Sweet Romance11 min read
Locked In with the Boy Next Door and a Stolen Dog
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The doorbell had been ringing for at least ten minutes.
"Open up, Vernon! I know you're in there! You can cheat, but you can't hide from your dog," I shouted at the top of my lungs.
"Yours truly isn't going to sit politely while you steal my property," a voice inside called back, muffled.
I planted my feet harder on the hallway tiles and pressed the bell button again. The upstairs hall echoed with my holler and the soft, annoyed footsteps of other neighbors. Someone down the corridor clapped once—half amusement, half irritation.
"Annabelle, stop making a scene," someone said.
I spun to see who had answered from 2702. A tall shape stood at the neighbor's door, wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweats. He had a black mask, but his eyes—warm, wide, and bordered with soft lines—looked at us like he was curiosity in person.
"Hey, don't be rude," he said quietly. "If you keep ringing, someone will complain. Why not call instead?"
"My calls are blocked," I answered, voice high with urgency. "My dog is inside. Iron—he's barking! He won't stop unless he sees me."
He lifted the mask a notch at the bridge of his nose. His fingers were long and neat. Something in the way he moved made the breath catch in my throat.
"You rang for ten minutes straight," he said. "Are you sure it's not just a neighbor's dog?"
"It knows me," I said. "If Iron is making that sound, he's definitely in there."
The young man crossed his arms and teased, "Your dog is cowardly. Like your ex."
We both burst out laughing for a second, but then the door to 2701 opened.
There he was—Vernon Riley stood in the doorway bare-chested, hair stuck up from sleep, and behind him was Millicent Dumont in a lace slip, all casual victory and bad manners. Vernon looked guilty in the way people look when they know they were caught but hope to wiggle out.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," I said, blade in voice. "Bring Iron back. Now."
"Why should I?" Millicent snapped. "Who gave you the right to come barging in?"
"I bought him, you used to live in his apartment—it was mine," Vernon said, but said it like he deserved to be believed.
"That's theft," I said. "And you're the thief."
Millicent stuck her face forward. "What are you going to do about it, Annabelle? Cry louder?"
"Don't touch me," I warned, but she lunged. Her hand snatched at my hair.
Pain flared across my scalp. My fingers scrambled up to protect Iron, who was tightly clutched to Millicent like a plush trophy. Iron fought and bit. In the chaos a hand came around Millicent's wrist and twisted.
"Hey, let go of her," a calm voice said.
I turned, expecting Vernon to intervene. But the hand belonged to the boy from 2702. He was smaller than Vernon, but steady.
Millicent screamed, dropped Iron, and the dog darted like a furry meteor through the open door and into 2702. I chased after him.
"Thank you," I panted when I was inside the neighbor's living room. The room felt cool and clean—white light, gray furniture, and a large, bright painting leaning by the television. The painting showed a girl in profile with a spray of yellow like sunflowers and a small white animal standing in the flowers. Something about it felt familiar.
"You're welcome," he said. "I'm Griffin."
"Annabelle," I answered, hugging Iron to my chest. He squirmed, then pressed his wet nose to my cheek like nothing had happened.
I glanced at Griffin. "Can I get Iron back? I can go."
He raised an eyebrow. "You're staying?"
"No—only until Iron's safe. Just a few minutes."
He glanced to the hallway, then back at the dog. "My name is Griffin Oliver. I let you in. But if you try to keep the dog, I will call the police."
"I would never," I said, and smiled in a way that tried to mask the tremor in my voice. "Just... fourteen days at most. There's a lockdown. Someone in the building tested as a close contact. They just announced it downstairs."
Griffin's face changed then. He looked at me like he was surprised by more than the news. "Which means no one can leave," he said. "If you want to go to a quarantine hotel you can, but no dogs allowed. If Iron can't go, you have to find a different plan."
"Could I—stay here?" I asked, suddenly feeling small and shameless. "I will pay for everything. I'll do the dishes. I won't touch your things."
He hesitated, then sighed. "You can stay. But Iron stays on the balcony. And you sleep in a hotel."
"No way. He is my dog."
I tilted my head and tried my most disarming look. "I'm very good," I said.
Griffin's gaze slid to my neck and then his mouth quirked. "Good in what sense?"
"Good as in well-behaved," I said, and then thought, God, that sounded awful. He must have read it wrong.
He moved aside and let me in. The way he did it—gentle, with a small smile—felt like an invitation. He took Iron, set him on the entry console and led me toward a bedroom.
"Bed sheets," he said, pointing.
I blurted, "I'll wash them. I'll buy new ones. I'll make it right."
He watched me with that attentive look, and I realized how little someone had ever looked at me before. He was twenty—maybe twenty-two?—and somehow certain without being arrogant.
"You can sleep here," he said at last. "But the dog stays on the balcony and I will look after him when I'm home."
"Thank you," I said, stepping into an apartment that smelled faintly of coffee, paint, and something else warm.
We moved like people unsure how to be roommates with a line that had been crossed. I took the stained sheets to the bathroom and washed them, drying them carefully with a hairdryer. I tried to keep my hands steady and not think about Vernon across the hall or the way Millicent had laughed when she bit down on Iron's owner.
By the time I finished, the building announced that the whole block was sealed for fourteen days. Security in blue suits set up barricades at the front and warned everyone to return to their homes.
"I can't go to a hotel because Iron would be left," I told Griffin, who had been watching me move through his place. "He can't go to a quarantine hotel."
Griffin looked at me for a long moment. "You can stay. But Iron stays on the balcony. And you help with food and chores."
"Deal," I said, relief rushing like sunlight.
The first night was awkward. Griffin was quiet, but not cold. He made tea and sat on the edge of the couch, watching me fold towels with a intensity that softened me.
"Tell me your name again?" he asked.
"Annabelle," I said. "Annabelle Cantu."
He repeated it slowly as if learning a new song. "Annabelle," he said. "Prince of sunflowers."
"That is not my title," I muttered, but my heart warmed when he smiled.
"Why did your ex leave you?" he asked between bites of toast the next morning.
I told him the bare truth. "He found someone else. Millicent. And he took Iron—or at least he let her keep him when they moved in together." I shrugged. "It was more complicated than that. He got angry when I couldn't be intimate. He pushed and lost his temper. I walked away."
Griffin's face tightened. "That was cruel."
"It was," I said, and there was a truth to his eyes that made something inside me untwist. He wasn't looking at me like a conquest. He was looking like someone ready to hold a witness for the first time.
Days folded into a strange domestic rhythm. We cooked simple meals, did the building's temperature checks, and took turns walking Iron on the balcony. Iron quickly adopted Griffin's routines—snoozing on the rug, whining when we left a door ajar. Griffin turned out to be a quiet type with a paint-splattered sweatshirt, a bowl of fruit meticulously arranged near the window, and a huge painting leaning against his television. It showed a girl in a profile with sunflowers and a small white animal. Sometimes when he wasn't watching, I would stare at it and feel like I was being looked at.
One night, when the world outside hummed with fluorescent quiet, I found a bottle on Griffin's nightstand labeled fluoxetine—an antidepressant. A cold finger of worry ran down my spine.
"You taking meds?" I asked, because I couldn't keep it in.
He nodded. "Sometimes. It helps."
"Are you okay?" I asked, and his vulnerability opened up like a cracked window.
He told me about a childhood of quiet rooms, about losing family, about painting as the only language left. "I wanted a family," he said simply. "Could you... be my family? Could you be mine?"
I had come into his home chasing Iron; now, suddenly, the thing I'd been missing all this time was so obvious. Someone who would stand by me, unblinking. I swallowed hard. "Yes," I said. "I can be."
That night he held me like the world was a fragile glass and we were the only two who knew how to hold hands.
After a week, the building's tension snapped into something else. An item of gossip, small as a stone, began to roll: a neighbor had seen a video of Vernon and Millicent on a late-night couch in 2701, and someone had saved it. That stone became a boulder by the time Vernon tried to leave the building to buy cigarettes.
"Vernon, you can't leave," a security guard called, but Vernon pushed past and strode toward the elevator with Millicent at his side. "You will have to explain yourself," the guard said as he tried to block the door.
That was when I realized I couldn't watch quietly anymore. Vernon had made my life small and loud; it was time to make his loud and public.
We organized a tenant meeting in the building's lobby—the kind of crowd that always forms when something juicy slithers into a quiet neighborhood. People clustered in small knots, clutching their phones and masks. The building manager rapped on a portable megaphone.
"Everyone," he said. "This is to address the disturbance downstairs. We will hear from all concerned parties."
Vernon stood with Millicent behind him, attempting the look of someone who believed he deserved sympathy. He thought the community would rally. Instead, dozens of faces turned away.
"Vernon," I said, stepping forward, the cool floor clattering under my shoes. "You knew I couldn't go to a hotel with Iron. You let Millicent keep him. You lied to me."
"That's not true," Millicent hissed. "She barged in!"
"She came for her dog," Vernon shot back. "She came to my home and attacked me."
"You lied to me for months," I said, voice steady now. "You told me you loved me. You told my family you were moving in so you could be close. All the while, you were sleeping with her every night."
A murmur rose through the crowd. "Is that true?" someone asked.
Griffin stepped forward, surprisingly calm. "People saw them together," he said. "I watched the camera feeds once. There were nights when doors were slammed and things were tossed. Is that how you treat someone who 'loves' you?"
Vernon reddened. "That's not—"
"Then explain what you told my mother," I said, turning to the small group. "He came to my parents with flowers, with promises, with chores and help. He told them our future was fine. He lied."
"Why would you do this?" Vernon stammered. "You—how could you embarrass me?"
The neighbors had their phones out now. Voices overlapped.
"He kept her in illusions," an elderly woman said. "Kept her and then played a game."
"That's cheating," a man in a courier jacket said.
"You broke her things, I heard," a young mother said. "You smashed plates. You screamed."
Vernon's face shifted—first to anger, then to denial, then to a brittle mixture of shame and rage. "I did what I had to do," he snarled. "She was cold. I couldn't help myself."
A chorus of voices answered. "That doesn't give you the right!"
A teenage boy, who lived three floors up, captured everything on his phone and streamed it to the building's group chat. The footage was already online within minutes—neighbors watching, mouths open, one by one. Vernon’s bravado began to drain away. He tried to speak, but the words refused to hold weight in the air.
"This is public," Millicent cried. "You're making a scene!"
"You're the one who took her dog," I said quietly. "Do you understand what you did? You tore at someone's safe place and left them bleeding on the floor."
Boundaries dissolved. People began to step toward Vernon. A woman I barely knew from two floors down marched up to him, arms folded. "You should be ashamed," she said.
Vernon’s face crumpled in a way that didn't feel like remorse so much as the panicked calculation of a man losing what he'd relied on—sympathy, comfort, invisibility. He tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow. "Annabelle," he said, desperation in his voice. "Please. You're overreacting."
"Am I?" I asked. "Or did you think it would never be public? Did you think you could keep pretense forever?"
At that moment, someone in the crowd asked, "What does your sister think of this, Vernon?"
His knees buckled a little. "People like you always think you're righteous."
"You hid behind me," I said. "You used my house, my life, for your convenience. Now everyone knows." My voice held steady, but inside I felt my throat burn.
The crowd was no longer neutral. People whispered, pointed, took selfies with Vernon in the background and uploaded them. Someone applauded. "Good! Someone had to say it."
Vernon went through the stages fast. First shock: his jaw slack, eyes wide. Then a quick denial: "This is slander." Then frantic bargaining: "Look, I can explain—" Then a flicker of anger, throwing his hands up, "You're all cruel!" Finally, collapse: the shoulders dropped, and he seemed to shrink.
He tried to leave, but the manager blocked him. "We can ask the police to step in if we need to," the manager said.
Vernon looked at the circle of faces and then at Millicent, who stood stunned. In that crowd, where every face was recorded and every word saved, he realized the comforting narrative he'd lived in was gone. The people he thought would side with him were not there. Millicent's smugness faded as she saw the streamers on phones and felt the cold twist of being exposed.
"Please," Vernon whispered finally, eyes brimming. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry to everyone."
But the words fell flat. You can't stitch trust back with a whisper in a lobby. Neighbors murmured and shook their heads. Someone muttered, "Pay for it. Fix it. Don't come to my floor."
His public humiliation wasn't violent. It was far worse: his reputation, the image he'd cultivated, was being pulled apart by the people he had counted on. He looked smaller and smaller, until finally he turned and fled to his apartment, the door shutting like a verdict.
The crowd dispersed in a slow wave. People returned to their floors with new suspicions and consolations. I stood there trembling, because the public thunder I had raised had been louder than I expected. But it felt right. People had seen. People had judged. Vernon had been stripped of the easy guise of innocence.
When I walked back to Griffin's door, he opened it and took me in with no questions. He didn't need to know details beyond the fact that I had been hurt. He held me as the aftershocks of the lobby faded, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself breathe.
Later, in the quiet of our little quarantine, I learned more about him. "I painted you once," Griffin admitted one evening, a confession between dishes. "At a sunflower park. I was young and too shy to ask for your number. I followed you down the street and then lost you when you went into your building. I thought I missed my chance."
"You followed me?" I said. The thought was strange and sweet. "Why didn't you just knock?"
"I was scared," he said simply. "I watch from a window like a coward. But I wanted to protect you. When I saw you in the hallway fighting for your dog, I couldn't help myself."
We learned each other's small habits—the way he kept a spare brush in the kitchen drawer, the way I bit my lower lip when nervous. He taught me how to make stronger coffee. I taught him how to boil a perfect egg. We traded small kindnesses, the kind that build quiet days.
On the last night before the building opened again, we sat on the balcony. Iron lay between us, snoozing like a contented, guilty little king. Griffin pointed at the painting.
"You always thought it was familiar," he said. "That was me."
"You painted me without telling me," I said, laughing.
"You were always the sun in the painting," he said, soft. "And the little white animal—Iron—looked up at you like you were everything."
I touched the canvas. The brushstrokes were messy and honest. "You look after me, Griffin," I said. "Not like the others. Not like Vernon."
He smiled, and the smile was something I could live inside. "I want to keep looking after you," he said.
"Good," I said. "Because I'm staying."
When the guards finally lifted the lockdown and neighbors trickled back into the common air, the world seemed the same and entirely different. Vernon kept to himself. Millicent avoided the hallway where people could look. The building relaxed, as buildings do, reshaping itself around whatever story is loudest.
But for me, the painting, the balcony, and a small white dog who knew how to bite at exactly the right time became the markers of something new. Griffin sat beside me on the balcony as the city exhaled. He put his hand over mine and squeezed.
"Promise me something?" he asked softly.
"No promises," I said, smiling.
He kissed the back of my hand instead, and the sound of Iron's soft snore and distant traffic stitched us into a tiny safe place.
The painting still leaned against the speaker with yellow sun and a small white figure. It would always be ours now—a map of how a boy with a sketchbook and a quiet heart saved the woman who came to reclaim her dog.
The End
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