What Are We Now?

(13) Midnight

"Riley what's this?" Cory asks his daughter.
"What do you mean?"
"Huckleberry... Dancing Flower Daisy?"
"Yup" Lucas says raising his hand.
"That's me!" Riley says happily.
"Why?"
"Well you see Mathews, you see, there was this bet you were completely unaware of. And Riley with her sunshine skills won. So now Lucas has to call her Princess Riley Dancing Fairy Sunshine and have that be their names in their project." Maya says in her Charlie Garner talking voice.
"What!"
"Yeah" Lucas says in a robotically raised voice.
"Hmmm" Charlie mumbles in the back of the class, because as he expected nothing good would happen from Riley and Lucas working together. Suddenly Cory starts laughing.
"Honey, how did you manage to beat Chachi here." Cory said with a grin and raised eyebrows.
"Easy daddy. Rainbow cupcakes and an adorable boyfriend. Power couples you know....They're powerful." Riley said serenely.
"And what did you do Lucas?" Cory asked.
"Yeah I took the begging approach... Well that was after trying to give them nice speeches. Yeah next time I'll just give em Farkles cupcakes" Lucas said shaking his head.
"Ok. Now on the topic of your project can you explain how well you worked with Riley?" Cory asked.
"Of course... Mmm...."
"Lucas-" Cory asked.
"-Princess Riley Dancing Fairy Sunshine and I work well because she is really organized and I don't really complain about stuff." Lucas said robotically.
"Princess Riley..." Charlie said.
"Dancing..." Cory added.
"Fairy..." Maya said.
"Sunshine!" Zay and Farkle say together. The entire class bursts out laughing.
"Sweetheart you got him good!" Cory says.
"You have no idea..." Riley says quietly.

***

"I have to what!" Charlie exclaimed in shock.
"Well it's my prize for winning, to have my boyfriend and one of my best friends get along." Riley said calmly.
"We get along fine."
"Not really. You tolerate each other."
"It's obvious to you why though, right?" Charlie said taking Riley's hand, "he likes you and you chose me and he hates that."
"Charlie he doesn't like me. He's with Maya now, and wasn't it you and him at the dance that were all chummy, saying you were friends now?"
"Yeah... But..."
"But? But what?"
"I think Lucas said that because he wanted you to choose who ever you wanted without feeling pressure. I honestly think he was so calm about it because he was sure you'd chose him.."
"Oh... So you think we can't actually be friends...?"
"Mmm no of course we can, you're right we just have to try harder!" Charlie said with a grin so fake it was convincing. Charlie was this close to telling Riley that Lucas probably still liked her and only her, but that would be a mistake... Like helping out the enemy. So maybe he would have to suck it up and hang out with the Huckleberry, so what? It was Charlie that had gotten the girl.

***

"Riley?"
"Farkle! What are you doing here?" Riley asked Farkle as he stepped into her room and plopped down on her bay window.
"I need to talk to you. Come on, sit."
Riley gave him a look, "You're asking me to sit at my own bay window, really?"
"Yes."
"Ok." Riley said a little apprehensively, as she took a seat next to Farkle.
"You need to stop lying to our friends."
"I'm not."
"I'm serious Riley. If you don't-"
"-Farkle I..."
"If you don't tell them the truth about how you feel about Lucas, I will. I'm giving you a deadline."
"But-"
"Tell Lucas, tell Maya, tell everyone. Or I will, on New Years."
"I'm not lying to our friends Farkle, I truly like Charlie."
"Ok Riley."
"Ok?"
"If that's what you're telling yourself. Ok. I'm still telling everyone at midnight."
Riley looked away and down at the ground. If Farkle told everyone, all she'd done would be ruined. Well Riley wasn't having it, one way or another she would have to convince them that Farkle was wrong, the only thing she had to do was really convince Lucas and Maya, then everything would be fine.

Hey hey😸 so short update🤗 Mostly because I wanted to talk about this costumer I had at work yesterday. So he was gorgeous of course and so nice. A Lucas look a like, blonde hair and well blue eyes but I figure that's close enough. The cherry on top though is that he had this subtle Texan accent, swoon! Like I said a dead ringer for Lucas🙌🏽 and his name is Ben Austin adorable right! Lol don't worry I had to ask his name for work haha he was so cute like oh I'm sorry if I'm not making sense I just finished my final and then I went for drinks sooo lol I was like that's fine! Yeah he's in law school so it makes sense.

Anywho just so y'all know we are getting closer to the interesting bits, you have no idea how long I have been waiting to write them lol but that's how books work you have to pace yourself!
As usual please star ✨ and comment 💬
Thanks for reading y'all💙❄️🤗