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Jay glanced at her across the room. She was talking with a group of girls. All of them were gushing over their daughter, Savanna. It surprised me how much she’d placed herself into a pack she wanted to leave so badly. I was proud of how much my sister had grown, how far she’d come.

“I’m going to grab food.”

I moved past Jay and headed over to the food. I froze when I spotted Katie standing near the other table, grabbing herself a cookie. Her eyes dropped on me, and she looked away. I swallowed, knowing I couldn’t just ignore her.

“Evening, Katie,” I said as I stopped next to her. She gave me a head nod, looking at the table.

I searched for more words, knowing I needed to be able to have a conversation with her. We would have to talk in the future. We had to get past this awkward part if we ever wanted to be able to talk again.

I opened my mouth to say something when someone stopped next to Katie. It was a large man, and he scanned her. “Didn’t know the scientists were invited to this.”

He laughed at his own joke, and I watched as Katie chewed on her cheek.

I ground my teeth together and growled at the man. His eyes quickly looked at me. His eyes widened slightly.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “I didn’t realize my sister invited assholes, yet here you are.”

The man sputtered for words, apologizing and turning, hurrying off. I looked back at Katie, but she turned to me. She glared with her hands in tight fists as she snapped. “What the hell was that for?”

I blinked, surprised. “What do you mean? I was standing up for you.”

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “I do not need you to stand up for me. I don’t need you to do anything for me.”

She turned and marched away. I stood frozen, watching her leave.

Chapter 3 - Katie

I softly hummed a tune as I stood in front of my computer, waiting for it to spit out the next couple. I stared at the little bubble as it loaded, working through all the math and the information I had input.

Anger flared as I thought about how Henrik told off the guy who spoke to me the other day. A part of me was happy that someone wanted to stand up for me, but the other part was annoyed that it was him. He had made himself perfectly clear, so why the hell was he still hanging around me? Why was he asking how I was doing when he didn’t want to waste time on me? It didn’t make sense.

I took a sip of my coffee and surveyed my lab. It was clean, and everything was organized carefully. I enjoyed it, but Sam always thought it was a little too white. I had a few pictures of us hanging over my computer and a few that sat on my desk. I had to hand it to her. She knew how to spruce up a place. The little pictures added color and made it feel a little less empty.

I sighed, staring at the pictures. Sam and I went out to a restaurant. Another was when we were going hiking. There was even one at her baby shower with everyone. This was before Henrik rejected me, of course.

“Nope, enough of that,” I grumbled, looking away from the last photo. “It’s in the past. Let’s leave it there where it belongs.”

Henrik made his point. I could move on. It was just going to take longer than a few months. Besides, he was going to be married to a woman in no time, so he would be someone else's problem. Maybe then he would leave me alone.

My computer beeped, and I turned my attention to it. I read the screen. “Match found.”

I glanced at the printer as it started to print the results. I couldn’t help but be impressed, considering this was my baby. The algorithm behind the system was made by my own head. It churned through everything put in and worked quickly to assemble information. I had used it before to help the women find blood matches and quickly realized if I put in more information, it would be able to find matches for people.

The printer threw out the results, and I grabbed the paper and quickly scanned it. My eyes froze as the names were in bold letters right next to each other.

This had to be a sick joke.

My name sat next to Henriks.

I shook my head and started frantically typing into my computer, trying to get it to recompute because that couldn’t be right. There was no way I was Henrik’s perfect match. We had nothing in common. We had no similar taste, and the man disliked me. The marriage would fail.

But the computer spat out our names together once more.

I started to panic and shook my head. “No. No. This can’t be. There is no way.”

But my computer didn’t lie. It had never been wrong. That was the thing about math…you only got the right answer.

I grabbed my purse and threw the papers onto the table. I made my way out. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear of the results or just needing to walk away and clear my head. Either way, I needed to get away from everything.