Page 70 of The Beach Shack Legacy

“Wise,” Luke said, not looking up.

Someone needed ice, and someone needed buns, and Tyler and Meg went in together, because that was easier than deciding who went alone. It always had been, between the two of them, since she’d moved back to town.

The kitchen was quieter than the yard by about the amount you’d expect. Meg got the buns off the counter. Tyler opened the freezer and stood there a second too long, because the fridge door did what it always did. It stopped him.

The wall of photographs. Bigger than the last time he’d actually looked at it instead of just walking past. Bea mid-laugh. Bernie over the crossword. Margo’s profile against the window. A hundred ordinary mornings nobody but Stella had thought to keep.

“Oh my gosh.” Meg had stopped next to him, looking at one down in the corner, half under a newer one. “I don’t remember that person at all.”

Tyler looked. Meg on the porch, the first summer, buried in folders, hair coming loose, looking up at whoever had said her name. Smiling, actually smiling, in a way that didn’t match how she talked about that summer whenever it came up.

“You look happy,” he said.

“I was drowning.”

“You look happy drowning.”

Meg looked at the photo a second longer.

Up near the top, half-hidden behind a CalArts postcard, was one of him. Early. He knew it was early because of the haircut, and because of the look on his own face—a man standing in his own kitchen, one hand half up like he could still stop the shutter, like the picture was a question he didn’t have an answer to yet. The week she’d first arrived, before either of them knew what to do with the other.

“That’s a good look for you,” Meg said, following his eyes. “Man Facing His Entire Life.”

“I was terrified.”

“You looked terrified for a long time.”

“I was terrified for a long time.” He said it plainly. “Turns out that’s normal. Nobody tells you that going in.”

She looked at him and smiled. “You don’t look terrified anymore, Tyler.”

“Thank you for saying that, Meg.” He pulled her in for a one-armed hug, the spatula still in his other hand. “Don’t tell Luke.”

They got the ice and the buns and went back out. Luke had moved on to defending his corn-grilling method against an audience that hadn’t asked for one.

“You heard about the party,” Luke said, to Tyler, mid-argument with nobody. “The quince thing.”

“I did. Sounds rough,” Tyler said.

“Kids got a little over their skis,” Meg said, setting the buns down. “Wanted to do right by everybody at once. Ran the numbers wrong.” She said it plainly, no edge to it—an assessment, not a complaint. “It happens. It happened to me too, once, with a much bigger budget and no excuse of being eighteen.”

There wasn’t anything to add that wouldn’t have been bragging on someone else’s behalf, and he’d learned, this year, when to let something stand on its own.

“Stella worked really hard on that project of hers,” Tyler said, mostly to the grill. “I don’t think she expected it would be as big as it turned out to be.”

“I think you’re right. And it turned out to be big for all of us.” Meg turned the buns cut-side down so they wouldn’t dry out. “I’ve still got the walnut card on my counter. I keep walking past it and not making it.”

“Why not?”

“I want to get it right the first time.”

Tyler turned a burger and was pleased it didn’t crumble. “She got Margo talking that night. Things I’d never heard. I keep coming back to that part.”

“Bernie too. I don’t think I’d ever seen his face do that.”

“No.” Tyler looked around at the yard—the fountain, the sightline, the whole thing built out of a rusted mess nobody thought was worth saving. “She’s been doing that to the rest of us too, if you think about it. Same as the trunk. Found what was sitting around half-forgotten and made something out of it.”

Meg looked at him for a second, the look she’d been giving him more often lately, and shook her head.