrugged, his reply casual, “I can get you a cat. Or 112.”

Her eyes went skywards and she sighed. “Ha.Ha.”

“But,” he drawled, leaning into her, placing his hands next to her hips and bringing his face an inch from hers. He watched her pupils dilate as he said, “there’s always me.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she breathed.

“I want you,” Max countered clearly.

Liz stared at him. His confession was almost too direct to be believable. But the words meant too much when he was so close. With firm hands on his chest, she pushed away from him, scooting backwards on the bedspread.

“I’m going to bed.”

Max watched her stand up in the soft bed, felt the bed move underneath his elbows, and he sat back on his heels as he followed her walk across the bed and down to the floor. “You still don’t believe me, do you?”

“Max, I’m really tired.”

“You still think that it was all about sex?”

“I have a boyfriend.”

Max sighed. “So?”

Liz looked at him incredulously. “It’s called cheating.”

“Then break up with him.”

“And what? Get a cat?”

“Or have some fun. With someone else.”

She raised an eyebrow. “In other words; with you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you meant it.”

“I’m just saying that he’s not right for you. And you know it too. Do you really see yourself marrying that guy? Starting a family with him?”

She gave a short laugh. “As if your relationships are the ‘be all, end all’ type of relationships. I can be with someone just for the fun of it. I don’t have to want a future with the guy.”

“Yes, you do.”

His confident answer annoyed her. “You think you know everything about me, don’t you?”

“You wouldn’t invest in something unless there was a greater plan behind it.” Narrowing his eyes at her, he rose from his position and straightened up in front of her. “Which makes me wonder… If you don’t love him, what’s your reason for sticking around?”

Liz took a step back as he once again came too close. “Stop psychoanalyzing me, Dr. Freud.”

“Afraid to be alone?” Observing her as if she was a puzzle he needed to figure out, he answered his own question with a shake of his head. “Nah. That’s not it.” Pursing his lips, he moved in closer, his voice dropping a couple of decibels. “What about jealousy?”

She frowned. “Huh?”

“You’re using him to make someone else jealous.”

She sighed, appearing bored with the conversation even though she was nearly breathless with anticipation about what he was going to do next. “Like whom?”

“I wouldn’t have the slightest clue,” Max whispered, amusement curling the corners of his mouth. “I don’t know anything about you. I think those were your words.”

“Why are you even here?” Liz sighed. “You don’t even live here.”

Max shrugged. “It was closer to go here.”

“Then how about you let me go to sleep,” Liz said, feigning a yawn.

He gave her a crooked smile before leaning in and pressing a kiss on her cheek.

“Good night, Parker,” he whispered in her ear. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Mhmm,” she mumbled, not really in the right emotional state to be able to form words or sentences.

He took a step back, winked at her and walked towards the door. With his hand on the doorknob he turned and hitched his chin in the direction of the rose on the desk. “And you should probably put that one in some water.”

Reminded again of the rose, Liz felt the blush rise on her cheeks. Catching the emotion on her face, Max gave a short salute with his hand before he left the room.

Liz eyes drifted from the empty doorway to the red rose on her desk. Sometimes she wondered if he only did all of these things to test her. To see how far he could take everything. Like a five-year-old testing the boundaries with his baby-sitter.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she whispered to no one in particular as her finger slowly brushed across the red petal.


TBC...

Thanks to my excellent, speedy beta - I'm heeere

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Thank you so much to everyone that always leave some feedback!! and Thank you to the lurkers that come out even though they are lurkers . I'm so happy to hear from you from time to time.

Maybe I can make your day somewhat brighter by also telling you that I have the next chapter written as well and I'm trying to catch up on my other half-written chapters. Maybe soon I'll be back to frequent one-chapter-per-week updates.

Updated Timeline

Note: You might wonder why this chapter touches on about the same crisis as the chapter before (White Flag). The reason is...real life. You could probably guess that Michael's inability to agree to Max and Liz's relationship wasn't going to blow over in just one conversation...


So... here we go again.

46. One step back, two steps forward

The Apartment
(2008) Max is 23, Liz is 22


The evening had started out well.

“Mmm…” Liz sighed as Max’s lips pulled on her bottom lip.

“When is he coming back?” Max mumbled against her mouth.

“Not for a long time,” Liz answered, threading her fingers through his hair and holding him in position.

But the evening was about to take a turn for the worse.

Maybe it was due to the fact that Michael had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. Maybe it was because Max was fed up with watching Liz feeling bad about the situation between the previously two best friends. Maybe it was because it was late at night and Michael hadn’t anticipated Max to be in the apartment. Maybe it was because Max had been kissing Liz as Michael had pushed the front door open.

Or maybe it had just been building up to this moment for a long time.

But none of the three individuals in the room even bothered to contemplate the fateful circumstances that lead to this particular point in time. Liz felt her heart galloping irregularly in her chest as she with mutual intensity both felt and observed the doom fall on top of the two men that meant so much to her.

She swore that she could almost feel the air vibrate with thick emotion between them as they stood in an oddly symmetrical triangle, each facing the other.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Michael grumbled so low that Liz thought she felt the ground shake beneath her suddenly cold feet.

Max straightened, his profile hard. “I’m here with Liz.”

Liz watched her brother’s fist tighten and knew that not only she, but also Max, must know how Michael was barely restraining himself at the moment.

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out since you just had your tongue down my sister’s throat.”

Liz snapped surprised eyes to her brother, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. “Michael!”

“You know we’re a couple now, Michael,” Max said, his voice as tense as the rest of his body.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll have to like it,” Michael responded.

“She’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

“Just because she’s old enough doesn’t mean that she’s mature enough.”

Anger added another color to Liz’s cheeks, but as she opened her mouth to tell him one thing or two about maturity, Max beat her to it, “She knows what she’s doing.”

“Are you having sex with her?”

Liz opened her mouth to cry an end to this discussion, but once again Max beat her to it, “Do you really want to know that about your little sister?”

“When it comes to you, yes I do. I know of your tendencies to use them and leave them. I have no doubt that once you’ve had your fun with her, you’re gonna throw her out just like yet another one of your bimbos.”

Not appreciating being talked about in third person when she was standing right there, Liz snapped, “I’m right here, you know.”

But the men ignored her as they continued their duel about who was best fitted to take care of her.

“For your information, those other girls you’re referring to were in on it as well. No strings attached. It’s different with Liz.”

“Of course it is,” Michael responded sarcastically.

Max’s body tensed even further as the anger pulled on his self-restraint. “You’re one to talk! Before you met Maria you were exactly the same!”

“I didn’t do it for as long as you did.”

“That’s because you found Maria sooner.”

“Liz was always there!”

“As a friend. I never admitted to myself that there might be more. Not until now.”

“What a load of bull,” Michael snorted.

Anger glimpsed through Max’s collected façade and Liz straightened with new fear as his voice boomed menacingly, “Fuck, Michael! What makes you so fucking special? So you can screw around and be trusted to stay faithful as soon as you meet the right girl. But if I try to do the same thing, I’m not even given a fucking chance to prove myself!”

Anticipating a disaster, Liz tried to intercept, “Could you two please stop?”

“If things hadn’t worked out with Maria, it wouldn’t have had any big consequences. But if you screw this up, you’ll ruin Liz forever.”

Max looked at his former best friend as if he had gone insane. “So if Maria had a brother and you hurt her… You don’t think he would come after you?” Max caught a heated breath. “I get that you’re trying to protect her but you can’t lock her up in a fucking glass bubble!”

“She can date who the fuck she wants; anyone but you!”

Max took a frustrated step closer to Michael, putting them within two feet of each other and causing Liz to nervously chew on her bottom lip.

“If I’m so fucking lousy, why did you keep me as your friend for most of your life?!”

“’Friend’ is completely different from ‘sister’s boyfriend’.” Michael threw a hand in his sister’s direction, for the first time acknowledging that she was even there. “Don’t you know that she’s had a crush on you for like forever?”

As Max’s eyes snapped to Liz’s face, she felt as shocked as Max looked.

“I so didn’t-“, she tried to protest.

Michael interrupted. “I tried to ignore it. Hoping that it was fucking puppy love. But she always acted different around you.”

Recuperating from the shock of Michael’s revelation, Max refocused on Liz’s brother. “That should be a good thing. If she’s always loved me, then shouldn’t you want us to be together? Give her that happiness?”

Michael sighed frustrated. “You don’t get it, man. She’s fucking loved you all of her life. Do you have any idea of what it would do to her if you broke up with her? You’ve made her happy now by getting together. Fine. Even I can’t deny that. That piece of happiness is just gonna make her fall even harder.”

“She’s not gonna fall-“

“She’ll start to believe in a life with you and then you’ll leave and she’ll be crushed. Just because she’s loved you most of her life.”

“Don’t you think that scares me too?!” Max exploded. “I worry about that every single day.”

Liz looked at her boyfriend in muted surprise.

“I’m so afraid I will somehow, some day, hurt her. I would rather die before hurting her. Because I did grow up with her. Because I, just like you, felt like we needed to protect her. And because in some form, I’ve always loved her too. And I’ve been tossing it over in my head, trying to figure out what’s the best thing to do. Being with her was my best solution. We were both miserable when we were denying how we felt and tip-toeing around each other. I was hurting her so much when we weren’t together. So being without her is not an option.”

Michael’s face had resigned to weariness during Max’s monologue and his whole body sighed as she said, “I can’t trust you. I’ve seen how easily you’ve discarded girls before.” A new fire was ignited in his eyes as he said, “And I swear to God, I’ll crush you like a fly if you break her.”

Not being able to listen to this anymore, Liz sighed loudly. “Fuck you both!”

They both looked at her in mild surprise, recognition flashing through their eyes, as if they had just noticed her presence. “I’m not some fucking trophy that you can compete for just to prove who’s the manliest man to take care of me and protect me from the bad evil dragons out there! I’m not five years old. I can make my own decisions.”

Facing her brother with stormy eyes, her words were sharp and pointed, “And I’m certainly mature enough to decide who to have a relationship with. And when it comes to sex, that’s none of your business, dear brother. If I have sex with five strangers in one week or make love to Max five times per day doesn’t matter. It’s still none of your business.”

Her eyes alternating between them, she turned towards the door. “While you continue your show of manliness, I’ll be at Max’s place.”

Before the door slammed shut behind her, she mumbled, “I’m so fucking fed up with this.”

The slam of the door left Michael and Max with the options of continuing their arguing, fighting it out caveman style or deciding on peace by agreeing to disagree.
One hour later
Max’s Apartment

She was in the bathroom, washing her face and preparing for bed as he leaned against the doorframe. Water droplets dripped from her face as she met his eyes in the mirror. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

He wouldn’t have been more surprised if she had slapped him. Max blinked. “Sorry?”

“I meant what I said; I’m not a five-year-old.”

“I never said that you were.”

She ripped the towel off the hook and pressed it against her wet face. Her words were partly muffled against the fabric as she spoke, “I can speak for myself.” Placing the towel on the sink, she turned around to face him. “You kept answering every single embarrassing accusation he made, not letting me speak for myself.”

Irritation flashed in his eyes. “I was defending you!”

“You were degrading me in front of him. Not directly, but by not letting me defend myself you made it even more obvious how you two think you can just control my life!”

“Why are you taking this out on me? He’s the one who was degrading you!”

She closed her eyes and tried to remain calm. But instead she exploded on him. “Because you’re not helping!”

There was silence so deafening that she forced her eyes open only to meet his sad disappointed eyes.

“I won’t talk to you when you’re like this,” he said and turned.

“Oh, you’re gonna run away now?” Liz snapped, regretting the sour tone to her voice the second the words left her mouth.

He froze in his steps, his back trembling with strain. “All I was trying to do was to help you. It might quite probably already be too late for my friendship with Michael, but if I can somehow save your relationship with your brother I want to do that.”

She sighed frustrated. “It’s not your thing to save.”

He turned, his eyes dark with annoyance. “I can’t just sit by as you fret over how strained things are between the two of you. I mean, you basically live here now. The reason we were over there today to start with was to pick up more of your stuff.” He struggled, trying to be casual, but the hurt was evident in his eyes. “But if you think I’m ruining stuff instead, I’ll stop trying to bridge things with Michael.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t do that. Don’t give me those puppy eyes and act all wounded.”

His hands flew out to his sides and he cried in frustration, “Fuck, I can’t do anything right, can I, Lizzie? What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing!” she yelled. “I want you to do nothing!”

His hand flew into the air in tense resignation. “Fine!”

“Fine!” she snapped back.

He spun around to walk off, but the sound of her sharp shaky inhalation halted his steps. The anger washed off him like sand in water and he turned around, finding her putting moisturizer on her face, trying her hardest to act unaffected by what had just happened. But her harsh movements betrayed her pretended calm.

“Why won’t you let me help you?”

Even though his voice was quiet, she jumped, having anticipated him to be far away by now.

“Why do you keep assuming that I need help?” she retorted, straightening her back as her mouth tightened in stubborn lines. “That’s what’s annoying me. Not that you want to help me, just that you always think I need help. I’m not a porcelain doll, Max.”

“I know you’re not,” Max answered evenly. “But I love you. And when I love someone I want to support them and help them. Be someone they feel that they can lean on.”

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and her head dropped tiredly.

“I feel like the bad guy again,” she mumbled. “Why do I always fell like the bad guy in our fights?”

He stepped up to her and brushed his fingers slowly down her arms. “You’re not the bad guy, sweetie.”

She shook her head, sighing. “You’re trying to help and I’m yelling at you. I think that makes me into one of those sour nagging horrible girlfriends that I told myself I would never become.”

“Shut up,” he whispered, brown eyes locked with hers.

Confusion widened her eyes. “Huh?”

He pressed an index finger against her lips. “If you’re gonna turn into a martyr on me, you might as well not say anything at all.”

For some reason that she couldn’t really put her finger on, his actions made the annoyance return and bubble inside with fresh intensity. Taking a step back, she whipped her arms to the side and thus effectively removed his hands. His eyes narrowed, trying to understand her as she removed the hair band that had kept her hair back, letting the dark hair cascade down her shoulders.

“Just leave me alone,” she whispered, disappointed in herself that she couldn’t compromise and meet him halfway in this while she simultaneously was annoyed with her own uncontrollable irritation.

As she turned to walk out, he said quietly, “I think we kinda worked it out.”

She froze.

When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “After you left we talked a bit more…rationally and we reached some kind of agreement.”

Her throat felt dry with nervous anticipation. “Which was?”

“That as long as I treated you like a queen, he would stay out of our business.”

“And if you didn’t treat me like a queen?” Liz asked, feeling the start of a smile on her lips.

Max scratched his ear with a sheepish grin. “He has the right to bash my head in.”

She winced, but there was amusement in her voice as she said, “Yeah, that sounds rational.”

Silence followed her words as a million thoughts distracted her from the present. Until Max’s quiet words brought her back.

“Can we make up now?”

It was like a dam breaking. The pent-up anxiety and frustration that had walked hand in hand with this situation. The inability for her to be able to fully enjoy her new relationship with Max. All emotions assaulted her at once, causing an extended breath to shake her frame.

Max was there to catch her trembles, wrapping his arms tightly around her middle, pulling her back flush against his front as his lips searched for the skin behind her ear.

“Still don’t want me to butt in?” Max asked, but not even his self-righteous tone could ruin the relief and happy feelings moving through her at the moment.

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” she mumbled non-committally, even though she really wanted to thank him for ending a long line of sleepless nights.

As if hearing her silent admission, Max whispered into her ear, his voice now gentle and humble, “You’re welcome.”

She took a hold of his hands that were locked over her bellybutton and brought it up to her lips. Kissing the tip of his fingers gently, she didn’t need any words to transmit the gratitude and happiness she felt.

“Our first fight,” Max said softly.

She frowned. “Huh?”

Max pressed a kiss to the side of her neck while his hands took a hold of the bottom of her tank top and started to pull it upwards. “First fight.”

She shivered with restrained pleasure as his palms briefly cradled the outside curves of her breasts before he continued to move his hands upwards to pull the top over her head.

“You’re delusional,” she whispered, her breathing strained.

Her top was discarded on the floor and her eyes opened to the sight of their reflection in the bathroom mirror. A strange hot thrill moved through the center of her body as she simultaneously watched and felt his hands move across her naked front, slowly caressing her skin.

“We fight all the time,” she added breathlessly, biting her lower lip to stop herself from crying out as his dark eyes looked up and met hers in the mirror. “It’s all we ever do.”

Keeping his eyes locked with hers, there was a clear challenge in the black of his eyes as he pressed his lips to her shoulder before letting his teeth slowly sink into her skin.

The possessiveness of his action mixed with the slight pain shot intensely through her body.

“First fight as a couple,” he said.

“Oh…” she moaned and her head dropped as her concentration focused on what his hands were doing to her.

His voice was warm and husky against her ear. “I want you. I want you right now.”

She nodded, licking her lips before raising her head and meeting his black eyes in the mirror.

She watched him bend slightly behind her, to position his arm in the bend of her knees, to lift her off the ground. A breathless laugh escaped her as he swung her into his arms and anticipation had her heart beat irregularly in her chest as he turned them around and headed straight for the bedroom.

“This better be good,” she mumbled against his neck. “I still haven’t really forgiven you yet.”

“Oh, really?” he laughed and then turned deadly serious. “You won’t be disappointed.”

His words reached all the way down to her toes and she smiled against her skin. “I’m counting on it.”


TBC...

Laira
Heavenli24
pookie76
Alien_Friend
yayaliens
Jessah
Kay
CandyXdreamer
NotYourChick
Destiny
Dziumka
coccy

coccy wrote:since this chapter happened before their "first time as a couple after the original first time" i guess that they didn't really make love in that point but this doesn't mean that they couldn't make out

Yep, pretty much. They didn't really go the whole way.

Emma
Natalie
Eve
sunrise102

sunrise102 wrote:BTW, did Max ever tell Liz about his real relationship with Serena? I can't recall, but it's bugging me to not remember. LOL.

Well, Max hasn't actually told Liz anything about it (not that we know of anyway ), but Liz got this much information from Serena herself in "Dealing with Dogs".

Knowing that she had probably said too much, she turned to the red-haired driver and asked, as casually as she could muster, “How do you know Max?”

“He’s a good friend of mine,” Serena answered and saw something close to relief cross the dark-haired girl’s face. But there was something else on her face as well. Suspicion?

“Only friends?” Liz asked carefully.

Serena smiled broadly and looked at Liz out of the corner of her eye. “You thought we had a history, didn’t you? A romantic history.”

Tamashii
Alison
Alyslove
Keepsmiling7
Sara

and Elizabeth

Thank you soo much everyone for reading!!!

Updated Timeline


47. I do I do I do

La Jolla, California
(2010) Max is 25, Liz is 24


The knocking started out timidly, the sound tickling Liz’s consciousness. She was vaguely aware of Max’s arm around her naked waist, his hand resting against the swell of her breast, as she moved in mild disturbance in response to the sound.

The knocking turned louder and more insistent. Liz’s eyes slowly opened; her eyesight blurry with sleep as she focused across the room at the closed door.

Hoping that the knock had been part of her dream, she squeezed her eyes closed and turned in the warm cocoon of Max’s arms to face him. Her naked breasts pressed up against his bare chest as she snuggly fitted herself under his chin with a contented sigh.

Still asleep, Max slid one of his thighs between hers and pulled her lower body closer with a whisper of his lips across the top of her head.

Liz was halfway to unconsciousness when the door rumbled with another string of knocks.

“Mmm,” she protested, peeking one eye open to see if Max had woken up yet.

His face was peaceful; his long dark lashes resting against the top of his cheeks with stubble covering his lower cheeks and chin. Liz smiled, bringing one of her hands up to brush her fingers through his hair. He had cut it really short just a couple of days earlier and she particularly approved of that look on him.

But then again, he could be wearing a black garbage bag over his head and she would still find him sexy.

The knocking was now loud enough to wake the dead and Liz winced. Watching Max’s eyes move restlessly underneath his eyelids, she started to pull herself out of Max’s arms when he tightened his hold on her.

“Where’re you going, baby?” he murmured, his eyes still closed.

“There’s someone at the door,” Liz whispered and smiled at him as his husky voice made her heart flutter erratically for a second.

Her lips briefly brushed his before she moved out of his arms.

Max’s eyes opened slightly and he groaned in protest, his hand grabbing a hold of her wrist before she got away. “Don’t go.”

The temptation to crawl back into bed with him almost won, but just as she was about to again curl up against his body the knocking re-commenced and she realized just how annoying that sound was and that the only way to make it stop would be to actually open the door.

“I’ll be right back,” she mumbled and pried Max’s fingers off her wrist. His arm fell limply to the mattress as she let it go but he quickly used it to pick up the pillow and press it over his head to drown out the knocking.

She pulled one of Max’s T-shirts over her head, letting it unfold half-way down her thighs as she walked towards the door.

Pulling the door open, she squinted her eyes against the light from the hallway. It was then that she noticed it was still dark outside.

On the other side of the threshold, an impatient Maria was looking at her. “What took you so long?”

Liz raised an eyebrow and went about slowly rubbing her eye as she yawned. “Good morning to you too, Ria.”

“We have lots to do. No time for sleeping.”

Liz scratched the back of her neck sleepily as she spotted a tired Serena leaning against the opposite wall. “Hi, Serena.”

“Mhmm,” Serena answered in a non-committed tone, appearing as impressed with this as Liz was.

“What’s going on?” Max asked from the bed and the three girls looked over to see him pull himself up from the bed, pulling the bed sheets along with him.

He shuffled up to Liz, grabbing a hold of her waist and pulling her back flushed against his front, letting the contact between their bodies hold the bed sheet in place as he wrapped his arms around her body and rested his tired head on top of her head.

“Max, I thought I specifically told you not to tire her out,” Maria said, placing her hands at her waist in a disapproving gesture.

Liz was confused. “Huh?”

“What time is it?” Max asked, ignoring Maria’s statement.

“What’s she talking about, Max?” Liz wondered, trying to angle her neck to be able to face him. Which turned out to be more or less impossible with the weight of his head on top of hers.

“Five-freaking-thirty in the morning,” Serena answered disgruntled from the hallway.

Max and Liz’s eyes simultaneously snapped back to Maria and they parroted in unison, “Five thirty?!”

Maria rolled her eyes, as if they were the ridiculous ones, not her. “Oh come on, we have lots to-“

“Maria,” Liz whined. “Why are you here at five thirty in the morning?”

“It’s your wedding day-“

“Yes, I’m fully aware of that.”

“We have to get your hair done, your make-up-“

“Did it ever occur to you that me sleeping properly might actually help more with my appearance than make-up ever could?”

“That’s why I told Max not to touch you so that you could get plenty of sleep. You should be angry with him instead of me.” Maria gave Max a pointed disappointed look as Liz’s face flushed with the fresh memory of just how much Max had not followed Maria’s orders the night before.

“Maria,” Max said slowly. “She’s my fiancée, we’re getting married today and you seriously think I’m not gonna make love to her all through the night before?”

A blaze of heat flushed Liz from head to toe as Maria looked heavenwards with a what-should-I-do-with-you gesture of her arms. “Whatever happened to abstaining before the wedding night?”

“Shot to hell a long time ago,” Max answered simply.

“Right,” Maria mused.

“The wedding is not until three,” Liz pointed out.

“And look at all this time we’re wasting right now,” Maria answered and Liz’s disbelieving eyes met Serena’s tired ones across the hall.

“Come on, Maria,” Max mumbled. “Is it really gonna take you…” he screwed his face up as he did a mental calculation, “like nine hours to brush her hair?”

Maria put her head to the side and smiled at him like a mother would smile at her four-year-old son in response to a question of why the sky is blue. “Sweetie. I don’t expect you to understand this, but girls dream about their wedding their whole lives. The wedding dress, the flowers, the dancing-“

“Is there a groom in there somewhere?” Max implored which earned him a death glare from Maria.

“All I’m saying is; the day has to be perfect,” Maria added.

Liz grimaced. “Does it?”

Sure, Liz had been dreaming about her wedding. But for some reason all of those details seemed less important right now. At 5.30 in the morning.

“There’s things involved in preparing a girl for her wedding that you could never understand,” Maria continued, glaring at Max.

Max raised one eyebrow and the breathed a slow, “Ohkay. Well, you have fun with that. I’m going back to bed.”

Liz took a hold of his arm when it started to slide away from her waist. There was a whisper of panic in her voice as she said, “Don’t leave me with her.”

Maria put on a broad plastic smile. “Ha ha. Very funny. Come on, Lizzie. We’ve got work to do.”

Her eyes locked with her fiancé’s, Liz said, “We should decide on a secret code so that you will know it’s me in case I won’t look like me in ten hours.”

Max smiled gently, his fingers trailing up the morning flush of her smooth cheek. “Aren’t you going to be the one in the wedding dress?”

In staged whisper, Liz answered, “It might be Maria! From the sounds of it, she’d rather be wearing that white dress than me.”

Maria huffed, not finding this funny at all, and took a hold of Liz’s elbow. “Come on, stupid.”

Liz’s hold tightened on Max’s hand as she cried out. “Noo, don’t leave me, Max.”

Maria rolled her eyes as Max grinned. “Yes, you’re hilarious Lizzie.”

“Don’t make me go with her,” Liz pleaded as Maria succeeded to separate Liz from Max.

Laughing, Max stepped forward and put a hand on Maria’s shoulder. His voice was serious, in sharp contrast to the amusement in his eyes, as he said, “Maria, could I please have a second alone with my fiancée before you drag her off?”

Maria gaped at him with an ‘you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me’ expression across her features, shrugged and let go of Liz.

Liz walked straight into Max’s arms, announcing theatrically, “My savior!”

Maria held up three fingers as she grabbed the door handle. “Three minutes. You got me? Three minutes.”

She slammed the door closed behind her, leaving only silence in her wake.

Max and Liz looked at each other, smiled and then Liz rose to the tip of her toes and placed a warm kiss on his lips. “Good morning.”

His eyes were warm, filled with love, as he mumbled, “Good morning.”

“So…” Liz distractedly moved her fingers across his naked chest. “Are you nervous?”

His hand feathered through her dark hair. “About marrying you? Kitten, I’ve wanted this for so long. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

She smiled. “Just imagine… Next time we wake up together, we’ll be waking up as husband and wife.”

His gaze went into her eyes, straight into her soul and warmed her from top to toe with love as he said, “I love you.”

There was pure happiness on her face as she smiled, “Right back atcha.”

He laughed softly, his hand slowly moving through her hair. Then his face turned serious. “There’s something I need to know. Before we get married.”

Instantly alert to the change in the mood, Liz’s back straightened as her eyebrows furrowed. “What’s that?”

“I need to know,” Max said slowly, “that you forgive me for losing your rabbit.”

She stared at the twinkle in his eyes for a second before she laughed and hit his arm. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

Smiling, he pulled her into a tight embrace, feeling the first flutter of the nervousness he had been trying to deny strum through his heart as his arms tightened around her petite frame.

An odd mixture of possessiveness and protectiveness flooded him as she pressed her cheek against his chest.

In a couple of hours, they were going to be tied to each other. By legal papers and invisible strings. They were going to swear faithfulness to each other for all eternity, until death. They were making it official that they were going to sleep next to each other every night and wake up in the same bed every morning. They were promising to be there through the highs and lows of each other’s lives and watch each other grow old.

And Max couldn’t wait.

“Ten seconds left!” Maria boomed through the door which caused Max to chuckle into Liz’s hair.

“That girl has too much free time,” Liz mumbled, her eyes squeezed shut as she was trying to immerse herself into a world where only the scent and solidity of Max existed without the intruding outside world.

“You need to tell your brother to distract her more,” Max said.

Liz scrunched her nose at the direction to where his statement automatically guided her thoughts. “Ew. I really don’t need to know that about my brother.”

“He’s obviously not doing a very good job. He should be tiring her out.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Here she comes complaining about me keeping you up at night, when she should be in her room sleeping from all the loving Michael is supposed to be giving her.”

“I’m not listening,” Liz said loudly in attempt to drown him and the mental images he was creating out of her head.

“I mean, haven’t I taught him anything about how to please a wo-“

Liz pressed her hands against her ears, singing loudly, “Lalalalalalala.”

His words trailed off and he looked down at his singing wife-to-be with a smile. Her eyes were squeezed tightly together and because her method of drowning him out was so effective, she failed to notice that he had stopped talking. His heart clenched with love as he watched her and he angled his head to kiss the tip of her nose.

His lips had her opening her eyes, her singing fading into nothingness as she met the adoring look in his eyes.

“Time’s up!” Maria yelled from the outside.

Liz groaned. “Is it too late to elope?”

Max shook his head, “Definitely not,” grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards the window.

She giggled, an anticipated thrill shooting through every nerve in her body. “What are you doing?”

“We’re escaping,” Max said, as if it was obvious.

“Where’re we gonna go?” Liz asked, trailing after Max and watching him amused as he unlocked the door to the balcony.

“Las Vegas is not too far away,” Max answered.

She scrunched up her nose in disapproval. “Las Vegas? Really?”

He pushed the door open, letting the cool morning air float into the room. “Or we can…” He turned to face her, pulling her into the circle of his arms and looked down into her smiling face, “…kidnap a minister, find a secluded place on the beach and get married there.”

“I think there are laws against kidnapping priests.”

Max raised one eyebrow in inquiry, “Yeah?”

Pressing her lips together in an expression of ‘I’m afraid so’, Liz nodded.

“Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz,” Maria yelled from the outside, making Max pull Liz through the balcony door.

“Let’s go!”

She laughed. “Max, you can’t be serious!”

“Max, I’m coming in,” Maria bellowed, “You better be dressed and not doing anything that would scar my eyes for life.”

“Then I suggest you stay outside!” Max yelled in the direction of the door, winking at Liz who only rolled her eyes at him. Placing a brief kiss on her lips, Max said triumphantly, “I think I just bought us some time.”

Just then Maria barged through the door. Liz arched her eyebrows, “You were saying?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Maria asked, her fierce steps quickly bringing her up close and personal to the couple.

She poked an admonishing finger into Max’s chest. “Are you trying to sabotage your own wedding?”

“Maria, I-“ Max tried, but Maria was too annoyed to be stopped.

“Do you really think that I enjoy being up this early?” Maria demanded.

Max looked at her oddly, stating the obvious, “Yes.”

Ignoring him, Maria continued, “I’m doing this for you. So that you two can have a beautiful wedding. Something that you can always look back at and-“

“Okay,” Liz interrupted before it could escalate into a full-fledged martyr monologue, grabbing Maria’s elbow, “Let’s go.”

But before leaving Max’s side, she put a hand around his neck and pulled his lips down to hers. Kissing him thoroughly, her tongue tasting his, causing thrills to cascade through both their bodies, she finished it off with a whisper, “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

“The Las Vegas offer still stands,” Max whispered, not quiet enough to escape Maria’s alert ears.

Maria opened her mouth to verbally abuse Max for even suggesting what she thought he was suggesting, when Liz saw her friend’s face go into war-mode and quickly pulled her away.

“You should be grateful I’m in a good mood today-“ Maria yelled at Max before the closing door cut off her voice.

Max took a deep breath, his eyes landing on the black suit that was hanging on the handle of the wardrobe.

He was getting married today.

Nervousness gripped him out of nowhere.

He was getting married today.

Then he smiled, inexplicable happiness spreading like warmth throughout his body, spreading calmness in its wake.

He was marrying Liz Parker today.
6 hours later

She had even spent one hour and a half in the solarium, which Liz had failed to see the logic in but had accepted as a good enough excuse to get some sleep.

She was just about to put her teeth into a bacon and cheese subway when Maria shrieked behind her, almost causing Liz to drop the club sandwich on her white dress. Maria sure wouldn’t have been too impressed by that one.

“Liz! What are you doing?”

“Do you realize that you almost made me spill on the dress?” Liz remarked.

Maria ripped the club sandwich out of Liz’s hands, eliciting a “Hey!” form Liz.

“You can’t eat now!” Maria scolded, putting the subway on the table at the point furthest away from Liz’s hungry hands.

“I’m starving,” Liz moaned.

“There’s plenty of food after the ceremony,” Maria stated simply.

“I won’t make it until then without food. If you want to see me faint and end up in a hypoglycemic coma this is surely the way to do it.”

Maria stared at her. “A hypo-what?”

“Just give me the sandwich, Ria.”

“You’re not eating anything while in that dress.”

“Fine. Then I’ll take it off.”

Maria’s eyes turned large and wide as Liz’s hands went to the back of her dress to undo the hundreds of small buttons. Something that she wouldn’t be very successful at doing on her own anyway, but that wasn’t really going to stop her. She was determined that she was going to eat that club sandwich one way or the other.

“Come on, Liz. Don’t be ridiculous,” Maria sighed.

“I don’t think you understand just how hungry I am,” Liz mumbled, groaning in frustration as her arms wouldn’t bend in the right direction to open the buttons at the level of her shoulder blades. “Gaah. Help me out here, Ria!”

Maria stared at her. “You really think I would help you out of the wedding dress?”

Her arms falling down to her sides in frustrated resignation, Liz was very close to stomping her feet. “I need food!”

“You have to go and do your hair,” Maria pointed out succinctly.

“I have to eat.”

“You can survive without food for another couple of hours.”

“No, I can’t!”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I get very crabby on low blood sugar. You know that! Do you want me to be crabby on my own wedding day?”

“You mean; crabbier than you’ve been this far?”

“I haven’t been crabby. I’ve been following every order you’ve thrown my way, even though it’s my wedding and all I want to do is marry Max. I don’t care about the dress or the hair or the make-up or the tan. If I have to marry Max in my laundry day underwear, I’ll do it!”

Maria blinked, hurt spreading in her eyes. Her voice was hard and barely there as she mumbled. “Fine. Do it your way. I was just trying to help. I wanted this day to be perfect for you. But if it’s not appreciated, I can go and do something else.”

Liz sighed tiredly, instantaneously wishing that she had kept that emotional outbreak to herself, as Maria turned to walk away.

Liz’s hand reached out and grabbed Maria by the elbows, pulling her into an awkward hug. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m the worst friend in the universe and I’ll understand if you’ll never forgive me. I’m a monster. Please. I’m so sorry.”

Maria sighed. “Liz. You’re squeezing kinda hard.”

“Will you forgive me?” Liz continued.

A small smile crept onto Maria’s stubborn lips and she sighed again. “Okay. Just let me go.”

Liz let her go and looked at her with a regretful expression. “Forgive me?”

“I guess we have time for a 20 minutes lunch break,” Maria compromised which had Liz smiling broadly and anew wrapping her arms around Maria’s body.

“Liiiz,” Maria gasped. “You’re killing meee.”

Liz stepped back, smacked a big kiss on Maria’s cheek and then took the subway from the table behind her friend.

“Nah-uh,” Maria protested. “Dress comes off first!”

“Gee, Maria,” Liz said. “You might be my best friend, but I’m not really ready for that big commitment yet.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Ha. Ha. Funny.”
40 minutes or so before the wedding

Serena sighed in relief as she walked into the room that served as the room for the final bridal preparations. “Goodness gracious. You’re still alive.”

Liz looked away from observing the hair-dresser arrange the final curls on her head. “Surprised?”

“At least now I can tell Max that you’re still alive. There was this rumor going around that Maria was not even letting you have water and Max started to think that he was going to marry an emaciated faint version of the woman he loves.”

Liz snorted. “And he told me that he would always love me, no matter how I looked.”

Serena laughed and pulled up a chair next to Liz. “That’s what they always say.” Taking a closer look at her friend, Serena added softly, “You look beautiful, Liz.”

A fresh blush spread across Liz’s cheeks and she smiled. “It only took nine hours to get this result.”

Serena huffed. “You were gorgeous before as well.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should’ve told Maria that before she attacked me with all her makeover projects.”

Serena looked at her thoughtfully. “Yeah, I was meaning to ask you that. How do you find the strength to fight the temptation to kill that woman?”

Liz laughed. “Trust me; I was very close to giving into that temptation today.” Shaking her head and turning serious, she added, “For as long as I’ve known her, she’s been there for me and it’s really sweet of her to do all of this for me.”

Serena nodded. “She’s putting in quite an effort.”

“And I love her for it.”

“You’re a better person than I am, Liz Parker. I would’ve killed her by now.”

Liz smiled. “So I shouldn’t ask her to help you out with your future wedding then?”

There was a visible twitch in the corner of Serena’s eye and she sent a disapproving glare in Liz’s direction. “Don’t you dare…”

Liz laughed and waved her own words away with her well-manicured hands. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t bring that down on you. By the way, how’s the husband search working out for you?”

Knowing that Serena was not really pro weddings; her words on the whole thing being more along the lines of an eternal prison of monogamy than eternal bliss with the one person you love, Liz received another glare from Serena.

“It’s going really well, thank you,” Serena answered. “As in; not at all. Which is just the way I like it.”

Liz smiled. “Just you wait. One day you’ll find that one person that you don’t want to share with anyone else – ever – and you want to spend the rest of your life with…”

Serena huffed. “Right. Wedding is a stupid institution that is designed to make people end up hating each other. Do you know the divorce rate-“

Her words trailed off as she remembered the company and she looked at Liz guiltily. “I mean, not for you and Max. You’re special. You’re the exception.”

Liz laughed. “Riight. Okay.”

Serena rose from her seat. “I should go and tell Max that you’re still alive. That’s why he sent me here anyway.”

Liz did her best to look appropriately disappointed. “So you didn’t come to see me?”

Serena smiled, fluttered her eyelashes and planted a firm kiss on Liz’s blushed cheek. “Love you, babe. Max is gonna die when he sees you.”

The happiness barely contained inside of her broke through the cells of her skin, making Liz radiate as she smiled back. “Love you too.”

With her hand on the doorknob, Serena turned around and asked, “Just another 40 minutes, then freedom is over. So…are you sure about this?”

Liz refrained from rolling her eyes. “I’ll see you later, Ser. At the ceremony.”

“Fine,” Serena laughed. “But don’t come complaining to me in about five years about how much Max sucks. I did warn you.”

“Bye, Serena,” Liz emphasized.
45 minutes later

“Take a deep breath, man,” Michael mumbled behind him and Max swallowed deeply.

His neck was itching, his hands wanted to loosen the tie, just to let some air in. He just needed air.

As if on command, the cool beach breeze ruffled through his clothes, but did nothing to help the shakiness of his hands or the nervous bumpy beating of his heart.

He wasn’t really sure why he was nervous. Maybe it was his player background that was rearing its ugly head, questioning why he was committing to one woman when he could have the world. But considering how much he loved Liz, and had always done so, he highly doubted that was the source to his nervousness.

Maybe it was all the people staring at him at the moment. Some with tears in their eyes already, some with big smiles, others with pleased smiles and even some – Liz’s mother – with disapproving eyes. But in the end he didn’t really care about that either. People had always had their opinions about him and he would never claim himself to be a people pleaser.

Maybe it all came down to living up to the expectations of being a husband. More was expected from a husband than from a boyfriend. Would he be able to be the husband Liz wanted him to be?

“You look a bit pale,” Michael whispered behind him, snapping Max out of his reverie.

Maybe thinking about this right now wasn’t such a good idea.

He should just focus on the here and now.

Yes, that’s what he should do.

Then the music started and his heart plummeted into his stomach. This was it. He was getting married.

“I don’t know CPR,” Michael whispered. “Just keep that in mind.”

Max straightened. “Shut up, Mike.”

Michael’s quite laughter faded into the background as Liz came around the corner. Just like that, all his worries evaporated. His heart fell back into a normal rhythm and his hands grew steady.

Everything snapped back into the correct position and Max Evans relaxed one hundred percent.

She was a dark angel, with her chocolate hair and tanned skin contrasting with the cream-colored dress. But it was the unearthly glow that radiated off her that had explosive joy erupting through every nerve ending in his body, filling him with complete content and bliss.

It seemed like forever, but she did eventually reach him and his fingers were stretched out to be laced with hers. Her smiling eyes met his and he had to fight the urge to bend forward and kiss her. He barely noticed as Mr. Parker kissed Liz’s cheek and nodded to Max. All he was aware of was Liz’s face and her small hand in his.

“You okay?” she whispered as she stepped up next to him, both turning their backs to the audience.

“You’re beautiful, kitten.”

Her smile grew bigger at the use of his everyday nickname for her. “Nervous?”

The minister started talking in front of them, something they only vaguely noticed.

Max winked. “Of course not. This is easy.”

She nodded knowingly. “Uh-huh. Okay. Good.” Then she smiled again.

They glanced at the minister in unison when he mentioned their names in his greeting, and then Max looked back at her profile. “I love you.”

She squeezed his hand and bit her lip to stop the excessive happiness from starting to hurt her heart. Looking at him, she answered with bright shiny eyes, “I love you too.”

“Always,” he added, unable to tear his eyes away from her face.

She bit her lip harder, this time to stop herself from laughing. “Max, it’s time to listen to the minister. You’re gonna miss your own wedding.”

He grinned at her reprimand. “Yes, ma’am.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, amusement playing in every corner of her face, but didn’t say a single word.

Even though she refocused on the minister, she was very much aware of how Max’s gaze never really left the side of her face. How he continued to watch her throughout the ceremony. He repeated everything perfectly and did everything on cue, but never once did his gaze falter from her face.

“Maxwell Matthew Evans, do you take Elizabeth Anne Parker as your lawful wedded wife? To love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, for as long as you both shall live?”

With a half-crooked smile, Max answered, “I do” and pulled Liz against him and kissed her.

Since she hadn’t said her part yet and the minister hadn’t announced the ‘you can now kiss the bride’ part, Liz would’ve protested if it hadn’t been for the fact that Max’s kiss completely paralyzed her. He had never kissed her like that. Gently, but with barely restrained passion and a hint of desperation. Like he was crying happiness into the kiss.

He pulled away, nibbling softly at her lips and she looked up at him dazed. They would’ve continued to stare dimly into each other’s eyes if the minister hadn’t cleared his throat with quiet laughter. “Alright then. And…ahum… Do you, Elizabeth Anne Parker-“

Max’s face broke out into a big smile as he realized that he had gone a bit ahead of things and as sporadic laughter was heard from various corners of the audience, he kissed her nose and demonstratively pushed her slightly away from him to announce that distance was the only thing that was making it possible for him to keep his hands off her.

“-take Max Matthew Evans as your lawful wedded husband? To love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, for as long as you both shall live?”

Liz nodded eagerly with a laughing smile, “I do.”

She coughed softly, trying to muffle a laugh as Max turned his whole attention on the priest, wanting to hear the magic words.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister said.

Keeping his firm attention on the minister, Max waited patiently to hear the finish. The minister smiled good-heartedly, “You may now kiss the bride.”

Max looked back at his wife and let his hands caress her face, while his fingers brushed at the soft tendrils of hair framing her face. Whisking his thumb across her lip, he bent down and softly touched his lips to hers. At the contact, Michael whistled behind them, which escalated into several cat calls, ‘wohoos’ and applauds across the audience.

Liz smiled against his lips and Max moved his hands down from her face to her sides and hugged her to him as he lifted her feet off the ground and spun them around.

Liz laughed happily, the beach breeze against her bare skin, the flowers in her hair and the man she loved in her arms.


TBC...

Since my RF notifications don't really notify me all the time, I was more than happily surprised when I ventured in here to RF on one of my more infrequent visits and noticed that some posts had been made to this story. And the posts kicked me into action. I was like, "I really really need to finish a chapter right about now and update".

So I did.

And here it is.

But first, to all of you beautiful people out there who read and take the time to leave feedback,many many many hugs and kisses.

Laira
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and

Elizabeth - for reading and editing

Also, thank you so much for all your concern regarding my upside down life. You're all so sweet.

Updated Timeline

48. The Final Punch

The Crash
(2007) Max is 22, Liz is 21

He came up behind her, his lips warm and wet against the skin under her ear. Her reaction was not what he’d anticipated; he didn’t know that he didn’t have the right to touch her like that any longer.

Her head moved sharply to the side, away from the warm breath, before a turn of her head confirmed that the person invading her personal space was the last person she wanted to see right now.

A rush of anger and disgust moved through her as her eyes landed on the smiling face of her boyfriend. Her ex-boyfriend. Being confronted by her stormy eyes, his smile started to ever so slowly fall off his face.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, his concern so sweet that bile rose in her throat.

Feeling the need to vomit, she pushed him away from her as she simultaneously jumped off the bar stool.

Only having one course in mind, getting out, she didn’t feel the slightest need to offer him any words of explanation.

He was in no mood to put up with her odd behavior. Grabbing her firmly by the elbow, the previous stalker that turned into blackmailing boyfriend that later proved to be a disgusting cheater pulled her back against his body. “What’s up with you? Why are you not saying anything?”

“Get away from me,” she ground out, not loud enough to make herself heard over the music.

His hand slid down her elbow and folded across her hip, bringing her flush against him with a seductive smile. “Come on now. Are you playing hard to get? ‘Cause it’s a bit too late, sweetheart.”

She pressed the palm of her hand against her lips as the bile was getting dangerously close to her mouth. With the motivation of not wanting to throw up in front of all these people, in front of the man she hated more than she ever thought she could hate someone, she gathered her strength and pushed out of his arms. Pushing through the masses of human bodies, she reached the door with a strangled cry and just made it around the corner before bending over and retching against the tiled wall.

Feeling tears sting her eyes, she rolled back on the balls of her feet and pushed the hair back from her face. She wanted to just lie down on the ground, curl up into fetal position and cry the world away. She might have done so if the door hadn’t open followed by a loud voice which ripped through her miserable cocoon.

“What the fuck is wrong with your fucking friend?!”

She flinched, looking up at a furious Sean. Either he didn’t notice the tear stains on her cheeks and the fact that she was sitting on the cold ground, or he chose to ignore it. Because either way, he was already pulling her to her feet, his face close to hers as he furiously pointed to his eye.

“He’s fucking insane!! I want you to stay as far away from him as possible. He’s fucking crazy!!”

As his words ripped through her, her eyes were transfixed by the redness of his right eye and by how the tissues surrounding it seemed to get bigger as she watched. There was blood from his eyebrow, running down his temple at a constant stream.

He looked like one of those wrestlers on TV that Michael used to watch. Whenever they would bust up an eyebrow, the blood wouldn’t stop running.

Upon hearing no response, he pushed her up against the wall. “Are you fucking listening to me?!”

This more violent side of Sean brought Liz out of her momentary daze and her eyes caught a hold of his. With a low, even voice, the melody of a warning lioness, she said, “Let go of me.”

He blinked, surprise echoing through his features, and after a moment of hesitation, he did as she ordered. Taking a step back, he tried to pick up his trail of speech again, not wanting her to realize that her response had surprised him.

“He just attacked me. Out of the fucking blue.”

She looked at him coldly, stepping away from the wall so she wouldn’t feel so cornered, “Why the hell are you talking to me?”

Her words completely threw him off and his words turned into a stuttering mess until reaching complete silence. “What the fu- Liz… What’s wrong with you?”

Her eyebrows rose and she looked at him incredulously. “What’s wrong with me? You want to know what’s wrong with me?”

“Yeah,” he bit out, “You’re being schitzo.”

Her eyes widened and with feigned surprise her mouth formed a perfect ‘o’. “Oh, really?”

He frowned. What the fuck?

Pointing at the door to The Crash, Sean looked appropriately upset. “Your crazy friend in there just beat me up for no reason. How about you act like a supportive girlfriend and talk to me like a normal person?!”

She laughed; the laughter cold and her gaze indifferent. “Oh, you thought I was your girlfriend.” With a bucket of sarcasm, she added, “That’s so sweet.”

Sean looked at her like she’d gone insane. “Did you just… I can’t believe… You’re fucking-“

Not wanting to put up with this charade any longer, Liz cut him off, her voice rising in intensity as she let her anger take control. “No, Sean. How about you tell me what you were doing fucking some girl in the bathroom last night.”

The shock on his face was complete. Punctuated only by the classics signs of being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or as in this case; being caught with his hand down some other girl’s pants.

She watched his face, her heart breaking all over again, as he tried to put together an excuse, a lie, to convince her that her own eyes had betrayed her.

“Who…who told you that?” he stammered.

“No one,” she said coldly. “I saw it, Sean. You didn’t even have the decency to fuck her discreetly.”

“Baby, it must’ve been someone else…”

“The hell it was.”

“I would never do that to you.”

“Then why did you?”

“It wasn’t me. I fucking swear!”

Tears pricked her eyes as she watched him work so hard to continue to be dishonest to her. “Why Sean? Why?!”

Her tears broke through his lies, spoke to his defensive side, and he exploded. “Yes! Okay. Yes! I had sex with someone else. And she was a lot more willing than you’ve ever been. It was worth every damn second of it!”

It was not hard to see her heart breaking; it was in every detail of her face as she looked at him in disbelief, not being able to quite fathom how she could have ever loved him.

He saw every single piece break away from her heart and he felt a sting of regret. He did care for Liz. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her – never intentionally.

But it was too far gone now. There was no turning back.

“I thought you loved me,” she whispered, trying not to sound broken. But the weak nuances of her voice were a dead give-away.

“It’s hard to love someone that’s completely cold.”

His words momentarily re-ignited the anger in her. “Maybe I wouldn’t have been so cold if you would’ve waited until I was ready – instead of blackmailing me into having sex with you.”

“Blackmailing?!” He huffed. “You’re a fucking bitch, you know that.”

“You cheated on me!! Don’t you dare try to make me into the bad guy!”

“You brought it onto yourself, Elizabeth. You never gave me anything.”

None of them realized that they had attracted quite some attention. People having gone out for some fresh air and people just arriving at the club were collecting in whispering groups around the fighting couple.

“I did the best I could!”

“Come on! You never even broke a sweat. It was always about Evans, wasn’t it?”

And they were back to that. A chill went through her as the events of the night before, after she had left the club and been brought back crying to the apartment by Max, replayed themselves in her head. How she had accused Max of ruining her relationship with Sean. How Sean would always blame Max for Liz’s emotional and physical unavailability.

The night before she had been trying to find a scapegoat for her life falling apart.

Max had been the natural choice.

But to hear Sean actually confirm it. To hear him actually bring Max up again, was to confirm Liz’s fears that she might have brought this onto herself by letting Max behave the way he had around her. Failing to put Max in his spot and thereby failing in proving to Sean that Sean was her number one priority.

“This has nothing to do with Max! You’re the one that cheated on-“

His laughter cut her off. “Right. He has nothing to do with it? Then why did he just smash my face in for no apparent reason the second he saw me?”

The air got stuck in her lungs. “Max did that? Max hit you?”

Seemingly pleased with her reaction, Sean said with a smug, “He’s not such a saint after all, is he? Dangerously jealous. Beating people up for no apparent reason.”

Not really paying attention to Sean any longer, Liz’s thoughts had started to mill around her head. There was no question about why Max had decided to beat up Sean. It was his way of protecting Liz, of avenging her. And Max had probably assumed that Sean knew that Liz had seen him, going straight for the beating without any explanation.

A weird warm buzz in the center of her stomach told her that Max’s actions did in some way comfort her and a smile started to slowly spread across her lips.

Sean, who had continued to rant about crazy Evans, trailed off as he saw the smile form on Liz’s lips. “What the… What the hell are you smiling about, woman?”

A short laugh of disbelief rolled over her lips and she slowly shook her head. “He hit you.”

Annoyed with her apparent lack of concern for his well-being, Sean grumbled, “And it fucking hurts.”

She started to laugh in earnest at his words, feeling oddly rejuvenated by the whole idea of Max defending her dignity.

Sean couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Staring at her for a couple of seconds, he shook his head. “You’re fucking nuts too. Have a fucking fantastic life.”

And with those words, Sean left Liz and a confounded crowd at the club. He might have had the final words, but he certainly didn’t have the final laugh.
The Apartment
Twenty minutes later

Her hair wet from the shower, she was putting on her pajamas in her room as she heard the front door open. It was almost one a.m. and she knew for a fact that Michael was spending the night at Maria’s. So by simple deduction whoever just walked through that door was either a burglar or Max.

Judging from the slamming of doors to kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator, the latter option seemed most likely.

Pulling a top over her head, Liz left her room and walked down the hallway towards the living area.

Max had his back to her as he concentrated on something at the kitchen bench.

“Hey,” Liz said.

He jumped at the sound of her voice and there was a flash of something unrecognizable as he looked over at her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Did I wake you?” he wondered, his gaze searching her features momentarily before he refocused his attention on whatever he had been doing at the counter.

She shook her head while pulling herself up on the edge of the counter. “Nope…wasn’t asleep.”

He nodded, appearing to not be too interested in her presence and she started worrying her bottom lip as she alternated between studying his profile and observing him trying to shape ice-cubes he had placed in a plastic bag around his knuckles.

She wondered if he, just like she, was thinking about the night before. How he had comforted her by letting her cry against his chest and how she had fallen asleep in his arms. She wondered if he knew how much that had meant to her. She wondered if he knew how safe she’d felt or how right it had seemed.

“What are you doing up so late?” Max asked, barely glancing in her direction.

“Came home late,” she answered simply and retorted non-accusatory, “What are you doing here? Michael’s not here.”

“It was closer,” Max answered lightly and straightened his back, chancing a look at her face.

If she hadn’t known him better, she would’ve thought he was nervous about being around her. But that couldn’t be it.

Could it?

Her feet moved back and forth in the air as she nodded; her face for once level with his. She hitched her chin in the direction of his ice-covered hand. “What happened to your hand?”

He shrugged, looking down at the red and blue discoloration of his right hand. “Some guy ran into it.”

She laughed shortly. “Right.”

His eyes met hers and maybe he saw something in her gaze that revealed that she knew what had really happened, or maybe he already suspected that she did.

Max cleared his throat and avoided her attentive eyes. “Look Liz…about yesterday-“

She was shaking his head before he even had a chance to consider finishing that sentence. “Don’t Max, it’s-“

He looked up and interrupted her, “Please just listen, okay?”

She sighed – deliberately. “Fine.”

“Okay,” Max said, his attention alternating between the ice pack and Liz. “I never meant to come between you and Sean. I’m sorry if I was in any way part of what happened yesterday between the two of you.”

Feeling the seriousness of the situation already weighing on her heavily, she tried to make him stop. “No, Max, it was-“

“But frankly, Liz,” Max’s eyes bore into hers and her words dried on her lips, “he was an asshole. And even though I want to kill him for what he did to you, I’m glad that the result of his assholeness was you breaking up with him.”

Needing to get back to safe territory fast, where she knew how to react and his words didn’t send her tumbling in too heavy emotions, she joked, “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Evans.”

His eyes closed and she knew with a noticeable bite in her heart that she had said the wrong thing. Eyes closed, he slowly said, “Just promise me that you’ll never take him back. Whatever he says to make you forgive him, don’t listen.” His eyes opened to meet her trembling gaze. “Promise me that, kitten.”

Hesitating only for a second, and merely because of the frightening seriousness of his plea, Liz signaled her promise with a slow nod.

Max exhaled deeply, as if she had just taken several pounds off his shoulders, and stepped away from the counter. “Okay, I think I’m gonna head home. I just needed some ice.”

She nodded, forced into speechlessness by his behavior, and silently watched him walk towards the front door.

She found her tongue as he put his hand on the door handle. “Thank you.”

He turned towards her with a puzzled expression.

“For…you know,” she swallowed, trying to make her voice as casual as was required by the situation, “treating Sean the way I couldn’t.”

She hoped that she had been able to say the right thing to get her message across and when his eyes softened she knew that the message had been received. He got that she knew about the punch and that she wasn’t angry with him about it.

With a short nod, he pulled the door open.

“Get some sleep, kitten,” he said and then he was gone.

Liz stared at the closed front door several minutes after his departure, as if he would return, confess some secret love for her, carry her to her bedroom and make her the happiest woman alive. But he didn’t come back and soon all that was left was for her to get back to bed. Alone.

One thing was for sure: With the millions of feelings and thoughts screaming in her body and head that night, sleep was the last thing on her mind.


TBC...

Huge Thank you! goes out to;

Alien_Friend
Spacegirl23
Alison
Destiny
Eve
Coccy
scorpio6
Kris
Ms_BuffyAnneSummers
yayaliens
azure
Laira

LairaBehr4 wrote:Yeah, posting at 5 in the morning my time... haven't we talked about this?

Hmm...yes. And I don't really know what time it is at your place right now, but I hope it's later than 5 a.m.

Natalie
sunrise102
Tamashii
Sara
carolina_moon
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twilight

and

Elizabeth - for editing. Thanks sweetie

Plus thanks to all the lurkers

So, this chapter is very close to the previous one (timeline-wise), going against my smaller principles of skipping back and forth as much as possible in this story But with the previous chapter in mind, I was inspired to finish this chapter (which I had already started ages ago). Thinking that I would post it later, I tried to finish another chapter as well. But since that is taking me some time I thought it would be better if you got an update now instead of waiting for that other chapter that I might finish one day

Updated Timeline

49. Disturbing Behavior

The Crash
(2007) Max is 22, Liz is 21


Max put the glass down in front of her, the sudden movement causing her to snap her head up to him. “One Gin and Tonic.”

Grabbing the glass, Liz almost drowned the entire contents in one go.

Max looked at her with growing discomfort out of the corner of his eye while he tended to the other customers.

“Hit me again,” Liz called.

Max put a drink in front of a blonde girl, gave her a smile and said, “There you go.”

“Stop flirting and give me some alcohol,” Liz remarked surly.

Max sighed and grabbed the bottles to prepare her another drink.

Placing the drink in front of her, he remarked, “You’re inhaling those ones kinda quickly there, Parker.”

She glared at him. “Just do your job, Evans.”

Shrugging, Max left her alone again. As she called out for yet another drink five minutes later, he bent over the counter and looked straight into those dazed shiny big browns of hers. “That’s your fourth one.”

“What are you, my mother?”

He smirked. “Certainly not.”

“No, you’re not. And I’m not driving,” Liz stated firmly. “I’m gonna walk home. Yes siree.”

Max looked unconvinced. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s not too far away anyway,” she continued. “I can even get a cab. Just give me another drink.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

“Good boy,” she said, and retrieved a peanut from the wooden bowl on the counter. Scrunching her nose she inspected it closely before she yelled out, “And do you know how unhygienic these things are?! Someone’s gonna sue you one day.”

At the other end of the counter, Max tried to ignore the temptation to go over to her and keep her company in whatever mood she was in today. If he hadn’t been working, he would’ve, but as long as he was on the clock he couldn’t focus 100% on her. Even though it was very hard to ignore her right now when she was demanding attention like a three-year-old kid.

A pretty girl sat down in front of him, calling to his attention. “Hey Max!”

Her name was Katie and he’d had some run-ins with her – of the intimate kind – when they were in high school. She had been there for him when he had needed comfort around the time his mother died but, even though their relationship had started out mainly as a physical one, they had kept in touch, on a more platonic level.

He smiled at the girl. “Hi there, doll face. How’re you doing?”

She sighed dramatically. “I think it’s time for one of those drinks you blend so well.”

He laughed. “The usual?”

She nodded with an eye-roll. “Yes please.”

“Coming right up.”

As he walked to the other end of the counter to get a bottle of vodka, Liz’s voice was loud and clear behind his back. “Who’s the girl?”

Taking a bag of chips from behind the counter, Max threw it down in front of Liz. Katie’s drink in hand, he leaned in towards Liz and said in a serious voice, “Eat something.”

Her eyes reduced into narrow slits. “You eat something.”

Looking skywards for some glorious help, Max left her to serve Katie.

Pouting, Liz returned to picking through the peanuts, swallowing back the occasional bursts of nausea. The crowd around the bar counter intensified, making Max busier and Liz more neglected.

“You know what?”

It had been so long since he had approached her that she almost jumped at his voice, so close to her ear. Having left the attention-demanding three-year-old behind her, Liz had now entered the more melancholic self-reflective state and was far gone in her less-than-happy thoughts when Max stepped up next to her, having finished his shift.

“What?” she retorted with a grumble.

“It’s people like you that make those peanuts so damn unhygienic,” he answered.

She looked down at where her hands were still thoughtfully turning over each individual peanut in the bowl.

“For your information,” she said, “I wash my hands.”

He huffed. “Good try. That doesn’t really matter though.”

“What happened to my drinks?”

He shrugged. “I cut you off.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t do that.”

His smile had a hint of smugness as he replied, “Oh yes I certainly can.”

“Where’s Katie?” Liz asked, the sarcastic emphasis of the girl’s name exposing her ugly jealousy.

He replied by putting an arm around her waist and lifting her off the bar stool as if she weighed close to nothing. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

She frowned, too intoxicated to be able to fight him physically. “No. Leave me alone.”

“You’re drunk, Liz.”

“So? Maybe I want to be.”

He pulled her staggering body close to his to prevent her from falling over. “Why do you?”

She looked up at him with alcoholic confusion. “What?”

“Why do you want to be drunk?”

She rolled her eyes, now very eager to get out of there – away from Max. But his grip was firm around her waist and she wasn’t going anywhere without him.

“Maybe I like the way it makes me feel, okay?”

He sighed, “Okay,” and led her out the main entrance. “You’re going home.”

Liz aimed a wavering finger at him. “And don’t you think you can take advantage of me just because I’m a bit tipsy right now.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh. Right.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “Because I know you’re just waiting for the right opportunity. Like last time.”

Like the last time they had been drunk together. When they had been alone in a cottage at Christmas. When Liz had lost her virginity.

His jaw clenched. “If you weren’t so damn drunk I would leave you here right now.”

“Hey! That’s rude,” Liz said angrily.

Max was starting to lose his cool too. “Well, you started it.”

“I did not!”

“Oh come on, Lizzie! You’re basically accusing me of raping you that night.”

She rolled her eyes. “Drama queen.”

“Seriously. If someone heard you say that, they would accuse me of taking advantage of you that night.”

“And you’re saying you didn’t?”

Letting go of her, he added a push to get her away from him. She stumbled on unsteady feet and looked appropriately shocked when their eyes met.

“Elizabeth, I swear to god…” Max said slowly and she shivered at the use of her full name. A name only her mother used. “If you’re even considering saying another word about that night right now…”

He left the warning hanging, hoping that she would take a step back before causing irreparable damage to the memory of a night he held very close to his heart.

Observing his face in silence, she recognized the warning signals he was sending out but had lost the inhibition to refrain from speaking her mind. “You keep saying that that night wasn’t just any night for you. Then prove it.”

Her words hung heavily between them as he stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about, Parker?”

“Sleep with me,” she stated shortly, her expression bordering on defiant.

He sighed, dragging his hands down his face. “You’re not listening, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Apparently you’re saying that you didn’t take advantage of me that night, and if you didn’t it must’ve been because you loved me. So if you are telling the truth, show me. How much you love me.”

“Are you hearing yourself? You’re drunk, Parker! Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have sex with you in this state. You can barely walk!”

Hurt flashed in her eyes and he realized a second after the words had left his mouth what he had spoken in anger.

Even if I wanted to…

“I guess I got my answer,” she mumbled disappointed.

Brushing a hand across her eyes, which felt like they were crying but weren’t, she bent down to remove her shoes. There was no way she could keep her balance in those high heels when she was planning on walking away from him.

“That’s not what I meant,” Max protested, “and you know it.”

Collecting the shoes in her hand, she brushed some errant strands of hair away from her forehead. “Good night, Evans.”

He grabbed her by the elbow. “If you were sober, I would have sex with you right here, right now.”

A chill of something inexplicable raced down her spine.

“But you don’t want that, do you?” Max added.

“You’re just saying that,” she mumbled under her breath, her heart fluttering in her chest.

“No, Parker. I’m really not.”

“So Sean was right.”

She could feel his perplexed gaze at the side of her face. “What?”

“And it’s your fault he behaved like he did.”

“It’s not my fault he turned into the king of Jerkdom!”

“Never mind,” she mumbled. “You’re never there when I need you anyway.”

Max closed his eyes and sighed loudly. “For God’s sake woman! Could you for once speak so that I can understand what the hell you’re talking about?!”

“I’m going home,” she announced. “Alone.”

“No, you’re not. With your record you might say ‘yes’ to the first stranger that tries to lure you into his car.”

“With my record?!”

“Uhm… Yes,” he said as if it was a well-known fact. “Two days ago. That pop star character.”

“So? I had sex with someone else.”

This was news to Max. He had suspected it, but chosen to not believe it. To have it thrown in his face was something complete different. “You slept with him?”

She looked at him incredulously. “Oh, like you’re above that kind of behavior.”

“No, not really. But you are.”

“I’m having fun. Are you the only one allowed to have some fun?”

Taking a hold of her elbow again, turning her body slightly so that he could connect with her eyes, he asked with a hint of concern, “What’s going on with you, Lizzie?”

“I just told you! I’m having fun.”

He ignored her stubbornness. “You sleep with guys you barely know. You get drunk almost every night. I understand that it hurt when Sean cheated on you, but behaving like this… Don’t let him screw up your life more than he already has.”

Hurt anger in her eyes, she pulled out of his grip with a sharp tug. “No. You don’t understand. You’re one of them. You’re just like Sean-“

Fire in his eyes, he was quick to correct, “I’ve never cheated on any-“

“Always looking for sex. Sex sex sex sex. That’s all it’s about, isn’t it? One pussy after the other.”

“You’re wrong-“

“Well, maybe I want to try that life out as well. See what’s so damn fun about that existence. I bet I can do it too. Have fun with a guy I don’t know, no strings attached, and then move on to the next guy.”

Finding himself losing the battle, Max tried to change strategy. “Have you talked to Maria? About what happened with Sean?”

“I’m going home now, Evans,” Liz announced as if he hadn’t said a single word. “I hope I won’t be seeing you anytime soon.”

“Liz…”

But she was already walking down the street.

Sighing tiredly about yet another unproductive conversation, Max followed five steps behind her until she walked through the front door of the apartment.

And with a muffled curse, he kicked an innocent stone on the ground and commenced the walk back to his own apartment.
8 days later

Phone conversation between Max and Maria


Max had called her that morning and if it hadn’t been for the concern drowning his voice she probably would’ve bitten his head off for calling her at six in the morning on a Sunday.

“Max, do you have a watch?” she had asked him.

“Yeah,” he had answered, his voice sounding confused to the relevance of that question.

“Could you please look at it before you call me next time?”

Pause. “Sorry, Maria. I didn’t realize it was this early. She’s just… She has barely left her room in a week.”

Maria sighed. “And tell me again why I didn’t know about this.”

“She didn’t want you to know.”

“And Michael?”

“Not him either. I doubt she would’ve told me. I just happened to be there just after it happened.”

Maria’s voice softened. “Well thank God for that. That girl will just kill herself if she doesn’t learn to talk to people. She can’t keep shutting everything up inside. I mean, the son of a bitch cheated on her! It’s not like it’s her fault. Does she think it’s her fault?”

There was a pause while Max ascertained that her rant had come to an end and he could safely speak. “She won’t talk to me.”

“At all?” Maria asked suspiciously.

“She just… She was just too angry that night. She told me what happened and that was it.”

“And she hasn’t left her room in a week?”

“Just after it happened, she went to The Crash a couple of nights. But then she just stopped going out. Completely.”

“And you’ve waited until now to tell me becaaause…?”

Maria could be quite intimidating when she was being woken up at six in the morning.

“She didn’t want anyone to know-“

“Since when do you follow her orders?”

“You haven’t seen her. She’s… I think I’m mostly in the way. She just gets…uhm…annoyed with me.”

“Right,” Maria mused. “Okay, so I take it that she’s up?”

“No.”

“Maaax,” Maria whined. “You call me at the crack of dawn and she’s not even up yet?”

“I was worried. She was crying.”

“I thought you said she was asleep.”

“She cries in her sleep.”

Silence. “And you know this…how?”

“Uhm… I walked past her door.”

“Max,” Maria cautioned. He better not lie to her.

“Fine. Fine,” Max said quickly. “I’ve been staying in her room.”

“You…you what?”

Max hurried to speak before Maria started hyperventilating. “She wants me there.”

“Don’t you hate each other?”

“She just needs a friend,” Max said casually. “And I’m the only one that knows, so…”

He left it dangling, hoping that Maria would draw the correct conclusion and drop the subject.

After the odd conversation they’d had on the sidewalk a little more than a week earlier, Liz’s mood had been going up and down, but the end result had been her apologizing for her behavior that night, claiming to not remember much of it, and in her own wordless way begging him to stay in her room.

“What else do you two do that I don’t know about?”

Max swallowed. Okay, he hadn’t expected that. “Don’t be ridiculous, Maria. There’s nothing between Liz and I.”

“That’s what I thought… But sometimes you make me wonder, Max Evans.”

“You’re getting off track, Ria. Can you come over today or not?”

“You don’t have to get snappy with me, Evans.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Of course I’ll be there. At normal human being hours, not bat hours.”

“Thanks, Maria,” he said gratefully.

“See ya.”

He put the phone down and grabbed the glass of water he had filled as he had been talking to Maria. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he carefully opened the door to Liz’s bedroom.

She was curled up on the edge of the bed, her back towards the door and only her hair visible over the edge of the blanket.

As quietly as humanly possible, Max put the glass of water on the nightstand and slowly pulled back the blanket. He had barely gotten underneath the blanket before Liz had rolled and pressed her body up against his.

His heart missed a beat as it had done so many times during this past week. He wouldn’t be surprised if he suffered a heart attack any day soon. This much heart skipping couldn’t be healthy.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head as she draped her upper body across his chest.

“You keep on disappearing,” she mumbled against his chest. “Stop disappearing.”

He frowned. Was she awake? “Liz?”

“But you’re back now…finally back,” she continued and finished it off with a contented sigh before she snuggled further into the troubled sleep she had been enduring ever since she had to witness her boyfriend have sex with another girl, in the ladies’ room of a bar for the world to see.

He folded his arm across her back and let the warmth of her small body seep into his. He was concerned and troubled about her crying and the degree to which she was grieving that asshole of a boyfriend.

Which is why he had called Maria. It was time to bring in reinforcements.
Max grabbed Maria by the elbow as she grabbed the doorknob to the front door. “So? What did she say?”

“Girl talk, Max,” Maria said.

Max glared at her in the spirit of ‘don’t pull that crap on me’. “Spill.”

Not appreciating his intimidation techniques, Maria straightened her back and glared back. “Did it ever occur to you that there might be a reason why she hasn’t told you everything?”

“I’m not stupid-“

She crossed her arms across her chest. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“I’ve been giving her all the space she needed for a week, but when she is still crying herself to sleep after 8 days it becomes my business whether she wants it or not.”

“Maybe she just misses him.”

Max snorted, almost feeling offended by Maria’s words. “Yeah, right. The guy was a bastard. She should be throwing a party, not wasting Kleenex.”

“Bastard or not, he was still her boyfriend for two years.”

“Did you see how he treated her?”

“He worshipped the ground she walked on.”

Max laughed harshly, only to stop abruptly. “No. No, that wasn’t worshipping. That was some kind of weird obsession. He was weird.”

“So…you’re better?”

Max sighed frustrated. “This is not about me.”

Maria matched his sigh. “Of course it’s not. It’s never about you, Max. It’s never about the fact that you love Liz and that you’ve loved her since before I got to know the two of you. It’s never about the sexual tension that’s always in the room whenever you two are around each other. And God forbid if we ever discuss what must’ve happened between you two at some point, because even if neither you nor Liz will talk I know that you took your relationship one step – or even several – further at one point. But no, let’s not talk about that. Because that might just actually resolve some stuff and save you years of misery.”

Max’s face had turned hard, his spine tense as a bow. His voice was low and methodical as he said slowly, “What. Did. She. Say. About. Sean?”

“Her mom called,” Maria said.

Coldness washed through his system. “What?”

“I guess she didn’t tell you that. It must’ve been when you were working or something.”

A concerning mix of hopelessness and anger was working its way through his body. He knew enough about Nancy Parker to know that a call from her at the wrong time could only mean bad things.

“What did she say?”

“Mrs. Parker? Maybe you should ask Liz that. It’s up to her if she wants you to know or not.”

Maria’s words made Max suspicious. It sounded like something big. “Maria…”

Being in a relationship with stone face Michael Parker, Maria had no problem reading Max at that moment. “No, it’s not like that. It’s just another thing adding to the whole scenario, you know. Her mother has a tendency to be very blunt about things and I’m sure that she was just putting more salt in the wounds.”

“When did she call?”

“Thursday.”

“And she doesn’t want to talk to me about it? Why not?”

Maria shrugged. “Beats me.” Watching him closely, she added, “Maybe it has something to do with that thing that you never discuss and that is never about you.”

Max frowned. “I asked you to come here because I felt that Liz needed a friend. That doesn’t exactly give you the right to accuse me of stuff.”

Maria raised an eyebrow in mild interest. “Did you have too much estrogen with your cereal this morning, Max? You’re getting a bit defensive.”

Clenching his jaw, Max practically growled, “Thank you for your help, Maria.”

She smiled sweetly. “And we’re back to not talking about it.” She sighed. “That’s fine by me. I’m not the one suffering. But I hope – for everyone’s sanity – that you and Liz one day have that conversation about that thing that doesn’t exist between you.”

Max reached past Maria, pulled the door open and stated shortly, “Bye, Maria.”

She grimaced. “Really, Max. You should lay off the estrogen. You’ve been spending too much time with girls.”

Max started closing the door, pushing Maria along. “Thank you for stopping by. Really. I appreciate it.”

Before he had a chance to completely shut the door, Maria put a foot in between, pushing her head into the room and locking eyes with Max. “By the way, I have a feeling that her crying episode is not so much about Sean or her mother.”

Slightly re-opening the door, Max frowned. “What do you mean?”

Giving him a pleasant smile, Maria grabbed a hold of the doorknob on her side of the door. “Bye Max.”

The door closed and Max was alone.

With the girl he loved to agonize over.

Liz was sitting on her bed, clicking through the songs on her iPod, earphones in her ears. Without looking up from the small display, she stated. “You called Maria.”

“Were you gonna tell me?”

“Apparently you were worried.”

“Maria told me about your mother calling.”

As if not hearing his side of the conversation, even though in fact his words were burning into her ears, she scoffed. “So worried that you called her before the break of dawn.”

“It’s your mother, right? That’s why you haven’t been able to move on.”

Liz continued to pretend to look through her songs. If he only knew. She had been miserable. Having Max so close gave her a security she was willing to pretend any scenario to hold onto, but it also confused her feelings into dizziness and nausea. And tears. The tears she had been crying, openly in front of Max, and having him comfort her through, were tears for them. For how much she loved him but could never have him. For how divided she felt in that she didn’t want to long for him, but in that she couldn’t get herself to stop.

And it didn’t help that he was so supportive, so comforting and always there. It made her want to kiss the daylights out of him.

But she couldn’t. Because he didn’t love her that way. And she couldn’t venture into another relationship like that. Not again. Not ever.

Liz looked up from her iPod and pulled the left earphone out of her ear. “You were worried about me?”

He almost rolled his eyes at the ridicule. “You’ve been crying every day for the past week, Parker! Of course I’m worried!”

The sincerity in his voice became too much and she dropped her gaze back to the iPod. “Yes, she called.”

At her soft admission, the aggravation escaped him and he sank down on the edge of the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s my mom,” she mumbled. “It’s the same old shit and I didn’t want to rehash it.”

“You’ve never talked to me about your mother.”

“Maybe not to you. I’m just so tired about talking about her period. And every time I have to discuss it, I have to relive it. And I can’t do that.” Shiny eyes blinked up to meet his. “I just can’t.”

“I get that. But… you didn’t have to tell me the details. Just… I thought this was about Sean. This whole time-“

“It is about Sean.”

“Then wha-“

“And as my mother so frankly pointed out; he cheated on me because I wasn’t a good enough girlfriend.”

Max blinked. “Sorry?”

He couldn’t have heard her correctly.

Liz pulled out the other earpiece and put the iPod on the nightstand. Rising from the bed, she threaded her fingers through her hair and turned her back to him. “Apparently I wasn’t satisfying my boyfriend.”

Max’s eyes widened in shock. “She actually said that?!”

Liz shrugged, trying to appear casual about it. Not wanting to show how much it tore her apart that her own mother thought so little about her. “Not in so many words, but I got the general message.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

His words actually surprised her and she looked at him with something akin to shocked fear. “No…eh…no thank you.”

“Because I will,” Max said seriously. “Maybe she needs to hear it from someone else. Because it doesn’t sound like she’s listening to you one bit.”

Liz gave a short humorless laugh. “And you think you’ll be more successful at it?”

“I can at least try.”

“Okay…” she sighed. “I probably should tell you this; My mom doesn’t like you.”

He seemed genuinely surprised. “She doesn’t like me?” Then he delivered one of those drop-dead-gorgeous smiles. “Come on. Who doesn’t like me?”

“My mom.”

His smile fell and he frowned. “And you’re basing this on…?”

“The fact that whenever Michael talks about you, she's horribly condescending in her returning comments.”

“But she’s always so…nice,” Max mumbled.

“It’s essential for her that she’s polite to everyone, so that no one would think badly about her.”

“And she doesn’t like me?”

“To put it simply; you’re not in her class.”

“Huh,” Max said simply, still surprised and now also slightly offended. There were not many women he had been unsuccessful at charming.

“So…I highly doubt you would have more success at talking to her than I’ve had.”

“She can’t treat you like that.”

“She’s my mom. Apparently she’s allowed to do almost anything she wants to me.”

“You don’t believe her, do you? You don’t actually believe that there is any truth in what she’s saying, right?”

The hesitation on her face gave him the answer before her too weak response claimed, “Of course not.”

“Liz…”

“Look, could we just not talk about this? My mother is my problem and I’m already putting enough on your shoulders as it is.”

“It’s a weight I’m more than happy to carry.”

She swallowed, not quite comfortable about looking into his eyes because she was afraid of what she might find there. “Could we just… I had a good talk with Maria just now. You can stop worrying, ‘k? And thanks for not telling Mike.”

He looked doubtful. “You’re feeling better?”

Picking up her iPod from the nightstand, Liz started to shuffle through her songs yet again while she gave a short nod.

Topic closed.

“You’re just gonna stop your grieving period, or whatever that was, like that?”

Putting the earpieces into her ears, she nodded again. “You’re off duty.”

He shook his head. “It was not like that. If you need me, I’m here. I hope you know that.”

Looking up from the iPod, she gave him a small smile of recognition. “Yeah, I know.”

And in one fluid motion, she rose on her knees and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

He breathed in her smell as she moved back from him, already missing the nights she had spent in his arms. He had wanted the crying to stop, but not the closeness.

He missed her already.


TBC...