It took me a moment to place her, but then it all came back. She went to high school with us and had the biggest crush on my brother. Of course, time and circumstance made her look somewhat older and a little worse for wear. I remembered a few early mornings when Dane was home for his holiday breaks, and she would creep down the staircase of my parents’ house, slowly and quietly so she didn’t wake Momma and have to face her wrath.?
Deciding not to let Magnolia in on that little tidbit, I changed the subject.?“So, how long have y’all been seeing each other?”?
Magnolia let out a long, dramatic groan. She knew this was coming at some point. If I wanted her friendship back—and I absolutely did, more than anything—I was going to have to accept the world she was living in now.
A world in which I no longer existed.?
She finally looked up at me, a hint of weariness washing over her. “A few months. Things got a little murky after my uncle passed away, so I wouldn’t exactly call that period romantic, but he was by my side the entire time. Never left it. I don’t know if that was because of the friendship we’d had all our lives or our new dating relationship; it’s hard to tell. He helped get everything together for the memorial, helped out with the bar when I had a few nervous breakdowns here and there. He’s a great person. I just…”?
“I should have called. I’m really sorry about that,” I interrupted, partlybecause I don’t think she really heard me when I told her so outside of Clary’s and partly because I didn’t want to hear her go on about her relationship with my brother anymore. Even though I was the idiot who asked in the first place.
“Saying sorry again, huh? But you should have, you’re right.” She leaned over the bar again, resting her chin on her hands. “But that’s in the past, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it now. What’s done is done.”?
Our eyes met again, and we held each other’s gaze for a few beats, silently sharing a conversation only we could hear. Regret and sorrow hung heavily between us.
And a tinge of forgiveness.?
She may not have wanted me to say that I was sorry a thousand times over, but I was. And she knew it. When you’d been friends with the same group of people your whole life, sometimes you didn’t have to say the big things over and over because you’d been there through everything. Through braces and puberty, through first kisses and fights. First loves, first breakups, and first heartbreaks. We’d done that all together. So, when you told someone you’d known your whole life that you were sorry, they knew when you meant it. And if they loved you, like they’d always loved you, they’d forgive you.?
The door to O’Malley’s burst open, pulling us both out of our trance, and Sutton strolled through with her arms full of my momma’s signature takeout containers.?
“Who’s hungry, bitches?”?
“Me. I am starving,” Ryan hiccupped, eyeing Sutton up and down as she placed the containers on the counter and dropped into the seat next to him, giving him a quick one-over.?
She leaned back in her chair and reached across Ryan to rub my back a bit. “It’s good to see you here.”?
Magnolia had gone to work fixing Sutton a drink, and we all dug into the leftovers.?
“Save some for me,” Charlie called out, coming from the back hallway that led to the apartment. He took the seat to my left and patted my shoulder.?
“Magnolia, I put an extra case of wine in the back hallway. It’s leftover from the party, and Jordan said you can just sell it off.”?
“Thanks,” she offered, but her voice held a soft, somber note.
Between bites and refills on our drinks, the four of us fell into an easy rhythm, the kind that only came from years of shared stories and memories. Charlie leaned back in his chair, shaking his head as Sutton launched into a tale that had Magnolia laughing so hard she had to wipe a tear from her cheek. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her like that—completely at ease, her laughter spilling out like she didn’t have a single care in the world.
The bar hummed with an energy I hadn’t felt in a long time, the kind that only came with being surrounded by people who knew every version of you and loved you anyway. The sound of their voices, the overlapping chatter, felt like stepping into a song I hadn’t heard in years but still knew all the words to.
Ryan, on the other hand, was trying his best to follow along, nodding too much and laughing a beat too late. It was clear he was out of his depth, and maybe a little too drunk to keep pace, but no one seemed to mind.
“Lee, why don’t we take him into Cole’s old room to lie down for a bit,” Maggie offered, coming around the front of the bar. “There’s a TV in there, and I just changed the sheets.”?
She pulled a key ring from her back pocket and padded down the hall as I helped Ryan off his barstool and across the room. Cole had added an extra bedroom for himself when Maggie and Charlie got a little too old for their bunk beds. Charlie took Cole’s old room, and Maggie had her own space as a teenager, something I took advantage of as much as I could.
I set Ryan down on the full-sized bed. “Bathroom’s over there,” I pointed, dragging a waste bucket across the room and placing it by the bed. “Just in case.”?
Ryan’s eyes had shut quickly, and Maggie and I both felt the electric charge of being together, somewhat alone, in a small, confined space.?
“Remember when you were going to turn this space into a green room?” I said, looking around. My eyes fell on a picture frame housing a snap of Magnolia and Charlie the year they moved to Savannah. Knobby knees, freckles, and wild curls covered both siblings.?
“I had big plans for this place. Turns out, I’m probably going to have to sell it.” She opened the door that led into Cole’s office, now belonging to her, and crossed the room to sit behind the big steel desk. She opened up the bottom drawer and took out a capped bottle of Maker’s Mark and two rocks glasses and poured us both a finger of the warm, amber liquid.?
“Sell it? Why would you do that?” I took the seat across from her and sipped slowly on my drink, keeping one eye on her. This was the first time all day that she looked relaxed around me.?
“Well, as you can see, it’s 10:30 on a Saturday night in Savannah, and there’s not a soul in sight that doesn’t belong to me personally. I mean, except for you and your friend.” She shrugged, pulling back on her own glass.?
I cracked a small, sideways smile. “I don’t belong to you, huh?”?
