Saturday, November 7th 10:36am

Uber-Pool: Your driver is Richard. Your estimated time of arrival is 10:53am.

James was perched in the middle seat, knees cramped halfway into his chest and halfway in Sirius's lap, while Sirius leisurely spread his out in front of him. Stupid git and his nonstop coin flip wins. "Budge over, dolt. I'm going to be half on top of whoever is about to get in here."

"James, honey," Sirius looked down at him condescendingly, "if you didn't want to cuddle with a new friend you should have called heads!"

"I know where I'd like to put your head."

The door swung open before the boys could begin outright wrestling in the back of Richard's very nice, but very cramped, car.

"Well, hello there. Fancy seeing you, shower boy." James whipped around to see the most gorgeous smirk in the world staring down at him. He felt his entire neck flame up and his left hand itching to grab his hair but was prevented by the fact that it was half stuck under Sirius's arse.

"Shower boy?" Sirius repeated delightedly.

"Oh! You! Hi!" he gasped out, eyes incredulous at his bad luck. Or maybe amazing luck.

"Hello there, I don't believe we have had the pleasure." Sirius peered around James, reaching a hand right over James's lap to shake hers. Naturally, they had to shake directly over James's mid center and six inches above his crotch, inciting a deep blush for a whole new source of reasons.

He stared straight ahead. His entire side pressed up along her side, causing tingles and flames to spark at every single molecule of contact.

"Red hair, beautiful eyes. No wonder you've already discussed James in the shower. Perhaps you'd like to join him in one some time?" Sirius waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

James choked on his own saliva. "Are you hitting on her for me?"

"Well someone ought to! Clearly you're too much of a fumbling idiot to do it yourself," he mocked whispered, shooting a wink over James's shoulder at Lily.

"How have you been?" Lily, kindly and wisely, ignored Sirius and looked solely at James. "Any new hangover experiments you want to catch me up on since our last meeting?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him dramatically and his laugh came out like the panicked squawk of a choking seagull.

"No, no, nothing so exciting. Although, I did accidentally add cayenne pepper to my coffee this morning and that was definitely a wake up call after a night of whiskey. Might be worth a shot."

God he needed to learn when to shut up.

"I'm sorry how exactly does one accidentally add cayenne pepper to their coffee?"

"That'd be my bad, actually," Sirius cut in, eyeing them both suspiciously, "Jamesie here likes to put cinnamon in his coffee everyday. I may have purposely accidentally mislabeled the jars before he came downstairs today."

"Ah, I see," she giggled softly, giving James a teasing elbow to the side, "what's a light prank or two between boyfriends?"

James spluttered like a fish while Sirius howled obnoxiously.

"Something I said?" she cautiously smiled, eyes flitting between James's aghast expression and Sirius's obvious joy.

"You," Sirius pointed straight at her, "I love."

James yanked his hand out from between his side and Sirius's so he could fling it into Sirius's chest.

"What he means to say," James turned back to Lily, hand rifling through his hair, "is absolutely not. Not boyfriends. Well, he has a boyfriend. I don't have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. But if it were either it'd be a girlfriend. That I'd have. I erm I date girls. Just not currently dating a girl." He trailed off slowly, watching Lily's grin grow as he rambled on and his blush continued to deepen. "We're brothers," he finished lamely.

Stop talking. Stop talking. Stop talking.

"Thanks for clearing that up. I'll keep that in mind. I think we might be at your stop though." James whipped around to look at Sirius's window and see they were in fact in front of Remus's building and likely had been for half of his rambling speech.

"Oh don't worry, we're in no rush." Sirius smirked deliriously, "please James continue to tell the lady about your complete utter lack of a boyfriend or girlfriend. This is the best car ride of my life."

James had never glared more strongly in his life than in that moment.

"Right, get out then before I kick you through the door."

Sirius was still giggling maniacally and threatening to go back and tell her about his last failed relationship by the time James was able to scoot all the way out of the car and look back in at Lily, who was naturally watching the entire thing as casual as could be.

"Sorry about him, he's not usually allowed out of the house."

"Don't be. I liked him. Maybe I'll meet him again some time."

"Yeah, erm, yeah maybe. That'd be grand." Grand, humiliating, horrifically embarrassing, who's to say, really.

"Right, bye then." And the door closed and Richard pulled away before he could begin to process that exchange.