One
Terra
“I have to pee.” I turn away from the crowded restaurant and the front door where he’s standing, and make a beeline through the opening between the counter and the bar and push my way through the swinging door into the kitchen. Everyone is so busy that no one pays attention to me. I pass the cooks and the line prep team and march into the break room.
I give a curt wave to the two employees in there before heading straight into the bathroom and locking myself in one of the two stalls. Then I let go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding and cover my face with my hands as it heats up like a log thrown on a bonfire.
I have to pee?
I haven’t seen Jake Maverick in almost three entire years and that’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth? Yeah, that was pure and utter genius. Ugh. I’m a semester away from being a certified trauma and addiction therapist and that’s how I act under pressure? Someone should call my school and have them kick me out.
I knew Jake was coming home today. The whole damn town knew. If they didn’t hear it from his excited best friends, my brothers Finn and Logan, then they saw it on the Ocean Pines News & Notes Blog. Last week they did a lengthy post on how the new Lieutenant for the OP Fire Department was a returning local boy. Jake Maverick was leaving his post as Lieutenant on King’s Rock, Maine’s Fire and Rescue team to return to his hometown, as a hero no less, since he won the Medal of Valor last year. My Mom has spent all week planning a little party for him tonight so I knew. And yet, when he walked through that door and our eyes connected for the first time in seventy-one months, it wasn’t just the bell above the door that jostled. It was my emotional equilibrium.
The fact is though I do have to pee, I realize as I stand in the bathroom stall, drowning in humiliation. But what else is new? I pull my hands from my face and undo my jeans, turn around and yank one of the seat covers out of the dispenser. As I go about my business I wonder what the hell he’s doing here already. Finn and Logan said he wasn’t getting into town until the evening and it’s only a little after one in the afternoon.
My entire plan has been obliterated. I was going to finish my shift at four, go for a walk on the beach and meditate, then shower, spend stupid amounts of time doing my hair and make-up and put on that cute new sundress I picked up last week for this specific reason. And of course pair it with a shrug I found in the same sage green color that’s in the sundress’ flowers so he doesn’t notice my arm. It’s still kind of misshapen and discolored from my dialysis treatment this morning. Nothing to worry about but ugly as hell to look at.
But he’s here. Now. And he already saw me, makeup-less, in my grubby work jeans and my Hawkins Lobster Shack shirt that I’m certain has some stains on it from the vanilla bean milkshake that sloshed everywhere when the machine started to act up again.
When I’m done actually peeing I flush and head out to the two sinks, washing my hands and staring at my reflection in the mirror. I look tired. I have a gray tinge to the skin under my eyes and I’m pale and not just because I haven’t been to the beach once this summer. I use my damp hands to try and fix my hair. It barely hits my shoulders, but because I work in food service I have to pull it back. So it’s in a short stubby ponytail at the back of my neck and there’s a billion clips holding the sides back. I stupidly bought children’s clips covered in glitter and unicorns. Because clearly I don’t mind looking like a quirky goofball when my lifelong crush lives a seven hour drive away. But now he’s seven seconds away and I look like an idiot.
I resign myself to two facts: I can’t do a damn thing about any of it, and we’re in the middle of a lunch rush so I can’t hide in here any longer. I turn, face the door, take a big breath, and head back to face this disaster head-on.
I step out into the bustling restaurant from the kitchen. Jake is sitting at the counter now. Finn is on the other side of it grinning at him like it’s Christmas and Jake is Santa. I suppose it is exactly like that. Finn, my other brother Logan, and Jake were inseparable until three years ago when Jake took a job at a fire station clear across the state of Maine on the Canadian border.
Finn pulls his phone from his back pocket. “I’m going to tell Logan you’re here.”
“No personal phones while on shift,” Declan announces. He’s in a suit as always. Deck is in charge of our advertising and marketing at Hawkins Lobster Shack, mostly because he refuses to serve customers. But also a little bit because he’s got a degree in it from Harvard. He smiles at Jake. “This time I’ll make an exception. Welcome back, Maverick.”
Declan and Jake grab hands in one of those stupid bro handshake-hugs that are all clapping and slapping. I grab my tray off the counter where I left it as a table waves their hand in my direction, probably for the bill. I step through the opening between the bar and counter and that’s when he touches me. Jake wraps a big, warm hand around my wrist.
I freeze. Well, my forward motion freezes, my insides are actually melting and swirling like chocolate in a double boiler. I’m suddenly thrilled my long-sleeved work shirt shrunk a little in the wash so his fingers are touching my skin and not the fabric. I turn and look at him. Big freaking mistake. He’s better looking than I remembered and I remembered well.
“Not even a hi, Tink?”
My nickname. The one he invented. The one only he uses. My insides are officially nothing but goo. And I hate him for it. “Hi Jake. Welcome back. Bye Jake.”
I tug my wrist free, take my tray, and head over to the table that flagged me. Wow. That was not at all a great beginning. I throw myself into the rest of my shift like I’m up for Waitress of the Year and am currently being evaluated by a panel of judges.
But by two-thirty the lunch rush has evaporated. The gaggle of tourists that have remained a week after labor day are back to the beach or one of the amusement parks, water parks, or other attractions peppering Route One just up the road. The locals are back to work. So now it’s just staff, which is ninety percent family, and Jake. He’s been sitting on that same stool at the counter this entire time and people have shown up to shower him with greetings. First Logan came. Then Dad sauntered in from the docks where he was cleaning the fishing boat after a morning out switching the lobster traps. Some of the locals walked over too before leaving to say welcome back or congratulate him on the new position.
I’ve been cleaning the countertops of all the tables and booths but now that I’ve finished that, I decide I should head back into my office where I can finish up next week’s schedule and sneak out the back door in the break room to avoid Jake a little longer. If he sees me disappear he doesn’t try to stop me this time. I make it into my office, which is the closet-sized room next to the walk-in freezer, and close the door.
I move my textbooks out of the way and then stare at the schedule on my computer screen for fourteen minutes while I think of Jake and nothing else. He looks… incredible. And he called me Tink, which is short for Tinkerbell. He’s started that trend after the first time Logan and Finn had him over to our family house. Jake was fourteen. He’d been working two shifts a week as a dishwasher at the restaurant for almost a month. Logan and Finn loved having him around since most of the staff was way older. We were all shocked when Mom and Dad hired him because he was so young and well… everyone knew about Jake Grady, the skinny kid with the troubled mom and no dad, who bounced in and out of foster care.
Because Logan and Finn liked him so much, they started hanging out with him outside the restaurant and inviting him over to dinner. Mom and Dad never minded an extra mouth at the table. Anyway, the first time he came to the house he saw the picture my mom had on our mantle. It was of Halloween when I was six. She had somehow coaxed me and my brothers into theme costumes. I was Tinkerbell, Logan was the crocodile Tock, Finn Peter Pan, and Declan was Captain Hook. He’s called me Tink on and off since he first laid eyes on that picture. But I never expected him to remember that now. After a solid three-year gap, I wasn’t even sure he’d recognize me.
There’s a single rap at my door. I yell that it’s open, and Nova pops her head in. “Don’t yell at me but Mom said we had to check on you anytime you disappeared for a longish period of time.”
I roll my eyes. “You faint once at work and suddenly everyone is on high alert.”
Nova opens the door farther and steps inside. “Five stitches and blood on the floor in the middle of a dinner rush earns concern, Sis.”
“That hasn’t happened since,” I remind her. Nova isn’t my actual sister. She’s my sister-in-law, married to Declan. But she feels more like a sibling than he does most days. “I was getting used to the dialysis. I’m a pro now.”
Nova frowns. “Nothing yet?”
“You mean donor-wise? Nada,” I reply. “Hey, has anyone said anything about this to Jake?”
Nova shakes her head, her thick wavy chocolate brown ponytail swaying like a horse tail behind her, but then she blinks and her face lights up. “But I bet he would get tested if he knew!”
“No!” I bark and it causes the excitement on her face to disappear. “I don’t want him to know. Not yet. And I am definitely not asking him to get tested.”
“Terra, you should be asking everyone in town to get tested,” Nova lectures and I try not to get pissed off. She, like the rest of my family, just wants me to get a new kidney from anyone I can. I want that too, frankly, but Jake? No. I mean I won’t ask him. He has a habit of turning me down for things I really want. “Yeah, eventually maybe someone should tell him but not now. Not today. He just got back. And besides what are the chances he’s a match? Slim.”
Your luck at getting a kidney match is best with direct family. I have three brothers and two parents and sadly only two of them were matches—my dad and Declan. But Dad was disqualified because of age and his type one diabetes. Declan was not deemed an acceptable match because he has had mental health issues in the past. The kidney donor regulations are strict and vary from state-to-state, and Maine is stringent with emotional issues. It’s not just that he has ADD and takes meds for that or that he suffers from depression. He tried to kill himself a week before his eighteenth birthday, and there’s also concern the carbon monoxide from that almost-successful attempt that involved a car and a locked and sealed garage might have damaged his kidneys without anyone knowing. He’s appealing the decision, meeting with psychiatrists, and getting doctors to run more tests on his kidney function, but I’m not holding my breath.
“You never know, Terra.” Nova is the Queen of optimism. “If Selena Gomez can get a kidney from her best friend, you can certainly match with your brother’s best friend. And I bet it’s an extra strong, extra tough, extra handsome kidney. Like Jake himself.”
I laugh at that and Nova joins me. “He looks good though, huh?”
I can’t believe I just said that out loud. I shouldn’t have.
“To be clear, I’m just stating the obvious. I’m happily married but…” Nova’s chuckle dies out and she grins. “He looks hotter than the fires he puts out.”
I laugh again. “Not a lie. And to be clear, I’m also just stating the obvious.”
“To hell you are,” Nova challenges, and I no longer want to laugh.
“Seriously. I’m with Tom, remember? And I like Tom,” I say pointing to the framed picture on my desk of my boyfriend Tom and I.
“We all like Tom. Tom is swell,” Nova says, her voice as cheery and bright as it always is but somehow it feels false right now. “Is he coming to town this weekend?”
“Yeah. He’ll be here for the party actually,” I say and shutdown my computer, giving up on doing the schedule today. I scribble a note on a post-it and stick it to the corner of the screen with the other To-Do reminders I have stuck there.
“Has he been tested yet?” Nova asks, her tone judgy. I’m running out of excuses to call her on it.
“He was supposed to go this week now that he’s got the clear from his insurance company and his college faculty,” I reply and keep my eyes focused on my desk, absently tidying up the papers strewn there instead of meeting her eye. She is less than impressed that Tom’s first thought about becoming a living kidney donor was how that worked for insurance purposes rather than how it would be giving me my life back. “I’ll find out how it went tonight when he gets in.”
“Cool,” Nova says lightly. She opens the door as I grab my purse and make my way around my desk. “See you and Tom tonight.”
I nod and blow her an air kiss. “Hasta luego, hermana.”
“Ugh. Your Spanish is horrible,” Nova moans. “Es doloroso para mis oídos.”
“That’s because I took French in high school,” I remind her.
“I’ve been your sister-in-law for four years and worked here for four before that, you’d think you’d pick something up by now,” Nova complains as we walk through the kitchen. I cut right while she cuts left to head into the restaurant again. “Leaving through the back door? Chicken!”
“Pollo!” I yell back and grin. “See you are rubbing off on me.”
I’m making my way through our small parking lot, the building and the ocean and dock beyond at my back when I hear him call my name. “Terra!”
I pretend I don’t hear but then he yells. “Tink!”
I stop and turn around because I am helpless against that nickname. It takes my eyes a minute to find him, but when they land on him my heart skips. On the right side of Hawkins Lobster Shack is a flight of stairs that lead to the two bedroom apartment above the restaurant where Finn lives. Jake is on the tiny landing in bare feet, a wetsuit covering him up to the waist, but rest of it hangs off his body leaving his upper body completely exposed. And what an upper body it is. Muscle ripples his stomach. His chest broad is well-developed and bronzed because clearly he hasn’t spent this glorious Maine summer at the dialysis center in Casco Bay Memorial Hospital.
“Wanna come surfing with us?”
“No. I’ve got plans.”
He smirks at that. Oh lord how I’ve missed that smirk. It’s easy, lazy, and somehow just a little bit sweet. “You use to love to surf with us, Tink.”
“Been three years, Jake. Things change,” I say, and it’s true but I actually am too tired and rundown lately to get my butt out on my board. “But I’ve gotta get ready for tonight. I don’t know if you’ve heard but there’s an award-winning firefighter who just moved back to town.”
“You mean that scrawny foster kid who failed outta high school, got his GED and stumbled his way through the fire academy?” Still same old Jake. He’ll never forget where he’s from, so he’s not going to let you do it.
“Like I said, things change.” I smile. He smiles back. Everything inside me warms like it’s been laying out on the sandy beach in a cloudless July sky.
“Tonight then, Tink,” he points to me with a perfectly sculpted arm. “I wanna hang out and catch up.”
I wave and get in my truck. Boy, that’s going to be a fun conversation. Hey Jake. Yeah I’m good. Managing the restaurant now and met this guy who’s nice and cute. I got my degree in social work and I almost finished my second degree in addiction therapy but had to take my last semester off when my kidneys dropped dead. I’m shopping for a new one. Turns out they aren’t one-size-fits-all so it’s taking a while, but yeah, I’m good. How about you?
Yeah, can’t wait for that.
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