Chapter 5
five
Clara woke to the sound of humming and the weight of what Jack had told her.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, replaying last night's conversation in the tower. The storm. The counting. The way his voice had cracked when he talked about Joel.
"I was supposed to be with him that night."
Seven years. Jack had been carrying that guilt for seven years, convinced he could've changed the outcome if he'd just been there. As if his presence in a passenger seat would've stopped a hydroplaning car, stopped a truck from crossing the median, stopped the universe from taking his brother.
As if love could be a shield against loss.
Clara knew better. So did Jack, probably. But knowing and believing were different animals.
She understood why he traveled now. Why he never stayed. It wasn't restlessness or adventure or freedom—it was grief with a suitcase, constantly moving because standing still meant feeling everything he'd been running from.
The thing that kept circling in her mind was that he'd told her. Not just the facts—those were easy enough to share, a story you could tell without bleeding. But the weight of it. The guilt. The fear. The way his hands had clenched white-knuckled when the thunder cracked.
He'd let her see him broken.
And she'd just... sat there. Held his hand. Offered the only truth she knew: that sometimes terrible things happened and there was no one to blame.
She hadn't told him about Sam. Hadn't offered her own pain in exchange, even when the opening was there. She'd kept her mouth shut and now in the morning light she felt like a coward.
Or maybe just careful.
Because there was a difference between sharing grief and sharing shame. Joel's death was tragic, senseless, not Jack's fault no matter how much he believed otherwise. But Sam? Sam was Clara's failure. Her bad judgment. Her inability to recognize a predator until he'd already picked her bones clean.
That wasn't the same as losing someone to a storm.
That was choosing wrong and staying too long and being too weak to leave.
Still. Jack had trusted her with something real. Something that mattered. And that meant something, didn't it?
Jack's humming—off-key and cheerful, like last night's storm and confession hadn't happened—was surreal. Like Jack Callahan could pour out his soul at 3 AM and wake up making pancakes by 7.
But then, in her experience, men were experts at compartmentalizing.
She pressed her face into her pillow and groaned. Almost a week. Jack had been here almost a week, and the worst part wasn't that he'd disrupted her routine.
The worst part was that she'd gotten used to it.
Used to waking up to the smell of coffee already brewing.
Used to the sound of another person moving through her lighthouse.
Used to finding her favorite mug already set out on the counter, waiting for her to do her French press ritual while he carefully avoided her setup like he understood it was sacred ground.
Which was thoughtful.
And after last night, felt dangerously personal.
Because now she knew why he was so good at reading spaces, at understanding what people needed without asking.
He'd grown up watching his father work, learning to see what a place required.
And then he'd lost that father. Lost his brother.
Lost the whole foundation of home and family and permanence.
No wonder he fixed things.
It was the only kind of damage he could actually repair.
Clara sat up, running her hands through her hair. Her chest felt tight—not anxious exactly, but aware. Like something had shifted last night in the tower, some invisible line crossed that she couldn't uncross.
And now she had to go downstairs and pretend everything was normal when nothing felt normal anymore.
When the smell of coffee and pancakes and his terrible humming made her chest ache with something she absolutely could not name because naming it would make it real.
Clara dragged herself out of bed and pulled on her usual uniform—worn jeans with a paint stain on the left thigh from the gallery railing project, a faded Beacon's End lighthouse t-shirt that was more holes than fabric, wool socks with a hole in the left heel that needed to be replaced but she couldn't be bothered.
Downstairs, Jack stood at the stove flipping pancakes with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times. He'd showered already—his dark hair still damp, curling slightly at the nape of his neck.
The bruising on his face had faded to yellow-green, making him look less like a shipwreck survivor and more like someone who belonged in her kitchen, in her lighthouse, in her carefully constructed life.
"Morning," he said without turning around. "Pancakes are almost ready."
His voice was normal. Easy. Like he hadn't shared his innermost pain with a virtual stranger in the night.
Like he was giving her permission to pretend last night hadn't happened if she needed to.
Clara wasn't sure if that was a relief or a disappointment.
"You don't have to make breakfast," she said.
"I know." He slid a pancake onto a plate with a flick of the spatula.
"But I'm hungry, and making enough for two isn't harder than making enough for one.
Basic math." He glanced over his shoulder, and his smile was genuine.
Warm. No shadows from last night visible in his expression.
"Besides, you let me use your kitchen. Least I can do is feed the landlord. "
"I'm not your landlord."
"Accommodating roommate, then."
"Yeah, I guess that works but let's not spend too much time trying to put a label on everything," she groused, reaching for her French press. Coffee first, complicated feelings later.
Something flickered across Jack's face—too quick to read—before his easy smile returned. "Right. Sounds good. Who needs labels? Labels are dumb, anyway."
He turned back to the stove, and Clara felt the distance between them expand and contract simultaneously. He'd given her an out. A way to keep things light and surface-level.
The old Clara—the one who'd survived Sam—would've taken it. Would've grabbed that lifeline and used it to keep him at arm's length where it was safe.
But this Clara—the one who'd held Jack's hand through a storm, who'd listened to him talk about his brother with a voice full of grief—couldn't quite make herself do it.
"Um, so thank you," she said, fumbling for the right words. "For last night. For trusting me with that personal stuff."
Jack's shoulders tensed. He set down the spatula carefully. "Yeah. Well. You were there. Seemed like the right time to trauma-dump on an unsuspecting victim."
More jokes. But Clara didn't want to make light of what he'd shared. "I'm serious, Jack."
He slowly turned, something in his expression raw and vulnerable. "I, uh, don't usually... talk about that stuff. About Joel. About why I—" He gestured vaguely at himself. "You know. Do what I do."
"I get it."
"So why'd you let me ramble on for an hour about my dead brother instead of telling me to shut up and go back to bed?"
Clara shrugged. "My Gran always said when people are willing to share, the least we can do is listen."
"Your Gran sounds like a wise woman."
"She was."
She also would've told her to stop nursing her heartbreak over Sam and get back to living but Clara didn't feel like sharing that particular wisdom.
Jack leaned against the counter, his expression shifting to respect. "Most people try to fix it when you share something heavy. But you just... let me say it. Let it be what it was."
"Sometimes that's all you can do."
"Yeah." His voice was rough. "Yeah, I guess so."
They stood there in the morning light, pancakes forgotten, coffee cooling, the weight of last night's honesty settling around them like a shared secret.
"Wow, okay, so I think that's enough honest conversation about personal shit, wouldn't you agree?" Clara announced with a cheery smile.
Jack laughed, appreciating the segue. "I guess now the secret's out of the bag that I'm a complete disaster masquerading as a functional adult."
"Join the club. We have t-shirts."
He laughed—surprised and genuine—and the tension broke like a storm passing. But something remained. Something that felt like the beginning of trust, fragile and new and terrifying.
Jack came to the table with two plates, and they ate in companionable silence while morning light streamed through the windows.
It felt domestic. Normal. Like something they'd done a hundred times instead of just a handful.
Like something that could become a routine if she let it.
And that thought—that tiny, dangerous possibility—cracked something open in Clara's chest that she'd kept locked for three years.
He trusted you. Maybe you could trust him back.
The thought was immediately followed by a familiar voice. Sam's voice, dripping with false concern:
"Clare-bear, I'm just trying to help you be your best."
Clara's stomach clenched. She set down her fork, the pancakes suddenly tasteless.
Because that was the problem, wasn't it? Sam had seemed trustworthy too. Helpful. Kind. Genuinely interested in her work and her dreams and building something together.
Until he wasn't.
Until "help" became control and "interest" became theft and "together" meant "you give, I take."
How was she supposed to know the difference? How could she trust her own judgment when it had failed her so catastrophically before?
Jack looked up, catching her expression. "You okay?"
"Yep," she lied with another bright smile. "These pancakes are pretty bomb. If the carpenter gig doesn't pan out, you can always fall back on breakfast chef."
"That's good, I like to keep my options open." He poured more syrup on his stack until it looked like a diabetic sugar bomb that no amount of insulin could defuse. "So, can I get a little roommate privilege and ask how the residents of Tidal Lock are faring?"
"Nice try, no spoilers. You can find out when everyone else does."