Untitled

Smoke left Aunt Cheryl’s without a second glance backwards.

The gravel crunched beneath the truck tires as he pulled onto the road, the familiar stretch of Mississippi highway unfolding beneath a sky slowly bleeding gold into orange. His knuckles ached every time he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, a steady reminder of the punch he’d thrown and the argument that had come before it. The pain should have made him feel foolish.

Instead, it mostly made him feel tired.

The entire afternoon weighed on him. Annie’s tears. Her yelling. The way she’d looked at him like he had personally ruined eight years of her life. How she stood in the middle of Aunt Cheryl’s yard and told him she’d spent all those years waiting for him to fight for her.

Then Stack’s voice showed up right behind the memory.

You punched him because she grabbed that suitcase again.

Smoke swore under his breath.

Unfortunately, his brother hadn’t stopped there.

The first person she reached for wasn’t you.

That part irritated him most because Stack had said it with the confidence of somebody who already knew the answer. Smoke had wanted to tell him he was wrong, and say Isoo got punched because he should’ve kept his fucking mouth shut. He wanted to tell him it had nothing to do with Annie. The problem was every time he replayed the moment in his head, he arrived at the same conclusion Stack already had.

The punch was never about Isoo.

His jaw tightened.

The road curved gently ahead. Smoke followed it automatically, barely paying attention to where he was going. He’d driven these roads his entire life. He could’ve found his way home blindfolded. His eyes drifted toward the passenger seat. The mixtape sat there. Quiet. Innocent. Like it hadn’t caused a damn thing. Annie’s handwriting stretched across the cover exactly the way it always had. Uneven in places. Slanted slightly to the right. Familiar enough that he recognized it before he’d even registered what he was holding.

Two weeks.

That’s what she said. Two weeks making the fucking thing. Choosing songs while thinking about him. The thought annoyed him, confused him. Then irritated him again because confusion felt entirely too close to hope.

His phone vibrated against the center console. Smoke glanced at the screen and sighed. He knew where this conversation was headed.

LEWIS JONES.

For a moment he considered letting it ring. Then he answered. “Uncle Lewis.”

“You done?”

The corner of Smoke’s mouth twitched despite himself. “Done what?”

“Actin’ stupid.”

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Small. Brief. Then it was gone. 

“Depends.”

“On?”

“How bad do his face look?”

The answer came without hesitation. “Bad enough.”

Smoke nodded once. “Aight.”

Silence stretched between them. One of the things Smoke appreciated most about Uncle Lewis was the man’s refusal to fill every empty space with noise. Most people got nervous when conversations slowed down. They rushed to fill the gaps with questions, opinions, or advice nobody asked for.

Lewis never did. 

The older man let the silence breathe before speaking again. “You know everybody saw through that shit, right?”

Smoke looked out the windshield. “Saw through what?”

“You ain’t punch that boy ‘cause he butted in.”

There it was. Smoke should’ve known. He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and watched a pair of headlights pass in the opposite direction.

“You ain’t even know that boy was there half the afternoon.”

Smoke huffed quietly. “That ain’t true.”

“Who you lyin’ to?” 

The question came so quickly Smoke almost laughed.

“You been mad for a long time.”

The words sank in a little deeper. Lewis wasn’t talking about the cookout anymore. Smoke knew it. Lewis knew it. Hell, everybody who loved him knew it.

The older man sighed softly through the phone. “You ever get tired?”

Smoke frowned. “Of what?”

“Being mad.”

The question caught him off guard, because it wasn’t complicated. For a while all he heard was the hum of tires against pavement and the low growl of the engine beneath him. Eventually he shrugged. “I guess.”

Lewis made a low sound. The kind that meant he wasn’t buying the answer. “You know how many arguments me and Cheryl survived because one of us was too stubborn to shut up?”

A smile tugged briefly at Smoke’s mouth. “Too many.”

“Exactly.” A pause followed. Then Lewis added quietly, “You know how many we survived because one of us was too stubborn to talk?”

The smile disappeared. Smoke’s eyes turned to the passenger seat again. To the mixtape and Annie’s handwriting. He looked back at the road. Neither man spoke. The silence stretched longer this time. Thoughtful and heavy at the same time.

“You know what I keep thinkin’ about?” Lewis asked eventually.

Smoke already knew. Still— “No, sir?”

“That girl flew all the way back to Mississippi.”

Smoke swallowed.

Lewis continued. “Three states.”

The truck rolled forward through the fading evening light.

“Three states and two weeks makin’ some CD.”

Smoke let the words sit with him.

“You think folks do that for somebody they don’t love?”

The question sat heavy between them. The answer coming fast. No. Of course not. But saying it out loud felt dangerous somehow. So he didn’t.

Lewis didn’t push either. He never had to, but he still continued— “You ain’t gotta forgive her tonight.”

Smoke stared ahead.

“You ain’t gotta fix everything tonight either.”

The road stretched empty before him. Fields on one side. Trees on the other. Home getting closer with every mile.

“But don’t spend another eight years punishin’ yourself.”

Something about the way Lewis said it made Smoke’s chest tighten unexpectedly. Yourself. The distinction mattered more than Smoke wanted to admit. Because if he was honest, truly honest, the years hadn’t only hurt Annie. They’d hurt him too. More than he’d ever admit.

The truck grew quiet again. The sky darkened another shade.

Eventually Lewis cleared his throat. “You headed home?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good.”

Smoke waited.

Lewis chuckled. “Go home.”

“That’s yo’ advice?”

“Yep.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “You called me for that?”

Uncle Lewis chuckled. “I taught you construction. Might as well teach you common sense too.”

Despite himself, Smoke laughed. “Yes sir.”

The word left before he thought about it. A habit nearly as old as he was. For a minute he considered ending the call. Instead, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. 

“Thank you.”

The line went quiet. Then Lewis answered simply. “Welcome, son.”

There was a tightening in Smoke’s chest. It wasn’t that Uncle Lewis had never called him ”son” before. He had. A handful of times over the years. Usually when Smoke showed up to help with a project around the house or worked alongside him on a jobsite. Small moments. Easy moments. The kind that never seemed important until later. But hearing it now felt different. Maybe because there hadn’t been many men in Smoke’s life who earned the right to say it.

His father certainly hadn’t. Most of Smoke’s memories of his own father involved whiskey on his breath, anger in his voice, and the sound of boots crossing a porch that made two little boys tense before he even opened the door.

Uncle Lewis had been the opposite. Patient where his father had been cruel. Steady where his father had been unpredictable. The man who taught him how to frame a wall, read a tape measure, show up on time, and finish what he started. Uncle Lewis handed him his first construction job and expected him to work for every dollar of it. He was who Smoke thought about whenever people talked about good fathers.

His throat felt tight suddenly. “Yes sir,” he said again.

For a while neither of them spoke. Then, like always, Lewis broke the tension before it could become something either of them had to acknowledge.

“Get home safe.”

“I will.”

“And Smoke?”

“Yeah?”

Uncle Lewis paused. “Listen to that damn CD.”

The line went dead before Smoke could answer. For the rest of the drive, Uncle Lewis’s words followed him home. Not about Isoo or even the part about Annie. It was Uncle Lewis’ question that stayed with him.

You ever get tired?

At the time Smoke had brushed it off. Gave him a half-answer and kept driving. But the farther he got from Uncle Lewis and Aunt Cheryl’s house, the harder it became to ignore. Somewhere between North Carolina and Mississippi, between missed calls and unanswered letters, pride and hurt and eight years of silence, carrying it all had become exhausting.

And for the first time, Smoke found himself wondering what it might feel like to finally put some of it down.

By the time Smoke pulled into his driveway, the anger had given way to something heavier than it had been when he left the cookout. It still sat in his chest, still burned every time he replayed parts of the afternoon, but it no longer felt sharp. Sharp things cut quickly. This felt more like a weight. Something dense and stubborn that had followed him all the way across town and climbed into the truck beside him.

The engine idled for a moment after he parked. Smoke rested both hands on the steering wheel and stared through the windshield at the dark outline of his house. Usually coming home felt like relief. Quiet. Predictable. A place where nobody needed anything from him for a few hours. Tonight it felt different. Maybe because he knew exactly what was waiting on the passenger seat. And Stack’s voice had still managed to survive the entire drive.

You punched him because she grabbed that suitcase again.

Smoke exhaled slowly through his nose.

The worst part wasn’t that Stack had said it. The worst part was that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He replayed the argument, Annie calling for Isoo, and the look on her face when she said she wanted to leave. He still arrived at the same conclusion. The punch hadn’t been about Isoo. It hadn’t even been about whatever smart ass shit came out of Isoo’s mouth. It had been about Annie reaching for somebody else when everything inside him had been screaming for her to stop running to any and everything, but him.

Eventually he killed the engine and climbed out. The house was quiet when he stepped inside. Not peaceful, quiet. Empty quiet. The kind that made every creak of the floorboards sound louder than it actually was. Uncle Lewis and Aunt Cheryl’s house had always been full. Full of people, conversations, and yelling from one room to another. Even when nobody was talking, there was always the feeling that somebody might start. Smoke’s place wasn’t like that. Most days he preferred it. Tonight it gave him too much room to think.

The mixtape landed on the kitchen counter while he headed for the refrigerator. He opened the door and stared inside, as though something useful might appear if he gave it enough time. A container of leftovers sat on the top shelf beside eggs, sandwich meat, and vegetables he’d bought because he told himself he was going to start eating cleaner. None of it looked particularly appealing. Smoke shut the refrigerator and got pissed all over again.

Aunt Cheryl had probably made enough food to feed half the county. There had been ribs, potato salad, baked beans and rolls. Even Pearline’s nasty ass Mac and cheese was there. And at least five desserts. Normally he’d have left carrying enough leftovers to survive the next several days. Instead he’d left carrying a bruised hand and a damn mixtape.

“Ain’t even get to bring no fuckin’ plate home.”

The complaint sounded stupid the second it left his mouth. Unfortunately, that didn’t make it less true.

For half a second he considered getting back his truck, driving to Aunt Cheryl’s, and fixing himself a plate like a grown man with priorities. Then he pictured Annie sitting in that house, Stack there with a stupid ass look on his face, and Aunt Cheryl looking at him like she had a sermon ready.

Hell nah.

A little while later he found himself standing over the stove making a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. The entire situation felt ridiculous. He’d spent the afternoon arguing with Annie, punching Isoo, getting lectured by Stack, and receiving life advice from Uncle Lewis, only to end the night standing in his kitchen cooking like a man who hadn’t just had his entire emotional foundation kicked in. The sandwich wasn’t terrible. It also wasn’t Aunt Cheryl’s ribs.

Smoke ate anyway.

Afterward he grabbed a beer, stared at it for a second, then put it back. The whiskey seemed like a better idea. He poured himself a glass and carried it into the living room. A few minutes later, he looked down and found it untouched. His attention kept drifting back to the kitchen counter. To the mixtape. That pissed him off too.

At some point he found himself wiping down countertops that weren’t dirty. Then reorganizing a drawer that hadn’t bothered him in months. Then checking laundry that didn’t need checking. 

The thought arrived slowly enough to make him feel stupid. He was avoiding the mixtape. A grown ass nigga avoiding a CD. Worse, Annie would probably find it hilarious. That thought alone nearly made him put the fuckin’ thing in the CD player just out of spite.

Instead he took a shower.

The hot water should’ve helped. Usually it did. Construction work had a way of settling into muscles and joints. A shower could wash away most of a hard day. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough hot water in Mississippi to wash away Annie. She showed up anyway—crying, yelling, and saying she’d waited. 

And she called him Elijah. 

That always stayed with him. Most people call him Smoke now. Some folks probably forgot Elijah existed. The nickname had become easier over the years. Simpler. Safer. Smoke belonged to everybody. Smoke was the man people expected him to be.

Elijah belonged to Annie. 

Always had.

After the shower, Smoke dried off and pulled on a pair of sweatpants before catching sight of his hand in the bathroom mirror. The knuckles looked worse now than they had at Aunt Cheryl’s. Adrenaline had carried him through the drive home, but it wasn’t doing him any favors anymore. Swelling had already begun to set across the back of his hand, and purple bruising was working its way beneath the skin.

“Shit.”

He flexed his fingers once and instantly regretted it. The punch felt good for about three seconds. Now it just hurt like hell.

Smoke dug through the bathroom cabinet until he found peroxide and a box of bandages his mom had practically forced him to buy after splitting his hand open at a construction site a few months earlier. At the time she’d fussed at him for nearly twenty minutes about keeping basic first-aid supplies in the house. Standing here now, pouring peroxide across busted knuckles, he hated admitting she might’ve had a point. A few minutes later he found himself sitting on the edge of the bathtub while the antiseptic fizzed against broken skin. The sting should have kept his attention. Instead, his mind wandered right back where it had been all evening.

Annie.

It seemed like no matter what he was doing, every road eventually led back to her. The tears. The yelling. The way she’d looked at him in the middle of the yard. Then, inevitably, his thoughts landed on the part he hated most.

Isoo.

The punch? Nah. Not even the argument that led to said punch. It was the moment before it. The moment Annie grabbed that suitcase and looked past him. Smoke lowered his head and rubbed a hand across his jaw. By the time he’d wrapped the worst of the damage and tossed the used bandages into the trash, he was in a perpetual state of irritation. Because Stack had been right. And so was Uncle Lewis.

A cigarette seemed like a logical next step. Then whiskey. Then sitting on the back porch convincing himself he wasn’t thinking about the mixtape while doing exactly that.

The Mississippi night wrapped around him warm and familiar. Crickets chirped somewhere beyond the fence. A dog barked in the distance. His neighbor several houses over was playing music low enough that only the bass reached him. Smoke sat there until his cigarette burned almost to the filter and the whiskey glass sat empty beside him.

Eventually he ran out of things to do. He’d exhausted every distraction available.

The house felt different when he walked back inside. It was later now and the whiskey had finally done its job. But now there was no avoiding the fact that Annie’s mixtape was still sitting exactly where he’d left it. Waiting. Patient in the way Annie never was. Smoke shook his head and picked it up off the counter. The plastic case felt surprisingly light in his hands. His thumb brushed across the writing on the cover before he could stop himself.

For Elijah.

Never Smoke.

The version of him she always seemed able to find no matter how deeply he buried it. For a moment he simply stood there staring at the words. Then Uncle Lewis’s voice echoed in his head.

Listen to the damn CD.

Smoke sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah.”

He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was answering Uncle Lewis or Annie.

Maybe both.

The disc disappeared into the stereo. Smoke stood there with one hand resting on the shelf beside it, seriously considering taking it back out. The thought lasted right up until he remembered the few hours of his evening had been spent avoiding it.

Enough was enough. He pressed play and static crackled softly through the speakers.

Then Annie’s voice filled the room. “Elijah, if you’re listenin’ to this, it means you finally stopped bein’ hardheaded.”

Smoke froze. All he could do was stare at the stereo. Then Annie laughed. Not a big laugh or one of the loud ones that made everybody else join in. This was smaller, the one that usually appeared when she thought she’d gotten away with something. Her voice came through the speakers again, pleased with herself.

“Good.”

A click followed.

Seconds later the opening notes of Can We Talk came through the living room.

Smoke closed his eyes and laughed despite himself. “Oh, she got jokes.”

The song continued playing.

Track 1: Can We Talk

The opening notes of Can We Talk filled the room as Smoke leaned back into the couch. At first he listened the way most people listened to old songs. Half paying attention. Half letting familiarity do the work. The melody was recognizable, pulling up memories he hadn’t thought about in years. He could already hear Annie laughing at herself for choosing it. Shit, he was laughing too. Of all the songs she could’ve started with, she picked the one that practically came with a flashing sign attached to it.

The thing was though, the joke stopped being funny about halfway through. The song didn’t change, but he did.

The longer he listened, the harder it became to separate the music from the message underneath it. Annie had never been the type to do anything halfway when she cared. If she baked a cake, she spent three days finding the right recipe. If she bought somebody a gift, she’d somehow remember a throwaway comment they made six months earlier and build the entire thing around it. Every meaningful thing Annie had ever done came with intention attached to it. Looking back, maybe that was why the last eight years had hurt so much. Neither of them had ever stopped caring enough to become indifferent. 

They’d simply found different ways to carry the hurt.

Smoke clenched his jaw until the muscle ticked, then leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The whiskey sat forgotten on the coffee table. At some point he’d stopped drinking it. He wasn’t sure when. His attention had been entirely on the stereo, which was annoying because it meant Annie had managed to hijack his evening without even being in the room.

A bitter laugh escaped him. That sounded about right.

The song continued playing, and with every passing minute Smoke found himself thinking less about the argument at the cookout and more about the years before it. Not the breakup or the misunderstandings. The good parts. 

Annie stretched across his couch with textbooks scattered around her. Annie stealing fries off his plate after claiming she wasn’t hungry. Her singing along to songs she only knew half the words to and making up the rest with complete confidence. There had been a time when talking to her felt as natural as breathing. Somewhere along the way they’d lost that. Or maybe they hadn’t lost it at all. Maybe they’d simply buried it beneath years of pride, hurt, and assumptions until neither of them remembered where it was.

By the time the song ended, Smoke hadn’t moved in several minutes. The room felt quieter afterward, though that probably had more to do with the absence of Annie’s chosen soundtrack than actual silence. He sat there waiting without meaning to. Waiting for the next song and for whatever she’d decided came next, because curiosity had quietly replaced resistance along the way.

Annie’s voice returned before the next track started. Something in his chest tightened. It wasn’t the recording itself. It was how normal she sounded. She wasn’t crying, there wasn’t any anger in it or heartbreak.

Just Annie.

There was amusement in her voice before she even spoke, the same amusement she’d carried since she was fourteen years old and entirely too pleased with herself. “Before you start rollin’ your eyes, yes, I know that one was obvious.”

Smoke shook his head and rolled his eyes despite himself. 

There she was. 

Since she’d stepped back into Mississippi, he wasn’t thinking about the woman standing in Aunt Cheryl’s yard with tears streaming down her face. He was hearing the girl he’d fallen in love with. The girl who always had something to say, and who could make him laugh when he was trying his hardest not to.

Annie laughed softly on the recording. “If I gotta suffer through eight years of your stubbornness, you can survive one Tevin Campbell song.”

The smile lingered longer this time. She wasn’t wrong, because she’d always known exactly which nerve to touch. Or maybe hearing her like this reminded him of something he’d forgotten. The Annie sitting safely inside this recording wasn’t trying to win an argument. She wasn’t defending herself and not asking him to choose between his version of the past and hers. She was simply trying to talk to him. Really talk to him. And judging by the fact that he was sitting alone in his living room listening this closely, it was working. 

The knowledge came over him slowly as Annie exhaled on the recording and fell quiet for a moment. She hadn’t made him a playlist. She’d built him a conversation.

And Smoke was finally listening.

Track 2: Truth Is

The silence that followed Annie’s recording didn’t last long. A few seconds later another song began to play.

Smoke recognized Fantasia instantly. That alone made him sit back. Annie had always loved Fantasia. Not casually either. That girl treated Fantasia songs like scripture. Back in high school, he’d spent an entire semester listening to Annie defend her against people who insisted she sang too many sad songs. Annie always disagreed.

“They ain’t sad,” she’d argued one afternoon from the passenger seat of his car. “People just don’t like the truth.”

At the time he’d rolled his eyes and told her she sounded fifty years old. At sixteen, he’d thought she was being dramatic. At twenty-six, he wasn’t so sure.

The song continued playing while Smoke leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. At some point he’d stopped treating the mixtape like background noise. His attention remained fixed on every word, every transition, every choice she’d made. Annie had spent two weeks putting this thing together. Two weeks deciding what came first and what came next. Nothing about that sounded accidental.

Which meant Truth Is was here for a reason. The message wasn’t difficult to understand.

The truth is. Three simple words. Words capable of ruining an otherwise peaceful evening.

Smoke closed his eyes.

The memory arrived before he could stop it.

It was years ago. Long enough that he couldn’t remember the exact date anymore. Stack had talked him into going out after work. A restaurant on the other side of town. Some female Stack was messing with at the time had a cousin or a friend she insisted would be perfect for him. Smoke remembered almost none of the details now. Not her name, what she ordered, or what they talked about.

He only remembered the feeling.

The woman was beautiful. Smart too, and easy enough to talk to. The conversation never stalled. She asked questions and listened to the answers. By every measurable standard, the night should’ve been a success. Stack certainly thought it was. The first thing out of his mouth the next day had been, “So when you seein’ her again?”

Smoke remembered shrugging. Remembered saying, “I don’t know.” At the time he’d blamed work, timing, then the fact that he wasn’t looking for anything serious. The same excuse he’d been feeding everybody for years. Listening to Fantasia now, he found himself wondering if that had ever really been true, because the part he remembered most wasn’t the woman.

It was the moment she’d laughed.

For one brief second she’d tilted her head back and smiled, and before he could stop himself he’d thought about Annie. The thought had simply appeared. 

Uninvited and Automatic.

Annie would’ve laughed louder. Annie would’ve made fun of him afterward. Annie would’ve stolen something off his plate and then argued about why it didn’t count as stealing.

The comparison lasted all of three seconds. The date never stood a chance after that.

Smoke rubbed a hand across his mouth.

The song continued. Another memory surfaced. Then another. Different women. Different years. Different cities. Every single one ending exactly the same way. Nothing wrong with them. Nothing he could point to and say that’s why this didn’t work. Just a persistent feeling that something wasn’t there.

Or maybe somebody.

The thought crept up on him so gradually he almost missed it. For years he’d told himself Annie was the exception. The first love. The one that got away. The person everybody compared others to for a little while before eventually moving on. The problem was “a little while” wasn’t supposed to last eight years. “A little while” wasn’t supposed to survive multiple relationships, birthdays, holidays, and entire stages of life. “A little while” wasn’t supposed to follow somebody into adulthood.

Yet Annie had.

The song was still playing when Smoke lowered his head and stared at the floor. Across the room, the stereo glowed softly in the darkness. The house felt smaller now. Quieter. Like Annie was sitting somewhere nearby saying all the things neither of them had been brave enough to say before.

Truth is.

The words echoed through his head. Not the lyrics—the title. The confession hidden inside it, because the longer he listened, the harder it became to ignore the possibility that Annie wasn’t the only person this song belonged to. Maybe that was why it bothered him. Why he hadn’t reached for the whiskey in nearly twenty minutes, because for the first time all night, the mixtape wasn’t asking him to think about Annie.

It was forcing him to think about himself and that was a much harder conversation.

Track 3: Garden (Say It Like Dat)

The transition into the next song happened so smooth Smoke almost missed it. Almost. SZA’s voice eased through the speakers, and he understood Annie wasn’t done telling the truth.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Of course she picked this one. Of all the songs on the radio, Annie had always gravitated toward the ones that sounded like confessions. Songs that peeled back ugly feelings people normally tried to hide. Songs that admitted things most folks would’ve rather kept to themselves.

Garden was one of those songs.

Smoke reclined a little further into the couch. Outside, the Mississippi night continued without him. Crickets. Distant traffic. The dog was still barking. The sounds filtered through the screened window above the sink, familiar enough to disappear into the background. His attention remained fixed on the stereo. On what Annie was trying to say. At first he thought the song was about vulnerability. It was about fear.

There was a difference.

What it meant became clear slowly. The way most important things did. Piece by piece. Memory by memory.

Smoke found himself thinking about a night during their sophomore year. Football practice had run late, leaving him sore, exhausted, and running almost entirely on instinct by the time he finally met Annie outside the library. She’d talked nearly the whole walk home, telling him about a history article she’d read, Pearline getting written up in chemistry for arguing with the teacher, and some recipe she'd seen on a cooking show that she was convinced she could make better.

Smoke had listened the way he usually did after practice. One-word answers. A nod here. A quiet laugh there. Enough to let her know he was listening. Or at least he’d thought so.

Along the walk Annie got quiet. He barely noticed at first. She always had something to say. The silence felt strange enough that he eventually looked over at her.

“You alright?”

She shrugged.“Mhm.”

“You sure?”

“I’m fine.”

Smoke frowned. He knew better. Annie wasn’t the type to stop talking unless something was bothering her. 

He tried again. “What happened?”

“Nothin’.”

The answer annoyed him instantly because it was obvious she was lying. They went back and forth for nearly twenty minutes, Annie insisting she was fine while Smoke insisted she wasn’t, until she finally stopped walking altogether. He’d taken another few steps before he looked over. She wasn’t beside him anymore. When he turned around, Annie was standing in the middle of the sidewalk staring at the ground.

“You still like me?”

The question caught him so off guard that he laughed. It wasn’t that it was funny, it didn’t make any sense to him.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Where’d that come from?”

She shrugged again, refusing to look at him. “I don’t know.”

Smoke walked back toward her. “Annie.” “You serious?”

Another shrug.

He remembered reaching out and tipping her chin up until she finally looked at him. “Of course I still like you.”

“You do?”

“Man, what…” He laughed again, shaking his head. “I thought that was obvious.”

She searched his face for another second before finally smiling, small and almost embarrassed. “Okay.”

Then, just like that, she started walking again.

At sixteen, Smoke thought that had settled it.

He’d chalked the whole conversation up to Annie overthinking things the way Annie sometimes did. He never stopped to ask what had made her question it in the first place. Didn’t consider that spending one evening distracted by football and fatigue had been enough to make her wonder if she’d done something wrong. Sitting in his living room now, listening to a woman who had flown across state lines carrying a mixtape and eight years’ worth of unresolved feelings, Smoke felt that memory differently. Back then he’d blamed Annie’s insecurities. Now he wondered if he’d been looking at them wrong the entire time.

Maybe Annie wasn’t asking because she doubted him. Maybe she was asking because she needed to hear it. Needed confirmation, reassurance, and needed something he wasn’t particularly good at giving. Now, he wondered how many times she’d needed words and never gotten them. Because if there was one thing Annie had been asking for their entire relationship, it wasn’t grand gestures, gifts or promises.

It was words.

And words had always been the thing Smoke struggled with most.

Track 4: Damage

The next song started before Smoke could talk himself into getting another drink. He recognized the voice. But the artist? No idea. Couldn’t have told anybody if they paid him. But he’d heard the song plenty of times on the radio. At the time, he’d never paid much attention to it. 

Now he did.

That seemed to be happening a lot tonight.

By the second verse, Smoke was on his feet. He didn’t mean to stand. He just found himself moving. Restless. The same way he’d been restless beneath the pecan tree earlier. The way he’d been restless sitting on the porch pretending he wasn’t thinking about Annie while thinking about nothing else. He crossed into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, one hand rubbing absently across his jaw.

The song continued—and unfortunately, so did his memory. 

Standing in Aunt Cheryl’s yard crying.

“I came to yo’ house so excited to see you.”

The words hit differently now than they had a few hours ago. At the time he’d been too busy defending himself to really hear them.

Now he couldn’t stop hearing them.

“You acted like you couldn’t wait for me to get the fuck outta Mississippi.”

Smoke closed his eyes, because that wasn’t what happened. He knew that. Annie knew that now too. At least part of it. But knowing she misunderstood him didn’t erase the hurt she’d carried all these years. For years he’d been focused on the fact that Annie left. Focused on the unanswered phone calls, unreturned letters… silence. The feeling of being abandoned. He’d spent so much time staring at his own wound that he’d never stopped to consider hers. Didn’t stop to think about what it must’ve felt like walking out of his house that day believing she was saying goodbye to somebody she loved.

Believing he didn’t care.

Smoke exhaled slowly and looked down at his bandaged hand. The irony wasn’t lost on him. All afternoon he’d accused Annie of running, but the more he thought about it, the less that word fit. Annie hadn’t run from hard things. She stayed through grief, through loneliness. Shit, she’d spent seven years carrying around his mixtape.

Seven years. 

Through college. Through apartments. Through every version of herself she’d become since leaving Mississippi. She’d been too afraid to listen to it. Too afraid it would confirm the thing she’d feared most. That he’d already said goodbye. Yet she kept it anyway. Like some part of her couldn’t bear to hear him let her go, but couldn’t bring herself to let him go either.

That wasn’t somebody running. That was somebody hurting. The thought lingered long after the song ended. Smoke found himself looking at the damage between them and recognizing something he’d spent almost a decade avoiding.

Not all of it belonged to Annie.

Some of it belonged to him too.

That—that left him restless.

Smoke pushed himself away from the kitchen counter and crossed the living room without thinking. He grabbed his cigarettes off the end table, slipped through the back door, and stepped onto the porch. The night air met him immediately, thick with humidity and the familiar chorus of crickets beyond the fence. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the porch railing, hoping the nicotine would quiet the thoughts Annie had spent the last four songs stirring up.

Track 5: Say Yes

By the time Smoke came back inside, the cigarette had done absolutely nothing to help. The night had grown later while he stood on the porch. The sounds of the neighborhood had thinned considerably. The dog that had been barking earlier was finally quiet. The bass from music farther out disappeared. Even the crickets seemed softer now.

The house felt still when he stepped back through the door. Still and entirely too empty. Smoke shut the door behind him and stood there for a moment, looking towards the stereo. Part of him considered calling it a night. 

The smarter part. 

The part that understood Annie had already managed to drag him through memories he’d spent years avoiding. Unfortunately, the smarter part hadn’t been winning much tonight. A few minutes later he crossed the room and sat back down. He pressed play on the stereo remote. The stereo clicked. Then Annie’s voice returned. For a moment she didn’t say anything. Smoke could hear movement in the background. Paper rustling. A quiet breath. 

When she finally spoke, her voice sounded different. Softer. “You know what’s really embarrassing?” 

A soft laugh escaped her. Smoke could hear the smile in it, because sometimes Annie laughed when she was nervous.

“I almost didn’t put this song on here.” A pause followed. “Actually, that’s a lie.” Another small laugh. “I knew I was gonna put it on here. I just kept trying to talk myself out of it.”

Smoke’s attention shifted completely on the stereo. Her voice sounded less playful. More exposed.

“I think what bothers me most is that I know better.” The words came quietly. “I know people probably gonna hear this and think I lost my mind.” Another pause. “Maybe I have.”

Smoke dragged a hand over his chin.

“I called you.” The words landed softly. “I tried to talk to you.” A longer pause. “And you made it real clear that whatever we used to be ain’t what we are now….”

Smoke closed his eyes.

“Maybe that’s true.” Her voice dropped. “There really is no us anymore.” 

The sentence sat between them.  Heavy. Honest.

“But…” A breath. “If somebody asked me today.” Another breath. “Knowing all that.” 

The next words came without hesitation.

“I’d still choose you.”

Smoke stared at the floor.

“I’d still say yes.”

The click sounded. Then the song began. Smoke closed his eyes. For a long moment he didn’t move. Didn’t think. He didn’t do much of anything except listen. The music filled the room, wrapping around everything Annie had just admitted.

I’d still choose you.

The words lingered because they carried a weight he wasn’t prepared for. Yet here Annie was. Still choosing him.

The thought followed him into memories of her. 

Annie asleep on his shoulder during a movie she’d sworn she wanted to watch. The way she’d automatically reach for his hand whenever they crossed a crowded room. How she’d laugh when something genuinely caught her off guard. How she’d curl her feet beneath her whenever she sat on the couch. 

The way she’d say his name.

After she gave herself to him that first time, it was like a dam broke. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Every stolen moment, every quiet hour they managed to find, he wanted her again and again—wanted to feel the way her body softened and fit against his, the way her breath would catch as she cried out his name while her fingers would dig into his back like she was trying to keep him there forever. He had never known hunger like that. He couldn’t get enough of her skin, her scent, her warmth, or the quiet sounds she made when it was just the two of them and the rest of the world disappeared.

Smoke rubbed a hand across his jaw. 

That was the part nobody ever talked about. It wasn’t just the attraction or the chemistry. It was the familiarity. The comfort. The ease of being understood without having to explain himself. Even as kids, Annie had a way of making his world feel quieter simply by being in it.

His mind went there anyway. Annie now. Grown ass woman. Hips thicker, body filled out in all the right ways. She had that steady confidence in her voice on the tape now, even with the tiredness underneath. He wondered how it would feel to take his time peeling her out of her clothes, no more rushed teenage shit. Slow. Thorough. Learning every new inch of her.

He could picture it— her looking up at him without that old nervousness, hands sure as hell when she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down. The way she’d probably arch into him, legs around his waist, knowing exactly how she wanted it. Deep strokes. Heavy breathing. The kind of sex that came with history and hunger and the quiet understanding that they’d already lost too much time.

There had only ever been one person for him. The only person who felt woven into the fabric of his life so completely that imagining a future without her felt unnatural. The only person who understood his silences without demanding explanations, and who could sit beside him for hours without needing to fill every quiet moment. Somehow, she had always managed to make a room feel less empty simply by existing inside it.

Smoke let out a slow breath, trying to shake the image.

It wasn’t just about sex. It never had been.

Annie.

The name moved through him quietly.

The song continued playing. Smoke lowered his head and stared at his hands. One knuckle was still swollen beneath the bandage. His skin still carried the faint scent of cigarette smoke.

The house remained empty. Yet for the first time all night it didn’t feel quite as lonely. Maybe because Annie’s voice still lingered in the room. Or maybe because she’d just admitted something he’d spent trying not to admit himself.

Given the chance, he’d still choose her too.

He’d say yes.

Track 6: Made For Me

The last song ended, but Smoke didn’t reach for the remote. He remained where he was, forearms resting on his thighs, staring at nothing in particular, letting the last few minutes sink in. The house had gone completely quiet again. The clock above the stove ticked steadily behind him. The ice in his abandoned whiskey glass had melted into cloudy water. Outside, the darkness pressed against the windows.

It was late.

Later than he’d thought. The mixtape had stolen most of his night. The thought should’ve made him mad. Instead, he found himself reaching for the remote before he could talk himself out of it.

The stereo hummed softly.

Then Annie laughed.

The sound caught him off guard. It wasn’t loud, but it was familiar. The kind of laugh that always sounded like she was smiling at her own thoughts.

“You know what annoys me…again?”

Smoke shook his head. Despite everything, the corner of his mouth twitched. Annie had been starting conversations that way for most of her life. “You know what annoys me?” usually meant Annie was about to say something she’d spent entirely too much time thinking about.

“I spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with me.”

The smile disappeared. His attention fully on the stereo.

“I thought maybe I was comparing everybody to some impossible version of you that didn’t even exist anymore.”

Something tightened in his chest. Her words didn’t surprise him. The older he got, the harder it became to ignore how often he’d done the same thing.

The recording continued.

“But the older I got…” Her voice softened. “The more I realized there wasn’t nothin’ wrong with me.”

The room seemed to grow quieter.

“I was just lookin’ for you.”

The click sounded. Then the song began. Smoke leaned back slowly against the couch. For a long moment he didn’t do much of anything except listen. The song floated through the room while his attention slipped somewhere he usually tried not to let it go.

Years. Entire years. Twenty-six wasn’t old. At least that was what everybody kept saying. Yet somehow adulthood had arrived anyway. Careers. Responsibilities. Bills. Funerals. Relationships. Life kept moving whether you were ready for it or not. That was the strange part. Somewhere inside all those years, Smoke had convinced himself he’d eventually wake up one day and Annie would stop being the standard. The way people claimed first loves were supposed to fade. Time, distance, and life were supposed to handle it. 

Instead, life kept handing him reminders. Jada had been a good woman. She was funny. Easy to talk to. Pretty. He enjoyed being around her, and for a while he’d convinced himself that was enough.

So he tried. 

He tried to ignore the feeling that something wasn’t quite clicking. Tried to believe that whatever he’d shared with Annie belonged to another lifetime, another version of himself that had long since grown up and moved on. But every time he started thinking maybe this could work, something held him back.

It wasn’t anything Jada did. That was the problem. She’d done nothing wrong. Yet every goodbye came too easily. A few days could pass without seeing her and it never really bothered him. When she left, he missed her company, but never her presence.

Annie was different. She could leave a room and somehow take the room with her. Annie wasn’t perfect. Lord knew she wasn’t. She overthought things. Jumped to conclusions. Held onto hurt longer than she should’ve, and when she got angry enough, she could say things sharp enough to leave scars. Yet somehow none of that changed the fact that she’d always felt right.

Right.

Such a simple word. But it explained more than all the others combined. 

Annie fit.

It wasn’t that loving her had been easy. Quite the opposite. There had been moments when loving Annie felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done. But even then, she still felt right. Like the missing piece of a conversation he’d been having his entire life. Like somebody he’d been searching for long before he knew enough to search.

The song continued. Smoke lowered his gaze toward the floor. For years he’d told himself he was protecting his peace. Protecting his heart and himself from disappointment.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe he’d simply been protecting a place nobody else had ever managed to reach. A place Annie had occupied so completely that every attempt to replace her had failed before it truly began. The thought should’ve bothered him.

Instead, it felt suspiciously close to relief.

For years he’d told himself there had to be a reason nobody else ever felt right. There had to be a reason he kept comparing Jada and other women to somebody who lived three states away. A reason eight years had passed and Anissa Marie Landry still occupied more space in his head than she had any right to.

It wasn’t because something was wrong with him. He wasn’t stuck, he didn’t believe. He'd simply spent years looking for something he’d already found once. 

Annie was right. Maybe she had just been looking for him. And maybe he’d been looking for her too.

The thought lingered. Then, before he could stop it, another one followed.

Maybe she was made for him too.

Not maybe.

She was.

Track 7: Thinking Out Loud

The track began so quietly Smoke almost missed it.

For a second he simply sat there, one arm stretched across the back of the couch, eyes half-lidded from exhaustion and whiskey and the emotional beating Annie had spent the last several hours delivering through a collection of songs. The house had gone quiet around him hours ago. The kitchen clock ticked steadily somewhere behind him. Outside, the night pressed against the windows in a blanket of darkness broken only by the occasional passing headlights.

Then the opening notes drifted through the speakers. Smoke’s eyes opened completely. Recognition arrived immediately. Not because he remembered the title. Shit, if somebody had asked him what the song was called, he probably couldn’t have answered. But he knew the song. More importantly, he knew exactly where he knew it from.

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Man.”

The word escaped quietly into the empty house.

Out of every song Annie could’ve chosen, somehow she’d found this one.

The memory came so fast it almost felt like being pulled backward through time. One minute he was twenty-six years old sitting in the middle of his living room. The next he was fourteen years old standing inside Rollers Skating Rink with rented skates laced too tight around his ankles and half the church youth group packed inside.

The place smelled like floor wax, popcorn, sweat, and stale nacho cheese. Colored lights swept across the rink while music echoed through speakers that had probably been outdated before any of them were born. Every few minutes, somebody crashed into somebody else, and laughter erupted from somewhere across the building.

Smoke had spent most of the evening regretting coming. Skating wasn’t his thing. If he’d had his way, he’d be sitting at home. But his mama informed him that sitting in the house all weekend wasn’t a personality trait and practically shoved him out the door. Stack had spent the entire ride there acting like the church had personally organized the event for his entertainment.

Unfortunately, the night had gone exactly the way Stack wanted. He was in his element. He was showing off and making a fucking fool of himself while a cluster of girls laughed at everything he said. Every time Smoke looked up, Stack was somehow at the center of another conversation.

Smoke had no interest in any of that. He’d been perfectly content skating slow laps around the edge of the rink and counting down the minutes until their mama decided they’d stayed long enough.

Then the youth pastor announced a partner challenge.

Looking back now, he couldn’t remember what the challenge actually was. He couldn’t tell you the rules, the prize, or whether anybody even won. What he remembered was standing near the wall when the youth leader started pairing people together and noticing there weren’t enough partners left.

The youth leader barely finished explaining the challenge before everybody started scrambling for partners. Stack wasted no time, calling dibs on a girl before half the room even understood the rules. Across the rink, Pearline laughed as one of the girls from church grabbed her arm and claimed her for their team. Within seconds everybody seemed to have found somebody. 

Everybody except Smoke and Annie. 

Smoke noticed it at the exact same time Annie did. Her eyes met his briefly before darting away.

Neither moved.

The youth leader looked between them and laughed. “Boom, there you go.”

Annie dropped her gaze to her skates. Smoke rolled his eyes.

The youth leader sighed dramatically. “Y’all act like I told you to get married.”

That only made things worse. 

A few minutes later they found themselves skating side by side. The awkwardness lasting all of ten minutes. Annie talked too much for awkwardness to survive around her. Every time the conversation threatened to die, she dragged it back to life with another question. Another observation. Another completely random thought that somehow made perfect sense inside her head. By the third lap she’d gotten him talking. By the fourth they were arguing about music. By the fifth Smoke found himself looking forward to whatever ridiculous thing was about to come out of her mouth next.

The crazy part was that Annie wasn’t even trying. She wasn’t flirting, showing off, or doing any of the things girls usually did when they wanted his attention. She was simply being herself. At one point she started skating backwards while carrying on an entire conversation.

Smoke stared at her. “You gon’ break yo’ neck.”

“I’m fine.”

“You ain’t even lookin’.”

“I know where I’m goin’.”

“Do you?”

Annie laughed. The sound followed him halfway around the rink. 

The music changed a few minutes later.

Smoke didn’t think much of it at first. Songs had been rotating all night. Some people cheered when they recognized one. Others groaned dramatically before continuing whatever conversation they were already having. The speakers crackled slightly as the next track started, and for a second nobody paid much attention.

Then Annie gasped. The sound caught his attention.

“Oh, I love this song.”

Smoke glanced toward the ceiling speakers before looking back at her. “Nah.”

Annie blinked. “Nah what?”

“I ain’t skatin’ to this.”

Her expression shifted instantly. Confusion first. Then suspicion. “Why?”

Smoke pointed vaguely toward the music overhead. “Cause this some white people shit.”

She shot him such an offended look that he almost laughed.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“If you actually listened to the words, they’re beautiful.”

Smoke snorted. “Aight.”

“No. Not aight.” Annie folded her arms.

The movement nearly threw her off balance and she corrected herself with an irritated little skate adjustment that only made her look more annoyed.

“Sorry, this ain’t Lil Wayne. 

Now it was Smoke’s turn to be offended. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Weezy F. Baby, girl.”

“Of course you’d say that. Every song can’t be about sex, selling drugs and threatening people, you know.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

“There is when it’s all you listen to.”

“It ain’t all I listen to.”

“Sure it ain’t.”

The argument continued for another lap around the rink before Annie finally threw her hands into the air.

“You know what? Forget it.”

Smoke didn’t like that tone. “What?”

“I’m done arguing with you.” Then she pointed toward the center of the floor where couples were beginning to gather. “I’m gonna skate by myself.”

The words shouldn’t have mattered. Looking back now, Smoke knew that. She wasn’t leaving, going home, or disappearing. She was moving maybe twenty feet away. Yet something unpleasant sat low in his stomach anyway.

Annie started pushing off before he could fully understand why.

For the first time all evening, the thought of her not being beside him felt wrong. The thought arrived quietly. So quietly that fourteen-year-old Smoke almost missed it. Somewhere over the last hour he’d gotten used to her. The questions, her laughter and used to looking over and finding her beside him. The idea of spending the rest of the night without any of that suddenly felt far less appealing than it should have.

“Annie.”

She stopped and turned. “What?”

Smoke regretted speaking, because now he had to explain himself. His ears felt warm.

“I mean…”

Annie waited. One eyebrow slowly rising.

“If you wanna skate…”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “You wanna skate to the white people  music?”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “Man, shut up.”

Annie laughed. “No, answer the question.”

The smile she was trying to hide made it difficult to stay annoyed.

Smoke shook his head. Then finally looked at her. “I wanna skate… with you.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. Before he could make them sound cooler, or could pretend they meant something else.

For a moment Annie just stared at him. She wasn’t laughing or teasing him. Just looking. Then something flickered in her expression. Surprise. The honest kind. Then, slowly, she smiled. The smile was different from the others she’d given him all night. Smaller…softer. Like she’d suddenly become aware of something she couldn’t quite name.

Without saying another word, she held out her hand. Smoke looked at it for half a second before taking it. Her fingers were warm.

That was all.

Nothing dramatic happened. The lights didn’t get brighter. The music didn’t swell. Nobody stopped skating. The world continued exactly as it had thirty seconds earlier. Yet Smoke became painfully aware of the fact that he was holding Annie’s hand. The awareness followed him straight into the slow skate.

Around them, teenagers paired off beneath the colored lights while the song echoed through the speakers. Some couples talked. Others didn’t. A few boys looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.

Annie looked delighted. She quietly sang along to parts of the song under her breath, mouthing words she clearly knew by heart. Smoke pretended not to notice. He noticed. Every single time.

“See?” she asked after a minute.

Smoke frowned. “See what?”

“The lyrics.”

He groaned. “Oh Lord.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“They aight.”

Annie gasped dramatically. “‘Aight’?”

“They ain’t Lil Wayne.”

That earned another laugh. The sound landed deep in his chest.

The song continued. The conversation flowed. At some point Annie stopped trying to convince him the song was amazing and started talking about something else entirely. A teacher she didn’t like. A test she thought she’d failed. Pearline threatening to fight somebody earlier that week.

Smoke couldn’t remember most of it anymore. What he remembered was how easy it felt. The strange comfort of it. The way an hour had somehow turned into two without him noticing. How being around Annie required less effort than being around almost anybody else.

That was the part that stayed.

Her.

The way her eyes lit up when she talked about something she cared about. How she laughed with her whole body, and she always looked directly at whoever she was speaking to. The way she made ordinary things feel interesting simply because she was the one talking about them. And somewhere along the way, he found himself wishing the night wouldn’t end. The thought surprised him enough that he almost looked around to make sure nobody had heard it. When the song finally faded and another one took its place, Annie released his hand and skated ahead a few feet before turning back toward him.

“You survived.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “Barely.”

Annie laughed again, then she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “C’mon.”

Before he could ask where they were going, she pulled him towards the middle of the rink.

To this day, Smoke couldn’t even remember what they were supposed to be doing the rest of the night. But he remembered everything about Annie that night. Her laughing, singing along to a song he’d spent years pretending he hated. Annie grabbing his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

And maybe that was the night it started.

A week later he would be standing in a crowded school parking lot listening to Jada talking about something, when Stack yelled from across the pavement.

He’d turned automatically. Not towards Stack—

Towards Annie.

She stood near the curb laughing with Pearline, her backpack hanging from one shoulder. The sight of her found its place in his chest with the same ease it had at Rollers. Familiar. Comfortable. Natural.

Annie looked up. Their eyes met. Surprise crossed her face first. Then a smile. Small and quick before it disappeared again.

Smoke looked away before she did, but the feeling stayed.

Looking back now, Smoke he’d spent years mistaking the feeling for coincidence. The parking lot after school. Football games on Friday nights. Church on Sundays. Cookouts at Aunt Cheryl’s house. Hallways crowded with students rushing to class. 

Somehow his eyes always found Annie.

At the time, he never questioned it. Annie had simply become part of the landscape of his life. As familiar as Stack, his Mama, and Uncle Lewis. As familiar as home. If he arrived somewhere and she was there, his attention naturally went her way sooner or later. If she wasn’t there, he noticed that too.

Back then he thought it meant nothing.

Now he knew better.

A fourteen-year-old boy standing beneath colored lights at a skating rink had looked at a shy girl with a quick smile and a laugh he couldn’t seem to get enough of. Somewhere between arguing about music, holding her hand, and wishing the song would last a little longer had quietly taken root inside him.

It wasn’t love—yet. Just the first fragile beginnings of it. The kind of feeling that grows so slowly you don’t notice it’s happening until years later, when you look up and find it’s woven itself through nearly every important memory you have.

Smoke leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. A fourteen-year-old boy had taken Annie Landry’s hand and thought the night was better when she was in it.

And whether he’d understood it or not, he’d been looking for her ever since.

Sometime during the night, Smoke fell asleep. He wasn’t entirely sure when it happened. One minute he had been lying on the couch staring at the ceiling while Thinking Out Loud drifted through the speakers. The next he was fourteen again, with Annie’s hand in his and her laughter ringing through the air. Even asleep, the memory lingered.

The sound of music pulled him back toward consciousness.

Slowly.

Reluctantly.

Smoke frowned before he even opened his eyes. Sunlight pressed against his eyelids. His neck ached from sleeping on the couch. One arm had gone numb during the night and the stiffness in his shoulders reminded him that thirty-minute naps and sleeping in an actual bed were two very different things.

Music continued as he laid there listening without really hearing it. His mind was still caught somewhere between sleep and memory. Then different lyrics rolled through the room and his eyes finally opened.

My face turns to gold

Hoping to find my way home

This place I don't know

No yellow brick road to follow

The living room looked different in daylight. The whiskey glass still sat on the coffee table. His bandaged hand rested against his stomach. The CD case remained exactly where he’d left it the night before. Smoke pushed himself upright and rubbed a hand across his face.

The song continued. Unfamiliar to him. At least he thought it was. Frowning, he looked toward his phone. It was lying face up on the coffee table with the screen illuminated.

Spotify.

The CD must’ve ended hours ago. At some point the stereo had switched back to the playlist he’d been listening to earlier while he spent half the evening finding excuses not to press play.

Mmm, take me home, let’s make love, real love

Take me home, let's make real love, real love

Take me home, let's make real love, real love

Take me out of the blue

Smoke glanced at the screen.

Green Papaya — Lianne La Havas

The title meant nothing to him. Still, he found himself listening to the words. Really listening.

Our hearts overgrown

Longing for peace of our own

Found heaven in you

Promise to be pure and true

The house remained quiet except for the music and the occasional creak of old wood settling beneath the morning heat. Sunlight spilled through the windows, painting bright rectangles across the floor while the song floated through the room with an easy warmth that reminded him entirely too much of Annie.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop listening.

Still mountains to climb

We will survive, still got time

Or maybe everything reminded him of Annie now.

The thought would’ve pissed him off yesterday. This morning it felt suspiciously close to acceptance.

Smoke leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The lyrics continued, soft and thoughtful and intimate in a way that felt less like a performance and more like a conversation. Not a desperate one.

Just someone who knew another person completely.

My partner-in-crime

Hoping you'll love me till we die

The kind of knowing that couldn’t be built overnight— that came from years. The kind that came from paying attention.

And suddenly he thought about Annie knowing he hated tomatoes, but loved tomato sandwiches. How he ate slowly, always taking twice as long as everybody else to finish a meal. How, when he was angry, she never pushed him to talk. She’d simply sit beside him in comfortable silence because she knew her presence mattered more than her words. She remembered the houses he used to draw in the margins of his notebooks. She knew he always reached for the corner piece of cornbread. She could tell when he was lying before he’d even finished the sentence.

She knew him. 

The truth quietly fell into place. Even after everything that had happened, and the years between them, Annie still knew him. His gaze went towards the CD case again. Towards the careful handwriting on the front—to the evidence of an entire night spent listening to a woman explain herself in every way she knew how.

Something shifted. Not another revelation. Those had come all night long. A decision. Clear, certain and simple. Smoke stood so quickly he nearly knocked the coffee table with his knee.

He needed to see her, not call or text. See her. 

Today. 

Now. 

Before fear had another chance to talk and pride convinced him to stay home. Before he could come up with a single excuse not to go. The urgency surprised him. One minute he was sitting on the couch and the next he was looking for his keys. 

The kitchen counter. Nothing. Coffee table. Nothing. End table. Nope…not there either.

Smoke frowned. “Where the fuck…”

He checked the kitchen again. Then checked the coffee table again. Then stopped. The keys were already in his hand. For a moment he simply stared at them. Annoyed. Half awake. Entirely too tired to be trusted.

A laugh escaped him. His shirt was still missing. He was standing in the middle of his house wearing nothing but sweatpants and determination.

He didn’t care.

For the first time in years, he knew exactly what he wanted. And for once, he intended to do something about it.

Then came the knock. Three soft taps against the front door. Smoke froze, he thought he’d imagined it. Then the sound came again. Softer this time. His heart kicked hard against his ribs. Because somehow he already knew. The distance between the living room and the front door had never felt longer. He crossed it anyway. Slowly at first. Then faster. His hand closed around the knob. For one brief second he simply stood there. Then he opened the door—

And there she was.

Morning sunlight spilled across the porch behind her. She stood there with her braids pulled into a high ponytail and a pale yellow dress that made it entirely too easy to stare. The color shouldn’t have done anything for him. It was just yellow. Yet somehow it made her look more beautiful against her smooth chocolate skin. Brighter. Like she’d carried a piece of the morning with her. 

Her hands were clasped loosely in front of her, fingers lacing and unlacing together while uncertainty flickered across her face. It had been a long time since he’d seen Annie look this nervous around him. Then again, maybe she wasn’t nervous around him. Maybe she was nervous about what came next.

Neither spoke. They simply stared at each other. Two people who had spent eight years carrying the same thing in different ways.

Then Annie swallowed. A small smile appeared.

“Hi.”

Smoke forgot every single thing he’d planned to say.

End Note: Y'all know Smoke is about to fuck Annie into a coma, right? Right. K, byeeee! ✌🏾💜

Tag List:

Looking down at his brother’s arms, he could see remnants of the burns healing up; skin a little pink with a few burnt patches that have a grey color to it like ash.  

He feels different, though. 

While he was seeing his wife with their daughter, he felt so tired. A tiredness he hadn’t felt before. Even when he and Elias were in the war, he got shot in his shoulder. Yesterday he was tired after the long drive from Chicago back to the delta, but it wasn’t the same tiredness he felt he fell after lighting his last cigarette.  

Now he’s never felt more awake in his whole life. Could hear the bugs outside even with the door closed. There was an ache in his stomach. He was hungry. Looking in the face again and reading the anxiety in his eyes as he looked away, not being able to hold eye contact with Elijah. His posture was stiff. His brother was scared. 

Elijah felt like he knew why. 

“What- what happened after you brought me back in?” 

“I-ugh I did what I had to do Smoke...”  

He reached up to his neck and felt what he knew was already there. The skin was broken badly. Pulling his hand back, it was covered in blood. Stack seeing him do with this and sitting in silence he starts to panic a bit. 

“Y-You were almost g-gone, and I had to do something.  I couldn’t let you just rot out there with them! I promise I didn’t wanna turn you! But I- “ 

“You couldn’t let me do one selfish thing.” 

That pauses Elias’s frantic explanation. Finally deciding to look into his older twin's eyes, he was expecting anger, rage, disgust, but all he saw was sadness and disappointment. 

“Lijah- “ 

“YOU TAKE MY WIFE FROM ME AND YOU COULDN’T LET ME HAVE ONE THING!” The sadness in his eyes finally turned into anger. Tears gleaming in his eyes. 

“I just wanted to be with my wife, my baby….”  

All Elias could do was stare at his other half. That guilt that he felt after he drank from his brother was roaring its ugly head. All the time that he and Elijah got into it and then were cool the next day, there were too many to count; they were brothers. But this was different; it wasn’t gonna take a night's sleep to fix what he’s done.

After what felt like forever of silence, Elias swallowed and got up from his kneeled position and looked around the barn seeing all the blood and the bodies left behind after the fight. Looking at his sister in laws body. He felt sick. Can vampires throw up? Mouth was filling up with saliva. 

“Soon as the sun goes down, we can bury her. She deserves a proper burial.”  

“Maybe we can take the car up to the cabin and put her next to Liza?” 

Silence  

“Okay, well when you feel like talking again, I’m gonna find something we can wrap her in.” Walking towards her body. 

“You ain’t touching her you already did enough.” Finally released from the spell that kept him on the floor, he gets up.  

“We can use that cloth you used to come get me and put her on the back of the truck. I let Sammie take the car because I didn’t think I would be needing it.” He finished 

It took some time to wrap her up in the cloth. Elijah did it all himself, even when his hands were shaking, even with him on the verge of a panic attack, he wouldn’t let Elias help wrap her. The only time he allowed him to touch her was when they put her on the truck, and after they got to the cabin and dug up a grave next to their Babygirl.   

After putting the last shovel of dirt on her grave, Stack finally said what they both were thinking. 

“We can’t stay here.”  

“Maybe we can head North get to New York maybe?” 

“I’m not going to New York.” 

“Okay so much south? -“ 

“I’m not going with ya.” Elijah looked at his brother after leaving that out there.  

“I know I fucked up big time. “  

“Big time doesn’t even cover what you fucking did. You killed your sister in law then you fucking but me so I would be like you.  

That's not even covering the fact that you helped that white devil hurt all of us.” 

“You think I really wanted to hurt y’all? Smoke I wasn’t in my right mind, we all shared one brain almost. All I knew was that I needed my brother and I was gonna follow Remmick. 

He was spewing all that bullshit about how we could all be happy together, do all the things we want and not have to think about potentially being killed. With the few thoughts I had for myself, I thought that I wanted that for all four of us not thinking about what would come with it. 

I didn’t know she wanted you to...” 

“I need you, my brother I can’t do this without ya.” 

Stack words slowly were opening Smoke up to the thought of them leaving together. Until that last line. 

“I’m tired Stack. I can’t be around you comfortably at the moment.” With the look on his face, Stack knew he wasn’t changing his brother’s mind in the moment.  

 “Okay. How about we go back to the mil and pick one of those cars Hogwood and his boys left, and we separate from there.” 

“Okay.” 

2023 - night 

It’s 8:30 pm 

James should have been here 40 minutes ago. Anita just wanted one night with her Fiancé. He had been working overtime on a few cases lately. Missing people over the last couple of months, he thinks they are all connected.  

While she’s happy he’s working hard to figure out who this serial killer is. He’s been spending less and less time at home, more time at the office. All the times in the last few month she planned dates she planned only to be ditched or get him coming in late with the same response 

“I’m so sorry baby I found a possible lead in the case and I forgot.” 

James wasn’t a horrible man; it’s just that it seems sometimes his career matters more than hers a lot of the time. After finally telling him how she felt, he decided he was going to plan the date. He told her to meet him at this place called Liza’s, and said it’s a restaurant that opened a little bit ago.  

They were supposed to meet at 7:50. 

With a sigh, she got up and went to the bathroom. The whole restaurant seemed like it was designed with a vintage theme with a modern touch.   

As she’s washing her hands, a woman leaves the bathroom stall and starts to wash her hands next to her.  

As soon as Anita looks up to check her makeup after washing her hands, she sees the woman staring at her. It wasn’t just a brief look; it was the lady staring directly at her. Noticing Anita, seeing her stare at her face shifts to a smile. 

“I’m so sorry, staring at you like that is so rude.” The lady says with her hands up with a laugh. 

This settles the tension. 

“Oh no, it’s fine, girl.” With a wave and shake of the hand, Anita walks to the paper towels to wipe her hands. 

“You’re r so gorgeous.” 

“Thank you!” 

“I’m sorry again for staring you just look like this girl I used to be friends with back in middle school.”  

“Really?”  

“Yeah! Where are you from?” 

“Clarksdale.” 

“Oh my god, is your last name Baptiste?” 

Anita was slowly starting to recognize the dark skin woman in front of her. 

“Angie?” 

“Anita!” She was pulled into a strong hug. For a girl smaller than her when it comes to size, she sure does have a lot of strength in her hug. 

“How have you been?  I thought your family moved to New York, if I’m remembering correctly?” 

“I've been good! Moving back to Mississippi after my granny passed away. My momma decided to head back to New York, so I’m down here with my Fiancé. 

How are you? It’s been so long!” Angie pulls back and holds her hands as she responds. 

“I’ve been good, I'm supposed to be on a date here with my husband, but he hasn’t shown up yet.” 

“Well, until he gets here, how about you and me get a drink from the bar?” 

Anita felt her guard completely down. She started to feel more and more comfortable with Angie after that. She and Angie started to hang out more and more. She would come over after Anita finished teaching on Fridays, and they would drink wine and watch movies. 

It was nice to finally have a friend she felt she could talk to about everything. She was tired of her other friends and her momma telling her, ‘He’s a good man, just give him sometimes.’ Every time she brought up her issues with James. Angie just listened. 

One Friday night, Angie wanted to do something different. 

“Let’s go out!” She gleamed  

“And go where?” Anita chuckled before taking a sip of her wine.  

“My friend, I met when I was still living in New York, just came out here and opened a new lounge with his brother. He’s been telling me I should stop by.”  

“Girl what would I even wear that closet is full button ups and slacks.”  

“I’m sure we can find something! Anita, babe, you have been going to work and coming home for months. Just because your husband doesn’t wanna go out and have fun, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”  

“...okay...” 

“Okay?!” 

“Okay! Let’s go out.” 

So apparently, she did have stuff in her closet. Angie found an old black dress that stopped at her knees and paired it with tights and black heeled boots. Topping it with the midnight blue leather jacket her mom had gotten her after she graduated with her doctorate.  

As they got out of the Uber in front of the lounge, the sign lit up in the front in red letters that said ‘JUKE’.  

Angie led them to the front of the line waiting to get in. She gave the security a nod, and they were let in. 

The place was lit in dim lighting with lights from the stage where the live performers would be.  The band was getting ready for the performer coming up, so music from the speakers was playing smooth Jazz at the moment.  

“Let’s get you a drink!” 

She got them both a cranberry vodka. After the second drink, they danced a bit when Beyoncé came on the speaker.  But then I walked back to the bar to get another drink.  

For the first time in a while, Anita was having fun.  

“Girl I’m finna go use the bathroom really quick.” 

“Oh, do you want me to come?” She says she's getting up. 

“No! Relax. Sip your drink, have fun! I won’t take more than 5. Promise.” Before Anita could rebut, Angie had walked away. 

With a sigh, she sat back down and sipped her new drink. She decided to check her message, hoping she would get a text from James asking where she was. I mean, it is 10 pm now. 

Nothing. 

Why does she even still hope he will check in? 

After realizing it’s definitely been more than five minutes, she decides to go find the bathroom and check on Angie.  

Getting up and turning around from her seat at the bar, she knocks into someone. They spilled their drink on her dress.  

“I am so sorry,” the voice had a deep southern twang to it.  

Looking up from where the drink had spilled on her dress, she sees a man. A little bit taller than her, with brown skin, wearing a dark grey button-up, with big lips and a mustache and goatee.  

His brows were furrowed and his mouth agape after she looked at him. Almost like he recognized her.  

“It alright. Thank God the dress is black.” 

Blinking himself back to reality he responded to her 

“Still, I’m sorry, let me buy you a drink to apologize.” 

“I don’t take drinks from strangers.” 

“Well then, how about you tell me your name, and I’ll tell you mine so we’re not strangers.” A smile was sitting in the corner of his lip, making his dimple on the right pop out a bit.  

“Fine. My name is Anita.”  

“Smoke.”  

“That’s the name your momma gave you?” She replied with raised brows 

“Na just a nickname. My momma named me Elijah.” 

As they keep talking, she starts to feel comfortable with him. Like she knew him. But something about him was making her have a slight chill in the back of her neck. Like there was something more to him that she couldn’t put her finger on.  

“Hey! I see you met Smoke!”  

Fuck talking to him she forgot to check on Angie. 

“Yeah, I was just about to ask Annie what she does.”  

“I’m a history professor.” 

“She’s gorgeous and smart. Isn’t that something?” Angie says with a smile, looking at Smoke almost like she’s giving him a message. 

“She sure is.” He licks his lips, scanning her.  

Seeing the way he was looking at her, she started to feel a heat growing in her stomach she hadn’t felt for a while. That chill was growing too.  

“She! Is also engaged.” Anita decided to finally say it.  

“Oh, how long?” He raised his eyebrows  

“Since April.” 

“Congratulations.” He didn’t mean that. 

“Thank you.”  

Angie decided to break the silence they both left after that.  

“Anyways, Smoke where’s Stack?” 

“Upstairs.” 

“Okay, I’m gonna go see him. You mind keeping Nita company?”  

This caused Anita to whip her head towards her friend. She was going to leave her here with him??? 

“Why can’t I come with you?”  

“I mean you guys seem like you’re getting along well. Why don’t you tell Smoke about some places in Mississippi he should go to.” 

She’s off again before Anita could say anything. Maybe she should’ve come here with her. 

“So, Professor you said you teach history, anything specific you like to teach about.” He’s still looking at her. 

Don’t get her wrong, Anita loves eye contact when talking, but it feels like he’s looking at her soul. Like he knew everything about her before, she could even tell him. 

“Well, I love to teach about how it was for Black Americans during the Great Depression, love talking about the Harlem Renaissance, something I love, but I don’t really get to teach about is the history of spirituality and practices.  

“what’s special about the history of spirituality and people doing practices to you? I feel like there’s something important to you with that.” 

“Well, all those topics are important to me, but when it comes to that, my grandmother practiced hoodoo. It’s what connected me and her when I was younger.” She finished with a shrug and a somber smile. 

“Wow, that’s really beautiful. Having something special like that passed down to you from your grandmother. 

Do you still practice?” 

“Not really sadly, I was really a busy body in school, so I find really have time, but I wanted to start again sometime.” 

“You really should.” 

“You think.” Raised eyebrows and a smile on her face. 

“Yeah, I don’t personally know much about hoodoo. But it seems important to your family so you should keep tradition alive.” 

When she talked to James about this just responded with ‘Yeah, that’s great hun.’ And just kept looking at files at the living room table. But Smoke was here encouraging her, and he barely knew her.  

It was easy to talk to him. Maybe that's why she talked to him for another hour. They talked about things like how the pandemic was for them. Where they grew up, Smoke decided to invest in his brother’s club. Even things like their favorite artist and music.  

One of her favorite songs came on what she told him about. How convenient. 

 Getting up from his seat, he puts his hand out in front of her. 

“Would you like to dance?” 

“I don’t think my fiancé would appreciate me dancing with another man.” 

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I would say we are friends now. Nothing wrong with dancing with your friends.” 

She couldn’t even say no after that. He took her hand and led her onto the dance floor.  

He grabbed her right hand in his left and held her waist with his right hand. She put her hand on his shoulder. Then they swayed.  

Baby, how I'd be grieving 

If you wanted to leave me all alone now 

By myself, I don't want nobody else 

My goodness smelled so good. He smelled like cigarettes, and his cologne had a woody musk with what smelled like vanilla? 

His hand was ruff like he’s worked with his hands a lot before.  

Looking into his eyes, she saw something. He didn’t look like he just wanted to consume her; it was something else. He looked at her like he knew her soul.  

I need you, baby 

Girl, I 

I need your loving, darling 

Wanna, hold you close 

Girl, girl 

She saw him leaning in while looking at her lips. Feeling the vibration in her bra where she put her phone, realizing she was leaning in, she pulled back as the song ended.  

Seeing her pull back, he lets go of her waist but not her hand. Giving her just a little space but wanting her close still.  

“I really had a good time tonight, Elijah, but I have to be heading home.” 

“It’s okay, let’s go grab your jacket. I think I see Angie by the bar.” 

He leads her off the dance floor hand in hand. Walking up to Angie you could see a big ass grin on her face.  

“I see y’all have had fun without me.” With a look, she knows what almost happened. 

Deciding to finally let go of Smokes hand after seeing the look. 

“Yeah, it was fun, but we gotta get home.” 

“Really? But the night is still young- “ 

“Angie.” 

“Okay fineee. I’ll order the uber.” Angie pulls out her phone only for a hand to stop her. 

“I can take you guys home.” 

“No, that's alright- “ 

“Thank you so much!” Welp, I guess he’s giving them a ride home. 

On the drive to Anita’s house, she was forced to sit in the front with Smoke while Angie sat in the back on her phone. 

Anita looked out the window during the drive to her house after spitting out her address to him.   

She started to feel guilty. She almost kissed a man that she had just met that night. She almost cheated on her fiancée because another man gave her the attention she was craving. 

As they pulled up to her house, they saw the living room light on surprisingly.  

James is home before 12 for the first time in weeks. Finally, she decided to look at her phone, and she saw he called her three times.  

Park the car by the sidewalk in front of the house. Angie gets out with a pep in her step and a quick bye and walks towards her car parked on the other side of the street. 

As Anita gets out of Smoke's car, she’s stopped when he grabs her hand again. 

“This has been one of the best nights I've had in a while. I’m glad I saw you tonight.” He gives his hand a squeeze. 

“I’m glad I met you too Smoke. I have to get inside.” 

With a sigh he gave her hand another squeeze before giving it a kiss and finally let her hand go. 

“Good night.” 

Getting out of his car completely, she leaned down before closing the door so she could see his face completely. 

“Night.”

taglist: let me know if I missed someone