“Let me know how that works out for you,” I muttered.
She scoffed. “Go be crabby somewhere else. I’ll see you later.”
“Hey!” I snapped, pulling back the phone and staring at the screen like it had personally offended me. “You called me.”
The call ended with Magnolia groaning as she hung up, but the restlessness didn’t leave. It settled in my chest, low and heavy.
Magnolia got to spin out. That was her role. Chaos. Sparks. Big leaps and bigger crashes. And mine? I was the net. The extinguisher. The one who swept up the broken glass after.
I used to think it made me useful. Lately, it made me tired.
It could’ve been watching Magnolia start to question her own path. Maybe it was Lee, sauntering back into town like time hadn’t laid a hand on him, stirring up every buried feeling in a ten-mile radius. Or maybe it was quieter than that. Deeper. The kind of shift you don’t see coming until you’re already standing somewhere different.
I’d spent my whole life making sure other people were okay. Making sure Magnolia didn’t lose the bar. Making sure she didn’t loseherself. Keeping the roof from caving in on what little we had left of our family.
I exhaled hard and rubbed the back of my neck.
No use thinking about it now. I had shit to do.
I grabbed the rag draped over my worktable and wiped down the chair leg I’d been sanding, sawdust clinging to my forearms, when the sound of footsteps echoed through the studio.
“Please tell me you have something cold to drink,” Sutton groaned, stepping inside like she’d crossed the Mojave. She dropped a tote bag onto the nearest stool and started fanning herself with a takeout menu. “I am dying.”
Sutton James had been around so long she felt like part of the furniture—loud, bossy furniture that constantly raided my fridge and never said thank you. She’d started as Magnolia’s best friend and, somewhere along the way, became the unofficial mayor of our friend group.
Lee trailed in behind her, shaking his head with a grin. “You live in Savannah, Sutton. It’s almost always hot.”
She shot him a look as she kicked off her sandals. “That doesn’t mean I have toenjoyit.”
I sighed and tossed Sutton a cold bottle of water from the mini-fridge in the corner. “What do you two want?”
“Rude,” she said, cracking it open. “Maybe we wanted to check in on our favorite neighborhood curmudgeon.”
I gave her a flat look. She grinned like she knew she hit a nerve.
Lee perched on a stool and glanced around the studio. “Doyle and Jordan been by?”
I shook my head. “Haven’t seen them since brunch the other day. What’s up?”
“I had some things I needed to run by them. Bar stuff,” he said with a shrug. “They’re probably tied up.”
Doyle and Jordan ranCheese, Please!, the wine bar next door to my studio. They owned the building too, which made them my landlords, my neighbors, and my friends—though lately they were leaning heavier on the landlord side, since my rent was behind. Again.
Sutton arched a brow over her water bottle. “Or they’re hiding from whatever fresh hell Magnolia’s about to unleash now that she’s got more money to play with.”
“Probably,” I muttered.
“Speaking of,” Lee said, turning to me, “Is Magnolia really okay? With me buying into O’Malley’s, I mean.”
Lee had come back from Nashville and decided to embark on a clumsy, second-chance mission to win Magnolia back by putting his Grammy earnings into our family’s bar. Part rescue mission, part steal his brother’s girlfriend back for himself.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “She says she is.”
Sutton snorted. “So that’s a no.”
I exhaled hard. “She’s got a lot going on. Keeping the bar afloat, figuring things out with Dane, trying to wrap her head around whatever business deal you’re working out. She’s thinking about the future for the first time in... ever.”
Lee nodded slowly. “And you?”
