August 28th 2020

Chapter 241
Their Question For Hope

"What part are you at?" Lucas asked, only to be shushed and waved off by Maya as she sat on the couch with his laptop before her.

While they waited for Dylan to arrive, she was looking over a paper he'd just finished the night before. He had come to see her as his good luck charm, like he didn't do nearly so well as when she read him and corrected him. The bonus of course was that she loved doing it. Even after all these years, she would sometimes stop and think how little she used to care for anything remotely academic, and how vastly her views had grown and solidified in a different direction.

Forced to silently wait, Lucas paced the floor, with little Crowley in one arm. The dog kept trying to get at the snacks his human kept springing on him from some unseen source. Every once in a while, Lucas would attempt to get a look to see how the reading was going, only to be given the distinct impression that his wife had the ability to psychically tell him to leave her be until she was done.

"Okay, I'm done," she finally declared, all of two seconds before the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" she set the laptop down and sprang up to her feet.

"Wait, hold on!" Lucas went after her, but it was no use. Whatever she'd thought about his paper would have to wait until after Dylan had gone along home.

"Hey," Maya smiled, hugging their friend as he walked in. "I'm really trying not to read too much into this, but I have a feeling I know why you're here. Am I right? Tell me I'm right?" she asked, bordering on giddiness.

Dylan looked like the human version of a hyperactive puppy most days, and today – especially with the comparative presence of Crowley – it felt as though that statement had never been so true as it was here and now. Right now, Dylan reminded them of those times when they felt they had to keep Crowley – or any of their dogs – on a leash or in their arms, or else they would let their excitement carry them right off into oncoming traffic or something else equally troublesome.

"I need your help to make sure I don't go off the rails with my proposal to Riley," Dylan smiled and nodded. Maya, tipping headlong into happiness, hugged him once again before ushering him into the kitchen so they could get to work.

"Lucas, the laptop!" she called back, and he spun on his heel to go and grab it from the couch before joining them.

"Want me to take notes?" he asked his wife with a teasing smile. Maya could try not to look like she wanted this, but then she had always had just the sense of humor to see this as the means to play boss and assistant, maybe put on some accent… When she had been handed the frenzied pup, she sort of came off as more of a supervillain, but she did her best to get back on track. This was not the time for villainy. Her oldest friend deserved one fantastic wedding proposal, and on her honor Maya Friar would give her one… or she'd help Dylan give her one anyway.

"Right, so what are we looking at?" Maya asked Dylan. "When do you want to do it? Do you have any ideas yet?"

"Well," Dylan sat up, looking just a bit intimidated by 'villain boss Maya' across from him with the dog. "At first I thought about surprising her at her office, but then I'm not sure if that would really be a good idea. She might be with a patient, or about to see one, and then I'd walk in…"

Maya and Lucas both shook their heads at this, confirming they each thought this would be a bad idea, too.

"And in the morning it would be rushed, and in the evening she would be tired…" Dylan rattled off, like he'd never stopped.

"So, weekend?" Maya guessed, turning to Lucas, who made a show of typing 'weekend,' sitting next to her. Her smile was the definition of precious. "How about a location?"

"Uh…" Dylan considered this.

"Somewhere special to the both of you," Maya suggested, the better to get him thinking.

"When we lived in Houston, a lot of times we would go and have lunch near the university," Dylan recalled almost instantly, his eyes slipping as though they had travelled back into the past and miles away. "She loved to watch the fountain. That's where I told her I loved her for the first time, and she said it back. We haven't been there in ages…"

"Fountain," Maya whispered, tapping Lucas' arm, and he was already on it, adding the word to what was shaping up to be some very brief notes. "Hey, come back," she tapped Dylan's foot with hers. He blinked. "So, you take her there, and you do your thing. Easy," Maya smiled, only to pause a second later. "Although you'd have to make sure she doesn't suspect, so you'd need a reason to be in Houston…"

"Third party reason, less suspicion," Lucas provided.

"Yeah, see, you need to ask him," Maya tipped her head to her husband. "He did this before."

"Said the satisfied customer?" Lucas smiled over at her.

"Very, very satisfied," Maya smiled back at him.

"Okay, third party… I can do that…" Dylan nodded, sitting quietly for a moment again. Maya and Lucas watched him, waited. They looked at each other, both of them agreeing: he wasn't getting this.

"Suggestions?" Maya offered.

"Please," Dylan breathed, and she looked back to Lucas.

"Going to visit to see how Chiara and the others are doing seems like the natural first suggestion, but then she'll get suspicious when you don't go that way and head toward the university instead," he started.

"Unless you're 'meeting' them somewhere close," Maya offered.

"You can get one of them to call you and say that they had to go somewhere and you and Riley should meet them there," Lucas nodded.

"Can't you guys just do it and pretend?" Dylan wondered.

"Please, all it would take would be for Riley to see your phone and then the whole plan would fall apart," Maya shook her head.

"Right… right…" Dylan shook his head to himself.

"Maybe we need to think of another way," Maya looked to Lucas, who nodded in agreement. When she closed her eyes, he asked what she was doing. "I need to remember what's near that fountain that we could use to get her there. It's like right there, I know there's…"

"The theater?" Dylan offered, and Maya's eyes opened again, lifted with the spark of an idea and a smile.

"Yes! It's right up the street, oh…" she looked to Lucas, who set his hands over the keyboard at once, ready for some notes. "Okay, tell me what you think."

The plan didn't take long to piece together from there, and once all those pieces had been shaped into a whole, it felt more real than ever. This was happening, in a week's time… Dylan and Riley, barring any unforeseen road blocks, would be engaged. By the time Dylan left the house, it was really uncertain who was more excited for the big moment, the prospective groom or the long locked-in matron of honor. After they'd seen their friend out to his car, Maya had spun back to Lucas, and he had to laugh.

"What?" she asked, flitting up to him.

"Just that earlier I kept thinking about Dylan reminded me of Crowley when we can't put him down, and now you're giving me that same vibe," Lucas explained.

"Meaning you want to carry me around in your arms?" Maya inquired, ever more curious. "I am trying to think of any reason to be against it, but you know what, I just can't get there."

"Didn't think you would either," Lucas laughed. "Then again, knowing you, you'll make me chase and catch you, and last time we did that it really didn't end well." She recalled the incident at the skating rink over the holidays much too well, but she still couldn't help but snicker.

"I'm just… This is so… Riley, and…" Maya told him, any plans for pouncing now set aside, even as her hands kept giving the impression that if she kept going around like this she would take off in flight.

"No, hey, I get it. She pretty much had the same reaction when she found out I was proposing to you," Lucas recalled. Off the look on his wife's face, he realized she had never heard this story. So, he told her how, after his secret had found its way out to a few people, either by accident or on purpose, he'd made up his mind to tell a few more, including Riley and Rosa. He laughed, remembering how Rosa had clamped her hand over Riley's mouth to keep her from bursting out in the middle of the university café, how even after Rosa had let her go Riley had ended up making her put her hand again, knowing she might need it. "I felt bad for breaking up her plan for all of us to be neighbors, with the house and all, but I don't think she even cared anymore, not once she found out what I was working on for you."

Maya could picture it all very clearly in her head, and it made her smile to think of her oldest friend being so overwhelmingly happy for her. Right now, she was experiencing the very same thing in reverse, being so very, very, completely happy for Riley and Dylan both. She knew how much Riley had been left to wonder why Dylan had not asked her yet. She just couldn't have known that the plans were already in motion, but now… Now it was all changing, now her moment was fast approaching.

"How would you have done it?" Lucas asked, as the question came to him. Maya looked back at him. "If you had been the one to ask me," he explained. She smiled, the question being one she had asked herself before, in the near three years since that moment, right back there in the living room.

"Oh, well I can't tell you that," she shook her head.

"Why not?" Lucas asked, stepping up like he was about to catch her and convince her otherwise. She stalled him, clasping both of his shoulders as she looked up at him.

"Well, what if one day I decide that you and I are due for a renewal or something. I can't have you know my plans, then it wouldn't be a surprise."

"I…" Lucas didn't know whether to laugh or play hurt, so he just nodded. "Fine, alright, we'll play it your way."

"Just so you know, it's going to be amazing," she grinned, joining her hands behind him, the better to stretch up and kiss him.

"That is so not fair," Lucas smiled, following her kiss with one of his own.

"You'll get through it," Maya promised him. "Now, come on, we need to go and have a talk about that paper of yours."

"Why, what was wrong with it?" he asked, blinking at this unexpected change of subject.

"Potentially not much, potentially a lot, but I'm not in your classes so I can't say for sure. I'm going to need you to explain a few things, maybe slowly, and with a lot of technical words, which you will then have to explain to me," she requested, leading him back to the kitchen and the laptop. Lucas looked at her like he was really that close to picking her up, Crowley style.

"I had a feeling that was where we were headed."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners