Maya lets Riley do her hair, her thoughts wandering. Getting into Cornell was a miracle, getting that funding…that was something she still couldn't believe. Her lips curl in a soft smile, and she catches Riley's eye in the mirror.
"What's up?" Riley asks, setting down the curling iron.
"I'm just happy." Maya murmurs. "I didn't think I could be." Her friend regards her with a mixture of affection and sadness. Maya would think it was pity, if she didn't know better. Riley gives her shoulder a squeeze, then resumes curling Maya's hair.
In twenty minutes they're both dressed and ready to go, and they hear a tap on the window. Cory and Topanga gave up on encouraging the group to use the front door years ago. Maya slides it open and Lucas, Farkle and Zay climb in.
They're practically matching in their dark wash jeans and button up-shirts. But then again, that's typically the uniform for high school parties.
As they straighten up, Farkle takes in the girls' outfits with a whistle.
"Hey." He grins wolfishly at both of them. "You guys look great."
Riley gives a little twirl, showing off the way her black high-waisted skirt hugs her body. She layered a sheer blue blouse over a plain white tank top, and tucked them both into the skirt. At 5'10 she decided not to wear heels, instead opting for her favorite gold flats.
Maya watches Lucas give Riley a once-over, and tells herself that's a good thing. They'll get back together and everything will go back to normal. But her heart kicks when he looks at her, and his eyes linger a lot longer than they did on Riley.
This party was an excuse to bust out her new leather skirt, the slick black material clinging to curves that make Riley's look modest. She's tucked one of her burnout Zeppelin tank tops into it, and as he watches her she slips into a pair of towering black heels. She's short enough that she still barely comes up to Lucas's nose.
They grab their jackets, burgundy leather for Maya and a white blazer for Riley, and climb through the window after the boys. Having years of practice, Maya gracefully maneuvers the grated fire escape in her heels, pausing only to glance at the four foot drop when they reach the bottom. It's never an issue in sneakers, but-
"I'll catch you." Lucas says, watching her hesitate. She shrugs, because refusing means she'll be up here all night.
"Don't drop me." She warns, a real threat in her voice. He just rolls his eyes as Riley jumps and lands beside him.
She makes the jump, and hits his arms softly. They're firm and warm, and he smells even better than usual. She's breathing him in, and it's making her dizzy.
"Put me down." She says breathlessly, smacking one of those irritatingly hard biceps. He does, though his hands linger at her waist. "Lets go." She takes off toward Blue, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. She can't deny that she's attracted to him, not anymore, but he's not hers to want.
Riley and the boys pile into the backseat before Maya gets a say, leaving her to hop reluctantly into the passenger side. The party isn't too far, about ten minutes of Riley singing and Farkle talking about MIT and Zay complaining about how much he misses his girlfriend, Vanessa. Maya sits in silence, ignoring the questioning looks Lucas throws her every few minutes.
The party, apparently, is in full swing when they arrive. Jenny set up a mini DJ station, complete with a microphone and turntable, and bodies all around them are pulsing to the music.
"Huh." Maya says, looking around. It's barely nine thirty, and she can't imagine this party will go on for more than an hour or two before burning itself out. The room smells like beer and sweat and weed, and the couches are covered in couples stuck together at the mouth. Riley heads off to find a sealed can of Coke somewhere, Farkle right behind her.
Someone's phone rings and then Zay disappears, mumbling something about Vanessa.
And just like that Maya and Lucas are alone. He nudges her with his shoulder, shaking his head when she jumps.
"We're supposed to be celebrating." He reminds her. Maya sighs, heading for the keg in front of them.
"Alright." She agrees, filling up a cup for each of them. He hesitates.
"Just one, Huckleberry. You'll be fine to drive." She knows him, knows he'll refuse if he really doesn't want it. He takes the cup, raising it in a toast.
"To Cornell." He says, and Maya's heart thuds at the meaning of it. Cornell. Together. She taps his cup with hers, then downs half of it. Something about him is making her nervous tonight. It might be the way he's standing so close to her, because of the loud music, or maybe it's the fact that she can still feel the hard muscles of his chest against her back from where he caught her. Or maybe it's just that Maya has always has a bad habit of wanting things she can't have. After finishing her beer in two gulps, she refills.
"Cornell." She declares, lips twitching at the look on Lucas' face.
"Um." He says, watching her drink. "Should you slow down?"
She makes a face.
"I'll pace myself, don't worry Dad."
His expression changes from concern to annoyance.
"Don't call me Dad." He mutters. "That's weird."
"Is Daddy better?" She asks, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Someone bumps into her, and Maya shuffles away from the Keg. Lucas glowers.
"No. That's worse."
She shrugs, sighing.
"Fine, I'll stick with the classics. Come on, Sunshine, lets go find our girl." She heads off into the crowd, eyes scanning for Riley. She knows Lucas is following her, there's an electric charge at her back that's never really there for any other reason. She frowns as they make their way through the house, hitting a dead end at a linen closet. Maya turns around, hands on her hips.
"Where are they?" Lucas asks, face mirroring hers.
"I don't know." She has yet to get even a buzz going, and wandering around the house looking for their friends isn't exactly helping. She digs out her phone, firing off a message to the others. "But I'm all out of beer." Waving her empty cup at him, Maya marches back toward the living room, and the keg. Just as they pass one of the bedrooms, a hand snakes out to catch her wrist.
To her surprise, it doesn't belong to Lucas.
"Maya?" A boy with a mop of dark curly hair squints down at her. She smiles politely.
"Ty. Hi." She says, nodding. Ty is clearly drunk, still steady on his feet, but his smile is a little too wide, and a glowing flush has spread across his face. Lucas steps forward, now hovering beside her instead of behind her.
"Hi." Lucas greets the other boy, looking curious. Maya realizes Lucas is probably wondering why he doesn't recognize him.
"This is Ty." Maya says, introducing them. "Ty…goes to NYU. Ty this is Lucas." They shake hands.
"How do you two know each other?" Lucas asks, glancing between them. Maya wonders exactly how much of the truth she's prepared to tell him.
"We met at a party." She says vaguely. Ty laughs.
"Well, we met at a bar. It just happened to also be a party." He says, chuckling. "The guys didn't know how old she was. Not that it mattered, I guess." He winks. Lucas just looks more confused, and a little annoyed. The last thing Maya wants is all this dredged up again, with Kermit coming back into her life she has enough ghosts on her hands.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, hoping to change the subject. It's not usual for NYU students to hang out at high school parties, the ones on campus are legendary, and far superior. She knows that from experience. Ty blinks.
"Oh, my friend Allie is babysitting her sister. Jenny I think? We're supervising the party." He puts air quotes around the word supervising. Maya smirks.
"That sounds like the worst possible plan her parents could have come up with." She notes. He just shrugs.
"Hey, Josh is here." Ty says suddenly, raising his eyebrows. "If you want to say Hi."
Beside her, Lucas stiffens.
"Maybe later." Maya says. She smiles, but it's forced, and even Ty can see it.
"Of course." He looks uncomfortable. "I'll let you kids get back to the party. Keep in touch, Hart. The gang misses you." He pulls her in for a sloppy hug, and the smell of clove cigarettes hits her like a wave of nostalgia.
"I miss you guys too." She says, pulling away. Ty raises his bottle of Keith's at Lucas.
"Nice to meet you, Lucas." Lucas nods.
"You too." And then he's dragging her back down the hallway. Maya's quiet as they head into the kitchen, and she walks right past the keg.
"What are you doing?" Lucas asks, as she digs in her purse. She ignores him, sifting through the mess of crumpled receipts and candy wrappers until she finds what she's looking for.
"Looking for this." She says, holding up the flask with a grin. He eyes it suspiciously.
"Well." He mutters. "You came prepared."
She unscrews the top and takes a long swig. It burns as it goes down, but it helps to distract her from the flood of memories that seeing Ty has apparently let loose. She sits down at one of the dining room chairs, and Lucas does the same, carefully avoiding the guy sleeping with his head on the table across from them.
It's not quiet, by any means. The music is loud, and so are the people, and there's something about the low lighting that makes it all feel muffled. She checks her phone.
I think Zay's outside Skyping V. Me and Farkle are playing Wii in the basement. Where are you?
And then another text, four minutes after the first.
My uncle's here.
Maya reads that one with a sigh. The warning was too little too late, but she loves Riley for trying.
"They're in the basement." Maya tells Lucas, holding up her phone. He nods. She doesn't really feel like playing Wii, and it sounds like Josh is down there anyways, so she makes no move to stand.
"So who was that guy?" Lucas asks, cocking his head. She sighs.
"Friend of Josh's." She mumbles. With the exception of Riley, her friends know next to nothing about her relationship with Josh. It was short, and messy. At first she didn't tell anyone to protect him, and then it became something she didn't want to talk about at all. Maya met a girl in one of the art classes she was taking at a local college during the summer, a girl who happened to be friend of Josh's. Hanging out with that group had turned miraculously into hanging out with Josh, and eventually they both stopped pretending they could just be friends.
But he was still three years older than her, and she had been sixteen when it started, and that had it's complications.
Lucas is looking at her now, as though he's trying to figure it all out. He knows she isn't telling him something.
"I met Ty when Josh took me to a New Year's Eve party at NYU." She says, realizing he probably isn't going to let this go. His eyebrows fly up.
"When Josh took you to a New Year's Eve party? I didn't know you guys hung out." He sounds a little hurt that she didn't tell him.
"Well, that's because I didn't tell anyone. Anyways, I haven't seen him in a while, so." She tries to send the message that this topic is closed for discussion, but he presses on.
"How did you get into a bar?" He wonders. Maya rolls her eyes.
"I have a fake ID. And Josh knows the bouncer there. Look, we dated for a couple of months, okay? And it didn't end great. So I don't really feel like talking about this." She folds her arms across her chest and stares at Yogi who's standing in the corner, struggling to turn on the blender. Lucas doesn't say anything, and after a while she looks over at him. Something about the thin line of his mouth tips her off to his mood.
"Now, what?"
"Just to clarify," he says quietly, "you were dating Josh. Not the bouncer?" She snorts.
"The bouncer? Katrina?"
His lips twitch, but he doesn't smile.
"Yeah." Maya sighs. "Josh."
That earns her a nod, Lucas leaning back in his seat, never taking his eyes off her.
"Isn't that…" He scrunches up his face, looking for a word. "Illegal?"
Maya almost spits out her mouthful of rum.
"No." She sputters. "It's not illegal. God." But her face flames anyways, because she doubts he's the only one to wonder that. There's a reason they hid their relationship from their friends, their families.
"When?" Lucas asks.
"What is this, twenty questions?" She takes another big swig from her flask, that familiar fuzzy feeling finally making an appearance. "I guess it started around Thanksgiving. And it was over by Valentine's Day, so." She shrugs like it doesn't matter. But she can still remember every word, the way he looked when he told her he didn't want a relationship he had to hide. That it wasn't fair to either of them. I want better for you, he'd said. I just want you, had been her reply. But in the end he was right and she knew that.
Standing, she blinks as the full effect of the alcohol hits her. There's something about standing up that always makes it explicitly clear how drunk you are. She'd rate herself at about a 3 on a scale of buzzed to blackout.
"Let's go find Riley." She says, pushing her way toward the stairs. Lucas catches her by the arm.
"Maya…" There's conflict on his face, and he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. She waits, and when he doesn't speak, she turns on her heel. Navigating the stairs is a little more difficult in her current state, but she's had a lot of practice. Some guy she doesn't know holds out his hand when she wobbles.
"Need help?" He asks, grinning.
"No." She pushes past him, making it about two or three steps before he's suddenly in front of her again.
"You sure? You've got good legs, girl. I wouldn't want you to fall on them." He's persistent, and she doesn't recognize him, so she can only assume he came with Ty's group. He would be cute, if he wasn't in her way, so she just shakes her head and keeps walking. For the first time all night, Lucas isn't behind her, but her newfound "friend" follows her as she hits the bottom of the stairs and looks around for Riley.
"Are there people playing Wii down here?" She asks him, because he might as well make himself useful if he's going to blatantly check her out like this. He looks surprised at having been spoken to, but nods.
"Yeah." He points to a closed door halfway down the hallway. When she tries to move that way, he blocks her path. Upstairs, there were people everywhere, they were practically packed shoulder to shoulder. But it's quieter down here, and she feels a twinge of annoyance at Lucas for not being around.
"Can I help you?" She asks pointedly. He smells like vodka and weed, blonde hair styled neatly into a swoop. He's cute. Still, she's not interested.
"I'm Aiden. What's your name? You look familiar." He mutters, squinting at her. His arms come up on either side of her, caging her against the wall. She tries to slip under them, but he's pinning her too tightly.
"I'm a friend of-"
But then he's gone, shoved away, and Maya takes a deep breath that doesn't smell like alcohol. She looks up, expecting to see Lucas, but instead she finds a pair of dark brown eyes and black hair.
"Josh." She breathes. They haven't spoken since the break up. She needed to move on, and she suspects he was doing the same. Aiden is standing behind him, rubbing his arm where Josh grabbed it.
"Hey." Josh says, eyes running over her. Whether he's checking her out, or just checking for injuries, she feels a pang of sadness.
"You know her?" Aiden asks, shaking his head. "I thought she looked familiar." Josh turns to stare at him.
"Yeah? That why you were bothering her?" There's a definite edge to his voice, and it seems to catch Aiden by surprise.
"Hey man, I wasn't-"
Just then someone comes jogging down the stairs, stopping when they catch sight of Maya standing next to Josh. Lucas frowns, eyes flitting over to where Aiden stands.
"What's going on?" He asks, staring at where Josh's hand sits on Maya's shoulder. She sighs.
"Nothing. Where have you been?"
"I was talking to Zay. Hey." Lucas says, nodding at Josh. The older boy gives a little wave.
"Friar." He says, his hand still on her shoulder. The energy in the room is getting weird. Maya looks at Josh.
"Is Riley down here?" She wants to get away from him, because his touch is still too familiar, and it's confusing her in a way she doesn't like at all.
"Yeah. She's in there." He points out the same room Aiden did. Then he leans in a little closer. "Are you okay?"
She shivers as his breath hits her neck.
"Yeah. Thank you." And then she steps away, needing some distance. His hand falls to his side.
"Okay, well I'm going to get a drink. I'll…see you." He says quietly. Maya nods, then watches him disappear up the stairs, Aiden right behind him.