Page 34 of Ruthless Alpha
“Rough morning?”
“You have no idea,” I said.
“Pack problems or Rosie problems?” Jace asked, gesturing for me to pass him a pair of pliers. I did so absently, hardly caring what he needed them for.
“Rosie problems.”
“She still angling to go home?”
God, I hoped not.
“We’re mates.”
That got Jace to put down his tools. I could see his big, stupid brain working, turning those two words over and over until he landed on the most pertinent follow-up question:
“How is that a problem?” he asked. “You still hung up on the age thing?”
“No,” I replied. I really wasn’t—fate was fate, and if anything, it made me feelbetterabout being drawn to her initially. “I didn’t think therewasa problem, but then I came downstairs this morning and she was acting like—like it was justa normal morning.” Even that was an understatement. Rosie was more tense and more strung out than I’d seen her in weeks. “I was going to blow everything off today so we could spend the day together, but she didn’t want that. She practically threw me out the door.”
Jace put his thinking face on. If this had been about anything else, I would have been confident he could find a solution—Jace was the smartest person I knew—but relationships weren’t as easy to fix as cars or heaters or plumbing systems.
“Did you—and I know this might sound like a stupid question—but did you ask her what was wrong?” he said eventually.
“Yeah. I asked her if I’d done anything, and she said no.”
Jace shook his head.
“That’s not the same as asking if something’s wrong,especiallywith females,” he said. “Maybe she just needs time to digest everything. Her whole life got upended like a month ago, and she’s learning to tap into magic she’s been repressing forever, and now she’s got a mate, too? Give her some space, man. It’s probably all she needs.”
He shrugged, like this was nothing, like it was a small problem with an obvious solution that I was stupid not to have seen.
“Because you’re an expert now?” I snapped back. Despite the morning’s hard training, I was suddenly angling for a fight again, and Jace clearly knew it. He didn’t rise to me, because apparently he had more control over himself at twenty-five than I ever had.
“Hey, you brought it up,” he retorted. “Sounded like you might want some help.”
“Not from you.”
Jace didn’t reply to that one, turning his attention back to the project. He’d dismissed me like I was no one, like I didn’t outrank him, and for a moment, I wanted to drag him up by his collar and make him pay for that insolence.
I remembered just in time that I wasn’t that kind of asshole.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed, slumping down onto the bench next to him. “I just—I never thought I’d have this. The whole mate thing. And now I feel like it’s slipping through my fingers.”
Jace, who might be a saint, shook his head.
“Give her the day,” he said. “She’ll clean the house like every speck of dust personally offends her, and she’ll be all sorted out by the time we get home.”
“You think so?”
Jace nodded sagely.
“I am an expert in the female mind,” he said, earning a punch in the arm.
“Alright,” I allowed. It didn’t quite silence the anxious thoughts jostling for attention, but it did quieten them enough for me to concentrate on what I’d come here for. “What are we tinkering with now? I thought we were good on the release mechanism?”
We spent the rest of the afternoon fine-tuning the clasps—or at least, Jace did. I spent the afternoon passing him tools, giving single-syllable answers to his questions, and fretting about Rosie.
Give her the day. I could do that. Give her the day, and my mate would be back in my arms.
