Page 154 of Key West Homecoming

Later they walked out toward the fort and sat on the rocks with their shoes off. The water moved in and out below them.

“Where are your people?” Emma asked.

“Michigan. Same farm my grandfather bought in 1954.” Jake turned his water bottle between his hands. “My father still runs it, more or less. My mother has decided at seventy-one that she's owed a greenhouse. Apparently she's having one by spring.”

Emma smiled. “Just the three of you?”

“Just the three. No brothers or sisters.”

“Me either.”

“I know. I worked that out about the first week.”

Emma looked at him. There was still so much they didn't know about each other. Eighteen days wasn't long enough to know the important things, yet somehow Jake already knew where she went when she was upset and when to make her laugh.

She wanted to know his important things too.

Around four, they gave up on sightseeing and stopped at an open-air bar on the waterfront. A dog slept beneath the next table. Jake ordered two beers, and Emma sat with her shoes off while salt dried on her ankles.

For the first time all day, they weren't going anywhere.

Emma watched Jake lean back in his chair. She realized she'd never seen him this relaxed.

He caught her looking.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Emma.”

“You're different out here.”

Jake turned the beer bottle on the table.

“I've lived at that cottage for three years. I've been to this bar maybe twice.”

“Why?”

“For a long time, I couldn't be anywhere with a lot of people. In time, I didn’t need that isolation, but by then staying home had become a habit.”

“So today's for you too.”

“About twenty percent.”

“And the other eighty?”

Jake looked at her. “I wanted to see what you're like on a day that isn't about your uncle.”

Emma sat back. “And?”

“You laughed at Roland.”

“Roland was funny.”

“You waited ten minutes to get your picture taken in front of a painted buoy. You tried to talk a rooster out of a chair, and you've eaten enough key lime pie for three people.”

“I have not.”