A/N: So hey guys... I'm gonna try this Lucaya [Lucas and Maya] series of one shots about their little conversations or... little talks. [See what I did :) ] Anyway if I get any interest this might become a weekly thing who knows.
Lots of Love
LfF
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in any way all credit where it's due.
i. huddled by your heart
Country music, subways, and one bench
.
.
The wind blew across Central Park like a hiss. It was cold and bitter on this particular November afternoon, and for that Lucas was grateful. Maya was already huddled in close to him to share headphones, but the next onslaught of the gusting winds made her curl up next to him and put her head on his shoulder. He felt her warm breath on his neck and there was no where else in the world he would rather be. Now he didn't exactly know why he was so elated to be hanging out all day with the sarcastic blonde with a tongue so sharp it could probably cut glass.
He just was.
The familiar country twang of a guitar filled the headphones and Maya let out an exasperated groan.
"Ugh, this is why I didn't want you to pick the songs. I give you one free pick and you choose country?! I thought I could trust you," she whined with a pout.
With her bottom lip jutting out, eyebrows furrowed, and puppy dog eyes on full blast he was almost tempted to change the song. She just got to him like that.
"Nope, sorry." He bantered back. "I've been listening to punk rock all afternoon because of you. It's your turn to suffer."
"I never had no one I could count on, I've been let down so many times I was so tired of hurtin'"
"It's cheesy country too!"
"Don't diss Tim McGraw. Tim McGraw is the man!" Lucas cried indignantly drawing glares from bundled up business men hustling to find a warm place indoors.
"Whatever, but I hope you know that as soon as-mmph!"
The last part of her sentence was drowned out as he hugged her into his chest. Oh she was going to pissed he thought with a smirk as he held her there squirming and punching his chest.
After a minute he let her go.
"WHAT THE HELL COWBOY?!" Her ocean blue eyes flashed between confusion, amusement, annoyance, and that look she gets when she wants to punch him. (Actually when she gets that look she wants to kiss the hell out of him, but not like she'd ever tell him that. Or herself for that matter.)
He just smiled with a smug heroic look and said, "Your welcome, I saved your life."
"Huh?"
God, she was so cute when she was confused...or happy, or sad, or rebellious, or angry... she was cute all the time.
"What is wrong with me?" he inwardly wondered as he shook the thought away storing it in a small shut away compartment in his heart reserved for things he didn't want to think about.
"I saved your life. That last gust of wind would definitely have swept you away." He flashed his country boy smile, and Maya swore she almost melted.
"You're really stupid"
"So tired of searchin' till you walked into my life. It was a feelin' I'd never known and for the first time, I didn't feel alone."
"But you love it."
And she did. She did love it, not like she would ever tell him or herself. Especially not herself because come on he was Lucas. The stupid and infuriating hick from Texas. Sadly, she did love pretty much everything about him. Not him of course, just his traits and that is not the same thing. She loved his smile and his accent. She loved the way that he would tip his imaginary hat or call her ma'am just to make her mad. She loved the way he always ordered water with his burger and the way he was like a brother to Farkle. She loved the way that even though they were 16 and he'd moved there 4 years ago he still got confused on the subway...
Eight o'clock that morning...
"What do you mean you're lost?" she almost screamed into her phone. She and Lucas had planned to skip school that day. It was going to be the break she needed from the nagging teachers and her sweet but overbearing best friend Riley constantly pushing her to decide her future. The truth was that Maya didn't ever want the future to come. She was happy forever being thirteen with her two best friends and one annoying cowboy.
Maya could practically taste the mocha from the Central Perk waiting for her if Lucas could hurry his ass up.
"Tell me what subway you got on." Maya huffed willing herself to stay home. He would make himself even more lost just to annoy her. She would have to track him down in Queens if she lost her cool.
"I got on the F line at 169 Street...was that wrong?" Maya could just picture his golden eyebrows wrinkled in confusion as he tried to finger trace his way to his destination on the subway map. That was Lucas. Loyal, funny, charming, and shit at finding his way around the big city. He always told her that there were too many streets to get lost on and that it wasn't his fault. Lucas said that in his home town there was one dirt road, and that he never got lost there so it was the city's fault for jumbling him up like this.
"Yes, idiot, that was wrong. Unless, of course you want to go the Bronx."
"Remind me again why we have to meet there. Why couldn't I just have picked you up at your apartment?"
"Lucas I do-"
"I know, I know, you don't want to talk about it."
"..."
"I'm hear if you do though.."
"..."
"Really Maya you know I'll help you. Is it one of your mom's boyfriends because I can totally-"
"C Line."
"What?"
"Get off at 145 Street and get on the C Line."
"Maya your changing the subj-"
"I'll meet you there."
-Click-
Lucas punched the subway map waking a homeless man sleeping on the seat next to him. The man's kind blue eyes looked up from under his ratty Yankees baseball cap.
"Is it a girl son?" the care worn man asked.
"You have no idea," Lucas tiredly replied,"it's like she's my friend, but I want to slap her at the same time. She just ugh...I don't know." He stared through the window watching the walls whip by.
"She's a keeper. A girl like that gonna make you feel a billion things, but if you get her heart she gonna love ya forever. You hear me young man, you hold on to a girl like that."
"Oh no, we're not dating. Sometimes it's like we're not even friends."
He hated that. He hated the days when he would stare at the back of her head for all of class and she would never whip around and ask for the answers to last night's homework or make fun of the way he always tapped his feet when he didn't know the answer. Lucas hated when she closed her self off in a self-imposed Maya shell of isolation.
"Yeah I know you think that kid. Just keep your head up."
Lucas sighed and nodded, gave the man a twenty and got off on 145 Street.
END FLASHBACK
"You're more than a lover, there could never be another, to make me feel the way you do..."
The next gust of wind did feel like it was about to blow her away. Maya had no choice she had to snuggle in closer to Lucas's hard toned chest. It was a cross she was willing to bear. This wasn't the first time they'd been on this bench.
This bench was their spot. They found it in the eighth grade after Maya's mother left for three weeks with no explanation. Riley had been trying to find Maya all day because she hadn't shown up to school for four days in a row. It was one o'clock in the morning when Lucas finally tracked her down...
Four years ago...
"MAYA!" Lucas called off into the snow blasted night. "MAYA COME BACK!" A million bad thoughts ran through his head. What if she was kidnapped? What if she ran away? Her mom could have up and moved her. Oh my god. What if he never saw her again.
It was the night they became friends.
"MAYA! MAYA PLEASE!"
He was running now. Screaming and sprinting through Central Park at one in the morning looking like a lunatic crackhead, but shit right now he would do just about anything. Lucas was rounding the carousel when he heard a soft sob.
"Jesus," she sniffed with half-hearted sarcasm, "you didn't have to yell."
Lucas whipped around so fast he thought his neck would snap.
There was a huddled mass of flowing blonde hair on a bench under a streetlamp. Even at one in the morning when she looked like a mess in the middle of a blizzard, Maya looked beautiful.
"Goddammit Maya.."
Lucas began to sprint to where she was, but he slipped on a patch of ice. In a spectacular display of klutziness from the quarterback, his legs flew out from under him and he smashed his head into the icy pavement. Blood splattered the crystal white snow.
"LUCAS!" Maya cried.
Maya leapt up from her bench and slid down next to the bleeding boy. The cut on his head was bad. Lucas would need stitches for sure. This had happened to him because of her, Maya thought bitterly, just another thing I've screwed up.
"Maya," Lucas muttered weakly, "I was so wo-worried."
Maya cupped his face and rested him in her lap as she quickly dialed 9-1-1.
"Help is coming Lucas. Look at me, help is coming."
He was getting woozy. He could already feel himself slipping unconscious. Somewhere in his mind he registered that Maya's hands were as cold as the ice he'd slipped on. How long had she'd been out here anyway?
"M-Maya, we missed you. Please come home."
"I know Riley missed me Lucas it's okay. I'm so sorry this happened to you. This is all my fault." Maya choked out between sobs.
"N-nno. I missed you Maya. We're friends okay." Lucas whispered resting a bloody hand on her face. "Not your fault. Come home."
Lucas passed out.
The paramedics had a lot of questions to ask the fourteen year-old with the bloody handprint on her face.
After they were through, she went home.
Friends, yeah that might not be awful...
"You know what you should do?" Lucas murmured to the curled up ball that was Maya Hart.
"Burn your stupid cowboy hat? Because I've been planning to do that for awhile now."
"No, what?! No."
"Shave off your hair while you sleep?" Lucas bald, now that would be funny.
"No, Maya you should-"
"Tie you up and send you to New Jersey"
"NO!"
"Well then what? Because I'm running out of good ideas."
"You were looking for inspiration right? For the school's art festival? Well, you should draw this."
"You're going to have to be more specific. "This" is a little vague." Maya quipped with a wry smile.
"I mean this moment with me. Just draw what you feel right now." He smiled down at her. "You do your best work when you're drawing what is in your heart."
Maya's art teacher didn't need to tell her what this next drawing meant. She was falling for Lucas.