A Christmas Love Story - Book 1

Lucas finds out

*It's 6 days till Christmas Eve and Lucas is in his room at Pappy Joe's.*

Lucas lays on top of the sheets thinking about Maya, and then about how he was going to hurt Riley by telling Maya about his feelings for her, and then about how much he loves Maya. Suddenly his phone starts buzzing. He picks it up and sees Riley's picture on his lock screen. He sits up and answers the video chat.
"Hey." Lucas says.
"Hey." Riley says enthusiastically.
"What's up?" Lucas asks.
"I just wanted to see how you were doing, and to say hey, and that I... uh we miss you." Riley replies
"I'm good, just sitting around doing nothing really, and I miss you guys too." Lucas says.
"I'm so bored." Riley said.
"Me too, but why are you bored?" Lucas asked, "I thought you and Maya would be hanging out and having fun."
"I did too but Maya has been talking to some new guy-"
"What?" Lucas interrupts.
"Yeah I know. I haven't even met him," Riley says upset, "and they went on a date last night."
"What?" Lucas says trying to hold everything in.
"Yeah he took her to some fancy restaurant and was a complete gentleman." Riley says oblivious to what's going on inside Lucas.
"Really?" Lucas asked kind of hurt.
"Yeah, I mean that's all she texted me." Riley replies.
"You didn't talk to her about it in person or even over video chat?" Lucas asked.
"No. Weird huh?" Riley says.
"Yeah... well I've got to go talk to you later, bye." Lucas says.
"Bye." Riley says hanging up.
"She's going out with someone?" Lucas says angrily to himself. Lucas was about to punch the wall but stopped himself. He went out to the garage and found his punching bag that he always had at Pappy Joe's and punched it. He punched it again and again. And with every punch his frustration, and anger went away. He continued to punch it for half an hour. He threw another punch and another and another, but as he was about to punch it again he realized that there was blood on the bag. He looked at his knuckles and saw that they were bleeding. He had zoned out so much while punching the bag he didn't realize his knuckles were bleeding. He went back in the house and cleaned his wounds. While punching helped he was still frustrated and angry. Angry at Maya, angry at this 'new guy', but mostly angry at himself for choosing Riley and not Maya. For not realizing what he had, for being stupid and letting her go. These thoughts made him want to punch the punching bag again but he didn't. He wrapped his hands in bandages and went out to the barn. He didn't really want to be outside because it was really cold, but he couldn't keep punching the punching bag. He got his horse that Pappy Joe got him, Dusty. Lucas saddled him up and got on. He hadn't been on a horse in so long but it felt good. Usually riding can clear his mind of anything. Lucas got Dusty into a gallop and went on the trail him and his cousins had made in the woods. After a long time Lucas found the river. He got off and let Dusty get some water. Lucas always came down to this river whenever he needed to get away and clear his head. He sat by the river for a while thinking. Thinking about Maya, about what to do, and about how he was going to hurt Riley in the process. He put his head in his hands, he wanted to scream, he thought screaming might let some anger out but he didn't want to spook Dusty. Lucas just sat there holding his anger in, he knew that if when he went back to New York and he had lost her he would never forgive himself for giving her up. Lucas gets back on Dusty and heads back to Pappy Joe's.

When he gets back he looks for another plane ticket to New York that was sooner than Christmas Eve but all the flights were booked. He closed his laptop frustrated. He needed to talk to someone, he needed to talk to Zay.
(Texts)
*hey* -Lucas
*hey* -Zay
*i need to talk to you* -Lucas
*ok. Where you want to meet up?* -Zay
*Chubie's* -Lucas
*be there in 10* -Zay

*Sorry that there is so much going on in this chapter. I might have to move up the timeline of the story or something, sad to say I'm running out of ideas. But I'm trying my best. Thank you for reading.*