Page 61 of Unexpected

I nodded and crossed the living room and out onto the balcony where Luke was inspecting the outside. “What do you think?”

He tossed his head from side to side for a second, then shrugged. “It’s nice. You can tell that they used cheap materials and cut corners on quite a few things, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen, especially for the price.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said.

“Will two weeks work though? When do you need to be out?” he said carefully, running a hand down my arm.

“Ideally, by the end of this week, but I’m not sure I have much of an option if I want something decent. I mean, I’m sure the last place would lease me an apartment today,” I laughed, but Luke didn’t return it.

“That’s never happening, but you’re right. If anything, you can just stay with me until you can move in here.”

“Luke, I could—”

“We have one more place to see, right?” he cut me off as I began to argue. If we were going along with my time line that absolutely didn’t include moving in with him so soon.

“Yes, one more on the list.”

He nodded. “Then let’s go see that one and go from there, okay?”

I mumbled my agreement before heading back inside and letting Savannah know that I would keep it on the list and that I really needed an earlier move-in date. She said exactly what I expected her to say—a week move-in would be hard to come by anywhere.

She led us back to the leasing office, where she gave me her card and a folder with all of the information. I waved goodbye and thanked her for her help as Luke warmed up the truck outside.

“What are you doing?” I asked, finding him leaned up against the passenger side door with the truck still running. He pushed off the truck and opened the door, waving at me to jump in.

I threw my head back and laughed but hopped up. He rounded the front of the truck, keeping his eyes on me the entire time before he also got in.

“You look shocked that I’d open the door for you,” he said, like my reaction was crazy.

I plugged the last address into the GPS and warmed my hands up close to the vents. “I kind of am.”

“Well, you should get used to it,” he said as he placed his hand on my thigh.

“Hmm… that address sounds familiar.”

“It’s right by our neighborhood, maybe that’s why,” I said, but as we got closer to our third stop, Luke’s grip on my thigh became increasingly tight. The muscles in his shoulders stiffened and his brow furrowed into deep set lines. Whatever he was feeling was palpable and made the air in the cabin of the truck thick.

“What’s wrong?” I finally asked as we pulled to an abrupt stop just on the other side of the gate and in a spot with a“future resident”sign in front of it.

When Luke pulled his hand away, lifting to grip the wheel, I noticed he was shaking and breathing hard.

“Luke, you’re scaring me,” I said, unbuckling and poising myself over the center console. “What’s going on?”

TWENTY-FOUR

Hazel

Luke took one deep breath,closing his eyes and letting his head fall back onto the headrest. “This is the apartment I lived in during and after my divorce. I have some… shitty memories from when I was living here.”

“Okay, well, we do not need to go inside. Just give me a minute, and let me look at this app. There’re a few other places I liked.” I reached to pull out my phone, but Luke’s hand wrapped around my wrist, stilling me.

“No, we should go in. This apartment was really nice, and you need something sooner rather than later. I’ll be fine, just give me a second.”

He rolled his head along his shoulders and took one final deep breath before giving me a steady, serious look. The nosiest parts of me wanted to immediately ask what the hell could have happened to make him react that way, but I bit my tongue. There were certain things I wasn’t ready to talk about either but seeing him get upset had me buzzing to fix it all.

Luke must’ve seen the question in my face because he huffed out a breath and instead of turning to exit the truck, he settled back in the seat. “I got divorced not long before I moved in next door to you. For about a year, and while I was going through all of that, I lived here. Our divorce was not… easy.” His tone was robotic, like he was reading off a script in his head and memorized all the details earlier. “There were some very important irreconcilable differences.”

I nodded, trying to keep my expression unreadable.

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