Last in the Family. First in his Heart.

“You’re going to do great things for this family, Yvette.”

Peter Samuel Anderson Sr’s words echoed in Yvette's mind. Would she really be able to do great things for her family? Was she going to be the one to ruin their legacy?

The wind never seemed to die down as Yvette Anderson and Derran Jackson walked down the path of the San Francisco Bay. Cars honk in the background as the sun mixes in with the skyline as the moon starts to make an appearance. The last hints of orange and yellow hues painted themselves on the ground and created dying shadows to their left, the soft pattering of their steps turned into silence as their shoes hit the beach.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them needed to speak… for now of course. Their presence for each other was all Yvette needed for now.

The beach was empty, rocks and sand wet from the water as the waves splash, the occasional seal’s screams echo through the ocean. The bridge stood tall, the water blasting against the bridge’s strong posts as birds cawks loud, wings flapped and boat horns blast through the sound barrier… everything seemed so loud, besides the two of them.

Stopping right in their tracks in front of the ocean with wet sand below their shoes, Yvette shivered as the water reacted with the wind. Derran looks over at her. “You want my jacket?” He asks, his fingers wrapping around his zipper, preparing to zip it down. Although Yvette already had one on, he wants her to be comfortable, even if it costed his own comfort.

She shakes her head, stuffing her hands into her pockets and hiding herself within her jacket. “It’s fine…” She says, her cheeks slowly turning a bluish hue.

He nods, trying to shove his worry to the backburner. There’s so much stuff on the backburner on his mind, it could light the bridge on fire, but his main focus is her. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asks, his eyes looking at her like a gentle plea to talk, to listen to her voice.

She sighs, looking down at her feet before looking back up. It was as if her eyes didn't want to look at him. She never liked eye contact. Instead, she settled her eyes to the left, watching the ramp of the bridge to the best of her ability, vehicles speed down the long strips of road, entering and exiting the bridge.

“I’m just nervous, it’s no big deal.” That’s a damn lie. She’s not a good liar.

Derran doesn’t speak, so she fills the silence instead. “I-I know I shouldn’t be nervous… but hell, Derran, how could I not? That’s… that’s my father’s work that we’re fighting for… and I’m just nervous to mess it all up.” She speaks. Her words are a conjured-up mess.

She looks at him, looking at him as if he withheld the answers she needed. In truth, the answers were for her to find on her own, not through someone else.

“I mean, any one of your four could ruin it...” He says, finally adding onto the conversation.

Seagulls caw in the background, a flock of six moving seamlessly… “It’s not just a 'you' thing, Yve, any of you could ruin it the moment power is moved to another person. Your father probably messed it up at the beginning then fixed it over time… but truly, any of you could ruin it.”

Her hair blows in the wind as her hand tries to push it down. Even her hair won't agree with her decisions. “Yes, any one of us could ruin it, but I just think… I think I’m not cut out for it. I mean, Peter has the degrees to prove he could run it, Killian is… Killian and he can make anything work and Kim has the businesses to prove she could make it better, and then there’s me… the only one who went out of the corporate tech business angle of the family and decided to do creative arts?!”

“You have the successful theatre to prove it…” Derran interjects, furrowing his eyebrows.

Yvette scoffs. “Owning a theatre is wildly different from owning a marketing firm and you know it, Derran!”

Derran hums in response. “It’s still owning a business. It’s still putting money into a property that you don’t know could make it to the next season. It’s still putting your career on the line that could fail any moment the day the market decides to fail you. Just because it’s not a Harvard backed science branch like whatever Peter has going for himself or whatever designer business 'Ralph Lauren' knockoff that somehow gets passed a lawsuit Kim runs… it’s still a business in its own right, Yvette.”

The ‘Ralph Lauren’ comment gets a genuine laugh out of Yvette. In this crazy situation that decides the fate of a five-decade long lasting business and the future of the Anderson family legacy, he’s still able to make her laugh.

“I just… I’m not the right one for it…” She says, her voice deflated, defeated in all the right terms.

Yvette never ceased defeat, and yet, she’s declaring defeat. Not in a grand, boardroom gesture filled with business partners and her family, but next to him and the waves of San Francisco, where the Anderson family grew up before moving to Chicago in the early 2000s after the market crashed.

If every Anderson sibling had a defining trait; Yvette’s would be her will. She never took defeat as the final stand. She never surrendered herself for anything. Not when her theatre was on the brink of shutting down and she was able to get a big Broadway play to land in the theatre to stop it from foreclosing. She never surrendered when her friend was dying of liver failure, and she was able to scrounge up enough to pay for a liver transplant. She never surrendered when her alma matter accused her of plagiarism before graduation when really it was another girl who was using Yvette as a scapegoat.

Unlike Kim who never looked at other options, or Peter who believed there was only a black and white way of looking at things and not seeking the alternative ways of success, or Killian who gave up when his first or second plans failed.

Yvette always found a way to win.

Derran didn’t believe it. “Your father thinks you’re the right one.”

It’s such a simple sentence. It’s simple but it held so much weight for the youngest Anderson sibling.

She was born last; she was supposed to be the last in line for CEO. She was last in line for dinner, last in line for roller coasters when the siblings went to Six Flags, last in line to open Christmas presents. She had the last birthday, born in the middle of October… she was always last growing up.

Her father never thought of her as last. For some reason, her father viewed her as the light of his bloodline. He loved his children all the same, he loved his sons like he loved his daughters. He got more time with his sons before their mother gave birth to his daughters, and it was as if he knew his children would treat his youngest as what she was; the youngest. He gave them all the same amount of time together and love, but when the eldest went to college and it was only Yvette, the maids at home and whatever cat they had at the time, he knew she would get lonely.

Boat trips. Museum visits. Car shows. Whatever track Formula 1 decided to hold the final race in. Dinner by the beach. Teaching her how to play golf... Peter Sr. always found time for his youngest daughter.

She didn’t grow up to be like him. She found the niche none of the family was into (besides her great grandpa in the late 1800s) but she excelled at her niche the same way Peter Jr, Killian, and Kim had in their niches.

Yvette couldn’t speak, so Derran did it for her. “Your father knows that you have a trait the other three don’t. You’re able to make things work when everything else goes wrong. Peter is too stuck in his academically created mindset of one answer is the right answer. Killian may make things work for, sure, but only temporary and no real long-term solution to the issue… and Kim… Kim doesn’t even try to figure out a backup plan. He understands that if that his business gets beat, you can find a way to keep it elevated, to keep it running in ways your siblings may not be able to figure out. You were able to rebuild a dying theatre and make it one of the highest grossing theatres in the history of Broadway and you don’t think you can make his business succeed in the next few decades?”

“His business is already succeeding…” Yvette tries to argue, but Darren seemingly is having none of it.

“Sure, but you already know your siblings if they get their hands on the business; Peter will turn it into a science business that eventually gets raided by the FBI because of one shady business deal after he made the wrong person angry. Killian will turn it into some ESPN connected business that plasters itself all over the World Cup that no one actually looks into. And Kim will turn it into a designer oligarch!” He says, his voice raising. Not in anger towards Yvette-- he could never be mad at her, but at the prospect of the idea of the three eldest Anderson siblings getting the business and messing it all up to the point of no return. “Think about it, Yve…”

He’s being harsh, but for the right reasons. He’s protective in a way that’s not only for her, but for the future of the Anderson family, even as an outsider.

Yvette stays silent but her mind stays loud. She’s able to make the theatre work because that's her niche and she recognizes when things need to change. She’s able to live a comfortable life outside of debt and away from the courtroom and lawsuits. She loves the comfortability of this life… but she imagines the future, and the future she could bring to the next lineage of Anderson kids. Not only her future kids… but Peter Jr’s, Killian's, and Kim’s. When they all have children and need family wealth to fall back on.

She looks back at Derran. The same warm smile that she’s always known. The seagulls and the blue jay birds around them that never seem to shut up and it never gets hotter from the ice-cold ocean, but that’s alright because she has Derran, and she has her future.

Sucking in a breath, she makes up her mind. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” Derran asks. He’s skeptical but he’s not going to try to change her answer.

Her hazel eyes look into Derran’s brown. The same eye colors as her parents. Her father’s hazel and her mother’s brown. “I’ll sign it… if my father keeps his word… I’ll sign the papers and become CEO.”

A smile spreads across Derran’s face. He’s happy. Is it because he’s happy she’s taking the position that will make them financially well off? Maybe. Humans can only lie to themselves about being so greedy for so long.

But there’s something else about her decision. He’s finally seeing her win against her siblings when they've doubted her for so long. Taking her father’s words seriously and finally putting down her foot within the family. He's witnessing her finally insert herself in her family, and he couldn't be prouder.

She’s looking out for all of their futures, and they don’t even know it.

“I’m proud of you.” He says simply, turning to her and putting his arms out.

She looks at him with a smile. A smile that’s not forced for the boardroom members. A smile that’s not behind the stress of the P.S. Anderson Enterprise. A real smile.

Her body can’t resist his and she slots herself in his arms, his chin finding itself on top of her head. His arms wrap securely around her body as he holds her close. Finally, they’re warming up, but now, with each other. He presses his lips down on her hair.

She speaks, her face in his chest as she slowly feels her body heat increase. “I knew accepting your lame proposal was the right decision…”

“What?!" He tries to argue. "I thought that proposal was pretty good!”

Rolling her eyes, she doesn’t look back up at him. She doesn’t need to look at him to know he has a smile on his handsome face. “Oh yeah, cause a proposal in bed is the most romantic proposal of all time…”

"It was after a romantic dinner I cooked for the occasion!" He scoffs playfully. “Besides, you said you wanted it to be spontaneous!”

“Spontaneously romantic, you idiot.” She replied back, giggling under her breath.

He sighs dramatically, kissing her head once again. "Fine. You win..." He can hear a faint giggle leave her mouth again.

Silence follows, but it’s comfortable, and it's soft. It’s not aggressive, waiting to be broken into silence. It’s the good silence that breaking would be bad… but his voice breaks through it anyway, his voice warm to her ears.

“You’re going to do great things for this family, Yvette.”