Work Text:
This time, it’ll be different.
*
“I'm Maya,” she introduces herself as she lugs in her suitcases, dumping them on the couch. She looks around quickly, bites her lip as she mentally notes her thoughts on the place and what she could potentially change. Conclusion: everything. “Your new roommate.”
She can hear Riley’s voice in the back of her head, is this really such a good idea, Maya? in that tone of hers which indicates she thinks quite the opposite. But she shakes her head, imagines the little Riley that lives in there flying out the window.
“Yeah, I know your name,” he says, watching her carefully, seeing how comfortable she is in his space already. He picks up her boots where she kicked them off earlier and places them by the front door, giving her a pointed look. “How long you staying again?”
“Just till I'm up on my feet again,” she reassures him brightly. Wouldn't have to get back up on your feet if you had just used your head in the first place. She groans internally at Mr. Matthews’ voice in her mind this time, cursing the Matthews’ way of worming themselves into every aspect of her life. “Don't worry, I'll be the best gosh darn roommate you've ever had, Huckleberry. Won't even notice I'm here.”
“Okay, first of all,” he says, “I don't talk like that. Like at all. And my name is Lucas, which I'm sure you already know since Zay clearly can’t keep his mouth shut. And three, please, for the love of all things holy, if you have a pet rat or a phobia of taking baths or whatever, let me know right now so I can tell you that you absolutely need to find another place to stay.”
Maya grins and flops down on the couch, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. “I'm sensing weird ex-roommate stories; this is gonna be fun , I’ve got a couple of my own to share. One time, Riley thought it would be a good idea to make her own cheese in our old dorm and – “
“Bup bup bup!” he interrupts, miming zipping his mouth shut. Maya blanches. Someone’s clearly not in a stellar mood this evening. “There are rules.”
She rolls her eyes. “Jesus, not you too. So many rules, too little time to break them all.”
“Rule number one: No feet on the coffee table,” he says and shoves them off, ignoring her pout, pointing an accusatory finger at her.
“Is that it?” she asks, raising her eyebrows, clasping her hands behind her head.
“There's a printed bulleted list on your bed I made for you to look over,” he tells her. She didn't realize before but he was half-dressed when she knocked on his door, plaid shirt partially buttoned, hair dripping wet. He buttons the last three of them now, and ruffles his hair with his fingers.
“A bulleted list, of course,” she mutters with another eye roll. She catches a cowboy hat hanging on a hook on the door, is about to make fun of him for it when he picks it up and places it on his head. “So that's not just tacky decoration?”
He flashes her a grin and it surprises her. “Not today. Square dancing party at the bar across the street.”
She's not entirely sure if he's joking or not, but just hearing that sentence makes her want to shoot herself in the foot. She makes a gesture slicing her neck open and he just tips the brim of his hat to her.
“I'll see you later,” he says as he slips into his cowboy boots. God, he cannot get any lamer. She makes a note to herself to ask Zay how in god’s name he ever became friends with this certified poster boy for country living. “Read the list, Maya!”
She sticks her tongue out and makes a face as the front door slams shut. It's a good thing, at least, that she can be alone for a few hours, give or take, to collect her bearings without the presence of a stranger. Maya takes her things, her entire life fitting into two suitcases and a small bag for necessities, and begins to walk to her room before she realizes that he didn't even show her where that is.
“Goddamn cowboy,” she mutters angrily, opening the first door she sees. This looks like it’s going to be a process of elimination. It isn't her room, she guesses, unless he sets up every room in the apartment like a Texas sports bar. She quickly shuts the bedroom door, and after accidentally opening the one to the bathroom, she finally finds hers.
It's simple, white-walled, the absolute bare minimal a room can be. She likes it. She's not exactly planning on staying too long anyway so there's really no point in trying to personalize it. Maya dumps her stuff on the floor and collapses on the bed, hears a crinkling sound coming from underneath her. She doesn't bother moving, just sticks her hand under and feels her way to the source, pulling out a piece of paper.
Rules for Your Stay at the Friar-Gardner Residence
She rolls her eyes. How fucking pretentious. Maya crumples the list without even bothering to read it, throws it in the wastebasket across the room effortlessly.
She had been fine before, with Missy in their little apartment, albeit a bit too far from campus, but it had been fine. Until it wasn't. Until they got into another fight – sometimes about petty shit, sometimes about serious shit – and Missy had broken up with her and kicked her out, for good this time. It's not like Maya could have actually done anything about it anyway considering the apartment is technically Missy’s to begin with, so that left her virtually homeless.
She stayed with Riley for a couple weeks while one of her roommates was on vacation, and then at Zay’s, which only lasted for a couple days because they were far too similar that being roommates just didn't work out for either of them if they wanted to stay friends. But he did tell her about one of his oldest friends who lived in an area she could afford, who was in need of someone to help pay the last third of the rent. So this is where she is now, this is what's become of her life.
After taking a much needed forty-five minute nap, she makes her way into the kitchen to get herself a snack. Lucas would probably mind that she's using his bread and peanut butter but the fact of the matter is that she's got literally nothing to her name at the moment, using every last penny she had to pay for this month’s rent, except for a tic tac in her pocket and a pack of sweet tarts she stole from Zay’s secret not-so-secret candy stash right before she left.
Just as she's about to bite into the sandwich, she hears the front door unlock, and she panics for a second because Lucas shouldn't be home yet and what if it's a burglar –
It was only a matter of time before Maya’s stupidity kicks in once again because a) a burglar wouldn't be opening the door with a key because he wouldn't have a key and b) there's a third roommate she completely forgot about. She quickly stuffs the entire sandwich into her mouth, chews until her jaw aches, and listens as the footsteps approach her.
She pivots on her heel, wipes the peanut butter off her mouth with the back of her hand, and faces the newcomer. She can't remember his name – Chuck, or something.
“Hey, I'm Charlie,” he says, with a half-grin. “You must be Maya; Lucas told me that you'd be coming and not to freak out if I find a random cute girl just sitting in our apartment.”
“Lucas called me cute?” She expected Lucas to call her a bunch of things, but cute was definitely not one of them. Obnoxious, maybe, and unsightly. But not cute.
“No, sorry,” he replies with a chuckle, running a hand through his hair, the other in his pocket. “He said you're probably gonna give him migraines and mess up his entire life. But that seemed a little harsh.”
Maya nods, a smile stretching across her face. “That's way better than cute. You shoulda just led with that.”
Charlie smiles in return, a little confused but doesn't press her for any information; he just moves around her in the kitchen to get to the beer in the fridge. He takes out two, hands one to her and she accepts it, lifts the corner of her mouth in gratitude.
“I'm Maya,” she says and follows him to the couch where he sits, turning the television on and flipping through the channels. She folds her legs on the couch, the beer bottle cold on her knee where it rests. There's something about him that makes Maya like him instantly.
“It's nice to meet you,” he says sincerely. “Zay talks about you a lot, according to Lucas. Says you're pretty awesome and can drink all three of us under the table.”
“That's probably true,” she responds, taking a pull from the bottle. Her freshman year of college was arguably the best and worst time of her life, at least the parts she can remember through the alcohol haze. She's built up a pretty high tolerance for the stuff.
“It made Lucas a little jealous, how much Zay kept talking about you,” Charlie tells her, amused. “You even irritated him before he even met you. That takes skill.”
“You know what, Charlie? That makes me really happy. It's so good to know that I can get under his skin indirectly like that. Gives me so much power,” says Maya with a contented grin on her face. If she's going to be living with a bunch of presumably straight guys she at least wants to have a little fun. Although she likes Charlie, so she might leave him out of it, but that just means she can focus all her energy on ruining Lucas’ life one migraine at a time.
“He even pulled the ‘well, if you like her so much why don't you just live with her and be her best friend’ card like the child that he is.” He shakes his head, but Maya doesn't miss the fond smile on his face as he lifts the bottle to his mouth.
Maya makes him tell her all the embarrassing Lucas stories he has accumulated while living with him, and there are many, many , ones that she will be going to use as blackmail. And then she tells him her stories, some about Missy, but mostly about Riley. Because Riley’s the most interesting thing about her.
She's showing Charlie pictures of the time she and Riley went to the Grand Canyon when the door swings open. Lucas stands on the other side, swaying slightly on his feet, a goofy smile on his face.
“You didn't drive, did you?” Charlie asks as he gets up from the couch, setting his beer on the coffee table, so he can sit Lucas down on the love seat across from where Maya’s sitting.
“’Course not,” he answers, his words a bit slurred, “Jess called a cab for me. I like Jess. Jess is nice. She said my accent was cute.”
“Mhm,” Charlie answers noncommittally, taking Lucas’ hat and placing it back on the hook. He helps Lucas with his boots, grunting slightly when it gets stuck at the ankles, and then puts them by the front door with all the other shoes.
“Do you think my accent is cute, Charlie?” he asks, slumping into the chair, eyelids dropping. Maya glances at the clock above the television to see that it's just past twelve.
“Sure, Lucas,” he mumbles.
“H-how ababout you?” he asks and Maya realizes he's talking to her. “What do you think of my accent?”
“I think you sound like you were raised by cows. Did you know that you don't have to churn butter anymore? There's this great place called the grocery store where you can buy it in bulk! And I'm gonna have to see some kind of official documentation confirming that you don't have a horse fetish or else I'm very sorry, but I'm gonna have to ask you to find somewhere else to sleep.”
Lucas blinks, looks from Maya to Charlie. “Can we trade her out for someone nicer?”
*
Maya learns quickly that living with Lucas is a lot easier when he isn't around. It isn't that she hates him, she actually thinks he's pretty okay when he's not doing anything embarrassing, which is more often than not unfortunately. But he does drive her absolutely crazy when he comes into her room at six am to whine about the dishes not being done, or her clothes on the living room floor, or him tripping over his own feet because she had turned off every single light in the apartment.
And, okay, maybe it's perfectly reasonable since it is his apartment and she is leaving her shit everywhere. But she did just get her heart broken, or what was left of it, not even two months ago, so how does he expect her to be a fully functioning member of society yet, let alone remember to pick up a sock from the laundry room floor every once in a while.
“Did you even read the list, Maya?” he'd shriek as he'd slap a hand on the edge of her bed. She'd hide under the blankets when she'd smell his cologne, too much like cedar wood and pine, and wait it out until he left to go to his first class of the day. But he had a huge break in between his third and his fourth so he'd come right back home and preach to her again while in between brushing his teeth and tying his shoes.
“Lucas, I really don't need this from you right now, okay?” she interrupts him one day, finally deciding to say something. She's never been good at keeping quiet. “Just give me a little bit more time and I'll be better. I promise.”
He pauses his speech on cleanliness and hygiene to look at her, to really look at her, hiding underneath her blanket like a small child, just her hair and a little bit of her forehead peeking out. Sighing, he sits down on the edge of her bed. “Look, I don't know what you're going through and I don't expect you to tell me, but I am your roommate. We don't necessarily have to be friends, but I want you to know that you can trust me.”
Maya nods, just wants him to leave so she can wallow in all of the mistakes she's made up until this point for a little bit longer before she picks herself back up again, like she always does. She just needs some time to be dramatic, and then she'll be fine.
“Okay,” he responds, and then he gets up, hesitates by her door before saying, “You know, people say I'm a really good listener. If you ever need to talk.”
“I'm good,” she says, “but thanks.”
He gives her a small smile, raps his knuckles on her door and points at her, raising his eyebrows. “I made copies of the list since I assume you threw it away before reading it. I'll make it easier for you and slide them under your door before I leave.”
Maya groans loudly and tosses a pillow at him as hard as she can while he quickly closes her bedroom door. “Shut the fuck up about the goddamn list!”
She hears his laugh down the hall.
*
Every Saturday night Lucas goes to the bar for his weekly dose of Texas in New York, so Charlie and Maya stay in to drink all the beer and marathon shows on Netflix until just a little bit after twelve, which is when Lucas stumbles in home and they help him get to bed. It's a good system, Maya likes this system, likes that it's an expected routine that she's become a part of.
“So what's your deal again?” Charlie asks as the next episode of It’s Always Sunny begins to play. She feels a certain kind of comfort with Charlie, like maybe they understand each other a little bit better than anybody else. He’ll most likely never reach Riley’s level, but he's the best she's got when she's not around. “Lucas mentioned that you desperately needed a place to stay but he never told me why.”
“That's because he doesn't know why,” replies Maya. “It's not like it's a big secret or anything, just something I don't really like getting into.”
“Too sad?”
“Too stupid.”
He laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Don't worry; we all have our share of stupid mistakes.”
She leans her head against the couch, closing her eyes. “Everyone kept telling me not to do it, that I was too young. And I should've goddamn listened to them, but I thought I loved her. So I picked up my entire life and moved in with her. Only to figure out that we were absolutely no good for each other and I needed to find a new place to stay before I ended up becoming a statistic.”
“And now you're here.”
“Now I'm here,” she agrees. “I think this may be the smartest decision I've ever made. There's no way I can possibly screw this up, right? I mean, we're good, all three of us, right? Lucas can be overbearing and so goddamn annoying, and I know I get under his skin sometimes, but – “
“Don't worry,” he reassures her easily. “We like you here. You're good.”
She rolls her neck to look at him, smiles in response. It doesn't feel like home yet, but she thinks she's getting there.
Lucas comes home later than usual one Saturday night, the hand on the clock almost hitting the 2:30 mark. She sent Charlie to bed already, promising that she'd take care of Lucas when he came home, since he had to be up early the next morning to visit his sisters a couple hours away.
Maya was almost starting to fall asleep on the couch when she hears the door unlock, giggles spilling through to the living room. She sits up, rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands and blinks up to see Lucas and – a girl.
She has her arms around his neck and he has his around her waist. Maya notices instantly, even in the dark, that she is very pretty, long tanned legs and chestnut hair that reaches down to her tiny waist. Her denim skirt is short, and one of Lucas’ hands reaches down to drag up the back of her thigh.
Maya's seen enough so she lies back down and pretends to be asleep. She hears shuffling, hears her laugh as she swipes his shirt off, his voice whispering things she can't hear, doesn't think she wants to. Maya’s been in the same vicinity with someone when they're having sex with someone else – college dorms have the misfortune of having two beds in one room – so she hopes to the gods she doesn't believe in that he moves them to his bedroom.
“Right here, Lucas,” she tells him in a voice that's trying too hard to be sultry. Maya rolls her eyes. “Right up against the wall.”
Lucas, if telepathy really works and you can hear me, she thinks, please please please don't fuck this girl against the wall where I can hear you.
Maya cringes when she hears a soft moan and rolls her body to face the back of the couch. The sound of the remote falling to the floor silences the noises in the room. Maya doesn't breathe.
“What was that?” the girl asks frantically. There's shuffling again, but it sounds like someone hurriedly putting clothes back on and Maya silently praises, promises to god that she'll go to church with Lucas once a month now. Okay, that's a lie. Once a year. On Christmas. Maybe.
“I don't know,” replies Lucas. “Charlie? That you?” He flips the lights on, mutters a curse. “She must've fallen asleep while waiting up for me.”
“Who is that?” the girl asks, slightly suspicious. Although Maya wants to tell her that she doesn't have to be, that she can have sex with Lucas all she wants but just not where she's six feet away.
“My roommate,” he tells her. “Listen, I have to get her to bed; she has to get up at eight tomorrow and she's such a monster in the mornings. I'll call you later?”
Maya's eyes widen. Nonononono . He didn't have to do that. They could have just went to his room, that's all she wanted, and that's all she's sure they wanted.
“Um. Yeah, sure,” she replies and they say their goodbyes, the girl softly closing the door behind her.
Maya hears a sigh and screws her eyes shut, tries to even out her breathing. Lucas comes over to her, crouches down beside her, and leans his elbows on the couch. He clears his throat. “Maya, I know you're awake.”
“No I'm not.”
She can practically feel him rolling his eyes. “Turn around.”
Sighing, she flips onto her other side to find Lucas very close to her. He isn't wearing a shirt, his chest and his arms smooth, small purple bruises blossoming on his neck. “You didn't have to do that, you know.”
“I know,” he says. His breath smells like alcohol but he doesn't seem drunk tonight. “C’mon. You need to sleep.”
Maya’s beginning to realize that he's really good at surprising her, and he probably knows that too, probably thrives on it. She told him offhandedly a couple days ago that she's meeting Riley for breakfast tomorrow, didn't really expect him to remember, didn't really expect him to care.
She stands up then, ignores his helping hand and he follows her to her room. When she falls into the bed, he's still standing in her doorway. “Thanks. For, you know, waiting up for me.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she mumbles. “Next time, just bring your girl to your room so this doesn't have to happen again, okay, cowboy?”
He grins. “You're somethin’ else, Maya.”
“There's gonna be a somethin’ else up your ass if you don't get out of my room and let me sleep,” she threatens, only half-heartedly. “You're making me coffee tomorrow morning, just so you know, since you're wasting my time right now.”
“Sure. Anything you want.”
*
She thinks Riley may have invented the phrase ‘if looks could kill.’
“I can explain.”
Riley glares at her, pointedly glances at the seat in front of her so Maya can sit, and folds her hands together on the table, waiting. “You're an hour late, Maya. Am I suddenly the scum on the bottom of your shoe that you couldn’t even bother to call and tell me that you had better things to do?”
She rolls her eyes as she slides into the seat in front of her. They're sitting outside a café, bundled up in wool sweaters to shield from the increase in temperature. “Don't be dramatic. See, the thing is, Lucas – “
“So this is Lucas’ fault,” she interrupts, her tone slightly bitter. “You know, I would really like to meet this Lucas character and g – “
“That won't be happening any time soon,” says Maya dismissively, “he's not that interesting. But, anyway, I stayed up way too late last night waiting up for him and, you know me, I need at least twelve hours of sleep until I can resemble even a fraction of a human being – so anyway, he tried to wake me up a couple times this morning but I was dead weight. He literally had to carry me over his shoulder until I woke up when he dumped me, not too gently might I add, on the couch.”
Riley squints her eyes, slowly lifting the coffee mug to her lips as she considers Maya. “Hm.”
“’Hm’? What's that mean? Do I pass? Do you forgive me? Please forgive me, I'm starving and I need you to pay for my food because I have no money,” she pleads, pouting her lip in the way that everyone finds impossible to resist.
“Of course I forgive you,” Riley says. “I always will, but just text me or something next time, okay?”
Maya agrees, and they order breakfast. Riley makes her tell her all about how it's like living with two boys like Lucas and Charlie, all the stories and adventures they must have. Maya hates to disappoint her, tells her that all they basically do is sit around and drink beer all the time. She does tell her about Charlie though, that they're good friends, and they like to pull shit on Lucas too much because he just makes it so easy.
Sometimes they'll hide his clothes and towel when he's taking a shower, and he'll storm out of the bathroom stark naked, yelling Maya’s name like it’s poison on his tongue. Sometimes he and Lucas will be sitting on the couch watching tv and Maya’ll ding dong ditch them when she's bored. And the sad part is that Lucas falls for it every time, looking confused each time he opens the door to find that no one’s there. She'd sit on the couch next to him later, shake her head tragically with a “you're a goddamn idiot” to him and he wouldn't know what it was for this time, but he'd agree anyway.
“You sound like you guys have fun together,” says Riley with a gleeful smile after hearing another story. She's only just noticed that Lucas is the focal point in every single one of them. “So you're doing okay? You'd tell me if you weren't, right?”
Riley has been her best friend since they were in diapers, waddling around with lollipop dresses and leaves in their hair. Riley is Maya’s other half; she'd definitely know without Maya having to tell her if something was wrong.
“Yeah, I'm doing okay,” she answers truthfully. “I like them, and I think that…that they're my friends . Or whatever.”
The smile on Riley’s face grows amused. “You can have other friends, you know. Socializing is very important.”
“It's just…they're so not the type of people I would have imagined myself caring about, you know?” She bites her lip, circles her pointer finger around the lip of her coffee cup.
“You mean Lucas.”
“Yeah. Lucas,” she can't even say his name without wanting to roll her eyes, but it's… fond , she realizes. It's more affectionate than annoyed. “Did you know that he wrote up and printed out a goddamn list of rules when I first moved in?”
Riley laughs, her head thrown back. “You didn't read it, did you?”
“Nope. Threw that shit away in the trash where it belongs,” replies Maya a little too proudly. She can imagine Lucas shaking his head at her in mild disappointment, and she smiles.
“You know, if it was anybody else, I'm sure he would've kicked them out by now,” Riley muses. She's looking at Maya like she knows some kind of secret and she's not so sure that's a good thing.
Maya just shrugs. “He doesn't admit it, but he likes me – or at least, he doesn't hate me. I beat him at one of his nerd video games a few times, so maybe he hates me a little. Either way, I'm like…part of a group now. He wouldn't kick me out.”
“Okay, yeah, sure, we'll go with that.”
*
“Literally what the fuck is that.”
“It's a bookshelf, Maya,” he tells her. “Where you store books. Maybe some DVDs, maybe some CDs.”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, but what are you doing? Why is there an unmade wooden bookshelf on my bedroom floor.”
He grins at her then and spreads his arms out like he's presenting her with the world’s greatest gift. “Because we're building it.”
“We're what now?”
“You heard me.”
“Tell me again because I'm not quite sure I'm understanding.”
“Maya, your room is a fucking mess,” he tells her, sweeping his arms wide open in gesture. “Look at it. All your shit is everywhere. There's sketchbooks and notepads and textbooks all over your desk and underneath your bed and on your floor. How do you even find anything?”
“It's an organized mess.”
“You know what they say – a clean room, a clean mind.”
“I'm gonna punch whoever said that in the face.”
“Come on - it'll be fun, I promise,” he says to her but she thinks he's lying. How is building anything, with her own two hands, anyone's idea of fun?
“Ooh, I have a better idea,” says Maya as she flops back down on her bed, leaving Lucas on the floor next to the mess of wooden pieces. “How about you build it and I'll watch?”
“How about no.”
“But that's how our relationship is – you fix the shit and I watch you fix the shit.”
“No, our relationship is us fixing the shit together .”
She looks up at the ceiling and squints like she's thinking. “Hm, that doesn't sound right to me.”
“Well that's because you're an idiot,” says Lucas and she thinks she'll feel a lot better about this situation if she gets to punch him in the face afterwards.
“Hey, that's supposed to be my line,” she tells him and sits up from the bed. He beckons her over and honestly? There's no way she wasn't going to help him. He's Lucas - she's completely incapable of refusing him at this point.
Maya sits cross legged next to him and she ignores the grin he gives her and instead focuses on his hand holding a wrench while the other holds a screwdriver. It only takes twenty minutes for Maya to get fed up with this and start picking fights with him. But he's patient with her and he doesn't give in and fight back, even though she can tell he wants to because his jaw ticks in a way that she knows happens when he's holding back, and his fingers tighten so hard on the shelf that's in his hand that it draws blood.
"Anyway, I hate this and I hate you and I hope that when this is over you look back on your life and reevaluate the choices you made and learn from your mistakes,” she tells him when she's screwing in one of the nails to the shelf. Her hands hurt and her spine feels a little crooked but when she looks back at Lucas, he's got this funny expression on his face. She doesn't read into it.
“Wow, I should insult you more often,” she says then as she looks away from him, “if you're gonna look at me like I just invented a cure for cancer or something.”
“You literally insult me every time you breathe, what are you even talking about,” he replies.
“Why was this a thing we had to do again? You couldn't just get, I don't know, a bookshelf already built ? Just a thought.” She really didn't mind constructing the bookshelf with Lucas - it's nice and a black wood that looks sleek, and it was actually really thoughtful of him - but she’s already cemented their entire relationship on the basis of her giving him shit for everything, so that's what she's going to continue to do.
“Why do you always have to be so difficult all the time?” he asks, exasperated. “It's just a thing that we could do. You know, together. It's fun.”
He's running his hands in his hair and she's surprised that it's frustrating for her so of course she's going to be an asshole to him because of it. “My idea of fun is significantly different than yours, gramps. What's next? A bird house? A rocking chair, perhaps? Or maybe we could knit a couple of nice scarves – winter’s coming up soon, so why not.”
“Tell me again how we’re friends?” he asks dryly. He's got a point there.
But she just grins and pushes up on her tiptoes, planting a loud kiss on his cheek. It's the first point of contact they've had since – practically ever. Maya doesn't miss the blush spreading from his neck to his ears, but she decides to let it slide to allow him his dignity.
"You hungry? I'm gonna make some smoothies,” he says as he swivels around on his heel to walk out of her room, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Lucas, a smoothie is not a real meal, how many times do I have to tell you this until you finally understand,” but the grin on her face doesn't go away.
*
Lucas has a girlfriend.
That's not even the most important part to Maya because, good for him that someone actually has the patience to tolerate him, but she's always just there . In their apartment, sitting on their couch, laughing at the stupid tv shows only they're supposed to be laughing at, without her. And, not like she cares, but she really hates all kinds of PDA and seeing them together kind of makes her stomach churn painfully.
They're in the kitchen together, laughing and baking cookies like the adorably nauseating couple that they are. All Maya wanted was to come home after a long day of classes and work to lounge on the couch while watching something Charlie put on. But instead she gets this .
“Cute, right?” Charlie says, so helpfully, as he sits down next to her, holding out a bowl of popcorn for her to take.
“Fucking adorable,” she grumbles and sticks her hand in the bowl, not bothering to care that she's managed to spill about half of it on herself. Charlie raises his eyebrows but doesn't comment. She likes that about him.
“Her name’s Lauren,” he continues. “They met at the library a couple weeks ago and he really seems to like her.”
“Did I ask for the low down on the cowboy’s boring ass love life? Play the goddamn movie, Gardner.” He complies, obviously, and she grinds her teeth when Lauren’s laugh echoes through the walls.
He invites her to the bar one Saturday night and she's taken by surprise. She's been living with them for a few months now and Texas Night has always just been for Lucas, to make him feel more at home in this city.
“You want me to go with you to Texas Night?” she asks skeptically. “What about Lauren?” because that's definitely the most important part of this entire conversation.
Lucas shrugs. “Thought it'd be fun if you went. Besides, Lauren has an exam she's cramming for and Charlie’s working a double tonight so I wouldn't want you to be by yourself.”
She stares at him, waits for him to laugh and call the joke but he doesn't. He just stands in her doorway, tapping his fingers on the knob.
“Okay, yeah,” she agrees and stands up from her desk where she was working on some homework before he interrupted. “Probably way more interesting than physics. But I hope you know that I'm going to be making fun of you the entire time.”
He grins brazenly. “I figured as much.”
“Let me just change real quick, and I'll meet you outside.”
When Maya comes out she's in one of his red flannel shirts, tied in a knot at her waist, and denim shorts. She never told him but she bought cowboy boots for exactly this occasion, collecting dust in the back of her closet as they waited for their shining moment. She gets the reaction she desired, his eyes widening a little as they take in her outfit from head to toe. Lucas Friar just checked her out, and she really shouldn't feel so proud of that.
He clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck. “Is that – is that my shirt?”
“And once again, you have managed to astound me with your superior observational skills,” she responds with a cheeky grin because she's an asshole. She steals his hat from his head then and places it on her own, dropping a wink and a laugh that makes him crack a toothless smile.
They take a cab to the bar and he rests his hand on her lower back when he guides them inside. He didn't have to do that, and he knows he didn't have to do that, but another thing Maya’s learned about living with Lucas is that he just likes physical contact, sometimes in the form of casual touches. It feels more reassuring than possessive.
“This is actually way more ridiculous than I could have ever imagined,” she shouts at him over the loud music, and he laughs in response. It used to annoy her, how he never really put up much of a fight against her antics, but now it's something she really likes about him.
“If I'm gonna square dance with you, cowboy,” she says in his ear, and he has to lean down to hear her, “then I'm gonna need to do a couple of shots.”
“Bar’s this way,” he responds and takes them over, cutting through the throng of people who look just like them in their awful country getup. Lucas orders two vodka shots each, and they down them quickly.
She doesn't think about the way it makes her feel when he takes her hand and leads them to the dance floor, so she blames the rapid pace of her heart on the alcohol. “I don't know how to do it.”
“That's okay,” he tells her with a smile, “I'll show you.”
Maya hates to admit it but she had fun dancing with Lucas, more fun than she has had in a long, long time. Missy used to take her to clubs and bars too, but it was different. All Missy cared about was partying and getting drunk and making out with cute girls that weren't Maya. But when she's with Lucas, with his hands branding themselves to her skin, he makes her feel like she's the only one that matters to him in the moment.
When she's had enough of the square dancing, she tugs on his hand and drags him to an open booth, ordering more beer and tequila shots for the both of them. They're sitting on one side of the booth, Maya pressed against the wall and Lucas close to her. He has one arm resting on the wooden top behind her head and the other on the table as he faces her.
“Admit it,” he says brightly, his eyes glassy and his smile stretching to show all his teeth, “you had fun. You had fun at Texas Night.”
She rolls her eyes, but the corner of her mouth lifts. “Okay, yeah, maybe I had a little fun. But it's only because you looked so stupid.”
He shakes his head, the smile never leaving his face, and he doesn't notice when the drinks come until she reaches for a bottle.
“It's funny, isn't it?” he muses after a moment of looking at her. “You and me? How you hated me at first, and now look at us.” He pauses briefly, and then: “You don't hate me anymore, right?”
Maya's face softens. Her eyes drop down to his mouth for a second before the he has a girlfriend, idiot in the back of her head drags them back up to a safer place somewhere on his forehead. “I never hated you, Lucas. Strongly believed that you were set on this planet to test me, yes, but…I could never actually hate you.”
He doesn't say anything for a while, just continues to stare at her until she fidgets in her seat, and then he groans, vigorously running his hands through his hair and lets his head fall on the table with a thump. Maya stares at him until he's finished, until he lifts his head back up and smiles at her. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“You're so weird, Friar,” she mumbles before taking a gulp of her beer, shaking her head at him. He doesn't deny it.
*
When Lucas tells her he broke up with Lauren she's only allowed about three seconds of internal rejoicing before he tells her in the next moment that he's going to Texas for a few weeks.
He's told her before, that he visits his hometown for his family during this time of the year, but it completely slipped her mind that it was happening. She and Charlie drove with him to the airport and said their goodbyes before coming home to a now strangely quiet apartment.
In the days that follow, Maya tries to replace Lucas with Charlie, tries to steal his clothes and towel like she does with Lucas, but he just catches her before she even gets to. He knows her too well it scares her sometimes.
And she misses him, fiercely. She can't stop picturing him in her doorway.
She picks up extra hours at the art store near campus since she's got nothing to do, especially on weekend nights. It's a little boring without Lucas, without having someone to pick on everyday, so her mood plummets considerably. She knows Charlie’s noticed but she can't be bothered to care and he can't be bothered to mention it.
She texts him sometimes, selfies while she's at work or in class that accurately portray her apathy towards pretty much everything, and he always texts back with some kind of stupid reply followed by an emoji. When she has some free time, she calls him to yell at him about how she refuses to text him if he insists on using emojis and he only tells her she's being ridiculous but she doesn't care because she just wanted to hear the sound of his voice. She doesn't think about what that could mean.
When Maya comes home late one night to see Charlie skyping with Lucas, she drops everything on the floor to jump on Charlie’s back so she can see the screen.
“Huckleberry!” she shouts and asks in an obnoxious Texan accent: “How's the cattle? The horses been okay while you were gone?”
He rolls his eyes, the action coming back a little delayed but still just as mildly annoyed. “Miss you too, Maya.”
Her heart squeezes unexpectedly and she hides her face in Charlie’s neck so he can't see her blush. Lucas asks how they've been doing, if they've been taking care of themselves and cleaning their rooms and if Charlie’s reminding Maya to eat because she forgets to sometimes. Maya rolls her eyes and tells him to “shut up, god, you're the like dad I never had” but he just smiles back at her like he always does.
“You like him,” Charlie says to her as he flips his laptop shut once they've said goodnight to Lucas.
And she's about to protest, to ask what the hell’s he been drinking to ever think that she could possibly like Lucas as something more than a friend, but then she snaps her mouth shut because – fuck .
*
When he comes back nothing’s changed, but something feels different. He picks her up when he hugs her, spinning around in circles as she lets out a surprised laugh. And for the first time she thinks yes, this is what home feels like.
They go out for dinner and Lucas tells them all about his trip. She acts like she doesn't care, rolling her eyes at this, clicking her tongue at that, but he just nudges her side with his elbow and moves on. Just like usual. Except now that she knows, now that she's aware of the fact that she may be a little soft for him, she can't stop staring at his mouth, or his arms, or his chest. (Sometimes she thinks about kissing him, sometimes she thinks she's stumbled into a parallel universe.)
And he notices, because he looks at her weirdly whenever he catches her doing it, waving his hand in front of her face, calling her name to bring her back to the real world. It's embarrassing , her stupid goddamn crush on her stupid goddamn roommate. She was better off ignorant of her own feelings.
He's in the kitchen later that night, some time around two, when she comes in. He's eating cocoa crispies in a ceramic bowl she handmade a couple years ago in high school, the only dish she owned that she could bring with her here.
“You doing okay, Lucas?” she asks as she slides into the bar stool next to him. “That huge steak dinner wasn't enough for you?”
Lucas doesn’t look surprised to find her there, doesn't ask what she's still doing up either. But he does look up at her, and his smile feels like it's unzipping her skin.
“When I was little,” Maya starts, grabbing the bowl to take a spoonful of his cereal for herself, “my mom used to dress up like Stevie Nicks and sing In Your Dreams to me when I couldn't sleep.”
“My dad just told me to close your goddamn eyes, boy, nightmares are for weak-minded pussies. ”
“Your dad sounds like an asshole.”
“You're not wrong.” He takes back the bowl from her to refill it, his fingers brushing across hers and it's getting ridiculous that she can't even touch him now without feeling like her heart is such a wild thing, a restless thing, thrashing around inside her chest.
“So you been looking at other apartments?” he asks after a few moments of silence. He's not looking at her, his eyes focused on his hand swirling the spoon in the milk.
Maya had totally forgotten that that was supposed to be the plan. Staying at Lucas’ was only ever meant to be temporary, just until she got enough saved up to rent some place else. She can't believe she ever thought that she could actually stay here.
“Oh – um, yeah,” she mumbles. “I should probably start doing that. I mean, I don't have enough yet to, you know, actually move out but –“
“That's okay,” he says hastily, and then blushes like he did something wrong. “Take your time.”
She gives him a crooked smile. “What? I haven't ruined your life enough yet? Not enough migraines?”
Lucas cringes. “Charlie told you that? Look, Maya, I never – “
“You don't have to explain,” she interrupts. “I know I'm not an easy person to live with, especially in the beginning, but it's okay. I'll be out of your hair soon enough. No more running out of beer or stepping on the backs of my earrings anymore.”
“Right,” he mumbles, and then takes a deep breath before asking, “Maya, will you ever tell me what happened to you? I mean, you obviously don't have to, it's not any of my business, but…we’re friends right? You know you can tell me anything.”
Her smile falters slightly and she eyes him warily. He's looking back at her, his own eyes wide and open and searching. So of course she tells him, how can she not when he's looking at her like that?
It’s 2:30 in the morning and she's spilling her secrets to him like he’s the paper and she's the ink. She tells him about how her mother raised her all by herself, how they had to live paycheck by paycheck from her waitressing job at the diner, how she grew up with half a mom that loved her with everything she had. It wasn't much, but it was enough. She told him about how scared she got the nights their power shut off when her mother couldn't pay the electric bills, how sometimes she still turns off every light switch in the apartment even though she doesn't need to because old habits never die when they're all she's ever known.
Maya doesn't let him apologize for her life, because there's nothing to apologize for; her mother did the best she could with what she had and that's more than what some others can say.
“And Missy?” he asks. “What happened there?”
“How do you know about Missy?” she's surprised, although she shouldn't be. Lucas and Charlie are best friends, of course they're going to tell each other things like this.
He shrugs, rather sheepishly, and she almost rolls her eyes at herself for thinking it was cute .
So then she tells him about Missy, and the boys and girls before her, how they made her feel like she'd never be good enough, how they each got their turn to rip her heart out and shred it piece by piece.
“I sure do know how to pick ‘em, don't I?” she chuckles lightly, shaking her head in disbelief. “There's not enough of me for anyone anymore.”
“I'm sure there's someone out there,” Lucas responds, drawing random patterns on the granite countertop, “who wouldn't mind that you're a little messy, a little worn-through. Because isn't everybody?”
She hums, almost wants to tell him that she hopes it’s him. She hopes he's that someone out there.
*
Lucas comes home from class one night to find Maya lying on the couch face down, an arm hanging off as she loosely grips an almost empty bottle of pink moscato by its neck. She’s always been able to hold her liquor well, but not so much when it comes to wine. “Lucas?”
“Yeah, it's me,” she hears him respond, dropping his bag on the floor next to the coffee table. “What are you doing?”
“I'm having a crisis,” she mumbles.
“Hm, and what's that?” he asks and she doesn't appreciate the amusement laced into his voice. He sits down on the couch next to her feet, an arm slung carelessly around the back as he watches her.
Maya sits up gingerly, placing the bottle of wine on the coffee table before crossing her legs underneath her and facing him. She looks at him for a long time, sighs, “Promise you won't laugh at me?”
“When would I ever laugh at your expense.”
“Don't bullshit me, Lucas,”she tries to glare at him but it just makes her headache worse so she stops, furrows her eyebrows instead.
Lucas rearranges himself on the couch, sits so he's facing her directly, so she can count his eyelashes if she really wants to. “What's up? Bad day?”
“The worst,” she groans and lets her head fall onto his shoulder.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” he asks her softly. She almost wants to laugh because yeah, you happened, you goddamn idiot.
“You're not kissing me,” she says instead, and that's probably a lot worse, “You're not kissing me and you're never gonna kiss me and it's so annoying because you're always just there with your stupid cowboy boots and stupid plaid shirts – “
“Need I remind you that you have your own pair of cowboy boots.”
“ – and your stupid goddamn accent that grates on my nerves whenever you fucking talk – “
“Charlie likes my accent. He thinks it's cute.”
“ – and, god , if I have to look at your hands while you're making pancakes one more fucking time – “
He frowns. “What's wrong with my hands?”
“Nothing! That's the point! You have the best hands I've ever seen and I just want to be able to hold them sometimes but you're just so fucking stupid – “
“Maya – “
“Why won't you kiss me?” she sounds sad even to her own ears. Because she likes him, so much, and she wants him to like her too.
His voice is soft when he speaks. “You should get some sleep, Maya. It's late and you have class in the morning.”
She groans and collapses back on the couch, turns on her side so he's looking at her back. “Shut the fuck up and stop babying me.”
She feels him pull a blanket over her, smells cedar wood and pine when he bends down to kiss her temple – and that's not what she meant – and she doesn't breathe until she hears his door softly close behind him. Her headache is a lot worse now, she thinks, it spread all the way down to her chest.
*
They don't talk about it for a few weeks, and it's fine with her honestly; she just wants to wipe that whole night from both of their memories. But until someone invents something that is capable of doing that, capable of erasing the way that she feels about him, then there's no way she can ignore it.
Things she used to do with Lucas, simple things like grocery shopping or folding laundry or sitting next to him while watching a movie with their elbows touching, seems so big now. Seem like the entire world to her, just to be near him.
It's because she loves him, she thinks she's ready to admit that now, and it wasn't like it was this huge bone-crushing realization that split the earth in half. She was just standing in the pharmacy section of Walgreens one day buying him cold medicine when she just stops because … huh.
It was warm, it was quiet, it was yeah.Yeah, I guess I do love him.
She never meant to love him, this gentle boy with a soft everything, but it happened. And maybe that's what scares her the most.
*
“Lucas, I have to talk to you.”
He's in his room, sitting on the edge of his bed as he ties his shoes, a basketball resting by his feet. He looks up when he hears her close his bedroom door. “I was just gonna go shoot some hoops with Charlie, but what's up?”
Maya takes a deep breath, wrings her hands together nervously. Her heart is lodged somewhere in the middle of her throat, her stomach flipping over on its side, and how do people even do this? “This may very well be the stupidest thing I've ever done, even more stupid than coming to stay here in the first place, but – “
He furrows his eyebrows, confused, and stands up, moving towards her. He makes it really hard to focus when he's looking at her like that, like he's concerned for her, like all he ever wants to do is just be there for her.
So she blurts out, “I think I love you.”
Lucas pauses mid-step, eyes widening.
“And I think you love me too,” she continues. “Or at least I hope you do, or this is gonna be really embarrassing for me.”
“You love me?” he asks, and she doesn't know why it comes as such a shock to him.
She nods, smiles. “Yeah. I love you. How many times you want me to say it until you believe me?”
He starts moving again, except slower this time, and she watches him carefully, and he watches her carefully. There's a smile growing on his face that makes it easier for her to breathe now, gives her the courage to continue.
“I love that your hands are always warm where mine are cold and sometimes you hold them until they're not anymore. I love that you and Charlie go on platonic dates sometimes during the week when you miss each other. I love that you order pineapple on our pizza because even though you hate it you know that I don't. I love that you are kind and you are comfort and you are soft, everywhere. I love that I can't even believe how much I love you.”
His smile is so bright that it hurts to look at him. “Who knew that Maya Hart would end up being the biggest romantic? Honestly, that was really cheesy. Did you practice that in the mirror before you came in here? I give that performance a 10, excellent job.”
She rolls her eyes. “Listen here, you piece of shit, I – “
He leans forward and grabs her face, gently places a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I love cheesy.”
She scrunches her nose in response. “I think you're missing something else there too.”
Lucas kisses the corner of her mouth, the line of her jaw. “And I love you.”
“So I was right, nice.”
He raises his eyebrows, moves his head slightly back so he can look at her face, but she grabs the collar of his shirt to bring him closer. “That's really what you care about right now? Being right?”
“That's the only thing I ever care about,” she answers, wraps her arms around his neck and stands up on her toes.
“You could have held my hand this entire time, you know,” he tells her. “Since the second day I knew you.”
“The second?”
“Yeah,” he says with a wide grin, “I wanted to throw you out the window the first day. You were so annoying.”
Maya laughs, has never felt this happy before in her life, and she has the urge to call her mother to tell her about it, to tell Riley about it. “So does this mean I don't have to look for apartments anymore?”
“Not unless I'm going with you.”
“Looks like you're stuck with me then. How does that make you feel? Is there a migraine coming on?”
He gently nips her bottom lip.“I'm gonna kiss you now if you don't shut up. Do you really want me to be that guy?”
“Is that a threat?”
“God, shut up,” he mutters, and he kisses her, and he doesn't stop kissing her until they're stealing each other’s air, and it feels more right than anything ever has in a long time.
*
He's different than all the others before him. This time, she’s sure she isn't making a stupid mistake. This time, she loves someone who deserves it. This time, she loves someone who loves her back.