Ivy processes this. "Does figuring it out mean yes?"
"It means we're figuring it out."
"I'm telling Clarence it means yes," she announces, and then Vanessa appears in the background holding a churro and looking mildly alarmed at whatever is on Ivy's face, and Ivy shouts "BYE GEMMA BYE DADDY I LOVE YOU TELL CLARENCE I SAID HI" at a volume that could probably be heard from Space Mountain, and the call ends.
Silence.
Beck stands at the counter. I stand at the counter. The coffee maker contributes nothing helpful.
"She called it," I say.
"She calls everything," Beck says. He picks up his mug — the one on the far left, obviously — and pours his coffee without looking at me.
"The Belle lady seemed invested."
"Please stop."
"She had a hand over her heart."
He turns around wearing the face he makes when he's determined to be irritated and it isn't quite working. "How long before she calls back?"
"Thirty seconds after she eats the churro," I say. "Maybe forty-five if Vanessa makes her put the phone away."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not quite a smile. In Beck-to-English translation, it's roughly equivalent to a standing ovation.
The churro estimate was wrong. Ivy called back in under a minute, primarily to make Beck promise to tell Clarence she sends her love and that she's bringing something from the gift shop, which opened a separate and entirely earnest conversation about whether Clarence would prefer a stuffed Stitch or a stuffedNemo, and Beck said "the fish" with the certainty of someone who has been outvoted by a six-year-old before and learned to commit.
By the time we got off the second call, the morning had shifted into something easier. I wasn't thinking about the kiss in the way where I wanted to dissect it anymore, just in the way where it sat warm and present in the back of my mind while I refilled my mug and Beck stood at the window looking at the mountains like he needed them to hold still.
Beck pours a second mug. Sets it on the counter. Leans back against the sink with his arms crossed and looks at me the way he looks at incident reports — like he's going to read every word before he says anything.
"So," he says.
"So," I agree.
The refrigerator hums. Outside, a bird makes an argument about something.
"Last night," he starts.
"You don't have to?—"
"I want to." He says it flat and certain, the way he says most things. "I'm not — I don't do things halfway. If that's what this is, I need you to know that going in."
My chest does something that takes a second to settle. "What is this?"
He picks up his mug. Studies it. Puts it back down. "I don't know what to call it yet. But it's not nothing."
That's the most words he's voluntarily strung together about feelings since I moved in, and I'm fairly certain it cost him something.
"It's not nothing," I say.
He nods once. Done. Filed. Apparently that's enough for him to function, because he picks his mug back up and some of the tension in his shoulders releases by a fraction.
It's enough for me too, which is its own thing to sit with.
The first text came from Big Jim before I'd finished my second cup. I was leaning against the counter, mug in both hands, watching a pair of magpies argue on the fence post outside the window, when my phone lit up.
Jim: Heard something interesting. About time. Drinks on the house, you two.
