Playing Pretend

Chapter Three

Maya sighed as she approached a neutral Lucas at his locker, refraining from slamming her fist into a locker as she squeezed her eyes shut and handed over a paper. A confused expression reached his face as he took it from her. "What's this?" He murmured before unfolding the piece of paper. His face lit up in surprise at the title of the paper he read in front of his very eyes.

The Rules of Pretending with Maya and Lucas.

1. We're doing this so you can end up with the one and only Riley Matthews. The minute she falls for you, it's done.

2. We only pretend when she's around us. No behind the scenes pretending. Ew. Unless we're practicing or whatever on our own FOR Riley, it doesn't go further than that.

3. We let Zay and Farkle know what's happening. I will not give them the satisfaction to think that they won some old bet they used to have on us. Err.. Don't know if you knew about that one.

4. Please, please, PLEASE, do not go overboard with PDA. We may be pretending, but that doesn't stop my boundaries.

5. Welcome. I'm your pretend kind of-girlfriend. I hate you for this. If Riley hurts, we're gonna end it.

A smile lit his face as he looked up at the girl, immediately grabbing her into an embrace. "Oof." she muttered as he caressed her back. "Okay okay." They pulled apart, Maya awkwardly fixing her hair. "So as you said, we're not jumping into a relationship."

Lucas nodded in agreement. "So like, what do we do? Hold hands?"

A small blush rose on her face, praying that he wouldn't notice generally. "I guess so."  She held out her hand, but instead of all her fingers stretched out, her pinkie stuck out. A confused expression approached his face as he glanced at her questionably. He held out his hand as well, entwining her pinkie with his as they walked down the hallway. Maya silently ignored the massive beating her chest from the tingle that was sent from her pinkie up her spine. People immediately noticed their gesture, the friends noticing their facial expressions turning to utter excitement. That their class couple had finally gotten together. Oh brother. Maya was gonna suffer. It was only pretend, and it's not gonna be too long until Riley flips out.

She gave Lucas a look that basically read, help me, all over it. Lucas smiled in response, wanting to laugh at her helpless expression. Was this how it felt to hold hands with the Lucas Friar? They weren't even holding hands, and people were looking at them as if they had just stepped out on the red carpet. But Maya could tell that Lucas's lovely crush was about to walk down the hallway, seeing an inch of brown hair taking a turn. Riley walked down the hallway normally, until she met eyes with Maya, and then looked at their pinkies. If this was some classic MTV show, Riley would approach her, slap her, and fight her until chunks of their hair were on the floor. But this was reality. All that happened was when Riley walked passed them, she gave her a confused expression as the two both walked to class. The moment felt so slow when Riley stepped foot into the hallways- as if everything in the world had slowed down as the tension began to swarm around the one individual school hallway the three had just happened to be walking through at the same time.

Zay and Farkle approached the two with confused incredulous looks. But when Zay looked down at their pinkies, his expression immediately turned smug and mischievous. "You two-"

"Sorry Zay, but no, it didn't happen. It's not going to happen." Maya cut him off. Farkle just continued staring with his mouth gaping open.

"You guys are actually doing this. Holy crap." Farkle covered his mouth with his hands as Lucas shrugged. "Does that means I have dibs on Riley though?" He added, earning a punch on the arm from Lucas.