"What did she say?" I mumbled to Noah, shuffling closer to my phone.

"How many girls have you dated?" he repeated.

I screwed up my face, lost in thought while I mulled over how to weave the truth into an appealing response. "Huh. Okay." I cupped my hand around the phone, directing my hushed voice into the speaker. "Say ... um. Say, you went on some dates in high school—"

"I went on a couple of dates in high school," Dex repeated on the other end of the line.

"A couple?" his interrogator—Holly's best friend—queried. "Why nothing serious?"

Noah rocked onto his heels, Dex's bed shifting under his weight. He lowered his face to the phone as I'd done. "Say that you haven't met the right girl yet. That you don't just want to date for the sake of it, you know? You're waiting for someone special."

We heard Dex adjust his AirPods before repeating, "I haven't met the right girl yet, I guess..."

Noah settled back onto the bed while Dex paraphrased his answer, reaching for the popcorn, the plastic rustling loudly as he gathered the kernels. I glared at him. He mouthed a sorry, slowing his movements, then extended me a handful.

I took it. Obviously.

The idea to use our phones and AirPods in lieu of a walkie-talkie had been mine. Naturally. Dex had been in an absolute state about going on a group date with Holly and her friend when I'd arrived in his room with James, adamant that he was going to be interrogated, then judged. Deep down, I knew he was right. My girlfriends and I had all done the same thing once upon a time—cornered each other's new flings and questioned their intentions with our girl.

If only one of my friends had questioned Eli as intensely as Holly's friend was questioning Dex.

"So, you think Holly's special?" Mila prodded, her voice low and flecked with a hint of protectiveness. Even I had to admit that she was a tough nut to crack.

I liked her.

Dex hesitated before answering, and it took us a second to realize that he was waiting for us to tell him what to say.

"I think you've got that one, buddy," James uttered from Dex's gaming chair, his lips curving into a fond smile. He was silhouetted against the closed drapes, the white fabric only making his eyes look all the more blue.

Cobalt? I wondered. Or more of an azure?

"Right," Dex sputtered. We all winced. "I mean ... uh, yeah. Of course I do—"

"Ease up, Mila!" Holly's laugh wafted through the speaker. It was such a sweet sound, like warm syrup on top of chocolate pancakes. "Dex, wou... you e...use us fo... a mo..."

Noah, James, and I sprung forward in unison, hovering over the phone while the sound continued to cut in and out.

"What's happening?" Noah shout-whispered, waving his hands in the air frantically as if that would bring the situation back under control.

I picked my phone up from the bed to play around with the volume controls. But before I could figure out what was causing the poor connection, it cut out completely.

Noah groaned. "Uh-oh."

A new panic was twisting my stomach into tiny knots, only intensifying when I realized that, with the line cut, Dex was all but completely on his own with Holly and Mila. Completely left to his own devices.

I groaned.

My entire assignment was relying on Dex's socially-awkward ass making it through that date. With the way that things were going with Holly's brazen friend, I wasn't all that confident that Dex could make it on his own. Which meant that my project, my shot at that internship, was in jeopardy.

Uh-oh, indeed.

"Maybe it's your phone." James frowned, taking out his own and scrolling to find Dex's number.

"No!" I snatched it from him, the awkward movement causing a sharp pain to shoot up my right hand. I winced, doubling over to press down on my sore knuckles, one of which was already decorated with a patchwork of purple splotches.

It wasn't bad enough that Elijah had scarred my heart. Now the memory of him threatened to plague my skin, too.

James' eyes shot to my hand, his blue eyes swimming with concern. "You okay?"

He'd kept his promise. He'd hunted down an ice pack from the first aid room without forcing me to see the nurse, and he'd crafted some excuse about me tripping in the hall to pacify Noah. Still, even with the ice, he continued to fuss about me like I was a child. He'd even offered to cut my take out into smaller pieces—as though I'd injured my jaw and not just my hand.

"We can't call Dex," I told him pointedly, tacitly sidestepping his question. "He has to call us. Otherwise, his phone will ring, he'll have to answer it, and everyone at the table will wonder why he hasn't hung up."

James' smile fell into a little o shape. He nodded. "Right."

"Newb," Noah teased under his breath.

"So, what? We just ... wait?" 

I tossed my phone back down on the bed with my left hand, then wrapped my right one in its icy compress. "We wait."

We all jumped as Noah's phone started to ring, half-surprised and half-impressed that Dex had so quickly taken the initiative to call us again on a different line.

As it turned out, it wasn't Dex at all.

"Tyler, calm down," Noah cried, springing up from the bed. "Slower, babe. Where are you?" He paused to listen for his boyfriend's reply, bewilderment written all over his face. "Of course. I'm leaving now. Stay in the gas station 'til I get there."

"What's wrong?" James asked as Noah hurriedly put on his coat.

He sighed regretfully. "Tyler's car broke down off the highway. He's called for a tow but it's going to be an hour."

"Where was he coming back from?"

I detected a hint of irritation in James' tone. I could tell by the look on Noah's face that he had, too. But, just as I'd done second before, he ignored the question.

He regarded James with knitted brows, a sheepish smile creeping onto his lips. "Mind if I take your car?"

James stood to retrieve his keys from his desk almost instantly, making more of an effort to hide his disapproval. "Of course not. Do you want me to come with you?"

Noah waved a hand dismissively, already partially in and out of the door. "All good. You stay here with Madison. Dex will probably call soon, anyway."

We barely got a chance to wave him off before the door slammed behind him.

And, in the silence, Noah's words hit me.

You stay with Madison.

I bit down on my teeth in an effort to mask my nerves. James and I were... alone. Our buffer was gone. Dex was yet to call us back or even drop a text about what happened to our connection. There was literally nothing for James and I to do.

Nothing except talk about what had happened with Elijah. About who he was, about what he'd done.

No, thank you.

Panic clawed at my already tangled stomach as I stood, looking around the room for something to busy myself with. Something that would stop the conversation from lulling, from looping back to whatever happened that afternoon. Sure, I could've gone back to my room to get some homework to work on, but I was worried that if I suggested it, James would feel the need to escort me to make sure that Elijah had truly left. Which would inevitably segue into a discussion about Elijah himself. AKA: the last thing on earth that I wanted to talk about, especially with James.

Who was already sauntering back towards me with a shy smile.

"Listen, I've been thi—"

"Laptop!" I cried.

He scrunched up his face. He looked unfairly pretty while doing so. "Laptop?"

I nodded as though my cry of panic was completely, utterly understandable. "Can I use your laptop?"

"For?"

"For research." I scoffed to buy myself time, still stringing a believable excuse together in my head. "Holly accepted my Facebook friend request today. Which means that we have more access to her stuff now."

James continued to peer at me cautiously. I breathed steadily through my nose, trying to appear casual—innocent—under his interrogative stare.

He failed to swallow an amused chuckle. "Right. You're still on crazy cyber-stalker mode."

No, I'm on secure-that-coveted-internship mode. By any means necessary.

I grinned. "Sure am."

James hesitated. After a second of thought, he shook his head, walking to his side of the room to retrieve his laptop.

"Knock yourself out," he joked. But instead of walking back over to hand it to me, he plopped it down on his bed.

On the other side of the room.

I let out a loud, pointed groan, making a show of hoisting myself off Dex's bed and trudging over to James'. But navigating a laptop—hell, navigating anything—with my untrained left hand was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I caught James watching my efforts from the corner of my eye. He was leaning back against his bedhead, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. Funny, how he almost always seemed to be on that thing, but never answered my damn messages.

"You know, we need a name for you."

"A name?" I questioned, punching my login information into the bar.

James nodded thoughtfully, chewing on his bottom lip while he appraised me. "Yeah. A detective name, or a spy name. Like... Madison Drew. Madison Bond."

I couldn't help but notice that he'd refrained from calling me Madi that evening. He was usually so stubborn about it, it was hard not to notice. The logical part of my brain chalked it up to coincidence; it wasn't like James to back down. But another part, a smaller, juvenile part, was telling me that it might have had something to do with Elijah's visit.

I was probably overthinking it.

"Wow," I replied dryly, searching for Holly's profile amongst the faces on my friends' list. So many of them seemed like strangers now. "All such great options—"

"Christ!" James exclaimed, slapping his hand to his forehead comically. "It's right there in front of us." He motioned to me dramatically, as though presenting me on stage to accept an award. "Watson!"

I looked up to find his reflection in the computer screen. That irritating smirk was once again tugging at his lips.

I smiled weakly at his grand gesture. "Ha. Yeah."

"Jeez, it's perfect, isn't it?" He cocked his head, narrowing his sparkling blue eyes. He looked quite pleased with himself. "Holmes and Watson," he mused, more to himself than to me. "I like it."

"And who's Holmes?" I asked, scrolling all the way down on Holly's profile. When my question went unanswered, I turned to James with a raised eyebrow. "Who's Holmes, James?"

He motioned around the empty room guiltily. "Well... me."

Shock thundered through me.

And then I laughed.

Actually, genuinely laughed. The pain in my hand was secondary to belly-aching amusement as I lifted it to cover my gaping mouth, my eyes probably squinting so much they looked like squished bugs. So I didn't know why James was suddenly looking at me like I'd performed some kind of magic trick.

"What the hell makes you think you're Holmes?" I managed to ask between hysterical breaths. "If anything, I should be Holmes. I'm the one who gathered intel on Holly. I'm the one who initiated contact. If this whole thing was left up to you, Dex would still be moping about in this room, shooting zombies on his computer. If anyone's Sherlock here, James, it's me."

I watched his brow furrow, his head tilted in thought. "But that doesn't make sense. Your last name's Watson—"

"And your last name's Bennet. That doesn't mean we're a couple from some sappy Jane Austen novel."

The words spilled from my lips before I could stop them.

Then, silence. Nothing but silence rang in my ears.

God, why did I say that?

To my relief, James left the comment alone. I turned back to his laptop, grateful to the makeup that had survived my crying for shielding my pink cheeks, and letting my hair fall forward to hide everything it couldn't. The silence that suddenly cloaked us was probably for the best, allowing me to concentrate solely on the task at hand. Though my laughter left when it came.

After a few more minutes of quiet scrolling, I'd learned that Holly was an avid gamer, that she used to work at her local art gallery, and that she had a Dalmatian called Winkie who was the sweetest, cutest boy I'd ever damn seen. I was knee-deep in puppy pictures, trying to think of a way to use my newfound knowledge for Dex's benefit when James cleared his throat from his spot on the bed behind me.

"Should we talk?"

I turned my face in his direction, but my eyes were still tied to the screen. "About?"

A shadow crept over his careful gaze. He swallowed a light laugh, locking his phone and tossing it aside. "About what happened."

Did Madison really think she was going to get out of having *that* conversation? Wishful thinking, girlfriend 😂

What do you think about James lying to Noah about the cause of her injury? This is the second time he's lied to help Madi now! Maybe she's starting to rub off on him?

And, lastly, a very fitting meme

^^ Because I can literally imagine Madi and James having this conversation 💀 #Johnlock

I can't wait to share the next chapter! It's one of my favorites!

Danielle x