October 11th 2020

Chapter 285
Their Celebration of Love

Maya: Where is he now?
Lucas: I have him up in the attic.
Maya: Good. Keep him away from the windows until I give you the signal.

"She's here?" Dylan asked, and Lucas responded by taking him by the shoulders and physically moving him to the center of the attic floor, well away from being able to see outside. It was sort of amazing how he could look so grown up and childishly innocent at the same time. The suit and the newly shortened hair did for the first part, which his buoyant sort of anticipation to see his soon-to-be-wife did for the other.

"Why don't I go ahead and keep an eye?" Ray spoke with a smile, tapping his husband's shoulder while leaving him along with the other three. Now it was them… Dylan surrounded by his oldest friends, by Asher, and Lucas, and Zay. The four men looked to one another, and they saw themselves as they were and as they had once been. All these years and they were still inseparable.

Down below, the rented car had made quite an impression as it rolled up the lane. It had been a gift of the father of the bride, allowing her to make that entrance and ensuring that all the guests already gathered would know: she was arriving. They all looked on, no doubt eager to see the bride in her dress. They didn't get to see nearly as much as they might have liked, not yet, just a glimpse as she exited out the other side and was kept obscured on her way into the house.

"I'll lead the way, make sure there's no one…" Maya turned to Riley as she was helped with her dress going up the porch steps by her mother. They stalled when they heard feet on the steps, only to relax again when they saw it was only Ray.

"Wow…" he blinked and smiled. Maya pointed a finger at him like 'you scared me, don't do that.' "Sorry, sorry, I just figured I'd give the ninja turtles a moment up there," Ray explained, gaining himself a snort and a retraction of the pointed finger. "And I wanted to go and check on Chiara, see if she needed anything. Grabbing some water and I'm out of your hair, I promise."

"Go for it. Is the trap shut?" Maya asked. Ray shook his head. "Okay, that's fine, I got it. Come on," she turned to Riley and Topanga, and off they were.

Maya went quickly ahead of the other two, which was really not too hard when Riley's skirts slowed her ascent as they did. Reaching the open trap, Maya looked back the way she'd come before turning her eyes up to the hole leading into the attic. She was afforded an unexpected stare with her husband, as Lucas at that moment had been coming to peer down into the hall for the moment when the way would be cleared.

"No peeking," Maya signed with a teasing smile. Lucas chuckled, signing back that he wouldn't before taking a few emphatic steps back. Once he'd gone, Maya turned back and waved for Riley and her mother to head into hers and Lucas' room. They did as told, careful not to get caught up in the space between the lowered steps and the wall. It wasn't usually a tight squeeze, but with that dress… After they'd all made it into the room, Maya shut the door.

"They're going down, right?" Riley asked her.

"Uh…" Maya started, then paused, listening. They could hear the steps, a few pairs of feet coming down from above. "That'll be them," she raised her finger to the ceiling. "We'll just give them a minute."

"Okay," Riley nodded, taking a deep breath and another. She looked to her mother, and as nervous as she was before, as much as they both were, it really felt as though they had calmed down now that they had come to this point. Now it was all about going out there, the big moment, and Riley had never been readier for it, so Topanga was, too.

The turn had started to happen once she'd slipped on the dress, once all the little things had come together and she was finally set to make her walk down the aisle. She was exactly as she'd hoped to be, probably more in fact. She'd already set several of her family and her friends crying and reaching to contain any possible damage to their makeup, not the least of which was her best friend. The dress had looked marvelous on her back in the shop in Tucson, but now… Oh, it was definitely made for her.

Once the guys were good and gone, Maya had stepped out into the hall, leaving mother and daughter to have a moment to talk, the last chat before Riley would be married. Maya had patiently kept guard and was so caught up in watching for anyone coming up that she was startled when the door opened behind her and there stood Topanga. She had definitely cried in there, but she was pulling herself together.

"Your turn," she said, nodding back to the room. "I'll go get Cory to walk her down when it's time."

"I'll get her down the stairs to you guys," Maya vowed before going into the room and shutting the door again. Riley sat there on the edge of the bed, with her eyes closed, hands carefully laid in her lap and… "What are you playing now?" Maya asked with a smirk, realizing she was tapping away at invisible keys as though on stage, or back in the Hex, rehearsing.

"I don't know, actually," Riley told her, eyes still closed. "I think it sounds good though," she smiled. Her hands stalling in her lap, she opened her eyes, sensing Maya standing just in front of her. "I'm getting married today," she spoke quietly.

"You're getting married in five minutes now," Maya pointed out, stealing a look at her alarm clock behind her friend. "Seven minutes," she amended. Riley took a deep breath, and Maya came to sit next to her. "The last minutes are just the worst," she sympathized. Riley nodded. "Believe me, as soon as you get out there though, you won't remember any of this."

"No, but I will," Riley told her. "I'll remember this. You and me." Maya smiled. Alright, she almost cried again, taken with emotions over her friend, her best friend, her first sister, sitting with her like this.

"Who would have thought? Right?"

"I did. I hoped," Riley smiled back, and Maya pulled her into a careful hug, minding her hair and makeup, her dress…

"Okay," Maya breathed deep now as she pulled back. "We need to get you down there. Can't keep your groom waiting."

Managing the back of the bride's dress, Maya followed Riley down the stairs, finding Cory Matthews ready and waiting for his daughter so he might walk her down the aisle. She could have tried to catch his eye, to give him a bit of 'pull yourself together, Matthews,' but then he only had eyes for his girl. He wasn't frantic anymore, no, but oh how proud he looked, and he was fighting a teetering battle against happy tears. When he'd seen her all done up like this, back at his house, it had taken so much willpower for him not to just… pass out, or burst out, like he'd known all along that she was getting married, but now it finally hit him properly and squarely that his little girl was not so little anymore.

"Handoff completed," Maya nodded as she and Riley reached Cory. "I'll leave you to it, I need to get out there and… yeah, okay…" she headed out to find Asher, her partner heading up the aisle, as best man and matron of honor.

"Everything alright in there?" Lucas asked when she passed in front of him where Asher waited. Next to her husband stood Riley's aunt, Morgan Matthews, who passed Maya her flowers.

"Thanks," Maya tipped her head to her before looking to Lucas. "Yeah, all good, they're just waiting for their cue. How about here?" she asked, looking around. She hadn't been able to get much of a look at the guests from the moment she had arrived with Riley at the house, and without a list to check off it was hard to say for sure, but it did look like everyone was present and accounted for.

"All good, too, waiting also," Lucas replied, just as the first notes were heard and everyone came to attention. This was it. "Breathe," Lucas whispered to Maya, who squinted at him before looking to Asher. He smiled, offering his arm.

"So does that mean they're off our hands now?" he joked quietly when they could finally start to walk. Maya swallowed back a laugh.

"No, pretty sure we're stuck with them forever, too," she whispered back of her best friend and his.

"Good to hear."

Walking up the aisle, all the bridesmaids dipped their bouquets to the side, that they might bump theirs with the one held by Chiara where she sat. There had been no way around the wedding landing at a point where she would have been very near to delivery and better off keeping to a chair, but that did not rob her of her earned status as bridesmaid. She was dressed in the same 'shades of purple' theme as the rest of them, and she had her flowers. The bouquet bumps had not been planned, but once Maya did it, sharing a smile with her, Morgan did it behind her, and then Nadine, and Sophie, and so on, all the way, eventually, to Riley herself.

There was no need for anyone to wonder what was the exact moment when Dylan saw her. It was right there on his face, just as it had to be on hers, just as it had to have been on countless brides and grooms before them and would be with countless more after them. As far as Dylan was concerned, now, it wasn't actually so many tears, though there were a few of those. No, when Dylan saw Riley coming, he just… smiled… He smiled so bright as to light the city, and anyone looking at him would know, he had never been quite so happy as he was in this exact moment.

Lucas could tell, even as he could only see the back of his wife's head when they walked, that she was having to resist turning her head to see Riley as they all advanced. Sure, the whole ceremony was being sufficiently documented that she'd get to see it in pictures and videos from several angles in due time, but it didn't stop her curiosity. When they got to the point where they could turn around, she looked so happy for her best friend that he couldn't even tease her by the time their eyes met

It seemed only fair, as one had officiated the other's daughter's wedding, that the favor be returned, and so it was Shawn Hunter who waited at the altar to receive Riley Matthews and Dylan Orlando. He looked just as thrilled to be here as Cory had done the summer before, in uniting Maya and Lucas.

The vows were spoken, a representation of the bride and groom in who they had been together, from strangers, to friends, to lovers. It had been an easy match to find, for as long as they had been an item, and to hear them now, it was impossible to imagine them ever ending up anywhere than right here and now, promising their eternal love to one another. As heartbroken as they had been to lose their initial venue, both Riley and Dylan would later profess how glad they were that it all worked out the way it did. Standing there in the sunlight, they had become husband and wife on such a beautiful summer's day

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners