The week unfolded like any other, but Rowen felt the difference in the spaces between things.
He repaired a cracked tablet screen, replaced a few charging ports, and restocked the small shelf of phone cases. Nothing unusual. Yet, every familiar sound—
The ceiling fan's hum,
The bell's soft ring,
The rattle of the shutters in the evening—
seemed to echo longer than before.
At home, he left a movie running without watching it.
Her words floated in the quiet:
"I'm not here to ruin anything for you."
They didn't sound threatening. They didn't even feel urgent.
They just… stayed.
For several days, Lira didn't visit.
The shop door opened for strangers—people with broken screens, slow tablets, weak batteries. Rowen repaired them all the same. But he noticed that he glanced at the door more often now, expecting a shadow that didn't arrive.
One evening, while closing, headlights cut across the glass again. A sleek car slowed near the curb, then turned down the next street.
Rowen didn't need to see the driver. He remembered the club, the woman leaning in to laugh at something private, and the way Lira had spoken about her own life without bitterness, just a kind of quiet agreement with the world she'd accepted.
Lira finally appeared on the sixth day, just as he was clearing his workbench.
She opened the door softly, almost like she didn't want the bell to ring. It rang anyway.
"Evening," she said, voice low, casual, as if the last conversation had never left the air.
"Evening," Rowen replied.
She leaned against the counter, resting her forearms on the wood. No phone, no repair, no excuse.
They didn't mention what had been said before. They didn't have to.
The air between them was charged in its quiet way, like the shop itself was listening.
After a few minutes of light conversation—weather, the slow pace of town—Lira smiled faintly. "You're easy to talk to. Or… easy to be quiet with. That's rarer than people think."
Rowen didn't respond. He didn't need to.
She stayed a little longer, letting the silence do the speaking, then straightened and left with a soft "Goodnight."
The bell chimed.
Walking home under the streetlights, Rowen noticed the stillness of the night pressing in on him—not cold, not oppressive, but expectant.
The quiet of his life had always been his armor.
Now, it felt like it was waiting for his answer.