Lily Evans was making herself some hot chocolate.

Hot chocolate was good. And delicious. Especially with extra marshmallows. And in the chilly days of autumn, when she'd had a not-so-great day, what she really needed was a nice, hot, steamy mug of hot chocolate.

She took out the milk from the fridge, pouring out three-fourths of the mug. Then she ripped open a packet of Swiss Miss and emptied it out. Then she put it in the microwave.

A simple process, but she took it step-by-step. That was how she did most things. With a plan. Everything was pre-planned, not spontaneous. Everything had some kind of process, some kind of rhythm that you had to follow. You had to act after thinking it over.

It was the way she did things. She didn't believe in 'soulmates' or 'true love' or 'live day by day'. You had to have some plan for your future, otherwise you'd become a roadside dude wishing you had a career.

Lily had been planning her career since she had been in middle school. Take these courses, go to this college, take these courses, get these grades, intern at this place, study for a few years there, then join a company, then create your own company.

And? It had worked. She was successful.

Just then, her cell phone rang. She picked it up and accepted the call.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Lily."

"Oh, hey, Marissa," Lily greeted her colleague, tucking the phone in between her shoulder and ear as she took the mug out of the microwave and sprinkled marshmallows on top. "How's it going?"

"Good, good," Marissa replied. "What about you?"

"Nothing much. I've just been chilling out."

"I actually stopped by your apartment earlier this afternoon. You weren't there. Where were you?"

Lily was taken by surprise. Marissa would usually call before coming over. "I was out," she responded. "At the mall. I had to buy some things… why?"

"Well… You're free right now, right?"

"Yep."

"I wanted to tell you something… which is why I came over."

"Yeah, go ahead," Lily said, frowning. "You can tell me now." Marissa sounded like it was a serious matter. Marissa was never like that… she wasn't serious. She was one of those happy people.

"Well… the thing is… Jake and I are getting married!" she squealed. Jake was her boyfriend, and had been for around eight months.

"Really?" A smile broke out across Lily's face. "I'm so happy for you!"

"I know!" she squealed. "Thank you, Lily! You can't tell anyone, though, Lil," - Lily grimaced, she hated nicknames like that - "not yet. We're still only planning out everything, we're not sure when it'll be. We don't know if we need more time. But… I mean… you're my best friend, and just… we were discussing it… and we both kinda agreed, and I just had to tell you, so…"

"I'll be quiet," promised Lily, smiling widely. She was happy for her friend, but she was wondering. Her friend was already getting married, and she still hadn't shown any interest in any guy. Sure, she had plenty of time, but like… "Congratulations. You're sure about Jake, right?"

"I'm positive. He and I are so happy together."

"That's awesome," Lily told her, opening the fridge and putting away the milk.

"Thanks! Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you something. The boss sent you some clothes for the latest design. She said she sent them to you. You need to check them and send your review in by tomorrow."

Lily sighed. "Why do we have so much work?"

Lily worked at a fashion designing company, 'Erocs' (Why was it named that? Well, the same reason Gucci was named Gucci. If you didn't get the memo, the guy's name was Erocs. Duh). She took her work very seriously. She loved her job, she worked hard at it, and she sincerely enjoyed designing new clothes.

So yes, she loved her job. She was just extremely overworked. Her boss piled work on the employees, never really doing that much herself. And she could be quite unreasonable at times.

"I don't know, but the clients are threatening to leave again…"

Lily sighed again. "They've done these on like, all of our consignments. It's nothing big."

"I know," replied Marissa. "I seriously. Did you get the clothes, though?"

"Yeah. My designs. I'll check them now." So much for drinking her hot chocolate in peace.

"Well, see you! Jake and I gotta go. We're going out," Marissa told her, and the call disconnected.

Lily sighed, running a hand through her hair.

She lived in 1023 Sunrise Apartments. It was difficult to find a house in New York. It cost a lot of money, and she didn't have that much. Sunrise Apartments was a prestigious apartment complex in itself. The floor above her had all the fancy Suites, which was where the rich, snobby people lived. But she'd saved up enough money to get a relatively large apartment here.

She went over to her sofa to pick up the clothes. It was a sleeveless, caramel, lace dress. She checked against her design to make sure everything was good.

"They have an extra lace by the waist," she muttered, typing that down on her computer, "and the color's a shade darker than I wanted. And no gradient. It's supposed to be solid. And… it's kind of long. It's supposed to be a short dress." She typed that all up in an email, and then moved on to the next one, a trim purple sparkle dress. She sighed and measured the sides, checking them against the design. "Unproportional, won't fit-"

Just then, she heard some loud music pumping from the floor above her. She groaned. Why couldn't people learn to be quiet? She ignored it, continuing to type down, but she couldn't concentrate.

Well, how could she?

"Excuse me?" she yelled. Nobody answered. The music continued playing loudly. "Excuse me?" she yelled again.

The music stopped.

"Yeah?" cried a voice down.

"Can you shut the living heck up?" she demanded. "You're being like, super loud! Don't you realize it's annoying? Can you turn that stupid thing down a little bit?"

"What?" a voice cried down. "I can't hear you!" She heard some laughter. They could definitely hear her, they were just messing with her. Ohh, they'd pushed it. She'd dealt with enough people like them before. New York City could be crawling with them. You just had to show them that you couldn't be pushed over.

"I'll tell you what I said," she snarled. "Shut the heck up before I come and pound your face in!" If that wasn't loud and threatening, she didn't know what was.

Totally ignoring her words, the music started playing again. Nice music or not, it was loud, and she couldn't concentrate. She had to get these in by tomorrow.

Some rich people could be annoying as heck.

Didn't they realize they could be infuriatingly disrupting?

She groaned and dug out some white earbuds from her purse. She stuck them in, turning on some punk rock to tune out the furiously annoying music above her.

Her mind flashed back to the incident earlier that day, at the mall. She grew annoyed, angry, and embarrassed just thinking about it. She hadn't really understood what had been going on. All she knew was that some stranger had been laughing at her. She'd retorted, because she'd gotten defensive. And then everyone else had started laughing at her.

She'd been humiliated.

She officially hated that man.

If she ever got a hold of him again… she would strangle him. She would kick him in the guts. She would murder him. Whack him with a stick. Who were they to mock her ways, the way she did things?

She needed to get her mind off things. Truly. The day had been horrible. She walked over to the corner of her apartment, where her puppy, a white Yorkshire Terrier lived.

"Hey, Buddy," she said, scratching him behind the ears. "How are you?"

Her puppy licked her all over the face, jumping up on her. He was an enthusiastic little puppy.

"Aw, hi to you too," she laughed, picking him up. He put his two front paws on her chest and looked up at her with those beady black eyes. "You wanna go for a walk?" she asked him amusedly. "Is that why you're all jumpy today?"

Buddy let out a little bark.

"Okay, fine," she relented. "Stay here. But then I have to go get those new clothes reviewed, okay?" She knew Buddy wouldn't respond, she wasn't stupid, but dogs were intelligent creatures. And, well, she was alone. Her only companion was… a puppy.

Buddy started wagging his tail like crazy, and Lily shook her head, smiling as she went to get his leash from her room. Just then, her phone rang. It was her boss, Laura Houston.

Laura was an interesting woman. She was normally nice, just overworked people a lot, and could sometimes flip out on people.

"Hello?"

"Lily," she said. "I need to talk to you for a minute. Are you free?"

Lily looked around. "Yeah, sure. I'm just reviewing the new clothes." It wasn't a total lie. She had been reviewing that... a few moments ago, at least. Before she'd decided to go and take Buddy for a walk.

But Laura didn't need to know that.

Some things were better secret.

"Okay, okay. Put that on hold. I have to speak with you."

"Sure," sighed Lily. She looked over at Buddy and patted his head. He started sniffing her feet. "Go ahead."

"Our clients are threatening to quit again," she said. "And this time, for real. If we don't get our clothing on the cover of Vogue, then we'll run out of money and we'll have funding issues."

Lily sighed. "Our clients have threatened to quit a lot of times before, haven't they? They always come back, though."

"Yes, but this time… it's different."

Lily didn't believe it. Laura said this for every single consignment. What would make this one any different? "Our clients will go through with it. Then they'll do the Vogue shoot, and we can make the cover, and we'll make the money."

Her boss sighed. "I feel that it's different this time. They've started doing some paperwork."

This was new. Lily felt something squirm inside her. "I don't think it's anything big, Laura."

"I'm not sure, Lily. But remember, this has to be confidential. No telling anyone."

"I know," promised Lily. "I won't tell a-"

"DEEEEEESPAAAACIIIITOOOO! QUIERO RESPIRAR TU CUELLO DESPACITO, SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING… SO-SOMETHING!"

"How about 'Now I just really wanna eat a burrito'?" suggested another voice, slightly familiar. Something pinged inside of her, but she didn't know what. Probably annoyance at the people. Yeah. Most likely. She'd never met a rich person in her life, so she wouldn't know somebody who lived in a rich suite.

"No, bro, no," replied the other dude.

The songs had started up again from the floor above her. Someone was singing horribly, and someone else was talking to him. The someone else had a voice that immediately put her on edge. She didn't know why.

"Uh, excuse me? Lily?" Laura asked. "Is everything alright?"

Lily growled. "Yes, it's fine. I just…"

"You're supposed to be listening to me, not music," her boss reminded her. "I'm confiding something confidential into you, and you listen to some stupid… If this keeps happening, I won't tell these things to you anyway." Great. And she hadn't even been the one listening to the music. "What is that song, anyway? It sounds awfully loud, and I'm on a phone."

And you think that's bad. "It's… um… I'm not sure. Oh, wait. It's Despacito."

"Mm. Justin Bieber, is it?"

"Uh, yeah?" she said. "And Luis Fonsi. But Laura, I'm not the one-"

"Shut up! You heard what I've been saying, have you not?" she snapped.

"Yes, I know. I mean, I have. I've been listening. I don't think Justin-" She sighed, pressing her hands to the sides of her temples. This was what a terrible day at a mall and loud pounding music did to you. "Sorry. I don't think the clients will quit. The consignment will go through. We'll make the cover of vogue. Everything will go fine."

"You realize what it means if it doesn't, right?" asked Laura, a threatening edge to her voice. "We'll run out of money."

Don't bore me.

"Salaries will drop."

Will you just shut the heck up and hang up?

"We may have to downsize."

Lady...

"And if that happens, you will be the first one to get fired."

A/N: Oop, work drama. Fun! Anyway, next chapter is almost all Jily. Enjoy!