Too Fic Too Furious

by elanev91

The M25 needs to undergo massive emergency repairs and the entire motorway has been shut down for, well, probably the rest of eternity. Lily Evans was foolish enough to think she could make it through before the traffic properly started. She's absolutely dying of boredom when she spots the guy in the car opposite. Nonsense ensues.

Who wants a dumb fic about a traffic jam? You? Brilliant. X

(Hey squad remember when this was a joke a decade ago? IT WAS BEFORE WE WERE EVEN US. Oops)

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All the news presenters said that the construction was going to lead to the worst traffic the UK had ever seen.

Said the M25, already a chaotic nightmare, was going to be way over any kind of manageable automobile capacity, especially because the widening works were still causing delays across ten junctions.

Said whatever you do, avoid the Orbital, because the motorway is going to be completely shut down for hours at a time and whatever you might think, you aren't going to be one of the lucky few that gets through before the emergency repairs begin.

They said a lot of things, made the warning quite plain, but sometimes Lily Evans is a stubborn idiot and she let herself believe that she could catch the road before the congestion got too bad.

Lily Evans hadn't moved in two hours.

She'd left her car on at first, hoped that her running engine would somehow trigger everyone else on the bloody motorway to realise, you know what, maybe we should just drive after all, but after forty-five minutes of sitting in the same spot and not even being tempted to hit the gas, Lily decided that no amount of wishful thinking in the world was going to fix this, and she shut off the engine.

Lily opened up all the windows to invite the breeze, left her radio off, and flicked her mobile into airplane mode so that she didn't drain her battery and end up with no other recourse to get off this damn road. She didn't have a book, she'd eaten her last car snack a few weeks ago and had never thought to replace it, she'd left her fucking extra charging cord in her office, and yeah, she had a notebook and should probably use the time to start working on her characters a bit, but she was still struggling with them and why was she going to torture herself any more than she was already being tortured?

She leant back in her seat and closed her eyes, tried to let her mind wander to pass the time.

Unfortunately, her brain was a rude bastard, and she managed to relax for a total of five minutes before her mind wandered back around to the novel she was supposed to be working on (she cringed even thinking of it like that — it wasn't a novel yet, just a collection of ideas that she kept thinking about writing while never actually opening up a document on her computer) and she opened her eyes again.

It was always great being a writer when things were going well — she got to lounge around her flat in her trackies, cups of tea at the ready, bang away on her keyboard all day, and giggle to herself about just how fucking brilliant she was — but damn it, when things were rough… they were rough. She supposed it was like that with most professions, but the glory of an office job (at least, all her old office jobs, anyway) was that she could stop thinking about work the moment she left the office every day. Writing never left her — it was always there, nagging in the back of her mind, begging her to sit down and actually write something.

Writing fucking sucked.

She sighed forcefully, and was just about on the verge of giving in, pulling out her notebook, and scribbling out a few sentences to see if it would unblock whatever it was that was clogging her mind when she heard someone start shouting from the car next to her.

'Sirius, what do you want me to do?!'

She looked round, grateful for the distraction, and saw a dark haired, spectacled man in the car next to her looking thoroughly irritated. The bloke in the car ran his hand through his hair, and groaned in response to whatever the person on the line had said.

'Well, pardon me, Sirius, let me just fucking magic all these cars away and I'll be there in a jiffy…. I'm not trying to be an arsehole, mate, I just need you to fucking realise — YES, Sirius, fuck, of course I — ' he pulled the mobile away from his face and glared at it for a moment, muttering to himself before he chucked it into the seat beside him.

'Everything alright?'

He looked up, glanced around, confused, before he looked over and his eyes found hers. She'd started kicking herself the moment the words left her mouth (who the fuck just talks to a stranger while they're stranded on the motorway?!) but it was too late to take it back now. He smiled at her, and even though it was still a bit strained from the stress of the phone call, it looked genuine.

'Besides being stuck here, you mean?'

She laughed. 'Shit, yeah.'

He grinned, but it was just a brief flash on his lips before it faded back to the tired expression he'd been wearing a moment before. 'Yeah, everything's alright. Sirius'll get over it. Hopefully.'

'Who's Sirius?'

'My brother,' he sighed and shifted in his seat so that he was almost facing her. 'I'm missing his stag do and he's really fucking angry with me about it.'

'Well, it's not like there's anything you can do,' Lily said, gesturing towards the cars all around them.

He laughed, half shrugged. 'You obviously don't know Sirius.'

She grinned. 'Clearly.'

He groaned just loudly enough that she could hear him, put his head down on the steering wheel for a few moments. Lily, assuming the conversation was officially over, bent down to pull her notebook out of her bag.

'I just don't know what he expects me to do.'

Lily hadn't expected him to speak again, and she jumped a bit before she turned to look at him. His hand was in his hair again, and, despite the fact that he looked legitimately annoyed, he also looked a bit anxious.

'There's nothing that I can do about all this damn traffic. He's the one that decided to have the stupid thing in Brighton and he's the one that insisted I bring the car. I could have taken the train, like a sane person, or we could have just had the damn thing in London. We all already bloody live here!'

She couldn't tell if he wanted her to interrupt, to assert that, yes, this Sirius was obviously an arsebadgering fuckwit and what was he thinking putting his mates through this, but apparently he was content with her silence, because he continued to ramble on.

'"We've got to go to the i360, James, and oh, the wheel, you know I love a good wheel",' his tone had become almost painfully posh and he'd swivelled his head in a way that would have made Lily laugh out loud if it wasn't clear that he (James, apparently) wasn't incredibly annoyed, 'as if we don't have a fucking wheel he could go to right here if it was really about the damn wheel!

'I pointed all of this out to him, obviously, but he just came back at me with "oh, well you know that Brighton is the gay capital of the UK, James, are you really going to try and straight man me out of my plans" and what the fuck was I supposed to say to that, eh? Arsehole.'

She was biting back a smile when he looked over at her, and she hastily rearranged her features to make it look like she wasn't as amused by his situation as she was. He frowned. 'You probably think I'm mad, don't you?'

She laughed then, shook her head at him. 'No, I think you're hilarious actually.'

He groaned. 'I'm glad my struggles are so amusing to you.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Oh please, there are worse things.'

He gave her a deadpan sort of expression. 'You really, really don't know Sirius.'

She smiled. 'Fair. Though, I'm sure that he'll come round.' He raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed. 'Eventually.'

They lapsed into silence again.

She looked down at the notebook in her lap, ran her finger along the edge. She really should write something.

'So, you're James, then?'

His head snapped up. 'How'd you know?'

'"We have to go see the i360, James",' she said, her voice sliding into the same posh tone he'd used earlier.

James burst out laughing. 'That was a remarkably good impression of him.'

Lily cocked an eyebrow. 'Better than yours?'

James chuckled. 'Not quite posh enough. If you take out the Northern inflection, you'd be bang on.'

She frowned at him. 'Northerners can be posh!'

James raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at his lips. 'Can they?'

She nodded, assumed a dignified air that made James smile. 'We can. We're just above that sort of behaviour.'

'God,' James laughed, shook his head, 'Sirius would love you.'

'Pity he's getting married, then.'

'Oh please,' she couldn't tell from here, but she was sure from the tone of his voice that he'd rolled his eyes at her. 'Like you don't have blokes banging on your door every day of the week.'

She sent him a wry smile. 'Doesn't mean I've got blokes worth paying attention to.'

'True.' He grinned. 'So what got you stuck on the Orbital today?'

Lily sighed. 'My own stupidity, mostly.'

'Oh?'

'I —' She looked up, and though her cheeks were a bit red, her expression was stern. 'You better not make fun of me for what I'm about to say.'

He gasped, touched a hand to his chest. 'Do I look like someone who makes fun of people?'

She grinned in spite of herself. 'Yes.'

'Well,' he assumed a dignified expression and Lily pressed her lips together. 'I promise I won't make fun of you.'

She continued to eye him and he visibly bit back a grin as he held up his hand. 'On my honour.'

She sighed. Even if he did laugh at her, she was never going to see him again after they got off this damn motorway, so what did it really matter? If she had to shut her window and slide over into the passenger's seat to avoid him, so be it.

'I rented a small flat in Brighton for the weekend so I could start drafting this novel I'm trying to start.'

He immediately brightened. 'Really? That's brilliant! What's your novel about?'

No one, save Marlene and her editor (and, okay, her agent and a few other people she'd met on book tour - but mostly no one), had ever reacted like that before.

She must have looked a bit shocked because James frowned. 'I'm not taking the piss. I'm genuinely interested, I swear.'

'No, I — I didn't think you were, I was just — surprised, I guess.'

'Why?!'

She shrugged. 'People are usually weird about it.'

'Well fuck those people. You're doing something amazing, writing a book. Is this your first book?'

Lily bit the corner of her lip before she gave up and let the smile flood her face. 'Third, actually.'

'Shit, really?' His face became anxious. 'Should I have heard of you? What's your name?'

'Lily Evans.'

She watched, amused, as he waited for the spark of recognition to hit him. He furrowed his brow at her. 'I don't think I've read any of your stuff. But you better believe I'm stopping at Waterstones once we get off the motorway and buying your entire collected works.'

She laughed. 'You'll have a hell of a time finding me, I bet.'

He frowned, confused. 'Why's that?'

Her smile widened. 'I write under a pseudonym.'

His jaw dropped. Literally dropped.

Lily burst out laughing.

'I — you — Here I was, whipping myself up into an embarrassed frenzy about how I didn't know who you were and you — Evans! Stop laughing at me!'

She couldn't. She was doubled over laughing, could barely breathe with the effort of it.

She waved a hand in front of her face, tried to take a breath to steady herself, but every time she just about got herself under control, she remembered the look on his face, his jaw hanging slack and his eyes wide, and she lost it all over again.

He crossed his arms and tried to glare at her, but every time she caught his eye —

'Okay, okay, okay,' she took a few deep breaths, tried to settle the last bubbles of laughter rippling through her. 'I'm okay.'

James raised his eyebrows at her. 'Are you?'

'As long as I don't think about the look on your face,' she bit back a laugh again now that she'd remembered it, 'I'll be fine.'

He crossed his arms. 'Do you enjoy hurting me like this?'

Lily laughed and rolled her eyes extra dramatically. 'Oh my fucking god,' she started shaking her head at him, 'you are so extra.'

James frowned at her. 'I resent that.'

LIly nodded soberly. 'I'm sure you do.'

They lapsed into silence again.

Lily pressed the home button on her mobile to check the time (15:04) and shuffled her feet lightly against the pedals. As anxious as she'd been to get off this fucking road a few hours earlier, she found, now, that she wasn't that cut up about having to continue to sit there.

Maybe it was a bit ridiculous, but James…

He was easy to talk to and she liked the sound of his voice and the way he made her laugh.

It was a bit ridiculous, given that she knew nothing about him and they'd only just met (and in the middle of the bloody motorway no less), but she wanted to know him.

Maybe it was the writer in her. Maybe she was just being sentimental.

Whatever it was, she found that she didn't really care as long as she kept James talking to her.

'So, what do you do?'

James started and he turned to look at her. Lily smiled apologetically. 'Oh, uh — You can ignore me, I —'

James shook his head. 'No, no, I just didn't expect — I'm a pastry chef.'

Lily's eyes widened. 'Really?!'

He nodded. 'Yeah. Just opened my own storefront a few months ago actually. It's going alright so far, but —' Lily could tell he was laughing from his expression but she couldn't hear it, far apart as they were. 'It's a lot more stressful than I ever anticipated and I pretty much knew what I was getting into, so it's been a bit of a shock.'

'Who's watching the shop while you're away for the weekend?'

'My assistant, Dorcas. She's been with me since the very beginning, so I'm not worried leaving her in charge. And we just got this great apprentice, Benjy, he — Evans, he's inspired.'

She smiled. 'Where's your bakery?'

'Southwark. We're right near Borough Market, actually. The shop is small, but walking distance to the market… I couldn't pass that up. I can also barely afford to pay for it, but there we are.'

'The money'll come eventually.'

James nodded. 'We've been doing really well given how new we are. It's my hot instagram game — it's been drumming up all kinds of business for us.'

Lily bit her lip to stop the smile spreading across her face. 'What's your Insta?'

James raised an eyebrow at her (Lily's smile broke free when his brow popped up over the rim of his glasses). 'Are you just going to look at it so you can laugh at me some more?'

She shook her head and pulled her mobile out of the centre console. 'No. I just really want to see.'

James considered her for a moment. 'Is it alright if I come over there? I want to see what you think and I'm also tired of yelling. I mean, you can say no — obviously you can say no — I just thought, maybe —'

Lily raised an eyebrow at him and James fell silent, an embarrassed look on his face.

Lily knew that she should probably say no (knew that if Marlene found out what she was about to do, she would have her fucking head), but she and James had been talking for a little while and he didn't seem like a killer.

Granted, that's what people always said about people that turn out to be killers, but really, James didn't seem creepy.

And she really wanted to see if his food was as good as she was hoping it was.

It was probably a mistake when she was as hungry as she was, but —

She nodded slowly. 'Yeah, alright. As long as you swear you aren't a killer. And you never tell my housemate that I did this.'

James touched a hand to his chest. 'I swear to you that I will neither murder you nor tell your housemate.'

Lily nodded. 'Come on, then.'

'See you in a sec.' Lily breathed a laugh as James unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door.

The guy in the car behind James was giving him a furious look, but James didn't notice.

He slid into the backseat of Lily's car and pulled the door shut behind him. He was beaming at her when she looked at him in the rearview.

'Why didn't you get in the front? I feel like a cab driver,' Lily said.

James breathed a laugh, rapped his hand lightly against the back of her passenger seat. 'To Brighton, please. Double time.'

She rolled her eyes at him in the mirror and James' smile widened. 'Tell me your instagram name, you loser.'

'I — okay, you have to promise not to make fun of me.'

Lily turned around in her seat so she could look him in the eye. 'Why?'

James bit his lip. 'Because — Sirius came up with the name and it just — it's catchy and —'

Oh my god.

Lily didn't even bother to hide her excitement. 'What is it?'

James mumbled something that Lily didn't quite catch and she raised an eyebrow at him, her smile widening. 'What was that?'

'Sugar Daddy Bakes.'

Lily immediately burst out laughing and James buried his face in his hands. 'God, I knew you'd laugh. I knew it.'

'James — you — that's why you didn't want to shout it across the road!'

'I keep wanting to change it to something a little more… not that, but now we've got that storefront and — it's just too late now.'

Lily was only partially listening as she typed his handle into Instagram. His account was the first one that popped up and she clicked in.

'Holy shit. Fifty eight thousand followers?!' She started scrolling through his pictures — honeycomb donuts, a video of meringues being piped, Danish pastries with all kinds of fillings…

She looked up, intending to say something about how fucking delicious it all looked, but he'd been leaning over the back of her seat watching her scroll and so, when she looked up, they were a lot closer than she thought they'd be.

His eyes were a rich hazel, a bright ring of gold around the outside, with flecks of deep green and warm brown in the centre. She'd never seen more beautiful eyes in her life.

She held his gaze for a moment before she pulled in a sharp breath and looked back down at her screen.

'These look delicious.'

James cleared his throat and Lily saw him lean back out of the corner of her eye. 'Thanks. I'm particularly proud of that honeycomb on those donuts. I hadn't made it since pastry school.'

'How do you make that?'

James shrugged. 'It's a basic caramel with some bicarb thrown in. That's what makes the bubbles.'

'Huh. You'll have to make me some sometime.'

As soon as Lily realised what she'd said, her face went the slightest bit pink. She couldn't be inviting herself into his future life, let alone demanding he cook for her.

James, though, didn't seem to mind. He smiled at her. 'You should stop by the shop when we're back in London. You can help me make it.'

Lily's eyes widened and she totally failed to hide her enthusiasm. 'Really? That'd be fucking brilliant! Though,' she sighed, 'I'll warn you now. I'm an absolutely awful cook.'

James grinned. 'No worries. I'm good enough for the both of us.'

Lily snorted and rolled her eyes, but she couldn't very well fight him on it when she had his Instagram in front of her as evidence.

She turned in her seat so she could look him in the eye. 'What's your favourite thing to make?'

'Oh, bread, without question.'

Lily raised her eyebrows. 'That was quick.'

He breathed a laugh. 'It's just the best. I love making most things, except puff pastry, which is a time consuming pain in my arse, but bread is always enjoyable.'

'What do you like about it?'

James took a deep breath, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees so that they were closer together again. The look on his face — it was like he was preparing to talk about the most magical thing in the world.

'I like everything. The way the dough feels in your hand as you knead it, how it goes from sticky and wet to baby smooth, and how you can feel that change happening in your hands. So many people hate kneading because it's a little tedious, but there's nothing better than feeling the dough change under your hands — and it's great stress relief.'

Lily felt her breathing start to go shallow as he talked, as she watched the way his hands moved in the air over an invisible loaf of bread and his eyes got bright and excited.

She shouldn't be feeling the things she was feeling while he talked about this.

It was bread, for fucks sake.

'It's also just — god, this is a little sentimental and embarrassing — but it's what bread is, you know?' He looked at her with an almost reverent expression and she hated that she didn't have the slightest idea what he was on about. It was like she was missing out on some grand secret.

She shook her head. 'I really don't.'

James sighed. 'It's — god — it's just the backbone of so much of what we eat, you know? And normally, it's just like buying a loaf at the store, it's fine, whatever, but when you've spent all that time labouring over it and putting your weight into it and waiting for it to rise and prove and all that?'

He had a slightly mystified look on his face as he shook his head. 'Evans, that'll change your life, that bread.'

'I have literally never heard anyone talk about bread this way in my life.'

James smiled a bit sheepishly, reached up, and scrubbed the back of his neck. 'Like I said, it's mostly sentimental drivel on my part, but —'

Lily shook her head. 'No — well, maybe.' James laughed and Lily smiled at him. 'It just really makes me want to go to your bakery is all. See these magical breads for myself.'

'I was serious when I invited you over earlier.'

Lily raised an eyebrow at him. 'You actually want to see me again?'

'Of course.'

They both fell quiet.

It was hard for her to believe that he actually wanted to see her again when they got off this motorway. Sure he'd said so, he'd said so twice now, but she was just some random stranger that he'd met on the middle of the highway in the middle of a once in a lifetime traffic jam, and he couldn't honestly mean that.

But she would've meant it if she'd been the one saying it.

Why couldn't James mean it?

Maybe it wasn't that he couldn't mean it, but it was that Lily didn't know what to think if he did.

She wasn't the type to ever do this — though what this was she really wasn't sure because she wasn't even doing anything. She didn't go to the pub and didn't talk to men she didn't know and she didn't meet strangers anywhere, really, and talk to them about herself and her work and… well, anything.

She didn't meet strange men and talk to them about things.

It wasn't clear to her why this was different with James.

Why she'd shouted at him out her window, why she'd let him into her car, why, now, she was sitting here thinking that she couldn't wait to see him outside this car, couldn't wait to see him in his bakery back in London where she'd get this glimpse of him that she just couldn't get stranded on the motorway as they were.

She didn't do this.

But maybe she was doing this and so it didn't matter if she didn't used to do this because she was doing it now.

None of this was making any sense.

After a moment, Lily gave up trying to sort things out and decided to just follow her instinct. She set her mobile back in the centre console, turned a bit in her seat. 'I'm starting to feel a bit weird sitting up here. Move over towards the door?'

James was halfway through asking her why when she kicked one leg in between the front seats, and started scrambling into the back. It was the least attractive way of moving into the back of a car, but she didn't exactly fancy getting out where a whole motorway full of people could see her.

They'd probably seen her throwing herself into the back of the car anyway, but the confined space allowed her to pretend that she and James were in a private, impenetrable bubble.

She settled heavily into the backseat next to James. He was looking at her, a slightly amused expression on his face as she got comfortable and she raised an eyebrow at him.

'What?'

James shrugged. 'Just didn't expect you to join me back here.'

'I told you I was starting to feel weird up there.'

James nodded slowly like he didn't quite believe her, but he didn't say anything else. He just looked at her, his eyes moving slowly over her face before his gaze flicked back to his lap.

Lily pulled in a deep breath against the tightening in her gut.

'So where do you live in London? Do you live in Southwark or?'

James looked up at her and shook his head. 'Brixton.'

Lily's eyes widened. 'No shit. I live in Clapham.'

'Really?'

Lily nodded. 'Right by the Common. I've been there for a few years.'

'You like it over there?'

Lily shrugged. 'Yeah, it's alright.'

James grinned. 'That's what I love about you, Evans. Your enthusiasm.'

She nudged him with her her elbow and James started laughing.

'Shut up.'

They spent the next hour chatting about whatever came to mind — James' bakery, their friends, their families. He'd spent the last ten minutes or so trying to wheedle her pseudonym out of her, and Lily was absolutely beside herself with laughter.

'Come on,' James leaned across the seat and put his hand on her knee. 'Just tell me! I'll guess every author I know until I get it right.'

'I'm not telling you,' Lily said, laughing. 'And you're never going to figure it out.'

'Why not?! Is it because it's like a huge name and I wouldn't expect it? Or are you still relatively…. Uh… indie?'

Lily snorted. 'Indie?'

James threw up his hands. 'Well, I don't know! You know what I mean!'

'I do, yes.'

James leaned closer to her, dropped his voice like he was trying to avoid being overheard. 'Are you really not going to tell me?'

She shook her head. 'I'm afraid I'm going to make you guess.'

'I'll figure it out eventually,' he said.

He was so close to her now, maybe a foot away, and she watched as his eyes flicked from hers down to her lips. It was brief, barely more than a moment, but she didn't miss it, and when he brought his eyes back up to hers, his pupils had inked his eyes black.

She heard the slight tremor in his throat when he pulled in a breath.

She traced her tongue over her bottom lip. 'I'm sure you will.'

James looked at her mouth again.

She had half a mind to deliberate, to sit there beside him and think about it, about all the things he might expect, her bizarrely strong feelings, the tension in her gut that was becoming harder and harder to ignore the more she sat there looking at him looking at her like that. She had half a mind to mull over it, but luckily, the other side of her mind won out.

She leant forward and closed the distance between them.

And James must have been expecting it.

Of course he should've been because she'd spent the last hour inching closer to him on the back seat, had spent the last five minutes watching his mouth and watching his eyes go steadily darker.

Of course he'd been expecting it, she hadn't been subtle, but what Lily hadn't expected was how much James had apparently wanted it.

Because the way he hummed when his lips met hers and the way his fingers jumped immediately and threaded through her hair — that was more than expectation. It was anticipation, and Lily could taste the relief on James' tongue.

She wove her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck, pulled him closer, and though their knees knocked together as she slid across the seat and the angle was a bit awkward, neither of them had the will to complain when Lily ran her tongue along his bottom lip and James moaned softly into her mouth.

Lily shifted in her seat until she was as close as she could get without fucking straddling him and ran her hand up the length of James' chest. She smiled against his lips when James shivered under her touch, and James pulled his lips from hers and dotted kisses across her skin — the corner of her mouth, the hinge of her jaw, her pulse point.

'What're you smiling about, Evans?' he said. His voice was low and gritty and she could feel it scraping against her skin as he spoke.

He pressed another kiss to her neck and she pulled in a sharp breath.

'I like making you shiver,' she said.

He hummed against her skin. 'I like it, too.'

Lily pulled his mouth back to hers.

There was something different about this, this kiss. Maybe it was the way James kept brushing his fingertips lightly against the back of her neck or the way that, already, she couldn't get close enough to him or the way that she could feel this, James, all of it, twisting around her heart.

She wanted more of him, wanted her hands on his skin and his thoughts and stories in her head. She wanted as much of him as she could get and it should have scared her, should maybe have put her off, but it didn't.

It was going to her head.

She'd just slipped her hand up under the fabric of his t-shirt when the cars behind them started blaring their horns, and Lily jumped back from James and shot an irritated look out the back window. The guy behind them pointed forcefully in front of her and she turned (trying to keep from getting distracted by James' lips just underneath her ear) and saw, fuck, that the cars in front of them had started inching forward.

'Fuck!'

James moved back. 'What?'

Lily pointed. 'We're moving!'

'Shit,' James scrambled away from her and they both jumped out of the back, waving apologetically at the people behind them.

Lily slid into the front seat, glanced at herself in the wing mirror. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was tangled beyond recovery, and she had a wide, stupid smile on her face.

She'd just started her engine again when she heard James shout, 'Lily, wait!'

She turned and saw him (much to the chagrin of the people behind them) rushing around the front of his car again. The cars behind them beeped again and Lily leaned out her window and glared at them. 'Piss off, we've gone a few metres, you aren't missing anything!'

James was laughing as he reached her, and she just grinned, shrugged. He planted his hands on the side of her door, leant through the window, and kissed her again (briefly), before he held out a small slip of paper.

'It's on a super old receipt, but it was the only paper I had. Call me when we get off this bloody motorway and we'll get dinner.'

She reached up, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him back to her level, kissed him again properly. He smiled against her lips, she wound her fingers in his hair again, and she wanted, desperately, to just say fuck it and pull him into the back with her again, let him settle his weight on top of her and get her hands underneath his clothes.

The cars behind them had other plans.

Both drivers leaned on their horns and James jumped back, smacking his head against her doorframe in the process. He straightened up, and turned to glare at them. 'OI! Alright, mate, fucking relax.'

Lily bit her lip to hide her smile, and James grinned at her as he walked backwards towards his car.

'I'll see ya, Evans.'