Page 99 of The Beach Shack Summer
“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.
