A/N: Hey guys! Quick heads up that there is a new chapter of "The World Around" up (finally, after three months ;)) Looking to do more of these again!

June 20th 2020

Chapter 172
Their Night With Icons

"I remember when I'd go and visit the puppies at Ray's house, before we got to take them back to the house," Maya smiled, looking at the five puppies held between herself, Lucas, and Kai, as Missy had finally been convinced to go off to the bathroom. She'd insisted that she would be fine, even though they knew this was just her not wanting to leave Coraline's side, but this could only go so long, and then she'd had to go. After sitting on the floor for a few hours by then, it wouldn't hurt her to walk around for a bit either.

"Only three of them that time," Lucas remembered it, too. Ray's dog had birthed five, and the other two of the small litter had not made it, so Maya and her parents had taken the other three together. Ghost, Tuck, and Queen had all been loved in the Hunter Hart house for as long as they'd lived. When the last of them had passed on, it had felt like the closing of a chapter.

"Definitely not this loud," Maya agreed as she smiled at the pair she held, yammering on like the others in their puppy choir.

"I'm back, I'm back, did I miss anything?" Missy asked as she came back and crouched and sat by her dog once again.

"No, but I think the next one is on its way," Lucas passed number five over to her before getting a look at Coraline. "Yeah, there it comes, butt first."

"Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do," Maya smirked, which made Kai laugh.

Puppy number six, the second male in a row, gave Maya and Lucas both the same vibe. After the very energetic – as energetic as one could be when they'd been born for all of thirty minutes – number five, his little brother came quiet. Not so quiet that he was silent or in any sort of difficulty, just peaceful as his mother went and cleaned him up. Lucas had turned to Maya, and the thought was there in their faces. Those two were giving serious Nellie and Gracie vibes. They both laughed, and Maya couldn't wait to tell her sisters all about it. She'd have to have a conversation with her parents first – and know what Missy's intentions were – to make sure she didn't accidentally make the twins want to bring their dog counterparts to live with them if they couldn't.

"How do you know when there's no more coming?" Kai asked, looking from Missy to Lucas and back.

"They did a scan, I counted eight, but there could be more… or less," Missy told him.

"Once we hit seven, we'll see where we are," Lucas added.

"I think she likes it when she hears talking," Missy told them, stroking Coraline's back as she lay there quietly, looking at the people sitting nearby. "What was it like with Ree Forster at the camp?" Missy asked Maya. She'd been meant to attend this year, but then when she'd found out Coraline was having puppies, and roughly when they would be born, she had decided not to go. As much as she'd looked forward to it, Coraline was and always would be her responsibility. It couldn't have come at a better time, her being out of school for the summer, enabled to look after the dog and her puppies.

"Oh, it was great," Maya was happy to fill her in. "We put videos and pictures on our pages, did you see those?"

"Not yet, it would have been weird, I think, seeing it and not being there," Missy shrugged.

"You really wanted to meet her, huh?" Lucas asked and Missy nodded.

The number of people who knew Ree and her husband would be at the wedding tomorrow was very small. Much as they were all trusting of their friends and families, the last thing they wanted was for word to spread and people to end up sweeping up to Sullivan Stables. It wasn't that they expected this to happen either, not for sure, but this was Maya and Lucas' day, their wedding, and they had waited long enough, wouldn't get a do-over. They could have maybe told Missy by now, but really it would be more amusing to see the look on her face the next morning, when she got to figure out she might not have gotten to see her at camp, but she would now very possibly get to talk to the singer one on one.

As far as the camp, now… Ree had been with them for three days, Monday through Wednesday, yesterday. In that case, it hadn't been a secret, like the wedding, not when the slate of star mentors had been announced some time ago. Siobhan had been essential in ensuring that their theater wouldn't turn into some media circus, and Maya was both thankful for the assist itself and for the knowledge she had gained from it. Even so, the air felt a tiny bit electric that first morning as they awaited Ree's arrival.

"When she showed up, my mother couldn't stop going on about how this was one of the reasons she'd been a fan all those years, because she was so down to Earth all the time. I came this close to locking her in her office. Like, she's met her before by now, a couple of times, and if she's supposed to be so down to Earth – which she is, she really is – then why was she acting like she was about to meet the Queen of England?" The others laughed along with her. As much or as little as they knew Katy, they could all imagine her face in that moment.

"You weren't so relaxed about it the first time," Lucas reminded her.

"Well, what do you expect, she's The Ree Forster," Maya intoned before bursting into laughter again and doing her best not to get so loud as to disturb the dogs. "I've gotten better about it."

"Yeah, you two are old friends now," Lucas smiled at her.

"Anyway, speaking of Her Majesty, some of the kids at the camp had somehow never heard her speak? They know her singing voice, fine, but they heard her speak that first day and they didn't even know she was English?"

"She is?" Kai blinked, looking awkwardly between the other three. The best reaction was easily Missy's, as she looked at him with the most 'oh, sweetie' sympathetic look.

"She was phenomenal as a mentor," Maya sighed, recalling those three days. "I was just standing or sitting around most of the time while she was talking to the kids, and I learned stuff, too."

Lucas was more than aware of this, and he had a new smile, thinking of the last three nights when she'd come home from camp. He was off school for the summer by now, of course, and working more hours at the bookstore in part thanks to the small promotion Maeve had gotten him, though he had taken three weeks off, the one before and the two following the wedding, so he got to be the first one home for once, switching from the usual. He'd be in the kitchen, working on dinner with Sam, and they'd heard the door, and dogs, and there she would be, walking into the kitchen as though on a cloud. Sam was more than happy to tease his sister about how goofy she was, going on and on about her day and what they had done with Ree and the campers. Maya was so happy that she took it right in stride, like Wonder Woman deflecting shots off her arm braces. Lucas could just tell she had been keeping a straight face the whole day, remained professional the whole time, but the moment she was back home, with him and her brother, she was finally at liberty to show what she had been feeling all day, and she didn't hold back.

"You should do more songs for her," Missy affirmed with a nod. "You guys really fit well together."

"Think so?" Maya beamed, more so as Missy nodded again, and Lucas put in his vote along with hers. "I mean, I definitely came out of those days very inspired…"

Here she was again, with secrets to keep from her young neighbor. The fact was that the prospect of a new collaboration between them was already on the table. Even though she had just put out her latest album back in December, Ree was already looking toward the next one. She didn't intend for it to come out for a while, really wanted to put the work in it to make it something distinct from everything she'd already done. It could take a year, could take two, who knew. The one thing she did know was that she wanted to make it a collection, an exploration, a meeting of two minds.

She wanted Maya to write the whole thing.

She'd told her this just the day before, as she was leaving from her last day at the camp. Maya had stood frozen to the spot, like she couldn't possibly have heard her correctly. The whole album? A whole one, her music and lyrics, Ree's voice, the whole thing? That was exactly what she meant. There would still be those details to figure out, but she'd already set things in motion as far as the label was concerned, and all she really needed was for Maya to say yes. They would work things out, schedule wise, minding the fact that she was starting at the high school in September. Ree was looking to make it so that she might come down and record at the Hex, a thought which went through Maya's brain and found all the little clusters which had yet to be blown and just pulverized them. Of course she was in, of course they would do this. When she'd arrived at the house last night, she'd just burst into happy tears all over the place.

The tale of Ree's time at the camp, as redacted as it was, was cut off by the sudden arrival of puppy number seven. Quite literally, Coraline gaze something like a sneeze, and when they looked down, there was a new puppy.

"Full of puppies and surprises, aren't you?" Lucas laughed as they all watched the dog tend to the latest of her litter.

"You know, if she stopped here, there'd be seven, and we could call that one Sneezy," Missy grinned, more so as the others caught on to what she was getting at.

"There's Sleepy right there," Kai pointed number one, who was not quite asleep but definitely looked cozy as she lay just a bit curled up in Missy's lap, yapping along with her brothers and sisters.

"None of them look all that Grumpy to me," Lucas observed the pups, still barely making sense of this new world they'd come into.

"Give them time," Maya laughed. "This one here is Bashful though, and if that is not Happy, I don't know who is," she indicated number six and number five, the twins' counterparts.

"That would leave Doc, Dopey, and Grumpy…" Lucas looked to the remaining puppies. It was a bit of a stalemate at this point. "Might not be a good idea to get attached to the names, I mean… there's definitely another one or two left," he declared, having gotten a feel as Coraline lay there. She had to be getting tired, but there was still that look in her eyes. She knew she wasn't done either.

"Yeah, anyway, there's only one Doc right here," Maya gave him a smile. "I call him Dockleberry," she whispered to Missy and Kai, who started to laugh at once.

"See, why'd you have to go and tell them that?" Lucas tried and failed to sound annoyed. Maya raised her chin, innocence and mischief rolled into one.

"I'm The Bride, I can if I want to." Lucas considered this and finally nodded. Fair enough.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners