Page 6 of Hearts on the Line

“I don’t want your help.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

She shakes her head.

“Then what are you doing?”

Sloane shrugs.

“Come with me.”

“I’m fine. I’ll call a garage and get a tow.”

“And after? Where are you going to go?” I ask.

Rain pools around my boots, rushing in a river across the patched asphalt to the drainage ditch overrun with weeds and daisies.

It happens so quickly that I nearly miss the way her face falls before she dives into the back seat and grabs her purse and a small overnight bag. That’s when I notice her bare feet and the white silk dress peeking out from beneath her shirt.

All my frustration crumbles, and I’m reaching for her before I can think twice, hauling her over my shoulder.

“You’re coming with me. You can stay the night, and I’ll make sure the car gets towed to the garage.”

“Stop being such a caveman, Murphy. Put me down!” She slams her fists against my back, then hisses.

I rip open the passenger-side door of my truck, and she slips down my back and jumps to make space between us before she gestures for me to walk around to the driver’s side. I fully expect she’ll take off. But when I climb into the cab, she’s wiping the water off her face and lets out this pathetic sigh that guts me.

“You still smell like fish,” she grumbles.

Silence stretches out between us before I finally start the truck, and the hum of windshield wipers and falling rain fills the awkward quiet of the cab.

“I don’t need you to save me.” She tosses her head back, her aviators falling off onto the console between us. “But you get off on that, don’t you?”

I don’t want to think about that night, or the fallout that ended my high school career. Or the worst summer of my life. So instead, I drive into the center of Merritt Point, past the closed candy shops and art galleries, past the blinking lighthouse in the middle of the small rotary, as I drive to the section of town called Old Port.

Merritt’s Catch Lobster Co., my family’s legacy since 1927, is on my right just before the harbor. I pull into the small stone drive tucked between the crowded buildings. The two-story shack is covered in weathered shingles and a giant, smiling lobster. Over the years, my parents have decorated a tower made of lobster traps and buoys outside, along with the flower boxes we plant over opening weekend in May.

When I step outside, I’m hit with that familiar smell of fish and salty air, the rain all but a drizzle now, and in the distance, the ding of a bell buoy as it rocks over the waves just outside the harbor. I wait at the bottom step leading up to my apartment above the restaurant for a minute before Sloane finally jumps out and slams the door. Her hand lingers over the top of the hood before she stares down the empty Main Street, then climbs up the stairs behind me.

As soon as I slip the key into the door, my chocolate lab starts barking.

“Wally’s friendly,” I say over my shoulder.

But Sloane is eerily quiet. I’m aware of how close she is to me, but she might as well be a ghost. She has been to me for years anyhow.

“Hey, bud.” Wally barrels toward me, his favorite shark stuffie, Betty White, in his mouth. I toss the keys onto the kitchen counter as Sloane steps inside and shuts the rattling metal storm door behind her.

She scans the room. “Hasn’t changed much.”

My chest tightens.

“Nope.” I step out of my boots and kick them off beneath the island counter. “I’ll get you something dry to change into… unless, do you want a shower to warm up?”

Sloane sets her purse and small overnight bag on the chair by the door. Rain patters against the skylight windows in the low, slanted ceilings of the kitchen. Wally circles her and sniffs before she drops down and scratches his head.

“How old?” she asks, leaning her forehead against his wide chest.

“Five.”