Page 72 of Just One More Thing

Hank does too.

He launches himself up so fast his back end wiggles hard enough to look like something might come loose. “Easy,” I mutter, grabbing for his bandana as he barrels forward.

We meet her halfway down the dock. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” I say, as if I haven’t been losing my mind since the second she kissed me.

She drops to her knees without hesitation, and Hank throws himself at her. “Hi, Hank,” she says softly, both hands sinking into the folds of his neck, and something about the way she says his name lands somewhere I don’t have a good defense for.

I stand there watching her smile down at him, easy in a way that doesn’t feel forced.

I probably should’ve spent this morning preparing myself for what seeing her today after that kiss would do to me.

I didn’t. Not even close.

Hank climbs halfway into her lap. She laughs under her breath and steadies him, pressing her cheek briefly against the side of his head like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Missed you,” she tells him.

We head down to the end of the dock, falling into step without talking about it.

She settles beside me, our feet dangling out over the water. Same spot. Same stretch of dock we’ve been sitting on since we were kids, watching shrimp boats come in, talking about nothing and everything and whatever we were going to do when we were older.

We never once thought there’d be a world where we weren’t side by side.

Hank wedges himself between us with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and drops his full weight into her lap, head immediately settling like he’s claimed the position for the foreseeable future.

“Traitor,” I tell him.

She doesn’t look up. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

I expected this to feel strange. Awkward. Careful. Where every word has to pass through ten years of distance, one lighthouse, and everything we still haven’t said. But it’s not. It’s just… quiet. Good quiet. The kind we used to be able to make together without trying.

She flips open the pink box and takes a chocolate with sprinkles for herself, then tips the box toward me. Glazed. Crullers. Old-fashioned. A chocolate glazed. I take a cruller.

We sit there eating doughnuts like it’s the most normal thing in the world. This is just what happens the morning after the girl kisses you under a meteor shower.

Hank cracks one eye open, tracking the cruller in my hand with a level of focus he rarely applies to anything. I break off a piece and hold it out.

“Don’t,” she says.

“He’s looking at me.”

“He always looks at you like that.”

“He’s drooling.”

“He’s a bulldog. That’s what they do.”

“He’s cute.”

She lifts her head, narrowing her eyes. “You are absolutely the problem.”

“I know.” I give him the piece anyway. Hank takes it like he’s earned it. She shakes her head, but she’s smiling when she does it, attention dropping back to him as she scratches behind his ear.

Then she sucks chocolate off her thumb. I have to look out at the water until the surge that runs through me settles enough that I can breathe like a normal person again.

“The whole town knows,” she says.