Always, Huh?

Two - Your Wife Can Be A Female Dog

Eventually the two boys made their way to the Middle - it had been so long that it took a few wrong turns to jog their memories. They found Lily, sitting on the dusty, leafy ground with her up-do undone. Her brown hair looked almost auburn in the dying light and it fell down her back in dark waves.

When she turned her breath caught in her throat as she recognised the young man who'd arrived with Jacob. "Um. Hi?"

"Hi. I'm Dylan Evans. I kinda live here."

"Ah," Lily replied, pretending not to react to how much more attractive he'd gotten. She stood up, realising she was sitting cross-legged in front of Dylan Evans, probably flashing him a glimpse of her underwear.

Lily was not the only one who recognised the other. Dylan had not been able to get another girl into his head since that fateful day, the day of the Incident. However, he still pretended that he didn't remember her, he had a reputation to keep up.

"So, I think the party's almost over," Jacob said, subtly implying that they should go back inside.

"Shoot. My mom's going to kill me."

"Why?"

"My dress. Duh. It's messed up and... Oh God, no," Lily said, turning around and indicating the dusty back of her ruined dress, "Shoot. It is. It's torn. Damn, I must have ripped it on one of these stupid branches."

"It's just a bit of dust. It's nothing, you can just shake it off. The rip? Not so much."

"She's still going to kill me. It's designer," Lily whined. The thought that she was doing this in front of her number one crush, the boy she'd liked for three years straight, seemingly never occurring to her.

She started to plod back to the house, the two other boys following closely behind.

---/|\---

"Lily, darling, what did you do to your dress?" Her mom asked, her tone suggested she was a caring mother but her glare was icy.

"Jacob and I went outside for a bit of fresh air but I tripped over some stupid stone gargoyle."

"You didn't break anything, did you? That guitar of yours cost us a fortune, we'd have to-"

"Take it back to the shop. I know. But actually I didn't break anything. Thanks for being so concerned about me and my wellbeing," Lily interrupted, taking off her jacket and throwing it on the arm of the couch. "Is there any milk in the fridge?" She asked, drifting over to the kitchen on instinct.

"No dear. Now give me that dress, I'll see what I can do."

"One sec, Mom. I'm not stripping in front of Dad and Nate with the drapes open," She slammed the fridge door shut, stormed to her room and slammed that door shut as well.

Yanking off the green dress, Lily sighed and shoved on a baggy t-shirt and a pair of loose pants. She dived onto her bed just as the realisation hit her; she'd had a normal conversation with her dream boyfriend. Dylan was everything a girl could ask for; handsome, charming, loveable, sexy too. And she hadn't even stammered over any words, granted, she hadn't said much but still.

Reaching blindly for her bedside table, Lily tried to locate her phone, knocking over a pile of cash and plectrums and a bottle of water (about a month old) in the process.

Eighteen texts and three missed calls greeted her as she turned her phone screen on.

-You have missed calls from Jazz, Eleanor and Richard.
-You have text messages from Jazz, Eleanor and Richard.

Sighing heavily again, Lily scrolled through the messages. All were asking where she was on their notorious movie night. Jazz's caps lock was 'stuck' on (as usual) for all fifteen of her texts and the swearing grew until the text became so profane that all the words should've been censored. Eleanor's text was long-winded and tedious, so much so that Lily didn't bother reading the whole thing, she just didn't have the energy. The two texts from Richard were short and to the point, it made sense as he never wasted any time.