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 holesthan 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 inhis 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.
