Jily Oneshots (pt2)

Broken ovens, bad dates and other beautiful things

Still, she couldn’t believe that she’d forgotten all about her faulty oven. She had spent the last forty eight hours complaining to the landlords over the phone that her water wouldn’t boil on the stove for tea. It must have been the stress of the exams getting to her, making her forget even the most annoying of issues.

Now, Lily had four different bowls of cookie dough that she couldn’t bake. Maybe she really did need to stop thinking of herself as being of above average intelligence because she could never remember feeling so dumb. Her life had become a Comedy of Errors, except there was nothing to laugh at but her idiocy. Annoyed tears pricked her eyes and she leaned against the closest counter, pressing a hand to her cheek as she thought to herself.

“What now?” Lily asked herself miserably, as if saying it aloud in an empty room would result in someone magically appearing to answer the question and tell her how to solve the mess she’d gotten herself into.

And that’s when she heard laughter. At first she was a bit confused. She knew she was stressed but she didn’t think that it was bad enough to start imagining people laughing at her helpless condition. If she was going to begin hearing voices, she hoped that they would at least be useful. It took a while before Lily realized the sound was coming through the thin apartment walls from her neighbour. His voice was deep but she could hear him clearly talking on the phone through the walls complaining about a bad date. Lily had only just moved into the complex two weeks ago and didn’t know her neighbor personally but she had four batches of cookie dough that would go to waste if she didn’t use someone’s oven.

Lily Evans had never believed in letting herself wallow in misery, hence the baking. She’d gotten herself out of every little mess by herself and she wasn’t about to let something as silly as a broken oven and a impending linear algebra test bring her down.

There was one option that she could choose, one that was a little bold but she tried not to dwell on the possible outcomes. Before Lily could overthink her decision, she picked up her bowl of cookie dough and gathered all her cookie sheets. Steadfastly, she forced her feet to carry her out her front door and into the hallway.

Everyone loved cookies right?

Well, except her sister, but Lily was fairly sure that Petunia had been swapped out by an alien species as a child. There was no way that an actual human could be so boring, or have a voice that shrill. Petunia swore off cookies when they were ten ( ‘it has too many calories!’ ) and Lily hasn’t trusted her sister since.

Keeping her chin held high, pride intact, Lily walked over and knocked on her neighbours door. She heard her neighbour stop talking into his phone and walk towards the door. She immediately started thinking of what she should say when he opened the door. ‘I need to use your oven’ made Lily sound like a mad scientist who needed to conduct an experiment, but ‘May I come in and bake cookies please’ reminded her of the old pedantic English teacher she was subjected to in grade school . Neither were options that she prefered. First impressions were important and her opening line needed to be perfect to convince her neighbor to let her use his oven.

When he opened the door, she realized that it was completely useless. Nothing could have prepared her for this. Her new neighbour was standing in front of her with a phone in one hand, staring at her quizzically. He was not what she expected, not that she’d known exactly what to expect. The first thing she noticed was his hair. Thick, black, little ringlets fell into his sharp brow. He wore turtle-shell specs that seemed right out of a magazine. In fact, his whole ensemble was like right out of a Paris runway fashion. Even his shoes were shiny and he had his free hand in his hair, apparently aggravated.

His hazel eyes traced up Lily’s form, noting her appearance. His eyes scanned everything from the old pair of school joggers to her flour dusted concert t-shirt. Lily felt red sneak up her cheeks. He was checking her out. She suddenly realized what she must look like to him.