I kept seeing Charlie’s face. The way his mouth twitched when he was trying not to smile. The way his voice dropped low whenever he said anything kind and tried to pass it off as an insult. The way he stood there, looking torn between staying silent and fighting for what he didn’t want to admit he cared about.
He’d said he didn’t like me. That being around me gave him hives.
And yet… he’d carried me up five flights of stairs. Cleaned up after me. Took me to my appointment, eyes filled with wonder at the life growing inside me. Slept on a too-small couch to make sure I wouldn’t wake up alone.
That didn’t seem like someone who didn’t care. That seemed like someone who didn’t know how to do it.
And what was worse—I kept noticing all of it. I kept letting it get to me.
That little softness in his voice. His hands hovering near my back when he thought I might trip. The way his eyes found me when he didn’t think I’d notice—frustration and awe tangled together, like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve but couldn’t stop trying to.
It was infuriating. And comforting. And confusing.
I stopped at Whitefield Square, the white gazebo where Charlotte and Hoyt said their vows was cold and slick with rain, but offering a necessary shelter from the drizzle. The benches were slightly damp, but I sat anyway, my dog curling up beside my feet, and I tipped my head back to look at the thick canopy of moss above me. The branches swayed in the breeze, heavy with water and history.
What the hell was happening to me?
Savannah was getting under my skin. Charlie was getting under my skin. And I wasn’t sure which scared me more.
All I’d ever wanted was to belong somewhere. To be seen and accepted and not just tolerated. And maybe it was starting to happen here, in a city I barely knew, with a man who looked at me like I was fire and he didn’t mind the burn.
I let out a shaky breath and rubbed a hand over my belly.
“We’re in trouble, little one.”
Nancy groaned softly, shifting closer, and I smiled faintly.
We stayed like that until the rain lightened, until the silence stopped feeling lonely and started to feel like peace.
And when the rain started up again, and the tall, iron street lights cast a soft glow over the quiet square, the city didn’t feel so big anymore. It felt close and familiar, a place that I might be able to hold onto if I stopped running long enough to try.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHARLIE
Therainhadstartedcoming down harder, and she was still nowhere to be found. I moved through the penthouse like a storm myself—back and forth, trying to keep calm, trying to reason through it—but every pass in front of the kitchen counter made it worse. Her phone sat there, useless and infuriating, vibrating now and then with the buzz of another unanswered call or ignored message, as if she might somehow reach through the air and grab it. As if she wasn’t already out there somewhere, alone.
MAGNOLIA:any word?
SUTTON:doyle’s gonna murder you if you lost his sister, ya big dumb idiot
LEE:ryan & i are free—want us to check this side of town?
CHARLIE:no, don’t. you’ll just get soaked. I’ll head out.
DOYLE:YOU LOST MY SISTER?!?! WTF CHARLIE
MAGNOLIA:shit. wrong group chat
I slammed my phone down next to hers and let out a string of quiet curses. The clatter of the two devices knocked hers enough to light up the screen—and there it was.
A poodle-shaped tracker pulsing on a map.
Nancy Reagan. She had a damn GPS on the dog.
I grabbed both phones and zoomed in. The little poodle icon had stopped moving—settled somewhere in Whitefield Square.
CHARLIE:found her.
