Page 65 of Space for More

“Go tell your boyfriend he’s been made. I can’t do this. Please, just… just go.”

She gives me one last pleading look, but there’s nothing left in me but anguish. When she listens and heads out the door, I sink down to the floor and let the pain consume me.

Bangingon the door rouses me from my stupor. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, and I push myself up from the squishy, damp bathmat with weak arms. My whole body feels like it was hit by an air taxi.

“Mezli, you okay in there? Eden said you weren’t feeling well.” Fina’s worried voice filters through the locked door. “She looked a little rough, too.”

I wipe the snot and tears from my chin. “I’m f-fine—one second, I’ll unlock?—”

“Mezli, open the damn door!” Phelix shouts from the other side, rattling the door so hard it looks like he might knock it down.

“Why ishestill here?” I croak out the question, not intending to speak aloud but too confused for it not to slip out.

“I’m still here because my mate has locked herself in the hygiene room and our lover ran out of here sobbing, unable to say anything to me except, ‘I need to make this right’. What the fuck is going on, Mezli?”

I stand on wobbly legs, securing the towel around me that had fallen down during my breakdown, and press the button to unlock the door. It slides open to reveal Phelix right on the other side, concern and confusion etched into his stupid, handsome face.

He’s a far better actor than Eden, but it doesn’t make any sense why he’s bothering to keep up their charade. “You know what’s going on. Your pretty pen pal told me everything.”

He scoffs at me, eyes narrowing. “You’ve got to be joking. You’re ruining the chances of the three of us making something together because you’re mad that we spent a handful of weeks talking over comms about hacking into a medipod and mildly flirting? Mezli, we weren’t together. You left! I was lonely and broken, and Eden was the first person who made me hope for something to help me mend even a small piece of my heart. But even then, I stopped talking to her because I didn’t want to give up on the idea of our mate bond.”

“I don’t care about that!” I try to shout, but it comes out more as a pathetic croak. “I care that you’re a criminal who is endangering lives and apparently are so good at ‘mild flirting’ that you convinced Eden to cover it up for you.”

“He’s a criminal?!” Fina pokes around Phelix’s broad shoulder, her eyes wide.

Phelix scowls at me. “No. She must be drunk.”

“I can’t get drunk, you pretentious piece of shit!” I say, shoving against his chest.

Fina pushes past him, ducking under his arm, and moves to stand in front of me defensively. “She’s not drunk. She has an implant that neutralizes alcohol in her system. Got it after she met you and you called her a drunken whore. So back the fuck up and explain why the hell my best friend is so upset, or I’m calling station security.”

My tender heart mends a small amount at her standing up from me. I may have shit luck in love, but I have the best luck in friendship. I confessed to Fina about my implant after a night she was trying to keep up with me on shots—I finally felt safe enough to let her know that my party girl persona wasn’t entirely real, and Ididn’t want her to get alcohol poisoning because I was trying to look cool.

“Phelix, just go be with Eden,” I sigh. “I don’t understand why you’re still here. The mission is over—you know that I know, so there’s no point in me trying to spend more time with you.”

“You may not be drunk, but you’re still not making any sense. What mission?”

I throw my upper hands up in exasperation. “The one to stop you from selling illegal medical schematics!”

“What?”

As I look at my mate’s bewildered expression, a flicker of doubt creeps into my mind. His emotions and thoughts are completely unguarded, and not in the false openness we both are so skilled at. He really doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Shit.

33

Mezli and I stare at each other, her friend between us forgotten. My mind tries to make sense of the bizarre turn this night has taken, running over every interaction I’ve had with her and Eden over the past few days.

Running into Eden in the hygiene room at the conference.

Mezli inviting me to lunch to catch up.

Them propositioning me for sex at the nightclub.

Mezli leaving after we slept together.

Wait, hold on.

Mezli storming off after I knotted Eden and then standing by the closet when we came down to check on her. The closet I hadmy satchel in.

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