Chapter 1
The city didn't warn her.
No gentle flurries. No soft romantic snowfall like the ones she had seen in movies. Just a sudden, violent wall of white that swallowed the streets whole and turned everything unfamiliar even more foreign than it already was.
Mia pulled her coat tighter and told herself she wasn't scared.
She was lying.
This was supposed to be her fresh start. New city. New apartment. New version of herself that didn't flinch every time she heard his name. She had packed two suitcases, booked a one-way ticket, and promised herself she wouldn't look back.
She hadn't counted on the storm.
The address on her phone led her to a building on a quiet street that was now barely visible through the snow. Her fingers were numb. Her suitcase wheel kept catching on the ice. And the key the landlord had messaged her — unit 4B — was somewhere in her bag that she could no longer feel her hands enough to search through properly.
She was so focused on not crying that she didn't hear the door open.
She definitely didn't hear the footsteps.
What she did hear was a voice.
Low. Quiet. The kind of voice that didn't need to be loud to make you stop completely.
"You're blocking the entrance."
Mia turned.
He was standing in the doorway of the building — her building, apparently — one hand resting against the frame, eyes dark and unreadable, looking at her the way people look at something mildly inconvenient. Not rude exactly. Just completely unbothered by the fact that she was standing in a blizzard with two suitcases and what was probably a very obvious expression of barely held together composure on her face.
He was tall. Lean in a way that suggested strength rather than lack of it. Dark hair slightly damp from the snow. A jacket that looked expensive without trying to.
She blinked.
"I'm not blocking anything," she said. "I'm trying to get in."
"The door is behind you."
She turned. The door was indeed directly behind her.
She said nothing. Grabbed both suitcase handles with what was left of her dignity and maneuvered past him into the warmth of the building lobby without making eye contact.
He let her.
She didn't say thank you.
He didn't ask for it.
The elevator was small. Of course it was.
Mia pressed 4 and stared straight ahead, very aware that he had stepped in behind her and pressed nothing — which meant he was already going to the fourth floor.
The doors closed.
Neither of them spoke.
She could feel him standing slightly behind her left shoulder. Not close enough to be uncomfortable. Just close enough to be noticeable. She focused very hard on the illuminated number above the doors and told her heartbeat to behave itself.
"Which unit?"he said.
She glanced at him sideways. "Sorry?"
"Which unit are you in." Not a question. More like he already knew the answer and was giving her a chance to confirm it.
"4B," she said slowly.
Something shifted in his expression. Just slightly. Just enough for her to catch it before it disappeared.
"I'm in 4A," he said.
The elevator doors opened.
Mia stepped out first and didn't look back.
But she heard him behind her the entire way down the hall. Steady. Unhurried. Like a man who had never been rattled by anything in his life.
She found 4B, fumbled with the key, got the door open on the third try, and exhaled the moment she was inside.
She leaned her back against the closed door in the dark and listened.
Across the hall, another door opened.
Then closed.
Silence.
Mia let out a long slow breath and looked up at the ceiling of her new apartment in her new city on the first night of her supposed fresh start.
Great, she thought. My neighbour hates me already.
She didn't know yet that hate was the furthest thing from what Lin was feeling.
She didn't know that on the other side of that wall, he had sat down on his couch in the dark and stayed very still for a long time.
Thinking about eyes he hadn't meant to notice.
And a girl who hadn't said thank you.
