One Day At A Time

Chapter Ten: The Christmas Party - Part #1

Every year for as long as she can remember, Ava has gone to the Miller's annual Christmas party, where Lilly's parents and all their friends get together to celebrate the upcoming holiday season.

A few days before the party, Lilly took the opportunity to invite her whole friend group, telling them all to look nice as well as festive.

It's not considered a formal event, so the vague instruction of, "nice as well as festive" confused them all slightly.

But they all figured it out in time for the party.

Rose arrives with Lucas first, wearing a red sweater with a green Christmas tree on it that's tucked into a pair of light-wash denim jeans.

Lucas wears the inverted version of Rose's sweater, a green sweater with a red Christmas tree on it that's also tucked into a pair of skinny jeans.

Ava arrives late, which throws them all off since she's never late to anything.

But before she arrives, Lucas takes a mental note of the sheer amount of mistletoe hanging around the house.

He nudges Lilly slightly, pointing at the mistletoe that's hanging in the doorframe of the front door of the house.
"Are you gonna use that to your advantage?" He teases with a cocky smile.

Lilly looks at him and hesitantly says with her face burning up,
"No. Of course not, dumbass."

When she arrives, Ava enters the house and greets her friends with hugs.
"I'm sorry for being late." She says after letting them go. "My mom wanted to do my hair before I left and she was really, really insistent about it. So... that's why I was late."
"It's alright." Lilly says a little too quickly, looking up at her.

Rose and Lucas exchange a look, though Rose is better at being subtle that Lucas is, because he's grinning like an idiot.

It's like he can read Lilly's mind.

Though, Lilly's mind isn't too hard to read right now.
She's thinking the very straight-forward thought of, "I'm going to explode, because Ava looks so fucking pretty."

Ava's mom had done her hair nicely, giving it loose curls that Lilly hadn't seen in a while.

She's seen Ava's wavy hair recently, but she hasn't seen her curly hair since homecoming during their freshman year of high school.

There's a distinction in Lilly's mind between the two, she's never known why.
But it makes sense in her mind and that's all she cares about.

Well, right now she cares a lot about something else, as she looks at Ava with her heart pounding.

Her curly hair is gorgeous, simply gorgeous, especially when it's paired with her simple-yet-festive outfit of a green sweater and cuffed denim jeans.

Something so simple shouldn't be so pretty, but it is.
Lilly can barely find words to describe how nice Ava looks.

Every year, as a joke on the guests, Lilly's parents hang a mistletoe plant in every doorframe of the house.
Lilly hates that, she hates it.

She'd told Lucas that she won't use the mistletoe to her advantage, but now that's all she can think about.

She distracts herself the best she can with talking to her friends about random things that don't matter.

Though, Lucas' not-at-all-subtle wingmaning isn't helping at all.
It's all in good fun, Lilly knows that he's messing around like he always does.

But she can't help but think about Ava and mistletoe and what could happen if those two things mix together.