With the way seventh grade ended and having solidified her friend group with Zay and Smackle at the end of the summer, Riley doesn't see how life could get any better.
Sure, she's still got to deal with the fact that her best friend has an undeniable crush on her uncle and may one day be her aunt. And there's the fact of the matter that she knows Smackle has a massive crush on Farkle but he's too busy pursuing world domination alone to realize it. Zay's still pining after some girl from Texas named Vanessa even if he won't admit it, but all in all Riley's set for a great eighth grade year.
In a lot of ways, she finds all of her friends freaking out over crushes quite silly. Maybe it's because she's never had one herself, but she doesn't see why they should be getting all worked up. Life is good, she's got all of them, and nothing could ever change that.
Or so she thought.
She's pretty convinced the day she walks into class and sees Belgium 1831 written on the board, taking fast note of the nearly blissful look on Farkle's face as he waits eagerly in his seat. She and Maya exchange knowing looks.
"All good, Farkle?" Maya asks, raising an eyebrow as she slides into her desk.
"Today's the day," he says breathlessly, drumming impatiently against his notebook. "I'm finally going to complete my education and none of you dumb dumbs are going to stop me."
"We're only in eighth grade," Riley points out helpfully.
Farkle stares blankly at her. "And? Do you have a point?"
Zay plops down in the seat behind Maya, making a face. "Come on, you know Farkle doesn't think in school years. He thinks in whatever crazy, convoluted process goes on in that screwy little brain of his."
"How's that work?"
"I don't even pretend to know. But we all know what I'm talking about."
Cory enters the classroom, noticing the rapt attention with which his daughter's group of friends are watching him. He gives Farkle a knowing smirk. "Got something to say, Mr. Farkle?"
"Wait!" he shouts as Darby settles at her desk, finishing off the class attendance they've grown very familiar with over the last few years. "Everyone is here. No going back now. But if this is going to happen, I just want to check that all my bases are covered. Zay, you're not going to have a sudden identity crisis based on your need to compensate humor for self-esteem, are you?"
"When have I ever—?"
"Good. Riley, you don't have some wild life lesson you have to learn in the next hour and a half, right?"
Riley glances arounds at all of her friends, absorbing their presence. Grateful that they exist and that they're there with her. That nothing could ever change the dynamic she's cultivated between all of them. "Nope. Loving life."
"Maya?"
Maya snores, pretending to sleep at her desk. Farkle takes a deep breath, a small grin spreading across his face. "Oh my God, it's happening. Okay. Let it happen."
Cory smiles, waiting for a nod from Farkle before he starts his pacing in front of his desk—a sure sign of a lesson about to begin. "So. In 1831, Belgium—,"
They're disrupted by a swift knock on the door, the intruder stepping in without waiting for an invitation. He's a tall, sandy-haired boy who couldn't be much older than them, clad in a dark blue t-shirt and carrying a file in his hands. There's a moment of hesitation, the expression on his face uncertain as he stands in the doorway and everybody throws their attention to him.
What Riley gets stuck on are his eyes.
They're light green, and just from a brief moment of eye contact as he scans the room she feels as though they carry the secrets of the entire world. Like if she looked into them long enough, she'd understand everything there is to know about the universe. She doesn't think she's being very dramatic, considering she's never felt this kind of feeling before and she figures a feeling as strong as this should be an indicator of something important.
In that moment of uncertainty, she feels like she sees into his soul. Whoever this mystery boy is, she can tell he's going to be important. She can tell he has important things to say. She can tell he's someone worth getting to know.
Then he opens his mouth.
"See you've started class without me," he murmurs, raising his eyebrows. "Warm welcome."
Maya opens her eyes, obviously surprised at the amount of sass radiating from the front of the classroom. She exchanges a confused look with Riley, before Farkle jumps up behind them.
"Get out!"
Cory holds up a hand to tame him, focusing his attention on the boy standing at the front with him. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Yeah, new student. Transfer."
"Ah, right," Cory says, obviously having been informed of this coming change. "You got a transcript?"
The boy nods, striding to the desk and handing over the file in his hands. While Cory looks over the records, Riley forces herself to stay calm. A new student is no big deal. Zay was a new student, and he turned out great. Whatever this kid brings into the classroom, he has no adverse effect on her and her friends and her world.
The way her palms started sweating when they made eye contact, she can easily get over.
"Lucas?" Zay pipes up from behind her, shock laced through his tone. "What are you doing here?"
Something about the way Zay speaks to him—Lucas, she now knows—tips Riley off that everything is not going to stay the same with this new addition to their classroom. She can't quite put her finger on it, but she can tell that there's history to be explored between them and that whatever it is, it's not necessarily going to be good.
Lucas shrugs, managing a small smirk. "Surprise."
"Maya," Riley murmurs, narrowing her eyes at the floor. "Something's changing."
Cory closes the file, giving Lucas a quick once-over before offering him a smile. "Take a seat. There's an open spot right behind Mr. Babineaux. I'm sure if you turn out as great as our last transfer, things are going to work out wonderfully."
"Yeah, that's likely," Lucas mutters, taking his things and sliding into the seat behind Zay. He drops his notebook on the desk and gives his old friend a playful nudge on the shoulder. "How's it going, buddy? Everything good here?"
Zay turns around to face him, offering a tight smile. "Sure is."
Riley examines them curiously, trying to get a read on the situation. The tension between them definitely rubs her the wrong way. "Do you know him, Zay?"
"Know me?" Lucas asks, eyes widening. Riley can't help but notice the slight Southern drawl to his voice—more prominent than Zay's when he moved from Texas. "I'd like to think that my best friend wouldn't forget me after just one year."
"Best friend?" Maya gives the two of them a judgmental glare. "He's never mentioned you."
Lucas, for all the walls he's got up, seems genuinely put off by this statement. "That so?"
Zay swallows, keeping his gaze focused on his desk.
Riley squints. Whatever Lucas is to Zay Babineaux, it's obvious to her that he's about to be trouble for her.
"Tell us what's going on," Riley demands as soon as Zay joins them at the lunch table. "Whoever this Lucas guy is to you, tell us so that we can respond accordingly. Should we be friendly? Should we confront him? What's the story? Tell us the story."
"Would you relax? You're getting jittery again," he snaps, stabbing at his peas. "There's really nothing to explain."
"He said you were best friends."
"Yeah, he did," Maya jumps in. "Yet we've never heard about him. I've never even heard you bring up the name Lucas, let alone an actual person. We've heard about Asher, and Dylan, but never Lucas. I know that if I moved away and made a bunch of new friends, they'd never hear enough about Riley. Because that's how best friends talk about each other."
"Oh, God," Riley breathes, taking her best friend's arm. "Never move away."
"I would never."
Zay stares at them, displaying his usual exhaustion at their antics. "Anyway. Look, things happened in Texas, but they don't matter now. I live here now, and all of that stuff is behind me. So if you two could just drop it, that would be great."
"Well, sure wish we could," Maya says cheekily, giving him a look. "But that'll be a little hard to do with Ranger Rick—,"
"Ranger Rick?"
"Striding around in those big boots and brooding his way all through the school. Making sly comments under his breath in that ridiculous accent and trying to act as edgy as possible."
"Maya," Zay says warningly, glancing behind her.
"I mean, truly, I'm amazed he didn't just show up in a cowboy hat and wearing a sign that says I'm dangerous and emotionally unavailable. Don't get too close! Since that's obviously the vibe he's trying too hard to give off."
"Hi, Lucas," Riley offers diplomatically, smiling at the boy now standing behind her best friend.
Maya grimaces, slowly swiveling around in her seat to meet his eyes. To his credit, he doesn't seem particularly hurt by her words. "You know, for my first few hours here, this would definitely have to go down as one of the highlights. I can see why you're a part of the welcoming committee."
"Oh, you would've shown up no matter what I said," she grumbles, turning away and focusing on her chicken pot pie.
Riley gets that weird feeling in her stomach again the longer she looks at him. Like there are butterflies in her stomach, fluttering frantically to get free before something terrible happens. Even though she's never felt it before, she has an inkling that for whatever strange reason, those green eyes are pulling her into her first crush.
"What can I do for you?" Zay asks awkwardly. Despite his insistence that whatever happened between them is nothing to comment on, he's doing a poor job maintaining the façade whenever Lucas actually shows up.
"Well, I just thought I'd come by and see if my best friend wanted to sit with me on my first day at a new school." Lucas puts a strained emphasis on the words best friend, as if he's trying to make it sting a little more at how it seems to be past tense. To Riley, it seems to hurt him more than Zay. "But I can see that he's already got people to sit with."
"There's an open seat," Riley offers eagerly, pointing to the open one beside Maya. A little stupidly hoping maybe he'll sit down and join them.
He's already starting to walk away. "I'm fine, thanks."
Riley watches him go, feeling a mixture of sympathy, irritation, and that strange new fluttering in her stomach. More the last two, but the sympathy persists because for whatever reason, Zay Babineaux has decided that they're not friends. And Riley knows that if Maya suddenly decided the same about the two of them, it would make her want to brood a little and wear a lot of dark blue.
Maybe not blue. Red, maybe. Black, if she was feeling particularly down.
"Is your friend always that rude?" she asks cheerily, tilting her head at Zay. Sort of hoping he'll assure her he isn't.
"Something happened," Maya says flatly, crossing her arms on the table and giving Zay a determined look. Riley knows how fiercely protective her best friend gets over those she cares about, and she can see it coming through now. "What happened? Don't make me ask again."
Zay sighs, leaning back in his seat and staring at his fork. "Look. In Texas… I may have had a problem or two. And it may have gotten Lucas expelled."
Riley's chipper attitude disappears fairly quickly. "What? Expelled?"
"I may have had a little problem with bullies."
The faster Riley pieces together the clues, the more stressed she becomes. That fluttering in her stomach quickly overwhelms her, making her feel more sick than zealous. The moment she realizes what Zay must be trying to tell her, why he's so nervous around Lucas, she gets the sinking feeling that she's going to throw up and gets to her feet, heading towards the doors to the hallway.
"Riley? Riley, where are you going?"
She waves Maya off to assure her she's fine, holding her breath until she gets out of the cafeteria and alone in the hallway. She tries to calm her nerves, letting the realization wash over her at what she's just learned.
Trying to reconcile the fact that she has her first crush, and that her first crush is undeniably a bully.
Al washes a car in six minutes. Fred washes it in eight. How many minutes will it take for Al and Fred to wash the car together?
"Who cares!" Riley snaps at her father as they make their way out to the parking lot, where another one of his elaborate lessons awaits. "Dad, I'm telling you that the secret of life has to wait. We have bigger problems."
"This wouldn't happen to be about our new student, would it?"
"Yes, in fact, it would." She pushes out the door, squinting as she adjusts to the sunlight. She catches a glimpse of Farkle loudly instructing Dave to finish scrubbing the tires clean on her father's car—a hands-on application of the question posed on their blackboard. "Do you have any idea what he did at his old school? The stuff he did?"
"I happen to know all about Mr. Friar," Cory explains patiently. He winces as Farkle nearly chucks the clipboard, Dave ducking out of the way and running back over to the rest of their classmates.
Maya and Zay are watching with amusement from a couple of overturned buckets on the curb. Riley notices Lucas standing alone, not quite with her friends but not quite with her classmates, picking at a hangnail on his thumb and trying to appear innocent. She resents that he thinks he could ever be innocent. She resents that her stomach still flips when she looks at him.
"Farkle," Cory calls, gesturing him over. "How's the experiment going?"
"Not great. This class is full of negligent car washers. But at least your vehicle is getting a thorough cleansing."
"Just as I hoped," Cory agrees mischievously, wiggling his eyebrows at his gleaming car sitting in the lot.
"Only two students managed to wash the car in exactly six minutes and eight minutes." Farkle lifts his gaze to lock eyes with Riley, giving her an expectant look. "You, for one."
"Yay!"
"And—,"
"Who could it be?" Maya says knowingly, sidling over and peering over his shoulder to look at the notes. "Lucas? Could it be the new student, Lucas, who we would gain the most from working with? Is there a lesson written all over this? Is it Lucas?"
"Lucas, yeah!"
At his name, Lucas lifts his head and saunters over, Zay wandering over behind him. Riley grabs the clipboard and takes a look at it, seeing in fact that they were the only two anywhere near the desired times.
She shoves the clipboard back at Farkle. "I'm not washing a car with him."
"Oh, real nice attitude, sunshine," Lucas scoffs. "What's with the change of heart?"
Despite the use of a nickname, the comment comes across harmlessly. For a former, possibly current bully, he does an impressive job of coming across well-intentioned. She wishes the subtle smirk on his face wasn't so charming.
She makes a note to drink bug repellant when she gets home to kill the butterflies in her stomach.
"You definitely will wash the car with him," Farkle commands, waving his clipboard aggressively. "You will wash the car together, and you will wash it in three minutes and twenty-five point seven seconds, then I will go back to your father and say ha, and all will be right in the world. So wash."
"Fine," she grumbles, wandering over to grab the hose.
"Wash!"
"Yes, sir," Lucas says agreeably, heading towards the back of the car.
Zay, Maya, and Farkle stand together and watch as Lucas and Riley work at the car, working diligently but definitely not working together. Farkle nearly has a conniption and shouts at them to fix their technique—as his reputation is on the line—but Zay is preoccupied with something else.
"Why is Riley suddenly acting so weird around Lucas?" he asks Maya, crossing his arms.
"You can never be sure with her," Maya admits with a sigh. She cocks her head at him, placing her hands on her hips. "But it's not like you've been the best example to act otherwise. All you've told us is that he got expelled and you're being just as weird."
"Stuff happened, alright? I don't really want to talk about it."
"Why not?" Maya's tone is indignant. "What could've happened—,"
They're shocked into silence as a barrage of water sprays in their direction, sprinkling both of them as Lucas darts past them and out of the way. Riley's parading after him, brandishing the hose and soaking the Texan as savagely as she possibly can.
"What the—?"
"Why do you think it's okay to treat someone that way?" Riley shouts, stopping the house as Lucas disappears behind the other side of the car. "Why would you do that to someone?"
He pops up, giving her a bewildered look until she starts the hose again. "What are you talking about?"
"What you did to Zay!"
"I didn't do anything to Zay! He's my best friend!"
"A likely story," she says sharply, adjusting her grip on the handle.
Maya looks back and forth between them, the gears obviously turning in her pretty blonde head. "Something tells me there's a misunderstanding going on here."
"Wash the car!" Farkle shrieks, marching forward to stand behind Riley. "You're supposed to be washing the car. Wash the car!"
Riley turns around and hits him with a bout of water, getting him to back off.
Lucas jumps up again, raising his hands in surrender as she whips back around. "You think I did something to Zay? You want me to tell you what happened? You want me to tell you what I did?"
"Everything," Riley demands, nodding.
"Okay," he agrees breathlessly, holding his hands out in front of him protectively. He slowly inches towards her. "Easy there. Easy, sunshine. Just give me the hose, and I'll tell you."
She knows she shouldn't trust him. No one in their right mind should trust a stranger, let alone a bully. But it's those eyes again—something in those green eyes convinces her that it would be the right thing to do. That glimmer of vulnerability she saw in the classroom, that pulled her into this mess of butterflies in the first place, coaxes her into relenting her hold on the hose.
"Thank you," she says as she carefully takes the hose from her hands, fingers brushing against hers for half a second. She hates how her heart beats a little faster at the contact.
Crushes are the worst.
"No," he exhales, giving her a pleasant smile as he brandishes the hose in her direction. "Thank you."
"Oh, boy," Maya laughs from the curb. It takes Riley a split second too late to recognize her own mistake.
Okay, so crushes are the second to worst. Getting soaked by a hose is the worst.
Riley scrambles out of the way, spluttering to keep the water out of her mouth. She doesn't know how she managed to let Lucas get the upper hand, and she doesn't see how she's going to negotiate her way out of it considering he's a bully. This is his territory, and he's likely not going to be won over by sympathy or pity. But she figures it's all she's got, so she better at least try.
"Lucas!" she shouts, holding her arms out defensively. "Wait, wait! I lost my contact."
Nevermind that she's never worn glasses in her life. He's new, he's not bound to know that about her.
She's a little surprised when the water stops coming towards her as she drops to her knees to pretend to search. For all intents and purposes, she was not expecting that desperate ploy to work. She's even more surprised when he drops down on the concrete next to her, patting the ground in an attempt to help her find her nonexistent contact.
"I'm sorry, Riley," he says quickly, completely intent on finding it. "I didn't know. I'm so sorry."
His hand lands on hers for half a second as he continues to search, sending a shiver down her spine. She's never heard of a bully who would help their victim. She's never heard of a bully would who so adamantly claim that their victim is their best friend.
A victim that's now her friend to defend. And she's not going to let him get away with it, no matter how pretty those eyes are.
She fumbles to her feet, soaked clothes weighing her down as she reaches for the bucket of suds. She catches Maya's jaw drop out of the corner of her eye before she hefts the bucket off the ground and lifts it into her arms, dumping it over Lucas's head just as he turns around to look at her.
Momentarily dazed, Riley drops the bucket on the ground and shoves Lucas towards the hood of the car. For a tough, broody Texan, he's surprisingly easy to pin.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"What are you doing, following Zay here? Haven't you already done enough?"
Lucas reaches around her arms to wipe the water from his eyes. Although she doesn't regret the action in the name of her friends, she absentmindedly hopes he doesn't get any suds in them. "You don't wear contacts, do you?"
"Zay is my friend. I care about my friends."
"So do I!"
"You have a funny way of showing it," she snaps. "Who taught you that being a friend was the same as being a bully?"
Despite the fact that the statement sounded much more intimidating in her head than when she actually spoke it aloud, it seems to have the desired effect on Lucas. His features shift from confused to shocked, then slowly offense creeps into his expression. "You think I'm a bully?"
Riley has never been more sure of anything. She saw the awkward way Zay was acting, she heard him bring it up when they were talking at the lunch table. But the longer she examines the look on Lucas's face, the longer she gets a good look at those intense green eyes, the less certain she becomes.
Lucas gently nudges her off of him and back away from her, tossing a glance in Zay's direction before storming back into the school. If Riley isn't mistaken, the look on his face could best be described as hurt.
"Riley," Zay says, darting to her side and giving her a wild look. "What are you doing?"
"He doesn't get the right to treat you that way, Zay," she argues, grabbing the front of her shirt and wringing the water from it.
"Treat me what way?"
"You told us! He got expelled, he was bullying you! You didn't want to talk about it!"
"No, Riley!" he says, torn between incredulity and exasperation. "I didn't want to talk about it because I got him expelled."
Maya joins them, jaw dropping open slightly. "How did you do that?"
"Lucas wasn't the one bullying me," Zay explains further, locking eyes with Riley. "He was the one protecting me from them."
She finally recognizes the emotion prevalent in his features, the emotion making all of his interactions with Lucas so awkward. She recognizes it, because all the sudden she feels it too. It's nowhere near as pleasant as the butterflies, no matter how annoying they were becoming.
Guilt.
It's the secret of life. People change people.
Riley learns very quickly exactly what Zay was talking about in regards to Lucas protecting him. When one of their local jerks goes after him and Lucas steps to his aid, it's a little shocking to see how rapidly he switches into protective mode and how fierce his demeanor becomes. Whatever kindness in those eyes that roped her in initially vanishes, and she finds herself very grateful that Lucas isn't that person all the time.
She's even more grateful when for whatever reason, he steps back from the fight. Both parties walk away unscathed. She'd hate for him to get expelled from John Quincy Adams before she has the chance to apologize.
"I'm glad you're here," Zay tells him as they situate on the bench by the stairs, looking towards where the bully walked away. Riley hangs back by the lockers, waiting for a less intimate moment to step in. "But I don't think this is going to be like Texas. I don't want you to have to risk everything you've got to protect me all the time. That's not a friendship. That's a bodyguard. And I'm not paying you."
Lucas laughs sheepishly, shaking his head slightly. Riley decides that she likes his laugh, even if that part of her stomach insists on flipping obnoxiously. The butterflies are back, too, but she decides to wait on the bug repellant for now.
"Yeah, I'm thinking it'll be a little different too. I'm thinking maybe I don't have to be that person."
"I don't think you are," Zay agrees. He casts a glance over his shoulder, noticing Riley hovering for the first time. He gives her a look. "What makes you think so?"
Lucas sees his gaze drifting and turns to look over his shoulder, finding Riley waiting guiltily. He smiles a bit in spite of himself. "Just a feeling I got."
"What do you want?" Zay asks, as good an invitation as any for her to make an entrance.
She glides over, staring up at the ceiling to avoid tossing focus at either of them. Zay catches her drift, getting to his feet and shrugging. "Well, I'm going to go back to class. Before your father fails me. Again."
"You know how he loves it," Riley jokes, smiling as Zay makes a point of leaving them alone. Now that she's faced with the reality of it, she suddenly finds it a lot harder to be confident.
Lucas adjusts in his spot on the bench, tilting his head to gaze at her. "What can I do for you, sunshine?"
"That's not going away, is it?"
"Not for now, I don't think." He pauses, clasping his hands together. "Unless it really bothers you. If you tell me to stop, I'll stop. Wouldn't want to be a bully or anything like that."
Riley rolls her eyes, unable to hold back the embarrassed smile creeping onto her lips. She steps towards him and settles down on the edge of the bench next to him, twiddling her fingers. "I suppose I owe you an apology."
"Maybe." He shrugs, facing forward and staring at the floor. "I don't really care. If I'm being honest, I think the insinuation probably did me some good."
"How?" Riley gives him a disbelieving look. "If anybody thought I was a bully… I mean, especially towards my best friends—,"
"Back in Texas, I wouldn't have hesitated," he says thoughtfully. His eyes are still on the floor, but it's obvious his mind is far away. "With that guy harassing Zay. I don't know what made me stop. I think it's good I did and all. But I wouldn't have before I got here. I don't know, I think maybe you pointing out how my behavior could be misinterpreted sort of made me… reconsider."
It's a weirdly poignant conversation to have with a near stranger. Startlingly vulnerable. But then, Riley figures, the way she felt when they first made eye contact was startlingly vulnerable too.
"My dad taught this really great lesson today. You know, the one you missed while you were out here brooding." He hums. "People change people. Did you know that?"
"Sounds like a bunch of words," Lucas murmurs. He locks eyes with her, and she gets that feeling again. She's realizing she's probably going to have to get used to that feeling. "What's it mean?"
"Come to class, maybe you'll find out."
"Oh," he laughs, making a face. "Nice one."
She smiles back, watching him for a couple of seconds. "I'm sorry I assumed you were… what you weren't. And that I poured all that soap on your head."
"It's okay," Lucas assures her. "In a way, I'm glad. It's good to know Zay's got friends that'll defend him like that. Think it'd be nice, having friends like that."
"Well," she says loftily, getting to her feet and heading back towards the classroom. "You should sit with us at lunch sometime. We've got an open seat."
She waits with her hand on the doorknob, giving him a challenging eyebrow raise. She decides she likes the curious look he gives back. Maybe having a crush isn't going to be the worst thing in the world.
As he gets to his feet and walks over to follow her into the classroom, she gets the feeling that whatever happens, she and Lucas Friar are going to be good friends. Change, surprisingly, isn't always so bad.