Chapter Twelve
CHARLIE
The studio smelled like sawdust and peppermint. Not because I’d suddenly caught the Christmas spirit, but because someone had commissioned a piece made out of candy canes and vintage tinsel, and now the smell had settled in like a tenant who’d moved in for the season.
It did add a little festive flair, I suppose. And, the good news was, I was paying rent thanks to the uptick in custom holiday orders.
“You know,” Sutton said, flopping onto the stool by the worktable, “when Magnolia sent that group text about picking a maid of honor dress in ‘a shade that evokes oyster shells at dawn,’ I almost threw my phone into the river.”
Lee didn’t look up from the box of old photographs he was sifting through. “At this point, I’m convinced she’s marrying him to spite us all.”
I carefully positioned a photo of Magnolia, Lee, and Dane—fitting, given the conversation—right above the curve of her ear.
The piece had been Lee’s idea. A large-scale portrait of Magnolia, based on a candid I’d taken on my phone one lazy afternoon in Forsyth Park.
From a distance, it looked simple—her, laughing, mid-reach for her cocktail.
But up close, it told a different story.
The entire thing was built from tiny, mosaic-like snapshots: family photos, Savannah landmarks, old memories from O’Malley’s.
And threaded through it all were handwritten lyrics pulled from Lee’s albums. Every word he’d ever written about her, stitched together with glue and grief.
I huffed out a laugh. “Well, you gave it your best shot, buddy. Valiant effort.”
It had been a few months since Lee came back to Savannah from Nashville. He’d tried, really tried, to win my sister back in one of those grand, let-me-prove-everyone-wrong moments. But Magnolia had decided to accept Dane Wilder’s proposal instead—asshole, esquire.
Lee held up a small photo. Magnolia and Uncle Cole stood in front of O’Malley’s, smiling like the worst of the world hadn’t touched them yet. His own smile flickered, then disappeared before it had the chance to settle. He handed me the picture without saying a word.
He sifted through the box again and pulled out another.
This one showed him and Magnolia, eyes locked, that unmistakable closeness between them.
It was the kind of look people only ever gave each other when they thought they had forever.
Back when they were best friends who fell hard, when we all believed nothing could come between them.
“It’s not over till it’s over, buddy,” Lee snapped as he passed me the next one.
I chuckled under my breath and turned toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Outside, Savannah was dressed for the season, strung with lights that wound through the trees and wreaths clipped to every lamppost in tidy, ornamental rows.
Tourists meandered along River Street in a slow-moving tide, wide-eyed and uncertain, as if trying to make sense of all the holiday sparkle.
The river behind them stirred restlessly, slate gray and rippling beneath the surface, as if it were one strong gust away from breaking loose.
It matched the energy in the room.
I hadn’t seen Tally in weeks. Not since Doyle dragged her out of the gala like a child who’d misbehaved.
The shame on her face was burned into my brain—permanent.
I’d made myself available in all the usual places, hoping we might happen to cross paths.
But either she was avoiding all of us… or avoiding me.
“We should go do something fun,” I said, and two sets of eyes snapped to me like I’d suggested robbing a bank.
Sutton crossed her arms. “Hate to break it to you, Charlie, but this is your idea of fun.”
***
Sutton’s tinsel crown was starting to shed.
Which would’ve been fine if she wasn’t actively trying to reattach it using nail glue she found at the bottom of her purse and the condensation from her cocktail glass to “thin it out”.
“You’re going to permanently glue that to your forehead,” I said flatly, brushing glitter off my sweater for the third time.
“It’s called commitment, Charles,” she replied, tipping her drink back with all the confidence of a woman dressed like a Christmas Tree who had clearly never known shame. “I am so glad I kept this sweater dress,” she said, marveling at the oversized green garb decorated like a balsam fir.
Lee, wearing a velvet green blazer and a Santa hat that said Let’s Get Elfed Up, slid another round onto the high-top table with a flourish. “One more for the road?”
“I swear to God,” I muttered, but I took the drink anyway.
This place, Jingle Hell, the self-proclaimed “Grittiest Christmas pop-up in Savannah,” was a fever dream. Fake snow machines, a wall of broken nutcrackers, a bartender in a full Grinch costume who wouldn’t make eye contact.
And we’d been there way too long.
I was wearing a sweatshirt with a giant, buff elf torso on it.
An elf. Torso. Sutton already had her outfit from the Historical Holiday Tour we helped Magnolia with, but Lee and I still needed festive attire, so Sutton dragged us to the Christmas section of the Salvation Army.
Lee handed me the sweatshirt like it was a peace offering.
And me, being the idiot I am, I put it on.
“I can’t believe I let y’all talk me into this,” I said, dragging a hand over my face as the “Wham!” Christmas album blared overhead.
Sutton clinked her glass against mine. “Excuse me, but you’re the one who wanted to go do something fun.” She spun on her stool and took in the sad, slapped-together plastic holiday decor covering the walls of the old tux shop. “You love it. Admit it.”
“I love seasonal depression and bourbon,” I muttered. “This is just… tinsel and regret.”
Sutton let out a gasp so dramatic I thought someone had died. “Oh my god, there’s a pop-up holiday market on River Street!” she screeched, shoving her phone in my face. “Let’s take these drinks to go and shoooopppp.”
She dragged the word out like it had its own sleigh bells.
Before I could protest, she slid off her barstool in a glittery wobble, slunk behind the bar like she was on their payroll, and snatched a few to-go cups while expertly dodging the Grinch bartender, who was mid-existential crisis in front of the beer taps.
“I don’t shoooopppp,” I grumbled as she sloshed our cocktails into plastic cups with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb.
“You do now,” she chirped, handing me my drink.
Lee leaned over to inspect the operation. “I should get a gift for my mom.”
Sutton let out a bark of laughter. “Your mom? Good luck. That woman has everything—including a full-blown fine-art collection and zero tolerance for handmade crap.”
Lee shrugged. “Yeah, but she likes Christmas ornaments and local soap. I’ll find something.”
Sutton wedged herself between us, looping her arms through ours, her head bobbing between our shoulders as we shuffled toward the door. Her tinsel crown was now a sideways tiara, glitter and glue smudged across her cheek.
“I just love you guys,” she hiccupped, swaying as we stepped out into the crisp air. “Even when you’re grumpy and judgmental and dressed like a half-naked elf.”
The crowd thickened as we made our way off Bay Street, winding down the old stone steps toward River Street.
Lights twinkled along the railing, strung from lamppost to lamppost as if someone had tried to tie the whole city up in a bow.
Holiday music floated through the air, faint and slightly warped by the wind and overlapping speaker systems. The scent of roasted nuts and kettle corn drifted around us, curling through the crowd with the kind of festive pull that was impossible to ignore.
Sutton had already tripped twice—once over her own foot and once because she stopped walking entirely to scream over a dog in a Christmas sweater, which caused Lee to bump right into her and knock her over.
“I want that dog,” she declared, pointing dramatically as it waddled away.
Lee snorted into his to-go cup of mulled wine. “You’ve already permanently glued your crown to your forehead and scraped both knee caps. Maybe pace yourself.”
Sutton squealed at the sight of a booth covered in homemade soaps and disappeared into the crowd with a dramatic flounce of her velvet skirt.
I lost her instantly.
Turning in a slow circle, I scanned the crowd, squinting through the horde of shoppers. “I swear to God, if she joined another caroling group…”
“She’s having fun,” Lee said, voice wry, sipping from his to-go cup like we weren’t chasing a human ornament through one of the busiest Christmas pop-ups in the city. “You gotta let her live.”
I grumbled under my breath about adult supervision and tried to keep my eyes on anything sparkly and human-sized, weaving past families in matching pajamas and parents dragging wide-eyed toddlers hopped up on peppermint bark.
Right as I passed a booth covered in handknit dog sweaters and bourbon-scented candles, I spotted her.
The Cheese, Please! booth, glowing under strings of Edison bulbs, was bustling. Little sample trays lined the edge of the booth, and in the middle of it, perched behind a table covered in gingham and wedged between waxed cheese wheels and a sign that said Savor the Season, was Tally.
She looked different.
Her hair was down in loose waves, her skin warm and flushed from the snap of cold or maybe from laughing at whatever Sutton had whispered in her ear.
She wore a bright red cardigan that hugged her shoulders and a long scarf she was fidgeting with, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands.
And yeah—she was definitely showing now.
A little more than a few weeks ago. Enough that my brain stalled.