It wasn't even meant to be, but this is a companion oneshot to The Quotes that Mean the Most. You don't need to read one or the other first, it will make sense either way.

Picking up a thick soft brush, she dipped it in the dark brown base coat she had mixed and with smooth even strokes, she painted it on the canvas. She was in a world of her own, painting a face that she knew well. Lucas leaned against the doorway, smiling slightly at her peaceful demeanor. He didn't get to see her like this often, though certainly more frequently now that their friendship was their own and not just because they were mutual friends of Riley, but he tried to ingrain it into his memory anyway. She was facing him but between her focus and the large canvas, he doubted she even knew he was there.

"You know, paintings look better if you're looking at the right side, Huckleberry." He stood corrected.

"Well, from my perspective, most of the beauty lies in the artist," he said softly.

"I don't think thats how paintings work, Ranger Rick," she murmured, but a small smile graced her face anyway and they continued in silence as she drew her brush across the canvas and he watched her. He knew that by now he was going to be late for baseball practice, but he couldn't find it in him to care as he memorized the curves of her face.

"We're supposed to take the quote, 'Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence' and paint something that reminds us of our interpretation of it," she said, suddenly breaking the quiet between them. He smiled softly.

"Thats beautiful. Who is it that said that?"

"Vince Lombardi." He nodded slowly.

"I like it. Mind if I use it for my senior quote?" She chuckled lightly.

"Its not really up to me. I don't have a copyright on it or anything. But I think it would be fitting… and maybe a little ironic." He quirked an eyebrow and began walking towards her across the room.

"How so?"

"Just come look at this." He gave a confused smile, but kept walking toward her. He covered his eyes with a hand when he reached the canvas and then made a big show of the big reveal which elicited a snicker out of his blonde friend. It had been all fun and games but when he saw the portrait, his jaw dropped. He hadn't noticed the picture clipped to the corner of the canvas but now that he saw it he was amazed. It was a photo that Riley had taken of the two of them laughing together, a photo that had won her second place in a photography scholarship contest. Though the painting itself was in the base stages he could already see the stunning realistic detail that it had. Maya had merely lay the base coat on most of the image and it looked like she was going to blur out the background as had been done in the photo, but he could still see that the proportions of their bodies and the angling of their poses looked natural, just like it had in the picture. And under it all he could see the faintest hint of her rough sketch and their smiles brought him back to that day.

Riley had been insistent upon photographing them, because they had so much natural chemistry that she wanted to capture it with her camera. The contest's prompt had been to convey the most feeling with a single piece. What better way to do that than to photograph the electric friendship that the two best friends had? was her reasoning. The brunette believed there to be something between them for a long time and began to come to terms with it when Lucas began to realize it himself. He had thought for so long that just because he and Riley were supposed to be together, that thats what he wanted. But as he and Maya grew closer, his thoughts were hard to ignore. So, their problem solver friend had plopped them down next to each other on a park bench one day in tenth grade and told them to act as natural as possible as she hovered around them with her camera, which, of course, is the worst way to get people to act natural. After minutes past, the two managed to share a glance and immediately burst out laughing at the hilarity of the situation. And that was where Riley's camera shutter snapped together. With the two of them leaned towards each other slightly with pure unadulterated laughter. He put his hand on the girl's shoulder.

"You're a great artist, Maya. And I mean what I said earlier, because no matter how beautiful a painting is, its always because the artist saw it in their mind first." She paused and placed a hand over his own.

"Thank you, Lucas. I really appreciate you saying that." They remained silent once again, listening to each other breathe for a moment as they stared at the canvas, but they knew that it was just so that they wouldn't have to look each other in the eye yet. After a moment, she removed her hand to continue painting, leaving his hand feeling cold with only her residual warmth on it.

"You better get moving, Sundance. If I have this right, you're already ten minutes late for baseball practice and we all know how Coach Gomez is a stickler for punctuality. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes on the dot and she hadn't even looked up. He grinned.

"I guess I better, Shortstack." He chuckled as her nose wrinkled at the nickname.

"I'd better go catch myself some excellence in the form of baseballs, hm?"

"You're a pitcher, Hop-along, you barely catch anything." He laughed as he hefted his gym bag by the door over his shoulder and called to her as he left.

"I caught you didn't I?"

And he walked off down the hall without a backward glance but instead a smirk at the blush he knew had bloomed on her cheeks.

I might try to do these for the other quotes too if I can find the inspiration. This was actually what I started with when I wrote The Quotes that Mean the Most and I decided to make one about picking senior quotes. I guess I just got lazy and used this one for Lucas too '^_^ Oh well, hope you liked it!