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“Mys– Maya? Are you okay?”
Maya takes a breath, then lets it out. She asked Pearl to stop using the ‘Mystic’ title weeks ago, but habits are hard to break. Even if hearing the word makes her shoulders tense and her stomach curl up on itself, she isn’t going to take that out on her cousin – especially since it’s the first time Pearl has spoken since they left.
Earlier in the night, Maya had burst into her room and told her to pack her bags, that she’d be staying with Nick for a while. She’d done so without question, followed Maya without protest as they snuck down to the station, sat perfectly quiet for the length of the train ride and the Uber to Nick’s apartment that had come afterwards. Pearl is owed an explanation. Maya just doesn’t know what to say.
She carries Pearl’s suitcase up the stairs for her. It’s heavy, and the body of the case bangs against her knee right when she makes it to the top. The pain radiates through her leg, and she holds back a curse with no little effort. If she lets her frustration out now, she knows it’ll explode out of her, disproportionate and ugly. She doesn’t want that.
Instead, she sets the suitcase down and takes another deep breath, still not looking at Pearl. The words that finally come to her are insufficient, but they’re all she has. “I need to go.”
“Go where?” Pearl’s voice has matured, because she’s grown up. Still, the plaintive tone that accompanies her earnest question reminds Maya of the child she’d grown up with. Maya’s first instinct is to brush Pearl off, but she’s supposed to be better than that. She’s trying, at least.
“It’s a secret.” It’s the easiest answer, far simpler than admitting she doesn’t know yet. “So Nick’s gonna take care of you for a while.”
“I could take care of myself, Maya. I’m not a baby anymore.” Poor Pearly. She knows Maya is upset, and she can’t possibly know why.
They reach the door, and Maya finally turns to make eye contact with Pearl. It’s obvious she’s tired, from the slump of her shoulders to the drowsiness in her eyes. Still, her expression radiates worry. There’s a familiar little crinkle in her forehead. Maya reaches out to tuck an errant curl of her hair behind her ear, trying to summon up as much gentleness with herself as she can. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just going away for a bit, and I want you to have a fun time while I’m gone. Nick and Trucy are good at that, right?”
The unease on Pearl’s face doesn’t fade away entirely, but at least she’s frowning a little less. “Yes. They’re wonderful.”
“Darn straight.” With that, Maya raps loudly on the door, and it only takes a few moments before it swings open for them. “Hey, Nick!”
“Maya? Pearls!” Nick lights up when he sees Pearl, scooping her into a tight hug, but Maya notices the shock that played over his face when he first saw them. He looks like he always does these days — like he doesn’t own a mirror — only a little more slack-jawed than usual. Maybe she should’ve let him know about all this. Oops. “How are you?
Pearl responds with a giggle, beaming from ear to ear. “I’m well, Mr. Nick.”
“Nice to see you too,” Maya says, coming into the apartment proper with Pearl’s suitcase dragging behind her. It’s a mess in here, but Maya finds a corner to rest the case, kicking an errant slipper and an empty grocery bag out of the way to make space for it. “Pearly, Nick and I have to talk. Why don’t you go find Trucy?”
Nick has noticed the suitcase, she knows. Despite everything, his eyes are still sharp. There’s something like curiosity in his expression when Maya looks back up at him. Maybe even concern. Thankfully, he plays along without any need for prompting. “Oh, she’ll be thrilled to see you. Go on, she’s in her room.”
He juts his head towards the door, and Pearly runs off, knocking on it timidly before letting herself inside. Judging by Trucy’s shriek of excitement, Nick wasn’t lying.
“They’re cute.” She isn’t smiling about it, though. Maya turns to Nick. “I need a favor. Really bad.”
“I figured,” he replies, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pockets. He isn’t smiling either. Good. At least they’re on the same page. “What’s up?”
She wishes, for a moment, that they were young again. Her mind is quick to supply her with memories of this place as an office, of herself as a teen, of the boundless faith she’d once had in Nick’s ability to be there for her. But that was a long time ago. Now, her heart is guarded and wary in a way she doesn’t know how to fix. So she steels herself and speaks, without worrying about a response. “I need you to take care of Pearly for a while. I don’t know for how long,” Maya pats the suitcase, “but all her stuff is in here.”
Nick’s habitual blank expression melts into a frown. “Wait, what?”
“Her stuff’s in here,” Maya repeats more solidly. She wants to sound sure. She has to. “And my stuff is downstairs in an Uber. I’m catching a flight.”
“A flight?” He takes a step closer. “Where to?” He sounds like he cares, and more than anything, it’s frustrating. She hates how distant he’s looked lately. For him to choose now, of all times, to be a person again?
Maya crosses her arms. “I don’t know.”
Nick is staring at her. She stares back, chin lifted. When he speaks, his voice is softer. “Maya, this… this isn’t the best time. I have a lot going on-”
Something snaps. “This might be a surprise,” Maya finds herself saying, her nails digging into her arms, “but I also have a lot going on. Not that you would know, Phoenix.”
Nick flinches like she’s hit him. With muted surprise, she realizes it’s satisfying to see.
She continues without mercy, “I always say I’m fine, even if that’s not the truth, and I talk about stupid stuff that doesn’t matter, and that’s perfect for everyone, right?” She’s on a roll, the sort she didn’t want to get on with Pearl, but it’s different with Nick. He has to listen, even if no one else will. Especially when no one else will. “Cause you can just believe me. If you actually asked any questions, I might be honest and tell you I’m fucked up. Then you’d have to worry about me, and that would take effort.”
Maya comes to a stop as abruptly as she started. The anger that had boiled over, that had made her give voice to the worst of her thoughts, drops back down to a simmer. Nick’s eyes are wet, and she averts her gaze, looks at the floor between them. She didn’t intend on any of this. She doesn’t want to upset him, she just…
Well, she doesn’t know what she wants. That’s the problem.
“I should get to my Uber,” she mutters, turning back to the door. “Take care of Pearly, okay? Make sure she has the best time possible, or I’ll…” She wants to make some light-hearted threat, but nothing comes to mind.
“Yeah. Of course.” Nick clears his throat, which is good, because he sounds all choked up, and if he starts to actually cry, she will too. “How long…?”
Maya forces herself to shrug through the tension in her shoulders. He doesn’t get to ask her that. Or maybe he does — but she doesn’t feel like giving him an answer. “I don’t know. I’ll see you when I see you.”
Then she steps over the threshold and, without looking back, shuts the door behind her.
I can’t do this anymore.
I thought I could. I really tried. But the pressure, the expectations, the willing blindness to all the fucked up shit in this family – it’s all too much. I have dreams of my own. Questions I want answered. And Kurain is never going to give me the opportunity to figure anything out.
I have to leave. There’s no other option. Not if I want to be happy.
“Thanks for picking me up.”
It’s delayed, as far as thank yous go. But she’d gotten off her flight too hungry and exhausted to do the polite thing straight away. Now, with a cheap airport sandwich and half a bottle of water in her, she feels a little more human, more courteous.
“It wasn’t a bother,” Edgeworth replies, turning the music down. His car radio is tuned to some classical orchestra station, something Maya would poke fun at in literally any other situation. For now, she keeps staring out the window, crumpling the paper sandwich sleeve in her hands. “I had nothing more pressing to attend to.”
Edgeworth puts this casually, as if they both don’t know she’s thanking him for more than just the pickup. Like he hadn’t bought her the quickest plane ticket to London without question when she was already at the airport, like he hadn’t left work to come pick her up without her even asking. He’s here for some case he’s working on, or something. Maya hadn’t asked any further details, and he hadn’t volunteered. Now, he glances at her sidelong, probably taking in the way she’s slumped in the passenger seat. Yeah, a thank you might’ve been in order hours ago.
Maya slips her shoes off, wiggling her toes with a sigh. Edgeworth takes her in, then turns his gaze back to the road. After a couple moments, she announces, “I guess I’m running away.”
“Oh?” Edgeworth sounds amused. “You guess?”
She turns to him with a smirk. “Yeah. And I guess that’s why I called you.”
“One could say I am an expert on catching impromptu flights to Europe, yes.”
He isn’t the type to make jokes very often, so it always hits Maya harder when he does. She laughs, genuinely, and his lip twitches upward. The Edgeworth equivalent of a smile.
“Nick was way more surprised than I thought he’d be.” Her memory drifts to the day prior, before the flight, and she wrinkles her nose. “I did kind of yell at him, though. Gave him a piece of my mind.”
Edgeworth hums, drumming his fingers against the wheel. Compared to when they met, he’s a shockingly good listener now. But there’s always more energy about him, anxious or otherwise, when Phoenix enters the conversation. Maya doesn’t know if he’s strictly aware of it, but she’s definitely noticing it now.
“Wright… chooses his battles,” he says slowly. “At least, that is what I have noticed. I would not presume to know him better than you do.”
“I’ll hear you out,” says Maya, in a fit of generosity.
Edgeworth takes some time to think, then he continues: “Wright chooses his battles, and so he fights through them. He doesn’t understand why anyone would want to run away. I don’t think he considers it an option, unlike… well. You and I both.”
“Huh.”
It’s one hell of an explanation, but she’s not sure she disagrees. She also thinks it’s a pretty stupid mindset to have, but that isn’t out of left field for Nick. He can be a pretty stupid guy. Maya folds her legs up underneath her. The ache in her legs intensifies, but it’s a good hurt. “You know, you could probably call him Phoenix at this point.”
“No,” Edgeworth snaps, and his tone is suddenly tight, suddenly cold. He’s frowning. “I can’t.”
By now, Maya knows him well enough to understand that being a jackass is just one of his many shitty coping mechanisms. Not like she’s one to talk. Pushing further will just end up in a fight with the mood she’s in, so she decides not to let it offend her and takes the easy way out. “Did you see the news about the new Steel Samurai spinoff?”
It works, because of course it does. Edgeworth’s still pouting, sure, but at least it’s about something less important. “Their decision to reboot the show for a fourth time? Unfortunately.”
“It’s going to be so absolutely dogshit.” She gestures dramatically with both hands. “Like, are the writing team under some sort of contract where they don’t get paid if they finish a character arc?”
Edgeworth scoffs. “It is, without a doubt, the most idiotic direction they’ve taken the series thus far. At present, I only wish I had the capacity to be surprised by the showrunners’ incompetence.”
It’s always been funny, hearing Edgeworth use all his fancy lawyer speak to talk about a kid’s show. Somewhere along the way, that amusement became fondness too. Maya feels the weight on her chest lift, just a little.
“...We’re still gonna watch it together, right?”
“Naturally.”
Tonight was bad. Actually, the whole day was bad. For some reason, for the first time, I was craving the sort of dinner we’d have back in Kurain. Simple stuff. Rice, curry, vegetables. I’ve never felt that way before.
I don’t know if I miss it. If I miss them. There’s this pit in my stomach whenever I think about it, and I don’t what to do about it. So I try not to think about it too much.
But they’ll be okay. It’s not like I abandoned them. I’ll be back. Just… not now. Not yet.
“You piss me off.”
Ema Skye’s flat voice, paired with her deeply unimpressed glare, surprises a laugh out of Maya. “Is that how you answer the phone when your bestie calls you?
“For your information, yes. Shut up.” Her reply is clipped, thanks to the international signal, but Maya can make out the accusing finger Ema is pointing at the phone screen. “Why are you in Europe now, when I’m in the States? Can we please just stay in the same place at the same time, for once?”
“Will it make you feel better if I say it wasn’t planned?”
“Ugh. Maybe,” Ema grumbles, leaning back into her sofa and reaching off-screen for some Snackoos. “Depends. What are you doing there anyway?”
Maya sighs, propping her cheek up on her hand. She’s flopped over the bed in Edgeworth’s guest bedroom, still in her nightie even though it’s three in the afternoon. It’s not like she has anywhere to go, or anything to do. And yet, she still hasn’t thought of an answer to this very obvious question.
“Let’s just say I had to leave, alright? I can’t get into it yet.” And before Ema can ask anything else, she adds on, “and since we’re not together, you have to give me updates! Tell me about work. Anything interesting happening lately, Detective Skye?”
Loudly, predictably, Ema groans. “Man, I don’t want to think about it.”
“What happened?” Maya eagerly latches on to the new topic. “Is that German guy giving you trouble again? What’s his name, Charmin?”
At least that makes Ema laugh. “No, for once, it’s not Gavin. It’s Lana, actually.” She makes a sour face. “She’s coming into town, and she wants to stay with me, obviously. But, uh. I never told her I failed. You know. The forensics test.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. Kind of an issue.”
It’s a big thing to keep hidden away. Maya doesn’t know Lana too well, but from Ema’s stories and the little she does know, she seems like she could be uptight about this sort of thing. “Do you think she’ll be disappointed?”
“Worse,” Ema stresses. “She’ll pity me. She’ll look at me with- with her eyes and make me feel like a baby again.”
Maya doesn’t ask what Lana is supposed to look at Ema with, if not her eyes. Maya also doesn’t think about how she wouldn’t mind being a baby again, sometimes. She’s a listening ear right now — nothing more. “So what, you’re just not gonna tell her? Hope she doesn’t find out?”
Ema’s eyes light up, which immediately informs Maya she’s made some sort of mistake. “D’you think I could manage it?”
Maya can’t help but snort. “Oh, absolutely fucking not. That was a joke. Just tell her and get it over with. Like ripping off a bandaid.”
“You know, ripping off a bandaid doesn’t have to be painful or quick.” Ema’s voice suddenly shifts into the sort of dreaminess she only has when talking about science. “If you saturate the bandaid and the surrounding area with water, it weakens the adhesive enough that slowly peeling—”
“Ema,” Maya says loudly, cutting over her. “Talk to your sister. She likes you.” Her chest squeezes inexplicably. “Promise me right now you’ll do it before she comes.”
“No.” Maya narrows her eyes at the screen, and Ema throws up her free hand. “Okay, fine, fine! I will, I promise! Geez, woman. You’re scary.”
“Thank you,” Maya drawls, saccharine sweet.
“But! There’s a but! I’ll only do it if you answer a question.” Ema must pick up on some of the hesitation in her expression, because she rushes to add, “you don’t have to tell me why you’re over there, but just… are you okay?”
Maya lets out a long breath. “I’ll be okay. I promise. I just don’t know when.” It’s about as truthful as she can be.
“Fair enough. Do you have someone who’ll look out for you, at least?”
That makes her smirk. “Miles is taking care of me while I’m here, actually. You jealous?”
The jab hits its target – Ema slams her phone down onto the couch so the video feed goes black. She’s still perfectly audible as she moans, “seriously, genuinely, can you please, please shut up?”
Maya cackles, loud and gleeful. “Fine, fine, I’m moving on!” At this assurance, Ema picks her phone back up, and Maya continues. “Seriously. I’m good here. He, uh.” She shrugs. “He gets me in some ways, so that’s nice. And his sister is coming into town soon, so that’ll be fun.”
“You,” Ema says slowly, “are the only person in the entire world who would call Franziska von Karma fun.”
That’s probably true. Then again, most people know Franziska von Karma, the prosecutor. Over the past few years, Maya has wormed her way into meeting Franzi, the forthright woman with expensive tastes, a passion for horses, and legs for days. There’s a mutual attraction there that neither of them have acted on, but judging by the moments of coyness Franziska has allowed her to see, they’re both fully aware of it. In other words, she’s a totally welcome distraction at the moment.
“What can I say?” Maya lifts her chin, smirking a little. “She’s hot, and she blushes when I flirt with her. What’s not fun about that?”
“You know what? You got me there.”
I met Lana’s little sister today. Ema is so smart and so full of energy. She rambled on about all these forensics facts, and I watched Lana listen to her so intently, so closely. It was really sweet. Lana loves her so much, it hurts.
It’s times like this when I think about Maya. But I don’t know if we’ve ever had that sort of relationship. Is there anything Maya would talk to me about in that way, all excited and breathless?
I don’t know how to find out. I don’t even know how to try.
“Why are you here?”
She is blunt in a way no one else has been up till now. Maybe because she’s already had a glass and a half of wine, the alcohol settling red in her cheeks. Then again, she’s never been the type to mince her words.
Maya has had two glasses. Maybe that’s why, for the first time, she feels like answering. Then again, she’s always been easy when it comes to Franziska von Karma.
Edgeworth had left for bed already, citing some early morning meeting he had the next day, but the two of them are still out on the living room couch. It’s a three seater, and Maya’s been eyeing the empty cushion between them, wondering how Franziska would react if she scooted closer. But now she’s distracted by her own desire to finally talk about her feelings.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Maya sighs, curling up tighter into the corner of the couch. “Do you really want to know?”
“I would not have asked otherwise,” Franziska says, and Maya believes her. It’s been a long time since she last doubted Franzi’s intense ability to care.
“I was snooping around in one of our storage rooms back home. Well, I say snooping – I’m supposed to be the fucking Master, I have the right to poke around.”
There’s one last drop of wine left in Maya’s glass. She plays with it, swirling it around the walls of the glass. It gives her something to do with her hands, gives her something to look at that isn’t Franziska’s face. “So I was doing that, and I found this box. And it had a bunch of my sister’s things.”
Maya pauses. In the periphery of her vision, Franziska nods. “I see.”
“It was stuff from her office, I guess. Stuff I’d never seen before. A little succulent in a pot, and a ton of trial notes, and halfway through looking at it all, I found her diary.” Maya swallows. “And I read it.”
A part of her is surprised the world doesn’t end when she says it out loud. Franziska barely seems surprised. In a rush, Maya goes on, “I shouldn’t have, I know that. It was her diary. It was supposed to be her thoughts, it wasn’t anything that she wanted other people to know. But — but I couldn’t not read it, you know?”
“I understand.” Franziska’s voice is quiet, but sure. It sets still something trembling in the line of Maya’s shoulders.
“I still wish I hadn’t. Because it made me so— so angry, and so sad.” Maya takes a breath, trying to steady herself through the emotion welling up in her throat. “In, like, ninety percent of the entries, she’s just talking about her cool new life and how much she loves it. Being a lawyer, meeting other lawyers, doing lawyer shit. Nothing about Kurain. Nothing about me.”
The tears are falling now. She swipes an arm across her face, and Franziska looks a little uncomfortable, and Maya doesn’t care. It’s like a dam has broken loose, and she can’t stop until she gets it all out.
“And then, in the ten percent where she does mention me? It’s so obvious that she loved me, and she wanted to know me, and she didn’t know how to do that.” She takes a shuddering breath. “And a part of me is so angry, because she was ten years older than me, right? I was just a kid! She was the adult! She should’ve figured it out! But then, the other half realizes that I’m older now than she was then, and I don’t know anything.”
Franziska’s hand is in hers. Maya doesn’t know when she started clinging to it.
“I’m still making the same exact mistakes. I —” She nearly chokes on the next words, but they come out of her anyway, strangled, a truth she has tried desperately not to face. “I left without saying bye to Pearly. Fuck!”
Finally, Maya cries. Sobs, really, like a hungry baby, like an overdramatic teen. She weeps harder than she ever has in all her life. At some point, she’s aware of Franziska closing the distance between them, tentatively smoothing her hand over Maya’s back. And Maya just can’t stop crying.
It feels like hours have passed when the tears finally run out. Maya hiccups softly, then turns her face away. She pulls herself out of Franziska’s embrace. “Sorry. That was gross. I need to wash my face.”
On her way to the bathroom, she realizes that she was being embraced. That Franziska’s arms had been around her, holding her tight. Shit. This is probably the least hot Maya’s ever been in front of her, and she’d gotten a hug? One that she hadn’t even had the presence of mind to relish? Damnit.
When she returns, Franziska is on her side of the couch again. Both of their wine glasses have been refilled, and Maya’s cushion is open. She grimaces and settles back into her corner. “Sorry about—”
“Miles Edgeworth and I started prosecuting in the same year,” Franziska announces, then takes a long sip of her wine.
“Huh?”
“He was twenty. My papa took him to Los Angeles to begin prosecuting, and in the process, he left his cases to me. I was thirteen.”
She lays out the facts like the opening statement of a case. Maya stares at her. “That’s… that’s insane.”
That seems to amuse her. Franziska’s lips turn up at the corners. “With the benefit of hindsight, I agree with you. At the time, I didn’t think it unreasonable to prosecute, thanks to the manner in which I was raised. But I was deeply hurt that Miles Edgeworth would abandon me to fend for myself. I was very young, and he left me behind. For a long time, I despised him for it.”
“I never knew,” Maya murmurs, then takes a long drink from her wine glass. Franziska watches her – whether because it’s an inelegant gulp or because a drop escaped from the glass to drip down her neck, Maya can’t tell. She wipes the dampness away with her knuckles. “You guys just seem so close now. I never would’ve known.”
Franziska blinks. “Yes, well. He is very well-behaved now, wouldn’t you say? I presume that is because he knows he is already on his second chance, and I’m unlikely to give out a third.” By the time she’s finished, she’s smirking, looking so like her brother that Maya can’t help but laugh.
“Man, maybe that was the problem. Mia knew I would’ve forgiven her a million times over, so she wasn’t stressed about it.”
She tries to say it like a joke, but her heart feels like lead in her chest.
A few moments pass. Then Franziska slides closer to her for a second time. She reaches out and puts a delicate hand on Maya’s knee, giving it a little squeeze. “I do not think anyone aside from a fool would find fault with your loyalty. Or— or your love.”
Maya looks at Franziska’s hand, then into Franziska’s eyes. She looks earnest, and honest, and determined. She’s here right now, in a way that no one else is.
It doesn’t take long for Maya to make her choice. “Are you coming onto me?”
As expected, Franziska reddens furiously. Maya grabs the wrist resting on her knee, holds tight so Franziska can’t give in to her impulse to pull away. “That’s— I would never—”
“I’m asking because it’s working.” That stops Franziska in her tracks, and she blinks, at a rare loss for words. Maya lets out a long breath. “I have the rest of my life to be sad about Mia. I don’t want to be sad about her anymore tonight. I like you, and I think you like me too.”
“I do.” Franziska says it sharply, decisively. But there’s an insecure look about her, like she doesn’t know what to do now that it’s finally been said.
Maya takes pity on her. “You kiss me now. That’s what happens next.”
Franzi hesitates, then nods, determined in a way that’s frankly adorable. Maya lets her push up onto her knees and lean in, until they’re close enough that she can take Maya’s cheek in her hand.
The kiss is tentative, soft, sweet. Totally unlike Franziska as a person – totally like how Maya would expect Fran to treat her.
And for the first time in ages, against her lips, Maya really, truly smiles.
This trial is too sensitive. I’m gonna have to call Maya to hold this evidence for me.
I hate only calling when I need a favor. Once this trial is through, I’ll get her to come stay with me for the weekend. We’ll get burgers and ice cream. We’ll have a great time.
I know I’ll have to apologize to her eventually. But I don’t know how to. I feel so horrible for putting the Fey legacy on her shoulders, but not bad enough to take it back.
At least, for now, I can spend time with her and laugh with her. I’ll figure out how to tell her all of this one day.
When she finally reads the news about the trial over Edgeworth’s shoulder, it’s been a week. It takes her another day for her to work up the courage to pick up the phone. She slips out of the kitchen after entrusting Edgeworth to make popcorn, then dials Nick’s number.
He answers before the first ring. “Maya.”
“Hey. Uh—”
“I love you.” There’s an urgency in Nick’s voice that she hasn’t heard for years. “I love you, and I’m so sorry.”
“Nick.”
“You were right,” he says. She closes her eyes, imagining him pacing as he talks, like she’s seen him do so many times before. “It was easier to think you were okay. I pretended I was doing a good job so I didn’t have to face my own mistakes. But I should’ve checked in more, and I regret it so much, because I care about you so, so much.”
“Nick…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, too. For the past few years, and now, while you’ve been gone.” Nick’s voice is shaky. “I, uh. I told myself that I didn’t know if you’d want to hear from me. But I think I was just being a coward again.”
“That’s okay.” Maya wipes the tears from her eyes, because somehow, impossibly, she still has some left in her. “That’s okay. It’s really hard to be brave.” She clears her throat. “And, uh, I saw the news. About the trial, and the MASON thing. Seems like you did kinda have a lot going on.”
“Whatever,” Nick says, brushing it off. “You and Pearls are more important.”
“Don’t say that just to say it.” She winces. “Not that I don’t trust you, but..”
“No, that’s fair.” It’s silly, how quick they’re being to reassure each other. Maya giggles, and she can hear Nick’s smile as he talks. “Let me say instead: I want you and Pearls to be more important than that stuff. Because you should be. Because I love you guys.”
“Fine, fine,” she replies, dragging the words out like a brat. “I guess I love you too. Are you gonna let me tell you why I called, now?”
“Right. Sorry.” Now, Nick sounds sheepish, rather than strained.
“First of all, good job with the lawyer stuff. According to Edgeworth, whatever happened was pretty crazy, so good job making it through.” Maya takes a deep breath. “Second of all, I’ll probably be home in a week or two. I’ll let you know when I book my flight — or, you know. When it gets booked for me.”
Nick laughs, and she’s thankful to hear it. “Take as much time as you need. Truce and Pearls are having a blast. We’re doing good here.”
“Sounds good.” Maya nods, mostly to herself. “Well, I should get off the phone. I’m supposed to be watching the new Steel Samurai with Edgeworth and my girlfriend.”
“Oh?” Nick takes the bait instantly. His ears are probably perking up like a dog’s, Maya thinks, and stifles a laugh at the mental image. “Your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, I’m introducing the show to her. She’s right here, gimme a sec.” Maya walks into the living room, where Franziska is looking through the DVDs on the coffee table, and taps the button on her phone. Franzi raises a perfect eyebrow, and Maya grins. “Okay, you’re on speaker.”
“Nice to meet you, Maya’s girlfriend.”
Nick’s voice brings amusement to Franzi’s expression. She lifts her chin, one hand drifting to her hip. “Foolish fool. Have we not met before, Phoenix Wright?”
There’s no way to describe the noise Nick makes other than an ear-piercing squawk. Maya explodes into laughter, taking him off speaker and putting her phone to her ear. “You okay there, old man?”
“No, Maya, I almost had a heart attack,” Nick complains. “You and Franziska? Really?”
It’s a fair question. A fake relationship is definitely within the realm of Maya-Fey-approved pranks. This time, she’s happy to tell him it’s not a joke.
“Really.” She winks at Franziska, who instantly turns pink. “It’s kind of incredible.”
“Holy shit. Well.” Nick struggles a bit to find the words, but when he speaks, it’s certain. “If you’re happy, then I’m even happier.”
“Yeah.” Maya looks at Franziska, hears Edgeworth in the kitchen, thinks about Nick grinning on the phone with her, and smiles. “I think I’m getting there.”