Page 60 of Hearts on the Line

“Listen, you picked me up on the side of the road in my wedding dress, eating a taco. You heard what happened at dinner the other night. Not much…”

“I don’t know why you thought eating a taco in the rain was a good idea.”

“The rain caught me by surprise.” Sloane checks her mirrors, then pulls over to the shoulder, next to the low scrubby brush dotted along the storm seawalls. “I think I was in shock. I thought my life was going one way, and then it went another, and no one is very happy about it.”

“Including you?”

“Including me.”

But she doesn’t sound too sure.

“My job was great, but Jason didn’t like that I traveled so much, so I was going to take something in Manhattan. But it was never…” She quiets for a minute, then reaches to turn down the radio a bit. “You know, I thought it was going to be bigger. I was going to be bigger. And I think I need to learn that this is it. I’m not. It’s just this lie we’re sold, or maybe it’s just that when you’re young, the world is a bigger place and you don’t know the truth about things yet.”

I take my hat off and run my hand through my hair before I pull it back on. I try to do anything other than tell her that I’m not as brave as she is. I never even questioned it. I’ve just moved through each day until I was thirty, sitting in a car with Sloane, pretending I wasn’t crushed the day she left.

That I’ve only ever loved her.

“Anyway…” She quickly wipes under her sunglasses, then grips the wheel and smiles at me. “I miss summers here. I’m okay to float in that weird space where nothing really matters for a few months before I head to New York. Just you and me.”

She pulls back into traffic, checks her mirrors, then bangs a U-ey in the middle of the road to head back toward the store.

And she’s so fucking perfect when she does it, pretending like she’s not crumbling as she turns the music back up and Fleetwood Mac blasts through the old car radio, and we’re stuck in that weird in-between.

Together.

The parking lot is packed for a random Wednesday night.

Sloane turns off the ignition and leans down to crank the window back up.

“Runs good,” she mutters.

“Didn’t think I could fix it?”

She slumps against her seat and tilts her head toward me. I wish I could catch a peek at her brown eyes from behind her sunglasses.

“I know it’s special.” I roll up my window, but I don’t miss that small intake of air, that tiny tell of hers when I say something that surprises her.

“My mom got rid of a lot. This is all I have left of him, and Branden hates that I have it instead of him.”

That tracks. My once-best friend wanted everything his father had, but never wanted to put in the work, and certainly didn’t want anything to do with the man.

Jimmy Arden was like a second father to me.

He bailed me out, not my dad.

Generous, considering what I did to his son that day.

“I guess I didn’t think you’d be here, never mind fix my car and let me crash on your couch.”

We get out of the car and walk into the store, and I grab us a cart. “Where did you think I’d be?”

“Not in Merritt Point. You wanted out.”

I didn’t know what I wanted. Jimmy had even sat me down one night my senior year to tell me I was going to have a good hockey career if I could get my head on straight. Didn’t want to hear it then. I only ended up in my own way.

We stroll into the produce section.

“What do we need?” Sloane asks.