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“Did you need something, North?” I ask.
“I don’t trust this Neanderthal,” he says, pointing at Fox. “I came to make sure he wasn’t planning to club you over the head and drag you to his cave.”
“At least I didn’t lead her on and then dump her way after the fact,” Barrett returns.
North’s eyes seek mine and in them I can read his every thought. How could you tell him about us? That was private.
I shake my head at his silent theatrics.
“That’s none of your business,” North tells Barrett. Then he calmly says to me, “Catarina, would you like me to ask him to leave?”
A loud Ha! comes from Barrett, whose arms are now crossed stubbornly over his chest. Comparing them is like comparing apples to sledgehammers, but I do it anyway. North’s tidy, uptight clothing and fussily styled dark hair over a strong nose versus Barrett’s wrinkled white shirt and jeans, reddish hair and scruff. Both attractive in their own way, but one of them is leaps and bounds more attractive than the other.
“Catarina, answer me,” says the one who’s not winning.
“No,” I state.
“No what?” North asks, flabbergasted.
“No, I don’t want you to ask Barrett to leave.”
“Surely you didn’t invite him over.”
“I didn’t invite you over, either, and yet here you are.”
His eyelids narrow. “The dating is still pretend, correct? Just for the column. This hasn’t morphed into some debased attempt at a rebound relationship.”
Adrenaline shoots down my limbs in response to my ex-boyfriend’s insulting assumption. Barrett approaches me from behind, his body heat blanketing my back.
“North, I’d like you to leave,” I say. “I would thank you for checking on me, but I have a feeling your barging in was more about you than it was me.”
“It’s about you, Catarina.” North’s voice gentles. “The way it should’ve been about you before I let you go.”
Um.
What?
“You heard me,” my ex continues as if I spoke aloud. He glances at Barrett in challenge before lifting my hands with his. “I made a mistake. I came to apologize and ask you to give me another chance. I was confused.”
I must be hallucinating.
“Confused?” Barrett snaps.
“Stay out of it,” I tell him before this situation reaches Popeye and Bluto proportions. This Olive Oyl can take care of herself.
“You heard her,” North gloats. I’ve never seen him gloat before. Before I can tell him to go home, Barrett brushes by me so quickly my hair lifts on the breeze he creates.
“Thanks for the assist,” he mutters as he walks to my front door.
“Fox, you don’t have to—”
But when he turns, I notice his laptop under his arm. He dips his chin in a goodbye to me and then glowers at North. He heads down the hallway toward the elevators without another word.
North turns back to me.
“Smug isn’t a good look on you.” I shut him into my apartment but shatter his hopes a second later. “I’d like you to stay right in this spot until Barrett is gone. I don’t want you two scuffling in the parking lot.”
“Don’t want me to hurt your boyfriend?” More smugness. I can’t remember a time North was smug about anything.
