I couldn’t tell her that Jordan had asked me not to intervene. Not to get involved. But did he mean with their sibling drama—or with her?
She tilted her head, arms still crossed. “Huh. Funny. I thought we were getting along just fine that night.”
Sutton and Lee both froze, turning to stare at me like I’d pulled a fire alarm in a library.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. “It wasn’t—We didn’t—I just…”
Nothing. Not a single decent sentence came to the rescue.
Sutton clapped her hands once, sharp and decisive. “And on that note, I’ll take a water if you’ve got it.”
Tally raised one perfect eyebrow, spun on her heel, and disappeared behind the counter.
“Smooth,” Lee muttered under his breath as she walked away.
***
As the night wore on and the crowd thinned into loose clusters of couples and last-minute shoppers gripping half-eaten gingerbread and lukewarm cider, someone killed the string lights overhead. The booths fell quiet, shadows stretching across the cobblestones, the river throwing back soft reflections.
For a moment, it felt like Savannah had been paused mid-breath.
Lee had taken Sutton home after she tried to serenade a basket of pretzel rolls and declared one of the vendors looked like “If Bradley Cooper and Santa had a baby.” I gave him a look that saidgood luckand ducked out before he could rope me into Uber duty.
Now I was alone, heading toward the water, hands shoved deep in my pockets. Grateful for the quiet. Thankful for the break from the glitter-fueled chaos.
Honestly, the night hadn’t been half bad.
It got me out of the studio, away from Magnolia’s relentless wedding group chats. I didn’t have to answer texts from Dane asking what my sister was doing and why. And for a while there,I almost convinced myself I was just a guy having a drink with his friends. Not a walking collection of pressure points barely held together by bourbon.
But then we ran into her. And suddenly, I wasn’t laid-back, half-loose Charlie Pruitt anymore. I was the Grump Who Stole Christmas.
Speaking of the glowing, gorgeous new resident of Savannah.
Tally was sitting on a bench near the Waving Girl statue, her scarf draped around her shoulders, curls spilling down her back in soft waves. Nancy Reagan, fully committed to her role in a tiny reindeer suit, sat tucked beside her, ears twitching at the sound of my footsteps on the cobblestone.
Tally turned her head before I could even think about pretending I hadn’t been looking.
“You again,” she said, voice low, carrying the faintest note of surprise.
I glanced down at the bench beside her. “This seat taken? Or are you saving it for someone who won’t make things weird?”
She turned toward me, eyes scanning my face, then the quiet stretch of the river beyond us. “You can sit,” she said, patting the empty spot. “I promise not to throw up or pass out this time.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, lowering myself onto the bench. “I didn’t bring a poncho.”
The breeze off the river lifted the ends of her scarf and tangled a curl behind her ear. She looked tired but steadier now, more grounded. She lifted her camera, altered the settings, and captured a shimmer on the water I hadn’t noticed before—or maybe hadn’t known how to see.
She glanced over and caught me staring.
“Everything all right?” she asked, brow raised.
I shrugged, dragging the toe of my boot along the edge of the cobblestone. “Been a long night.”
She gave a quiet nod, hands folding neatly in her lap. “Yeah. Same.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. But it wasn’t empty either.
I leaned back, noticing how still she was. The breeze carried a strand of hair across her cheek, and she didn’t bother to move it, only sat there watching the river slide past the bank.
