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.

3. Much A-Nod About Nothing

Chapter 3: Much A-Nod About Nothing

If James had once been concerned that his rather potent preoccupation with a certain redheaded actress was occasionally skirting over the dubious line into minor obsession…what transpires over the fortnight following the incident with Beauty and her Banana Bread may very well mark him officially certifiable.

He has been broken.

Broken, by a woman, her earnest green eyes, her scarlet undergarments, and her apology baked goods.

Best luck fixing that, Chris Martin.

It is a swift and precarious unhinging, perhaps made all the worse for the fact that James had left his office that first morning having mentally settled the matter into some semblance of order. Yes, Lily Evans—erstwhile untouchable subject of his misplaced affections—had moved into his building. Had, as a matter of point, moved in next door, and promptly stumbled drunkenly into his flat, convening a less than ideal introduction. No, James does not date people who live in his building. Yes, this includes Lily Evans. But just assuming a woman such as she was going to be immediately looking to date him was the highest order of ego and—moreover—he didn't know her well enough yet to be certain he'd want to date her, either. Remus could murmur in dubious protest all he liked. Four trips to the theatre and nine hundred thousand telly and YouTube viewings did not an acquaintance make. The Dictate was a non-issue. What remained an issue was that the woman now living in the flat three metres from his may very well be so cross and uncomfortable about their encounter that it'd make the living situation keenly unbearable, but James had already decided to pop over that very evening to apologise profusely. He'd defuse what discomfort he could, hoping she'd be of the mind to listen.

Except when he'd finally bolstered up the courage to make the arduous trek to her door…there she'd been, already on the other side of his door. Looking, of all things, to apologise to him.

She'd baked. Banana bread. Hot, fragrant, "I'm sorry" Coldplay banana bread. Just for him.

She talks a lot when she's jittery, he notices immediately. When she blushes, it seems to start from her throat before sweeping up to her cheeks, a hearty pink colour. She's funny—possibly even funnier sober than drunk—and she was mildly concerned about having used his toilet paper, which is a detail James finds strangely charming. She'd remembered his cat. She flirts just enough throughout the entire conversation to have his heart thumping in time the whole way along—just enough that when she jokes that she'd best leave before she "falls in love with him or something," James is so sold on the aforementioned Hallmark of the moment that she has to remind him it's a joke. Which is not mortifying at all.

That night's unmentionables are red. He knows this because he can see little peeks of them—the band of her knickers popping out of her shorts, the straps of her bra tangled with the other teeny-tiny straps of her equally teeny-tiny top. After the first initial sweep of her person, he'd determinedly kept his gaze fixed on her face, lest she catch him ogling. She was clearly on her way to bed, and James is a pervert for thinking…quite a bit about that. Every night. Every morning. Basically, all the time.

He tells her he's going to like being her neighbour, but that might be a lie. In a hundred different ways, his life would be infinitely simpler if she was not, in fact, his neighbour.

James is smitten.

He knows he is, in every strong, foolish, giddy way the emotion presents itself.

It has been a long while since he's felt like that.

He's not sure it's ever been quite like this, honestly.

It doesn't matter. He hasn't even known her properly, collectively, more than an hour. It's overblown attraction, tied up with his actress-fantasy conundrum come to life, and a basic human appreciation that she's funny and kind and can keep anyone on their toes. He's gotten himself into trouble by jumping into things too quickly before. There is more at stake here than just disappointment that a relationship won't take off the way he'd like. He needs to be incredibly mindful of that. Of all of it.

He needs to slow down.

He needs to be reasonable.

He needs….not to find her the next morning as he's leaving the flat to grab some breakfast, arguing adorably with her bicycle at the top of the stairs.

"I will throw you on the scrapheap," is what he hears first, the firm threat echoing down the otherwise empty corridor. He comes to a sudden halt just inside his doorway, immediately spotting her kneeling beside the…well, it appears little more than a deathtrap on tyres to James, but he supposes it is meant to be a bicycle. She's fiddling with something important-looking near the pedals, and James forces his gaze away from the tight curve of her bum in her clasping black trousers and stares at the ceiling instead.

He can still hear her grumbling.

"Is this really how you fancy our relationship ending? After all our time together, you rusting stack of garbage?" A short, breathy sigh. A near coo. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I like your rust just fine. But just for once could your chain stay in place for a full day? I don't want to die on the roads."

James lingers at his threshold, listening to this discussion with, he's certain, not a melting feeling in his chest, but probably some new strain of indigestion. Though there is no arguing the source behind the vague unease brewing in his stomach.

She's not planning on using that thing, is she? She won't even make it down the road before it collapses beneath her. People motored like maniacs around here. They already target cyclists like those multi-coloured ghouls after Pac-Man. No need to make it so bloody easy for them.

It's not his place to say anything, James knows instantly. He can't order her off the bicycle. He can't tell her to think of his poor nerves, like a fretting grandmum. Is there a way to causally offer her a ride? "Oh, hullo, neighbour, come jump in my car"? That doesn't sound creepy at all. But she couldn't—

"Ah-ha!" She crows in victory, hopping to her feet. "Look at you! Thank you, my darling! Now, if we could just—down you go—good, good—"

Before James can even decide what might be done, she's already disappeared down the flight of steps, juggling the deathtrap through the narrow stairwell, telling it what a wonderful bicycle it is, how proud she is, how they're on their way, just a tad late, never fear, never fear.

James stews with irritation, with concern. Why doesn't she keep the bloody thing locked up outside, anyway? She's going to take a brutal tumble attempting to maneuver the thing down the stairs. There's a perfectly good bike rack just to the left of the building. London may be a city filled with petty thieves, but James feels rather confident saying the sticky-fingered masses will be content to leave this particular possession alone.

He can't follow her down the stairs. He'll do something stupid, like rush ahead to get the door, closing it forcefully upon the useless bicycle, watching in satisfaction as it instantly falls to pieces at the abuse, to which he'll offer a gallant apology and an immediate offer to replace her damaged transportation with another—newer, safer—model.

Or…maybe he can speed down now, spot which direction she's going, follow her in his car? Just to make sure she—

Fucking hell. He is not following her in his car. That is how serial killer films start.

Grumbling beneath his breath, James makes the safest move, turning around and heading back into his flat.

…where he finds Sirius in the kitchen, poking at James's banana bread.

"Oi!" James grabs for the nearest object at hand—ah. A trainer. How fortuitous—and spikes it at Sirius's head. "Get your grubby hands off, you bloody leech!"

"Where did this come from?" Sirius asks, ducking to avoid the flying trainer, but otherwise undeterred. He lifts the cling film. "It smells good."

"Lift that another centimeter and I gut you," James warns, jabbing a threatening finger. "Ought to do it anyway, you miserable asshat."

"My, my. Prince Charming has awoken bright and chipper this morning, hasn't he?" Sirius's hands still toy far too close to the cling film for James's comfort. "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"I'm angry," James replies flatly. "Don't you recognise it? Seem to be telling all sorts of people how awash in the emotion I am lately."

To Sirius's credit, he appears to understand immediately what James is referring to. Not to his credit, he smirks like a smug git, rather than frowning in bashful shame.

"Ah." The smirk grows wider, sharper. "Had a chat with our new neighbour, have you?"

"Yes. Had a chat." James glares. "You had her so riled, she felt the need to make me that—apology banana bread. What the fuck did you say to her?"

Sirius's gaze shifts back to the banana bread with a new, boyish light, and James gets ready to find something else to toss at him. Maybe one of the nearby butcher knives. Murder seems to be a growing theme around here, anyway.

"Can't quite recall. Does it matter?" Sirius asks, crossing his arms over his chest. "You were worried she'd be angry with you. I made it so she was overly ashamed instead. Her shame produced this bread. As such, reckon I deserve—oh, at least half the loaf. Let me just—"

James kicks Sirius in the shin, enjoying the resulting grunt of pain. As his mate howls in protest, James grabs the banana bread and storms into his room.

Where he sets it carefully down on his bedside table, right beside Lily's spangley shoe.

The spangley shoe James had forgotten to return to her.

Shit. He swears that wasn't on purpose.

All the same, refusing to leave the flat at all on Monday seems the wisest course for him. Clearly, he can't be trusted out there. He has plenty of work to keep him busy, anyway. It's all going according to plan until late that next afternoon, as he's lying on his bed, passing through e-mails for the building, trying to resist cutting himself another slice of the delicious treat still perched beside him…when James begins humming absently along to "Careless Whisper." This, in general, is nothing unusual. "Careless Whisper" is James's favorite song. He's humming it nine times out of ten. What is unusual is that the familiar saxophone riffs are not playing out of his own Spotify. Instead, the faint, melodic instrumental breakdown seems to be filtering in through the terribly thin wall behind James's head.

Someone in the next flat over is playing "Careless Whisper."

His favourite song.

Sadly, James is terribly well acquainted with exactly which bedroom in the next flat shares a wall with his. He'd spent nearly two years listening to the sounds of Uh-uh-yes-UH-AH-YES Todd pleasuring himself to loud, squawking, untimely completions, not to mention the long, deafening telephone conversations with some poor soul who also got to listen to Todd's overzealous and utterly incorrect opinions on various cricket matches. The day Todd had officially vacated the flat was the day James had celebrated his liberation. Never again would he spend another evening with a pillow clamped to his ears, trying to drown out the sounds of Todd making love to himself.

Now, he gets "Careless Whisper" instead.

The new occupant of Masturbatory-Master-Todd's room is serenading James with 80s classics through the wall.

As George Michael croons so eloquently: though it's easy to pretend, James is not a fool.

He knows exactly who is on the other side of that wall.

Who lives, sleeps, and plays music, every day, mere centimetres away from where he lives, sleeps, and plays music.

He shares a wall with her.

(And he is not comforted by the evidence that she clearly survived the day on her perilous transport. Not at all.)

None of this gets any better as the days proceed. Through Tuesday and Wednesday, James begins rationing out his quickly-dwindling banana bread supply like a wartime mum with three hungry mouths to feed. The only hungry mouth is his—Sirius had quit trying to steal pieces when James had flavoured his morning Nespresso with vinegar instead of creamer in retaliation—but it's still disappearing all too quickly. He does not feel like this baked good is some kind of tether to her, which is why he's grappling frantically to keep it longer. That would be nonsensical. It's just very, very good banana bread.

Day Five, James is lounging around the lobby common area, looking to escape his suffocating flat, when he spots Lily coming down the stairs. She's juggling with the deathtrap bicycle again, but she's chipper about it this morning, chatting animatedly with Next Door Mary. Her laugh is bright and musical. James closes his eyes to revel in it as she stops off at the mailboxes that line the left-most lobby wall. She waves off Next Door Mary, then twists in her mail key, pokes around in there, doesn't seem to find what she's looking for, and closes it up again. She never spots James from where he watches her like a dodgy stalker in one of the chairs by the elevators, just exits straight out the revolving door, and hopefully not straight into a traffic accident.

The next day, James brings a newspaper. He watches her from over the top of the morning headlines, resigned to have gone full-on creeper—with props—now.

It's the same quaint routine: down the stairs, bicycle burden along, stop at the mailboxes—poke, poke, sigh—then out the door.

She must be waiting for something to come through the post. She checks every day—cycles every day, too, and James has dreams now of dropping that hazardous, vile bike down a manhole, or of bribing Peter to don a ski mask and snatch it from her, of gallantly chasing after him, but oh damn, it's gone, James feels terrible for not catching the culprit, he'll absolutely buy her in a new one in apology—but instead he just watches. He doesn't know where she goes off to every day—theatre rehearsal? A film set? A posh, studly boyfriend's house, who may claim to love and care for her, but clearly is a liar or a miscreant, because no decent partner on the face of this earth would let her ride around on the deathtrap if he cared even a single whit about her life, happiness, and safety.

(James really, really hates that bike.)

To make matters worse, she has the audacity to be a complete sweetheart as well, her good-will apparently not limited to apology banana bread and cat cuddling. She is naturally friendly, sharing quick smiles and bright hullos with the other tenants when their paths cross, even distracts wee baby Neville as Frank Longbottom digs through the nappy bag in search of his son's favourite toy during a frazzled parental moment just outside the revolving door.

On Day Seven, there's another woman lingering in the lobby, dressed to the nines in some kind of glittery dress and sky-high heels. Seeing how it is not a minute past nine a.m., it is quite clear she's escaping from an evening spent somewhere she hadn't exactly planned (if James had to guess, she's likely a guest of one of the Prewett twins from the second floor. They were always bringing and abandoning pretty girls in the lobby). Glitter Girl seems fine, mostly just looks knackered, but there must be something wrong with her zip because she clutches the side of her dress with a firm fist as she ambles around the lobby, hair hanging around her face, messing with her phone, likely waiting for her cab to arrive.

James doesn't confront the girl, but when Lily Evans comes down the stairs—bloody bike juggling, long breath, mailbox stop, poke, sigh, close—she spots the girl as well, and gives a sympathetic cringe.

"Do you need help with that?" she asks kindly, and wiggles a finger at the dress. "I think I've got...in my bag here...ah-ha! A pin. Do you want me to…?"

"Oh my god, yes, please, thank you." Glitter Girl rushes over, the relief evident in her voice. "The zip popped and I'm in such a tizz. Could you…?"

"Say no more." Lily bends slightly as she joins the other girl's hands at the side of the dress. She squints a bit, lips pursed in concentration, and attempts to rig the dress zip into compliance. "Just have to...there. That should do it."

"Oh, you're a lifesaver. Thank you so much!" Glitter Girl grips Lily's hands in thanks. "I had nightmares of accidentally flashing strangers on the street."

"Well. Now you'll only flash strangers on purpose." Lily grins. "Good now?"

"Yes. Fine. I'm just waiting for my cab." Glitter Girl lifts her mobile. "Just hoping this doesn't die in the meantime."

"Do you want me to pop back upstairs for a charger? My flat's only on the third floor—"

"Oh, no. It's fine. My cab should be here any sec."

"Sure? I could dawdle with you, just in case—"

"No, no. You've been such a help already—"

They go back and forth like that a few times—I will help; no no no, you're too kind—but somehow Lily gets her way and the two are still chatting absently about Riverdale and what an utterly glorious shitshow it's become when Glitter Girl's cab finally arrives and out they both go.

Lily Evans: Death-Defying Cyclist, Saviour of Damsels in Distress.

If James were the Disney princess, this is the point where he'd clasp his hands together, tuck them neatly beneath his chin, and give a lovestruck twirl.

Instead, he slinks back upstairs and finishes off the last of his bread, brooding in anguish.

On the morning of Day Eight, the impossible occurs: Lily does not come down the stairs. She does not battle with her bicycle, she does not check her mailbox, she does not shoot her jaunty smiles at everyone but him. James sits in the lobby for near three hours, and she never arrives.

The level to which this ordinary miss leaves him feeling like something insurmountable has been stolen from him is…preposterously ludicrous.

This is not normal.

This is not fine.

This requires...some thought.

So James spends the remainder of Day Eight thinking, and this is what he comes up with:

The Sasha Dictate had found its conception because Sasha had been, frankly, a bit of a terror. Because James was young, and he was stupid, but he had also accrued some heavy responsibility atop his lanky shoulders, and he'd quickly learned those few things should avoid clashing at all possible points. In a quick and simple solution, he had decided never to date anyone in his building again...but wasn't it possible that the true issue was not necessarily that James should never date someone in his building, but rather, that if he ever did contemplate such a questionable breach of conduct again, he should be certain that he knew that person well enough to decently predict any possible repercussions, good or bad?

If James has taken the time to get to know Sasha on more than just the most cursory of levels before jumping into a relationship with her, there's a very high possibility he'd have spotted some warning signs that their compatibility was less than ideal. Sasha was a student, she still relished in the drama of every situation, and she'd come from a background where near no one in her life had ever told her "no." James himself was a coddled, privileged ponce, but he had some ground beneath him, and Sasha had still been learning hers. That her impulses after the break-up had ranged everywhere from petty to childish to flagrantly irresponsible was not actually that surprising. James could have predicted that after six weeks of knowing her. But he hadn't taken those six weeks to get to know her. He'd barely taken six hours before he'd rang her up and set the whole thing in motion.

Clearly this preoccupation with Lily Evans was not going to fizzle out casually on its own. After eight days, all James had managed to do was make himself look like more of a lunatic. It was still very much the case that no one was saying Lily Evans would want to date him, or that he would absolutely want to date her...but was there really an issue with getting to know her a bit better so the pair of them had a chance to test a few theories? She certainly hadn't seemed to hate him the other night. She'd had a good old laugh flirting with him on both occasions that they'd met. Maybe that was just her personality, but James simply didn't know her well enough yet to determine that. What would be so wrong with getting to know her? Just to see? No expectations. No presumptions. Just...becoming further acquainted with his neighbour. A slow, friendly, neighbourly relationship.

Slow.

Neighbourly.

Surely there is nothing wrong with that?

He clings to this idea very tightly, this newfangled notion of getting to know someone before declaring that you can never in your life have a relationship with them. James is not scraping the Dictate. He will perhaps be circumventing it, but in a way that will either validate or invalidate its core purpose, so isn't that just decent self-vetting?

James is allowed to fancy Lily Evans, allowed to get to know her.

He is not, as of yet, allowed to date her, but he can make the slow progress of attempting to decide whether that kind of progression would be fruitful for either of them.

And in the meantime, he can quit Rear Window-ing her like a psycho.

He can talk to her instead.

It's a somewhat daunting prospect.

His Hitchcockian machinations have, if nothing else, gathered him a bit of knowledge about her schedule. With the exception of the dreaded Day Eight, Lily seems rather consistent in her morning routine. James briefly contemplates "running" into her on her way down the stairs one morning, offering to help carry the dodgy deathtrap to the lobby, but he frankly doesn't trust himself not to chuck the thing down the three flights and laugh in maniacal glee as it shatters into a thousand rusty pieces at the bottom. To avoid that (terribly justified) bit of insanity, he reckons it is better to casually greet her once she and her useless transport have officially reached ground.

In the way of usual numberly organization, Flats 308 and 309 not only have shared walls—they have kissing lobby mailboxes. With Lily's penchant for daily post checks, James can think of few more convenient ploys than a timely mailbox meet cute.

And this meet cute, as with many of the best, James decides, will begin with a friendly, opening Nod.

James has concocted a whole list of things he can speak to her about—how delicious her banana bread was, how grateful he is that she'd thought of him, how he still has her shoe (though its precise location in his flat at present is likely better left vague)—but these kinds of encounters need to be artfully eased into, and James can think of fewer things more artful than a good Nod.

He takes two entire days practicing the move in every available reflective surface.

The Nod must be a top-bottom Nod, he decides immediately. The sort that begins with the chin up and slowly moves down, as opposed to one that begins with the chin down and quickly moves up. They are two very different types of Nods, see, and James tried and tested them both before settling on the former. The latter, while perhaps more casual, had a certain air of arrogance about it, a sort of short dismissal of the moment—alright, yeah? at best. James does not want alright, yeah. He wants Cary Elwes, "As you wish," top-bottom, set the birds singing, all that. Oh, he'll do it with less leery staring, of course, but the undertone should still be the same. It's subtle, the Cary Nod. Took Buttercup a million years to figure his game out, hadn't it? James wants that. A million years or so.

He won't full-on smile during the Nod, either. Full-on smiling just makes the whole thing look too eager, too desperate. He'd tried that one out on Sirius, and his mate was still eyeing him strangely two days later. Additional trial and error concludes that a genial lip quirk is much more effective—one side a bit higher than the other, no teeth, friendly eyes accompanying. It's a heady balance of interest and jovial charm.

Nod speed is important too—not too fast, but not too slow. James Goldilocks-es this until he finds the pace that seems just right. He might be giving himself whiplash with all the nodding he's doing, but better that than ending up sleeping in the wrong bed, so to speak.

(Not that James is thinking about her bed. Any bed. Neighbours getting to know one another do not think about beds. Even if said neighbour has already been in his. That's not the point.)

James strives not to dwell too fully on how much time he's spent plotting this Nod. That is...incidental.

By Day Fourteen, these incidentals are settled, and James has his plan.

Around 9 a.m., James will make his way down to the lobby, taking up his familiar position by the lifts. When Lily eventually makes her way down the stairs with Deathtrap, James will push to his feet. As Lily does her usual—key in, poke, poke, sigh, close—James will amble up behind her. He will wait patiently, clearly just lingering so he can check his mailbox, as well. Lily will turn and spot him there, and that's when James will unleash it—his Nod. Top-bottom. Lip quirk. Hullo there. Lily will smile back, as she does. She might even Nod back, because she is very cool and clever that way. Once the Nod has officially been wielded, James will say something glib and suave and casual—"I'd meant to tell you, your apology banana bread was beyond brilliant," etc. etc—and Lily will say thank you, and he will say you're welcome, and on they'll go, meet cute accomplished.

A slow, neighbourly meet cute.

Just so.

---

The building lobby is mostly empty when James finally makes his way down that morning, his stomach doing some strange, twisty dance he's never encountered before and is quite certain he doesn't like. He'd spent perhaps a bit more time than he'd intended ironing his shirt—three or four times—and fixing his hair—seven or eight times—but it's still not far off his scheduled moment of Nod Commencement when the lift doors open and James strolls into the familiar common area.

The lobby is mostly empty...save for Lily Evans, who is already at her mailbox, twisting in her key.

Shit. James skitters to a halt, stomach dropping to his knees. Shit, shit, shit. What was she doing down here already? Fucking hell, he hadn't taken that long with his hair, had he?

James's trainers squeak against the tiled floor as he rushes forward, heart leaping into his throat, hands fisted against his sides. It's fine. Fine. She's still here, at least. He hasn't missed his chance. He just needs...to get over there a bit faster.

Alright. Okay. He's behind her now. Maybe a bit more winded than he'd like, and there's definitely the beginnings of a cold sweat condensing along his hairline, but James knows how to rally when the moment calls for it. She's there. There. She hasn't finished her poking and sighing yet. He sucks in a quick breath, gets his game face on.

There's his cue—sigh, close.

She turns...

...and a gives a spooked jump back, blinking at him in surprise.

Surprise. Well, of course she's surprised. He's snuck up behind her. She was hardly expecting that. What was he expecting?

He may need to add a bit more smile into his Nod now.

No problem. He's got improvisation down. All good, all good—

Almost as he'd practiced, then, with a bit more grin. Shoulders back. Head tip—up-down. As you wish. Excellent. Nailed it. Extra lip quirk. Still no teeth. He throws in a quick point to the mailboxes behind her—yes, yes, just popping in here, too, thanks, neighbour—and Lily's shoulders lose some of their tension as she realises what he's about.

With her own little lip quirk, she Nods back.

A natural Nodder, of course. He never expected any less.

Look at this. Them. Nods all around. Victory! Success! That tiny hiccup in the beginning, yeah, but never mind that. Crisis averted. Exchanged Nods: check. Friendly smiles: check. Meet cute...nearly check. Now all he needs to do—

Wait a second.

Is she...

Shit, she's leaving?

Idiot, idiot, idiot, James curses himself vehemently, watching her deftly slip past him with Deathtrap in tow. He'd waited too long to follow up. What the hell was a Nod without the conversation afterwards? He'd been so busy gawking at her and congratulating himself, he'd completely lapsed in the utterly vital second part of this. The point of this—talking to her. And now she's leaving.

Say something! His brain is railing angrily. Anything!

GO.

"Banana bread!" he blurts. Or shouts. Shit, he has most definitely shouted it. She turns back around to face him, looking startled.

His intent had been to give her smitten heart palpitations, not a full-on heart attack.

Well done, Potter.

"Pardon?" she says.

He needs to fix this. "I—banana bread," he says again, softer this time. He coughs. Fidgets. Bugger. "Thank you. For the banana bread. I never said, but it was delicious. So...I wanted to say."

"Oh." She gives him a small, polite, back-away-from-the-scary-man-darling smile, with the slightest inkling of coldness in her tone of voice. "I'm really happy to hear it."

"I had to guard it from my housemate," he adds, trying not to panic at that bit of aloofness, striving to look as sane and benign as possible. "Kept trying to steal slices."

As he's talking, she glances briefly over her shoulder, shifts her weight from one foot to the other, balances the bike against her outer thigh...and seems to conclude that she will not run screaming from the lunatic who crept up behind her while she was checking for her mail and yelled, "banana bread!" at her retreating back with all the smooth subtlety of an articulated lorry careening into a pylon.

Small favours.

"I hope that you didn't give him any," she says with another smile, one a little more readily given than the half-petrified offering that came before it. "Not that—I mean, I'm sure you love him dearly, but it was just for you."

"Love has no place when there is banana bread at stake," James assures her, wanting to breathe out his sigh of relief, but he doesn't dare risk it. "I am the only one who indulged—well, and Algernon sometimes. But I don't suppose you'd mind that."

"Of course not. If I'd been in less of a panic over the whole thing I would have made him his own, cat-sized loaf."

"Well, anytime you're looking to offload loaves—cat-sized or otherwise—you have quite willing taste testers in 309." This is getting easier now—easy and fun, like it was before. Like he'd hoped this would be from the start, before he's clumsily fumbled it and was forced to clumsily recover. "All gone now, I'm afraid. I rationed it out as long as I could, but all that's left is crumbs on a plate. Your plate, actually. Suppose you'll fancy that back at some point?"

"I'd forgotten all about the plate, to be honest—though, actually, you do still have my shoe, right?"

"Your shoe?" The one that has been sitting on James's bedside table for two weeks? Why, yes. He's familiar. "Er. Yes. I think. Must be around the flat...somewhere."

"Do you think you could hunt it down and drop it over to me before Sunday?" She toys absently with the end of her ponytail—her hair is so long that it trails easily over one shoulder. "Not to disturb any shoe-themed shrines you might have set up in my honour, but I need it for a dance thing."

"You do dance?" James asks, equal parts intrigued by this new revelation as he is desperate to get away from even the joking mention of shoes and shines. He's certain the truth of his little bedside monument is shooting a telling flush into his face.

"I do," she admits, and points to a spot over her shoulder, as though to indicate some place beyond the confines of this building. "A friend of mine owns a dance academy in the city—dunno if you heard of it, it's called the Shacklebolt Academy, and it's actually pretty successful—anyway, I've been going for six years and every year they do this big showcase video for the internet, and every year I'm basically coerced into dancing in it, so I need the heels"—the lightest raspberry blush is creeping up along her throat—"for this...rumba thing I'm doing."

"Ah," James manages, but mostly he's thinking rumba, and dance videos on the internet. There are six years worth of dance videos on the internet. "You dance in shoes that spikey?"

"Not usually, but the whole thing with, well, most of the Latin dances, is that it's meant to be"—she shrugs—"sexy, or whatever, and I think the shoes help with that, given that I've been reliably informed on more than one occasion that sexy isn't really something I can pull off."

James nearly chokes at that. "Sorry?"

"Yeah," she sighs, with a dry, self-deprecating laugh that barely leaves her chest. "I give off more of a dumb, naive, doe-eyed murder victim vibe, apparently."

Now James isn't certain whether to properly choke or to laugh uproariously.

"Whoever told you that," he tells her flatly, honestly, "is an idiot."

This surprises another laugh from her, bright-eyed and unexpectedly sweet. "You mean the murder victim thing, right?"

Well. In for a penny… "As someone who has spent a healthy bit of time with you both in and out of clothes, being accused of murder and nearly being murdered..." He tilts his head with a pointed stare. "I'm going to maintain that it's all a load of utter hogwash. Just one bloke's opinion, mind," he says. "Admittedly, I know pants about dance, or shoes, or even much about murder, much as you seemed to suspect otherwise."

The faint pink blush that had been slowly meandering along her throat has most certainly filled out her cheeks now.

"I mean—" she begins, her eyes darting off to the side, perhaps a little flustered, and certainly more than a little pleased, if the smile she's trying to fight is any kind of tell. "I also thought that I was in my own flat, so, yes, though there was a five-minute window in which I thought you might be a serial killer, my opinion of you has been reassessed since then."

"I do appreciate that," James answers, and adds a smile of his own too, because he can't not add a smile. She makes him want to smile. They've got a groove with this now. "And I will find your shoe so you can dance. If nothing else, its prodigal return ought to get Sirius to quit with all the Cinderella jokes—sorry about that, by the way."

"Is that why he keeps calling me 'Cinders' and asking me if I've seen any mice around the place when I pass him on the stairs?" She laughs, again, and shortly. "I thought he was talking about an infestation, or something. He said the landlord refused to do anything about it."

"Merely an infestation of asshattery," James mutters, and reminds himself to buy more vinegar. "I suppose I best stop apologizing for him now, or it's all our conversations will ever be. He warrants a lot of apologies, Sirius does. And I muster up enough all on my own."

"Please do stop," she agrees. "You're a very nice man, and ought not apologise for him at all. I'm not going to stop liking you just because you live with a nutter. If anything, it gives you points for altruism."

Likes him. She likes him. Something bright and happy blooms inside James's chest. He nearly puffs out with it. "That's very good to hear. I suppose I'll have to bring him along when I return your shoe to make his apologies himself. Save us both a bit of breath."

"Well, yeah, sure, though if you're bringing him along, can you bring Algernon, too?" she asks. "I know it's a bit unorthodox to take your entire household with you to return a shoe, but if you want a reason to do it, we can always get a pizza and be the only four people in London who actually make an effort to get to know their neighbours."

Has she just...invited him to her flat? James blinks, retracks her words at rapid speed. Yes. That's what she's done. He may still need to stop and pinch himself, but this is definitely real. She's staring at him almost shyly, but certainly expectantly. It's a proper invitation. For him—well, him, Sirius, and Algernon, but James is not going to be picky about being a mere one on a list.

"Five, including Algernon," he clarifies, for while Algernon may not quite qualify as people, he's still certainly got paws in this game. "He's very neighbourly, too. Or—well, he seemed to be neighbourly with you, anyway. In general he's not a very good neighbour at all, unless you're feeding him. But that's what makes him cool and interesting. Like the old man who throws things at you when you step on his lawn. He's very hard to please." Bugger, he's rambling now. About his cat. She doesn't know Algernon well enough yet to realise how much he warrants this level of conversation. James rushes back on topic. "We should definitely get a pizza. We all like pizza."

"You know, two of Mary's favourite places just stopped delivering to the building for some reason," she tells him, through a giggle that appears to have been prompted by his mad, feline-fuelled rant, "but I managed to talk one of them into delivering to us. Because I'm kind of a big deal." She lifts her eyes skywards in a droll impression of conceit. "That was a joke, I'm really not. But you'll come, yeah? All of you?"

James nods, hoping she doesn't notice how he's nearly bouncing on his toes in eagerness. It's really too pathetic to acknowledge. "It's a near requirement now. If these pizza claims of yours are true, sounds as if Sirius may in fact owe you a second apology and a thank you to boot."

"He does?" Her eyebrows travel upwards. "That's rather intriguing."

He likes that he's intrigued her. He wants to give himself a pat on the back and a chance to take a victory lap around the lobby for the accomplishment. He'll make her laugh with the tales of Sirius and his delivery antics, he decides, saving that story for later. For this meeting they now have planned, because she likes him. And it's neighbourly, amusing and intriguing women in your building.

"Tonight, then?" he asks, striving to sound casual in the question. "Or...tomorrow? I'm quite open, see, but Algernon's a very busy cat, and I'm sure you've got...loads of cycling to do. Or something. If that bike does indeed cycle. I admit, I've eyed it a few times and had my doubts."

"I don't blame you, honestly," Lily owns, patting the saddle of the darned thing in a pitying sort of way. "I'm pretty sure I'm doomed to meet my end in a gory road-traffic collision before the year is out, but what can you do? The tables at my soul-destroying job aren't going to wait themselves."

Ah, so she's a waitress, too. That must be where she's off to every morning, after the open-poke-sigh-close. It's the endless plight of actresses in between roles, isn't it? No wonder she's got manners and friendliness down to a science. "Well, don't meet any gory end or soul destruction before I can return your belongings," he tells her. "If nothing else, do it for the dance, yeah?"

"I will do my absolute best to stay alive for you," she assures him, with an equally reassuring smile. "And the dance. And, yeah, come over tonight if—god, that sounds so licentious, 'come over tonight,' like I've got plans or something. I promise I'm not trying to seduce you, and I do tend to keep my shirt on in company, most nights."

James musters out a commiserating nod and a jovial laugh, but...licentious. An adjective he's grown terribly familiar with lately. But if he needs the reminder that any and all shirtless endeavours—any plans, with licentious emphasis—are presently off the table, now at least she's given one. Not that he should need the reminder. He's just getting to know her, after all, and he fears a serious inability to accomplish anything of the sort if her shirt were off.

"All I can ask is that you try," he concedes magnanimously. "With the aliveness and the clothing, that is. There are apparently a lot of sad bras in the world. A rising epidemic."

"Mary and I will be appropriately clothed, I promise," she says. "So, stop round at eight, yeah? Also clothed, preferably, though I know Algernon can't be helped, but he gets a pass."

"He's much obliged," James says, and he can't believe this is happening. "So...eight, then. Plate. Shoe. Clothes. Got it."

"Plate. Shoe. Clothes. Yourself—probably the most important bit, or nothing else will follow. Mary will jump at any excuse to make drinks, and I'll try to be charming, I guess."

Try to be charming. Ha. "I don't think you'll have to try that hard."

"Bring more of those compliments tonight and I'll love you forever," she tells him, and grabs the handlebar of her murderous bicycle. She turns it around, neatly adjusts the faded wicker basket that hangs precariously on the front, and shoots him one last smile. "See you later, then?"

"Later, then," he agrees, but though this has all gone so much better than he'd expected, so rife with proper, slow neighbourliness, and ended with an equally neighbourly invite, and she'll love him forever, hadn't you heard...fucking hell, the bike is tormenting him. "Just...be careful, yeah? On the roads. People drive like bedlamites. Do...I mean, I could give you a ride if you'd like?"

She's on the verge of making her departure—that's all for now, conversation over, I must away and stare down death in the saddle of a rickety torture device—when he presents this offer, and she stops short, her eyes widening in surprise, the torture device in question knocking hard against her thigh.

Was that too much? It was likely too much. But the deathtrap is too much for him, and he's helpless to pretend otherwise.

"Much more fun to be in the one in the car mowing down the cyclists than being the cyclist, you know?" he tries, throwing in a convincing smile.

"Are you really asking if—" she starts. "But—that's so kind, but I couldn't put you out like that."

"I'm not put out at all!" James insists instantly, jolting with the mad realisation that she may actually agree to this. "Really. I was on my way out soon, anyway."

"But you must have other plans, surely? Work, or—and I mean, the restaurant I work at is in Angel, so that's right in the city, and—" She looks down at her bike, and sighs heavily. "Are you sure? I'd feel terrible if I took you away from something."

The look on her face—guilt, resignation—makes it abundantly clear; he's not the only one who understands the danger she puts herself in on that thing, with its rusting frame and devil-may-care chain, which can't be trusted to stay in place even for the duration of one day. She may have had a near miss or two already—James's head can conjure up any number of precarious possibilities, and they all make him want to tear out his hair and find the nearest sledgehammer—but she's fighting his offer for the sake of politeness. He can tell she doesn't want to say no.

"I am absolutely sure," he assures her firmly—will say it as many times as he needs to—and is very glad at how neighbourly he's being. Because that's what this is. Being a good neighbour. Getting to know someone—slowly—through kind, life-saving gestures. "I work from home most days. You're taking me away from nothing. And Angel is just fine—have to grab something near there, anyway. So...I'll just grab my keys, then? Do you want to lock up your bike outside?"

"I'll—I mean—my lock is, um, elsewhere currently," she says, and sounds altogether weary at the thought of it, "so I'm at a bit of a loose end. I'll have to bring it back upstairs and then—well, I can't, because I need it to get home."

"Oh." There's a story there, surely, but James is not sure he should ask, and doesn't want her to retract any of this if he flusters her by prodding. "Well, we can just pop it in my trunk." He wants to offer her a ride home too—a ride every day, or a new bike, please—but that is not slow and that is not neighbourly, and those are, after all, his focus words here. "Works just as well."

"You'll have junk in your trunk," she says, and snorts. "That was terrible. Sorry."

James cracks a smile. "You let me worry about the junk in my trunk. It'll be just fine." He backs away a step, then another. "Just wait here, all right? I'll grab my keys."

"The junk and I will wait," she agrees, and smiles sweetly back. "Thank you very much, really."

"Just trying to remain worthy of my name," James says, and feels the smile blooming wide on his face, too. He's worried she's going to change her mind. He's going to race up these steps like it's an Olympic trial. "Be right back."

She gives him one last nod, and when a few more lingering seconds confirm her feet are remaining on precious ground, James turns and sprints up the stairs.

He can't believe this has gone off so well, from near disaster to a neighbourly evening invite and—victory leap!—the opportunity to thwart Deathtrap for one more day. He'll have to put off that call he meant to make to the insurance company this morning, but he can do it when he returns from the city, or even later this afternoon. They're not going anywhere. He'll also have to text Sirius at some point to inform him of their new neighbourly plans, but James isn't concerned about that. Any opportunity Sirius sees to make himself a nuisance is happily embraced, and a night spent with James in the presence of Lily Evans screams his kind of deal. Which means James is going to have to give him a strong talking-to about proper decorum with new neighbours, which Sirius will promptly ignore, but at least he'll have tried.

He's to his flat in record time. James keeps his car keys on a little hook just inside the flat door, so it's no more than a few seconds' work to grab them and go. Before he darts back out the door, he takes a quick tick to check his reflection in the hallway mirror.

Still not too ugly. Excellent.

He gives his reflection a Nod—thanks kindly, Cary—and slams out the flat.

---

"Do I look okay?"

"You look great," says Mary absently, her upper body splayed across the kitchen counter like she thinks she is the courtesan Satine—wasting dismally, yet prettily, away from consumption—with her head propped up on her elbow and her eyes fixed pointedly at her laptop screen. "Buzzfeed says my ideal rom-com job is 'wedding planner.' What the fuck is up with that?"

Mary is talking out of her arse, unless she has been bitten by a radioactive spider and contracted X-ray vision, enabling her to see Lily's outfit through her LCD display—though, were Mary ever to develop superpowers, she'd bitch and moan about them so much that Lily would shortly find herself prepared to move home for the second time in a month, so the chances of this phenomenon having occurred are absolutely nil.

"Could you at least look at me before you venture an opinion?" Lily asks her. "That's just a suggestion, mind. Don't overexert yourself for my benefit."

She is standing in the open doorway that separates their kitchen from the hall, wrapped in a rose-patterned sundress that she tried on, hated, tore off, and returned to only after she'd cycled through a procession of other, less encouraging choices and accepted—in a moment of shame that will never leave the circle of trust she has established with her bedroom mirror—that she might as well just own it, because the only way to recreate the unwavering self-confidence she possessed on the night she met her neighbour is to get rat-arsed on Mary's infamous homemade margaritas—infamous, Mary says, because the secret ingredient is not love, rather a malicious desire to poison one's mates with More Tequila Than is Necessary.

She's decided to abstain from cocktails tonight.

There are reasons for this choice she's made, one pressing, one mild, though both are pretty solid. The latter takes the form of Kingsley Shacklebolt, who talked her into posing for some photos to advertise the academy—no airbrushing, he swears—for which she needs to be up early tomorrow, and of which, for once, she's rather grateful. He, after all, is the one who got her drunk in the first place. He is the reason why James's first memory of her will always involve her making a prize tit of herself in her Little Mermaid bra. He has a lot to make up for, in fact, so it's only fitting, now, that she use her booziest mate as an excuse to cling to sobriety tonight.

The other reason—the pressing reason—is James.

James, and his cat, and his delinquent of a housemate, and their imminent presence in her home tonight.

Lily likes him. Very much.

She likes him a lot more, upon reflection, than she believed she did this morning.

There, she's said it. Or thought it. Felt it.

Whatever.

It's not a good idea to like him, though any half-baked fan of nineties-era sitcoms might naively disagree. On paper, it's a storybook deal—handsome neighbour boy, right next door, handily within reach for all and any itches that need scratching—and if Lily hadn't become so unfamiliar with the optimistic bent that defined the years of her later teens, she might just have believed it herself.

The reality of the thing is that he doesn't feel the same, or he does, and they date, and it all goes horribly wrong, forcing them into the world's most painful post-breakup dip; meeting unexpectedly by the mailboxes and launching into an awkward, tangled dance, attempting to side-step in the same direction with red-faced murmurs of, 'sorry,' and 'oh—er—ah,' and 'have a nice day,' a meeting made all the worse for the fact that she is a slouching, hungover mess, while he is practically glowing, tall and healthy and radiant as the sun; or desperately pounding the button for her floor in the hopes that the doors will close before he has a chance to step inside, which of course, they won't, resulting in a loaded, excruciating silence that stretches on and on until the doors spring open, and they pounce, desperate to escape, each shoulder-knocking the other like a pair of wobbling skittles; or her personal favourite, he meets another, better, prettier girl, and she's forced to listen to their raucous love-making—so much better than his last girlfriend!—through the party wall she knows they share.

Chandler and Monica, they are not.

Lily's life is teetering delicately on the edge of a sharp, steep, woefully perilous drop to nowhere, and she's not really equipped to handle feelings—and all the mad, frenetic, emotional irrationalities that come hand-in-hand with having a crush—at this very vital juncture.

She'd been absolutely fine before this morning.

Fine, when she saw him skulking about downstairs last week, and would have been of a mind to say hello, but he looked away as soon as he saw her and determinedly avoided her eye until she and her bicycle took their leave.

Quite certainly fine, on every subsequent morning that saw her pass him by in the lobby—him loitering by the lifts with a newspaper in hand (as if anyone consumes print media nowadays), her battling with her bike to get it safely out the door—while he sat and ignored her with such doughty vigour that it almost felt as if he was venturing to the lobby with the sole intent to show her just how unkindly he took to her presence, and how committed he was to pretending that she didn't exist.

Undoubtedly, doubly, supremely fine, was Lily, when she was forced to accept that their breezy, bantering, banana bread-centred exchange had not gone as well as she believed, because he was clearly uninterested in knowing her, and Sirius's jibes had been more of a truth than James had been too polite to admit.

But Lily wasn't of a mind to waste her precious time mulling over some guy, even if said guy has the most perfectly-formed mouth she's ever seen—top lip slightly bigger than the bottom, doesn't disappear a whit when he smiles, soft, kissable, biteable...god—or how often she's thought about running her fingers through his dark, electrified hair. She had apologised, profusely, and he had accepted it, along with her banana bread—which smelled delicious, she might have added—and after all that effort on her part to make amends, if he was going to be that petty about it…

...well, that was his problem, not hers, and he wasn't who she'd thought he was at all. She could quite happily live, if living was without him—thanks a lot for nothing, Mariah.

It was his loss, anyway, because she was a super person to befriend. Stupid boy. Dishonest boy. Lily had been well on her way to forgetting her crush that morning, when she traipsed downstairs to find, for the tenth day in a row, that her new passport—which she'd ordered before she left her old flat, prompting several frantic calls to the passport office to double-check that yes, they had her new address, though still she fears that Severus has it in his spidery clutches—had not yet arrived.

But then James kind of…came at her from nowhere.

To offer his profuse compliments to her baking.

And...other things, it seemed. Including the vaguest indication that he may find her attractive.

Stupid boy. Lovely boy.

Stupid girl, she is.

Lily had tried, for maybe half-a-minute, to remember that she wasn't best pleased with him for having blanked her so thoroughly—she's had more than enough experience with ghosting to last her for the rest of her life—but he was flustered, and nervous, and charming, in an off-kilter, slightly manic kind of way which told her plainly that he'd never intended to slight her, and her ire proved itself a flighty mistress.

Off it had fluttered. Up, up, and away.

It wasn't fair. She hadn't been prepared for him at all, and he caught her, unguarded and exposed, not near recovered enough from the sweet, shimmery newness of her rosebud-burgeoning feelings to write him coldly off.

He's dangerous, her neighbour. Comely and helpful and dangerous, and totally unaware of the fact, which is the worst kind of hazard when a girl needs to be careful with her heart.

If he knew how she felt, how he affected her, and if he tried to use those feelings to his own advantage, Lily could resolve to dislike him for his conceit, but instead she is faced with kindness, and compliments, and an unexpected show of concern for her immediate physical safety. The idea that she might actually use her rust-bucket of a bicycle as anything other than a comical prop seemed to render him distraught—if the panicked look in his eyes was any indication—and equally eager to dash to her rescue. His professed desire to see her safely to her destination was so earnestly expressed that she agreed to let him drive her to work, in some part, for the sake of his peace of mind. She couldn't stomach the idea of leaving him to worry—and she's damned if that's not the most worrying thing of all.

His car is one of those fancy types, packed to the brim with the latest gadgets, evidently new and plainly expensive, which begged the immediate question—trust fund baby, or extremely successful male escort?

He'd laughed quite a lot at that theory.

He hadn't confirmed or denied it, but he laughed, certainly, before explaining that he'd only bought the car because Sirius scratched the paintwork—by accident, his mate swears, and not because he'd had his heart set on it—at the dealers, and telling her in no uncertain terms that she simply must adjust the passenger seat to her specific preference. Her comfort was paramount, or didn't she know?

She hopes he's not an escort. God knows, he's got the thoughtful, considerate, 'no, enough about me, tell me more about yourself,' act down to a fine art—that's a thing that escorts do, right?—and he's handsome enough to rake it in like autumn leaves.

She was mildly surprised by her own cheek in venturing the question in the first place.

Only mildly, though.

There's something different about him—or about her, when she's around him—something firm and comfortable that springs from instinct alone, why yes, she can say that thing, make that joke, flirt a little here, and he won't mind at all. There are no awkward gaps or empty, silent spaces, wherein she has to scrabble frantically to the far recesses of her mind—like a claw machine at a dodgy arcade, trying so hard, but destined to fail—to find something, anything, to say. The words just come to her, up and out, with very little effort, which is staggering, considering just how nervous and fluttery she finds herself growing in his presence, then he takes them in and returns her serve with equal—sometimes better—fervour.

He's quite articulate, this man. He'd told her funny stories about his mates while he was driving her to work, asked her questions about the restaurant—if she likes working there, what the food is like, if the customers treat her nicely—and her dance classes, which brought them on to music, and a very brief argument over who has better taste (she won, but by a narrow margin, as his 80s favourites playlist was missing one or two must-haves).

It was the best thirty minutes of her entire week.

They've clicked, she thinks. Just one of those things. It happened with Mary, on the day they met, and Kingsley after her, and this instant symbiosis with James-the-Handsome-Neighbour should really be just the same, in theory.

Except she's never been attracted to Mary or Kingsley, and, well…

Careful. That's the word. She must be very careful.

Equally as important, she must know if this rose-print dress is working.

Mary's eyes flick up from her laptop. "Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, you look very nice."

"If you can't be bothered to be honest—"

"No, I mean it!" Mary cries, laughing, half-rising from her stool when Lily turns as if to leave. "You look so pretty, darling. I love your dress."

Lily would very much like to be haughty about it, gather her gauzy skirt and march off to her room—formerly Mary-and-Todd's room, then only-Todd's, after his woefully ill-concealed affair with Cricket-Club-Janine—but she's operating from a very weakened position. She needs her friend, to validate, to soothe, to rein her in if she looks to be considering an unwise course of action, like trying to snog her neighbour.

"You don't think it's too Little House on the Prairie, though?" she asks fretfully, swirling the skirt around her legs. "I feel like I should be frolicking about in a meadow."

"If Melissa Gilbert had worn a dress with a cut-out waist, they would have locked her in the attic." Mary slaps the lid of her laptop down and smiles with playful intent. "Are you going to sleep with him?"

Perhaps Mary isn't all that well equipped to rein her in.

"I am not," she haughtily replies.

"But you want to."

"It's far too early to know if that's true."

"Fair enough, that's very sensible of you," says Mary, and straightens up. The tequila is out, the blender on standby, and a couple of limes have been quartered and placed at the ready, so she's been killing time on the internet—having a grand-old-laugh discovering the identity of her Marvel soulmate, or what flavour of Dorito she best resembles, or whatever it is that Buzzfeed quizzes aim to prove these days—while Lily worried over clothes and chided herself in the mirror. "But he wants to sleep with you."

Lily does not appreciate this inference.

Mary thinks she's funny, but alas, she is not.

Should their guests show up at this very minute, she will be forced to answer the door with a bright red face and neck which, really, will offer no support to her newest role of Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl Who James Should Definitely Fancy, a role that has already induced a more-than-reasonable amount of stage fright. She feels, even now, like a colony of vengeful mice are chewing their way through the collection of frayed cables that currently comprises her entire nervous system.

Murder victims are so much easier to play, and crushes don't come with an accompanying script.

"How can you possibly believe that," she demands to know, with her hands on her hips to show she means business, "when you've never spoken to the guy?"

"How can you possibly not believe that," Mary counters, mimicking her stance, "when you've spoken to the guy several times?"

"Because I don't assume that everyone wants to sleep with me?"

"Okay, sure," says Mary dryly. "'Twas the goodness of his heart that compelled him to entice you into his car, not the boner in his pants."

"He didn't have a boner," Lily immediately retorts.

"How'd you know that?"

"Because I looked," she admits, and Mary lets out a whip-crack laugh. "Well, grazed, really. With my eyes. Just a couple of times."

"Got to see if everything's in order, I suppose."

"It was a purely scientific interest."

"Who wants to be surprised by an abnormal curvature?" Mary agrees, grinning widely, just as a knock sounds on the front door, and a hive of buzzing bees erupts painfully in the pit of Lily's stomach, swiftly dominating the mice into submission. "Go and greet our esteemed guests, Pollyanna. I'll sleep with my earplugs in tonight."

"Not a word from you about boners, you hear?" Lily warns, and darts off.

To the door.

Behind which stands the object of her unexpectedly potent affections.

And his housemate.

And his cat.

The cat. Of course! Algernon likes her. Algernon is on her side. Algernon would pick her over Coconut-Water-Rosalind and her innumerable Instagram filters any day of the week. Algernon will have her back.

The cat is the thing, the key to all of this. Watch her embody the role of Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl (Who James Should Definitely Fancy) like a consummate professional. Live and up close for one night only. She'll give an Olivier-worthy performance.

Lily fluffs her hair, smooths down her dress, pulls open the door and focuses, immediately, on Algernon, who sits squarely, snugly, unhappily, in the crook of his human master's right arm.

His human, who is far less important than he, according to Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl (WJSDF), who is much too Cool, and Sexy, and altogether concerned with the cat, to pay much deference to a mere mortal man.

"Hello, handsome!" she blithely cries.

James's eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline—a thing she notices whilst pretending not to notice—his mouth falling open in mild surprise. "Hello—?"

"Come here, you darling," she implores, cutting James off as she swoops towards him to snatch Algernon from his arms—he lets the cat go without much argument, a plastic carrier bag swinging from his other arm as he reluctantly hands him over—and cradle him lovingly in her own. The aforementioned darling huddles into her embrace with a satisfied purr, tucking his head so snugly against her neck, his plump, fluffy body vibrating against her chest. Her heart just melts at the feel of him, soft and warm and full of affection for her, her, her. "I missedyou so much—oh!" She lands a kiss between his pointed ears. "Together at last, my little love."

Sirius snorts in amusement. Or derision. He seems like the type to take pleasure in poking fun at the follies of others, whilst never paying much mind to what surely must be an endless list of his own little absurdities. It doesn't matter a whit to Lily, either way. One does not care much for the opinions of mischief-making neighbours when one is cuddling the noblest feline in all of London.

She removes one hand from Algernon's pelt just long enough to give the boys a quick wave. "Hi, guys."

Sirius leans against the doorjamb, looking drolly beleaguered. "The cat gets 'hello, handsome' and 'together at last' and we get 'hi, guys'?"

"I'm so sorry, where are my manners?" she quickly retorts, with an exaggerated show of contrition in her tone, then lifts her gaze from the cat to flash her brightest possible smile at James, who, to be fair, is looking utterly edible in a button-down and jeans. His hair alone deserves its own entry in the Guinness Book of Records for aerodynamic excellence, not to mention all the secret, lustful stirrings it inspires. "Hello, handsome."

He takes in the amended greeting with the briefest of surprised twitches, and then a very compelling lift of his lips.

"And hello, you shit-stirring, cretinous little stooge," she adds to Sirius, who instantly appears to love this affectation. She takes a couple of backwards steps. "Come on in, both of you. You can leave that bag on the table."

Sirius looks victoriously at James, who has crossed into the flat ahead of him and is setting the carrier bag that contains her shoe and—she thinks—a plate, onto the small wooden side-table where Lily and Mary normally keep their keys and letters. "I may be the stooge, but you still got handsome second. And that, after he spends four hours getting dressed for this."

"I did not spend four hours getting dressed for this," James objects, shooting Lily a commiserating stare, but there is a slight tightening of his jaw that could hint at contradictory embarrassment. "Clothes being a predetermined requirement of the occasion, I just made sure they were present. Though I feel like it should be noted that you did greet the only naked guest here first."

"Politeness dictated it," she explains, and turns on her heel, still holding the cat, to move towards the kitchen. "Mary and I subscribe to a certain social hierarchy in this flat, staggering in its simplicity but utterly unbreakable."

"What does this social hierarchy dictate?" says Sirius.

"It's quite simple, really. Cats first—"

"—and everyone else can get fucked?" Sirius finishes.

"No, that addendum only applies to you." She stops walking and twirls around on her toes to face them, Algernon purring his encouragement in her ear—Cool and Sexy, girl, and don't be obvious, anything but obvious—her hair fanning out behind her as it catches the air. "Anyway, I don't see either of you jumping to compliment me, and I did take my time getting dressed for this."

"Good for you," Sirius says, and pulls open the hall cupboard door without ceremony, poking his head inside. "Of course, if it wasn't four hours, you've still lost this race."

"It wasn't—" James begins, with an accompanying huff of exasperation, but he cuts himself off, seeming to think better of the continued denial. Instead, he looks to Lily, his expression softening, and smiles at her as he says, "You look very nice, too."

Very nice. Hah! Mary's earlier assertion was stunningly correct; Lily is one well-made margarita away from giving it all up on a plate, and all it took was very nice.

It's a good thing she isn't drinking, for all their sakes, but especially that of her dignity.

In her defence, as infinitesimal as such a defence may be, James really shouldn't look at her like that, with the soft, slow smiles and the romantic-night-beneath-the-stars warmth in his gorgeous hazel eyes. Nobody else looks at her like that, ever—not even Sev, who swayed towards a simpering, slavish devotion in his unrestrained staring—what right does James have to break the mold?

"Ta very much," she says lightly.

Nicely done, Evans. Cool and Sexy. Sexy and Cool.

"Though, if you're not careful," James adds, "Algernon is going to shed all over that pretty dress."

"It's only hair, and it's just a dress," she cheerfully informs him, "either way, it's not worth fretting about. Come and meet my housemate."

She spins around and glides into the kitchen, muttering asides of adoration to the cat all the way—Algernon is a marvellous creature, really. Soft. Sympathetic. Hides her blushing neck with his bright orange fur—and Mary, who is rubbing the rim of a glass with a wedge of lime, stops what she's doing at once.

"Finally!" she cries, and makes a beeline for the two of them, while James ambles in behind her—leaving Sirius to explore the various nooks and crannies of the hall. "I knew I had a good reason to ask you to move in."

"So you weren't rescuing me from Sev?"

"That too, but mostly cat."

"Cool. Love you, too."

Mary shrugs it off with flippant laugh and reaches out to ruffle Algernon's fur, but the cat scrabbles away from her touch immediately, wiggling in Lily's arms as if desperate to escape.

"It's okay," Lily assures him. "It's okay." She steps away from Mary, and Algernon relaxes into her embrace once more. "All good now, see?"

"Bless his heart," says Mary. "He's being shy."

"It's not shy," James informs her, wincing. "Shocking as it may seem—and as the present tableau may contradict—he's actually quite...difficult to befriend. He's got very particular standards. I think she may have the ginger power on her side."

"Don't take offense," pipes in Sirius from the hall. "They're an unpredictable lot, the gingers."

"Yes, the gingers in this room are the real problem," James comments dryly. He gives a friendly wave to Mary. "In any case, I'm James. And I have very low standards. Nice to properly meet you."

"Yeah, sure," says Mary, waving carelessly back. She frowns at Lily. "Low standards, he says. That explains why he's making eyes at you"—it is most unfortunate that Lily and James are looking directly at one another as Mary fishes that particular accusation out of her pond, and even less fortunate that Lily's face flares up immediately, like a poppy field in bloom—"but why is the cat so bloody smitten?"

"You heard him, it's a ginger thing," she coolly counters, intent upon the swift expedition of a change of subject. "Though, I would like to know what evidence there is to support this claim that we're all so unpredictable."

"Besides you getting drunk and breaking into their flat?"

"Obviously, besides that." She looks pointedly at Sirius, who has chosen this moment to wander in from the hall. "Well?"

"I just saw what kind of things you keep in your cupboards," is his reply. "I call at least half that unpredictable."

"Like what, the cleaning supplies?" says Mary, and rolls her eyes. "Trust a man to find that unpredictable. Which of you is the one who sings dodgy pop songs at the top of his lungs at all hours of the morning?"

"Dodgy?" Sirius reels back, offended. "I'll have you know that my catalogue is a prime, curated list of perfection. I've spent years on those selections."

"He puts on Spotify," James tattles. "The 'Songs to Sing in the Shower' playlist."

"You were right," says Mary to Lily. "You guy is the better one." She turns away from the party and strolls back to her previous spot, where she has assembled a host of goodies around the blender. "Are you lot thirsty? I'm making margaritas—"

"—and I'm not partaking," Lily immediately cuts in, and kisses Algernon again. 'Your guy,' indeed. Mary is no longer the teenage menace who would point fingers in people's faces with an accompanying cry of, 'my mate fancies you,' but she gets her digs in when she can, and she's stuck them both with her less-than-subtle opinion within the first two minutes. "I'm strictly on tea tonight, though you guys shouldn't let that stop you."

"Don't hold back on our account," James tells her. "Look, you're already in the correct flat. Can't mess that one up, can you?"

"Miss Hawaiian Tropic has to get up early tomorrow morning," says Mary in amusement, as if that's not exactly what Lily didn't want to discuss. She would have thought that her friend would be kind and sensible enough to steer clear of any particularly shameful topics—the boner embargo notwithstanding.

She rounds on her mate at once. "Mary."

"What?"

"Can you not?"

"Can you not what?" says Mary innocently. "Don't they know that you're a swimsuit model?"

"I am not a swimsuit model."

"The Asos website would beg to differ."

"The Asos website—" she begins, but stops, lets out a weighty sigh, and turns her back on her friend, throwing James a look reminiscent of the kind her mother used to throw her father when Petunia flew into rages over whatever expensive toy she hadn't gotten that all her friends had. She is going to crucify Mary later. "I'm not a swimsuit model and it's so not a big deal, but I do have to get up early tomorrow to have some photos taken."

"When I was three," James says, looking happily amused and yet fully commiserating, "my mum forced me into hair care adverts for my dad's company. So from one model to another"—he waves a hand, so put-upon—"bothersome call times, right?"

His dad's company, he says, oh so casual.

He's a trust fund baby.

A trust fund baby, which means he most likely doesn't spend his evenings escorting wealthy, thirty-five-year-old divorcées to charity events, expertly playing the part of the toyboy lover, then shagging them 'off-the-clock' in the back of an S-Class Mercedes.

She knew it.

"Right!" she agrees, and smiles gratefully at him, though she's not sure how much of her appreciation translates, for Algernon, whilst beautiful and snuggly and generally magnificent, is in fact so fluffy that said fluff is forming a kind of barrier between the outside world and at least half of her face. "Mary, where's the pizza menu?"

"I left it in your bedroom when I borrowed your curling iron."

"Cool, I'll go and get it."

She sets Algernon down on the floor to step away, and it becomes immediately clear that the cat does not wish to be parted from her, for he follows her at once, and with unerring speed, almost tripping her up in his haste to rub his body against her bare legs.

"Um," she says.

"You've been adopted," Mary remarks, watching Algernon from beneath furrowed brows. "Congrats on the new arrival."

James eyes this somewhat incredulously, too. "Are you sure you don't have...bacon in your pockets or something?" The cat weaves between Lily's legs. "He is never like this."

"Algernon," Sirius calls, strolling over to join Mary at the kitchen island, his eyes already on the blender full of margarita mix. "Let Mummy and Daddy go off in the bedroom alone, please."

Mary barks out a laugh. "Nice one."

"Oh, I've been preparing," Sirius says. "I could do this all night."

"You couldn't have asked for a better setup, really," Mary says, with a careless wave to Lily, who steps away from Algernon, again—face trained down to the floor because she is certainly redder than her own hair—only to be followed, nuzzled, and generally adored by the cat, again. "I mean, her wandering into your flat smashed, taking off her top, and so forth. It's excellent fodder for a best man speech."

"Is it ever," agrees Sirius readily. "I've worked up a draft or two—"

James leans close to Lily's ear. "Your mate is egging on my mate in his delusions, and I have a feeling it's not going to end the better for either of us."

Delusions.

Huh.

"I told you, she's addicted to drama," she mutters back, but to Mary and Sirius she adds, more loudly, "I'm going to get the menu now. Should you both care to start acting your ages while I'm gone, it'd be very much appreciated."

Mary snorts, and leans over to tell Sirius something in an inaudible tone, so Lily backs out of the room before either of them can come up with another wisecrack pertaining to the—admittedly comical—way in which she and James met, and the many potential rom-com scenarios into which it could neatly be tied. They're not thirteen-years-old any longer, so she doesn't have to worry that Mary will reveal the truth of Lily's anvil-sized crush, but she'd rather be out of the way while her mate gets it all out of her system.

She'll tire of the childish teasing shortly, even if Sirius won't.

The cat, undaunted by her exit, follows her along the hall, sticking as close to her feet as possible.

"You're the fluffiest trip-hazard I've ever seen," she tells him, to which he lovingly prods her calf with his head.

"Algernon, can you just let her be—" James says in exasperation, but Lily notices he trails after the cat, who is still trailing after her...

...straight into her bedroom.

James is in her bedroom.

It's a scenario she's already pictured in her head a few times, admittedly, but the circumstances surrounding the encounters in her daydreams are often very different to this.

More kissing, less cat. Precious little clothing.

She's immediately grateful to herself for being conscientious in her cleaning schedule, and especially to her this-morning self for making her bed up neatly—the only potentially embarrassing item on display is a powder blue bra hanging over a chair, and James has already seen her wearing her purple one, so that's no major issue—not that he'll be venturing near her bed. Not that she was expecting any of her guests to set a foot—or paw—inside her room in the first place.

Well, certainly not Sirius, anyway.

Maybe Algernon.

She is not having ideas, nor is she hatching plans, schemes, or any other kind of strategies which pertain to keeping him in her room and divesting him of all his clothes. They're going to eat some pizza, drink margaritas, watch some crappy romantic comedy that Mary will insist upon—possibly—and then he's going to go home.

She is not interested in seducing her neighbour because she's an intelligent woman who is aware that She + Him x Sex = Potential Recipe for Disaster and Awkwardness, and she must learn to cheerfully resign herself to enjoying the many aesthetic delights he has to offer in a dignified, self-respecting silence.

There's a reason why Maths was her least favourite subject at school.

"Don't worry about the cat," she says, and sits down lightly on her bed. Algernon immediately leaps into her lap and settles down there, which would fail to elicit a smile only from a person with a heart made of stone. "I really don't mind him following." She nods down at the cat, and then looks up at James. "He seems to have picked it up from watching you follow him around."

"He often needs following," James insists, but now he seems to realise what he's done—come into her bedroom, uninvited—and he looks a bit bashful about it. "I suppose I'll just claim I'm a very petty person, so when you invaded my room, I decided I must invade yours in return?"

"That's your story, is it?"

He runs a hand through his hair, shrugs. "Alternatively, I'm being very neighbourly, and have come to help you locate the menu. Take your pick."

She points to her bedside table, upon which sits the menu in question. "Located."

He opens his mouth to say something else, but then stops, eyes halting on the table.

"Wait." He rushes forward, snatching up the menu. "You talked Sam's Pizza into delivering here?"

"You'd be surprised to learn how easy it is to get what you want from a bloke like him by acting like a ditzy flirt on the phone." She shrugs. "Or by pretending to cry."

"If only I'd known that was the way to go. Though somehow I don't think the impact would be quite the same." James shakes his head in amused wonder. "I ring him up at least once a week and he always says no to me."

"Oh, yeah, some maniac in the building was harassing their delivery boy, apparently."

James snorts shortly. "If you haven't figured out who that maniac is yet, Evans, you're not as clever as I thought you were."

Of course it was Sirius, she thinks. She had suspected as much, hazily recalling him bounding into James's bedroom with a mention of having gained a free pizza, and he seems to be so utterly unconcerned with respecting the boundaries of normal human interactions in general, and—

Hang on a second.

How does he know her full name?

Did she tell him?

No. She didn't. She wouldn't have told him that, likely not even drunk, on the off-chance that he did fancy her and looked her up on Google. People do that nowadays, all the time—hell, the only reason Lily hasn't looked him up online is because she doesn't know hissurname yet—and that would be very bad for her, indeed. She's not sure if she wants him to know what she's been trying to do with her life for the past number of years. Better to be a waitress with a rickety bike and a penchant for drunken burglary than the confirmed failure she knows she is.

"I never told you my surname," she says quietly.

He immediately goes rigid. "Hadn't you?"

She shakes her head.

"Oh." He dithers a bit in place, fiddling with the menu. "Well, you know, I probably—"

"Probably what?"

"I mean, I think someone once—I must've—" He cuts himself off for the final time, sighs heavily, and looks harried. "Alright, do you want the truth, or the lie? Because I can give you the lie, but it's not coming out very well right now."

The slightest prickle of unease crawls up her spine like a many-legged insect.

What does he mean by lie?

"That...depends?" she says slowly, frowning up at him. "Do either of these explanations involve you going through my mail, or harbouring some sort of secret obsession with me? Because the first is plain illegal, and I've just moved out of my old flat for the second reason, so…"

His discomfort drops, replaced with a deep frown. "Someone was obsessed with you in your last flat?"

"Yes," she says bluntly. "My last housemate. He was one of my best friends."

"A best friend who was obsessed with you," he repeats dully.

"He hid it well, for a while," she explains, idly combing her fingers through Algernon's fur, staring at her dresser in a detached sort of way. She hates having to justify to people why she didn't cut and run sooner, because people didn't know Sev, they didn't know how broken he was, nor how lost he would have been without her support to see him through his really bad days—just as she hadn't known just how cleverly he used his own pain to repeatedly manipulate her. "Then... not so well, for about two years, but I was—I mean, the particulars don't really matter right now, suffice to say he's left me a little bit wary, and I think we're on you at the minute, right?"

The frown doesn't disappear, but he begrudgingly moves back on topic. "Right. No, I have never gone through your mail. I haven't…" He makes a noise. A half grunt of resignation, half sigh. "I...saw you in a play."

Something punches, hard, beneath her ribs. Just that, no more. A thump.

"A few months ago," he continues, and he hasn't seemed to notice that her heart has formed a fist. "To the Ends of the World."

Thump.

"You were really, really good."

Thump.

"You saw that play?" she says, in a small voice. Thump.

"I saw that play," he confirms. "Once...or twice, or something."

"And you remembered me from it?" she presses on. "Me, specifically? My full name, and everything?"

He gives a rapid nod. "You were the best part about it. Truly. Of course I remembered your name."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Right," she says, slightly dazed on the surface, paddling crazily underneath, and stares at nothing in particular.

This is...ludicrous.

And uncomfortably strange.

And unprecedented, and embarrassing, but also sort of...wonderful.

In her younger years, Lily had believed she stood a genuine stance of mapping a career on stage, and she had dreamed, with a naive kind of faith, of the day that someone she met in an everyday manner—a stranger, not a friend, who would have bias and love to motivate their actions, nor an audience member with her work still fresh in their mind—would know her from something that she had done.

People did, on occasion, recall her face—from a hanging, photoshopped poster at Primark, or a poorly-written teen soap that had killed a couple of her brain cells merely by existing—but never from a part she'd played that actually made her proud.

No matter, she had told herself. It was stupid of her to expect anything different. That had long since ceased to be any sort of dream.

Now James has just...obliterated the thing that she had come to begrudgingly accept.

He remembers her, in exactly the kind way she'd always hoped she'd be remembered.

He remembers her from something that was purposeful and good, from something that spoke to people, parsimonious as the production had no choice but to be, in that tiny little theatre above the pub on Pembridge Road. That play was glimmering starlight captured in an empty jar—a beautiful, shining standout in her life, the big crescendo that came before her fall. Members of the audience would wait for her after the show—mostly women, often emotional, many sporting tear-tracks on their puffy, smiling faces—to clasp her hands and tell her that she had spoken a pain they knew all too well. A handwritten letter had been delivered to the theatre just for her—the first of its kind she'd ever received, along with a stunning bunch of sunshine-yellow roses—from a woman named Euphemia, who had been with her family the night before, and wanted her to know that she was marvellous, simply marvellous, and strong and passionate and raw.

She kept that letter, popped it in her jewellery box with a couple other trinkets that mean everything to her. Sev got to it before she could, has it hidden away somewhere, and that kills her.

But this, James, knowing her, knowing the play, enjoying it enough to have seen it more than once, thinking she was good enough—the best part of it—to warrant so much as a scrap of continued attention, that he didn't just like her and forget her the moment he walked out the door...

It feels like getting that letter.

And maybe that's just because she likes him so much—more than makes any sense, after such a short time.

That simply cannot be helped, it seems.

She looks up at him, and it's clear that he's so very perturbed by all of this—her brief overview of Sev must have put the fear of god into him, made him think she'd lump him in the same boat, just for liking a bloody brilliant play that she had happened to be part of, when here he is, just trying to be a decent bloke—and doesn't seem of much of a mind to talk, now that she has lapsed into her reverie.

She doesn't know him all that well, but she already knows that 'not of a mind to talk' is not a common trait of his.

Stupid boy. Adorable boy.

"This isn't some sort of prank, is it?" she eventually ventures, her tone almost apologetic, because it's not—she knows it's not—but she just has to be sure. "You're sure that Mary didn't put you up to it, or you didn't see my name somehow, and Google me, and now someone's about to jump out of my wardrobe with a camera and put me on the internet?"

"Not a prank," he assures her quickly, firmly. "Though...I mean, there may have been some Googling after the play. A bit of Googling. Very harmless Googling."

From one shock to another. "You Googled—"

"Just because I was so impressed!" he's hasty to explain. His hand goes back to his hair, and he rakes through the strands with jittery fingers. If this is all for show, he's a better actor than she is. "I was sure you must be some kind of West End actress doing a charity show for a producer friend or something. You were so far above everyone else. I thought I'd see what else you'd done, recognise some of it, surely."

"That's—I need to sit down," she says, and immediately remembers that she is sitting down. "I mean—no, sorry, this literally never happens so I—this is so utterly bizarre."

"Think of how bizarre it was for me!" he cries. "Walking in on you—this actress I'd seen up on stage, who I'd tracked down in episodes on the telly just so I could watch what else she'd done—in my bathroom. It was…" He makes a face, then sort of winces. "Not that I'm trying to make it sound less creepy from my end. I really am sorry if it seems that way. I just think you're talented."

"Right."

"And then you showed up next door," he meekly concludes. "I am the victim of a series of unlikely events."

Her heart needs to slow down, lest it thump, thump, thump right out of her chest, flopping uselessly between them, a new and exciting toy for the cat. She needs to...she doesn't know. Get a grip on herself.

Talking about this is wonderful and painful all at once; wonderful because he remembered her and he thought she was great and that's exactly the kind of thing she's been needing, wanting, craving to hear for quite a while, between her sister's constant, hateful disparagement, the extraordinary nosedive her career has taken, and how completely, utterly shit she feels—how ignorant and stupid—about how easy it was for Severus to weave her into his cataclysmic tangle of lies and deceit.

It's painful because he's seen her on stage, and on the most basic, most self-conscious level of her soul—or the part of her brain that fires up her heart and sets her stomach aflutter when he so much as slants a smile her way—that's just so bloody mortifying to think about.

"You don't sound creepy," she assures him. "It's not—it's more like—"

"Unsettling?" he offers. "Very strange? Like some cosmic force is playing a joke?" He nods sagely. "All things in my head, too."

"No, not that," she sighs. "It's just, I don't often get told that I'm talented—or, I mean, at least not like that, like they really, strongly believe it. Most people aren't nearly as insistent about it as you seem to be."

"Oh." He straightens a bit at this, drops his hands back down to his sides, losing some of the anxiousness about him. "Well, that was the easiest part to confess. You are that talented. Didn't you notice how much bigger your applause was at the curtain calls than everyone else's? I did. And—" He smiles ruefully. "Not to bring us back—again—to murder...but you are quite good at dying on screen. Best dying I've ever seen, even."

"See, now I know you're exaggerating," she accuses, then lets out the smallest, nervous laugh. "But...thank you. So much, honestly. Everything is sort of shit at the moment, career-wise, hence the waitressing. And the Asos website. And feeling really bloody awful about myself in general, actually, so you've helped. Really, you have no idea how much, but it's honestly a lot."

Slowly—as if waiting for her to object—James sits down on the bed beside her.

Her bed.

He's sitting on her bed.

He's watched her terrible television deaths—or one of them, at least—and part of her hates that he has, wishes she could scrub his brain of the memory of it, but he thinks she's really good, thinks she's talented, and he's…

Close, really. Very close. If she shuffled over just a little, merely an inch or thereabouts…

She really wants him to kiss her. Lovely boy. Pitiful girl.

"Well, I'm glad I helped," he says, voice quite light. "I'm sorry about...I mean, you did also mention that first night about things being...less than ideal. I don't want to pry. I just do think you're talented, whatever waitressing or modeling you're doing now besides. Do you want to get back on stage?"

"And not get murdered for a living?" she suggests, then laughs again. "Though, actually, the one time I did Shakespeare it was Othello, and I got strangled by my husband at the end, so nowhere is safe, really, but yes, I'd love to. I don't want to be famous, or anything like that—I never have—but I really love theatre."

"I don't know anything about acting," he confesses, shrugging. "Or theatre business. I'm sure it must be difficult, and that likely sounds condescendingly simple at best. But from one random bloke who saw you in a play one night and thought you were a real wonder…" He leans in a bit closer, tilts his head. "I think you've got something there. So maybe be slightly less deeply miserable about that? If nothing else?"

She's keenly away that if it were Sirius saying all this, or any other relatively new acquaintance in her life, she likely wouldn't feel the way she feels now—this mushy, melty, pulse-quickening tumult is all because of him.

She's known him for all of five minutes.

A long-ish five minutes, yes, during which time he has seen her half-naked, and taken her to work in his unexpectedly fancy car, but five minutes is still five minutes, and hardly a sufficient enough time in which to comfortably feel whatever connection it is she feels to him.

And yet…

He gave her that lift. Loved the bread she made him. Brought his cat to see her simply because she'd asked.

Two weeks ago, he'd called her pretty.

Does he…

No. Best not to assume.

But if he does, is that a good thing? A terrible thing? Is it something she should mention? Something she should vow to never speak of?

Lily opens her mouth, then closes it again.

Her instincts are correct, she can't just go around assuming that he fancies her because he said and did a couple of considerate things, not just because it's highly conceited, but because it's a rather telling indication of her disdain for men. She shouldn't expect every bloke to be nice to her just because they want in her pants—not everyone is going to be Severus, for crying out loud—because she doesn't want to become such a cynic.

He remembered her from the play and looked her up online, yes, but no doubt he could have taken a programme home and spotted her name later. It's not as if he read it once and committed it to memory forever. Lily has watched every single thing Liam Cunningham has ever done, because she's astounded by his talent. Not once has she ever looked at him on screen and thought she'd like to cut herself a slice.

"Are you this nice to everyone?" she says, setting her course on this specific track. Remaining with the subject at hand will turn her into a puddle of mush, and she thinks a little traction will make her feel much better. Calmer. Less inclined to thump. "Or did my drunken exploits earn such a significant chunk of your pity that you feel obligated to boost my ego?"

"It's not pity or obligation. Only vaguely creepy-sounding respect. A very genuine ego boost." He says it sincerely, simply, which is heartening, if less than helpful in determining the inclinations of his heart. "Though if my mother ever happens to be around, please feel free to inform her I'm this kind to everyone. She'll feel terribly validated in her parenting choices."

"Well, if you must insist on making me feel special, I suppose I'll take it," she agrees. "From you, and from your cat."

"What's that?" He leans in, tapping his ear. "Has my hearing gone, or was I just placed before the cat?"

"You got that from me naming you first?"

"I will cling to syntax semantics if I must."

"Are you jealous of your cat, or are you just that starved of affection from girls?" she asks, happy to be advancing to a topic where she feels she has a little more control. "Because I can shoot you a hug out of sympathy, if so."

"I have not sunk so low as to accept pity hugs," he declares primly. "If Algernon can gain them for free, I'll just have to work harder to earn them."

"In fairness, Algernon can fit in my lap, which makes cuddling a little easier," she points out, and stretches out a hand toward him. "Can I have that menu, please?"

"Oh. Yeah—" He extends it out to her, but then at the last second, pulls it back away, out of her reach. "Wait."

She frowns at him. "Wait for what?"

He cocks a taunting eyebrow. "This is an important neighbourly test now. Should I be extending the ordering power over to you? What if you order something terrible?"

"After all those nice things you just said, it offends me that you'd even suggest such a thing."

"Show me your mettle, Evans. What toppings columns do you sway towards?"

"I sway towards, 'Sam will actually deliver to me, but will tell you to bugger off if you try calling,'" she reminds him, smiling sweetly. She's grateful to him—a million times over—for letting her steer them right back to this jokey, teasing place, an arena in which she feels she can perform at her best. "You have no ordering power here, need I remind you?"

"You are ruthless and unkind to mention it," he says—then offers the menu back over. "But not incorrect."

"Pepperoni and mushroom it is," she declares, taking the menu from him. "Do you have your phone on you? I left mine in the kitchen with our idiot friends."

"Yeah, right here—" He squirms a bit, digging into his back pocket. "And for the record, you've made the most excellent of choices and I never should have doubted—ah." He stops. He has his phone in his hand now, but he seems sort of startled by what he finds there. He begins swiping at things quickly. "Sorry. Just a sec—"

She's not actively looking at his phone, but it's not difficult to spot the mountain of text messages that have popped up in his notification wall. "Girlfriend missing you?"

He glances over at her briefly, swiftly. "The nonexistent one? Oh, yes. She's desolate without me." His fingers continue to swipe over the screen. "Or I made the terrible mistake of entering a group chat with fourteen preteens who think they need to inform everyone each and every time they release wind. One or the other."

Well.

That's her told.

And as for Miss Perfect Posture Rosalind—who nobody asked for—has most certainly been put in her place, along with her morning yoga and infuriating superiority complex.

She can bloody well stay there.

"That's—" she begins, and smiles rather dryly at him. "Should I be worried about the fact that you're a grown man in a group chat with fourteen kids?"

He chokes out a laugh. "Adding further crimes to my growing list of charges? Hate to deny it of you, but—I'm their coach. Or...mostly just their coach." He waves off the semantics. "It's my job. There's this programme that we run for kids in the city—football clinics to give them something to do that's not getting them into trouble, or...well, some just don't quite like being home, so that's part of it, too. They're only meant to use my number for emergencies, but you try telling that to a group of twelve-year-olds."

"Your job is… helping disadvantaged kids?" she says in disbelief.

He shrugs.

Is he taking the piss?

She'd just come up for air, now he's dunked her back under again.

This has to be a joke. Hah. Hah. Did Mary orchestrate this? She has never gotten over that day in sixth form when she came to school wearing odd shoes and Lily failed to point it out for an hour because she found it too bloody funny to let her make an idiot of herself.

Hah.

It's a revenge plot. Mary's revenge plot. An unnecessarily detailed, expensive, deeply cruel revenge plot, but Mary has always been a little odd. She dated Weeps-During-Fellatio-Todd of her own free will for close to three years.

It must be a revenge plot, because her deeply attractive, immensely sweet, helpful, intelligent, and charmingly articulate neighbour who liked her in that play cannot, on top of everything else—and everything else already means so many things—have chosen to make helping children his life's work, or Lily will be hopelessly screwed until the very end of her tenancy.

Beyond her tenancy, even. He's very handsome.

And a football coach, at that. He's bound to be super fit from all that running around in shorts, working up a sweat in the midday sun—they're right in the middle of June, after all—impatiently pushing his damp, coal black hair from his beautiful face to keep it out of his eyes, mopping his perspiring brow with a shirt that is no doubt clinging to every hard, taut, sinewy muscle in his...

...this is all rather pathetic, on her part.

Lily knows that she's sap—a rom-com-watching, Bonnie Tyler-listening, romance-novel reading sap, who sneakily eyes-up wedding gowns when she walks past bridal boutiques on the street and has long fancied the idea of pretending to have a fiancé just so she could try one on—and she has learned to be okay with that.

Apparently, now, she is also a slave to a heady cocktail of foolish, melty-heart sop and a savagely thirsty desire to climb him like a tree.

He works with children, though. Disadvantaged children.

"That's your job?" she repeats. "That's what you do with your life?"

Any regular person may hold themselves with a certain amount of pride upon such an admission—why yes, I'm quite the handsome humanitarian, and doesn't that make me marvellous?—but instead, James all but squirms in discomfort.

"Among...a few other odds and ends, yeah," he says, staring rather pointedly at his phone. "It's not paid, see. Mostly I'm just an uncompensated chaperone. A hostage, from time to time. A paper-pusher. You'd be shocked how much paper comes with trying to wrangle a few kids into a decent meal and somewhere safe to go, so...yes. Odds and ends. Feed Algernon. Don't let any of the children eat paste on my watch. All in a day's work." He thrusts his phone at her unceremoniously. "Here. Just...ignore any vibrations. They can go on about farting for hours."

She takes the phone from his outstretched hand and looks at it. A message from someone named Curtis has popped up on screen, displaying a slew of vomit-face, laugh-crying, and biohazard-mask emojis.

"So, am I supposed to be unimpressed by this charitable saviour thing you've got going on?" she asks him, in a droll, quippy kind of way that says she's super breezy about all this, doesn't mean a word of what she really, truly means, and doesn't care one bit about what he might look like with his shirt off. "Just curious, because I'm an actress, you know, I can totally pretend that I'm not a little turned-on."

He coughs.

Maybe it's a cough.

Maybe it's something else being masked by a cough. But his face has definitely gained a bit of red.

God. She can't start with this—reaching, and reading into every little thing, and looking for signs, and flirting like a sex-starved idiot. She is a grown woman, not a teenage girl with hormones running amok.

Maybe a little flirting, though. That would be...acceptable. He hasn't taken offence to any prior attempts at coquetry, so why put an end to it now?

A little flirting is fine. Reasonable. Friendly.

Chandler and Monica, they are not, but that doesn't mean they can't be friends. Their fast, easy rapport practically demands it.

"Oh, you know"—he waves a hand, then sticks it in his hair—"please do… be impressed as you will. I am striving to earn that hug, after all."

"Ah."

"A neighbourly hug," he clarifies. "Like Algernon."

Algernon's paw is pressing into her crotch.

She refrains from telling him that.

In fact, she doesn't need to, because Mary chooses that moment to tiptoe up and poke her head through Lily's door.

"You ordering?" she asks, in a tone that says, 'you ordering?' and eyes that say, 'ooh, la, what's going on in here?'

"Just about to," Lily calmly replies, waggling James's phone, then types out the number that's printed at the top of the menu. "James and I are splitting a pepperoni and mushroom."

"His hipster mate wants a meat feast, so I'll go in on that," Mary says. "Get me some garlic dip too, yeah?"

"Sure," Lily says, with a quick thumbs-up, and Mary skitters off. She slants a small smile at James as she raises the phone to her ear. "Your gang of mates will sadly have to wait for what will no doubt be your immensely profound thoughts on flatulence."

James laughs, an almost-silent, controlled laugh—a considerate laugh, because the phone is ringing in her ear, after all—but one that shows his lovely white teeth, and a perfect dimple in just the right spot.

He could floor a woman with that laugh, if he wasn't a bit more careful.

Pity he's not on the menu.

---

James does not recall making the conscious decision to wade happily into the embrace of alcohol this evening, but he somehow finds himself swaddled in its warm hold anyway.

He thinks on it now—fifty minutes into this very romantic film, approximately two hours into this very neighbourly group hang—and realises that the room has gained a rosy sort of hue, and everything's loads funnier, and what exactly did Next Door Mary put into these margaritas, anyway? Morphine?

She may very well be attempting to tip James into his grave.

Or, at the very least, tipple him onto her living room floor.

He is...swimming slightly closer to the line of tipsy.

And—worse—even more slightly closer to the line of besotted.

Sotted and besotted.

Terrible combination, that.

When exactly this occurred—either of them—is all a bit hard to grasp at now. Everything's gone vaguely blurry and dreamy at the edges, but it's quite possible he was doomed all the way back when he first walked into flat 308 and was immediately assaulted with handsome and cat cuddles and a floral dress that swishes around Lily's legs as she walks, and flashes peeks of her satiny skin with curiously missing blocks of fabric. James does not understand fashion, except to say that it is a device of psychological torture.

The questionable margaritas were introduced after that—along with Mary, who seemed significantly more interested in Algernon than in James, but who said very intriguing things when not rendering him useless from roofied tequila—but that does not seem to be the point of concession, either. It's certainly not until after James had returned from Lily's bedroom—Lily Evans's bedroom, who now knew that he knew her name was Lily Evans, as well as a brief (and humiliating) overview about how that came to be, with him leaving out only...one or two theatre visits and approximately nine trillion YouTube and telly viewings in the tale, but James is not going to lambaste himself for strategic omissions that would've only made them both wholly more uncomfortable. He doesn't want to spook her. He hadn't known her then. It is...different now.

Different, in a very neighbourly way.

A neighbourly besotted way?

Hm.

Neighbours went in other neighbours' bedrooms all the time, though. Even tidy little bedrooms that smelled like her and were filled with her things and did not contain any kind of shoewear on a bedside table for one to sigh and coo at, but merely a menu from James's very favourite pizza place. He'd sat on her bed—her bed—with Algernon still weaving his fluffy little body between them. He'd told her she was talented, and she seemed so surprised by it, so touched, that James was sort of surprised and touched, as well. It had never occurred to him that she wouldn't know how special she is. He'll tell her all the time, if it gets that happy little flush on her skin, the sweet look in her green eyes. That he finds himself trying to impress her equally as much when he pulls out his phone and finds the lads blowing it up to pieces is perhaps a bit grubby and obvious, but he's never claimed to be above that. He wants her to know him, and like him, and fancy having him around, and he can want all those things in a neighbourly way, can't he?

James has now lost track of the number of times he's thought the word neighbourly in the past seventy-two hours, but he's helpless to fix that.

Frankly, he'll just tack it on to the rapidly growing list of other things he's lost track of this evening—like how many refills of Mary's brutal margaritas he's consumed; the total amount of instances in which he's caught Lily's eye, shared something like a furtive smile or a look or a Nod with her; the sum total of Sirius's neverending cracks about marriage and cat-parents and a best man's speech he begins composing on the fly at least three separate times, to Mary's polite and approving applause.

James hasn't lost track of how much he likes Lily. That, if anything, has been very diligently watched as it rises up, up, up, with each successive second in her presence.

So now he sits on the couch beside her, only half paying attention to the film she and Mary had insisted they must watch, half hoping she doesn't realise that he's only half watching, and continuing to indulge in periodic splashes of liquid courage to make this whole thing loads more survivable.

If there is surviving it.

James is beginning to have his doubts.

"I love this part," he pipes up, wanting to prove he's still functioning, still surviving, still…something.

Though...hm.

Perhaps he's said it a bit too loud. Is he being a bit too loud?

Mary shushes him.

Oops.

"Sorry," he whispers, huddling into his—third? fourth?—marg, but even his whisper is...not quite the thing. His eyes dart over to Lily—pretty, darling, tempting Lily, curled up not even an arm's length away, similarly huddled into her cup of tea, smiling at him like she is also quite aware his speaking and whispering are not quite the thing, but she's not angry about it. Rather, she looks like she wants to laugh.

James likes her laugh.

He likes too many things about her, and that's exactly the problem.

"Sorry," he tells her again, specifically.

"It's alright," she quietly responds, and drops a gentle pat on his arm. Touches his arm. "Just try not to wake your mate, okay?"

James glances over to the nearby armchair where, indeed, Sirius seems to be snoring, another victim of Next Door Mary and her poisonously heavy hand.

He leans in closer to Lily, and maybe gets a good whiff of her hair—something light and tropical. Coconut. "Safe to say you're getting a bit sick of the wedding and mummy and daddy jokes?"

Said quips had been relentless most of the night—Sirius was nothing if not dedicated to his causes—so that even James was beginning to wish they'd thought to lock Sirius out on the balcony ninety minutes ago and left him there for the remainder of the evening.

And yet…James wants her to say no. Something in him hopes she says no. But then again, he hopes she doesn't, because then he's going to have to rethink a lot of things, and he's not sure he should be thinking at all right now, much less re-thinking. Can't be trusted with any of it, at any time, in any state of vague intoxication.

He takes another long sip of margarita.

That's better.

"I mean, it's fine, but he's not exactly hitting the pinnacle of anyone's comedic potential, is he?" Lily reasons, and cocks her head to take in Sirius more fully—his mouth is hanging open while his head lolls ominously to one side, as if he's bound to tip and topple clean over the arm of the chair. Mary is on her own chair, so James and Lily—and Algernon, who is nestled in between them with his head on her thigh—have the sofa entirely to themselves. Their own little island. "It's basically the same joke over and over. You'd swear you'd never seen a woman in her bra before, the way he's been going on."

"Well, it was a very special bra," James says, because he can't tell her the truth—that other women in other bras are not Lily in her bra. Frankly, they should not be talking about bras at all. It is likely very, very unwise to be discussing bras—most especially her bras—right now. "Or so I was told."

She pokes her finger beneath the neckline of the gauzy, flower-patterned dress and tugs out the strap of—deep purple. Bloody hell. Could it actually be… the Little Mermaid bra? Back again to taunt and haunt him?—before letting it go with a small snap, and it disappears out of sight.

"It is, ta," she says, and turns her eyes on the television. "Can you pass me a slice?"

James gulps some. Because he will play, and replay, and replay, that snap in his mind if he doesn't immediately get himself distracted, he moves toward the little table where they've set the pizza box. He still can't believe she'd talked Sam into delivering here. A bloody wonder, Lily Evans is. A magnificent marvel who knows that mushrooms and pepperoni are the best toppings, and who loves his cat, and who thinks Sirius is a pill, and who...wears bras. But, recall, James is not meant to be thinking about her bras. Even though she keeps bringing them up. And showing them to him. It was all done in quite a neighbourly way. Neighbours discuss and flash bras all the time.

Poor, unfortunate souls, neighbours are.

Or perhaps that's just him.

He reaches into the box and snags a slice, juggling his margarita glass in one hand and the pizza in the other. "Here."

She takes the slice from him with a murmured word of thanks and sets her tea on the floor to devote both hands to holding it, but otherwise doesn't look at him again—what's so interesting about Colin Firth, anyway?—as she takes a generous bite.

He mutters something akin to you're welcome or bloody ponce, determined to watch the telly too, to not watch her, or her face, or her hands as they daintily maneuver the pizza. She has the slice folded neatly, he notices while he's not noticing, the mushrooms and pepperoni crushed compactly together as she nibbles. She is paying more attention to the screen than to what she is consuming, and while James is still a bit grumpy about Colin Firth and his dry charm distracting everyone in the room, he supposes it's something to be thankful for that her preoccupation has lead her to remain unaware of how much James is staring.

He'll stop at any moment.

Any moment now.

"So, this is Colin Firth," she says suddenly, once she's swallowed a mouthful, and it takes James a second to realise that she's talking, not to him, but to Algernon—who burrows happily into her thigh, the fortunate recipient of a luxuriant petting, now that she's wielding the pizza single-handed. "We love Colin Firth in this flat."

"Love's not the word," Mary pipes up from her armchair. "I'd shag him senseless."

"I'd be happy just to snog him, honestly."

"Hard same," Mary agrees. "Eddie's just...tongue. So much tongue. Too much—it's like, I don't need to be fucking excavated, just fucking get on with it."

"At least you got a snog," Lily retorts darkly. "If I go much longer without being kissed, my jaw will probably fuse itself shut."

"Aww, honey," Mary coos, even through her laughter. "How long has it been?"

"I dunno, over a year?" Lily shrugs, and points at the telly with her half-eaten slice. "It's just—Colin seems like the type who'd take you somewhere nice for dinner first, y'know? He wouldn't try to get right to it like a dog humping your leg, unlike most blokes." She ruffles the top of the cat's head. "'Course, you wouldn't do that, Algernon. You've got far too much class."

This back and forth has come about too quickly and divulged too much information for James to process with any level of particular speed or decorum. He can nearly feel his eyes bugging out at this driveled crap about crap Colin, and even more crap about super crap Eddie (who is Eddie?), but most especially—especially—this mind-boggling notion that sixty billion men have been roaming the world for the last year, and not one of them—not one of them—had had the good sense to see Lily Evans, her red hair, her kind smile, her sparkling wit, and thought, "Well, now, I've got to get that girl to want to kiss me, don't I?" James has known her five minutes and it's all he's thought about from the very first second. The world is filled with stupid, stupid, stupid people.

And James loves those stupid, stupid, stupid people, because Lily Evans deserves the very best of kisses, and none of them are worthy.

Especially not crap Colin.

Algernon is worthy.

James is...working on it.

Maybe.

In a neighbourly way.

"That's your level of perfection?" he puts in incredulously, because all the rest of his commentary is best saved for another day, another occasion, another...room. "That he has a mind to feed you before feeling you up? As a member of 'most blokes', I feel as if I am offended."

She turns her bright green eyes on him, finally. "So, what you're essentially saying is you're a leg humper, and you don't take girls on dates?"

"What I am saying," James replies, with a single scholarly finger raised in protest, "is that I paid for this pizza, and I have not the once yet tried to hump your leg." He pauses. "I mean, yes, I did end up with my face in your chest that one time, before the pizza, but that doesn't count."

Mary snorts loudly into her cocktail, but Lily quirks an amused eyebrow at him.

"Funny you should mention that night," she says. "Because only hours before, I escaped a first date with a bloke who slid his hand up my thigh under the table and asked if I was interested in shooting a home porno, so you face-planting into my boobs wasn't even close to the most degrading thing that happened to me that day."

"Leg humping creeps," Mary seconds.

James knows they are happily commiserating in their solidarity, but he is aghast at what he's hearing. Stupid, stupid, stupid people. "Did you punch this wanker in the bollocks before you left?" he asks. "Please say you did."

"She can't just go punching every bloke who steps out of line," Mary argues.

Lily nods in agreement. "There'd be so many toothless men stumbling around London."

"Besides," Mary continues. "If anyone deserves a punch, it's that prick, Severus, and his—"

"Don't talk about him, it'll ruin my good mood," says Lily loudly, and a still sleeping Sirius twitches violently in his chair. She shakes her head at Mary. "Nobody got punched, end of story."

James is not letting her get away with that. He may be a trifle messy at the moment, but now he's got a name—Severus—and that will be a useful start for the assassin James will hire. "Not end of. Beginning of. Who's this other prick? Your scumbag old housemate? Why have you got so many pricks in your life that need punching?"

"Because she's pretty," says Mary.

"No, you're pretty."

"Oh, well, if you insist."

Lily laughs under her breath as she bestows her attentions back upon the undeserving Colin Firth, but seems to spot James watching her in her periphery, for she turns her head to regard him with a pitying smile.

"You're pretty, too," she says, and pats his arm again. "Don't fret."

James is not fretting. He is thinking that he'd like to tell her she's pretty too, but he's not sure how to go about this in a neighbourly way. He's not sure how to go about it without grinning at her stupidly with emoji hearts in his eyes. He is not as cool or as glib as she is. He can't just say it without blurting out eight other things that will likely give his whole game away. If he's even got a game. Frankly, he thinks he's lost the rules somewhere along the way and now it's anarchy and destruction and someone's robbing the bank, do not pass go, do not collect £200, everything is terrible.

But she is pretty. So pretty.

"You're trying to distract me with compliments," is what he says instead, stuffed full with airy nonchalance, and not at all vague panic. "It's a cunning play and I don't appreciate it."

"I know, I'm so sorry for thinking you're attractive," she says, pouting. "Forgive me?"

She's much too good at this—the big doe eyes, the sickeningly sweet smile, the sparkling cheek that taunts him while her pursed lips say you're attractive. She's not the least bit sorry, and he knows that, and she knows that, and he wants to laugh at it, but it's not hilariously funny that he can't seem to think straight when she's around, and that's why he won't be accepting her contrition, thank you very much.

"You're not sorry at all," he sniffs. "Please eat your pizza and I'll think about forgiving you."

Her sad and deeply remorseful expression—which was never anything of the sort—melts away like butter in the sun, replaced by an all-too-knowing grin and glint of mischief in her eyes. "Weak," she mutters, and takes a bite out of her crust, returning her gaze to the telly again.

James should do the same. He should stop watching her, stop fawning after her, stop wishing she wouldn't merely be teasing him with compliments, but actually mean them. He does, truly and honestly, intend to do just that—quit making a mess of himself and start watching Colin Firth woo everyone in the room again—but out of the corner of his eye, he spots an errant bit of cheese Lily's absent eating has left lingering at her lower lip. She doesn't even notice, too busy smiling and Colin-ogling, but James notices and he wishes he thought it was something less than utterly adorable.

That won't do.

Without thinking much of it, he reaches out and smudges the bit of cheese off with his thumb.

Except…he doesn't immediately move his finger away.

He thinks he tells it to move. Is certain of it, even. But it's quite slow in listening.

Really quite slow.

He's sort of cupping her chin, actually.

Sort of cupping her chin, sort of stroking her lower lip, and now she's sort of turning towards him in startled confusion.

Shit.

What the fuck is he doing?

"Cheese," he says quickly, and—thank you, finally—drops his hand back to his lap. It's tingling furiously. "Had a bit of—smudge of cheese. All gone now."

The wide-eyed gaze she has trained upon his face doesn't seem to be put-on this time, but entirely genuine.

Shit, shit.

"Yeah, sure," Mary snorts. "Who knew cheese could be so romantic?"

Lily, bless her heart, ignores her mate, and rubs the spot on her lower lip where his thumb has just been lingering.

"Is it gone?" she asks.

"Yup. Yes. Absolutely. Definitely gone," James answers hurriedly, though if she notices that his gaze is now completely fixated on the screen and not her face, hence making his hasty assurances presumptions at best, she thankfully does not mention it.

"Maybe you should check again," comes the half-drowsy input from the armchair.

Because of course—of course—Sirius would choose that exact moment to rouse from his stupor.

James makes a note to strangle him later. "It's fine. She's fine. Go back to sleep, arsehole."

"When things just seem to be getting interesting around here?" Sirius yawns loudly, but shifts around in his armchair, more alert. "Not likely."

"Don't be so dramatic, Sirius, it was just a bit of cheese," says Lily absently, and turns away from James completely to look at Mary, evidently to communicate something that he can't be sure of, because he can't see her face, only that of Mary, who sends her friend a lazy shrug and mouths, 'told you so.'

Told her what? That her neighbour is a madman set on touching her? That's he's a fiend for cheese? James doesn't know, but he's certain it can't be anything good for him.

"I love this part," he says again—even more loudly than the first time, though no one shushes him on this go. The fact that he is not even sure what's happening in the film seems irrelevant, if a bit irresponsible.

On the screen, Colin Firth emerges from behind a door, clad in nothing but a towel.

Everyone else present looks at James strangely.

Right. He ought have expected something like that, honestly.

"What?" he asks with overcompensating hauteur. "You're all allowed to want to snog and shag him, but I can't even appreciate how he dons a towel? Grossly unfair."

Mary snorts with undisguised derision, as it seems she has a tendency to do, but Lily appears to be far more tickled by his idiocy, and starts to stifle a giggle behind her hand.

"'Course you can," she says, her voice sounding a little strained, and gives his thigh a reassuring pat.

A rather prolonged pat.

It's more as if she's...resting it there, for a moment, then she shifts in her seat, takes it away, resumes her petting of the cat.

He hasn't fooled anyone, and he'd like to promptly curl up in a hole and die.

Except she's touched his thigh, and he's too busy thinking about that to muster up the will to keel over and croak.

He's made this all unbearably awkward—again—and though she's amused, Sirius likely won't shut up about this for days—weeks—and she's going to be a victim of that, too.

He leans in close to her, absolutely not trying to get a comforting lungful of the coconut again.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. Properly whispers. "Was just trying to de-cheese you."

"I kno—oops," she says, then gives a tinkling little laugh, having turned her head at the sound of his voice and almost bumped his nose with hers. Arms, thighs, noses…fucking hell. "I know, don't worry. I'd rather not have cheese on my face that I didn't know about."

He probably shouldn't keep his face so close. He'll move it in a moment. Just a few more moments. "That's what I was thinking, too."

"Great minds," she agrees, then pulls her head back a little, regarding him with a more critical eye. "In fact, while we're on the subject..."

She reaches up and threads her fingers through a strand of his hair, root to tip, her nails grazing his scalp for just the briefest of moments.

"There," she says happily, and shows him a piece of white fluff between her fingers before she flicks it away. "That's been driving me mad for at least an hour."

Arms, thighs, noses, hair. James struggles rather frantically to keep focus, clinging to the moment of her hands on him, in his mop of unruly strands, grappling to grasp her words and not her action. "I've had something in my hair for an hour, and you haven't said?" he manages hoarsely. "And here I was thinking you were admiring it."

"I was," she says simply. "That's how I noticed it in the first place. Why were you staring at my mouth? I think that's the bigger question."

James knows one of the most paramount building blocks in any growing relationship is honesty, but he absolutely positively is not going to be honest with her right now.

"I wasn't staring," he flagrantly lies. "I was...observing your pizza eating. You're a slice roller. And you eat the crust. These are important things to note about a neighbour. The cheese was merely a byproduct of that."

"You know, considering the fact that you've pounded three margaritas, you're quite good at pulling deceptively articulate, yet utterly cockamamy excuses out of your arse," she remarks, and turns back to the film with a triumphant smile on her face. "But I'll take it as a compliment."

"You are very vain and presumptuous," James declares, curling back into his aforementioned margarita—for courage and for comfort. If Mary does indeed want him on the ground, James has given up trying to fight it. "You should certainly work on that."

She throws him the very briefest of hurt glances. "Ouch."

It's only a single word, one cringed syllable, but that's really all it takes. James leans back in instantly, tossing his pride aside. "That's the cockamamy you choose to take to heart? Really? Out of all of them?"

She shrugs, her expression entirely unchanged. "If that's how you feel."

"I feel like a prize idiot," James confirms, as if that isn't abundantly clear. "And you're enjoying it."

"You should," she agrees, and turns—not just her head, but her entire body—to face him, propping her elbow against the back of the sofa and resting her cheek against her hand, her legs curling up behind her. "And I am, but it bodes well for our eventual friendship that we can feel comfortable being honest, right?" She smiles brightly at him. "Oh, we are going to be friends, by the way. I decided several days ago."

Friends. Something vivid and dazzling sparks inside James's chest, and he's sadly rather certain he can't blame the alcohol. "A few days ago?" When he'd still been not-so-secretly stalking her? "Are you certain it wasn't just when you discovered this morning that you can easily use me for my car?"

"Something you should know about me, if we are going to be friends," she begins, eyeing him somewhat seriously now, "is that I don't use people for their stuff, even if their stuff does have heated seats. I'd rather live in a rundown shack with a toilet in the kitchen and people I actually cared about than live in a penthouse with people I don't—that's kind of a mantra of mine—and I think it's important to befriend the people I click with, because it doesn't happen very often."

"And you think that's what's happened here?" James asks.

"Yes," she says. "Don't you?"

Click. There, put so simply, is the heart of the thing, James realises. Beyond the fact that he shivers when she looks at him, and melts when she touches him, it's...the click. The click that does not, as she says, happen very often. The click that he's a little daunted by, honestly, because he's not certain what to do with it, or how deep a gash this click has made inside him, and while part of him wants to jump right in to find out, the other part—equally as strong—wants to cuddle and protect it for all its worth, determined not to disturb it lest it slip from his grasp entirely. It's a precious thing, these rare clicks, and James does not want to fuck this one up because he may or may not want to snog Lily Evans until neither one of them can breathe.

He'd just as soon talk with her, like this, for all those hours, and that's...new and rare and different, too.

He may only have known her five minutes, but it seems five minutes is all they've needed.

They click.

Really, truly click.

He can't say any of this to her, of course. Half of it makes him sound like a lunatic, and the other half...well, probably makes him sound like a lunatic, too. But she's been honest, and he wants to be honest, as well. For the click's sake.

"Yes," he tells her, and smiles—maybe a bit sloshy, maybe a bit soppy, but earnestly all the same. "I like your mantra. I like our click. This click. Yes."

"That's that settled, then," she says, mirroring his smile—with far less slosh and sop, and a much greater dollop of sweetness. "Now, could you do me a real kindness, please?"

"Any kindness at all," James replies immediately.

"I still don't know your surname," she admits, with a self-deprecating wince. "And it's driving me nuts."

James bursts out laughing, not caring that Mary throws them a look, or that Sirius appears like he's ready to start spitting ideas about his best man toast again. James ignores them both, because he is tickled. Fucking hell, here he's been, trying to decide whether or not he may be feeling something he's never felt before in his life for his gorgeous, cool, mysteriously lovely neighbour...and the woman does not even know his surname.

Hard to make a marriage that way, isn't it?

Someone ought to let Sirius know.

"Potter," he says, but he's still grinning—it's all so preciously funny, he can't not grin. "It's Potter. James Potter."

"James Potter," she repeats, as if she's turning it over in her mind. "I like that—James Potter—it's cosy. Like a really well-made cup of tea."

"It's not cosy," he objects, thinking…well, an afghan is cosy. He is not an afghan. She cannot think him an afghan. "It's...dashing. Strong and important. Like...some kind of very dashing beverage. Whiskey," he declares, falling into this now. "Or...the very expensive vodka that you don't taste in anything and gets you drunk very, very fast. Powerful, see?"

"I hate whiskey," she emphatically declares, "and vodka makes me sick, but I love tea, so you can take that and be happy, or I won't know what to do with you at all."

She loves tea, James thinks, and then immediately says, "Alright. Fine. I'm tea."

"Tea and biscuits," she clarifies. "The nice ones, though, with lots of chocolate on. Maybe a Fox's classic. They're fancy, and I can never afford them."

"I am very easy to afford."

"Oh, I know your cost. One banana bread loaf and a glimpse of my bra, and here we are."

"Your banana bread. Your bra." James jabs a pointed finger. "You have no one to blame but yourself for all this."

"I mean, shame on you for having a cost, really. I gave you my friendship and my banana bread, and my bra that one time, for free, out of the goodness of my heart."

"I'm not sure how I'd go about providing a refund on any of that," James laments. "Can't I just make it up to you in more car rides?"

The hand that isn't being used to prop up her head against the back of the sofa reaches over and adjusts the cuff of his shirt, which has folded over on itself.

"It's very sweet of you to offer," she says, her fingers still fiddling with the fabric, her eyes trained on his wrist, "but you really don't have to. That's far too much of an imposition."

"It's not an imposition. I've told you." James tries not to stare openly at her fingers, so close to his skin. Arm, thigh, nose, hair, wrist. "We're friends now. And you're much better at car playlists than I am, as we've discovered. You're doing me the favour. It's for the good of the music."

"Yet more cockamamy," she concludes, before she collapses against the sofa, both arms coming to rest in her lap, slouching to the side and almost, just about, leaning into him—they'd almost be touching top-to-toe if Algernon were not sequestered between their respective thighs. "But it's fine. I can't argue against it that much when I'm genuinely terrified of being squished on that bike."

"I think that's very wise," James agrees, and he's not going to move closer. Not even a centimeter. Not even…not even the hairsbreadth away it would take to be touching her. "I can't afford to be having my friends squished—well, Sirius I probably wouldn't mind. But I'd need him back eventually. He pays half the rent."

"What's this you're on about over there?" Sirius calls, and it's a bit like frigid water being thrust over James's head, no longer just he and Lily in their snug little conversation, the island infiltrated, invaded by bothersome pirates.

"He proposed," says Lily dryly, her attention back on the telly now, and she slumps almost completely against James's shoulder. "I said yes. We're all very happy. Now be quiet, I'm trying to watch the film."

Lily's eyes remain fixated on the screen, clearly done with whatever had transpired here, though that's the way with friendships. Fun little conversations, jokes and quips, and then back to the movie. James is not wholly satisfied that he has to remind himself it's just a friendship. That he can't tell Sirius to bugger off, politely ask Mary to head into her room, and continue with Lily—alone—here in this flat, on this couch, an island again.

It's the margaritas, surely, that are making him forget all this.

This afternoon, he was very set.

He's still very set.

Because Lily is now his friend, and they click, and that's important.

James settles back into the couch too, not missing the way Sirius's brow cocks up at him, the action as clear as if he were saying, "She's kidding—but you'd have done it, wouldn't you have, you soppy sod?"

James resents the eyebrow and all it claims.

He is not a soppy sod, and he will prove it.

For the remainder of the film, James does not look at Lily once. The fact that she is very nearly leaning on him still is...irrelevant. He watches Colin Firth make everyone fall in love with him, and James is okay with that. Fine, just fine. Mary mentions at least twice more how she'd like to lick Firth up and down, and Lily does not object, and James is fine just fine with that, too. He vaguely wants another margarita, but that's likely a poor choice. And he's not sure he should move. Because Lily is comfortable, and she's rather close to him, and it's not being a good mate or a good neighbour to disturb that.

But when the film ends, he is nearly the first one on his feet, looking for the door, because he's not certain how much longer he can be in here without doing something very, very foolish.

"It's getting late," is what he says, and ignores the way Algernon makes a distinct sound of displeasure at being disturbed. The cat huddles back against Lily in preference and protest. "Lily has an early morning tomorrow and all."

"Oh. Yes, I do," says Lily, as if it has only just occurred to her. She climbs to her feet and yawns, shielding her mouth with the back of her hand. "Pyjama time for me, I think."

James does not need to be reminded of Lily and her pyjamas. Specifically, Lily and her pyjamas and the bands of tempting undergarments that peek out from beneath the highly ineffectual nightwear.

Sirius clearly recognises this immediately, and takes gleeful advantage.

"All this pyjama talk is putting ideas in his head," he tells Lily, pointing at James. "Your unsubtle plays are not lost on me."

"You're a pitchy shower-singer," she instantly fires back. "Like nails on a chalkboard. Stop, for all our sakes."

"I second that," says Mary, who drags herself from her armchair with a bleary-eyed reluctance. "The shitty singing, and what you said about pyjamas. I'm shattered and I need my own." She waves first at James, then at Sirius. "I'm off to bed, nice to meet you both."

They give their polite goodnights—well, James is polite about it. Sirius is still very offended about the slights against his singing, and grumbles something to that effect—and Mary shuffles off in the direction of her bedroom, dropping a lazy pat on Lily's arse as she goes.

Not that James is looking at Lily's arse.

He is definitely, definitely not looking at her arse.

Much.

"I suppose that's my cue, as well," Sirius says, rising to his feet, giving James a smirk that tells him he's certainly seen where James's gaze has gone. "You say your goodbyes. Or don't. I won't wait up."

Sirius begins to whistle as he ambles towards the door—it's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," and James cringes, hoping Lily doesn't notice. He'd apologise for the whole thing, but he's near out of breath with apologising for Sirius all the time, and he knows Lily is in on the game now.

"Your mate is unnaturally preoccupied with the idea of us having sex," says Lily, staring at Sirius's retreating back as he whirls out the door, still whistling—we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed—and lets it fall shut behind him. "Why is he so desperate to get you laid? Are you dying, or something?"

"Of embarrassment? Very nearly, yeah," James says, wanting to blush, or sigh, or kiss her—shit, no, not kiss her. He can't kiss her. "If it helps any, relentless ribbing is his way of showing affection. He likes you."

"Oh, I like him too, I suppose," she admits, and hugs her arms to her chest. She seems quite sleepy now—a soft, smiling kind of sleepy. "I'm really glad you both came over."

"But mostly glad about Algernon, yeah?" James cocks his head down to the ground, where his cat is—really, what is with him about her?—brushing against Lily's legs again. "I've resigned myself to second now. It's fine."

"Definitely Algernon," she says loudly, but shakes her head and mouths the words, 'totally you,' with a sly little wink thrown in, just in case she hadn't floored him enough already for one night. "But you're alright, I suppose."

He needs to mop himself up off the ground and get out of this flat, he decides urgently—more urgent than before. Though it's all been a bit urgent, he supposes, since near the moment he met her.

"Do you need help cleaning any of this?" he asks, waving a hand toward the pizza box, to the glasses of half-filled margs resting in the sink. It's the polite and neighbourly thing to do, and he needs to be strictly polite and neighbourly right now.

"Absolutely not, you're a guest—"

"Yes, but you've been kind enough to host, so—"

"Not a chance, Potter," she says, shooing him away. "Come on, off you go, before you start getting ideas about cleaning my flat."

"Not the whole flat," he argues lightly. "Just the part I've had a hand in dirtying."

She pushes him, gently, to budge him from the spot he's rooted to, and he takes an ungainly step backwards, so she moves with him, and pushes him again. "You've been scrupulously clean, a dream guest, honestly. No helping out."

"Are you really certain?" He lets her prod him closer to the door, and doesn't know why he's resisting. He needs to get out of here. "Because I've got to make up for Sirius, and that's a lot of ground to cover, so I need to be extra polite—"

"How about the next time we do this, you host?" she suggests, basically steering him towards the door at this point, as if he's a piece of furniture that must be manually maneuvered across the room. "I'll be perfectly happy with that."

Next time. Of course there will be a next time. Because friends hang out at each other's flats, and Lily is his friend now. He repeats this over and over as the door looms closer. Friends, friends, friends.

"Thank you," he says, and they stop before the door, finally, and he's not certain what to do. "This was fun."

"You're very welcome," she offers, and drops her hands by her sides. "I've loved having you all over."

"Good. Glad." James stands there, then waves an absent hand at the carrier bag—that carrier bag filled with shoe and plate, that had started this all—which still sits innocently enough on the side table. "Enjoy your shoe. And your dance. And your modeling."

She stifles another yawn behind her hand, blinking sleepily up at him. "I will," she says thickly. "Cross my heart. G'night, James Potter."

"Night, Lily Evans," he returns, and reaches for the door handle, long, outstretched arm, at nearly the exact same time she's somehow, strangely, reaching for him.

What?

James blinks.

What was she…

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Was she going to hug him?

"Oh, okay," she says, her eyes darting towards the living room. She takes a step back from him. "Sorry, never mind, I didn't—"

"No!" James near shouts, and his arms are reaching out immediately, grabbing her up, tugging her back. They cling around her body without much prompting, and she's clearly stiff beneath his touch, and James feels awful. "I didn't mean—I'd been waiting to earn this. You can't just take it back."

There's a horribly long moment in which she doesn't speak, or move, or do anything at all, and then she lets out a soft sigh of a laugh and relaxes against him.

"I won't, you silly thing," she murmurs.

And now they're hugging.

Really, properly hugging.

James does feel like a silly thing, for a multitude of reasons. Her slackened body has curled into his with all its lush curves and comforting heat, and he thinks he's never liked embracing anyone so much. Of their own free will, his arms seem to band harder around her, but she doesn't seem to mind—of course she doesn't, because she's the one who'd gone to hug him in the first place, and his mind plays that fact in his head over and over. She smells good. James is never going to be able to eat coconut again. Or maybe it's all he's going to eat. Undecided. She feels...James can't think of the word. Or he can, but all of them sound a bit crazy. Like right. And good. And perfect.

This is not perfect.

This is terribly, terribly far from perfect.

Because James is not meant to be hugging her like this. He's meant to be hugging her like a neighbour, like a friend, and neighbours and friends don't grip their other neighbours and friends like this and think thoughts like right and good and perfect.

He's rushing again. He'd promised himself he wouldn't do that. Lily is too lovely a person to rush into anything—and the click. He's meant to be taking precious care of the blossoming click. He's not going to do that if all he wants to do his hold her in his arms and stay that way for a hundred or so years.

He's the one stiffening now. He knows she feels it. Everything that was so cosy gets a bit strange, and James has held on too long and is now regretting it, is trying to backtrack, and is not doing it well. His arms go up, easing off her in this strange little circle that makes it look like he's afraid to touch her, like she's got leprosy or something. That's not what he wants either. At the last second, he drops his hand against the top of her back. Pats. Once. Twice. Goodnight, old friend, pat pat, cheers to you.

It's all gone so bloody awkward and it's entirely his fault.

"Er." He pulls away completely, takes a step back. Is not sure what to do with his hands now. "So. Goodnight."

Lily's brows have knit in a concerned furrow—she's looking at him as if he might be the one who is ill—but she does not comment on his abrupt change of behaviour, or in the change of atmosphere, for that matter. "Yeah, goodnight, then."

"Come on, Algernon," James says, bending down to try to catch his cat, who is huddled by Lily's legs and giving him a judgemental look that could not scream why have you gone and done this to us, you useless sack of worms any more clearly.

James does not have time to argue with his cat about his choices. He's well aware of Algernon's thoughts about which bed he'd been hoping to sleep in tonight, and it is not James's. Neither of them is getting what they want, apparently.

"Goodnight," he says again, and now he really just needs to get out of this flat before he bungles it more. "Thanks again."

She doesn't answer, but then, James doesn't much expect her to. There's really not much to say.

So he clutches his cat, prays for his dignity, and exits out the door.