Chapter Two
CHARLIE
Morning light streamed through the tall windows of my River Street studio, catching the dust in the air and throwing gold streaks across the floorboards.
I’d been up since before dawn, hands buried in the week’s haul of discarded treasures—a teak porch swing with a busted slat, a box of tarnished brass drawer pulls, a stack of vintage postcards someone had tossed behind the antique shop on Bull Street.
Other people’s junk. My livelihood. My comfort zone. The only religion that ever made sense to me.
Once the new finds were sorted into their usual pile of organized chaos, I spent the rest of the morning elbow-deep in salvaged wood and sweat.
Which, in my opinion, beat dealing with whatever fresh hell Magnolia was spinning up.
My sister had a way of turning everything into a melodrama, and I’d spent too many years trying to keep her from lighting it all on fire.
Figuratively. Mostly.
The rhythmic sanding of an old barstool helped drown out my thoughts, but not completely.
O’Malley’s, our family’s bar, was still standing, but barely.
Magnolia had been doing everything she could to keep the place afloat since she’d inherited it after our uncle died, but it wasn’t easy, not with the financial strain or the constant pressure of trying to make ends meet.
And certainly not with that look she got sometimes—the one that said she was holding it together by force, afraid she couldn’t do it on her own.
Her ex, Lee, returning to Savannah, had also stirred something in her.
And if I were being honest, it had stirred something in me, too.
He hadn’t been back long—long enough to throw our routines off balance, but not long enough for anyone to admit how much it mattered that he was finally home again.
Leland Wilder. Magnolia’s teenage heartbreak and my oldest friend. He was the reason I finally took that restless, half-formed part of myself that wanted to be an artist and turned it into whatever this career had become.
He was the first person who ever looked at my sketches and saw potential instead of pastime. Back when we were kids, digging through the junk piles his mom brought home from estate sales, he told me I had a rare eye. That turning trash into art wasn’t just a way to cope—it was a calling. A way out.
He’d left Savannah over ten years ago, chasing music and Grammys and the shiny new life you can only find when you leave the town you grew up in. Now he was back, acting like no time had passed and the wreckage he’d left behind had just... vanished.
It hadn’t. In fact, it had gotten a hell of a lot worse.
For the last decade, my life had been pretty damn simple: work hard, take care of the people I love, don’t let anything fall apart. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was steady. Predictable. I knew my role. I knew what was expected of me.
Since our Uncle Cole died, everything felt off—like a picture frame hanging crooked that I kept meaning to fix but never did. I kept thinking one day I’d wake up and things would feel right again. That day hadn’t come.
Magnolia’s name lit up my phone screen, cutting through the quiet.
Speaking of my crazy-ass sister.
I exhaled sharply and answered. “What’s up, Mags?”
“Am I making the right choice?” she asked, skipping the pleasantries entirely.
I paused, sanding block hovering over the chair leg. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
Magnolia let out an exasperated breath, and I could picture her now—pacing behind the bar at O’Malley’s, chewing on her thumbnail, pretending she wasn’t unraveling at the seams. “Dane,” she finally admitted. “All of it. The almost-engagement, the business, the way things are just… going.”
Ah. So we were there now.
I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure how to.
Her boyfriend, Dane, had nearly proposed a few weeks ago—even though neither of them was remotely ready for that kind of forever—and if that hadn’t been enough to rattle her, Lee showing up out of nowhere certainly had.
It got under her skin in a way I hadn’t seen in years.
The hesitation in her voice was new. I didn’t like it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, because I didn’t. “Do you love him?”
She stayed quiet on the other line for a beat. And the hesitation, however small, was enough. Because she didn’t know which “him” I was referring to—her boyfriend, or his brother who was back in town.
“You’re a real shithead sometimes, Charles Abner Pruitt.”
I smirked. “I try.”
She heaved out a tired sigh. “Maybe I’ll get some clarity today, and it will all click into place. I don’t know.”
“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 lose herself. 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 to enjoy it.”
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 ran Cheese, 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?”
“What about me?”
Sutton tilted her head, watching me too closely. “You know what’s weird? I’ve known you for, what, eighteen years? And I have no idea what you actually want. Like, for yourself.”
I tightened my grip on the sanding block. “I’m sanding these barstools for my baby sister and being the loyal, diligent big brother and best friend I always am. The rest doesn’t matter.”
Lee leaned back against the worktable, arms crossed, eyes steady. “It does, though.”
I gave them both a look. “I don’t need an intervention.”
Sutton smirked. “That’s exactly what people in need of interventions say.”
I groaned, dragging a hand through my hair. “Both of you—out.”
Lee grinned, holding up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. We’re just worried about you, brother, that’s all. Maybe it’s time you tried expending all this energy on yourself for once.”
Sutton hopped off the stool, stretching like a cat. “We’re going to the wine tasting next door tonight. Don’t be an old man. Come have a drink.”
I sighed, but didn’t argue. “Yeah, yeah.”
The door shrieked as it opened, then slammed shut behind them. Through the window, they ducked into the alley, likely taking the shortcut toward Bull Street to dodge the herd of tourists clogging up the riverfront.
Thirty-three years old, and what did I have to show for it? A stack of half-finished projects, a sister still pretending she didn’t need saving, and a front door that wailed like a beagle no matter how many times I fixed the damn thing.
Outside, clusters of ghost tour groups had already started to gather, their excited chatter floating in through my paint-streaked window. Savannah thrived on its haunted reputation—spirits in every historic home and moss-draped square.
But the real ghosts weren’t the ones in the tour guides’ scripts. They were the ones we carried inside. The might-have-beens and the what-ifs. The parents who never saw me graduate. The childhood that was cut short and rearranged.
And the whispers that had never quite left me: Be responsible now. Look after your sister. Be the man of the family.
I picked up a hammer, the weight of it familiar and grounding in my palm, and turned back to the barstool. Sometimes the only way to rebuild your life is to start with what was broken—what everyone else had tossed aside.
My friends were nosy. My sister was dramatic. My life was steady. Predictable. Routine.
So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that something was about to break?
I shook my head and grabbed my tools.
Didn’t matter. I had shit to do.