Page 21 of Just One More Thing

He steps closer and reaches for the pink box in my hands. “Are these for me?”

“Well,” I say, looking down at the smushed box, “they were. Until they made a mad dash for the floor while I was leaving.”

He takes the box anyway and sets it on the bar as if it still matters. “It looked like you were running.”

“That seems to be what I do best.” The second it leaves my mouth, I want to grab it back.

But Jake doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t let me turn it into a joke. He just looks at me.

Then he steps closer. So close my breath catches. He lifts both hands to my face, holding me there for a second, like he’s checking that I’m really here. His gaze moves over me, taking in everything I want to hide. His expression softens in that quiet, devastating way of his. He exhales.

And then he pulls me into him.

One hand slides to the back of my head. The other wraps around me and brings me in close.

I hold it together for maybe a second. Maybe two.

Then I break.

The tears come fast and hard and absolutely not cute. I press my face into his chest and breathe him in.

Jake.

It wrecks me, how familiar he still is. How quickly my body remembers something my brain has been trying to manage for ten years.

He tightens his hold like letting me come apart is fine, but letting me go is not.

That somehow makes it worse.

I cry harder.

Excellent. Love that for me.

He just holds me.

Eventually my breathing starts to even out enough that Jake eases back to look at me, then crouches so we’re eye level. His palm cups my jaw. His thumb catches one tear, then another.

I lean into his hand without thinking.

“I’ve missed you, Mo,” he says quietly.

My mouth trembles. “Jake, I’m so?—“

“Shh.” His voice is soft. “There’s plenty of time for that.”

His forehead rests against mine. “Right now,” he says, “let’s just be.”

CHAPTER 8

JAKE

The restaurant gets this quiet stretch before lunch that never lasts long enough. Lights low. Chairs flipped on tables. Fans turning overhead, pushing around air that smells faintly of salt, seafood, and beer.

I’m behind the bar because I don’t know where else to put myself.

Back here, there are things to do. Bottles to face. Condiment trays to fill. Lemons to cut. Glasses to polish. There’s a system to it. One thing, then the next.

Back here, I’m not the man who just stood in the middle of his restaurant and held Mo while she cried into his chest, and felt every damn part of himself remember her.