Chapter 14 Clara
FOURTEEN
CLARA
The late-afternoon dusk turned Wes’s house into a postcard—winter light fading soft and blue over the pines, the snow outside smoothing everything into something almost peaceful.
Almost.
I came into the house with my arms full. A grocery bag cutting into my fingers, another bumping my hip, a cheap string of twinkle lights looped around my wrist like an afterthought I refused to overthink.
I was choosing—actively choosing—to be in a good mood.
The farm had lit something back up in me. Options. Momentum. Elodie’s immediate yes. A plan that belonged to me. I carried that feeling into the house like it was a coat I could shrug on and off whenever the air got too heavy.
My keys hit the bowl on the console table with a clack.
Somewhere deeper in the house, I heard movement.
Not the quiet shuffling I’d come to associate with Wes these past few days. This was rhythmic. Controlled. A low exhale that sounded like effort. A muted grunt.
Curious without meaning to be, I stepped forward and angled my head toward the living room.
Wes was on the floor in front of the couch, a mat beneath him, his shirt darkened with sweat at the collar and down his back.
The tight tee clung to him like it had given up the fight, putting his body on full display in the most unfair, casual way—hard lines of muscle and broad shoulders and those ridged, stupid abs pressing through fabric every time his torso lifted.
Crunch. Exhale.
Crunch. Grunt.
His face was turned slightly away, jaw clenched, brows heavy like he was taking it out on the air itself. He didn’t look up. He didn’t acknowledge me.
Relief should’ve been the first thing I felt.
It wasn’t.
Heat climbed my throat, fast and unwanted, and I tightened my grip on the grocery bags like that could anchor me to something normal. My pulse did this stupid little quick-step in my wrist.
Get it together, Clara.
My gaze dropped to my left hand as I stepped toward the kitchen, as if I needed proof I was still myself. The ring was still there, bright and ridiculous against my knuckle. Greg’s idea of what my future was supposed to look like. A shitty plan that had already cracked apart.
I flexed my fingers once, and the diamond caught the dying light, throwing it back like it was mocking me.
I rolled my eyes at myself. Jesus, not now.
I shoved the thought into the same box as the shower incident and the upstairs silence and the fact that Wes was making my brain short-circuit with nothing but sit-ups.
Cooking was my escape hatch.
I set the bags on the counter and started unpacking like I was hosting a cooking show for an audience of one. Onion. Garlic. A package of ground beef. Pasta. A jar of marinara as backup in case I chickened out of making sauce from scratch. A loaf of crusty bread. Parmesan. Butter.
I wanted comfort food. Something that smelled like effort. Something that made a house feel lived in, even when the people inside it were determined to haunt it.
A pot hit the stove. Water turned on. I peeled an onion and chopped it fast, the knife thudding against the cutting board with the kind of purpose that steadied me.
The first sizzle when it met the pan put a giddy pep in my step. I checked the recipe twice and followed every step perfectly.
I let myself hum under my breath as I stirred, the sound quiet enough not to announce itself, just a thread of noise that made the kitchen feel less like a mausoleum.
From the living room, Wes grunted again. A harder sound this time, like he was pushing past a limit.
Too curious for my own good, I leaned back and sneaked a peek.
He was still on the mat, sweaty hair damp at his temples now, shoulders flexing as he braced. His arms looked carved. His mouth tightened with effort.
My stomach flipped.
I grabbed a dish towel and fanned myself once, pretending it was the heat from the stove and not the fact that my roommate looked like a sin with a pulse and a bad attitude.
I refocused on dinner and lifted my shirt away from my neck.
The onions softened, sweetening in the pan. Garlic followed. The smell rolled through the kitchen like warmth you could taste.
I forced my attention back to the cutting board and kept moving. Chopped. Stirred. Salted. Tasted. Adjusted.
A pot lid clinked. A spoon scraped. The small, ordinary sounds piled up until the house started to feel . . . less empty. Less sharp around the edges.
My phone buzzed with an email reply from a photographer, and that rush came back—professional excitement, the clean hit of progress.
Work mode, my brain purred. Safe. Familiar.
Another grunt pulled my attention sideways again.
I risked one more glance.
Wes had switched exercises, seated now, shoulders hunched as he worked dumbbells with deliberate control—biceps curls, slow and punishing. Sweat glistened along his forearms. His hands tightened around the weights like they’d offended him personally.
My pulse tripped again as my throat went bone dry.
I turned away so fast I nearly flung garlic across the room.
“Focus,” I whispered to the food like it could hear me and rechecked the recipe.
The kitchen smelled like butter and heat and something that wanted to be called home. I leaned into it. I let the rhythm of cooking pull me forward—one step, another, then another—until the awkwardness I had felt became background noise instead of the soundtrack.
Somewhere behind me, the mat shifted. A soft thud. The unmistakable sound of weights being set down.
A pause.
Then heavier footsteps, moving off the rug.
Not toward the stairs or the bathroom, but toward the kitchen.
Wes’s footsteps stopped at the edge of the kitchen like he’d hit an invisible line.
I kept stirring until the sauce thickened and steam curled up into my face—because if I looked at him too directly, I was going to think of him in a way I didn’t have the bandwidth for.
Unfortunately, my body did not care about my bandwidth.
Sweat had darkened the collar of his T-shirt. A sheen caught along his forearms and throat, and the heat of him—fresh from working out, all muscle and effort—rolled into the room like another element. My stomach dipped. A spark low in my belly fluttered, hot and intense.
I focused harder on the pot.
He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, filling the doorway with that heavy, silent presence that made the kitchen feel smaller.
I glanced up anyway.
His eyes were on me. Not skimming past. Not politely avoiding, but looking.
My pulse stuttered like it had tripped over its own feet.
I cleared my throat, because I refused to be the only one acting weird. “I had a taste for spaghetti,” I said, gesturing at the stove like it was no big deal, like I wasn’t acutely aware of the way his gaze made my skin feel too tight. “There’s enough if you’re hungry.”
For a beat, he didn’t answer. His eyes stayed on my face, intent enough to make my grip on the spoon go a little too firm.
Then his jaw worked once, like he was swallowing words he didn’t want to give me.
“I’m going to shower,” he said.
And then he turned and walked away like the kitchen was on fire.
I stood there with my spoon hovering over the sauce, staring at the space he’d just left, and tried—really tried—not to imagine the word shower attached to Wes Vaughn.
Steam. Tile. Water. A body I hadn’t asked to see but couldn’t unsee.
I blinked hard and forced myself back to the stove.
“Get it together,” I muttered to the garlic.
The rest of dinner came together on muscle memory. Pasta draining in the sink. Sauce simmering. Bread warming in the oven. I smiled at the stove. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d successfully cooked a meal from scratch.
Still, my brain kept snagging on the fact that Wes had looked at me. Really looked.
I plated two servings without thinking—two twirls of pasta, two ladles of sauce, Parmesan falling like snow—then froze with the second plate in my hand.
What was I doing?
I could leave his portion on the counter, covered with foil, like it was an offering he could pretend didn’t come with any expectation. I could take mine and eat in my room and let him do whatever he always did—rot on the couch with TV and silence.
I stared at the plates and felt that familiar tug between stubborn and scared.
Finally, I set both at the table anyway.
If he wanted to take his plate to the couch, then fine. At least I wouldn’t be forced to carry a steaming plate across the living room like some kind of anxious waitress in my own temporary home.
I focused on slicing the bread.
The house made small sounds around me—the oven ticking as it cooled, the distant hush of his footsteps above me.
My shoulders lifted with every creak, every footstep, until the moment I heard him again.
Wes came in quietly, like he didn’t want to be noticed. Like he could move through his own home without taking up too much space.
His hair was damp, darker at the roots. His face was clean-shaven, his jaw sharp, his skin flushed from heat. He smelled . . . good. Not cologne. Just soap and clean skin and something faintly woodsy that made my mind go annoyingly blank for half a second.
He paused when he saw the plates.
His gaze shifted from the table to the living room like he was already mapping his default route back to the couch.
My heart did that hopeful, traitorous thing.
He reached for the plate.
I braced myself for him to take it and leave.
Instead, he pulled out the chair and sat down.
I kept my face neutral through sheer willpower, even as something inside me loosened like it had been waiting for proof that he wasn’t completely gone.
I sat across from him, and we ate in silence for a few minutes. My fork scraped against the plate. A swallow. The soft push of winter wind against the windows.
I couldn’t stand it.
“Is this okay?” I finally asked, nodding toward his plate like I was asking about the pasta and not the entire fragile dynamic between us.