He'd meant it as a joke. Retaliation for all the times she's called him 'Ranger Rick' or 'Huckleberry' or any of those other ridiculous nicknames she came up with. Because he likes the little sparkle of mischief and glee that lights up her pretty blue eyes every time they engage in their little back-and-forth more than he cares to admit.
It was supposed to be a harmless joke. A continuation of the back-and-forth banter that he enjoys a little too much. He never meant to start a war and ruin a friendship that had been around longer than he had. But his words hit deeper than he could have imagined, caused a tidal wave of consequences that he never could have foreseen, and he has no idea how to make things right.
So when Maya and Riley declare loudly and in no uncertain terms that they are no longer speaking to each other, Lucas does the only thing that comes to mind. With a quick nod to Mister Matthews, he throws the loudly objecting petite blonde over his shoulder and carries her out of the classroom, straight into the janitor's closet. She doesn't stop hitting him with her tiny fists until he locks the door and drops her gently on Janitor Harley's desk.
Maya fixes Lucas with her best angry glare and throws one of the janitor's rags at his face. "What the hell was that, Huckleberry!?"
He places his hands on either side of the desk near her hips, leans down to eye level, and locks his pretty green eyes on her baby blues. "You tell me, Maya. Talk to me."
She looks away, suddenly the hem of her shorts is more interesting, and catches her bottom lip between her teeth. "This has nothing to with you, Lucas. Leave it alone."
It's a lie and they both know it. This has everything to do with him, but at this point she'll say anything to make him go away. He won't though, because Lucas Friar is as stubborn as a mule and they both know that as well.
Instead of going away, he tucks a curled finger under her small chin and tilts her face up so that he can see into her eyes again. "This has everything to do with me, Maya, and you know it. I did this to you and Riley, now tell me how to fix it."
For the briefest of moments he sees the sparkle of mischief and glee that he adores far too much twinkling in her eyes. But a moment later it's gone and all that's left is a sea of heartache.
Lucas hates that she is in so much pain because of him.
Maya cups his face in her tiny little hands and offers him the smallest, gentlest of smiles. "My beef with Riley has nothing to do with you, because you didn't do anything, Ranger Rick. All you did was call me a name. She's the one who didn't stick up for me."
Lucas frowns slightly and tilts his head to the side, like a puppy trying to understand a confusing new discovery. "Why does it matter so much that she didn't defend you?"
And there it is. The million dollar question that nobody seems to know the answer to. It's a question with an answer that not many people would understand. "You wouldn't understand."
Even if he doesn't, he wants to. With every fiber of his being, he wants to understand. If only she'll let him. "Try me, Clutterbucket. I'm smarter than I look, you know."
With the heaviest of sighs, she starts to speak and with each word she wilts a little more. Her shoulders slump and her gaze falls to the hands twisted tightly in her lap, because she knows that if she looks up she'll see him feeling sorry for her and she'll cry.
But Maya Hart cries in front of no-one. Not even her best-friend Riley. Because that's a level of vulnerability she would rather keep to herself and the dark confines of her bedroom. "My life isn't exactly what you would call ideal. But Riley is everything that's good in it. She's always had my back and she's never made me feel bad about myself. Until you called me a short little stack of pancakes and she didn't defend me. It felt like..."
Maya trails off trying to find the right words but she doesn't have to. Lucas finishes her thought for her because he understands more than she thinks he does. "It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under you because for the first time ever, the one person who you thought would never find any fault in you did just that. And if even your best-friend thinks something is wrong with you, who is going to stop the rest of the world from thinking the same?"
At first, she's shocked that he understands so well. But then she realizes she probably shouldn't be so shocked because he's much more perceptive than she's ever given him credit for. Damn cowboy. "Yup. That about sums it up. So you see, this really has very little to do with you, Huckleberry."
Except that it still has everything to do with him. He's the reason things turned out the way they did and he'll be damned if he can't fix it. "It's got everything to do with me, Maya. Is being a short little stack of pancakes really that bad?"
When she looks up at him again, beautiful baby blue eyes brimming with tears, she looks more vulnerable than he's ever seen her before and it shakes him to his very foundation to see her so fragile. "I don't wanna be a short little stack of pancakes. I want to be tall and beautiful, like the models in the magazines. Like Riley..."
It breaks his heart to hear her say she wants to be beautiful. As if she isn't already one of the most gorgeous girls he's ever seen in his 15 years of existence. How could she even think that she isn't beautiful?
"Aww Maya..." Leaning over her, he takes her face in his hands and smiles down at her warmly. "It just so happens that I like that you're a short little stack of pancakes."
Naturally, Maya stares up at him defiantly and nudges him none too gently in the ribs. "Really? And why is that? What's so good about me being so small?"
Lucas grins playfully and slides his hands down to her waist. "Well for one thing, it makes it really easy to do this."
Far too easily, he lifts her off of the desk by her waist and holds her against him. Instinctively, Maya wraps her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck to keep from falling, although they both know that to the strong Texas cowboy she probably weighs next to nothing.
For the first time since they met, Maya is looking down into his smiling face. This close, she sees that Lucas' eyes are a wonderful shade of olive green sprinkled with flecks of gold that seem to sparkle much too brightly in the dim lighting of the janitor's closet. And the way he's looking at her brings a rush of color to her pale cheeks. "W-What are you looking at Huckleberry?"
The rosy color that dusts the smooth porcelain skin of her cheeks coupled with the intensity of her gaze makes his heart skip a beat. Mostly because nobody has ever looked at him like that before and because the knows that the image of her looking down at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks will haunt him for the rest of his life. "You, Maya. And do you know what I see? A girl who is broken and flawed but passionate and beautiful."
She is not supposed to feel this way about her bestfriend's crush. The way he's studying her should not be making her this nervous. And yet he's awakened what feels like a thousand butterflies fluttering wildly in her stomach with just a simple smile and a few fancy words.
He's supposed to be saying these things to someone else. She's not the one he's supposed to be creating butterflies for. And yet she can't understand why he would say such things to her. "You're supposed to be saying those things to Riley, not me. Why are you saying those things to me?"
In retrospect, Maya is probably right. The world is expecting him to be Riley's white knight, but all of a sudden Riley Matthews isn't the fair maiden he wants to rescue. Because she already has a castle and a family and someday her true white knight will come along.
Somewhere in the last fifteen minutes Lucas has realized that Maya Penelope Hart is the fair maiden he wants to rescue. He wants to be Maya's white knight. He wants to give her the castle and the family she's always deserved but never had. He wants to make her happy.
Because even though Riley is everything that he could ever want in a girl, it's Maya who inspires his soul and sets it on fire. At fifteen, he doesn't yet know what love is, but as he studies the blonde bombshell in his arms he's finally beginning to understand. She's the splash of color in his life that he didn't know he needed until this very moment.
So instead of answering her question in words, because he just can't seem to find the right words, he does the first thing that comes to mind. He pushes her up against the wall of the janitor's closet and kisses her hard on the lips.
She reacts in kind as soon as the initial shock wears off. Her left hand grasps a fistful of the short hair at the back of his head as her eyes flutter closed and she kisses him back just as hard. A tiny kernel of her conscience niggles at the back of her mind but she can't find it in herself to listen to it at the moment because Lucas is doing something with his tongue that were she standing would be making her weak in the knees.
They go until oxygen becomes a necessity and Lucas pulls away first, nipping gently at Maya's swollen lips as he draws back and rests his forehead against hers. Maya uses the break to call herself back to the real world and finally that little niggling kernel of conscience is too loud to ignore.
She just kissed the boy her best-friend likes and enjoyed every moment of it, when she really shouldn't have let it happen in the first place. "We shouldn't have done that. It's going to kill Riley if she finds out her best-friend and her crush made out in the janitor's closet."
Lucas opens his eyes and looks at her with an expression so close to love it scares her. There's determination written all over his handsome face and amusement dancing in his mesmerizing green eyes. "Look, Riley is sweet and pretty and everything, but she's... well, she's everybody's girl-next-door. You, on the other hand, Maya Penelope Hart, you are all of that and more. I may have smiled at Riley on my first day here, but it was you that caught my attention. You're the girl that guys can only dream about. You're sugar and spice and everything nice, you're funny, and you're devastatingly beautiful. And if I had to dream up the perfect girl, she wouldn't even come close to you."
Suddenly Maya's heart feels like it's going to explode from her chest. She doesn't deserve to hear these things. She doesn't deserve to have someone like Lucas Friar, and yet a part of her hopes that Riley will forgive her for falling for the boy she was supposed to marry. Because the more she studies Lucas' handsome face the more she realizes that there will never be anyone else.
The more she realizes that she doesn't have it in her to push him away. Not that she wants to anyway. Instead she buries her face in his neck and clings to him a little bit tighter. "Damn you, Huckleberry. You're making it insanely hard to push you away."
Lucas only smiles and presses a soft kiss to the smooth skin of her slightly exposed shoulder. "That's the idea, little lady."
Stupid smooth-talking cowboy. Just who does he think he is?
Still buried in the crook of his neck, Maya sniffles and lets a few tears drop into the cotton of his blue t-shirt. "I don't deserve any of this, you know. And I can promise you I'm not worth the problems you'll inherit from having me around."
Silly girl. When will she realize that she's just as worthy as any other girl out there? That she deserves to be happy just as much as the other girls?
Lucas decides that if Maya can't see just how worthy she is, he'll make her see it. "Lies. You're worth it, Maya, because I love you. You will always be worth it."
Maya only frowns and pokes him between the shoulder blades with a small finger. "Love? Bucky, you're fifteen. Do you even know what it means to love someone?"
Of course he doesn't. What teenager does? But he's starting to understand. "Not really, no. But I'm starting to understand. I think... I think love is when I'm better because you're here."
It takes another minute for Maya to pull herself away from his strong shoulder and when she looks back at him there's a beautiful yet hesitant smile on her face. As if she wants so badly to be happy but is scared that everything is going to be ruined because of her selfishness. "Do you... Do you think Riley will ever forgive us? This is going to kill her."
He sees the fear in her eyes and wants so badly to make it go away. But he knows that if he lies to her then everything he's worked for will have been for naught. So he opts for the truth in the hopes that it'll soothe the storm he can see brewing behind her baby blue irises. "Honestly? Maybe not right away. It'll take some time for the hurt to go away, but eventually, yes, I think she'll forgive us because she's your best-friend. All she wants is for you to be happy."
It's not what she wants to hear, but for now it's good enough. As long as there's hope and a place for her in Riley's future, she'll take it. "That's all I needed to hear. You can put me down now."
Lucas only smiles and holds her closer, inhaling the scent of strawberries and lavender that is distinctly her. "Not yet. Just a few more minutes."
He wants just a few more minutes because he knows, and she knows, that as soon as they walk out of the janitor's closet they'll have to pretend that things haven't changed between them.
When they get back to the classroom several minutes later, and settle in their seats, they try to act normal.
But Farkle doesn't miss the way Lucas wraps a lock of her blonde hair around his finger and tugs on it playfully.
He certainly doesn't miss the small note Lucas drops into her lap when he thinks nobody is looking.
He sees the soft smile on Maya's face as she reads it and he knows that everything has changed.
You may be a short little stack of pancakes, but you're MY short little stack of pancakes, Maya Penelope Hart, and I wouldn't have you any other way. -Ranger Rick
A/N: BAH. Well, there it is. A thousand apologies for the sucky ending. I totally rushed it and I shouldn't have. Please review, because I do love hearing what you guys think of my work.