Lily stared at the phone. It stared back at her. She glared back. The phone stared harder.
Lily sighed, finally breaking eye contacts with the buttons. She had been sitting on the floor, staring up at their landline hanging on the wall for almost an hour. She knew it was dumb. She knew she should just do it or not. God knew she had plenty of better things to do than have a staring match with a telephone.
She glared at the landline for putting her in such a predicament. It simply looked back at her, unaffected. Because it was a hunk of plastic on her wall, not a sentient creature. She was going crazy.
Lily sighed, pulling herself up from the ground. She would just have to do it. Marlene would be home soon, and if she didn't now she would lose her nerve, and the afternoon she had spent building it up.
She pulled the carefully folded slip of paper out of her pocket, flattening it gingerly. James' messy scribble depicted his name and a phone number.
Looking at the handwriting almost made her lose her nerve again. She'd decided to give up on the whole James Potter situation, or at least put it on pause for a while. She had more important things to worry about. Much more important. Life or death things, things beyond an admittedly addicting but ultimately useless curiosity over James and what he was up to.
But then she had gotten The Idea. The Idea was possibly the worst idea she'd ever had in her life, but now that she had The Idea she could not get it out of her head, because she knew Marlene would find it to be the funniest thing in the entire world and if she did not carry out The Idea to fruition Marlene might genuinely not forgive her. No matter that Marlene did not currently know the contents of The Idea, she would find out somehow, someway. And when she did and simultaneously realized that Lily had the means to go through with it but not the guts, she would excommunicate her from their friendship. And then Lily would be left friendless and alone.
Well, that was not quite true. Lily had other friends. Marcus being one, though she hadn't seen him in weeks. The only other person Lily had been hanging out with consistently lately was the goddamn Batman, who Lily firmly slotted into the "weird business associate" category of relationships. She refused to be friends with someone who dressed up like a bat for fun.
Either way, living without Marlene sounded both boring and personally disastrous, and Lily was not willing to risk it. She took a deep breath, looked down at the paper, and dialed the number.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Hello?"
"Hey." Lily said, nerves rushing in all of the sudden. She twisted the telephone wire around her finger.
"Lily?" James asked, sounded both surprised and delighted. Lily's stomach flipped.
"Yeah, it's me."
"To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?"
God, it was like he could tell she was about to ask something embarrassing.
"I have sort of a... favor to ask you." Lily said, twisting the telephone wire into a knot with one hand "You don't have to though." she added quickly.
"Anything." James said, easily.
Lily nearly swore under her breath. She'd been hoping against hope that he would say no, even though she had known from the moment she picked up the phone that he wouldn't. He wasn't the type of person to say no to things. Though, Lily supposed, it was probably a lot easier to not say no to things when one had billions of dollars at their disposal, ready to spend on anyone and anything at the drop of a hat. The thought grounded her, reminded her why she didn't like him. Didn't like him or his billions and billions of unethical dollars. She felt much better after that moment of self indulgence, until she remembered the mission of the phone call. Then she felt sick again.
"Don't you want to hear what it is first?" She ventured, mostly to kill time.
"Where's the fun in that?" James said cheerfully.
"You have to promise not to laugh." Lily sighed, leaning against the wall. She wished she would melt into it.
"Why would I laugh?" James sounded intrigued, though she could tell he was trying to smother most of his glee at the proposition.
"Because I'm about to ask for something really really embarrassing." With each 'really' Lily thumped her head against the wall. Lightly. But enough to be felt.
"Okay, I won't laugh." James said. He sounded serious, a little too serious, like he was pretending to be serious in order to cover up the fact that he was laughing.
"It's not for me, it's for my friend." Lily said, forging ahead, trying not to picture his face in her mind's eye, earnest, smiling, barely containing laughter.
"Nobody has ever said that phrase and meant it."
"Okay actually never-mind, I don't need any—" Lily started, but James interrupted her.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, nobody has ever said that phrase and meant it until this moment in history when you said it just now." James said hurriedly.
"It really is for my friend." Lily insisted, because she was not going to go through with this if there was even a sliver of doubt that it was true, "My roommate, Marlene, she's really obsessed with— ugh. She's really obsessed with celebrities and things. Like really obsessed. It's her one true passion in life."
"Go on." James said. Lily could tell she had intrigued him now. She was past the point of no return.
"And she's particularly obsessed with that one magazine, CelebrityLiving."
"I know it well." He said.
Of course he did. He was splashed on the front cover more often than not.
"She's on all the blogs and forums and things. I mean like, incredibly obsessed with this one magazine."
"They have forums just for the magazine?"
"You'd be surprised." Lily said.
"Right. Continue."
Lily sighed.
"Well, her birthday is coming up. It's in a week. And I was wondering... ugh." The full scope of what she was about to ask him hit her like a ton of bricks.
"Lily, the suspense is killing me." James said.
Lily closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for abject embarrassment.
"I was wondering if maybe you could... sign one for her."
James was silent for a good ten seconds.
"Hello?" Lily said nervously. Maybe the line had disconnected. Maybe he hadn't heard her. Maybe she could go the rest of her life in peace, never thinking of him again.
"I'm still here." James said, dashing her hopes. He sounded breathless.
"You're laughing at me." Lily complained. She could feel her face growing hot. She was so glad this was at least over the phone so he couldn't make fun of her blushing.
"I'm not." James said, clearly holding in laughter, "I'm really not, I swear."
"This is the most humiliating moment of my life." Lily groaned, sliding down the wall to the floor. Both because she would very much like to sink into the floor, never to be seen by humankind again, and also because her leg was starting to twinge in that uncomfortable way it did when she stood for too long nowadays.
"If this is the most humiliating moment of your life I think you've done pretty well for yourself so far."
"You don't understand how bad this is."
"Don't worry, I understand."
"That's not comforting the way you think it is."
"I mean, look at it this way," James said, sounding far too cheerful, "At least your humiliation is contained to just me. Every time I do something embarrassing it's splashed all over the front page of CelebrityLiving."
"I suppose." Lily said, unconvinced. She could not think of a single person on Earth who it would be more embarrassing to share this situation with than James, ignoring that he was a central tenant of it all. She would have to share it with Marlene eventually, but Marlene would just find it funny. Really, the fact that Lily had to go through all this in order to get the damn magazine would probably please Marlene more than the magazine itself.
"I'll do it." James said, putting on an air as if Lily was asking for a great deal of inconvenience from him rather than 20 seconds of his time and a sharpie, "But—"
"But?" Lily cut in, apprehensively.
"It's a small but." James promised.
"How small?"
"Just a cup of coffee."
"You want me to buy you coffee?" Lily asked, confused.
"No, I want you to let me buy you coffee." James corrected.
"You want me to go on a date with you." Lily realized, panic seizing her.
"Who said anything about a date? It would simply two people, two friends, if you will, getting coffee together. Happens all the time." James said innocently.
"You're paying, though." Lily pointed out, electing to ignore the fact that A) he had called them friends, and B) that descriptor was not entirely inaccurate. There was simply no time to mentally unpack that right now.
"I'm a billionaire. It would be rude of me to not pay for your coffee."
Lily truly could not argue with that.
"Okay." She said, begrudgingly.
"Fantastic." James said, his voice brightening immediately, "We can go now!"
"Now?" Lily asked, alarmed; she had been expecting at least a day or two to mentally prepare, "It's four in the afternoon!"
"So?"
"So, who drinks coffee at four in the afternoon?"
"Lily, are you really going to stand here and tell me you have a normal sleep schedule that would prevent you from drinking coffee at 4p.m. on a Wednesday?"
"You don't know what my sleep schedule is like." Lily said, doing her best to sound offended, despite the fact that he was absolutely correct. Between work and the club and laying awake thinking about everything she could not remember the last time she had fallen asleep at a normal hour.
"You work night shifts." James said easily, "Plus, you just seem like the type. I would know, since I am also the type. Which is why I'm not opposed to getting coffee at four in the afternoon."
"Aren't you supposed to be working right now?" Lily asked, suddenly remembering that he actually did have a job as well. Maybe a somewhat fake job, because when you are born with several billion dollars do you really ever have a job, but a job all the same.
"That's the wonderful thing about being the CEO, I can ditch anytime I like." James said, somewhat confirming her suspicions that his job was really more for the aesthetic of it all than actual work.
Lily sighed, realizing that she had lost this battle.
"Where do I meet you?"
The address James gave her was in a surprisingly non-descript neighborhood, down by the edge of the river. She had been fully expecting him to send her deep into the rich part of Gotham, the small collection of blocks that held the few genuine skyscrapers the city had to offer, Potter industries being one of them. She'd only been there once or twice, and it had felt like an entirely different world; the streets were clean and well lit, the people walking down the street didn't have the same hardness in their eyes. And everything was more expensive. Which was just as well, since the city trains didn't even go into that part of town. The city seemed to figure that anyone who had any business being there could afford a cab.
Lily could not afford a cab, so she was glad to find that the little coffee shop tucked on a corner just a block away from the closest train stop. James was already standing outside, holding two cups of coffee.
"Am I late?" Lily asked, as James handed her one of the cups.
"Right on time." James said, cheerful as ever, "I got here early though, so I figured I'd grab us something. I had to guess for you though."
Lily took a sip of her drink, a touch apprehensive. But to her surprise, it was just how she liked it— way too sweet, with a lot of milk.
"How did you know?" she asked, very confused.
"It was an educated guess." James said, taking a sip from his own drink and looking very pleased with himself.
"Most people think I take my coffee black." Lily admitted.
"See, that was my first guess," James said, "But then I remembered the night that we met, and I thought: would a girl who smuggled an entire tray of mini hot dogs under a table drink black coffee?"
"I was hungry." Lily grumbled into her drink, taking a sip to hide the smile she was having a hard time suppressing, "And what does that have to do with my coffee order, anyways?"
"It means you like junk food, and sweet coffee is basically just junk food you can drink." James answered, as if this perfectly obvious and not mildly nonsensical. Though, in fairness, he had come to the correct conclusion.
"I like healthy food." Lily said, defensively, though this was something of a stretch, "Like— salad and... fruit."
"Ah yes, the two healthy foods, salad and fruit." James said, clearly trying not to laugh.
"Okay, so I eat crap, you were right." Lily said, rolling her eyes and taking another deep swig of her junk food coffee. It might be destroying her arteries but at least it was delicious.
"If it helps, my coffee is even worse than yours." James said.
"Is that even possible?"
"Try it." He said, grinning, holding his cup out to her. She took it tentatively, and took a cautious sip.
"Oh my god." She said, covering her mouth with her hand. It was so sugary it made her drink seem bitter.
"Bad, right?" James said, taking the cup back and taking a generous swig.
"I mean that is just offensive. Is there even coffee in there?"
"Not very much, no." James said, sounded far too pleased about it, "Well, are you ready to go?"
Lily looked around at him, confused.
"Go? Aren't we here?"
James gave her a wicked grin.
"Well, we have to find a magazine, don't we?"