A/N: I needed James being extra in my life right now. Maybe you do too. :)
James was mesmerized.
Fine, he's being extra, but he honestly can't stop himself from looking her way. She's not someone he's ever met, but their campus is big so it isn't as though this gorgeous woman can't be here simply because he doesn't know her, but that doesn't stop James from staring like he's thirteen.
Marlene and her housemates are hosting this party. And James still hasn't found Sirius or Marlene, but to be honest, once he found her he'd stopped trying.
He's half listening to some younger classmen complain about organic chemistry while this siren of a woman pulls him in, her song simply the way her green eyes dance when she laughs and how her auburn red hair cascades around her neck and shoulders and down her back. It takes him a full thirty minutes of watching her before he finally plucks up the courage to talk to her. Most of that courage comes the moment the other girl she's been talking to moves away from her spot on the sofa to take a phone call.
"It must be hard being the most beautiful woman at this party." He tries for a smooth way to start up a conversation, a way to see her smile.
To James' shock, she looks more like a deer in the headlights.
"Sorry," the word is out of his mouth before he can stop and think it through.
"I, it's, no it's fine," she gives him a small smile, "Thank you."
"Would you like someone to talk to until your friend gets back?" James shoves his hand in his hair, suddenly less sure of himself than he'd felt when the other girl walked out.
The beauty nods and moves closer to the arm of the sofa.
"Alright."
Well, it isn't the most enthusiastic response he's ever got but it's still a positive one, so he takes it.
"I'm James," he forces a smile, and feels his heart soar when she gives him a small smile in return.
"Lily."
"Thanks for letting me come and chat, Lily. The conversations I've been listening in on since I got here have all been ridiculously dull."
She laughs a little, and James feels his confidence slowly building back up.
"So how did you end up here?" He asks, trying to figure out what to do with his hands, finally settling with gripping the denim of his jeans near his knees.
She's spinning a ring on her middle finger as she answers.
"I live here, actually."
James blinks. He's going to chew out Marlene something fierce for not letting him in on the fact that Lily was one of her housemates sooner than this blasted party.
"Oh?" James tries to hide his surprise. "Marlene is a friend of mine."
Lily frowns a bit. "Really?"
James swallows, worried that Marlene has said something horrible about him.
"How did you meet, Marly?" She asks, her frown still there.
"Sirius, he's my best mate."
Her frown disappears immediately and she laughs, looking at him like he's walked into this party in a clown costume soaking wet.
"I assure you most of his stories are exaggerated." James realizes his hand is in his hair a half-second too late.
Lily grins at him. "I'm sure."
James tries to hide the panic at how Sirius may have portrayed him by smiling. "Give me a chance to tell you the true side of all the things Sirius has told you."
Lily's smile morphs into a smirk. "Alright, James."
It's more than two hours later when James realizes that what had started as a way to save face has turned into laughing and swapping stories and getting closer and somewhere along the way his arm moved of its own accord and wrapped around her shoulders and this feels like that 'once in a lifetime' moment when the stars line up and he sees for the first time in his whole life.
Alright, he's being incredibly extra, but he wants to spend the next week sitting on this sofa talking with Lily and listening to her laugh and watching her eyes shift color as she talks and watch her hair move around her and just being surrounded by this woman and her gravitational pull.
"Lily, why have we never met before this?" James lets his fingers play a little in her hair near her shoulder.
Lily shrugs, "I guess I just get caught up in my coursework."
James gently squeezes her shoulder. "Maybe I could hang around while you do that."
Lily tenses instantly and James almost recoils, afraid he's somehow hurt her. "What's wrong?"
"Sorry, I just, I don't do this." Her gaze moves down to her hands and she's spinning that copper ring on her middle finger again.
"Do what, exactly?"
"I don't do this. I don't get close."
James frowns. "Isn't that what we've spent the last couple of hours doing?"
Lily's eyes stay glued to her hands as they spin her ring around her finger. "I suppose so."
"If this hasn't been fun, I'll leave you alone. No hard feelings."
The lie feels metallic on his tongue, but if she tells him to hit the road right now he will, even though it would kill him.
"No!" She finally looks up at him, panic in her green eyes.
James shoves his hand in his hair. "Help me out then, because I don't understand."
Lily bites her lip. "What if, what if you get bored with me and leave? What if we go for a while before we start to hate each other before this all falls apart and leaves us scarred and broken-hearted? What if this is just tonight?"
James feels like he's the deer in the headlights now.
"Damn."
"Look, James," she looks back down at her hands. "I've done this before, and it's always been a disaster in the end. Why put ourselves through the pain?"
"Wait," James grabs her hands. "Can we talk about this somewhere less crowded?"
Lily freezes as she stares down at his hand over hers.
"Please, before you make up your mind, just hear me out."
She hesitates a full fifteen seconds before she grabs his hand and stands up. "Follow me."
To James' shock, Lily pulls him up the stairs to a closed-door before pulling a key from her pocket and unlocking the door.
A flick of the light switch makes it very apparent that she's led him to her immaculate bedroom. James lets himself believe that it's a good sign.
Maybe Lily's just been burned pretty bad.
Maybe she just needs some new "what-ifs" to think about.
Lily shuts and locks the door behind them, then turns to look up at him with her arms wrapped around her middle. All James wants to do is make her smile again, to uncoil her from the way she's wound up so tightly.
"Lily, I hear you, sometimes relationships fall so hard we don't think we'll ever recover. But Lily," he steps closer to her, "What if we were made for each other? Like in those stories about the people who've been together sixty years? What if we were meant to be?"
Lily's curled in on herself so much James expects her to implode, but her eyes are locked on his and so he keeps going.
"Lily, what if I held you? What if I held you right now, and tomorrow, and the day after that, and after that and next year and next decade?" Tentatively he steps up next to her and wraps her in his arms.
He fights the grin that tries to claim his face when she steps into him.
"What if I'm not one of those guys that hurt you? What if I'm the one you decide you want to spend forever with? What if down the line I decide to buy a ring to put next to the copper one you toy with when you're nervous?"
Her breath catches at his words and James indulges himself in dropping his stare long enough to look at her full lips before gazing back at her gorgeous eyes.
"What if I lean into you?"
James lets the question hang in the air between them before he does lean in. She meets him halfway and James tries to maintain some self-respect and not moan at how soft her lips are and how she fits perfectly in his arms and how her whole body responds to his touch.
He pulls back just enough to murmur, "What if that's our last first kiss?"
Lily smiles a small, shy smile. "You make a pretty convincing case."
"I can't promise it, Lily," James indulges himself again and runs a hand through her hair. "But what if it is? What if someday I told you I loved you? What if I make you happy? What if you and I become us?"
He leans in again and speaks against her lips. "What if we threw it all away just because we were scared?"
Lily's smile grows a bit wider across her beautiful face as he pulls back to look at her.
"What if I gave you my number?" She's grinning up at him like she knows this hold she had over him.
James can't stop the smile that stretches from ear to ear across his face.
"What if I texted you non stop?"
Lily's laughter is breathy as she grins.
"What if I let you be around to distract me from my coursework?"
James leans closer, "What if I kissed you to distract you?"
Lily's eyes drop to his lips and James feels an electric shock run through his veins.
"What if I kissed you now?" Her smile is almost a smirk now and it's doing things to him.
"What if I kissed you for the rest of my life?"
Lily laughs before sliding her arms around his middle and pressing up to kiss him.
James holds her close as he can, pouring as much emotion as he can into his kiss.
What if they had to tell people he hadn't given it his all the day he met the woman he'd one day call his wife?