Page 116 of The Beach Shack Summer
“But you liked knowing where everyone was. Meg in San Francisco, me pining from a safe distance, Stella in Australia. Controlled. Separate.”
“You weren’t pining,” Tyler said automatically.
“I was definitely pining. Twenty years of world-class pining.” Luke seemed remarkably cheerful about it. “But that’s done now.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Luke’s whole face softened. “I told her I love her. She said it back. Simple.”
“Nothing’s simple when it comes to family.”
“Sure it is. You just make it complicated.” Luke refilled his mug. “Stella chose to stay. That’s good. Meg moved home. Also good. Your sister and I finally got our acts together after two decades. Definitely good.”
“But what if?—”
“Tyler.” Luke’s voice gentled. “What are you actually worried about?”
Tyler slumped against the counter. “What if you hurt each other? What if it doesn’t work? What if I lose my best friend AND my sister? What if?—”
“What if we’re happy?”
That stopped Tyler short.
“What if,” Luke continued, “after twenty years of almosts and maybes, we actually get it right? What if your sister stays in Laguna because she wants to, not because she has to? What if I get to love her the way I’ve wanted to since we were younger?”
“That’s a lot of what-ifs.”
“Good ones though.” Luke was doing that steady thing, the one that had talked Tyler through every bad decision and rough patch. “Tyler, I’ve loved your sister since she tried to reorganize my surf lesson schedulewhen she was eighteen. This isn’t sudden. This isn’t reckless. This is... inevitable.”
“Inevitable,” Tyler repeated.
“Pretty much.”
“Why is Luke being reasonable in our kitchen?” Stella shuffled in, still in pajamas, making a beeline for the coffee.
“He spent the night at Meg’s,” Tyler said, still processing.
“Gross. TMI.” She poured coffee with the efficiency of someone who’d been mainlining caffeine since age fourteen. “Wait, why do you look like someone died?”
“I don’t?—“
“He’s having a change spiral,” Luke explained.
“Ah.” Stella nodded sagely. “Like when I said I wanted to stay and you spent three hours staring at the wall?”
“I wasn’t staring at the wall.”
“You were totally staring at the wall.”
“It’s a lot of change,” Tyler said.
“Good change though, right?” Stella’s voice went uncertain. “Me staying, Meg being close, Luke finally making a move after forever...”
“Twenty years isn’t forever,” Luke said mildly.
“It’s literally longer than I’ve been alive.”
“Fair point.”
