Roswell Fanatics

Winner - Round 9



Winner - Round 6



Winner - Round 5











Author: Dee

Rating: Adult

Pairing: Liz/other, M/L

Disclaimer: I don't own it, yada, yada, yada. Belongs to Katims and co. yada, yada, yada. Please don't sue me, yada, yada, yada...

Summary: Liz cheats on Max. Based on a challenge by ana julia.

Author's Note: So here's the deal. Liz commits adultery in this fic. She will not always be a sympathetic character. If you cannot handle that please don't read any further.



Prologue

I see him everyday in the diner.

He orders a piece of pie, a cup of coffee and offers me a smile. It’s not so much, but every now and then I glance up to find him absently stirring his coffee and staring at me. I can’t pretend I’m not affected. His interest seems so normal and ordinary and needed in a life that has become so abnormal and extraordinary.

It’s been drummed time and time again into my head. Trust no one. Keep a low profile. Never give too much away. And I don’t. I’m always careful. Years on the run have taught me to be discerning. But there’s something compelling about the twinkle in his eyes whenever he smiles…as if he has a secret and it’s the good kind for once. I want to know that secret, wish I could know the reason for the sparkle in his gaze.

Of course, I never ask. After all, I can’t be close, can’t afford to make friends. Still he intrigues me and I wonder…

The mad desire to know prompts an equally mad reaction. So I refill his coffee more often than needed, I bat my eyelashes and throw him a few extra smiles. It has nothing to do with the money. I’ve even refused his tips on occasion, at least when they’re excessively large. I’m interested in something more though I know I shouldn’t be.

I shiver when his fingers accidentally brush mine and I don’t jerk away, though I know I should. In fact I linger, toying with the idea of returning that fleeting caress. Sometimes I make up excuses just to prolong our proximity. Perhaps he’d care for another piece of pie or another tasty sweet… And as he smiles his refusal I can’t help but wonder if he has another dessert in mind as he looks at me.

Inevitably though, reason will reassert itself and I will remember who I am again. I am Liz Parker Evans, untouchable, aloof…alone, trapped by the heavy secret I’ve kept more than ten years and the path I chose. Yet, for at least an hour each afternoon, I’m just a small town waitress in a small town diner making eyes at an equally small town guy with amazing dimples and laughing eyes. There is no great mystery surrounding me and for one brief instant I can breathe again. I’m alive.

I watch him slide from his booth now with a heavy sense of dread. This is the part I hate, when he leaves and takes my good feelings with him. I paste on a smile when he steps up to the register to pay.

“Was the pie alright?” I ask as he passes me a couple of dollar bills. He nods and a slow, glamorous smile spreads across his face and I feel my heart twitch at the sight of it. “Can I get you anything else? Maybe a coffee for the road?”

“How about you give me your number instead?” he counters softly, regarding me from beneath gold-tipped lashes.

I freeze at his question as a girlish flush spreads through my body. “My…my number?” I stammer, “But…But I don’t even know your name.”

“If I tell you then can I have your number?”

I can’t stop the coy smile from dancing across my face. I’m playing with fire and I know I’ll get burned. It’s almost a certainty…but I can’t stop. “Depends,” I answer deliberately.

He’s smiling flirtatiously now as well, playing my game. “On what?”

“On why you’re asking…”

He scratches his head, blushing a little and I swear I feel like a teenager again, flushed and alive, excited for the first time in as long as I can remember. “Well, I thought that maybe…that you and I could…maybe go out…” he says in a rush, “I mean if you want.”

“You mean on a date?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, “On a date.” He pauses a beat before tacking on my name in a deliberately seductive manner. “Beth.”

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head and shrugging. After all, this is taking the fantasy too far, right? I definitely can’t go there but the scary thing is…I am. I am going to go there.

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?” he asks nervously, his lashes flickering.

I swallow reflexively in reaction, my heart fluttering up into my throat. This is my chance to bow out gracefully, to tell him that I’m happily married and bid him adieu yet I can’t make the words come. He’s reminded me of the girl I once was; the one so full of vision and hope, the one who believed the whole, wide world was at her fingertips. I don’t want to let her go…not when I’ve just found her again.

I know that if I tell him the truth it’s likely I’ll never see him again. He’ll walk through those doors and take all my burgeoning hope with him. No more twinkling eyes. No more dimples. No more joy. I don’t want that.

Shaking all over with my decision, I deliberately push a server pad and pen across the counter towards him. “Why don’t you give me your number instead?” I invite, my smile playfully mysterious.

“And you’ll call me?” he prods as he scribbles down his information. He scrutinizes me with uncertain eyes, nibbling at his lower lip and I almost twitter aloud at the adorable gesture.

I lean over to see what he’s written on the pad. We’re so close our foreheads nearly touch and I can smell the faint scent of his cologne. It smells sensual and alluring…like him. I trace my fingers over his words, letting my fingertips brush his, as I’ve wanted to do so many times in the past. His name is Gavin. I think it’s beautiful.

“Oh, I’ll call you,” I promise, ripping off the paper and folding it into the pocket of my apron, “I’ll definitely call.”

Chapter 1

“Meatloaf?” Max questions blandly, frowning his disappointment up at me, “Again?”

I have a brief flash of irritation over his unenthused reaction but then check my smart reply. I’d probably be crabby too if I was having dried out meatloaf for the third night in a row. Still his attitude smarts a little even with that reason.

“It’s all we had after the dinner rush,” I reply wearily as I shrug out of my uniform. I leave it in a small pile on the floor and my panties and bra soon join the heap. “There’s some ham in the refrigerator if you want a sandwich instead.” He grunts a negative at that and, as he turns his back to pick through the To Go box for something edible, I surreptitiously deposit Gavin’s phone number underneath my pillow.

Max throws another glance over his shoulder at me as I straighten. “So how was your night,” he asks when I head off for the shower, nude.

There was a time when seeing me naked would have provoked an amorous mood in Max or even a longing stare but now the meatloaf warrants more attention than I do. He barely flicks me with a glance before returning his attention to his unwanted food. He hasn’t even bothered with a kiss hello. I want to be indifferent to his disregard but it hurts…like most everything he does these days.

“It was okay…I guess,” I mumble before disappearing into the bathroom, “I made 75 dollars. It’s on the nightstand.”

“Good,” he says, “We can use it to pay the utility bill. I was afraid we’d come up short this month.”

“Rah, rah,” I mutter in an underbreath.

“You say something, babe?” he calls back absently.

“I said I’m going to hit the shower,” I amend smoothly, “You wanna come in with me? Maybe we can talk a little.”

As I expect, he shakes his head while stifling a broad yawn. “Not tonight,” he says, “I’m totally wiped.”

I huff an exasperated sigh and shut the bathroom door with a definitive click. Sometimes men suck. This is what our lives have degenerated down into, lackluster discussions about meatloaf and finances. It’s hardly what I expected out of marriage. A daily struggle to make ends meet with a person you have minimal conversation with. It’s a pathetic existence. I really don’t’ know how we got to this point. It definitely didn’t start out that way.

Running away with Max after graduation was like a romantic adventure. Our future stretched before us bright and uncertain but we were ready to take on all comers because we were together. We were Max and Liz, unstoppable and undeniable…a force to be reckoned with. I have to snort at the memory now. We’re not so forceful these days or undeniable. Max seemingly has no trouble denying me now and I have to wonder where did those two crazy kids go?

I stare at my reflection in the cloudy mirror above the bathroom sink and I barely recognize the girl I had once been. I drag the clip from my hair and loose it about my shoulders but the gesture makes little improvement. There’s no color in my cheeks, no light in my eyes anymore. I look every day of my twenty-eight years and I feel it as well. I feel old and tired and horribly disillusioned and part of the reason I find myself in such a miserable state sits less than six feet outside the bathroom door, camped in front of the television set like usual, completely oblivious.

There’s little point in trying to talk to him about my feelings. Been there and done that. He doesn’t get it. Max thinks saying “I love you” will heal it all, that perhaps a gift every now and then will soothe the loneliness. He doesn’t realize that I need him. I need his love and attention. I need for him to look at me the way he did when we were teenagers, back when I was the only thing he could see. Those days are long gone now, nothing more than a fast, fading memory.

With another huffing sigh I whirl away from the mirror to switch on the taps and wonder vaguely if I’m being unfair to Max. After all, he works two jobs to support us. During the week he manages the local video store and on the weekends he bartends nights at a club across town. No one works harder than Max and I know that. Most of the time he’s dead tired from it all and when he comes home he’s looking for quiet and relaxation. Consequently, that means I usually get the short shrift. At first, I understood about the situation but lately I’ve grown to resent it.

Gradually cuddling, conversation and even consideration has ground to a halt from his end. And, of course, he’s full of excuses as to why and, truthfully, they all are valid but nonetheless unacceptable. I am his wife! Doesn’t that entitle me to something? My God, I can’t even remember the last time we made love. What’s scarier I can’t even remember the last time I wanted to make love.

My days have become an endless cycle of mundane drudgery and it’s slowly killing my spirit, draining me. I don’t even have Maria here to break up the monotony. We broke off from her and Michael almost eight years ago. After two years of constant vacillating, we finally decided that it might be safer for us all if we split off from each other rather than staying together as a group. Though the idea had been a good one and something I’ve never truly regretted it wasn’t executed without a great deal of pain.

Michael and Maria now live in Detroit, Michigan and though we email and write each other on a regular basis it’s been some years since we’ve seen each other in person. Isabel eventually divorced Jesse, something we all secretly expected from the moment she left Roswell with us, and now she and Kyle are shacked up together living somewhere off the Canadian border or so it had been the last time we heard from them.

I can freely admit that life didn’t work out for anyone the way they expected it to, especially in my case but I never imagined my life with Max would become such a major disappointment. It is as if I’ve become invisible to him in these last years. I am a fixture in his life, an entity he is vaguely aware of but I hold no significance. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

When I finally emerge from my shower half an hour later I’m not surprised to find Max already asleep. For a moment, I watch him, yearning for something I can’t have, a past that no longer exists. He’s just as beautiful as he’s always been, his features relaxed in boyish innocence. Watching him, I get the urge to climb into bed beside him, to curl myself around his strong body and kiss the back of his neck. It’s not a sexual matter at all. I simply want to be close. The need is nearly undeniable. But I know what will happen if I try. He will roll away from my touch, bat me aside and mumble something about having to work early and like that I will be dismissed.

So instead of setting myself up for certain humiliation and hurt I quickly dry off and don clean pajamas. After I’m dressed and my hair is moderately dry I creep forward and ease Gavin’s phone number from beneath my pillow. For a moment I stare down at the scrap of paper in mute indecision.

Am I really going to do this? I slide a glance over to Max’s sleeping form and I wonder how I can even contemplate doing such a thing. Problems aside, discontent aside…he is my husband. I took vows to love him. I swore an allegiance of faith. The words meant something to me when I said them and they mean something to me now but I’m so damned lonely…

Is it wrong just to talk to someone? I know Gavin will stoke my ego and God knows it needs to be stroked. I need to feel wanted and pretty and feminine again and it’s evident my husband isn’t up for the task. It doesn’t have to mean anything significant. What’s wrong with a friendly chat? After all it’s just phone talk, hardly cheating, right?

I stand there for an interminable amount of time, going back and forth inside myself. Should I or shouldn’t I? Is it wrong or is it right? Harmless or detrimental? Finally, in what I convince myself is a gesture of strength, I crumple up the phone number and chuck it in the trash before climbing into bed. My strength lasts the length of time it takes me to blink. I lay there for literally half a second before I’m up again, fishing through the trash for the number and smoothing out the rumpled paper when I find it.

“I’ll just call him and tell him that nothing can happen,” I mutter to myself, heading off towards the living room so I can have some privacy.

But even while I’m giving myself a mental pep talk, telling myself that my intention is only to let Gavin down easy I’m carefully closing the bedroom door behind me. That way, if Max wakes, I can be alerted in time to hang up the phone. Already I’ve fallen to sneaky deeds and technically I’ve done nothing wrong. Yet, I know even before I pick up to dial my motives aren’t as altruistic as I want to believe.

With the first ring I seriously consider hanging up. With the second I’m cursing myself for even being foolish enough to think he’d be waiting for my call. And with the third I’m hard-pressed to ignore the crushing disappointment in my heart because he doesn’t answer. But just as I start to break the connection I hear a sleepy voice answer on the other end.

The sound of his voice startles me, a velvety baritone and for a moment I have to struggle to respond. “G-Gavin?” I stutter at long last, “Hey.”

“Beth?” My name escapes him in a rush of breath. I swallow hard and curl myself down onto the sofa cushions. “Beth, is that you?”

“Yeah,” I whisper hoarsely, “It’s me.”

He releases a laughing sigh. “I didn’t think you were going to call.”

“Were you waiting?” I challenge in disbelief.

“Actually I was,” he responds lightly, “I’ve been lying here for the last hour pretending to study and hoping you’d call. I guess I fell asleep.”

“Study? What were you studying exactly?”

It dawns on me then that I know next to nothing about this man, that I’m talking to a complete stranger. However, the realization doesn’t frighten or alarm me as it probably should have. I’m undeniably intrigued instead, excited at the prospect of learning all I can about him.

“Biochemistry,” he answers with a yawn, “The work of a pre-med student is never done.”

“You’re still in college?” I burst out in surprise, “How old are you?”

He actually laughs at my blunt demand. “I’ll be twenty this coming May,” he replies smoothly, “Why? How old are you?”

I’m too dumbfounded to answer him right away. Never had it crossed my mind before now that I’ve been flirting with someone years my junior all this time. And he’s still in his teens for God’s sake! Talk about robbing the cradle…that is if I were going to rob it. The knowledge is a little disconcerting. Yet, rather than shaming me, I actually feel empowered.

Deciding to go with that feeling, I ask him gamely, “How old do you think I am?”

“Um…twenty-two,” he ventures.

Is he putting me on? “Oooh nice save,” I tease softly, “You get points for originality.”

“Are you saying you’re younger?”

“Are you kidding?”

“How old are you then,” he presses in laughing exasperation.

“Promise you won’t run if I tell you?”

“Whatever,” he laughs and I swear tingles break out all over my body when I hear the smoky sound. “Come on,” he coaxes, “Shock me.”

“I’m twenty-eight years old.”

“Get the fuck out.”

“No…seriously…”

“You don’t look it,” he tells me sincerely, “You really don’t look it.” I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m blushing like a schoolgirl over this. I mean…how lame is this compliment and yet I’m ready to melt. My blush deepens when he whispers, “You know…I think you’re pretty hot…twenty-eight or not.”

I lean a glance out into the hallway, just to make certain the bedroom door is still closed before I answer. When I’ve ascertained that the coast is clear I sprawl back against the sofa, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder. I feel much like a teenager at this point, my leg dangling across the back of the couch as I carry on clandestine conversation.

“So…are you trying to tell me that you’ve been checking me out,” I query, smiling.

“Four months, three weeks, five days and sixteen hours to be exact,” he rejoins glibly.

“No seconds?” I tease.

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

“So what made you do it today?” I ask him, "What made you approach me?"

“You smiled at me,” he says, “And it was one hell of a smile, too. I figured I’d just…go for it, you know.”

“Hmmm….”

“That’s all you have to say?” he grunts, “I pour out my heart and you respond with ‘hmmm’?”

“What else should I say?”

“How about that you’ll go out with me?”

“What if I don’t want to go out with you?” I toss back coyly.

“Oh…I think you do.”

“Someone’s really sure of himself.”

“Nah…I’m just really optimistic,” he says sweetly, “So what do you say?”

“To what?”

“To my offer to take you out,” he clarifies softly, “I want to see you in something other than your uniform…preferably without clothing altogether.”

At this point my smile starts to falter because I realize this isn’t a flirtatious little game anymore. We’re heading into serious territory. “Gavin, I don’t know--,”

“Do you want me to beg,” he wheedles suddenly, “I’m not above it, you know.”

“You barely know me.”

“I want to know you,” he counters.

“You’re young,” I remind him.

“I’ve got an old soul,” he argues, “I’m not going to settle for no, Beth. I know where you work, remember?”

His persistence makes the moment abundantly serious for me. I remember, quite forcefully, that my husband is asleep down the hall and that what I’m doing, what I’m contemplating is just wrong. Above all else I know that Max loves me and he doesn’t deserve what I’m doing right now.

“Gavin, I don’t think we should do this,” I tell him reluctantly, “It’s not a good idea.”

“Is it the age thing?” he volleys back, “You should know I don’t care about that, Beth.”

“It’s…complicated,” I say and he didn’t even know the half of it. Hell, he didn’t even know my real name. “I just…I think it would be better if we let things end here.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, I do,” I counter softly, “I’m sorry.” I don’t wait for his reply but simply click the phone to “off.”

Chapter 2

The next morning he’s seated at his usual booth, hands clasped together atop the table and grinning at me like a loon. I tap my pencil against the top of my server pad in a gesture I mean to be rebuking but probably strikes him as flirtatious. Maybe because it is…just a little.

“You’re nothing if not persistent,” I tell him.

His dimples deepen and my knees turn to jelly. “I try.”

“You gonna have coffee today?” I ask, cutting to the chase.

He shakes his head, surveying me through those absurdly curly lashes of his. “I think I’m going to have breakfast today,” he declares largely. It’s difficult to squelch my surprise. I’ve been waiting on him for months now and he’s yet to order real food. I suspect he has an ulterior motive and his next words prove me right. “I want a big, big breakfast,” he tells me, gesturing appropriately as he does, “The biggest you got…something that’s gonna take me a long, long, long time to eat.” He levels me with a warm look. “I wanna enjoy the view.”

I have to giggle despite my steadfast determination to be serious. How can I not? The dimples are in place, the brown eyes are sparkling madly and I finally have a sensual voice to put with that equally sensual face. He’s just a kid, Liz! My conscience reasserts itself from out of nowhere and with booming insistence. Leave him alone, it cries. He’s just a kid and you’re fucking married! But I know I’m not going to leave him alone…not at all.

“The biggest breakfast we’ve got is the lumberjack special,” I say, my eyebrows raised in challenge as I rake my eyes over his lean form, “You sure you can handle it?”

“I can handle anything you got.” I honestly don’t know how it happened. One moment I’m standing beside his booth engaging in mildly sexual banter and the next I’m locked in a stall of the women’s bathroom pinned against the wall as he’s driving into me.

Our coupling is wild and fast and erotic. He pumps into me with the vigor of youth, his lean fingers biting into the flesh of my thighs to hold me captive to his surging thrusts. And it’s good…all good. The feel of his hair tangled around my fingers…the scraping of his jeans against my skin…the rough and tender way he kisses a wet path down my neck… It’s intense and uninhibited. I want it to go on forever because I’m alive in his arms…my entire body is one live, beating heart.

Unfortunately, though it does end and I’m dashed with ice-cold reality. As he shudders hard in the aftermath of his orgasm and pulls his softening cock from my body I’m assailed with horror over what I’ve done. I’ve just cheated on my husband…with a stranger…a boy whose last name I don’t even know…in the dirty stall of a public bathroom… I can feel the belated tears start in my eyes. I feel like a slut.

Gavin steps back to lower me to my feet and as he removes the used condom and discards it as I grab my panties from the back of the toilet seat and begin yanking them up my legs. Neither of us says a word as we readjust our clothing. Really there’s nothing to say. At least on my end. I just destroyed ten years of marriage for five minutes of mindless sex. I seriously think I’m going to be ill.

Yet as I start to push from the stall so I can weep out my misery in private Gavin snags hold of my arm to detain me. I can’t even look him in the eye. “What?”

“I just wanted you to know…this wasn’t just a thing for me,” he whispers.

I peek a glance up at him and that’s a mistake. His lips are becomingly red and swollen from our enthusiastic kisses, his blond hair a disheveled mop of curls falling over his eyes. But that’s not what strikes me. It’s the look in his eyes. He’s not triumphant or even disinterested. He looks stunned, as stunned as I am, as if he doesn’t quite know what to make of what’s happened.

“I…I don’t usually do stuff like this,” he stammers.

“Sure,” I reply with eye-rolling sarcasm.

“I’m serious, Beth,” he insists, “You see…I just broke up with my girlfriend about six months ago and I was taking it pretty hard. I’d come in here for a piece of pie and some alone time and…then you’d smile at me. I…I never would have gotten over it if it weren’t for you.” His brown eyes are burning with intensity as he finishes, “I used to sit in that booth and fantasize about touching you the whole time I was here…but I never expected…I never dreamed…” He trailed off into silence, lifting his hand to slide his fingers down the length of my bare arm. “I don’t want it to end here. I’d like to see where this leads…”

He’s suggesting a relationship or that we try a relationship. The utter ridiculousness of that proposal strikes me a moment later. It’s incredibly sweet but completely unfeasible. He doesn’t realize that I’m already in a relationship. I’m already committed and I broke my vows with him just a moment ago. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

“God, Gavin…” I groan tearfully, “Don’t you realize how crazy this is? We just had sex in a public bathroom!”

He dimples. “Next time we’ll do it in my bed,” he whispers confidently, “Or yours.”

I almost groan aloud over that. Definitely, definitely not mine. Not ever. I catch myself mid-thought. Wait a minute…was I actually considering…? Reasonable Liz, logical Liz manages to resurface, too bad the bitch is late. “Gavin,” I reply calmly, “I really don’t think there’s going to be a next time.”

I’m unprepared for his boyish appeal. “Don’t say that, Beth,” he implores, “I think we could have something together, something really special if you let us. Please don’t let this be the end.”

He leans forward to kiss me then and it’s wholly different from the rapacious kiss we shared before stumbling in here. He nibbles at my mouth, coaxing a response from me rather than forcing it. And then I’m kissing him back, opening my mouth hungrily as we fall back into the stall and he sandwiches me between his body and the wall.

“Don’t give me the kiss off,” he breathes into my mouth, his hands roaming over my breasts and hips, “Let me show you how good it can be.”

“You’re crazy,” I tell him, “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

“It’s you,” he whispers, “You take my head to crazy places.”

I finger the curling ends of his hair, torn between guilt over wanting him and desire over wanting to go further. “You take my head to crazy places, too,” I murmur.

He kisses me again, hard and desperate, his tongue spearing into my mouth like liquid fire. He scrapes the tender recesses of my mouth, scours and fills it with the taste of him. Good Lord, how did he learn to kiss this way? For the moment I don’t even care that I’m betraying everything I hold dear. He feels too good against me.

“Let me pick you up after work,” he implores, smoothing back the tendrils of hair from my forehead, “I wanna take you out someplace.”

His eyes hold me captive and I’m wavering even as I make some half-hearted attempt at protest. “No…you can’t…I…I don’t think…” He’s nibbling again and I quickly lose my train of thought.

“Say yes,” he urges, nudging his lower body against me as his lips travel to the underside of my jaw, “Say yes…Beth…”

There’s nothing to stop me. It isn’t as if Max will be waiting for me at home when I get off anyway. He’s working overtime this afternoon, as he has for nearly a month now. I won’t see him until eight o’clock or so. I can either go home to face the mountain of laundry waiting for me or I can spend the evening with this impulsive, unpredictable boy. It doesn’t seem like such a hard decision.

I shove him back, putting a few inches between us. “I don’t even know your last name.”

“Scott,” he provides, nuzzling me, “I’m Gavin Scott. Pleased to meet you. Now will you let me pick you up this afternoon? I’ve already told you that I have no problem with begging.”

“You know next to nothing about me,” I argue in exasperation, “I could be an axe murderer for all you know!” He doesn’t appear the least bit disconcerted. In fact, he gives me an “oh brother” look. “This is such a bad idea,” I mutter, but I’m staring at his mouth again and I know…just know I’m going to kiss him. I need to put some distance between us now.

“Okay…pick me up at 5:30,” I tell him with a laughing sigh of defeat, “Now I’ve got to get out of here before my boss wonders why I’m taking such a long break.”

I watch him leave a few minutes later, smiling a little as he dons his motorcycle helmet and kicks his bike to life. He gives me a little wave through the grungy window of the diner before speeding off, leaving a billowing trail of dust in his wake. Only when he’s gone from my sight does the shaking overtake my body.

I go through the motions of doing my job but my heart is beating with one, loud refrain: I cheated on my husband! I cheated on my husband! I cheated on my husband! It’s unbelievable! It’s crazy. It’s true. And what’s worse…I’m planning to do it again. I want to do it again.

Now how this reflects on my feelings for Max, I can’t fathom. I mean…I’m certain I still love him. The thought of being without him is hurtful and scary and just seems so wrong to me. Yet, I can’t deny that these last couple of years, especially the past few months…I haven’t been happy. But I was fully prepared to live out my existence and accept the lot I’d chosen until a nineteen year old stranger turned my head and now I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

I try and appease my conscience with the knowledge that I hadn’t gone out looking to cheat on Max. I didn’t throw myself at the first available male in my path. Until a few weeks prior I had never even fantasized about anyone else. And I did put forth some effort to ignore Gavin’s flirtations…some but not much. I can’t even promise myself that it will never happen again because I have every intention of seeing that it does. My conscience is steadily rebelling with the thought but I’m steadily ignoring it.

“Hey, Beth?”

I jerk my gaze away from the counter I’ve been scrubbing like a demon to regard my boss. “Yeah, Dave?”

“Your husband’s on line one,” he says, “Don’t tie it up too long.”

I want to run and hide. Paranoia immediately runs rampant through my extremities. What if he can tell what I’ve done from a mere phone conversation? What if he senses the difference in me? He is an alien, after all. Maybe Antarians have a sixth sense when it comes to unfaithful mates. Then what the hell am I going to do? How am I supposed to talk to him at all knowing what I did less than an hour before? God, I’m still sore, my center still aching with the sensation of being filled up by another man.

I stumble towards the phone as if I’m about to face a firing squad and take the receiver from Dave’s hand with stiffened fingers. It takes several swallows before I can even form words. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Max says, “I told Dave not to get you if you were in the middle of something.”

“No, we’re pretty dead,” I tell him. I try to sound nonchalant even though my heart is tripping like a jackhammer. “There’s usually a lull after breakfast so I have time to talk. What’s up?”

“I’m going to be a little later coming home tonight than I thought,” he replies hesitantly, “Arlis called in sick again today and there’s no one here to take over his shift so…”

“…You’re going to do it,” I finish for him flatly.

“Yeah,” he confirms and I can sense the regret in his tone. I feel terrible to hear it there, especially because there’s a part of me that’s thrilled with the fact he won’t be coming home until late. What an amazingly quick turn, when just last week I was at home seething because he decided to be such a good employee. “I promise you, Liz, as soon as things calm down here I’m going to take a vacation from here and The Streetlight and you and I are going to go away on a long vacation together.”

“That sounds nice,” I whisper and mostly because it seems the thing to say. Can guilt suffocate you…because I certainly can’t breathe at this point? But then I’ve also heard this promise before and it always seems to fall through. I’ve learned not to pay attention to it anymore.

“I mean it,” Max insists, “I know I haven’t been very attentive lately.”

“Not very,” I agree glumly.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promises, “Just hang in for a few more weeks. Can you do that? I really need you to be patient with me, Liz.”

“Sure,” I tell him, “Sure. I can hang in…no problem.”

“Good,” he sighs finally, “Are you going to be alright all by yourself tonight?”

“Max, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

“I know. It’s just… I know it’s probably a drag being at home alone so much,” he considers, “I know you don’t really have any friends to hang out with here and…it’s easy to get lonely.”

“I’m managing,” I prevaricate, “Maybe I’ll call Maria tonight or something…order a pizza…”

“That sounds like a plan,” Max murmurs, “Thanks for being my resilient girl, Liz.”

By the time we hang up much of my guilt has been replaced with annoyance. His ‘resilient” girl? Who am I…Lassie? I’m on the bottom of his priority list and he thanks me for being ‘resilient’? I growl inwardly. Sometimes I wonder if Max puts me on the backburner as often as he does because I let him do it. But old habits are always hard to break. I’ve always been the understanding one, the comforting one, the patient one. And Max takes advantage. He knows I love him and he relies on that, takes my loyalty to him for granted.

But I don’t guess I’m so loyal anymore or understanding or comforting. My patience has long since run out and my newfound relationship with Gavin, if it can even be called that, is my defiance. Years of silence have now exploded into something morally wrong, but sinfully right. By the time my workday winds down to a close I’ve managed to squelch much of my guilt and shame over seeing Gavin again. I’m actually looking forward to it.

The moment the clock strikes five I rush around to finish off my sidework and then zip for the bathroom to change into my after work clothes. I didn’t pick out anything special, just a pair of denim capris and a form fitting tee but now I wish I’d put more thought into my wardrobe. I’m suddenly concerned with looking pretty again. Now there’s someone to notice. I decide to let down my hair, combing my fingers through the heavy dark tendrils so that they fall around my shoulders.

When he roars up on his motorcycle at fifteen to six I run out to meet him, my hair flapping and whipping behind me as I approach. I can tell from the gleaming look in his eyes that he approves of the look and I smile with the realization.

“Oh wow,” Gavin murmurs, pulling me in for a breathless kiss, “Damn, you look fine.” I’m blushing again. This is quickly becoming my permanent state when he’s around. “You ready to go?” he asks.

I cast a dubious glance over his bike. “You want me to ride on this?”

“You’ll be fine,” he tells me glibly, “Just wear the helmet.” He nods to the spare he has perched on the back of his motorcycle.

As I climb on behind him I can’t deny that there’s something blatantly sexual about holding so much leashed power between your legs. Now I see the allure of a motorcycle even if riding one secretly scares me to death. The fact that I’m pressed against his back, my thighs fitted perfectly around his hips does little to quell my excitement. I curve my arms underneath his and grasp hold of his shoulders. “Where are you taking me tonight,” I whisper in his ear before donning my helmet.

He flashes me a flirtatious grin before flipping down his visor. “Part of the fun is the surprise, babe,” he tells me. Unexpectedly, he grabs hold of one of my hands and takes it down the length of his chest, past his waistband to press my palm against his rock hard erection. I gasp in response to his boldness.

“Hold on tight,” he commands hotly and it’s the last thing I hear before the bike roars to life.

Chapter 3

He drops me back at my car about a quarter to ten. I languidly swing my body from his bike, smiling in delight when he swivels around to face me, framing my hips with his hands and pulling me close to stand between his legs.

“Did you have a good time?” he whispers hopefully, “You were so quiet I couldn’t tell.”

“I had a great time,” I reply, smiling, “You definitely kept me entertained.”

Yet, in spite of my teasing, he’s not far off the mark about my silence. I haven’t said much and that’s been a deliberate effort on my part. There’s not I can reveal about myself that wouldn’t ruin the tentative thing beginning between us and, though I know somewhere deep inside it’s doomed to failure, I want to hold onto it…as long as I can.

In contrast to my purposeful mysteriousness, however, I know a virtual surplus of information about Mr. Gavin Scott. He is the youngest of three children and the only boy therefore, I’m learning quite quickly, accustomed to getting his way in almost everything. He’s also an aspiring painter slash sculptor in addition to his ambitious goal of becoming a doctor. To my great relief he can’t sing or play a note of music thus therefore falling short of perfect god status, but, all things considered, I think he’s pretty wonderful even if he is only nineteen.

“What are you thinking?” he asks me a moment later, his brown eyes probing as he regards me, “You’ve got a whole secret smile thing going on right now. Did I say something funny?”

“You’re just so damned cute,” I say, pinching his cheeks and then I press my fingers into the grooves of his enchanting dimples. “I just love these,” I tell him breathlessly, “I could make you smile all night just to see them.”

His cheeks turn red with the compliment and I almost giggle to see the reaction. It’s nice to make him blush for a change instead of the other way around. “Uh…don’t say that,” he groans in exasperation, “I hate the dimples. No one takes me seriously. I have all the status of a teddy bear because of them. I imagine I’ll be practicing medicine ten years down the line and still have strange women come up from out of nowhere just to pinch my cheeks!”

Now it’s my turn to color five shades of red because that’s exactly what I did to him not ten seconds before. “Does that really happen?” I laugh.

“Okay, so it’s mostly my mom’s friends doing the pinching and this really hot chick I just met today,” he relents teasingly, “But it’s still a drag.” His eyes darken inexplicably then and he pulls me closer so that I’m brought in vibrant awareness of his body and scent. “I’d bet you’d like my mother,” he declares without warning, “I think she’d definitely like you.”

I can’t help but rear back in surprise, my mind reeling with the very suggestion. And then I shrug out of his arms completely but manage to voice only a sputtering reply even with the distance between us. “Don’t…Don’t you think you’re moving a little too fast?” I query faintly.

“Maybe a little,” he concedes, “But I can’t help it. You excite me, Beth. There’s just something about you…something special…and I just want to share it.”

“Can’t we get to know each other a little better?” I suggest a little wildly, “I mean….this is still so new. We don’t even know if it’s going to work out.”

I wonder for another countless time just what the hell I’m doing. This thing is spinning out of control so fast and I’m quickly losing myself. Gavin is fun and interesting and sexy and exciting as hell but I have to admit that he’s just a distraction for me. I’m unhappy and, for a brief time, he makes me forget that unhappiness. He makes me forget that my husband doesn’t see me anymore. But I’m not deluding myself into believing that this could become something more. Even when it’s all said and done I don’t want to be with anyone but Max. It could never work out with Gavin. We two have absolutely nothing in common. This thing is just meant to be a “fun while it lasts” sort of deal but I wonder if Gavin knows that.

On the logical end, I think how can he possibly ever conceive that something substantial can spring from all of this anyway. I mean, we had sex in a public bathroom and didn’t even know each other’s last names. How serious can it get? I’m thinking it’s just got to be fun with no attachments, which is exactly what I want myself. But then he’ll say something like just now about meeting his mother and thinking I’m special I wonder if he’s starting to expect something I can’t possibly give him: like a commitment.

Seeing that I find myself quite uncertain right now the wisest course of action seems to be simply asking him. So I do. “Gavin,” I begin carefully, toeing the loose gravel on the surface of the parking lot, “What exactly do you think is going to happen between us?”

He lifts his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t know really,” he answers candidly, “But I’d like to get to know you better…as well as I can.”

“You mean other than just sexually,” I prod, my manner straightforward.

“Well, I’m definitely all for the sex,” he answers, dimples in place, “But I’m beginning to think of that as kind of a bonus. That’s not all I’m after, Beth.”

“But you’re so young,” I cry mournfully, “We have nothing in common.” He rakes me with a hungry look and I avert my eyes with a guilty flush. “Except that,” I mumble in amendment, “But you can’t build a relationship out of that.”

“I think we have a lot in common, Beth,” he counters softly, “And I think that’s what scares you because you get me and I get you…better than you thought I would.”

I avoid his charge altogether because it’s scary to think there might be some truth to it. “I’m not looking to fall in love or anything like that,” I inform him flatly, “I don’t want any serious involvement at all. If that’s what you’re hoping for then we might as well end it now.”

I expect him to be offended by my blunt proclamation but Gavin only grins. “So what you’re saying is that you just want a good time?” he concludes, his eyes gleaming impishly, “I feel like a male whore.” I snap upright at his remark, fearful I’ve hurt his feelings but the laughing smirk ghosting on his lips alerts me immediately to the fact that he’s teasing.

I nibble at my lip, feeling a bit self-conscious having a sex no strings conversation with a boy I’ve known all of a day but I plod on just the same. “Can you handle those terms?”

“Your good time is as good as provided,” he whispers, “Now come a little closer so I can give you one.”

By the time he roars out on the parking lot it’s half past eleven. Feeling sticky and exhausted, I slunk into my car and crank the ignition. In a reflexive habit, I flip down the door to the glove compartment and rummage around inside for my wedding band. For years I’ve been taking it off when I go into work for fear of losing it and putting it back on once I’m done with my shift. But tonight, this moment when I hold that tiny gold hoop in my fingers I’m inundated with sorrow and I burst into tears.

I can’t put it on now. Not in good conscience. Not when I spent the night breaking my marriage vows. It just suddenly hits me all at once, wave after wave of self-disgust, shame and guilt. While I was with Gavin I hadn’t thought about it. The sex seemed like a game, fun and exciting. But now in the darkness with just my conscience for company I feel sick with myself….degraded…dirty…

For the first time I think about how what I’m doing will affect Max. Max… He deserves so much better than this and I know it. Despite all the things he’s been, self-absorbed, neglectful, thoughtless he was still the man I chose to marry. I, at least, owe him my loyalty. And I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to cause him pain but now that I’ve started this thing with Gavin I don’t know how to stop it. Part of me wants to end it right now and pretend that it never happened but then the rebellious part of me wants to go on, wants to see this inexplicable attraction through to the end.

I consider that perhaps I want Max to know. I want him to wake up and see me again. Maybe this is all some desperate cry for attention. All these months I’ve been invisible, the first one he runs to when he needs a shoulder but the last one on his list of priorities. And for the first time in years I’m first again on someone’s priority list. Mine. I’m not fucking Gavin because I want to skewer Max emotionally, at least not completely. I do want to punish him for taking me for granted but that’s not my sole motivation. I just want to be happy again, to be desired and loved. Max obviously isn’t making that his priority anymore so what am I supposed to do?

In the end, I cram my wedding ring back onto my finger, sobbing all the while as I do because I realize the vows mean nothing now. I’ve tarnished their meaning and my marriage. I’ve gone too far and now there’s no turning back at all. God, why did I let it go this far? Why?

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

When I finally straggle into the living room and click on the light I have to swallow back a scream of terrified surprise when I find Max waiting on the sofa. He’s apparently fallen asleep while waiting for my return. However, the moment I pop on the light he swings upright, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Where have you been?” he yawns in question. He glances over at the clock on the adjacent wall. “It’s almost twelve in the morning.”

“I took in a late feature.” It’s not a total lie. I did take in a late feature and I even watched most of it. I just wasn’t alone when I did. “I thought you were supposed to working late tonight.”

“Arlis showed up after all so I came home. I was hoping we’d get to spend some time together,” he says, surveying me with a narrowed gaze, “Your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”

“Max, I--,”

“God, Liz…you have been crying,” he insists softly, crossing the room to close the distance between us. I dance out of his reach when he’s barely a foot away. He winces at my reaction. “I knew you were upset about my working late. Is that why you’re back so late?”

“Max, I have something I need to tell you,” I respond in a shaky tone, not realizing until that second that I had made up my mind to tell him the truth about Gavin. My stomach rolls with the prospect and I suck in a deep, staccato breath before plunging onward. “Max…I’ve met someone.”

“Huh?” He looks as if he’s just been sucker punched, his brow knit in a little furrowed frown of confusion as he blinks at me again and again. I watch as he blindly gropes for a nearby chair and falls down into it. “What…What did you just say?”

“I’ve met someone,” I whisper again past the massive lump of remorse in my throat, “I was with him tonight.”

“Oh…Oh God…,” he says and the sound escapes him as nothing more than a painful wheeze of breath.

“I slept with him tonight, Max,” I forge onward, my heart cracking into pieces when I witness the sheer devastation my revelation causes. The last time I saw him look so destroyed was when he saw me that night with Kyle. But this time doesn’t compare, not at all. I’ve shattered his world just now. “I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He stares up at me with shimmering gold-green eyes, on the verge of hysterical laughter. “You’re sorry?” he croaks painfully, “You’re telling me you slept with someone else tonight, that you’re cheating on me and all you have to say is you’re sorry? That’s bullshit, Liz.”

“I…I didn’t want to lie to you about it,” I stammer, “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Max.”

“The right thing,” he echoes dully, “Liz, you’re cheating on me. I think you’re well beyond the ‘right thing’ okay.” I can’t very well argue with that so I give a mute nod instead. “My God…why?” he whispers harshly, “Why would you do this to me…to us?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I answer tearfully, staring down at my hands, “At first, I had like a million different reasons for doing it and then… I couldn’t remember them anymore. It just comes down to one thing…I’m not happy.” I whisk away the tears falling on my cheeks. “I’m not happy, Max, and I haven’t been in a long time. I mean…in the end it doesn’t matter why I cheated because our marriage is over. It’s been over for a while now.”

He actually doubles over at that point, his body trembling with repressed sobs. “Oh my God,” he groans, “Oh God…”

His hurt is almost too much to bear and I have to get away, have to run fast before it breaks me apart. “I’m just going to get a few things and then--,”

“Do you love him, Liz?” he sobs brokenly.

God, the question smarts, not because it’s difficult to answer but because I know the hell he put himself through to ask it…because I had asked him that very same question once long ago and doing so had torn at my soul.

“I hardly know him, Max, but I have to be honest…I don’t want to stop seeing him.” He starts to cry and I have to turn away because it’s so hard to witness how thoroughly I’ve broken him down. “I won’t take long to pack…” I tell him hoarsely, “I’ll just take a few things and then I’ll be out of here…”

“Liz, it’s late,” he grates tearfully, “Where are you gonna go? This is your house, too. You don’t have to leave.”

“Max, please--,” I beg. I can’t take his kindness right now. It just makes things so much worse. But I can feel him inch nearer to me even though I don’t turn around to watch his advance. His presence radiates all around me and I can’t pretend I’m not affected by his nearness. Part of me just wants to turn in his arms and take back every word I’ve said.

“Don’t do this,” I implore, “Just let me leave.”

Max does the exact opposite, however. He bands his arms around my shoulders and pulls me back against his body. “We can work this out, Liz,” he whispers in my ear, “I don’t want you to leave… This thing…whatever it is you have going with this guy…it was a mistake, right? Just tell me it was a mistake and we can work through it.”

“It wasn’t a mistake. I wanted it.” I force myself to shrug out of his arms and slowly pivot to face him. “You have to realize our marriage was over long before this moment, Max,” I murmur regretfully, “Just let me go.”

He snaps away from me then, as if he’s been doused with ice water, his eyes becoming cold and distant. “You’re like someone I don’t even know,” he whispers, “How can you just throw away our marriage this way?”

“No, how could you throw it away!” I yell, “You treat me like I’m invisible, Max, like I don’t mean anything to you! How long was I supposed to take it?”

“That’s not true,” he fires, “You have never been invisible to me! I’m working myself into the ground just to give you a better life, damnit! You don’t think I know you’re dissatisfied, that you sacrificed all your dreams to be with me. I’m trying to make it right for you!”

His revelation deflates me, leaves me stunned and shaking and I bite down on my lip to keep from sobbing out loud. “You think I’ve been distant because I don’t care,” he whispers, “But I do care, Liz…more than anything. I just feel so damned guilty for stripping away your future…” He shakes his head, valiantly blinking back his tears but they fall despite his best efforts. “I just wanted to give you something better. Please don’t leave this way, Liz…please…”

“Max, I can’t stay. It wouldn’t be fair to you.” I can’t even look at him as I make the last of my statement. “I don’t even know what I want anymore.”

“So are you going to go to him now?” I manage a small nod and Max looks in that moment like he might hurl something. It seems wise to excuse myself then because I know that lingering will only make matters worse. But as I start to sidle past him to slip down the hall towards our bedroom he steps into my path and blocks my escape. “I don’t want this, Liz,” he says again, “I don’t.”

I stare up at him with aching eyes and voice the words I’ve been too scared to say aloud before this moment. I swallow back the lump of tears burning my throat and I say, “I do.”

Chapter 4

“Feel like some company?”

He’s clearly not expecting me but then it’s equally apparent that he’s pleased to see me so I don’t feel like a total nitwit for showing up on his doorstep at nearly two o’clock in the morning. I’ve driven around in circles for the last half hour, debating whether I should even go to him at all. I’d had the brief consideration of heading off for the airport and hopping a plane to Detroit to see Maria but that idea had been discarded quickly. There was sure to be questions I couldn’t answer when I showed up out of the blue and without Max. Ugliness was guaranteed to ensue afterwards, consequently that only left Gavin, a barely twenty young man I hardly know.

It might very well have been a mistake to come here but now that I have I can’t leave. Honestly, I have nowhere else to go. The realization is a painful one and I nearly sob aloud when it sinks in. It doesn’t help to know that I’ve disturbed Gavin’s rest either, especially when I know I’m about to send his world rocking off its axis.

He looks so adorably clueless right now. His hair all rumpled and flattened to one side, his eyes still puffy with sleep. He’s dressed in only pajama bottoms, leaving his chest and feet bare. The only thing that spares me from drowning in massive waves of guilt and shame is the obvious indication that he’s happy to see me.

“Am I dreaming?” he asks groggily, leaning into the doorframe with a smile, “Or are you really standing here right now?”

Rather than making me smile, his teasing pushes me a notch closer to tears. “Can I come in?” I hiccup.

“God, Beth!” he cries, realizing for the first time what a state I’m in. He quickly ushers me into the house, his hand drifting protectively to the small of my back. “What happened? Why are you crying?”

I just decided to lay it all on the line. What have I got to lose at this point? “I left my husband tonight,” I blurt out with a stifled sob.

He takes it better than I anticipated he would. His hand falls away from my back and he dances back a few cautious steps. He blinks at me rapidly and his expression reminds me dishearteningly of Max’s shell-shocked reaction only an hour earlier. “You left your husband?” he echoes in a careful whisper, “So you’re married, huh?” He leans back against the wall, folding his arms over his chest and I can tell from his stance that he’s absolutely furious. “This is…um…unexpected.”

“I wasn’t planning to tell you.”

“Gee, thanks,” he snaps, “But did it ever cross your mind that maybe I didn’t want to be involved with a married woman?” He pushes away from the wall and stomps around the tiny foyer with an infuriated huff. “I asked you if you had a boyfriend!” he rants, “Why the hell do you think I did? You fucking lied to me, Beth.”

“Not technically,” I point out meekly.

He levels me with a warning finger. “Don’t play word games with me!” He spews out a series of sizzling curses and I fear for a moment he might kick me out on my ass but then his angry expression unexpectedly veers to one of remorseful horror. “Please don’t tell me you left him because of me, Beth.”

I’m not certain how to take this question. Should I be angry or ashamed? I decide to hold off my ire until I feel him out. “I didn’t leave him for you,” I inform him flatly, “My marriage was on the rocks long before you came into the picture. You were just the catalyst to blow things apart. I’m not expecting any long term commitment from you.”

“It’s not that,” he argues weakly, “I just don’t want to be the reason your marriage fell apart, especially because you’ve barely known me a day.” His wry humor evokes a smile from me, albeit a small one. I watch as he rubs the muscles at the back of his neck, massaging away the tension there. “God, Beth…” he utters again, “Did he ask you to leave? Is that why you’re here?”

I shove my hands deep into my pockets and regard him with a forlorn stare. “I’m here because I need a friend,” I tell him, “You’re really the only person I know in this town… I’m not close to anyone here and…” I stop to swallow back the tears welling up inside me. I refuse to feel sorry for myself, not after all the mayhem I’ve caused tonight. “I didn’t know where else to go, Gavin.”

He stares at me for a long time, his eyes darting over my face as if he’s searching for some kind of deception on my part and then he sighs. “Okay,” he says simply, almost as if I didn’t just reveal myself for an adulteress and a liar and a fraud.

“Okay?” I sniffle in grateful surprise, “That’s it?”

“Okay,” he whispers again, “You need a friend…I’m here for you.”

“Just a friend,” I emphasize, peeking up at him through wet lashes, “I can’t deal with anything else, Gavin.”

“If that’s what you want,” he murmurs, “I guess you can crash on the couch until you figure out what you want to do. I doubt the roommate will care. He’s stoned half out of his head.” I follow him on wooden legs into the living room, preparing myself for the onslaught of questions that are most assuredly tripping on the edge of his tongue. I’m not even seated before he starts.

“So I gotta ask you,” he says as I start to flop down onto the sofa, “if you’ve got a husband why the hell were you screwing me tonight?”

“I don’t know,” is all I can say because I really don’t know.

“Did he see us or something?” Gavin wonders, “Is that how he found out?”

I shake my head in answer. “I told him.”

“You told him?” he balks, “Were you trying to ruin your marriage?”

“No,” I reply candidly, sniffling back my tears, “I wasn’t looking to do that at all. But after you left tonight I couldn’t see how I could ever go back to him. Max and I have had our problems but…he doesn’t deserve a faithless wife. I couldn’t go back to him…not after what we did together.”

“Then why did you do it?” he asks again, “If you knew it would ruin your marriage then why did you let me take you to bed?”

I raise haunted eyes to his befuddled gaze. “Because you made me feel wanted,” I whisper, “And I haven’t felt wanted in a very long time.” He ducks his head at my admission and I suspect he’s simultaneously pleased and confused by my words. He’s flattered but he doesn’t know if he should be. “I didn’t intend for things to go as far as they did today,” I go on, “But when you followed me to the bathroom…when you kissed me…I didn’t want you to stop.”

“I didn’t want to stop either,” he reveals gruffly, his gaze darkening as he holds my stare. He breaks eye contact abruptly, whips up his t-shirt from the back of his desk chair and shrugs it over his head. “So what does this mean for us? Do you want us to be just friends now? Is this a kiss off? Are you going to divorce your husband or are you going to keep me as your boy on the side? What do you want, Beth? Cuz, I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“Tonight,” I croak wearily, “I just want a place to sleep. Beyond that I don’t know…”

Before I realize his intention Gavin is on his knees before me, sweeping up my icy hands into his warm ones. “Sleep with me tonight,” he implores softly, “We don’t have to do anything, Beth. Just lie beside me…let me hold you…”

His fervency takes me back. I’m touched by his offer, ready to bawl over his sweetness because I certainly don’t deserve it. “Why?” I mutter, “You should be heading for the hills right now, Gavin. I know I would be if I were in your place.”

“What I can say?” he teases glibly, “I’m a sucker for challenges and complications and God knows you’ve got enough of them.”

Nothing else has made me break down tonight but his light-hearted teasing in the face of everything that’s happened is too much. The sobs bubble forth from my lips in hitching whimpers before becoming full fledged keening. I cry it all out, weeping for my failed marriage and my part in it, weeping for myself and for being such a coward. I cry until I think there are no more tears left, only to start all over again. One moment my sobs will die down to hysterical hiccups and the next I’m back to bawling my heart out into Gavin’s naked chest. Sometime during the jag, I’m vaguely aware of the world tilting and shifting as he lifts me into his arms but I’m too far gone to give much protest over it.

I’m sobbing and snorting in the most undignified fashion but he just holds me, stroking my back tenderly while I cry myself into exhaustion. And finally it strikes me, in the middle of all that sorrow, why I have such a mad attraction for Gavin Scott in the first place. He reminds me of Max. Not the Max he became after Tess and her machinations but my Max. The one I fell in love with…the one who thought I was beautiful…

When I look into Gavin’s eyes I remember what it’s like to be loved whole-souled again. I look at Gavin and I don’t simply regard that heartbreaking face of his, I fall into him completely…just the same as I once did with Max. His beauty is like a kick in the gut, a shining beacon that radiates from the inside out. Gavin Scott embodies all the hopes and desires I had as a nineteen-year-old girl. He represents the youth I lost, the girl I lost. I’m finding her again now…and it’s because of him. That’s why I can’t let go.

By the time my weeping has died down to gasping breaths I realize I’m half sprawled across Gavin’s lap and he has me cradled in his lap like a small child and is gently, almost reverently stroking my hair. I stare at him in speechless amazement.

“What?” he whispers, confused over my look.

“You,” I whisper back, “You’re being too good to me and after the way I lied to you… I just don’t understand why.”

“I told you I thought you were special, Beth,” he says softly, tucking my hair back behind my ear before letting his fingers drift through the strands, “I meant every word.”

I’m still struggling with some sort of reply to his heartfelt declaration when my cell phone trills to life in my pocket. As the moment between us breaks I struggle upright but make no attempt to pull my phone from my pocket. I don’t doubt for a second who is calling me. It has to be Max. The only other person with my cell number is holding me in his arms. “It’s him,” I whisper into Gavin’s shoulder when he stares at me quizzically, waiting for me to answer, “I can’t talk to him.”

“Don’t avoid him, Beth. It will just make this whole situation worse,” Gavin advises as he gently eases from beneath me, “I’m going to go to the kitchen and make myself a sandwich so you can have some privacy.”

When he’s gone, closing the bedroom door behind him, I click on my phone and expel a breathless hello, my entire body quivering as if I’m in the throws of a seizure.

“I just needed to make sure you were safe,” Max says without preamble, “It’s dangerous out there. You still need to be careful, Liz…whether we’re together or not.”

“Max, I--,”

There’s little point in finishing my sentence since he hangs up right after. I suppose it’s for the best in the end because I had no idea what to say to him in the first place. I’m sorry? Are you okay? Will you forgive me? All those possible replies seem lame and painfully trite. What can you possibly say to a man whose life you’ve shattered into a million pieces? There’s nothing I can say or do that will make it better.

I stare at the phone mournfully for a few minutes more before clicking it off and pushing it back down into my pocket. Gavin reappears a few minutes later, bearing sandwiches and Cokes on a makeshift tray. He wordlessly passes me a drink and a plate, his eyes full of the questions he is too polite to ask.

“He said he wanted to make sure I was okay and then hung up,” I tell him, satisfying his unspoken curiosity, “I guess he’s…pretty angry with me right now.” It’s doubtful Max is as keen on working out our problems as he was before I left. Evidently, my betrayal has finally sunken in and reconciliation is the last thing Max wants now.

“I can pretty much guess how he’s feeling right now,” Gavin replied, cracking open his soda and taking a sip, “If I were in his shoes I’d be mad as hell, too… That’s why my last relationship ended.”

I don’t think it’s possible to feel anymore shame than I already do until he says that. “So that’s why you and your girlfriend broke up…because she cheated on you?”

“Yeah,” he confirms brusquely, “But she didn’t have the guts to tell me what she was doing to my face. I had to catch her. It took a long time for me to get over it and that kinda accounts for my ‘no strings’ philosophy now. I’m not looking to get serious about anyone else or…at least I wasn’t before you came along.”

“Ahh…Gavin, I’m sorry.”

“Which probably makes me ten times a fool for getting involved with you at all.”

I nibble at my peanut butter and jelly sandwich before setting it aside on his nightstand, devoid of any real appetite. “So then why are you?” I ask him squarely.

He looks just as confused as I feel right then, as if the answer is an unfathomable thing altogether. “I don’t know,” he mumbles quietly, “I guess I just think…you’re worth the trouble.”

I snort at that. “Nope, I don’t think so,” I rejoin sardonically, “I just cheated on my husband of ten years with a guy I only just met, a guy who hasn’t even reached his twenties yet and--,”

“In about five months!” Gavin cries in laughing affront, “Give me a break about the age thing, will ya?” He smiles at me then and I feel myself smiling back. It’s good to feel lighthearted, even if for just a brief moment. All too soon I’m back to feeling miserable though and wishing I could do the day over. “Maybe this was supposed to happen, Beth,” he reasons, “Maybe it was time for your marriage to end. Sometimes things just don’t work out even when you really want them to.”

“It’s supposed to be different with us,” I mutter sorrowfully.

“Everybody says that.”

“This time it’s true,” I whisper, curling up onto the bed to hug a pillow close against my chest, hoping the cushion will dull the ache in my heart, “This wasn’t supposed to happen to us… We were soulmates.”

I feel the bed dip as Gavin eases in behind me and spoons my body. “You know,” he murmurs close to my ear, “I don’t think you can really be soulmates if it’s not complicated some times.”

His words freeze the blood in my veins. It’s almost verbatim what my grandmother told me before she died. I swivel a look up at him, my eyes wide with shock and my heart thundering like a drum. I wonder what it means that he, this perfect stranger to me, should say those very same words to me now, when my world is falling apart. “Where did you hear that?”

“It’s true,” he whispers with a shrug, “Nothing worth having is easily acquired. You have to fight for the good things. Kinda like you and me. We’ve only been together a day and already it’s beyond complicated.”

“Why don’t you run then?” I ask shakily, “I won’t hold it against you if you do.”

He kisses the tip of my nose and smiles at me, flashing those marvelous dimples I love so much and suddenly I don’t feel as lost as before.

“Hmm…” he sighs, settling back down beside me, “Why don’t I stay instead?”

Chapter 5

When I wake up beside Gavin the next morning it feels wrong. Warm and safe and comforting but wrong all the same. I squelch my feelings, however, when his lashes flutter up and a sleepy smile stretches across his lips. I smile back but it takes some extra effort on my part to do so. I don’t feel like smiling so much anymore.

“How did you sleep last night?” he asks as I roll upright and push my disheveled hair back from my face. “I didn’t hog the covers, did I?”

“You were fine,” I tell him.

Honestly, though, I didn’t sleep at all. Whenever I closed my eyes I could see Max’s face before me, twisted with hurt and suppressed anger. I could still hear his voice in my head begging me to stay. I warred within myself most of the morning against calling him. I worried incessantly about he was adjusting to the demise of our marriage. I know better than anyone how self-destructive Max becomes when he’s hurt or angry. What happened between us after he found me in bed with Kyle is never far from my mind. Even after I had revealed that night for a trick I knew that things had changed between us irrevocably.

We never fully regained the trust between us. We never really recaptured the innocence that had once pervaded our relationship and I’ve been mourning that loss ever since. After the thing with Tess and the baby that trust was further eroded between us. By the time we married, despite the happiness we felt during that time, neither of us was quite as bright and shiny in the other one’s eyes. We were forever tarnished by the choices we’d made. I suppose that small bit of damage has slowly eroded our relationship over time, to the point that it’s finally come to this.

“I have to find a place,” I mumble to Gavin, hunching over with a depressed sigh at the thought, “I can’t stay here with you indefinitely. I shouldn’t stay at all.”

He presses a kiss to the back of my head and gently pulls me back down against him. “You act like I’m kicking you out or something,” he murmurs, “Beth, you don’t have to go anywhere, okay? Give yourself a few days to sort things out.”

“But I don’t think I can do that here,” I insist, rolling a long-suffering look in his direction, “This thing between us isn’t going to work out, Gavin.”

His eyes darken with hurt. “You don’t want it to?” he prompts tentatively.

“I still love my husband.” He makes no comment at that but the expression on his face is very telling. “I know what you’re thinking,” I sigh, “I have a funny way of showing it.” I consider that for a pensive moment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t know what I feel right now.”

“You’re confused,” he infers, “You love him but you want me, is that it?”

“Pretty much,” I confirm miserably.

“I’ll try not to let it smart that you think of me as just your good time boy,” he teases me.

And then he laughs, I suppose because he finds our situation so ridiculously ironic, and I have to laugh, too. All too soon laughing turns to kissing and his hands are sweeping up into my hair to cradle my face for his kiss. He suctions my mouth with a near maddened fervor and I suddenly realize just how difficult it has been for him sleeping in such close proximity without touching me. I press up into his body as he slants his mouth over mine again and again. However, when my hands take a roaming path down his chest he rolls away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask breathlessly, lifting up onto my elbows to regard him as he scoots to the opposite end of the bed, “Why’d you stop?”

“We can’t do anything,” he tells me, “Not as long as you’re still married. It will only makes things worse in the end.”

“Oh,” is all I can say and I can’t help but feel ashamed that he was the one to think of that. As usual, I let myself get lost in him and nothing else seemed to matter.

“You’re really confused right now,” Gavin observes softly, “And I don’t want to take advantage of that. I also don’t what to be a crutch you use to get over your husband. If you decide to be with me I want it to be because that’s what you want, Beth.”

“Okay.”

Now that he’s made his point, however, his tone becomes soothing and gentle when he says, “And like I was saying before…there’s no reason for you to rush out to find another place. You can crash here for as long as you need to.”

The idea is tempting but now that my head is clearing I can recognize what a pitfall it would prove to be. “I appreciate the offer, Gavin,” I mumble before swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, “But I can’t do that.”

It’s with a heavy heart that I realize everything Gavin said to me just now is true. I can’t use him to hide from my feelings or shield myself from the reality of what I’ve done. That’s what I’ve been doing all this time and it’s not any righter than what I did to Max. I can’t hide anymore. I set this whole chain of events in motion when I decided to sleep with him and now I have to live with the consequences.

“I have to go into work today,” I say glumly, “But I’m going to ask my boss if I can knock off early to do some apartment hunting. I don’t want to have to stay here any longer than necessary.”

Gavin looks stricken with my reply. “Is…is it because of what I said,” he wonders tentatively, “I’m not judging you, Beth.”

I scoot forward to cup his cheek in a reassuring caress before letting my hand fall away. “I don’t think you’re judging me,” I whisper softly, “But I’ve got to learn how to stand on my own two feet. You can’t help me with this and you shouldn’t.”

“Maybe I can’t help you with the emotional stuff,” he reasons, “but I can surely help you find an apartment. I’ve got classes until late afternoon but when I finish up I’d like to go with you when you look.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I protest.

“I want to,” he says, “I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have anyone, Beth. I want to help you however I can but, most of all, I don’t want to come home and find that you’ve disappeared from my life. And I’m kinda scared you will.”

I smile at him, genuinely this time. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” he says, “I kinda like having you around.”

I almost want to cry again. It feels nice to have a friend, even when I know I don’t deserve one. “Thank you, Gavin.”

Later after he’s left for school and his roommate leaves shortly after I’m left alone with my thoughts for the first time since this whole thing began. The enormity of the situation hits me hard once again, leaving me breathless with uncertainty and fear. My marriage is over and now I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next. It was something I had never contemplated before. Max and I were supposed to be forever. I wanted us to be forever and now I can’t figure out when I stopped wanting that…or when I stopped trying period.

The hour for me to leave for work comes and goes and yet I remain sequestered in Gavin’s bedroom just wondering how things got messed up so thoroughly, so fast. When did Max and I grow so far apart? Did it really start with me sleeping with Gavin or had things been bad before then?

Truth be told, I’ve made a lot of adjustments since running away with Max after graduation. I first accepted the fact that I would be sacrificing my dreams of becoming a molecular biologist to be an alien hybrid’s wife and that sacrifice had seemed worthwhile because I had Max. And then I recognized that I would possibly never see my parents again, not if I wanted to keep them safe, and that sacrifice had seemed worthwhile, too because I had Max. Afterwards the painful decision had been made to split the group apart and I’d said goodbye to my best friend and still the sacrifice had seemed worthy because I had Max. He was all I needed. All I wanted.

But then we moved to this small town on the East Coast, only a two-hour drive from the hustle and bustle of Baltimore, and set down roots as Max and Beth Alexander. The rules were the same, however. No attachments, no getting close, no friends. Before the stipulation hadn’t seemed so harsh because I’d had Maria and Isabel to take the edge off my loneliness. But after we all went our separate ways there was no one to keep me company while Max worked, no one with whom to share my fears and disappointments.

I tried, on occasion, talking to Max about my feelings but I don’t think he really ever understood what I was saying. He was so wrapped up in trying to provide for us that he wouldn’t let himself hear me when I told him I was unhappy. I felt as if I were slowly dying, suffocating in a life that was no longer worthy sacrifice. I had lost nearly everything dear to me and what did I have to show for it? A husband whom I seldom saw and even spoke to…a life I didn’t recognize.

The days blended into one bleak blur and I gradually began to feel trapped and helpless and very alone. Before I fully realized it the bright spot in my day was a certain dimpled smile from a regular customer of mine. Before I knew it I was fantasizing about this stranger and making up conversations with him in my head. Before I could even understand my feelings about him I was giving in to my secret desire to kiss him and breaking my marriage vows in the stall of a public bathroom. Such a quick downward spiral it had seemed then but now I can see where all the little chinks began. I wonder if Max sees them now, too.

I wish I had the guts to ask him, but talking about the problems in our relationship seems a moot point now. That’s the very reason I didn’t stay last night when he asked me. There was nothing left to say…not after I’d ruined it. Even if he were to take me back, even if we were to try again his trust in me would be forever damaged. I know I will never recover my self-respect. We will never be the Max and Liz we had been before. Ultimately, I realize that we haven’t been for a long time.

So now I’ve got to start picking up the pieces to my life and the thought is scary. Of course I want someone to lean on and Gavin makes it so easy to do that. The thought of losing myself in him is tempting on so many levels and not just because I’m attracted to him.

I haven’t been on my own in ten years. In fact, I’ve never even had a place by myself at all. I married Max straight out of high school, going right from my parents’ protective arms and into Max’s. I’ve never had the opportunity to stand on my own feet unassisted and the prospect is daunting. My natural instinct is to run to Gavin’s open arms and immerse myself in this infatuation I have for him. But I can’t use him as a crutch and, what’s more, I don’t thin I want to.

What began to me as nothing more than a fling, something I used to forget my unhappiness has unexpectedly reshaped itself into something more. I don’t merely want Gavin as a bed partner anymore but I want to know him. And I want him to know me, the real me, whoever she is and not the weak, indecisive woman I’ve become.

I know in order to discover that person inside of me I have to be proactive and not reactive. Sitting all alone in Gavin’s bedroom, sniffling into a pillow is not going to solve my problems. I can’t keep waiting for the white knight. I’ve got to rescue myself this time.

Realizing that, I push myself from the bed and head off for the shower. When I emerge I feel markedly better, somehow better prepared to face the uncertain further ahead. After I’m dressed I eat a quick breakfast of cold cereal and milk before grabbing my car keys. My first stop of the day is the house and I’m almost sick over the prospect of returning.

Last night when I left I had been in such a rush to get out of there that I barely took more than a couple of changes of clothing and my cell phone. Consequently, I left many of the necessary things, my uniform, all my personal items, pictures, journals and things I genuinely don’t want to part with, back at the house. Now seems to the perfect time to get those things and I know if I put it off too long I probably won’t go at all. Besides Max will have already left for work so I have little chance of running into him.

However, when I pull up along the curb in front of our house I realize quickly that Max hasn’t gone to work at all. He’s most definitely home because all my belongings strewn haphazardly across the sidewalk and lawn. He’s taken no care with my things and I can see from a distance that a lot of stuff is broken. In a fit of disbelieving anger I hurl myself from the car just as Max exits the front door with an armful of my clothes.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screech, throwing a glance about the chaos around me, “What is this, Max?”

“It’s your stuff,” he replies succinctly, “As of last night you don’t live here anymore and I want it the fuck out of my house.”

“It’s our house, Max,” I remind him tightly, “You can’t just throw me out.”

“I’m not throwing you out. You left!”

I pick up the broken remnants of a portrait he and I had taken together a few years before. “This is over the top, Max,” I whisper, “It’s uncalled for.”

My mild rebuke seems to anger him because he suddenly tosses my clothing at my feet. “I pay the damned mortgage,” he grates, “The house is mine and if I want your stuff gone it’s my prerogative to throw it out!”

“I…I can’t believe you’re doing this!” I sputter out furiously, “You’re acting like a crazy man. I don’t even know you right now!”

“Well, I can’t believe you would cheat on me so I guess we’re both acting out of character, aren’t we, Liz?” he spits out harshly.

“Would you have rather I lied to you about it?”

“I would have rather you had not cheated on me at all!” he yells, “How about that?”

“You don’t understand,” I mutter gruffly, “It’s not like I planned to do it. It just…happened.”

“That makes it so much better, Liz,” he interrupts snidely, “What happened then? Did you just go to work and accidentally fuck someone else?” He snorts bitterly. “Did you even go to work at all or was that just a cover? Was yesterday the first time or have you been boffing this guy for a while now?”

I fall back a step, shaken by the pure hatred he’s spewing at me. “You’re disgusting.”

“Yeah, I’m disgusting,” he sneers, “You cheat on me but I’m the disgusting one.”

“I said I was sorry,” I utter miserably, “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“And they say men think with what’s between their legs,” he tosses back bitterly, “I guess women do, too.” He rakes me with a disgusted glance. “Or at least…you do.”

“Doesn’t it matter to you that I said I’m sorry?”

“And it means so much, Liz, especially because you left me last night to run straight back to his bed,” he snaps, “I can really see you were eaten up with remorse for what you had done.”

I start to argue that my staying would have only worsened the situation when I suddenly become aware of how public our argument has become. Several of our neighbors have begun milling about in their yards to stare. “Maybe we should take this inside, Max,” I whisper tightly, “We can talk it all out if you want.”

“Why?” he demands angrily, “You’re suddenly all concerned about my feelings now? Or are you afraid for our good neighbors to know what a whore you are?” I’m still reeling from his bitter slur when he turns towards the scattered spectators and shouts, “My wife has a lover, everyone! Last night she left me to spend the night with him! But now she says she’s sorry and I guess that should make it all better even if she is still fucking him!”

I don’t think I’ve ever been so humiliated in my life. In that second, I feel like every eye in on the block is trained on me, judging me. In that second, I feel like the whore Max accused me of being. So mortified am I that I’m actually incapable of speech right then. I so angry, so hurt, so ashamed that the words are lodged in my throat. Tears of frustrated anger well into my eyes before spilling over onto my cheeks and I begin to sob right there in front of Max and everybody.

“You’re crying now,” he scoffs bitterly, “Isn’t it a little late for that, Liz?”

“I hate you,” I say and I mean the words utterly.

“I hate you, too,” he replies almost wearily, as if the fight has suddenly gone out of him, “Just take your stuff and get the hell out of my face.”

He turns away from me and walks back into the house, leaving me with little option but to begin gathering my discarded belongings from the lawn.

Chapter 6

I know I should probably leave at this point, but I don’t. Even though Max has just humiliated me in the worst way imaginable I can’t maintain my indignation because I know I fully deserve his embittered rage. So I’m not going to fly off the handle. What’s the point anyway? I know what I have to do now and he’s the one who will be dealing with a world of hurt at the end of it. For that reason alone I’m willing to remain patient no matter what he says or does. So instead of leaving when I’m done packing my compact car with the remains of my desecrated belongings, I perch myself on the front porch to wait.

He’s nearby. I can sense him watching me through the living room window, waiting for me to leave. I don’t. Exhaling a massive sigh, I stretch my legs out across the crumbling concrete steps and cross them at the ankles. I want him to know that I’m there to stay. We have things to settle between us and I’m not leaving until we do. After a few minutes I hear the front door yawn open and he steps out onto the porch.

“Why are you still here?”

“We need to talk,” I say, “And without all the name calling, Max.”

When I twist around to face him I have to swallow back a small gasp of pain when I see that anger is no longer distorting his features into a mask of hatred. Max is completely vulnerable now, his boyish countenance streaked with tears. He makes a production of brushing them aside with the back of his hand but fresh tears quickly rejoin the lingering wetness on his cheeks. The sight shames me and moves me to regret my last words to him before he stalked back into the house.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. Logically, I get that the words aren’t helping the situation but still I feel compelled to say them, hoping that if I voice them enough they will actually begin to matter.

“For what, Liz?” he charges brokenly, “What are you sorry for? Is it because you ruined our marriage? Because you shattered my trust? Or because you slept with another man and broke my heart? Which one?”

“All of it,” I whisper, “I know you probably won’t believe me but I never wanted things to work out this way, Max. I was hoping things would get better and they just…didn’t. I should have come to you first and told you that before…well before I did what I did.”

“Come to me for what, Liz,” he asks warily, “Would you have wanted to work it out with me or…”

“I think I want a divorce,” I interrupt in a mournful whisper, finishing out his unspoken thought.

He’s clearly devastated by the admission but I think he must have been expecting it because other than visibly wincing he doesn’t break down further. He looks down at the stone surface of the porch for a long time before he moves again. And then I’m surprised when he actually eases down beside me on the porch. But he doesn’t make eye contact, merely stares across the street in forlorn silence.

Finally, he says, “You think you want a divorce or you know, Liz?”

“I know,” I confirm sadly, “I just can’t do this with you anymore, Max.”

“Do what, Liz?” he cries, leveling me with a pained glower, “I thought we were happy!”

“Oh Max, you know better than that,” I rebuke him softly, “How many times did I tell you over and over that I needed you. I didn’t agree to marry you just so I could see the back of your head on occasion or to be put on the shelf until you decided you were ready to pay me some attention.”

“I’ve been working,” he replies defensively, “What did you want me to do, Liz?”

“Take a vacation day,” I snap back, “Or, better yet, stop pretending like I was invisible. It’s like you could never make any time for me and then when you finally did I was supposed to come running like Lassie. That’s not a marriage, Max. It’s pet ownership.”

He shakes his head, nibbling at the inner flesh of his cheek. “I don’t think that’s why you’re doing this now, Liz,” he says flatly, “It’s all about him…that guy you’re seeing.”

“It’s not,” I deny, “Gavin has nothing to do with this at all. It’s about you and me. Period.”

He pins me with a piercing stare. “Gavin?” he questions, “So that’s his name? How long have you been seeing him? I know you said yesterday was the first time but…”

I have to groan aloud over his terse demand. “Oh Max, please don’t go there.”

“Why not?” he snaps, “I thought you were all about being honest now. We were doing just fine until this guy suddenly materialized out of nowhere!”

“No, we weren’t!” I fire back at him; “I’ve been flirting with Gavin for months, Max! The problems have been between us for months. You just didn’t want to see it!”

“Is that why you fucked him?” he bites out caustically, “To make me see it? I definitely got your message loud and clear.”

“You’re trying to pick a fight,” I mutter with an exasperated sigh, “That’s not why I stayed here.”

“Then why did you?”

“To ask you for a divorce,” I declare gruffly, “If that’s even possible considering the circumstances of our marriage… There’s no need to prolong the inevitable.”

“God, Liz…inevitable?” he sputters, “It’s only been a day! You haven’t given me the opportunity to adjust to anything. You’re just throwing all this stuff at me and…I don’t know what the hell is going on! It’s like you changed overnight.”

I realize then that he’s not putting me on. He’s genuinely confused by everything’s that has happened, as if it has come out of left field. Here I have been making my unhappiness and dissatisfaction known for months and still he’s clueless. If I wasn’t convinced before that our connection had been eroded beyond repair this moment would have cinched it.

“There’s no need for you to adjust,” I tell him gruffly, “This marriage is over. I don’t want it anymore.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me.”

“Max, you just called me a whore in front of the whole neighborhood,” I utter with resentful incredulity, “There’s no coming back from that. You obviously don’t respect me anymore. There’s nothing to build on and I’m too tired to try.”

“Liz, I was angry,” he says sharply, “I am angry and rightfully so! You cheated and of course I’m hurt. I think it’s wrong that I have to justify my feelings about that to you considering that you’re the cause of it all.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I agree, “which is why I’m trying to fix things. I had a lot of time to think about it last night. Divorce is the only way.”

“Since when?” he balks, “There’s counseling and…and communication…there’s lots of things we can do before taking it to this extreme.” His voice lowers to a throbbing whisper as he continues, “I love you, Liz. I hate what you’ve done and…and I don’t know how or if I’ll ever trust you again but I don’t think I want to end our marriage because of it. I can’t believe this has to be the end.”

“I love you, too, Max,” I reply softly, “But loving you isn’t the issue…being in love with you is…and I’m not anymore…”

He makes a small choking sound at that and I watch with an anguished heart as his eyes fill with tears. “You’re…you’re not in love with me?” he breathes, “You’re saying you’ve fallen out of love with me, Liz?”

I stare down at my hands. My nails have become jagged and broken in the last day and a half from my constant biting and the stomach-churning conclusion I’ve reached. It appears that bad habit isn’t going to end anytime soon because at this point I know I’m leveling what’s left of Max’s self-esteem. I tell myself over and over that a clean break is best.

“I don’t feel for you the way I once did, Max,” I reveal with difficulty, “I wish I did. I’ve tried to make myself but…I can’t. Too much has happened. I feel disillusioned and disappointed and not just in you, but myself as well. I just think it would be better if we ended things.”

“You can’t tell me this isn’t about him.” And then his bravado crumbles totally and new tears spill over onto his cheeks. “Liz, I can fix what’s broken…” he whispers.

I shake my head, unsure of whether he means my numerous items that he trashed or our marriage in general. One can be fixed with alien magic and the other is just too far beyond. And because I know that I ignore his fervid plea, though it’s tearing me apart inside and press on.

“I realize that going through the normal channels isn’t possible considering the circumstances,” I consider hoarsely, “The fact that we got married under aliases just makes the whole thing illegal anyway so I think we should just probably tear up the marriage certificate and be done with it. It’s not like it was real anyway.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying all this to me,” he sobs pitiably, “God, what did I do wrong, Liz? I don’t understand…”

That’s when I know I have to leave. There’s part of me that wants to take him in my arms and comfort him but then I also know that doing so will be a big mistake. I’ll be giving him false hope and, considering all the confusion and hurt that’s already transpired, it’s the last thing either of us needs.

I push to my feet and avert my eyes from his uncontrolled weeping, shifting anxiously as I rush through the last of what I have to say. “I…I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t destroy anymore of my belongings,” I tell him, struggling valiantly with my own tears, “Some of this stuff my grandmother gave me and I… I just…just please call me…” I have to swallow again and again in order to finish my sentence with breaking down. The tears are there, forming a hard, acrid lump in my throat. “Just call me and I’ll come and take the things away myself.”

Exhaling a shuddering sigh at the end, I finally I tug off my wedding ring then and place it carefully on the concrete stoop beside him. “This belongs to you,” I whisper.

“Are you really just going to walk away?” he calls after me as I beat a hasty retreat down the steps and hurry off towards my car, “Is this really how you want to end things, Liz? Liz? Liz! Don’t walk away from me! God…please!”

But I don’t answer him. Instead I crank the ignition and turn the volume knob on the radio to as loud as it will go so as to drown out his yelling before stomping my foot on the gas pedal and peeling out of there. I don’t look back at him at all because I know if I do then I probably won’t leave him and by staying I wouldn’t be doing either of us any favors.

I’m actually commending myself for keeping it together and not having a meltdown but all that quickly changes when I pull into the parking lot of Gavin’s apartment complex and he’s running outside to meet me even before I’ve pulled to a complete stop. His happy expression veers to one of concern when I run into his waiting arms with a choking sob. Finally I let myself feel the agony in my heart that I wouldn’t even acknowledge when I was Max. Now the sorrow is threatening to suffocate me.

“What happened?” Gavin whispers anxiously, “Did you get fired from work or something? Did your husband call? Beth, talk to me…”

I manage to drag enough air into my lungs to explain. “I saw Max,” I sob hoarsely into his shirtfront, curling my fingers into the soft cotton of his tee, “I asked him for a divorce. It’s over now.”

He leans back to survey my face, gently sponging away my tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Is that what you really want, Beth?” he asks carefully, “It might not be too late to change your mind…”

I shake my head negative. “This has been a long time coming,” I whisper, “I know I’m doing what’s best. The damage that’s been done is permanent and I know I only have myself to blame for it but…it still hurts…more than I thought it would. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Max was my whole life.”

“Come with me,” Gavin urges suddenly, half-leading, half pushing me through the front door to his apartment.

Once inside he leads me over to the sofa and gathers me close against him, cradling my head to his chest protectively as if I’m a little child. At the moment I feel like one, helpless and vulnerable and very scared. I loop my arms around his waist, holding on tight to his warmth, his unspoken reassurance as I simply cry and cry. In all the pain and confusion Gavin is the only thing that seems to make sense, which is complete irony since he’s still a virtual stranger to me in many ways.

“You know what I think you need, Beth?” he considers once my sobs have quieted down into hiccupping sniffles. He passes his fingers gently down the slope of my cheek and smiles at me. “You need to start a whole new life away from her.”

“A new life?” I echo in dull sarcasm, “And how am I supposed to do that? Do you think we could get one at the local Wal-Mart?”

“Fun-nee,” he admonishes with dry amusement, “But I’m being serious here.”

“So am I.”

“Well…I think I have some news that might cheer you up,” he reveals secretively.

“Doubtful but try me.”

“I think I may have found you a job,” he replies excitedly.

I survey him through one quizzical eye. “I wasn’t aware that I was looking.”

“Don’t beat me,” he teases softly, “It’s a good thing. While I was at school today I saw advertisements posted on the campus billboard for a position in the Registrar’s office. They’re looking to fill the position as soon as possible. You’d be in charge of student registration and all the paperwork that goes along with that.”

He pauses for a moment when he recognizes that he’s caught my interest. Amazingly he had made me forget my sorrow for the moment and filled with some small sense of hope for the future. Maybe he’s right. I need something different in my life, a new course.

“Now it’s not a primo position or anything,” he warns me, “The pay is just ten dollars an hour, but employees of the university get to receive their educations free. All you have to do is pay for the books.” His eyes are dancing with latent excitement by this point. “Don’t’ you see? You could enroll in night classes, Beth. There’s nothing to stop you.”

“Are you serious?” I breathe in barely contained hope, my heartbeat picking up with the implication.

School had never been an option while Max and I were together. Even if Max hadn’t been leery of putting ourselves out there in the university setting our lack of money in that regard would have contributed as well. It wasn’t as if I could take out a student loan for federal money. Long ago I began to see my dreams of college as nothing more than a pipe dream. That being the case, I can’t believe there’s actually much hope for me now but…the idea is so tempting.

Gavin must glimpse the repressed excitement on my face because he continues on with his argument, his words gaining momentum as he speaks. “The other night when you told me how much you wanted to be a molecular biologist it really stuck with me, Beth,” he whispers, “You love science like I love medicine. There’s no reason you can’t realize your dreams still.”

“Could I really go to school?” I wonder aloud, letting myself consider the possibility, “I mean…so much time has gone by since I was in high school and--,”

“You’re smart and you know it,” Gavin interrupts smugly, “If you get this job I think you should start right away. I’m sure you’ll catch on in a snap. You’ve already got a better grasp on the intricacies of pre-med than I do and it’s my friggin major. I really think you should do this. It’s just the fresh start you need after everything that has happened.”

“What makes you so certain I would get the job?” I challenge him, “Unless you’re planning to pull some strings for me it’s not looking too good for the home team. I’ve pretty much waitressed all my life, Gavin. That’s what I know.”

“I guarantee that no string pulling will be necessary,” he counters, undaunted, “What makes you so certain you won’t get the job? Beth, this opportunity is just waiting for you. It’s like…fate. I even spoke to the hiring supervisor personally…well, er, via the telephone…and told her I knew someone who would be perfect for the position. She’s willing to meet you so what have you got to lose?”

“Really?”

“The only catch is that the interview is in Baltimore,” he says tentatively, “And if you get the job then you’ll probably have to move there.”

So much so fast. Divorce, a new career path, enrolling in classes and now a possible move and yet only one consideration penetrates my befuddled senses when Gavin is done speaking. “But what about you?” I demand anxiously, “We…we just met…”

I don’t say it but I’m certain he can read where I’m going in my eyes. We just met and I want to see where it’s going. And I can’t help but reflect on what I’ve lost already. I can’t add Gavin to the list, not after everything else. Virtual strangers we may be but I can’t deny that I’m starting to care for him…a lot.

He smiles at me, bringing his dimples into alluring prominence. “Then I guess I’ll have to look into transferring schools,” he tells me, “Because I’m definitely going to have to go Baltimore with you.”

“You would actually pick up and leave for me?” I whisper in disbelief, “Why?”

“I’ve got a feeling about you, Beth,” he tells me, “It’s like I know that the greatest time of my life is just starting…that I’m meant to have something real with you, something meaningful and… I don’t want to miss that opportunity. Besides I was probably going to be hunting for another place soon anyway. This roommate deal isn’t working out so well anymore. I’ve been thinking about going back home to Baltimore for a while now…well before us anyway,” he finishes in laughing chagrin.

“Gavin, you can’t just pick up like this on a whim,” I argue, “What would your parents say?”

“I think they’ll be over the moon since it means I’ll be coming home,” he replies ironically, “They never understood my determination to move to a small town and attend an obscure university just to live on my own.”

“And why did you?” I ask him, considering that same question.

“I guess I came here to find myself,” he tells me solemnly, “And instead…I found you…” His dimples deepen as he regards me, “I think it worked out the way it was supposed to, Beth.”

“But you barely know me, Gavin, and right now my life is a me--,”

He cuts off my beginning protestations with his mouth, kissing me thoroughly until I forget all the reasons I’m supposed to be objecting in the first place. And I’m quickly coming to recognize he’s rather good at that.

Chapter 7

My heart literally leaps into my throat when I exit the rear entrance to the Registrar’s office and I see him standing there, leaning against his bike as if four months haven’t passed since we last spoke.

The first month after my split from Max was hell. I was constantly vacillating over my decision. Was I right or wrong? Was my marriage salvageable or not? Should I go back and beg for his forgiveness or should I forge out on my own as planned? Sometimes I wished I had someone to tell me the right thing to do, but life is never that simple.

Surprisingly enough, Max made the break easy. He hadn’t phoned or written or made any attempts to corner me at work in order to field a reconciliation. His reaction left me both surprised and secretly hurt. I never expected Max not to try and fight for me. He’s always done that, even after I rejected him time and again. This time his reaction is one of bitter resignation, as if he simply doesn’t care anymore. He’s just rolled over and passively accepted the situation. I have to assume that he’s reevaluated his feelings since the last time we talked and he thinks the separation is a good thing after all. I can’t think I did the wrong thing by leaving in the long run since I’m pretty sure he would have never forgiven me anyway.

In the meantime, I kept busy gearing up for my new life. With Gavin’s help, I got to know my way around Baltimore just on the off chance I managed to land the job with the university. The time we spent together was sweet and edifying, but purely platonic. And God, how I’d needed that! It was nice just to talk to someone who wouldn’t spend most of the time pushing me back at Max. Gavin never expected anything from me and, for a woman who had absolutely nothing to give, that was Nirvana. The more I learned about him and the longer I knew him the more I grew to like him. And as my feelings for him deepened so did the convoluted chaos that was my life.

Three weeks after asking Max for a divorce, I finally received the good news I’d been waiting for. I got the job in Baltimore. However, I could hardly celebrate my good fortune because Max chose that time to inform all our friends of our resulting separation and impending divorce. Then the phone calls started. As I expected no one was on my side. Between my travels back and forth to Baltimore, apartment hunting, fending off Isabel and Maria’s outraged phone calls, and talking myself out of falling back into bed with Gavin just to soothe it all I was an emotional wreck.

The clincher was seeing, however, Max that one last time before I left for Baltimore. Far from the last time there had been no screaming or name-calling but it had been just as painful.

As a gesture of courtesy I dropped by the house to announce my plans to leave. He was obviously having a difficult time adjusting to our split. He had looked like hell, like he was merely going through the motions of life. The house itself was in shambles and I felt lacerated all over with renewed guilt to see him in such a sorry state.

Those few moments I had stayed to scribble down my new address and phone number had been horrifically painful. My throat had ached with all the things left unsaid between us. I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t meant it when I said that I hated him or that my love had died completely. I wanted to tell him that I just didn’t think I was worthy anymore and maybe it was best to simply disappear from his life. I wanted to tell him a lot of things but my pride wouldn’t let me do it.

He had stared at me so indifferently when I passed him my information, only to throw the scrap of paper onto a nearby table the moment he took it from my fingers.

“Have a nice life, Liz,” was all he’d said and then he asked me to leave. So I did.

I think that is what hurt me most. His indifference. I had to wonder if that’s what ten years of marriage boiled down to…“Have a nice life, Liz?” Didn’t I deserve better than that? But then I consider he was probably thinking the same thing about me, that I had been willing to throw away ten years with him for a man I didn’t even know. I suppose I can’t fault Max then, after all I’m the one who took the steps to end it.

So I leave to start my new life, a life that Max will not be a part of at all. The thought is a frightening one and heartbreaking, too. There wasn’t even enough between us to give one another a decent goodbye. And that’s how our ten years of marriage ended…with very little to say to one another and an ocean of hurt and disillusionment between us.

Afterwards, I said good-bye to Gavin and that was hard as well. I didn’t want to do it, not really. My reluctance sprung out of the fact that I was genuinely attracted to him and not just physically but mentally as well. He’d been an unexpected rock for me during my weeks of turmoil, an easy champion. When all my friends turned against me Gavin was the only one who wasn’t judgmental. Whenever I was with him I could easily forget what a miserable void my life had become.

But I gradually came to recognize what I was doing. I was using Gavin as a crutch and, after everything he had done for me, I knew he deserved better. I had already destroyed one man’s life with the choices I’d made and I didn’t want to add another to the list, particularly one who had been nothing but supportive of me. I also knew that I would never learn to stand on my own if I didn’t stop leaning on him first. The only way I could get my head on straight again was to cut him loose.

Gavin had been upset with my decision, which wasn’t surprising, but he didn’t pitch a fit or anything like that. In fact, he seemed to understand my motives implicitly. I think he must have seen it coming because he had his whole response and well wishes ready for me before I’d even completely finished with my speech. Afterwards, he promised to look me up once I moved to Baltimore. I fully expected never to hear from him again and yet here he stands, smiling at me as if no time has passed at all. And I can’t help it, damn me, I’m happy to see him.

“You look surprised,” he observes, straightening upon my approach.

“I am,” I tell him, nibbling at the corner of my mouth, “I was pretty sure you’d hate me forever after what I did to you.”

“I was angry with you for a while,” Gavin admits softly, “It’s got to be a record when a woman dumps her husband and her boy on the side within weeks of each other.” He taps his chest. “You definitely hurt the ol’ heart, Beth.”

I don’t take offense at that because I know he’s teasing me. One of the things I admire about Gavin is his inability to hold a grudge. His forgiving nature is both endearing and disconcerting, but I’m especially glad for it now. By making light of all that’s transpired between us, he’s letting me off the hook and, consequently, I won’t have to walk around in a perpetual state of shame and guilt over how we ended. Truth be known, these last few months I’ve actually learned to feel good about myself again and I have no desire to go back to that pit of self-loathing now.

“So if I broke your heart, what are you doing here?”

“Hmm…because I realized why you did it,” he says, “I know you needed some time to clear your head, Beth.”

“Yeah…I did,” I murmur in agreement, a little dazed by his succinct wisdom. Again I’m reminded of all the things that attracted me to him in the first place. He’s got to be one of the most mature almost twenty year olds I’ve ever known.

“So how do you like living in Baltimore?” he asks politely, as if it’s just a normal occurrence for him to show up at my work this way, “Pretty big city, huh? Have you been down to the Bay yet? It’s spectacular.”

I check the impulse to gape at him. “I like it just fine,” I reply deliberately, failing quite miserably in my effort not to smile at him, “Is that why you came all this way? To see how I’m adjusting?” He just shrugs, his eyes gleaming mischievously. “What are you doing here, Gavin?” I ask again.

“Well, I just finished up with the last of my finals and I’m back home for good now…” he began expansively.

“And--,” I prompt.

He peers up at me through the luscious canopy of his thick lashes. “I was wondering if you’d like to get a cup of coffee or something,” he answers charmingly, “I’ve missed you, Beth.”

Now I really am smiling by this point. “Oh boy,” I mumble under my breath, “Gavin, this is sooo not a good idea.”

“Why?” he charges softly, “You said you needed time. Was four months not enough? Do you need the summer, too? Because I’ll wait.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Obviously,” he says, “But I’m not giving up either. So what’s the harm in having a cup of coffee?”

“What’s the harm?” I echo, “Maybe because it won’t just stop at a cup of coffee. Maybe for all the obvious reasons like…I’m divorced and vulnerable. I’m twenty-eight. You’re nineteen. My life is just starting to settle again. I’m twenty-eight. You’re nineteen. I’m in no frame of mind to start a relationship right now. I have my work, my cat…and my life is pretty full, okay. And lastly, I’m twenty-eight. You’re nineteen. Let’s not go down this road again.”

He’s openly laughing by the time I’m done enumerating all the reasons why we shouldn’t have coffee together. “Okay, I can see you’re really hung up on the age thing,” he chuckles as if I’ve said nothing at all, “Would it make you feel better to know I turned twenty today?”

My jaw drops as I forget all the reasons why I’m supposed to be kicking him to the curb. “Today is your birthday?” I breathe in surprise.

“Yeah, it is,” he confirms, his smile deepening and dimpling, “So you can’t say no to me, if for no other reason than it’s my birthday and I’m supposed to get my way.”

“Blackmail is so unbecoming, Gavin.”

“It’s not blackmail,” he wheedles, “It’s coercion. Come on, Beth. Just one coffee.” He pouts prettily. “Please? Fifteen minutes?”

I survey him through eyes narrowed with suspicion. “And you swear it’s your birthday?”

He holds up one hand and solemnly swears. “My parents are throwing me a surprise party this evening,” he tells me with a roll of his eyes, “Just think of that for a moment…my mother planning a birthday party for her grown son. You should have coffee with me based purely on principle and pity.”

I swallow back my answering snicker. “I’m sure she still thinks of you as her baby.”

“I’m nobody’s baby,” he emphasizes but the way he’s looking at me makes me think he wants to be mine. “Come out with me, Beth,” he implores, “We’ll have coffee, catch up and then you can be on your merry way.”

But when have things ever been that simple with me and this man? We go for coffee as planned and I learn that Gavin and I will be starting our Fall semester at the same university. Of course, he’ll be taking morning classes while I’ll only have a couple of evening classes but he’s quite honest about the fact that his choice in schools was deliberate. He did it to be with me.

“I have no shame about it,” he tells me, “My dad always taught me that if you want something bad enough you’ve got to go after it.”

“Uh-huh,” I reply indulgently from behind my coffee mug, “And you want me? Is that it?”

“Were you ever in doubt?”

I make a tsking sound with my tongue. “Don’t you know you dodged a bullet before,” I ask him wryly, “You could have made a clean getaway.”

“I don’t want to get away,” he replies glibly, “I’ve been thinking about you this whole time we’ve been apart, Beth…couldn’t get you out of my head.” I blush over his unspoken implication and set down my coffee cup, staring down at the frothy foam floating on top. He reads my body language easily. “Not just for that,” he snorts a moment later and I don’t have to look up to know he’s laughing at me, “I was worried about how you were adjusting to your new life and everything after…”

“You mean after my divorce?” I finish for him quietly, pushing away my coffee cup altogether.

“Yeah.”

“It’s been hard,” I confess, “I’m not used to being alone.”

“Have you seen him at all?”

“Who? You mean Max?” I shake my head. “We haven’t spoken since before I left to come here. That ship has sailed.”

“Really?” he remarks thoughtfully, propping his chin down against his fist as he regards me, “So the chances of you two reconciling…”

“…not in this lifetime,” I conclude crisply, “Even if I could find a way to deal with the massive waves of self-loathing that overcomes me whenever I’m around him, I don’t believe I could ever regain his trust…not after what I did.” It strikes me belatedly that I’ve revealed to him probably much more than I should have and definitely more than he had asked for. “Sorry,” I say meekly, “I guess I’ve got a lot stored up about that.”

“You don’t have anyone to talk to?” I shake my head and he inclines his head in another thoughtful nod. I can tell he’s got a dozen different thoughts going on behind his eyes right then but I can’t discern a single one. Finally, he asks, “So what have you been doing with yourself all this time?”

“Mostly working,” I reply carefully, wondering if he has an ulterior motive for asking, “And thinking. Lots and lots of thinking.”

“About what?”

“About why my marriage ended and why Max and I couldn’t make it work in the end.”

“Find any answers?”

“I’ve got some theories,” I reply, tracing my finger along the edge of my coffee cup, “I think Max and I were so busy trying to fit into the molds of the people we used to be that we never got to know each other for the people we actually were. By the end of it I didn’t know him very well and he definitely didn’t know me.” I shrug after the verbal consideration. “I guess we were just doomed from the start.”

“I’m sorry, Beth,” Gavin offers quietly. I flick him with a skeptical look. “I really mean it,” he insists, “I’m not happy that your marriage ended like it did. I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

I shrug, finding myself overcome with sadness at the direction our conversation has taken. It was easier when the conversation was light and fun and we weren’t talking about me. When I attempt to regain that cheery atmosphere, however, I notice that Gavin is watching me intently, much the way he used to when he would come into the diner. I begin to fidget under his stare and glance down reflexively at my watch. We’ve been here nearly an hour just talking and I think I’ve probably stayed too long.

“I should be going,” I tell him, already reaching for my purse to lay my half of the bill on the table, “It was good seeing you again, Gavin.”

“Beth, wait!” he cries as I stand to leave, making a desperate grab for my wrist, “Come to my birthday party tonight.”

“Gavin, I can’t,” I protest, but it’s weak at best and I know it, “It’s a bad idea.”

“No, it’s not and yes, you can,” he insists, “It’s dinner. It’s cake. It’s not sitting at home all alone with your cat, cuz I gotta tell you, Beth…that’s one pitiful image.”

Despite myself, I smile. “Shut up.”

“Come on,” he cajoles, “Have a little fun tonight. For my birthday…what could it hurt? You might actually smile for a change instead of sporting that lemon look you’ve got going on.”

When he flashes those dimples at me I know it’s all over. I hang my head in chagrined defeat. “You’re a pest,” I tell him.

“And you love me for it,” he says.

And the strange thing is…I think I do.

Chapter 8

I reach over Gavin’s sleeping form and make a desperate grab for the phone, frowning my disgruntlement at the digital clock when I realize it’s nearly twelve in the morning. “Hullo?” I mumble sleepily.

“I should kick your ass,” Maria responds with succinct accuracy.

My frown deepens. “Maria?” I whisper, aware that Gavin his beginning to shift beside me and mumble in his sleep. However, when I try to creep from the bed his arm anchors me down. I have to smile a little over that. Even when he’s dead to the world he’s unwilling to let me go. It takes some effort to redirect my drowsy attention back to my irate best friend. “Maria, is something the matter?” I ask her with a yawn.

“Yes, something is the matter!” she snaps, “Max just called Michael drunk off his ass tonight and carrying on about you! Don’t you get that you’re fucking killing him, Liz!”

I sit up a little straighter at her reply, momentarily forgetting that Max should no longer be my priority. I’m immediately in protective mode. “What?” I cry softly, “Is he alright? Please tell me he didn’t do something stupid.” My mind automatically catapults back to the last time Max was drunk and the way he reacted while in that state. I groan inwardly.

“Would you care if he had, Liz?”

“Maria, don’t start this bullshit with me tonight!” I snap impatiently, “Is Max alright or not?”

“Michael kept him on the phone until he passed out cold,” she says, “We called Isabel to get her to dreamwalk him just to make sure he was okay and he hadn’t…hurt himself.” There’s a terse beat of silence as she lets her implications for “hurt himself” sink into my brain. “Apparently, Max saw you and your boyfriend together this afternoon,” Maria informs me coldly, “God, Liz! Do you have to throw it in his face?”

It’s been a month and a half since Gavin and I started seeing one another again and I haven’t broadcasted that news to anyone. We’re very quiet about our relationship. But, of course, it would still blow up in my face even considering how conservatively I’ve carried on with him. Good Lord, we only just started sleeping together again and already the melodrama has begun.

“Throw it in his face?” I hiss in exasperation, “I live in a completely different city! How the hell am I throwing anything in his face, Maria? And secondly, I haven’t seen Max in months so I have no idea what Isabel is talking about!” I’m damned furious by this point. Frankly, I’m sick to death of everyone turning to me as if I’m supposed to miraculously save Max. I let him go so he could find happiness elsewhere. Wasn’t that enough?

“Look, I’m sorry that Max is doing so poorly,” I sigh in a gentler tone, “But I really don’t see what I can do about it. Max can’t stand the sight of me, Maria. My being around him would just make things worse instead of better.”

“Well, maybe if you stopped putting all your time and energy into your latest…er…project,” Maria suggests blandly.

“One has nothing to do with the other,” I retort, “I don’t owe Max any explanations about who I’m seeing or not, or you for that matter! We are divorced, remember?”

“Is that your round about way of telling me that you’re seeing that guy again?” Maria charges.

I feel tempted to lie to her, simply because it’s none of her business and I don’t feel like defending myself at twelve o’clock in the morning. But she is my friend and I can’t purposely deceive her. Realizing I can’t carry on this conversation with Gavin right there, I manage to ease away from him, shrug into my robe and creep into the bathroom. The only other soul present is Pickles, my cat. She’s curled up in her favorite spot behind the toilet and I know she’s not going to tell anyone anything that transpires in the next few minutes so I plan to hold nothing back.

Once I’ve acquired some privacy I let loose. “Um…whose friend are you again, Maria?” I hiss impatiently, “I mean, come on, we were friends long before you and I knew Max Evans existed so why are you giving me such a hard time about this?”

“Because Michael is giving me a hard time about you,” she throws back sharply, “I keep defending you, Liz, but honestly… I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now. I don’t understand how you could go from loving Max like you did to throwing it all away on some random guy.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I sigh in exhaustion, “I fucked up. I’m dealing with the consequences the best way I know how.”

“Well, if you’re seeing that guy again that’s definitely not going to help matters and--,”

“I’m seeing him again,” I confirm in a whisper, “We’re together and that’s all there is to it. Max and I are divorced, okay! I don’t know what else you want me to do!”

“Oh God, Liz,” Maria groans, “I can’t believe you’ve gone and started things up with that homewrecker again. You should be trying to work things out with Max. Beg, grovel…God, do something, but don’t act like you don’t give a damn!”

It’s the same old argument and I have no desire to spend the early morning hours trying to defend Gavin and myself. I’ve done it countless times in the past and it’s never gotten me anywhere. I supposed my friends would rather I slink back to Max with my tail tucked between my legs whether I want a relationship with him or not.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask again wearily, “Do you want me to call him and see if he’s okay? I’ll do that if you want…whatever it takes to get you off my back.”

“What do you want to do, Liz?” she counters deliberately and I almost roll my eyes at the question, “Do you care that Max is drowning his sorrows in alcohol…sorrows that you created, sorrows that only you can fix? Liz, do you care about him anymore at all?”

“I’m going back to bed,” I announce flatly, “Goodnight, Maria.”

“Just tell me you’re alone right now, Liz,” she implores, “Just say the words and I can’t sleep peacefully tonight.”

I exhale a long-suffering sigh. “Goodbye, Maria.” Before she can say more I deliberately click off the phone, thereby hanging up in her face. But after I end our phone conversation I don’t head back off to bed immediately, as was my first intention, but stare down at the phone in mute indecision. If I call Max then it will probably seem like I’m insinuating myself in where I don’t belong anymore and if I don’t call him then I’ll look like a heartless bitch. I can’t win for losing here.

God, how simple it would be to crawl back into bed and wake Gavin up with some languid kisses and forget Maria had ever called in the first place. I want to do that. My head screams at me to do it, but my heart says something else altogether. I can’t ignore my feelings on this, my instincts. I’m already being eaten alive with worry. Last time he turned parking meters into sparklers. What if this time he set the house on fire? I know I won’t be able to sleep at all until I’ve ascertained for myself that he’s okay.

Calling him is futile, however. The phone line is a constant busy signal. I glance at the bathroom door and then back to the phone, weighing my options. Max is a near two-hour drive away from here. Making such a long trip and in the middle of the night would be completely ludicrous and yet here I am contemplating doing just that. After a few more minutes of debate, I finally make my decision and trudge into the bedroom to shake Gavin awake.

“Huh?” he mumbles sleepily, cracking open one bleary eye to regard me.

“Babe, I’ve got to go,” I explain gently, “Max is in trouble.”

“Wh-huh? Beth…what are you talking about?” I’m vaguely aware of him popping upright in bed at that point but I hardly acknowledge his shifting as I flit about the room to don my clothes. “Beth, you’re not seriously going to leave right now, are you?” he squawks incredulously, “It’s like half past twelve! You’re not his caretaker! You’re not even his wife anymore.”

“He’s drunk, Gavin,” I tell him, shoving my bare feet into my sneakers, “I’ve tried calling him but his line is busy. I just want to make sure he hasn’t done something stupid.”

Gavin whisks back the covers and starts to climb from the bed. “I’m coming with you,” he declares stubbornly.

“Whoa, bad idea,” I reply before he can slip into his pants, “If Max knows you’re there it will definitely make matters worse.”

“Don’t give a fuck,” he says as he pulls his zipper into place.

“Gavin--,”

“I’ll wait in the damned car then,” he insists brusquely, “but there’s no way I’m letting you make that drive alone in the middle of the night. Like hell.” I can tell from the stubborn jut of his chin that he’s not going to be budged and I don’t have time to argue him down.

“Fine. Get dressed,” I tell him, “But you stay in the car. No exceptions.”

I can tell he’s mad at me. He hardly speaks two words to me as I make my way towards the highway. Every so often his narrowed gaze cuts in my direction. I don’t need my otherworldly alien abilities to figure out what’s got him so irritated either. “God, Gavin, don’t be like this,” I whisper.

“Like what?” he snaps, “You’re not his fucking babysitter, Beth! He’s a big boy…let him take care of himself.”

“You don’t know Max,” I argue.

“And I don’t want to know him,” he interrupts coldly, “The guys twists you in knots, has your friends guilt tripping you left and right…yeah, he sounds like a fucking paragon of virtue!”

“Don’t!” I warn him.

“No, you don’t!” he flings back with a flash of anger, “I asked you from the very beginning whether or not it was over between you two and you told me yes.”

“It is over, Gavin.”

“Then what are we doing here right now…in this car,” he demands tersely, “We should be home in bed right now. Isn’t Max the one with all the friends in his corner? Why doesn’t one of them come down to babysit him?”

“I’m the closest,” I argue, “And no one asked me to do this. I need to make sure he’s okay for my own peace of mind, okay.”

“Whatever,” he says petulantly, staring out the window into the dense darkness.

I decide to let him stew for a while. In the time we’ve been together I’ve come to learn that it takes a lot to get Gavin angry but once he is there’s simply no talking him down until he’s worked out his issues in his head. Consequently, we make a third of the drive in absolute silence. I think at one point he even falls asleep but when he wakens his mood is drastically improved.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, reaching across the car to finger my cheek, “I acted like an asshole before. I know you’re just trying to do a good thing.”

“No, don’t apologize. I get why you’re upset,” I reply, tossing him a soft smile of reassurance, “Believe me, I’ve asked myself several times already why I’m doing this at all. I just know it’s going to blow up in my face but… I have to make sure he’s alright, Gavin.”

“Okay,” he relents, “But it’s probably going to be late when you’re finished with him. We should just stay the night then…get a room or something.”

When we finally reach the house I know that Gavin isn’t any keener on the idea but he’s stopped arguing with me about it. After giving him a quick kiss of reassurance, I alight from the car and start up the walkway. I can feel Gavin’s eyes following me as I do. It’s like he expects my being alone with Max is going to change things, which is an utterly ridiculous fear. I don’t even think about Max that way anymore.

Since I gave Max back the master key long ago I have to use my powers to unlock the door and let myself inside. I almost automatically close the door when I glimpse the mess inside, however. Conditions aren’t much better than the last time I was here. His clothes are strewn all over the place and there’s at least an inch of dust covering the surface of the drapes. “My God,” I utter in shuddering reproach, tripping over various articles as I make my way into the living room.

Max is there, lying in the middle of the floor, passed out in a small puddle of alcohol. I groan at the sight and quickly make my way over to his side to make sure that he’s actually passed out and not dead. His pulse is strong and steady though he smells like a brewery. Empty beer cans litter the living room floor. “You dumbass,” I admonish him tersely, heaving his hefty body in an attempt to shift him onto his back, “Why’d you do something so stupid, huh?”

My efforts wake him briefly and he stares up at me through half-mast eyes. Then he does something totally unexpected: he smiles at me and I swear my heart stops. God, how long has it been since he smiled at me like that? I don’t want it to affect me but honestly I’m shaking all over right now and that’s before he even says a word.

“Liz,” he whispers reverently, lifting an unsteady hand to touch my hair, “You came back.”

“Max,” I croak, trying desperately to ignore the unconcealed joy in his words, “Can you get up? You’re too heavy for me to pick up all by myself.”

He ignores my question completely. “I’ve missed you,” he murmurs dreamily, “I don’t guess I told you that very much before so I’m gonna make up for it now. I miss you, Liz. I miss you. I miss you.” He pauses a beat, his eyes darkening with intensity. “I love you, Liz.”

Why am I nearly in tears? This is crazy. I don’t want his attention. I don’t want him professing his love. But I can’t ignore the secret part of me that does. It has been six months already. Before I left everything Max had done and said was in some knee-jerk reaction to get me to stay. Now, months down the road, there’s no possible way I’m going to stay, at least in his mind, and still he swallows his pride enough to make the declaration. I really don’t know how I should feel about it, but if the absurd flutters in my chest are any indication…this isn’t a good thing.

“Don’t do this to me, Max,” I plead, “I’m here to help you and that’s it.”

But he hardly hears me. Instead he rubs several strands of my hair between his fingers before bringing to his nose. “Still smells the same,” he sighs, “I keep your pillow for that smell, you know. God, you’re beautiful.”

Is he trying to kill me? I bat his hand away. “Max, please!” I implore, “You have to concentrate and get up off your ass!”

He flinches in reaction to my sharp tone and hisses out a curse. “Fucking hell, Liz…not so loud,” he mumbles before favoring me with a lopsided grin, “I’m drunk as shit.”

“Yeah…I know,” I agree indulgently as I help him struggle unsteadily to his feet. I’m thinking a shower might go a long way towards sobering him up so we head off in the direction of the bathroom. He does little more than shuffle along beside me as I lead him down the hall. “Do you think you can get undressed on your own or do you need help?”

He favors me with a drunken grin. “I need help.”

Huffing out an exasperated sigh, I push him down onto the toilet seat and begin briskly removing his shoes and socks. Once I’ve freed him of his liquor stained t-shirt, however, I take a step back. “I’m not taking off your pants,” I announce succinctly.

“Why?” he challenges smugly, “It’s nothing you haven’t seen, Liz.”

“Take a shower,” I order him coldly, “You smell. I’m going to see what I can do with the house. This place is a pigsty.”

As I march off for the living room I realize I’m furious with him. Somehow I think it would be easier to know that he had moved on with his life and found someone else to love, but seeing him this way…the way he’s living and with the obvious indication that he’s still in love with me… The reality is painful. What’s worse is I know that Max is better and stronger than this. I expected more from him. But then I have to remember that we all have our weak moments and, in fact, it was one of my weak moments that got us in this mess to begin with. I’m in no position to judge his actions.

So I begin the daunting task of clearing the clutter from the living room. With some assistance from my powers and also some good old-fashioned elbow grease I manage to bring the house back into some semblance of order. I’m in the kitchen scrubbing down the mountain load of dishes in the sink when Max enters fresh from his shower in a pair of old gray sweats and a t-shirt.

“Hey,” he greets sheepishly, scratching his head, “You’re still here.” He looks around the kitchen, noting its gleam. “Thanks,” he says.

“It needed it.”

“I don’t clean much these days,” he replies laconically.

“So I see,” is my terse response. I dry my hands on a nearby dishtowel and then toss it aside onto the kitchen counter. “I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were okay,” I tell him, “Now that you are I’m going to be on my way.”

“It’s late, Liz,” he argues, “You shouldn’t drive all the way back to Baltimore at this time of the night.”

“I’ll be fine,” I insist, “You just take care of yourself, Max.”

I reach the front door as his voice drifts behind me. When I turn there’s only about six feet separating us. “How did you know?” he asks gruffly.

“Maria told me,” I say to him, “She said…she said that you saw me and Gavin together.”

I see the hurt darken his eyes before he quickly averts them. “I wasn’t expecting you to still be with him…I guess,” he confesses softly, “I just…I thought it might have been a fling or something…”

“Why were you in Baltimore in the first place, Max?”

“I told you,” he replies simply, “I still love you.” I nod my understanding but I don’t have a ready response for him. I’m just eager to get out the door because he’s making me feel things I don’t want to feel. “Liz, do you love him?”

That question startles me enough to drop my hand from the doorknob but I can’t face him. Not now. “What?”

“Do you love him,” he reiterates softly, coming to stand directly behind me. He’s close enough for me to smell the soapy aroma on his body and the proximity makes me nervous. And then he dips his head low so that his mouth is right against my ear when he whispers, “I want to know.”

But I take the coward’s way out and reply brusquely, “I’m not going to do this with you, Max. Okay…so uh…take care of yourself.” I can’t scramble out the front door fast enough, running back to my car as if Hell’s hounds are nipping at my heels.

Chapter 9

I feel as if I’ve been knocked on my ass.

I have a great guy in my life. I’m set to start college in the Fall. I have a satisfying job and a capable car. My life is good. So why do I have Max Evans on the brain all of a sudden? It’s been five days since our last encounter and I’m still obsessing over what he said and, more importantly, my reaction to what he said. Just when I think I’ve got a firm grasp on my emotions they’re flipping on me again.

It’s not that I’m pining away for him or something. Quite the contrary. I’m not contemplating a reprisal of our relationship at all. I suppose I’m just surprised to realize that my feelings for him aren’t as dead as I first thought. However, I’m not going to let it freak me out. I’m quite content with my present relationship and I have no intention of doing a repeat performance of my marriage. I’m falling in love again and I don’t want to mess that up. Been there and done that and I’m over it.

I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes. With my disastrous divorce always in the back of mind, I always make a conscious effort to keep Gavin apprised of my feelings. We’ve had plenty of differences, which is understandable considering our differences in age and life experience. His parents have been somewhat vocal with their concern about said differences but we’re muddling through. They are starting to come around. However, there are also certain things about myself that I can’t tell Gavin at all, secrets I’ve let him know exist but that I have no intention of divulging. He accepts that but I’d be naïve if I didn’t realize the secrets put a strain on our relationship.

But there was one thing I decided not to lie to him about anymore: my name. At least, my first name. I told him that my name was Elizabeth and that everyone I’ve ever known has called me Liz. It was a small thing really but to me it made all the difference. He’s content to call me Beth though and, honestly, I like that. I feel like a completely different person when I’m with him so it’s fitting that my name should be different, too.

It helps that Gavin has a surprising grasp on this whole relationship thing. He’s far from being indifferent when I talk to him. In fact, he always makes an effort to consider the things that bother me and vice versa. Then we sit down to think about how we can improve the situation together.

When I was with Max I fell into the habit of simply eating my feelings because it always seemed that his took precedence over mine. He was the alien king with all the issues, after all. It had seemed easier to put my feelings on the backburner; especially when on those occasions that I did push for his listening ear or his time he made me feel like a selfish witch for complaining when he was trying so hard. Not at all the way to maintain a relationship and I learned that lesson the hard way.

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, Gavin is always willing to thrust whatever aside to give me his time. He has this way of becoming totally absorbed in me that I find incredibly sweet but a little daunting as well. I feel like I’m back in the early days with Max, when he put me on that oh so high pedestal. I also remember the fall was a bitch so I have to make it a point to remind Gavin over and over that I’m not perfect. I’m going to fuck up at times and I don’t want him completely disillusioned when I do. I have to believe he gets it, too, after all he’s seen me at my worst and he never turned away. I don’t think he’ll ever understand how grateful I am for that.

I’m ill prepared for the moment when Gavin grabs hold of my hand and pulls me up off the sofa to sweep my body against his. “Enough brooding,” he commands with a smile, “Dance with me.”

“I thought you were supposed to be studying,” I giggle into his throat, kissing the delicate pulse beating at the base.

“That’s never a possibility when you’re around,” he whispers, his hands sliding over my hips, cradling them and bringing me closer. “Dance with me,” he coaxes against my ear.

“There’s no music,” I point out in a half moan, half laugh.

“We’ll make our own,” he begins swaying against me, kissing a wet trail along my shoulder as he does.

As he nibbles at the underside of my jaw, I’m vaguely aware of the vast differences between Max and Gavin when it comes to lovemaking. Whereas Max had always so sweet and attentive when we made love, Gavin is hot and quick and extremely demanding. There was a time when I imagined that nothing could ever touch the experience of making love with Max. It’s not that Gavin is better but…he’s different.

I have to admit that I get a tiny thrill out of fervent impatience. I want to match his passion measure for measure. Fitting my hips closer to his, I match the rhythm of his movements as he hums a little tune against my temple. Before long we’re kissing hungrily, the dancing forgotten altogether.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask softly when he starts to unbutton my shirt and push it from my shoulders. His caresses are feverish and wanton but I sense that his mind is somewhere else as he’s kissing me... But his answer is merely another torrid kiss as his hands skate around my back to unfasten my bra clasp.

I moan his name as I feel him start to back us toward my bedroom. “I want you,” he sighs in explanation, his nimble fingers working at the snap at the waistband of my jeans, “I’ll study later…promise…”

Our lovemaking is fierce and intense as always, but when it’s over I can’t shake the feeling that Gavin was trying to prove something by taking me the way he did. I roll over onto his chest and smooth my hand down his chest, dipping my fingers low to fiddle around with his navel. He wiggles under my tickling caress but doesn’t laugh. “What’s going on?” I inquire softly, studying his face with intent eyes.

“Nothing,” he mumbles.

“Hmm…nothing…” I consider, “Um…no, that’s not gonna fly.”

Gavin levels me with an accusing stare. “You were thinking about him before,” he charges softly.

“I…who…” I hedge guiltily, “You mean Max?”

His expression gives way to bland impatience. “You know I do.”

“It’s probably not what you’re thinking though,” I tell him.

“I’m not stupid, Beth. You’ve still got feelings for him,” he concludes.

I don’t make a point of denying it because Gavin deserves better than that from me. Besides if I can be honest with myself, I can be honest with him and we’ll be the better because of it. “I’m always going to have feelings for him, Gavin,” I reply emphatically, but I make a point to temper my words with a kiss, “He was my first love. And…and we share something special between us that can’t be erased. He literally saved my life…I can’t forget that and I haven’t exactly repaid him for that in the best way.”

“It’s like you’re indebted to him emotionally,” Gavin reasons grimly, “I don’t like it, Beth. I don’t like the hold he has on you.”

“Max has no hold on me,” I protest in laughing chagrin, “I wouldn’t be here with you right now if he did.” He merely grunts in response. “Gavin, I mean it.”

He shakes his head over my insistence. “It’s been there so long you can’t even see it anymore,” he argues quietly, “But I see it. I’m scared of it. I’m scared of losing you.”

“You’re not,” I tell him.

“What makes you so sure?” he counters quietly, “He did.”

I’m filled with renewed sorrow over my choices. So I haven’t merely shaken Max’s confidence in me and my confidence in myself but Gavin’s confidence as well. I can’t give him much response to that other than to reassure him that I’m not going to make those same mistakes with him that I made with Max.

“Gavin, I really think you’re overreacting,” I soothe him, “It’s true that seeing Max again made me feel some things I thought were dead, but those feelings are nothing I want to explore. Max and I are over. I want to be with you. Max was my past and we’ll always share a connection but you…you’re my future…I hope…”

He nods, apparently pained by my response but accepting, too. “And by ‘your future’ what do you mean exactly?” he asks a second later, “Am I just your current squeeze or is this going somewhere? What are we to each other, Beth?”

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

He tangles his fingers in my hair, brushing it back from my face before bringing me down for a ferocious kiss that steals my breath. “I’m falling in love with you, Beth,” he whispers fervently, “God…I can’t even breathe sometimes because the emotion is so big, so intense…but…I don’t know how you feel about me.”

“Are you saying that you want to know if I love you, Gavin Scott,” I consider deliberately, climbing up over his body so that I straddled his lap, “Is that what you’re getting at?”

It’s strange that Max asked me that question just the other day and I couldn’t answer. Not because the possibility wasn’t there but because I had never let myself think about the depth of my feelings before that and then once I had… Max had said he wanted to know, but I don’t think he could have handled the truth right then. I don’t think I could have handled it because not so long ago I was sure I’d love Max for the rest of my life.

I lean down to kiss Gavin deeply before pulling upright once more. “So is that what you want to know?” I whisper seductively.

“Um…uh…yeah…” Gavin gasps back, a little distracted by fact that I’m stroking the tip of his cock back and forth against my aching center.

He hisses a curse as his body penetrates me little by little. As I look down at him, I feel my chest swell with the emotion I’ve been too afraid to acknowledge before now. I love him. I wasn’t looking for it. I definitely didn’t want it, especially after Max but now I can’t deny it. The feelings are wholly different from the feelings I had for Max. I have a greater sense of control and confidence with Gavin that I never had with Max, but I don’t doubt for a moment that what I’m feeling is love. I’m amazed by the realization and grateful for the second chance.

I slide myself down over the length of his erection, delighting in his gasping moan. “Yes,” I tell him with a seductive smile as he lifts up against me, “Yes, I love you, Gavin Scott. I’m not going anywhere.” He grasps my hips then and angles himself upwards high and hard before shuddering beneath me. That’s all it takes to send him sailing over the edge. He continues to pulse inside me even after I’ve settled back down against his chest. Gavin bands his arms around my back, holding me there.

We fall asleep smiling.

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

“Beth?” I swat him away but he’s persistent. “I can’t sleep.”

“Hmm?” I groan, batting away the tickling sensation at the lobe of my ear as he traces his tongue along the edge “There had better be a fire somewhere, Gavin.”

He snuggles closer behind me, his fingers strumming over my stomach. “Tell me the words again.”

I smile into my pillow before flopping over onto my back to regard him in the glowing moonlight. “I don’t think I know what you’re talking about, sir,” I feign innocently, batting my eyelashes.

“Don’t be a tease,” he pouts, “Tell me.”

“Um…” I tap my chin, pretending to think, “What were they again?”

“Beth.”

“Okay…okay,” I relent, cupping his cheek, “I love you, Gavin.”

The declaration only seems to feed his hunger to hear it though. “Again,” he orders but I’m happy to indulge.

I sweep his lips in a tender kiss. “I love you.”

“One more time,” he begs shamelessly.

I’m shaking with laughter by this point. “I love you, you lunatic!”

“I’m never going to get tired of hearing it!” he yells exuberantly. And then I’m laughing outright when he stands up and starts dancing all over the bed like a maniac and singing in a cracking falsetto, “Beth loves me! Beth loves me!”

“You’re crazy,” I sing in the same tune, “You’re crazy!”

He’s back before me in an instant, falling to his knees with an infatuated grin. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggests excitedly, “This calls for some kind of celebration or something. I want to take you someplace special.”

“Gavin, it’s late,” I protest sleepily, “The special places aren’t open anymore.”

“Let’s go for a ride,” he clarifies, “I want to show you the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, baby. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I’ve seen the bridge,” is my droll reply, “It’s incredibly long but…I wasn’t all that impressed.”

“But have you seen it at night,” he counters smoothly, “It’s gorgeous. The lights are so brilliant…and how they reflect off the water… Beth, you’ve just got to see it.”

“Now?”

“It’s my special place,” he persists sweetly, “I want to share it with you.”

“Gavin, you’re talking about going to Annapolis,” I emphasize, “In the middle of the night. I’m naked.”

“I know it,” he teases, wiggling his brows at me, “And you know how I love it when you’re naked but…I’m too excited to sleep and you’re too tired to make love again. I think this is the perfect compromise.” I snort a laugh at his logic. “We’ll take my bike to make the trip more scenic,” he cajoles, “What do you say?” He nudges himself between my legs and kisses my neck. “Come on, baby…please…?”

Somehow he manages to get the lovemaking and the trip, too. But as we’re on the road, racing towards Annapolis with the roar of his bike thundering in our ears, I don’t care. I think, finally, after foundering around for so long I’ve found my place. I’ve found myself. It’s not what I expected to be, a twenty-eight year old divorcee, or where I expected to be…just beginning my college career, but I like where I’m going. I like the person I’m with and, most importantly, I like myself.

I hold on tight to Gavin’s waist with the firm determination that this time it’s going to work. This time I’m playing for keeps.

This time I’ll have my happily ever after.