13. Slack Water
Slack Water
Jenna poured a cup of coffee and stood by the sink, watching the weak ripple of heat over the mug.
The morning light made everything feel simpler than it was. Jenna knew better.
Because somehow the thing she couldn’t stop thinking about wasn’t the storm or the bakery or even the way Cole kept appearing exactly when she needed him.
It was paddleboarding.
He wouldn’t come in out of the rain, but he wanted to meet her on the water at sunrise.
She couldn’t make sense of him.
Maybe that was the point. A man reckless enough to patch a roof in a storm in the middle of the night, careful enough to keep his distance, but bold enough to ask her to meet him at dawn.
No wonder her brain was short-circuiting.
She checked her email, closed the tab, then reopened it. Pointless. Her eyes weren’t tracking a single word.
Next door, the bakery started its usual morning racket, voices carrying through the open windows, the soft thud of something heavy being set down, laughter she could almost place. She should go over. She knew she should. But embarrassment tugged at her heels like a hand on her ankle.
What if they’d seen her crying?
What if Cole had told them she fell apart over a chalkboard?
Told them?
God, who was she kidding?
They were all standing right there. Of course, they knew.
She wasted the first half of the day pretending to be busy, typing, re-typing, reorganizing files that didn’t need reorganizing, anything to avoid facing the audience from yesterday.
A knock jolted her upright.
Not the delicate two-knuckle tap she’d grown accustomed to. This one was louder, abrupt, unmistakably not Cole.
She opened the door to find Travis and the two new guys, one in a Braves hat and the other one who always argued about football.
“Peace offering,” Travis said, lifting a paper sack that smelled like gyro meat and grilled onions. “We got extra.”
“Extra, huh?” Jenna folded her arms, already fighting a smile. “Is that what you call ordering two more than you needed?”
“Morale,” Braves Hat said, tapping his chest like it was an official badge. “Boss said I’m head of the morale department.” He jerked his chin toward Cole, still on the phone by his truck.
Jenna raised a brow. “Did he send you?”
“Not exactly,” Football Guy said. “He told us that if we bothered you, we were all fired. So, this is a calculated risk.”
“Bold of us,” Braves Hat added.
Travis nudged the sack toward her. “Come eat with us. Shade’s good by the truck.”
She hesitated, then nodded, and followed them outside.
The heat pressed close, but the breeze off the gulf cut it just enough to make the picnic-table shade feel like a kindness.
Someone had set out bottles of water in a cooler.
The guys made a show of clearing a spot for her like she was a celebrity who’d wandered onto a blue-collar set. It was ridiculous and sweet.
“We get it, by the way,” Braves Hat said once they’d all sat. “About the chalkboard. I cried when my mom boxed up our Christmas ornaments after she moved. Like, really cried. Stupid little things are never actually stupid.”
“Speak for yourself,” Football Guy said. “I cried when the Bucs cut my favorite tight end.”
“Same grief center,” Travis said around a grin. “Different triggers.”
Jenna laughed in spite of the heat gathering at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, the words small but sincere. “For lunch. And the . . . perspective.”
“Part of the job,” Travis said.
“Food is not part of your job,” Football Guy countered.
“Client relations is,” Travis shot back, and his face softened. “Also… we like you here. You and Emmie.”
She managed a “Thanks” that didn’t crack.
When she glanced up, Cole was across the lot leaning against his truck, arms folded, one boot crossed over the other.
He wasn’t watching exactly, but his grin when their eyes met said he’d caught enough of the exchange to understand.
He dipped his chin once in a way that felt like approval, then turned and said something to the roofer about the flashing line.
It was awkward, and she appreciated it. Both could be true.
They ate in an easy silence, the kind that happens when everyone’s been sweating for hours, and the food is hot, and nobody needs to perform.
When the crew drifted back toward the bakery, Jenna stood to collect cups, but Cole was already there, hand brushing hers as he lifted the stack from her fingers.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“Thanks,” she answered, a little too quickly. “Do you need anything before I head back?”
“Yeah,” he said, shifting the cups to one hand, gesturing toward the bakery. “For a minute.”
They walked the short stretch to the bakery, and he kept the conversation practical in the way he did when he was trying not to crowd her.
“We’re wrapping finished flooring in here,” he said, nodding toward the gleam of the front room. “Baseboards will be Monday morning. Caulk and paint touch-ups, too.”
“And then?”
He tipped his head toward the house. “We start over there next, early next week.”
A thread of dread curled through her. He’d be inside the house soon, moving through rooms still heavy with Grace, and that thought set off a mix of anticipation and nerves. She wanted him close, God, she did, but there were too many ghosts, too many landmines she hadn’t mapped yet.
What if she unraveled again?
What if he caught her watching him the way she shouldn’t? “That soon?” she managed.
“If you want it to be,” he said, watching her face. “We can push if it’s too fast.”
“No,” she said, her voice stronger than expected. “Let’s keep moving.”
He smiled a little at that, their phrase now, and she hated how much the curve of his mouth undid her. He set the cups by the trash bag, then looked at her like he was considering whether to say something else. Whatever it was, he swallowed it and switched gears.
“Saturday,” he said. “Sunrise on the causeway? Or should I meet you here? I’ll bring the extra board. ”
She nodded like her heart wasn’t palpitating. “I’ll be there. I can drive myself.”
“Good.”
* * *
That night, routine should have saved her. It didn’t.
She opened a drawer, closed it, then opened another. She’d unpacked the little she’d brought, but the drawers still felt mostly hollow, half-filled with travel-folded clothes that didn’t belong in this house any more than she did.
Her closet wasn’t much better. A decade in Georgia reduced to one sad corner of pencil skirts she didn’t need here, field jeans patched from job sites, a black dress meant for client dinners, and three button-downs she barely remembered buying.
None of it was something you wore to meet a man on the water at dawn.
She stared at the mirror, then at the text blinking from Emmie.
EMMIE: Home in five.
She typed back: Question for you—do you own anything that can get wet? I may need to borrow something.
Emmie burst in like the answer to a prayer. “Define ‘get wet . . .’”
“Like, ocean wet,” Jenna said, deadpan. “Not funeral wet.”
Emmie cackled, “What is funeral wet? Nevermind. Also, yes. I have options.”
“In my size?”
“Trust the process,” Emmie said, already rifling through the tote she’d lugged in from her room. “Local shop blew out inventory after the hurricane last year. Everything was like five bucks or less if you showed a 34689 address.”
She tossed a bikini top onto the bed that could only be described as aspirational. Jenna lifted it with two fingers. “This is . . . a potholder.”
“Minimalist,” Emmie corrected, digging again. She pulled out another top, still tiny, but at least recognizable. “Okay, what about the red one? It’s less . . . potholder-y. Very cute. Very summery. Perfect for whatever you’re doing. What are you doing?”
“Paddleboarding,” Jenna said, trying and failing to sound casual.
“With who?” Emmie sang, already smirking.
“A friend,” Jenna lied.
“A friend? Right.” Emmie held up a neon-striped option that might have been illegal in several states. “Anyway, Contractor Guy will pass out on the dock. Ten out of ten.”
“Absolutely not,” Jenna said, grabbing for it and missing. “Also, stop calling him that.”
“What should I call him?” Emmie asked, delighted. “Mr. Bennett? Coach? Sir?”
“Emmie.”
The warning did nothing. Emmie’s grin only widened.
“Fine, fine,” Emmie said, digging deeper into the tote. “I did buy old-people things. For when it’s chilly. And for, you know, protecting your aged skin from the sun.”
“Emmie.”
“Kidding,” she said, not kidding at all. “Somewhere in here. Ah. Found it.”
She pulled out a sleek black one-piece with long fitted sleeves, a subtle hourglass seam that tapered in at the waist, and a zip front that ran to mid-chest. The fabric looked structured enough to smooth everything it touched, but flexible enough to move with her.
Practical. Polished. Unapologetically flattering.
“This is UPF fifty, full coverage, and stupid expensive,” Emmie announced proudly. “Also? You’ll look like a Bond girl who actually files her taxes on time.”
Jenna took it. The fabric was smooth, substantial, the kind that shaped without squeezing. It would show her waist and legs without bartering away her dignity. It looked . . . like her.
“It’s perfect,” she said before she could second-guess it.
“Boring,” Emmie said, but her eyes were warm. “But, you’ll look hot in it. In a grown-up way. A scary ‘I run the meeting’ way.”
“I do run the meeting.”
“Exactly,” Emmie said, “terrifying.”
They laid out the rashguard with an old, faded baseball cap that had belonged to Brooks. Emmie plucked the cap up, turned it in her hands, then set it down with a careful kind of reverence.
“Take sunscreen,” she said. “And water. And—” She paused, the mischief sliding into something softer. “Hey. I’m glad you’re going.”
“Me too,” Jenna said, and for once, she knew it was true.
Emmie flicked the edge of the rashguard zipper with her nail. “And if Contractor Guy, sorry, Mr. Bennett, doesn’t pass out on arrival, he’s not paying attention.”
“Stop,” Jenna said, laughing off the compliment.
“Fine.” Emmie started for the door, then paused, her bravado slipping just enough to show the girl beneath it. “You’re allowed to have fun, you know.”
The words hit Jenna exactly where Emmie meant them to. She nodded, throat tight. But Emmie wasn’t done.
“Mom would be pissed if she thought you were handling her dying anything like you did Uncle Brooks,” she said, arms crossing, voice harsher than Jenna expected.
“She wouldn’t want you burying your head in the sand.
Or red clay. Or whatever the hell Georgia’s made of.
” She huffed. “I could do that too, you know. I’m officially an orphan.
I could be sad all the time and run away.
But . . . I could also die at nineteen like Uncle Brooks.
Or twenty-two like my dad. Or thirty-six like my mom. ”
Jenna’s breath faltered.
Emmie shook her head stubbornly. “We have to keep moving. We have to live. And if living means looking hot on paddleboards for contractor guys, then—” she gestured vaguely at the swimsuit pile—“you should absolutely do that.”
Jenna let out a helpless laugh, one hand dragging across her cheek. “God, Emmie . . . you shouldn’t have to be this wise. And you shouldn’t use that language.”
Emmie shrugged, unbothered. “They’re just words. And I’m not wise.” Her voice thinned, the bravado slipping again. “I’m just tired of losing people.”
That cracked something open in Jenna. Something cleaner, softer than grief. “I’m trying,” she whispered, “really trying.”
Emmie nodded, blinking once, hard. “Good. Because I can’t do all the emotional growth around here by myself.”
A laugh broke out of Jenna, wet, surprised. “Well, if I do look hot on a paddleboard tomorrow . . . it will be completely accidental.”
“Uh-huh,” Emmie said, already smirking. “Accidental. Just don’t fall off in front of him.”
“Please,” Jenna sighed. “At this point, that feels inevitable. But it can’t be more embarrassing than yesterday.”
Emmie perked up instantly. “What happened yesterday? Did you get caught staring again?”
“Very funny,” Jenna said, trying and failing not to blush. “And no. Not exactly.”
Emmie’s grin turned downright evil. “Wow. That’s a yes.”
“It is not a yes,” Jenna protested, crossing her arms as if that could hide her face. “It was just nothing. A moment. A stupid, awkward moment.”
“So . . . a yes,” Emmie repeated, delighted.
Jenna groaned into her hands. “Why am I even talking to you?”
“Because I’m your emotional support teenager,” Emmie said, lifting one bikini top like a prop. “And because you’re terrified he might think you’re weird.”
Jenna peeked through her fingers. “He probably does.”
“Yeah,” Emmie said with a shrug, “but he also asked you to go paddleboarding. So, apparently, he likes weird.”
After Emmie disappeared, Jenna folded the rashguard over her arm and walked to the window. The yard was quiet, the tarp still and silver under the moon.
He wouldn’t come inside out of the rain, but he would meet her at dawn on the water. She didn’t know what that meant. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. For once, she let the not knowing be enough.
She set the cap by the door with her keys, dug up one of Grace’s refillable water bottles, and turned off the kitchen light. The house settled around her the way it always had when someone was finally ready to sleep.
Tomorrow, she thought, and the word felt less like a promise and more like a tide she was finally willing to meet.