Read Online Luck on the Line by Zoraida Cordova - Free Book Online Page A

real smile with all beautiful teeth, the wrench in my stomach fucks everything up.
    “I guess New Hampshire. Good chowder.” Chow-dah. It’s the first trace of an accent I’ve heard from him, like he guards it. “I went to Italy with my sous-chef, Nunzio. He’s loud. You’ll meet him soon enough.”
    “That’s it?”
    “What?” His voice is loud. “Some people like where they live. Not everyone wants to run off like a wild thing. Some people like having a place that’s home, that’s familiar.”
    “I’m not a wild thing!”
    He lifts his mug to his lips and says, “That’s disappointing.”
    Heat blooms in my chest and spreads until I’m sure I’m blushing. “Yeah, well… At least I’m not afraid to try new things.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    I hold up the print out of the tasting menu. “Emulsified greens? Are you feeding a rabbit farm? It’s like every snooty restaurant menu ever.”
    I don’t realize I’ve crossed a line until he slams his mug on the counter. The handle breaks clean in his big hands. The storm in his green eyes goes away as quickly as it started when he looks at the shock on my face. Temper, temper.
    He takes the broken handle and the handicapped mug to trash, but first he polishes off the rest of the wine. His phone buzzes. He looks at the screen and a frown wrinkles his forehead. He closes his eyes and ignores it. “Wine’s out. I should go.”
    “I should go, too.”
    I can feel James’s eyes on me like the beam of a lighthouse. Truth is, I don’t want to go. I’ve only just started seeing who James is. I’ve seen the face he puts on when flirting, the face he puts on at work, but what about the face that’s there after-hours? He’s funny and flirty and there’s a pain that he keeps close to his heart. I can feel it in him because it’s in me, too. For reasons beyond my self-control, I want to know what that is.
    “Be right back,” I say. I go and get another bottle of wine. My heart hammers in my chest from the sprint, but it’s ten times worse when I come back and James is gone. Would he really leave without saying goodbye? Then I realize his blazer is still on the table, his cellphone right beside it. The screen lights up and buzzes over and over again.
    If that’s not a booty call, I don’t know what is. I set the wine down and edge closer to the screen. I’m not going to touch it. Curiosity is a curse. It makes you think you want to know, until you do know, and then you wish you hadn’t looked.
    But with my head pleasantly dulled with wine, I decide I’m going to look. The phone buzzes for the fifth time. A toilet flushes in the emptiness of the restaurant. The name reads: DO NOT ANSWER with five text messages and a missed call. I wonder who this person is that would warrant the phonebook kiss of death. I have a few DO NOT ANSWERs on my contact list.
    James’s boots announce him before he enters the kitchen. He fumbles with something in his pocket. The jingle of keys hit the floor. There is no way in hell he’s getting on his bike after downing half a bottle of wine.
    “Do you have a death wish?” I dive for the keys before he can get to them.
    “Give me my keys,” he says. “I’m fine.”
    I throw them in my bag along with the snooty restaurant menu. So much for working on a wine list. Why are guys so stubborn?
    He steps closer to me, holding my wrist in his hand, then brushes our palms together, like we’re about to start a drunken waltz. I can feel calluses that line the base of his fingers, working hands, from something other than a knife. I wonder where he got them. I wonder why he smells like the beach when New England beaches are cold and brown. Snap. Out. Of. It.
    “You won’t be fine!”
    “Lucky…” He steps away and shakes his head, like he’s trying to get a grip of himself. “I’m sorry. Lets start over. I always mess things up. I just, do this all the time.”
    “ Oh-kay. Come on,” I say, letting him drape