Lucas liked debate and had been, well, debating whether or not he should join the team for a while now. He could use another extracurricular, and needed something to do to kill time before baseball season. He didn't want to admit it, but he was a baseball player. And a bit of a cowboy. He's a cowboy jock, like everyone guesses, but maybe, just maybe, the debate team will be a way for him to break out of that stereotype. He'd do something different, surprise people a little. Maybe it would even impress Riley and Maya. Well, everything impressed Riley, but it was quite a bit harder to get Maya's attention.
Everyone assumed he and Riley would become a couple, and sure, Riley was nice and she was pretty, but Maya was just so much more. More everything, you know? She was nice, even if she pretended she wasn't, she was funny, she was just more complex. He had to work to get her, and he had to admit he liked the challenge. The problem was he was worried he was being too obvious about his secret crush on the blonde girl.
He jumped at the opportunity to play a prank on her when Mr. Matthews approached him about it. He didn't mind when Ranger Roy replaced Ranger Rick, because at least it meant she was paying attention to him. So he'd tip his hat and hat and smile that smile and usually made girls melt, but just made her shiver with disgust and disdain. At the end of the day he'd passed by the detention room to say bye and toss her a pack of poptarts to snack on. It was pathetic, he knew, but he was determined to win the small girl over.
When Riley and Maya gave Smackle a makeover it only supported his theory that Maya was secretly a nice girl. They both were always helping others, Riley just gets all the credit. And they'd done a really good job on Smackle too, she looked great. He couldn't help but notice Riley's slight frown when he'd said so, or how it had contrasted Maya's slight smile. Was she pleased that they'd done a good job, or please that he'd bother Riley? How much was he reading into things? How much was too much?
Lucas was into Maya, he couldn't help it. He knew that there was something inside her, that she was more than she let on to being, and he wanted to be the one to bring her out of her shell. Selfish though it was, he wanted to be the one to "safe" her, even though everyone was always saying that Riley was going to save her.
On the other hand, who said anyone needed to save her? She was doing just fine on her own. She was happy most of the time, she had friends and family, and she had her art. Smackle was proof that she can use her powers for good and not evil, and she was smart too. Smarter than she let on at least. He knew she knew the answers to the questions in class, even though she never answered them, they all knew it, even the teachers. The only reason she was doing so poorly was because she didn't apply herself, as cliched as that sounds.
Maya's the type of person that didn't want to put herself out there, in case she got hurt. Her life motto was you can't be disappointed if you're expectations are low enough. Her own mother couldn't hurt her, the only one who has enough of her to break her heart is Riley, and he knew that's why they could never date. As long as Riley had a crush on him, Maya would never dream of going near him, for fear of losing her best friend. Same thing applied to Farkle, more or less. The girl would never let him near enough to her for them to have any sort of romantic relationship, because she knew if things went south she'd lose him as a friend.
Lucas knew he had to ride the fine line between being someone she could trust and someone she wouldn't mind losing. If they got too close too fast he'd scare her away, but if he kept his distance, or let her win their little "game", they could never have any relationship, friends or more. Not being in her life, and Riley's and Farkle's, 'cause they were his best friends in this crazy city, would be worse the worst thing that could happen.
He hoped that Smackle's arrival and new appearance would shake things up in the group. That Farkle would go for her and bring her into the group and then Maya would have someone new to get used to, and that Lucas would feel comfortable compared to her. But it didn't seem that it would last between the two of them, he wasn't necessarily ready for a relationship; he was a bit immature for his age, even though he was a total brainiac. He acted like he was so in love with Riley and Maya, but that was just a schoolboy crush, nothing would ever come of it. He and Riley would be perfect together though. They're both so child-like and innocent, not that he wasn't. He was nowhere near as jaded and world-weary as Maya, but he'd been through his share of stuff. He'd seen things back home and, well, he didn't like to dwell on the past, but he wasn't the same person he'd been back then, and while he wasn't on the same level as Maya in terms of messy family life and a rough back-story, he wasn't the naive little kid that his two other best friends were. Maybe that's why he felt so protective of them, he wanted to keep that part of them pure as long as possible, because once you lose that, you're done. Maya knew that, and so did he.