Page 50 of Love Unexpected
“Are you in love with him?”
“How much money does he make?”
“Are you the reason he broke up with Bridget?”
“Is the woman in Kansas the reason he broke up with Bridget?”
Sensing that the girls would likely try to follow me out to the terrace—where were their parents?—I ducked around the corner and slipped into the kitchen long enough to lose them. A confused kitchen staff person looked my way, but seeing as how we’d entered through the kitchen, they didn’t seem all that concerned that I was back again. I waited another minute or two, then peeked through the round window at the top of the door, assuring myself the teenybopper parade had ended and I was safe to go back outside.
Tyler and Isaac had already left the table, Isaac doing a meet and greet with the fans lined up around the terrace, and Tyler recording the entire thing.
I dropped into my seat, watching as Isaac smiled and laughed and took selfies with the fans. The girls who had accosted me in the bathroom appeared at the edge of the crowd, smiling heart eyes at Isaac as he inched his way toward them.
How did he make it look so easy? So effortless?
I was still in a cold sweat and I’d only dealt with half a dozen middle schoolers. Persistent middle schoolers, but still. They’d been perfectly harmless.
And yet, they’d still knocked me off-kilter. They hadn’t known anything about me yet. But if Ana and Isaac becameRosie and Isaac,they would know. Their questions would be personal. Specific. If we ever broke up, they would want to know why. Who was at fault? Why did it happen? Would we ever get back together?
And the very nature of Isaac’s life meant that some measure of that, his fans would know. They would have to.
I pulled out my phone, hoping for a distraction, and noticed immediately that I had a dozen different messages and four missed calls. Silencing my phone had made me somewhat unreachable.
Most of the messages were completely benign. My mom, wanting to know if she should plan on me and my guests spending a night with them once we arrived tomorrow. Jade, wanting to know how things were going. Greta asking the same thing. Alex warning us that the crowd would be bigger than he’d anticipated at lunch in Asheville. Well. That was the truth. Ana also had a message from Isaac—he must have sent it when I’d been in the bathroom because I didn’t remember seeing him on his phone at all—giving me an update on the trip and expressing again how excited he was to meet me. I looked up and made sure he was occupied enough not to notice me responding to him and sent him a quick smiley face. The other messages were all from Marley, as were the four missed calls.
My heart quickened as I read through the messages, starting with the one she’d sent in response to my question about what was going on with Shiloh.
It’s hard to say, really,the first message read.He just seems angry all the time, and he doesn’t want to talk to me about why. I think there’s a kid at school who’s saying stuff about his dad. This is why I wish I’d never moved home. Too many people in this stupid town know too much about my personal life.
Just before Shiloh had started kindergarten, Marley had reconciled with her parents and moved back to Westonburg, just outside of Nashville, believing that Shiloh would benefit from a closer relationship with his grandparents. The move had nearly killedmymom, who had been acting as surrogate grandma for five years, but she’d understood that Marley’s parents deserved a second chance. Mom was a social worker. She’d always opt for reconciliation between families whenever it was possible.
The movehadbeen a good thing for Marley and Shiloh when it came to their relationship with Marley’s parents. The downside was that Westonburg was small. Everybody knew everybody. And everybody included Shiloh’s biological father, Blake Shepherd, the town’s golden son who had gone off to law school at UT and returned home to set up practice. He’d married someone local and had promptly started a family, living a perfectly perfect life right down to the white picket fence that lined his front lawn—a perfect life that made no mention of the fact that five years before, he’d slept with a girl three years his junior and then abandoned her when she’d discovered she was pregnant.
Until Marley had shown up with a kid no one had known about except her parents, who had also, quite intentionally, told exactly no one.
The trouble was, the older Shiloh got, the more he looked like his father. Suddenly it wasn’t so easy for the golden son to deny that he’d had anything to do with Marley’s baby. No matter how much Marley insisted she didn’t want anything to do with Blake, the town still talked. And by the time Shiloh was ten years old, the talking had finally compelled Blake into stepping up.
But Marley had been raising Shiloh for ten years on her own. She wasn’t interested in letting him in. And who could blame her? Blake had known about Shiloh since day one. Why should she suddenly let him jump in now?
After that first text, Marley’s messages grew a little more panicked.
I just got a call from the school. Shiloh ran away from recess today and they can’t find him.
Rosie. Is there a reason you aren’t answering my texts? This is a big freaking deal.
Has he reached out to you? Tried to call?
Finally, her last message read,We found him, thank God. He was at Blake’s house. He rode his bike all the way to the edge of town to confront him. My world is so upside down right now. Where are you?!
I glanced up at Isaac, who had nearly reached the edge of the crowd. This was not the time or place to call Marley back. I typed out a quick text instead.I’m so sorry! My phone has been on silent all day and I missed all of this until just now. I’m so glad he’s found and safe. I’ll call you as soon as I can. I’m sorry I can’t be there with you right now.
I dropped my phone on the table and pressed my forehead into my hands. Poor Marley. Poor Shiloh. I hated not being in a position where I could do more. Marley didn’t need sympathy texts. She needed a friend. She neededme.
A sudden thought popped into my head. We were staying in Nashville that night. And Nashville was only forty-five minutes away from Westonburg. That was hardly a detour. It wouldn’t even need tobea detour. Once we were checked into our hotel, I could borrow the car and drive over to see Marley, or even Uber if Isaac didn’t want me to drive the Rabbit, spend the night with her, and be back at the hotel the next morning. It wouldn’t add any extra time to our trip.
I debated whether or not I should tell Marley. A part of me wanted to surprise her. Another part thought it might help her to know I was coming. But then, the road trip wasn’tmytrip. I couldn’t tell her I was coming if there was any chance it might not happen. A surprise was likely the best way to go. That way, if it didn’t happen, she wouldn’t be disappointed over something she hadn’t even known to expect.
After a few more minutes of talking and picture taking and a final shout out to the restaurant and the amazing food we’d enjoyed for lunch, we were back in the car, headed toward Knoxville, Tennessee on Interstate 40. The drive through the Pigeon River Gorge was stunning enough that we hardly talked, and Tyler spent more time filming the scenery than he did me and Isaac.
