Max shot a glance at Maria. She'd finally started chewing her carrot. He could see that she was trying to act totally normal-they all were. But the loose sleeves of her poet's shirt were fluttering, and it was totally clear that Maria was trembling.
"I don't think you should show these to people," Michael told Kyle, giving up the attempt to hide his fury. He slapped the photo facedown on the table. "Unless you want everyone to know your dad was a perv."
Kyle locked eyes with Michael. Max frantically tried to figure out what to do in order to get one of them to back down.
Then the bell rang.
Kyle shoved himself to his feet and swept up the photos. "This isn't over," he warned them. "Sooner or later, I'm getting the truth about what happened to my father. And I'm getting it from one of you."
"Go, Kevin!" Maria leaped to her feet. "Go, go, go!"
Michael reached out, snagged her by the elbow, and pulled her back down to her seat next to him on the bleachers. "That is a ten-year-old boy out there on the court," he explained. "What you just did qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment."
Maria smiled at him. "I know. But my mom and dad aren't here to humiliate him-since the big D they try never to be at the same place at the same time-so I have to do it," she explained. "I mean, isn't complaining about your family's behavior key to ten-year-old male bonding?"
"I guess," Michael mumbled. Like he was supposed to know? Well, maybe he should. He'd had more families than pretty much any kid. Foster families, anyway He should be in The Guinness Book of World Records.
He suddenly got the feeling that he was being watched. Oh yeah, he told himself. Everybody is staring at the pathetic boy who doesn't have a family. They're all about to burst into tears over your hard, hard life.
"Oh, I'm so stupid. How could I have asked you about fam-you don't have a-" Maria turned to the mom type sitting next to her. "Can you give me a hand?" she asked. "My foot is stuck so far down my throat, I don't think I'll be able to get it out by myself."
"I know the feeling," the woman answered. Then she jumped up. "Great job, Robbie!" she shouted, punching her fist in the air.
"Don't sweat it," Michael told Maria. "It's not like I need a family. Not now that I have my own place."
He still could hardly believe that Ray Iburg, the only adult survivor of the crash besides DuPris, had left him the UFO museum and the apartment above it. Free at last. Oh, baby, he was free at last.
"But a family isn't just-" Maria began. Then she stopped herself.
"I have you and everyone else for the other stuff," Michael answered. He couldn't quite believe he'd actually said that out loud. But it was true. They were his family in every way that mattered.
Maria gave his hand a quick squeeze, then let it go fast. "I guess that means I have to humiliate you, too, then, huh?" she asked. "Come on, do a wave with me."
"You can't do a wave with two people," Michael answered.
"Just because it's never been attempted before doesn't mean it can't be done," Maria insisted. And Michael knew that in another minute he'd be jumping up with his hands over his head. When you were with Maria, some things were just inevitable.
Like that time she'd made him help her decorate a cake. Not just watch. Help.
He was struck by a flash of memory-him licking a glob of icing off Maria's finger. A jolt of heat zigzagged through him as he thought about it. Don't even go there, he ordered himself. He and Maria were finally getting to be friends again. Real friends. There was no way Michael was going to mess things up by even getting close to that line between friendship and the kind of thing Valenti had immortalized in that picture.
Yeah, it would feel good to kiss Maria again. It would feel amazing. And his body wanted it, no question. But his mind, or his heart, or whatever knew that there was still a girl called Cameron out there. And that-
"Okay, if Kevin's team makes this basket, we do it," Maria told him, yanking him out of his thoughts. "You first, then me."
Michael watched as the kid with the ball hurled it toward the basket. It bounced from the backboard to the rim, teetered, then swish.
"Whoo-hoo!" Michael shouted as he jumped to his feet and swept his arms up and down. He figured if he was going to do it, he should do it.
Maria jumped up next, going all the way up on her toes as she thrust her arms into the air. Michael tried very hard not to notice the expanse of creamy, soft-looking skin bared by her hiked-up sweater.
He forced his eyes back to the game, then got that feeling again. That prickly feeling of being watched. Of course you're being watched, you big idiot, he told himself. You just did a two-person wave.
A kid with a crew cut grabbed the ball from one of Kevin's teammates. He took off for the other side of the court. The ref blew the whistle and rolled his hands around each other.
"No way!" a man in a suit yelled from the opposite bleachers. "Cameron's never gotten called for traveling!"
Michael felt Maria stiffen, just slightly, but enough for him to notice. He thought, at least he'd wanted to think, that Maria was over the Cameron situation.
But she'd really laid herself on the line when she'd told him that he had to choose between her and Isabel. She'd made herself-what was that chick word?-vulnerable. And he'd all but shoved it in her face that he wasn't choosing anyone but Cameron. Cameron, who then left without even bothering to wake him up and say good-bye.
Michael shot a quick glance at Maria. She was watching the game, seemed okay. If he hadn't caught that little reaction when that man had shouted out, "Cameron," he wouldn't even know she'd been bothered by it.
It's not like Maria and I were a couple, he thought. It's not like I dumped her for Cameron.
But he'd known that Maria loved him. She'd told him that before he even met Cameron. Maria had guts that way. She would tell people how she felt even if she wasn't sure she'd like what she heard back from them.
"Want to do another wave?" he asked her. He wanted to do something to show her that she was important to him. A wave was probably an exceedingly dorky way to do it, but hey, this was Maria. Dorky things made her happy.
"Not now. The other team's about to score," she answered. At least she looked at him when she said it, looked at him and smiled one of her Maria smiles. "Besides," she added. "People are still staring at us from the last one."
So she felt it, too.
Michael did a quick scan of the people sitting around them. Everyone was watching the kids play, except one older-sister type who was surreptitiously reading a book.
But he still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. In fact, the feeling was getting stronger.
Michael did a sweep of the opposite bleachers, methodically glancing from face to face. His muscles instinctively tensed when he got to a pair of eyes drilling directly into his.
Kyle Valenti was giving him the death stare. Which Michael couldn't care less about. Even if Michael didn't have powers, he could take on Kyle.
But the hair on the back of his neck stood up when Kyle moved his gaze from Michael to Maria. Maria didn't have any powers. She didn't have any way to defend herself against Kyle.
Michael slid a little closer to Maria. He wasn't going to let anything happen to her. If Kyle took one step toward Maria-one step-Michael would take him out. Permanently.
TWO
Liz and Max sat on the sofa in the Evanses' living room. Key word: sat. Liz tried to remember if there'd ever been a time where they'd been alone in his house and just… sat.
Okay, Max wasn't a guy who attacked one second after they found a semiprivate place. But when Liz was alone with Max, the air just got sort of charged. Liz loved that pre-make-out time, where she became more and more aware of everything. The heat that she could feel coming off Max's body. The tickle of her long hair against her back. The sound of Max's breathing getting just subtly faster. The feeling of her own breath easing in and out of her lungs. It felt almost like they were touching each other even before they started touching.