Everyone stood in Tyler’s small kitchen—too many people for the space, bumping elbows, reaching over each other for things. Joey had rearranged the muffins twice. Anna was slicing focaccia. Bea was eating grapes from the fruit bag while pretending to study. Luke had found a corner near the window where he could drink his beer and stay out of the way, which was Luke’s gift in every family situation.
Stella was on the counter again, camera in her lap. She’d been quiet since everyone arrived—watching, the way she did. Tyler caught her eye and she raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t surewhat it meant but it was probably something he’d hear about later.
“Okay,” Meg said. “Hollandaise. Taste.”
She held out a spoon. Tyler tasted.
It was good. Actually good—rich and lemony and smooth, nothing like the grainy mess he and Stella had attempted that afternoon with the first batch of lemons.
“That’s good,” he said.
“I know it’s good.” Meg set the spoon down. “I’ll make a batch every morning before work and drop it off. It holds for a few hours if you keep it warm. Not hot. Warm.”
“Margo said the same thing,” Stella said from the counter.
“Margo is correct.” Meg pulled out her phone and started typing—a schedule, probably, or a checklist, or a spreadsheet for hollandaise logistics. “What time does the first customer walk in?”
“Seven,” Tyler said.
“I’ll have the hollandaise at the Shack by six-thirty.”
Anna arranged her focaccia slices on a plate and slid it to the center of the counter. Joey’s muffins sat beside it. Tyler’s eggs—reheated, slightly less impressive than they’d been fresh but still holding together—went next to those. Meg’s hollandaise in a small bowl. The fruit Bea had brought, washed and cut.
They all stood back and looked at it.
Tyler looked at the spread on his counter. Tomorrow morning this was going to be a breakfast menu. People were going to come in and sit down and order this food and he was going to serve it to them. On purpose. For money.
“It’s not much,” he said.
“It’s enough,” Anna said. “For now, it’s enough.”
“And the muffins are excellent,” Joey added. “I want that on the record.”
“Noted,” Tyler said.
Everyone ate standing up—tasting, adjusting, commenting. Meg’s hollandaise over Tyler’s eggs on a toasted muffin with the Canadian bacon was, by unanimous agreement, a legitimate eggs Benedict. Not restaurant-quality. Not perfect. But real and edible and something a person would pay for, especially with an ocean view.
Bea closed her calculus book and tried a muffin. “Joey, this is really good.”
“Amanda cried,” Joey said.
“Amanda has good instincts.”
The kitchen emptied slowly. Joey left first, muffin box repacked, napkins straightened on his way out the door. Anna and Bea walked home—Anna hugging Tyler at the door and saying “six-thirty” and meaning it. Luke and Meg were last, Meg still typing hollandaise schedules into her phone as Luke steered her toward the door.
“You’ve got this,” Luke said to Tyler on the way out.
“Do I?”
“You poached an egg today. Yesterday you couldn’t. That’s progress.”
“That’s one egg.”
“One egg at a time.” Luke clapped him on the shoulder and followed Meg into the evening.
Tyler closed the door. The kitchen was quiet. Stella was still on the counter, legs dangling, camera in her lap.
“You’re going to say something,” Tyler said.
