Did he actually want me to tell his brand-new boyfriend my crazy story? Did he want to scare poor Humphrey away?

I shook my head. Humphrey glanced from me to Ezra and back again. “What am I missing here?”

Ezra looked fit to burst. He was bobbing up and down on the spot, his cheeks red with the effort of keeping it in.

I sighed. “I suppose he’s inner circle worthy … you can tell him. But if he decides we’re both insane, that’s on you.”

“Tell me what?” Humphrey glanced at Ezra, who looked like a kid who’d just been given free rein in a candy store.

“Jemma’s Blondie is the Son of Satan, and they met when she accidentally bargained her soul for a box of donuts, and now she has to do these tasks to try and win it back, but I think they’re both actually falling in love for real and just neither of them is prepared to admit it to the other, but Jemma still has to win her soul back from him and we have to help her!”

Ezra bent over, hands on his knees and gasping for air.

“Okay …” Humphrey said, his voice dubious. I held my breath. He was going to tell us both that we were lunatics, and kick us out of his studio, and never speak to either of us again … which was going to make being his neighbour at Lakeside Markets super awks.

“Can you repeat that at a pace that is actually understandable? All I got was Satan is in love with Jemma …” Humphrey’s face was adorably confused.

So we did.

* * *

“Okay, so I think the plan is, we get SJ to fall in love with Jemma.” Humphrey took a giant bite of his pizza, letting the shock of his statement wash over us.

I flopped against the back of the sofa, and a breath whooshed out of me. We’d come back to our apartment to ‘brainstorm’, which couldn’t be done without pizza and sangria.

But apparently, ‘brainstorming’ was just the pair of them trying to matchmake me with a literal devil.

A devil who made me feel all fluttery and fuzzy and squishy inside. Damn him!

I managed to shut my mouth long enough to form words. “So … we’ve gone from seducing him into giving it back to me, or at least being distracted enough to make it easy for me to win it back … to actually making the Son of Satan fall in love with me … can devils even fall in love?”

I told my stupid heart to stop trying to vibrate its way out of my chest. Because there was no way that he was going to fall in love with me.

But maybe there is … that silly, romantic part of my brain whispered.

“When do you think you’ll see him again?” Ezra asked, slurping on his sangria.