There he was—my favorite person.
I stood, reaching for his arm and pulling him to his feet. “I can’t sit here and watch him spiral. I already feel like shit. And he’s really out there flailing, looking like a better Botoxed version of Momma.”
Dig raised his brows. “Tell me how you really feel.”
I let out a long breath. “Sorry. I’m just… tired. And I need to get my shit together. For me. For the baby. Not only because Doyle’s cleaning up after me again. And this time I can’t book some European photoshoot and forget that my family even exists.”
Dig looped his arm through mine as we headed toward the guestroom and the long, scorching shower I had been dreaming of for hours. “He’s still a control freak in linen pants. Some things never change. Try to remember that.”
“Fucker,” I muttered.
“Nowthat’sthe girl I dragged out of Brooklyn.”
***
Arm in arm, Dig and I wandered aimlessly through Savannah’s crooked cobblestone streets, the kind that made it impossible to walk in a straight line, like the city was gently nudgingyou to slow down and take notice. Gas lamps flickered to life above us as dusk stretched long over the moss-draped oaks, and everything—the light, the air, the way the magnolias clung sweetly to the breeze—felt a little too beautiful for how deeply unsettled I was.
We passed weathered brick buildings that leaned into each other like old friends, patios strung with fairy lights spilling warmth onto the sidewalks. Bars hummed with laughter and clinking glasses. Somewhere above, a woman’s voice carried on a balcony; somewhere else, a saxophone moaned down a side street, as if it had a story it couldn’t keep to itself.
Dig and I had an unofficial bar taxonomy. In New York, when we scraped together enough money from our dead-end jobs to feel flush, we wanted noise and neon—places where you could dance on sticky tables and drink an electric-blue cocktail without anyone judging you for it. On our rare confident days—when we remembered we were funny and smart and maybe even a little magnetic—we went for velvet booths and dirty martinis in sleek downtown places with real menus and tiny, expensive appetizers.
But tonight wasn’t for swagger or celebration. It wasn’t for glossy surfaces or dancing on tables.
Tonight was for four walls, low lights, and maybe a bartender old enough not to ask questions.
“I want something haunted,” I muttered. “Like… emotionally. Spiritually. Maybe even literally.”
Dig squeezed my arm. “This is Savannah, baby. Everything’s haunted.”
We turned a corner into one of the quieter squares, where ivy curled around cast-iron fences and Spanish moss dangled like the city’s own lazy sigh. The hush of it all pressed into me, gentle but insistent.
The more we walked, the more I didn’t hate the feeling.
“This place looks promising,” Dig said, eyeing the weathered sign swinging gently above us. “I can already feel the kind of charm that guarantees we’ll be the hottest bitches in the room. Mostly because the average age of the competition is… retirement-adjacent.”
I smirked. “Sixty is the new forty. Grey is the new bombshell.”
He gasped, clutching his imaginary pearls. “And I am the new Ethel Merman.”
I snorted, grabbing the warped mahogany handle. “Youwish, babe.”
The door stuck like it was clinging to its final shred of dignity. I gave it a tug, then another, before it finally gave in with a sticky groan and a sad, warped jingle of the overhead bell.
We stepped inside, blinking against the dimness and taking in the smell of lemon oil, old stories, and a little bit of beer that never fully left the floorboards. The bar stretched long along the right wall, polished to a low shine under golden sconces that looked like they’d been installed before electricity was a given. A scattering of small square tables filled the rest of the space, their mismatched chairs huddled close like old friends sharing secrets. Toward the front, a short, squat stage waited beneath a dusty spotlight—currently dark, but clearly well-loved.
Dig leaned in. “Okay… she’s giving haunted dive bar realness. I like her.”
And to my own surprise, I did too.
A television angled awkwardly toward the bar played a grainy episode of some kind of dating competition. Lots of tanned people shouting over champagne flutes and forced intimacy. Beneath it, rows of half-drained liquor bottles gleamed under a dusty strip of LED lighting, casting a low amber glow across the worn mahogany.
No bartender in sight.
“Maybe they’re closed,” Dig whispered, inching closer to me like the air had suddenly turned hostile and a ghost was going to come hurtling toward us with a drink menu in one hand and a machete in the other.
The silence closed in around us, thick and expectant. The air buzzed with that same itchy unease that came from stepping into a place that didn’t quite expect you. Like maybe we were intruding. Or worse, like the place was holding its breath, waiting to decide what kind of people we were.
“Can I help y’all?”
