The number stayed blocked.
But the feeling didn't.
That eerie sense of being watched, followed—like someone was a step behind her even when the sidewalk was empty. Mira chalked it up to anxiety, to memories that played dirty when they resurfaced. But something about it lingered.
At work, she caught herself checking the window every few minutes. At home, she double-locked the doors. She didn't tell Jace—not yet. Not while she could still pretend it was all in her head.
But her gut whispered otherwise.
---
Jace, meanwhile, was busy at the shop, rebuilding a vintage guitar amp for a client who insisted on analog everything. Mira came by in the evenings, sometimes with food, sometimes with nothing but her presence.
He loved that about her—the way she didn't need to fill every silence with noise. With her, quiet had weight. It had meaning.
"You're distracted," he said one night.
She hesitated. "I've just been remembering things I wanted to forget."
He didn't push. "If you need to run, I'll run with you."
That hit her harder than she expected.
"I don't want to run," she said. "I want to stay."
"Then stay," he said, simply. "I'm here."
---
Two days later, someone left a note on her windshield.
It was folded once, no envelope. Slid just under the wiper blade.
"Miss me?"
No name. No number.
Just that.
Her blood turned to ice.
She looked around, but the parking lot was empty. Nothing but the echo of engines in the distance and the hard thump of her heartbeat.
She crumpled the note, shoved it in her bag, and drove straight to Jace.
---
He knew something was wrong before she spoke.
"What happened?"
She dropped the note in his hand.
He read it once. Twice. His face went cold.
"Do you think it's him?" he asked.
She nodded. "It's his handwriting."
Jace set the note on the workbench and rubbed his jaw.
"Okay. First, we report it. Then we change your locks. Then we install a damn camera. And after that, you stay with me."
"Jace—"
"This isn't a debate, Mira. I'm not letting anyone scare you back into silence."
She stared at him.
At the man who didn't flinch in the face of her past.
At the man who was already building a wall around her—not to trap her, but to protect her.
"I'm not used to being protected either," she said.
He stepped forward, took her hand. "You don't have to be used to it. You just have to let me."
---
That night, she packed a bag.
One night turned into two. Two turned into a week.
And every morning, she woke up a little less afraid.
Because for the first time in a long time, someone wasn't just loving her.
He was choosing her. Again. And again. And again.