#knowbyhart

[hucklcbcrry-blog]

once upon a gumbo

“maya, it’ll be ready in 15 minutes...you know I can see you stealing spoonfuls of it behind my back, right?” the country boy shakes his head, smiling. it felt good to be cooking again, to be making his mother’s recipe for gumbo. lucas used to cook a lot back home in texas; his mom had taught him all he knows, ever since he was a young lad. her explanation had been that every future husband should know how to cook at least a handful of meals for his partner. a healthy relationship included equality — she didn’t believe in the wife doing all the cooking and cleaning.

“I’m glad you like my mama’s recipe, though. she started teaching me how to cook when I was 10 years old. after I learned my first recipe, she encouraged me to cook one meal a week. I loved it so much I starting cooking two and three dinners a week.” as lucas shared his story, he happily stirred the gumbo, adding a few last minute spices into the pot.

“alright, you’ve been quite patient,” he teases her. I’ll let you taste one bite before I serve it, just to make sure it’s to your liking.” and with that, he scoops up some of the steaming gumbo on a wooden spoon and holds it out to her to try. “make sure to blow on it. don’t want you to burn your tongue.”

@knowbyhart​

[hvrtagain]

it’s not any harder than before they got everything out in the air, but it’s not really better either, if that makes any sense. at least now they can hang out without it looking suspicious, although secretly it is pretty suspicious, because when they’re not in public they’re basically dating. but they’re not dating and he gets it, or at least he is willing to pretend to for as long as it takes. they survived thanksgiving, if one could count making out with maya in his brother’s bathroom surviving, so how hard could this be? shopping for christmas presents together was a perfectly normal thing to do, considering how well they both knew each other’s families. he swats her hand away from the ornament hanging from the store’s plastic tree. “your mom is not going to hang a santa on the toilet ornament on her tree.” / @knowbyhart​

[newrileytown]

@knowbyhart

      “Mayaaa!” Arms open automatically to allow her best friend into a hug. Riley needs the reassurance right now. She hasn’t seen her best friend in days--possibly hours--and with an alleged supervillain in town creating more supervillains to run amok and spread chaos, she needs her more than ever.

[hvrtagain]

@knowbyhart

it’s been a week since the fall ball, or more specifically...it’s been a week since the closet, an event in its own right, and a week since marinette kissed him for the first time. but not the last time, he’s only slightly ashamed to admit. yes, of course, she’s his girlfriend, there’s nothing strictly wrong with it. and josh hadn’t even been as explicit as maya was during their closet conversation, because he was being careful about protecting the legitimacy of his relationship. but maya...she laid it all out on the line, and when she asked him to one day do the same, he hadn’t been given the chance to respond. and no matter how much he tells himself that she’s literally somebody else’s girlfriend, it still feels like a betrayal, knowing where her heart and future supposedly lies. so they haven’t really spoken since then, for numerous reasons, and when they do speak, it’s primarily through their phones. which he argues, to himself, if for the best. clearly he has amazing self-control and would never do anything if physically with maya, but it’s easier this way. it’s easier for him, anyways.

he stares down at his phone, delaying the agreed upon time of their call for a few minutes. it makes sense that he be the one to call, since he’s the one who struggles with talking to her when things get hard, but taking forever to press the contact photo he’d taken of her at the beginning of summer, before things got weird and strained and uncomfortable and ending now in what he would categorize as painful, is part of that deal, too. finally, he does it, shutting his eyes and then opening them quickly. he rolls them at himself. dude, chill out. when she picks up, he smiles, strangely relieved. “hi...did you have a good day?”

[newrileytown]

@knowbyhart

     she’s taken some space to come to terms with her feelings about everything that’s been going on with maya...and the only thing that riley can agree on with herself--heart, head and soul--is that she needs maya in her life. even if she can only have a piece of her heart and not the whole, riley loves her best friend and can’t live in a world without her. that’s why they’re standing here now, looking in one another’s eyes. “so, should i apologize first, or you?” she asks, tilting her head slightly.

[newrileytown]

@knowbyhart​

      it’s been long enough since everything that had gone down between them that riley had begun to regret her absence from her friend more than the pain that caused it in the first place. with some necessary distance to gather her own feelings and understand them, the sight of the other girl doesn’t bring a pang to her heart. instead, she’s excited to share the current events of her life as they always used to.

     “hey, maya...do you know what’s coming up?”

[newrileytown]

maya + riley  ||  untitled

@knowbyhart

     riley has been doing a great job of avoiding maya all night--determined that her not-so-requited feelings and the strange note on which they’d ended their last conversation shouldn’t ruin her happiness forever. even if she's torn and rejected, she can go to a dance with her other friends and have a good night and not break down at the sight of maya hart and lucas friar wrapped in one another’s arms. of course, to do that she has to force herself to look away every time she accidentally gets too close to the new couple and catches sight of them with their faces together.

     but she can’t help herself at one point in the night, from happening to see her best friend exit a small side room designated as a coat closet for the night. she would have averted her gaze after a moment if maya wasn’t followed out by none other than josh. what was maya doing alone with josh when she had clearly and publicly chosen lucas over anyone else? innocent private closet chat or not, riley can not be the judge from her position. but what innocent talk couldn’t be held in front of maya’s boyfriend?

     it’s not from a care for lucas that riley feels a bubbling like a volcano ready to erupt inside her--she hasn’t even sorted out her feelings for him lately. but the thought that even he isn’t fully enough for maya when she’d left riley’s feelings out to dry in favor of his already...it only lowers her value in the other girl’s life further. and josh...she thought he was better than this, too. she thought she knew her own uncle better. if the pair can’t feel riley’s piercing stare through the crowd, it’s not for lack of trying.