29. Charlotte Gallagher
Charlotte Gallagher
I’m just starting to cook the eggs when I hear Dane coming down the stairs. He walks into the kitchen looking like a man with nothing to do—and no idea what to do with that.
He leans against the doorframe and watches me. I can feel the restlessness in him straight away without him saying a word.
“Smells good, babe.”
“Toast is ready. Give me thirty seconds on the eggs.”
I glance at him and catch that look—the one he gets when his head’s somewhere else, working something over.
“Just say it, Dane.”
“Say what?”
“That you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
He exhales, a quiet give in it. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”
I flip the eggs. “I know.”
“I always had something to do on the island. Something to fix or build or check. Something that needed doing or we’d die. Nothing here needs fixing. The house is fine. You are fine. I keep walking around looking for a problem, and there isn’t one.”
“You’re allowed to simply exist, Dane, and relax for a change.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
I serve up breakfast and carry it to the table. He sits, and I take the seat opposite. For a minute, we just eat.
“This is good,” he says.
“It’s just eggs and toast.”
“Just eggs and toast is still good.”
I glance down at my plate. “I think Pearl’s and Coral’s eggs were better than these.”
He looks up, something shifting in his expression. “They were pretty good. Especially when we didn’t have anything else.”
“Yeah.” I nudge the eggs with my fork.
Pearl and Coral were wild chickens that decided to stick around. They kept us fed when the traps came up empty.
I push a piece of egg around my plate.
I didn't get much sleep last night. Too many thoughts about the future. Too many questions neither of us has answers to yet.
“We need to start thinking about what comes next and what our lives actually look like now. We need something to do. Something beyond just existing.”
Dane nods. “Yeah. I don't know what work looks like for us, but we'll figure it out. People work jobs without degrees. There has to be something.”
I stare down at my breakfast.
My life has turned out so differently from what I imagined. I always thought it would look something like Mum’s—raising children, building a family, filling my days with the ordinary things that come with that life.
Not someday. Not as a vague idea. It was just something I assumed would happen. Part of the future I pictured for myself.
“We need to catch up on our education,” I say. “We’ve missed too much.”
“Can you imagine me in a classroom full of twelve-year-olds?” There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Reckon I’d dominate them on the footy field. They wouldn’t know what hit them.”
I laugh, despite myself. “That’s not exactly what I mean.”
A hint of a grin. “Way to ruin a bloke’s dream.”
“We should get a tutor. Someone who can work with us privately, get us up to speed. Then we figure out what comes next.”
“Yeah.” He nods once. “That makes sense.”
I push the last of my egg around the plate. “I always thought I’d go to uni. Before, I mean. Back when I thought that was still an option.”
I haven’t said it out loud before.
“What did you want to study?”
I shrug. “Before the island, I thought I wanted to be an accountant. I liked numbers—the way they fit together, how everything balances when it’s done right. But somewhere between reading Mum’s romance novels over and over and making up stories in my head, that changed.”
“You should write. You’d be good at it.”
“You’re biased.”
“Obviously, but that doesn’t make me wrong.” He reaches over and steals the last of my toast. “You’re also a pretty good hairdresser.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You are though.”
“I’m not cutting anyone else’s hair, Dane.”
“Probably for the best.” He raises an eyebrow. “Your professional boundaries with your only client are terrible.”
I look at him across the table. He meets it easily, like he hasn’t said anything at all, just eating stolen toast.
“You’re awful, Dane Gallagher.”
“Accurate, though.”
I smile at him over my coffee cup. “You need a haircut, by the way.”
He reaches back, gathers his hair into a short, uneven tail. “Yeah, reckon you’re right. Getting a bit out of control.”
He lets it fall again.
“Seeing as the appointment usually ends with my cock inside you, I’m available whenever you can fit me in.”
“I will cut it tomorrow,” I say, pressing my lips together. “And you will behave.”
“I will absolutely not behave.”
“Tomorrow,” I repeat, which settles nothing.
He finishes the toast, looking satisfied. “What time are your girls coming over?”
“Twelve.”
“Right.” He nods. “I’ll get out of your hair and give you some space. Call Lachie about that beer.” A small pause. “You’ll be all right?”
I meet his eyes. “I’ll be all right.”
Zoe and Paige arrive together. I hear them before I see them, their voices carrying up the path, and I open the door.
For a second, we just stand there.
Then Zoe lets out this small sound—half-laugh, half-something else—and they’re both on me, arms tight around me, holding on.
We pull back and really look at each other.
“Look at you,” Paige says.
“You’re actually unfair,” Zoe adds at the same time. “Like—this is offensive. You’re stunning.”
“I’m not.”
I glance between my besties, both of them put together in a way I’m not. Hair done, makeup on, clothes that actually fit. I haven’t even bought proper clothes yet, let alone figured out how to do any of this to myself.
“You are, babe. You’re so bloody skinny and tanned. I hate you a little bit.” She says it like she means the opposite, and I laugh, stepping aside to let them in.
The tan comes from fourteen years under a Pacific sun with no real shade. The rest of it—being thinner than I should be—that’s from long stretches where food wasn’t guaranteed. Thinner again after I lost my boy. I still haven’t come back from that.
There’s nothing here to envy.
Zoe is holding a baby, and it catches me off guard. I didn’t know she was a mother.
“This is Theo. He’s eight months.”
“He’s a beautiful little thing,” I say.
“Trust me, he knows it,” she says, leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t you?”
He’s content on her hip, round-faced and calm, taking everything in with a serious little expression.
Zoe smooths a hand over his back, the gesture absent and automatic. Motherhood fits her so naturally it looks effortless.
“Come on in. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
We move into the lounge and settle in.
I tuck my legs under me on the couch. “So—what’s been going on with you two?”
Paige lets out a breath. “Work, mostly. It’s been full on. I got put on a new account a few months ago, and it’s been nonstop ever since.”
“Is that good or bad?” I ask.
“Both. Good for my career. Bad for my sanity.”
Zoe laughs. “She says that, but she loves chaos.”
“I do not love chaos.”
“You absolutely do.”
Paige rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Well, maybe a little. I like being good at something.”
“That tracks,” I say.
Zoe shifts Theo on her lap. “I don’t even know what day it is half the time. Everything revolves around this one now.”
I glance at Theo. “He seems pretty happy about that.”
“He is.” She glances down at him, smiling. “Sleeps and eats well. I got lucky.”
Paige snorts. “After thirty-one hours of labor, I think you earned it.”
I spent an entire night in labor while a hurricane tore through the island, convinced Dane and I might not survive it and knowing the whole time that our baby wouldn't. I know a little something about miserable births.
“I thought I was going to die. Or kill someone.” Zoe glances down at Theo and smiles. “Worth it though.”
“Of course it was,” I say.
She has no idea how lucky she is.
I'd endure thirty-one hours. Thirty-one days. Anything, if it meant Connor had lived.
“Do you want to hold him?”
No. Actually, I don't.
I haven't held a baby since Connor.
“I’m sure he’d prefer to stay in your arms,” I say.
Zoe smiles. “Trust me, he’ll be fine. He’s a happy baby. He doesn’t fuss much.”
Before I can come up with another excuse, she passes him over.
He settles without fuss, looking up at me with those serious, assessing eyes. I adjust my hold, keeping my expression steady. He’s solid in my arms, warm. His hand closes around my finger.
Connor wouldn’t be much older than him.
I let the thought sit where it is. It’s easier that way. He’d probably be walking now. Trying to talk a little, maybe. I’d know him without thinking—the small things, the way Zoe knows this one.
Paige glances at Zoe, then back at me, her fingers tightening slightly around her cup.
“So… what was it like?” she asks. “The island, I mean.”
“Plenty of time to work on the tan,” I say.
They laugh, and I pass Theo back when he starts to fuss.
Paige sets her cup down, and something shifts in her expression—subtle, but there. Like she’s bracing herself.
“It’s just not fair,” she says. “Everything you went through… and now you’ve got all this media stuff on top of it.”
I frown. “The reporters?”
Paige hesitates. “Babe… I’m talking about the photos of you and Dane in the pool.”
She says it as if I should already know. Like I’ve seen what she’s seen.
“What photos?”
They glance at each other, quick and loaded. The kind of look that says I’ve missed something, and I’m about to find out.
Paige reaches for her phone and turns it toward me.
I look. And everything in me goes still.
The pool. Our pool. The garden dark around it, the water lit from underneath—and us.
There’s no mistaking what we’re doing.
“Honestly, Charlotte… the fact that someone would use AI to make something like this after everything you’ve been through is disgusting. People are actually sick.”
“AI? I don’t know what that is.”
“Right—you wouldn’t know.” Paige shakes her head. “It’s artificial intelligence. It can generate images. Make things look real when they’re not. People use it to create stuff like this.”
Relief hits me so quickly it almost makes me laugh.
I understand immediately what’s happening here. They think the photos are fake. Because the only other explanation is unthinkable.
“It’s awful,” I say. “I can’t believe someone would do that.”
“There’s not really anything you can do about it.” Paige shakes her head. “Once it’s out there—”
“It just spreads,” Zoe finishes. “People share it. No one thinks about the actual person in it.”
I hand the phone back, remembering last night.
Our first night home, and someone was already peering over the fence with a camera.
What is wrong with people?
We gave them nothing. No interviews. No story. No access. And they took it anyway—standing in the dark, pointing a lens over a fence, stealing something that was never theirs.
I realize they've both gone quiet. They're watching me.
“I’m really sorry. I can see you’re upset,” Paige says. “I didn’t think before I spoke. I thought you already knew. I wouldn’t have said anything if I—”
“No, Paige.” My voice comes back steady. “I needed to know. You were right to tell me.” I meet her eyes. “I mean that.”
She reaches across and takes my hand. “You know we don’t believe that rubbish.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “It’s just a lot.”
They don’t stay much longer after that. My mood has shifted, and I’m sure they can feel it.
I walk them out. Zoe hugs me with Theo on her hip, her hand coming up to the back of my head, holding me there for a second.
“Call me,” she says. “Any time. I mean it.”
Paige squeezes my hand as she steps past. “Same. Don’t sit with this on your own.”
I’m not on my own. I’ve got Dane.
They head down the path, their voices carrying for a moment, then fading. I close the door and stand there in the entrance hall, listening to the quiet.
What happened in that pool belonged to us. Now strangers are looking at it on their phones.
I sit on the bottom stair and wait for Dane to come home. By the time the door opens, I’m already moving. I cross the foyer and go straight into him before he’s even fully inside—arms around his neck, my face pressed against his throat.
He catches me without hesitation, both arms coming around me and holding me steady.
“Hey—” He pulls back just enough to look at me, and whatever he sees shifts something in his expression.
“Babe.”
His voice softens as his hand comes up to my jaw.
“Charlotte.”
“Do you know?” I ask.
Something flickers in his expression.
“Yeah. Lachie showed me.”
I press back into him, burying my face against his neck. He tightens his hold, one hand settling at the back of my head, keeping me there.
“Why are they doing this to us?”
“I don’t understand it.”
“Why aren’t we allowed to just… be?”
“I don’t know, babe.”
I pull back and meet his eyes. “What do we do?”
“We’re installing cameras first thing tomorrow with every angle covered. We’ll cover all the windows too.” He cups my face in both hands. “No one sees our private lives again.”
“How can you promise that?”
“Because I’ll make it impossible. Whatever it takes.”
I hold his gaze, and something in me—tight and wound up—starts to ease, just a little. Because I’ve spent most of my life watching him keep impossible promises.
“They got one night,” he says. “That’s it. Everything after that is ours. Only ours.”
I lean my forehead against his and close my eyes.
After everything—the island, the years, Connor, all of it—we’re still here. Together. The world might be out there, pushing in wherever it can.
But not here.
Not ever again.