All Madison wants for Christmas is the same person who once wanted her. Free from the shackles of her broken heart, she's finally ready to give love another shot. But is Madi too late to win back the man of her dreams?
SEQUEL to The Heartbreak Hypot...
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Because you're our friend.
Friend.
Friend.
I pierced a cube of watermelon with my fork, threw it into my mouth, and crunched down on it like it was the one who'd friendzoned me the night before. The true culprit—all golden-haired and dreamy-eyed—was all the way up the other end of my mother's new oak table, swapping terrible Christmas jokes with David while the morning sun cast a striking aura around his perfectly chiseled frame.
Even in a simple fitted shirt and dark blue jeans, James looked far too good for ten-thirty in the morning. I should have been used to it, but it made my stomach twist with unrealized desire even more.
Because you're our friend.
That was possibly the worst thing that he could have said. It made me wish that I'd never asked that stupid question in the first place. That I'd never found the courage to ask him where we stood. If I hadn't, I would still be living in my comfortable world of fantasy and delusion. My heart would still be beating with the hope that he wanted us to be more than what we were now. That he wanted what I did.
For someone who liked to work with numbers, formulas, and facts, I sure did enjoy the promises of fiction.
"Why are Christmas trees so bad at knitting?" Dex asked, reading the tiny line of parchment that fell from our cracker.
"Because they don't have hands," I replied dryly.
"Because they always drop their needles."
I rolled my eyes, but I'm sure he caught the shadow of a smile on my lips. It was hard to stay miserable when Dex was around.
My mother rose regally from the head of the table to collect the used dishes and cutlery. She'd pulled out all the stops for our spontaneous brunch in lieu of Christmas dinner, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I doubted very much that fancy china and crystal would impress my road trip companions—three of which lived in literal mansions.
She waved a hand as Holly started to rise, too, motioning to me with a nod of her head. "Oh no, honey. Madison and I can manage."
That was my cue.
I stood to help her while the rest of our party finished off the (messy) crackers and (terrible) jokes, making sure I didn't trip on Bandit as she rushed around to gather the scraps. She was staying suspiciously close to James, and it was only when I was about to duck out of the room that I realized it was because he was feeding her under the table.
Typical. James had barely spent a full day with my mother, my stepfather, and my dog, and he already had all of them wrapped around his little finger.
"The ski resort sounds beautiful," my mother said as we began loading the dishwasher.
The guys had spent brunch recalling almost every one of their Christmas' up in the snowy mountains, and while I'd already heard each of their stories one hundred times over, I couldn't deny that the resort sounded magical.
