“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.”
“Hehandled 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 fromSiren’d Duty. Wanna runlines?“ 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 uswerecasual. 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 inGod’sname—?”
“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 arenevergoing 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.”
