“I’m not drunk. Or high,” I said, quieter than I meant to. My pride bristled, even if she was entirely wrong about me. “It’s just heat exhaustion. Or dehydration. Or pregnancy. Take your pick.”
Sutton’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, good. An overachiever.”
“So why were you breaking into the shop?” Charlie asked, hovering over me.
“I just… I wanted to see what was so special about my brother’s friends that he wouldn’t let me meet them.”
Lee gave a low whistle, dragging a hand down his face. “Well. Tonight’s really going for gold.”
Magnolia snorted. “Y’all leave for ten minutes and come and adopt a human disaster. Impressive, even for you.”
“You want to get off the table?” she asked, nodding toward a nearby stool. “Or lie down again, if your dramatic flair hasn’t quite run its course.”
I managed a faint smile, grateful for the hint of kindness tucked beneath the sarcasm. “I think I’ll stay put, if that’s okay. Kind of afraid to test gravity again.”
As if summoned by sheer awkward energy, the studio door creaked open again—and this time, Doyle and Jordan came rushing in, talking over each other.
“Oh my god, Tally—”
“Sorry, we came as soon as—”
“—we thought you were just being—”
“—melodramatic,” Jordan finished helpfully, then winced. “But obviously this is… more than that.”
Doyle dropped to a crouch beside me, worry etched across his annoyingly symmetrical face. “Jesus, Tals. You good?”
“Not exactly the quiet entrance you had in mind for me,” I muttered, pressing my fingers to my temple. “Really killing it on the new-girl-in-town front.”
I looked up at Doyle, guilt threading through the nausea still curling in my stomach. He was here. He’d shown up. He was saying all the right things, doing the concerned brother routine like a pro. But I could see it. That look that saidyou promised you wouldn’t screw this up.
Charlie stood stiffly to the side, arms crossed. “She also passed out in the middle of the studio. Kind of a whole… production.”
“Thank you, Not-a-Cop,” I muttered under my breath.
Jordan straightened and scanned the room. “Wait—where’s Dane?”
A collective groan went around the room like a wave at a particularly tragic sporting event. Magnolia didn’t turn around as she muttered, “He sniffed the drama and decided it was bad for his image.”
Sutton gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Big surprise.”
But I caught the way Magnolia’s gaze cut to Lee, who didn’t say a word. He met her eyes like they’d said it all a long time ago. The smirk faded, replaced by an intimate softness I don’t think I was supposed to witness.
“Dane’s not really the ‘ride or die’ type,” Lee said eventually, voice casual but not unkind, eyes still locked on the redhead standing before him. “He’s Magnolia’s boyfriend, by the way. He’s also my golden-child older brother. Which basically makes him an expert at being in two places at once—everywhere but here, with his girl, like he should be.”
Magnolia’s lips twitched, but she didn’t say anything. Charlie shifted his weight, restless beside her, clearly itching to step in but not sure if it was his place. The mood in the room curdled, thick enough that even my brother flinched.
Doyle patted my leg twice, a little too forcefully. “Anyway! You’re awake, and that’s what matters. Let’s head upstairs, get you settled, and let the rest of these people salvage their evening. What do you say?”
There was a tightness in his tone I recognized immediately, the sound of him trying to be the responsible one, the one in control. But it felt different. Not like when we were younger, when the world felt like it might fall apart unless we held it together ourselves. This felt more practiced, like someone performing concern at the exact pitch they thought people needed to hear.
He sounded like our mother. Controlled and measured with enough warmth to disguise the edge beneath it. A shiver crawled down my spine, thorny and unwelcome.
I glanced at Jordan, who gave me a warm, apologetic smile and set a bottle of water on the table beside me. “Sorry again. We thought you were being dramatic.”
“I mean,” I said, wryly, “you weren’t entirely wrong.”
Jordan grinned and offered Nancy Reagan a pat. “Well, if she’s okay, that’s what really matters.”
