The 24th of December

Maya awoke to find a text from Josh asking her if she wanted to meet up with Josh. Her immediate thought was to reply yes to the offer, but as she stared at the three words written at the end of the text she decided she wanted to do something special, something potentially crazy. She called Smackle before she could second guess herself.

"Hello?" came the sleepy reply from the other end of the phone, Smackle was definitely not a morning person and had it been any other situation Maya would have felt bad for waking her up early.

"I'm doing it!" Maya almost shouted into her phone.

"What? Oh Maya, wait, what are you doing?" Smackle asked trying to put the pieces together something that took her quite a bit longer in her still half asleep state.

"I'm sending the message to him!" Maya explained while still doing her best to calm herself down.

"What? Seriously? That's great Maya!" apparently that was all the time that Smackle needed to wake up fully and now, she was almost as excited as Maya. "That's an incredible first step Maya."

"I feel like I can do it now. And if I don't do it now that I'm feeling like this then I don't think that it's ever going to happen."

"Go for it Maya, I'm gonna hang up now so that you don't have time to second guess yourself. Oh and Maya, merry Christmas."

"Thank you so much Smackle, merry Christmas to you too." Maya said before Smackle hung up. Maya typed out the message in a matter of seconds and was about to hit send out of habit when she paused. "are you really going to chicken out now? She asked herself before she took one last look and typed in the last three words. "Hell no!" with one push she sent the message.

"Riley!?" Riley heard someone shouting her name. "Riley? Did you take Maya's phone last night?"

"Josh?" Riley rubbed her eyes in an attempt to up. "What are you talking about?"

"Just answer the question and I'll let you go back to your Lucas dream."

"Lucas dream? How do you know that's what I was dreaming about?"

"You have drool on your cheek, so I took a guess. Now answer the question!"

"You're going to have to repeat the question though seeing as I was asleep for about half of it."

"Did you or did you not take Maya's phone yesterday?"

"I did not, why?"

"Not important." Josh shrugged and turned to walk out the door.

"Wait, Josh! It seemed pretty important with how you had to wake me up just to ask me about it."

"Well I'm sure that Maya will tell you all about it sooner or later. I don't want to ruin the surprise for you."

"Are you sure?" Riley tried to ask him again, but he was already out the door. "Stupid uncle," Riley mumbled and turned around to go back to sleep. "I was having such a good dream too."

Josh read and reread the message so many times in the hour leading up to his meetup with Maya that he was certain he was going crazy, but he didn't care, It could have been the only thing that he got for Christmas that year and he would have still been happy. He knew that sending him that text message was a major step, a major accomplishment for her. He didn't want to pressure her to do anything else, to push her farther than she was willing to go on her own, but he really wanted her to know how much he appreciated the effort that she put in.

Josh was grateful that Topanga's was open, even on Christmas eve, even if it was only until the early afternoon. He was even more grateful that neither his sister-in-law nor Katy was working there that day. He made sure to get all of Maya's favorite sweets and their usual table ready by the time that she walked through the door.

"Hey Beautiful," he greeted her and gave her a quick kiss before allowing her to settle doen in the couch.

"What's up with buying all my favorite things from the shop? Anything special we're celebrating?" Josh had been silent on his phone ever since she sent the message, so Maya had briefly wondered if perhaps he hadn't noticed anything special about it.

"Well technically it is Christmas, but that's not what we're celebrating right now. You really thought I wouldn't notice it? Seriously, I'm wounded," Josh faked hurt.

"I realized that that was what it was about. So, did you like it?"

"I did, it was the best thing I've seen in a long time, well…." He took a long look at her as if taking her in. "Second best thing I mean."

"Flattery will get you nowhere Josh. So you really liked it? It was just a little thing to show you that I am working on being able to express my feelings."

"Maya, honestly, it made my day. I couldn't be any happier, I just don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you or pushing you to do anything that you don't want to."

"I don't feel like that at all I'm just happy that you appreciated it."

"It's so much more than that, so much more"

"Why don't you try to show me then?" Maya asked while leaning closer to Josh.

"I could do that, but are you sure that you don't want to eat first?"

"That can wait, I found something that I want more." Maya smiled at him.

"In that case, I'd be happy to help." Josh tilted her chin up and gave her a long kiss.

"So, date went well?" Riley had finished getting ready and to escape her stressed out mother she had fled over the hall to Shawn and Katy's apartment.

"It was great, he bought me all my favorite sweets."

"Were you celebrating anything? Josh was going kind of crazy about something this morning. He said you would probably want to tell me about it yourself."

"So he was that stressed out about it? He seemed pretty calm about it when I met him at Topanga's." Maya looked pretty pleased with herself. "I took the first step towards being able to tell Josh that I love him."

"Maya? That's incredible!" What did you do?"

"I put it into a text message."

"That explains it, Josh woke me up this morning to ask me if I had your phone. So how did you come up with that idea then?"

"You would never take my phone, I bit you the last time you tried. Smackle gave me the idea to put it into a text, it's kind of similar to the painting."

"Yeah, you bit me the last time you noticed me trying to take your phone yes, but how about if I were to steal It from you without you noticing?"

"Yeah, you and your clumsy hands? Good luck with that."

"That's true, but apparently my uncle wasn't that far off when he called you Farkle last night. I'm pretty sure that he's also taking a lot of advices from Smackle these days.

"You take that back Riley!" Maya complained.

"No!" Riley crossed her arms. "So, excited for your gift from Josh?" Riley asked.

"Yeah, I can't wait for tonight."

So my exams kicked my uploading plans' butt which is why i've been silent for wat too long, but I have my last exam the 30th of May so after that it's writing full time for a couple of weeks at least (I hope). Let me know if you liked the chapter and also what you think Josh's gift for Maya is. I don't want to spoil it, but I also don't want to have to wait two weeks to show you what I have planned. Quite the dilemma, I know. Well, until I figure out how to handle the dilemma, see ya.