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Remus tucked his last book into the box and folded the flaps closed. He looked around at the dorm room, empty save for the bags and boxes clustered beside the door, and heaved a satisfied sigh. The late night study sessions and essay rewrites and endless cups of coffee were behind him until the fall. The summer stretched before him, full of possibility and blissfully devoid of mental stimulation beyond making lobster rolls and operating a cash register. 

“We made it,” Peter said, zipping a duffel bag closed. 

“We made it.”

Peter bit his lip. “I suppose I shouldn’t say that until I get the exam results. If I passed organic chem it’ll be a miracle.”

Remus dropped his final suitcase beside the door. “I still don’t see why you took it in the first place. It was masochistic, if you ask me.”

“Everyone else was taking it,” Peter muttered. “Anyway, that’s a problem for future me. I’m going to forget about everything that makes my brain hurt for the next few weeks.”

Remus leaned against the bed frame; stripped of the familiar striped comforter, the mattress looked naked. He imagined shoving the boxes of textbooks in his closet at his parents’ house, trading the drafty lecture halls of Hogwarts College for the hum of fans and the burble of the fryers at the Potters’ restaurant, The Lone Cone.

“It’ll be nice not to have to think,” Remus agreed. “The Lone Cone is a nice break.”

“You’ll have to think a little, won’t you? You’re a manager now, Moony.”

The word sounded strange beside his name. Remus still could not reconcile himself with the promotion, although he had been doing the work of a manager without the increase in pay for the past couple of summers.
“Assistant manager. It’s barely different from what I was doing before. The hardest thing will still be saying the ridiculous ice cream flavors without laughing.”

Peter grinned. “Funky hunky chunky chocolate brownie.”

“Or mmmmm, delicious. Wait, I almost forgot the worst one – nut explosion.”

Peter burst into laughter. “That’s not a real one.”

“I wish. We haven’t had it in stock since you got hired – the candied pecans have been hard to source or something – but I spent that entire summer unable to look customers in the face when they asked for a large nut explosion.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory.

Peter wiped away tears of laughter. “Is that part of your duty as manager? Providing customers with large nut explosions?”

“Shut up, or I’ll personally voyage to the pecan farms of Brazil and ask Fleamont to appoint you nut explosion expert.”

Peter made a dismissive hand gesture. “That will require you to look Fleamont in the face and use the phrase ‘nut explosion expert’ without laughing.”

“Fair point,” Remus said.

They lapsed into silence. Remus looked around the empty room, thinking of the drunken nights they had spent singing their favorite songs or sharing bags of Doritos, imagining the similar nights they would have this summer.

“It’s going to be a good summer,” Peter said finally. “Mary’s coming back to The Lone Cone. She was going to waitress instead, but she changed her mind.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to…?”

Peter smiled sheepishly. “Nah. I’d rather be appointed Nut Explosion expert.”

“Fair enough.” Remus picked up a suitcase and pointed his wand at two boxes. “Come on, let’s get going. I bet Prongs and Padfoot have already started drinking.”

After dropping his things in his room without unpacking, Remus made his way to the Potters’ house and found James and Peter out by the pool, sipping cans of beer. James lounged on an enormous float shaped like a unicorn, his hair dripping and water beading on his glasses, while Peter sat on a deck chair, still fully clothed. Remus helped himself to a beer from the cooler and took the chair beside Peter.

“Padfoot isn’t here yet?” he asked.

James paddled the unicorn over to the edge of the pool and rested his feet on the deck. “No, I don’t know what’s holding him up. He had some idea for slip and slide flip cup, too – I hope he hurries up.”

Remus frowned. “What’s slip and slide flip cup?” He had a sneaking suspicion he would be awful at it, whatever it was. 

“Well, I don’t know exactly, Padfoot said he would explain.”

While they waited for Sirius, James did increasingly impressive dives into the pool, insisting that Remus and Peter judge his skill. He had just executed a front flip when Sirius hurried through the gate and dropped a suitcase on the pool deck. It was half-open, a sneaker and a lone sock spilling out, but Sirius made no move to pick them up. 

“Eight out of ten? God, you’re hard to please, Moony. Pete gave me a perfect score.” James brushed sopping hair out of his face. “Oh, hi, Padfoot. What’s wrong?”

Sirius sank onto a lounge chair. He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. After several drags, he peered through the smoke at his friends as though he had just realized they were there.

“I told my parents to fuck off.” His voice was faint and detached, like he was speaking about someone else. “I left for good.”

There was a moment of shocked silence. Remus looked around at James and Peter, trying to gauge the correct response. Was it sympathy? Congratulations? Nonchalance?

James hauled himself out of the pool and clapped Sirius on the back, leaving a wet handprint on his t-shirt.

“Hell yeah! That’s great, Padfoot. Fuck them. You were miserable there.”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah. I was.” He flicked a bit of ash from the end of his cigarette. “I can’t believe I really did it.”

“We’ve got to celebrate,” James said.

Sirius’s eyes widened, and a brilliant smile lit his face. “Yeah. Fuck yeah, we do!” He sprang up, his cigarette slipping from his fingers and landing on the pool deck where a thin curl of smoke rose into the air. “Did you guys hear that? I told Walburga and Orion to suck a fat cock. I’m fucking free!”

His joy was palpable. Remus and Peter echoed James’s congratulations while James thrust a beer into Sirius’s hand. 

“Alright, who’s up for slip and slide flip cup?”

The afternoon melted into evening. They spent hours launching themselves down the slip and slide Sirius had jammed into his suitcase. When they depleted the supply of beer, they switched to tequila, pouring  endless rounds of shots. They toasted to Sirius, to the summer, to every bird in the state shitting on Walburga’s head. Around midnight, they ordered pizza and carried it up to the roof. They sat on a blanket and devoured the pizza, washing it down with the last of the tequila. Just before Remus slipped into a liquor-soaked sleep, he looked over at Sirius. His eyes were half-closed, and a cigarette dangled from his lips, and he was still smiling.

Remus awoke in the morning with a stiff back and goosebumps on his bare arms. He pushed himself upright, groaning at the faint pounding in his head. Sirius was pacing back and forth across the roof, scowling.

“What the fuck was I thinking? How am I going to pay for school?” 

James appeared, a tray of coffee and muffins precariously clutched in his hand.

“Are you still on about that? I told you, my parents will pay.” He nodded at the tray. “Could you grab that, please, Moony?”

Remus staggered over to grab the tray. Coffee sloshed perilously close to the edge of the mugs. He set it down on their makeshift table of empty pizza boxes.

“...can’t take their charity,” Sirius was saying. “And where am I going to live?” He jammed a cigarette into his mouth; Remus suspected it was not his first of the morning.

“You’ll live here, dumbass.” James sat down on the blanket and helped himself to a muffin. “Quit spiraling. You’re going to wake up Pete.”

“Fuck Pete.”

“Pete kept you from falling off the roof last night,” James reminded him. “Sit down and have some breakfast, since I went to the trouble of bringing it up here.”

Sirius flung himself onto the blanket. He took a muffin and bit into it as though the pastry had personally revoked his inheritance. “But what am I going to do about tuition?” 

James shrugged. “Letting Mum and Dad pay for it isn’t charity – they’d be happy to do it. They love you. Sometimes I think they love you more than me.”

A smile tugged at Sirius’s lips. “Well, who doesn’t?”

James flipped him off. “Anyway, if you’re really dead set against letting them pay for it, you could just earn the money.”

Sirius frowned, chewed, swallowed. “What?”

“Work at the restaurant.”

Sirius brushed a crumb from his lip. “Yeah? Will you work there with me? It wouldn’t be bad with you there. You can flirt with Lily all day, and we can pull pranks on Moony and Pete.”

“You know I would, but I won’t have time with all the Quidditch training I’ll be doing this summer. Everyone who said I was nuts for switching from lacrosse to a ‘made-up game’ is going to eat their words when they see us play.”  

Remus imagined James and his teammates running around the field with sticks between their legs and stifled a laugh.

“They’ll keep you company at work, though,” James continued, gesturing at Remus and Peter.

Sirius tapped his fingers against his mug thoughtfully. “I’ve never worked anywhere before…” He looked at Peter, finally sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “But Pete does it. How hard can it be? And Manager Moony can teach me.” 

“Don’t call me Manager Moony.”

Sirius ignored him. “I don’t have to cook anything, do I? Or clean? Or wash dishes?”

Remus sighed. He had his work cut out for him this summer.

Remus met Fleamont at the restaurant the following day. The familiar hum of fans enveloped Remus as he stepped inside. It felt like coming home. Fleamont gave him a detailed account of all the updates and changes he had made, veering off on frequent conversational tangents. Remus did his best to absorb the information as he took deep breaths of the ice cream scented air. Fleamont was giving the new ice cream machine a jovial pat when a loud cockadoodledoo announced Sirius’s presence at the back door.

“Still have the rooster doorbell, then?” Remus asked, but Fleamont was already hurrying to let Sirius in.

He returned a moment later, beaming, with Sirius trailing behind him. Sirius was smiling, too, but he lacked his usual casual confidence. As Fleamont clapped Sirius on the back and welcomed him to the family business, Sirius looked down at the floor, an uncharacteristic sheen of emotion lurking in his eyes. The Potters are his family now. Remus had an absurd urge to hug him. 

The urge evaporated after Fleamont left and Sirius immediately picked up a rubber banana lying on the break table. He gave it an experimental squeeze, then waved it around.

“What’s this for? To hit the pain in the ass customers?”

Remus stepped back to avoid being whipped in the face by the banana. “Fleamont brought it in last summer – God knows where he bought it. He thought it was funny. Some of the scoopers like to play with it on slow days.”

Sirius kneaded the banana between his fingers. “Strange thing to play with at work. It looks like a big yellow dick.”

Remus plucked the banana out of his hands. “That’s enough of the banana for the day. Come on, I’m supposed to be teaching you to scoop ice cream.”

He led the way into the front room. Sirius followed, trailing his fingers along the rows of gleaming ice cream cabinets.

“What do I do, just grab one of these?”

Sirius grabbed an ice cream scoop and made a scooping motion.

“Hang on,” Remus said. “Wash your hands first.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “They’re clean.” 

Remus grabbed a scoop from the dipwell and flicked a few droplets of water into Sirius’s face.

“Listen to Manager Moony.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be called that.”

Remus laughed. “I assume you were going to ignore that request.”

“That’s fair. Alright, fine.”

After Sirius had washed his hands, Sirius led him through the usual training protocol. Sirius grasped the technique immediately, as he did with almost everything he attempted.

“Go on, tell me I’m the best scooper you’ve ever trained,” Sirius said as he placed the top scoop on a large mint chocolate chip cone. “Look at this. It’s gorgeous.”

Remus imagined Fleamont miming taking a picture of the cone and proclaiming Gorgeous! in an over-the-top Australian accent, one of his eccentricities that he performed whenever someone made a particularly attractive lobster roll or brownie sundae. 

“You are a fast learner,” Remus conceded. “But don’t let that go to your head.”

Sirius admired the cone for another moment before dropping the three scoops neatly back into the full tub of mint chocolate chip and closing the cabinet with a soft thud. “Well, it’s not exactly hard, is it?”

It wasn’t hard, Remus supposed, and yet it had taken him a week to learn how to perch a large ice cream on a sugar cone without the cone crumbling or the ice cream toppling onto the floor. 

“Let’s see you make an extra thick frappe before you proclaim yourself an expert.” It was unprofessional – certainly not a thought suited to a newly-made manager – but Remus hoped the frappe would explode in Sirius’s face.

By the end of the shift, Sirius had avoided a major frappe explosion, although he had been sprayed with a fine mist of chocolate that settled in his eyebrows and across the bridge of his nose. He wandered around the cabinets with a scoop in his hand, then opened a cabinet and began scooping a large portion of kahlua fudge brownie. 

“What are you doing?” Remus asked. “You’re all set. You’ve graduated Moony’s Scoop School, or whatever silly name you invented.”

“Remus Lupin’s Cream School,” Sirius said. “And this is for me. A post-shift snack. To test the quality of the ice cream, make sure it’s up to standard.” He topped the ice cream with several pumps of hot fudge and a mountain of whipped cream – expertly applied, Remus noted.

“What do you want?” Sirius asked, setting down his sundae and reaching for a clean scoop. “I’ll scoop it for you to get some extra practice.”

Remus considered the question. He rarely ate ice cream, too busy during his shifts to scoop any ice cream that was not for a customer, too eager to leave at the end of the night to hang around long enough to pack an ice cream to go. 

“If you don’t tell me a flavor, you’re getting rum raisin.” Sirius flipped open the cabinet and peered inside. “Mmm, extra raisiny.”

“Don’t say raisiny. I’ll have chocolate.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “You’re so fucking boring. Can I put hot fudge on it, at least?”

Remus shook his head. 

“Sprinkles?”

Remus wrinkled his nose. “I fucking hate sprinkles. Just plain chocolate.”

Sirius shook his head and started scooping.

They went out to the picnic area and sat at a faded bench to eat their ice cream. Sunlight filtered through the scattered pine trees, bathing them in a pool of light. Remus turned his face up to the sun and heaved a contented sigh as a bite of chocolate ice cream melted in his mouth. 

“It’s going to be a good summer,” Sirius announced. “Even if I do have to wear this stupid fucking visor.” He wrinkled his nose as he tapped the The Lone Cone visor Remus had given him earlier. “You sure I have to wear it?”

“You do,” Remus said, smiling apologetically. “It’s health code.”

Sirius swallowed a bite of ice cream and shook his head. “I look idiotic.”

“Everyone looks idiotic in a visor.” Except the more Remus looked, the more Sirius disproved his theory. There was something about his dark hair spilling over the top of the brim that was charming rather than dorky, and once again, Remus was equal parts jealous and impressed. And underneath, a hint of something he couldn’t put a name to, something sparked by the way the brim cast Sirius’s dark eyes into shadow. No, Sirius Black did not look idiotic in a visor. He looked better in a visor than anyone had a right to, and perhaps that was the beginning and end of everything.

The morning was crisp and bright when Remus arrived for his shift the following morning. The scent of cinnamon wafted toward him when he strolled into the front room and found Lily making waffle cones. An upbeat Taylor Swift song was blasting from the speakers on the wall – Lily hardly listened to anything else. 

“Happy first shift!” She dropped a scoop of batter onto the waffle iron, and cinnamon-scented steam curled around her face. “1989 seemed appropriate.” She gestured at the speakers.

Remus wasn’t sure what made 1989 more fitting for his first shift than any of Taylor Swift’s other albums, but he thought it was better not to ask.

“It’s good to be back.”

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang, and Remus let Peter in. Peter mopped the floor as Lily made a teetering tower of waffle cones and Remus prepared the front room for a day of business. It had been six months since he had carried out this ritual, yet he set out the scoops and put the money in the register without having to think. It was habit, drilled into him through years of repetition, and the familiarity was comforting. 

As the opening hour drew to a close, the doorbell rang with increasing frequency, and scoopers began filtering in. Most of them Remus knew from the previous summers, but one girl with long braids was unfamiliar. When Sirius strolled into the front room, his visor lopsided and his apron nowhere to be found, three of the younger scoopers giggled and whispered to each other.

“They’re all going to be in love with him,” Mary whispered, appearing from the kitchen with a Red Bull clutched in her hand and her curly hair straining against her scrunchie. 

Peter glanced sideways at her and grinned. “You jealous?”

“Of course not.”

She strode up to Sirius and flicked his visor off his head. Peter shot Remus a knowing look, but before Remus could comment, a customer strolled up and ordered an ice cream sundae. He beckoned to Sirius.

“You’ll be paired up with me today,” Remus said. “So you can get the hang of interacting with customers and using the register.”

Sirius glanced at the small line forming on the porch. “How hard can it be?”

Remus smiled wryly. “You’d be surprised.” He handed Sirius a scoop. “Regular hot fudge sundae, strawberry ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry. And leave extra room on the sides – he wants extra fudge.”

After Sirius successfully scooped a few orders, Remus stepped aside so Sirius could take orders. He charmed the first few customers: a young mother with two little boys stuffed a five dollar bill into his tip cup, and a pair of middle-aged women fawned over him until the man in line behind them cleared his throat pointedly. When the women stepped aside, the man stepped up to the window, a frown creasing his face.

“Hi, how are–” Sirius began.

“Medium frozen pudding.”

Sirius nodded. “Good talk,” he muttered. “Remus, what’s frozen pudding?”

Remus sighed. “We don’t have it.”

Sirius set down his pen. “Sorry, sir, we don’t have frozen pudding.”

The man took a step back, as though Sirius had threatened to hit him. “No frozen pudding?”

“Nope, sorry. Do you want a different flavor?”

The man shook his head. “No, I want frozen pudding.”

Irritation flashed across Sirius’s face. “Well as I said, we don’t have that. If you pick one of the flavors we do have, I can scoop that for you.”

“I don’t want another flavor!” The man leaned closer to the window; Remus caught a whiff of his foul breath. “I want frozen pudding.”

“Well, I don’t know what you want me to do,” Sirius snapped. “I told you we don’t have it. What am I supposed to do, pull a few scoops of frozen pudding out of my butthole?”

The man’s bulgy eyes widened. “Pull it out of… your butthole?”

“Yes, the long thin hole that’s between my butt cheeks–”

Remus yanked Sirius sideways and slid into his place. “Sorry about that, sir. I’m happy to get you another flavor – rum raisin is the closest.”

The man crossed his arms across his ample stomach and sighed. “Fine. I guess that’ll do. But not if it’s coming from that tattooed kid’s butthole!”

“I’ll have you know, my butthole produces top tier ice cream!” Sirius chimed in. Remus kicked him. 

“You can’t talk to customers like that,” Remus said after the disgruntled customer was heading back to his car licking a generous cone of rum raisin. 

“He was being idiotic! What did he expect me to do – I told him we didn’t have that flavor!”

Remus rubbed his temples. “I know, but you can’t say you’re going to pull ice cream out of your butthole, Sirius. It’s bad customer service. Also, it’s unsanitary.”

Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but another customer was approaching the window. Remus recognized the tiny elderly woman who came up for ice cream every day (and sometimes twice a day). He was already handing out her usual order before Sirius had finished greeting her.

“How’d you do that?” Sirius said when the woman was walking away with her dish of coffee heath bar. 

Remus grinned. “She gets the same thing every day. Most of us know her by now and have her ice cream ready before she gets to the window.”

The next hour passed without incident, save for Sirius’s belt loop snagging on one of the cabinets. 

“Careful with that cabinet,” Mary said as Sirius yanked himself free. “I got my shorts caught last year.” She lowered her voice. “My customer saw my entire ass.”

“Wish I’d been there,” Sirius said. 

Remus turned away to wipe up some fudge smeared across the counter, but he could hear the smirk in Sirius’s voice. He finished in time to watch Mary poke Sirius in the butt with a pen just as he began to greet the next customer. While Sirius dissolved into laughter, Remus nudged him aside and smiled at the bespectacled woman. I don’t know if I can handle an entire fucking summer of them flirting like this. 

“Hi, what can I get for you?”

The woman fanned herself with her hand. “God, it’s hot out here. Must be cool in there, though.”

Remus repressed the urge to roll his eyes. Many customers seemed to believe the entire establishment was one big freezer, but he had learned it wasn’t worth the time to explain that the ice cream cabinets pumped out heat, raising the temperature inside the restaurant. 

“I need a small with one scoop of maple walnut and one scoop of bubblegum,” she continued.

“I’m sorry, in order to get two flavors, you have to get a medium.”

The woman sighed. “No, that’s too much ice cream. Can’t you just do it in a small? I know Fleamont – I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

This time, it was even harder to conceal his annoyance. “Unfortunately, I can’t.”

“Need me to scoop something?” Sirius asked, grabbing a scoop from the nearest dipwell and flicking a few droplets of water onto Remus’s calf.

“No, she’s–”

“Yes, a small half maple walnut, half bubblegum,” the woman cut in. 

Sirius glanced at Remus. “We can’t do two flavors in a small, can we?”

The woman threw up her hands. “Oh, come on, I know you can do it.”

“We’re really not supposed to,” Remus said. “I’m sorry.”

“Ask the manager, then!”

Remus smiled wryly. “I’m sorry to say that I’m the manager.”

Her eyes swept over his face, and her lips pressed into a skeptical frown. “Well, is Fleamont here? $6.25 for a small – I should be able to get two flavors. I’ll have to talk to him about this. Like I said, I know him.”

“You want a cookie?”

Remus and the customer both stared at Sirius. “What?” Fleamont’s alleged friend sputtered.

“Everyone knows Fleamont,” Sirius continued. “Go anywhere with that man and he’ll run into someone he knows. Point is, knowing Fleamont doesn’t mean you get to make up your own rules.”

“Padfoot–”

“Anyway, maple walnut and bubblegum is a disgusting combination,” Sirius finished. “If you’re going to come up here and be a bitch to our esteemed Manager Moony, at least choose good flavors to throw a hissy fit about.”

Remus swallowed a laugh as the woman gaped at the two of them in shocked disbelief before whirling and storming away, calling over her shoulder, “Fleamont will be hearing about this!”

“Great, we can talk about it over breakfast tomorrow!” Sirius called back. “I live with him. Hopefully he doesn’t throw me out because I wouldn’t give you your disgusting flavor combination.”

A young couple was approaching, but Remus directed them to Mary’s window instead and pulled Sirius into the back room.

“You cannot speak to customers like that.”

Sirius shrugged. “She was rude to you first.”

His visor was slipping over one eye. It was unexplainably endearing. “That’s not the point.”

“She was acting like a child. And that’s really saying something coming from me, seeing as I get told I’m acting like a child at least once a week.” He adjusted his visor, and a piece of glossy black hair slid across his forehead. “If customers are going to be assholes, I’m going to be an asshole back.”

Remus shook his head. “That’s not how customer service works, Sirius. You have to be nice to customers, even when they’re assholes. If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t be interacting with customers.”

“Train me to cook, then. I’ll be safely away from customers, and I can throw french fries at Pete. It’s a win win.” He waved at Peter, who stood in front of the grill surveying an array of sizzling burger patties. “Toss me that spatula, Pete! No, really, I’ll catch it.”

“I’m going to get fucking fired this summer,” Remus muttered as he strode over to the kitchen, shaking his head.

“The best thing about working in the kitchen is you can swear as much as you want to.” Peter glanced at Remus and grinned. “Moony belongs back here, but Fleamont made him a manager and now he gets stuck out front talking to customers all the time.”

Sirius gestured to a window that opened onto the side of the picnic area. “Can’t they hear us through this?”

Remus made a dismissive gesture. “We keep it shut most of the time,” he explained. “Fleamont insisted after the customers kept complaining that someone had a dirty mouth.”

“Someone,” Peter repeated. 

“It was me,” Remus admitted. “Anyway, Pete, go ahead with the training. I’m going to go back out front and make sure they’re all set.”

Remus corrected an error on the cash register and refilled the soft serve machine, then returned to the kitchen in time to hear Peter explaining how to make a well done hotdog.

“You cut it in half, like this–”

“I’ve got it.” Sirius grabbed a hotdog from the bin and sliced it in half, but instead of cutting it lengthwise, he sliced it straight down the middle. He held up the two stubby hotdog ends, frowning. “How does this get it well done?”

Remus clutched the tray bar table, shaking with silent laughter and struggling to draw breath.

“The fuck is so funny?”

When Remus regained his composure enough to straighten, he saw Peter slicing a new hotdog correctly. 

“I should have specified which way to slice it,” he said, smiling sheepishly. 

“What should I do with these?” Sirius asked, holding up the two pieces of hotdog, and Remus dissolved into laughter all over again.

After two training shifts, Peter proclaimed Sirius sufficient on the grill, and he moved on to mastering the fryer. Benjy, The Lone Cone’s best fry cook, was meticulous and painstaking in his work, but also undeniably odd. 

“Hello, hello,” he greeted Sirius at the start of the shift.

“What’s up?” Sirius frowned at Benjy’s tall woolen socks extending from the top of his hiking boots. “Aren’t you hot in those? It’s 80 degrees.”

“Hotter in the kitchen,” Benjy said. “I don’t mind, though. Come on. Let’s get started.”

Remus chopped tomatoes and portioned lobster while Benjy showed Sirius how to operate the fryer. By the time the first order came in, Benjy’s music was blasting from the kitchen speaker. His eclectic taste vacillated between early Taylor Swift and EDM. Remus grimaced; the current song featured thumping bass and synth, and was probably best enjoyed at a club under the influence of uppers. 

“That’s a small fry,” Benjy said as he upended the fry basket onto a paper plate before depositing the steaming fries into a little paper box. “You make the next one.”

“How’s this?” Sirius said a few minutes later when he had portioned his own small pile of french fries.

“Hmmm.” Benjy peered at the french fries through his thick glasses, then plucked one fry from the top and tossed it into the trash.  “There. Perfect.”

“What was wrong with that fry?” Sirius demanded.

Benjy shrugged.  “Nothing. It just didn’t need it.” He pointed to the next order slip behind them. “Let’s make those mozzarella sticks. And be careful – if you don’t time it perfectly, they explode.”

The first batch did explode, and when Sirius tried to scrape the melted cheese from the fry basket, he swore under his breath and held up a blistered finger.  

“Don’t worry, you’ll eventually lose feeling in your fingertips,” Benjy assured him. 

“Oh good,” Sirius said, scowling. 

“I’ll throw down some more,” Benjy continued. “Remus, what’s on that next slip?”

Remus turned to read the ticket. “Cheeseburger, chicken tender plate, well done hotdog. Don’t–”

His words petered into laughter. “It says ‘Don’t cut the hotdog wrong, dumbass.’”

Mary poked her head into the kitchen, a shit-eating grin on her face. “Special little message for you, Sirius.”

He gave her the finger and whipped a fry at her retreating back, eliciting a squeal. 

“Now that small fry is one fry short,” Benjy said with a sigh. 

“What do you think?” Remus asked Sirius later. “You gonna quit? Go watch Prongs play Quidditch all summer?”

They had sent out all the orders, and now the kitchen crew sat in the break area, enjoying a few moments of quiet. 

Sirius inspected one of the exploded mozzarella sticks and cast it aside when he determined there was no remaining cheese inside. “Nah. It’s hotter than balls in the kitchen, and I did burn a layer of skin off my thumb, but it’s not so bad.” He inspected a second mozzarella stick before popping it into his mouth. 

Mary walked in and dropped an armful of dishes into the sink. She leaned against the side of the freezer and nodded at Sirius’s mozzarella sticks. “Got any more with actual cheese in them?”

“Not for someone who calls me a dumbass.” He tossed another empty shell in the trash, then handed the last cheesy mozzarella stick to Peter. “That’s for you, Pete.”

“You’re right. You’re not a dumbass. Those customers definitely wanted two little hotdog nubs.” 

She grabbed a clean rag hanging by the sink and snapped it in his direction. Remus shrank back instinctively, remembering the welts those rags could inflict when whipped correctly.

“Fuck! That’s going to leave a mark.” Sirius stood up and rubbed the side of his thigh.

“Prove it.” 

She whipped him again, but this time he darted sideways to avoid it. When she tried to hit him a third time, he snatched up another rag discarded on the counter and retaliated. They darted around the back room, giggling and swearing and trading blows with the rags. 

“You can have the mozzarella stick, Mary,” Peter said.

“The customers can hear you,” Remus said.

Neither Sirius nor Mary gave any indication that they were listening. 

Humidity hung thick in the air as Remus stepped into the restaurant. Cooling charms hummed around him, but they weren’t strong enough to combat the heat. His feet stuck to the floor as he stepped into the front room and made his way to the soft serve machine. The low product light blinked at him in a vaguely taunting rhythm. His eyes fell on the overflowing trash can beside the soft serve machine, forgotten in last night’s haste to close. Another day in paradise. 

The soft serve machine was the bane of Remus’s existence. Maintaining it on a daily basis was bad enough – it was always breaking down, and it screeched loudly when the product ran too low. But once a week Remus had to empty the machine and take it apart piece by piece, then wash and reassemble it. Remus often sprayed himself in the face with cold water as he rinsed out the machine,he hated the sensation of the lubrication gel he had to smooth on the rubber pieces, and there were certain parts that were nearly impossible to snap back into place. But the real trouble occurred after cleaning and reassembly, when Remus poured new soft serve mix into the machine and prayed he had carried out all the steps correctly, because even a small mistake was rewarded with leaking, concerning noises, and irritated calls of “The soft serve machine isn’t working!” 

Remus was forcing a long plastic piece onto a metal blade when he heard the doorbell. 

“Fuck you, you motherfucking piece of shit.”

“That’s real nice, when I brought you a Red Bull out of the goodness of my heart.”

Remus dropped the plastic piece in disgust and looked up. Sirius leaned against an ice cream cabinet, clutching a large Red Bull and wearing a sanctimonious little frown.

“I was talking to the soft serve machine.” Remus accepted the can and cracked it open with a satisfying sound. The first sip eased some of his irritation; somehow Red Bull always made him less angry. “Thanks, Padfoot.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “You’re not going to wait until Red Bull thirty, or whatever you call it?”

Remus took another gulp. “No. This Red Bull is the only thing keeping me from kicking the shit out of this stupid thing.”

Sirius stepped closer to the soft serve machine, still only half-assembled. “What’s this poor machine ever done to you?”

“It’s a temperamental fucker. The mix freezes up and jams the machine, or it comes out too soft and falls off the cone. And if I don’t tighten the shit out of the front bolts, mix slowly leaks out. And it always breaks when we’re busy, and I have to drop what I’m doing and try to fix it.” Remus picked up the plastic piece and forced it onto the metal blade. “That’s right, get in there.”

“Yeah, keep talking dirty to it, Moony, I bet that’s the secret to making it work.” Sirius smacked the side of the machine. “You’re a dirty slut, soft serve machine.”

Remus burst into laughter. “You’re an idiot.”

“Bet you just love being full of that creamy white–”

“Go help Pete open the kitchen, Sirius, and stop sexually harassing the machine.”

“Suit yourself.” Sirius took a sip of Remus’s Red Bull and made a face. “Ugh, why do you drink this?” He wandered toward the kitchen. “Mary, did you see I got you a Red Bull? Although you may want to consider drinking something that doesn’t taste like ass…”

Remus fought with the soft serve machine for another ten minutes before he had to rush back to the kitchen. 

“Why is everyone and their mother ordering lobster rolls today?” Sirius asked as he watched Peter drop an entire package of hotdog rolls onto the grill. 

“We run a special on lobster rolls every Wednesday.” Remus didn’t look up from mixing mayo into a bag of pre-portioned lobster meat. “It brings people in on what would normally be a slow day. Lots of elderly people come up, lots of regulars, and then people get ice cream after. It’s great for business. Fleamont loves it.” Remus turned to shoot Sirius a wry smile. “I fucking hate it. You must have heard me complain about it before.”

Sirius dropped a handful of chicken tenders into a fry basket and shrugged. “Guess I wasn’t listening.”

Remus powered through most of the lunch rush with the help of the rest of the Red Bull and Peter’s playlist titled ‘We’re in the weeds.’

“Why is it called that?” Sirius asked when Peter turned it on and ‘Roll with the changes’ began to blast from the speakers.

“Because when we have more orders than we can count, with a long line of people ordering, we’re in the weeds,” Peter explained.

Sirius leaned over to peer at the line of people extending into the parking lot. “Like now?”

Remus plopped a finished lobster roll onto a tray. “Like now.” 

Remus was beginning an order with eight lobster rolls when there was a high-pitched squeal from the front room.

“Remus!” Mary called. “The soft serve machine is having a meltdown.”

“Rolls over!” Peter dropped an assortment of grilled hotdog rolls on the traybar in front of Remus. “Sorry,” he added.

“Just take the tubes out and turn it off for a second,” Remus yelled back. “I have a fuck ton of lobster rolls to make.” Strictly speaking he shouldn’t be shouting swears loud enough for customers to hear, but the rules were flexible on lobster roll Wednesdays.

When there was no answer, Remus dropped the fork he had been using to mix lobster rolls and hurried into the front room. 

“Fucking asshole,” he muttered. The soft serve machine gave a retaliatory clank. 

He went through his usual problem-solving steps: removing the tubes, turning the machine to standby, adding more mix, praying to the soft serve gods. When none of those worked, he glanced around to make sure nobody was in earshot before whispering, “Come on, you dirty whore. I know you want to work for me.”

He waited a moment. When he turned the machine back on, he braced for a squeal, but there was only a promising thump of machinery. He grabbed a cone and pulled the handle. A stream of chocolate soft serve poured into the cone. 

“Soft serve is working again!” he announced triumphantly as he strode back to the kitchen, dreading the pile of lobster rolls he still had to make. 

“You fixed it?” Sirius asked.

Remus grinned. “The dirty talk worked.” 

“You going to eat that?” Sirius gestured at the cone Remus had forgotten he was holding.

Remus thrust it into his hand and returned to his lobster rolls, feeling surprisingly cheerful despite the number of tickets above his head that was multiplying once more.

“You should train me to make lobster rolls.”

Remus, Sirius, Peter, and Mary were sprawled in the grass beside the dirt parking lot where Sirius’s motorcycle was parked. Smoke from Sirius’s cigarette drifted around his face. Remus watched his lips curve around the filter before he realized Sirius was speaking to him. 

“Why?” Remus asked. 

“So I can help on lobster roll Wednesdays.”

Mary laughed, dispelling the smoke around her face. “Lobster roll Wednesdays are the shittiest part of the job. Why would you willingly subject yourself to that?”

“You can do grill next time if you don’t like frying,” Peter said. “It’s easy – you just drop a bunch of hotdog rolls on the grill. Sometimes I don’t even count.”

Sirius flicked his cigarette butt onto the ground and pillowed his arms behind his head. “I don’t mind frying. I was just thinking, if I can make lobster rolls, I can help out if Remus has to go do manager bullshit.”

“What’s manager bullshit?”

“You know, talk dirty to the soft serve machine, or grab change for the register, or go talk to some asshole customer who wants a refund because the rum raisin tastes too much like raisins.”

Remus plucked a piece of grass as he mulled this over. He liked the idea of Sirius chipping away at the neverending number of lobster rolls demanded by hungry customers while Remus was off doing God knows what for the scoopers. And if it was a complete disaster and Sirius crumbled under the pressure, it might be amusing to watch. “It’s not a terrible idea, actually,” he said. “Alright, I’ll train you tomorrow.”

Benjy was mopping the floor and singing along in his offkey baritone when Remus walked into the restaurant the following morning. He opened the refrigerator and took stock of the contents, then took out a head of lettuce to rinse. When the song changed, Remus started laughing; there was something unnerving and hilarious about hearing earnest, socially awkward Benjy singing “Dicked Down in Dallas.”

“Morning,” Sirius said, plopping down at the break table with a large iced coffee and a Dunkins bag. 

“You’re late.”

Sirius shrugged. “The line at the drive through was long. Don’t look at me like that – I got you a bagel.” He held out the bag to Remus and grinned. “Great song choice, Benjy! ‘Analed in Austin, buttfucked in Boston,’ it’s classic.”

“The alliteration is very satisfying.” Remus smiled as the bagel warmed his fingers. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since his dinner of a protein bar the previous evening. “Thanks for this.”

“Are you going to dock my pay for being late? It’s probably around the cost of this bagel…”

Remus sighed. “No, but let’s eat fast. If we don’t get the opening tasks done on time, Benjy will give us that disappointed, judgmental look, and I can’t stand it.”

Remus walked Sirius through the basics of setting up trays and to-go orders until the printer whirred and spit out a ticket for their first lobster roll order of the day.

“I’m ready, Moony,” Sirius said. “Impart your extensive lobster roll knowledge on me.”

“It’s not exactly complicated.” Remus dropped a bag of pre-portioned lobster meat into a small metal bowl and squeezed a bit of mayo on top. “Go easy on the mayo – it gets all gloppy and gross if you use too much.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised you approve of the word ‘gloppy.’”

“Gloppy,” Remus repeated, testing the way the word felt in his mouth. “No, you’re right, I’m already regretting it. Anyway, you’re going to take two pieces of lettuce and line the roll with them–”

“Nestle them in there?” 

“Fuck off, you know I hate ‘nestle.’” Remus took a step back and rested the lip of the bowl against the hotdog bun. “And then you just put the lobster in the roll.”

Sirius laughed. “Is that stance a required part of the process?”

“What stance?”

Sirius imitated Remus’s hunched posture. “Why is your body so far away from the counter? But your face is like an inch from the lobster roll?”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not! And you’re sticking your ass out.” Sirius stuck his own butt out to demonstrate. 

“For fuck’s sake. Alright, fine, it’s my lobster roll stance, but it works. Go ahead and try it so we can make this second lobster roll and send the order out, unless you’re going to explain to the customer that her food took forever because you were staring at my ass.” 

Sirius imitated Remus’s process, and when he successfully slid the last bit of lobster into the bun, his lips curved into a triumphant smile.

“How do you like that? That’s a sexy lobster roll right there.”

Remus surveyed it and gave a satisfied nod. “Nice work. Admit it – the stance is useful.”

Sirius shrugged. “I’ll never doubt you again.”

Remus grabbed the tray and headed to the front room. His face was oddly flushed; he supposed it was hot in the kitchen.

Sweat dripped down Remus’s neck. His visor slid down his forehead, partially obscuring his vision. The printer whirred, spitting out another ticket to add to the full line of orders above his head. His fingers slid on a glob of mayonnaise as he mixed another lobster roll, chipping away at the pile of toasted buns Peter was churning out. He reached for his water bottle, but he found only one lukewarm sip. 

“What’s the status of number 150?” Lily asked, darting into the kitchen with flushed cheeks and a smudge of waffle cone batter on her apron. “He said he’s been waiting forever – he’s standing by the pickup window giving me dirty looks.”

Remus tore a piece of lettuce and slipped it into a roll. “Everyone has been waiting forever, Lily.”

“I know, but about how long do you think?” She stepped closer and peered up at the order tickets, and Remus had to swallow the urge to scold her for invading his space. She’s just trying to help. She’s not trying to get in my way. It’s not her fault I’m dying of thirst and sweating my ass off and I have a million fucking lobster rolls to make and I have no idea which order number 150 is.

“Tell him ten minutes.” He reached around her to place a lobster roll on a tray, then pulled down the slip and handed it to her. “Will you bring this one out, please?”

“I can’t bring out someone else’s order – number 150 is going to lose his mind.”

“Tell number 150 to suck a fucking dick. I don’t even know what order I’m on – we’re in the weeds here.”

“I feel the weeds tickling my butthole,” Benjy chimed in.

Peter’s only response was to throw an entire bag of hotdog rolls onto the grill. 

Remus reached into the bin of portioned lobster and scraped the bottom. “Fuck. Is there any more lobster thawing right now?”

Lily frowned and shook her head. “Those were the last bags. Shit – are we out?”

“Level two lobster emergency.”

Lily pushed a sweaty strand of hair out of her face. “Okay. I’ll have Mary talk to number 150. He seems like the kind of creep who might be appeased by big boobs.”
“What about the lobster?”

“I’ll handle it.” She grabbed the phone and hurried into the front room.

Ten minutes later, Remus was sending out order 150 when Sirius strolled into the restaurant, bringing with him a whiff of cigarettes and cologne that was a welcome change from the scent of sizzling burgers and french fries. 

“Lily called me in,” he explained. “She said it’s a level two lobster emergency – sounds serious. Apparently I’m supposed to be your tray bitch, whatever that means.”

“It means you help me set up the trays and make lobster rolls, but that’s alright.”

Peter laughed. “He hates having anyone in his space, but he’s too polite to say so.”

Remus thought wryly of the time he had snapped at Lily for knocking over a cup of drawn butter. “I work best alone.”

Sirius sidled up beside him and set a large Red Bull on the counter. “You have a shitload of orders and more coming in. Shut up and make me your tray bitch.”

Remus cracked open the Red Bull. The sound of the tab opening put a smile on his face, and the first sip gave him a burst of energy. “Fine. Can you set up the first few trays for me? And make sure you put extra mayo, drawn butter, plates, forks, and knives on the first tray. It’s for the Dilderbilders.”

“What the fuck is a Dilderbilder?”

“They’re customers who come every week. Never mind, just don’t forget their extra shit or they’ll complain.”

Sirius set out forks and plates and little tubs of ketchup as Remus mixed lobster roll after lobster roll.

“Hang on, what’s your pump up song?” Sirius asked.

Remus was counting lobster rolls and didn’t hear him at first. “What?”

“Your pump up song. There was one song on Peter’s in the weeds playlist you played last week that got you through. Was it Party in the USA?”

Remus laughed and nearly dropped the lobster roll he was holding. “What? No, it’s ‘Teenagers’.”

“Oh, right. Well, same thing.” He leaned over Remus to grab Peter’s phone, but somehow the proximity didn’t bother Remus as much as it should have. When the familiar notes blasted from the speakers, Remus took a deep breath and turned back to the orders, oddly encouraged.

Time blurred and slowed. The night passed in increments of lobster rolls and grease-stained order slips, until finally the last tray went out. The kitchen crew looked around at each other and let out a collective sigh.

“We did it,” Peter said. He grabbed a wrinkled hotdog languishing on the grill and tossed it into the trash. 

“We did it,” Remus repeated. He surveyed the carnage: french fries littered the floor, mayonnaise was spattered across his apron, and there was a hamburger roll under the tray bar that nobody had bothered to pick up. 

“We fucking killed that rush,” Sirius said, clapping Remus on the shoulder. 

A piece of wilted lettuce clung to his visor. Remus plucked it off and held it in his open palm. “Saving this for later?”

Sirius grinned and picked up the lettuce. His fingertips bruised Remus’s palm, damp from sweat and bearing a light coating of powder left behind by a pair of gloves. A surge of warmth flooded Remus’s body, separate from the oppressive heat rising from the fryer and drifting through the open window, and a realization crashed over him like the box of paper towels that had fallen from a shelf and landed on his head last week. It was a knowledge so vivid, so acute, so overpowering that Remus marveled he had been able to ignore it for so long. He glanced at Sirius, taking in the sheen of sweat on his upper lip, the tattoo peeking out from beneath his The Lone Cone t-shirt, his body leaning against the counter as if he belonged there, and Remus knew he was absolutely fucked.

When they went for an after work swim in James’s pool, Remus could still feel the imprint of Sirius’s touch as the scent of chlorine burned his nostrils and cool water enveloped his body.

Pull yourself together, for fuck’s sake. Remus paddled to the edge of the pool and leaned against the side, trying to look anywhere but at Sirius, unable to look anywhere but at Sirius. 

Sirius hoisted himself out of the pool, his shoulders dappled with moonlight. He left a trail of wet footprints behind him as he bounded towards the diving board, and body formed a graceful arc as he dove into the pool and sprayed Remus with water droplets that did nothing to cool his flushed cheeks. When he emerged, he floated on his back, his hair fanning out around his face, his toes poking out of the water.

I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t

“Are you alright?” Peter had climbed up the ladder and sat on the side of the pool, his legs dangling in the water. 

“Fine.” Remus watched Sirius paddle past James as he headed for the ladder again. He was the farthest from fine he had ever been in his life. “Why?” Sirius was now poised on the edge of the pool, his stomach muscles tensing as he prepared to jump in again. “I’m fine.”

Peter studied Remus, then he turned to watch Sirius cannonball into the pool. His eyes narrowed.

“What—“ he began, but he pressed his lips together and swallowed his question. A jolt of realization lit his face. Remus knew that look: it was the exact look he got when he figured out the right chess move. He’s too observant for his own fucking good. I should’ve known he’d sniff me out in about a second.

Peter jerked his chin in Sirius’s direction and raised his eyebrows. Remus sighed and nodded.

“Holy shit,” Peter whispered. 

Peter opened his mouth again, but Remus silenced him with a sharp shake of his head. 

“Don’t.” Remus’s entire body was buzzing, and he didn’t trust himself to even speak Sirius’s name without giving everything away to James and Sirius and probably Fleamont and Euphemia if their bedroom window was open. 

“Okay. My house?”

Peter’s house was dark except for the yellow glow of the porch light. Not wanting to wake Peter’s mother, they headed for the backyard, their flip flops thumping softly against the damp grass. Peter produced a joint and a lighter — purple, stolen from Sirius — and they sat on the sagging trampoline and passed it back and forth. The marijuana loosened Remus’s limbs and quieted the buzzing in his brain, and by the time Peter stubbed out the roach and they slid onto their backs, Remus felt almost calm. A cricket chirped somewhere in the grass, and a dog barked from the house next door. Smoke drifted around their faces until it was carried away by the breeze. Usually Remus worried Peter’s mom would wake up and detect the musky scent of the joint, but tonight he was too fixated on his realization to care. 

“So,” Peter said.

Remus gazed up at the star-studded sky and tried to force the words through his lips. I like Sirius. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was, “So.”

“How long?”

“I just realized it tonight.”

Peter shifted slightly beside him. “At work? Was it his lobster roll stance that did it for you?”

“Shut up.” Remus thought back to their brief touch in the stifling kitchen. How could he put such a seemingly insignificant encounter into words? “I think I’ve felt it for a while, it just took me until now to figure it out.”

“Hmm.”

Remus rolled over to face Peter. “What?”

“I had a hunch, that’s all.”

“What do you mean, you had a hunch?”

Peter adjusted his t-shirt and waited a few moments before answering. The music changed from “Strawberry Fields” to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Peter called this particular playlist the “Stoner Beatles Mix,” and he only played it when it was just the two of them. Sirius always gives me shit for listening to the Beatles, Peter had explained once. I’d rather give him the aux and not have to defend my music taste. 

“You watch him,” Peter said finally. “I don’t think it’s intentional, but you do. You watch him the way I watch Mary.”

“I do not.” 

But as Remus spoke, a flurry of images burst into his mind: Sirius tipping back in his chair, unbothered by the pull of gravity; the relieved slump of his shoulders after the first puff on a cigarette; his dark hair tumbling as he threw his head back and laughed; a careless wave before he hopped on his motorcycle and roared away in a cloud of exhaust fumes. 

“What do I do?” Remus asked. He didn’t know why he had bothered asking. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything to do. Sirius was everything he wasn’t – confident and experienced and smart without having to try too hard – and Remus seemed doomed to steal glances at him during dining hall dinners and watch him scour frat parties for his next hookup. 

Remus smiled sadly, as though he had read Remus’s thoughts. “Well, you can join the Pining for Your Friend Club. We can hold weekly meetings, maybe get buttons.” 

Remus scraped his fingernail along the trampoline, enjoying the sensation as he resigned himself to a future of unresolved yearning.

“Or,” Peter continued, rolling over to face Remus. Hope lit his bloodshot eyes. “You can go for it.”

Remus imagined kissing Sirius in the Potters’ pool, chlorine on his lips and water dripping from his hair. For a wild moment, it seemed possible, but as he tried to hang onto the image, it fluttered away into the realm of impossible dreams to join his aspirations of getting an A in statistics or getting through a summer at The Lone Cone without wanting to pummel the soft serve machine.

“Fuck off,” Remus said, laughing. “How high are you?”

“High enough that I just spent the past five minutes thinking that star was a UFO,” Peter said, pointing up. “But that’s irrelevant. I think Sirius could actually go for you.”

“Why?”

“Well, he’s been known to have bad taste.”

Remus’s laughter bounced across the hushed stillness of the night. “Fair enough.”

“Just kidding.”  Peter shifted position, and Remus slid sideways as the trampoline moved underneath him. “But seriously. Why not? All the time you two are going to spend together on lobster roll Wednesdays, right next to each other? Maybe seeing you do your lobster roll stance will make him realize he wants to take you in the walk-in and do things that break about ten health regulations.”

Remus tried not to imagine this scenario. “Shut up. That’s not going to happen.”

“How do you know? Just wait and see what happens.” Peter pushed himself upright, teetering on his feet as he regained his balance. “I’m getting eaten alive by mosquitos out here. Do you want to go inside and play Mario Kart?”

Remus grinned and hoisted himself to his feet. “Alright. No Waluigi, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s too pointy and makes you uneasy, I know.”

The two of them hopped off the trampoline and headed inside, Remus’s head buzzing with possibilities despite his best efforts to tamp down his hope.

Remus hitched on what he hoped was a natural smile when he stepped out of Peter’s car and saw Sirius pull into the parking lot on his motorcycle. He forced himself to concentrate on the crunch of gravel underneath his feet instead of Sirius’s windswept hair.

“You good?” Peter muttered.

Remus jammed his visor onto his head. “Fan-fucking-tastic.” 

“When are you going to get your car fixed?” Sirius said when he reached them. 

Remus thought of his car languishing in his parents’ driveway. It had been nagging at him all summer, but his realization the previous day had banished the broken alternator and hefty garage bill from his mind. 

“Why would he bother when he can ride around in my luxury vehicle?” Peter gestured at his ancient Corolla with a dented fender and not a hubcap in sight.

Sirius’s laughter made Remus’s stomach swoop absurdly. Peter gave him an encouraging smile as he unlocked the door and they filed into the restaurant. 

Remus faked his way through the day. He made lobster rolls and washed dishes, sent the scoopers on break one by one and replenished the change in the cash register, resolved a customer complaint and checked in a delivery. No matter the task, he was acutely aware of Sirius’s presence, despite his best efforts to focus on anything and everything else. Their hands brushed as they reached for the same dishrag, and Remus’s face burned. When Sirius sidled past him to grab a Tupperware, Remus couldn’t breathe for almost a full minute. How does Peter do this every day? He wondered as he cracked open his second Red Bull of the day. It’s torture.

At the end of the night, Peter slunk up to Remus, his brow furrowed.

“My mom texted me,” he said, his hands toying with the edge of his apron. “Olive got out, and she’s been wandering the neighborhood for hours looking, but she can’t find her anywhere. I don’t know what she expects me to do, but she’s all upset. I know I said I’d stay to clean cabinets, and I’m your ride, but do you think…?”

“We’ll be fine. Lily, Mary and I can handle it on our own.” Remus looked at the clock and began to calculate the time it would take to accomplish the task with three people. It would tack on a bit of time, but if they worked efficiently, they should be able to get out of there before one. “I bet Lily will drive me home. Go find Olive.”

“Where’s Olive?” Sirius wandered in from the front room, a half-eaten cone of soft-serve in one hand. There was a tiny smear of chocolate on his bottom lip, and Remus determinedly avoided looking at it so he would not imagine what it would be like to dab it away. 

Peter sighed. “Hiding under the Millers’ front porch, probably. My mom’s out looking for her now. I’m going to go help.”

Sirius’s eyes widened. “Shit, I hope you find her. I love that fucking cat.”

Peter smiled. “She bites you every time you try to pet her.”

“Yeah, but still,” Sirius said, shrugging. “Anyway, if Pete’s going home, does that mean you need someone else to stay and clean cabinets? I can do it – I could use the extra money. And I can drive you home, Remus,  but we’re stopping at Wendy’s.” 

He marched away before Remus could say anything, then leaned against the break table beside Mary and offered her his ice cream cone. “I’m staying tonight, and I’m picking the music. Aren’t you excited you get to see even more of me tonight? Hey, I meant take a lick, not eat the whole thing!”

A few minutes later, the building had emptied out and a Taylor Swift song was blasting from the speakers.

“Lily insisted,” Sirius said, although Remus suspected the music was Sirius’s own choice.

The four of them emptied the cans of ice cream from the cabinets and stacked them in the huge walk-in freezer, then turned off the cabinet and began scraping the ice from the sides. They worked as a cohesive unit, Sirius melding in seamlessly as though he had been cleaning cabinets for years. He hummed as he worked, sometimes tapping his ice scraper against the cabinet wall in time with the music until Mary chided him to hurry up. Remus realized he was staring and tore his eyes away, but he thought he saw a knowing smile on Lily’s face.

When they had finished the first two cabinets and started on the third, Sirius thrust his ice scraper at 

Remus and reached for the shop vac. 

“I’m tired of scraping. Let me do that.”

“Alright, but make sure you–”

A gout of cold, filthy water splashed into Remus’s face, extinguishing the rest of his words. He blinked the water from his eyes in time to see Sirius fumble with the hose, drenching himself before Mary hit the off switch.

“It’s the other way to suck up the water, isn’t it,” Sirius said, sopping strands of hair sticking to his face.

Remus wrung out the end of his t-shirt. “Yes.”

Sirius pushed his hair out of his face and laughed. Lily choked out something about getting the mop while Mary leaned against the cabinet, shaking with peals of laughter. Remus stepped sideways out of the puddle of water. His shoes squished sickeningly. 

“Well, shit.” Sirius peeled off his soaked t-shirt and flung it across the room. It landed somewhere with a splat, but Remus didn’t know where it had ended up because his eyes were glued to Sirius’s bare chest. He wanted to laugh, or swear at Sirius for his idiocy, or do something about the water running down his nose, but he was paralyzed. He had seen Sirius shirtless countless times over the years, but today the sight of the scar on his chest and the trail of dark hair below his navel sent a fierce heat creeping down his neck. 

“You can’t take your shirt off,” Lily said, returning from the back room pushing a mop and bucket. 

“Why not? Are you worried my naked body is going to be too distracting to Mary? Valid concern, actually.”

Mary giggled. “You wish. How’d you get that scar?”

Sirius traced the jagged, raised line, and Remus wondered what it would feel like to do so. “I got in a fight with a bear. You should see the bear.”

“But seriously,” Lily insisted. “You can’t just go shirtless. It’s a health code violation or something. Right, Remus?”

Remus watched a bead of water roll down Sirius’s chest and land in his waistband. Stop looking stop looking stop looking. But Sirius had a magnetic pull and Remus was powerless to look anywhere else.

“Remus?” Sirius waved his hand in front of Remus’s face, momentarily blocking his view and breaking the spell. “Did that blast of water make your brain short circuit?”

Remus managed a weak laugh and shook his head. “No, I’m just trying to wrap my head around what a fucking idiot you are. Come on, let’s get back to work so we can get this done.”

He grabbed the mop and began to sop up the water, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor until the warmth faded from his face.

He was sanitizing a stack of red plastic trays when  Lily tapped him on the shoulder the following day.

“Supervisor meeting in the walkin. Right now.”

Remus grinned and followed her toward the walkin refrigerator. “Supervisor meeting” was their code for taking a minute to enjoy the cool refrigerator air while they snacked on the Reese’s peanut butter cups Fleamont kept for ice cream ingredients. When the cool air enveloped Remus’s body and the door swung shut behind them, he reached for the enormous bag, but Lily crossed her arms and cleared her throat.

“I know.”

Remus froze with a peanut butter cup halfway to his mouth. “You know what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Cut the shit. I know you like Sirius.”

Remus’s heart skipped a beat, and he pressed his finger to his lips despite the enormous metal door insulating their words. “I don’t – I never said–”

“Give me those.” She reached into the bag and emerged with a Reese’s cup. “I saw you ogling him last night. And your face right now says it all. I know you, Remus Lupin.”

Remus wanted to deny her accusation, but he knew it was useless. He heaved a sigh and popped the Reese’s cup into his mouth. Lily gave a satisfied nod, apparently taking this as agreement, and ate her own Reese’s cup. She pulled out an empty milk crate and sat on it, then slid another toward him and gestured for him to join her. He sank down beside her and propped the bag of Reese’s cups between them.

“So what are we going to do?” Lily asked.

“What do you mean, what are we going to do? We’re going to go about our business and pretend this conversation never happened.” 

She nudged his milk crate with her foot. “No we’re not. I want to help. I ship you two.”

Remus frowned. “You ship us? What the hell does that mean?”

She waved her hand impatiently. “You know, like I want you to be together. I like you as a couple. Like, if I think Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand should bone down, you’d say I ship them.”

He looked at her blankly. “What? The Bruins players?”

“Yes. They have the whole teammates to lovers thing going for them.”

Remus chewed and swallowed another Reese’s cup as he fought to make sense of her words. “Since when are you into hockey?”

She smiled sheepishly. “Oh. Well, since I’ve been reading hockey RPF.” She waited a beat, then added, “Real person fiction. Fanfiction about real people, you know? I don’t even know how it happened, but I’m in too deep to get out now. Last night I stayed up until 2 am reading a 100k slow burn about two players on the Maple Leafs.”

Remus burst into laughter. It felt good to laugh at Lily rather than wallow in the deep embarrassment of knowing his feelings had been so apparent last night. 

“Shut up. It was lovely. Don’t tell James, by the way – he thinks my new interest in hockey is so I can watch Bruins games with him, and I don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.”

She crammed a Reese’s cup into her mouth. “Anyway,” she said through a mouthful of chocolate and peanut butter, “I think I have an idea, actually. Do you think you can get someone to cover your Saturday night shift?”

 The following Saturday, Benjy happily worked Remus’s shift while Remus, Sirius, James, Lily, Mary, and Peter went camping at the campground down the street from The Lone Cone. James brought his parents’ camper, and they built a fire and sat around singing along to Peter’s playlist and sipping Bud Light from a cooler stocked with ice stolen from The Lone Cone’s ice machine. Throughout the evening, Lily kept nudging Remus and winking, until he lost patience and pulled her into the camper on the pretense of locating bug spray.

“Stop giving me those looks,” he muttered, imitating her over-the-top wink. “You’re making it obvious.”

“I can’t help it! There’s a definite vibe between you two.”

Remus sighed. “There is no vibe.”
“I’m telling you, there’s a vibe. You two have the perfect friends to lovers arc–”

“Lily, this isn’t one of your hockey fanfics. Stop winking or I’ll tell James the real reason you know who Patrice Bergeron is.”

He snagged a can of bug spray from a shelf and marched back to the fire.

“Think fast, Remus!”

Sirius whipped a ping pong ball in his direction, and Remus’s hand shot out to catch it before he had time to think. It was a miraculous catch that Remus attributed to a combination of luck and all the balls James had chucked at him over the years. He opened his palm and gazed at the ball in disbelief until Sirius clapped him on the back and knocked the ball to the ground.

“Congratulations, you’ve just become my beer pong partner.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. I threw a ball to James and he dropped it – he was too busy looking for Lily. And Mary did this.” Sirius waved his hands in the air, eyes wide and tongue lolling.

“Shut up!” Mary giggled and tossed an empty can at him; it missed and landed in the fire.

“And that is why you’re not on my team.” Sirius grabbed two beers from the cooler and pressed one into Remus’s hand. The can was cool against his fingers, dripping condensation down his arm, but Sirius’s touch flooded his skin with heat.

“I’ll play with you, Mary,” Peter said. “We can take Sirius – he always bounces – and Remus always knocks over the cups by mistake.”

The four of them arranged themselves on either side of the table beside the camper while James and Lily snuggled beside the fire. 

“Look how happy they look,” Sirius said, gesturing at Peter and Mary laughing on the other side of the table. “We’re about to wipe the smiles off their faces.”

He lit a cigarette; he insisted smoking improved his Beirut skills. 

“If you’re really set on winning, maybe you should have picked a different partner,” Remus said. He remembered the last time he had been partnered with Sirius at a Halloween party in a grimy off-campus apartment. They had lost to a pair of frat boys who had high fived after each cup they sank, and Sirius had nearly thrown a punch after one of them had insisted racking on five was permissible (You can’t fucking rack on five! ‘Link’s Sword,’ you just pulled that out of your fucking ass! Sirius had ranted as Remus had pulled him away from the Link’s Sword enthusiast). 

“I picked the right partner. You’ve got this.” Sirius dipped a ping pong ball into one of the Solo cups, flicked away a drop of water, and handed the ball to Remus, his smile bright enough to illuminate the dark campsite. And despite every synapse in Remus’s brain urging him to keep his expectations low, hope leaped in his chest as he raised his arm, released the ball, and watched it form a graceful arc through the air and land neatly in the front cup.

The game passed in a blissful blur. The beer pong gods seemed to be smiling down on Remus, or perhaps they had taken pity on him after years of underwhelming playing, because he didn’t miss a single shot. When his ball landed in the last cup, Sirius erupted into a cheer and threw his arms around him. Remus was so startled he dropped his beer, but he was too busy enjoying Sirius’s embrace to mind the Bud Light seeping into his shoe.

“Suck it, Pete! How do you like that, Mary?” Sirius crowed when he had released Remus.

“Don’t be a fucking sore winner,” Mary said, flipping him off. “Try being humble once in a while.”

Sirius cracked open another beer and took a long pull. “Make me.” A sheen of beer glistened on his lips. Remus wanted to lick it off. Get it together. 

“Fine.” Mary marched around the table and threw a ping pong ball hard at Sirius’s forehead. It bounced off and circled the rim of a Solo cup before landing in the inch of dirty water inside. 

“Nice one,” Remus said. 

Nobody answered. Remus looked up and realized what was holding their attention: Sirius and Mary were making out. 

Remus’s stomach twisted. He tried to look away, to turn back to the ball bobbing inside of the Solo cup, or watch the crackling flames of the fire, or stare at his beer-soaked shoes, but he was frozen in place. As he watched, he realized making out was an inadequate word to describe the passionate, veering towards obscene display taking place before his eyes. Sirius’s hand slid under Mary’s shirt; Mary’s hand slipped into Sirius’s pocket; a Solo cup crashed to the ground as the two bumped into the table in their impatience to grope each other. 

“Get a room!” James called.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Sirius listened to sound advice and pulled Mary into the camper. There were muffled footsteps and laughter from inside. James laughed, and Lily murmured something Remus didn’t hear. He was doing his best not to hear anything.

“Do you think they’re coming back out?” Peter said uncertainly. “Sirius was supposed to play James and Lily next.”

The camper began rocking, starting with a gentle motion and then picking up speed.

“I think they’ll be in there a while, Pete,” James said. He whistled and slipped his arm around Lily’s waist. “Where are we going to sleep, though? I don’t think it’s advisable for any of us to go in there right now.”

“I brought a tent!” Lily dashed to the car and returned with a polyester bag. “I brought it on a whim, and when I saw the camper I decided not to bother, but it’s really easy to assemble – I’ll show you.”

James and Lily dispersed to the other side of the campsite to set up the tent, and Remus and Peter wandered back to the fire. Remus heaved a sigh and sank into a chair. Peter cranked up the music before getting both of them another beer from the cooler. Remus had never been more grateful for two simple gestures. They both opened their beers and listened to a Blink-182 song that wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the creak of springs.

“Fuck our lives,” Remus said.

Peter laughed. “Fuck our lives. It’s the only fucking we’re going to do this summer.”

Remus’s laughter eased some of the tightness in his chest. “Do we have any more chips? The crunching might help cover up the sound.”

“Cheer up, will you?”

Remus cracked open his second Red Bull of the day and repressed the urge to tell Lily to fuck off. His head throbbed from the inadvisable amount of Bud Light he had consumed, and his back ached from sleeping on a blanket beside the fire. 

“I’m fine.”

His eyes strayed to Sirius, asleep with his head resting on the break table. Mary stood beside him, carefully arranging bits of lettuce on his head and stifling her giggles. He tore his gaze away and saw a knowing look on Lily’s face. 

“Maybe it was just a one-time thing,” she said.

Remus took a large gulp of Red Bull. “Maybe.”

A few hours later, Remus was mopping up a spilled frappe when Sirius strolled into the front room, bringing with him a whiff of cigarette smoke.

“I know I said I’d drive you home, but can you ask Pete instead?” Sirius asked. “Mary invited me over.”

Remus forced a laugh. “You two are really hitting it off, then?”

Sirius picked up a bottle of cleaning product and twirled it between his fingers. “I mean, you were there last night. What do you think?” 

In his mind, Remus saw the obscene motion of the camper and heard the echo of bedsprings and passionate moans. “Right.”

“She’s cool.”

Remus’s stomach twisted. When Sirius referred to someone he was seeing as “cool,” it was basically a confession of love. 

“I heard that,” Mary said, emerging from the kitchen carrying a laden tray. “You called me cool.”

“Don’t let it go to your head, though,” Sirius warned. “I still think you’re idiotic for that stupid vape – it’s pink and smells like strawberries. Just smoke a real fucking cigarette. And you like plain cones even though they taste like fucking styrofoam.”

Remus didn’t have the energy to berate Sirius for swearing in the front room; he was too busy studying the curve of Sirius’s smile 

The following morning, Sirius pulled up to Remus’s house on his motorbike dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing the previous day.

“I stayed over Mary’s,” Sirius said as Remus climbed on behind him. “We smoked – she rolls the tightest joints, it’s like a fucking work of art – and we watched The Office and ate pizza rolls. And fucked, obviously.”

Remus jammed his helmet onto his head, glad Sirius was facing away so he wouldn’t see the strained expression on his face. “That sounds great.”

“It was. I think I’ll keep seeing her this summer and then see what happens.”

The possibility of those last three words made Remus’s chest ache.

“Is that helmet really fucking necessary?”

Remus swallowed everything he wanted to say and choked out a laugh. “Yes. I’d prefer not to crack my head open if we crash.”

“Live free or die. You’re mocking the founders of our fine state by refusing to follow the state motto.”

“Maybe the state founders were idiots.”

Apparently tired of discussing the New Hampshire founders, Sirius took off with a roar of engine. Remus allowed himself to cling to Sirius’s waist instead of hanging onto the back; he decided he had earned that small pleasure. 

“He stayed over last night,” Remus muttered to Lily and Peter as they stocked the freezer together that morning. “He said she’s cool.”

Peter dusted frost from a can of ice cream with a gloved hand and sighed. “Fuck”

“What’s the big deal?” Lily asked. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“For Sirius it does,” Remus insisted. “If he says someone’s alright, he likes them. If he says they’re cool, they’ve got him in a chokehold.”

“Sometimes literally,” Peter added. “You know, I wonder how much useful information I could retain if my brain wasn’t full of details about Sirius’s sex life.”

“We could both pass organic chem for sure,” Remus said, smiling wryly. “Probably ancient Greek, too.”

“Exactly. Anyway, Lily, remember Carl?”
Lily’s brow furrowed. “Was Carl the one with all the conspiracy theories who stormed the capitol?”

Peter laughed. “No, not him.”

“Was Carl the one who said he could talk to ghosts?”

“No, that was Kaylie.” Peter scrunched up his face. “Kylee? Something like that.”

“Carl had the face tattoo,” Remus said before Lily could venture any more guesses. Sirius had a long dating history, and they had a freezer to fill. “You should’ve led with that, Pete.”

Lily snapped her fingers. “Right! Carl. Face tattoo, tongue ring, had the audacity to say Taylor Swift was overrated when he listened to fucking Nickelback.”

Remus grinned, recalling Lily slopping Franzia onto the already-sticky frat house floor as she berated Carl for his critique of “Shake it Off.” 

“When Sirius first met Carl, he told us he was ‘pretty cool,’” Peter said. “He liked him so much, he went to a Nickelback concert with him.”

Lily let out a hoot of laughter. “No he didn’t!”

“He sure did,” Remus said. “We aren’t supposed to know – he told us they was going to see some punk band with a stupid name–”

“The Long Thin Holes,” Peter said. “They’re actually decent. That song ‘Lipstick Nips’ is a banger.”

“Anyway, Carl posted a video of the concert on his story – many videos, actually, he recorded all of ‘Photograph’ for our listening pleasure – so we know where he really was,” Remus said.

“Sometimes we think about it when we need a good laugh,” Peter added. 

Remus imagined Sirius singing along to “Rockstar.” It chipped away at the hopelessness weighing down on him. 

“So, as Fleamont would say, long story longer, Sirius and Mary are probably going to be an all summer thing, and maybe more than that.” Remus opened the freezer door and heaved a sigh. “So that’s that. No more trying to cheer me up, no little comments, none of your Lily Evans meddling. Let’s just have a good summer and try not to go crazy from Benjy playing ‘Dicked Down in Dallas’ once an hour.”

Lily shrugged. “Alright, fine. No meddling. But I’m not going to stop trying to cheer you up. That is my job as your friend.”

“Technically it is your job to help me finish stocking the freezer,” he said, but he didn’t argue further. He supposed being cheered up wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Remus was helping Benjy fold paper hotdog trays when the phone rang. Benjy answered the phone and listened for a moment, then frowned and covered the receiver. 

“Remus, this guy says there’s a naked man streaking through our parking lot.”

“What?”

“Yeah, apparently he’s out by the dumpsters shouting and waving his bits around.”

Remus wanted to dissolve into a puddle of laughter at the phrase ‘waving his bits around,’ but he forced himself to run for the back door. When he got outside, he scanned the area for a naked man, but saw no sign of waving bits anywhere. He took a few steps forward and looked between parked cars–

SPLASH. 

Icy water drenched his body. Sputtering, he wiped his eyes and pushed sopping hair out of his face, then looked up. Lily waved from the attic window above him, her face alight with laughter.

“Gotcha!” she called. “That was James on the phone. I noticed you sprinted right out here to see the naked man.”

Laughing, Remus wrung out the end of his t-shirt. He heard laughter behind him, and turned to see Peter watching from the doorway.  “I wasn't coming out here to ogle!  I was coming out here to protect the innocent customers.”

“Right. Anyway, let the prank war begin!”

“Prank war?”

“Yes, it was James’s idea. To cheer you up, you know?”

He gestured at his soaked clothing. “Dumping water on me is supposed to cheer me up?”

“Yes, because now you have to plot how to get me back, and it’ll take your mind off of things. So consider this prank war officially begun.” She frowned. “Do I need to do something special to make it official?”

“We usually bang a gong,” Peter said, straightfaced.

“I don’t have a gong.”

“A gavel will work. Or you can shoot a gun, like they do for a race, and then you have to recite the official prank war pledge.” Peter put his hand over his heart. “I solemnly swear—“

“You’re bullshitting me,” Lily said.

Peter nodded, a smile spreading across his face. “I am.”

“I’ll remember that when I’m planning my next prank.”

“Is Benjy in on this too?” Remus asked.

Lily flashed him a wicked grin. “I don’t know. Is he? Watch your back, that’s all I’m saying. Anyway, you should probably dry off, because those hotdog trays aren’t going to fold themselves.”

She closed the window and disappeared, leaving Remus standing in a puddle, his mind already spinning out how he would get her back.

Peter helped him get his revenge the following day. In the stuffy attic they navigated around boxes of styrofoam cups and plastic spoons until they unearthed Fleamont’s Halloween decorations.

“He decorates the restaurant and hands out candy, but I feel like she would scare the kids.” Remus shuddered as he looked at the figure of a woman with long scraggly hair, holding a bloody plastic knife. She was the size of a small child, and Remus had had a heart attack once when he had come up here to grab trash bags and stumbled upon her.

“She’s terrifying,” Peter agreed. 

“Fleamont named her Hannah.”

Peter picked up the figure and hefted it toward the stairs. “Why?”

“No idea. Ask him, if you have twenty minutes to spare.”

While Lily was outside washing picnic tables, Remus and Peter carried Hannah down to the stairs and placed her in the walk-in refrigerator. 

Mary was their first victim. Peter asked her to grab a container of strawberries, and the two of them lurked around the corner and waited.

“Holy fuck!” she shouted, emerging with a peaked laughter and a burst of cold air. “That was good.”

“We’re going to get Sirius next,” Remus said. “And then Lily.”

“I want to record this,” Mary said. “I bet Sirius will scream like a little girl.”

Sirius’s blood-curdling shriek was followed by a crash. He stumbled from the walk-in, wide-eyed and stinking of pickle juice.

“I knocked over the fucking pickles,” he explained as Remus, Peter, and Mary howled with laughter. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? And which one of you assholes had the idea to record that?”

Mary raised her hand. “I’m keeping that video forever. Anytime I’m feeling down, I’m going to watch it and laugh.”

Remus’s laughter almost blotted out the ache he felt when Mary rested her hand on Sirius’s chest and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

Their group had grown by the time they lured Lily into the walk-in on the pretext of getting a bag of soft serve, so it was harder to watch surreptitiously. Remus and Sirius ended up pressed together behind a stack of  empty ice cream cans, and Remus was so engrossed by the warmth of Sirius’s arm brushing against his own and the combined scent of cologne and cigarette smoke that he was startled by Lily’s yell.

“Why do we have that thing!” Lily demanded, storming out of the walk-in. 

“Her name is Hannah,” Peter said. “Show her some respect, and maybe she won’t murder you in your sleep.”

“I wish I could’ve seen your face!” Sirius said, emerging from behind the stack of cans and leaving Remus missing his presence. “Oh, wait, we recorded it, so I can see your face. We’re going to send it to James, too.”

“Watch your backs. All of you,” Lily said. 

Remus was only half-listening; he could still feel the heat of Sirius’s arm.

The following morning, Remus headed out to clean the small bathroom on the side of the building. Armed with gloves, paper towels, and strong cleaning solution, he opened the door and  braced himself for the scent of urine that clung to every surface of the room no matter how much cleaning he did. He flicked on the light, then stumbled back when he noticed the brown smears covering the walls, the toilet, and the sink. Streaks marred the floor, and there was more splattered on the cracked mirror.

“No. No no no no no no.”

He shut the door, squeezed his eyes shut, and willed himself not to quit. When I open the door again, there will not be shit smeared everywhere. He filled his lungs with fresh, clean air, then opened the door and held his breath. Despite his positive thinking, the mess had not disappeared; in fact, he was half-convinced it had multiplied. Cursing under his breath, he stepped around the mess to examine what he realized was a message scrawled on the mirror: Greetings from the Shitty Shorts Bandit. 

A wave of realization crashed over him. He stopped breathing through his mouth and sniffed the air: nothing. Leaning closer to one of the larger smears, he breathed in and smelled chocolate. Laughter burst from his lips, and he hurried out to find Lily.

“You got me good,” he admitted when he found her putting away dishes while Sirius did a haphazard mop job around her feet. “I was about ready to quit, and then when I read ‘Greetings from the Shitty Shorts Bandit,’ I almost fucking died.”

Lily burst into laughter. “I knew you would. It serves you right – I almost peed my pants when I saw that Halloween girl in the walkin.”

“Who’s the Shitty Shorts Bandit?” Sirius made a half-hearted attempt to mop up a dried blob of ice cream before shrugging and giving up. 

“Last year someone made a mess in the outside bathroom,” Lily explained. “It was all over the seat, and there were, well, shitty shorts thrown in the trash can.”

“And I had to clean it,” Remus added. “It will haunt me as long as I live. That wasn’t the first time I’ve cleaned shit from the outside bathroom, either. It feels fucking personal.”

“Well, this time it’s only hot fudge,” Lily said. “It had that gloppy look that made it realistic, I think.”

Remus wrinkled his nose. “Not a fan of ‘gloppy.’ You’re right, though, it did look realistic.”

“Sirius, you should go see it before Remus cleans it all up.”

Sirius had leaned the mop against the wall and was frowning down at his phone. “Hmm?”

“Go see my work of art,” Lily said.

Sirius jammed his phone into his pocket, his lips pressed together. “What? Oh, sure. Lead the way, Remus.”

Remus had a strong urge to ask Sirius what was wrong, as he could sense the worry weighing down on his friend, but he pushed it aside. “My pleasure. By the way, Lily, with all due respect, you can fuck off if you think I’m cleaning that.”

Throughout the day, Remus compiled evidence that something was off with Sirius. The signs were subtle: extra smoke breaks, forgotten cheese on a burger or an overcooked hotdog, a slight delay when he responded to questions, and compulsive checking of his phone . The average person might not have noticed anything amiss, but as someone who had spent the better part of four years watching Sirius, it was  glaringly obvious to Remus. They were working on shift change tasks when Mary noticed, too.

“Why do you keep checking your phone?” Mary slammed down the bottle of cleaning product and glared at him.

“What?” Sirius looked up from his phone, confusion clouding his face.

Remus continued organizing credit card slips, his gaze fixed on his work. 

“You’ve been looking at your phone all day,” Mary said. “Who the fuck is it? I asked if you wanted to come over earlier, and you didn’t even answer me.”

The confusion on Sirius’s face hardened into a stony defensive barrier. “It’s nobody. I’m just looking at my fucking phone. People look at their phones, Mary. Can I have that Spic ‘n’ Span?”

Sirius strode past Mary with only a half-hearted wave when he left that afternoon. Remus followed him outside, taking a deep breath of rain-scented air and navigating around puddles left behind by the morning’s rain. He hesitated at the edge of the parking lot, teetering between reminding Sirius he had promised him a ride home and just walking the few miles so he didn’t have to interrupt Sirius’s broody silence.

“You coming or not?” Sirius called. He stood beside Fleamont’s BMW, lighting a cigarette. Remus watched him take the first drag, savoring the sight the same way Sirius savored the burst of nicotine.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” He slid through the passenger’s side door. “You didn’t bring the bike today?”

“Nah. Fucking rain.” He got into the car and rolled down the window. “Are you going to give me shit if I smoke?”

“No.” Cigarette smoke drifted through the air, and Remus took a greedy breath. He had spent years chiding Sirius for smoking in his presence, but now he fell asleep imagining tobacco-tinged kisses. 

“Go on,” Sirius urged. “I know you want to complain about how gross it is.” He flicked a bit of ash out the window. His movements were more relaxed since leaving The Lone Cone, and some of the tension on his face had eased.

“It’s alright. Anyway, it seemed like you really needed it.” 

Remus regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He waited for Sirius to retreat into a surly silence. Instead, Sirius glanced over at him, a rare hint of vulnerability flashing across his face. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. Remus felt whatever was weighing on him hovering in the air between them. Sirius opened his mouth, then shook his head. “Fuck off.” He picked up his phone. “I can’t believe we’re driving in silence like psychopaths.”

Music burst from the speakers, an upbeat, relaxed song that Remus didn’t recognize. 

“My uncle Alphard was really into Bill Withers,” Sirius explained. “It just puts you in a good mood, you know?”

Remus watched Sirius exhale, smoke curling around his face as he bobbed his head in time with the music.

“It does,” he agreed.

They drove through town, summer air and sunlight pouring in through the open windows. As they approached the turn to Remus’s house, his heart sank, but Sirius drove straight past.

“Let’s get dinner,” Sirius said. “I’m starving, and I’m assuming you haven’t eaten anything today.”

Remus smiled sheepishly. “I had a Red Bull.”

“If a cigarette doesn’t count as a meal, neither does Red Bull. Which of this town’s underwhelming dining establishments would you prefer?”

Remus was buzzing with joy at the prospect of an unexpected dinner with Sirius, but he tried to keep his expression neutral. “I’m good with whatever.”

“Hmmm. We could do Olive Garden.” He laughed and tossed his cigarette butt out the window. “Remember how excited everyone was when it opened up?”

“The talk of the town,” Remus said. “A coveted destination for special occasion dinners.”

“If I ever celebrate a special occasion at Olive Garden, fucking kill me,” Sirius said. “Although I do love the breadsticks. I was just there the other day, though. What about Chili’s?”

“Yeah, I’m good with Chili’s. Although last time Peter and I were there, what’s-his-name from school was working there, the one who called James a cum-licker.”

Sirius’s laughter melded with the warmth of the sun and the mellow beat of the song. “God, what a weirdo. I’m all set with seeing him. Let’s do Mac’s Grill, then.”

An ad for a mattress store was playing on the television above the bar when Sirius and Remus sat down at a high top table. Saddles and an oxen yoke hung from the wall, and a saloon-style door swung open to emit a waitress carrying a tray laden with steaks and baked potatoes. Sirius smiled at the waitress, a girl who had been a few years ahead of them in high school, and she brought them two enormous mugs of beer without glancing at their IDs. 

“Cheers.” Sirius hefted his beer into the air and clinked it against Remus’s glass before taking a large gulp. Remus had eaten nothing all day, and the first sip warmed his chest; the second sip loosened his limbs; the third sip sent a question tumbling from his lips. 

“It was your family, wasn’t it?”

Sirius set down his beer, slopping some onto the table. “What?”

“The reason you were glued to your phone all day. Did your family contact you? Was it your mother?”

Anger flashed in Sirius’s eyes. “No, I haven’t heard from her in weeks. Fucking cunt. I think she finally gave up — must have run out of names to call me in those voicemail diatribes.”

Remus had a strong urge to touch Sirius’s arm, but he clutched the handle of his beer instead. “That’s… good.”

“Yeah. Although it was a fun little game trying to guess how many times she would tell me I brought shame on the Black name.”

“What was the record? Three times in one voicemail?”

Sirius’s bitter laugh made Remus’s heart constrict. “No, the record is five. I don’t think you had the pleasure of hearing that one.” He took another sip of beer, which was now half gone. “No, today was because of Regulus.”

He gazed down into his glass. Remus picked at his cuticle and bit back the questions crowding his mind. Silence drew Sirius out, while pestering him would make him retreat back into his surly silence.

“I texted him last night,” Sirius said, avoiding Remus’s gaze. “I don’t know why. I was drunk, and I thought… well, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

“What did you say?”

Sirius made a dismissive hand gesture. “Doesn’t fucking matter. Anyway, he didn’t reply. I kept checking to see if he’d said anything. Finally I texted him again and told him to fuck off if he couldn’t be bothered to answer, but…” He drank more beer. “The text wouldn’t send. He blocked my fucking number.”

His eyes darted up, and Remus saw the hurt he usually concealed behind a veneer of indifference.

Remus wanted to hug him, but they were separated by the table and Remus’s crippling self-doubt and Sirius’s aversion to sympathy, so he settled for a light touch on Sirius’s arm. Sirius looked down, eyes widening in surprise. Remus did not dare pull away. Sirius’s arm was warm under his touch. He hardly dared to breathe.

“Are you ready to order?”

Remus yanked his hand back, face flushing as though the waitress had caught them doing something shameful. Sirius cleared his throat and ordered a burger and another beer. Remus stammered out his own order, fingers burning from the contact even when he traced the cool condensation on his beer glass.

They kept the conversation light throughout the rest of the meal: complaining about annoying customers, speculating about the classes they were taking in the fall, commenting on the western-themed decor. Sirius munched fries and tipped back in his chair with his typical careless ease, but Remus found his mind drifting back to that charged moment between them. He was so flustered, he didn’t even notice the check had arrived until the waitress was whisking it away with Sirius’s card.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Sirius shrugged and ate another fry. 

“You’re driving me around. I should be buying you dinner,” Remus insisted. 

“Shut up. You better get a box, though, seeing as you are about three bites of that meal I bought you out of the goodness of my heart.”

When they stepped out into the bright afternoon sunlight, Sirius slipped on his sunglasses and lit a cigarette.

“I don’t feel like going home,” he said. “You up for an adventure?”

Sirius’s hair gleamed in the sunlight, and when he raised his arms to stretch, his t-shirt rode up to reveal a glimpse of blue boxers and tanned stomach. Cigarette smoke coalesced around his face, and at that moment, Remus would have followed him to the ends of the earth.

“Always. What did you have in mind?”

Sirius tapped his fingers against the top of the car. “Not sure. I think I’m just gonna drive around and see where we end up.”

He plugged in his phone and handed it to Remus when they had both slid  into the car. 

“Queue some songs if you want.”

Normally Remus would overthink the hell out of that request — Should I pick something fun? Something mellow? Something nostalgic or something new? Something I like or something that will please anyone? —but under the influence of the beer and sunshine, he scrolled and selected without thinking twice.

“Do you want to go to the beach? We could—“ He broke off, his brow furrowing. “‘You’re Losing Me’ – Jesus Christ, I said queue some songs, not make me want to end it all.”

Remus looked at the phone in alarm. “I picked a Taylor Swift song at random,” he said sheepishly. “I thought it might cheer you up. Is this a bad one?”

“It’s not bad, but it’s not the sort of thing that would cheer anyone up.” He tapped his fingers against his chin, and a reluctant smile spread across his face. “Play “Cruel Summer,” or “You Need to Calm Down,” or anything on 1989. But don’t—”

“Don’t tell anyone you unironically like Taylor Swift, yeah, I know.”

He tapped the phone, and the song changed. They slipped into an easy silence as Sirius steered the car along winding back roads. Businesses petered out, replaced by houses and long stretches of trees. They passed a car dealership with an inflatable tube man waving madly, and Sirius pointed out the window.

“You ever thought about where those are made?”

Remus gazed out the window at the disappearing  flurry of blue limbs. “Not really, no.” He had spent hours replaying awkward conversations or revisiting exams in his head, but he had never spared a thought for inflatable tube men.

“It’s weird, isn’t it? Nobody does, but they’ve gotta be made somewhere. Everything is — telephone poles, and ski lifts, and the Wendy’s drive through menus. I don’t know, sometimes I think about stuff like that.”

Remus risked a glance at Sirius. One finger tapped his chin, and Remus could almost see the gears turning in his head.

“It’s interesting the way your mind works,” Remus said.

Sirius didn’t take his eyes off the road, but Remus could see half of his surprised smile. “Well, so is yours. I’ve never met anyone who experiences words the way you do. What was it you said once? You don’t like the way certain words feel in your mouth?”

Remus was too stunned to reply; he hadn’t realized Sirius listened to anything he said that closely.

“I’d like to step into your brain and look around,” Sirius continued. “For shits and giggles. Just for a minute, though. Any longer and I’d get stuck on Overthinking Mountain or drown in Self-doubt Springs.”

Remus laughed softly. “It’s Anxiety Island you really need to look out for.” He paused for a moment to skip a song that always grated on his nerves. “I’m not sure I’d want to look into your brain at all, no offense. It feels like an invasion of privacy.”

Sirius shrugged. “Fair enough. Probably for the best, anyway. It’s a scary place.”

The trees gave way to scrubby bushes, and the air carried a salty note as they drew closer to the ocean. Sirius parked the car (after giving a middle-aged woman the finger when she tried to cut him off), and they shed their shoes and made for the water. The sand was warm under Remus’s feet, and sunlight glinted off the water. Icy water lapped at Remus’s ankles, and he closed his eyes and tilted his face up to the sun. A splash jarred him from his reverie, and he opened his eyes to see Sirius emerging from the waves, stripped down to his boxers, his face alight with joy.

“You’re fucking crazy,” Remus said. “It’s freezing.”

Sirius peeled a strand of seaweed from his shoulder and flicked it in Remus’s direction. “We’re at the beach. I can’t just not swim.” 

He dove in again, and Remus watched, basking in the sun and in Sirius’s presence.

When they tired of the beach, they tracked sand into Fleamont’s car and drove aimlessly along the backroads. They blasted Sirius’s favorite Taylor Swift songs with the windows rolled down, and Remus even sang along with the few he knew. The sun was setting as they got back into town, and Sirius paused to admire it before he went into a gas station to buy beer.

“A thirty rack is a bit aggressive for two people on a random Monday night,” Remus said when Sirius deposited the enormous case of beer into the back seat. 

Sirius took two cans from the box, handing one to Remus before cracking open his own. “Now there are only twenty-eight. Much more reasonable.” He turned the music up, leaving Remus no choice but to drink his beer and enjoy the remnants of the sunset out the window.

They went to the Potters’ house, and Sirius parked the car in the garage between the Wrangler James referred to as his “beach Jeep” and Euphemia’s Range Rover. Fleamont and Euphemia were in Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend, and James was at Lily’s, so the house was dark and quiet as they raided the kitchen and brought their collection of snacks to the propane fire pit on the back patio. Remus turned on some music – Peter’s “We’re in the weeds” playlist – and they lounged by the fire, sipping beer and watching moths flutter around the string lights that lined the area. They alternated between bursts of conversation and stretches of comfortable silence, and time blended and blurred, so Remus was surprised when he reached for a beer and found half of them gone.

“We’re really making a dent in these.”

Their fingers brushed when Sirius took a can. Remus was transported back to that moment at the restaurant. “Good,” Sirius said. He tipped back in his patio chair, the firelight casting a warm glow onto his face. 

“Work is going to be wicked fun tomorrow,” Remus said.

Sirius didn’t answer. He was no longer tipping in his chair, and he was gazing into the flames with a faraway expression on his face. Remus wondered if he had heard, and he was considering repeating his sentiment when Sirius broke the silence.

“Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have left.” 

His words were choked, as though drawn from deep inside of him against his will. Remus froze, afraid to shatter this fragile moment of vulnerability. 

“Maybe I should have stayed. For Reg.”

He was gripping his beer can so hard, his knuckles were turning white, and the raw pain on his face hurt to look at.

“You had to get out of there, Sirius. You couldn’t stay any longer. Nobody  blames you.”

Years of shouting and broken glass and split lips were etched into Sirius’s face. 

“Yeah,” Sirius muttered. “I know. Nobody except Regulus.” He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. “When I was home, I could take the heat instead of him, when things got bad. Now he has no one.”

He finished his beer in a few gulps and tossed the can onto the ground. 

“I’m a shitty brother. Of course he blocked my number – why the fuck would he want to talk to me?”

Remus reached out slowly, the way he would approach a wild animal, afraid to startle it and cause it to retreat. When he took Sirius’s hand, his fingers were cool from the sweating beer can. Sirius looked at him, and Remus prepared for him to laugh or yank his hand away. Instead, Sirius squeezed his hand, and the barest hint of a smile tugged at his lips.

“You’re not a shitty brother.”

Sirius’s laugh was mirthless and jagged.

“You’re not,” Remus insisted. “You tried to reach out to him, even though you're a stubborn ass and have a hard time admitting when you’re wrong, and you feel guilty enough to have this conversation now, even though you’d usually rather dunk your head in a fryer than talk about your feelings.”

This time, Remus detected a hint of actual amusement in Sirius’s laugh.

“That proves you’re not a shitty brother. I know you and Regulus have your issues, but I think if you give it some time, he’ll come around, and then maybe you can help get him out of there, too.”

Sirius took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled, his eyes fixed on the long stream of smoke. He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Remus.”

Remus wanted to hug him, but bridging the distance between their two chairs seemed an impossible task. Then the song changed, and Sirius laughed, and the moment passed.

“Fuck. ‘Mr. Brightside’ is on. We can’t have a sentimental conversation during ‘Mr. Brightside.’” He stood up and returned with two more beers. “New topic: If you could fire anyone at The Lone Cone with no repercussions, who would it be?” He held up his hand. “And don’t even think about choosing me. I’m indispensable.”

Remus was aware of the pounding in his head and the stiffness in his neck before he opened his eyes. When the room swam into focus, it took him a moment to piece together his surroundings. He was crammed onto the Potters’ loveseat with his knees tucked into his chest and his head resting on a throw pillow. A Lightning McQueen fleece blanket slid to the floor when he stood up. The room spun, and Remus braced himself against the arm of the sofa. 

“Morning!” James strode into the room, wearing running clothes and a cheerful smile that made Remus even more nauseous. “Oh, where’d you find that Lightning McQueen blanket? I haven’t seen that since high school.”

Remus didn’t remember going to bed, never mind the location of the fucking Lightning McQueen blanket. He didn’t trust himself not to vomit all over it if he opened his mouth, so he settled for a shrug.

“I got it to go with my Lightning McQueen Crocs, remember? Lily used to make fun of me for wearing them, but I think that’s when she started to fall for me. Maybe I’ll wear them at our wedding.”

Remus imagined James walking down the aisle in a tuxedo and light up Lightning McQueen Crocs. He laughed, then immediately regretted it. “You’re an idiot,” he said after the wave of nausea had passed. 

James smiled, absorbing the criticism like it was praise. “Anyway, what happened last night with you and Sirius?” He raised his eyebrows. “Lily told me.”

Remus whipped his head around, heart pounding.

“Relax,” James said. “He’s sleeping. You know him – he’ll be dead to the world until I go into his room and wake him up because his stupid alarm is going off.” He fixed Remus with an expectant look. “So?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?”

Remus rubbed his temples. “What do you expect, James? He’s still with Mary.”

James frowned. “Is he, though? Lily said they got into it at work yesterday. Anyway, I think it’s mostly just a hookup for both of them. I don’t see it lasting past the summer.”

Hope sparked in Remus’s chest, but he tamped it down. He couldn’t afford to get his hopes up, only to be let down. “Well, nothing happened. We hung out, we got drunk, we left beer cans all over the patio.” He hesitated, then continued on, encouraged by James’s palpable optimism. “We did have sort of a moment.”

James’s eyes widened. “A moment?”

“Well, two moments.”

Remus was knocked into the arm of the couch as James wrapped his arms around him. His sweaty hair tickled Remus’s face, and his bony shoulder poked Remus’s chin. 

“James.”

“I’m excited about this!”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm. Please let go of me.”

James pulled away. “Sorry. I just think you two could be really good together. I love Mary, but not for Sirius. You really get him, though, know what I mean? Lily and I have talked about it. We really ship you two.”

Remus sighed; he was too hungover to argue with James when he was on his optimistic, hopeful bullshit. 

“Well, if there’s anything new to report, you’ll be the first to know. Hey, do you think you could give me a ride to work?”

When Remus stepped out of James’s car in the The Lone Cone parking lot, armed with two Red Bulls and a headache that was worsening by the minute, a delivery truck was parked beside the back door.

“For fuck’s sake,” Remus muttered when he saw the short, ginger-haired delivery driver wheeling a dolly full of product towards the door. “Morning, Mundungus. You’re early today.”

Mundungus stopped beside the door and waited for Remus to unlock it. “Yeah, well, I was ahead on my route, so I figured I’d get your delivery out of the way so I can conduct some other business.”

Remus had never figured out whether Mundungus’s side gig was selling drugs or stolen goods, and frankly he didn’t care. He did, however, care about the subpar food products Mundungus often tried to delivery.

“This box of fries is opened, Dung,” he said once they were inside and Mundungus had deposited a tall stack of boxes beside the freezer. “We can’t take this. You’ll have to take it back.”

Mundungus frowned. “You sure? It’s only open a little.”

Remus’s headache was now like a jackhammer in his head. “Fleamont said we can’t take any open products. And this orange sherbet is melted. We’ve been through this, Mundungus.”

Mundungus scratched his scruffy chin, then sighed and dropped the box of fries back on the dolly. “Okay, okay. But do you think you could make me a chocolate frappe for the road? I get awfully thirsty delivering.”

Remus nodded and started to walk away. Mundungus called, “Make sure it’s nice and thick!”

I can’t murder him. Fleamont will definitely fire me.

The day only went downhill from there. When Remus went to clean the outside bathroom, he found an unpleasant surprise that was not one of Lily’s pranks. By some miracle he got it cleaned up without vomiting, then rushed inside in time for the kitchen to open. He did his best to keep up with the influx of orders, but when Mary came into the kitchen reporting that a customer wanted to speak to a manager, his spirits fell.

“He’s an asshole,” Mary whispered, flashing Remus a sympathetic look. “Good luck.”

“I’ve been waiting almost thirty minutes!” the man raged before Remus even got to the window. “At this rate, I could have caught and boiled my own lobster faster than your kitchen could make it for me.”

Remus pressed his lips together and silently counted to three as he waited for the urge to tell this man to fuck off to recede. It didn’t. He choked out an apology and darted back to the kitchen to make the man his lobster roll before he resorted to catching his own lobster, but when he went to the refrigerator to replenish his stock of portioned lobster, he found none. 

“Mary!” He dashed back into the front room and found her bringing out another order. “Is there more lobster hiding somewhere?”

She handed a tub of ketchup to a customer and shook her head. “No. I meant to put some in water to thaw earlier, but I got distracted because the rainbow sherbet was melting.”

“Fucking Mundungus.” Remus rushed back to the kitchen where he found Sirius leaning against the counter, looking calm and not at all hungover. 

“What’s wrong?” Sirius asked. He grabbed a fry from a tray and popped it into his mouth. “You look all stressy.”

“Don’t say stressy.” The printer spit out another order, and Remus added it to the concerning collection of tickets. “I got no sleep and am so hungover I might die, a customer just told me he could catch his own lobster faster than we are making his order, all the fucking sherbet is melted, and we are at a level 2 lobster emergency. I’m about to lose my fucking mind.”

Sirius grabbed Remus’s half-drunk Red Bull from the counter and pressed it into his hand. “Here. Drink your Red Bull, let’s power through this rush. Lily just got here, and she is fully qualified to handle a level two lobster emergency.”

Remus wanted to melt into Sirius’s arms and breathe in the scent of cigarettes and cologne that clung to his skin, but instead he chugged the rest of his Red Bull and marched to the walk-in to figure out the lobster situation.

When the lunch rush was over and a full bin of portioned lobster was sitting in the refrigerator, Sirius pulled down the attic stairs and gestured for Remus to climb up.

“Come on. I need help finding something,” Sirius said.

Too weary to argue, Remus climbed the stairs. Sirius clambered up after him and began wandering through the piles of boxes and supplies.

“What do you need help finding?” Remus asked, leaning against a tower of napkin boxes and praying they wouldn’t topple over.

Sirius disappeared around the corner and did not answer. When Remus summoned the energy to go after him, he found Sirius kneeling down, arranging a bag of clean rags and a faded quilt made from old The Lone Cone t-shirts on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

Sirius adjusted the quilt and stood up. “It’s a bed. You’re going to take a power nap.”

Remus could already feel the intoxicating pull of sleep. “I can’t nap at work.”

“Sure you can. Remus, I know you. A power nap will bring you back from the brink of death. I’ll tell everyone you’re up here doing inventory, and I’ll make any lobster roll orders that come back, and then I’ll come wake you up before the dinner rush.”

“I can’t…” But the more Remus considered the plan, the harder it was to argue. 

“At least test out the bed,” Sirius urged.

Remus lowered himself onto the makeshift bed. It was more comfortable than it had any right to be, and although the quilt smelled musty, it was soft on his aching joints. 

“I can’t take a nap,” he said weakly, his eyes already half-closed.

Sirius grinned. “Not with that attitude.”

“I feel like a toddler being put down for a nap.”

“You’re acting like a toddler. Here, I’ll tuck you in and tell you a bedtime story.” Sirius found an enormous WE’RE OPEN flag and draped it over Remus. “Once upon a time there was a dumbass named Remus Lupin who worked himself to death, until his very sexy friend made him take a nap so he didn’t fucking die in the middle of making a lobster roll. The end.”

He plumped the bag of rags under Remus’s head, and for a wild moment, Remus was convinced he was going to kiss him on the forehead. But then Sirius laughed and turned off the light. 

“Enjoy your nap,” he said before disappearing down the ladder. Remus savored the thoughtful gesture until sleep descended upon him. 

He awoke forty-five minutes later, refreshed save for the slight ache in his neck from the unconventional pillow, to Sirius nudging his shoulder.

“I was right,” Sirius said, looking adorably smug. “I can tell. You don’t look like you’re about to die anymore.”

Remus stood up and stretched. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of saying you were right – your ego is big enough already – but thanks. How did you know?”

Sirius shrugged. “I already told you. I know you, that’s all.”

Remus was so pleased, it hardly hurt at all when he saw Sirius and Mary laughing and leaning against each other when they returned from a smoke break later. And when they stole a kiss in the doorway – well, that hurt a bit. When he overheard them making plans to watch a movie after work, he was back to feeling bleak about the whole endeavor.

“They’re not going to break up, I guess.” Remus fought to keep his voice even and nonchalant as he recounted the events of the past day to Peter in the walk-in. “What was I thinking?” He sighed and gazed at an enormous jar of pickles, as if it held the answers.

Peter chewed his lip. “Well, the same thing I’ve been thinking for the past year and a half, probably. Don’t lose all hope, though. You never know what could happen.” He grabbed the bag of Reese’s cups and held it out to Remus. “And if all else fails, there’s always chocolate.”

Throughout the next few days, little bursts of hope sustained Remus. One night when closing on time seemed impossible and Remus’s patience was running thin, Sirius began barking orders at the unruly scoopers.

“You! Shut it and get those dishes washed – you can update everyone on your date with what’s-his-name later. I’m sure it’s a riveting story, so please keep me updated when you figure out what kind of cologne he was wearing.”

He pointed to another scooper who was wiping a window with paper towels.

“You! Go back and clean the white part of the windows so Remus doesn’t lose his fucking mind.” He jabbed his finger at a girl who was already counting her tips. “You – sweep. And do a good job so Benjy doesn’t leave a passive aggressive note again.”

Remus smiled, remembering the note Benjy had scrawled on the whiteboard last week: Y’all suck at sweeping, accompanied by a heart. 

“Someone else needs to turn the hot fudge warmers off, and make sure you get them all so Remus doesn’t lay awake at night imagining the restaurant burning down. He’s come back here at 3 am to double check, and he’ll do it again.”

“Thanks,” Remus muttered once Sirius had finished assigning closing tasks to everyone.

Sirius grinned. “Don’t thank me. I just don’t want to hear you bitch about it later. It’s pure selfishness, really. Hey, are you coming swimming tonight? Lily, James, and Pete are already there, and Mary’s coming.” He pointed across the front room. “I know you’re not done cleaning those counters! The floor is cleaner than those.”

A few days later Remus awoke to pouring rain. The weather did not improve by the time the restaurant opened, and Sirius looked out into the parking lot, devoid of cars but full of puddles.

“Where is everyone?”

“I wouldn’t want to come out in this weather, either,” Remus replied. “That’s why I called off everyone except us, Mary, and Pete. It’ll be like this all day.”

Sirius slid down onto the floor and leaned against an ice cream cabinet. “I’m going to die of fucking boredom.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “You’re such a drama queen. We can play hangman. I’ll go first.”

They passed an hour playing hangman. Remus kept it interesting by choosing only swears, while Sirius teased him by picking words he knew would annoy Remus. After Peter correctly guessed squelch, Remus took the dry erase marker away from Sirius and slipped it into his pocket.

“That’s enough hangman for today.”

Sirius flashed him a triumphant grin. “I knew squelch would get you. That’s alright, we’ll find something else to entertain us. Would anyone like a snack?”

Mary raised her voice to be heard over the rain now hammering against the roof. “I could go for some pizza.”

“Pizza sounds good,” Peter said. “We could order Domino’s.”

“Fuck Domino’s,” Sirius said. “I bet I can make pizza here.”

“We don’t have the ingredients to make pizza,” Remus said.

Sirius waved away his protests. “Not with that attitude.”

He strode into the kitchen and connected his phone to the iHome. “We need some ambiance,” he explained.

Remus, Mary, and Peter burst into laughter as “When… the… moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore”  blasted from the speaker.

“You’re an idiot,” Remus said.

“Who let you work here?” Mary said.

Peter bobbed his head from side to side. “I don’t know, I kind of like it. I feel like I’m in Italy.”

“Exactly!” Sirius tossed a few hamburger buns on the grill and squirted ketchup onto each one.

“Ketchup?” Mary asked.

“Trust the process!” Sirius placed a slice of American cheese on each “pizza,” then sprinkled celery salt on top.

“Like oregano,” Peter said, nodding.

“Yes! See, Pete gets it.” He slid one of the pizzas onto a paper plate and handed it to Peter. “Just for that, you get to try the first piece.” He glared at the other two. “Don’t even think about refusing. When a world-famous pizza chef makes you pizza, you eat it.”

The The Lone Cone pizza tasted better than expected, although Remus would not allow Sirius to offer it as a special to their first customer of the day. When they had made the man his hamburger and fries and the parking lot was empty once again, Mary turned up the music and turned on the microphone they used to call orders. 

“How about some karaoke?”

She did a passable rendition of a Green Day song, then did a duet with Peter when he refused to sing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” alone. When “You Shook Me All Night Long” came up next on the playlist, Sirius took the microphone.

“It’s my time to shine,” he said, disconnecting the microphone from the holder to allow for more movement. He hopped up onto the counter and began strumming an invisible guitar. “I need drums.”

Nobody moved.

“Come on, I made you all pizza and nobody will be my drummer?”

Remus retrieved two long scrub brushes from a drawer and began tapping out a beat in the air. Sirius’s face lit up, and Remus felt slightly less idiotic.

“Thank you, Moony,” Sirius said before he began the first verse. “She was a fast machine, she kept the motor clean…”

By the second verse, Remus was singing along. Sirius beckoned for him to join him on top of the counter, but when Remus didn’t budge, Sirius jumped down so they could share the microphone. Their arms brushed, and their faces were so close that Sirius’s hair grazed Remus’s chin. 

“We killed that,” Sirius announced once the song was over.

Remus nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak; he was buzzing all over from the contact, and he thought if he opened his mouth, each unspoken thought he had kept buried this summer would come spilling out.

“Ooh, Mr. Brightside, great choice, Mary! Come on, we can all do this one.”

The days passed in a blur of double shifts made tolerable by late night trips to Wendy’s with Peter and occasional joyful moments with Sirius. Before Remus knew it, summer was drawing to a close, and they were preparing for the annual end of summer bash at the Potters’. This year it was beach themed, and when Peter and Remus drove up the driveway, they found it lined with plastic flamingos. 

“Lily said they went all out,” Remus said as they got out of the car and headed for the front door, which was open and covered with a cascading curtain of iridescent beads and bubbles.

She had not been exaggerating. Inflatable palm trees were scattered throughout the living room. Several surf boards leaned against the wall beside a giant balloon arch. More balloons in shades of blue and green bobbed along the ceiling, interspersed with paper jellyfish that tickled Remus’s shoulders as he passed underneath. 

“What do you think?” James asked, appearing beside them in a pair of swim trunks and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. “Lily thought I went overboard with the decorations, but I think people are enjoying it!”

“I didn’t say that!” Lily slipped her arm around James, and Remus caught a whiff of tequila from her plastic cup shaped like a coconut. “I just thought you maybe didn’t need a thousand pink flamingos, that’s all.”

While Lily brought Peter over to the drinks table to find him a second coconut cup, James pulled Remus into the bathroom.

“What are we doing?” Remus asked.

“First of all, there are temporary tattoos in here,” James said, pointing to a basket beside the sink. “You need a tramp stamp. Second, I have news.”

Remus began picking through the tattoos, more to appease James than because he had any intention of giving himself a tramp stamp that said BEACH BUM. “What’s your news? You found your Lightning McQueen Crocs?”

“God, I wish. No, Sirius and Mary broke up.”

The temporary tattoo slid through Remu’s fingers and fluttered to the floor. “What?” Possibilities started rushing through his head, but he took a deep breath and tamped down his hope. He had to rein himself in, because it was insensitive to take joy in someone else’s breakup, and nothing would ever happen anyway – would it?

“Sirius told me this morning,” James said. “They split up last night. No drama, no hard feelings. I guess they both agreed it didn’t make sense to try to stay together when we went back to school – neither of them are the long distance type.”

Remus tried to stop smiling, because no matter how amicable the breakup, it seemed in poor taste to be this happy about it, but his face would not cooperate.

“Go for it,” James said. “We’re all rooting for you. I’m very invested – slowburn friends to lovers is my favorite.”

Remus laughed. “Has Lily gotten you hooked on hockey fic?”

James smiled sheepishly. “I read a 200k fic in one sitting yesterday. I was up until 3 am. Hockey and romance?  How can you go wrong?”

 He knelt down and straightened, the forgotten tattoo clutched in his hand. “Now get out there and talk to Sirius. And don’t forget your tattoo.”

When Remus emerged from the bathroom, Peter was waiting outside for him with two drinks. The tequila fumes burned his nostrils, but Remus choked down a sip anyway. He would need all the courage he could get. 

“Lily told me about Sirius and Mary,” Peter said. He took a sip of his own drink and grimaced. “Are you going to go for it?”

Remus shrugged. “I don’t know. What about you?”

Peter shook his head. “No. Not today.”

“Why not?”

Peter twirled the umbrella sticking out of his drink. “Well, I don’t think both members of the pining for your friend club can end the pining on the same day. It would throw the planets out of alignment or cause a tear in the space-time continuum or interfere with our auras or something.”

“You’re talking out of your ass.”

“I will not have my credibility called into question by someone with a BEACH BUM neck tattoo.”

Remus laughed. “It was either this or a tramp stamp. A neck tattoo felt like the classier choice.”

“I’d never put neck tattoo and classy in the same sentence, but whatever you say. Come on, let’s go out to the pool. They’ve got flip cup set up out there, and I think Sirius is in the pool.”

Sirius was not swimming, nor was he anywhere in the pool area, but Remus and Peter got drawn into a heated game of flip cup with Mary and several members of James’s Quidditch team. They played several rounds and drank far too much foamy PBR before they extricated themselves and went back to the living room. James waylaid them beside an ocean photo backdrop, and they spent ten minutes doing a photoshoot with flamingo sunglasses and a shell bra James insisted he could pull off. 

“Have you talked to Sirius yet?” James asked.

Remus looked at a point just over James’s shoulder; he couldn’t have a serious conversation with someone in a shell bra. “No, I haven’t seen him yet.”

The song changed, and Remus recognized the opening bars of a Taylor Swift song. Someone began to sing along, although it was closer to shouting than singing, and Remus’s heart leapt when he recognized the voice. He followed the sound into the kitchen where he found Sirius standing on a chair, belting out  “Cruel Summer” into an empty champagne bottle microphone. Sirius was barefoot in a pair of swim trunks, several flower leis, and a coconut bra, his face alight with pure, unabashed joy. Remus leaned against the wall and watched until the song ended and James erupted into cheers and applause.

“You killed that, you two!” 

James rushed forward to help Lily down from the counter, and only then did Remus realize she had been singing with Sirius. 

“There you are!” Sirius hopped off the chair and bounded toward Remus and Peter, arms raised, and for a moment, Remus thought Sirius was going to hug him. Instead, Sirius took off one of his leis and placed it around Remus’s neck. His fingertip grazed Remus’s chin on the way down, and Remus had to physically stop himself from leaning into Sirius’s touch. “Did you like that performance?”

“Taylor herself would have been proud,” Peter said. 

“Fuck yeah she would. Did you hear me go off on that bridge?” Sirius tugged at Remus’s lei and beckoned to Peter. “Come take jello shots!”

They navigated through clusters of guests in beachwear until they reached an inflatable cooler shaped like a palm tree. Sirius rummaged through the ice and emerged with three jello shots. He handed Remus a blue one, his fingers cold and dripping.

“Thanks. Blue is my favorite,” Remus said as he pried off the lid.

“I know. You hugged me at the end of summer party last year when I gave you the last blue jello shot.” 

Remus had no memory of that hug, as he had probably consumed most of the blue jello shots himself that night, but the fact that Sirius remembered filled his chest with a warm glow that had nothing to do with tequila.

Sirius raised his own jello shot into the air. “Cheers.”

Remus slurped down his jello shot. Somehow, the artificial blue raspberry flavor and the vodka made him feel like maybe he could do this after all.

“Hey.” 

Mary emerged from the other side of the palm tree and scooped up a red jello shot. 

Remus watched Sirius, expecting to detect tension or discomfort, but the energy between them seemed perfectly friendly. I guess the breakup really was amicable.

“What’s up? Did you see my performance?”

Mary swallowed the jello shot and wrinkled her nose. “God, the red ones are strong. No, I missed it – I’ve been out playing Beirut. We’re trying to get a second table going, but we can’t find any more balls. All the extra ones keep bouncing into the pool, and nobody will dive for them.”

“There should be some down in the basement,” Sirius said. “I’ll go look. And if all else fails, I’ll get the other ones out of the pool.”

“I’ll help you look,” Remus said. He had not expected to hear the words come out of his mouth; the jello shot and the diesel-strength margarita seemed to have taken the wheel. “You’re not exactly the best at finding things. How many times have you torn your room apart looking for your phone when it was in your pocket the whole time?”

“Once!”

“You’ve done it at least twice,” Peter said, flashing Sirius an apologetic smile.

“You did that at my place last week,” Mary added.

“Alright, gang up on me, that’s real nice.” He slid two more jello shots into his pocket and pulled at Remus’s lei. “Alright, let’s go.”

The Potters’ sprawling basement included several rooms. There was a small gym where James worked out when he wasn’t at school or training with the Quidditch team, a state of the art home theater where the four of them had once watched Step Brothers three times in a row, and a game room where they had spent many hours playing pool, foosball, and ping pong. But Sirius led them to another section of the basement, one with no defined purpose except to be a catchall for forgotten and unneeded items. 

“I haven’t been down here in forever,” Sirius said. He stepped around a stack of boxes and an assortment of leftover bottles from Fleamont’s short foray into beer brewing. “Look at all this stuff. Fleamont keeps the most random shit.”

Remus pictured The Lone Cone’s attic, jammed with decades-old ice cream memorabilia and stockpiles of plastic spoons and empty boxes Fleamont insisted on keeping because “that’s a really good box.” 

“I’m surprised there’s still space left in this room,” Remus said.

Sirius opened a plastic tote and pulled out a few Halloween costumes before moving on to another box. “Euphemia sneaks down and throws stuff out every few months,” he said. “I don’t think Fleamont ever notices.”

Remus scanned the room’s contents, unsure where to even begin his search. He got as far as opening a box of what looked like James’s kindergarten art projects when Sirius called out.

“Look what I found!” He held up a Razor scooter triumphantly. “Remember these?”

“You and James thought you were the shit riding around on those things.” Remus had tried riding Sirius’s scooter once, but after faceplanting in the Potters’ driveway, he had decided the scooter life was not for him.

“We were the shit.” Sirius climbed onto the scooter, bending down to grip the handlebars, and scooted around the room. He moved slowly at first, steering around the obstacles, but as he grew accustomed to the scooter he picked up speed. His hair streamed out behind him, and he laughed as he whipped around corners, narrowly avoiding boxes, odd pieces of furniture, and an artificial Christmas tree.

“You’re going to eat shit or break something,” Remus said as Sirius turned hard to miss ramming into a huge metal rooster lawn ornament. “Possibly both.”

“Am not,” Sirius said just before he took a corner too hard and ran into a table. He fell sideways, kicking out as he fell and knocking over a cardboard box. Photographs fluttered out, raining down on him as he and Remus roared with laughter.

“Told you.” Remus sidled around a framed hockey jersey and an amateur painting of a sunset to reach Sirius. “You alright?”

Sirius pushed himself into a seated position, sending more photos cascading to the floor. “I’m good. If you tell this story, make sure you tell everyone I looked very cool and sexy when I wiped out.”

“If I tell this story? Not ‘if,’ ‘when.’” Remus knelt to pick up the spilled photographs and began to jam them back into the box.

“Who needs this many printed photographs?” Sirius swept the photographs into a pile and dropped them into the box, then picked up another that had gotten wedged under the scooter. “Isn’t that what old people use Facebook for?”

Remus crawled under the table to retrieve a few more photos. “I’m telling Fleamont and Euphemia you called them old.”

Sirius laughed. “Go for it. I tell them straight to their faces.”

“Yeah, I guess they must understand that insults are your love language.” Remus emerged from under the table with a few photographs clutched in his hand. He held one out to Sirius. “Look at this one.”

Sirius beamed as he took in the photograph. “Prom. Look at us — we were babies. So young, so innocent.”

“I think we’d just taken fireball shots five minutes before this picture was taken.” Remus peered at the photograph of the four of them in front of the fireplace in the Potters’ living room. “Look at your pocket — you can see the flask peeking out.”

“Well, more innocent than we are now. I’ve gotta say, I looked good.”

Sirius had opted for all black with his jacket open and tie loose. His hair had been even longer back then, falling carelessly into his face. He had looked good, but Remus wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Were the sunglasses necessary, though?” He pointed to the Raybans Sirius had insisted on wearing all night.

“I looked good,” Sirius repeated. “Why does Pete look so uncomfortable?”

“I think that’s just his default look in pictures,” Remus said. “And James in his white tux. How did he not spill anything on that?”

“He did,” Sirius said, grinning. “Or, well, I did. A whole cup of punch. That’s why he took his shirt off. I took mine off in solidarity.”

Remus thought of the two of them, shirtless and buzzed on Sirius’s flask of whiskey, dancing to “Uptown Funk” in a circle of their classmates. 

“It’s a miracle we didn’t get thrown out. Remember your flask fell out of your pocket right in front of Ms. McGonagall?”

Sirius waved his hand. “She would never. McG loved us.” He gazed at the photograph, and then he turned to look at Remus. “You looked good, too.”

A startled laugh burst from Remus’s lips. “Shut up. My fucking tux didn’t fit.”

Remus had gazed in horror at the inch of exposed ankle and the jacket that had hung loose on his thin frame, but then he had laughed until tears ran down his face. 

“Yeah, but still. Somehow it worked for you.”

Remus scanned Sirius’s face for any hint of mockery, but he found none. 

“You’re giving me shit.”

“I’m not!”

“Then you must have hit your head,” Remus said, laughing and holding up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Shut up and take the compliment.” Sirius batted Remus’s hand, but instead of pulling away, he held it. Remus stared at their clasped hands; his own ragged cuticles from constant anxious picking juxtaposed with Sirius’s tattooed knuckles. He was studying the network of blue veins underneath Sirius’s skin when Sirius tilted his chin up.

“Why are you staring at our hands like a weirdo?”

Because I’m afraid if I look at you, I’ll ruin this, or somehow it won’t be real. I’m afraid if I look at you, I’ll kiss you and won’t be able to stop. “Because I’m a weirdo.”

Sirius smiled, the half-smile that quirked the left side of his lips and made his eyes crinkle, Remus’s favorite Sirius smile.

“You are a weirdo. But I like you anyway.”

He leaned forward. Remus stopped breathing. The thump of the music above fell away, and time slowed. Sirius was coming closer, and in infinitesimal increments, Remus leaned forward to meet him. They were inches apart, then close enough to feel the heat of Sirius’s breath. Remus closed his eyes and parted his lips—

“Sirius! Remus! Are you down there?”

Sirius pulled away, and Remus scrambled to his feet, face burning. It took him a moment to process the owner of the voice.

“Fucking Benjy,” he muttered before calling, “What’s up?” 

“Mary said you were looking for ping pong balls,” Benjy shouted back. “Did you find any?”

“Got distracted and forgot to look,” Sirius yelled. He stood up and grabbed the Razor scooter. “I’ll fish the other ones out of the pool. I’m bringing up a surprise I found for you, Benjy.”

He glanced at Remus. “I guess we better get back.”

Remus repressed the urge to tackle Sirius into the pile of photographs and kiss him until they were both breathless.

“I guess we should.” He gestured at the scooter. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“How could it not be? My life won’t be complete until I’ve seen Benjy riding this in his hiking boots. And I bet Pete will ride this into the pool for $5.”

“He’ll do it for free if you ask nicely.” He headed for the stairs, the heat of Sirius’s breath still lingering on his skin.

“So you started to kiss but got interrupted?” Peter asked.

They were sitting on the Potters’ front steps, waiting for Benjy who had promised them a ride home. Remus replayed the evening’s events in his mind and sighed.

“We didn’t start. We were this close.” 

He pinched his thumb and index finger together, remembering Sirius’s breath warming his skin. 

“And that was it? You didn’t talk about it? You didn’t pick up where you left off?” 

Remus shook his head and stretched his legs out in front of him. Headlights lit up the driveway as more guests made their way home. One of the plastic flamingos lining the walkway had fallen over. Remus’s eyes were heavy, and there was a feeling of finality hovering in the air. The party was over; the summer was over; his one chance to get with Sirius was over. 

“Well, shit.” 

Peter took off his lei and pulled idly at the flowers. Remus checked his watch and considered going back inside to see what was taking Benjy so long.

“But why?” Peter burst out suddenly. “Why didn’t you try again? Why didn’t you pull him aside or something? You’ve been waiting all summer for this, and you were so close, and now you’re both going to pretend it didn’t happen?”

“Apparently.” He started to laugh, the same resigned laughter that had overtaken him when he had seen his ill-fitting tuxedo. 

Peter turned to look at him. “You good?”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” 

When Remus’s laughter subsided, he put his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and shed the crushing weight of disappointment he had carried all night.

“Well this sucks,” Peter said, standing up and kicking one of the flamingos. “I really wanted this to happen for you.”

“Me too,” Remus muttered.

“Goddamnit, Benjy.”

“He did kind of fuck things up.” Remus heard faint goodbyes and footsteps. He stood up and saw Benjy heading toward them, keys dangling from his hand. “I won’t hold it against him, though. He didn’t do it on purpose, and he’s bringing us home even though there’s a good chance one of us will puke in his truck.”

Remus was supposed to have the day after the party off, but as he was lounging in bed, trying to summon the motivation to get up and make coffee, his phone buzzed. 

“Remus!” Fleamont sounded flustered. “Sorry to call you on your day off, but I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor. The walk-in is acting up. I think I know what’s wrong with it, but I’m going to need your help. Could you meet me at the restaurant ASAP?”

Remus sighed and hauled himself out of bed. “I’ll see you soon.”

His car was finally functional, so after a quick shower he drove to The Lone Cone and hurried inside. 

“Fleamont is in the walk-in,” Lily said, appearing from around the corner. She was carrying the winter jacket they kept at the restaurant for tasks that required extended time in the freezers or refrigerator. “He said to put this on and meet him in there.”

Remus slipped on the jacket and stepped into the refrigerator. Cool air enveloped him, and he shivered. As the door swung shut behind him, he saw Sirius leaning up against a stack of milk crates.

“Did Fleamont call you in to help, too?” Remus asked.

“Yeah. He said he would be right in. I was about to go look for him when you came in.”

Remus frowned. “That’s weird. Lily said he was already in here…” He burst into laughter. “For fuck’s sake. This is a setup.”

Sirius brushed past him – Remus shivered again – and pushed on the door. It didn’t budge.

“They locked us in,” Sirius said. He pounded on the door. “You guys are fucking hilarious, now let us out! It’s cold in here.”

There was muffled giggling outside. “Remus has the coat,” Lily said. “You’ll have to share.”

“Huddling for warmth!” James said gleefully. “Another of my favorite tropes. Wait – THERE WAS ONLY ONE JACKET!”

“I’m not sure introducing you to AO3 was a good idea,” Lily said.

“We’ll let you out as soon as you talk things out and, well, whatever else you want to do,” Peter said. “So if you’re cold, just make it quick.”

There was a burst of laughter that Remus recognized as Mary’s. “You don’t want that sort of thing to be quick, Peter.”

“They’re not boning down in the walk-in, Mary!” Lily said. “That’s unsanitary.”

“Don’t you all have work to do?” Remus called. “Who is serving the customers while you’re sitting around eavesdropping?”

“I don’t even work here,” James said. 

Sirius kicked the door in response, then moved to the other side of the walk-in and sat down on an empty milk crate. Remus hesitated by the door, picking at his cuticles.

“You might as well sit down,” Sirius said, patting the milk crate beside him. 

“Thanks.” Remus sat down, careful not to let his leg bump Remus’s. “Sorry about this.”

Sirius laughed. “Why are you sorry?”

Remus didn’t have an answer, so instead he said, “Do you want to share the coat? We can take turns, or…”

“No, you keep it. You’re always cold – you need it more than I do.” 

“Thanks.” Remus drew his hands into the sleeves of the jacket and tried not to imagine how warm Sirius’s lips were. “Great party last night.”

“It really was. Even better than last year. It’ll be hard to top.”

“Yeah, but you and James will figure out a way to top it. You always do.” 

Sirius rubbed his hands up and down his arms.

“You are cold!” 

Remus started to unzip the jacket, but Sirius put his hand over Remus’s to stop him. His fingers were freezing.

“You’re not giving me the fucking jacket. You’ll freeze.”

“You’re already half frozen!”

Sirius looked at Remus for a moment, seeming to weigh something out in his mind.

“Fuck it.” He reached out and unzipped the jacket in one fluid motion.

“What are you doing?” Remus asked.

Sirius slipped his hands underneath the jacket and wrapped his arms around Remus’s waist. Remus stopped breathing.

“I’m trying out James’s stupid ‘only one jacket’ idea,” Sirius said. His face rested beside Remus’s neck, his breath hot against Remus’s skin. Remus didn’t know how he was expected to answer or perform any basic human function when Sirius was this close.

“It’s idiotic,” Sirius continued, “but it’s working. You’re nice and warm.” He shifted a bit closer, and Remus thought he might actually die. “It would work better if you put your arms around me, though.”

Fuck. Slowly, tentatively, Remus put his arms around Sirius. His entire body was on fire, as though they had been transported from the refrigerator to the kitchen on the hottest day of the summer. He could feel the knobs of Sirius’s spine through his t-shirt; he could smell his shampoo and the faint aroma of smoke; he could slide his hands under Sirius’s shirt or run his fingers through his hair or lean down and kiss him with a few easy movements.

No. He had to keep his cool, because in spite of their almost-kiss at the party, this was technically a platonic jacket-sharing situation. Remus cleared his throat and racked his brain for something normal to say. What were you supposed to say when huddling for warmth with your high school best friend who you had been pining for all summer? Some weather we’ve been having, huh? How about those Red Sox? I really want to make out with you next to this jar of pickles, but would that make things weird?

“I bet when you started working here you never imagined you’d end up cuddling with me in the walk-in,” Remus said finally.

Sirius laughed softly, a warm puff of air that rippled across Remus’s skin. “Well, I wasn’t expecting it to actually happen, but I can’t say I didn’t imagine it.”

Remus thought he must have heard wrong; perhaps the cold was affecting his ears. “What?”

Sirius laughed again. This was a different brand of Sirius Black laughter; it was the sentiment of “Fuck it” embodied in a laugh. “I’ve liked you for a long time, Remus. So yeah, I’ve imagined all sorts of stupid shit: getting trapped in the walk-in and huddling for warmth, making out in the attic on the bags of clean rags, staying late after everyone else has gone home and… Well, anyway, I’ve thought about it.”

Sirius’s forehead was now resting against Remus’s chest. Remus was glad Sirius couldn’t see his face, because he could feel himself smiling like an absolute idiot. 

“Me too,” he whispered.

“What? You’ve liked me for a long time, or you’ve imagined us boning down against the tray bar?”

Remus laughed, and somehow the movement shifted them even closer together. “I meant the first one, but both.”

Sirius lifted his head to look at Remus.  He wore a brilliant, unabashed smile. “How long?”

Remus held Sirius’s gaze. His joy was intoxicating. “Since the beginning of the summer.” He gathered his courage and removed one arm from around Sirius’s waist so he could push a strand of hair off of his forehead. “You?”

Sirius laughed again. “Doesn’t matter.”

Remus wrapped his arm around Sirius once again. “Come on. How long, Sirius?”

An uncharacteristically shy expression settled on Sirius’s face. “Years.”

“Holy shit. Are you kidding?”

“Why the fuck would I be kidding?”

Remus didn’t have an answer. His mind whirled as he tried to process the idea of Sirius harboring feelings for him through years of study sessions and parties and hungover breakfasts at the dining hall.

“Can I ask a potentially dumb question?” he asked.

“Go for it.”

“If you’ve liked me for years, why are you always hooking up with someone else?”

“Fuck. That’s not a dumb question, that’s a question that goes right to the heart of my dysfunctional little life.”

Remus smiled and tightened his arms around Sirius. “That wasn’t an answer.”

Sirius sighed. Remus relished the warm burst of air on his neck. “It’s just easier. Some of them I liked, some of them were just good for a fuck, but either way, if it didn’t work out – when it didn’t work out – it didn’t really matter. It didn’t bother me much, because none of them were you.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me how you felt?”

Sirius laughed. “Now that was a stupid question.”

“Who have you told?”

“I haven’t told anyone.”

Remus’s eyes widened. “Not even James?”

“Fuck no. He’d tell Lily, and I didn’t want her getting involved.”

“So you’ve been secretly pining for me for years?” The thought was simultaneously absurd and endearing.

“Don’t fucking put it like that – like I’m a character in one of Lily’s hockey romance stories.” He looked up at Remus, adorably indignant. “It wasn’t a big deal. I just liked you.”

“And you…” Remus swallowed. “You still like me?”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “That’s enough dumb questions from you.” He tilted his head up and kissed Remus, and Remus melted. There were no thoughts, only the pressure of Sirius’s lips and the heat of his body. 

Remus wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the walk-in door swung open and a chorus of cheers and claps filled the air. 

“I knew this would work!” Lily crowed. 

“Come back in a few minutes,” Sirius said, pulling the door shut and tugging Remus closer. 

Remus collapsed onto the sofa beside Peter and gazed at the assortment of boxes crowding their new apartment. 

“How do you feel about putting unpacking off until tomorrow?” he asked.

Peter grinned. “I feel great about that.” He leaned his head back against the sofa and turned to look at Remus. “So Sirius is coming over later?”

“I think so.” Remus tried to keep the giddiness from showing through in his voice.

“So are you guys…?”

Remus bit his lip to keep from smiling like an unhinged idiot. “I don’t know, Pete. We’re just hanging out. Who knows what’s going to happen. Keep your expectations low.”

Peter laughed and shook his head. “No way. My expectations are as high as that dude who came to the window reeking of weed and ordered a large cotton candy with peanut butter sauce and pineapple topping.”

Remus burst into laughter. “I forgot about him. I wonder if he enjoyed that.”

“I bet he enjoyed the shit out of it. I’d probably eat it if I smoked a fat joint, to be honest.” He stood up and walked to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a bag of Doritos. “I’m excited for you, though, and don’t bother telling me not to be.” 

He held out the bag, but Remus waved it away. He was too excited to eat; he had hardly eaten anything since the walk-in incident. 

“What about you and Mary, though? Any new developments?”

Peter shook his head. “It’s never going to happen.”

“Don’t be so sure. I thought Sirius would never be into me, and it turns out he’s liked me for years. Maybe Mary is secretly in love with you. She said she’s coming up for Halloween – maybe she’ll have one too many tequila shots and confess her feelings and bang you in the Theta bathroom.”

Peter brushed Dorito dust from his lips and shook his head, smiling. “I doubt it. But I guess anything is possible.”

“My expectations are higher than Benjy’s socks,” Remus said. “Don’t actually bang in the Theta bathroom, though. That’s not sanitary.”

“Noted.” Peter nudged a box aside and rested his feet on the coffee table. “I do have a good feeling about this year.”

Remus could still feel the imprint of Sirius’s kiss and see his self-conscious smile when he had promised to come over after he had unpacked. He had signed up for an insane course load, and his awkward goodbye with his parents was still weighing on him, and he had no idea where the bag with his toothbrush and toothpaste had ended up, but none of that seemed important at the moment, because Sirius was coming over to smoke a joint and watch the Office and most likely fall asleep in Remus’s bed. “Yeah. Me too.”