#after they picked up el at Nina all three of them piled into the back seat

[chirpsythismorning]

Will sitting on the icebox the whole drive back to Hawkins (20 HOURS) instead of just sitting next to El and Mike in the back was foreshadowing him distancing himself from them bc he thinks they want to be alone without him in the way sabotaging things

[profitinaecho]

So You Wanna Spin Ch 7

Driving back to Roswell that Friday evening to drop off the samples to be tested and pack for the next leg of their journey, Max notices after a while that Liz has stopped dancing in her seat and singing along to the pop songs she insisted on having on the radio. Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, he sees that she has fallen asleep. She looks like an angel when she sleeps. The skin on her arms is covered in goosebumps from the blasting AC and Max flips her vents up to turn the air off of her since she is cold.

When he stops to get gas a little ways later, he pulls out the navy blanket he keeps in the cruiser for emergencies. Gently tucking her in, he smiles when her brown eyes flutter open at him briefly in confusion. Kissing her forehead, Max whispers, ��Sleep, Liz. I’ll wake you before we get there.” She lets off a soft sigh and falls back asleep, feeling safe and surrounded by Max’s scent.

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Max pulls up to the station when they arrive and puts the cruiser in park. He snorts when he realizes Liz is drooling with her mouth wide open, deep in sleep. “Liz. Hey, Lizzy.” He whispers quietly at her, trying not to startle her.

“What? Huh? Max, why is Garth Brooks on the radio? It was MY turn.” Liz pouts, looking around in confusion when she realizes they are in front of the Roswell Police Department. “Oh! Max, how long has the SUV been turned off? My samples can’t get hot or we have to start all over!” Liz frantically unclicks her seatbelt and dives for the isolated cooler containing her labeled DNA samples they had collected to check on them.  

Max smirks at her legs hanging across the console in the middle of the front seat while he tries not to stare at her ass while it wiggles as she tries to pull the styrofoam lid off to check on her samples. “I shut your vents off because you were cold and gave you a blanket. That’s why you’re hot. I didn’t let your samples get ruined, I swear.” Max smiles lopsidedly at her in the rearview mirror and holds his hands up in surrender.

“Oh. Ohhh.” Liz flushes, embarrassed at her overreaction. “I guess I’ll take these home with me so I know they stay refrigerated then mail them off in the morning to my lab.”

“Sounds like a plan. Feels weird being up here in my civvies.” Max shifts in his seat, feeling a bit underdressed even though he is off the clock. Sighing, he rounds the SUV to pull out Liz’s suitcase to help her to her car. His mother would never would never forgive him if he didn’t help a lady with her heavy things- especially one he wanted to court.

“Thank you for being a good partner, Max. I had as good a time as a woman can have collecting spit to solve murders.” Liz glances up at him walking next to her out of the corner of her eye, smiling shyly at him as she carries her DNA samples carefully. She gently places them in her passenger seat while Max picks up her overstuffed suitcase like it weighs nothing and places it in the back seat.

“The pleasure was all mine.” Max smiles so wide the corner of his eyes crinkle and he tips his head at her. Turning once he’s sure she’s safe and has buckled her seatbelt, he heads for his jeep to go to his house.

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The next morning, Liz arrives at the post office when it opens to pack her samples in their cooler in a special refrigerated truck to the lab at the University of New Mexico where the Roswell PD sends it’s DNA samples. Graduate and PHD students will map the DNA in the samples while Max and Liz collect the samples in Las Cruces and El Paso. That way they will only have to wait one week after getting back instead of two. Then she will mail off the samples they collect in those towns while they are analyzing the data from the previous weeks.

When she gets home to pack, Liz finds herself packing cute little chiffon nightgowns with matching lace panties for the last leg of their trip. Just in case someone tall, dark, and handsome should see her in them. As an afterthought, she hurls in an extra disposable razor, condoms and a satin dress as well. She throws in her usual sensible work casual clothes, chaste pajama sets and extra panties and zips her suitcase shut.

She showers and gets ready for bed, glancing at Max’s Collective Soul Tshirt sitting in her dirty clothes pile. She fishes it out and pulls it on to sleep in. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him and she likes the way it smells like rain.

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The next morning, Max picks her up in front of The Crashdown in his cruiser. Before Liz can just throw in her suitcase and go, the front door swings open and her father approaches Max.

“So, you’re my little nina’s partner, huh?” Arturo sizes Max up, who comes around the front of the SUV to help Liz with her luggage. Max firmly shakes Arturo’s hand and makes eye contact then turns to grab Liz’s suitcase before she can try to lift it herself.

“Yes, sir. That’s me.” Max hurls Liz’s suitcase up into the SUV then turns back to her father, leaning casually on the passenger door. “Liz, you’re missing a snack bag or something right? You usually have three things.”

“Oh dios mio! I helped with breakfast this morning and almost forgot the new cooler for our samples!” Liz runs back into the Crashdown as a blur of nervous energy and Max watches her riveted.

“If you hurt her, the buzzards won’t be able to find anything to eat, the pieces will be so small.” Arturo warns noticing how fascinated Max is with his daughter.

“That’s very understandable, sir.” Seeing Liz dart back out of the restaurant breathless and carrying her padded cooler filled with ice packs, Max heads to the drivers seat. “Ready to roll?”

“Yup. I call radio!” Liz bounces once.

“You always do. No Britney Spears it’s too early, ok?” Max looked behind him before merging into traffic while Liz wavesi goodbye to her father.

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Max and Liz sit in the hotel bar after arriving in Las Cruces and dropping off their suitcases, watching couples dance to a local band. Max sips on an IPA beer and she sips on a glass of red wine.

A young good looking guy in a backwards baseball cap catches Liz’s eye and smiles. She saw him earlier at a loud table full of guys drinking beer by the pitcher. They were rowdy and hard not to notice but now it is just him and his blue eyes are placed squarely on Liz. She doesn’t think she encourages him, but the man comes over and takes her hand to ask her to dance.

Liz swears she hears Max growl across from her. She turns to look at Max and is surprised to see a murderous expression in his eyes. He’s never looked this formidable before with his shoulders straight back and his mouth in a snarl staring daggers at the man asking her to dance.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t dance.” Liz smiles awkwardly at the man, trying to pull her hand from the stranger's grasp.

“Aw, c’mon.” The man insists, tugging on Liz’s hand a little.

“She. Said. No.” Max leans forward, his voice so deep he’s practically growling at the other man.

The man scoffs, stumbling back into the table behind him and dropping Liz’s hand like it bit him. “If you change your mind, I’ll be right over there.”

“Ok. Buh Bye now.” Max waves jovially at his competitor as the man struggles to stay upright on his way back to his bar stool.

Liz chugs the rest of her glass of wine and is too embarrassed to look at Max after the display of testosterone she just witnessed. She sees his chair suddenly scoot out from her peripheral vision and glances up at him as he stands and comes around to her side of the table holding out his hand. She gingerly takes his and he lifts her up out of her chair with his. “Dance with me?” He asks gruffly, as if he had to ask, leading her out to the dance floor.

Liz is kind of glad he didn’t really wait for her to answer him because she would have overthought it. But nobody that knows them is here and Max definitely needs the other guy to know that she is off limits. Besides, now that he is drawing her in close and sliding his hands across her exposed lower back sending shivers in their wake, Liz can’t remember why she would want to be anywhere else in the world.

Max pulls her up against him so that their chests brush against eachother with Liz a couple extra inches taller in her black strappy heels. Max rests his forehead against hers and they sway back and forth as they become braver with their exploration of eachothers back’s with their hands. Surprising her, Max brushes his hand across Liz’s ass and pulls her in closer, erasing the last couple inches of space between them as their hips rock into eachother. Liz gasps at the sensation, surprised at how needy she sounds even to her own ears.

Max’s eyes catch hers and it’s like a flame drags across her, heating every inch of her body. “Max?” Liz groans in question. The lines are becoming so blurry. She doesn’t even remember why they were there to begin with. The music is slow and romantic with the type of rhythm they can’t help but mimic with their hips.

Liz takes a deep breath then drags her hands up his broad chest until she wraps them around his neck, looking wide eyed into his brown eyes. She can feel the ground shifting underneath them.

Max glides his hands gently up past her waist, smoothing the satin fabric down as he goes so he doesn’t accidentally expose too much skin in his exploration. He coasts past the edges of her bra and they both suck in a breath. He can’t stop touching her or get enough. Liz hasn’t ever been this close to a man without kissing him before. She tilts her chin up to him and he responds right away as though he was waiting for her cue, dropping his mouth so it hovers just above hers to be sure she isn’t going to change her mind. At her whispered, “Please” Max finally closes the distance between them. He tilts his head and deepens it, sweeping his tongue into her mouth once teasing her.

Liz bounces up onto her tiptoes and Max moans, his hands tightening around her to align them even further. If they were alone, his hands would be going under the slits in her dress and higher up. But since they are not, they show each other what they wish they could be doing to their entire bodies with their tongues. Suddenly, the song ends and all around them, people are clapping.

Max and Liz jump apart guiltily, like they’re two magnets that will just get pulled back together if they get too close together again. Liz looks around confused as to  how she went from innocently sipping her wine to dry humping her partner in public. Max looks like a lion stalking a gazelle. Liz gulps.

He pulls his fingers through his dark hair, spiking it repeatedly before stalking back over to Liz, grabbing her hand and walking briskly towards the elevator.

“Where are we going?” Liz asks, even though there’s only one place they could possibly be going.

“To our room.” Max states, like it’s obvious. He jabs the button for the third floor where their adjoining room is then stands on the opposite wall of the elevator from her, tapping his lip nervously as the elevator slowly climbs upwards. When the door dings, Max is quickly out and Liz follows him down the brightly colored carpet to their room, confused.

Max quickly unlocks the door and swings it open, gesturing for Liz to go ahead of him. Their adjoining living area is dark and quiet but Liz views it from new sexy eyes. He could bend her over that pull out couch or prop her up against that side table if it got her up tall enough. They could even do it up against the sliding glass doors to their balcony or if she was quiet, against the balcony railing itself.

Max is looking around wildly as if he is thinking the same, but instead of pulling her into his arms and picking things back up where they started on the dance floor, he groans as if in pain. Throwing his hands up in the air and striding quickly to his bedroom door, Max calls over his shoulder, “You should go to bed, Liz.”

Bed?

BED?!

“What? Bed? Why?” Liz’s heart is pounding and she’s so confused.

“Because, Liz, you weren’t sure about this yesterday and I don’t want to take advantage of you. I want you to be sure you want this before we do that. Make sure you lock the door to your room tonight.” Max doesn’t give her time to argue before he leaves her gaping after him as he retreats. She hears the sound of his lock turn in the deadbolt and a thump thump thump like something is banging against the door in frustration.

Liz locks the door to her room like he asked, takes a cold shower and sleeps in pink sheep pjs that night since she has no one to show off her nighties to.