A/N: I know I've only got ten letters left in the alphabet, but I needed to take a break from Lilly, Alphabetically. That and I don't have a Q yet. I decided to start posting a chapter story I've been working on. What? Am I really writing a multiple chapter story? Why yes, yes I am. It's crazy, I know. But this idea jumped into my head, and it wouldn't go away, so I started outlining. And then I started writing. It's not done yet either, and I don't usually post things before I finish them entirely, but hey, why not? Let's try something new.
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Not quite spring yet, but the temperatures had been steadily climbing, and Lilly Truscott was ready for her Spring Break to get here, preferably as quickly as possible. She was tired of tests and papers, tired of having to stay up late to complete assignments, and most of all, tired of scheduling her life around her school day. Too bad it was still a week away. Right now, she was laying on her back, letting the sun beat down on her, hoping her skin would absorb just enough of the rays to leave her golden, not crispy. Her sunglasses were perched on the top of her head, and she was paying close attention to her boyfriend as he extolled the virtues of an early morning workout with a surfboard as he stood over her, his sneakers covered in sand. Normally, Lilly was right there with him, as long as it didn't involve getting up when the tide changed at four in the morning. She almost wished for the days when she wasn't allowed to go surfing before the sun came up.
"I would love to go surfing, Oliver, really, I would, but I have plans for tomorrow morning." She brushed a few strands of blond hair out of her eyes, pulling her sunglasses back down and rolling onto her stomach.
"Lilly, what could you possibly be doing at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning?" Miley asked from her spot on the blanket next to her as she flipped a page in a magazine. The glossy photos reflected the sunlight in sharp bursts and she pulled her own shades down as well. The two of them had been lounging on the beach, trying to get a tan practically since the last bell rang at school, and when his shift at The Shack ended, Oliver had decided to come jogging up to them.
"I'm going to visit my dad's aunt tomorrow, and visiting hours start at eight." Lilly gazed out at the water, watching as a few of the guys she knew bobbed in the waves.
The two of them had chosen this spot particularly because this part of the beach was usually pretty quiet. The water here wasn't all that great for serious surfing, but a lot of the guys at school liked to come to this area of the beach to get in a decent workout, kind of like preparing to face the real currents. Lilly now had a feeling Miley might have agreed with Lilly's pick for a quiet spot on the beach only because there were a few choice specimens out in the water who where braving the cooler temperatures of the surf in only board shorts.
And the water was definitely cold. Lilly had stuck a foot in earlier and discovered that even though the sun was baking down on them, the ocean hadn't quite caught up to the changing temperatures yet. For this reason, she had decided to commit to getting a tan rather than balancing on a rented board out there with any of the guys.
"Visiting hours?" Oliver asked, toeing the edge of the blanket in front of her with his sneaker, stepping into range and blocking out her sun. He had been doing that for the last few minutes. He would edge closer to the blanket, then back up again, moving the sand around on the material, and it was driving Lilly crazy. He was like a puppy trying to get attention.
She liked puppies. A lot.
She was trying to hold out from devoting her attention entirely to him for Miley's sake though.
Poking him in the ankle, just above the line for his sock, she told him, "yeah, she's in an assisted living center about an hour away, so I've got to leave early if I want to get there on time." At the blank look she knew she was getting from Miley, even though she couldn't see her eyes behind the sunglasses, Lilly added, "my dad's at one of those independent financial whatever seminars this weekend, trying to drum up more business since he's working on his own now, and he usually goes to see her every Saturday morning, right when visiting hours start. They have breakfast, play cards, talk for a while, and he gets home by lunchtime. He's the only family she has living near by. I said I'd go since he can't."
"Aw, that's really sweet of your dad to do." Miley grinned and thumbed through another few pages. Not having any family in California made you appreciate things like that. There were plenty of times she wished her family lived just down the street, no matter how crazy they got.
"Yeah, well, you know he's a huge softie." She shrugged and held out a hand to get Miley to stop turning the pages. She had spotted the horoscopes, and wanted to see what hers said.
"Since I doubt I can get Miley to go surfing with me," Oliver started to say, kicking a little bit of sand on the blanket, which Lilly brushed off for the millionth time.
"No way am I getting up before ten if I don't have a Hannah thing," Miley agreed, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
"You want some company?" he finished.
"To visit aunt Lola?" Lilly asked, surprised.
"Her name is Lola?" Miley giggled. "Her last name isn't Luftnagle, is it?" she added, referencing Lilly's alter ego for her appearances at Hannah Montana events.
"No, her last name is Truscott. I made up the Luftnagle part." Lilly rolled her eyes, propping her sunglasses back up on the top of her head, using them to hold her hair out of the way again. "You really want to go with me?" She poked Oliver in the leg again as he shifted his weight, stirring up more sand.
"Yeah, why not? It'll be fun." He smiled down at her, the light from the sun lowering in the sky behind him framing his dark hair in a bright glow.
"Alright... but you're driving then." She smiled back at him before returning to examining her horoscope. Answers to a great mystery are all around you, it read. She huffed, climbing to her feet, and wiped the sand from her arms. "The sun's gonna go down soon, Miles. I think I'm gonna head home, okay?" She grabbed her shorts from one corner of the blanket and pulled them on over her bathing suit bottoms.
"Yeah, yeah," Miley waved her off. "You're only leaving cause Oliver's off work now, and you know he gets bored tanning."
Laughing, Lilly didn't respond to that, instead saying, "I'll call you later," as she picked up her tank top and her sandals.
"Bye!" Miley bent her knees, her feet kicking in the air behind her, and skimmed an article about what lip gloss flavors said about your personality. She had been anticipating Lilly being ready to leave ever since Oliver jogged over to them a few minutes ago in his bright blue Rico's shirt and started talking about weekend plans. They were so predictable. She, on the other hand, was staying until there was no light left. That way she could still appear to be reading while she scoped out the guys on the water.
"Bye," Oliver called, shaking his head as he watched Miley none to subtly lower her shades to her nose and peer over the top of them as a surfer coasted onto shore.
"So," Lilly said while they walked down the beach, "there are probably a few things I should tell you about Aunt Lola." Making sure she had her shoes and her tank top held in the hand not on the side of her closest to Oliver, she told him, "She's kind of..." Her free hand brushed against Oliver's and she lost her train of thought.
"What? Crazy?" He caught her hand in his, wrapping his fingers around hers, and pulled her close.
"No! She's... eccentric." She tried to smack him with her sandals, but he pushed them away. "She's just always been the wild one on my dad's sad of the family. She doesn't really like to play by the rules, and my dad says she tries to get him to sneak her out of the center every time he visits."
"Isn't that a bad sign? Like, she hates it there or something?"
"Actually, she really likes it there. She stays there instead of moving in with family cause she has a lot of fun. It's kind of a game. She likes to see how far out the door she can get before the nurses catch her."
"Awesome. I bet we could sneak her out to the beach or something." Oliver chuckled to himself. He always got along with his older relatives. His grandmother said he made her feel young. He had no doubt Aunt Lola would like having him around too. Well, he hoped she would. Otherwise, tomorrow would be a little awkward.
"You think so?" Lilly asked him with a wide grin. "She'd get a kick out of that."
"Why not? We won't get in trouble or anything, right?" He narrowed his eyes and looked over at her.
"I don't think so. I mean, my dad hasn't gotten in any trouble. But he doesn't really try all that hard to actually get her out of the center." She pulled on his hand, turning him away from the ocean and toward one of the wooden sets of stairs that would take them back up to a sidewalk. "I'm sure it'll be fine... as long as she's, you know, there."
"Why wouldn't she be there?" His grip tightened on her hand, concerned.
"Well, I don't mean, like, she's not at the center. It's just... she has Alzheimer's... at least, I think that's what she has, so she gets confused sometimes." Lilly paused, tossing her sandals down on the bottom of the wooden steps to slip them on. "She's about eighty or something. But on her good days, she's so much fun."
As Lilly climbed the steps, Oliver had to let go of her hand and move behind her, letting the people coming down to the beach pass them. He moved to place his hand on the small of her back as they walked, like he usually did when he was standing behind her, but she still hadn't put her tank top back on, so his hand just hovered there, millimeters above her skin, not sure if he should let his hand rest there or not. It wasn't that he had never touched her back without clothing on it or anything, it just wasn't something he had done often. And they were in the middle of the beach, and well, maybe it wasn't that great of an idea to touch her bare skin in public when she was supposed to be on her way home. He swallowed when they reached the top of the platform, and didn't have to make a decision because Lilly was instantly back at his side, her fingers lacing through his this time, pulling him along the platform and to the sidewalk.
"You didn't drive to work, did you?" she asked, bringing his thoughts back to the conversation and away from her skin.
"Uh, no, so unless you want to go back and get Miley to give you a ride home, we're walking."
"Good. Walking takes longer."
She let herself smile even though she wasn't looking at him and moved herself closer to his side, their hands almost trapped between them, bumping against her hip or his while they walked.
It was funny. Before they started dating, she never thought Oliver would really be good at this. The walking down the street and the hand holding. She always thought it looked awkward when she saw him with any of his other girlfriends (not that there had been that many), like he was a little bit more uncomfortable with it than he let on, like he didn't actually want his fingers being squashed between someone else's. But she never got that from him now. He was usually the one who would reach out and grab her hand when they were walking, or the one to put his arm around her shoulders in the hallway at school. And she always leaned into him gratefully. There was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it. Sure, the first few times he had tried to hold her hand, his palm was all sweaty and he seemed to not know how tightly to hold on to her, like he was worried that she wouldn't want him to, but by only their second official date, it was the most natural thing in the world. She wasn't entirely sure if she could remember how to walk next to him without being able to have a physical reminder that he was there. She needed it.
"Tell me more about Aunt Lola," Oliver goaded after they had been walking in companionable silence for a few minutes.
"What do you want to know?" She laughed at his enthusiasm for tomorrow's plans.
"Is she small enough to fit in the trunk of my dad's car?"
"Oliver!"
"I was thinking she could hide in there when we sneak her out to the beach!" he protested before she could try to smack him.
"We are not putting an eighty-year-old woman in the trunk of the car!" she burst out, trying not to laugh. "Oh, no, it's not what you think," she called to a woman who was looking at them in alarm.
Oliver shook his head and asked another question. "Okay, other than sneaking out, what kinds of rules does she like to break?"
"She likes to play poker with some of the other residents."
"That's against the rules?"
Lilly stepped around an oil spot in one of the parking lots near the beach and responded, "well, it's against the rules if you play for money. You can play for snacks and stuff like that. The staff just doesn't like them to use money because the residents have cash in their accounts to use at the stores and things they have on site. They don't want anybody to run out and have to tell their families, you know?"
Oliver cocked an eyebrow and said something he knew Lilly wasn't going to like very much. "It kind of sounds like prison."
"It's not like prison... it's just a precaution." She turned to look at him, her brow furrowed, stopping on the edge of the sidewalk where they where going to have to cross the street.
Oliver's free hand twitched, wanting to smooth out the wrinkles he saw form below her hairline, and he smiled. "I just meant the way they set up the accounts for the residents."
"Oh." Her forehead relaxed. "She's pretty much a card shark though. She always beats me when I visit."
"She beats you? That's impressive."
"I know," Lilly teased, "it's hard to believe." She moved to cross the street, but Oliver pulled her back to the corner.
"You should probably put your tank top back on before we get to close to your house," he told her.
"Why are you always trying to cover me up?" she joked, letting go of his hand.
"I don't want your mom thinking I've been undressing you while we're walking down the street. I've got to stay on her good side." He grabbed one of the belt loops on her shorts as he spoke, pulling her close to him again and kissing her softly. "If I don't stay on her good side, she won't let me hang out at your house anymore."
"Point taken," she mumbled and yanked her shirt over her head, almost losing the sunglasses she had forgotten were resting there.
They spent the rest of the walk home discussing Lola and everything Lilly thought Oliver might need to know about her for tomorrow.
Favorite breakfast? French toast.
Poker strategy? She always bluffed, and always went for the straight.
Cats or dogs? She liked cats because they took care of themselves, but she liked playing fetch with dogs, which didn't really matter because she actually had a tank full of fish that she named after her favorite soap opera characters.
Pie or cake? Cake, unless the pie had chocolate in it. Aunt Lola loved chocolate.
Was she ever a Las Vegas show girl? Not that Lilly knew of, but with Lola, it was definitely possible. She had lived almost everywhere.
And, most importantly, would she like him?
"You know, I think she will like you," Lilly told him as they reached their block, the houses stretching out before them with their perfectly manicured laws.
The home owner's association had been acting pretty strict lately, wanting everyone to keep their lawns and their paint in tip-top shape. It probably had something to do with the house for sale at the end of the block. Mr. MacGregor had moved after his wife left him, and the MacGregor house had always been meticulously maintained. Ironic that the prettiest house on the block had been the most unhappy.
Lilly watched the sprinklers kick on at the Lawson house across the street, water spraying in a picture perfect arc across picture perfect flower beds, and she added, "I think my dad talked about you and me a couple of times, but I don't know how much she'll remember."
Lilly started to slow her walk as they approached the driveway of the Oken house, the house with the browning lawn and leaves still stuffed into its gutters because no one seemed to have the time to clean them, but Oliver didn't stop to go inside, instead continuing to her house, his thumb stroking the skin on the back of her hand.
"Hey, maybe I'll bring a bag of M&Ms and let her clean me out in poker, make sure she really likes me." He nudged her with his elbow as they climbed the steps to her front door.
"You can't let her win. She'll know. She'll like you better if you make her work for it."
"Sounds like someone else I know."
Lilly smiled up at him through her eyelashes and leaned in close, but the door opened before she got as close as she wanted.
"Oh, good, you're home," Heather Truscott said, like she hadn't known that her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend were on the front porch. She nonchalantly walked over to the mailbox, opened it, and fished out the few envelopes and bits of junk mail that were in it, even though the mail was usually dropped off a few hours earlier.
"Hi, mom," Lilly said flatly, while Oliver gave a bit of an overenthusiastic "Hey, Ms. T." He nervously tried to move aside, but Lilly kept her hand in his, making sure he didn't go anywhere.
Heather glanced briefly over at their joined hands before saying, "I'm gonna head out in a little while."
"Date?" Lilly asked sharply.
"Yes." Heather's reply was clipped.
Oliver knew this would probably be a good time for him to go seeing as how Lilly had been growing increasingly frustrated with her mother's dating habits, so even though Heather always made him nervous, he kissed Lilly softly, just on the corner of her mouth and said, "I'll see you in the morning. Come over as early as you want, okay? I'll probably be up. I'm still on the radio station's schedule. I had to be there at five last week for my last day."
Lilly nodded her head, giving him a small smile and his hand a quick squeeze. "Okay."
Oliver untangled his fingers from hers and slipped away, down the steps and across the lawn, nodding his head at Lilly's mom on the way.
"Well, have fun," Lilly snapped at her mother, stepping through the front door and preparing to run up the stairs.
Heather sighed, coming in behind her, and called, "there's left over lasagna in the fridge for dinner. All you have to do is heat it up." Lilly didn't answer her, just kept on going. Heather tried again. "Are you still planning on going to see your father's aunt tomorrow?"
"Yes," she called down to her, still not turning around.
"I don't know why you want to go see her. That woman's crazy."
"She's not crazy, mom. She's just different." Lilly stopped at the top of the steps, waiting to hear what her mom would say this time.
"Well, be careful. You don't know how she'll act if she gets in one of her moods."
Lilly just scoffed at the idea and continued on to her room.
By midnight, Lilly was restless, tossing and turning in her bed. She had eaten some of the leftover lasagna, beat her little brother at a few boardgames, watched some television, called and chatted with Miley, took a shower, and gone to bed. The problem was she couldn't fall asleep if she didn't hear her mother come in. Even though she knew that Heather typically met "the girls" for drinks after dates, and she always came home by the time the bars closed, never drunk, Lilly still worried. It was just like not being able to sleep if there were people she didn't know very well visiting. It was an unknown variable, one she couldn't control for.
Not that Lilly was a control freak. There were just certain aspects of her life that she liked to keep orderly. So much of it was in chaos on a regular basis.
She squinted at the clock on her nightstand, the numbers still blurring in front of her. Wishing she had kept her contacts in, even though she knew that dried out her eyes, Lilly reached out almost blindly for the spare pair of glasses she kept next to her clock. As her fingers closed around the plastic frames, she sighed, then brought them up to her face. She slid them on and reached for her phone, her vision clear.
Are you awake?
She pushed the buttons on the keypad, then sent the message off to her most frequently texted phone number, one of her thumbs tapping lightly on the screen while she waited for a reply.
Why are you still up was the message that came through to her not even a minute later.
Can't sleep.
She threw off her blankets and padded over to her window where the curtain was still open, taking a seat on the sill. She listened for a second, but she still didn't hear any car pulling into the driveway or any door closing downstairs; she saw no glare of headlights coming up the street.
Mom not home yet?
Lilly half chuckled to herself when she saw the words on the screen and she snapped her eyes to the window directly across the lawn from hers. His blinds weren't shut either.
Not yet.
A few seconds later her phone was buzzing, not with a message, but an incoming call. Hitting the button, the phone was at her ear in an instant.
"Lils, I thought you wanted to leave early in the morning."
"I do..."
"Then we have to go to sleep." Oliver appeared in the window across the lawn and Lilly bit down on her lip to hide her smile, not saying anything. "Lils, seriously. I know you can't fall asleep until your mom gets home, but you have to... or you'll be sleeping in the car in the morning and I won't have anyone to talk to." She still didn't say anything, and he sighed, taking a seat on his own window sill. "How's your night going?" he asked grudgingly.
Lilly giggled and said, "much better now." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and told him about leftover lasagna, playing games with her brother, and her mom being out passed curfew. Tracing the pattern of bats on her pajama bottoms while she spoke, her anxiety slowly loosened its grip on her. The shorts were supposed to be for Halloween, but whenever she saw the outlines of the little black bats all over the fabric, she thought of movie marathons with Oliver featuring his favorite superhero instead, so they were being worn much more often.
"Your mom doesn't have a curfew," he mumbled before he yawned, getting her to pay attention to the conversation again.
"She should," she shot back before yawning herself. It was true what people said about yawning. It really was contagious.
"How was the lasagna?" Oliver questioned.
Typical. He always wanted to know about food. "Not bad. The pasta was a little too chewy."
"Did your mom make it or did she order out?"
Lilly rolled her eyes. "She made it. I think she was trying to make up for missing dinner with my brother and me the night before."
He made a noise of agreement, then whispered, "hang on a second." She watched him as he turned his head slowly toward where she knew the location of his bedroom door was, straining his ear as though listening to something beyond it.
"Is someone up?" Lilly whispered into her own phone, even though she knew she didn't need to whisper. Her brother was a heavy sleeper, and her mom still wasn't home, so she had nothing to worry about.
Oliver nodded his head, knowing she could see him, or at least, the outline of him, but didn't say a word. They sat in silence for a few minutes and Lilly closed her eyes, listening for the sound of Oliver's breathing on the other end of the line.
After what felt like an endless silence, and Lilly had been able to match her own breathing to Oliver's, he said, "okay, I can talk again," in a low voice. He proceeded to giver her a detailed description of the new recipe his mom had tried out for some sort of vegetarian rice dish that his brother had hated before the conversation began to lag.
"So, uh, thanks for going with me to see Lola." Lilly decided it was better to fill the silence, though really, sitting there listening to Oliver breathe would have been fine with her too. Keeping him on the phone though, that would probably be dependent on them actually saying words to one another.
"Yeah, well, you know, it's not like I had any other plans or anything."
Lilly rolled her eyes as the faint light from a pair of headlights reached the ground between their houses. Someone was driving down their street. She knew Oliver could see it too; his head had swiveled to peer down at the street that he couldn't really see from his window.
"You think that's my mom?" she whispered as the line of light disappeared and an engine cut.
"Probably. Unless one of the neighbors is getting a late night visit." He shrugged comically, and Lilly was sure that if she could see him that well, his eyebrows would be waggling suggestively.
She listened for keys in the doorway, but all she heard so far was a car door closing. "Well, I guess that means I should go..." she trailed off, not hanging up the phone or walking away from the window.
"Hey, Lils?"
"Hey, Oliver?" she returned.
He didn't say anything, so she waited, her ears picking up the faint sound of a key turning in the lock downstairs. Only in the middle of the night could you hear something like that from so far away. There was way too much outside noise during the day.
He smiled at her before saying, very slowly, "I love... your glasses. You should wear them more often."
Lilly answered him with a slight chuckle and an, "I think not." She turned her head as the front door opened and her mom tried to come in quietly. "But I love... what you've done with your hair. It sticking up all over the place. Very cute. You shouldn't even worry about styling it tomorrow."
"I'll see you in the morning."
"Night."
When Heather pushed open her daughter's door softly a few minutes later, Lilly was curled up underneath her blankets, seemingly sound asleep.
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