She dismissed him with an eye roll and turned back to garnish the remaining trays and get on with the rest of her life, a life in which she would stop being rejected by men. Max. Steve. Max again. My god, had her lone date in high school even called her after prom?

He shook his head, taunting her by not looking sorry at all. "That's sweet. But I'm actually trying to control my sexual impulses."

He was making this her problem? For years she hadn't even had sexual impulses. It wasn't like she was the one who was pursuing him, the arrogant, son of a ... she grabbed him and pushed him against the stove with her hips against his. "You call this move control?"

He swallowed. "I call it sexy as hell, come here." He leaned down to kiss her and-- "Ahhh!"

He spun around, and she could see a couple of tiny holes burned into the rear end of his toga. The edges glowed red for another second, but appeared to be going out on their own, and she wondered if karma was a Greek invention. Hubris was.

"Huh," she studied the burn holes and the pink splotches of exposed skin that probably wouldn't blister. "Guess it was the front burner."

He tried to see his back end, turning around in the kitchen like a dog chasing its tail, and it was already her favorite Halloween.

"Don't worry. There's not much of your ass showing." She pointed to the counter. "And you can start with those trays, Mr. Antony."

Max's Life - November 13th, 1989 Saturday The frat party was only supposed to be foreplay, not that they needed any more of it. But Gwen had pulled him into the completely dark TV room while everybody else was around the keg in the backyard, and he didn't want any more fore. He just wanted play.

He'd barely survived the night before at the Curtis Hotel. After making out with Gwen for four hours in the hot pools, he'd ended up sharing a room with nothing but guys. God, it had been awful. First the slippery water, and he knew for a fact it was slippery since he'd gotten his hands on Gwen anywhere he could. And after the epic case of blue balls, he'd had no sleep with Rob, who damn well did snore, and Justin, who didn't cry but did hog the blankets.

Across the room, he heard Gwen sigh and found her like he had sonar. He pulled her into his arms, and she tilted her head to the side in the way she did when she wanted him to kiss her neck. She was like vanilla and hot all rolled up in a tight package, and he could breathe her in all night.

He rushed a hand up her shirt, felt her nipple get hard against his fingertips, and remembered he had a condom in his back pocket. If they just kept the lights out and everybody stayed outside and-- The door opened, the overhead light fizzed on, and he looked into Gwen's wide eyes before he turned to kill whoever was there.

"Yo, Max." Rob yelled like he was too drunk to hear himself and took a crooked step into the room. Dammit, the guy was too drunk to hear himself. "We're playing quarters, man."

Shit. He could feel Gwen laugh a little against him. Didn't Rob know the rules? A guy didn't knock another guy off second base. It just wasn't done.

Gwen kissed him, a friendly one and not at all like the kind he'd gotten just a second before. She smiled. "I'll see you around, Max Holter."

He leaned away from her, had to let her go whether he wanted to or not. And he sure-as-hell didn't want to let her go, maybe ever. But he had things to do, starting with getting Rob out of there while the lightweight could still walk.

He tried not to be too pissed at the interruption. It's not like he'd meant to try anything with Gwen at the party. It was just that she had a roommate, and he had a roommate... But a frat house was a really stupid idea. He laughed at himself. An idea involved thinking, and even he could admit he wasn't doing much of that when it came to Gwen.

"Man, why don't you just do her and move on?" Rob tripped trying to walk into the room.

He was trying to, wasn't he? He looked out into the hall, thought he saw Gwen heading out the back door and hoped she hadn't heard Rob. She was better than that. She deserved better than that, better than him probably. "Hey, Rob, let's check out your dorm."

Rob seemed to slowly take that in. "You think there's a party, man?"

"Yeah, I think maybe there is." And with any luck, he'd get Rob in his own bed before the guy passed out or barfed or both.

Back to U...

She spent the next few hours re-loading the buffet table and receiving accolades from Chi Omikrons who came through the kitchen to thank her. She might have oversold the contribution of the boys, but she didn't think it could hurt. And when the last kabob had left the kitchen, she wiped down the counters and headed out to grab her mother for the dorm.

The music had been loud even from the kitchen, but when she stepped out into the party, only the noise of the crowd greeted her. The band seemed to have gone on break, and the small stage at the far end of the room held an abandoned electric guitar, keyboard, and drum set. She wondered if it was the House's house band.

Looking around, she could understand why the boys wanted to be fraternity men. It was an impressive party without the crude and complete chaos she'd remembered from her own time or two at a frat house event. They'd never served food at anything she'd been to. Maybe the Chi Omikrons were onto something, limiting a party to invitation only so they didn't have wall to wall partying humanity. Still, there were plenty of people, and the costumes were great.

She could see the standard angels and devils, of course, but they stood near a Methuselah, green-faced with rubber snakes in her hair. The girl managed to look sexy, an important element for the girls and guys. No one was dressed as a circus clown or anything. There were lots of Mardi gras masks and cat masks and dirty old men masks. The senior citizen Hannah Montana would still pretty much win the costume award, but Mark Antony, she had to admit, looked damn good. Even the three peek holes to his glutes were impressive.

"Gwen!" Annie, dressed as a chicken, came up to her and gave her a hug. "I didn't know you were here."

"I did the cooking." She looked around. "You came with the guys?"

"I came with Guy. He's a pledge." Annie glowed with pride.

"Guy's a Chi Omikron?" That boy was just full of surprises. He'd gotten into a fraternity that had rejected the other boys, and he didn't even speak English. Plus, he'd been a big part of bringing Annie out of hiding. "That's great."

"He wired the house with a new speaker system for the home theater. Do not go in there, incidentally." Annie's eyes widened, and Gwen had a vague memory of being with Max in a TV room. "And it's because of Guy that the band sounds so great."

Gwen tried to find Guy in the crowd and spotted two Jackie Chans, who weren't even a tiny bit Chinese looking. There was a gorilla costume, and Guy could be hiding in there or in the astronaut suit, or behind the shower curtain. She didn't even want to know what the boy wore under that one.

When Colonel Sanders put his arm around the chicken, Gwen knew it had to be Guy. It just didn't look like him. White hair, white skin, long white mustache. Even the string tie and white suit weren't him, but when the man who brought the world Kentucky fried smiled, she recognized the goofy grin they all loved. "Good one, you two, have fun. I'm gonna get my mom and go. Be careful, okay?"

"Happy Halloween." Annie looked as happy in a chicken suit as anyone she'd ever seen.

"Happy Halloween."

"Oh," Annie pointed toward the bar area. "I saw your mom over there. Hannah Montana, right?"

"Yep."

"No underwear?"

Gwen cringed. "Yep."

Heading across the room, she spotted Ellen near the fruit-filled garbage can, which had to be some kind of crazy punch bowl. It took her a minute to navigate the crowd and tap her on the shoulder. "Hey, Mom, ready to go?"

Ellen didn't look anywhere close to leaving. She stood at the center of an entertained group of college kids, regaling them, no doubt, with a hilarious story of some inappropriate activity from the decade their grandparents began their sex lives. And despite all the food Gwen had furnished for the party, her mother was eating a handful of battered and red-tinged orange slices.

A wide-eyed guy, appropriately wearing zombie bandages, turned to her. "This your mom?"

"Yes. Yes, she is, and we're all very proud."

"Nobody's ever eaten that much before."

Gwen looked toward the now empty buffet table. "That much what?" Lord knew what would happen to her mother's digestive system if she'd consumed too much feta.

One of the sexy angel-winged girls pointed into the garbage can. "Jungle Juice."

Gwen leaned over and was hit by alcohol fumes. Her eyes watering, she held her breath to check the bottom, empty except for a tiny puddle of red liquid and two apple pieces. Great. Her mom had broken a fraternity record for consuming alcohol-pickled fruit. "Yeah, we're gonna go now."

But before she had a good grip on her mother, she felt Mark Antony's arm around her waist. "Dance with me."

"But my mom..."

Max raised an eyebrow like she could make a better excuse than that and pulled her onto the dance floor and close to him before she could get a good grip on herself. "Your mother is the wildest woman over seventy I know. She was the wildest woman over fifty when I first met her, and I can only imagine her sixties were dangerous as well."

Gwen sighed, tried not to enjoy being held by a Greek god. "They were."

She'd hoped her mother would be the responsible one in the mother/daughter relationship, but by the time she'd had her tenth birthday and Ellen had brought home her tenth dream date, Gwen knew she had to let that go. "A couple of years ago she slept with two men in her Bunco club. There was nearly a duel."

"I thought Bunco was played with dice."

"Played with dice in the Shriner's Temple."

When Max seemed to wait for more information, she shrugged. "It's an ancient Arabic order. They've got swords, mister. They've got swords."

Not that her mother required weapons to incite men to riot. There'd been a classic story in town about Ellen breaking up the marriage of the high school principal. Unfortunately, he'd been Gwen's high school principal. She should give her mother a little bit of credit, though, he'd had his own hair, and she'd never brought him home. Maybe that affair was one of those urban myths. Her mother's sex life was the alligator in the public water system.

For the first time in her life, she felt oddly proud of that. One of them ought to have lived a little in their prime. But maybe prime was relative. She let herself notice Max's shoulders, the muscles hard and rolling as he moved them through the slow dance. Okay, she was engaged in dance floor foreplay and officially in denial. But, god, she was glad the song was slow. She had no idea what it was. The singer, though...

She studied the small raised stage now that the musicians animated the instruments. There was the standard drummer, naturally not in costume, because that wouldn't be cool. Two guitarists had come without costumes or maybe they were dressed up as guitarists. It was hard to tell since all the best ones had a certain Halloween-like quality. The lead singer wore a beaded mask with feathers of all colors pluming out the sides. Her gown was dark and flowing without much to call attention to itself, but the voice... The voice Gwen would know anywhere.

She would have stopped and just listened to Missy sing, but Max pulled her closer and dipped his head to nuzzle the side of her neck. She felt her body respond but knew the second Missy noticed her. Even with Missy's eyes hidden, they weren't hidden enough for Gwen to miss the sharpening, the disapproval no one would blame her for, least of all Gwen, who'd lived through it herself.

Max must have felt her stiffen in his arms and lifted his head to see her, his face concerned, his head tilted just enough to ask the question. And what would she say? She hadn't considered that her past life and present one could meet up in a fraternity house. It felt awkward to her, at would be ten-fold for Missy, and even worse for Max, a man who had clearly chosen a life minus parenthood.

She hesitated then pointed to the stage. "That's my daughter."

He followed her gesture, listened to Missy sing with what looked like great concentration, and for moments she waited until he turned back, smiling. "She has a great voice."

That was nice, a nice thing for him to say. She let herself enjoy the truth of it, really take in the effortless range Missy seemed to soar over, tempered with an edge of roughness. She had a little bit of hoarseness in her tone that gave her voice such character and depth. It was a great voice. Gwen had forgotten that during the trauma of Missy declaring she wasn't going to college. She'd forgotten that Missy was good at something already. Her girl might just be one of the lucky ones who knew at eighteen exactly what she was supposed to do with herself, however hard that road might be.

Max brought her attention back. "So, I should keep my hands above your waist?"

She met his easy smile. "You definitely should."

He led them across the dance floor to where a mass of other dancers hid them from the stage, and she felt his hands move up from her waist, higher and higher on her back until they were at shoulder blade level. Then, very subtly, they began to shift forward. She saw exactly where his hands were going and so did he. "I see from this superior view that you are aware of my destination, and you approve."

Gwen looked down her toga. Yep, there was a lot of cleavage in there and two very pointed nipples. Great.

"Don't worry. I'll only admire them with my eyes until we can take our turn in the TV room."

She fussed with the front of her toga to put less skin and more sheet on view. "You'll have to find another coed to fondle. I'm both older and wiser and working on setting a good example."

He looked at her with such seriousness he made the gold laurel leaf crown seem less ironic. "I don't think I want to fondle anybody else in there."

"Oh." She felt a little rush at his confession. Then closed the oh of surprise her mouth had made.

He took advantage of her disorientation, pulled her closer, and she felt him whisper against her ear. "I'm amazed you'd play hard to get after last weekend. You were half-naked in my bed."

"My bed!" She studied the couples around her to make sure she hadn't said it too loudly. "And I was fully clothed."

"Gwen," Max shook his head. "Right now you're practically topless in a frat house, and I can feel your interest even as I speak."

She managed to pull back a quarter of an inch from his body. "It's cold in here. And quit poking your nose in my interest."

He put a hand on his forehead. "That offer made me a little dizzy." He grabbed her and pulled her closer again. "Help me stay upright."

Her pelvis bumped the front of his toga. "You don't have any problem keeping it upright." And to be fair, she didn't have any problem with her own physical response to the man. Of course, her response was the problem, but maybe she owed him the truth. "Okay, it's Halloween, time for honesty."

"Halloween is a time to pretend you're someone else and threaten people for candy."

"I know that we had, uh, a really long time ago, a certain attraction, and maybe it's just nostalgia or, I don't know, psychology, chemistry, biology, but whatever, you know... attraction is going on. I just don't think it's... I know it's not. It's, well, inappropriate for us to have sex." She tilted her head back to see his response, but all she could see were his green eyes with that deadly mix of amusement and arousal.

"Are we having sex? I have got to pay more attention. A guy doesn't want to miss an event like that."

She felt her lips thin. The least he could do was be as honest about it as she was. "You want to have sex with me."

"Is that a trick question? If I say no, will you leave me here on the dance floor? If I say yes are you going to egg my house?"

It wouldn't be a trick question for him, but it was a trick question for her. It surprised her how much she wanted to sleep with him. God help her she really did. She could have taken him earlier in the kitchen, right against the stove. If, logistically speaking, that was possible and the burner had completely cooled. But she was at Belmar to get on the path not taken, wasn't she?

Her life had gone to hell twenty years before when she'd had sex with Max and fallen all the way in love with him. But maybe, maybe, the fork in the road really was sex with Max. And after she did that again, she'd take the right road from there.

"Gwen? You've got a strange look on your face. Seriously, is my house in danger?"

"I think we should have sex." She sucked a breath in, more than a little surprised she'd blurted it out. But, hell, everybody else got naked with everybody else just because they felt like it, her senior mother, her husband for crying out loud, why not her?

"You think?" Max's voice cracked a little. "You think? I'm ready to drag you off this dance floor despite the fact that we're in a frat house where people still do it in TV rooms and your daughter is there," he pointed to the stage. "Oh. Your girl is staring at us. It's not affecting her singing at all, which says some very good things about her skill, but she is really checking me out, in a bad way I'm thinking."

Gwen glanced over her shoulder, but Missy looked away. "Yeah, I think that's accurate. She's confused. I'm confused."

She felt Max relax his grip on her, and she knew it was the end of the dance. He seemed to let out a long held breath. "Everyone wants their parents to stay together."

She wasn't going to respond to that. It was one thing to have her daughter in the same room with the man from her own eighteen-year-old universe. She wasn't going to bring her marriage onto the dance floor too.

He stepped away from her as the song ended, and she caught a glimpse of her mother. "Oh, shit!"

She ran across the dance floor, dodging dancers and bouncing off the back of a Jackie Chan. She stopped at the buffet table where Hannah Montana in all her glory stood. Ellen gripped a TV remote in her hand. God only knew what she'd done and with whom in the TV room. Gwen moved closer as Hannah opened her mouth to sing, flipped her mane of blonde hair over her shoulder, lost her balance, and fell backward.