She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“Regrets?”
“Not yet. Your intern gave me credentials.”
“Daisy is a security risk in lip gloss.”
“I heard that,” Daisy called.
“You were meant to.”
Luc appeared behind Emme with a platter in both hands and the expression of a Frenchman who had been personally betrayed by the climate. His linen shirt was open at the throat, his dark hair damp at the edges, and his scowl had become more elegant with each degree of humidity.
“Florida,” he said, setting the platter on the table, “is soup with architecture.”
Emme patted his arm. “You said that at breakfast.”
“It remains true.”
“You also said it at lunch.”
“The conditions haven't improved.”
Theo, who had returned from the Galápagos three days earlier and still looked faintly sunburned despite Annie’s militant sunscreen agenda, leaned toward Nick near the grill. “Did you ever see elephant herds shift their corridor use after fence pressure increased on one side of the reserve?”
Annie’s head snapped up with the speed of a woman hearing her dissertation topic enter casual conversation.
Nick answered without hesitation. “Yes. Not always immediately. Depends on water, calf age, human scent, and how often the pressure repeats. One breach rarely changes the pattern. Repeated disturbance does.”
Annie’s eyes narrowed with academic delight. “Spatial pressure.”
Nick glanced at her. “Yes.”
“Thank you,” she said, with the satisfaction of a woman whose published research had been proving a point for three months and would continue proving it until the end of time.
Theo smiled at her like she'd hung the moon and annotated it.
Summer, standing beside me now with the non-alcoholic ice situation apparently unresolved but temporarily abandoned, followed my gaze toward Annie and Theo. “UF sent the updated doctoral prep schedule.”
“I know.”
“The January start is official.”
“I know.”
Summer’s mouth softened. “Dad would have cried.”
“Yes,” I said. “Then he would have pretended it was allergies.”
“He would have blamed Florida.”
“Reasonable.”
Summer looked down at her phone when it buzzed, and her expression changed before she could stop it.
It was not much. Summer had been born with a boardroom face and had perfected it through years of carrying the emotional logistics of the rest of us like a handbag full of knives. The shift was there anyway: the almost-smile, the flicker of light she tucked away as quickly as it came.
Rayann saw it too from twenty feet away, because Rayann was medically incapable of minding her business.
