The crackle of the fire in front of them and the buzz of bugs in the trees; these were the only two sounds breaking through the silence of the night. It wasn't an awkward silence, though. It was the kind of silence they wanted to hold onto; a comfortable quiet. The kind of quiet that they would store away for a rainy day. The group was winding down after their first day in Texas spent wandering around Lucas's farm, and they were just looking at each other. Zay to Riley, then Riley to Farkle, then Farkle to Maya, then Maya to Lucas. He was the one who broke the chain of shifting eyes. When Maya directed her baby blue eyes at him, he could still see them glowing in the dark, and was in awe of how they reflected the light of the campfire and seemed to shine a beam of light onto him. He couldn't look away.
This is how they sat- for a while. Until Zay got bored. "Y'all ever kissed anyone? Like really kissed 'em? None of that kindergarten crap."
They all giggled slightly as they adjusted themselves on the logs where they were perched, finally free to make noise. Maya and Riley rubbed their hands together in unison, holding them parallel to the fire for extra warmth.
"I have." Farkle plastered a grin across his face as he tugged his jacket tighter around his small frame.
The group gasped. He never mentioned this before, and they weren't the kind of friends to keep secrets. "Farkle! Why didn't you tell us?" Riley questioned.
"Spill it." Maya demanded, her voice purposeful.
Farkle raised his eyebrows, taken aback by his friends' eagerness. "There's not that much to tell. It was with Smackle. Nothing special." He shrugged, staring into the bright orange flames.
There was obviously more to the story, but it was also obvious that he didn't want them to pry. Zay turned to Riley. "How 'bout you Sugar?"
Riley's cheeks turned a bright rose color, impossible to be masked by the darkness of the night. "Just once. And it's not who you think." Her eyes flickered in Lucas's direction, who immediately found a spot on the ground to study.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Maya's mouth contorted into a devilish grin as she recalled Riley's story.
Riley sighed, twiddling her thumbs. "It was Charlie. Last week, actually. He took me to the movies. It was…" She searched for the right adjective to describe the swirling in her brain as her lips melted into his. "Sweet." Was all she could muster up. "It was really unexpected, we're not even close to dating or anything." Her squeaky voice reassured the group.
Zay nodded, grinning in approval. There was a silence, and this time, it was awkward.
"Well um, I kissed a few girls here before I moved to New York. Nothing interesting." Zay desperately tried to keep the conversation rolling.
Maya sensed the tension and rubbed her hands against her jeans, wiping away the evidence of nervousness on her palms before speaking. "I've never kissed anyone. Not a soul."
Lucas looked up from the blade of grass he was picking at and dropped it at the sound of her voice. There were no gasps, but she could tell they all held them back. Maya seemed so fearless, surely there'd been some situation in which she'd taken the chance.
"How?" Was all Farkle said.
Maya pressed her lips together, rolling her eyes over the hills of land on Lucas's farm as she searched for an answer. She rarely felt embarrassed, and she did not like it at all. She counted cows. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight reasons why Lucas is a true Huckleberry. It seemed like a millennium before she spoke again.
"I guess…" She took a long breath. "I guess I just want it to be with someone special. Someone who cares about me as a person. Not just some average looking guy who's up for it." Maya forced herself to look at their reactions. The gang's faces were serious, non judging, and focused on her. She loved these people.
"Maybe I'm making too big of a deal about it though." She raised her eyebrows, signaling that she wanted a response.
"No." Riley took Maya's left hand in her own. "You're not. It should be exactly how you want it to be."
The boys nodded in agreement, all of them flashing her comforting beams. Lucas opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. Not here. Not now.
Riley smiled softly at her best friend, and Maya did the same, tightening her grip on Riley's hand.
"Well, I think it's time for me to hit the hay." Zay announced, rising from his uncomfortable position on the log. "And I don't mean that literally, Lucas. Don't get any ideas about waking me up to do farm work tomorrow morning." He shot his friend a look, inspiring a laugh to escape Lucas's tightly squeezed lips.
"I think I'll follow you." Riley untangled her hand from Maya's and stood up, dusting dirt from the wood off of her jeans.
"Anyone else joining us?" Zay inquired, knowing how boring the long walk to Lucas's house was if you were alone.
Lucas shot Farkle a glare that said "get up." So he did.
"You know, I think I will." He slyly winked at his best friend before trudging through leaves toward Riley and Zay.
"You guys coming?" Riley invited, tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat.
Lucas glanced at Maya, which made his mind up for him. "No, I think I'll stay a while longer."
Riley turned turned to her best friend. "Maya?"
Maya peeked at the cowboy across from her, and spoke without thinking. "I guess I can't let him walk back alone." She shrugged, shooing her friend away. "Go Riles, I know you're exhausted."
The brunette yawned right on cue. "Just don't come back too late, okay?"
"Yes, mom." Maya teased, rolling her eyes.
Riley stuck her tongue out before following Zay and Farkle down the hill, and out of view of their friends.
Maya threw a twig into the fire and reached down to find another. "Can I ask you a question, Ranger Rick?"
Lucas chuckled. "I think you just did."
She rolled her eyes at his lame remark. "Anyways…" She continued. "Back to the question. You have to answer it truthfully, and give reasons why you answered it the way you did."
"You're scaring me…" He raised a single eyebrow, keeping his stupid grin on his face.
Maya gave him a disapproving look. "Just agree to answer it, Hopalong." She was seconds away from jumping through the fire at him.
"Yes ma'am." Lucas tipped his imaginary hat at her, ready to begin their little game at any second's notice.
"If you had the choice, would you stay in New York or move back here?" Her attitude altered and she was suddenly concentrated on him, which in return sent nerves dancing down his spine and caused him to shift in his seat.
The answer was both. He wanted Texas, and its wildlife, and open plains, and animals, and his family. But he also wanted New York, and the city life, and his new school, and his favorite teacher, and his friends, and her. He wanted her, and whatever came with her. That would be his choice, not one place or the other. His choice would be her, no matter what the question was.
"What do you think my answer is?" He questioned, still searching for the right words.
"Come here." She motioned for him to sit next to her by patting the bark beside her.
He traveled around the campfire separating them and closed the gap between them completely by settling onto the log, leaving no room in between them, though she didn't seem to mind.
Maya turned to face him, staring him directly in the eyes in a way she never had before, and he swore he felt the light that bounced off of her ocean colored irises cut through him and stop his heart, and he struggled to remain calm as he desperately pulled air into his lungs.
"I think that you love Texas. I also think that you love New York, even if you won't admit it." She gave him a knowing look and continued. "But I think you love your friends more than both of them. And I think that you would follow your friends wherever they were. I don't think the place matters to you as much as the people who are in it." She paused. "Am I wrong?"
Lucas wanted to look away. He direly needed to focus on the hills around them, or the leaves below them, or the stars above them, but the only thing he could do was stare straight ahead and swim in the blue of her eyes. The problem with that was, when you swim, there's a chance you could drown, and that's exactly what he did as he subconsciously leaned forward and crashed his lips into hers, fumbling through the motions of a kiss, which he'd only ever known from one other person.
Maya would have gasped if it hadn't been for the pair of lips attached to hers, but the shock didn't stop her from giving in to the heat she felt course through her veins; she could tell it wasn't from the fire. A different flame sparked in her as they clumsily searched for a rhythm, leaving fingertip trails down each others arms and jawlines.
Somehow his hand ended up in her hair and she thought she might explode from how nice it felt. She leaned into his palm and he tugged on her blonde locks some more as she found a comfortable spot for her tiny hand on his bicep.
Lucas forced himself to pull away, snapping back into reality. He kept his hand tangled in her hair and sat slack-jawed, his eyes dancing from her eyes to her lips. He used every ounce of self control to keep from kissing her again.
Maya stared at his mouth, desperate to know how it felt again, as if she'd forgotten. She felt like she could kiss him a hundred more times and still need more.
"Wh-…" Talking seemed like a foreign concept to her. "What did you do that for?" She ran her tongue over her pink pout, willing herself to stay away from his lips.
Lucas felt like someone had taken the contents of his brain and spilled them onto the ground. It took him a moment to gather the pieces and speak. "I wanted your first kiss to be with someone who really cared about you." He pried his eyes away from her lips to gaze into her eyes, making sure she felt every word he said. He struggled to stay afloat yet again.
Maya strived to find the normality in this. "That was really nice, Huckleberry. Thanks." She curved her lips into that infamous soft smile of hers and he was gone.
"Anytime, Pancake." He was sinking, drowning in her, and this time he didn't want to come up for air. If he was gonna drop to the bottom of the sea, he wanted Maya Hart to be his anchor.
She shoved him playfully at the sound of her annoying nickname, never losing eye contact. She counted the amber flecks in his eyes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, endless reasons why she loved Lucas Friar.