June 30th 2020

Chapter 182
Their Joy in Friends & Family

"Well, hello there, cousin Harry!" Maya 'gasped' as the boy was passed into her arms.

At all of three months and some dust, it would have been easy to decide to leave him with a sitter, even if this would have been complicated with the family being very out of town. But it was completely more appreciated by his cousin the bride to get some quality time with young Harry Olsen. His mother, Charlie, had looked just a bit uncertain about putting her baby anywhere near her niece's dress, what with the odds of any amount of stains that might happen, but Maya decided she would take her chances for a minute at the least. He had recently woken up and been changed, after being taken on a walk around Sullivan Stables while the music had been going on strong.

"I never get tired of baby formal wear," she informed her cousin in a wide-eyed whisper which managed to hold his captivated attention. "It is my great weakness right now, you could pretty much ask me for anything right now and I'd give it you. How about it, huh?" The baby just kept looking at her. "Right, no, that's a great idea, tell me more." Harry yawned. "Cool, cool, yeah," she laughed.

"You know, he probably thinks you're me," Charlie grinned, looking on.

"Oh, I know, it was the same with the twins, and MJ, and Haley," Maya counted off, never tearing her eyes from the boy in her arms. "Made me a very successful babysitter."

"You might want to hand him back, he's making his 'I'm about to poop' face," Charlie reached out, and Maya passed her cousin back. "I just changed you, honestly," Charlie sighed, excusing herself.

Watching them go, Maya found herself faced up against what could only be referred to as her own case of baby fever. She'd called Lucas on it earlier, with his whole routine with her little sister, but who was she kidding? She had it as bad as he did, she was there, as ready as she'd ever be. And if she hadn't gotten that offer from the principal, if she hadn't been hired at the school for the coming fall, she would have been full steam ahead when Lucas had brought it up a few weeks back.

But it was like she'd told him. Ideally, she preferred the chance to put in a year at the school before she had to throw maternity leave in the mix. They were both careful, for the time being, to keep it from happening, but they also knew that accidents happened, so if one did, well… they'd call it a fortunate one and go forward. Whichever way it went in the end, they'd both just have to manage this case of baby fever in what way they could until then.

"Maya!" She looked up and beamed as she saw…

"Miss Shayla Blake, as I live and breathe," she drawled, opening out her arms to receive the happy embrace of her friend and protégée out of Houston. At fourteen, Shae felt at once like the very same eleven-year-old Maya had first encountered at the music store and a completely different young girl at the same time. In three years' time, she'd just grown, in every sense of the word.

"I talked to Ree Forster!" Shae told her, with much the same giddiness Maya had been seeing as some of her siblings had given her, and Missy Sanderson, and a number of friends and relatives…There was no telling how she would have reacted, kind and down to Earth as she was, but from what they had both seen and heard, each encounter had been met with open enthusiasm on the singer's part.

"Yeah? How'd it go?" Maya asked, getting up so the two of them might head back into the tent, arm in arm.

"Great! She knew who I was!" Shae whispered, and it was a wonder she hadn't passed out already.

"Did she?" Maya laughed.

"She heard my song on the Christmas album," Shae nodded. That had been the first year they'd known one another, Maya's last in Houston… She could still recall when they had done the recording, in the basement. Much as she loved the Hex and would never give it up, she still missed those days sometimes. It was widely accepted that their period in Houston had really taken them to another level. "She said she loved my voice and it reminded her of her daughter's."

"Yeah, you did kind of sound like her back then," Maya realized. She'd met Ree's daughter, Christina, twice now, the first time, very briefly, back in December, the day of the concert, and then again over the three days Ree had spent at camp. The ten-year-old was like a miniature version of her mother, and this went from her appearance on down to her voice. She'd come on stage and helped her mother with demonstrations over her sessions. Maya had not known she would be bringing her along, and she had told Ree to bring her to the wedding if she'd like, but it was decided in the end that she'd be better off spending the day with her grandmother, who'd travelled along with them.

"She wanted to know about how you and I met, and I told her about my videos of your songs, and I told her how I'd done some of her songs, and she asked me to show her, and I did, and she listened to them and she loved them!"

"Is no one breathing today, take a breath, Shayla!" Maya laughed, putting her arm around the girl's shoulders and jostling her a bit.

"I just didn't expect any of this," Shae breathed.

"Again, sur-prise…" Maya flicked her hand as she said the word.

"Shae!" someone called, and they looked up. Missy Sanderson was waving back at them from across the dance floor. Maya had told Sophie to seat the two girls at the same table, following a hunch that they would get along, being not quite a year apart, and this plan had quickly come to fruition.

"Talk later," Shae gave Maya a quick hug before running after her new friend.

"Hey, sure, no problem, everyone just… Okay," Maya called after her before having to admit it was pointless, as the girls were already gone and out of sight.

Just seconds later, the bench vibrated with the weight of someone not so much sitting as dropping into the seat next to her, startling her into turning around.

"Rosa, what the…"

"Do you guys have a house sitter while you're going away on your honeymoon?" her bandmate asked. Maya wasn't sure what this was about for a moment, still recovering from the sudden arrival.

"Uh, not really. Sam's going to head out to Tucson to spend time with the family out there, and the Sandersons are looking after the dogs…

"I could watch them, and the house. You know, I can take in the mail, look after the… landscape or whatever, do all that boring cleaning no one wants to do because it's gross? I'll do all that, it'll be like a wedding present."

"You already got us a present, remember? It was very nice, by the way. I still have to do the thank you cards, but… thank you…"

"Sure. But can I?"

"I mean, I'd have to check with Lucas, but I think he'd be okay with it, you… Why do you want to…" She paused, the realization hitting her a split second before Rosa explained.

"I figured it'd be like… mutually beneficial. You and Lucas would have someone looking after your house, and Riley and Dylan would have the apartment to themselves while they do the whole house hunting thing." She looked to Maya, who had a clearly apologetic look on her face for not having told her before. "I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at them, I mean I get it. I didn't think this thing with us living together was going to be a forever thing, it just all happened so fast, and I know they want to try and be moved in as soon as possible, since Dylan has school and all that, but that means I'm either going to have to find roommates or a new place just as fast, and… I need space to think it through."

"Okay, you can house sit for us," Maya agreed, trusting she was right about Lucas being on board, about this and the next part. "And if it takes you longer than that, you can stick around as long as you need to." Wouldn't be the first time… We should turn the basement into a guest room, now that we have the Hex…

"For real?" Rosa sat up.

"Yes, for real," Maya laughed. "In fact, I have a project for you, Captain Decorator in Training. You've got two weeks to come up with some ideas for a guest room in the basement." To see her light up, before launching to hug her… Maya burst out laughing, just barely keeping from tipping over the bench.

"Sorry!" Rosa laughed along. "I will get on that, thank you, really, thank you so much."

"You are very welcome, now come on, dance floor, I've been sitting too long."

Lucas had just danced, in turn, with all of his new sisters, from Cara on down to the Hunter twins, plus the Sullivan-Reyes girls, and Dora Cassidy, and the Hillard girls… He temporarily retired from the dance floor and went to grab a drink, only to spot a tiny bent-backed figure trailing along on her walker and take off at a jog after her.

"Hey, hey, uh… Nana Kat?" he tried, falling in slow step with Maya's great grandmother. The woman stopped, looking over at him with a curious frown.

"Who are you?" she asked, in a tone that said 'I know I'm supposed to know who you are but I'm not getting there right now.'

"Lucas? Maya's husband? Maya, your great granddaughter, Katy's girl?"

"Oh, yes, you were married today," the woman's confusion shifted to a beatific smile.

"Yes, that's right," Lucas smiled back at her.

"You're very tall," Nana Kat remarked, looking him up and down. "My husband was very tall, too."

"I'm sure he was," Lucas nodded, thinking of Tanner Clutterbucket and his brothers and sister. "So… did you need something?"

"Need…" Nana Kat blinked at him, looking back the way she was going for a moment like she was trying to remember. "I left something, o-on my dresser, for Maya. I'm going to get it, won't be a minute." Lucas wasn't sure if she meant her dresser at the hotel or back at her residence in Dallas, but one way or another, she wasn't about to get it 'in a minute.' Plus, he was pretty sure her nurse, who doubled as Katy's cousin Randall's date, had this gift and was waiting for Katherine Clutterbucket to decide on the right time to hand it to her great granddaughter. He mentioned as much, as respectfully as possible, to the old woman. "Oh…" she paused, as though resetting the facts into the narrative in her head. "That's right, yes." And she started the process of turning herself around before making for the tent.

"Here, why don't you sit here a minute," Lucas guided her to an empty seat near to the wheelchair where their other great grandmother sat watching the dancing couples. "GiGi, hey, have you met Maya's…"

"Don't believe I've had the pleasure," she motioned for him to come and roll her over, which he did.

"Katherine Clutterbucket, Geraldine Babineaux. GiGi, Nana Kat," Lucas made the introductions.

"You're down the hall from me, aren't you?" Nana Kat asked the other woman.

"No, no, dear, I live with my granddaughter," GiGi casually corrected her, as Lucas went to find the nurse.

As she was dancing with Randall, he guessed someone else had been meant to keep an eye on her. This turned out to have been Shawn, who had been distracted after Haley had bumped her head into a tent pole and started hollering. He'd taken her outside to have a look at her and calm her down – it was really a tiny bump but to the girl it had been the end of the world – and in that time the ninety-nine-year-old had made a break for it.

"Need a hand?" Lucas asked.

"No, no, it's alright, Katy's got her now," Shawn nodded to the corner, where Katy sat with her youngest in her lap, still consoling her as she sat there, face red with tears and thumb barely hanging from her lip. "This is your wedding, you should go out there, mingle, have some fun."

"Yeah, I guess, it's just…" Lucas shrugged, thinking back to the giggling girl he'd swung over the table again and again earlier.

"Give her a couple minutes, she'll be running around again. Or she'll fall asleep, it's late for her already."

Lucas did as told, going back through the crowd, knowing he could hardly turn around without running into someone who'd want to talk to him. Still, he spied the great grandmothers on the side, chatting animatedly amongst themselves, and in the corner he watched the progress of Haley Hunter's 'recovery' from her bump. He knew she was over the worst of it when she locked eyes with him when he was looking at her. At once, he gave her a smile and, getting one back, he signalled for her to come to him. She was let off her mother's knees and she was in his arms in a flash.

"Hey, you alright?" Lucas asked her, getting a look at her forehead. Haley nodded. "That's good, because I don't know what I would do without my favorite dance partner," he told her, putting on a gasp, looking around before turning back to the girl. "Don't tell Maya, okay? Our little secret," he presented his hand and got a high five which required concentration and a small pink tongue sticking out the side of tows of baby teeth. "That was a good one, alright, let's go."

Lucas ended up crossing paths with Maya on the dance floor, where she and Rosa were having a go of giving some moves which really went against the rhythm of the music playing over the speakers.

"What are you doing?" Lucas asked, even as he could only manage to look amused at the whole display.

"Going against the grain," Rosa informed him.

"Right… Well, whatever it is, she seems to enjoy it," Lucas replied. In his arms, Haley Hunter looked to be very intrigued and amused by what was happening before her eyes.

"Hey, Hey, Haley, want to come dance with me?" Rosa asked her.

"Yeah!" Haley proclaimed, and so she was taken off by a new partner, leaving the newlyweds looking to one another like 'well, since we're both here' before joining in some more dancing. As they did so, Maya relayed the situation with Rosa house sitting and then possibly staying with them a little while until she could figure out her situation.

"Wouldn't be the first time, right?" he told her, which was as good as him saying that of course he was on board.

"That's what I said," Maya nodded. "So, what have you been up to, other than entertaining a two-year-old?"

"Stalled a runaway ninety-nine-year-old," he revealed.

"Wait, what?" He recounted the confused flight of Nana Kat, and her return, her making friends with GiGi. Telling all this soon led into the whole reason for her getting away, with Haley's incident and how it had led him out here with her. "There are so many people in here, it feels like there could be a hundred things happening at the same time and we wouldn't even know…" she shook her head with a laugh.

"Okay, so, we have to go and talk to people, right?" Lucas asked, an idea coming to him.

"Mingle, you have to say mingle, it's a thing," Maya nodded.

"Yeah, so we have to mingle."

"Would be rude not to say hi after we had them come out here and bring us a present… Although we did buy them dinner…"

"So, we go out there, for… let's say a half hour, then we come back out here and see what we got," Lucas suggested. Maya straightened up at this, a curious look on her face.

"Lucas Friar… Are you asking me to go look for the weird stuff?" she asked, with conspiracy and mischief in her voice, evocating the day of their field trip flight through the museum.

"That's the gist of it, yes," he laughed at the look on her face.

"You're on," she nodded, briefly kissing him before heading off to begin her search.

Left to his self-imposed mission, Lucas looked around the tent. It wasn't exactly a competition, though knowing Maya she was already being strategic about it. And in no time, in twelve years of knowing her, had he felt compelled to let her win anything. She would not have liked that. So, he had to go to her level… while also remembering, as she was bound to, that this game only mattered to them. This was their wedding reception, they couldn't just run up to someone and demand something good and weird. They just had to more or less do exactly what they had been doing; with all the people around them tonight, the anecdotes were not hard to come by as it was.

"Did you misplace your wife?" He turned around and found Maeve.

"Hey… Uh, no, she just went to talk to someone and… How's it going, was dinner okay?" he asked, realizing they'd yet to talk throughout the day.

"Oh, dinner was great, yeah, and the company, too," Maeve replied. She'd been sitting with the rest of his co-workers from the bookstore, who all knew each other to some degree, even if they didn't all work the same days, and his friends from university, as there was some overlap there, mostly between Maeve and Ramona, who'd come along with Ben Hastings, now her boyfriend of course and – covertly, in case Maeve didn't want anyone asking about the baby – the uncle of nearly two-month-old Erin. "One thing though?"

"Yeah?" Lucas asked.

"Well, you know how you told me how one of your classmates had surgery last year?"

"Yeah…"

"Is that like a secret or something?"

"Uh… well…" Lucas hesitated, which was effectively all the answer Maeve had needed.

"Oh…" she blinked. "Was it…" she started to ask, but then stopped, as the blocks seemed to fall into place all on their own in her head. "I might have done a thing… An unintended thing, but still a…"

"A thing," Lucas sighed.

"I'm so sorry… Is it bad? I mean…"

"I don't know, might not be," he reflected, looking around the tent in search of his classmates. "Were you just with them?"

"Yeah, over there," Maeve pointed. She followed him as he went around to where she'd indicated.

Finding a cluster of them there, he counted off who he saw. Bishop and Leona, Ramona and Ben, Simon and his date, who Lucas had yet to even be introduced to… No sight of Robbie or Josie. The other six, however, appeared to be in deep discussion, the tone of which felt very much like 'wow, can you believe this?' Ramona broke away from the others and came up to Lucas when she saw him.

"Did you know? About Josie? The transplant?" she asked.

"Uh… yeah… She only told me so I could bring her my notes and all, from last semester," he explained. She'd been in the thick of it, of course, even as her marriage to Robbie had been falling apart. The two of them were as solid now as they had been before, even if it was as friends only, and even if they hadn't, she would have felt connected to this revelation now. "Where'd they go?"

"Well, Josie kind of bolted out of here when everyone started putting it together. Robbie didn't get there right away, but then he did and he went after her. They haven't been back yet, so I don't know what's going on. They should be fine, or… Robbie has to, but I don't know why Josie didn't say anything."

"Maybe she didn't want him to think she did it just because she liked him?" Maeve provided. They looked at her. "I don't know, it's all I can think of," she shrugged.

"Hey, they're coming back," Bishop called to the three of them, and they hurried over just as Robbie and Josie stepped into the tent. Going by the fact that they were holding hands, Lucas had to guess everything was good.

"What are you all standing around for? It's a party, right?" Josie asked with a curious smile, as she and Robbie continued on their way to the dance floor.

After leaving off on her quest for tales to tell, Maya had barely made it off the dance floor herself that she was invited back on to it by Farkle.

"How can I say no to a bit of the Minkus shuffle?" she smiled at once. "You don't have your tap shoes, do you?"

"Sorry, I left them at home," he chuckled.

"Such a shame," Maya sighed, as they found a spot to dance. "You know, the plus side of this dress is that as soon as people see me coming, they cut me a path. That's the kind of power I could get used to."

"So you're just going to walk around in a wedding dress from now on?"

"Hey, I look good in this," she confidently declared. "Plus, people walking around have a way of not seeing other people of a shorter… persuasion. Don't you remember when you weren't a giant? You wore turtlenecks and you made it work."

"I have the occasional flashback, yes," he tried not to smile.

"And now you don't have turtlenecks anymore, but you have one criminally adorable daughter and another branch sprouting on the Minkus family tree."

"I don't know how we made the leap from my old clothes to my children, but yes, I do," Farkle slowly nodded.

"You know, I remember a moment very similar to this one," Maya smiled. "You and me, dancing at a wedding, talking about your impending fatherhood… I asked you what you would have liked to have, and you told me you wanted a girl, and now you have one. So I feel like I have to ask you now… Farkle Minkus, what are we feeling is growing in your wife's belly this time around?" He laughed. "I'm serious, I want to know," she grinned. "If you're right again, maybe buy a lottery ticket, or become a fortune teller on the side, I mean, raising two kids, that has to be expensive…"

"I… Honestly, I don't know. On the one hand, having another girl would mean Ada could have a sister, and I feel like it could be good for her, but on the other, since we do already have a girl, it could be interesting to have a boy, too… I really don't know, one way or the other is fine by me. That's my choice."

"What if you can't make up your mind because what you're actually having is one of each?" Maya whispered. Farkle blinked, like he hadn't even considered this as a possibility, and now he would be left to wonder, but then shook his head and dismissed it.

"There's only one, we already saw," he told her. She gave him a look and, after a moment of looking around, he took out his phone and showed her. She smiled, inspecting the bits of light and dark coming together as Baby Minkus the Second.

"Okay, but what if the other one's shy and it's just being real quiet and hiding. You've met Gracie, that girl could be a ninja. You could have a ninja baby."

"How much cake have you had?" Farkle asked.

"Normal amounts," Maya smiled. "Wine, on the other hand…" she added after a beat, holding to the gag a fair few seconds before bursting out laughing. "Can't I just be drunk on happiness instead? Kind of did this thing where I got married? You have known me long enough to know I was not going to get through today without going all loopy." Farkle considered this. Alright, it was fair. "All kidding aside, it really just makes me very, very happy to know that you and Isadora are bringing another cute genius into the world. We need more people like you." He smiled, nodding in thanks, and they carried on dancing.

After leaving his classmates and Maeve, Lucas had continued on his circuit of the room. He had brief talks with family members from about every branch of his or Maya's trees. Friars, and Sullivans, Cassidys, Hillards, Hunters, Harts, Hart-Lanes, Clutterbuckets… He was this close to needing himself a bit of a recharge peace and quiet with Maya, until he'd landed in the midst of his grandparents. Patty had seen him and waved him over to where she and Pappy Joe were sitting, looking after the sleeping Hunter quartet, the twins on either side of their younger brother and sister in what felt like a miniature version of when the two of them would crawl into bed between Maya and him.

"We're about to call it a night, and we can't just leave them," Pappy Joe told Lucas, nodding to the kids. His grandparents were spending the night over at his parents' house, in his old room, rather than heading back on the road to Houston. "Is your wife around?" he asked, in that way many of the guests would do, like they knew it made him smile whenever he heard it, still new as it was to him.

"Sure, she is," Lucas laughed, looking for her. She was kind of hard to miss in that dress. When he saw her, he let out their call to her and raised his arm when he saw her trying to spot him. She cut through the dance floor, like a displacement wave, before landing at his side.

"Hey, are you guys leaving?" she asked, like they had that air about them.

"Just about, yes," Patty smiled as she and Pappy Joe stood. They each embraced the two of them in turn, with repeated congratulations and requests for photos and stories once they came back from their honeymoon. As they watched them go, Patty holding to Pappy Joe's arm as they went, Maya leaned her head to Lucas' shoulder with a sigh.

"Thanks for the gift of a grandma," she grinned up at him, making him laugh.

"You know, up until a minute ago, I was actually hoping to find you, and now here you are."

"You called, I came," Maya shrugged as he half turned and put his arms around her. The way she leaned to him, maybe she had been in need of a quick recharge, too.

"So, what weird stuff have you got for me?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners