December 10th 2020

Chapter 345
Their Place to Feel

Lucas and Sam had been in the kitchen for a while now, having their own breakfasts at Maya's insistence. Even as they did so, in relative quiet and ease, the morning's peace would be broken every minute or two with a sound of deepening frustration coming from upstairs. Whenever this would happen, they would look to one another but say nothing. After the sixth of these however, Sam couldn't help himself anymore.

"What if she doesn't find anything that works?" he whispered.

"She will… I think…" Lucas breathed. He'd been considering going up there to help, but every time he heard the groan of defeat he suddenly thought better of it.

A minute later, they heard a sound again, though it sounded better… possibly?

"Was that good?" Sam asked, while Lucas turned in his chair and listened for a moment.

"She's coming, act natural," he counseled his brother, who took this by taking a great bite of his toast. "Okay, you don't have to choke for it," Lucas shook his head as Sam split off part of his bite and returned it to his plate and chewed the rest, just as Maya appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.

"This works, right?" she asked, hopefully, and the guys looked to her. She looked just on this side of frazzled and dishevelled, as though she had put on and removed several items of clothing in quick succession and paid no mind to what it did to her head on the way before giving it a cursory sweep upon putting on what she was now wearing.

"What's… I mean, what are you going for? You look normal, I guess. You know, school normal," Sam appraised. Maya looked at herself before turning to Lucas for his opinion. He knew what she wanted to know more than anything, and he motioned for her to take a turn, which she did, slowly, the better to present the more crucial angles.

"Don't see it," he told her with a shake of the head.

"Are you sure? What if I do this?" she moved her arms up and around.

"Nothing, you're good," Lucas assured her.

"It's not like there's that much to see yet," Sam offered.

"Yeah, tell that to my pants," Maya huffed, dropping into her chair while Lucas moved to get her a plate. "Some of them are too tight for comfort now, and the ones that sort of worked I couldn't find a shirt that worked with them… I've got these, right now, but I'm going to have to go shopping soon, or else I'll have one outfit to finish out the year. It's way too early for maternity clothes, especially if I don't want people to find out yet, but look at me, even if you can't see the tiny bump, I still look different, don't I?"

"Don't make me answer that one," Sam turned back to his breakfast, leaving Maya to turn to Lucas when he came back to the table.

It wasn't the fact that she was just barely starting to show that was the problem, of course, much more the desire to keep their secret for as long as they'd decided they would. Maya was very happy that they could start to notice the start of that roundness in her figure, just as Lucas was to see it. Three weeks had gone by since the Sleepster had taken place, and in that time their little fig had grown somewhere about the size of a peach. This was by no means the most remarkable evolution for them to track, as they couldn't see it with their own eyes. They could however see the way Maya's shape started to change.

Maybe they hadn't been paying attention to it nearly as close as they thought they were, because it really got to feel as though it was an overnight realization. One morning, Lucas had woken up to find Maya was awake at his side, lying on her back. She was looking down to her shirt as it sat over the curve of her body, and it was just… a bump… Small, still, but right there before their eyes, rising and falling with her breaths.

"When did that happen?" Lucas had smiled, reaching his hand out to lay it over her.

"Beats me," she'd laughed.

When she'd gone down to the kitchen to find Sam, she'd proudly gone and shown her brother. It never lacked in amusement to watch him be just so fascinated by everything to do with his sister's being pregnant. He was so ready to be an uncle, something that showed in a number of ways as the days and weeks had come by. It had shown especially in the way he made breakfast in the morning now. He could have easily adjusted what he prepared for Maya alone, carrying on as usual for himself and Lucas, but instead it went across the board, which Lucas happily respected and Maya appreciated more than she could say.

They were also aware of how the future uncle was also keeping a future aunt updated. Sam had been in communication with Cara since she'd gone home to Arizona, exchanging information in something of a code the two of them developed together. The knowledge and the secret of the baby had only furthered this renaissance between the siblings, even as it made them look forward to Cara's move over to Austin.

As promised, Maya had brought up the possibility of her sister's following along on the tour when Ree had called her with the doctor update. She had been so accommodating with her all this time, and Maya knew this was equal parts because of who Ree was as a person and because she looked forward to the two of them going out there on this tour together. Despite all that, she couldn't help but feel as though this would only work so long before it got to be too much.

"Do you know what, I was just thinking you and your husband might benefit from having a friend or two along for the ride, so it looks like we both solved each other's thing without knowing," Ree had replied with a laugh, leaving Maya quietly blinking on the other end of the call before she came back to her senses and repeated what she'd said. One or two? "Sure! Why not? I'm already taking you away from your people in the middle of a first pregnancy, it's the least I can do."

"But… the hotels, and…"

"We're good business, they will find a way," Ree promised.

So, that was settled… Mostly settled. She would tell Cara, of course, and she could just picture how giddy she would be about the whole thing. One or two… If she had this chance to offer the same experience to another, she couldn't just let it go to waste, could she? But who could she possibly choose, out of… everyone…

Well, first things first, she'd called Cara.

"Hey, so how would you like to help me prevent an international incident or two this summer?" she'd asked, and oh how her sister's face had lit up like the sun before cracking open into loud and exuberant shouts. It had taken a few minutes for her to calm down, by which time she had attracted Lucas, Sam, and the dogs with the sounds of her celebration on this side of the call and then everyone else who'd been on her side of it, too.

Once she did calm down, Maya asked if, while she was out there with them, she wouldn't mind looking after someone else, too. Cara was sufficiently excited about the whole thing that she would have accepted any task put to her in exchange. Thankfully, it was nothing gross or painful. Far from that, it had the potential to be loads of fun… provided that it all worked out. For that to happen, first she had to get in touch with someone close to her prospective tag along.

"Hello, Mr. Blake? This is Maya Friar… I'm very good, thank you for asking, and yourself?" she asked, pacing the attic floor. "That's great. Listen, I wanted to run something by you, for Shae."

This was trickier from the top. Cara was seventeen, and her sister, and as she was about to move in with Lucas and her anyway, it made sense. Shae was not so much younger, sixteen years old herself, but it would mean something completely different for her to be put under their care by her father, for a summer-long tour around the world. It had taken Mr. Blake a few days of consideration, after which he had given his consent. So Maya and Lucas had gone up to Houston the previous weekend, to visit Shae and to ask her if she wanted to come. It was one thing to ask her father first, to prevent her getting excited for nothing if he said no, and another to assume she would jump at the chance, but they actually had to ask her, to know for certain.

Shae had received the invitation with so much shock that for a brief moment they believed she might pass out, right there on her living room floor. But she had pulled herself together, rushing to hug Maya. Yes, she very much wanted to go.

The choice had been easy enough from the point of how music was so deep in Shae's blood, as it was in Maya's, and in Ree's, even Cara's. It was also in Christina Sutcliffe's blood, and she would be on this tour, too. So to have a couple people closer to her age out there with her…

The closer they got to the tour, the closer they also got to the end of the school year at the high school, and graduation for Lucas, for Sam, and Rosa, and Dylan… and letting everyone in on the presence of this now peach-sized little human growing more every day. Maya had not changed her mind about loving this period where so few people knew, for how intimate it all was, but all the same, when the day would come to tell everyone else, it would mean everything.

For now, she had moments like this morning, with the desperate search for pants that would fit and work in tandem with a top to hide away the more obvious changes she was undergoing. As unnerving as it could get in the moment, when it was over… When it was over, she had her husband looking at her with all that Huckleberry calm in him, all that love coming from him in waves, toward her, toward their unborn child… And when she had that, well, wardrobe troubles didn't seem so troubling. Lucas reached over, his hand settling over her small bump where he knew it sat, hidden away.

"You just go in there, like it's any other day, and no one is going to notice a thing," he promised. Maya let out a breath, her hand unable to keep from landing on top of his, like they were doing the opposite of what she'd be doing all day, acknowledging the baby now before she had to go and pretend it wasn't there.

"If it was any other day…" she reminded him, and he nodded knowingly. Today would be classes as usual, yes, but at the end of the day she would be there for a few hours more, for their spring Parent-Teacher Night. This was the fourth one of these she'd done by now, and they never got any less nerve-wracking. Adding everything else that was going on along with what she'd come to expect for these nights… She would be spent by the end of it. "You're coming to pick me up after, right?" she turned to Sam. Lucas would have done it, but he was closing at the bookstore. Sam nodded.

"Can't wait to hear about it," Lucas smiled, and Maya clasped on to her renewed determination. Tonight, parents. Tomorrow… Pants. She needed new pants.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners