“You’ve got it bad,” she said, already stepping backward through the open door. “And trust me—I can smell that sort of thing from a mile away.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I followed her out onto the patio, the tile warm from the morning sun. The light caught her in a way that made her look almost otherworldly—hair haloed, the river spread out behind her, the Talmadge Bridge standing tall in the distance. She rested one hand on the curve of her belly, fingers curling there like it was the most natural thing in the world, her gaze fixed on the horizon as if it might give her the answer to some question she hadn’t asked out loud. I wanted to be the one with a camera in that moment, wanted to catch her exactly like this, so I could look at it later and remember the ache in my chest.
“Would you think me forward if I asked a question?”
She didn’t look away from the water. “You’ve asked me a lot of questions, Charlie. What’s so different about this one?”
I came to stand beside her, leaning my elbows on the railing. “Do you plan on staying? In Savannah, I mean.”
Her eyes stayed on the river. The silence stretched long enough that I wondered if she’d answer at all. When she finally turned toward me, it was slow, deliberate.
“I have a problem… staying places.”
I let out a short laugh. “Care to elaborate?”
She crossed to the iron chair and sank into it, the sun sliding across her face. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve always thought that when I found where I’m supposed to be, I’d know it. Like everything would somehow click into place, and I’d be home.”
I sat down next to her, my arm brushing the back of her chair. “I can’t say I get that. I was born eighteen miles from here and never really left. My whole life is here. Everyone I love is here. Savannah’s as much a part of me as I am of it.”
She set her hand in mine, light and tentative, and looked down at the swell of her stomach. “I’ve never felt that before. But it’s all so different now.”
I knew what she meant in ways she probably didn’t expect because the thing that was different for her was changing me, too, in ways I hadn’t planned for.
“I thought Nick was different,” she said, her gaze flicking toward me like she was checking for signs I might pull away. I didn’t move. I wanted to hear her out. “But before him, I’d fallen in love in Australia—hard. The kind you don’t bounce back from quickly. He wanted the wild, table-dancing version of me, the one who stayed out all night. But I got tired of that. I wanted something more… steady.”
Her voice trailed, and she smoothed her hand over her thigh. “When I went back to New York, Nick and I became friends first. I guess I didn’t realize he was more of a rebound than anything real. Or that he was telling me what I wanted to hear to get what he wanted. He got it, and then… well, you know the rest.”
I studied her, the light shifting on her face, the small set of her jaw. “So he didn’t see the real you. He saw the version you let him see.”
She tilted her head toward the river again, the bridge holding steady in the distance. “Most people start out loving the wild version of me. But eventually, they want less. Or more. And then they try to change me into the person they wanted all along. Like they just… settled with me.”
Without thinking, I reached up and brushed a tear from her cheek. “Only a fool would call it settling with you, Tal.”
She gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and I gave her one back anyway.
“I see you, Tally,” I said, my voice low, careful. “You keep asking for someone to love you, but don’t you see? You are love. You smile at strangers. You wave to babies. You cry when old couples walk by holding hands. You whisper prayers when an ambulance passes. You cheer for people, even when they don’t cheer for you. You make space for those who feel like there’s no room left in the world for them at all.”
Her eyes blinked, holding mine, and I could see it land—like she was letting herself hear it, really hear it.
“Can I tell you a secret, Charlie?” Her voice was quiet, almost unsure. “I think motherhood is going to change me more than anyone or anything else ever could. And that scares the shit out of me.”
It might change her. Or it could take the wild parts of her and shape them into the best kind of mother this baby could ever have. But she was already changing, rooting herself into this city, into this life, whether she knew it or not. We were all watering her in our own ways, little by little.
“They’ll never be bored, that’s for sure,” she sighed.
And right then, I hoped I never would be either.
Chapter Thirty
TALLY
We’dbeenatthestudio all day. Charlie was hunched over the final stretch of Magnolia’s portrait, brush moving in short, precise strokes while his t-shirt pulled just enough across his back to make it criminally hard to concentrate. I was curled up on the loveseat, laptop open in front of me, pretending to care about editing Hoyt and Charlotte’s wedding album, but really, I was watching him. Watching the way his hand hovered before it landed, the way his jaw flexed when he was focused.
We hadn’t kissed again, but the space between us had gone tight. Electric. Every glance stretched too long. Every brush past each other in the narrow studio hallway felt like it could tip usover the edge. And maybe it was the hormones, or the hours of silence humming like a live wire, but eventually I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Let’s walk the dog,” I’d said—casual, breezy, like I wasn’t moments from crawling out of my skin.
