Here's the next chapter :)
I woke the next morning feeling like I'd been run over by a truck, and about three hours too late. I was supposed to be at work by nine, it was noon.
I got out of bed and pulled my sweater on, wrapping it around me tightly as I walked in to the kitchen.
Lilly sat at the table. She made her own hours. I didn't, usually, but we were in a crunch to get this album recorded. I wasn't the one being recorded though. I wasn't Hannah anymore, I worked as a producer and an agent for my dad's record company, the one Hannah had used to work for. She sill made appearances sometimes, but other then that...I'd left her when I'd turned eighteen. I'm now twenty three.
Since I worked for my father I wouldn't be in too much trouble. I'd just have to answer questions I couldn't answer without Oliver getting his face punched in. He worked for my dad too, as the same thing as me, minus the agent part. He was a very talented music producer, and he also sang some backup for artists.
Lilly was a writer, and a sucessful one at that. "Hey." She said, looking up from the paper she was looking over, hair messily up, the glasses she'd always used to hate perched on her nose, one hand holding a pen, the other around a coffee mug.
"Hi." I said quietly, voice sounding hoarse.
"There's coffee." She said, though I was already walking over. I was here as much as I was at my own apartment...well, when I'd had one. I guess I was homeless now. I got a mug from the cabinet, and poured myself a cup, and added cream and sugar, sitting across from her.
"Oliver called me." She said casually. "Said he told your dad you were sick, not to worry about coming in."
"Ain't he a saint." I muttered. "He's just protecting his own ass."
"Are you going to tell me what happened?"
I was silent for a long moment. "We got in a fight. Just a misunderstanding."
"Don't give me that shit, Miley. I got a call at nearly one in the morning from you sobbing and asking me to pick you up, that isn't just some misunderstanding! What the hell happened!? Did he hit you?"
"No, Lilly, of course he didn't hit me how could you think that?!" I yelled, appalled.
"I'm sorry! But Lately I don't know what to expect from him he's seemed so different, Miley!"
"You don't need to tell me that." I said quietly, and she waited for me to go on. "He's mad because...because I won't have...he's mad because we havn't had sex yet." I said finally.
"You guys have been together since senior year..." Lilly laughed.
"I know!" I yelled, "I know that he tells me that all the time," I broke down in to sobs, andI heard her chair scrape back, and she was hugging me.
"I'm sorry," She said, "I'm sorry...come here."
She pulled me to her living room, to the couch, hugging me still. "Why havn't you...?"
"Because I don't want to, Lilly! I'm not ready, and he just doesn't get that!" I cried.
"So talk to him, Miley, tell him!" She said, "Explain it to him."
"I can't,he'll just l-l-laugh at me! So will you! No one will understand!" I said.
"If you don't try how do you ever expect him to understand?"
No answer I could think of, I got up. "I'm going back to bed."
Lilly sighed. "Alright."
I went to my room and shut the door, and crawled beneath the covers of the bed, laying in the middle of it, hugging another pillow to my chest.
I don't know when I fell asleep, but I did because I woke up at three to knocking on my door.
"Miles?" Lilly said. "You awake?"
I groaned, "Yea. What?"
"Someone's here to see you."
"Who?"
"Oliver."
"I changed my mind, I'm still asleep." I yelled, turning away from the door. If he wanted to be a bastard then I could be a bitch.
I heard them talking, arguing, and then the door opened and shut again.
I felt the bed shift as his weight was added, and then he was softly stroking my arm. "Hey baby," He said softly. "Why don't you come with me, come on home?"
"I can't." I whispered.
"Why?"
"Because I have no home, because my boyfriend talked me in to moving in with him and then kicked me out!" I cried, "And don't touch me!" I yelled, moving away from his touch.
"Miley I'm sorry," He said, "I'm sorry, I was out line. I was just aggravated. I love you so much and you have no idea how you affect me."
"Yes I do know you yell at me all the time. Remember last night when you...raped my hand?" I cried. "You aren't sweet talking me to claw your way out of this, Oliver."
"Miley please," He whispered, "Please."
His second please came out of some resemblance of cry, and I turned around. His face looked pained, he looked like he was lost.
"What's wrong?" I asked quietly, sitting up.
He reached up to cradle my face in his hands. "Please, Miley. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry."
He looked so...serious, so afraid, so sincere, that I nodded. "Ok." I said softly, sighing, reaching up to place my hands over his, and smile at him. He smiled back at me, and reached down to kiss me gently.
He then pulled me close to him, wrapping his arms around me, and I let my head fall to rest in the crook of his neck.
This was what I loved.
--
"Leaving already?" Lilly asked, looking up at from her couch, where she was editing something, her glasses low on her nose, as she surveyed us, Oliver's arm wrapped around my shoulders, mine around his waist, my duffel bad over his shoulder, my purse in my hand.
"Yup," I smiled. "Thanks for being there last night, Lilly," I said, leaving Oliver to bend down and hug her. "You're the best friend ever."
Lilly smiled, and waved us out, looking troubled.
"What'd I miss at work?" I asked, "My dad's probably going to give me the third degree. He'll probly think I'm pregnant again." I grumbled, getting in to Oliver's car."
"He actually seemed pretty preoccupied. Lindsey is sick and couldn't sing, so recording got set back."
Lindsey Nicholson, the sixteen year old we were working with, was like Hannah Montana of this time...without the whole double life thing. I was her agent, too. She was in the process of recording her third studio album.
"Oh. Ok then, works for me...it sucks that she's sick though, I should call..."
"Linda said that she was dead asleep in bed," He said, referring to Lindsey's mother. "Call her tomorrow."
I nodded, as we headed towards home.
"I've been thinking." Oliver said conversationally.
"That can't be good..." I teased, looking at him.
"Har har." He said sarcastically. "But seriously...You and I should take a vacation." He said. "we should go to the Bahamas...or Aruba. The Greek Isles. Or Paris, you've always wanted to go there!"
I smiled half hardheartedly. I knew his plan. Get me on a vacation, butter me up, get sex. "Lindsey really needs me right now...and I don't think dad will go for us leaving, not now."
We'd arrived back, and were in the elevator by that point. "I already asked if it was alright, he said that as long as we prove we're staying in separate rooms it'd be fine."
"I...don't know where my passport is."
"It's in the lock box with mine." He said.
I was shit out of luck, having no more excuses.
"I mean I understand if you don't want to go...I mean who would want to go with their boyfriend whom they claim to love on a vacation? I mean, no one should have invented the idea ever!" He said, unlocking the door, waving me in.
I put my purse down on the couch angrily, "You know I hate it when you do that, Oliver!" I snapped.
He turned after taking his jacket off, face looking innocent. "Do what?"
"Try to guilt me in to doing something I don't want to do!" I yelled, "You do it a lot, and you know what? If you loved me you'd respect what I want!" I shouted, turning round to stomp in to the bathroom. I needed to take a shower.
Walking through our room, I dropped my purse on the bed, and then went in to the bathroom, slamming and locked the door.
"I am not trying to guilt you!"He called through the door.
I took the aspirin bottle from the counter, opening it and pouring two pills in to my hand, grabbed a cup, filled it with water, and then swallowed them, but then missed when I tried to throw the cup away.
Sighing, I bent to pick it up, and my eye caught the color of a box. I read the name. "Trojan..."I mouthed, and then I saw the things that had come in that box...but were used.
That bastard.
I opened the door, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking pale, sickly, but I ignored him, grabbing the duffel bag, and going over to the closet.
"Miley?" He asked, "Where are you going?"
"Back to Lilly's you filthy disgusting bastard!"
"What did I do?!" He asked.
I turned to face him, "I don't know, Oliver, you tell me! Where'd you find the fucking whore this time? You're unbelievable, you say you love me and that's why you try to get me to have sex, but then when I don't do it, you go get some filthy home wrecking whore!"
"How could you say that?!" He asked, sounding like he was really upset, "I'd never cheat on you! I could never!"
"Don't try to pull that, the fucking evidence is in the TRASH!" I yelled.
His face blushed a deep red. "Those aren't from me having sex." He said.
"Then enlighten me, what are they from?"
"The hard ons don't just go away by themselves." Oliver muttered, flushing more, looking at the floor.
I paused. "You mean you..."
"Yes, Miley. I had to. And that wasn't the first time either."
"Oh. I'm sorry for yelling at you and calling you a cheating bastard."
Oliver nodded, and didn't say anything.
"Ollie?" I said softly, "Are you alright?" I asked, walking over, sitting beside him.
"I just feel a little dizzy," He said.
"Have you eaten anything today?"
"Not much...My stomach's felt weird."
"I'll go make you some toast," I said, standing up, and making him get up so I could pull the covers back. He sat down, kicking off his shoes, and then lay down, and I pulled the covers over him.
"I'm fine," He said, as I leant down to press my lips to his forehead. He felt warm.
I gently kissed his lips, and got up.
"I'm fine," He said once again.
I went to the kitchen and put bread in the toaster, and then walked back through our bedroom and got the aspirin bottle, getting two more pills out, then filling a cup with water, and bringing it out to Oliver, helping him take it.
After I got the toast and he ate it, I crawled on to the bed next to him, and he rested his head in my lap. I slowly combed my fingers through his hair...he seemed so weak, and it had come on so suddenly.
"I'm fine," He repeated yet again, and this time I had to ignore the nagging feeling that told me he was trying just as much to convince himself as me.