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She thought of how Archer had watched her from afar last night, her skin burning hot knowing that his eyes finally landed on her, knowing that he couldn’t ignore her any longer.
She wondered if he was still mad at her. A confrontation was unavoidable if they would both be spending the entire summer in Silver Falls, but it didn’t have to happen quite yet. So she’d picked up her glass and escaped inside before he finished talking to his mom.
The screen door slapped downstairs again, followed by another angry whisper from Nan. This time Tea could make out what she was saying.
“Wayne, for pete’s sake, stop slapping that door,” Nan hissed. “You’re gonna wake our girl.”
“Oh she’s probably already up,” Pop responded in his usual deep timbre, unashamed of how loud he was being.
“It’s only eight o’clock.”
A cabinet door opened and shut, followed by a ting as someone pressed down the toaster. “Eight o’clock? It’s practically midday. I’ve already had my coffee and listened to MPR.” The fridge opened, then closed. “Would be nice if I could go fishing without so many damn boats out there.”
“Wayne.”
They went back and forth like that, but Tea tuned it out as she slipped out of her bed and tucked herself into her robe. She tied her hair up into a ponytail as she made her way downstairs.
Pop smiled at her, his teeth smudged with a slathering of butter and jam, a half-eaten piece of toast on a plate in front of him. Crumbs lined his beard, some escaping onto the counter. He was already dressed for fishing; long-sleeve compression shirt, jeans, and the same ratty Silver Falls hat he wore all year round, bleached from a decade or two out on the water.
“See, there’s our girl,” he said. He wiped his beard as made his way around the counter. “I told you she was awake.”
Nan rolled her eyes. “Does she look like she’s been awake?”
Pop ignored her as he wrapped his arms around Tea, planting a kiss on her cheek and leaving behind a dollop of jam. He laughed and wiped it off with his shirtsleeve.
Tea smiled. “Morning, Pop. Still got some coffee, or is it too late?”
“Of course we have coffee, it’s still the morning,” he responded.
Nan pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Kelly, Wayne, Tea! What are you doing? You gotta get out there!”
The three of them turned in unison to find Rhonda on their deck, peering through the screen door.
Pop frowned. “Now why would I do that? The lake is covered in boats right now.”
“Of course they are,” Rhonda replied. “They’re all looking for Pebble.”
Nan scrunched her nose. “Pebble?”
“The baby loon? Did you guys not read the email?”
“On my computer? Oh, I don’t touch that thing,” Nan responded.
“They’re looking for a rock?” Pop added.
Tea opened the cabinet and grabbed the mug with a giant painted squirrel, then reached for the coffee pot. “Nan, Pop, do one of you have your email on your phone?”
“On our phones?” Nan squeaked.
Pop snapped his fingers. “Yes. Archer installed it for me last summer.”
Of course he did. “Can you grab it, please?”
Tea kept her attention on her grandfather as he walked to the coffee table to retrieve his phone, ignoring the way Rhonda was pointedly looking at her after Pop’s casual mention of Archer.
Pop swiped it open and handed it to her. His home screen was a mess, littered with colorful games and news apps. Yet it wasn’t hard to find his Mail app after a few swipes. It was the only one that had a red bubble showing over nineteen thousand notifications.
