I looked away first. I didn’t know who she’d been hoping for, but last night I’d shown her exactly who I was, even if that wasn’t the man I wanted to be.
I wiped the same stretch of bar three times, even though there wasn’t so much as a ring on it. My shoulders itched with the weight of Magnolia’s silence.
She didn’t say anything right away, which was worse than yelling. That meant she was working it up, letting it marinate. And sure enough, after a beat, she settled onto the stool behind me, that pointed quiet of hers like the cocking of a gun.
I heard the subtle clink of ice against glass—her cocktail, untouched since she’d mixed it. She exhaled, long and theatrical, like she was centering herself before she took aim.
“You wanna tell me what that was?” Magnolia’s twang was syrupy sweet, but there was enough bite in it to draw blood.
I didn’t turn around. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Charlie,” she said, drawing my name out like a warning. “You ran her off.”
“She didn’t exactly tiptoe in here with a warm plate of cookies,” I muttered. “Last night she’s jimmying the lock atCheese, Please!, then she keels over and has to be hauled off to the ER. Now she’s showing up like she’s been part of this circle all along. I’m just—” I finally faced Magnolia, hands spread. “I’m trying to figure her out. That’s all.”
Magnolia scoffed behind me. “So your instinct was to humiliate her? Classy.”
I finally turned around. She was already watching me like she knew every excuse I was about to offer and already didn’t buy a single one.
“Am I supposed to braid friendship bracelets with her?” I was getting worked up, but I didn’t back off. “You saw her. Did you see the way she looked at me? And clearly something’s up, or else Doyle, who I’ve known for ten years, would have introduced us to her right off the bat.”
Magnolia’s brow arched. “And that gives you permission to act like a jackass?”
“It gives me a reason to be cautious,” I said, my voice dropping. “You didn’t see her last night. She was out of it. Shaking. Barely conscious. And now she’s suddenly showing up here with some loud theater kid who keeps calling her his baby momma?”
“You mean Dig? The sweet one with the nice shoes and an alarming obsession with reality TV?” She shot me a look. “Yeah, really dangerous.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. She had a point, but I wasn’t ready to admit it.
She stood and walked past me, fingers trailing along the bartop. “Doyle’s the one who should be explaining things,” she said, her voice lower now, more tired than angry. “But until he does, maybe try not being the worst version of yourself just because someone walks through the door and doesn’t fit your idea of how things should go.”
She moved with an easy sway, the click of her boots echoing across the floorboards. The air still carried that familiar mix of citrus cleaner and old wood—stinging, grounding, unmistakably O’Malley’s.
Unmistakably Magnolia.
She was my anchor. The reason I showed up, stayed steady, kept my head down, and handled what needed handling. I was her keeper. Always had been. And getting pulled into someone else’s chaos, especially Tally’s, couldn’t happen.
Magnolia let the silence stretch, then added, “She’s a mess, Charlie. But so are the rest of us.”
“Heyo!” Lee’s voice landed loud and unapologetic as he swung through the back entrance, boots thudding across the floor. His guitar was strapped across his back, same as always, and he looked freshly showered, annoyingly energized, and like he hadn’t walked into the middle of a situation he was bound to make worse.
Magnolia didn’t respond; she gave me a pointed glance before turning her back to him and grabbing a rag off the counter.
Lee slowed, taking in the tension in the room. “Okay. What did I walk into?”
Sutton followed behind him, arms full of cooking magazines and a sweating iced coffee that was threatening to slip right out of her hand. She didn’t speak either; she looked at the three of us like she’d walked into the wrong room at a family reunion.
I didn’t offer an answer. I let everyone shuffle around and quietly hoped one of them would change the subject. Sutton usually had an unhinged tale to share from whatever event she’d catered that day. And Lee always had some story that spun way off course and took the attention with it. Or, if the universe felt like cutting me a break, he’d finally blurt out how he really felt about Magnolia, and they could spend the next hour arguing about whether she should marry him or his brother. Literally anything else. Anything but sitting there, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole.
Because the truth was, I’d been a dick. And worse, I didn’t even know what I was trying to prove. I saw her last night—barely upright, clearly terrified, holding it together by a thread. Then today, I treated her like she didn’t belong. Like I had some authority over who was allowed into this circle. I hated that. It didn’t feel like me. At least, I hoped it wasn’t.
Still, there was a pull to her I couldn’t shake. The way she looked at me was like she was bracing for impact, already convinced I wasn’t worth trusting, and I’d proven her right. Those eyes saw too much and gave nothing back. It bothered me. I didn’t know what she was searching for, but I knew I’d only made it harder for her to find it.
“Uh, hello?” Sutton waved a hand in front of my face. I blinked, realizing I’d been staring at the wall. “Are you brooding? Lee—he’s brooding.”
Magnolia didn’t even look up from the cooler she was restocking, but I caught the rise and fall of her shoulders in a quiet chuckle. “Oh, he’s broody and moody, all right. Scared off Doyle’s sister like she’d wandered into a damn ambush. She barely set foot in Savannah before he made her feel like a dog begging for scraps.”
Lee let out a low whistle. “Damn, man. That’s twice now. Are you planning on running off every woman who accidentally makes eye contact with you, or just the really cute ones?”
