Back in my favourite setting with a prompt from the brilliant, stunning, inspiring petals who knows I can't resist — "grocery store AU where Lily works the counter and he keeps buying things just to talk to her"

Thanks, as always, to my best friend in the entire world, le lupe, for putting up with my stupid questions about titles (and also like literally everything else) and suggesting (perhaps jokingly) that I use this brilliant title

Enjoy, friends xx

Every summer since she'd turned 13, it was the same routine.

She woke up at five thirty, so early that even the summer sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, and walked ten minutes down the road to her dad's shop. She helped her dad open, accused him of leaving the easiest tasks for her to do, got into spirited arguments with him about rugby. She was there all day, and though she left each day exhausted, it was worth it to walk home with her father every night and laugh about the things that had gone wrong that day.

Her dad always got to the store at half four, long, long before it opened, but he loved the quiet walk, the hint of orange that coloured the horizon in the summertime, the sharp crispness of the air in autumn — it was the only time you could hear the birds when you were on the high street, and he would gladly sacrifice a bit of sleep for one of life's little luxuries.

It was the same every summer — early mornings, long days, surprisingly annoying arguments with people about the produce quality. Over time, her father started waking up later, but Lily always made sure to compensate. When he started rolling out of bed at five thirty, she was halfway to the store already. When he was pulling himself up at half six, she'd been there since five.

He started joking, in between ragged breaths, that she was leaving all the easy tasks for him.

She was. She knew he'd been leaving them for her, too — but that seemed so long ago now.

Their walks home took longer, required more breaks, but still included a lot of laughter.

Every summer was the same — the dark purple bags under her eyes because she never quite mastered the early bedtime, the rowdy boys that bought as many sweets as they could carry and flirted shamelessly whenever they were home from their boarding school.

Every summer was the same — until it wasn't.

When Lily came home that summer after her first year at University, she knew that she was home for good.

A lot still stayed the same, even now that she was the one running the place. She now woke up at four, met the lorries when they arrived at the crack of dawn, poured over the books at the end of every quarter, but she still left the easy tasks for the end of the morning, still made a mental list of all the bizarre things that had happened to her that day.

Her father wasn't there to laugh with her anymore, but she still made mistakes, loads of them, and she liked to think that running through the list on her walk home alone was the same.

The boys were still there, too, though there were three instead of four, and they were more like men than boys. Two, James and Sirius, had moved to the village when Lily was eleven, and though she'd hoped they'd go to school together, get some new faces to liven up the place, the Potter boys had gone to some posh boarding school and Lily had ploughed on at her comprehensive.

They were gone all year, from September until basically July, but they hung around the shop all summer, had done for as long as Lily could remember. They'd stumble in around eleven (then closer to noon or one as they got older), usually doubled over in laughter about something, before they greeted her, her dad, and bought whatever it was they came for. Sometimes they just bought coffees, sometimes the one in the glasses, James, bought a bouquet of flowers for his mum ('Piss off, Sirius, we owe Mum an apology and these are her favourite!'), or else they bought as much food as they could carry. They would sit out in the sun all afternoon, eating whatever they'd purchased, their laughter growing in volume as they rolled around in the grass in the park across the way.

She didn't know much about them, other than the fact that they all went to school together, and the other two, Remus and Peter, seemed to spend a lot of time in Godric's Hollow with the Potter boys. She never would have admitted it, even to herself, but she quite liked when they were around, even if she did occasionally have to tell them off.

They were so easy around one another, the way they draped their arms around each other as they laughed, took the piss out of one another relentlessly, how they always seemed to know what the others were thinking. There was something indescribable about them, the way that they were all bound up together, like they were part and parcel of the same person. There was something fierce about them, like they'd go through fire and fury and everything else for one another.

The summer after they all came back from uni, the summer that Lily came home for good, she noticed that Peter wasn't with them anymore. The boys were quieter, more subdued, but they stuck to one another as fiercely as ever.

Now that Lily was home, living with her mum in a house that felt oddly spacious after nearly two decades of complaining about how cramped it was, it felt like she was seeing them less than ever. They'd all been gone at the same time — they left in October, just as the air started to turn crisp and cool, and returned in December after the first snow had dusted the ground — and so it didn't feel like she was really missing them. After that first year, though, that first summer, the Potter boys stopped coming home altogether.

Eventually, she stopped wondering what had happened to them.

A lot happened over the next few years — she made fewer and fewer mistakes at the shop, she learned how to do (and, strangely, love) her taxes, the house that used to belong to her and her mum became just hers.

It had been hard, that first summer after her dad died, to accept that this was going to be her future — that instead of continuing on at university, instead of living out dreams she hadn't even fully realised, that she was going to be spending the rest of her life (because things always seem like they're going to be for the rest of your life when you're eighteen) working in the same shop she'd been working in since she was a kid. She'd been angry, angry at her father for dying, for opening this stupid store in the first place, angry at her mum for not knowing enough about the business to be able to take it over.

She'd been angry, but she'd also known that, really, there was no other place that she could possibly be. That this place, these memories, this shop… no amount of anger was going to make her let go of the last piece of her father that she had left.

It still surprised her how much she enjoyed the work sometimes — she didn't enjoy arguing with Mrs Jorkins about oranges, didn't like getting there at half four and spending an hour unloading boxes, hated it when the kids she employed didn't seem able to put things away where they actually belonged instead of wherever they felt like dropping them — she didn't enjoy a lot about the damn job, but it was rewarding. It was her father's shop, and now it was hers, and she was making it run all on her own. Her hands, her decisions, her dedication.

She was in the shop alone early one morning in mid-November, winter was on the horizon and the sun was nowhere near up, when the bell over the door rang, she looked up, and nearly fell back into the display of apples she'd been working on.

She hadn't seen him in, god, it had to have been nearly ten years, but she knew him immediately. James Potter's hair was still as chaotic as she remembered, he was just as fit — no, fitter — and though he still wore glasses, they weren't the indestructible, metal frames he'd always worn. They were a rich tortoise shell that complimented his warm, tan skin, and though they looked a bit more fragile than the ones he'd used to wear, she also doubted that he was doing nearly as much rough housing as he used to back when she'd known him.

He'd smiled at her when he entered, a generic sort of smile, but then he did a doubletake, and his smile shifted, became genuine, if a bit confused.

'Lily,' he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She nodded, astounded that he remembered her name. 'James, right?'

If he realised that she was pretending to only sort of remember him, he didn't let on.

'Yeah, bloody hell,' James stepped forward, arms extended before he stopped, 'Can I hug you? Sorry, that's weird — '

'No,' Lily laughed, shook her head, and stepped forward, hugged him before he could continue to blather on, 'it's fine.'

She rested her head briefly on his chest as James' arms moved around her waist. He was warm despite the biting chill outside, and he smelled like strong tea and mixed spice.

She pulled back and grinned at him, leaned up against her apple display while they talked. 'I haven't seen you in ages. How've you been? How's Sirius?'

James put his hand to his heart, 'You remember Sirius, but you barely remembered me?'

'What can I say,' she said, grinning at him, 'he leaves quite an impression.'

James groaned, 'You really know how to wound a man, Evans.'

Lily rolled her eyes — nine years and a pair of new glasses aside, he was still the same dramatic James she remembered. 'You haven't changed at all, have you?'

James laughed, 'I reckon I changed a bit.'

She quirked an eyebrow at him, 'Just the bit?'

James grinned, 'Maybe not even that much.'

She snorted and James just smiled at her. 'I'm glad we still have our banter, Evans.'

Lily just shook her head at him, 'That's only because it's impossible to have an actual conversation with you.'

'I can do conversation,' James said, 'I'm a proper adult now.'

'That's definitely something that a proper adult would say.'

James laughed, 'I can!'

It seemed strange to her that so much about him could have stayed the same, that she was now standing there remembering all kinds of details she hadn't thought about in years, would have sworn, even if pressed, that she didn't remember all the things that now seemed like they'd been floating right at the front of her brain, ready for her to access them.

He looked just as she remembered, the hair that he still hadn't bothered to tame, the cheeky smirk always tugging at the left side of his lips, the mischievous glimmer that was always just noticeable in the corner of his eyes. So much of him had stayed the same, but he was different, too. He was taller, obviously, broader than she remembered, but it was his personality, too. It was subtle, whatever it was, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

'So,' she would happily have continued chatting, but surely he had things to do that morning, 'is there anything I can help you with?'

James ran a hand through his hair, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. 'I just need a bit of milk,' he said, 'I brewed a whole pot of tea like an idiot and then realised that I don't have any.'

'We've got milk back here.' She turned on her heel and James followed her towards the back of the store.

'So you back for good, then,' Lily asked as they stopped in front of the dairy case. James nodded, grabbed a litre of milk, 'Figured it was time. London's great, but I missed home. And anyway, mum and dad's place has been empty since….'

James fell silent, and Lily put a hand on his elbow. She should have — shit — she should have remembered.

'I heard,' he looked up at her and she offered a sympathetic smile, 'I'm so sorry. They were really lovely people.'

'It's alright.' James said it immediately, automatically, but Lily shook her head, squeezed his forearm lightly before she dropped her hand, 'No, it isn't.'

James nodded, dropped his gaze from hers for a moment, cleared his throat. When his eyes found hers again, Lily smiled. 'Anything else I can help you with?'

'Uh,' James looked around the shop, seemed to be running through a mental tally in his head. 'No,' he said, 'no, I think I'm alright for now.'

'Great,' Lily smiled, walked them back towards the till.

'I'm surprised you're still here,' James said, 'you always talked about going to uni and changing the world.'

Lily shrugged, scanned his milk, 'Things change. I've found that I have a talent with produce anyway. Plus, once Dad died — '

'Oh my god,' James covered his face with one of his hands, 'I'm such an arsehole — I'm so sorry, I — '

Lily waved him off, 'It's fine.'

James shook his head, 'It's not, that was completely dickish.'

Lily shrugged, 'Well, that's about what I'd expect from an Eton man.'

James scoffed, 'I didn't go to Eton!'

Lily grinned, 'I know. But now we're even.'

James frowned, 'Hardly.'

'Well, how about you just let me know when Sirius is back in town.' She winked and James groaned, 'He'd love that, he would.'

Lily leaned on the countertop, 'How're he and Remus doing?'

'You remember Remus, too?' She nodded and he hummed thoughtfully before he continued. 'They're good. A bit cross with me for moving back home, but that's Sirius' blustering more than anything else, I think.'

'They finally together then?'

James gaped at her, 'Wha — how did you know?'

She shrugged, 'They way they always looked at each other? I'm not an idiot, Potter.'

James laughed, 'Fair enough. They started dating our last year of uni, so… what, six years? Seven?' He sighed, 'Uni feels like ages ago.'

Lily laughed, 'I know the feeling.'

James was quiet for a moment before he looked up at her, a certain hesitancy in his eyes. 'So you've been running the store since — '

'Right after my first year of uni,' she said, and James smiled a bit gratefully at her, 'Yeah. University was great while it lasted, but I didn't really need my degree to do this. And hey, now I'm not in suffocating debt.'

James smiled at her, 'You like it, though? You seem happy.'

She nodded, 'I am happy. It's certainly not what I thought life would look like when I was eighteen, but life rarely shapes up the way you think it's going to, does it?'

He nodded, chuckled softly, 'That's for damn sure.'

They were quiet for a moment, and Lily noticed James' eyes flicking between her and the floor as they stood there. There were so many things that she wanted to say to him, so many things she wanted to ask, wanted to hear about. It was odd, feeling that way about someone she hadn't thought much about over the past decade, like she'd just seen him yesterday and like there was so, so much to catch up on.

'Well,' James cleared his throat, ran a hand through his hair, grabbed the milk off the counter, 'I'll leave you to it, I guess.'

'I open soon,' she said, smiling at him and waiting for her words to take effect, 'lots to do.'

'You — ' he looked around as though he hoped her hours would be posted on a giant sign somewhere inside the store, 'But the door was open!'

She bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. 'I open at seven. No one is usually even on the high street before then, and I'm in and out, so I just leave the door open.'

James furrowed his brow, 'That can't be safe.'

She raised an amused eyebrow, 'Have you been in London so long that you've forgotten what it's like in Godric's Hollow?'

He sighed, 'Good point.' Then he frowned, 'Why didn't you tell me you were closed? I could have come back.'

She shrugged, 'I fancied a chat.'

'But — '

She held up her hand, 'It's not like it was some inconvenience. I would have told you to get out if it had been.'

James laughed, 'That's true. I remember that you were something of firecracker when we were kids.'

Lily grinned, 'That's a nice way of putting it.'

James smiled, 'I liked it.'

She raised her eyebrows, 'Usually I was telling off your lot.'

He shrugged, 'We needed it. We were too clever for our own good.'

Lily snorted, 'That's a humble brag if I've ever heard one.'

James groaned, 'I'm really mucking this up, aren't I?'

Lily shook her head, attempted to look earnest, 'No, of course not.'

James sighed, 'Great.'

She laughed, 'Just go home, James. Get some tea, start that brain of yours.'

He nodded, started walking towards the door, 'Alright, well, I'll see you around, I expect.'

She grinned, 'See you,' and he smiled at her one more time before he walked back out into the street.

It wasn't long before she got used to seeing him.

He was there more often than she ever would have imagined, more frequently than any of her other customers, even the regulars. He popped by every few days at first, doing what seemed to be a twice-weekly shop, but then he started showing up every other day, sometimes stopping by a few mornings in a row, grabbing something that she couldn't imagine he actually needed. On her quieter mornings, they walked through the shop together, chatted away while he shopped. He would knock things into his trolley, she'd straighten shelves, and they laughed about things she couldn't believe they remembered.

Lily had laughed so hard she'd had to hold onto the shelf of tinned tomatoes when James started recounting a particularly dramatic visit to the shop back when they were all sixteen or so. James had been particularly outspoken, apparently, about his feelings for a certain red-head at the shop on the high street, and Remus and Sirius (and Peter, in Lily's memory, but James had quite conveniently neglected to mention him) had done all they could to slag him for it in front of her after they'd made their way to the shop that afternoon.

'I carried quite the torch for you,' James said. He was laughing, but his cheeks were slightly flushed with what had to be embarrassment, and he was running his hand through his hair, avoiding her eyes. 'They all suspected, of course, it's not like I was subtle about it,' he looked up at her and she flashed him a grin, shook her head at him. He hadn't been subtle (his blood red cheeks, the hand chronically buried in his hair, the way that he laughed just a bit louder, stood just a bit taller when he knew she was looking), but he hadn't been obnoxious about it, either, which was a nice change from the other boy who'd used to come into the shop when her father was out and stalk around the aisles gawking at her.

'But,' he continued, 'once I confirmed it for them all one night, completely pissed, by the way, the bastards never should have held it over me, it was completely unfair, they were intent on torturing me for the rest of our fucking lives.'

'So,' he continued, smiling down at Lily who was now in hysterics because she knew what was coming, she remembered this story now that he was telling it, couldn't believe she'd forgotten it, 'Sirius brings it up when we're walking down from the house and I told him to piss off, threatened to push him into the stream if he was going to keep it up. They got in some good-natured ribbing before we got here, though, and I, being the idiot that I was, thought we were over it.'

'When Sirius started trying to talk to me about you once we'd gotten in here, I thought I was going to kill him. I was literally going to throw him in the freezer and just leave him to die, but then fucking Remus gets in on it and they're shouting from the back of the store and I'm just dying, Evans, I'm literally dying.'

She reached up and wiped the tears off her cheeks, tried to steady her breathing, but it wasn't happening because it was exactly like she was living it all over again — standing behind the counter, working on inventory reports with her dad when the boys filed in and headed straight for the pick n' mix, her dad shooting her an amused glance when they head Sirius shout 'So tell us about the redhead, again, mate, what were you saying,' followed by James' very loud (and incredibly ineffectual) shushing and Remus' declaration that 'What James said about Lily, he said in confidence, Sirius, shut up!' She remembered how her dad had whispered, 'Sounds like you've got an admirer, Lils,' while she flushed red and begged him to be quiet, remembered how Sirius had only gotten louder as they moved through the store, how Remus had apologised to her when they all approached the counter a few minutes later, a deadly serious look on his face that she's still surprised didn't break, said that Sirius was an idiot and really, honestly, swear on their lives, anything they might have said was just to taunt James, though, really, it was up to her whether or not to believe anything she might have heard. Remus' vehement denial was as good as an admission, he knew it, she knew it, James knew it, and James' hair was standing completely on end from having his hands in it and he mumbled out something that sounded like an apology as she rang up his sweets.

And then her dad, her fucking dad, had smiled at James and said, 'You know, I usually find that talking to the girl you like instead of just talking near her works better.'

Lily had just about had a stroke, had elbowed her father right in the ribs while he laughed (and laughed and laughed) and James, poor James, had dropped his entire bag of pick n' mix and sent sweets exploding all over the floor.

'Standing there sweeping up a literal arseload of jazzies while Sirius cried laughing just outside the door and your bloody dad stood there happily chatting away about "how you should ask out a girl" is still one of the lowest points of my life. And that includes the time that Sirius locked me outside our halls naked in our first year of uni and my fucking tutor saw me and "suggested that I find some clothing before showing up to mods tomorrow".'

Lily snorted, 'What, oh my fucking god, James, who are you?!' Her stomach ached from laughing and James just grinned at her, 'A bloke who liked you well enough to keep coming back after that truly horrific experience.'

They managed to get through the rest of the store without much difficulty, though when Lily started talking about all the bets she and her dad used to have going about Mrs Jorkins, James walked into a display because he had been too busy laughing to pay attention. When they finally got back around to the front of the shop, Lily grabbed James' reusable bags from the front of trolley, slid behind the counter, and James began piling his selections on the worktop for her to scan.

'You should have asked me out,' she said, as she started ringing up his things and sliding them into his canvas bags. James fumbled the box of tea in his hand and looked up at her.

'What?'

She bit back a smile, scanned some muesli. 'I would have gone with you.'

'You would?'

She smiled when she looked up and her eyes found his. His eyes had that anxious look in them, the one they'd had so often when they'd talked as kids and he'd been trying to think of some way to talk to her and maintain at least a shred of dignity. 'Yeah,' she said, shrugging and scanning a few more things, 'you were fit.'

James scoffed, 'Were. What is this past tense nonsense, Evans?'

She laughed, 'You're alright.'

She started looking forward to their banter in the mornings, found herself watching the clock on the days that she knew he'd stop by to come and see her. He made her mornings fly by, made her laugh when she was just starting to contemplate closing up and wandering back home because four thirty was too fucking early and she was exhausted — he made her day measurably better, something that she wasn't sure he realised. Even when she couldn't wander around the store and chat, the fact that James often got there so early meant that they could still sort of shout to one another as he wandered around and picked up whatever he needed. He was strict about showing up after she was officially open after that first visit — she sometimes saw him loitering around the street or walking laps around the small park opposite to kill time when he got there long before seven. She'd called over to him the first time she noticed him doing this, one chilly December morning when it looked like snow was imminent, but James had insisted that she didn't open until seven and he could wait.

'It doesn't matter how much you love me, Evans,' he'd shouted back, 'I have to wait until seven like everyone else.'

She'd rolled her eyes, but made sure that she had a steaming cup of tea ready for him when he finally walked through the door, trembling from head to foot, fifteen minutes later.

'You're an idiot,' she said, 'you could have frozen to death out there.'

'Yeah,' he said, wrapping his hands around his mug and taking a few tentative sips of his tea, 'but I didn't.'

'That's shit logic and you know it.'

James just winked at her.

She put her hands on her hips, 'What are you here for anyway?'

'I, uh,' he stepped back from the counter, took his mug with him into an aisle that he, seemingly, selected at random. 'Biscuits,' he said, disappearing into the aisle.

She grabbed her own mug off the counter and slid out from behind it, following him and watching with increasing interest as he surveyed the wall of biscuits he was in front of.

'Didn't you get like, six packs of biscuits the other day,' she asked, shooting him a look as she took a sip of her tea. He turned to look at her, gave her a knowing smirk. 'So you remember what I buy now, eh?'

She shrugged, took another long drink of her tea, looked anywhere but at him. Still, she could see the increasingly wide smile on his face out of the corner of her eye.

'How is that,' she nodded at his mug and he turned, wide grin still firmly in place. 'Nice,' he said, turning back to the wall of biscuits.

She frowned, 'How do you take it?'

He looked at her again, 'I said it was nice.'

She crossed her arms, careful not to jostle her own mug and spill tea all over the floor. 'But it's not perfect.'

He shrugged, 'I just like it a bit stronger, that's all.'

'Sugar?'

'No,' he shook his head, 'no sugar. That part's perfect.' He smiled at her, but she was still frowning at him.

'Really, Evans,' he said, 'it's a nice brew.' He took another sip of tea as though proving his point, and she sighed. 'I could've made you another cup.'

He laughed at her, 'And you say I'm the dramatic one.'

She just shot him a look and he sighed. 'Just make mine a builder's next time. No sugar.'

She tipped her head at him, 'Thank you. Was that so bloody hard?'

'This just — this is actually fine, I wouldn't say it was if it was shit.'

'You might.'

'Only for you,' James said. He shot her a quick smile, and though she rolled her eyes at him, she couldn't help the way that her heart stuttered slightly in her chest. He grabbed a packet of malted milks off the shelf and grinned at her, 'I'll take these.'

'You don't have to buy things to stop by and have a chat,' she said as they walked back to the counter. 'You could just come by. We're mates, right?'

James raised an eyebrow, smiled at her, 'Are we? Mates?'

She nodded, shrugged one shoulder as she scanned in James' biscuits and put them into his canvas bag, 'Yeah. I think so, anyway.'

James nodded, 'No, yeah,' he shot her a smile, 'just checking.'

'Do you even eat these,' she asked, nodding at the bag, 'I thought you liked digestives.'

James raised an eyebrow at her, and she felt her face heat up a bit. 'That's just what you always buy, I don't know.'

James attempted (and failed spectacularly) to bite back another smile.

'These are Sirius' favourites. They're going to be here for the holidays,' he said, a warm smile flooding his face, 'I finally convinced them to come up and visit.'

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, 'How'd you manage that?'

'A lot of emotional pleading with Remus about how it's Christmas, please don't make me be alone. Sirius probably saw right through it, but he wasn't going to tell Remus no.'

Lily grabbed his receipt off the printer and stuffed it in the bag with his biscuits, 'You could have spent Christmas at mine, you know. I usually end up spending the holidays alone, but Marlene and her fiancé are coming over this year.'

'McKinnon?!' Lily nodded and James gasped, ran a hand through his hair, 'I haven't thought about her in ages!'

Lily snorted, 'I'll tell her that. She'll be thrilled.'

James blanched. 'Oh my god, don't, she'll kill me.'

Lily laughed, 'She definitely would. Likes to be remembered, she does.'

'Her and Sirius,' James said, laughing.

'When are they going to be here,' Lily asked, handing James his bag. He took it, slung it up onto his shoulder.

'They're taking the train up tonight,' James said, 'should get to the station round nine.'

'You picking them up?'

James laughed, 'I thought about making them walk, but that seems cruel.'

'It is December,' Lily said, 'and Christmas. Almost.'

James sighed dramatically, 'You always did know how to trigger my conscience, Evans.'

She laughed, shook her head at him, 'You came down here to buy Sirius' favourite biscuits before he arrived.'

James groaned, 'Look, I don't need to be reminded that I'm a good brother.'

She reached across the counter then, shoved his shoulder, laughing at his stupid face and his stupid lie and his stupid barely suppressed smirk, and James laughed with her, loudly, brightly, and it reminded her so much of the way he'd laughed when he was sixteen that it made her chest ache.

'You are such an idiot,' she said, 'it's a wonder that you've conned me into talking to you again.'

'Please, Evans,' James said, taking a step back towards the door, 'You love me and you know it.'

'Oh, get out of my shop, you prat,' she grabbed the pen off the counter and tossed it at him across the store — he laughed when it bounced off his chest and fell to the floor.

'If you want to come over for dinner while the boys are here, let me know,' he said, taking a few more steps closer to the door, 'Or, you know, we can get coffee or lunch or whatever.'

She quirked an amused eyebrow at him, 'What if I want breakfast?'

James pretended to think for a moment, but the brightness in his eyes told her just how happy he was. 'I guess we could do breakfast, too.'

She grinned, 'Great.'

'And James,' he was halfway out the door, but he paused when she spoke, turned to face her, 'make sure you bring Sirius by to say hello.' She winked at him, and even though James groaned so loudly she was sure they could hear him in the flower shop across the street, she was laughing too loudly to hear him.

She'd been so busy with the store that week, though, that she'd nearly forgotten about James' offer to have her over while Sirius and Remus were up from London, barely noticed that James hadn't been to the store once since he'd picked the boys up from the train the week before. She made a mental note to text him every time the store was quiet, thought about it as she was rushing out of the house in the morning to come meet the deliveries or when she was trudging home through the cold, biting wind, but by the time she stumbled through the front door, of either the shop or her parent's house (because it never felt like her house, no matter how long she'd lived there), she was always more focused on brewing herself a cuppa and settling in than on anything else.

And anyway, he was probably busy.

It's not like she had nothing to do, either. The shop is always phenomenally busy that week, just a mess of turkeys, mince pies, and so many fucking Christmas cakes that if Lily didn't already hate the damn things, she'd certainly be sick of them by the time the week was out. Marlene and her fiancé, Dorcas, had come down from Liverpool for tea on Christmas, stayed a few days despite the fact that Lily was at the shop all day from Boxing Day on. Still, they got dinner together each night, Mar and Dorcas usually poked their heads into the shop mid afternoon, and Liverpool wasn't so far away that Lily felt bad about not seeing them.

London, though, was a different story, and she did feel a bit sad when the holidays came and went without any sign of Remus and Sirius.

On the second of January, though, Lily was wandering around the shop, mug of tea in hand, fighting back yawns as she pretended to work, when the doorbell rang and she whipped around.

Only one person was ever there that early, and he, of course, was there, but it was the shorter, longer haired man that caught her eye and put the broad, beaming smile on her face.

'Sirius!'

'Red!'

Sirius threw his arms wide, and Lily crossed the shop in two, stuffed her mug into James' hand, and stepped into Sirius' hug, squeezing him tight.

'How the fuck are you,' he asked, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before he stepped back and grinned at her. She laughed, 'Absolutely fucking brilliant now you're here.'

James frowned at her from behind Sirius' back, 'What am I, fucking mince?'

She grinned at James over Sirius' shoulder, 'Like you've got anything on this beauty.'

James' frown deepened and Sirius burst into laughter, 'Cheers!'

Sirius turned to face James and Remus, dropped an arm over Lily's shoulders, and Lily saw him shoot James a wink from the corner of her eye. She nudged Sirius in the ribs, stepped forward and extended her arms towards Remus. He was as tall as James was, and so she only came up to about the middle of his chest. He wrapped his arms briefly around her shoulders before he smiled down at her.

'Sorry to barge in,' he said, smiling appeasingly down at her as she stepped away.

'No need to apologise,' she said, waving him off, 'James certainly doesn't, and he barges in here all the time.' She shot James a look and he did his best to look affronted. 'I do not barge, Evans.'

She rolled her eyes at him, looked back at Remus who was now visibly biting back a smile. 'So what have you lot been up to? Things going well?'

Remus shrugged, smiled a bit sardonically at her. 'I'm at the tail end of my PhD, so "well" isn't exactly the word I'd use.'

'You're doing a PhD?! James never said!'

She glared at James, and he at least had the decency to look a little ashamed. Remus raised his eyebrow at, presumably, Sirius, before his eyes met Lily's again. 'In history, actually,' Remus said, 'I've only got one more round of edits to get through before I defend, so I'm considerably better than I was a few months ago.'

'What's your dissertation on?'

'The horrors of English colonialism, Red, very bleak stuff,' Sirius said, stepping forward and wrapping his arm around her shoulders again, 'And you two can talk about that at length if you'd like, but right now, I really need to know if James mentioned anything about me in all the time that you two have been, uh,' he cleared his throat pointedly and Lily noticed James flush a bit, '"hanging out".' He put quotations around it and Lily barely resisted the urge to elbow him in the side again.

'Nope,' she said, keeping her eyes locked on James' as they flicked between her and Sirius, 'not a word.'

James shook his head at her, mouthed traitor as Sirius started complaining from her side. 'Oh,' he said, his voice rising in volume and pitch, 'Ohhh! Is this how you're going to treat your one and only brother, mate? After all I've done for you?'

They hung around for nearly an hour, laughing with her about the nonsense they'd been up to since they'd last seen her. They made a point to share as many embarrassing James stories as they possibly could, both to ensure that Lily got, as Sirius said, 'the full picture of the man that's been pestering her for the past month,' but also, Lily thought, to see if they could get James to decide to try and drown himself in the puddle of snowmelt outside.

Sirius was about halfway through his re-telling of the time that he'd locked James outside naked, when James had finally had enough, and he'd dragged them out of the shop, shouting all the time about how Lily definitely had to work and there was no way that she appreciated Sirius' nonsense because he was definitely driving all her customers away.

Once Remus and Sirius were back home in London, James resumed his usual morning visits. He'd flushed a vivid red when he first stopped by again, buried his head in his hands when Lily started teasing him about some of the stories Sirius had shared while he'd been there, but she couldn't help but notice how little he actually seemed to mind. He would blush and groan and sigh dramatically, but he was also barely fighting smiles and watching her with an unfathomable expression on his face as she laughed.

One morning a few weeks later, Lily was sitting in the office just behind the till sorting out her tax forms when the bell over the door rang.

She slid her pen behind her ear, grabbed her balance book, hoped to god that it wasn't going to be Mrs Jorkins or something because it was far too early in the morning for her to have to deal with that kind of nonsense, and walked back out behind the counter to find James standing there with two takeaway cups in his hands and a broad smile on his face. He handed her a cup and she sighed her thanks, took a long sip.

'Excellent brew, that,' she said, smiling at him, 'thank you.'

James nodded, 'Figured you'd need it. Tax time and all that.' He tipped his head at her book, and she sighed, 'I usually like doing my taxes, but this year is a fucking pain.'

'You —' James shook his head, 'of course you like doing your taxes.'

She frowned at him, 'What's that supposed to mean?'

James grinned, 'You know you're a bit of a nerd, Evans. Weren't you going to do a course in maths or something?'

'Chemistry,' she said, scoffing at him, 'much cooler than maths.'

He laughed, 'Yeah, alright.'

She reached across the counter and smacked his shoulder, 'Whatever, mister fucking solicitor.'

James chuckled, 'We both know that my job is the best, but anyway,' Lily had opened her mouth to argue with him and James grinned at her as he changed tack, 'why are your taxes worse this year?'

She sighed, took another long sip of her tea. He really had got it bang fucking on, and she couldn't deny that she was impressed. 'I bought a van for the shop this year and now I'm trying to figure out how to work out what counts as a 'capital asset' and what is just another business expense and I can't really tell if that actually makes difference.'

James groaned, 'Can't you just hire an accountant?'

I could,' she sighed, took another long sip of her tea, 'We're comfortable enough that I think it would be alright, but I'd rather figure out how to do it. My dad never needed an accountant.'

'Your dad never ran a business this successful.'

'It's probably only successful because you're in here every other day,' she said, laughing.

James shook his head, 'No, you work hard, Evans.'

He was looking at her with such fondness in his eyes that it took her aback a bit. She drank some more tea, used it as an excuse to close her eyes. When she met his gaze again, he was still watching her, his warm hazel eyes shining behind his glasses.

'Thanks,' she hated taking compliments and she felt her cheeks go a bit hot. James smiled at her then, and it wasn't his usual broad, cheeky grin, but a soft one, a sincere one that made her chest ache.

They both drank some more tea.

After a long moment, James cleared his throat, took a step back from the counter, 'I'll let you get to it, I just needed to grab something.'

She raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what he could possibly need. 'Alright,' she said, setting her cup down and pulling her pen back out from behind her ear, 'I'll be here when you're ready.'

He came back ten minutes later with a candle lighter.

She looked up from her balance book, pulled the pen from between her teeth, raised an eyebrow at him, 'What do you need this for?'

He sighed like he couldn't believe that she was actually asking him this. 'Lighting candles, Evans, obviously.'

She shot him a look, but took the stupid thing from his hand and rang it up, 'What candles are you lighting?'

He shrugged, handed her his credit card, 'You never know when you're going to need to light a candle or two.'

'What could possibly happen that would require you to light a candle?'

'Maybe the beautiful red-head that runs the shop on the high street decides to come over for dinner.'

She'd started laughing as soon as he said red-head, shook her head at him, broad grin on her face as she handed him his card and his apparently necessary lighter. 'There it is. You cheeky bastard.'

He beamed, tipped the lighter at her, 'Cheers, love,' and started walking towards the door.

'Oi!'

James turned around, raised an expectant eyebrow. Lily leaned her elbows onto the counter, 'Was that a serious offer?'

'Well, they're only serious when —'

'Hey,' Lily cut him off, shaking her head, 'none of that.'

James grinned, 'Want to come to mine for dinner, Evans?'

'What's in it for me?'

'A lit candle or two.'

She clicked her tongue at him, 'Shame. I'm a three candles and up kind of woman.'

'"And up" seems like it could get a little dicey, doesn't it? What if I had a hundred candles?'

Lily shook her head in mock seriousness, 'That's just a fire hazard.'

'That's what I'm saying,' James said, 'you have to set an upper limit.'

Lily wanted to roll her eyes at him, but she bantered herself right into this ridiculous game of his. 'Five,' she said, nodding, 'five seems like an acceptable upper limit.'

James nodded slowly before he smiled at her, 'Duly noted.'

Something had shifted between them since he'd bought that bloody lighter — James was now in the shop every morning without fail, had largely given up on all pretense and was just following her around the shop, tea in hand, while she set things up in the morning.

Sometimes he bought things, like when he was genuinely coming in and doing the weekly shop, or when he came in on the final Saturday of January and decided that he needed every baking ingredient Lily fucking sold ('Have you been watching old Bake Offs again?' 'No…. well, yes, and I have a critical question for you — it's cake week, what's your signature?'), but for the most part, he just stopped by to have a cuppa tea and a chat.

She loved how easy it was — how conversation flowed naturally, how easily they laughed, how broadly he smiled when he was looking at her. She loved making him laugh more than just about anything else, loved the way the left side of his mouth also hitched up just a bit higher than the right, loved how loud and full his laugh was, loved how it hit her deep in her gut every time, loved how his eyes shone with an almost indescribable happiness.

Marlene had said, when she and Dorcas had come home for the holidays, that she thought Lily was in love with him. She wasn't in love with him, she'd said as much then, and it was true — she didn't know him enough to love him. Love took time and effort, it needed to be built if you wanted it to be real. That was the thing, though, that she hadn't know when Marlene had been lecturing her, the thing that had become abundantly clear the more enmeshed James became in her life.

She wanted it to be real. She wanted to build it with him.

She wasn't sure what to do with this information now that she had it, didn't know how to take the next step without jeopardising everything, and so she sat on it.

She tried to hint at her developing feelings — she flirted a bit more, let her hand linger on his arm when she laughed, leaned into his touch whenever he rested his hand on her back or ruffled up her hair. She thought she sometimes caught him looking at her with this look in his eyes, thought he was smiling just a bit more, holding her gaze just a bit longer…. But it was hard to tell, James being who he was, whether or not any of those things meant that he felt the same way.

So it persisted through the rest of January. The shop had slowed to its usual pace now that the holiday was over, and she spent most of her time at work either chatting with James or wishing that James would break his standard schedule and drop by. She was particularly anxious on the 30th, though she wouldn't have admitted it if asked.

She didn't see James at all that day, and she'd expected, since she'd texted him the night before and told him she'd finally submitted her taxes, that he'd pop by the shop and celebrate with a nice brew or something that morning. But the morning had come and gone, and she'd seen no sign of James.

She was just wrapping up for the night, balancing the till, logging receipts, and the like, when the bell over the door rang and she looked up.

'Miss me today?'

There he was, cheeky bastard, in all his smirking glory. She bit back a smile as she shook her head. 'No. I finally got work done for once.'

James barked a laugh, crossed the shop and leaned up against the countertop, watched her while she filed a few more receipts.

'Any plans tonight,' he asked.

She smiled, but didn't look up from what she was doing, 'Finally inviting me to that five candle dinner you promised?'

'I don't know that I ever explicitly promised anything,' he said. She looked up at him, indignant, and noticed the slight smirk tugging at his lips. 'If you're not doing anything,' he said, the smile barely contained now, 'I could probably whip something up.'

She laughed, 'Oh, you're just the type that can whip up a five candle dinner, are you?'

'I can be for you, Evans.' He winked at her and she leaned across the counter to smack his shoulder.

He grinned. 'So is that a yes?'

She shrugged, 'Yeah, alright,' but there was no denying the smile on her face.

James leaned up against the wall near the front door and waited patiently, his hands in his pockets, while she walked around, shut off lights and locked the till and the office door. 'I've never seen you lock up,' he said, grinning at her as she flicked off the last night and met him at the door, 'You double check everything.'

She turned around one final time, scanned the shop, before she turned back to face him. 'Do I?'

James grinned at her, 'Yeah, you do.'

It was completely dark as they headed up the high street — the soft glow from the streetlamps lit just enough that they could see the sidewalk through the path out of the centre of the village, but she knew that once they left the high road and were climbing up the hill towards James', that they wouldn't have much in the way of light. The air was crisp and smelled vaguely like snow, the wind was bitingly cold, and Lily shivered, tucked her coat tighter around her.

'Fuck, it's cold.'

She saw James move out of the corner of her eye — he hesitated for a moment and then looped his arm through hers, pulled her closer, looked down at her. 'This alright?'

He looked like he genuinely didn't know, and she almost shook her head at him and laughed. Instead, she nodded and James grinned, moved a bit closer so their sides bumped up against one another as they walked.

'So what kind of dinner are you going to make me?'

James smiled down at her, 'We'll have to see what I have at the house. Unless you remember my grocery purchases from the past few weeks?' His smile widened.

'Oh,' she reached up and smacked his chest, 'I remember a few purchases and you're never going to let me forget it.'

'Not a chance, Evans. Not a fucking chance.'

'I hate you,' she said, shaking her head at him. James laughed, pulled her closer so their sides were completely flush against each other. 'No you don't.'

James only lived a few minutes away from the shop, but walking uphill against the wind made it take longer than Lily thought she could bear. She rested her cheek against James' arm, just for a moment to warm it up. They weren't talking now, just walking quietly alongside one another, and she liked that they didn't feel the need to fill every spare moment with something. They could talk and laugh when they wanted, which, obviously, was most of the time, but they could also be quiet together, just enjoy one another's company.

She really liked that.

James opened the front door as soon as they reached the house, and they toed their shoes off in the entry while James chuckled about how he still couldn't believe he now lived in a place where locking the front door wasn't something that was an absolute necessity when he left the house.

'I was always leaving my door unlocked in my hall freshman year,' Lily said, smiling up at him as she followed James down the corridor, 'my hallmates used to take bets about when all my things would get stolen.'

James laughed as they reached the door at the end of the corridor, and he reached his hand out and took her elbow, pulled her gently to a stop. She turned to look at him, and James just smiled down at her. 'You'll have to close your eyes before we go any further,' he said. She could tell that he was working hard to control any kind of expression that might give away whatever it was that he was planning, but it didn't stop her from raising a stern eyebrow at him in an attempt to get him to crack.

James just laughed, 'You can raise your eyebrow at me all you want, Evans, you're not winning this.'

She sighed, and though she wanted to mutter something about how she couldn't believe he was being this bloody obnoxious, she closed her eyes without another word.

She felt James shift beside her the moment her eyes fell closed. 'I'm going to cover your eyes so you can't peek,' he said — he sounded closer to her now and her breath caught in her chest when she felt his arm brush against her shoulder as he reached up and placed his hand lightly over both her eyes.

'I'm not going to look,' she said. She sounded breathless and she almost hoped that he didn't notice.

'Still,' James said, and he stepped a bit closer so she could feel the warmth radiating off of him, 'this is a pretty nice surprise, Evans. Can't have you ruining it.'

'Oh, shut up.'

James chuckled, started walking them forward slowly towards the door. She felt a light rush of air and heard a soft creak as he pushed the door open in front of them, and he walked them a few paces into the room before he came to a stop, his fingers twitching slightly against her.

'You ready,' he asked. She nodded, 'Yeah.'

He pulled his hand away.

The kitchen was stunning, absolutely stunning, and she would obsess over it all (probably while yelling at him for never bringing her here before), but in that moment, she was focused on the cake in the centre of the worktop in front of her.

The cake with white icing and chocolate trees piped up the side and chocolate shavings and five fucking candles, the stupid candle lighter lying in wait next to the cake stand, and it didn't make sense that any of this stuff was here, that he'd — it had been a one off conversation, a nothing detail.

'My signature.'

She turned to look at him and James was positively beaming at her and it was — her heart was pounding, her throat was tight, and the look on his face, the cake, but then the tea, the morning chats, everything he'd ever done for her came flooding back but it looked different in this light, and it was everything.

'Your signature,' he was smiling so warmly, so intensely that she thought her heart might stop at the sight of it. 'Happy birthday, Lily.'

She kissed him.

She could have said thank you, could have sat down and chatted the night away and walked home without doing anything, but he remembered her birthday and she had no idea how and he made her a cake and he did it, all of it, just to surprise her, and he was looking at her with that look on his face and she just couldn't let this go, and so without one moment's hesitation, without any thought on the matter, she stepped forward, stood up onto her toes, rested her hands on his chest, and finally kissed him.

James was stock still for a moment, so still that she could almost feel the shock radiating off of him, but just as she pulled away and started to sink back onto her heels, James sucked in a ragged breath and wrapped his arms around her. She gasped as he pulled him against her, immediately slid her arms up around his neck, threaded her fingers through his hair.

His glasses knocked against her nose as she shifted, and James smiled against her lips when she sighed, annoyed, and shifted again. He moved his hands from her back, trailed them up her sides, moved to cup her face before he pulled back, put just a breath of space between them.

'Gonna have to work around the glasses, Evans,' he said, leaning down and pressing kisses across her jaw towards her ear, 'I want to see you.'

'I take it this is alright then,' she asked, pressing closer to him, tilting her neck to give him better access. He chuckled, and though his breath was hot against her skin, she shivered at the sensation.

'More than,' he said, kissing down her neck, reaching up and winding his fingers through her hair, 'I've been thinking about doing this for weeks.'

'Why didn't you?'

'Why didn't you?'

She groaned, took his cheeks in her hands, and pulled his mouth back to hers, and completely ignored the way he laughed against her lips.