After seeing where Madi came from, everything about her made sense.

The sprawling, sparkling ocean right at her back door. The fresh, salty smell of seawater that drifted up and down Main Street. The residents of her coastal hometown—some weaving in and out of glamorous boutiques in their expensive shoes and designer clothes, others racing to and from the beach with their boards to check out the surf. Seeing Madi at home didn't change the way I saw her. It confirmed it.

She came up behind me, handing me a cup of cocoa filled with tiny marshmallows that she'd bought at the other end of the market. It was a Capri tradition, she'd said; during the week of Christmas, whenever the sun went down, the coast of her hometown became a riot of food trucks and market stalls and giant bonfires that dotted the length of the beach. I'd offered to get the cocoa myself so that she could head to the foreshore and get a good spot for the fireworks, but she'd mumbled something about local's discount before insisting that it was her treat.

When it came to my best friend, I'd learned that it was best not to argue.

She lifted her carry cup and motioned to the opposite side of the festive stall I'd found myself in. It was lined with decorative wreaths and pillowcases embroidered with candy canes, and I'd hoped to find some last-minute presents for my parents. The type of parents who already had everything. But with so many couches, they were bound to need a new cushion or throw. 

Right?

But it wasn't the goods that Madi was pointing to. She gestured to two teenage girls hovering by a craft table opposite us. When I glanced their way, they both looked down and giggled. Madi arched an eyebrow at me, smirking.

"Looks like you have yourself a little fan club," she mused, trying to sound casual as she led me out of the stall. But I knew her voice too well, and I knew that the soft inflection at the end of her sentence meant that she was teasing me.

She always did that. She always drew my attention to some innocent passer-by who she insisted was ogling me. Maybe she truly didn't realize that people looked at her in exactly the same way.

To put it simply, Madison Watson was the most beautiful person I'd ever met. Not just the most beautiful woman, and not just beautiful physically. She was a beautiful person, one who reminded me of every color of every sunset. Of a never-ending holiday. Of spontaneous trips to the beach and of lazy days on the sand. Of a place that existed in the minds of kids, a place where rules didn't exist and where you never had to grow up.

Madi was summer. She wasn't just beautiful, she was light. Even cloaked in her dark clothes, hiding her bright smile behind her loose curls, Madi was blinding. Striking. She liked to pretend that she was a snow queen, that she had a heart made from stone that she kept buried deep within her chest. But she wasn't encased in ice. She melted it. She was the sun, and everyone else existed to move around her.

I rolled my eyes at her insinuation, causing her to muffle a little laugh that rang in my ears like sleigh bells. She moved her cup over her mouth almost instinctually, shielding the perfect curve of her lips from my view.

It took me less than two conversations with her to figure out that she was self-conscious of her laugh. Not just of the way that she thought it sounded, but of the way that it shot up from her mouth and creased her entire face with joy.

I loved it.

For the longest time, making Madi laugh was the only way to get her to let her guard down. To catch a glimpse of the life on the other side of her walls. I tried to make her smile at every opportunity. I didn't always succeed, but when I did, her laugh would warm me from the inside out. It made me feel weightless. Happy. It made me feel as poetic as Dex tried to be when he wrote one of his sappy poems for English back in high school. And that was saying something—words and sappy poetic crap had never been my strong suit.

Not until I met Madi.

But things were different now. I could feel it. Madi laughed more, even without provocation. She frowned less, even when she thought no one was watching her. And it might have just been hopeful delusion, but I had a feeling that the fortress she'd built around her heart had long since crumbled, too.

"I know you said you weren't hungry," she said, rattling a brown paper bag at me as we made our way through the alley of stalls.

I frowned, and she rattled it harder until I reached out to take it.

I carefully removed the snowman sticker seal, recovering two large gingerbread men from inside.

Or, more precisely, a gingerbread man and his gingerbread girlfriend.

"Look at you." I chuckled, letting her take the girl from my hands to bite into her pink frosting. "Someone's getting into the Christmas spirit."

"Don't tell Noah. I'm pretty sure he had 'eat gingerbread' on that list of things that he wants us to do together. But how could I resist?" Her eyes darted back to my biscuit, and I swear I caught a twinkle of something other than sarcasm inside. "He's practically you in gingerbread form."

I followed her gaze, tracing over the cookie's bright yellow hair and two blobs of blue M&Ms for eyes. Something about it—maybe his wide, dopey smile, or maybe just the fact that the small gesture itself was the sweetest one in the world—sent a sheepish heat to my usually heatless cheeks.

She quickened her pace before I got the chance to thank her properly. I followed her out of the market and back onto the beach, paying little attention to where we were actually going.

It didn't matter.

The ocean seemed to dance in front of us, the dark waves reflecting the twinkling stars and the flames from the festive bonfires on the sand. But none of it even came close to the beauty that sauntered through the crowd ahead of me.

When she stopped suddenly, so did I. Her face was directed toward the shore, and while I could only see her profile, I knew by the crease of her brow that something was troubling her.

I closed the distance between us, but I failed to capture her gaze. She was right there, right in front of me, but her attention was over my head, and it stirred something akin to jealousy in the pit of my stomach.

I turned to follow her eyeline, turned to find the source of her concern so that I could erase it for good. Three girls were lingering by the foot of the ocean, one with hair the same shade of silver as the moon. Her face was swallowed by the shadows of the night, but I had a pretty good idea of who she was even without being able to see her clearly.

"I'll be back in a minute." The warmth that came with Madi left as soon as she started to pull away.

"Hey ..." I found myself moving with her, reaching for her hand without thinking twice. I only meant to comfort her, to capture her attention and make it mine, but the electricity that sparked between our skin caused me to retrieve my grasp far too soon.

I couldn't afford to revel in that energy, to indulge in the currents that traveled from her body to consume mine. It was too painful to taste something without being able to have all of it for good.

"You don't have to go," I told her. "You've done more than enough for her. More than she deserves."

I didn't know Lola. But I knew that she hurt someone I cared about deeply, and that was about all that I needed to know. I also wasn't thrilled about the idea of Madi opening her heart to her again. Not in light of everything that she was still trying to work through.

A small smile tugged at her red lips, teasing my eyes so they flew there immediately. I knew how that smile tasted, how it felt against mine. God, I wanted to taste it again.

"James." My gaze dipped to Madi's mouth as it cupped the shape of my name, then slipped back up to her eyes. Confidence glimmered there, and I felt my fears crumble. After months of watching Madi slouch under boulders of pain, it felt so damn good to see her stand with conviction. "It's okay," she uttered. "After we spoke today ..." 

Her voice trickled away, and I shuffled closer to hear what she said next. Or maybe I was just drawn in by the deep scent of her perfume. Of her. Saltwater and jasmine and something sweet but warm, like marshmallows hot off a fire. That was Madi.

She shook her head to herself. "I don't know. It's like ... none of that matters anymore. Her and Eli or me and Eli. Not to me, at least. But Lo, she's still stuck there. Exactly where I was." She bit her lip. A minuscule movement that anyone else would have missed.

Don't do that, I'd once warned her.

Come do it yourself, she'd purred back.

A piece of her golden hair fluttered on the wind at the same time as my blood rushed south and my skin stretched over my bones. My fingers twitched with the urge to curl her hair behind her ear, to glide down her jaw, to tilt her face up so that her lips would be right where I needed them, right where I knew they had to be so I could just—

"Those girls that Lo's with are like vultures," Madi said, and the sound of her voice cleared the haze from my head. Sort of. "And she was my sister once. I can't leave without trying to help her get out of the hole she's in."

I took a deep breath, ripping my attention from that tempting curl still dancing on the breeze. It was the first time in a long time that Madi had spoken about Eli in front of me. That stupid, moronic prick. Imagine having your own personal source of sunlight and throwing it away for something fleeting. For something artificial.

But it was something else that Madi said that roused hope in my chest. None of that matters anymore. Words that I'd waited to hear for so long.

Maybe there was hope for us after all. Maybe the tide was turning.

I found myself smiling at her, taken aback yet again by her seemingly never-ending quarry of kindness. "You're a good person, Madi."

A flicker of light from the bonfire licked her face, revealing a flash of an entirely new emotion painting it. She was still standing tall, her body still pointed in the direction of her childhood friend, but it was as if my words had unlocked something else inside of her. Something deeper. Something layered.

But that sparkle in her eye quickly reignited. The one that told me that a joke was coming.

"I know." She shrugged, and with a wink, she turned on her heel and sauntered to the sea.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Every word she uttered got me high. She was the kind of drug that I'd willingly take over and over again if only to feel a ten second rush.

I sank down onto a log and bit into my gingerbread, watching the reflection of flames bounce off her hair. She'd changed into my new favorite outfit of hers—a red sundress peppered with tiny white flowers, the thin material hugging her in all of the right places. Not that she had any wrong places. The coast was still warm, even in December, so she'd forgone a sweater or jacket. Instead, every part of her was teasing me relentlessly, the snug fabric masking every line and curve of her body like a cloud masking the sun. On the rack, on a mannequin, that sundress would have been sweet. Innocent. Nice. On her, on that body—fire.

To me, Madi had always been like fire. So bright. So beautiful. And so, so hot.

Of course, she couldn't have known that her silhouette alone made me weak at the knees. But, for a fraction of a second, I let myself bask in the delusion that she did. That it was precisely the reason why she'd opted for those clothes in the first place.

I wouldn't have minded being teased by Madi's existence so much if I thought she was teasing me on purpose.

When she finally joined the girls by the water's edge, immediately throwing an arm around Lola to make a point to the girls interrogating her, I felt a smaller, gentler expression replace my boyish grin.

Above it all—the beauty, the brains, the quips that kept me on my toes—I think that was the thing that I loved the most about Madi. She was completely in tune to the feelings of every person around her, and she always knew what it was that they needed to feel whole. As much as she tried to appear indifferent, especially in our first weeks of getting to know each other, she went above and beyond to make sure that the people around her were okay. Her family, her friends. Even strangers. Even people who should have been her enemies.

Because Madi knew how it felt to have your heart ripped from your chest, to watch it shatter all over the floor or drown in a sea of lies. She would do anything in her power to stop the people around her from feeling that pain. I was certain that she would take it and battle it for them if she could.

If she was capable of extending that kind of compassion to perfect strangers, I could only imagine the affection she would shower on someone she loved. And maybe it was selfish, but I wanted that person to be me. Madi was the only person I knew who was capable of loving as deeply and completely as I was. She was the only person in the world that I trusted with my heart.

I was so lost to her that I didn't notice that I wasn't alone on my log anymore, that someone else had taken up residence beside me.

"How long have you been in love with my daughter?"

I jumped at the low sound, my daze broken and my eyes regretfully leaving Madi's frame. Mrs. Watson was peering at me curiously, arching a perfectly primped eyebrow to emphasize her amusement.

Madi didn't resemble her mother that much. Madi was fair, with blue eyes, and equally as captivating whether she was all dressed up or sporting a pair of jeans and a worn band tee. Dianna, on the other hand, had darker chestnut hair, a sharper, domineering bone structure, and an evident partiality for the finer things in life. I saw from the sole family portrait I'd found in the lounge at their house that Madi's softer features resembled those of her late father. 

But I knew without question where she inherited her keen eye and penchant for stirring the pot from.

I choked on a laugh, realizing that I'd taken far too long to reply. Realizing that my cheeks were burning from more than just the flames of the fire, too.

"Madi's a great girl," I said simply.

"That's a strange way to answer the question."

I knew she was trying to be friendly, but fuck. That woman was the definition of intimidating. Was this how Madi felt when she met my parents?

No. Of course not. Unlike me, she hadn't had a reason to be nervous.

I cleared my throat, forcing my mouth into something that I hoped resembled a smile. "We're just friends."

I hated saying it just as much as I hated thinking it.

Dianna didn't reply straight away. She pierced me with that golden stare—one that belonged on the face of a wolf hunting its prey. I swallowed hard, fidgeting with the warm cup in my hands in an effort to redirect my nerves. Why was I so nervous?

"Well," she finally spoke. She turned to watch her daughter, pulling my focus back to the girls by the shore. It was just Madi and Lola now, the former using her sleeve to blot the latter's cheeks. "I know my daughter, James. And when she looks at you, she's not looking at you as just a friend."

Her words took longer than they should have to register. And when my eyes darted back to hers, they were alight with mirth. I didn't know what to say to that. My head was suddenly too cloudy to think of anything that remotely resembled the English language. All I knew was how I felt.

I was so used to pushing hope away. So used to chalking every sly look that Madi threw at me down to accident or mere coincidence. But her mother was right there, saying everything that I wanted to hear. Could I really blame myself for daring to believe it?

"You know," she spoke again, her tone turning wistful as she fiddled with the gold chains on her wrist. "She was always her daddy's little girl. And he was a great man. Great at everything. He built our first house, he ran the most successful ice cream parlor on the pier. But the one thing that her daddy was terrible at was taking a damn hint. I had to spell everything out for that man. I nearly had to get down to my underwear just to get him to ask me out, for Pete's sake."

I didn't think it was possible for my cheeks to turn redder than they already were. I'm sure they did though, and I only had the cover of night to thank for shielding them from her.

Unlike me, Dianna wasn't one to embarrass easily. And just like her daughter would be, she seemed incredibly amused by the way I was squirming on the log in an effort to politely avert her gaze.

"What I'm saying," she continued, humor still dancing in her tone, "is that sometimes, people like them ... they need a little push. They need some reassurance that they'll be caught before they jump. That something—or someone—will be there to break the fall."

Reassurance. It made sense. Madi had been hurt by so many people, and I'd always known that she'd need more than a bit of coaxing before she jumped into something new. It was why I exposed myself to her the way I did without expecting anything in return. It was why I told her that I'd wait for her. That I'd support her and be there for her as a friend for as long as she needed me to be.

She knew how I felt, and she knew where I stood. I wasn't just going to catch her if she jumped. I was going to be right there with her when she did.

If she did.

But I didn't know how to explain that to Dianna. To tell her that I'd already given her daughter all of the reassurance in the world. How could I condense everything that happened between Madi and I into a few short sentences? I could write a book about that girl.

Or I could commission Dex to write one.

Madi reached out to squeeze Lola's hand before she turned away. Her eyes found mine instantly, then dashed between her mother and me before an adorable heat flushed her cheeks.

Dianna tried to mask the movement of her mouth under her daughter's watchful eye. "Her daddy and her last boyfriend—they both ripped her heart out. Any man that makes her smile the way you do must be very special."

While her voice was low, her insinuation was clear, and it multiplied the hope that crept into my chest.

"But if you hurt her," she muttered, "I will kill you."

I couldn't help but laugh, even if it was only in an effort to hide my nerves once again. "I don't doubt that."

Truly, I didn't.

Madi re-joined me by the fire as Dianna stood, the two of them sharing an odd look that an outsider like me would never be able to interpret.

"What was that about?" Madi asked when we were alone, throwing me a far more recognizable expression as she picked up her hot cocoa from where she'd left it at my side.

I didn't know what to tell her, so I said, "I could ask you the same thing."

She chewed on a small smile, sweeping her gaze over the wooden stars that crackled in the bright fire.

"You know, I was so scared to come home." She straightened her dress where it'd crinkled as she sat, only causing the whole thing to hug her chest even more. A little shiver shot up her spine, making my whole body ache with the desire to wrap her up like the gift she was. "The last time I was here, I was broken. I was a shadow. And I was scared that if I came back to the place that broke me, I would break again. That all those months at Camden would have been for nothing."

I didn't realize my breath was bated until my lungs ached.  

"But they weren't." Madi smiled softly, but that tiny curve of red lipgloss was bright enough to light up the whole beach. "And I didn't realize before that it wasn't just that I had to come back eventually. It was that I needed to. I needed to finish this." Her eyes found the spot on the shore where she'd been standing with Lola, then drifted out to sea, like another memory was playing out on the fringes of her mind. "It's the strangest thing, James. It's like ..." She sighed, long and deep. "I can breathe again."

My heart was beating fast as I watched her, my eyes tracing her profile like it was artwork. My pulse was so loud that I was worried she could hear it. Was she saying what I thought she was? Was this moment the one I'd been waiting for?

She peered into the bonfire, confirming what she'd told me with a sweet, solid nod.

The fire was captivating, but I couldn't seem to peel my eyes away from her to look at it. I couldn't steady the hopeful beating of my heart, and my mind couldn't stop replaying the last ten seconds in a constant loop. It didn't matter that darkness was swirling around us, that only the flicker of flame was revealing her face amongst the shadows. I'd memorized every inch of her long ago.

That soft, thoughtful smile. I knew that smile. Her dark blue eyes—sometimes angelic, sometimes playful, always too enchanting for her own damn good. I knew them, too. I knew every curve of her body. I knew how it fused perfectly with mine. The memory of the night she'd invited me into her bed often teased my thoughts. It popped into my head at the best and worst of times, and especially whenever I needed to concentrate. Like during my last exam of the semester, when I was supposed to be concentrating on Roe v Wade. Instead, all I could think about was the night that Madi fell asleep in my arms.

About how her hair smelled like daisies and her skin felt like silk.

About how sweet she was when tried to shuffle closer to me in her sleep, the rise and fall of her back turning my mind to mush.

About how unbearably good she looked in that dress that night. About how hard it had been trying to resist her when she'd asked me to take it off. When she'd batted her feathery eyelashes at me; when she'd moaned my name over my mouth; when she'd practically begged me to do what I'd wanted to for so long—

"James?"

Madi's touch did more than jolt me from my daze. It merged with my less-than-PG thoughts, turning every inch of me into a volcano that threatened to erupt. I cleared my throat, readjusting myself and praying that my body wouldn't incriminate me more than my inability to simply focus already had.

"Sorry," I managed to croak.

Barely.

I broke her gaze instantly, as if afraid that the transcript of my thoughts was beaming out from my eyes. I was doing it again. Staring her in the face while my mind was consumed with filth.

I cleared my throat. "What did you say?"

She smiled up at me as she reached for my hand, and my heart might have flipped out of my chest.

"I said that I'm sorry," she told me. She sounded remorseful, and I peered through the darkness to find her eyes bursting with equal regret. "I feel awful. It was our last day together and I was totally MIA."

My first instinct was to disagree. To tell her that I knew better than anyone the storm that was waiting for her in Capri, and that I understood that she had business to take care of before she could relax and enjoy Christmas the way that she deserved to.

But Mrs. Watson's face was seared in my mind. The twinkle of her upturned eyes and the promising words on her tongue fuelled my fire, daring me to burn.

"It doesn't have to be." My voice sounded more pensive than I would have liked. In fact, it sounded as subtle as a foghorn. I was sure that she could hear my longing, that she could hear how vulnerable and crazy she made me.

But a slash of firelight revealed the tilt of her head. She blinked back at me so innocently that it made me crave her even more. "It doesn't have to be what?"

I swallowed a sigh. Dianna was right.

Madison was terrible at taking a hint.

"Our last night together," I clarified. And, to ensure that she got the message loud and clear, I added, "Come with us."

Her laugh lit up our circle more than the flames in the center ever could. It was electric, and before I knew it, I was smiling, too.

"To the ski resort?" she asked incredulously.

I shrugged again. "Yeah."

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Well ... what about my family? Shouldn't I be with them for Christmas?"

Only ten minutes prior, her push back would have discouraged me. I would have interpreted it as everything I didn't want to hear. As a sign that she didn't see me the way that I saw her. That she never would. But everything that Dianna said and didn't say was still ringing in my ears, and I found myself putting a new spin on her daughter's words.

Madi wasn't protesting. She wasn't telling me that she wanted to stay behind with her family. She was asking me whether it was the right thing to do.

She was asking for reassurance, just like her mother said she would.

"Ask her," I suggested simply. "It can't hurt to ask."

Madi's eyes clouded over again, and I could practically see the cogs in her mind turning to find another reason why it would be wrong to accept my invitation. She always did that. Tried her best to say the right thing. I only wished she knew that when it came to me, she could never do anything wrong.

"I can't impose," she finally said.

Her expression was utterly serious, but her words had a laugh itching at my throat. "You wouldn't be imposing, and you know it." How many times had Dex himself invited her in the last week alone, for goodness sake? How many times had my own mother asked me if the pretty girl from the wedding would be coming to the resort? I'd since fessed up to the fact that Dex had slipped up with the whole me and Madi dating thing, but that didn't mean that my mother wasn't holding out hope that things would work out between us.

And that made two of us.

"We all want you to come, Madi," I said. "We just didn't want to push you on it."

She narrowed her eyes in a way that expressed skepticism, but there was something else sweeping across the contours of her face.

It was only in the silence that I realized how heavy my limbs were. How heavy and bated everything was. I was trying my best to be brave for her, to put my heart on the line.

But Madi wasn't the only one afraid of falling.

I watched her swallow, watched her face rise into the light. With that conviction that I loved twinkling in her eyes, she finally asked, "Why?"

I cocked my head, a frown stealing my composure.

She took an unsteady breath, nibbling her bottom lip before throwing me a shrug. "Why do you want me to come?"

It was an outrageous question. It was to me, at least. Wasn't it obvious?

Because I need you to come.

Because you make me feel whole.

Because you make Christmas feel like Christmas.

"Because you're our friend."

That was the truth just as much as the rest were.

So why did the look that fell over her face make me feel like I'd said something wrong?

Her shoulders slumped again. Her frown returned and deepened. She turned from me, directing her gaze back to the fire and watching the blackened wood hiss and crackle and burn. Smoke and ash were circling us now, filling the air with the toasty warm smell of winter.

But all I could sense was her. All I could feel was her pulling away.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket. I didn't have to pull it out to know who was messaging me; I recognized the three short vibrations instantly as the ringtone I'd assigned to Blair. My heart started beating ferociously while I fumbled around with the lock button, hoping and praying that eagle-eyed Madi wouldn't notice.

The last thing that I needed was for her to find out about Blair.

"Okay," I heard her whisper.

My breath hitched as I watched her stand. She took one last bite from her gingerbread girl before popping it back into the paper bag, confirming the word she'd uttered with another solid nod.

"I'll ask my mother," she clarified. Then, she winked. "But don't get your hopes up."

I knew that she was joking. Teasing me, as per usual. But my hopes were up. They were up so high that they were rocketing into the stars.

I watched her approach her mother and stepfather, allowing delusion to circle me like smoke on the breeze. I didn't know if what Dianna said was true. I didn't know whether I was in love with Madi, or whether that was possible yet. I didn't even know for certain what love was.

All I knew was that no one else made me feel the way she did. No one else was as easy to talk to. No one else was as equally ballsy as they were kind. No one else had a laugh that cured every worry in the world, or a smile that made me want to smile, too.

Forget the sun. Madi was the moon and the stars, too. She wasn't just a part of my life. She was the highlight.

JAMES POV?!?

I can't even express how happy I am to finally share this chapter! A couple of you guessed that this book would be multi-POV, and you were right!

Sorry that it was a bit longer than usual; we did get a whole book of Madi simping for James, so I thought that it was only fair that we leveled the playing field🙊

Has seeing things from his perspective changed/confirmed anything for you? Leave me your thoughts ->

- Danielle