JAKE
“SHE SAID YES!”
I shout it as we round the channel marker into the bay. To nobody. To everybody. To the water, the sky, the whole damn town.
The buoy bell dings. I like to think in celebration.
Mo laughs and tucks her face into my shoulder, and I pull her tighter against my side. I’m never going to get tired of that sound.
Then the shoreline comes into view.
They’re all there.
Packed along the edge of The Green with homemade signs and banners and the kind of energy this town usually saves for fireworks, football, and public scandal.
Somebody rigged a bedsheet between two palm trees that reads E + J 4-EVER in letters big enough to see all the way from the town of Oyster Bay.
Wayne is out front on the jetty, holding a chart over his head. Mrs. Kravitz stands beside him with her scoring paddle already up.
A ten.
Frank is grinning behind a sign that reads BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, which makes no sense and feels extremely on brand.
Walt’s near the dock with two coffee cups raised in the air. I can’t read what he wrote from here, but I know better than to believe it’ll be harmless.
And then there’s Maddy and Hattie.
Looks like Miss Hattie found her freedom chariot because she’s driving a scooter in figure eights on the crushed shell path while Maddy rides in the front basket, one arm circling in the air like she’s roping cattle.
“WOOHOO!” Maddy hollers.
On his bench at the edge of The Green, Willard tips his hat.
French Fry circles overhead.
Mo looks up immediately. “I swear if that seagull—“
“He won’t,” I say, easing us toward the dock. “You’re officially one of us now.”
She gives me a look. “That does not feel like a guarantee.”
“In this town, it’s basically legal protection. Only visitors are eligible for his bowel bombs.”
“That feels made-up.”
“Most laws here are.”
I kill the engine, tie us off, and step onto the dock, then turn and hold out my hand.
She takes it and looks past me toward shore at everything already in motion like these lunatics had a week to plan instead of a few hours.
“How did they get all of this done this morning?”
The Tail Flickers are setting up. Pink streamers twist through the string lights that never came down from our homecoming. A mimosa fountain is flowing beside a Bloody Mary bar. Chocolate doughnuts are stacked on every spare surface around The Green.
I look at her. “Your granny knew last night when I asked for her permission.”
She goes still.
“You asked Granny.”
I nod. “Felt wrong not to get her blessing.”
Her chin starts to tremble. “Jake Wheeler.”
“She said yes faster than you did.”
“I said yes immediately!”
“She said yes before I finished the sentence.”
She presses her forehead to my chest, and when she looks up, her eyes are full of tears.
“And she organized all of this since last night?”
“You underestimate what this town can do with a couple of hours and a group chat.”
We step onto The Green to cheers, whistles, and applause. Somebody sets off a single firework too close to an umbrella on the Tall Tales patio, and the damn thing takes off like Mary Poppins.
Mo laughs into my shoulder.
The screen at the edge of the lawn flickers to life, and photos begin cycling through.
Mo and me at seven, barefoot on the dock, legs covered in sand and bug bites, each missing a front tooth.
At ten, holding up a blue crab like it’s a trophy.
At fourteen, outside of Holey Moley, her in an apron, stuffing a doughnut in my face.
She leans into me as she watches and whispers, “We were babies.”
I kiss the top of her head.
A photo of us at sixteen fills the screen.
She’s laughing.
I’m looking at her the way I’ve been looking at her most of my life.
That hasn’t changed.
Then I hear Wayne.
“YOU’VE GOT TO BE SHITTIN’ ME!”
I turn.
There’s a white streak down his shoulder and half his sleeve.
French Fry glides overhead, squawking, proud of himself.
Bethany takes one look at Wayne and says, “He missed.”
Wayne stares at her. “He missed? Do you not see this?” He holds his arm out like evidence.
“He missed your head.”
Wayne points up at French Fry. “I’ll give you something to squawk about, you shit eating chicken with wings.”
“Wayne.”
“Yeah.”
“Chickens have wings,” Ryan says.
Wayne turns to him. “That, my friend, is commercialism. You know how small those things are. They’re not real chicken wings. And if chickens really had wings, why don’t you see any flying around? See any flying chickens lately?”
“I can’t,” Bethany says as she walks away.
Then French Fry swoops lower.
Too low.
Hank has been lying in the shade, pretending to be asleep with open eyes and a fake snore.
He launches.
Seventy pounds of bulldog fury tears across The Green with a lot more speed than anyone thought bulldogs were capable of. French Fry dives toward the slideshow screen and pulls up at the last second.
A second too late.
He hits the screen.
The frame wobbles. The image of twelve-year-old Mo and me freezes for one perfect second before the whole thing comes crashing down in a tangle of fabric, metal, and one very confused seagull.
The crowd gasps.
French Fry flaps out of the wreckage in a burst of feathers, gets disoriented, and lands in the top tier of the mimosa fountain.
Wayne points at him. “KARMA! THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS! THAT’S WHAT YOU GET!”
Hank emerges from under the fallen screen with feathers sticking out both sides of his mouth. He prances back toward us with the swagger of a bulldog who bit his nemesis in the ass.
He walks past me.
Past Mo.
Past Ryan.
And walks straight to Wayne.
Then he drops the feathers at Wayne’s feet.
A token of solidarity between two beings who have both been wronged by the same bird on the same day.
Wayne looks down at the pile. Then at Hank.
“Did you—did he just—“ Wayne looks at me. “He brought me a present. He avenged me, Jake. This dog avenged my honor.”
Wayne drops to his knees and grabs Hank’s face in both hands. “You’re my best friend from this day forward.”
Hank looks back at him with the expression of a bulldog already regretting the gift.
Then he farts.
Wayne jerks backward. “WHAT THE—“
Mo folds into me, laughing.
Bethany is laughing so hard no sound’s coming out.
Mr. Humphrey hmphs from somewhere behind us.
Hank waddles back over and sits against my leg, pleased as hell with himself. I scratch behind his ear. “Good boy,” I whisper.
Charlie catches me at the bar while I’m building Mo a Bloody Mary that looks more like a buffet than a drink.
He claps a hand on my shoulder. “Congratulations, brother.”
“Thanks, man.”
He points at me with a celery stick. “You good?”
I look across The Green. Mo is laughing with Maddy and Miss Hattie. Hank is beside her like private security. The whole town is moving around us like this day belongs to them too.
“I’m better than good.”
Charlie nods once. That’s all he needs.
Across the lawn, a woman I recognize from Dog Days is talking to Lainey and Bethany. The same one I saw with Charlie that night. She’s swaying a little to the music, and when the band shifts into something slower, Charlie’s eyes slide back to her for half a second before returning to me.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Dr. Harper Hill,” Charlie says. “New vet. Took over the clinic when Doc Perkins retired.”
“How do I not know any of this?”
Charlie gives me a look. “Jake. You’ve been a little preoccupied this summer.”
Fair.
“She’s good with animals. Hank would like her.”
“Is that so,” I say. “How about you?”
Charlie looks down at his coffee.
“Just an observation.”
“Mm-hm.”
Across The Green, Dr. Hill says something to Bethany and Lainey that gets all three of them laughing. Ryan glances over at the sound, then looks away.
Seems like love is in the air today.
I find Willard on his bench at the edge of everything and somehow still right in the middle of it.
The party swirls around him—music, laughter, Wayne retelling the French Fry incident to anyone who’ll listen.
I sit down beside him.
He doesn’t say anything right away. Just watches the town with that calm look of his, like he knew how this would end long before any of us did.
After a minute, he says, “You did good, Jake.”
It lands where it’s meant to because I know what he means. Not the proposal. All of it. The waiting. The not pushing. Loving her long enough to let her get here in her own time.
“Thank you, Willard.”
“She’s a good one.”
“Yes. She is.”
Chip scampers out from under the bench, and Willard reaches into his bag, pulls out a peanut, and hands it to him.
“You just had to be patient enough to let her figure out what you already knew.”
I glance at the brass plate on the bench with his wife’s name on it.
“She would’ve loved today,” he says quietly.
“Yeah?”
Willard smiles to himself. “She was a fool for a good love story. Believed everybody had a happy ending waiting on them.”
Mo appears beside the bench.
She bends and kisses Willard on the cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”
Willard pats her hand. “You two did the hard part. I just sat here.”
Then he tips his hat and goes back to watching the town.
Miss Hattie opens The Salty Dog cart.
The chalkboard reads:
SPECIAL MENU
THE JAKE WIENER
THE MO-AN-SLAW DOG
THE HAPPY ENDING
(sausage wrapped in a glazed doughnut twist)
I stare at it.
Mo stares at it.
Then I order The Happy Ending.
“The name came quickly,” Miss Hattie says, trying her best not to laugh and failing miserably.
“I bet it did,” Mo mumbles.
Miss Hattie taps the bell and hands it over.
I take a bite, and it’s incredible. The sweet glaze against the sausage shouldn’t work, but it does. I point at the thing in my hand. “Okay,” I say with my mouth full. “That’s really good.”
“Of course it is,” Miss Hattie says. “I know wieners.”
A little later I’m sitting with Ryan, Wayne, and Bethany while Mo and Maddy sit along the fountain edge.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I see Mo’s face change. Surprise first. Then her hand goes to her mouth. She wraps Maddy in a hug and holds on. They sway side to side and stay like that for a while.
When Mo starts walking back, Maddy calls after her and says something that makes Mo stop, her eyebrows going halfway up her forehead.
She turns back to Maddy.
Then she comes over and drops into my lap. “Everything okay?”
She steals a sip of my drink and nods, looking a little stunned.“Granny’s running for mayor.”
“Mayor,” I repeat.
“Marybeth is stepping down after—“ She pauses. “The Fornication Fountain incident.”
“The what?” Wayne says, sitting forward with the focus of a man who just found his activation word.
“You don’t want to know,” she says.
“The hell I don’t. You can’t drop a statement like that without details.”
“Wayne.”
“This is important information, Emory.”
Bethany sighs. “Can’t wait to see that slogan.”
“This town will never be the same.”
“This I’ve got to see,” Wayne says.
I glance toward The Knuckle and see Ryan talking to Dr. Hill with his hands for once. Lainey steps up beside them with a plate of food and says something that gets Ryan laughing.
“What are you staring at?” Mo asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
Then I hold out my hand to her. “Dance with me.”
She smiles and slides her hand into mine.
“Yes. Always yes.”
“That’s the second yes I got today.”
She leans closer, her voice low enough that only I hear it. “You’ll be hearing a lot more of them later tonight.”
I laugh and pull her up.
Wayne claps once. “I’m not going to cry. I’m crying.”
Her head settles on my shoulder. Her left hand stays in mine, the ring catching the light every time we turn. Around us, the whole town does what it has always done best—watching, rooting, refusing to mind its own business in the best possible way.
I see Maddy and Miss Hattie sitting together, both of them wearing the expression of women who take full credit for this outcome.
I see Charlie leaning against the bar, arms crossed, smiling to himself before his attention drifts toward Dr. Hill as she walks his way.
And I see Walt sitting on the bench with Willard as he watches the party the way he’s watched this town for years—from the center of everything.
Mo lifts her head and studies my face.
“You’re quiet.”
“Just taking it in.” I look around once, then back at her. “You know this is what the rest of our life looks like if you want it.”
“Good thing Granny agreed to let me add bagels to the Holey Moley menu then.”
Hank lumbers over and drops against the backs of my legs, forcing us to stop moving and just sway.
“Mo. That’s great news. Is that what you want?”
She looks around at the signs, the music, the people, the chaos. Then up at me.
“I want it with you and Hank.”
I kiss her mouth, then the tip of her nose, then her forehead.
“I love you.”
“I love you back.”
The band starts playing Taylor Swift’s You Are In Love.
The town keeps celebrating around us.
People laugh. Somebody raises a toast. Wayne is teaching somebody’s grandmother a dance move nobody over sixty should attempt. Someone starts another story that’ll be told here for twenty years.
With her in my arms, home stops being a place and starts being her.