Meg Cabot - Mia Goes Fourth

order to keep the truth from him - that my heart was pounding a mile a minute. 'Or are you in love with me?'

Michael was staring over the back of the couch at me. He looked like he couldn't quite believe his ears. I couldn't believe

my own. Had I really just asked him that? Just come out and asked him?

Apparently - judging from his incredulous expression, anyway - I had. I could feel myself starting to turn redder, and

redder, and redder, and redder ...

Jane Eyre would so never have asked that question.

But then again, maybe she ought to have. Because the way Michael responded made the whole embarrassment of having

had to ask completely and totally worth it. And the way he responded was, he reached out, took the tiara from me, laid it

down on the couch beside him, took both my hands in his, pulled me down, and gave me a really long kiss.

On the lips.

Of the French variety.

We missed the entire scrolling prologue to the movie, due to kissing. Then, finally, when the sound of Princess Leia's starship being fired upon roused us from our passionate embrace, Michael said, 'Of course I'm in love with you. Now come sit down and eat.'

It truly was the most romantic moment of my entire life. If I live to be as old as Grandmere, I will never be as happy as I was

at that moment. I just stood there, thrilled to pieces, for about a minute. I mean, I could barely get over it. He loved me. Not only that, he was in love with me! Michael Moscovitz is in love with me, Mia Thermopolis!

'Your burger is getting cold,' he said.

See? See how perfect we are for one another? He is so practical, while I have my head in the clouds. Has there ever been

as perfect a couple? Has there ever been as perfect a date?

We sat there, eating our veggie burgers and watching Star Wars, he in his jeans and vintage Boomtown Rats T-shirt, and

me in my Chanel ball gown. And when Ben Kenobi said, 'Obi Wan? That's a name I haven't heard in a long time,' we both went, right on cue, 'How long?' And Ben said, as he always does, 'A very long time.'

And when, just before Luke flies off to attack the Death Star, Michael put it on pause so he could go get dessert, I helped

him clear the plates.

And then, while he was making the ice-cream sundaes, I sneaked back into the TV room, put his present on his TV table,

and waited for him to come back and find it, which he did, a few minutes later.

'What's this?' he wanted to know, as he handed me my sundae, vanilla ice cream drowning in a sea of hot fudge, whipped cream and pistachios.

'It's your birthday present,' I said, barely able to contain myself, I was so excited to see what he'd think of it. It was way

better than candy or a sweater. It was, I thought, the perfect gift for Michael.

I feel like I had a right to be excited, because I'd paid a pretty hefty price for Michael's gift . . . weeks of worrying about

being found out, and then, after having been found out, being forced to waltz with Prince Rene, who was a good dancer,

and all, but who kind of smelt like an ashtray.

So I was pretty stoked as Michael, with a puzzled expression on his face, sat down and picked up the box.

'I told you that you didn't have to get me anything,' he said.

'I know.' I was bouncing up and down, I was so excited. 'But I wanted to. And I saw this, and I thought it was perfect.'

'Well,' Michael said. 'Thanks.' He untied the ribbon that held the minuscule box closed, then lifted the lid ...

And there, sitting on a wad of white cotton, it was. A dirty little rock, no bigger than an ant. Smaller than an ant, even.

The size of a pinhead.

'Huh,' Michael said, looking down at the tiny speck. 'It's . . . it's really nice.'

I laughed delightedly. 'You don't even know what it is!'

'Well,' he said. 'No, I don't.'

'Can't you guess?'

'Well,' he said, again. 'It looks like ... I mean, it closely resembles ... a rock.'

'It is a rock,' I said. 'Guess where it's from.'

Michael eyed the rock. 'I don't know. Genovia?'

'No, silly,' I crowed. 'The moon! It's a moon rock! From when Neil Armstrong was up there. He collected a load of them,

and then some of them got split up, and Richard Nixon gave my grandmother a bunch of them when he was in office. Well,

he gave them to Genovia, technically. And I saw them and thought . . . well, that you should have one. Because I know you

like space stuff. I mean how you've got the glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling over your bed and all. . .'

Michael looked up from the moon rock - which he'd been staring down at like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing - and went, 'When were you in my room?'

'Oh,' I said, feeling myself beginning to blush again. 'A long time ago . . .' Well, it had been a long time ago. It had been

way back before I'd known he liked me, when I'd been sending him those anonymous love poems. '. . . once when Maya

was cleaning in there.'

Michael said, 'Oh,' and looked back down at the moon rock.

'Mia,' he said, a few seconds later. 'I can't accept this.'

'Yes, you can,' I said. 'There are plenty left back at the palace museum, don't worry. Richard Nixon must have really had

a thing for Grandmere, because I'm pretty sure we got more moon rocks than Monaco or anybody else.'

'Mia,' Michael said. 'It's a rock. From the moon.'

'Right,' I said, not certain what he was getting at. Did he not like it? It was kind of weird, I guess, to give your boyfriend

a rock for his birthday. But it wasn't just any rock. And Michael wasn't just any boyfriend. I'd really thought he'd like it.

'It's a rock,' he said again, 'that came from two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles away. Two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles away from our planet.'

'Yes,' I said, wondering what I had done. I had only just gotten Michael back, after having spent a whole week convinced

he was going to dump me over one thing, only to discover that he was going to dump me over something else entirely? There

is seriously no justice in the world. 'Michael, if you don't like it, I can give it back. I just thought—'

'No way,' he said, moving the box out of my grasp. 'You're not getting this back. I just don't know what I'm going to get

you for your birthday. This is going to be a hard act to follow.'

Was that all? I felt my blush receding.

'Oh, that,' I said. 'You can just write me another song.'

Which was kind of vixenish of me to say, because he had never admitted that song, the first one he'd ever played me,

'Tall Drink of Water', was about me. But I could tell by the way he was smiling now that I'd guessed correctly. It was.

It totally was.

So then we ate our sundaes and watched the rest of the movie, and when it was over and the credits were rolling,

I remembered something else I'd meant to give him, something I'd thought of in the cab on the way down from the

contessa's, when I'd been trying to think up what I was going to say to him if he broke up with me.

'Oh,' I said. 'I thought of a name for your band.' 'Not,' he groaned, 'the X-Wing Fighters. I beg of you.' 'No,' I said. 'Skinner Box.' Which is this thing this psychologist called Skinner had used to torture all these rats and monkeys and prove there's such a thing as a conditioned response. Pavlov, the guy Michael had named his dog after, had done the same thing, but with dogs and bells. 'Skinner Box,' Michael said, carefully. 'Yeah,' I said. 'I mean, I just figured, since you named your dog Pavlov . . .'

'I kind of like it,' Michael said. I'll see what the guys say.' I beamed. The evening was turning out so much better than I had originally thought it would, I couldn't really do anything but beam. In fact, that's why I locked myself in the bathroom. To