Which makes it time for lunch.

Danny and Allison are already seated.

Liam sits with them, since Danny was going to introduce him to someone. He has a smudge of blue paint on his cheek.

He waves to Rowan. "Hi, how was your morning?"

"It was alright. How was Art?"

"Art was good! We're working with watercolours this term, apparently."

Rowan joins their table, pointing out the paint smudge before even sitting down. He laughs and rubs at it half-heartedly. "Rowan! I haven't seen you for a whole three hours! Did you do anything interesting?"

Rowan gives the highlights of her morning. She's pretty happy with all her classes so far.

"I made some friends - they're called Scott and Erica. And there's a boy called David in AP Chem who's in your Phys Ed class." She doesn't think David counts as a friend yet, but Liam might want to make friends with him. 

She quizzes Liam in return, and concludes that, as she predicted, he ought to have taken AP English. The rest of his classes sound alright, though. 

When the siblings are done catching up, Danny jumps in.

"Liam, do you want me to introduce you to Matt? We can stop by his table."

"Sure," Liam agrees, getting up to follow Danny. "How do you know him, anyway?"

"We're both on the lacrosse team together. He's more into photography and theater, but he knows a lot about what all those artistic types of industries are like around here. Comes from living in Southern California."

They arrive at a round table, large enough to seat eight.

It currently seats four.

One of them looks up at the intruders visitors skeptically. 

"Hey, Danny. Who's this?"

"Hi! I'm Liam, the new kid." He smiles brightly, undeterred by the lukewarm reception. 

"I've been informed that I should talk to a 'Matt' about what the animation industry's like on this side of the pond."

"That would be me. Sit next to me, I'll protect you from them."

"I think we're very welcoming."

"I'm sorry about them. Just talk about animation and you'll be fine." 

"I wasn't worried. Can I get everyone's names? I don't think I've met any of you yet."

He takes a seat next to Matt, turning it so he can keep half an eye on the rest of the room. 

"Stiles Stilinski. My dad is the sheriff, so if you're going to do anything illegal, make sure I'm there to help."

"Stiles is short for Stilinski. If you want to distract him, try to get his birth name from him. I'm Callie Martin, and these are David Ledford and Matt Lyman."

He waves, ignoring the conversation.

That's fine. He files away the titbit about Stiles, commits the new names to memory, and reasons that if this is the David who's going to be in his next class, they can talk at that point. He's here to talk to Matt.

"So, Danny thinks I'm a good enough artist to consider becoming a professional animator, and suggested that you could give me an idea of what to expect?"

Matt is happy to talk about that. 

He discusses how to break into animation with Hollywood so nearby. 

"I haven't done this myself, but it's something I had to look into when I was thinking about my plans after high school."

"Lucky for me." Liam listens attentively, asking the occasional question if there's something he doesn't understand, or wants more information on. 

"What about you, then? You're not going to be an animator, but I think Danny said you're into photography?"

"Photography, filmmaking, writing...I keep busy."

"Sounds like it! Are you an actor as well, or do you prefer to be behind the camera?"

Liam's spent the entire morning being politely friendly to everyone who came within ten feet of him. Most people might not notice the difference - he's good at 'politely friendly' - but with Matt, he's genuinely enthusiastic.

"I'm not really built for the spotlight."