Brighter Than The Stars: Book One

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒯𝓌𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓎-𝐹𝒾𝓋𝑒: 𝒟𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒪𝒻 𝒜 𝒲𝒽𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈

Madeline was already fully packed for the trip yesterday, but enjoyed watching as Elijah struggled to get everything done. Still, her focus was constantly being drawn outside the window as the heavy snow blanketed their small city.

Same thing as last year, and the year before that. They'd have incredible weather until the first snowfall. Back home, winter was like dipping your toes into the water, then slowly allowing inch by inch of your body to sink to become submerged. Here, it was a cannonball in the deep end.

"What happens if it's still like this tomorrow?" Madeline asked, her stare remaining outside from the warmth of bed.

"I go to the grocery store, and we'll do our own Thanksgiving," Elijah answered casually from his small closet. "Honestly, I would have rather done that to begin with, but your dad sounded so excited about me being there for Thanksgiving, I couldn't turn them down."

Madeline's gaze ripped from the window, and her body turned beneath the covers to watch Elijah. "That does sound like it would have been nice. I love going to the Christmas festival, and I love the food, but everyone gets so loud, and I just want to find a quiet corner in my bedroom and hide out."

Elijah let out a quiet laugh. "Trust me, I get it. As much as I like the idea of actually having plans for a holiday, I wouldn't have minded just staying here with you, watching movies and sleeping in, watching the snow fall, knowing we have nowhere to be."

His words sounded like Heaven, causing Madeline to let out a groan of satisfaction just picturing it.

"Unfortunately, the snow's supposed to stop in a few hours, and the roads should be cleaned up by morning," Elijah added, dashing her dreams into oblivion. "But we can always do Christmas Eve with your parents, then come back here to spend Christmas, just the two of us. And there's always New Year's, which I am a pro at blowing off."

Madeline laughed, then turned once again to watch the snow. "It really is pretty when you don't have to drive around in it."

"It's beautiful," Elijah agreed.

"Come, enjoy this with me," Madeline asked, keeping her eyes on the window. "Just for a minute."

The bed dipped, and the down comforter lifted. Within moments, she felt his body pressed against her back, his head held up by the palm of his hand as he stared out the window from above her. "Night's like these, during a storm. That's when I thought about you the most. Wondering if the weather was coming toward you, if you were somewhere safe."

"Ever protective," Madeline teased, then felt his hand move to her neck as he drew small circles with the pad of his thumb.

He snickered behind her, then laid his head down against the pillow. "Always."

There was a full minute of quiet, with Elijah just trailing his fingertips around her skin. From her shoulder to just below her ear, and Madeline had to bite her lip just to avoid allowing the whimper to escape.

"You wouldn't mind spending Christmas without your parents?" Elijah asked, his fingers trailing down her arm, then toward her side, where they caught her shirt. He only touched the flesh for a moment before tugging her shirt down to where it was.

Madeline shook her head, knowing her own voice couldn't be trusted, then moved her body to face him. Elijah shifted himself onto his back, allowing her to rest her head against his chest. "So long as I'm spending it with you, I don't care where we are."

He let out a long breath of air above her, taking his time before he spoke. "I want you to tell me if you ever feel like I'm suffocating you, okay?"

When she glanced up at him, Madeline noticed him looking back at her, his green eyes hazy and his lips in a straight line. "You aren't suffocating me, Elijah. I get that it's probably unhealthy, us spending every moment of free time together, but I'm not ready to give you space, and by the sound of it, you aren't either.

"I'm not saying we can blow off all holidays with my parents, because I love them and they're my family. But I want you to be comfortable. If you think my family get-togethers are going to be too much for you right away, we'll start off small. I can't do anything about Thanksgiving, but we can go back for Memorial and Labor Day weekends, and spend Fourth of July with them. Ones that don't have my entire extended family showing up."

Madeline laid her head back down on his chest, listening to her favorite sound in the world as she spoke. "Now, tell me how we're going to spend Christmas together."

There were a few moments of silence before he answered. "I say we get a tree for the apartment, and we can spend a Saturday decorating it with Christmas music playing. We'll have an early dinner with your parents on Christmas Eve, then come home and turn on a movie in the bedroom, so we can fall asleep to it."

As Elijah traced his fingers up and down her arm, Madeline began to do the same thing to his stomach, noticing his breath hitch just for a moment. Then there it was, right beneath her ear. Proof to her mother's curiosity the day before. His heart picked up speed.

"In the morning," he continued with a slightly strained voice. "I'll wake up early to bring you breakfast in bed. Your hair will be all over the place, because you forgot to put it in a braid, but I'll do my best to pretend I don't notice."

Madeline laughed, doing her own pretending in that moment. Now she pretended she didn't notice how his heart beat heavily against her ear. She pretended she didn't hear his breath hitch once again when she slipped her hand beneath his shirt to trail her fingers against the bare skin of his stomach.

There was no imagining it. Things had shifted between them in that bed as snow fell mercilessly outside. Whether the signs were there the entire time, or had only just become obvious to her, Madeline was certain. Everything growing inside her was within him. "And then what?"

"Hmm?"

"After breakfast in bed, then what?"

Elijah let out a long, slow breath above her, then continued. "After breakfast, we'll go into the living room, take our time enjoying a second cup of coffee, while Christmas songs play at a low volume, then we'll open presents. We've promised each not to go overboard after missing out on so many Christmases together, but apparently we both lied."

The hand that wasn't trailing goosebumps against her arm came up to her face to caress her cheek. "After we've each opened the present we knew the other couldn't afford, we'll turn on the same movie we put on the night before, because we fell asleep fifteen minutes in.

"Then you'll take a long bath while I clean up the mess I made in the kitchen two hours earlier, and we'll go ice skating, where you get to laugh as I fall on my ass over and over again."

"That sounds like a pretty awesome Christmas," Madeline told him.

Elijah's phone beeped by his side, and he let out a huff before turning to check it, forcing Madeline to remove her head from his chest. "Jayden's stuck in the snow with his piece of shit two-wheel drive. He wants me to go get him."

There was something different about his face when Elijah looked at her. An almost dreary smile shifted into the slightest grimace. His eyes shifted across her face, as if he were reading a book. Finally, after what felt like hours of pensive thought, he spoke. "I don't want to go."

Whatever happened moments ago, whatever change of tide occurred, he didn't want to walk away from it. And Madeline didn't want him to, either. If he left, things would go unspoken. Unexplored. But there was little choice. "I don't want you to either, but you have to," Madeline admitted. "It's Jay. Just be safe out there, please."

He let out a heavy breath, then gave her a sweet smile as he removed himself from the bed. "Always."