#zacmaya

“Sorry sunshine, I’m new around here.” He replies, a small smirk on his face. She narrows her eyes even further, which he didn’t know was fucking possible, and doesn’t reply. Instead she squats and picks up all the things scattered on the ground, definitely not accidentally stabbing him in the leg with one of her pencils.

He merely watches her, an amused smile playing on his lips. She huffs and launches herself back up to standing position, her eyes still narrowed as she looks at him, scoffing as she spins on her heels.

“Watch where you’re going next time.” She yells as she starts to walk away and he definitely, one hundred percent hears mutter “dick” under her breath. This just made him smile wider to himself.

He was probably gonna like it here.

----

He gets detention a couple days later, usually smoking under the bleachers would get someone suspended the principal tells him, but considering he’s new, they give him a cushion and let him off with two days detention instead. He would say he’s grateful, but he knows that it won’t take long before he’s back in that office, so he kinda wishes she had just started with the suspension.

However, as soon as he walks into the room, he’s suddenly very grateful for this detention. There the blonde girl sits, occupying the desk in the middle of the room, her feet propped on the tabletop, her leather jacket hanging loosely on her shoulders. She barely looks up from her nails to acknowledge and when she does notice him she merely sneers and rolls her eyes before looking back down at her nails.

He takes a seat near the front of the room, mostly because he’s slightly afraid to sit too close to her, afraid that she might snap and kill him. He didn’t know her, but he got a very strong feeling that she had killed a man before, and wasn’t afraid to kill again. They sat in silence for a few moments before their detention teacher came into the room, immediately emitting a groan from his companion.

“Ugh, really Matthews.” The name Matthews falls off her tongue with such resentment and bitterness that Zac swears the room gets colder.

“Really, Maya, again?” The teacher counters back and Zac cranes his next to get a look at this girl, Maya, and she sinks lower in her seat. Zac can tell that there’s some kind of history there, and his curiosity peaks.

“Whatever.” She scoffs and Zac turns his face back around to their detention monitor, Mr. Matthews he would presume. The teacher then focuses on Zac, who merely gives him a small smile and waves.

“And who might you be?” Mr. Matthews asks, his eyebrows raised.

“I might be Zac, I’m new.” Mr. Matthews merely nods and takes a seat as desk.

“Alright, one hour. No talking.” Zac swivels slightly in his seat, looking back at his companion, she looks up after a moment and meets his eyes, looking annoyed. Zac sends her a smile and she merely rolls her eyes at him, pulling a notebook from the bag next to her and ripping a page of paper from it.

Zac knits his eyebrows together, slightly confused, but it doesn’t take long before the paper comes soaring into his head, bouncing onto the floor next to him. He chuckles slightly, picking it up from the floor, eyeing Mr. Matthews for a moment to see if he noticed anything, luckily he hadn’t.

What are you staring at, dick?

The words are written in scrawled penship and Zac can’t help but send a smirk back in her direction, in which doesn’t return, merely scowling at him. He shrugs as a response to her question and pockets the note without a reply.

The rest of the hour ticks by slowly. Zac risks glancing at Maya a couple of times, but every single time, she either looks at him and then looks right back down at her hands or doesn’t look up at all. He wonders what she did to get herself stuck in detention, it sounded like she was a regular and he couldn’t help but think that this probably wasn’t the first time they were going to be finding themselves here together.

When the hour is up, Zac purposefully tries to leave at the same time as her, hoping to talk to her. Now that he has a name to work with, maybe they can actually have an actual conversation without her calling him a dick, even though he kinda likes it.

She walks out the door before him but he’s not very far behind, their steps matching up almost completely. Before he can open his mouth however, she spins on her heels and looks at him, her eyes moving from the top of his head to his feet, almost sizing him up.

“Listen, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but we have already spent way too much time together, and I don’t know why the hell you feel the need to follow me, but read my lips. Leave. Me. Alone. Got it?” She smiled, but he could tell that anger was dripping behind it, not happiness.

However, that hardly turned him away. In fact, it made her all the more fascinated to get to know her. He liked to consider himself a fairly friendly person, he didn’t have many friends, but he knew how to charm people. Her closing herself off, made him all the more interested to get her to open up.

“Whatever you say, sunshine. Although don’t know what your problem is with making friends is.” Zac’s got a small smirk on his face and he swears he sees her lips curl up in a grin but her face falls back into a scowl before Zac can even blink.

“I don’t need any friends. I already have one, that’s enough for me.” Zac is about to open his mouth to respond, but before he can, a girl appears at the bottom of the staircase, looking expectantly at Maya.

“Hey Maya, you ready to go. I told my mom I would grab Auggie from school before heading home.” Maya sends the girl a smile, shooting Zac a look before walking from him.

“Yeah honey, let’s go.” The two girls link arms and Zac can’t help the words that fall from his lips as he watches her go.

“I’ll see you round, sunshine.”

“No you won’t dick!” She calls back at him, he chuckles to himself before making his way to his hallway to head home. Let the games begin.

----

“Was that who I thought it was?” Riley asks as soon as her and Maya are alone and making their way down the street. Maya can see the smirk on Riley’s face and Maya rolls her eyes and shoves her lightly.

“Shut up.” Maya says, shooting her a look, but Riley just smirks, bumping Maya’s hip with her own, which causes Maya to playfully glare at her best friend.

“That was Zac Friar, Maya. The entire school is talking about him. He’s one of the new kids. Apparently he got kicked out of his old school. I don’t know for what, there are a lot of rumors swirling around, but still.”

“Kicked out of school, huh?” Maya considers this for a moment, sure she had taken a guess that the kid was new to school, he treated her differently than most of her classmates did. But, she had no idea that he had been kicked out of school, maybe the dick wasn’t so bad after all. She had to have a little bit of respect for people who managed to get themselves kicked out of school.

“Yeah, him and his brother, Lucas.” Riley notes, her voice rising slightly at the mention of the other Friar boy. Maya knew that tone of voice, somebody had a crush. “Anyways, I don’t wanna talk about boys, what on earth did you do to get yourself into detention again Maya? You never told me.”

Maya groaned softly, but launched into the story about how her math teacher was a bitch and how Maya just didn’t think it was right that their teacher got to always be telling them what to do and didn’t think it was fair that she got yelled at for not doing her homework and how she made sure to tell her teacher just that. Riley laughed lightly, laying her head on Maya’s shoulder as they walked.

She briefly allowed her mind to drift to her detention companion, she wondered what kind of trouble he had found himself in.

----

Following their detention together, Zac and Maya can’t seem to stop running into each other. He’ll end up behind her in the lunch line, giving her a once over and a small smirk, while she only knows how to glare at him, she’ll find herself near his locker after yelling at a classmate, scowling at him once she catches him staring, and occasionally they’ll be outside at the same time, both lighting up and meeting each other's eyes through the smoke.

Sometimes she’s with that brown haired girl, who Zac has figured was probably her best friend, but most of the time she’s alone, like he is. They never speak to each other, instead just letting their eyes dance across each other’s, Zac never daring to break eye contact, and Maya always trying to but never being able to.

Zac learns a lot about her by observing her. He notices that she always flicks her cigarettes a certain way, she bits her lip when she’s looking at someone, she pushes her hair behind her ears when she’s nervous, she always throws her head back when she laughs at something her best friend says. He notices that her best friend is the only person who she smiles at, everyone else gets a glare, or a scowl.

He tricks himself into thinking that he knows her, even though he knows that no one really does. He wonders if she notices things about him too, but that would require her to look at him for more than five seconds. But sometimes, just sometimes, she’ll catch his eye first, and one side of her mouth will twitch slightly and Zac will smirk. It’s the little game they play, and these are the rounds where Zac wins.

But, Maya plays the game even better, and he has a feeling she has a big play in mind.

----

Maya knows that there’s a good chance that she’s going to run into Zac Friar at this party that her and Riley are trucking their way towards. It really is because of Zac that Maya even knows this party is happening, so when her and Riley burst through the front door, Maya’s not surprised to see Zac Friar leaning against the banister of the staircase, his signature smirk on his face. She rolls her eyes lightly, throwing her gaze to Riley and Lucas, who are giving each other the most pathetic heart eyes that Maya has ever seen.

Zac must see them too, because they smirk at each other, and Maya feels her stomach swoop slightly, before shaking the feeling away with a swallow. She decides to break the silence that had fallen upon the entire group, the way Zac was looking at her was making her nervous and if she was going to spend all night around him, she was gonna need a little liquid courage.

“Alright Riles, I’m gonna go get something to drink, you want something?” She asks, she knows that Riley doesn’t drink, but Maya’s always trying to encourage her to try something new.

“No Maya, you know I don’t drink.” Riley says and Maya smirks, she had a feeling that was gonna be the response. Either way, Maya’s itching for a drink and despite that fact that being alone with Zac Friar isn’t exactly a desirable option, she hardly wants to ruin whatever could be going on between her best friend and the other Friar brother, so she swallows her pride.

“Alright don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Maya sees Lucas tense slightly, and she smirks, happy that she’s making him nervous. “Wanna escort me to the keg?” She asks Zac, who’s looking at her with a small smile, he doesn’t say anything but he nods and turns in the opposite direction, deeper into the house and she follows.

They make their journey to the kitchen in silence, Maya two steps behind him. She’s nervous and she really doesn’t know why, she doesn’t usually get nervous around people, but then again, she hardly ever interacts with people who aren’t Riley when she’s this sober. He gets her drink and hands her the cup, which she takes with a small smile of thanks. Taking a large sip, she sighs in relief once she feels the alcohol hit her throat, the burn familiar and encouraging.

“I had no idea that the girl you’re always around was the same girl my brother’s been obsessing about for the last three weeks.” Zac said with a snort, breaking the silence between them. Maya can’t help but also give a light chuckle, taking another sip of her drink.

“Trust me, your brother is all Riley has been talking about for weeks. So the obsession is definitely mutual.”

Silence falls between them again and Maya can feel his eyes on her, she lifts her head and give him a small smile, which he returns. She doesn’t know what it is about him that makes her so nervous, not even Josh makes her this nervous, but damn, the way his smile transforms his whole face makes her heart race and all she can do is swallow more of the shitty alcohol and hope that this feeling disappears.

“You never told me what you did to land yourself in detention a couple weeks ago.” She can practically hear the smirk in his words and she rolls her eyes, turning so she’s looking at him.

“You never asked.” She counters, placing her free hand on her hip and leaning her body against the wall next to her, raising her eyebrow as she takes another sip.

“Well, I’m asking now. I got caught smoking pot under the bleachers, usually I guess you get suspended for that, but they took pity on me.” He smirks, clearly proud of himself and she laughs to herself.

“I shit talked my math teacher to her face, called her a bitch in front of the whole class. Would’ve called her worse if the bell hadn’t rung.” She shrugs, and he laughs loudly, which makes her smile. She’s glad that he appreciates her troublemaking.

“I got kicked out of my last school for starting a revolution in my government class. Thought the teacher would appreciate it, but clearly not.” Maya eyes him for a second, wondering if he’s pulling her leg, but he looks serious and looks pretty proud of himself, so she has a pretty strong feeling he’s telling the truth.

“Well, hee haw I gotta say, I’m pretty impressed.” He grins at her. “Which you should definitely appreciate because I don’t get impressed very easily.”

“Aw, well thank you, sunshine. I appreciate the compliment.” She shakes her head at the nickname, but finds herself smiling widely.

They continue to mindlessly chat for a couple more minutes, exchanging stories of trouble they’ve found themselves in, he was very impressed about the fact that she once fought of three guys that were trying to flirt with Riley, and telling embarrassing stories about Riley and Lucas, before Maya gets pulled away by one of the girls in her history class to play beer pong and she invites him to play on the team opposite her.

“I really, really, wanna kick you ass at beer pong.” She says with a smirk and her eyes are wide, playfully sparkling.

“Oh, I think you’re the one who’s gonna get your ass kicked.”

“Game on Friar.”

(Spoiler alert: Maya totally won, but she spent the rest of the night practically leaning against his side as she gloated her win, so he kind of feels like he won too).

----

They become friends after that. This is mainly due to the fact that Riley and Lucas fuse themselves together at the hip and where Riley goes, Maya goes and where Lucas goes, Zac goes, but also Zac and Maya find themselves caught up in a friendship of their own. They tease each other and sometimes they’ll smoke together outside in the courtyard, ditching class together. Most of their conversations have some weird flirty undertone that both of them never acknowledge, but both are definitely aware of.

The group comes together so naturally it’s almost odd to them that they weren’t friends the entire time. Zac isn’t even that weirded out by watching his little brother constantly sucking face at the lunch table. Usually him and Maya just end up throwing their tater tots at the couple and end up laughing until their sides hurt, and sometimes they make eye contact a little longer than they probably should, which gives him butterflies and he’ll look across the table to see Riley give him a knowing look, her eyebrows raised.

Their friendship extends to outside school too. Weekends are spent at parties, running through the streets of New York City, causing trouble and being a little too loud. Zac wakes up Sunday mornings, his only memories being of Maya’s laugh and her smile, and her yelling at Riley and Lucas to get a room. And when he splashes water on his face to try and wake himself up, Maya’s eyes will blur his vision and her blonde hair will feel like it’s in reach of his fingertips and fuck is this what falling in love is like.

Little does he know, he’s already fallen.

----

Things change when Josh Matthews come into the picture. After the party they crash at NYU, it feels like he’s always around. Suddenly Maya’s phone is constantly lighting up with his texts while they’re at lunch, and she’s ditching them in the afternoons (which are usually filled with Riley doing her homework while Lucas and Zac play video games and Maya yells at them) to go to the NYU campus to see Josh. It’s all Josh Josh Josh all the goddamn time and Zac is not a fan.

Truth be told, he kind of hates Josh Matthews. Riley tries to tell him that her uncle is a good dude, and after Lucas is officially introduced to him, he doesn’t think he’s that bad. But Zac just, hates him. Every time Maya opens her mouth to talk about him, or he sees Josh pop up on her Instagram, he just has the uncontrollable urge to snap something in half.

One Friday night, it’s just him and Lucas and it feels weird, empty almost. It hasn’t been just them since Riley and Lucas started dating which was almost two months ago. They’re playing some stupid video game in the living, their parents gone, at some gala or some shit like that, and the apartment feels cold and quiet.

“Fuck!” Lucas exclaims as Zac manages to finally kill him, throwing the controller to the ground and throwing his brother a glare.

“You kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?” Zac teases, knowing that Riley’s absence tonight is taking a toll on Lucas. Riley and Lucas are kind of pathetically attached at the hip and Zac can’t help but tease his brother for it every chance he gets.

“Shut the fuck up.” Lucas grumbles, shoving himself off the couch and stalking into the kitchen, Zac getting up and following him, a chuckle escaping his lips.

“Where is she tonight, anyway?” He asks, watching Lucas rummage around in the fridge, holding his hand out until Lucas slaps a soda can into it.

“Her grandparents are in town, her brother’s birthday was yesterday so they’re all out to dinner.” Lucas said, opening up his own can and taking a swig. “She keeps texting me though, apparently the dinner is boring and her uncle is the only one keeping her entertained.”

The hairs on the back of Zac’s neck stand up at the mention of Riley’s uncle. He scoffs slightly, but covers it up with a cough, taking a sip of his soda.

“So, Josh is there.” He comments, and Lucas shakes his head, looking down at his phone, no doubt scrolling through Riley’s texts.

“No, it’s her other uncle, Eric. The senator.” Lucas says, pausing only for a moment before adding, “Apparently Josh skipped and is hanging out with Maya instead. Her grandparents aren’t impressed.”

Zac can’t help but snort, feeling a weird sense of satisfaction at the fact that apparently Josh Matthews isn’t as great as everyone cracks him up to be. However, that feeling of satisfaction is also met with a twist in his stomach, because Maya ditched them yet again to hang out with Josh Matthews. Lucas is looking at him with a weird look on his face, apparently the silence between them had been longer than Zac intended. The last thing Zac wants to do is reveal his feelings to his brother.

“Wait, did you just say that Riley’s uncle is a senator?” Lucas laughs and nods, launching into some weird story about Riley’s uncle, who’s apparently Riley’s hero and her favorite family member after her brother. Zac loses himself in the story, pushing all thoughts of Josh Matthews, and Maya and Josh from his mind.

But, later that night when he’s scrolling through his phone, his stomach drops when he comes across the latest picture on Maya’s instagram. “This loser.” Is the caption and the accompanying picture is her lips pressed against Josh Matthews’.

He hates Josh, and he kind of hates Maya too for making him feel like this.

But mainly, he hates himself for tricking himself into thinking he had a chance.

----

Only about two weeks after Maya and Josh had made things officially, she comes bursting into Riley’s window, her face flush from the cold.

“Riles! I fucked up.” She exclaims to her best friend, who’s sitting on her bed with her phone in her lap. Riley merely raises her eyebrows, inviting an explanation. “Josh and I were making out, and I moaned the wrong name.”

Riley’s face goes from curious, to horrified to amused in one foul swoop and she would burst out laughing if it wasn’t for the very distressed look on her friend’s face. Dropping her phone to the bed she goes over the bay window and takes a seat next to Maya.

“What name did you say?” Riley knows she should probably comfort Maya first, but truthfully, the name that Maya said is very crucial to whether or not this is something that Riley has the ability to fix.

“I don’t wanna say.” Maya mumbles, her head falling into her hands and her hair covering most of her face. Riley nods, pursing her lips, she has a really strange feeling that she knows exactly what name Maya said, but she wants to hear her best friend admit it.

“Ring power.” Riley says, holding up her hand, which was adorned with the matching friendship ring that she had given Maya for her birthday a couple years ago. Maya had thought they were a little weird at first, but neither one of them had taken them off since.

“Zac.” Riley’s face broke into a wide grin, but she had barely been able to hear Maya, as her face was still buried in her hands.

“What was that now?”

“Zac!” Maya exclaimed, louder this time, snapping her head up. “I moaned Zac’s name while making out with Josh okay, he had just slipped his hand under my shirt and -”

“Ew.”

“It just came out, and then Josh pulled his hand out and just stared at him and I just stared at him and then I ran.”

“Well damn.” Riley sighs, leaning back against the window, assessing the situation. “You gonna tell Zac?” Riley asks, desperating hoping her friend says yes. Riley’s been sick of watching them tiptoe around each other for the last couple months, both of them far too stubborn for their own good.

Maya’s eyes widen and she just eyes Riley, not giving her any kind of reply. The two friends look at each other for a moment, and there’s a moment where Maya’s eyes go from confusion to something else, before breaking the eye contact.

“I gotta go.” Maya says abrupting, jumping from the window seat and exiting the way she came in.

“Make good choices!” Riley calls after her, smirking to herself. She has a really good feeling she knows exactly where Maya is heading off too.

----

A couple minutes after leaving Riley’s, Maya finds herself knocking on the heavy wooden door, her hands shaking slightly. Luckily for her, the person she’s hoping to see opens the door and looks down at her with confusion all over his face.

“Are you here alone?” She asks, looking around him into the empty space behind him, he hesitantly nods, looking even more confused and before he can say something or she can lose her courage and run away in the opposite direction, she throws her arms around his neck and presses her lips against his.

Nerves burst across her skin and her entire body feels like it’s on fire, her lips practically burning. His hands find her waist and he pulls her body closer to his, responding to her kiss with fervor. She stumbles forward, closing the door behind her, him reaching behind her to lock it, the click echoing in the empty apartment.

“Maya -”

“Sh, don’t talk.” She whispers, breaking their lips apart and grabbing his head and pulling him towards his bedroom. He stumbles after her and they both laugh, losing themselves in the moment, neither one of them using their minds.

Instead, they let their bodies do the talking.

----

A couple hours later, a darkness has settled across his bedroom, the chill of blue light causing  her to shiver. Her thoughts are running a million mile per hour and as she looks at his sleeping form next to her, her mind is clouded with confusion. She’s not going to deny how satisfying that felt, the way his hands felt against her skin and the way his lips pressed against hers sent shivers down her spine, but nothing makes sense and she doesn’t know what to do.

He deserves better than her, someone who doesn’t sleep with him just because they fucked up their relationship. He deserves better than someone who doesn’t know how to keep their damn mouth shut and shuts people out for no goddamn reason. He deserves someone who doesn’t fall for people they can’t have and then trick themselves into thinking it could ever work out.

Pulling herself out of his bed, Maya freezes when she hears the front door open, not wanting to be caught by anyone in his family. But, luckily for her, the person, most likely Lucas, merely walks by Zac’s room and into his own, closing the door behind him with a slam. Maya takes a deep breath, grabbing all her clothes and throwing them on as quickly as she can, wanting to get out before he wakes up.

Her heart hurts and her stomach twist and she feels like she’s going to be sick if she stays for a second longer. She hates doing this, but she knows that it’s for the best. Grabbing a piece of scrap paper from his desk, she writes a quick note and leaves it on the pillow, before slipping her shoes on and leaving the apartment as quietly as possible.

When Zac awakes a few minutes later, his room feeling cold and empty, he finds himself alone, a note resting on the pillow.

We can’t talk about this. Just forget it ever happened. It was a mistake.

The note makes him feel sick, he crumbles it up in his hand and chucks it across the room, tears hot in the back of his eyes. Bile is creeping up in the back of his throat and he pushes it away, throwing himself back on his bed.

He hates her. He hates her. He really fucking hates her.

Except he doesn’t hate her. Not even a little bit. He’s fucking in love with her.

And that’s the fucking worst part.

----

They don’t talk after that. Maya’s still with Josh and Zac is still hating every single second of his life. They still sit together at lunch and hang out after school with Riley and Lucas, except they never look at each other and the tension between them lingers in the air with every passing moment. Riley and Lucas look uncomfortable every time they’re all in the same room, but never bring it up.

The shift in the group dynamic puts everyone on edge and the last thing any one of them want to do is say anything that’s going to break them apart forever, they’re already teetering on the edge of destruction and all of them are scared that any one thing could push them.

Maya doesn’t sit with them at lunch one day, instead sitting in the art room. They all spend the entire lunch period staring at her empty chair and not saying anything to each other, the only interaction between any of them is when Lucas will squeeze Riley’s hand lightly and she’ll give him a tight smile, but they don’t talk, they don’t laugh and they certainly don’t mention Maya.

Zac feels like it’s his fault and that makes him hate her even more.

----

Maya and Josh break up. He finds out through Lucas, who had gotten a text from Riley, who was bailing on their movie plans to comfort Maya.

Zac wished he could say he doesn’t care.

But fuck, he cares so much that he actually smiles, and maybe things will fix themselves after all.

----

Two weeks later, he can’t fucking take it anymore. Maya comes back to the group after her break up with Josh, but things are still awkward and uncomfortable, and one day he just breaks. He offers to walk Maya home after a movie, Riley and Lucas taking off in the opposite direction. She refuses to look at him, instead focusing down at her shoes, he wants to scream, yell that he’s in love with her and he’s willing to give her all the chances in the world, even though he feels like she’s destroyed him.

“We can’t avoid this forever.” He opens and she looks at him, stopping on the sidewalk. Her eyes are wide and there’s a slight scowl on her face and he briefly flashes back to the day they met.

“What the fuck are you talking about hee haw?” She asks, trying to take a step forward, but he stops her, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him lightly.

“We had sex, you can’t avoid it forever. You said it was a mistake, but it wasn’t. You don’t get to decide shit like that. I get that you probably only slept with me because of Josh, but you still did it. You did that. You can’t take it back. It happened.” He can tell his words took her by surprise because her lips fall open in surprise.

“I -”

“God dammit Maya, I care about you so fucking much. I know that you’re probably still in love with Josh and I’m probably not the guy you wanna be with because I’m not in college and I’m pretty fucked up. But Maya, I care about you and that sex meant something to me. So please, if it meant something to you, don’t stand there and act like it never happened.” The words come tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop any of them.

Maya pauses for a moment, her eyes falling and then snapping back up to look at him. He can see her gulp, and she pushes her hair away from her face.

“I’m not in love with Josh. I never was.” Is what she finally says after a moment of silence between them. “I only thought that I was, but being with him wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, I was just happy that he finally wasn’t looking at me as a little kid.”

Zac nods, happy that she wasn’t in love with Josh, but his heart was still heavy in his chest, afraid that everything he had just said was going to be for nothing and she was going to push him away anymore. He couldn’t lose her.

“Truthfully, you mean too much to me Zac, for me to be with you.” Those words confused him and he took a step closer to her, closing some of the distance between them.

“What the fuck do you mean?”

“I destroy people. I push people away that care about me. If I give into everything that I feel about you, I’ll destroy you and you’ll hate me. And I can’t fucking do that to you, because I care about you too damn much.” There were tears in her eyes and Zac body was vibrating. “You deserve better. I can’t be selfish with you, Zac.”

“I dare you too.” He whispered to her, taking her face in his hands. “I don’t care, Maya. Because I care too fucking much about you to let you push me away.” Their faces were only inches apart at this point and he could feel her breath on his lips.

“Promise me you won’t fall in love with me. That’ll probably kill you.” She whispers, he can’t tell if she’s kidding or not and his forehead falls against hers.

“Too late.”

Their lips come together and god, everything about this moment is all he couldn’t have dreamed of. Their lips move against each others and her hands tangle themselves in his hair and his fingers brush up against her cheeks and when they pull apart, she giggles and he wants to capture this moment and live in it forever.

“You are such a fucking sap Zac Friar.” She says once they’ve both caught their breath and he can’t help but laugh, because they’re falling right back into place, like they were always supposed to be like this.

“Oh shut up, you love it.” He says, throwing his arm around her shoulders and continuing their journey back to Maya’s apartment. And yeah, they kiss a few more times before he finally leaves her and heads home, but they’re both smiling and things finally feel whole.

----

The next day when they show up at Riley’s mom’s cafe to hang out with Riley and Lucas, they see Lucas slip Riley a twenty, a victorious smile on her face. Zac wants to be offended that his brother and his brother’s girlfriend had bet on him and Maya’s relationship, but then Maya slips herself under his arm and rests her hand on his thigh, a bright smile on her face and god.

On their third day at Abigail Adams, Zac, the older brother was caught smoking under the bleachers and given a “stern warning” as he was new and wasn’t aware of the school policies quite yet. That should have been the first sign of trouble, but two days later Lucas was caught carving “inappropriate language” on the walls of the school bathroom and fighting with another guy in the lunchroom.

The Friar boys were trouble, but everybody loves a bad boy.

----

However, it didn’t take nearly as long as everyone thought for the Friar twosome to become a foursome. Due to the fact that Lucas and Zac were both notorious for only speaking to each other and giving everyone else occasional one word responses and grunts, everyone was a little shocked when one Monday morning, Lucas strolled into school with Riley Matthews by his side, his arm around her waist and her hand tangled in his hair. Riley wasn’t exactly known as a goodie good, she had been seen smoking more than once in the school courtyard, but she still got good grades and took advanced level classes, her best friend Maya was more the troublemaker in their pair.

Maya was the one that was constantly getting detention, not afraid of the reputation that followed her and the rumors that spread about her. Riley was always the one getting Maya out of trouble, but not after she’s caused a little herself. Riley and Maya were the type of best friends that would do anything for each other, Riley would take the fall for something really bad Maya did to keep Maya out of too much trouble, and Maya would stand up for anyone that dared to speak badly of Riley. They had each other’s backs, and everyone knew not to mess with them.

So, of course, where Riley went Maya followed, so soon enough, the Friar brothers and the longtime best friends had become the most talked about group in school. Always together and never with anyone else, the group soon became the poster group for troublemaking. Zac and Riley were the smokers, constantly being busted by janitors in the bathroom or the football coach under the bleachers. Lucas and Maya found trouble in multiple ways, starting fights, writing and carving on the bathroom walls, and talking back to teachers. They had a reputation, and the rumor mill certainly had a fun time with them.

Not that any of them cared what anyone said about them, they knew who they were and that was all that was important.

----

Each member of their little group had a role that they played. The roles were unofficial but in every scheme that they ever partook in, each one of them fell into their roles without hesitation. Maya was the brains, the mastermind, the schemer, came up with all their great plans, always bursting in their hang out sessions with some great new idea of something they should do. While Maya was the mastermind, Zac was the planner, the unofficial leader of their group, mainly because he was the oldest, two years older than Maya and Lucas and three years older than Riley, he made sure that every idea of Maya’s came to light exactly the way they all were imagining it.

Lucas, on the other hand, was the brawn, the hands and muscle of the group, he made sure everything went according to the plan. He wasn’t afraid to use his hands to get something he wants, and usually used his fists before he used his words, he was willing to do anything that needed to be done to get what they all wanted. Riley, was their heart, the one that kept them all grounded and kept them from going too over the edge. She still participated in all their schemes and was far from a wet blanket, but sometimes, when one of them was teetering on a dangerous edge, Riley brought them back, she had that effect on people.

They went together like perfectly crafted puzzle pieces, all the perfect amount of fucked up to balance each other out. They all had their issues, alone they were all a little bit broken and a little unable to conquer their fears, but together…

Together, they could take on the world.

----

No one at school understood what drew Lucas Friar and Riley Matthews together. Even two months in their relationship, the chatter certainly hadn’t died down about them, Riley could always hear girls whispering about them in the bathroom, and saw people staring at them in the hallway. None of it bothered her however, she knew the truth of their relationship and in her opinion, that was all that really mattered.

Lucas however, didn’t see it that way. He would always stiffen when he heard someone saying something about them, and more than once he had sent a nice calmly worded threat towards anyone casting them dirty looks. But that was as far as it went, until one day some dude called Riley a whore under his breath, fists were flying before Riley had a chance to blink. Lucas and Zac had the dude pined to the ground in seconds, not giving him any chance to fight back and a stream of curse words were falling from Maya’s lips while Riley looked on in shock.

A teacher broke it up in seconds, and in the end they all got detention. Lucas, Zac and Maya for all participating in the fight and Riley for calling the guy a little bitch as soon as he was on his feet again, Maya whispering to Lucas that he should have waited until after school when no teachers were around to finish him off.

That event was a turning point for the rest of the Abigail Adams, that was when they all learned that if you mess with one of the group, you mess with all of them.

---

Friday nights you could usually find the four friends in the mostly empty Friar apartment. Lucas and Zac’s parents were always out, doing god knows what, leaving the teens to their own devices. Lucas and Zac never really talked about their parents and nearly three months into their friendship, Riley and Maya had never met the mysterious Friar parents, but it was clear that it was uncomfortable topic so they never asked.

This particular friday night however, Maya was bored, pacing the length of the living room of the Friar apartment, trying to think of something the group could do. Zac was stretched out on the couch watching the blonde walk from end to end of the room, his eyes following her every step as Riley and Lucas were sitting together on the arm chair, his arm around her waist and her head resting on his shoulder.

“Oh! There’s that frat party at NYU tonight? Wanna crash?” Maya’s eye were lit up with excitement and Riley smirked slightly.

“How the fuck do you know about an NYU frat party?” Lucas asked, raising his eyebrow, Zac nodding in agreement.

“I have my sources, do you want to go to the party or not Huckleberry?”

“You were stalking Josh on Facebook again weren’t you Maya? Is that the real reason you want to go to this party?” Riley sported a wide smirk on her face, and both Zac and Lucas’ immediately looked at her, both of them wearing matching looks of confusion.

“Who the hell is Josh?” Lucas asked, his voice low and gravelly. Riley, or Maya for that matter, had never mentioned anyone named Josh, and while it sounded like Josh was someone of Maya’s affection, rather than Riley’s, Lucas’ voice held a slight tone of jealousy over this guy, which he couldn’t really help.

“Josh is my uncle.” Riley said, throwing Lucas a look, knowing all too well where his mind had been going. “He’s only a couple years older than us, he’s a freshman at NYU and Maya’s had a thing for him since we were like 8 years old.”

At that, all sets of eyes in the room drew to Maya, as she sent a glare to her best friend, who merely shrugged, moving her body closer to Lucas’ and playing the part of completely innocent. Zac looked merely curious, he had never seen Maya had feelings for someone, despite how he sometimes wondered if she had feelings for him. Every conversation of theirs was always laced with flirtatious undertones, but of course, that seemed to mean nothing, and he shouldn’t be surprised that there was some guy who Maya had feelings for.

“Look, it doesn’t fucking matter. Josh might be the reason I know about the party, but it’s fucking Friday night and last weekend we spent Friday night here because all of you guys were lame asses who didn’t want to go out. Well guess what, we’re going to a party tonight, because I want to have some real fun.”

The other three in the room couldn’t really think of a good argument. In all honestly, Zac had been itching to go to a party, it had been a couple weeks since they had gone to one, they had stayed in last weekend and the weekend before that they had hung out around the city just the four of them. Although, he really wasn’t excited to see Maya interact with some college dude who apparently she’s been hung up on for years now.

“So are you losers in or not?” Maya asked, with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk on her face.

“Sure, sounds like it’ll be fun.” Riley says, smiling, looking at her boyfriend who nodded with a small smile. Then Maya averted her gaze to Zac, who held her gaze for a moment.

“I can’t wait to meet Riley’s uncle Josh, so let’s do it.”

This night was about to get wild.

----

None of them had ever been to a college party before. High school parties were a norm, but college parties were new unchartered territory. Maya was excited, in her opinion high school parties were boring and tame, and she could only imagine what college parties held, before tonight of course. As they approached the frat house, they could hear the music and the road was practically vibrated from the sheer force of the bass.

As the group entered the party, Maya immediately disappeared into the crowd, claiming that she was off to find Josh, while Riley and Lucas disappeared together, no doubt to claim a couch to make out on and Zac was left to his own devices. He found himself gravitating towards the keg, filling up a cup and observing the scene around him.

Truth was, there were aspects of parties that Zac wasn’t a huge fan of, sure he liked getting to hang out with his friends and he wasn’t gonna turn down free alcohol, but being around so many people wasn’t exactly his favorite thing in the world. Although, he had to admit, college students were hella more entertaining than high school students were and he was probably never gonna see any of these people ever again.

From his vantage point, leaning up against the wall, he could see his younger brother and Riley snuggled up on one of the couches, Lucas with a cup in his hand, taking occasional sips as they whispered to each other. Lucas kept randomly pressing his lips against hers and smiling at her which caused Zac to smirk slightly, those two crazy kids had only been together for a couple of months but he could see how smitten they were with each other.

Surveying his eyes across the rest of the party, he couldn’t help but stiffen at the sight of Maya giggling, her body leaning against a tall brunette dude, who had a small smirk on his face. He knew that had to be Riley’s uncle, he could see the resemblance. He didn’t know if this was the alcohol talking or what but the sight of them together made his stomach turn and he already didn’t like this dude, despite his blood relation to one of Zac’s closest friends.

Breaking his gaze from the duo, he made his way back over the keg, desperate to lose himself in the numbness of the alcohol, that’s what always seemed to work anyways.

----

About an hour, and two drinks, later Zac found himself slightly stumbling out onto the front porch, desperate for a cigarette, hoping for a moment alone, away from the loud music and drunken college students. But there was already someone out there, luckily it was someone he liked.

“So, what’s the deal with that uncle of yours?” He asked casually, leaning against the porch post, lighting up and raising one eyebrow at his companion.

“Do you mean, what’s the deal with my uncle in general, or what’s the deal with my uncle and Maya?” Riley had a keen sense of being more observing than you expected her to be and with her raised eyebrow, it wasn’t hard to tell that she had him caught.

He didn’t say anything, simply moving to the other side of her, mimicking her stance of leaning his forearms on the porch railing, bringing his cigarette to his lips for a moment, slightly shrugging his shoulders.

“My grandparents are weird, they decided to have a kid when my dad was like 20, and I was born like three years later, making Josh and I super close in age. Maya and I have been friends basically since the minute we were born and she’s always over at my house for family shit and one day I just figured out that she liked him.” Her face was unreadable, so Zac couldn’t tell if this was something Riley enjoyed or not, but he didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt. “Josh thought it was really weird at first, always bringing up how much younger she was and ignoring her or whatever, which broke her fucking heart. Then, one day a couple months ago, Josh randomly started not being as weirded out as much and I guess he thinks it’s cute now. I don’t really know.” She took a long drag of her cigarette, finally looking at him and smiling sadly.

“Do you think it’s weird?”

“Yeah, it’s really weird. But, it makes Maya happy and that’s all that matters, I guess.” Riley said, shrugging her shoulders and looking off into the distance. “What about you, what do you think?”

“I don’t think it really matters what I think. I highly doubt Maya cares about my opinion.” He was surprised to hear Riley scoff next to him. But before she could elaborate the front door of the house swung open and Maya burst out onto the porch.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt this deep emotional convo, but there is some real bad tension going on in here and if you don’t get in here quick Riles, Huckleberry’s gonna be kicking some dude’s ass.” Riley rolled her eyes and put out her cigarette, giving Zac a look as she did so.

“I love your brother but he’s a pain in my ass sometimes. Can’t leave him alone for more than five goddamn minutes. Thanks, Maya.” She gave Zac a small salute before disappearing inside, following Maya.

Shaking his head slightly, Zac averted his eyes away from the house, staring up at the sky. For a moment he thought about how fucked up this whole situation was, he didn’t do crushes but something about Maya Hart had him hooked, but she was all hung up on Riley’s college freshman uncle and Riley kind of felt like his sister, because of how close they were and how basically married her and his brother were. It was a fucked up situation.

“Listen Hee Haa, I know that we’re in college now and I have more motivation than I ever did in high school, but I am not at the level to start doing my homework in the middle of the day on a Saturday.” She gave another laugh and once again pulled the brim of her hat over her eyes.

“Well, we’re snowed in for at least the next 12 hours, we need to find some way to pass the time.” Maya groaned again, this snowstorm was really harshing her mood. Her and Riley were supposed to have a girl’s night tonight, see a movie and order take out food and stay up too late in their dorm room. But they had woken up this morning to nearly a foot of snow on the ground, with it still coming down in heaps.

The night before Riley had decided to spend the night with Lucas across campus, and this morning she had called Maya in a panic, not sure she wanted to risk walking all the way across campus in the snow, so Maya had told her that it wasn’t a big deal. She wasn’t upset with Riley in any way, they could have a girl’s night any night of the week, but now she was sufficiently bored.

So she called the one person, besides Riley, who always kept her entertained. At first she had thought it would be annoying as hell to have her boyfriend living in the same dorm building as her, but on days like this, it was an absolute blessing. One text and Zac was at her door in seconds.

Hours later, here they were. The first couple hours were fine, Zac provided her sufficient entertainment for the time being, but now she was getting stir crazy.

“We could play a game?” His voice was playful and Maya crinkled her eyebrows together in confusion. Hee Haa certainly kept her on her toes, and this was just further proof of that. Ever since they had started finally dating in high school, they both constantly came up with crazy ideas of things to do with each other, but this was a new one.

“What, you wanna whip out some cards and play go fish or something?” He didn’t respond at first and Maya shook her head against the floor. “We are not playing any kind of strip card game, I swear to god if that’s what you were going to suggest you can get out. I don’t care if you’ve already seen me naked, we are not playing strip anything at 3 in the afternoon.”

She heard a rustling and felt his feet hit the floor next to her and before she could ask him what he was doing, she heard him grunt and suddenly she could feel his breath on her cheeks. Using one of his hands, he lifted her hat up and their faces were only inches apart and she rose her eyebrow playfully.

“What game are we playing?” She asked teasingly, using her hands to play with the strings of his hoodie. He merely smirked at her for a moment before kissing her softly. Her insides warmed and she laughed lightly against his lips.

“You always talk about how you’re so tough, and I believe you, but let’s see who’s really the strongest one around here.” He said once they pulled apart, resting his hands in pushup position on either side of her head.

“Well, I wouldn’t hold your breath cowboy. Out of all of us, Lucas is as strong as a horse, and I still have vivid memories of him throwing that guy against a locker when we were in 8th grade, so I’m pretty inclined to believe him. But I don’t think you have anything on me.” He rolled his eyes largely, and she couldn’t help but giggle. Truth be told, he was probably just as strong as she was, but she liked teasing him way too much.

“We’ll see about that. Let’s make a deal.” She raised her eyebrows, fully intrigued at this point. “For every push up I do, you have to give me a kiss, and for every push up you do, you get one taco from paco’s tacos.”

“Aw, taco’s, you really do know the way to my heart.” She stroked his cheek playfully and he glared at her softly, before laughing lightly. “You have yourself a deal, are you gonna go first?”

“Yep. You ready?” He asked, prepping himself and hovering over her. Her eyes widened slightly and she could only nod, a warm sensation pooling into her stomach. His first push up took her by surprise, not expecting his face to get that close to hers, but she accepted the kiss with a small smile on her face.

By his fifth pushup, she was laughing hysterically every time he brought his lips down to hers. The determined look on his face becoming a little too much for her to handle.

“Are you making fun of me?” He asked, his voice hurt but also playful.

“Nooooo, of course not cowboy, why on earth would I ever do that.” She smiled sweetly and he narrowed his eyes at her. Maya didn’t really know how the next thing happened, suddenly he was bringing his face right down to hers, his lips hovering mere centimeters over her own, his breath sending a tingling sensation across her lips.

“You don’t think I can beat you.” Maya was speechless and before she could even begin to think of anything to say, his lips were on hers. This kiss was more passionate than all his previous ones had been combined and after a mere moment, her arms wrapped themselves around his neck, bringing him closer to her body.

After a minute they pulled apart, both breathless and blushed in the face, but both beaming at each other.

“Ok, cowboy, you win this one.” Maya said, chuckling softly. This time Zac was the one who was left speechless, unable to formulate any kind of response before Maya tugged him back down by the collar of his shirt, her lips against his instantly.