Eunice sighed and reached back over the table. “Yes, Charlie. On her own.”
***
Later that night, despite the traitorous way it felt to be sitting on another worn barstool, elbows planted on a different slab of sticky, beer-slicked mahogany, I joined a few of my friends for a drink at The Irish Immigrant Pub. It was the first time the four of us—Jordan, Doyle, Sutton, and me—had all been together since the fire.
Magnolia, under the guise of reviewing insurance documents, had locked herself in my studio with a stack of paperwork and a white-knuckled grip on control. None of us had the heart—or maybe the guts—to stop her. Not yet. Because we all knew she needed to do this now. She needed to believe there was a plan,a next step. But soon, I’d have to intervene. Or would I? Eunice Wilder’s voice kept circling back:You can’t find your own way in this world, Charlie, if you keep focusing on clipping your sister’s wings.
Maybe I didn’t have to fix everything for Magnolia. Maybe, just maybe, I could trust that she’d find her own way through. And, especially what Eunice had brought to me earlier in the day, a secret I couldn’t reveal yet, she’d forge her way back to solid ground. But, she would have to do it on her own.
“What a dump,” Doyle muttered, squinting around the bar like he’d walked into a health hazard. “I’ve drank in some real shitholes, but this one has both characterandmildew.”
“Pretty sure the wallpaper’s just beer residue that evolved into its own ecosystem,” Sutton added, pulling her sweater tighter and making a face at the menu.
“It’s not O’Malley’s,” Jordan said under his breath.
That quiet landed like a stone in the middle of the table. We all looked down for a second too long.
“No,” I said. “It’s not. But it’s what we’ve got tonight.”
“On the plus side,” Doyle offered, lifting his glass and giving me a weary side-eye, “Charlie hasn’t punched anyone yet, so that’s something.”
“There’s still time,” I muttered loud enough to remind him that I hadn’t forgotten who drove his sister out of town.
“Can’t blame him,” Sutton said. “His whole life just caught fire. Literally. And he’s dealing with it by sitting here, drinking this—” she took a sip and grimaced, “—swamp water pretending to be a stout.”
We sat for a while, talking like people do when nothing’s normal but they desperately want it to be. Lee’s upcoming tour. Whether we should mark Magnolia’s would-be wedding date with an impromptu picnic or just take her the hell out of town to get away from it all. Planning the next art show atCheese,Please!. Sutton debating whether she should break up with Ryan for calling her his “main bitch” instead of his girlfriend.
“You know,” she said after a few more pints, loosening into her seat, “you and Tally never labeled it. You just… went off vibes.”
I scoffed into my beer. “Yeah. And look how that turned out.”
Doyle met my eyes over the table. A question hung there. Did he know? What happened between Tally and me was more than a fling? That I lay awake most nights, staring at the unfinished sketch of her by the river—the twin to the one I gave her on Christmas—forever incomplete, like the way she left me.
Sutton yawned four times in ten minutes before finally standing. “Time to go home to my super fun roommate, who’s definitely not listening to Lee’s latest single while plotting the total demise of this entire city.”
“Don’t forget your new pet,” I said, kissing her cheek. “Give my girl Picklea kiss for me.”
“She only likes you now because you saved her life. Give it time. She’ll be back to shredding your ankles and swatting at the back of your head.”
Jordan and Doyle exchanged a pointed look as Jordan pushed back his chair. “I should head out too. See you at home, love.” He kissed Doyle’s head, and before I could ask why they weren’t leaving together, Doyle waved toward the bar.
“One more round.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you really sticking around, or planning to Irish exit once the bartender stops making eye contact?”
“I’m not the one who ghosted on Christmas,” Doyle said, drumming his fingers on the rim of his glass. “But sure. Let’s pretendI’mthe flaky sibling.”
“That was low,” I said. “Even for you.”
We sat with that. The jukebox flipped to a slow and bluesy tune. The kind of song that makes you miss someone who’s notdead but might as well be—roughly 290 miles away. Not that I was counting.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at me. “For a lot of things.”
“I know.”
Silence passed between us like a puck sliding across ice. But it wasn’t awkward. It was too old friends trying to figure it out.
“Wanna go in on a soft pretzel?” Doyle asked, dead serious. “You look like you need the carbs.”
