Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Rated: T

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Chapter 2

"You seem preoccupied Maya," Shawn Hunter said. "Your head is still in New York, isn't it?"

Maya looked up from her sketchbook where she had been doodling Lucas from memory. "I'm sorry?"

"Give me the sketch book," Shawn coaxed. "Come on, give it to me!"

"Why?" Maya asked suspiciously.

"Because I promised your mother and Cory that I would try and distract you from you-know-who," Shawn answered. "If you give me the sketchbook, I have something for you to replace it with."

"Fine," Maya said, relinquishing the sketch book.

"Thank you," Shawn answered handing her a camera in return. "Go and take pictures of Paris. If you get something good, I'll use it in this month's edition of the travel magazine."

"But. . ."

"Go!" Shawn said. "I don't want to hear any arguments from you, young lady. Your assignment for today is to go out and think about anything but whatever it is you're thinking about!"

"But. . ." Maya started to protest again as he handed her a coat and pushed her out the door.

"Hold on a second," Shawn said suddenly, like he had changed his mind. "I'm going to go with you. We can get to know each other better."

Maya looked at him suspiciously, not used to many men taking an active interest in her life. Except for Josh but he had hardly been a man.

"You don't have to come, you know," she said.

"I know. But I'm sure the Matthews would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you," Shawn said. "They're quite fond of you, you know."

"Well, not all of them," Maya answered as Shawn locked the apartment door.

"Ah. I was wondering when he would come up," Shawn said, smiling at her as he pocketed his keys and nodded for her to fall into step beside him. "I know you've just been dying to really talk about Lucas since you got here. I saw his Aeropostale spread on your bulletin board. "

"He keeps me company," Maya answered.

Shawn pressed his lips together, trying to think about what to say next. He didn't want to judge the girl standing next to him. But he didn't want her to stay wrapped up in an illusion forever because loving illusions was a dangerous thing. And if she wasn't careful, she was going to wake up in Paris all by herself one day.

Just like he had.

Except he wasn't ready to talk about Angela Moore. Not yet.

"You have to remember that the two of you might never be together," he said instead.

"He could notice me someday," Maya replied. "Maybe."

Shawn smiled. "Well, nothing's impossible, kiddo. But maybe you shouldn't get your hopes up too high."

Maya sighed, it wasn't anything she hadn't heard before. She just wished people would stop saying it, who were they to tell her that Lucas Matthews wouldn't wake up one day and notice her? It happened all the time in stories and in the movies. Of course, she couldn't think of any off the top of her head, but she was sure that it happened once in a while.

"I know, I know. I won't," she finally said, crossing her fingers so it wouldn't really be a lie.

"Good," Shawn said with satisfaction. "Come on, I'll take you to my favorite place to get dessert and then we can go and take some pictures. Have you seen the Eiffel Tower yet?"

Maya shook her head. "Only in pictures. Back at home the Matthews have a coffee table book with pictures of the seven natures of the modern world.

"Well, you definitely need to see the real thing then," Shawn said, hoping if he kept her busy enough he would be able to distract her from Lucas like he had promised Cory.

Like he had promised Josh.

He was going to do everything in his power to make sure that she at least didn't love him anymore. Forgetting him was going to be pretty hard to do because once she went back to New York, she would be going back to him too.

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Lucas hadn't meant to run into the person in front of him. He just hadn't been paying attention, his date had been sitting really close to him with her hand on his knee while she whispered things in his ear.

It was enough to drive the pope to distraction.

But as he looked at the girl who was lecturing him about the importance of paying attention to the road, he was very glad he had run into her. She was the cutest girl he had ever seen, with long brunette hair and wide set brown eyes.

He apologized and smiled charmingly at her while he offered to pay for any damage that had been done to her car even though he could tell just by looking at her that she came from money. It quieted her down enough though and she dug through her purse for a piece of paper so they could trade information.

He pocketed her number and smiled to himself. He was going to call her as soon as he got the chance and after he had settled his debt, he was going to ask her out on a date. He could tell from the way that she was looking at him, she wouldn't say no.

But first he needed to get rid of the girl who was impatiently tapping her foot and looking at her Cartier wristwatch. It wouldn't be too much trouble, she had told him at the beginning of the week that she wasn't looking for anything serious and that she was just trying to find a way to get back at her boyfriend for dumping her.

He just hoped she wouldn't mind that he didn't keep up the charade for as long as she had wanted him to.

Besides, who got terribly serious when they were only 18 and on their way to school? Nobody except for maybe his brothers Josh and Cory because they believed in true love and all that stuff (even though Josh had never dated anybody at all).

Except what they didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Lucas smiled to himself and called Josh to ask him to come and pick him, his date and the girl he had ran into up. Of course, he acted like it was a huge inconvenience to drop everything and drive out from the city to come and get them but after a lot of badgering from him, Josh finally agreed to come and help him out of his jam.

Of course, he was subjected to listen to another lecture about the importance of following the rules of the road. It was a lot worse this time because it wasn't coming from a cute girl but it was in front of the cute girl that he was trying to impress.

If he could have disappeared into the passenger seat Lucas would have especially when the girls both started to giggle. He looked at Josh and tried to convey a message with his eyes that said stop. But getting subtle messages wasn't his older brother's strong suit which was irritating because he was apt at making billion dollar business deals while he balanced getting his master's degree.

It was fine because Lucas would get him back later on.

Right now he was going to concentrate on getting a girl named Riley Matthews to go out with him.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note:

So, not my best offering here. I am trying to set up the Riley/Lucas relationship and getting Maya settled into her new life in Paris. I wrote and rewrote this chapter several times, I hope my final attempt was good enough for you guys because I am not going to lie, I am very anxious about it.

I'm leaving on Friday, like I've mentioned a bunch of times already. I'm hoping a change of scenery will be good for my writing.

I'll be back soon!

Lots of Love,

Holly, 9/23/2015_