When Charlie emerged from the bathroom his eyes immediately searched out Lyla, who had a glass held up to her lips and was slowly gulping it down. He made eye contact with Jack, who winked at him a dipped his head toward the glass Lyla was handing back to him. When Lyla saw Charlie she moved briskly toward him, her eyes glassy from drinking and threw her arms around his neck and pulled her face up to his, her legs wrapping around his waist.

"You wanna dance some more?" she said, sweetly, running her hand down the side of his cheek as she looked into his eyes.

He cleared his throat and looked back at her as her thumb began to trace his lower lip. "Actually," he replied, his voice gravelly "Maybe let's go somewhere and get food?"

"I can't go out to lunch like this!" she chortled and slid her legs down his body, her bare midriff running down each crevasse in the front of his torso. When her feet touched the floor her ankle rolled slightly and she stumbled sideways. She smiled up at him but her eyes were watery, and regret was hidden behind them.

"Well..." Charlie said, looking around as if waiting for a proper answer to jump out at him. "How about we order something to be sent to your flat?"

She nodded slowly, her smile never faltering, as she rested her head against his chest just above his heart. She whispered her address to him and waved her fingers at Jack across the bar before Charlie apparated them both to her apartment.

"Ohh! Woah!" Lyla said, stumbling into her armchair by the front door and steadying herself. Charlie could tell by the sway in her legs that the room must be spinning to her. "Sooo...lunch?!" she asked as she straightened back up and stretched her arms to the ceiling. As she did the golden dragon slid up her arm as though to touch the ceiling as well.

"Yeah" Charlie replied, nodding and sinking into her couch.

"Oh!" Lyla exclaimed "Lets order some muggle Chinese food! Oh, Charlie it's soooo good!" Having no muggle telephone she held her wand to her ear to connect with the restaurant. After a second of the irritating ringing that occurs on muggle phones she was connected with a person and ordered two pints of boneless spare ribs, an order of General Tso's chicken and two eggrolls. She then flopped down onto the couch next to Charlie, her head falling back to rest on his arm and her hand falling down his side to rest on his lap. She focused her eyes on his jaw. It was rough and bumpy from shaving but she could see the coarse red hairs starting to peek through. Her eyes travelled up his strong, angular jawline to his earlobe, soft with the light, peach fuzz hairs that coated it.

She moved her mouth up his neck, running over his stubbled skin, up to his soft, small earlobe and enveloped it between her two wet, pink lips. She moved her body up and pushed his face closer against hers as her tongue broke through her lips and licked the back of his earlobe then sunk back into her mouth, his earlobe coming with it so she could better suck on it.

Charlie moved his body into hers, wrapped his arms around her waist and laid her down on the couch beneath him. He had broken his earlobe free from the hot, wet prison of her mouth and was now pressing his lips softly against hers. As her hips moved against his pelvis with the same rhythm they had on the dancefloor and her lips parted to allow his tongue entry into her mouth he thought about how many times he had imagined this moment in all of his adolescence. His hands ran up her bare back and underneath the lace bralette she was wearing, the touch of her smooth skin under the roughness of his hands arousing him further.

"Ahh" Lyla sighed as he released her mouth from his and moved it down her jawline and onto her neck, licking and sucking a soft spot just above her collar bone until it erupted with red spots and turned raw. She moved her hands around from their place on the coarse fabric pockets of his jeans and fumbled her fingers over the smooth coldness of his button, sliding it through the small hole the trapped it in place. She fluidly flipped up the zipped on his pants and pushed it down through the teeth of his jeans, opening the denim trap to expose the soft cotton beneath.

"Mmm" Charlie moaned as her hand slid down the front of his leg, her wrist rubbing against his throbbing penis as her fingers dug into the soft, sweaty skin of his inner thigh. After her fingers had left crescent imprints in his skin from her nails she pulled her hands back out of his pants and started pulling them down over his boxers from behind. When they were down around his knees he sat up straight in his seat again, effortlessly pulling Lyla up onto his lap with him as he kicked his pants off onto the floor. It was torturous having her jeans rub against the bare skin of his legs when he knew her silken legs were just underneath. He ripped the button of her jeans through the hole that held it, grabbed handfuls of fabric in his fists and pulled them down causing the zipper to violently slide open as he ripped the jeans off over the curve of her buttocks. She obediently sat up on her knees, her bare stomach pressed against his chest and his head between her lacy, blue covered breasts so that he could pull her pants down to her knees. When they were scrunched around her kneecaps she rocked backwards, her butt balancing on Charlies knees and she untucked her legs from underneath her and, instead, rested her ankles on either side of Charlie's head so he could remove her pants completely. When they were strewn across the floor alongside Charlie's she quickly resumed her position on top of him, her smooth, bare legs rubbing against his thick, hairy ones.

With the confines of their pants stripped from them she focused her attention on their joined lips. His kisses were more than she imagined growing up; he was much less clumsy than she thought he would be. As his rough hands forcefully grasped her breasts through her bralette she felt her face burn with jealousy, imagining the women he'd been with to become so gentle and assertive. Her cheeks grew redder so she bit down, hard, on his lip. Charlie quickly pulled away from her, holding her by the upper arm to look at her with disbelief. Instead of apologizing Lyla simply smiled and bat her eyelashes at him then narrowed her gaze to his wet lower lip, bright red from friction. Without reprimand he pulled her back to him again, cupped his hands around her neck and penetrated her mouth with his tongue again. Her mouth filled with the bulging heat of his tongue and her cheeks hollowed as she wrapped her tongue around his, their saliva mixing with one another's.

Just as Charlie began to rip down one of Lyla's straps from of her shoulder there was a knock at the door.

The knock came again. "Uggggg" Lyla groaned, pulling away from Charlie. She smiled at him and pressed her forehead to his before dismounting. As she reached the door she quickly bent down into the hamper of clean clothes beside it and pulled on a tee shirt long enough to cover the bottom of her butt cheek.

Charlie remained on the couch, his pants now draped across his lap as he listened to Lyla jovially interact with the delivery man outside. His rubbed his face with his hands, logic creeping in from the back of his mind that had been turned off during his intimate session with Lyla. He knew Lyla, better than she knew herself, but he knew, better than anyone, the disinterest she had in any romantic relationship. He knew, too, that the love he harbored for her after all these years could not be ignored any longer. His attention was on her again with the rustle of the delivery bag hitting the coffee table in front of him.

"The food can wait," Lyla said as she got back on his lap, pulling her shirt off over her head. "It tastes better cold anyway."

"Wait" Charlie snapped, holding his hand up before she could kiss him.

"What?" she chuckled, slumping over next to him and giving him the same sweet smile she always gave him.

His eyes darted from side to side as he searched for the words he wanted to say first. For minutes that seemed like days he couldn't find them. In the interim he touched his hand to her cheek and looked into her eyes as though they held the answer.

"Okaaaaay" Lyla said standing up and moving quickly away from him "What is going on? What. Do you not want to do this? Do I repulse you? What?!"

"No, no, no!" Charlie said, standing up as well. "How could you even think that?" he asked urgently, "What makes you say that after all this time?"

Lyla chortled, "Ha! 'All this time' I only just saw you again a couple of weeks ago. It's not like you've kept in -"

"I've?!" Charlie cut her off, angrily "'I've' not kept in touch?! Awww come on Lye don't even lie like that to me! Don't even try, okay?!"

At the word 'lie' Lyla felt a tremble run through her body and she fell completely silent, looking down at her feet. She was suddenly very aware of her nakedness and threw the oversized t-shirt back over herself. She made her way across the small living room and into her kitchen. There, she stopped at the sink and splashed some water on her face, slurping some of the cold liquid into her mouth as she did.

"You alright?" Charlie asked, surprising her as he entered the kitchen.

"Ah! Um, yeah" she said, toweling off her face

"Look, I'm sorry I got..."

"No" she interjected "No you were right, I..." she meant to say 'lost touch' but instead the sentence ended with "...avoided you."

"Avoided me?" he asked, concernedly "Why?"

She looked up at him, her eyebrows furrowed with confusion and her eyes brimming with tears. "Our last night in school...at the astronomy tower."

Charlie blushed like the eighteen year old boy he had been at the time. "What was wrong with that?" he asked, wounded

"Nothing!" she moved closer to him. "No! Nothing at all it was...the best night of my life..." she began to cry silently.

"Hey, hey, hey," he said leading her back to the couch "What's wrong?"

"I don't know how to react to you!" she exclaimed as her body began to shake. She quickly put her hand to her mouth and looked at Charlie with pleading eyes. "And I don't..." she began speaking slowly and with intent "know why...I'm saying these things..."

Charlie lowered himself to his knees and faced her dead on. He finally knew what was happening. "Well..." he stammered, "Are they the truth?" He put together the nod and wink Jack had given him back at the club before they left and Lyla's apparent impossibility to lie. He seethed when he realized that she had been drugged by someone who claimed to be her friend, and yet couldn't help but want to scratch the multiple itches her ambiguity toward him had left over the years.

Lyla pinched her mouth shut as a tear rolled down her cheek and she nodded.

"Then why do they make you sad?" he asked, genuinely concerned

At this, she let out a manic laugh, more like a cackle, and sprang to her feet, knocking Charlie backward. She began to smooth a segment of her hair close to her face, over and over, obsessively, in a way that Charlie hadn't seen her do since the weeks after she got the news that her father was missing. "You - you know I can't" she stammered, her voice angry as more tears rolled down her face "I can't...I haven't...THE TRUTH HURTS!" she shouted, her eyes closed tightly as though willing it all to disappear.

Charlie bolted to his feet and wrenched her arm from her hair, pulling her close to him and hugging her incredibly tight until her rapid breathing slowed. When it finally did he got down on his knee in front of her and brought her face closer to his. "Can I tell you the truth?" he whispered, his breath warming the tears on her cheeks. "Do you want me to tell you?"

She nodded even though she already knew, and what she already knew scared her. For some reason she needed to hear it, she craved the words.

"I love you" he whispered. She tried to pull sharply away from him as she let out a moan of grief. "I love you!" he said more aggressively, pulling her to her knees in front of him. "I've loved you since our third year...I love you!" he repeated

"I KNOW!" she screamed angrily, pushing him away from her and standing back up. "I know!" she said again, more calmly. She backed up against her refrigerator, parallel to her kitchen counter and kept her bloodshot eyes on him as he rose slowly to stand back, across from her. She had never seen his face get that shade of red.

"Then WHY" he demanded furiously, slamming his fist on her counter to emphasize the word 'why' making her jump "haven't you said anything?" He was suddenly aware of how drunk he was, the alcohol effecting his personality more than his physicality. Charlie, frustrated, sighed and made his tone as even and warm as he could, "That night at the astronomy tower...was the closest I have ever felt to you in the ten years I've known you. It was the last time, before now, that you actually told me the truth. You told me about your pain and your recklessness...you told me you loved me too." Lyla locked her eyes on his "Then

you never answered any of my owls, except for one. Two months later all I got was, 'You've been such a good friend Charlie, good luck in Romania'...Now, I know you still have pain, and I know you're still reckless but, tell my Lye, do you still love me?"

"I've...never...stopped" she said slowly, her words trembling almost as much as her body as she continued to cry.

He smiled, overjoyed and cupped her face in his hands, wiping her tears from her face. "Then why did you put this wedge between us Lilac?"

She giggled foolishly at the use of her old school nickname then sobered at the look of hope in his eyes. "I don't deserve you, Charlie" she whispered, closing her eyes. "I've chosen a way to live my life and be carefree...you want so much more from me than that. I don't know if I will make you happy" He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off. "You deserve a bunch of redheaded children and a wife who cooks and knits and cleans." She laughed and wiped her tears from her eyes and indicated to delivery container to her right with her gaze. "You don't deserve a life of greasy food containers with a woman whose job keeps her in one place for no longer than it takes the moon to change its phases." She let the silence settle into the air to let him know she was done speaking.

"Okay," he began with a huff "First of all that woman you described sounds a lot like my mother and -"

"Yeah ex -"

He held up his hand to her, "AND I'm sorry to tell you but I'm not interested in marrying my mother." He smiled when she did. "Second off, I live in Romania, Lyla. Far away from my family and friends and I go where the dragons go. Just because the last Charlie you knew was Charlie the Prefect doesn't mean that I need my comfort zone. Despite the multitude of times I tried to get to know you, the real you. You never really got to know me. I know, now, that you were scared. But, all I'm asking you know is to give me a chance...get to know me Lyla, let me show you how similar we are."

Lyla shifted her body uncomfortably "I want to..."

"I know you're scared or nervous or whatever...but please let me have at least a fair enough chance to learn why and make you feel safe so you don't have to be scared anymore."

Lyla breathed in sharply and exhaled. She shook the tears from her eyes and hoisted a smile onto her face. "I'd love to try" she said, finally, then reached into the delivery bag, pulled out a white, square box, opened it and held it out for Charlie to pick out a small piece of red meat. "Lets start now"