Dress
“Do you want to know something crazy?” Lily heard James’ tired but somehow also excited voice over the phone, it was obvious he had just woken up.
After a while of lying on her bed and doing nothing else but drowning in her own thoughts, until Marlene arrived. She had asked her if she wanted to talk about it, which Lily rejected but told her they could do something fun. They ended up on the ice rink, of course. The two best friends came home quite late and fell asleep as soon as they managed to.
It was around two p.m. when Lily got a call from James. She had woken up really late, so she was getting herself and Marlene, who was sleeping at the time, some coffee. Lily was just about to order when James called her, so she decided to drop a coffee over at his place too. She didn’t really know what he liked, so she just got him an iced coffee, basically what she got Marlene. Their tastes were quite similar.
The first words he said were not good morning, hello, or how are you doing? It was, ‘Do you want to know something crazy?". Dumbass, Lily thought as she started talking to him. “To be honest, no, but still go on and tell me, Potter. '' She said it sarcastically to make sure he knew she was not serious.
She heard James’ deep voice let out a short laugh. "Okay, so I probably should not tell you this, but I can’t keep it; you have to tell his girlfriend immediately!” He jumped from topic to topic. Making Lily more excited about the ‘crazy thing’ she was not really interested in a couple of seconds ago.
“Just tell me already!” Lily said it animatedly. She didn’t really like gossip so much, only with Marlene and Emmeline. But James made it sound so ‘crazy’ as he named it, which made Lily a lot more thrilled.
“You have to promise not to tell this to Alice, or no, you should, but don't tell her who it was!” James insisted, not really tired anymore.
Lily had just gotten the coffee; she was walking towards her car as she told James she would be there in ten minutes. It didn’t take a long time for Lily to realize James had fallen off his bed as soon as the words left her lips. Lily just laughed at that, waiting for him to tell her what crazy thing had happened that involved Alice.
"Okay, so we just had practice, but me and Frank were staying for a bit extra since we wanted to play against each other for a while,” Lily muttered as James talked, letting him know she’s focused. “When we were done, I said we could go together, but he said Rabastan was picking him up. Which I thought was weird because I didn’t even know they were friends.” Lily thought about the dinner over at Mary’s house, when she met Rabastan. “But I didn’t really care and continued to practice a bit more while Frank was going to the changing rooms. I went there like ten minutes later, and you won’t believe what I saw!” James exclaimed with enthusiasm.
“What?!” Lily asked; she was really curious, and James was not really helping by taking pauses.
“Frank and Rabastan were fucking making out!” James spitting it out, putting Lily in a short shock. She didn’t speak until James called her name.
"Okay, that was really crazy; you were right.” James laughed as he was moving. Lily heard noises; she assumed he was changing his clothes.
“I’m hanging up now; see you in ten!” She told him as she hung up on him.
She first went home to drop off Marlene’s drink, and when she asked her where she was going, Lily told her that she had bought a drink for James too. Marlene just laughed but didn’t say anything. Lily thought it was because she had just woken up.
It really didn’t take more than five minutes for Lily to arrive at James' place. She had been there before, on Sirius’ birthday. It was going to be a surprise for Sirius, and James had invited all of his friends. It was quite a big house for a hockey player who lives alone. Lily thought it was quite unnecessary, but she didn’t think a lot about it.
She knocked on the door with their drinks. She didn’t have to wait for more than ten seconds to see James’ face. His hair was quite messy; she thought it was because he couldn’t decide what to wear and didn’t have time to fix it. Lily didn’t care about that; she thought he looked absolutely charming.
He greeted her with a big smile, sure of himself, and invited her to come in. She didn’t resist and did what he wanted. He took the coffee from her and got a quick hug as a response. Lily could feel his heartbeats as she hugged him. She felt blood running through her cheeks as she realized how excited he was because of her.
They went to the kitchen and sat in front of each other. “So, did they see you?” Lily asked, continuing their conversation from the cafe.
James responded with a no, “but they were about to.” He said it quickly but also quite quietly. “You can’t tell anyone, though, except Alice, of course.” He said it this time more loudly. Lily shook her head and told him she still couldn’t believe it. James agreed with her.
“So, how’s it going for your team, Evans?” James asked to break the silence. Lily rolled her eyes at his immature, rivalry expression.
“It’s going quite well for us, Potter; you can’t relate, though” she said with a sarcastic sadness and poured her lips.
James just laughed it off, until Lily said she had to leave because she was going out with her friends. James had asked her if he knew them: "Yeah, well no, but yes, just some friends I lost contact with after high school!" Lily said as she was leaving. She saw his jaw clench. She didn’t know why, but she had a guess.
So there were, in total, two people Lily looked good with in high school; at least that was what the whole school thought. One of them was, of course, Mary, even though Lily did not tell anyone—except Marlene—about her crush. The second person was Severus, whom she had no contact with for a while. He was going to be there, and James seemed like he guessed that and was not really comfortable with it. Lily wouldn’t name it jealousy, but more anger for what he did to her.
That made Lily quite happy, knowing that someone actually did care about what had happened with Severus. It made her feel valuable, which she never felt.
She left James’ house with a different feeling, a feeling she had never felt before. Lily knew she liked him a lot. Not as much as she used to like Mary, but it was getting there. But something different about this was that James made her feel enough, something Mary never did. Lily always had these thoughts of always trying harder to make Mary like her more and more, but it never worked. But James never made her feel like that; he always let her know that she was appreciated.
Lily was drowning in questions when she got home. She didn’t really feel like answering them all; she didn’t tell this to Marlene, though. She just said that they talked a little, and the thing about Severus. But she was going to take her time with the Frank, Alice, and Rabastan love triangle.