Sponsors & Snowflakes
Chapter fifty-two
Marlow
Ilove the holiday season.
I also hate the holiday season.
For me, it’s always been a mixed bag of emotions.
Growing up, it was mostly just me and Daddy, and we never quite fit into those picture-perfect traditions people bragged about.
Our holidays were pieced together—family friends who invited us over, Daddy’s coworkers who let us crash their parties, the occasional extra seat at someone else’s table.
And while I was grateful, it never felt like ours.
Never felt like those commercials promised—the ones full of big families, noise, love, and warmth spilling out of every corner.
So we started making our own. Just me and him.
Little traditions stitched together year by year—the movies we watched every Christmas Eve, the way we stayed up to ring in the New Year by watching celebrations around the world.
Every year Daddy would find something to add, something that made it feel like our holiday was designed just for us. For me.
And for as long as I can remember, that was enough.
This year feels different. This year…I actually feel cheer. I feel jolly. I feel like I have a family.
The holiday bazaar with Biddy Mason Charter School is one of the best partnerships Tatum and I have pulled off to date.
The Strikers’ logo is everywhere—on soccer-themed booths, stamped across discount tickets we’ve arranged with local businesses, even printed on flyers kids are waving around like trophies.
But the part that makes me proudest is it isn’t just a one-way sponsorship.
The schools and shops actually get money poured back into them and their endeavors when they partner with us, creating a cycle that supports everyone.
It’s a win-win, and watching it all come to life makes me glow with pride.
The whole place is alive. Atlanta’s own Dr. KAM in the Traffic Jam has the crowd hype from the stage, spinning Christmas tracks between his loud, booming jokes.
Kids line up for the chance to belt out their favorite carols for prizes, and adults are out there challenging celebrity guests to dance-offs.
The smell of kettle corn, cider, and funnel cakes fills the crisp winter air. Everywhere I turn, there’s laughter.
When the Cinnamon Grove Sun reporter makes her way toward me with a mic, I tense out of habit.
Old reflex. But I have to remind myself this isn’t Shaun Kennedy.
She’s young, strikingly beautiful, her smile disarming in a way that feels genuine.
She must be the one replacing Shaun, I realize. Thank God.
She asks me the usual—how I’m enjoying the bazaar, what it means to see so many families out here, how this event helps boost the Strikers’ image after such a turbulent season.
Her voice is warm, professional, but still I brace myself for the trick.
For the hidden jab, the humiliating angle, the one line she’ll twist into a headline that makes me look like a failure.
But instead, she just…smiles. Winks like we’re in on the same secret. Then she congratulates me on pulling off something this big and tells me I should be proud of what we’ve done for the community.
I almost choke up right there, caught off guard by her kindness. I didn’t realize how much it mattered—how much I needed this—but I’m grateful. Grateful the outlet finally put a woman in this position. For once, I don’t feel like prey circling a shark. For once, I feel seen.
As I drift back into the crowd, watching from the sidelines, my eyes find him.
Declan. He’s sitting cross-legged in a circle, surrounded by little girls braiding his hair and squealing as they twist pink ribbons into it.
Croix is right next to him, enduring the same treatment.
Their mothers are snapping photos like paparazzi, and even the dads look like they’re enjoying the sight.
Declan catches my eye for a split second, winks, and my chest warms. I fall in love with him a little bit more, right here in the middle of this carnival of chaos.
That’s when Eslin sidles up, eyes dancing. “Hey, boss lady. How do you feel seeing your stamp all across the city like this?”
I grin. “It feels pretty damn good,” I admit, sweeping my gaze across the booths, the lights, the crowd. My husband. Then I look back at her. “And…I’ve decided to tell Daddy about me and Declan.”
Her jaw drops, and then her whole body exhales like she’s been waiting for this. “Oh, thank goodness! I hated keeping this secret from him!”
I frown. “Why would you feel bad about keeping a secret from my father?”
She laughs nervously. “Oh, you know how it is. I’m a therapist. I hold everyone’s secrets, and sometimes it feels like my entire life is made of them. Having one about my boss’s family, who I regularly have dinner with, you have to admit it would be a lot for anyone.”
“I get it. I really do. Thank you for keeping my secrets, Es.” And I mean that.
Maybe that’s why it hits me in the chest—because the one thing I’ve never had to worry about was her keeping my secrets. Over these past few months I’ve learned I can trust her with anything. I lean in and hug her tight. “I appreciate you more than you know. I owe you big.”
She laughs, even more nervous energy in her tone. “Glad to hear you say that because I have something to share.”
I waggle my eyebrows. “Things heating up with Coach Jones? I saw the way he was looking at you at Thanksgiving!
She waves me off. “No, nothing to do with Jones. Just meet me at Holly’s when you’re done being fabulous and making your rounds here, ok?”
“Yes!” I squeeze her again before pulling back. I look at the time on my phone. “I should be done here in about an hour. That ok?”
She nods and then heads off towards the stage where the team is doing the Cupid Shuffle with the kids, but Dr. K.A.M. has changed the music to match TLC’s song, Sleigh Ride.
I look toward the cluster of news crews and spot my father, poised with that polished, camera-ready smile he’s perfected over the years.
Tatum arranged for a handful of specialized outlets to capture some father-daughter moments.
And even though things between us aren’t fully healed—he still refuses to tell me who that mysterious woman was, and none of Shaun Kennedy’s footage gave me the answers I’ve been craving—I swallow the questions burning on my tongue.
I push it all down, bury it deep where no one with a lens can see.
For now, I let it go. And I lift my chin, step into place beside him, and smile for the cameras.
Because tonight is about family, in all its messy, complicated, beautiful pieces. And like it or not, Grant Mills is mine.
Eslin
Tonight’s the night.
I told Grant since Marlow and I are friends, I should be the one to start the conversation about us.
If she ever finds out she’s poured her heart into me, trusted me with pieces of her life that she hadn’t even shared with him, while I held back something this big…
she’ll never forgive me. I know I wouldn’t.
So, tonight I’m going to make the first move.
Tonight, I’m going to tell her about Grant.
About Vegas. About how I fell in love with him that night and it’s only gotten worse.
Something I haven’t even told him yet. But something about how this all came to be makes me feel like Marlow should hear it first. All of it.
Once it’s done, when I’ve ripped the Band-Aid clean off, I’ll go to Grant’s cabin. The one tucked away in the pines, where the trees will muffle everything but the sound of our laughter. Where the fire crackles and the world feels small enough that I can breathe. Just me and him.
So here I am, sitting at the bar at Holly’s, waiting for Marlow.
The air smells like cinnamon and roasted nuts, the lights strung across the rafters twinkle in gold and red, and the speakers are crooning Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas.” Holly’s behind the bar, fussing with mugs and pretending she’s not watching me worry a groove into the counter.
“Did she say what time she’d be here?” Holly asks.
“Soon,” I murmur, looking at my phone to check the time.
I’ve already filled her in—why this conversation matters, why this needs to happen tonight before me and Grant go away for the weekend.
And Holly agreed her spot was the perfect neutral ground.
She even promised to spike Marlow’s cocoa with a little rum, just enough to keep her from going full nuclear if things went sideways.
We’re half-joking about her annual This Christmas party—where she screens the movie and forces everyone to do karaoke to the entire soundtrack—when the door opens. I look up and Marlow steps in.
Then my heart drops.
She looks pale, clammy, her usually polished self nowhere in sight. Her eyes find me, and the sight of me seems to unravel her because she walks over, slumps onto the barstool, buries her head in her arms—and cries.
“Low, honey. Are you okay?” I reach for her, panic tightening my chest. “Is it Declan? Do I need to shank his Italian, tattooed ass?”
She lifts her head, eyes wet, face blotchy in a way I’ve never seen before. Then, like the words are trying to claw their way out of her, she blurts it—loud, raw, and shaking.
“Eslin! I’m pregnant!”