Page 33 of Love, Lilly

“Married?” Oliver asks, joining the conversation. “When?”

“In two weeks! Valentine’s Day.”

“In two weeks? Valentine’s Day?” Amy parrots back, unable to comprehend what I am telling her.

“And that’s not the worst part. He invited me to his wedding, and—”

“He did what? The nerve of him!” Amy shouts, angry on my behalf.

“Not the worst part,” I mutter.

“It gets worse than that?” Oliver questions, looking worried.

“I kind of did something stupid. I didn’t mean to. I had had some wine, and before I knew it, I had I told him I was in a relationship, you know, to…”

“Save face,” Amy finishes for me.

“Exactly!” I reply, glad she and I are on the same page.

“And that is bad because?” Oliver prompts.

“It’s bad because I somehow agreed to go to his stupid wedding and bring my non-existent boyfriend with me.” As silence follows this, I add, “And that is the worst part!”

“So let me get this straight. Your loser ex-boyfriend calls you out of the blue to tell you he is marrying the woman he left you for. And you agreed to attend his wedding with your made-up boyfriend?” Amy summarises.

“Yes,” I say. “And that is why I am here on a Sunday morning, in crisis mode. Help me,” I add with a pathetic whimper.

Amy sips her coffee while she mulls this over as I watch Oliver from the corner of my eye. He appears to be deep in thought, his breakfast cereal going soggy on the counter in front of him.

“Well,” Amy says with finality. “You just need to get a boyfriend before then.”

“That’s genius,” I say, sarcasm coating my voice. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Amy laughs and says, “He doesn’t have to be amazing; he just needs to be real.”

I walk over to the couch in the adjacent living room, flop down onto it—covering my face with a cushion—and let out a groan.

“This is not a solution. I don’t have any options, good or bad, at the moment. It’s not like I can call Grant 2.0 and ask him to come with me.”

“Definitely not,” Oliver says in a loud voice from the kitchen.

“It’s that, or you have to tell Seb you can’t go. Maybe we can come up with a good excuse?”

I think about what Amy has just suggested and again run through ideas in my head of ways to get out of this. But each time I picture telling Sebastian I won’t be attending, I can see his smug face fill up with fake sympathy for poor, lonely Lilly, and my pride won’t let me go there.

I look up as Amy joins me on the couch and say in a hopeful voice, “Do you think Harry Styles is available two weeks from today?”

Amy laughs as a look crosses her face.

“What?” I ask. “What are you thinking?”

She glances back towards the living room door, where Oliver is now leaning, watching this all unfold.

“Why don’t you take Oliver with you?”

“Uh? What?” I exclaim. Amy has lost her mind.

“Me?” Oliver says at the same time.

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