Lily could feel the headache before she was fully awake. She could feel it before she even opened her eyes. She lay motionless, becoming more conscious. Don’t open your eyes, don’t worry about what time it is, don’t wake up go back to sleep, she told herself. She argued with herself a few moments more before she squinted her eyes open.
“Eleven in the morning?” She groaned out loud. “Boo to that.”
She pulled the covers over her head, sighing loudly. Her headache pounded within her head. She threw the covers off and went into the bathroom; pulling two Advil from the cabinet she swallowed them down. Looking at her reflection, the tangled hair, the eyeliner smudged, she was reminded of her Mother. Tears filled her eyes, after a minute she blinked them away, realizing what exactly she was doing.
“Blah.” She muttered to herself, scrunching her nose at her reflection. She turned on the shower and spent twenty-five long minutes relaxing.
When she stepped out she could hear a faint noise, a pounding sound. She dried herself off and wrapped herself in her crimson robe. Combing out her hair she heard the noise again.
“Oh, well duh…the door.” She said to the empty apartment.
She went through the living room and looked out the peephole.
“Elle!” Lily squealed. She flung the door open and there was Elle, in skintight designer jeans and a shirt that cost entirely too much money.
“Sweetie pie.” Elle smiled, putting her sunglasses on the top of her head. “Wanna come see my place? Maybe come out to dinner or something tonight?”
“Of course, I don‘t have any plans…” Lily smiled. “Well you have to come in and see my place too! Lemme get dressed first.”
“All right darling.” Elle smiled, following Lily to her room.
Lily changed into her clothes and put some make-up on, the pulled her semi-wet hair into another messy bun. The entire time Elle explained the glamour and horrors of a runway show, and the life of a model. Nothing Lily had ever wanted to experience.
“I just wanted to show him that I was worth something. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.” Elle would always say. It was true, she was proving something. To herself at least, and Lily would let her have that.
Elle finally finished and looked up to Lily with such poise and grace. She had made it. She flashed her famous smile, then tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Let’s go babes.” She smiled.
Lily nodded.
It was about a half hour drive to Elle and Orli’s house. Most of it was spent in silence, with Lily trying to remember the way back to the house from her small apartment. It started to drizzle outside, sending random, small raindrops strewn across the windshield.
“Here we are.” Elle announced, pulling into the driveway, then into the garage of an over-the-top LA home. Screw that, Lily thought to herself, this is a damned mansion.
“Holy crap.” Lily choked out.
Elle laughed. “Something like that. C’mon inside goof ball.”
The girls got out of the car and went in through a side door in the clean garage.
“Orli?” Elle called, walking in through a wide hallway.
“In here Ellie.” He called back to her. They took a few steps and Elle turned around.
“Andre Schneider…Atti, is visiting from Germany. He’s a trip, but overly friendly sometimes, I had to warn you. And Elijah is here too, probably; at least he was this morning when I left. Just to let you know.” Elle smiled, then walked Lily into an enormous kitchen.
It was a very open, dark colored kitchen. With dark brown and maroon marble tiles lining the walls and two off-white lights hanging from the ceiling. The fridge was silver and big, when Elle opened it to Lily is seemed Elle had trouble with it. The stove was big, larger than the normal size and an island with dark brown paneling. Lily’s mouth hung open.
“Amazing isn’t it?” Elle smiled. “It’s my second favorite room in the house.”
“You always loved to cook,” Lily smiled, looking to her sister.
“Elle are you talking to yourself again?” Orli called from the other room, followed by a few laughs. Sounded more than two other people in the room.
“No smart-ass,” she called to him, followed by more laughs. “I brought Lily over.”
“Well are you going to bring her in here like a good host?”
“And subject her to the torture of part of the Fellowship and a bi German? The horrors she would suffer.” Elle laughed.
“I resent that!” Came another voice.
“Don’t forget an Aussie.” A thick Australian accent called.
Elle’s face lit up and her eyes were as big as saucers.
“Ledger?” She called, putting her bottled water on the island in the kitchen.
“Speaking.”
Elle squealed and ran through a wide opening at the other end of the kitchen. Lily slowly followed. She walked into a large living room and at the other end Elle was hugging a tall blond, smiling widely.
“Heath I missed you so much, I see you went back to blond locks.” She said, running her fingers through his tousled hair. She turned to see Lily looking more nervous than she ever had in her life.
“Oh shit, Lily…you guys this is my sister Lily, wonderful Orli pointed her out to me in a café yesterday. Lily this is, as you probably already know, Heath, Andre, Elijah and Dominic." She said, pointing to each of the men on the large couch.
“Hi everyone.” Lily said, feeling her face turn red.
A string of hellos were said throughout the room. Elle sat down on the arm of the chair where Orli was sitting; Lily remained where she was, scanning the room.
I have died and gone to heaven, she thought to herself, a small smile spread across her lips.
“Earth to Lily Harris!”
Lily snapped out of her daze, turned a beautiful shade of light pink, and grinned.
Elle laughed. “There we go, we have the communication wall barrier down.”
“Oh hush.” Lily smiled, feeling embarrassed, though the guys hadn’t seemed to notice Elle trying to get her attention. .
“I said, Miss Lily, would you like to go out to get something to eat tonight, I think we have reservations at some place but Sean A. cancelled on us, his poor daughter is sick, and we would love for you to join us, would you?” Elle asked, standing up and walking towards Lily. “We usually go to a big fancy restaurant when some of the guys come to town. Orli has to be all big and bad in front of his friends.”
“Big and fancy?” Lily cringed.
“Oh you can go home and change, but you look fine, and I have clothes here that you would love.” Elle smiled. “Remember when we used to dress up in Mom’s old clothes? And we would always fall down the stairs in those high heels that she used to have?”
“Oh wow,” Lily laughed. “I almost forgot about them. The black ones with the strings?”
“Yes!” Elle screeched. “Hah, you fell that one time outside on the sidewalk when you were like seven and couldn’t stand up in Mom’s red dress.”
Lily and Elle laughed even harder.
“That was pretty scary, at the time. I ripped it when I stood up with those killer heels. I thought I was going to die…Elle… I never thanked you…from when we were little-”
“Don’t worry about it.” Elle cut in, losing the sparkle from when she was laughing and getting a somber tone. “We don’t need to talk about that.”
“Don’t need to talk about what?” Orli said, breaking from the other conversation and turning to the girls. “Something about when you were little?”
Elle looked up to Lily with pleading eyes.
She hasn’t told him, Lily thought, oh my God she hasn’t told him.
“Nothing.” Lily broke in. “Embarrassing girl stuff from when we were teenagers.”
Orli laughed. “I get the picture, no need to explain loves.”
Elle smiled lightly at Lily.
“Hey guys what time are we leaving?” She said turning her attention to the boys.
“We have reservations at Martin’s at eight.” Atti said. “So you should start getting ready now, doll, seeing that you only have about seven hours until we have to be there.”
She smiled, flicking him off. “You’re such a sweetheart.”
“Oh darling, I’d take that invitation any time you’re ready. And if you want to invite your little boyfriend just bring him along for the fun.”
Everyone started laughing hard, Orli turned to Atti with a red face.
“I should beat the shit out of you, mate.” He laughed. “But I love you too damned much, I couldn’t.”
“Come on Lily, I’ll show you the rest of the place.” Elle said, taking her sister’s hand and leading her out of the living room.
Lily was shown three other rooms, an office which Elle said never got much use out of, it mainly held legal documents and restraining orders from crazy fans (all of which were Orlando’s, Elle was sure to point that out.) Then she was led to the first guest room, full of dark and light blues and a cheery-wood dresser. The walls were dark blue with dim white lights hanging out from the walls; artwork from France lined the walls and two large windows facing the backyard.
“This is where Atti’s staying, he loves it in this room. Never figured out why.” Elle smiled, leading Lily to a large spiral staircase.
“Orli insisted that no matter where we live we have a spiral staircase, and this one is big enough so it couldn’t freak you out.”
Large pieces of artwork full of color hung from the walls as you circled up the stairs into another open hallway. Elle led Lily to a bedroom to the right.
“This is the other guest room, I got to design this one.” Elle smiled, opening the door. Lily gasped entering. The walls were a soft peach, with a perfect white comforter on the bed, with pillows a light shade of yellow and peach that matched with the walls. Elegant Victorian lamps hung from the ceiling over the white nightstands next to the bed, and two over each of the dressers, one tall, and one low with a large mirror. White roses in crystal vases sat on each dresser.
“This is my favorite room in the house.”
“Holy shit, Elle.” Lily said, walking into the room. “This is gorgeous.” “I love it.” Elle said, sitting on the bed. “When Orlando goes off for a weekend or something I always end up sleeping in here, it’s like a comfort zone for me, I guess.”
Lily smiled at her sister. “You made it.”
Elle blushed. “Something like that. Now come see our room.”
Elle led Lily into the hallway again and walked across to two big double doors, she pushed both at the same time, opening into a highly lit room. It was the biggest room Lily had ever seen, she was overwhelmed. A king size bed sat across from her, at the other end of the room. An emerald green comforter with beige lining and stitch work sat on it, with light wood bedside tables and dressers. Two French doors opened out to a small patio looking out over the backyard.
“Orlando was going through his post-Lord of the Rings depressed stage when we got the house.” Elle laughed. “He wanted it all to be green.”
“I can see that.” Lily laughed. “How’d you meet Orlando?”
Elle sat on the bed and pulled Lily to sit next to her. “We were both at a movie premiere for Elijah, I had met him a long time ago from a photo shoot and my publicist said that I should go. But he had a girlfriend, which was soon made a fiancé. But things turned sour during Lord Of The Rings and she left him during the middle of the shoot, and closer to the end we started talking some via-phone and through our managers and stuff. Then when he came to the States we started dating, and it’s all history from there.”
“You’re so in love.” Lily teased, poking her sister in her side.
“I am.” Elle laughed, squirming from being tickled. “It’s horrible, I swear.”
From downstairs they could hear laughter breaking out. The girls looked at each other and laughed.
“Boys.” They giggled.
“You don’t need to go home to change, I’m gonna make you up.” Elle said.
“Oh Elle I don’t know, I’m not the model type.”
“Bull shit.” Elle argued, standing up. “You’re my sister, and I have the right to dress you up. I have dresses in all shapes and sizes and colors, I have the works, trust me. I have makeup and everything you could possible imagine. You’re not getting out of this that easily. And it’s a pain in the butt to drive you home then to get to the restaurant.”
“Fine.” Lily sighed.
“You will live to remember this night.” Elle gleamed. “I promise.”
Chapter Three
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Dreaming of You
