April 18th 2020

Chapter 109
Their Road to Work

With Wednesday morning came a shorter drive. This was his day off from school this semester, which also meant it was his weekday on at the bookstore. It wasn't as though it was the only day where he didn't need to get up as early as he sometimes did when he had class, but by virtue of the fact that it was on its own, sandwiched between four days when he did, that somehow made it special.

For one, of course, it meant things could start at a more leisurely pace at home. His body still felt compelled to wake early, most of the time, but on those bookstore days he was in less of a hurry to get up and start moving to prepare and leave. If Maya was awake, too, which she usually was, it meant a little more time together, and this was never put to waste.

Eventually, no matter the destination, he would still have to get started on his day.

"At least you're regaining a few minutes from not having to shave," Maya teased, locking her arms to him so he couldn't move to stand just yet. He chuckled, feeling at his face. It had only been two days, so he was nowhere near where he aimed to be, but it was still enough that it felt like 'the start of something.'

"For now, I guess so."

"For now, yeah."

"Such a bad influence," he shook his head in mock reproach. She laughed, victorious.

Driving off to the bookstore, Lucas was left thinking about the point in his life where he wouldn't just have a job to have a job, to make money. He looked forward to a time when he would have a job where he got to do what he had wanted to do for a long time. He knew that this wasn't something that everyone got to do, and he was not about to let this opportunity slip him by. He had ideas for his future career, what it might look like. That didn't mean he would shut himself off to other opportunities if they presented themselves, not at all.

He would get to thinking about Sullivan Stables a lot of the time. If all else failed, his grandmother's place remained a standing option, thanks to the clause in her will. It was something of a safety net for him, which wasn't to say he was ungrateful, or that he saw it as a last resort, a cord to pull if his parachute failed and he was sent hurtling through the air. To work at Sullivan Stables would be a great opportunity for anyone, but to him... To him it would be about legacy, his grandmother's legacy. She had built up the place from nothing, and it continued to thrive today. It was a family business, even if his family didn't currently have much more of a hand than the occasional times where his mother and his uncle would be called upon to help make certain decisions.

The last couple of days, he had been brought to think about himself, about his starting to take his place in the grand scheme of things, in his family, in his adulthood, and now there was this. He thought about Sullivan Stables, imagined himself out there, carrying on the family line. He may not have been a Sullivan by name, but he was one by blood, his granny's blood, his mother's...

It would be that same blood carried on by those who would come after him... and he had been thinking a lot about that, too, the last little while. Between meeting little Ada Minkus, and Zay and Nadine quietly trying for their own baby, all of the plans for his and Maya's wedding, it was sort of hard not to feel his thoughts pulled back in that direction. The subject had been installed in his mind a few years back, on another Halloween night than the one a few weeks ahead of them. Even if that had been a false alarm, it was like the space had remained there in his brain all along, and every so often something would bring him sailing past, recalling that the space was there. And today, with all these ideas of his future, he had such a clear image...

"I think I'm going to take the job," he told Maya when he called her. He'd just pulled into his parking spot and immediately taken up his phone. "At the stables," he went on, before she could wonder what he was going on about. There was a pause, which he soon interpreted as her having leaned back in her office chair with a smile.

"Figured you would," she declared, which made him smile, too.

"Not today," he specified.

"No, might be best if you finished school first," she pointed out.

"Good plan, yeah," he nodded.

"So what got you to decide all of a sudden?"

"I don't know about sudden, it's just that the last few weeks have really gotten me thinking, and... it feels right."

"I was thinking that, yeah," she agreed, and he could picture her slowly nodding to herself.

He could picture how his mother would react, too. She would look at him with that face that was a battle ground between emotion and composure, and emotion would deliver a crushing defeat to her composure. She would cry, and she would embrace him, and she would tell him what he was already thinking, that his grandmother would be so proud, and happy.

Like he had told Maya, it wouldn't be immediate, what with his still having two and a three quarters of a year left in university, which he would of course have to get through, but he still made it a plan to touch base with Juliet, up at the ranch, so that he didn't show up out of the blue one day. He may have had the job per his grandmother's will, but she had the business to run.

That would be something for another day though. For now, he had a day of work ahead of him, and what a day it would turn out to be. By the time he would be back in his car at the end of the day, headed back home, it would be with that sensation like he couldn't wait to get there, to share what his day had been.

He had walked in, making his way for the stairs that would take him up to his floor, as he always did when he didn't need to stop by the café on the ground floor. His eyes would still make a stop in that direction though, like his brain needed a moment to decide whether he needed anything, and when he looked over today, he found Maeve sitting at one of the tables, looking as though her mind had left her body behind and it just sat there, a little paler than usual.

"Hey, is everything alright?" he asked his friend and coworker as he walked up to her. She didn't respond, locked in whatever thought she was having, so he touched her shoulder. "Maeve?" he asked, and she blinked, looking up at him.

"Wh... Oh..." she breathed, blinking still. For knowing her to be so energized all the time, to the point of being too much for some people, this was a sight that could only instill concern.

"What's wrong?" Lucas asked, pulling up one of the chairs so he could sit with her.

"I don't know..." Maeve replied, in a way that left Lucas feeling as though it wasn't that she didn't know what was troubling her, but more that she didn't know what was or wasn't wrong about it. "You want kids, right?" The question came very much out of left field, and he looked as surprised by it as he was, but then it wasn't like he needed to consider the answer, was it?

"Yeah... wh..."

"How did you know? What made you be able to stop and go 'yes, this is what I want for my life' like that?"

"Well, it wasn't..." he started to respond, before he could give it any thought. "I don't really remember the first time, it was just there, I guess. But then with me and Maya, we've been together all this time, and after a while it was something we both knew we wanted... Wh..." he tried to ask why again, but again he was cut off with another question.

"But you've been sure about this, you know this is what you want, so that... that's a good thing, yeah?"

"Well, sure, but..." It wasn't so much that something clicked, more like he had been faced with a number of roads, and now he had an idea of whereabout he needed to go. From there, with the look of her in this moment, well, the rest sort of had no choice but to fall into place. Maeve was looking at him and she could see he was putting the pieces together.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, I don't even know how to feel about it... I never had what you had, I never set out thinking about being someone's parent someday, and I still don't feel that way now, which is really going to become a problem in a few months' time if this... if I..."

"How long have you known?" Lucas asked.

"About..." she looked to her phone for the time. "Eighteen minutes. I went to the clinic, unrelated, there were tests, and I guess it came up somewhere in there. The woman just called to let me know, like 'surprise, you're knocked up, have fun at work today!'" Maeve intoned, letting out a sigh as she set her head down to rest on her arms, folded on the table.

"It just happened, you're still in shock..." he pointed out. She sat up again.

"I've got no one," she confessed. "The guy... the father..." she said the word with that awkwardness that came when you said something for the first time and couldn't completely commit to it yet, for the impact that it carried. It reminded him of Maya, the first time she had said out loud that her father was dead.

"What about him?"

"I don't know how to reach him, I barely have a memory of his name or what he looked like, I... There was a party, okay, and..."

"You don't have to explain yourself," Lucas told her.

"No, but I do, I do, I'm..." she sniffed, touching her face like she expected to have cried or to start crying any second now. Lucas wasn't sure if she wanted to be hugged right now, but again she picked up on his cues. "I just need a few minutes to pull myself together, okay?"

"Absolutely."

"Can you get up there, get things going until I get there?"

"Consider it done," Lucas nodded, and Maeve nodded back, like at least one thing was taken care of and she had needed that.

The rest of the day had felt on par with how it had started, from the point where he had walked into the store. Maeve didn't tell the others what was going on, so Lucas hadn't said a word either, though he could just tell it was all still turning around in her brain, and really how could it not? This was a lot for her to think about.

"If you need to talk, about anything..." he told her as he was heading out at the end of the day.

"I know," she nodded. "Thanks. Say hi to Maya for me." It was as clear of a coded message as there could be. She was opening the door, allowing him to let his fiancée in.

Even so, it wasn't until much later, as they were getting ready for bed, that he read her into that part of his day. He had told her the rest at dinner, the two of them with Sam and Cecilia, told about this customer or that one, but now it was the main event.

"What do you think she's going to do?" Maya asked, concern in her eyes, for their friend.

"I don't know..." Lucas shrugged. There really would be no telling, not until Maeve herself had more time to think it over. Unless she reached out before then, he guessed he'd find out on Saturday, on his next shift at the store with her.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners