It was, he guessed, sort of possible, that Remus had picked up a penchant for drinking. After... well, after everybody had been pretty much either killed, maimed, or wrongfully imprisoned, James wouldn't really have blamed Remus if he'd turned to.... strippers, blow, and disco - the self-destructive trifecta. Still, it wasn't quite the vibe he got. In fact, he still got the vibe that Remus asking for a full-on bottle of rum was a bit out of the ordinary.
And then Remus started talking. And kept talking. It wasn't that Remus was some sort of wallflower, but pith was something of his forte sometimes. If James hadn't been legitimately concerned before, he certainly was then. For a second there, he thought maybe he'd been right the first time, that Remus had lost it a bit, and had gotten hung up on Adrian. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or not when Remus started talking about Sirius. It was just that Sirius and 'relationships' was pretty complicated territory. And it sure as hell wasn't as if Remus was really the sort to go in for a casual shag. Neither was bad, but issues of compatibility was a significant issue.
"Fuck Pucey." That much seemed pretty irrelevant, but dismissing him felt important. "What about the baggage?" he pressed, seeing a potential opportunity. "You opened something, and all of a sudden Sirius gives you butterflies?" And maybe something in his voice conveyed a little doubt. Maybe it was the fact that Remus and Sirius spent too much time grating on each other lately for there not to be a little... something there. And nobody knew better than James how tension had a way of progressing to.. well.. other tension. "I mean, is this, you know, new?"
Because who the hell knew how long ago that particular conversation had taken place.