Page 78 of The Beach Shack Legacy

“I am not,” she said, but she smiled anyway.

“You are. You’ve been lit up since the overlook. It’s a little blinding, honestly.”

“Well, don’t look directly at it, then.”

“Too late. Ruined my night vision.” He took another bite so she wouldn’t see his face, because he couldn’t control what it was doing.

“You nervous?” he asked, after a minute. “About tomorrow. The pitch.”

Stella thought about it, actually thought about it, working at the cup with her spoon while she did.

“A little. Are you?”

“Me? I’m not the one pitching.”

“You’re the one who has to sit there and not say anything if anybody asks a hard question. That’s its own kind of nervous.”

Tyler considered this. “Yeah. Okay. A little.”

“Ha.”

“Don’t gloat. It’s unbecoming.”

She finished before he did, same as always, and they sat there a while longer, not in any hurry to get back to a house that didn’t know yet what was coming for it.

“One thing,” Tyler said, eventually. “Have you told your mother?”

The question landed soft, and Stella went still around it.

“Not yet.”

“You should. Before the whole family. Before any of it gets loud.” He said it gently, no push in it. “She’s a long way away, and this is a big one. She’d want to hear it from you, in your voice, before she hears it happened.” He balled up his napkin. “That’s all. Her before the noise.”

“Yeah.” Stella looked at her hands. “Yeah. I will.”

“And listen.” He kept the tone light, so it wouldn’t spook her. “Nobody else knows. Right? The family.”

“Just you. And Bea, but Bea’s under oath.”

“Bea’s under something,” Tyler said. “I don’t know that oath’s the word.”

“It’s the kind that lasts about four minutes.”

“Which is why I’m asking you to actually swear. Not a Bea swear.” He held up his hand, mock-solemn, and made her mirror it. “Say it.”

“I swear. Not one word, to anyone, until you say so.”

“That was convincing.”

“I mean it completely. I just also enjoyed the ceremony.” He put his hand down. “You told your cousin first. That’s how it should go, she’s your age, she’s in it with you. But you brought it to me before the family got a vote.” He looked at her for a second, his daughter, who’d come to him across an entire ocean a year ago a stranger, sitting next to him now with the biggest thing in her life. “That’s the part I’m thanking you for.”

“Who else would I bring it to?” Stella asked, like it was obvious, and Tyler had to look at the ocean for a minute at nothing in particular.

“You finished your ice cream before me again,” he said, finally.

“I always finish before you.”

“One of these days I’m going to finish first and you won’t know what to do with yourself.”