Page 50 of Hearts on the Line

“Can I move in for the summer?”

The question hangs in the air between us. “Yeah, sure,” he says, like it’s no big deal.

But I can see it in his eyes. This changes everything.

Chapter 16

Ethan

The first thing I hear when I push through the back door of the restaurant is Tony’s voice carrying over the fryer.

“…not your clam, Sloane. That’s spoken for.”

“What about clams?” The door slams shut behind me. “Am I interrupting an HR complaint?”

Sloane’s head snaps down toward the prep counter like she’s hiding a smile, but when I look again, I realize her cheeks are red. I catch the faintest smell of her shampoo cutting through the warm, heavy air of lobster and melted butter. It doesn’t belong in this greasy kitchen but somehow makes everything else fade into background noise.

It’s enough to throw me off balance for a second, which is becoming a dangerous habit.

I shouldn’t notice stuff like that. Shouldn’t notice the way she tucks that loose strand behind her ear when she’s concentrating, or how she hums under her breath when she thinks no one’s listening.

But since we kissed, she’s been lodged under my skin like a splinter I can’t dig out. Too much. Too close. Too goddamn distracting.

After she crashed supper club, there was a short-lived rumor that we were dating, no doubt started by someone with the name Bridget. Or June. Or hell, I wouldn’t put it past Gloria either. All I know is that when I ran to grab the mail and Linda threw a book of stamps at me, so excited Sloane and I moved in together, I had to do something.

I told myself that agreeing to the date would kill the rumors. Problem is, standing here in this steamy kitchen, stealing glances at the woman crashing on my couch, I’d rather be anywhere else tonight than sitting across a dinner table making polite conversation with a stranger I have no intention of letting into my life.

“It’s nothing,” Sloane says, busying herself with lobster rolls.

She’s wearing a white tank top and some jean cutoffs. Her hair’s piled up in a messy knot slipping toward her shoulders in the thick, muggy heat of the kitchen. A dark strand of hair is stuck to the back of her neck. For one insane second, I want to cross the three feet between us and pull that strand free, feel it run through my fingers the way I used to when we were younger and the world felt like it belonged to us.

Instead, I grab a ticket with more force than necessary, snap on gloves, and reach past her for a grilled bun from the flattop. My shirt pulls across my shoulders as I stretch, and I’m hyperaware of her gaze tracking the movement before flicking away just a beat too late.

The air between us crackles with something neither of us is willing to name.

“How are things going?” I ask, and my voice comes out lower than I mean it to, rougher around the edges.

They should be fine. The health inspector came a few days ago, and luckily, by some small miracle, nothing broke during her visit.

“They’re fine.” Her voice cracks on the second word, betraying her.

I want to push. Want to ask why she keeps looking at me like that, why she was humming that song from junior year while she worked, why she’s been avoiding being alone with me all week. But before I can open my mouth, Kelsey bursts through the dining room door like a hurricane in an apron.

“It’s brutal out there,” she announces, already complaining about the heat. “Table six is fanning themselves with their menus.”

My jaw tightens. “Tony, we got more fries coming?”

“It’s fine,” Sloane cuts in quickly, that decisive edge in her voice doing something to me it shouldn’t. “I just moved another fan in to help the ceiling fans.”

There it is again—that effortless way she slots back into this place, into my life, like the past twelve years were just a long pause instead of a complete rupture. Like she has every right to make decisions about my restaurant without asking.

The worst part? She’s probably right.

Kelsey grins like she’s delivering the juiciest piece of gossip this side of the harbor. “Oh, and she gave a table of Japanese tourists a full-on masterclass in eating a softshell. Had them cracking up, taking pictures of her demonstrating with her hands. You’d have been proud.”

My gaze cuts back to Sloane before I can stop it, and she’s avoiding looking at me with the kind of deliberate focus that means she knows exactly what I’m thinking. That she remembers how we used to practice our tourist spiel together back in high school, how she’d make me laugh until my sides hurt from her exaggerated Boston accent.

“What?” I snap when she stares at me with those eyes that see too much.