How To Play The Game.

thirty nine - michael

"Michael!" A voice yelled and he felt something drop onto his stomach, startling him enough to wake up.

"What?" Michael snapped, rubbing his eyes with his hands. He had no idea what time it was, all Michael did that day was lay on the couch until he finally passed out at some point.

"The phone's for you." Ashton stood in front of Michael, folding his arms across his chest. "It's important."

"Who is it?" Michael asked. He really wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.

Michael had been doing nothing all week, now that he didn't have his girlfriend or his book to occupy him, and he kind of liked it. He liked not having to worry about anything anymore.

"Just answer it." Ashton said, rolling his eyes.

"But I want to know who it is first." Michael protested, still trying to wake himself up. He hadn't moved from the couch in almost 3 days, he was too upset to do anything else. "What if it's a telemarketer and you're just making me talk to them?"

"It's not a telemarketer!" Ashton groaned, stomping his foot on the ground as he got more frustrated. "I've already talked to the person that's on the phone, they need to talk to you, it's very important!"

"Well I don't want to talk to anyone." Michael said stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest.

"Answer the fucking phone, Michael Clifford!" Ashton yelled and jumped on top of Michael, holding the phone to his ear and trapping Michael so he wasn't able to get away from whoever was on the other end of the phone.

"Uh-Uh-Hello?" Michael stammered, hoping that the person on the phone didn't hear him getting yelled at by his roommate.

"Michael, it's me." They said, and then paused, expecting Michael to know what they wanted. "It's Luke."

"Oh, Luke, hi." Michael said, letting out a sigh. He didn't know why Ashton couldn't just tell him straight away that it was Luke on the phone, Michael really didn't have a problem with Luke. It was the other Hemmings that ruined his life, after all.

"Hi, Michael." Luke said, sounding relieved.

"What's going on?" Michael asked. He really hoped that he hadn't been woken up just so Luke could say hi to him, Ashton said this was important.

"I need your help." Luke said in a rush. "Well I don't need your help, Lily does. I think. I don't know, I'm just really worried."

"Luke, slow down." Michael sat up, beginning to worry as well. He didn't care that Ashton was still sitting on his lap and listening intently to the conversation. "What's going on?"

"Well we were all at a party, and-and I'm with a date, so I wasn't really with Lily," Luke explained, "but I just saw her leaving with Marcus and he was all over her and now she's not answering her phone, and you know Lily always answers her phone, so I'm just worried about her."

"So she went home with Marcus? Why is that a big deal? He's, like, her boyfriend now, isn't he?" Michael asked. He thought that Lily was in trouble, but Luke was pretty much just telling him that Lily was going home to have sex with another guy.

"No, he's not." Luke said quickly. "She really doesn't like being around him at all, she's just been doing all of this to make you jealous because she still loves you, but that's not the point here. Marcus likes Lily, a lot, and he's kind of mean and... controlling, you know? I just don't want anything to happen."

"Do you think Marcus might..." Michael trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

"I don't know, Michael, but I wouldn't be surprised." Luke mumbled softly, almost like he was trying to prevent someone else from hearing. "When they were dating, it - things got messy sometimes."