lovergrl

This was his girl’s idea—and a stupid one at that.

Smoke could handle his own shit. He ain’t need no help pleasing his woman, and every girl he’d ever been with had nothing but good memories to look back on. But for some reason, his girlfriend just had come up with the bright idea to invite someone else into their bed. She just had to make a new friend that she was obsessed with enough to invite over.

This was her idea. Not his. And the way that he saw it, his girl couldn’t get upset with the way that things had turned out because he warned her about how ridiculous this all was.

~~~~~

When she first came home—talking about this Annie woman with blush coating her cheeks—he didn’t understand the appeal. So what she supposedly had a silky, smooth voice? So what she was the most beautiful woman his girl had ever seen? Beauty is relative, and Smoke couldn’t imagine a woman perfect enough to go there with. But if his girl wanted to give it a try, he’d be willing to do so, too.

They had it all planned out: this would mostly be about his girl getting what she wanted. Smoke was supportive. Smoke was thoughtful, and if she wanted to explore something new, he’d do it with her.

But how could anyone blame him when he finally set his eyes on this Annie woman? This Annie woman who is beautiful with a silky, smooth voice to match?

Smoke was knee deep in her before he realized what he was doing. Annie was laid out on her back in his bed, arching against the mattress with his head between her thighs. All he could hear, smell, taste, see, and feel was her. Her nails were scratching at the back of his neck as she encouraged him to keep going. She kept saying it was good, that he was so good. He had to keep going. Had to keep devouring her until she was shaking against his face.

Smoke dragged Annie to the edge of her pleasure, lips tight around her clit, and before she could cum, he pulled out. A whine leaving her lips, he shut her up quickly by settling his length between her parted thighs. He effectively hushed her cries, and her moans sounded louder than they had all night.

“Fuck,” he cursed beneath his breath. “You tight as shit, baby.” He wiped his face with the back of his hand, soon taking up both of her legs and throwing them over his shoulders.

“Oh, shit,” Annie laughed throatily, hardly finding the chance to breath between Smoke pummeling her and kissing down the length of her neck. He was too good at everything he was doing. So damn good for her.

She’d completely forgotten why she was here and who had brought her here. She’d forgotten this was supposed to involve someone else, too. But how could you blame her? Her new friend ain’t tell her that her man had it like this. She ain’t say he was this sexy. She ain’t say that he would have her dickmatized in mere minutes.

When she was asked to join them, Annie had incorrectly assumed that Smoke couldn’t be any good in bed if her friend wanted another person to join, but she was pleasantly astonished by his capabilities. Where she thought he’d be inept, the man was anything but. He could handle her with ease: picking her up, throwing her around, fucking her through the mattress—and his girl, too (when either of them could remember she was there).

Fully consumed by the moment, Smoke had Annie hanging off the side of the bed. Her head hung low as one of her hands touched the floor, trying her best to keep her upright.

"Arch that fuckin' back, baby," he groaned, eyes on the recoil of her ass.

"I'm tryin'," she shouted back, fighting the urge to crumble. Fuck did it feel good. It felt like he was fucking her raw—and he wasn't. It felt like he knew all the right spots and angles to hit. And when she would clench in a real specific way, Smoke felt like she knew what he needed, too. He dragged out and back in, forced her hips to meet his in the middle, and when she pulsed and fluttered and clenched just one last time, they came together with ease.

With her eyes closed, Annie felt him collapse against her back. His breath was hot against her neck, and the weight of him brought her relief.

"You comfortable up there," she laughed in question, sighing when he groaned in her left ear and squeezed at her side. She'd never felt this light after sex, and even though he'd put her through a lot, she felt better than she had all day. She couldn't believe her luck, couldn't believe that saying yes to a simple, yet loaded, ask would result in her body fluttering all over while her eyes sank back into her sockets.

But it felt like she was forgetting something.

She thought back to when Smoke had fell on top of her.

And when she had allowed her body to topple over the edge of the bed.

And when she was moaning his name and he hers.

And when he was eating her out with frenzied purpose.

And when he had ripped her clothes from her body.

And when she had walked into the bedroom.

And when the front door had opened and her friend was on the other side.

Annie’s eyes sprang open quickly, and with Smoke still laid out on top of her, she saw her friend standing in the door frame of the bedroom. Her shoulder was leaned into the wood. Her right foot crossed over her left while her arms folded against her chest in a strong hold. Robe covering her naked body, the woman looked like she could breathe fire and curse someone’s bloodline in the same second, and Annie didn’t exactly blame her. This wasn’t supposed to go like this, but she and the man had gotten far too carried away with each other.

“Y’all done yet,” the woman spoke up, not even truly ready for the answer the tangled pair would utter.

Above Annie, Smoke groaned in realization, cursing to himself. He’d fucked up, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to come back from this; And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to either. Head lifting from where he’d rested it against Annie’s back, he avoided the other woman across the room.

He stood upright and removed the used condom.

He huffed a breath as he moved to find something for Annie to cover herself with.

He cleared his throat as if ready to speak.

But once he met the eye of the woman across the room, all words died in his throat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

word count: ~1,200

a/n: i needed something a lil messyyy

taglist: comment HERE to be added!

Clouds streaked the early morning sky, creeping over the sun that peeked over the horizon. The spring air was fragrant with goldenrod and honeydew, and when the sun glared, water could be seen glistening atop blades of grass.

The pair had fallen asleep in Smoke's bed after staying up all night watching movies. They'd gone back and forth, each picking something that was significant to them, inching closer with each laugh or gasp of shock. Annie had wound up in his arms during a scary movie, and he had ended up with his head tucked into her neck while watching a romcom. It was a simple date, but it was special.

Smoke's arms surrounded Annie as she slept. He held her tight, felt for every shift of her breath and tightened his hold when she tried to move. He craved her closeness, and for the past few months—as their relationship flourished—he began to feel the absence of something that needed to be filled.

The earliest he could remember The Feeling was three months ago.

That night, he'd taken her out to some concert she'd been begging to go to, and as he watched her, the emotion budded. Her eyes were bright as she looked toward the stage. And the lights illuminated her face in a way that showed off her excitement perfectly. In that moment, his mind dipped off into thoughts that were far from chaste. He decided then that he'd do anything to make her happy enough to make that face again, to have his reaction to it be just that strong.

The Feeling persisted for weeks after that, blooming when she decided to try on a few options for a party she was going to. She couldn't decide what was best, and he was the only person available to give their opinion. Each outfit got skimpier and skimpier, and as he sat on her bed, watching her twirl for him, a pillow found its way into his lap.

He wasn't naive about his feelings, but Smoke had never actually done anything like that before. In 23 years, he'd done nothing sexual with another person; But with Annie, he was finally ready to go that far. He loved the person she was: her personality, her body, her laugh when he said something stupid about how they were both too damn nervous to give this a try when they were back in high school together. He loved her, and he could no longer resist The Feeling.

His body curled into hers, hands smoothing out his shirt that covered her back. She was beautiful like this—prettiest in the mornin'—he was known to say. Smelling the side of her neck, he jumped when she shuffled.

“Why you lookin' at me like that,” she groaned, stretching her over-exhausted body into his. Her fingers sought him out, pulling his body closer so she could bury her face in him to escape the light.

“‘Cause you sexy in the mornin’,” he drawled. His cadence was slow, the words slurring because he was both tired and turned on. Annie immediately picked up on his state.

“You betta' stop talkin' to me like that,” she chuckled, clutching onto him tighter. One eye peeked out to take a look at him, and her face flushed with heat from the intensity of his gaze. “Ion know if you ready for all this sexiness.” It came out as a joke based on conversations they'd been having for months about The Feeling and how she'd take care of him when he was ready. Recently, he'd been growing bolder. He complimented her body more—how he loved her thighs and her ass and how her titties sat just right. He allowed The Feeling to linger longer, pressing his needy body up against hers for momentary relief. They’d both been wanting it to the point where it took over their thoughts.

“I'm ready for it,” Smoke groaned, arousal strong. “I can handle all of it.”

Immediately following his declaration, his fingers began dragging along her thighs—because he knew just how to get her in a heady mood. His movements were slow and deliberate, and Annie rewarded him with soft moans before her lips met his. Plush lips against plush lips, their bodies fell into a rhythm of give and take.

They took their time, went carefully because it was still too early in the morning to do anything else. Dew still covered the edges of flowers outside, a crispness in the air that aided the moment.

Annie allowed her fingers to explore the man before her. They outlined the plains of his chest. They dipped over the curves of his abs. And when she came to the edge of his boxers, hers fingers toyed with the material, lips leaving his in time to feel the addicting tremble of his breath.

“You trust me,” she whispered into the quiet air, slow and steady. She held onto him, desperately needing the closeness because something about this was making her feel raw. He responded with a shudder, words broken with need.

“Ye-yes,” he breathed, “I'll always trust you.”

Annie, marveling at his honesty and clarity, almost allowed a moan to escape her lips. There was something about the way he'd been vulnerable about being a virgin, something about the way he trusted her to control this moment. He gave her a feeling that restored something in her, like this was her first time all over again, and in a few years, she might actually consider this It.

She rewarded the man was a kiss to the edge of his jaw, and when her hand found its way into his boxers, that same way-too-addictive shuddering breath landed on her cheek. She dragged her fingers down the length of his dick, capturing his arousal on the tip of a finger.

“I ain’t never,” Smoke choked out, groaning at the view of Annie sucking that finger into her mouth. “I ain’t ever been this turned on before.” And instead of responding with words, the woman simply hummed in acknowledgment before shifting her position on the bed. She pressed the man’s back into the mattress and settled atop his thighs. Unceremoniously, Smoke’s shirt that covered her upper body was pulled over her head, leaving her in nothing but a pair of panties, darkened where they sat against her. “Damn,” he commented, reaching out for her.

His face found comfort between her breasts with practiced ease, and Annie laughed as he held himself there and breathed in her scent.

“You always end up there,” she laughed heartily. And it was true. Whenever he’d had a hard day or a good day or a boring day, all he wanted was to lay up in her chest for comfort. Warm breath ghosted her skin.

“It’s my favorite spot,” he grumbled against her, hands somehow on her thighs again, pulling her into him.

Flushing, Annie reached down and dragged his chin up. She looked into his eyes, and when he melted at the sight of her, she dove in. When their lips met this time, it wasn’t soft and slow and careful; It was sharp and fast and greedy. Smoke’s hands found her hips, and his thumbs wedged found themselves in the groove where hip and thigh met. With ease, motion was made and pace was set. Her clothed pussy grinded against his dick, dragging up the length of him and forcing both of their bodies to shudder.

Smoke had never felt this good in his life. He’d never felt so consumed by something, and he never wanted to feel anything other than this. His palms found her ass next, taking up as much flesh as he could and keeping her hips in that tempting roll. He wanted her, craved her, but when he flipped their position and was leaned over her heaving body, he had no idea how to move forward.

“Baby,” Annie whispered, noticing the way his eyes darted away in a mix of shame and fear. He didn’t look at her straight on, and when her hand came up to his cheek, he jumped in shock. “Elijah,” she whispered to gain his full attention. “I told you I’d take care of you. I got you, and if you wanna stop, we can—”

“I don’t want to,” he nearly shouted, frightened that the very thing he wanted, craved, was beginning to slip from his grasp. Annie’s eyebrows were raised and a goofy smirk tilted her lips. “I-I don’t wanna stop,” he tried again, voice cracking. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby,” she breathed pulling him down on top of her. Naturally, her mouth found the edge of his jaw because she couldn’t get enough of that tremble when she did something that felt too good for him to contain it. “Take these off,” she whispered in his ear. Her hands pulled at his boxers—the only thing on his body—and when he moved in a rush to obey her, she removed her own panties.

Kneeling between her open legs, Smoke groaned when he saw her arousal, glistening up at him. His mouth watered. His tip flushed. She was the most beautiful sight, and he made sure she knew that. The man whispered about her beauty into her left ear, how he was addicted to her, how he’d love her the length of his life, how he felt so safe and taken care of. He made sure she knew what she did to him and just how much he needed her in his life.

When the tip of his dick nudged itself between her folds, they both needed a second to collect themselves. Their conjoined warmth and wetness was almost too much to bear, and when Smoke began moving his hips to drag himself across her clit and back down to her entrance, they both wept.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groaned, breath growing heavier. “How you feel so good?” The words were slurred, disbelief dripping off of each syllable, and although he asked the question rhetorically, he was beginning to think maybe he did need some explanation.

“You ain’t even got the tip in yet,” Annie laughed from her chest. She threw her head back when Smoke rubbed her clit back and forth. She was wet enough that she could hear it, and with the way Smoke was looking between her legs, she could only imagine the sight he was being met with. “Make sure you go in at an angle,” she instructed, placing a pillow beneath her lower back. They both needed this to be easy and enjoyable. The longer they waited, the more their arousal clawed through them and the more they grew worried about fucking this up.

What surprised Smoke first was how he slipped inside with such ease, but what surprised him most was how he could feel every shudder, ever shift, every vibration from the inside. With nearly half of his length tucked away inside of her, Annie pulled Smoke down so that their chests were flush, so that their breaths mingled.

“Can I move,” he questioned, voice breaking as he contemplated how long he’d be able to last once she gave him the go ahead. The feeling of her surrounding him was glorious, and the normally unflappable man felt anything but calm.

“Yeah,” she permitted, eyes dazed and dripping with emotion. Annie’s jaw cranked open as she eyed the man above her. They were both perfectly ruined for each other, so gone over the feeling of their bodies becoming one.

His hips moved timidly as he got a feel for the situation. And successfully delivering the man confidence, he stroked her walls in a slow rhythm when her hands landed on his ass in encouragement. Each thrust made them quake. Each drag made them moan. Each breath passed from one to another had them ready to break apart no matter how early in was in their pursuit.

“You doin’ so good, ‘Lijah,” Annie cooed, kissing his temple. His hips sped up, and hers rose to chase him every time he dragged out to the tip.

Breathing shakily, Smoke watched as the sun fell over Annie’s face. It floated through the windows, lighting up her eyes the same way the lights did at that concert—when he first got The Feeling. He decided in that moment, as her brown eyes revealed every fleck of honey in them, that the sun rose just for this. For her.

“You perfect,” he breathed, addicted, and butterflies flooded her body.

Neither of them wanted to tap out just yet. Neither of them wanted to let go. But when Smoke would pull out to the tip, Annie would pulse around him in a way he couldn’t resist. And when he’d bottom out again, a glorious pressure would form in the base of her stomach.

They continued to meet each other in the middle, arms holding on tight, bodies ready to give up the good fight.

And when they came, it was done simultaneously. They couldn’t do anything but surrender together, to each other.

Breaths hot.

Bodies trembling.

Morning dew fading away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

word count: ~2,200

a/n: i'm still accepting requests! i have one more that i really want to get to, but i'm looking for anything interesting. smut, fluff, angst, whatever you got for me!

taglist: comment HERE to be added!

it was her friend's graduation outing and she didn't want to be the only one to not show up when it mattered most. no matter how much she wanted to crawl back in bed and watch reruns of law and order suv.

aneika decided on a black bandage dress and black heels with the gold ysl holding them up. if she was going to go out she might as well put on her good shit. annie just hoped she wouldn't regret this at the end of the night.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

annie's mood was looking up but that was to be expected when your friends are as lit as her's were right now. the feeling that she had prior was melting away by the minute due to the atmosphere her group created. drinks were flowing, the dj was playing hit after hit, and all her girls looked good.

partition by Beyonce was the next song to come on. aneika lost all home training as she and her friends raced to the dance floor. she grinded her hips against her friend, drunk giggles escaping freely. she sighed deeply as she thought about how she always sung this to smoke. but she wouldn't be one of those " i miss my man" bitches, at least not right now. maybe later though..

she continued to dance until she felt her homegirl, asia, stumble into her back. before she could even turn around to ask what was wrong, she heard words that ensured the night was about to take a turn for the worst.

"damn bitches can't say excuse me" asia yelled out to another group of girls pushing their way through the sea of people.

"ian gotta say nothing if ion want to ho" that feeling was back in annie's chest. she knew something was about to pop off.

"girl shut the fuck up" another one of annie's friends said back.

next thing you know a drink flew and a heel came next. annie thought for a few quick seconds. thought about what would happen after the fight. what would happen if smoke found out.

but that was a later annie problem.

she swung on the girl across from her. fists punching harder and harder with each swing. each hit connecting more than the last. in her mind she knew this was crazy but she would always have her friend's back no matter what. she would think of the consequences later.

the girl got one good punch in before what aneika assumed was security snatched her up. legs kicking and body turning trying to make an escape.

the night time air smacked annie in the face as she was sat down on the curb.

"sit down and chill the fuck out" the security guard said as her friends were sat down next to her.

annie bounced her leg fast, adrenaline spreading through her body like a virus. she could not wait to tell her man about this shit. she picked up her phone and hit the only contact pinned in her phone.

elijah saved under the name "jah jah 💋" since he hated when she called him that name.

jah jah 💋

why tf i just get into a

group fight at the club😭

aneika 😐

i'm otw

annie put her phone down and continued to rethink her life decisions. she knew smoke was going to pissed ALL the way off when he came to get her but a part of her didn't really care at the moment. aneika would cross that bridge when she came to it.

"so you hoes think it's okay to put y'all hands on people now" this random man approached the group of women.

annie picked up her phone and began to scroll through instagram because there was no way in hell he thought he was talking to her like that.

" yea you too bitch" the man spat stepping directly in front of annie.

"who tf you talking to???" anieka looked up irritation seeping back into her blood just as quickly as it had left.

"you was the one swinging on my girl so wassup. keep that energy with me!"

"nigga fuck you! grown ass man arguing with women. find you something safe to do for real!!" annie said back to him, accent coming out stronger now that he had took her there.

while they were arguing, smoke turned the corner to the club on one wheel. base booming as he parked on the curb beside the building entrance. he hopped out swiftly when he caught sight of some nigga standing in his girl's face.

the man didn't get a chance to respond as smoke shoulder checked people to move through the crowd forming quickly around them.

"ima tell you one time to back up out her face." he said voice level despite how mad he was.

aneika knew this was the wrong time but seeing her man handle shit does something to her.

"or what" the man said with a fake air of confidence. smoke could see straight past the bravado he was trying to display. elijah was never one to do too much talking.

next thing annie knew, smoke's fist crashed into the dude's jaw. he didn't stop when he heard the cracking noise. eli kept punching even when the dude hit the ground. aneika's man was just like her for real.

"smoke stop and come on. before they call the police on yo crazy ass!!" she said trying to pull smoke off the man who was starting to lose consciousness. he ignored her at first. the man thought it was cool to talk to women any kind of way. especially elijah's. smoke didn't think he had learned his lesson just yet.

the man lay slumped on the concrete. blood staining his cheap white tee when eli let go finally, kicking the man one last time. he just wanted to be a lil extra. he turned around gripping annie's face in his hands.

"you good mama?" his eyes searched her face top to bottom looking for anything out of place.

she giggled still kind of adrenaline high and tipsy from all the lemon drops.

"yea i'm good. this been one crazy night man. " she laughed again.

"what you laughing for? you know damn well you not supposed to be out here fighting and shit" smoke scowled at her. he wasn't really angry at her, more so at the danger that could have took place if he hadn't showed up.

"babyyyyy. they were messing with asia and you know i was not letting that shit slide. that's my bitch. " aneika shrugged her shoulders, she didn't see anything wrong with her actions.

"if asia went to jail were you going too?" he raised an eyebrow at her.

"you don't remember freshman year of college babe? been there done that." annie looked up at him goofily.

Clouds streaked the early morning sky, creeping over the sun that peeked over the horizon. The spring air was fragrant with goldenrod and honeydew, and when the sun glared, water could be seen glistening atop blades of grass.

The pair had fallen asleep in Smoke's bed after staying up all night watching movies. They'd gone back and forth, each picking something that was significant to them, inching closer with each laugh or gasp of shock. Annie had wound up in his arms during a scary movie, and he had ended up with his head tucked into her neck while watching a romcom. It was a simple date, but it was special.

Smoke's arms surrounded Annie as she slept. He held her tight, felt for every shift of her breath and tightened his hold when she tried to move. He craved her closeness, and for the past few months—as their relationship flourished—he began to feel the absence of something that needed to be filled.

The earliest he could remember The Feeling was three months ago.

That night, he'd taken her out to some concert she'd been begging to go to, and as he watched her, the emotion budded. Her eyes were bright as she looked toward the stage. And the lights illuminated her face in a way that showed off her excitement perfectly. In that moment, his mind dipped off into thoughts that were far from chaste. He decided then that he'd do anything to make her happy enough to make that face again, to have his reaction to it be just that strong.

The Feeling persisted for weeks after that, blooming when she decided to try on a few options for a party she was going to. She couldn't decide what was best, and he was the only person available to give their opinion. Each outfit got skimpier and skimpier, and as he sat on her bed, watching her twirl for him, a pillow found its way into his lap.

He wasn't naive about his feelings, but Smoke had never actually done anything like that before. In 23 years, he'd done nothing sexual with another person; But with Annie, he was finally ready to go that far. He loved the person she was: her personality, her body, her laugh when he said something stupid about how they were both too damn nervous to give this a try when they were back in high school together. He loved her, and he could no longer resist The Feeling.

His body curled into hers, hands smoothing out his shirt that covered her back. She was beautiful like this—prettiest in the mornin'—he was known to say. Smelling the side of her neck, he jumped when she shuffled.

“Why you lookin' at me like that,” she groaned, stretching her over-exhausted body into his. Her fingers sought him out, pulling his body closer so she could bury her face in him to escape the light.

“‘Cause you sexy in the mornin’,” he drawled. His cadence was slow, the words slurring because he was both tired and turned on. Annie immediately picked up on his state.

“You betta' stop talkin' to me like that,” she chuckled, clutching onto him tighter. One eye peeked out to take a look at him, and her face flushed with heat from the intensity of his gaze. “Ion know if you ready for all this sexiness.” It came out as a joke based on conversations they'd been having for months about The Feeling and how she'd take care of him when he was ready. Recently, he'd been growing bolder. He complimented her body more—how he loved her thighs and her ass and how her titties sat just right. He allowed The Feeling to linger longer, pressing his needy body up against hers for momentary relief. They’d both been wanting it to the point where it took over their thoughts.

“I'm ready for it,” Smoke groaned, arousal strong. “I can handle all of it.”

Immediately following his declaration, his fingers began dragging along her thighs—because he knew just how to get her in a heady mood. His movements were slow and deliberate, and Annie rewarded him with soft moans before her lips met his. Plush lips against plush lips, their bodies fell into a rhythm of give and take.

They took their time, went carefully because it was still too early in the morning to do anything else. Dew still covered the edges of flowers outside, a crispness in the air that aided the moment.

Annie allowed her fingers to explore the man before her. They outlined the plains of his chest. They dipped over the curves of his abs. And when she came to the edge of his boxers, hers fingers toyed with the material, lips leaving his in time to feel the addicting tremble of his breath.

“You trust me,” she whispered into the quiet air, slow and steady. She held onto him, desperately needing the closeness because something about this was making her feel raw. He responded with a shudder, words broken with need.

“Ye-yes,” he breathed, “I'll always trust you.”

Annie, marveling at his honesty and clarity, almost allowed a moan to escape her lips. There was something about the way he'd been vulnerable about being a virgin, something about the way he trusted her to control this moment. He gave her a feeling that restored something in her, like this was her first time all over again, and in a few years, she might actually consider this It.

She rewarded the man was a kiss to the edge of his jaw, and when her hand found its way into his boxers, that same way-too-addictive shuddering breath landed on her cheek. She dragged her fingers down the length of his dick, capturing his arousal on the tip of a finger.

“I ain’t never,” Smoke choked out, groaning at the view of Annie sucking that finger into her mouth. “I ain’t ever been this turned on before.” And instead of responding with words, the woman simply hummed in acknowledgment before shifting her position on the bed. She pressed the man’s back into the mattress and settled atop his thighs. Unceremoniously, Smoke’s shirt that covered her upper body was pulled over her head, leaving her in nothing but a pair of panties, darkened where they sat against her. “Damn,” he commented, reaching out for her.

His face found comfort between her breasts with practiced ease, and Annie laughed as he held himself there and breathed in her scent.

“You always end up there,” she laughed heartily. And it was true. Whenever he’d had a hard day or a good day or a boring day, all he wanted was to lay up in her chest for comfort. Warm breath ghosted her skin.

“It’s my favorite spot,” he grumbled against her, hands somehow on her thighs again, pulling her into him.

Flushing, Annie reached down and dragged his chin up. She looked into his eyes, and when he melted at the sight of her, she dove in. When their lips met this time, it wasn’t soft and slow and careful; It was sharp and fast and greedy. Smoke’s hands found her hips, and his thumbs wedged found themselves in the groove where hip and thigh met. With ease, motion was made and pace was set. Her clothed pussy grinded against his dick, dragging up the length of him and forcing both of their bodies to shudder.

Smoke had never felt this good in his life. He’d never felt so consumed by something, and he never wanted to feel anything other than this. His palms found her ass next, taking up as much flesh as he could and keeping her hips in that tempting roll. He wanted her, craved her, but when he flipped their position and was leaned over her heaving body, he had no idea how to move forward.

“Baby,” Annie whispered, noticing the way his eyes darted away in a mix of shame and fear. He didn’t look at her straight on, and when her hand came up to his cheek, he jumped in shock. “Elijah,” she whispered to gain his full attention. “I told you I’d take care of you. I got you, and if you wanna stop, we can—”

“I don’t want to,” he nearly shouted, frightened that the very thing he wanted, craved, was beginning to slip from his grasp. Annie’s eyebrows were raised and a goofy smirk tilted her lips. “I-I don’t wanna stop,” he tried again, voice cracking. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby,” she breathed pulling him down on top of her. Naturally, her mouth found the edge of his jaw because she couldn’t get enough of that tremble when she did something that felt too good for him to contain it. “Take these off,” she whispered in his ear. Her hands pulled at his boxers—the only thing on his body—and when he moved in a rush to obey her, she removed her own panties.

Kneeling between her open legs, Smoke groaned when he saw her arousal, glistening up at him. His mouth watered. His tip flushed. She was the most beautiful sight, and he made sure she knew that. The man whispered about her beauty into her left ear, how he was addicted to her, how he’d love her the length of his life, how he felt so safe and taken care of. He made sure she knew what she did to him and just how much he needed her in his life.

When the tip of his dick nudged itself between her folds, they both needed a second to collect themselves. Their conjoined warmth and wetness was almost too much to bear, and when Smoke began moving his hips to drag himself across her clit and back down to her entrance, they both wept.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groaned, breath growing heavier. “How you feel so good?” The words were slurred, disbelief dripping off of each syllable, and although he asked the question rhetorically, he was beginning to think maybe he did need some explanation.

“You ain’t even got the tip in yet,” Annie laughed from her chest. She threw her head back when Smoke rubbed her clit back and forth. She was wet enough that she could hear it, and with the way Smoke was looking between her legs, she could only imagine the sight he was being met with. “Make sure you go in at an angle,” she instructed, placing a pillow beneath her lower back. They both needed this to be easy and enjoyable. The longer they waited, the more their arousal clawed through them and the more they grew worried about fucking this up.

What surprised Smoke first was how he slipped inside with such ease, but what surprised him most was how he could feel every shudder, ever shift, every vibration from the inside. With nearly half of his length tucked away inside of her, Annie pulled Smoke down so that their chests were flush, so that their breaths mingled.

“Can I move,” he questioned, voice breaking as he contemplated how long he’d be able to last once she gave him the go ahead. The feeling of her surrounding him was glorious, and the normally unflappable man felt anything but calm.

“Yeah,” she permitted, eyes dazed and dripping with emotion. Annie’s jaw cranked open as she eyed the man above her. They were both perfectly ruined for each other, so gone over the feeling of their bodies becoming one.

His hips moved timidly as he got a feel for the situation. And successfully delivering the man confidence, he stroked her walls in a slow rhythm when her hands landed on his ass in encouragement. Each thrust made them quake. Each drag made them moan. Each breath passed from one to another had them ready to break apart no matter how early in was in their pursuit.

“You doin’ so good, ‘Lijah,” Annie cooed, kissing his temple. His hips sped up, and hers rose to chase him every time he dragged out to the tip.

Breathing shakily, Smoke watched as the sun fell over Annie’s face. It floated through the windows, lighting up her eyes the same way the lights did at that concert—when he first got The Feeling. He decided in that moment, as her brown eyes revealed every fleck of honey in them, that the sun rose just for this. For her.

“You perfect,” he breathed, addicted, and butterflies flooded her body.

Neither of them wanted to tap out just yet. Neither of them wanted to let go. But when Smoke would pull out to the tip, Annie would pulse around him in a way he couldn’t resist. And when he’d bottom out again, a glorious pressure would form in the base of her stomach.

They continued to meet each other in the middle, arms holding on tight, bodies ready to give up the good fight.

And when they came, it was done simultaneously. They couldn’t do anything but surrender together, to each other.

Breaths hot.

Bodies trembling.

Morning dew fading away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

word count: ~2,200

a/n: i'm still accepting requests! i have one more that i really want to get to, but i'm looking for anything interesting. smut, fluff, angst, whatever you got for me!

taglist: comment HERE to be added!

 The silence pulled Elijah from his sleep like a warm hand, soft and steady. Through it all, the silence of the woods of Mississippi  was what he missed most. Those days in Germany when it felt like the whole world was shaking with the sounds of gunfire and bombs cracking through the air. Those nights in Chicago that felt like the music would never end, like the people would never stop moving, like he couldn’t close his eyes for one second or it all would spin out of his control. Whenever he mentioned it, missing the silence that it seemed like they would never get back to, Stack would wave it away with a joke. “Graveyards is silent, nigga. Life supposed to have some noise to it.” Elijah heard his brother say, and for what felt like the millionth time, he wished that he could explain. The weight of the silence of a Mississippi night, when everyone had gone to bed for the evening, and all that was cutting through the heavy, weighty silence was the chirp of night bugs and the rustle of trees. Where a man could think and breathe and be with no interruptions. 

It was in that silence that Elijah woke up, rolled out of bed and padded on bare feet in search of his Annie. She was in the kitchen, where he knew she would be, her back to him, her hands moving quickly and silently. He couldn’t see her front but he knew she had their baby strapped to her chest, knew that she was making him breakfast, knew that she felt him enter the room when he crossed the threshold toward her. “Morning cher.” Annie said to him, her voice low as she turned, folding into the velvety silence of the morning. Elijah’s eyes landed on hers, brown and deep and knowing, the corners crinkling from the soft smile on her mouth. Then they drifted down to the baby on her chest. Their Naomi, brown and whole and beautiful, her fist up and reaching toward him. His women, safe and sound, happy and whole. Forever. 

“She be walking soon, and who knows what I’ll do with both of ya’ll getting into everything.” Annie spoke softly, her eyes on the baby. “You’ll do what you always done, you’ll look out for both of us.” Elijah replied, stepping closer. Then Annie’s eyes were on him, the familiar feeling passing through them both like a current. Elijah knew that they were both thinking of Stack, thinking of his brother, and missing him terribly. Time didn’t exactly move the same for them in their patch of paradise, and it didn’t exactly move the same for Elias anymore either, so the hurt was still there but it was different. Not as awful and overwhelming as that first and only true sunrise without him. It was more subdued, more manageable but still present, and Elijah knew without speaking that Annie had felt it too. They didn’t try to run from it, didn’t try to cover it up by mentioning their blessings, when they thought of the loss, and they often did, Elijan and Annie let the hurt move through them. They knew better than most that that was the only way to truly get from underneath it. 

“You say that now, until she gets a hold of your knife again. You were up all night last time, sticking everything out of her reach.Annie joked, turning back to the kitchen counter and the breakfast she was making. As Elijah came to stand beside her he saw what she was making, her homemade biscuits and ham steaks left over from dinner the other night, thick ones that could brown perfectly in the pan the way that only Annie could do. He had dreamed of Annie’s cooking when they were apart, and no matter how many times she served him a meal it felt like something that he should cherish, and he did. “Go on and sit down.” Annie said, tilting her head toward the kitchen table. It always felt like she could read his mind, Elijah thought as he reached for the plate that Annie made for him. “Go on and sit” Annie urged, trying to pull the plate away. She liked to lay his plate on the table for him. She said that knowing he was always there to eat her cooking moved something in her, soothed some way back ache, and usually he indulged her, sat patiently while she set his plate and cup down, her eyes gleaming while he complimented everything in front of him; but sometimes he liked to push her buttons just to get some of that old, fiery Annie. 

         “You too stubborn for your own good.”  Annie pouted as she sat on the other side of the small table, nursing Naomi. “And you too sweet to me.” Elijah smiled, leaning over the short distance between them. Annie, anticipating his affection,  tilted her head up, her eyes on him and a smile playing at her lips. She wasn’t expecting the passion of when their lips met. Elijah felt her gasp, and took the opportunity of her slightly parted lips to slip his tongue into her mouth. She tasted like coffee too sweet for his liking, like cinnamon candy; the secret Annie that only he got to see who had a mean sweet tooth since they were young. Back when she would eat raw sugar out of a square of paper to soothe her craving.Annie pulled her mouth away, slightly gasping, and Elijah, chasing that connection between them, wanting to hear her those slight sounds she made get louder and louder until her voice broke into a wail, put his lips onto  her collarbone, pressing kisses up and down. From her shoulder and toward the hollow of her throat where her heartbeat thudded. “Let me put the baby down.” Annie said firmly, pushing back in her chair, breaking their contact. Her brow was firm set, her lips pressed together, her eyes a blaze on him. Elijah struggled not to smile, he loved his woman fiery. 

Annie stood wordlessly, walking toward the bedroom to lay Naomi down, and Elijah followed right behind. When Annie removed Naomi from her chest and placed the baby into the nest of pillows that she made for her, Elijah laid his hands onto her waist, his palms resting on the soft curve of her to pull her toward him. “Elijah.” Annie breathed, tilting her head back, giving him access to the tender column of her throat which he took advantage of, pressing kisses to her neck that made her soften in his hands, her shoulders sinking and giving him more room to explore with his lips. Elijah knew just what Annie liked for him to do to her. At one point, he had committed it to memory. When he was away from her, Elijah spent his nights practically feeling the weight of her in his hands, the rise and fall of her chest against his. He replayed their wedding night over and over in his head, how in the moment he felt like he needed to commit her in her dress, in their bed, to memory- and how he had no idea how right he was. But not anymore. There was nothing pulling them apart, nothing higher to commit to than themselves.

Elijah led Annie to their bed, soft and sunlight, and laid her pliant body down. Annie’s eyes were soft on him as she watched his movement.There was only a moment of stillness before Elijah was on Annie, taking her barefoot in his hand and kissing at her firm,solid calf. As he expected, Annie broke out in soft giggles, trying to pull away which only opened her legs to him further, giving him space to kiss up her leg to the back of her knee, nibbling slightly at the warm skin there. Annie opened her legs wider to accommodate Elijah, allowing him to sink further between her legs and allowing him access to her thighs. Inhaling, Elijah took her in, placing a firm kiss on the softness of her right thigh before switching to the left. Annie was so soft in places only he could see; her eyes when she was smiling just at him. Her thighs, her tummy, her chest,her laugh- his Annie only for him. Forever. “Elijah” Annie commanded, a firmness in her Louisiana lilt that made him chuckle slightly, the puff of air from his laugh making Annie jolt. “I got you, pretty baby.” Elijah assured her, still kissing up her thighs, taking his time. He felt her sink her hips into the bed as he neared the apex of her thighs, and wrapped his arms around her thighs to anchor her to him where she belonged.Annie shifted in his arms, testing the tightness of Elijah’s hold, but it was firm, and he wasn’t letting her get out of his grasp.

Elijah never tired of tasting Annie. When he parted her lips with the point of his tongue,her hips bucked up in the span of his arms, making him tighten his hold on her thighs and press deeper into her, his lips parted as they travelled up and enclosed around her pearl. When he pulled slightly, Annie gasped, her voice quivering. His Annie, always under control, always pulled back, open beneath him and coming apart- Elijah never got tired of taking her there. Of tipping her over the brink of pleasure and reducing her to her softest. When he lifted his head from between Annie’s lush thighs, Elijah took her in, her chest rising and falling, her arms stretched across the bed decadently, like she was trying to ground herself. He didn’t speak- other times he may have teased her to watch that daze in her eyes dissolve as that fire that he loved returned. But he loved her like this too, well loved and taken care of in his arms and underneath him and with him where she belonged. Instead of words Elijah placed kisses up Annie’s body, placing his lips across her thighs, and over her hips, and up to her waist, each kiss rippling into a quiver that radiated through his woman’s body. Then he was at her chest, soft and warm and heaving with the effort of his love. Elijah kissed between the valley of her breasts, reverent. There was no scar there from his act of love when she laid beneath him, their world ending. If they wanted to, they could pretend that it had never happened at all. But neither of them wanted to. Elijah lathed kisses there, his lips and his tongue travelling back and forth over the smooth, cool skin over Annie’s heart, over and over as he felt her begin to squirm beneath him. 

Elijah didn’t know how long he lingered there, lost in the softness of Annie, before she pulled her arms around him, cocooning him around her, and bought her right hand to the back of his head, guiding his head to the dark sweetness of her nipple, where she wanted him. And he obliged her, he never could deny her. He knew just how to pull her into him, how to give her the heat and the pressure of him that made her breathe loud and hot and made her arms and legs pull around him like she never wanted to be away from him. “Si-S’il vous plait.” His love stuttered, her words smoothe and halted at the same time. “Please what, baby?” Elijah teased around the peak of her nipple. He loved to take her here, to this pleading place before he gave her what she needed how only he could. “S’il vous plait, mon amour. Mwen bezwen.Mwen bezwen.Mwen bezwen.” Annie chanted beneath him. “What you need, baby? What you need from me?” he asked her, already rising up between her legs, his body aligning with hers. “Toi. Mwen bezwen.” Annie pleaded, her voice low, her eyes locked on his. And because he never could tell her no, and because she looked so pretty beneath him, lips parted, eyes wide, and because he needed her just as badly, Elijah gave Annie what they both needed, sliding home into her body where he belonged.

Annie was warm and soft around him, pulling him into the love of her  so intensely that Elijah dropped his head into the crook of her shoulder, hissing as she moaned aloud, the sounds of them mingling in the silence around them. Elijah rocked into her slowly and precisely, travelling the path of her body as he had so many times before, with the same reverence of coming home to her, body and soul. Elija didn’t have to look at his Annie’s face to know that her eyes were soft, that her lips were parted, that her pulse was thumping in the hollow of her throat like it did before she came apart around him, but he did anyway, taking her in indulgently. “”This what you needed, love?” he asked her, knowing that the question would send her over the edge again, hard. “Ahh” Annie gasped, like she was surprised they were here again, at this place where he took her, where she belonged, his beautiful girl.

Elijah valiantly kept his pace as Annie came apart around him, her arms around him, pulling him deeper into her as she mumbled Creole and English and I love you and you’re perfect, baby, don’t stop, please, mon amour, I’ll die. Right there, baby,like that.” It was too much, his Annie at her softest and most perfect for him. Just for him. Nobody else saw her like this, pleading and satisfied and his. Nobody else could take her here, pin her to pleasure and let her ride it out around him until she was satisfied. It was too much, and it drove Elijah right behind her as he sunk deep, deep, into Annie’s depths, their hips pressed together, his arms braced around her head, her arms around him in a shaking embrace, his breaths matching her moaning words. Perfectly in tune. Elijah finished with a low groan just as Annie’s arms and legs relaxed, making her jerk around him again, twitching with overwhelm and overstimulation beneath him. “Bondie, ti cheri. My Lord, my love, cheri.” Annie muttered as he moved to pull from the space between her legs. “Don’t go.” Annie said simply, her lips pouting as she weakly lifted her arm to pull him back to her. And Elijah knew that he needed to get Annie water, and to run some water for a bath for her, but they did not have to rush. They had all the time in the world to luxuriate amongst each other. It was a luxury that had eluded them for so long, and it was one of their biggest blessings. So of course he laid back down, laying in her arms, their breaths slowing, their bodies cooling, and their mutual pleasure tapering out to a warm and comfortable blanket over them. 

Annie fell asleep in his arms, her face pressed up against his chest, her thigh thrown over his, glowing and radiant  in her softness. She was so well loved and at peace that she didn’t hear their baby crying from her bed in the other room. And Elijah had no desire to disrupt his beautiful girl from her peace, and got up to see about Naomi. Elijah knew that her cry was one of curiosity. When he entered the room, her cries soften to coos, and when Elijah walked up to her, her wide eyes followed him, her dark lashes spiky with tears. She looked like Annie, her high cheekbones and her knowing dark eyes. She looked like him, his nose. She looked like Stack, that set to her mouth like she was always just about to laugh. “Papa’s here, baby.” he said softly, and she cooed in response. Elijah walked over to her, and Naomi reached up, her hands seeking him. And when he gave her his hand, her fingers gripped his tightly, holding him as she babbled and cooed. “Yeah?” Elijah questioned, smiling down at her. “And then what?” he urged her. His girls loved to be the center of his attention, and he loved to give them all of the attention they wanted. “She need changing?” Annie questioned from behind him in the doorway, suddenly awake and with him. “Naw, she just want to talk to her daddy.” Elijah said, picking his daughter up in her arms, prompting a gummy smile that lit up her face and his. “She do love her daddy.” Annie agreed.

****

Time passed in its own way for them, natural and mysterious.There were seasons- the leaves changed, cold came and went, birds migrated and returned, but they didn’t know where and from where. Naomi cut small teeth, and grew stronger pulling herself up on furniture wobbly and determined. Annie’s belly swelled with another baby which they both hoped was a boy. They lived a content life in their corner of the universe. Annie continued her work, serving the people that she loved, coming to them when they called for guidance and help. Elijah watched over their people. He watched Clarksville grow and change, he watched his brother with the same curiosity that he always did as he moved in the world that he was no longer a part of. Mostly he loved his women, lived with them through the long days, telling stories and singing songs and teaching Naomi about their home and their people. Talked with Annie just to hear her voice.

It was like that for some time, and neither he nor Annie wanted to change it. But of course life, in all of its forms, moved in accordance to its own rules. They were sitting on the front porch. Annie was sewing something, her hands moving quickly and efficiently, and Elijah was whittling, a hobby that he found himself doing even though it reminded him of his father. Naomi was playing some sort of game where she climbed up the four short steps from the ground to their porch and sliding back down on her knees. Both parents had their eyes on her, the sun was setting lazily, the evening bugs were perking up and calling to each other from the trees and the tall grass and Elijah was just about to ask Annie what they were having for dinner when Annie stood up, wordlessly, her eyes on the distant horizon. Elijah stood, coming up beside her, and saw someone approaching, moving through the swaying grass. They waited patiently, accepting what was coming in the way that they had adopted in their time together in the afterlife. When the figure approached, it was a welcome surprise. It was Sammie, little Sammie, looking the same as the morning that Elijah had picked him up from in front his daddy’s church all those years ago, and simultaneously a grown man who had lived the full and storied life that both Elijah and Annie had watched. In one hand he had a guitar, his daddy’s guitar, gleaming in the evening light, and in the other he held his hat, pressed over his heart. 

“Smoke” Sammie breathed, his brown eyes wide and focused on him with reverence. Elijah hadn’t heard that name of his in so long. It felt like it didn’t belong to him, but did in a deep and natural way. “Sammie” Elijah said with a smile, picking up Naomi in his arms as he walked down the short steps from the porch to greet his younger cousin. “The baby” Sammie said, his eyes bouncing from Elijah’s face to his child’s, “Annie.” Sammie continued, meeting her eyes. “How you doing, Sammie?” Annie said softly, her smile in her voice. Elijah and Annie knew that he had to be overwhelmed. Annie, who came first had the benefit of her knowledge and her faith, and Elijah had the benefit of his faith in Annie, and they were never alone because their daughter was waiting for them to love her like they always wanted. “I’m fine, I think. I-” Sammie started, his voice low and smoothe like they both remembered, but aged with the many years that had passed. “I know.” Annie said, her voice soothing. “I know.” 

Sammie stayed for a while, asking more questions of them than they asked him. Reminiscing. Annie cooked, making Sammie any dish that he asked for in abundance, serving him heaping plates of catfish and chicken and biscuits and hush puppies. Happy to give him as much of a time and place that she could. Sammie, newly in the body that Elijah and Annie remembered like it was yesterday, ran around the house with Naomi, and strummed his guitar all well into the evening, playing any song that either of them requested. It was one afternoon, after a lunch of smothered pork chops that Sammie had asked for first thing that morning, that he looked at Elijah and Annie with eyes so tender that they knew that he was moving on. “I thank ya’ll, I really do.” Sammie started, his gaze going from Elijah to Annie. “We know, Sammie.” Annie spoke first, her voice soothing. “And we know you a blues man, and they don’t stay in a place too long.” Elijah finished. They didn’t need him to explain. The peace that they found in each other, in their small house on their piece of land, with their baby child,  Elijah and Annie wished for every single person in their life. “I want to try and find her.” Sammie said simply. And they knew who he was talking about- his Pearline. There was so much that they knew, and so much that was still a mystery, and that was life, even the life that they lived. Annie and Elijah had talked at length about it. They had hope that somewhere, everybody who left the Juke that night made their way to a home like theirs, and that one day their families came to meet them. That the music that sometimes travelled over to them on very quiet nights was coming from Slim playing an encore to a loving crowd. They had hope that one day they would wake to a knock at the door and Elijah would see his own face, see that wide, wiley smile again. That he would hold his brother again, and they would catch up in person. But there were still mysteries that they couldn’t control, and that was the nature of life and the blessing that they were given.

Sammie looked at Annie, silently asking for direction. Annie placed her hand on the table in front of him, her hands strong and capable. “I don’t have that answer for you, baby.” Annie said, her voice low and just for him. “There’s so many miracles, so many blessings, and I got mine. You have to let love guide you to yours, and believe that it’s out there.” Sammie nodded, saying no more. With what they had seen, with what he had lived through, there was an understanding of surrendering to the mystery of it all. He was gone by that evening, full of Annie’s cooking, and with some to go in a sack to tide him over wherever he was about to journey. He had sang all day, almost nonstop, and as he departed he hugged Elijah last, long and lingering, their embrace weighty with so much that they didn’t have to say. “Love you, cousin.” Elijah said. “And you know I love you.” Sammie replied. “Here, if you want them.” Sammie said, handing Elijah a bundle of rolled cigarettes. He hadn’t held one since his brother had last handed one to him. And at one point the gesture may have caused pain, have made him think of last moments and of regrets, of things that he missed and may never have back. But Elijah had seen enough life unfold in all of the messy, beautiful, complicated ways that it did, to take his cousin’s offering as a connection to a time that he had loved and lost in place of something different and lovely in its own way. 

December 3th 1999

The day their daughter came into this world and changed their life forever.

Winter Moore.

:

:

:

December 3th 2000.

1:30

First birthday and to say that her parents weren't excited?

Well that would be understatement..

“It's my baby girl's birthday, stack..” Smoke said through tears as he stopped decorating for a moment, it was finally hitting him at that moment that their baby girl was growing up.

“Smoke, don't cry man, you know seeing you cry makes me cry.” Stack spoke up softly as he stepped over to him, pulling him into a tight hug.

—-

It was just a year ago that they were in a hospital room, Annie almost squeezing his hand to death and Elijah trying his hardest not to pull it away as he comforted her the best he could.

And then the crying came.

She came into this world crying and it broke his heart in that moment he vowed that she’ll never cry like that again

“It's a girl!” the doctor said excitedly as they handed her over to the midwife, Elijah watched closely, breathing heavily before refusing back to Annie.

“You heard that baby?” he whispered to her with a shaky chuckle as he pressed his forehead against hers, “it’s a girl.. We got a baby girl,” he kissed her check softly as the midwife placed their daughter on Annie's chest.

Elijah felt his heart melt in that moment, she had Annie's whole face and had his eyes.

Annie let out a weak chuckle as she looked down at their daughter, breathing shakily as she rubbed her cheek with a thumb.

“She's real pretty..” she muttered softly as she tilted her head, smiling faintly. Elijah let out an amused hum as he kissed her cheek once more. “She gets it from her beautiful mother.” he gently touched their daughter's cheek, fast asleep she was.

“What’s her name, Mrs.Moore?" the midwife asks softly, entering the quiet moment between the new family.

Elijah and Annie had made a deal in the beginning of their relationship that they’ll take turns naming their kids when it came to that point.

And now it's that time.

“I like winter,” she said softly as she looked at the midwife. “She looks like a winter to me.” Her gaze went back to their baby girl.

Winter.

“Winter moore..” Elijah muttered gently as he started grinning , wiping away tears “I like that.” he said after a moment.

–

11:30 pm December 3th, she was born close to midnight. Yeah she definitely a winter.

Elijah watched and paid close attention to the midwife explaining how to change her diapers.

Like he was about to change an engine.

Stack enters the room with a big bag of gifts and food for Annie. “Wheres my niece at?” he asked almost immediately as he placed the bags on the nearby chair. “Just forget about me then, huh?” Annie spoke up with sarcasm , raising her eyebrows at him.

Stack lets out a small chuckle and walks over to her. “Of course not sis, wouldn't have my niece without ya.” he chuckled as he walked over with her food and gave her a chaste kiss on her cheek. “I got you that sushi you’ve been craving.” he muttered with a smirk as he wigged the bag in front of her.

Annie lets out an amused huff. “You remembered.” she beamed as she took the bag before he could taunt her any further.

He chuckled and gave a small nod before pausing as he saw smoke with the baby. He meets his eyes having a silent conversation with his brother.

“Thats her?”

“Yeah it's her.”

Stack let out a shaky laugh as he stepped towards the bassinet, he lightly touched her check (after washing his hands of course) “she stole your whole face annie” he chuckled as he glanced at Annie before looking back at her. “Whats her name?” he asked after a moment, keeping his gaze on his niece who he is absolutely going to spoil to death.

“Her names winter, winter moore.” Smoke said softly with a small smile as he looked at his brother.

He gives a small nod. “Isn’t it a little on the nose, no?” he started , immediately in the mode to tease them. “You know? Winter, and she's born in December?’ he said with a smirk as he looked at them and Annie met his gaze with a deadpanned expression and Elijah chuckled quietly, reluctantly agreeing with him.

“Well I like it, it fits her.” Annie said after a moment, chuckling gently as she thought about the irony of it.

“It does, I'll admit that.” he hummed as he looked at them. “Oh! I brought the camcorder.” he said as he walked over to the bags from earlier and started it up.

“Of course you did.” Elijah muttered softly as he kissed Annie's cheek.

Stack spent the rest of the night and early morning with them, taking pictures and recording little moments with them.

__

THE PRESENT

“I aint crying man,” Smoke says as he wipes away tears. “My eyes just sweating is all.” he muttered with a huff as straightened up.

Stack looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “right, right..” he said as he glanced at the decorations, holding back a laugh.

“Let's finish decorating before your wife says something..” He whispered to him quickly as he went back to the other side of the living. “Need to get that grill going soon before everyone and they mama start showing up.” he added as he picked up the silver strings.

“Yeah, you right.” Smoke said with a small chuckle as he refocused on setting up the table, wiping away a few stray tears.

:

In the kitchen.

Annie and pearline are seasoning up the meat for the grill, Mary helps with cutting up the vegetables and Sammie is playing with his little cousin.

“Snow,you want this or that?” Sammie asked softly as he held up the banana and veggie baby food. Sammie gave her the nickname snow cause of her being born in December, Soon the nickname just stuck.

Winter stares at the baby food with intense interest as if she was really deciding before she points to the banana one. “See, I knew you would pick this one.” Sammie muttered with a chuckle as he put away the veggie one and grabbed a spoon.

Annie watched with a chuckle as she shook her head, she was listening to their conversation, finishing up cutting up the chicken. “She doesn't like anything else but that banana, been trying to get her to like that veggie mix.” Annie says gently with a soft huff as she washed her hands.

“Well I wouldn't either, shit looks like diarrhea.” Pearline spoke up as she carried the pan of hotdogs and burger patties outside.

Mary and Sammie started laughing immediately. “Don’t let smoke hear you cussing, no cussing around his baby girl..” Annie says gently with a chuckle as she checks on the cake.”almost done..”she muttered softly before moving to the living room to check on the twins, see if they’re almost done.

She pauses, her gazing landing on the decorations and the birthday banner hanging to the side. “Well, this could be better.” She spoke up , leaning against the frame as she looked at them.

Stack and smoke immediately turned to face her, both looking a little guilty.

“Oh come on Annie, it gives a homey feel, gives very much family.” Stack called out as he looked at them, up on the ladder.

Annie looked at him with amusement

“We’re trying to hurry up,baby..” smoke muttered gently as he moved over to her, gently kissing her cheek. “Where’s little snow?” He hummed , rubbing her side as he glanced into the kitchen.

“Lil Sammie is feeding her.” she answered, smiling softly.

“Ain’t delta slim,supposed to be here grilling for us?” Annie asked after a moment, following behind smoke as he headed to the kitchen wanting to see his baby girl.

“He should be here any minute.” Stack spoke up from the living room as he finally got the sign right .

Annie chuckled at his words and gave a small nod as she watched stack for moment before refocusing on smoke.

“Let me take over ,lil Sammie.” He asked gently with a hum as he patted Sammie’s back.

Winter lets out a cooing noise. “Dada..” as she lifts her arms forgetting all about the baby food, smoke chuckles softly and picks her up anyway. “Yeah princess, it's dada.”he says gently as he pecks her cheeks.

“Just forget about me huh?” Sammie chuckles as he pokes winter's cheek as he moves around them, going to help stack. Smoke lets out an amused huff as he rocks her gently.

—

*knock,knock*

“I got it,” Sammie calls out as he steps away from the decorations, moving towards the front door. “What took you so long , old man?.” he asks with a small smile as he helps Delta slim.

Delta slim lets out a chuckle and adjust the cupcakes he brought (just in case)

“Well traffic was a bit-” he started to say until he noticed smoke looking at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘Right that no cussing rule..my bad Smoke.” he says with a huff as he glances at Sammie who's holding back a laugh as they move to the kitchen.

“Ayee, now that grill can get started.” stack says moving the last tray of meat to the back yard. “Cause I am starving waiting around for yall.” he muttered underneath his breath as he started the grill up.

“Coulda been had that grill going, yall aint have to wait for me to do that naw.” delta slim said with a huff, giving winter a kiss on the head as he passed by her and smoke, heading to the back yard, winter let out a giggle at the kiss which caused smoke to start smiling.

“That's what I was trying to tell them,slim.” Annie spoke up , as she looked at the twins. “But you know how they get.” she added with a giggle as smoke looks at her with an raised eyebrow, mary nods in agreement, looking at stack with a smirk.

“Yall aint got to gang up on a brotha.” stack says sarcastically, kissing Mary's head as he looks at the others.

“Oh please, they hardly ganging up on yall.” pearline says as she steps back inside. “I’ll say that's light work.”

“The lightest of work , mind you.” Slim said from outside as he put the hotdogs on the grill, everyone started laughing even little winter , the twins though.

They both got the same mug on their face.

—

2:23

“You know..something smells like it’s burning..” Sammie spoke up as sniffs the air.

“Something do smell like it’s burning..” Pearline muttered as she glanced outside, “ well it ain’t the grill.” she added shortly after seeing everyone outside.

“Go ask Annie if there’s something in the oven.” He asked as he stood up, going to check the oven anyway. “Boy, why would I ask her when you're doing it anyway.” She immediately said with irritation as she crossed her arms.

Sammie pauses as he sees the smoke. “Now, boy I know you hear me talking to yo—“ Pearline started before stopping in her tracks.

“That’s the cake ain’t it.”

“Yup..”

They both looked at each other. “I ain’t telling her.” She said immediately as she held her hands up.

“Oh very mature.” He says with a huff before going to turn the oven off.

Sammie coughs as he opens the over, quickly covering his mouth with his shirt. Pearline makes a stank face as the smell fills the kitchen, she moves to the windows to let the smoke out.

Sammie sighs as he looks at the overly burnt cake. “Would’ve thought the oven was on high..” he muttered with disbelief as he placed it on the stove.

Not even a full thirty seconds later.

“I swear something smells burnt..” Elijah muttered as he walked inside.

“Man nothing burning,you over reacting as usual smoke.” Stack says following right behind the twin before getting hit by the smell of burnt chocolate.

“That shit stank..” he coughed, earning a glare from smoke before smoke sighs and stepped further into the kitchen.

“Not my baby cake, oh lord..”he huffed as he looked at the cake, he had spent so much time making it from scratch. “I swear I told someone to remind me..” he muttered to himself as he stared at the burnt cake with disappointment.

“Should’ve put on a timer..” he sighed as he rubbed his cheek before carrying the pan to the trash and scraping the burnt cake straight into it.

Stack grew stiff, immediately recalling his twin telling him to remind him to check on the cake. he glanced at Sammie and Pearline as they got started on fanning the smoke detector before he slowly started backing away.

“Why my house smelling like that?.” Annie spoke softly with disbelief as she carried in the grilled chicken.

They all turned to look at her, except smoke who was still scraping the burnt cake out the pan.

“Um..the cake got burnt..”stack muttered as he rubbed the back of his head, glancing at Annie while he stood there like a deer caught in headlights.

Sammie and Pearline looked at each other , relieved that they didn’t have to tell her.

“I forgot about the cake , baby..” Smoke spoke up with a sigh , genuinely mopping right now as he placed the messed up pan on the counter. “I’ll buy you a new pan tomorrow.” He added as he crossed his arms.

Annie watches Elijah for a moment, sighing gently as she walks over and places the pan of grilled chicken on the stove.

“We’ll still make sure the day is special,papa..” she said softly and rubbed his back.

—

“Alright time to sing happy birthday!..” Annie says with a giggle as she carries out a plate with one cupcake on it.

A small smile grows on Elijah's face , still a little disappointed that he messed up his baby's first birthday cake but he’ll learn to deal with it. He sits at the table , holding his baby girl who’s gripping his chin right now. “Dada, dada..” she cooed gently,bouncing in his lap before noticing the cupcake quickly forgetting all about him.

“See, those cupcakes came in handy.” Delta slim spoke up as he moved over to the table.

Smoke chuckles at delta slim. “Guess you really thought ahead..” he says with a laugh.

Stacks soon came around with the camcorder ready. “Yall better sing happy birthday on key, I swear..” he warned playfully as he narrowed his eyes at everyone before settling the camera on winter and the cupcake.

“Well imma sing on key, I don’t know about the rest of yall though.” Sammie hummed as he cleared his throat, ready to show off.

Everyone lets out a laugh at Sammie’s words.

“Preacher boy, we get it, you can sing...” Pearline says softly with a giggle as she shakes her head, moving to stand beside him as they get ready to sing happy birthday.

While everyone is singing happy birthday, smoke fights back tears as it starts to really hit him.

His baby girl really is growing up.

Man ain’t ever been the emotional type but ever since Annie came into his life and ever since then it’s been an adventure and he wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world.

“Alright snow, time to blow out the candle..” Annie said gently with a warm expression as all of them watched winter, stack making sure it’s on her adorable face.

Winter looks at the candle before glancing at her mama like “yall really expect me to blow this candle out?”

Elijah chuckled as he peeped the look his daughter was giving, he sighed before blowing the candle out for her.

Winter immediately claps and giggles clearly gotten what she wanted out of him.

—

I hope you guys enjoyed!I feel like my writing is definitely getting better 🤍 also had to cut this a little short cause it was about to reach 3k words and i genuinely wanted this be short (well, as short as it could be😭)

Taglist - @aizawash0e @myheartsaysyes @lizbehave @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @nika324 @bananajoeclone @sunshinerepublic @xeebop @lestatthelioncourt @hdfen2474 @brownskincheyenne @r8dsquid @waitingtobreatheagain @brwnsuggasweetea

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:

Annie sat up. Reached for her robe off the bedpost.

The house had its morning sounds — birds off the back property, the faint tick of the pipes settling. Normal sounds. Her sounds. Except for the study door, closed at the end of the hall when she stepped out, the line of light beneath it already gone.

He was up. Already.

She stood there a moment longer than she needed to.

Then she went downstairs and put the kettle on.

She didn't go to him. That was the thing she decided in the space between filling the kettle and setting it on the flame. She wasn't going to go to him. She wasn't going to knock on that door, wasn't going to be the one to smooth it over, to make herself small enough to fit back into his good graces before she'd even had her tea.

She'd said a true thing.

He could come to her.

But by the time the kettle whistled and she'd poured her cup and stood at the kitchen window long enough for the steam to thin, she heard his footsteps on the stairs. Steady. Even. Like nothing had happened.

Like nothing had happened.

He appeared in the kitchen doorway dressed for the day — shirt pressed, collar buttoned, shoes already on — and Annie wrapped both hands around her mug and looked at him.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning."

He moved to the stove like it was any other day. Poured his own coffee. She watched him do it — the economy of it, how he took up space without asking for it, how he was already so thoroughly himself while she was still half-assembled.

"You eat?" he asked.

"Not yet."

He nodded. Leaned against the counter across from her, cup in hand, and looked at her with that particular expression he had — patient, contained, like he was waiting for her to catch up to something he'd already sorted through in the night.

It made her want to throw her mug at him.

"You slept alright?" she asked instead, and she heard the edge in it even as it left her mouth.

Something moved behind his eyes. "Fine."

"Good." She turned back to the window. "That's good."

The silence stretched between them — not comfortable, not exactly hostile. Just there. Full of last night and everything that hadn't been resolved and his footsteps going down the hall and the study door closing and her standing alone by the vanity realizing she felt guilty for something that had been the truth.

She heard him set his cup down.

"Annie."

"I ain’t apologizing," she said. She didn't turn around.

A pause.

"Didn't ask you to."

She turned then. He was looking at her steadily, and there was nothing in his face she could argue with — no anger, no wounded pride dressed up as calm. Just him. Looking at her like she was the only thing in the room worth looking at, like he could stand here all morning if that's what it took.

"You didn't come to bed," she said.

"No."

"Because I said the truth."

His jaw shifted. "Because you needed space."

"I needed—" She stopped. Let out a breath. "I needed to not feel like a prisoner in my own house, Elijah."

"You ain't a prisoner."

"I know what I said."

"So do I." His voice was quiet. Level. "And I heard you."

That landed differently than she expected. She waited for the rest of it — the correction, the reframing, the gentle redirection that always came dressed as understanding. But he just stood there, cup on the counter, watching her.

"You heard me," she repeated.

"I heard you." He picked up his cup again. Finished the last of his coffee. Set it in the sink. "I got some business to handle this morning. Be back before noon."

And that was it.

He pressed a kiss to her temple on the way past — brief, certain, like punctuation — and then he was gone. She heard the front door, the particular sound of it closing behind him. Not slammed. Just shut.

Annie stood in the kitchen, mug in both hands, and tried to decide if being heard was the same thing as being understood.

She decided it wasn't.

But she drank her tea anyway.

_____

He came back before noon, like he said.

Annie was in the sitting room with her sewing when she heard the door — and then his footsteps, and then the particular way they slowed at the bottom of the stairs — hesitant, almost, which was not a word she associated with Elijah Moore — before he found her.

He appeared in the doorway still in his morning clothes, hat turning slowly in his hands.

She looked up. Looked at his hands. Looked back at her sewing.

"You busy?" he asked.

"No more than usual."

He came in. Sat across from her in his armchair and didn't say anything right away, which told her more than words would have. Smoke always knew what he was going to say before he said it. The fact that he was sitting there turning his hat in his hands like a schoolboy outside the principal's office meant whatever was coming, he'd been dreading it.

She kept her needle moving. Let him sit in it.

"I got business up north," he finally said. "Have to leave Thursday."

Her needle stilled.

She didn't look up yet. Just let it land. Let it take up space in the room.

"How long," she said.

"Five days. Maybe six."

Now she looked up. He was watching her with an expression she didn't see often — something tight around the eyes, something working in his jaw. Not the controlled stillness he usually wore. Something more like a man bracing.

"You telling me…" she said, "now?"

"I found out yesterday."

She set her sewing down slowly. Folded her hands in her lap. "Yesterday."

"Annie—"

"You came home last night," she said, measured, "sat across from me at dinner, argued with me about a beach trip, slept in your study — and the whole time you already knew you were leaving Thursday."

His jaw tightened. "I ain’t think it was the right moment."

"Mm." She looked at him a moment longer, then picked her sewing back up. Let the silence stretch.

She could see it working on him. Could see him trying to find solid ground and not quite getting there. Good.

"I can’t skate," he said. "If there was any other way—"

"I'm sure."

"I mean it, Annie."

"I know you mean it." She turned her sewing in her hands, not really seeing it. "You always mean it, Elijah. That's never been the question."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. The hat had been set aside. He was looking at her the way he sometimes did when he was really looking — not managing her, not steering, just looking. Raw around the edges in a way he'd never allow in front of anyone else.

"I hate it," he said quietly. "I want you to know that. I don't—" He stopped. Pressed his mouth together. "I don't like leaving you."

And there it was.

That soft, exposed place he only ever showed her. The obsessive, devoted, slightly unhinged part of him that needed her the way some men needed air — not gracefully, not lightly, but desperately, completely, in a way that sometimes felt like drowning and sometimes felt like the only solid thing in the world.

Annie felt it. Felt the pull of it, the familiar ache.

And then she felt something else.

The particular shift that happened when the balance tipped — when he needed her more than she needed him in this moment, when the power that was usually his came loose and floated in the space between them, waiting to be claimed.

She set her sewing aside. Looked at him directly.

"Is there anything more important to you than me?" she asked.

His head came up. "What?"

"It's a simple question." Her voice was soft. Almost sweet. "Is there something up north more important than me? Your wife?"

"No — of course not—"

"Then why are you going?"

"Annie, it's business, it ain’t a matter of—"

"But you just said there was no other way." She tilted her head. "So something up north requires you specifically. Requires you to leave. To be gone for almost a week." She let a beat pass. 

"That sounds like something that matters more than me."

"That is not—" He looked almost pained. "That's not what this is."

She said nothing. Just watched him.

"You my world," he said, and his voice had gone rough at the edges. "You know that. There is nothing — Annie, there is not a thing on this earth I put above you. This is business. It's — it's not a choice."

"Everything's a choice, Elijah."

He ran a hand over his face. She watched him do it — watched the fracture in his composure — and kept her expression perfectly, serenely neutral. Patient. Like she had all the time in the world. Like she wasn't quietly turning a blade.

"I don't believe you don't have options," she said lightly. "You Smoke Moore. You always have options. You just decided this one required you."

"It does require me—"

"Mm." She turned her face slightly away. Just enough. Let him see her doubt it. Let him see her pull back.

She heard his breath change.

"Sugar." His voice dropped. Softer now. Almost careful. "Please don't do this."

"I'm not doing anything." She examined a loose thread on her sewing. "I'm just asking questions. You can answer them or not. You the one leaving."

The silence that followed was thick with him trying to hold himself together. She could feel it. Could feel him across the room like a weather system, all that intensity with nowhere to go, looking for a way back in and finding the door closed.

Good, she thought again. Feel it.

Because she felt it every time he told her no. Every time he handed her back her request, her independence, her small attempts at a life that was also hers — firm and gentle and completely immovable. He never seemed to feel the cost of that. Never seemed to register what it took from her to be contained so lovingly, so thoroughly.

Let him register something for once.

"I'll make arrangements," he started, reaching for the practical. "Lennie will be here, you'll have everything you need, all the accounts—"

"I know about the accounts."

"I'm just saying—"

"Elijah." She looked at him. "I know about the accounts. I'm not worried about money."

He fell quiet.

"I'm worried," she said, softer, and let just enough of the real thing into her voice — just enough genuine hurt to make it land — "about being here. Alone. In this house. While you're in another city." She paused. "Other women seeing a handsome man traveling by himself. Thinking he might be available."

"Annie—" The flash of something almost desperate crossed his face. "You know I would never—"

"I know what you say."

"It's what I mean—"

"Then you should stay." She picked her sewing back up. Simple. Final. "If I'm your world, stay."

"I can't—"

"Can't or won't?"

"Annie, please—"

And there it was. Please. From Elijah Moore. Turning his hat in his hands and saying please to her in his own sitting room like she held something he needed.

She kept her eyes on her sewing.

Let him sit in it just a little longer.

Then, without looking up:

"Who's going to be here with me?"

A pause.

"I asked Stack to come stay."

She looked up slowly. Let him see the full weight of that land on her face — the offense, the disbelief, the particular exhaustion of a woman who has just been told her husband is leaving and also that he doesn't trust her alone.

"Your brother," she said.

"He's family—"

"Will be in my house. Watching me. Like I'm something that needs minding."

"That's not—"

"While you up north." She stared at him. "With other women. Who don't know you're taken."

He looked, genuinely, like a man being pulled in four directions at once. The guilt of leaving. The defensiveness of being doubted. The obsessive need to know she was safe. The desperate desire for her not to be angry.

She watched him cycle through all of it.

Then she picked up her needle, turned back to her work, and said pleasantly:

"Well. I hope that business of yours up north is worth it."

And left him sitting there with nothing to do but feel the weight of every single thing she hadn't said.

____

He left Thursday morning before the sun was fully up.

Annie was awake. Had been for an hour. She lay on her side facing the window while he moved through the room in the grey pre-dawn quiet — the soft sounds of him dressing, the drawer opening and closing, the particular weight of him sitting on the edge of the bed to put his shoes on.

She didn't turn over.

She heard him pause.

"Angel."

She kept her eyes on the window. The sky was doing that thing it did just before light, that deep blue that wasn't quite night anymore but hadn't committed to morning either.

"Annie." His hand came to her shoulder, warm through the thin cotton of her nightgown. "I'm heading out."

"I know."

"Look at me before I go."

She didn't. She pulled the quilt up a little instead, tucking it under her chin. Small. Deliberate.

She heard his exhale. Long and quiet and controlled, the way he controlled everything — but underneath it, just barely, something fraying.

"Baby, please."

"Have a safe trip, Smoke."

He noted the switch. Seems he wasn’t Elijah to her today.

The hand on her shoulder tightened slightly. Not rough. Just — needing. Like he could hold on long enough to make her turn around.

She didn't turn around.

After a moment he leaned down and pressed his lips to her hair. Stayed there a beat too long — breathing her in, she knew, the way he always did, that particular obsessive cataloguing of her that he probably didn't even realize he did. Like he was memorizing something he was afraid of losing.

She closed her eyes and said nothing.

"I'll call tonight," he said against her hair. "When I get in."

"Mm."

Another pause. She could feel him standing at the side of the bed, could feel him looking at her curled up with her back to him, and she knew exactly what it was doing to him — knew because she knew him, knew every frequency of his obsession, knew that leaving on bad terms was the particular hell he'd built for himself by needing her the way he did.

Good.

The bed dipped as he straightened. She heard him pick up his bag. Cross to the door.

He stopped in the doorway.

She waited.

"I love you," he said. Rough at the edges. Not his usual register — not warm and certain, not a statement so much as something he needed her to have before he walked out.

Annie pulled the quilt a little higher.

"Lock the door on your way out," she said.

The silence that followed lasted three full seconds. She counted them.

Then his footsteps down the hall. The stairs. The front door, closing with a quiet, careful click — like even in leaving he was trying not to disturb her.

She lay there for a long time after.

The room was very still and very his — his smell on the pillow beside her, his book still open on the nightstand, a cufflink he'd missed gleaming dully on the dresser.

She didn't feel as victorious as she'd expected to.

She felt the absence of him like a change in air pressure. Immediate and total, the way it always was — because that was the other side of loving Elijah Moore, the thing she never said out loud. That his presence was so complete, so all-encompassing, that when he left the room it registered in her body before her mind caught up.

She hated that.

She hated that she could be furious with him and still feel the shape of where he'd been.

She lay there another half hour. Then she got up, put on her robe, and went downstairs to make her tea.

___

Lennie arrived at eight. 

She'd come about three years ago. Smoke had noticed Annie doing everything herself — the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, the preserving, the mending, all of it stacked on top of each other from first light to last — and had decided, with the particular logic of a man who loved you and didn't always ask first, that it didn't make a lick of sense for her to be doing all that alone. He'd shown up one Tuesday morning with Lennie behind him and said this is Lennie, she'll be here weekdays like it was already settled. Because it was already settled.

Annie had bristled. Had opened her mouth to explain that she didn't need — that she was perfectly capable — that this house was hers to run and she ran it fine —

Smoke had kissed her forehead and gone back to work.

Lennie had watched him go. Waited until his footsteps faded all the way down the front walk and the door had closed behind him. Then she'd turned to Annie, calm and unhurried, and said:

"I'm old enough to know I work for you, baby. Mr. Smoke just cut the check."

That had been that.

Stack was due by evening.

Annie moved through the morning the way she moved through most things she couldn't control — with her hands busy and her face composed and the part of her that was genuinely unsettled tucked away somewhere it wouldn't show.

She baked. Reorganized the linen cupboard. Sat on the back porch with her second cup of tea and watched the property in the late morning quiet and tried not to think about the fact that by tonight this house would have someone else in it.

Stack.

She'd known Stack for as long as she'd known Smoke — which meant she knew him the way you knew a man's brother. At a slight remove. Through the lens of someone else's love for him. He was easier than Smoke on the surface, quicker to laugh, less likely to let a silence stretch until you felt it in your teeth. He'd always been kind to her. Warm, even.

She'd never had occasion to test what was underneath that.

She wasn't particularly worried about it.

He was Smoke's brother, not Smoke. Whatever this arrangement was — whatever name Smoke had put on it when he'd called Stack and asked this of him — it was going to be five days of someone in her space, underfoot, pretending she needed looking after.

She could manage that.

She was good at managing things.

She heard the car at half past six.

She was in the kitchen, something on the stove, hair pinned up, apron still on — and she'd told herself she wasn't going to go to the door, wasn't going to receive him like company, because he wasn't company. He was an imposition dressed up as a favor and she wasn't going to pretend otherwise.

She heard Lennie let him in. Heard his voice in the front hall — and then Lennie's laugh, bright and surprised, the kind that got pulled out of a person before they'd decided to give it. Then something that sounded like Lennie swatting him on the arm and telling him to behave, and his laugh underneath it, low and genuine.

Annie stirred her pot and said nothing.

His footsteps moved through the house unhurried, like he'd been here a hundred times, like the layout was already his. And then he appeared in the kitchen doorway and she turned just slightly, enough to acknowledge him without welcoming him.

He was leaning against the frame with his jacket already off and his sleeves half-rolled, bag presumably already dealt with, looking for all the world like a man who'd come home rather than arrived somewhere he'd been sent.

"Something smells incredible," he said, and it wasn't a line — it was just true, and he said it the way he said most things, like he hadn't considered dressing it up. His eyes moved to the stove, genuinely curious. "That a roast?"

"Chicken."

"With what — is that tarragon?"

She blinked, despite herself. "Yes."

He made a sound low in his throat that was almost reverent. "Annie." He said her name like it was its own sentence. Like she'd done something personally to him. "You didn't have to do all that."

"I was cooking anyway."

"Still." He pushed off the doorframe, moved into the kitchen with that easy, unhurried way he had — not crowding her, just present — and peered over her shoulder at the pot with unself-conscious curiosity. "Smoke ain’t tell me you could cook like this. He just said you could cook."

"He don’t miss any meals in this house.”

Stack laughed. Full and easy, head tipping back slightly. "Lord, that's true. Man is lookin’ heavy.” He shook his head, still smiling, and moved back to give her space. Leaned against the counter across from her instead, arms loose at his sides. "He gon’ call tonight to check in and I'm gonna have to lie to him."

She glanced at him. "About what."

"Tell him dinner was just alright." He said it perfectly straight. "Otherwise he'll spend the whole week feeling bad he's missing it. And then I'll have to hear about it."

Annie looked at him for a moment.

Then, against her better judgment, against the coolness she'd been intending to maintain all evening — she felt the corner of her mouth move.

Not a smile. Just the suggestion of one.

Stack caught it. Didn't make a thing of it. Just turned to look out the kitchen window at the last of the evening light like he hadn't noticed.

But she saw his own mouth curve.

"Table needs setting," she said, turning back to the stove.

"Yes ma'am," he said easily, and went to find the plates without being told where they were.

The dishes were done by eight.

Lennie had gone home. The house was quiet in that particular way it got after a meal — settled, warm, smelling of food and the faint sweetness of the candles Annie had lit without thinking about it. She stood in the kitchen for a moment after the last dish was put away, hands dry, apron folded over the drawer handle, and listened to the house.

Stack was somewhere. She could feel it the way you felt another person's presence in a space — a subtle occupation, a difference in the air.

She took the bottle of bourbon from the cabinet. Poured herself a small glass. Thought about it. Poured a second.

The back porch ran the length of the house, screened in, the swing at the far end facing out over the yard and the dark tree line beyond. Annie came out here most evenings when the weather allowed. It was hers in a way most of the house didn't quite feel — the one place Smoke never tried to improve or expand or make more than it was.

She sat. Set both glasses on the small table beside the swing. Pushed off gently with one foot.

The night was warm and soft, full of crickets, the occasional low call of something further out in the trees.

She'd been sitting maybe ten minutes when the screen door opened.

Stack stepped out, looked at the second glass, and looked at her.

"That for me or were you just being optimistic?" he asked.

"Figured you'd find your way out here eventually."

He took the glass. Settled into the wicker chair across from her rather than the swing, which she appreciated without saying so. He stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankle, and looked out at the yard the way she'd been looking at it — easy, unhurried, like the dark had something worth seeing in it.

They sat like that for a while. Just the crickets and the bourbon and the swing's soft creak.

"You do this every night?" he asked eventually.

"Most nights."

"Smoke come out here with you?"

She considered that. "Sometimes. He doesn't sit still as well as he thinks he does."

Stack made a sound that was almost a laugh. 

"This a good porch," he said.

"It is."

"Good bourbon too."

"Don't tell Smoke. He thinks I drink sweet wine."

He turned to look at her then, something amused and a little appreciative in his expression. "Is that right?"

"He'd have opinions."

"He'd have a whole committee meeting about it." He shook his head, looked back at the yard. "My brother."

"Your brother," Annie agreed, and there was something in the saying of it — fond and tired and complicated all at once — that felt more honest than anything she'd said all day.

Stack heard it. She could tell by the way he was quiet for a moment, not filling the space, just letting it be there.

"He means well," he said finally. Not defending. Just stating.

"I know he does." She pushed the swing gently. "That's the hardest part."

Stack looked at her. She kept her eyes on the tree line.

"Harder to be angry at a man who loves you that much," she said. "Easier when they're careless. When they don't notice. But he notices everything." She paused. "Notices everything and still."

She stopped herself. Picked up her glass.

Stack didn't press. Didn't offer anything to fill the gap she'd left. Just sat with it, which was — she noticed — different from how Smoke would have handled it. Smoke would have had a response. Smoke always had a response.

Stack just let her have the thought.

It was disarming in a way she hadn't expected.

"Thank you for dinner," he said, after a moment. Easy. Moving them back to solid ground without making a production of it.

"You already thanked me."

"Deserved a second one."

She looked at him then. He was watching the yard again, glass resting on his knee, entirely at ease in her space in a way that should have irritated her and somehow didn't quite.

She thought about what she'd expected when Smoke told her. The imposition of it. The indignity. Someone planted in her house to make sure she stayed where she was put.

This wasn't — he wasn't what she'd braced for.

Which was, she supposed, information.

She finished her bourbon. Set the glass down.

"I'm heading in," she said, standing.

Stack looked up. "Goodnight, Annie."

"Night." She moved to the screen door. Paused with her hand on it. "There's coffee things on the counter. Help yourself in the morning."

"Appreciate it."

She went inside. Let the screen door close softly behind her.

Upstairs, she washed her face and got into bed and lay in the quiet of the house — his smell finally fading from the pillow, the bourbon warm in her chest — and thought that this might be alright. Five days of easy company and someone else's presence and then Smoke would be home and everything would go back to whatever it was.

She could manage five days of Stack.

She was almost sure of it.

<<< Chapter 1

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A/N One day I'll learn not to turn every prompt into a multi-part situation. Today is not that day, but it is your lucky day. I submitted my resignation today and figured I just use the next 2 weeks to coast while wrapping things up at my job. Therefore... More fics!

__________

My other works can be found in My Masterlist. Thanks for reading!

___________

All Fic Taglist - Interested in my future works? Let me know if you'd like me to add you to my tag list. (Also lmk if you want me to remove you. No hard feelings I promise.)

@chaneajoyyy @pyraomen @browngirldominion @sarcastic-sunshines @rolemodelshit @bbymuthaaa @boonoonoonus @joysofmyworld @twistedsistas-stuff @blackctrl

CW: 🔞Mentions of pregnancy loss. Smut. Profanity. Smoke is doing too much too soon. Slight possiveness.

A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87349321

Chapter Word Count: 6,900

Story Notes: It may seem like a lot bc there is a lot of moving parts (which is why I lost some writing steam) but I think it will make sense in the end. Well, i hope. 💀💀💀 Everything and everybody has a role and I’m trying to lay specific groundwork. Also for the purpose of this story, I am spelling Brasil with a Z because that is how most Americans spell it but after visiting, the ppl of Brasil respectfully want us to spell it with an S and they will let you knoooow that lol. As they should.

Inspo/credit: I had the idea and the location/setting is inspired by comments from @brownskincheyenne and @mai4u . Thank you to @lizbehave & @brownskincheyenne for letting me bounce ideas off of them. 💛

A/N: Ola! 🇧🇷 Part 2 (there wasn’t supposed to be a part 2 😭☹️) will be out soon within the week; it is done. I just need to edit grammar. And noooo i’m not lying, friends. lol. Mkay bye. 💛

🏝️🏖️🛫

Jordyn paused her hops around the classroom, her hair beads knocking to a stop. The seven year old was scheduled to be at recess with the rest of her classmates but as usual, she opted to hang with Annie instead. Their relationship wasn’t the standard student- teacher. Jordyn’s mom, Jazmine, and Annie both went to the same middle and high schools.

The busy mom was more than elated when she attended Open House night at the start of the school year to find Jordyn’s name under Annie’s on the pamphlet.

And when Jazmine miscarried her identical twins over Christmas break, Annie had been the one to check in on them daily. Jordyn was a chunky lil thing.

Thick fro, sable brown skin, with a distinctive birthmark. A gray patch of hair along her hairline. “Ms. Celestine?” Her little face was inquisitive.

Annie looked over at the little girl who was still out of breath from her marathon around the classroom.

“Hm?” Annie hummed as she wiped the whiteboard clean of the day’s evidence. From the look of curiosity on Jordyn’s face, the woman anticipated something borderline inappropriate and or slightly offensive. Maybe both.

“When you go-gonna get to get marry and have a baby like my mom?”

She was right. Not appropriate.

The teacher padded over to the young girl. Her black strapless maxi dress moved with her every step while the keys on her braided lanyard bounced rhythmically.

“Jordyn, it’s not nice to ask grown ups this question, baby.” She patted the top of the girl’s head. “And sometimes… some ladies don’t want to get married and that’s okay too.” Annie reasoned.

The child pondered and Annie saw her wheels churning.

“Sorry.” A little pout formed on her two toned lips. “But I think you gonna have a baby soon. A girl! Like me.”

Annie relented. “Come on, recess is almost ova’. “

————————————————————————

Annie’s car keys clattered on the end table. Twenty four hours from now, she’d be on an airplane to Rio and she still wasn’t packed. She didn’t even know where her passport was because she spent most of her time planning the actual itinerary. An incoming facetime came through. Tisha and Kym.

“What time we need to be at the airport?”

Kym was more than Annie’s friend.

The two women had been inseparable since their college days at Tulane University and now they were both teachers. Kym taught eighth grade at a private catholic school, her everyday far different than Annie’s who taught second grade at Langston Hughes Charter School.

She sighed. “Let’s be there for nine in the mornin’ tomorrow.”

Though Kym and Tisha were miles apart from each and both at their respective apartments, they both made the same exact displeased face at the same time.

“Ann, our plane from hea’ to Atlanta don’t take off until 1pm… “

Annie stopped rummaging in her walk in closet for her passport to place her annoyed face into the camera. “And?” Her eyebrow raised.

The two women didn’t push any further seeing as how Annie was in control of their tickets and everything else.

Her doe eyes fixed them with a pointed look. “Ya’ll two betta’ be on time or I’m canceling ya’ll tickets.”

————————————————————————-

📍 Atlanta Airport. 📍

The quick two hour flight from New Orleans to Georgia breezed by for the group of friends. Flight attendants saw them in matching leopard print two piece sets and quickly determined that the three had to be celebrating something.

Once Kym briefly mentioned that it was her birthday, the drinks were in abundance.

Now, tipsy and needing to pee, they each took turns watching all of their purses while they went to the restroom one by one. Annie sat on the dark blue colored chair with her knees under herself as she spoke with her mom and balanced a lemonade from Popeyes in her free hand.

A neutral robotic voice came through the overhead speakers.

“Gooooood evening, ladies and gentleman. It’s your gate agent Seth and I’m here with my lovely colleague Yolanda.

Delta welcomes you to gate C44 for flight 4535 to Rio De Janeiro. Boarding will commence shortly.”

Her mother, Josephine, whom was on the other end of the line and hundreds of miles away heard the loud announcement as well. The fifty year old woman certainly had her reservations about her only child traveling so far away from home but her bones rested in the fact that Annie was never alone. Even if she was the only physical being standing in a room, she’d always have company. Josephine and her mother, Ann-Marie, made sure of that.

But something or someone told her, showed her-that this trip would be good to her daughter in more ways than one.

“You watch yaself out there na’. Pray your protections everyday. You and them girls stick together like ya was born together.

Ya hear me?”

Annie began packing up her carryon and headed towards the trashcan to toss her half eaten meal. “I hear you, mama.”

A couple hundred feet away at an empty gate of a recently departed flight to Amsterdam, Elijah sat, his deep brown pools tracking the Delta app for his boarding status. Being an active entrepreneur afforded him many things such as a last minute $7,000 business class ticket to Rio. As it turns out, car dealerships and gas stations provided well. Real well. His cracked Iphone vibrated in his large palm. Stack.

A janitor stood right in front of him to empty a trashcan. But in his peripheral, he saw her. He saw the way her braids bounced with her every step towards the nearby garbage can on the side of her seat. Smooth dark skin shining under the lights. He was captivated but to anyone walking past the stoic man, they still wouldn’t have known. Stack was still on the line after saying his brother’s name for the third time. “Smoke!”

Elijah tore his eyes from Annie to look out of the window at the massive parked airplane.

“Yeah?” He tried to remain nonchalant.

Elias asked his question for the fourth time. “You need me out there?”

An announcement from a woman over the intercom cut in. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now boarding military personal and Delta One passengers for flight 4535 to Rio De Janeiro.”

Smoke grabbed his carryon and headed towards the gate. “No, ion need you.”

The call was disconnected before Elias could respond. A text quickly followed.

Stack 💸: Fuck you too nigga. Be safe.

Smoke 💨: I will.

Annie and Kym were standing with their bags in hand while Tisha rushed to the restroom last minute. Goosebumps formed on Annie’s forearms but she didn’t know why.

Shortly after, Tisha returned with the entire stock of bathroom napkins in tow as she strolled over to her friends with a grin that usually indicated that she was up to no good.

Tisha placed her bag on the chair in front of her so she could readjust her clothes and apply a bit of carmex to her pouty lips. “Ann! Ol’ boy in the blue sweats been eyeing you for damn near ten hours. You ain’t see it?!” Both Annie and Kym looked at her in confusion and slight annoyance when they saw all of the paper towels in her bag. “Turn around and look to ya left.”

Annie slightly craned her neck before Tisha stopped her. “Wait, girl. Don’t make it obvious because his ass still looking.”

But Annie didn’t care. She never did.

The repeated sound of boarding passes being scanned provided the perfect cover as all three women surveilled all of the passengers at the gate.

Annie took in the surroundings and stopped, only to find Elijah gawking at her unapologetially as he held up the boarding line for the other business class customers.

He gave her one piercing glance over from head to toe and nodded to himself as he if he were answering a question. One of the gate agents stepped in.

“Mr. Moore, if we can please have you head this way down the jet bridge, please.” The worker motioned towards the steel door but as with everything else in his life, Elijah took his sweet time. Kym looked over at Annie who still hadn’t move from her place. “Bittttcchhh. He is eye fucking you. The fuck goin’ on right na’?”

Neither of them said or did anything as they continued to stare at each other mercesilly. Annie broke the contact first so that she could unplug and untangle her charger from the seat. After a solid minute, his grip tightened on the shoulder strap of his carryon before walking through the boarding door.

By hour four of the nine hour flight, all three women started to feel it. They were cramped, hot, and tired. Kym complained of a Charlie horse in her right leg.

Premium Economy certainly wasn’t worth the extra money, especially on their teacher’s salary. The flight crew began the first meal service with several hot food carts being rolled between the aisles.

The male flight attended stopped in the row of them. “Chicken or veggie?”

A young black woman sporting a deep red lip and knotless braids while holding a tray with three wine glasses stopped at Row 17 where the women were sitting. She bent down and began passing out the glasses to each of the women.

This certainly wasn’t the same wine they received about thirty minutes ago so they looked at her in bewilderment, but the flight attendant only smiled because she knew. The final glass was handed to Annie along with a small white card.

“Mr. Moore in seat 7A requested that I bring these over to you all.” She smiled and continued. “He also wants me to give this to you specifically.” Annie was handed a business card as she furrowed her brow.

Elijah Moore. Co-Owner and Operator of Moore Honda Dealership.

Jackson, MS

Ph: 601-276-8324.

Kym’s long nails nearly scratched the back of Annie’s hand when she snatched the card from her grasp. “You better get on him ‘fore I do.”

The flight attendant eased her way back into the Business class cabin, heading straight to Smoke’s seat that was soon to be prepared and switched to a lie flat position for bed. “Mr. Moore, she accepted it.”

📍Annie’s hotel. JW Marriott Rio📍

The three women and their luggage piled into the entryway of the suite made up of connecting rooms. One king bed and two double queen beds welcomed them in along with the scent of ocean water from the slightly ajar window.

“Ann, you can take the main room since you so graciously planned everythin’.”

She didn’t refute because it was needed. Everything hurt.

Tisha raided the minibar and cracked open a bottle of inexpensive wine.

“We made it!! No students, no work, just fun and Annie gettin’ fucked! Cheers!” She smacked Annie’s plump ass.

Kym laughed as she watched the two but Annie wasn’t impressed.

“I need a nap. Bye.” She shut the door and instantly reached for her bag to find Smoke’s card in the front pocket.

📍Hotel Emiliano. Smoke’s Suite 📍

His phone vibrated on the nightstand right next to the stack of Brasilian Real dollars.

An unknown number with a 504 area code appeared.

Annie: Thank you for the drinks. Annie.

That was all she said. No emoji. Nothing.

Annie? She’s from New Orleans? Smoke thought to himself. Only three hours away from his home and more importantly, probably minutes away from one of three gas stations he owned in her city.

Smoke: Welcome. 😊

Another text came through.

Smoke: When can I see u?

Annie fidgeted with the tv remote as she pondered on a response. She was here for a vacation, not for whatever this was. What it could be.

Annie: Ima think about it. I hope you ain’t crazy.

She replied via her iPad before setting it down to walk to her ensuite bathroom.

His response came in before she could even sit on the heated toilet seat.

Smoke: 😊

Three soft knocks sounded off at the door of Elijah’s suite. It was the hotel manager, Manu. The middle aged blonde woman happily greeted Smoke every time he visited and this time was no exception.

A small round cake with a bottle of champagne was given to him commemorate his tenth visit to the property.

———————————————————————-

The three women were squeezed into the backseat of the small suv as the Uber driver carelessly swerved in and out of busy traffic with the car windows down.

Humidity was a killer but that hadn’t stopped the women from taking in the sights and sounds of busy downtown Rio.

They sighed at the sounds of the water waves from nearby Ipanema Beach, which they planned to visit the next morning to watch the sunrise. Tourists painted the city for Carnaval. It was a Monday night but it felt like a weekend … and there’s only one place to be on Monday nights in Rio.

Pedro De Sal. A widely known weekly block party where everyone of all races and ages gathered for food, music, and drinks.

Her phone buzzed as she exited the Uber.

Smoke’s phone number still wasn’t saved yet but she recognized the area code instantly.

Smoke: You be safe tonight wherever you end up.

Annie: Thank you. You too. 💟

One emoji this time. They were getting somewhere.

Tisha and Kym lead the way while Annie slowly padded behind them with her phone in hand. She was wearing a green low v cut top that exposed her titties as they threatened to spill over, paired with a khaki colored mini skirt and gold jewelry to match.

“Get off that phone and let’s get to it.” Kym threw over her shoulder in Annie’s direction. Before they could even enter the chaos, a young woman with braids and sable skin stopped them. Unfamiliar words began tumbling out of her mouth while the ladies smiled at her awkwardly. It was Portuguese. Annie held up her phone near the woman’s mouth so that Siri could translate.

“You are so pretty!” Siri translated relayed. She spoke her reply into the speaker, thanking the woman and paying the compliment back because the woman was in fact gorgeous as well. Tonight was going to be a good night.

Scents of cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, food and sweat permeated the air as the women approached the gravel road.

It felt like home, even more so when the DJ shouted them out on their walk up.

Tisha spun around in a circle, her neck stretched out trying to figure out the source of the savory food in the air.

The spices tickled her nose.

“I’ma need whateva’ smelling fire like this.”

A man rolling a cart walked near them and it clicked that he was responsible.

“Excuse me.” Annie waived to grab his attention and he made his way to the girls with a smile. “Can we have some?”

The man stared at her in confusion but his grin remained. Tisha took out her phone to translate just as Annie did a few minutes ago. They were handed small plastic bowls of MOQUECA BAIANA, a Brazilian fish stew served over a bed of fluffy rice.

Kym tried to hand the man a few Brazilian Real to pay him but he declined then proceeded to roll his cart over to the next group.

An hour went by while the woman danced the warm night away and lost track of time. Annie was swaying back and forth with a drink in hand while Tisha and Kym were trying to clumsily film a Tiktok to a popular Funk song. Her phone buzzed again.

Elijah: You good?

Annie: Yea.

Elijah: Got time for me tonight?

Annie: Maybe…

Elijah: Good. Where are you?

Annie: Some kinda block party…

Smoke visited Brazil quite often so he knew there was only one place that she could be right now. She looked over at her girls who were already staring at her while they watched her practically be face first in her phone.

Kym’s left eyebrow raised. “That’s that man, ain’t it?”

Annie took a sip of her drink but even in the darkness of the evening, the women still noticed her blushing.

Tisha spoke next. “What he want now?”

Kym laughed. “Bitch, ain’t it obvious? He want ha!”

This wasn’t typical Annie. Texting, spending her night on the phone like some teenager, and actually considering meeting up with a man that she barely knew. Though it’s only been less than twenty four hours, they’d never seen her like this. Ever. A local woman squeezed herself in between the women with a smile.

Her English wasn’t the best but she tried.“Dance… wiff me.” And the women happily obliged. DJ Batata’s “Movimento das Maravilhas” took over the crowd and brought everyone to the middle of the street. Annie had her hands on her knees while Tisha and Kym filmed and hyped her up despite all of their phones having a low battery. Forty five minutes later and she still hadn’t responded to him nor had she agreed to anything yet because she was preoccupied with getting her third drink of the night.

Smoke: ?

Smoke: Sending a car your way rn

While standing in line to try Brigadeiros, a Brazilian dessert, she decided to check her phone that was dying and overheated.

Shit. But truthfully? She wanted to go and something deep down guided her to do so.

Maybe it was curiosity or something else that she wasn’t ready to name yet.

Kym walked over to her and handed her a plastic bottle.

“What he sayin’?” Her chin pointed down at Annie’s phone.

She fidgeted. “He wanna see me but ion know about all of that.”

The food vendor handed her a plate of the well loved desserts along with a glass of cold Brazilian Lemonade.

Kym frowned. “And why not? Seems like you wanna go ta’ me. You should.”

“We on a girl’s trip. I ain’t come here for all ‘dat and… I don’t even know him.” Annie sighed.

“Ann, we want you to have fun. You planned everything and been stressed ova’ it for months. Go enjoy.” Kym practically shooed her away.

“Enjoy it safely because I don’t need your mama usin’ her magic to turn me into Chihuahua at three in the mornin’ if something happen to you.” She added on a second thought.

Smoke: The driver pullin’ up

Finally, she responded.

Annie: Okay. Coming.

The three women hugged as they shared their goodbyes for the night. Tisha grabbed Annie’s clutch bag to slip an AirTag inside of it while Kym triple checked that she could see Annie’s location on her phone. Kevin, the chauffeured driver of the SUV stood against the vehicle as he scanned the perimeter for his expected passenger while holding a sign with Annie’s name on it.

———————————————————————

Even the hotel lobby smelled expensive.

Accents of golds and browns adorned the front desk and the nearby sitting area.

The worker at the concierge desk smiled as Annie walked past their desk, her skirt exposing her thick thighs. Hell, everything was exposed and she was starting to feel out of place.

“Annie.” His Southern lilt immediately grabbed her attention. His Mississippi accent surely didn’t line up with her Louisiana one but it surely stuck out like a sore thumb in a lobby filled with only Portuguese speakers. Smoke sauntered over to her as if he was a predator stalking its prey, because he was. His eyes surveyed her partially clothed body and his displeasure at her outfit was evident. Annie’s skirt was too short and he was going to let her know. His eyebrow raised.

“This whatchu’ wore all night out there?”

Annie’s face scrunched up in confusion as a familiar warmth began to pool between her slick sweat thighs. But before she could even reply, he took her hand in his and eased them to the gold elevators.

——————————————————————

When she exited the spacious shower, Elijah had a multitude of brand new toiletries splayed out for her use. The bathroom countertop contained a brand new toothbrush, makeup remover wipes, toothpaste, lotion, and a fresh bathrobe with an E emblem that hung loosely on the nook. She quietly thanked him for the items but… they weren’t usual and she was hesitant to use them.

She left the bathroom to make room for the man even though it wasn’t needed.

Now, she sat on the sofa with her thick legs folded under. Smoke was right, the warm shower that he suggested thirty minutes ago did her well. She was beyond relaxed now.

The extra vodka shot inside of the Caipirinha was hitting.

It was Elijah’s turn to shower now. His dick hardening under the continuous stream warm stream. He grabbed the hand held shower-head and angled it towards his broad back, sighing in content.

He had her right where he wanted. Her smiles from earlier today replaying over and over for him as he closed his eyes.

Annie’s phone buzzed on the couch cushion as Tisha’s contact photo appeared.

“You all good? I don’t need Josephine and your Aunt Carlotta to put a root on me if something happen to you.”

She casually sipped her drink.

“Just fine. Goin to sleep in a few.”

“Oop. I’m sure ya’ll is.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “Don’t do that.”

Elijah’s footsteps sounded against the cold floor as he made his way to the fully stocked mini bar. Candy, liquor, crackers and gum stared back at him. He glanced over in the woman’s direction but remained silent. The lighting from the tv warmed Annie’s cheeks or maybe it was him. Or maybe it was the liquor but he didn’t miss it.

“You want somethin’ to drink?” The cork popped.

“Yea.” She whispered it so softly that he would’ve missed it if he still hadn’t been watching her. The conversation continued and flowed naturally. Small talk like how many siblings they each had, their careers, and their parents. What was missing from the conversation was the small but very important fact that Elijah was familiar with New Orleans and that he owned several gas stations there.

“ I still can’t imagine two of you.” She shook her in disbelief before taking a sip of water. The pre rolled cigarette on the coffee table stared back at him. “What you mean? You sayin’ it like it’s a bad thing.

She shrugged. “It might be.”

Elijah shifted the conversation and his body closer to her, his leg rubbing against hers.

“You enjoying ya vacation?” He pried but it was sincere. He truly wanted to know everything, down to what she had for lunch this afternoon back at her hotel.

His back muscles flexed as he reached for the wine glasses to pour them a second round. Annie readjusted herself on the couch, the belt of her robe slightly loosening. “I am. Hope it stay dat’ way.”

“It will.” He promised.

The hotel couch dipped under his weight when he moved impossibly closer to the semi tired but very tipsy woman. Their knees made contact that neither of them shyed away from. Now that he was up close and could smell every layered product on her sable skin, Smoke continued to stare shamelessly. Annie was fidgety, her hands playing with the seams of her robe. He saw it. “You ready for bed?”

Annie nodded in response and before she could make it to her feet, Smoke was in front of her to steady her once again.

“I’m a big girl, Smoke. I can manage.” There was no real force behind the chiding remark, just Annie trying to retain some of her stubourness. But….Smoke was built for it.

“I ain’t say that you couldn’t.” His large palm sat comfortably on her lower back as he guided them through the short hallway to the separate bedroom. The large suite welcomed them in and it sighed in unison with Annie as she climbed into bed and got underneath the large duvet. She would never admit it but Elijah was right- she was tired and it was freezing due to the air conditioner. Smoke circled to Annie’s newfound side of the bed and handed her a plastic bottle and a raised eyebrow.

“You should drink some more water.” It wasn’t a request. The woman sighed and if she hadn’t been so dizzy, she would’ve had a rebuttal. “Smoke, just and come lie down. Please.” Her voice carried a raspiness that wasn’t present earlier. Elijah noted it; he was learning her already.

After double checking that the main door was latched, Smoke walked back into the room and slipped under the covers.

In an instant, Annie is pulled flesh against him, his warm bare chest rested against her back. A large arm snaked up and around the woman’s midsection and settled right under her boobs.

“You soft all ova’, woman.” Elijah grumbled as his chin rested on top of her head.

Annie simply scooted further back into the man, goading a restrained inhale from him.

The hard outline of him rested comfortably against her full cheeks that was barely covered by Elijah’s old stretched out shirt.

A pit in her stomach formed as that familiar tingle started to build. Underneath the tiredness, her body still called out to him. Smoke felt it but he couldn’t have her like this. Not for their first time.

But still, Annie’s palm reached behind her looking for purchase on Smoke’s lower body. Her cool smaller fingers rested against his happy trail and Elijah inhaled. His dick was so hard that it hurts.

He drew circles on her hips.

“I can’t have ya like this.” He murmured.

Her doe eyes immediately shot open into the dark room. Smoke didn’t give her a chance to respond before he continued.

“I can’t take ya like this because I need them pretty eyes and full focus on me when I break ya.”

Annie shivered at the taunt, her thighs rubbing against each other.

“Smoke…” it was a plea, warning, and declaration all at once but Elijah only shushed her.

An almost bratty huff escaped Annie’s lips but he refused to fold. If anything, he was amused.

“You gon’ learn soon enough that ain’t gon’ work on me.” Smoke pressed a kiss right under her ear as Annie sent a mockingly “whateva” over her shoulder.

He needed her. Every stitch of her deep skin but it couldn’t happen like this. Not when she’s tipsy and hadn’t even kissed either of her lips yet. A few mere minutes later, he heard light snores coming from Annie and he shortly followed suit.

5:36am.

Annie stirred awake to find Smoke’s forearm wrapped tightly around her throat in a snug bear hug. Every muscle in her body was taut and tired, the long travel day and liquor finally catching up with her.

And now….she needed to pee.

“Shit.” She tried to kick the duvet off of her body but Elijah caught it. Unbeknownst to her, he had been wide awake for an hour watching her sleep. Annie’s brow furrowed. “Need to use the bathroom, ‘Lijah.”

Reluctantly with a hum, he released her only to observe her every move from the bed to the bathroom.

Her cellphone unlocked to several unseen text messages, mostly from Kym and even one of coworkers from back home.

Kym: 👀

Kym: I know that thing opened and stretched now. Lord.

Kym: Be safe. We love you.

Tisha: We doing brunch at noon. Lmk if you gon make it.

Gigi (Work): I hope you having some funnn. 😁

Annie’s stomach twisted and gurgled on the toilet as a queasy feeling pained her.

She was going to be there for a bit longer than expected because the alcohol and food from the block party was coming out now. The large showerhead began a steady stream above her fingers. It was hot, just as she liked. The hotel’s bodywash was great, some might’ve said one of the best. But still… it wasn’t hers. None of it was. She quickly washed off in the shower and then made her towards the countertop. It only took her two seconds to slip out of the bathroom to grab her sandals near the door and slip right back into the large bathroom. Seconds later, Elijah slid the barnyard style bathroom door open and walked in to a fully nude Annie but neither of them cared. Most women would’ve stepped back or instinctively attempted to hide some part of them but not Annie. Domesticity filled the air.

Smoke stood a few feet away. “You tryna leave or somethin’?”

Annie stared back at him through the mirror. “You don’t miss nothin’, do you?”

He shrugged. “Nah.”

“I gotta go. We goin’ to brunch.”

“You sure?.” He completed a full circle around her before tugging her chin up to his.

The feeling in her belly returned again like a tightly wrapped cord that threatened to snap at any moment. Under low lashes, he sealed their lips together in a kiss and deepened it at the sound of Annie’s small moan. Their tongues wrestling for dominance. His last bit of resolve disappeared and underneath it was the man who patiently laid next to her all night with a stiff dick and a forming obsession.

He gently turned Annie’s body and slowly backed her into the bedroom until they reached the unmade disshelved bed.

A hand dragged to knead one of her breasts as she stood sagged against him then it landed to settle right on top of her fat mound. He already felt her slick but he still needed reassurance. He asked in between kisses to her scented neck. “You sure this whatchu’ want?”

Annie simply widened her thighs in response and eased her neck to the side to grant him better access to both of her most sensitive areas.

With one pause, he hummed as he brought this thumb to his mouth before pressing the woman’s nub. Her hips buckled in response and Elijah flashed that small smile that Annie began to notice that it may only be for her.

He whispered. “Yeah, you gon’ stay here and give it.” That was the only verbal acknowledgement she received before he had her on her back with a pillow under her back, knees wide and legs splayed open for him. Just a few ments ago under the warm lights in the bathroom, her nude body was on full display for him to see and she didn’t mind then but now? It was different. The hunger and glint in Elijah’s eyes was too much to bare.

So she did the first thing that came to mind but Elijah anticipated it. When the woman tried to bring her knees together, Smoke firmly and almost painfully- caught her wrist with an almost inhumane reflex. “Don’t do that.”

“Eli-“ She attempted to thrash in place in defiance but his large unoccupied hand grabbed one of her ankles right under her gold anklet.

He smirked. “I told you last night you not gon’ get your way with me like that.”

The feral look in his eyes showed that he intended to make good on his promise and Annie knew it.

Still, she tried to reason. “Elijah-.”

Soft kisses against her calf shushed her while she stared at his ministrations. Annie’s mouth opened again as if she was going to speak up again but she quickly closed it shut when she fully met his eyes that were boring into her, studying her every move. Again. Just as he’d done all morning as if watching her was his favorite pastime.

When Annie quieted down and opted to simply look at him, he sighed in satisfaction. “You so pretty. You know that?” He whispered in between kisses to her other leg. She brought her free foot to graze along and sit right on top of his dick.

A deep exhale escaped him. “What you tryna do to me, woman?”

Annie feigned innocence. “Nothin’.”

He responded by locking his arms under her thighs to bring her to the edge of the king sized bed. Annie yelped and giggled.

He loved the sound of it. Could get used to it.

“Elijah. Wait.” She struggled to get the feathered pillow back under her and he witnessed it. Smoke grabbed it from her struggled grasp, fluffed it, and slid it back underneath her. Before she could say anything else, he got down on his knees to position himself face first with Annie’s hardened, puffy clit that was trying to hide underneath her fat lips. He was practically salivating.

“Mmm hmm.” He hummed more to himself than her, his thick thumb pressing her button. Her body immediately jolted in response and Smoke took that as his cue to continue. He rubbed her clit in soft rhythmic motions, gauging her responses. When her thighs opened a bit wider affording him better access, a prideful smile decorated his face. His free hand came up to twist her sensitive nipples and soon after, he stuck an entire digit in and paused when she hissed.

“Shiiiieetttt.” The woman gritted through her teeth.

“Just relaxxxx. Lemme in my pussy, mama.” It was barely audible but she heard him.

His? If she wasn’t busy listening to the sounds of her own slick right now, she would’ve told him that it wasn’t his. Yet.

When her pussy opened up for him a little bit more, he eased in another thick finger.

Annie’s light moans filled the air as she began moving her hips in rhythmic sync with his movements to ride his fingers.

“That’s it.” He goaded her on and she welcomed it. She sighed in defeat when she felt the assault of his warm mouth on her. “Ohhh fuck.”

Her smaller hand came up to try to push him away and close her thighs on his head but Smoke grabbed it and interlocked the fingers. “Keep that hand right hea’ and you bet not move it.” He taunted.

Her cream spilled over to the mattress under her and Elijah flattened his tongue and dragged it to lap them up. The woman moaned a little louder when she peered at him under low lashes only to find him looking right back at her with a soaking wet face of her juices.

She was sweet to the taste just as he thought she’d be and he wanted more of her. All of her.

Smoke settled himself in between her thighs then crashed his drenched mouth into hers. His stiff dick settled right on top of her mound, precum mixing with her cream. Annie relaxed into the overpowering kiss and brought her arms to encircle his neck.

Elijah peppered and trailed damp kisses along her jaw all the way down to her neck, stopping at her full breasts to nip and bite. Her deep skin darkened in angry retaliation.

She impatiently tugged at his navy blue sweatpants but he simply and purposely stilled his own movements. His eyes trailed down to where their bodies joined and where her hand rested. Smoke didn’t have to say anything before her hand quickly retreated.

“That’s a good girl.” His praise landed exactly where intended when Annie whined response. She was needy but so was he. The small gasps and moans coming from her cracked him open.

Elijah lifted himself from between her legs and used one arm to reach for the drawer of the nightstand to pretend to grab a condom but he had no intent on wearing it. Annie locked her viscous legs around his waist and brought him back down to her. “Come onnnnnn.”

That’s exactly what he wanted to hear.

He rubbed his thick dick against her swollen clit in circular motions for a few seconds before lining it up with her slippery entrance and pushing it in as a gasp tore from Annie’s throat.

She was tight, almost uncomfortably so. She gripped him too good.

The involuntary spasms of her pelvic floor was already milking him and he wasn’t sure how long he was gonna make it though. He looked down to find Annie’s pupils completely blown out as her titties moved with every stroke. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead though the air conditioner was still on.

“Watch this.” He slipped out of her with a noisy squelch and maneuvered her body to his liking as if she was a ragdoll.

Her white painted toes gripped the hardwood floor and she was bent over the bed on all fours.

“Fuck.” She moaned into the pillow when he easily nuzzled back inside of her.

His kept a steady pace for the first few strokes then he began searching for her soul. Her swollen pussy wrapped around him tightly as the pressure built.

She was close but she tried to fight it and him. Her moans transitioned to gasping cries as her hand reached back for him.

“It’s only gon’ get worse for you if I gotta repeat myself ‘bout that hand.” He warned with a stinging slap to her ass.

That was all she needed.

Her release came out in multiple short repeated squirts. And when she tried to crawl away to the other side of the mattress, Smoke followed her to force them down into collapse doggy.

He couldn’t hold out much longer.

“I need anotha’ one outta you. I earned it.” His large hand reached under both of their bodies in search of her clit. She was still clamping sporadically around him so he knew that with the right touch and pressure, she’d crack again. And that she did. “Elijahhhhh.” Her hot tears spilled into the pillow and Smoke stretched his tongue out to lick them away. The grind of his hips turned into rhythmic pumps and broken grunts left his mouth. She felt him pulsing inside of her.

“Ima fill you up good and make sure you go and tell all your lil’ friends.” He said through gritted teeth.

Annie was so blitzed out that she could only agree.

“I will! Ima tell ‘em.” She nodded. His warm seed spilled inside of her as they both shuttered.

—————————————————————

For an hour, they lay together sated with Annie’s cheek on his chest, while Smoke gripped then soothingly caressed her lower back. She had a glow that had nothing to with the pending sunrise.

Brown pools captured hers.

“You stayin?” He whispered.

She sighed and swung her leg over his and nestled even closer. “Yes…I guess so.”

“Good.” A large hand collided with her ass, forcing Annie to send a mock glare his way though it held no weight. Somehow her cellphone ended up on the floor near the side of the large bed and when it rang, it startled them both. His eyes locked in on her screen.

Mama 👑

The woman immediately sat up against the cool headboard as if her mom could see her now then sighed. She hadn’t even noticed that Elijah had left the bed until the sound of the shower started up. With a click, she answered her mother’s call. Ms. Josephine started to speak and question Annie before she even had the chance to say hello.

“What you and the girls doin’? Ya’ll eat ya’ll some breakfast yet?”

Maybe Tisha and Kym did have breakfast by now. Who knows?

She looked around the large suite hoping to focus on something else and that’s when the room service menu caught her attention. “We did. It was real good too.” Ok… she wasn’t lying technically.

She in fact would be eating some good food as soon as she decided on an entree. The two women talked about the flight experience, the traffic, and whatever other random thought that came to mind.

From the sound of it, Smoke had transitioned from the shower to the sink to brush his teeth. Annie’s phone buzzed in her hand again as soon as her mom hung up. She was a busy woman.

Kym: We missing you. 💔

Annie: Morning. Miss you. 🤎

Elijah treaded back into the suite, shirtless with a pair of black sweatpants on his hips. His slighty hard dick making itself known and he wanted to make sure that she knew it, too. He bent down to plant a kiss on her forehead.

“I’m finna’ go work out. Order whatever you want and don’t be on no shy shit. I’ll be back to ya’ in a bit.”

Another kiss landed on her lips before she could respond and he quickly slipped out of the door. Annie yawned and stretched her legs under the covers as she brought her exhausted body to lay on Smoke’s warm side of the bed.

She did miss her girls, too.

Twenty minutes later, she was tracking her Uber’s arrival and sliding her feet into her sandals with a newly acquired soreness forcing her to move slower than usual.

The elevator dinged open to the eighth floor overlooking CopaCabana beach. He thought this was his favorite view in Brazil but that was before he met her.

The weights clanked when he grabbed them and walked over to the mirror. Little he did he know that the woman whom he thought was still laid out in his bed with shaky legs had actually just left the hotel in an Uber. She texted him from the backseat of the car, her body rocking side to side as the car moved along a steep curve.

Annie: Ima call you later. 💙

🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

A/N: Thank you for readingggg. 💛

This video is what Monday night Pedra Do Sol is. (Not my vid.)

Well…. 😭😭😭

How we feeling???

Annie laughed. The sound came out sharp.

“You wanna know why?”

Smoke’s jaw tightened.

“Why I look at you like that.” Her grip tightened around the suitcase handle. “Because the last time I saw you, you acted like you couldn’t wait for me to get the fuck outta Mississippi.”

A murmur moved through the yard.

Smoke’s head jerked back slightly. “What?”

“You heard me.” The tears were coming faster now. “I came to yo’ house so excited to see you.”

She pointed at him. “I was nervous as fuck.” She stepped closer. “But you ain’t even want me there.”

The memory hit her all over again. Standing in that house. Sitting at the kitchen table. Trying to make conversation with him when he felt a million miles away despite being right in front of her.

“You barely talked to me.”

Smoke stared at her. “Annie—”

“No.” Her voice cracked. “You stood most of the time.”

Another step.

“You looked miserable.”

Another.

“You was more interested in whoever called your phone, than talkin’ to me.”

Something flashed across Smoke’s face. 

Memory.

Finally.

“Then I told you I was leavin’.” Her voice dropped. “And all you could say was ‘aight.’”

The yard went silent, because now they weren’t talking about the years after. They were talking about the last day. The last face-to-face meeting.

Annie laughed bitterly. “I said I’d call you.” Her eyes burned. “You ain’t even act like you cared if I did.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t even halfway down them porch steps before you closed the fuckin’ door.”

Smoke just stared at her. 

Then he laughed. 

The sound wasn’t amused. It wasn’t even angry. It sounded exhausted. Like somebody reaching the end of their rope.

“You really believe that delusional shit, huh?”

Annie froze.

Smoke shook his head.

“I sent you letters.”

His voice rose.

“I sent you birthday cards.”

Another step.

“I sent you Christmas cards.”

The hurt was gone now. This was frustration.

Years of it.

“Any fuckin’ thing I could think of to get you to talk to me.”

Smoke pointed at the mixtape still clutched in his hand.

“That mixtape was the last fuckin’ straw.”

Annie’s face faltered.

Smoke kept going. “I put everything I couldn’t say in that muthafucka.” His chest rose sharply. “I told you I loved you in that shit.” 

The words cracked. “Without sayin’ the words.”

Another step.

“And you still gave my ass nothin’.”

Annie stared at him. Confused. Hurt.

Smoke laughed again. Broken this time.

“No call.”

Another breath.

“No letter.”

Another.

“No card.”

His eyes burned. “Nothing.”

The silence stretched tight between them.

Then his face hardened. “And when I finally did talk to yo’ ass?”

Annie felt her stomach drop.

Smoke nodded once. Slow. Deliberate. “You got some nigga laughin’ in the background.”

The entire yard went still. Someone gasped. 

Annie blinked.

“What are you—?”

“You heard me.”

His jaw clenched.

“I called.”

Another breath.

“And some nigga in the background laughin’ while I’m listenin’ feelin’ stupid as fuck.”

Recognition flickered across Annie’s face.

Finally.

Because he’d been carrying that one for years.

“How the fuck you think that felt, huh?”

Annie opened her mouth. “Elijah…”

Smoke shook his head. 

Then finally answered the question she’d been asking this entire time. The one underneath everything else. The one about why he hadn’t begged.

Why he hadn’t chased. 

Why he hadn’t stopped her.

His voice dropped. Dangerously quiet.

“You wanted me to tell you to stay?”

Annie’s eyes filled with tears instantly.

Smoke nodded.

“You wanted me to tell you not to go?”

The hurt surfaced one final time. 

Raw. 

Unprotected.

“How was I to fight for you when I already thought you was gone?”

The words landed between them with enough force to steal the air from her lungs. 

For the first time since she stepped back into Mississippi, Annie realized something she had never considered.

The last time she saw Elijah Moore, he wasn’t sitting across that kitchen thinking she was leaving.

He was sitting there thinking she had already left.

Jada couldn’t remember the last time she felt this invisible.

The strange part was that neither of them had forgotten she was there.

Annie had looked directly at her. Smoke had answered questions about her. Her name had been spoken more than once since this conversation started.

Yet standing here now, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she was watching something that had started years before she arrived and would continue long after she left.

Around them, the cookout had faded into background noise. Not literally. Mrs. Jones still stood beside the grill. The dominoes game remained abandoned. Children still tore through the yard with water guns while somebody’s uncle argued about football loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear.

But none of it seemed to matter to the two people standing in the middle of the yard.

They had stopped talking about her several minutes ago.

Maybe they had never really been talking about her at all.

The thought settled uneasily in her chest.

She had spent the last year believing she understood what existed between her and Smoke. He hadn’t promised her anything. If anything, he had been frustratingly honest from the beginning. He wasn’t looking for a relationship. He wasn’t making promises. More than once he had told her she deserved somebody capable of giving her more than he could.

At the time, she thought he was protecting himself.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

Now she stood here listening to Annie talk about North Carolina and loneliness and missing Smoke, and for the first time Jada found herself wondering if she had misunderstood the entire situation from the beginning.

Because whatever this was, it didn’t feel unfinished.

It felt… interrupted.

To make it worse she heard him say—

“I thought you knew how much I fuckin’ love you.”

She felt the sentence before she fully understood it.

Her mind tried to correct what he had said. Tried to bend the words into something easier to survive. Loved. Had loved. Used to love. Any version that belonged safely in the past, where old heartbreaks and high school memories were supposed to stay. But Smoke hadn’t said it that way. He stood in the middle of Mrs. Jones’ yard with his voice cracked open, eyes fixed on Annie like nobody else existed, and said he loved her in the present tense.

Love.

It wasn’t nostalgia, regret or some unfinished thing he had outgrown, but never properly buried. Love. The kind of word Jada had spent the last year trying not to ask for because she already knew better. The kind of word Smoke had never offered her, not even accidentally, not even in one of their after-midnight moments when sometimes people said more than they meant to. He had been kind to her. Honest with her. Careful in his own way. But he had never been open. 

Not like this. 

Not exposed in front of half the town with his pride bleeding out at Annie’s feet.

The pieces came together slowly at first, then all at once. Every dinner made sense. The silence after Annie’s name came up. Every conversation he ended before it could become something more. 

Every moment she had mistaken for progress suddenly looked different.

She had spent a year telling herself Smoke was guarded, emotionally unavailable, too damaged by whatever had happened back then to let anybody all the way in. Standing here now, watching him look at Annie like the last eight years had never been able to touch the deepest part of him, Jada understood the truth with a humiliation so quiet it almost felt private.

He hadn’t been unavailable.

He was just unavailable to her.

She looked at Annie then, really looked at her. Tears were coming down her face so freely now that she didn’t seem aware of them anymore. The suitcase was still in her hand, though her grip had gone slack around the handle. She looked wrecked. Angry. Drunk enough to say too much and sober enough to feel every bit of it. Jada wanted to hate her for standing there holding the one thing Jada had spent years hoping for. But the anger wouldn’t hold the way it used to. Not now. Not while Annie looked like she had been bleeding from the same wound all along.

Then she looked at Smoke.

He wasn’t watching the crowd. Not Stack, Pearline, Mary or the dominoes table that had gone still behind him. 

He wasn’t even watching her.

The thought settled strangely in her chest because, despite everything, she knew things about Smoke. She knew how he took his coffee. Knew what kind of music he listened to when he thought nobody was paying attention. 

But standing here now, she found herself seeing how much of him had always remained just out of reach.

She knew his real name.

She had just used it not even an hour prior.

But standing here now, she realized there was a difference between knowing a name and belonging to it.

To most people he was Smoke. Even when they called him Elijah, it sounded like a substitute. A government name. Something official.

Annie said it differently.

Elijah when she was angry. Elijah when she was crying. Elijah when she wanted him to understand exactly how much he had hurt her.

And every single time she said it, his attention sharpened.

Friends had called him Elijah before. His family certainly had. But Jada couldn’t remember ever hearing another person say it and have him answer it so completely.

The realization settled quietly.

The name didn’t belong to Annie.

But somehow, the version of him that answered to it always had.

He was looking at Annie the same way he had looked past Jada in that parking lot freshman year. The same way he had looked every time Jada convinced herself she was imagining it, because the alternative meant admitting there had never really been a contest.

That was the part that finally settled.

There had never been a contest.

She had spent years wondering what Annie had that she didn’t. Beauty, softness, ease, some invisible thing people seemed to recognize before she could name it. She had treated the question like something she could solve if she studied it long enough. As though understanding Annie would somehow teach her how to be chosen over her. But standing there with Smoke’s confession still hanging in the humid air, she realized the question had always been wrong.

It was never about what Annie had.

It was Annie.

It had always been Annie.

Standing in Mrs. Jones’s backyard, listening to Smoke confess a love he never stopped carrying, she finally understood.

It was Annie then.

It was still Annie now.

Stack should have felt surprised.

Instead, he felt like somebody had finally handed him the missing pages of a story he’d been trying to understand for years.

Around him, nobody was pretending to mind their business anymore.

Aunt Cheryl had abandoned the grill entirely. The tongs she’d been carrying were long gone now, forgotten somewhere behind her. Uncle Lewis stood beside her with his arms folded across his chest, his expression unreadable beneath the evening light. Geneva and Max had drifted closer too. Even the dominoes game had dissolved. The men still sat around the table, but nobody was touching the tiles. The entire yard seemed suspended between one moment and the next, waiting to see what would happen.

He barely noticed any of it.

His attention remained fixed on Annie and Smoke.

For the first time since Annie came home, Smoke and Annie were finally talking. Really talking. Not the careful conversations they’d been having for the last two days or the polite versions of themselves they showed everybody else. 

This was the ugly shit. The buried shit. Shit both of them should’ve said years ago, but never did.

Then Smoke said it.

“When I finally talked to yo’ ass, I heard some nigga in the background laughin’.”

The words settled over the yard.

He felt something click into place. He didn’t know exactly what Smoke was talking about, but suddenly he understood something he hadn’t understood in years.

Back then, he’d known something happened. He just never knew what.

After Annie moved to North Carolina, Smoke had still talked about her at first. Not constantly. That wasn’t his style. But enough. Enough that he knew she stayed on his mind. Then one day it seemed like somebody flipped a switch.

Smoke stopped bringing her up. He wasn’t checking the mailbox on the regular. And he stopped looking at the phone every time it rang.

The change hadn’t happened at once. It was slow enough that most wouldn’t have noticed it. 

But he did.

They were sitting on the back patio steps one evening when he’d finally gotten tired of pretending not to know something was wrong.

“What happened wit’ Annie?”

Smoke didn’t answer. He’d kept staring out into the yard like he hadn’t heard the question.

“Nothin’.”

“C’mon bruh.”

A long silence followed.

Then Smoke finally spoke. “Me and Annie done.”

Stack remembered waiting for more. An explanation. A reason.

Anything.

None came.

Smoke stood, flicked his cigarette into the dirt, and walked inside.

That had been the end of it.

Every time Stack tried bringing Annie up afterward, the conversation died before it started. Smoke changed the subject. Left the room. Found something else to do. Looking back, Stack realized he hadn’t been protecting a secret.

He’d been protecting a wound.

Standing in Aunt Cheryl’s backyard now, listening to eight years of misunderstandings unravel in real time, he finally knew what he’d been looking at back then.

Smoke hadn’t stopped talking because he stopped caring. He stopped talking because something convinced him Annie was already gone.

The knowledge of this sat heavy. He watched the two of them. Shit, the whole reason he’d pushed Annie to come over that last time she was in town was because he’d been hoping they would talk. 

He remembered practically forcing the issue. Telling her to stop being scary and come through. Watching her walk into the house carrying that overnight bag. Watching Smoke look up when she stepped through the door. Then leaving because he’d thought privacy was all they needed.

Now he wanted to go back in time and knock both of them upside the fucking head.

Apparently they’d spent the entire visit doing exactly what they were doing before now—avoiding conversations that mattered.

Annie thought Smoke had sent her a goodbye.

Smoke thought Annie had moved on.

Neither one of them said any of it.

Stack looked towards Pearline.

She stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest, her face still carrying traces of the argument she’d had upstairs. If there was anybody in the yard having a worse day than Annie and Smoke, it was probably her.

Between Annie cussing her out and Mary standing twenty feet away pretending she hadn’t started half this bullshit, Pearline was already hanging on by a thread. Add in the fact that Mary had slept with Stack while she and Stack were still trying to figure out whatever the hell they were becoming, and Pearline looked one inconvenience away from committing a felony.

Despite everything else going on, they both seemed to arrive at the same conclusion at exactly the same time.

These two had spent eight years makin’ themselves miserable when all they had to do was open their muthafuckin’ mouths and talk.

Annie stared at him.

For several seconds, she couldn’t make herself respond. Not because she had nothing to say, but because too many things arrived at once and crowded her throat before any one of them could become words. The heat in her face sharpened into something closer to embarrassment, then anger, then disbelief. She could see him standing there at eighteen with the phone pressed to his ear, hearing some boy laugh somewhere behind her and deciding the worst possible thing because hurt people were good at doing that. 

She could see it. That was the problem. She could finally see it, and seeing it didn’t make her less angry.

“That was probably somebody from class,” she said, her voice rough from crying. “I don’t know, Elijah. I had people around me.”

Smoke laughed once, and the sound cut through what little softness had tried to form between them. “Of course you did.”

Annie’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck that supposed to mean?”

“It mean exactly what it sound like.” 

His grip tightened around the mixtape without him seeming to realize it. 

“I been standin’ here listenin’ to you tell me what you thought, what you felt, what you needed, like I was supposed to know all that from three states away when half the time I couldn’t even get you on the fuckin’ phone. I tried everything I could think of just to get you to talk to me. And you still gave me your ass to kiss.”

The words hit hard enough to make someone in the crowd inhale sharply. 

Annie felt the force of them too, but pride rose before hurt could fully show. It crawled up her spine and locked her shoulders in place, the same stubbornness that had carried her through years of pretending she hadn’t spent half her life missing him. 

Across the yard, Pearline’s face tightened like she already knew Annie was about to say something she would regret. 

Maybe she did. Maybe everyone did. Maybe that’s why she started moving towards Annie.

Smoke kept going, his voice lower now but no less dangerous. “So yeah, when I finally heard yo’ voice and some nigga was in the background laughin’ like he had a reason to be comfortable around you, I was done. By the time you came to my house, I already thought you was gone. Hell yeah I was distant. Hell yeah I didn’t know what to say. What the fuck you expect me to do, Annie? Sit there and beg you to stay after you had spent months showin’ me you ain’t wanna be kept?”

Annie flinched before she could stop herself.

The reaction crossed Smoke’s face quickly. Satisfaction didn’t follow it. If anything, he looked worse for having said it. 

Tired. 

Angry. 

Hurt enough to keep swinging because stopping would mean feeling the full weight of what he had just admitted in front of everybody.

“That’s what you thought?” Annie asked.

“What else was I supposed to think?”

“You could’ve asked me.”

Smoke’s laugh was sharp. “Oh, you would’ve answered this time?”

The words landed exactly where he aimed them. 

Annie’s mouth parted, but nothing came out at first. 

Around them, the yard seemed to draw even closer. Aunt Cheryl had moved off to the side of them, Uncle Lewis beside her with a hand hovering near her elbow like he was not sure whether to hold her back or follow her in. Geneva and Aunt Max stood just behind them, their faces set with the kind of concern that understood this was no longer simply messy. 

This was two people cutting each other because bleeding alone had stopped feeling fair.

Annie swallowed hard, but her pride would not let her lower her voice. “Sorry,” she said, the word brittle enough to break. “I forgot who I was talkin’ to.”

Smoke’s eyes darkened. “What that mean?”

She laughed, and it came out uglier than she intended. “Mr. Talkative. My fault. I forgot I was supposed to read your mind and listen to a mixtape wit’ no note, no explanation, no call, no nothin’, and somehow understand everything you were too fuckin’ scared to say out loud.”

Stack’s hand came up toward his face, not quite covering his eyes but close enough. Pearline closed hers. Mary, who had been chewing on the inside of her cheek so hard she looked like she might draw blood, went completely still. Even Jada seemed to wince, though whether it was for Annie or Smoke, nobody could tell.

Smoke stared at Annie like she had reached over and put her hand directly on an old bruise.

“You wanna talk about that day at my house?” he asked.

Annie lifted her chin. “I been talkin’ about it.”

“Nah.” Smoke shook his head once, slow and controlled. “You been talkin’ about what you decided it was. You walked in there already thinkin’ I had moved on, and everything I did after that, you made it fit.”

Her eyes flashed. “And you didn’t?”

The question stopped him for a moment, just long enough for Annie to see that it landed. She stepped closer before she could think better of it, the suitcase forgotten at her side, the tequila still moving through her blood in warm, reckless waves.

“You stood there lookin’ at your phone,” she said. “That’s what you were doin’ while I was sittin’ there feelin’ stupid. So since we talkin’ about assumptions, what was I supposed to think? You thought I moved on, you did too?”

Smoke’s jaw clenched. “That wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t, what, Smoke?” she cut in.

The name landed wrong.

Everybody felt it.

Smoke’s face changed immediately, the anger tightening into something sharper because she knew exactly what she had done. She always called him Elijah, and today dragging his real name out of him with every accusation and every confession, and now she had put Smoke between them like a door slamming shut.

Annie saw the reaction and kept going anyway.

“That your phone wasn’t blowin’ up? That you wasn’t waitin’ on somebody else to call? What, you was fuckin’ Jada back then too? Couldn’t wait to call her pick-me ass once I left?”

Mary choked on whatever was in her cup. It came out half cough, half strangled laugh, and Aunt Max shot her a look sharp enough to cut. Jada’s face went completely still, all the earlier humiliation hardening into something colder as she looked from Annie to Smoke and back again. She didn’t smirk. She didn’t defend herself. She only shook her head once, small and tired, like even she knew this had stopped being about her a long time ago and somehow Annie had dragged her back into it anyway.

Smoke’s voice dropped. “That was my boss.”

Annie blinked.

Smoke took a step closer. “That phone you keep talkin’ about? That was my boss tellin’ me what job site to be at the next mornin’.”

For one humiliating instant, Annie felt the ground quake under her. She saw the kitchen again. Smoke glancing at the phone. Her stomach twisting. Her mind building a whole story out of one look because she had been scared enough to believe almost anything by then. The obviousness of it should have made her quiet. 

Instead, pride rushed in to save her from the shame.

“Sure, Smoke.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that.”

“The way you looked at that phone wasn’t no damn job site look.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that nigga was just a classmate?” Smoke fired back, his voice rising again. “Not with the way he was laughin’. Not with that little ‘oh, Annie’ shit in the background like he knew somethin’ I didn’t.”

Recognition flashed across her face before she could hide it.

Smoke caught it.

“Yeah,” he said, the word rough. “I remember that part too.”

Annie’s stomach tightened because now she remembered it clearly enough to hate how messy memory could be. A study group. Somebody joking around. A boy from class who had been harmless and annoying and nowhere near important enough to have shaped eight years of pain. She couldn’t even remember his name. Could barely remember his face. 

Yet here Elijah stood, holding onto his laugh like evidence.

“Again…you could’ve asked,” she said through clenched teeth.

Smoke’s laugh came fast and mean. “Again… you would’ve answered?”

The yard flinched with her.

Annie took a step toward him, anger burning through the embarrassment now. “Maybe if you learned how to open your fuckin’ mouth instead of sittin’ around actin’ like silence make you deep, we wouldn’t be here.”

Stack moved before anyone else did. Not fully between them yet, but closer. Pearline reached for Annie at the same time, her hand closing around her arm just above the elbow.

“Annie,” Pearline warned softly.

Annie snatched her arm back without looking at her. “No, don’t Annie me. Everybody wanna talk now, right? Everybody got all this shit to say now.”

Smoke stepped forward too, and Stack’s hand landed flat against his chest.

“Back up,” Stack muttered.

Smoke didn’t look at him. “Move.”

“Nah, back up bruh.”

Aunt Cheryl finally stepped into the center of it, and though her voice was not loud, it carried across the yard with enough force to cut through the shouting. 

“ENOUGH.”

Nobody moved at first.

She looked at Annie, then at Smoke, and the disappointment in her face somehow made both of them look younger. “Y’all are bein’ real damn silly right now, and I know both of y’all got more sense than this.”

Annie’s chest rose and fell too quickly. “I’m leaving.”

“Baby, don’t walk outta here like this,” Aunt Cheryl said.

“I said I’m leaving.”

“You hear me talkin’ to you?”

Annie looked away because if she looked at Aunt Cheryl too long, she might break in a way anger could not hide. “I can’t be here.”

Smoke laughed under his breath, and the sound made something in her snap before he even spoke.

“Go on then.”

The yard went still.

Stack’s head turned sharply toward his brother. “Smoke.”

Smoke ignored him, his eyes locked on Annie. “Run away like you always do. That’s what you good at anyway.”

The words hit harder than anything else he had said, maybe because this one was not about old phone calls or letters or a mixtape or some boy laughing in the background. This one was about her. About the pattern he believed he knew. 

About the thing she feared might be true.

Annie moved before she thought.

Pearline caught her around the waist just as Stack caught Smoke by the shoulders.

“Let me go,” Annie snapped.

“No,” Pearline said, voice shaking now. “No, you not doin’ this.”

Smoke tried to shrug Stack off. “Get off me.”

“Bruh, chill the fuck out,” Stack said, tightening his grip. “Both of y’all look stupid.”

The whole yard had shifted into motion now. Aunt Cheryl was yelling for everybody to back up. Uncle Lewis stepped between two cousins trying to get closer. Geneva had one hand pressed to her mouth while Aunt Max kept saying Annie’s name like repetition might bring her back to herself. 

Cornbread stood near the edge of the yard with Therise tucked behind him, his eyes moving between Smoke and anyone who looked like they might be foolish enough to step in wrong. Bo hovered near the dominoes table, uncertain whether to help or stay out of grown folks’ business. Mike and Isoo stood a little farther away with Grace beside them, all three looking like they had accidentally wandered into the part of a family gathering nobody was supposed to see.

Then Annie saw Isoo.

It happened fast enough that nobody could stop it and slow enough that everybody understood what she was doing.

Her eyes found him across the yard, and the expression on her face changed. It wasn’t soft or calm. Her expression changed into something petty, wounded, and desperate to regain control of a situation that had stripped her bare in front of all the people she knew.

“Isoo.”

Smoke went still in Stack’s arms.

Pearline’s grip tightened around Annie immediately. “Annie, don’t.”

Isoo looked caught off guard at first. Then he straightened, his gaze flicking from Annie to Smoke and back again. “Uhh, yeah?”

Annie wiped her face with the back of her hand, still breathing too hard. “Will you get me outta here? I don’t wanna be here no more.”

A low sound moved through the yard.

Smoke’s entire body moved forward, but Stack shoved him back hard enough to make him stumble a half step.

“Don’t,” Stack said.

Smoke’s eyes never left Annie. “You serious?”

Annie looked directly at him when she answered. “Yeah.”

Pearline turned her slightly, trying to make Annie look at her instead. “Please don’t do this. Not like this.”

Aunt Cheryl stepped closer. “Annie, baby, you makin’ a mistake.”

“I already made plenty today.”

“Then don’t make another one,” Geneva said, her voice gentle but firm.

Annie heard them. She did. Somewhere underneath the hurt and the tequila and the humiliation, she heard every warning being offered to her. But hearing was not the same as stopping. Not when Smoke was still looking at her like he had been right about her all along. 

Not when the word run was still sitting in the air between them.

Isoo took a cautious step forward.

Mike immediately caught his arm. “Bro, don’t do it.”

Isoo looked at him. “She don’t wanna be here, Mike.”

“I said don’t do it.”

“She asked me for a ride.”

Mike’s expression tightened because everybody knew it was more than that. Annie knew it too. So did Isoo. So did Smoke. The entire yard could see it, which only made it worse.

Smoke shoved Stack’s hands off him hard enough this time that Stack had to step in front of him fully. “Annie, you don’t gotta leave. I’ll go.”

The words should have softened something.

They did.

For a second.

Then Isoo spoke.

“She said she don’t wanna be here, Smoke. Let her go.”

Smoke turned his head slowly.

The yard seemed to feel the change before anybody moved. Stack’s hand went back to Smoke’s chest. Mike stepped in front of Isoo. Aunt Cheryl said Smoke’s name in a voice that should have stopped him.

It did not.

Isoo stepped around Mike and lifted his chin just enough to make the whole thing worse. “You done said enough to her.”

Smoke moved so fast Stack barely managed to get a hand on him.

It slowed the first step.

It didn’t stop the second.

The punch landed with a sick, clean sound that cut through the entire yard. Isoo stumbled backward into Mike, one hand flying to his mouth as Grace screamed and Cornbread cursed loud enough to shake the trees. 

Everything exploded at once. 

Stack grabbed Smoke from behind, dragging him back with both arms locked around his chest. Mike shoved Isoo behind him while Bo and Cornbread rushed forward. Aunt Cheryl’s voice rose above everybody else, furious and heartbroken all at once, but Annie barely heard it.

Annie stood frozen with Pearline’s arms still around her.

Because a minute ago she had wanted to leave.

A minute ago she had wanted to hurt him.

A minute ago she had wanted to prove she could walk away first.

Now Elijah stood several feet away, breathing hard, eyes still locked on hers while half the yard tried to keep him from doing something worse, and Annie realized with a sick, sinking feeling that the thing between them had not broken open.

It had finally broken all the way loose.

Stack didn’t stop walking until they were well past the edge of the cookout.

The music still carried through the trees, muffled now by distance. Every so often laughter drifted across the yard, strange and out of place after everything that had just happened. The farther they moved from the crowd, the easier it became to pretend the entire scene had happened somewhere else.

Smoke knew better.

His jaw still ached from how hard he’d been clenching it. His knuckles hurt too. Every few steps he flexed his hand without realizing it, the sting settling deeper each time.

Neither brother spoke.

Not at first.

The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. It rarely was. Most people expected twins to talk constantly. Stack and Smoke had never needed to. Half the time they communicated through looks, shrugs, or the simple understanding that came from spending an entire lifetime beside somebody.

They stopped beneath the old pecan tree near the edge of the property.

The same tree they’d hidden behind as kids whenever Aunt Cheryl started handing out chores.

Smoke leaned against the trunk of the tree and reached into his pocket for a cigarette.

The movement felt automatic. Familiar. Something to do with his hands while his head tried and failed to catch up with everything that had happened over the last hour. His fingers found the pack easily enough, but when he reached for the lighter, the tremor hit immediately. Not enough for most people to notice. Enough for Stack.

The wheel clicked beneath his thumb.

Nothing.

Smoke frowned and tried again. This time a flame appeared before sputtering out. “Fuck,” he cursed under his breath as frustration tightened his jaw. Before he could try a third time, the lighter disappeared from his hand altogether.

He looked up.

Stack stood there holding it.

Neither brother acknowledged what had just happened. They didn’t need to. Stack flicked the wheel once and a steady flame appeared immediately. Smoke leaned forward, lit the cigarette, and took a long drag. The burn settled harshly in his lungs, but it gave him something to focus on besides the image of Annie standing in the middle of Aunt Cheryl’s yard with tears on her face, fire in her eyes, and a suitcase in her hand.

For a while neither of them spoke. The sounds of the cookout drifted through the trees in pieces. Somebody shouted something that earned a chorus of responses. Music floated lazily through the humid evening air. Life was already trying to move on from the scene they had left behind.

Smoke wasn’t.

His attention kept drifting toward the house. The porch. The front yard. The windows upstairs. Anywhere Annie might appear.

Stack followed his brother’s gaze and immediately understood what he was looking for.

Or rather who.

It sat heavily on his chest. Even after the argument, after the screaming. And even after the punch. Smoke was still checking to see if Annie had left.

Again.

Stack rubbed a hand across his jaw and sighed.

“You know what’s crazy?”

Smoke already hated where this was going.

“No.”

“You punched the wrong nigga.”

The cigarette paused halfway to Smoke’s mouth. He turned slowly toward his brother, prepared to tell him exactly where he could go with that opinion, but the words never came. Stack wasn’t smiling. There wasn’t even a hint of amusement on his face.

That was how Smoke knew he was serious.

“Isoo ain’t why you mad.”

Smoke looked away.

Unfortunately, that only proved the point.

Stack watched him before his attention drifted downward. The mixtape was still in Smoke’s hand.

That stopped him.

Because of what it represented. Because somehow, through the argument, the walk across the yard, and the fight, Smoke had never put the damn CD down.

“You still got it.”

Smoke frowned.

“What?”

Stack nodded toward the plastic case.

“You ain’t even notice, did you?”

For the first time Smoke followed his gaze. His eyes settled on the familiar handwriting stretched across the cover, and something tightened in his chest so suddenly it almost annoyed him.

Annie’s handwriting.

Uneven.

Familiar.

The same handwriting he’d spent years pretending didn’t matter anymore.

Two weeks.

She’d spent two weeks making it. Two weeks choosing songs and recording tracks and carrying around thoughts she apparently never intended to say out loud. Then she’d brought it all the way from North Carolina just to throw it at his head in the middle of a family cookout.

The memory should’ve irritated him. Instead, the corner of his mouth twitched.

Stack caught it immediately.

“There he is.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Nah.” A laugh escaped Stack before he could stop it. “That girl been stressin’ yo’ ass out since freshman year.”

The comment should’ve been easy to ignore. Instead it pulled a memory loose.

Not a fight or an argument.

Something worse.

A Saturday afternoon at Mary’s house nearly ten years ago.

The backyard had been packed with teenagers pretending they were older than they actually were. Music blasted from a speaker somebody’s cousin swore cost more than his first car. Folding chairs circled coolers full of drinks nobody was supposed to have. Half the boys spent the afternoon trying to look cool while half the girls pretended not to notice them trying.

Annie had been sitting on the hood of somebody’s car laughing so hard she nearly slid off the edge.

Stack remembered that part clearly.

The sunlight catching the gold in her earrings. Her hair pulled back. The way she laughed with her whole body when something genuinely caught her off guard.

Isoo stood nearby, running his mouth the way Isoo always did.

Talking.

Joking.

Trying to make everybody laugh.

For a while nobody paid much attention. Then Annie hopped down from the hood and wandered off toward the house with Pearline and a few other girls.

The conversation turned naturally after that.

At least until Isoo looked in the direction she’d disappeared and shook his head.

“Maaaannn, Annie get any thicker and somebody gon’ have to do somethin’ about it.”

A few of the boys laughed. Stack remembered laughing too.

At first.

Isoo grinned. “Y’all laughin’, but I’m serious.”

More laughter.

Mike threw a chip at him. “Shut yo’ dumb ass up.”

Isoo caught it and kept talking anyway. “Landry act all shy and innocent, bet it won’t take much to get in them pants.”

The laughter died just enough for the guys to start looking at each other. Enough for Mike to stop smiling and for Stack to notice Smoke. Because Smoke had gone completely still. Not the usual version everybody knew. 

This was different.

The kind of stillness that felt dangerous.

Isoo either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“What?” he laughed. “Y’all know I’m right.”

Nobody answered.

Stack remembered watching Smoke set his drink down.

Slowly. 

Carefully.

The way people did when they were trying very hard not to break something.

Or someone.

“Aight.”

The single word cut through the conversation.

Isoo looked over. “What?”

Smoke’s face gave away nothing. “Aight.”

The backyard had gone completely silent by then. Even the music seemed farther away.

Isoo laughed nervously. “What?”

Smoke took one step forward. “Don’t do that.”

The smile faded from Isoo’s face. “Do what?”

“Talk about Annie.”

The answer came calm. Too calm.

Stack remembered exchanging a look with Mike. Both of them already knew where this was headed.

Isoo tried to laugh again. It didn’t sound nearly as confident this time. “Man, I ain’t say nothin’.”

Smoke took another step. “Then keep it that way.”

Nobody spoke. The tension sat thick enough to touch. Then Mike stepped between them before either one of them could do something stupid.

“Everybody chill.”

Smoke didn’t take his eyes off Isoo. Isoo didn’t take his eyes off Smoke. Eventually somebody changed the subject. Somebody turned the music up. 

The moment passed.

At least on the surface.

Later that night Stack finally asked about it. “You really don’t like Isoo?”

Smoke hadn’t even looked up from whatever he was pretending to focus on. “I tolerate him.”

Stack remembered laughing. “What the hell that mean?”

“It mean I tolerate him.”

That had been the end of the conversation.

At least until now.

Standing beneath the pecan tree nearly ten years later, the memory came back so clearly Stack almost laughed.

Almost.

Because looking at Smoke now, looking at the bruised knuckles, the cigarette hanging from his mouth, and the mixtape still clutched in his hand, Stack finally understood something he probably should’ve understood a long time ago.

Smoke never got over anything when it came to Annie. Not the comments. Not the misunderstandings. Not the silence. And definitely not her.

The memory hit Stack hard enough that he started laughing all over again.

Smoke shot him a glare. “What?”

“You serious?”

“What the fuck so funny?”

Stack shook his head. “Man.”

“What?”

“Nigga, you almost fought Isoo over Annie before she was even yo’ girl.”

Smoke frowned. “That ain’t what happened.”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

“It ain’t.”

Stack laughed. “Nigga, you been holdin’ a grudge against that man for almost ten years.”

Smoke dragged on the cigarette and looked away.

Which was answer enough.

Stack laughed one final time before the amusement faded from his face. Something more serious settled into its place as his eyes looked back towards the house. Somewhere behind them Aunt Cheryl was probably still fussing. Pearline was probably trying to keep Annie from doing something she’d regret. Mary was probably regretting every decision that led her to this afternoon.

Eventually Stack sighed. “You know what really got you tho?”

Smoke didn’t answer.

Stack kept going anyway. “She was leavin’.”

The words hit home.

Smoke’s shoulders tightened.

Stack noticed.

“That’s what this really about.”

The cigarette burned quietly between Smoke’s fingers as he stared toward the trees.

“You thought she was stayin’.”

Silence.

“And then she grabbed that suitcase.”

The image came back instantly. Annie walking across the yard. Suitcase in one hand. Mixtape tucked beneath her arm.

Leaving.

Again.

The feeling that followed made Smoke’s stomach turn.

Stack saw the exact moment it happened. Saw the way his brother looked away. Saw the way his jaw tightened.

“You ain’t punch Isoo because Annie asked him to get her outta there.”

His voice came quieter now.

More careful.

“You punched him because she grabbed that suitcase again and the first person she reached for wasn’t you.”

The truth settled heavy between them.

Smoke stared out toward the trees and, for once, had absolutely nothing to say. Because his brother was right.

And they both knew it.

After a while Stack nodded toward the mixtape still resting in Smoke’s hand.

“You gon’ listen to it?”

Smoke looked down.

The handwriting seemed heavier now somehow. Not because it had changed, but because he finally understood what it cost her to make it. The physical proof that Annie had loved him enough to create something. Loved him enough to carry it across state lines. Loved him enough to spend eight years holding onto pieces of him she should’ve left behind a long time ago.

“I don’t know.”

Stack snorted. “That’s a lie.”

Smoke glanced up.

Stack shook his head. “You been listenin’ to Annie for damn near ten years.”

The words lingered beneath the pecan tree long after neither brother said anything else. Smoke looked down at the mixtape again and, for the first time all day, allowed himself to consider the possibility that everything he thought he knew about the last eight years might’ve been wrong.

The yard didn’t go quiet after Stack dragged Smoke away, but something in it changed. The music still played from the speakers near the patio, and the children eventually started running again once the adults stopped looking like somebody might get knocked into the grass next. A few people returned to their plates because food was food, even when the family business had just embarrassed everybody in a twenty-foot radius. 

But nobody really went back to normal. 

The dominoes table remained half-abandoned. Aunt Cheryl’s grill smoked unattended. Uncle Lewis stood near the center of the yard with his hands on his hips, looking at everybody like he was daring one more person to act a fool. The whole cookout felt bruised.

Annie stood in the middle of it with Pearline’s hand still wrapped around her arm and realized, slowly and then with a sickening drop in her stomach, that she had done exactly what she swore she hated. 

She had made everybody watch her hurt. 

She had dragged Pearline into it. Jada into it.

And now Isoo. 

Elijah was dragged into the worst, ugliest parts of herself and then stood there shocked when he bled too. 

The anger that had carried her across the yard and into the argument had started to burn out, leaving behind humiliation, tequila, and the awful clarity of consequences. Across from her, Isoo stood with Mike beside him, rubbing his jaw while pretending the punch had not landed as hard as everybody heard it land.

Annie swallowed around the knot in her throat and pulled herself out of Pearline’s hold. For a moment Pearline tightened her fingers like she thought Annie might do something else, but Annie only shook her head and stepped toward Isoo. The movement made several people pause, including Mike, who immediately stepped halfway in front of his cousin like he didn’t trust this day to stop being stupid on its own. Annie could not blame him. She barely trusted herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and the words felt too small for the amount of damage sitting around them.

Isoo blinked at her like he had not expected to be included in her regret. “For what?”

Annie almost laughed, but the sound would have come out wrong, so she looked down instead. “For pullin’ you into this. For askin’ you to take me away from here when I knew exactly what I was doin’.” Her voice thinned slightly on the last part because saying it out loud made it real in a way thinking it had not. “You ain’t deserve to get hit because I was tryin’ to make him mad.”

Mike made a sound under his breath that sounded suspiciously like agreement, but Isoo lifted a hand before he could start. There was still irritation in his face, and there should’ve been, but there was also enough understanding to make Annie feel worse. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, rubbing his jaw again. “You kinda did put me in the middle of the shit.”

“I know.” Annie nodded, blinking back tears she was tired of shedding in public. “And I’m sorry.”

Isoo looked past her toward the side of the house where Stack had taken Smoke, then back at her. “You good?”

That almost broke her. It wasn’t because she was good, it was because Isoo asking after taking a punch from the man she had actually been trying to hurt made her feel about two inches tall. “No,” she admitted, barely above a whisper. “But that still wasn’t fair to you.”

Behind her, Aunt Cheryl gave a low hum that said she approved of the apology but not nearly enough to be finished with Annie. 

That sound alone made Annie’s shoulders drop. She knew what was coming before she turned around. Aunt Cheryl had moved closer, Aunt Max and Geneva with her, and Pearline stood slightly behind them with her arms crossed tight against her chest and dried tears still on her face. The four of them together looked less like comfort and more like judgment with earrings on.

Before Aunt Cheryl could speak, movement near the driveway caught Annie’s attention. Jada was standing beside her car with her keys in one hand and her purse tucked beneath her arm. 

For a minute she simply stood there, looking towards Annie with an expression Annie couldn’t fully read. Not smug, angry or defeated exactly. Just tired in a way that made Annie’s own anger toward her feel suddenly old and useless. 

Their eyes met across the yard, and neither woman said anything. There was too much history and not enough relationship for words to do anything helpful. Jada gave the smallest nod, not a forgiveness or friendship nod, but a nod of acknowledgment. She then opened her car door and left without turning the moment into anything bigger than it needed to be.

Mary, unfortunately, was not nearly as graceful.

“I just wanna say—”

The collective groan that rose around the yard cut her off quickly.

Pearline laughed. The sound held no amusement whatsoever.

“No.”

Mary blinked. “No?”

“No.” The exhaustion in Pearline’s voice somehow made the word sharper.

For one stunned moment she simply stared at Mary. The woman had spent the entire afternoon looking uncomfortable, defensive, confused, and mildly offended depending on who happened to be talking to her. Right now she looked all four at once.

Mary folded her arms. “I was just tryna help.”

That made Pearline laugh again.

This time several people looked over.

“Help who?”

“Annie.”

“By doin’ what?” Pearline asked. “Having Jada show up so you could embarrass Annie?”

Mary opened her mouth. Closed it. Then shrugged. “How was I supposed to know she didn’t know about Jada?”

Pearline stared at her for a long moment. The anger she’d been carrying around shifted into something else. 

Disbelief maybe.

Because that answer would’ve meant a lot more if Mary hadn’t spent years inserting herself into situations that had absolutely nothing to do with her.

“Funny.”

Mary frowned. “What’s funny?”

“You suddenly worried about other people’s feelings besides your own.”

A few people nearby winced.

Mary’s expression hardened immediately. “Oh, here we go.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Pearline folded her arms across her chest. “You knew Stack and I was tryin’ to work on our shit.”

The tension in the yard changed, because now they weren’t talking about Annie and Smoke anymore. Now they were talking about something else.

Mary rolled her eyes. “Pearline—”

“No.”

The answer came quick.

Firm.

“You knew.”

Mary looked away briefly.

Pearline shook her head. “I knew Stack had a reputation. Shit, the whole county knew Stack had a reputation.”

That earned a snort from somewhere behind her.

Probably Cornbread.

She ignored it. “I knew what I was signin’ up for. I knew me and him wasn’t together.” Her eyes settled on Mary. “But you knew too.”

Mary’s jaw tightened.

The silence stretched just long enough for everybody to understand what Pearline was really saying. Mary didn’t owe her loyalty nor did she steal anything.

But Mary knew and still did it anyway.

Movement near the side of the house pulled several heads around.

Stack had reappeared.

He walked back into the yard from the direction he’d taken Smoke, hands shoved into his pockets and irritation written plainly across his face. One look at the group gathered around Mary and Pearline told him exactly where the conversation had gone while he was gone.

Unfortunately for him, when Pearline saw him, her eyes narrowed.

“Here come Satan himself.”

Stack sighed immediately. “Maaaannn.”

Mary looked relieved to see him. Pearline looked anything but. 

Stack stopped a few feet away. “What happened now?”

Pearline pointed at Mary. Then pointed at him. Then pointed back at Mary. The gesture somehow communicated an entire argument without requiring a single additional word.

Stack understood every bit of it.

Unfortunately.

Mary looked toward Stack as though he might somehow rescue her from the argument. “Tell her.”

The request earned a sharp laugh from Pearline. “Tell me what?”

Mary threw her hands into the air, visibly frustrated by the fact that nobody seemed interested in helping her case. “That y’all wasn’t even together when Stack and I hooked up.”

From where Annie stood, she watched something flicker across Pearline’s face. It didn’t look like anger. Not exactly. More like exhaustion. The kind that came from having the same conversation too many times with somebody determined not to understand it.

The problem had never been whether Mary and Stack were technically together. 

Everybody knew they weren’t.

That wasn’t the point.

Apparently Stack had finally reached the same conclusion.

“She know that.”

Mary frowned immediately. “Then why she actin’ like—”

“Because that ain’t what she mad about.”

The interruption landed hard enough to stop her.

Annie watched Mary blink. Then stare. Then look at Stack like he’d suddenly switched sides in the middle of the game.

Stack sighed and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. The gesture reminded Annie of Elijah. Not because they looked alike. It was the way both brothers seemed to reach for their necks whenever they were about to say something they didn’t particularly want to say.

“The point ain’t whether me and her was together.”

Mary folded her arms. “Then what is it?”

Stack looked directly at her. “The point is you knew me and Pearline was tryna figure somethin’ out.”

The yard seemed to settle around the statement. Enough for Annie to see Mary’s expression change, and to see Pearline stop looking angry and start looking hurt. Enough for everybody listening to understand exactly what Stack meant.

Mary opened her mouth as if she intended to argue. Nothing came out.

Stack nodded once. “And so did I,” he added quietly. “And I still did it anyway.”

That seemed to surprise everybody.

Including Pearline.

The admission lingered in the air longer than Annie expected. For most of the afternoon people had been defending themselves. Explaining themselves. Finding ways to make their mistakes belong to somebody else. Stack’s words carried none of that. No excuses or an attempt to soften the edges.

He owned it.

Annie watched Pearline look away first. Whatever answer she had been expecting from him clearly wasn’t that one.

Stack’s attention followed her immediately. “Pea.”

Pearline’s eyes found him almost against her will. “What?”

The answer came sharp enough to draw a few smiles from the people standing nearby.

Stack accepted it without complaint. “You right.” His jaw tightened briefly before he continued. “We wasn’t together.”

Pearline rolled her eyes so hard Annie almost laughed. “Stack.”

“Let me finish.”

Pearline crossed her arms. The look she gave him suggested she was considering several forms of violence.

Still, she stayed quiet.

Stack took a slow breath. “We wasn’t together,” he repeated. “But I knew how you felt.”

Something changed in Pearline’s face. Small. Quick. Easy to miss if Annie hadn’t been watching.

The crowd seemed to fade away. For one brief moment it looked like only the two of them existed.

“And if I’m bein’ honest,” Stack continued, “I knew how I felt too.”

The confession seemed to make him uncomfortable almost immediately.

Good. Annie thought he deserved it.

Stack shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced toward the ground before looking back at Pearline. “I should’ve never did it.”

The words came rougher now. 

Real.

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

The entire yard seemed to pause, because Stack rarely apologized. Not without being forced.

Pearline stared at him for so long Annie started wondering if she intended to leave him hanging.

Then she shook her head. “You really practiced that and still sounded stupid.”

The laugh that escaped Aunt Max came out so suddenly she nearly choked on her drink.

A few other people joined in.

Even Stack smiled. 

Briefly.

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

That earned another round of laughter. Some of the tension that had been suffocating the yard all afternoon finally loosened. Not completely. There were still too many wounds walking around for that. But enough for people to breathe again.

Annie smiled despite herself.

Pearline was making a joke out of it because that was easier than standing in the middle of a cookout and admitting she’d been waiting to hear those words for months.

But Annie knew what she was really saying.

I heard you.

I’m still mad.

But I heard you.

Aunt Max pointed immediately. “Good. We done here.”

Several heads turned toward her.

She pointed directly at Pearline next. “And stop cussin’.”

Pearline stared at her. “I only said one bad word.”

“That was enough.”

A few people laughed.

Including Pearline.

Finally.

Aunt Cheryl, who had spent most of the exchange watching everybody with the patience of a woman entirely too old for the foolishness surrounding her, pushed herself away from the grill and dusted her hands together.

“Alright.”

The single word cut through every conversation happening nearby.

People stopped talking.

Aunt Cheryl pointed directly at Mary. “Mary, go on home.”

Mary blinked and pointed at herself. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” Aunt Cheryl’s expression never changed. “Take your pale ass home before you “accidentally” ruin somebody else’s relationship.”

The yard erupted. Even Uncle Lewis laughed.

Mary looked genuinely offended. “Everybody actin’ like I’m the reason all this happened.”

The gasp that left Pearline’s mouth was so dramatic Annie actually turned toward her.

“Oh, this bitch—”

“PEA.”

“I know!”

Pearline threw her hands into the air.

“I know!”

Unfortunately, Mary kept talking. “Like I got magical powers or somethin’.”

Annie saw Pearline start forward before she fully committed to it. She also saw Stack recognize the danger immediately.

“Don’t.”

“I’m not.”

“Pearline.”

“I’m not!”

She absolutely was.

As soon as she took another step, Stack wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her backward.

Pearline’s protest echoed across the yard. “LET ME GO.”

“No.”

“Just one.”

“No.”

“Stack.”

“No.”

The entire exchange happened so fast Annie barely had time to process it. Pearline twisted in his grip and pointed toward Mary, who had stopped beside her car to watch the chaos she’d created.

“PLEASE LET ME FIGHT HER.”

The request sent half the yard into laughter. Aunt Max bent over so suddenly Annie worried she might actually fall.

Mary looked offended. “Fight me for what?”

Pearline pointed harder. “THAT.”

Stack dropped his forehead against Pearline’s shoulder because he was laughing too hard to stay upright.

“Just one punch,” Pearline begged. “One slap. Somethin’.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“Pea.”

She groaned loudly. “This is why women be choosin’ violence.”

Aunt Cheryl closed her eyes. “Lord.”

Before Pearline could argue again, Geneva spoke up from behind them.

“Go on.”

The yard went quiet.

Pearline blinked. “…What?”

Geneva pointed toward Mary’s car. “My auntie said go.”

Everyone watched Geneva, waiting to see what she would do next. Even Stack lifted his head.

Geneva folded her arms. “Everybody else wanna be mature about this shit, coddling this ho. But I’m ‘bout to slap this bitch if she don’t get the fuck on.”

The entire yard erupted.

Aunt Max nearly folded in half laughing.

Mary looked horrified and glanced around the yard as though searching for a single ally.

Nobody volunteered.

Not one person.

“Whatever, I’m outta here.” She exclaimed as she turned on her heels and left.

“Drive safe, ho,” Geneva called.

The laughter got louder.

Even Annie found herself smiling despite everything.

By the time Mary finally climbed into her car and drove away, the yard felt lighter than it had all afternoon. 

Aunt Cheryl stared off into the yard a little while longer before looking back at Annie. “Now you. Come inside.”

Annie wanted to argue. Wanted to say she was grown, that she didn’t need to be summoned like a child, that she had already been embarrassed enough for one afternoon. But Aunt Cheryl’s tone left no room for any of that. And more than anything, Annie was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of crying. Tired of standing in the yard while everybody looked at her like they had watched her come apart and were now trying to decide how much of her could be put back together before dinner.

The kitchen felt cooler than the yard, but not any easier to breathe in. Annie sat at Aunt Cheryl’s table with a glass of water she had not asked for and couldn’t make herself drink. Pearline sat across from her, still quiet in that dangerous way that meant the hurt hadn’t gone anywhere. Geneva leaned against the counter with her arms folded, soft-eyed but not soft enough to let Annie hide. Aunt Max stood near the stove, shaking her head every few seconds like she was replaying the whole scene and finding new foolishness each time. Aunt Cheryl remained standing at the head of the table, which somehow made Annie feel even more like she had been called into the principal’s office.

For a while nobody said anything. That was worse than yelling. Annie stared into the water and watched the surface tremble slightly every time her fingers brushed the glass. The tequila had left her with a warm, dull ache behind her eyes, but the buzz was fading fast enough to be cruel. Without it, every choice she had made in the last hour stood in front of her with perfect clarity.

Aunt Cheryl finally sighed. “Baby, I love you. I do. But you acted a damn fool out there.”

Annie closed her eyes.

“And before you start,” Aunt Max added, pointing at her, “yes, Smoke acted a fool too. We ain’t takin’ sides and he ain’t sittin’ at this table right now. You are.”

That made Geneva glance down, but she didn’t disagree.

Annie wiped at her cheek, even though there were no fresh tears there yet. “I know.”

“No,” Pearline said quietly. “I don’t think you do.”

Annie looked at her and the guilt from upstairs came back so quickly it nearly stole her breath. Pearline’s face was still tender from everything Annie had thrown at her. Not physically, but emotionally. The words had landed. Annie could see that now. She had wanted Pearline to hurt because she had been hurting, and that thought sat inside her like something rotten.

“I’m sorry,” Annie said.

Pearline looked away, pressing her lips together. “I know you are.”

“I shouldn’t have said all that to you.”

“Nah, you shouldn’t have.” Pearline’s voice remained even, which somehow made it worse. “And I shouldn’t have kept what I knew from you. Both can be true.”

Annie nodded, but Pearline was not finished.

“You hurt me, Annie. I get why you was mad. I do. But you looked at me like I brought you down here to humiliate you on purpose.” Pearline’s voice cracked slightly, and she swallowed before continuing. “I was wrong. I should’ve told you from the minute I saw him with Jada. But I wasn’t tryin’ to make you look stupid. I was tryin’ to protect some little piece of hope because I knew you still had it, and I knew he did too.”

The kitchen went quiet again.

Annie stared at her hands.

Geneva moved from the counter and sat beside her, close enough that her knee brushed Annie’s. “That’s the part you keep missin’. You keep talkin’ like you was the only one everybody could see hurtin’. But we saw him too.”

Annie’s throat tightened.

Geneva’s voice softened. “You really didn’t know, did you?”

Annie shook her head, and this time the tears came with no fight left behind them. “No.”

Aunt Max huffed, not unkindly. “Chile, that boy loved you so loud for somebody who barely opened his mouth.”

Despite herself, Pearline let out a broken little laugh. Geneva smiled sadly. 

Aunt Cheryl didn’t smile at all.

“He loved you,” Aunt Cheryl said. “And from what I just saw out there, he still do. But love ain’t worth much if all y’all do is use it to hurt each other.”

That one landed deep.

Annie covered her mouth with one hand, trying to hold something in that was already breaking loose. She had spent eight years telling herself Elijah hadn’t loved her enough to come after her, only to find out he had been reaching in every way he knew how. Letters. Calls. Cards. A mixtape. All these pieces she had not seen or had not understood, scattered behind them like evidence from a life neither of them had been able to explain. 

And even after learning all of that, even after hearing him say love in the present tense, she had still found a way to pick up the sharpest thing near her and swing.

Aunt Cheryl pulled out the chair across from Annie and sat down at last. That scared Annie more than when she had been standing. “You spent eight years waitin’ on that boy to come get you,” she said, her voice quieter now. “That’s what you told him out there. You waited for him to show up, say the right thing, fight for you the right way, know what you needed without you ever havin’ to say it plain.”

Annie could not look away from her.

“But what if it’s your turn now?” Aunt Cheryl asked. “What if the thing you been waitin’ on him to do is the thing you gotta do for him?”

The words moved through Annie slowly, then all at once.

Her chair scraped against the floor before she fully realized she had stood. Pearline looked up, and something like relief crossed her face. Geneva’s hand fell away from Annie’s arm as though she had known this was coming. Aunt Max stepped aside before Annie even reached the doorway.

“Go,” Pearline said.

Annie did.

She moved through the living room with her heart pounding so hard it made her chest hurt. The sounds of the cookout rushed back the moment she opened the front door, humid evening air wrapping around her as she stepped onto the porch. A few people looked over. Someone called her name. She didn’t stop. She took the steps too fast, nearly stumbled at the bottom, caught herself, and kept going across the yard, past the folding tables, past the abandoned plates, past Mike and Isoo sitting near the cooler.

She ran because walking felt impossible.

The driveway seemed longer than it had earlier. The road beyond it stretched under the fading Mississippi sun, quiet except for the distant hum of cicadas and the sound of her own breathing. Annie reached the edge of the gravel and looked both ways, searching for his truck, for taillights, for dust lifting off the road, for any sign that she had not waited too long this time.

There was nothing.

No truck.

No Elijah.

Only the empty road stretching ahead of her, wide and indifferent.

Annie stood there breathing hard, one hand pressed to her chest as the truth settled over her with a cruelty she had earned. 

For eight years she had waited for Elijah to come after her. For eight years she had told herself that if he loved her enough, he would find a way to show up.

Now she had finally gone after him.

And he was already gone.

End Note: I wanted to get this out to y'all as soon as possible, because the next chapter is going to take me some time. It will be HEAVY Smoke, possibly all Smoke. So I have to get my mind right to get into his mind as he listens to Annie's mixtape. 💿🥹 But let me know what you think about this chapter.

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