All Out Of Love

Slow Burn

Author Note: A shorter update but I'm proud of it either way. I hope you are enjoying the story this far. Are you cheering for Madison and Preston as much as I am. What should their ship name be?

"So are you going to tell me what happened on your date with Mr Yum Yum or am I going to have to pry it out of you?"

"Maybe,"

After her date with Preston earlier in the week, Madison had practically been floating on cloud nine. Each night while the rest of the world slumbered, she replayed each small detail of their date.

Now along of the sheer exhaustion of filming which generally kept her awake, thoughts of Preston now added to her sleep deprivation. Her lips tingled, still buzzing from their kiss.

Many would call her over-excitement naive. Although her time with Preston had comprised the stuff of fairy-tales, she couldn't pretend that there weren't things in his past that left her uneasy.

Even though he had spoken fondly of his children, she could tell that their mother was a sore topic for him. Each time when he spoke about the girls, his hand instinctively formed into a fist as if holding onto unspeakable pain.

As the daughter of divorced parents, Madison knew that pressing for more information would only cause him to crack before closing off entirely. Living through a messy and public divorce in front of her father's congregation had left deep scars that had only faded by attending intense therapy throughout her teenage years.

Even then, soon after her fifteenth birthday she spiralled into a deep dark depression after the rumour mill at her private Christian school had gone from hushed whispers and pointed fingers into bullying from older girls who saw her as "the daughter of the gold-digging tramp" after her mother's remarriage to one of the richest hotelier's on the West Coast.

What had come after was a long, extended stay at a rehabilitation centre for teenage girls following a suicide attempt when the bullying from the students at school and the silent gossip at church had all gotten too much.

To avoid the stares once she returned, she finished high school on the West Coast and moved in with her mother and stepfather until she left for college.

Although some might've seen Preston's inability to speak openly about his past as a potential red flag, she understood that some experiences required absolutely trusting someone to reveal.

"We've never been the type of friends to keep secrets from each other," Kristin scowled, folding her arms in front of her chest, snapping her out of her obvious daydreaming.

"I don't ask you guys what's going on between the two of you so why should I tell you," She teased, smirking as her friends shifted uncomfortably trying to focus on anything in the room but each other.

"There's nothing going on with Noblesse and I..." Kristin's voice trailed off leaving the sentence hanging as if she was trying to convince herself of the lie she told herself.

From the other side of the room, Noble twitched uncomfortably as he read through the notes the young production offered for his pre-date segment. His expression was grim and strained as he flipped through the pages while the young, preppy makeup artist fawned over him.

Normally Noble played along for his own amusement but today he seemed almost anti-social. While he still spoke to her normally and goofed around as they normally did, he could see that there was something on his mind that was deeply troubling him.

"So why do both of you look like you came to my funeral instead of helping me settle my nerves before this group date," Madison bit, rolling her eyes as she glanced between her two friends.