A.N. - I would like to give credit to Keith Urban's song "Cop Car" for my story. The first time I heard it, I thought of Michael and Liz and couldn't get the idea out of my head until I had it written down. I'm working on the last couple of chapters now, so I hope that you enjoy it!
Cop Car
Michael couldn't believe it. His one night off that week and Maria cancelled on him to go to a stupid music expo the next town over. He was starting to feel that they didn't really have an actual relationship; it was more of a mutual agreement between them that if neither of them had plans then they pretended to be a couple so that they could have a legitimate reason to go places together.
He threw down the phone into the cradle, glaring at it angrily, and then grabbed his leather coat and the keys to his most recent acquisition; a nineteen ninety-four black Toyota pick-up.
He drove over to the Crash Down, thinking that he could just grab a bite to eat. As he drove, he thought of how it was sort of pathetic that he was going to spend his night away from work back at the place where he worked.
When he stepped inside, he gave a nod to Liz and then sat himself down at the counter.
As soon as Liz saw him enter she knew that something was wrong. He was supposed to be spending the evening with Maria.
She gave her dad a look and sidled up next to him and said, "Hey, dad…I think that Michael might need someone to talk to. Do you mind if I…?" He gave her a half smile and nodded, and she quickly moved over to him.
"Hey, Michael…are you okay? I, uh, thought that this was your night with Maria…"
He gave her a look.
"Yeah. Emphasis on the word was." He pulled out a napkin from the napkin holder in front of him and began to tear it into small pieces. "Apparently, there's a music expo that she had to go to, so I was put on the bottom of the list. As usual."
He couldn't keep the bitterness from his tone and Liz winced, but then leaned in and put her hand over his and said, "Hey, I get off in about fifteen minutes. If you want, I'll hang out with you for the evening."
He looked up at her in surprise and then gave her one of those looks.
"Uh…what I'd been planning was more along the lines of something that a good girl like you would never do, Parker. It involves, uh, a little breaking of the law," he said, leaning in towards her, whispering into her ear, casting a wary glance around the diner, making sure her father didn't overhear.
She looked over at him, not bothering to move away, her mouth mere centimeters from his, and he was surprised to see a smirk on her lips.
"I might just surprise you, Guerin," she replied, her eyes sparking in a way he hadn't seen before. "In twenty minutes, we leave."
And with that, she pulled away and went back to busing tables, leaving Michael feeling slightly off balance. One of the things that kept his world from going completely crazy was the fact that Liz Parker was the straight-laced geek who was predictably predictable.
Well, he thought to himself, snorting in his head. We'll see just how far she'll actually go…
As soon as Liz got off of her shift, she quickly slipped upstairs to change her clothes. She had surprised herself when she hadn't backed down from Michael's offer. Breaking the law wasn't something that she should take lightly, but she knew exactly why she had reacted that way.
She wanted to prove him wrong.
Liz was well aware of the fact that she was the good girl who never took unnecessary risks, and she knew that Michael was the one who held it against her the most, so she was going to take him up on his offer.
As quickly as she could, she shed her uniform and pulled out one of her jean skirts that her father didn't approve of and a large black t-shirt with the word "live" scrawled across it in loose, carefree cursive, just a few shades lighter than the shirt. She then dug around in the back of her closet and found the leather jacket that Maria had convinced her to buy several months earlier. She topped off the outfit with black boots that had been purchased at the same time as the jacket and tried to ignore the butterflies that rose in her stomach.
She was pretty sure that she would need this outfit to sell Michael on the idea that she would really be going through with it.
Liz then hastily ran a brush through her hair and darkened her eye shadow just a bit more than usual.
The good girl was gone.
Michael waited at the bottom of the back stairs, nodding over at Javier, who was manning the grill for the evening, and tried to think of how Liz was going to get out of their evening of breaking the law, because he knew that there was no way that she would actually go through with it.
He heard a sound and looked up…and tried to hide his reaction.
He had been expecting to see jeans, a sweater and her usual green coat. But what he got instead…
My god, he would never say it out loud, but the new look…well, it looked damn good on her. Any other girl trying to do the tough act would have come off as being fake, like someone like Maria, but Liz Parker wore it effortlessly, as though it was made for her.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him, a look from under her lashes that took him by surprise, yet again, and then she said, in a voice that seemed to spark something in him, "C'mon, Guerin…we've got some laws to break…"
Elizabeth Parker was no longer Liz, shy and studious schoolgirl.
She was simply Parker.
And it looked like Parker was out to play…and she was going to prove to Michael Guerin that she could risk it with the best of them.
Part 1/?