(The Completely Unwilling Participants on) The Bachelor

by Rude Gus

The title says it all.

7. Episode 6

Chapter 6

"I'm in love!"

"No."

"Love, love, love!"

"I'm really not equipped for this right now."

"But, Lily," Beatrice whined, elongating her name unnecessarily, "I need to share my emotions!"

Though Lily fancied herself a supportive friend, she silently reasoned that three a.m. was not an excusable time to be woken for a confidential chat about Beatrice's third consecutive night of covert sex with Remus Lupin—a puppy in the streets and a wolf between the sheets, according to Bea—even if her insane mate was so smitten that she wanted to shout about it from the rooftops.

Lily hadn't even been asleep for very long, though the cocktail party had been cut short to facilitate the most pointless rose ceremony yet after she'd spoken to James. They'd given Rita so much "juicy" footage that the woman seemed to ascend to a semi-orgasmic state.

Rita had actually smiled at Lily afterwards, regaling her with such compliments as, "Finally, you did something useful," and "I'm glad I let him keep you after that fishing nonsense."

Keep her. As if Lily was a stray kitten and James a child who found her on the front step and threw tantrums until his parents let him strap a collar around her neck.

The fact that Rita's happiness had come at the expense of Lily's poise was...perhaps the worst aspect of her entire situation.

Lily hadn't planned on telling James how she felt about him.

She could have lived a long and happy life without him ever knowing.

The idea had been to explain that she knew about his deal with Beatrice, release him from it, and return to the party with her dignity intact. Nice and simple, she'd thought, until he'd leapt to his feet and launched into an impassioned speech about her many charms and what he felt she deserved from him, and the hypocrisy of it all had been too staggering to bear.

She'd wanted James to recognize how she felt so that he'd stop throwing her for a loop every time they saw each other, but in attempting to explain herself, she'd dropped herself on the scrapheap for public scorn and sympathy, so swept up in the headiness of her own thoughts that she couldn't see the wood through the trees. She should have thanked him politely and left the table. She should have gathered her thoughts before she tried to explain why it wasn't cool for him to say things like "funny" and "genuine" and "obviously super gorgeous."

She didn't.

At least she had inadvertently spared Bonnie the ordeal of a forced conversation with James. Bonnie really hadn't been up to it, clinging instead to Isabella and downing fast rounds of champagne after Helena turned up and took great pleasure in naming her a murderous villain.

Lily's timing appeared to be perfect. Bonnie and James were traveling to Reading in the morning to visit her family, so Rita was sure to compensate for the lack of footage during their trip.

"I am tired," Lily informed Beatrice. "Report back in the morning."

"I can't, I'm too excited. Did I tell you he wants to take me to the Edinburgh Festival?"

Lily grabbed her pillow and stuffed it over her head.

"Suffocating yourself is not the answer," said Bea sternly. There was a short silence, followed by the creak of a floorboard, and suddenly Lily was being pressed face-down into her mattress. Beatrice had flung herself soundly onto her back. "Come on, stay with me. We can build this thing together."

"Bugger off."

"Standing strong forever," Bea continued, her voice ringing in the night silence. "He did things to me, Lily. Magical, core-shattering things."

"If you're about to give me a demonstration," Lily murmured, trying to shift Bea's chest off her spine, "I'd very much like to opt out."

Beatrice laughed and rolled off her to the side, wedging herself between Lily and the wall on her narrow single bed. She slipped an arm around Lily's back and squeezed softly.

"Don't be sad, my little red hen, it'll all work out in the end," she cooed.

Lily removed the pillow from atop her head and tucked it beneath her chin, where it had previously been resting when Beatrice crept into the room and woke her up. "I'm not sad."

"James doesn't deserve your beautiful, darling self if he's going to be such a fucking wimp, and I fully intend to tell him as much in front of my entire family."

"Please don't bring your entire family into this."

"You don't think he knows how to sign, do you? Only my sister and I have a thing where we bitch about people right under their noses—"

"How about you just act cordial, and try to enjoy the day?" Lily suggested. "I don't need anyone to champion me, and besides, if you and Remus wind up together—"

"We are together."

"—you'll likely be seeing James a lot."

"See, here's the thing. Remus and I were talking about you two in bed just now—"

"Whatever gets you off, I suppose."

"He thinks I'm being too hard on James, says he's afraid to admit that he likes you on camera because he's trying to protect Isabella's delicate feelings, and that—"

"Amazingly, Bea, I don't need Remus to tell me that," Lily interrupted. She flipped onto her back, a process that was slowed and complicated by Beatrice's presence in her bed. "I know that. You should've seen his face when I told him I liked him. He can't hide anything—he looked as if I'd just presented him with his very own pirate ship."

"You think he'd like a pirate ship?"

"I think he'd sell one of his organs for his own pirate ship, but it doesn't matter. He's set on Isabella and I've said what I had to say to make him stop acting like a prat, so we'll get through this stupid visit with my mum, come back here, and he'll send me home at the next ceremony."

"He won't send you home."

"He will," said Lily, then added, "Probably. Yes, after last night. He must know I want him to."

"And you're happy with that?"

Lily didn't think it needed to be said that she wasn't happy with that.

She had feelings for James, and they couldn't have been more inconvenient, or poorly timed. She wanted to kiss him and hold his hand, and go on normal dates without the albatross of a television camera hanging around their necks, but she'd never get the chance to do any of those things because of bloody Isabella Marks, who was such a sweet person that Lily couldn't even dislike her for it.

It was beyond frustrating that James would be so taciturn, like a tub of ice cream she'd dug out of the freezer, too stiff and frozen to penetrate with the tip of her spoon. Lily knew that they had something, even if she wasn't quite sure what it was. She knew her feelings weren't wholly unreciprocated. James might have been unwilling to be honest, but nobody could ever have accused him of subtlety.

That stupid idiot, deciding upon Isabella from the very first moment because he couldn't give himself a minute to consider the implications of his own rashness. A cat would have had better impulse control.

His cat did have better impulse control.

"You know what I'm not happy with?" she ventured. "All of this talk about men. I'm sick of men. They're not worth our trouble or our time—"

"Except Remus."

"I suppose Remus passes," Lily admitted, "but I came here to write an article and it got buried under this pointless romantic nonsense. I should be thinking about that instead of talking about James Potter."

Beatrice shifted on the bed next to her, pressed her cheek to her shoulder. "Don't you already have a lot of that written?"

"No, it's still in the planning stage."

"You wrote a draft of it on your phone."

"A rough draft, and it's not like you can plan too much for something."

The problem was, save for a major scandal involving Rita that she could use to turn her article into her magnum opus, Lily felt as if she'd gotten more than enough information to be getting on with. It was clear to her that no further investigation was warranted, so she was stuck at a dead end until she could get out—a fact she had explained to Rufus, once on the phone and several times by text.

All logic dictated that now was the time to up and quit the show, but Rufus wouldn't hear of it. He wanted her to go all the way. He wanted the winner of the show to be the same person who exposed it.

Bloody Rufus Scrimgeour, refusing to let her leave.

Bloody James Potter, making her want a reason to stay.

Curse this bloody show and everyone involved in it for making every step of this process ten times more painful than it had to be, and for inevitably dragging her mother into the fray, days from now. That was going to be an awkward mess, and Lily could only thank her lucky stars that she was able to text her mother in the meantime to prep her for the occasion.

Her mum would still be in raptures over James, though. She'd still find some way to stick a matchmaking oar in.

Lily's family visit was scheduled for last, which seemed like a strategic ploy on Rita's part. She was probably hoping that James would pine for her during the separation, prompting an unexpected confession of love as they sat by the grimy old river and shared a tub of mushy peas outside the one decent fish and chip shop Cokeworth had to offer.

Someone ought to have told Rita that her eyes were bigger than her stomach.

Besides, Lily reflected, as Beatrice pressed a comforting kiss to the side of her head, they were definitely getting Chinese food when they went to visit her mum.

---

Algernon was not remotely shocked to learn that Lily really fancied James.

"You could have told me," James told him with a scowl. "I had a right to know."

Algernon's recent amiability tapered after that, and he didn't even cuddle up with James at night, instead commandeering a pillow for himself.

His mum fussed over him something awful in the morning, straightening the collar on his shirt and ruffling up his hair even further. "The storylines are coming along so wonderfully," she said before they got into the car.

"You're as supportive as a pair of flip flops," James told her, the scowl from the night before still lingering.

"You got yourself into this situation," she pointed out.

"You wouldn't tell that boy who fell down a well to get himself out, would you?"

"Which boy is that?"

"The one Lassie helped." James batted her hands away from his hair. "Do I need to relay the request through Algernon?"

"Euphemia," Rita said as she swept up to them, placing an arm on Euphemia's arm, "please don't ruin the emotional tension of my show."

"I completely understand your point," Euphemia said, looking at James, "but also, if my son truly does need some solid interpersonal time with me, he will receive it immediately."

And there was the rub. He could have that interpersonal time, if he wanted. He really could get emotional support from a loved one. He could probably have even demanded some solo time with Remus, which would be much more tolerable than discussing it with his mum.

But it wasn't like what they would have to say was a mystery. "Just choose a girl, James, and be done with it."

Knowing what he had to do, though, didn't make it any easier. It wasn't the same as knowing how.

Maybe his friends and family would have some ideas there. But at the end of the day, they would tell James it was his decision.

Well, his mates would.

Well, Remus would. Euphemia would tell him which one she preferred and insist he pick her. Sirius would choose whichever one he found less annoying and tell James to go with her. Only Remus would put it back on James because he was the one who treated James most like an adult.

Because James was an adult. He was twenty-eight, for fuck's sake. If he couldn't make a decision about a girlfriend, then what sort of man was he?

And besides, if James did choose Isabella, he did not want his mum and mates to know exactly how much he fancied Lily. That would make everything extremely awkward for Isabella after the show.

At least he had a reprieve today—visiting Bonnie's home would be relatively stress-free. There was no pressure to impress her family since there was nothing but platonic chemistry between him and Bonnie. He'd been willing to proxy-purchase croissants for Lily, but falling for a French teacher was so beyond the pale, it was translucent.

French (and physics) teacher Bonnie Grogan lived in the city of Reading, not far from the castle or from London. With the full crew behind and ahead of them, she led James through the ruins of some abbey. She knew all about it, teacher that she was, but James had no mind for these sorts of details, and they didn't linger in his mind for even a second. What mattered was she was passionate about local history, the local rock festival, and her dog that she'd brought with them, Baxter.

Baxter barely noticed James. This was fine since Algernon barely noticed Bonnie, and he also did not care if Bonnie's dog liked him.

It did burn that Baxter kept bounding up to Rita, tail wagging, but it also proved that dogs were morons who didn't know shit.

Bonnie's Irish parents welcomed James into their home with an abundance of tea and biscuits that they insisted he eat even after several polite refusals. Her older brother went on about how Bonnie had always been an adventurer, traveling alone and with her Irish dance group to remote places, and how she'd been a true friend when he needed her.

When her mum asked how Bonnie was liking being on the show, James sat awkwardly on an ottoman while Bonnie tearfully confessed to shooting Helena in the eye. He froze when her brother came over and gave her a very long hug, and didn't move an inch until Bonnie dried the last of her tears up and said otherwise the show had given her the chance to meet some very interesting people.

Her parents naturally looked to James at this statement, but then Bonnie went on to talk about Wendy and Lily and Isabella. James tried to not look put out.

He did, however, nod along fervently when Bonnie went on about how beautiful Isabella was, and how sweet, and how athletic. She even told them, voice wavering, about how Isabella had been such a dear after the trauma at paintball.

The visit ended up being a chance for Bonnie to catch up with her family, since any time her parents gave veiled inquiries about his intentions, Bonnie cut them off and told them about the ridiculous romance photoshoot or James's picky cat. He couldn't do more than send her a grateful look, but she did sneak a wink back at him when the camera was pointed elsewhere.

"Utterly dull," Rita proclaimed when she later joined James in the car. "Listening to radio static is more exciting."

Their car started driving away from Bonnie's house toward the hotel, while another shuttled Bonnie back to the castle.

"I dunno," James replied cheerfully, "I quite like some static now and then."

"She's a nice girl," Euphemia announced from behind him. "Not the one for James, of course, but then again so few are." She reached forward and ruffled his hair. "You know you don't need static, dear."

"Euphemia," Rita warned.

"Oh, please. It's not like I'm not ruining any tension. We both know Bonnie's out this week since she and James have as much chemistry as two glasses of water. "

"Actually," said the driver, "water has terrifically interesting chemical properties—"

Rita broke in, "I don't pay you to speak, Gary. Shut up."

"Oi," said James, twisting around to face both women. "I never agreed to get rid of Bonnie."

"Please," Rita said, looking out the window.

Euphemia raised her gray eyebrows. "James, you've so many more reasonable things to argue about. Don't die on this hill."

James spun back around and threw his back against the seat. "Not dying on any hill," he muttered. "Only idiots die on hills."

His mother laughed, but James didn't. He could always renege on his deal and send Beatrice home.

After all, she deserved it.

---

When Rita, James, and Euphemia left the castle that morning—not to return for four whole days—a sense of indelible calm settled upon the inhabitants they left behind.

For Lily, their departure could not have come sooner.

Luckily, they left Algernon behind. He was the best one, anyway.

The last thing she felt prepared to do was see James Potter, hear his voice, talk or even think about him again until she absolutely had to. She had three days to get over her stupid crush until she was once again forced to spend time in his company, and she didn't doubt her ability to do it. Lily had graduated from Cardiff with first-class honors despite losing her father in her second year. Getting over a mere man was cake in comparison.

Especially if he stuck to his word and stopped gawking at her like an adorably dumbstruck fool whenever she said something clever.

The alternative was to stop saying clever things, and that was out of the question.

Yes, it had all seemed rather bleak in the dead of night, but fate threw Lily a bone in the form of a glorious lie-in, for nobody came to knock on the bedroom door and rouse the girls that morning. It seemed that the production crew might have been collectively holding their breath while they waited for Rita to leave, desperate to blow off some steam of their own.

Whether or not that was the case, Lily didn't get out of bed until after eleven, and found that the medicinal properties of a nice, long sleep were seemingly endless.

As they traipsed downstairs to breakfast, Bea asked her what she thought James and Bonnie would be getting up to in Reading.

"I'm initiating a blanket ban on that person's name starting now," Lily said cheerfully, "so I'd like you to zip it, please and thanks. Think you can handle that?"

"That depends," said Beatrice, smirking. "Can you say that without a chunk of croissant in your mouth, hypocrite?"

Lily took another bite and ignored her.

It would have been great to spend the day doing something productive instead of lazing around at the pool. Tragically, though, the girls were still being denied access to basic items like books and pens, Britain remained plagued by the longest and most oppressive heat wave Lily had ever witnessed, and though the telly in the girls' lounge had finally been switched on in Rita's absence, the only available media was a loop-through of the most recent season of The Bachelor from America.

That felt like a rather cruel jape.

The pool was their only viable option, which seemed to bother no one. The crew hadn't even bothered to fit the girls with microphones, relying solely on boom mics to catch any potential gossip, of which there would be none.

Or so Lily thought, until Isabella approached her shortly after lunch.

Lily was immersed up to her chest in the water, her crossed arms resting on the pool's edge, letting the sun warm her shoulders with her eyes closed and her mind on her mum's amazing fruit scones—which she had been promised in a text—when she felt a movement in the water beside her.

She opened her eyes and saw Isabella, who had sat down and placed her feet in the pool.

"Hi," said Isabella softly.

"Hi," Lily replied. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, I think." She paused, looking uncomfortable. "Can I talk to you about something?"

From a sun lounger, Beatrice lifted her sunglasses from her eyes and regarded them both curiously. It wasn't hard to guess what Isabella wanted to talk about.

Maybe, Lily reflected, she could slip beneath the water and drown herself to distract Isabella.

She decided against that as soon as it occurred to her. That was such a James thing to do, and she wouldn't stoop to that level.

The better option, surely, would be to slip beneath the water and pretend to drown. Fake her death, because she wasn't dramatic like him.

Instead, she said, "Sure."

Lily hauled herself out of the pool and sat next to her, very aware that Beatrice was definitely going to eavesdrop, and was at that minute edging further along her sun lounger so as to get as close as possible.

"I'm not sure how to begin," Isabella said. "It's a little awkward."

"I was prepared for awkward." Lily nudged her with her arm. "Shoot."

"It's just...I've been a little confused lately," she said, frowning down at the water that swirled around her slim, brown legs, "about…everything that's been happening, and I just think that if I knew—I know you've said there's nothing going on, but—but I can't help but feel like I'm not being told something."

That, Lily supposed, was fair. "Right."

"James said some odd things last night," Isabella continued, "about how he had to compliment you, and—"

"Beatrice bullied him into that," said Lily quickly.

"Yeah, I did," said Bea loudly, and both girls turned to look over their shoulders at her, "and I'm not apologizing for it." She nodded at Lily, her eyes on Isabella's face. "All I wanted was for Lily to get the appreciation she deserves. She's done a lot for him, you know."

"You have?" said Isabella, her brow furrowed.

Lily shrugged. "Bits and pieces." Like starting fights with him during fishing expeditions. Pretending to drown herself suddenly didn't seem like such a drastic idea. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that Bea shouldn't have interfered, and she'll apologize to him whether she wants to or not."

"I will not," Bea said. "You can't tell me what to do."

Lily raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well, okay, maybe you can," Beatrice allowed, "but it's not as if I put him through some great ordeal. You let him off the hook and he said nice things anyway."

"He told me he was only doing it because he had to," said Isabella dully, examining the flagstone paving beneath her palms.

Lily didn't know what was worse about hearing that from Isabella's mouth: the sudden, swooping feeling of guilt in her stomach, or the fact that it hurt, the same way it had hurt when James told her he only spoke to her because of Rita.

And then the third, outlying factor—the fact that once again, she cared enough about him to let herself be hurt by anything he said or did at all.

"Wanker," murmured Beatrice.

"He's not a wanker," Lily heard herself saying, despite feeling rather inclined to cheer Beatrice on. She patted Isabella's hand. "I think he did want to say nice things, but only because he thinks I'm his friend, yeah? But he knew you were worried before, so he probably wanted to protect your feelings."

"He thinks you're his friend?" Isabella frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm not," said Lily simply. "Honestly, I doubt I'll see him again outside of the show. Not by choice, anyway," she added, thinking of Remus and Bea's romantic entanglement, and the inevitable, awkward encounter she would need to endure at some future social event. "Which is my fault, really, because you're right." She let out a sigh. "There is something you weren't being told, but it's not him, it's me. I'm the one who fancies him."

Isabella's eyes widened like a those of a small, helpless animal in a trap. "Oh."

"So...yeah," Lily finished. "And honestly, you've got nothing to worry about. I told him last night because…because I dunno, I'm nuts, probably, and there's nothing happening. Nothing at all."

Lily could feel Beatrice itching to speak up and say something, but her friend stayed mercifully quiet. Even she had a limit, it seemed. Sweet, trusting Isabella wasn't nearly as easy to lampoon as James, who quite frankly might have deserved a little of what he'd been getting lately.

Isabella, meanwhile, had gone completely silent, staring out across the pool.

After half a minute, however, she turned to Lily and placed a hand on her arm, looking stricken.

"I'm so sorry," she said earnestly, her brown eyes imploring. "I've gone and made this worse."

Lily blinked at her. "What?"

"I knew I'd been a little unreasonable because...because this is a competition," she said, and looked as if she might cry, "but asking you to make me feel better when all along you've had these feelings—"

"They're not—no, honestly, it's really quite a recent thing—"

"If I've made things any harder or if I've hurt you, I'm so sorry—"

"You don't have to be sorry, I'm sorry—"

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about—"

"I feel like I went behind your back last night," Lily insisted, "and I hate that. I don't compete with other girls like that."

"Neither do I," Isabella said. "You're so wonderful, really—"

"You're wonderful."

"—and I can't bear to think that you're hurting over this."

"No, I'm not—I'm fine," said Lily firmly, covering the hand that laid upon her arm with her own. "Really, truly fine. It's not like I'm Miss Havisham in her wedding dress, wilting away on a chaise lounge because I lost the great love of my life. He's just a bloke. I'll be over it in a week."

Isabella let out a weak laugh. "You're so clever, the way you think of funny things to say like that. I don't think I could."

"Well, that's…" Ironically, Lily now couldn't think of any pertinent response. "Thank you."

"I wish I could be as confident as you are," Isabella sighed, and let her hand slide from beneath Lily's, dropping it into her lap. "Nothing Helena said ever bothered you. You'd just laugh or make her look silly. I've never been able to be that way."

Lily looked at Beatrice, who shrugged.

Considering Isabella was not the rejected party, Lily was starting to get the distinct impression that she was in need of a lot more comforting than a casual viewer of the show might one day be led to believe.

"I mean, part of that is because Helena is literally quite bonkers and should never be taken seriously," Lily began, to which Isabella let out another whisper of a laugh. "But also, I think confidence is really something you have to work on, and a big part of that is not looking at other people and wishing you had what they've got, because, I mean, I personally know someone"—she wasn't about to call out her sister on national television—"who spends her whole life doing that, and it makes her so bitter, and she's missed so many great things about herself, and obviously you're nothing like her, but you still have so many positives you could focus on instead."

"Yeah," piped up Beatrice. "Like, look at how you dealt with Bonnie last night. She was really upset because her family have been through an actual trauma, and you were the only person who managed to cheer her up."

"Which you couldn't have done," Lily added, "if you'd been as excited for paintball as Bea and I were, because you saw a problem with that kind of violence that we didn't, so there was no way that we could have related to Bonnie in the way that you did."

Isabella's eyes had brightened at the mention of how she'd helped Bonnie. "Do you think?"

"Oh my God, absolutely," said Lily.

"You really helped her," added Bea.

Lily nodded. "And it's totally okay to take some pride in that, because caring about other people is a massively underrated strength, and it's a lot more impressive than surface level stuff like making smart remarks to Helena."

"I didn't really think of it like that," said Isabella thoughtfully. "The paintballing, I mean. I felt like such a stick-in-the-mud at the time, like I was slowing everyone down, and James was so excited—"

"James probably gets excited by large sheets of bubble wrap. You shouldn't care what he thinks about your paintball preferences," said Lily flatly. "I'm glad you didn't play and it's not because I was sneakily trying to get him alone, or whatever, but because the alternative was you doing something you weren't comfortable with."

"Yeah, and no bloke is worth that," said Bea.

"There's a difference between taking an interest in your boyfriend's hobbies and flat-out doing something that goes against your values."

"I really wasn't comfortable with it," said Isabella sadly. "I hate violence, and I've never understood how people could do violent things for fun. It's different in films because you know it's all fake, but in reality, people can get really hurt."

"Helena did get hurt," said Lily, "which, retroactively, I would have laughed at the idea of, but it really wasn't funny."

"And Bonnie was so distraught," added Isabella.

"She'd still be upset if it weren't for you," said Beatrice, who had stood up, and joined them by the side of the pool. She sat down on the other side of Isabella and dangled her long legs in the water. "You did something good, yeah? So chin up."

"Yes, put your chin up and keep it there," Lily seconded, nudging her. "You are immensely caring and you know your principles and you're a kickass athlete, and they're all things to feel good about."

"Plus, you've got an awesome rack."

"Beatrice!" cried Isabella, giggling, her hands flying up to cover her cheeks.

"Well, it's true," said Bea. "And you put up with James all the time without losing your mind, which is admirable, considering most of the time I want to shout obscenities at him."

"Lily understands him better than I do, though."

"I'm not entirely sure if that's a good thing," said Lily, with a laugh that rang a little hollow. "What's the point in knowing a language that nobody else can speak? Plus, weren't we making a point to avoid boy talk today?"

"Well, I was going to," Bea said, "but you and Isabella just sat here and discussed the fact that you like the same bloke without exchanging one bitchy barb about it, so I figured I needed to toss the show a bone."

"This show is a graveyard of bones it didn't deserve—it doesn't need any more," Lily pointed out. "And, look, I know it's going to be a bit of a revolving door for the next four days, but while we have the castle to ourselves, why don't we just relax and enjoy ourselves, yeah? No talking about our one-on-ones, no talking about James, no boy talk at all. We can make a rule of it."

Beatrice grinned slyly. "Rita will hate that."

"That's the basis of its appeal," said Lily. "What d'you think, Bells?"

Isabella blinked at her. "Bells?"

"Yeah, like a nickname," said Lily, tossing a quick glance at Bea over her head. "If you don't like it—"

"No, I do like it," said Isabella, smiling properly for the first time since she'd joined them, "and I think no boy talk is a great idea."

"Girls are better, anyway," said Beatrice.

"Infinitely better," Lily seconded.

"So much better," said Isabella, "and speaking of relaxing...have either of you tried yoga?"

"No," said Lily, while Beatrice shook her head. "I've always wanted to try, though."

"Well, I can—I mean, I teach yoga, at my gym," she said, and then, with a bit more confidence. "It's my best class, actually, so I can teach you both if you want to learn."

"I mean...yes, obviously," said Lily.

"And I'm already super flexible," said Bea grandly, "so anything that lends itself to that is a big yes for me."

"There you go," said Lily, and Isabella beamed. "You've got two new students on board."

---

In the morning the car shuttled James to Oxford, where they'd sent Isabella to meet him.

He wrinkled his nose as the pretentious buildings passed by. He'd been here once before when he was a boy because his dad found it a completely charming town, and because his dad had deluded himself into thinking James would want to attend such a stodgy university. James was dead clever, but he didn't hate himself.

Well, he hadn't used to. He did hate himself a bit right now for being so stupid as to fancy two girls at once. Not that he'd intended to do that, but it was such an idiotic move that he wondered whether he could use this situation as reasonable grounds for a heart transplant.

The crew brought him to a boathouse by the river, sending James's heart plummeting into his stomach.

They were really going to do this, weren't they? They were putting him on the water again. Not just that, but they wanted him to take part in that stupid Oxford "tradition" that James had always thought looked straight up moronic.

When Rita approached him with a boater hat, James shook his head fervently.

"No," he said. "Absolutely not."

"It'll look charming," she said in a teasing voice. "Don't you want to look like a proper Oxford boy for Isabella?"

"That'd require a stick up my bum, so hard pass, thanks."

"Oh, but it's adorable," his mum cooed, snatching the hat out of Rita's hands and holding it out to James. "Here, just try it on, there's a dear."

Five minutes later he stood stewing with that stupid fucking hat on, holding a wooden pole and debating how much damage he could do to the camera equipment with it before Rita tackled him into the river.

The upside to his dislike of Oxford and his hatred of hats—so insanitary!—was that it kept him from thinking about seeing Isabella again, now that Lily had confirmed that she did, in fact, fancy him.

The moment the other car pulled up, though, the whole debacle came crashing back down onto him.

"Er," he said when Isabella stepped out of the car, looking ravishing as always. "Ta da?"

Her hand flew up to her mouth, poorly muffling a small laugh. "Oh, James. Your hair is really not meant for hats, is it?"

"Not in the slightest," he announced. "Nor is my personality suited to this show or this town, but here we are!"

"Hey," she said playfully as she walked up in front of him. "I like Oxford."

"That I believe, but look at me." He stuck his hands out to the side, waving the pole. "You think I'm an Oxfordian?"

She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I think you can be whatever you want."

She was smiling broadly, staring up at him, and he remembered keenly why he'd liked her so much immediately. He never felt out of place next to her. He never felt unimportant.

"Have I mentioned that you are fantastically kind?" he said. "And gorgeous and also adept? Hopefully at punting because I'm about ninety percent sure we're ending up in the river with me at the helm. Or the back, whatever that place is called."

She took hold of his hand and squeezed it. "I have faith in you."

Until he'd met Isabella, he hadn't thought anyone could be this sweet and actually mean it.

Until he'd met Lily, of course, he'd never met anyone so willing to meet him on his level. But that was absolutely not what he needed to be thinking about now.

Someone from the boathouse provided him with a brief course on punting, but on land, not in the boat. Admittedly it sounded relatively straightforward: put pole in water, push on riverbed, glide forward. A two year old could understand the physics of it.

When he and Isabella were actually in the long, narrow boat, though, this advice fell apart. With his first push, intended to send them out onto the water toward the raft with the camera crew, he instead managed to spin them ninety degrees to the left, headed for the other shore.

"Ah, shit," he said, the first of many swear words.

Isabella kept calling out instructions to him, trying and failing to hide her fond smile. No matter what he did, though, they did not move in a smooth, straight line downriver. Thankfully the crew had blocked off a stretch from other tourists, or James would have been in approximately fifteen boating accidents in the first five minutes.

"Right," he said, ripping off his stupid hat with one hand. "I give up. Let's get a rowboat. Rowing I know how to do."

"Oh, James, you're doing fine!" she said, which was easy to say since she was sitting on one of the boat benches, not doing a thing with her gorgeous, lean arm muscles, shown off nicely by her tank top.

"I appreciate the encouragement, but this is really not going well at all." He debated throwing the hat toward her and demanding that she take over—surely she knew how to do this since she was from here—but she hadn't wanted to lead salsa dancing since it wasn't proper or whatever. "D'you mind if we just float downriver instead and then hijack the camera boat to go back?" He paused. "Or we use the boat to make a break for freedom. I'm game either way."

Her smile slipped into something more uncertain, a portion of her bottom lip folding in between her teeth, a line appearing on her brow.

"I'm just joking," he added quickly. "We're not making a run for it."

"No," she said, "it's just…" She lightly touched two fingers to her mouth, then climbed to her feet with more grace than anyone should have had in this small of a boat. She held out her hand toward the pole. "I'll punt."

He blinked. "You will?" He looked down at the pole in his hand. "I mean, brilliant! You definitely should."

After another moment's hesitation, she took a few light steps on the boat to stand in front of him. "And the hat," she said decidedly. "I'd like to wear the hat."

"I'd also like you to wear the hat," he said, placing it on her head and handing her the pole.

Unsurprisingly, she was a much steadier hand at this than James had been. And he found he rather liked lounging on a boat, lazing down a river, watching Isabella's strong arms guide him down the river.

He'd never seen her smile so brightly, or for so long.

"You look happy," he told her. "It's nice."

"I feel happy," she said. "Is that strange to say?"

"Um, no. Not remotely."

"Good." She pushed off the riverbed again, and let the pole trail behind them in the water. "This show has been a bit much sometimes."

"That's like saying the Thames is a bit polluted."

"I suppose. It's only...it's not been at all like I expected."

"No," James agreed. "It turned out way different than I thought, too."

"But in a good way, I think."

"Absolutely."

She turned pensive again, and didn't speak until she'd punted a couple more times, taking them under some too-fancy bridges. At least the trees along the river were nice, normal, lovely trees, and not overly dressed up.

"I talked to Lily and Bea yesterday," she said thoughtfully.

James's stomach twisted. "You did?"

It was easy to forget that, unlike him, the women had easy, constant access to each other. While he was a horse kept in a stable, they were all out in the corral together, plied with booze and boredom to interact as often as possible.

"Yes," she said. "I love them both dearly."

"Oh, ah. Good."

She pulled the pole out of the water and rested the end in the boat next to her feet. "Lily told me she fancies you."

The lone thought that went through James's mind was: Shiiiiiit.

"It's all right, though," Isabella added. "I can't exactly fault her for it."

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "I should've told you first thing. She only told me the other night, I swear."

Isabella gave him such a soft look. "James, it's fine, I promise." She picked up the pole and thrust it back into the water. "I admire her, actually. She knows what she wants, doesn't she? And she's...she's not afraid to say it. Or act on it."

"You don't even know the half of it." James cleared his throat. "I mean, you should've seen her at paintball when we were going after Beatrice."

"I remember at the photoshoot, when I came back into the room—you and Lily were up, and she told you you looked stupid—oh, don't hate me, James, but you did look really silly—and I thought, I would never, ever say that."

"Well, of course not," James said with a frown. "You're very different people."

"I know," she said, sounding a bit forlorn. "We really are."

From there she suddenly changed topics, going on about the history of the town, and how Cambridge did punting all wrong.

He didn't much care about that, but he found he did care for this new well of confidence in Isabella, wherever it had come from. A niggling thought told him this was what Lily Evans could do for people, but he told it to shut up until two days' time when he'd have to face her again.

For now, he owed Isabella the same attention she gave him.

Eventually they turned around and returned to the boat house, and from there to their separate cars because God forbid they ever have five minutes of unfilmed time together.

They reconvened outside a brick rowhouse, the cameras and crew all prepared to film them walking up to the door and meeting Isabella's family.

He took hold of her hand. "Ready?"

After a noticeable pause, she said, "Yes," and led him to the door.

From there it was a frantic series of introductions: her parents Geeta and Dinesh both hugged him, while her brothers Christopher and Benjamin did the handshake-half-backslapping-hug thing with him. The men all looked terribly similar: tall, thin, and sleekly dressed in button-ups and trousers. Her mum's brightly colored pudavai fit her short form perfectly.

She pinched his cheeks. "So handsome," she said. "Come in, come in. I made kozhukatta."

James inhaled sharply. Sweet, delicious, coconut dumplings were nothing to joke about. "I'm not going to lie," he told her, "one time I actually tried to trade my cousin's cat for some. And I still stand by that exchange. It was fair."

She laughed and pushed him toward the kitchen.

They settled around the kitchen table, the dumplings and coffee already laid out and waiting. Isabella sat quietly next to him while her family kept lobbing questions and comments at him.

At some point James realized she hadn't said a word since they'd come into the kitchen.

"So you're the youngest?" he asked her.

She didn't get a chance to reply, though, before her brother chimed in.

"Classic youngest, too," said Christopher. "Our parents always let Isabella do more than they let us at her age."

Benjamin—at least, James thought it was Benjamin—nodded. "One time I tried to watch a James Bond movie and Appa hid the remote for a week. Isabella, of course, was allowed to watch as many of them as she wanted."

"It kept her inside!" said Geeta. "Otherwise she was always running around the neighborhood, or off biking or swimming in the river. If James Bond kept her home, then that was what it took." She smiled at Isabella. "And of course she had the biggest crush on Sean Connery."

"Mum," Isabella said, hiding her face in her hands.

"Don't worry," James whispered to her. "Only everyone in the country will know the terrible secret you share with half the female population."

She slid her hands down and smiled gratefully.

Geeta went on, "And who cared if she watched more television than the boys? She was never terribly good at school. Even when she was young, she always wanted to go play with the other children instead of learning."

"That's why we encouraged her to pursue fitness," said Dinesh. "With obesity rates going the way they are, she'll always have a job."

"Er, yeah." James scrubbed at his hair. "I s'pose that's true enough. And she seems to like it, so."

"I do," Isabella assured him. "Teaching's really lovely."

"And it keeps her looking very nice," Dinesh added, looking at James for confirmation.

"Oh, er." James cleared his throat, as though it were a completely normal and not at all creepy thing to talk to a father about how attractive his daughter was. "Yeah, you can tell she works out."

From James's other side, Geeta placed her hand on his. "When we learned The Bachelor would be an Indian boy, we couldn't believe it. And a Tamil one on top of it?"

"Unbelievable," Dinesh agreed. "What a match,"

"Yeah, er, who'd have thought?" James said awkwardly. "She was the first one I saw, you know. She came out of the limo before everyone and I just thought—wow."

Geeta nodded. "All that yoga is fantastic for a young woman."

"Uh, yeah. It's good for everyone, I think." James sipped his coffee—this was the good Tamil stuff, not some instant Nestle crap. The only bright spot in this family visit thus far. He was going to ask Isabella something to engage her, but her mum beat him to it again.

"We're so delighted Isabella has made it this far into the show. We were worried a white boy might not see her charms—you understand."

"Oh, she's got charms," James said. "She's the sweetest person I've ever met." He stopped, then shook his head. "I'm so sorry, Isabella, I keep talking like you're not here and it's incredibly rude and I'm an idiot." He made a point of shifting his chair to turn toward her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You are the sweetest person I've ever met. And I talk a lot of shit but I am being completely serious here."

She gave him a weak smile, her hands wrapped tightly around her coffee mug.

He continued, "I did know from the first time we talked that you were really special and worthwhile. I don't feel calm around a lot of people—no one, actually, except you. And I bet that's why you're such a great instructor because you make everyone feel comfortable and safe."

She ducked her head, smiling, and slid a hand sideways to squeeze his. "Thank you," she said. "That's really kind."

Christopher elbowed her from her other side. "You're so lucky to have met someone like him."

"And I'm lucky to have met her," James said, trying to soften the pointed tone he desperately wanted to use. "It's really the fairer statement, actually, since you barely even know me."

Geeta laughed. "But of course we know who you are," she said. "You're James Potter. We all use your family's hair products—no one else in England makes anything half as good at conditioning Indian hair."

"Yeah, but like...you don't even know where I went to uni or anything. I could be a homeless drunk for all you know."

"You work for your father's company, yes? We're shareholders."

"Oh." Despite being seated, he felt utterly flat-footed. "I mean, yes, I do. For now."

Dinesh nodded knowingly. "How can we not approve of an Indian boy who works in his family's successful business?"

"Right, but—" James only stopped because he caught sight of Isabella's pleading eyes. It hurt to shove his arguments back down his throat, but this was about Isabella, not about being right. "Isabella and I are both lucky," he said briskly, and looked at Benjamin across the table. "So you're an actuary like your parents, eh?"

It was maddening to sit there and let them talk passive aggressive shit about their own daughter. And it wasn't like she was some murdering psychopath—she was a lovely, empathetic person who just wanted to teach people yoga!

Eventually—much too late, in James's opinion—Rita announced they had what they needed for footage. Which was, of course, all that mattered here. Not that James get to know her family, or more importantly, scold them for such reprehensible behavior. No. All that mattered was the footage they could puzzle together into a super dramatic narrative not at all resembling real life.

Rita started guiding him toward the door, but James couldn't leave things like this with Isabella—he wouldn't see her for three more days after this, and he was not letting everything that just unfolded stand uncommented on.

"Oh, hey," he told Isabella. "You said your parents were taking care of your cats, yeah? Can I meet them?"

Rita sniffed. "We had to wrangle them into her bedroom. They kept chewing on the camera cords, the menaces."

"I was talking to Isabella," James said firmly without even a glance at Rita. "So?"

"Oh, yeah. Of course." Isabella had a distant look about her, like she wasn't even in this house mentally. He couldn't blame her. "This way."

James, Rita, and Bozo followed her down a corridor, while Euphemia stayed behind with the other camerapeople and Isabella's family. Even if she hadn't lived there in years, and even with a troupe of chaperones on their heels, it felt vaguely illicit to go to a girl's bedroom in her parents' house.

Isabella opened a door with a pink paper heart on it reading Isabella Marks in loopy cursive. The color scheme continued inside, with rose-colored walls and a light pink duvet, on top of which three calico cats lay sprawled out in different directions.

"Make room, please," Isabella cooed to them. She picked one up and sat down in its place, settling the cat on her lap. "I'm sorry they're a bit boring right now. This is their nap time."

"Oh, no, please don't apologize for your cats. Trust me. I know you have zero control over them." James perched on the edge of the bed, reaching out a tentative hand toward the cat nearest him. "Besides, no cat is boring." At the touch of his fingers on the cat's side, the cat purred and curled closer to James. "What are their names?"

"Oh, um." She looked away quickly, her cheeks flushing. "It's silly. I named them when I was a teenager."

"Unless you burdened them with dog names like Champ or Rover, I think you're in the clear."

"Right. Um." She hugged the cat on her lap. "They're Jasper, Cullen, and Emmett," she said, so quickly that James nearly didn't catch them.

He looked at her strangely. "What's silly about those names? They sound perfectly normal to me."

She watched him warily for a second, and then let out a breath. "Nothing. They just sound a bit...human."

"You remember my cat's named Algernon, yeah? Not exactly an animal name."

"Well, except the mouse."

"The what?"

"The mouse? In the short story?"

"What short story?"

She shook her head rapidly. "Never mind. I'm probably getting confused. My parents are right—I was never very good in school," she said, focusing on petting the cat in her lap.

The one-eighty from the earlier punting woman tore at James's heart.

Her bloody parents. They didn't deserve such a wonderful daughter. But he could hardly go saying that now, could he, not if he might still end up with Isabella at the end? Calling them a rotten bag of dicks would be a somewhat less than ideal start to his relationship with them. And even if he didn't end up with her, Isabella clearly didn't want him to say anything.

"Look," James began. "I can't say everything I want about your family right now because of obvious reasons." He glanced toward the camera. "But please believe me: I think you're amazing. I think you're plenty clever and strong and any bloke would be lucky to know you. I'm lucky to know you."

She shook her head lightly. "You don't have to make up for anything, James. I'm all right. Sometimes I'm just too sensitive, but I'll get over it."

"No, you're not. Getting hurt when other people insult you doesn't make you too sensitive. It makes the insulting person a dick."

"James," she said, her tone verging on warning.

He shoved a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry but it's true."

"They're my family." She stroked behind her cat's ear. "They want what's best for me."

She clearly did not have her heart in that last sentence, but there were cameras on them. What could she possibly say?

He shouldn't have even put her in this situation, making her talk about it like this in front of Rita and Bozo.

"Right, well." He gave the cat in front of him one last pet. "I'll just say then that your empathy is seriously one of the best things about you, yeah?"

Isabella tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, still looking down. "That's what Lily said."

"Well, good! Listen to both of us, then. It's great and you should be proud that you're not a lout like me who says stupid shit all the time that I then have to apologize for. Like this, how I shouldn't have—well. I think you know."

She finally brought her eyes up to him, the corners of her lips twitching up despite the melancholy in her large brown eyes. "Thank you, James. I get what you're trying to say and we don't—we can go now. All right?"

He stood up and offered a hand out to her. "Yeah. Let's get out of here."

---

"I can play arpeggios," said Sirius on day three.

Lily paused in the act of teasing Algernon—who had come to rest atop the piano and listen to her practice, swishing his tail whenever she played something particularly pleasing—and looked up at Sirius.

"Good for you," she said flatly. "Sadly, I'm fresh out of 'you tried' stickers."

Sirius held a hand to his chest. "A dagger in my heart, Evans. Right in the aortic valve."

"You're interrupting my alone time," Lily informed him. "Why?"

Her precious, unmonitored, unrecorded alone time, she did not add. Isabella was swimming outside, Bonnie had barricaded herself in her bedroom with a headache, and Beatrice was away on her date, so it had been decided that there was no point in filming Lily by herself.

"You aren't alone—you're with Algernon."

"Algernon transcends the company of other humans."

"Personally, I'm more of a dog person, but Algernon is the exception," Sirius agreed, and dropped down onto the bench next to her. He tapped out an aimless, discordant melody with his left hand. "Can't say I've ever seen him take to anyone like he has to you, though."

"He's got excellent taste."

"Unlike his owner," Sirius grumbled, with unexpected and unwarranted bitterness. "Isabella Marks, honestly. I live with James. How am I supposed to put up with her when all this is over?"

He said it with the air of a man preparing to face-off against a shit-clogged toilet, as if James's romantic decisions had anything whatsoever to do with him, as if Isabella Marks weren't a better woman than any man could have hoped for.

"If you're too thick to see the appeal in a person who is good and talented and beautiful," said Lily, her tone cold, "you're beyond help, and I can't and won't explain it to you. Generally, though, a good strategy to employ when you don't like your best mate's girlfriend is to shut up and deal with it."

"I won't apologize because James deserves the best and my approval is hard won."

"It's not me you need to apologize to."

"Besides, shouldn't you be lambasting Marks right now?" He continued to plink away one-handed. "She's the reason you got rejected."

Lily debated slamming the piano lid down on his elegant, waxy white fingers.

She didn't know Sirius particularly well. Her one meaningful interaction with him had not exactly been a meeting of minds, but he had a sly, malevolent air about him at the best of times, the air of a man who took pleasure in the pains and follies of others.

"Schadenfreude gives you a boner, does it?" she remarked, lifting her hand to scratch Algernon behind the ear.

Sirius laughed. "Perceptive even in despair, I see."

"You've got a slim handle on the meaning of the word 'despair,' if you think I'm toppled by a little rejection," she said. "I tend to reserve that kind of thing for, y'know, Brexit, or the continued existence of Nazis, or the fact that I haven't been allowed to pick up a book since I set foot in this castle."

"I admire the brave face you're putting on, but you can be straight with me." He nudged her shoulder with his own. "I'm quite the confidant."

"Deluded, too. Well done."

"It must really sting to know you'll never get a chance to reenact your many sex dreams."

"Like walking into a hornet's nest," she dryly intoned, rolling her eyes for Algernon's benefit.

"Exactly, Evans. It's cathartic to let it all out, and I, for one, would gladly offer to listen if you were interested in sharing the details of said dreams..."

"Oh, sure, it's not remotely inappropriate of you to ask." She shot him a tight smile. "I'll tell you my favorite, shall I?"

"I'm all ears."

"Oh, you should be. It's so hot—basically, we live in the same house, and he does his share of the chores without needing to be asked."

Sirius threw back his head and laughed, so loudly that Algernon jerked from his comfortable position and let out a disgruntled yowl.

"Brilliant," he said, and clapped her on the back. "You are top notch entertainment, Evans."

"I'm glad one of us is," she replied. "I'd like you to leave now, please."

He rose to his feet, leaned forward, and gave Algernon's fur a casual ruffle. "Certainly, if my company offends you so."

"Less offended, more bored," she said, with a dismissive wave. "Try to be interesting next time."

He laughed again, finally moving away from her.

"I'm disappointed in you, Evans," he said loudly, as he strolled towards the open patio doors. "Coldly turning me away, just as things are about to get fun."

Later that night, while she, Bonnie and Isabella were eating dinner, Sirius sauntered into the dining room, stopped by Lily's elbow and dropped a dog-eared copy of Anna Karenina on the table.

"Contraband," he said, then left the room with his hands in his pockets.

Lily took that to mean she'd won his approval.

---

When they returned to the hotel for the night, Isabella sent safely back to the castle, James gave Rita the finger and grabbed his mum's arm.

"Come on," he said. "I need emotional support. Not about who I fancy," he added to Rita. "Just other stuff."

Rita rolled her eyes and dug out her hotel key, heading for the stairs. "I need a drink," she said, as though this were any sort of sequitur.

"Come, darling." Euphemia gently removed his hand from her arm. "They've a lovely back garden, and I called ahead for two mojitos."

He checked to make sure that Rita was almost out of sight, and then started his tirade while they walked to the garden.

"Can you believe them?" he told Euphemia. "Honestly. Honestly. Treating their own daughter like she's a slab of bacon to be given to the first decent man who comes by. And basically telling her she's stupid and only good for her looks—and just ignoring her, why would they—" By now they were outside on the patio, where only a few other patrons sat at distant tables. He turned to his mum and asked in a wrenching voice, "Why would they do that?"

A waiter carrying a tray of filled glasses stopped at their side to hand them their drinks, then headed for the other guests. Euphemia took a long draw of her drink, swirled it around until the ice cubes clinked against the sides, and then began strolling toward a bench next to a fountain.

"I do hate to say it, dear, but you know why."

"No," he said stubbornly. "I don't. You're the parent—explain it to me."

She didn't reply, not until they'd sat down on the bench. "Take a sip," she told him. Once he had, she continued, "You do know the answer, but dear that you are, you want it to be more complicated than it is." She patted his knee with her free hand. "Geeta and Dinesh are bad parents. They don't understand how to emotionally support their daughter. And because they are bad people, they seem to delight in her discomfort and shame."

James scuffed his shoe against the grass, wishing he had a wall or something sturdier to let his anger out on. "It's not fair," he said. "She's so bloody nice. Her parents are awful, and her brothers aren't any help, and she doesn't—she doesn't deserve that."

"She didn't choose her family. No one does, unfortunately."

He let his head fall sideways to rest on her shoulder. "I want to help her. I want to make sure she doesn't see them again."

"Is that what she wants?"

"I dunno, why would she not want to—" He paused, and took a gulp of mojito. "Ugh. I just remembered she goes home every week for dinner."

"I recall," Euphemia said sadly.

"Why would she do that to herself? I mean, Sirius left his shit family. She could, too."

"You've been extremely fortunate in your family, James. Sirius could have left earlier, but why do you suppose he didn't?"

"Because he hadn't thought of it? I dunno."

"Because when your family is like that, you somehow, inexplicably, keep hoping they'll change. Because they are family and they should treat you well and surely they'll learn and get better."

"But they don't."

"No. They often don't." Euphemia looked into the distance, eyes unfocused. After a moment, she patted James's head. "Sometimes they do, though."

It wasn't fair that Isabella's family kept shredding her self-esteem. But his mum was right—it wasn't James's problem to fix. Isabella was an adult and could make her own choices.

Unless he did end up with her. Which was still possible, certainly. She still seemed to fancy him, and he did like being around her.

That, and he had a horrific premonition of her face if he gave the final rose to Lily.

He sat up and twisted to give his mum an awkward bench hug. "Thanks for being you," he told her.

She squeezed him back. "Thanks for being you, dear. We are quite the matched set."

The dawn of another day brought yet another date and family visit, this time with the traitor Beatrice Booth, who met him at a tree-lined walkway in Milton Keynes.

She bounced over to him with the energy of an antelope as soon as she saw him, grinning all over her face as if she hadn't spent the past week causing undue trouble for a lot of people.

"Lily says I have to apologize to you for reneging on our deal and pressuring you to admit to things that 'aren't true,'" she said, complete with finger quotes, "to suit my nefarious needs, and I suppose I am genuinely sorry for most of that, so I really would appreciate it if you'd forgive me."

Every fiber of James's being told him to reject her apology—the woman had zero code of ethics, after all—but the cameras were on them. Rita was watching greedily over Bozo's shoulder.

He couldn't be the cad who refused to forgive one of the girls on camera.

"Apology accepted," he said tightly.

"Great," said Beatrice. "She also said you have to apologize to me for asking me to keep secrets from my best friend."

James stared at her.

"She says it's not a request, and she expects better from both of us than to hold grudges like children," Beatrice added. "Plus, she's the one who suggested our activity for today to the producers, so you owe her a solid in advance."

"I can hold a grudge if I like," he muttered, crossing his arms.

But Beatrice had apologized, and she'd meant it, and it really wasn't on that he'd asked Beatrice to hide something from Lily.

"Fine," he said haughtily. "I'm sorry I asked you to lie by omission, even though you definitely didn't."

"Look at that, our wounds have been mended," said Bea, smirking at his reluctance.

Despite the grudge he was totally holding against Beatrice for being a devious fiend who had made his life extremely difficult, he proceeded to have a thoroughly nice day with her and her family. It helped that the activity Lily had arranged, through a production team and with Rita's approval, was a trip to a pirate-themed miniature golf course. It had fake pirate ships and everything, and James took great pleasure in using his extensive knowledge of pirate slang with Beatrice, who laughed like a loon every time.

Best of all, Beatrice made it through eighteen holes of golf without giving him any shit about Lily. This spared him any further on-camera embarrassment on the topic, much to his delight and to Rita's chagrin, which only delighted him more.

In fact, save for her pre-golf comments, Bea didn't mention Lily at all. She seemed more interested in the game, and in comparing their trash-talk techniques, and laughing about how mini-golf was a much better activity than showing James around each and every one of Milton Keynes's 130 roundabouts—the most of any city in Britain, he learned.

This lack of Lily talk, James told himself, was a good thing. He definitely hadn't been wondering how Lily was doing back at the castle, and he definitely wasn't itching to ask.

After mini golf, James met Bea's family at the gorgeous converted farmhouse they called home. Abutting their house was her parents' bakery which, he learned, was something of a favorite with the locals.

Beatrice Booth had actually grown up in a bakery. No wonder she had such a positive outlook on life.

After Bea introduced him to her family—her parents Maite and Colin, her older brother Aaron, and her younger sister Miriam—she loudly announced that she and James were just mates. This was all right, in James's book, because it meant her family wouldn't feel compelled to ask him about his intentions or anything. Then she immediately undercut any fondness he felt by adding that she couldn't be less attracted to him if he were a slug slithering across the ground after a heavy rainfall.

"Not that you're unattractive," she assured him, and landed a punch on his upper arm, "but different horses for different courses, and all that."

It was so rude of her to bring up horses after the tragic ordeal James had suffered on Dolores.

At least Bea's family was a laugh, especially her twelve-year-old sister, who was profoundly deaf but could speak and sign. She kept running in and out of the room to model what appeared to be a vast collection of cat-patterned pajamas, all of which made James's face light up. Miriam even taught him how to sign rude words until Rita cottoned on and put a stop to it, but not before James had garnered quite the repertoire.

The whole family was football mad, particularly Bea's brother, who played for a league two team and seemed to like James more for not being overtly interested in his sister. Maite, who still had a strong Spanish accent despite living in England for more than thirty years, set James to work in the kitchen with a Pan Rustico recipe she said had never failed to yield excellent results.

To his immense pleasure, baking bread turned out to be both very fun and also a hidden talent of his.

"It's got a lovely crust," said Maite, once his loaf had come out of the oven and cooled, examining his offering as if she were Paul Hollywood. "Good density, and the structure is very good. Yes." She gave James an encouraging pat on the back. "You can show your face around here again."

Even Beatrice stopped by the oven to have a taste and compliment the finished product.

"You should invite him for Halloween," said Bea to her parents, her mouth full of freshly-baked bread. "Him and his mates. We have a big, blowout party every year," she added, for James's benefit. "You can try your hand at spooky cakes. Bring Isabella with you."

All in all, visiting Booth's family was a more chilled out experience than he had expected. James returned to the next hotel that evening feeling as if he'd spent a perfectly normal day—save the ever-present cameras—with a friend.

A friend who was probably still scheming to make him pick her new best friend.

But still. A friend.

---

Isabella rapped softly on Lily's door on the morning of her trip to Cokeworth. She smiled when Lily answered, already dressed in her yoga gear.

"I've been awake for hours," Isabella told her, indicating her clothes and her freshly washed hair. "I think Bonnie's still asleep but I don't want to wake her. Would you like to have breakfast together?"

If Isabella had been a different kind of woman, Lily might have suspected that her invitation was a subtle "hands off my man, keep me in mind and feel guilty" attempt.

But Isabella wasn't that kind of woman. She'd get jealous, yes, but she was brave and truthful enough to be open about it.

"Sure," said Lily with a smile, and stepped out of her room, holding the door open for Algernon to leave before she closed it gently behind her.

Algernon had spent every night since James left sleeping in Lily's bedroom. There had been a bit of a scare on day two when he could not be located for several hours, but Lily eventually found him scratching at the door in what transpired to be James's room, where some idiot member of the production team had shut him in.

This was inexcusable, but it did give Lily the chance to snoop around that part of the castle. With a little direction from Peter, Lily was able to find Rita's bedroom and have a nose. Typically, it was the most luxurious room on the floor, and the odious cow had an air conditioner to herself. Even James had been stuck with a musty old room and a crappy fan.

Algernon, of course, had immediately sicked up under Rita's bed, which Lily recognized as an act of solidarity and revenge.

"How are you feeling about your date today?" said Isabella, when they were almost at the bottom of the long, creaky, spiraling staircase which led directly to the ground floor hall. "Nervous?"

So much for no boy talk.

"Um," Lily replied, "not really, I don't think."

Isabella made a small humming noise beneath her breath. "I'm always nervous on our dates."

"I suppose I might be nervous if it was a real date and I didn't already know that it wasn't going anywhere, but it's not, is it? It's visiting my mum with...well, with your boyfriend, I guess."

"James is not my boyfriend—I mean, not yet, or not—" Isabella began, then she sighed, her shoulders dropping with apparent defeat. "This is a competition, not real life. Don't let that worry you."

"I'm not worried—"

"I'd feel terrible if I thought you couldn't enjoy yourself because of me," she continued. "So please, just enjoy your day and don't think about it."

They reached the end of the staircase and Lily followed her into the kitchen, already feeling the itchy, suffocating effects of yet another swelteringly hot morning.

"We're going to my favorite park," she told Isabella, pausing beside the fridge, "and I'll get to see my mum, so I'm not worried that I won't enjoy myself."

Then she opened the fridge door and backed into it, arse first, which Isabella may have found odd, perhaps, if she hadn't seen Lily do it every morning since they'd first arrived at the castle.

"You really don't like the heat, don't you?" Isabella remarked.

Lily closed her eyes, focusing her attention on the cold air against her back, rather than her warm face. "I don't hate it as much as I hate Rita, but it's a close race."

"It really has been unusually hot, especially for England."

"It's all the hellfire that surrounds us daily," said Lily, then opened her eyes, a sudden thought occurring to her. "Did Bonnie's fan ever get replaced? Or is she just using yours, now that you're sharing?"

Isabella didn't answer right away, but picked up an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter and held it close to her navel, staring at the wall as if she was in a daze.

Now that Lily thought of it, she seemed a little out of sorts.

"She got another," Isabella said, shifting the apple from one hand to the other, "and I let her use mine. She really—she hates the heat, too."

"Figures she would."

"Hmm?"

"We're both Irish," Lily explained. "Or half-Irish, in my case. Our bodies aren't made for these Sub-Saharan conditions."

"Oh," said Isabella. "Of course."

Lily had believed that their heart-to-heart by the pool had resolved most of Isabella's worries, because she'd been chipper on the day before her visit to Oxford, but all of that optimism appeared to have fled the scene completely. She seemed rather flat—shoulders drooping, punctuating silences with wispy little sighs—as if something had happened between then and now to knock the wind out of her sails.

"Hey," Lily said gently, "I never asked you how your date went."

Isabella stilled, the apple clenched in her hand like a shiny red grenade.

"If you don't want to tell me—"

"No, it's fine. It was nice," Isabella replied, with a lilt of enthusiasm that sounded rather forced. "My family really liked James, and we went punting." A small smile formed on her face. "Rita made him wear a boater hat, but he didn't seem to like that very much."

"Oh, right, because hats are insanitary," said Lily dryly.

"They are?"

"Well, probably, but I don't—it's just some silly thing he said once."

"During paintball?"

"No." Lily stepped away from the fridge and nudged the door shut with her elbow, a new kind of heat stealing across her face. She shouldn't have been able to quote him with such thoughtless ease, but she was pathetic because she could. "The night Wendy left."

"Right," said Isabella. "He didn't mention that. About hats, I mean."

"Probably because it sounds ridiculous."

"And you—are you still sure that you don't want to be friends with him, once this is all over?"

"With who?" said Lily. "Bozo?"

A woman with Beatrice's moxie would have told Lily to stop being cheeky, but Isabella didn't have Bea's moxie. She dropped the apple into the fruit bowl without having taken a single bite, wringing her hands in front of her.

"I just—" Isabella began. "I just think James would be terribly upset if he thought you didn't want to see him ever again."

"I really don't think he'd care, Bells."

"Oh, he would, I'm sure!" Isabella's brown eyes were all sincerity. "You get along so well, and he said you had a great time at paintball and you were laughing so much together at dance class..."

"I also get along well with my postman, but it's not like we hang out at weekends."

"But—but I just keep thinking about how you said you weren't friends."

"Because we're not friends."

"But he thinks you are," Isabella lamented, "and it makes sense because you're so clever and funny and—I mean, I think the only reason I was jealous is because you two seem so..." She let out a heavy breath. "I mean, compared to me—"

"Isabella, it's fine," said Lily pointedly, not of any mind to learn where that sentence was leading her.

"It's not fine, not if I'm somehow coming between you."

"It's really big of you to say this, honestly, and I really appreciate it, but James Potter is more than able to live without me." Lily smiled. "He's got you."

It was big of Isabella to say it.

Lily wouldn't have.

She wasn't a jealous woman by any means, but she couldn't claim to be so free of insecurities that she would have urged a woman who openly fancied her boyfriend to spend more time with him, particularly within the framework of a "romantic" date at a park.

Then again, she wouldn't have beaten herself up over a little bit of jealousy in the first place, or at least not to such an extent. Lily had found Isabella's earlier behavior bothersome, but not so much that Isabella ought have felt a pressing need to push her onto James in a fit of selfless remorse.

"It's just… I don't want anyone to be hurt because of me," Isabella sighed, letting her arms fall to her sides. "Not James, not you, and not—not anybody."

"Nobody will," Lily assured her. "Not a chance of it, okay?"

Isabella sent her a weak, worryingly insincere smile. "Okay."

---

The morning of the last hometown visit, James awoke jittery. His leg bounced so much at breakfast that after the third time he knocked the table, his mum grabbed his barely-touched coffee and downed it in one go.

"You don't need it," she told him. "Stop worrying. I think you'll have fun today."

"Fun is one word for it," he mused. "Facing agonizing decisions is another."

"That's three words, dear. Don't do such poor maths in front of Lily or she'll lose interest."

James, who had resumed putting jam on his toast, shoved a corner into his mouth and chewed sullenly.

Three days apart from Lily had not provided any real clarity on the situation. The situation where, miraculously—most improbably—Lily fancied him.

This was fine, he told himself. It was good. Completely flattering, actually, considering she was incredible.

The other half of the situation, of course, was that he fancied her back.

Some.

A bit.

Fine, a lot. But that wasn't the only thing going on. If he could have just had a few days to think about this instead of constantly being shoved in front of cameras, if he could just talk things through with Remus—

He grimaced. If he could just talk to Lily, actually, that would be perfect. She would tell him what to do and wouldn't hold back remotely. But that wasn't an option for at least another few days, when he could invite her into the camera-free fantasy suite.

That would be absolutely what Lily would be expecting, wouldn't it: hey, Lily, come join me in this fantasy suite and help me resolve my romantic dilemmas on this rose-petal-strewn bed while Marvin Gaye plays in the background…

He'd just play it cool today. Not cold, like at paintball. Just...himself. She didn't want him to do anything else, it seemed.

Himself. He could totally be himself. During whatever random "adventure" they were sending him on today, which as usual remained a surprise until he arrived.

Today, however, even arriving somewhere didn't make it clear what was on the agenda.

"Bradgate Park?" he asked his mum after they drove past the gates. "I don't much fancy blokes named Brad."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, James," his mum told him. "Nerves don't excuse stupidity."

He sank down in his seat, refusing to dignify that with a response. Soon the car stopped in front of the visitor center, where Lily and the cameras were waiting outside.

"Relax, dear," Euphemia added as she climbed out of the car. "Enjoy yourself."

James rolled his eyes and followed her out of the car. Bozo was already filming, even as James walked up to Lily. It was hard not to smile when he saw her, especially not when she stood there with her feet firmly planted, her arms crossed, taking up space and daring someone to tell her otherwise.

Those pesky nerves wriggled in his stomach.

"Ah, good morning," he said. "I assume this is not exactly where you grew up."

Lily looked up at him, blinking a little in the sunlight that beat directly down upon her face. "Of course it was. I'm actually a cunningly disguised doe, and you've the deductive skills of a small child."

Fuck. Her mocking of his pathetic efforts should really not have made him fancy her more.

She fancies you back, a bothersome corner of his mind whispered.

As if he'd forgotten. Idiot corner.

"Right, er. Fair enough." He glanced over her shoulder at his mum. "I've been instructed to 'have fun' and 'enjoy myself.' Did you get the same mandates?"

"Um, no," she said, sweeping a hand down to indicate her clothes. "I was instructed to dress sexy, so I didn't."

James still thought she looked very fetching in her jean shorts and t-shirt, but that was hardly how he needed to start, by telling her she had failed and was still sexy.

"Sounds about right," he said, his foot just barely tapping against the pavement. "Did you at least get to bring sunscreen today?"

"I did. Put it on already. Wanted to bring Algernon too—he's been sleeping in my bed the past few nights and I think he's missing you—but they said no."

His mum raised her eyebrows at him from behind the camera, as if to say, really, you're asking about sunscreen?

He cleared his throat. "I don't think this is the scintillating conversation starter they were hoping for," he said, nodding at the crew, "but, you know. I, ah, didn't want a repeat of our fish-killing expedition. You were pink for days."

"Personally, I don't give a shit what they want," said Lily, direct as always. "I suppose they were hoping I'd be all resentful and pouty toward you after our last talk, but I'm not, and I have no immediate plans to yell at you."

"Oh, cool." He tried to still his bouncing leg. "That's how I like all my dates to start, honestly: with the woman telling me she has no immediate plans to yell at me. She might later, of course, but she won't right off the bat, so that's all right." He took a quick look around. "So, er, we're supposed to do something, I'm guessing?"

Lily explained that they'd be viewing the deer who lived in the park. Although this wasn't as excellent as pirate-themed mini-golf, it certainly ranked better than wandering around some boring abbey ruins.

The visitor center staff provided instructions about not being aggressive toward the animals or getting too close. Notably they didn't say James couldn't try to ride a deer, but he had a feeling it was implied.

With their warnings ringing in their ears, James, Lily, and their entourage set out along a walking path into the deer park.

Soon the visitor center fell out of sight, leaving them surrounded by grassy, open fields interspersed with patches of dense woods. A few spectacular deer stood on top of a distant hill, their broad antlers profiled against the sky.

Neither he nor Lily had really spoken since they'd entered the protected part of the park. She was probably regretting telling him she had feelings for him.

"This is already so much nicer than fishing," James said to fill the silence. "Wish we could feed the deer, though. That'd be better yet." He rubbed his neck, and when Lily didn't immediately jump in with a response, he went on, "Although that's not a fair comparison to fishing, then, is it? Maybe I'd be more into fishing too if I got to feed the fish instead of jabbing them with sharp objects."

"You can feed fish at a pet shop for the low, low price of...whatever a goldfish costs these days," said Lily, glancing sideways at him. "I'm not sure. I think I got one for 50p when I was a child, but you've got to account for inflation."

"Yeah, but a fish in a tank is a responsibility. A fish in a lake eating a worm I gave him is...well. Fun is really stretching it, but it's better than trying to...whatever the opposite of drowning is."

If he weren't intimately familiar with the muffled sound of his mum's laughter, he might not have heard it from behind them.

Brilliant. He was definitely impressing the girl he fancied. Who also fancied him.

That still didn't seem possible.

Lily laughed. "I feel like I lost you about halfway through that sentence. Are you referring to drowning the fish, or drowning yourself? If it's the former, I really don't think that's possible."

Well, if you were in hell, keep going, right?

Even if hell was taking place in a serene environment with a perfect, cooling breeze.

"No, like—what is it if you take a fish out of water and it dies from the air? Suffocating? That doesn't sound right."

"I think it's asphyxiation, right, because they use their gills to make oxygen, and—" She stopped walking and frowned up at him. "Why are we talking about this?"

He stood next to her. "Er." He looked around, as if the deer might suddenly leap forward and distract him from having to explain that he was weirdly more nervous now that he knew she fancied him. "I could ask if you also brought mosquito spray?"

"No, thank you, I know you're more than capable of better, and will attribute any failure to think of an interesting conversation topic to a lack of effort on your part."

He took a moment to handle the wave of attraction that crashed over him.

She really, really expected his best. As she should.

Any other day.

"Well, ah," he said, mind scrambling. It seized on an idea and he ran with it. "You're the contestant here, right? Maybe I should hold you to a higher standard. What fascinating conversation topic do you have on the tip of your tongue?"

There. Problem solved.

"Contestant," she repeated, with a dry, amused laugh. "Let's just skate past the fact that I'm sure as hell not competing for any man, and talk about what you're doing to recommend yourself to us, because I have many suggestions to fix that lack of balance."

They both started walking again, approaching some other stone ruins by the side of the path. England was littered with ruins, most of them terribly uninteresting, in James's opinion. The deer that had come a little closer held a lot more interest.

The woman at his side, though, held the most.

"I'm just saying," he went on, more comfortable now that he had a surprisingly solid argument, "that you were the one who's all, oh, James, be wittier, be funnier—am I not allowed to ask the same of you?"

"You could, if I was falling short, but I'm not the one who brought up fish, then defected to mosquito spray when that well dried up."

"If you've got a problem with the topic, you can fix it, too, you know. I'm arguing for equality here."

"Oh, well if it's for equality…" She skipped a couple of steps ahead of him and turned around, walking backwards, fixing him with an inquisitive stare. "I'll go big or go home. What's your life story?"

He grinned at her. Going big was right up his alley, next to Cat Education Station and Moderately Impressive Football Tricks, Incorporated.

He took a few moments to gather his thoughts.

"Right. Well, in the beginning," he intoned, "I was, like other humans, born from a woman. Only my mum was of an advanced maternal age when she had me, which is a rude term doctors use for anyone who's basically not a teenager, it seems. You see, she and my dad had been waiting for me for quite some time—years, actually, years of desperately trying to conceive. It's funny, isn't it, that we call it trying to conceive when what we really mean is they were banging a lot at strategic times. Anyway." He shrugged. "So finally, after years of unprotected sex, bam, there I was. A perfectly healthy child, naturally adored by all—"

"So far, ninety percent of this story is your parents banging—excellent word, by the way, nobody uses it enough," she interjected, one eyebrow lifting, "but it's you I'm interested in hearing about."

"I know, I'm fascinating, but I am getting there. You asked for my life story, and that's how it starts."

"Sex is how most life stories start. You're beginning to sound fixated."

"I'm not going to apologize for providing the necessary context to understand my life."

"Fair enough." She twirled around on the spot, her back now facing him. "Carry on, I'm listening."

"Thank you," he said, fighting a smile, even though she couldn't see it, since it would ruin his deadpan delivery. "As I was saying, I was obviously an only child, and since my parents had had to bang for so long to get me, they treasured me like none other and gave me everything I ever wanted and more." He paused. "In retrospect some of that was not good for me, but that's parenting, isn't it?"

Lily looked over her shoulder at him, an amused smile playing at her lips. "Aside from the sex fixation, I think the damage was fairly minimal. Do continue to thrill me with this epic tale."

"As the lady commands," he said with a spiraling gesture. "Well, from there it was the usual spoiled childhood. Posh school, football captain, head boy, I think you get the picture. Then university where I made terrific friends, so on and so forth. Finished school and my mum gave me the greatest of all gifts ever known to humankind, a wonderful, scraggly little cat that bit me on sight."

"He's never bitten me," said Lily, directing her words to the sky, it seemed. "I mean, of course he hasn't, I'm fantastic and not at all spoiled. He's got no reason to keep me in line."

"Excuse me, I did nothing to deserve that first bite. Subsequent ones, sure, but not the first." He lifted his eyebrows. "Anyway, after uni I started working at my dad's company...and then my mum asked me to do this show, so here we are."

Lily made a small, contemplative sound beneath her breath. "So, if your mum wanted you to do this show, did your dad also ask you to work at his company?"

James rubbed at his hair. "I mean...he didn't ask, really. He did offer, though, and I took him up on it."

"Oh, okay," she said, and turned around to face him again. She didn't seem at all concerned that she might accidentally back into a deer or a tree. "For a moment I thought you were obedient to some kind of fault."

James gave a full-throated laugh. "Please. If he'd told me I absolutely, under all circumstances had no choice but to join the company firm… Well, I would've told him to go jump off a cliff onto some sharp and pointy rocks. Only I'd've said it nicer, since he's my dad and all. But with some bite, since it's my dad we're talking about."

She hung back for a second, letting him catch up to her before falling in step with him. The deer had come a lot closer now, about fifty meters off, where they were munching on a rare patch of green grass. The heat wave had turned most of it to straw.

"So," Lily said, continuing to be a conversational hero. "Do you like your job enough to stick with it for the long haul, or do you want to do something else eventually?"

He drew his lips to the side. It was funny, really, how little he'd thought about these things, or how infrequently anyone else asked him about this stuff.

"I mean...I like it well enough, I guess. It's something to do, and it pays well, and it can be fun sometimes. I dunno." He kicked a stray rock on the trail. "What about you? What's your life story, Miss Evans?"

"My life story," she echoed, and scrunched up her nose while she considered this question. "Well, much like you, I was also born because my parents had sex, but unlike you, I don't go on about it like they invented the act, so there's that, and let's see…" She let a few seconds of silence go by, the only sounds the birds in the distance, their own footfalls, and the hushed murmurs of the camera crew. "I suppose my parents first recognized my genius when I was five, and I disproved the existence of Santa using only a carrot and a felt-tip pen—"

"A carrot?"

"No time for that. I've got an older sister named Petunia—see if you can spot a theme there—who is my exact opposite in practically every way," Lily ploughed on, smiling to herself, no doubt at the prospect of denying him an interesting anecdote. "I went to uni in Cardiff and got a first, which I'm pretty proud of, my father passed away when I was twenty, I want to write a novel one day, and even though my parents combed through three generations of family members on both sides, nobody has any idea where my hair and eyes came from. I'm a ginger sheep in a family of grey-eyed blondes. Might be the milkman's daughter. Who knows?"

"If so, the milkman was extremely handsome."

She blushed a little, but otherwise didn't react to the implication. "It might explain my deep and enduring love of dairy."

It was a pretty good life story, as far as twenty-eight-year-olds went. She had a degree and dreams and inexplicably good looks.

And a strangely, unbelievably boring job.

"So you got a first at uni," James said, his eyebrows drawing together, "and you want to write a novel someday...and now you work in a shop?"

"Yep," she said lightly. "That's about it in a nutshell."

"Right," he said, although it really didn't add up at all. "Right."

Then he stopped and said, "No, I take that back—not right. What I meant is, what the hell?"

As he'd stopped walking, she'd halted, too. "What I do for a living suits me," she replied, her chin tilting upwards. "I've got a very specific plan which requires me to have a job that lets me work anywhere, or one that I can leave on a moment's notice. I found one that fits one of those criteria. What do you mean, what the hell?"

"I mean I just picture you sitting there dead bored every day, wasting your talent and withering away or whatever. But you're too clever to do it for no reason, so what's this very specific plan that demands you be able to disappear whenever?" He sucked in a breath, eyes going wide. "Don't tell me you're going to fake your own death as some sort of insurance fraud."

"Yes," she said dryly. "You've caught me." She rolled her eyes. "I'll tell you my perfectly legal plans in a moment, but it's interesting that you'd make those judgments about my job when you're so decidedly unlike anyone I've ever met, yet your career path is following the most cut-and-dry rich boy trajectory I've ever heard of. I don't buy that you're happy about it."

It shouldn't have surprised him that she located one of his Achilles heel spots. Because he admittedly was a typical, sporty rich boy in a lot of ways, and it wasn't like he was thrilled about being a terrible stereotype, but he really wasn't the sort of bloke that just up and followed in his dad's footsteps.

He just didn't know where to take his own.

"Well," he retorted, "at least I'm at a job that requires my degree and actually uses my brain."

"Oh, I see. All that personality and imagination, and you work for your dad because he asked you nicely, but I'm the one who's falling short because I'm not meeting your standards?"

"I'm not doing it because he asked—he offered—but it's something, isn't it? It's not a waste of time or anything. I'm not even thirty. Would I love to know what else I should do? Of course I would! But I don't yet, so I'm doing something."

"So it's fine for you to coast by until you figure your life out, but I'm, what, the same age as you, and I'm not as good as you because of my job? You're cool, but I'm just wasting my time?"

"But you know what you want to do—you want to write a novel! How's working at a shop helping with that?"

"You sound like a snob," she said coldly. "And don't worry about my novel—I know exactly what I need to do to write it. I've been saving every penny I own for nine years to make it happen, and when I do, it'll be because of the decisions I made, even if you think I'm somehow lacking."

"I don't think you're lacking at all—the exact opposite, which is why I don't understand. What's this thing you've been saving for all these years?"

She looked as if she was considering landing a swift kick to his unmentionables, but instead let out a huff of air.

"I'm going to travel next year," she said. "For a year, maybe longer. I've never been anywhere—not abroad, anyway—so that's what I'm going to do, because I want to go everywhere, and see everything, and—and live, I guess, and learn things, and then I'll write my book."

Christ, she was a marvel.

She never backed down, not for a second, not even when he'd apparently been barking up the completely wrong tree. Or meowing, rather, since he was a cat person through and through.

"Oh," he said with a frown. "That makes a lot more sense." He scratched his head. "That's brilliant, actually. Like, super amazingly brilliant, and it absolutely suits you, and...yeah."

"I'm ever so glad you approve," she said flatly.

The deer were only about ten meters off now, and under other circumstances, James would have been bouncing like a child at a petting zoo. But for once, wild animals he could ride—and that he felt a peculiar affiliation with—weren't as interesting as people.

"Right, well." He cleared his throat, feeling a bit flush in the face. "I hope you get to go soon, and do all the things you want, in all the places you want, with all the, er, people you want. Because you deserve it."

"I'm going alone," she said, with a curious twitch of her lips. "It's kind of shit because I'd love to travel with someone, but nobody our age can afford it and I can only pay for myself. Besides, most of my friends are getting settled into their lives now, but it's fine—I like my own company, and this way it leaves me open to have really disappointing sex with a hot guy I meet on a beach in Santorini."

"You're looking forward to disappointing sex? Wow. Shoot for the stars, why don't you."

"It's called 'having realistic expectations,' and at least I'll be in Greece having disappointing sex," Lily shot back. "What about you? Can you name one thing you really, desperately want that you're actively working to get? Because I might not have a fancy job like yours, but at least I'm being proactive."

It was uncanny, how quickly she picked him apart, how adeptly she exposed and comprehended his inner workings.

What was he working on?

Beating his times on Mario Kart. Mastering the art of the paper airplane at work. Convincing Algernon to fetch. But beyond that…

He wasn't after a promotion. He wasn't saving for a house. He wasn't checking travel destinations off some sort of bucket list.

The only goal he'd technically "worked on" since finishing uni was going to sound inane compared to Lily's excellent, ambitious goals. But he could either fess up or say nothing, and Lily would give him even more shit if he went with the latter.

"I want to get married," he said, watching one of the deer nudge another with its antlers. "I want to have kids. I want them to play with Algernon and drive him mad. He'd never hurt a baby, you know, so it'll be all right. He'll restrain himself."

Lily didn't immediately respond to this admission, but when he mustered up the will to glance at her, he found her gazing at him with an unmistakable softness in her pretty eyes, all her hard edges scrubbed away.

"Why are you saying that like you're admitting to something shameful?" she asked him quietly. "It's not like I don't want that stuff, too."

"Because it's—I dunno." He kicked at the path. "Cliché, I guess. It's not like I'm trying to save the world or anything."

"Who cares if it's cliché, if it's what you want? You think I'd rather be having awful sex with a Greek stranger than really good sex with a proper boyfriend who came to Greece with me? Of course I wouldn't. I want love. I want to love someone so much that it makes my chest hurt. There's nothing wrong with that."

"That it makes your chest hurt—yeah," he said with a thin smile. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"I guess you're doing something about the marriage thing," she said, gesturing to the space around them. "Not that I think a reality show is an ideal setting to really get to know a person, but it'll all be over soon, and then you can go on normal, real people dates."

"No," he deadpanned. "This is it. This is my big plan. Get on the Bachelor, immediately marry some person I only half-know, become a dad in nine months." He watched as the deer now wandered away, off toward a nearby patch of woods. "In all seriousness, though, I've been dating the last few years. Nothing stuck, but I am, you know, working on it."

"Well, it's not as if you have to stick to this one-track mission to find a wife, or anything, forsaking all other ambitions. I want to get married and be a mother, but I'm sure as hell going abroad first."

"You should," he told her. "You absolutely should, since your trip sounds incredible, disappointing sex and all." He started walking again, and she tagged along, this time at his side. "So where're you going on this grand adventure, then?"

"Oh," she said, her eyes lighting up. "I'm going everywhere. I've got it all planned—I want to start in Barcelona and see everything Gaudi designed, and then Bruges because it looks so bloody charming, and then Stockholm to go sailing on the archipelago, and I really want to see the Northern Lights but I'm in two minds as to when's the best time to see them because people's opinions differ so much, but I figure I'll squeeze them in—then there's Rome and Bratislava and Transylvania and Athens, and that's just Europe. I want to go all the way around the globe, then finish in Dublin, because my mum was born there and I've never seen it."

She had more passion and enthusiasm than the rest of the women combined. And that was just about one of her goals.

It wasn't that he had never wanted to visit those places. He had been to some of them, on a lark or with friends. But traveling with Lily would be different. It wouldn't be drinking in a bar and then seeing what fun they could find. She'd want to see attractions and learn about the history and all that, but she also wouldn't be so stodgy as to only stick to a daily, to-the-minute itinerary.

A ridiculous idea popped into his mouth, bypassing his brain entirely.

"I'd go with you," he heard himself say. "You know. If you wanted."

She stared at him for a very long moment.

"You'd go—" she began, and let out a weak laugh. "You'd go traveling, for a full year, around the world with me?"

"I mean, yeah. Why not? I think it'd be fun, and my dad owns the company—it's not like I couldn't get the time off."

"It's not the logistics of the thing, it's—" She looked around as if she hoped someone else would spring out from behind a tree and provide an explanation on her behalf. "How exactly would that work, when I've told you I have feelings for you, but you like somebody else?"

And this was why he sometimes contemplated punching himself in the mouth. It was always running off on its own, never thinking anything through, and then abandoning his brain when it needed help saving James.

"Er," he said. "That...is an excellent point. I have a response. Somewhere. But I just, ah, can't share it with you. Right now." After a second, he added, "Sorry."

Lily looked around again, this time as if the person hiding behind the tree might be preparing to leap out and pie her in the face.

"Um, okay?" she said eventually. "I mean, I appreciate the offer, but it doesn't quite seem like an emotionally healthy decision for...well, either of us, given the circumstances."

"I agreed to do this show, which I think we can all acknowledge was a terribly unhealthy decision, emotionally. I do things all the time without thinking them through, but they usually work out."

"Well, this did work out for you, right?" she said delicately. "Because...because of Isabella."

"Right," he said stiffly. "Yes. Because I found someone I really connect with."

"And that's—great, yeah. I'm very happy for you both," said Lily, and didn't bother feigning a smile to accompany it, "though we should really try to get close to some actual deer, or else this whole trip will be pointless, yeah?" She nodded to the now-distant deer. "Don't try to ride them, though. I could practically see the intent in your eyes when we had that safety talk earlier, and I'd like to show my face around here again."

Then she walked off in the deer's direction, taking great care not to tread on a patch of daisies.

Seriously, he thought with a grin as he followed after her. Her perception was uncanny.

---

"I need to clear three things with you before we go inside," said Lily to James, whirling around on a cracked paving stone she'd once buried her pocket money beneath as a child, only for the pleasure of designing a treasure map and imploring her sister to find it. "One, yes, you can have a go on the stairlift—"

"Stairlift?" he asked, his mouth forming a delighted, childlike smile.

"Yeah, it used to be my dad's, but we never took it down," she said, then added, "It drives me up the wall."

"Oh. My. God," he said. "Both your excellent wordplay and that you have a bloody stairlift. Can I go more than once?"

"If you can stick to my other two decrees, you can go as many times as you like."

"Fine. Hit me with your decrees, your highness." He paused. "The highness part was a reference to your thronelift, by the way, not an insult."

"You continue to define drama in new and bizarre ways," she informed him, and laughed at the look of mock outrage that crossed his face. "Second decree—despite the fact that she's lived in this country since 1986 and married an Englishman, my mother still talks about England as if it's the supreme seat of all evil and will absolutely try to draw you into sympathizing with her by talking about what they did in India. Don't let her do it or she won't shut up all day."

"I mean...what they did in India was evil," he said, with a gesture toward his brown face.

"I know, and I completely agree with you, but my mum's like a dog with a bone—she literally won't stop if she thinks she's got an audience."

"Fine. But only because I want to ride the stairlift."

"That's precisely why I opened with it," she said. "Third, and most importantly, please don't tell my mother that I fancy you. She'll guess after about five minutes, but I need those five minutes. Those five minutes are my sanctuary."

He saluted. "So noted."

She returned his salute, not because she particularly wanted to, but because she knew it'd make him smile if she did, and she was a soft idiot of the highest order.

He did smile, and the resulting butterflies in her tummy had become so familiar at this point that she might as well have picked out names and started a WhatsApp group chat with all five hundred of them.

Yes, they'd had another near-argument in the park.

No, it hadn't done a thing to put her off him. They seemed to have a knack for heated conversations, and a lot of that was rooted in the topics they discussed, but Lily couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else—warmer and more intimate—simmering away beneath it all.

Besides, she couldn't bring herself to dislike James for what he'd said, not when his worst crime was to want the best for her, to think she was destined for better than the crappy fake job Rufus had picked out for her fake application.

Lily wished she could just tell him the truth and be done with it. She didn't think he'd mind—in fact, he'd probably be thrilled, given his belief that she was squandering her talents—especially once she explained that her article wouldn't paint him in a negative light. It had mostly become a malediction on Rita Skeeter, who sorely needed to be taken down several pegs.

Unfortunately, she doubted she'd get a minute off-camera to speak to him before she left the show. She was vaguely aware that, should she stay past the next ceremony, there'd be an opportunity to spend the night in a camera-free suite with him, but she couldn't imagine him offering that up to anyone but Isabella.

In any case, it was time to enter the lion's den.

Rita had been openly disappointed by the tiny terraced house which Lily had called home in her youth. Rita's lips had screwed up in distaste as she took in the tiny patch of grass that made for a garden, her mother's battered old Fiat, and the peeling white paint on the window frames outside. The other three girls came from larger, wealthier families and undoubtedly had more impressive homes to showcase, but Rita could shove her disappointment up her arse. Lily had had a happy childhood in this house, and that was worth so much more than a perfectly manicured lawn or an expensive car.

The whole situation was, of course, ridiculously pre-arranged. Her mother's outline was clearly visible behind the rippled glass panes of the front door, waiting for Lily to knock so she could open the door and act as if she hadn't seen her in six weeks, when the reality was a lot shorter.

Nonetheless, her mum's joy upon seeing her was not remotely feigned.

"My baby!" she cried, and enveloped Lily in a bone crushing hug, complete with many lipstick kisses on her cheeks and forehead. "I haven't seen you in ages! Missed you to death!"

Should anyone ever ask Lily why she felt such a fondness for dramatic people, she'd point to her mother and let them figure out the rest.

"I missed you, too," Lily said when she finally managed to escape her vice-like arms.

"Let me look at you properly." Her mother held her out at arm's length, took a quick scan of her from head to toe, and frowned concernedly. "You've lost weight off your face."

"That's because the show switched me to a new diet where you're forced to degrade yourself on a daily basis until you're physically sick from the shame of it all," Lily replied, and ignored Rita, who made a big show of gasping in offence. She waved carelessly over her shoulder. "This is James Potter, anyway. James, this is my mum, Grace."

He offered a charming grin and his hand. "Lovely to meet the mother of such a delightful woman."

Her mother let out a girlish laugh and released her, springing forward to take hold of his hand.

"Ooh, delightful, he says," said Grace, beaming up at him. "Aren't you just tall and gorgeous altogether?"

"I am," he said solemnly. "Also witty, educated, and fully employed."

Lily turned and pulled a face at him, a face that said dial it down and she's my mum, not Isabella's, and what are you playing at now? but James was too busy lapping up her mother's admiration to notice.

"Not ten seconds and he's out for my blessing already, what spell have you cast on this one?" said Grace, with a wry look for her daughter. "Come inside then, James Potter, and we'll try to find a fault with you."

She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and led him into the house, and Lily followed, noting immediately that the hall had been scrubbed, vacuumed, and tidied to within an inch of its life. Her mother must have been cleaning for days in preparation for their visit.

"Now, James," Grace was saying as she directed him towards the kitchen, which doubled as a dining area, a gossip spot, and a witness to many dramatic board game arguments. "I've made scones, and I know Lily will want a Chinese later, but the very nervous young lad who set up the cameras earlier also said that my daughter insists upon me feeding you bacon sandwiches. Was he right?"

"I defer to your daughter," he answered. "I have no idea if she insisted. If she did, I wouldn't be surprised, since it feels like she does nothing but pick me apart. Did you know she sent me pirate golfing?"

"I didn't insist," said Lily, frowning at their backs. "I strongly suggested, and only because you mentioned liking them."

"Now, see, if my daughter's trying to feed you up, she must be fond of you, because she's a born nurturer like her wonderful mammy," said Grace, having reached the kitchen with her tight grip on James still intact. "And I've got a brilliant video of—was it your eighteenth birthday party? Which one had the pirate theme? She's off her face on Malibu and lemonade, in any case. I think it's—"

"Mother," said Lily warningly.

"Daughter," Grace replied, smiling sweetly. "Remember to be nice, or I'll break out the baby photos."

"You do what you like, I was a fucking cute baby."

Grace rolled her eyes and looked at James, with a jerk of her head towards Lily. "I used to be able to out-sass her, you know."

"You did," Lily agreed, lifting her chin proudly, "and then I turned six."

"It's always a proud moment," James offered, "when the pupil surpasses the master that taught her."

He was getting far too comfortable with her mum already, and it was going to give Grace ideas.

"Where's Petunia?" said Lily, feeling as if she had to derail the subject. "I assume she's not coming?"

The smile slipped from her mother's face a little. "Petunia's—ah, well, still a bit...you know."

Lily did know.

Considering the fact the last time she'd seen Petunia, she'd been crying her eyes out while Vernon stormed out of the kitchen, crowing loudly about disrespect and rudeness, it would have been some kind of miracle if she'd actually bothered to come and see Lily for the occasion.

James Potter wouldn't hear a word of that from her, not on camera, not even when he looked at Lily the way he was looking at her now, with undisguised curiosity and concern.

"Anyway," said her mum brightly, and gave James a little push towards the dining table, behind which a long bench ran half the length of the wall. "Go and sit down, both of you. Take the bench, it's more comfortable."

While James was being guided—gently, she hoped—to one side of the bench, Lily slid onto the other and clasped her hands in her lap. He plopped down next to her, looking as comfortable as if he'd been to visit her home many times, and belonged there as much as she did.

"Don't go holding hands under the table," her mother quipped, and Rita actually ducked to see if they had. Lily put both hands on the surface of the table at once. "Now, tell me, is Lily a cheeky shite at the house, or is she nicer to you than she is to her poor mother?"

"Let's just say," James told Grace, "that when the show airs, I think you will be exceptionally proud of Lily and her wit." He glanced sideways. "Most of the time."

"I'm always exceptionally proud of her," said Grace, pointing to her daughter. "Look at that face. She could have got away with having no personality at all, with a face like that, but she decided to be interesting and stuck to it."

"A choice for which I and many of the other people in the castle are very grateful."

Why was he laying it on so thick, and why was it so bloody appealing?

Lily wanted to turn to James and ask him, but that would only raise uncomfortable questions.

"Except for Helena," she said lightly. "I'm sitting squarely at the top of her list of enemies."

"True," he said, "but the rest of us thoroughly enjoyed the various ways you told her to shut up and go away."

"Helena was this insane woman who kept sexually harassing James," Lily told her mother, "and who I still suspect might have been a plant to keep things interesting. At least, I hope she was a plant, because the alternative is terrifying."

"I don't think she was a plant," James said thoughtfully. "A plant wouldn't have been willing to stay on past the first injury." To Grace, he added, "Helena only left the show because she took a paintball to the eye. It was the moment we'd all been waiting for. Well, her leaving. Not the tragic paintball accident."

Grace filled the kettle with water at the sink. "I thought you got to decide who leaves and who stays?"

"He doesn't," said Lily simply. "Not—not fully, I don't think. Do you get much of a say?" she added, looking at James curiously. "I never asked after the whole fishing thing."

Rita made a slashing motion across her throat, but Lily didn't even know why she bothered with such warnings any longer. James may have been slightly more obedient by himself, but he and Lily seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement to ignore everything Rita did when they were together.

"Some," he replied. "The contract says the producers have final say, though. Which means it's really their fault Helena almost lost an eye, since she'd have been off the show immediately if it had been up to me." James gave a small wave to the producers. "Excellent work, lads! And Rita."

"What fishing thing is this?" said her mother.

This was a sly move on her part because, thanks to Lily's contraband phone, she already knew that her daughter had tried and failed to get herself kicked off by mucking up the fishing date. There was no way for Lily to call her out on it, though, not in front of James, Rita, and three strategically-placed cameras.

"I meant phishing," said Lily quickly. "As in, the fraudulent attempt to steal personal data from the unsuspecting public. They make us do weird things on this show."

"This is true," James agreed, without so much as a hint that she was lying through her teeth. "They make us do very weird things like romance book photoshoots."

Lily gave a short laugh. "You were ridiculous that day, trying to pull that stupid face. I think the image will be forever burned into my brain until I finally die an old woman, laughing at the memory, surrounded by my terribly confused grandchildren."

"Are these the poor, confused grandchildren you'll have with the disappointing man in Santorini?"

"I'm not going to procreate with the disappointing Santorini man. What kind of careless idiot do you take me for?"

"I mean, maybe you warm up to him. Maybe there's an accident. Maybe it's a Mamma Mia style scenario after you've just had your heart broken—I can't predict the future."

"Clearly you can't, if you think I wouldn't take the appropriate precautions to avoid giving my children a sleazy father, though I now see that you only offered to come with me because you're determined to scupper my chances with Santorini guy."

"I'm only looking out for you, Lily. I'm trying to save you from disappointing sex and confused grandchildren."

"Couldn't you save me from disappointing sex by, you know, not being the person I have sex with?" she retorted slyly, and with a triumphant smile.

"Wow. A truly below the belt remark. I expected better from you."

Lily started to laugh in earnest, both at the wordplay and the stupidly pious look on his face.

"I'm so sorry if I caused offence," she said, giggling. "I'm sure you're far less inadequate than my Santorini sleazebag and his billowing white shirt."

"You're the one planning to have confused grandchildren. I can only assume it's because of his terrible bed and clothing habits. My grandchildren will be extremely clever and not remotely confused."

"For the last time, I'm not going to get pregnant by some random, oily—"

"Sorry to interrupt this adorable flirting," said Grace, as the kettle clicked loudly to indicate that it had boiled, "but would you like tea or coffee, James?"

"Er," he said, blinking as though he'd forgotten she was there, "tea. Please."

"Tea it is," she said cheerfully, but with an amused glint in her eye that Lily recognized all too well. "It's nice to see how well the two of you are getting along. Lily, obviously, went on the show for her grandad's sake, so I didn't think she'd warm to you quite so well."

"Well, James is only on the show at his mother's request," Lily explained. She drummed her fingers on the table. "He's not really like all the other bachelors from the telly."

He nudged her with his shoulder. "Careful, Evans. That came dangerously close to a direct, un-veiled compliment."

"Well, I mean, it's not that—so, okay, I got sunburned this one time, and he asked his mother to get aloe for me. And mosquito bite cream. And cold medicine, before that," Lily continued, wanting Grace to like him almost as much as she wanted him to stop angling for her mother's approval. Then she laughed. "God, someone should have thrown me on a scrapheap, I've basically been a mess since I started, but he—you," she amended, and met his eyes briefly, "were very kind to sort that through your mum."

He ducked his head. "I mean—it's really unfair the stuff they keep putting you through."

"They're so much worse to you, though. We girls get time off camera to talk to each other at night, at least, and that helps, but you're on your own mostly, aren't you?"

Rita looked as if one of her veins was about to pop and splatter the kitchen walls with whatever poisonous substance ran through them in place of blood.

"Yeah," he said. "Even though my mum and mates are around, I'm not really allowed to talk to them much. Or at least not about important things." He looked at Grace. "It used to be worse at the beginning of the show but then Lily was all, stop letting them walk all over you, Potter, you're in control here!"

Grace joined them at the table with three mugs of tea in hand.

"Oh, did she now?" She slid one over the table to James, and took a seat across from him. "Got cross with you, did she? Gave you a right telling off?"

"On multiple occasions, in fact."

Her mother gave her a look that said, I am so on to you, you smitten kitten.

Lily delicately ignored her, and took a mouthful of tea that burned like a bitch, though she managed to hold it together and look as if she hadn't just scalded the inside of her mouth.

"She's got quite a habit of sticking up for people, Lily does," said Grace airily. "Even when it gets her in trouble—especially when it gets her in trouble. I got called into school because of it more than once. Our little mouthpiece, her dad used to call her." She reached over and patted Lily's hand. "Still, it's the thing I love most about her. That, and her lovely red hair."

This was ridiculous.

Her mother had obviously gotten the wrong idea about her and James, having been fooled by his sudden and strange attempts to charm her, as if Lily was an actual prospect he was hoping to win over. She was clearly settling in for some sort of lovefest wherein she would brag and boast and inevitably embarrass her daughter until she wanted to climb beneath the table—with no Algernon to keep her company this time—and set up camp there.

Lily felt somewhat justified in blaming James for this deception, though she had to claim a share in it.

They had definitely been flirting, though she couldn't really tell who was the instigator.

James propped his elbow on the table, his chin on his hand. "Lily informed me her true father might be the milkman. Please weigh in on this, Grace."

"Told you she's the odd one out, has she?" Grace smiled at him. "Her dad always said he couldn't have had a hand in something so pretty, but she got his brains, so we're fifty percent certain."

"She is exceptionally lovely, it's true."

"And have you heard her play the pia—"

"Stairlift," said Lily quickly, and grabbed James's hand, the one that wasn't propping up his chin on the table. His fingers twined with hers at once, as if prompted by instinct to respond to her touch, which made her heart flip over. She stoutly ignored the feeling. "I said he could have a go on the stairlift, and you were going to make sandwiches, yeah?"

"I can if you're hungry," said her mother.

"Starved." Lily shuffled to the edge of the bench and tugged James along with her. "Bacon and peanut butter are fine. We shouldn't be too long."

She didn't wait for James to agree or disagree to this plan, but led him out of the kitchen by the hand—which she regretted, because the cameras had certainly caught it, and Rita was murmuring to herself like a drunken lout on a public bus—and into the hall, where lived the infamous stairlift.

"You're encouraging her," she told him sternly, and dropped his hand like it was a hot, rotten potato—which was quite a thing, considering she was half-Irish. "I've got half a mind to revoke your stairlift privileges."

"Empty threat, Evans," he said with a grin. "Your mum would totally let me ride it if I asked."

"I don't make empty threats," she retorted, knowing as the words left her mouth that she'd likely let him have his way. "And I assume you're used to passive-aggressive office jargon by now, so per my last email regarding acting weird, please stop talking to my mother like I'm your bloody girlfriend and you're desperate for her approval."

"I'm not talking like you're my girlfriend!" he protested. "I'm just doing what I do with any parents: win them over heartily. It's an instinct, like flinching when something comes at your face, or punching someone when you see a Volkswagen Beetle."

Lily could have happily thrown a punch or two herself—mostly at Rita—were she a less civilized woman, with or without a Volkswagen Beetle.

"You told her you were witty, educated, and fully employed," she reminded him. "Please, name one other friend whose mother you introduced yourself to like that."

"I mean, I didn't use those exact words, but I said similar things to Bonnie's parents. Also Remus's, I think, but when I met them I was seven and I told them I lived in a big house with lots of toys for Remus to share." He gave her a skeptical look. "It's nothing special. You of all people should have picked up on the fact that I am a massive show-off."

"Did you also tell Bonnie's parents that she was exceptionally lovely, and if so, did you do that before or after you offered to go traveling with her?"

"The situation with Bonnie's family was much more awkward because she told them about shooting Helena in the eye, and her traumatized brother was there, so no, I did not randomly start praising her looks. Also, her brother said she likes to travel alone, so offering to go along sometime would've been a ridiculous move, whereas you said you'd love for someone to go with you."

"I meant a friend or a boyfriend, not you, not—" she began, then pressed her lips together, inhaling through her nose.

This made for their second argument in a day, only this one was taking place roughly ten feet from her loving, unsuspecting mother.

She wasn't going to do this again.

She took another breath, and shook out her hands by her sides as if she were ridding herself of water.

"This isn't up for debate, James," she said, trying to remain calm. "If I tell you you're acting weird, it means you're acting weird, and that makes me feel like shit, so I'd like you to stop."

"Right." He crossed his arms over his chest. "If that's the case, please tell me which part I shouldn't have said. Which part made you feel like shit?"

"You offered to go abroad with me!" she snapped, abandoning her resolve to keep things calm in an instant. "Which was...twelve kinds of inappropriate, and though you say you have a response for it you can't tell me what it is, so that means nothing, and now you're cozying up to my mother as if it's remotely feasible that I'll spend any time with you at all once this whole thing is over."

"Seriously?" He pulled a face. "I'm not sorry for offering because I do want to go. And I'm not going to apologize for treating your mum like someone I like, because I do like her, she's lovely. I mean, what was I supposed to do, trash talk you in front of her and then throw hot tea in her face?"

Lily could have laughed outright, but the anger that shuddered through her gut at his nonchalant answer far outweighed her amusement.

He wanted to go with her.

Wanted to. Just because.

Him, her, and Isabella, probably, because fuck Lily's feelings. It didn't matter how difficult that would be for her. It didn't matter that Lily knew he liked her more than he was willing to let on, because he'd picked another girl he liked better and had been perfectly clear on that, but maybe he wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. James was going to do whatever he wanted, clearly.

He'd told her he wouldn't mess her around again, yet here he was, messing her around and not remotely sorry about it.

"If this whole situation were reversed," she said, lowering her voice, "and you had feelings for me, and I wanted someone else, but thought it was perfectly fine to act the way you've been acting, would you expect me to argue back if you told me it was hurtful?"

"Look," he said, unfolding his arms. "I get that you're upset, but honestly—you're sniping at me for getting along with your mum. I legitimately have no clue what else I should have done in there, all right?"

She felt, horribly, as if she might start to cry, and that was the last thing she wanted to do at that moment—in front of him or the cameras.

"This is getting us nowhere," she sighed, her tensed shoulders dropping as the air left her lungs. "You know what? Do what you want, honestly, just keep in mind that you're giving my mother the wrong idea, and it's not you who'll have to explain the truth to her later."

She un-clipped her microphone pack from the back of her shorts, switched it off before one of the sound guys could even think to make a start for her, and shoved it into her back pocket.

"Lily," he said plaintively, but she cut him off.

"I need the bathroom," she said, directing her words at Rita, and stomped upstairs, feeling remarkably and regrettably like a stroppy teenager.

Lily took her time regaining her composure, but after she came downstairs with a bundle of books from her old bedroom—Rita let her put them in the car only after Lily threatened to quit if she didn't—the rest of the day passed without further incident.

James mustn't have wanted to upset her again, because he dialed himself down a notch. He was as friendly as could be with Grace, but instead of heaping platitudes on Lily's head, he talked about his parents, his cat, and the accidental explosions that sometimes occurred at his workplace. He asked her mother questions about Ireland and seemed interested in the answers she gave, though whether he was or not was anyone's guess.

Lily got the impression that he was just trying to keep Grace talking.

Rita was so desperate to keep the cameras rolling on them both that she let the afternoon run past schedule, long enough for James to declare that he'd been wholly converted to peanut butter on bacon sandwiches, lose horribly to Grace at a game of Monopoly (her mother always cheated, but he wasn't to know), and share some kissing duck from the Chinese with Lily. It turned out that they both liked the same thing, and Lotus Garden always made their portions too large.

When Lily pretended, in the most deadpan of ways, that the message in her fortune cookie contained the lyrics to Cotton Eye Joe, James laughed so hard he almost choked on his drink, and she had to thump him on the back.

At some point, Lily relaxed enough that she felt as if they'd stumbled back to some semblance of normal, even though the air between them felt terribly thick at times.

She liked him so much.

She was angry, still, but James made it very difficult to cultivate any real animosity by being funny and charming and treating her mother nicely.

He shouldn't have offered to come traveling with her, she kept reminding herself.

Lily wanted him to go abroad with her. She wanted him to hold her hand while they wound their way through flea markets and out-of-the-way museums. She wanted him to sit across from her while they sampled local food they never would have tasted otherwise. She wanted to have sex in the middle of a beautifully sunny day in Greece, simply because they could, and because it felt right, and because they had no other responsibilities to be getting on with.

She hated that.

Eventually, Rita was called from the room for an urgent phone call, and when she returned she announced that they'd be leaving for the castle at once. It came as a huge relief for Lily, even if it meant leaving her loving, wonderful mother. Grace cemented her fondness for James by issuing him an open invitation to the house when she hugged him goodbye, planting a firm kiss on his cheek before he left.

An accident on the M40 meant that the drive back to Winchester took almost ninety minutes longer than it should have, and Lily was forced into a confessional almost as soon as her feet hit the pebbled drive. By the time she'd made up enough nonsense to appease Rita, the late-July sun had started to set.

She trudged upstairs, feeling as if she'd been gone for several days instead of less than one, and entered her room to find Beatrice bustling around the room. Her friend had a bra in one hand and a hairbrush in the other.

On Bea's bed was an open suitcase, half-filled with her possessions.

"Hey!" cried Beatrice brightly, waving her bra above her head. "You're back later than I thought!"

"There was traffic on the way back," said Lily. "Packing for the trip already?"

"Oh, no. Funny story." Beatrice tossed her hairbrush into the case. "So I've been kicked off the show—"

"What?!"

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not actually leaving until tomorrow morning when they film the ceremony, but they caught me and Remus in flagrante, and Rita's apparently apoplectic."

"They caught—"

"Yup."

"While you were in the middle—"

"Smack bang in the middle."

"But you were so—"

"Careful?" Beatrice cocked an eyebrow at her. "Turns out we're not so careful when you're not around to act as my voice of reason. They called Rita about it earlier. Breakfast with her tomorrow should be pretty interesting."

"Oh," said Lily, and leaned back against the door. "Oh."

She felt as if someone had sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.

Beatrice was leaving.

Her friend, her best friend—a person she'd liked, trusted, and bonded with so quickly that they were going to get a flat together, live their lives in parallel to one another, the one person in the castle to whom she could say anything she was thinking, who was always on her side, who kept her sane through all of this absurdity—was leaving.

And that meant...it meant that Lily couldn't leave tomorrow morning, that James couldn't let her go—not yet, anyway.

"I'm happy out, to be honest," said Bea, folding a blouse over one arm, nattering away unconcernedly. "At least Remus and I can be out in the open now. He's going to help me move, when you and I get our place—I mean, he can't do much heavy lifting because of his heart condition, but he can help us decorate, and really I think it's a good sign that he's so eager to help—"

A lump was welling up in the back of Lily's throat.

"—because I know it's only been a few weeks, but I've never felt like this about anyone before, you know? He's just so sweet and intelligent, and he has this way of making me feel so steady, like everything is going to be fine, like I can breathe and relax and just be myself, and that—" Beatrice's smile slid from her face. "Babe?"

She wasn't going to cry.

She wasn't going to cry.

She shook her head, and a disobedient, traitorous tear slid down her cheek. "I'm fine."

"No, you are not fine," said Beatrice firmly. She crossed the room in an instant, gripped Lily's shoulders. "What happened today? What did he do?"

"Nothing," she insisted, but too quickly. "Nothing. He didn't—"

"I swear to God, if he said something to hurt you—"

"Bea—no, that's not why—"

"I don't care if he's been Remus's best mate since they were kids," said Bea hotly, "or that he saved his life that one time, or any good thing he's ever done, if he hurt you today I'm going to march straight down to his bedroom right now and kick his arse from here to—"

"For Christ's sake, Beatrice, stop," said Lily loudly. "I'm not—I'm not crying because of James, you absolute bloody idiot, I'm crying because I'm going to miss you."

"You're going to—oh." Beatrice blinked, the bite vanishing from her voice. "Well, darling, I'll see you really soon."

"I know."

"And it's only a month and a bit until we can live together."

Lily nodded, a few more tears spilling out to join the intrepid first. "I know."

"Plus, you're going to go abroad tomorrow," Bea reminded her gently. "Exotic destination, remember? That's probably the only good thing about this whole deal."

"I know," said Lily, again, but she let out a sob like a child might have, and decided on the spot that she might as well just let herself be sad, "but it won't be any fun without you there."

"Oh, my sweetheart," Beatrice cooed, and drew her into her arms. "Nothing's ever fun without me there."