that place on memory lane you liked still looks the same [honey]

“‘Probably’,” she mused. “I can work with ‘probably’.” Honey took another swallow of her drink in response to his next comment, one eyebrow arched as she held his gaze over the rim of her glass. Couple more glasses of whisky and she could turn that ‘probably’ into ‘now’ with no problem; she paused and pulled the glass away from her lips, setting it on the counter.

But her smirk returned as he confirmed her ‘back home’ question. “America?” What a downgrade. Honey was always curious what sort of woman people moved onto after her, but she had never broken someone that much. “She sounds lovely,” she said, maybe a little too unconvincingly, with a nod and another small sip. She didn’t care, and she knew she didn’t, but usually at this point they would be trying to make her feel jealous with some unnecessary detail. “Sounds serious,” she added, almost as an afterthought. If he could do it, she certainly could, too.

She should up straight as he considered her offer. “I’m sure.” She paused to add a shrug, “It’s my job.” She grabbed her glass and took a couple steps backwards, her gaze still affixed to Charlie, before turning around and taking the last couple of steps into the kitchen. There were trays of chocolates cooling and setting, cakes waiting to be iced and packaged, and completed and boxed orders waiting to be sent. There was a lot going on, but she knew where everything was, where she had left off with each batch, and what thing needed to be done next.

Ideally, she should finish the cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties she needed for the train in a couple days, but finding out more details by way of chocolate sounded like a much better use of her time. She cleared a small area of counterspace next to a tray of empty dark chocolate truffle halves and set her (newly) empty glass down. “You said mango and chile?” She took a sideways glance to double check the order before rummaging through a shelf for a couple different chile powders.

“She has, er, interesting tastes,” she said with a smirk, only somewhat talking about the sweets.

"Yeah, California." He'd said it almost automatically, and immediately wished he had a better ability to keep his mouth shut before he gave too much away. He glanced down at the whisky in his hand and frowned at it, feeling the need to blame something for his loose tongue. Really, he hadn't told her anything important. Yet. It was just, well, Kate wasn't a secret, but he liked to keep their relationship private. Especially given how it had all started. Especially when the third piece of the puzzle was standing right in front of him.

"Lovely?" He repeated, brow raised inquisitively. Something was awry, but he couldn't let it alone. Was she jealous and trying to hide it? However small the possibility, he wanted her to be jealous. "I haven't told you enough for you to come to that conclusion." He continued with a smirk. She was shutting him down, or so he thought. "Maybe." He said simply as he took another drink, not wanting to sound unavailable despite the fact that he definitely should be.

"Mm." Charlie watched Honey start to move away, then grabbed the bottle of whisky in one hand, his other still holding his glass, and followed her into the kitchen. It smelled amazing - always had. His eyes greedily looked around the room before finding their way back to the redhead. He came up alongside her, his back to the counter as he rested against it. "Yeah, or just. Anything like that." He licked his lips slowly, meeting her gaze briefly before she started pulling out ingredients.

He topped up his own glass before reaching over her to pour into hers without waiting to see if she wanted more, crowding her space intentionally.  "Don't we all?" He replied, mirroring her expression and gazing at her a little intently as he took another sip.

She shrugged off his smirk and his refusal to accept her poorly-formed compliment. “Maybe,” she repeated. She didn’t know how she should feel about it, but knew that she probably shouldn’t be feeling relieved -- which she was, surprisingly slow. This was definitely the time to bring Will into the conversation, yet still the idea to invite Charlie further into her home seemed like a better choice.

“Gotcha.” She didn’t have a lot of options by way of chile powders, but she grabbed what she had from the shelf and set the out on the counter. She’d just make a ganache and mix them in -- it couldn’t be too complicated considering the whisky and her preference for working alone. Custom gift or not, it was still a Honeydukes product and it had to be as perfect as something she would sell.

Honey glanced down as he poured her a refill, more than she had been previously pouring for herself. She smirked rather than thank him; she didn’t fail to notice that he was taking advantage of the lack of counter between them now. “Do we?” She held his gaze for a few seconds before dropping it to pick up her glass. She held herself back from pushing him any further on the question. Clearly his tastes weren’t too awful. California girl aside, Charlie had dated Honey and she had certainly thought pretty highly of his choices then.

She took a sizeable sip of her drink, holding on to her glass as she pulled a few things toward her: glass bowl, the spices, and the tray of truffle halves. She had made the chocolate fresh that morning and rather than make a whole new batch, she was just going to melt down a few for the filling. She didn’t need Charlie sticking around for how long fresh chocolate would take. Taking another gulp, Honey set her glass aside, leaning towards Charlie. She paused for the briefest of seconds before reaching behind him and grabbing a spoon off the counter.

Straightening up, Honey moved a few of the truffle halves into the bowl with her wand. She set the chocolate to melt with another swish, and with one more set the spoon to stir it all slowly. She normally put more effort into this, but this seemed to be the proper amount of effort for the given situation.

Honey picked up her glass and turned to lean back against the counter, mimicking Charlie’s posture. “You can turn on the radio if you want,” she tilted her head toward the opposite corner where the set was sitting.

Charlie examined Honey's reaction to him carefully, meeting her gaze and wondering what was going on behind her soft brown eyes. It was amazing how you could feel like you knew someone so well, and be proven so wrong. Well, it wasn't that he'd been wrong about Honey, just that he had realised their relationship had been founded on a physical attraction and not a lot else. They got on, for sure. They had a similar sense of humour and enough mutual interests to not clash, but the only time they'd done something that remotely resembled a real date had been for his birthday. Everything else had just been... drinking and what came either directly before or after that. He didn't regret it. It had been good, worked for the both of them (he assumed). But they never really talked. Not about anything important, anyway.

He let her question hang unanswered, simply taking a sip of his drink instead.

As Honey leaned in towards him, Charlie's breath caught in his chest - and then she pulled back with a wooden spoon in hand. Tease.

He watched her work, momentarily distracted by the methodology behind her creations, but as he habitually took another drink of his whisky he found his eyes drawn back up to her face. She was a lot less intimidating when she was focused on something else.

Honey moved closer and Charlie didn't turn away, keeping his tawny gaze trained on her features as the alcohol started affecting him slightly. "The radio?" He repeated dumbly, belatedly following her nod to the corner. Admittedly, it might make the situation feel less clinical. For someone who lived and breathed music the lack of background noise was noticeable, so he wasn't averse to changing that. Soften the atmosphere and lessen the tightly-wound tension that seemed to be in the air.

The brunette pushed off from the counter gently and moved across the room to turn it on, glass in hand, taking a second to remind himself how to work a wizarding radio before it burst into life. His long fingers adjusted one of the dials to reduce the interference before he turned back to face her, resting back and crossing his legs at the ankles as he took another sip. "Hoping to hear your song?" He smirked.

“The radio,” she confirmed, watching his slow realization with a smirk. She watched him cross the room before she pushed off the counter herself, busying herself again with the chocolate. Summoning a small carafe of cream, she warmed it with her wand before adding it to the bowl of melted chocolate, a little bit at a time. The spoon was still stirring itself, and Honey spared a glance in Charlie’s direction as the radio was turned on. She smirked, looking him up, down, and up again. He was certainly easier to deal with at a distance.

Less fun, though.

She paid attention to the ever-forming ganache instead of answering his question immediately. After a few seconds of making sure everything was heading in the right direction, she turned back to face him, one eyebrow raised. “If I recall, you said there may be a private show.” She shrugged. “I’ll just hold out for that, I suppose.” She held his gaze as she took another sip of her drink, but she didn’t let it linger for too long. Setting her glass down, Honey hoisted herself up onto the counter, quickly finding her glass again to take another sip.

Her gaze moved around the room, landing on the few different projects she had going on in the kitchen. “Besides,” she paused to sip at her drink, still looking around at things that weren’t Charlie, “I’m sure the songs about your actual girlfriend get more airtime.” She glanced back at him for a few seconds before looking down at the bowl next to her, trying to gauge how much longer the ganache would take. She probably didn’t need to spend too much quality time with an ex over a bottle of Scotch. Apparently, those sort of situations didn’t end well for her.

“You touring soon?”

From his position across the room, Charlie’s dark eyes gave Honey another once-over before being drawn to the self-stirring spoon. Never in a million years would Charlie have thought he’d be back here, politely chatting to his ex-girlfriend whilst she made custom chocolates for his current girlfriend.

Finally Honey spoke, and broke him out of his reverie. He quickly adopted a lopsided grin, “If you’re really that interested.” His gaze met hers and he held it, his expression softening into something more serious, continuing to stare at her after she looked away.

“Well, they might, if we release any.” He replied honestly. He did feel slightly guilty about the fact that the two songs so far from this album were about an ex-girlfriend and a cover of another artist’s, respectively, and that the next planned single was about another woman. Another woman that he was still sleeping with on and off behind Kate’s back. But, Honey didn’t need to know that. Nobody did. “The one from last year was...” he said aloud, more to convince himself that he wasn’t a terrible person, before letting the thought trail off – lest Honey figure out the overlap between herself and Kate.

Really, he highly doubted that Honey actually listened to or cared about his music – even when they’d been dating she’d not really paid much attention to it, having said that, he’d be hard pressed to name all of her creations too, so he supposed it was even.

Her question threw him slightly off guard. Yes, they had been talking about his music, but he had anticipated the conversation heading down a different path. Perhaps not. “Yeah,” he started, wetting his lips before taking another sip of his whisky, “March, I think.” He paused, “Why, you planning on coming?” He smirked.

“Yeah, if you can ever find time in your busy, busy schedule.” She didn’t look back to him as she spoke, still looking around the room, but she was sure he’d be able to spot her smirk even from his position in the corner. She needed to stop herself from leaving any sort of open invitation for him to return. And again, she had come across and skipped right over another perfect opportunity to mention William. It was too late, at this point, to sound genuine, right? She convinced herself with that excuse, anyway.

She had always assumed there were more songs, that a whole album had been out; she hadn’t actively seeked out his music. It had been a couple months since she had first heard her song. Time was blurry around the holidays, so maybe she was wrong. Either way, she looked back to Charlie with an eyebrow raised and a borderline smug smile. She ought to suggest that releasing the songs might make for a pretty great Christmas gift, but the Scotch was making her selfish -- she refused to believe that she would have felt so pleased if she hadn’t been drinking.

Her smile faltered just a bit, but again she had to give credit to the Scotch for recovering quickly (she thought, anyway) and keep their conversation on the topic of his relationship instead of anything about herself. “Wow, been a whole year? Impressive.” She moved her eyebrows up and down in quick succession, not pausing to try to remember just when in the last year that song had come out. Basic math would have been helpful but again, Scotch was to blame for her not dwelling on it for more than a couple seconds.

“Oh sure, I’m your biggest fan.” She returned his smirk with ease; her cheeks were starting to hurt from how much she had repeated the motion that evening. “Girlfriend, excluded, of course.” Either way, she would be there if there was a Hogsmeade show -- they didn’t exactly get a lot of excitement in the village these days. “But really,” she started again after another sip of her drink. “Of course I’m going.”

“I might be able to make time,” he stopped himself from adding ‘for you’. It was dangerously easy to slip back into this playful back-and-forth with Honey. He needed to quit while he was ahead, before it was too late – but it didn’t seem like she was interested in ending this either.

Charlie was back to looking at Honey from across the room; analysing her body language and trying to make sense of the non-verbal cues she was giving him. She was hard to read, easy to second-guess. The musician wasn’t sure if he liked the way she was looking at him right now – like he was inadvertently admitting to something by releasing songs about her, rather than about his current girlfriend. He knew Kate understood, or she said she did. That it was a joint decision between band and label, and they had to be strategic and not sentimental – and ultimately, as far as Kate knew, that most of the songs had been written before they’d met. He would let her continue to live under that illusion.

Charlie rolled his eyes, “Yeah, new record, right?” He flashed her a boyish grin. Their own ‘relationship’ had been lengthy by Charlie’s standards, perhaps by Honey’s too – he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t ever asked about her past boyfriends. Either way, neither of them seemed really predisposed towards monogamy. He hoped that would change; he wanted to be faithful to Kate. Maybe it just took a settling-in period. One day he might be able to ask Honey if she had the same issue, well, if she ever found a steady boyfriend.


“Mm, knew it.” He returned her expression, licking his lips slowly. Charlie’s eyes met Honey’s again and he brought his drink up to take another sizeable gulp, just to have something to preoccupy himself with.

At her admission his face softened for second before he recovered, the hint of a sceptical frown passing over his features. “Really?” The idea of seeing Honey again, and soon, was more appealing than he cared to admit. In his whiskey-infused state, he was forgetting that that would mean an increased chance of Honey and Kate meeting. “I think we’re doing a show in Edinburgh, if that’s not too far out of your bubble.” He stood up and started moving around the room, touching on interesting looking bits of equipment as he made his way closer, “Otherwise it’s probably London, but I know how much you love that shithole.” He smirked at her.

Honey raised her eyebrows in silent agreement about his new record. She returned his grin, but quickly took another swallow of her drink, preferring the familiar feeling of the burn of the alcohol to the familiar feeling of enjoying Charlie’s smile. Her new record almost rivaled his, she reminded herself. She had been seeing Will constantly for ten months now. And exclusively, she noted again. She could find time later to worry about why she had to keep reminding herself of that.

“Really.” Honey shrugged, smirk still firmly planted on her lips. She could be supportive of people she wasn’t sleeping with, she reasoned. “It’s still Scotland at least. I think I can manage.” She sipped at her drink, finding the bottom of the glass. But she didn’t refill it immediately, instead more interested in Charlie’s movements around the room. She was paying more attention to his hand as he touched various things and had to bring her gaze back up to meet his eye as he spoke.

“Don’t you live in that shithole?” She had been very close to offering up the information that her boyfriend lived in London, that she was there once or twice a week, that maybe she’d run into Charlie sometime. But the Scotch was either encouraging her to not say anything or just blurring the line between what were and weren’t really necessary details. Sliding off the counter, Honey doled out another sizeable pour of whisky for herself and took a drink, her back turned toward the room.

After a quick glance at the seemingly-not-yet-ready ganache, Honey turned and leaned back against the counter, one hand clinging to her glass, the other arm folded across her chest. “I think I am a little disappointed my song’s not on,” she brought up suddenly, referencing an earlier comment from Charlie. “It’s at least a little catchier than this.” She wriggled her shoulders. “Dancier.” She arched an eyebrow, replaying some of her fonder alcohol-fueled dances with Charlie in days past.

Charlie turned to flash her a grin, “You won’t implode from leaving Hogsmeade?” The whole time they’d been seeing each other Charlie had usually been the one to make the trip north to her. He could count on one hand the number of times Honey had been in his flat. Perhaps that was for the best.

“Yeah, it’s marginally better than the shithole I grew up in.” He smirked, only partly jesting. He had been raised fiercely protective of being a Northerner, and even moreso of being a Yorkshireman, but that seemed less and less important as he grew older. He was frequently told by extended family that studying abroad must have made him ‘soft’, to want to live in the South. Had they known what going to Hogwarts had really been like, let alone how well Charlie was doing in the magical world, perhaps they would cut him some slack. How nice it was for people like Honey who didn’t have to lie to their family about what they did for a living and, worse still, make it sound like what you did was less impressive than the truth.

Charlie watched Honey out of the corner of his eye as she shuffled to her feet, heard the telltale glug-glug of more whiskey being poured. He had slowly circled the room to come back up next to her, behind her, really. Honey turned to face him before he got a chance to do anything. “Mm, are you?” He drawled, his lips curling again. He let out a light chuckle as she jiggled on the spot, “Yeah, so you know it well, do you?” He smirked, unable to stop the expression from widening into a grin.

Still standing close, he let his eyes travel from her head to her toes, slowly, obviously, before glancing from his near-empty glass in his hand to the whiskey bottle on the counter. “I don’t... know if I should have another,” he said hesitantly, though the tone of his voice made it obvious he really wanted Honey to encourage him on as he met her eyes again.

Honey slowed her roll; she hadn’t been expecting Charlie to be this close to her, though she could hardly be surprised. She swallowed, her eyes searching his face, closer than they had been since he had arrived. She could smell him now, hair goop and whisky and something spicy— his girlfriend, probably, she realized with a jolt. “I’m your biggest fan, remember?” Honey should have smirked to show she was kidding, but she had lost count of which glass of whisky she was on, and decided to use that as her excuse.

She didn’t drop her gaze when he did, instead watching him take her all in. It felt good, it always did, She knew how she looked, that even with her work-frazzled style she demanded doubletakes. But somehow, it felt better coming from Charlie,
knowing that he could go look at his girlfriend like that if he wanted to. But she didn’t think he wanted to, and she was almost starting to not mind. Now would have been the next perfect opportunity to tell him about Will, but she passed it by once again.

“I don’t believe you,” Honey stated softly, words nearly lost under the sound of the radio, still not playing her song. She held his gaze for a few more seconds, letting it drop to his lips for the briefest of glances. This was a bad idea, and she knew that, which should be to her credit considering she hadn’t thought twice the last time she had done this with another man that most certainly wasn’t her boyfriend.

She probably needed to give up whisky.

“Charlie, I—“ she was about to say that she had better whisky upstairs, but she caught a whiff of an unmistakably not-Charlie smell: burning chocolate. “Merlin,” she slipped past him, leaving her glass behind her on the counter to tend to the forgotten ganache. The forgotten and now ruined ganache. It had split, the cream had curdled, and she would have to start over.

But she pushed it to the side, removing the heat, and turned to lean back against the counter, not removing the space between her and Charlie again. “I can still do this for you, but I’ll just send it to you.” Her tone had shifted, and Charlie knew her well enough to know when she was taking business business.

Charlie had no witty retort to her – presumably sarcastic – admission. It was missing her usual playful tone, probably something to do with being face-to-face with one another, inches apart. He couldn’t remember the last time he and Honey had been this close, excluding nearly bowling her over in the street earlier. Probably when they’d last slept together. He realised now how long ago that had been. He’d been so caught up in his emotions for Kate at the time that the breakup with Honey hadn’t really affected him. Because they’d never officially called each other ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’, they hadn’t really ‘ended’ anything, just stopped seeing each other. There hadn’t been any real closure.

Charlie mirrored her, licking his lips as he gazed at hers. He shouldn’t have had that whiskey, shouldn’t have come in here, shouldn’t be thinking about trying to worm his way upstairs into her flat. Part of him was proud that he’d had the sense to recognise that, to at least suggest that he stop drinking, but it hadn’t been a very genuine offer. He let his eyes droop and leaned in, just by the tiniest measure, allowing her to make the decision to close the gap—

Charlie, I—

He’d been about to shut her up, but she stopped before she’d really started. Then, for half a second the musician thought Honey was lunging at him – but the redhead quickly edged around him.

Charlie found himself equally frustrated and relieved at the moment having been lost. He recognised the hint for what it was. “I, right.” He said, awkwardly looking around and patting his back pockets as if checking he hadn’t mislaid something in the time he’d been here. He cleared his throat, then looked her in the eyes. “You’ve.. got my address, I haven’t moved.” The way he said it almost sounded like he was leaving an open invitation, but he shouldn’t have been. Especially as he now lived in that flat with Kate. Had he told Honey that? It didn’t seem like the best parting words, to bring up the fact he lived with the woman he’d left Honey for, so he decided to take his chances in that the Scottish woman rarely left her cocoon.

The physical distance between them now seemed more difficult to cross, more uncomfortable to ignore, so he simply gave her a final look and headed for the door. Charlie paused before leaving the kitchen, offering her a weak smile, “I'll let myself out, have a good Christmas.”

Honey bit her lip as she watched Charlie process what had just happened in the last ten seconds. She thought she saw disappointment on his face -- who could blame him, really? -- and it took every ounce of restraint she had to stay planted firmly against the counter. Of course, that meant she also wouldn’t move if he did decide to make a move, she supposed… No, she hoped he got her hint. She knew what would happen if he didn’t, or did and decided to ignore it.

She ought to have read more into how badly she wanted him to ignore her wishes.

“Right,” she said with a nod, realizing with a dull thud in her stomach that the whole reason she had asked him into her store in the first place was to save herself the owl for his Christmas present. The radio seemed louder, or maybe all of her sudden movement was helping the whisky catch up to her; had she offered to make his girlfriend a present before or after the whisky? Now she couldn’t recall. “I’ll owl you, then,” she reassured him, not able to back away from any sort of business-related transaction.

She couldn’t return his smile before he had turned to leave, though as he exited the kitchen, she assumed it was for the best. “For fuck’s sake.” She wiped her forehead with her hand as she turned to levitate the ruined ganache and the associated tools into the closest sink. With a final glance at the kitchen, Honey grabbed the bottle of whisky and hurried upstairs, for once thankful wouldn’t be following her up.