Never Truly Lost |L.H.|

6: "You know you suck at lying."

Jesus Christ, why does this always seem to happen.

It was freaking Luke.

"Um, Michael's out sick as of this morning." He says. "Bronchitis."

"Oh, that's unfortunate. Jules, we got to send him a card. And pizza." Mariah says. "Want to come in, Luke?"

"Uh, I don't think I should. This is the last delivery for my shift tonight, and I need to pick someone up and get home to my mom..."

"Oh c'mon! You'll get a tip!" Mariah offers.

"A tip? You're going to bribe me with a tip. Woooow..." Luke laughs, giving me the two pizzas as I hand him the money.

"Yeah, we'll give you some of our pizza. We barely ever finish it anyway." Mariah says pulling on his arm to get him inside. And she lied, we always finish the pizza.

"I guess you won't accept 'no' as an answer." Luke shrugs.

Mariah then exposes Luke to our teenage girl environment. TV on the pop music video channel, the volume as high as the neighborhood would allow. Well, maybe a little higher. So what if we like to dance to loud music? "Welcome to where the magic happens. Or in other words, two person pizza parties. Well, this time it's three people!" Mariah cheers. ((Imagine Mariah as like PinkiePie from My Little Ponies. Man, I hope I'm not the only one who knows what that is. It's bc of my lil sis soo ya))

"Yup, I can clearly see that you're a pair of 'pop princesses'." Luke states, noticing Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream' music video playing on the TV, while removing his coat and boots. "I can't stay long. I have to pick up John after my shift."

"John? You mean like, John Wilder?" Mariah asks, turning around as if she heard her own name, eyes wide with interest.

"Uh, yeah. He's hanging at my place this weekend."

I start to laugh as I notice Mariah blushing wildly.

"What's so funny?" Luke asks me. I point to my cheeks and then to Mariah discretely - signaling that she was blushing - biting my bottom lip to hold back more laughing. A smirk is drawn onto his face. He noticed that her face was beat red. "Ah, I see." He chuckles, nibbling his lip ring. God, that was attractive.

"See what?" Mariah asks, walking into the living room while covering her cheeks. We follow her, and I turn down the volume on the TV to a more acceptable volume for conversation.

Luke laughs again, sitting down on the couch next to me, an appropriate distance away. "You like John, don't you?"

Mariah denies it instantly. "No, no, no. I don't." She says, lying through her teeth and holding her red face.

"Mariah, don't start lying now. You know you suck at lying." I state, giggling.

She groans and gives up on her lying game. She rolls onto her side and sprawls out on the couch she was sitting on by herself. "Don't tell him."

"Fine." Luke smiles. "But if I feel it's right to tell him, I will let him know."

Mariah groans loudly again as she covers her face with a pillow. I laugh. Seeing her like this is just plain amusing. She suddenly starts rubbing the pillow on her face in a weird way.

"Mariah! I've said this so many times! The pillow is not John! I washed that nasty thing four times this week!" Mariah just laughs as she continues to snog the pillow. I turn to Luke. "She never gets it." He nods in understanding.

I get up to get some soda from the fridge, turning the TV back up a bit so I can hear One Direction's 'Live While We're Young' play. "You want some soda, Luke?"

I can tell he's grossed out by Mariah. "Uh, yeah, I'll just follow you to the kitchen so I don't have to watch...that." He says, desperate to get out of the living room, scrambling to get up and walking next to me.

I set the pizza on the counter and get out some paper plates. "It's in the fridge."

"You want one?" He asks kindly, and I nod as he hands me a Cherry Pepsi, grabbing another for himself. "Is she always like that?" He says, leaning on the counter, facing me as he grabs a piece of pizza from the open box.

"Yeah. All the time. She once rambled on for about 3 hours about John. She's told me every dream she's had, and lots of other stuff that she's imagined that nobody wants to know about."

"Like what?" He dares to ask.

I pause and look at him with a perked eyebrow. "You really want to know what her dirty mind has come up with?"

"Uh, as long as it isn't too gross."

"Uh, okay. I'll tell you what she thinks about from the 'tamer' side of her brain..." I think for a second, but there's only one thing I remember her telling me. Kinky stuff. "Nah. I'm not going to tell you. You won't want to eat the pizza."

His face scrunches up in disgust. "It's that bad?"

"Yeah. And a lot worse." I wince.

"Don't you dare tell him about my marshmallow dream!" Mariah yells, running into the kitchen for pizza, slamming into the counter.

I drop my head and let out a rough sigh as Luke's jaw drops.

"He wouldn't have even known it existed if you didn't just yell it out to the universe." I say to myself just loud enough for Luke to hear.

"Stop with your gross fantasies and shove your face with pizza." Luke laughs, pushing the open pizza box towards her. I laugh as well. "Or I'll tell him you had a marshmallow dream."

She gasps as if she can't get any air into her lungs. "No!" She takes the biggest pizza slice and takes a gigantic bite.

Over the next hour or so, Luke and I stand at the one side of the counter next to each other, watching Mariah eat more pizza than she's ever eaten before.