Chapter 20 – BELLS
Chapter
Twenty
BELLS
I've been sleeping in Rex's bed for the past three nights, getting my scent all over his black sheets. Hopefully my suppressed scent. But standing outside his door with my hand raised to knock feels like crossing some invisible line I can't uncross.
Here goes nothing.
I knock. Three short raps that sound too loud in the hallway.
"You know the code, Bells." Rex's voice filters through the door, sounding tired and maybe a little irritated.
"I'm not just going to bust in there while you're home," I say flatly.
He sighs. "Come in."
I punch in the numbers and step inside, closing the door behind me with a soft click.
Rex is sitting on the edge of his bed, mask firmly in place despite being alone.
He's playing a soft melody on a solid black acoustic guitar with silver vine patterns creeping up the neck, his fingers moving over the strings with a gentleness that seems at odds with everything else about him.
The melody is haunting, something I don't recognize but feels familiar anyway, like déjà vu wrapped in minor chords.
"Just grabbing my shit so I can move to Rafael's room," I say, moving toward where I left my bag near his massive desk. My skin prickles like I'm walking through a lion's cage.
"Hm." He doesn't look up from the guitar, but I feel his attention tracking me as I gather my belongings. The few clothes I brought, my laptop, the charger I'd plugged in by his bed.
My hands shake slightly as I shove everything into my bag.
Not from fear—well, not fear of Rex anyway.
It's the thought of leaving this room with its reinforced door and multiple locks and cameras that watch every approach.
Rafael's room won't have any of that. Just a regular door with a regular lock that anyone could get through if they really wanted to.
If my stalker really wanted to.
"If you like my mask collection so much," Rex says suddenly, making me jump, "we should get one made for you."
I freeze mid-zip of my bag, positive I misheard him. "What?"
He finally looks up from the guitar, that ice blue eye studying me intently. "A mask. For you. Since you were admiring mine so thoroughly after I told you explicitly not to touch my shit."
I narrow my eyes at him. "Still watching me through your cameras?"
"Not anymore," he admits, setting the guitar aside. "Not since you put on that little show." His lip curls slightly, not quite a smile. "Nice rabbit hoodie, by the way."
The way he says it—flat, unaffected, like he's commenting on the weather—makes me want to throw something at him.
But there's something else there too, buried under the deadpan delivery.
A tension in his shoulders, maybe. Or the way his fingers drum against the neck of his guitar before he pulls his hand away from it.
I think about that night. How I'd called him out for watching, started stripping to fuck with his head.
How I'd picked up one of his guitars—this exact guitar, actually—and played it naked, to see if I could tell later on if he'd kept watching me.
Because I would be able to tell. My instincts are sharp, especially when it comes to things like this, which is how I could feel him spying on me through the camera to begin with.
The fact that he's not acting weird about it, not even looking at the guitar differently, let alone me, tells me he didn't watch after I called him out.
"You're tense," Rex observes, cutting through my internal analysis. "More than usual."
"I'm fine."
"You're lying."
"So what?"
He stands, moving toward his wall of masks. His fingers trail over the blood-red filigree one I'd touched that first night, the one that had fallen and I'd hung back up. He'd told me not to touch his stuff, but picking up a mask so it wouldn't get damaged felt safe. Now I'm not so sure.
"You feel safer here," he says, not a question. "The security. The cameras. The locks."
I want to deny it. Want to tell him he's full of shit, that I couldn't care less about his paranoid fortress of a room. But the words stick in my throat because he's right. I do feel safer here. Have felt safer here than anywhere else since those fucking roses showed up.
Not that it's any of his business.
What's his fucking problem?
"It doesn't matter," I mutter, hauling my bag over my shoulder. "Rafael's room will be—"
"I'll take Rafael's room."
My brain short-circuits. Of all the things I'd thought he was about to say, that's at the bottom of the list.
"What?" I blink at him, sure I misheard.
"You stay here. I'll take Rafael's room." He says it like it's already decided, like there's no room for discussion.
"That's stupid. This is your room—"
"And I'm choosing not to use it. Leave your things."
The urge to argue burns in my throat. To tell him I don't need his protection, don't want his concern, don't require him rearranging his life because I'm too fucking scared to sleep in a room without Fort Knox-level security.
But I am scared.
And he knows it.
And worse, he's doing something about it without making me explain why. Kindness from Rex of all people is the last thing I need. It's probably some kind of alphahole power play.
"This is ridiculous," I say anyway, because I need to put up some kind of fight. "You just got out of the hospital. You should be in your own bed—"
"Bells." The way he says my name—soft but with an edge of warning—makes me stop. "Leave. Your. Things."
I think about what Phoenix said earlier. How Rex is chivalrous, just not with men. How we only see his bad side because we're not the right gender to trigger whatever protective alpha instincts are hardwired into his brain.
It makes me want to roll my eyes so hard they fall out of my skull.
But I also think about those roses in the trash. About Bryan's elegant handwriting promising to make the universe revolve around me again. About how locks never stopped him before, and he knows exactly where to find me.
"Fine," I mutter, dropping my bag back by the desk with probably more force than necessary.
Rex goes back to playing his guitar, the soft melody filling the space between us. I should leave. Should get out of his room and let him pack whatever he needs for Rafael's space. But something keeps me rooted to the spot, watching his fingers move over the strings.
"What is that?" I ask before I can stop myself. "The song."
His fingers still for just a moment, so brief I almost miss it. "Something Nash wrote."
Of course it is. Everything in Rex's world revolves around his dead brother.
The music, the revenge, the crushing weight of guilt I can see in every line of his body even when he's trying to pretend he's made of stone.
As if he blames himself for Nash's death.
As if whatever demons tortured Nash were his fault, somehow.
"It's pretty," I say, which feels inadequate but true.
"Nash was good at pretty." There's something soft in Rex's voice, an unguarded moment that makes him sound almost human. Then he seems to catch himself, straightening slightly with a low, dry laugh. "Unlike his lyrics, which were about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face."
"Sounds like you loved him."
The words slip out before I can stop them, and I immediately want to take them back. Rex goes completely still, that single visible eye fixed on me.
"I did," he says quietly. "More than anything."
The raw honesty of it catches me off guard. No deflection, no anger, no walls. Just truth, sitting between us like a third presence in the room.
"I'm sorry," I say, because what else is there to say? "That you lost him."
Rex's fingers find the strings again, picking out a few notes that sound like grief translated to music. "Everyone's sorry. Doesn't bring him back."
"No," I agree. "It doesn't."
We sit in silence for a moment, him on his bed with the guitar, me hovering awkwardly by his desk like I don't know whether to stay or go.
I don't know why he's still here if he wants to give me his room.
I still can't read him to save my fucking life, apparently.
But for once, I'm not sensing malicious intent.
And his playing is admittedly beautiful.
"I should go," he murmurs, as if he can read me far better than I can read him.
I watch him set his guitar aside one last time and stand, my brain still trying to catch up with what's happening.
He's actually doing this. Actually giving up his fortress of a room—with all its security and privacy—for me.
The Rex Steele who guards his space like a dragon guards gold is just.. . walking away from it.
Because I'm fucking scared.
Because he noticed I'm fucking scared.
His arm brushes mine on his way past me. I don't know what to say to him, so I just stand there, watching, as he goes to his wardrobe and lifts a bag out of one of the drawers. He starts pulling clothes from hangers, folding them in silence.
"Why do you give a shit about me?" I ask, because I at least want to try to understand what the fuck is going through his head.
He pauses, a black shirt half-folded in his hands. "I don't."
I arch an eyebrow at him. "Phoenix says you're chivalrous."
"Phoenix is wrong. I don't like predators. That's all."
"Why not?"
"That's none of your concern."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're getting."
He goes back to packing, and I should definitely leave now.
Should get out and let him finish in peace and come back when he's in Rafael's room.
But my feet stay planted in place, watching him pack for my benefit.
It's strangely embarrassing for some reason and I still don't have any fucking answers.
"This is stupid," I say again, needing him to know that I know this is ridiculous. "You don't have to—"
"Bells." He turns to face me, that single visible eye boring into mine. "You are afraid. You feel safe in this room. You will have more energy to practice—and perform—if you're sleeping well. It's logical."