Page 5 of Just One More Thing

“It was to her.”

I set the crate down by the prep sink and glance back at him. “Anytime. If y’all need anything, you know where I am.”

“We appreciate you, Jake,” he says quietly.

I’ve always been uncomfortable with praise. I never know where to put it. Feels too much like being watched for something I was going to do anyway.

I lift a hand and jerk my chin toward the other side of The Point. “Go on. Don’t let her catch you standing around.”

That gets a laugh out of him.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t start that.”

He grins, tells Hank goodbye like Hank outranks both of us, because he does, and heads up the dock.

Once he’s gone, it gets quiet again in that particular Blue Crab Bay way. Never silent. Just layered. Gulls arguing overhead. Water moving under the dock. Ropes creaking. Laughter carrying off the patio at The Knuckle.

Hank lets out a sharp arf.

I look over.

French Fry, the resident seagull and Hank’s sworn nemesis, is perched on a piling, looking down his beak as if he owns the dock and we’re lucky he allows us access.

Hank arfs again, ready to start something.

French Fry doesn’t move so much as a feather.

I lean my forearms on the railing and look out at the water before either of them makes me referee a dockside war.

Coming back here wasn’t the plan people thought I had. Hell, it wasn’t the plan I thought I had either. But plans change when life hits hard enough. When you realize there are worse things than going home. I could’ve left again. Plenty of people expected me to. But I needed something that didn’t ask me to be anyone other than who I am.

Here, I’m not Jake the quarterback. I’m just Jake. The one who fixes a busted cleat without being asked. The one who checks on people when they go quiet too long. The one who remembers the extra hush puppies and who takes their beer in a bottle instead of a glass.

It’s a good life. Quiet. A life built out of showing up.

Most of the time, it’s enough.

But sometimes, usually when the sun drops lower, I catch myself wondering what might’ve been. Not just the game. Everything.

Mo slips into my head the way she always does. Even now, after all this time, she can still do that.

I haven’t spoken to Emory Donovan in almost ten years, but I haven’t forgotten the sound of her laugh. How she counts steps without realizing it. No matter where she is, she always smelled like sugar and the beach.

I still call her Mo in my head. Probably always will. Some names settle in and stay there.

I heard she might be coming back to town.

The thought of seeing Mo again rattles me more than any fourth-quarter drive ever did.

Actually seeing Mo? That scares the hell out of me because I don’t know what it’ll undo.

I push off the railing and head for the prep sink. Get the crabs on ice. Scrub my hands, letting the saltwater and the day wash away, my thoughts along with it. My palms are rougher than they used to be. Strong in a different way. Earned in a different way too.

I dry them on a towel and look up.

There’s a figure standing near the water’s edge.