Chapter 13 Jack
THIRTEEN
JACK
Harbor Light is doing its absolute best to pretend this is a normal Friday.
The lights are low, windows steamed at the edges from warm spring rain. The owner, Marcus, has hung white paper lanterns across the back room like he’s hosting a summer fundraiser instead of a courthouse reception for two people who were arguing about parking meters less than an hour ago.
The problem is that my wife is sitting at the center of it all, wearing my ring, smiling at the right people at the right times, and I can’t stop thinking about how her mouth felt against mine in front of all our loved ones.
I didn’t know a kiss could rearrange your whole day. Your whole goddamn life.
I also didn’t know I could be this aware of another person’s hands.
Isla keeps touching things. A champagne flute. Winnie’s arm. Her father’s shoulder. She keeps smoothing the lace on her sleeves as if she’s reminding herself it’s real. Or reminding herself it isn’t.
Every time her emerald-adorned finger moves, my brain trips over itself.
So, I do what any mature adult man does in the face of a complicated emotion: I leave the room and go find nicotine.
I push out the back door with my jacket half buttoned, the noise of the bar muffling behind me. The air hits my face, cold and wet. The rain has slowed down to a thin, steady mist.
Late April showers, they say, bring May flowers, and isn’t it good luck for it to rain on your wedding day?
Out back, there’s a narrow wooden porch with a railing. Two tables no one uses because the view is mostly dumpsters and a dark stretch of parking lot. Someone has strung a single line of fairy lights out here anyway, which is sort of sweet.
I lean my elbows on the railing and pull a cigarette out of the pack I bought this morning. It was a moment of weakness.
I light it, exhale, and watch the smoke drift into the damp air. I’m doing this to take the edge off. This way, I might be able to handle the idea of walking back in there and sitting beside Isla while everyone calls her Mrs. Rhodes.
Mrs. Rhodes.
Jesus Christ.
She’s not even changing her last name, anyway. She wouldn’t, because being a Winslow is less a name and more a title, and Mirabelle has survived too much to be anything but hers. But it’s the idea of it that people love. The neatness of it. The way it sounds to say it out loud.
I take another drag and try to think about anything else.
I try to think about the food. Johnny from the diner went all out. There’s fried haddock and chowder and baskets of fries that keep appearing, plus a platter of deviled eggs that disappeared in under three minutes, which tells you everything you need to know about the town’s priorities.
Winnie brought flowers—wild, loose arrangements in mason jars. Spring things. Early bloomers, the kind Isla pretended weren’t her favorite.
Elsie brought cake, which is currently sitting on a table with a handmade sign that says CONGRATS in poorly piped frosting. It’s lopsided and charming. It’s probably going to taste really, really bad.
I take another drag. My mind immediately betrays me by replaying that goddamned kiss.
Isla’s mouth was warm. Her hand tightened in mine. For a second, I imagined she was kissing me because she wanted to and not because it was par for the course. I imagined making a real show out of it, pulling her closer and letting my tongue trace the seam of her plump lips.
Not for the audience but because I wanted it, badly enough to make a fool out of myself.
That’s the part I can’t swallow down.
The door behind me opens, and I immediately suspect the culprit because Wells has the subtlety of a car alarm and the stamina of a grudge.
But it isn’t Wells; it’s Elsie.
She slips out onto the porch like she’s trying not to be seen, shoulders hunched. “Of course,” she says quietly. “You’re out here.”
“Of course,” I reply. “You’re out here, too.”
I don’t know Elsie all that well, but what I do know is that she doesn’t love crowds or the spotlight or getting cornered into talking about feelings with strangers.
Her anxiety tends to show up as bluntness and busyness, but she keeps showing up anyway, because she wants, above all else, to belong here in Blue Willow.
Just like I do.
“They’re so loud in there,” she says.
“They’re loud, and they’re happy, which is the most dangerous combination in nature.”
She stares at the cigarette between my fingers.
“You smoke?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“Then why are you smoking now? I hope this isn’t a stress response?”
I lift one shoulder. “Nah, it’s a celebration.”
Her gaze drifts over my face. “If we’re both out here, then Wells is going to come find us soon. Isla will follow, and then you’ll get yelled at for hiding.”
“She’s not going to yell at me. I’m her husband now.”
Elsie makes a soft sound that suggests I’m both naive and doomed.
We stand there for a beat. The rain taps lightly against the railing. The fairy lights hum.
Elsie shifts her weight, then gestures at the cigarette. “Can I . . .?”
I blink. “Can you what?”
She makes a small, impatient motion with her hand. “Can I have a drag?”
I stare at her.
This isn’t what I expected. I don’t know what I expected, actually, but it wasn’t Elsie Hart, patron saint of earnestness, asking me to share a cigarette behind Harbor Light in the rain after my fake wedding.
“You gonna tell Wells if I let you do this?”
“No.”
“Isla?”
“No.”
“Your grandmother’s ghost?”
Elsie’s eyes cut to mine. “Jack.”
“Okay,” I say, holding it out. “Fine. Go ahead. But I’m going to be clear that if you descend into a violent coughing fit, I’m not shouldering any of the blame.”
She takes it from me with two fingers, brings it to her mouth, and smokes.
And she doesn’t cough. She takes a drag like she’s done it a million times before. Calm inhale. Slow exhale into the damp air. Like this is just another thing she knows how to do without telling anyone.
I am, unfortunately, impressed.
“What the hell?”
Elsie hands it back. “I contain multitudes.”
“I’m absolutely going to get in trouble for that.”
“With whom? God?”
She rubs her thumb along the edge of her sleeve, eyes on the parking lot.
“You okay?”
She blinks once. “It’s a lot. People keep hugging and talking over each other. Someone asked me if I was next.”
“Who asked you?”
“Mrs. Mott,” she replies. “And then she said I have such a sweet face for a wedding.”
I bark a laugh. “That’s the weirdest compliment.”
“It felt like an insult,” she says, and her voice goes a little flatter on the last word. “What’s a wedding face, anyway?”
My cigarette burns down between my fingers. I think about the way Isla felt in my hands. If we had a do-over for that kiss, I’d do it right. I’d put my whole body into it instead of pretending that one careful brush of my mouth was enough.
Elsie’s eyes drift to me again. “And you? You’re out here doing whatever this is.”
I could confide in her. I wouldn’t spill the whole truth, but I could tell her something. Maybe that I feel steadier but also more terrified than I’ve ever been before.
The back door opens.
“I knew it,” Wells snaps. “I knew you’d be out here. Both of you.”
Elsie flinches slightly, then recovers. “Hi, Wells.”
His eyes go straight to the cigarette. Then they go to Elsie’s face, and something in his expression shifts. “You look like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.”
“I may have sampled,” she says.
Wells closes his eyes for a second. “You,” he says to me, “are corrupting her.”
“I didn’t make her do anything,” I reply. “She’s her own person.”
“Why are you out here while your wife is inside being interrogated by Johnny’s aunt?”
Elsie clears her throat. “I came out here because I needed quiet. Jack came out here because he’s having a nervous breakdown.”
Wells looks between us. “A breakdown.”
“It’s not a breakdown,” I say.
Wells’ mouth twitches. “Okay.” He exhales, then points toward the door. “Put the cigarette out. Go inside. Sit beside Isla. Hold her hand. I know you want to be beside her, so go on and act like it.”
“Of course I want to be beside her,” I insist.
I volunteered for this. I signed up for the mess, the scrutiny, the pretending, all of it. What I didn’t expect was how natural it would feel to keep finding my way back to her side. How much I’d want to.
“Good,” he says. “Then go.”
Elsie drifts closer to Wells. He mutters something I don’t catch and holds the door open for her.
She pauses on the threshold and looks back at me. “Don’t disappear.”
Then they slip inside, leaving me alone on the porch for one more second, cigarette burning down between my fingers, rain settling into the crease of my collar. I grind it out against the railing, flick the butt into the little metal can by the door, and straighten my jacket.
The noise hits the second I step back inside.
Our friends have turned the Harbor Light into something soft and celebratory. Jars of flowers sit on every table, candles line the windowsills, and somebody has covered the worst of the scratches in the tabletops with white cloths.
It’s sweet in that Blue Willow way, where nobody ever does anything halfway.
Isla’s seated near the center table, her cheeks flushed, her hair slightly loosened at the temples. She’s holding a champagne flute, and she’s smiling at my mother, who’s mid-sentence and probably emotional about something that happened to me in 2004.
When Isla shifts her glass, her ring catches the candlelight.
My insides lurch. Get a fucking grip, man.
My mom spots me, waving me over. “There he is! Come sit. Your lovely wife has been very patient with me.”
Isla looks up at me, and I catch the flicker of relief before she smooths it away.
I slide into the chair beside her and put my hand on her knee under the table.
Isla’s fingers twitch once, and then she angles slightly toward me. “You smell like smoke,” she whispers.
I clear my throat. “Brief lapse.”
My mom laughs at something and barrels onward, which means Isla lets me live for another minute.
She has a gift for handling people when they get too close, for giving them exactly what they want without ever quite handing over the part that matters.
It’s impressive. It’s also a little unnerving because she’s so practiced at becoming whatever a moment requires.
Eventually, my mom drifts off to tear up at my dad about how fast time goes. Isla exhales and sets her glass down. Her shoulders loosen by half an inch. It isn’t much, but I notice because I’ve been noticing her for years.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Everything’s going well.”
I look around. Our friends are celebrating. Our families are already building out the future. Half the town will carry this home as proof of something they always suspected. And Isla is right in the middle of it, holding herself together with sheer will.
“I’m sorry I disappeared for a bit,” I say.
She turns toward me, one brow lifting. “You did.”
“Briefly,” I say. “I got overwhelmed.”
“By attention,” she says dryly. “Isn’t that usually your favorite thing?”
“No, Isla. I was overwhelmed for a moment that I get to call you my wife.”
Her gaze drops to my hand on her knee, then lifts back to my face. For a second, I can’t read her at all. Then she lets out a slow breath.
“Public behavior,” she says quietly. “You’re doing it.”
“Yeah, I’m crushing it.”
I give her knee a small squeeze. “Do you want to get somewhere quieter with me, or do you want to stay here while people keep telling you they always knew you’d end up with a Rhodes?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
Her hand drifts toward mine and settles over my knuckles.
“Like what?” I murmur. “Like it sounds completely unhinged?”
“It doesn’t.”
I can’t think straight with the whole room watching us. So I stand, hold out my hand, and catch that tiny pause before she takes it.
We slip toward the narrow staircase tucked behind the bar, the one that leads up to Marcus’ apartment.
Upstairs, Isla goes straight to the window and looks out over Main Street. The pavement is still wet, and the streetlamps turn it glossy in broken streaks. The storefronts glow, Closed signs turned inward.
The whole town is hushed in that late-night way that makes it feel like we’re the only two people still awake. I let the quiet sit.
I’m trying to learn how to be the kind of man who doesn’t rush to fill silence with a joke the second it gets too real. I’m trying to stay put inside a moment instead of dodging it.
I want to go stand behind her, put my hands on her waist, and see if she leans back into me. Instead, I give her space. I can tell she wants it.