JAKE
Hank is sprawled in the shade beside the boathouse, watching me repair a section of the deck railing with the kind of lazy moral support only a bulldog can provide. His back legs are kicked out behind him like a frog, cheeks flattened against the dock boards, snoring between every few breaths.
September’s finally starting to take the edge off the heat, but the air still hangs thick enough to wear.
My phone starts playing Rocky Top beside my foot.
Ryan.
I wipe my hand on my shorts and answer on the first ring. “What’s up?”
“You alone?” he asks.
I glance at Hank. “Hank’s here, and he’s a bigger eavesdropper than Wayne.”
Hank lifts one eyelid, decides the conversation isn’t worth participating in, and goes back to sleep.
Ryan laughs. “They’re gonna call.”
Just four syllables, and my hand tightens around the drill before I realize I’m still holding it.
“Not official yet,” Ryan says. “But it’s coming. Daniels is done for the season. QB2 looked rough the last two games. Real rough in practice today. Coaches are pretending they’re calm.”
“Which means they’re not calm.”
“Not even a little.”
I set the drill down and walk to the edge of the dock, leaning my forearms against the railing as I stare out toward the channel marker in the distance.
“You hear this from who?”
“A friend in the office.”
“That narrows it down.”
“You know I protect my sources.”
I huff out a laugh. A year ago, I would’ve already been heading inside to pack a bag. Hell, six months ago. Back then it would’ve hit the part of me that still needed the league to tell me I mattered.
Now all I can think is I don’t want to leave.
Ryan goes quiet. I can hear whistles and voices in the background. Practice facility. “You thinking about it?” he asks.
“I’m listening,” I say. “Not yet thinking.”
“That sounds like thinking.”
“Probably because you know me too well.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Somebody yells his name in the distance. “I saw you at the dunk tank,” he says. “You looked good. You’ve still got it if you want it.”
“I know.”
The shoulder’s fine. The arm’s fine. I could do it. The question isn’t whether I could go back.
It’s why the idea of saying yes feels less like returning and more like leaving.
“Where’s your head at?” Ryan asks. “Is it Emory?”
A pelican drops hard into the water fifty yards out, spray spreading across the surface.
“Yeah.”
Ryan’s quiet again. “You want me to tell you not to do that?”
“No.”
“She doesn’t know you’d turn it down,” he asks carefully.
“No.”
“You gonna tell her?”
I shake my head even though he can’t see it. “No.”
“Jake—“
“She gets to decide what she wants,” I say. “That’s it. That’s the whole thing. I’m not telling her I turned something down so she feels like she owes me. That’s not how I want her to choose.”
Ryan exhales slowly into the phone. “What if she leaves, Jake?”
The words land harder than they should. Mostly because he’s one of the few people alive who saw what happened the last time she did. He remembers that version of me.
“I’m not chasing someone who hasn’t decided to stay.”
“That sounds like acceptance.”
“It is acceptance.”
“It also sounds like bullshit.”
I laugh softly under my breath.
“You’ve been stupid over that woman since shoulder pads had actual buckles.”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who drove six hours to return an AirPod case a woman left in his truck.”
“It was five,” he says, laughing now too. “And stop deflecting. Is this time different if she leaves?”
I don’t have to think about the answer. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. It’s all I’ve been trying not to think about.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “It’s different.”
“How?”
I look down at the dock boards beneath my feet. “Because before, I missed her.” I drag a hand over the back of my neck and stare out at the water. “Now I know what it feels like when she stays.”
Silence. Long enough that I pull the phone away from my ear to make sure the call didn’t drop.
“Damn,” Ryan says quietly.
Somebody calls his name again, louder this time. “I gotta go back out.”
“Go.”
“If they call, you don’t owe them an answer on the spot.”
“I know.”
“And for what it’s worth,” he says, “I think you know what you’re doing.”
I look across the bay. “For what it’s worth,” I tell him, “I think you’re wrong. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Ryan laughs. “Love you, man.”
“Love you too.”
The line goes dead. For a second I just stand there with the phone hanging loose in my hand.
They’re going to call.
I look down at the dark screen, catching a rough reflection of myself in it. A man who used to read pressure for a living and somehow didn’t see this coming.
And the truth is, I already know what I’m going to say, because this is my life now.
Hank.
This dock.
The restaurant.
This town that knows every dumb thing I’ve ever done and somehow kept loving me through all of it.
Her iced coffee sweating rings on my kitchen counter. Her flip flops kicked crooked beside the door. The sound of her laughing from inside the boathouse before I even step through it.
Her.
Movement catches at the far end of the dock.
And there she is.
Like the universe heard my train of thought and decided subtlety was overrated.
Mo. She’s walking toward me.
Hank lifts his head, spots her, then hauls himself up with a dramatic grunt, deciding this is an event worth participating in, and waddles toward her.
I slide my phone into my pocket and start walking up the dock. “Hi,” I say once I’m close enough.
Her mouth curves instantly. A little shy. A little breathless. Enough to wreck a man in under a second. “Hi.”
She bends to scratch Hank’s head. “Hi, baby boy.” Hank leans against her legs as if he’s been abandoned for years instead of approximately ten minutes during a phone call. She laughs softly and scratches behind his ears while he groans in approval.
Then she straightens. And it’s just us standing there with the afternoon sun pouring across the water and a whole conversation sitting inside my head she knows nothing about.
“This is a nice surprise,” I say.
She looks up at me, fingers tightening slightly around her bkr. “I wanted to see you.”
Simple as that.
She says it like there’s no reason in the world she shouldn’t.
I step closer before I can think too hard about it. Her eyes flick down to my mouth and back up again. There’s color high in her cheeks, and I can’t tell if it’s from the heat or from me.
I hope it’s from me.
“Good,” I say.
Her brows lift slightly. “Good?”
I slide my hand around the back of her neck and pull her the rest of the way in. “I wanted to see you too.”
She exhales softly the second she hits my chest.
I kiss the top of her head and stay there for a moment, mouth against her hair.
Man. I know this shampoo. This skin. This exact shape of her against me.
Hank flops heavily across both our feet with a satisfied sigh, fully convinced he personally orchestrated this reunion.
Mo tips her head back to look at me. “Everything okay?”
I meet her eyes. Eyes that still don’t seem to understand what they do to me. “Yeah,” I say. “Everything’s okay.”
She looks at me for another second anyway, like she’s deciding whether she believes that. Then, quietly, “Can I stay awhile?”
My hand slides from the back of her neck down to her waist. “You can stay as long as you want, Mo.”
And God help me, I mean it in every possible way.