The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 107

Chapter 97: 2AM-1

Caleb POV

I was still dressed when her first message came through. I’d been sitting on the terrace for a few hours, a glass of whiskey untouched on the table beside me as my phone lit up on the table.

Are you awake?

I grabbed it so fast I nearly sent the whiskey off the edge, fumbling it upright with my elbow before snatching the phone up.

Yes, I typed back, and sat very still after that, heart going faster than it had any right to over three letters.

The response took a moment. I can’t sleep.

I exhaled through my nose, slow and deliberate, and set the phone down carefully on my knee. She was lying in her house right now – her house, her bed, her space – and she couldn’t sleep, and the person she’d reached for was me. I knew better than to make too much of it. I know, I typed. Neither can I.

I watched the three dots appear, disappear, appear again. Bella typing and deleting, which I could picture precisely that small furrow between her brows, both hands on the phone the way she held it when she was working something out.

Is Tom’s okay? I typed, because it was safer than what I actually wanted to ask.

He’s asleep, she sent back almost immediately. It’s not Tom.

Something shifted in my chest. I know that too, I sent back.

The dots appeared. Disappeared, I stared at the screen until my phone rang. I answered before the second ring. “Bella.”

“Don’t.” Her voice came through low and a little unsteady, and I went completely still on the terrace. “Don’t say anything that makes this harder than it already is.”

“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I won’t say anything.”

“It was not nothing, the last time was not just casual to me” Her voice had been low, almost reluctant, like she’d fought every syllable on the way out. Then silence. But I could hear her breathing-shallow, uneven, the kind that comes when someone’s been lying in the dark for too long, staring at the ceiling, rehearsing exactly what they’re finally brave enough to say.

I opened my mouth. The words were right there, raw and ready. “Bella, it wasn’t nothing to me either. I’ve

been”

“Your whiskey is getting warm,” she cut in, soft but quick, like she’d spotted an escape hatch and dove for

I looked at the untouched glass beside me and felt something move through me that I hadn’t felt in years – something light and ridiculous, almost like being caught. “How did you”

“Because it’s 2am and you’re awake and you’re you.” The ghost of a smile was audible in her voice. “You’re

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on the terrace, Caleb.”

“Guilty,” I said.

“Is it a good view?”

+25 Points

I looked out at the city, all that light spread below me in every direction, and thought about her garden in

the dark minutes away. “It’s always a good view,” I said. “Yours is better.”

She was quiet for a moment.”Go to sleep,” she said finally.

“You first.”

“That’s not how” She stopped, then a small exhale. “Fine. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Bella.”

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