How To Play The Game.

thirty four - lily

"Babe, are you even listening?"

"I'm listening." Lily shrugged, finally looking up. "You're just not saying anything particularly interesting."

"Babe." Marcus sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I don't know why you agreed to go on this date with me if you aren't even going to say anything."

"First of all, don't call me babe." Lily said, glaring at him from across the table. "And second, Marcus, this isn't a date. You asked if we could meet for lunch and talk, and I agreed, but you never said that this was a date."

"I thought that you would just kind of assume, though." Marcus said shyly, looking down at his lap. "Why else would I call? Did you really think I just wanted to meet up and talk?"

"Yes, I did." Lily snapped, returning her focus to the menu in front of her. "I thought that maybe you were going to apologize for always being such an asshole to me, but I guess I was wrong."

"Wow, you're in such a bad mood. Are you on your period?" Marcus asked.

"Girls can be mad without being on their period! You are such a boy, Marcus, girls are allowed to get pissed off shout things without using the fact that they have their period as an excuse!" Lily raised her voice a little, slamming the menu down on the table. "They don't even serve spaghetti here."

"Geez, sorry." Marcus said, holding back a laugh. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"Well I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm kind of in a bad mood and I've been in a bad mood for the last three weeks, so I don't know what you expected from me." Lily said quietly, folding her arms across her chest.

"Aw right, you got dumped, didn't you?" Marcus pouted, leaning forward. "It hurts, right?"

"I didn't get dumped. I dumped him." Lily said, wanting to make that point very clear. She was never the one to get dumped, always the one to dump.

"Right, same thing." Marcus shrugged. "What happened, anyway? One second you and Penis Boy were so happy and the next there was stories in every magazine talking about how you two broke up and love is dead."

"His name was Michael, not Penis Boy." Lily said, scrunching up her nose. "And a lot happened, okay? I don't really want to talk about it."

"Come on, you can tell me, can't you?" Marcus asked, giving Lily a big smile. She just stayed silent, shaking her head. Lily didn't want to tell Marcus about what happened between her and Michael, she already felt bad enough about what had happened with him that morning. "Whatever, I'm glad you finally dumped him."

"Seriously?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow. She was regretting agreeing to meet with Marcus now, Lily didn't know why she thought this would be a good idea. "Where's your fiancé, Marcus?"

"Oh, didn't you hear? We're done." Marcus chuckled. "I realized that I didn't really like her as much as I thought I did, I kind of still have feelings for another girl."

"Oh wow, that girl must feel so special." Lily said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She reached up and started to play with her necklace again, a bad habit that she'd picked up in the last few weeks. She didn't know why she always had to be touching her necklace, she just did.

"It's you, Lily." Marcus said, laughing nervously.

"Oh wow," Lily repeated. "I didn't see that coming at all."

"That's a nice necklace, Lily." Marcus said, nodding towards the L shaped necklace that Lily was playing with.

"Thanks. Michael gave it to me for my birthday." Lily said in a bored tone. With her free hand, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly texted Luke, asking him to come pick her up.