Page 68 of Just One More Thing

“You initiated.”

That one shuts us both up.

I pull on shorts and the first clean shirt I find, an old Blue Crab Bay Festival tee from 2015. It’s soft and faded and fits like a security blanket with a CRABS FOR ALL slogan.

As I walk downstairs, the fryer sizzles and the radio plays a song about love being a battlefield, which feels hostile this early in the morning.

Granny swivels on her rolling stool when she sees me. “Well,” she says.

“No.”

“I didn’t ask anything.”

“You said well.” I reach for a doughnut hole because sugar and carbohydrates are medicinal when taken correctly.

“It’s nearly eight. You never sleep this late.”

“I had a late night.”

Frank coughs. Granny clears her throat.

I point at both of them. “Do not.”

“I wasn’t going to say a thing.”

“You were going to say seventeen things.”

“No. I was going to say one thing with seventeen meanings.” She folds her hands on the counter. “The town’s talking.”

“You mentioned.”

“Gladys Kravitz saw the whole thing. She’s calling it The Lighthouse Lip Lock.”

I choke on air. “She is not.”

“She is. It’s on the town chat.”

“There’s a town chat?”

“There’s always been a town chat. You just never did anything worth posting before.”

Frank snorts.

“So?” Granny asks.

“So what?”

I pop a doughnut hole into my mouth and immediately burn the roof of it.

“So, how was it?”

I point at my mouth. “Hot.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not the doughnut. The kiss.”

Frank makes a sound and turns away, shoulders shaking.

“Granny.”