Like a Romantic Comedy

Chapter VIII: I hate the tingliness

--

“So this is what a date with `the great Lily Evans' is like, yeah?” Henry asked with a rather charming smile that I found myself unable to stop from falling victim to. There really was something so sweet and honest about him that I couldn't help but admire.

“What do you mean?” I asked him with a flirtatious smile of my own.

“Well I've heard of you from the other blokes, I mean you have been dubbed one of the most amusing dates.”

I raised my eyebrows in genuine surprise before sending him an amused look. “Really? So then I take it my reputation for being terribly chatty and random precedes me? Ugh, what can you do, I always assumed that they enjoyed laughing at me behind my back anyway.”

He let out a deep laugh in response. “No, no—although, there is a certain truth to that as well, I suppose… but, no, that wasn't what I meant. What I was trying to say is that you're just fun to talk to, very easy going and laidback-”

“You do realize that both of those terms are synonyms, don't you?” I interrupted him like the brat that I am. At least I don't deny the fact, right?

He chuckled. “Well you're just so stupendously amazing that it deserves a mention twice, how about that?”

“Hmm,” I nodded, I was beginning to like that date more and more by the second, it really was doing wonders for my ego. “I think I like that; anyway, continue.”

“I don't know,” he shrugged, only, unlike with James, it wasn't so much of a “whatever” followed by the mandatory grunt shrug, it was shy and nervous. It made me feel special to be able to leave a bloke this charming and handsome speechless. “I guess… I've wondered what it would be like for a while, you know, to go out on a date with you, and I only recently finally bucked up and got the courage to ask you out… and… well… it's everything I had hoped it would be.”

I felt a hot heat spreading throughout my face as he said those words. the nice blokes… they'd never been my type, I'd always found them a tad bit boring and felt that they might be too nice to deal with my temper tantrums and just general randomness, but Henry… he was just so different from anything I could have expected or prepared for. He was genuine, and in a way that I hadn't ever experienced before.

He caught me off guard, left me speechless and wanting more. Good God, this was so not what I had expected when I had enlisted him as my aid to make James realize his burning love for me, one that was unbeknownst to him, of course.

I sighed, finally regaining the ability to speak as my flush died down. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “No thanks necessary, love.”

--

“I have the greatest news ever,” Sirius announced as he entered my Head Girl dorm after my date with Henry, where the three of us had agreed to meet up as both he and Remus are nosy prats who love to gossip a bit too much to hold any truly manly image in my eyes… James is also a bit of a fan of tabloids and gossip as well… what an odd trio…

I cocked a doubtful eyebrow at him, and, really, could you blame me for having my reservations about that “great news”?

“Really?” I asked as Remus and I both shared an understandably scared look.

“Yep,” he nodded enthusiastically. “In fact, it's so juicy that I may as well be named Lily's best mate,” he proclaimed with a proud smile.

“Oi,” Remus yelled. “I've already called that title, you can have James.”

Sirius's face contorted into a particularly unattractive look of distaste. “But I don't want James, I prefer Lily, she's far prettier than him anyway.”

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at their antics, really. “Just tell us the news, Sirius.”

“James is jealous… well, admittedly, he doesn't know why it bothered him so much that you're going on a date with Henry… and he is blaming it on the fact that girls sometimes consider Henry more charming then him so he doesn't like you living up to the cliché there… but, really, come on, we all know what's really bothering him.”

Remus nodded, a rare acquiescent to Sirius on his part. “Well… I suppose you're not a total idiot then, Lils, you saw it before either of us.”

“Oi, I saw it back in second year,” Sirius interrupted. “Remember? I told you that she was the only chit crazy enough to possibly make Prongs fall!”

“Yes, well, you're an idiot, that was just a random proclamation anyway,” Remus waved him off, purposefully picking a fight with Sirius just for the sake of arguing as the two really do enjoy a battle of the wits far too much and far too often for any true mates.

I, however, found myself in a rather different state: I was unsure.

It wasn't that my feelings had changed over the span of just one date, not in the least, I still loved James nonetheless. Instead, it was something else, for the first time I was wondering why the bloody hell I was going through with this plan.

It's odd... foreign, really, and more than a little disconcerting as I come to the realization that Henry showed me something oddly pleasing. It was romance without any coercion, he grew into liking me on his own and I found that that made me oddly tingly inside, a fact that both shocked and scared me as I'd never been in this place. I've been with other blokes before, it's not as if that was the first date I went on, but... Henry's just dso different, he makes you feel wanted, there arent any pretenses to live up to this macho image that I've always utterly despised.

I've had the butterflies with James, but never that sort of “tingliness” and, in all honesty, I loved it. There was something so… I don't know, appealing, I suppose, about not having to work for someone's affections. It felt as if I could be myself, there didn't have to be any manipulation or charades involved.

Maybe... maybe as much as I loved James things just weren't meant to go anywhere… maybe there was a reason that Henry had asked me out now of all the times that he could have… maybe I was falling in like with Henry.