Covet Thy Neighbour

by Ghost-of-Bee

There are lots of ways to introduce oneself to a new neighbour, but breaking into their flat, perhaps, is a road less travelled.

2. Top Banana

Chapter 2: Top Banana

One would think, if one were naive, if one had lived a charmed life, if one were not Lily Evans, that fate, or karma, or whatever mystic force conspired to shape her destiny—the same force that led her down a rabbit hole of binge drinking and directional discombobulation in the first place—might take pity on her poor, unfortunate soul, and allow her to arise on Saturday morning feeling fresh and ready to face the day ahead.

But no, she wakes up wrecked.

And late. So late. She's lost most of her morning to a heavy, dry-mouthed slumber and a poorly-mixed cocktail of very strange dreams—auditioning for a play with a totally blank script, unknotting a length of wire with her great aunt Denise, and a sex dream that was appallingly frustrating because it wasn't a sex dream, because she just wanted to get bloody going and do it already, but he kept insisting that she put her clothes back on—

Wait.

Wait.

That didn't actually happen, did it?

She experiences a fleeting glimpse of heart-stopping fear, like missing a step on the stairs in the dead of night and plummeting to an ungainly stumble—but hastily collects herself.

It can't have. She was with Kingsley—who has seen her in her underwear and less on countless spa trips, sleepovers and weekends away, during less financially barren periods of her life—all evening, and that just… wouldn't happen with Kingsley. There is no scenario, and no universe, in which she'd try to seduce him, of all people. It must have been one of those lucid recollections that seem real, but aren't, like dreaming of a memory of a previous dream. She's experienced that phenomenon before, once realising halfway through a coach journey to Brighton that a collection of startlingly clear memories of a childhood spent palling around with Carey Mulligan were entirely fictitious.

It can't have—did it, though?

No.

But she thinks she might have—No.

This is getting too much like Inception for a Saturday morning, so Lily abandons her train of thought and sets her spinning-top theories aside, dragging herself out of bed with a lethargy that smacks of no sleep at all, rather than the coma she's just arisen from. She's got work at the restaurant in two hours, and she needs some pep—busy lunch shifts require a Spartan-like dedication to getting the job done with a wink and a smile—but she can't muster up the will to move at a regular human speed. She cannot jog her brain to care about potentially turning up late. She doesn't want to cycle for twenty-five minutes through the chill, sickly drizzle that mists her bedroom window. She doesn't want to spend the day carrying plates of seafood linguine to that one table of vulgar, obnoxious, condescending assholes who will inevitably blot out the memory of every friendly patron who walks through the door that day.

She doesn't want her job.

She doesn't want her life, in its current state.

But elsewhere in the world, there are children starving to death, so she resolves to dial down the macabre despair and get a grip on herself. She will not be bested by a rough patch. She will refrain from throwing further pity parties for herself. Last night was a necessary indulgence in melancholy brought about by the terrible date that threw itself atop the bad luck dogpile, but that's all over now, and she will be cheerful once her body shakes off this hangover and starts to cooperate.

For whatever reason, she slept in her blouse the night before, so she strips and shucks on a dressing gown before she shuffles out to the hall, tripping over her discarded high-heeled shoe as she goes, and feeling rather as if a crawl through heavy treacle might see her moving faster.

However, she wants a shower, so move she must, thinking longingly of the hot stream of revitalising water that awaits her down the hall.

The best room in her new apartment is undoubtedly the loo, where a cavernous bathtub and a luxurious rain shower turn their pristine noses up at the mildewed tiles, dripping hose and never-quite-hot-and-often-quite-arctic water she'd spent an awkward, painful number of years with. The flat in Peckham, which she and Severus had shared, appeared to have come coated in a thin and omnipresent layer of grime that required constant cleaning, yet never loosened its hold despite the battles waged upon its grubby squadron. Lily had wasted innumerable hours hunched over a tub or a sink or a peeling linoleum floor, scrubbing brush in hand, breaking her back to keep the place at its best, and for what?

Sev never bothered with his share of the chores, not until the day she left—his last, best effort to make her stay—but Mary's flat is so neat, and so pretty, and so shiny-penny new, that if Lily weren't so certain that she won't be able to afford this place come the end of her lease with Sev, she'd feel like Cinderella emerging from the drudges of her stepmother's attic, ascending the steps of the prince's castle, and destined for a better life. This kind of idealistic dreaming had gone some way towards convincing her sign a new lease for this apartment—last week, in a tiny set of offices not too far from the building itself—to begin with, but it is Mary who must take most of the credit. Mary wheedled, cajoled, and maneuvered her into making the leap, and so a thin membrane of anxiety—not entirely unlike the Peckham grime—has sheathed her every stray thought since the moment she put pen to paper and agreed to hold herself responsible for fifty percent of her new home.

Just before she reaches the bathroom door, it's thrown open from the inside and a man steps out, his modesty protected by a pair of off-white briefs that could use a couple of runs through a hardy washing machine. His dark, floppy, nineties-boy-band hair falls inelegantly into his face, framing a pair of razor-sharp cheekbones, and he looks utterly discomfited to have happened across her there.

"Morning," he says stiffly, moving his hands to cover his crotch.

"Morning," she replies, with an equally stiff smile. "Eddie, is it?"

His nod is brief. "Laurel, right? Nice to meet you."

Clown, she thinks. "You too."

She looks like an unholy mess, she knows, her eyes bloodshot and puffy, her hair twisted into knotted, gravity-defying contortions, with the unmistakable odor of an alcoholic binge wafting around her person.

To add a point in her favour, at least she wears nice, freshly-washed undergarments. Mary never would have shagged this guy if she'd seen the state of his pants.

They share a look of mutual, primly British judgement, and pass each other like ships.

The shower is a hot, cleansing reprieve from hangover city, not enough to make her feel completely better, but enough to oil the creaking creases of her limbs, strip the lethargy from her bones, and inject her with some much needed life. She imagines the dirt and sweat of a crowded bar running down her skin in rivulets and evaporating in the heat, scrubs the scent of her wine-fuelled shame from her long, thick hair, and feels clean again.

Unlike Eddie's briefs, which are a sad disaster.

If Mary decides to keep this one around—much as Lily would prefer literally anyone to Sucks-Hard-Boiled-Eggs-Like-a-Serial-Killer Todd—there will need to be a serious talk, because she's rather put-off by his choice of underwear. It's not as if her friend met him by chance in a club; he was invited to the apartment in advance, so he should have known better than to come clad in such atrociously dirty pants.

Strange, that Eddie. Hadn't he been wearing glasses before?

No, she thinks, and wipes a creeping trail of shampoo from her forehead before it can launch an assault on her left eye. That was the other guy she met last night, the one she'd mistaken for Eddie at first. He was much taller, with those lovely, sinewy forearms, and that hair, and that distractingly beautiful mouth.

He'd told her that her hair was silky, and there'd been a cat, she thinks, and his bed was—

No, wait. That happened in her dream, not in—

Bathroom. She met him in the bathroom.

She'd been in this bathroom, but then—but the towels had been different. Snowy white and fluffy. Mary's towels are black.

He'd been in the bathroom, caught her in his arms when she stumbled, and she'd—her shoe—she'd thrown—

There's one shoe sitting on her bedroom floor. One. She hasn't seen the other.

But he...

And she…

Holy fucking shit.

---

There are three seemingly disparate—though, in actuality, exasperatingly connected—phenomena that rouse James from his previously planned, much deserved, yet likely long doomed Saturday morning lie-in.

The first, offensively, is Algernon, found squatting coolly atop James's face, clearly set on suffocation.

The next, irritatingly, is a silver, spangley, high-heeled shoe, which looms insidiously over James from his bedside table, like the bloody Ghost of Evening Past.

And the last, subsequently, is James's own sudden urge to pop into his office, a desperate play for concrete facts and answers in the face of…well, grappling ignorance and stupidity, really.

And all this before he's even had his first cup of tea.

Bah humbug.

The asphyxiation-by-animal is taken care of swiftly—a disgruntled swat, followed by an affronted yowl and a few arguably-earned retaliatory scratches sees the matter deftly settled. It is not an unfamiliar exchange. James has greeted many-a-dawn with a mouth full of cat fur and a nose being snugly smothered, as it is not a day ending in "y" if Algernon has not found something to be superiorly indignant about, and plopping himself down on his owner's-slash-best-mate's-slash-spiritual-subordinate's face whilst said tosser sleeps is one of the cat's preferred methods of expressing this (see also: long, judgmental stares, and cleverly-timed, sudden aversions to litter boxes). As a full-bodied feline, Algernon's point is heavily clear: please feel the literal weight of my displeasure. And since James has raised the ol' fellow to be a cat of great moral fortitude who speaks up about his feelings and frustrations, he supposes there is no one to blame but himself. Plus, James is keenly aware of what's got Algernon so miffed this morning, and he can't argue the validity of the complaint. If murder is actually, finally, meant to be done in this flat, the culprit will be Algernon, the victim will be James, and the cat will no doubt be acquitted posthaste on the basis of justifiable homicide.

Goodbye, James Potter, that useless, good-looking bastard. His life, face, dreams, and dignity were vaguely commendable while they lasted. May he rest in peace.

Sadly, murder is almost too good for him.

Which brings him—neatly, gloomily—back to the spangley shoe.

Lily Evans's silver, spikey, spangley shoe.

His housebreaker.

His…neighbour?

It's complicated.

If James were a sillier, stupider sort of man, he may have been able to convince himself that he'd dreamed up the entire commotion. Of course a thoroughly sodded Lily Evans had not invaded his flat, shucked half her clothes, haughtily sassed him, flirted with him, attempted to impale him with her shoe, crawled into his bed, cuddled his cat, maimed his shin, laughed about pornography, then stumbled her way back out the door just after coquettishly claiming he was—and this was quoting, mind—real cute. It is prime dream fodder, rubbish like that, minus maybe a few death threats and a better soundtrack. But the spangley heel in all its tangible glory shoots the dream theory straight to the ground.

It had happened.

The whole dastardly thing had most definitely, certainly, very much happened.

Frankly, James feels like garbage. He was up half the night lamenting and lambasting himself over it. He was the sober one, after all. He was the one confronting…well, still a stranger, he supposes, but less of a foreign entity than she was. They were on his turf, in his flat. The moment he'd realised what was afoot, he could've grabbed a dressing gown, swaddled her up as she hemmed and hawed and squawked in drunken protest, and determinedly marched her out the door and back to Next Door Mary's flat, a thirty-second endeavor from top to bottom. That's what he was meant to have done. That was the proper way to handle such a situation. Not… what he did. Which, honestly, had all gone a bit hazy. And the bits that he could remember he was now working very hard to repress.

He had been attempting to help. He comforts himself with that, at least. His intentions were not awful. The whole encounter had just gone cock-up so fast, that he—he, who has always prided himself on his quick wit and keen ability to talk himself in and out of just about anything—had gone completely gobsmacked and useless. When she wakes up this morning and recalls…well, any of it, really, though James wonders what exactly will manage to filter through…she is going to be furious. Insulted. Mortified. Who was the arsehole who'd had his hands all over her intoxicated person, who was too busy ogling and bantering with her to get her clothed, or in the right place, or even a cup of bloody water? Why hadn't he got her a cup of bloody water? These are the things you do when assailed upon by a smashed girl, and James had done none of them. If she never spoke to him again, it would almost be too soon.

He'll laugh about this one day, he's sure.

Ha ha, so funny, goddess invasion, stupid shoe.

But today is not that day.

It is most definitely, definitely, not that day.

Which is likely why James finds himself stumbling out of bed, offending his cat, eyeing a woman's high heel like it's a complex puzzle sent from the eighth circle of hell to drive him spare, and pulling on his clothes to head out into the world when all he'd really meant to do that morning was wallow beneath his covers, watch Netflix, and see which take-away service was still willing to come within a twelve-block radius of the building.

The best laid plans, and all that.

His timing proves fortuitous—a speculative cracking of his bedroom door brings the familiar clatter of the shower running and Sirius's devoted yet off-key singing. While muffled beats overtaken by the occasional warbling "Jaaaaasooooon Derrrr-ullllooo," are hardly what James would consider musical masterpiece, he's nonetheless quite relieved about the reprieve from the same four lines of the same two Cinderella songs Sirius has in his repertoire, which was the concert James had been diligently—and repeatedly—treated (subjected) to last night. Sirius can belt every single one of Jason Derulo's self-branded hits until he drowns himself in there. Even if James hadn't had a specific location in mind, he's not all that certain he would have been able to resist making a hasty escape from the flat during this brief window of opportunity.

There is surely only so much merciless teasing one man is expected to take.

James had hit his quota sometime around two a.m., with the twenty-sixth singing of, "Cinder-RELLY, Cinder-RELLY, words-words-words, Cinder-RELLY—!"

Sirius has nothing on Jaq-Jaq and Gus-Gus when it comes to helpfulness or lyrical aptitude, but that is apparently not much of a deterrent.

So James toes into his trainers, grabs his phone, and pulls up a text to Remus.

Picking u up in 10, he writes.

Naturally, the terribly dependable Remus is awake and responsive. The three bubbles of typing appear, and then Remus's reply: Why?

EMERGENCY! James adds several dead-face emojis to emphasize this appropriately, even though Remus hates emojis. Shame, regrets, desperation, etc.

Can we do McDonalds first?

Did u not understand EMERGENCY

Is someone bleeding? Dying?

Yes. My soul.

We can feed your soul.

Hm. James never did get any of that pizza. U make a decent point. McDs, THEN emergency.

With that, James closes out the message and tucks the phone in his pocket. Checking one last time to ensure the shower is still going—"Jassssssonnn Derrrrullllloo—!"—he grabs his keys and makes his cowardly escape out the flat.

---

Despite much talk of coercive kidnapping and a prisoner's right to supplied sustenance, James firmly refuses to buy Remus's McMuffin and hash brown.

This is only fair, James has decided.

When one stops and thinks on it—as James now has done—this disaster really is all Remus's fault.

"My fault?" Remus sulks in the passenger seat, mourning his lost five quid and a breakfast sandwich that—he claims—is simply not as scrummy when one has to purchase it oneself. He pecks discontentedly at his food bag. "You haven't even told me what soul-killing menace has struck. Or where we're going, for that matter."

"Ow-fice," James manages, mouth half-full of McMuffin. He pulls out the drive-thru, then hangs a sharp left toward the high street, taking some comfort in the misty drizzle that trickles down upon the windshield, like the universe is willing to shed a few meaningful tears of camaraderie for him.

Remus—clearly less a comrade—considers this incredulously. "So it's a building emergency?"

James grunts a noncommittal reply.

In all fairness to Remus…how exactly James came to be the sole owner and proprietor of Ron A. Glen Properties—and thus, landlord of the very same building he currently lives in—is perhaps a larger curiosity than one single culprit can be properly blamed for.

But James had certainly never had any great desire to break into property management or real estate. Sure, he loved a good, brutal game of Monopoly as much as the next well-rounded human, but the idea that he may one day find himself collecting rents and maintaining complexes in any real-world scenario? Nearly laughable until very recently.

And none of it would have come to pass if it weren't for ruddy Remus and his bloody contagious bleeding heart syndrome.

There James had been, a perfectly happy, perfectly aimless uni student, when he gets a ring from his good mate—needs a favour, Remus says. Free labour, more like. Remus had practically emerged from the womb with a teaching degree, but was doing part-time volunteering at a school in Hackney while he earned the official paperwork. There was a community outreach programme that put on weekly football clinics for underprivileged kids, and Remus was attempting to start up a team for his Year 7s. As the token athletic mate, James was wrangled in as coach. Truthfully, he hadn't minded. It was once or twice a week, and the lads were a fun, good-humoured lot. Some of them cared less about the actual sport than others, just wanted a place to be that wasn't home, a few more hours to goof off with their mates, a free meal now and again, but James reckoned that was just as well. Churning out pro footballers was not the programme's main intent (disloyal to their country's sport as that may be).

He does it for a few weeks, then a few months. The programme has a few branches about London, including two other teams in Islington—another boys' team, and one girls'—and James becomes chummy with the other coaches. One of them works for the programme, and James eventually gets the full rundown—they constantly feel on the verge of collapse; funding is forever an issue; they're caught between the decision of trying to expand to gain more footing, more data, to prove the programme works, or remaining small so they can make certainwhat they do have remains working. They'd love to grow the programme beyond just football even, but there are permits to consider, and not every school had a Remus to nudge the kids who could benefit most in the programme's direction, and the families were more often than not suspicious of charity, and had she mentioned funding, funding, funding?

James didn't know the answer to these dilemmas, but he did know one thing: he wanted to help.

Moreover—James had funding. Sort of.

Fleamont Potter, James's dad, was a wily young chemist who—to hear him tell it—accidentally stumbled upon the formula for a frightfully effective hair serum. And from that one serum came another…then another...then another, and soon enough, Sleakeazy Hair Solutions was born. Several decades and several billion pounds later, the company was—also Fleamont's words—swimming along nicely. As such, James has had a trust fund gathering dust for almost as long as he's been alive. He gained access to it at twenty-one, but beyond mild living expenses, he's never had much reason to use it. Truthfully, he feels a bit grubby about taking out more than a few quid here and there. The trust fund money is James's money, legally, but it's his parents' money in most other senses, and James has always been keenly aware of that.

If he was going to make any kind of real go at aiding the programme, growing it, fixing it, whatever he was contemplating…well, he wanted it to be his money, full stop.

Which meant James needed some kind of investment.

And the building? It just sort of…fell into his lap.

"You won't believe it," Sirius came home ranting one night, slamming closed the flat door with much incensed gusto. "I've just come from the pub—stupid Leonard is selling the fucking building! Our home, right out from under us! The drunkard wants to retire to Majorca. What the bloody hell is in Majorca?"

"Retired people?" James had suggested, mostly unaffected by these revelations. "Sun? Sand? Peace from you?"

Sirius let loose a sound of disgust. "It's all jokes until some hipster tech bastard buys us up and starts trying to make us all use solar panels. And recycle."

"You are definitely meant to be recycling now," James had interjected. "You do know we get fined when you're not recycling, correct? It's very important to me that you acknowledge this."

Sirius made another disgruntled noise, and slammed into his room.

But while Sirius continued to rile himself up over the perilous fate of their flat… James started thinking about that hipster bastard.

Because why couldn't the hipster bastard… be him?

Well, for one thing, he knew absolutely nothing about property management or how to run an apartment complex. There really was no arguing that. But as luck would have it, Leonard wasn't in any big rush to pack it in and flee to Majorca. When James tentatively broached the topic with him, he was in fact all too delighted about the prospect of passing on both his wisdom and his property to—very important criteria—a fellow Chelsea man. For near six months, for the reduced price of a few pints every couple of nights, James received his own private course on real estate management. Leonard walked him through it all—the permits, the licenses, the insurance, the vendors…for a bloke who James doesn't reckon he'd seen fully sober even once since he'd first met him, Leonard was a savvy manager. James had to use his trust fund as collateral to get the bank loan to purchase the building, but it was still, in every way he could manage it, his own transaction.

So now, at twenty-four, James owned and ran an apartment building, and used any of the proceeds from that—after loan payments and expenses and handymen…so many handymen—to help grow the programme. He is now a member of the programme's Board, which Sirius says means he's swotty.

He's a business owner and a swot, and it's all Remus's fault.

And Remus's guilt doesn't even end there. But James wanted full confirmation of what he was dealing with before he spun down that disastrous hole.

The management company offices are about ten minutes from the building itself, two little rooms and a quaint dodgy loo inside a larger office park. James had discovered early on that tenants become terribly cross if they can't get hold of someone in the office at the very instant they maybe saw some kind of bug crawl out of their sink, or perhaps smell some kind of whiff of strange scent, or aren't fully certain the fire alarm is working—is the blinking green light good? Originally James had all the office calls forwarded to his mobile, but that quickly became unbearable, not to mention he worked very hard to keep the fact that he owned the building from most of the other tenants, and hearing him at the end of every call did not necessarily assist with that. So he'd hired a diligent admin by the name of Mrs. Figg who came in three days a week to field calls and sort paperwork and generally make James's life much more pleasant. James himself only popped in the office once a week, and even then just to clean off his desk and sign whatever check or contract Mrs. Figg thrust at him. The rest of the calls and bookkeeping he can just as easily manage from home, so the flat serves as his satellite offices.

The office park is basically dead on a Saturday morning, so he pulls his car into an empty slot right in front the building, springing out the car with restless energy. Remus follows along at a much more sedate pace.

"What's got you so wired?" his mate asks, suspicious.

James waves off the question. If his own suspicions about last night are correct, it will all become cruelly clear very soon.

They're before the door of Ron A. Glen Properties soon enough, and James pulls out his keys and unlocks the office. The main room is modest at best—cream-coloured, with some generic art pieces hanging on the walls, a few chairs, and Mrs. Figg's tidy work space. Beyond the admin's desk is a big window that looks in on James's own office—same tiny size, a bit messier, many more cat pictures. The connecting door to his office is locked too, but what James needs likely isn't in there anyway. He heads straight for Mrs. Figg's desk instead.

"What are we looking for?" Remus asks, watching James begin to rummage around the desk.

"A file folder," James answers, lifting up a stack of lift maintenance contracts. "Paperwork for the new tenant in 308."

Remus joins James at the desk, starts prodding at various desk litter, too. "308? Is that the flat next to yours?"

James nods.

"Do you not approve of them?" Remus grabs a few folders, skims their labels. "Caused trouble already?"

James lets out a choked snort. "Something like that."

The desktop is a dead-end. As Remus begins to peruse through some of Mrs. Figg's desk drawers, James heads for the filing cabinets at the corner of the room.

A minute later, he's found it.

He doesn't even need to open the file. Written neatly on the folder tab in Mrs. Figg's blocky scrawl, his answer is in big black letters, clear as day:

EVANS, LILY (308)

"Fuck me," James sighs, pulling it out.

He doesn't know what he was expecting, hoping. He'd known it was her. Could only be her. She'd said her name was Lily. Her looks—hair that red, eyes that green—were anything but common. He'd been watching her get strangled on the telly literally seconds before stumbling upon her in the bathroom. She was one and the same. The Orphan Black theory had always been statistically less likely.

Shit.

Remus comes up behind him, plucking the file from James's hands. He reads the tab, too, lets out a garbled snort.

"You're kidding." He flips the folder open. James knows one of the very first things in the file will be a photocopy of Lily's license. Her picture. "This is...she's living in your building? Next door?"

James can only nod in mournful, tragic, resignation.

"Fuck me," Remus agrees, grinning.

---

The first time James sees Lily Evans, he's inside a cramped little London theatre, striving not to fall asleep.

An (he's convinced) entirely rigged game of paper, scissors, rock finds him Remus's unwilling hostage to some swotty borefest play called To the Ends of the World. James doesn't mind theatre normally, but he's knackered from a long day of phone calls to the city about reserving a proper pitch for the programme, and knows Sirius had had paper showing before Peter had made some kind of signal and suddenly Sirius's flashing two fingers with ill-kept innocence. But Remus had wanted James to be his companion all along—Sirius never shuts up during any live entertainment, and Peter's stomach gurgles embarrassingly loudly if it isn't fed every half-hour—so it was a three-to-one ruling against James's vehement objections. He'd showered, dressed, and an hour later, was squeezing his long limbs into a seat he's rather certain was made exclusively for a primary school audience, decidedly grumpy about the whole thing.

And then the play had started, and James forgot to be grumpy.

Frankly, he's pretty certain at least half the finer details of the play went straight over his head on that first viewing. Like an episode of Westworld that James needs explained by three other sources before he properly understands, it seemed to have too many shifting parts. But despite the holes in his comprehension, the redheaded woman who'd played the lead, who James had sat there and watched perform her arse off for two hours...she was a bloody marvel. Besides being almost distractingly gorgeous, she'd handled the portrayal of her character—a woman caught in a tumultuous affair, slowly breaking apart and painstakingly putting herself back together again within the course of the narrative—with a strength of passion and emotion that James had rarely—if ever—seen. He was no expert, but he wasn't the only one who'd noticed. At curtain call, she'd got the most rousing round of applause by far.

At the close of the performance, James had checked the playbill again.

The actress's name was Lily Evans.

She must be some West End darling slumming it down in a lower theatre, he decided. When he returned back to the flat, he'd been curious enough to Google her.

She didn't have a Wikipedia page.

She was on IMDb, but had only a few sporadic credits to her name—a three-episode stint on a teen soap; a side part in some Austen Masterpiece Theatre remake; Woman in Club #2 on Law & Order; and murder victim—twice!—on Crime Scene.

This seemed pure sacrilege to James. Lily Evans was a wonder. How can the world not have noticed yet?

A week later, James is still absently thinking about the play enough that he caves, buying tickets again and forcing Sirius to come along. If anything, it's even better this time round, even with Sirius whispering asides every three minutes.

James buys tickets for his parents two weeks after that, acting terribly nonchalant as he tags along. Fleamont claps politely at the end, calling it riveting, while Euphemia purses her lips and eyes James suspiciously.

"That's the fourth time you've mentioned that actress," she said with clear accusation. "Are you dating her? Why must you be so dramatic about these things? She was wonderful. Just introduce us like a normal boyfriend, will you?"

So it seems James's little crush on Lily Evans was not exactly subtle.

He'd sat through the three episodes of the teen soap, only watching them the once because her storyline more or less centered around her eyeing up some tosser footballer, spending far too much time snogging him on screen before they (as expected) break up in highly dramatic fashion. The Austen he'd found on eBay, and learned she looked as fit in empire-waisted costumes as in modern theatre trousers and top. His favorites were admittedly the crime procedurals, despite the fact that she always seemed to end up dead.

On YouTube, he found a few commercials, and a behind the scenes promo clip for To the Ends of the World, which features thirty glorious seconds of Lily Evans, as herself, talking about the part, smiling fetchingly, cracking a joke about how her character has taught her exactly how not to handle romantic relationships. She's so bloody charming, James is certain that half of the video's 24,789 views are him.

All right, so he got a bit obsessed. But where was the harm?

Before the play had closed a few months ago, James had gone to see it one last time on his own. He'd had mad thoughts for a few moments about maybe attempting to hang around the stage door, see if he could meet her, but any way he reasoned that it just sounded too creepy. It was a harmless, if heady, crush. Fun, silly, but no need to make it more than that. She's a spectacular, beautiful actress. She's likely got a dashing, rich, doting boyfriend already. James was perfectly content to watch her from afar, stalk her online good-naturedly, let his obsessive fancy run its course like all the other overblown fancies that had come before it, and call it a day. Lily Evans was safe from him.

And then she broke into his flat.

Moved into his building.

Left her shoe behind to torment him.

Bugger.

---

James tells Remus the whole story, all the sad, pathetic details of the evening before, of meeting Lily Evans—yes, that Lily Evans—as she drunkenly happened into his flat, tried to either kill him or proposition him, he's really not sure, and how he somehow (soberly) ended up with his face in her chest, anyway.

The tale does not become any less pathetic upon retelling.

Remus's ill-suppressed humour seems to confirm this, which is why James is very glad not to have brought him breakfast. This only grows more prominent when Remus slips Lily's file back into the cabinet, pushes the drawer closed, gives James an amused look, and says, "Well, reckon that officially scraps the Sasha Dictate then, doesn't it?"

James blinks at the question, startled. "The...that's what you've taken from all this?" He immediately goes gimlet-eyed. "It's not even relevant!"

"Not relevant?" Remus gives a hearty snort of disbelief. "I'm sorry, are you trying to suggest that you wouldn't date Lily Evans?"

"I'm suggesting she wouldn't date me," James corrects, and his stomach roils skittishly at the words. "But even if, by some happenstance miracle, she did strike her head, get amnesia, and agree to such a lunatic thing…" James sits up straighter in Mrs. Figg's chair. "No. I wouldn't. The Dictate stands."

"James," Remus says dubiously.

"It stands."

It is clear that declarations of dictate fidelity are not going to sway Remus from his scepticism, but James remains stubbornly on-message, reminding himself it's a moot point anyway. After last night, Lily Evans will never, ever want to be in the same room with him again, much less date him. James will never even have reason to test his resolve with the Sasha Dictate—also known as the Never-Date-Anyone-Who-Lives-in-the-Building-You-Own-You-Berk Dictate.

James had learned that lesson the hard way, about six months after officially signing on the dotted line with Leonard. The Dictate got its shorter nomer in honor of Sasha Peters, a pretty and vivacious student who James had first met in this very office, the day she had arrived to sign a new lease for flat 204 in James's building.

Sasha was whimsical and charming, and she and James had clicked immediately. James had been a bit stressed about all the responsibility he'd just taken on, a bit daunted by the changes, and Sasha was like an easy breath of fresh air: fun, quirky, and right downstairs whenever James wanted to see her. For awhile, it seemed like a perfect set-up, having his girlfriend so close at hand. And James supposes it was...for a bit.

It didn't take more than three months together for James to realise that, while Sasha was lovely and fresh and fun...she also wasn't necessarily someone James could turn to on days when he was stressed, or evenings when he just wanted to relax rather than take her out to dinner or meet her friends at the uni pub. She had moods like the wind, and had a habit of turning up in James's flat with no warning, parking herself in front of the telly, and camping there for the weekend. It drove Sirius up the wall to constantly stumble upon her in his space, and James had tried talking to Sasha more than once about boundaries and living spaces, all to little avail. Her solution was simply to go park herself in James's room, where Algernon was outraged by the invasion and, frankly, James wasn't all that thrilled, either. She's get offended when James got firm with her about it, but he wasn't sure what else he could do.

She was, James realised now, likely the wrong person to become involved with at a time when his life had gone a bit upside down, and it had moreover not been very fair of him to be using her as more or less of a distraction for so long in the first place. What he knew at the time was that they clearly wanted different things from the relationship, and that's the reasoning he'd used when he'd finally broken things off. Sasha had been upset, spent a few weeks oscillating erratically between treating James coldly each time they passed in the building, and showing up at his doorstep at 2 a.m. begging to speak with him. It was exhausting, but not terribly unusual when battling a less-than-mutual break-up.

And then James got the call from Mrs. Figg.

"204 is two-weeks gone on their rent," she'd told him, sounding very hesitant about it. "Shall I give them a ring? Send a note?"

James had been utterly perturbed to hear which flat was late on their rent. With dread in his stomach, James told Mrs. Figg he'd take care of it, and began hoping maybe it would turn out to be a simple bank error. They occurred from time to time.

And, indeed, when James finally got ahold of Sasha, that was her explanation for it—though she made no fewer than three separate snippy comments about what kind of disasters had to occur in order to get James to speak to her again.

James ignored it, said thank you, and cashed the check.

A week or so later, James got a routine plumbing maintenance request for Sasha's flat. He immediately sent for a plumber to take a look, but the man called James back afterward in a disgruntled mood. There had been absolutely nothing wrong with the shower.

The next week, when the next request came in about some broken flooring, James went up himself to check.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the flooring, either, except a brassed-off Sasha tapping her foot impatiently against the wood as James inspected it.

And on and on it went, one game after another, until James finally snapped at her, told her he'd evict her if she didn't quit putting through false claims, riling up other tenants in the building by gossiping about things she claimed had gone wrong, wasting everyone's time. It finally seemed to get through to her, but the whole thing left James with a bitter taste in his mouth, and left an even icier Sasha roaming the building for the remaining four months of her lease.

The day James learned Sasha wasn't extending her lease was the day he'd set down his Dictate. He was never dating anyone in the building ever again. Sasha may have been a particularly awful example of what could go wrong, but that only cemented the thing. It was not good business, not good logic, and just plain rubbish for James.

The Sasha Dictate was alive and well.

And Lily Evans...was not going to change that.

Even if she did somehow find him tolerable...well, she didn't, so the point was—again—moot, but that was neither here nor there. James wasn't going to change his very important rule because of some heady crush on what was likely a trumped-up fantasy. She was a virtual stranger, albeit one he'd known of from afar for months. That couldn't change anything. Wouldn't change anything. James had his life in balance, and he wasn't willing to topple that again on a 'd be completely ludarious.

The solution, James decides then, is simply to go over to her flat later today, apologise profusely for everything that had gone so wrong last night, and hope to god she didn't have him arrested for stalking or negligence.

He'd do it when he returned to the flat. First thing.

Or...you know, maybe after lunch. He was always better after lunch.

Or even dinner! Really, the later in the day, the better. She'd probably be off doing...actress things, anyway. He'd catch her when she returned, which could be quite late.

Seven p.m., likely.

Or—eight could work too.

No later than nine.

Right.

---

Vivid memories of her exploits return to Lily in dribs and drabs over the course of about ten minutes; an unrelenting onslaught of many terrible moments in painstaking detail, HD ready and brutally unfair, considering what her body has already been put through as recompense for her boozy night out with Kingsley, who texts her as she's getting out of the shower to ask if she'll be at ballroom class—which she can't afford, but King has refused to take money from her for at least two years now, insisting that her natural talent and superior hair-flipping abilities are payment enough, hence the great sulk of 2015 when she got a bob cut—later tonight.

Ballroom class! As if she can dance in the state she's in. Kingsley may be fresh as a daisy and even now pounding a coconut water with added electrolytes while his personal-trainer boyfriend prepares to spot him on an upright row, but she's got the cast of Stomp banging dustbin lids in her head, as well as every other tried-and-tested symptom of a hangover to end all hangovers, with none of the accompanying memory loss.

What a strong, reliable brain she has.

Except for when she's plastered, and turns into the bleeding Sim burglar, creeping into people's homes—scary music not included, but probably required.

Kingsley isn't happy to learn that she's ditching ('But I've choreographed a salsa routine to The Boy Does Nothing and I only picked that song for YOU, you harridan crone xox') but she's been going to his bloody class since she was eighteen years old; she won't forget how to execute a turn if she misses tonight. He runs innumerable dance classes a week at the academy, and it's always a given that Lily can't have regular days because of the nature of her job. Kingsley's only mad about tonight because he'll have to partner with somebody else, when he frequently lambastes most of his Saturday night students as flailing morons with Pringle-tin limbs.

She texts him back and promises to get another bob if he doesn't leave her alone—a threat that always works, because from a purely aesthetic perspective, King would be the first to admit that he's obsessed with her long red hair—which shuts him up, leaving her in peace to ruminate on the fact that she embarked on a crime spree last night.

Breaking-and-entering. Assault. And she may as well add sexual harassment into the mix. Huh.

She doesn't want to think of how many laws she broke in what must have been a twenty-minute window, but she knows the number is far too high, and she knows that the only pardonable crime was the first one she committed because she really had been sure—drunk and stupid, yes, but sure—that she was walking into her flat. If she'd only listened to him when he told her she was in the wrong place… but she didn't, stubborn as a mule as always, even when she's barely lucid.

When she leaves for work, dragging her bike with her, she also leaves Mary none the wiser as to what she got up to last night. Her friend will likely laugh herself to death when she finds out, then rise again with a renewed ambition to ensure that Lily spends the rest of her life being appropriately teased for what she did, so she can wait another few hours to be filled in on all the gory details.

And the thing is, it doesn't seem all that funny right now, but deeply upsetting on so many awful fronts, and she hasn't quite reached a point where she can take a good-natured ribbing about this incident on the chin.

She feels like a thoroughly shitty person.

It's bad enough that she must contend with being dumb and careless enough to get so drunk that she walked into another person's home with no concern for her own safety, which was an appallingly stupid decision on her part. She's wise enough to know that any other door, on any other night, or any other person—not the admirably patient man whose bathroom she wound up in—might have seen her badly hurt.

But she must add to that her behaviour; the unreasonable violence, her own audacity, and the fact that she absolutely, unequivocally—no matter how often she might try to deny it, or how determined she is that her sister never find out, even if that means taking her secret to the grave with her—made an attempt to seduce him, a man she had never met before in her life. Whilst drunk, and no-doubt incomprehensible.

After breaking into his flat.

And throwing a shoe at him.

And kicking him with all her might, she'd almost forgotten about that. If only she had.

She may have stolen a slice of pizza, too—she remembers eating one—but she's less clear on how that came to be.

He's going to think she's trash—some trollop who lurched her drunken way into his home, stinking of booze and probably a ragged mess—the way she's thought of so many men she's met who leered at her, or touched her without permission, and generally got too close; the kind of men who've made her feel uncomfortable, and at times, even afraid.

Worrying that he'll think of her that way just makes her feel worse, because her thoughts should be for him and how he's feeling, not her own selfish concerns.

But she thinks she may have liked the guy.

James. That was his name. Handsome chap, that one. He had a spectacular cat, and didn't try anything amiss.

She liked him. She thinks.

In truth, she doesn't really know. She can't trust her boozy recollections enough to know what she feels. She might be misremembering something, or overstating his appeal because of beer goggles—not that she drank any beer, but there was a point last night where she lost track of every kind of spirit she'd consumed, so she's at as much of a loss as anyone. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. If she's capable of breaking-and-entering, who knows what else she might be liable to do?

She has to carry her bike down the stairwell because it won't fit in the elevator, and she doesn't have a lock with which to secure it outside, thanks to Sev, who is holding it—and several other possessions of hers—captive, in a bid to entice her back to Peckham, though since she blocked him on social media and got a new number for her phone, his methods of contact have been severely limited.

Two days ago, she'd woken up to find that he'd transferred £500 into her bank account with a payment reference of 'CANWETLK,' evidently under the impression that—when all else failed—he could benefit from her financial woes by purchasing her forgiveness.

She'd sent the money back at once, so he'd tried again yesterday, adding another hundred to the pot, and she once again returned it.

Lily hasn't checked again today, but should she find another increase in her balance, she will not be surprised.

She hears a man's voice in the lobby when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and pauses on the third-from-bottom step, just out of sight from anyone who may be standing in the communal area. From her vantage point, she can see the main entryway to the building, but she can't see the mailboxes that line the far-left wall, nor the collection of armchairs near the elevators, nor the noticeboard where people post their buy-and-sell flyers, and she has no way to look without immediately being spotted. She's noticed in the last week that people tend to congregate in the space—which makes sense, as it's light and open, with free newspapers and cheerful potted trees dotted here and there—and the last thing she wants is to walk smack-bang into James as she attempts a shamefaced exit from the building.

The man is speaking very quietly, and Lily has to strain her ears to catch what he is saying, pressed tight against the wall like an inept spy with a rusty bicycle that insists upon squeaking when its tyres touch ground.

"Yes, that's right," the man is saying. "For four, please, and the name is—shall I spell it? Yes. Papa, Romeo, echo, whiskey, echo, tango, tango, first name Gideon—" The man moves towards the front entrance with his phone pressed to his ear and his back to her, but Lily can immediately tell that he's not her neighbour. His hair is far too tidy. "A table by the window, if you have it, but if not—"

"BOO!" cries someone from behind her.

Lily is quite an accomplished screamer—she'd have to be, having played a murder victim on the same show twice—but no acting chops are required this time around, and the cry that escapes her now is completely genuine. Her bicycle tumbles down the last three steps and clatters to the lobby floor, and Gideon-by-the-door pauses in his restaurant booking to jump out of his skin, whip around, and glare at her before he storms out, as if she started yelling her head off just for the fun of ruining his morning.

She turns around to confront her attacker and finds herself looking at a face she thinks she knows, albeit with a clouded, uncertain, pizza-centric kind of familiarity, from James's flat last night—pale and finely sculpted, with an elegant nose, light grey eyes, and a sleek tumble of long black hair.

"Hullo, Lily," he says pleasantly, and his mouth stretches into the evilest Cheshire cat grin she's ever seen. "How's your head feeling?"

Nope.

She's not doing this today.

With great promptness, Lily turns on her heel and pelts down the stairs, pausing to swoop down and collect her bike, then straightens up and wheels it toward the door at speed. Unfortunately, he follows, jogging alongside her as if they're two old friends engaging in a spot of pleasant conversation.

"I'm Sirius, by the way," he tells her as they walk. "Like the constellation. Why did you carry your bike downstairs? Can't you chain it up outside?"

Is this guy for real?

This grinning idiot just leapt out at her in a stairwell like Ghostface, now he's asking her inane questions about her bike like nothing untoward has happened, and she's supposed to—what? Be fine with it? Engage?

She ought to sock him in the nose—though that probably wouldn't improve her standing with his flatmate, who she likes.

Or thinks she likes.

"Don't have a lock," she tartly responds.

"Why don't you have a lock?"

"My ex-flatmate has it."

"Why can't you get it back from them?"

"It's something of a hostage situation, and I'd rather not have to see him again, lest I become the bloody hostage," she says, having reached the revolving door, but in her haste to escape this strange, grinning enemy, she shoves it into a wedge with unnecessary force, inadvertently jamming the door shut. "Can you help me with this?"

"No," he says. "What do you mean, 'hostage situation?'"

She stops trying to pull her bicycle free of the door—one of the pedals is impeding its exit—and glares at him. "Are you, in fact, a six-year-old boy inhabiting a grown man's body? Because I haven't heard so many 'but why' questions since primary school, only those kids had the slightly redeeming factor of being remotely comprehensible."

Sirius lets out a sharp, quick laugh that's oddly reminiscent of a bark.

"Look at that, she bites!" he triumphantly cries. "But no need to be so hostile, Cinders."

"Cinders?"

"I'm simply checking in on my new neighbour, since, y'know, you were generous enough to check in on us last night."

"I was drunk last night—"

"As I witnessed," he says wryly. "Plus, James mentioned that you were quite a handful."

"—and I'll apologise to him later," she finishes, and moves to the other side of her bike to push the revolving door in the other direction and release the trapped pedal. "Now, if you don't mind—"

"I sincerely hope you do apologise," says Sirius—like the constellation, apparently—and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I've haven't seen him that angry in really a long time."

On the verge of forcing the entirety of her bike through the door with the front wheel suspended at eye level, Lily stops and stares at him, all warmth draining out of her face. "He was?"

"Oh yeah, he was fuming."

"But he seemed—"

"He said you ruined his night," says Sirius, with a nonchalant shrug, his eyes betraying no insincerity. "He said that you'd probably try to turn it all around on him and accuse him of manhandling—"

"I wouldn't!"

"—and that probably nobody would believe him over you, even though you were the one who was flirting with him," he finishes, and smiles pleasantly at the look of shock on Lily's face. "Don't look at me like that. I'm just the messenger."

But look at him like that she does, while she processes this information, now faced with the full repercussions of her misdemeanour, namely that the handsome next-door-neighbour, who she thinks she might fancy just a little, had his night entirely ruined by her drunk, moronic presence, and that he hates her now, and has probably registered a high-level complaint about her with Ron A. Glen Properties already, so she is shortly to be evicted, on top of everything else.

"I have to go to work," she tells him, after a moment of horrible silence, and pushes her way through the miniscule gap that sits between her bicycle and the stupid revolving door. "Don't want to be late. Bye."

"Bye," Sirius repeats, grinning broadly, and lifts his hand in a lazy wave of farewell. "Have an excellent time at the ball."

---

Mary Macdonald is one of those rare, exotic creatures who never need to work at weekends.

These bountifully blessed people exist outside of legend, and walk—bold as you like—among the unfortunate proletariats such as Lily Evans, heralding phrases like, 'hump day!' and 'TGIF!' as they flit merrily to their jobs with dubious titles, like 'human resources' or 'data analysis.' Mary works in commercial development, whatever that means, though it seems to involve taking a lot of social media breaks during work hours, excessive online shopping, and not an awful lot of any actual work, as far as Lily can tell.

As such, Lily comes home from a difficult, tiring day at the restaurant to find her housemate in a state of infuriating cheer that best befits a person who had nothing to do all day but eat, sleep, and rid her flat of a one-night stand. Mary's loitering in the kitchen when she walks in, opening a bottle of wine with a novelty corkscrew procured on a hen night (said corkscrew protrudes rather comically from the crotch of a tiny, plastic man), while one of her playlists—the aptly titled, 'Mary Kitchen Tunes'—provides an upbeat accompanying soundtrack.

Having Saturdays off must be marvellous.

That, or Eddie's grotty pants house a far more dexterous corkscrew than Lily gave him credit for.

"You're just in time for wine-o-clock!" cries her friend, by way of greeting, and waves the bottle of Malbec in a tantalising manner. "D'you want some? It's Argentinian."

"No, thank you."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

"Please, don't pretend," says Lily flatly. "I'm officially never drinking again for at least the rest of my life, and maybe the next ten years of yours."

She reaches the kitchen counter and drops a plastic carrier bag on its smooth marble surface, allowing the contents to spill out in a heap, while Mary pours herself a generous helping of wine and adds Lily's share to her glass for good measure.

"I called Pronto Pies to order us pizza, but they said they're not delivering to the building anymore because of an admin issue, so I'm fresh out of dinner ideas," she says, and takes a gluttonous mouthful. "What did you get up to last night, anyway?"

"That's not a question you want to be asking."

Mary clucks impatiently under her breath at her friend's reticence, then casts a suspicious eye over the assortment of goods that Lily has plonked on the counter. "Are you baking?"

"Yes."

"At 8pm?"

"Yes."

"What's inspired this—ooh!" Mary sets down her glass and snatches up a bunch of ripe bananas—procured especially by Lily at a market that was very much out of her way after work, but it's all for a good cause—with an intrigued gleam in her eyes. "Are you making banana bread?"

Lily nods. "So we had a table full of loud American men come in about halfway through the day, and they gave me a £50 tip between them—"

"Nice!"

"—though it probably would have been more, but as I'm not quite destitute enough to resort to selling my body, I had to decline their offer of a discreet night of adult fun in their hotel."

Lily has developed quite a talent for fending off inappropriate advances at work in such a way that keeps her gainfully employed and earns her a tip at the end of their meal. A solid strategy to employ is that of fabricating a boyfriend, coupled with an excellent imitation of flattered surprise—she knows she's very pretty, but the kind of men who find it acceptable to grope a server's thigh are usually the kind of men who hate confident women—which normally earns her a few quid when they pack up and leave.

She really hates her job.

Fake boyfriend's name was James today. Not deliberately, by any means. One of the Americans, the most determined of the lot, had asked—as if by catching her in a lie he could guilt her into a raucous fucking later—and it popped into her head.

"Wait," says Mary, frowning. "With all of them?"

For the second time in a very short minute, Lily nods.

"What the ever-loving fuck is discreet about that?"

"Something about a blood pact, and a prostitute in Rio, and not telling their wives—I'm not sure of all the details," Lily explains, and ducks down to take a loaf tin out of the cabinet. "Either way, I had some spare cash, so before I scrub my brain with a wire brush, banana bread it is—"

"Yes!"

"—but you can't have any."

"Why not?"

"Because…" She pops back up, tosses the loaf tin next to the bananas and drums her fingers on the countertop, performing a quick-and-silent risk assessment—tell Mary or not tell Mary, get teased to within an inch of her life for the rest of time, or live in relative peace until somebody else tells her and she gets it twice as bad—but eventually decides, with a resigned sigh, that it's better to let her know than not. The alternative is feigning an interest in getting to know their neighbours, which Mary will hate, and Lily doesn't have the energy to keep up that kind of ruse. "This is apologetic banana bread."

"What does that mean?"

"Do you know the people who live in 309?"

"The two boys next door? I know their cat," says Mary, with a puzzled frown, picking up her wine again. "He's a jumped-up little shit, which is—"

"—which is your favourite kind of cat, yeah," says Lily absently. "But you don't know them?"

"Should I?"

"Not really." A strand of hair has escaped from her bun, and she pushes it behind her ear. All or nothing, then. "But I may have done a really bad thing last night."

Her shameful story takes them all the way through prep, and by the time she's finished, the banana bread is baking away and Mary has succumbed to several bouts of taunting laughter, though her biggest issue with the entire debacle is not—as a normal person would assume—that Lily is guilty of trespassing, assault, and sexual harassment, but that she never made an attempt to kidnap the cat and present him to Mary as a housewarming gift.

"The banana bread is too much," is her official assessment, having reached the end of the sorry tale.

"Too much what?"

"Too much in general. You don't need to put in that much effort to make amends. Just buy him a pizza—well, no, Pronto Pies won't deliver. Just say sorry if you see him in the hall."

"And give the banana bread to you?"

Mary smiles sweetly at her. "Aren't I the truly injured party here? I've told you about that cat, and you had your chance to take him for me, yet here I am." She gestures around the kitchen to demonstrate the absence of a crotchety feline presence, her smile melting into an exaggerated pout. "Sad, catless, and forced to resort to throwing him kippers from the balcony again."

"I wondered why you were buying kippers."

"I wanted his attention, and he only responds to food," Mary counters, sounding all at once like a desperate singleton waiting for a guy to call, when in fact, buying kippers to chuck at the next-door neighbour's cat is more effort than she's ever expended to attract a mate.

"He responded to me, and I didn't have food."

"Well, bully for you, Miss Perfect."

"I'm sorry." Lily places her hands on her hips, regarding Mary with some bewilderment. "I thought I was the one with a crisis on her hands, so how has this been brought around to you not owning a cat?"

"What crisis? You stumbled into the wrong flat and gave a bloke an eyeful of your tits—he was probably thrilled, and you got home in one piece so he obviously wasn't a creeper, and anyway this is London. I know people who make friends that way."

Her housemate, Lily concludes, is not the right person to talk to about this. She sails through life with a devil-may-care contempt for other people—though clearly, not for cats—and as the situation is not so dire that she may be called upon to assist in the disposal of a bloodied body that Lily's got stashed beneath her bed, she's not going to take it seriously.

"I need to lie down for a bit," she mumbles.

Mary laughs at her, but Lily pays her no mind and stalks away, retreating to her bedroom to put on pyjamas and contemplate a nap, though she decides against it for the sake of safety. Knowing her luck, she'll sleep through her alarm and Mary will pass out in a wine-stupor, leaving the banana bread unguarded and unwatched in the oven, and the last thing she wants is for it—or the flat itself—to burn to an inedible crisp.

Instead, she spends an absent-minded hour sitting cross-legged on the floor, running a brush through her hair and watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine clips on her phone, until her timer buzzes and she returns to the kitchen, and her banana bread, which comes out of the oven as moist and fragrant as she could have hoped.

"Perfect," she concludes, once she's taken an indulgent whiff, and covers her creation with a tea towel. "Thank Christ for that. I'll bring it over in the morning."

"Bring it over now, while it's still hot," commands Mary, who has wandered in from the living room to oversee the proceedings.

"I can't do it now, it's half-past-nine on a Saturday night."

"And?"

"And, he's probably out." With his girlfriend, she neglects to add.

It's entirely possible that James-the-Handsome-Neighbour doesn't have a girlfriend, and Lily's perfectly sure that she doesn't care either way. It only matters in so far that it's a possible excuse for his absence, should he happen to be out for the night.

But if he does have a girlfriend—again, not that Lily cares—she's definitely a petite blonde named Rosalind who used to work in public relations before her YouTube channel grew too popular for her to spare time for her nine-to-five job. Now that Rosalind is a bona-fide social media influencer, she spends her days filming makeup tutorials and sharing beautifully-filtered travel snaps—her and her beach volleyball tan smiling brightly against a tropical backdrop—with her six-hundred-thousand Instagram followers.

Rosalind never gets drunk. She gets great mileage out of a single class of Cristal, which she will sip daintily all night, before retiring to bed early and rising with the sun to attend hot yoga. Rosalind is entirely wrong for James-the-Handsome-Neighbour, but his friends are too polite to tell him to his face. His cat has obviously tried to warn him of the same, but there's only so much that a cat can do.

Fucking Rosalind. Nobody asked for her.

"He wasn't out last night, he was sitting in like a saddo, waiting for a pizza with his mate," Mary reasonably points out. "And what's the worst that can happen if he is, nobody answers the door? You want him to fancy you, yeah?"

"I don't—" Lily starts, but immediately loses faith in her own lie, because she's far too pale to hide a sudden flush of her cheeks, and Mary's not stupid. "I'm just trying to avoid having a sexual harassment complaint lodged against me with the housing agency."

"He'd be a dick if he made a complaint, and if you pop over to his flat with warm bread you've baked just for him—you fucking Stepford wife—he'll probably be so charmed that he'll forget he was ever angry in the first place."

"Charmed?"

"Or horny. Either way, you're golden"

"But I'm already wearing my pyjamas, and I don't want to change—"

"Don't change. Men love girls in pyjamas."

"Do they?"

"They're soft, they're cosy, and they're easily removable," she says, as if it's a no-brainer. "Plus, it makes them think of taking you to bed, which is exactly what you—"

"I've already been in his bed."

"Maybe so," says Mary, and shrugs one shoulder. "But if you take my advice, and turn up on his doorstep in your comfy jim-jam shorts and your teeny-tiny tank top and hit him with those massive, 'I'm sorry' doe eyes of yours, I guarantee you—like, times a million—he'll melt right there on the spot."

Lily fixes her with a look of disapproval, and Mary stares mutinously back.

She's quite cross with herself for seeing the appeal in this plan.

"You're only encouraging this because you think there's some sort of drama in it for you," she accuses her friend.

"True, but my shows have all ended and this is the perfect start to a soppy rom-com," Mary admits, and crosses the room to stand directly in front of her, appraising her from head-to-toe with a sweeping, critical eye. "Let's see—"

"Mary—"

"Pull this out—" Mary hooks one finger beneath Lily's bra strap—she's wearing her best cherry red today—and slides it out from beneath her tank. "—and take these down a little." Her shorts are tugged unceremoniously lower, until the top of her knickers are clearly visible above the waistband. "Hip-bones, see? And eye-contact, always."

"Could you refrain from pimping me out for the neighbour?"

"Could you refrain from feeling so ashamed of yourself for fancying the neighbour, just because you broke into his house and hit him with a shoe and didn't nick the cat and take him home to me?"

"Aside from not stealing the cat, those are all excellent reasons to feel ashamed."

"You're neurotic," Mary counters, and fluffs the ends of Lily's hair. "Now go, and don't disturb my work, and remember what I said about eye contact."

Lily feels rather stubbornly inclined to argue Mary down.

The thing is, she's right about everything—except maybe her assertion that men like girls in pyjamas, because Lily has never seen proof of that—and it's fairly evident that she's got many more rebuttals up her sleeve, should any more arguments be slung her way.

Taking him the bread while it's fresh from the oven would cast her in a better light.

Not that this is about making herself seem desirable. It's about making amends for her loutish behaviour. She's been wracked with guilt all day over the whole affair. Nobody deserves to be made feel uncomfortable in their own home.

But if he liked her, rather than merely tolerating her presence…

Well. That would be nice, and it would certainly make both of their lives easier.

She gives it ten minutes—warm bread is a luxury, but scalding hot bread is best avoided, unless one enjoys having the skin stripped from their fingers and the taste-buds blistered from their tongues—deposits her offering on a plate and wraps it carefully in film, then it's out to the corridor she goes, plate in one hand and keys in the other, shivering slightly when she leaves the warmth of her flat behind, because the faux-wood floor is cold, her shorts are minuscule, and Mary refused to let her put on socks.

Perhaps he won't be in, she thinks, as she approaches the door, so she can leave the bread—and her apology—with his housemate, then scarper. Lily's not sure if she likes that idea or not. Neither is she sure if she is nervous or excited.

She take a deep, reassuring breath, and is raising her fist to knock when the door is pulled open from the inside—that keeps happening to her today—with some force, and she finds herself face-to-face with the very man she's been looking for.

Looking for today, of course. Not in life, or anything. She doesn't have designs on him.

Even if the sight of him—shocked as he clearly is to see her standing on his threshold—makes a tingling kind of warmth sweep up through her body. He's so very tall and broad-shouldered, with eyes the most darling shade of hazel and hair a perfect whirlwind of ebony black, and it's instantly no mystery that her drunken-self tried it on with him last night.

The point of beer goggles, Lily has always assumed, is that they make a person seem more attractive than they actually are, so that when one wakes up next to a relative fright after a night of drunken passion, one feels appropriately ashamed of one's taste when one is hammered beyond belief.

It's not supposed to go in the opposite bleeding direction.

"Hi," she says immediately, and it's so breathy, so obvious, and so trashy-romance-novel trite ("Hi," said the milkmaid, and gasped in awe, entranced by the way Rodolpho's white shirt billowed in the hot summer breeze, so he ripped off all her clothes and took her in the haystack) that she very much wishes she could slap herself across the face.

Or let him take her in a haystack. Either suits her needs.

"Hi," he replies. Then, instantly, "This is not your flat."

She laughs, or squeaks, or beeps like a broken computer—it's some sort of sound, anyway, which could most credibly be likened to a laugh, even if it seems for a moment as if the ghost of a honking goose has embodied her soul. "Sorry," she says, and clears her throat. "I know that. Hello."

"Hello," he says again, though he still appears mildly startled. "Sorry, I just thought it best to...get that out there at the start. A bit of an issue previously...if you recall?"

"In—ah—in exquisitely painful detail, as it happens."

He says nothing, but his eyes travel downwards very fast, moving swiftly over her pyjamas, the plate in her hand, the stupid lacy band of the harlot-red knickers that peep boldly out from beneath her cotton shorts, and she wants to throttle Mary. God knows what he's thinking of this shameless little display, though the look on his face seems to hint at a discomfort akin to chronic indigestion.

This is awful. He obviously wants her to bugger off, lest she do something nuts—like grab his arse, or rob him at gunpoint—and ruin his night for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

"Listen," she begins. The sooner she makes her apology, the sooner she can get out of his gorgeously ruffled hair. "I talked to your housemate this morning, and he told me how angry you are about, you know—"

"He told you what?"

"Yeah, and—look, I totally get it, I was so awful, and you have no idea how ashamed I am, so I just wanted to pop over and, erm, you know, apologise and—" She's talking very fast, but her guilt feels like an ugly, slimy creature that crawls along her skin, and she desperately needs—get it off, get it off—to see it removed at once. "—and I just want you to know that behaviour like that is not characteristic of me at all, really, I'm like—you know how there's always one really boring person who leaves the party early and misses all the fun stuff? Well, that's me, but like—look—" She huffs out a breath. "I'm not making sense, and you so don't want to hear this, but I'm really, really sorry, and I can't stress eno—"

"Wait a second. Slow down." He holds up a hand, waves it, looking perturbed. "You're sorry?"

She blinks at him. "Yes?"

"You've nothing—" He breaks off, shakes his head. "I mean, yes, you broke in and threatened me a bunch, but really, you were...clearly not yourself. I should have—I didn't realise you lived next door at first, otherwise I would have sent you right back. Ought have. I'm sorry."

Hold up a second. Why is he sorry?

Moreover, why isn't he mad at her?

His easy acceptance (rejection?) of her apology should be making her feel better, but it has the opposite effect. Clearly, he's trying to appease her for the sake of politeness—his mother likely raised him to have manners—but she doesn't want to be excused if she doesn't deserve it. She shouldn't be allowed to get away with this so easily.

"But—but I used your toilet paper?" That's not a particularly strong start to her argument. "And, also, I'm pretty sure I kicked you at some point. And threw a shoe at your head."

"You really don't have to worry about the toilet paper," he insists with a rueful smile, one that only just quirks up at the corners of his lips. "And my shin is fine. Sort of. Purplish-green has always been one of my best colours. As for the—"

"I sexually harassed you," she blurts out, as if someone clapped her on the back and knocked the words from her mouth unexpectedly. She tosses an urgent glance at the door to her flat, lest Mary be poking her head out to eavesdrop. "I mean, I wouldn't have—but I was drunk, so…"

"No. Right. Of course not. You—" He stops, clears his throat. "I wouldn't...erm, term it as such, anyway. Harmless propositions, really. You were having a laugh. I felt harassed none at all. And I...well, you're not the one who ended up smothering someone else's mermaid bra, so if anyone were being accused…" He stops again. Sighs. "You're being very nice about this. You are very nice. Likely why my cat likes you. Do you remember my cat? He's super cross I didn't let you hang around longer. Been a bit of a pill about it all day, actually."

Mary need not have insisted that she maintain eye contact, because she can't bring herself to look away.

He's lovely.

A tall, dark, handsome sweetheart who doesn't take advantage of drunk, half-naked women, and owns a cat.

A tall, dark, handsome sweetheart who doesn't take advantage of drunk, half-naked women, owns a cat, and is inexplicably willing to forgive her undeserving ass.

He thinks she's very nice.

And if that's not doing strange things to the pace of her heart...

"I do remember your cat," she replies, with another stupid giggle—though this time, thankfully, she sounds more like a woman and less like a vengeful waterbird. "Algernon, right? And you're James—which is my very favourite name, by the way. I don't know if I mentioned that, but if I did, I was absolutely telling the truth."

"You very much mentioned it," he says. "James and the Giant Peach, right?"

"Yes, that exactly." She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Sometimes I meet people named James who aren't very nice, and it really bloody pisses me off. It's like, they don't deserve it, you know? Their mothers should have named them Julian, or Todd, like my housemate's creepy ex."

"Todd was the definition of creepy," he agrees readily. "Though I do hope you're not advocating for a name change here?"

"Oh, not at all!"

"Good," he says, looking pleased. "You did think I was a murderer quite a few times, and I'm not sure murderers and favoured childhood protagonists quite add up, but I swear I'll strive to do justice by James. I'm not all bad. Mermaid bra debacles aside."

"The mermaid bra debacle was my fault," she reminds him. "I'm the one who got smashed last night—I mean, it's not any kind of excuse, but I've been going through a really shitty time of it, and I was out with a friend and he just kept buying me drink after drink after drink, and then the next thing I know, I'm lying in your bed with no top on." Her face must be glowing more brightly than a string of overzealous Christmas lights. "Which, actually, is quite a common outcome to excessive drinking, but the circumstances surrounding it are usually very different."

"If it's any consolation," he ventures, "you are the prettiest housebreaker I've ever had invade my flat. Also my only housebreaker, but nevermind that." He pauses. "Though I am sorry you're having a shitty time of it. I'd housebreak too, likely, if I...you know. Was deeply miserable or something."

Prettiest, prettiest, prettiest. Her. She can breeze past the part where he's mentioned that he knows that she's unhappy. He doesn't want to hear about her problems, and she doesn't want to spill her guts to this nice man who somehow hasn't been convinced that she's insane. Prettiest.

"Well, I'm happier now that I know you don't hate me—something your housemate was very insistent about, by the way."

"Of course he was," James mutters under his breath, and then he gives her a we're-all-in-this-together sort of stare. "Something you ought to know if you're going to be living here—always assume Sirius is taking the mickey. It is his thing. He's endlessly entertained by your squirming. I've tried to break him of it, but I think it's a lifelong affliction. I'm not angry," he says again, and stresses it, very pointedly. "I thought you'd be furious, honestly."

"No, of course not—I mean, I'm not too happy with your mate right now, but you were nothing but lovely. And respectful. And you didn't—not that you had any reason to want to take advantage, but so many guys are creeps, you know? And I felt very comfortable." She swallows air. "Around you."

"Oh." He clears his throat again, lifts a hand to his hair, already sticking up in every which direction. His long fingers sift through the strands, the lucky things. "That's...that's good. I just...you know, I thought about it afterwards, and I should've caught on a bit quicker about why you were there—and I did pull your hair and nearly yank your earring out. Sorry about that. I was only trying to get you dressed."

"I know!" she squeaks. "Because of the whole 'being respectful,' thing, which I really appreciate, and again, I'm really sorry that I put you in that situation, and that I kicked you, and all that stuff I said about—but anyway, that's why I rarely drink, because I turn into a flirty weirdo." She thrusts the plate towards his chest. "I baked you this, by the way."

"What?" He arches back, blinks at it. "You...baked? For me?"

"Yeah, it's my 'I'm sorry' banana bread, which is basically regular banana bread, but I listened to Coldplay while I made it, so, y'know." She shrugs, as if to say, 'what can you do?' "That's a bit of a downer."

He doesn't answer her, merely stares at the plate as if she's presented him with a complicated quadratic equation. Perhaps he thinks she poisoned it, as a jape, and that he'll be spending the night on the toilet if he trusts her enough to indulge in a slice or two.

"If you're not particularly partial to banana bread in general," she says gently, and makes her very best attempt at sweet and innocent—screw it, she's always being told that she looks like a doe-eyed Disney princess, so she might as well milk it for once. "Could you do me a kindness and pretend that you are? It'll break my heart if you hate it."

He gives a short laugh, still sounding a bit thrown. "Can't have that, can we?" He takes the plate slowly, carefully, like she's presented him with a crown jewel. "Though I happen to love banana bread. So your heart is in good hands in either case."

"I get the impression that you're quite capable of breaking lots of hearts if you wanted to, so I'm honoured, really, that you're paying such deference to mine."

"That's….no. You're far too kind. But thanks," he says, and smiles at her. A proper one, with a lot of white teeth and happy charm. "With all these baked goods and profuse flatteries, I think I'm going to like being your neighbour."

"Well… brilliant. Great." She smiles shyly back. "And if you ever need a favour, like a cup of sugar, or you've run out of teabags, or, I dunno, if you fancy a bacon sandwich, I still feel like I owe you one and I'm pretty handy, so feel free to knock on my door whenever."

"Oh, are we knocking on each other's doors now?" He cocks an eyebrow. "I quite liked this trend of just stumbling in we had going."

"Yup," she says, and raps sharply on the frame of the door, which makes him laugh, and her stomach contract painfully. She's got a crush—a crush, like a twelve-year-old girl—on her fucking neighbour. "I mean, you can stumble into my flat if you fancy it, but I can't guarantee that you'll be safe from my housemate and the insane soap opera plotline she's concocted for us both."

"Soap opera plotline?" His head tilts, intrigued. "Have I got an evil twin, then? Or have you got the evil twin? One that housebreaks, while you sweep in afterward with baked goods?"

"Okay, well, maybe it's more of a Harlequin romance plotline, since she's completely addicted to the Hallmark movie channel and has to make a drama out of everything, but don't tell her I said that."

He makes a quick zip across his lips with his finger. "Mum's the word."

"Mum is a good word. I happen to love mums, mine and others," she responds, with an apologetic smile, though whether she's still sorry about the housebreaking, or about the incomprehensibly dorky thing she just said, she isn't entirely sure. "Anyway…"

"Anyway."

"I should probably go back inside before I, you know—" She points in the direction of her door with both hands, perched on her tiptoes, swaying restlessly on the spot. "—fall in love with you, or something."

He makes a noise—strangled, garbled, a vague heralding to a similar sound he'd expelled yesterday inside the bathroom.

"Hah," she says flatly, a telling warmth blossoming across her chest. "That was a joke." She jerks her head towards her apartment. "Because Mary."

"Right," he finally says. His voice has definitely gone scratchier. "Mary. Hallmark. Can't...give them the satisfaction."

"Not in my delicate state," she agrees, and takes a step or two backwards, retreating to her own flat, where awaits her nosy housemate, but most importantly, the privacy one needs to replay a conversation over and over in one's head in order to best ascertain what it means when your sexy neighbour makes a noise in response to your meagre attempts at flirting. "You take good care of my heart, now."

"Well, not too well. Mary and all, you know." But he lifts the banana bread up, and looks a bit flushed and maybe even pleased. "Thanks for this. Again. Really. You didn't have to."

"I really, really did," she insists, and raises a hand in farewell. "Night, James."

"Goodnight, Lily."

She stops at her door. "Did I tell you my name last night?"

He pauses, sort of squints at the question. "Well, technically you told Sirius your name. And my name."

"It's good to know that I can nail a formal introduction even when I'm drunk," she observes. "Less good at goodbyes, though. I hear I tend to swipe pizza slices from unwitting victims."

"No one in this flat is unwitting, but consider it our first act of proper neighbourly camaraderie. And look"—he lifts the banana bread again—"promptly returned in kind. Well done us."

"Gold stars all round," she agrees, and unlocks her front door, with one last wave in his direction. "I'll see you around at some point, yeah?"

"Around. Yeah." He juggles the banana bread, waggles his fingers. "Goodnight. Neighbour."

With a fittingly goofy exchange of smiles and a blush she's sure he can't have missed, she retreats back inside and shuts the door behind her with a tad more force than she might normally expend. There's a loud, satisfying click which assures her that it's firmly closed, and she's safe, he can't see her anymore, and she can smile like a loon as she likes without arousing any suspicion.

From him, at least. Mary comes schmoozing along with her wine in hand, one eyebrow coyly cocked in preparation for gossip, her expression suggesting that she already knows what Lily's going to say, that she always knows, or that she was listening at the door with a glass tumbler.

Either way, she's not going to get what she wants.

Not tonight, at least. She's got a crush on her neighbour—a crush, she's such a girl—and that's likely not a good thing, but she'll hear no analysis on the subject now. She has a conversation to relive, at least eight or nine more times before the night is out, and silly, giggly daydreams to engage in. Harsh reality is a foe that she will deal with in the morning, and Mary, who loves harsh reality like nobody's business, will have to take her place in line behind it.

"So?" says Mary, and folds one arm across her chest, swirling her wine with her free hand. "Did loverboy forgive you?"

"Mmhmm." Lily fixes her with the most serene of smiles. "Mary?"

"Yeah?"

"Darling Mary."

"What, Miss Bennett?"

With one dainty toss of her head, she pushes away from the door and glides breezily past her friend.

"Get your own bloody cat," she says.