Page 39 of Just One More Thing

She smells like sugar and cinnamon and something citrus I can’t place. Her hair’s pulled up, a few strands have come loose around her face. And just that fast, she makes the morning better.

“Good morning, pretty lady,” I say.

Her mouth twitches. “I haven’t decided if I’m speaking to you yet.” Then she looks down and points at Hank. “Or you.”

Hank pops up on his back legs, paws batting at her hips.

“Suck up,” I tell him.

“I can’t stay mad at you, Hank,” she says, squatting to wrap her arms around his thick neck.

“What about me?”

She looks up at me from under her lashes. “Well…”

We both laugh. That’s the part that gets me. How natural it is now to stand this close and smile at each other as if we didn’t spend ten years being the hardest thing in each other’s lives.

“I’m heading to the Snooze to get the guys,” I say. “Have a good day, Mo.”

“You too, Jake.”

I push outside and take a few steps before I glance back over my shoulder.

She’s doing the same.

We both pretend we weren’t.

Huey and the Snooze sits on the far side of the pedestrian bridge. There are no cars on The Point. The crushed shell lot serves as parking for everybody, and the rest we do on foot or by boat. It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about this place. Life here makes people cross paths whether they planned to or not.

The wooden bridge creaks under our steps. I slow without meaning to when I pass the plaque.

In memoriam of Tammy and Steve Wheeler

I keep moving.

I always do.

Inside the Snooze, I barely make it in the door before I hear it.

The rumble.

Then the grumble.

“I don’t give a hoot who you are, Jake Wheeler. You know you can’t bring that dog in here.”

“Morning, Mrs. Walker. If you gave him a chance, you’d love him.”

“Ain’t never loved a dog other than the man I married, and I never will.”

“Do you let kids in here?”

“Of course I do. What kinda stupid?—“

“Well, Hank’s my kid.”

She opens her mouth to argue as I hustle Hank into the elevator. “And he’s better behaved than most,” I call as the doors close. “Get back he?—“

Ryan’s door on the second floor opens before I knock. He takes one look at the tray and nods. “Ah. Coffee. Americano?”