December 17th 2020

Chapter 352
Their Plans For Truth

June had arrived, and with it, for one last time, came the run down to finals for both Lucas and Sam. After near on four years of this, they had worked out something of a system, claiming their respective quiet spaces if they ever needed to migrate from the desks in their rooms. Lucas usually went up to the attic, while Sam took to the basement and the guest room. Maya wouldn't caught up in all this, of course, so she would do her best to keep herself scarce, occupying the 'meaty part of the house sandwich' as she'd once called it, mostly to trigger her brother's eyeroll. Every once in a while, she'd pop in, checking to see if either of them needed anything, like a roving teacher/moral supporter.

"Hey, uh, Lucas?" she popped her head through the opening in the attic floor.

"I'm good," he told her without looking away from his notes, tapping the cap of his pen against the elements of a list he'd been working to memorize.

"This isn't a snack break, I just need to ask real quick…" she climbed up the rest of the way while he finally went and turned around, swivelling the seat. He smiled, couldn't help it. She'd been shopping again, didn't have much of a choice for how she had grown in the last three weeks. Now she was wearing a light dress, and it didn't so much hide her growing bump so much as put it in evidence. "I think we just need to pull the cord on this thing. It's just getting too hot for me to keep dressing to hide this. If I do, not only will I just draw more attention to myself, but I'll melt while doing it. I know we wanted to wait until after you finished your finals and everything, but…"

"Hey, no, it's alright," he cut in. "What's one week less, right? Besides, it might be a weight off my mind for next week. You'd be doing me a favor."

"I do love doing that," Maya smiled, walking over to him. Lucas smiled back. His hands always felt as though they were magnetically attracted to her belly, whenever she'd be within reach, and this was no exception. His hand went and pressed itself along the curve, his thumb slowly sweeping side to side. "I don't want to keep you from reviewing…" Maya spoke, showing her hesitation, but Lucas shook his head.

"I'm not going to be spending the weekend up here non-stop," he reminded her. "Let's just figure out how we're going to do this and then we'll go from there." It was Friday evening now, and he'd cashed in the last of his accumulated days off to have the next two days off from the bookstore, the better to buckle down for this home stretch on his 'final finals' up at the university.

"Okay, well… I think we can take care of the families tomorrow," Maya nodded. She did have an idea of how to go about it all before she'd come up here, but before she could make any calls, she needed to check in with him. "We can do mine in the morning, yours in the afternoon, or the other way around…"

"Here or at theirs?" Lucas asked.

"Would be easier here, but if we go, we have a better chance of getting back out on our own time and get you back here to your studying."

"Right," he laughed. "Good point."

"Trickier part is going to be the… other family," Maya smiled. Their friends… They weren't about to drive off to Houston, but if they made them all drive up to see them it wouldn't be much of a quick stop over to hand them the news and then send them back.

"We could have them come over for dinner, Sunday," Lucas offered. "I get to study all day until they come, so does Sam, and we can pitch in for dinner prep in turns."

"Do you think we could pull off not telling them that they're all coming? Or would they figure out something was up when they showed up and saw everyone else?" Maya wondered.

"Just say that we… we want to see them all together before we leave for the summer, that things are going to get very busy in the next couple of weeks so this is really the last chance we have to do this. It's… actually sort of true."

"I can work with that," Maya nodded happily. "And then on Monday, I get to tell everyone at school," she breathed, looking down to herself. "Should I just walk in there dressed like this? That'll get the message across," she smiled.

"You could, but I don't think you would. This is your show right now. So many shots at surprising people like you wanted to do with me," Lucas reminded her, which made her laugh.

"It was pretty good when we surprised Sam," she recalled, to which he gave a nod. "Okay, I have calls to make, and you need to get back to your stuff, especially now that I chopped down your study time for the weekend. Go on, Doc," she quickly kissed him and left the attic. Lucas watched her go, smiling on, before finally swivelling back around to the desk.

Climbing back down from the attic, Maya stopped and glanced through the open door, into the future nursery. They'd stopped leaving things in there the way they usually did, so now the room was completely empty… and waiting. It was a good thing that they'd finally tell people this week, for obvious reasons but also to allow Maya and Sam to get to work on the mural before they cleared out for the summer. They'd started to work on the design of it together, which, as a parting gift before he moved out, couldn't have been better.

As expected, Sam was set to move out sometime over the summer, at which point he would move in with Dora. He would say that they were looking to take things slow, to really figure out where the two of them would go with this thing between them. Circumstances had sent them on a number of detours before they found their way into each other's arms, and there would not be another chance if they rushed headlong into this. Maya and Lucas supported this cautious approach, knew it well from their own history together. Now, all they could do was to wish them well.

After Sam would have cleared out of his room at the end of the hall, he would be leading the effort to transform it into his sister's room. He and Cara had already worked out what furniture would be left there for her, what she'd be bringing over from Tucson or buying. And she'd explored colors, finding the perfect one for her bedroom walls. The forest green walls would need some work before they could be made to adopt the sort of sunset orange which Cara had selected from a trip to the hardware store. She'd mailed the small sample card over to her brother, to make sure he'd get the right one. Specifically, it was called Joyful Orange, but it reminded her of watching sunsets with Wyatt and Eliza up in the attic ship after they'd moved into the house, and once she'd found it, nothing else could have taken its place.

She wouldn't be there to take part in the transformation, as she and Shayla Blake would be travelling along with Maya and Lucas on the Ree Forster world tour. Cara was coming over, boxes and all, just days before they flew off, so she'd arrive for the 'before' and return for the 'after' of the house's third bedroom, finally unpacking and making the space her own for the next four years of her life.

"Okay, phone calls…" Maya mumbled to herself, moving into the room across the hall. Before she could close the door to cut the sound from travelling up to the attic where Lucas was studying, the sound of scurrying dogs stalled her, allowing Trix to squeeze through, Crowley right behind. "Anyone else?" she joked, looking into the hall before shutting the door. "You two have to stay quiet, okay?" she looked down to the pair staring back at her. "Exactly," she chuckled, reaching down to pat one and the other. When she went and sat on the bed, the dogs found their way up in turn, settling in with her.

They were getting so close to telling people, she couldn't tip her hands as she made her calls. It wasn't like she never called up her parents or the elder Friars and basically invited herself and Lucas over for dinner. They were always happy to receive them. This time though, they had a very specific purpose and her concern was that they would hear it in her voice and they would piece it together.

Oh, to be sure, they hadn't gotten to this point, after carrying this secret for a month and a half, without wondering from time to time if anyone – family or otherwise – already suspected or outright knew for sure and had been biting their tongue, to allow Maya and Lucas to make the announcement on their own time. Whether they knew or not, they were definitely ready for it, chomping-at-the-bits ready for it. For some time, they had been so lacking in subtlety in the way they hinted their desire for grandchildren. And then once the two of them had managed to float out the fact that they had a plan for this baby, a timeline, the hints had subsided.

But now it had been months since they'd crossed that line, so surely something had to be coming soon, right? Visiting any of them since her bump had started to assert itself more and more… It had just been… beyond tricky, like surely one of them would have to notice how her body was changing. The biggest test was always going to be Katy, who had to have a different eye when it came to her daughter…

The calls were made, first to the Hunters, then the elder Friars… To each, she had given an excuse of her and Lucas dropping by – one in the morning, one in the afternoon – in order, respectively, to drop off tour shirts for the family, as requested, and then to pick up the extra luggage set they'd asked to borrow for the tour. The errands were genuinely needed, all the better to hide their true intentions. And then for Sunday's dinner, the trick became not so much about dispersing suspicion but about ensuring that they'd get everyone they wanted to get for this. It went with there just being so many of them in their group, whenever they all got together, it was nothing short of a party. Riley and Dylan, Zay and Nadine, Rosa and Jenna, Kayla and Will, Sophie and Chiara, Asher and Ray, Willow and Lion, Bishop and Leona, Ramona and Ben, Maeve, Simon, Josie and Robbie… She could just as easily have included people from the school, but she'd tell them on Monday, same as the kids in her classes… A small part of her looked forward to that part the most and also the least. She wasn't looking forward to telling them she would be absent the next school year.

They couldn't all make it, much as they wanted to. It wasn't so bad. It would be great to get to tell them in person, but it wasn't like she would have been able to tell every single one of them in person. Some were in New York, in Arkansas… in Arizona… They would be just as happy for the news if it came through a phone or over a computer screen, and that was really all that mattered.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners