She took a deep breath thinking of the content of Ellise's email.

'Why now?'

"Earth to Little Miss Jessie! Hello, is someone home? Or Noah ate your brilliant brain, already." he scoffed mockingly.

"You need to leave."

"Oh, Noah is coming. So I have to leave. Yeah, sure." He folded his arms across his broad chest. "This is from the girl, who not so long ago complained about her friends, who choose their boyfriends over their friends."

"Remove all of your stuff from the guest room and put them in my room."

She abruptly stood up and with eyes wide in panic, pulled Luke inside the house. "Hurry!"

"What's wrong if Noah arrived and found me here in your house," he arched his eyebrow as he asked, letting Jess pull him to the guest room that he was using.

"Remove everything. Make sure that nothing was left in this room that would indicate that a man used this room — and especially the bathroom!"

"Wh-what — is happening?"

His question was unanswered because Jess already went inside the guest bathroom and started cleaning it up.

He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the guest room. Most of his stuff was already in his apartment. He left some things here for the days that he would stay over. No one uses this room in Jess's house, so it is basically his own room already.

But now, Jess was acting so weird.

He opened the closet and pulled out all of his clothes and dumped them on the bed. He removed them from the hanger and put the hangers back inside the closet. From what he understood with Jess, the room should look like no one uses it.

That's why he put just ten pieces of hangers on the rod inside the closet. He made sure that all of the drawers were empty and when he was sure that he got everything out, he closed the closet door.

Just as he finished folding all his clothes and gathering all his trinkets inside the room, Jess came back with clean beddings, and they changed the bed sheet without talking to each other.

They were like two fugitives, working in perfect synergy to conceal a crime. It felt like a crime but he doesn't know why. Jess won't give him an explanation and he has a feeling that even if he asked now, she won't answer.

When they were done with changing the sheets, Jess opened the window and sprayed the room with some bamboo forest mist spray.

"Bring all of your stuff," she said, walking backward to the direction of the door, her eyes were like lasers trying to capture everything inside the room, making sure they didn't miss any incriminating evidence of Luke's stay inside the room.

When they were inside her bedroom, Jess opened her closet and opened a blue box. The one they usually used as a file box.

"Sorry about the box but right now we don't have anything to put your things in. I promise to have them stored properly while he is here."

"You slept with him and he became a crazy motherfucker! Jessica, I want you to cut anything that you have with Noah!"

He has his arms in akimbo, ready to scold Jessica that this kind of action is not okay in a relationship. It doesn't matter if the guy is as hot as Noah.

"Shut up!"

"You are being blinded, Jessica. Believe me," he walked towards her as he said, "Look at me, Jess. I know Noah is your first love and the first guy that had a taste of your cherry… but believe me, this is not okay."

"Fuck off, Luke. I'm already losing my mind. Please, don't do this — whatever you are doing!"

She threw her arms in the air and started pacing at the foot of her bed. Ellise didn't say in her email when did she find out the information and she had no idea if he already landed in LA, or still in transit.

She faced Luke who has an exasperated expression on his face. He looked like he was going to whoop her ass.

"What is wrong with you?"

"No, Jessica! What is wrong with you!" he pointed at her face as he took a deep breath trying to understand this new level of craziness that Jess was manifesting due to her displaced notion of love for Noah.

He promised himself that he won't interfere with Jess's love life, but this is too much!

"What are you talking about?" she asked, totally confused with Luke.

However, she didn't let him answer as she turned around to pick up her phone that had been ringing on her bed.

She lost color on her cheeks when she saw the name on the screen of her phone.

"Shit!" she cursed under her breath before she picked up the call. "Hi," she smiled widely as she spoke.

She put her finger on her lips to gesture to Luke to be quiet.

Luke knitted his thick eyebrows when he saw Jess went pale when she saw the name of her caller. He was still confused about what was happening, but it seemed like it had nothing to do with Noah.

She crooked her finger to him, motioning him to follow her outside of her room.

He quietly followed her, dying of curiosity on who could be the person on the other end of her phone call that made her so agitated.

"You cannot just come unannounced! This is not what we talked about, remember?"

Luke listened to Jess raising her voice to whoever she was talking to.

"It doesn't matter to me. You should respect me when I say no. I don't need you dropping by my house just because it is convenient to you!"

She was now shouting on her phone whilst she yanked her door open to let Luke out.

And there was a standstill.

With Jess's mouth agape in the middle of shouting, while he has his mouth open for another reason.

There is a hunk of a man, wearing a white tight shirt that is clinging to his bulging biceps — a quick glance over confirmed that it was not just his biceps that were bulging.

His duffel bag that was slung over his wide shoulder was also bulging.

Luke swallowed his saliva. His throat was parched.