Page 26 of Just One More Thing

The town’s attention shifts half an inch, and that’s enough to know who just stepped behind me.

Of course.

Of course the universe would schedule my first normal public moment with Jake Wheeler next to condiments and wieners.

I turn.

He’s standing behind me in line.

Ball cap. Docksiders. A tee shirt that lands right at mid-bicep. Immediately, Martha May Whovier’s voice pops into my head—the muscles—uninvited and unhelpful. He looks maddeningly like himself. Casual in that specific Jake way that never reads careless. He’s always been that way.

In one hand he’s holding a leash. At the other end of it stands an English bulldog squarely at attention as if he’s on emotional security detail.

Great. Even the dog knows who I am.

Jake’s eyes lift to mine and stay there. I try to make my face do something normal.

“Hi.”

His mouth shifts, that small restrained smile of his, the one that always looks like the real one is waiting just behind it.

“Hi, Mo.”

The name lands exactly where it always has, in the place only he knows how to reach.

The bulldog snorts at my feet. I look down. “And who is this?”

“Mo, meet Hank the Tank. Hank, this is Mo.”

“Hi, Hank the Tank,” I say, lowering my voice like I’m greeting a very serious little bouncer.

Hank’s back leg twitches. Then he inches closer to me with the slow confidence of someone who assumes affection is inevitable.

“You’re… out,” Jake says carefully.

“I am.” I wave the twenty in my hand. “Granny banished me.”

“That tracks.”

And then we’re standing there in the weirdest version of normal imaginable. Two people who used to know everything about each other down to favorite popsicle colors now trying to speak in complete sentences next to relish.

Miss Hattie sets my tray down, but instead of sliding it toward me, she looks at me. Then at Jake. Then back at me. She smiles.

“Well,” she says brightly. “Isn’t this nice.”

Jake tips his chin. “Afternoon, Miss Hattie.”

“Afternoon, Jake,” she says, and the way she says his name carries at least three generations of hometown pride.

She finally nudges the tray toward me. I reach for it and realize, with actual surprise, that my hands are steady. That feels like a small miracle. Or at least a decent start.

“I was going to walk the loop,” I say, because standing here is inviting commentary from strangers and from my own brain, and both are currently tied for my least favorite thing. “Get some air.”

Jake’s eyes flick to the tray, then back to me. “You mind company?”

Such a normal question, and somehow it still feels careful. A cautious way of asking the thing underneath the thing.

“I don’t mind.”