Chapter 10 #2
Clara came first—quieter than last night, a shuddering breath and a full-body clench, her face pressed against his shoulder, her fingers gripping his hair.
Jack followed moments later, a low groan muffled against her skin, and they held each other through it, trembling, breathing hard, neither one moving to separate.
After a long, still moment, Clara laughed softly against his neck.
"What?" he asked.
"Four stars."
"Oh, come on. That was at least four and a half."
"Don't push your luck, Callahan."
Jack made coffee while Clara showered.
He moved through her kitchen with the familiarity of someone who'd been doing this for weeks—because he had.
Knew where the French press lived. Knew the filters were in the cabinet above the stove and the good mugs were on the left side of the shelf, the chipped ones on the right.
Knew Clara took her coffee black on normal days and with a splash of milk when she was feeling indulgent.
He'd learned this without trying. Without deciding to. It had just happened—information absorbed through proximity and attention, the way wood grain revealed itself when you sanded with the right pressure.
Two mugs sat on the counter. His and hers. Not labeled, but distinct. His was the dark blue one with the chip on the handle. Hers was the one with the lighthouse print her grandmother had bought from a craft fair twenty years ago.
Jack stared at the two mugs and felt something turn over in his chest.
When had he gotten a mug?
Not in a formal, "this is yours now" kind of way.
Just in the way that objects settle into patterns when people share space long enough.
He'd reached for the blue one so many mornings in a row that it had become his by default, and Clara had let it happen without comment, and now here it sat beside hers like a pair.
That should probably alarm him.
It didn't.
The shower cut off. Clara appeared ten minutes later in jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt, her wet hair twisted up in a clip, looking like the kind of beautiful that didn't require effort or awareness—which made it worse, honestly, because it meant she wasn't trying to destroy him.
She was just existing. And her existence was doing the destroying all on its own.
"You made coffee," she said, like he'd performed a miracle.
"Every morning for two weeks. It shouldn't still surprise you."
"It's not surprise. It's appreciation." She took her mug—the lighthouse one, obviously—and leaned against the counter beside him, their shoulders touching. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"I'll cook."
"You cooked last night."
"Pasta doesn't count."
"Since when?"
"Since I'm offering to make eggs and you're arguing about it." He nudged her with his elbow. "Sit down. Let me cook."
Clara sat at the kitchen table—the one he'd fixed the wobbly leg on during his first week—and watched him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Amused, maybe. Or something softer than amusement that she was trying to disguise as amusement.
Jack cracked eggs into a bowl, added salt—too much, Clara would say, she always said—and whisked.
"You over-salt everything," Clara said on cue.
"And you under-salt everything. We balance each other out."
The words landed in the kitchen and sat there, heavier than he'd intended. We balance each other out. Like they were a unit. A pair. The kind of thing that had a future tense.
Jack focused on the eggs.
"So," Clara said, wrapping both hands around her mug. "Last night."
"Last night," he agreed, keeping his voice light. "And this morning."
"And this morning." A pause. "Are we going to be weird about it?"
"Define weird."
"Awkward. Stilted. Pretending it didn't happen and then being painfully polite about everything like two strangers sharing a hostel room."
Jack turned from the stove, spatula in hand. "Is that what you think I'm going to do?"
"I don't know what you're going to do. That's kind of the thing." Clara's voice was careful, but her eyes were direct. "I'm not asking for a blood oath, Jack. I just want to know if you're here. Like, actually here. Not already halfway out the door in your head."
The honesty of it hit him square in the chest.
Because the old Jack—the Jack from two weeks ago, before the lighthouse, before the tower, before Clara—would already be calculating his exit. Packing the mental bag. Framing the goodbye in his head so it would sound kind when he delivered it.
But right now, standing in her kitchen with a spatula and eggs that were about to burn, Jack couldn't find the exit. Not because it wasn't there, but because he didn't want to look for it.
"I'm here," he said. "Actually here."
Clara studied him for a long moment. Whatever she found must have been enough, because the tension in her shoulders eased and she nodded.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay." She took a sip of coffee. "Your eggs are burning."
"Shit—" He spun back to the stove, rescuing the scramble just before it crossed from golden to tragic. He divided it between two plates—over-salted, obviously—and brought them to the table.
They ate breakfast in the kind of easy silence that used to make Jack nervous. Silence meant intimacy. Intimacy meant attachment. Attachment meant loss. That had been the equation for seven years, as reliable as gravity.
But this silence just felt like morning. Like coffee and eggs and sunlight on stone walls and a woman across the table who'd stopped pretending she didn't want him there.
Clara ate her eggs without complaining about the salt. Jack noticed and didn't comment, but something warm spread through his chest at the small concession.
After breakfast, Clara retreated to her drafting table and Jack washed the dishes—another routine that had established itself without discussion.
She drew. He cleaned. She played music from her phone—some indie folk playlist that had become the soundtrack to their mornings without either of them choosing it.
Normal. Domestic. The kind of morning that accumulated meaning without announcing it.
Jack dried the last plate and put it away. Wiped down the counter. Hung the dish towel on the hook—the specific hook, the one Clara preferred, left side of the oven handle—and paused.
He knew which hook she preferred for the dish towel.
That was either beautiful or terrifying and he wasn't sure which.
Through the window, he could see the gallery railing.
The southwest post was rotting at the base—he'd noticed it yesterday.
Not dangerous yet, but it would be if left alone.
He should fix it. Had already mentally planned the repair: remove the post, cut a new one from the cedar in the shed, match the existing profile, seal it properly this time.
He'd been thinking about that repair for days. Had ordered the right sealant from Don Patterson's store—marine grade, the good stuff that would hold up for years.
Years.
Jack's hands stilled on the counter.
He'd ordered sealant that would last for years. For a repair on a lighthouse that wasn't his. In a town he was passing through. For a woman he'd known for two and a half weeks.
The old fear flickered. A cold whisper at the base of his skull: You're building something you can't maintain. You're making promises with your hands that your feet won't keep.
He looked at Clara. She was bent over her drafting table, pen moving in quick, confident strokes, her brow furrowed in concentration.
The morning light caught her hair—copper and gold, still damp from the shower.
She was mouthing dialogue to herself, the way she always did when a scene was working, and the sight of it made his chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with his healing ribs.
The fear flickered again. And Jack let it.
Let it sit there like an ember on his palm—acknowledged, felt, not acted on.
Not today.
Today the eggs were over-salted and the coffee was perfect and Clara Hawkins was mouthing dialogue at her drafting table and the gallery railing needed fixing and the dish towel was on the right hook.
Today was enough.
He grabbed the toolbox and headed outside to fix the post, and if he was whistling—off-key and cheerful, the way Clara always complained about—well.
That was just another routine he'd built without meaning to.