Room Service

Chapter 8

It's more than a little disconcerting when James doesn't bother her for the rest of the night; no calls, no messages, no response, not even when she bombards him with texts until her fingers hurt.

Skin vibrating in a constant state of cautious scrutiny, and mind being more than convinced that he's trying to play at something with his quick, easy acquiescence, Lily finds herself feeling sufficiently like a fool by the time she slips into bed at five in the morning—thanks to her body's accustomed sleep pattern.

And then she wonders that perhaps, she's just been reading into the situation too much. Perhaps that smirk and that sly grin she thought she'd heard in his voice had meant nothing. Perhaps he was just upset about her directive and no longer wanted to talk to her.

Perhaps he really had accepted what she'd told him.

All of those assumptions come crashing down, shattering into a million pieces, as soon as she walks in through the doors of the hotel the next evening.

Mary's accusing glare that follows her from the entrance all the way to the reception already sets her on edge, an apprehensive crease lining her forehead as she drops her purse and places her mug on the counter. "Um, hi?"

"What," her friend hisses, "happened yesterday?"

Lily blinks dumbly, pinning her nametag. "Like, in general, or…? That's a pretty vague question, Mare. Can you please be more specific—"

"James fucking Potter!" She screeches in a low voice, eyes wild. "What happened with him? Did you say something? Did the bloke hit his head, or have an accident? Because it seems like he's lost his bloody mind, Lil!"

"Okay, okay, breathe!" She hurriedly puts her hands on Mary's shoulders, ignoring the thump of her own heart, the relentless stream of oh no oh no oh no that's taken to playing inside her brain. "Tell me what's happened. What did he do?"

"Dear God, where do I even begin?!" Mary sighs, massaging her temples with her fingertips. "He's been calling—incessantly—all morning! And I mean incessantly, love. You remember that obnoxious couple from last week? The woman who kept calling the Front Desk instead of Room Service whenever she so much as needed a spare toothbrush? And then we had to divert her to the right department again and again?" Lily nods silently. "Well, Potter is doing the same. Only, I'm pretty certain that he's doing it deliberately, and at a frequency that's honestly alarming. I swear he's been the only one to keep calling since—"

But Mary's rant is brought to a sudden halt when, as if carried by a stroke of coincidence, the intercom phone on the counter starts ringing loudly.

"Oh, you son of a bitch," she seethes menacingly, eyeing the intercom.

Lily frowns. "I'll take it. You head on home."

"Are you sure? He's not going to stop."

"He will if I talk to him."

"What?"

"Just… let me handle it, love. You've had an exhausting day."

"Okay," Mary sighs, looking for her purse as Lily moves to pick the handset. "But if he's really giving you trouble or being an arse, Lil, you know you can go to McGonagall, right?"

"I know. But, it's nothing like that." She nods placatingly, and waits until Mary is a few feet away before finally picking up the phone. A deep inhale. "Hello, Front Desk. How may I help you?"

"Hi, Lily." She hears the smirk in his voice. "Is it seven already? I must've not noticed. Are you having a good day?"

Bloody git.

"Why have you been harassing Mary and the rest of the staff all day, James?"

"Harassing?" he gasps, and somehow manages to sound genuinely affronted. "That is quite the serious accusation, you know. I've simply, and reasonably, requested their help when I've needed it. There hasn't been a single inappropriate call; you can ask anyone you want. All well within my rights as a guest of The Golden Stag, I assure you."

"I find that hard to believe, for some reason. Mary told me you've been asking for all the wrong things from the front desk when you should've been calling Room Service."

"Well, you can hardly blame me when there are a million buttons on the phone, Evans." James sighs dramatically, sounding every bit as ridiculous as the words pouring out of his mouth. At his next intake of breath, which comes after a prolonged pause, Lily finds a strange sort of apprehension crawling up her spine. "But if you insist, I can call the Room Service staff for all my requests—perfectly reasonable, I enunciate again—from now on."

Just the thought of foisting the repercussions of all this drama onto her poor team and colleagues sends her spluttering against the phone. Knowing what she does now, there's no doubt lingering in her mind that his reasonable requests accommodate twenty phone calls, at the very least, before midnight falls. "No, no, don't! Jesus Christ, Potter! You're a real nuisance, you know that?"

"Now that's just no way to speak to your valuable customers, Evans!" James says, and it's no challenge at all to picture the shit-eating grin that stretches over his mouth.

"I know why you're doing this."

"Enlighten me, please."

Lily gnashes her teeth together, fingers furling against the cool counter. "Look. Will you just come down here so that we can talk? Please?"

"Are you sure? Because I distinctly remember you saying—"

"James. Please."

Silence falls on his end; for a heartbeat; for two. And then, she hears him drop the heaviest of sighs, the sound jarringly sincere. "As if I could say no now."

He arrives downstairs five minutes later, when she's just finishing up a call for a booking.

"Yes, of course. Yes, we look forward to welcoming—" her eyes catch on a head of messy hair and a wry smile. The result of it: a pull of shuddering breath. "—welcoming you on the 16th of October. Thank you for your time. Have a good day!"

He speaks up before she's even fully placed the phone back. "You know, you never did tell me what you do around here when you're bored."

Lily spares him half a glance over the notepad she scribbles in, lest she forget the dates and details of the booking later. He's wearing a light white cotton t-shirt that's honestly too thin for the chill of October, hair slightly damp from a shower, and when he catches her gaze, the smile on his face widens. She looks back down quickly.

"I read, Potter." She puts away the notepad, caps the pen, and gives him her full attention. "I'm sorry."

James's eyes widen slightly. "Cripes, Evans, you don't need to apologize for reading during work."

"No, not—" she huffs a laugh. Idiot. "Not that. I'm sorry about yesterday. About saying that I wouldn't talk to you without even giving a proper explanation. And I'm sorry about some of the other things I said, too. That's why you kept calling all day and pestering Mary, wasn't it?"

And though she hadn't meant for her question to come across as chiding—well, not that much—he still ducks his head the barest amount, cheeks tingeing pink. "Okay, I may have gone slightly overboard with that this morning. I shouldn't have made it so difficult for her. That wasn't a nice thing to do."

"Well, yeah, no arguments there, but—I reckon I'm partially at fault, too."

But it's like her words simply wrench out even more guilt from him. "No, it—you weren't. I'll apologize to her tomorrow, and explain why I was acting like such a prat."

"Okay." She licks her lips nervously, watches him with a steady stare. "Are we alright, then? Can we put this behind us?"

"Depends," says James, looking up again with eyes narrowed lightly. "Are you going to tell me what brought on the decision to stop talking in the first place?"

"It doesn't matter." She waves off, the nonchalance of her tone not carrying to her heart, which thuds frantically behind the walls of her chest. "It's not like you even let it last for twelve hours anyway. So will you please just accept the apology and stop the calls?"

"Only on one condition," he supplies, voice faux-innocent, and instantly putting Lily on edge. She cocks a brow, unable to hold back a challenging tilt of her chin to counter the gleam in his eyes. "I won't call and trouble anyone, hell I won't call at all, if you want, apart from just once a day. But that one call—" He leans forward. "I want you to answer it."

"Uh—"

"I want you to bring up the Room Service to me, whatever it is."

Oh, fucking hell…

"No." Lily swallows, clears her throat to stopper the breathy whisper she's just released. "No, I—I can't do that. I'm a receptionist, James. Room Service does not fall in my job description. I'm not even trained properly for it, nor do I know the ins and outs of where to—"

"Oh, don't worry," James grins, "I promise to be very basic in my requests. Nothing you'll need training for. And even if you mess up, I won't complain, Evans, you have my word."

"What—what would I even say to the team?"

"Oh, anything you want, I don't mind! Call me an arsehole with the strangest demands, it's alright with me."

"What if I get into trouble?"

"You won't. I know enough about hotels to know that this can't possibly be the weirdest request made by a guest."

Lily blows out a breath, unwillingly impressed. "And if I don't agree, you'll bother the others like you did today?"

"I—" he pauses, here, runs a hand through his hair, bashful look back in his eyes. "I won't. I wasn't going to keep doing that anyway, even when I said I would, earlier during the call. But I'd still… I'd still like to see you once a day."

"Isn't that entirely counterproductive to what I've been trying to do?"

"What are you trying to do, though?"

"Jesus, this is not a good idea—"

"Because I promise I'll behave, Evans, if that's what you're afraid of."

She throws him a sharp, sceptical glare, if only to counter the fear brewing inside her own mind: she doesn't trust herself to behave. But James simply grins, laughter shining in his eyes. "What are you going to do if I refuse?"

"Nothing," he says, thumb brushing distractedly over his chin. "But I will be extremely heartbroken. You were too cruel to me yesterday. Don't know if there is any other way for me to recover from the caustic words."

"My God, you're really enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Enjoying the prospect of getting to spend more time with you?" He laughs, almost humourlessly. "Of course, I am. And if that smile you're fighting right now is any indication, I'd say you're very much enjoying this, too, Lily."

She rolls her eyes, presses her lips together tighter. "Oh, shut up, Potter. Take yourself and that delusion away from here."

James laughs again, full and loud this time, and raps his knuckles against the counter in farewell. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow, Evans. Goodnight."

If it were even mildly acceptable, she would wave her middle finger at him right then, and not least because of the fact that he was—gratingly, infuriatingly, undeniably—correct in his assessment: she is thrilled at the prospect, and alarmingly so.

Fuck her. Fuck him.

A/N - James is an idiot, but a loveable one. Idk why this is an author's note but it is.