The Cinderella Promise (Adult Rucas AU)

Chapter 0.5 - Maya and Josh's Story

Maya could always remember the first time she met her best friend's Uncle, the memory was imprinted on her mind because it was at that moment when she knew the he was going to change her life. They were seven years old at the time, they were camping out in Riley's living room watching cartoons after a sleepover when Riley's grandparents walked in with this brown hair little boy who smiled when he walked through the door and brought the earth to a standstill. At seven she thought it was just a childhood crush, as she watched him jump on top of Riley, as he picked up his nephew and made baby faces at the newborn. His parents were there to tell them that they were moving to the city, his father had been offered the chance at making his outdoor goods store into a franchise and they decided to move to New York because they would be closer to their children, and grandchildren. Josh would be starting at their school that fall, he was nine at the time and he wasn't happy about losing his friends but he loved his older brother so he was alright with the move as long as he got to see him more often.

Maya never told him that she liked him when she was only seven, at the time he thought kissing girls was gross, and would often throw worms in their hair laughing about it as he ran away from them. Josh lived down the street from Riley on the same block of brownstones, his room had a bay window just like his best friend but his window wasn't purple with butterflies, it was blue and white and filled with his skateboard or whatever he threw on there when he got home. She knew this because they would go home together the three of them and Josh would invite them over only to make them watch horror movies. He didn't know those were her favorite kind of movies but she tried to act like Riley who normally hid under his bed right after the first jump scare, but instead she would snuggle up close to him trying to act disinterested and scared.

Maya remembered the first time she confessed her feelings to him, she was thirteen and it was raining outside as they were walking home. Riley had stayed behind helping her father while Josh walked her home. They were under the awing of a nearby store waiting out the downpour, it was the first day of summer and school would be over in a week, but it was scorching hot outside and the rain was making her hair stand on end. Josh was smiling because he loved running, he was on the track team at the high school but he often went to the middle school to visit his brother. They barely saw one another since he moved up to high school but she liked it when she saw him because it just made the feeling sweeter. He had looked down at her, she was soaked from the rain, and smiled and she blurted out the feeling she had been holding in since she was seven years old.

"Josh I like you," she said hopeful.

He had smiled, "I like you too kiddo."

She knew he meant that he liked her because she was Riley's best friend but at that moment Maya knew that she needed to say what she really felt, but instead of saying the words again she stood on her toes and kissed him on the lips.

"That how I like you Josh," she said before running away. She didn't look back to see what his face looked like, she just kept running. Even after all of those years she would remember the day she first told him her feelings and how she gave him her first kiss. Whenever a thunderstorm comes to the city and the rain pours down on the heated cement she remembers that moment.

When she started High School the next year, it would be the first time she looked at Josh since that day. He hadn't said anything to Riley about it and neither did she, it was a fleeting moment in time and she didn't know if it had meant as much to him as it did to her. At that moment she was a freshman, and he was a junior, they were on opposite ends of the social ladder, and they hadn't spoken to one another in a whole year. She stopped going to Matthews family holidays because she didn't want him to reject her, and when she did go to their house she would hide every time he walked in through the door. She was brave all of the time but when it came to Josh she would cower under Riley's bed, or in his closet. Riley had figured out that something was up but like the friend she was she helped Maya every time, until the day before school started when she said she wasn't going to be her buffer anymore. Her best friend wanted her to grab on to her feelings and do something about the girlhood crush that had followed her into her teen years.