Chapter 6
1056 Words
Kade stared at the message on his phone, rereading it for the third time.
> Hey. I loved last night. Really, I did. But… something’s come up. I need to take care of it.
Can we rain check? I’ll get your jacket back to you soon, I promise.
A chill crept into his gut.
On the surface, it looked casual. Kind, even. She’d added a heart. Not cold. Not distant.
But it was the shift he felt. The unspoken weight in her words. She was holding something back. And Kade knew the signs — the tone of someone pulling away for reasons they didn’t want to say.
He’d seen it in clients. In friends. In lovers who had trauma stitched into their silence.
And he’d seen it in the mirror.
“Something’s come up.”
He tapped the screen off and slid the phone onto his workbench. The studio was quiet this early, only the sound of a buzzing machine in the next room. His next appointment wasn’t until noon, and he’d come in early to sketch — to clear his head.
But now, his thoughts were filled with her.
Alara.
The woman who danced like she was grieving something. Who laughed like it hurt. Who kissed like she was afraid it wouldn’t last.
And still — she felt real in a way most people didn’t.
He hadn’t even known he was looking for someone until he met her. But now that he had, the idea of her disappearing scared him more than he wanted to admit.
He pulled out his sketchpad, flipped to a clean page.
Without thinking, his pencil started to move.
First: the soft waves of her hair, loosely gathered at her neck.
Then: the slope of her nose, the curl of her lips.
Her eyes came last — not because they were hardest, but because they were the part he remembered best.
Wary. Deep. Searching.
Like someone who didn’t trust easily.
And now she was gone again.
Not completely — just enough to make the walls rise.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the half-finished sketch.
Don’t chase it, he told himself.
She asked for space. Respect it.
But still, his hand hovered over the phone.
He didn’t want to be that guy — the one who pushed too far, too fast. But everything in his gut said this wasn’t just some scheduling conflict or a change of heart. Something had shaken her.
And something told him it had nothing to do with him — and everything to do with what came before.
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Later That Afternoon
Kade found himself riding through the edge of the city, not really heading anywhere, just… moving.
His motorcycle roared beneath him, the wind cooling his thoughts as the world blurred past. He hadn’t felt this off-balance in a while. He didn’t do hope easily. He didn’t build expectations.
But something about Alara had undone that calm. Not in a destructive way — in a disarming way.
He stopped at a red light, engine humming.
His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket.
He pulled it out quickly — heart jumping.
Tessa.
He almost didn’t answer. But then he remembered — Tessa was the friend who dragged Alara to Club Vortex. Maybe she knew something.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Kade. It’s Tessa. Hope it’s okay I’m calling.”
“Yeah. Sure. What’s up?”
There was a pause. “I wanted to thank you. For last night. Alara came home and for the first time in months… she smiled.”
Kade’s grip on the handlebar loosened. “She’s special.”
“She is,” Tessa agreed. Then her voice softened. “But she’s also scared. Of people. Of being hurt again. You probably noticed that.”
“Yeah. I did.”
Another pause.
“I don’t know what happened today,” Tessa continued. “She left early. Didn't say much. But she looked… tense. Paranoid, even.”
Kade’s shoulders stiffened. “Did something happen?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. But the way she looked at her phone, I think… I think Jared might’ve tried to contact her.”
The name hit Kade like a brick.
Jared.
The ex.
The ghost behind her eyes.
“Tessa,” he said slowly, “do you think she’s in danger?”
“I don’t know. I just know she doesn’t open up easily. And she didn’t tell me where she went today.”
Kade’s mind raced.
“I’m not trying to get in the middle of things,” Tessa added. “But if you care about her… just don’t disappear, okay?”
“I won’t,” he said, the promise solid in his voice.
The call ended. Kade sat there for a moment, the light turning green, the cars behind him honking. He turned off the road and pulled into a quiet alley, engine still humming.
He stared at his phone, her message still there.
A new chill crept over him.
You looked cozy tonight. Moving on so fast?
You’re not as hard to read as you think. —J
He hadn’t seen the message himself — but he didn’t need to.
He knew that kind of voice. The controlling kind. The possessive kind. He’d known men like that. Used to be around them. Used to be one of them, in darker days.
And he also knew what it looked like when someone tried to slip away from a life like that — only to realize it could still find them.
Kade took a deep breath.
You said you’d protect her peace.
You said you wouldn’t disappear.
But how could he help if she was shutting him out?
Maybe the answer wasn’t in pushing.
Maybe it was in showing up — quietly. Patiently. Steadily.
The way no one ever had for him.
He picked up his phone again and opened the message thread.
> I’m not here to crowd you. But I’m around. And I’ve got that jacket to pick up when you’re ready to let me see your face again. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he added:
> Stay safe.
He sent it. Put the phone away.
And revved the engine.
If Alara was caught in something dark, she didn’t have to face it alone.
Not anymore.
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- Writer
