Lilies for my Lily

Some things seemed to be a bit out of place the past couple of weeks. Spencer was acting odd, in a way that was odd even for him. He was usually seen in a long sleeve shirt these days. Few weeks actually, and Lily wanted to find out why. He had never done this before and the weather outside was pretty pleasant. It honestly was starting to irk her just a little bit.

So she did the only thing she could think of. While Spencer was at his desk designing a tattoo for a potential client, she walked in. He didn’t take notice of her presence until she gently tapped his shoulder as to not disturb his work too much, but he was still slightly startled.

“Huh? What is it babe?” He questioned and turned in his chair to face her.

Lily jumped straight to the point. “What are you hiding from me?” She motioned to the long sleeve t-shirt he was wearing. And he started to sweat drop a bit, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought of an excuse to give her.

“Whaddya mean? I’m not hiding anythi-“

“That’s bluff and we both know it.” She interrupted him. “You never sleep with a shirt on, let along a long sleeve..”

A pause followed shortly after, but it felt like an eternity for the both of them. Lily was just concerned, he never kept anything from her. Why now? What was going on?

“I’ve.. Just been kinda chilly lately.” He even shivered a bit to get the emphasis across. She couldn’t even tell if it was fake, but something still felt off. At the same time though, she couldn’t force it to come out if he didn’t want to tell her about it in the first place.

“Okay.. if you’re sure.” She sighed, feeling defeated.

“I promise, it’s nothing.” He gave her a small reassuring smile and gently stroked her arm before he went back to his work. Lily left the room, unsure of what to do.

~~

A few more days passed by and it was still the same. Spencer was still wearing his long sleeve shirts and Lily was left dumbfounded on what he could possibly be hiding from her. An endless list of possibilities swirled through her mind and she felt like she was going insane by not knowing. Then a thought hit her. If he wasn’t going to tell her, maybe he told his younger brother, Casey, something. They were pretty close in age, Spencer was only 3 years older than Casey anyway. Maybe that would give her some clarity.

The next tutoring session she had with him, she brought up the question that had been harboring her mind endlessly. It was running a little later than usual, but that wasn’t extremely uncommon for them either.

“Hey Casey.” She broke from tutoring for a bit. They had been going at it for a couple hours anyway so the little mental break would be good for the both of them. “Do you know if something’s going on with Spencer?”

“You’re his girlfriend. Shouldn’t you know?” He questioned right back like his usual sassy self would.

“Well.. I know you two are closer. I figured you would possibly know better than I would..”

“Nah it’s fine.” He laughed a bit. “Just teasing ya. But honestly, I don’t know what’s going on with him. Maybe he’s just cold?”

“That’s exactly what he said..” This wasn’t helping confirm her suspicions at all, in fact it only made them that much worse. “But it’s not even that cold out.”

“Oh-“ Casey was now just as confused as Lily was. “I dunno then. I’m always cold though.”

And with that, they did a few more pages of homework, Lily was starting to feel a little more relieved as they got more and more of their work done.

“Oh! I wanted to ask you earlier, but have you eaten anything today? You’re looking better!” She grinned and wanted to break their study up a bit again. They were nearly done so it wasn’t a big deal.

“That’s a bit out of the blue.” He laughed. “But yea, I had half a waffle for breakfast and a salad for lunch.” He was a bit more focused on the homework at hand, but he knew that she was done and just concerned for him.

“Awesome!” She grinned and hugged him with joy, she loved that he was finally getting better.

~~

Spencer’s abnormal behavior went on for a few more weeks. At this point, Lily didn’t even bother trying to talk to him about it anymore. She was defeated, and she was starting to feel pretty crappy since he wouldn’t let her in on what was going on. So to clear her head, she went to the ice to practice her one of her routines. It was one of the few things that could clear her mind momentarily. He finally decided to come clean and grabbed his phone to call her. Since she was on the ice, she wasn’t anywhere near her phone and had it on silent on top of that so she could concentrate.

“Hey Lil, can you come over? I have something I need to tell you.” He left his voicemail for her.

It would take her a bit to come off the ice after her practice and the first thing she normally did was check her phone. Today was no different and she saw she had a missed call from Spencer with a voicemail. She didn’t even bother getting changed into a different set of clothes since she was in leggings, a shirt and a jacket anyway. She just put on her shoes and headed over.

Lily walked in through the front door and saw papers on the kitchen table as she made her way to Spencer’s room. Then she gave a gentle knock on the door so she wouldn’t startle him.

“You know you don’t have to knock.” He laughed at the action and turned to face her.

“Casey left?” She asked, the papers on the kitchen table was part of his homework.

“Huh- Oh. Yeah, he and Oli went to go see a movie together. He meant to tell you to cancel today.” That was strange, especially for Casey. He never really cancelled unless he was feeling under the weather, but she knew that Oli was important to him.

“So love.. I got your voicemail. What did you want to tell me?”

Spencer rubbed the back of his neck, he was getting increasingly nervous. “I- I know you’re gonna hate me for this, but I’ve been keeping something from you..”

Lily didn’t know what to say or how to react. They had promised to never keep anything from each other or lie.

“Wha- What? Why? Why would yo-“ She started and he cut her off, holding her hands in his own.

“It was supposed to be a surprise.” He started and she couldn’t help the eyebrow raise.

“Wait-.. What was supposed to be a surprise?”

And to answer her question, Spencer proceeded to finally take off the long sleeve shirt he had kept on for weeks and weeks. It revealed a full sleeve tattoo. It was extraordinarily detailed, depicting several varieties of lilies in all sorts of vibrant colors and snowflakes in between to help fill in the open gaps. The new tattoo was different from the normal stuff on his body, so soft against a lot of his steampunk themed ones. She was shocked at how immaculate and perfect it was. There were no proper words to describe it.

“They’re for you Lily.” He blushed a deep red immediately.

“I-.. What-..?” She was barely able to mutter out. He smiled and brought her into a loving embrace.

“Lilies for my Lily.” Tears spilled from her overjoyed eyes. She couldn’t believe that he would go to such lengths to do something for her. Lily hugged him in return so hard her arms were shaking. Spencer yelped and this made Lily let go.

“Careful!” He laughed. “It’s not completely healed yet.”

She felt awful and spurted apology after apology. She also felt bad because she doubted her beloved for no reason. He interrupted her apologies and gently cupped her cheeks in his hands, then planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

“It’s fine-“ He said through a giggle that remained.

She couldn’t help but to start laughing with him and then he pulled her into a long, soft kiss.

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”