Before they headed into the gym, Max ran his fingers through his hair and brushed the dirt off his pants and shirt. His jacket would hide his sweat-soaked shirt. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
"Aw, do you want to look nice for Liz?" Michael asked.
Max slapped the dirt off Michael's back. "We want everyone to think we've been here the whole time, remember?" He led the way back to the gym. In two seconds Liz, Isabel, Maria, and Alex were gathered around them.
"So did it work?" Liz asked.
"Right now Valenti should be standing at the edge of the cliff, crying about the alien that got away," Michael answered.
"Good going," Alex said.
Max could see relief and happiness swirling in all their auras. The connection between the six of them was so strong that the edges of their auras blended, forming one brilliantly colored ring around all of them.
"We did it," Max said. "It took all of us, but we did it."
Liz knew she was staring at Max, but she couldn't help it. She needed to keep reassuring herself that he was really okay. If Valenti had caught him out there in the desert, Liz might never have seen Max again. A world without Max. That was not a place she'd want to live.
Max leaned close to her. "Do you feel like getting some air?" he asked in her ear.
"You read my mind," Liz answered. She couldn't wait to be alone with Max. "We'll be back in a little while," she told the others.
"Take your time," Maria answered. Michael laughed.
I guess everyone noticed the way we were sort of all over each other on the dance floor, Liz thought as they headed outside. But so what? She didn't care who knew how she felt about Max. She didn't know exactly when it had happened-whether it was when they had sat together at the bird sanctuary and he told her about his childhood; or when he had let her connect to him, allowing her to access his uncensored thoughts; or when she had seen the deep green of his aura in the cave and felt the deep, pure goodness of him; or maybe it was watching him cure the little mouse that had done it-but somehow, somewhere she had fallen in love with him.
Max led the way over to one of the benches in the quad, and they sat down next to each other. Liz expected him to kiss her again or at least hold her hand. But he kept staring down at the ground, his expression serious.
"Is something wrong?" she asked. "Are you worried that Valenti won't believe the alien he's looking for is dead?"
"No, Michael came up with a good plan. I think it worked. Valenti's never going to be able to recover the truck, so he'll never find out no one was inside," Max answered, but he still wouldn't look at her.
Liz reached out and ran her fingers down his cheek. "I just need to touch you. I need to make sure that you're really back. I was so worried about you."
She took a deep breath. She had to tell him how she felt about him. "We've been friends for so long that I think I just sort of took you for granted. I knew you were smart. I knew you were a great guy, that you were always thinking about other people. Remember how you used to pick Maria to be on your softball team every single time?"
Max nodded, but something felt off, Liz thought. He seemed distracted, distant. Of course he's distracted. He just risked his life to keep Valenti away from all of us.
Liz decided to keep going. It would be a lot harder to start this conversation all over again later. "Anyway, I knew all these things about you, but I never thought about how I'd feel if you weren't around. I'd feel bad. Well, of course I would feel bad. Why is this so hard?" Liz stopped and closed her eyes a moment. "Let me just get to the point. I love you, Max."
Enough talking, she thought. She leaned toward him. It felt like forever since their last kiss. She needed to feel his arms around her.
Max stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Michael's plan worked," he said, repeating himself. "But I'm always going to be in danger. There's always going to be someone out there hunting for me-Valenti or somebody else."
Liz shivered in the cold night air. She wrapped her arms around herself. She knew Max loved her, too. She'd seen it in his thoughts, felt it in the way he touched her. What was wrong? Why was he acting so strangely?
"If you get too close to me, you're going to be in danger, too," Max said in a rush. "I think… I think we should stay friends. Just friends."
Liz jumped up. "Max, we found a way to deal with Valenti. We did that together-all of us. If something else happens, if someone else gets close to finding out the truth, we'll deal with that, too," she told him, her voice tense and urgent. "I love you. I want to be with you. Nothing else matters."
Max's arms were around her before she could say another word. He buried his face in her hair. "We can't-" he half said, half moaned. Then his lips found her mouth. They kissed, a long, passionate, heart-searing kiss.
He loves me! Liz thought giddily. He loves me, too.
Suddenly Max broke away. "No. It's more important to me to keep you safe." He stared into her eyes, his expression serious. "I'm not going to change my mind about this, Liz. It's too important." He released his urgent grip on her shoulders.
Liz stared back at him, his intense blue eyes, his rumpled hair, the line of his jaw. She could tell that nothing she said was going to change his mind right now.
Max turned and stumbled away from her.
Liz felt stunned. But she wasn't going to give up-not now that she'd finally realized how she felt about him. She and Max were meant to be together here, now-and she was going to find a way to prove it to him, no matter what.
[ Version History]
1.0 – scanned, formatted, and spell-checked from mass-market paperback. This was an early scan done by my sister a couple of years ago, using the old, outdated, incomplete "how to scan" FAQ, which exported everything into text format.
2.0 – July 12, 2004 – The_Ghiti – proofed in detail against deadtree format, although I did not fix italics.
3.0 – Приведение в порядок Symargl, 2009