4. Jake
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.
Because I do.
Too damn much.
Ten years should’ve dulled something. Should’ve made her easier to look at than this.
It didn’t.
“Mo.”
Her name comes out before I decide to say it, but at least it sounds like a man saying it now, not one who’s been carrying it around for ten years.
She turns slowly.
Our eyes meet.
There’s no confusion. No polite squint while she places me.
Just knowing.
I see the exact second it hits her. Her fingers tighten around the cup. The smile falls away. Her whole body goes a little still.
“Jake.”
My name sounds different in her voice now. Careful in a way it never used to be.
I take one step toward her. Then another. Hank’s leash slips loose in my hand. Even he stops pulling and looks from me to her and back again.
She looks familiar in the worst possible way. Someone I used to know how to reach for.
I should say something normal.
How are you.
Welcome back.
You look good.
Instead I stand there, knowing exactly what it costs to say too much. To build a whole future around her and watch it come apart in a single sentence.
Her mouth parts. Closes. Opens again.
I can see she wants to say something. I want her to. God, I want her to.
I want her to tell me why she left. Why she didn’t come back. I want to know if she ever missed me the way I missed her.
I open my mouth.
“Jake! Jake!”
A hand grabs my sleeve hard enough to jerk me sideways.
One of Bethany’s servers is standing there, out of breath and half panicked. “Flooding. The Knuckle.”
I just stare at him, the words not landing.
I look back to Mo.
“I—“ I start.
I don’t know what comes after it because she’s already moving.
We pass each other in the narrow space by the door, close enough that I feel the heat of her. Her shoulder nearly brushes mine.
Not a touch.
Worse.
The absence of one.
And then she’s gone. Just like that.
By the time the bell over the door stops jingling, I still haven’t moved.
I could go after her.
Say her name again.
Stop her this time.
I don’t.
Because I know how long a man can live with one wrong moment.
So I stand there in the middle of Tall Tales with my bulldog at my feet and my whole chest pulled tight enough to hurt.
And I watch her walk away.
And I let her go.
Again.