Chapter Thirty
TALLY
We’d been at the studio all day. Charlie was hunched over the final stretch of Magnolia’s portrait, brush moving in short, precise strokes while his t-shirt pulled just enough across his back to make it criminally hard to concentrate.
I was curled up on the loveseat, laptop open in front of me, pretending to care about editing Hoyt and Charlotte’s wedding album, but really, I was watching him.
Watching the way his hand hovered before it landed, the way his jaw flexed when he was focused.
We hadn’t kissed again, but the space between us had gone tight.
Electric. Every glance stretched too long.
Every brush past each other in the narrow studio hallway felt like it could tip us over the edge.
And maybe it was the hormones, or the hours of silence humming like a live wire, but eventually I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Let’s walk the dog,” I’d said—casual, breezy, like I wasn’t moments from crawling out of my skin.
Charlie barely looked up. “She’s asleep.”
“But she loves a good sunset,” I’d lied. “And besides, it’s good for the joints.”
Before I could change my mind, I was texting Franny Jo. I needed air. Motion. An industrial sized fan to cool the flush climbing up my neck.
Franny Jo pulled up in a horse-drawn sleigh that looked like Santa threw up on it.
String lights blinked along the frame, candy canes dangled from the railings, and the whole thing smelled faintly of cinnamon and horse manure.
She handed Charlie a dented thermos with a warning about sipping slow— “It’s from the good batch”—and passed me a chilled bottle of water with a wink, like she didn’t just hand him a one-way ticket to blackout moonshine island.
“The usual spot, Tal?” Franny Jo asked, glancing over her shoulder with a look that was equal parts curiosity and suspicion as she clocked Charlie beside me.
The carriage crept through the sleepy, sun-warmed squares of Savannah, the horse’s hooves echoing against brick and stone.
I leaned back against the cushioned bench and let myself take it in.
Every moss-lined street looked different that day, the way everything does when you’re sitting beside someone who changes how you see things.
Savannah had already made its case, curling under my skin and asking me to stay.
And who was I to say no?
But after that kiss in the rain, it wasn’t only the city holding on to me.
It was him.
And I wanted him to ask me to stay.
He’d been the one to bring it up, to ask if I saw myself in Savannah for more than a moment. And when he asked, I’d opened my heart in ways I wasn’t used to—letting him see the cracked, dented parts of the woman who’d spent too much time falling in love while quietly falling apart.
Charlie had asked if I was going to stay, but he’d never asked me to stay. And no, I didn’t need a man to decide my place in the world. But if he wanted me here, I wanted to hear it from him.
Beside me, Charlie unscrewed the lid of the thermos and took a cautious sip. He gagged instantly, coughing as he tried to pass it off with a weak thumbs-up that fooled no one.
Franny Jo cackled. “Careful, sugar. That stuff’ll grow hair on your kneecaps.”
Charlie wheezed. “Pretty sure I’m good on knee hair, thanks.”
She grinned and gave me a knowing look. At the base of River Street, she pulled the carriage up to the curb and winked. “See you next week for those Instabook shots, right, Tal?”
Charlie stepped down first, then turned and held his hand out to me.
I reached for him before I could think, my fingers sliding into his like they’d always belonged there.
The city buzzed around us—the clop of hooves, the far-off rush of the river—but all I could register was his hand closing around mine.
His thumb swept over my knuckles, slow and deliberate, a touch that seemed to say more than either of us had figured out how to put into words.
When I landed on the cobblestones, he didn’t let go right away. We stood there, too close, the December light catching in his eyes, making them burn darker and warmer all at once. The air between us felt thin, threaded tight with everything we hadn’t said.
“It’s called Instagram, Franny. And yes—if my captor approves,” I managed, still holding his gaze.
The corner of his mouth lifted. Maybe a question. Maybe an answer. Maybe the thing I’d been waiting to hear all along.
And then the horse behind us let out a truly biblical pile of steaming shit, breaking the moment clean in half. We both laughed, and with that, the spell was gone.
“Okay, I’m not really sure if you’re joking or if you’re actually under duress.” Franny Jo shot Charlie a sideways glance. “But I’ll leave you two to figure it out along the banks of the river. I’ve got poop to scoop.”
We walked River Street with Nancy Reagan leading the charge, her leash slack in Charlie’s free hand.
His other hand had found mine somewhere between the cobblestones and the waterfront—no announcement, no hesitation, only his fingers threading through mine while cargo ships drifted past in the distance.
The evening light turned everything copper and soft. Tourists shuffled by with to-go cups and cameras. A street performer played something jazzy on a sax that echoed off the brick buildings. Nancy stopped to investigate every iron bench and lamppost, and neither of us rushed her.
We crawled up the cobblestone ramp from the river to the bustling street above, winding our way through the squares until we reached Broughton Street.
“Leopold’s?” Charlie asked, nodding toward the crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk up ahead.
“Obviously.”
The line wrapped around the corner—families with strollers, college kids in SCAD sweatshirts, a bachelor party wearing matching elf hats. It was December, barely sixty degrees, and somehow every human in the greater metropolitan area had decided tonight was the night for ice cream.
“Is this a thing?” I asked, watching a woman in a puffer jacket order three sundaes. “Ice cream in winter?”
“Leopold’s is always a thing,” Charlie said, stepping up behind an older couple debating butter pecan versus rum raisin with the intensity of a hostage negotiation.
“Tourists don’t care about the weather. Hell, half of them probably think this is summer.
Probably warmer here than wherever they came from. ”
I laughed, and he squeezed my hand.
We shuffled forward in increments. Nancy sat between us, panting dramatically, performing her best impression of a dog on the verge of collapse.
A little girl in a tutu crouched down to pet her, and Nancy—despite being a known terrorist—leaned into it like she’d been starved for affection her entire life.
“She’s a con artist,” Charlie muttered.
“She’s a professional,” I corrected.
By the time we made it to the counter, I’d already changed my order three times.
Charlie got a single scoop of salted caramel in a cup, because of course he did—practical, contained, no risk of dripping.
I got a banana split loaded with hot fudge, whipped cream, and enough toppings to require structural engineering.
“You’re gonna regret that,” he said as we stepped back onto the street.
“Probably.”
But I didn’t. We strolled toward Monterey Square, weaving through the evening foot traffic, Nancy trotting between us like she’d orchestrated the whole thing. I ate my ice cream too fast, and Charlie kept glancing over, half-amused, half-concerned I was going to choke.
When we hit the square, the light had shifted again—deeper now, the kind of gold that made everything look like a painting. The Mercer House loomed ahead, wrapped in tasteful garland and bows. Charlie steered us toward a bench, and I sank into it without thinking, pulling my legs up under me.
He sat beside me. Not on the opposite end. Right beside me, close enough that our knees touched.
And it didn’t feel new. It felt like something we’d been doing for years. He leaned over and took a spoonful of my banana split, eyes on mine the whole time as if daring me to stop him. He shot me a playful wink as he licked the spoon clean.
“Not what it used to be, back in the day,” Charlie said, nodding toward the sprawling mansion. A streak of whipped cream clung to the corner of his lip, and it took everything in me not to lean over and lick it off. Slowly.
“Jim Williams used to throw insane parties around Christmas,” he continued, totally unaware of the internal meltdown I was having beside him. “Or so I’ve heard. I was too young to remember.”
I forced myself to look away from the sweet cream slinking down his beard and up at the house instead. “Does anyone still live there? It looks like the kind of place that’s definitely haunted.”
“It’s a museum now,” he said, leaning back into the bench with a little grunt.
We were both crammed into the right side of it, even though the left side had a perfectly good seat just waiting for him.
“Magnolia, Lee, and I broke in there once when we were kids. We wanted to see if the ghost stories were true.”
I whipped my head toward him. I didn’t need a mirror to know my eyes were wild. “And? Were they?”
He grinned, eyes crinkling from the sun. “Not haunted by ghosts. Cats, though. Dozens of ’em. Lee’s mom was working on the restoration at the time. She’s an antiquarian.”
I squinted. “I thought she just made that title up and threw parties all the time. That’s a real job?”
“For her, yeah.”
I snorted and looked back at the house, dragging my spoon through a streak of fudge.
“Dig and I used to charge people fifty bucks to do séances in their rent-controlled Upper East Side apartments. Rich old ghosts are the chattiest—probably because they’re used to having people listen to their nonsense. ”
Charlie’s laugh melted into me. I didn’t hear it often, but when I did, it curled around the edges of my chest and warmed some aching part of me I didn’t know had gone cold.
“I’m not breaking into Mercer House again, if that’s where this is going.”
“It’s not,” I said, pointing to a row of houses off the square. “I’m asking you to break into that one. The blue one. That’s the most haunted house on this street.”
He turned toward me fully, and his arm, already draped across the back of the bench, dropped slightly so that his fingers brushed the bare part of my arm. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. His touch was light, casual, but a slow current buzzed beneath my skin, steady and unrelenting.
“And how exactly would you know that little tidbit from all the way over here?” he asked.
I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant even though my insides were doing cartwheels. “I just know these things. Call it intuition.”
He huffed. “A séance would not be good for your blood pressure. Wouldn’t want to go breaking any more of Doyle’s rules.”
I leaned into his side, nudging him with my shoulder. “He didn’t say anything about séances. He said to watch my salt intake, try not to pass out, and stay hydrated. That’s it.”
“And that you need to eat actual food. Don’t forget the gourmet meals I’ve been making.”
“Oh, yes. Chef Charlie’s signature dish: unseasoned air-fried chicken that disintegrates on contact. So far, we’ve ruined the carpet and the air fryer. Doyle’s going to kill us.”
He let out a deep, mock-offended sigh. “You wound me.”
I glanced up at him. His arm was still behind me, fingers resting lightly on my shoulder now, thumb moving in slow, lazy strokes that made me forget whatever smart remark I’d been about to deliver.
And I knew if I turned to face him fully, if I leaned in even a little, he’d kiss me again, just like he had the night before in the rain. Maybe slower, deeper this time.
But I didn’t. And neither did he.
Instead, we sat in the stillness of the park, watching the shadows lengthen as the twinkle of the Christmas lights winked around the square and on the porches of the homes surrounding it.
His thumb kept brushing against my shoulder, steady as breath.
His knee pressed into mine, grounding me.
And for once, I didn’t feel the need to fill the space between us with chatter.
I liked this side of Charlie. Studio-dwelling, rule-following, emotionally constipated Charlie was great.
But this version—the one laughing beside me, ice cream melted into his beard, letting his arm linger without overthinking it, letting his presence say what he wouldn’t—this was the one I was falling for.
And that scared me more than any haunted house ever could.
Charlie flicked a piece of banana from his jeans, then tipped his head my way, eyes bright. “You still want your séance?”
I turned to look at him, brows raised.
“I mean,” he shrugged, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, “I do happen to know a bar that’s been around long enough to have its own ghosts.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you offering to break into O’Malley’s?”
“Not break in,” he said innocently. “I have a key. And access to the good candles.”
I laughed, letting the sound slip out before I could hold it in. “You’re gonna bring a Ouija board, too, I suppose?”
“Nope,” he said, standing and offering me his hand. “Just you, me, and whatever spirits still linger in the woodwork. Who knows—maybe they’ve got something to say.”
My fingers slid into his. His touch wasn’t urgent or teasing now—only steady. The kind that made it really, really hard to remember how I’d ever lived without it.
“Let’s go raise the dead,” I said.