Lollipops ↬ Sirius Black

Lollipops - Chapter 19

"Naomi!" He exclaimed, very shocked, "What are you doing here!"

"What do you mean? I live right around the corner!" She furrowed her eyebrows incredulously. Quite frankly, Naomi was more surprised than Sirius. "More importantly, what are you doing here? This is a muggle grocery store, you know!"

"Well, you know. Since I moved in with the Potters, I offered to go grocery shopping for Mrs. Potter as a way of thanks." Naomi was not aware that Sirius moved in with his best friend but said nothing, still shocked. This caused him to cry out in slight defence. "What!"

Naomi realized that Sirius was probably feeling anxious under her demanding gaze. In fact, it looked a bit like he was blushing. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "What, you've never seen a boy going grocery shopping?" He demanded, slightly defensive.

"What? No!" She exclaimed once realizing she was coming off as rude. "It's just, I would've never thought that you would go grocery shopping. Not a male on general."

He shrugged and looked down. "Well, yeah. I mean, when I lived with my parents a house elf usually took care of the food for us. The Potters have a house elf too, but they're much too nice to let him do their chores—even though that's what house elves are for."

"But if you're wondering," he also added, "I'm going grocery shopping because I am admittedly quite the ladies man,"

She quietly chuckled at his comment. Sirius then disclosed their conversation, with a smile. "Well, it was nice seeing you, I guess,"

"Yeah," she finally said. "It was."

"See you later."

With that, the boy and girl were able to go their separate ways, both replaying the conversation in each other's head.

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Not long after, Naomi completed her task of grocery shopping and made her way to the cash register. The cashier scanned her food and ended up coming up with a price higher than the amount of money she had on her.

"That'll be the price of 26 dollars, ma'am." The female employee said.

"Oh," Naomi suddenly frowned. She knew that she didn't have enough money. "I don't think I have enough money on me. You know what, just take away all of these—" She began to gesture towards some of the foods that she'd selected in order to lower the bill, but all of a sudden a voice spoke up from behind her.

"Here," the person behind her handed over some money to the cashier, "Take it all. It's for her." They added.

Naomi swiftly turned around, and she was greatly baffled once realizing that Sirius was paying for her. She was saved from having to respond by the cashier. "Erm, I'm sorry sir, but I believe that you don't have the correct money."

Naomi looked back and realized that Sirius had taken out a handful of galleons. "Oh, my apologies!" He quickly shoved them back into his pocket and fiddled in his pockets some more until at last his hand re-emerged with some cash. "Here you go,"

"Alright," the cashier accepted the money this time and handed Naomi some change, which she numbly gave Sirius after collecting the groceries. He then used that change to pay for the single pack of bananas that he'd purchased.

The two were forced to move away from the cash register, as a woman was patiently waiting behind them.

"What was that?" Naomi asked him as they both began to leave.

"What?" He retorted in an easygoing way, as if he didn't know.

"Why would you pay for my things?" She demanded, because the last thing she needed was Sirius thinking she was poor.

"I told you before—I'm a ladies man." He joked, but when Naomi didn't respond, he rendered up his seriousness. "Look, I was just being nice," he softly explained.

She didn't say anything again, and only quietly thought to herself, causing Sirius to become anxious.

"If it really bothers you, we can go back and use your own money." He suggested.

"No," she said after a moment. "It's just that I didn't really expect you to do that,"

Sirius lightly chuckled, and it wore off into an awkward silence.

In attempts to break the silence, they both spoke at the same time.

"Anyways—''

"I was thinking—''

They both laughed at themselves, and Naomi offered, "You go first,"

Sirius suddenly looked apprehensive. "Oh, um, well, you know. I was going to ask if you wanted to, er, come over to James'. If you didn't mind, of course," he hastily added.

Naomi's face dropped.

"Oh, Sirius," she sadly began, and his expression fell as well. "I don't think..."

She trailed off with a cringe of pity, and Sirius frowned.

"Oh."

"Trust me, I want to. It's just that, my dad probably has work at that time, and he won't get the opportunity to meet you or James—even your parents. And you know, he won't want me going to a boy's house unsupervised."

Naomi was both lying and telling the truth. True, her father would most likely be at work during the time that she'd come over. But it was a lie that he'd actually want to meet James' parents. He would not care. At all. But if so, then why'd she say no to Sirius' proposal? Well, she didn't want anyone's parents to find out that her dad was not concerned enough to know where she was headed, or at least drive her there. Her and Sirius' may've been close enough to hang out outside of school, but she didn't want James' parents to be concerned about her.

Anyways, Sirius let out a fake laugh as if he too understood this supposed 'protective parent card'. Naomi smiled too, but weakly.

"But anyways, we'll see each other at school, won't we?"

Sirius nodded, not saying anything.

"Alright, goodbye." She waved and began to walk off. She added, "And thank you again,"

"Yeah. Merry Christmas."

And for Sirius, his Christmas was going to be especially bright with the knowledge that Naomi at least wanted to spend it with him.

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Oh my goodness, I'm so late on this update!

I know, I was supposed to update about a week ago, but my lazy bum decided to procrastinate. I'd like to say this won't happen again, but it probably will. Not frequently, though. I'll definitely try to make it not happen.

Sorry if you were able to tell that this chapter was rushed, or that it was a bit cheesy, but I have a project due tomorrow that I really need to practice.

QOTD: The last song you listened to?
AOTD: Sorry Not Sorry by Demi Lovato.

Make sure to vote and definitely leave a comment, even if it's just a simple thumbs-up emoji, because this place is like the desert, and something like that would really brighten my day, believe it or not.

Thank you for 4K reads!

Love,
Manny