Page 32 of The Beach Shack Summer (Laguna Beach #2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
L uke knocked at exactly seven—three raps, pause, one rap. His signature knock this summer.
“It’s open,” Meg called from the floor of Sam’s studio—her studio now—where she sat surrounded by boxes that had just arrived from San Francisco.
“Brought reinforcements.” He held up a six-pack of beer and a bag from the Thai place. “Figured you hadn’t eaten.”
“You figured right.” She accepted a beer gratefully. “Tyler and Stella are having father-daughter movie night. Something about him introducing her to ‘classic’ films.”
“Let me guess—Point Break?”
“The original. He’s very specific about that.” Meg gestured at the boxes. “My old life arrived from San Francisco today. Been staring at it for two hours. ”
“Want help or want company while you avoid it longer?”
“Both?” She took a long pull of beer. “I had my assistant pack up some things. Seemed important at the time. Now...”
“In case Stella decided to go back?” Luke settled beside her on the floor. “But she’s not. Not after today.”
“No.” Meg smiled, remembering Stella’s fierce declaration to her mother. “She’s definitely not.”
“So maybe it’s time to unpack?”
Meg looked at the boxes, each one labeled in her precise handwriting. OFFICE. AWARDS. PHOTOS. KITCHEN - GOOD STUFF. Like artifacts from another life.
“Okay.” She reached for the nearest box. “But if I find something embarrassing, you have to pretend you didn’t see it.”
“Deal.”
The first box was safe—office supplies, her favorite ergonomic keyboard, the expensive desk lamp she’d justified as a promotion gift to herself. Luke helped her set up a workspace in the corner, not commenting on how high-end everything was.
The second box was harder. “Oh,” she said softly, pulling out a framed photo. “My team.”
Luke looked over her shoulder at the image—Meg centered among twelve people, all raising champagne glasses in what was clearly an expensive restaurant. “Closing dinner for the Marriott campaign. We landed a twenty-million-dollar contract that night. ”
“Twenty million?” Luke whistled low. “Meg, that’s...”
“Yeah.” She set the photo aside carefully. “It was a big deal.”
The next frame made her laugh despite herself. “Company awards dinner. They made me give a speech about ‘innovative leadership in the digital age.’” She was wearing a designer dress she’d bought specifically for the event, holding a crystal trophy for “Marketing Innovation of the Year.”
“You look...” Luke paused, studying the photo. “Different.”
“That’s Corporate Meg. Power blazer, statement necklace, shoes that cost more than some people’s rent.” She traced the frame. “I was really good at being her.”
“Do you miss it?”
The question hung between them as she pulled out more pieces of her San Francisco life. The Tiffany desk clock her team gave her when she made VP. Client gifts—bottles of wine worth more than Tyler’s monthly grocery budget. A leather portfolio embossed with her initials.
“Sometimes,” she admitted, opening the portfolio to find her business cards. Margaret Walsh, Vice President of Strategic Marketing. “I miss feeling like I was building something important. Leading a team. The adrenaline of a big pitch.”
“But?”
“But I don’t miss the sixteen-hour days.
The Sunday night anxiety. Canceling vacations because a client had an emergency that wasn’t actually an emergency.
” She found another photo—her corner office with its view of the Bay.
“I definitely don’t miss being too busy to visit Margo. Too important to come home.”
Luke was quiet, letting her work through it. The AWARDS box yielded more evidence of her success—plaques, certificates, a “Top 40 Under 40” magazine feature where she looked polished and professional and exhausted.
“God, look at me.” She held up the magazine. “I thought those bags under my eyes made me look dedicated. Devoted to the job.”
“You were building something,” Luke said carefully. “That matters.”
“Does it though?” She found her client gift wine collection, each bottle a memory of a deal closed, a campaign launched. “Six months ago, I would have said absolutely. Now...”
“Now?”
“Now I watch Tyler teaching Stella about f-stops and think that matters more. I see Margo showing her the proper way to layer cheese and think that’s building something too.” She held up a bottle of Chateau Margaux. “This wine costs three hundred dollars. We could drink it right now with pad thai.”
“Or?”
“Or I could save it for something special and realize nothing’s ever special enough because life keeps happening while you’re waiting for the perfect moment. ”
Luke took the bottle, examined the label. “What would Corporate Meg do?”
“Save it. Display it. Talk about it at dinner parties but never actually open it.”
“And Beach Shack Meg?”
She took the bottle back, grabbed the corkscrew from the kitchen. “Beach Shack Meg knows that drinking stupidly expensive wine on the floor with someone who matters beats any corporate dinner.”
The cork came out with a satisfying pop. She poured it into two coffee mugs—she hadn’t unpacked the good glasses yet.
“To building different things,” Luke offered.
“To three-hundred-dollar wine in coffee mugs.” They clinked ceramic.
The wine was extraordinary, even in inappropriate vessels. They worked through more boxes—kitchen gadgets she’d never used, books about management strategies, clothes that belonged to a different climate and life.
“Oh no.” Meg pulled out a garment bag. “My interview suit.”
“The one you wore?—”
“To every major interview for ten years. My armor.” She unzipped it, touching the expensive fabric. “I wonder if it still fits.”
“Try it on.”
“Really?”
“I’m curious about Corporate Meg.”
She disappeared into the bedroom, returning in the charcoal suit that had seen her through every major career milestone. It still fit perfectly, but it looked like a costume now.
“Very impressive,” Luke said. “You look like you could hostile-takeover something.”
“I once made a CMO cry in this suit.” She straightened the jacket. “Not my proudest moment.”
“Turn around.”
She spun slowly, modeling her former uniform. “Worth every penny of the two thousand dollars.”
“Two thousand—” Luke coughed. “For one suit?”
“Investment dressing.” She sat back down, still in the suit but cross-legged on the floor. “Except now it’s just very expensive wool taking up closet space.”
“You could wear it to the Beach Shack. Really class up the joint.”
“Joey would die. Imagine getting grilled cheese grease on this.”
They were laughing now, the weight of the evening lifting. She found her lease renewal in the last box—December 31st deadline circled in red.
“There it is,” she said quietly. “Decision time.”
Luke read over her shoulder. “That’s four months away.”
“Four months to decide if I’m keeping a foot in that world or...” She gestured around Sam’s studio, boxes half-unpacked, her life in transition. “Or if I’m really doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Staying. Not just helping out for the summer. Actually staying. Building something here instead of there.”
“What would you build here?”
“I don’t know yet. My client base is growing.
I could make it work remotely. Or...” She pulled off the suit jacket, feeling lighter.
“Or I could do something completely different. Margo mentioned the festival needs better marketing coordination. The whole town could use someone who understands digital strategy.”
“Smaller scale than twenty-million-dollar hotel chains.”
“Different scale. Not smaller. Just... different.” She found herself leaning against him. “Is it crazy that I kind of don’t want to renew the lease?”
“Is it crazy that I really hope you don’t?”
She turned to look at him. “Luke...”
“I know it’s only been a few months. I know you have a whole life up there. But Meg, these past weeks with you here...” He touched her face gently. “I keep thinking about you leaving and it feels wrong. You belong here.”
“My two-thousand-dollar suit disagrees.”
“Your two-thousand-dollar suit doesn’t know about midnight fish tacos.”
“That’s true. She’s very sheltered.” Meg felt tears prick her eyes. “I worked so hard for that life. Gave up everything for it. And now...”
“Now?”
“Now I think maybe I was building the wrong thing all along. ”
He kissed her then, gentle and sure. When they pulled apart, she was definitely crying.
“Hey,” he said softly. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just... decades of climbing the corporate ladder, and I think I’ve been happier in the last month than the last two decades combined.” She gestured at the boxes. “What do I even do with all this stuff?”
“Keep what matters. Let go of what doesn’t.” He picked up the magazine with her feature. “This Meg did important things. But she’s not the only version of you that matters.”
“Beach Shack Meg matters?”
“All the Megs matter. The one who color-codes Tyler’s chaos. The one who teaches Stella about business. The one who sits with Margo at Circle meetings.” He paused. “The one drinking three-hundred-dollar wine from a coffee mug in her mom’s abandoned art studio.”
“When you put it like that...” She leaned back into him, feeling the solid warmth of him, the steady presence that had been there through every version of herself.
They sat in the quiet, surrounded by the remnants of her old life. The expensive wine was making her honest. Or maybe it was Luke. Maybe it had always been Luke.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said softly. Not tonight. Not ever, maybe, but she wasn’t quite ready for that admission .
He was quiet for so long she wondered if he’d heard her. Then his arms came around her, holding her close.
“I don’t want to go either,” he said into her hair.
She turned in his arms to look at him, really look at him. This man who’d taught her to surf, who’d waited twenty years, who knew every version of her and somehow wanted her anyway.
“Stay,” she said. Just that. Just the word, but weighted with everything they hadn’t said yet.
“Meg...” His voice was rough.
“Stay,” she repeated, and this time it wasn’t about ghosts or loneliness or wine. It was about choosing him, choosing this, choosing the life that was taking shape around them.
“Okay,” he said simply. “Okay.”
Neither of them said the words yet. But sitting there in the lamplight, holding each other among the boxes of her former life, they both knew. This was it. This was everything.