The bell above the Seacliff’s front door gives a half-hearted jingle, the same tired sound it’s made my entire life.
I’m in the middle of aligning the seashell candy jar with the edge of the check-in counter—one of my many extremely important duties—when the bell rings. Outside, the Pacific is a dull sheet of pewter, waves rolling in with the lazy confidence of locals who know they’re not going anywhere.
Unlike the people who stay here.
“Welcome to the Seacliff Hotel,” I say automatically, smoothing the front of my navy vest as I look up. “Checking in or—”
The rest gets stuck somewhere behind my ribs.
He’s taller than the doorway should reasonably allow, with dark hair gone a little wild from the wind, and a leather duffel slung over one shoulder like it weighs nothing. Slight stubble, a jawline straight out of an expensive cologne ad, and eyes the exact gray-blue of the storm rolling in over Driftwood Cove.
I know that face.
I have practically shelved it along with the rest of the travel magazines at the drugstore.
Don’t say his name. Don’t say his name like a fangirl.
He shrugs rain off his shoulders and smiles, and my pulse—carefully trained by years of slow, predictable days—does something reckless.
“Hey,” he says, voice warm and a little rough, like he’s been talking over crowds or across oceans. “I’m checking in. Reservation under… Hale.”
The name lands between us like a dropped glass.
My fingers tighten on the pen. Hale. Of course. But the first name on the booking system this morning was a generic "G. Hall," an off-season guest who wanted a corner room and no housekeeping after noon. Nobody told me it might actually mean Garrett Hale, traveling under a paper-thin alias and walking into my lobby like my life isn’t already complicated enough.
“Right. Of course.” I hear my voice go calm, professional. The same way it does when guests complain that the ocean is too loud. “ID, please?”
He digs out a passport and slides it across the counter. Genuine. Garrett James Hale.
The name looks different when it’s three inches from my hand.
Up close, the passport photo is a sharper, more tired version of the man in front of me. All the same, my heart does that stupid somersault it’s been auditioning for since I first read his essay about getting lost in Lisbon and finding himself on a rooftop with strangers and cheap wine.
I tap the keyboard, pulling up his reservation, focusing on the screen the way you might look at a lifeboat. “Mr. Hall,” I say, choosing the name in the system because it’s safer. “You’re with us for… a week?”
“At least.” There’s a tiny hitch, like the word almost turns into something else. “And it’s Garrett, if that’s okay.”
Of course it’s okay. I’ve been on first-name terms with you from my couch for the last five years.
“Hotel policy,” I lie gently. “We stick to the name on the reservation.”
His eyes tip toward my name tag. “Is that right… Mei Lin?”
Hearing my name in his mouth does a weird thing to my spine, like every vertebra wants to stand up straighter and also melt.
“Is the town always this quiet?” he asks, glancing through the lobby’s big bay window at the empty boardwalk, the closed saltwater taffy stand, Ethan’s truck parked crooked by the dunes.
