Sorry this took so long, while the last chapters came so close to each other. My boyfriend and I broke up and suddenly I didn't feel like writing, Flower Parlor came to me one day and it was the first project I actually wanted to write, but now I'm back with this story. If you haven't checked my one-shot go do it, it's worth it.
KING LUCAS
CHAPTER 25
Monday morning came, after what had felt like an eternal weekend. Today he was back in the game and things were just beginning to stir. He had asked Riley to move his meeting with Maya for that afternoon, he had made some changes to his plan, but everything should go accordingly.
Lucas went straight to the principal's office when he got to school.
"Good morning Doris!" He greeted the woman sitting behind the desk.
"Good morning indeed! You look very happy today." She noted, shifting her position to pay more attention to him.
"It's because I get to see you," he said charmingly. He sent a text and put the cellphone away in his pocket.
"Oh, stop it!" She said, waving him away.
"It's true, you are my first reason, the second one is because I need permission to skip my last two lessons," he casually dropped his request.
"Why would you skip class?" She asked, concerned.
"My wood pieces for prom need to be finished and today the committee is reviewing them." Lucas explained.
Doris bit her inner cheek, to think about giving him the permission slip or not.
"Please Doris, it's geometry, I've been getting straight A's on that class," he saw the hesitation on her eyes, but he had already won.
"Just because of your good grades," she warned him, "I want to see nothing but A's after today."
"No, ma'am, you have my word." He smiled while she put her stamp on the small white paper.
Outside he had Sput, the freshman assistant of the coach, waiting for him. Lucas wiggled the paper around when he saw him and the kid grinned.
"You really got it?" He asked, surprised.
"Of course I did, I told you I'd get it. Now, where is my geometry homework?" Lucas lifted his brow.
Sput looked for a notebook on his backpack, it had Lucas' name on it. Lucas opened it to check that his assignment was complete. Turned out that Roy was on the top of his class, but he also wanted something that only Lucas was able to get him and that was a life, to be noticed. The kid only wanted to be recognized and he would do whatever to be close to it.
"Very good, you're a genius Roy!" He said, messing up his hair, the thin kid laughed. "I'll show you how to swing after practice, deal?" Lucas offered him his hand, so they could shake on it.
"Deal!" He took it eagerly. The kid was an only child and he had taken Lucas like a big brother.
"I'll see you in tomorrow Roy, remember to drink your protein." He advised before walking away.
Lucas enjoyed these little wins, but after playing with people for so long all this tiny things began to feel irrelevant. He could do his own homework, sure, but why would he when he didn't have to.
Lucas expected to see Jessica on his locker waiting for him, but he didn't expect to find Zay instead. Lucas narrowed his eyes as he watched him standing there, he had hoped to break up with his girlfriend before lunch, but it seemed like someone had scared her off.
"Zay," he called him.
"Hey, man." He greeted him like the last month he hadn't spent it giving him cold looks and hoping that Lucas would talk to him first. "Look, Maya told me what you did for her."
"So?" He asked, opening his locker and putting his homework inside.
"I wanted to apologize." Zay replied.
"For what?" He wondered.
"For telling you that you don't care about Maya and Riley... you obviously do." He responded, Lucas clenched his jaw. "I know that you stepped back for Riley and I don't know what you did to Farkle but I can see that you had something to do with that–" He paused, hoping Lucas would say something but he remained silent looking at him.
"And you took Maya home, putting your own relationship at risk," he continued, "I know what you've been doing this whole time and I know that you're mad at me for doubting you, but now I understand."
Lucas let no emotion show, he wanted to see how far this would go, he had never intended to befriend Zay, but he would be lying if he said that he hadn't missed his comments and his wild personality.
"You were just trying to protect your friends, just like you did the first time we met, you've been doing it since you came here." Zay finished, his brows lifted, expecting an answer.
"I'm sorry, okay?" But still Lucas didn't say a word. "What do I have to do? Bring you flowers? Say that I miss you? Because I do." Zay said, looking at his shoes.
Lucas couldn't hold it any more and he snorted, Zay looked at him insulted.
"Oh, you suck so much!" Zay said, putting his head against the lockers, a little embarrased.
"Wow, Zay, I'm flattered but I'm dating someone." Lucas said, with a shit eating grin on his face. Zay complained, but Lucas extended his hand to make peace on this senseless fight. His friend grabbed it gladly and pulled him in for a hug. "Okay, too much." Lucas patted his back.
"What are you doing today? Let's grab a burger on that place with the painted ceiling." Zay offered, overexcited by their reunion.
"Sorry Zay, but I have to present my wood pieces to the prom committee." He replied, Zay looked disappointed.
"Let's go later tonight, you can bring Jessica," he offered.
"I can do dinner, but I was thinking of breaking up with Jessica." The bell rang and Lucas lead them to the second floor, they had lab.
"What? Why?" His friend asked.
"On Friday I realized that she would have let Fuller have his way with Maya just because she was jealous," Lucas explained.
"And you didn't like that," Zay finished for him.
"Not only that–" Lucas began, "It may be possible that I haven't gotten over Maya." He dropped the suggestion, waiting for his reaction.
Zay put an arm across Lucas' chest and stopped them in front of the bathrooms.
"You have feelings for Maya?" He asked, not as surprised as Lucas expected him to be.
"I don't know, okay, I'm figuring things out." Lucas whispered, checking that there was no one around them. "We'll talk tonight, I have a busy day." He walked away from his friend, with a smirk on his face, now that Zay thought he liked her, Lucas could get information on Josh.
He had intended to meet Josh first, and before Maya realized that they knew each other, they would already be friends. They always said, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Lucas understood that before going to war he had to know the enemy and his way of thinking, so he could anticipate their moves.
Farkle had told him that Josh didn't love Maya, that he only cared about her for the sex, but if he read Maya correctly, the sex wasn't great, apparently just for her.
He still needed to break things with Jessica, he knew better now than to try to have two girls at the same time. Before the class started he sent out a text and waited.
After a while a junior girl knocked in the classroom and said that there was an important call for Lucas Friar in the office, it was an emergency. He frowned and stood up, taking his things with him. On the hallway Jessica was waiting for him with her arms crossed.
"Thanks Becky, I owe you one." He patted the girls back and smiled at her, she blushed and said it was nothing, she left the couple alone.
"You scared me with the emergency call." Jessica told him angrily.
"It was the only way to get you out of class." He explained, he put a hand behind her back and moved her forward, if they were caught in the middle of the hallway he'd have to get them out of detention and that was no fun anymore. "Let's go somewhere to talk."
She followed him to his car without speaking, she knows, he thought. Jessica never stopped talking, and this silence could only mean that she understood what was about to happen. She stopped him just before they reached his car, pulling his hand back.
"You're breaking up with me." She stated a fact, didn't ask the question.
"Yes," he replied. He looked deep into her eyes to stare at the final moments of her light, he opened his mouth to say his final words, his sentence, the words that took the shine away, but he stopped himself.
He never had hesitated before, when it came down to break someone's heart, but there was something stopping him. A 'click' sound bounced on the back of his head, the sound the gun did when he loaded it in front of his father, there was something else, the thing that stopped him was his mother's crying, he couldn't get it out of his head since he had that nightmare a month ago.
The wailing always came back every time he had the potential of hurting someone. It was so loud when he broke up with Missy, his heart was racing fast, his palms sweating, an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, he was nervous, he hadn't been nervous for a while.
He clenched his jaw, pushing the noises away.
"Are you in love with her?" She interrupted, before he could finish his execution.
"Who?" He asked, frowning. "Maya?" She lifted her brow as an answer, but he denied with his head.
"Keep lying to yourself, Lucas." She said with pity in her tone. "You're afraid you might actually feel something real." He rolled his eyes, he had heard this speech countless time. "You hide in this egocentric, apathetic, selfish persona, but only because you think that if someone sees you're an actual human with real emotions, they'll think you're weak."
You're just like your mother... weak! His father yelled in his mind.
"You wanted to leave Maya so Fuller could take advantage of her state." He told her. "So don't come here, thinking you understand me after knowing me for a few weeks, judging my behavior, when my actions were more human than yours."
Her eyes went out, and for the first time since he began playing this game, he didn't feel the thrill, he felt the same thing he used to feel every time he saw his father drunk, he felt disgusted.
Jessica walked back to school without saying anything else, he stayed behind, his palms sweating and feeling light headed. He was scared, he new the feeling, it just hadn't come to him in a very long time. Was he turning in his father? He closed his eyes, he didn't want to think about that.
He needed to sit down, he didn't even try to open his car, he sat down on the pavement, his back leaning on the truck. He looked at the sky, it was a sad tone of grey, a cloud covered the sun, but all Lucas could think of was that he hoped nobody would find him in this state. All the work he had put in his image in this school would go to waste if anyone saw Lucas Friar having a panic attack in the parking lot.
His hands were shaking, he turned them into a fist, his knuckles turning white, he spaced out looking at the scars on his right hand. He got those after he broke a mirror back in Texas, he was lucky he didn't break his hand, the doctor had said. The school mandated eight sessions in an anger management group, the eight weeks went by in a flash after he began sleeping with the mediator.
The memory did nothing but unsettle him more, so he closed his eyes. He thought of the blue ocean he saw at the pier when he went for a run, he thought of the tall blonde grass that grew behind Pappy Joe's farm in Austin, he saw himself riding his Belle across the fields. He could feel his breathing slowing down, his heart rate normalizing, he opened his palms and the shaking was gone.
Lucas went straight to the geometry class and he handed his slip to his teacher, what he needed was to work on some wood to relax, soon he would show them to Maya, his plan was back on track.