Just One More Thing (Blue Crab Bay #1)

1. Emory

EMORY

The two-lane road has been empty for nearly an hour. Just pines, palmettos, and live oaks lining both sides. I imagine every tree whispering to the next that I’m on my way, passing the news down the line like a game of telephone.

She’s coming.

She’s really coming.

Every so often there’s a flash of water through the trees, a tease of blue gray that reminds me where I am and where I’m going. Or maybe where I’m going back to, which feels like a different thing entirely.

No matter how often I visit or how many years I’ve been away, Blue Crab Bay still knows exactly how to get to me. It’s a town that made me one of their own every summer. It’s a place that felt like home before I fully understood what home was supposed to feel like.

I turn the music up, roll the windows down, and let the salty air inside.

I round the bend and see the entrance to town ahead. Bright white rail fencing stretches between tabby-covered columns weathered by decades of salt and storms. The kind of white that only exists near water.

Live oaks arch overhead. Spanish moss sways. Resurrection ferns glow bright green against dark bark, still damp from last night’s rain.

Blue Crab Bay is trying extra hard today. Showing off.

My stomach does a full, traitorous somersault.

And there he is.

Huey.

The great big, beautiful blue crab gripping the town sign as if it might float away without him.

WELCOME TO BLUE CRAB BAY

Population 1,244

Including dogs and cats

Of course this town counts dogs and cats as citizens. Probably more beloved than some of the people. Definitely better behaved.

And hanging just beneath it, bold and impossible to ignore, is a sign I’ve never seen.

Proud hometown of NFL quarterback Jake Wheeler

I groan out loud. “Seriously?”

I’ve been in town ten seconds and Jake Wheeler is already—I shake my head like that might physically dislodge him.

It does not.

Instead I roll up the windows. Maybe that’ll keep him out.

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and tell myself, for maybe the fiftieth time since I crossed the state line, that I’m here for Granny. That’s it. Not old memories or whatever idiotic, reckless part of me still reacts to his name.

The Point curves into view, familiar and unchanged. Docks stretch out over the water, some newer, some listing slightly like they’re tired but too proud to quit. And there, at the far end, solid and unmistakable.

The Knuckle.

The two-story cedar shake building is as much a landmark as Huey himself. I spent every summer orienting myself by it. If I could see The Knuckle, I knew where I was. Which usually meant I knew where Jake was too.

“Deep breath, Emory,” I mumble as my fingers drum nervously against the steering wheel.

“This is temporary, and temporary is your specialty.”

I’ve built my adult life around it. Apartments I never fully unpacked. Relationships I kept light. Cities that felt exciting but never quite fit.

A life with just enough loneliness to call it independence.

“It’s just a few weeks, right?” I ask my bkr water bottle.

It doesn’t answer.

Rude.

I pull into the shell parking lot and sit there, looking at The Point through the windshield, needing a few breaths. Because once I cross that bridge, I’m not passing through anymore.

I’m back.

I open the door and immediately get hit with the sound of waves lapping against the seawall. The buoy bell clanging faintly in the distance. Seagulls squawking overhead, loud and nosy, already gossiping.

I close my eyes and breathe in the salt air, letting the sun hit my skin. Something in me loosens. The water has always done that. Smoothed the sharp edges. Made everything feel a little easier to carry.

Laughter drifts across the bay. Sound travels funny out here, sneaking up on you like a side mirror warning that objects are closer than they appear. Blue Crab Bay laughter has a specific cadence. Loud. Unfiltered. Usually followed by unsolicited advice or a casserole.

I grab my suitcase and bkr and head toward the pedestrian bridge, flip flops crunching on crushed shell.

The Point is close enough now that I can make out people moving along the docks.

Couples strolling the loop with coffees in hand.

An elderly man sitting on a bench, feeding a squirrel and talking to it like this is completely normal.

He pauses mid-conversation when he notices me watching. He smiles and tips his hat, unashamed.

Plop.

I stop so fast my suitcase bumps into the back of my ankle.

“Did that—”

I look over my shoulder.

Fresh seagull poop sits inches from my foot.

Close enough to feel personal.

“You missed me!” I yell up at the bird.

It squawks back, unapologetic. I’m fairly certain there’s a curse word buried in that sound.

I laugh because what else is there to do? This place has always had impeccable timing.

Holey Moley sits exactly where it has for thirty-five years. The sign out front looks freshly painted, the pink just a shade brighter than I remember. Granny’s doing, obviously. Subtlety has never been her strong suit.

The chalkboard near the door advertises HOT DOUGHNUTS in handwriting I could pick out of a lineup.

I picture Granny behind the counter bossing everyone around like nothing has changed. Flour-dusted countertops. Doughnut boxes stacked crooked. Sugar in places where it doesn’t belong. I imagine her seeing me and pretending not to cry while absolutely crying.

That thought makes me feel guilty for being so focused on what being back will do to me. I’m here for her. Not whatever else this town stirs up.

The reminder steadies me right up until a familiar voice carries across the water.

Then someone shouts, “Sure thing, Jake!”

His name has been echoing in my head since the moment I crossed the town line.

I don’t look. I don’t need to. The reality slams into me all the same.

He’s here.

On The Point.

The sound of his name tugs loose memories I’ve spent ten years trying to keep stacked away and quiet. Bare feet on docks. Sunburned shoulders. Late nights stretching into early mornings.

A boy who made Blue Crab Bay feel smaller and bigger at the same time.

I swallow, trying to tamp down everything bubbling up, but it’s already there.

There was one moment. One single conversation my brain likes to keep in a locked drawer and then open for no reason at three in the morning.

I was terrified of breaking something.

I ended up shattering it anyway. And I never fixed it.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, making me jump. Apparently, I’m now one phone buzz away from leaving my body. I pull it out and see a text from Granny.

Where are you???

Just parked don’t move

I have a broken leg, Emory. I’m not exactly running marathons.

You’re also you

Fair.

I tuck my phone away and keep walking. The Point feels smaller than it used to. Or maybe I just forgot how tightly everything fits together here.

I make it seventeen steps before another burst of laughter floats across the water, closer this time. Somebody says something I can’t make out. Somebody else cheers. It sounds easy. The sound of people who belong here.

My steps slow without my permission.

“Don’t look,” I tell myself.

I focus on the details I know won’t hurt me. The creak of the bridge under my feet. The smell of salt and pluff mud. The glare of sunlight bouncing off the water, too bright to stare at directly.

This is temporary.

I repeat it like a promise.

My armor.

I reach the door to Holey Moley and pause. Through the glass, I can see movement.

Inside, something crashes, someone swears, and Granny’s voice cuts through it all. “For the love of butter, if you drop another tray—”

I exhale.

“Here we go,” I mumble.