Page 44 of The Beach Shack Legacy

“It’s been mine for a while,” Stella said.

The timer went off inside, far away, muffled through two doors.

Neither of them moved.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

Stella turned the soda can around on the bench. “Why don’t you ever ask me what I’m doing? After.”

Tyler didn’t say anything for a second. Out on the radio somebody hit something and the crowd went up and came back down and the announcer talked about the wind.

“Do you want me to?”

“Everybody else does. Every single person. Hailey’s mother asked me in a parking lot.” She peeled a corner of the label with her thumbnail. “You’ve never asked me once.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because nobody asked me,” Tyler said. “And I’d have hated it.”

He leaned back against the bench beside her and looked at the fog prints on the line.

“I didn’t know. Nobody knew, and everybody acted like they did, and I skipped the whole thing and went surfing and that was the smartest decision anybody made that year.” He turned the can in his hand. “You’ll get there. You’ll get there in about a year and a half and it’ll be something none of us guessed and you’ll act like you always knew.”

“That’s not an answer.”

She was quiet.

“So what would you say,” Tyler said. “If I did ask.”

And there it was.

She stood there with the soda can and her mouth open and nothing behind it, and Tyler watched her go looking and come back empty, and he had about two seconds to decide what kind of father he was going to be about it.

“Well,” he said. “That was cruel. I take it back.”

“You can’t take it back.”

“I’m taking it back. That’s a dad move, I’m allowed one a year.” He pushed off the bench. “Pizza’s probably done.”

They went in. The pizza had gone past what the box promised and Tyler cut it anyway and they ate it on the couch with the game on low and paper towels for plates, and Stella took a second slice, which he counted as evidence of nothing in particular.

Down the hall the bedroom door stood open and the gown hung on the back of it.

Tyler nodded at it with the crust in his hand.

“Big day. Big navy blue day.”

“Don’t.”

“That’s a dress, technically.” He reached over and nudged her foot off the coffee table with his own. She put it back.

“It’s a gown.”

“It’s got a zipper and it goes to your ankles. That’s a dress.” He took a bite. “Closest I’m ever getting.”