and the wild, wild skies

by fruitwhirl

maya can identify soulmates and nothing will stop her from making sure her best friend keeps hers. (1/2)

1. part one

a/n: yes, i know the fandom is dead. however, i've been working on this fic since january of 2016, and i refused to not post it. i haven't proofread the entire thing before posting it, but i do tend to proofread while i write. i apologize for any mistakes. title taken from "i don't wanna pray" by edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros

---

Soulmates aren't the ones who make you happiest, no. They're instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.

— Victoria Erickson

Inside her head, screams bounce bounce bounce, consuming her whole being. Really though, she should be used to it by now. But still, she wraps her freckled arms around her pale knees, pulls herself in until she can just pretend it's only a television show that she hears playing in the background, that the harsh words reverberating in her mind and tearing her apart don't come from her mother and her father and her teacher and everyone.

Maya knows that they don't notice their seven year old daughter disappearing through her cracked window, and even if they do, even if they did every time, nothing stops the fact that this little girl roams the big scary city all by herself. And shouldn't that worry someone?

When she passes people in the street—a pair, a woman with shiny hair and a great big smile on her lips and a man with this expression that is just filled to the brim with a sort of awe as they both look to the small child that walks between them, that sits on their shoulders—a certain sadness, longing maybe, settles in the shape of her rock, forming a pit in her stomach.

There's a distant memory, one from when she was maybe three or four and she was just starting to pick up on everything around her, when her mother and father were happy and seemed to love each other in some real sort of way, when there was scarlet twine interlocking them all much like the families Maya sees, when the red red red wasn't faded or frayed and when she felt like she had a home.

At eight years old, she meets a little girl named Riley with a bright red bow in her hair and with one year less than she, who doesn't stop singing her high-pitched warble when Maya pops into her window, looking for a place to cry, maybe. Somewhere with someone to listen.

Hope floods her lungs when a faint thread, as thin as a spider's silk, begins to materialize between them. Maybe home is possible for her, too.

;;

This is the first day of the real world for them.

Or at least, it's Riley's first day of the real world—which her cautious parents vehemently tried to delay—and it occurs in the dark, dirty underbelly of the city. A place that's full of grime and grit and people who honestly scare the brunette quite a bit, but Maya's completely at home here, from the punk pink-haired teens who take a break from their makeshift drumming in order to fist bump the blonde, to the woman with the eccentric feathered-hat sitting on a bench and smiling at the pair, to the two police officers who nod at her friend gruffly as they pass. But Maya, noticing her nerves as a carmine puff in the air, just takes her hand and threads their fingers as she pulls her into the train.

Maya can tell that Riley is shaky, that she wants to bolt before the car even starts moving, so she tethers them to one of the cool poles to keep them still. Her friend makes a comment about how she wants to be a grown up, how she wants to be like Maya (to which Maya thinks the girl is making a huge mistake; even Maya doesn't want to be herself), and so the blonde just smiles and, with the other watching, strides over to a boy with his head in his book and decides to confuse the, well, heck out of him.

She gives him a twenty second summary of their fake relationship—from their "hi, you're cute" to "we can still be friends, but not really"—and while he doesn't say anything in that entire time period, he's smiling and just for a moment, a nano-second really, she feels a tug somewhere in her chest before she turns around and shoves her best friend into his lap and sees the blush dusting both of their cheeks.

Maya grins, because colors can become more pigmented with time. And so that's what she's going to give them.

Time.

;;

Unfortunately for Riley—and by extension, Maya—neither the brunette nor the cute subway boy (Lucas, who ends up showing up in their seventh grade class) make any sort of move for each other. They just sort of hover around each other, while never actually doing anything to advance their relationship past awkward hi's and hey's and sniffs.

For god's sake, Maya has to invite him to go to the library with her and Riley and Farkle in order to progress the two's relationship, because Riley's content to keep their conversation behind a phone screen and Lucas just isn't doing anything to contradict her, so really, they're getting nowhere beyond texting while in the same room.

And it doesn't help that this boy is so… irksome. It's not like he's a bad kid or anything, but he doesn't mind teasing Maya back when she makes fun of him, without a hint of malice in his tone but more like he enjoys it, enjoys making her want to rip his head off like it's a game, and that's even worse than him outright insulting her.

Why does her best friend's future soulmate have to be so difficult?

;;

With a hard wood shelf pressing against her back and the smell of aged books surrounding her, Maya finds solace. John Quincy Adam Middle School's library isn't very large, and she doesn't necessarily sit in here to read (though, every once in a while the woman at the front desk wearing thin wire-framed glasses and a fake-pearl necklace will recommend her a novel, typically a contemporary fiction piece or memoir and Maya will actually take her up on it, and spend the next few days paging through it, satisfied).

For her, the small space offers her solitude so she can put her pencil to paper, because her apartment is empty most of the time while her mother works to feed her and clothe her and care for her the best she can, and she doesn't like the noise of the city through her eternal slightly-cracked window.

It also helps that no one ever thinks to look for her here (why would a girl like her take sanctuary in a library?).

She's just about to sneak the almost cold tuna-melt from her backpack when she hears footsteps. Looking up, she startles almost imperceptibly at the boy with his hands in his pockets.

"Could'a sworn I smelled something fishy." Lucas says, before gesturing to the cool tin-foil wrapped meal Maya's got in her hands.

She just rolls her eyes, slipping comfortably into her established role as his tormentor. "What are you doing over here, Ranger Rick? You do know that this here's a library, not your hometown's annual rodeo."

"You know, Maya, I do know what a library is," he shoots back, but she swears there's a hint of smile lacing his words. "Just wanted to get the next book in this series I'm reading."

Sitting up straighter, the blonde quips, "What, Ranger Rick Goes to Pluto, third in the Cowboys vs. Aliens series?"

"That's a movie."

"Actually, it's a comic series. Graphic novels, ya know."

"With pictures?"

"And words." She thinks that he laughs, or that he's at least suppressing laughter, so she grins too, a real smile, teeth and all.

When he doesn't say anything else, she goes back to her sketch and he moves to the right of her to grab a book from the top shelf (she wouldn't have been able to reach it without help, but he doesn't even need to get on his tiptoes, that bastard).

Even though it isn't her business (but has that ever actually stopped her?), Maya raises her eyebrows at the boy, at the book with a familiar slick vermilion cover in his hand. "Percy Jackson?"

Lucas nods, saying something about how he read the first three books before he came here, and how he hasn't gotten the chance to finish the series yet. That he figures that now is as good a time as any. As he leaves, bids his goodbyes, she wonders if that was what he was reading on the subway.

And then, she puts graphite to paper.

;;

Maya is livid.

Red is a color she usually associates with love and belonging, and maybe that's some component of her current emotions, but really, she can only see angry flames when Farkle tells them about his stupid bully who makes fun of him and his stupid turtlenecks. Even though he tries to persuade her to not get aggressive, she's well on her way out the door of the janitor's closet when she feels two hands grab around her sides and lift her up up up.

Maybe the sensation of her feet leaving the ground but not of her own volition confuses her enough for her fury to subside, just for a moment, and long enough for her to snap a little at Lucas, the culprit.

He tries to calm her down and she groans and he placates and later, when he's got a boy shoved against the wall, she figures out the secret Riley made her promise not to tell her. And so, she takes the world in her hands, wraps her legs around his torso and her arms around his neck, and swears to herself that she'll take any and all of Lucas' pain that would shake Riley's perception of him.

After all, you don't want your best friend's soulmate to be a hot head.

In order to truly understand why Maya is pushing this date with Farkle so hard, it's imperative to remember that Farkle is not her soulmate, not even a little bit. For one, she's pretty damn sure that Riley is the closest she'll ever get to having a soulmate, but she can easily recognize when there's that spark for someone, when they think that they've met her soulmate (not that people really believe in forth with their information… she's not going to at least, that's for sure). soulmates; it's generally believed to be a myth, because no one who can see soulmates ever comes

Riley's got this ridiculous idea that Lucas is into Maya (which is utterly, utterly ridiculous), and so Maya has to calm her down and reassure her that Ranger Rick would never ever want to go out with her. She doesn't want her to lose the blind optimism that makes her, well, her.

And she's noticed over the years, ever since Farkle said that he'd always love the both of them the same—good fucking luck loving her, but whatever—and they're only thirteen and fourteen but she can already tell that he's not going to be keeping that promise forever.

Especially when there's a glimmer of red in the air that hovers right around Farkle's mop of brown hair whenever he looks at Riley, and Maya knows that Riley believes so ardently in soulmates (believes that Lucas is already hers without her needing to speak up), and Maya can't let Riley know that Farkle's soulmate is, well, Riley.

So, she's on this double date with Farkle and Riley and Lucas, or… she was, and then she sees Josh with a much older, much more mature, much more beautiful girl than her and maybe she's just imagining his maroon beanie but she really hopes she isn't.

Maybe she's feeling a little down on herself and would like some company, but she doesn't expect Lucas to nudge Riley up to stand with her. Maya feels a soft smile spreading across her face, especially when, in thanks and maybe just a little nostalgia, she gently pushes her best friend into her soon-to-be-realized soulmate's lap and watches as the girl takes the boy's face in her hands, laying one on him.

Maya's proud of herself when she sees the air around the pair tickled with carnation pink because it's working.

;;

Except when it doesn't.

That summer, the two don't speak to each other at all, even when Maya forces the four of them to go to the movies or to Svorski's or to various parks together. They're awkward, and the blonde has a hard time dealing with their unbelievable inability to communicate.

"Why won't you just talk to her?" She asks Lucas one day, after Farkle walks Riley home from the scary movie they just saw (really, they're both terrified of horror movies: Riley because of the general blood, guts, and gore; Farkle because of the horrifying scientific inaccuracies), while she takes the cowboy for a walk around her neighborhood as they eat their incredibly overpriced snow-cones.

He hums, distracted. "It's just not as easy, you know. It wasn't nearly as hard to talk to her when we were 'just friends', or whatever that means."

She scoops out a piece of colored ice, soupy red in her spoon, and puts it in her mouth; she notices how his mouth is strawberry from his own cup. "But if you like her and she likes you, you both deserve to at least give it a try."

"Yeah, I guess."

When they come to a crosswalk, traffic is heavier than normal and Maya knows that he gets nervous crossing larger intersections ("All you had to worry about were cows, huh?" "I'm embarrassed to say that you're not wrong."), so she takes his hand in hers real rushed, pulls him across the hot cement quickly because the calm little pale man had turned a blaring crimson countdown at the halfway point.

The moment their feet hit the sidewalk again, she drops his hand and he lets it hang in the air for just a second, and she ignores it.

Their strides slow after a while, and Lucas looks down at her, his mouth quirking up at the edges.

"What?" She asks, knowing that his smirk just grows wider.

"Nothing," he says, maybe just a little too fast, too quick. "It's just, your lips are bright red."

"Um—"

"And so are your teeth. Seriously, you look like a vampire."

She rolls her eyes, but she does feel the a sticky line of syrup down her chin and she finds herself giggling, if only for a minute because this entire scene is ridiculous—here she is, with her best friend's soulmate and they're both covered in corn syrup and really, where the hell is Riley and why does she act like it's so hard to talk to this guy when it's so easy.

They continue joking around, and maybe she calls him Ranger Rick or Huckleberry a few times, but when she stops at the edge of her building he raises an eyebrow, obviously bemused.

Chuckling at his puzzlement, she tells him that this is where she gets off, and soon enough, she opens the falling-apart gate, and is scurrying up the rickety, rusted iron rungs to her window. When she looks down from her fire-escape, he's still there, peering to the sky with the slightest hint of a grin on his face.

Later though, when she blows a kiss to this boy and neither of them are speaking to each other, Maya has to bite her tongue and dig her nails into her palm to keep from screaming "you're freaking soulmates!" at the pair when they continue to be awkward and not talk about their date or their kiss or whatever the heck happened.

Honestly, she doesn't even need for them to get together right away, because really, they have quite a few years to build a relationship, not everyone can be Cory and Topanga straight off the bat, and she won't let them know about their fate until like, their wedding day. There's some flexibility, but if they don't at least address the fact that their lips touched—for just a brief moment, Maya sees the future as clear as day, their romance never progressing beyond "almost" or "maybe" or "unofficial."

It gets to the point where Cory looks ready to tear his hair out from not knowing what's going on, where their classmates literally press Riley and Lucas together in the middle of the middle school hallway, Maya in the middle, both physically and well, emotionally. And maybe she gets a tiny bit excited when the two give up and give in and confirm that they're going to go on a date, even when there's something small, a hard peach pit, settled in her stomach.

The light feeling she gets during the night, when she can feel that sort of awkwardness and uncomfortableness surrounding the pair… that should be strange, wrong to her. However, there's a pull somewhere in her ribs and she falls asleep with the ghost of a smile on her lips, and her dreams are red.

;;

"So, what bad thing did Ranger Rick really do back in Texas?"

"He'll tell you when he's ready."

"Guess we'll never know, then."

"We'll see about that."

;;

"You're a year older, huh?"

From his place on the floor a few feet away from her, Lucas grunts, a non-committal sound that makes her want to giggle. And so she does.

"If it makes you feel any less like a grandpa, so am I."

It's his turn to crack up, but he doesn't, just the corners of his mouth turn up as he flips the next crisp page in his book. "I know, I was there for your fourteenth birthday, remember?"

"I guess I forgot everything after getting tied up and being held hostage by my friends," she deadpans, sinking further into the blush bean-bag chair that her rump is currently parked in.

Now, they sit in the library, the plastic-covered science fiction novels pressing into his spine as he leans into the bookshelf to laugh. In her lap is her latest read, which Maya throws at him when he won't stop "ha-hurr-ing." She narrowly misses his head, and he stretches to catch it as it goes over.

Turning it over in his hands, he raises his eyebrows. "Looks like I caught this fire."

"Shut up, Cowboy, that wasn't even funny," she says, punctuating the words with the rolling of her eyes. A small frown makes its way onto his face, but only for a split second, and he mutters that he didn't think she was into Suzanne Collins.

Her own features scrunch up, only a little, but just as breezily as she does everything, she remarks that Riley's making her see the new movie that's coming out, but won't let her actually watch it with her until she finish the series.

He nods in response then goes back to his own book, The Secret Life of Bees. Harper allowed each of them to pick their own independent reading from a list of about twenty, and while it might not be good for her reputation, Maya has already finished her selected novel (The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis—come on, a badass female time-traveler having to deal with the bubonic plague? How great is that?).

"How are you going to ask Riley to the semi-formal?"

The words sneak their way out of her mouth before she can even think to censor them, and Lucas looks up at her, eyes wide and filled to the brim with an air of surprise. When he stutters out a "What?" she wants to smack both herself and him.

"I know it's still like a month away, but she's been harping on me since Christmas and she just really wants to know when you're going to ask her—"

He cuts her off there. "Maya, you know I'm not going to ask her this early, especially not in some big obnoxious way."

"But the white horse—"

"—was your idea." He snaps his book closed. "She's gotta know that we're going together, I'm not going to put on a grand spectacle because—"

"Because that's not you, I know." Sighing, she tries to string along the words in her head without out-right telling him that the two are soulmates. "It's just… look, you two really like each other," with that, there's a weird look on his face. "And Riley has these big dreams about her life is supposed to go, and I'm the one who has to make that happen."

His eyebrows scrunch. "So, you're saying that I should do this to make her happy?"

For a moment, she considers lying to him, considers telling him that it was just a suggestion, but then, she shrugs, because Riley's happiness has always been her number one priority, and there's a hardness to his eyes she can't quite place. He shakes his head vehemently, says that his moment will be his moment and that if he feels that his moment is asking Riley to the semi-formal, it will happen.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. You got any Wild West movies I can borrow?"

(They actually end up watching a Wild West movie a few weeks later at his mom's apartment while they were supposed to be working on a project—except, well, it's not really a Wild West movie as much as it is Rango. She laughs and throws popcorn at the screen when he can't figure out how to get it off the Spanish version, and they end up having to live with subtitles even if she can pick up most of the words.)

;;

Maya has spent her entire life building a wall around her heart, building it up so high even she can't see the ground. She puts these ideas in people's heads of this ferocious girl who doesn't give two shits about what you or anyone thinks, so the fact that somebody would comment on her height, comment on it to her face without her laughing along with them, it cracks her armor just a little.

The actual situation doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that she teases Ranger Rick and he tries teasing her back by calling her a short stack of pancakes in the middle of class. What infuriates her is the fact that her best friend, the one who she works too hard to make happy all of the time, doesn't even refute the nickname. And maybe she's making too big a deal out of this, but she always always stands up for Riley even when the girl is very clearly in the wrong and maybe she just wishes her loyalty was returned in its entirety.

After Eric Matthews "fixes" everything (that point is arguable—even he says that it runs deeper and oh boy, he's not wrong), she's sitting on the bench just outside the history classroom, minding her own business and mindlessly doodling in her journal, when someone plops down right next to her.

"What do you want, Sundance?"

"I'd love if you'd call me by my name, short-stack."

"Sorry. My mistake. What do you want, Flat butt?"

"I just want to be treated like a human being."

She groans, and Zay chuckles like he knows something she doesn't.

"So, you do know why Lucas lets you pick on him, right? I mean, it's obvious."

Furrowing her eyebrows, she remains silent.

"Why have you been wearing so much red?"

Deep in her chest, her heart does this weird little beat in iambic pentameter but she just scoffs in response. "I haven't. And what does it matter to you anyway? I wear what I want when I want."

Somewhere from the back of his throat comes a sort of hmpffff that totally belies his disbelief in the truth of her remark. Maya huffs, and pushes herself up. She makes a point to clomp her heels across the tile when she goes back to the classroom, but just before she gets to the doorway, Zay calls out after her.

"Red is his favorite color, you know."

;;

Maya knows she's never going to find a true love, someone who's going to love her back completely and unconditionally, and that's just proven when the boy she definitely loves (no it's not just a crush; it's real) rejects her for what feels like the hundredth time. After convincing Riley of her dire need to see him, to sneak out, she goes to his dorm room at NYU and notices that there isn't one red piece of furniture or decoration or clothing in that stupid dull prison of a room.

So yeah, maybe she isn't mature enough for him, but she's going to be.

They're only a few years apart and in five, ten years, that isn't going to matter in the absolute slightest. And she lets those girls convince her that it's totally feasible and just… it's all crap. She's never going to find someone who likes her and who she likes without any sort of obstacles.

She'll play the doting best friend and the aww-ing maid of honor and eventually the tired old spinster, and that's okay. That's okay.

If there's one thing she knows about herself, it's that she doesn't like to be pushed. If there's one thing that she knows about Riley, it's that she loves to push. If there's one thing she knows about Farkle, it's that he doesn't push her at all.

And if there's one thing she's come to know about Lucas, is that he only nudges her, gently, with a smile and a heart as open as his hands.

;;

Because they are thirteen and fourteen and her best friend is utterly ridiculous, Maya and Riley spend an entire Saturday morning shopping for semi-formal dresses. Three weeks before the semi-formal.

Truth to be told, while her mother's manager position at the bakery does make it easier to make ends meet, their income isn't a whole lot more than it was at the Nighthawk diner. So, Maya's goal is to get Riley to buy a dress that she absolutely adores, and really, Maya just wants something that fits, isn't too expensive or too frilly. She finds a dress that poofs a little but looks like the sea, and Riley's is a daisy as gentle and kind as her spirit.

They're swiping their metro cards, carrying their purchases (Riley fell in love with a sparkly pair of earrings), and they just pass through the turn-style, when the brunette smiles at her. "I love your dress. The red really complements you, you know?"

"What are you talking about?"

Riley scrunches her features together, stepping onto the relatively crowded train. "What do you mean? The red is super pretty."

Though Maya thanks her, she still furrows her eyebrows, and when she gets home, she tries it on again. She swears to God that her best friend is color blind.

;;

Maya doesn't understand how she could even consider Charlie over Lucas, the latter of whom they've known for more than a year now. Sure, the Gardner kid is cute, and funny, and maybe a little bit charming, but he's not Lucas, he's not her soulmate. Riley's soulmate.

But Riley's talking to the brown-haired kid, and she's smiling and being her usual adorable goofball self, and there's a blush on her cheeks that really shouldn't be there. Before Maya can react, though, Farkle swoops in and saves the day, like always. She wonders if keeping him and the brunette apart is fair, but then she's hopping, bopping along to the poppy music as well.

And then she runs into someone, her back pressing into their front, and then there are warm hands outstretched, placed gently on her arms to balance her.

"Slow down there."

She turns, and it just had to be him. "Why are you here dancing with me, Huckleberry? Riley's right over there."

There's this little look on his face, not really happy or sad or angry; but rather a hint of something she can't quite place, something soft, and he abruptly takes her hand to lead her further into the crowd. He explains it away with an "I'm not dancing with you, I just love this song!" as they push their way to the front, past the swarm of barely-there teenagers and disgruntled chaperones.

But he smiles down at her, and it's so quick that she can barely feel her heart fall somewhere to her stomach.

She can't find it within herself to smile back.

A cool rainbow of colored lights falls over their faces as the band plays, and it's funny, she thinks, that the blue and red have combined to form a violet shine over her friends.

;;

He shouts to the world that her art, her happiness is important, and she sings to the universe like his is too.

;;

If there's one thing Maya hates, it's leather (or fake leather) couches. And that's all this stupid yogurt place on 2nd has to offer. In the summer, the shop is flooded with ice cold air, and in the winter, it's muggy and her butt sticks noisily to the seat because she's taken a liking to wearing short denim skirts all of the time. Even in November. (Which okay, yes, is technically her fault, but she just shaved for some reason and she would rather freeze to death than waste this precious opportunity.)

She's got her feet propped up on a little table, her sketchbook in her lap and her half-eaten yogurt set aside. This is the third draft of this drawing she has been struggling over for the past hour and dammit, she just wants it to be perfect for—

"Is this seat taken?"

She wants to say yes, she wants to fire off some quick retort but there's been so much going on in her mind and she's just drained, and all she's got "saving" that space is her yoga bag (which she totally doesn't use for yoga, but it was cheap and carries the important things, like her notebook and her pencils and her three dollars and her metro card). So she shakes her head no.

He beams, and she frowns, and he puts down his tired satchel that he for some reason hauls around and she says, "You do know that you have to be a paying customer to sit down, right?"

Chuckling, Lucas moves to the row of frozen yogurt machines just a short distance away. And because she's tired of her fingers being covered in graphite dust, and because the shop is relatively empty, she pops up right after him, her departure making a weird squish when her legs leave the pleather.

Lucas doesn't take much time to pick a cup and fill it up with two different flavors. "Why did you follow me?"

"French vanilla and chocolate? How boring can you be?"

She's smiling but she's pretty sure he can't see it, and incredibly, he just laughs and they make their way to the toppings bar. "You see, the fun's not in the actual yogurt, but rather in what you put on top of it."

"That is actually the lamest thing I have ever heard."

But she stays by him as he deliberates over each and every choice in front of him. Thankfully there isn't anyone else in the store, because it takes him about ten seconds to decide on each and every topping, and there are fifty different options. And if he picks it, it takes him another ten seconds to delicately place it onto the chocolate/vanilla yogurt.

He ends up picking (cold) hot fudge to drizzle over his concoction, and when the cashier starts ringing him up, Maya goes back to her seat, and to her half-melted cup. A few pools of pink have streamed from the now dull chocolate.

She's picked up her sketchbook when he joins her again. "How much did that cost you, Cowboy?"

He looks down, instead deciding to pick at a lone raspberry atop a mountain of treats, says something like "two-fifty" and she laughs. "That's gotta be at way more than a cup, and at like what, 44 cents an ounce, that's gonna be at least five bucks."

Under his breath, he mutters "five-fifty" and she laughs, choosing to take that opportunity to spoon a candy-dusted strawberry of his into her mouth and settles further in the couch, tucking her feet underneath her. A drip of red lands on her staunch paper, and she has to roll her eyes at the stupid staim.

"What were you working on?"

She's twirling her spoon, and his question is quiet, shy, and she decides to humor him. "A surrealism piece."

"Like that one from seventh grade? With Farkle in the nest?"

Maya looks up at him now, and the sincerity in his eyes softens her own features, and she smiles, just a little bit, as she nods and she makes a comment about how she's surprised he remembered. He doesn't say anything, just slowly eats his yogurt as she turns back to her sketch. She works on detailing the hide of the mare with the astronaut on top as they sit in a comfortable sort of quiet.

And then he's leaning against her ever so slightly and when she glances up again, his eyes are on her. Suddenly, she forgets how to breathe, and she asks him to tell her a story from Texas to take his focus off her.

"Well, this one time I helped give birth to a horse."

And so she shoves a handful of syrup-y strawberries in his face, his skin and his smile now stained red red. "Do you seriously not have any other stories?"

;;

"Is that horse story the only thing he's got, Zay?"

"I mean, there was this one time when he fell off a sheep."

"Huh. Tell me more."

"I love this story! It's my favorite Lucas story."

;;

She wonders why he's the one chosen to "contain her" when Riley is the one crying, water tracks streaking down her cheeks. He's too concerned about her when she's fine, when it's her best friend (his soulmate) who's in tears.

Texas is hot. Even at night. In the fall. Why didn't anyone tell her this before she changed into a dress with lace and long, heavy sleeves?

Farkle sits next to her, his hands on his knees and his eyes to the night sky, white dots scattered infinitely about it. She finds constellations she otherwise wouldn't be able to in the city, and it's calm. It's peaceful.

Zay's somewhere with Vanessa (getting ice cream?), and Riley had frantically dragged Lucas back inside to tell him something important. Her gaze flickers to the main house for just a fraction of a second, but the little genius boy catches onto it, of course he does.

And he asks if she's okay, and she says, "I don't know."

Because she doesn't know what she feels, she doesn't know if it's affection for… or just concern for Riley and her future (even if she's possibly face to face with the girl's possible soulmate, if she doesn't even know what is going on right now).

There's a crunch, then, and they both look up to see Lucas standing there in his stupid red plaid shirt, with two water bottles in his hands.

He does this weird, forced little grin, explains that it's a little over eighty degrees right now, and hands a drink to the both of them. And then, for some reason, Farkle makes some dumb excuse, that he has to ask Riley something important and it definitely cannot wait. What is so goddamn important here?

She doesn't know how it happens, but after he leaves, Lucas ends up just a few inches away from her, parked on the same log as her. But she keeps her eyes to the bright night sky, just like Farkle. And then she also doesn't know why she says it, but she whispers that it's so beautiful out here and Lucas just hmmpfhs in agreement.

"I used to come out here when I was little, when my parents were fighting. But I would never bring bug spray, so I'd end up all eaten up," he says, and it's quiet.

Maya chuckles. "That was pretty stupid of you." And then she exhales slowly. "But I used to do that too. I mean, obviously I didn't go out to the wilderness when they got into an argument, but I'd go and explore the city."

"How old were you?"

"I was seven when he left."

He doesn't act sad for her, or apologize for something he never even had a hand in, and for that, she's grateful. All he can say is "well, I'm just glad you came out in one piece."

A little sigh escapes her, little by little, and she rests her head in the crook of his neck because dammit, he's so close and she's so tired. She asks how old he was when his dad left.

"It was actually my mom who left. I was thirteen, and she got custody and decided to move to New York, and I couldn't go to my old school anymore anyway, so I went with her. It's why I ended up at John Quincy Adams." He laughs a little. "But it's also how I ended up with you guys, so maybe it was a good thing that my dad was such an ass."

And then, he asks her about herself, her story. She fiddles with a loose thread on her sleeve. "My dad said he was going to the grocery store. He's been gone for a very long time."

This time he doesn't say sorry either, but he does put his arm around her in a way that shows he understands. She can feel his palm heavy on her shoulder, his skin radiating heat just like the fire beside them, and his heartbeat, she swears, reverberates throughout her entire being like the tap-tap-tapping of a drum.

So she whispers a very soft, very faint "Thank you" and he doesn't say anything else, and they sit there for the rest of the night, surrounded by a dark sky littered with pinpricks of starlight and the hushed crackle of sleepy life.

And later, when Riley tries to "fix" her again—fix her relationship with her father, fix the fact that she's a million broken pieces on the inside—the words that spill from Lucas' mouth, his hands, are warm, almost fragile. It reminds her of hope.

;;

For some godforsaken reason, they play the Couples Game at Riley's New Year's party. And since Riley and Lucas are not actually a couple but Riley and Charlie are (?), and because they somehow roped Maya into the charade, she and Lucas end up as partners even though they are as far from coupledom as can be.

But, she figures that if she can dodge all of the questions, make herself look like a fail while lifting up Riley in his eyes, it won't be too detrimental.

But, he's sitting so near, and when Maya eats her card, he looks at her, confused, but smiles at her with his mouth similarly full of papercuts—she doesn't really know why (she does really know why) her stomach drops as his card prompts the choice "campfire or library?"

Hers, well, hers reads: do you believe in soulmates?

She doesn't really know anymore.

However, she does know what being with someone at midnight means. She knows it means wanting to spend the year with them, and when the entire group goes up to the rooftop, she knows what that means too.

She knows that when Riley "breaks up" with Charlie (she's not sure if they were even officially dating), and that when Charlie moves sadly to the bench and Lucas is standing alone, the best course of action is to let Riley go to Lucas, and to take Charlie by the hand to this area that seems private but is actually in the direct line of sight of her two friends.

When the adolescent chants countdown to zero, she presses her lips to his and grins big and wide for all to see, and automatically feels like the worst human being in the world when she glances over to see Lucas's face fall. But she also sees him take Riley's hand, so good. Her plan worked.

;;

After Texas, after Lucas nearly dies riding a bull and after Riley and Lucas get together (she thinks, she's still not sure, it's all really abrupt), Maya starts spending her time afterschool in Harper's classroom (Lucas walks Riley home now). She doesn't do much, just lingers, helps sort papers or grades sometimes, but is mostly there so she doesn't have to go home alone to an empty apartment. And she thinks that Harper enjoys her being there, or at least doesn't mind it.

So one day, when it's cold enough outside that her toes could turn blue, and she's actually working on homework for once while perched on one of the smooth wood desks, she asks Harper if she believes in fate.

"What do you mean?"

Maya sighs. "I mean, like soulmates. Do you believe that everyone has a soulmate?"

Harper scrunches her face, taking a break away from reading an essay, and looks up. "I'm not sure. But I like to think that we aren't bound to one thing or one place or one person, that we get to direct our own life. I don't like things decided for me."

"So even if you know that these two people are meant for each other, you still think that you should just let things… be?"

"Yeah, I'd like to let a relationship develop naturally." A pause. "Why?"

Maya chuckles, just says "just curious" and goes back to biting the end of her pen and well, thinking.

So, she tries to let things be.

She doesn't continue to lead on Charlie, who up until now, she's been kissing underneath the stairwell, out of view from passerby and in between classes because public displays of affection are discouraged in middle school hallways.

Sure, she still takes him to the movies anytime something decent is showing, because 1) he will pay and buy popcorn and 2) he's a good kisser and she's a normal fifteen year old girl. Plus he's not that much taller than her, even when she decides to wear flats (even though that's never). It doesn't take much effort to drag him down to meet her lips.

Okay, so maybe she's still leading him on. Maybe he still thinks that she still likes him (even though that's a stupid reasonable assumption). She doesn't like him, she just likes not being alone and some old spinster and she likes being with someone who doesn't mess up the cosmic order of the universe, or whatever the bullshit saying is.

There isn't anything attached to Charlie, from what she can see, and she likes that. No strings—red or otherwise. Just how she likes it.

;;

It's the summer preceding their first year of high school, before everything changes forever.

Or maybe not. That's just what Maya thinks.

Everything is just going so well right now—Farkle's happy with Smackle, Zay and Vanessa apparently had a very amicable breakup after eighth grade graduation, and Riley and Lucas are an actual couple? Like, they don't really act any different than before, except that now they always sit together at the movies, and at Topanga's, and… well… everywhere Maya is.

(She isn't dating anyone right now, not really anyway. Do her twenty minute make-out sessions with shy boys and loud girls in dark corners count as dates?)

The group expands to include the ever adorable Smackle, as she's set to attend Abigail Adams High with them and wants to know what "public school kids" are like. Maya's gotta give her props for at least trying to not be stuck up.

And the summer is filled with lots of group dates, from seeing silly flicks at the little cinema on 3rd, to finding the cheapest, most horrific pizza in all of Manhattan, to seeing Matilda on Broadway for Farkle's fourteenth birthday—the seats are actually nice, not nosebleed but center orchestra, and afterwards, they go to Olive Garden and Maya and Zay do in fact stuff breadsticks into her purse when the others aren't looking, and they annoy everyone by singing "Naughty" at the tops of their lungs as they explore Times Square.

"Even if you're little, you can do a lot," Zay belts, arm in arm with the blonde.

She leans into him, laughing, nearly tripping over her red dress. "You mustn't let a little thing like, 'little' stop you!"

"If you sit around and let them get on top you…"

"…might as well be saying that you think that it's okay."

"And that's not right!"

"And if it's not right!"

"You have to put it right!"

It's nearly midnight, and they're tumbling into each other, guffawing and they're just a little high on the night and the rainbow'd lights of the city and Lucas and Riley and Farkle have to pull the pair from running into grope-y creeps and irritated tourists with Midwestern accents.

Afterwards, they actually do buy the worst pizza in all of New York, and it's at 2 Bro's Pizza* by Madison Square Garden, but it's only a dollar a slice and Zay throws down a ten dollar bill and doesn't ask for change, just for slices. And they all end up writhing in pain on the Matthews' living room floor with only a half-eaten piece of pepperoni left over (Riley had one, Smackle just the half, Farkle one, Lucas two, and Maya and Zay split five). In the morning, Topanga and Cory, who were tempted to yell at them when they came in half past one, find the kids piled on top of each other: Maya and Riley on the couch, Smackle on the chair, and the boys on the ground. And they leave them be.

;;

It's pouring rain ("just sprinkling!" Riley cuts in when she complains) and for some reason, they're exploring Central Park as their shoes dampen; "they," of course, referring to her and Zay, and Riley and Lucas. She wonders if the other two think of this as a double date. (She hopes not.)

Riley cajoled her into coming despite the weather by promising that they'd go to Chelsea Market afterwards, and yes, it's a good twenty minute ride, and yes, they'll be on the subway in drenched clothes, but Maya has been craving Creamline shakes for a few days now. Plus, Riley offered to pay, and it's not like she's gonna not take her up on that.

Because it's late August—the seventeenth to be exact—and school is starting in two weeks (high school), the main tourist season has ended, or for now at least; it'll pick back up around Halloween. The park isn't really a hot tourist attraction anyway, so coupled with the rain, it's pretty empty, other than a few college students are scattered underneath the protection of the trees, some sleeping, some reading.

Nonetheless, it's quiet. Aside from the occasional giggle and bubble of chatter that seems to come from their little group, of course. They were walking in pairs (Riley/Maya, Zay/Lucas) up the steps, to one of the big rocks that overlooks the lake, but Maya ends up falling behind when they get to the top, switching places with Lucas to walk with Zay when it gets too quiet.

Maya asks if he's ever been here before, bumping her shoulder against his, and he smiles something small. "I came here with my sisters when I first moved here. It was cold, and," he glares comically at the overcast sky, "not raining."

"Riles guaranteed that we'd get milkshakes after, so," she shrugs. "Just make sure to watch where you put your feet on the rocks. It's gotta be slippery."

They trudge along the worn path in silence, the air heavy with humidity and something else.

Her gaze is soft when she looks up, at RileyandLucas. "They're good together, don't you think?"

"I guess." Something about Zay's voice is low and… odd. Unsure, maybe. "You know, they think that we're a thing, right?"

"Yeah, I know." She guffaws, her laughter blossoming from deep in her belly. And then stops. "Just to make sure, you're not secretly in love with me."

"Correct."

"And I'm not secretly in love with you."

"I'm assuming that's correct."

She chuckles. "Good to know that we're on the same page."

Zay opens his mouth, looks like he's about so say something capital i Important, but then Riley shouts that the dangerous! stone ledge is just right there! And so they all play along, and run after her.

A few minutes later, Maya's scurrying down the rock, following Lucas because she does not want to walk all the way around the stupid trail to get to the lower ledge even when it's sprinkling, when she can just jump down and she guesses that he doesn't want to either (it's gotta be easier for him, though, with his long limbs). The other two decided to take a simpler detour in the form of a trail that winds around a big group of trees.

She's fine at first, cracking jokes at the boy below her, hand and foot holds relatively in reach, but then, all of the sudden, her sneaker slips and she's just grasping at air. The fall is short but terrifying and ends with her back against a chest. They both propel backwards for a quick second before he balances, his arms an anchor around her frame.

"You okay, Maya?"

Nodding, she steps back from Lucas ever so slightly. His hand, hesitating, rests on her elbow as he sweeps his eyes over her, a furrow in his brow and a softness in his gaze and in his voice that puts a heavy lump in her throat.

Her knee stings and she turns away, turns away to face her bright-eyed friends who are just coming around the bend. Riley smiles real big, the rain plastering her hair to her cheeks, and Zay is grinning too, but his hair does not stick to his cheeks.

They all sit on the rock overlooking the small lake, a pond really, in this order: Zay, Maya, Riley, Lucas. By now, the weather has cleared just a bit; it's still a little overcast, and a little drizzle-ly, but the sun is peeking through clouds, its rays shining down on them just a tad.

Zay Maya Riley Lucas.

She glances over at the pair, at RileyandLucas, and she sees Riley kiss his cheek and the both of them smile and Maya decidedly does not smile.

Then Zay nudges her and she looks up, quirking her brow, and he asks, "What happened to your leg?"

So she looks down at the aforementioned appendage, and sure enough, it's blood red.

"Do you know?"

"Know what?"

"You know…."

"Know what?"

"You really don't know."

"Isaiah Babineaux."

She doesn't know when she started spending more time with the two Texans than with Riley and Farkle and Smackle, but she knows that she loves seeing cheap, horrible movies at the cinema with her boys, loves goofing around downtown with them, loves eating dinner with their families before crashing on the sofas, and maybe she's just a little attached to them. Like now.

Riley is visiting family in Philadelphia, and Farkle and Smackle went to some STEM fair at Yale, so both Lucas and Maya are at Zay's apartment. Which is normally busy right about now, but his three sisters are all back in Texas with his mother, and now, it's just him and his dad for the week.

At the moment, though, it's only him and Lucas and Maya, since it's a Tuesday afternoon and his dad is still working. Zay told her one time where he worked, but she forgot… maybe he does something for the military? Though, it doesn't really matter, not when Zay's making grilled cheese with fancy cheese and she swears he said something about having Netflix on the new television.

Turns out, he just got one of those Smart TVs, the kind that you don't watch actual tv on but instead, like, Netflix and Hulu and shit. Lucas tosses her the remote and she perches herself on the arm of a chair and messes with the buttons.

Zay shouts that it's the red one from ten feet away, and she squishes her face up.

"What the hell is Amazon Prime?" Zay elects to ignore her, and she groans, turns her attention to the big screen in front of her.

She scrolls through the list, hums, then dramatically reads aloud: "The Newton Boys: Four Texas brothers ignite a crime spree in the 1920s, robbing more than 200 banks and one cash-laden train—without ever killing anyone. Sounds right up your alley, Huckleberry."

"Maya, you know, I was feeling more Michael Scott and The Office."

She rolls her eyes. "Last time I was over, I got to season six. Zay's still on season three and I am not sitting through that again."

"Season three is the best, though."

"What even?" Maya shakes her head fervently. "I mean, it takes the whole season for Jim and Pam just to—"

"Shut up!" Zay hates spoilers, hates them so much that he accidentally flings his spatula out behind him, and it ends up hitting the breakfast table.

She gives Lucas a look like, Can you believe this guy? He just laughs. "So what do you want, then?"

Zay requests Avatar the Last Airbender, also announcing that the sandwiches are almost done. Maya flips through, coming up blank. "They don't have it, dude."

Another spatula goes flying.

They settle on binge-watching the first season of New Girl, and after they finish eating, Maya grabs a bag of pretzels from the pantry, places a flat pillow on Zay's lap, and lies across the both of them on the couch as they start the fifth episode. On Lucas', her feet, where his hands hover around her ankles, and she rests her head on Zay's lap because she wants to stretch out but the rug is itchy and the boys won't move ("Move" "No" "Fine"). Maya can't help but make ridiculous impressions throughout it.

"Quickdraw, have you seen my timepiece?"

"We built this Schmidty, we built this Schmidty on Tootsie Rolls."

"Zay, have you seen my driving moccasins?"

"You can't drive, Maya."

"You don't know me."

"You wouldn't even be able to reach the brakes."

"Shut up, Flat Butt."

And with that, she moves to sit in between the boys. Out of spite, she digs her bare toes into Zay's side, and the movement in Lucas' chest reverberates and she can feel his chuckle against her cheek.

Five hours later, at eight, they order Chinese food from this place down the street (Lucas wanted burgers, Zay pizza, and Maya sways them when she mentioned she had a crumpled up coupon for an extra side of fried rice with two entrees, and when Lucas says he's never had orange chicken before and she's absolutely in shock. When the food comes, he thanks her because damn it's pretty good and she smiles because of course she's right.)

"Okay but Cece and Schmidt belong with each other."

"Whatever."

It's eleven at night and they just got to the episode about the bathtub, and they spend ten minutes arguing the practicality of a bathtub—Zay claims that they're a God-given gift, blessing the entire human race. Lucas agrees with Schmidt that it's just "testicle tea" and Maya hits his shoulder with one of those stiff decorative pillows, but she ends up going along with it because really, baths are just gross and she hates cleaning tubs.

She should probably leave, but it's dark out and her mother isn't home anyway (she picked up a few graveyard shifts at Nighthawk so they can go on a trip to Montauk in July). Zay lends her one of his maroon shirts emblazoned with a big ATM (he's got a lot of them), as well as a pair of his thirteen year old sister's sleep shorts. They're soft and covered in pink hearts and Maya gets a flash of RileyRileyRiley.

Lucas ends up staying too, and the little blonde laughs at him when he starts to take off his shirt.

"You are such a guy, Sundance."

He rolls his eyes, but keeps his shirt on, and they all settle back on the couch with a pan of Zay's super sweet brownies and some Doritos, and when Maya's fingers are completely saturated in cheese dust she wipes them right on Ranger Roy's cheek and she grins something big and wide at the streak of fake cheese, and she doesn't really know why.

They decide to get as far into season two of New Girl as they can, and then they pass out around two in the morning.

(The clock flashes 4:27 when Zay wakes up. Bleary-eyed and all cramped-up from his rather uncomfortable sleeping position, he glances over at his two friends. And the small blonde is curled up into the big blond like he's her home, and his arm lingers on her waist, his fingers a forgotten whisper against the bare skin of her hip where her shirt rides up.)

---

Three months into her freshman year of high school, and Maya is adjusting. Quite well, actually.

The thing is, she doesn't see much of Riley anymore, at least comparatively. Sure, she still goes over for dinner at the Matthews' four times a week, and they have spontaneous sleepovers on the weekends, but they only have one class that isn't an elective together, due to Riley's cheerleading block and Maya's advanced art class mangling up their schedules. Plus the blonde learns she has an ear for languages and she switches to Honors Spanish, so that becomes something to navigate too.

Maya spends more time with Lucas and Zay than she does the rest of the gang, both inside (they share two classes together where it's just the three of them) and outside of school. Tri-weekly breakfasts at the Babineauxs' (he lives a few minutes' walk away from her, on the way to school actually) with the other two days at Riley's, and weekly dinners at the Friars'—his mom makes the best chili in all of Manhattan.

So she has gotten to know the two families rather well: Zay's three sisters are named Olivia, Grace and Isabella (she gets the latter two mixed up frequently); she calls Ms. Friar "Lisa" because she isn't quite sure on the whole last-name-of-a-divorcee thing, as her own mother just changed her name back but she doesn't know Lisa's maiden name and doesn't want to ask. Her divorce is still rather recent.

Lucas invites them all, the whole group, over to his place for his sixteenth birthday, February 15th. Lisa bakes fudge brownies with little powdered sugar and chocolate chips on top, so Maya, appropriately, exclaims that she "makes damn good brownies" and the older woman lightly smacks her shoulder, admonishing her for cursing.

And then she scolds her further, making the blonde smile, because "Maya Penelope Hart, don't you own any pants? It's twenty degrees and you're still only wearing those skirts with stockings!"

Maya just rolls her eyes at her and chuckles, and asks Riley to pass the mashed potatoes. But the other girl has this weird look on her face, eyebrows furrowed and the edges of her mouth turned down. However, Riley deflects any question of "are you okay?" instead shaking her head and looking down at her steak. Zay is the one to pass the mashed potatoes.

Later, when Maya is in the kitchen, helping Lisa wash and dry the dishes, she notices Riley slink into Lucas' bedroom; however, instead of the blond boy following her, it's the little genius boy. With the punny little science-y shirts.

She isn't sure if she should check up on them, or if she should just wait it out, so while she's deciding, she scrubs a pot and Zay comes up, swinging the fridge open to grab a soda. Pausing, he holds the Dr. Pepper can in his hand.

"Hey Flat Butt, I'm about to freeze my ass off here."

It's a joke, but he frowns and doesn't move. "Did you see Riley? She was really upset."

Maya nods, bites her lip and asks why didn't Lucas go after her, then? Zay only shrugs that Farkle went with her, if that's anything.

"Farkle has always been a good friend to us," she says quietly. "One of the best, actually. Especially to her."

"It doesn't bother you, then. You don't think he's messing with your plans for Lucas and Riley?"

She quirks an eyebrow at him, glares. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know what I'm talking about." He huffs. "Haven't you noticed that Riley hasn't worn any red at all these past few weeks?"

But Lucas has.

With that, Maya makes the carefully thought-out, completely rational decision to avoid Lucas for the rest of the night, especially after she sees him kiss the brunette on the corner of her mouth before they leave the apartment.

And when they go bowling at this place on 42nd and meet up with a few of Lucas and Zay's other friends, she makes sure to grab the tallest junior varsity baseball player she can find and kiss him in a particularly dark corner until the manager kicks them all out at midnight.

It's not like she's good at bowling, anyway (plus, the shoes never fit her right).

;;

Maya starts, well, what you could call "serial dating." Or, at least, that's how Lucas and Zay put it.

Just random boys and girls she runs into in her classes, and on the subway, and in the little mom and pop shops she frequents. She still comes to each and every one of their baseball games, but she's always with someone (different every time), and she typically disappears around the 7th inning.

By May, she's dated her way through freshman and JV basketball, and a good portion of girl's track, on her way through the dance team, and apparently, Lucas and Zay are just a tad bit sick of it.

With their homework and books spread out around Lucas' room—the pinstriped bed, the oak desk, the itchy carpet that she is currently lying on—the trio is decidedly not doing homework. Zay cracks jokes from his geometry textbook, Maya teases them both from her Spanish verb conjugation assignment, and Lucas tries to write an essay over the Gulf War but constantly interrupts himself to shoot back a witty response at the girl's lighthearted ribbing.

But then, the subject turns to the girl she brought to their latest (and final) baseball game of the season—what's her name?

"Jenna."

"Jenna what?"

She scrunches her nose, desperately trying to pull it from her memory. When that doesn't work, she settles on a name that sounds right. "Mohen?"

"Are you telling us, or asking us?"

Her ears are hot, the color of tomatoes, and she looks up at Lucas, but his features are all furrowed and stern and really, it feels like an intervention. So, Maya tells them so.

"It's not that, Maya," the blond boy starts.

The dark-haired boy finishes, "It's just that we're worried that this is going to come back and bite you in the ass."

She asks what they mean, and she gets a seemingly rehearsed, perfectly synchronized and frustrated: "You don't even know how many dates you've had in the past two weeks."

Groaning, she flops onto her back because she doesn't know what to say. In the end, the result is a pointed glare at the both of them (but mainly Lucas) and a short retort, though not in length but rather in tone. "Well, when was the last time you guys bought new clothes?" She sits up, faces her full torso to Zay.

"I mean, Zay here wears nothing but plaid shirts! But at least he changes the color scheme up a little bit every once in a while!" And Lucas. "Because you Bucko, I swear to whomever's out there, you only own like five shirts! They're all blue! Why are they all blue?"

He raises his eyebrow, but his mouth drops open ever so slightly.

Zay interrupts. "He does have a couple of red shirts."

"What color shirt is he wearing right now?"

Pause. "Oh."

She huffs, says softly that she needs to get home, that it's late. Which is silly because she knows that Lucas knows that her mother is working tonight and it's already dark, and it's not like she hasn't spent the night here before. But he doesn't protest, just offers to walk both her and Zay out of the building (who only lives on the other side of her apartment on 8th) once she gathers her books and papers.

The entire way there, though, he seems to have someone caught in the back of his throat, on the tip of his tongue. He never does spit it out.

So Maya just does a silly and quick three-fingered salute when they part ways, just to… to keep him from worrying? She isn't sure.

But when they get to the subway entrance, she races down the stairs and waits by the gate for Zay after swiping her card. The tunnels are relatively empty, as it's around eleven on a Thursday night, and they jump on the L train. And since it's late, and pretty devoid of life, they're able to snag seats by one of the doors.

He too looks like the cat's got his tongue, but him? Zay says what's on his mind (it's what's gotten the two of them in trouble before). Maybe they've only got four stops in between here and 1st, but there's not a chance in hell that he's gonna keep his trap shut for those few minutes. And true to his character, he doesn't.

"Do you really think shoving your tongue down everyone's throat is a good way to get over him?" She opens her mouth to reply something along the lines of, well, she doesn't actually know what she would say, because Zay cuts her off before she can even formulate a sentence. "And don't give me that bullshit that you don't like him, because I know you do."

She sighs. "You don't understand—"

"What? That he and Riley are soulmates?" He scoffs.

Something curdles up, deep inside of her. Maya's always known that he knows her gift (is that the word? it feels like a curse most of the time) for reading soulmates, but now he knows that she knows that he knows that she knows. That scares her for some inordinate reason, and she just nods.

Quieter now, because there's an older woman across the aisle looking at them oddly, Zay continues. "You and I both know that the 'red strings of fate'," he says with using his fingers as exaggerated air quotes, "are rather flexible."

Again, she doesn't know how to respond; so she just scoots closer to him and rests her head on his shoulder, grasps his hand in hers, and pouts. He rubs her thumb with the pad of his. "I just miss when it was easier."

"When you did everything humanly possible to get them together? Because that's what you think the universe says?"

She exhales a little laugh, doesn't bring up the fact that the two deserve endless happy days (together) while she does not, and they don't really talk for the rest of the trip. When they get to her apartment, he softly suggests that instead of "doing the universe's bidding," it might be better if she just let the universe work itself out. She tells him that whoever she decides to sleep or not sleep with is her decision, but sighs as he kisses her cheek in parting.

Her mom is passed out on the couch with only a dim lamp on that casts long shadows against the peeling paint of the wall, and since the air conditioning is either too harsh or not harsh enough, Maya picks up a thin blanket from its normal place on the chair, gently spreads it out over the woman so she doesn't wake up shivering.

She goes to her room, but before entering, she turns on the light and looks back over her shoulder, for only a moment. In the dim glow, she sees that the cotton covering her is a cranberry shade.

;;

Finals week.

It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, really.

Sure, on Sunday, she stays way too late at Zay's studying for their Geometry exam, and Lucas helps her with Life Science on Tuesday, their books and study papers spread out on a booth at Topanga's. Riley does have a breakdown the night before her Spanish final—the brunette never did get the hang of the language—and Maya sleeps over, for the first time in weeks.

On Thursday, they have their finals for third and fourth period: so, Spanish and English (separately), History tomorrow. The pair meets up with Lucas and Zay at a McDonalds for a quick breakfast (Farkle and Smackle are exempt from taking their exams because of the number of honors classes), and make it to their exam just two minutes before it starts.

On Friday, the six of them, Maya-Zay-Lucas-Farkle-Smackle-Riley, write an essay for their final final of their freshman career. The prompt: Does history always repeat?

They leave that day, arm in arm, embracing the last day of their first year of high school.

Sure, it's just the tip of the iceberg, but they're together, and that's what matters the most.

;;

That summer, Maya gets a job waitressing at Topanga's. Because, well, she wants to go out and do things, but Manhattan is expensive no matter where you go and she doesn't want to keep taking money from her mother, who works hard to keep the lights on (plus, having a little extra to help pay for the rent can only make both of their lives easier) or borrow from her friends.

And really, the gig's not bad. The little café on the edge of the Village is small, and there's normally only one other person working (sometimes her mother, but more often than not it's a college student taking summer classes at NYU), as well as the person actually doing the baking, but they're only there for the morning and lunch rush. Her uniform is non-existent, so long as she wears something that covers a decent amount of her skin and her little apron.

She's also pretty good at what she does—drinks aren't all that hard to make, and Maya takes delight when someone places an outrageous order because it feels like a lot a challenge. And it makes her appreciate her mother more than anything, because even just working a non-demanding part-time job giving kids pastries is more than she's ever worked before.

Since Katy is the one to make the schedule, Maya can typically get whatever hours she wants. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays are normal for her to put down, with her friends making their rounds around mid-afternoon to joke around with her when business slows down (Lucas and Zay her most frequent customers).

But because the two Texans (namely Lucas) went back to Austin for a few weeks in the middle of June, Riley has been hanging around more often than not, sometimes with Farkle, sometimes Smackle, tagging along for strawberry smoothies. Except Smackle prefers to have tea, a hot jasmine in a ceramic wide-lipped mug, because she has problems with sensory processing, and the texture of most smoothies bothers her; however, Maya figured out that if she replaces the banana with Greek yogurt in the mango-banana, it's smooth enough for the girl to handle but still tastes good. She eats it with a spoon instead of a thick straw.

Isadora Smackle grinning a great big grin is honestly one of the purest things Maya has ever seen, and she wants to keep it that way. But right now, she's got a worried Riley on her hands.

"What if the plane malfunctions?" She stresses, spooning her vanilla ice cream anxiously into her mouth. "What if it falls out of the sky?" Plop. "What if the pressure is too much and one of them gets airsick?" Plop. "Oh god, what if they didn't even get on the plane? Lucas can be pretty forgetful sometimes."

The shop is nearly empty, aside from her three friends and an elderly couple eating muffins on the couch in the corner, so Maya is just wiping down tables. "It's gonna be fine, Riles. Zay just texted me saying that they've already landed. There's probably one from Lucas sittin' right there in your pocket."

So she checks it, and pouts. "Do you think I should go down there to pick Lucas up? JFK is really big."

"They're flying into LaGuardia, it's not that big. Plus it's an hour bus ride from here. By the time you got there they'd already be gone." Maya sighs, glances over at Smackle and Farkle who are smiling at each other and they're so so rosy. She tries to ignore colors nowadays, because she knows they're really very fickle pigments, but still. "Don't worry yourself to death. Lucas is probably going to be striding through those doors in an hour or two, and you're going to kiss him and you're probably going to go on a cute date tomorrow where he makes up for being gone so long."

There's a dreamy "yeah" and Maya teasingly rolls her eyes, tosses her the summer reading book for English, kept under the counter for her breaks, verbalizing instructions to read it. And so the smiley brunette takes it with a not so smiley face, sinks into one of the comfy red chairs near the counter and starts following orders.

Noticing her continued uneasiness, Maya makes her a peach smoothie to calm her nerves, and thinks maybe she should have put a sedative in it because the poor girl doesn't seem to have slept a wink the night before.

Two playlists that fill the shop with soft guitar and mellow vocals later, she hears the tinkling of brass bells that signals the arrival of another customer. Maya doesn't look up from washing one of the glasses, but morphs her mouth into a big smile and greets them warmly.

"Maya!"

With that, her eyes flash to the voices that she's oh so familiar with. And while she doesn't run, since she's wearing four inch wedges because Zay bet her over Skype that she couldn't work a full shift in them (she's about to be ten bucks richer), her boys both do a little awkward slow jog across the space and the blonde shuffles toward them at breakneck speed.

Zay wraps her up in a sweet hug first, warm (like him). When they pull away, she starts to ask how the trip was, tries to mention that Riley's in the bathroom, until two arms encircle her in a tight embrace and really, she's lifted up off her feet, out of her shoes even, and maybe's she's beaming, her mouth stretched much wider than she wants to admit, and maybe she thinks she feels his grin against her neck too.

Lasting longer than either of them means for it to, but ending quicker than either of them wants it to, it gets cut short when they hear a squeal that she'd know anywhere. Lucas sets her down gently, the expression on his face a mix of delighted and something else entirely. But she turns to chat with the other boy while Riley gleefully greets him with a keen kiss on the cheek.

There's the sound of bells again, and Maya notes the tall man in a short hat searching for a suitable place to sit. She excuses herself to go help the latest customer, and just as she's moving to get his order, Lucas tells her that Pappy Joe says "hello" and she can't help but smile.

;;

Starting the first Saturday of summer, every other Saturday she asks off from work, and with the extra time, the two explore some part of New York that Lucas hasn't gotten to see yet.

One day is spent in Times Square (which he's apparently never seen in the daytime, not that he's missing anything), and she tapes a paper sign on his back that says I'm From Texas! and he doesn't understand why so many people are laughing at him. They buy overpriced souvenirs and tacky t-shirts—he gets her an I Heart NY baseball cap, with the heart being big and red and Maya glares at him in the checkout line before he pushes it over her hair. She retaliates with a pair of boxers with the same message sewn on the butt. The cashier looks at the pair oddly, but Maya just smiles sweetly and they're on their way.

Another is spent in Brooklyn, tasting fancy donuts and ducking out of the warm rain and into little eccentric shops as consequence. They end up at a weird burger place, with a rather wide variety of sandwiches; she makes him purchase the one with shark meat, purely out of a dangerous sort of curiosity. Plus, the look on his face when he bites into it and the way everyone on snapchat will see the utter disgust on her story makes her guffaw.

(On their adventures, he's liberal with his touches, and she is too, whether it's in the form of his arm snaking around her shoulders as they explore Lafayette Avenue, or her jumping on his back and forcing him to carry her through Broadway. He probably doesn't even realize what he's doing, and she resigns herself to him never caring for her back in the same way, which is why it's easy for her to touch him. Everything reciprocal doesn't mean anything and anything unreturned means everything.)

Today, they go to Coney Island, and as they explore the boardwalk, she likens him to the entrance of Luna Park. Lucas just rolls his eyes, shoots back that he is not at all similar to the giant, mustached face. To which she laughs. They end up splitting forty-eight credits, and first thing, she forces him to ride the carousel, proceeding then to mount the highest painted horse she can find. Later, it's the Thunderbolt and the Cyclone and the Brooklyn Flyer, and then it's pink sugar-sweet cotton candy and trying to win a stuffed monkey from the rigged amusement park games run by bored college students. And feeling too much like a date, because his hand finds its way to hers at some point and their fingers intertwine more often than either of them care to admit.

Every other Saturday is spent laughing, and every other Saturday is spent with a gnawing at her side that she's doing something very, terribly wrong (she is).

;;

On the mornings she doesn't work, they start running together (Zay and Riley try to join them sometimes, but neither wake up before ten most days). Because there isn't a park equidistant from the both of their homes, they alternate between Washington Square Park and Tompkins. And when she still wants a good workout but her shift starts at nine, she'll meet him at Washington Square early so she can go straight to either his home or Riley's to clean up a bit before clocking in.

They typically meet up around dawn at the fountain at Tompkins, or the vacant chessboards at Washington. Although, Lucas has attempted to cajole her into waiting until the sun has completely risen when they go to the latter, because he worries about her getting mugged or something on the subway at six am. She laughs at each of his arguments, saying that she'll just "run away" from potential attackers. And besides, the pink of the sky at daylight provides inspiration in multiple aspects (it's not uncommon for her to forgo a session just to find a place on one of the benches, and he'll sit quietly beside her as she captures the beginning of that new day with her messy pastels that stain her pale skin).

Maya loves running—jogging, whatever it's called when she's basically sprinting while he gaits at a more leisurely pace because of his much longer strides. The feeling of the wind whispering at the wisps of hair that escape from her unkempt ponytail, the feeling of the concrete underneath her worn tennis shoes, the feeling of something wholly encompassing that overcomes her when she tilts her head up and notices his wide grin and crinkled eyes settled on her.

After they finish their loops throughout whichever park they've chosen, the pair sometimes rendezvous with the rest of the six at the bakery for counterproductive pastries, but on days like today, when they're hot and tired and hungry, they'll do rock, paper, scissors to decide who gets to pick where they go for a cheap breakfast.

Maya wins the two out of three, so she grabs his hand, exclaims that they're making breakfast, and drags him practically kicking and screaming down the block to her apartment ("Maya, I can't cook and neither can you!").

The gate to her building creaks open, and he groans when she pulls down the ladder. "I am not going up that thing again, not after last time."

"Have fun going up the stairs then," she shrugs. "The elevator's broken and the air conditioner's out for the entire building."

She hears a muttered "How the hell do you have so much energy?" after she starts scurrying up, and when he follows, is pretty sure he accidentally misses a rung—last time, he did the same, but it was raining and he slipped and nearly fell thirty feet. That was a good day.

"Hurry up, Huckleberry," she calls from above him, because he's only just reached the rusty ladder for her floor. After finagling with the lock, Maya slides the glass open so that she can climb in, lie on her stomach on her light blue comforter and watch the show that is Lucas stumbling in.

She laughs when he does, when he trips over something she doesn't even know, and when he curses in response. He's so accustomed to Riley's bay windows, which are larger and closer to the ground, that he often forgets the dimensions of hers (really, so does she—there are definitely moments when she misjudges the distance and doesn't launch herself far enough up and looks like a little kid trying to hop onto a rather high counter).

And then Maya howls as he tries to take a seat next to her, obnoxiously leaning against her side, overwhelming her with an odor that is undeniably, disgustingly boy. In return, she pushes him off, onto the carpeted floor covered with her dark rug. He throws a puffy pillow that fell earlier at her, and she actually considers making this into an all-out pillow fight, but she really only has two pieces of ammunition and goddamn he smells.

So Maya just yells at him to take a shower, opens one of the bottom drawers on her old dresser and tosses a pair of red mesh shorts and a plain shirt that he keeps here (it doesn't mean anything, she keeps clothes for all of her friends here). "Make sure to wash behind your ears!"

Catching the bundle with one hand, he chuckles, but nods anyway.

His water shuts off after about five minutes, and when they pass each other in the middle of the hallway, she whispers that she's going to beat his time by at least a minute—even if she's completely lying—and he smirks and for some reason her breath hitches as they just brush their arms against each other. She quips at him to make sure to turn on the ceiling fan in the den because it's hot as balls in there.

When she gets out of the bathroom, strands sticking to her face and to her shoulders, the sequence of events goes like this: she's patting her hair with her towel as she gripes at Lucas that she wants to make pancakes already. He snarks that making pancakes actually requires skill and that they don't have any, and she responds with "I have four boxes of pancake mix," to which he retorts that it's too much pancake. But he grabs the ingredients anyway as she reads them from the list, perched on top of the counter.

Two eggs, a cup of milk and a big mixing bowl later, they've put the batter on the pan and are hoping for the best.

Which, they shouldn't have, because Maya tries to flip the first pancake but it clings to the surface of the metal. The second they left on too long and turns into a nice charred color, and the third, well. It's permanently attached to the ceiling now, they think.

Somewhere around the sixth or seventh pancake (after several whines of "Why don't we just call Zay?"), Maya is able to toss the pan up without the cooked batter flying out, and the color of the top is really a nice light brown.

She's cheering, Lucas is cheering. They're ridiculous, whooping in the empty apartment and he lifts her up up up, spinning her around the tight space because "We actually cooked something without Zay!" After some time, she pulls her head back from his shoulder where it was resting, and they lock eyes, if only for a moment, their faces flushed crimson with excitement.

Maybe he's leaning in, or maybe it's her, or maybe it's the both of them but she can feel his breath on her lips, sweet and warm; their faces are growing closer and closer and—

"I think the pancake is burning."

Shit.

Maya jerks away again, and he sets her down gently, and he's right, it's definitely blackened. Dejectedly, she scrapes it off, and as she's pouring the creamy batter again, she wants to say something. She knows that Lucas does too, the silence is brimming with unasked questions, and answers that both of them are afraid to hear. But she's saved when his phone chirps with an incoming text.

He has to go to the living room to grab it, so in those few seconds she composes herself. Flips the pancake. When he returns, he runs a hand through his hair and says that he forgot, that he's sorry he has to bolt, that he has to meet Riley for coffee on the other side of the Village.

As he's gathering his stuff, she finishes cooking the pancake and wraps it up in a thin paper towel. She hands it to him at the door, and he furrows his eyebrows in bemusement.

"Breakfast on the go." Maya smiles, a bit reserved. Just as he's in the doorway, she affirms, "Nothing happened, right?"

It takes Lucas a few seconds to process the words, but he nods anyway (if somehow reluctantly), and leans down to press his cool lips to her forehead in parting, like he always does, even if she hasn't showered yet and is drenched with sticky perspiration. He lingers for a moment, his mouth hovering on her hot skin, so close to her hairline, and she doesn't really know what to make of it.

And then he leaves.

And then she's left alone with a half-empty bowl of mix and eight burnt pancakes, and the realization that she's falling desperately for her best friend's soulmate.

Personally, Maya tries to blame it all on leftover adrenaline from their run and her lack of sleep. She wonders what explanation he gives for it.

Nonetheless, they slip back into their established roles from before—nothing more than best friends, who spend the night at each other's apartments more often than they care to admit, watch more Cutthroat Kitchen and Chopped and Chopped Junior together into the wee hours of the morning than they want to admit. They still have a drawer in the other's rooms, and they still run together, and they still go to bookstores and ice cream shops on her days off. But now, there's a heaping side of guilt to go along with it, for her at least.

So maybe she clings to the soulmate stuff. Why shouldn't she?

Riley calls her at least once a week, saying that she and Lucas had a fight and that she doesn't know what to do.

So maybe the blonde will sneak out in pitch black when that happens, to slip into the brunette's bed and comfort her, to gently run her fingers through her dark hair, to hold her, to tell her that it's just some sort misunderstanding on his part, to wash away the bittersweet longing that clenches its fist around her heart.

So maybe, when she wakes up and goes on her runs with Lucas, she tries to convince him to apologize to Riley for whatever the hell the problem, to fix this.

And so maybe, just maybe, Maya tries harder than ever to push them together, to push her own feelings away because she's sure that letting them consume her like the salted and angry waves of the Atlantic Ocean will only lead to her destruction, and to the destruction of the most important thing to her—Riley and Lucas, together and separately.

;;

A month into their sophomore year of high school, Maya gets a girlfriend.

More specifically, she starts dating Missy Bradford.

Her friends all give her hell for it (even Zay and Isadora, considering they weren't even here when she was a Bad Thing), but she explains that she was on a date with a boy watching whatever the last Avengers film was, and she got bored and said she was going to the bathroom halfway through and ran into Missy and they hit it off.

She doesn't explain to them how she's so desperate to run away from everything, the bottomless sea in her mind filled to the brink with questions she doesn't want the answers to, that she finds the first girl with pretty brown hair and pretty brown eyes and pretty pink clothes who will give her the time of day. And runs with it, runs with it all the way to one of the cleanest stalls in the theater, runs it all the way until she's out of breath with the girl's lips hot on her neck and has somewhat of a guilty conscience for the boy she left.

There's more than one reason for her to begin dating Missy Bradford, the girl who threatened to break four of them apart so long ago.

For starters, it's easy. It's easy because the brunette isn't very sensitive, she doesn't want to talkaboutfeelings, and Maya gladly welcomes this change of pace. It's easy because all it takes is one bright little smile from the blonde to get the other to do whatever the hell she wants. It's easy because when she wakes up in someone else's bed, it's not Riley or Lucas staring back at her.

Maya brings her along to gatherings with her friends, at first. Riley seems to be able to push past her old feelings toward her, as does Farkle, and Smackle is just awed by the tall girl who speaks so confidently. But then Zay and Lucas look at the newcomer oddly, the former with suspicion and the latter with a sort of melancholy she can't quite understand the cause of (of course she does, she doesn't fool herself).

Missy tells her one Tuesday during their only class together that she doesn't think they want to hang out with her very much, but that she's actually totally cool with (she doesn't need their approval). Maya asks if she's sure, and in the next period (Spanish, Algebra II) they both get hall passes at two-fifteen sharp and, well, the dark-haired girl makes it very clear to her that she's very sure.

The only event she drags her to is one of the boys' baseball games, when they play their biggest rival halfway through the fall season. She greets Lucas and Zay at the dugout, her fingers hooked into the metal of the fence with Missy behind her, and wishes them luck. Like normal, Riley has cheerleading practice or a volunteer club meeting or something like that.

Strangely enough, their blond superstar is the one to strikeout twice, to miss three balls that came straight for him at his position at shortstop, to cause an error. A boy sitting below them mutters out that he seems distracted, that he's not on his "A" game, and Maya furrows her brows.

Her breath catches with every play. They end up winning, but just barely.

She catches up with the pair—her boys—after the coach stops shouting, but Lucas seems dismissive when she asks if they still want to go out to Topanga's like they always do to hang out, but with Missy tagging along. It takes some convincing, but he relents, and the four of them head over to her place of work and they all get strawberry blueberry banana-raspberry mango smoothies.

The next hour would definitely fall under the broad category of "tense," and she can't quite put her finger on why. Lucas quietly sips his drink for the duration of the visit, and she contributes his uneasy silence in most part to feelings towards his mistakes while on the field. But the thing is, he's always been confident on the field—his mother often jokes that he was born with a weathered glove in one hand, and a tattered baseball in the other.

So she asks him, whispers the question of "are you okay?" when Missy gets up to throw away her straw and Zay goes to use the bathroom, and he just frowns, and his gaze slips to the empty space to the right of Maya and she furrows her eyebrows in response.

When they all get up to leave, Lucas pauses as she and Missy move through the door, catches Zay by the arm and mutters something in a pleading sort of tone. She thinks she hears the words "Maya… walk… Missy… make sure… home okay."

Maya doesn't see his face, because her girlfriend is pulling her onto the sidewalk, into the pitch black of the night. And then the two boys follow soon after them, while the blond turns when they get to the corner and the other sidles up next to her. As they make their way through the winding streets, Zay regales a rather comical predicament from a few days ago, something about an accident in his chemistry lab that resulted in someone losing an eyebrow.

Since Missy lives on 3rd, a little bit of a detour, she's surprised when he continues walking with them when they turn away from their usual path home. But she doesn't bring it up, because they're actually having an okay time, and Missy is even smiling at the boy's antics.

They drop her off at her apartment, and when they get to their neighborhood, Maya's glad that Zay came along with her; the city can be fucking terrifying at night, especially when you're a girl the height of a twelve year old. And then he opens his mouth, and she's suddenly not as appreciative as before.

"So, do you like her?" His question is layered, as his always are.

She bites her lip. "Yeah, I do."

"More than you like Lucas?"

Honest. She's trying to be honest. And it's not like he doesn't know when she's lying.

"I'm trying."

;;

Over breakfast one morning, Zay mentions that the spring musical begins casting next week.

Maya raises her eyebrows in an attempt to feign interest; her voice is flat when she asks which one they're putting on. And she nearly spits out her scrambled eggs when he responds with "Hamilton."

"Isn't he that old guy that got shot? Who'd write a musical about that?" She downs a bit of orange juice while he tries to explain that his life is a bit more complex than that, but she cuts him off. "What's the point of you telling me about this?"

Zay clears his throat, just as one of his sisters comes into the kitchen to pop a Poptart into the toaster and groans. Grace, she thinks. "Are you trying to get Maya to join your stupid little history sing-a-long?"

The older girl widens her eyes, turns her gaze to the traitor. "Isaiah, you know I don't do school productions."

"But—"

"But nothing Babineaux."

She gets up to wash her plate in the sink, grabs her oversized, striped cloth bag that functions as her backpack and throws it over her shoulder. "Come on Benedict Arnold, we gotta get to school."

It takes two days of convincing and Lucas of all people making a case for the show ("Et tu, Huckleberry?"), until they coax her into at the very least listening to the soundtrack on the cowboy's Spotify account during one afterschool study-session. And maybe Maya falls in love with it on the wine-colored couch, and well, it's suffice to say that they don't get any schoolwork done at all.

At her audition, she reads for four different roles—Angelica and Eliza Schuyler, John Laurens, and Maria Reynolds (she wonders a little bit about the third one, but afterwards, Zay tells her that the creator of the musical has gone on the record to be totally down with gender-swapping since basically every part is a tenor). A callback for the first two.

Farkle is excited about the show, because he hasn't been able to participate in a school production since the disastrous Romeo & Juliet, and he's set on reclaiming his title of King George. Missy didn't seem to care for the music when they were lying on her bed one night, Riley's busy with Student Council, and Smackle isn't interested in musical theatre, aside from watching her boyfriend perform.

Zay seems like he would be happy with anything, but his face lights up when the name his own is under is Aaron Burr ("What? I'm sinewy"), especially with his position as a humble underclassman. Farkle gets his desired role as the outrageous tyrant, Lucas John Laurens/Phillip Hamilton, and she laughs when she sees Eliza Schuyler above her own.

As she's signing the space next to the character to say yes, she accepts the role, Maya elbows one of her boys in the ribs and says, "Looks like I'm gonna be your mama for half the show, Ranger Rick."

He chuckles at that.

In the show, her sister Angelica is played a senior, with a complexion of deep russet, and gorgeous ebony waves tied back in a loose braid that cascades down her back. Plus, she's got at least seven inches on Maya.

Her name is Rajaa Kamara, she learns when the older girl catches her after the fourth run-through of the choreography of "Helpless," and the wrap up of the day's practice, and much like the Schuyler's talkative personality, she decides to dispense a whole bank full of knowledge to the sophomore. This advice covers an expanse of general school-talk, like don't wait until your last year to start taking the SAT, and then she even gets to dating when Maya stops her right in her tracks.

"Look, I'm not in a love triangle, I promise. I already have a great girlfriend, I'm fine." She takes a sip from her water bottle.

Rajaa rolls her eyes, leaning down to roll up the ends of her thin sweatpants. "I'm just saying, I know my character very well, and believe me, you're in some sort of something and," she pauses, her gaze flitting to a figure behind Maya, before continuing, "I just think that you deserve to believe you're worth so much more than you're giving yourself credit for."

Then, she jerks her head slightly and the blonde looks over her own shoulder to see Lucas leaning against the railing of the dance room, wearing his bag on his back and holding hers in his hand. He's talking to the guy who plays the titular character, a gangly Korean boy who loves to rap, but it's obvious he's actually waiting for someone (for her).

"I'll keep that in mind, Rajaa." She bids the girl ado, catches up with Lucas and grabs her backpack from him.

He beams down at her, all teeth and eyes that crinkle up at the corners. And then she slips on her bright red trench coat that he and Zay tease her endless for, because it's almost too long for her when she isn't wearing four inch heels.

Like today—while tall boots are part of her costume (really just so she doesn't look like a child next to everyone else), the director wants her to learn the routines in sneakers first, which, honestly, is a pretty logical idea and the feeling when her feet are so sore so raw that she can't even put on her wedges after rehearsal without wanting to cut them off at the ankle just isn't worth it. So she keeps her torn-up, flat-footed shoes on as she walks with Lucas down the front steps of Abigail Adams, consequently not even grazing his shoulder.

With practice taking up so much time in the school week, she isn't able to work at the coffeehouse aside from the weekends, and without the additional income, her mother ends up picking up a few night shifts at this diner in Tribeca. That being said, Maya does not want to go home to an empty apartment just because of her own stupid selfishness—it's something she beats herself up over when alone.

If she could, she'd stay at Zay's, but his parents don't let her stay on week days (something about them thinking it inappropriate), and Missy's household has the same rule. Her next bet would be at the Matthews, but Topanga just had a baby (a small little girl with bright eyes filled to the brim with a sort of unbridled hope that must be genetic for that family), and Maya doesn't want to intrude any more than she has to.

So, one night she wanders her way back to the cowboy's flat, guilt wrapping around her ankles, weighing down each step. At first he seems a bit confused at the blonde's climbing through his window; then, he listens to her explanation and her rarely incessant vulnerability, and wordlessly moves to grab an oversized t-shirt from his dresser for her to throw on (he turns around every time she changes, which she appreciates).

Lucas offers his home to her when she needs it—and when she doesn't need it, but he doesn't tell her that—and even after catching them one morning when they both overslept, Lisa embraces the idea of a girl sleeping in her only son's bed with open arms. Or, as open as they can be.

Of course, it didn't start out like that.

He had been set on making a sort of bed on the floor with an extra comforter he found in his tiny closet.

Maya groaned, dragged him up on the queen-sized mattress, which yes she made fun of him for, and started to hop off until he caught her arm and said softly, "You're tiny anyway, short-stack. It's fine."

And with that, they silently made the decision to regularly cross this boundary, the boundary with lines that should definitely not be crossed when they're both in committed relationships.

How do they always end up like this?

Tangled up under his sheets, her head on his heart and his lips in the knots of her hair. Their legs intertwined, her freezing toes in between his feet.

He's wrapped around her so entirely, so completely, and she closes her eyes and burrows into the embrace further, like it's home and really, it's not that far of a stretch because she thinks this is the closest she's ever come to belonging.

Tightly wound around her neck though are alternating cords of RileyRileyRiley and MissyMissyMissy.

And so every morning that she stays, it takes every ounce of her being to extricate herself from his fingers grazing her skin and his hands and his whole fucking presence encompassing her that makes her feel like she's worth something to someone out there (in here).

And so every morning that she stays, it takes every ounce of her being to smile over frozen strawberry Poptarts when he laughs when his phone buzzes from a text from his actual girlfriend, her sister.

Riley's goofiness and happiness makes everyone laugh.

Of course he laughs.

The week before Christmas, the cast of Hamilton spends the first Saturday of break at the school, working on a multitude of tasks: getting measured for their costumes, writing their bios for the playbill, and taking their headshots (they'll get their revised scripts afterward). With a cast of thirty-three students, everyone is split up to make it more manageable, and luck would have it that she ends up in a group with Aaron Burr and John Laurens.

They head to the black box theater to get their headshots done first. Zay pushes to the front of the line, and flirts with the girl taking them so she'll show him his picture—she also shows Maya and Lucas, and they guffaw because his mouth is open and he just looks ridiculous (so he just retakes it). When they finish (Maya's glad she curled her hair today because she looks bald with her hair straight), they goof around with the guy who plays George Washington until they get kicked out, back into the auditorium.

So, they sink into some of the cushioned seats that are on the stage, Maya leaning against Zay as they start writing their bios on their phones.

"Why didn't they give us a template," the dark-skinned boy groans into her shoulder. "Talking about myself shouldn't be so hard."

Lucas chuckles. "And y'all have got longer bios than I do. God bless featured actors."

Maya glares at the both of them.

Twenty minutes later, the blonde's got most of hers written while Zay continues to complain, and she drags both of the boys up so that they can go to the choir room for costume fitting. There are a decent amount of people milling around, and Maya pauses in the doorway to tie the laces on her boots that had become undone, holding onto Lucas' arm for balance.

Someone (she thinks Edward) shouts out, "Friar and Hart, under the mistletoe!" and both she and Lucas freeze. She peers up at him, eyes as wide as his with her heart beating fast because she's not going to kiss him, not when he's someone else's soulmate (her best friend's for that matter) and he seems just as tormented as she feels.

They're both saved from the awkward silence (and stares) when Zay pulls her up to give her a long (but relatively chaste) kiss; she nips at his lip gratefully, just a bit. She thinks that she hears wolf whistles after they break apart, and he gives everyone the finger and wraps his arm around her waist as they make their way to the hallway.

She whispers "thanks" and pecks his cheek when Lucas moves to open the door.

His eyes are soft, flitting for just a moment to the other boy, his usual charisma gone when he says, "You've got it, sugar."

;;

Up until now, her favorite song to perform was "The Schuyler Sisters," due to its upbeat and feminist as hell lyrics, and the fact that she gets along well with Rajaa and the curvy Peruvian girl named Alessandra who plays Peggy (and later Maria).

It's incredible, she thinks as she hears her mother's distorted voice three miles away, that a little static-filled distorted phone call can affect her so drastically. She paces the narrow hallway outside the mainstage, and over the line, she's told that her father is back. Because he doesn't know where else to go.

Her mother isn't working tonight, and since he-who-must-not-be-named is able to convince the older Hart to let him stay with them, at their home, on their couch, Maya decidedly doesn't go to the flat on 8th and decidedly turns back around when she approaches her own window.

For the first time when showing up unannounced, she uses the front door.

His mother answers and maybe it looks like she's on the verge of tears because Lisa just wraps her up in a hug and cradles her head once she steps inside. When they pull apart, she tells her that Lucas is in his room "studying" and that she knows the way.

He's sitting on the floor with a thick book, his back pressed up against his metal bedframe, and his eyes are already on her by the time she crosses the threshold.

He doesn't say anything, because he already knows, he always knows, but instead he allows her to tuck herself into his side, lay her head on his shoulder. It's a position they often find themselves in. His question of "are you okay?" is soft, and he tries not to pry, she can see it in the way his voice lilts.

She shakes her head a little bit, and his arm winds its way around her way and she's such a fucking screw-up she's in love with her best friend who's dating her pseudo-sister and now her father turns up out of nowhere and she's reminded of fourteen, when she begged for him to apologize, to say at any point that it wasn't her, that she wasn't the reason he left.

And he had confirmed her most basic fears.

Lucas makes her feel safe, for the time being, not only with his physical presence but also in the way he speaks to her—maybe she's so used to people treating her like shit she doesn't know what to do when a boy like this loves her unconditionally, no matter how much mascara is stained on his favorite shirts, no matter how much she tries to convince herself that it's anything but romantic, his affections (and even that she isn't sure on which she wants it to be).

So he lets her cry until she's let enough tears escape to provide water for a small African village for a week, and then she sniffles and hiccups because she doesn't even know how to control her own breathing. A tap of a finger under her jaw when she slowly finishes, to sort of tip it up.

He tells her to "keep her chin up" and that her dad is an asshole anyway.

She doesn't know how to respond because she never knows how to respond to something he says when her response isn't a quip. But his advice is so cheesy, she laughs.

And he puts away the book he'd been poring over, and gets out his laptop instead and drags her up to his mattress, and they stay like that, curled up with each other and watching the fifth season of That 70's Show on Netflix.

As she falls asleep that night, the computer is still on the bed and it's still playing the episode where Hyde thinks Jackie's cheating on him. Maya has her head on his lap, and she's pretty sure he's threading his fingers through her hair, slowly. She languishes in the sensation, and the lids of her eyes lower further and further with every stroke.

And just as the quicksand of sleep swallows her whole, she hears him say quietly: "You're the closest friend I've got, mockingbird."

Her favorite song becomes "Burn," and the first piece of paper she uses as practice is a thin red envelope she's kept in a shoebox underneath her bed for two years.

;;

She's walking down the hallway with Lucas, the goal in mind to meet Missy at her locker, as it's right by the blond boy's next class. Happens every day between fifth and sixth period. When they arrive, she kisses the brunette hello just like always, but this time she hears a very distinctive "freaking dyke!" and Maya tenses, pulling away because she knows what will happen next if she doesn't stop it.

She doesn't need to turn around to know that Lucas is still behind her, but won't be in a couple of seconds, so she puts a hand on his chest to keep him from charging forward.

His fists are balled, and his eyes are saturated with fury. It isn't the first time something like this has happened; it occurs every other week or so, and it isn't even the first time Lucas has been with her when it happened. She doesn't care all that much—just ignores it—but she knows that he does.

"Ranger Rick," she prods gently, her voice low. "They don't matter."

His gaze briefly—briefly—flits down to meet hers, and softens slightly. "It matters to me."

"I know." Her hands travel down to his balled fists, smoothing over his thumb with hers and loosening his fingers from their rigid position. "They're assholes, but I'd rather you not be one, too."

Missy breaks up with her on a Thursday, four hours before their first performance.

It's an understated affair, something that really should be big and loud and destructive because they both have explosive tempers for such sweet-looking girls. But instead, after Maya kisses her hello on the stairs during their free period, the other girl just looks down, a little sad.

"I can't be with someone who'd rather be with someone else. It's not fair to me."

She wants to crack a joke, or argue with her, anything but admit to a girl that she truly does care about that she doesn't love her like she should, but she can only nod. And apologize.

Missy sighs, her lips curl up slightly into a small smile, holds the blonde's hand in her own. "Don't be afraid, babe."

She presses her mouth against Maya's forehead as a goodbye. Maya's eyelids flutter closed, and then the other girl's gone.

;;

During intermission, when they're sitting down on some risers backstage and sipping water after changing into their costumes for Act II, Zay asks her if she's okay.

"Because you seemed distracted during 'Helpless,'" he offers as explanation for his inquiry.

"Yeah."

"Missy's here, I saw her on the left of the auditorium earlier."

"Yeah."

"Did you guys break up?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

That one came from Lucas, his fingers hesitantly threading through the empty spaces between hers after a moment. She exhales slowly, shuts her eyes for a semblance of rest for the next five minutes, and then she feels Zay slip his hand into hers as well.

Her boys.

;;

Their production of Hamilton runs for three days in the Abigail Adams High School auditorium (she never thought about the irony of a musical about John Adam's major political enemy being put on by a school named after his wife until now).

The Matthews had come to opening night, and all five (well, the baby couldn't) hugged her in congratulations and gave her flowers. Mr. Matthews was so proud, and was probably geeking out the entire time. Even Josh comes and wraps her in an embrace, and Maya doesn't remember the last time she was able to touch him without freaking out; he's sweet and she doesn't even try to imagine anything between them that isn't there. And Katy attends the same performance, but with Shawn in tow even though they're still pretending to be just friends, and Maya swears to all that is holy that a faint carmine string has spun between them.

On Saturday, everyone is on the verge of sobbing before the curtains are even drawn for the first act. It's March, and they've all been a part of this whole fucking thing for almost five months. She's grown closer and closer and closer to these people, and although they're raunchy as hell (especially the girl who has a shitty but unbelievably hilarious accent playing the fighting Frenchman—or woman, depending who you asked throughout the musical, as it became a running joke).

Even though they're all a mess, both emotionally and physically—George Washington can't find his shoes, Maria's corset is apparently nonexistent—this show is their best. Since this is the first year for Hamilton to be performed by high schools across the nation, they aren't really entered in any competitions, so they don't have that to worry about.

The audience is in hysterics when they see Eliza and Philip in "Take a Break"; mainly because it's Maya Hart, at a solid five foot four in her boots, playing mother to Lucas Friar, their nearly six-foot varsity pitcher, who is supposed to be a nine year old boy. Suffice to say, they're both dying on the inside to keep from laughing, to keep from tripping over their counting in a foreign language.

She pushes any and all of her anger into her words for "Burn," and salt-water pricks at her waterline when she laments during the reprise for "Stay Alive."

Haunting words of forgiveness, can you imagine?

And then she closes the show, the lights dimming, the red curtains falling around her and the company and the show that has been her world for what seems like a lifetime (when it's really only a semester but that doesn't matter).

Tears stream down her cheeks and before she even notices her mascara running as they're going to take their bow, Lucas is clutching her hand (the lanky lead Tim on her other side), and he wipes the water from her eyes and then it's all over.

Their cast party goes on long after midnight, Zay and Tim and her and the rest of them congratulating each other for a fucking amazing show, and it's after she's cried into Rajaa's shoulder for a good five minutes (and Rajaa crying into hers), that her phone buzzes with a text from a number that she has labeled with an expletive. She doesn't respond, instead tumbling into the empty halls of her high school.

Lights flicker on and on throughout the corridors, and she doesn't really know why she's here because the real beast is not in her pocket but at home but she thinks she just wants to get away for a little while.

So she turns her phone off.

And slides down against a couple of lockers, slides down to the cold tile below.

A few minutes later, she hears footsteps getting closer, closer. They're much lighter than Lucas', and without the rhythm that seems to inhabit Zay's walk, and so she peers up when they're less than a meter away.

"Farkle?"

He smiles a small little smile, like he doesn't know what to say. Which is never the case, because he's one of the smartest people she's ever known—he always has a quip that he'll whip out when she gets too testy. "Can I sit with you?"

She nods.

They had all changed into street clothes, because blush petticoats and long breeches are not comfortable, especially when you're all sweaty and your voice is raw as hell. So yes, Farkle is there next to her on the floor and he's wearing one of his normal space shirts (this one has Pluto on it) and a pair of light-wash jeans, but his eyebrows are still a dusty white from his costume, having to match his powdered wig.

Maya reaches over and pokes them. "Damn, Minkus. You've got some serious dandruff."

"Shut up," he chuckles, shoving her shoulder playfully.

While at first she laughs too, she then quiets suddenly, angles her body so she sort of faces him more fully. "I miss you. I feel like we aren't really friends anymore." At his bemused expression, she continues. "I mean, we've been working on this musical together, but we didn't have any scenes together, or anywhere near each other in the order. And you would spend all your time outside of rehearsals with Riley and Sm—"

"Like you've been spending all of your time with Lucas?"

Her breath hitches, she hopes imperceptibly, but with his smirk she knows he caught it. Screw Farkle and his maturation into a boy who can understand emotion.

Since she doesn't have anything to hide, since there's no point in lying, since his goal, like hers, is to make Riley happy, Maya leans over and lays her head in the crook of his neck. "I miss when it was just us."

"You, me and Riley?" Pause. "Why?"

"It was easier to pretend that we could all love each other the same. That it was something we could control."

Farkle sighs. "It's hard to love someone you can't be with."

They stay like that for a while, just listening to their own breathing.

"They're soulmates, you know," she says, probably out of the blue to him. "I know you don't believe in soulmates, because science can't prove them, but—"

"I don't believe in soulmates, but even if I did—they're just not that, I don't think."

Maya picks her cheek off of his shoulder. "But he makes her happy, he's her dream. Who am I to deny Riley her happily ever after?"

She returns to the party eventually, but tells herself that the gnawing in her stomach is from the greasy nachos she had earlier. At one point, Lucas casually slings an arm around her neck, like he's done a million times before.

Maya wants so badly to sink into it.

Instead, she slips out from underneath it without a word, says quietly that she's going home.

;;

Four days later, on a Wednesday, Riley calls her at one in the morning. Her words are upbeat, but she can hear the rasp in her voice and Maya tells her that she'll be over in twenty minutes.

Although it's been a while, it feels natural when she climbs through the big window to see the brunette upright in the middle of her ever vibrant comforter.

"You okay, Honey?"

"I don't know, Peaches."

When she doesn't expound on her answer, the blonde crawls onto the bed. She wonders when it was the Bay Window stopped being so important, stopped "fixing" all of their problems, because she doesn't remember the last time she sat over there (maybe that's why her chest hurts like it does).

Riley glances up, eyes glassy. She takes Maya's hand in her own, grips it like it's her lifeline and she's drowning. "What do you do when you think you've found your soulmate?"

Something catches in her throat, and the name Lucas is on the very tip of her tongue, but she can't bring herself to ask. Instead she threads their fingers together, and breaks her own heart. "I think you should do almost anything to be with them. Figure out your issues, get around the obstacles in your way, and do whatever you need to." With her free hand, she runs her fingers through the girl's hair, brushes it behind her ear. "You deserve all the good things, Riley. Don't you dare let anything change that for you."

"But I'm so scared, Maya."

Maya's smile is sad, but she cradles her cheek with one of her palms. "I know, sweetie. I am too."

;;

No one in their group goes to the Spring Formal that the school puts on.

And no one really knows why. But, instead of spending money on tickets and dresses and shit, they buy a bunch of chocolate-strawberry-vanilla ice cream and pretzels and peanut butter, and scatter around Riley's room and talk about their lives and the lives of those around them.

Because her father is chaperoning the dance, and her mother is working late, her little brother is staying with a neighbor from down the hall and so Riley hosts the first group sleepover in what feels like forever (it really has been forever—at least since the beginning of freshman year).

The small television plays shitty Lifetime movie after movie, and they absently watch while Zay regales them with a story from back home in Texas, when there was a tragic misunderstanding at a beauty pageant and well. Maya already knows this tale like the back of her hand, and so instead she picks at her split ends.

On the floral comforter, she's comfortably seated in between Lucas' legs, which are spread out to form a "v" shape, her back to his front. It's funny, she thinks, because Riley hasn't said anything about it, even though they've been in this position for the past hour and the brunette is all the way over by the bay window with Smackle and Zay.

It's weird, because during group hangouts, she'll normally grab his hand and coax him to be with her, let her sit in his lap. But not uttered a single word to Lucas aside from "pass the peanut butter," as well as what has been directed to the entire group.

Zay gets to the part where he's five and his mother entered him in the wrong competition, and they brought the wrong outfits entirely when Maya feels a slight tug at her hair.

"Don't turn around. You'll just mess it up." His voice is low, so as not to attract attention from the others.

Maya raises an eyebrow, even though he can't actually see it, asks him what he's doing.

"Creating the best damn braid in all of history."

She chuckles, but allows him to continue, because while yes, Zay knows how to braid because of his sisters, she's tender-headed and that boy tends to yank on her roots. And although Lucas doesn't have any siblings, and his home was never very feminine, during one of their classes together, when she typically would lean her elbow on his desk like she used to do in middle school, he picked up a lock of blonde and started messing with it.

And well, she didn't stop him.

So he sometimes plaits her hair in the middle of class, during a rather boring lecture or when they have downtime after lunch. And she laughs now, quietly, because she knows that he's trying to master a decent Dutch braid, but he's probably failing miserably if the quiet swears on her neck are anything to go by. At one point, when Zay is singing in a cowboy outfit during an aquatic-themed pageant, the blond seems to give up and leans forward, rests his chin on her shoulder.

She tries not to smile, forces the blush from her cheeks when she notices Riley's eyes flit over to them, even if it was only for a mere second.

Riley and Lucas don't sit together during lunch, or at the bakery, like they used to. Nor do they really speak to each other outside of the group. And they don't refer to each other as their significant other anymore, at least from what Maya notices. But he doesn't change how he acts towards Maya, though; he still presses his lips to her temple as a hello in the morning when he catches her by her locker when she doesn't spend the night before at his apartment.

Zay seems like he's trying to tell her something, every once in a while, but when she addresses him he clams up—something entirely uncharacteristic for him.

Mostly, she shrugs that off. The boy always seems to have something to say.

;;

Riley and Lucas break up on a Friday.

Maya doesn't find out until that night, at nine-sixteen when her phone chirps with a text from Zay, with a curt "be careful" attached to the update, a warning she wishes she didn't understand the meaning behind.

Her first thought is to shoot Riley a are you doing okay?, but when she gets an affirmation that the brunette is, in fact, fine, she knows that's a lie. But still, she sits on the message for an hour, and one turns into two, two into three, and Maya knows that if she asks if she wants to talk about it over a screen the girl would say no.

So at four in the morning, when Alphabet City is not quite dead yet, she makes the decision she's been avoiding for quite some time. After carefully fitting herself through her window without making too much of a noise, she buttons up her jacket (which she doesn't really need on such a hot night) and realizes she forgot her damn phone on her night stand.

Though really, it doesn't matter, who would she talk to anyway if it isn't Riley? (She knows exactly who she'd talk to, and that scares her into denial).

Admittedly, the city used to be scary at night and sometimes it still is, but that's okay, because she crawls in through the bay window and into the bed, cradles Riley—out of whom's mouth spills jumbled up words and phrases, tumbling over each other over and over again—until she falls asleep, and slips out before the sun rises. Her mom is home for once and she doesn't want her to wake up without her teenage daughter there.

;;

By the end of the school year, she and her mother establishes a set block of time for a "family meal," so to speak. Every Sunday, her mother ensures that she has scheduled the night off for herself, from three o'clock on, and if her daughter does work that day, it's only until five.

They have weekly dinners, as a way to catch up from the six previous days because they don't get to see very much of each other outside of when their shifts coincide (and even then, they don't get to talk much during work, because well, work) and sometimes the early morning.

It starts out with the two of them, Riley attending one meal towards the beginning of it all until she realized just how late it got by the time they had dessert (and their apartments are too far apart to walk in the dark for the brunette). And then it's just them for a while, because Zay has his own family to attend to, which is fine with Maya. She gets to spend time with her mother cooking, and while it's normally something relatively simple like spaghetti or a casserole, they have fun making it together.

And then one day, when they're putting in the ground beef in a pan for the chili, Maya offhandedly mentions that this is Lucas' mother's best dish, that hers is real good too.

Her mother raises her eyebrows at that, and she gets this glint in her eye that makes her daughter know that she's up to something. "Why haven't you brought him over?"

Maya frowns, says that of course he's been over, to which the older woman just smiles some sort of knowing, lipsticked-smile, asks her what his favorite meal is.

"Lasagna, but Mom—"

"Now hush baby girl, and grab me the beans."

And with the very next week, it becomes a habit for Lucas to make his way over to the Hart residence at five-thirty sharp. At first, he doesn't help cook—offers to set the table, offers to clean up afterwards—but then when they decide to make chili again, he doesn't seem to be able to keep himself from putting in his own two cents (mainly just to cut the onions a different way and to use another spice in conjunction to the ones they already use; and he's right, it's the best damn chili Maya's ever had, even better than Lisa's).

From there it turns into him coming over at five, or picking Maya up in his beat up little Camry after her shift at the bakery so that she doesn't have to take the bus. Once, she teased him about driving, in New York City of all places, but he just laughed at her teasing and said that she could walk the distance if she really wanted to. He helps dice vegetables and cheese, helps cut up the meat, and fuck, his presence overwhelms the tiny kitchen so much she can hardly breathe sometimes.

And really, she should be downright guilty, spending so much time with the boy who broke her supposed best friend's heart, but she doesn't have it in her to say anything about it. Plus, it's not like they haven't done stuff more scandalous than boiling noodles in cramped quarters, with her parent just a few feet away humming show-tunes.

They'll sit at the little table in the breakfast nook (because no one in Manhattan has an actual dining room), with Lucas and her mother on opposite sides of her, leaving one chair open. It doesn't feel empty, though sometimes Lisa does come over, but those visits are rare and far between.

Her mother will ask him about his week, the same as she asks her own daughter, and for some reason that makes her heart warm, the continuous inclusion of the boy she can honestly call a piece of her. He'll answer in kind, and while Maya often does know the stories he tells, there are a few she was absent for and she listens just as intently as the older Hart.

When her mother has a date with a woman she met in the park a few weeks ago, Maya gives her blessing to use their night (Katy's only night off) to take the beautiful brunette on a date. And even though she lets Lucas know that they aren't going to have their regularly scheduled dinner that Sunday, he insists that he's coming over and they'll make something delicious anyway.

So he picks her up at five at the coffee shop/bakery (she isn't really sure on its official category either), and Maya's still in her apron when she comes out and slips into the passenger seat. In the back are three brown paper bags from Trader Joe's, and she raises her eyebrows.

"We're baking a cake."

"That requires skill, which we don't have," she teases, echoing his words from last summer back at him.

"I'm kicking you out of this car right now."

Of course, he doesn't actually kick her out, but he does change the radio to his favorite country station and blares it because he knows that she hates it, and Maya appropriately sticks her tongue out at him and calls him Butch Cassidy.

When they get to her apartment building, they use the elevator because they have groceries, and Lucas is not about to climb up three flights of fire escapes even though that's her favorite mode of travel. She races him to the door anyways, laughing as she leaves a grumbling Lucas in her wake, carrying two bags opposed to her one.

He googles the recipe on his phone, and she sits atop the counter as she reads out the list of ingredients, after standing on the laminate to get a big bowl from the top shelf. They mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, like the directions say to, and then she makes him stir it all together because it annoys her when it gets all clumpy and she doesn't want to look at that. But when she isn't looking, Lucas ends up flicking her with the spoon, batter landing on her nose and she shrieks.

Maya slips a finger into the chocolate mixture and gets on her tiptoes to drag it down his forehead, and this turns into a minor skirmish and suddenly they're covered in batter and pressed up against each other and—

He's close, way too fucking close, and she wishes she was strong enough, good enough, to pull away when he absentmindedly says that she has batter on the skin underneath her eyes, when he goes to brush it away, only to slide his fingers down and rest his hand on her cheek. And she doesn't know who moves first, and she doesn't really care, because his lips are on hers, and he's cupping her face and she's tangling her fingers in his short hair, trying to bring him ever closer against her.

Maya tries to ignore the colors that explode behind her eyes, because they don't matter right now and she can't even tell if they're primary or secondary or even tertiary at this point, and for whatever reason when her stomach drops she doesn't feel queasy. He tastes of chocolate cake and peppermint.

His hands move to her hips, and since he's too damn tall and she's too damn short the angle's weird and uncomfortable. So he picks her up, her legs wrap around his waist to make it all easier. And yeah, it's nice, really nice, and she doesn't get a chance to breathe or really think until he sets her on the counter and steps in between her legs and presses hot kisses from just behind her ear to her jawline, trailing down her neck slowly.

Lucas has just gotten to her collarbone when her mind clears itself of the fog that has been consuming it, and she says, "Wait."

He pulls away after a moment, gripping her lower thigh with one hand and the other on her waist, and she can see just how dilated his pupils are and how flushed his face is as he asks what's wrong.

She wants to say nothing, that it's all good so they can resume what they were just doing, but she can't.

"Riley."

She watches as dread settles in his stomach just as it does in hers, and he mutters, "Crap."

His eyes have shifted, his gaze downcast. Maya hardens her own, tilts his head up to meet hers. "I really like you, Lucas, but this was a one-time thing that we can't tell Riley about." She raises one palm to his jaw, kisses his cheek softly, relishing in the taste of his skin, to placate the lines of his forehead. "Now, let's get the cake in the oven."

---

a/n: a few things to note:

1. it's taken over a year for me to post it. that being said, you saw and will continue to see a grand development of my obsessions projected onto this story, and some are actually plot relevant or else i'd change them. i.e., the hamilton thing. i wrote those scenes back in summer of 2016, when i was obsessed with hamilton, so i do want to apologize by putting a white girl in the role of eliza. at the time (and now, even) i couldn't think of a musical that would fit what i was trying to convey.

2. spoiler alert, if you couldn't tell, but maya sees soulmates as manifestations of the color red. i originally got the idea from the red strings of fate from stydia (and was planning on doing a banshee au) but then this happened.

3. i do not condone infidelity, whether or not you consider this that. just sayin'. also, you can decide for yourself if maya is "sleeping around" or if she's just a huge flirt, i feel like i made that vague enough. personally, i don't see it in a negative way (or even necessarily in a sexual way), but for her, it's a way to repress her feelings. overall, don't slut-shame her please.

4. 7/21: i just went back to reformat this as i'm finishing up the second part of this, and i realized i didn't add a disclaimer about the musical portion of this. so yes, i know that hamilton is meant to be a multi-ethnic musical, and i apologize for casting white actors in two roles, even though they are just kids. i hope i made it clear that the cast itself is very diverse, but i had already written that whole bit (i think 4-5k?) and i didn't want to completely rewrite it. so, apologies. this fic will be updated soon, i promise. you will see another musical in the next part, because i can't help myself.

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