A/N: I decided to take my random ideas and my one word challenges and combine them, and this is what I came up with. The chapters will be alphabetical (a to z), so, eventually, there will be 26. I'm trying to stay away from the blatant loliver words like apples or doughnuts. The words chosen are, for the most part, going to be random. And, I have no idea when this will be updated. Probably not on a regular basis, just as a side project. There probably will not be any kind of linear time line either. One chapter might take place in season two, but the next one might take place when Lilly's five, and another might not specify any particular time, I haven't really decided. Also, although it's titled for Lilly, it's probably not going to be Lilly without at least some mention of Oliver. He's too big a part of her life for me to ignore him. And I apologize for this being the longest author's note ever. Oh, also, if anyone wants to suggest specific words... feel free. I can't promise that I'll use them, but we'll see.
Warning: this chapter features a few poker hands, so if you don't understand them, you might want to check them out on wikipedia or something like that. I tried to be vague enough that you could just tell that one person versus another was winning. If I got any details wrong, I apologize. I haven't played a "real" game of poker for a few years now, so my memory's a little rusty.
And, I don't own Hannah Montana. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
A is for all in.
She smirked at the boys sitting around the dining room table. She flipped her cards over and there was a chorus of groans around her. Lilly had now added forty-three dollars and forty-five cents to her "Lilly needs a new skateboard" fund over the last two hours.
"I told you I was good at this game." She pulled another pile of dollar bills and quarters toward herself and began to make sure they were all facing the same direction.
"I thought you were lying," Cooper told her through gritted teeth. He was sitting directly across from her, and he did not look particularly happy. Twelve of the dollars Lilly earned belonged to him.
"I don't like to lie," she told him, still smiling.
"That's only cause you're not good at it," Oliver said from her right. He had only lost about two dollars to the petite blond. Unlike the other boys, he knew Lilly was good at Texas Hold 'Em. She had an uncanny ability to get the cards she needed to complete a straight or a flush without really trying.
"Pssh. My fibbing skills have greatly improved."
"Really? So, you think Becky was a fool for turning me down then, right?" Max asked, across from Oliver. He nodded his head quickly and his curls bounced with every movement.
"Absolutely." Lilly nodded her head in earnest as well, but then started giggling. "Okay, I'm sorry, but did you really think she was going to say yes?"
Max looked momentarily offended, before shaking his head, "No, not really. But see, Oliver's right. You can't lie."
"I can if I have to." She flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked at the boys around the Oken's dining room. Not one of them believed her. "Fine, let's just play another hand." They all groaned.
"What'd I miss dudes?" Todd came out of the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn and sat on Lilly's left.
"Lilly won, again," Cooper told him.
"Cool." Todd gave her a high five. He had lost his poker budget three hands ago, so he was just rooting for Lilly now. He found it highly amusing that she was able to beat the guys who beat him on a regular basis.
"You know Oken, when you said we could play at your house this week, you didn't mention your girlfriend would be cleaning us out," Cooper added.
"Not his girlfriend," Lilly said at the same time Oliver responded, "She's not my girlfriend." Their eyes met, but they both quickly looked away.
Max and Cooper looked at one another before they started laughing. Lilly rolled her eyes. The two of them were convinced she and Oliver were dating and secretly hiding their relationship from the rest of the world.
"I wouldn't be here if you guys had your game at Max's house like normal. I was supposed to be seeing a movie with Oliver and Miley. You steal my friends, I steal your money. It's only fair." She shrugged as Max began dealing the cards.
Max's parents vetoed the idea of a group of teenage boys playing cards in their kitchen for the sixth week in a row, and when Oliver heard he and Cooper discussing the problem, he volunteered his house for the game while his parents were working and his younger brother was spending the night at a friend's house, provided they let him play too. Lilly just happened to show up because she was "bored" and claimed bothering Oliver as her favorite source of entertainment.
"Speaking of Miley, weren't she and Jackson supposed to be here, like, an hour ago?" Oliver leaned back in his chair while he waited for Lilly to answer. Lilly had informed them that she convinced Jackson to bring his little sister when she arrived unannounced in the Oken kitchen.
"Yeah, but she's probably changed her outfit three times by now," Cooper told him before Lilly could say anything.
"Hey! Just cause she's a girl, doesn't mean she would…" Lilly started, then realized who they were talking about. "Okay, maybe she would." Looking down at her own clothes, her favorite pair of jeans and a purple tank top over her bathing suit top, she considered whether she should have changed from her beach outfit into another, more flattering, combination, but decided the boys she was playing cards with would not care one way or another.
"Alright, it's my deal, right?" Max took the cards from Cooper and began to distribute them around the circle. They had been rotating the dealing so no one could be accused of stacking the deck.
Lilly ended up winning with a pair of tens, not really the best of hands, but no one else seemed to be having very much luck. Lilly won the next hand as well, and Cooper was able to get five of his dollars back from Lilly on the third before the back door to the kitchen opened. Oliver scrambled to hide the pile of money in the middle of the table, and Lilly dumped a bag of gummi bears to the surface.
"Why are you guys playing with gummi bears?" Jackson asked as he walked in the room.
"I thought you were my mom," Oliver groaned. Lilly glared at Jackson and began stuffing the candy back in its bag. "She doesn't like to let me gamble with money." He pulled the pile of quarters and dimes out from under the bowl of popcorn.
"Or gamble at all," Lilly mumbled to herself.
"I thought your mom was working a double?" Cooper asked worriedly as Jackson took a seat next to him. Miley followed behind him and pulled up an extra chair to sit by Lilly.
"She is," Lilly informed him as she placed another dime in the middle. It was her bet. "But, sometimes, she likes to surprise Oliver, make sure he doesn't have a girl over. That's why we've got the bag of gummi bears out."
Cooper glared at the dime Lilly had just added to the center and folded. He was more suspicious when she bet low than when she bet high. "She doesn't care that you're here?" he asked her.
"Lilly's always here," Oliver muttered. Max and Cooper laughed again, but Lilly ignored them this time.
Max added his own dime, but Oliver folded as well.
"What do you got Truscott?" Max asked as he flipped his cards.
Lilly shook her head in pity. "Straight. I think I beat your pair of Jacks there." She gleefully pulled the loose change to her side of the table.
"I'm no expert, but it looks like Lilly's winning," Miley said to no one in particular.
"She's been winning all night," Cooper responded grimly. "She's like some sort of little blond card playing machine." Miley and Jackson laughed, but the other boys nodded in agreement.
"I'm out of money," Todd confided in Miley.
"Really?" Miley's eyes shot up in surprise. "I didn't know you could play poker," she said to Lilly.
"My dad taught me and Oliver a few years ago. Obviously, I'm better than Oliver."
Oliver rolled his eyes and suggested they switch to five card draw, which everyone but Lilly agreed to.
"Can I play again if I use the gummi bears?" Todd asked them. He was starting to get bored watching them all play without him.
Cooper and Max shrugged. Why not?
"How 'bout if I play and you can help me? I don't really know how," Miley suggested to him.
Oliver and Lilly looked at one another and tried not to laugh. Miley and Todd playing poker would be like a couple of five year olds just learning how to play Go Fish. Todd was beyond horrible. No poker face whatsoever, so the rest of the table always knew when to fold and when to ride out his bluff.
"Miles, I don't think that's a good idea. Maybe you and Todd should just use the candy," Jackson tried to warn her.
"What?" She quirked an eyebrow at her older brother. "You can play, so it can't be that hard."
"She's got you there," Cooper admitted.
"Hey!"
Lilly just shook her head.
"Anybody got change for a five?" Miley asked.
They all did, but Oliver, Max and Cooper responded in unison: "Ask Lilly."
"Ugh. Fine. I'll sit this one out and show Miley how to play."
"No!" Oliver said loudly. Lilly turned to look at him in surprise. "If you sit out, you sit out, you don't get to turn Miley into a card shark too," he explained. "That's just not fair. Besides, Todd's gonna show her." He smiled.
"Well, that's just not fair, stealing her money like that," Lilly muttered under her breath. At a normal volume, she said, "Fine, I'm going to get something to drink. Play without me."
The legs of the chair scraped back as she got to her feet, and Lilly slowly made her way to the kitchen, her cell phone in one hand and her empty glass in the other. She heard Cooper explaining the rules of the game while Max began to deal. Lilly made her way over to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of grape juice. Amazingly, the teenage boys in the other room had managed to not completely destroy the contents of the Oken's fridge. There was still plenty of food and it was not even in pieces all over the shelves. Shutting the door, Lilly was greeted by the sight of Oliver's little brother's report card stuck to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a sea horse. She laughed as she saw his grades were even better than Oliver's.
Lilly leaned against the counter for a minute and studied the photos and drawings stuck to the door. There was a picture of her and Oliver when they "graduated" from their preschool class. She could not believe that picture was still there. It was even in one of those cheesy magnetic frames with dancing zebras around the edges. The two of them were standing next to one another, holding identical certificates in their hands. She was wearing a bright pink dress, one she hated, but her mother had insisted on her wearing for the "big day." It had buttons that looked like fake pearls down the front and lace along the bottom of the skirt. Oliver was in a button down blue shirt that looked like it needed to be ironed and a pair of khaki pants. She remembered that he complained that he could not wear his Batman sneakers for most of the day. Not five minutes after they had taken that picture, she and Oliver raced to the monkey bars and got mud all over their brand new clothes. Needless to say, her mother had not been pleased.
Her phone lit up on the counter, and Lilly flipped it open to see a message from Oliver saying " 4 clubs, go 4 it?" She smiled to herself and sent him a short response of "Yes" before she walked back in to the room. She wondered why the other boys had failed to notice that Oliver was not losing nearly as bad as they were, especially when she was not playing. Each of the four hands she sat out from were ones where Oliver won. Oh, well. They would probably realize he was not that bad of a poker player soon enough. He would have to actually start winning soon if he wanted to stay in the game.
"Hand over yet?" Lilly asked, taking her seat, now between Miley and Oliver, surreptitiously glancing at Max's cards on the way there. He had absolutely nothing. Her eyes met Oliver's and she flipped her hair over her shoulder again, giving him a small smile.
"Final bets," Oliver informed her.
She leaned back in her seat and watched as both Jackson and Cooper folded, while Max added a quarter to the pot. She bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing as Oliver added a quarter as well. When he leaned forward, she saw that he had managed to pick up his fifth club.
"Should we stay in?" Miley asked Todd, showing him the cards.
"Well…" He scratched his forehead while everyone else looked on.
Lilly knew what the look on his face meant. At most, Miley had a Jack high. Not worth it.
Todd finally shook his head and Miley threw their hand down.
"You sure you don't want to fold, Oken?" Max needled him.
"I'm sure," Oliver said firmly.
Max was surprised. Oliver had been the first one to fold all night, unless Lilly folded before him. Max's eyebrows furrowed. Maybe since she was out this hand, Oliver thought he had an edge. Max figured he was bluffing and it would just come down to whoever had the highest card. Lilly watched the decision play out on Max's face and kept her phone tucked securely in her lap. Oliver's was sitting open on one of his knees under the table as well.
"Alright," Max told him, "I've got a ten." He laughed as he put his cards down.
"You were bluffing with a ten?" Jackson was disgusted. "Man, I should have stayed in." Cooper nodded his head in agreement.
Oliver triumphantly laid his hand on the table and watched Max's eyes grow to twice their size.
"No way. You haven't had more than a pair all night!" Max said.
"Luck," Oliver laughed, shrugging his shoulders. Lilly laughed as well and Miley narrowed her eyes at her best friends. "Alright, five-fifty," Oliver muttered to himself as he added the quarters to the stack next to him.
"Five-fifty?" Lilly asked incredulously. "With that, you so should have bet more." Everyone looked at her. "What? I would have. That's almost a sure win." She rolled her eyes and threw in her dime for the opening ante. "Oh, I do get to play now, right?" Lilly looked at the boys around the table and Oliver hesitated in his shuffling of the deck.
"Yeah, I haven't got to play you yet," Jackson told her. "I want to see why Coop's so scared of you."
"I'm not scared!" Cooper protested. "It's just not right!"
"Is it because I'm a girl?" Lilly asked him. "Cause that's just wrong."
With Oliver as dealer, Lilly won that hand. Miley, to everyone's surprise won the next, and the following two hands went to Lilly as well, followed by a couple for Oliver.
An hour later, Miley, Todd, Cooper, and Max were all forced to quit, and Jackson was well on his way to being out as well. He was not as good at judging the size of the bets as the others were. Miley watched Oliver shuffle the cards and she eyed the ones in Lilly's hand when she picked them up. Her eyes widened in surprise, and Lilly immediately put in a dollar for the first round of betting.
"Seriously?" Jackson asked her. "I've only got three bucks left."
"Sorry," Lilly shrugged, smiling.
Jackson and Oliver both rolled their eyes, but each of them put in a dollar. Lilly asked for one card, Jackson two, and Oliver took one for himself. Lilly bit her lip and added another two dollars to the middle. Jackson folded his cards in disgust. All eyes were now on Oliver.
"Watch out Oken, I think she's got something good," Max told him.
Oliver's eyes narrowed and he looked at Lilly. He leaned forward in his seat a little bit, making sure to keep his cards tucked toward his body. "No, she's bluffing."
"What makes you so sure?" she asked him, leaning forward as well. "You're the one who said I couldn't lie." Her eyes were locked with his.
"You can't lie when you talk to someone, but you know how to bluff," Oliver informed her as he added his money to the center, then raised the stakes with another two dollars, not taking his eyes from hers.
Cooper's eyes widened when Lilly saw Oliver's additional two dollars and raised with another five of her own.
"Really?" Oliver asked her.
"What? Jackson's only got two dollars left. He's probably not going to play anymore tonight. I'm just gonna keep going." Lilly shrugged nonchalantly, a smirk crossing her face, and waited for Oliver to make a decision.
"Guys, maybe you should just call it a draw," Cooper put in, and Jackson nodded in agreement.
"No way, dudes. This is like, the championship," Todd told them excitedly as he shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth, followed by a few green gummi bears.
Miley glared at him before she turned to Lilly. "Really, it's cool if it's a tie." She knew just how stubborn her friends could be, and she had a feeling neither of them was going to back down. The difference was, where usually they did this in an argument, this time they actually looked like they were enjoying themselves. Lilly's cheeks were a little pink and Oliver appeared to be trying very hard not to smile. Miley's eyes flicked back and forth between them until Oliver spoke.
"Well, if you're just gonna keep raising, we can make this a lot easier." He paused for Lilly to get his meaning, and he started to smile when she bit down on her bottom lip again, a little harder this time. "I'm all in." He pushed his money to the center.
Lilly sighed, tapping one of her fingers on the table. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and tilted her head to the side, watching Oliver for any sign of a bluff.
"Are you sure you want to do that, man? She's got her serious face on," Max loudly whispered. They watched as Lilly crossed her legs under the table, still studying Oliver's face carefully.
Oliver just nodded, staring her down. Lilly looked away first.
"Fine!" Lilly bit out after a tense minute. "I fold." She threw her cards down and Oliver happily pulled the money to himself.
"What?" Max yelped. "I thought you had something!"
"Just a pair," Lilly informed him shortly.
"Of aces," Miley added to her.
"Yeah, but a pair's a pair Miley. Oliver could have easily beat that." Lilly flicked her cards closer to the rest of the deck.
"What about you?" Miley asked him.
"Don't you know it's bad form to ask the winner what he had in his hand once the round is over?" Cooper teased her.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware we were playing in Vegas," she shot back. Jackson and Max laughed at her.
"I don't think I should say what I had," Oliver said, throwing his cards onto the stack as well.
"That's cause you were bluffing," Lilly informed him, standing up to stretch.
"You don't know that," Oliver responded hotly.
"If you think he was bluffing, why'd you fold?" Jackson asked her, surprised.
"I wasn't sure." Lilly narrowed her eyes in Oliver's direction. "But now, I'm pretty sure." The other boys at the table again looked back and forth from Oliver and Lilly, waiting to see if he would reveal his hand.
"Alright, maybe I couldn't have beat a pair of aces…" Oliver trailed off. He smirked at Lilly and she just shook her head at him, grinning.
"I'll get you. Next game. You just wait."
"Yeah, in your dreams, Lils." Oliver relaxed back in his seat and noticed that everyone was now watching them with interest. He cleared his throat. "Anybody want to play, not for money?"
"Oh, if you want to use the gummi bears, I already ate most of them," Todd told them apologetically. There was a chorus of laughter.
"Is it okay if I borrow a sweatshirt?" Lilly asked Oliver. "I'm getting cold."
"Yeah, but don't take it home with you cause then I'll never get it back," Oliver responded.
She just rolled her eyes, tossed a gummi bear in his direction, and took off up the stairs. Everyone else stared at Oliver when he succesfully dodged the candy and watched her leave.
"What?" he asked when he noticed the eyes of the other people in his dining room were still on him.
Miley shook her head and followed Lilly to the staircase.
When Lilly reached Oliver's room, she grabbed the black zip-up hoodie draped over the back of Oliver's desk chair. She shrugged it on and turned to find Miley staring at her from the doorway to the room.
Miley did not pause to look around the room, though she had never actually been in it. She also did not take the time to consider that Lilly looked just as comfortable in Oliver's room as she did in her own, using the small mirror by his closet to put her hair back in a sleek pony tail. When she was done, Lilly plopped down on Oliver's bed, waiting for Miley to say something.
"What was that?"
"What was what?" Lilly asked her innocently.
"That little stand off down there." Miley looked at her knowingly, one hand on her hip.
"Um, it's called poker Miley."
"Yeah, but it almost looked like you were… flirting… with Oliver."
"What? I was not flirting! That's just, well, it's ridiculous is what that is!" Lilly crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively and felt a knot forming in her stomach.
"Right. The tilted head, the tucking the hair back, the teasing. None of that was flirting," Miley deadpanned.
"Please, I was just trying to figure out if he had anything or not." Lilly stood up from the bed in a huff and headed for the door.
"Whatever you say," Miley called after her. Again, she shook her head and followed her best friend down the staircase.