Summer Solstice (Roswell Fanfic)

Summer Solstice (Part Four)

PART FOUR

It’s well past eight a.m. and I’ve had my shower, but Liz is still sprawled across the bed. She’s not just dozing or merely sleeping: she’s downright catatonic, her dark hair fanning across my pillow, her mouth slack. When she was sick, her sleep was often fitful, marked by periods of restless moans and cries. But sometimes, especially toward the end, it was bone-deep, right down to the marrow—like now. Standing in the doorway, sipping from my coffee mug, I can’t help but fight the old fight, that fear she won’t still be here in another month.

But then I shake it off, the irrational anxiety, and instead allow myself the stolen pleasure of simply watching my wife. I never expected to encounter beauty at moments like this one—not until we were lovers and in so deep, there was no going back.

We barely spoke last night. When I came upstairs, done with the baking, she was busy on the Internet. She hosts a support group for kids with cancer now. Two weeks ago one of her young friends, a freshman in college off at Iowa State, died. Well, he wasn’t a freshman anymore—he had to leave in the middle of the year, right after Max healed her. He had to go home and slowly pass from this world into some other one. Liz spends a lot of time with these kids these days, trying to encourage them. She tells me it’s the least she can do with Max’s gift.

I’m choking with fear; she’s running at life. Hard. As much as I’m afraid of death, I think she has a calm understanding of her ultimate fate. Maybe staring down the barrel of the thing like she did all that time can bring a positive change. But while her soul’s more beautiful than before, mine feels a shade darker. And it’s getting darker all the time.

When Maxwell appeared yesterday, I wanted to tell him I understand these ghosts that keep him running, because they’re the same ones that keep me standing still. I miss my best friend, my brother, and it hurts all the more having him live a mere five blocks away. Like the other day, when I was cleaning out the storeroom in the back, had the dock door open tossing some boxes out and I saw Max jogging. He was with Kyle and some other guy I don’t know, the three of them just kind of chugging along—pretty slow, I guess, for Max’s benefit, cause I’ve seen Kyle run a hell of a lot faster than that. But they were laughing, the three of them while they jogged, and by God the fit of jealousy I felt inside was almost unmanageable. That Max could hang out with anyone and be normal, feel normal, well I despised the fact that it couldn’t be with me.

Could it ever have been? I’m not really sure anymore; all I know is, standing there on that loading dock, broom in my hand watching my lost best friend, I despised everything inside me that was different that day.

****

“So, uh, I told Liz we might come by.” I kick at the asphalt, toweling my sweaty face off with the t-shirt I just earned by finishing the race.

“You serious, Evans?” Kyle asks, chugging down several gulps of water.

“She invited me and told me to bring you, if I wanted.” I put it out there like it’s no big deal, the way Liz suggested I bring him along, as if he were my date. Almost as much of a casual thing as me stopping by her place for breakfast. How should we order these equally monumental events, while pretending they mean nothing?

He stares past me, into the crowd, like he’s a thousand years old. “Huh, interesting.”

“I went to see her, uh, last night. After…”

“After?” he asks, smirking, but I won’t give him more.

After we kissed in the park, Kyle. I use the t-shirt to wipe at my face again, at least make a pretense of it. I’m no good at this, never have been, and I’m feeling particularly bad at it with Kyle today.

When I remain silent,stubbornly so, it seems Kyle’s eyes might actually pop out of his head, as he stares at me. Everyone wants me closer, I know. Yet nobody’s gotten me closer all these months besides him. And nobody’s gotten as close as he came last night, with that brazen, provocative kiss…since Liz. I haven’t dared kiss anyone who didn’t know what I am, much less make love or fall hard. Or do more than go for a movie or dinner.

That’s all I’ve wanted with Miriam these months, watching her from across the smoky A.A. clubhouse. And now here I am, gasping for air, and I’m thinking about the way Kyle’s new goatee felt beneath my fingers last night. He knows all that I am—all that I’m never going to be—and he still kissed me last night.

“Evans, you okay?” he asks, skeptical as he watches me work hard just to breathe. “Cause you’re looking really…red. In the face.”

He takes a step closer, into my space, his clear eyes flashing with something very secret, very forbidden, right here on the public main street of Roswell. “So tell me, Evans. Are you all right?” He knows damn well that I’m not. And he’s definitely not asking as my personal trainer, not today.

“I thought you’d think it was a good idea, me going to see Michael and Liz.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I just ran a 5K.”

“Not talking about that either.”

When I don’t answer, but instead study the crowd of people, feeling exposed for so many guilty secrets, he leans close, whispering right into my ear. So close that I feel the warmth of his breath, he says, “I’m guessing you shaved the beard for me.”

I walk away at that one, brushing past him with my own ballsy bravado, shoulders thrust back, chest out. “I’m gonna go get some coffee and eggs, Valenti. Come along if you want.”

Behind me, I hear him chuckle. “Touchy, touchy. You never change, do you, Ben Kenobi?”

“Wrong solar system,” I quip, not even looking back.

“That’s okay,” he teases, falling easily into pace beside me, “You can still be my hero.” His voice pitches high and girlish and I can’t help laughing.

“Then you can still come to breakfast,” I say.

He smiles at me; an easy handsome grin and something strange twists low in my stomach. Something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before, a kind of quivery uncomfortable sensation that I definitely don’t like—but that I instantly crave more of, all the same. “You look good, Max,” he says, serious now. “Without the beard. Really good.”

“More like myself?” I ask, as we walk down the sidewalk, toward the café. Catching my reflection in the mirrored glass of a shop window, I quickly suck in my stomach, as Kyle turns to inspect me. “You look great, Max. That’s all,” he says, surprisingly serious. I wonder if he’s thinking of our kiss—I wonder if it mattered like I think it did.

“Michael’s going to flip out,” he cautions. “You do know that, right?”

Suddenly I’m not so assured about this plan of mine. “Is this a bad idea?” I ask, panicked. “Maybe I shouldn’t go there.”

His voice gets soft, and I have to lean closer to hear him say, “Don’t you get it, man? He’s going to freak cause he’s not going to believe it.”

“Oh.” Their small café, tucked between the post office and a florist, inserted almost like a narrow afterthought, appears right in front of us.

Kyle sighs, shaking his head, walking right past me. “Evans, your problem is you never did realize how much you meant to every last one of us.”

He leaves me there, following after him—to think on his words, I guess. Or perhaps to warn my best friend that finally, at long last, I’m coming home again.

*****

It’s like one of those movies, where the bank robbers enter, and everything falls into slow motion. I’m standing there, at the counter making Liz a bagel with cream cheese—breakfast in bed is my plan—and next thing I know Kyle bursts through the front door, eyes wide. And then there’s Max. Entering our place, a little uncertain, but looking more like himself than anytime since he’s been back in town. Reminds me of the days when I worked at the Crashdown, the way he’d pass through the door, eyes searching the place for Liz or me or even Maria. Always vaguely lacking confidence, while looking perfectly assured all the same.

Then it hits me: he’s shaved his beard. He looks like my lifelong friend again, the guy who first saw me years ago, up on the rock when we’d come out of the pods.

“Maxwell,” I say, wiping my hands on a towel and stepping around the counter. How the hell did Kyle manage to pull this one off? Without even meaning to, I throw him a desperately grateful look.

“Just, uh, finished the race,” Max says, slowly unfurling a t-shirt to show me. “They gave me this.”

“Way to go,” I enthuse, aware that I’m scowling, even though I don’t mean to be.

“Uh, just…” he loses his way, hesitates, looks to Kyle. Kyle finishes, “We came for breakfast. We the first ones here?”

“Is there a plan?” I ask, glancing between them.

“I told Liz we might come by,” Max says, tipping his chin upward. I can’t miss a certain defiance in his gaze, a certain way he’s letting me know he’s talked to my wife, alone and without me. It’s important to him, that I understand something unique bonds them together that I’ll never share—that in another timeline they were lovers, husband and wife. Warriors, fighting side by side.

“She’s lying down,” I admit, feeling the familiar wave of fear choke me. “Isn’t feeling very good.”

“Is there a problem?” Max asks, but I have the strange sense that he’s only paying lip service to the question. What exactly did Liz tell him, when they talked?

“When’d you talk to Liz?” I demand, trying to sound casual when I feeling anything but that way.

“Last night.”

“Last night,” I repeat, knowing I’d been in bed asleep.

“I thought some of the…others were coming,” Max explains, shifting on his feet. “But maybe not.” He’s flushed and nervous seeming, and I know it’s not just the run. Kyle flips open his cell phone, saying, “Let me try Tess.” When she answers on the other end of the line, he plugs his ear with his forefinger walking toward the door, lost in a hushed conversation. Max and I are left staring at one another, awkward and without a word to say. “I think Liz is sick,” I admit after a silent moment, every one of my latent, stifling fears rushing to the surface of our quiet moment together.

“Michael, I’m sure she’s fine.” He says it too easily, as if he knows our business.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I huff.

“I healed her. That’s all.”

“But you just said she’s fine. How do you know that?” I ask, searching him for any ounce of reassurance he can offer. “Can you even know that?”

He hesitates, scratching his ear thoughtfully, something I’ve seen him do hundreds of times over the course of our lives. His mouth opens, and then closes again: he’s self-editing. I need to know what he’s chosen not to say, and a little too roughly, I grab his arm. “Tell me, Maxwell.”

Then he smiles. A warm, genuine thing that I swear I haven’t seen on his face in years now. “Liz loves you, Michael. That’s all.”

“She loves me.”

“You’re really lucky.”

“She’s pregnant.” I say it, because I know it. Clear as I’ve ever known any truth, just the way that Max Evans is smiling at me, a little giddy and joyous, and it’s the opposite of last Christmas. It’s everything that his midnight homecoming that night was not.

“I didn’t say that,” he half-cries and half-laughs, his golden eyes darting wild.

“Yeah, Maxwell,” I grouse, shaking my head and grinning at him, “you didn’t have to.” Then, I do something very odd. I open my arms and pull him into an awkward embrace and I don’t think I’ll ever let him go. “Maxwell,” I say, feeling tears burn my eyes. “Welcome home, man.”


*****

I can’t believe Michael didn’t wake me up. My hair is still damp, but I’m tired of standing here, holding the hair dryer when all I want is to sit down. My stomach is swashing and swimming and I’d better get some toast to eat. Forget my usual bagel—the very thought makes me want to be sick. Nothing sounds good, but I know I need to eat before everybody gets here this morning.

I sent midnight emails to Maria and Alex and Tess. I hope I’m not wrong, in thinking he’ll come this time.

As I close our apartment door behind me and I step onto the landing, I hear voices downstairs. The café doesn’t officially open for another hour, but I hear Michael talking to someone. We thought of opening early to handle the race crowd, but we knew Dad was better equipped for those kind of numbers. We’re little more than a cozy coffee and dessert place—at least for now.

When I reach the bottom of the steps, I grip the railing tight and feel the floor swell upward toward me. Across the room, Michael’s seated with his back to me, cocked backward in his chair, bandana on his head. I’ve asked him not to sit in the chairs that way dozens of times, explained that he’ll break them, but there’s no point. I see him first, and then my eyes track across the table, and a slow smile forms on my face.

Max is smiling. Right there, across the table from Michael, he’s eating breakfast, smiling and talking softly. And he looks like himself for once.

Kyle’s sitting beside Max and he’s smiling, too.

The only person whose expression I can’t read, from my clandestine place across the room, is my own husband’s. But then something warm invades my mind, the sensation of him. Not looking at me, not talking, but he’s reaching into me.

Silently, I drop to the bottom step, catching myself. I’ve got to gather my strength because the room all around me feels swimmy, like it’s darkening.

The warmth increases, becomes fiery and determined. Becomes his voice, my lover’s voice, my husband’s. “Liz, you trying to kill me?” The words resonate in some deep place, hidden within my bones.

What do you mean? Because Max is here?

Not Max. No. God, I love you, baby.

You’re happy, then? That he’s here, I almost add, but don’t—yet he hears it anyway.

No idea how you’ve pulled this off.

Maybe I should go back up, I say, burying my head in my hands, feeling the sinking pull of nausea.

He’s here to see you, too.

There’s the staccato sound of group laughter, and lifting my head, I see Michael leaning forward, pouring them all more coffee, and he’s telling a joke of some kind. On my interior, there’s silence for a while. Only it’s not empty: there’s a golden warmth burning inside my whole body, catching fire, cell by cell.

While they laugh, familiar and joking with one another, I notice the way Kyle’s slipped his arm along the back of Max’s chair, kind of propping his forearm there. They’ve shared a kiss between them—at least that much, maybe a lot more. I know it, because when Max touched me last night, I saw it. Saw into him. He thinks I don’t know things. That he’s shut me out completely, but ever since that night last December, he’s reopened something between us. It’s not sexual or romantic, but it is a bond of love. And that’s nothing new, because I will always love Max.

That’s why I want him happy.

Max has remained clueless about Kyle’s feelings for him, all these years. But that kiss I saw last night gave me hope—maybe Kyle’s finally started gathering his nerve. We talked while I was sick, and the talking became a lot more intense last winter, when we thought there’d be no more time. He asked me a lot of questions, about how Max healing me had changed me.

He wondered if seeing straight into someone, even for as little as thirty seconds, was enough to make you love for a lifetime. I remember lying there, in my makeshift hospital bed in the middle of the living room, feeling like only a thin string was holding me down. I was a balloon, weightless, ready to float away. Kyle took my hand, and held me here, squeezing until my wedding ring pushed hard into his hand, until he’d tethered me to the earth.

I told him it was Max. Seeing inside of Max was enough to make you fall that hard. I said it, thinking about the first time Michael and I kissed, that night in the Crashdown. Yes, seeing inside someone for as little as thirty seconds could make you love an eternity.

“I dream about Max,” he said, pulling the blanket up close around my chest, tucking it around me as he talked. “A lot. It started that summer, after I was shot. Random dreams at first, but then they became more focused. When I’m dreaming, it’s like…”

“It’s like what, Kyle?” I pressed, opening my eyes wider. I’d been wandering in and out of sleep for a while, and wasn’t sure I hadn’t slept through something crucial.

“We’re connected. Cause of what he did, healing me.”

“Maybe you are,” I answered, then fell hard into a snowy sleep. The landscape was covered with dense banks of white, stretching in every direction, me in my mittens and heavy long coat, dark against a drift of nothing.

Kyle came again, taking his faithful place by my side; Tess talked to Michael while he sat with me. It was just a few days before Max came to my door, and I’ll never forget what Kyle said that night.

“Liz, I keep trying to find him and bring him back.”

“Calling him, you mean?” I asked, unclear. For a fleeting moment, I pictured him literally thumbing through phonebooks, town after town. Maria, Isabel, Michael, Tess—they were all desperately searching, hoping he might still come before I died; might come and manage to yank me back from the brink.

Kyle shook his head, his blue eyes growing dark. “No, Liz,” he said, smiling wistfully. “I keep trying to reach out to him. With my spirit—just like you do.”

And Kyle was right; I had been reaching out to Max, feeling for him, taking my spirit-hands and extending them in a perfect arc around me. I’d been doing it for years, since before I became sick; I’d been doing it much more often toward the end.

What I hadn’t known was that Kyle had been doing it, too. I’ve never been sure which one of us finally brought him back, or if maybe it wasn’t both of us.

Looking across our restaurant, I notice again the way Kyle has his forearm resting casually on the back of Max’s chair. I know he doesn’t feel casual—hasn’t felt casual since Max came back. What discipline it must have taken, to be the only one who could coax him near like that.

Michael rises to his feet, walking my way; he spies me in the darken stairway, and I hear him tell Max and Kyle that he’ll be right back.

Grabbing my hand, he pulls me up the stairwell with him, until we’re on the first landing and I’m being wrapped in his large embrace. I bury my face against his chest, holding tight as my legs grow wobbly and weak. “You could’ve told me,” he whispers, stroking my hair, running his hands all over my body.

I know he doesn’t mean about Max’s visit today. He knows everything, of course he does—how could I have thought he wouldn’t?

I heave a weary sigh. “I don’t want you to be upset,” I say, and he’s touching me everywhere, large hands on my back, cupping my face. Tilting my face until our eyes meet. Tears glint in his eyes. He knows it all, has always known everything I try to obscure away inside of me. I think he knew me before forever, I just didn’t realize it.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” he asks, his dark eyebrows knit into a terrible, joyous scowl.

Yes, I answer within him, whispering the word over his heart. We’re having a baby together.

You’d better take damn good care of yourself, Liz, he cautions, but he’s smiling, and it’s like a light is shining from his inside. Staring into his eyes, I remember how I felt for that sliver of a moment when I left this world last winter, that millisecond before Max brought me back. I will go there again someday, but I don’t want to go without taking memories of our children with me.

I nod my head, crying, saying nothing and he bends down until our lips press together. Until somehow I do promise him that I’ll be all right throughout this pregnancy, remain healthy and vital and alive. Until urgently we begin to kiss, and the kiss—with all its energy and heady fire— says everything we can’t find a way to speak between us.

We’re not promised anything, Michael, I tell him. We only have right now. It’s the only gift we ever have. The only thing we ever know for sure.

Placing one large hand over my abdomen, I feel his heat radiate on my inside, feel it wrap around our baby, a protective cocoon around such a small, fragile life.

Right now, my strong husband says. Yeah, baby, right now is a great place to be.

****

The sun is finally setting, the longest day is almost done, and out here in the desert, a startling chill fills the air. One thing I never forgot in all my years away—in Arizona and California and even over in Texas for a time—cool comes without apology to the New Mexico night.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this view,” I acknowledge, feeling the dry air burn my nostrils, as I stare up at the stark, jagged rock formation that rises above the pod chamber. “It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to, actually.”

“Yeah, Evans, I kind of thought it might be a good idea.” Kyle brushes off his hands from where he had to catch himself against an outcropping on the way up; it’s steep, even for someone in great shape like he is. Me, I’m huffing and puffing, but not nearly like I would have been six months ago.

“So why did you bring me here?” I ask, gesturing derisively toward the chamber. “I mean, you know I don’t want this anymore.”

Folding his arms over his chest, he gives me one of those patented Valenti glances, utterly cocksure and challenging. “To remind you of who you are.”

I turn from him, walking to the cave entrance. Passing my hand over the rock, a glowing, translucent handprint answers me, but before the entry can slide open, I jerk my hand away. “I know who I am, Kyle.”

Behind me, I hear him step closer, shadowing me. Like he’s done from the moment I came back into town, never backing down.

“But there’s a point to it all, Evans,” he answers with surprising ferocity. “What we’ve all been through as a group, that’s what I’m saying. There wasn’t some mistake.” Maybe it’s the athlete in him, the competitor, but we’ve always gone head to head like this.

“I don’t believe in destiny.”

“Okay, let me put it in more spiritual terms,” he pushes. “You have a calling.”

For a while, we’re quiet and I think on that, walking out to the edge, staring down the long, rocky hillside. Looking up at the darkening evening sky, scattered with color and light, it’s hard to believe that somewhere there’s a world that supposedly needs me. Somewhere there are enemies who supposedly wait. For so many years, it’s seemed like a big cosmic joke, with me as the punch line.

“But what if there’s not a point?” I ask, scanning the sky. “At least not to this version of it all?”

Kyle seems to consider this question, his eyebrows lifting quizzically. “Is there another version?”

“Let’s pretend that there could be. Another version where I’m happy, where I’m with Liz, where we did make love that night when--”

I catch myself in time, but his blue eyes grow wide; I’ve said far too much, because Kyle’s mind is doing fast calculations. “When you didn’t find her in bed with me?” he asks, quiet and serious. “Is there another version like that?” He seems almost panicked.

Shrugging, I simply say, “Not anymore, there’s not.”

His eyes close and if it weren’t almost dark, I’d swear all the color drains right out of his face. “Evans,” he says, swallowing, “I wouldn’t want to think I did that to you.”

“I did it to myself, Kyle.” Maybe one day, I’ll tell him all the hidden facts, make him understand—but only if I’m sure he won’t flagellate himself for it.

“I told her it couldn’t be to hurt you,” he whispers, back to his words of last night. “That it couldn’t be why we did that.”

“She did it to save me. She did it because, in a weird way, I asked.”

“You sure?” the blue eyes don’t look quite so hopeless now, lifting to meet mine. I find there’s purpose here for me, in making sure he doesn’t blame himself. “Yeah, Kyle. You helped us all out, okay?”

Reaching for a stone, he hurls it down the side of the rocks, and it makes a hollow, jagged sound as it bounces down the edge. Quietly, I steal a look at him, at his profile. There must be Native American blood somewhere in his gene pool. I can see it in his cheekbones, his profile; like so many people around this town, there’s something beautiful and exotic in his distant bloodline, despite the clear blue eyes. He catches me staring, admiring him and I turn away fast, afraid he senses my thoughts.

“You mad at me about last night?” he asks, surprising me in his directness. One eyebrow lifts, as he adds, “About what happened?”

“Mad?” I laugh, looking at the purple in the sky, not meeting his gaze. On this longest day of the year daylight is too tenacious and refuses to give up the fight. “No, Kyle, not mad. Hardly.”

Digging in my jeans pockets, I search for something that I want to give him, something I decided on earlier today, during our run. Curious, he watches until I produce the familiar green object, and reaching for his hand, gently plant my chip in the center of it. “I want you to have it.”

“Your ninety day chip?” he asks, surprised. “Why?” He studies it, turning it in his hand, as I straddle a large rock, stretching my legs out. He settles right beside me; we’re sitting closer than we were last night on the picnic table. In fact, I’m aware that we’re very close, my thigh pressing flush against his, and I feel the defined cordons of muscle in his quadriceps. His body is all roughhewn, strong toughness, something like mine used to be.

“Are you going to explain why I should have this, man?” he presses, tossing the chip into the air and catching it. “You worked hard for this thing.”

“Because in another eighty-seven days, I’ll be getting another one. My six month chip.”

He seems confused, and asks, “But you don’t want this one?”

Drawing in a steadying breath, aware that my heart is pounding sharply within my chest, I slowly admit, “Well, I kind of liked the way you congratulated me for this one.”
Something devilish twinkles in his eyes, something that makes me feel awkward and fumbling, more like a seventeen-year-old than the thirty-year-old I am.

“So I can congratulate you again, huh Evans? That’s what this is all about?”

Staring down at my hands, which I notice are shaking visibly, I continue, “Yeah, Kyle, I kind of thought, well, maybe you’d hang onto it until then.” My voice comes out thick, hoarse, betraying my emotions despite my effort at being self-possessed.

“Three months is a long time to wait, Max.” Max again, not Evans. Somehow my first name sounds intimate, suggestive as it passes across his lips. Somehow it causes that same strange twisting feeling, really low in my stomach and makes me shiver.

“Well,” I say, the sensation tightening harder, moving lower, “A.A. would say to wait a year.”

“That’s for a relationship, not a kiss,” he prompts, leaning closer, staring into my eyes. I need to touch his beard; need to lift my fingers and feel the way all those hairs will prickle my fingertips. I need to look away.

“Like I said,” I answer pointedly, staring at his truck parked down in the basin, “My sponsor would advise a year.” I look anywhere but right at him.

“Since my dad’s your sponsor,” he answers, laughing quietly, “why don’t we leave him out of this?”

“That could be negotiated, perhaps.”

“So says the king.”

“Shut up,” I bark, but I feel him edge infinitesimally closer, am aware of the strong muscles in his thighs, pushing hard against my own.

“Eighty-seven days, huh?” he answers stoically. Twirling the chip in his palm, it seems whichever way it falls will determine my future. “I guess that’s not so long, not really. A long time to wait for just a kiss, though.”

This time I turn to him. “Doesn’t it all start with a kiss?”

“It started with a kiss last night,” he whispers, leaning in close. I see his lips part and can no longer fight it. Like last night, I have the urge to touch him, to feel the scruffy softness of his new beard, to explore the full texture of his mouth. Lifting my fingers, I trace them over his lower lip, relishing the surprising softness of it.

Like winter static, I receive two staccato flashes from simply touching him. The first is of me last night, kissing him in the park: it’s less of an image and more of a sensation, how it must have felt for him, an explosion of intensity that causes me to quiver on impact. The next flash is more perplexing—and arousing—it’s of me with my shirt off, sprawled in his bed. Not me of long ago, with the well-honed body, but me of exactly right now, overweight and far from physical perfection. Only, seeing that flash I realize I don’t look nearly so bad as I think I do. Then I hear his words of last night. It was the dreams that got to me.

We pull away from one another, and I blink back the visions that speed through my head. “Did you get flashes with Tess?” I ask, a little too breathless.

“Did you just get flashes from me?” he counters with a dry laugh.

I try and play it off, try and pretend he didn’t open me up last night, didn’t take his hands and pry open all the frozen places I’d shut off. Didn’t get inside me, not nearly as easily as he did. “What makes you think that?” I question, rubbing a hand over my eyes.

He smiles, cocking an eyebrow upward. “Me human, you alien.”

“So that always happens?” I ask, unsure, unable to quash my curiosity about all that’s opening between us. “Whenever one of us and one of you--”

Ironic, but I’m the alien coming to my human friend for advice; beyond Liz, I have no experience to draw upon.

“No,” he cuts me off, “It’s not really about you being an alien. At least not entirely. Nothing ever happened with Tess and me, not really.”

“Nothing like, well uh, like when we, uh--”

I’m babbling at him, and revealing far more than I intended. He smiles, doesn’t judge or mock me. “It seems to be a lot more about the chemistry,” he answers plainly. “Between alien and human. That’s how Liz explained it to me once.”

“We can rely on her to have it right,” I agree, approving of her theory. I turn to him, wondering why it is Miriam has totally evaded my mind all day. Why nothing but our “chemistry session” last night has hammered along in my thoughts, and say, “So it’s a plan. Eighty-seven days, then.”

“Yep, eighty-seven days, Evans.” Then he laughs, that familiar sardonic laugh that I’ve known for such a long time now, saying, “Just don’t fall off the wagon, cause that sobriety counter can’t go back to zero. I’ll go nuts.”

We grow quiet for a long while, staring at the nighttime sky. Until stars fill the expanse overhead, until we stretch out on our backs on the rock and say nothing, just breathe in and out. Until I wonder if I can possibly endure eighty-seven days without seeing if I imagined things between us last night.

Feeling for his hand, there in the dark, I whisper, “You know, I did hear that some groups have a four month chip.”

He laughs out loud— a giddy happy sound and I literally feel it vibrate all through me—as shyly we lace our fingers together.

“What’s so funny?” I ask, as our hands close tight.

“Nothing,” he says, turning his head so we’re staring right into one another’s eyes. “It’s just that the four month chip is pink, Evans. Didn’t you know that?”

“No, I think I missed that part.”

“Well, if you’re serious,” he says, his lips so close to mine that I feel his warm breath, “let’s call it a date.”

“A date,” I repeat, my face flushing hot.

“Yeah, you’ll give me your pink chip and I’ll,” he pauses, leaning in until his lips press softly against mine, until I can taste him, “congratulate you.”

“Congratulations,” I whisper back at him, trailing my fingers through the short, soft hair along the nape of his neck. It’s not really a kiss we’re sharing, not really, as the link between us sputters to life.

“Then again,” he halfway begs, sounding husky and breathless, “we could start all that tonight.”

“Who needs eighty-seven days,” I agree, drawing in a ragged breath, aware that his hand has closed around my neck, pulling me near.

“Or twenty-seven,” he murmurs against my lips, hesitating for one last moment, waiting for my permission, I suppose. And then, despite all my earlier protestations, it is a kiss we’re sharing. A deep, luscious kiss that’s so much more than a mere kiss should ever be.

As I feel the rushing fever open between us, feel him become effortlessly wide and connected and beautiful inside of me, some lost voice of mine whispers, Liz, I’m happy now. Look at how happy I can truly be.




THE END

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