Page 128 of Just One More Thing

Jake’s head drops slightly, a rough exhale leaving him.

“Emory.”

Low. Wrecked around the edges.

Not Mo.

Emory.

“Yes,” I answer breathlessly, even though it isn’t really an answer to anything. It’s just the only word I have left.

He says my name like that one more time.

Then words disappear entirely.

Afterward, the room settles into the kind of quiet that only exists near water late at night, when everything unnecessary falls away and leaves only the things that matter.

Jake lies beside me on his back, one hand resting warm on my hip. I turn my head toward him.

He’s already looking at me with that expression that I have spent years running from and toward and sideways around. The one I tried very hard to convince myself I didn’t miss.

“I’m good,” I tell him before he can ask. “Really, really good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The dimple appears.

He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers trailing slowly down my jaw like he’s trying to memorize this version of me by touch alone.

Jake pulls me closer, and I go without thinking about it, my head settling into the space between his shoulder and chest like it was designed specifically for me, which I choose to believe it was.

I think about don’t let the logistics win.

I think about ten days.

I think about how the sound of the water outside is the same sound I fell asleep to every summer of my childhood and how nothing in my life has ever felt this much like something I’m not supposed to leave.

I don’t say any of it.

I close my eyes.

And I let myself stay.

Just for now.

Just for tonight.

Tomorrow is still ten days away.

CHAPTER 32

JAKE

“Pinch me.”

She shifts against my chest to look up at me. “Pinch you?”