Still shaking her head in denial, there was a small smile ghosting across her lips when Alicia dropped the subject of whether or not she had giggled. It was like during a match, and the ref had called you on a foul. At some point you had to give up claiming you hadn’t done what you knew perfectly well that you had done, and maybe then the ref wouldn’t penalize you quite as severely and you could get back to what was really the important; the game you were playing.
“I’m a Quidditch jock who wears my robes on the tight side?” Alicia suggested as a way of explaining why she wasn’t seeing anyone. It was rather comforting to see indignant Oliver, she recognised him, though having him compliment her looks and her body – the fact that he had even noticed her body flabbergasted her – made her speechless for a while. She managed to break that with the first relaxed laugh of the evening when he straight out said that he would intimidate anyone she dated. And yet, she was oddly flattered about everything he said. “I’ve dated a few, but since I’d rather get up before sunset to train with the team they think it means that I’m seeing either Fred or George... or you. They think I’m... easy, to everybody else but them.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.” She knew she wasn’t wearing the fitted clothes because she was easy; she was wearing them so she wouldn’t appear smaller than she already was.
Looking over at Oliver, she realised how uncomfortable she was, sitting all huddled up like she was, and shifted until she was sitting more comfortably. Try as she might, she refused to accept that she was actually relieved to hear that he wasn’t seeing anyone, or at least reason that any relief she felt at that was because if he wasn’t seeing anyone, she wasn’t bound to be getting evil glances tomorrow at breakfast for spending Valentine’s Day with him. “You don’t do romance?” she asked him, chuckling as she glanced up at the candles above him, then shrugged again “I’ve never tried that, you know, holding hands, looking stupidly at each other, but I do spend just about all my time with the team, so I guess that wouldn’t be something new, would it?”
She took a bite of the apple, chewing slowly, her eyes on the apple, though every so often glancing over at Oliver before she finally drew in a breath. “You think I’m pretty?” she asked him. He had said it, but she hadn’t known and oh boy, she was headed into dangerous territory. This wasn’t supposed to be what tonight was about. She wasn’t supposed to be this girl tonight.