I can feel every spring of this couch digging into my spine, like a reminder of the thousand things that have gotten f****d up between us. Let her off the hook, you i***t, they seem to be screaming at me. You know she wouldn't betray you. But the words come out of my mouth all wrong. "Right, right. I guess you thought Katerina wanted to be best f*****g friends. The two of you were going to stay up late talking on the phone, gossiping and sharing notes about the man you've both slept with." A humiliated blush rises in her cheeks. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale. Idiot. "I came here to bring you back," I grit out under my breath. "I was going to be calm." Calm. That's a f*****g joke. I haven't been "calm" around Nova since the moment we met. It was all or nothing from the very

