Olive
Chapter 2
Disclaimer – If there's an actual bakery named Cherry on Top, then I'd like to say that it's a very cool name and I'm sorry I stole it.
"See you," Lily hangs up, a bright smile on her face as she puts her phone back into her purse, feet tapping softly with the melody floating through the restaurant.
She rests her chin on her hand and glances around, noticing how great the place was for the first time since she'd entered. It was clearly posh and fancy, but there was no air of formality about it. People were laughing and chatting quite boisterously as they ate their food.
She notices a few more waiters rushing from table to table, a couple of them catching her attention.
A sandy-haired man, who looks vaguely familiar to Lily, smiles down at a little girl seated with her family as she places her order. There's exhaustion lining his face, as if he's in need of a good night's sleep, but he seems quite at peace with himself. There's another man bustling about—taller, with shoulder length black hair which is pulled back into a neat ponytail. He has a brooding look about him as he carries a tray full of food past Lily, although the expression does little to hamper his uncannily beautiful face. His grey eyes may have momentarily flickered in her direction, though she can't be sure.
She sighs, spacing out for a second. Or for what she thinks is a second.
When she finds a tanned hand waving in front of her face, Lily promptly jumps in surprise.
She looks up to find James Potter's devilishly handsome face looking down at her.
"Uh…sorry?" she says, cheeks blushing pink.
"Didn't mean to scare you," he chuckles, placing down two glasses and a bottle of wine on the table. He begins pouring the red liquid, his hands skilled and quick. "Where's your date?"
"Left. We broke up."
That stops him short, hand stilling over the second empty glass. "What?"
Lily shrugs, smiling pleasantly as she rests her chin against her propped up hand. "We broke up. Just now."
He seems at a loss for words, and Lily wants to laugh.
"And…you're okay?"
"More than okay," She grins, gesturing towards the wine for him to continue pouring. "I'm great. I've been waiting to dump him for a while now."
James laughs. "I'd tell you that it's not a very nice thing to say, but I saw the bloke, and I don't blame you."
"Glad you agree."
He grins at her again, sending the butterflies in her stomach on a rampage.
He sets down the bottle of wine then, and extends his hand towards her. "Hi, I'm James."
She reaches forward and shakes it eagerly, though not too eagerly because she doesn't want to come across as absolutely mental, now, does she? "Hello, James, I'm Lily. Lily Evans. It's been a pleasure meeting you."
"Believe me," he implores, hazel eyes sparkling, "the pleasure's all mine."
"Oh no," Lily shakes her head, trying to ignore the disconcerting feelings he arouses in her. "You don't know how much you've contributed in helping me pull off this impending break-up tonight."
"You know, most girls would be upset with a bloke who had a hand in ruining their relationship."
"I'm not most girls though."
"No, you aren't," he agrees immediately, and Lily can't help the blush that steals across her face again. Oh, the woes of being a redhead.
She coughs, trying to hide behind her curtain of hair when she notices him smirking unabashedly. He's a shameless flirt, and Lily isn't usually such a mess for the kind, but this boy…
"Aren't you going to get in trouble?" she asks, changing the topic none too subtly. "For, you know, lingering here?"
"Would you rather I didn't?" James asks pleasantly enough, though Lily's quite sure she catches something like disappointment flash in his eyes for a second, and now she feels like a complete cow.
"No!" she all but barks. At his surprised expression, she lowers the vehemence down a notch. "I mean, no, not at all. It's lovely to talk to you, I'm just worried that you'll get into trouble—not that I don't—I mean, if it were up to me, I'd invite you to sit here with me, but obviously I can't do that." She's blabbering now, an awkward-as-hell laugh slipping out of her lips. She knows it, feels the mortification bubble up inside her, but now the words are out and God, why does he have to look so good?!
She'd invite him to sit with her, apparently.
Of course she would.
Might as well ask him to marry her right away, while she's at it.
"I could," James replies at length, and Lily just barely manages to keep her jaw from hitting the floor. "That is, of course, if you weren't kidding. And if you were, I just made this really weird and should just go inside and find myself a bucket of water to drown in."
Lily laughs, shaking her head. "I wasn't kidding. But—are you sure? I mean, aren't you technically supposed to be working?"
"They do depend on my marvelous waiting skills a lot, yes," James shrugs, easily slipping into the empty chair beside her, "but I think they can manage for a few minutes without me."
Lily feels her heart pound loudly against her chest—so loud that she's sure it borders on unhealthy, but it's really inevitable because he's this close to her and…and…
She didn't think it possible, but this man is just painfully handsome to look at.
His eyes are even better up close, his hair even crazier, and she must be absolutely bonkers because she's never seen anyone else pull of a white shirt and bow-tie quite so well.
Some part of her knows, acknowledges, that this is wrong, and she shouldn't be feeling this way because impending or not, she did just break-up with someone, and decent dating protocol—which she's sure is definitely a thing—commands that you can't just jump someone's bones barely fifteen minutes after you've entered into the single market again.
"So, what do you do, Lily?" James asks her, and she blinks, coming out of her reverie.
"Er…I'm a baker, actually. I own a bakery a few blocks down. Cherry on Top, if you've heard of it."
"You own Cherry on Top?" James gapes at her. At Lily's nod, he grins broadly and whistles. "That's quite a feat, Evans. One of my mates loves your bakery. Won't stop going on about the pain au chocolat there."
She knows just how brilliant her bakery is, of course. Prides herself on her baking skills immensely, in fact. But hearing it from James…
"Thank you," Lily blushes, "but you saying that about your mate means that you don't feel quite the same way about my pain au chocolat. Or have you never tried one, despite your friend's praises for it?"
"Guilty," James says, and looks it too. "But now that I know the beautiful baker behind the touted creations, nothing can stop me from getting to them."
Lily's hearts flutters wildly at his words, both because he's thrown out the word beautiful so casually out there when referring to her—as if it's nothing more than a fact, and not a subjective opinion, and also because she can actually expect to meet him again after tonight instead of forcing herself to let him fade away from her memories.
Not that she could ever forget someone like James Potter.
"I think I'd like that," she answers softly, and James's answering smile knocks her breath away.
"I never knew you moved so fast, Lily. I'm quite impressed."
Lily looks up at the sound of that voice, finding her best friend, Mary Macdonald, standing near their table with a shit-eating grin on her face. Mary flips her dark, straight hair over her shoulder and openly sizes up James.
"Hmm, quite an improvement too. Much better than basic Brandon, any day."
"Thank you," James says.
"You're welcome."
If there was ever going to be an opportune moment for the earth to crack open and swallow her up, Lily knows this would be it.
"Oh my God, Mary, this isn't—he isn't—" she shakes her head, turning to James instead. "I'm so sorry, James. Mary's a little inappropriate—"
"I don't mind."
"Yeah, Lily, James doesn't mind."
Good God, was she the only sane one here?
"James?!" another voice interrupts her distressing thoughts, and now it's the tired-looking waiter from before who Lily can swear she's seen before, but he only stares at James with an aghast expression. "What are you—why are you sitting there? Honestly, James—"
Lily's heart gives a guilty little tug as James lets out a long-suffering sigh, finally getting out of his chair and offering it to Mary, who takes it with a jaunty spring to her legs.
"Oh, please don't report him to the manager," Lily implores the other man, who finally ceases glaring at James long enough to look at her. "I asked him to join me while I was waiting for my friend, Mary here. I understand that it's probably against the policies, but I'd really hate for there to be trouble because of me."
The man blinks, his eyes a clear blue color, and despite his fatigue, she notes that he's quite good-looking. She fleetingly wonders if the restaurant hires its staff from a modeling agency.
"I…wasn't going to report him," he answers eventually.
"Oh. Well, thank you."
She notices that he turns to James with a peculiar expression on his face, but James simply smiles back at him enigmatically, like they're sharing some private joke.
As if sensing her stare on him, James turns back to her and his eyes widen in sudden realization. "Lily, this is Remus, the friend I was telling you about," he grins, turning to look at Remus. "This is Lily, mate. She's the mastermind baker at Cherry on Top. Owns the place."
She wants to sigh in relief at finally having her curiosity over the man's identity satiated—because of course she's seen him at the shop a couple of times—but is quite distracted by Remus's onslaught of compliments which he bestows upon her.
By the time he's done, Lily's quite certain that her ego has taken an unhealthy rise up the ladder.
"I was wondering where I'd seen you when you walked in," Remus confesses, a delighted smile, which makes him look younger, stretching across his face. "It's usually someone else at the counters, but of course, I remember catching a glimpse of you once or twice now."
Lily laughs, nodding. "I felt the same, actually."
"You guys should stop by," Mary, who has been suspiciously quiet until now, speaks up. She smiles like a heathen at the men. "At the bakery, I mean. Both of you."
Lily wonders if Mary has always had the subtlety of an elephant, or if it's some new-found talent of hers that has come up just to bite Lily in the arse.
"Oh, we're already going to," James beams at Mary, "Lily and I already discussed it."
"Is that right, Lily?" Mary's dark, knowing gaze slides to Lily, and she simply replies with a flat stare in response. "I'm so proud of you."
Yes, Lily completely regrets calling up her best friend now.
"What in fuck's name is going on here?" Yet another person joins the melee, and Lily notices that it's the brooding-yet-uncannily-handsome waiter from before. Mary ogles him shamelessly, like Lily knew she would. "I can't wait the whole fucking restaurant by myself, you know. And Peter's losing his shit in the kitchen right now, James, so can you please get the fuck inside—"
"Stop swearing here," Remus hisses to the man under his breath. He turns to Lily and Mary with a wince on his face, "sorry 'bout that."
They wave the apology off with an amused smile.
"This is Sirius Black, and he's prone to dramatics," James says by way of explanation. "We do have more waiters here."
Lily gives Sirius a warm, welcoming smile, which he reciprocates with a displeased frown.
Huh.
James shoots Sirius a glare for that, but turns back to her with a knee-jerking grin again. "Well, Evans, I'm sorry to say this, but he does have a point. I suppose this is as far as they can go without me, so I'll have to take your leave for now."
Lily feels disappointment settle thick and heavy in her gut, but nods understandingly because no one else can know what a loon she is.
Except maybe Mary, who won't stop giving her sly, creepily-insightful stares.
"Of course," Lily says, ignoring her friend. "And I'm sorry again, for keeping you here like this. All of you."
Sirius snorts derisively, but the others ignore him, saying their goodbyes pleasantly.
Once they've left, Mary immediately turns to her, eyebrows wiggling.
"Not now, please," Lily groans, and her friend pouts.
"Fine. But later, when we're back at the apartment."
"Alright," Lily sighs. She chews on her lip, turning to look at Mary properly. "Did you feel it too? Sirius's anger towards me?"
"The only thing I felt from that boy was pheromones, like his body was calling to me."
"Mary."
"Ugh, you take all the fun out of life, Lily, but no I don't think he was angry with you, he just wasn't particularly warm either."
"I wonder why that is."
"Like you need any more warmth," Mary pokes her on the ribs, earning a small yelp, "You got plenty of that from James, didn't you?"
Lily's face heats up as if on cue, and she shushes Mary, reminding her not to bring this up again until later, even though…
Even though.
Oh blast it, who's she kidding? She loved it—loved all the flirting, his dorky, charming smile, and even his stupidly reckless behavior.
But she keeps that information to herself, lest it all be only one-sided, and James doesn't deem her worthy enough for a second meeting.
Their food is shortly brought out to them by a pudgy little blonde waiter, his eyes watery blue and hands moving unsteadily fast, as if he's constantly nervous. Lily wants to ask him if he needs help with anything, but refrains.
"Enjoy your food," he squeaks, and immediately scampers away.
Lily takes a bite out of her grilled chicken, and she's sure beyond doubt that this is the best grilled chicken she's ever had in her entire life. Even Mary, who had been apprehensive about trying what Brandon had ordered, moans throughout the meal and leaves not a single morsel of food uneaten.
They don't see James throughout the rest of the meal, although they catch glimpses of Sirius and Remus rushing about.
Lily ignores her dashed hopes, talking pleasantly with Mary and telling her about the breakup, although she's not fool enough to think that Mary doesn't notice the disappointment in her eyes.
To her credit, Mary doesn't point it out.
When their bill arrives, Lily is surprised that the amount is a lot more affordable than she'd expected, and leaves a larger tip than she generally would.
That night, while she lies in bed, Lily wonders whether dining at Elia every night for the rest of her life would certify her as a besotted fool or not.
A/N - You can find me on tumblr as maraudersftw
Leave some reviews guys, they make my day. Lots of love to you.
Claudia