Not for a project. Not for my potential. For me.
And now, somehow, I was standing barefoot in a borrowed penthouse, wrapping discount lights around a fake tree and thinking about what it might feel like to stay. Not pass through. Not stall out.Stay.With these people. With him.
Not in some perfect, Pinterest-worthy fantasy. In the real mess. The kind of life I spent my whole life believing I wasn’t allowed to have.
Charlie moved across the room, the clinking of ice in glass pulling me out of the spiral. He poured his bourbon, slid cherries into my Shirley, and stood for a long beat, watching the tree.
Then, without looking at me, he said, “Come outside with me. We should celebrate. Plan. I don’t know, but this deserves extra cherries and some fresh air.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, only gathered both glasses and headed for the lanai doors, the soft sound of his bare feet against the floor pulling me after him.
I sat beside him under the twinkle lights he’d strung along the railing, their glow soft and steady against the dark. The river moved below us, slow and unhurried, catching the light in little ripples. Somewhere down the street, music drifted up from a bar, faint and warm like it had been playing forever.
I’d brought out one of the boxes Magnolia sent from the bar—odds and ends she figured I could use—and somewhere between flipping through old Savannah wedding photos and sipping my Shirley, the conversation drifted somewhere deeper.
One frame held a photo of a couple kissing in Whitefield Square, rain misting around them in a halo of light. Almost identical to the shot I’d taken of Hoyt and Charlotte on their wedding day. I could still see Charlotte’s face that morning—crestfallen when the fountain was out of the question, and then alight again when we found the gazebo. By the time the rain let up, she told me it had been the wedding of her dreams.
I’d made that happen. Moved the pieces, kept it all standing, turned disappointment into a day they’d remember forever. I could do that again.
“You could make this a real thing,” Charlie said, nodding toward the stack of frames at my feet. “The elopements. The photos. The planning and the pivoting. You’ve got the eye for it. People would eat that up here.”
It startled me how much I wanted to believe him. How much I wanted to picture myself doing exactly that—turning this half-formed idea into a business that could actually keep me here. For the first time in months, the thought of staying somewhere didn’t feel like a trap. It felt…possible.
I didn’t speak right away. My fingers followed the worn groove of the frame, my thoughts leaping ahead to what a life here could mean. Not work. Not a place to sleep. A home. My home.
When I finally looked over, Charlie was watching me, his arm stretched along the back of my chair, close enough that the heat of him sank into my skin. A quiet spark lit his eyes, the kind that made it clear I wasn’t the only one imagining what else might be possible.
And that was the moment I knew. Things weren’t just falling into place with the business. They were falling into place with him, too.
The thought made my pulse kick, followed fast by the old, familiar warning in my chest. The one that told me to run before it all got too good, too complicated, before it fell apart and took me with it.
I forced a smile and set the frame down. “Guess I’ll have to start taking it seriously, then.”
Charlie’s mouth curved, easy and a little dangerous. “Guess you will.”
A stillness passed between us, and we were growing more and more comfortable in those moments together. The ones where we didn’t have to say anything, we only had to exist, side by side, no conversation or pretenses or anything but each other’s company settling between us.
“I have something for you,” he said, breaking the quiet between us. His voice was gentle but certain, like he’d been holding the words in his mouth for a while. “It’s an early Christmas gift. It’s not anything big. Just something I—”
“You didn’t have to,” I cut in, already shaking my head. “Charlie, it’s not—”
He brought our joined hands to his mouth again, brushing soft kisses across my knuckles until the rest of the words evaporatedfrom my throat. “Tally River Aden, will you for once in your life hush your mouth and let someone do something nice for you?”
I bit my lip, smiling despite the tears already welling behind my eyes.
Still holding hands, we slipped back indoors and walked over to the tree, the poor thing barely staying upright under the weight of seashells, lights, and about five too many strands of garland. We sat on the floor, cross-legged and facing each other beneath the drooping branches.
Charlie handed me a small, neatly wrapped package. The brown paper was covered in doodles and stickers, scribbles in his messy handwriting, and tiny ink stamps pressed into the corners. It looked homemade, but not rushed—thoughtful in a way that made its way across my chest in a warm and sweet bloom.
As I kept searching the wrapping, tears pooling in my eyes, I saw scraps of my time here. A torn napkin from Leopold’s. A ticket stub from Winter Gala. A receipt from the McDonald’s window. The corner of a coaster from O’Malley’s. Each one taped down with care, turning the ordinary into a treasure worth saving.
“I don’t even want to open this,” I whispered, staring down at it. My voice cracked on the last word.
Charlie reached over and took the package from my hands, opening it slowly, carefully, treating the wrapping as part of the gift. It was.
“I just didn’t want you to forget any of it,” he said. His fingers traced the edge of the paper, reverent. He pulled the tape off the corners gently. “Actually, you kind of have Lee to thank for this. I suppose this is loosely based on his idea for Maggie’s portrait.”
“All of these little moments with you…” He paused, eyes still on the frame. “They’ve meant the world to me.”
