Will chuckled and shook his head. “Looking forward to it! Why?” he asked, genuinely surprised and curious. He could guess that maybe it was because of the novelty; the way that drunk people would say things that they likely wouldn’t say sober. Unfortunately, that was part of the reason why Will knew he couldn’t. Maybe drunk he’d get a wild hair to tell Lucas something that he couldn’t come back from. And then Lucas would know, and there would be no way to un-know it. There was a large chance that Lucas wouldn’t hate him outright for the way he was, but a part of him was still hoping that maybe someday he’d stumble upon the right girl, and all of his confusing feelings would just…. Melt away. It would sure make his life a lot easier. “Thanks,” he replied, a little distracted when Lucas offered to let him stay with him. “Although, somehow I feel like it would be worse for your mom and dad to find me drunk. Why do I feel like they’d have me call home myself to tell my mom?” He grimaced at the thought of it. Worse even would be Lucas’s parents thinking poorly of him. He really did like the Sinclairs, and he felt like he had a decent impression with them. He didn’t want to ruin that with one stupid decision.
Oh, damn. He really shouldn’t have shared about the girl from Lenora because Lucas looked at him like he’d won the damn lottery. Meanwhile Will had felt more like he’d won Shirley Jackson’s version of it. He scratched his nose to keep from wrinkling it when Will asked if she was cute. “I mean, she was fine. There was nothing wrong with her looks.” That was the thing about girls. There was never anything wrong with their looks. They just…. Weren’t. Ugh. Ugh! There wasn’t anything wrong with any one of them. Will was the problem. He tried his best not to look visibly uncomfortable. “It just came as such a surprise, I guess,” he said, dodging the question over whether or not he regretted it. “I mean, I’d hardly ever talked to her. I think I borrowed her a pencil once, but it’s not like there was a connection there, you know?” Hopefully that was a good enough excuse to get the attention focused away from him and the whole footsie debacle. What had been an attempt at empathy had somehow managed to blow up in his face, and now he needed to navigate through the wreckage without giving himself away or making Lucas suspicious.
Oh, shoot. He hadn’t intended to make Lucas panic with the possibility that Tiana might ask him out. “Hey,” he said, forcing his own voice to remain calm as he reached out to touch Lucas on the shoulder, hoping it would ground him. “Breathe, okay? There’s no way of knowing if she will; I was just putting out the worst case scenario because it’s always good to be prepared, right?” he asked, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze before withdrawing his hand, not wanting to be too touchy with him since that was one of the problems he was already dealing with with someone else. “And yeah, okay, maybe you did screw things up with Max sometimes. But as a wise man once said, you won her back every single time.” He cracked a smile, remembering Lucas putting on his advisor hat for Mike when he was having problems with Jane. “Max doesn’t take any shit. Which means that you were able to win her back because she cares about you, and she knows that your dumb mistakes were just that. You being a dumb teenage boy. A temporary condition,” he joked with a grin. “But what doesn’t go away is the fact that you’re Lucas. A kind, caring, funny guy who always puts others before yourself. Smart as a whip and whiz with a slingshot. She sees you.” Will paused, considering some more practical advice. “So if worse comes to worst, and Tia asks you out, just… Tell her the truth,” he suggested. “You could even blame it on Max if you wanted to because it wouldn’t really even make sense for you to be with someone else when that’s not where your heart is, you know?”
"Because I think it'd be funny to see you drunk," Lucas replied with a little giggle. Tilting his head, he studied Will for a moment. "You always seem so composed and serious to me lately. I honestly can't even picture you drunk... but maybe you'd turn into a total goofball or get ridiculously reckless or something!" Lucas spent another moment trying to imagine a drunk Will. Maybe later he'd have to coax a few more drinks into him just to find out. Especially if Lucas stayed sober himself, it might actually be pretty entertaining. To Lucas, the whole thing was just amusing, and he had no idea how much Will was quietly worrying in the background. If Lucas had known, he would've felt awful, and he would've done everything he could to take at least some of those worries off Will's shoulders. Because of course Lucas would always have his back, no matter what. And of course Lucas didn't care who Will was or wasn't crushing on. Thinking about his own parents, though, he paused for a second before giving Will a crooked grin and nodding. "Yeah... I can definitely see that, unfortunately," he admitted. "They're really strict about stuff like that too... I'm just glad they didn't catch me either of the two times I got drunk!" And thankfully Erica hadn't found out either, or she definitely would've ratted him out.
Lucas couldn't remember Will ever telling him a single story about a girl. Naturally, that meant he immediately latched onto the footsie story. At the same time, though, he could completely understand why Will had panicked. Even if it would've been for different reasons than Will's, Lucas would've hated being in that situation too and would've shut it down immediately. "Well, just because there's nothing wrong with a girl's looks doesn't mean you automatically want to play footsie with her," Lucas said with an amused laugh, shaking his head. He snickered, then gave Will an approving punch on the shoulder. "But apparently you totally swept that girl off her feet," he teased, wiggling his eyebrows. "She obviously couldn't control herself anymore... Man, I would've loved to see that!" Even though Lucas could genuinely imagine how uncomfortable the whole thing must've been for Will, he couldn't resist poking a little fun at his friend. He would've loved to see the expression on Will's face in that moment.
Meanwhile, Lucas himself was quietly panicking over the whole Tiana situation. He listened to Will with wide, nervous eyes. When Will quoted him back to himself at one point, Lucas gave a crooked grin. "Every time... until the last time," he added quietly. Because he'd actually thought there might still be a chance to win Max back again, but then everything had fallen apart. Now Max was awake again, but she was still far too weak for him to even think about something like that. She had much bigger things to worry about than whether she wanted to get back together with Lucas. His thoughts drifted for a moment, but he still caught every kind, understanding, and encouraging thing Will said about him. He shot his friend a warm, grateful look in return. Then the gears in Lucas's head visibly started turning. "So... you mean if Tia brings anything up or tries something, I should just tell her I'm still in love with Max?" he summarized, making sure he'd understood correctly. But he hadn't actually meant to blurt out that he was still in love with Max, cause after all they were just friends now. Lucas cleared his throat awkwardly and briefly wished he had a drink in his hand so he could take a sip to distract himself. "But... do you think it'd bother Max if she knew other girls were trying to flirt with me?" he asked instead. His eyebrows drew together thoughtfully as he waited for Will's answer.
“Are you sure you’d want to wrangle drunk me in the event of that happening?” Will asked with a laugh. He didn’t know what he’d be like drunk either. There had definitely been some times when he’d considered stealing one of Jonathan’s joints, but he’d never actually gone through with it. He wondered if Jonathan would let him try it if he asked, but he thought it was more likely that he’d just worry over him like a mother hen the whole time, so theft, in this case, seemed to be the better option. “I’m glad too. You probably wouldn’t even be here because you’d be grounded ‘til the end of the decade,” he chuckled, hardly able to even blame his parents for being strict about something like that. There were so many things that could go wrong with kids their age drinking; there were plenty of reasons why the legal drinking age was 21. It was hard to say what would be worse; his mom’s disappointment or ruining his reputation with Lucas’s parents. All the more reason to stay mostly sober.
Lucas was entirely too amused by Will’s story, and if he wasn’t so worried about the Tia thing, Will might be mildly annoyed. Then again, Lucas didn’t know the real reason why the whole situation had made Will so uncomfortable. He never lamented girls not showing an interest in him the way the rest of the party had at various points. He knew that eventually there might come a day when a girl took an interest in him, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. It had caught him totally off guard. “You’re being so ridiculous about this,” he grumbled, shoving right back at Lucas’s shoulder. “That wasn’t even the point of the story; I was trying to be empathetic!” he complained. “But you know what? Screw it. I’m gonna go get that second drink.” Hopefully that was enough of a subject change to get them the hell off this topic. He reached down to grab his empty cup before standing up and going over to the keg. Unfortunately, someone was doing what was apparently called a keg stand, so Will patiently waited his turn before filling up the cup and returning to sit by Lucas.
“Who says that was the last time?” he asked when Lucas mentioned it. “That’s just the last time so far. I mean, yeah, sure, obviously romance isn’t gonna be the first thing on her mind dealing with the recovery and all that stuff, but I can’t imagine her feelings for you are just totally gone either,” he said diplomatically. Will positively beamed when Lucas said that he was still in love with Max. Still, he was feeling merciful, so he didn’t comment on it, instead just taking a swig from his cup. Lucas and Max really were sweet together. Whether they were friends or became boyfriend and girlfriend again, it didn’t really matter. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t, but regardless, it didn’t seem like Lucas had any romantic feelings toward Tia. Which sucked since Will was in a very much similar situation to her, but you just can’t force these things. Either you have feelings for someone or you don’t. He huffed in surprise at Lucas’s question about Max. “I don’t know,” he said, a little exasperated. “You’d have to ask Max.” But then he shook his head. “Don’t ask Max. I wouldn’t worry about it. It’d probably be more of a bother if you were entertaining other girls trying to flirt with you but doesn’t sound like you are, so.” He shrugged and took another swig.
