Page 31 of Just One More Thing

Granny.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sit back down on the bench before this conversation knocks me overboard. “It was just a walk, Maddy.”

“In Blue Crab Bay, a walk is a press release.”

I lean forward, forearms on my thighs. “That’s not my fault.”

“Didn’t say it was.”

“I didn’t?—“

“Don’t you explain yourself to me,” she cuts in. “I’m calling to say thank you.”

I wasn’t expecting that. “For what?”

“For not being a fool.”

I look out at the bay. Hank shifts closer, eavesdropping. “Maddy, I don’t want to push. I don’t want her feeling cornered.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, quieter, “Good. Because she’ll bolt. You know that.”

I shut my eyes. “I do.”

Because I do know. I know what it looks like when she turns panic into motion and what it feels like to be the thing left standing when she does.

“She’s trying,” Maddy says. “But she’s still fighting herself. Makes me want to shake some sense into her, but I’m old, and my shoulders don’t do that anymore.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. Maddy has a way of hitting a sore spot and making you laugh in the same breath.

“Walk with her,” she says. “Talk to her. Be patient.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And feed that dog,” she adds briskly. “He’s looking skinny.”

I look over at Hank. Hank, who is built like an ottoman. He’s anything but skinny. “Noted.”

“Alright,” she says. “I just wanted you to know I saw it. Goodnight, Jake.”

“It’s afternoon.”

She hangs up.

I lower the phone and sit there with it in my hand for a minute. Then I set it down beside me and stare out at the water. Beside me, Hank resettles and flops his head on my lap and goes back to snoring.

There’s nobody here but me and him, so I let myself say the one thing I’ve been trying not to admit.

“I missed her.”

CHAPTER 11

JAKE

The Point looks like a rom-com set that finally got the lighting budget it deserved.

String lights stretch from dock post to dock post, zigzag over the pedestrian bridge, then spill across The Green in loose, glowing arcs like a million lightning bugs refusing to clock out for the night. They’re wrapped around the live oaks, strands dripping from branches casting warm light everywhere.

Music floats in from somewhere near the beach. The air smells of Lowcountry boil, funnel cakes, and whatever Miss Hattie is currently doing to hot dogs.