Lucas drove home from the restaurant with Zay up front. Riley, Farkle and Maya sat on the bed of the truck, whispering to each other about what had just happened.
"Were you really flirting with Lucas' arch nemesis?" Farkle chimed in.
"Wesley is not his arch nemesis, but yeah kinda." Maya whispered.
"Lucas looked so angry back there." Riley said, creating a silence between the three.
"So what?" Maya finally said. "Yeah they were friends back then, and so what if Lucas was angry. I'm officially single after that stupid relationship with Billy and I'm finally done waiting for Josh to see me as more than a child. I'm ready to get out there and Wesley is seriously hot! When did I ever care about Lucas' opinions on the guys I chose to date anyway?"
Riley and Farkle exchanged looks before turning back to Maya. "You sure that's such a good idea peaches?" Riley asked.
"Oh I'm sure."
Lucas pulled up to the house and parked the truck before getting out and walking straight in. Maya followed slowly behind him. Riley and Farkle stayed back a bit and held Zay back so they would be safe to talk. "What?" Zay asked.
"Maya is seriously considering hanging out with Wesley while on this trip." Riley said in a panic.
"You gotta be kidding me." Zay shook his head.
They all went inside and went to their rooms to crash for the night. Maya was in the bathroom taking a hot shower as Lucas lay in bed, still upset with what happened tonight. He knew being back home would mean running into his old friends, but out of all of them, he had to see Wesley first.
He lay on the left side of the bed unable to fall asleep. He heard the bathroom door open and he quickly shut his eyes. He felt Maya crawl into bed just a few inches from him. He took a quick peak at her and saw her back facing him. She sunk into the bed and dozed off while he lay awake.
After what felt like forever, Lucas had finally fallen asleep last night.
He was awoken by the sound of the roosters going off at 7am. He looked over on his side and saw Maya's head buried under a couple of pillows. "Someone shut that thing up!" she grumbled from under the pillow. Lucas shook his head, he can never stay mad at his blonde little friend.
He pulled the pillows off of her head, "Good morning sunshine."
Maya lifted her head to see Lucas smiling at her. She pulled the blankets up and covered her face. "Go away."
"Sorry ma'am but I can't do that. We've got another day full of adventures waiting for us." he said pulling the blanket off of her face. She groaned as she opened her eyes to the bright light shining through the windows. She tilted her head and saw Lucas still smiling at her. She grabbed the closest pillow and threw it at his face before dragging herself out of bed.
After they had both gotten washed up, they met up with the rest of their friends in the living room before walking over to the main house. They opened the door to the amazing smell of bacon taking over the entire kitchen. Lucas kissed his grandma good morning before walking over to hug his Pappy Joe. "Morning kids, eat as much as you'd like!" Grandma Friar said as she dumped the rest of the bacon on a plate.
The gang sat at the kitchen table and started loading their plates with pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, rice and potatoes. Grandma Friar was so happy to see the kids enjoying her cooking.
When breakfast was finished, they all rushed back over to the barn to get ready for the day. Lucas wanted to take the group hiking, since three out of five of them had never gone before.
The guys were all ready and waiting in the living room of the barn, waiting on the girls of course.
Riley and Maya were in Maya's room getting ready, trying to pick what to wear. Riley had settled on grey leggings and Farkle's white v-neck tied at her hip. She applied sunscreen to her body as Maya finished lacing up her shoes. Maya had on black leggings and a grey cut t-shirt that stopped just above her belly button, right where her leggings reached. Riley had her hair in two braids while Maya threw her hair in a messy ponytail at the top of her head.
When the girls met up with the guys, they were all set to get in the truck. The boys loaded the coolers onto the bed of the truck and everyone hopped in.
They were already pretty deep in the mountain areas, so the drive to the hike wasn't long.
When they arrived, the city kids were amazed by how many trees they were surrounded by. It was almost as if they were lost in the forest, and they didn't even start the hike yet.
Lucas had informed the gang that this hike would take them about 4 hours total. Everyone was prepared for that except Maya, of course.
For the first few minutes, Maya complained that it was already extremely hot, and it was still pretty early in the day. Then she started complaining about all the bugs that were flying around them and buzzing in her ears. Then she started to get bitten by a couple of mosquitoes, which Lucas was prepared for. He pulled bug spray out of his backpack and sprayed it on Maya and everyone else just in case they were getting bitten too.
After that, Maya was pretty quiet, that is until she started to trip on a few branches on the way up. Granted, Riley tripped on them first and took Maya down with her.
She did, however, enjoy stopping constantly to take pictures of the scenery. She made a mental note to try and recreate these pictures in a drawing or a painting.
The rest of the hike up wasn't so bad. Maya had finally gotten the hang of hiking, and stopped complaining so much.
Two hours later, the gang had finally made it up the mountain to this beautiful look out. There were a few people at the top, but not so much that it would ruin the view.
It was absolutely breathtaking. Maya took pictures, but none of them did this view justice.
They all stayed up there for a while, siting against the trees and just enjoying each others' company.
Zay kept hinting to Lucas to use this opportunity to finally tell Maya how he felt, but Lucas ignored him.
They stayed up there for quite a while that when it was time to start hiking back down, Riley and Maya had fallen asleep leaning on the tree. Little snores escaped Riley's mouth as Farkle attempted to wake the two of them. After a few tries, he was successful and the girls reluctantly got up.
Farkle held Riley up as the sleepy girl started to walk down the trail.
Maya, on the other hand, didn't want to walk. After her mini nap, she was lazy and didn't feel like walking down the trail. If the walk up was difficult, she knew she was going to have some trouble going down. Instead of listening to her grumble the entire time, Lucas knelt down and told her to get on his back. She did as he said and he carried her down the trail.
Maya enjoyed the ride down, but halfway down the trail Lucas bent over and asked her to get off. It was extremely hot and Lucas was disgustingly sweaty, which made Maya realize there was sweat all over her t-shirt. Gross.
Lucas could feel his shirt sticking to his back so he peeled his shirt off and stuffed an end into his back pocket, leaving it to hang out. Maya caught a glimpse of his washboard like abs and felt a little overwhelmed. The heat was definitely getting to her.
She threw her t-shirt off, leaving her in her sports bra, so that the shirt would dry faster in the wind. She was a lot cooler in just her bra, so she left the shirt off the rest of the way down. Lucas saw her and he knew she was doing that just to torture him.
When they finally reached the truck, Zay was the first one to reach the cooler. He grabbed a couple of cold water bottles and tossed them around to his friends so everyone would have one.
Zay suggested getting a late lunch at a local sandwich shop and everyone immediately jumped into the truck to go.
The drive into town was pretty long, thankfully Lucas thought ahead and packed a couple of snacks for everyone. A couple bags of veggie chips and a few granola bars; healthy snacks…of course.
As they drove, Maya noticed something off the highway. She asked Lucas to turn around and drive in the other direction. He did as so, and was soon on a small dirt road leading to a park. Both Lucas and Zay had no idea where Maya was leading them and seriously considered going back to the highway since Maya had no idea where they were going as well.
After a few minutes, they finally reached a small parking lot to what looked like an abandoned park.
Maya was the first to hop out of the truck and run straight toward the park. The rest of the gang followed close behind her. They had to hop a small fence to enter the park, but it was worth it. Maya stood in the middle of the walkway in awe of what she was seeing.
Concrete walls were covered with street art; it was like Maya's heaven. She could just see the top of the walls from the road and knew it was something she'd enjoy.
There were some kids spray painting some tags along the empty spots on the wall. Others were spray painting actual paintings.
Lucas and Zay had never seen this place before. They assumed it became a popular hangout after they left Texas.
They each went off on their own, looking at all the art along the walls. Maya took pictures of her favorites. She was so distracted by all the art that she almost walked into a guy crouched over on the floor trying to paint something.
"I'm so sorry." she said backing away from the guy, almost knocking over his spray paint cans.
"No worries." the guy said standing up to see her. He took a look at the short blonde and was taken by her beauty.
"I'm Levi." he said extending his hand out to Maya.
"Maya" she said shaking his hand. She pulled her hand back to find a few spots of paint on her skin.
"Sorry 'bout that. Been working on this piece for some time now. I think I have some wipes in my bag." he said turning toward his bag.
"It's not a problem. I'm used to it anyway." Maya shrugged.
"You an artist?" he turned back to her.
"Sort of." she smiled.
He extended a paint can to Maya and gestured toward the wall. There were a couple of blank spots on the wall next to his painting of an alligator coming out of the water. She had to admit, this kid had serious skills. She grabbed the can out of his hand and walked over to a blank spot. She thought for a minute before popping the cap off the can and painting light strokes onto the wall.
After a few minutes, and different paint cans, Maya had painted something simple. A pair of green eyes lay in front of her, painted with incredible detail for something done in such a short amount of time. She picked up the black can and started to add eyelashes to her painting when her friends found her.
"MAYA!" Riley shouted.
Maya dropped the can and looked over at her friends standing there. They had just figured she'd be looking at all the paintings, not actually working on a painting.
"Maya what are you doing? This could be illegal!" Lucas said walking over toward Maya who rolled her eyes at how dramatic he was acting.
"Relax Friar, the cops know about this place. They actually enjoy seeing the art here." Levi said from behind them all. He was resting his back against a tree as he watched Maya paint.
"Johnson?" Lucas turned toward the tree.
"Lucas Friar and Isaiah Babineaux back in Texas? Are you guys really here or are the paint fumes finally getting to my head?" Levi got off the tree and walked over to the guys.
"It's good to see you man." Lucas said pulling Levi in for a "bro hug" and Zay doing the same afterwards.
"I thought your name was Levi?" Maya asked.
"Johnson is my last name. We went through a phase here where we only called each other by our last names. It lasted until Friar here left us. It wasn't the same after that." Levi shook his head.
"You guys went to school together?" Riley chimed in.
"Yeah, we spent every year together until these two jackasses left us." Levi swung his arm and whacked Lucas right in the chest. "Levi" he reached his hand out, introducing himself to Riley and Farkle who did the same before getting back to the conversation.
"Not my fault, mama got a better job in New York, it was a no brainer." Lucas defended himself.
"Whatever. You guys are back and it's time to party! You going to the cabin tomorrow?" Levi asked.
"No."
"Yes."
Lucas and Maya said in unison.
"No Maya, we aren't." Lucas stood his ground.
"Well maybe you aren't but I am! I'll even walk there if I have to." Maya answered back.
"No need to do that cutie, I'll come pick you up." Levi said, tilting an imaginary cowboy hat. Why do all these Texas boys do that to her?
"Well then, it's settled!" Maya said before turning on her toes to finish her painting.
"No it's not Maya, you're not going to that party." Lucas was getting annoyed.
"Since when are you the boss of me?" Maya painted her last eyelash before turning to face him.
"What's going on?" Levi whispered over to Zay, Riley and Farkle standing on the side.
"We ran into Wesley last night." Zay whispered back.
"Oh." Levi said, "Oh shit."
Levi jumped and stood in between the two who were currently bickering about going to the party.
"You know what, never mind about the cabin party, it's probably gonna be lame anyway." Levi chimed in.
"What the hell is wrong with you guys? What's so horrible about this party that I can't attend?" Maya exclaimed.
The boys were silent.
"Is it because I was flirting with Wesley last night?" Maya asked.
"You flirted with Wesley!?" Levi shouted.
"What the hell is so wrong with some innocent flirting? You guys are acting like I slept with the kid."
"Innocent flirting isn't bad. It's that you did it with Wesley." Levi said before Zay cut him off.
"They don't know what happened." Zay whispered to Levi.
"What's wrong with Wesley?" Maya asked.
"That's not important. All you need to know is that you are not going to that party." Lucas said, "End of story." he walked away from the group and went to sit by the truck.
"Well it was nice seeing you Levi. We'll catch up later." Zay said shaking his hand before walking back to the truck.
Riley and Farkle said their goodbyes before walking back to the truck as well.
Maya stayed back for a minute. She took a quick picture of her painting on the wall before turning to face Levi. He was holding a small paint brush, "Sign it." he handed it to her.
She dipped the brush in a small container of black paint and quickly signed M. Hart under one of the eyes. She gave Levi the brush, "Thanks for letting me paint. It was nice meeting you." she extended her hand which he shook, "It was lovely to meet you Maya."
The ride to town was long, and just as awkward as last night's ride. They picked up sandwiches to go and drove back to the house.
After they ate their sandwiches, Riley and Maya were cuddled up on the couch watching a movie on tv. Zay, Lucas and Farkle decided to go outside and spend some time with the horses. Lucas and Zay showed Farkle how to wash and groom a horse, which Farkle surprisingly enjoyed.
Inside, Maya was still bothered by how Lucas reacted to Maya wanting to go to the party. She didn't see what the big deal was. She remembered that she had gotten Wesley's number last night and decided to send him a text.
"Hey, it's Maya. Looks like I'll be attending your little cabin party. I just need a ride."
A few minutes later she received an answer from him.
"No problem. I'll pick you up from the Friar Farm. Be ready at 8am, it's quite the drive. Bring your bathing suit!"
And that was that.