Part 27

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard gravel crunching under the tires of his truck and soon after the garage door was being opened.

"Dinner's not ready yet," she called when she heard his key in the lock, followed by the door being pushed open.

"That's fine," he bit out, "because we're not hungry."

Well, he was still pissed… Wait, did he say we? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, he wouldn't dare bring a woman here… would he? Maria walked towards the door but he stepped into the room before she got there. "Did you say - "

"I just love your house," a feminine voice gushed and a moment later a well-endowed redhead entered the room behind him.

Michael just smirked at the look Maria aimed at him, certain that if looks could kill he'd be on the floor, reduced to a pile of smoking ashes. "Yeah, it's great," he muttered. "Why don't I show you the bedroom?"

Oh, that oversized, egotistical, arrogant piece of… he had done just that! He knew exactly what he was doing. He had never shared his home with anyone else, but to punish her, he went against all of his standards? And he really thought that he was gonna fuck her here? Not as long as she was still breathing! She was starting to see red, but she realized that she had to think fast in order to prevent that disgusting, awful, vomit-inducing scenario from happening while she was living in the same house. She straightened up, preparing for the fight that he didn't know was coming.

The woman paused when Maria cleared her throat and her eyebrows lifted in surprise when she realized that they weren't alone. "Oh, you didn't tell me you had a wife at home." She shook her head as she looked at him. "I'm not really into that whole one-man-two-women thing… I'm more of a one-on-one woman, so - "

"No, no, no, no, no," Michael quickly denied. "We're not married and you're the only woman I'm interested in fuckin' tonight." He waved a hand in Maria's direction, the gesture dismissive. "She just lives here, that's all."

"Yes," Maria said, her tone droll, "I just live here. I cook, clean, and say no to sex with Michael."

"Why on earth would you say no?" the redhead asked.

"She's gay," Michael hurriedly interjected before Maria could say anything that would ruin his plans.

"Oh." She frowned. "Well, why would you be trying to have sex with her if she's - "

Idiot! She just didn't know when to shut up and she was asking way too many stupid questions. "Because I enjoy getting laid and some nights I just don't feel like goin' out." He shrugged.

Maria opened a drawer and pulled out a large slotted spoon before moving across the room and insinuating herself between them. "I'm Maria," she introduced herself.

"My name's Megan." The redhead smiled and shook her hand. "I don't think I've ever met a gay person."

"Really?" Maria feigned interest as she turned the other woman towards the table. "Have you ever met a castrated man before?" she asked, whacking Michael right in the crotch with the large spoon.

"Goddammit, Maria," he shouted. He had managed to turn his body enough to avoid a direct collision between the spoon and his dick, but she had still managed to graze him.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Her words dripped with insincerity. "Did I hurt you?" She wasn't the slightest bit sorry and she definitely didn't feel bad for hurting him. In fact, she really hoped that she had. Right now, she hated him more than anyone in her world or in this one. And he had intended to hurt her, by bringing that… that, girl into their house! This was war.

If she hurt him? The woman had tried to neuter him, for god's sake. A man had fragile body parts, parts that were precious, worth more than all the gold on the Earth! "You could seriously injure a guy by doin' that!"

"I'm sure she didn't mean it," Megan spoke up. "You are standing awfully close to her, so it'd be easy to - "

"No one asked for your fuckin' opinion," he snapped. What the fuck was goin' on? This is not the way his night was supposed to go!

Megan shook her head at him and turned her attention back to Maria. "I don't believe I've ever met a castrated man either, but I did see this movie once… it was so sad. This poor man was in this horrible accident and…"

Maria tuned her out as she turned to glare at Michael. "You are not getting laid tonight," she hissed.

Michael shot a mean look in her direction. She was going to screw up his date. Well, date was a kind word for what he had in mind. He just wanted to fuck and then it would be ciao. But he knew Maria wasn't making an idle threat; she had already decided that this wasn't going to happen tonight and he knew she was gonna do something to screw it up.

As soon as Megan was finished recounting the movie Maria smiled at him and then turned back to the woman. "Megan, do you like Chicken Parmesan?"

Megan looked deeply lost in her thoughts, and several very long seconds passed before she shook her head and answered. "I don't believe that I've ever had that before; it sounds expensive. I don't have much opportunity to get out between my jobs and school. The job at the club is just a part-time thing that I do for extra money; my full-time job is at a law firm downtown. I just wish it was a Friday night so I'd be off tomorrow."

"You poor thing," Maria murmured sympathetically. "When was the last time you had a home-cooked meal?"

Megan sighed, happy to relate her tragic life to this nice girl who was willing to listen to her. Nice people like her were so rare. "Oh, it's been ages. I live on frozen dinners and fast food."

"Well, it's settled then; you'll join me for dinner." She smiled and pulled one of the chairs out, gesturing to it. "I insist."

"Really? Thanks." She turned to look at Michael. "You don't mind, do you?"

Michael was gritting his teeth. "No, of course not."

"Is there someplace I could freshen up?"

"Sure," Maria offered. "Let me show you where the bathroom is."

Michael was leaning back against the island in the center of the kitchen, drinking a beer while drumming the fingers of his free hand against the counter. "You have no fuckin' right to interfere in my plans."

"I'm not interfering in your plans… in case you hadn't noticed, you no longer have any plans." She let her gaze travel down over his body, pausing when she reached his crotch. "Geez, and you wasted a perfectly good erection, too."

"Fuck you!" he snarled viciously.

Maria chuckled. "Don't blame me; you're the one who picked up some little college girl with two jobs. I figure we'll have dinner, talk over dessert, and converse until, oh, I don't know, close to ten or so, and then it'll be time for her to be on her merry way."

Michael glared at her. "I'm getting laid tonight."

No he wasn't. She wasn't gonna let that happen. She refused to focus on why she was so intent on him not having sex with another woman; it was just wrong, that was all. She quickly jumped back into the conversation. "Hmmm… I don't see how. I've already planned out your little girlfriend's evening and nowhere on that itinerary did your name or getting laid happen to come up." She smiled evilly as she glanced over his lower body again. "Pun not intended." She took the salad out of the refrigerator and carried it over to the table. "And, since I'm apparently gay now - as well as not interested - you've got nothing going for you there either."

Michael spent the next four hours listening to them talk about nothing. He wasn't willing to leave them alone, not trusting Maria with… whatever her name was. Countless times he had tried to separate them so he could finish his evening better than it had started, and every damn time Maria had managed to smoothly step in and divert his date's attention back to her.

"Is it really after ten?" Megan asked, glancing at the clock on the wall.

"Is it?" Maria smirked at Michael as she turned to look at the clock. "I guess you'll be needing to go soon; you have to work in the morning and traffic in L.A. must be horrendous that early."

"Oh, no, I don't live or work in L.A." She smiled and launched into another long explanation, missing Maria's frown and Michael's triumphant smirk. "I just go to college there, and I do have an early class tomorrow." She smiled regretfully at Michael. "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to go." She turned back to Maria. "You have so much insight into relationships; we should totally meet up for lunch or dinner if you have time."

Maria agreed, mainly to piss Michael off, and went to get a pen and piece of paper for Megan to write her phone number down.

"So, after talking to Maria, I can totally see that random hook-ups just aren't that smart," she said. "Maybe we could just be friends."

Michael saw red. No woman had ever dared to suggest being friends with him! The legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he shoved it back and stood up. "I'm not - "

"Here you go, Megan." Maria elbowed Michael as she stepped in front of him to place the pen and paper on the table. "Ignore him; he's unbearable when he doesn't get his way."

Michael was waiting for her in the living room when she came back inside after walking his date out to her car. "I don't know what the fuck your problem is, but, you don't get to pick an' choose who I fuck."

"Then don't bring them home."

"What the hell does it matter? Me an' you, we're nothin' to each other, and there's no reason why it should bother you that I'm screwin' other women. You've had plenty of opportunities to get a piece of me an' you keep turnin' me down, so don't get all pissed off and jealous when I - "

"This is not about jealousy." A little voice in her head suddenly spoke up and reminded her that, yes, it was about jealousy. But that implied feelings, and feelings implied that she was forgetting her Michael, and she would fight that with everything she had. She knew she wasn't being fair to Michael, well, this version of Michael, but… she just felt that she had to stop him from having sex with other women. Whether it was jealousy, intuition, or damn possessiveness, towards Michael Guerin, regardless of dimension, she didn't know.

"No, you know what? You're right. It's not about fuckin' jealousy; it's about you kissin' me like you couldn't get enough and then pullin' the plug without an explanation other than, it shouldn't have happened. That's a cop-out."

Damn, he was making her sound like one of those girls who teased guys before playing the innocent, acting like the outraged victim. She wasn't like that. She had just… fallen, lost her way, in the heat of the moment. That was all. He could understand that, couldn't he? Surely he had experienced situations similar to that… right? "Fine, Michael, in that moment, yes, I wanted it to happen. But, it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the moment; it was completely natural for me to respond." She shook her head. "It won't happen again."

Anger clouded his thoughts when he heard her denying the possibility of anything happening between them. He didn't understand why her decision was making him so furious. He didn't expect anything serious from her and she was just some chick who just refused to spread her legs… it wasn't like there weren't other women on the planet. He could get laid whenever he wanted. Well, as long as she wasn't around to sabotage his plans. So why was he so mad? He shook his head; he wasn't interested in looking any deeper into himself for a motive.

"Whatever. I'm goin' to bed; don't bother with breakfast in the mornin' because I'm goin' out." He was going out, alright. Straight to Marcos' office so he could get an assignment and take off for a while. Something where he could expend some of this excess energy that obviously needed to be redirected. Hell, dodging bullets would be relaxing compared to spending any more time with Maria.