MIA:
I turned and let the dress fall to the ground. I saw his eyes follow it. "Uh, why don't we go to bed?" he asked; gulping like a teenage boy seeing his first pair of breasts.
I nodded. "I'll be right in bed. I just wanna wash up."
I walked back into the bed part of the room, fully dressed,and he flipped off the TV. "Hey, you."
I half smiled, "Hey."
"Are you just going to stand there…"
I jumped into the bed, surprising him. "No."
His heart was beating a mile a minute as I laid on his chest. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Wrong?"
"Yeah. Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yeah…I just…."
"Just?"
He didn't answer me verbally. Instead, he fell on top of me and was kissing me as feverishly as he used to when we were kids. No calm or collected here. Just full on making out.
And me, being so sexy in my kitty boxer shorts. But for some reason, I didn't care. It was Michael Moscovitz kissing me. In a very nice bed no less. Made me think of when I was a kid and Tina told me that she promised Boris she would give him her virginity in a bed not much different than this one in a hotel not very different from the one we were in. I giggled at the memory,
"Does that tickle?" he asked, tickling my belly. He was being rather silly if you ask me. I liked this side of Michael. I liked seeing him away from everyone else. When it was just us and he acted like a dork that he really is. No rock star action from him. Just the nerdy computer dork here.
He held onto me tightly and began kissing my neck, "Mia," he moaned.
"Mmmm?"
"I don't want to rush you," he mumbled.
"Don't worry," I assured him, "I want to."
His breath was uneven and that assured man I had just been jumped by disappeared. He was as nervous as a sixteen year old. "You are sure?" he said hopefully.
I laughed, "No, I plan on a slow torture for you," I teased, curling his hair around my index finger. Thank heavens he let it grow a little.
"Fine," he replied, turning his back to me quickly.
I smirked evilly, then I sat up, pulled my shorts off. Wow, I was quite ballsy. He turned his head as he felt my skin against his back. "Mia…" he mumbled as he turned around.
"Don't be looking," I said quickly. "Just…"
"Enjoy?" he teased, brushing his fingers along my body. This, of course sent shivers throughout my entire body. How is it he can do that to me?
"I suppose," I whispered as he began kissing me.
We continued kissing and touching one another, but he pulled back. "What?" I asked, confused. And yes, a bit hurt. I grabbed his wrist as he began to get up. "What? Where are you going?"
"We shouldn't," he said pulling away from me. "Mia, it's not gonna be like when we were kids. I'm not going to put myself through that again."
He looked kind of cute trying to be all serious when he was wearing Donald Duck boxer shorts. So I laughed a little.
"I'm serious," he said sitting next to me and putting his face in his hands. "Dead serious-"
"So am I," I replied, deflated. He looked so pained so I decided to let this slidefor the night. I could handle it. "So…we should wait."
"At least until we get back to New York," he replied, staring at my tank top strap that had fallen down. "We want to be adult about this, right?"
"Totally," I replied, lifting my strap.
"But keep it on the down low," he continued, placing the strap where he liked it, down. "Just between us…for now. We don't need everyone in our business."
That hurt a little. Shouldn't he want to announce it to the world? Tell everyone that he lov- wait. He never said he loved me. Maybe he….maybe this would just be an affair. On the road type of thing. Fine. I'll look at it like that too.
"Okay," I readily agreed.
"Good…good….." he said getting up and pacing.
"I'm going to sleep," I announced, hinting that he should probably do the same.
He jumped into bed and curled into me, spooning me. "I didn't say we shouldn't do anything."
MICHAEL:
I loved how her hands rested on the back of my neck as I made love to her. And how she never closed her eyes. She kept them on track with my own. I felt…I dunno. Usually when I'm with the other women I'm focusing on myself. Getting my own release and figuring out how to get rid of them.
Instead I was watching as her facial expressions changed each time we moved with one another. Is it possible that it had been nearly four years since we'd done this together?
"Are you…." I started, almost in pain from holding back.
She smiled, "Al- yeah…."
So I let myself go, watching her smile and pull me even closer with her legs. I collapsed on top of her. I didn't say anything, I just let her hold onto me. The intimacy was what I missed. After we slept together before, even though we were usually drunk, we still held onto one another afterwards. Sometimes we fell asleep. But no matter what, neither of us ever let go for a very long time. We never knew when we'd have the opportunity to be like that again.
"Uh, Michael," I heard Mia's voice said as she shook me awake.
I opened one eye and jumped back. "Oh, hi. What?"
"What were you dreaming about?" she said with a laugh.
God, if she only knew the things we were doing in my dream..."What do you-" I started, stopping myself. I followed her eyes to a mess on the bed. "Oh fuck." This hadn't happened since I was a teenager. As I had grown older I had been able to get a handle on my wet dreams.
Most women would have been offended by this. Mia just laughed and stood up. "We can sleep on the floor and the cleaning people can take care of that."
We set up a make shift bed on the floor. "Why are you lying so far away?" she asked with a yawn.
I was on the opposite side of our pretend bed and had my back to her. The smell of her hair had probably seeped into my subconscious and caused that dream. It had been so…vivid.
I turned and saw an expression of hurt on her face, so I turned and let her lay close to me. "You look scared," she noted.
"Me? Scared? Nah."
She let me rest my head on her chest.
I was so close to her heart. It was beating a mile a minute. "You smell nice," I said finally.
She laughed, "Thanks. You smell sweaty," she replied.
I put my chin between her breasts and looked up at her. "And who's fault is that?"
"I'm hungry," she said suddenly with wide eyes.
"I'm exhausted," I replied, not budging.
"C'mon, Ben and Jerry's is right behind here. In the Park Plaza thingie. Please? It's open twenty four hours. It's like, the ONLY place around that is open all the time."
I sighed. "Can it wait for me to recover?"
She smiled, "From what?" she teased. "A girl can't wait for caramel swirl forever, you know."
I looked at the clock. It was past two in the morning. I'm such an old man. There were days that we'd just be coming home from going out doing something stupid. "I'm a man in great agony," I weakly argued.
After a great deal of begging I got up and threw on a pair of basketball shorts and a sweatshirt. She was wearing her NYU shorts (which were totally worn out and she was in need of a new pair. I made a mental note do so when we got back to New York) and her, sorry, MY Weezer sweatshirt.
There weren't any college kids around. Emerson and Suffolk which were the two that our hotel was sandwiched in had gotten out of school in the beginning of the month. But the clubbers were out in full force.
"Maaaatrix is where it is at!" one girl who was clearly drunk was screaming.
I laughed as we walked into the ice cream place. "You are the messiest eater I've ever met," I joked, wiping some off of her nose.
"This," she started with closed eyes, "Is perfection in a cone."
"Um, are you Michael Moscovitz?" the girl behind the counter asked.
"Yeah," I replied, focusing on my mint chocolate chip.
"And you are Mia Grimaldi?"
"Yep, this is orgasmic," Mia said, the second half to me.
I squeezed her knee under the table. Only twenty four hours ago I would never have done that. She'd have killed me. Now…well, I've been between 'em a few times.
"Can we have a picture? To put up on the wall?" she asked, carrying a camera over to us.
"Sure," Mia replied standing up. She motioned for me to do the same.
I stood up and she put some of her ice cream on my nose. "Gawd, that's cold!"
"It's a cute picture," she argued.
I can't fight with her. Not after all this.
They took the picture, but somehow word got around that we were there and there were people all around. A guy with a camera started chasing us as we ran in the opposite direction of the hotel; down towards the Prudential Center where there are a million alleys.
I pulled her into Private Alleyway 341. "Ssh," I said as the guy with the camera ran past us. She laughed lightly, and leaned her head against my chest. Then she leaned against the brick wall and left her hand on my chest.
"We need to work out more often," she said out of breath. "Your heart is beating a mile a minute."
I combed her hair with my fingers. "I think we should definitely be exercise buddies."
She laughed whole heartedly in the way only she can really laugh. "Maybe."
I leaned my forehead against hers. "This is insane."
"So?" she asked, smiling. Was I smiling like that too? Did I have a smile on that wouldn't disappear?
"I'm not dreaming this all up, right?"
She shook her head, "Nope. It's more real than I ever imagined."
What the hell was that supposed to mean? "You are okay with this, right?" I asked.
"Yeah….it's just….so fast."
I nodded, leaned back a bit, but kept playing with her hair. It felt so soft. "We can go as fast or as slow as you want."
"We have to figure this out," she said slowly.
"Okay," I replied.
"I mean, it's not like we're kids here. We have careers and other people to think about."
"I agree. We aren't kids."
She sighed, "I mean it. Michael, a picture of us together in a compromising position is going for five hundred thousand dollars you know. Lars looks into that stuff for me."
"Shit, for that much I'd take a picture of us. Think the lap dance-"
"Michael!" she said laughing.
"There's that smile I love," I teased.
"And we have to think about what we want out of this."
"Uh huh," I said kissing her neck.
She batted me away, "Seriously. I need to think about this," she said, trying to hold back her smile. "You were right earlier. Pulling back I mean….like…" she said, looking to the sky for the right words. "We have to be mature about this and not go into it blindly."
Figures. The ONE time she says I'm right it has to be about this. My one moral moment. "Uh huh. Okay then…" I replied with a smirk. "Look, I don't know how I'm feeling either…this whole thing is kind of new. Different…"
"Of course you don't. You've never been able to verbalize feelings."
"What is that supposed to mean?" I snapped.
"You go fling to fling….how am I supposed to know this meant anything at all?"
"You do too. I know this meant something by looking at you right now. I have you completely unraveled. I would think you could tell it meant something to me by looking at me."
MIA:
I gulped. I could. His eyes were more sincere than I'd seen him with anyone else. He never looked at people in the eyes when he lied. He couldn't.
"But I know you have Felix-"
"I know you have Elle," I replied watching as he rubbed his thumb against my hand.
"But-"
"What happened with that other girl the other night?"
"Huh?"
"The one I saw you with at the club. Did it not work out with her and you decided to get some from me?"
Why am I attacking him? He's being nice to me. I hate myself.
"N-No, it wasn't like that with her-"
"Riiiight."
"Mia, you aren't like those girls. You are different. You always have been. I already told you that."
Wow. Kind of surprised that I was different from the others. I figured he'd only said that last night because he wanted some ass. Now he was saying it in a weird alley way."I dunno Michael. We are getting back to real life now. Back home and-"
He stopped me with a kiss that made me stop talking again. We were taking a big risk by being in public and actually showing affection for one another.
"Mia, this is our reality, right here. Everything in this," he started, looking around"…..alley is what's important."
Wow. Profound. "Even that stray cat?" I asked.
He ignored this comment, "They aren't in our reality, Mia. They don't get it like we do. I get you. You get me. She could never understand me like you do."
"He couldn't get me like you do," I admitted as he planted small kisses on my forehead.
"Let's take it slow. I need to know that this is real before I go destroying my relationship with Felix for it."
He made a face, but agreed that I was right.
We emerged from the alley not holding hands. I think we were both trying to figure out how fast we wanted this to go. Lucky for us that we weren't holding hands cuz there was a photographer standing right outside the alley.
"Give me that camera," Michael snapped.
"No," the guy said, snapping another picture.
"I believe it is in your best interest to hand over that camera, young man," Lars said, coming out of no where apparently.
The guy looked surprised, and handed over the film, but not the camera. "Sorry…sorry," he said before scampering off.
We laid in bed together that night (he called for new sheets before we left for ice cream), not knowing if this was even going to work itself out. But while we were away we could pretend that Felix and Elle weren't around. That they didn't exist. In our Boston world, significant others took a backseat.
We just cuddled for the rest of that night, in silence watching Ben Hur (Michael's newest obsession). I fell asleep way before the chariot scene that Michael had promised I would love.
We returned to New York the next afternoon to find everyone congregating at Michael's apartment. "Hey losers, how was Boston?" Manny asked, chewing on a carrot stick.
"It was nice," I said in a distant tone, looking out the window. "I should get going. I am so missing my bed."
"I'm missing your bed too," Manny flirted.
I rolled my eyes. "I will see you guys….when?" I asked, glancing at Michael shortly.
"We're meeting with the SNL people on Monday to pick our songs," Kevin replied. "So, I guess on Monday morning."
"Mmkay," I said brushing my index finger past Michael's hand. "I'll talk to you boys soon, behave."
