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Maria squeezes Michael’s truck keys in her hands until the jagged edges dig into her palm, and she concentrates on the pain in her hand instead of the ache she can feel spreading through her chest as she watches Michael try and fail to drag himself up using the side of his truck.
Maria remembers clearly the last time that she saw Michael this drunk, and she’s good at calculating the time in her head, but she doesn’t let herself think about that too much.
She debates calling Sheriff Valenti to come pick him up so he can sleep it off at the drunk tank, but she doesn’t want to deal with the judgement that will follow.
The way her gaze will sweep from Maria to Michael and make assumptions that she can’t deny anymore, not that she ever did before, but this was something that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
And while she understood that Michael was hurting over losing Max, it was too much on top of everything else.
Maria didn’t need another person added to the list of people she has to take care of. Michael has always been steady, a rock she can hang on to when the rush of the river got too much and tried to drag her under.
“Hey,” she hears Michael say, voice slow and easy like gin pouring over ice.
Her gaze drops to him and she opens her mouth to tell him that he can’t flirt with her until she gives him his keys, only to see that he’s not talking to her.
“Need you,” he mumbles, and then his hand drops to his lap, a flip phone that she hadn’t even known he owned drops to the floor, and Maria can just make out the flashing ‘call ended’ sign before it goes dark.
“Who did you call?” she asks equally curious and jealous.
Michael’s head lolls back against the truck and he smiles, wide and bright and showing all of his teeth, like he never learned how to smile, or like smiling hurt too much.
“The cavalry,” he drawls and sighs. “I’ll be outta your hair soon, DeLuca, you don’t have to wait.”
He makes a shoo gesture with his hand, and closes his eyes, the smile falling from his face.
Maria feels a clench in her stomach that makes her taste bile at the back of her throat, and she thinks she knows who Michael called.
A small part of her hopes that she’s wrong.
She’s not.
Alex’s SUV screeches to a stop right beside them, and he stumbles out of the car looking wild around the eyes, and he’s dressed up all nice, with his leather jacket and tight jeans, and his hair is all spiked up.
Maria licks her lips as he looks between the two of them and visibly calms down, but still manages to look exasperated.
“I told you that that phone was for emergencies only,” Alex says as he gives Maria a tight lipped smile and walks over to where Michael’s head snaps up at the sound of Alex’s voice.
“It’s an emergency,” Michael slurs and points towards Maria. “DeLuca is holding my keys captive.”
“I bet,” Alex says rolling his eyes and huffing in amusement.
He darts another look at Maria before he crouches next to Michael and pulls what looks like a capped syringe out of his pocket.
Before Maria can ask what is in it, or even warn Michael about it, Alex is stabbing it against his throat.
He gets up and steps back as Maria takes a step forward, as Michael curses and then leans over to the side, gagging before he heaves and throws up.
“What was that?” Maria asks as Michael seems to throw up the entire contents of the bar that he’d drunk over the last couple of hours.
“Just something to sober him up a little bit, or else you’ll never be able to get him upstairs.”
“He’s not going upstairs,” Maria snaps and squeezes the keys harder in her hand. “Just because occasionally he spends the night doesn’t mean that he lives here.”
Alex doesn’t say anything, and when Maria turns her gaze away from Michael who stopped throwing up, and was leaning his head against the side of the truck panting, it’s to see that he’s looking up at the stars with an unfathomable expression on his face.
“Why did you come? Didn’t you have a date tonight?” she asks, equal parts curious and jealous that Alex would drop everything just because Michael called when he has been avoiding her for weeks.
“I did,” he confirms, and gives her a look out of the corner of his eye. “And I came because I always will.”
Maria swallows hard, and tries to push back the ache that spreads through her at those words.
“Why?” she asks, eyes darting all over him, trying to see if she can get anything from him, but she draws a blank, something that has never happened before with Alex.
Alex sighs and closes his eyes before he clenches his jaw and turns to Maria.
“I love him,” he says and the words sound like a gunshot in an empty parking garage, roaring through her like the sudden rush of a river after too much rain, and she scrambles for purchase.
Alex looks away from her, and inhales deeply. “I’ve been in love with him for ten years. It’s not exactly something that I can control. And trust me, I wish I could.”
He walks away, back towards Michael, dismissing the conversation like he hadn’t just pulled the rug out from under Maria’s feet.
“Hey, Guerin,” he says crouching back down beside him, carefully avoiding the puddle of sick. “How are you feeling?”
“I hate you,” Michael answers, voice raspy and sore but sounding much more sober than before.
“No you don’t,” Alex says with confidence as he gets back to his feet and holds a hand out.
Michael swallows and looks up at Alex, and Maria blinks her eyes rapidly, as Michael watches Alex, with a look on his face like Alex is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
And it’s different than the way that he looks at her, that makes her feel like she’s the only person in the room.
This makes her feel like the only reason that he stares is because Alex isn’t in the room.
And he’d told her that it was over, over and over and over again, and she had felt that he was trying to assuage her guilt over the situation, over the fact that she hurt Alex, but she hadn’t thought that he was lying.
“I really don’t,” Michael breathes as he slides his hand into Alex’s, and Alex tugs him up to his feet.
It feels like the final nail in a coffin that she had no idea was being nailed shut.