“I mean, I like it here, but I have plans that do not involve being here indefinitely. Which is why I can’t be—” She squinted.
Was that…?
No. She tilted her head to get a better angle. No.
Maya whipped out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and aimed it, just as the timer on Nora’s phone went off.
Just coming into focus, very faint but definitely there, was a vertical blue line.
Well.
Shit.
Where the hell was Nora? Jake was going to get whiplash from swiveling his head to look at the door every time someone came into the bar. She was just as likely to come in from the back as the front—it depended on if she’d left the Mermaid from the back or the front. Or maybe she would come from the clinic. She said she’d been working late nights to catch up on charting and billing.
He shouldn’t have come.
But it sort of felt like if he didn’t come, it would be odd. He had skipped last Friday to avoid seeing her. One Friday absence was not a big deal, but two would look weird. And in the meantime, he’d been more successful than he’d anticipated on the whole cooling-it mission. He’d barely seen her. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe for her to ask him to watch a movie. Maybe for her to suggest they jump each other. He had been worried about how he would respond to those kinds of suggestions. His thought had just been that they needed to reverse course a little bit. Become less…entangled in each other. He hadn’t really thought through what that meant in practice. Did they have to stop sleeping together entirely? Were they done with zombies? Should he give her dog back?
But she hadn’t asked him for anything.
Which made him feel…weird. He liked doing things for Nora.
Aww, damn, he missed her.
He missed his friend. His best friend. Even though his latest, most epic battle with the waves was behind him, he still flushed with pleasure when he thought of her thinking of him that way. You’re my best friend, Jake.
“She’s not coming.”
“Who’s not coming?”
Law snorted as he wiped down the bar. “It’s a full moon. The girls are at the lake.”
“But they usually…” Come here first. But he couldn’t say that.
“Hey.” Sawyer appeared and sat down. “What’s happening?”
“Jake is mooning over Nora, who’s not here because she’s at the beach.”
“Ah. Right.” Sawyer looked for a moment like he was trying to hold back a laugh but then stopped trying, which resulted in a snort-snicker hybrid. He hopped off his stool. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To the beach.”
“Nah.”
“Come on. You know even though I don’t work Fridays I usually loiter on the pier in case anyone’s wishing takes a bad turn.”
“In the summer when tourists are here. Not in January.”
“Dude,” Law said. “He’s trying to throw you a bone. Just go see your girlfriend. You know you want to.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“But you’re sleeping together.”
Jake sighed and looked at the ceiling.
“I knew it.” Law chuckled.
There really was no point in hiding it anymore, not from these two, anyway. He looked around to make sure there were no old folks lurking and lowered his voice. “I was sleeping with her. Last time I checked that wasn’t a crime. But for the record, I’m not anymore. And it never made her my girlfriend.”
“Have you ever hung out with her and not slept with her?” Law asked.
“Of course. It’s not like…” He’d been going to say that he liked her. It wasn’t like he’d been using her for sex. But they wouldn’t understand the nuance. They’d talked him into a trap.
“You’re dating,” Law proclaimed. “You’re just not calling it that. Or doing it publicly.”
“The thing is, in my line of work, I see a lot of heartbreak associated with pregnancy. People who’ve lost babies. People who wanted babies but waited too long.”
Nora was standing on the pier with Maya and Eve, preparing to tell them what she had decided to do about the bomb that had exploded in her life.
“And you want a baby?” Eve asked gently.
“I think so. Someday.”
“It’s okay if someday isn’t now, though,” Maya said, just as gently.
Her friends were being so good to her. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but she was overcome with affection for them—and gratitude. She sniffed. “I know. I just always thought there would be some future point at which I had my life together. But actually…I