Jily Oneshots (pt2)

like a deer in headlights

With literally anyone else, he'd get out of the car and help them load their bags - his mother would be appalled if she knew that he wasn't practising the 'gentlemanly manners' she'd instilled into him from the day he was born - but he knows Lily, and he knows that she'll insist on doing it herself anyways.

She's always had a massive independent streak - coupled with a distaste for anything remotely resembling a patriarchal norm - and it's one of the many (many) things he likes about her.

When she opens the passenger door, she's got a cheeky sort of smile that, were his heart not already hammering out a frantic rhythm in his chest, would definitely send his pulse skyrocketing.

Goddammit, she's so pretty.

"You didn't even offer to load my bag for me," she observes as she slides into the seat across from him. "What on earth would Euphemia say about that?"

"Euphemia probably still remembers the last time I tried that and you immediately smacked my hands away," he retorts, a smirk growing on his face to match her own, even though he's already been thinking about the fact that his mum would, in fact, give him a hard time for it.

"She did tell me later that she'd thought it was funny to see you put in your place like that," Lily muses as she puts her seatbelt on.

His mum had indeed gotten quite a laugh out of it, James recalls. She, Remus, and Peter had come to visit him and Sirius for a week in the summer after their first year, and James' mum had immediately become positively enamoured with both Lily and Remus, and proceeded to spend the remainder of the summer telling both James and Sirius respectively how wonderful they both were, in a not-so-subtle 'you would be perfect together and I want them as my child-in-law' sort of way.

Well, she'd gotten her wish with Sirius, at least.

He realises he's been quiet for far too long, and she's still grinning at him and probably expecting him to say something back to her. He runs his fingers through his hair - a nervous habit of his that he's never really been able to break - and asks, almost on autopilot, "Alright, Evans?"

She laughs at that, no doubt remembering the countless times he'd greeted her that exact way in school. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?" And after a brief pause, "You look good."

He's almost positive he misheard her at first, but the faint pink spreading across her cheeks - at least, he doesn't think he's imagining it - is proof that he heard her right.

"Er, you too," he manages, stumbling over his words and almost immediately mentally berating himself for it. How the hell is he so smooth sometimes and an absolute fucking disaster at others?

If she catches on to his awkwardness though, she doesn't show it. "How's work? Are you still at Sleekeazy's?"

When he'd graduated uni, with a degree in English Literature of all things that he had no idea how to apply in the real world, he'd panicked and taken the first job available to him - which just so happened to be in the marketing department of his dad's massive haircare company.

It turned out he kind of enjoyed the marketing aspect, but working for a hair company was… not his thing, to say the least.

"Nah, I left that about a year and a half ago," he tells her. "Now I'm working as a deputy communications director for a small nonprofit."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he answers, finally shifting the car into gear so that they can start off on this eight-hour journey of theirs. "It's all about providing resources for homeless LGBTQ youth - I don't know if you've ever seen Albus Dumbledore in a news article or anything, but it's his organisation."