Disclaimer: I don't own GMW. My use of the characters is just for fun.
Notes: This fic would not have developed properly without the help of shipperluv over on tumblr who was an excellent sounding board/helper during the early stages when I was feeling completely stuck. Thanks so much!
We're starting at the campfire scene in Texas pt. 2, and things take a turn from there.
"What if that's not what I think we are?"
"Well, then you better start thinking of us like that."
Lucas still can't believe what Riley's saying. He didn't believe it in Pappy Joe's living room and he doesn't believe it now. There's just no way that the relationship they have is the same as something between a brother and sister. You don't stare at your sibling and share secret smiles. You don't get jealous when someone else asks your sibling out.
You don't kiss your sibling.
But Riley keeps saying she loves him like a brother. She tries calling him nicknames that sound foreign coming out of her mouth. She punches his arm and keeps saying that things are easier now because this is how they're supposed to be.
Nothing about this feels easy to Lucas. One minute he's riding high on his victory with Tombstone, excited to go out and celebrate with his friends and thinking that maybe if his luck continues and the night goes well he'll get to dance with Riley or step outside with her for a quiet talk, the next...the girl he was ready to step up and ask out and try the dating thing with again is telling him that they're better as brother and sister and that's how she loves him. They do dance, but it's just a line dance. And whenever he tries to talk to her to get her to explain where this is coming from, he gets the same answers. What they have is great, she doesn't ever want to lose it, they're brother and sister.
Then they're at the fire and she's telling him that Maya likes him. As if that's supposed to make things better. The girl he thought he had something with is saying that it's not what he thought, but he's supposed to be OK with it because one of his other friends likes him that way.
Well Lucas isn't OK with it.
He's not. It's not fair that Riley gets to drop these bombs on him and just walk away. She gets to walk away like there was nothing between them and it's easy for her, but he can't even follow her and try to talk things through to get real answers because now Maya's involved too. He can't just leave her alone at the fire pit when it looks like she's had the rug pulled out from under her as much as he's had it pulled from under him.
And he can't leave her alone now that there's this thing hanging in the air between them. He can't let things fester and get uncomfortable and leave things unresolved just because it might be awkward and hard to deal with. Lucas doesn't want to be that guy.
"So..." He drags out the word, falling back down onto his log. "What just happened?"
Maya exhales heavily. "Good freakin' question."
It would be nice if Maya could give him an actual answer. She's been quiet pretty much since the rodeo and it's getting a little old. Particularly now that she's actually involved. "Was she telling the truth?"
"About the brother thing? I guess so...She didn't really talk to me about it."
"What about the you thing?"
Maya doesn't answer him.
"Do you have feelings for me?"
She still says nothing. She won't even look in his direction. Instead she just stares resolutely into the fire, and it's really hard to control his frustration. How is he supposed to resolve the situation if no one will talk to him about it?
"Maya." Lucas does everything he can to reign it all in, but her name still comes out louder and tenser than he would like. "Say something."
"What am I supposed to say?"
"How about an answer? Do you like me?"
Maya huffs out half a laugh, a bitter smile on her face. "Does it matter?"
Her question doesn't make much sense to him. Everyone's feelings matter, that's part of what makes this hard; it seems like no matter what they end up doing or saying, someone is going to get hurt. "Of course it matt-,"
"We can all see how you've been looking at her, Huckleberry. We all heard what you said." Maya cuts him off, rolling her eyes. "Does it really matter to you if I like you?"
"Everyone's feelings matter, Maya." He repeats. Lucas is going to leave it there, but she doesn't come any closer to giving him an answer and another thread holding back his frustration snaps. If everyone's feelings matter then his do too, and if Maya's not gonna talk about hers that doesn't mean he can't tell her his. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he also doesn't want to let all of this go on any longer than it needs to. And whatever her feelings might be, or whatever Riley's feelings might be, if he leaves his feelings in question with either of them things will only stay complicated. "If you really don't want to talk about your feelings then that's fine, but here's the thing. I'm OK talking about mine. And mine haven't changed.
"You're a great girl, Maya. One of my best friends. And I'm not saying that your feelings don't matter but...I don't see you as anything other than a friend. And if I've ever given you the impression that I do, I'm sorry but for me it's-,"
"Always been Riley." Maya finishes for him. "Yeah, I know."
A heavy silence falls over them. They both stare into the campfire. Lucas doesn't want to say anything else and make things more awkward. When about half a minute has passed and he risks a glance in her direction, Maya's head is bowed and she's picking at her fingernails. She's upset and it feels like it's his fault.
Never mind that it would only be worse if he had stayed silent and let her think that maybe things could work. Or that he tried to be as gentle as possible. Right now he's pretty sure that he's the guy who broke his friend's heart and there's nothing he could say that would make that feel any better.
It startles him when Maya speaks, that same bitter smile in her voice. "You know what the worst part about this is?" She doesn't leave him any time to answer. "Everything's gonna change."
Lucas wants to tell her that it doesn't have to, but that would be a lie. Because it already has. It was never quiet between him and Maya, but it is now. It was never one-sided between him and Riley, but it is now. Riley never just did things without warning, but she has now. Things are already changing, and Maya's probably right to be worried about it. Before he can come up with a good answer, Maya is standing.
"I'm gonna head back to the house." She sighs, and then turns around, looking down at him. "I think you can handle putting out the fire."
If he didn't feel bad about his honesty before, Lucas certainly does as she walks the trail towards the house, leaving him alone. Her comment is like a sucker punch to his gut; even though she had never given him a straight answer about her feelings, those words make them seem evident enough, and he gets to be the one that took that away from her.
He won't apologize for not liking her like that, but he hates that he was put in the position where he had to hurt his friend just to be honest with her. A tiny part of him is mad at Riley for putting him in that position, because things were fine before she decided that everything needed to change. It's enough that as much as he wants to talk to her and figure out what exactly is going through her head and if this is really the way things are going to be now, he can't bring himself to get up.
Lucas stays at the fire pit well into the night, until it burns down to it's embers.
"I love you Lucas. And now I know how."
Riley's words have been replaying in her brain all night. The lies swirl around in a twisted, mocking echo, internally telling her how horrible she is and it's only a matter of time until she's exposed. The truths are more of a cold vise-grip on her entire chest. Because now they don't matter.
Now Lucas is going to be with Maya, and he thinks she loves him like a brother. And even if he finds out the truth, even if he finds out that she was lying about the brother thing and actually love loves him, he and Maya will already have found their happiness together (just like Maya deserves) and it will be too late; even if it's not too late and her friends haven't quite worked out the relationship thing yet, it won't change anything because who would want to be with someone who could lie like that?
No, Riley is certain that no matter what happens, whatever there was between her and Lucas is over and done with now.
The very thought makes her stomach hurt and her heart sink, even though it was her decision to begin with. She just couldn't bear the thought of losing Lucas entirely (and she knows if they got together and things didn't work that would happen) and then when she realized that Maya had been hiding her own feelings for Lucas to give her a chance at happiness...well that was the only sign that Riley needed. Maya deserves to be happy too and if Lucas is the person who can make her happy, who is Riley to stand in the way? Ending things with Lucas is doing the right thing for everyone—no matter how much it hurts her at the moment.
She goes to get ice cream with Farkle to distract herself and drown her sorrows in several scoops of cookie dough ice cream, but it doesn't turn out to be the best plan. The little ice cream shop appears to be the popular date spot for kids their age so in addition to watching Zay and Vanessa kindle their new thing over a shared sundae, Riley can't look towards any corner without spotting another happy couple. Then Farkle decides that he's not that full from his massive intake of cow and wants to have a go at the shop's sundae challenge, and he starts to devour a positively monstrous bowl of ice cream; what little appetite she had upon her arrival at the shop vanishes when she sees all of that.
Riley begs off early and walks back to Pappy Joe's, figuring at least she'll get to wallow in the privacy of the guest room and hopefully be asleep before Maya gets back. Then she'll have the energy to be happy for her in the morning and maybe things will be less painful.
Only Maya is already in the guest room when she gets back, lying on her side facing away from the door.
Riley frowns. "Maya?" She probes, kicking off her boots as she steps into the room. "Do you feel OK? I thought you would still be at the fire with Lucas."
"Well, you thought wrong." Maya has to clear her throat to get rid of the wet thickness in her voice and starts to shift on the bed. She sits up but doesn't turn around. "There's nothing for me out there."
"Don't be silly." Riley shakes her head as she walks around to the other side of the room. This doesn't make sense. Lucas was supposed to realize that now that she was out of the equation he could embrace the feelings he had for Maya. Obviously that hadn't happened. Maya's eyes are red and watery and she's not the type to cry happy tears. "Lucas is still out there, isn't he?"
"He is. But he doesn't want me. He wants you."
The words slam into Riley and she practically falls down to sit on the bed next to her friend. This is wrong. It's not what's supposed to happen. "You must have heard him wrong."
Maya shakes her head, fiddling with her hands. "No, he was pretty clear. He only likes me as a friend. You're the girl he wants to be with."
"Then he must have heard me wrong." Riley starts to stand. Fixing this for Maya is the only way she's not going to give in to the head-spinning panic that the news is inducing, and if that means she'll have to give Lucas the speech again, she will. No matter how it feels. "I'll go and talk to-,"
"No!" Maya jumps to her feet and grabs Riley's arm to stop her with such force that Riley falls back onto the bed. "God, Riley, just stop! This whole thing happened because you couldn't keep your mouth shut. I was fine. Things were fine. But you had to get all Riley about it and try to fix things that didn't need fixing and now instead of quietly dealing with it on my own, everyone knows and everyone gets to know that once again, Maya Hart wasn't good enough!
"Nobody is ever going to pick me over you and I've learned to be OK with that, but it is really freakin' hard to be OK when you get rejected to your face and the whole world gets to know it happened. And that's entirely because you felt the need to butt in. So, no. I don't want you involved in it anymore. I don't want you to tell me it's gonna be all right, or to try and convince Lucas to give me a chance, or any other version of your help that's just gonna end in another round of humiliation for me when it doesn't work out. I just…" Maya trails off, her bluster fading away in an instant and her form deflating. "I just need to deal with this on my own, and not...deal with you for a couple days."
"Then…I'll just give you your space." Riley feels particularly shattered by Maya's outburst. Has she really messed things up so badly, just trying to do the right thing? Suddenly Maya is heartbroken and embarrassed and angry and it almost sounds to Riley like she's made her friend feel this way before, which shouldn't be possible. Riley's never wanted anything but happiness for her. She's never done anything for her that didn't have something good as the intent. But the intent must fall apart along the way or something otherwise Maya wouldn't be acting like this.
Of course, she has every right to be upset if Lucas said he doesn't return her feelings. That Riley understands (although she had thought for sure that Lucas had liked Maya enough to at least give things with her a chance). But Maya is acting like this is something that happens all the time. Like they constantly want the same things and Riley is the one who gets them. That Riley doesn't understand. She can only remember a handful of times during their entire friendship that she and Maya truly competed with each other for something and those always seemed to work out so everyone was happy.
So it hurts that Maya is acting like Riley has gotten everything and everyone she's ever wanted. It hurts that her best friend in the world doesn't want her to help, or even comfort, her. It hurts because she knows no matter what, this particular incident of struggle for Maya is her fault. It all piles on top of her own emotional ache and everything hurts, but she can't even show it or release the mass of tears and emotion welling in her throat because then she'd be the girl who makes someone else's problems about her.
Riley can't be that on top of everything else.
"Best idea you've had all weekend." Maya says. Her cold tone is just another knife, and it takes everything Riley has left to keep everything in as she bows her head and leaves the room.
A few stray tears escape as she pads through the house, but Riley does her best to contain them just in case she runs into anyone else. She doesn't want to have to explain the whole mess to anyone else; knowing her luck that would somehow make everything worse. She grabs a throw blanket from the back of the couch and makes her way to the backyard, hoping that things there will be nice and quiet.
"I always want you around. Maybe the best way to do that is to be like brother and sister."
Sitting by himself at the fire, Lucas had a lot of time to think about everything that's happened. Time to think about what he said to Maya and decide that he handled that as best as he knew how and that even if Maya is upset, he doesn't regret being honest with her. Time to consider everything that Riley has told him since that afternoon and realize there might be a slight chance that she wasn't clarifying their relationship because that's how she really feels.
Instead of wondering what he's missed leading up to this sudden change, he goes back to what he knows about Riley. He knows that she's insecure and a worrier, so what might happen to them in the future would probably be on her mind (what she said at Chubbie's only confirmed that for him). She also would do anything for her friends to make them happy; it's not a stretch then that if she realized Maya's feelings for him she might think the right thing to do would be to step back for Maya (even less of one if she somehow got it into her head that he returned Maya's feelings). If those two traits came together at the right time in her head, it could have led to the idea behind her brush off.
Lucas also knows that Riley believes in Pluto and the impossible. She's had an example in front of her for her entire life in her parents. And maybe if she really is only saying that they're brother and sister because she's scared and trying to be a good friend, then all he has to do is convince her that they are something worth believing in.
If.
It's a big, honking if. Lucas thinks he's onto something with his theory, but he can't be sure. There's always a chance that Riley really feels like he's nothing more than another brother to her and then it won't matter what he says, not that he'd say much at all if she tells him it's true. Above all, if they're not going to be together, he still wants to find a way for them to be friends, and that won't happen if he doesn't respect her feelings.
Either way, he plans on finding some time to talk to her alone while they're traveling tomorrow.
Lucas has put out the last embers of the fire and walked back to Pappy Joe's house when he finds her wrapped up in a blanket and laying on the hammock in the backyard. She's on her back like she's staring up at the stars but as he gets closer, Lucas realizes that her eyes are closed.
"Riley?" He calls out in a half-hushed tone. He's afraid to wake her but her eyes snap open at his voice and she bolts upright. The hammock rocks violently and she has to throw out her arms and legs to steady herself; miraculously she doesn't flip completely over and after a moment the hammock finds its equilibrium. "Sorry I didn't mean to startle you."
"It's OK." Riley waves him off, rubbing a hand over her face. She carefully slides to the edge of the hammock and sits. Her feet stick out from the tangled blanket and he realizes that she's not wearing any shoes. "I didn't realize that I was dozing off."
"Are you sleeping out here?"
Riley shakes her head quickly. "No, I...maybe." She brushes her hair behind her ear. "Maya's...not very happy with me right now."
That's an unexpected twist. Lucas has only ever seen the pair really in a fight the one time and it doesn't seem likely that this would be the thing that would cause another. The one thing he knows for sure is that Riley doesn't have a malicious bone in her body so no matter what she was trying to do tonight when she made all of her announcements, she wasn't doing it to make things bad for anyone. It doesn't make sense that Maya would blame Riley for what happened.
Then Lucas remembers his own anger towards her for putting him in such a difficult position, and realizes that maybe it's not that far of a stretch for Maya, who was definitely and deeply affected by the night's course of events, to be frustrated with her as well. He sighs and sits next to Riley on the hammock. "I'm pretty confused with you myself."
"Well I'm confused with you." She retorts, a little more fiercely than he expects. "Things would have worked out fine for everyone if you had just tried things with Maya. I know you like her, and you two have so much chemistry. Why didn't you give her a chance?"
"Because I don't think of her like that. She's my friend. Nothing more."
"But if you-,"
"Riley." Lucas cuts her off. He's not going to let her continue with this line of fantasy. He's still confused about a lot, but he knows that as with Maya's feelings, the longer this goes on, the worse the eventual fall is going to be. "If you really don't like me as anything more than a friend then I can respect that, but you have to respect my feelings too. They haven't changed and I'm not gonna force myself to have feelings that I don't have for Maya just to make this change less...awkward or whatever."
"Oh."
Riley falls silent, and Lucas thinks about the plans he had been making to talk to her the next day. Now doesn't seem like the right time to bring up his feelings and see if she was telling the truth. A part of him thinks he should ask about the fight she's had with Maya, but a bigger part says it's not his business and that finding out will only make his own involvement more complicated.
What he wouldn't give to be back in New York dropping hints to Mr. Matthews to get a specially crafted lesson that would make all of this seem less confusing.
"When she was...yelling at me, Maya said you had feelings for me." Riley says softly after a moment. She pushes her feet against the ground and starts the hammock swinging. "Is that true?"
He thinks about not answering, but eventually nods. "Yeah. I still like you Riley. As more than a friend."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because you said I needed to accept what you were saying. Why would I push back and risk our friendship when I have no real reason to think you're not telling me the truth?"
Another long moment passes before Riley speaks. "I wasn't lying at Chubbie's. I don't ever want us to lose how close we are. I worry that if we get serious and break up that we'll step out of each other's lives. That's why I was OK with how slow we were taking things. But..." She trails off and doesn't continue.
"But…?" Lucas prompts.
"But I never once doubted my feelings for you." Riley finishes after taking a deep breath. When the words are out she falls so she's lying back, looking at the stars once more. She keeps talking. "When the yearbook came out, and Maya pretended to be me, she figured that we were so alike that I had to be confused and really liked you like a brother. She didn't realize that I heard her. I tried to get her to talk to me about it a couple of times, so maybe I could explain she was wrong, but she never told me. And I couldn't figure out why. I didn't realize until she wouldn't watch you ride Tombstone that it was because she liked you. And maybe she wouldn't talk to me because she thought I would accept it better if I realized it on my own. That everything would all work out. I'd find someone new and you and her would...naturally end up together.
"So I let my fear take over. I decided that if she really was right, maybe we would all end up being happy. You and I would stay friends. You and her would have each other. All I needed to do was forget how I felt about you and everything would work out.
"I didn't realize that it doesn't work like that. You can't just turn off feelings."
Riley doesn't look at him the entire time she speaks, just stares up at the sky. Lucas lies back next to her and follows suit. He's trying to take in everything that she says. That her feelings haven't really changed, that she's been dealing with Maya's secret, wondering why her best friend wouldn't talk to her, that his theory was right…
"No, you can't." He agrees with her. He lets his head fall to the side, so he's looking at her. "Which is why I don't totally understand why you're so scared. We've always been friends first. Do you really think that us dating could change that?"
"I don't know." She shakes her head. "It seems to happen with everyone else. It doesn't seem to matter how much they care. Someone gets hurt and everything changes."
"Everything's already changing, Riley. At this point I don't think there's any stopping it."
Riley chuckles softly, sounding almost sad. "Time and tide wait for no man. My grandma—mom's mom—always says that."
"She's not wrong."
"Well...technically Chaucer's not wrong but..." Riley trails off, and reaches up to run a hand through her hair before she finally turns her head to face him. "What are we gonna do now?"
She seems small, looking at him through her eyelashes and chewing on the inside of her lip. Riley always stands so tall and brave when things are hard and going wrong, it's easy to forget that she's a year younger than him. This isn't just about her being afraid of change, it's about her not understanding it too. Not that he totally gets it, but there's something to be said for that extra year of adjustment time.
"Unless I missed something, the feelings between us haven't changed, and I know you're worried about what could happen, I think about that too, but…" Lucas hesitates for a brief moment. What he wants to say could make things great, or it could make things worse. It's a fifty-fifty coin flip and it feels like the coin is suspended above his head, just spinning. The fear that things will get worse makes him want to just shut his mouth and snatch the coin out of the air; the hope that things will improve gets him to keep talking. "But I think by now I know you well enough to know that you would never do anything to hurt me or put anything, even our romantic feelings, above our friendship. I trust you. Do you trust me?"
Riley's hand slips into his and she smiles. "Of course I trust you, Lucas. You're always there for me."
"Then maybe we forget about what happened today. Let things between us go back to how they were. Our unofficial thing was working pretty good for us. I know it was slow but...it was moving. And in a pretty good direction."
"The best."
Their heads start to inch closer together. All Lucas has to do is tilt the angle of his chin and their lips would find each other. The air feels suddenly thick around them and from one moment to the next, it feels like the spark might fly between them.
Then Riley gasps, and pulls her hand away. "We can't." She sits up and when he does the same, she steps off the hammock and turns around to face him. "I'm sorry Lucas, but we can't go back now. I can't hurt Maya like that. I know to you she's just a friend but she likes you and she's so upset and she already hates me for all of this. I can't make things worse by-"
"No, you're right. Things are too complicated right now." Lucas nods. He's not sure what he was thinking, trying to jump right back. He knows how important Maya is to Riley and that for her, that friendship is always going to come first. She broke things off because of how Maya feels, and until that changes, there's no way she's going to go back on that decision. "All we can be is friends."
She tries to smile for him but ends up turning away to look at the ground after barely a second. "Yeah. Friends."