Ashley's pov.
"Congratulations! We are so happy to have you two stay at our luxury hotel! Here are your apartment keys." The lady, whose name I learned to know as Kathleen, stated before handing over our keys.
I laughed to myself at the word luxury. This apartment building is no where near luxury. It is a total hell hole, but it's the most affordable pricing in all of New York. I exchanged a smile to Kathleen and then to Calum who had reached out to take the keys from her. We said our thank you's and we were off to our apartment, C6.
It wasn't the best looking apartment, it needed a lot of maintenance. But I guess it would do for the time being. It wasn't too bad for our first apartment together, but I wish it was just a little bit better. I sighed as we picked up our boxes and headed to the elevator, only to see it was not working and we had to take the stairs. It wasn't ideal to carry at least two heavy boxes each up four flight of stairs multiple times, but we somehow managed.
On the bright side, our apartment came somewhat furnished. A dusty old couch that seemed way outdated with old fabric prints, a kitchen that needed so much remodeling with the almost puke yellow cabinets and dark green counter tops. The bedroom wasn't as bad, the only good thing about it was the view of the city only to be cut off by half of the building across the street peeking through the skyline of the city. The walls could be repainted, as it's dark blueish purple and chipped everywhere. The mattress on the bed seemed warn out and gross, but thankfully we have our own memory mattress to put down instead.
Everything else seemed to be okay. Something about this apartment just gave me a weird vibe. Everything was so dusty and old and warn out , while the other apartments here were kept well up to date. As I enter the kitchen again, Calum is already unpacking our kitchen boxes. I just hope the more we decorate this, the more it takes away from the outdated old look.
We finish unpacking most of our boxes within a few hours, and leave the rest to finish for later. "Where do you want to get food from?" Calum asked sitting on the wooden stool by the counter, a crack coming from the stool.
"I don't know. Maybe we can find some pizza place?" I suggest, my eyes not leaving the stool almost as if I'm waiting for it to break.
"Okay," Calum responds as he gets off and puts his sweatshirt on. "You coming?"
I nod as I walk over to him and we leave our old looking apartment of C6. As we step out, a couple our age smiles to us warmly. "Hello," The blond curly hair boy had said with a smile.
"Hey," Calum says returning the smile.
"It's a nice surprise to see someone move into this old apartment," He smile warmly again with a chuckle. "I'm Luke and this is Chloe."
Calum extends his arm to shake hands with Luke, and then to Chloe. I do the same. "I'm Calum, and this is Ashley." Calum returns the nice warm welcome.
The girl softly smiles before tugging on the boys arm. He turns to softly smile at her before turning his attention back to us. "I'm shocked to see they're still letting people rent this apartment out."
Calum and i exchange looks. "What? What do you mean?" Calum asks very confusedly.
Luke starts to open his mouth but he shakes his head and says nothing. "A story for another time. It's kinda... well, long and uh, yeah." Luke scratches the back of his neck nervously.
This makes me hold Calum's hand tighter at how suspicious and nervous Luke is. Was something wrong with our apartment? "Just be, safe. Okay?" Luke speaks up again after moments of silence.
"Safe?" I question.
"Yeah. We're just two apartments down if you need us. This apartment can be different, to say. Just keep your eyes open at all times." Luke says before looking down to the ground.
"Y-yeah, sure." Calum says nervously.
We then part ways after awkward silence. What Luke has told us about our own apartment makes me now question what's wrong with it. What does he mean by "stay safe."
