I blinked up at the exposed beams overhead, willing the room to quit its carnival spin. My limbs were useless jelly, my stomach staging a full-blown mutiny, and the best I could manage was staying flat and not making things worse.
“Magnolia’s on her way,” Sutton said, dropping her phone beside me.
The studio door squealed open a moment later, like it was bracing for impact.
A woman strode in—tall, striking, with a sharp red bob that looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in days but still managed to fall into place like it had a stylist on retainer. Jeans, scuffed boots, a faded tee with some band logo I was definitely not cool enough to recognize. No heels, no frills—the kind of quiet confidence that saysI’ve seen worse and dealt with it before breakfast.
She hadn’t finished shutting the door before her eyes locked on the artist’s buddy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Lee,” she said. “I thought you went home.”
Lee straightened from his stool, lifting a hand in mock salute. “Nice to see you too, Magnolia. You’re glowing.”
“I’m sweating,” she deadpanned. “And if I’d knownyouwere part of whatever this is, I’d have taken a longer route.”
“Don’t lie. You missed me,” he said, grinning.
Magnolia crossed her arms. “I missed having peace and quiet in my city. That’s what I missed.”
“Still feisty as ever,” he said under his breath, then turned to the blonde next to him. “Didyoumiss me?”
Sutton didn’t look up from my wallet she had resumed rifling through. “I didn’t miss watching this exact conversation play out every single day of my life.”
Magnolia took one look at the room—at me sprawled on the worktable, at Nancy sniffing what I hoped was a rag pile, at the artist whose table I had apparently commandeered withmy entire body, now pacing like he wanted to burn the whole building down—and sighed like someone who’d walked into a party she had very much not RSVP’d for.
“Jesus,” she muttered, folding her arms across her chest. “We were trying to have one normal wine tasting, and now we’re one poodle and a public crisis deep. Another Tuesday in the ongoing saga of our deeply cursed family group chat.”
“She’s Doyle’s sister. Or, cousin. Or! Could be his mom? Doyle has great genes, I can tell,” Sutton said again. “Also, she yakked all over the sculpture the Black Widow commissioned.”
Magnolia tilted her head, staring at me with open curiosity. “Well. She doesn’t look dead. That’s promising.”
“You can only be a Black Widow if you kill your husband,” Lee muttered, eyes cutting toward Magnolia. “Black Widows don’t rack up failed marriages to men they shouldn’t have dated in the first place, even if theyareloaded.”
She ignored him completely, aside from a resigned sigh, and glanced over her shoulder. “Charlie, you want to explain why there’s a half-conscious woman on your worktable? Or are we collecting strays now?”
Charlie.So that was Not-a-Cop’s name. He didn’t say much, but his posture eased once he was close.
“She passed out,” he said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “She… folded. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Magnolia raised a brow. “Well, dragging her onto your work table like some kind of DIY Florence Nightingale situation isn’t exactly the standard protocol.”
“Didn’t see anyone else volunteering to do anything different,” Charlie muttered. The bite was there, but only on the surface.
“I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t trying to cause trouble,” I croaked, pushing myself upright. It clicked then, and the revelation did nothing to slow down my pounding pulse. These were my brother’s friends, weren’t they? “I didn’t know who you were.Any of you. Except Lee. I mean—” I looked over at him, blinking a few times as my brain caught up with everything else. “I recognize you. From your music. I lovedWalk Away Slow.”
The tension in the room bubbled, and no one looked directly at anyone else.
Lee, to his credit, grinned like I’d handed him a piece of birthday cake. “Well, thanks, darlin’. That one’s a favorite of mine, too.”
Magnolia muttered under her breath, too low for me to catch. Charlie stared down at the floorboards like they’d suddenly become fascinating. And Sutton? She tipped back against the worktable, arms crossed, her expression parked somewhere between unimpressed and mildly entertained—like she’d seen this show before and was curious how bad the ending would get.
“Okay, real question,” she said, her voice clipped. “Are you drunk? Are you high on drugs?”
“Sutton,” Lee said, shooting her a warning glance. “Jesus.”
She blinked, all wide-eyed innocence. “What? We were all thinking it. She was breaking into the shop, and now she can barely lift her head. I’m the one rude enough to say it out loud. Also, where are her shoes?”
Charlie sighed and tightened his jaw, fingers drumming against the edge of the table, the picture of someone trying to talk himself down.
