Chapter 3

THREE

S tanding right beside it, the lighthouse seems way bigger than Simon had been able to conceptualize through pictures. It's thicker around, wider across, and much, much taller. He knew the dimensions of it before he put the down payment on his credit card, of course, but seeing it up close is different.

"She's a beauty," Bruce murmurs. "Old Grey."

"Is that what you call it?" Simon asks and reaches his hand out to drag along the brick. The door is just as sturdy as Bruce's– it makes sense now, thinking about it, that homes near the sea would be built up nice and heavy for oncoming storms– and the silver door knob gleams up at him. "You have the keys, right?"

Bruce gives him a glance and reaches into his pocket again, this time pulling out the same ring of keys he had used to start the truck. The key he selects is small and silver, attached singularly to a small metal keychain Simon can't identify before Bruce shoves the key in the lock. The mechanics inside creak and groan but unlock easily, allowing Bruce to pull open the door.

"Can I go inside?"

"She's yours, isn't she?" Bruce answers quietly and retrieves his keys as Simon excitedly steps around him and peers inside.

The entrance is sparse and simple: the round building has a thick post in the center and a set of spiral stairs swirling up towards the crown of it. There's a small table just inside holding a thick stack of paperwork and another ring of keys. The entire left half of the room is blocked off with a wall, a heavy door separating it from the rest of the entryway.

"I'm going upstairs," Simon says and steps inside. The stone floor is grounding somehow, the cobbles under his boots worn and smooth with years of harder, heavier boots grinding them down. Boots like Bruce's, he notes as the man follows him inside. "It's so quiet."

"Without precautions, the men who worked here would go insane," Bruce answers. Simon can't help but think that his voice fits here, that Bruce's stocky form and quiet tone matches this lighthouse—his lighthouse—quite well.

"How do they do it? The sound-proofing?"

"The steel, the bricks— it's all older, made of thicker shit. Most of the houses in town are the same, since it keeps out the wind and traps the heat inside," Bruce answers as they climb the stairs together. Simon feels the wall, feels how the bricks themselves, even on the inside of the obelisk, aren't quite cold to the touch.

"It's amazing," Simon murmurs as they crest into the second floor. This room is a kitchen, with a thick, iron stove and counters spread against one wall. There's an old wooden dining table with six chairs around it, each leg surrounded by old, scraped grooves in the hardwood floors. Simon bends down and touches the floor, feels the worn down lines, and then peers around the other side, underneath the stairs. There's a vintage fridge crammed against the central pillar and a shut larder squeezed into the space, but it doesn't feel cramped. A window just above the vintage tub sink lets in enough light for it to feel airy and clean inside and allows the whole room to breathe.

Bruce wordlessly goes upstairs and Simon, as soon as he realizes he's been left behind, follows swiftly. They walk through a nearly empty living space and another room Simon is sure is meant to be a bedroom by the worn area in the floor highlighting a rectangular area of unblemished wood. By the time they reach the top, Simon's breath is coming a little tighter and his chest feels nearly constricted—he never did like heights.

From the top, though, Simon feels free. The anxiety lingers, a little knot in the center of his chest, but the fresh scent of sea and the morning air makes him feel lighter than he has in months. The breeze ruffles his hair and despite the whispering chill, it feels incredible.

"Beautiful," he murmurs and presses his palms to the railing. It's a bit low, so it'll have to be fixed up and made solid before he can rent it out, especially to families, but the thrill of the possibility of falling makes his heart lurch in an intoxicating surge of adrenaline. The ocean ebbs and flows, moving of its own, deadly accord, and a morbid part of Simon wonders how many people have died to these waves. It's a good place for a haunting— a quiet, sleepy town on the edge of existence.

"You're going to ruin it, you know," Bruce says quietly.

Simon turns to look at him.

"Excuse me?"

"Turning this into a– an Airbnb, or whatever it is you're doing. You're going to ruin what makes Caerlloyd Harbor beautiful."

When Bruce says the name of the harbor, his voice goes thick with it, the sounds Simon would never even attempt sticking heavy and guttural in his throat. It sounds natural coming from Bruce, so natural Simon almost doesn't register what he said for a moment.

"How would it be ruined?" Simon asks. Anger bristles in his chest, the same anger that showed its face back in Boston when Moriah told him he couldn't handle a project when he's one all on his own, but he just swallows hard and tries to listen, like he didn't do then.

Bruce doesn't look at him. He plucks a cigarette from his pocket and flicks open his lighter. The flame wavers in the wind, dancing on the precipice of the unkillable sea, and Bruce looks just as invulnerable as he exhales a thin wisp of smoke. "The harbor… it's been built on the backs of the same hundred-odd families for as long as anyone can remember. Caerlloyd's ecosystem was born from the barter system. Some of us fish, some of us cook, some of us build."

He pauses to take another long drag of his cigarette, a mournful expression pulling on his lips and brow. "What we can't make, we trade for. What we can't trade for, we go without. Tourism has never been a part of the cycle, Simon."

Despite it all, Simon can't help but think that he likes how Bruce says his name.

"But the town is so beautiful," Simon says and gestures out at the sea. "This view is unbeatable—the novelty of staying in a lighthouse, of living in a walkable environment like this, it's extremely popular nowadays. If people come, they'll pay for the goods and services you all are already providing for each other. It won't have any impact but profit."

Bruce's lips curl. "With tourists comes trash. Comes noise. Comes disrespect. You don't have to profit off of everything beautiful, Simon. Sometimes things are best left to live."

"Are you trying to talk me out of it?" Simon asks incredulously. "I've already bought the damn thing."

"Only because none of us have the kind of money a pretty boy from the city does," Bruce responds cooly and turns from looking out at the sea to looking directly at Simon. "I would've sold everything I had and still not been able to buy this goddamned lighthouse. It was an impossibility. It was going to go to an outsider—we just hoped they could be reasoned with."

"What do you want me to do, just… not renovate it? Spend all that money, and then find no return? You have to understand why I can't do that," Simon says, a laugh falling out alongside the last few words. "I— Sure, I'm not from here, but I'm not trying to ruin your town, or dilute your culture, or whatever. But I can't do nothing."

Bruce is still for a long moment before reaching out and grasping the railing surrounding the lantern room with a white-knuckled grip. The air between them is tense and thick until Bruce turns and looks Simon in the eye. His eyes are blue-grey, the same as the sky.

"Let me make you a deal," Bruce says and offers his hand. "Three days. Give me three days, including today, to change your mind. At the end of it, if you've decided you're following through with your plan, I'll help you do the renovations myself, and I won't try to talk you out of it. If you do decide otherwise, the town will buy it off you as soon as we can, and you'll go back to Boston."

Simon looks down at Bruce's thick fingers, the scars criss crossing across the back of his hand, the hair on his knuckles. The passion is evident– both in Bruce, and in everyone else he's met so far in Caerlloyd. This lighthouse, this view, it's too beautiful to destroy, and he knew that when he bought it. Others deserve to see it too, to experience the wonder of this edge of the world, but he can at least try to see the perspective of a local.

Three days with a gruff, quiet man; three days in a sleepy New England town. Three days to play the part, pretend to be convinced, and three days before he has to return to Boston and see Mo again after every cruel, impulsive word he said to her.

Simon swallows hard to wet his throat and thrusts his hand out to meet Bruce's. "Deal," he agrees, and their hands raise up and down in a silent promise.