“Nate,” she whined.
“Okay, two outfits,” I said, taunting her. She made a cute frustrated face.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“You’re throwing my generosity back in my face. That hurts, Abby,” I said, dramatically putting my hand over my chest.
“It’s too much.”
“I’ll decide when it’s too much,” I insisted. I picked a dress off the rack nearest to us. It was pink. It would look good with her tan. “I like this; try it on,” I said, holding it out to her. She took it and checked the price. I saw her eyes widen.
“Is everything all right?” a cheerful shop assistant asked, coming over to us.
“Can we get that in her size please?” I asked. “We’re celebrating tonight, and I want her to wear something special.”
“That actually looks like it might fit,” she said, taking the dress from Abby. I smiled smugly. “Go to the dressing room, and I’ll pull a few more for you. Is there a certain style you’re looking for?”
“Nothing too over the top,” Abby said.
“I want every guy in the room to lose their minds when they look at her,” I said. The shop assistant laughed and said she’d see what she could find. Abby was frowning up at me.
“I can’t take all this from you, Nate,” she said. I cupped her face and kissed her softly.
“You’re not taking anything. I’m giving it to you. If I had my way, I’d buy up this entire store for you. You gave me my life back, Abby. I owe you the world for that. Let me buy you a fucking dress. Please. It’ll make me feel like I deserved any single minute that you’ve spent with me.”
She chewed on her lip before finally conceding. I kissed her forehead and let her go to the changing room.
She let me pick for her. She was getting really flustered and overwhelmed with all the different choices; it was cute. The one I picked eventually was short, with no sleeves, and was white with these big, bright, pink flowers over it. Her legs looked amazing in it — of course, she was a knockout in everything I had ever seen her wear — but it reminded me of her personality: bright and beautiful.
I convinced her to get ready in my suite with me, suddenly getting a little nervous. It started to feel like a real date, like I really wanted to impress her. This was more than just a thank you. I wanted her to know what she’d done for me and this was the only way I knew how.
The restaurant was at an old, restored plantation house that had been turned into this countryside lodge. Abby had been trying to guess where we were going the entire short trip from the hotel. She never did.
It wasn’t really her scene, I realized. She worked at a five-star resort, but she was so detached from the world that the people who stayed at places like that belonged to. From my world, I guess.
It was nice, I guess. I knew now as an adult that not everybody had gotten to live the way that I had, and not everybody’s father was Nathaniel Stone II, but this sort of scene was my everyday reality. I was lucky I had managed to stay this way so long, but like anything you experience long enough, it became sort of regular. Boring almost.
Not for Abby, though. If she liked it, then it was good. That was all I wanted.
“I can’t believe you got a reservation here; it’s so expensive,” she said, taking my arm as we went up the stairs to enter the building.
“Have you been before?”
“Never. I’ve heard about it a lot, though. It’s incredible,” she said, looking around the lobby at the furnishings and decorations.
Yeah. It was pretty nice. I liked how much she seemed to like it. Looked like she was one of those girls who I could impress with shiny things, after all. It wasn’t gross and gold-diggerish with her, though. She seemed genuinely impressed that I had brought her here. Like if I had gotten her a ring or something, she’d thank me and say it was beautiful. She wouldn’t take it to a jeweler to figure out the karat value and tell her friends, that sort of thing.
I liked it. She was so unspoiled. She’d managed to get to her twenties somehow without becoming completely jaded and cynical. Maybe by the time I was heading back to LA, some of that will have rubbed off on me.
A maître d’ greeted us at the door of the restaurant and led us inside. I heard Abby’s breath catch as we stepped into the room. I smiled. It was perfect.
I had asked for the entire restaurant. I had had to talk to three different people before they finally agreed to do it. I had asked for low, scattered light and one table. The light coming from the ceiling fixtures was warm and gentle, and around the room were standing lanterns, so it was like the sort of light you got a sunset, but inside.
“Oh my God,” she said quietly.
“Do you like it?” I asked her. She looked at me, and she had tears in her eyes.
“You did this?” she asked. I nodded.