At five to three, just as she did every day for her break, Fleur sat herself down with a cup of tea and a copy of the Daily Prophet to wait for Bill to arrive. She was trying to keep up with current events and attempt to read what she could understand; to see if there were any new developments on the whereabouts of that evil monster who'd killed Cedric and tried to kill Harry.
As she flipped over the front page, she was starting to wonder if perhaps she needed to work harder on her reading skills when it came to English. Given what she saw, it almost seemed as if this newspaper refused to acknowledge the one they call You-Know-Who's existence. It was as if the incident in June at Hogwarts had never happened, which didn't make any sense. She must be missing something. Why would they deny that?
Also, if she didn't know any better, it felt as if they were mocking Harry and Dumbledore for claiming this You-Know-Who monster was back. But then who did they think killed Cedric? What did they think happened that night? Why would they think Harry lied? Something truly must be lost in translation and she must have been misunderstanding what was being printed. The alternative of flat out denying everything was absurd.
Then again, it would explain some of the opinions people had around here about Harry. That wretched Clea woman had been one example, but she'd heard others echo similar thoughts. The idea of Harry simply walking away from a battle with You-Know-Who didn't strike people are being possible. It had to be exaggerated, and apparently Dumbledore was the one behind that.
"Hey you," came Bill's voice, which took Fleur by surprise. She must have been more absorbed in the paper than she thought, but she quickly set it down and smiled at him. He was wearing blue today. It made his eyes stand out.
"I was hoping to find you here," he added as he took the seat directly across from her. She noticed he hadn't stopped to grab his usual cup of tea or coffee. He'd come straight over to sit.
"Where else would I be?" she asked, leaning forward onto the table and letting her smile linger. "Three o'clock every day. This is where you will find me. We have a standing date, do we not?"
"We do," he said with a small nod. "And as lovely as this is, I was thinking maybe we could move this to another location."
Her ears immediately perked at that. She must have given something away in her expression, because he suddenly added, "What I mean is, can I convince you to also be found at the Leaky Cauldron tonight around seven?"
She stared at him. What…? The Leaky Cauldron? What was happening at the Leaky Cauldron tonight other than very little cleaning or upkeep? He couldn't possibly be asking her out to the Leaky Caul—
"I plan on grabbing dinner then on my break," he said, interrupting her thoughts. "I was wondering, if you didn't have anything better to do tonight, if you'd want to join me. I'll buy you dinner."
She continued to stare at him. She wasn't going to lie, she was confused. This seemed like a date—he wanted to buy her dinner; he'd said that. But...the Leaky Cauldron? She had many thoughts on that place, and not one of them was a romantic first date destination. She was starting to think she was missing something and this really wasn't what she thought it was; that it was another friendly get together.
He suddenly laughed a little, perhaps reading her face. "Trust me, I know it's a shitty date. The Leaky Cauldron is not my first choice. Dates on my dinner break are not how I usually do things, but I enjoyed it the last time I ran into you there and…" He shrugged. "It would be nice to do it again—if you're game."
She focused all of her attention now on the fact that he had said date. He's used that word. As different as this was from what she was accustomed to, if this had potential to go somewhere, then she was going to run with it. She was willing to try anything once.
"I can meet you at the Leaky Cauldron."
"Yeah?" he said, smiling then. "Terrific. I get about an hour, which...isn't much, but it's about the only free time I get lately. I'm trying to make myself have more fun when I get the time. Do things I enjoy."
Things he enjoyed.
She'd repeated that phrase to herself several times in her mind the rest of the afternoon as she finished up her filing while simultaneously running through outfit choices in her head. Apparently, dinner with her was something he would enjoy, which—why wouldn't he? But she still found the feeling of it all very thrilling. She wanted nothing more than for seven o'clock to turn up, but the clock was simply not moving quickly enough.
After going back and forth over almost every outfit she'd brought with her to England, she'd ultimately decided to approach this evening in a relaxed fashion. She wouldn't get all dressed up like she usually would for a date, because that would be wasted and look silly in a place like the Leaky Cauldron. She would stick out like a sore thumb and she really should save that for a more proper occasion.
Because she was sure that if this little dinner break date went as well as she planned, a proper date would follow.
So at ten to seven, in a day dress she often would wear out on the weekends and her hair down and barely curled at the ends, she found herself walking into the musty, strange smelling Leaky Cauldron. She was usually the type to show up several minutes late to these things because that was how she'd been taught to approach social situations—to make an entrance and have everyone wait on you—but she'd gone against that tonight. She knew Bill was on his break and only had so many minutes for dinner. She wanted every minute she could get.
At a touch after seven, just as he said he would be, Bill arrived and spotted her straight away. He'd walked directly over to where she'd been sitting and asked if he could get her anything. She opted for a drink, and when he pressed if she wanted more—seeing as this was supposed to be over dinner—she quickly claimed she really wasn't hungry and that the drink was fine. She wasn't quite ready to admit this to him—so as to not insult his choice in locations—but she had a fairly strict rule about not eating the "food" that the Leaky Cauldron served.
"What is that?" Fleur asked him once his food had arrived, watching as he received some sort of unappetizing brown blob on a plate.
"Steak and Kidney pie," he offered, smiling a little bit.
She looked at it rather skeptically. She'd seen her fair share of meat pies in her day, but that...did not look like any of the ones she was familiar with. That looked like a mess.
"You want a bite?" he asked, sticking his fork in before offering it to her.
As thoughtful as she found the gesture, she shook her head immediately and said, "No, thank you." She was perfectly fine passing on that. Perfectly fine.
He laughed. "Well, you're missing out. This is one of my favorite foods. I mean, maybe not this particular pie from here, but in general…"
"I do not find myself eating many traditional English dishes," she said, sipping on her drink and watching him eat. "I find everything here so very heavy. You would think I would be used to it by now after my time at Hogwarts, but no."
"What do you eat then?" he asked once he'd swallowed a bite.
"I cook for myself," she said, before adding quickly. "I am a very good cook."
"Are you?" he asked, his face mildly impressed. "It's funny because cooking is one of the things I've always been absolute rubbish at. I burn everything and I have no idea why."
She smiled. "You have mentioned that before." She sat up straighter. "I, however, have always loved to cook. I learned from the best." She let her smile get a bit playful. "My maman has a gift for cooking. She taught me everything and is incroyable. You will not meet a better cook."
"I don't know," Bill said, letting his tone match her playfulness. "My mum's pretty amazing in the kitchen herself. I think it's a mum thing. You're always going to think yours is the best."
She shrugged a bit. His mother may have been fine, but there was no way she could touch hers. "Did yours not teach you how to cook?"
"She tried on occasion when I was smaller," he said, "but it got harder once there were so many kids around to really learn much of anything in that house. I was usually the one keeping my siblings busy so that she could actually cook."
Fleur smiled; she quite enjoyed these little glimpses into his life. It was clear he had a very responsible and mature nature about him due to being the oldest child of a large family. He'd clearly taken on loads of extra responsibilities throughout his life to make life easier on others. It was an attractive quality; a man who cared.
"I would give anything for my mother to make me something right now," she said, frowning a little as she thought of her life back at home. Her family. Her friends. Her home. The food. On the whole, she felt she'd adjusted to her move fairly well, but sometimes she couldn't stave off the homesickness and desire to be back in France. Unlike last year, where she had all of her friends and Madame Maxime around as support, these days she was truly doing everything on her own.
"I miss...many things about home," she added as an afterthought, looking away and sounding more solemn than she'd intended.
"I get it," he offered, and when she looked back at him, he added, "It was rough when I first left here and went to Egypt. I didn't know anyone. I'd just finished school—where I knew everyone and it was its own community—yet here I was completely on my own for the first time in my life. It was a complete culture shock."
She could certainly relate to that.
"Even the climate was something I had to completely adjust to because it's the polar opposite of England. I barely knew the language and—don't get me started on the food." He laughed a little. "At my core, I'm a very basic British kid who was used to this sort of stuff—" He pointed to his steak and kidney pie, "and my mum's cooking. Egypt and middle eastern cuisine was a complete mind fuck.
"And since I can't cook, I actually went and found a British pub in Cairo that, honestly, made the Leaky here looking like a five star restaurant. But I'll be damned if I didn't go there every day for a year until I finally branched out and decided to try new things."
"At least you tried," she said.
"Yeah, eventually," he said. "Point is, I get how hard it can be. I do. But I also know how much I grew to love it over there. I eventually did create a life for myself—I did new things, saw new places, made new friends. I enjoyed the hell out of it and miss it every day." He smiled at her. "And I hope you get to that point too because I've enjoyed having you here."
She returned his smile. "I have enjoyed being here."
"And if I'm being honest," he added. "I may know loads of people around here, but I fell out of touch with most of my old mates over the years and…" He shrugged. "You mentioned you don't have a lot of friends here, and neither do I. We have that in common." He smiled a funny sort of smile. "It's why I think we've become...you know. Friends."
She wanted to ask 'just friends'? But she knew he was trying to be sweet and make her feel better about missing home, so she decided not to press it. There would be time for that sort of talk; she could already sense the tide's turning on them and moving toward more comfortable territory. There was actually something warm and fuzzy about him wanting to be her friend; about him attempting to cheer her up when he'd seen she'd felt down. She wasn't used to that sort of talk from men. They were usually far more blatant with their intentions…
They continued to meet and have these little dinner break dates every evening after that for the rest of that week—-except for Thursday, because he had Thursday off and apparently did something else on those evenings. He never got into the specifics of his plans, just that it kept him busy and it had to do with his family. She didn't press him for more information because she could tell he didn't want to talk much about it.
She quickly learned he was like that about a few things. While they chatted about anything and everything, a handful of topics did make him grow quieter—such as when they were talking about his return home from Egypt. He'd been enthusiastically telling her all about his adventures there; how much he'd loved it and how he had hoped to move back in a year or so. She'd asked him why he left in the first place since he seemed to love it so much, but his enthusiasm had dropped off immediately and he'd merely mumbled something about wanting to be near his family after what had happened with Harry and You-Know-Who.
His body language had tightened up when he spoke, which she took that to mean he didn't really want to further speak about it. She understood. Even the mention of Harry and that night made her immediately think of Cedric, the screams, the nightmares, and...she didn't want to talk about it either. They clearly weren't there yet. They both had things they weren't ready to share.
But everything else was like an open book. He was so easy to talk to; so responsive to her comments and questions. What struck her most was that he genuinely listened to her stories and engaged her as a person—not just a pretty face.
She'd had that issue with boys in that past. Some of them would act as if they were so shocked to be out with someone like her that they turned into brainless twits who had nothing to offer the conversation. Some of the others attempted to overcompensate by acting as though they were better looking than they were—a gift to wizardkind—and that she should be happy to be out with them. They were all mostly dreadful.
But not Bill. He was turning out to be perfect. She was truly having a hard time finding a flaw—and she could always find a flaw.
"My Uncle Bilius actually got himself banned from this pub," Bill was saying on their third dinner meeting, as the pair sat at the bar with him eating his dinner—after again offering to buy her something—and her having a drink. He'd been telling her about some of the more wild stories he'd heard come out of the Leaky Cauldron and why it was such a staple to British wizarding culture, though she'd stopped listening once she'd heard the name Bilius. A random thought had struck her.
That wasn't his name...was it? She'd never considered that Bill might be short for something—something like Bilius, which...that was...it was more English sounding than Bill. He did not look like someone who should be named Bilius. Not at all. There wasn't anything sexy about that name.
"Were you...named after him?" she asked once he'd finally finished.
"Sort of," he said, pushing his dinner plate away now that he was finished. "Bilius is a family name, so for generations, it's been floating around in my family with the eldest son. Now, my uncle, even before he died, was a bachelor who never wanted kids. That meant my dad was next in line to carry the tradition."
Fleur forced her face to remain as neutral as possible. Oh god, his real name Bilius...She was falling for a man named Bilius...
"But my mum hated the name from the start," he continued. "Not too fond of my uncle either, to be honest. So when I came along—eldest son and all that, supposed to be Billus—she put her foot down. Told my dad she refused to do it. Now, he claimed it's a fine name and it's tradition; she claimed she's not breaking from her own family's tradition of not calling their children ridiculous names."
He laughed to himself. "Anyway, it caused some discussions, but ultimately they compromised. My mum got to call me William, but my dad got to nickname me Bill."
"Oh," Fleur said quickly, as if she'd just received wonderful news. Thank goodness for his mother's objection. William was a lovely name. She could definitely get behind William. She could get underneath, on top, and whatever other positions there were with that name.
"William Arthur Weasley," he said, offering out his hand as if he were introducing himself for the first time.
She smiled as she reached forward and took his hand, which was warm and strong and...now holding onto hers. They'd feigned a proper handshake, but neither had let go once they'd finished. Neither even tried. They simply sat there holding on and smiling at each other.
"Fleur Isabelle Delacour," she said, staring into his eyes. "A pleasure."
"Is all mine," he said, still grinning.
He was perfect; always with a charming remark or a thoughtful comment. Those sorts of moments were becoming more and more of the norm; general anecdotes were becoming more detailed. They were giving more and more personal information with each sit down. She knew that if they weren't under the time restraint of him having to return to work, something would have happened by now. It was just a matter of time, but she wasn't sure how much longer she could wait. It had been nearly a week now, and she felt at times like she was about to burst.
"You actually may have met my brother during the Tournament," Bill said the following night in which the pub seemed unusually busy. The two were seated at a table off in the back away from most of the other patrons; it was a touch more private than what they were accustomed to, which was a nice change. The topic of his family had come up and he'd been trying to break down the sheer size of it to her, which...she was having a hard time keeping up with. He had so many siblings.
"I have mentioned I met him," she said, remembering the face of the tall and lanky, freckled-face boy she'd met at Hogwarts. "He helped Harry on the second task with my sister. He was very sweet. He and Harry are close friends, are they not?"
Bill looked confused for a half second before something clearly hit him. "Right, of course. That's actually my youngest brother, Ron. He's Harry's best mate, and I forget you'd have met him as well. But I was actually referring to my other brother. He's the one who brought the dragons over for the first task."
Her eyes went a little wide at that, remembering how he'd spoken of a dragon brother in the past. "The one who is 'into dragons'?" she quoted. "You mentioned him the day I burned by hand in the tearoom."
"Yeah, that's the one," he said as he cut at his food. "He's a Dragonologist. You have an amazing memory."
"I rarely forget things," she said matter-of-factly. "But you say he was responsible for the dragons for the task?"
"He was," he said with a nod. "Well, the dragon sanctuary he works for was, but he was the facilitator. He was there for the task."
She looked away as the memories of a large, terrifying dragon shooting fire at her as she attempted to snatch a golden egg suddenly flooded her thoughts. "Well, you can thank him for providing the dragons. Nice that he could help." She glanced down at her arm and turned it over to reveal a scar—a clearly blemished, but healed-over spot on an otherwise perfectly smooth arm. "I still have the burn scar on my arm." She looked up at him. "Dragon fire scars do not fade, nor do they disappear."
"They don't," he said, leaning in close to examine hers. He ran his finger along the scar on her forearm, which gave her a bit of a thrill and caused her to smile. It was the first time she'd ever smiled about that scar.
"Charlie, my brother, is living proof that they don't," he said as he retreated his hand. "Though, there are repellents and equipment out there to prevent them." He paused. "You know, if you happen to ever face another dragon."
"I hope to not," she said. "One dragon was more than enough."
He grinned a little, and she could tell he was wondering if he was treading on sensitive territory again. She was hoping to keep the topic light and flirty, so she added quickly, "So you have the dragon brother, and the brother who is Harry's friend, then you have...four more? I feel you have mentioned several."
"Three more," he offered. "Four other siblings, though. I have a sister too."
"Wow," she said. "Seven children. That is...a very large family. Your parents were very busy."
"You could say that," he said with a little chuckle. "You just have the one sister, right?"
She nodded. "Just the two of us. We are very close, even though we are ten years apart in age, but she has always been very special. She was a miracle."
"How's that?"
"Oh, well," she began, "My parents had plans for many children, but after I was born, they had trouble having another. They tried for years with no luck, which broke my heart as much as theirs. I desperately wanted a sister. They tried but eventually gave up. However, that is when Gabrielle came along." She smiled fondly, the thought of her sister always bringing her spots of joy. "My mother called her a miracle and we could not have been happier to have her. She was my little doll and I adored her. I still do."
Bill smiled in a way that made her want to kiss him where he sat. It was that genuine listening look he always had on his face when they were talking; an expression she didn't know how attractive it was until she was on the receiving end of it.
"Are you especially close with any of your siblings?" she asked, reacting to his smile. "With so many of them, I could see that being difficult."
"Um, yes," he said, thinking about that for a moment. "With so many of us, we sort of team off. If that makes sense."
It didn't.
"I'm definitely closer to some of them," he continued, "Charlie, the dragon one, is only two years younger than me, so we grew up together. We shared a room, we were off at school together, we got into each other's business and had similar friends. That's what I mean by team up. He and I, as the oldest, just stuck together. He's my best friend."
She melted a little. His brother was his best friend. She found that adorable.
"But then my following brother," he continued, his face falling a little. "He's about six years younger than me, and we don't get along—at least not now. He had a whole falling out with the family and doesn't even speak to us anymore." He paused. "He's honestly...something else."
This must be the famous Percy she'd heard about. She wondered if it would be impolite to push, but she couldn't help herself after all she'd heard. "May I ask what happened?"
Bill sat on that for a moment. She almost thought she'd touched another topic she wasn't quite privy too yet, but to her surprise, he offered, "He only cares about himself. That and getting ahead, no matter the cost. Which apparently means cutting out his family, so…" He shrugged. "I don't know. It's a recent development."
"I did not mean to pry…"
"No, it's fine," Bill said absently. "Honestly, Percy's always been a bit much. Super bright kid; ambitious to a fault. He tends to think he's better than everyone because he's used to being the cleverest person in a room. He and I actually got on well enough growing up, and I might be the only one of my siblings he'd say that about. I mean he drove me mental, but we had things in common. We liked reading and school. We were good at it. Prefects, Head Boys, all that stuff we shared." He paused. "But he never knows when to quit…"
He was pushing mushy peas around his plate and was quiet for a long moment before adding, "And now we don't speak. It is what it is."
"That sounds awful," she said.
He smirked a little and looked up at her. "If you met him recently, you probably wouldn't say that." He looked away, watching as a man in a heavy cloak took a seat beside them. "But honestly, a part of me isn't even surprised. He's always been the odd man out in our family. Charlie and I were close, then Percy came along to ruin our party, so to speak. He just didn't click in the same way. Then after Percy, my parents had identical twin boys. And if you want to talk about a team, those are my twin brothers. You can't get between those two."
He set his fork down. "So here's Percy, sandwiched between me and Charlie and the twins—and I'll tell you, the twins and Percy might as well be oil and water; they're so different. Those two can be a bit much for most people, but for Percy…" He trailed off. "He became an island on his own. By the time my youngest brother and sister came along, Fred and George set the tone for them with how to deal with Percy."
She frowned at that. That actually sounded rather sad. To feel isolated within your own family. That could not have been easy.
"It doesn't sound great," Bill admitted, "But I truly tried with him for years and he... does what he wants. He always has and he always will." He cleared his throat then and she could sense he didn't have much more to say about it. Or rather he did, but he wasn't about to bring it up.
She watched his face carefully, again flipping directions to something lighter. "Do you ever feel more—how you say?—parental to your younger siblings instead of brotherly? Does that make sense?"
"No, it does. And yeah absolutely," he said. "I mean, Ron and Ginny were still in nappies when I left for school, so on some level, in my head, they're always these tiny little people running around the house crying and giggling—even though Ron's fifteen now and Gin will be fourteen next month." He paused. "And honestly, the pair of them both have been through some serious shit. More than I can claim to have dealt with at their age."
She immediately thought of the story of how his sister had nearly died at school, but decided not to ask about it. That was certainly not of the light variety of conversation topics.
"They're definitely not little kids anymore, but…" He shrugged. "Sometimes I need to remind myself. You know? Ginny especially, being the baby and the only girl, I've always felt a little extra protective of her. Probably more so than my other brothers. She was always my little shadow when she was smaller. Followed me everywhere." He smiled. "I used to tell her she was my sidekick, which she got a kick out of."
Fleur smiled. As someone who was also fiercely protective of her baby sister, she could relate. It was yet another thing the pair of them had in common. They really did have so much in common. Moving away to foreign countries to be on their own after finishing school. Having very young siblings. Being better looking than everyone else in this room right now...
"That sounds very much like my relationship with Gabrielle," she said. "My little shadow. I have always felt very maternal toward her; a need to take care of her more than perhaps one would a sibling. Much like a..." She looked at him, not knowing the exact translation. "Tante?"
He didn't react.
You know a…? What would you call your mother or father's sister?"
"If they had any," he offered, "I would call them my aunt."
"That," she said, cracking a smile before lazily adding, "I will get the hang of this language sooner or later."
"You're English is fantastic," he said sincerely. "I mean that. I'm not even trying to be nice."
She smiled. Truth be told, she agreed with him—she felt her English really was coming along nicely, even if she still did get hung up on a lot of things. Still, it was loads better than a year ago.
It was then that Bill needed to get back to work, so she'd finished her drink and stood to walk back into Diagon Alley with him. This was where they usually said their goodbyes—with him walking back to the bank and her Apparating home—but today there was far more dawdling between the two; a lack of interest to be the first to go. This was the problem with these hour long dinner breaks. Just as things were getting good, he had to leave.
"You want to walk back to the bank with me?" he asked, gesturing over his shoulder in the bank's general direction. "Scrape out a few more minutes?"
She smiled and nodded. He felt it too; she knew it. They were at the point where they wanted every moment they could spare
"Are French and English the only languages you speak?" he asked her as they passed a bookstore; picking their last conversation back up.
"Mostly, yes. I speak a bit of Portuguese due to a friend at school teaching me, but only enough to move around if I went on holiday in Portugal. Not enough for a proper conversation."
"I tried to learn Portuguese when I was younger," he said.
"Did you?"
"I did," he said. "Can't say I succeeded, but for a bit I had this pen friend in Brazil. So I worked really hard on trying to communicate with him in his language and he'd do the same with me in English." He suddenly looked as if something sour occurred to him. "I think I must have eventually mucked something up in translation because one week things were fine, and the next he'd sent me this cursed hat that made my ears shrivel up. Took days to get them back right. My mum was furious."
"Did you discover why?" she asked, finding that to be incredibly strange behavior.
Bill shook his head. "No. I never heard from him again." He laughed a little. "I gave up on Portuguese after that."
She smiled as the pair continued down the street. "I would like to learn more languages, but I feel that immersing myself is the best way to learn. Since I can only live in one place at a time..."
"I agree," he said, his hands shoved into his pockets. "That's how I learned Arabic. I went to Egypt with a basic level of understanding and a few years later," he shrugged, "I can tell different dialects apart. Immersion is key."
She smiled. Of course he spoke Arabic perfectly. She expected nothing less.
"And I'm nearly there with Gobbledegook," he said, which definitely earned him an impressed look on her end. "I took it at school as a specialized study, knowing I wanted to go work at the bank and with goblins. But then when I went to Egypt, there were far fewer goblins around than I originally planned. In my head, I guess I just figured they'd be everywhere, but they mostly stay here. I don't speak it as well as I used to, but I can still understand it. I've been working on it now that I'm back home."
"Maybe once I master English, you can help me with my Gobbledegook," she said.
"Only if I can quit my job and just become your full time language tutor," he joked while casually running his hand through the top of his hair after a stray piece had fallen into his eyes. He made looking good seem effortless. It was truly a gift.
"Of course," she said, letting a smile slowly creep across her lips. "I would hire you today." She looked over at him. "Do you provide any other services other than language tutoring?"
He looked over at her with an expression that could only be described as a mixture of amusement and surprise. "What do you have in mind?"
"Just some things. I am not sure how to translate them into English." She let her smile grow even more playful. "This is why I need a tutor."
Well, in that case," he said with a laugh, "if I'm going to tutor you, then for our first lesson, I need you to describe exactly what it is you require of me. And please feel free to be as detailed as possible—"
She started laughing, which made him do the same. She loved this; she wanted nothing more than for this to keep happening. Not just for an hour every odd day when he had the time, but permanently. It was so obvious that they were one good comment; one deliberate move away from this becoming more. And all she wanted was more. He had to want it too.
"I just want to make sure I get the translation right," he joked.
"Of course. For the translation…" She smiled to herself as she let her eyes trace the stones beneath her shoes, before adding, "Well, one thing is for certain. The hours for this job would far better than Gringotts."
"You mean you wouldn't make me work all hours into the night?" he asked, stopping then as they'd arrived just outside the entrance to the bank.
"Oh, I absolutely would," she said without missing a beat. "But it would be a very different type of work."
He didn't even flinch. "Well, that sounds like a much better job."
"It is," she said matter-of-factly, staring back at him. "And it is yours when you want."
He smiled a little. "So I could start immediately?"
"You could have started a week ago," she said.
They started at each other. She could practically feel the silent questions that were now passing between them. Everything felt charged, as if it was finally going to happen. Every sign and signal was now flooding her senses. If she walked away from this without finally knowing what his lips felt like, she was done. There was no coming back from such a missed opportunity. She was not waiting a moment longer.
As it turned out, he was already leaning his face toward hers the moment she'd decided to do the same. He was apparently done waiting as well. She wasn't sure what she was in for—a quick kiss, something that lingered, a full on passionate embrace—but as their lips met, it ended up landing somewhere in the middle of everything. He'd kissed her back readily, but there was a politeness there that was usually reserved for a first kiss. That and a tenderness that really could only come with kissing someone you really wanted to. It was sweet, and warm, and...perfect. She felt it through her entire body. He was as good a kisser as she'd suspected.
When they finally pulled away after a blissful minute, she was the first to quietly say, "The job would require more of that."
He didn't speak straight away, though he grinned a little. He almost looked to be trying to pull himself back together. This wasn't the first time she'd had that effect on someone and that look would never get old. When he finally did speak, he absently licked his lips before muttering, "I have absolutely no desire to go back to work now."
She smiled. "I wish you did not have to go as well, but we can always do that again another time. Any time."
He was staring at her; he looked as if he was really mulling something over before finally saying, "We should. We really should. And not just the snogging, but the everything." He glanced over his shoulder briefly before looking back at her. "We should properly go out. Not just on my break when I have to rush back to the bank. We should do it the right way."
He didn't have to tell her that; she'd been wanting to do that since the moment she first saw him in that tearoom. "You are the one with the busy schedule."
"I know," he muttered, sounding frustrated. "I don't even know when I…" He looked back at her. "What are you doing tomorrow night?"
What was she doing? Nothing of importance. It was Thursday, and she knew Thursdays and Sundays were his days off from the bank, so she didn't even have seeing him over his dinner break to look forward to. She'd once tiptoed around him about possibly making plans on Thursday and he'd quickly shut that down before she'd even had a chance to really inquire about what he was up to. It was always, "Some stuff I need to take care of."
So on Thursdays, she usually did laundry, cleaned her flat, and tried to contact her family and friends. Very exciting.
"I am free tomorrow night, but do you not go and visit your secret wife and family on Thursdays?" she joked, poking fun at his secret hobby.
He cracked a smile. "Only for a bit. They'll barely miss me. No, but seriously, I do have something in the evening I need to take care of—"
There it was.
"—but I should hopefully be done around eight or nine. If you're game, let's do something. I want to do this—" He gestured between them, "for more than an hour."
She didn't need much convincing. He honestly could have told her he'd be done around midnight and she still would have been open to the possibility of meeting him somewhere. He just had to ask.
"I would love to." She paused. "On one condition."
"What's that?"
"We do not go anywhere near the Leaky Cauldron."
He smiled at her. "Are you sure…?"
She shook her head. Meeting him over his dinner break was one thing, but if this was going to be presented as an actual, real date she had a basic level of standards that she wasn't willing to compromise on. That included floors that her shoes didn't stick to, glasses that didn't already have fingerprints on them, and—preferably—menus that didn't come with the last user's dinner still on them.
"Well, I guess there goes plan A," he said, though she could tell that he was teasing her. At least he better be...
"How about," she began, deciding to take charge of the moment. "I can cook you dinner? You could come to my flat? I will take care of it."
"That sounds great," he said. "Perfect, actually. But you're sure you don't want to just go out?"
She nodded affirmatively. She was positive. She knew if she was cooking the food would be exactly as she preferred it.
Bill let one last smile cross that handsome face of his. "Alright then. Great. It's a date. A real one."