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“How did I let you talk me into this?”
From behind her, Lily feels her boyfriend’s chest rumble in quiet laughter, the vibrations radiating through numerous parts of her—enveloped as they are, with her neatly tucked between the vee of his spread knees, her back curled tightly against his chest, arms casually intertwined, his chin resting idly atop her head.
It’d be decidedly cosy—delightfully so, even—if they weren’t at that very moment cuddled up on an ancient castle’s decidedly questionable roof, with the frigid late December air battling their hastily cast Warming Charms, about to ring in the year 1978 with a dash of danger and slate roof debris chaffing their thickly-layered arses.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” James asks.
“Inside,” Lily replies. “Where it’s safe and warm.”
“Then that’s your first resolution for the new year: an embracing of escapade.”
Lily’s head tilts back. She eyes him with dry pointedness. “Still dating you, aren’t I?”
Dark eyebrows disappear into his truly ugly brown knitted hat. His mum had given it to him for Christmas. Lily is rather certain there are holes in it. It’s utterly impractical.
She’d got one, too. It’s purple and deformed and her new favourite thing.
“Are you calling me an escapade, Lily Evans?” he demands.
“Among many other things, James Potter.” She reaches up and pulls the hat down over his eyes. The strained fabric pokes out where his specs indent and she laughs. Successfully blinding him, she then tugs his neck down until their lips meet.
Maybe—maybe—it’s not so cold up here.
She lets out a long sigh and snuggles deeper into James’s embrace. He pushes the hat brim back over his eyes and then drops his head into the crook of her neck, where he burrows until he somehow finds skin.
With the hot press of his mouth on her, Lily arches and sighs again.
“I’m going to miss 1977,” she comments idly. “It was kind to me.”
“1978 will be better.”
“Know that for certain, do you?”
“Definitively.” His teeth scrape against her skin, then he soothes it with his lips. “Already resolved to embrace more escapade, haven’t you? Improvement is nigh.”
“You resolved that I would embrace more escapade,” Lily laughs, finding his gloved hand on her stomach, covering it with hers. “I’ve resolved to eat more greens. And quit swearing so much.”
“Fucking hell.”
“And—” She leans slightly out of his embrace, which he protests vehemently with garbled noises, and reclaims the open bottle of champagne they’d left sitting beside them. Lucky it hadn’t toppled over at some point, drenching an unsuspecting passerby below. She settles back against him with the bottle cradled in her arms. She takes a long swig, nose crinkling at the bubbles. “And drink less, too.”
She offers the bottle up to James, who makes a scoffing sound.
“Straight from the bottle,” he sneers. “Got your germs all over it now.”
“Yes,” Lily says sympathetically. “I know how much you hate my germs.”
“Despise them.” James takes the bottle from her, placing it back on its spot beside them, so he can get to her mouth. “Disgusting.”
Up on an unsafe rooftop, Lily feels quite safe in silly, happy, cosy love.
James starts unzipping her coat and she thwacks his fingers with a laugh and another kiss, contrarily grabbing the tab and sweeping it all the way up until her chin and part of her mouth are buried behind the closed fly.
“What are yours?” she asks, voice muffled against the heavy cloth.
James fights her idly for possession of the zipper. “What are my what?”
“Resolutions.”
“End zipper production.”
“Logical.”
“And—” He pulls a sneaky maneuver, fingers somehow dodging up and then down again, ignoring her squawk of indignation as he successfully gains control of the zipper tab. He zips the coat all the way down…then zips it straight back up. And grins. “Be more elegant in my many victories.”
She flicks his nose. “Good one.”
“Also.” His arms shift, closing around her. His lips drift to her ear, warm breath playing there. She’s so distracted by the toasty feel of it, she almost misses his whispered, “Marry you.”
Heart immediately jumping in her chest, Lily lets out an inelegant snort. His breath—surely, it’s his breath—sends shivers down her spine.
“Bold goal.” She turns her head to look up at him, the brisk wind reddening her cheeks. Surely, just the wind. “Perhaps—and this is just me absently ruminating, mind—perhaps one should be dating longer than five months before making such a decision?”
“Fair point,” James concedes, his face noticeably stolid in this joke—surely, a joke. “Except, of course, that I didn’t make this decision five months ago. Ages before that, I’ll have you know.”
“Ages, you say?” For the first time, Lily notices that his fingers have settled back over her stomach. Settled…and have a slight tremor to them. Her heart begins to pound harder. “Love at first sight, was it?”
“Love at first—are you kidding?” He pulls a face. “Hate at first sight. You were a terrible eleven-year-old.”
“I do recall something about a terrible eleven-year-old,” Lily muses. She covers his hand—surely, the cold. It is surely the cold that sees them shaking—with hers. “Didn’t I try to plow your trousers with pumpkin pie first year?”
James sniffs. “Yes, you did.”
“And you deserved it wholeheartedly, as I also recall.”
“Conjecture. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“If we got married, we could never keep pumpkin pie in the house.”
James buries his face in her hair. “Never much liked it, anyway.”
“James?”
“Hm?”
“You’re…you’re kidding, right? About…”
“I’m not about to ask this very second, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Have the whole year to get to it. That’s the point. The resolution is for the year.”
“James.”
“Except it won’t happen at Christmas. Everyone always does it at Christmas. That’s a cliché.”
“James?”
“Not until after graduation, either. I’m not going to have you walking around with a big, hulking thing on your finger, trying to take exams. You’ll get carpal tunnel.”
“I don’t want something big and hulking.”
“Noted.”
They’re quiet on the rooftop. Quiet, but for the whistling of the wind, and the far-off splashes of the squid in the lake, and Lily’s heart, which is surely beating so loud the entirety of Scotland can hear it.
She’s not cold anymore. Not even a bit.
Her lips press together. They press together so hard, it’s nearly painful. There’s a biting sting at her eyes, sharp as the wind goes, and she takes in a deep breath, holding it in.
“Well.” His voice is short. Tight. He leans his cheek against her hair. “It’s just a resolution, anyway. People break those all the time.”
“Don’t,” Lily whispers. Her lips feel numb. “Don’t break this one.”
Behind her, Lily feels the tension in his body freeze for a long moment—lengthy, lingering, hard as slate, and still as the silent evening, as this burgeoning moment on the cusp of a new year, on the brink of a rooftop, on the possibility of…then he exhales.
“Okay.” His head drops back down into the crook of her neck. On her stomach, his fingers flutter.
“James.” She twists around in his vise-like grip. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“You’ve mentioned it a time or two.” His voice is muffled against her skin. Then his head lifts. His brown eyes are bright in the moonlight. “I just wanted to make sure you knew…that I…that this—”
“I know.” She brushes at the tufts of his dark hair poking out from beneath the knitted hat. There’s something bubbling in her stomach. It’s not champagne. “And you’re right—Christmas is a cliché. Don’t do it at Christmas.”
The corners of his mouth tip, one side higher than the other. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“You should—or, you know what? Maybe I will.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m supposed to be embracing escapades, after all. Stealing a proposal? Definite escapade.”
“You can’t steal my proposal.”
“Can’t I?”
“No! That’s completely—”
They are still arguing as the clock strikes midnight.