Chapter 6 #2
Cora nodded, tamping down disappointment. It wasn’t Adelaide’s fault she’d been hoping for another glimpse inside the Wing.
As the older woman gathered her keys, sunlight slanted through the tall windows, painting the floor in fractured gold.
“You best get moving,” Adelaide added, her gaze catching Cora’s with a glint of something unreadable. “Your young man is waiting.”
Cora blinked. “What? Who?”
But Adelaide only smiled, already turning toward the back room.
Cora hesitated a beat, murmured, “Have a great weekend,” though she wasn’t sure Adelaide even heard her.
The afternoon light slanted across her front porch when she pulled into the drive.
She was still half inside her thoughts when she noticed the pickup parked at the curb—and Eli, standing beside it, one boot crossed over the other, the brim of his ball cap shadowing his eyes until he looked up.
When he did, his smile widened—easy, certain, like he’d been there awhile and hadn’t minded waiting.
Cora blinked. “Eli? What are you—” She stopped, a half laugh in her voice. “Wait, how did you even know where I live?”
He shrugged, pushing off the truck. “Small town. Couple of questions at Cuppa Joe, and here I am.”
She didn’t know whether to be irritated or impressed. Maybe both.
His smile tilted, just a shade tentative. “I’m hoping you’ll have lunch with me.”
“Lunch, huh?”
“With me,” he said, grinning.
She crossed her arms, feigning suspicion. “Aren’t you working?”
“Gas leak. City inspector shut down the site.” He straightened, closing the distance between them. “So what’ll it be—lunch all by your lonesome, or the best seafood in the county with me?”
Her laughter slipped out before she could stop it. “I pick door number two.”
A twenty-foot blue crab perched atop a tall pole in the Crab Shack parking lot, claws splayed and antennae waving in permanent greeting. It was impossible to miss.
Eli parked the truck in the gravel lot and hopped out. Cora followed, pausing to take in the cheerful crustacean. Its cartoon grin, faded from years in the sun, made her smile. There was something oddly comforting about it.
She reminded herself this life—this town, this moment—was real. Not the one inked between the pages of a book bound in leather and longing, but real just the same.
Eli held the screen door for her, and they stepped into a swirl of sound and scent—searing butter, laughter, the sharp tang of Old Bay.
Their server had blond hair tipped in fuchsia, her delicate features framed by a soft wave. “Eli!” she said, lighting up before Cora could even reach for a menu. She leaned over and hugged him.
No surprise there.
“Cora Summerbell, this is Lexi Williams,” Eli said easily. “We went to school together, back when she was still Alexa.”
“Ah,” Cora said, smiling. “Now the nickname makes perfect sense.”
Lexi laughed. “Exactly! I was Alexa before ’s Alexa, and now I’m stuck with a new name.” She winked and nodded toward the counter. “Crab cakes are calling my name. I’ll be back.”
Cora watched her weave through the tables, moving with an ease that came from belonging. Recognition flickered—she’d seen Lexi at Cuppa Joe corralling a roaring toddler.
“She seems nice,” Cora said.
“She is,” Eli replied, flipping open his menu. “Everything’s good here, but the crab melt is legendary.”
“A crab melt sounds safe,” she said with a small smile. “And a little decadent.”
“Best kind of safe.” His eyes crinkled. “And the coleslaw’s actually edible.”
“I might be brave today.” She smoothed a crease in the menu. “Honestly, it just feels good to sit. To not be thinking so much.”
“Been one of those weeks?” he asked, voice low and sympathetic.
“One of those months, maybe.” She gave a half laugh. “You ever feel like life’s trying to tell you something? Only it’s speaking a language you’re still learning?”
He studied her for a moment. “More than once.”
Lexi returned to take their order—two crab melts, iced tea for him, lemonade for her—and disappeared again. The quiet that followed felt easy, not awkward.
Eli leaned forward slightly, tracing a bead of condensation on his glass. “Hey, about the festival… I realized I came off like a jerk that night. I got caught up talking to other people and didn’t mean to make you feel invisible.”
Cora lifted one brow, a teasing glint in her eye. “You didn’t. I just figured I’d leave you to your fan club before they started forming a line.”
“Fair.” He laughed, then sobered. “Anyway, I really am sorry and hope you can forgive me.”
The honesty in his tone softened something inside her. “You’re forgiven.”
“Good.” He leaned back, watching her. “Now, want to tell me what’s got you thinking so hard lately?”
She toyed with the straw in her lemonade. “Oh, nothing.” Then, after a beat, “Actually, everything.”
“I can be a good listener,” he said, his tone half teasing, half earnest. “You’ll have to take me at my word until I prove it.”
Her smile lingered as she glanced toward the window. A family strolled past outside, children scattering popcorn to gulls. The sunlight shimmered off the boardwalk beyond the parking lot. “I’ve been thinking a lot about roots. Or maybe the lack of them.”
“Never stayed anywhere long enough to put some down?” Eli asked quietly.
She shook her head. “My mom was career-focused. Promotions meant moving. By graduation, I’d been the new girl at school five times.”
“Sounds rough.”
“It was harder later. By middle school, everyone already had their people. I learned to blend in. Stay under the radar.”
He frowned slightly. “That sounds…lonely.”
“It was.” Her voice was steady. “I had friends—just not forever friends. But there was always someone. You meet the best people in libraries. That’s a big reason why I became a librarian.”
“Wait, you’re a librarian? Then why are you working at Cuppa Joe?”
“Long story.” Cora quickly recapped what had brought her back to GraceTown.
“That’s right.” Eli nodded. “I remember you mentioning the house-sitting at the festival. I didn’t realize about the layoff, though. Sorry, that’s rough.”
Cora shrugged. “Thanks. I’ll manage. Actually, I’ve got a part-time thing at a branch in town. Do you know the Carnegie Library?”
Eli grinned. “Can’t say I do. I’m more of an outside guy, I guess.”
Cora nodded and ate a bit of her sandwich. “Well, I’ve always been a library girl. I love the hush when you walk in. The smell of pages. The feeling that you could step into someone else’s story for a while.”
“Especially the ones with happy endings?”
She smiled. “Especially those.”
“Not a fan of realism?”
“If I wanted to be reminded how messy life is, I could just open my eyes.” Her tone was light but truthful. “But I want to believe love can last, that good endures, that even detours can lead you home.”
Something flickered across his face. Understanding, maybe.
“Sorry,” she said, laughing softly. “I’ll step off my soapbox now.”
“Don’t.” His voice gentled. “I think you’re remarkable.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because you’re still standing.”
Her breath caught. “You say that like you mean it.”
“I do.” He took a sip of water, eyes steady on hers. “I’ve always admired people who keep going even when things get hard. I’ve never really had to do that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I grew up here. My parents still live in the same house.” His smile softened. “They were high-school sweethearts and have been together ever since.”
Cora’s chest tightened. For a heartbeat, she was back on that porch in another world, Aaron’s arm warm around her shoulders, cicadas humming in the dusk. She blinked hard, forcing herself back.
“That’s rare,” she said quietly.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “They still dance in the kitchen, still hold hands when they walk the dog.”
“That kind of love…” Her voice faltered. “It stays with you.”
“It shapes you,” he said simply.
Her gaze dropped to her glass, and she traced a drop of water with her fingertip. In another life, she’d known that kind of love, the kind that left fingerprints on your heart.
She smiled faintly. “Yes,” she said. “It does.”
Whatever this was—friendly, fleeting—it wasn’t a beginning.
But perhaps it was a reminder.
That real love didn’t vanish.
It lingered.
Outside, the early-afternoon sun shimmered off the hood of Eli’s truck as he pulled into her driveway.
“Well,” he said, turning toward her with a grin, “for someone who claims she’s had a messy month, you hide it well.”
Cora smiled, unbuckling her seat belt. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one,” he said easily. “Thanks for letting me steal you away for lunch.”
“For crab melts that good?” she teased. “You’re forgiven.”
He laughed, the sound easy and warm.
For a heartbeat, the moment hovered between them—comfortable, open, edged with possibility. If this were another version of her life, she might’ve brushed a quick kiss across his cheek, light as a whisper, polite but real.
She settled for a smile. “Good-bye, Eli.”
“See you around, Cora.”
She slipped out of the truck, closing the door gently behind her. Inside the quiet house, the stillness pressed close, neither comforting nor empty, just…waiting.
Everything about the afternoon felt sharper now—the way the light slanted through the windows, the faint hum of the refrigerator, the echo of her own footsteps. The world outside the page carried its own weight.
She touched a hand to her chest, half expecting to still feel that other life pulsing there.
Maybe this was what Adelaide had meant about the Possibility Wing. Some doors don’t close when you leave them. They linger—quietly, patiently—until you’re ready to step through again.