This was where it became dangerous. This was their nightly routine, no matter how hard he tried to resist it. She made a comment, then he said something back to her, then without warning, they were here. The dangerously flirtatious tone was hard to ignore. She was just messing around, he was sure of it. Responding in kind to his teasing, of course. He couldn’t deny that he wanted her tone to be flirtatious, but things were better this way. They would be even better, though, if he could resist teasing her. Preventing them from reaching this point was better than knowing she wasn’t actually flirting with him.
“A friendly warning,” he told her, hesitating as he reached for a beer. No, Remus. Bad idea. He grabbed a gillywater instead, after another moment. He was starting to worry. If it was easy to flirt with her, there were other things that would be easier with alcohol. If she planned to drink, he needed to remain sober, as he always did.
“Do you remember what happened last week?” he asked her, hurrying out of the mildly cramped kitchen and onto the sofa. “You’ll have to refresh my memory.”