A/N: Happy New Year everyone! Today marks the start of my third year of this Lucaya Project. This year's project will be a sequel to last year's story, carrying right along with the narrative of "A Hart in Texas," and like last year, there will be one new chapter a day. Hope you enjoy it!

"OUR BRAND NEW YEARS"
Sequel to "A Hart in Texas"

January 1st 2018

Chapter 1
Their Return to the Day to Day

Summer had seen its last day come to an end, and as Maya woke up that morning, the first of her sophomore year in high school, it did sort of feel like the last weeks had passed much faster and much differently than she had expected they would. Farkle and Smackle had returned to New York, and not long after, Asher and Joey had been called out of Austin by an unplanned visit to their grandparents in Arizona, with Dylan tagging along. Zay and Nadine had been celebrating their anniversary as though it was relay race, which more often than not left them headed off on one outing or another while the others – Maya, and Lucas, and Riley, and Rebecca, too, once Joey had gone to Arizona – did their own thing.

She could still stop and recall some of those moments and chuckle to herself, thinking about her fair cowboy of a boyfriend, caught in the whims of the three of them girls and still always, always behaving every bit as 'he of the invisible hat tips' would be expected to behave, no matter how silly they could get. The height of this had been a few days back now, when Rebecca had decided to change her hair, color and cut and all, and Maya and Riley had taken on the task, with Lucas as their assistant. The end result had been pretty fantastic, all things considered… those things being the giggles and the messes of the pair of hair 'stylists' and their assistant.

Awake now, she could see Riley had already gotten up and dressed, and was now in the process of… climbing out of the window?

"What are you doing?" Maya asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes, yawning as she tried to wrangle her hair into some semblance of order. Riley had stopped, mid climb, and looked at her with a smile that said 'good morning!' more than 'busted.'

"Home, you're picking me up, you and Lucas," she reasoned.

"But you're already here," Maya frowned, confused.

"You have your routine, I have mine," Riley pointed out, before carrying on out of the window. Maya sat there, debating the chance she might still have been sleeping, right up until she felt a little nudge at her hand and looked down to find one of her dogs looking back at her.

"How did you get up here?" she smiled at the little Queen, giving her a scratch and a kiss. The other two, Ghost and Tuck, sat there on the ground next to her bed, looking up. "Morning, boys," her smile turned into a laugh, leaning to scoop them up, one by one. She could have stayed there, playing with the three of them all morning, but then there was that whole 'going to school' thing, wasn't there?

In little to no time she was up, and dressed, and halfway through breakfast. When the doorbell rang, she smiled to herself before moving to answer. Now this was a school day. Riley had been right, they did have their routines, and hers involved taking a walk with one Lucas Friar. That routine had seen some change now, just barely. They didn't walk anymore; he was the driver, and she was his passenger. With her last piece of toast between her teeth, her apple in one hand, and her bag in the other, she said goodbye to her parents and her dogs and went on her way to school

"My mother doesn't want us eating in the car, she says she doesn't want bugs getting in," he informed her as they went to sit in the front.

"I'll be careful," Maya promised. "Young minds need nourishment, you know?" He looked at her, she beamed, and then he laughed and she gave him a bite of her toast. "Okay, let's go."

"What about…" he nodded back to the house. She looked for a moment before understanding what he wanted to know.

"Oh, no, Riley went back to her place, we better get going." He had his own confused moment at this, and she repeated their friend's pronouncement. "What detour are we taking today?" she asked, calling on his promise that their going by car instead of by foot would not cut down on their conversations in the morning.

"They're almost done with the new library," he suggested, and she gave a nod. She did like seeing it coming together, bit by bit.

So, off they went, Lucas putting on what was becoming a distinctive 'driving' face while she kept on eating. He was still finding his way behind the wheel, even after having been practicing more and more, though she knew it had much more to do with his wanting to make sure he made no mistake, didn't cause any accident, while he was driving someone else along with him. It didn't matter how many times and in how many ways she, and their friends, and his family, and her family, all said he was very good at it. Lucas was careful and it suited him.

Having their morning routine back, as minimally altered as it had been with the introduction of the car, did make her feel good, for reasons he would have been all too aware of. After months of preparation, of studying, of tests, of doubts and fears and debate, she would be starting, that very morning, in her first advanced class. To say she had been feeling that pressure build up in the last few days would have been an understatement. But then she was finding that it didn't feel as bad as she might have thought it would. She'd been through plenty in the past three years, she'd surmounted her fair share of obstacles. This didn't have to be such a big one. And if nothing else, well she would have Nadine at her side, a friendly face always.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners