Page 59 of Unexpected

“I know.” He shrugged.

My phone dinged from inside my purse, and I begrudgingly fished it out of the bottom of my bag. I already knew it was my mom, and if it were anyone but her, I would probably ignore it.

Sure enough, it was another plea for me tosee all of the benefitsof moving back to Nashville. For the umpteenth time, I responded by telling her the same thing: no thanks.

“Who is it?” Luke asked as I rolled the tense muscles of my shoulders.

“Just my mom.”

He made a sound of understanding.

“She’s asking me for the millionth time to move back, and then when I tell her for the millionth time that I’m not going to, she asks why. Every reason I give her, she doesn’t understand.”

“What does your sister have to say about it?”

I laughed and chucked my phone back in my bag. “Since we moved here, my sister has been the loudest and proudest member of theI Hate Michaelfan club. She said as long as I’m not going back to him and am making smart decisions, she’s going to stay out of it.”

“Sounds like a good sisterly stance to take,” he agreed, pulling down a street flanked by colorful homes and storefronts. It would have been pretty—pastels and bright colors seemed to be the colors of choice—had it not been for the haunting mist dancing over the roofs and pristine gardens.

“She’s usually pretty good about that. She only gives explicit advice when I ask for it, unless she thinks I’m in trouble.” It wasn’t always like that growing up—she was the typical bossy and nosy sister for most of our lives—but when she met Tony and they began their own family, I was no longer top priority for her worrying. She slowly realized I was a capable adult.

“Well, you can tell her that I’m also now a member of theI Hate Michaelfan club. Maybe the new loudest and proudest member.”

“I’m not sure about that. It would take a lot to beat my sister.”

Luke shook his head, eyes darting over to me before he scrubbed his hand across his jaw. He was wearing a gray pullover with the sleeves pulled up around his thick, tattooed forearms, dark jeans, and boots. It was a good look on him.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Finding you in the bathroom and having to fix you up almost broke me. Like I said before, I wanted to kill him.”

It almost broke him? I wanted to ask him what he meant and how something happening to me could have possibly affected him so much. But I didn’t. The conviction and sincerity in his words kept me silent as we pulled into the small parking lot of apartment complex number one.

“And here we are,” Luke said less than enthusiastically.

As I peered around at the two-story buildings surrounding the dilapidated leasing office, I realized I had been catfished. Nothing was as it appeared on the website. I could see the pool through the fence just beyond the leasing office and what had appeared to be a pristine, relaxing area perfect for a summer afternoon was actually a pool closer to the size of a hot tub surrounded by rusty pool chairs.

They had slapped a fresh coat of off-white paint over each building's exterior, but it hadn’t covered up the old stucco finish. Sadly, their idea of curb appeal consisted of “Beware of Dog” signs, trash overflowing out of the nearby dumpsters and an old Hyundai with its door falling off.

Next to me, Luke was leaning forward in his seat, squinting into the rearview mirror with an incredulous look on his face.

“What are you looking at?”

He squinted harder. “I think that guy behind us is doing drugs.”

I scoffed and whipped around in my seat. “No, he isn’t!”

But I was wrong. He was, in fact, doing drugs.

I turned back around in my seat and straightened my beanie, taking one last look around. I spotted a small man behind the desk in the leasing office, and he perked up when we made eye contact through the windshield.

“Well, maybe it’ll be better—”

Luke laughed once and put the truck in reverse, leaving no room for argument. “Not happening, Angel. Where’s the next stop?”

I plugged the address into his truck’s GPS and sat back. It was only a couple of minutes away, and as we drove back the way we came, the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds.

“What’s the name of this place?”

I pulled up the website on my phone. “Ella Apartments. The reviews are really good. No mention of tenants doing drugs.”

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