A five-minute walk from the university is a small, old bakery-turned-café, or more precisely both of these all rolled into one. No one can quite place what it is. Sometimes it will open as early as 6:30 in the morning, engulfing the small corner of the street with the aroma of freshly baked pastries. Other times it will remain closed until the owner—an old Dutch lady, Nora—stumbles towards the entrance door around ten. The shop fills up in a matter of moments no matter the time.

Mary's heard from a friend of a friend, who heard it from a girl she had two classes with, that Nora's husband was a renown French baker who, at the peak of his career, opened as many as twenty boulangeries and patisseries in the Netherlands. When he died, rumour has it she sold the lot of them and moved to England, where she opened the one small shop right beneath the flat she lived in, and lived off the piles of cash she acquired by selling the rest.

Being a romantic at heart, Mary chose to believe the story entirely, and Lily and her would often concoct wild scenarios about Nora's life, none of which could ever possibly be true.

"You haven't talked to him?" Lily asks, and Mary does not want to feel bad about it, but she can't help herself. They are tucked away in a distant corner, squeezed in between two larger groups of students. Every minute one of them glances longingly at their usual place where currently two businessman are sitting, sticking out like sore thumbs among all the students.

"Nope," Mary's cocoa is cold, and the cake she ordered is not making her feel any better either. It is a flourless chocolate rum cake, one of her favourites, and it ought to have lifted her mood but somehow it fails miserably.

"Hm," Lily's order rarely changes—vanilla latte and a white chocolate chip cookie—but today she, too, opts for a boozy cake, as the two of them like to call it. The occasion calls for it. "If it makes you feel any better, I feel like he's been avoiding me too."

"Really," Mary's wide brown eyes reflect hope and relief.

"But he has texted."

"Oh."

Lily is upset. In fact, she is positively fuming. When she introduced Sirius, nearly six months ago, to her high school best friend, she made him promise something. It was not an explicit deal, nor did she force him to sign any legal documents, though her mother—who was an accomplished lawyer—joked she should have, considering his dashing looks and reputation. It was implied that he was not to treat her friends, especially not Mary, in any way that may cause any level of emotional harm or distress.

Mary's quiet demeanour and contemplating face are enough inclination for Lily to know that Sirius has crossed the line. But he refuses to meet her in person, and thus she can hardly punch his arm twice—once because he deserved it, the second time for good measure—before talking his ear off about him being a complete arse.

"He's an immature twat, Mary," she offers a mild insult. After all, he is still a good friend of hers, no matter how much of an idiot he is being. "Maybe he just…"

"Needs time," she does not sound convinced. "I mean, okay. I can understand that. But everything was great up until Sunday."

"When you jumped the guy."

"We've been flirting for months!"

Lily knows this. "I know. I've been there. The whole time."

Over the edge of an oversized mug, Mary offers her a small smile, "My apologies."

"It's fine," Lily says, and it really is. It would be best if they just stopped their games, so Lily could rest. "So, the last thing he told you was?"

"I've told you," she sighs, but pulls out her phone nonetheless. "Great weekend, will def make you more pancakes next time… heart, heart, kiss, kiss, smiling cat emoji, wink.

"And then I texted him: maybe I'll make you some pancakes, kiss, heart, kiss, tongue out, tongue out."

Lily nods, "Followed by silence?"

"Yes. You don't think I overdid it with the tongue out emojis?"

"Oh, surely," they both chuckle. "The tongue out emoji is the one thing that can scare any man away."

"You're a horrible friend," Mary whines.

"I'm paying for your sadness food."

"I love you—oh!" She jumps suddenly as her phone vibrates in her hand, nearly spilling the rest of her cocoa over the cakes and Lily's phone. Her eyes are wide and glued to the screen. There is a bit of a manic look to her face.

"Oh?"

The text arrives three days late, and though her initial reaction is excitement, Mary paces herself. She does not want to open it to be disappointed, nor does she want to reply straight away.

"It's Sirius," she mouths, barely above a whisper.

"And?"

I spy with my prettiest eye… are you and Lily pancaking without me :(

"What. A. Moron," if Sirius weren't around, she would show the text to Lily, then continue to insult his existence for the following ten minutes.

Three days after she sent him the text, and he replies so nonchalantly. She has spent three days pondering over possible catastrophe scenarios, and wondering—often out loud, to Lily—if maybe he disliked that her boobs were not only small, but also a bit lopsided. Of course, Lily told her—as all best friends ought to do—that her own boobs seemed to be a bit wonky too. But Mary cared very little about that, because at least Lily had more of them, so it did not count, or at least that's what she told her.

Lily is amused by the obvious mental control her friend seems to be exerting in order to contain her impending emotional outburst. If she were a bad friend, perhaps she would even laugh at her, but she cannot bring herself to do so now. Not after having had to convince her there was absolutely nothing wrong with her breasts.

"Hullo," Sirius arrives in all his glory, clad in a leather jacket with a pair of aviators propped on his nose despite the mostly cloudy weather. He ruffles Mary's hair, and takes a seat next to her. "Isn't today a great day?"

"Superb," Mary smiles.

She continues smiling as Sirius drapes his arm around her chair, "I can't stay for long. Have some errands to run. I just wanted to drop by and say hello."

It takes all her strength for Lily not to laugh at Mary's panicked expression, and Sirius' complete oblivion to it. She watches as he aimlessly twirls a strand of her hair around his finger, and notices the way Mary gawks her eyes at her as if to say 'what the fuck' while reaching for her cocoa.

"So," she starts, seeing as her friend became temporarily mute from shock, and possibly anger. "You've been busy, then?"

"Very," Sirius assures the two of them.

"You're quite informative," Mary quips. Her voice sounds bitter, and she hopes that the apparently blind idiot sitting next to her does not notice the hostility behind it. Or perhaps she hopes that he does.

"It's top secret," he runs a finger down her neck. "I'll tell you all about it… in private."

"Will you now," she asks, glancing at Lily, who decides to observe the two over the edge of her text book, and is ignoring the meaningful glances her friend is trying to send her way.

Mary's question receives no response as Sirius shuffles away from her and gets up. He stretches, and the hem of his shirt rises just above the waistband of his dark jeans. If she were not furious with him, Mary would just jump him for the second time. However, her righteous anger—topped with a fair amount of confusion—prevents her treacherous body from acting on its very physical, animalistic urges.

She cannot control the lip bite, and Lily calls her out on that while the two watch the man in question walk away.

"Oh, stop drooling," she slams her book shut, which brings Mary out of her daze. "We're mad at him, remember?"

"I hate him," she exclaims, though she does not really.

"I honestly doubt that."

"No, I genuinely do. I can't handle this."

"Fine," Lily says with determination. "Tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow, we will go out, and we will get drunk, and you will leave your phone at home, lest you fall victim to your horrible desires."

Mary resents the suggestion that she would fail to control herself. She is, after all, quite upset with the idiot in question, and that would be enough for her to completely ignore him until the end of the week, or at least Saturday.

This, of course, is precisely what she tells Lily when her phone is confiscated on Friday while the two of them are shopping for wine. Mary protests and whines, piling another bottle of wine into the cart. But her efforts are futile, and Lily has to point out that she has just been stalking Sirius' Instagram whilst purchasing wine, which indicates that her heart is just not in the right place. Although Mary follows the accusations by picking out Lily's favourite red wine, she is adamant and hides the phone at the bottom of her purse where it stays until the following morning when Lily meets a hungover Mary for coffee with the sole purpose of returning the abducted phone.

"We should have gotten more wine," Mary says in between two flights of stairs leading up to Lily's flat, while carrying three bottles that clink together precariously.

"Oh, yes," Lily is right behind her, carrying some frozen food and snacks. "The four of us probably need at least three gallons of wine."

"Well, you know how Dorcas gets." Dorcas barely drinks wine, but Lily omits pointing this out. Mary is well aware of the fact, she is just being difficult because with Lily keeping her precious phone hostage, she will be unable to document their girls' night, and Mary lives for Instagram stories. "Also, you could give me my phone back, just make sure to take it away by the time we drink enough for me to become stupid."

"So, you admit it," Lily smiles gleefully as they reach the entrance to the flat. "Ha!"

"I don't, but it's best to be safe." The defence she offers is weak, and the battle has already been lost. She grumbles audibly as Lily lets her inside, and makes a beeline for the kitchen, where she stores the wine in the fridge. According to Mary, drinking lukewarm wine is one of life's greatest sins.

The flat is a mess, Lily had no time to clean up that morning, nor the day before. Her shoes are strewn across the living area, and she hasn't eaten at home since Tuesday, which means the trash is filled with empty takeout containers, whilst the dishwasher her parents gladly donated from the small Evans vacation home stands full of clean, unused dishes. Most of her clothes, thankfully, are either spread over the armchair closest to her bedroom, or jumbled into an indistinguishable pile of things on the unused side of her bed.

"This is a mess," she says sadly, and Mary agrees a bit too quickly for her liking, but makes up for it by volunteering to clean up around the kitchen. Lily shoves most of her clothes into a hamper and calls it a day. Half of it is not even dirty, but sometimes postponing chores is the best option. If Mary judges her for it—which she does, just a bit—, she does not voice that opinion.

Dorcas and Marlene arrive half an hour early, and Lily reprimands them, "Guests are supposed to arrive half an hour late. Late!", for disrespecting the arrangement the four of them have made. She continues to parade around the apartment in her underwear, searching for the components of outfit she came up with for the night. By the third time she passes through the small living area in vain, Lily starts to regret throwing half of her wardrobe in the hamper.

"Can you get dressed, please," Dorcas says from her spot on the couch.

"I can't, no," Lily walks out of her room, the messy bun on top of her head falling apart. From the corner of her eye she can see Mary snickering, a glass of wine in her hand. It's Dorcas'—and Marlene's, for that matter—fault that they have to watch her half naked. If they could behave like normal people and be half an hour late instead of being half an hour early, they would never have had to learn the colour of her favourite underwear.

"That's a cute bra," at least Marlene is polite.

"Thanks," undoing all of her previous hard work, Lily brings the hamper full of discarded—and occasionally dirty—clothes out to the middle of the living room and flips it upside down. The small pile of clothes she deemed dirty now sits by the bottom of her feet. Dorcas decides to completely ignore her, and joins Marlene in the kitchen where the blonde is reading the instructions on how to prepare a frozen pizza.

"What are you doing?"

"I can't find my top, Mary."

"Which one?"

"The navy one!"

"Oh," Mary offers, and if she were a little less stressed, Lily might have realized what that implies.

"What," she asks, paying very little attention to her friend, but rather sifting through the clothes on the floor.

"Ahm…"

"You're supposed to wait for it to defrost a bit," Marlene hisses at Dorcas somewhere in the kitchen.

"Well, Lily, you see," Mary approaches her tentatively.

"I've done this literally a thousand times, I think I know how it works," Dorcas replies, annoyed.

The redhead turns slowly to face her friend, "What?"

"Don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?" Lily narrows her eyes because she remembers.. She knows now where her navy blouse is.

"Like you want to toss me over that balcony of yours."

"I want my blouse, Mary," she sighs. "This is why I can't lend you things, I never get them back."

"I forgot!"

"You forget everything!"

"I don't mean to… I just— my brain has too many thoughts."

Mary is too adorable to stay mad at, so Lily just rolls her eyes. "I'll wear my black dress," she informs her before stalking off to her room.

A sudden crash draws Mary's attention to the kitchen where Marlene and Dorcas are both frozen in shock. At their feet and all over the light coloured kitchen tiles, are two broken bottles of wine. The glass shards are soaked in the contents of the bottles, and both of their socks, alongside most of the kitchen counters, are coloured red.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, guys," Lily returns from her room. "Now what are we going to drink?"

"I told you it does need to defrost," Marlene repeats instead of answering her, showing Dorcas—who is positively fuming—the instructions at the bottom of the packaging.


An hour and a half later, the evening finds them at a spacious, funky downtown bar, because Marlene insists on going there. Mary complains she is overdressed, Lily worries she is underdressed—"My dress barely covers my butt"—and Dorcas does not complain much save for the moment when the waiter breaks it to her that they do not have her favourite beer. It puts her in a sour mood, and it is only an hour, and four shots of vodka[MOU1] —which Marlene begs her to drink—later that she takes off her cardigan and decides to play billiards with a group of guys who kept insisting the girls join them.

"Drooling doesn't suit you." The music is loud, and Lily has to lean extra close to Marlene.

"I wasn't," Marlene tries to say, but with her eyes still glued to Dorcas, it does little to convince Lily.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm positive she was checking you out a few minutes ago."

"When I walked over with the shots?"

"Yes," Lily confirms.

"Hm," is all Marlene says as she continues to observe Dorcas who has since—in a span of mere minutes —switched to playing for cash. She sips her pink drink through a swirly straw, and nearly chokes on it when Dorcas winks at her before taking her turn.

"Definitely not staring, then." The comment earns Lily a punch on the shoulder, but once she finishes her cocktail, Marlene stands up and joins Dorcas. She is twirling around the billiards table, teasing the guys, while simultaneously touching Dorcas every ten seconds. It leaves Lily all alone at the table—Mary's left to go to the toilet and is yet to return—and, not wanting to attract the attention of any nearby males, she focuses on her phone, where, she notices, Sirius has left her a dozen of frantic texts.

why is mary ignoring me?

is mary ignoring me?

have I done something?

oh, are you guys doing the girls' night… can I come?

okay, there are a total of four places where you could be that's not your flat

The next couple of texts are from Remus.

You have been warned, we're coming to the Lounge

You're not here

You have been warned, we're on our way to sleek

Aaaaand nevermind

Swanky it is

Lily groans, she can't leave her spot because all of their things are here, and she can't call Mary to warn her because she has confiscated her phone. For the lack of a better option she texts Remus.

Do no, I repeat do not come here. Do anything!

He replies within seconds.

Too late.

Mary does not handle her liquor well. She can handle wine or beer. She can even handle cocktails if she eats enough beforehand. She can't, however, handle her shots, which is why Lily rarely allows her —and she means this in the least controlling manner possible —to have even one. It has become common knowledge among the group that Mary plus a couple of fruity shots equate to regrettable hook ups and the least lucky member of the group having to babysit her.

Unfortunately, Mary finds her way towards the bar, where she utilizes her talents in an appropriate Friday night manner.

"Hey, there," she grins at the bartender, and leans over the bar.

He is far from being handsome. Some might call him cute, but Mary's standards are very high and all she wants is a free drink or two. "Hello," he greets her and she is convinced the sound of his voice turned her off for at least a week.

The smile remains plastered on her face though; the lengths she will go for a free drink, "You seem busy."

"I'll make time," the bloke replies, clearly interested. Mary cringes on the inside.

"Just for me?" The annoying giggle she produces makes the waiter smirk, and that is how Mary justifies the horrible half chuckle, half shriek she let out.

"Well," he is pouring a glass of something behind the counter, "you have to make time for a pretty girl." Oh, she wants to gag at the statement, but he follows it up by serving her a shot of dark, syrupy looking liquid.

"What is that," her voice feels sore from yelling.

The bartender leans closer to her over the bar, and Mary leans backwards, but not far enough to indicate her dislike, "Drink up, babe."

Cringe, cringe, cringe. Instead of gagging, she smiles, "Cheers."

The bartender's name is John, which seems generic enough. He is twenty-seven and has no further prospect in life. After her third drink he tells her, while ignoring at least five other customers, that he aims to be a world renowned DJ. Mary smiles and nods, and feigns interest. She tells him she went to a festival once and enjoyed it. It is only a half-lie, she did go, she simply did not like it all that much. John tells her he can bring a girlfriend to his DJ-ing gigs, but the organisers never allow him to bring male friends. In a strange, borderline creepy turn of events, he follows up by spinning a wild story about the time he flew out to the Canary Islands to be a DJ at a weekend festival, and how it would have been lovely to have her there with him.

But Mary is five drinks in, and she has not paid for any of them, so she twirls a strand of her hair around her index finger and giggles. If a hand on her waist should surprise her, Mary is too drunk to react right away. And if, by the frown on bartender John's face, she should realize that something is off, it takes her five seconds to register the person next to her.

"Oh," is her drunk response, and Sirius—who is nearly as drunk as she is—smiles goofily at her.

"Found you."

"I wasn't hiding."

His fingers are burning against the bare skin of her waist, and she is thankful that she wore the crop top.

"Oh," he motions to the bartender, who, utterly disappointed, moved onto the next victim, to serve two more shots to Sirius and Mary. "So, you were just intent on ignoring me then?"

"Lily took my phone," if she were to lean in any closer, her forehead would rest against his.

"Why?"

"I wasn't supposed to text you."

"Good job, you haven't," he smirks, and raises the glass to his lips before tipping his head backwards. When he turns to face her, Sirius' lips are set in a straight line. "Cheers, MacDonald." He nudges the shot towards her.

The drink burns her throat far less than the first one had, and when Sirius tries to remove his hand from her waist, she sloppily fumbles to keep it in place.

"I didn't mean to ignore you."

"But it makes the sex better?"

The grip she has on his arm tightens, her nails leaving marks. She watches him wince, "Arse."

"Hm." Sirius scrapes his nails lightly against her back in an act of torturous revenge, and over her ribcage, until he feels the goose bumps rise on her skin. "Come on."

Mary does not question him when he tugs her through the crowded bar, nor does she hesitate when they step outside onto an empty terrace area. She briefly considers asking him what the hell is going on when he sits down on a bench, but he pulls her forward. Her knees collide with the wooden surface before she unceremoniously straddles him.

Just like that, she is back where the torturous experience began a week ago, straddling Sirius as her wanting hands tug him closer until there is barely any room left between them. Once again, she applauds herself for ditching her bra that evening, even if it meant giving up on the fantastic push-up effect. The palms of her hands are on fire, though she can hardly even feel them in her drunken stupor. Mary is certain she broke a nail while tugging the leather jacket off Sirius, and she wishes he would let his hands roam somewhere other than just her waist, but it appears the idiot has decided to become a Grade A gentleman, save for the whole humping it out on a dark public terrace business.

In the middle of it all she wonders what she likes best, the way he trails his lips up her neck and down her jawline, or when he bites her lips enough to elicit a soft moan, but hardly with such force as to make it hurt. Sirius tastes like liquor and peppermint, and when Mary grows fed up with his manners and draws his hands up to her boobs with a sense of urgency he can't help but chuckle and look at her with a mischievous smirk.

It takes all of her self-control (and thinking of what her mother would say) for Mary to keep the damned top on. Public indecency has never quite been her thing. Then again, she was not into Sirius when she met him either, but here they are, him being a gentleman—contrary to her first assessment of the bloke—and her hardly managing to keep her top on. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Inside the bar, Lily goes mad with worry until Remus joins her.

"I don't think we want to find them right now," he tells her.

Remus is a great mate, and if one ever needed proof, it would be the fact that when he arrives at her table, he is already carrying a Martini for her.

"I love you," she yells at him, as the tune of a familiar 90s bop fills the air. At the billiards table, Marlene and Dorcas have abandoned the game altogether and are now drunkenly sword fighting with their cues.


A/N: The second chapter! Hope you like it and please review. Also thanks at the people who did review the first one