Page 121 of Just One More Thing

“…He did.”

Lainey gasps. Ainsley leans forward. “What happened?”

I close my eyes briefly because there is no way to make this sound less horrifying than it is. “I said…” I inhale. “Thank you.”

Bethany winces like she just stepped barefoot on a sandspur. Lainey clutches her chest. “Oh no.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I was not emotionally prepared for that,” Ainsley says faintly.

“You said thank you,” Bethany repeats.

“I was twenty. I panicked.”

“Girl, that’s not panic,” she says. “That’s customer service.”

Ainsley makes a choking noise and nearly spits wine across the couch. Lainey folds over laughing so hard she starts gasping for air. I cover my face with both hands. “Why am I here?”

Bethany reaches across the table and pats my knee. “Because we like you.”

“And because,” Ainsley adds through laughter, “this is the best story I’ve heard since a man tried to open the emergency exit over Kansas because he thought a non-human sentient being was sitting next to him.”

Lainey wipes tears from under her eyes. “Okay, but actual important question. Does he still love you?”

“Can we circle back to what a non-human sentient being is instead?”

“Alien. Does he still love you?” Lainey repeats.

I stare down at the floor. “I think so.”

Bethany huffs a laugh. “Yeah. He does.” Like it isn’t even remotely debatable.

I look at her. “You knew that?”

“Emory.” Her expression goes flat with disbelief. “From what I hear, that man has been in love with you since dial-up internet.”

Ainsley lifts her glass. “To Jake Wheeler. Patron saint of patience.”

We all clink glasses.

I drink what absolutely qualifies as a gulp.

Bethany squints at me over the rim of her glass. “So what’s the problem?”

“The problem,” I say carefully, “is that I’m only here temporarily. I leave in a few weeks.”

Right then the record starts a song about what you lost and what you had.

Of course it does.

Ainsley tops off everyone’s glasses with the smooth efficiency of a woman who has poured cabernet during turbulence at thirty thousand feet. “Back to Jake,” she says, settling into the couch again.

I pull my knees up and wrap both hands around my wine glass. “Do we have to?”

“How is he?” Ainsley asks. “Like, actually.”

I take a deep breath in and exhale. “He’s just…” I smile down at my wine. “Jake. He’s kind. He’s steady. He’s patient. He notices things and remembers them while I’m forgetting why I walked into rooms. He sets up blankets and candles on barrier islands and remembers extra cherries and somehow acts like that’s a completely normal thing for a man to do on a Thursday.”