All Chapters of Off Limits : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Chapter 11: The new apartment smelled like fresh paint and cardboard, boxes stacked in every corner, some labeled in Mia's neat handwriting and others in Jake's careless scrawl that she could barely read. Outside the window, a city they'd never lived in stretched out under a gray morning sky, taller buildings than either of them was used to, unfamiliar streets that still didn't have names in their heads yet."I still can't find the box with the coffee maker," Jake called from the kitchen, his voice muffled behind a wall of boxes. "We might actually die.""Check the one labeled 'bathroom,'" Mia said, not looking up from the box she was unpacking in the bedroom. "I got tired of labeling things correctly around box forty.""That explains why I found your hair dryer in the box labeled 'Jake's clothes.'""That was an accident. Mostly."He appeared in the doorway a minute later, triumphant, holding the coffee maker over his head like a trophy. "Found it. Bathroom box. You're a menace.""A

Chapter 13 The welcome dinner was held at a sleek restaurant downtown, all exposed brick and string lights that reminded Mia uncomfortably of the night, months ago, when Jake had first admitted he didn't love watching another man buy her a drink at his cousin's engagement party. She wondered, sitting there in a black dress she'd bought specifically for this dinner, whether he remembered that night too. Vanessa turned out to be exactly the kind of woman Mia had half-expected and half-dreaded — sharp, confident, effortlessly charming, the sort of person who commanded a room without seeming to try. She was also, Mia noted with a small twist in her stomach, strikingly beautiful, dark hair pulled back in a way that showed off cheekbones most people would kill for. "You must be Mia," Vanessa said warmly, extending a hand across the table. "Jake talks about you constantly. It's honestly a little sickening, how often your name comes up in casual conversation about spreadsheet formatting."

Chapter 15: Jake didn't come home that night.Mia sat up until nearly three in the morning, phone in hand, watching the door, willing it to open. It didn't. She finally fell asleep on the couch, still fully dressed, and woke to an empty apartment and a text from Jake that had come in sometime around six.Stayed at a hotel near the office. Needed space to think. I'm not okay, Mia, and I don't want to pretend I am just to make this easier for both of us.She read the message a dozen times, searching for some hidden softness in it, some sign that this was temporary, fixable, survivable. It was hard to find.She didn't go into her new job that day, calling in sick for the first time before she'd even officially started, unable to imagine sitting through orientation paperwork while her entire relationship felt like it was quietly falling apart three miles away in some hotel room she'd never even seen.She texted him twice. He didn't respond to either.By the second night, the silence had

Chapter 17: "Mia?"The voice from the doorway made her whole body go still. She turned slowly, and there, standing awkwardly at the entrance to her father's hospital room, was Daniel."What are you doing here?" Mia asked, too stunned to fully process the strangeness of the moment — her ex-boyfriend, standing in her father's hospital room, three states away from the city where he'd resurfaced weeks earlier."Your aunt called me," Daniel said, looking uncomfortable, glancing quickly at Jake before returning his attention to Mia. "I know that probably sounds strange. Your dad and my dad used to golf together, remember? Your aunt still had my number saved from years ago and thought I might know how to reach you faster, since apparently you'd changed your number after everything ended between us." He shifted his weight, clearly aware of how bad the timing looked. "I didn't realize you'd already gotten here. I just wanted to check that you knew, in case the message hadn't gone through.""I

Chapter 19:Mia's father's recovery gave them both something solid to focus on over the following two weeks — physical therapy appointments, medication schedules, the slow, steady process of watching someone you love get stronger day by day after nearly losing him entirely. Jake's boss, it turned out, was more understanding than either of them expected, granting Jake extended remote work so he could stay by Mia's side through the worst of it."You didn't have to do all this," Mia told him one evening, the two of them sitting on her childhood back porch, the same porch where she'd once done homework and cried over teenage heartbreaks that felt impossibly small now."I told you. Wherever you are, that's where I need to be too." Jake bumped her shoulder gently with his. "Besides, your dad's teaching me how to grill. Did you know that? Real, actual grilling techniques. I've learned more about brisket in two weeks than I ever thought I'd need to know."Mia laughed, the sound surprising her