“Why is it so important to you to get the Pod up and running?” she asked him as her curiosity finally got the best of her. She secretly hoped that maybe he wanted to stay around her too, but she would never tell him that.
“I told you. To save lives,” he responded. He hadn’t gotten her hint.
“Yes, I know, you told me that. But I mean, why is it so important to you on such a clearly personal level?”
He frustrated her. All she could seem to get out of him in response before he clammed up was, “It’s not a happy story.”
Her failed attempts to get him to open up to her really started to upset her. Here she was, opening up to him about her sister and their life, and he refused to do the same for her. But she had to remember that he was a human, not a shifter.
He doesn’t have the same fated mate sense I do, which means I feel something for him that he doesn’t for me.
She needed to find a way to manage her expectations and rein in what she had started to let herself feel toward him. Maybe she even needed to allow herself to put up some walls, to stop letting herself live in the fantasy that there was something between them. She needed to make herself slow down. At least until she was sure he felt the same way.
CHAPTEREIGHT
MAVERICK
Heading back into his condo building, Maverick couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread settle into his stomach.
He didn’t often like to think about his past and what motivated him to do what he did. His drive was behind him becoming a leading researcher at Monroe and what had pushed him into being the way he was.
Tessa was a sore subject no matter how long it’d been since she passed.
He’d felt bad when Pilar had clearly opened a door for communication to happen, waiting for him to be an adult and step through it. But he’d clammed up just like he always did and settled on pushing the subject far away.
Getting into it was just … too much right now.
Especially when turning every corner led to someone trying to attack and kidnap him. It didn’t make for a great sense of stability. Nor did it make him want to open up about the hard truths in his life that directed him down this path in the first place.
Maverick tucked his hands into his pockets and tried not to make it obvious when he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. A frown had settled on her face, one that had been there since the weird tension in the car unfolded.
He wished he was like her and could open up about things without feeling like he was drowning in his own self-worthlessness. Being comfortable enough in the vulnerability that came with sharing your intimate space with another person. She was brave for doing that … much more so than he was.
“Maverick Wilcox. Are you passing by my door without saying hello?”
He whipped around, spotting a familiar face peeking outside of one of the condos on the main floor.
“Aunt Clarice?”
She stood outside of her door, both hands on her hips. “What? Did you think I was a ghost or something?”
He breathed out a nervous laugh. “No …”
Despite his aunt’s small stature, she could pack a mean punch when she wanted to. Being on her shit list was never something that he liked, and being caught red-handed trying to sneak back up to his own place without saying hi spelled disaster.
“Well, where have you been? You’ve been avoiding me.”
Behind him, he could feel Pilar’s stare at the back of his head. Maverick slipped his hands out of his pockets and held them up. “No, no. I’ve just been busy.”
“With? Certainly not coming to see me. That’s for sure.”
Pilar let out a soft snort.
His aunt craned her neck, moving to look around him. “And who’s this? More secrets you’re hiding from me, I see.”
Oh boy …
“It’s not …”