James took a deep breath. The boys would be proud. Sirius would probably make some snide remark about his balls, and the time it took to get that out there. Remus would have counted each time he stuttered, used a filler noise like "erm", or restarted his train of thought. Peter would just be pleased that James had let that off his chest. Peter was always just pleased whenever any of them did anything significant. Or insignificant. Or anything, really. Anything at all.
Rushing out of the office would seem like he was chasing Lily, right? And he didn't want others in the Common Room thinking that they were strategically staggering their exits to hide some imagined sexual encounter. So he waited.
The couch was a lot more comfortable than he had been allowing it to be while talking to Lily, but now that she was gone and his guard was down, he relaxed back into the cushion, put his feet up on the wooden coffee table, leaned his head back, and stared at the ceiling, deep in thought.
What the fuck just happened? What did I even say? And, more importantly, what did she hear? Why is this whole thing so fucking complicated? Her hair looked really pretty though..
A while later, James walked into the room he shared with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew just as some heavy-looking metal item was chucked in his direction by none other than Padfoot himself. "Padfoot, what the fuck?!" screamed a nearly mutilated James.
"Ah, Prongsy. you're here! You can settle this debate, you fucking Golden Boy, you! You see, Moony here thinks that..."
And with that, James managed to forget about his Lily Evans debacle for a while, choosing instead to be sucked into the drama of his roommates - and best friends - until they remembered the possibly life changing conversation he had just returned from.
"Tell us about it, Prongsy," prompted Sirius. "You told her you're head over heels, right? And that her hair is the color of happiness and that you want to hold her and count every freckle, every day for the rest of your sad, sad life?"
"Shut up, Padfoot," James responded, not trying to hide the embarrassed smile on his face. He grabbed his pillow and put it in front of his chest, hugging it to himself and burying his mouth and nose. Nothing could hide the redness of cheeks, however, as he avoided the other Marauders' knowing looks. His friends knew him too well. "Okay, fine. Here's what happened."
The boys stayed up into the night, going over the finer details of the encounter, psychoanalyzing both James's words and Lily's reactions, and trying to predict her eventual response.
