The Bride Changed. The Bill Didn't. novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Friday Before

On Tuesday night I packed my bag twice.

The first time I folded everything neatly.

The second time I took it all out and threw it on the bed, because folding made it feel real.

Someone knocked on my door.

It was Cal, standing in the hall with one hand in his pocket.

"May I come in?" he said.

"You're asking."

"You told me to."

I stepped back and let him in.

He didn't look at the bag.

He looked at the lamp, the shutters, the bowl of lemons I had never touched.

"I came to say I'll drive you to Naples at five," he said. "And that I'm not going to make you stay."

"Good."

"And that I hate it."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Cal."

"I know. Friday. No last names. I'm breaking my own end." He took a card out of his pocket and set it on the nightstand. "That's my number. It's the real one. It goes to my phone, not the desk."

I picked it up.

He had written it in blue pen, in capital letters, in the neat hand of a man who had once been taught to print.

"What does this get me?" I asked.

"A call at three in the morning. A lawyer on Sundays. A car, if you need one in the middle of nowhere."

"And what do you get?"

"I get to know you got home."

I held the card.

I had said no home, and no talking, and I had meant it.

But the rule had been for Dalton, and Dalton wasn't in this room.

"I'm going back for my father's box," I said.

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