January 19th 2020

Chapter 19
Their Tradition For Movies

"No, you heard me right," Lucas chuckled, even as he scanned through the list he'd made before calling the pizza place. "Sure, that'll be fine. Yeah. Great, thanks, Marco. Say hi to your mom. Bye."

"You look like you just defused a bomb or something," Sam declared, standing nearby as he'd hung up with his former classmate. Lucas held up the order list as though to say 'didn't I?' Just reaching some kind of agreement among the thirty-three of them about what they wanted and what they'd need to order had made him see how much the bigger the group was, the harder it was to get a straightforward answer. Add to this what one might call 'disruptors,' who would put ideas forward which suddenly sent them back to the beginning, or would simply not budge and insist on getting certain toppings even if it meant they would be the only ones who ate it… It was a good thing at least that Marco and his parents – who ran the pizzeria – were good about facilitating these requests.

"How's it looking back there?" Lucas asked, nodding back to the living room, where he could hear the drone of many voices talking at once.

"They're picking movies," Sam sighed.

"Is that why you came out here?" Lucas guessed, reading a flash of being overwhelmed off his brother.

"Yeah…"

"Help me with the coolers?" Lucas pointed to the basement door. Sam followed at once, a relieved smile on his face. They'd had to borrow a few, from his parents, and Maya's, and the Matthews… There were several bags of ice in the basement freezer, which Lucas and Sam now emptied in each cooler before grabbing the cans and bottles from the fridge and settling them in the ice.

"Drivers and Minors cooler?" Sam guessed, pointing to one of them. Lucas nodded. "Any of them staying overnight?"

"Maybe…" They hadn't stocked on sleeping bags or anything, but they could always make things work. "Junior said he'd come and pick up Dora whenever we're done out here." Looking up after he said this, Lucas just smirked, seeing the tail end of the thought which had just flitted across Sam's face. He stood up straight now.

"Don't even say it," he pointed to Lucas.

"Wasn't going to," he laughed, hoisting up the first of the filled coolers and heading up the stairs.

Back in the living room, Maya had finally submitted fully to the madness and climbed to stand on top of the coffee table to get high ground in conducting this movie search. By now, she was not above giving some of the debaters some pointed looks like 'I know you're better than this.' The shame act didn't solve so much, and she instantly wished they would have sorted out the movie selection before tonight. She was also trying not to let herself get caught up in her own head, where the spotlight was on whether her inability to corral a group of their friends, some of them as close to her as family, signalled she might have been in over her head with running Stage Ready. As soon as she'd given the thought any leg room though, the 'bouncer' in her head swept in like 'get over yourself, Hart, you've got this.'

"Hey, hey! Hey!" she shouted, pulling in every bit of her power to project her voice. It worked, bringing silence over the room, broken only by the barking of confusion from the dogs. They quickly calmed, in the arms of Zelda and Ramona, even as Maya spotted Lucas and Sam popping up from the basement with a cooler each. "Thank you," she breathed, taking a moment to enjoy the quiet before starting again. "Here's the plan. I'm calling out the titles I heard the most, and you all pick one. Whatever two have the most votes, we watch those. Do we have a deal?"

There was a bit of grumbling in places, but finally they were on board. The choices were offered and the votes cast, and by the time the last of the coolers was brought up and opened for the picking, they had their movies.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Maya breathed, bowing her arms like the final flourish of the conductor before hopping off the coffee table. Catching Lucas' eye from across the room, and his signing of 'I love you so much,' she was all smiles again.

They'd had countless movie nights over the years, but this was without a doubt the most chaotic one they'd had. It was really just halfway between a quiet night with friends and a party. A lot of these people had never met before, which led to a lot of conversations between people they'd never known in the same circles. Some of them had not met but they had still heard about one or the other, through Maya or Lucas or both of them. It kept them entertained until the pizza would arrive, just as it kept them from taking a dive into the hoard of candy and other snacks reserved for the movie portion of this movie night.

"Who's that girl over there, the blonde? She keeps staring at us," Rosa asked Maya, coming to join her where she sat with Willow and Nadine. Maya didn't even have to look.

"That'll be Josie," Maya quietly replied, like she feared her voice might carry and reach the girl presently rummaging through one of the coolers.

"Oh… Right," Rosa looked back again, and Maya and Nadine both simultaneously reached for their band mate and pulled her to sit with them.

"Be cool, be cool," Maya told her. Willow swallowed back a giggle at this, looking luminously happy to be among this group again.

"She's not that bad," she insisted, getting a look from the other three. "She's not, okay, it's just… she's like a social sponge. You get her with the right people long enough, she'll be fine, it just takes her a while. Keep feeding her the good, it might stick one of these days." There was a pause at this, like they couldn't have heard right. It sounded like she actually knew her.

"How do you…" Rosa started to ask.

"She lived across the street from my grandparents' when we were growing up," Willow revealed. "They'd babysit her all the time, then I did, too, when I was old enough. We sort of lost touch when I moved out and got my own place, but we'd still talk whenever we ran into each other back around my grandparents' and her folks' homes. I'm the one who told her about TXNY in the first place."

"This is wild…" Nadine had to laugh.

"I had no idea," Maya blinked. "I mean she never said…" Surely, if she'd told Lucas about this connection he would have passed it on.

"I'm not surprised," Willow shrugged. "I told you, she's not that bad." Maya could get that now. Everything she knew of this girl, it would seem like she'd be letting people know left and right that she'd known one of the girls from TXNY since they were little, that they'd grown together, like the greatest ticket to raise her own social standing. Instead, she had been holding on to it like something precious and all hers. She cared that much about Willow.

"But we never met her. Your wedding, birthdays and baptisms…"

"She was at the wedding," Willow nodded. "Just bring in the hair, loosen the posture, shrink the heels…" It took a moment but… yeah… she had seen her there. Josephine… It was like they were two completely different people, the truth and the disguise. She couldn't say what made her so insistent on favoring the lie, but maybe there really was more to her than what she tried to make the world believe.

Dylan and Asher had volunteered to go out and watch for the pizza delivery, knowing that there would be a lot and that there would be no space for that car to get anywhere near the house. The money had been collected from everyone, split evenly, and finally there was a shout from outside, alerting them that dinner was arriving.

"I swear we never had this much food at any of the parties," Maya blinked as she watched Dylan and Asher bring in two stacks of pizza boxes.

"At least they're taking turns," Lucas noted as they watched everyone sort of line up, grabbing a plate and napkin – already paired – before pulling one or two slices from the various boxes and finding a place to sit around the living room. "Maybe you scared them into behaving," he smirked.

"If I ever get to use my degree, I'll get to do it again… minus the scaring," she smiled to herself, more so as he kissed the top of her head.

"I know you will."

Once everyone had gotten their helping of pizza – or started on their salad, as some had ordered one – they were finally able to put the 'movie' back into movie night, with their first title being the one which had landed in second place over the vote. As much as there had been arguing earlier, everyone seemed to get into it, settling the house into something like peace.

They couldn't have asked for a better end to the week. Pizza, and drinks, and candy, and friends, and movies… If it wasn't so much work to put together, they would do it every week.

Lucas and Maya had managed to retain their usual spot on the couch, in no small part thanks to Sam knowingly playing seat saver for them as soon as everyone had started to go and get seated. This in turn had led to his finding a spot thanks to Dora, who had ensured to keep space at her side on the floor.

"Do you think they realize how close they're sitting?" Maya would casually sign to Lucas, nodding to the pair on the ground, shoulder to shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I'm not going to tell them," Lucas replied with an innocent look before taking a bite of his pizza slice. By the time the plates were gone, Maya was leaning to his shoulder as he had his arm around her. It was a questionable split as to what they paid most attention to, the movie or their guests.

They really couldn't have asked for anything better than this. Alright, if they were being in any way nitpicky, they might say that it could get better, because they did have other people out there, people they would have loved to have here on this night. Some of them, like Farkle and Isadora, were simply too far away, while some, like others of Lucas' cousins, like Joseph Hillard or Junior and Alex Cassidy, who would have been here if not for conflicts of schedule. But absences aside, they had pulled together thirty of their closest friends and family, and that was massive and wonderful. There were some here they were getting used to have nearby again, and some they were having to get used not to see so often anymore, which made their presence here tonight important on different but equally valuable levels.

The candy and the snacks had been broken into somewhere in that first movie, after they'd finished laying waste to the pizza boxes, and already by the end of that first movie they started to believe maybe they wouldn't have leftovers for Halloween after all.

As soon as credits rolled, it was off to the races, as several of them sped off to use the bathroom. The girls were directed upstairs, the guys to the basement, leaving the group out of Houston to reminisce on old Halloween parties.

"They're going to miss the end credit scenes!" Zay protested, shaking his head in despair.

"So, hit pause," Nadine smirked at her husband before getting up to join the line up the stairs.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners