~ Becca ~
Stephen started texting me the next morning.
Not directly, of course.
First it was a follow request on i********: from an account I didn’t recognize. No profile picture. No posts. Just a name that made my jaw tighten.
S.H.
I didn’t accept it.
Ten minutes later, LinkedIn notification.
Stephen Hale viewed your profile.
I laughed. Out loud. In my kitchen. Coffee halfway to my mouth.
Pathetic.
By noon, the pattern was obvious. He wasn’t trying to talk to me. He was trying to exist in my orbit. To remind me he was there. To see if I’d flinch.
I didn’t.
Jace noticed, though.
“You’re smiling at your phone,” he said that evening when we met up. “That’s new.”
“Someone’s bored,” I said. “And spiraling.”
His jaw tightened immediately. “Stephen.”
“Ding.”
We were walking thro
