“I need you to promise me something.”
“Okay...”
“Promise me you’ll actually have a life.”
Tyler blinked. “I have a life.”
“You have me. That’s not the same thing.” Stella fixed him with a look that was uncomfortably perceptive. “I’m going to be at school during the day and working at the Shack after. I’m going to have friends and homework and probably some kind of social life eventually. And you can’t just sit around waiting for me to need you.”
“I don’t sit around —”
“You’ve been on zero dates since I’ve been here. Zero.”
“How do you know how many dates I’ve been on?”
“Meg tells Bea everything and Bea tells me everything. It’s a very efficient information network.” Stellacrossed her arms. “The guidance counselor. Lindsey. She seems nice.”
Tyler choked on his coffee. “We are not having this conversation.”
“We’re absolutely having this conversation. She laughs at your jokes. I’ve seen her do it.”
“She probably laughs at everyone’s jokes. She’s a guidance counselor. It’s part of the job.”
“She wouldn’t laugh at Bernie’s jokes.”
“Nobody laughs at Bernie’s jokes.”
“Exactly my point.” Stella leaned forward. “Ask her out. For real. On an actual date, not just coffee in her office while you pretend to have questions about enrollment.”
“I had real questions about enrollment!”
“You had three questions and you stretched them into an hour and a half.”
Tyler opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. She wasn’t wrong.
“I’m serious,” Stella said, her voice softening. “I don’t want you to put your life on hold for me. I did that to Mum—made her feel like she couldn’t do anything without considering me first — and it wasn’t fair to either of us.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not that different.” Stella reached across the counter, touched his arm. “You spent sixteen years not being my dad because Mum wouldn’t let you. Now youget to be my dad and have a life. Both things. At the same time.”
Tyler looked at his daughter—this fierce, observant, occasionally terrifying person who had appeared in his life and rearranged everything.
“When did you get so smart?” he asked.
“Always been smart.”
They smiled at each other across the counter.
“Okay,” Tyler said. “I’ll ask her out.”
“Really?”
“Really. But you don’t get to know how it goes.”
“I’ll find out anyway. Information network, remember?”
Tyler laughed — really laughed, the kind that came from somewhere deep.
