"I thought the finale was terrible," Dex moaned through a mouthful of ramen one week after our group date at Amor Oculto. "What an anticlimax."

I nodded, stuffing the last of our popcorn into my mouth. "All that build up. And for what? They didn't even—"

"End up together!" Dex finished, shaking his head in disapproval. "Lazy writing, in my opinion."

"Mhm. They sacrificed integrity for shock value." I stood to pop the empty bowl on Dex's desk with the rest of what was left of our dinner—noodles, popcorn, and three bags of chips. Very broke-college-students. Which was odd, considering that I could see from Dex's collection of limited edition, still-in-the-box superhero toys that he was far from a broke college student.

Superhero figures, I remembered, having been scolded by Dex twice for calling them toys. And for mixing up the leagues they belonged to. Justice Squad? Washington Warriors? No clue. But since I literally owned a Gryffindor scarf, I couldn't judge.

"What did you think?" I asked Holly, trying to lure her back into the conversation.

She shook her head, shrugging plainly. "I never got past the third season."

"Ah. Well, you didn't miss much."

She pursed her lips. "Clearly."

Every day since the night of our first group date with Holly, the guys and I had tried to prod Dex into asking her out on his own. He'd stopped by the coffee shop in between his classes, inviting her over to his room to watch a movie. But Holly had assumed that all of us would be there, and Dex hadn't known how to drop the correction without making things awkward.

So there I was on Thursday night—wedged between Holly and Dex at the foot of his bed, veritable jelly between two slices of bread. How James and Noah got prime seating against the bedhead behind us, I had no idea.

As I played intermediary between Dex and Holly, scraping the walls of mind for something, anything to ignite conversation between them, I couldn't help but lament over why I hadn't been enlisted to help James land a girlfriend instead; I was sure he would have been knees deep in a relationship by now, surely on his way to breaking the poor girl's heart. And my project would be all but complete, with nothing but formatting and footnotes to worry about.

Scooping up the last of my ramen, I wondered: what was James' type, anyway?

We were halfway through the first Matrix film—Holly's favorite saga, according to my Facebook sleuthing—when the storm raging outside cut the power. Dex and Noah offered to check if the dorm supervisor had a lead on candles, while James was trying to get the WiFi back online.

Because James was good at everything, apparently.

I scooted over on the bed so that Holly and I could whisper without being overheard, planning to take full advantage of our impromptu girl time. Or, if I had anything to say about it, impromptu wingwoman time.

"Thanks for coming tonight." I reached for a fresh bag of Skittles, tearing the plastic and offering her first dibs. "It can get so boring with just me and the guys."

She assessed me and the bag with a glance before fishing out a handful of candy. "I really enjoyed hanging out with you all the other night. You guys are way friendlier than half the students in my classes."

I looked away guiltily, burying my own hand in the bag and emerging with my favorites—green and orange. It didn't take my eyes long to circle back to James. He was still fussing with the router using the flashlight on his phone, but I realized that it was the closest thing to one-on-one time that Holly and I were going to get.

I brought my knees to my chin and rested the latter there. "So..." I wiggled my eyebrows, tilting my head playfully.

Holly cocked her head right back as she popped a Skittle into her mouth, but her smile lingered—coy and unsure. "So ... ?"

I nudged her with my shoulder. "You know. You and Dex."

Even in the dark, I could see her cheeks turning as red as her beret.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so upfront. Maybe I should've stuck to Dex's strategy—slow and steady, wiggling a toe in the water before jumping straight into the deep end. But time was ticking on the assignment front, and both of my lab rats were taking their sweet ass time making a move on one another. Was it really cheating if I laid out a mere cube of cheese?

Patience was never my strong suit.

Holly spared a look at James before leaning in closer, her voice shaking just the slightest bit. "What, you think he's into me?"

I almost choked on laughter. "Girl-to-girl—and don't tell him I said this—yes."

"Really?"

"Are you kidding? I've never seen him so coy!" That was true.

I hadn't known him long enough.

Holly sighed, twisting her braid around her finger. "I don't know. Sometimes I think, yeah, it's obvious. But, other times..." She traced her eyes over the intricate pattern on Dex's quilt, a small frown creasing her tanned brow. "I don't know. He seems so hot and cold."

"Well, duh." I scoffed, and she threw me a puzzled look. I bit my lip, once again channeling my inner wingwoman. Dex owed me. Big time. "Dex is shy. Very shy, especially when it comes to ... you know—girls. And pretty ones? It's like Spider-Man putting on a green suit and trying to come up with riddles."

I had no idea what I was saying. But Holly followed two Spider-Man fan pages on Twitter, and she giggled, so it must have made some semblance of sense.

"He's innocent that way," I added. "Pure."

Did I believe what I was saying? Not in all honesty. Men were men. But ... if Holly wasn't like other girls, maybe I needed to sell that Dex wasn't like other guys.

He did talk about marriage a lot.

"Dex is ... sweet. Kind. Good."

My words were designed to be reassuring. To paint Dex in the kind of way that I imagined every woman would want a potential date to be painted in. Which is why I was surprised when I saw a flicker of doubt darken Holly's usually warm eyes.

She pursed her lips together, brushing a loose bang behind her ear. "You're single, right?"

Instantly, my heart twinged, recoiling from the question. A question that I hadn't answered in the affirmative since I was thirteen years old.

I looked down to fiddle with one of my gold rings. "Right."

"So, if Dex is so great, then why haven't you dated him?"

My eyes shot up.

Hers were narrowed.

My mind went blank.

I was sure my cheeks burned red hot. My brain, which was normally swarming with intelligent remarks and witty comebacks, was empty.

Holly made a valid point. There I was, vouching for Dex, practically selling him to her as the perfect man, when I myself had sidestepped him. At least, that's what it looked like to her. And if I were in her position, I'd probably want to know the same thing she did; girl-to-girl, what was stopping me from pursuing Dex if he was so innocent, so sweet, so good?

"I mean, you've known each other for a while, right?" she continued, barely giving me a chance to answer her first question.

I shrugged automatically. "No, not really."

"But you do know each other well. You hang out a lot."

Only because of you, I wanted to say.

But Holly—usually so cheery, so sweet and good-natured—was shooting me a look I'd never seen cross her face before. With the added element of near-darkness, she even looked a tad ... intimidating.

Maybe my lab rat wasn't as malleable as I thought.

"So why not date him yourself?" she asked again. "What am I missing?"

"Bro code."

Holly and I snapped our heads to the TV in unison, a grinning James popping up from behind the router. Holly realized it at the same time as I did—that he had, in fact, heard every hushed word we'd said.

Of course he had.

He walked towards us, his eyes somehow finding the starlight pouring in through the windows while the rest of his broad figure was shrouded in shadow. With every step he took, my heart skipped a beat. Pure intrigue, I thought; where the hell was he going with his interruption?

As if reading my mind, he placed a hand on my shoulder, stroking my bare skin with his thumb. "Madison and I used to date. Just a handful of times."

The room tilted.

"I knew it!" Holly exclaimed. She clicked a finger, pointing it at me. "I knew something was going on with you two!"

My mouth sprung open, dissent on the tip of my tongue. But James stroked my skin in that slow, rhythmic pattern, and the soft touch wiped my mind clean.

"You'd think a dorm supervisor would be better prepared for emergencies," Noah exclaimed, bursting through the door with a handful of tealights and Dex in tow.

James removed his hand from my shoulder, the latter tingling at the memory of his touch. He and Holly scrambled to the door, helping Noah and Dex set up our new source of lighting.

All I could do was blink dumbly, mouth agape, as my opportunity to protest James' insinuation. His absolutely false and absolutely ridiculous insinuation—slipped further and further away.

What. The. Hell.

"Do you want to give us a hand with the candles, Madi?" James asked me, grabbing some matches out of a cupboard near the door. "Or are you just going to sit there and look pretty?"

I turned to face him slowly, my face burning red.

He winked.

And I wanted to kill him.

I barely said a word.

For the rest of the night, thought the entirety of The Matrix Reloaded, and even after the power came back on, I barely said a word to the stupid blond with the stupid ocean eyes.

With every passing second, James' lie grew into truth. And before I knew it, too much time had gone by. It was too late to deny what he'd told Holly, not without her thinking that we were all a pack of lunatics.

I think ... I think we were a pack of lunatics.

So all I could do was let my anger fester. Let it fester, at least, until the next morning, when I marched straight over to Dex and James' room and knocked on their door.

"Madison!" Dex beamed when he saw me. "Back so soon—"

"Where is he?"

His smile fell. "Where's who?"

"There's my ex-girlfriend!"

I flung the door open. It rebounded against the wall, and Dex jumped.

The room was surprisingly immaculate, especially given that it had been a mess of rogue popcorn and candy wrappers just the night before. Its striking organization only made it all that easier to locate the source of my irritability, his lips turned up into a broad, smug grin as he buzzed around the room making his bed.

A bee. That's what James was. A pesky, buzzing, disagreeable bee. With golden hair. With striking blue eyes. With broad ass shoulders, accentuated in a white sweater that made his skin look—

No.

No.

My nostrils flared, the knot in my stomach tightening. I grabbed the closest thing on the floor—a new cotton sweater I'd picked out for Dex—and hurled it at James' head of golden hair.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, rubbing his arm dramatically while the beginnings of an astonished laugh creased his thinking eyes.

I stalked forward. "You're a jerk, you know that?"

"Woah, woah, woah!" Dex sprung into action, jumping between us and stretching out his arms as if he was breaking up a fight between two shrieking children. "What the heck's going on with you two?"

I moved out from behind him, pointing an accusatory finger at James like I actually was a four-year-old. "He told Holly that we dated—"

"You what?"

"Just a handful of times," James defended. As though it could be defended. "And I only did it because—"

"Because you're an idiot," I said.

"Madi—"

"I was so close to cracking her, James. So freaking close! Why do you always have to butt your nose in?"

James' laugh lit up the room like a summer storm, a surge of lightning that made me go still. He dropped his sheets and arched a brow at me. "You were close? Are you delusional?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"No need to beg, sunshine."

I was going to gouge his eyes out.

Dex eyed us awkwardly, silently debating whether to break up our tussle or let it unfold. James didn't give him time to make a choice, shaking his head before moving away from his bed and toward me.

"You weren't cracking her. You almost ruined everything." His tone was gentle. Careful. But that didn't mitigate the impact of what he'd said.

My mouth fell open, a surge of anger rising to my cheeks. I met his challenge, taking a step to close the gap between us. "Excuse you?"

"You should have seen the way that she was looking at you, Madi—"

"Madison."

He hesitated, blinking back at me with slight irritation.

We were face-to-face now, close enough that the smell of his woodsy cologne was doing something confusing to my senses. I could see the flecks of color in his eyes—not just blue, I realized, but grey and green as well. But that proximity wasn't the slightest bit unnerving. Even though his jaw was as tense as mine and his gaze just as stubborn, his lips were still lifted as though he was the slightest bit amused. As though he got as much of a kick out of arguing with me as I apparently got out of arguing with him.

I couldn't help it. Anger was about the only thing that I felt anymore.

"Madison," he finally relented. And though I felt some sense of satisfaction in that, in the sliver of annoyance floating in his eyes ...

James clearly had something to say. A part of me was intrigued to hear it. Intrigued by the outrageous suggestion that I—wingwoman of the bloody year—almost ruined everything.

Or maybe I was just a victim to the tension pulsing between his chest and mine.

I refused to be the first to back away, so I relented with a raised eyebrow instead. "Go on then."

That soft smile on his lips grew wider. "Thank you," he drawled slowly, breathing the words onto my skin.

Then, as quickly as he'd crossed the room to greet me, he was gone, picking up his sheets to continue making his bed.

While he'd been the first to step away, victory didn't feel as good as I thought it would.

"I first noticed it after you told that Game of Thrones joke," he continued calmly, tucking a sheet underneath his mattress. "And then again when you and Dex started talking about the last season, the real deep-dive kind of stuff that only hardcore fans know. Holly was eyeing you the whole time—"

"Eyeing me?" I repeated, my voice dancing with skepticism.

"Well... yeah," James said incredulously. His eyes swung to Dex, bulging with disbelief, but the latter was purposefully avoiding his gaze. Realizing that he was the only one in the room willing to face my wrath, James emitted a defeated sigh. "I mean... you know. You're a pretty girl, Madison. You're smart. Funny. You clearly know Dex well. Or Holly seems to think so. And you hype him up more than I've even heard his own mother hype him up. Which, trust me, is a lot." He reached for a pillow, fluffing it up instead of meeting my puzzled stare. "I think Holly's... I don't know. Intimidated by you."

I should have been listening to what James was saying. Maybe the arrogant, opinionated, disagreeable pain in the ass had something of value to contribute to the discussion. But instead of absorbing the logic as a normal brain would, mine had broken down mid-sentence.

Did James say that I was... pretty?

"I think that's why she was trying to establish whether you're into Dex," he continued matter-of-factly, seemingly unaware that he'd just unloaded a volley of compliments in the most bizarre way. "She's sizing you up. As competition. So, I thought pretending that you and I used to date was the perfect solution. It explains why you're friends with Dex, why you think he's... what was it? 'Pure'? 'Sweet, good'—"

"Aww," Dex cooed beside me, cupping his chin with his hands. "You do love me."

I would've thrown something at him, too, had there been something suitable within arm's reach.

"That's definitely what it sounded like," James confirmed, his eyes flashing with the slightest sprinkling of annoyance. "But at least this explains why you do, and why you can't date him yourself." James crossed his arms triumphantly, his mouth stretched into a triumphant grin. "Now, you're a perfectly unthreatening wingwoman. In conclusion, you're welcome."

Dex produced a huff of approval, tapping a finger to the side of his head. "Smart, dude."

I, meanwhile, wasn't as quick to give in to James' unsolicited improvisation. Because, deep down, I didn't believe that his lie had anything to do with Holly feeling threatened or intimidated by me. That was bullshit. James was merely doing what he always did. Causing mischief. Stirring the pot.

And making my life far more difficult than it already was.

"Um, not you're welcome," I corrected. "Not for me. Now I have to lie to her!"

His eyebrows dared to fly to the ceiling, a sly veil creeping over his chiseled face. "Weren't you already?"

His voice was quiet enough that Dex didn't seem to hear it, but his observation stung like a wasp nonetheless.

God. Why was he such a self-righteous, arrogant jerkface?

"What the hell's so wrong with her being intimidated, anyway?" I questioned, tactfully sidestepping his pointed accusation. "With having her feel threatened, or jealous? Generally, competition is a good thing. It might've made her feel like Dex was something worth competing for. That could have helped us—"

My tangent was brought to a close by a ping from my phone. Lost in the moment, I pulled it out almost instinctually. That was my first mistake.

A message from an unfamiliar number lit up my screen. I knew exactly what that meant without even reading it. I did anyway. My second mistake.

Baby. Talk to me.

The anger inside of me—already bubbling from James' stupid little prank and his stupid little smirk—raged as though it had been doused in gasoline. But it was quick to subside, melting into a deep, raw pain that crept through every part of my body and slammed into my heart.

I wanted to throw that damn phone. Throw it into the ocean and watch it sink to the Earth's crust. I would have, if I truly believed that it would make the messages stop.

But it wouldn't. A part of me thought that they would never truly go away. I hated to admit it, but another part of me feared what would happen to me if they did.

Eli was all I knew.

Something featherlight grazed my arm. When I looked up, James was right in front of me again, his brow threaded with concern instead of amusement. He drew back his hand, his fingers still curled from where they'd rested on my arm.

"Is everything alright?"

No.

"Just—" My voice was uncharacteristically weak and shaky, and I paused to clear it. To regain some semblance of strength. "The next time that you want to join in on this thing, give me a heads up."

I thought I knew what he'd say next. That he hadn't planned to get involved, that he was just trying to help me in the heat of the moment. It's what Eli would have said. Eli always knew what to say, always had a reason, a justification.

But James didn't. He just nodded.

"Okay."

I mirrored his nod, just to indulge him, turning away to block the number like I'd blocked all the others.

But I knew there was no escaping the flames of betrayal that burned in my chest.

Another chapter, another Madi-and-James stand off, with poor little Dex standing right in the middle. What is it about these two that's causing them to clash so much?

Without giving spoilers, what TV show/film/book ending left you unsatisfied? And can you guess which finale Dex and Madi were talking about?

Make sure to connect with me on Instagram if you have it (@danielletalbury) and let me know that you came from Wattpad so I can follow you back!

Hope you all have a great week!

- D