I need to talk to her. I need . . . her.

His mouth opens; then he closes it. “Right.”

“I’m in love with Delilah.” My confession, blurted out, sounds overloud and makes me wince. I didn’t mean to say that, but now that I have, I feel worse. Because if this is love, it isn’t the fluffy-clouds, walking-on-air shit they claim it to be. And North is here to witness my misery. Hell. Confiding in people is overrated.

North snorts and shakes his head as though I’m being ridiculous. Truthfully, I feel a bit ridiculous at the moment.

“I’m pretty sure everyone who sees you two together knows that,” he says. “I knew you were a goner the second you agreed to her crazy deal.”

“I’m that obvious?”

“Don’t look so horrified,” he says. “I don’t think it’s obvious to Delilah. And clearly you were blind to it.”

“Not anymore.”

His blond brow wings up. “You told her?”

“No.” I pinch the aching space between my eyes. “I was going to. But then Sam showed up, and it all went to hell.” Briefly, I explain, the words just as bitter on the tongue as they were when Delilah and I fought.

“Shit,” he says when I finish.

“Pretty much.”

He rolls his shoulders, then sits back. “So now what?”

The question is a leaden weight on my chest. “I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never . . . fallen.”

I glance his way, but he shakes his head and chokes out a short laugh. “Don’t look at me. I’m the last person who could give you good advice about women.”

He frowns at the screen like it’s his job.

“You fall for Sam?”

I regret asking because he flinches, his entire body recoiling like he’s taken a punch to the gut. But he shrugs lightly. “Fell far enough for it to hurt when I landed. But love?” He looks like he’s tasting something foul. “It was never love with Sam. Just . . . blindly stupid. It quickly became clear she was using me as a distraction and a way to fuck you over.”

“I was afraid of that,” I murmur.

The couch creaks as he turns my way. “You aren’t pissed?”

“Yeah, I’m pissed.” I glare at the screen. “She shit all over you.”

A protracted noise from North has me looking his way. He stares back as though he doesn’t understand. “I meant pissed at me,” he says.

“Why would I be pissed at you?”

“Because Sam was your high school girlfriend. Hell, Saint, you warned me off her.”

“I warned you off her because I knew how she operates and didn’t want you getting caught up in her antics.”

“You warned me off Delilah too.”

My laugh is short and flat. “We both know I did that out of petty jealousy.”

“You said it, not me.”