Page 29 of The Beach Shack Summer (Laguna Beach #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T he morning after Meg’s move, Tyler found Stella in the kitchen staring at the coffee maker like it might explain the meaning of life.

“It’s the same machine,” he offered from the doorway.

“I know. It just looks different without Meg’s seventeen coffee cups surrounding it.” She pressed the button with unnecessary force. “Everything looks different.”

He couldn’t argue. The kitchen felt simultaneously too empty and properly sized, like a room exhaling after holding its breath too long. Meg’s sticky notes were gone from the fridge, her papers cleared from every surface, her printer no longer humming its constant soundtrack.

“Driving lesson today?” he asked, trying for normal.

“I guess. If you’re not too busy enjoying all your reclaimed space. ”

“Stella—”

“I know.” She turned around, leaning against the counter. “I’m not mad. It makes sense. Everyone has room now. Very logical. Very... adult.”

The coffee maker gurgled to life, filling the silence.

“Want breakfast first?” Tyler offered. “I promise not to burn anything.”

“That’s a promise you can’t keep.” But she almost smiled. “Just coffee. My stomach’s weird.”

“Nervous about parallel parking?”

“Nervous about everything.” She poured two mugs, handed him one automatically—a small gesture that hit him unexpectedly hard. When had they developed coffee routines?

They drank in silence, both adjusting to the reality of Meg’s absence. Three doors down wasn’t far, but it felt significant in ways Tyler couldn’t quite articulate.

“Ready?” he asked eventually.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Always.”

She looked at him then, really looked at him. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go fail at parallel parking.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The driving practice area was emptier than usual, just a few other student drivers crawling through the cones. Tyler had set up his own makeshift parallel parking space with borrowed traffic cones and what might have been excessive optimism.

“That space is tiny,” Stella announced from the driver’s seat .

“It’s regulation size.”

“For what? Clown cars?”

“For standard vehicles. Which this is.”

She gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’m going to hit every single cone.”

“Probably. That’s why they’re cones and not actual cars.”

“Comforting.”

“I try.”

The first attempt was, predictably, a disaster. Stella cut the wheel too early, ended up diagonal across three spaces, and may have traumatized a passing jogger.

“That was?—”

“Don’t say it.”

“I was going to say ‘a solid first attempt.’”

“You were going to say ‘terrible’ and we both know it.”

“Maybe a little terrible,” Tyler admitted. “Try again?”

The second attempt involved overcorrection in the opposite direction. The third knocked over two cones. The fourth ended with the car perpendicular to the curb in a way that defied physics.

“This is impossible,” Stella announced, forehead resting on the steering wheel. “How do people do this every day?”

“Practice. And occasionally prayer.”

“I’ve been praying. God’s not answering.”

“Try the parking gods. They’re more specialized. ”

She laughed despite herself, sitting back up. “One more try.”

“That’s my—“ He caught himself before saying ‘girl.’ “That’s the spirit.”

Something shifted in attempt number five. Maybe it was the lower stakes of already having failed spectacularly, or maybe the parking gods finally took pity, but Stella’s movements were smoother, more confident. Turn the wheel, check the mirror, ease back, straighten out...

“Oh my god,” she said. “Am I... am I actually between the lines?”

Tyler leaned over to check. “You are. Perfectly centered, even.”

“I did it?”

“You did it.”

“I parallel parked!”

“You parallel parked.”

She turned to him, eyes bright with accomplishment. “We did it.”

“You did it,” Tyler said. “I just sat here trying not to have a heart attack.”

“We did it,” she insisted. “Just the two of us. No Meg to talk me through it.”

“Just the two of us,” he agreed, and something in the air shifted.

They sat there for a moment, engine idling, both processing what that meant.

“Want to try again?” Tyler asked. “Make sure it wasn’t a fluke? ”

“Yes. No. Maybe?” She gripped the wheel. “Yes.”

Three more successful attempts later—with only minor cone casualties—they headed home. Stella was practically vibrating with accomplishment, replaying every successful maneuver.

“Did you see that last one? I didn’t even have to readjust!”

“I saw. Very smooth.”

They pulled into the driveway, and the house loomed before them—still Tyler’s familiar bungalow, but different now. Emptier.

Inside, the kitchen felt especially quiet. Tyler opened the fridge, checking dinner supplies while Stella lingered by the table.

“Weird how empty it feels,” she said quietly.

“Yeah.” Tyler closed the fridge, looking around. “Guess it’s just the two of us now.”

“Just the two of us,” Stella echoed, running her hand along the clean counter where Meg’s laptop used to live.

They stood there for a moment, the reality of their new configuration settling over them like dust. The house that had felt too small somehow felt too big.

Tyler started pulling out ingredients for dinner, trying to remember Meg’s system. “She took the good pan.”

“Of course she did.”

“And the garlic press.”

“Strategic theft.”

“Left us the burned pot though. ”

“How generous.”

Stella watched him attempt organization, then quietly started helping—filling the water pitcher, setting out plates. They moved around each other carefully, still learning the choreography of shared space without a buffer.

“Hey Tyler?”

“Mm?”

She was staring at the plates in her hands like they held answers. “Want to get ice cream? After dinner, I mean. When Meg goes home.”

Tyler’s hands stilled on the cutting board. “Ice cream?”

“Mint chocolate chip.” She set the plates down carefully, still not looking at him. “If you want.”

The question hung between them, weighted with sixteen years of tradition and rejection, of twice-yearly visits and growing distance, of a little girl who used to count down days and a teenager who’d stopped wanting to go.

“Yeah,” Tyler managed, voice rougher than intended. “I’d like that.”

“Cool.” She busied herself with napkins. “Just ice cream. Not a big thing.”

“Right. Just ice cream.”

But they both knew it was more than that. It was Stella choosing to resurrect their tradition, choosing to bridge the gap, choosing him in a way she hadn’t in years .

The afternoon passed in dinner preparation, Meg arrived with wine and stories about her first day in the office, and they ate like a family split between two houses but determined to stay connected. Normal and strange all at once.

After Meg hugged them goodbye and walked her three doors home, Stella grabbed Tyler’s keys from the hook.

“Ready?”

“You want to drive?”

“I parallel parked successfully today. I’m basically a driving expert now.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“Tyler.” She jingled the keys. “Ice cream.”

He followed her out.

“Still mint chocolate chip?” Stella asked at the counter, though she already knew.

“What else?”

She ordered for both of them, and Tyler tried not to read too much into the fact that she remembered he liked a sugar cone, or that she still got a cup because cones were “structurally unsound food delivery systems.”

They sat on the bench outside, both with mint chocolate chip, like the last few years hadn't happened. Like they'd never stopped.

“Thanks,” she said eventually. “For the lesson today. And for not freaking out when I almost hit that jogger.”

“He had good reflexes. ”

“He really did.” She took another bite. “Tyler?”

“Yeah?”

“Just the two of us is okay. I mean, it’s weird and the house echoes now and you still can’t cook, but... it’s okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She concentrated on her ice cream. “Maybe we could do this again. The ice cream thing. If you want.”

“I’d like that,” Tyler said carefully, trying not to spook this fragile moment. “Maybe next Sunday?”

“Maybe.” She stood, tossing her empty cup in the trash. “Come on. I want to practice night driving on the way home.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tyler.”

“Stella.”

“I’ll go five under the speed limit.”

“Ten under.”

“Seven.”

“Deal.”

They walked back to the truck, and Tyler handed over the keys. The drive home was careful and perfect, Stella narrating every turn and signal like a proper new driver.

Just the two of us, Tyler thought as they pulled into the driveway. It wasn’t the family configuration he’d planned or the summer he’d expected. But watching Stella carefully park the truck, seeing the satisfaction on her face, remembering the taste of mint chocolate chip and tradition renewed?—

Maybe just the two of us was exactly what they needed to be.