January 18th 2020

Chapter 18
Their Tradition For Friends

Almost as soon as Maeve had arrived, it was like the floodgates were opening and the others started to arrive. Maya had barely managed to get the woman into the basement, to introduce her to Riley, Rosa, Kayla, and Nadine. They were still caught in a funny sort of moment, where they'd finally been able to put Maeve and Rosa side by side and found that they could sort of see what Lucas meant about the resemblance, when the bell rang again. This time, while the light did flash as before, the lack of music being played had made it unnecessary for them to know someone else had arrived.

"Hold that thought," Maya told the others, sprinting back up the stairs again. "Hey, hey! Trix, Lou, don't go there," she clapped her hands together, finding the dogs had not gone into the kitchen yet but, having been left upstairs after Maeve's arrival, they were clearly curious about what they could smell. "Look, people!" Maya pointed to the door, and now the dogs came bounding after her. "Yeah, that's right, come on, oh, there's more than one this time!"

There were four of them, and the only thing Maya could think was that she didn't see how all of those four had come together in this manner. This was soon explained.

"I was driving past the bus stop when the bus went by. When I saw him, I stopped and picked them up," Will explained, indicating Zay, and then the other two, Dylan and Dora.

"We were supposed to come up with Nadine and Riley, but we needed to make a stop on the way," Zay started to explain.

"And they wanted to come here to practice already, so they left with the car," Dylan went on. "So we took the bus, and that's where we ran into Dora." Now that she thought about it, Maya realized it wasn't really that odd that they would be together, coincidence or not. She might not have seen them together that often, but Zay, having been Lucas' best friend since they were little kids, would have had to have known Dora for years, too, even if his being off in Boston the last four years would also mean that they wouldn't have seen much of each other in a long while.

"Is Sam here yet?" Dora asked as she and the guys walked in and Maya moved to shut the door.

"Not yet, he… uh…" she blinked, spotting a car coming up the lane. "Actually, I think that's him now…" she pointed, just as the dogs shot past her. They loved their Sammy boy.

"I'll get them!" Dora headed after them. Maya turned to the guys, smirking in the moment she realized that, discounting herself and Lucas, they were all the other 'band guys.' Kayla's boyfriend, Riley's boyfriend, Nadine's husband… She also noticed now the bags they were all lugging.

"Did anyone bring like vegetables or something?" she shook her head, seeing what they'd brought.

"There's a lot of us," Zay shrugged in response.

"I would have thought you'd be the responsible one here, my sweater vested friend," she smirked, tapping Will's arm.

"I brought chips… Potato and corn," he declared like 'see, vegetables' before smiling.

"Yeah, I'm instigating a jogging break between movies," she squinted at him, sending them off to find the girls in the basement before moving to encounter their new new arrivals.

The dogs looked as though they didn't know what to do with themselves anymore, discovering more new people, and they'd only met three so far. Right now, they were acclimating to the Schmidt twins, Sam's new friends, Josiah and Deanna. It was probably just as well that they had something to occupy them in the moment. They'd never been here before, and at the moment their friend was busy showing something from his bag to Dora. Lucas' cousin looked excited by what she saw at least… One of these days I really am going to have to nudge you two if you won't both tell each other how you feel… It was almost painful now.

"Hey, Sammy?" Maya called to her brother, who blinked and turned to look at her. She turned her eyes toward the pair with the dogs. Going to introduce us? Dora took the bags from him and he came forward.

"Guys, hey, this is my sister, Maya," Sam told the twins. "The one I told you about, this is her house… obviously…" he frowned to himself.

"Our house," Maya corrected with a smile before moving toward the newcomers. The boy set Trix back down on the grass and held out his hand. Maya gave it a shake.

"Hi, I'm Josiah," he nodded.

"Deanna," his sister held her hand up in a small wave, still holding Lou.

What little she knew of them, through Sam, other than the fact that they'd been living in several countries, following their mother's deployments, was that the two of them had always been very close, which she supposed was only natural, under the circumstances. She had seen her own twin sisters grow so attached to one another over the six years of their lives so far, and she could only imagine what it might have been like for them if they were taken from place to place, always having to start over. If they'd depended on one another a lot before, then it would be an even tighter bond now. They'd also shared countless interests, from books and movies and games, to sports, and now to careers, as they both studied in the same program, with the prospect of going into business together in the future. Fraternal as they were, they could have been grown of the same egg.

They'd barely made it into the house that Dora pointed out another car coming, sending Maya to once again step out of the house and see who it would be. Who it was, in this case, was Rebecca Fitz and her new boyfriend, Jax. After the discovery of her breakup with Joey Garcia back in New York, and the circumstances behind it, they hadn't been so surprised when she started to talk about this guy who worked with her at the restaurant which had brought her back to Austin to live over the summer. Maybe after how her relationship had been left stagnating for so long, when she'd gone and met this new person, who actually made her feel something again, it gave her the push she needed, to lean into what was a whirlwind of a romance. They hadn't met him yet, but everything they'd heard of him said that he was a real good guy, and now that she saw him, saw the way he and Rebecca were together… Yeah, she could see it. He would fit right in.

"Aren't you coming?" Rebecca asked, as she and Jax carried their bags toward the house.

"I'm going to stay out here, I'm sure there's going to be another…" Maya pointed over her shoulder.

"There's another car," Jax pointed past her.

"See?" Maya smiled to Rebecca before looking to see who it was. For a second, seeing Bishop's car, she thought Lucas was arriving, but then she remembered. "Oh, boy…" she sighed. "Go on, you can show him around," she told Rebecca before moving back in wait of the next group.

Maya had run into plenty of Lucas' old classmates from Houston over the years, some of them popping up at the house from time to time, mostly at parties, Halloween or otherwise, or at the university here and there, the café, the library, outside classrooms… She was familiar enough with Simon Shin that she welcomed him with a hug, same as she did with Bishop. The girls on the other hand… She'd never actually spoken to either of them, and she really didn't know how this would go, especially with the blonde standing next to the car, staring at her like she was trying to keep it together. She and her friend finally came up after the guys had had their turns saying hello.

"Hey, Josie and Zelda, yeah?" she spoke first. "I'm Maya…" Josie was speechless, which, going from the look her friend was giving, was out of the ordinary.

"It's nice to meet you," Zelda finally spoke for them. "Lucas talks about you all the time."

"Please, go on in, a bunch of the others have arrived already, I'm just waiting for the next car so I can direct them," Maya gestured to the now six cars parked nearby. By her count, there would be ten by the time everyone was here. It worked in their favor that they did have space, if they were careful about it.

After Lucas' classmates had gone inside, she really wished he would finally arrive. When she saw one, and then two, and then three cars coming along like they were trailing after each other, and she recognized them all, she had to resolve herself to his arriving last. That was alright though, because those three cars were all arriving right out of Houston, carrying a great many of her dearest friends.

Feeling very much like she should have borrowed Kayla's drumsticks to direct them, she had seen the three cars finally come to a stop before spilling out their passengers. From the first came Franny and the girls of Weaver Kings, Lily, Catriona, and Victoria. The second was Sophie's car, bringing along her wife, Chiara, and the newest transplants into Houston, Asher and Ray. The third brought along two former co-workers and a former bandmate, as Leona emerged, followed by Willow and Lion.

It was impossible to decide where to go first, and the next thing she knew Maya was stuck in the middle of a pile up of a hug, with new arms coming and going on every side and too many voices for her to sort out except to know that every single one of them was excited to see her. All she could do was pick out words, and the ones she retained were 'candy,' 'chocolate,' 'movie,' 'practice,' 'drive,' 'house,' and… 'baby?'

"Woah, woah, time out, hey!" she called over all of them. "Someone said 'baby,' who said…"

"Who do you think?" Willow laughed, hand in the air.

"Are you serious? Again?" Maya blinked, looking at her and then Lion. Already they had Zola, who was somehow already two and a half, and then Sekani, who wouldn't be turning one until November.

"Last one though," Lion shook his head, making a snipping motion with his fingers that made Asher and Ray cringe, while some of the girls laughed.

The way they all went up to the house with the bags of treats they'd brought along, Maya kept thinking they were prepping to service the whole of Austin's trick or treaters in a few weeks' time. Mostly though, what she thought about most was that there were now thirty people in or around her house, and none of them was Lucas. He would be next though. All that were missing were his local classmates and him. He'd texted her when they'd finally left school, and barring any heavy traffic, they couldn't be too far away…

Finally, she spotted the car coming up the lane and she breathed out, moving to point the way toward their parking spot. At least she knew these two by now. More than once, Robbie and Ramona had stayed around for dinner after dropping off Lucas, just as she and Sam had been beckoned to join them for dinner whenever Lucas dropped them off at their place.

"Last ones?" Lucas guessed as he climbed out of the car and was greeted by a very welcoming kiss from his fiancée.

"I haven't even gone in there yet and it's stressing me out," Maya admitted. "I don't know why, I mean we've had parties with way more people… Then again, so far, none of them had been you," she beamed up at him. Lucas laughed.

"Well, I'm here now. So, how was practice?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners