A/N: Comment of last chapter goes to everyone who said they'd get Madi some form of therapy for Christmas.

You're not wrong.

Also, ✨DOUBLE UPDATE!✨ This was supposed to be one chapter, but you know me—I can't stick to a word limit to save my life.

Danielle x

"He's being a total tool about it!" Camila rolled her eyes to the pastel evening sky and back, pausing only to jam an overstuffed burrito into her mouth. "I'm just trying to spice the place up a little. A new paint job will benefit both of us," she exclaimed, still chewing on her rice and beans. "That's why we have a bond in the first place!"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that that was not, in fact, the reason why landlords required tenants to leave a bond in the first place.

I smiled sympathetically. "As I said, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give you legal advice."

Despite it being the fourth time that I'd told her that—not to mention the fourth time that she'd told me about her mounting troubles with the law—Holly's best friend looked incredibly disappointed at the reminder.

But her dark almond eyes flashed again, and she leaned forward in her seat. "Well, what about this? So, I have this ... friend—"

I sighed and nodded cordially, letting my attention drift over her head to the scene on the street. One thing that I've learned about studying pre-law is that everyone seems to have a 'friend' with their own bucket load of legal problems.

Legal problems that somehow cornered me at parties and tried to become my problem.

We hadn't planned to make another pit-stop so soon after the mall. We were already due at the resort a day later than we'd originally planned. But then the Tapias invited us to stay for dinner when we dropped Holly off.

As it turned out, declining an invitation from Holly's abuela is a rather futile feat.

Especially when that abuela has been prepping all week for her annual posada.

Especially once my three friends found out that the aforementioned posada included an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet.

Long story short, keeping our schedule lost out to three hours of pilgriming, piñatas, ponche, and tamales.

Not that I was complaining. Too much.

"Mila?" Holly's head popped over the fence separating her parents' house from her tía's.

Her entire avenue—which basically consisted of her entire family—had been sectioned off for the party. Neighbors weaved in and out of each other's houses while the festivities spilled out onto the street, tea lights and candles casting a warm yellow glow over the cobblestone pavement.

Holly rested her arms on the wood and her face on her hands. "We're all going for a walk. Five minutes."

Mila's eyes swelled with urgency. "Can't you see that we're having a conversation?" she asked, enunciating each syllable like it was her last.

Unlike me, it took Holly less than a second to untangle her friend's insinuation. She threw her head back to indulge in a cackle that lit up the neighborhood.

"Honey," she drawled, jabbing a finger in my direction. "Don't bother. He's as good as married."

"But—"

"Five minutes!"

I didn't get a chance to question the meaning of their exchange before Mila rose to her feet and threw me a dejected wave.

"Married?" I queried, turning back to the girl hanging off the fence.

To say that Holly and I had a complicated friendship was an understatement. In fact, to say that we had a friendship at all was a stretch. We did, inevitably, share somewhat of a past. More importantly, we shared Dex. And if my best friend—the one who'd been hurt the most by her in the first place—was somehow able to strike up a friendship with her, then the least that I could do was try.

That didn't mean that I trusted her. And I think she knew that.

Still, she made little effort to actually answer my question. But her smirk intensified as her gaze drifted over my head.

She nodded into the distance, wiggling her eyebrows to convey a message that I was supposed to unravel on my own. "Madi looks hot tonight."

With that, she turned and disappeared behind the picket fence. But her inference—one that I unraveled, all right—lingered in the early evening air, mocking me and teasing me like the universe didn't do that enough already.

"Churros?"

Noah thrust a stick of fried pastry dough under my nose as he plopped into the plastic chair that Mila had just vacated.

I waved him off, lifting my ponche to my lips. "Probably not the best combination."

He shrugged, reclaiming the dessert and downing it in two bites.

"I can't believe that you guys are still going." I chuckled, eyeing the heaped plates of food being passed between him, Dex, and Madi. Between the three of them, that had to have been their fifth trip back from the buffet.

At least.

"It really is too good an offer to pass up," Dex explained, crouching down on the pavement and digging into his tamales. "We'd have to pay an arm and a leg for this stuff at Amor Oculto."

My lips twisted at the reference. Amor Oculto wasn't just our favorite restaurant at college; it'd become our Thursday night go-to hangout spot. Still, despite the countless times that we'd frequented it since the first, that first dinner was exactly where my mind went.

Back to the night of mine and Madi's first date.

Back to the first time I caught her looking at me with something other than cynicism glimmering in her gaze.

Back to the moment our eyes caught over her menu, a soft, sweet heat flushing her pale cheeks.

I hid my smile behind my cup of fruit juice, feeling it dissipate as the reality of that night crushed the budding fantasy. In all honesty, it wasn't a date. Not really. But, sometimes, I liked to think that it was.

Other times, it was too hard to think about at all.

An appreciative groan trickled through Madi's red lips, and I lowered my cup to follow the sound.

Holly was right, though I was hardly surprised about it. Madi looked fucking incredible.

She'd borrowed a red off-the-shoulder dress from our hostess, but I couldn't fathom how it wasn't made for her. It hugged her waist and flared at the bottom, the intricate fabric swirling elegantly every time she swayed or spun. How she managed to curl her hair like that in a public restroom was also beyond my shallow understanding—I'd barely had enough room in there to comb my hair.

She was still standing while the three of us sat, her attention firmly fixed on her chicken-and-something salad while she shuffled her weight between her black heels.

"Here," I offered, jumping to my feet. "Sit."

But she waved a hand dismissively, then used it to cover her mouth. "That's okay. We'll only be a second." Her eyes finally flitted up from her plate, and I noticed how wide and glassy they'd become since I'd last seen her. "Holly's going to take me and Dex to see a light display around the corner," she explained, her speech slower and more considered than usual.

"Here." Noah patted his lap with his spare hand, offering it to her as though it was prime-seating.

Madi managed to choke out a laugh, stabbing a piece of rocket with her fork before downing it. "I would crush you."

The statement was utterly ludicrous, but I didn't get a chance to tell her that. Not before her eyes once again locked with mine.

She appraised me slowly. Vigilantly. She swept that diamond gaze up and down my frame, turning each millisecond I was caught under her stare into eternities all of their own. I could have stayed there—trapped in her mind's eye—for as long as she wanted me to. Longer. I couldn't stomach the idea of her looking away.

But, in a movement swifter than an archangel taking the skies, she stepped into the tight space between us. She reached a hand across the suddenly charged air, extending it further and further until it came to a stop.

Until it was lying flat on my chest.

My heart was hammering. I was sure that she could feel it. But I didn't have time to steady it, or to worry about it, or to remember how to breathe. I didn't have time, because in a blink of her glitter-coated eyes, Madi pushed me back down into that plastic seat.

She turned around.

And sat down.

On my lap.

Madison. Madison Jane Watson was sitting on my lap.

If my heart was pounding before, it was positively lurching now.

I flailed my hands around her lower body awkwardly. Suddenly, I couldn't think. I couldn't remember how to act normal. Because whatever this was wasn't normal. Madi didn't do this. She didn't spontaneously break the barrier she'd so carefully erected between us. She didn't touch me or look at me the way she just had, and she certainly didn't tempt me by grinding her ass against my lap.

Madi—my friend Madi—was careful and respectful. Careful not to send me mixed messages. Respectful of the fact that everything she did drove me wild.

But there was another side to Madi. I'd seen it once before. A side that was direct. That was forward. Impatient. That was driven by impulse and powered by desire.

For whatever reason, I felt like it was that part that'd persuaded her to nail me to my seat.

I don't know where the conversation went after that. I knew that it was wrong, but I couldn't help but get lost in the feeling of her body on top of mine. I couldn't help but revel in it. In knowing that she'd placed her weight and trust in me alone, that I was the solid foundation keeping her upright. Maybe it was the fact that I could feel her breathe at the same time as I could smell her warm perfume, or maybe it was just the fact that having her so close made every part of me so still, but my heart was going haywire at the proximity.

I wanted to give in to that sweet, electric moment. Christ, did I want to. But there was something nagging at me. Something stopping me from placing my hands on her waist. From guiding her further back so that her back hit my chest in the place where I knew it just fit. It was like a little voice, a beaming light, was badgering me in the back of my mind.

Because while the feeling of Madi sitting on my lap was unbearably good, I knew that it meant one thing.

I knew that it meant something was wrong.

"Hey," I uttered, clearing my throat again when the word came out gravelly. "What have you had to drink tonight?"

She didn't answer me straight away. She was rather distracted collecting the food on her paper plate. She pierced one of everything—a piece of lettuce, a chunk of beetroot, some apple, some orange—before cupping her hand underneath her fork, swiveling in my lap, and moving her utensil into the air.

Moving it directly in front of my parted lips.

And, then, her gaze followed suit.

Up close, I noticed that her eyes were even glassier than I'd initially thought. It was barely seven o'clock, but her black, smoky lids drooped like it was past twelve.

Still, I opened my mouth wider. I didn't resist her as she moved her fork inside. How could I? She was clearly enjoying that meal, and she'd felt some kind of urge to share that enjoyment with me.

It was the most insanely adorable thing I'd ever experienced.

I paid little mind to the salad as she slipped it inside my mouth. I didn't hear or see the reactions of my friends over Madi's head. My focus was on her. On what she doing. On the swirling blues and greys of her sleepy eyes as she dragged the utensil back out slowly, fixated on my lips as the cool plastic pulled against them.

Just like that, Madi's adorable, childlike gesture shed its youthful exterior. Just like that, she'd jumped from unassumingly sweet to painfully, intolerably stimulating.

I was so lost to her unexplained captivation that I forgot how to function, neglecting to chew and swallow until she'd turned back around to look down at her plate.

"Nothing," she finally answered. Out from her gaze, I felt a pent-up exhale release from my lungs. "Just that orangey, tropical punch thing."

My brow furrowed, a new sensation compounding whatever the hell I was already feeling.

"Madi ... there's tequila in that."

I couldn't see her face, but I sure as hell felt her breath catch. "Oh." Then, quieter, "Shoot."

I chuckled softly, lifting a hand to comb through her hair. I could sense her irritation with herself—we both knew that Madi and tequila weren't the best of friends—and I quickly gave in to the urge to comfort her.

"It's okay," I started, sweeping her hair to one side. The gesture left her neck and shoulder exposed, and I couldn't stop my hand from following her curls, my fingertips gliding down her soft, bare skin.

That was a mistake.

Touching her like that was a mistake.

I just didn't realize it until her spine straightened ever-so-slightly and a small, breathy exhale spilled from her lips.

It was fuel on top of flame, and I was on fire.

I tore my hand from her in an effort to extinguish the moment. To extinguish it before it went too far.

But Madi turned her head, twisting in my arms. And when she did, her parted mouth was centimeters from my own.

The night wasn't cold, despite us having moved further inland from the coast. But, suddenly, everything that wasn't her felt like a frigid chill. Everything about her—her wide, waiting eyes, her scarlet, open lips—drew me in like a match in the middle of the Arctic.

"Sorry," she murmured, the word leaving her in the smallest kind of whisper. One that was really just a disguised breath of air, that brushed against my skin and caused my heart to thrash inside my chest.

I didn't know what she was apologizing for. For drinking, maybe? That's what we'd been talking about, wasn't it?

I honestly couldn't remember.

I shook my head, releasing a laugh that was designed to downplay the moment. But it didn't sound light or airy the way I'd intended it to. It was throaty and deep, conflicted and dense. "You don't have to apologize."

Her eyes flashed at the sound of my voice. My breathing staggered at the thought of what that could mean.

Through it all, I knew one thing.

There was no way in hell that I could keep myself from kissing her.