"Favorite color?" I challenged, smiling innocently.

It was Saturday afternoon, and Lucas and I were hanging out at the park. Maya had plans with her mom and Uncle Shawn, and Farkle was getting ready for another spelling bee against Einstein Academy, so it was just the two of us this afternoon. Not that I minded - I would be lying if I said I didn't like having one on one time with Lucas. He was one of my closest friends, after all.

He laughed. "Brown. What's yours?"

"Green," I answered automatically. Usually I would have said purple, but it was hard to remember any other colors while I was looking into his eyes. Yep, I was your typical middle school girl with a huge crush. But I didn't mind that, either.

Lucas paused, and I worried for a second that he didn't believe me, but then he seemingly shrugged it off, grinning again. "What's your favorite school subject?"

I smiled in spite of myself. "Don't tell anyone, but ... history. English is pretty great, too, though. I love the things that Harper teaches us. But what's yours?"

"History, too," he chuckled. "But yeah, she's pretty fantastic."

I nodded, fiddling with my fingers awkwardly. "What's your favorite food?"

"Probably angel's food cake ... I don't know, I've always loved it. What's yours?"

I shrugged simply, leaning back against the park bench we were sitting on. "There's so many different foods, it's hard to pick just one. So I'm going to have to skip on that question. And even though I know it's your turn to ask the next question, curiosity is getting the best of me, so would you mind if I asked you another question?" This was one question I was extremely nervous to ask, but I couldn't keep it bottled up forever. It was going to come out eventually, and it might be slightly better if it were to come out while we were actually playing the Questions Game. Or whatever this little game was actually called, I wasn't too certain.

All I knew is that we always took turns asking and answering each other's questions whenever it was just the two of us. It might seem a bit weird or even awkward to outsiders, but to us, it was just how we allowed our friendship to grow. At first we had started with more complicated questions, considering the fact that we had started this little habit around the time that Zay moved out here. Which meant that we were just now getting to the more simplistic questions.

I was about to completely mess all of that up, though, by asking a more serious question. The type of question that was sure to inevitably cause an awkward moment afterwards. But "awkward" was pretty much my middle name, so I wasn't exactly worried. You get used to it after a couple years of intense awkwardness.

"You know you can ask me anything."

"Who's your favorite person in the entire universe? The one condition is that you can't lie," I added gently. Although I figured he would probably name someone in his family or Farkle (since they were best friends, after all), I was still scared to death that he might say Maya. They had been getting closer and closer lately, ever since the yearbook and semi-formal incidents, but I knew I needed to ask him this eventually. And if he said her name, that would be okay, too. As long as everyone was happy, I would be all right.

In theory, at least.

Lucas paused for a long moment, apparently thinking something over. I immediately jumped to the worst possible assumption and realized that he was most likely trying to figure out a way to let me down easy and tell me that it was Maya. Maybe he would say that it had always been Maya. After all, the photo that was used to the Favorite Couple thing in the yearbook was fairly old, right? Judging by that, our peers had been seeing this coming for a really long time. So what if that meant he had feelings for my best friend, and had been having feelings for her since a long time ago?

"Promise you won't freak out?" he finally asked, eyebrows raised slightly.

I nodded. There was no way I was going to freak out. I had been preparing myself for this moment since the day I decided to become Morotia M. Black. It wasn't going to catch me off guard now, all these weeks later. "I promise, Lucas."

"Well, you."

It took me a minute to comprehend what he had just said. "Huh?" I eventually asked once I had remembered how exactly to speak.

So Lucas Friar had the talent to render me completely speechless. It wasn't something I was proud of, but I suppose there could be worse things going on in my life. I wasn't going to begin complaining over the fact that I had more than friends feelings for someone I had my first kiss with.

He laughed lightly, although it sounded a bit off. Almost like he was actually nervous right now. "I just told you that you're my favorite person in the entire universe, Riley. Without lying, too. But it's nothing big, so things don't have to be awkward between us or anything. I mean, you already know how I feel about you."

Actually, I didn't. The lines had been getting more and more blurry these past few weeks, especially after the yearbook and art class scenarios. But right now, it almost felt like nothing had changed between us. We were the same Lucas and Riley we had been since that morning I fell into his lap on the subway. And nothing anyone said was going to ruin us.

Sure, the right pressure could turn you into a diamond. But like my mom said, the wrong pressure could turn you into dust. Neither of us wanted to be dust, and now I knew for sure that we weren't going to be. We had the potential to be similar to a diamond - beautiful, unique, and absolutely breathtaking. It would just take its own time. And it was okay if we weren't ready for a relationship at the moment - we would be ready sooner or later. Nothing anyone said or insisted was going to change who we were. Because we still do what we do.

"That couldn't possibly make anything awkward between us," I murmured. Then, speaking up, I added, "You're my favorite person, too."

And it was true. He was. As much as I loved Maya and my parents and Farkle and Josh and everyone else in my life, something was different about Lucas. He made me feel like anything was possible, and like everything was going to be okay in the end.

I didn't know what this meant quite yet. But that was okay, too.

He was still my favorite.

. . .

A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing! It makes my day to hear from you guys, and I hope you liked this chapter. As you can probably tell, this was set after Creativity, I Am Farkle, and Cory & Topanga. I felt like another cutesy Rucas moment couldn't possibly hurt. ;D

Also, I still don't own Girl Meets World. Sigh. This still makes me feel so sad.