A/N: Hey, so I know I haven't done deleted scenes in a little bit, but I am still going to do them, just haven't had time to do any since the last one. Taking down all the suggestions on my list and will get to them when I can! In the meantime, I am so happy to see all those ideas coming in, though also of course so very happy to hear your thoughts on the chapters themselves! :) Hope everyone is well out there!
April 8th 2020
Chapter 99
Their Sounds of Fall
The scavenger hunt had been set to round out the final day of the festival, and it had been chaotic and alive and completely awesome. By reason of the fact that she'd help to make the clues, and to hide them, Maya couldn't reasonably participate, which was something of a shame, but she didn't really mind it in the end. Seeing the participants in the park, in stores and other areas in their area of the city over the festival days, she'd be left feeling a swell of pride to find her project was doing well.
And now the festival was over. Come morning, the park would be the park again, all the stalls and tents and decorations and other items left behind would be cleared away, until the next time the season came around.
"Just going to sleep right here, good night…" Maya plopped down on the couch as she and Lucas returned to the house that night, after having helped with some of the clean-up. Sam was spending the night at the Cassidy house, him and Cecilia and Adam having a sleepover at Dora's.
"Just like that, huh?" Lucas looked at her from over the back of the couch. She nodded, burrowing herself into the cushions. "That's too bad, I mean… It's just us tonight, and… well…" After moment of silence, Maya turned her head around to look up at him.
"Go on?"
Sometime later, as they'd lay in bed, feeling as though they could only wait until they'd finally drift back down to Earth. What parts of their brains still recalled the world beyond the person at their side would be back at the festival. It had been, more or less, the majority of their occupation from the day it had started. Maya would be at the theater early in the morning, after which she'd be at the festival for the rest of the day and into the evening. Sam would go out to join her for a bit after coming back from school, but then he'd head back home to do his work, while Lucas would do the opposite, doing his work first and then spending the evening at the park with Maya.
The most memorable of those evenings had nothing to do with the festival itself, and only took place as they'd returned home. It was the very first evening, and he'd figured she would be dead tired and would want to go right to bed. Instead, as soon as they'd pulled up to the house and gotten out of the car, she'd grabbed his hand and made him follow her, into the house, up to the second floor, and then up to the attic, where she shut the trap door behind them.
"This is a new one," he'd chuckled, but she shook her head.
"That's not what this is," she told him, and she looked so frenzied right then that he had to wonder what it actually would be about. "She called me," Maya told him, in a barely contained whisper, and by the way she couldn't quite stand still, he didn't take long to understand who she was talking about.
"Wow…" he blinked, grinning. "So you kept that in? All day?"
"Nightmare," Maya breathed out semi-dramatically.
"What did she say? What did you say? How coherent were you?" Lucas had to tease her just a bit.
"Surprisingly very," Maya nodded, her face locked in a smile. "I just had to stand there, and I didn't want her to hear me freak out, and I didn't want anyone in the park to see me freak out, there was just like… no way out. But she…" she started to say before pausing and pointing at him, which he rightly interpreted as 'this stays between us.' Lucas nodded. "She's coming to do some shows in Texas in December, and she invited me to go and see her when she'll be in Austin, said I could bring as many people as I wanted," she told him, counting out the beats of their conversation.
"Your mother is going to flip out," Lucas commented, making her laugh.
"I'm going to have to make sure she's sitting down first… Where does one get smelling salts?"
"You're going to be in there when she sings your song to however many people they'll have in there, like… thousands maybe," he went on to point out as he tried to conjure up that scenario. When he said it though, Maya got to thinking about it, too, and she looked momentarily shaken. "What is it?"
"Well, on top of everything else, she… she wants me to go up a-and sing it with her," she revealed. She would have been more concerned if she didn't feel the tiniest bit startled at the thought of going up on a stage and facing an audience large enough as to turn into an immeasurable sea of people ahead of her. But Lucas had received this news and he'd gotten that look on his face, that look of complete and overwhelming pride and happiness for her, and maybe she could keep it together, get herself to the point where she'd be okay and looking forward to the show. "I swear I don't know how I got through today without just…" she mimed 'head imploding,' complete with sound effects.
"But you did, and now you're here," Lucas gestured around them, indicating that there was no one around. Maya beamed. She looked about to do something but paused, bracing herself by holding on to his arms before kicking off one shoe and then the other, bringing herself down two inches without the heels but making up for it with a sudden release of that energy in her, hopping about on her socks. Lucas smirked, circling the air with his finger to indicate the room, and Maya was off, taking a lap of the attic floor. He watched her go a while before catching her up in his arms, lifting her up as she squealed, allowing herself a shout that would wake no one except her brother below.
Making it through the days of the festival without telling anyone anything about Ree's call, not even that it had happened, had not been easy, but at least now she'd gotten to let out that initial surprise, and she'd gotten to talk to Lucas about it… and Sam… She didn't have a choice to tell him, not after that unfortunate wake up call. But then, as with the first day, the festival had kept her plenty busy.
Yesterday, she'd also been relieved of keeping the secret of the fact that Ree was coming to Texas in December. She'd aimed to tell people about Ree's call, and the invitation to the concert, but the duet… She'd told herself this part would remain secret, maybe a surprise on the night of the concert. But along with the tour dates and cities, Ree had also revealed the special guests she would welcome to certain of her performances, and right there, on the list, it had said… December 11th – Austin, TX – with special guest Maya Hart. After that, everything had come spilling out, and it was by some chance that she got to tell her mother in person before she found out for herself.
"Hey, Lucas?" she breathed now, staring at the ceiling.
"Yeah?" he asked back, turning to look at her. She had that little worried face of hers all of a sudden, which really wasn't what he would expect to see after what they'd been up to.
"You're going to tell me if it ever gets to be like it's… too much, I guess?" she asked, looking at him.
"What do you mean?" Lucas blinked. He reached over, weaving his fingers with hers, bringing her hand to his lips.
"Just… everything I've been doing, and everything I will be doing, with work, with the songs, Ree's concert… We had problems with that before, remember?"
He did remember, sure. They'd had a fight about it, and they hadn't been on speaking terms for a little while, until the day where Pappy Joe had fallen down the stairs and she'd rushed to the hospital, believing he'd been the one to get hurt instead of his grandfather. They'd patched things up afterward, and he would knock on wood with both hands, every day, over the fact that they'd never had any kind of fight anywhere near that magnitude since that one. They'd had the odd disagreement, sure, but it had never lasted very long, never got to the point where they couldn't talk it through, couldn't fix it.
"It won't be like that again," Lucas promised. "Maya, that was… like six years ago, we were still in high school, we were… so different. A lot's happened since then…" He paused now, as he started to understand. "This is because of Ramona and Robbie, isn't it?" She was at a loss for words to respond, but then before she could even get there they both heard the doorbell from below and stalled.
"Expecting anyone?" Maya whispered, which immediately made her roll her eyes at herself for acting as though anyone could hear them.
"Stay here," Lucas told her, moving to scoop up his pants and slip them back on.
"What? No way." She was already moving to get her robe and throw it on.
"Maya…" he looked back at her. Maybe he was worrying for nothing, but it was after one in the morning, which was not exactly social hours.
"Who rings the bell at this hour unless they have to?" she pointed out, tugging the sash into a knot and leading the way into the hall. Sam was just stepping out of his room, dishevelled and half asleep.
"Is it morning?" he mumbled.
"Go back to bed," Maya told him, turning her brother back in the direction of her room before following Lucas down the stairs. The automatic lights had come on outside, and they could just make out the top of someone's head through the window in the door. Curly dark hair, a girl, they'd guess. It clicked for both of them. "Lucas, that's…"
"I know," he told her, hurrying up down the rest of the stairs now and toward the door. He opened it and found it was indeed Ramona. She was still dressed as she'd been when they had seen her and Robbie at the festival earlier. "Hey, are you okay?" Lucas asked, stepping aside so she'd come in.
"Can I… Is it okay if I stay here tonight?" she asked, her voice shy.
"You don't even have to ask," Lucas nodded as she walked in, only so far as to be inside the house, like she was just in another place in her head. Maya came up to her, touched her arm.
"What happened? Are you…"
"It didn't work," Ramona shook her head. "We… We tried to get past it, but we couldn't, I… I couldn't. It all came to a head tonight, and I finally, I just… walked out. I drove around for a while, but I couldn't go back, so I… I came here… I'm so sorry, I didn't want to…"
"It's like he said, okay? You're good here," Maya told Ramona, pulled her into a hug as Lucas headed out to his classmate's car and found bags in the backseat. One of them was her schoolbag, the other three…
Lucas brought everything into the house, locked the car doors and slipped the keys in the front pocket of Ramona's bag. Right now, she was sitting on the couch with Maya, head rested on his fiancée's shoulder, and… she was asleep. Lucas and Maya shared a look. This was the last place they'd seen this day going, but now here they were, and after having been on the sidelines since the day of that first fight, they'd been brought right in the thick of it. They wouldn't let their friends down… either of them.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
