Page 144 of Unexpected

“Ten twenty-two.”

I punched it in and began to type the number from my phone into his contacts when it dawned on me what his passcode could possibly be.

“Do those numbers mean something?”

“Yup,” he quipped, still not looking up at me.

“What do they mean?”

He sighed and spun his chair. “It’s the date of the party you crashed, Angel. Do you have any other questions?”

“Nope,” I said, looking back down at the two phones in my hands and trying to focus on typing in the simple four-digit number. But it was an effort to keep my fingers from shaking.

Every day he continued to surprise me; it wasn’t that long ago that we were at each other’s throats as next-door neighbors. It was like a switch flipped and suddenly, the date everything changed for us was his passcode.

Once I typed the number in Luke’s phone, it pulled up Blakely’s contact, and I slumped in my chair with relief.

I slid Luke’s phone back across the desk and hovered my thumbs over my own phone screen as I contemplated how to respond. Having lunch with Blakely didn’t mean that I condoned the way she had been acting and it could provide additional insight into why she had a sudden change of heart and decided to speak to the police.

It was also obvious that Luke’s group of friends meant more to him than just a normal group of friends usually did. He was broken up about Blakely lying to him and not feeling safe enough to approach him sooner, and I thought it would go a long way if I showed that I cared as well.

“Blakely just texted me. She wants to have lunch tomorrow.”

That caught Luke’s attention. “Are you sure it’s her?”

“Yes, that’s what I was doing, looking up her number on your phone.”

He stuck his hand out, palm up, silently requesting my phone. I set it in his hand, and he read over the simple text.

“Do you want to go?” he asked and handed it back to me.

“I think it might be a good idea. She may want to clear the air before she goes to talk to the police on Monday, and it would be nice to start over. I know she’s your friend, so I should probably figure out how to be friends with her and vice versa,” I said with a shrug. Honestly, if Luke told me it wasn’t a good idea, I’d probably still go to try to make amends. Maybe I was too forgiving, but it was more difficult to go through life holding grudges against everyone. It required more emotional currency than I had to spend.

“If you want to go, I’m not going to stop you. But I have surgery tomorrow during lunch. It’s already been rescheduled once, so it has to happen tomorrow. And I don’t know how I feel about you going anywhere alone, though. Especially right now…”

I waved a hand, dismissing his concerns. “Luke, I’m just going to lunch with her. I’ll be fine for an hour-long lunch, I promise.”

He wasn’t convinced and based on the look on his face, I knew it was going to take a lot more than that to persuade him otherwise.

“What if I shared my location with you?” I said, tapping on my phone screen and pulling up our text messages so I could set it to share my location for an indefinite amount of time.

“I guess that would help.”

I understood his concern, I really did, but I also knew I couldn’t live my life with a bodyguard constantly by my side.

“There,” I said. “Now you can see exactly where I am. Just don’t be creepy about watching it, okay?”

“I am incapable of being creepy,” he said, turning back to his work. I guess my solution was good enough because he didn’t utter another word in argument.

While Luke finished up his work, I mulled over a response to Blakely. I went back and forth with how to approach it but ended up deciding that simplicity was likely the best option.

Hi, Blakely! It’s good to hear from you. I would love to go to lunch tomorrow. Just let me know the time and place.

I hit send just as Luke was combining his papers and putting files away in a few trays above the desk. One of the women that worked up front walked into the back room to discuss next week’s schedule with Luke, and he again introduced me as his girlfriend.

I didn’t think I’d ever tire of hearing him call me that.

“Okay, let’s go. We have very urgent things to attend to.”

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