7. Emory
EMORY
“There’s something I need to do,” I tell Granny, who’s perched on her stool as if it’s a throne and she’s fully prepared to rule another day from behind the counter.
She swivels toward me, slow and theatrical. “Go, go, honey. Take some doughnuts.”
“That’s actually a great idea. Thanks, Granny.”
I grab one of the pink boxes already assembled and flip it open on the counter. Crullers. Glazed. The old-fashioned kind with the cracked top Jake always claimed he didn’t want and then somehow finished every time.
I pause with my hand over the tray, then add one chocolate glazed. For courage. Or nostalgia. Or because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.
How did I know someone so completely—every order, every habit, every tiny preference—and now the only things I know about him come in headlines and sports segments?
I don’t know how he takes his coffee now. Or if he still hates sprinkles. Or if he still smiles the same way when he’s trying not to.
I blow out a breath so hard my lips vibrate and glance around to make sure nobody heard me.
Granny watches me over the top of her glasses.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I didn’t say a word.”
“That’s because your whole face is saying them.”
I close the box and tuck in the flap carefully, like I’m sealing up a peace offering. Then I grab my bkr and pretend my hands aren’t shaking.
“Love you. I’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll be here,” Granny says, with an undertone of duh.
I head out with the pink box balanced against my hip and my bkr in the other hand.
Lazy Larry’s is already in full swing. The bell clangs, and somebody yells, “Larry is so lazy—“
The crowd answers, “HOW LAZY IS HE?”
I don’t slow down enough to hear just how lazy Larry is today. I pass Tall Tales, and Willard comes into view, on his bench, watching the town. I lift the bkr in a small wave since my hands are full.
He tips his hat and gives me a thumbs-up. I glance at the bench beside him, expecting to see Chip. No Chip.
I keep walking.
Jake’s boat is tied up at the dock.
My stomach does one hard flip. He’s here. Which is good. That is, in fact, the entire reason I came.
Also, he’s here.
Do I go to the boathouse? The restaurant? The kitchen entrance? The answer is probably don’t overthink it, which is unfortunate because overthinking is one of my core strengths. Possibly my strongest. If there were awards, I would have a shelf.
A fresh wave of nerves rolls through me, half nausea, half excitement. I squeeze the doughnut box too hard and cave in one side.
“Good job, dipshit,” I mumble.
What if he won’t talk to me?
I wouldn’t blame him. The other day I slipped past him like a coward. But I need him to know it wasn’t because of him.
It’s me.
Which is the most cliché sentence in the English language and still, annoyingly, accurate.
Come on, Emory.
You can do this.
You need to do this.
I glance back over my shoulder. Willard is still watching me. He nods toward The Knuckle. His way of nudging me along.
Fine.
It takes me eleven steps to cross the short bridge connecting the restaurant to The Point. It’s midmorning, still before lunch service, and I walk in through the front door. The lights are off. Chairs are flipped upside down on tables. Condiment trays line the bar, empty and waiting.
Jake and I used to refill the salt shakers in the summers. Line up the ketchup bottles and malt vinegar just so. His dad would toss us a couple bucks when we helped, and his mom would slip us a few more when his dad wasn’t looking.
I can feel them here.
And I feel the ache of knowing they’re gone.
I keep walking toward the kitchen like a woman who has absolutely not considered turning around twelve separate times already.
Then I hear voices.
Jake’s voice.
And a woman’s.
Maybe I should wait. Maybe I should turn around. Maybe I should suddenly remember I left something back at Holey Moley and flee to the safety of flour and icing and my grandmother weaponizing concern through sarcasm.
Instead, my feet keep moving.
“It’s so big, I don’t know if it’ll fit,” the woman says, a little breathless.
I freeze.
“It’s hard enough, Bethany, I should be able to inch it in.”
Oh.
Oh no.
“Should we try another hole?”
This is… this is not happening.
“Yes. Yes! Now just push it in a little deeper,” she says. “Maybe twist it.”
Jake grunts.
I feel like I’ve been slapped with a live fish.
Of course he’s seeing someone. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s funny and tall and handsome and steady in that deeply unfair way that probably makes some women lose all reasoning and their panties in one smooth motion.
And of course he moved on. Why wouldn’t he? I’m the one who left. I’m the one who ran.
This was a terrible idea.
A truly terrible, humiliating, idiotic idea.
I spin to escape and immediately trip over my own feet.
The box flies out of my hands.
It lands upside down.
Doughnuts roll in every direction.
A cruller makes a break for the doorway. The chocolate glazed spins in one perfect, dramatic circle before collapsing glaze-side down, simply giving up.
I stare. Horrified.
Then I drop into a crouch and start grabbing doughnuts on pure adrenaline, shoving them back into the box like they didn’t just kiss the floor.
Of course this would happen. I showed up uninvited with a box full of proof that some part of me still remembers exactly what he likes.
Dear diary.
Brought doughnuts. Interrupted sex. Died.
Crying feels alarmingly close, right behind my eyes, which only makes me move faster. I scoop up the last glazed, jam it into the box, and start power walking for the door.
“Mo?”
That one word stops me so hard I almost lose my balance again.
I turn around and paste on the biggest fake smile of my life, even as tears start blurring everything.
“Sorry, Jake. I shouldn’t have just come by like this. Obviously you’re in the middle of…” I gesture vaguely, because how exactly do you gesture sex when your hands are full of floor splat doughnuts? “Um. Anyway. I’m going.”
“Mo. Stop. Please.”
A woman comes out of the kitchen, pulling her hair into a ponytail and tugging down the hem of her shirt. She’s pretty. Confident. Obviously comfortable here.
“Hi, Emory,” she says.
She knows who I am.
Perfect. I can only imagine that conversation.
“Thanks, Jake,” she says, grabbing a Boatkin off the bar. “That should hold me over for a while.”
“I’m going!” I say brightly, because apparently I have decided if I’m going to die, I’m going to do it chirping. “Going, going, gone.”
“No, don’t leave,” she says, completely unfazed by my embarrassment. “I’m heading to the produce stand. You stay.”
She smiles at Jake. At me. Then she just leaves.
I stare after her for half a second, then look back at Jake. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend. I shouldn’t have come by like this.”
Jake just stares at me.
“Girlfriend?” he says slowly. “Who?”
“The woman,” I say, and wow, that sounds weak. “Beth… Beth—“
“Bethany?”
“Yes.”
He actually snorts.
“Bethany’s not my girlfriend.”
“Oh.” The word comes out in a tiny horrifying squeak. I clear my throat. “Oh.”
I look everywhere except his face. The floor. The bar. The smear of chocolate glaze on top of my shoe. “I heard things,” I mumble.
His mouth twitches. “What things?”
“Jake.”
That twitch deepens just enough to tell me he knows exactly what things.
“Fixing the plumbing,” he says.
I jerk my head up. “The plumbing.”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God.” Relief hits so fast it turns into a laugh before I can stop it. High-pitched and full of a level of relief I would very much like to pretend I am not feeling.
“I thought you were—“ I cut myself off and press my lips together. “Never mind.”
He steps closer and reaches for the pink box in my hands. “Are these for me?”
“Well,” I say, looking down at the smushed box, “they were. Until they made a mad dash for the floor while I was leaving.”
He takes the box anyway and sets it on the bar as if it still matters. “It looked like you were running.”
“That seems to be what I do best.” The second it leaves my mouth, I want to grab it back.
But Jake doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t let me turn it into a joke. He just looks at me.
Then he steps closer. So close my breath catches. He lifts both hands to my face, holding me there for a second, like he’s checking that I’m really here. His gaze moves over me, taking in everything I want to hide. His expression softens in that quiet, devastating way of his. He exhales.
And then he pulls me into him.
One hand slides to the back of my head. The other wraps around me and brings me in close.
I hold it together for maybe a second. Maybe two.
Then I break.
The tears come fast and hard and absolutely not cute. I press my face into his chest and breathe him in.
Jake.
It wrecks me, how familiar he still is. How quickly my body remembers something my brain has been trying to manage for ten years.
He tightens his hold like letting me come apart is fine, but letting me go is not.
That somehow makes it worse.
I cry harder.
Excellent. Love that for me.
He just holds me.
Eventually my breathing starts to even out enough that Jake eases back to look at me, then crouches so we’re eye level. His palm cups my jaw. His thumb catches one tear, then another.
I lean into his hand without thinking.
“I’ve missed you, Mo,” he says quietly.
My mouth trembles. “Jake, I’m so—“
“Shh.” His voice is soft. “There’s plenty of time for that.”
His forehead rests against mine. “Right now,” he says, “let’s just be.”