Part of James and Renata both wished that they had never confided their true feelings in Sirius, not because they didn't trust him to say anything, but because it was the only thing that they could really think of from that moment on. The two of them had almost found themselves rather content with pushing back their feelings of attraction towards one another, it left a less awkward air about it all. However, now that James had actually confronted and realised his developing feelings towards Renata, he could hardly concentrate on anything else. Suddenly, he became of every little thing about Renata that he found to be absolutely perfect.
Such as the effortless beauty that she often exhibited even when she had just woken up in the mornings. Her hair was normally all over the place, a sleepy look in her eyes as she could barely keep them open sometimes, and yet, there was a smile on her face regardless. A smile that carried from her lips to her eyes that made anyone around her suddenly feel like they were in a better mood. He liked that she enjoyed wearing dresses as much as she enjoyed wearing trousers as her figure looked great dressed in both.
There were times where he caught her reading to herself and witnessed all the expressions she made, whether it was a confused, bewildered, excited, or troubled look, each one was downright adorable. She was a storyteller, definitely appreciated by Harry as she dared to be the silliest she could be when reading to him at night before bed. She made faces, changed her voice, and made a complete fool out of herself many times, just for a chance at making Harry laugh.
James was caught up in the smoothness of her skin, the flicker of light in her eyes, the curvature of her lips, and how all those features seemed to fit perfectly as if they were all pieces of a puzzle that were put together.
How he had managed not to notice all the things before when it came to her physical beauty, he had to assume that through his grief, he had put up blinders, believing that it would be wrong for him to ever look at another woman again after Lily's death. But Sirius had spoken to him, telling him how ludicrous it would be to sacrifice his own happiness for such a reason. Sirius had reassured him that Lily would never want James to be sad or grieve for the rest of his life.
There was a reason he had survived and that was to live on, and what was the point of living if James wasn't going to live it to his full potential?
As inspiring and encouraging as Sirius' words were, James still found himself extremely nervous because he had no idea how Renata felt towards him. There were a lot of risks that were involved and he was nervous about taking any step out of his comfort zone at the time. Renata still wasn't even on a first name basis with him consistently as she still called him "Mr Potter." He had to believe that those formalities were set for a reason, maybe she only saw him as nothing more than a friendly employer.
Sirius encouraged him to talk to her about it and even brought up the wild idea of asking Renata out on a date, but James immediately put up a protest to it all. Suppose he did ask her on a date and the worst occurred where Renata rejected the invitation. James wasn't sure if he was in the right state to handle rejection, not to mention, if she became aware that he was developing feelings for her and she didn't feel the same, that would leave her to feel uncomfortable. Which ultimately, in James' mind, meant that she would leave.
He would rather silently be left with his feelings, rather than lose Renata because it didn't mean that only he would lose Renata, but Harry would as well. He could adore her from afar and just wait until the time was right or if the time never presented itself, he would just be happy to know that Harry was happy with her company.
However, even though it sounded like it would be easy to bottle up all of his affectionate thoughts, James was betrayed by his subconscious every time he closed his eyes to sleep. Nearly every single night from the time he had spoken with Sirius, James found himself experiencing a new dream that involved Renata.
Some of them were sweet, mainly painting the scene of him and Renata sharing the hammock on beautiful afternoons or evenings. Except rather than sitting across from him, she rested in his arms, cuddled up in his side.
But over the past few nights, his dreams were growing in intensity, enough that they were making him blush every morning when he greeted Renata. His imagination was taken over in full force placing him in the predicament where he was dreaming of waking up to Renata in his bed, bare skin exposed to him in the most intimate of ways. He was actually driving himself mental and while he was presented with the solution, he was too afraid of the different possible outcomes that he was just making himself suffer.
Thankfully, Sirius was more than aware of the situation and he knew neither Renata or James were going to make the first move because they were so plastered by fear to do anything. So, he decided he was going to make the first move for them.
Since he knew that Harry was going to be the proven distraction that both of them would focus their attention on to distract them from their feelings, he was going to remove the Boy-Who-Lived from the equation.
"You're going to take him for the day and you want to keep him overnight?" James pondered out loud after Sirius had proposed his offer that very morning. He had waited until the late morning hours to arrive to ensure that both James and Renata were going to be awake and present. The two had been in the kitchen with Harry, allowing the little boy to stand on the counter and help crack eggs to cook on arrival.
They assumed that Sirius was just there to share in a breakfast with them and he made it seem so until all the food was gone and he made his offer.
"Yes," Sirius nodded, " I need a good pick-me-up and what better than spending the day with my favourite godson?"
"He's your only godson, Sirius," James crossed his arms, very suspicious of what was taking place. Renata and James seemed to both understand what Sirius was trying to do, the problem was, they weren't aware that the other person was aware. So it left both of them not wanting to protest the idea because it would just raise suspicion.
"Exactly," Sirius replied, " and we haven't been able to spend a lot of time together. We need some good old bonding time. I figured I could take him to the park, maybe we'll go see a muggle movie. This should give you two plenty of time to take care of things you need to, maybe run some errands, or you know, just relax. I promise I'll take great care of Harry."
James wanted to protest, simply because he knew that grin on Sirius' face all too well. However, before he or Renata could say anything, Harry delivered the answer as he reached his arms out towards Sirius.
"Paddy! Go with Paddy!"
During the five minutes where Sirius and Harry had been alone, James damn well knew that Sirius had rehearsed Harry into the act and for that, he cursed his best friend under his breath for being so clever and sneaky. Unable to argue, James decided that he would just let Harry go and wondered if Renata would take the time to make other plans.
Perhaps she would go visit with her brother for the day if he had off from St Mungo's or maybe she would go shopping and spend some of her earned money.
Of course, as James was trying to think of whatever plans Renata was going to come up with possibly, she doing the same thing, wondering if she really was going to spend the day in the company of James. Just the thought of it was making her hands sweaty and slippery to the point where she couldn't even hold a glass of water properly. She was aware of what Sirius was trying to do, but she honestly wished that he wasn't trying to play matchmaker.
Especially after she had expressed that she didn't want James to know of anything. Yet, she was just getting her first real dose of how Sirius came across as the rather persistent type.
With an overnight bag packed for Harry within minutes, Sirius had Harry wave to Renata and James before the two left, both of them blowing kisses over their shoulders before their departure. It left Renata and James to stand in the middle of the kitchen for a few moments in silence, wondering if they were dreaming or the situation was actually real.
However, as they glanced over in the direction of each other, both of them turned red in the face.
Oh yes, it was definitely real.
"Well, erm," James cleared his throat to break the awkward silence, " that was certainly unexpected."
"But it was very sweet of Sirius to want to have some bonding time with Harry," Renata pointed out, even though she knew that Sirius had not taken Harry for the sole purpose of bonding. "I'm sure Harry is going to have a lot of fun. He always seems to with Sirius around."
"Yeah, he does."
The two were tiptoeing around the subject, both of them nervously looking at each other before looking in another direction, pretending to occupied with something else. As much as James didn't like Sirius' plan, there was part of him that was hoping that Renata wasn't going to leave to go out and do her own thing. He was curious as she hadn't announced anything as of yet, but they were hardly talking as it was at that very moment.
"So are you going to go visit your brother or something along the lines?" he asked in the most casual tone that he could casually muster.
"Oh, no," Renata gave a quick shake of her head, " normally Adelmo works double-shifts a lot of the time and even if he has today off, I'm sure he just wants to relax for a little bit. I think he just needs a bit of time to himself too, after the whole thing with Sirius. I wish I could do more to help him, but he usually just tells me that he's going to be fine and tells me not to worry about it. Must be the protective older brother in him, I suppose."
James had only partially registered what she had said during her short ramble, but from what he got out of it, it seemed that she wasn't leaving the home for the day.
"D-d-do you have p-plans?" she stammered as she questioned him in return.
"No."
"Oh."
The internal screams that were raging inside both of them probably would be heard from countries across the ocean if they were ever let loose. They obviously wanted to spend time with each other, they were both given the opportunity to do so thanks to Sirius' generosity, and yet, they couldn't even get to the point where they would just simply ask if the other wanted to spend the day with them.
Since James had originally broken the initial bout of silence, Renata realised that it was probably left on her for the second act.
"Well, I suppose we could just use the day to relax, right?" she said quietly. "After all, we don't have Harry here to entertain, so we can do whatever we want. Is there anything you'd like to do?"
James could name fifteen things right off the top of his head but deemed them all inappropriate to respond with.
He had to think for a second or he was going to make a total arse out of himself within just a few seconds time. However, as he gave himself a moment, he actually did think of something that he thought they would both enjoy and have fun with.
"Actually, I know you've been teasing around the idea of teaching me how to cook beef wellington, " he said, " since Harry isn't much of a meat eater as of yet, it would be the perfect night to try it out, right?"
Renata folded her arms, a slight smirk pulling at the corner of her lips as she met his gaze. "Mr Potter, are you sure you're ready to try such a dish? I'll warn you, it is rather complicated because you're mixing a pastry and red meat together. The meat has to remain juicy and the puff pastry has to remain flaky, both are rather hard to master the first time around."
"Well, I want to give it a go," James told her, " I mean, not alone of course, but I think with your help I could do it, right?"
"I think so."
When Sirius left the two for the day and night, he probably didn't anticipate in the two holding a cooking class, however, it seemed perfect because rather than the tense and awkward atmosphere from earlier, Renata and James found themselves incredibly relaxed as the day carried on. The two travelled to the markets to pick up the fresh ingredients that they needed such as wild mushrooms and a sprig of thyme.
But as they collected more and more within their shopping trip, James suddenly felt like he had bitten off more than he could chew with what he was about to tackle. Although Renata reassured him that he could do it, she had all the faith in the world in him. And to make the occasion a little bit fancier and to also relax his nerves, James bought a bottle of elf-made red wine to go along.
Once they arrived back at the flat, Renata advised him to spread out all of his ingredients out on the table so that he could see where everything was clearly. She watched as he set out everything in such a neat and careful fashion as if he were terrified of making any sort of mistakes. And when he finished, she carefully guided him over to the stove after telling him to collect the beef fillets.
"Alright, we'll just need a bit of oil," she said, moving her wand to pour a small amount of olive oil before she allowed the pan to heat up, " and we're not going to cook it through entirely. So you'll just want to cook the meat until it's browned all over the outside."
He nodded his head but she could hear the shakiness to it, leaving her to collect a glass and pour him his first serving of wine.
"Relax, Mr Potter, you're going to do just fine. I won't let you fail."
Indeed she did not allow him to fail as she watched over his cooking and eventually, once the meat was browned, it was pulled out of the pan and set aside to cool. James wore such a large smile on his face and she wasn't sure if it was because he was starting to feel the one settle in or because he felt accomplished.
She instructed him next to finely cut the mushrooms while she removed the leaves of the thyme and prepared the second pan to make the duxelles, otherwise known less fancily as a mushroom paste. He worked carefully beside her, focusing on the task of cutting up the mushrooms as best as he could. Every so often he would look over to see Renata give him an approving nod, the sign that he was doing everything right.
He didn't understand how Renata could do all of it just by memory because it all just seemed rather complicated. He also began to wonder how many times she had made the meal before she became comfortable not even to look at any cooking directions. All James could do was watch as she overlapped pieces of Parma ham to create a square while the duxelle was cooking to remove all the excess moisture.
"Ready to do an egg wash?" she asked him, bringing James to look over in the direction of the eggs on the table before he nodded.
Perhaps she should have been a bit more specific about what kind of egg wash she meant because she couldn't help but cover her mouth to hold back her laughter as James brought the eggs over to the wash basin to start rinsing the eggs.
He was actually giving the eggs a bath.
Unable to hold back her laughter any longer, Renata made her way over to stand behind him and took him by the back of his arms to direct him away from the running water.
"That's not what I meant, Mr Potter," she mused, " an egg wash is actually a beaten egg that we use to add to the pastry. Gives it a nice browning and glossy effect. I'm sorry if I confused you."
James didn't hear a word she had said as he was too focused on the fact that she was standing behind him, her chest pressed into his back and her hands resting on his arms. When she moved away to start preparing the egg wash as she took the eggs and a dash of cream and salt, James immediately went for another glass of wine. He wasn't even sure how many glasses that made it but it wasn't even working to settle his nerves anymore.
When she finished, Renata advised James to come over so that she could show him how to brush the egg wash on. However, she wasn't expecting him to come to stand behind her as close as he did, quickly leaving her short of breath.
"I can't see," he muttered at one point, sounding incredibly close to her ear, "your hair is in the way."
She was stupidly about to tell him that he could stand beside her, but what James decided to do turned out to be a better idea. A pleasant shiver raced down her spine as James used one of his hands to brush her hair aside. Just when she thought she had already been rendered into a useless puddle of mush, Renata felt his chin come to rest on her shoulder.
She could smell the wine on his breath and she figured that maybe he had consumed too much to the point where he couldn't stand properly. Slowly, Renata began turning to see if he was alright.
"Mr Potter, are you-"
Immediately, her voice stopped as she met James' gaze, no room to manoeuvre as her lower back was already pressed into the counter. He was right there in front of her, a hand on each side of the counter locking her in place and before she could even get her thoughts straight, she realised he was leaning in.
:)