A/N: It's official. All of the chapters for this story have been written and are in the vault, which means there will be two updates a week! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the latest update :)

*One Week Later*

Lucas approached Riley as she placed her books into her locker and grabbed her lunch bag. He leaned up against the locker beside hers and gave Riley a smile.

"Hey."

Riley looked up and returned the smile. "Hey. How are you doing?"

"Pretty good, glad it's lunch time. Ready to go?" he asked, gesturing towards the cafeteria.

Riley bit her lip as she shut her locker, something Lucas noticed she did when she was a bit nervous. "Actually, I had something else in mind, if that doesn't bother you."

Lucas shook his head. "Not at all."

"Do you need to go buy your lunch?"

"Nope," he replied, pulling a brown paper bag from behind him. "Decided to pack today. I'm getting sick of the stuff they call food here."

Riley let out a soft chuckle. "Yeah, the food here is not the best. So, are you ready?"

Lucas nodded and extended his arm. "Lead the way."

Riley walked a few feet down the hallway and led Lucas into her father's classroom. "I don't know about you, but I needed some place else to eat besides the cafeteria. My dad has a planning period during this time, so sometimes I'd leave lunch early and come here. Don't know why I didn't think of staying here for the entire lunch period before, but then again classes only started about a month ago." She plopped herself on the ground close to the blackboard, and then looked up at Lucas. "Is being here okay with you?"

Lucas sat down alongside Riley and set his lunch in front of him. "Of course it is," he replied.

Just as Lucas finished his sentence, Mr. Matthews entered the room with some papers in his hand. The academic looked up and saw the two students sitting on the floor. "Riley, Mr. Friar," he greeted.

"Hey dad!"

"Sir."

"I need to go and make some copies," he said as he walked towards his desk to drop off the papers in his hand and to pick up a manila folder. "I take it I can trust you two to be good while I'm gone?"

Riley rolled her eyes. "Dad, do you really have to ask?"

Mr. Matthews smiled. "No, I just like to give you a hard time; I'll be back in a few minutes," he told the two teens.

"Sounds good," Riley responded just before her father left.

Once Mr. Matthews reached the door, he looked back at the two teens and made brief eye contact with Lucas, hardening his expression ever so slightly when their eyes met before he left the classroom and headed down the hallway. Lucas felt his stomach drop slightly when his eyes met his teacher's. He knew that look far too well. Back in Texas, Lucas had gone on a few dates throughout high school, and even those were just to school dances. But when Lucas went to go pick up his date, he was given the same look by the fathers. He was treading in dangerous territory. Lucas was spending time with Mr. Matthews' daughter, something the teacher wasn't going to take lightly.

Honestly, Lucas didn't even consider the fact Mr. Matthews would take it in that way, but he should have. Over the past couple of weeks, Lucas felt something between him and Riley, much more than friendship. However, Lucas was in no position to be looking for a girlfriend at the moment. He wanted to get to know her as a friend before anything else happened.

"Does he always do that?" Lucas asked.

Riley shrugged. "Depends on the day, really. He's just joking around."

"Ah."

There was a brief moment of silence before Riley spoke. "So, tell me about where you lived in Texas. What was it like?"

Lucas leaned his head up against the wall and smiled. "Where to begin. Well, for starters I lived on a farm for most of my life. I loved it so much. There's nothing like riding around on over one hundred acres. My family was always close by, along with my friends. It was nice… so quiet and peaceful. Quite the opposite of what I see here."

"I'm sorry if this sounds a bit naïve since there aren't many around here, but what did you have on the farm?"

Lucas shook his head. "It doesn't sound naïve at all. Besides, there are a vast variety of farms. We had mostly cattle and horses, nothing else really."

Riley smiled. "Oh, so you're a cowboy then?" she teased lightly.

Lucas nodded. "Yeah, you could say so. I used to do some roping tournaments, but nothing with our own cattle. My parents wouldn't let me, not until I was older. My uncle promised me that he'd show me this summer when I go down to visit them."

"So you're family still owns the farm then?"

"Yeah, my Uncle Buster bought it. That way if my mom and I ever wanted to come back and visit we could stay there."

Riley tilted her head slightly. "What about your dad? Is he here with your mom?"

Lucas shook his head. "No, he passed away a few years ago. That's actually one of the main reasons why we moved. My mom couldn't really afford to keep the farm going anymore, so she began to look for a better job. She finally found one, and since it was here, she had to sell the farm and move."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Thanks. Sometimes it can still be hard, but you can't stop living."

They began to eat, neither of them saying anything for a few minutes.

"So," Lucas began, "looking forward to anything special in the coming months?"

Riley shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I like the fact that the cooler weather is coming soon. I love the autumn weather. My birthday is in two months along with winter break… but other than that, nothing really. I mean, I should be hearing from the colleges I applied to soon, so I guess I'm looking forward to that too?" She let out her breath and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry, that's probably not the answer you were hoping for, was it?"

Lucas let out a chuckle. "I wasn't really hoping for anything. Was just trying to keep the awkward silence from overwhelming us."

"Sorry about that… I'm not much of a talker unless the other person starts the conversation," she replied.

"There's no problem with that."

Riley perked up a little. "Really?"

Lucas raised an eyebrow when he heard Riley's answer. "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"

"You'd be surprised at what people think."

He placed a hand on hers, making Riley feel as if electricity was coursing through her body. "I don't care about what other people think. What's important is what you think," he replied as he looked deeply into Riley's eyes, hoping his words would help her in some way.

Missy was on her way to her locker to get her sweater when she heard the sound of someone laughing reach her ears. She paused for a second to try to determine where it was coming from. However, the laughter stopped by the time she tried to trace the sound. Missy looked around and noticed the couple of classrooms that were nearby. If she was able to hear it, the laughter probably came from one of them.

Missy approached the closest classroom, Mr. Matthews' room, and peered inside. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Lucas sitting beside Riley on the floor with his hand placed on top of hers. A wave of anger erupted inside of her. There was nothing more that Missy wanted at the moment than to go inside the room and break those two apart. Lucas shouldn't be spending time with such a low life. The only thing that would happen if he hung out with Riley would be that she would drag him down along with her.

She was very tempted to go in and ask what Lucas was doing, but considering they were in Mr. Matthews' room, and he wasn't there at the moment, he could be back at any time. Missy headed to her locker and began to think about when she could do something to help Lucas out of the trap he was falling into. All she knew was that it had to be done soon.

A/N #2: Hmm, what is Missy up to? We shall find out soon! If you could let me know what you thought by leaving a review before you head out that would be great. Until next time!