the girlfriend experience ━━ james potter ¹

xxii. arson and assessments

the girlfriend experience, james potter
𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓, 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟕

chapter twenty-two, ARSON AND ASSESSMENTS

✧ ━━━ · ✦ · ━━━ ✧

OUR DARLING BRONWYN,

I hope you had a nice day on your birthday, and that James spoiled you! I'm so glad he and you are getting closer. Euphemia and I were so pleased to hear that you've been getting along.

I've already offered to host Christmas and Mia said she'd host New Year's in exchange! How lovely!

I assume school is going well and that you'll write—

Bronwyn couldn't read much further because she was too preoccupied with the first paragraph of her mother's weekly letters. And because she was currently on the hunt for the boy at issue.

I'm so glad he and you are getting closer? Since fucking when? And according to who? Because Bronwyn sure isn't stupid enough to give her mother even the slightest of hopes that she and James will end up together.

So it had to have been James. Considering their mothers had been desperately trying to get the two of them together since they were conceived, this was not good news. Not only had James now got their mothers' hopes up, but Bronwyn was no doubt going to have to be the one to break the news to them ─ that she was far from fond of James Potter and didn't have any plans concerning getting closer to him. So now she looked like a dick.

James didn't see a problem. This was evident as she stared down at him from where he lounged on one of the sofas at the back of the library on that sunny Sunday morning.

"You told your mother that you and I had gotten closer?" She asked exasperatedly, holding up the letter in question which incriminated her.

"Yes?" James shrugged, jutting out his neck, not quite sure when the issue at hand would present itself. "Come on, you know that's all they want to hear."

This was true but not all of it. James knew that anything regarding their children's relationship would please both Euphemia and Niamh and so he did what he felt he had to do to please them. James had thus decided to tell his mother that he and Bronwyn had bonded over long-lost Quidditch rivalry and their shared love for baking (of course he avoided mentioning the fact that he was paying her for dating advice) and he didn't see anything wrong with that. He would like to think that the start of this school year had been the most relationship-developing of them all.

Bronwyn clearly didn't see it that way.

"Are you seriously that set on ruining my life?"

James let out an incredulous scoff at the way she was reacting. And in a library of all places. "Sorry," a deep wrinkle formed between his brows, "what is your problem exactly?"