Lucas woke up thinking that he dreamed of Riley and talking to her in the middle of the night, but he knew better because she's usually asleep when he sends her messages in the middle of the night. But when he looked at his phone he realized that it had been real and that she wanted to meet him at the café. He looked at the clock and rushed to get dressed, he shift started the moment the doors opened but it was usually quiet this early on Saturday mornings, until just about noon when all the students woke up looking for coffee.
When he got to Topanga's he noticed Riley automatically and how tired she looked, had she slept at all? He wondered but then remembered the messages and realized that she hadn't slept at all, so whatever it was that weigh on her mind was something huge.
"Hey Riley," he said as he walked inside worried that she was going to collapse.
"Meg," she called out to their weekend assistant manager. "I'm going to sit down if that's okay?"
"Go ahead, it's a quiet morning anyway, and drink some coffee you look dead on your feet," Meg said as she took over the counter stocking up the pastries.
Riley sat down at a booth and slowly sipped her coffee, Lucas watched her worried because she looked so tired.
"I have to ask you about something," she said as she finished her coffee.
"Go ahead, you asked me to meet you," he said looking at her tired eyes. "But promise me you'll get some sleep today?"
"I will, I only have a half shift today," she said smiling at him. "I'm here until noon and then I'm gone."
"I'll wait for you if that's okay... I don't want you falling asleep somewhere."
"Okay," she said before yawning. "Anyway, I need to ask you something serious...um... about the triangle."
Lucas didn't know where this was coming from, it was the one part of their relationship that he had wanted to forget. Even though there had been some good times it had felt like more of a strain to not show that he liked one girl over the other.
"What do you want to know?" he asked afraid of the reason why she was asking.
"I want to tell you something but you have to swear that you won't say anything," she said her eyes pleading for him to keep whatever she was about to say between them. "Please."
"Riley, you're scaring me."
"It's just that it has to do with Zay... and Maya."
"I promise, and if I break that promise I'll run around the block in only shorts and sneakers the next time it snows."
"That's a little extreme but I'll take your word for it," she said looking at her empty cup. "So... you know how Zay is going on these dates with Maya right."
"Yeah, he's so excited about it."
"Maya only asked him out because she saw Josh with another girl, and she thinks that she shouldn't wait for him anymore."
"Was he on a date with her?"
"No, they were studying for some midterm, but Maya has it in her head that the best way to get over her feelings for Josh is to go out with Zay and I don't want Zay to get hurt."
"What does the triangle have anything to do with Maya trying to move on?"
"Josh loves Maya," she said and he could all of a sudden understand her reasoning towards the question about the triangle. "Josh is where I was when everything happened, he's pushing his feelings aside because he's afraid of what he feels for Maya and he doesn't want to hurt her. Maya on the other hand is bringing Zay into all of this and in the end someone is going to get hurt.... So I wanted to know about how you felt during the triangle."
"Well," he started wondering where he should begin, so he decided to start at the beginning, "New Year's was the best and worst day of my life, well second to when you called me your brother in Texas because I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend and you... well you know..." he took a deep breath trying to reconcile his feelings for something that had happened so long ago. "Anyway, being stuck between you and Maya was bad, but not as bad as losing you completely. I mean I liked Maya but it was more of a sibling rivalry, but it wasn't what I was feeling for you, but I only did it because it was what you wanted."
She couldn't look him in the eye and he knew that she was thinking about other things. "How did you feel when I went out with Charlie?" she said after a minute.
"Honestly, it was like being kicked in the stomach repeatedly," he sighed before he took her hand. "I didn't like it Riley, it hurt but at the time I thought you honestly thought of us as siblings and I wanted to respect your feelings so I held back even though it was killing me from the inside."
"Sorry," she said.
"Riley, stop, everything that happened during that year was as much my fault as it was yours and Maya's, I should have fought harder but I was too preoccupied with making sure I made you happy that I forgot that my feelings mattered as well."
"That's what I'm afraid of," she said to him squeezing his hand. "Josh is going to fall apart, he says he's doing it because he wants Maya to be happy, because he doesn't want to hurt her and have her lose herself, but in the end she's already losing herself trying to act like she needs to move on."
"And in the end who is going to be hurt when everything comes out?"
"Zay, and I don't want him to get hurt."
"For Zay, I think he's had this crush on Maya for a while, but even he knows somewhere deep down that it's not what she feels for him. I think he knows how Maya feels about Josh but he wants that chance to prove himself."
"What are we going to do?"
"We could lock all three of them in a room until they admit their feelings," he said smiling. "It's what I wanted to do with you."
"You should have, we could have avoided a lot of things."
"We'll lock them in your room, we could have the windows locked, and prop your door with something so they won't get out."
"Okay," she said, but he saw how tired she was. "Let me get back to work, we can plan later."
"Okay," he said getting up. "I'm going to run home and grab some rope because we're going to fix this, even if I have to tie them to each other."
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Riley worked until noon, only to have to stay when it started getting busy, for some reason they had a lot more people on a Saturday than usual. Lucas had stopped by to check on her, making sure to have her text Maya to meet her at the bay window at four before her date with Zay. He also told her that he had called Zay telling him to stop by her house to pick up something and that it couldn't wait. Riley asked Josh to come meet her at Topanga's and told him it was because her parents wanted him to come over for dinner. She felt bad for lying to all of them but she didn't want this to get as far as it did after Texas so she made sure that they were all there.
When she walked into her room after her shift, she saw Maya waiting at the bay window wearing jeans and a sweater. "Come on Riles I have to meet Zay in twenty minutes," she said looking at her phone to check the time.
"Just a minute," she said as she pushed Zay into the room, he was tied up thanks to Lucas.
"What the hell?" Zay said as he landed on her bed. Lucas had done the same trick he had done on Maya during her fourteenth birthday. Lucas was behind her with a tied up Josh who looked grumpier than he had when she saw him the night before when she saw him at the movies.
"Okay Lucas," she said to her boyfriend who caught Maya with his rope and tied her up too. The three sides of this current triangle were moved to the window where they were all tied up to each other.
"Explain before I kill you," Maya said struggling against the ropes.
"Yeah Riley," Josh said, he had looked as tired as Riley felt the only one who looked fine was Zay.
"You're all going to go through an exercise," Riley said looking at them all. "You all have to work out your feelings, because I'm not going to live through another Triangle."
"What do you mean?" Zay said looking between all of them only to realize what was happening.
"Sorry Zay," Riley said knowing that Zay had just realized the position he was in.
Riley and Lucas walked out of the room and locked the door behind them. At this moment it was up to the three people tied up in the room to figure out what they were going to do.
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Maya couldn't understand what was happening, she had told Riley about wanting to not wait for Josh, she had told her that she wanted to see if she could find something with Zay. Except now she was tied to the both of them, with so much rope between them that getting out was impossible.
"I'm going to kill them," she said as she tried to get up, but was met with resistance.
"What did Riley mean about not living through another triangle?" Zay asked looking over at Maya.
She felt guilty all of a sudden, because she had used Zay as a way to get over Josh. "I don't know, I really don't."
Josh just stayed quiet and it bothered her, he looked so tired and his eyes were puffy and she didn't know why. She wanted to ask him if something had happened, if the girl he had been with had broken his heart but she couldn't.
"Maya do you still like Josh," Zay said when they had been silent for a few minutes, but she didn't answer. "Maya, are you using me to get over Josh?"
The guilt was eating her up from the inside. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said trying to deflect from what he was asking.
"Damn," he said as he looked out at Riley's room. "I'm your Charlie Gardner."
"What?" Maya said looking up at him, even Josh turned his head in surprise.
"Maya what's he talking about?" Josh said for the first time.
"Maya is using me the same way Riley used Charlie to get over Lucas after she found out about Maya's feelings for Lucas... when we were in Texas. So that means that you my friend are hiding something from her."
"Josh?"
"I told her not to say anything to anyone," he said looking down at the ground. "I wanted to let you have a chance at happiness, so I stepped back."
"Oh for crying out loud," Maya said throwing her head back.
"You and Riley I swear are like two peas in a pod," Zay said. "I wonder if it's a Matthews' family trait, you know to hide your feelings and letting the person you love get away."
"Zay I'm sorry," Josh said looking over at the other boy. "No one was supposed to find out about any of this. I was just going to stay on campus and not come over."
"My question is when did Maya decide to move forward?" Zay said looking directly at her. She felt like squirming from the look in his eye. "Maya, they did this for a reason, we have to be honest. Riley's right our friendships can't last through another triangle."
"I saw Josh with another girl and I realized that I couldn't keep waiting," she said, as she sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
"So you asked me out because of that," Zay said looking sad. "I guess it's too much to ask that someone liked me."
"No Zay, you're a good guy, I guess I just went about all of this the wrong way," she said trying to fix the situation.
"No it's okay, at least I know the truth," he said.
The door opened causing the tied up trio to look over and see Riley standing on the other side. "I'm sorry Zay," she said looking at all of them. "I wanted to make this right before she asked you out but everything happened so fast I couldn't figure out where to start."
"It's okay sugar," he said smiling at her. "But you and Lucas both owe me one, the same goes for the two of you."
"So what happens now?" Josh said looking at all of them.
"You tell her the truth for once," Riley said as Lucas walked into the room and untied Zay, and they walked out into the hallway.
"Wait," Maya said but the door was closed before she could say anything else.
"The truth huh," Josh said looking over at Maya. "I guess that's a good place to start."
"What is the truth Josh?"
"Well," he started. "The girl you saw me with was my lab partner, we were studying for our midterm."
"Oh," she said looking down feeling like she blew something completely out of proportion.
"I'm guessing right after you saw us you went to Riley, and made up this crazy plan to get over me. Which I find weird because we talk almost every day, Maya you know me better than my own niece and she figured out what was wrong with me."
"Josh I don't know you that well," she said finally looking up at him. "If I did I would know why the age difference is such an issue with you."
"It's not the age difference that bothers me," he sighed. "It should but it doesn't because I've met couples at school who are five years apart. One of my friends from school is still dating his high school sweetheart and he met her when she was a freshman. They take everything slowly because they want to earn that trust, not only with themselves, but with their parents."
"How old is she now? The girl I mean?"
"Well she's twenty," he said laughing. "Her boyfriend is seventeen, but he's graduating early just so they could go to school together again."
"Josh that's the same as us," Maya said trying not to smile. "But I still don't understand why you kept pushing me away."
"I didn't... I didn't want to hurt you," he said to her and she saw the sadness in his eyes. "Maya ever since that trip, were we confessed to one another, we talked almost every night. We talked about everything, but I was afraid that if we got together you would lose yourself."
"That's not likely," she said smiling at him. "It only happened once, and that's because I was honestly afraid of losing Riley to Lucas, but now.... Well now I know that the best thing I could do is letting her figure it out for herself while I did the same for myself. We're better friends now for it."
"I think the reason why she did this was because she saw me at the movies, yesterday and she saw how heartbroken I was, she knows us both so well and we both go to extremes to do something even if it hurts us."
"So, you like me like me, and you want to date?"
"Maybe," he said smiling at her. "One step at a time... we could hold hands and kiss but that's the extent of it."
"I could deal with that."
"I would also need permission from your mom and Shawn to date you, because I don't want them killing me."
"That could happen, maybe we can have dinner with them, and they can set some ground rules like how the Matthews did with Riley and Lucas."
The door slammed open and the trio looked at them smiling.
"Finally," Zay said laughing. "I mean I know you guys wanted to wait but this was a little extreme."
"No hard feelings?" Maya asked looking over at him.
"No, I'm just happy you're going to be happy."
"Okay," she said smiling.
"Can you untie us?" Josh asked looking over at Lucas. "I would like to feel my fingers you know."
"Okay, but you're not allowed to come after us," Lucas said looking at the pair of them. "It was Riley's idea and only because she was worried about the two of you."
"Whatever," Maya said but Lucas just looked at her. "Fine I promise I won't go after you."
They were untied but Riley ran away the moment Maya was free only because she had stomped her foot forward.
"What," she said looking at the rest of the group. "I didn't do anything."
Lucas went after Riley, Zay left after them leaving Maya and Josh alone. "Don't kill Riley," Josh said before he grabbed her hand and led her out of the room, Maya laughing behind him.