A/N: This is a whole lot longer than I intended, but the first couple of drafts kind of sucked, so it just kept getting longer and longer. Enjoy!
Being Used
Lilly savored the last spoonful of frozen yogurt. Strawberry perfection. A knock sounded from the door to her family's kitchen. Dun da da dun dun.
"Come in," she called without looking up from the magazine spread out on the counter in front of her.
"Hey, Lillay, what's goin' on? You have anything to eat?"
"Oliver, unless you want me to start calling you Ollie again, knock that off."
He sidled up to the counter to peer over her shoulder. "How can you read this stuff? Girl magazines are so weird." Lilly gave him her "Oliver, are you kidding me" look. "What? I only read them when I'm really bored." She gave him another look. "Oh, gotcha."
"So, what did you want? I thought you were hanging out with Todd today." She flipped the pages until she found the horoscopes.
"I was," Oliver told her as he opened the freezer, but found a lack of frozen yogurt, "but he apparently forgot that he had a date with Sarah."
"Saint Sarah?" Lilly asked in disbelief.
"I know. Crazy, right? I don't know how she's going to be able to sit through lunch with him. She might have to read him the menu." Oliver shook his head.
"I hope he likes organic." Lilly shrugged her shoulders.
Oliver began looking through the fridge and helped himself to a container of sliced apples. "I can have these, right?"
"Yeah, sure." She waved him off distractedly. "These horoscopes are such crap."
"What does yours say?"
"It says I'm looking for love in all the wrong places. Isn't that from a song?" Lilly angrily pushed the magazine away.
Oliver pulled it toward himself. "Hey, mine says blue skies are coming my way." He laughed at the annoyance marking Lilly's features and shut the magazine. "No wonder the horoscopes are all from songs. It's the music issue!" He shook the magazine in her face.
"Hmm… makes sense, I guess."
"So, since mine says I'm going to have good luck, I need a favor to make sure the luck stays."
"What are you talking about?"
"IneedyoutifindoutifJessicaShermanlikesme." Oliver said it very quickly to get passed the embarassment of asking Lilly for help.
"What?" She thought she understood what he said, but she wanted to be sure.
Oliver sighed, staring down at the countertop, avoiding her eyes. "Jessica Sherman, I want to know If she likes me."
"First of all, I am not going to be your messenger. I hate it when guys send someone else to find out if a girl likes them. Second, I don't even know who that is. Third, what happened to us not talking about girls?" Lilly was facing him now, leaning against the counter, watching him carefully.
"I don't want you to ask her!" Oliver exclaimed straightening up, shocked that she would even suggest a thing.
"Then what?" Her eyebrows knitted in confusion.
"She's working at Rico's today. She's blond, tall, blond. I thought, we could go have lunch, sit together, you could laugh at all my jokes, and I could see if she gets jealous." Oliver smiled quickly at her. "Please?"
"I am not going to be your fake date to see if a girl gets jealous!" Lilly picked up the magazine and swatted him in the arm. "Just talk to her. Why are you so interested anyway? If she works at Rico's, she's sixteen, at least."
"She's been flirting with me… but she also flirts with Jackson, so I don't know if that's just her thing. But, when I got nachos the other day, she gave me free extra cheese." Oliver nodded his head.
"Oliver, don't take this the wrong way," Lilly put the hand not wrapped around the magazine on his shoulder, "but, maybe she was just being nice."
"What? Pfftt. Girls are never just nice to me."
"That's a very good point. Girls are never nice to you. Maybe she thinks you're somebody else."
"I don't think so. She knows all the toppings I like on my hotdog. She makes it up without even asking what I want."
"That just shows that you get hotdogs from there way too often." Lilly shook her head.
"Come on, please! I'll buy your lunch!" Oliver gave her the puppy dog eyes he knew always got to her when Miley did it.
"Stop that!" Lilly hit him with the magazine again, but the look did not leave his face. "I'm going to need more than just lunch for this." She folded her arms across her chest and thought for a second. "Next movie night, I get to pick."
"You've picked the last three! It's my turn."
"Stop asking for favors, and I won't keep picking the movies."
"Okay, fine, but no more musicals."
"Okay, deal," Lilly agreed grudgingly. "But, we hang out at the Shack all the time. How is this going to be different?"
"We're usually there with Miley," Oliver remarked as though it was obvious.
"All I have to do is sit there and pretend to be enjoying myself?"
"Yep."
"It'll be just like how Sunday dinners with my parents used to be," Lilly muttered to herself. "Okay, let's go."
***
Lilly sat at the table with Oliver, a plate of uneaten nachos in front of her.
"We're supposed to be having lunch," Oliver leaned in and whispered to her, "that means you eat."
"I know, but I had frozen yogurt right before you came and asked me for help," she whispered back, then threw in a giggle for good measure. "She was looking," Lilly explained to his questioning glance. "So, you got your answer yet?"
"I don't know. Does she look jealous?"
"Oliver, she's making some guy a hot dog, how am I supposed to know?" Lilly pulled one of the chips out of the basket and began poking it into the cheese sauce. "She did just flip her hair over her shoulder though and smile really big. Maybe she flirts with everyone." She shrugged, looking apologetic.
"What?"
"I'm going to go get a drink. I'll be back." Lilly ignored Oliver's attempt to give her money, and decided she was going to figure out what was going on with Jessica herself.
"Hey, what can I get you?" Jessica turned her bleach blond head in Lilly's direction, flashing her a polite smile, nothing like the smiles she had been giving guys all afternoon.
"Cherry soda." Lilly thought for a second, then held up her hand. "Two straws," she added sweetly.
"Right." Jessica pulled a cup out from under the counter and put a scoop of ice into the paper container. "So, you guys are together now? That's so cute. He's a sweet kid."
"Yeah," Lilly agreed distractedly. Had the glorified waitress just called Oliver a kid? Yes, yes she had. It was probably better to be direct. "So, do you have a boyfriend?"
Jessica barked out a short laugh as she pulled the nozzle on the soda fountain and began to spray the cherry drink into Lilly's cup. "Yeah, but not for long. He's a jerk."
Lilly rolled her eyes. Now she understood. "What'd he do?"
"He forgot my birthday! Can you believe that? We've been together for a year, and he didn't get me anything!" Jessica pressed the button on the nozzle harder, and Lilly grew a little worried as she watched the liquid climb higher and higher in the cup.
"That stinks," Lilly told her sympathetically. "I would be angry too." She nodded her head, then reached out for her drink, but Jessica moved it just out of her reach.
"You and Oliver have been friends forever, right? He ever forget your birthday?"
"Not really, no, but… " Lilly paused seeing the soda spill over the side of the cup. "Um, you know…"
"What did he get you for your last birthday?"
"Some wax, some sun block, and some chap stick." At the disgusted look on Jessica's face, Lilly elaborated, "We surf a lot, so it was really nice of him."
"Oh."
"Um, Jessica… the soda." Lilly pointed to the other girl's hand.
"Oh, sorry, I'll get you a new cup." She poured its contents into a new one and popped a lid in place.
Lilly handed her two dollars and said, "you should probably just tell your boyfriend you're upset. Talking always works for me." Lilly offered a smile.
"I guess you're right. Thanks."
Lilly just nodded and walked back over to Oliver.
"Oliver?" she asked as she took her seat.
"Yeah?"
"I'm really sorry, but I don't think she likes you… like that." Lilly took a breath, then added in a rush, "her boyfriend forgot her birthday and she's mad at him."
"So?" Lines appeared on Oliver's forehead as he tried to work out what she meant.
"She's flirting with other guys to make him jealous."
"Oh." The light dawned in Oliver's eyes and Lilly awkwardly patted him on the shoulder. "It's cool. Smokin' Oken shouldn't limit his options anyway."
"Oliver!"
"Kidding!" Oliver leaned back to avoid getting hit by the blond next to him. "Hey, is that Jake?" He pointed to the counter as Jake walked up to the Shack. He was nodding and smiling to several people. Lilly looked at him, and appeared daze for a second. Oliver took the opportunity to leave before she tried to make him talk about his feelings.
***
Two days later, the day following the Teen Scene Awards, Lilly was hanging out on the beach with Miley, trying to make her feel better while Jake was being fed popcorn by another girl. She failed at the cheer up attempts, but another boy entered the picture who at least appeared to be making her laugh. Unfortunately, he told Miley he was about to graduate, and Lilly knew this was going to be bad. Miley went to buy him a pretzel and Lilly was left to entertain him.
"What's up Lillay?"
"Don't call me that." Lilly did not have to turn and face the boy who had come up behind their table. She snapped it so quickly that the other boy seated at the table looked a little taken back at the sudden hostility, not realizing this was a common occurrence between the two, but she was now focused on what looked like an argument between Miley and Jake over near The Shack. She had been half heartedly keeping up a conversation with the boy Miley told her to keep seated, but things looked pretty heated over there. All of the talking around her prevented her from hearing what they were saying.
Oliver followed Lilly's line of sight and decided to let her focus. He turned to the other boy at the table, saying, "hey, how's it going?"
"Oliver, shut up, I'm trying to hear." Lilly blindly reached her arm out and pulled on his to get him to listen to her. Now the blond boy was very uncomfortable. He nodded his head at Oliver and got up from the table, making his way over to Miley. Oliver just shrugged and took the empty seat next to Lilly.
Jake Ryan, zombie slayer extraordinaire was back to his celebrity girlfriend, and Miley was talking to the blond boy who left the table. Oliver waited patiently for Lilly to tell him what was going on, but she would just sigh and shush him whenever he tried to get anything out of her.
"Why did Miley just shove a pretzel in that guy's mouth?" He finally had to know the answer to something that was going on, even if Lilly was too busy attempting to eavesdrop.
She scrunched her nose up in confusion, her eyes flicking from the set of movie stars feeding one another popcorn to her best friend, and said, "I think it's supposed to look romantic."
"I'm no expert, but that is nothing like being romantic." Oliver shook his head.
Lilly laughed, remarking, "What? Becca never tried to force feed you anything in the name of romance?"
"No," Oliver said shortly, and Lilly remembered that he still did not like to talk about Becca.
She never had found out just why the two of them broke up. She was the first girl Lilly had seen who actually wanted to go out with Oliver, and then all of a sudden, she broke his heart. As far as Lilly was concerned, Becca was lucky they did not have very many classes together, and that she had been absent the last few times they played dodge ball in gym. She had a problem with people hurting her best friends.
Miley walked back up to the table, no, skipped was more like it.
"Did you hear?" She asked Lilly, latching on to her chair.
"Hear what?" Lilly responded. "You were way over there."
"Willis invited me to a bowling party with all of his senior friends! Can you believe it? This is perfect!"
"Who's Willis?" Oliver muttered to Lilly.
"Pretzel guy," she told him out of the corner of her mouth. "Miley, he's a senior," Lilly tried to remind her, but she was too busy planning an outfit to listen to Lilly's warning.
"This is just like the French guy," Oliver mumbled to himself.
"What?" Lilly asked him in a threatening tone.
"I said I was thinking about getting some French fries. You want some?" Oliver managed a small smile when Lilly rolled her eyes at him. "Who's the girl with Jake?" he asked, and knew he said the wrong thing when Miley shot out of her seat.
"I'll see you guys later. I'm gonna talk to Willis more about this party."
Lilly shook her head as she watched Miley walk off down the beach. "Real smooth, Oliver."
"What? She's kind of cute. I just wanted to know who she is."
"And you obviously have no concern for Miley's feelings." Lilly rolled her eyes at Oliver's blank expression. "She's an actress," Lilly informed him shortly, "and I'm pretty sure she's too old for you."
"She's too old for me, but she's not too old for Jake?" Oliver looked at Lilly in disbelief. Sometimes she made no sense. "We're the same age!"
"Only in years," she told him snidely, and he was even more confused than before.
Lilly and Oliver spent the next morning at school attempting to dissuade Miley from even thinking about going to the bowling party. She quickly informed them that she never intended to actually go out with a senior, but once Jake made the announcement that he would see her there, Miley was committed. She could not miss out on the opportunity to make Jake jealous after having to see him with Holly the last few days. The thought of going to a party with a bunch of people who were older than her, even if it was just at a bowling alley, must have been getting to her though because she recruited the two friends to go with her.
"Let me get this straight. You want me and Lilly to go with you and Willis to a party? Does he know you're planning a double date?" Oliver's voice held a teasing tone.
"Come on, it's not a double date. The date is fake," Miley replied.
"You really want us to go on your fake date with you and Willis?" Lilly asked Miley warily by their lockers. She was remembering Oliver's fake date that had not ended the way he wanted it to.
"Yeah, I might need back up. And Willis doesn't know it's fake." Miley closed her locker with a bang.
"Aren't you worried about hurting Willis? I mean, he doesn't know you're using him for Jake." Lilly looked even more worried than she had before.
"Lilly, everything will be fine. Besides, Jake probably won't even show up." Miley shrugged her shoulders.
"Wouldn't that be less entertaining." Oliver muttered so only Lilly could hear him. Despite her worry, she cracked a smile, and told Miley they would go. She still kept trying to convince Miley that using one person to make another jealous was a bad idea, but Miley would not listen.
It completely made Lilly's day, no week, maybe even her whole month, to find out that Miley was actually on a date with a boy in the fifth grade. King Willis, indeed.
She tried to imagine what it would be like to find herself on a date with someone who was almost the same age as Oliver's little brother, but then he went and made the crack about Miley baby-sitting for extra money, and she found the entire situation too hysterical to feel badly for Miley. Miley really should have known by now that these plans always backfired.
"Did you see the look on her face?" Oliver chuckled as he and Lilly prepared to take a seat and wait for Miley.
"I know. I can't believe she's on a date at a ten-year-old's birthday party." Lilly started cracking up all over again.
"To be fair, I think he's turning eleven today." Oliver looked at Lilly and tried to keep a straight face. It did not work. He abruptly stopped chuckling, his ears perking up like a dog who heard kibble hit his bowl. "Did he just say cake and pudding moat?" Oliver's eyes were on the boys that ran from Miley into the arcade, where apparently the birthday celebration was really getting underway.
"Aw, remember when you liked cake more than girls?" Lilly teased him.
"Yeah, pfftt, kids." Oliver was obviously forcing himself to stay in his seat.
"Oh, just go get some," Lilly snapped at him, not wanting to wait for Miley and Jake to get over whatever their drama was by herself. She brushed away even the remote possibility that she was jealous of the cake. This was not a real double date, just like lunch at the beach was a fake date. She knew that.
"Maybe just a piece," Oliver called as he sprinted for the birthday party. To her chagrin, Lilly found it kind of adorable. She shook her head and sighed, then started to hurry after him, before finding Miley hiding behind a bowling ball.
Lilly tried to help Miley get away before Jake saw her, but it was no use. The cat was out of the bag. She decided it was better to just let Miley explain her way out of this one. And besides, they could not abandon Oliver to the elementary school party.
Miley spent about an hour just sitting there with her head in her hands after Jake and Holly left, and Lilly did not have the heart to try to make her leave, so she and Oliver reluctantly joined the birthday festivities. On the bright side, they did get to spend the afternoon bowling for free, since the lanes were already paid for by the parents hosting the party. And the cake shaped like a castle, complete with pudding moat and cobble stones made from chocolate chips was pretty tasty.
Oliver gloated about bowling a 280 for the rest of the night, particularly proud since Lilly had barely broken 100, and she usually beat him in any sport.
"Oliver, you were bowling with bumpers, okay? It was impossible for you to not hit something. I didn't have any!"
He crossed his arms in the front seat of his mom's car, remarking, "you're just a sore loser." Lilly groaned.
***
The next day, Lilly still heard cracks about their scores, and it was enough to drive her crazy. She decided to forget the frustration she had with Oliver's repeated gloating though after she witnessed the scene to end all scenes between Miley and Jake. He was supposed to come right back after going to listen to that joke with those guys, but he never did, and she had been left to witness all of the gory details alone. She could not wait to give Oliver the gossip.
"Lilly, you've tried calling Oliver three times. What could possibly be so important?" Heather Truscott eyed her daughter curiously.
"I just have something to tell him."
"Maybe he's busy."
"Pfft. Oliver's never busy." Lilly waved the comment off. "I'll try calling his house number!" She began to make her way upstairs to her room, wanting to get away from her mother's over interested ears.
"Don't forget, we're eating dinner in an hour. Don't be on the phone too long," Heather called up the stairs after her. "It's not like you couldn't just walk next door," she muttered to herself.
Lilly dialed the number she knew by heart, even though she hardly ever called it since Oliver got his cell. "Hi, Mr. Oken, is Oliver there? Thanks." Lilly waited by her window, rocking back on her heals.
The light was on in Oliver's room, but his curtains were shut. She saw a shadow cross in front of them and his voice came over the line.
"Hey, Lilly. You call to schedule a bowling rematch?"
"Ugh. Would you get off the bowling thing! I have something important to tell you!"
"Yeah, sure. You're still upset that I beat you. Or maybe you're just upset that our fake date didn't last longer." Her stony silence made him give in. "Ok, shoot."
"Wait, why weren't you answering your phone?" Lilly stopped rocking on her heels and cocked her head to one side, remembering that it had taken her forever to get a hold of him.
"I can't find it. I think I lost it at the beach when I was hanging out with the guys." Oliver laid back down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. "Stupid phone."
"The guys? What are you, in 'West Side Story' now?" Lilly laughed as she flopped down on to her own bed, one of her feet hanging off the end, absentmindedly tapping the toes of her left foot against the bed frame below.
"Right, can you see me dancing down the street singing about Officer Krupke?" Oliver chuckled, then added sharply, "and you are never to tell anyone that I have seen that movie."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Along with 'Oklahoma' and 'Guys and Dolls.' Your love of musicals is safe with me."
"Being forced to watch them with you one week so that I can watch action movies with you the next week does not mean that I love them." Oliver had begun tossing a baseball into the air with his right hand when she made the remark about musicals, but had to stop, when he accidentally hit the fan above him.
"What was that?" Lilly asked curiously.
"My baseball hit the fan. Hey, that reminds me, when I was at the beach, I said I would get that joke. It was so funny!" Oliver paused to take a breath, and Lilly cut in.
"The beach! How could you let me forget? I'm supposed to be telling you the news!"
"What news?"
"You should have seen Miley and Jake after you walked off! It was amazing. Seriously, Miley's life is better than TV." Lilly sat back up, kicking her legs back and forth excitedly.
"What happened?" Oliver was intrigued. It must have been good to make Lilly so interested.
"So, Miley wanted to know why Jake didn't tell anybody about Willis, and he said she was miserable, and he didn't want to make it worse. He tried to convince her that he's not a bad guy. Then, he said it was cute that she was jealous!"
"I bet that went over real well," Oliver cut in sarcastically.
"Oh, yeah. You should have seen them! She said that he used Holly to make her jealous too. 'Cause he and Holly weren't even dating!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"What did Jake say?" Oliver was sitting back up now too.
"He said she just had to admit that she liked him, and then she said he was the one who liked her. And it was back and forth, him, then her. And then," Lilly paused for dramatic effect, "he kissed her! Right there at the Shack, in the middle of the argument!"
"No way! I can't believe I missed it!"
"Oh, wait, it gets better."
"Seriously?"
"I said wait! Miley wanted to know when they were going to go out, you know, to make it official. Jake's leaving to shoot a movie, like, tomorrow!" Lilly was on her feet now, pacing the length of her room.
"What? He kissed her and he's just going to leave?"
"That's what Miley said, and she pushed him off the walk way!"
"Wow, they really are better than TV." Oliver glanced toward his window, then decided to get up and open the curtain, where he could see Lilly pacing back and forth. "You're going to wear a hole in your carpet."
"Stop spying on me, you creep." Lilly stuck her tongue out at him though, and he knew she was not serious.
"I still can't believe he just kissed her like that. They are so weird. I mean, I knew he liked her, and she liked him, but they get into fights about nothing." Oliver's boy brain was working overtime to figure the whole thing out.
"That's just because they were trying to hide how they felt. If Miley had just given in to the love to begin with, they would never have been so dysfunctional," Lilly told him very matter-of-factly.
"You think?"
"Of course. If they had just admitted everything, they would never have had to fake date other people!"
"Well, it looks like fake dating worked out for them." Oliver chuckled.
"Don't get any ideas. Don't ever use a girl to make someone else jealous again."
"What are you? My mother?"
"Oliver!" One of Lilly's hands was perched on her hip when she glared at him through the glass.
"Fine, fine, no using anyone to make someone else jealous." He shook his head in amusement. "Good night, Lilly."
"Night."