All right, now things were starting to get a bit strange. First of all, the fairly dimly lit common room was playing tricks on his eyes in such a way that he thought Gwen might possibly be blushing. But that was impossible. He'd hardly said anything, and anyway, Gwen very rarely blushed.
And then she started to fidget, and avoid his eyes. She seemed nervous. With anyone else, James wouldn't have noticed any of this, but paying extremely close attention to someone for a month straight meant that even someone as oblivious as him could pick up on tells. James tried to go over what he'd said in his head, wondering if he'd screwed up somewhere, but came up empty.
His thoughts were interrupted by the boom of thunder that followed the lightning, not more than a couple seconds after it. "Merlin," he muttered at the noise, shoulders tightening for a moment as he winced. Then he forced his attention back to Gwen, however. Deciding to ignore her nervousness in case he was wrong about it, instead he held up his hands. "All right, you got me. I was just looking for a day's break from your sharp tongue, Gwen," James-fake admitted with a laugh.