"How's uni? Psychology, right?"

Gritting my teeth was a knee-jerk response. One I tried to play off as a smile, shaking my head. "Biology."

Damon nodded enthusiastically, grinning right back—in a way that told me he hadn't heard what I said over the music blaring overhead. "Right, right."

Noah widened his eyes sympathetically, disguising his own grimace behind a sip of beer. But then Damon and his friends turned their questioning back onto him, and Noah expertly blinked his amusement away.

When I'd emerged from the bathroom of the grungy nightclub—tucked somewhere between the ski resort and Capri—I'd been surprised to find Noah shooting me torpedo alerts from the bar. But then I saw who he was standing with.

His acquaintances from baseball.

Eli's friends from baseball.

Eli's best friend, Damon.

And, by then, it'd been too late to retreat into the ladies' room and set up camp for the night.

So I smiled when they approached me. Engaged in awkward but polite conversation. And weathered the unfortunate side effects of taking the moral high ground.

Damon pretended to hear my answer to a question. Again. The conversation lulled. Again.

And maybe because Eli's friends were staring at me so expectantly, maybe because I was nervous and restless and nosey, I asked, "How is he?"

Damon choked on his drink.

The others went pale.

"Good," one sputtered.

And then they looked away. Hid their expressions behind a sip of beer. Made eye contact with anyone but me.

A lie.

I indulged it, offering a curt nod. And then Damon's gaze was fixed on mine again, piercing me differently from how it had been before.

"And you?" he asked.

Movement caught my eye, and I found myself following it. Five figures were huddled in a booth across the club. Watching me. Intently. Kara, in particular, didn't make the same effort I had to mask her grimace.

I swallowed the urge to roll my eyes at them. And realized that a smile was flirting with my lips. "Good."

Not a lie.

An understatement.

Eventually, Noah and I managed to peel ourselves away from the bar, throwing our best wishes for the new year over our shoulders. We bounded across the dancefloor hand-in-hand, weaving through the packed bodies until we were certain we were out of sight.

"What are the chances?" Noah chuckled as we crossed to the booth—and the nosey fivesome in it.

I waved him off. "The universe and I have a very toxic relationship."

Before I had a chance to sit, Kara sprung to her feet and handed me a shot. "Thought you could use this," she shouted over the music.

I groaned, throwing it back. "God, I love you."

"Then come dance with me! No one will dance with me!"

I groaned again, placing the empty shot glass on the table. "I'll need at least another two before even contemplating that."

Her hot-pink lips settled in a pout, and she turned to Shay, batting her long, feathery lashes. "You'll dance with me, right?"

"Sorry, baby." Kara's girlfriend exited the booth in typical Shay fashion—gracefully and sensually. Straightening her chic cropped blazer, she cupped Kara's forlorn face between her hands, planting a teasing kiss on her lips and leaving a ruby-red mark. "I promised Noah and Blair I'd kick their asses at karaoke."

"You are so on." Noah grinned, downing his own shot before following Blair and Shay up to the mezzanine.

I almost giggled at it—the adorableness that was Kara's expression of utter self-pity. But she was relentless, and it took her less than a second to sear Dex with a look no man could refuse.

"Baby D?" she asked coyly, the rose-gold bracelets on her arm jingling when she extended a hand his way.

Dex rolled his eyes. But he stood, and in a flash of neon light, whisked Kara away to the dancefloor.

A low laugh pricked my ears. I followed it—to find James. Still watching Kara and Dex over the rim of his drink. His black sweater and jeans merged with the shadows cradling him in the corner of the booth, but his head of golden hair was a fiend for even the dimmest light.

He pinned his eyes on me, leveling a smirk he knew would go straight to my core, and gestured to our friends with his bottle of amber liquid. "Remember when we wanted to set them up?"

I loosed a laugh. "She would eat him alive."

"Absolutely devour him," he agreed, patting the seat Dex had vacated.

I aimed for it.

And somehow wound up in his lap.

His arms were around me in less than a second, anchoring me to his lap, his fingers curling around the hem of my dress. "Have I ever told you that I love you in red?"

"No."

He flicked his tongue out over his lips, slowly dragging the bottom one into his mouth. Lowering his hand, he swept a finger along the bare skin of my leg, and I swore my whole body shuddered with the combination of fire and tenderness in that touch.

Releasing his lip, he feathered that finger. "I love you in red."

It was a good thing we were alone. And lost to the dark. But even if we weren't, I wouldn't have stopped myself from lowering my face, nipping his mouth just as he had. "I guess I'll have to buy more red."

His smirk kicked up, and I nipped that, too. But before I could capture his lips for good, my phone vibrated against the table.

I recognized that text tone. After all these months, I still hadn't changed it.

Happy New Year, M, Lola had written.

I stared at it. At the name, at the message. I didn't reply. Didn't breathe. Just ... stared.

Gripping me just a little bit tighter, his thumb stroking my leg in slow, soothing circles, James asked, "Are you okay?"

I let that breath go. Swallowed.

And typed, Happy New Year, Lo.

"Okay," I confirmed, clicking the lock screen and setting my phone down beside his drink. "You?"

Silently, James lifted a hand to my throat, tracing a finger down the column of my neck. His eyes glittered, and I knew it was because he'd found it—the necklace he'd given me on Christmas Day, each charm he'd selected with so much thought and care.

He straightened it, correcting the pendants that had flipped over. His fingers lingered on the one in the center. The tiny, golden heart.

Finally, he nodded.

I pressed a kiss to his brow. "Good."

He lifted his face, and my breath almost caught at it—the expression set there. So much relief and contentment and genuine care.

"We used to go away every New Year's," I told him. Because I needed to tell someone. Because I was done with swallowing my feelings. "To an island off the coast. Lola hates camping. But we'd camp there. There's this one cliff—over the bay—and the water's filled with bioluminescent plankton. So at night, if the moon sits in just the right spot, if the waves move just enough, the ocean lights up. Like a sea of stars."

"It sounds beautiful."

It was. It was one of my favorite places in the world. "Do you want to go sometime?"

James' smile was so devilish, so pointed, that I could have plucked it right from his lips. "Are you asking me out on a date, Watson?"

I shrugged against him, quite enjoying the way his eyes darkened when my chest grazed his. "Just hypothetically speaking. You know, if I was the last girl on earth, or if you had a gun to your head."

His resounding laugh was a lovely, uninhibited thing. Peering up at me, he winked. "I'd consider it."

I tried to replicate that laugh, recalling that first day we met in the hall. But I felt my eyes gutter, my stomach knot.

He saw it—the shift.

Brushing a loose curl from over my face, he asked, "What is it?"

"Just ..." I relaxed into his touch, but my stomach was flipping. Dread was tangling. "Why did you like me back then? I'll never understand."

"Why?"

"I was miserable, James. I was awful. I was ... mean."

"You were sad. You were hurt. You were tired."

I shook my head, my self-loathing compounding. "But if someone used me the way I used you, I'd—"

"Forgive them."

My frown deepened. I tilted my head.

But he'd never looked so certain. "You'd forgive them. That's what you do." He gestured to my phone.

Where Lola had reacted to my message with a heart.

A smile ghosted my lips. God. Why was he always right?

James curled my hair behind my ear, sliding his finger along my jaw. "You have a higher tolerance for betrayal than anyone I know. You inspire me every day."

It was strange, in a way. Here was a quality I'd come to think made me weak, and James was telling me it was one he admired.

"Still, you didn't know me then," I countered. "You saw me at my worst, and you still thought ... her. Why?"

He rolled his eyes. "You're too hard on yourself. You're a firecracker, baby, but I've never seen that as a bad thing. Besides ..." He opened and closed his mouth. I could see the debate he was having with himself, the conflict in his eyes. But he remembered at the same time I did.

No more secrets.

"No matter how many times you pushed me away," he said, looking down at my necklace, "or how much you tried to hide your smile, I knew I'd never forget it. The way I felt the first time I met you."

I scrunched my nose. "In the hall?" I'd been a miserable bitch then, too.

"No, Madi. The first time I met you. The very first time."

I was officially lost.

James basked in my confusion for a second longer, a soft, knowing smile teasing his lips. Then he opened them. He told me what he meant.

And all I could do was stare back at him silently, captivated by a love that ran deeper than I knew.

The coastal sun was brutal, absolutely brutal on the second day of Noah's round-robin tournament. Noah seemed to think the same thing, wiping the sweat from his brow as he raced across the pitch, inserting himself between his teammate and the other team's pitcher—who was shouting in his face.

The pitcher didn't miss a beat. In a flash, he turned, redirecting his assault onto Noah, dropping the ball to curl his fists. Fire. There was fire in that boy's eyes, a thirst for blood leaching his knuckles of color. And his teammates—they just watched.

I'd risen to my feet before I realized it, but the umpire finally wedged himself between the warring factions before I made good on my intention to jump the fence myself.

"What's wrong with your face?" Harriet shrieked from beside me.

I turned to her, offering a sheepish smile. Her whole face was screwed up in something a lot like disgust, and she was leaning so far away from me she may as well have been sitting in the next seat. Still, that little scrunch of her nose was adorable, like a bunny, and even scowling, she was a vision. I guess she was the prettiest girl in eighth grade for a reason.

I ducked my head, sitting down beside her. "Sunburn."

"You're not wearing sunscreen?"

I opened my mouth to remind her: I'd given the last of it to her after she spent the whole day prior complaining about the coast ruining her skin for her photoshoot on Monday.

But, before I could, her phone pinged. She looked down, her amber eyes suddenly gleaming. "I'm thirsty."

"What would you like? Coke?"

"Ew. Anything but Coke."

I leaned over Harriet to where my best friend sat with hers. "Do you guys want anything—"

But Dex was already halfway to the ice cream truck.

The closest concession stand was buzzing when I finally broke through the crowd, but the line moved quickly, the fourth inning set to start.

A blur of crimson whizzed up the length of the queue, long, brown hair swishing and fanning before coming to a crashing stop.

"Grace? Eli said there were some drinks put aside for the team?"

"A little busy, sweetheart," the volunteer in the stall—Grace—replied, heaping hot fries into a paper cup. "I think they're in the fridge."

That was all it took for the girl in the red sundress to hoist herself up and over the counter. And then the line was moving at double-speed, Grace's customer-turned-assistant taking orders while collecting her own.

Her slender arms overflowing with blue and red sports drinks, she beamed at me over the confectionary display. The sun was glaring behind her—a halo of light that made it hard to pin my gaze on her, or to make out anything but a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, the latter rosy and pink from her sprint.

"What can I get for you?" she asked breathlessly, popping a wad of cash into the till to pay for her order.

I froze. Anything but Coke. That left a lot of room for error.

A customer cleared their throat behind me.

The girl smiled at him politely, then tilted her head at me, her loose curls—not brown, I realized, but a dark, golden blonde—brushing her exposed shoulders. "Sorry, can I help you?"

Right. Words. "Just ... Just two Fantas, please."

"Ah, the superior choice." Her eyes were dark blue, and they twinkled as she twirled, simultaneously collecting another few sports drinks while retrieving my sodas from the fridge. "Four-forty."

"Thanks." I fumbled for dad's card, scanning the counter for the terminal. She did the same, frowning softly.

"Grace?" she asked.

Grace's head popped up from behind the grill. "Machine's broken."

The girl grimaced apologetically, spinning back to me. "Machine's broken."

I chuckled, dismissing her apology with a wave, and fumbled around for some cash. All I had was the hundred-dollar bill dad had given me to take Harriet out for a nice dinner. So it was my turn to grimace apologetically, but the girl only rolled her eyes, waving her hand, just as I had.

Until she opened the till, and her little smile fell.

"I've got four tens, some fives ..." Her fingers roamed around in the drawer, rattling something in the process. "And three buttons. You don't have anything smaller?"

"I don't. Sorry."

That smirk of hers ... it was a little pointed. Then again, with that unrelenting sun, it was hard to tell.

The man behind me cleared his throat again.

"Don't ... don't worry about it." I backed away from the counter before she could reply, leaving the sodas behind. And braced myself for Harriet's inevitable wrath.

I was breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, halfway to the stands when a voice called through the crowd, "Hey Rothschild!"

And—hell, it was presumptuous of me—but I spun around.

And saw the girl from the concession stand running across the lawn.

I squinted through the sun spraying out behind her, turning her into a blur of crimson and brown once more. But now I knew her red dress was peppered with tiny white flowers, her hair not brunette, but a gilded, honey-blonde. And her arms ...

"What's this?" I asked, motioning to the pile of drinks she was juggling against her chest. And the two cans of Fanta right on top.

"Pity." She leaned in closer, her voice sweet and sarcastic all at once. "And ... it made me feel good. To be able to do something for someone with a black card."

"You didn't have to—"

That ridiculous pile of drinks spilled out of her hands, and part of me wondered—mere coincidence?

We both fell to the ground to collect the sports drinks, and when she had them balanced against her, she stood. Leaving only those two Fantas—and two chocolate bars—lying on the grass.

She eyed them pointedly.

I didn't realize I was grinning until I saw that she was, too.

Loosing a laugh, I bent over, scooping the snacks up. "Well, thank you."

"​​You're not from around here."

I straightened, a little dazed by the question. "We're not far. My friend"—I motioned to the field where Noah was huddled with his team—"his dad sponsors the tournament."

A wicked smile curled her lips, and she arched an eyebrow. "Of course he does."

I would have quipped back. But her eyes ... Even through that overbearing sunlight, I sensed her eyes running down the length of my body. And I knew she was judging me, knew I'd only confirmed whatever assumptions she'd crafted about me in her head, but ...

I didn't mind. I didn't mind one bit.

Her eyes moved up again, locking with mine. And I was suddenly grateful for the sunburn. Grateful that it hid how hot my cheeks had become under her stare.

"Well ..." She gestured behind me, and I followed the line of her hand to a small, pastel-colored van across the way. "My dad runs the ice cream van. And he does take black cards."

I chuckled. "Thank god for that."

"The codeword is 'bandit' for a VIP discount. My favorite's the cookies and cream." She paused, and I could practically hear her eyes fluttering over me again. "Although I'm getting more of a vanilla-with-flake vibe from you."

I whirled back to face her. And, yeah—she was doing it again. Looking at me. Seeing.

And ... waiting, I realized. For me to say something. Because ... because that's how conversations worked.

I shook my head, clearing my throat. "Let me at least find a way to pay you back for the soda."

On the field, a whistle blew.

The girl's eyes widened, a sudden sliver of urgency creeping in amongst all that sun, all that spunk.

"How about this?" she decided, backing away. "You can owe me a favor."

Another whistle blew.

And then she was gone.

Seconds. We'd been talking for a handful of seconds, barely even a minute. And yet ... Peering down at the chocolate bars—Flakes, indeed—I realized I was still smiling. I didn't really stop until I was rounding back to the stands and two excited, sly voices pricked my ears.

"Are you texting Dirk Wellington?"

"Technically, he's texting me."

"But you're texting back."

A giggle.

I stopped walking.

I knew that giggle.

"So what about Bennet?"

"What about him?" Harriet snorted. There was a considerable pause before she groaned, and added, "Haven't you heard? His dad's running for mayor."

My eyes popped a little. That would be news to my dad.

"And?" her friend urged.

"And ... Jeez, Gwen, think about it. Imagine the events I'd get to go to. The photo-ops. A ticket like that would raise my profile."

A frown ghosted my brow. My pulse—it was racing.

"Plus, he's easy enough on the eyes. When his face isn't the same color as my father's Ferrari."

The resounding laughter from both Harriet and Gwen ... Yeah, my face was burning.

I was silent when I rejoined them, handing Harriet her soda without looking her way.

Still, I heard her scowl when she asked, "What's this?"

I gritted my teeth. "Your drink."

"Fanta? Gross."

"You said to get you anything—"

"I meant, like, iced tea."

Her phone pinged and, that time, I didn't miss the feline glint in her eye as she typed a reply.

And I just ... I'd had enough. Because it shouldn't be this hard.

Movement across the field caught my attention—a tiny little figure, gilded by the sun, golden hair fanning out behind her as she jumped the fence, running onto the grounds.

My irritation ... fizzled. And those knots that'd settled in my stomach—gone. There was still a sensation there, but it was lighter. It was friendlier. It was the furthest thing from irritation.

No. It shouldn't be that hard.

So I was standing before I knew it. Harriet didn't seem to notice as I parted ways with her, moving toward the gate with our drinks in hand. She didn't even seem to care.

So I wouldn't either.

But I wasn't irritated anymore, or angry, or embarrassed. I just wanted to be on that field. Wanted the distance between me and that tiny figure in the red dress to disappear. I wanted to know her, and banter with her, and I wanted her to look at me like she had in front of the food stall. When she'd complimented my drink choice, and guessed my favorite ice cream flavor, guessed my favorite chocolate. When my parents' wealth hadn't been an asset, but a hindrance. I wanted to be seen—not as a Bennet, or as a stepping stone, but as someone who was worth talking to even when I was nameless. Even when my face was as red as a Ferrari. I wanted ... I wanted to be seen by her.

I was one step through the gate when the other team turned. When they spotted the girl running toward them, sports drinks piled in her arms.

When their pitcher, still heated from his fight with Noah, broke rank with the rest of his team. When he helped distribute the drinks.

When he wrapped his arms around the girl in the red dress. When he nuzzled his face into her golden sheet of hair.

My vision blurred, and I realized I'd been holding it—my breath.

Until she looked up at him. Until she squinted through the sunlight. And there was such pure, unbridled happiness warming her face.

But there was such cold, bitter ice gliding along my skin.

She rose to her tip-toes. The pitcher bent down. He ignored the umpire's whistle. And kissed her. A fast, rough, greedy kiss.

Those soda cans were weights in my hands.

The whistle sounded for a fourth time, and the girl laughed, peeling herself from her boyfriend, shooing him back to his team.

I released that aching breath. Nodded to myself. Because ... yeah. Of course. I should have known.

I turned. Walked back to Harriet, who hadn't noticed I'd been gone. I drank my soda, ate my chocolate bar, and tried to blink the image slowly searing itself into my subconscious away. The image of the girl standing on the grass as her pitcher broke their embrace, as she watched him rejoin his teammates with sheer adoration in her eyes.

But I wondered what it would feel like—to be looked at like that.

My breath was such a heavy, aching thing. It sat in my throat, tangled with the sob I knew I couldn't keep back much longer. And it didn't take James sweeping a finger across my cheek for me to realize that I was crying in the middle of that club.

"How long have you known?" My vision blurred, but I held his eye. "Since that first day in the hall?"

He shook his head. "Since I saw him. In your room."

Him. Eli.

James scoffed. "He hasn't changed."

No. For James, Eli was the same loud, aggressive ass he'd always been. But for me ... the contrast between the boy on the baseball field and the one who'd cornered me in my dorm room was jarring.

"And then I asked how long you were together. Did the math. And I realized who you were ..." He looked down at our hands, his fingers toying with mine shyly. "It was like I'd been hit over the head. I couldn't ... couldn't believe my luck. Here she was. Here was the person I'd been looking for in every other girl all this time. The spirit, the spunk, the smile ..." His fingers were on my necklace again, on the round charm next to the heart. "The sunshine."

"But why didn't you say anything?"

He shook his head, his expression becoming pained. "The timing was all wrong. You were so ... You were heartbroken, baby. It wasn't important. And it was clear that you didn't remember me. I didn't want to ruin any shot I could have with you because you thought I was some ... some creep." He brushed a knuckle against my cheek, ducking his head to meet my teary gaze. "And then, after everything we'd been through together, after I got to know you ... I knew you'd feel bad. I don't want you to feel bad, sweetheart."

That sob cracked out of me, my tears falling freely with it. "I do. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." I hung my head, tightening my grip around the hand he'd placed over mine. "I wish I could remember."

"I'm glad you can't."

"Glad?"

He laughed, and that smile—those eyes—I swore I'd never seen him shine so bright. "When you love, Madi, you love purely. Honestly. You love hard. The fact that you don't remember, that all you saw that day was him ... It's how I know. How I've always known."

He didn't need to clarify. The rest of that sentence was written all over his face. It was how he knew he could trust me, even back when no one else would have, not after the things I'd done. It was how he knew that when someone had my attention, my heart, there wasn't anything anyone else could do to pry it from them.

And he was right. I'd been a fool before, a damn fool to fall for Eli, to believe him when he sold me a dream he wasn't capable of giving. But it was because my eyes ... they'd always been on him. My focus had been on him. My whole world was him. I had loved him—purely and completely.

I couldn't help it. I'd always felt too much; too much love, too much heartbreak, too much guilt, too much joy. My heart wanted to love so badly. To find someone I could pour that excess of emotion into.

"It's yours, James." I placed a hand on my necklace, on that little golden heart right in the center. The other went to his chest. His heart. "Every piece of it," I whispered, "every single piece belongs to you."

Under the strobing lights, I could've sworn that his eyes were silver-lined, too. That his exhale was a sigh of relief. But then he pulled me against him, chest-to-chest, and it was nothing compared to the feeling of his pulse racing in time with mine.

"I know I'm not your first love, Madi. And that's okay. But I want to be your last."

I anchored my fingers in his hair. He would be. He was. Maybe it was too early to call it, but I'd never been so sure of anything.

Still, I shook my head. "I didn't know then."

He looked up at me, confused, just like I knew he would be. "Know what?"

"I didn't know that love could be like this."

I didn't know if I'd ever get used to it—the way James' eyes could glitter like the sun on the sea. Or if I'd ever understand why it affected him so deeply when I told him what he meant to me, how he made me feel. But it did. His smile told me it did. A smile so soft and lovely on a face designed to break hearts—but one that never would.

And then I was crying and smiling. I was so full, packed with so many emotions that I didn't know where one stopped and another began. It was fitting, so damn fitting that this was how I was finishing this year, with tears in my eyes but a song in my heart. A year of lowest lows, of highest highs, of shadow and sun and heartbreak and love.

"I'd do it again." I didn't know whether I was speaking to him or to myself, just that I had to say it. Just that it was true. For this boy who looked at me like I was worth something, even back when I'd felt like the personification of pain and anger ... I nodded. "I'd go through it again. All of it."

He pulled me closer, our bodies flush, and vowed, "You never have to."

I believed it. Without question. Maybe ... maybe that was the biggest surprise of all.

"Did you go to the ice cream van?" I heard myself ask. My chest hurt, hope and anticipation clambering and combusting.

But James' eyes glittered, so I already knew the answer.

"No." He swallowed the roughness of his voice away. "I wish I had. I wish ... I wish I'd met him, Madi."

My heart twinged. "Me, too." But ... no. It didn't matter. I already knew.

Dad would have loved James.

Something thudded against the table, and James and I sprang apart.

Kara peered down at us, a beaming Dex in tow.

And that was a tray of shots she'd laid out. Tequila shots.

I groaned.

"No excuses." She motioned to the little glasses, to the dancefloor, then clapped her hands twice. "Get your ass up."

I laughed, wiping the last of my tears away. "Screw it." Sliding off James' lap, I took Kara's outstretched hand.

James gave us a little salute. "I'll mind the drinks."

"Not a chance, Bennet." I leveled a glare over my shoulder, extending my free hand his way. "If I'm going to hell, you're coming with me."

He rolled his eyes.

I arched an eyebrow. Flexed my hand.

Sighing, he stood. "Heaven, hell," he winked, "if you're there, I'm there."

Kara dragged me closer, squealing dramatically in my ear, while Dex swallowed a sound that might have been a gag.

But his features softened when he met my gaze, and he dipped his head, registering my teary eyes.

I sucked in a breath. Dex ... Dex had gone to the ice cream van. He'd met dad. And I'd ask him about it. I had to. I had to know if he remembered.

But ... later.

We danced. Kara didn't let me so much as look back at our table—not that I really wanted to retreat. Life and fun and happiness and light. While sober. This is what all that work had been for, all those months of trudging through the dark, of facing my demons and shutting out the little voice in my head that told me it wouldn't be worth it, that I'd never be happy. It was so I could dance with Kara, laugh with Dex, sing at the top of my lungs with Noah and fall unapologetically in love with James. It was so I could live. So I could be strong enough to want to.

The music quickened, the dancefloor became tighter, the hands on the clock ticking toward midnight. I was dancing with Kara and Shay when I spotted James watching us through a gap in the crowd, his eyes slightly glazed, his expression strangely wistful. I cocked my head at him, at how very still he'd gone.

And then I realized that I was beaming from ear to ear. That he'd been watching me laugh and smile and sing with my friends. And that he knew, just as much as I did, how much that counted for.

He blinked the glassiness of his eyes away. Jerked his head up.

But I was already halfway to him.

"You have the most beautiful smile."

I threw my arms around his neck, choking back a laugh. "I definitely don't."

"You're radiant."

"You're drunk."

He chuckled, the sound rushing through me like a ripple of sunlight. "So disagreeable."

Usually, a callback like that would have been a trigger. A reminder of the person I'd been, the bitterness that had caused me to lash out at strangers as though they were the ones who'd hurt me. Now, though ... it just reminded me of how James had seen me. How he'd always seen me, even when my heart belonged to someone else. And how he'd never, ever let me push him away.

And so for him, for someone who'd given me so much, who'd never asked for anything in return ... I smiled. And that voice in my head that told me to hide it—it wasn't there anymore.

He bowed his forehead against mine, wrapping his arms around my waist. The music was fast, but we were slow, dancing in our own quiet corner of the world.

"You really didn't know who I was?" I asked. "In the hall?"

I felt him shake his head. "But it's how I know now. That you're the one. I fell for you twice. In the sun," he grinned, "and in the shade."

"So you admit it? I was awful the second time? The embodiment of thunder and rain?"

Closing his eyes, James traced his mouth along the shell of my ear. "I'd brace a thousand storms to see you shine."

Yeah. He was definitely drunk. But even though I'd barely had anything to drink, so was I. It was just a different kind of intoxication.

He pressed the softest kiss to my neck—so heartbreakingly tender my whole heart ached. I might have been crying again. I might have been smiling. Honestly, with James, I didn't know where one emotion stopped and another began.

But he never ran from them. From my emotions or from me. He saw every color of my rainbow, every moment of fear and anger and joy, and never once made me feel like I had to lock those colors away. He embraced them. Weathered them. Wanted them.

Somewhere, in some other pocket of the universe, the clocks struck twelve. People cheered and sang and welcomed the new year. But I wasn't ready to let go yet. Not without telling him.

"You're radiant, James." Backing away ever so slightly, just enough to capture his eye, I cupped his face between my hands. "You're good and kind and patient. Your smile isn't just beautiful. It's magic. It's a beacon."

Quiet. He went so very quiet. His expression—guarded. And if I hadn't felt so safe with him, maybe that would have worried me. Maybe I would have felt embarrassed about being so vulnerable.

But he was my best friend, so I told him, "You're my sunshine, too."

He was silent for so long that I wondered whether he heard me over the celebration around us. But his hands tightened on my waist, and as tiny flecks of confetti floated down from the roof to land in our hair, James pulled me across that small space between us.

He kissed me. A slow, gentle, generous kiss. I let go. I let that kiss and the promise we made with it carry me forward into the new year.

"I know what you mean," he murmured against my mouth, and I fought the urge to kiss him again so I could hear what he said. "Before, when you said you'd go through it all again ... I wouldn't do it differently. Any of it."

"No?" I didn't know whether I believed him.

He traced the curve of my smile with his finger, those ocean eyes I loved so much drinking in every inch. Every inch of the joy I'd worked so hard to find. "No. Our story might not be perfect, Watson, but I wouldn't change it. Not if it's what got us here."

He was right. Of course he was. James and I didn't do perfect. We did messy. We did complicated. It was very likely that the things we did and said didn't make sense to anyone outside of us. That onlookers rolled their eyes as we skirted around problems, or shouted our idiocy from the rooftops when we couldn't find the words to say we were falling in love.

But it didn't matter what they thought. It didn't matter what they said, or what they would have done if we were them and they were us. James was right. Our story wasn't perfect. But it didn't need to be. Our story was ours.

And that ... that was more than enough.

This update has been a long time coming. The first draft was written almost a year to the day, and was the original epilogue for THH before TCT even EXISTED, so it's very surreal to have it out in the world. Thanks for coming back to check it out 🤍

I have a bunch of fun bonus chapters planned, so keep an eye out. Until then ...

Join me on my next adventure

SEVEN DEADLY SINNERS

When seven classmates become suspects in the case of their missing childhood friend, they have to piece together the night of his disappearance by facing the sins of their past.

But with the police on their trail and their trust hanging by a thread, each will have to balance their own interests against their desire to bring their lost friend home.

- YA mystery (ngl tho it's a lil 🌶)
- dark academia
- boarding school romance
- found family
- enemies to 🤍

The first four parts are already up, and since the story is completed in full, I'll be updating two (sometimes three) times a week. I hope to see you there! I think this is my favorite project yet.

Love,
Danielle x