Page 9 of Just One More Thing

I glance down at the doughnut in my hand and already know, with the kind of clarity I do not appreciate, that the part I should probably be worried about isn’t being back.

It’s how quickly everything here starts to matter again.

CHAPTER 4

JAKE

Hank sits while I clip on his harness, one back foot thumping against the floor.

“Bandana?” I ask.

He trots to the basket, sniffs every option, then nudges one with his nose.

“Traditional,” I say. “Strong choice.”

He puffs up while I tie it around his thick neck, proud of himself. I hook on the leash mostly for appearances, because in Hank’s mind leashes are a suggestion and the whole town is his off-leash kingdom anyway.

Outside, the air smells of salt and whatever the low tide and pluff mud are plotting this morning. Somewhere across the bay, a gull starts screaming at nothing and getting answers. There’s a whole argument already underway before eight a.m.

Hank heads down the dock with his chest out and his ears set back, moving like harbor patrol in a bandana.

French Fry is perched on the nearest piling, one unblinking eye trained on us.

Hank lets out a low, outraged grumble and lunges with the kind of confidence that suggests he hasn’t paused to assess either the situation or his own center of gravity.

French Fry lifts one wing in a gesture of, Try me.

“Not today,” I mutter, bracing the leash. “I’m not bailing you out of another feud before coffee.”

Hank looks back at me like I’m the coward here.

We cut toward The Point, where the morning coffee crowd is already spilling onto the Tall Tales patio. A cluster of retirees is arguing over whether oat milk belongs in coffee or in a formal apology to dairy. Book club appears to be discussing the novel, but they’re really working through whether Mayor Marybeth Wilkinson’s historic preservation weekend lines up a little too neatly with Nathan Jones’s sudden interest in decorative mantels.

Because Nathan Jones is not a man with opinions on millwork.

Or Marybeth Wilkinson’s husband.

The bell over the door jingles when we step inside Tall Tales.

And that’s when I see her.

She’s standing at the counter with one hand around a coffee cup, laughing at something Walt said.

Mo.

I forget what the hell I came in here for.

One second I’m just walking into a coffee shop with my bulldog. The next I’m standing here having just taken a hit I didn’t see coming.

For half a second, I honestly think I made her up. That maybe wanting somebody long enough does something to your head. Maybe it gets tired of waiting and starts inventing what it misses.

Then she shifts her weight. Brushes her hair behind her ear.

Real.

My first instinct is to leave.

Not because I don’t want to see her.