Chapter Seventeen
TALLY
The dream was good. Which, in my world, usually meant real life was about to deliver a deeply humiliating plot twist.
Lately, my dreams had been circling one man in particular.
Charlie Pruitt. Uninvited. Unavoidable. Showing up night after night as if my brain had conveniently forgotten we were supposed to be keeping things light.
Sometimes Lee wandered in too, because even my subconscious knew a hot, guitar-carrying man in tight jeans deserved some mental screen time.
And once—deeply, painfully—there was Hoyt, the doorman, wearing nothing but a tool belt and carrying a tray of hot, salty fries with the solemnity of a priest offering communion.
But this morning, it was only Charlie.
His hands found my waist, steady, like he’d always known exactly where they belonged—the sheets bunched around my knees, warm from sleep and the heat of his skin. The weight of him settled beside me, the quiet press of his body close to mine.
The room smelled like him—sawdust, cedar, and earthy undertone that had worked its way into the walls and, apparently, into me.
His voice came low at my ear, lips brushing close, the words blurred but thick with want. A murmur about staying right here, not rushing. Not moving.
His breath coasted down my neck. Desire clenched low in my ribs.
And then he kissed me. Not desperate, not heated—just careful, deliberate. A slow press of his mouth to my forehead that sent everything in me into freefall. My body curled tighter into the dream, clinging to the last trace of him before morning pulled it all away.
I was about to lean into the heat of it, to let my subconscious fully betray me—
“Tally Tater Tot Aden, you better scoot the hell over and make room because your Christmas miracle has ARRIVED!”
I bolted upright with a yelp, half convinced I was still dreaming. But no, there he was. Dig. Wearing a red velvet robe over God knows what, grinning like the lunatic best friend he was, and climbing directly into bed with me like this was any other normal, Wednesday morning.
“Dig?” I blinked, still not convinced he was real. “What? How? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I missed you,” he said simply, flopping down beside me and throwing an arm across my middle like I was a damn body pillow.
“Also, the weird little mermaid play I’m in—Siren’d Duty—got canceled for the weekend because half the cast came down with what we think is food poisoning, but might just be a collective existential crisis over our shared failure to make it under the bright lights of the big city. Either way, I’m here. Surprise!”
Nancy, insulted by being displaced, leapt to the foot of the bed and began tap dancing in protest. Dig scratched her behind the ears, unfazed.
A sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh bubbled up in my throat. I hadn’t realized how much I needed him until he was here.
“I was dreaming,” I muttered, collapsing back into my pillow. “It was delicious.”
“Was it the big guy?” he waggled his eyebrows. “Savannah’s resident grump? Tall, bearded, brooding? Name starts with a Charlie and ends with makes you feral in your dreams?”
I groaned and dragged a pillow over my face.
Dig gasped. “It was. Oh my God, you want to kiss him under the mistletoe and name your baby after him, don’t you?”
“I will suffocate you with this pillow,” I mumbled. “Also, I’m still mad at you for the whole Nick fiasco. He figured out where I was from my Instagram posts and just... appeared. In the shop.”
“Okay, but in my defense,” Dig said, patting my stomach gently, “I told you to send me the avocado emoji if he showed up. How can I win favor as your knight in sequined armor if you don’t follow protocol?”
“I didn’t have time! He just walked in—”
“And now Charlie looks like the hero,” Dig interrupted, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “This is what happens when you don’t trust the system, Tally.”
I stared at him. “Are you seriously making this about you right now?”
“A little bit, yes.” He grinned. “But also, tell me everything. What happened?”
“He walked in like he owned the place, asked if the baby was his, offered me money to ‘handle the problem.’”
Dig’s face went from playful to murder in half a second. “He what?”
“Yeah. So Charlie punched him.”
“CHARLIE PUNCHED HIM?” Dig squealed, wriggling across the bed like an overexcited golden retriever. “Oh my God. What’s it like to be God’s favorite? Two men throwing punches over you? That’s practically one of those supermarket paperback novels with the shirtless pirate on the front!”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t like that. Nick was being a creep, and Charlie just... handled it.”
“He handled it,” Dig repeated, swooning dramatically. “Listen to yourself. You’re in a Hallmark movie and you don’t even know it.”
“It’s not a Hallmark movie. It’s my life falling apart in real time.”
“Falling apart?” He propped himself up on one elbow, studying me. “Babe, you’re literally glowing. You’ve got a hot guy next door who punches douchebags for you, you’re building a whole new life in Savannah, and you’re about to have the cutest baby in Georgia. Where’s the falling apart?”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. Because when he put it like that…
“Shut up,” I muttered.
“Never,” he grinned.
Changing the subject, Dig steepled his hands, a playful glint passing over his eyes.
“Anyway, I brought snacks, questionable holiday-themed lube I found at the airport gift shop in case I run into that guy from the haunted speakeasy I hooked up with last time I was here, and a new scene from Siren’d Duty.
Wanna run lines?“ He clapped his hands together.
“Oh! And you must tell me every single detail regarding the elopement shoot. I need to see those shots of Charlotte and her momma.”
Naturally, ten minutes later, Dig was in the middle of an interpretive dance performance of Ursula’s monologue—tentacle gestures and all—in the tastefully holiday-decorated living room.
Nancy Reagan was howling in chorus, twirling in frantic little circles, and I was on the floor with my phone, snapping photos, half for the memories, half because Dig insisted I “document his creative genius for future generations.”
I let him carry on, my mind drifting back to the way Charlie had studied me at the elopement.
His gaze stayed on me as I moved through the shoot, adjusting a veil, framing a shot, taking a moment to breathe.
When he caught my hand, I didn’t want him to let go.
The thought sent a rush of butterflies through my stomach, though it might have been the baby shifting.
The baby my situationship had asked me to get rid of as if this baby and I weren’t already a package deal, no matter what.
Charlie seemed to understand that in a way no one else ever had.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t treat me like I was too much to take on.
It was all there in the way he looked at me, steady and certain, like he’d already decided he wasn’t going anywhere.
Maybe things between us were casual. We were just friends. Weren’t we?
Doyle padded out in pajama pants, hair sticking up in every direction. He stood at the edge of the living room, blinking slowly like he was trying to decide if he was hallucinating. “What in God’s name—?”
“Welcome to morning theater, Savannah edition,” Dig said, spinning dramatically with a plastic trident he’d borrowed from a wreath hook.
Nancy barked. I cackled. Doyle looked like he had aged six years in two minutes.
Jordan peeked out from the kitchen, wearing a robe and holding a mug of something that smelled suspiciously like Bailey’s. “We are never going to get through this crisis if you two don’t go outside.”
“What crisis?” I asked, frowning.
“Hush,” Doyle said too quickly. “Go. Do something. Take a walk. Buy olives so you stop stealing them from the shop. I don’t care.”
My brother’s tone sent me on edge. There was definitely more going on between them than they were saying. “Aren’t I supposed to be watching my salt?”
“Tally, if you don’t get your butt out the door and give us some damn peace, I’m going to start shrieking so loud, someone will put me on Nextdoor. Or worse, the siren will summon Momma.”
Jordan shot me a pitiful look. “Just… go, Tally.”
Dig was already slipping on his shoes. “Field trip! I wanna see all the places you’ve been hanging and meet all of your people!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was still finding my people here.
I was getting closer, inch by inch, but it still felt a little like I was standing on the porch, peeking through the window at everyone else gathered around the table.
Some days, the door cracked open. Other days, it stayed shut.
Whether the key was in my hand or someone else’s remained unclear.
Jordan and Doyle whispered as I grabbed my bag, their voices low and clipped, like I wouldn’t notice.
Doyle kept glaring at Jordan across the kitchen island, tight-lipped and stiff, his whole body coiled like he was trying to hold it together—or keep the situation from blowing apart.
He dried the same mug three times without once looking at me.
Jordan, usually the calm one, the peacemaker, pushed scrambled eggs around his plate and kept glancing at the clock.
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t nothing.
Ten minutes later, we were in the back of a horse and buggy, driven by Savannah legend Franny Jo Anderson, crawling through the quiet morning streets of Savannah like this was what everyone did on a Wednesday.
She hadn’t offered a reason or an explanation when she pulled up in front of the building and shouted “Get in!” from under a wide-brimmed velvet hat and waved at a group of tourists with the flourish of a woman who’d been born for the stage.