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LILY

The bar is rattlingly loud.

The cold of the bathroom countertop bites into her hands, and Lily stares at herself in the mirror. Her head is pounding, and the world is swirling, and her sparkling top—Mary’s idea—starts doing loops in her vision.

“You,” she tells the woman in the mirror, “are the fucking shit.”

The woman stares back, unimpressed.

A vaguely raspy laugh works its way up her throat. “This is shit,” she tells the mirror, laughing now. “It’s just—yeah, shit. Shit.”

She smoothes back her hair and purses her lips, tossing her head to the side like all those models on billboards do.

“Idiot,” she clucks, then shakes herself and straightens. “Right, enough of that. More than enough.”

It was also Mary’s idea for her to be here—because apparently even after working a four hour shift on New Year’s eve at this bloody bar, it’s imperative that she stay to watch her best friend paw at some 30-something bloke who works in advertising and looks like his mum still does his laundry.

Lily lets out a long sigh, and frowns at herself in the mirror. “What a fucking mess,” she muses aloud.

A cough from behind her.

Lily ignores it.

Another cough.

“Christ, get some Lemsip, mate,” she says and flicks off the tap, looking up.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?” The man is tall, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, dark hair falling wildly over his brow. Crooked square-frame glasses that look sleek and probably expensive. A brow that is raised with a large amount of amusement. Amusement that is directed at her, she can see in the mirror.

Lily pushes herself upright and twists around to face him. The bathroom spins. “Yes, you rather are,” she says with dignity.

“Right,” he says. A faint smirk is on his face.

She continues to stare him. “What?”

“Mind if I just—” he gestures at the sinks.

“I don’t own them,” Lily says, then snorts. “Imagine owning a loo.” Her laugh echoes and she shakes her head. “You’re a right funny bloke,” she says to him, and shakes a finger in his direction. “Very funny. Is that your New Years resolution, because you are banging.”

She steps away from the sink.

He looks torn between concern and hilarity as he edges up to her abandoned place and washes his hands. “Right,” he says, then glances at her sideways. He’s actually quite fit, and vaguely familiar. Something about his face…

“Do you work in Tesco?” Lily asks with interest.

He blinks at her. “Uh, no.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m rather sure.”

“Then you’ve got someone stealing your face,” she says and shakes a finger again. “The jaw, the glasses, the—” she gestures at him.

“Good to know,” the man says and dries his hands using a paper towel. “I’ll have to pop in on him sometime.”

“You’re sure you don’t work at Tesco?” The vague, low-level anxiety that made her seek refuge in the toilets has gone, replaced by intense curiosity and…well, perhaps a bit of fixation. He’s rather nice to look at, and the room is truly spinning now.

“Very certain,” the man says flatly and steps back. He gives her a nod. “Uh, and by the way—this is the men’s toilets.”

Lily’s mouth opens, then she pauses. “No, it’s not.”

He laughs a bit, shaking his head. “It is the men’s toilets,” he says, then makes for the door. He throws her a grin. “Maybe drink some water before bed.”

And then he’s gone, and she…

Lily huffs loudly into the now empty toilet. The blurry mirror focuses, revealing a line of urinals behind her.

“Well,” she says. Huffs. “Well.”

Mary is still fully engaged in flirting with Jeremiah-whatever-his-name-is when Lily comes back. The loud noises of the bar layer over each other, but her friend has a wide grin on her face, fixed entirely on the man opposite her.

Lily slumps into the couch and tries to find the straw to her drink with her mouth. It clinks against her teeth—damn her for agreeing to Hestia’s silly suggestion to get metal straws to be earth conscious. She’s pretty sure the idiot crowd who frequent the Leaky are more than making up their carbon footprint in other ways—and she hisses, then gives up on trying to look cool and debonair.

She slouches down further.

“We’re going to get a drink,” Mary shouts, bringing her painted face alarmingly close to Lily’s. She looks bright and thrilled, and…

Well, to each their own, she supposes.

Even if Jeremy-whatever looks like he’s spent most of the evening talking to Mary’s breasts, and Lily feels like telling him he’d only be so lucky to get to see them.

Or maybe just whack him round the head.

She’s becoming a bit violent, recently, to be honest. Perhaps that’s a problem.

“Right,” Lily shouts back, giving a thumbs up that she turns into a little finger wiggle. “Have fun.”

“Want anything?”

“Nope, I’m all good,” she says and waves her friend off.

She blows at her fringe, and watches the sparkling lights on the ceiling mix and mingle with the strands of red.

She rolls slightly onto her side, deciding to hell with looking put together. She props her chin on her hand and surveys the bar.

It’s a sad lot tonight, all the people who’d rather be out looking for a casual shag rather than facing the new year.

Lily entertains herself for a moment with imagining who all these people are going home with. Sparkle Tights Girl is definitely eyeing Body Builder Bloke. But he’s eyeing Definitely-Had-a-Boob-Job Woman.

Lily snorts to herself and is about to roll onto her back to contemplate how bloody drunk she is when she spots the man from the bathroom.

He’s leaning against the wall on the far side of the bar, looking at his phone. His hair is falling over his forehead and he keeps pushing it back. He’s…nice to look at.

She imagines walking over to him, through the sparkles and lights and music, kissing him when the countdown ends. Taking him home, like all these people seem to be doing with each other.

“Here,” Mary shouts and shoves her over on the couch. She hands Lily a gin and tonic. “You need a drink for midnight!”

Lily swings herself upright, blinking wildly as it causes her head to spin. “Thanks,” she shouts back.

Jeremiah is eyeing Mary’s chest.

The countdown begins. Ten, nine, eight—

Lily looks for the man again, but the crowd has swallowed him from her view.

1 week later, January

Lily hates living in London.

It’s been six months, and the loud noises, the congested traffic, the millions of people…the reputed ‘charm’ has not grown on her. Add to that being in her mid-twenties, with a shit job and a shit flat, and—really, honestly—a kind of shit life, while her mum and sister call her with increasing amounts of ‘friendly concern’ every week…

She tells them the same thing each time. I’m just fine. I’m figuring things out.

“You’re a bit high strung,” a doctor once told her, ticking off a little form.

She imagined ticking him off a building.

There’s plenty of buildings in London. Most of the time it makes her feel like she can’t breathe, makes her possibly-undiagnosed-possibly-anxiety worse.

“Sorry, ow—just—”

Lily’s yet to lose her rural habit of talking to people on the street. Even when they’re shoving past her at Hackney Central like there aren’t ten thousand trains arriving every second.

She’s scowling and red-cheeked by the time she emerges onto the street, cursing the North London line with her entire being. Her shopping bags are digging into her hands, and she wants to wring Mary’s neck for leaving the task to her this week.

She’s enthralled in thoughts of sending Mary a very strongly worded letter, or maybe going on strike in the kitchen—though then she’d have to exist entirely off of takeaways, and God knows she doesn’t have the budget for that right now…

Her shoulder collides painfully with someone else and she lets out an exclamation. “For fuck’s sake,” she swears, glaring. “Watch where you’re going—”

“Lily?”

She jerks to a halt.

People continue on around her, like she’s a stone parting the river. The sky is grey and threatening rain.

His voice is flat. Vaguely amused. “No hello?”

Lily freezes. Oh—

No.

Oh no. Oh no.

He continues before she can get a grip on herself, actually take him—him, James Potter—in and figure out a retort. “Or is this the second act of your great escape after having sex with someone?”

Lily’s mouth slowly shuts. She takes him in. Hands in pockets, brows lifted, same messy hair that adorns billboards and Instagram algorithms. Same stupidly attractive face. “Well,” she says, then grabs for some kind of self-worth with both hands. You will not let this stupid celebrity with his hordes of paparazzi cow you. “Maybe…be less of a dick and you won’t have girls running out on you?”

She regrets it the second it escapes her lips, because he’s been nothing but nice to her personally, aside from well, lying, but…

Cameras flashing. Clicking. His lips on her neck. Alcohol-blurred memories.

Something in her chest, something she will not let herself succumb to.

Flashing lights. Cameras.

“Oh, it’s just the cleaner.”

A night’s worth of euphoria and hope dashed on the ground.

He has no idea.

James starts and sort of gapes at her. “Sorry—did you just call me a dick?”

Lily can’t stop the words from coming out of her mouth. What is wrong with me? “Never heard that one before?” She runs an eye down his stupidly put together outfit. She’s certain it must be outrageously expensive, and she wants to be bristling and angry and cool, but he looks so fit and confused… Her usually sharp tongue seems to have come prepared for this, and she feels like she’s a witness to her own vitriol as she continues, “At least not to your face, I’d suppose. Movie stars must pay people to be nice to them.”

“Only on weekends—sorry, did I do something to offend you?” James asks, brow drawing tight. He withdraws a hand from his pocket and fidgets with his belt a bit.

“Yes, terribly,” Lily says quickly. Fuck, get me out of here. “Terribly, so I’ll just—” she starts backing away, gesturing vaguely. Her shopping bags bang against her legs and she wants to swear.

“Lily—”

He remembers her name.

Fuck. Fuck. Shit, shit, shit, this is—

“Bye,” Lily says as hastily as she can, and cursing every stupid bone in her body, she makes the most ungraceful exit she’s ever managed. Confronted with the film star she was pressed up against naked last week, and a busy tube station below her…she runs.

1 week earlier, New Year’s Eve

“You’re so stupidly fit,” she tells him, breathless and drowning. Her sparkly eyeshadow has gotten on his cheek, and it gleams in the corner of her eye.

“No, that’s you,” the man says and kisses her again. His hands are burning on her lower back, and she’d be worried about the fact that they’re in a bleeding cab, that the driver is determinedly trying to not look at them as she’s lying literally on top of him in the back seat—

She doesn’t even really remember how they got here, or what happened to Mary, or how she even ran into the man from the bathroom again.

She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t goddamn care.

His mouth is hot and hard, and his thumb slips beneath her sparkling top, brushes along her bare skin. It’s like dragging a line of fire, and she can feel callouses scrape against her, and suddenly she’s a bit insane.

She’s got the wherewithal to wait until they’ve stumbled out of the cab, until the world is spinning from the shots, until its dark and light, a cold London street and a light flicking on in the foyer of some kind of house—

“I want you to fuck me,” Lily says. She never says things like this, but he’s tall and fit and her eyeshadow is on his cheek, and the feeling of his fingers on her bare back is haunting her. She’s never wanted anything more than this, than him.

The man exhales, harsh and affected. He swallows, almost lost for words for a second. He doesn’t say anything, but reaches out and slowly trails his fingers down her cheek. They settle, cup her chin. “Okay,” he says softly and then pulls her to his mouth. Their lips meet, uneven, warm, dizzy.

That okay is stupid and even more haunting than his touch was, and she knows she’s going to remember the exact way his mouth shaped those sounds, the soft exhale with it.

She has the presence of mind to think, Well, fuck.

His kitchen is bright. She’s wearing his dressing gown, which is absurdly soft, and sweeps along the floor.

“I’m hungry,” she’d announced twenty minutes ago, and the nameless fit man hadn’t even bothered to get dressed before jumping to his feet. “Well, then,” he’d said. “Let’s fix that.”

He’s still not dressed, and she finds it all a bit hilarious. “Aren’t you cold?” she says around a mouthful of ice cream, leaning against the countertop. It’s probably sometime around 2am, but she’s still drunk and quite content in this very fluffy robe, with this very…something man.

He shrugs from beside her, and she tries not to look at how his shoulders move with the motion. Tries, and fails.

“You sure?”

“I need to keep distracting you, don’t I?” He’s got goddamn sharp eyes, that one.

Lily scowls at the counter. “Fuck off,” she says with dignity.

He laughs. “No.”

Most people find her sense of humor too sharp—her sister has called it ‘acidic’ more than once—but he seems to thrive on her jabs.

“You’re being an idiot. Someone could shoot you in the arse and you’d have no protection.” Her spoon clinks against the bowl.

“Oh, yeah, just waiting for the mafia to take me down,” he says and sucks on his spoon to get the last bits of chocolate ice cream, then waves it in the air. “There’s cameras everywhere.”

She snorts, and of course, she notices how terribly hot and distracting that damn move with the spoon was. He’s got such a fucking nice mouth.

“You’ve got a really nice mouth,” she says through another mouthful of ice cream.

“Thank you,” the man says. “It manages alright with talking most times.” He grins. “And with some other stuff. Which you can attest to.”

Lily snorts again. Then once more, just because it seems to delight him. “Cool your heels, Adonis.”

“Are you saying you didn’t enjoy it?”

She makes a face. “Of course I enjoyed it, I just—” She sets down her spoon so she can gesture with her hand. “Drinking being what it is and all that, it—sometimes it’s difficult—”

He lets her gesture at the air for a few more moments. “Well, alright then,” he says and shrugs. “Just means I have to try again when you’re sober.”

Lily huffs an oddly surprised laugh. Her head is so very fuzzy, but he’s weirdly easy to keep her focus on, like he’s some sort of magnet. “You’d be so lucky to get with me again,” she says and waves her spoon.

She can see his grin from her peripheral vision. “I would.”

He is, in fact, it turns out, so lucky.

“What’s your name?” he asks her later. He’s panting, her leg on his shoulder, her hair skimming the floor from where she’s laying at the end of his bed.

“It—oh, fuck, god—uh, Lily.”

“Huh,” he says and presses into her so deeply that she sees stars, or maybe makes some sort of highly embarrassing noise that he seems to take as encouragement to do it again, the bastard. “Pretty name.”

“Thanks,” Lily gasps.

She doesn’t think to ask for his, because he’s doing such magical things to her and who can even fucking think when, well, when they’re getting fucked like this?

The first thing Lily does when she opens her eyes in the morning is groan. Loudly.

“Well, good morning sunshine,” an amused voice says next to her.

She cracks open an eye, and the blurry room wobbles, tilts—solidifies into a large bedroom that is not hers, bedecked in creams and blues, and a man standing next to the bed wearing only a pair of joggers.

Lily unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “Did—”

“There’s water on the bedside table,” he says. “And, uh. Ibuprofen.” He shifts, and she spots a hint of red in his cheeks, and suddenly it clicks that this fit man that she slept with last night is nervous.

“Hi,” she says after a second. Her voice sounds like she’s been a smoker for the last three decades, and she clears her throat, pushing herself onto her elbow. She’s naked, she realizes. Her cheeks start to heat as well.

“You—do you remember last night?” the man asks.

Lily closes one eye and squints at him. “Uh…I remember getting your number,” she says. “I was very insistent on that, I think. But not your name.”

The man shifts a bit. “Well,” he says. “We’ve got a bit of a mysterious thing going on here, don’t we? Would be a shame to ruin that.”

“You know my name,” Lily says.

He clears his throat. “Yes,” he says. “I do.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Do you remember…anything else?”

“Sex,” Lily says. She arches a brow. “Do you remember it?”

He jolts a bit. “I—yes, of course I remember it,” he says, rolling his eyes.

She hides a smile, slumping down in the bed a bit. “You seemed like you needed reminding,” she murmurs, and perhaps she’d use that line as the perfect opportunity to pull him back down in the bed for round…three, but she feels genuinely gross and hungover. Instead, she reaches for the water on the bedside table.

Her sheet falls a bit with the motion and she sees rather than hears his inhale. The man has gone a bit still, and she wants to be smug about it, but the first taste of blessedly fresh water is enough to wipe her brain blank.

When she’s done drinking she returns her gaze to him.

His hair is a mess, as it was last night, and she wonders if that’s just his natural state.

“Sorry,” she says. She feels extremely bare under his eyes, even with the sheet pulled to her chest. She’d apparently washed off her makeup sometime last night, and that feels oddly intimate. For him to see her like this. “If I was—I’m sure I was a bit…rude. Last night.” She fiddles with the sheets.

He raises a brow. “You don’t need to apologize,” he says. “I didn’t mind. Thought it was funny.”

Lily blinks at him. “Did you?”

He shrugs, and runs a hand through his hair. “I could tell you didn’t mean it. We’ve all got ways of expressing uncertainty.”

Then, with that extremely astute and far too intimate summary of her personality, he announces his plan to shower and heads off into the bathroom.

Lily exhales, clutching the sheet to her chest. Uncertainty. She’s not that uncertain…mostly.

The noise of the shower fills the room, and after a second, chest starting to buzz, she drags herself out of the bed and to her clothes.

Lily grimaces to slide back into her jeans and sparkly top, then looks around for her phone. It’s plugged in by the bed and she blinks at that for the moment, wondering when she’s ever had the foresight to charge her phone while drunk.

The answer is never.

Not letting herself linger on that too long, or on the man still in the shower, she grabs her phone and pokes her head into the hallway outside the bedroom. She’s still terribly thirsty, and despite the fact that she saw every inch of her one-night stand’s body last night, she’s not about to barge into the bathroom while he’s in the shower.

The kitchen is on the floor below, and Lily takes in the massive marble countertops and spacious ceilings that she was too drunk to notice the night before. She whistles softly, then gets herself a glass of water.

Her head continues to pound, and she scrolls absently on her phone for a moment. She’s putting off figuring out what to do about the man upstairs—if she should just leave, like she usually does after casual sex, or ask for his name, or…

Lily sighs, putting her phone down. Her gaze catches on something in the corner of the kitchen, half covered in bubblewrap. A gold frame is gleaming, and she knows she’s being unbearably nosy, but she’s curious what rich twenty-something men get express posted to their houses.

She spots something that looks incredibly similar to the man’s face beneath the bubble wrap, and she’s grinning, already imagining telling Mary about the posh, fit bloke who got his own portrait framed—

Lily’s knee bangs into the cabinet and she swears, hissing, but her gaze is fixed on the frame, on the words…

Gripping her knee with one hand, she pushes the bubblewrap to the side.

It’s a poster.

A large, gilded, framed poster. The man she just slept with is in the center of it, his arm around a blonde, well-endowed woman in skimpy sci-fi clothing, holding a gun. He’s rugged and handsome, a wicked scar down his cheek. The name of the film—film, a name she’s heard, and that’s fucking Audrey Darnell—is emblazoned across the middle, and on top…

Audrey Darnell. James Potter.

James Potter. James Potter.

She mouths the name. And like a rubber band being snapped against her skin, the name, the face…it clicks, suddenly.

James Potter.

She had sex with James Potter.

She is in James Potter’s house.

Lily’s entire body goes numb and she just stares at it for a moment. A long, long moment, in which her entire brain decides to stop working.

Fuck.

Her heart is suddenly pounding, and she feels a bit ill. Very ill.

A one-night stand is one thing, but sleeping with a celebrity, someone who talks to the press regularly, whose personal life is splashed about online like a casual gossip—

Her chest starts to squeeze tight, tight, tighter.

She doesn’t think before she grabs her phone and her coat and flees out the back door of the house.

“Fuck, fuck,” she mutters to herself as she exits. Her hands are shaking. “Fuck—”

Her swear cuts off into a strangled noise, then there’s a click.

Click, click, click, and flashing lights so bright she can’t see a thing—

The hoard of photographers camped out on the street gape at her, and she at them.

“Oh, fuck, sorry, love,” a man at the front says, eyes falling to her slightly ratty coat. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Don’t worry, lads, it’s just the cleaner—just the cleaner.”

Lily’s laugh is a rough wheeze, her chest grinding every bit of common sense or calm to nothing but panic. “Yeah, right,” she says and inches along the street. Her hands are still shaking, and her eyes are dancing with the remnants of the flashing lights. She doesn’t even have room to be offended yet. “Just…me.”

She manages to get out of sight of the paparazzi before her panic completely overtakes her, and she spends a few seconds leaning against the wall of a building, gulping down deep breaths.

Leaving, she decides, once she can think again, was absolutely the right decision. Without a doubt.

On the tube home, slightly more composed, she resolves to look at it as a hilarious mistake, a what-the-fuck moment in her wildly mundane life.

What the fuck, she thinks.

But…something sticks with her. Something about his absurdly soft dressing gown and the way he said okay and the easy way they’d talked. A vague feeling that something odd has happened, something actually…important?

No, unsettling. Very unsettling.

The flat she shares with Mary is…well, it’s not really a flat, precisely. It’s the rambling, shoe-box sized third of an old woman named Arabella Figg’s house. It’s also technically Mary’s, but her friend had sublet her a room when she moved to London six months ago out of her kindness of her heart…and to have someone cook somewhat edible food.

The door clicks shut behind her. “I’m home,” Lily calls out. There’s a grumbling groaning noise, so she steps into the tiny sitting room.

Mary’s head pops over the couch. “Have you brought me James Acaster on a platter?” she says groggily, one eye cracked open. Mascara is clinging to her cheek.

Lily drops her keys on the table. “Sadly no.”

“Bitch.” Mary sags back into the couch.

Lilys stomach roils, thinking of the James who—she could say it. Say, but do you know which famous James I had intercourse with last night?

Mary would lose her shit.

And Lily tells her everything.

“You look like a raccoon,” Lily says.

A vague grumble, and a thrashing leg still clad in sparkly tights. “I knowww.”

“No Jeremy?”

“He’s in the loo.”

“Lovely,” Lily sighs. She feels odd, and prickly, and…definitely in need of a shower.

Against her will, she thinks of his face. James’s face. The half smile he wore when they were in the kitchen, tucked up on one side to reveal a small dimple, or maybe a scar.

Okay.

Lily grabs for her self-control with both hands and tells herself, very sternly, that she is being stupid and silly and foolish. She’s never going to see James Potter, famous actor, again, so she should really just…

Not.

2 weeks later, mid-January

The shock of seeing James in Hackney Central still hasn’t worn off a week later. Mid-January brings freezing temperatures, and even though Lily is bundled so thoroughly whenever she leaves the house that she doubts her own mother would recognize her, she feels on edge.

She feels like she’s waiting to see him again, like he’s going to pop up out of nowhere.

Which is stupid and silly, of course. Because she’s checked the internet and his Instagram, and according to the Sun—worthless rag though it is—he’s filming some sort of romantic comedy right now, while press for his sci-fi thriller is rolling. Meaning he’s probably not in London. Or at least, not her parts of London.

Lily uses this knowledge like armor, though she’s not entirely sure against what. She ran from his house that morning because…well, because.

Because he’s famous and funny and charming and she is barely managing to stay afloat in this city. She cannot handle him as well.

Absolutely not.

“Two pounds says you don’t get it in the glass.”

“You’re on.”

“With your aim, Lily—”

“Fuck.”

“Ha! Pay up.”

“Bastard,” Lily mutters, scowling at the pint glass and the paper umbrella lying a good three feet away from it on the counter. Gideon’s still hooting with laughter when she swipes them up.

She gives him a vulgar gesture, but that doesn’t quiet him.

The Leaky is quiet in the early evenings, so she and her coworkers usually take the time to play stupid games, or mess with the inventory just to make Tom, the cranky manager, shriek a bit.

Gideon’s been working at the bar for far longer than she has, and in fact got her the job when she first moved to London in the summer. That thought never sits well with her, even though she desperately needs the money.

He certainly never holds it over her, but…

Well, perhaps it wouldn’t be so awkward if her only form of income hadn’t been given to her by someone she used to sleep with.

Not her ex-boyfriend. That was a big part of the reason it was ‘used to’.

Even if she misses the sex sometimes. Not necessarily with Gideon, though that had been perfectly good, but just…generally.

Lily’s cleaning a glass, Gideon off in the back room, and her mind unwillingly wanders back to its favorite haunt of late.

Haunt is the perfect word for it. The perfect word for remembering the vague, dizzy, alcohol-blurred memories of having sex with James Potter.

Pull yourself together, Lily.

“Hey, is this a bad time?”

Lily blinks, and a smile spread across her face. “Remus,” she says, dropping the rag. “Of course not! God, what are you doing here?”

Remus Lupin smiles at her, bundled in a red scarf. “Was just in the area, and I remembered you worked here,” he says. “I wanted to return this to you.”

Lily glances at the book he slides across the sticky countertop, recognizing it as one of hers. She’d met Remus in her first week in London, through some friend-of-a-friend of Mary’s, and they’d bonded immediately over a shared taste in autobiographies of obscure people.

“Thanks,” she says. “It’s nice to see you. You actually came just on time, I’m off in ten minutes. Do you want a drink?”

“I’d normally say yes,” Remus says, “but I’m on my way to an escape room thing. Some mates are really invested in it as a practice.” He rolls his eyes a bit, the gesture clearly fond.

“Oh, fun!” Lily says. “I’ve always wanted to do one. I get insanely competitive, it’s actually a sight to behold.”

“I believe that,” Remus says dryly, then tilts his head. “You know, if you wanted to join, you could. We’ve got an extra slot, one of our group dropped out.”

Lily blinks, pausing in her polishing the glass. “Really?”

“Of course,” Remus says, and grins. “Besides, I think you’ll kick their asses, and I’m in the market to pay out a bit of vengeance to the two of them.”

“I’d love to,” Lily says, then feels a twinge and hesitates. “How much does it—”

“Oh, it’s covered,” Remus reassures her. He’s got a sympathetic look in his eyes, and it makes her feel prickly, on edge, even though she knows that Remus isn’t exactly posh and he’s kind.

“Right,” she says, letting out a breath. “Then, yes, absolutely.”

The escape room is in a nice building, and Lily tries not to feel self-conscious about her worn jeans and T-shirt as she takes off her coat in the lobby. It’s filled with well-dressed twenty somethings, and a few groups of teenagers.

“Over this way,” Remus says, leading her to the corner. He grins at the figure standing there. “Hey, I’ve brought along Pete’s replacement.”

The man turns and arches a brow. He looks her up and down. “Well,” is all he says. His shoulder length hair is dark, and he’s got a calculating glint in his grey eyes.

Lily’s not sure if he intimidates her, or if he’s the sort of person she’d be fast friends with.

Something about him feels vaguely familiar, and she studies him for a second.

“Hi,” she says, giving him a little wave. “I’ve been told I’m filling big shoes.”

“Pete only won so many times because he knows the manager,” the man grumbles.

“This is Lily,” Remus says. “She’s a friend. Lily, this is Sirius.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says.

Sirius appraises her. “You any good at this shit, Lily?”

“Hey, I can follow instructions,” Lily says. “And I’ve got a winning streak at the Sunday crossword. And I’m insanely competitive, but that could go either way.”

Sirius looks faintly pleased, but just grunts.

Lily decides she likes him immensely.

“Where is—” Remus starts, getting out his phone.

“Bastard’s late,” Sirius says with a shrug and an eye roll. “Some sort of meeting. Tosser.” It’s all lined with affection, the way that Remus’s exasperation earlier was as well, and Lily feels hit by a surge of envy.

These are people who belong in London, who breathe in this city and breathe out comfort. Who belong with each other.

Lily belongs with Mary, maybe, but even that’s only borrowed.

It hurts for a second, but Lily tries to shove it out of her mind. It’s useless dwelling on it.

“What do you do?” she asks Sirius, shifting.

“Unemployed rich person,” Remus says without looking up from his phone.

Sirius gives him a droll look. “Hilarious, Lupin,” he says and turns back to her. He adjusts the collar of his jacket. “I’m a connoisseur of life. And alcohol. And I own an art gallery in Soho.”

“Eclectic,” Lily says. Her earlier judgement that this is a regular haunt for people of a different socio-economic status then herself seems to be true.

“Ah, there he is,” Remus exhales, dropping his phone. His eyes are on something behind her, and Sirius makes a noise of satisfaction.

Lily turns, and she suddenly, with a sickening swoop of her stomach, realizes why Sirius was so familiar.

Sirius Black. An acerbic, handsome face she’s seen in endless Instagram posts, arm-in-arm with the lanky, stupidly attractive man who’s just entered the lobby.

She’s utterly frozen, her brain still stalling on him, by the time James reaches their group.

He hasn’t noticed her yet, pulling off his scarf and gloves. “Hey, sorry I’m late,” he’s saying, breathless, then his voice cuts off. His eyes land on her, widen.

“Hi,” Lily says, voice strangled.

“Lily.” Her name is a shocked exhale, and James’s eyes jump from her to his friends, then back. There’s something like panic in his face.

Remus raises a brow. “I take it you two have met?”

“Yes,” Lily says stiffly. Her cheeks are flaming.

James shifts. “Uh, did Pete—”

“He couldn’t come,” Remus says. “I asked Lily to fill in, because we—uh—”

“We know each other,” Lily says after a second. “I mean, we’ve…met. I didn’t realize that you two—” she trails off helplessly.

Oh fuck.

Sirius looks between them, his brow furrowing. “Wait, is this—” he starts.

James’s head snaps over to him. “Let’s get started, shall we?” he says loudly, cutting him off. He’s got a smile on his face, but she can see the strain behind it.

“Right,” Remus says after a second. “Sure.”

Lily doesn’t say anything, but her cheeks are hot enough that everyone must be able to tell what she’s feeling, she’s sure.

Sirius’s gaze is on her, his previous laconic coolness replaced by an assessing sort of hardness.

Wait, is this— he’d started.

James must’ve told them about her. She can imagine all the things he’s said: she came onto me, then ran away while I was in the shower. Then she insulted me in the street and ran again.

They’re heading towards the reception desk to check in when someone clears their throat.

The four of them stop, and Lily sees the group of well-dressed twenty-somethings from earlier are standing in front of them. The girl at the front, with pretty blue eyes, is flushed, but with a bright smile on her face. “I’m so sorry,” she starts. She’s holding her phone. “I don’t want to disturb you, but—I’m such a huge fan. And I was just wondering if we could get—”

James has stilled, but then his lips twitch. “Sure,” he says, and she wonders if she’s imagining the tension in his limbs as he steps forward. “Of course.”

Lily watches from the sidelines as he takes pictures with the group, all of them bright faced and giddy. She feels like her throat is going to close up.

Cameras clicking. Flashes.

Sirius and Remus don’t seem to think anything of the momentary interruption, which tells her that this must be a somewhat common event. James is quiet when he returns to them, and Lily doesn’t even attempt to say anything.

She’s lost in her thoughts all through the set up of the escape room, and almost completely misses the mystery they’re meant to be solving. Something Alice in Wonderland themed.

She comes back to herself as Remus is saying, “Okay, so we’ll split up? Two per room?” He names the options—the green room to the right, covered in teacups and hats, or the room they’re in, which is covered in red and white roses.

“I’ll take this room,” Lily says.

The three of them—James has been avoiding her gaze thus far—all stare at her with varying levels of surprise.

“Are you sure?” Remus says after a second.

Lily frowns. “Yes?”

“Right. Let’s go, then,” James says, exhaling. His face is carefully blank.

Lily freezes. Shit. She hadn’t realized she’d tuned things out so thoroughly that she’d clearly missed some kind of decision—

“Have fun,” Sirius says with a slightly vicious grin, then drags Remus by the arm. The door to their room clicks shut.

Leaving her alone. With him.

Lily immediately turns to face the wall. She pretends like she’s examining the wall of roses for clues, but really she’s trying not to hyperventilate.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

“Sorry?”

Lily clamps her lips shut, wincing. “Nothing,” she mutters. “Just—seems like a difficult escape room.”

“So, you know Remus,” James says after a second. She can’t imagine what his face looks like right now.

If she let her mind off its leash even slightly, she knows it would overpower her with memories of exactly what his face looked like when he—

Lily squeezes her eyes shut, then twists around. She opens them, steeling herself. He’s looking at her, one brow raised. His shirt is untucked from his trousers on one side.

Shit.

“Yes,” she says as calmly as she can. Her heart is pounding. “We met at a library event in Hackney over the summer. And he sometimes comes to the bar I work at.”

“Coincidence,” James says. He pauses, then adds grudgingly, “I’m assuming that’s why he suggested we go to that bar on New Year’s, then.”

“Probably,” Lily says, swallowing. She hadn’t known Remus was at the bar that night, but then—well, she’d been distracted.

James sighs, settling his hands on his hips. He surveys the room. “Shall we get started then?” he says.

Lily blinks. “I—” she shakes herself. If he can be normal, so can I. “Yeah, sure. Let’s just solve this.”

They comb over the room in silence for a few moments. With every passing second she feels more and more like she’s in some weird dream.

James breaks the silence first.

“Why did you leave?” he asks suddenly, examining a flower-shaped lamp.

Lily’s eyes flick over to him, but she keeps her voice level as she responds, “Oh, you know, I didn’t really fancy being stuck in a closet with Sirius, he looks like he’s got knobby elbows.”

“He does,” James says, a slash of a grin across his lips. He drops his hand. “But I meant my house. Two weeks ago. Why did you leave?”

He doesn’t ask for an explanation for her prickliness, for how outright rude she’s been to him. Or why she ran away last week before he could say much more than her name.

If she were a nicer, better person, she’d apologize and explain right now. Explain how he puts her off her guard, how he’s so fucking fit, how the press think she’s his bleeding cleaner and he’s got privilege bleeding from his arse, how he must be an actual arse in some way, and not…nice.

That he lied.

That he overwhelms her.

Lily props her hands on her hips. “Generally, that’s how a one-night stand goes,” she says. “Sex, grab the clothes, dash off.”

“I wouldn’t know,” James says.

She blinks. “You—what?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he repeats, like she’s actually bloody hard of hearing or something.

“Yeah, I—sorry, you’ve never had a one night stand?” She stares at him. “You. Famous movie star. With people of all genders clawing at each other to get a chance at you.”

He has the nerve to actually shrug. “Not really a casual commitment person,” he admits. “Which is—well, I was going to ask you to stay. For breakfast. Maybe lunch? Except you were gone when I woke up.”

And then she’d sprinted away from him at full tilt at the Hackney Central station.

Lily inhales sharply, cheeks flaming. “I…”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because…” The room suddenly feels entirely devoid of air. “Because you’re an actor.” It sounds weak and stupid when it comes out, and her face goes brighter red.

For fuck’s sake, she did have a reason before. She did. She had a reason for leaving.

“And this makes me undateable?”

“It makes you completely unattainable,” Lily says, propping her hands on her hips. She’s trying to muster up her previous certainty, her bravado. “I mean—for fuck’s sake, when I left your house there were paparazzi hiding in the bushes. They thought I was the fucking cleaner.”

James’s mouth opens, then closes. He winces. “Oh, fucking hell,” he swears, suddenly looking tired. “I’m sorry. We try to keep the addresses out of the hands of the press, but they always find out somehow…”

“See!” Lily shouts, like it’s a golden bastion of proof. “See. That’s not normal. It’s—sleeping with you was like a fantasy, okay? It’s not real life.”

She almost thinks she sees him flinch a bit, but its gone so quickly that she wonders if she imagined it. After all, none of her jabs have landed so far.

He’s so damn unflappable, with his perfect hair and his…

I was going to ask you to stay. For breakfast.

Fucking breakfast.

“And you lied,” she adds sharply. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“We’d already slept together,” James argues, brow pulling tight. “And—well, I figured you’d probably…”

“Leave?”

“Be caught off guard,” he says. “I wanted to figure out how to tell you properly.”

“How about, ‘hey, I’m a famous actor?’”

“And how would that’ve gone?”

“Terribly,” Lily cries. “I would’ve—I would’ve—” she gestures wildly, then snorts and exhales at the same time. “Fucking hell,” she says, pressing a hand to her face. “This is a mess.”

James watches her carefully. “Is it?”

“Yes,” she says. They’ve somehow gotten very close, and she can’t breathe looking up at his face. She swallows, heat spreading through her. “It’s…”

His hand brushes against her waist, and she can’t tell if it's an accident or intentional. She can’t tell if she cares.

She’s opening her mouth to say something, but then she pauses. His mouth is so close to hers.

She lifts her eyes to his. She inhales, barely a drag of air. Oh.

He says her name. Just quietly, soft. Lily. In his voice, his low tone…

She tilts her head back, just slightly.

And he kisses her.

His mouth is just as warm and soft and perfect as she remembers, and she makes a noise that shifts into a something highly embarrassing, then—

She grips his neck, pulling him closer into her. Every bit of her body presses against his, and the room is entirely airless, entirely filled by him, by his mouth, his hands, his—

Lily hits the door of the escape room with a thump. It jolts her enough that she breaks away from the kiss.

James is panting, lips a breath away from hers. “Go out with me,” he breathes.

Lily laughs, short and sharp. “I—no.”

“Why?”

“Because—because no.”

“That’s not a good answer,” James says, far too calmly for what they were just doing, what they’re discussing.

“It’s a great answer!” Lily shoots back. She tries to regain control of her breathing, even with him still pressed up against her. She suddenly realizes that she can’t breathe like that, and steps sideways to get away from him. She gestures wildly at the room, trying not to notice that her hand is shaking. “Because it would never work.” She laughs again, chest roiling. “We—we can’t date.”

“Sure we could,” James says. “We like each other.”

It sounds so simple like that that she just blinks at him.

Because to have it laid out before her…fuck, it’s true.

She likes him. And he likes her.

Lily’s shoulders drop. “We barely know each other,” she says, and her voice comes out quieter than she’d intended it to. She swallows, suddenly feeling a bit listless. This entire situation has been bizarre and prickly, and he hasn’t seemed to mind how sharp she can be, but…he’s just looking at her. “And I don’t think…we should try.”

“Because I’m an actor,” James says. His brow is furrowed, and he seems upset for the first time.

Lily searches for something else, then settles on, “Yes.”

His shoulders settle, something flashing over his face. “Right,” he says.

Lily goes silent, her heart thudding dully in her ears.

James looks around the room like he’s trying to find something to do with himself, then his gaze pauses on one of the walls. “Found the key,” he says a second later. He doesn’t sound enthused.

Lily watches him. Her mouth is tender from kissing him, and she’s said her piece, but…

As he reaches for the key, she suddenly finds herself grabbing his arm and pulling him back around.

She doesn’t give him time to say anything before her mouth is pressed against his.

Lily rips herself away from him before more than a few seconds have passed. She’s panting, heart pounding, and she feels a bit like she’s going to be ill. “Sorry,” she gasps. “I didn’t—sorry.”

James is staring at her, lips still parted. His cheeks are flushed, and his glasses are crooked. “Don’t be,” he says after a second. His voice is hoarse. “It’s…okay.”

Okay.

Lily is absolutely amazed that they somehow manage to pull themselves together enough to finish the escape room. They don’t talk while they do it, and if Remus and Sirius notice that anything has changed between them in the hour they were separated, they don’t comment on it.

Lily counts the seconds, determinedly looking anywhere but at him, and the moment they finish—not quite beating Peter’s record, but close—she mutters her goodbyes and bolts.

Fucking hell, she’s confused.

Confused, and lips tender, and—

Go out with me.

As a general rule, Lily doesn’t tend to admit she’s been wrong. It rankles her pride, and her ability to concentrate, and she’s sure that must mean something terrible about her as a person, but—well, everyone’s got their flaw, right?

Sleeping with you was like a fantasy. It’s not real life.

He had flinched. She’s certain of it.

Somehow, something she’d said had hurt him. Famous actor, James Potter.

The need to apologize for that rises up in her, so strong she almost chokes on it, but also…

His mouth on hers. The easy way he meets every jab she sends his way.

We like each other.

He’d apparently liked her so much he wanted to invite her to stay for breakfast, when she was stealing away from his house.

Lily gets halfway down the street, then she looks in her phone and finds the contact from the night they slept together. It’s unsaved, without his name. She doesn’t change that, but presses call without letting herself reconsider.

Her heart is pounding, and she feel a bit sick—

“Hello?”

She inhales, suddenly devoid of all air at the sound of his voice. “Uh, hi,” she says and scuffs her shoe on the ground. “I know it’s—well, it’s like 9pm, and we just…you know, in there. But—” she squeezes her eyes shut and forcibly clears her throat. She makes herself use his name. “Would you like to get some breakfast, James?”

There’s about three seconds of silence on the other end of the line, then— “I know the perfect place.”

“So, tell me. How did you become a commitment-phobe?’

“I’m not a commitment-phobe.”

“Right. My mistake.”

“I—was simply trying to be pragmatic. And not get involved with a celebrity. You know how they are.”

“I do know how they are. Right bastards, the lot of them.”

“See, you agree.”

“I agree that you’re a commitment-phobe.”

“Oy—”

“—a very pretty commitment-phobe.”

“Hmph. I suppose you can stay. For now.”

“Look at me, breaking through!”

“Shut up.”

“Make me, Lily Evans.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be an actor?”

“Yeah, since I was a kid. Was camel #3 in the Nativity, see. That’s where it all started.”

“Oh, wow, lofty ambitions, I see.”

“You’ve got to aim high, Evans.”

“Eat it.”

“No.”

“C’mon, you’ll like it.”

“No, no—”

“Try ittt—”

“For fuck’s sake, Potter, if I have to spend one more minute with your stupid face I’m going to—”

“Fall in love with me?”

“You wish.”

“Sorry, how silly of me. I forgot the commitment-phobe—oy! Quit throwing the packets at me—”

For the second time in two weeks, she wakes up in his bed.

It’s a rare sunny day in London, and she watches the light play on the ground for a few minutes, grogginess fading into soft warmth. God, James’s bed is comfortable.

The other side of the bed is empty, but she doesn’t worry. After last night…well, she might not be a commitment-phobe like James laughingly accused her of being, but she’s perhaps slightly getting over her reservations about being involved with him.

Maybe actors aren’t so bad. Maybe.

She sifts through vague memories of pancakes, of laughing in a dingy little diner until midnight, of him kissing syrup from her collarbone in his foyer, of her getting on her knees in the kitchen…

And then promptly swearing, because: “Fucking hell, not on tile floors—”

He’d burst out laughing, his trousers unzipped, hair wild and neck flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t have blowjobs in mind when I rented the place.”

“Massive oversight,” she’d huffed, struggling to her feet, then she was overcome by the sight of him and dragged him into another of those hot, hard, mind-numbing kisses.

Then she’d found a much more suitable, carpeted room to continue in.

Lily hides a smile in the sheets.

After a few minutes, she gets bored of waiting for James and gets out of bed. She borrows his dressing gown—which is just as soft as she hazily remembers from New Year’s—and wanders through the house.

She calls his name once, but there’s no response, and she just shrugs and heads to the kitchen.

(Lily supposes she ought to have known that the kitchen is cursed, somehow.)

She’s eating a piece of toast at the table when she hears the front door creak open, then click shut. James’s voice follows, clearly on the phone.

Lily straightens, heart jumping.

James sounds harried. “Yeah, I’ll be there in twenty—no, it’s…” A sigh. “Yes, I’ll tell her. No, just—Rita, will you let me handle it? I want to tell her properly. I’m not going to just dump her without a warning, for fuck’s sake. I said I was going to do this with her, I can’t just disappear because I’ve changed my mind. Yes, I will call you after.” His voice fades a bit as he goes somewhere else in the house, still on the phone with Rita.

Lily freezes, cold dropping right down to her toes.

She remembers James telling her last night over pancakes about his publicist, Rita Skeeter. Who kept trying to interfere with his personal life, with more or less success in her “taloned hands”, as he’d put it.

Fuck.

She sets the toast down on the countertop, feeling sick.

This time, there is no sense of panic or hilarity as she finds her clothes and, for the second time, slips out the back door of his house.

Her phone rings before she’s home.

Lily stares at the screen on the tube, the world rattling around her. She’d put in his name last night, lying on his absurdly soft sheets and holding his arm against her chest.

“Put something dashing and debonair,” James had said, shifting closer to her and brushing his cheek against her head. “Like Bond. James Bond.”

“I think not,” she’d snorted and typed. “Here. Accurate and derogatory.”

“That’s not derogatory,” James argued.

“Yes, it is.”

“Fine, I suppose you’re right,” he’d said and slipped his palm beneath her chin, then tugged her mouth to his. He was smiling when their lips touched. “James, derogatorily famous.”

The automated voice coolly announces the next stop and people rush for the doors of the train.

She erases James (famous) and practically smashes the keys on her phone typing: Potter (bastard).

Her eyes start to sting.

Mary is perusing a magazine in the kitchen of their flat, but she looks up when Lily enters. Her smile instantly drops. “Babe, what’s wrong?” she says, alarmed.

Lily drops her bag on the floor and stands there. She wants to rant and be absolved and scrub her brain and her skin of that stupid—

She bursts into tears. Mary rushes over and coos, and she sobs, not entirely even knowing why, except that something had happened and now it’s over and she really should’ve known better. Only she didn’t.

James calls again that night, and the next night. After three days, he stops trying.

She doesn’t let herself wonder why.

JAMES

3 months later, April

James has spent twelve weeks trying to convince himself to dislike Lily Evans.

After all, as Sirius frequently reminds him, he’s got ample reasons. She’d ran out on him not once, not twice, but three times. She was extremely brutal about her opinion of actors, and of his life.

She was…oddly genuine, in a way he still can’t pin down. Captivating. Beautiful.

He certainly doesn’t share the truth of his love life with Rita, but she’s sensed something off with him in the last few weeks, and has thus been poking at some kind of PR relationship stunt with Felicity for Sing Me A Little Fiasco. ‘Poking’, which has been increasingly aggressive.

James has shut her down at every suggestion, and will continue to, though the thought wearies him.

He knows, if all else fails, he can call his mum and have her deal with Rita, but…

Well, he’s not blind to how he got his start in the film business, but he’d like to at least pretend that his mother didn’t control strings in Hollywood.

Tesco is dimly lit and nearly empty. It’s a Thursday evening in early April, and James is far from his house in Kensington, but he’d wanted a specific kind of jam, and the Tesco website had said that it was in stock in Hackney, so….

James frowns at the shelves.

“Oh—my god.”

The voice is unfamiliar, but James is already tensing.

He usually doesn’t mind taking photos with fans, but tonight he’s tired and in a bad mood, and he doesn’t want his scowl to be forever immortalized on Instagram.

Chin up, pet, Rita always says. Give the people something to chew on.

James hitches a smile on his face, hating the feel of it, and turns around.

A woman is staring at him, eyes wide. She’s holding a bottle of wine, her dark hair clipped back with an absurdly large flower.

“Hi,” James says after a second. His smile is starting to strain.

The woman blinks, then her eyes dart up and down him. “For once, I think Lily’s been truthful with her assessment. Goodness, you’re fit,” she says and James almost cracks his neck trying to whip his head around.

“You—Lily?” Her name is strangled in his mouth, the two syllables containing a mixture of upset and longing.

“I’m Mary,” the woman says. “I’m Lily’s flatmate.”

It’s utterly impossible. It’s impossible.

“Oh,” James says. “Is she—how is she?”

“Fine,” Mary says. She’s clutching the bottle of wine tightly, and he can’t read the look she’s giving him. The shock is wearing off, giving way to some kind of judgment. “How are you?”

“Fine,” James says after a moment. It’s utterly stupid, but the second he heard her name…she’s got to be some sort of witch, the woman he met in a crowded bar bathroom, because she’s made an utter mess of him in just a few months.

Mary stares at him, brow flat, then she inhales. “Right,” she says, as if she’s come to some decision. “James, would you like to come over for dinner?”

Lily lives in a bright yellow house in Hackney, and James files this away somewhere in his dazed, addled mind as Mary leads him into it.

The hallway is cramped, but covered in pieces of colorful artwork and shoes and the odd coat.

“Sorry,” Mary says, bending to pick up some stuff. She kicks at a teetering pile of books. “It’s a bit—messy—just down here, James. We’re having a little dinner party with some friends, see—”

“I don’t want to intrude,” James says, though he hadn’t even thought of that when she first invited him. All he’d thought of was her, and so of course he’d said yes.

“Don’t be silly,” Mary says, beaming, and throws open a door to a little kitchen. It’s filled with golden light from about a dozen lamps, and the sound of a group of people talking and laughing suddenly washes over him.

James’s chest tightens.

Mary doesn’t let him hesitate though, just throwing him another smile and then practically frog-marching him through the kitchen and into the dining room.

“Hello!” she says, brandishing the wine.

The chatter dies down.

His gaze is fixed on the person at the end of the table, a red blur, a lovely face. A frozen, lovely face, shock painted across it.

“I brought a guest,” Mary says unnecessarily, beaming. Her eyes are darting around. “Everyone, this is James.”

One of the men chokes at the name, then his neighbor hits him on the shoulder. “Right,” he says, voice strangled. “I’m—Caradoc. Nice to meet you.”

“Dorcas,” the woman next to him murmurs.

“Gideon,” a man across the table says, though his words are slow and his eyes keep going back to Lily.

Lily, who is just staring and staring at him.

“Nice to meet you all,” James says automatically. He shifts a vaguely pleading look towards Mary, who looks invigorated in a truly alarming way.

“We need to cook,” Mary announces, clapping her hands. “Lily—come along. We can’t leave our guests starving!”

“Mare—” Lily starts and James jolts at the sound of her voice.

“Come on,” Mary repeats, voice steeling. She’s got some message in her eyes, which Lily must receive, because she gives her an exceedingly dirty look.

“What can I do?” James asks. He’s starting to sweat, and Lily still isn’t looking at him, and—he really shouldn’t have come.

“Mashed potatoes,” Mary says, smile still a bit manical. She deposits James at the counter. “And—Lily, you too. We need two hands on deck.” She flutters off, clucking to herself in a very smug sort of way.

Lily’s shoulders are frozen with tension. She’s staring at the wall. “You met Mary,” she says flatly after a moment.

James pokes at the potatoes with a spoon. “I was in Tesco looking for jam,” he says. It’s a pathetic explanation, but somehow he wants her to know that he didn’t just…chase her down, or something.

Even though he tried to do just that, for days after she left.

The sting surges through his chest again.

Lily is silent as he begins to make the mashed potatoes, then suddenly she puts her spoon down with a clang. “I don’t want to talk about it all,” she says, looking over at him.

James looks up and his entire body seizes, warmth and cold flooding him with equal measure. He almost forgets to listen to what she’s saying. “What do you mean?”

“January,” Lily says, face oddly determined. “You’re here, and—well, Mary is definitely trying to meddle, but I don’t want to talk about all the stuff in the past. It’s done. Can we just move forward?”

James stares at her. “I—okay,” he says and exhales unevenly. “Sure.”

She almost smiles, then ducks her head. Her hair falls over her shoulders, a curtain of soft red.

The quiet noises of the others preparing the rest of dinner fill the house. There’s some laughter, but it feels a bit stifled, likely by him.

“How have you been?” James asks her, just to shut down all the things he’s been imagining saying to her for months.

“Alright,” Lily says. “You?”

He shrugs. “Can’t really complain, I suppose,” he says.

“Filming?”

“All done now, actually,” he says. “Press tour is kicking up for the other film, though, so I’m going to be traveling most of May.”

“That sounds exciting,” Lily says. They’re talking, but it doesn’t feel like it once did. It’s stilted, and oddly formal. She’s being polite, and nice, and…

James absolutely hates it.

It must mean something truly weird about him that he’d kill for Lily to insult him right now. A quick idiot, and then laughter, and then…

He’d gotten used to it so quickly. Really, they’d only been like that for two nights.

Two nights, across his entire life.

It’s so little, and yet he misses it.

“You know, it—” James clears his throat, trying to calm his heart form rioting out of his chest. “It doesn’t really matter, right?”

Lily raises an eyebrow and he envies her cool unflappability. “What?”

“The fame stuff,” he says. He shrugs jerkily and prods at the mashed potatoes. “It’s all stupid smoke and mirrors and self-important people on the internet making things…matter more than they actually do.”

She’s quiet. “I wonder if you’re the only person who thinks that,” she muses after a moment, glancing at him.

The force of her hits him once again, as it has been hitting him for months. The bright green eyes, the clever and sharp mouth, the hair falling to one side of her neck…the neck he once kissed. He feels almost like he’s some poor, stupid mortal, who bit the apple in Eden, tasted heaven, and now he’s cursed for eternity. Cursed to want her.

But he blinks, trying to come back to the present and not stare at her like a creep. “I’m not,” he says. “Really—ask anyone. Well, maybe not Rita, because she’s paid to pretend it all matters and she doesn’t really have a life aside from prodding me into fitting rooms, but—” he cuts off his rambling and inhales. “It…”

“Doesn’t matter?” Lily finishes for him, then she sighs. She brushes at her fringe, tucking some hair behind her ear at the same time. “I can’t say it seems very pleasant, sometimes,” she muses.

“How so?” James asks, though of course he agrees.

“Paparazzi are quite aggressive,” she says, then snorts. “I had a proper panic attack when I ran into them on New Year’s day, outside your house.”

It breaches her earlier request, bringing the past into direct contact with the present, but James is too fixated on what she’s revealed to bother with that.

“God, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

Lily looks at him, brow wrinkling. “It’s alright,” she says. “I get those anyways. I’m sure if it wasn’t them, it would’ve been something else.” Her laugh is a bit wretched.

James feels like he’s seeing that bit of her that so confused him in the winter. The oddly genuine, quiet bit. It’s utterly at odds with her biting wit, but…

“I’m still sorry,” he says.

She takes a deep breath. “Don’t worry,” she says dismissively and plunks some butter into the potatoes. The lamplight shines on her face, warm and golden. “Why exactly were you in a Tesco in Hackney, then?”

James knows a change of subject when he sees one, and even though he’s reeling, he follows along. “Jam,” he says. “I wanted dragonfruit jam.”

She raises brow. “Good luck finding that at Tesco,” she says.

“Yeah,” James says. He couldn’t care less about the jam right now. He swallows. “Uh, it was…nice of Mary to invite me. I’m not sure why she did, though.”

Lily shrugs. “I tell her everything,” she murmurs. “And then she runs wild with her own ideas.”

James isn’t sure what to say to that, so he remains silent.

Lily seems content to leave the subject there as well, and neither of them say much throughout dinner. James makes polite conversation with Dorcas and Gideon, who are on either side of him. Dorcas seems a bit stunned by his presence, but she’s got a boisterously funny personality, and James finds his unease fading a bit as the evening wears on.

At least until the end, when Mary and Lily are off sorting out dessert.

Gideon clears his throat. “So, you’re a friend of Mary’s?”

“Uh, I know Lily,” James says. “I just met Mary—tonight.” He’s not sure if he can call him and Lily friends. He doesn’t even want to touch the concept of labeling them as exes.

“Right,” Gideon says, his friendly smile straining bit. He’s quiet for a moment, and James waits.

He can tell, plain as day, that Gideon fancies Lily. It makes him see red for a second, but he tries to keep his jealousy on a tight leash. Friends, exes, nothing—he’s got no claim on her. None.

“You know,” Gideon says, “she’s got a boyfriend, right?”

James stills. In his chest, something tightens, then drops. He refuses to look too closely at that. “I…didn’t,” he says after a second.

Gideon’s eyes are hard. “Yeah, it’s new,” he says, shrugging a bit jerkily. “So…just thought you should know.”

James doesn’t want to know what Gideon has guessed about him and Lily, what he’s inferred from how they behave around each other.

He remembers her lying in his bed in January, laughing face pressed in his shoulder. Her mouth on his shoulder, muffling her moans in his skin. The flush that spread down her neck, that he traced with his lips and tongue.

He feels a surge of bitter nausea, because—

She’s got a boyfriend.

Well, fucking hell.

It is truly terribly inconvenient, that the thing that convinces him he can’t dislike Lily Evans and her odd, prickly, quiet, perfect personality, is this.

“Thanks,” James says, voice hard even to his own ears. He turns back to the table, his ears ringing. The chatter of the others washes over him.

Gideon might’ve said something else, but he doesn’t hear it.

He doesn’t look at Lily when she returns to the table, and he takes the first possible opportunity to get up to use the bathroom.

It’s a riot of laughter and noise, and James doesn’t think anyone notices as he slips away into the night.

3 weeks later, May

“Pet, you’re so dull these days,” Rita sighs. She’s propped her chin on her green taloned hands, and she’s pouting at him.

James would rather be doing a million other things—painful things—than having lunch with his publicist right now, but he just gives her a grim smile. “I’m fine, Rita,” he says.

“So you say,” she says. “But you’ve got this gloom. Now, you know what would help with that—”

“Felicity doesn’t want to do the PR relationship either,” James snaps. “Let it go.”

His harsh tone doesn’t deter Rita, who just blinks waspishly at him. “Darling, you pay me to publicize you,” she says. “Let me do my work.”

“Sure,” James says and shifts in his seat. The rain is pouring outside, and he wants to just stare out the window at the rolling drops, maybe take a walk and get completely soaked. Rita would have a fit about the press and the pictures and— “Your work isn’t my love life.”

“You’ll come to me one day, pet,” Rita sniffs.

His gaze returns to the window as she starts blathering on about his commitments for the rest of May.

Maybe he will take a walk in the rain.

LILY

She’s been in a terrible mood for weeks as April turns to May.

Mary keeps pushing at her, but Lily shuts her down every time the conversation even hints at his name.

She shuts down most things, actually. Some are more warranted than others.

“Hey, could I talk to you?” Gideon asks her one day as they’re closing the bar.

It’s quite late and her feet hurt, and so she just gives him an irate glance. “What?” she says.

“Well, I just wanted to ask…” he takes a deep breath, a sort of nervous eagerness in his eyes. “Uh, there’s this new food market, in Camden, it’s quite nice—good food, not a big crowd if you go on the right day, and uh, I was wondering if you’d like to try it out sometime?”

Lily stares at him.

“With me,” he adds, in case she hadn’t caught on yet.

Lily sets down the case of beer she was holding. Suddenly, she feels exhausted. “Gideon—”

“Before you say no,” he hastens, “just…think about it. We used to be good, didn’t we?”

“Not really,” Lily says. “We were convenient.”

He frowns at her. “That’s harsh.”

“Truth is harsh,” she counters. She shakes her head, a headache pressing at her temples. “Gid…I’m sorry, but no. I don’t want to be with you in that way. I think we’re better as friends.”

Gideon stares at her, the look on his face telling her he really didn’t think she’d reject him.

She attempts a consoling smile, but it falls flat after a second. Fuck, she’s so tired.

“Right,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “Just—write down a list, how about. Write a list of all the horrible things I do, and all the ways I’m too prickly and don’t call enough and antisocial and—” she waves a hand. “Read that until you don’t like me anymore. See, solved?”

Gideon keeps staring at her. “That’s very stupid,” he says.

Lily’s heart thumps weirdly. “Well, you don’t have to do it,” she says. “Just…you know, think about that. We wouldn’t be good for each other.”

“You’re probably right,” Gideon says after a moment. He dips his head, his frown pulling deeper. “Well, goodnight, I guess.”

She watches him go, the feeling in her chest sinking lower.

When he’s disappeared into the back room, she covers her face with her hands.

Mary joins her on her bed the next morning, a cup of tea steaming in her hands.

Lily lets her head hang off the end of the bed. “I don’t know what I’m doing here sometimes,” she admits. “There’s just—there’s no real point to it all, you know? I don’t know what I want to do with my life, and—”

“You’ve got time,” Mary argues.

“I’m twenty six,” Lily says. “It’s respectable to be a part-time bartender with a roommate in your early twenties. After that it gets pathetic.”

“Only if you live outside of the greater London area,” Mary says. “In central it goes up to thirty. Perfectly respectable when living here costs an arm and a couple kidneys.”

Lily laughs quietly, and her friend’s lips twitch.

“You…” She’s never seen Mary struggle for words. “You’re not thinking of leaving, right?”

“I don’t know,” Lily says after a while. “I don’t have many reasons to stay here. Except that moving home would be the ultimate humiliation, and Petunia would never let me live it down.”

“Seems like a good reason to me,” Mary says. “And I’m here!”

Lily exhales, but she smiles and tucks her hand into Mary’s. “Yeah, you are,” she says and squeezes. “Don’t worry, I’m not deciding anything now. I’ll see how the rest of the year goes.”

Rejecting Gideon had been both a weight off of her chest, and a tremendous burden. She’s not sure what that means about her.

1 month later, June

In late June, Mary gets an invitation in the post.

She tries to hide it from Lily at first, but it’s addressed to both of them, and she spots it one afternoon. Lily’s not sure if she wishes she didn’t once she opens it and sees the fancy card that falls out—covered in thick, elegant calligraphy, inviting them both to the London premiere of James Potter and Audrey Darnell’s newest film.

Mary swears she’s not going to go out of loyalty to Lily—she’s called James a ‘daft prick’ more than once—but Lily, shoving every single emotion she’s ever had as deep down inside her as she can manage, says, “Go, don’t worry. You shouldn’t miss out on an opportunity.”

Mary’s face wavers, excitement mingling with guilt. “Are you—are you sure?”

“Positive,” Lily says, the card crumpling in her tight grip. Her heart is thudding. “Have a brilliant time.”

Mary doesn’t even try to convince her to come with.

The night of the premiere, Lily sits at home on the overstuffed couch, watching the walls. Thinking of James’s face the night he showed up to dinner, how the lights played on his cheeks. How he looked at her in that oddly soft way that she’s not sure anyone ever has.

How he left.

To be fair, she’s starting to lose track at this point. Who’s leaving who.

Time ticks by.

Eventually, she huffs and stands, shoves her feet into her shoes, and storms out the door.

She gets to the corner of the street the premiere is on in central London, then stops.

Her heart is pounding, and she feels ill.

What am I doing? she thinks with panic. She knows what she wants to happen—she wants to wait here, agonizing over her choice, then by some magic he’ll be walking down the street, and he’ll see her and kiss her and explain why he wanted to break up with her in January, why he didn’t call in April, and he’ll give her a reason to stay in London…

“Fuck,” she swears aloud. “Fuck.”

It’s so fucking stupid, how she’s somehow gone and started to fall in love with him. James Potter, stupidly famous, stupidly fit, stupidly nice.

She’s staring at the ground, struggling not to cry, when she hears footsteps behind her.

Lily goes still. She closes her eyes.

“Mary said you weren’t coming.” His voice is quiet.

Lily turns slowly, opening her eyes.

He’s wearing a goddamn tux, the white and black clinging to his body. She hasn’t seen him in two months, and he looks fucking brilliant. She’s wearing joggers. His brow is creased, staring at her.

“I wasn’t,” she says. Cars drive past, and the sound of the city is put on some kind of muffled setting, where the noises that usually make her panic are just background noise.

James nods, as though that’s a sensible answer, and eyes her thoughtfully.

“Do you want to take a walk?” Lily asks after a second.

James hesitates. “I don’t know if we should,” he says.

“Why?”

“I don’t think your boyfriend would like this,” he says, which is confusing on so many levels, not least when he adds, “Not that you can’t do what you want, of course you can, but—” he exhales. “I would be lying if I said my feelings were strictly platonic. And so that doesn’t seem fair.”

Lily stares at him. All she can say is, “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

James goes still.

“I haven’t had a boyfriend in years,” she says. “I—who—”

“You don’t have a boyfriend?” James repeats slowly.

Lily can’t breathe. “No,” she says. “I don’t.”

He’s still staring at her, like she’s some sort of complex puzzle. They still haven’t started walking, though he hasn’t exactly said yes or not to the proposition yet. Like it’s the next natural question, he asks, “Why did you leave my house the second time in January?”

“You were going to dump me,” Lily says slowly. “I—it seemed prudent to get ahead of it.” Her cheeks burn, heart pounding. “At least for the sake of my own pride.”

James stares and stares and—he starts laughing, a jagged, breathless sound. “Fucking hell,” he swears, covering his face with his hands. “Fucking hell—”

“What?” she snaps. “What’s so funny?”

“I wasn’t going to dump you in January,” James says, his face still covered. “I was talking to Rita about bailing on a press tour stop with Audrey.” He drops his hands, and his face is remarkably clear. “Well, fuck,” he says.

Lily wants to concur. She’s almost shaking, and she just…looks at him. Her mouth is dry. “Well, maybe we’re both commitment-phobes,” she says. It seems like the only thing to say.

James’s brow is creased. “Yeah,” he says after a second. He’s shifting on his heels. “Maybe.”

“Walk?” Lily says after a second. Her voice is soft.

JAMES

The night is warm. The world is narrowed down to Lily beside him, and the revelations that are sending his mind into a tailspin.

“Does this change anything?” he asks after a few minutes of walking in silence. This. He wants to laugh at how colossally this has all been screwed up, but it’s impossible when it all still feels so raw. Maybe it will feel raw forever.

“I don’t know,” Lily says. Her voice is brittle. “It doesn’t change…who we are.”

“What does that mean?”

She laughs a bit wretchedly. “Maybe we’re just—“ she spreads her hands, unspoken frustration, helplessness, look at this, “fundamentally incompatible. As people.”

“No,” James cuts in, shaking his head. “No, I don’t accept that or believe that—“

“Our lives are incompatible,” Lily says harshly, cheeks flushing bright with emotion. “James, look at us.” She gestures violently again and stops walking. “Look at us. We are not living in the same universe. Hell, we’re not even on the same plane of reality! You’re famous and have perfect hair, and I live in a shoe box with a roommate who wants to sell off my hair on eBay and, and—“

“I don’t care about that,” James shouts back. He’s never raised his voice at her before and he hates it, but she’s always loud and he needs to match it somehow, or or…he grapples for an anchor, for anything but this sinking feeling. “It doesn’t matter—“

“It matters to me,” Lily says simply. She’s breathing unevenly. A wretched laugh. “And it matters, James. It matters to everyone but you. People would have opinions, they wouldn’t like that I’m a bartender, or that I’m from a working class family in the Midlands, or that I don’t have any interest in the film industry—it wouldn’t work.”

The night is silent.

James stares at her, agony clawing at his ribcage.

Her cheeks are red, her eyes bright and gleaming. She’s beautiful.

“But…” James unsticks his voice. “I l—”

Lily inhales, sharp and painful, and it’s enough to make him stop.

She doesn’t tell him not to say it, but the words choke in his throat, festering there.

“What do we do?” James says eventually. The cars whoosh by, bright lights in the dawning summer night. “I don’t want to…not talk to you.”

It feels like it gets at something that he’s trying to say, some expression of feeling, and she must feel it too, because she almost flinches.

But then her face smooths out a bit, weariness settling in. “I don’t want to not talk to you either,” she admits. By some silent agreement, they start walking again. She glances over at him. “What if we tried being friends?”

Friends. James tries out the word in his mind. Friends, with Lily Evans. Proper friends. “We can try that,” he says, and he hopes she doesn’t notice how he stumbles over the words.

It’s a futile hope, but they can both feel the thing withering around them. The beautiful, delicate, hopeful thing that has somehow survived all these months.

It withers, and friendship grows.

It will have to be enough.

LILY

1 month later, Summer

July and August are hot, slow months. They’re grey more often than not, but the odd days of sunshine peak through.

She sees James nearly every day.

Mary has latched onto James as a fast friend, and to her surprise he reciprocates with genuine enthusiasm. Their friend groups don’t entirely mesh—Sirius and Gideon nearly got into a fist fight over some a piece of artwork in his gallery in Soho—not least because James is recognized almost everywhere they go. But they try.

They all try.

The sun shines, sets, rain falls, and Lily works at becoming his friend.

They go to old bookshops together and then trade their purchases at the end. She blows through the past-paced thriller fiction he gave her, while he sends her long outraged texts about the “boring autobiography of some dried cranberry you gave me!”.

Sometimes, when they’re out and about, she sees people filming or pointing. James acts like he doesn’t notice, though she knows now that he does. She tries to follow his lead, but it makes her skin prickle.

As the summer wears on, he starts to know that she notices, and doesn’t like the attention. They never discuss it, but he starts asking to meet in more private places.

The cameras become fewer.

Lily doesn’t think too hard about that—about any of it.

About the days he disappears to do press for movies, or the day her grainy face appears in a tabloid as a ‘Mystery Woman’. About how they laugh more freely, how she avoids looking at his mouth for the memories it brings to mind, how he seems to hold himself back from touching her in the casual ways he touches his other friends.

But they’re trying.

They’re friends. Good friends, even.

Perhaps she should’ve tried another method, Lily reflects in August, when she’s sitting on the grass in a London park watching Sirius and James attempt a game of football with a wadded up blanket. They’re shooting jabs at each other, both grinning so wide their faces are nearly split with the expression.

“Idiots,” Remus sighs, turning the page of his book.

Lily’s lips twitch, but her eyes remain fixed on James.

Maybe she should’ve told him they couldn’t be anything at all, and tended to the hole that would’ve left in her.

James shouts with victory, jumping in the air. He’s grinning wide, the wind whipping his hair across his forehead, arms out as he spins. He looks young and carefree, bright and filled with so much potential to be hers she can almost taste it.

JAMES

2 months later, October

She is shredding through James’s self control.

Every second, every minute—or even the other way around.

James can’t decide if she confuses him, arouses him, or makes him want to throw a punch at a wall just for how confused he feels.

Problem one: self control.

Problem two: Lily Evans.

Problem three: what Lily Evans is doing to his self control.

He needs to get a damn hold of himself, and remind himself of the tens of thousands of reasons they shouldn’t be together.

Remind himself that there are reasons, and she has reasons, and everyone else apparently has reasons too—

He’s only got one reason.

“This is a stupid recipe,” Lily says, frowning at the mess of dough dripping from her fingers.

James scoffs, piling the chopped peppers in the corner of the wooden board. “That’s a family recipe, I’ll have you know.”

“Well, your family is stupid.”

“I’ll tell my mum you said that.”

“This dough is wet.”

“Have you considered you might’ve done something wrong?”

“No,” she says and glares at him. “It’s a stupid recipe. I think we should order takeaway.”

James swallows a grin. Sirius, surprisingly, had been the one to suggest he invite Lily to cook dinner at his house. It was the first time she’d been here since last January—almost a year now, with the autumn leaves of late October falling outside—and James hadn’t imagined that he wasn’t the only one holding his breath when she arrived. But it’s gone okay so far.

‘Okay’—he’s only thought about having sex with her in this house four times so far.

Five times.

Fuck.

James tries to clear his face, to keep his thundering heartbeat from becoming apparent. “You’re very bossy tonight.”

“I’m bossy every night,” Lily mutters, then her lips are twitching, that scowl fading at some silent spark of hilarity.

James just grins at her.

She starts laughing, shaking her head, and—

He almost forgets the dinner they’re cooking, the tens of thousands of reasons, the mistakes they’ve made. She’s laughing as if she can’t help it, face bright and open with a smile. Beautiful.

“Fine, you can take over,” she says once she’s gotten control over herself. She’s still smiling, though she grimaces as she shakes out her dough-covered hands.

His only reason not to be with her is that he loves her, and she doesn’t want to be with him.

LILY

2 months later, December

“See, the problem is, I don’t even like half of these people,” Mary says, scowling at the mass of bodies crammed into their tiny flat.

Lily snorts. “You invited them,” she reminds her. “I wanted a quiet Christmas.”

Mary sniffs. “You’re getting a quiet Christmas in Cokeworth,” she says, “we needed to send you off in style!”

Lily thinks about pointing out that she doesn’t even know the majority of the people here, but Mary is right that she’s leaving the next day to go to Cokeworth, and…

The flat is bedecked in bright Christmas lights, twinkling red and gold and green wherever she looks.

She’s meant to tell her mother that she might be staying for longer than just Christmas, but she’s kept putting it off. And off.

“If you’re moving out,” Mary had said a few weeks ago, “you might want to actually start moving.” She’d looked thoughtful for a second. “And tell James.”

Lily pretended she didn’t hear either comment.

Mary sighs gustily. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, no one knows how to serve canapés,” she mutters and rushes off without a goodbye to Lily.

Lily watches her go with amusement, then sips at her sparkling wine.

The flat is loud and warm, bright.

“Should I be afraid of Mary tonight?” The voice is amused.

Lily’s entire body turns hot and molten. “You should be afraid of her every night,” she responds, and smiles at James as he comes to a stop beside her. She swallows a laugh. “Nice jumper.”

James grins down at the giant stag emblazoned across the chest. The antlers have little bells sewn on, and he gives a little shake. They jingle. “I thought it was festive,” he says.

“And if you get photographed like that?”

“They won’t lose their eyesight,” James says. “Might teach them a thing or two about fun.”

Lily laughs softly. She doesn’t want to, but she says, “I’m going home tomorrow.”

James takes a sip of his drink. “Have fun,” he says. “Looking forward to it?”

Lily shrugs, suddenly feeling very hot. “More or less,” she murmurs. There’s lots there that she could tell him, like her strained relationship with her sister, and her lifelong fear that she’d never leave Cokeworth…and then her newfound anxiety of living in a big city. The contradictions of her microcosms. “I…I might be staying for longer.”

James’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

Lily swallows. “I’ve been thinking of leaving London,” she says. “Permanently. Maybe.”

He’s utterly still. The party continues around them, merry music winding through the air. She sees his eyes flash, shutter. “Oh,” is all he says after a long moment. His knuckles are white on his glass. “Where—where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Lily says. “I don’t—” she looks down at her drink, suddenly feeling utterly miserable and horrid. She just wants to be alone, in the cool dark, without these lights and these noises and these feelings.

“Does it make you happy?” James asks after a moment. “To move away from London?”

Happy is such an odd word, and she’s never actually contemplated it before, so Lily takes a second to think it over. “I don’t know,” she says truthfully.

James exhales, shoulders tight. “Well,” he says, then downs the rest of his drink. He gives her a smile that looks more like a grimace. “Merry Christmas, Lily.”

He’s clearly about to walk away, and it triggers something in her chest, some kind of panic button. She’s suddenly incredibly certain that she can’t bear to see him walk away.

“Wait,” she says.

He stops. Looks back. “Yes?” he says. She can’t read the expression in his eyes.

Lily swallows. “Do you want to…get some air?”

James looks at her for a second, then nods.

They both abandon their drinks in the kitchen, then step out to the back patio. No one is out there because it’s bloody freezing, something that Lily is reminded of the second they shut the door to the nice, warm house.

She turns to face him, crossing her arms.

James shrugs off his silly jumper and hands it to her.

Lily’s fingers close around the warm fabric. Her voice feels thin. “Thank you.”

He exhales, closing his eyes for a second. “Right, let’s have it,” he says, looking grim.

“Have what?”

“You’re going to end things,” James says. His brow is furrowed tight, and she’s never seen him look so resigned. “You’re leaving, so…it’s over.”

She doesn’t argue with the fact that they have something to end. She just…looks at him.

“I don’t want it to be over,” she says.

“You told me that didn’t matter,” James says. “It didn’t matter if neither of us want that.”

Lily’s heart jolts. “It—it does matter,” she says, then shakes her head. “I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be,” James says after a second. His voice is quiet. “We’ve both been making decisions in this for months now. We…the place we’re in now, we…” he swallows, and she sees the first flash of true agony on his face. “We’re both to blame.”

Blame feels like a harsh word, but then nothing about the last year was delicate and romantic and slow.

He’s saying goodbye to her, she realizes, and something cracks in her chest.

“Yeah,” she says, voice heavy. “I guess so.”

“Merry Christmas,” James says again, like he can’t bear to say the final word. He’s staring at the ground, his jaw tight, eyes pained.

The cold presses in, the imagined flight to Cokeworth, the move back to that small, quiet town, without its flashing cameras or tabloids or men with brilliant smiles.

Lily looks back, suddenly breathless. “James,” she says.

He looks at her. “Yes?”

The first time she tries to say the words they don’t come. Her throat is tight, her chest buzzing.

He waits.

“Ask me to stay,” she rasps. Her hands shake, but she doesn’t look away from him. “Ask me to stay here, with you.”

His eyes gleam, and she sees his fists clenched by his sides, the only sign of his emotion, as he says, “I love you.”

Lily’s breath shudders out of her, a laugh breaking free. “Oh, God,” she says and presses a hand to her mouth. “I love you too.”

James’s eyes are still bright, but his mouth twitches slightly. A few flakes of snow settle on his shoulders. “Well,” he says. “Isn’t that funny.”

And then suddenly they’re both laughing, and the snow falls down slow, slow, faster. Her cheeks suddenly hurt with the width of her smile, and James is warm and solid and hers when she steps up to him.

“You didn’t ask me to stay,” she whispers. She’s going to kiss him, and she’s going to stay, she’s decided, so it doesn’t really matter anyways, but…

“Yes, I did,” James says and kisses her. He draws away long enough to say, “Learn to listen, Evans. Subtext is important.”

Then, before she can find a properly scathing retort, or maybe just laugh, or declare her love again—he kisses her. Again. And again.

Lily decides that there are worse ways to be scolded.