Just Desserts always gets absurdly busy during the holiday season.
Lily's not sure what it is, but something about the Christmas lights and the dropping temperatures means that traffic to the little bakery increases tenfold. The bakery itself goes all out for the season, with chains of paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, tinsel strung along the counter, and a never-ending plethora of holiday-themed treats.
Lily hates all of it.
She's got her own reasons for disliking the holiday season - and not just because the red and green clash horrendously with her auburn hair - but working at a bakery during the holidays has increased the legitimacy of those feelings tenfold.
Despite it being labelled the 'season of cheer,' so many of the customers get ten times more demanding and cross about every little thing. This cake's frosting is more forest green than evergreen, the elephant ears aren't perfectly symmetrical, these cookies have too many sprinkles (which Lily would argue isn't possible, not to mention that they're called 'super-sprinkle cookies' for a reason, Karen).
Lily normally loves her job, but during December, it takes her far more self-control that it should not to scream at every person who gets the tiniest bit snappy.
However, the person who's really pissing Lily off on this particular morning isn't a picky customer. It's her new co-worker.
He's a seasonal hire, it seems, brought in to help with some of the extra traffic that the store gets during this time of year. And while Lily would normally be very grateful for the extra set of hands around here, this particular set of hands comes with a number of associated problems.
The first problem is that he's absolutely bloody gorgeous. Seriously, no bloke should be allowed to look as good as he does in a chintzy red and green apron and reindeer antlers. But there he is, denying all laws of the universe with his stupidly tousled hair and his sharp jawline and his broad shoulders.
It's entirely unfair, really, that he can look so good in their holiday uniform while she looks like a goddamn elf.
The second is that he's decidedly not Mary McDonald. Mary's her usual shift partner, but she's apparently gone off for vacation and won't be back until after the New Year. Which is unfortunate, because they've got a nice rhythm when they work together. And Mary also shares some of Lily's holiday resentment, which means she has at least one other person to roll her eyes at when Bing Crosby starts playing through the shop's speakers.
And that leads into the final, and most significant, problem that she has with her new shift partner. James Potter, as he'd introduced himself to her a half hour prior, doesn't seem to share her same disdain for the holiday season. Rather, he appears to feel the exact opposite.
He's singing - loudly, obnoxiously, and ever-so-slightly off-key - along with the Christmas music blasting through the little bakery, looking entirely too cheerful for someone who just finished dealing with a peeved mum of three children, all of whom currently have their sticky hands pressed against the glass of the display case, no doubt leaving behind little handprints that will inevitably need to be cleaned off.
He absolutely butchers the high note of "All I Want for Christmas is You," and that's somehow the final straw.
"If you're going to turn this into a karaoke session, can you at least do it on pitch?" she snaps, the words coming out a bit harsher than intended.
He turns to face her, raising an eyebrow. "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear," he says, entirely monotone.
Lily's positive that he's quoting some Christmas movie at her, but for the life of her, she can't quite remember which one. It's been years since she's watched any of those movies anyways.
"I think we've already got enough Christmas cheer going on in here," she says, gesturing lazily to the decorations all over the shop. "We probably don't need to spread more - especially when said cheer is making my ears hurt."
"Damn," he says, grinning in a way that suggests that he is not at all taking her seriously. "Harsh."
"Honest," she retorts.
And she's not trying to flirt with him - she's not - because he's annoying and won't stop singing Christmas songs, but he seems to take it that way, because he winks at her before turning back to the next customer at the till.
It seems that James has suddenly become her shift partner until the end of fucking time. Or, at least, until the new year.
He seems to have caught on to her distaste for the holidays, and has taken it upon himself to be as obnoxious as possible about everything Christmas-related at all times. He said something about 'converting her,' but Lily's convinced he's just trying to annoy her because he thinks it's funny.
She's learned a few things about him in the shifts they've worked together. For one, he's always smiling, or laughing, or smirking, or something. It's completely unnatural for someone to be as cheerful as he is all the time, and that alone grinds on Lily's nerves. Why can't he have any bad days like the rest of the human population?
He's got two friends who occasionally come in to visit him during his shifts. They've got strange names, and Lily's pretty sure they're dating each other, but she's not positive.
He's taking the upcoming Hilary term off from Oxford, where he's getting his degree, and his football coach is apparently pretty pissed off about that fact. Lily only knows this because he talks so damn loudly, so she has no choice but to overhear absolutely everything that he and his two friends talk about.
But on this particular morning, the bakery is abnormally quiet because James is running late, and Lily's not turning the Christmas music on over the loudspeakers until it's absolutely necessary.
She checks to make sure that the croissants proofed properly overnight, before sticking the first batch in the oven and getting to work on making the dough for the cinnamon rolls. This part right here is the thing she loves most about working at Just Desserts - the simple quiet first thing in the morning, just her and the soft hum of the oven and the recipes she's got ingrained into her memory.
It's incredibly calming, even if it is 5 a.m. She doesn't mind early mornings when they're like this.
Her peace is interrupted by a crash in the front of the store, followed by a loud swear word.
"Sorry I'm late, Evans," James says, popping his head into the back. "Overslept."
Honestly, Lily's more disgruntled by his loudness than his lateness. "It's all good," she says, hoping her quiet tone of voice will urge him to speak softer as well. "Can you just get started on the cookies once you… fix whatever you just ran into?"
"Roger that," he replies, disappearing back into the front area of the shop again.
A few moments later, the speakers crackle and start to play Christmas carols. Unlike Lily, who tends to wait to turn on the music until the last possible moment, James turns it on almost as soon as he walks in the door. How someone can listen to the same eight songs over and over for a month on end and not get sick of them, she'll never understand.
But as much as she wants to go turn off the stereo and enjoy just a few more minutes of peace, she's not going down that road again. She tried that a few days ago, and it morphed into an incredibly childish game of flipping the speakers on and off again repeatedly.
Although she did get a good bit of satisfaction out of tackling James as he tried to turn the music back on again.
She turns her attention back to the cinnamon rolls, rolling out the dough across the counter and adding the filling.
James comes back into the room a few moments later, heading to the fridge to grab the sugar cookie dough.
"Add a little cardamom to that filling." Lily almost jumps, because James' voice is way closer to her than she expected.
She turns to look at him. "That's not in the recipe."
"Yeah, I know it's not," he replies. "But it gives them a little extra something, and we've gotten a ton of compliments when I've done them like that."
"But that's - that's not how McGonagall makes them."
"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," he replies. "And if it's getting people to like her stuff more, I don't see how she'd be upset about it."
Lily's always been a natural rule-follower - and recipes are no exception to that. Going blatantly off-recipe seems like sacrilege.
But she finds herself reaching around for the cardamon anyways. "Fine," she relents. Of all hills she could choose to die on with James, this one's pretty low on her priority list. "Where'd you get that idea from anyways?"
James shrugs. "I enjoy baking experiments."
That seems a fair justification, although Lily's definitely a bit confused on where a bloke playing football and studying economics managed to develop a penchant for baking. She's a bit confused as to why he's working this job anyways.
She adds a sprinkle of cardamom to the filling, and James nods at her work. "Yeah, that's perfect," he says, before taking the bowl of dough he's been holding and setting it down at his own workstation.
As she rolls her own dough and cuts it into pieces, she watches as James grabs a rolling pin and gets to work on the sugar cookies.
There's something about his hands that have gotten to her since the moment he showed up here. There's a certain softness to them that Lily wouldn't expect from a uni football player and now part-time baker. They're aristocratic hands, the type that look like they've never had to do manual labour, but they're working the dough nonetheless, his forearms flexing as he flattens it into something workable.
It's that contrast that makes Lily break the silence with a question. "James?" When he hums in acknowledgement, she continues. "Why are you working at a bakery, anyways? You don't really seem like the type, you know."
His reply is a bit defensive. "How would you know what type I am, Evans?"
"Because you're not exactly a quiet talker when your friends are here," she replies, not flinching at his tone. "You're at Oxford studying some fancy philosophical subject, you're on the football team there, and if I had to guess based on both of those things, I'd say your family's pretty well-off, so it's not like you need this extra income."
"First impressions aren't everything then, now are they?" he answers, not looking at her. "If I had my choice, I'd be running my own bakery instead of going to uni for a subject I don't even care about."
Lily raises her eyebrows at that one. "Really?"
"Really. But you're right about my family, and they want me getting a good degree from a good school, so that's what I'm doing. I just… needed a break from it all, so I'm here for a few months before I go back to what I'm supposed to be doing."
Lily takes a moment to reflect on the injustice of that - that he's going to one of the nicest universities in the country for a degree he doesn't even want, taking a seasonal job for the fun of it, meanwhile she's working her ass off to even afford going to uni to begin with.
She's distracted from her response, however, from the opening notes of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" ringing through the speakers. There's a twisting in her stomach, and she just doesn't want to hear this song right now.
"Can we please change the song? Literally, anything but this one."
James turns to look at her, all seriousness from their earlier conversation melted away. "What's wrong with this one? It's a classic!"
Just when she'd started to be able to stand his presence, he'd gone and turned into an obnoxious asshole again. "Just change it," she snaps.
"Damn, no need to be such a grinch," he replies, smirking.
Fuck, see, this is another reason she's started hating this holiday. The moment she makes even the most valid criticism of the Christmas season, she's automatically a 'scrooge' or a 'grinch' or whatever other themed insults people can dream up.
"I'm not being a grinch," she answers through gritted teeth. "But if I must provide some valid reason for changing the song, this was my father's favourite Christmas song, and he passed away this time two years ago. So excuse me if that makes this a little hard to listen to."
With that, she grabs the tray of cinnamon rolls and heads to the ovens, leaving a gobsmacked James in her wake.
The song changes while she's getting the rolls into the oven, but Lily stays there, staring at the ovens and caught in a memory of her father coming home from work every day in December, singing that song in his smooth baritone voice as both she and Petunia ran to greet him in the entryway.
Even two years ago, when the cancer was deemed terminal and her father spent most of his days bed-bound, he'd still do his best to sing along any time the song came up on the radio.
And then he really did go home for Christmas.
"Evans?"
James' voice, softer and more unassuming that normal, pulls her out of her reflections.
"I'm sorry," he says, and Lily looks over to see him biting his lip and looking at his shoes. "I - I didn't realise."
"I've never been a big Christmas person," she says, turning her attention back to the cinnamon rolls in the oven. There's not much to be accomplished in watching them, but she's not sure where else to look right now. "I've always thought the holiday was a little overrated, a little too commercialised, and a bit tacky. But it was my dad's favourite time of year."
She takes a shaky breath. Her new co-worker - who she doesn't even like that much, for that matter - isn't exactly the person she would've chosen to talk about this stuff with, but now that the words have started, they won't stop pouring out of her.
"He always went and bought the biggest tree he could find as soon as they started selling them. You've never seen someone care as much about gift-wrapping as he did - his gifts were a work of art, every year, without fail. And I rolled my eyes at it a lot, but it just… it doesn't feel like Christmas without him."
For once, James doesn't immediately have a response. It's silent for a few long moments, before he says, "I really am sorry. And I've taken the song off the bakery playlist."
Lily doesn't even want to know how he's managed to hack McGonagall's Spotify account, but she's grateful for it nonetheless. "Thank you," she manages, before brushing past him to get to the next thing that needs to get done before opening.
He's still a bit of a dick, but at least he feels some remorse about it.
James' behaviour is a bit more toned-down over the next few days. But on Friday morning, he shows up with a shit-eating grin on his face, and Lily's already dreading whatever's going to come out of his mouth next.
"I've got a new mission," he tells her, and she sets down the frosting bag she's working with to give him a reproachful look.
"And that is?"
"I'm going to turn you into a Christmas person," he declares.
"You're trying to say that you haven't been doing that since your first day?"
"Well, yes," he replies, running a hand through his hair. "But I was being intentionally annoying because it was funny when you got flustered about it. Now, I'm taking it seriously."
"Good luck with that," she tells him, because she hasn't been a Christmas person for 22 years, and it doesn't seem likely that things will change just become her footballer co-worker has decided it will.
"I don't need luck, Evans," he says, grinning at her. "I've got these."
He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a metal tin, garishly decorated with old-timey images of Santa Claus. He pops the lid open, and looks at her triumphantly.
Lily looks at the cookies in the tin, then up to his face. "And these are…?"
She works in a bakery - sweets aren't exactly the way to win her Christmas spirit.
"The best things you've ever tasted." When she looks at him skeptically, he nudges the tin in her direction. "Go on, try one."
She reaches into the tin, grabbing the smallest one she can find and taking a tiny bite. And then promptly taking another, much larger bite, because holy shit these are good. They've got peppermint and chocolate mixed in, and are the perfect consistency of a little bit gooey in the centre but not enough to cave in on itself.
She can kind of understand why he wants to start his own bakery instead of going to uni. He's got the skills for it, that's for certain.
"These are good, Potter," she tells him, after she's swallowed a mouthful of cookie. "Not enough to change my mind, but really damn good."
It's been a week, and James has yet to get her to like Christmas anymore, but he has - albeit unintentionally - achieved something totally different.
Lily is now unmistakably, incredibly attracted to him.
She's not sure what exactly did her in, because it's not like he magically got any more fit in the past couple of days, but it's somehow grown to a point where she actually gets distracted looking at him.
Like, 'almost burned her hand off by grabbing a cookie sheet without a mitt on' distracted.
And on that particular Tuesday, there are two customer interactions that almost do her in.
She and James are settled into a nice rhythm - he's working at the till and she's packaging up the goods. They've worked together enough now that they've really gotten this thing down - which is good, especially when customers are being fussy about how waiting in line for five whole minutes has massively derailed their holiday shopping plans.
But luckily, there's no line today, and the woman currently placing an order doesn't seem to be in that same sort of foul mood. Instead, she's looking around the store in wonder as Lily packs her pastry selection into a box and brings it over to the counter.
"This place is so cute," she gushes, taking the box from Lily. "I'm only in town for the week, and I'm trying to hit up as many family-owned-and-operated places as I can."
"Oh, we're not - "
"Don't worry," she says, waving a hand at them. "I know you two aren't siblings! You're such a precious couple, though."
Lily goes to refute that one, but is interrupted by the sudden presence of James' hand on her waist, which effectively brings every functioning part of her brain to a screeching halt.
"Thank you, we think so too," James replies, turning to look at Lily with an unexpectedly fond expression on his face.
Lily just blinks at him.
And honestly, someone needs to fix her mind because she should not be reduced to putty by the mere presence of a bloke's hands on her. Even if they are really gorgeous hands.
"You know what? Can I get an extra two chocolate croissants while I'm at it?" the woman asks, positively beaming at the pair. "It makes me so happy to support a young couple's dreams."
"Of course you can," James says smoothly. "Lily, dear, will you go grab those while I ring them up?"
"Er, yeah, sure." She steps away from him to do just that, his hand falling away from her midsection in the process.
And the distance is enough to get her synapses firing normally, and to wonder what the hell he thinks he's doing. She grabs the croissants in question, bagging them up and bringing them to the counter.
"Here you go," Lily says, putting the bag on the counter. She's intentionally standing just far enough from James that he can't wrap his arm around her again - she only just got her brain to start functioning properly again and she'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much.
"Thank you so much," the woman replies, adding the two additional croissants to her larger bag of treats. "You two have a wonderful Christmas."
"Thanks - you too," James says, grinning as the woman turns to leave.
As soon as she's out of the bakery and the door has closed, Lily turns to her co-worker. "I - what was that?"
James just shrugs, looking way more nonchalant than Lily's fluttering heartbeat feels. "I just had a feeling she'd buy more if we played into her assumptions. People just eat that cutesy shit right up."
Well, he's not wrong, but still.
"Sorry if that, you know, crossed any lines or anything," he says, suddenly looking anywhere but at her. "I know you don't exactly like me."
The fact that he's apologizing for something as innocent as wrapping an arm around her waist is surprisingly endearing, especially given that a number of blokes she knows don't even feel remorse for grabbing a girl's ass at a club.
"It didn't cross any lines," she tells him. "It was just… very unexpected, is all."
"Oh."
"And I don't… I don't dislike you," she adds. "I did at first, and you completely deserved it, but I - you're not that bad anymore."
In fact, he's completely the opposite now. The way her brain just short-circuited is proof of that.
"That's - well, that's good to know," he says, with a soft laugh that makes butterflies erupt in her stomach. She can't help but wonder how that sound would feel against her skin.
A new flurry of customers comes in the door though, so the conversation ends at that. They settle into their usual rhythm, but Lily finds herself watching him just a little bit more than usual. He really is harder to figure out that she'd expected - a far cry from the obnoxious boy she'd taken him for on that first day.
He runs his hand through his hair again. It seems to be a nervous habit of his, which he really ought to get in check given their place of work, but it also serves to get Lily thinking about what it would be like to run her hands through it.
Despite how messy it is, it also looks so incredibly soft, and Lily almost physically flexes her hand thinking about tugging it between her fingers.
And, because her brain seems intent on thinking about all sorts of situations that aren't at all work-appropriate today, she specifically starts imagining what it would feel like to have those silky strands of his wrapped around her fingers with his head between her thighs.
She doesn't know why, but he just strikes her as the type of person to be really good at that particular act.
Of course, he'd definitely have to take the gaudy reindeer antlers off for that one.
That brief, uninvited mental image sends her into a fit of giggles, which is entirely inappropriate for the situation, even if there aren't any customers waiting at the counter right now.
"What are you laughing at?"
Lily immediately goes quiet at that, a flush spreading up her cheeks as she tries to come up with a decent enough lie - because the truthful response of 'I was thinking of what it'd be like if you went down on me with those reindeer antlers on' is something her dignity would never allow.
"Nothing," she replies, because no good excuse is coming to her at the moment.
"Mm-hmm," James hums in response, and Lily knows that he doesn't believe her.
But she's saved from having to come up with a legitimate, non-humiliating answer by the jingle of the storefront bell. Two girls around their age walk in, looking around at the paper-snowflake-covered winter wonderland that is Just Desserts.
"Oh, this is just the cutest little place," one of them says. "It's so Insta-worthy."
While the first girl does actually pull out her phone and attempt to take an artsy photo of the display case, the other one walks up to the counter, and Lily doesn't miss the way that her eyes settle on James, giving him an appreciative look.
James is either entirely oblivious to this, or he's electing to ignore it. "Welcome to Just Desserts. What can I get for you today?"
"All of this looks incredible," she says. "What's your favourite?"
Oh, she's definitely flirting with him. Why can't he pretend that she's his girlfriend now, Lily finds herself wondering bitterly.
"Hm," James says, pretending to think about it, even though Lily knows for a fact that he's got a clear favourite.
"It's the salted caramel cake," she says, without even thinking about it. "His favourite is the salted caramel cake."
He looks at her, expression somewhere between shock and confusion, and the girl placing an order seems to notice Lily for the very first time since walking in.
"Oh, well, I'll have a slice of that, please," she says, turning back and addressing James. "If you like it, it must be good."
"I do have incredible taste." His eyes briefly flash over to Lily, and, oh my god, he's doing this to her on purpose. He's taken her jealous outburst and he's running with it by teasing her.
Arsehole.
"I bet you do," the girl replies, before turning to her friend, who's taken to crouching on the ground to get a proper angle of the display case and the snowflakes above. Lily feels a bit sympathetic for her - she'd taken a photo from almost that exact angle a few days ago for the bakery's official Instagram. "What do you want, Bella?"
"I'll have one of the snowflake-shaped sugar cookies, please."
Lily's willing to bet an entire day's pay that the girl is about to take a picture holding the cookie with the paper snowflakes in the background. But she grabs one of the cookies nonetheless, and puts it on a plate, before getting the salted caramel cake out of the display and slicing a piece of it.
She's almost tempted to cut a smaller piece than normal out of spite alone, but eventually decides that she's above being that petty.
The girl at the counter pays for the two treats, and asks, "Do you guys have a shop Instagram, by the way?"
"Uh, yeah," James answers, pushing his glasses up on his nose - another stupidly adorable nervous tick. "It's getyourjustdesserts, no dashes."
She quickly taps her phone a few times. "Followed!" she says brightly. "Oh look, you're featured on it, even better!"
Lily knows the exact picture she's referring to; it's one Lily took a few days ago and couldn't resist posting, along with a caption about the bakery's 'special holiday guest,' complete with a plethora of cute Christmas-y emojis.
She rolled her eyes the entire time while writing the caption, but it fits right in with the festive branding McGonagall wants the place to have during Christmas.
James just laughs - that same soft laugh that made her stomach swoop earlier - and Lily has to reign in the wave of jealousy that strikes her as a result. He's almost definitely doing this to rile her up again, and she will not let him win.
"Thanks so much for these," she says, grabbing the desserts off the counter and taking them to a table.
Lily and James work in relative silence the entire time that the two girls are eating - the only sounds in the bakery being the girls' conversation and the omnipresent Christmas playlist. Sure enough, the Instagram girl - Bella, apparently - does take a picture holding the snowflake cookie. Lily's not even a little bit surprised.
After they've left, and a few more customers have come and gone, Lily pulls out her phone and checks the bakery's Instagram account.
She looks at their newest follower, and can't suppress the giggle at the username.
"Okay, but who on earth has an Instagram handle like sexygemF59 these days?" she says, partly to James and partly just to herself. "I thought we all started changing our usernames to normal things once we got past year 10."
James chuckles, closer to her ear than she anticipated, and Lily realizes that at some point he's come to be standing right behind her.
"Not to mention," she continues rambling, "it sounds like some sort of stripper name. Or a porn bot or something. And like, yeah, she was really pretty and all, but you've got to have an awfully high opinion of yourself to call yourself a 'sexy gem' on social media."
"Maybe it's an inside joke or something," James replies before walking away to grab a cleaning cloth off the counter, and Lily suddenly feels guilty for judging this random girl so harshly. She has absolutely no reason to be jealous of a random girl who flirted with a guy she has absolutely no claim over.
"Yeah, maybe that's it."
"But just so you know, Evans," he adds, and Lily looks up from her phone to find him watching her with slightly-flushed cheeks, "you're way prettier than her anyways."
And if she wasn't already a complete goner - she spent half of today's shift fantasising about him, for heaven's sake - that one definitely would've done it.
I really can't stay, but baby it's cold outside.
Why on earth does this one damn Christmas song have to be so catchy? Lily's been trying to get the blasted thing out of her head for hours now, to absolutely no avail. It's not even a good Christmas song, and people have rightly pointed out that, depending on how you listen to it, it's got a decidedly creepy vibe.
But all of that notwithstanding, she's become one of those people she normally rolls her eyes at, absentmindedly singing a Christmas carol as she pokes around the supply cabinet.
I've got to go away, but baby it's cold outside.
She finds what she's looking for, grabbing the bag of flour and bringing it back into the kitchen area.
This evening has been, so very nice.
"I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice," another voice sings back at her, and Lily jumps at the unexpected presence.
"Your singing voice is still terrible," she tells James. "And I thought you were finishing up closing the front?"
The shit-eating grin on his face doesn't fade in the slightest. "I finished that, and came back here to check if you needed any help."
"I'm good," she replies, pretending like he hadn't just caught her singing a dumb Christmas carol. "Just refilling the flour bin and we should be good to leave."
She does just that, tearing the bag open and pouring it all into the plastic bin labelled 'flour.'
James leans up against the counter next to her. "Does this mean I've officially converted you from your cotton-headed ninny muggins ways?"
"No." She turns and flicks her fingers at him, sending a few splatters of flour across his face. A particularly large piece has landed on the left lens of his glasses, and Lily can't help but giggle at that.
He blinks at her, and then the corner of his mouth turns upward in a smirk. "Careful, Evans - don't start things you aren't prepared to finish."
Lily gets the feeling that he would absolutely crush her in a food fight. Not to mention that they would most definitely get fired if McGonagall ever found out they'd been throwing ingredients at one another.
So instead, she turns to face him and takes a small step forward, and the small gap that was between them before is nonexistent now.
"I don't start anything that I'm not prepared to finish."
He looks down at her, eyes wide, and noticeably swallows. Based on that alone, Lily would be worried that she'd read him all wrong, but the fact that his hand almost instantly settles on her hip suggests that she's read all the signs exactly right.
After a beat of silence, he asks, "Are you going to, or am I going to have to - "
He doesn't get to finish that sentence, because before he can, Lily's lips are crashing into his.
And god, this is a million times better than instigating a food fight.
She slides one hand into his hair - it's exactly as soft as she'd imagined it would be - and uses the other to pull the reindeer antlers off of him and drop them on the ground beside them.
"Careful," he says, against her lips, "I happen to really like those."
"They'll survive," she murmurs, before pressing her mouth to his again.
The hand on her hip pulls her even closer, and when James' lips part and the kiss deepens, Lily loses all capability for functional thought. He tastes like caramel and chocolate and a little bit of flour - some of what she flicked at him must have landed on his lips - and Lily's convinced that nothing in this whole goddamn bakery can compare to the sweetness of this.
It's two days from Christmas, and, despite still not being the biggest fan of the holiday, Lily's still pretty sure she got the best present ever.
She's going on her first date with James after their shift today.
As a result, the day feels like it's moving at a glacial pace. Which is remarkable, really, because she spends most of the day running around the bakery like a madwoman because this is the last day they're open before Christmas and as a result, everyone and their mother is here to pick up an order today.
The store traffic is finally winding down, when the bakery door swings open and McGonagall walks in.
"McGonagall!" Lily says, smiling at her boss even though, truth be told, she's definitely a little intimidated by the bakery owner. "What are you doing here?"
"Just wanted to check on things before we close up for the next two days," the woman replies.
"Minnie!" James comes out from the back, grinning. "It's good to see you!"
"Not my name," McGonagall answers sharply, but she's looking at James fondly, so clearly she doesn't mind it too much. "It's good to see you as well, Mr. Potter. I take it you two have been doing just fine with all the holiday traffic today?"
"Right as rain," James answers. "Evans and I make a good team."
"So I've noticed. Perhaps too good a team, if the kitchen security camera footage is to be trusted."
The smile slips off of James' face and Lily freezes. Oh fuck.
"Yes, imagine my surprise when I go to check on the security cameras and find two of my employees canoodling in the kitchens," she says, with a remarkably level voice.
Internally, Lily is absolutely losing her goddamn mind, and her heart's about to fall out of her chest. For as much as she grumbles about it, she loves this job, and it's helping her pay her way through uni - and she's about to get fired from it.
She never would've kissed James - or, at the very least, would've waited until they were outside the bakery, if she knew this was going to be the result.
But instead of uttering the words Lily's bracing herself for, McGonagall reaches into her handbag, pulls out a metal tin, and pops the lid open.
"Have a biscuit. They're a new recipe."
Lily just stares at the tin, then back up at her boss.
"I - what?"
James forms a coherent sentence before she does. "You're not mad?"
"As long as no health code violations result - and I'm hoping they didn't - I see absolutely no problem with employees dating each other. Although, I'd prefer it if you kept your kitchen shenanigans to a minimum."
"We can do that," Lily says immediately. "I'm so sorry that happened in the first place."
"Really, Miss Evans, it's fine," McGonagall says, and Lily sees a soft smile bloom across the woman's features. "Now, both of you, please try these - I want to know if we should add them to the menu."
And so Lily grabs a biscuit, and it is pretty damn incredible - although that may partially be because the taste is mixed with the sweet relief that she's not about to lose her job.
After what will definitely go down in history as the weirdest interaction she's ever had with her boss, the rest of Lily's shift goes by swimmingly, until finally, the whole bakery is closed up.
Lily locks the front door, before turning to James. "So, where are we going?"
"You'll see," is James' cryptic response.
Lily gets the feeling that questioning him further is likely to prove entirely useless, so she resigns herself to the inevitable surprise and grabs hold of his hand with her gloved one. "Alright then, lead the way."
They walk about five blocks before Lily figures out exactly where they're going.
"You're taking me to the Christmas market, aren't you?" she asks, deadpan.
"Sort of," James responds cheerfully.
And Lily resists rolling her eyes - he still won't give up on this damn dedication to turn her into a Christmas person - but goes along with it nonetheless. It is kind of sweet that he's going through all this effort, and it seems to make him genuinely happy. And maybe she owes it to her dad to at least try to enjoy some of his favourite holiday.
When they arrive, most of the market is already closed - the bakery's open pretty late anyways, so it would make sense that most of the stalls here would close before they got off work.
But the one thing still illuminated is the ice-skating rink, bathed in a light blue glow as more Christmas music plays softly through the surrounding features.
"I might've pulled some strings to keep this thing open a little bit longer," James tells her.
Those 'strings' turn out to be his friend Sirius, who apparently works at the little ice rink. He gets them both fitted for ice skates, before disappearing into his little shack. He leaves them with a 'no shagging on the ice' warning - which Lily would argue is hardly necessary because who the hell has the balance for that? - but James responds with an affirmative 'roger that' anyways.
Lily isn't a bad skater, and she's at least beyond the point of having to grip on the sides for dear life, but it quickly becomes apparent that James is way more skilled at this than she is. At one point, he grabs both her hands and starts skating backwards, pulling her along.
"You're such a show-off," she tells him, laughing.
"You might have to learn to just deal with that one, Evans," he replies, dropping one of her hands and turning to skate beside her again.
They continue circling the rink, hands entwined and both engaged in conversation, that Lily barely recognises the opening notes of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" coming on.
And even when she does, she finds that it doesn't sting quite as much as it usually does.
James, however, notices immediately, coming to a sudden stop and looking concerned. "Shit, I'm sorry. I can - I can go ask Sirius to change the song."
"No, leave it," she replies. "It's… it's nice."
"Oh. Okay."
"I just - " Lily reaches up to pull a strand of hair away from her face. "This is exactly how he would've wanted me spending the holiday season. Ice skating, listening to his favourite song, on a date with the only boy I've met whose passion for Christmas cheer matches his own. If he's up there somewhere looking down on me right now, I know that he'd be really damn happy."
James' face lights up like a Christmas tree, and he leans down to give her a quick kiss. "I knew you had it in you. See, you were capable of getting into the holiday spirit!"
Lily rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Is this where you tell me 'it's the true meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown'?"
"A-ha! And you know Christmas movies now!"
"I've known Christmas movies for a while now, you idiot," she tells him, lightly smacking him on the arm. "You don't get to take all the credit."
"But I do get some," he argues back.
"Yes," she sighs, because she might as well let him have this one. "You get some."
And as the clock bleeds into Christmas Eve, Lily finds herself thinking that, despite only knowing him for less than a month - and having a rocky start at that - being with James right now really does feel like coming home.
A/N: In case anyone was wondering, the girl who comes into the bakery and immediately starts taking pictures for Instagram is 100% a self-insert.
Also I accidentally gave myself an idea for a short little sequel to this, so that might happen at some point. Whoops.