Chapter 21
Clint locked the door to Driftwood Cottage and stood in the dim front room with his back against it. The latch had a small catch that stuck if you didn’t lift the handle. He’d been meaning to fix it for months.
He could fix it now. Sand it down, apply graphite, test the mechanism. Twenty minutes, tops.
Instead he stood there, hand still on the knob, staring at nothing.
I told you things I’ve never told anyone. And you turned it into content.
He’d said that and meant it. And the look on her face when the words registered told him she knew he was right.
Clint crossed to the kitchen, filled a glass of water, and drank it standing at the sink. His hands were steady, which surprised him. Everything inside felt like it was shaking apart, but his hands were fine. A steadiness that came from twenty years of holding fast in rough seas.
He set the glass down and gripped the edge of the counter.
She’d promised. That was the thing he kept circling back to. She looked him in the eye and said he could veto any shot. And then she took unguarded moments of his life and handed them to Grant like gallery inventory.
The anger was clean and familiar. He understood anger. But underneath it was something worse, something that made his chest ache in a way he hadn’t felt since Sean’s hospital room. Grief. He was grieving something that hadn’t even fully existed yet.
You let her in. You knew better, and you let her in anyway.
He wiped his face with both hands and moved to the porch. The courtyard was quiet. Captain’s Watch sat dark across the way, curtains drawn. Good. He didn’t want to see her light on.
Bryan’s truck was already at the Sandpiper when Clint pulled into the gravel lot the next morning. He almost kept driving. But his refrigerator was empty and the alternative was Harbor Brew, which meant Jan’s questions and Sally’s knowing looks.
He found Bryan behind the bar, prepping limes for the lunch service. Grant sat on a stool with a coffee he wasn’t drinking.
“There he is.” Bryan didn’t look up from the cutting board. “Sit down. I’m making you breakfast whether you want it or not.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you slept in your truck.” Bryan pointed the knife at a stool. “Sit.”
He sat. Grant shifted on his stool, turning the coffee mug in slow circles.
“I owe you an apology,” Grant said. “I mentioned the photos to you without checking with Melissa first. I assumed she’d already shown you.”
“She hadn’t.”
“I know that now. And I’m sorry for my part in it.”
He nodded. He didn’t blame Grant. Grant wasn’t the one who made a promise and broke it.
Bryan slid a plate of eggs and toast across the bar and leaned on his elbows. “So. You want to talk about it or you want to sit there looking like a storm front?”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Right.” Bryan exchanged a glance with Grant. “Except you haven’t been in town in two days, Winnie says you’re barely speaking, and Melissa looks like someone died.”
He picked up a fork. Set it down again. “She used photos I didn’t approve. End of story.”
“Okay.” Bryan wiped the cutting board. “What did she actually do, though? She took a great picture of you and showed it to Grant. Not a magazine. Not the internet. Grant.”
“She promised I could veto anything.”
“And she broke that promise. I hear you.” Bryan folded the towel, set it aside. “But I’ve seen you angrier about a crooked gutter bracket. So what’s really going on?”
“It’s the principle.”
Grant turned on his stool. “Can I say something you’re not going to like?”
“Probably can’t stop you.”
“Is this really about the photos?” Grant’s voice was careful but direct. “Or is it about the fact that she actually saw you, and you can’t handle it?”
Clint stared at the counter.
“Because I’ve seen the work she’s been doing,” Grant continued. “The portraits of Sally, Jan, Winnie. Those are love letters. She doesn’t take pictures of people she doesn’t care about. Whatever she captured of you, it came from the same place.”
“That doesn’t give her the right.”
“No,” Grant said. “It doesn’t.”
Bryan poured himself a coffee and came around to sit on the stool beside Clint. “Look, she screwed up. Nobody’s arguing that.”
He said nothing. He could feel both of them watching him.
“The question isn’t whether she messed up,” Bryan said. “The question is whether you’re going to use it as your excuse to go back to hiding.”
“I’m not hiding.”
Bryan raised an eyebrow. “Clint. Come on.”
The silence stretched. Outside, a truck rumbled past on the harbor road. He could smell the fryer oil heating up, the salt air drifting through the propped-open kitchen door.
He thought about Sean standing in the courtyard, arms open, grinning, limping on that leg that would never be right. Sean who forgave him instantly and completely, and then watched Clint disappear for three years anyway.
You saved my life and then you acted like you’d killed me.
Someone does something that hurts. Clint vanishes. That was the pattern. Sean got hurt, Clint ran to the lighthouse. Now Melissa hurt him, and he’d locked himself in Driftwood like the walls could keep out what he was actually afraid of.
Which wasn’t the photos. Grant was right about that, even if Clint didn’t want to admit it.
It was being seen. Truly seen.
“I don’t know what to do.” He let out a long sigh.
Bryan clapped him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to know right now. Just don’t board up the windows yet.”
Grant nodded. “She’s not going anywhere. And neither are you.”
He picked up the fork and ate his eggs. They were good. Bryan always cooked them right, crispy edges, soft centers. He ate slowly and let the conversation drift to other things. Festival logistics. A loose board on the Sandpiper deck Bryan needed help with. Normal, small, fixable problems.
When he left, the sun was high and the harbor was busy with afternoon charters heading out.
He drove back to the lighthouse property and parked in his usual spot beside Driftwood.
Captain’s Watch was still dark. Either Melissa was out or she was sitting inside with the curtains drawn, which was worse.
He walked to the maintenance shed and pulled out the sander. The latch on his front door needed fixing. He could start there.
He didn’t go to her. He wasn’t ready for that. But he left his own curtains open, and when he passed her cottage on his evening round, he slowed his steps instead of speeding them up.