I don't know if I lied when I said we're not together

There had been a reason Selwyn didn't want to go to The Three Broomsticks, and it wasn't only that he got drunk faster than a teenager on Hogmanay. The couple in the corner weren't helping.

"I'd admit it if I'd been sappy," he protested, "there's nothing wrong with sap."

"But for your information, nobody wanted to be sappy with me. They were all lining up for Elijah Krum."

He pulled out Addie's chair for her.

"Here, if you sit this way, you won't have to watch them," he said, before rounding the table to take his own place where he had a direct view to the impossibly affectionate couple.

"Do you suppose they're doing it on purpose?" he asked. "For attention, I mean? There's a group of my fourth years who act just like that and I'm pretty sure they just do it for attention."

Adrienne shook her head at him when he declared that being sappy wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but she couldn't help but smile and agree, even if the latter was done in her mind rather than aloud. "Krum never was my cup of tea," she informed him with a disapproving frown. It passed quickly, though, and she shrugged it off.

She uttered quiet thanks and sat down in the chair he offered, her cheeks burning a bit when she realized he had caught her watching the other couple.

"I wasn't-" she attempted. Deciding that he would know if she were lying, she rolled her lips together and declined to finish the sentence.

His question surprised her a bit, and she turned to look at them, resting her arm on the back of her chair. "Perhaps," she concluded, facing him again. "I hadn't really thought about it. It is entirely possible that I'm used to the women at work making a very bit deal out of whomever they're seeing. I don't know if it's to make the other women jealous or if they get some sort of masochistic kick out of knowing the rest of us hate them."

Adrienne rolled her eyes but settled more deeply and comfortably into her chair. "How have classes been, then?" Regardless of whether or not she was excited and no matter how much she wanted to revel in her news, it occurred to her that she very rarely asked after his day. Perhaps that was one of the reasons things had been feeling so off lately. Pulling a smile for him, she glanced around to see if she could get attention of some waitress or other so that they could place their drink orders.

Selwyn smiled wickedly. He wanted to make her blush again, but making Addie blush was never hard. Selwyn supposed making himself blush wasn't all that difficult either, but that was mostly down to inconveniently fair skin rather than acute embarrassment. The fact was, he had no idea whether she'd caught on that he played for both teams. This was as good an opportunity as any to bring it up.

"He was my cup of tea," he said. "Awkward since we shared a dorm."

He nodded as she explained about the women at The Prophet. Of course they would act that way.

"Probably both," he said. "From dealing with the kids, my understanding is that the having of the boyfriend is the important part. It's like social capital."

"So yeah, they're probably trying to make you jealous and if they know you hate them, they've succeeded. I can't imagine you'd hate someone for that, though. Get irritated because they won't shut up about their stupid partner who you've never met, that can see."

He sighed.

"Classes are the usual. Everyone takes Magical Creatures because they think it's gonna be a bludge and then they act like it's the end of the world when I make them do actual work.

Et tu? How is your work?"

Her shrug was cut short at his comment, and although she had glanced to the side along with the movement of her shoulder, her eyes whipped back towards Selwyn. At first, she wasn't sure if she was meant to laugh or not, so she probably just looked bewildered. When he didn't show any sign of teasing, she pursed her lips slightly and frowned.

It seemed like he was being serious, but without any feeling of certainty, it seemed wiser to continue on with the conversation.

"I did the same," she acknowledged, still feeling a little thrown off. Her hands toyed with the skirt of her dress, trying to pick apart what he had said without having to ask him outright.

"Work," she began, "is better. There's a new editor, and although I don't think he's the friendliest sort he hasn't said anything about what happened." Her frown deepened, and she registered that she probably wouldn't have been so straightforward with someone else about the things that had happened with the Prophet. Surely he would understand as far as the Order was concerned? "I just have to prove myself again, which is better than trying to make up for something that the old editor felt was some kind of... personal slight against him or something."

Addie was obviously surprised, which Selwyn had expected, but her reaction didn't give him much to go off beyond that.  There was that frown, but it could have as much to do with his bad taste as it did with her distaste. It wasn't like she'd jumped up and left the building.

He let her finish answering his question, but he wasn't going to be put off that easily. He'd already redirected their conversation when more charged topics threatened specifically so he could take advantage of her good mood to bring this up. If she was going to ignore it, he had no idea how he could tell her about Shylock.

Selwyn bit his lip, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say without sounding accusing. Truthfully, he was a little resentful that he had to take Addie's feelings into account when he was so nervous himself.

"Addie," his voice was lowered, although there was only that one other couple in the tea shop. But who knew when a waitress would come over?

"I just kinda came out to you and you pretty much ignored me."

He'd managed to hold her gaze while he spoke, but it immediately lowered to the tablecloth and for once he was happy there was so much lace in the room. It gave him something to fiddle with.

Adrienne blinked when he said her name, the tone of his voice making her tense up. Her gaze found his until he looked away and she let a thoughtful expression take over. She couldn't very well hide it anymore. She wasn't sure what he expected her train of thought to be, but it may not have been the same as what actually happened.

"So.. you've known for a while, then." She concluded, nodding slowly if only for something to do. "I-... I guess I just don't understand why you started anything with me if you don't- I mean, if you don't..." she faltered, shaking her head. "I'm not saying that you're supposed to care about me. But you shouldn't have pretended you did if you don't."

"Oh God."

The laugh following the statement had a slightly manic edge.

He supposed he could have seen this coming. Plenty of people had a black and white attitude toward sexuality. Selwyn just hadn't considered Addie among their number simply because of how obvious he was about his intentions toward her.

"I'm not trying to tell you I'm gay, I'm trying to tell you I'm bi," he said.

"I've... been set up with plenty of women who would have been no more than a means to the heir and a spare. And I've never acted like I was interested in anything more than that."

"Incidentally," he drew the word out to give himself more thinking time. "I didn't know that we had started anything. Do you- Uh, you seemed a bit disappointed just then."

Adrienne tried to ignore the color that rushed to her cheeks when he corrected her, but she felt that he could probably excuse her if she had never met someone who felt that way before. She wasn't exactly the most outgoing person in the world, if she was being objective about it. That undercurrent of temper in her definitely didn't help.

Speaking of her temper, she closed her eyes, opening them to level a disapproving glare his way when he finished. "Okay," she replied, relaxing her features into an expression of nonchalance. "So you telling me that you'd have considered marrying me, were it not for Kaiden, and having me move in... That's not something? Because I do recall a couple instances of extremely pointed comments. Dares, if you will."

She crossed her arms, looking away. She still avoided making any sort of eye contact with the disgusting couples in the place, but she felt better when able to pretend she was unimpressed with the whole situation. Genuinely, she knew that he was right about the disappointment thing. But the main question still remained:

Was she disappointed because it was him specifically? Or because she had gone through so many things and now felt like his news might mean she had to find something else to do with herself? She didn't even know how things were going at work, so the chance that he was telling her this because he had found someone and expected her to go was extremely unappealing.

"Well."

Selwyn sat back in his own chair, copying her gesture.

"I know it's something on my end.  It's just news to me that you thought it was anything.  You only ever said you'd think about it," he said.

He pressed his lips together.  This was probably the perfect opportunity to bring it up.  Well, not perfect.  The perfect opportunity would be when she wasn't obviously furious.  

"That night, I did something stupid afterwards," he said.  "I mean, it was stupid at the time, I don't know if I think it's stupid now but you should probably know about it if we're a something."

The words had come tumbling out of Selwyn's mouth so quickly that he was left breathless. He couldn't afford to give himself time to think about what he was saying.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye when he confirmed that he felt something. Perhaps it was less of an issue than she thought it would be. Adrienne drew in a breath and forced her shoulders to relax. "You never asked again," she muttered unhelpfully. "It's not as though I'm great at talking about those things."

He spoke, drawing her full attention. Something stupid? She had heard that before. She'd heard that from Keiran at least twice, although it was always, I almost did something stupid. She knew exactly what that meant.

"Well, as you said, I hadn't made anything clear," she admitted, deciding to be more mature about it than she knew Millie had been in a similar situation. The only difference being, of course, that Millie had been married to the man at the time. "I suppose I don't have any room to place blame. So if you're saying that it might affect the potential... something that we have, I guess you should, yeah."