Chapter Thirty-Two #2
I sat beside him under the twinkle lights he’d strung along the railing, their glow soft and steady against the dark.
The river moved below us, slow and unhurried, catching the light in little ripples.
Somewhere down the street, music drifted up from a bar, faint and warm like it had been playing forever.
I’d brought out one of the boxes Magnolia sent from the bar—odds and ends she figured I could use—and somewhere between flipping through old Savannah wedding photos and sipping my Shirley, the conversation drifted somewhere deeper.
One frame held a photo of a couple kissing in Whitefield Square, rain misting around them in a halo of light.
Almost identical to the shot I’d taken of Hoyt and Charlotte on their wedding day.
I could still see Charlotte’s face that morning—crestfallen when the fountain was out of the question, and then alight again when we found the gazebo.
By the time the rain let up, she told me it had been the wedding of her dreams.
I’d made that happen. Moved the pieces, kept it all standing, turned disappointment into a day they’d remember forever. I could do that again.
“You could make this a real thing,” Charlie said, nodding toward the stack of frames at my feet. “The elopements. The photos. The planning and the pivoting. You’ve got the eye for it. People would eat that up here.”
It startled me how much I wanted to believe him. How much I wanted to picture myself doing exactly that—turning this half-formed idea into a business that could actually keep me here. For the first time in months, the thought of staying somewhere didn’t feel like a trap. It felt…possible.
I didn’t speak right away. My fingers followed the worn groove of the frame, my thoughts leaping ahead to what a life here could mean. Not work. Not a place to sleep. A home. My home.
When I finally looked over, Charlie was watching me, his arm stretched along the back of my chair, close enough that the heat of him sank into my skin. A quiet spark lit his eyes, the kind that made it clear I wasn’t the only one imagining what else might be possible.
And that was the moment I knew. Things weren’t just falling into place with the business. They were falling into place with him, too.
The thought made my pulse kick, followed fast by the old, familiar warning in my chest. The one that told me to run before it all got too good, too complicated, before it fell apart and took me with it.
I forced a smile and set the frame down. “Guess I’ll have to start taking it seriously, then.”
Charlie’s mouth curved, easy and a little dangerous. “Guess you will.”
A stillness passed between us, and we were growing more and more comfortable in those moments together. The ones where we didn’t have to say anything, we only had to exist, side by side, no conversation or pretenses or anything but each other’s company settling between us.
“I have something for you,” he said, breaking the quiet between us. His voice was gentle but certain, like he’d been holding the words in his mouth for a while. “It’s an early Christmas gift. It’s not anything big. Just something I—”
“You didn’t have to,” I cut in, already shaking my head. “Charlie, it’s not—”
He brought our joined hands to his mouth again, brushing soft kisses across my knuckles until the rest of the words evaporated from my throat. “Tally River Aden, will you for once in your life hush your mouth and let someone do something nice for you?”
I bit my lip, smiling despite the tears already welling behind my eyes.
Still holding hands, we slipped back indoors and walked over to the tree, the poor thing barely staying upright under the weight of seashells, lights, and about five too many strands of garland. We sat on the floor, cross-legged and facing each other beneath the drooping branches.
Charlie handed me a small, neatly wrapped package.
The brown paper was covered in doodles and stickers, scribbles in his messy handwriting, and tiny ink stamps pressed into the corners.
It looked homemade, but not rushed—thoughtful in a way that made its way across my chest in a warm and sweet bloom.
As I kept searching the wrapping, tears pooling in my eyes, I saw scraps of my time here.
A torn napkin from Leopold’s. A ticket stub from Winter Gala.
A receipt from the McDonald’s window. The corner of a coaster from O’Malley’s.
Each one taped down with care, turning the ordinary into a treasure worth saving.
“I don’t even want to open this,” I whispered, staring down at it. My voice cracked on the last word.
Charlie reached over and took the package from my hands, opening it slowly, carefully, treating the wrapping as part of the gift. It was.
“I just didn’t want you to forget any of it,” he said. His fingers traced the edge of the paper, reverent. He pulled the tape off the corners gently. “Actually, you kind of have Lee to thank for this. I suppose this is loosely based on his idea for Maggie’s portrait.”
“All of these little moments with you…” He paused, eyes still on the frame. “They’ve meant the world to me.”
Housed in a delicate, gold frame was a sketch of me. Barefoot, windswept, standing at the edge of the river. The sunset behind me cast everything in amber and rose. The faint curve of my belly visible beneath my dress. And behind me, distant but steady, The Waving Girl.
Charlie’s voice broke through the silence, barely above a whisper, but steady all the same. “Especially this moment here.”
A single, full tear slipped from the corner of my eye and cut a slow trail across my cheek.
It overwhelmed me—the tenderness of his gift, the way he’d sketched me not as a mess of jagged edges or wild mistakes, but as someone worth seeing. As someone worth remembering. The kind of person who might deserve to stay.
I touched the glass frame again, unable to look away from that quiet moment he’d captured.
It was everything I hadn’t dared to hope for—proof that someone saw me, really saw me.
The ache beneath the jokes. The hunger to belong.
Not only for me, but for the baby I was carrying.
I’d spent so long pretending I didn’t care where I landed, and here I was, sitting under a crooked Christmas tree in my brother’s penthouse, hoping with everything in me that I’d finally found home.
Charlie reached out, thumb grazing the tear from my cheek, his hand lingering there with enough pressure to steady me. I tilted my face toward him, drawn like a magnet, and met his gaze.
And I fell.
No resistance left in me. No hesitation. No armor. Only me—open and raw and ready—because how in the hell could I not love Charlie Pruitt?
The man who handed me silence when I needed peace, who carried me without question and kissed me without regret. The man who looked at me and saw more than a disaster trying to find her footing—someone worthy of being chosen.
“I have a gift for you after all,” I whispered, voice trembling. I reached for the hand resting against my cheek and brought it to my chest, over my heart, holding it there like a promise. “It’s yours, if you want it. Just… promise me you won’t break it.”
His brows drew together, an unreadable emotion flickering across his face. Then he nodded, solemn and sure. “Never.”
Charlie reached up, tugged the bill of his cap forward, then spun it around so it sat backward on his head. It was such a simple move—casual, thoughtless—but it knocked the air out of me like he’d just changed the rules of the game.
And then he dropped to one knee in front of me, and that was it. Game over.
His hands found my hips, steady and unhurried, before sliding to rest against the curve of my bump. He looked up, his thumbs moving in slow, absent circles, his eyes locked on mine like he was waiting—for me to push him away, for me to run, for anything but what I actually did.
I stayed. Breath caught, heart somersaulting, knees weak in a way that had nothing to do with pregnancy and everything to do with the man on his knees before me.
Charlie Pruitt—backward cap, rough hands gentled on my hips—like he was kneeling at an altar he hadn’t even realized he’d built until this moment.
He looked up at me, eyes so green they caught every scrap of me and held it there. And in that reflection, I saw her—the woman he saw. The one falling, faster than she meant to, for the man who made it impossible not to.
“You giving me your heart,” he said, his voice low and gruff, “Is the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten. The only thing I would’ve wished for this Christmas.”
My throat tightened. Whatever walls I thought I had left didn’t stand a chance.
His palm stayed pressed to my heart as he leaned in, brushing his lips against my fingers with a reverence I hadn’t been ready for.
My fingers left his lips and curled into his shirt, clinging as he pushed to his feet with slow, deliberate grace until he stood over me—taller now, broader, filling every inch of space around me like there wasn’t enough air for both of us.
His mouth met mine, a breath released after days of holding back. His restraint gave way, his need finding mine in all the places we’d pretended didn’t exist.
And still, he kissed me again. And again. And again. Like he needed to memorize everything—the shape of my mouth, the sound I made when he tugged at my lower lip, the way my body leaned into his like it had been waiting for this exact kind of touch all along.
Still holding me close, he stood, lifting me off the floor in one smooth motion.
I wrapped my arms around his neck as he carried me down the hallway.
Past the tree. Past the ornaments and scattered wrapping paper.
The lights behind us twinkled against the windows, casting soft, amber reflections that danced across the walls.
He nudged the door open with his foot, setting me down only once we were inside.
Nancy let out one short, scandalized bark from the living room, and Charlie reached behind him, shutting the door.
And the rest of the world fell away while I let Charlie Pruitt undress the truth of me—piece by piece, until there was nothing left but the part of me that had somehow always belonged to him.