Chapter Text
Once a year, all the chaos of Lily's dreadful serving job got compressed into a single event; The Staff Party. No uniforms, no service, and no nagging costumers. Just lots of beer, bad decisions and the rare sight of coworkers with their hair down. Or in green facepaint - if your name was Peter and you were a busser at Hollow & Hearth. It was the one event worth looking forward to.
"What do you mean you're back the 24th?" Lily shot up a middle finger to Remus, who was sitting across from her with his own cigarette and a raised brow. She took another puff while she waited on Sirius' answer.
"Exactly what I said, darling." Although the two were on different continents, she could just hear the smirk in Sirius' voice. "I want to be there too, you know that. I haven't gone in the past three years, remember?" He huffed. And - okay, yeah - he was right. She knew that he couldn't just move his flight for a silly party, but a girl could dream.
She pursed her lips, and flicked her cigarette butt on the pavement. "Okay, yeah. But listen, the theme is fucking stupid, who chooses Germany as a theme? And we're the only two hot ones our age -" Remus gave her an indignant look, which she ignored, "- and... you promised." She finished lamely.
"Yes, that I did." Sirius sighed. "Look, I know this sucks, but next year, okay?" Lily rolled her eyes. She liked his optimism, especially with his recent threats to quit because he didn't get a raise. But they both knew he wouldn't leave. "Okay, give me my boyfriend now." Her eyes shifted back to Remus, who was sporting a small smile. She really ought to lower her volume while on a call.
With a grumble, she handed her phone to Remus. In an instant, the boy was off in his own world and her eyes lowered to the cigarettes on the table. She quickly snagged another and lit it up before he could protest.
Truly a bad habit, that whole smoking thing. Especially when stealing is involved.
Lily felt a bit silly in her costume. She was assessing it in the bathroom of the restaurant The Staff Party took place. (Which was entirely Germany-themed. She didn't even know such a place existed in London). Everyone was in dirndls, lederhosen or some variation of a German footie jersey. Meanwhile, she was in a bright blue suit with her hair half-up. Angela Merkel. A stupid idea in hindsight, but she'd already told everyone her back-then-genius idea, and she was a woman of her word.
People from all the establishments had called her clever or funny, but she just couldn't shake the feeling that she was entirely out of place. One of her closest friends not being there certainly didn't help.
"God, these toilets are amazing. I wish ours smelled this good." A voice emerging from one of the stalls proclaimed. "And the dry shampoos, the space, the mirrors!"
Lily laughed and turned towards Marlene. "That only took you forever. What were you doing in there?" She ushered her friend toward the sink, eager to get back to her schnitzel and cheap beer. Marlene followed along, muttering something about smelling toilets. When they got back, she was glad to see her schnitzel hadn't been devoured by Mary and Dorcas and was still the size of her entire head.
When she was about halfway through her schintzel and third (fourth?) beer, she noticed him.
Across the long table - all laughter, shitty Oktoberfest music and glass clinks with shittier beer - sat a boy she didn't recognise. Not fully, anyway. He was slouched low beside Peter, who she'd some banter with after she threatened to steal his girlfriend. They were both wearing painfully obvious last minute outfit, but somehow, the boy made it look good. His dark curls peeked out from under his fedora (was that a feather taped to it?), and he kept shifting uncomfortably, probably due to the beer suspenders strapped awkwardly tight over his chest.
She immediately hated him for being so casually hot.
"Who's that?" She leaned into Dorcas and nodded her chin in his direction, eyes never leaving the guy.
Dorcas followed her gaze, then squinted. "Uhh... dishwasher, I think? New? James something?"
James.
Okay, well. Target acquired.
The rest of the dinner blurred around the edges, the beer bubbling in her bloodstream like static. At some point, the tables were shoved aside and there was a make-shift dancefloor. She laughed a little too hard at someone spilling their beer, roped Dorcas into screaming Pitbull lyrics with her and twirled with Mary until she felt kind of ill.
She had fun - met some people from the other establishments, bonded over how the entire managerial tier needed to be fired and replaced immediately, and even flirted with a slightly attractive guy. But her eyes kept searching out the curls and those disgusting shorts.
At some point - later, maybe? -she ended up giggling in the photobooth next to the entrance with Marlene, pulling faces behind silly props. "I need a cig Marly." Lily whined from beneath a foam. Marlene laughed at her and then nodded in agreement, dragging her out of the photobooth and toward the exit. They managed to snatch the pictures on their way out, but Lily didn't have anywhere to put them, so she stuffed them in her bra like any self-respecting woman would.
The air was cool and sharp against her face by the water, but her cheeks heated up all over again when she spotted him.
She took a deep breath, gave a sideways glance that clearly said 'pray for me', but Marlene just gave a frown back. She fished a cigarette out of her pack and marched over before she could change her mind.
"Got a light?" She asked, holding up her cigarette like a white flag. She felt a presence behind her and practically heard Marlene smirking. The boy - James - looked up. Close, his curls were even worse. His eyes? Terrible. Too warm, lazy and filled to the brim with mirth. The kind that made Lily's heart lurch and her breath go kind of shallow.
"Only if you promise not to tell anyone I forgot my ID and had to beg Peter to order for me all night." She let out a short laugh. "Tragic. You almost had some cool points there," she raked her eyes over his outfit one more time, "you know, with that whole taped feather and beer suspender thing you have going on."
He responded with his own laugh and handed his lighter. She flicked it, inhaled. Smirked. "Lily," she said, like an afterthought. He raised his brows. "James."
Like she didn't already know.
From there, the night unraveled into a blur - dancing again (badly), more beer (bad decision), and Lily definitely telling half of her coworkers that the new dishwasher was “kind of devastatingly hot, actually.”
Somewhere halfway the night, she ended up outside with him again, cigarette in hand and Peter acting as a buffer between them. Somehow, his girlfriend had been there too. Lily laughed and told Peter that he'd given her the perfect chance to steal her. Peter didn't find it all that funny, but luckily his girlfriend did.
But she talked - and most importantly, laughed - even more with James. She handed him cigarettes like they were party favours, but kept reminding him how much he owed her now. He swore up and down he'd pay her back.
At some point, they'd moved closer together. He touched her tattoo - leaves and flowers stretching across the entirety of her shoulder - with nimble fingers, complimenting it quietly and listening to the story behind it with rapt attention. "So yeah, it's for my family. I guess it's kind of lame." She finished lamely, eyes cast downward.
"I don't think so at all." He confessed with that deliciously deep voice, kind of raspy from all the cigarettes and filled with honestly. She smiled and asked him about his family. The topic moved on.
She made fun of the neighbourhood he lived in ("it's so posh!"), and he made fun of her secondary school in return ("i've never heard a good thing about it").
Later, the boys disappeared all at once. Left without saying goodbye. Rude.
While she and Remus were waiting on their Uber, she had fished her phone out of her pockets. She'd meant to scroll on Instagram, lazily like some pictures and look at those stupid reels. Instead, she found herself scrolling to Peter’s name, thumb hovering over Call. Once. Twice. Eight times. Eventually she just hit the button.
"What's up?" His voice crackled over the phone. "Why are you calling?" Always the defensive one, then.
"Hey! Uh, did you - wait, Mary, one sec - forget, uh... your wallet? I have one here. It might be yours, or James'. Or both." She didn't even know what she was saying.
She just wasn't ready for the night to be over yet.