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It’d been Maya’s idea, initially.
Riley had been adamant against it, for obvious reasons, one being that she’s a self-proclaimed scaredy-cat when it comes to haunted houses.
But Maya has a way of being very convincing and Riley has a way of falling for it every time. So here they are: the two of them standing in line to their school’s spooktacular haunted house chaperoned by Mr. Matthews himself of course, waiting for the rest of their friends to make an appearance. Fake skeletons, cobwebs, and styrofoam tombstones decorate the outside, courtesy of the seniors who needed the volunteer hours for graduation. Part of the reason why Riley even agreed to come was because of the fact that it’s being held at their school, some place familiar, so it can’t be that scary, right?
“I can’t believe you, Maya.”
“You’re gonna have to let this go eventually, Riley, we’re already here," she says without looking up from her phone, hitting send on a rather inappropriate Snapchat video she took for Lucas.
“No, I mean this —“ she reaches over and tugs on Maya’s collar. “Slytherin? Really?”
“What’s wrong with Slytherins? Are you really discriminating right now? Doesn’t that go against everything you believe in, Wonder Woman?"
Riley rolls her eyes, waving her hands to get Farkle and Smackle’s attention from the other end of the hallway. Smackle’s in an astronaut costume and Farkle’s in all black with little colored Styrofoam balls velcro'd to his shirt. “I’m not discriminating, Maya. I’m just saying that you had to borrow that tie from Farkle because he’s a Slytherin and you’re a Gryffindor.”
Now it’s Maya’s turn to roll her eyes. “Technicalities.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being in the Gryffindor house, Maya.”
“I know that.” She turns to her best friend and grins mischievously. “But Slytherins have more fun.”
“Hey, guys, nice costumes,” Farkle greets once they meet them in line. They’re almost to the entrance of the house, and Maya shoots a quick text to Lucas to see about his and Zay’s current location.
Riley grins in response and swishes her little blue skirt around her thighs. “Thanks, you too. Maya made most of it for me.”
Instead of a returning text, Maya’s phone buzzes with an incoming call, his contact picture grinning up at her. “What’s your ETA, sheriff?”
“I’m not a sheriff, Maya.”
“If you’re not dressed as a law enforcement officer from the Old West, what are we even doing here?”
She can practically feel his eye roll through the receiver. “Where are you guys? Zay just parked—“
“Almost ran into a raccoon and totaled Lucas's car on the way over here because of you, Maya,” she hears Zay’s muffled voice interrupt. “So think about that the next time you decide to send him a video like that again.”
“Sorry about it, fellas.” She’s not really, and they know that. “We’re close to the front of the line and if you’re not here in the next 20 seconds, you’ll be waiting at the back with the rest of the losers and dweebs who didn’t make it on time.”
She feels Riley lean over her shoulder to get close to the phone. “I wouldn’t let her do that to you guys.”
“Well it’s a good thing you’re not in charge around here, honey.”
“Neither are you, Maya.”
Maya glares mildly at Smackle. “Everyone’s a critic, huh?”
“You’re only on time because you got ready at Riley’s place,” Farkle unhelpfully contributes. “Even then, Riley was sending me snaps of you still getting ready in the car—“
"At least I'm not the one who looks like a sixth grade science project."
Farkle and Smackle high-five, which only pisses Maya off even more.
"That wasn't a compliment!"
"They look cute, leave them alone," Riley warns with a steady grip on Maya's arm.
“What the fuck is this? All of you are ganging up on me now? Cool, thanks, guys, really.”
“No one’s ganging up on you, peaches—“
“Hey, speak for yourself,” Zay exclaims from the phone. "I'm gonna give you so much shit when I get there, you can bet your ass--"
“Hanging up on you now!” Maya shouts before ending the call. “You all are unbelievable.”
“What about any of that was out of the ordinary to you?” Smackle asks, as if she genuinely wants to know. Maya decides not to dignify that with a response.
She sees Charlie Gardner dressed as Mr. Darcy making his way over to them then, in a way no better described as anything other than elegant. He bows when he gets to them, like a Charlie-Gardner-as-Mr.Darcy would.
“Sir,” Maya curtsies in return, dragging out the word in an exaggerated accent.
“I would curtsy too, but this skirt is very short. Sorry, Charlie.”
Maya nudges Riley in the ribs. “Diana Prince doesn’t care about modesty."
“Yeah, well, I’m Riley Matthews, so I do."
Charlie doesn’t seem to mind though, he’s still staring at Riley like she hung the fucking moon. She’s Wonder Woman, it’s wouldn’t be that far off.
“You guys look great. But I didn’t really peg you as a Slytherin, Maya.”
“It’s just a costume, Jesus Christ, I’m not getting graded on accuracy."
“Mr. Matthews is here,” Farkle reminds her, pointing at the man in question directing students in and out of the haunted house. He catches the four of them watching him and waves, grinning like the doofus he is. “Don’t discount it.”
Riley peeks her head out of the line to watch for Lucas and Zay, her face brightening when she sees them and she steps out, dragging Maya with her. “Hey, I see the boys—oh my god wait, Maya, did you guys coordinate costumes?”
“Coordinate with who? What are you talking about?” Maya turns around to see Lucas and Zay jogging their way over, Lucas’s robe billowing behind him and Zay struggling to keep his mask on his face. “Are you fucking—“
“That’s really adorable,” Riley comments, unaware of Maya’s outrage. “I have to get a picture—look, you guys even have the broomsticks and everything. Backstory time! You and Lucas, known rivals on the field, are playing quidditch when suddenly—“
“Riles, I love you to death but I’m gonna need you to shut the fuck up.”
Lucas is grinning when he and Zay get to them. Maya greets Zay first. “T’challa. You look awesome as hell.” She turns to Lucas, eyes narrowed. “Voldemort.”
His grin widens. “Wrong character.” He pulls his yellow and black tie a little tighter. Maya refuses to acknowledge that she’s had fantasies about Lucas in a house robe before. That was admittedly a low point for her. "You've read the books. Don't you know you're not supposed to refer to him by name?"
She ignores him. “Oh, my bad. Glorified bumble-bee, is it, then?”
Lucas rolls his eyes good-naturedly.
“Oh, this is just too damn cute,” Zay exclaims. His voice sounds a little too delighted for Maya’s taste. “Riley, how cute is this? Was this planned? Please tell me it was planned.”
“Absolutely fucking not, you take that robe off right now, Lucas—“
His eyebrows shoot up, amused. “Right now? In public?” He starts to loosen his tie. “Alright, if you say so, babe—“
“That is so not what I meant and don’t call me babe.”
“A Slytherin and a Hufflepuff,” Charlie notes. “This could get interesting.”
“Except she’s not a Slytherin,” Lucas responds as he stares at Maya, who’s staring back. His smile widens. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Since when do you even like Harry Potter,” she mutters to him, once the humor of their matching costumes fades and the rest of them taper off into overlapping conversations.
He hesitates for a moment. “Since I saw your James and Lily doodles in your sketchbook.”
Maya blinks. “Really?”
He’s suddenly embarrassed; she knows this because he’s rubbing the back of his neck and shuffling his left foot. “Yeah. They were really good, and I was curious. Riley lent me the books and I read them all when I was in Texas that one week.”
She squints her eyes at him. "Should've known a nerd like you would like Harry Potter."
"Maya, we are both literally right now wearing Harry Potter costumes as we speak." She responds by poking her tongue out at him. He tugs on his tie before continuing. “Anyway, I thought I was Gryffindor for a while, but Hufflepuff is where I’m supposed to be.”
A smile threatens to pull at the corner of her mouth, but Maya does her best not to let it show how charmed she is. By a Hufflepuff. By Lucas. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. Those sixteen Buzzfeed quizzes I took to make sure told me so.”
That surprises a laugh out of her, and Lucas looks slightly pleased with himself.
She bites her lip before admitting, “I’ll kill you if you tell anyone I said so, but yellow looks good on you, Friar.”
He grins, goofy and stupid. “You think? Better than an Old Western cop?”
“Nothing beats seeing you with a cowboy hat and a gun, but this is a close second.”
“Noted.” Lucas transfers his weight from leg to the other, eyes hardly able to look directly at her. “You look good in red, by the way. Also in green, of course—pretty much every color in existence, but—mostly in red. That’s my point.”
She really likes him so, so much. Doesn’t even think twice when she says: “Hey, you wanna get outta here?”
“But Zay brought fake blood that he’s gonna scare Mr. Matthews with—“ and then he blinks once when he realizes her implication. Lucas opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water before he says, “You mean just me and you?”
“Yeah, huckleberry, just me and you.” Maya rolls up on her toes to get close to his face, casually brushes off imaginary lint from his shoulder. “You know, if it’s not too much trouble.”
He turns his head to the side so she can’t see him fighting a smile. “I don’t think I’d mind that too much.”
“Great. Let’s get moving, then, we’re wasting moonlight.”
“You sure you don’t mind, though? We’re the next ones in line, and this was your idea in the first place.”
She shrugs. “Nah, haunted houses don’t scare me anyway, and I already told Zay to document Riley’s reaction.”
He nods, understanding. “Alright then, lead the way. You wanna share the broom? I’ll let you sit at the front, but only this time.”
Maya rolls her eyes and turns back to the group. “Lucas and I are gonna step out for a bit—don’t give me that face, Babineaux.”
Zay grins, knowing. “What face? I don’t have a face.”
Riley’s eyes widen. “Maya, you cannot leave me here alone—there’s gonna be darkness in there—“
“It’s okay, Riles, just think of it as your No Man's Land. Piece of cake,” she nods her head at Charlie then. “Prince Charming will be here to protect you if you get scared.”
Riley looks skeptical, but once she sees Lucas growing antsy, throwing looks at Maya to telepathically tell her to hurry up, she agrees and grips onto Charlie’s bicep.
“But call me after so I know you’re still alive.”
“Maya, that is not even a little bit funny.”
She laughs and gives Riley a peck on the cheek before turning back to Lucas, bumping his shoulder with her own. “After you, Puff.”
They fall into step beside each other, their fingertips brushing as they walk out the school doors and into the parking lot. But they don’t get into Lucas’s car just yet. Maya leans against the hood of the truck, folding her arms across her chest as she watches him watch her.
“I don’t care what you say, I’d make a good Slytherin,” she tells him. “Just putting that out there for the world to know.”
Lucas rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “You would. But you’re not, so you might as well get used to it.”
She’s quiet for long moment before she makes her decision. “I am wearing red, you know.” He raises his eyebrows in question, so she grins like a Gryffindor dressed in Slytherin clothing would. “Underneath. Tell me, huckleberry, how do you feel about lace?”
He coughs with his fist over his mouth only to cover up the fact that he choked. “That’s, uh—that’s good to know.”
Maya reaches over to tug on his tie until he stumbles into her, his hands planted on the truck either side of her. They’re seniors now, both headed in different directions to different colleges. They don’t know where they’ll end up in two, three, or ten years. But they’re eighteen in this moment, young and free in this moment, and for now, it’s good enough to call it a forever something. “Maybe I can show you,” she says, and watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he tries to swallow.
“Is that…is that something you want?”
“I wouldn’t be offering if it wasn’t something I wanted,” she tells him, raising an eyebrow. She hooks her finger in the collar of his robe, pleased with the affect she has on him. They’ve been playing this game since they were fourteen, and there’s never going to be a winner, but right now it feels like a victory when Maya places a hand on his chest to feel his heart stutter.
“You’re gonna be the death of me, aren’t you?” he mumbles, his hands finally doing something useful and tangling into her hair.
“I’d love to be,” she answers and kisses him like she’s wanted to for too long now. There’s something about the fall air, and dressing up as something she’s not, that makes her a little braver than she usually is. Maya’s not thinking about the consequences of kissing Lucas, not thinking about anything other than how it feels as good as she’s imagined it would be. It doesn’t matter to her if nothing comes out of this after tonight; she’s got more important things to worry about when morning comes and the spell is broken.
But for now, she’ll take his mouth on hers and his hand on her hip and his whispers of how he’s wanted to do this ever since they were kids in his mom’s kitchen baking organic muffins for a school project.
When he’s too busy getting them into the backseat of his truck, she slips his yellow tie into the pocket of her robe as a souvenir. Maya'll walk into their English class the next morning, Riley alongside her relaying in detail how spooky the haunted house was, with the tie wrapped around her wrist, the only concrete evidence of what they shared between them. She'll place her elbow on his desk, like she usually does, and if he’s too busy staring at it, at the quiet smirk at the edge of her mouth like she knows what he's thinking about instead of paying attention to the lecture, then, well. That’s his own business.