The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 183

Chapter 166: Running Mad-2

Clar

James paused, taking a moment to process the request with his usual professional calm. “There’s a twenty-four hour Chinese restaurant in Soho that has dim sum on the late menu. I believe they carry it.”

“Is it good?”

“I – I don’t know, sir. I’ve never ordered chicken feet at two in the morning.”

“Neither have I, James.” I was already finding my coat. “Neither have I.”

I drove to Soho and found a restaurant still buzzing with the late-night crowd-shift workers, night owls, and students who looked at me in my expensive coat with confusion as I walked in at 2:25 AM to order chicken feet.

They had them.

While I waited, I called Maya. I needed to talk to someone who understood this new reality, and since Bella had exiled me until I returned with the food, Maya was my only option. She answered immediately, her voice already full of amusement before I could even finish my first sentence.

“Chicken feet,” she said.

“At two in the morning.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Soho. At a dim sum restaurant, waiting.” I leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling. “Maya, I want to be honest with you. I am a man who has run international corporations. I have faced genuine crises. I do not rattle easily.”

“I know,” she said.

“I am slightly rattled.”

She laughed, not unkindly. “You’re doing great, Caleb.”

“She cried this morning because Tom ate the wrong cereal, she wasn’t angry at Tom, she wasn’t upset with anyone, she just cried. And then I said something, I don’t even know what I said, something completely normal, and she looked at me like I had suggested something offensive.”

“What did you say?”

“I said we could buy more cereal.”

“Ah.”

“That was wrong?”

“It wasn’t about the cereal.”

“I know it wasn’t about the cereal, Maya, but I didn’t know what it was about, which is why I said the cereal thing, and apparently that was” I stopped. Pressed two fingers to my temple. “How did you do this? The first time, with Tom, how did you – she was alone and pregnant and you were there and I want to know

Chapter 166 Pmning Mad 2

how you managed it because I am with her, I am right here, and I still feel like I am getting everything wrong.

The line was quiet for a moment.

Claim

“You’re not getting everything wrong,” Maya said, and her voice had gone serious in the way it did when she stopped teasing and meant something. “Getting up at two in the morning to find chicken feet is not getting it wrong. Switching your cologne without being asked twice is not getting it wrong.” She paused. “She notices, Caleb. She doesn’t always say it but she notices.”

I looked at the table and felt a sense of calm settle in my chest, easing the tension that had been building since I woke up.

“I’m grateful you were there,” I said. “The first time. When I wasn’t, I needed you to know that.”

“I know,” Maya said quietly.

“She shouldn’t have been alone for that.”

“No,” she agreed. “She shouldn’t have. But she’s not alone now.”

I checked the time on my watch, realizing she was likely still on shift. “I know you’re at the hospital; I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

“Caleb, as long as it’s about my friend, it’s not a distraction,” she replied warmly.

I hung up just as the food arrived-a bowl of chicken feet in dark sauce, perfectly prepared at two thirty-seven in the morning. Looking at it, I felt something I couldn’t quite explain: a version of love that wasn’t about grand gestures, but about something unglamorous and completely real.

I thanked the waiter and drove home. When I walked into the bedroom, Bella was sitting up against the pillows with her glasses on and her laptop open, looking completely unbothered by the hour. She looked up as I entered.

“You actually went,” she said.

“I said I was going.”

“I know, but” Something moved across her face. “Thank you.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and set the container on her nightstand. She opened it and breathed in; her whole body relaxed as she exhaled, like a spring that had finally been released.

As I watched her eat, the fear and the love sat side by side in my chest-both real, both entirely mine. I thought about what Maya had said.

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