17. Jake
JAKE
Iwipe down the same stretch of bar for the third time, hoping the wood might tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do with myself.
Hank’s under stool four, chin on his paws, watching the door. “Me too, buddy,” I say.
The door opens. My head lifts before I can stop it.
Not her.
Mr. Henson and his wife step inside mid-argument about patio versus indoor seating. “I’m telling you, Dolores, it’s nice out.”
“And I’m telling you, Gerald, I’m not eating outside with mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds.”
I grab menus and lead them to a table near the windows. “Best of both worlds. You still get the view.” Mr. Henson nods like I’ve brokered a peace treaty. Mrs. Henson gives me a look that says she’ll decide whether I’ve brokered peace.
Back at the bar, Bethany catches me glancing toward the entrance again. “You’ve been staring at that door all night.”
“I’ve been checking for customers.”
“Sure.”
Charlie’s voice comes from the end of the bar. He’s been nursing one beer for the last hour, watching me with the kind of patience that gets real irritating when you know the man’s right. “You gonna say that with a straight face?”
“I am saying it with a straight face.”
Bethany’s still watching me. “You gonna wait again?”
“I’m not waiting.”
She grabs her tray and heads back to the kitchen. “That’s adorable.”
“I heard that.”
“That was the point.” The kitchen door swings shut.
The front door opens again. Hank’s whole back end wiggles once. Then settles. I look away from the entrance before I can check for myself and start lining up salt shakers that were already lined up.
Charlie pushes his empty glass aside. “What’s going on?”
“I took Mo to check pots today. There was a point she reached for me.”
His eyebrows lift.
“Then she stopped.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. Then, “You still love her.”
“Yes.”
“Then stop acting like loving her is something you need to make up for.”
Charlie watches me for another second. “What else is going on?”
I drag a hand over the back of my neck. “Ryan texted.”
His posture shifts. “And?”
“Starter went down.”
He lets out a low whistle. He knows what that means without my having to explain it. “You’d go back?”
“If they called, I’d hear them out.”
“And Emory?”
I glance at him. “I’m not passing because I’m scared of losing her.” The second I say it, I know it’s only half true. Charlie knows it too.
He turns on his stool to face me fully now, forearm on the bar, expression calm in that way that means he’s not about to let me bullshit either one of us. “When she left, you didn’t fall apart for a month,” he says. “You fell apart for years.”
I stare at the bar top. Ten years ago, I’d have argued that. Now I know better. “I built a whole future around her without asking if she wanted one,” I say. “I said I love you like she’d already agreed to it. That’s on me.”
“And now?”
“Now I know better than to build around a maybe.” I set the last shaker down harder than I mean to. “I’m not dragging her into something she hasn’t chosen. That’s the difference.”
Charlie nods once.
That’s apparently enough.
I toss the rag beneath the sink. “You always this cheerful?”
“Only with you.”
“Lucky me.”
He stands, rolls his neck once and sets a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve gotta go work on next month’s schedule. You good?”
“Yeah.” Charlie’s good at giving a man space without leaving him alone in it. On his way out, he bends and scratches Hank behind the ears. “Keep an eye on him.”
Hank keeps snoring.
The dinner crowd thins. The kitchen goes from full tilt to cleanup. Bethany grabs her boatkin and keys, straightening along her way to the front door. “Lock up,” she says. “And try not to brood. It’s bad for business.”
“I don’t brood.”
She laughs. “Sure you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Bethany.”
She glances back.
“Thanks,” I say.
“I know.”
Then she’s gone.
Hank lumbers out from under the stool and flops against my leg with a grunt, like he’s had a long, exhausting night of doing absolutely nothing.
I scratch the loose skin at the back of his neck. “You did great tonight.” He leans heavier.
I kill the overhead lights and step outside. The air’s cooler now. The dock’s quiet. No music. No laughter drifting out over the bay. Just the soft slap of water against wood.
I lean on the railing. Hank plants himself on my foot. For a minute, I listen to the water under the dock with my bulldog on my foot and don’t chase a single thought.
She shows up anyway.
I can still hear her laughing in the dunk tank, head tipped back, soaked through and forgetting to be mad at me. I still feel the weight of her sliding into me when we hit that wave and didn’t move right away.
The way her eyes lifted to mine like she was already halfway there before she stopped herself.
“She leaned in,” I tell Hank. He blinks up at me. “I felt it.”
I didn’t imagine it.
I reach over and flip off the last dock light. Across the water, a light clicks on above Holey Moley. Second floor. Her room.
Don’t look.
I look.
Just long enough to let it be real that she’s over there and I’m over here and the stretch of water between us isn’t as wide as it used to be.
I push off the railing and turn toward the boathouse. Hank’s nails click beside me on the planks.
If she walks toward me, I’ll be here.
And if she doesn’t—
I keep walking.
What scares me is the hope she will.