“You look rough, boy.”
The familiar voice startled him, and Jack whipped around to see Gramps on the other side of the bars.
He snorted. “You should see the other guy.”
Gramps tapped the bars with his cane. “Oh, I did. Worthington’s been whining to anybody who’ll listen that you broke his nose. Good job.” He shook his head slowly, still smirking. “Back in my day, we saved our jail time for real offenses. Moonshine running, poker cheats, some low-key arson.”
“Gramps, you ended up behind bars for murder.”
“Tobias Worthington had it coming,” his grandfather said, giving a dismissive wave. “And I’m assuming his grandson did too. They have faces just made for rearranging, don’t they?”
Jack started to chuckle but winced instead.
Gramps leaned closer, his smile fading, hands gripping the bars. “Son, there’s something we need to talk about.”
Jack sat up a little straighter, sensing the shift in his tone. “What is it?”
Gramps took a deep breath, his eyes distant. “It’s about Lolly. You probably guessed, but what I never told you was that I loved her. Still do.”
Jack tensed. “Gramps . . .”
“We had another chance, last summer. We met up a few times, talked the same way we used to. It felt like no time had passed at all.” He paused, his voice growing quieter. “But she was gone before we could figure out what came next.” He held Jack’s gaze. “Don’t make the same mistake, Jack. Don’t let anger, or pride, or even this jail cell stop you from fighting for what matters.”
The weight of his words pressed in, heavier than the bruises Jack had earned that night. It wasn’t the pain in his ribs or the ache in his knuckles, it was the truth of what Gramps was saying. A truth he hadn’t been ready to face.
He’d told himself he was just helping Cora with the café. He’d been fighting to save Lolly’s dream, to honor the past. But it hadn’t been about Lolly for a while now. Somewhere between fixing porch boards and setting off smoke detectors, it had become about something more. It had become about Cora.
Every time he saw her standing in that café, determined to hold it together, he felt it. That pull, that ache in his chest when she smiled or laughed, even when the world was falling apart. He’d tried to bury it. Pretended helping her save the café was just about history. But the truth was staring him in the face. He was fighting for Cora. For them. And the thought of her going back to New York without knowing how he felt made his chest tighten. What if he was already too late?
“I saw the way you looked at her the other day.” Gramps’s voice cracked. “It’s the same way I used to look at Lolly. Don’t let her slip away. Don’t let all this work you’ve done to saveThe Spoon be for nothing. And even if you’ve lost the building, find another one. It was never about the building.”
“But what if I’m too messed up? She deserves better than to be stuck with a Harlow.”
“You haven’t figured that out yet, Jackie? The thing about love is that it doesn’t fix you. It just makes you brave enough to start fixing yourself.” He swallowed. “And nobody butyougets to decide what being a Harlow means.”
Jack clenched his fists at his sides, his bruised knuckles throbbing with the tension. It wasn’t just about beating Nathaniel Worthington. It never was. It was about fighting for Cora, for everything she meant to him. It was about being the man she deserved, no matter what his last name was.
Before he could answer, Aggie and Bea waltzed in the front door of the jail. Aggie was still in her shrimp costume from the parade, the foam suit dwarfing her tiny frame, antennae bobbing with every step. Bea had a funnel cake in hand, powdered sugar dusting her chin.
“Well, look who’s gone and gotten himself locked up like a proper rebel,” Aggie said, waggling an antenna at him, unfazed by the absurdity of it all. She jangled a set of keys and dropped them on the desk near his cell. She nodded to his grandfather. “We got tired of waiting outside.”
Bea offered Jack a bite of her funnel cake through the bars. “You hungry? It could use more cinnamon, but it’s decent.”
Jack blinked, trying to catch up. “Wait, how did you even know I was here?”
“Phone tree, darling,” Aggie declared, her voice filled with pride. “Mildred saw the whole thing, called Leona, who called the entire Ladies Auxiliary Prayer Chain. And by the time they’d finished praying for your soul, practically everybody in town knew.”
Jack held up his hands in surrender, grinning despite the dull ache in his side. “All right, all right. I get it. The Sisterhoodof the Traveling Gossip saved the day. But how exactly are you planning to . . .”
Gramps reached over and, with a calmness that suggested he’d done this sort of thing a hundred times before, plucked the set of keys from the desk. He dangled them in front of Jack, the metal glinting in the flickering fluorescent light. “Let’s just say the officer on duty really likes funnel cake. And Bea has a habit of sharing.”
Bea nodded. “Aggie also promised him a batch of her bacon-wrapped jalapeños.”
“Two batches,” Aggie corrected.
Jack couldn’t help but laugh, even though his ribs protested. “So, what’s the plan? We stroll out the front door and go marching through the Honeysuckle Festival like nothing happened?”
Aggie’s antennae bounced as she nodded. “That’s exactly the plan. And to get you back to the café the fastest, I suggest hitching a ride on the Shrimp and Grits float. It’s currently rolling by at a smooth two miles per hour, which is practically NASCAR by Sunrise standards.”
