“She said so. This morning.”
Magnolia didn’t even look up from the glass of wine Sutton had handed her. “Sounds like she has one now.”
I pushed off the bar. “All right, I’m leaving. Can you two just, I don’t know, go upstairs and make your giant pitchers of margaritas while you pretend not to stalk people on Instagram and watch bad reality TV.”
Sutton grinned and raised her glass in mock salute. “Tell her hi from us. And good luck summoning spirits and pretending you’re not completely smitten.”
“Try and have fun, Charlie. Don’t ruin her night by being… yourself,” Magnolia called after me.
I stepped out the front door and made my way around the block and into the alley, and there she was—holding the leash, Nancy Reagan circling her ankles in distracted, wiry loops. Hercheeks were flushed from the cold or the anticipation or both, and the second she saw me, she grinned.
“Did you get approval from the board?” she asked, nodding toward the building.
“What do you mean, I was just making sure the place was empty,” I said, hiding the keys in my back pocket. “Do you want spooky or subtle?”
“Oh, spooky, obviously.”
I unlocked the service door, pretending like I was jimmying it open, and held it open for her.
She stopped in the doorway, lifted her chin. “Look who’s casually doing a B&E now.”
“What are you, a cop?”
***
I couldn’t tell if I was nervous because the last time I broke into a historic building I’d nearly shit my pants after being “attacked” by a cat tangled in a painter’s drape… or because I was standing alone in the dark with the girl I wanted more than anything in this world—and whatever comes after.
I led her over to the front table, the one closest to the stage, and hurried behind the bar to grab supplies, even though I had no idea what I needed.
“Salt?” I muttered under my breath.
“A Shirley Temple, please,” she said, sliding onto the barstool beside me. “No salt. But go heavy on the cherries.”
I gave her a look, but caught hers in return—wide-eyed and bright, her chin propped on one hand, legs swinging beneath her stool like she was waiting for a lollipop instead of a mocktail. It disarmed me, that mix of ease and sweetness, the way the moment hung between awkward flirting and what felt real. Wemust’ve looked ridiculous, both of us wearing crooked smiles, quietly stunned that we’d landed here together.
It had been years since anything had reached me like this. Years since I’d even let it. Yet here we were, sitting at an empty bar in the middle of the night, the air still carrying the tail end of a joke we hadn’t bothered to finish. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed this hard, or when a conversation had flowed so easily it didn’t need a reason to keep going.
Being around her made me feel like there was magic in the world again, the way you feel when you’re a little kid and the most wild, unimaginable things seem possible and real. I’d spent so long tightening every screw in my world, keeping everything locked down and predictable. But with her, I didn’t need the usual blueprint. Somehow, the chaos didn’t feel threatening. It felt like an invitation.
She didn’t quiet the noise in my head. She didn’t fix anything or play pretend. But she made it bearable to sit in the mess, to stop trying to fix it all for once, and just be. And in that stillness, I found the magic I hadn’t realized I was missing.
Not safety. Not order.
Her.
“You want to kiss me again, don’t you, Charlie Pruitt?”
Her voice was low and grainy, the lightness from earlier gone. What replaced it was hungrier. There was a pull in her eyes, slow and deliberate, the kind of gaze that didn’t ask for anything outright but left no room for confusion. She wasn’t teasing. She was daring me.
I slid the drink down the bar, watching her fingers curl around the glass. Then I vaulted the thick stretch of mahogany between us in one smooth motion. She barely had time to react before my hand found the back of her neck, the other threading through the ends of her hair. I tilted her chin toward me until our eyes locked.
“You tell me,” I murmured, voice rougher than I meant it to be. “Is that what you want?”
A sharp thud from the back of the bar made both of us flinch, and I loosened my grip, letting the strands of her hair slip from my fingers.
She smiled, slow and knowing, her palm gliding along the inside of my forearm before she hopped off the stool. Her gaze lingered a second longer, heavy with promise.
“Come on,” she said, backing toward the darkened corner of the bar. “Let’s go raise the dead.”
