Lily Evans is proud to say she is a perfectionist. She's an excellent planner of pretty much everything. Birthday party? You got it. Last-minute baby shower? No problem at all. A high school fundraiser? Piece of cake.
She excels in everything she puts her mind to, always has.
So it's only natural that her friends put her in charge of the Christmas party this year. And everything had been going smoothly, really. The decorations were set, the food was arranged and everyone who mattered had confirmed they'd be there.
Everything was perfect and going as planned and not a single item had been left unchecked on her planner.
Except for the Christmas tree.
Which she didn't put on the list because it seemed obvious that a Christmas party requires a Christmas fucking tree so she didn't even put it on the list.
Google tells her that the only nearby Christmas tree farm that's open at 11pm on December 23rd is a place called "The Potter's Very Merry Christmas Tree Farm", which is sort of an unnecessarily long name but she'll take it.
After only getting lost about three times, she manages to find the farm and park on the deserted and dimly lit parking lot. If this turns out to be some creepy place with an ax murderer, at least she doesn't have to go through the failure of throwing a Christmas party without a Christmas tree.
She gets out of her car and makes her way to the door, opening it to reveal a small reception with a fireplace and a couple of armchairs facing it.
There's also a counter and at first she thinks there's no one behind it, but when the little bell on top of the door rings, a very tall young man with messy black hair wearing a flannel shirt - cliché much? - and a crooked pair of antlers jumps and nearly topples his chair over.
He takes a second to secure both the chair and the antlers in his head before turning to her. "Hi- hello, good evening."
She's silent for a few seconds before she regains her composure from the slight scare he gave her. "Good evening, I was wondering if you have any Christmas trees left?"
He stares at her for a couple of seconds before he bursts into laughter. Straight up starts laughing, the booming sound taking up the small square of wood they're currently standing in.
Lily, having inherited her own mother's hot temper, quickly grows annoyed at the young man snickering at her. "Excuse me? Did I say something funny?"
He takes a while to actually stop laughing uncontrollably, and still, he's giggling when he looks at her. "Sorry, it's just that I owe my mom 10 bucks, that's all."
Her annoyed expression shifts into a confused one. "What? Why?"
"We never open on the 23rd, but she insisted that we stay open until midnight this year," he barely manages to get the words out in between the giggles. "Since I was gonna be obligated to work, I bet her that no one would be dumb enough to go Christmas tree shopping late at night on Christmas Eve Eve, but here you are."
She doesn't know what makes her angrier: the fact that he's been laughing at her expense pretty much since she walked into the room, the fact that he just called her dumb, or the fact that he's right.
"I'm not dumb, you asshole," comes her lame response. 'Cause really, what argument could she possibly have to defend herself against the truth?
"No, of course not. You just decided to buy a Christmas tree at the last possible second, that's all."
"Yes, and?" another lame response. Damn, she really has to up her game.
He shrugs, and he can't contain his smile from coming out. And maybe he's cute or whatever, but Lily can't focus on that right now.
"Is that how you treat your customers regularly? Maybe I should go and get that tree somewhere else."
His smile gets even wider and damn, that's a good smile. "Oh, by all means. I'm sure you'll find hundreds of Christmas tree farms open at," he makes a show of checking the time on his wrist watch, even though there's a massive digital clock behind him, "ten thirty in the night on the 23rd of december."
He has to control himself not to laugh out loud when he sees the angry red spots surfacing into her neck and cheeks. It's the most fun he's had all night, truly.
"Maybe I'll just buy a fake tree," it's admirable, how stubborn she is.
"Yeah, maybe. But you don't seem like the type to settle for something as basic as a plastic tree."
Once again, he's right. She puts everything on her mental scale, weighing her pride and the need to have a perfect party.
This time, her pride needs to go.
"Can't you just give me a damn tree and I'll pay for it and we never have to see each other again?"
He frowns a bit. Well, yeah, that's what he's there for: selling trees and maybe seeing the customer again in the next Christmas. But the thing is, he doesn't want to never see her again. He doesn't even know her name, but she's witty and gorgeous and stubborn and if they'd met at a bar, he'd definitely try to buy her a drink and start a conversation.
"Well?" she urges him, unaware of the thoughts running through his head.
"As you wish, princess," he finally decides on, noticing the way she twists her nose at the nickname.
He leads her to the back door, toward the tree plantation. When they get there, there's only a handful of trees there, most of them crooked or with a few branches missing from the trunk. They look like they're ready to meet a trash can, or a woodchipper.
She tries her hardest to keep her face clear of the disappointment at having to choose between an ugly tree and a less ugly one. She's only known this boy for a few minutes, but she knows he's gonna laugh at her misery once more.
"Sorry we don't have a wider variety for you. All the good trees were sold to people who buy them at a reasonable time, you know."
She takes a deep breath and counts to three, picturing herself beating him up in her mind to calm her urges to actually do it right then and there. "The one on the left is fine," she says and turns to head back inside and wait for him to drag the tree.
Fifteen minutes later, he's helping her put the tree on top of her car, being careful so no more branches snap on the already skinny tree.
"Happy Christmas?" he offers when he's secured the tree and they're just standing there awkwardly.
She eyes him, keys in hand. "Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too."
The smile he gives her this time is clear of malice, and it takes her breath away. She really needs to get going.
She waves at him and gets into the car, watching his tall frame standing in the parking lot from the rearview mirror. Well, she got what she wanted, right? She got the tree, paid for it and now they're never gonna see each other again.
The next day, Lily wakes up at precisely at 8am, just as she had planned. She quickly showers and takes her breakfast so she can start working on the decorations at 9am, just as she had planned.
She's halfway through filling up the Santa balloons when Marlene calls her.
"Hey, Marls!"
"Hullo, Lils! How's the party prep going?" comes the blonde's voice through the phone speaker.
"Oh, smooth as you flirting skills," she teases, hiding the brief bump in the road she'd had the night before.
Marlene laughs on the other end. "Oh, you flatter me too much," she uses an exaggerated posh accent and the redhead laughs too. "I'm glad things are going well, but I wanted to ask you a favor, actually."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Well, I wanted to see if I could invite a couple of guys for the party? They're Remus' friends too, and they mentioned they were looking for a Christmas party and I thought it'd be nice to invite them."
Lily deliberates for a second, running through everything she planned and deciding there's no harm in adding a few people to the mix. It's Christmas, after all.
"Yeah, sure! Just tell them to bring something to drink and some dessert and they're all set."
"Thanks, Lils! See you tonight," she makes kissing sounds before hanging up and Lily goes back to her balloons.
Lily stands in the middle of her living room and regards her finished work.
Everything looks just as it should look, if you ignore the Christmas tree. She'd put up garlands and multiple Christmas lights, scented candles, snow globes and a couple of mistletoes around the room. Of course she could never forget the Christmas classics playlist that was required to play in the background.
She managed to make the tree look less bad than she thought it would, and that's thanks to the hundreds of ornaments and tinsels she had hung in it. The tree-topper was precariously placed on top of the curved tip of the tree. She could only pray that it would remain standing all night.
She had just plopped down on the couch to wait for the guests when the doorbell rang for the first time. And so began the process of being a good host and welcoming each and every single guest into her house.
The first ones to arrive are Frank and Alice, followed by Dorcas, Benjy, Emmeline and so on. Soon, there were about fifteen people in her living room and the table was overflowing with food.
Lily is making the rounds and making sure everyone had a full drink in their hand when the doorbell rings again. She heads for the door and opens it, immediately being attacked by Marlene in a tight hug.
"Hey, I thought you weren't coming," Lily says, returning the hug as tightly as she can.
Marlene lets go of her friend and laughs. "Nah, I just had to pick up these dumbasses here," someone makes an indignant noise but Lily can't see them.
Remus chuckles and steps forward to give Lily a much more tame hug. "Hey, Lily."
"Hello there, Mister."
He steps aside to introduce the rest of the boys to Lily, and there's no mistaking that head full of messy hair as anyone other than the guy from the tree farm the day before.
She politely greets Peter, the plump young man with blue eyes carrying a tray of pudding. Then she greets Sirius, the handsome and pale man who looks like a living and breathing marble statue.
The whole time, all she can focus on is the nameless guy who has plagued her mind since the night before. He keeps staring at her with that knowing smirk and it's driving her crazy.
He finally steps forward and stands in front of her, and she realises everyone else has entered the flat to mingle and they're the only ones left in the doorway.
"Lily, huh?" the smirk is still very much there.
"Yeah, Evans. And you are?" she asks, in her best effort not to seem affected by his smirk and his jawline and the pair of ridiculous antlers still positioned on his head.
"James Potter, it's a pleasure to meet you," he sticks his hand out, and she gives it a firm shake, feeling the various calluses in his palm.
"The pleasure's all mine," did this sound flirtatious? God, she needs to take some classes from Marlene. "Come inside, please," now that just sounded overly polite. What is she doing?
They get inside and she quickly darts in Alice's direction, looking for any kind of escape from the tree farm guy - or James, as she discovered.
She'd noticed he was good looking the night before, of course. But she was too desperate and annoyed to properly pay attention to that at the time. But now she's a couple of wine glasses in, and not desperate or annoyed at all. Which means he's got basically all of her attention.
It's bad, really bad.
Her heart slows down, and she decides it was just an over exaggeration on her part. There's no need to be this flustered over a guy just because he had a nice smile. And jawline. And eyes. His mouth wasn't too bad, either.
The party goes on and Lily sneaks a few glances to James, noticing how easily he blends in with her friends. One time she walks by him as he's telling a story, obviously showing off, and she doesn't miss the way he pauses mid sentence and meets her gaze.
Mary has just excused herself to go to the loo when she feels a presence beside her. She turns around and faces a pair of hazel eyes hidden behind thick lenses.
"I like what you've done with the tree."
She raises an eyebrow and turns to her left. The tree-top has fallen off its place at least six times during the party, until Lily lost her patience and shoved it in the middle of two ornaments, where it stood even more precariously.
"Really," she deadpans.
He's visibly fighting the laughter trying to come out of him. "Sure, I think it looks… charming," and just as he says it, the tree-top falls off again.
It's the strangled sound of his laughter that sets her off, and a second later she's clutching her belly and laughing beside the tall boy. The tree looks absolutely ridiculous, no matter how hard she tried to make it pretty or festive.
Just then, there's a shout from the other side of the room, and they turn to see Sirius - with one arm thrown over Marlene's shoulder - pointing at them with his beer bottle. "MISTLETOE!"
Immediately the whole party's attention falls on James and Lily, and she curses herself for having no one else to blame but herself for this moment. She looks up and sure enough, there's a mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.
Next thing she knows, the flat has been taken over by the sound of everyone chanting "kiss, kiss, kiss" at them, and she can feel the familiar heat rising from her neck and to her face and ears.
James leans forward and for a second she panics, thinking he's gonna kiss her just like that. He brings his mouth to her ear, instead. "You don't have to do this, okay? You can just give me a kiss on the cheek or nothing, really. I don't mind."
And he's just so sweet, and she doesn't know why but the sheer thoughtfulness of him just breaks something inside of her and she moves her head so she's looking into his eyes, slowly coming closer and closer, giving him the chance to back off if he wants to.
She can sense the moment he understands. His eyes widen slightly before he gently grabs her face and presses his lips to hers. He tastes like wine and the pudding Peter brought, his mouth slightly sticky.
She welcomes the kiss, burying her hands in his hair and just enjoying everything about this moment while it lasts. His stubble scratches against her chin, and his glasses bump against her nose. Her lipstick smears around his mouth, but none of them mind.
Once again, it's Sirius who shouts and shocks them out of the moment. Remus is chuckling in the corner and Marlene stares at them with an open mouth and a shocked expression.
James and Lily stare at each other and laugh once again, the redhead bringing her hands down to his mouth to try and clean her red lipstick off him. He does the same, but it does little to fix the disaster on both of their faces.
Slowly, the guests turn back to their own conversations and stop ogling at the pair.
"The bathroom's that way," she points, and he looks at her with raised eyebrows.
"Why, Evans, you want to get me all alone in your bathroom?"
She rolls her eyes and can't contain the smile that makes its way to her smudged lips. "You look like the Joker, I thought you'd want to clean up."
"Well, I think i could get used to this look. It depends, really."
"On what?"
He brings his face close to hers once again. "On how often you wear lipstick, of course."
"Oh, you think that we're going to repeat that anytime soon?" she teases him, ignoring the urge to capture his lips with hers again.
"Oh, I have a very strong feeling that it's gonna happen, yes," he says and starts walking backwards towards the bathroom, eyebrows raised. He looks positively absurd with those antlers and his mouth smudged in dark red lipstick.
She must look ridiculous too, with the same red lipstick smeared all around her mouth and that ludicrous smile, standing in the middle of her crowded living room.
Maybe she should learn to value unplanned situations, after all.