A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

February 25th 2020

Chapter 56
Their Bonds to Love

"I think that went well," Maya declared, after their guests had left and it was just her and Lucas and Sam and the dogs again.

Well, just her and Lucas really. The dogs were sitting off in their usual spot, quietly enjoying the return of peace, while Sam had gone right to bed. Both Maya and Lucas agreed this was so he could wake up bright and early in the morning and be all set by the time he went off for his Valentine date with Cecilia. It was more than alright though. After the unexpected turn of the night, with their parents visiting, they enjoyed this bit of cleaning up, just the two of them together. They'd had more than one offer for assistance from their mothers and fathers, but all they'd had to do was to point out that this was their house, and if they had been at either of their family homes, they would have been sent packing without touching so much as a dirty dish or utensil. Their parents had already done most of the cooking, and so they had to say good night and go home.

"Do you think we're too hard on them? Always assuming the worst?" Lucas asked as he scrubbed at one of the plates in the sink. Maya was putting the leftovers in containers, salvaging the odd little bite where she saw an opportunity. She looked at him now, chewing. He gave her a look.

"It's not that we're too hard," she insisted, after swallowing, shutting the lid on the container. "We… know them, and we know how they can get, so… we anticipate. Some people would call it prudent."

"Some people would call it making assumptions," he countered.

"You realize they basically ambushed us tonight, right? They wanted to know about the wedding, and they came out here, with barely any warning, so we'd be a bit out of sorts… We controlled the information, remember? Because…"

"We anticipated," he nodded, and she tapped his arm. Exactly. "It did go well."

"Yeah, it did. And it was fun. I know we've been keeping it all pretty close this whole time, so we could have everything the way we saw it and wanted it, but… I don't know, I liked seeing them get excited about our wedding…" she swept off to put the leftovers in the refrigerator. She turned back when she thought she heard him chuckle. "What?"

"I like seeing you excited about it, too," he explained.

"Oh…" she smirked, moving back up to him. "They're practically bored with it compared to me," she promised.

"Yeah?" he smiled, leaning in.

"Bursting at the seams over it," she stretched up to kiss him.

X

It would have been so much easier if he could have had the day off, but Lucas would be working at the bookstore until five, so Valentine's Day, for the most part, would have to wait until the evening. As for the part that was not the most, there was morning, the brief time before he had to go to work… also known as breakfast. It didn't take long for both of them to realize there was a small problem in their plans for the morning, their separate plans, which were in fact sort of… mutual.

They had both gotten it in their heads to get up while the other slept, heading down into the kitchen to prepare a surprise breakfast.

It might have led to a bit of a busted surprise if one of them had gotten up and the other had followed not so long after that everything wasn't ready, but instead… Instead, they woke up so close to when the other did that it could have been a photo finish. They'd only had to take one look at the other to realize they had both intended to do the same thing.

"Right…" he blinked.

"Yeah…" she trailed off.

"So what should we do?"

"Well, not double the food, that would just be too much food… I think… Want to rock-paper-scissor it?" she asked, holding her hand up in a 'rock' fist.

"Can I call Huckleberry Law on this one?" he asked back, and she snorted.

"You just made that up, but I get what you're saying, so… Fine, go for it. I'll just have to find a way to make it up to you later." She paused, rethinking it over. "Not like that," she specified. "Not that there's not going to be…"

"I'm just going to go make breakfast," he hooked his thumb back to the door so she'd stop digging that hole for herself.

"Yeah, you go do that," she nodded.

"Okay." After a beat of just standing there, Lucas came back to the bed to kiss her, and Maya watched him with a laugh before letting herself drop back to the mattress.

Breakfast had come and gone, and soon Lucas was off to the bookstore, leaving Maya with the ability to bask in her role as big sister to Sam as he prepared for his first Valentine's Day, the first where he actually had a girlfriend. He and Cecilia had only been dating about a month, and it could have felt almost reasonable for them not to go all out, to maybe just get together and watch a movie or something like that. But he wanted to go for it, do the Valentine experience. Being Sam, of course, he had asked Cecilia, truly and honestly, what she wanted, if she thought it was too early, or if she wanted the big date. She'd chosen the latter.

Maya: Do you need me to go and help with anything?

Cecilia: It's okay. I'm going to Dora's, we're going to get ready together.

Maya knew the girls were friends now, now more than ever, but sometimes there would still be this beat of hesitation in her, wondering if this would be a good idea, what with the mess that had been going on up until a month ago. She could just imagine it, the two of them talking, someone saying something she wasn't supposed to, and then so long happy Valentine… No, that wouldn't happen. This was fine, this was great. They were becoming friends, and she hated to say it but Cecilia could do with having more friends in her life. Maybe a part of her was also feeling like this small beat of her being like a big sister/maternal figure to her little brother's girlfriend had meant a lot…

"So… Where are you going?" Maya asked Sam as she watched him work on his hair in the mirror. He gave her a look that suggested he wanted to keep his plans to himself. "Come on," she begged, reaching her hand out 'threateningly' close to his head.

"Don't," he whipped his head back and out of reach.

"You're learning, young grasshopper," she declared. It pushed a smile on to his face, tearing him away from his weakly annoyed face.

"Dad used to say that."

"He did, yeah," Maya smiled now. She didn't know why it pleased her so much to know that she was aware of it, or maybe she did know, and she liked playing on the side of wonder and mystery. "Look, just promise me that, wherever you go, whatever you do…"

"It's not going to be another one of those talks, is it?" Sam stopped her.

"No, I'm pretty sure I got that one deep enough in your head that you couldn't forget it if you tried."

"I can't… and I've tried," he declared, with mock trauma in his voice. She laughed.

"I was going to say," she tapped his arm, like 'hey, listen.' "I just want to know that you two are going to have a good night together. Okay? Can I ask that without being branded the nosy sister?"

"You are nosy," Sam pointed out.

"Do you want me to mess up that hair?" she raised her hand again and he dodged. "Just say yes and this can be over, okay?"

"Yes," he sighed. "I want it to be good, I really do," he went on.

"Now was that so hard?" Maya shrugged before pulling her brother into a hug, which he reciprocated without hesitation. "Love you, Sammy," she kissed his cheek.

"Love you, too."

"Now where's my chocolate?"

They would have played chauffeur to Sam and Cecilia again if necessary, but a solution presented itself, ensuring that the kids would be seen to, while Lucas and Maya could have their own night. This solution was called Rosa Del Vecchio.

"Admit it, you're loving this," Lucas chuckled when he opened the door and found his former co-worker and roommate standing on the doorstep in her best approximation of a chauffeur-like suit, complete with hat and gloves.

"I am totally dropping out of college to become a limo driver," Rosa nodded before turning and heading back down to stand next to her borrowed car for the night. It wasn't a limousine, far from it, but left in her hands it almost seemed like it could have been. Sam was quick to follow, and so they were off to pick up Cecilia.

"How come we don't get our own driver?" Maya joked, coming down the stairs to join Lucas.

"I can put on a hat, too, you know?" he smiled, trailing her descent.

"Can I talk like a fancy rich old lady? Can I call you Rupert?" she inquired.

"Rupert?" Lucas laughed.

"First name that popped into my head."

"You can call me whatever you want, in whatever voice you want."

"That is dangerous power to put in my hands, are you sure about that?"

"I'll risk it."

"Rupert, bring the car around!" Maya intoned, which immediately made Lucas burst out laughing. "Now, Rupert, where are your manners?" she 'scolded.'

"Sorry, ma'am," he played.

"On second thought, if you're going to have to call me that, I'd rather be me, and you can just keep that invisible hat of yours," Maya returned to her own voice.

"You mean this one?" Lucas reached to the hat that was not on his head and tipped it.

"That one, yeah. Love that hat."

Getting into his car, they drove off from the house, both of them in the front now that 'Rupert' and his mistress had been dismissed.

"Is it weird I can't stop thinking about my brother?" Maya wondered aloud.

"If it is then that makes two of us," Lucas confessed.

"Okay, then let's say it's not weird," she nodded. "It's just, you know, it's his first one of these, and I know it's not because it's Valentine's Day that a date would be so different than any other, but well…"

"I get it," Lucas nodded. "Remember our first Valentine's?"

"I remember you showed up on my doorstep that morning, with the first one of these," she tipped the single rose in her hand, a tradition he'd carried on from his parents. He'd given her one every year since.

"You had that red dress with the gold," he added.

"I miss that dress sometimes," she sighed.

"Me, too," he smirked when she giggled.

"And we had umbrellas, even though it was a really sunny day, because we weren't going to have it be a repeat of our first date."

"Nope."

"We did have our own driver though, like Sam and Cecilia do, except it was your grandfather. And we went to the museum, like our first date, only there was no rain… and no people either. We had the place to ourselves, thanks to your mom."

"And you, for having her do it," Lucas pointed out.

"My clearest memory is you and me, sitting on that museum floor, looking at 'our' painting for something close to a half hour. And when we left, we went back and had our own sort of outdoor cinema, just you and me and a movie… and a pizza. So, yes, I remember," she smiled. "I remember them all. You want me to tell you what we did the year after that?"

"No, it's alright. I remember it, too," he smiled back. It seemed impossible not to have some kind of a smile on their face at all times.

"So, you can see why I can't help thinking about the two of them out there tonight, not because I thinking something will go wrong, but because I really just hope it all goes so right as it did for us."

Sitting to dinner later on, Maya wanted to hear as many stories as he could give her, of customers coming into the store on last minute Valentine's gift runs. Between this first year here and the four he'd done in Houston, at Coleman's, he had his fair share. Most of them he had already told her on previous years, but she didn't mind hearing them again. They were like Christmas movies you watched every year, even though you'd watched them… well, year after year, after year… They never got old, almost got better each time they were pulled out of the backs of their minds and into the forefront, like old friends.

"I'm having so much trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that the next time we do this you and I will be married…" Lucas admitted, when they'd had to take a pause, laughing too much from one of if not their absolute favorite, from their first year in Houston.

"I know what you mean," Maya told him. "But in a good way."

"Yes, absolutely," he agreed.

"Anything you'd like to do on your last Valentine's as an unwed human?" she inquired, perching her chin on her hand, the picture of curiosity.

"Is there actually anything we won't be able to do anymore once we're married?" Lucas pointed out.

"Other than to say we're not, no, I guess not. Is it possible that marriage changes nothing? Wait until I tell Denise and Ilsa, they'll be thrilled they've been sewing all those…" She stalled at once, trying to hold back words while at the same time feeling like she had to laugh for the intrigued look on his face. "Rewind and forget the last sentence or two, will you?"

"What sentences?" he played innocent, much as he did really want to know what Denise and Ilsa had been sewing now.

"Right," Maya smiled.

"What will matter most to me will be to know that you and I made this vow to one another, in front of one person or one thousand or all the people in the world."

"That's a lot of people, should we just start now?" she whispered. He reached across the table, looping his fingers with hers.

"Five months," he reminded her.

"Not even," she reminded back.

"Four months and… twenty-six days and… fourteen or fifteen hours?" Lucas slowly counted. Maya smiled. She guessed she could hold on until then.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners