Page 51 of Sweet Little Thing

I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what she meant exactly. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you coming or not?” she asked exasperatedly.

She didn’t seem very happy about this. I wasn’t sure I wanted to intrude on someone who didn’t want me there. “Uh, I don’t think so,” I replied, making up my mind before she snapped at me again.

That stopped her from the saunter that she made appear so natural but I knew I’d never be able to pull off. When she turnedaround again she placed her left hand on her hip and glared at me. “Seriously? Stone went to all this trouble, and you’re just going to leave?”

What trouble had he gone through? I hadn’t meant for him to go to any trouble. I started to ask when his Rover pulled into the exclusive parking lot. I had never been relieved to see Stone, nor had I imagined the day would come that I was. The feeling was new, but I was definitely glad he was here.

He got out and walked over to me, glancing at the girl. “You coming inside?” he asked, shifting his gaze back to me.

I looked nervously at the unknown female, who was no longer scowling but smiling politely. “She is a little apprehensive. I can’t convince her to come inside,” she said in a sweet voice as if she were talking about a small child.

“You’ve got nowhere else to go, Beulah.” His demeanor turned frustrated just that quickly.

I wasn’t being stubborn. He hadn’t been here, and the woman obviously didn’t want me here. I decided against saying that, though, since this was her apartment—or at least I assumed it was her apartment.

“I know,” I replied. Not only that but I didn’t have any of my things. I’d been so upset when I fled from Jasper’s I had left it all there. “I don’t,” I said, glancing back inside my car for anything I might have left in there, “have my things,” I finished. Not that he’d asked me. “I, uh, need to get some things.”

“They’re inside. I picked them up earlier,” Stone replied.

“You did?” I asked, once again confused by the words coming from his mouth. He seemed to keep doing that today.

“How else were you going to get them?” He didn’t expect an answer to that question, and I wasn’t sure I had a response just yet.

“This is my building. I rent out the other two apartments. Mine is on the top floor,” he said as he began to walk toward thebuilding. He expected me to follow him I realized. Since he had my things, I closed my car door to follow him.

I looked at the building more closely. He owned this building yet he was always sleeping in Jasper’s pool house. Why? The pool house wasn’t anywhere near as nice as this place.

The woman was walking with more of a swing in her hips now. Or rather Presley as he had called her.

“You’re taking me to Manhattan soon, though. I want to see your new flat there. I’d rather live there with you than here in Savannah,” she said in a pouty tone as she gazed back at him.

“The rooftop is shared. Chantel and Fiona are on the second floor. And Marty and Mack—they’re on the first floor.”

He had ignored her comment. Although I was listening to him tell me about the building, it was hard to miss her body tense up. She didn’t like being ignored, and I doubted men ignored her often. It sounded as if she was living in his apartment, so what did that make them? I’d seen Stone with a lot of women. Jasper had mentioned Stone getting a ring for a Margot once, but that wasn’t Margot.

“Chantel is in the Caribbean with Dameon. Luke broke up with him last night, and he was having a meltdown, so she took him to the islands to get away. Luke’s such a slut. We all warned Dameon when he started dating him.”

Presley was telling this story so dramatically I felt like she was explaining the missed episode of a television show. Stone didn’t seem very interested in any of it. He stepped in front of Presley and opened the door. “I wanted to add a keypad for the lock so we wouldn’t need keys to the building, but there are rules in the city regarding any structure considered to be historical. When I bought it to restore, I had to keep several things within the period it was built. There are specific things you can’t touch to be considered a historic structure—the door, for instance. It had to be restored, and the original could not be replaced.” He wavedhis hand for us to come inside.

“It was a train station before?” I asked.

He appeared pleased that I realized its former purpose. “Yes. It’s a Romanesque revival building that was opened as a train station in eighteen-ninety-eight and closed in nineteen-eighty-five. It remained unused and empty for thirty-six years when I bought it at an auction and renovated it into three luxury apartments.”

Presley went ahead of me quickly and leaned in to kiss Stone lingeringly on the lips. “I missed you,” she whispered as if he hadn’t been telling me the history of the building.

He didn’t look pleased with the affection but didn’t turn her away. I noticed his hand even rested on her waist for a moment.

“There is no elevator. Again, I had to stick with the historical restoration code,” he said as I walked inside.

“Which is a pain when you have bags to carry upstairs,” Presley whined.

I’d been so silent I decided I should say something. “I bet carrying the groceries up can be difficult.” I replied thinking of the several trips it would take to get them up all those stairs. Other than that minor inconvenience, this place was beautiful.

She laughed. “Why would I carry groceries up the stairs? The delivery service does that.”

Of course. How silly of me.

Stone started up the stairs, and Presley rushed to stay beside him. I followed them up as she whispered and giggled in his ear. He never responded but he seemed comfortable with her nearness. As if they were a couple, maybe. I still couldn’t tell.

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