† The Priestess
Annie, an 18-year-old from New Orleans, moves to Clarksdale with dreams of building a life all her own. There she meets Smoke, a 21-year-old war veteran with a dangerous reputation. What grows between them is sweet, sticky, and Southern— a smoldering love set against a world of bootlegging, Hoodoo, and blues.
Chapter 8
He didn’t need to know what was said.
Didn’t even need to know who said it.
Smoke drove with both hands on the wheel, grip steady on the leather. The door of the Colored schoolhouse swung open in its hinges before fitting into its frame, and he walked through the threshold with a quiet determination. He wasn’t there to argue. He was there to be clear; to shut an old door he never meant to leave cracked open in the first place.
The kids were long gone. All that remained was the ghost of their feet shuffling against the floorboards and the echo of high-pitched laughter. And her. She sat at the desk at the front of the classroom with a stack of papers and a thick red pencil, making straight lines across words with clean, even strokes, and just the right amount of pressure.
Sunlight cut across the empty desks, catching the chalk dust that still hovered in the air. The classroom was quiet, but it wasn’t empty. History, resentment, and two different versions of the truth hung between the two of them like a physical weight that made the room feel smaller. It pressed against the walls and the lone window on the side of the building like it could feel the tension brewing and wanted out.
Smoke cleared his throat.
She scoffed. A quiet, annoyed expulsion of breath. Then she looked up, and when her eyes met his they held his gaze, then went up and down his form slowly. Canvassing, maybe. Taking in the seriousness in his posture. Taking notice of the cold calm he carried.
“Demetria.” Smoke’s voice was cold too, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. It usually was. But this kind of cold was more resolve than anything.
“Smoke,” she said back.
“We need to talk.”
“Well, hello to you too,” she said sharply.
“Hey,” he said. “We need to talk,” he repeated, tone flat.
She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “About?” she asked with a challenge in her tone.
“Us.”
The word made her lean forward on her elbows.
“I just came to say we’re done. For good this time,” he said firmly. He opened his mouth, then closed it, like he had something more to say but decided against it.
“That’s it?” The look on her face went from amusement to surprise to something else in the span of a few seconds. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to say out loud. I should have said it sooner. That’s on me. But we been done a while. You know that.”
“You always did think silence was kinder than the truth,” she fired back.
Smoke hung his head. Because she wasn’t wrong. Her anger, he could take on the chest. He at least owed her that.
“Look, I don’t know what’s been said or who you been sayin’ it to,” he started. “But whatever’s been said, I’m here to put it to rest.”
Something flashed across her face and left just as quickly. Recognition. And the sinking feeling of dread. “You must got somebody you care about a whole lot, to come all the way over here just so you could say it plain,” she said. “She know about me?”
“I’m sayin’ it now,” he said, voice low.
“Does she know about me?” She asked again. A little louder this time.
Smoke’s jaw ticked.
“So there is somebody else,” she said carefully.
Smoke didn’t answer.
She studied his face for anything— regret, sadness, anything. She closed her eyes to keep her composure and shook her head like it would somehow make the sting go away. It didn’t. But she put her dignity back on anyway.
“Well,” she said, almost breathless. “There it is.”
Smoke nodded once. Demetria looked at him like she couldn’t recognize the shape of the man standing in front of her anymore, then she went back to her papers with the same measured carefulness she always used. The force of her pen made the paper crackle on the desk. Her corrections felt more personal now. Like she was trying to cross him out of her life one red line at a time.
“You take care.”
“Or not,” she snapped.
Smoke nodded like he accepted the ire, then he turned towards the entrance. He walked into the cool Mississippi air outside and away from the tension that sat between them, ready to snap like a rubber band pulled taut. And when he closed the door to the schoolhouse behind him, he made sure it shut all the way.
“Mwen kontan.”
She said it in such a sultry, whispery tone. Not on purpose, that’s just how Annie’s voice sounded to Smoke. Alluring and fragrant, like the scent of the magnolia blossoms scattered around them on the ground.
It was an early Sunday evening in November. The magnolia tree that stood tall on the side of the boarding house was changing. Its delicate, white petals drifted loose from the branches overhead and fell soft into the yard like the last bit of summer was shedding itself, piece by piece.
They sat on her patchwork quilt under the remaining shade of the tree. Annie had her knees tucked beneath her, her new sketchbook open on her lap. Smoke was across from her, one knee up, forearm casually resting over it. His eyes were anything but casual, narrowed with a fierce concentration. A lantern sat close by the edge of the quilt. Its flame burned low and steady, painting gold shadows over the pages of Annie’s sketchbook and the tips of her fingers.
“Hold on,” Smoke fussed. “You gotta say it slower.”
Annie chuckled. “Mweh con-tan,” she sounded out slowly.
Smoke was staring at her lips, trying to mimic the way she formed the words when she spoke. She was amused by his focus. Impressed. He had it in everything he did. That bitter resolve.
“What that mean?”
“It means I’m happy.”
“Mwen-kun-tin,” he tried.
Annie winced. “Close, but…just try it again,” she urged.
“No,” Smoke said flatly.
“Why not?”
“I said it just how you said it.”
“No,” Annie shook her head. “You didn’t.”
Smoke’s mouth twitched. He looked away before it could fully turn into a smile. “Sounded close enough to me,” he grumbled.
“Mweh con-tan,” she said slower.
“Mwen kun-tan,” he repeated.
Annie bit the inside of her cheek. He was doing it on purpose, with his stubborn self.
“You laughin’ at me?” Smoke asked bitterly.
“No.”
“Yeah…you are.”
“Am not.”
A magnolia petal landed on the page. Smoke picked it up without thinking, turned it once in his hand, then placed it on the quilt like he was afraid to hold it too long for fear he’d crush it in his hands.
“Say it again.”
“You’re enjoyin’ this too much,” he huffed.
“And you bein’ difficult on purpose.”
“Mm.”
“Mm,” she said louder. She laughed softly and shaded something with her pencil near the corner of the page. It was a sketch of the shape of his mouth. Just the corner and how it curved around the sound he kept getting wrong. How he’d pushed a nasal sound outward instead of dropping it down.
Smoke shifted closer by a fraction, looking down to the sketchbook curiously. “Can I see?”
Her fingers tightened around it out of instinct.
“You ain’t got to.”
The gentleness in his words made her look up. Made her grip loosen. She turned the sketchbook towards him, setting it between them. On the page wasn’t just one drawing. There were several spread across the paper. The curve of a leaf. The twist of a root. The slope of a hand pouring tea. Felix curled up on the porch. Halfway tucked in the pages was a loose leaf drawing of the inside of a small house. Smoke stared at that one the longest. He knew instantly what it was. He’d seen her sketch of the outside of her shop before. But this one was different. She pulled it out from where it was wedged and placed it in her lap.
Bundles hanging from the ceiling on one side.
A long counter in front.
A curtain that led to other rooms.
Small jars lined up neatly on shelves.
He took in every section, every detail.
“Your shop,” he said finally.
“One day,” Annie replied shyly.
“One day, when?”
Annie looked up. “When I got enough saved. When I know enough,” she listed off. “When Aunt Della thinks I’m ready. When…” she huffed out a breath softly. “When the world lets me, I guess.”
Smoke’s jaw worked.
“It wouldn’t just be remedies,” she said, rushing to fill the quiet before it got too loud. “I’d sell teas, salves, tonics, food, too. It wouldn’t just be a shop,” she continued, searching for words that would land. “It’d be somewhere people can come when they got things they ain’t ready to say out loud, but they ready to stop lettin’ it hurt them.”
Smoke kept quiet beside her.
Annie took a deep breath. “My grandma had an apothecary. Nothin’ fancy,” she said softly. “Just a place where people came in whisperin’ and left breathin’ easier.”
Smoke watched her. Her eyes, the way they softened around certain words. Her hands, and how they fidgeted on the edge of the paper. He looked at the page again while she ran her finger lightly over the built-in shelves she drew.
“I want that. Somethin’ with my name on it. Somethin’ I know how to keep.”
He looked at her again. “You will,” he said firmly.
The certainty in his voice made her go still. “You sound sure.”
“I am.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
Annie tucked the drawing away and closed her sketchbook halfway, her hand smoothing over its cover. “You know some of me.”
Smoke nodded once. “I know enough.”
Silence settled between them again. Easy. Annie watched him for a moment, trying to read what had changed in his face. He looked the same mostly. Quiet. Steady. Shoulders still carrying that heaviness. But his eyes looked different.
He sat up straight and faced her. “Annie.” He said her name and she felt her heart thump hard in her chest. She couldn’t figure out why. He’d said her name a million times, but he’d never said it quite like this.
“Yes?” she replied.
“I talked to your aunt.”
“About what?”
“You.”
The night moved around them. Crickets chirping in the trees, distant voices from a house down the street. Dogs barking, chickens roosting. It all seemed to quiet around this very moment.
“I told her I wanna court you. Proper.”
“You did?”
“I did.”
“And now?” she asked quietly.
“Now I’m comin’ to you.”
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, eyes piercing. “I ain’t askin’ you for nothin’ you don’t wanna give,” he said. “And I ain’t askin’ you to stop what you been showin’ me.”
Annie’s throat tightened. “That matter to you?”
Smoke’s eyes moved to the sketchbook, then back to her. “It matters to you,” he said plainly. “It matters to me.”
“I thought you ain’t believe in all that stuff,” she said. “Hoodoo.”
“I don’t.” He shrugged. “I believe in you.”
Annie drew in a small breath, tilting her chin up a little. “What does courtin’ mean to you?”
Smoke took his time to answer.
“It means I come correct. I don’t sneak around corners with you. Don’t have folks guessin’ what you mean to me. It means if I spend time with you, it’s cause I’m serious about you.”
“You are?”
“I am.”
She looked at him— a silent urge to keep talking, like he wasn’t already undoing her under this magnolia tree.
“I ain’t sayin’ I got everything figured out. I don’t. I got work that ain’t clean. I got Stack.” His mouth tightened faintly. “And I got things I still need to make right before I can ask for more than this.”
He sighed. “But I know what I mean,” he said. “And I don’t mean to waste your time.”
Annie looked down at the sketchbook in her lap. This man, whose words always held weight, had looked closely at her dreams sketched in graphite and smudged lines and simply said —he wanted to be part of them.
She looked back at him. “If I say yes,” she said slowly. “I want my shop. I want my work. I want…I wanna be somebody outside of who I’m with.”
“You already are,” he said, voice low.
Annie blinked.
His voice stayed low. “I ain’t askin’ to make you smaller.”
Annie’s breath caught. “Then what you askin’?”
He paused for a moment, then— “To walk beside you while you grow.”
The silence that sat between them wasn’t empty. It was so full that Annie had to look away just so she could breathe.
That’s when she felt it.
A nervous laugh.
It rose up in her throat— not because anything was funny, but because the weight of this moment was so heavy, she had to lighten it somehow before it swallowed her whole. She tried to suppress it, but the corners of her mouth had already turned up.
“You laughin’ at me?”
He noticed. Of course he did.
“No!”
Smoke’s mouth twitched. “Yes you are.”
“No I’m not!”
“You a bad liar.”
“I'm not lyin'...you just...makin’ me nervous right now,” she admitted softly.
His eyes softened. “You can take your time to think about it.”
Annie shook her head immediately. “No,” she said. “I don’t need time,” she assured him.
His eyes got serious again.
“I’ll let you court me.”
Something moved across his face. Not quite a smile. Something much more dangerous to her composure. “Yeah?”
Annie’s lips curved into a fully encompassing smile that spread gently across her face. “Yeah.”
He held out his hand for her. A question. She put her hand in his and they laced their fingers together carefully, palms warm and steady against each other. The answer.
The tree shed another petal. It drifted down between them and landed on their intertwined hands. They didn’t move it. The lantern burned low. They sat like that beneath the magnolia tree as the last of summer continued to fall around them.
The next morning was a blur. Between the demands of empty stomachs and the nervous tremor of her own hands, a nagging anxiety sat on her shoulders and butterflies fluttered violently in the pit of her belly. A sigh of relief left her lips as the last lodger headed out the door, leaving her and Aunt Della to at least be able to clean up the kitchen and dining room in a tempered silence.
The wind chimes on the porch fluttered in the breeze, whistling a throaty, breathless jingle that did nothing to calm her nerves. Aunt Della glanced her way a few times, but said nothing. Even Felix tried to soothe her, his purrs doing little to bring her any real solace.
Annie shoved a biscuit in her mouth to give herself something to do. The warm fluffiness filled her mouth and the butter satisfied her tastebuds with its rich, melty goodness. She sighed then took another bite, closing her eyes as the sustenance moved through her body.
Maybe she was just hungry. And maybe her anxiousness had nothing to do with him.
She moved quicker, stacking, sweeping, wiping, scraping until the house smelled like eucalyptus, lavender, and bleach.
Annie collapsed on the couch in the front room, but not from exhaustion. From adrenaline that had nowhere else to go. Her heart beat rapidly and she fingered her ileke beads like that could somehow calm it. Morning light cut warm and light through the front windows like a balm on her skin. She tilted her head back and let her eyes close, basking in the quiet after the chaos of breakfast.
The scent of tobacco, peppermint, and bay rum floated through the screen door. Slowly—like the rich, layered smells that arrive in a kitchen when meat, butter and herbs fold into each other on the stove.
Then the screen door cracked open and Smoke stepped through.
Annie’s mouth went dry.
The first thing she noticed was the way he darkened the doorway once he stepped past the threshold. He was tall, well over six feet. Large and imposing frame, and even though she was a tall woman herself, it felt like he towered over her. The muscles on his arms and shoulders filled out every inch of his white collared shirt, pressing against the starched fabric with a powerful, restrained strength. His suspenders held up trousers that sat comfortably around his hips. His boots were heavy on his feet even though his steps were light. It was a subtle contradiction that made her tongue feel like cotton in her mouth.
The second thing she noticed were the flowers in his hand. Two separate arrangements— one a mixture of white, cream, and greenery. The other was a mixture of vivid colors that looked like a rainbow painted the petals. Each was wrapped in brown paper and tied gently with twine.
Smoke removed his hat and turned to see Annie spread lazily across the couch. Apron halfway untied, scarf to the side, legs hanging off the edge, dress tracing the curve of her hips. She looked beautiful with her feet dangling in the air, bent nickel hanging loosely off a string around her left ankle, shoulders relaxed like she didn’t have a care in the world. He liked that look. Wanted to see more of it.
He was doing that staring thing again, Annie thought to herself. The way his eyes slowly swept up and down her body gave her goosebumps, and she suddenly became very aware of how she was presenting. Worn dress, apron smudged with stains, hair fuzzy in her cornrows, barefoot and lounging on the couch. But the heat in his eyes turned a casual glance-over into a smoldering glare that pinned her in place. The paper around the bouquets crinkled under his grasp as he adjusted them in his hand. When his voice finally broke the loaded silence that had overtaken the front room of the boarding house, it was rough with something that made her spine snap straight. Her legs followed, then her hands, dragging her upwards until she was sitting up completely.
“Good mornin’.”
Annie smiled up at him, a sight that beamed brighter than the morning sun. “Good mornin’.”
Smoke took a step closer, then two, and with one hand grabbed the white bouquet out of his other and extended them towards Annie. “For you.”
“Thank you,” she said, inhaling their scent.
Smoke nodded once, then looked around the room. “Where’s your aunt?”
“Somewhere out back,” she said breathily, taking another sniff of the flowers.
“These for her.”
“Awww, ain’t you sweet?”
“Don’t tell nobody,” he said in that low register that made her skin tingle, with a timbre that told her he wasn’t joking even though the corner of his mouth lifted when he said it.
He proceeded into the kitchen then out the back door, leaving Annie with her own thoughts and the absence of…him. His presence stayed in the room even though he was gone, and it wasn’t just because the smell of his cologne lingered behind. Her head tilted when she realized what day it was. Monday. What was he doing here?
“What we doin’ today?” He asked as he stepped back into her space.
Annie’s breath stuttered.
Aunt Della listened in from the kitchen, looking entirely pleased with herself.
Annie cleared her throat and shut her mouth that had opened at Smoke’s words. Not because she wasn’t used to him being forward. But because the look in his eye told her he was dead serious when he asked her that question.
“I gotta stop by Chow’s,” she started, to which he acknowledged with a nod. “Then the drugstore,” she continued. She listed things off until she stopped to look down at what she needed to do before anything else. “I gotta wash up first. Change.”
“I’ma be right here,” he assured her, sinking deep into the couch, putting his head back, and spreading his legs.
Annie took one more look at him and darted up the stairs.
Thirty minutes later she was in front of the mirror, blouse tucked into a halfway-fastened skirt. Her hair was taken down from her cornrows, oiled, greased, parted down the middle, and pulled back.
Except one piece that just wouldn’t lay flat.
She brushed it once, then brushed it again. It refused to lay right, refused to stay right. Her hairbrush clattered on the dresser where she dropped it.
“What am I doing?” she asked like the walls could talk back.
She gripped the edge of the dresser, then touched the open edge of her blouse still unbuttoned at the throat. Her fingers rested there a moment before she remembered to button it.
Her fingers weren’t steady. She cursed under her breath, buttoning it with trembling hands. She smoothed the front down, turning to the side to make sure it was tucked all the way in.
Then she picked up her hairbrush again. Went over the same spot. Got the same result.
She threw her hairbrush down with frustration, flustered.
All of a sudden she felt very alone. More alone than she’d felt since she got to Clarksdale. She tried to blink away the tears but one escaped her eye. It rolled down her cheek, dropping onto her dresser.
She missed her friends from home.
She missed her family.
She didn't expect this. Didn’t expect him.
And now she was standing in the middle of something new surrounded by people who barely knew her. No mama who always knew what to say. No brothers teasing. No daddy who would pretend it wasn’t making him emotional seeing his little girl stepping into her role as a woman.
Maybe it was a sign.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t even get her hair right without falling apart.
What did she know about being courted?
The word felt strange in her throat. New. Like a dress made out of fine fabric that she hadn’t yet learned how to move in. Like something she wanted to be careful with, to not wrinkle. Something she wanted to spin in front of the mirror just to see how it caught the light.
And maybe, just maybe….if it fit just right, she could keep it.
Her stomach fluttered.
She didn’t know what came after she said yes.
She’d heard stories from her friends back home, but she was never in the thick of it to look around and see how it felt.
She didn’t know how close she was supposed to stand beside him, what folks would hear if he said her name too soft. Didn’t know if holding his hand would feel natural or if she’d overthink every step. She didn’t know what part of herself was meant to stay guarded and what part was allowed to lean.
But between the frustration, and the fear, and the homesickness that had a vice grip on her nerves…she still wanted to try.
That was the part that kept resurfacing.
She wanted it. Wanted him beside her. Wanted to be beside him. And she wanted folks to see.
The truth of it rose up so plainly, it didn’t leave room for her to argue with herself about it.
She wanted to know what Smoke looked like when he didn’t hold himself back so much. Wanted to learn what his quiet felt like when it belonged to her. Wanted to see if walking beside him in the daylight felt like sitting beside him under the magnolia tree in the backyard.
She rubbed her ileke beads and let the touch ground her. Then she put some oil on her fingers, the special blend her mama made that halfway leaked out in her trunk, and brushed the worrisome part of her hair the way her mama always did when she got too frustrated to do it herself. Rub, smooth, brush, set.
She looked in the small, age-spotted mirror again, and her mouth curved up into a small, winsome smile.
Maybe she didn't know what she was doing.
But maybe the only thing she needed to do today was walk downstairs, meet his eyes, and take it one step at a time.
The floorboards upstairs groaned and Smoke’s head snapped towards the sound. He rose slowly from his spot on the couch, keeping his eyes trained on Annie as she walked down the stairs with a hand on the banister.
His gaze moved over her.
She wore a deep mustard-colored blouse tucked into a navy blue ankle-length skirt and high button leather boots. Her purse was slung over her shoulder and her skin still looked warm from her bath.
“You look nice.”
“Thank you.”
“Real nice.”
Annie’s cheeks warmed.
“Ready?” he asked.
Annie smiled once she got to the bottom of the staircase. “I’m ready.”
Aunt Della stood in the threshold between the kitchen and the front room, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes went from Smoke to Annie and back. “Y’all don’t have too much fun out there,” she smirked. “And watch my baby,” she said to Smoke.
“I will,” Smoke said as he put his hat back. He opened the door for Annie and stepped back to turn to Aunt Della. “Always.”
Aunt Della shook her head playfully and turned back to the kitchen, arms still folded but a grin on her lips.
The ride over to Fourth Street was quick—just two short blocks. People in front of Chow’s Grocery were few and far between, but the sidewalk was far from empty. Outside, business moved as usual. A vendor restocked produce while a worker inspected their freshness. A few customers left the store with items wrapped tightly in brown paper while their children skipped alongside them with peppermint sticks and molasses chews in hand. Wagons trekked by slowly with mounds of cotton in the back, and the constant hammering of picks chipping ice blocks apart echoed in the street.
Smoke rounded the front of his truck to open the door for Annie. He held up a hand for her to balance herself on and took care to make sure she was steady once she stepped out. He followed behind her as they walked to the entrance, his hand on the small of her back as he held the door for her.
The inside held the sweet pungency of chicory in burlap sacks being hauled from the back and piled high by the windows. Charles and Bo Chow stood behind the front counter, Charles weighing something on the scale while Bo wrote an entry in the ledger. A smirk spread across Bo’s face when he saw Smoke and Annie at the door and clocked their closeness. He nodded at Smoke, then slid his eyes over to Annie and waved at her, drawn by the warmth that always seemed to radiate off her.
“Baby,” Smoke started, exchanging a look with Bo. “I need to go holler at Bo real quick.”
“Okay,” Annie responded in that sweet, syrupy Louisiana drawl of hers.
She drifted across the store looking at her list, then made her way down one of the aisles in search of something else entirely. Smoke watched her go, watched her disappear, replayed it in his head. Then he turned to Bo. He was wiping down a display as Charles rang up a customer at the till.
“How you been, man?” Bo asked.
“Good, good,” Smoke said. He greeted him with a firm handshake, then pulled back to get a good look at him. “Damn, fatherhood huh?”
“I look that bad?”
“You look like shit.”
Bo laughed, the corner of his eyes crinkling with it. He looked tired, but content in a way that made his eyes twinkle. Like he was at peace despite it all. “Tired as hell. But I’m happy,” he nodded. “We happy.”
“I’m happy for you, Bo.”
“Thanks man,” Bo replied, shaking Smoke’s shoulder. His eyes flicked over the store. “Della’s girl…that’s you?”
“You mean Annie,” Smoke corrected.
Surprise overtook Bo’s face and he raised an eyebrow. A question. “Yeah, I mean Annie.”
“Yeah,” he answered. Firm. “She mine.”
Bo clapped Smoke on the shoulder, looking at him with a sense of shock and awe. “Oh shit,” he exclaimed, putting a fist in front of his mouth. “Look at you, fixin’ to be in my shoes soon, Smoke.”
Smoke shot him a look as he walked away, but something in him got quiet when the thought crossed his mind. Then it got warm.
Annie, a mother.
Him.
A father.
He shook the thought away just as quickly when they became poisoned by thoughts of his own father.
That felt like a metaphor for his own life— innocence being corrupted by its own blood.
The thought of being a father after putting his own in the ground felt devastatingly ironic, but hope flickered somewhere that maybe it could rewrite whatever went wrong with his own.
He shook his head and kept walking through the store, his legs carrying him past the aisles in slow, measured steps. He didn’t rush. He knew exactly where Annie was.
Annie was still reeling.
From him calling her baby. From the way he said it with that deep Mississippi drawl. Her cheeks were warm, skin flushed, and all of a sudden, everything felt hot despite the store being cool.
She stood in the aisle, humming under her breath, half bent over as she flipped through a wire basket on a shelf filled with seed packets.
“Why she want this when we got it in the backyard?” She fussed.
She shook her head, plucked the seed packet from the stack, and stood up. They dropped into her shopping basket as she walked further down the aisle. She picked up the small bag of feed and saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye. She ignored it and went about her business crossing items off her list when she heard it.
“Hey stranger.”
She turned around.
Reverend Carter stepped around the corner.
Red button up, brown tweed waistcoat, gold pocket watch hanging. And that silver signet ring that he rubbed with the pad of his thumb. She looked down in his shopping basket and her brows knit at the contents inside.
Her lips tightened into a line, that same odd sense of familiarity crept up on her again and made her insides tumble with unease.
“Hey.” She adjusted the strap of her purse around her shoulder.
A grin spread across his face. “How you been?”
“Good,” she nodded. “You?”
Carter nodded like he was choosing his words carefully. “I’ve been doin’ just fine,” he said slowly.
Annie shifted her weight. “So you’re back?”
“For a little.”
She blinked. “Where you speakin’ at this time?”
“Church off Yazoo,” he said quickly.
She frowned for a second, then relaxed her face.
Carter chuckled under his breath. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You stayin’ at the house?”
He smirked to the side then looked back. “I’m stayin’ with the pastor.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah…makes perfect sense.”
His eyes dropped to her ileke beads, then back up. The glance was quick, barely even noticeable. But she did. The hand that wasn’t holding her basket rose to touch her beads protectively.
Smoke noticed it too.
He was at the top of the aisle, watching.
He saw Carter’s eyes dip to her chest. It was just a brief second, but the flicker made his chest tighten.
He crossed the aisle in three long strides. He kept his eyes forward, locked on Carter who had sensed him looming and had since looked up from Annie.
Smoke stepped behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist, the motion tucking her into his side. The gesture was smooth, natural, like her body had no business not being there all along.
Annie let out a quiet exhale. It was a short, controlled breath that made her shoulders relax.
Then she moved—but she didn’t move so much as melt. She relaxed back into Smoke’s touch, folding easily into him. His fingers curled around her hip, but his eyes didn’t leave Carter’s.
“Afternoon,” Carter said politely to Smoke.
Smoke just stared at him, his dark hooded eyes like black orbs piercing into the depths of whatever lay behind Carter’s. No nod. No acknowledgement. Just a cold, tactical assessment.
Carter blinked. “Y’all goin’ to the Harvest Party next month?”
“Yeah,” Annie replied quickly. She felt Smoke’s grip tighten on her hip.“We—”
“What business a preacher got at a juke joint?” Smoke asked, voice flat.
“I ain’t goin’,” Carter said, rubbing his signet ring. He looked down at it, then looked back up at them. “Just tryna make conversation.”
Smoke and Annie glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes.
“Well,” he said, tipping his hat. “Y’all have a good rest of your day.”
Then he walked away.
The bustle of Chow’s went on around them but they didn’t hear it— like they only existed now in their own little bubble. Then Smoke dipped his head to her ear and pressed his lips there.
Three short kisses. Soft despite the intensity of the feeling behind them. Warm, from the closeness and something else entirely. They felt less like a kiss and more like a claim.
One right behind the ear, one lower on the skin right above the neck, and one right on the shell. His nose nuzzled there for a second before he opened his mouth and hummed right into her ear. Low, deep, right into the part of her ear that made his voice vibrate right down her spine.
“You good?”
“Mhmm,” she hummed.
She looked over her shoulder at him and his eyes were closed at the sound of her voice. She stroked his beard and his eyes opened to find hers darker. Her fingers grazed the shell of his ear. A gentle touch that made him fight off a shiver.
“Behave,” he said, squeezing her hip gently.
Annie grinned. She turned away from his grasp and slinked out of the aisle like nothing happened. Then she glanced over her shoulder at him once more to bat her eyes at him before slipping completely out of his sight. Smoke stood there watching her walk away, his body still warm from where she rested against it. He flexed his hands at his sides to subdue the fire she stoked in him, then followed behind her.
Outside, the air smelled like spice and the bite of the chilly November air. Annie adjusted the paper-wrapped bundle from Chow’s against her hip and slipped it into her purse. Smoke stepped out behind her with the chicken feed sack tucked under his arm and the rest of Aunt Della’s order in his other hand like it weighed nothing. He watched a shiver run down Annie’s spine that she tried to hide.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
“Here.”
Smoke shrugged off his jacket and laid it over Annie’s shoulders as they walked towards his truck. The smell wafting from King’s Tamales Stand next door stopped Annie in her tracks as a man working the booth shouted his prices to folks passing by and wrapped hot tamales in paper. Warm masa, spice, meat steamed softly inside of corn husks. Steam curled up from a heavy pot blackened by use and hit the inside of the tin roof of the stand that had a crooked hand-painted sign attached to the front.
Smoke glanced at Annie. “Hungry?”
Annie looked at him with those wide brown eyes of hers. Then her stomach answered before she got the chance. She scoffed, looking down at it like it betrayed her thoughts, then back up at Smoke.
Smoke’s mouth twitched. “Come on.” He shifted the sack higher beneath his arm and stepped towards the stand. “How many you want?”
“One.”
“Just one?”
Smoke looked towards the tamale man. “We’ll take four.”
Annie blinked. “Four?”
Smoke looked back at Annie. “I’m hungry, too.”
The man behind the stand grinned like he’d seen this before. “Two for the gentleman, one for the lady now, and one for when she gets hungry later.”
“Exactly,” Smoke agreed.
Annie scoffed, looking away before a smile broke out on her face.
“Hot?” the man asked.
Smoke looked back at Annie again. She lifted her chin, offended despite herself. “Hot.”
Smoke looked back to the grinning man and nodded once. “Hot.”
“You think I wouldn’t like hot?”
“I didn’t know that’s why I asked.”
“You forget where I’m from?”
“I remember.”
The tamales came wrapped in paper, steam rising as the man passed them over to Smoke. He paid, coins dropping clean in the man’s palm. “Enjoy,” he said as they turned down the sidewalk.
They walked a little ways down the side of the building, stopping by a patch of shade where the street noise softened around them. Smoke set Aunt Della’s things carefully by his feet, then handed Annie her tamales. He unwrapped his own with easy hands. Annie watched him without meaning to. The way he carefully peeled back the husk. The way the steam curled around his fingers. The way he took the first bite and let it sit in his mouth before he started chewing. He chewed once, twice, then nodded faintly to himself.
“That good?”
“Mhmm.” He took another bite.
Annie unwrapped hers, holding it carefully between her fingers as the heat bled through the paper. The first bite was soft and smoky. The cornmeal was tender, but not enough to fall through her fingers. The meat was rich with salt, pepper, and something earthy underneath. She chewed thoughtfully, her mouth analyzing every flavor. Smoke was already on his second tamale, but was chewing slower now, watching her.
“What?” she asked.
“You makin’ a face.”
“I’m thinkin’.”
Smoke’s brows knit together. “About a tamale?”
“Mhmm.”
His mouth curved. “That so?”
“Absolutely.”
She took another bite, slower this time. “It’s good.”
Smoke nodded but kept his eyes trained on her for the—
“But.”
“I knew it.”
Annie smiled faintly. “It could use a lil’ more depth.”
“Depth?”
She nodded. “Depth.”
Smoke looked down at his half-eaten tamale then back up at Annie. “It’s a tamale.”
“And?”
Smoke looked amused now. He tilted his head. “What would you do to it?”
Annie shifted her weight. “I’d give it somethin’ to round out the pepper,” she said. “So it don’t just sit on top.”
Smoke just looked at her. “You always this particular?”
“With food? Yes.”
“And everything else?”
Annie opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked down at her tamale, then back at him. And when she spoke, her words came out softer than she expected them. “I know what I like.”
Smoke’s gaze hadn’t left her. “Good.” He took another bite, slowly. The cornmeal broke apart clean between his teeth. A long chunk of saucy meat landed on his tongue and he slurped it down his mouth without breaking eye contact.
“You starin’.”
Annie blinked. “Am not.”
“What you lookin’ at then?”
“You got somethin’ on your face.”
He ran a hand through his beard. “For real?”
“It’s gone now.”
He couldn’t ignore the mirth in her eyes. She looked away, unwrapping the last tamale with more attention than it needed. The corner of Smoke’s mouth lifted.
“Where I’m from, folks put more life into they food,” she said, turning back to him.
“More life?”
“Yep.”
“What that mean?”
“It means…” she said, looking towards the street like she could find the words there. “Food should taste like somebody remembered where they came from when they made it.”
“You sayin’ the people who made this…forgot where they came from?”
“No.” She smiled into her food. “They just knew wherever they was goin’ didn’t like it hot!”
Smoke huffed a laugh. Fourth Street moved around them, unconcerned. And the tension from inside of Chow’s softened into something easier. Something with steam, spice, and a little more kick.
“I’ll make sure to let King know.”
Annie swatted his chest. “Smoke, don’t you dare!”
When they were done eating, Smoke gathered Aunt Della’s order again and Annie threw the empty wrappers into a nearby waste barrel. She wiped her fingers against her handkerchief, the taste of pepper and cornmeal still heavy on her tongue.
They left their items from Chow’s locked in Smoke’s truck, which he left in front of the grocery store at Annie’s insistence. Annie enjoyed the scenery as they walked leisurely towards the next stop on her list of errands. Smoke enjoyed the scenery too— her. Her hair, tucked into a thick bun, had tendrils hanging down the sides of her face that blew with the wind. One kept sticking to the shell of her ear, tickling her when it hit just right. The beads tucked under the neckline of her dress rattled if she moved a certain way. And she still had his jacket on to shield her from the wind. The sight of her walking around with his suit jacket draped over her shoulders did something to him that he couldn’t explain and didn’t want to.
They neared the crossroad where Fourth Street met Issaquena, the street lined with shops for personal and grooming services. Luella’s Dressing Room & Alterations, Ritzy’s Beauty Salon, Brown’s Barbershop, and others sat along a row of close-knit brick and wooden storefronts with mended awnings and handmade signs.
The noise of the street got louder as they approached the block where Luella’s and Ritzy’s stood across from the barbershop. Or maybe it was just the noise in Annie’s head. She walked closest to the sidewalk with Smoke right beside her, watching her closely. His hand would find her lower back if he saw her steps falter or slow. They dodged some kids roughhousing, a stand or a low hanging sign, a crack in the sidewalk.
The area in front of the barbershop was full of men standing on lampposts smoking cigarettes, people watching, and chatting each other up. Suspenders loose or off, hats sitting low, legs bent, feet on the brick barbershop building while they waited their turn. The striped pole outside spun slowly with the wind. The smell of shaving soap, pomade, and hot comb smoke drifted upwards from the barbershop and the beauty salon across the street. The men outside let their eyes wander when Annie approached them on the sidewalk— and froze when they saw Smoke right next to her. Conversations paused, necks craned slowly. Smoke guided her through the crowd that parted for them with his hand at her back. The men acknowledged him, some giving him daps, others giving a firm nod. Some said a few polite words, tipping their hats and greeting them both as they walked by. But Smoke kept his hands on Annie. Always on her.
Sunflower Music was painted in gold lettering on a black wooden sign that hung perpendicular to the sidewalk. The awning was a muted red, the color faded by the sun and wear, and stuck out of a narrow brick storefront with tall display windows in the front. Folks walking by would just stop and stare at what was inside— sheet music, instruments, phonographs, a lone Columbia Graphophone. Stacks of records displayed like treasure. Once the shop bell guided them through the door, the smell of paper, varnished wood, and cigars turned the crisp winter air to something with more bite. The space was long and spread out. Wooden floors. Pressed-tin ceiling. Ceiling fans turning slowly overhead. Most of the displays were spread out across the walls except a few items that were secured behind glass cases and oak cabinets shined to a mirror finish.
A musician tested out strings by the wall where the instruments were displayed. A few church mothers Annie recognized from First Baptist Missionary were flipping carefully through church hymn sheet music displayed in stands on the other side of the shop.
The owner stood by one of many phonographs with a record in his hands. He placed it in one, cranked the machine, and dropped the needle, all in one smooth, practiced motion. The customer standing next to him waited for the beat to drop. The record spun, the sound cracked slightly, then the smooth sound of a brass band spread throughout the room. Annie paused. The customer bopped his head to the fast-paced, soulful music coming from the phonograph speakers.
Then the cornet solo hit.
Annie stilled entirely.
The sound of conversation faded away, even the pointed looks of the church mothers who recognized her walking hand-in-hand with Smoke, she paid no mind. The familiarity of the music made her chest twist painfully. It sounded like home. Felt like it too. Like street musicians, second line parades, and rain hitting tin roofs during summer storms.
“Annie?” he asked, voice low. He touched the small of her back.
Once she caught her breath, she whispered, “Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” she replied, blinking back the tear that threatened to drop from her left eye. “Just reminds me of home.” She blinked and she could see it clearly. A rickety old shack. The fierce, stubborn, woman who lived inside who felt more like a spirit than a memory. “My great-grandmama,” she said a little softer. “Before she passed…she loved listening to the cornet. I don’t know why but that was the only instrument that made her face light up no matter how out of it she was.”
Smoke rubbed her lower back and they moved deeper in the store but Annie felt like she was walking through water. They ended up by the stack of records which stood close to the instruments along the wall.
“That’s the thing about music,” he said. “It has a way of bringin’ you back to somebody, even after they long gone.”
Annie exhaled sharply. She went through the Vaudeville records but she wasn’t really looking. Smoke stood by her side, facing her, waiting.
“We lost her to the hurricane. Back in ‘15.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She wouldn’t leave.” Her voice cracked.
“What you mean?”
Annie took a deep breath.
“She lived deep in the bayou. Water filled with gators,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “She knew the storm was comin’ before it did. Said if the water’s fixin’ to take her she ain’t gon’ run.”
Annie looked towards the window like the memory called her there for some reason. “She said she had somebody on the other side waitin’ on her.”
Smoke nodded once, eyes patient. “You know who?”
“No,” she said. “She was sold downriver ‘fo she could remember anyone.”
“Damn,” Smoke whispered.
She smiled. It was faint, like it was pushing through the grief. “She was alone her whole life…’til she started having babies.”
“How many?”
“Fourteen.”
Smoke whistled low.
Annie hummed. “She was somethin’ else.”
The memory of her great-grandmother flashed quickly through her mind like a blur. Eyes that looked different…older than her age, and much younger at the same time. Her frail hands dragging a stick through swamp mud, leaving marks that looked less drawn than remembered.
“What was her name?”
Annie blinked and it was gone. Her hand rose to her ileke beads again, then she looked up at Smoke with the softest, widest, brown eyes, and the tenderness in them made him sigh.
“Antoinette,” she said finally. Like the name pulled something out of her that made her hesitate to say it out loud.
Smoke rubbed her shoulder, pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.
Annie put a hand on his chest, leaning into his touch.
They let the silence sit between them for a few moments. Let the quiet ache until it dulled into something easier to move on from.
“Anyway,” she said finally, pulling herself together. “Let’s get what I came here for.” Her fingers walked the records in search of the ragtime one Aunt Della wanted.
“What kinda music they listen to, over there in France?”
“They liked a lot of the stuff we brought over.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Our regiment had a band and everything.”
“Were you in it?” She teased.
His mouth twitched. “Nah.”
The musician testing out guitars hit a chord with a slider that made Smoke’s hand tap once against the record box before he caught himself. He looked at Annie and she was already looking at him.
“What?” he asked.
Annie arched her brow. “You like that?”
“It’s nice.”
“Why?”
Smoke exhaled. “It’s slow. Got a little ache to it.”
Annie chuckled low.
The guitar player took his slider off and played something a little louder, a little faster, a deep Blues riff.
“You like this one, too?”
“This more Stack’s style.”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“What?”
“It’s more Stack’s style but your hand been tappin’ away since he started playin’.”
Smoke looked down at his hand then back to Annie. “Don’t mean I can’t enjoy it.”
“You right,” she smirked. “But you tappin’ along like you know this song by heart.”
“I do.”
Annie frowned. “From where?”
“My daddy.” He paused. Looked down. Sighed. “He played the guitar.”
“Oh,” she mouthed. She heard something in his words even though his voice was steady. Pain. Shame. Guilt. Loss. Whatever it was, it weighed heavy.
His jaw tightened. “Back then…” he drifted off. “The music felt kinder than the man.” His eyes found her again.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
Annie rubbed his arm, then pulled it around her. The gesture made his shoulders relax, and she wrapped her arms around his chest. “Elijah,” she whispered up to him.
His name on her lips felt as warm as her hand on his chest.
“Hmm,” he answered, looking off into the distance.
She rubbed his back. “You alright?” she asked quietly.
He looked down at her, then wrapped his arms around her tighter.
“Yeah,” he said into her hair. He inhaled her scent—jasmine, rosewater, and vanilla.
Annie didn't push. Just let him stay in the moment a little longer, with her to hold onto.
Across the room, one of the church mothers cleared her throat entirely too loud, and just like that the tenderness snapped. Smoke and Annie both frowned, then looked over with expectant gazes. One cold, one more curious but still annoyed. The church mother’s mouth snapped shut and she scoffed, turning back around. Smoke and Annie both laughed as they walked towards the register, his arm around her shoulder.
“I’ma get an earful on Sunday ‘cause of you,” Annie joked, lacing her fingers with the ones hanging over her shoulder.
“They need to mind they own business,” Smoke said. Loudly. Right towards where they were congregating off to the side by the sheet music.
Their heads snapped over immediately.
Annie swatted his chest.
“What?”
“Lord,” she mumbled. “You was just tellin’ me to behave and you out here talkin’ crazy.”
“Tell the truth, shame the devil. Ain’t that what they say?”
“Smoke!” She tried swatting at him again. This time he caught her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. Annie rolled her eyes but she couldn’t stop a grin from spreading on her face.
“Nuh-uh,” his voice dropped low, right by her ear again. “You know my name.”
Her breath hitched.
“Mhmm,” he drawled.
They stepped to the register.
“Find everything you were lookin’ for?” The clerk asked.
The words sat between them. Smoke looked at Annie.
“Yeah,” Annie said. “Just this.”
“This a good record,” he remarked. “Classic.” He set the W.C. Handy record in its sleeve, then wrapped it twice in newspaper.
Annie listened.
“His band still play around town, in Tutwiler, and down in Mound Bayou.”
Smoke’s jaw clenched, then unclenched. Annie saw it. Saved it for later.
“Bayou?” she asked.
“Mound Bayou. All black town, just a little ways south of here,” the clerk remarked.
Annie nodded curiously.
The clerk slipped the record in a brown paper bag. “That’ll be 75 cent.”
Smoke had it in the man’s hand before Annie could pull out her pocketbook. He watched her hesitate and shot her a look that dared her to pull her own money out. That’s all she needed to see to keep her hand right where it was— wrapped tightly in his.
Smoke kissed her hand again before grabbing the bag.
“Y’all have a nice day,” the clerk said.
They turned to leave a few minutes later, bags between them as they fell in step beside each other. They didn’t talk much, but their hands stayed laced, like they both needed to touch the piece of themselves they just shared. When they stepped out of the building and the noise of the street came back, the moment didn’t disappear. It just followed them out into the cold. The chilly air whipped wildly across their faces, but it did nothing to cool the heat rising between them, or the thrum that sat underneath all the tension.
A month went by, but not quietly.
The air got colder. November flew by like a gust of wind off the gulf where Annie used to catch crabs with her brothers when she was a little girl. The house got louder. Out of towners, people trying to get up North before the snow up there delayed the trains. Blackbird got busier. Annie kept storing her money in the tea tin that fit perfectly under the floorboard in her room. Soon she’d have to get a bigger one, she thought to herself. And find another hiding place.
Annie’s lessons with Aunt Della continued behind padlocked doors.
Dress fittings at Luella’s became less frequent as her Harvest Party look came together.
Smoke got busy, too. Quiet meetings on the outskirts of town. Trips to Memphis and business at Moon Lake. He came around the boarding house even more. This time he didn’t need to feign usefulness.
Meetings under the magnolia tree became their ritual. Every Sunday when the afternoon stretched its arms out into evening he’d come around back. Like clockwork, he’d show up, the side fence creaking open before he stepped through. They’d sit outside and talk until the mosquitos got too bad.
It became a place where they shared pieces of themselves.
A place where ordinary conversation became sacred.
Nellie, Pearline and Gigi squealed when she finally told them about Smoke. And time with them became more frequent too — nights, afternoons, or mornings in town before the roads got too crowded.
As long as it didn’t touch Sunday night.
Those belonged to Smoke.
“Louisiana,” Gigi started. Casual, like she was just asking about the weather. “You ain’t mounted that horse yet?”
The words cut through the laughter, the sound of peas dropping in a bowl, even the phonograph that played soft jazz from the corner. Somebody choked mid-chuckle. Everybody turned to look at Annie, then froze. Three sets of eyes stared at her with a glittering curiosity that made her palms feel clammy in that moment. Gigi tapped her foot on the floor impatiently. Pearline fiddled with her hands. Nellie looked at Annie like she could read the answer in her face. But Annie wasn’t bothered. In fact, she was a little amused. This wasn’t a new question.
The four of them were sitting around the kitchen table after congregating at Nellie's house following their weekday bible study. Nellie’s mother took one long look at the four of them lounging around the front room and put them to work. She set a bowl and some peas on the kitchen table and walked out the room without another word. A pot of greens soaked on the counter. Pepper and onion sat chopped in a cast iron for later. Flour still sat in the cracks of the table from breakfast.
She sighed softly. “No.”
“Why not?”
“She said she ain’t ready, y’all,” Pearline chimed in for her. “She say this every time y’all ask this question.” Then quieter. “It ain’t always like what them singers be goin’ on about.”
“Maybe not for you,” Gigi rebutted. “But you ain’t mountin’ a stallion.”
“More like a donkey,” Nellie joked.
Annie snorted. Even Pearline laughed under her breath.
“So y’all just been kissin’?” Gigi probed.
“Mhmm.”
“You let him…touch you?” The question came from Nellie.
Her body flushed warm at the thought. Annie looked over to Nellie. “No.”
“Shame,” she sighed. “He look like he know what to do with his hands.”
“Mhmm,” Gigi agreed.
“He should know,” Pearline said matter-of-factly. “Him and his brother done ran through half the town.”
“More than half,” Nellie muttered.
Annie sighed. Rolled her eyes.
“Stack more than Smoke,” Nellie confirmed.
“Don’t I know it,” Annie replied.
“I heard Stack got a mean appetite,” Gigi said slyly.
That made Pearline gasp. “Gigi!”
“What?” Gigi asked incredulously.
“Please,” Pearline insisted in a hushed tone.
Annie shook her head. “Oh my God,” she protested. “I don’t need to hear this about my man’s brother.”
“Your maaaan,” Pearline teased playfully. Annie smiled.
“I heard Smoke manhood so big, it touches your soul,” Nellie said.
Annie’s head turned towards Nellie. “Who told you that?”
Nellie shrugged. “Is it true?”
Annie shrugged.
“Every woman in town want a piece of them twins, I’m just surprised you ain’t took a bite yet.”
“Not even a nibble?” Gigi asked. She looked shocked.
Annie chuckled low. “Not even a nibble.”
“But you seen it, though? Felt it? Backed up on him and let it poke you a little?”
“No,” she said. “I ain’t seen it.”
“But you felt it.” Gigi’s eyes grew wide. “It’s big ain’t it?”
“He walk around like it’s big,” Nellie said plainly.
The room exploded with laughter, squeals, and giggles. Annie fumbled with a pea.
“What’s big?” A voice rang out from the other room.
Nellie froze, then groaned and rolled her eyes when she realized who was talking.
“Awww don’t sound too happy to see me lil’ sis,” she continued. She stepped into the kitchen, t-strap heels clacking against the floorboards. Nice dress, nicer stockings, hair styled differently than Annie had seen in Clarksdale or New Orleans. Baby on her hip and another child at her waist, vice grip on his shirt like she was trying to keep him from running off or touching something he wasn’t supposed to.
Nellie rolled her eyes again and kept on shelling peas. “Hey Verity,” she said flatly. She looked up and her eyes softened when she saw her niece and nephew. “Look at how big you are!” she exclaimed.
“Aunt Nellie!”
Verity released the little boy and he ran over to give his aunt a hug. She adjusted her grip on her daughter, bouncing the babbling toddler on her hip.
“Baby,” Verity said calmly with that mom warning underneath, “gon’ and help your daddy outside.”
The little boy rushed out the front door, leaving just the girls in an awkward silence before they quickly changed the subject.
“Hey Verity,” Gigi and Pearline said together. Verity greeted them back, staring curiously at the stranger sitting at her mother’s kitchen table.
“Verity,” Nellie started. “This is Annie, she’s new, from Louisiana. Annie, this is my sister Verity. She’s in town from Chicago.”
Annie wiped off her hands on her apron and held out her hand to shake. “Nice to meet you, Verity.”
“Nice to meet you too, Verity. My goodness, you’re so pretty.”
“Thank you,” Annie beamed.
Verity looked around the room. At each woman’s face individually. “What was y’all in here talkin’ about?” She asked like she’d already heard too much.
“Nothing,” Nellie said firmly.
Verity’s eyes narrowed.
“Men,” Gigi admitted bluntly.
Nellie shot her a look, to which she just shrugged and kept shelling her peas.
“What about ‘em?” Verity asked as her baby grabbed the collar of her dress. She untangled her fingers carefully while waiting for someone to say something.
“Annie here got herself a suitor already,” Nellie called out. “Smoke Moore.”
The look on Verity’s face said that she was busy putting a name to a face before it finally clicked. “Oh, one of the twins!” She wiped drool off her baby’s lips before it dripped on her clothes. “So they both came back from the war,” she remarked. “That’s good.”
Nellie rolled her eyes. “She done forgot about everybody she grew up with.”
“Did not! They’re both so much younger than me.”
“You’re only 27.”
“And I been in Chicago for the past seven years,” she quipped. “How old are they now?”
“21,” Gigi answered.
“Babies,” she whispered, pinching her daughter’s cheek.
“Anyway, do you mind? Us babies,” Nellie said sarcastically, “tryna talk here. About somethin’ you don’t need to know nothin’ about.”
Verity sighed. She was older, but still young enough to remember being where they were. Young and unmarried. Always being in a position to be told or met with judgment. Mostly from the women closest to her.
She’d moved to Chicago and was met with a different type of perspective. The social scene was different, much different, probably something that’d make her mother clutch her pearls if she heard the lasciviousness that was considered normal, and that she had a taste of it before she met her husband.
So, she knew all about flirtation and temptation. About men who only knew how to talk pretty, men who knew how to be tender, and men who confused possession with care. And behind the venom in her words, she could hear something more vulnerable in her little sister’s tone. So, she pulled up a chair at the table, put her baby between her legs, and went to work shelling peas. They worked together in silence for a while. Nothing except the occasional sigh, the sound of the baby hitting the table with her palms, and the house creaking and settling around them.
“Anyone else seein’ anybody new?” Verity asked.
Nobody replied. The air in the tiny kitchen held an uncomfortable type of tension. But it wasn’t anything unique. It was generational. A hesitance that usually exists in the gap between women just becoming and women who’d already been in their shoes.
“How’s your husband, Pea?”
Pearline cleared her throat. “He good,” she responded. She kept her head down while Verity looked at her knowingly.
The front door practically flew open with all the energy of a hyper five-year-old boy. He took his shoes off by the door then ran down the hallway.
Another person stepped in. His steps were much slower, but his energy was just as powerful in a measured, grown man kind of way. All six heads in the kitchen turned at once. Skin the color of chestnuts, bulky shoulders, broad chest, piercing light brown eyes that could stop a woman mid-sentence. He took off his hat to reveal a head full of low-cut slicked down hair. His three-piece suit matched the sharpness of Verity’s dress like a lid to a pot. He flashed a smile and damn near every woman at the table gulped hard.
He waved his hand to greet everyone. “Hey y’all.” His voice was deep and gruff. A hint of southern twang in it, like the South had somehow rubbed off on him but he wasn’t born and bred here.
“Hey,” everybody said back.
Verity smiled, clearly unshaken by his presence because this was her husband.
“Can you take the baby? She gettin’ fussy and I’m tryna help the girls with supper.”
“Sure.” He crossed the room to the kitchen and planted a kiss on her waiting forehead, then grabbed his daughter from her lap.
“Thank you.”
“Hey sugar plum,” he cooed. He spoke softly to his daughter. She giggled and rested her head in the crook of his neck as he took her down the hallway.
Once they heard the click of a door shutting in the distance, the kitchen could finally exhale.
“That’s your husband?” Gigi asked breathlessly, looking towards the hallway like she needed him to reappear out of thin air. “Girl he is too fine!”
Verity grinned. “That’s my man,” she said proudly.
“Where you find him at?” Gigi continued. “And do he have any brothers?”
Annie kept her thoughts to herself as she snapped a pea under her thumb. While they sized him up her thoughts drifted over to Smoke. How his smile was easy when he showed it. How he didn’t show it to anybody but her. The way he’d walk in and suck the air out the room. The way his muscles filled out his clothing. Her breath sped up at the thought. She felt flushed. Hot all of a sudden, all over again.
Verity laughed at Gigi’s remarks and shook her head. “He do, but he’s the only good apple in the bunch.”
“Lord,” Annie chuckled.
Verity looked over at her expectantly.
“I got nothin’ but brothers,” she explained. “Got one, maybe two of them decent. The rest ain’t got the sense God gave a goose.”
Everyone at the table laughed, the tension easing into something more relaxed.
“It would take God and all his disciples to drill some decency into ‘em,” Pearline let slip out.
“Pearlie!” Nellie gasped at the revelation. Sweet little Pearline with her lace gloves, quiet eyes and her perfect posture like she was afraid that if she didn’t stand up perfectly straight someone would come behind her with a ruler to put her back in line.
She shrugged casually, clearly pleased with herself.
“Gigi,” Annie kept on shelling peas. “You ever see Will again?”
Gigi made a sound like she was vomiting and Annie broke out in laughter.
“Verity,” she looked at her. “This man had the worst smelling feet I’ve ever smelled in my life!”
“Not smelly feet.”
“A horse’s hoof smells better than that man’s feet,” she grimaced. “Besides,” she smirked like her face held a secret she’d been dying to tell. Her voice got low. “I’ve been keepin’ company with Rodney again.”
“Not surprised,” Nellie mumbled.
“Who’s Rodney?” Annie asked.
Nellie answered for her. “Just the man she been stuck on since we was kids.”
“Ohh….”
“I ain’t stuck. He’s just familiar.”
“More like that hmmhmm” she gave the table a knowing look, “is familiar.”
“Hush!” Gigi swatted Nellie’s shoulder. “It’s reliable.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with goin’ back to an ol’ reliable.” Annie whipped her head around. The voice came from Verity.
“That’s right,” Gigi agreed smugly.
“Annie ain’t even done nothin’ with that twin of hers yet.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “Here we go.”
“Why not?” Verity asked.
She huffed a small breath out her nose. “Just waitin’ for the right time.”
“You waitin’ til the party huh?” Gigi asked with a grin. “All that liquor runnin’ through you will loosen you right on up,” she teased.
Annie shook her head, laughing.
Pearline spoke up quietly. “Don’t let the liquor make you do anything you don’t wanna do.”
“I ain’t,” Annie said.
“You keep it for yourself until you good and ready to give it away.”
“Exactly,” Pearline said. “And if he really cares, he won’t mind. Not one bit.”
“My husband waited a whole year for me to let him in. Didn’t pressure me. Didn’t make me feel bad. Didn’t make it ‘bout his needs,” Verity recalled. “What matters is what he does when wantin’ you, means he gotta take it slow.”
Her words landed.
“Do he know?” Her voice was small. Pearline’s. “That you a virgin?”
Annie exhaled sharply. “I ain’t told him,” she confessed.
Pearline spoke again. “And…he ain’t tried nothin’?”
“We ain’t been alone like that,” she said softly while fumbling with the hem of her apron. “And I ain’t found the right time to tell him yet.”
“He gon’ wear you out once he get his hands on you,” Gigi said dramatically. “You know that right?”
“I believe it.” And she did.
“Whew, chile,” Nellie drawled. “I’ma say a prayer for you. And for your—”
“Eleanor!” Verity snapped.
Annie snorted.
Verity looked over at Annie, eyes warm. “You’ll find the right time,” she assured.
The kitchen was a little quieter after that. Just the sound of knuckles cracking, shells snapping open, peas hitting the bottom of the bowl, throaty jazz still coming from the corner. And a glaring question that hummed underneath the noise.
“Do you want to…you know, with him?” Pearline asked.
Annie stopped shelling for a moment and looked to the side to collect the whirlwind of thoughts that spun around in her head.
Her and Smoke had been having outings. Not running into each other by chance, not catching a glimpse across the sidewalk. Together. In public. On purpose. It was mostly whatever it was she wanted to do. Smoke liked it that way.
They tucked into their own little routine as what was blossoming between them slowly became familiar. Since her conversation with Aunt Della she hadn’t taken the time to sit down and think about what exactly it was or where it was going to go. All she knew is that in this new rhythm with him…it felt right.
He’d touch her gently. Carefully. Like he was holding onto something fragile. But even the slightest contact sent shivers down her spine.
A hand at the small of her back.
He’d lean in close when he needed to say something to her. Always did.
But sometimes he’d drop his mouth right by her ear just to hear her gasp under her breath.
He’d wrap his hands around her waist and she swore she forgot how to breathe.
But she didn’t move away.
His desire for her was palpable.
He was hungry.
She could see it in his eyes and feel it in his restraint.
But he was tender with her, like he was dousing his own desire until she was ready to cross that bridge, and that ignited her curiosity for more like a spark lit in a dry room.
She knew she was in trouble when she started to notice the absence of certain things. His closeness. His touch. The feeling that came from it.
She thought about his mouth a lot. What it felt like pressed against hers. The way his tongue would trace the seam of her lips like a man standing at a threshold, waiting to be invited in.
Her thoughts usually stopped there because they were too overwhelming.
Kissing wasn’t new to her. Desire wasn’t either. Not entirely.
She’d heard things. Sensed them. She wasn’t naive in an ignorant way.
But as the baby of the family, and the only girl, she’d been crowded. She was always loved and protected. But love and protection always felt like being watched and managed by people who assumed they knew what was best for her.
Then Smoke came along. He unsettled her because he didn’t hover. He waited. With his quiet attention and something deeper that sat underneath the surface.
He listened.
He chose her.
He made space for her to choose herself.
And for a girl who spent her whole life being guarded, space felt dangerous.
It felt like freedom.
Freedom to be held but not held back.
She wanted to step into it, the new version of herself that was emerging from sheltered beginnings.
Craved it.
Craved him.
Badly.
Even though she didn't fully know what that meant, she wanted to be close. Wanted to experience everything that came along with that closeness.
And it wasn’t just a physical thing. It was a primal, desperate ache that rose from the depths and swept through her body, hitting every single nerve ending along the way.
She even started dreaming about him. It was always the same one. She’d wake up in a mess of her own making—nightgown clinging to her curves, sheets damp. Then she’d spend the rest of the day feeling a dizzying pulse between her legs, like her heart had found a new home there.
It was like his soul had floated to hers while she was sleeping, and wanted to make sure she was ready for the day she finally just...let go.
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