The phone buzzed just after midnight your time.

You groaned softly, rolling over, blindly reaching for it on your nightstand. The screen lit up with a familiar name: Rydal Calling.

You swiped to answer, rubbing sleep from your eyes.

“It’s midnight,” you mumbled, your voice thick with exhaustion.

A chuckle crackled through the line. “Yeah, but it’s morning here. Greece is gorgeous, by the way. Wish you were here. Could’ve saved me from ordering something that may or may not have been octopus brains.”

You smirked sleepily, eyes still closed. “Sounds like karma.”

“Karma tastes like rubber and regret.” There was a pause, and then his voice softened. “Missed hearing your voice.”

Your heart clenched. You sat up slowly in bed, pulling the blanket around your shoulders.

“I miss you too.”

He sighed through the line. “It’s weird, you know? I’m looking at the Acropolis right now. It’s golden in the morning light, the whole city waking up beneath it… and all I want is to tell you how pretty it is. How it reminds me of that time we got locked out of the museum in Naples, and you somehow convinced the guard to let us in after hours.”

You laughed quietly. “He thought we were married.”

“Well,” Rydal murmured, voice dropping, “he wasn’t entirely wrong.”

Silence stretched for a moment. Then he whispered:

“You’re still my person, even from halfway around the world.”

You swallowed hard, throat tight. “You’re mine too.”

He chuckled again, softer this time. “Think I might send you a ticket. Don’t suppose you’d drop everything and run away with me, would you?”

“Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow?”

You smiled. “Maybe.”

His voice dropped into something more tender, almost shy. “Tell me you love me, just once, and I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”

“I love you.” You said it like a secret—quiet and sacred.

There was a pause, then a breathless whisper from him:

“Christ… You always know how to kill me.”