Page 96 of Just One More Thing

“Wayne.”

“No, think about it. This is cinematic. There are dogs. There are baked goods. There is organized competition.” He sweeps one hand toward the booths. “Wet tee shirts are practically implied. This is how legacies begin.” He digs his phone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Documenting.”

“For what?”

“The future wedding slideshow.”

Mo nearly chokes on her Slept Over Special. “Wayne!”

“What? It’s smart to gather B-roll early.” He glances up and notices Bethany watching him from across the grass.

He waves.

She raises one finger.

The middle one.

Wayne turns to me slowly. “Did she just flip me off?”

“Yes.”

“In broad daylight?”

“Yes.”

He turns back and watches her another second, then smiles in a way I don’t trust at all. “I’m gonna marry her.” He adjusts his sunglasses and walks straight toward her anyway.

A minute later I hear, “I don’t like your tone.”

“I don’t like your existence.”

Ryan leans toward me. “Five bucks says she rips his meat off.”

“Five says she does it before the day is over.”

The morning keeps unspooling around us. Volunteers moving in crooked but earnest lines. Dogs barking. A speaker playing country music. Somebody calling for extension cords. Somebody else calling for zip ties.

It’s a mess, but it’s our mess.

Ryan drifts over toward Willard’s bench like he belongs there, which somehow he does almost instantly. Willard says something. Ryan laughs. Chip takes a peanut from between Ryan’s fingers like this has been their routine for years.

Mo stands beside me, taking everything in. Her hair’s up now, strands blowing in the breeze. She’s still wearing my hoodie. One hand tucked half inside the sleeve. The other wrapped around her coffee cup.

She looks happy.

And because I’ve spent most of my life loving her in ways that had nowhere to go, seeing her fit inside this morning that easily is more than I know what to do with.

She looks around at the booths, the banners, the people pretending not to watch us while watching us. “This feels like something,” she says quietly.

I look at her.

Yeah.

It does.