January 23rd 2020

Chapter 23
Their Haunting in Austin

Lucas had actually spent much of the day – when there had been the odd lull on his floor at the bookstore – scribbling down ideas of his own for their Halloween party, their first in Austin. That party may have been firmly in Maya's territory, as it had been for years, while he had claim on their anniversary plans, but that didn't mean he couldn't contribute with the odd idea. He had sort of suspected that she'd been standing out there doing exactly what she'd been doing, as the whole reason he'd been writing ideas down was that he'd figured she'd start thinking about all this before long. He'd been looking forward to sharing those ideas with her tonight.

"What's up with him?" he asked, walking into the house to find Maya sitting in the stairs, looking overall discouraged.

"Girl troubles…" she hummed.

"Oh?" Lucas hesitated. It could only have to do with…

"Dora has a boyfriend now… and it's not him," Maya revealed.

"Wait, what?" he blinked, needing to make a sort of detour in his mind as his first thought was 'Dora? A boyfriend?' as though he hadn't been trying to coax his cousin and Maya's brother together for weeks. Something about it being some other person he didn't know made it feel like his cousin was that little kid who'd run into his arms whenever they'd see each other instead of the sixteen-year-old girl who'd been helping him fix up the house most of last year. After that, his second and immediate thought went out to Sam, who was going to be hurting right about now.

"That's about all I know right now," Maya shrugged. "I just… I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do," she admitted sheepishly. "Never went through anything like that," she quietly pointed out, with a small smile to him, though this was immediately followed by a muffled groan as she felt like a slightly horrible human being for slipping in a sweet beat with her fiancé while her little brother was experiencing something his young heart and mind couldn't cope with.

"Want me to go talk to him?" Lucas pointed up the stairs.

"No, no, I'll do it, I just… ugh…" she shook out her arms after standing. "Can you go call in a pizza or something though? I had dinner started, but this feels more like a couch dinner night. Small exceptions for reasons of teenage heartbreak."

"Consider it done," he tapped her hand on the banister on his way to the kitchen.

Reaching the top of the stairs, she could faintly hear music coming from Sam's room. The door was closed. Maya stared at it, at the end of the hall, and she couldn't make herself go.

"Pull it together already," she muttered to herself, foot tip-tapping where she stood considering her options. Why was this unnerving her like this? She had played attentive ear to more than one friend's romantic woes. Sure, this was her kid brother, but it wasn't like they hadn't had to weather out much worse things, was it? This one though… there was more wiggle room on whether he could or couldn't have done anything to prevent this, so it wasn't as though he'd been completely helpless…

"Go," a whisper called from below, and she looked over the rail to find Lucas staring up at her.

"Okay, okay," she waved him off before heading toward Sam's door. Leaving no room for escape, she gave a light knock. "Hey, Sam, can I come in?" Waiting felt so long, though it was all of three or four seconds before a mumbled but audible 'yeah' allowed her to open the door.

He was laid out on his bed, shoes and all, staring at the ceiling but really staring into nothing. The source of the music was his phone, sitting next to him on the covers, like he'd only made that much effort after coming in here. Maybe it was easier than to have his thoughts be all that he could hear. Without a word, Maya worked one shoe and then the other off her brother's feet and set them on the ground, to no resistance. After removing her own and moving his phone to the nightstand, she sat and then lay down at his side. For a little while neither of them said anything or did anything. They just stared at the ceiling and listened to the music.

After a couple minutes had gone by, she'd turned on her side, propping her head up in her hand. Sam turned his head to look at her. It was all up to him whether he wanted to talk or not.

"They've been going out for a month," he finally spoke. "She'd been trying to tell me, she said, but she wanted to make sure it was for real, and then when it was…" He let out a breath. "I should have said something before…"

"Hey, I know we teased you about that a bit, I'm so sorry, Sammy. You weren't ready, it's not your fault," Maya gave his arm a squeeze.

"I guess it's normal this would have happened," Sam went on. "We go to totally different schools, so she gets to see him all day, all week. They've known each other since like pre-school, and I'm just… me…"

"Don't say it like that," Maya frowned at him before resettling to put her arms around him. "I'd think you were a great guy even if you weren't my brother and I didn't love your silly butt." She took comfort in the fact that her comment had actually managed to pull a small smile out of him. They could work with that. "I know you never told Dora how you felt about her, but I think we both have a pretty good idea of what those feelings are, so I guess what it comes down to is… There's nothing you can do about this, because if you did then you wouldn't be the guy I know you are. The guy I know… I think he cares more about whether Dora's happy than whether it's with him or someone else."

"I do…" he sighed after a few seconds of silence.

"Yeah, you do," Maya set her head in the crook of his shoulder. She waited a bit before going on, though she knew she had to say it. "You're not going to want to hear it right now, but there's a chance Dora and this guy…"

"Adam," Sam provided.

"It might be they'll be together for a little while, or a long while, or for good. Whatever you do from here on out, I wouldn't want you to close yourself off to anything or anyone, on the hope that maybe they'll break up and you'll get another shot. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"I do…" he quietly replied. "I know."

"I'm not telling you to jump at the first person who looks your way. Just don't let this eat you up."

"I won't," Sam promised, whether or not he could say his heart was in it yet.

"Are you hungry?" He shrugged. "Lucas is ordering pizza," she informed him. "If he's done it right, which he will… it's kind of his thing… there'll be some of those toppings you love, and I might actually eat them. You'll get to see me make faces, so that'll be something."

"Yeah, okay," Sam spoke distantly.

"Want to help me work on the Halloween set up for the party and the trick or treaters?"

"Sure."

"Love you, Sammy…" After having remained mostly immobile since she'd come in, he tipped his head to rest against hers now, reaching his hand up hold on to her arm.

"Love you, too," he replied, making his big sister smile tremulously. "For the record, if anyone's a silly butt in this family, it's you."

"Oh, excuse me," she gasped, turning her hug from a comforting hold to a big squoosh which went and dislodged a laugh from the boy trapped in her arms. She knew this wasn't a total fix, and he would know it, too, but right here, this felt like Sam and her both acknowledging to one another that as rough as this would be… some days more than others… he was going to pull through.

When she came down the stairs a few minutes later, Maya found Lucas waiting for her, sitting on the lowermost steps. She went down until she could sit next to him.

"Well?" he asked.

"Do you know a boy in Dora's year called Adam?"

"If it's who I'm thinking about, yeah," Lucas confirmed. "Pretty sure his sister was on their school's basketball team when we were playing. Carly Anders?" It had been a few years now, but you stared at the same names on the backs of jerseys long enough and they had a way of sticking with you.

"Oh, yeah…" she blinked.

"Wait, Dora's going out with Adam Anders?" Lucas looked at her.

"Looks that way," Maya could only shrug. "Unless there's some other Adam in her class. Sam said they'd been in school together since the beginning."

"The kid used to go around with a baggie of Cheerios like a flower girl at a wedding," Lucas recalled, miming the tossing gesture, and Maya had to slap her hand over her mouth to stifle the burst of laughter this brought on.

"Please tell Sam all about that," she finally said once she could speak coherently, though even then, the thought of her brother back in his room made her sigh and lean back against the steps. "It was all going so well, wasn't it?"

"Hey," he nudged her foot with his own. "He'll be okay."

"I hope so… I want to be all confident and say he'll get past this, no problem, except…"

"Except he's your little brother," Lucas nodded.

"I can't even be upset at anyone, the whole thing just happened, no ill will, nothing like that. I just don't want him to have to feel sad like that… ever…"

"The curse of the big sister," Lucas lightly teased. Maya pointed her finger at him. Don't you dare, Huckleberry. "Pizza's on its way," he let her know. "Half without the Sam Special."

"And?"

"And the fries, and the desserts. No salads tonight… It's that kind of day," he looked back at her and found her smiling.

"Nailed it. Now, what movie perfectly encapsulates the mood we're going for here?"

"For Sam?" Lucas considered this for a moment. "I know I've heard him say, word for word, 'there's no bad time for Goonies,' but maybe it'd be too obvious this time."

"True, true," she agreed. It had been one of their father's favorite movies growing up, and he had managed to pass that love on to each and every one of his children, though to Sam most of all. He could recite the thing top to bottom, without visual aids. "I think in this case we might have to go with something he's never seen, something that will grab his attention and won't let go."

"Right, let's see," Lucas pulled out his phone, and the two of them sat there, browsing through options for a few minutes, until they heard steps behind them and turned to find Sam had come from his room to join them.

"Hey, dork," Maya smiled as she stood up. "Pizza will be here soon. We were just looking for a movie…"

"I texted Dora," Sam cut in, and Maya tried not to look nervous.

"Oh?" she blinked. "What'd you say?"

"I told her how we were going to be working on the Halloween party. I asked her if she wanted to come, a-and I told her she should ask and see if Adam wants to come, too." Maya looked to Lucas, still sitting there. By the time he had come to stand as well, she had climbed the two steps to reach her brother and pulled him into a hug.

"You're a good one, Sam Hart," she whispered at his ear. "Don't forget it."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners