Page 43 of Just One More Thing

I choose flip flops over boots. Because I may not keep walking.

I grab my bkr and shut the light off before I can renegotiate with myself. I move quietly down the stairs, avoiding creakysteps four and six, careful not to wake Granny, even though she could sleep through a marching band. Still, old habits die hard.

So do old nerves.

Outside, the night air wraps around me, warm and damp. Crickets are singing. The waves lap gently at the seawall. The sounds, the smell of salt, and the dampness carry me right back to childhood summers. Late night swimming in the bay with Jake. Our floats tied to the dock so the tide couldn’t steal us. Him talking about football under a sky full of stars. Me talking about having my own bakery one day.

What we didn’t dream was achieving those things apart.

The crushed shell path crunches under my flip flops, each step louder than it should be, as if it’s announcing my indecision as a public service announcement.

Angel. Devil. Same shoes.

I count thirty-four steps before I stop pretending I don’t know where I’m going. I take a quick inventory of my courage, which appears to be in limited supply and not currently available for backorder.

I could turn back.

I don’t.

Yay me.

The door to The Knuckle opens easily, hitting me with a smell familiar enough to make my stomach tighten. Seafood, citrus, and that specific garlicky butter the Wheelers have perfected into something that should be packaged in stores nationwide.

I don’t move. I just stand inside the doorway and let the place settle around me. The wooden crab traps Jake’s granddad used hang from the beams, dark wood worn smooth by decades of hands. Black and white photos line the walls. His granddad on a boat piled high with traps. His dad grinning beside him, sleeves rolled up like he’s mid-story.

A much younger Jake on the dock. And me beside him. We’re in swimsuits. Me in my tropical flower tankini and Jake in tropical board shorts. We’re grinning with popsicle stains around our lips. I can’t tell the color in black and white but probably grape. His arm is slung around my shoulders like it belongs there.

Like it always has.

“You can sit where—Emory. Hi.”

I turn.

Plumber girl.

Bethany.

“Hi,” I say. “Sorry, I got lost in… this.” I wave vaguely at the walls, the photos, the decades of history staring back at me.

“It happens in here,” she says easily. “You want the dining room? Or the bar’s empty if you’d like to keep me company.”

“Is Jake—“ I stop myself before I say here.

“He had to be somewhere, but he should be back soon. Come sit.”

I follow her to the bar and slide onto a stool that feels exactly as I remember. Deep. Comfortable. Jake’s dad used to say drinks paid the bills, so people might as well be comfortable enough to stay awhile.

“What can I get you?” she asks. “Hungry? Thirsty?”

“I’ll take whatever beer you have on tap,” I say. “With a pickle on the side.”

Bethany grins, checks her watch, and nods. “Me too.”

“How about Shellring’s Oyster Cluster?”

“Sounds good to me.”

She sets down two frosted glasses of Cluster, and a pickle spear for each of us. Then she comes around the bar and sits beside me instead of across.