September 1st 2020

Chapter 245
Their Question For Timing

"Hey, you're right on time, get over here," Maya practically pulled Lucas into the classroom. She'd been standing astride her door's threshold, waiting for him to come along even as she looked inside the room.

"On time for what?" Lucas asked, looking into the room to find Phoebe Munroe and Stella Buckley in a small huddle in the middle of the cleared floor.

"The big show," Maya whispered with a grin. Taking him to her desk, she incited him to take a seat, where she explained how Phoebe had come along that morning with a surprise. She had been working on a routine of her very own, all week long, and she intended to demonstrate it to her art teacher/sometime-dance teacher. When Maya had asked if she minded Lucas being there, too, Phoebe had quickly promised that she did not mind at all. If anything, an additional audience member might be just what she needed. Unlike her best friend, she was not shy in the slightest.

Lunch would have to wait until after the big performance, but then once it started, no one could much remember or care whether they were hungry or not. They had been at these lessons for two months already, and Phoebe may not have been ready for any kind of competition, but she had earned the title of being a dancer, and a solid one at that. Was her clumsiness completely gone? No, but then who could say they didn't trip or hurt themselves every once in a while? The biggest sign of her progress on that front came as, on Monday morning, Phoebe proudly revealed that she had left her first aid kit at home.

"Are you going to be okay with that?" Maya had asked, smiling with some teacher pride of her own.

"Oh, yeah," Phoebe had nodded. "I still kept a couple band-aids in my bag, just in case. And if anything goes really wrong, Letitia can patch me up."

"Still just a bit weird that you and the school nurse are on a first name basis," Maya had given her a nod, doing her best to rein in her laughter.

After Phoebe's surprise performance – which had been met with thunderous applause from her audience of three – she and Stella had retreated to their lunch at their usual station, while Mrs. Friar turned her attention to her visiting husband and their lunch at her desk.

"I know you'll tell me that all the credit is hers, but you know you have done so much good work with that girl since the two of you started these lessons, yeah?" Lucas declared with a smile.

"It's been… so much fun," Maya allowed herself this shared smile. "I'm not sure how much longer she's going to need it, and I might be just a bit sad when it's over," she admitted. "I haven't even told her the best part yet," she whispered. "Coach Whitman asked me how she was doing the other day, and when I told her how she'd improved, she said that she would see about getting her on to actually play in an upcoming game." Phoebe had been taken on as an alternate, on that condition that Maya would help her, but up to now she had never been called on to the court.

"That's great," Lucas reacted at once, and Maya quickly shushed him before the girls could turn their focus over to them. "Let me know when it'll be, yeah?" Lucas asked. They both did their best to attend as many of the basketball games, whenever work or other obligations didn't get in the way.

"Count on it. Right now though, I've got another 'game' coming up," Maya told him, pulling out her phone after swallowing her last bite. "Have to… summon my mother's acting spirits…" she fanned herself with a smirk.

"Oh, are you calling…" Lucas asked, looking back to the girls not too far away before turning back to his wife.

"No, no, just a text," Maya shook her head. "Doesn't mean I don't have to get in character, does it?"

"So what's the character?" Lucas wondered.

"Friend in dire need," she replied with an almost panicked gasp before snapping back to herself. "Good?" He gave her thumbs up. "Great, okay," she adjusted her posture in her chair before starting to type.

Maya: Hey are you busy tomorrow?

Riley: Not really. Why?

Maya: I need to go to Houston tomorrow. Something's up with Stage Ready over there. I'm kind of nervous about it and I know it's kind of silly but I think I would feel better if you were going to be there with me and Lucas.

Riley: It's not silly, of course I'll be there.

Maya: Thanks, Riley.

Maya: See if Dylan is free, too? I'm taking you guys to lunch while we're out there.

Riley: I'll check, but I don't think he has anything planned! We can go see how Chiara is doing while we're there!

"What's so funny?" Lucas asked when he saw Maya bite back a laugh.

"Riley doesn't think Dylan has anything planned for tomorrow," she explained, passing her phone over. "This is going to be so good."

The next morning, after getting up much earlier than either one of them would prefer to on a Saturday – unless it was for a good cause – Maya and Lucas readied themselves to go and pick up their friends. Figuring out what they were meant to wear, to look somewhere between 'this is a normal day' and 'this is the day our friends get engaged' bordered on tricky, but they didn't worry over it for very long. They had a couple of hours on the road ahead of them and as nervous as they might have been, they knew there was someone out there who had more nervousness in him than the both of them combined.

Arriving at the Matthews-Orlando house, they had barely pulled up to the curb that the door opened, and Riley and Dylan exited and marched over to the car. It could have been too funny, seeing one of them just barely keeping himself focused while the other wore the face of a concerned friend.

"She's going to forgive me for pulling her leg a bit, right?" Maya looked to Lucas.

"I think she'll be fine," he nodded. Maya got out of the car to greet them anyway, and before she could speak she was caught up in a hug from her best friend. She had to hand it to Riley, she wore her emotions in her arms when she held you. There wasn't even anything wrong with her and Maya felt comforted anyway.

Before long, Riley had pulled for Maya to sit with her in the back, and so Dylan took up the front with Lucas. This was really the best solution overall. Maya could easily keep her best friend entertained for the next two hours, and all the while Riley would not be in any way aware of anything curious because she wouldn't be able to see Dylan's face. Lucas did see it, sitting in the front with him as he was, and oh what a face it was. He was nervous, as was to be expected, but then it was a good kind of nervous, the one where you just couldn't wait to get to something and it was all about hanging on until then.

Every once in a while, Dylan would turn his head to look at him, and Lucas would give him the most subtle of encouraging nods. You got this. Dylan would nod back, though Lucas couldn't say if he did this because he believed it or because he assumed it would help him believe it.

Lucas remembered those jitters, from the day he had finally gotten to propose to Maya. It hadn't been the same for him, had it? He'd had all those months to prepare, all the work he and the others had done on the house, all of it with the outlook that the proposal would be the end goal. It had lasted so long that, by the time he'd arrived on The Day, the one they'd been headed for all along, the moment felt so near by comparison that he was able to hold himself together through the hours preceding, with Zay and Nadine's wedding, and the reception, all before he had taken Maya on her own surprise drive. On that last stretch at least, whatever nerves would show on his face, she had been blindfolded, so she hadn't seen a thing, much like Riley didn't see what was going over Dylan's face as they headed into Houston. Then again, Maya had spent the drive pretending to be Melinda Friar, so she had kept him in such a headspace that there wasn't much room left for nerves at all.

Meanwhile, in the back of the car, Maya was tending to the distraction of Riley Matthews. This was not difficult. Sure, Riley wasn't the girl who would blindly search for a bird if told there was one in the room… anymore… But given something to focus on, especially on a long drive like this one, she would be of a single mind. And right now, with the notion that her best friend was in need of assistance and support, there really was nothing that could come in the way of Riley spending those two hours with Maya, the two of them belting out their 'greatest hits' at the top of their lungs, like they were fifteen again. By the end of the ride, Maya would be left feeling like this had been the most fun ride to Houston she'd had in a while, even if this drive wasn't for her benefit, as Riley had been led to believe.

"So where do you want to go to lunch?" Maya asked, when they both took a break from the singing, the better to catch their breaths.

"Oh, I already made reservations at the Nook," Riley declared at once. Maya just managed not to show anything as she received this information.

"You did?" she asked. Riley nodded and smiled. "For what time?"

"Well, I wasn't sure how long it would take at the theater, but I talked to Chris over there, he still remembers us. He said to call if we had to delay, not a problem. Anyway…" she started to ask, and the way she froze quite suddenly, Maya guessed she'd stopped herself at the very last second before saying something she wasn't meant to say.

"Riley?" Maya sat up. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, nothing," Riley insisted, but Maya had known her much too long to believe that, and after a few seconds of trying to swallow down the secret, she must have decided it wasn't worth keeping hidden anymore. So, she just smiled. "I sort of asked around to see if any of the others might want to come and join us, you know, old times' sake and all. I'm pretty sure I saw Zay's car back there somewhere," she turned in her seat. "Yeah, see, there he is!" Maya turned to see for herself. There was the car indeed, just barely visible but entirely recognizable.

"Who else is coming?" she turned back to Riley.

"You'll see," Riley shook her head. She wouldn't say, oh no. She was too happy for this coup she had pulled off, all with the goal of cheering up her friend. Maya wished she could express how much she loved that woman in this moment. Without knowing it, she had gone and collected all their friends in one place, and she had no idea that they would not be there for a bit of cheering up but rather to celebrate the engagement of two of their friends.

Maya caught Lucas' eye in the rear-view mirror and she knew he had overheard everything. He was excited now, just as she was. This was about to get so much better.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners