By eight-thirty in the morning, I have already decided renting a beach house for twelve people was a mistake. Not the birthday. The birthday was fine. Claire wanted something big for twenty-one, and after three straight weeks of increasingly shameless begging, bargaining, and sending me listings with captions like LOOK AT THE VIEW DAD PLEASE, I gave in. She wanted the ocean, her friends, her mother, a whole week where nobody had anywhere they needed to be. I could do that for her. Apparently what I failed to account for was the fact that putting this many twenty-one-year-olds under one roof creates the organizational equivalent of releasing raccoons into a hardware store.
I stand in the kitchen with one hand around a mug of coffee and the other sorting through the groceries somebody shoved into the refrigerator last night with absolutely no concern for whether raw meat should be resting on top of a carton of strawberries. Behind me, the villa is already alive. Cabinet doors open and close. Somebody is looking for a phone charger they swear was on the counter thirty seconds ago. Music drifts in from outside, bass low enough that I can feel it through the glass before I can make out the song. Through the wall of windows overlooking the pool, I watch Ben attempt to jump from one lounge chair to another. The chair slides. He windmills. Lucas catches him by the back of his shirt before he goes face-first into the concrete.
I point through the glass. "If one of you breaks your neck before breakfast, I'm leaving you here."
Ben looks at me through the window, grinning like this is somehow encouragement.
"You'd miss me."
"No."
He laughs and immediately goes back to doing something equally stupid. Jesus Christ. Beyond them, down the short path toward the beach, three more of Claire's friends are already running barefoot toward the water. One of them has a towel over their head like a cape. Another is carrying what looks suspiciously like the inflatable flamingo Claire insisted we buy at a gas station yesterday. It isn't even nine. I take a drink of coffee and tell myself, for approximately the fiftieth time since we got here, that they're adults. Technically. Legally. In every way that matters. Doesn't stop half of them from looking twelve when they're sprinting toward the Atlantic with an inflatable bird.
"Morning."
Amanda comes into the kitchen behind me already dressed like a functioning human being, which feels obnoxious considering she spent half the night catching up with Claire. She reaches around me for the coffee without asking where it is. Of course she doesn't ask. She was married to me long enough to know exactly where I put everything five minutes after walking into a rental.
"Coffee's fresh."
"I assumed."
She pours herself a cup, glances through the windows, and watches Sophie nearly get knocked into the pool by Claire. Amanda takes a slow sip.
"Excellent investment."
"Don't start."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking very loudly."
I give her a look. She smiles into her coffee. Then Claire shrieks outside, and my head turns before I think about it. She's fine. Of course she's fine. She's standing at the edge of the pool laughing so hard she's doubled over while Jenna tries to splash her from the water. Claire is already in her swimsuit, hair pulled up badly enough that half of it is escaping, sunglasses shoved crookedly onto the top of her head.
And beside her—there you are.
I stop. Not visibly. Hopefully. Just enough that the coffee mug pauses halfway back toward my mouth. You're standing on the pool deck with Claire, dressed for the water, sunlight already catching across bare skin, laughing at whatever she's saying while she gestures dramatically toward the idiots currently trying to inflate something with their mouths instead of using the electric pump sitting six feet away. Don't look. I already looked. Fine. Stop now.
I look down into my coffee like there's suddenly something fascinating happening in it. This is going to be a fucking nightmare. I knew you were coming. Obviously I knew you were coming. Claire would have sooner agreed to cancel the entire trip than leave you behind. You've been attached at the hip since elementary. I've spent years opening my front door and finding you on the other side like you lived there. None of this is new. That's the problem.
You aren't doing anything. You're standing beside my daughter at a pool. In a swimsuit. Because we're at a beach house. Normal. Completely normal. My brain, apparently, has elected not to participate in normal.
"Dad!"
I close my eyes for half a second. Of course. Claire is waving at me through the glass.
"What?"
"Come outside!"
"I'm making breakfast."
"We have cereal!"
"That's not breakfast."
"It literally says breakfast cereal on the box!"
Amanda makes a choking noise beside me that is definitely a laugh.
"You're encouraging her."
"I haven't said a word."
Claire cups both hands around her mouth.
"Dad!"
"I heard you the first time."
"Then why aren't you coming?"
Because you're standing next to the single person I have spent the better part of a year deliberately not staring at, sweetheart.
Instead, I set my coffee down.
"Because some of you need actual food before you start drinking."
"It's eight-thirty!"
"Exactly."
Claire squints at me, apparently trying to determine whether I've made any sense at all. Then she gives up and turns toward you. You say something to her that I can't hear through the glass. Claire laughs again. My eyes betray me for exactly one second. There. Again. Christ.
I turn back to the refrigerator. Eggs. Bacon. Fruit. Something easy enough for a crowd and substantial enough that nobody gets drunk off half a hard seltzer at noon because they decided iced coffee counted as nutrition. Normal things. Things I understand. I pull the bacon out and shut the refrigerator harder than necessary.
Amanda is still standing there. I glance sideways. She's looking at me. Not smiling anymore. Not suspicious, exactly. Just looking.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Too quick. I stare at her. Amanda raises her coffee to her mouth. Fuck.
Before she can say whatever is forming behind that expression, my phone buzzes against the counter. I grab it. MARK DELANEY. Of course it is. The message preview reads: 'Paradise treating you well, princess?' I stare at it. Then at the pool. Then back at the phone. Block him. I don't.
Outside, Claire is waving again, and this time you're looking toward the kitchen too. Our eyes meet through the glass. Just for a second. There you are. I exhale slowly through my nose, pick up the skillet, and turn toward the stove.
"Breakfast in twenty."
Claire throws both hands into the air like I've announced free money.
"LOVE YOU!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Amanda walks past me toward the patio door, coffee in hand.
"Good luck, Rhett."
I look at her back.
"With breakfast?"
She opens the door, pauses, and looks over her shoulder at me.
"Sure."
Then she's gone.
I stand alone in the kitchen for a second, skillet in one hand, phone in the other, listening to Claire and her friends yelling outside while Mark's unread message waits on the screen and you stand ten yards away in a swimsuit like this is an entirely ordinary Friday morning. Seven days. I have to survive seven days of this.
Fantastic.
---
[ DAY 1 | FRIDAY | MORNING | BEACH VILLA (KITCHEN) ]
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