11. Jake
JAKE
The Point looks like a rom-com set that finally got the lighting budget it deserved.
String lights stretch from dock post to dock post, zigzag over the pedestrian bridge, then spill across The Green in loose, glowing arcs like a million lightning bugs refusing to clock out for the night.
They’re wrapped around the live oaks, strands dripping from branches casting warm light everywhere.
Music floats in from somewhere near the beach. The air smells of Lowcountry boil, funnel cakes, and whatever Miss Hattie is currently doing to hot dogs.
Dock Lights and Late Nights. Annual fundraiser.
The whole town shows up. Some of them for charity. Most of them for gossip. And the rest for whatever happens in between.
Hank trots beside me in a navy bandana dotted with tiny white crabs. My bulldog owns more accessories than I do. His jowls bounce with purpose as he stops every few feet to sniff something urgent or accept a back scratch, then moves on again as if he’s got a schedule to keep.
Psskt.
Wayne: We’re on the bridge let the party begin
Ryan: If there’s no funnel cake, I’m leaving.
Follow the lights. Don’t flirt with anyone’s aunt.
Also, there is funnel cake.
I tuck the phone back in my pocket just as Hank veers off to greet a kid holding a glow stick, pretending it’s a light saber. The kid drops to his knees. Hank accepts the attention as the local celebrity he is.
“WHEELER!”
Wayne doesn’t walk so much as arrive. Loud before he even opens his mouth. Too much confidence. A grin wide enough to make strangers tell him things they should probably keep to themselves.
“My guy,” he says, arms wide like we didn’t talk yesterday.
Ryan comes up beside him in a Bucs tee and hat, normal in a way that somehow makes him stand out. He’s been one of my best friends since Tennessee, a teammate through the loud years and the ugly ones, and he’s never once turned the worst parts of my life into a headline.
“There he is,” Ryan says, immediately dropping to his knees to hug Hank.
It’s understood if anything ever happens to me, Ryan gets my bulldog.
Hank rears up and wraps his front legs around Ryan’s neck, returning the hug.
Wayne crouches to pet him, then pauses when Hank snorts directly at him. “Okay,” Wayne says, standing back up and wiping his glasses. “He hates me. I respect it.”
“You look good,” Ryan says, clapping my shoulder. “Small-town living suits you.”
“Careful,” Wayne adds. “He stays too long, he’ll start wearing boat shoes unironically.”
I point down.“Already do.”
“I knew it,” Wayne says. “You leave my influence and immediately go soft.”
“Know a lot about being soft, do you, Wayne?” Bethany says as she walks past and keeps walking.
“That woman,” Wayne says, turning to watch her go.
Bethany doesn’t look back. Wayne keeps looking anyway.
Ryan catches it too, because Ryan catches most things and comments on very few of them.
Wayne and Ryan are staying at Huey and the Snooze. Bethany insisted. Something about keeping the chaos and testosterone contained off The Point.
“You guys want to check in now?” I ask.
“We’re all checked in, my man,” Wayne says.
“I checked in,” Ryan adds. “He was checking out.”
“Dude, she was hot,” Wayne says. “You’ve been holding out on me, Wheeler. You never told me small-town girls—“
“Keep it in your pants this weekend, Wayne.”
We head toward The Green. The noise thickens—music, laughter, a cheer near the doughnut toss, someone yelling about raffle tickets. The kind of night where everyone knows everyone and nobody’s in a hurry to leave.
Wayne scans the booths, shopping for chaos. “What are we bidding on? Fishing trip? Key to the city? Dinner with the mayor?”
“Good evening, Jake.”
Thelma Robinson.
Thelma puts the coo-coo in cougar.
“And who are these fine strapping young men?” she purrs.
Introductions are made. She immediately latches onto Wayne’s bicep with both hands. “Oh my goodness,” she says. “You’re so big I can barely get two hands around it.”
That’s it. I lose it. Ryan turns away, shoulders shaking.
Wayne, for once, looks rattled. “Hey, guys,” he calls as we keep walking. “Wait up.”
I’m still laughing when I hear it.
A squeal. High-pitched. Familiar.
I turn.
Mo.
She’s in a dunk tank.
Perched on the narrow seat above the water, arms crossed tight over a soaked Holey Moley tee, hair plastered to her cheeks, murder in her eyes. A sign taped to the front reads:
MAKE ‘EM HOLLER FOR $10 DOLLAR
Her eyes widen. Her mouth drops open. She leans forward and points straight at me. “Jake Wheeler! Don’t you dare.”
I’m already moving closer. “What are you doing in there, Mo?” I taunt.
“Ask my grandmother!” she yells. “I was told I was volunteering. I did not know volunteering involved hypothermia.”
“It’s August.”
“This water is emotionally cold.”
She sits up straighter, watching me like she’s tracking a shark fin. “No!” she says. “Absolutely not. I mean it.”
I spread my hands. “I wasn’t going to.”
Wayne leans toward Ryan. “He absolutely is.”
Ryan nods. “Yup.”
The kid collecting money bounces on his feet when he sees me. “Mr. Wheeler, would you like a throw for ten dollars?”
“You bet,” I say, handing him a hundred. “I’ll take ten tickets.”
“Give him the football,” a voice calls behind me over the beep-beep of a reversing scooter.
Maddy. Backing up on an electric scooter.
God help everyone’s ankles tonight.
Mo’s head snaps toward her. “Granny! You are officially on my shit list.”
The kid produces a football.
Mo makes a strangled sound. “Hell no. Absolutely not. That’s cheating!”
Ryan keeps his eyes on her but speaks to me. “You’re about to get murdered.”
“Worth it.”
I glance up at her. She’s pretending she isn’t nervous, but her fingers are white around the edge of the seat.
“You wouldn’t deny the Lighthouse Restoration Fund, would you?” I tease.
The ball settles into my hand like I never left it. I step to the line.
“If you dunk me—“
TING.
SPLASH.
She disappears with a shriek.
When she comes back up, I press a hand over my heart. “The lighthouse thanks you for your sacrifice, Miss Donovan.”
Hank runs forward, grabs the ball, and brings it back.
“You too, Hank?” she sputters.
He drops it at my feet.
I pull another ticket.
“There should be rules,” she says.
“There are,” the kid says. “Don’t cross the line.”
The crowd that’s started to gather laughs.
Mo gives me the look. The don’t you dare look women perfected generations ago.
“He’s a quarterback!” she shouts. “There should be a rule about that!”
“Retired,” I correct, lining up again.
I bounce the ball once. “Mo.”
“What.”
“Wayne Kerr, meet Emory. Emory, meet Wayne.”
Wayne bows as if meeting royalty. “Ma’am. I’ve heard so much.”
Her expression softens. Just for a second. Then her eyes narrow. “Is this a distraction?”
“Maybe.”
TING.
SPLASH.
Wayne claps like it’s a playoff game. “Again! Again!”
She hauls herself back onto the seat, pointing at him. “Zip it, Wanker!”
Wayne beams. “Wheeler, your girl’s got jokes!”
TING.
SPLASH.
“I hate you!” she shouts.
I grin. “I know.”
Wayne cups his hands around his mouth. “Still got it, eleven!”
The crowd laughs. The noise hits something in me that still remembers.
Ryan shakes his head. “Man didn’t even warm up.”
“Mo,” I call, “meet Ryan Knox.”
Ryan lifts a hand. “Hi.”
“Ryan, meet Emory.”
She opens her mouth—
TING.
SPLASH.
Ryan laughs.
“You couldn’t wait two seconds?” she says when she resurfaces.
“Introductions completed,” I say. “Efficiency matters.”
Fifth throw.
“This one’s for telling everyone I cried during Steel Magnolias.”
“You did cry!”
TING.
SPLASH.
Half the town has gathered now. Phones out. Someone chanting my name. Someone chanting hers. Hank retrieves the ball every time, head and butt shaking like he’s won MVP.
“You peaked in college!” she snaps.
“Oof,” Ryan murmurs. “Direct hit.”
I clutch my chest dramatically. “That’s a low blow, Mo.”
She crosses her arms. “Your stance is sloppy.”
The crowd oohs.
“Excuse me?”
“You drop your shoulder,” she says. “Always have.”
Ryan nods. “She’s not wrong.”
I adjust my stance deliberately.
She laughs before she can stop herself.
“You watched me play, did you, Mo?”
“No, I—“
TING.
SPLASH.
Hank brings the ball back again.
“Traitor,” she says.
TING.
SPLASH.
I flip the ball once in my hands. “You okay up there?”
“I’m thriving.”
“You’re dripping.”
“I’m glowing.”
TING.
SPLASH.
“This is for the time you put a snake in my bed when we were twelve.”
“It was fake!”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s why you screamed like a dying peacock?”
Wayne loses it. Ryan’s barely holding it together.
TING.
SPLASH.
This time when she comes up, she’s laughing. Head tipped back, forgetting to be mad. The sound of her laugh feels like summer. Like the old days. It settles somewhere in my chest and doesn’t move. I circle the booth and grab the ladder.
“Wait,” she says. “What are you doing?”
I climb up and hold out my hand.
“You’re such a jerk.”
“True,” I say, “but this jerk brought a towel.”
She takes my hand. I help her down. Water sloshes everywhere. I wrap the towel around her shoulders, wishing I could wrap her in my arms. I settle for rubbing her shoulders instead.
We’re standing close. Too close. Her hands fist in the towel. Mine are still on her arms. It feels easy to forget why we ever stopped being this. Then she steps back.
“I’m getting even,” she says. “You know that, right?”
“I look forward to it.”
We laugh.
Wayne walks over and whistles. “Those throws, Wheeler.”
Ryan nods. “Yeah. Real good.”
Mo rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Real good, eleven.”
I glance toward the crowd. “I see Maddy’s loose. Does that mean you’re leaving soon?”
“The scooter doesn’t fit in the bakery, so no. She’s only loose to cause havoc in wide-open spaces. Speaking of Granny, I better go find her.”
She walks backward as she talks. “Watch your back, Jake Wheeler,” she says, waving her hooked pinky in the air.
A pinky promise.
I exhale, rubbing my face, trying to get my smile under control.
Wayne nudges me. “You’re such a smitten kitten, it’s embarrassing.”
Ryan nods. “He’s a goner.”
I don’t deny it.
Because under the dock lights and the late night noise, with her laugh still somewhere behind me, denial feels like the dumbest play I’ve ever tried to run.