Chapter 135
Getting to Know You

Walking out of the clinic, they felt like a couple of spies, keeping cool while they were out in the world, waiting until it was just the two of them before they'd dare to drop their cover. They went along, hand in hand, toward the car, and once they'd climbed into the front seats and shut the doors… Well, there were definitely a few seconds of them just sitting quietly, contemplating… smiling… So, now they knew. They had to do something about that… They looked at each other, and oh the goofy laughter was all over the place.

"You good there, Huckleberry?" Maya asked as Lucas reached out his hand, set it to her belly. He had that big dad energy going right now, that little cowboy in his heart just hollering a good hee haw, thinking of their boys… all three of them. All along, their little tadpole had felt like a boy, and whether or not they had 'influenced' anything by it, they had not been wrong. They were to have a third son.

"Never been better," he assured her. She reached over and held his face, brushed a couple happy tears with her thumb.

"Yeah, I can tell," she smiled. She wasn't exactly immune to that feeling, was she? The slightest pressure in her hold expressed her desire for him to lean in and he did so, the better for her to kiss him and be kissed back. Lucas followed this up by bowing his head to press a new kiss there at her belly, which made her chuckle. "I think you're going to need a minute or two before you can drive."

"Yeah, that's fair," he agreed as he sat back up.

"Good, because we need to come up with a plan now," Maya straightened up in her seat with a bright smile. There was no wondering what she was thinking about, and Lucas imitated her. He was ready. "We're telling them, right?"

"Well, we don't have to, except if we don't then some people will not stop hounding us to know, and not just because of the whole bet thing," Lucas pointed out.

"True, true, but we could just say that we don't know, that he didn't turn enough for us to see, so… we don't know," Maya shrugged.

"How sure are you that you… or I… won't slip?" Lucas wondered.

Maya considered this. Sure, the last time, Lucas had inadvertently found out about Noah being a boy and he had not let anyone know for months, not unless he had wanted them to know. He'd managed it that time, but who was to say it would be the same now, especially when she would have to keep the secret, too, and they now had a couple of toddlers running around all the time, little boys who easily repeated just about anything they heard and who would likely let slip about their baby brother if they happened to find out. They couldn't be blamed for that, and they weren't going to put it on them to carry that weight, so…

"I think… we gotta tell people," she finally pronounced herself.

"Great," Lucas smiled. "How are we going to do it?"

"Last time, we didn't get to tell anyone, because we were going to be 'surprised,'" Maya air-quoted, to mark the fact that he'd found out before her and pretended not to know. "So, the last time we got to tell anyone anything like that was over three years ago, with Elliott, when we were in Arizona," she recalled.

"That was a great trip," Lucas recalled.

"Yeah, it was," Maya agreed. That was when they'd gone out and met Luna Hart and her daughters. And carrying this news of their unborn baby being a boy, they had used blue eye shadow and a photo to tell everyone that they were having a son. They now had that picture printed, framed, hanging on the wall upstairs, very close to the boys' bedroom door. "I liked how we did it that time, nothing too flashy, you know?"

"I do," Lucas nodded. He felt the same way.

"I don't know, I guess a part of me needs to be able to tell them a bit more… actively," Maya explained.

"Because you didn't get to tell them about the baby yourself?" Lucas guessed. She nodded. As much as they loved all those videos that Shawn had captured, and how they could watch them over and over and it never got old, there was still a big part of her that wished they could have been together when they shared the news. This was their chance to have a do-over. "Any ideas?"

Lucas was good to drive by then, and so they took off from the clinic, all the while running through their options on how to tell people that they were having a boy. It wasn't hard to see how they had this convenient way in. The wagers. Most of the people they intended to include in this bit of telling had placed their bets on 'the result,' so they could just use that.

They wouldn't tell everyone all on the same day. They didn't feel like driving around all day, especially if they had to go all the way to Houston and back, and anyway they were most looking forward to telling two special people in particular, and they had no bets to pay up.

"So, I know we said we weren't going to get ahead of ourselves, and we weren't going to discuss names until we got to this part, but now we did, so… What have you been thinking?" Lucas asked as he drove them toward home.

Maya turned to look at him. She couldn't even go and act as though she had no idea what he was talking about. Ever since those tests had turned positive, it was impossible for her not to have names on the brain. It was the first thing that would identify their child, this thing that would follow them all their lives… The names of those important people in someone's life, they were just impossible to dissociate from the ones they belonged to, and now this new baby… Lucas was right to assume she had ideas already, how could she not? She didn't make lists, but then the names would be swimming constantly through her mind, floating in, and out again… Some of them would be constants, never getting very far before they'd circle back around. The girl names felt almost too easy to think about, when they'd never even really considered them, although… Well, she knew where Lucas would stand, she knew what he would have named a daughter. And then the boy names…

"I haven't really…" she shook her head. "What do you have?" Lucas couldn't turn his head to her, not as he was driving, but even if it wasn't directed at her, the look on his face said plenty. He knew she had some names, possibly ones which had started feeling very near and dear to her heart over days and weeks. "Hey, I want to hear yours, come on," Maya chuckled.

"It's your turn," Lucas shook his head.

"My turn?" she repeated, amused.

"Yeah," he nodded now, like it was the most obvious thing. "You decided on Elliott, and I took my choice and gave it to your father for Noah, so now it's yours again."

"Okay, well, see? Right there. You never picked one," she challenged.

"I did, I picked to let your dad decide, and it was the right choice." He had a point there. "So, let's hear it. What do you have in mind?" Accepting his reasoning, Maya took a breath. She looked down to herself, her hands both resting comfortably over her belly. She conjured up the image she had of their youngest son. Unborn as he was, she still had this impression of him forming in her mind. Whatever names she'd been turning around in her head, was there one that felt right, that fit him? Maybe…

X

When they arrived home, they were faced with the very curious sight of both their boys sitting in front of the television with a band-aid stuck on their right legs, below the knee. Neither one of them looked bothered by this in the slightest, and in fact they looked… happy?

"Hey, guys?" Lucas looked between those two, on the floor with Molly Robinson at their side, the teenaged girl lying on her stomach and casually playing with Shadow the cat. At once, Elliott and Noah noticed their parents and scrambled to go see them. Lucas scooped up one and then both of them in either arm. "What happened to your legs?" he inquired. They looked confused.

"Oh, that was nothing," Molly informed them as she rolled over and moved to rise. When she did so, both Lucas and Maya saw a band-aid on her leg, too. "We were playing outside earlier, and I tripped coming back up on the porch. It wasn't a big deal, but my grandmother still wanted to put something on there. And when the two of them saw it…" They wanted one, too.

"Mommy, kiss!" Noah stretched out his 'injured' leg toward his mother expectantly.

"You want my healing magic?" Maya asked with her best (not too scary) enchantress voice. Noah gave a hearty nod. "Do you know the spell?" she asked, supporting her younger son's leg in her hands.

"Please!" he replied, though it sounded more like 'peas' out of him. That may in fact have been the most magic of spells.

"At once," Maya 'gasped' before performing her act of magic. "That should do it. Do you want me to take this off?" she asked, indicating the colorful bandage. Noah shook his head, blond curls flying all about. They might have needed to get his hair cut just a bit. "No? Alright then. How about you, Master Sprout? How's the leg? Will it heal?" she dramatically asked him.

"Check?" he shrugged, with that little smile that felt 70% Huckleberry courtesy and 30% New York wily genes.

"You have learned so much," Maya whispered, moving around to the other side until Lucas maneuvered his armloads of toddlers so she could access Elliott's 'hurt' leg. "Oh, thank you, sir."

"I do what I can," Lucas tipped his head in his best hat-tipping tone as the magic was applied to Elliott's leg.

"Thank you, Mommy," he smiled, which compelled his little brother to say the words as well, neither boys likely to understand how happy this small moment between the four of them made their parents feel, on the heels of discovering the news they now brought home.

"Oh, good, so you know I had nothing to do with those," Pappy Joe gestured to the boys' legs as he and Patty joined them from out of the kitchen. Maya looked confused while Lucas chuckled and set Elliott and Noah back on their feet. He recounted the promise made before they left, about not taking the boys near the gate, no matter how they asked it.

"How did it go?" Patty asked her former student and her future grandson.

"Great, everything's great, yeah?" Lucas nodded over to his wife. Maya gave a nod before opening her mouth to speak and immediately pulling back as she considered the reveal. They couldn't just say it like this, no, that'd be too easy.

"Yes, great. The rest, well… Give us a few," she finally nodded to the two of them staring with wondering eyes and to Molly, tending to Whiskey perched on top of the couch.

Maya and Lucas escorted their sons up the stairs and into their room. After lifting the boys on to the bed where their mother had gone to sit, Lucas went to shut the door before joining them.

"Do you know where we went today?" Maya asked the boys, looking from one to the other as they folded themselves at either side of her. They didn't know. "We went to see the baby doctor. She made sure that everything was going okay with the tadpole."

"I wanna see!" Elliott asked at once, excited. He knew by now that this usually meant they'd have new pictures. They found those so curious, looking at those images and trying to distinguish the presence of a baby, though of course the bigger it got, the easier it would be.

"You want to see the baby?" Lucas asked. Elliott and Noah nodded together.

"Please!" Noah added for good measure.

"Oh, well, if you ask like that," Lucas looked to Maya and shared her smile.

They had the printout in Maya's bag, but they had them on their phones as well, so Lucas pulled out his own from his pocket and showed it. Elliott and Noah both crawled closer to him to look at the screen. Whenever they would be shown a new picture, or a video, they would be drawn to keep a hand to the bump where they knew their little sibling to be. This only made their parents even more eager for the time when they would be able to feel their little brother kick.

"Baby Tadpole," Noah declared as best he could, which here required the dropping of the letter d.

"The one and only," Maya nodded.

"Saying hello," Elliott pointed to the little hand, which did indeed appear to be mid-wave when it was captured.

"So, guess what?" Lucas asked his sons, who turned their eyes up to him in wonder. He looked to Maya, to see how they should proceed. She gave him a nod. Go for it. "We found out earlier that this little tadpole here is actually a boy, just like you two. That means you're going to have a little brother," he revealed. The boys looked to the picture, then to their mother's belly. They could have told them his name, too, but they were planning to keep that revelation to themselves for now, so that meant keeping it from them, too, lest they repeat it at every chance they got, like they did 'tadpole.'

"Baby boy baby," Noah declared merrily, tippy-tapping his fingers over the bump. "Hi!"

"You okay, sprout?" Maya asked, reaching to brush at her older son's hair with an unbreakable smile. Elliott nodded. "Are you happy about your baby brother?"

"Uh huh," Elliott nodded again.

"Are you sure?" Lucas asked, as quietly amused as Maya by their son's sort of befuddled face.

"Not sister?" he finally asked, looking from one parent to the other.

"Not sister, no," Maya confirmed. "Is that what you wanted?" she sympathetically asked.

"Granny said…" he looked at her, and now they understood. Melinda Friar was so sure that she was about to have a granddaughter that she'd been referring to her unborn grandchild in kind, as though it would be more certain to happen that way. No doubt she had done this near Elliott, enough so that he started to believe the tadpole was a baby girl.

"That was what she thought, what she wanted," Lucas explained. "But it turned out another way. That's okay, right? Another little brother, like Noah?" he asked.

Elliott considered this, looking across to his curly brother on the other side of their mother. He loved him so very much, both his brother and his best friend. More like him? That could be really good, couldn't it? The way he smiled, they knew he realized it.

"Hi, little-little brother. I'm the big-big brother."

X

By Sunday at lunch time, as they were on their break from their respective jobs, both Maya and Lucas and Tilly and Judd were able to gather together to exchange some similar stories. As it turned out, they had recently discovered that they were expecting a baby girl, and they had been sharing the news with their people as well. They were trying so very much to stay on the side of optimism, far enough into it that they didn't even need to think about it anymore, with how they had made it to five months already, but then they probably wouldn't be satisfied until the day their daughter was safely delivered over to them that nothing would happen to cause them to lose her. Sharing their new bit of news had felt like their reclaiming some more of their hope.

"We thought about doing the whole thing, the reveal, with like… a cake, or balloons, but we just decided we wanted to do it smaller," Tilly explained. Judd would still watch her all the time, ready to act if needed. Part of him would still have preferred that she not be working at this time, letting him carry that load while she put every chance on their side with the baby, but as he'd told Maya, if she stayed home, she just might have gone stir crazy and veered the other way into activity. At work, she sat on her stool, at her register, she saw people… So maybe that was actually the better choice after all.

"So, what was the damage with all those wagers?" Judd asked the couple across from Tilly and him. They shared a look, a smirk, which quickly melted into laughter.

"Never saw so many people stuck between happiness and disappointment all at the same time," Lucas told him. "Or not disappointment, more like…"

"More like they were upset that they lost the bet, but then they remembered what they were betting on and then they felt silly about the whole thing. The important part stayed a good one. The baby is coming, and they're all excited to meet him," Maya filled in, ending with a smile and a bite of her lunch.

When they finished up their meals, they still had a bit of time before they were due back to their respective stores. Maya and Tilly wanted to make a stop over at their preferred spot for maternity wear, so they went off together, leaving Lucas to take Judd along on some 'important new dad stuff.' After a satisfactory trip, the expecting mothers waved each other off and went back to work. Maya was just walking up to the art store when she spotted a pair of familiar faces walking out from there. She barely had the chance to recognize them that they turned and saw her, too. Just by the looks on their faces, it was clear that they'd come looking for her and had not found her… until now.

"Hi, Maya!" Phoebe called even as she and Stella were jogging over to her.

"Hi," she laughed, more so as they both moved in turn to hug her. True to form, one of them was a hearty and energetic hugger, while the other was gentler and more sort of personal, hugging only those who made her feel close and familiar to.

"They said you were on break," Stella informed her as she pulled away.

"We were going to wait until you got back," Phoebe added.

"Well, I'm here now, so what's up?" Maya nodded at them.

"We ran into each other, and we started to talk about the cake," Stella indicated Phoebe, who nodded and carried on.

"I guess I was kind of hoping we could have a do-over, so I can learn how to actually make a cake myself," she told Maya.

"You're volunteering to be around an oven? And knives?" Maya replied, in a joking tone that would in no way make Phoebe feel bad and instead get her laughing.

"With the right teacher, I mean… Stranger things have happened, right?"

"Alright then," Maya easily nodded. "Are you two free tonight? If your parents are okay with it and you don't mind hanging around here for a few more hours, we can bring you out to the house. Otherwise, you can meet us there. Or we can pick another day…"

"No, that sounds good," Phoebe replied at once, turning to Stella to check. She nodded.

"Call your parents," Maya smiled.

As she left the girls to make their calls, she went into the store, feeling a twinge of concern at the thought of Phoebe coming over. She hadn't seen her, not since the last time with the cake, and it was one thing to turn the whole situation over in her head when she wasn't in contact with the girl, but now… Well, it wasn't her fault, was it? All this mess… She didn't deserve to be penalized for her parents' story, their mistakes… If it wasn't for that secret rattling them all, she would probably have invited Phoebe for this do-over session right then and there on the morning after the storm, when she'd dropped her and Ariel off at school and brought Stella home before going on with her day. If their parents said yes, then they were on.

They said yes. They were on. The girls would take their time, wandering around the mall together for the afternoon, and then they'd veer back toward the art store to leave with Maya and Lucas. More than once, Maya would see them wandering down this way and that, if she happened to look out of the store at the right time. She'd texted Lucas after they'd confirmed that they would be waiting for them and coming to the house to make their cake. She was nervous somehow, and she didn't know how to rectify that. Should they call Dylan? Let him know? Did they need to? No… Probably not? They weren't going to say anything, so as far as Phoebe would know, it would be like any other day.

"I figured it out, you know?"

Maya was very relieved that she wasn't in the middle of handling any objects, breakable or otherwise, or else she would definitely have dropped them all over the place when she heard Phoebe's voice, and especially her words.

"What?" she blinked when she turned to find that she and Stella had arrived back at the end of her shift. "Figured out…" Her heart was going way too fast for her own good just now. How had she…

"You used to be in a band," Phoebe proudly declared. Maya stared at her for a moment. Band… Band! Her heart settled.

"O-Oh, yeah," she breathed, smiled. "Yeah, I was. How did you know?"

"Well, ever since you came into our class at school, I was sure you looked familiar from somewhere, and I couldn't figure out why. But then I went and saw my cousin the other day, and she had a shirt from your band, and there you were. A little younger, but not so much that I couldn't tell it was you. When I told her that I'd met you, she said how you guys were one of her favorite bands, but that you broke up and stopped making music together."

"Yeah, well, a lot of things changed after I got pregnant the first time. We moved back here from Houston, and well… I needed to focus on my family, you know?"

"Oh, I understand," Phoebe promised.

"And I do still do music… sort of… sometimes… I started doing open mic at Chubbie's a while back. Haven't done it in the last couple months, been busy with school, and this baby. Next time I go out there, I'll let you know, if your cousin wants to come, too," she smiled.

Once they found Lucas, the four of them left for the house. By the time they got there, it was decided that they would call in a pizza for dinner, to make the most of this do-over night of theirs. Toppings were discussed as they went, and while Stella had her very developed and fearless palate, Phoebe seemed to be of a 'sure, why not?' sort of palate. She would sometimes come to regret her willingness to try new things, but it never stopped her from doing it again and again, and it usually led to some unexpected discoveries. They were kind of a perfect match in that respect. Adding to it the fact that Maya's pregnancy was opening her up to some interesting combinations, and soon they were looking at a pizza coming their way that would make most people shrink back on principle. Just to be on the safe side, they'd ordered a plain pepperoni for Lucas, Pappy Joe, and the boys. Time would tell whether Patty would align herself to the rest of the ladies that night, but Maya had a feeling she would.

Making a cake with a self-proclaimed klutz queen wasn't nearly as bad as it had been made out to be. Sure, Maya could tell that Phoebe was being extra careful with everything she did, and Stella was trailing her like she'd either been tasked to keep her from making a mess, or she'd tasked herself to make sure everything would go well for her new friend… But regardless, they got through the task with all limbs and fingers intact, nothing broken, and only very minor and normal spills along the way. And the cake they created was looking very good, if she could be so bold as to say. Certainly, Phoebe looked stunned and proud all at once, which made both Maya and Stella feel very proud, too.

"What's it going to be for?" Phoebe asked as the three of them sat at the kitchen table and looked upon their creation.

"What do you mean?" Maya asked.

"Well, it has to be for something. A birthday, or a holiday, or an anniversary, an event, something…"

"Can't it just be for dessert?" Maya shrugged.

"It's too pretty for that," Phoebe shook her head, and Maya laughed.

"Alright, then… it's for new friends," she smiled. Phoebe turned to Stella, who looked back at her. Yeah… It could be for that.

Maya and Lucas ended up being the beneficiaries of this friend cake, on account that along with being too pretty for dessert, it was also too pretty for Phoebe to watch it get cut into. She was satisfied with leaving it as a thank you.

An hour after the girls were picked up by Paul Buckley, Elliott went up to his mother with something in his hand which turned out to be Phoebe's phone. He'd found it on one of the kitchen chairs, where it had been forgotten. Maya barely had the time to consider how they might return it to her when the doorbell rang. Without another thought, she walked off to open the door and found herself standing face to face with Jo Munroe, formerly Jocelyn Orlando.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners