Page 71 of Just One More Thing

So I made coffee. Checked the weather like I had somewhere to be that required knowing it. Then I went out to the dock and replaced two loose boards that’ve only been loose for a week and, for reasons that made perfect sense before sunrise, suddenly needed immediate attention.

I stood there afterward with the drill in my hand, looking them over, wondering if maybe I’d missed something. Maybe there was another problem I could fix if I stared long enough.

There wasn’t.

So I walked up to The Knuckle and tightened a couple boards on the patio too, because if I was going to pretend I had a practical reason to be up before dawn, I might as well commit to the lie.

By the time I made it back to the boat, the sun had started pushing up over the water. I washed down The Pinch of Tides nice and thorough. When I finished, I stood there, hose still in my hand, watching water run off the deck. Then I turned it off. Coiled it up. Put it away.

Opened the storage bin under the bench. Closed it. Opened it again. Rearranged two crab pots that were already exactly where they belonged. Checked my phone. Nothing. Slid it into my pocket. Took it back out thirty seconds later. Still nothing.

Hank lies stretched out on the dock, chin down, eyes half closed, breathing slow and heavy in that way he does when he’s decided the world is not worth getting up for. He’s been watching me for the last hour with the kind of quiet judgment only a bulldog can pull off.

“Nothing to see here, buddy,” I tell him, stepping off the boat. The wood’s already warm under my feet. “Just your dad conducting unnecessary dock repairs before breakfast,” I tell him, dropping down beside him.

He lifts his head just enough to look at me, then lets out a long, unimpressed grunt and drops it onto my thigh.

I scratch behind his ear. He leans into it briefly, then settles again, eyes closing like he’s officially withdrawing from this conversation.

I look up when the lights click on inside The Knuckle. Bethany. She moves through the space with that same efficient, no-nonsense pace she always has, flipping things on, setting things up like the place belongs to her as much as it does to me.

I check my watch. Nine oh-two. I’ve passed three hours without accomplishing a damn thing that actually needed doing.

Everything looks the same as it did yesterday morning. The bay. The dock. The boat. Same ropes. Same pilings. Same water sliding in and out like it’s got all the time in the world.

Only now I know what her mouth tastes like.

That seems like a design flaw in the universe. Expecting a man to move through a normal morning after that.

Hank lifts his head. I follow his line of sight toward shore. Nothing. Just a pelican diving down through the air and hitting the water hard enough to send a ripple out toward the dock.

Hank huffs and settles again.

“You’re not helping.”

He thumps one foot against the wood.

This is the fourth time in the last hour he’s done that. Looked toward shore like he’s spotted something. Someone. Let me hope for exactly half a second. Then gone right back to being a potato.

I pull my phone out again.

Still nothing from her.

I turn it over in my hand, thumb hovering for a beat before I drop it facedown beside me.

Hank’s head snaps up. I don’t look this time. “Not falling for that again,” I mutter.

“Arf.”

I look.

And there she is.

Crossing the dock with a pink doughnut box tucked against her side in one hand, iced coffee in the other.

The smile hits before I can stop it. I try. I do. Pull it back. Play it cool.

I fail miserably.