Page 15 of Soulless Saint

“Not The Bedrose?”

I winced. “That’s the one.”

“Jesus, girl. What the hell are you doing there?”

A sigh passed my lips. “It was the cheapest and it had a room.”

Oh how the mighty had fallen…

A bed with a black metal frame sat with a bare mattress that was definitely older than I was at the center of the wall on the far side of the room. A little pedestal nightstand perched next to one side. Late afternoon sunlight cast gothic shadows over the floor from where it streamed in through the single tall arched window on the left.

I crossed the room, holding my breath as I opened the double doors on the opposite side of the room, praying for closet space.

A small smile tugged at my lips, finding a closet much deeper than I’d anticipated. It wouldn’t fit even half of what I brought from home, but I could make it work.

“Rent’s five hundred all-in.”

My smile faded, and I remembered the barely two hundred dollars I had in my purse. I was now twenty richer from splitting tips with Toby and Kate for the morning, but it still wasn’t even half.

I chewed my lower lip, the idea of spending even another five minutes in that dingy motel alone making my skin crawl and that familiar feeling of anxiety crush my lungs.

“You don’t have it, do you?”

I turned back to face her, shaking my head, waiting for the slap of rejection. “Are you looking to rent it right away?”

There were cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling and a good layer of dust on the floor. It looked like it’d been empty for a while. Maybe they could wait until I had the cash.

Kate opened her mouth to answer when the front door creaked open and shut heavily. “Kate? You guys here?” Toby called from the living room.

“Back here!”

He appeared in the threshold next to Kate, tossing his white blond hair back from his eyes to lean against the weathered wood. “So, what do you think?”

“I think it’s perfect,” I answered honestly. I didn’t know either of them outside of the four hours we’d just spent working together. Well, them working, me floundering to figure out how to wear a fake smile, and learn a menu I didn’t know, and a cash register that spoke a foreign language. But I already knew I’d feel a hundred times more comfortable here, with other people, other students, around than I would in the motel that seemed to only cater to greasy men on motorcycles and Ted Bundy types in station wagons.

I wrung my hands in my dress. “But I can’t afford it right now. I was just asking if you were looking to rent it right away.”

Toby lifted a brow, eyeing me up. “Is that a Loro Piana?” He indicated my dress with the tip of his head.

Surprised, I grinned. “It is. I had to wait in line for it at her trunk show in—”

“Look, babe,” Toby said, interrupting with a breathy laugh. “I don’t know what your story is and I won’t ask unless you want to share, but if you’re short on cash, then I have a pretty good idea how you can make some in a hurry.”

Kate, seeming to catch on, nodded her head. “You have more fancy shit like that dress?”

They didn’t mean…

“If I put that baby up online right now, someone at Kilborn will buy it within five minutes flat,” Toby supplied, confirming my worst fears. “What’s it worth, like twelve hundred? I could probably get you six or seven for it. Minus my fee for facilitating the sale of course.”

I rubbed the luxe fabric between my fingers, reconsidering the room.

Fuck.

I swallowed past the razorblades in my throat, resisting the urge to whisper sweet nothings to the Loro Piana. She’d been the last size small on the rack and I’d almost taken a lady’s eye out to get her. I wore this dress the first night I’d taken Ava Jade to the Docks back in Thorn Valley.

We’d been through some shit together.

Steeling myself, I lifted my gaze to Toby and nodded. “All right. Do it.”

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