A/N: So I have been thinking about this a lot. With the GMW wiki stating Maya and Riley's birthdays are January and December 2001 respectively they cannot be in the same school year unless someone was older or younger than normal for their grade. The school years would be birthdays Sept 2000 to Aug 2001 or Sept 2001 to Aug 2002. The show contradicts this many times, including Girl Meets Sweet Sixteen where Maya says she just turned 15 as a freshman. This would make Riley young for her grade. However... Josh is only three years older than Maya, but is a freshman in college during season 3. This puts him at 17 turning 18 in February of his freshman year at college. This scenario would make Riley and Josh both young for their respective grades. I am choosing scenario 2 where Maya is in the younger class, but a year older, ignoring her comment in Sweet Sixteen. This would place Maya turning 16 freshman year and Josh turning 19 (which is normal) during his freshman year of college. I know this is confusing but I needed to state this as it bugs me that the show is inconsistent, also considering they retconned Josh's birthday from Feb 1999 to Feb 1998.

I hope this makes sense. Thank you for listening to my rambling.

Crossposted on AO3

Prologue

Sixteen

"Riley?" Maya said into her phone, it was 11 pm, surely her best friend had been sleeping, but she still answered her phone. Maya was pacing her room, stopping every once in a while to admire the easel her mom and Shawn had gotten her for her birthday. She heard a groan on the other end of the line.

"Peaches?" a very sleepy Riley said. "It's a school night, is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, I just got back from the movies with your uncle." Maya was practically jumping up and down.

"Eric?" Riley was obviously confused in her state of sleepiness.

"Josh." Maya heard Riley gasp and then a squeak from her bed as Maya assumed Riley jumped off of it.

"Bay window, bay window right now," Riley said. Maya laughed, there was no way she was walking all the way there in the middle of the night, especially in the cold of the January night.

"Goodnight Riles, nothing happened. Really. I'll tell you about it in the morning." Maya was just glad to have told someone she went on a date with her 'someday', and now she could try to sleep.

"Maya—" Riley began, but Maya cut her off.

"All we did was hold hands Riles, and it's just until his birthday, then it's back to the long game I promise." Maya blew a kiss into her phone. "Thank you for my birthday present, I'm going to wear it forever." She smiled at the small bolt of lightning on her new ring on her middle finger.

"You're welcome. Goodnight Peaches." Maya ended the call, but didn't go to bed, despite thinking she might be able to, she was just too giddy.

Instead she stayed up painting a picture of hands clasped together like her's and Josh's had been throughout the whole movie that night. Two months into the long game and she already didn't know how she was going to make it, but the memory of Josh whispering someday into her ear was going to have hold her over for now.