Stacy

It took me three seconds to start to cry.

Eighteen minutes to make it home.

Two hours to open the ice cream.

Half a day to open the vodka.

After that…well, things got cloudy.

I wasn’t a drinker. Having spent so much time sick and not in control of my own body sort of killed that need for me. But there were times when nothing else would do. Hearing Maverick call me defective was one of those times.

So I spent a lot of time making martinis and crying into my ice cream. I didn’t bathe, didn’t get dressed, and really didn’t even leave the couch. Well, except to brush my teeth every day. Ice cream and vodka did not contribute to good oral hygiene.

Basically, I was a sloth. A sad, angry, drunk, sugar-coma suffering sloth for a couple of days. It was a good thing I tended to hoard my sick time at work in case of an emergency. A two-day bender due to being called defective seemed like an emergency for sure.

But two days of staying in bed hiding from the world with my phone on do-not-disturb left me feeling worse than ever. I was lonely; there was no shame in admitting that. I hadn’t even called Macy because…well, what if Maverick was there with her? Or what if she told me something supportive like good riddance or you’ll find better—those awesomely hurtful words laced with good intentions that never did seem to help. If she’d started a conversation with something about the number of fish in the sea, I would have lost my mind. That would be like the final nail in the coffin of my relationship. The end. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Do not expect to be brought back from the dark side. Ever.

So I refused to call her or even look at my phone for fear of what I’d see there. Of course, she hadn’t come by, so I guess I wasn’t as much of a concern for her as I’d always assumed. Or maybe she was just too caught up with her new alien heartthrob to worry about her sister anymore.

Ugh…way to drop the depressive bomb again, Stacy.

So I wallowed. Not going to lie. It was hard-core, solid wallowing for sure. But wallowing never got you anywhere, so on the third day post defective conversation, I got up, turned my phone off without looking at a single message, and went back to work. After I showered, of course.

Being back at my desk was soothing in an odd sort of way. Distracting, maybe. I worked hard, completely focused on my projects and reports so I didn’t sink into thoughts of my sister or my alien or defective anything. I functioned to the best of my ability, which really was pretty damn good. Cell phone off, emails only accepted to my professional account, no social media. No outside life to worry about.

It was oddly freeing…and wholly terrifying.

For the first time ever, I honestly thought about moving out of Michigan. And by thought, I meant researched other places to live. Maybe Detroit just wasn’t the place for me. I’d almost died there, had barely lived there, and had my heart broken more times than I cared to admit there. I could go someplace else, start new. Find a life away from my twin and my cancer history and…him. Both hims. Chad and Maverick. I could walk away and be free of all the old baggage I’d been hauling around for years.

But deep down, I hated the idea of leaving Macy behind. Maverick, too, if I was being honest. My mind may have hated him, but my heart hadn’t gotten the memo just yet. I missed him while I was wallowing. I craved him. The very idea that we’d reached the end of our coupledom physically hurt me as nothing else ever had.

So while I scanned apartment listings in places like Portland, Austin, and Chicago, I gripped my phone, thinking about turning it on to see what sort of alerts I had. Wondering if anyone had called or texted. Wondering if Maverick had reached out to me.

But the phone stayed off, and I locked down any hope of some sort of grand romantic gesture from my alien mail order boyfriend. If he’d wanted to talk to me, he could have. He knew where I lived. Hell, he knew where I worked.

But no one showed up.

And nothing else mattered, because showing up was ninety-five percent of success.

At least, that’s what the inspirational picture hanging in the lunch room told me.

Maverick

Two days was a long time to go without seeing my mate, without talking to her, without knowing what had happened to make her so angry.

Two days was agony.

“You’re an idiot,” Macy spat for about the tenth time since she’d shown up at my unit. Yeah, her sister wasn’t too happy with me.

Not that I was willing to admit her insults bothered me. “I’m a male.”

“A male idiot.”

“What do you know?” I asked, stamping down the fire of my anger. Macy wasn’t the one who’d hurt me, but she was close and an easy target. I had to walk a fine line to keep myself under control.

Macy didn’t hide from her words like her sister did. Those dark eyes so much like my Stacy’s pierced right through me. “I know you really care about her.”

I grunted, unable to say anything to that. Of course I cared. How could a mate not care? And she was my mate. I’d crooned a hundred times for her, but she’d pulled away from me. Hidden herself behind that mask. And then she’d slammed the door in my face.

“See?” Macy said, sitting up as if excited and pointing at me. “That was a positive grunt. You care, so why not reach out to her?”

“She threw a tantrum like a child.”

“So now you’re going to be stubborn like one? Yeah, that’ll work out.” Macy sighed, looking so much like her sister it made my chest ache. “I need to talk to her.”

“No. This is my decision, Macy. We let her be for a few days.” My decision, but not one I felt confident in anymore. Every day, every hour, had worn on my certainty that this plan would work. Stacy needed to come back, to make the effort to figure out what had happened. She was in the wrong.

Macy said I was being stubborn.

Hudson said I was being a glutton for punishment.

I knew I was being cautious. But it hurt. A lot.

“She’s going to think we abandoned her,” Macy said, looking so heartbroken, I almost caved right there.

“She hasn’t called us either.” And that was something that bothered me. Stacy always called and texted. Every day. All the time. If not me, her sister. But she’d gone completely silent.

“She’s turned off her phone,” Macy reminded me. “She does that when things really hurt her. She also turns to ice cream and alcohol, so I guess we can only hope she stays sober enough not to drive anywhere. Or make bad decisions.”

I growled, unable to stop myself. I needed to be with Stacy, to protect her, but feeding into her behavior wouldn’t help anything. She needed to reach out, to make the first move. She’d screwed up.

Hadn’t she?

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I said. Voicing my doubts was a hard admission. I was the pilot of our ship, the one who led the way and made all the decisions. But in this? Dealing with a human mate I hardly knew? I was lost. Adrift in a world I barely understood with a female who turned my life upside down and inside out.

I was clueless.

“You’ve got until seven tonight,” Macy said, standing up and heading for the door. “She’s my sister, and if you don’t fix things today, I’m going over to her apartment and dragging her out. I’ve played your game because it’s your relationship on the line, but I won’t lose my sister in any way, for any reason. Get your head out of your ass, Maverick.”

She turned her back on me as if to leave. Just like Stacy had done. Her dark hair flying out behind her as Stacy’s had. Her arm reaching for the door like Stacy’s had. Another stab to my already wrecked heart.

Another reminder of the day my mate walked away from me.

Everything I had on the inside broke as I relived my mate leaving me behind. Every ounce of strength and resolve, every bit of wisdom I’d learned, gone. I had nothing left, no way to resist the call to simply be angry. To hate myself for how many mistakes I’d made.

I had failed my match, and I wasn’t sure if I could fix it.

Frustrated, I growled and grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on. It was a hammer I’d left on the counter, one with good weight and a nice handle. One that fit my hand perfectly. I didn’t care. I threw that hammer in the opposite direction of Macy, embedding it in the drywall next to me. White dust flew into the air, grit and dirt mingled into particles that would gum up any engine. Would destroy the smooth glide of any piece of machinery. I usually hated grit, but this time, I didn’t care that those particles would soon be making their way into everything around me.

The cloud was just another mess to clean up, but the situation with Stacy was more important. More vital.

More dangerous.

Macy spun at the noise, her eyes wide, even though the hammer hadn’t been anywhere near her. “What are you—”

Before she could finish her sentence, Hudson came crashing through the door. He snarled and set himself between Macy and me, guarding. Protecting.

I didn’t blame him.

“What was that?” he asked, keeping his eyes on mine.

“I threw a hammer.”

He softened, looking almost confused. “Why?”

“Because I screwed up. Because I hate myself for how I’ve acted. Because I miss my mate.”

It was Macy who responded. “Why don’t you tell her that?”

“Tell her what?”

“All of that. Tell her how you feel.”

“How I feel?” I gripped my mane, pulling my head back to stare at the ceiling, digging past the hurt and the pain and the anger. Past the defensiveness I’d developed over years of loss. Past everything to the very core of my being. “I want her as my mate. I want her here with me forever. I want to take care of her and make her laugh every day.”

“So why don’t you tell her that?” Macy asked. “You’re such a guy. You think she somehow magically knows how much you care about her? She doesn’t. You need to use words to confirm your feelings. You need to express what you want and how she fits into your life. You need to talk, Maverick.”

I let go of my mane, dropping my head to meet her gaze once more. “But she won’t talk to anyone.”

Before Macy could respond, her phone rang. And she smiled. “Yeah, she will, apparently.”