“Were we really that boring?” It was weird to see me and Nash through someone else’s eyes.

Tod laughed. “Yeah. Thank goodness. But then you helped me with Addy, for no reason except that I asked you to, and I started to come over here on my own, just to see you.”

I was half creeped out, half fascinated, and all ears. “When did you stop?”

“When I realized I hated seeing you make out with my brother.”

“I don’t understand.” But maybe I was beginning to, and that ache in my chest deepened.

Tod glanced at my comforter, then met my gaze again. “Okay, I’m starting to realize how creepy this whole thing makes me sound, but try to remember that until you, my whole afterlife was like a one-way mirror. I saw people, but they never saw me. There was no interaction. No involvement. No malice or creepy intent. I’m not like Thane—I never stalked people I was scheduled to reap. I was just…watching. Living vicariously, which is the only way I can live now.”

“I’m with you so far…” And sympathy was starting to win out over the creepy factor. He must have been so lonely.…

“Good.” The tension in his frame started to ease. “Anyway, I stopped watching you when we started hanging out together for real.”

“After Nash started using?” I asked, and Tod nodded. I couldn’t be around Nash while he was going through with drawal. The wounds were still too raw, and the thought of seeing him hurt. But Tod had come over a couple of times during my otherwise lonely winter break, and we’d done…nothing. We’d just hung out, watching stupid YouTube videos and listening to music, openly avoiding the subject of Nash and his frost addiction.

Maybe that should have been my first clue….

“Once I realized I wanted more than friendship from you, it didn’t seem fair for me to see you when you didn’t know I was there.”

My relief was almost enough to mitigate my irritation at having been watched in the first place. “So…if you weren’t spying, how did you know…what Nash and I were about to do the other day?”

“Sabine called me.”

I closed my eyes, resisting the urge to slap my own forehead. How had I not figured that out? I’d called Sabine for advice, then hung up when Nash arrived, and she’d probably had Tod on the phone before my voice even faded from her ear. Damn Sabine! But she wasn’t working alone….

“What could possibly make you think what I do in private is any of your business?” I demanded, my voice low with anger.

“Sleeping with Nash would have been a mistake, and I don’t want anyone to hurt you—including you.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s a mistake for me, Tod.”

He frowned, obviously confused. “Was I wrong? Do you wish you’d done it?”

“No.” Especially now that Nash and I had broken up, and I could see the truth about my own motivations—I hadn’t wanted to sleep with Nash so much as I’d wanted to lose my virginity before I died. “But that’s not the point. I have a right to make my own mistakes, just like everyone else. Don’t ever do that again.”

“Fine.” He recrossed his arms over his chest. “But I’m not sorry I did it. And neither are you.”

I nodded slowly. “Fair enough. So…” I hesitated, not sure I really wanted the answer to what I was about to ask. “Were you and Sabine working together to break up me and Nash?”

“No. She tried to talk me into that when she first got here, but I told you, I didn’t want to be what broke you two up.”

“But you didn’t mind her trying it, even though it’s morally repugnant to intentionally break up someone else’s relationship?”

Tod’s brows arched in amusement over my moral outrage. “How is it wrong to put everything you have into getting what you want most in the world?” Which was exactly what Sabine had done.

Or was he talking about wanting me like that—more than anything else in the world? My pulse raced so fast my head started to swim. He wanted me more than anything? Wait—focus…

“It’s wrong because you don’t have the right to end someone else’s relationship!” Had two years of reaping souls skewed his moral compass, or was he always like this?

“First of all, keep in mind that this is all hypothetical. I didn’t try to break up you and Nash—that was Sabine.” The reaper leaned forward, his eyes bright with interest, enjoying what he obviously saw as a recreational debate. “And second, if the couple shouldn’t have been together in the first place, breaking them up is actually doing a good deed. So you’re welcome. Hypothetically.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or yell at him. “You don’t get to decide who should be together and who shouldn’t!”

“Are you saying I was wrong?” Tod’s gaze narrowed on me in challenge. “Did you really think you and Nash belonged together for the rest of your lives, even after what he did to you?”

Damn it. “I did at first. I thought I could forgive and forget.” I’d tried to. But the truth was that I couldn’t make myself trust him again, though I’d probably never admit to Sabine that she was right about that. “But that’s not the point.”

“That is the point! Right and wrong aren’t as simple as black and white. You and Nash would have done more damage to each other together than the breakup would have done to either of you, and just because you couldn’t see that doesn’t make it wrong for those who care about you both to point out the truth.”