Maura liked plans. She liked routine. She liked order.

It was typical for her parents to take off for weekend trips, but even when they did, she was never left on her own. Some form of help would be asked to stay with her, and while at seventeen she was starting to feel like she could handle being on her own, her mother had swiftly cut her off with something about the technical illegality of leaving a minor to her own devices.

This weekend, the Isles were in Cape Cod and Antonella, their cook, had agreed to step in for glorified babysitting. When a minor car accident kept her from being able to make it to the Isles' by dinnertime, she called to let Maura know she should make alternate food plans.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me. I'll just be tied up for a couple hours."

"But…there's no food in the house. Nothing suitable to make dinner with, anyway."

"I know," Antonella sighed, glancing at the bags of groceries that had spilled all over the floor of her car. "Just order something in."

"Order food?" Maura asked in a strangled voice. "But–"

"I promise it's not all terrible," Antonella said patiently. "Don't listen to your father's tirades about take-out."

"But that one time, he really did see a rat coming out of Miller's Del–"

"Then don't order from Miller's! Be a kid, Maura, order a pizza or something. You'll be fine. If I don't think I'll be there by nine, I'll call you."

Maura considered just skipping dinner all together, and even tried staving off hunger with a few stalks of celery, but it was no good. She had missed lunch already today after staying too late at the library and having to rush to make her ballet lesson. Her feet ached, she only had a driver's permit, and her stomach was starting to hurt every time it grumbled.

Be a kid. Be a normal kid. Order a pizza. Ugh.

She'd never had pizza before. It always looked really good in movies. It always looked fun in the pictures she saw from parties she'd been too shy to attend. Suddenly she found herself looking up various nearby pizza places, comparing their user ratings and comments and menus. What most appealed to her about the chains was that she could order online and avoid making a phone call, but by far all the best ratings were for a locally owned place called Gianna's.

In addition to the raves about the pizza, she also noticed several of the comments mentioned an exceptionally pretty delivery girl…

"Hello, you've reached Gianna's! What can we do for you!"

Maura's heartbeat was going so fast, she almost couldn't speak. "H-hi, I– um… I'm looking to, uh…"

"What's that? You'll have to–HEY, GIO! SHADDUP FOR A SECOND, WILL YA?!–hi, sorry, could you speak up a bit?"

Maura blushed but at least no one was there to point it out. Try though she did, she couldn't make herself speak any louder. "Sorry, I wanted to order a pizza."

"Well, you've called the right place!" the girl laughed. "What would you like?"

"A small garden pizza, please."

"Comin' right up! Pick-up, or delivery?"

Maura quickly slurred out her address and hung up. She breathed deeply a few times, waiting for her heart rate to go back to normal. That wasn't so bad! You did it, you survived and you're going to have pizza, what's more! Well done.

Getting up and giving presentations at school was a breeze. Performing ballet or fencing in a competition was likewise easy - a pleasure, even. But there was something about interpersonal interactions that Maura couldn't quite handle. She was an odd duck and had always known it, and after overhearing a couple of rude remarks about it in middle school, she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that she was better off on her own. The longer she spoke to someone, the more ample opportunity she was giving them to mock or criticize her. She told herself that small, seemingly insignificant steps - such as ordering a pizza, for example - were the roadblocks to a more confident future, and she would get a moment's high out of the possibility.

But then twenty minutes later the doorbell rang, and Maura was so anxious (and hungry) that it didn't matter how beautiful the delivery girl was - she grabbed the pizza with a mumbled "thank you" and closed the door with an inadvertent slam.

Which might've been fine, all things considered, if she hadn't forgotten to pay for it.

She'd barely reached the end of the hall when the doorbell rang again, and Maura was so flustered, she still didn't realize what the problem was. She glanced down at the box and gave it a small shake to assure herself that there was in fact something in it before she made her way back to the front door.

This time, she allowed herself the opportunity to really look at the girl, which was a mistake because she almost found herself having to gasp for breath. The girl was tall and lean, with a beautiful dimpled smile and dark brown eyes and dark curly hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore denim cutoffs and a Gianna's Pizza t-shirt that was a little too big for her, and her hat was twisted around backwards. A small name tag pinned near her shoulder identified her as Jane.

Maura was so taken that she neglected to notice she was also getting sized up.

Jane recovered first, in time to say, "I have something important to ask you."

"Y-yes?"

"Well, you're a first time customer. And it's customary–" (She winked at her own pun, which Maura completely failed to pick up on ) "–for us to ask how you found out about our little place."

"Oh. Well, I did some Internet research to find out which spot had the best pizza."

"Oh, are you new in town?"

"No, I've just never had a pizza before, so I didn't know which place would be the most reputable."

Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Never? How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Do you go to St. Dominic's?"

"No, Bromwell."

Ah, fancy private school chick, huh? Jane thought, glancing up to take in more of the house. That does make sense, I suppose.

"I see. Now, uh, I'm sure my boss would be curious to know - what exactly was it that got you to choose our fine establishment over some of the others?" With a slight smirk, she leaned against the doorframe, and Maura took a half-step back, not sure how to even begin handling so much casual attractiveness this close to her. "I gotta say, personally, I was kinda relieved when I saw the order was for 'Maura' and not some dude. Apparently a lot of Yelp users saw fit to say Gianna's was worth it because the delivery girl is a hottie, and it gets kinda tiring delivering to horndogs, y'know? Anyway - that's not why you chose us, is it?"

"It's–no, I…I read that the pizza was good, and it's–no, it had nothing to do with the, um, with the…"

Jane felt bad for putting the girl in a clearly uncomfortable position, and she straightened up. "Hey, well, you heard right. The pizza is pretty damn good, if I may say so myself. My aunt and uncle run the place."

"Oh! That's nice."

"Yeah, I'm cheap labor I guess," she laughed. "Anyway, uh… this is kind of awkward to bring up, but did you realize you're, um…"

She trailed off, not sure how best to remind this poor girl that she needed to pay, but Maura - who still didn't know she'd forgotten to do so - took a completely illogical leap and felt her heart lodge itself in her throat as she tried to speak.

"Oh! I'm sorry, um, Jane, I–I don't mean to have been staring, it's just that you're very good-looking, and I-I'm not accustomed to being in such close proximity with girls as attractive as you are, because everyone at Bromwell is stuffy and that's inherently unattractive, or else they try too hard and that's inherently unattractive, and I'm so sorry. I didn't realize I was staring, and… you're right," she said slowly, when she registered the surprise and confusion on Jane's face. "This is awkward."

"Were you just hitting on me?" Jane asked. "Like… is that what just happened?"

Maura clamped her lips shut, wondering how feasible it would be never to speak again.

"Because if I'm your peak for attractiveness, you really need to reconsider and look in a mirror. 'Cause you're the prettiest girl I think I've ever seen," she elaborated. And though Maura blushed a deeper red than before, she at least looked a little more relaxed somehow. "You also need to pay," Jane added with a slightly pained look.

"Oh! Oh gosh, I'm sorry! I can't believe I didn't–oh, I'm so sorry. Hang on." She scurried up the stairs to her room, leaving Jane hanging in the doorway. It took her several long moments to recall where she'd left her purse, and she was just undyingly grateful that she at least had enough cash to cover the cost. "Here," she said, coming back downstairs a little out of breath with the money in one hand and the pizza box in the other.

"Okay, lemme get you some change," Jane muttered.

"No, keep it. It's a tip."

"It's…a pretty hefty tip," Jane said.

"Yeah, go ahead. It's fine. Please. I'm sorry to have waylaid you and… for everything else."

"Don't apologize, please," Jane said. "Would you like to, um…"

Her impulse was to ask this girl on a date, which seemed like it should've been fine in light of Maura's frank assessment of Jane's looks and obvious attraction to her. But given that Maura had spent most of their time together impersonating a scared small animal, that didn't seem like it would be the next best step.

Slow down a little. Don't overwhelm her.

Jane pulled out the pen she'd had stuck behind her ear and scribbled down her number on the back of Maura's call number receipt. "Here, go ahead and text me if you want after you've had the pizza. Let me know if you like it." She took it as an encouraging sign that Maura seemed eager to get the number, not as if she were being burdened. "And hey. I hope you become a regular."

"Me too," Maura said before she could stop herself, and her heart stopped to see Jane's grin.