Page 152 of Just One More Thing

Her coffee cup beside mine in the sink.

The way Hank checks where she is now before he settles anywhere.

Her hair tie on the nightstand.

The place beside me already shaped for her before she’s ever promised to fill it.

“No,” I say.

There’s a pause. “Want some time?”

“Thank you for the consideration, but I need to decline.”

“You sure?”

I think about her saying you make it very hard not to stay. Her knee angled toward me in the truck earlier. Her hand grabbing my arm when she laughed so hard she had to bend over. The side of her foot pressed against mine under the table as if it was the most natural thing to do.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I’m sure.”

Silence hums on the other end. Then he does the polite disappointment thing. Says he understands. The door’s open if circumstances change. He’s glad I’m healthy again.

I thank him again for the call and hang up.

Then I just stand there in the quiet kitchen with the phone in my hand.

I don’t feel like I gave something up.

No ache. No second-guessing. No itch under my skin telling me I’m making the wrong call.

Just relief so immediate it almost knocks me sideways.

I look back through the door. Mo shifts in the chair and tucks the other foot underneath her, pulling the sweatshirt over both knees. She scrapes another spoonful from the carton while Hank sleep barks once under her chair like he’s defending us from dream marauders.

This is the life that feels like mine.

I slide my phone into my pocket and head back out to the porch.

Everything in me wants to pull her up out of that chair and tell her I just turned down Tampa without blinking because the thought of walking away from this made me feel sick.

Tell her it’s already too late for me.

Tell her I’m not halfway in this anymore, no matter how quiet I’m being about it.

Instead, I sit down beside her.

She studies my face. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s good.”

She keeps looking at me like she knows there’s more sitting underneath that answer. Then she settles back in the chair, takes another bite of ice cream, and holds the carton toward me, smiling.

I take it and lean back in my chair. I dig my spoon into the place hers just was. Hank twitches in his sleep and lets out another muffled bark. Beside me, Mo pulls the sweatshirt sleeves over her hands against the breeze.

I don’t know what she’s going to do.

I don’t know if she’s going to stay.

I only know that somewhere along the way, without saying it out loud, I built a future around the possibility that she might.