February 21st 2020

Chapter 52
Their Bonds to Houston

When he had gone to tell his parents that he and Maya had gone to Ma Maggie's with David and Keith and their girls, they already knew. They had gotten a call from Nicolette Walker, Melinda's godmother. Thomas Friar had not heard exactly what the old woman had said to his wife, but it had been loud enough that he could catch the odd word if the general tone of voice hadn't been enough to convey the overall message. She was not happy.

"Your mom will tell you that she was her usual well-mannered self," Thomas told his son and Maya, after she'd gone into the kitchen to get them drinks. "I tell you, I've known the woman over thirty years, I have only ever seen her unleash the dark side twice. Great stories, both of them, I'll tell you someday. This was number three, and it was a beauty. I might never have loved her more than I did right then. Knocked the high and mighty right out of Nicolette."

Going off Lucas' face, Maya had to guess he had never witnessed 'the dark side' of his mother, but he kind of wished he had. For her part, she had gone from a confirmed fan to a lifelong super fan of her future mother-in-law.

The next stop on what they had called the Friar-Sullivan Wedding Tour, unlike the first, did not involve a single shred of doubt or anxiety. They were on their way to Houston, for dinner with the Hillards.

"So, is she coming?" Lucas asked Sam as he walked into the kitchen that morning. The two of them were on their own for most of the day, while Maya was at the theater for Stage Ready. She would be coming home as soon as it was over and then they were off to Houston.

"No, she can't. She and her dad have this sort of every other week thing they're trying to do, him and her, and tonight's one of those," Sam explained. "She says to say thank you for the invitation though." The invitation for Cecilia to join them that night had in fact come from Pappy Joe, who'd met her when he and Patty had come over one weekend. He had become instantly attached to the girl, swapping stories of recovery and physiotherapy, where they had dealt with some of the same people.

"Oh, I didn't know," Lucas replied.

"It's only the second time they've done it," Sam told him. "They never really had a lot of family dinners, even before her mom passed. Her dad was working, so usually it'd just be her and her mom, and when he was there, he didn't really talk much, or he'd eat in his office. I think since she'd been having dinner with us so much, she really put her foot down for him to make more of an effort." Lucas could sort of see it. She always looked so happy to be there with them, so much so that it got to the point where she was there almost every week night.

"Is it helping?"

"The first time started a bit… off… but it got better by the end. She's excited to see how it'll be this time around."

Maya had arrived like a gust of wind, through the door and up the stairs to get changed, so close to their 'do not leave any later than this or you have no chance in hell of making it on time for dinner' deadline that she'd told the guys to just go ahead and get in the car.

"I will be there in a minute!"

"She's kidding, right?" Sam turned to Lucas, who just shook his head at his brother and led him out the door and toward the car as requested.

It had not been 'a minute,' but it had been close enough to it that the guys were left to look impressed. Looking at her, you wouldn't know that she'd just come off a full day at the theater and would believe she'd just been here all day, casually preparing when the time came.

"Okay, let's go. Houston," she nodded, dropping into the passenger seat and shutting the door. Lucas blinked. "What?" Maya asked, then, "Oh! Sorry, I just… Sam, shut your eyes a second."

"We're going to be late!" he protested, almost diving for cover in the backseat, sounding like this 'warning' wasn't going to cut it.

"I was just going to say to buckle your seatbelt, but I'll take it," Lucas smirked as Maya leaned toward him.

"It's been a long day," she shrugged.

"Okay, let's go! Houston!" Sam muttered from the back.

The drive out of Austin went by surprisingly fast, mostly fed on Maya's stories from the day's Stage Ready session. It had been their most crowded so far and had included a real breakthrough from one of their regulars.

Even though they had been back in Houston a number of times since moving back to Austin, it still felt odd being back. Not bad odd, just… This had been their home for four years, and it had been a great period in their lives, a period of so much growth… As happy as they were in Austin, and as much as it was absolutely the place they felt they belonged, a part of them still knew that they would have been happy spending their lives in Houston as well.

"You're here!" they were greeted by Maggie Hillard at the door. The seven-year-old was wearing big brother Henry's old Yoda hoodie, which he'd passed on to her when he'd regrettably grown out of it. She was vaguely aware of what it was about, because it was hard to be around her older brother and not be aware in some part, but she didn't wear it for some love of the source material so much as she liked the ears sticking out of the hood.

"Hey, so are you!" Lucas pointed back to her, which made her laugh.

"It's my house!" she reminded him. "Come on!" she tugged at her cousin's hand so he'd follow.

Maya always loved seeing Lucas with his younger cousins. He had… like a thousand of them, and they were all younger than him, a lot of them children still, and they just… they looked up to him like he was the greatest thing in the world. She didn't exactly stray from that belief, but then they were something else. And Lucas would just fall into the role so magically, whenever he'd be around them, too.

The Hillards were a special case, of course. He hadn't known any of them until about three and a half years ago, when Hank Hillard had walked into that classroom, to teach a class which so happened to include his nephew. He hadn't seen these cousins grow up from babies like he'd done with the others, although he doubted either Henry or Maggie remembered far enough into their young lives to recall a time when he hadn't been around, which kind of explained a lot how their relationship felt closer to the ones he had with all those other cousins. This was not to say that he wasn't close to the three older Hillard children, not at all. Sarah and Evie, the might-as-well-be-twins, had bonded to him easily enough after he'd come into their lives. And Joseph… well, he'd adopted his cousin like the big brother he'd never had.

He was in college now, his first year. As tempted as he'd been to follow his best friend Rosa to Austin, he'd stuck around Houston, the better to be able to help his parents with his younger siblings where he could. On this, he and Sam had quickly bonded, as their paths had been brought to cross more and more, now that he lived with Maya and Lucas.

"Wait until you see his face," Evie Hillard had greeted her cousin and the others, sharing a giggle with older sister Sarah.

"What about his face?" Lucas asked.

"He's trying to get like Dad, and Pappy Joe," Evie explained, tracing an invisible beard over her face. "It looks so weird."

"Where is he? Is he here?" Maya asked, intrigued at once.

"He went to pick up Leigh," Sarah shook her head. "But look," she took out her phone and brought up a picture to show them.

"Oh, buddy, that is not a good look on you," Maya gasped, while Lucas and Sam both about lost it. As well as Hank and Joe carried those beards, to the point where they would not have looked right to anyone who knew them if they ever shaved them off, Joseph Hillard, at eighteen, still had too much of a baby face going for him to effectively carry the look. It just looked like he'd stuck fake hair on his face or something.

"Didn't anyone tell him?" Lucas asked, still shaking off the rest of his laugh.

"We all did," Tanya Hillard appeared, looking exasperated with her eldest child. "But he's insisting that it just needs to grow in some more." She greeted the trio, whose jackets had been spirited away by the Hillard sisters.

By the time they all found themselves sitting around the dinner table, the discussion had quickly turned to the reason they had put on this dinner in the first place. As before, it all felt like everyone had forgotten that the two of them had been engaged for over half a year already. Now the wedding was just a few months away, and it was like everyone was jumping into the game in progress and acting like they'd come in from the top. It was more… funny, than anything else.

With how many people there were around the table, the one whose voice carried the most, as it usually did, was Pappy Joe's. He was quick to point out how long he had known Maya, and they couldn't take that one away, could they? Other than Lucas, he'd known her the longest, by a while, and that included Sam. He looked like he just couldn't wait to call for toasts at the wedding, the better to share stories of Lucas & Maya: The Early Days.

"I will pay you not to tell some of what we used to do back then," Maya had joked, pointing at him.

"Please, you two were good kids. A little blind for a while, but clearly you saw to that or we wouldn't be here today, celebrating your upcoming wedding." He paused. "Then again, there was that one time, when I took you all camping and…"

"Twenty bucks, Friar," Maya gasped.

"Ten."

"That's not how that works, Pappy Joe," Henry Hillard informed him.

"One."

"That's not it either!" Henry huffed.

"One… One dance," Pappy Joe smirked. "One spin on the dance floor and I might somehow forget what I was going to say."

"Like I would have let you get away without one," Maya squinted at him. He laughed.

"If we're filling out dance cards, I'll have a turn," Patty Robinson raised her hand, tipping her head to the groom to be.

"Consider it booked," Lucas chuckled.

They could have stayed well into the morning hours, talking away with everyone, but they had a long drive home ahead of them, and so they had finally bowed out, loaded with promised dances to both young and old, and many requests once again to hear about Maya's dress.

"The way they talk about it, I have to ask, are you sure you can get it all ready in time?" Lucas asked as he drove. In the back, Sam was off in his own world, texting with Cecilia.

"Oh, yeah, don't worry about it." She could understand him wondering. She hardly ever brought it up in conversation with him, which was intentional. The least he knew, the most likely it would be that he didn't find how she'd been working on it a lot more than he realized. It was easy, when she spent so many of her days working in the same building as the people who had happily agreed to help with her project. He didn't know about all the sketches, and the fabrics. He didn't know she was to have a first fitting in a matter of days…

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners