Page 20 of The Beach Shack Summer (Laguna Beach #2)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M eg pressed herself against the kitchen counter, laptop tilted at a precarious angle while Tyler reached around her for coffee filters. The San Clemente resort’s social media deck was due in twenty-four hours, and she was trying to add final touches while making herself as small as possible.

“Sorry,” Tyler whispered, stretching over her shoulder.

“No, I’m sorry,” she whispered back, trying to save her file one-handed.

The laptop tilted dangerously. Tyler caught it just as Stella appeared in the doorway, took one look at their kitchen tangle, grabbed a granola bar from the counter, and immediately retreated.

“I’ll just...” Stella vanished back down the hall.

“Great,” Tyler muttered. “She’s eating granola bars for breakfast again.”

“There’s cereal?—”

“In a kitchen neither of us can fit in.” He finally retrieved the filters. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Meg’s phone rang. She looked at the screen—her client. She looked around the chaos—Tyler trying to make coffee, her papers covering every surface, nowhere private to take a call about tomorrow’s presentation.

“I need to...” She gestured helplessly.

“Bathroom,” Tyler suggested, not joking.

She fled down the hall, closing the bathroom door behind her. “Hi, yes, I have those numbers...”

This was her life now. Conducting business next to Tyler’s shower gel collection, voice echoing off tile. At least the acoustics were decent.

“The Instagram campaign targeting is set for launch Monday,” she assured him, staring at her reflection. Professional voice, pajama pants, sitting on the edge of the tub. “We’ll review everything tomorrow.”

Through the door, she heard Stella’s music start up. At least someone had found privacy.

Twenty minutes later, she emerged to find Tyler gone and new chaos in the kitchen—her carefully sorted contracts had multiplied and were now breeding with his photo invoices.

“When did these merge?” she asked the empty room.

Her color-coded system was failing. Red contracts were consorting with blue invoices. Yellow sticky notes had migrated to surfaces they didn’t belong on. It was paperwork anarchy .

The door opened. Tyler, looking frazzled.

“Patricia texting again?” Meg asked, trying to stack papers without losing her numbering system.

He groaned. “All morning. Urgent questions about glaze transparency. Joey says she hasn’t been back to the shack since yesterday.”

“When Bernie told her about the betting pool.” He slumped against the counter. “I almost feel bad.”

“Almost?”

“She sent twelve texts last night about pottery lighting. Twelve.”

Stella’s door opened. “Did someone say Patricia?”

“No one said Patricia,” Tyler said firmly.

“I have Patricia radar. Like Spidey-sense but for desperate yoga moms.” Stella perched on the one clear barstool. “Bernie says she hasn’t been back since yesterday’s awkward exit.”

“Good,” Tyler said. “Maybe she’ll find a new photographer to harass.”

“Unlikely. You’re the only one who understands how light catches her vessels.” Stella’s delivery was deadpan perfect.

Meg’s phone buzzed. Three emails marked urgent, all about tomorrow’s presentation. She needed to review the final deck, but her laptop was trapped under a stack of Tyler’s equipment invoices.

“I just need to...” She gestured at the buried computer.

“Sorry, those are sorted by—” Tyler started moving papers, disrupting both their systems .

“No, wait, if you move those?—”

Papers cascaded onto the floor. Contracts mixed with invoices mixed with someone’s grocery list. They both dove for the floor.

“This is insane,” Stella observed from her perch. “Like, clinically insane.”

She was right. They were crawling around the kitchen floor, trying to sort papers that would just explode again tomorrow. But what was the alternative?

“We’ll get out early tomorrow,” Tyler said, reading her stress. “Give you space to prep before Luke picks you up.”

“I need to start dinner soon too,” Meg said, still on her hands and knees. “But the kitchen is?—”

“A disaster zone,” Stella finished. “Maybe we should just eat outside. Picnic style. Very California.”

“With paper plates,” Tyler added. “So no one has to wash dishes in the bathroom sink.”

“Has it come to that?” Meg asked.

“I brushed my teeth in the kitchen this morning,” Stella admitted. “The bathroom had your conference call setup.”

They all looked at each other—on the floor surrounded by papers, discussing bathroom logistics—and started laughing. It was either that or cry.

By evening, Meg had given up on the kitchen entirely. The dining table was a lost cause. The living room had been conquered by her presentation materials. She’d taken two more bathroom calls and was considering just installing a desk next to the sink .

Tyler and Stella had made dinner—pasta with jarred marinara that they ate standing up because there was nowhere to sit. They’d all pretended this was normal. Fun, even. Standing pasta party.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Meg said, twirling spaghetti onto her fork.

“The standing dinners?” Stella asked. “I kind of like them. Very fancy.”

“All of it,” Meg said. “The bathroom office. The kitchen conferences. You two can’t even exist in your own house.”

“We’d starve without you,” Tyler said immediately.

“Completely starve,” Stella agreed. “Do you know what he considers dinner? Cereal. Just cereal.”

“It’s a complete meal if you add fruit.”

“A banana doesn’t count as cooking!”

“We need you,” Tyler said simply. “We’ll figure out the space thing. After your presentation.”

“But—”

“After,” Stella said firmly. “You need to focus. We’ll survive one more day of kitchen gymnastics.”

Now, at nearly midnight, the house was finally quiet. Stella’s music had stopped an hour ago. Tyler’s light was off. Meg slipped out onto the front porch with her phone, grateful for the cool night air and the absence of paperwork.

She called Anna.

“It’s 9 AM here,” Anna answered immediately. “Which means it’s... midnight there. Why are you awake so late? ”

“Finalizing tomorrow’s presentation.”

“The one you’ve been finalizing for a week?”

“It’s a big meeting.”

“Meg.” Anna’s voice gentled. “What’s really going on?”

Meg sat on the top step, looking out at the quiet street. “We’re suffocating, Anna. Tyler’s house is too small. I’ve taken over every room except the bedrooms, and I’m eyeing those too. This morning I took a client call from the bathroom.”

“Again?”

“The acoustics really are excellent.” She laughed, but it came out shaky. “Stella’s eating granola bars because she can’t get to the kitchen when we’re both in there. Tyler’s editing photos on his bed. We’re all pretending this is sustainable but?—“

“It’s not.”

“It’s really not.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. If I get my own place, it feels like abandoning them. Tyler needs support with Stella. She’s just starting to trust us. They said they’d starve without me.”

“And if you stay?”

“We’ll murder each other eventually with paper cuts.”

“How’s Stella handling all the chaos?” Anna asked.

“Making jokes, mostly. But she brushed her teeth in the kitchen sink this morning because I was on a call in the bathroom. That’s not... that’s not okay. ”

“You need to figure something out,” Anna said gently.

“I know. I just... I don’t know what.”

“You’ll think of something. You always do. But Meg? Do it soon. Before you’re conducting board meetings from the shower.”

“The shower has terrible acoustics. I checked.”

“Of course you did.” Anna yawned. “I should go. Bea has a studio visit tomorrow. But seriously—fix this. For all your sakes.”

“I will. Somehow.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

After they hung up, Meg sat in the quiet night.

The street was peaceful, empty except for the occasional car.

Three doors down, her childhood home sat dark, its windows reflecting nothing back.

She’d been avoiding looking at it since she’d moved in with Tyler, but tonight she noticed the garden looked maintained.

Odd for a house that had been empty since?—

No. She wasn’t going there. Not tonight.

She turned her attention back to her phone.

She pulled up her text thread with Luke.

Still ready for tomorrow? 9:30?

His response came quickly.

Absolutely. Looking forward to the drive.

Thanks again for setting up the meeting with the Cassidy family. Perfect timing.

Happy to help. Margaret’s son is excited about the tide pool restoration project. Win-win.

She smiled at the phone. Luke had arranged to discuss ocean conservation with the resort owner’s son while she presented to the father. Efficient and thoughtful—classic Luke.

Looking forward to the company

She typed, then deleted it. Too much? She tried again:

At least I won’t have to take calls from your truck bathroom.

My truck bathroom has standards. No business calls allowed.

Good to know.

Get some sleep, Meg. Big day tomorrow.

You too. Night.

She tucked her phone away and stood, taking one last breath of cool air before heading back inside. Tomorrow she’d nail this presentation. Tomorrow she’d take another step toward the success she’d worked so hard for.

Tomorrow the space problem would still exist, but that was tomorrow’s worry.

Tonight, she navigated the paperwork obstacle course to Tyler’s guest room—her room, for now—and tried not to think about how much worse it would get when her business grew.

One crisis at a time.