“It’s raining!” Isabelle had already been wet from her afternoon of frolicking in the waves, but she acted like each raindrop was threatening her.
Tyler, who thought the rain felt nice after the day’s heat, laughed at how similar his two girls looked in this moment.
“Come on, come on,” he said, urging them along. “There’s an overhang.”
They squished into a little rock formation, barely able to see, across the cove, where the other students were doing the same under different rocks and trees. A few of the kids had taken cover under the picnic tables.
Then the rain started coming down more heavily. The outcropping that provided them shelter was just big enough to keep their little family dry, although the sloping height meant that Cadence had to sandwich between Tyler and Isabelle.
“I don’t like this rain,” Cadence muttered to herself.
Tyler bit back a smile. He didn’t want to laugh at her, of course, but this was pretty predictable. Cadence was not exactly an outdoorsy kind of person. Oh, she enjoyed a walk in a botanical garden or a day at the beach, but she also liked being able to go home and be safely inside when nature started rearing its head a little more aggressively.
So being caught in the rain on the beach, even if they were quite literally within eyeshot of civilization? Not Cadence’s cup of tea.
“It’s going to be okay,” Tyler soothed her. “It’ll pass quickly. These summer storms always do.”
“We’re not always near the ocean when they strike though,” she retorted.
“We’re protected in the cove,” he said. “What do you think, Izzy?” he asked, leaning around Cadence to check if Isabelle was as bothered as her mother.
Isabelle, however, was looking highly entertained by the sudden turn in weather.
“It’s like being inside a waterfall,” she said wondrously.
Cadence made a grumbling little sound in the back of her throat that Tyler interpreted as,I find that idea horrifying but I do not want to crush my child’s joy.
Tyler smiled at this, then felt his heart practically stop as she slipped her fingers into his.
At first, he wasn’t sure whether she realized she’d done it, but then she gave him a squeeze. He squeezed back. Neither of them let go.
And Tyler didn’t dare to hope.
“Wait, Mommy, do you know what we should do?” Isabelle asked suddenly, brightly.
Cadence pulled her hand back into her lap. Tyler knew this was probably for the best, as the last thing they wanted was to confuse Isabelle, but he still missed her touch immediately.
“What’s that, bumblebee?”
“Sing the campfire song!” Izzy’s face was alight with mischief.
Cadence grew very, very still.
“Oh, that’s an idea,” she said, her voice high and strained.
Isabelle and Tyler looked at one another with shared delight and impishness.
The campfire song was a song that Tyler had invented for Izzy’s first camping trip, back when she was about three years old. It was a merciless earworm, one that got stuck in Cadence’s head beyond belief. Whenever they’d gone camping, and Tyler and Isabelle had sung the song happily and loudly, Cadence had wound up humming the little ditty.
Forweeks.
In short, it drove her nuts, and so Izzy and Tyler used this knowledge to tease her mercilessly.
“I think it’s not justanidea, I think it’s agreatidea,” Tyler told his daughter.
Cadence put her face in her hands.
“You two are attacking me in a moment of weakness!” Cadence accused as the other two began to sing.
