Page 164 of Unexpected

“Yeah, yeah. Now, let’s go,” I urged him forward.

“We’ve already seen the house several times. What’s so different about it now?”

I smiled up at him as we stepped from the open entryway into the spacious living room. “Now, it’s ours.”

The floors were a rich-brown hardwood that continued throughout the entire house and warmed up the space. It was hard to discern what my favorite aspects of the house were. It was between the vaulted ceilings in the living room with exposed wood beams, the massive brick fireplace, or the windows that spanned the back wall of the space with a perfect view into the expansive backyard.

“Is Sadie back there?” I asked, my voice bouncing off the walls in the empty room as I walked closer to the back windows.

“Yup, she was back in the corner a few minutes ago,” Luke said as he stepped up behind me. His steady fingers smoothed down the sides of my arms and the warmth of him pressed against my back.

Sure enough, Sadie was tucked into one corner of the yard in a shady spot. She was hidden beneath trees, rolling in the grass with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.

“She seems to be enjoying her new backyard.”

“Yeah, she saw the grass when we got here and wanted to go straight outside.” We watched Sadie for another moment before Luke spun me around to face him.

With his hands cradling my face, he kissed my lips gently. I melted into him, and we got lost for a minute, standing in the middle of our new living room. “I have something for you,” he said when he pulled away, but there was something odd in his voice. His tone was slightly off, and my heart began racing in response.

He threaded his fingers through my own and began leading me through the empty living room until I spotted something to our right. I stopped in the middle of the room, removed my hand from Luke’s and stood in front of the fireplace. On the mantel were photographs I assumed Luke had placed there.

The first one was in a delicate white frame with flowers carved into it. It was of my entire family—Mom, Dad, Delilah, Tony, my niece, nephew, and me—sitting in front of the Christmas tree. Miles, my nephew, was in my lap, eating a cookie with icing smeared across his mouth, and Amber, my niece, was cradled in my sister’s arms. It was several years ago, yet we all looked relatively the same.

It was a photo I’d long forgotten about.

The second photo was in a dark metal frame. The photo inside was one we had taken at Friendsgiving the year before, right before everything went downhill. We set the automatic timer on Amanda’s phone and squished onto and behind the couch. Everyone—even Blakely—was smiling.

The third photo was one I’d only seen a few times before. It was in a wooden frame that appeared much older than the rest, but the photo fit it well. It was of Josh and Luke at a lake they used to go to as children with their parents. Their mom is tucked between them with a huge smile on her face, her dirty-blonde hair wet from the water and the three of them are squinting at the sun directly behind the camera.

It’s the picture Luke kept by his bed.

“It feels like home,” I said to Luke, who was standing next to me, his hands in his pockets.

He shifted, tugging me into his side and running a hand over my back. “You feel like home,” he murmured into my hair. “Come on,” he said, leading me into the kitchen. My heart began thumping in my chest once again, realizing the photos weren’t the “something” he had for me. The kitchen was bathed in the afternoon sun that soaked the white cabinets and the dark floors in warm light.

In the middle of the room, though, on the butcher block island, were two bottles of champagne and two glasses. The sun reflected through the window above the sink and glinted off the champagne glasses.

“This is a big moment, I figured champagne was good for the occasion,” Luke said, slowly releasing my hand as he rounded the island.

“That’s a fantastic idea.” My heart rate was slowly going back down as I glanced around the kitchen to see if he’d hidden any other surprises. We were at the point in our relationship where every time Luke said he had a “surprise” or“something to show me,”I assumed he was about to drop to one knee and whip out the second-best thing that he could have stuffed into his pants.

We’d had the conversation and agreed that after we closed on the house, we would discuss it again. I was trying to enjoy the part of our relationship we were in rather than rushing toward the next step. The ring would come, and if it didn’t happen immediately, that wouldn’t delay our future.

“But this is… umm…” He stopped with his hand hovering over one of the bottles. He pushed it to me, sliding it across the counter slowly and as it got closer, the easier it was to read the label and the note I had written on it in a gold pen.

“Saved for Michael and Hazel’s wedding day!”

My throat tightened and emotions I hadn’t been vulnerable to in a long time bubbled to the surface. I could feel the sting of tears behind my eyes, but I willed them not to spill. My first reaction was,How could Luke do something like this to ruin what was supposed to be an amazing day?But I thought better of it. He had to have had a reason.

“Okay, see, I knew you’d react one of two ways, so it looks like that, based on the look on your face, option number two was the correct reaction.” Luke hurried out as he came back around the island. With his hands on my hips, he turned me to face him and trapped me between his arms with his hands braced on the counter on either side of me.

He leaned down until we were nearly eye level, and I had no choice but to look at him or my shoes. His eyes were much more intriguing, and, in the sunlight, they were a startling, vivid green.

“This wasn’t supposed to bring shit up, I swear. I found the bottle while packing and just thought that it would be a good way to end that chapter. Start fresh and move forward by either drinking the very expensive champagne the fuckface bought for usorsmashing it on the ground outside. I’m up for either, that’s why we have the second bottle. I’ve come prepared.” He smoothed my hair out of my face and gripped the back of my neck while his thumb and forefinger on his other hand tilted my chin higher. “I love you, Angel. And I was only thinking of you when I grabbed that bottle this morning.”

I could feel the honesty and truth in his words radiate through me. That part of my life was over, and I was so far removed from it that I was a completely different person than I was that same time the year before. Hazel of the year before would have been doing her best to keep the peace in an ugly, toxic and terrifying relationship. She would have been putting her needs second only to anyone around her, and she was utterly miserable and constantly in pain.

That Hazel would have gawked at the idea of drinking the champagne on any other day than her wedding day. But that Hazel was as dead as the relationship she’d been in.

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