A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

October 28th 2020

Chapter 302
Their Spooking of Home

Lucas had sort of teased her that she wouldn't be able to stop smiling all day as they'd been heading on their separate ways for the day, and as she pulled into the school lot, Maya was almost tempted to press her fingers into her cheeks to try and push them into a normal expression. Surely this was only because of what he'd said, and she would have to make him 'pay' later on.

All morning, she couldn't say how many people, on either side of the teacher/student divide had expressed a curiosity toward her smiling face in words or in looks. She could do nothing but pin the blame on a good Halloween night and a bit of a sugar rush having followed her into this day. The level of belief in this excuse also tended to follow the divide, with her fellow teachers taking great fun in teasing her, whether or not they had any way to know about her anniversary.

Literally overnight, much of the fall and Halloween-themed decorations had disappeared from around the school, replaced with something more in tune with the coming holidays. If that didn't contribute to her happiness, she would be shocked.

"Alright, you have to tell me everything," Morgan walked into the art class shortly after the students had gone off to lunch. Maya looked at her, and to see the way her many thin braids were still swaying along, she had to smile, imagining her walking as swiftly as her feet would carry her from the music class.

"Sorry, can't."

"Why not?" Morgan asked, pouring on the pleading eyes. In response, Maya looked to her watch and just might have been able to time it to the second. Barely a moment later, there came Rochelle for her appointment. She could have pegged her for being pristinely punctual without having seen it at work, day after day since the start of the school year.

"Because," Maya indicated the girl. "You two haven't met, have you?" she guessed, pointing from one to the other and guessing music would not have factored in her student's schedule. Rochelle still knew who she was, if only for having seen her around. She introduced herself, and Morgan shook her hand, expressing that she was glad to finally put a face to a name. At this, Rochelle stole a look to her art teacher, as though to ask if she'd been talking about her. "I'll catch you up later, okay?" Maya told Morgan, and she was gone with a wave. "Come on in," Maya told Rochelle. "Did you bring your lunch?"

"Yeah," Rochelle held up a plastic bag. Maya brought an extra chair to her desk and they sat together, unpacking their meals. "I looked you guys up last night," Rochelle spoke up now. Maya had yet to encounter her student when she was actually engaged, instead of a walking definition of frustration, and it was such a change. As little as she would ever have doubted her confidence, she saw it here more than ever. There was her clever girl, there was the fire, in so few words.

"You did?" Maya asked, smiling.

"I never realized the school had a team," Rochelle went on as she nodded.

"Yeah, well, it didn't last too long after I graduated, I guess. But with the right people, I don't see why we can't bring it back, better than ever."

"Do we have to keep the name though?" Rochelle inquired, and Maya could have called it whiplash, going from thinking 'We, huh? You're already on board, aren't you?' to 'hey, what's wrong with the name?'

"I don't know, not necessarily," she shrugged. "We picked it because most of us on the team were also on the basketball teams."

"Oh… That makes more sense…" Rochelle blinked. "I don't play basketball."

"Didn't think so either. So, when we have the team together, you can pick a new name if you want. It'll signify a… new era."

"Who would be on the team?" Rochelle asked.

"I have a few candidates in mind. If you are up for all this, I will reach out to them."

"Okay, yeah, that works. When would we start?" If she could keep her looking this motivated all the time, oh…

"I will do my best for us have a meet on Monday," Maya promised. "Lunch again?"

"Done," Rochelle nodded and pulled out her phone, tapping at lightning speed, adding the new appointment to her calendar. Now that this was settled, and they were still halfway through lunch, she almost looked ready to pack up and head out, and in the spirit of striking while the iron was hot, she followed her instincts and got up. Walking and chewing at her bite of sandwich, she reached her slim bookcase in the corner and considered her options briefly before pulling down one tall and heavy volume. She had to stick her sandwich between her teeth to keep from dropping the book the way she'd grabbed it. Bringing it back to her desk, she presented it to Rochelle, who quickly wiped her hands before receiving it. "What's this?" Maya held up a finger, so she might finish her bite before speaking.

"A compromise, I guess," she told the girl, sitting again. "Look, I get that you didn't choose to be here, in my class." For once, she looked just a bit sorry about it. "Rochelle, I think you can still make the most of this… situation. The hands-on part's not your thing, I get it. There are other ways to learn about art, to appreciate art. Take the book, look through it, see what parts interest you the most and when you have that, I want you to write something for me." Rochelle was intrigued again. This she could do.

"Does that mean I don't have to do drawings anymore?"

"Oh, you are still doing the other assignments," Maya shook her head, and Rochelle actually tried not to show her disappointment. "I want you to draw the way it comes to you, not the way you think I want you to do it. That's what it's all about. There's no right or wrong answer."

Having left her with this concept to reflect on, Maya watched her student quietly leaf through the borrowed book for the rest of the lunch period, sitting over at her station until the rest of the freshmen joined her. When the class was made to break out the paint, Maya kept as discreet of an eye on Rochelle as she could. She watched her stare at her blank page for what felt like the longest time, but in the end she picked up her brush, and she started.

"Hey, come take a look," Maya called to Morgan when the music teacher showed up again, midway through her free afternoon gap. She came to stand next to her and looked at the page she'd been observing.

"What is it supposed to be?" Morgan asked.

"I'm not actually sure," Maya told her, and she sounded so happy about it. "It's definitely something…" It's her…

The day came to a close, as simple and motivating as it had opened to be. With the last of her juniors clearing out, Maya felt her phone buzz and pulled it out.

Lucas: Got the bag?

Maya: Right here. I feel like a spy. What's my mission?

Lucas: I don't know if it's a mission, but you usually excel in it. Open the bag, you'll know what to do.

Lucas: Await my next instruction, Agent Friar.

With a laugh, Maya went and opened the bag. It wasn't so heavy, and she'd had plenty of time to explore the possibilities of what it might hold, but somehow it had never come to her that it might be clothes. Specifically, a dress, shoes… Not much on accessories, but now that she thought about it, the ones she wore today – which he had casually suggested that morning – did go with the dress very well.

"Alright, smooth move there, Agent Friar," she smiled.

One trip into the faculty bathroom later, Maya emerged again, dress and shoes on, hair and makeup touched up. She'd barely made it back to her class that there was a knock at the door, and there was her husband.

"That is not what you were wearing this morning," she teased, smiling just as he was.

"I wasn't about to leave you hanging, was I?" Lucas shrugged, reaching her now and greeting her with a kiss.

"You've never done it before, so it would have been weird to start now," Maya shook her head.

Now that he'd pulled back, he looked her over, and he seemed to be considering the whole outfit as though something didn't work, or maybe as though something was missing. Catching the curious look on her face though, he smiled, pulling a thin, long box from inside his jacket.

"I know we said we'd keep gifts for the July anniversary, but…"

"But you couldn't keep from pulling a Huckleberry?" she guessed. He opened the box, revealing it held a necklace. "See, now, I don't have anything, because I had a feeling you might do this, but then what if you didn't, and I went back and forth on it over and over, and…" she explained, looking back to him even as he worked the clasp open, the better to put the gift on her.

"And you made the right call," he assured her. Maya looked to the pendant, touched it as it sat in tandem with her father's guitar pick.

"Thank you, I love it," she looked back up.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah, just need to…" she hurried to gather her things before joining him off into the hall and toward the exit after closing up her class. "So, where are we headed? Or is that still a secret, Agent?"

"Right, so here's the thing," Lucas nodded. "I have plans, yes, I have a reservation somewhere, and we will go there tonight, unless you decide you'd rather go for option two."

"Option two sounds intriguing, tell me," she tapped his arm, making him laugh.

"Well, we have the house to ourselves tonight, and we did get it by request, so it would be a shame if we didn't benefit from it, wouldn't it?"

"You know, for a guy who went to all this trouble to set up this whole look right now," Maya gestured to her dress, "Option two sounds a lot like I won't need it anymore."

"Well…" Lucas laughed, and it made his wife very amused to see him borderline red in the face. "I wasn't exactly," he assured her.

"But now you're rethinking it?" she played into the teasing, leaning to his arm as they went. "Is this like option three, or option 2a?"

"It's option… entirely up to you," he replied. Maya considered these options for a moment before finally declaring herself for option one. "Yeah?" Lucas asked.

"Dinner, then home," Maya nodded, and that was what they'd do.

At the restaurant, he told her about his day, his classes. Sometimes he'd try and cut corners, feeling that it had to be boring for her, even though every time she would tell him that it wasn't, not when he talked about it all motivated like that. In turn, she told him about her day, and her start of a breakthrough with Rochelle. Oh, how she'd been dying to share that with him, and it showed. For how excited she was, Lucas shared in the feeling, too. He'd been hearing about this student, as he'd heard about the others, too, and Maya spoke of them all with so much care that he felt he knew them, too. If he met some of those he hadn't met yet, he would probably surprise them for how much he knew of them already.

When dinner was ended, they drove on home. Oh, they tried to enjoy this evening to themselves in some way, with more conversation, or maybe a movie… They could have done all that, but then who would they have been kidding? They both knew exactly where this night would end, and with the activation of the baby plan, they did feel inescapably and magnetically called to one another.

Now here they were, back again in bed, breathless again. Lucas held her, trailing his hand along the tattoo along the back of her shoulder, the one she'd gotten in Paris over their honeymoon, and if she wasn't so awake in that moment, the lazy lines he dragged along her skin might have had her drifting off to sleep. Instead they kept her looking into his eyes, as he looked into hers.

"Do you ever wonder sometimes what it would have been like if Sam hadn't come to live with us? The last three years could have been one big 'we have the house to ourselves' thing," Maya joked, and Lucas gave his best raised eyebrow in response, getting her to be the one laughing instead.

"I can go change the locks right now," he pointed over his shoulder.

"Tempting… But then who would make us breakfast all the time?"

"True…"

"Anyway, I think I have a more compelling option in mind than locksmithing."

"Consider me compelled…" he replied, and she laughed, pressing up to him with a slow kiss.

With this renewed energy good and serviced on both counts, it would have been easy to just call it a night and drift off as they were, but then after a few quiet minutes, Maya had slipped out, throwing her robe on and heading down the stairs as Lucas called after her, curious. She returned before long, poking her head into the doorway.

"Remember when I said I had nothing? That wasn't exactly true. It's not a necklace, but…" she stepped into the room proper now. In her hands sat a cardboard box with a familiar logo on the side.

"Alright, now I gotta hear about this," Lucas sat up as she came and joined him, opening box to reveal Isabel Garcia's honey cake, right out of Houston.

"Asher had to come back again today, and I happened to know about it, so I asked if he minded running an errand for me. I didn't have time to check if he'd brought it when we got here, because, well…" she gestured to indicate them, and the bed, the various items of discarded clothing about the floor.

"Right…" he laughed. They'd had a lot of good memories with this cake over the years. One bite, and it felt like a conduit back into those memories. If that was the case, then what better new entry to this chain than this night, the two of them looking forward to days of parenthood?

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners