Disclaimer 1: I am not Michael Jacobs, or any other producer/writer involved in the making of GMW, and there claim no right to these characters (except Conner, Les, and Derek). This fanfiction is a zero profit generating piece.
Disclaimer 2: This is a sequel to my other piece "And Then There Was Us." You should probably read that story first even though this is also being written to be read on by itself. Either way, enjoy your Lucaya however you please.
Disclaimer 3: This is a trigger warning list. Not all of these warnings are assured to be included but are certainly possible topics to be discussed… sexual content, course language, death of a minor character, unfaithful relationships, pregnancy outside of marriage, and abortion/miscarriage. Other topics may come up but these are the ones that I feel would cause the biggest anxiety stresses.
A/N: I don't generally write sequels for my own fanfiction because I've never considered my work suitable enough to deserve one. Even now, I don't believe that story is the one I should have written a sequel for, but it's the only one I'm compelled to follow-up on. If you're reading this – this is story has been re-written. I published 3 chapters and decided I didn't like it so I an updating the chapters to reflect a more fitting story plot and progression. Updates are effective June 30, 2016. If you have read the story previously, I advice re-reading it – thank you and enjoy.
Dirty blonde hair flew around her face and her bun fell out of it's tight ponytail. Baby blue scrubs wafted the bitter scent of peroxide and cotton balls, some of which were still popping out of her pocket. Maya had lost track of time and was sure she'd be late to her dinner date. These weekly dinners with her boyfriend were all the time she had left to share with him anymore, so she ought not be late! Even though the satchel she carried to work was banging against the backs of her knees, Maya didn't let it slow her down. Nothing could prevent her from racing to the truck with full vigor.
Maya slams herself inside of the pick-up Les gave to her years ago when she moved off of the Friar Farm was still running. She couldn't begin explaining how or why but it was still kicking as if it had just come off the car lot. Les shared with her how proud he was that she was taking such great care of it. Even Lucas praised her for being able to keep the car together, considering she'd never driven on her own before she moved to Texas with him.
Things had changed so much since graduating high school. Lucas and Maya lived on the farm for the summer, but when the new school year started for everyone going back, well, Maya felt that she needed a purpose in her life. That's when she tried to work at a couple of the gyms teaching yoga and zumba. Unfortunately, there was a lot of competition and Maya couldn't make enough revenue to justify driving into town most of the time. That's when she decided to pick something else… Something that she knew would be able to sustain her and pay the bills…
That's when Maya got herself involved in the medical world. Maya started by getting a part-time receptionist position at a nursing home. It was the only opening that would pay her enough to move out before Christmas, which was ultimately what Maya was aiming to do so that she didn't have to rely on the Friar's to take care of her. While she was working there a position opened for a home health aide. Maya applied knowing that it would be a pay increase and more hours. They offered to give her the training that she needed for certifications, and then put her to work as soon as her classes were finished. In the meantime, she shadowed other HHAs until she was able to work on her own.
Almost immediately after that, someone told her that the hospital was going to be looking for CNAs in the summer – when many of their CNAs would be transferring to other hospitals to do their clinical training with their desired hospitals. Maya saw this as another financial opportunity and started immediately working on a Certified Nursing Assistant program. Maya felt as though she's never once stopped working and growing since she came to Texas, but the satisfaction of being self-sufficient once more was too great.
Maya's been working at the hospital for just over two years now. She's been living in the same apartment for four years, and Lucas moved in about eighteen months ago when he decided to go back to school. Maybe he wasn't planning to be a veterinarian, but there were several veterinary technician positions to be filled – and Lucas had every intention of getting a job outside of the ranch.
Things were always changing in life because 'people change people,' Riley's dad had taught her in junior high. All of the new people that Maya got to know through work and school, all of the friends that Lucas reconnected with over the years, and even Lucas' family – all of whom had come to adore Maya wholly. Every single person changed Maya's life in ways that she'd never would have thought to expect five years ago. In that same vein, Lucas had changed too.
Since returning to school he'd become forgetful and needed to live out of his planner. In fact, he'd gotten a second cellphone only to keep his schedule in order. Three days a week he volunteered at animal shelters hoping to get more practical experience with domestic animals like house pets. He also dedicated three days a week to the ranch with Conner because Les was becoming too weak to maintain the ranch on his own during the slow months. Even Maya would swing by to help out on her days off, but she didn't have many of those. Supporting Lucas through school was ever demanding which usually left her working as many as fourteen days straight without a break.
She loved Lucas and never blamed him for wanting to get this education. It was a two-year program through a trade school so she assumed that it would be a fast two years. After all, sometimes she feels as though she's just blinked and the last four have sunk into the Earth as if pulled away from her by quicksand. The only problem proved to be that the last eighteen months have shown Maya one thing: living together doesn't mean you see each other all the time.
This last month has easily been the worst since Lucas joined her in town. The move was supposed to help them spend more time together and adjust to living on their own. His school and work demanded so much of his life, as did Maya's, that these date nights were the only uninterrupted time that she shared with him. Even those nights were a thing of the past, though, since Lucas has missed the last four dates.
Maya had never missed one. Each and every Tuesday she was always there, and she was always there on time.
As soon as Maya barges in, pulling her shirt off to reveal a plain white tee beneath, the hostess does everything she can to act pleasant and positive. Everyone at this restaurant knows who she is and what she's there for the second she walks through the door. Lately she could start to see the pity in their faces so clearly that even she considered whether or not she should bother showing up anymore. Still, Maya hoped week after week that Lucas would come in through the doors late with apologies and a rose in hand. She didn't even like roses but Maya needed him to be apologetic for turning their date night into a checkbox in his planner. A checkbox he must have decided was not important enough to be ticked off the list.
The usual server, Charlie, strides up with his straight white teeth and wavy surfer hair. Confidence grows inside of him exponentially each time that Lucas fails to show up. When it is slow he even dares to sit in the booth with Maya and try to make conversation. Last week she agreed to play tic-tac-toe with the different sauce packs on the table.
"Please don't hit on me tonight, Charlie. I will tell your uncle to fire you for sexual harassment of a patron." Tonight she just simply wasn't in the mood for his shenanigans. A wave of understanding seems to overtake the server. For Maya it couldn't be clearer that the staff aches for her as though she were their family. Of course, she's been coming her for years because the diner remaindered her of her mom in a way. The diner was the breakfast-all-day sort of place; very different from her mother's diner, but her mother was always a breakfast person. On her mother's sober days, she would make some of the most amazing pigs-in-a-blanket. It was the closest Maya got to Southern culture before Lucas rolled around in New York.
Charlie put a hand on the table, "Meal is on the house tonight. You want the usual?" Maya stared back at him with tears forming in her eyes. It wasn't that they were offering to pay that broke her heart so much as the signs around her. Lucas had become consumed by a life separate from hers and it was tearing her apart.
Accepting that she would be eating her 'usual' dinner alone – again, no less – made her worry if this wasn't the beginning of the end of them. Were these just the early days of a bad break-up? Maya couldn't really hide her sorrow, and so a tear rolled down her cheek as she accepted Charlie's words with a sour nod.
Lucas dropped all of his work clothes into the duffel bag with relief. Starting Sunday he was taking a three-week break from everything. School would be out for winter vacation, the shelter's would have plenty of other volunteers to make up for his absence, and the ranch would be just fine with Conner visiting a few times a week. Besides that, he could always talk Maya into going out the ranch with him to visit the animals.
As he walked out of the locker room he reflect on a time when Maya and Riley would wait for him to finish football and basketball practice. Those days were exhausting but in a totally different way. Since becoming a "proper" adult, as his father joked, Lucas lost all free time for playing sports. In fact, the only "sport" he played was Maya.
Even though all of these thoughts are in his head, he has to remind himself the at the "sport" is having sex with her. They'd waited quite a long time before they ever took that leap in their relationship. It was Maya that insisted on them waiting until they at least lived with one another for an extended period of time. Well, they hadn't made it quite that long, but they waited longer than most people their age. Loving her emotionally and physically demanded quite a lot of Lucas, and some days he wasn't sure how much more he could give to her.
It wasn't for a lack of loving her so much as a lack of time. The life he juggled right now consisted of full-time education, two part-time jobs, and a girlfriend who worked something like seventy hours a week. When their free-time overlapped they generally tried to make up for everything they'd been missing with all the extras. Generally that meant having vibrant and energetic sex, and then promptly falling asleep naked wherever it was that they'd been at the time.
As he swings the door open from the locker room he smashes into someone. In flurry he doesn't even see whom it is he's unintentionally attacked. Arms fly everywhere from each other to gather the things that the person had dropped. It isn't until they're both standing that Lucas sees who was on the other side of the door; "Bridgette?"
It would be a lie to say that he didn't notice how captivating her green eyes were in the florescent lights of the hallway. Something about them reminded him of seaweed, but in a good way. Like wild and untamed underwater plant life. For a second he forgets to listen to her but is able to catch the majority of what she says.
"No worries, Mr. Firar, I should have been paying attention." The way she flashes a smile at him nearly makes him forget what it was he supposed to be doing, causing him to lean against the wall. They stand there for a moment awkwardly for only a moment before he figures out how to make the conversation casual once more.
"Mr. Friar is my dad – and only then to strangers. Feel free to call me Lucas. In fact, I ask that you do." He pokes his hand out for a formal introduction. Bridgette was in the nursing program but they shared a couple of core classes together periodically. Mostly he recognized her because her boyfriend proposed in the middle of a mid-term study session. It was the "talk of the campus" for weeks afterwards, and some people were even discussing making it a short animate film for Disney. Lucas didn't know the details but couldn't forget the event nonetheless.
Bridgette tosses her golden hair over her shoulder. In a way it reminds him of Maya and makes him homesick. Lovely as she was, Lucas was ready to get going to see his girlfriend. He'd been missing her and it was time for them to lay down and watch some movies on the couch. As soon as Bridgette agrees, "Sure thing, Lucas," he starts off towards his car without any further thought to the incident.
The ride home is normal enough, traffic that irritates him, but otherwise boring and quiet. He doesn't question anything except that he's forgotten something. If he had, he's sure Maya would have said something to him. Just last week he forgot to take the trash out from the bathroom and she'd nagged him about in the subtlest ways, "Does the bathroom feel crowded to you?" She was adorable and menacing all at once when she did those things. It was part of why he loved Maya Hart so very much.
Once he gets home and reached for his keys he realizes that his pocket is a bit empty. Slowly he processes what was in there when he left and pieces together that his wallet is missing. He wonders if he left it in the car, and doubles back immediately to check. Fifteen minutes go by before he accepts that his wallet may be at the school. As he goes upstairs he calls and sets a janitor on the hunt for in the hallway and locker room.
Just as he steps out off the last step to their fourth floor apartment, Lucas is in hold and hears a voice calling out to him; "Mr. Friar?"
Stunned, he sees Bridgette sitting right by his door. Lucas walks very slowly up to her before seeing that she's holding his wallet in her hands. Within a few minutes the janitor picks up his phone again and assures that he cannot find the wallet anywhere, but he kindly informs him that someone has brought it back to him at his apartment. The call ends promptly and Lucas takes his wallet back.
"That was might kind of you to bring that here. I appreciate it, Bridgette. Also, stop calling me 'Mr. Friar.' It makes me uncomfortable." Lucas figures the conversation is done and starts unlocking his door. Bridgette doesn't qualify as a full-blown stranger so he sees no need to protect himself from her presence. As he swings the door open to his home he barely realizes that Bridgette sneaks in quietly behind him.
"Well, it's just your kind of well-known around here. Your dad runs the beloved Friar Ranch, you have a few titles for bull-riding, and you beat up a few of the most popular kids in junior high…" Her eyes sparkle in a menacing way that makes Lucas want to push her down the stairs. Okay, he doesn't really want to push her down the stairs but he doesn't trust the way she's looking at him. Everything in the air tells him not to trust her.
Besides, she is bringing up something from his past that irritates him. What Lucas did back then – it was the right thing to do for his friend. In fact, it was the right thing to do period. Those kids thought the could pick on Zay because he was black. They'd bullied so many kids into transferring that Lucas was just fed up with the nastiness of it all. Zay had become his best friend since arriving at the junior high and he wasn't about to lose him. So Lucas beat the kid up until he couldn't stand up anymore. Unfortunately, it got him expelled and drove him mother to believe that a city life was better for Lucas. The cultural acceptance in New York was better fit for Lucas' attitude and a better place to raise an enlightened child. The decision felt wrong at the time but Lucas had come to accept his mother's choice. It was the right one to make at the time.
"I think you need to leave. My girlfriend will be home any minute now and I want to have a fresh coffee made for her when she gets home." Lucas puts his hand out to start pulled the door open. Things happen so fast after that, though. Everything moved in a blur and he hadn't the foggiest idea how he would recall those events in the coming days.