A/N: My name, unfortunately, is not J.K. Rowling. I do not lay claim to any of her characters or to any similarities you may find between this fic and the movie "The Wedding Date".

Hiya,

If you follow me on Tumblr, you might have seen the little voting contest I had going on. I had my followers on there vote which OTP I should write a Christmas fic for. However, so many people participated that I thought it'd be unfair to only write one fic after all that. As my Christmas gift to you, I'll be writing three fanfics! The longest one will be this one. It's obviously a Jily fic, and it will be 6 chapters long. In two weeks, I'll also upload the first chapter to my Dramione fic, and I'll keep uploading both this fic and that one every Sunday until Christmas. On Christmas itself I'll upload a Drarry drabble, the last two chapters of this fic and the last chapter of the Dramione fic.

There's a little nod in the title of this fic to the movie that inspired it: The Wedding Date. If you don't know it, I highly recommend it! The Christmas Date is obviously a Modern AU, and it's written in third POV.

For those of you who are still waiting on a new Pride and Prongs update, don't despair. I'm still figuring out where I want to go with that story, and I'll probably pick it up again as soon as I finish these little fics!

No disrespect meant to sex workers and escorts.

I hope you enjoy this one, and please let me know what you think!

Love,

Kelly

Chapter 1: A Lad For Christmas

Lily Evans was bloody well done for.

She was dead. Her life was over.

Why had she lied?

"So I hope that you can both make it here for Christmas, Lily. You know how much work Mum and I put into these dinners."

Her sister's voice was like a sledgehammer to the head, and Lily gripped her Samsung Galaxy tighter. She wondered if she had enough strength in her tiny hand to break it in two, and if it would make her feel better if she did.

It would definitely stop her from spouting any more lies. But, like her mother always said, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Oh, we'll be there," she said airily, as if nothing were amiss at all. As if her sister's smug voice wasn't setting her teeth on edge. "He's eager to meet the family."

"Well, he should be," Petunia laughed, and the sound was like nails on a chalkboard. Okay, maybe she was being very unfair to her sister at the moment. Lily had dug this hole herself, but she wouldn't have seen the need to lie so much if her sister and her perfect marriage had just buggered off. "He's been dating my little sister for two months, and I have yet to meet him."

"You'll meet him," Lily snapped, her merry mask finally slipping.

After having grown up with her sister, Lily knew exactly when Petunia wasn't buying what she was selling. Now was one of those times. "Of course, Lily."

Lily closed her eyes, and let her head fall forward. It hit the fridge a little harder than she had originally intended and she cursed. She rubbed the tender spot on her forehead as her sister went off on her about language and how cursing wasn't ladylike at all.

As if she gave two hoots.

"You know that we'd perfectly understand if you were still single, Lily. I mean, we're all a little bit surprised since the boys chased you in school so much," her sister said bitterly, "but I doubt that any man would have enough patience to come second to someone's work again and again. Besides it's not even that big of a deal. Thirty is still three years away, darling."

Oh, hell no. "Petunia, I'm sorry, but I've got to go," Lily lied. "Someone just rang my doorbell."

"But I didn't hear a thing," Petunia sputtered. "Lily-"

"Bye, see you in a few days." She sounded a lot happier saying goodbye to her older sister than she felt. Petunia was probably thinking she had a personality disorder now, which would fit in perfectly with her being a pathological liar. She disconnected the call quickly, before Petunia could get another word in, and glared at her fridge.

Now she didn't only figuratively have a headache from Petunia's babbling, but thanks to her short rendezvous with her refrigerator she actually had one. With a groan she laid her phone on the kitchen counter, and grabbed the magazine she had been reading. She shuffled towards her comfiest chair near the window and plopped down.

Lily Evans was actually quite proud of her cosy little apartment. It had two bedrooms, and a nice view of the Thames. She had decorated it in various shades of gold and brown, and the lit candles on nearly every flat surface gave her tiny space a warm glow. There was this candle, that she had picked up in a small store on Oxford Street last week, that smelled like a forest fire. It's supposed to smell like "a campfire in winter" according to the packaging, but Lily thought that her definition was a better metaphor for her love life.

She paid a ridiculous amount for her apartment, but as CEO of the most successful MICE agency in London, she could afford some extravagance. She was the meetings and events specialist people came to see for their business parties in London. Among her clients were huge multinational corporations, noble families and Great Britain's finest businesses. And yet her sister was still convinced that she could host the Christmas dinners better than she ever could.

Puh-lease.

Lily could pull some strings and get the prettiest venues for their annual Christmas parties, but Petunia had their parents on her side when she pointed out that Christmas is supposed to be about family. About "coming home".

So they celebrated Christmas at their parents' house every year, which was always a bother for Lily since she didn't even own a car. It wasn't like she needed one in London when she had the tube, right?

She would have to pay for a taxi to take her to Cokeworth, which was a waste of money in her opinion. She could always take the train, of course, but that would still mean that she'd have to take a taxi from the train station to her old childhood home. Anyhow, she'd have to get a cab.

All of it didn't even matter, because there was no way that Lily was going this year.

She'd lied about having a boyfriend for two months now. Just because she couldn't hear Petunia go on and on about her happy marriage with that idiot. They were so smug about their little family, and Lily's lack thereof. Dudley, their son, was an awful brat of eight. He was a spoiled little boy that complained about the amount of presents he got every year.

Lily groaned. How embarrassing. If she didn't turn up with a nice guy on her arm, her family would know that she had been desperate and pathetic enough to lie. If she didn't show up at all, they would know that she was desperate, pathetic and a coward.

She couldn't use her job as an excuse either. Lily had enough people working for her to take over the workload during the holidays, which really wasn't that much to begin with. Not many companies planned meetings, incentives, conventions or events during the Christmas holidays, which Lily had always been happy about. Christmas was the only time when Lily slacked off a little, and for the first time in five years she wasn't even excited about her four days off.

She had never felt more depressed during the merriest season of the year. Where was she going to find a date on such short notice? The twenty-fourth was only a week away, and there was no way that she would be able to find someone insane enough to come with her to Cokeworth. Bloody hell.

Who wanted to spend Christmas in that industrial town anyway? Lily had been glad to leave that place behind.

Welcome to Cokeworth. We do hope you enjoy our lovely view; the river and the large factory overlooking it make the small streets and workers' homes look adorably picturesque. Please come back soon.

Right.

Not going to happen.

She sighed, and curled up on the chair. Her head was supported by her left hand, and her legs were tucked snugly beneath her, as she mindlessly flipped through the magazine. She was about to have a bit of a meltdown, when her gaze fell on the solution.

"How I Paid For My Lover," she read, "a story by M. Miller."

An escort service, she thought as she scanned the article, would be the answer to all her troubles! No attachment, no complications, and she would show her sister that even workaholics could have romance and happiness in their lives.

So what if her family thought she worked too hard? So what if even her sister, who she loved dearly, of all people thought she was boring?

She would prove them all wrong.

A grin spread over her beautifully freckled face, as Lily's green eyes flashed with enthusiasm. She could fix this. If she could convince arrogant HR manager's that Lily's Events Agency, or LEA for short, was the only one that could incite their employees to work harder, then she could bloody well impress some escort agency enough to send their best employee to her for Christmas.

She got out of her comfy chair and marched to the kitchen table where her laptop was still softly purring. With a swipe on her mouse pad she woke it up, and surfed to Google. Time to find herself a lad for Christmas.

James cursed like a sailor when his phone rang. When all it did for him, was give him a mouth full of soapy water, he cursed again for good measure.

"Your mother would disinherit you if she heard you curse like that, mate," his best friend yelled from the living room.

James rolled his eyes as the Ghostbusters anthem kept booming through his loft. "Sirius? Can you get that?" he shouted back.

When the ringing finally stopped, he heaved a sigh of relief. He loved his parents, but they grew unnecessarily worried if he missed one of their calls. He finished shampooing his hair as quickly as he could and then rinsed himself off.

When he was fully dressed again, he left the bathroom with a cloud of steam trailing him. His hand went automatically to his hair to go through it once more, even though he had just combed and dried it.

It was a force of habit, combing his hair. He always messed it up in an afterthought straight afterwards, making combing it a useless endeavour. His hands were always somehow connected to his hair, especially when he got nervous.

His mother lovingly called it fashionable.

Sirius thought it resembled a haystack.

Awesome, was what it really was.

When he entered his living room, he found Sirius still on the phone. Sirius held up his hand to silence him, and James leaned against the doorway with crossed arms, as his best friend paced the room with a huge smirk on his handsome face. Sirius' hair was long enough to touch his shoulders, and he usually blew it out of his face when he was bored. He wore skinny jeans and a black jumper that hugged his body, over which he usually wore a worn leather jacket. He made the girls go wild, but Sirius was the kind of guy that barely noticed that stuff. He was more into messing around, playing pranks and partying. Taking things seriously was usually James' job, and he wasn't that good at it either. That's what Remus had been for during their university years. When Sirius walked to his desk and started scribbling something down, James raised an eyebrow.

What the bloody hell?

"Very well, Miss Evans. May I remind you that we ask for an advance on his arrival?"

James couldn't help but chuckle a little. Sirius sounded as if he was pitching their art project to their jury of peers again. Yep, he sounded ridiculous and overly self-important. James' chuckling increased when Sirius did his little happy dance.

He was up to no good, that one, and James couldn't wait to get involved. Who was on the other end of his mobile phone?

"That would be 50%," Sirius spoke again, sounding utterly serious even though he was fanning himself with the piece of paper he'd just written on.

James pushed himself away from the door frame, and walked towards his friend. When he tried to snatch the paper from Sirius' grasp, his friend danced out of his way gracefully.

James tilted his head to the side curiously.

"Yes. He'll be there. No, Miss Evans, thank you. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Cheers." He hung up and James grabbed the paper from his hand while he was busy with the phone.

James' eyes scanned the long, swirling letters. It was an address, a date and a time someone was supposed to be at King's Cross Station on Christmas Eve. "What's this, Padfoot?" he asked, using the childhood nickname.

It was silly, really, but Padfoot had been Sirius' stuffed dog when he was a child. When he'd seen his new brother eyeing his Prongs, a cute brown stag, James had nagged until his mother had bought one for Sirius as well. For some reason the two boys had started calling each other by their stuffed animals right after that, and it had stuck.

To their family's bafflement.

James' mother had been thrilled, of course, that James had taken an immediate liking to Sirius when his parents took him in. Sirius had been horribly abused as a toddler, and his mother had wanted to give him a second and warmer home than his former one had been. She hadn't been entirely sure if putting these two masters of mischief together had been the smartest decision in her life though. She often jokingly lamented her bad decision making during family gatherings.

But as James loved Sirius as a brother, his parents loved him as a son. Even if they had weird nicknames for each other, and had blown up the kitchen once.

"This, Prongs, is your Christmas date," Sirius laughed.

"My what, now?"

Sirius grinned like a loony on speed. "You, my friend, have just been hired to go on a date with a lovely young woman named Lily Evans."

He had been what? "What?"

Sirius clapped his hands happily, looking like a puppy who'd just received a treat. "She dialled the wrong number, and it seems like she was looking for an escort of some sorts."

"You pimped me out?" James asked loudly, which Sirius waved off immediately.

"Of course not. Ms Evans is a respectable young lady. She wouldn't pay for sex." And he knew this how? Because they were such close friends?!

"Sirius," James started slowly.

"All you have to do is be her date for a few family dinners and that's it!" James narrowed his eyes. "Oh, come on, Prongs. It'll be a laugh, and it pays handsomely as well."

"How handsomely?" James asked, hesitating. They didn't need any money, they were filthy rich, but he did wonder how expensive an escort was nowadays.

Sirius smirked devilishly. "Well, our normal rate for three days is £3.000." Our rate? Three bags for an escort? What even-

"But since it's the hols… I asked for double the pay, and she agreed! Can you believe it?"

Let's see if he got this straight. "You whored me out for £6.000 to be someone's date for three days?"

Sirius slapped him on the shoulder. "You don't come cheap, mate."

"Have you gone off the deep end?"

Sirius gave him a look. "I don't know what you mean."

"Have you lost it? Are you off your trolley?"

"Come on, this is the ultimate prank, Prongs," Sirius tried.

"You're raving mad."

"Honestly, Prongs, do it for the bragging rights," Sirius said with a grin. "We didn't even have any plans for Christmas, right? Your parents are off to see your nutty aunt in the States, and we would probably have done dinner with the lads anyway. This way you have a hot date."

"We don't even know if she's hot," James protested.

Sirius gave him a stern look. "Now is not the time to be so shallow, James Fleamont Potter. Don't hurt the poor girl's feelings."

He must be having a laugh.

Sirius waggled his eyebrows. "Come on," he coaxed. "It will be great. She'll be eating out of the palm of your hand, and don't even act as if you're not handsome enough to pull it off either."

Well, if you looked at it that way... "I usually expect my admirers to take me out to dinner before they get into my pants," he said.

"Mate, she'll be taking you out to dinner three times," Sirius smirked. "But what are you saying? That if I were hitting on you, all I'd have to do was buy you dinner?"

James shrugged. He liked food, and he firmly believed that love went through the stomach first.

"You're so cheap, James," Sirius laughed.

"I don't know if you've heard yet," James said, "but someone just offered me £6.000 to spend a few days with her."

"James Potter, Whore Extraordinaire," Sirius said with a straight face.

"Eeerhm, excuse you. We prefer to be called sex workers."

A silence fell over the large loft, before the two of them started roaring with laughter. James wasn't going to pretend that he was perfectly fine with what was going down in a few days, but he had to admit that it was a little funny.

"How did she buy it though?" James asked after they had calmed down. They were currently lounging in their large couches, that could seat over a dozen people. Sirius' leather jacket was digging in James' back, but he was too lazy to move it.

"She was embarrassed," Sirius shrugged as he stared at the ceiling. "She would have believed anything I said if I'd said it with enough conviction. She obviously wanted the conversation over and done with. She was looking for an escort called James. Just your luck, mate, that some escort is using your first name," Sirius teased.

"Well," James started, "it is a common enough name. But what are the odds that she calls someone named James, then wrong dials and ends up with me, also conveniently called James?"

Sirius sat up. "Do you think someone set you up or something?"

The boys mulled that over for a second and then shook their heads. "Nah."

James wouldn't mind looking up the website though, so he pulled Sirius off the couch and pushed him into his small office space. They both stared at his mac desktop until they found the website this Lily Evans must have found as well.

The last digit on the phone number was different from his, and all the escorts' names started with a J. John, James, Jamie, Jason, just to name a few. "Not a set up then," James said.

"Well, whoever this James is, too bad for him," Sirius said as he studied the man's pictures. He then frowned. "He's a blond."

"I could have dyed my hair," James pointed out.

"You look nothing like him," Sirius smirked.

James raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that I'm not as pretty as this piece of man candy?"

"Did you just say "man candy"?"

They both laughed again, and Sirius clapped him on the back. "Nah, mate, you're the prettiest escort in town."

"Thank you," James said politely.

"I'm almost jealous," Sirius grinned, and James scoffed. Yeah, right. "Who knows where she'll be taking you? Someone with that much money to spend on escorts, must be rich right? You might be going to some mint party, mate!"

Sirius went on and on about how insane his time with the girl was going to be, that they started looking up Cokeworth. The photo of the town didn't really inspire warm and fuzzy feelings.

"Yeah, I'm out," James said promptly, looking at the grey town on his computer screen.

Before the end of that day Sirius had convinced him that he was indeed going to do this. It would be the biggest prank they had ever managed to pull off, and maybe James was just a little curious about this mystery woman, who Facebook proved was the prettiest bird he had ever seen. Curiosity killed the cat, they say, but satisfaction brought it back to life.