MerryMaryFebruary

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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The train came to a stop with a sharp, metallic squeal. The Pullman porters stepped off first, men in tailored black uniforms and matching hats, setting up steps and opening cargo latches on the sides of the train cars. Cicadas buzzed, their screeching lullaby heard all the way from the trees that loomed over the tracks at the isolated train stop, just an hour outside of the busy Y & M.V. depot in Clarksdale. There were no musicians or folks hanging around here, just a small clapboard-sided building with a segregated ticket window, a single employee, and a dilapidated outhouse. 

The conductor stepped off the train to relieve himself. The comptroller made himself comfortable in the crew cabin while the station master strolled out of the ticket office, whistling and swinging his pocket watch in one hand. Watching. Waiting.  

One of the porters, a 19-year-old kid from Clarksdale slipped out from the back of the freight car and spotted Stack whose truck sat idling by a small loading dock just beyond the tracks that was hidden well by the tall blades of pale green prairie grass fluttering in the autumn breeze. 

Stack stood at the back of his truck like sin dressed in silk. He wore a sharp suit, a cream colored silk shirt underneath with a double chain hanging from his neck. Satin pocket square. Double holster secured just above his waist. He held a lighter in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. His cologne was strong— something clean with a hint of clove, the spice lingering in the air around him. 

He stood by closely while crates were loaded into the back of his truck one by one, the dry wood creaking underneath the weight of what was inside. Black newspapers—Chicago Defender, Voice of the Negro, Indianapolis Freeman, New York Amsterdam News—publications that the sheriff didn't like distributed around Clarksdale because they told the truth. Bottles of liquor—rum, whiskey, gin—all packed tight and padded up tighter so they wouldn’t clink together on the backroads, and some ammunition and military-grade firearms from up north. All packed under and between pounds of heavy textiles. 

Another porter was helping passengers off the forward cabins when he caught a glimpse of Stack and his coworker in the distance. He was younger than other porters, a bit more wide-eyed and curious. He strolled to the back, dust kicking off his boots. He leaned on the edge of the freight car flipping a coin between his fingers.

“Need somethin’?” Stack asked, lighting his cigarette. He raised a brow, taking a deep pull and letting the smoke blow towards him. 

The second porter shook his head, “No.” 

“Well, you can help then,” Stack shot back, holding up a crisp one dollar bill between his index and middle finger. 

The second porter went to grab it but he pulled his hand back, taking another drag of his cigarette. “You know what this mean, right?” he asked, holding the bill up again.

“No, sir.”

“It means you ain’t hear nothin’ and you ain’t see nothin’ — understand?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“You heard of the SmokeStack twins?”

“Yes, sir,” the second porter said again.

“I’m Stack.” 

He put his hand on his hip to pull his suit jacket back, revealing the pistol sitting in its holster. The gesture made the kid straighten up where he stood. Stack looked him over thoroughly. He was sweating, no doubt caused by the heat and his stiff uniform and not nervousness. Stack’s gaze drifted over to the other porter who reassured him with a nod. He slowly lowered his hand, allowing the kid to take the bill from his hand.

Stack looked around while the crates were loaded. The station master lingered on the platform a moment, his gaze drifting over to Stack’s truck. He met his eyes, holding him there for just a moment. Stack didn’t flinch, in fact he flashed him a smile. A wide one at that. All golds, gums, and Southern charm. The station master turned on his heel back to his office just as the conductor walked back to the engine room none the wiser. 

Stack’s smile dropped instantly once he turned around.  “Y’all almost done?”

“This the last one.”

“Good,” he said, holding out a two dollar bill. “Got a tight schedule today. Got places to be.” He pulled out the handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. 

When the porters were done loading, they covered the back of his truck with a loose tarp and tied the ropes down tight. Stack straightened his suit jacket out and slinked into his car before peeling out of the train station and making the short journey back to Clarksdale.

First stop was the houses by the swamp. The ones with leaning porches and rotting clapboard siding that he had to walk on foot down muddy dirt paths to reach. Then the shacks on the plantations and the churches there. After that, he moved into the town. He stopped by the Chow’s, the cash store, the jukes, the barbershop, the drug store, the undertaker, the library, the Colored Knights of Pythias lodge and the gentleman’s supper club. The last stop was Luella’s Dressing Room to drop off the textiles. 

By the time he left town and headed home he only had his and Miss Della’s crates left, but the stack of money in his coat pocket had quadrupled in size. When he got back to the house, all that was left was Miss Della’s crate and a few others for the folks who would have to come find him themselves—the farmers, the planters, and folks from the smaller, surrounding counties.

Smoke’s truck was gone when Stack pulled up to the house, the modest cottage was quiet when he stepped inside. The spice of the smothered neckbones from lunch earlier still stuck to the walls. The meal that Smoke took the time to cook earlier that day when he just so happened to drop by the house and find little Miss Annie sitting at their table. 

Hmm. 

After lighting some incense and propping open a few windows, he walked out through the back of the house to the still that was partially hidden by the tree line. He checked the coil, stoked the fire, made sure the lid was set, and walked back into the house. He poured himself a drink, pulled out his ledger from the bookshelf and his stacks of cash and did what he did best. He started counting.

The front windows of Miss Della’s caught what little remained of the fading sun. A small glimmer of light reflected off the thick glass windows, piercing through the windshield of Smoke’s truck, cutting right through the passenger seat cushion. He put the car in reverse, watching the same sliver of light cut through the space he left behind as he backed out of the narrow alleyway, before thinning out completely. 

It wasn’t just the kiss that sat on his mind. 

It was the breath before. 

The hesitation. 

The way her lips lingered on his skin for a moment longer. The softness against his stubble. 

The single bead of sweat that trickled down between her cleavage. 

The crinkle in her bottom lip when she pulled it between her teeth. 

The way her eyes flicked up at him.

The way she climbed the porch stairs with that slow, hypnotizing swing of her hips that she probably didn’t even realize she was doing. He licked his bottom lip and shook his head trying to shake the thought of it. He couldn’t. 

Night spread across the sky as Smoke drove the short distance to his home in the Mississippi countryside. The sound of swamp frogs and the rotting, earthy, iron-tang of the Sunflower River reached in through his open windows like overgrowth claiming something abandoned.

When he reached his house, he cut the engine, the headlights of his truck blinking off with a cooling tick. The surrounding land went dark. Not the same type of darkness that cloaked the town with its street lights and candles in the window to soften the edges of night. The light from their porch lantern was nearly swallowed by the depth of pitch blackness that laid claim to the woods after the sun set. 

He kept the windows down. Reaching behind his ear, he brought the cigarette to his mouth. The lighter flickered to life. Open flame dancing in the darkness. He let the ember burn bright before he tapped the excess off on the outside of his truck door. He took a deep inhale of the tobacco blend Bo got him, then exhaled through his nose. He let his head fall back into the headrest and closed his eyes. 

When Smoke stepped through the door, Stack was still up. He found him at the kitchen table, sleeves rolled, two fingers of something brown on the table next to him. A red leather-bound ledger was spread open beside a candle burning low while he counted a stack of bills, writing numbers down in between. 

“Station?” Smoke asked, toeing his boots off at the door. 

Stack counted each bill meticulously, wetting his thumb in between. “Clean,” he replied quickly.

“Stops?”

He stopped to write down a number in the ledger, “Smooth.” 

Smoke crossed the room, sinking into the couch. “Who brought it in?” 

“Same kid. Jones.”

Smoke nodded once. “Anyone watchin’?” 

“Another kid looked curious,” Stack replied, nodding toward the bookshelf where stacks of crates draped in thick cloth sat on the floor. “Ain’t look stupid though.”

“Curious turn into brave real quick, when a white man start askin’ questions.”

Stack kissed his teeth, “Already handled it.” He finished his count, shuffled the money together neatly, and wrapped them in a rubber band. Then he stood, moving towards the back of the house to their stash. “Ain’t no problem.” 

Smoke crossed the room to the backshelf and grabbed the newspaper on top. He flipped through the pages as he walked back to the couch, relaxing back with a sigh. 

Stack walked back in the room, swiping the glass of whiskey from the kitchen table and sitting across from Smoke in a straight back chair. 

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, brown liquid catching the dim light in the room, a sly smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. 

He was ready to give his brother shit.

About Annie. 

About whatever happened while she was there. 

The remark was right on the tip of his tongue.

Then something made him pause, the glass of whiskey in his hand stopping mid-air. 

Silence sat between them for a moment. Silence that made Stack’s eyes narrow.

He looked at his brother. Really looked at him, his eyes sweeping over him thoroughly like he was checking for injuries after a fight. 

That’s when he noticed his jaw.

It wasn’t clenched. 

And his shoulders.

They weren’t wound up tight with tension like they always were.

Even the permanent crease that usually sat above his brow was softened.

He looked…relaxed. 

“You good?” He asked. His voice wasn’t soft, but the usual sarcasm it held wasn’t there.

“I’m straight,” he replied. He flipped the newspaper to the next page.

Stack raised an eyebrow. There was another beat of silence. This one was loud.

Smoke finally looked up, locking eyes with his twin. 

A second passed. Then two. Then he looked back down at the paper, and flipped to the next page. 

Stack’s smirk didn’t just return— it widened slowly like sunrise. It was a long, mischievous thing, one that showed off the gold on the side of his mouth.

He stood abruptly, the chair legs scraping against the floor, taking the rest of the whiskey to the head, and letting the liquid trickle smoothly down his throat until he could feel the burn everywhere like a fire lit deep in his chest. 

Annie stood in the doorway as the warmth of the house wrapped around her. It was a cozy space. Candles and oil lamps burned openly, their light tracing the shadows of the lodgers sitting in the front room. She took her boots off at the door, immediately dropping her basket and purse.

Her lips still tingled from where she kissed him. The taste of his skin lingered on her lips longer than the time it took to do it. She didn’t even mean to. It just happened— her body reacting before her mind could reel it back in.

The smell of molasses and whiskey brought her back into the room where the low hum of conversation hung in the air, the aroma of cornbread sitting heavy, and underneath it all, something slow-cooked and personal. She walked towards the warmth emanating—in both smell and feeling—from the kitchen.

“And I told him straight up,” she heard a man say, his voice drifting easily through the air like a Sunday morning. He leaned back into his chair casually, the wood groaning under his weight. “Faith ain’t always loud. Sometimes it sit quiet, waitin’ on folks to catch up.” 

Aunt Della hummed softly from across the table, hands laced around a cup of something.  Deep violet in color with a ruby red undertone, the drink shimmered in the kitchen, the hint of gold from its honey infusion catching the dim light. 

The man leaned back where he sat, his head tilted towards the front door. His eyes shifted sharply at her entry, landing on Annie like he’d sensed the exact moment she’d stepped through the door. 

“Evenin’, baby,” Aunt Della said, looking up. “Wash up. Supper ‘bout done.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“This here’s Reverend Carter. Reverend Carter, this here’s my great-niece. Annie.” 

He tipped his hat. He wore a thin silver band with a figurehead on his middle finger that he rubbed slowly with his thumb. “Call me Carter.” 

“Nice to meet you, Carter.” 

Something sparked there. Not romance. Not attraction. Not really.

Familiarity. A deep one. The kind that made her gut twist. 

Annie walked over to the wash basin and dipped her hands. She grabbed the bar of lye soap to create a small lather, moving the suds over her knuckles and under her fingernails. She felt the warm familiar tail of Felix wrapping around her ankle, his purring a calming vibration against her ankle. 

Supper was a warm mix of familiar and new faces, and light conversation. Every so often, Aunt Della’s eyes landed on Annie. 

“How was your day, baby?” 

Annie nodded between bites. “It was good. Lots of roots to sort through.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, passing the cornbread down the table. 

“Heard a car pull off when you came in.” 

“Yeah, Smoke dropped me off,” she replied quickly, forking collard greens into her mouth. She felt her aunt’s eyes on her. “He was just bein’ nice.” 

“Mmmhmm,” Aunt Della replied sharply, but she couldn’t hide the grin that pulled at the corner of her lips. 

Neither could Annie. 

Supper ended quietly and while some of the lodgers played cards in the front room, Annie made her way to the bathtub to wash up quickly before bed. 

Freshly bathed, hair oiled, and belly full, she said her good nights to Aunt Della and made her way to the staircase. It was a rugged, narrow thing, with steps that creaked loudly no matter how light you were on your feet. She shut the door to her bedroom and plopped on the bed. She quickly drifted off into a satisfied sleep, looking forward to what the next day would bring. 

Sunday morning. 

It arrived like it was dressed in white. 

Not the actual color white—but the respectability of it all, polished to a shine and worn proudly, like spiritual armor. Complete with neatly pressed linen, fancy shoes, and gloves folded in careful hands, this part of the morning held its own ritual.

Annie stood in front of the mirror in Aunt Della’s room while she pinned the last stubborn piece of her hat in place. It was a honey-colored straw-woven hat with faded blue grosgrain ribbon circling the crown that tied into a soft bow on the right side. A singular silk flower was stitched near the ribbon, small enough to feel sweet. The brim of the hat curved gently at the edges, casting a soft shadow over her eyes. Her hair underneath it was pinned carefully in a low bun at the nape of her neck with two loose curls on each side to frame her face. 

“Hold still.”

“I am,” Annie replied, although she was clearly fidgeting.

“No you ain’t,” Aunt Della said, playfully smacking the side of her arm.

Annie huffed softly through her nose but clasped her hands in front of her while Aunt Della stepped back to inspect her work.

“Just beautiful,” she breathed.

Annie wore a pale lavender Sunday dress with a lace collar, the cotton light enough for the Mississippi heat that still lingered at the edges of early October. It was clean and proper, the hem falling modestly just below her knees. Her ileke beads were pressed into the skin of her collarbone, tucked delicately under the dress. Her stockings stretched around her skin, her white gloves folded and resting beside her Bible on the bed. It was a modest one— small and leather bound. The cover was worn down to the hide that peeked through at the edges with little strings from the binding sticking out at the spine. The pages were almost see-through from time and use, with little notes scribbled in the margins like a glimpse back in time. It had belonged to her great-grandmother, a gift she gave Annie before she passed away.

“Wait,” Aunt Della said, stepping forward again to fuss with the collar of her dress once more. She exhaled, then nodded. “Okay. There. You look just darlin’.”

“Thank you,” Annie said, looking at herself fully in the mirror. 

Aunt Della turned, smoothing the front of her own cream-colored dress, her church hat already perched high and proud like it had seniority over everybody in town.

“You got your letter?”

“Oh!” Annie exclaimed, already retreating to her room. “Thank you. Can’t forget that.”

“Mhmm. Get it, and I’ll meet you on the porch.” 

Outside the town was already moving.

Rickety wagons, the occasional Model-T, and a sea of people moved along the streets. Church folk spilled onto the sidewalks in twos and threes, women balancing hats and children, men in suspenders and polished shoes, all of them heading in the same direction like a pilgrimage. The air held the smell of wet grass, pressed hair, and somebody’s breakfast frying three doors down. 

The building sat at the edge of Fourth Street like a symbol— a mark of authority, tradition, and refuge for the Black community. First Baptist Missionary Church rose from the soil like something determined to be seen and impossible to miss. Dark red brick looked brighter against the morning light, wide front steps worn smooth by generations of Sunday shoes, and tall windows thrown open to let in the heat and the Holy Ghost. A giant steeple with a brass bell sat on the top like a punctuation mark, towering over the modest faded wood and clapboard businesses surrounding it.

Ushers in matching suits flung the doors open. 

Voices, laughter, and the sound of a tambourine rattling somewhere in the back spilled outside, the low hum rising like the heat. 

Aunt Della walked beside Annie with the ease of somebody who had been making this walk for most of her life. Annie kept pace, eyes forward even while she felt others burning holes through her. She held a pan of bread pudding she’d made the night before firmly in her grasp. It was snug in a glass pan, wrapped in a kitchen towel embroidered with daisies. 

Women stood beneath shade trees, letting their conversations bend just slightly as they passed. 

A pause too long. 

A glance held a second past politeness. 

One older woman leaned toward another, saying something behind the fan pressed to her mouth. 

Annie kept her face forward. 

This wasn’t New Orleans. 

New Orleans was loud, fast, easily distracted. People there noticed, then quickly moved on. 

Clarksdale noticed. 

And it remembered.

“Smile,” Aunt Della murmured behind clenched teeth, without looking at her. 

Annie forced a smile. It wasn’t wide, her mouth parted just enough that Aunt Della’s jaw unclenched.

At the church steps, greetings came easy. 

Aunt Della answered what she wanted and ignored what she didn’t, moving with a grace that commanded respect above all. 

Annie stood beside her, shaking hands that came out to greet hers, nodding politely as she let herself be looked over like produce at a market. 

Eyes scanned her over, some genuine, some judgemental, all quietly judging the young woman in front of them. 

Was she pretty enough? 

Proper enough? 

Was she a perfect puzzle piece or a square trying to fit into a circle?

“Come on now, let’s get inside,” Aunt Della said, leading her from the steps. 

The back room of the church felt like a different world than the sanctuary. The sanctuary was all pressed linen and polished shoes. But this room was a space where women could laugh loudly and speak freely without too much judgment. The area was small, crowded, and smelled like perfume, powder, and wood polish. 

Annie stepped in carefully with the pan of bread pudding balanced in both hands, the dish still warm through the towel wrapped around it. 

“Set it there, baby,” Aunt Della said, as she moved near the long prep table arranging serving spoons like she was preparing for battle instead of Sunday service. “And if Miss Bernice asks, no, you did not use rum.”

“But I did,” Annie chimed in. 

“Then lie.” 

That earned a quiet laugh from somewhere close. Annie turned to her right. There, three young women stood near the side table, church gloves and hats firmly in place. 

One leaned against the wall. She was pretty and looked sharp. Her dark green dress was pressed neat, her eyes bright with the kind of trouble that wore makeup. 

“Well,” she said. “Is this her?” 

Annie blinked. “I’m sorry?”

The girl folded her arms. “Everybody been talkin’ about Miss Della’s Louisiana niece like you descended from heaven in stockings.”

One of the other girls sighed loudly, “Gigi.” 

“What?”

Annie fought back a smile. “It’s me,” she said, setting the dish down where her aunt instructed her. “In the flesh.” 

Gigi grinned. “Oh, I like you already.” 

Beside her stood another girl, softer in the face but no less present, adjusting the cuff of one of her white lace gloves with the careful precision of somebody raised to know exactly how women were expected to be seen. Her wedding band caught the light when she reached for a serving spoon.

“I’m Pearline,” she said warmly. “Ignore her. She think bein’ loud is her birthright.” 

“I ain’t loud, I just don’t mumble like some quiet little church mouse,” Gigi fired back. “I’m Georgia—Gigi—and that there’s Nellie.” 

She paused. “She real quiet,” she whispered loudly. “Like a little church mouse.”

“I heard that,” Nellie shot back.

“That was the point, dumplin’.” 

Nellie stood closest to the long table, fixing church fans into a neat stack like the fate of the congregation relied on symmetry. “Very nice to meet you, Annie.” 

“Nice to meet you too.”

“So,” Gigi said, stalking towards Annie with a mischievous grin. “Tell us all about New Orleans.”

The sanctuary held heat differently. It trickled down from the corners of the vaulted ceiling, stretching across the congregation like morning dew. The air inside was thick with the scent of wood polish and old hymnals. Sweat and perfume. Talcum powder and fresh flowers near the pulpit trying their best to mask it all. Sunlight spilled through the stained-glass windows in long jewel-toned slants, catching dust in the air like holy hands.

Aunt Della moved them towards the middle pews, where women with strong perfume and tight lipped smiles greeted her with warmth only reserved for a woman like her. Annie followed behind, her eyes moving about the room subtly. Once to the left, then the right, then the back. She didn’t know why she expected him to be there. Maybe because church felt like the kind of place a town would require of a man like him. Maybe because after yesterday, some foolish part of her thought she might see him anywhere now. But Smoke wasn’t there, and neither was Stack. The absence sat with her longer than it should have, louder than his presence would have been.

She lowered herself into the pew, smoothing her skirt over her knees. Her Bible rested in her lap, her purse settling to her side.

Aunt Della opened her fan with a practiced snap. “You alright?” she asked, fanning herself.

Annie blinked. “Yes, ma’am.”

Aunt Della gave her a look that said she didn’t fully believe that, but Sunday morning wasn’t the place for an interrogation. 

At the front of the church, Carter stood near the pulpit speaking quietly with Deacon Lewis—the standing pastor. He wore a dark suit, pressed sharp, that same signet ring catching the light that poured in the windows whenever he lifted his hand. Even from across the sanctuary, something about him felt too familiar, and the unease from the night before crept through her like a tangible thing, making her frown where she sat. 

The organist struck a chord. 

Deacon Lewis raised his hands from where he stood at the pulpit, the room rising with them. The organ sounded again, the sound rising slow at first, then all at once. Voices layered over it, some young, some old, some skeptical, some certain. Aunt Della sang beside Annie in a clear alto that sounded older than the room itself, pitch perfect but haunting, like something ancient, and passed down came out without her trying. 

Annie stood perfectly still with her hymnal open in her hands, though her eyes barely touched the page. Her voice joined where it needed to, soft and practiced, but her attention kept drifting. To the strange feeling sitting just beneath her ribs like a second heartbeat. It felt both new and like a memory she hadn’t asked for.

The hymn ended in a rustle of old pages and the sound of bodies settling. Fans opened again like angel wings. A baby cried once and was swiftly carried outside. 

The deacon began the first prayer…

…and just kept on going. 

He prayed long and loud enough to make up for every sin committed in Clarksdale that week. 

Heads bowed and amens sounded when the prayer finally came to an end, shoes shifted across loose floorboards trying to shake out sleeping limbs from standing in one place too long. 

Deacon Lewis used his handkerchief to dab his sweat pooling on his brow, the droplets beading in the creases of his forehead. “Please be seated.”

Linen and cotton whispered against the old wood pews that creaked under the weight of generations. Fans clacked open, their methodical flutter echoing against the walls of the sanctuary. 

Deacon Lewis’s voice was like fire and brimstone, melodic and daunting all at once. 

“I’ve been hearin’ about a young preacher man,” he started. 

A soft Mhmm! Came from the crowd. 

“Heard he brought out great crowds, white and Colored, SAINTS AND SINNERS, men and women, all stations of life, the merchant prince and sons of toil, for one of the greatest old time fire and Holy Ghost revivals ever witnessed in this country.” 

“Amen!”

“Well, I found him. Brought him to the good town of Clarksdale…to lead the most MIGHTY spiritual awakening this town will ever see.”

More shouts from the crowd, a few stomps and tambourine jingles. 

“Can I get an amen?”

“AMEN!”

“Please rise, for the esteemed reverend. Give him a hand.”

The congregation erupted. Stomps, shouts, and hands flew up as Reverend Carter stepped forward with unhurried ease. He set his Bible down on the pulpit and let the room settle around him first, like his silence had its own authority.

“Now tell ‘em who you are,” Deacon Lewis said, his voice booming from the side. “Where you from.”

Carter paused. “Good mornin’, church.” 

“Good mornin’ Reverend!” A wave of greetings met him in response. 

“My name is Reverend Dr. Thelonius Carter. Born and raised in Houston, Texas.” 

Another wave of Hey Reverend Carter’s and grunts of acknowledgement filled the air.

“Got ordained at the First Missionary Baptist Church in Handsboro,” he continued. 

Aunt Della’s fan slowed once. 

Then resumed.

At the pulpit, Carter opened his Bible, then smoothed the crease gently with his palm. 

“Now, I been told y’all feed a preacher real well in this town,” he said, adjusting his cuffs. He rolled each side twice, slowly before he continued. “So, if this sermon run a little long, just know I’m workin’ for my supper.” 

Laughter moved through the room. Aunt Della smiled. So did Annie.

He rested one hand against the pulpit. “But this mornin’, I wanna talk about paths. Purpose.”

The congregation stilled. 

Carter continued, voice smooth as river water. “Now, everybody in here like to talk about blessings. Everybody like to testify about what the Lord brought ‘em to. But folk get mighty quiet when it come time to speak on what He brought ‘em…through.” 

He paused dramatically.

A few congregation members hummed in agreement. A sharp “that’s right” came from a church mother sitting on the stage next to Deacon Lewis.

“See, purpose ain’t always some…dramatic declaration.” He waved his hands around for emphasis. 

“It ain’t always thunder and lightnin’.”

“Talk to ‘em!” Someone shouted from deep in the pews. 

Sometimes it’s like a regular ol’ Tuesday mornin’, like a path you done walked a hundred times.”

“Until one day, it ain’t the same path no ‘mo.” 

“Until that path…become a crossroads.”

Annie’s gloved fingers tightened around the Bible in her lap. 

He held a finger to his lips, his eyes darting around the congregation. “Sometimes the Lord place a thing in your path,” Carter kept preaching. “And your spirit know it before your mind catch up.”

He grabbed the edge of the pulpit with both hands. “But we stubborn creatures, ain’t we?”

Sounds of agreement came from the crowd.

“We like proof. Permission. We like to pretend we ain’t heard what was already said.”

More scattered laughter flowed through the room, softer this time. 

Annie’s eyes stayed in place. Forward. Not scanning the room. Fixed. On the pulpit. On Carter. On how he pulled the crowd in like he was bewitching them. How he used eye contact like a weapon. On how he knew exactly when to whisper and when to shout. 

Carter smiled faintly, turning to a page in his Bible. 

“Book of Jeremiah. Chapter six, verse sixteen.” 

Pages turned instantly. The shuffle of delicate paper fluttering against leather and the sound of clearing throats and quiet coughs made its way through the church. Carter stood, patiently waiting for the sound to settle.

“Thus saith the Lord— say it with me.” 

The congregation joined in. 

“Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein.” 

He stopped, waited for the congregation voices to die out. Then continued, emphasising each word individually, his voice booming over the sound of the crowd. “And ye shall find rest for your souls.”

His finger tapped once against the page as a round of grunts, hums, and amens filled the air. 

Carter looked up, holding up a hand. The congregation went quiet.  

“Oh, I ain’t done,” he teased, a slight smirk on his face. 

“Folk hear that and think it mean safe. Easy.” 

His eyes flicked around the room. “It don’t,” he said flatly. 

“Verse sixteen goes on to say,” he started. “But they said, we will not walk therein.” 

“The right path will ask somethin’ of you. Might cost you comfort. Might cost you pride. Might cost the version of you, you most committed to protectin’.” 

A soft murmur moved through the church.

Carter leaned forward slightly on the pulpit. “And some of y’all,” he said, voice dropping lower. Gentler somehow. “Some of y’all already know exactly what path I’m talkin’ about.” 

Silence fell over the crowd. Not an empty silence, but one that felt full. Knowing. One that felt less like preaching and more like being told something you didn’t want to admit. He let the silence sit. Let a smile spread on his face. Easy. Disarming. 

“But I’m just a guest in this here church, and Miss Della already threatened me if I kept y’all too long, so I’ma leave the rest between y’all and the Lord.” 

The room finally broke. Laughter, a sound that felt like relief at the moment, echoed through the rafters. Carter stood at the pulpit, smile flashing across the sea of people like a man who’d done nothing at all.

Aunt Della leaned over just enough to murmur behind her fan, “That man dangerous.”

Annie’s nose wrinkled. “How come?” 

Aunt Della’s fan snapped once, the crack echoing in the laughter that had begun to settle into an earned silence. “Cuz he ain’t preachin’. He prophesyin’.”  

They stood for the final hymn. This one much shorter and softer than the first, like an exhale instead of a held breath. It let the sermon settle into the congregation. Let folks turn Reverend Carter’s words over in their heads quietly while they sang, so they could decide which parts would stay with them and which parts they planned to leave in the sanctuary. 

Annie stood beside Aunt Della, voice light, eyes fixed on the hymnal, her fingers toying with the edge of her glove until the seam pressed into her thumb. 

The hymn ended. Benediction followed. Hands lifted. Heads bowed. And just like that, holiness settled into a regular old Sunday afternoon.

The sanctuary came alive in a rush. Children were letting out pent-up energy by weaving through pews. Women adjusted the pins that kept their hats secure. Men rolled their shoulders loose under their shirts like salvation itself weighed heavy on them. 

Aunt Della was pulled into conversation before the final amen had fully landed. A small crowd of women formed around her, laughing as they traded gossip back and forth. Annie smiled politely and took a step back to relieve herself from the haze of heavy perfume and pettiness. Her eyes moved around the sanctuary. Towards the sides, the front, the back room. 

No Smoke. Not that she expected him now. Service was over. 

Still.

The absence still sat there anyway. 

“Lookin’ for somebody?” The voice came smooth beside her. 

Annie started to turn quickly, then slowed herself down. Carter stood there, hat in one hand, the other extended politely toward one of the church mothers getting up from her pew. 

“No,” Annie said too fast. 

One corner of his mouth moved. It wasn’t a smile, just a flicker of amusement. Or satisfaction. “Mm.” He let the silence sit between them just long enough for her to hear herself in it. Then he rescued her from it himself. “You sing pretty.”

Annie blinked, tilting her head. “You couldn’t even hear me.” 

“I heard you. Loud and clear.”

Annie let out the smallest laugh despite herself. 

“My aunt say you talk too much,” Annie blurted out. She folded her arms across her chest.

Carter’s eyebrows lifted. “Your aunt is a wise woman. I been tryna tell people that all day.” 

“She also say you dangerous,” she added, immediately wishing she’d kept that remark to herself.

That made him smile fully, intrigued now. The silver teeth on the bottom row of his mouth gleamed in the light. “Did she now?”

He adjusted his hat beneath his arm and leaned slightly closer, his voice dropping lower, but somehow gentler. “What you think?” 

“I think,” Annie said carefully. “You ask a lot of questions for somebody who already know the answers.” 

Carter looked down at his hand, pressing his thumb once to the face of his ring, then he looked up at Annie again. 

Aunt Della’s voice cut across the room. “Annie!”

She turned on her heel. “Excuse me.”

She crossed the room towards her aunt in a few long strides, feeling his gaze leave her slower than it should have. Aunt Della was gathering her gloves in one hand, her fan in the other. She was engaging in conversation with a woman in a butter yellow dress with a ruffled lace collar. “You got that letter?”

Annie half-jumped, reaching in her purse for the envelope. “Oh! Yes.”

“Miss Loretta works for the postal service. Her husband owns the Blackbird Cafe.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Loretta,” Annie said, eyes warm. She shook her hand before handing Loretta the letter and a coin for the postage. “Can you tell Mr. Hightower that I’d like to accept the position at the cafe? I can start tomorrow.”

Loretta received her warmly, letting her land linger on hers for a moment. “I’ll let him know. And I’ll make sure your letter gets back home.” 

“Thank you,” Annie said emphatically. 

Aunt Della took Annie, looping their arms through each other as she guided them to the church’s backyard.

Outside, the sun climbed higher. Brighter. More unforgiving. It pressed heat into the town’s Sunday best where it lingered, creeping into the seams of collars and where made sweat slick underneath stockings. Men loosened their ties like Jesus was no longer watching now that church had let out, and children ran wild in their Sunday shoes, shamelessly staining the polished toes with grass and Mississippi mud. 

The backyard of the church was set up with tables neatly covered with lace tablecloths that had been passed down and mended neatly throughout the years. Dishes covered the tables— fried chicken and fish hot off the grease under dish towels, deviled eggs dusted with paprika, macaroni and cheese and collard greens steeping in deep bowls. Sweet tea and iced water sat sweating in glass pitchers. Annie’s bread pudding—a rich combination of dark brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and the heavy sweetness of whiskey and rum-soaked raisins—sat at the end of the table, keeping the other desserts company. 

Annie stood behind the food table with a serving utensil and an anxious smile. Her gloves had come off, her Bible tucked away in her purse. The only thing left from the sermon was a full belly and sore cheeks. Her new acquaintances stood along her, Gigi, Nellie and Pearline spread out behind the long table of food, the line in front of the serving tables stretching nearly halfway across the church yard. 

Gigi slid another piece of fried catfish onto a plate while Pearline scooped greens beside it. 

“You keep givin’ Brother Jenkins portions like that, we gon’ run out befo’ the deacons eat,” Gigi murmured under her breath. 

Brother Jenkins, hard of hearing and entirely too closely hovering over the food, grinned despite not hearing a word Gigi said. 

“What was that?”

Gigi smiled sweetly. “I said enjoy your meal.” 

Nellie snorted so loudly, sweet tea always flew up her nose. “You gon’ burn in hell,” she mouthed. 

Gigi passed another plate down the table calmly. “Prolly. ‘Least I won’t be hungry.” 

Annie bit back a laugh as she reached for another serving spoon. The rhythm of the line settled into something easy. Scoop. Pass. Smile. Repeat. There were the occasional outliers. Church women with their judgment and heavy perfume. Children begging for an extra slice of cake. Men flirting horribly. Annie, Gigi, Nellie, and Pearline worked around all of it. 

Enter Claudine Thompson. She was a viper of a woman, with a daring smile that never actually meant that she meant well. She wore a frilly peach colored dress, a powder blue Sunday hat, and matching powder blue gloves. She stepped in front of Annie, who offered her a slice of her bread pudding. 

“You settlin’ in fast, ain’t you?” She asked, voice dipped with poison as Annie put a generous helping on her plate. The women around her laughed softly. Not cruel enough to challenge, but not kind enough to ignore. 

“I’m tryin’.” 

Claudine nodded slowly, eyes traveling over her hat, her gloves, the way she stood. “We noticed,” she hummed. 

Annie tilted her chin a little higher. “Well,” she said, voice even. “I’d probably be worse off if I wasn’t.” 

Claudine lips moved into a thin line, a rather reluctant smile. She looked Annie up and down again. “Cute,” she said with a slight dip of one of her shoulders. 

Before Annie could decide whether that was a praise or a warning, Aunt Della appeared at her elbow like she was summoned. “Be gone, Claudine. She don’t need no supervision. Especially not from you.” 

The silence that followed was brief. Then Claudine laughed like it had all been friendly banter. “Lord, Delilah,” she said, waving her hand. “Can’t say nothin’ round you.”

“And yet,” Aunt Della replied. “You keep tryin’,” she said with a head tilt and a sharp look.

The women laughed again. Claudine’s eyes snapped sharply to them before turning on her heel and stomping away. 

“Never think you need to explain yourself to a woman like that,” Aunt Della said as she helped herself to a generous serving of macaroni and cheese. “They don’t be askin’ cuz they want answers. They tryna check your temperature.” 

Annie exhaled through her nose. “I noticed.”

“Good,” she replied firmly. “Means you learnin’.” 

“Or maybe it just means church women are miserable and need hobbies,” Gigi said from a little ways down the table.

“Georgia.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Aunt Della shot her a look before leaving to sit with the deacon. “Behave.”

“Always.”

Gigi leaned against the table while Annie cut another square of bread pudding. “So Louisiana,” she started. “Y’all really got people walkin’ around speakin’ French down there?”

Annie nodded once. “And Creole.” 

“Say somethin’.” 

Annie laughed softly. “Why?” 

“Because church almost killed me from boredom and this heat ‘bout to finish the job.”

“Georgia Mathers,” Pearline gasped dramatically.

“What? Reverend Carter fine self already saved my soul this mornin’. I can say what I want ‘til Wednesday.” 

Annie shook her head, smiling to herself before saying something low and quick in Creole. 

“Well damn,” Gigi said. 

Pearline sighed softly, scooping another healthy serving of greens on a plate. “That sounded pretty.”

Gigi pointed at Annie with a pair of tongs. “If I learn another language, I’m only usin’ it to insult people.” 

“You already insult them in English,” Nellie muttered.

“That’s because the Lord made me honest.”

“And loud,” Pearline added.

The four of them dissolved into laughter again.

Another older church mothers drifted past the table slowly enough to make her presence known. “Well,” she said pleasantly, while Nellie poured her a glass of sweet tea. “Y’all certainly lively today.”

Gigi smiled instantly, the kind of smile that matched Sister Claudine’s a bit earlier. “Yes ma’am,” she replied sweetly. “We still young enough to enjoy life.”

Annie and Nellie gasped underneath their breath. The church mother’s lips tightened almost invisibly before she moved along the line. 

“You gon’ say the wrong thing to the right person one day,” Pearline said, letting out a breath through her nose.

“One day the right person gon’ ask the wrong question.”

Annie looked between the two of them quietly. 

“What?”

“You don’t get nervous talkin’ to church mothers like that?”

Gigi shrugged. “They already decided who I am to them. Might as well enjoy myself.”

The line in front of the serving tables had dwindled down now that most people were settling into the slow part of the afternoon. Behind the table the girls had switched positions, Annie refilling a glass of sweet tea, while Pearline cut a square of bread pudding with practiced care. Nellie was in charge of the fried chicken and fish which were almost gone, and Gigi dished out the sides. 

Nellie leaned forward suddenly, her eyes narrowing toward the far side of the church yard. 

“Oh Lord,” she muttered under her breath.

Gigi squinted, following her gaze. “What?”

Nellie nodded subtly towards a man standing near the pecan tree laughing with two deacons and a church mother, “Leroy.” 

“He over there sweatin’ right through that tired ass gray suit.” 

Annie and Pearline looked up, following their gaze. The man was handsome. Deep brown skin gleaming beneath the afternoon heat. His collar loosened just enough to show the thick line of his throat. His suit fit well across his shoulders. A little too well. And every time he laughed, a silver tooth flashed near the back of his mouth. 

“He do got a nice laugh,” Pearline said softly.

“And a wife,” Gigi corrected. 

“That don’t mean I can’t look,” Nellie chimed in. “Lord gave me eyes for a reason.” 

Annie raised a brow. 

“He also gave you discretion,” Pearline muttered while stacking clean plates. “And respectability.”

Nellie rolled her eyes. Gigi did, too. Annie laughed quietly to herself. 

“Oh, don’t act innocent, Louisiana. I know you got your eye on somebody already.”

“I never said I didn’t.” 

“Alright then. Who?”

“Never said I did either.”

“Well what’s your type?”

Annie shrugged. “Ain’t got one. I like what I like.”

“Hypothetically….”

“Here we go,” Nellie said, scratching her head.

“Hypothetically. Lookswise. Do you find any of these men attractive?” 

Annie blinked. “Sure.” She could already tell where this was going.

“So pick one.”

“Pick what?”

“A man.”

Pearline groaned. “We really ‘bout to play this game,” she muttered.

Annie huffed. “You want me to pick a random man? For what?” 

“Just a man you think is cute.”

Annie sucked her teeth.

“Ok hear me out. I’ll go first.” A group of young men passed nearby carrying folding chairs back towards the church building, Gigi’s eyes locked on one of them. He was tall. Dark brown skin. Slim waist beneath his suspenders, white shirt clinging damply to his back from sweat. It outlined the clean movement of muscle beneath it every time he lifted another chair onto his shoulders. “Mhmm,” she hummed approvingly. “That one right there.”

“You don’t even know him,” Nellie sighed. 

“I know enough.”

“What enough?”

“Look at how he carry weight.” 

“Well, if we bein’ honest,” Pearline said, pointing discreetly towards the far tables where an older man stood near the barbecue pit speaking with Reverend Carter. He was thick in the chest and shoulders, suspenders pulled low against his stomach. His hair was beginning to gray at the temples, his face carrying deep smile lines that deepened when he spoke. He looked solid. Steady. “That’s my husband.”

“See now Pearline,” Gigi said, her face twisting up like she just ate a lemon. “Every time you point him out I get sad.”

Pearline rolled her eyes. “Why?” 

“‘Cause he look like he read the almanac before bed every night.”

Nellie and Annie burst into laughter so suddenly they made heads turn towards them. Annie covered her mouth quickly. 

“He’s a nice man,” Pearline said, a little bit wounded. 

“I’m sure he is,” Gigi replied. “I ain’t say he wasn’t.” 

“He got nice hands,” Nellie said. “Big ones.”

“And big feet too,” Gigi added with a grin.

Pearline sighed and rolled her eyes again. “He take care of me.”

“I bet he do,” Gigi said, giggling under her breath and nudging Annie gently with her elbow. She laughed too.

“Your turn, Louisiana.” 

Annie shook her head, trying to hide the smile tugging at her mouth as she glanced out across the way. Men stood in clusters throughout the church yard. In their dark slacks and rolled sleeves, leaning easy against trees smoking cigarettes, or arguing over baseball stats loud enough for the whole congregation to hear. Her eyes drifted until they landed on a man sitting near the edge of the folding tables. 

He looked tall from where she could see him. His suspenders stretched across a white shirt that had gone soft with wear. His sleeves were rolled neatly up to his elbows, revealing long forearms darkened by the sun. He sat tipped back in his chair, balancing dangerously on its back two legs while he listened to somebody talk, one hand lazily rubbing across his broad chest. His eyes glimpsed towards Annie and she looked away quickly, but not before Gigi caught who she was looking at. 

“Ohh, she like the quiet ones.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.” 

Pearline leaned to the side to look. “Mmm,” she hummed. “He is handsome, though.” 

“That’s Isaiah,” Nellie said, barely looking up. “Works for the railroad.” 

“Look at lil’ Nellie knowin’ every man’s occupation like she work for the census.” 

“What can I say? I like men with jobs.”

“And I like men who fine enough to ruin my life,” Gigi shot back. “Just a little.”

Annie barked out a laugh. “That’s how women end up cryin’ on porches.” 

“Or men end up gettin’ a root put on them.” 

Nellie snorted into her glass of lemonade. Annie shook her head smiling. “You always this dramatic?” 

Gigi leaned in towards her. “Only in public.” 

Annie found herself laughing harder than she had since she’d been in Mississippi.

After the buzz from the church, her newfound acquaintances, and Sunday dinner wore off, Annie found herself just looking for a peaceful place to sit. She padded to the porch, equipped with a few sheets of paper and her foraging basket.

Her shoulders sank when she got there. Men were out there slapping dominos, drinking, playing the harmonica. The sounds of late summer floated down the steps and onto the street that was alive with the after-church crowd. 

Way too crowded. She needed quiet. 

She sighed, rounding the front porch until she found a spot. She found one under the big magnolia tree whose branches scratched her bedroom window when the wind blew at night. 

She spread out her blanket in the grass. From her basket she took her roots, flowers and herbs and spread them out, organizing them by types. Then she went to the backyard and pumped a small bucket of water for cleaning. She started with the roots. Trimming and peeling back bits and pieces that weren’t useful. Running a damp cloth over them to clean, then laying them out carefully. 

Smoke stood on the porch of Miss Della’s boarding house with a crate full of her things and heat on his neck. He stepped into the front room, letting the screen door slap behind him. In the crate were copies of the Black publications sent down from up north and a small box that he promised Della him and Stack would pick up from Memphis.  The slap of the screen door caught Della’s eye and she nodded towards the lean-to in the back. He followed her outside. Once the door was closed, she lifted up the entrance hidden in the floorboards and guided him down the stairs. 

The space was expansive. Cooler than the surface. Della lit a series of oil lamps as she made her way through the underground space that was the length of the entire house. The walls and floors were lined with stone and mortar to keep the damp out, the floors smoother in the middle from constant wear. 

Shelves lined the walls from top to bottom, loaded with peaches, plums, oranges soaked in sugar and rum. Vanilla beans in moonshine. Nuts dipped in chocolate. Delicacies— pickled savory treats, candied sweet ones. Preserves and jams. Jars dusted with time stacked on top of each other. A thick, deep-purple syrup dripped from honeycombs into molds. Infused with a special blend of rum, it would harden into crystallized candy sticks and small square hard candies, or melt effortlessly into a smooth liqueur to stir into drinks. Small bottles with oils and dried flowers stood throughout the space too, along with some root vegetables and dried herbs. Cases of liquor, shelves of wine with bottles so old they’re covered in dust and cobwebs. 

Smoke put the crate in the corner by one of the rooms in the back. He took out the newspaper bundles and brought them to Della who instructed him to bring them upstairs with him. She looked over them for a second before patting him on the shoulder and looking him in his eyes. 

“Thank you for watching out for my girl yesterday.”

Smoke’s breath hitched a bit, enough for Della to notice. She gave him a little grin, “Mhmm. She ‘round here somewhere if you wanna say hi. Try some of her bread pudding. It’s in the kitchen,” she said as she moved around him and disappeared up the stairs. 

Back upstairs, Smoke enjoyed a serving of bread pudding topped with sticky rum sauce while he looked out on the porch for Annie. She wasn’t there. He finished his dessert, putting the dish in the wash basin before washing his hands and rounding the back to finish his search. He stepped out to the backyard and circled around to the side where a little patch of grass fanned into a grassy alleyway. The area was small but plush, the sun hitting it just right. A wire fence separated the boarding house and the house next to it. A magnolia tree stood in the middle, tall and proud, its branches hanging low like a veil over Annie’s head. She sat underneath it on a patchwork quilt, its colors vibrant, stitched with heat and history.

Annie was sitting with a quiet focus, tracing the edges of a plant on a piece of paper. She wrote the name at the bottom with a little detail about it on the side. She wore a sleeveless lace patterned dress— long, to her ankles—with a tan work apron overtop. A pair of brown ankle boots, scuffed at the toes, laced up her feet. A large floppy mesh hat crowned her head of coils, keeping the heat and sweat away. Her ileke beads sat tucked underneath the neckline of her dress, completing the look. Smoke approached her slowly, the grass flattened beneath his boots as he walked closer. He watched the side of her mouth curve up like she already knew he was there. 

“Can’t sneak up on me today.”

“Wasn’t tryin’ to.”

“Smoke.”

“Annie.”

She dusted the dirt off her hands as he held out his hand to help her stand up. He looked put together. Effortless. Dark trousers and a faded shirt with the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms. The sunlight caught the gold-brown of his skin in soft flashes between the shadows of the magnolia tree. 

“You hidin’?” he said finally, his eyes briefly drifting towards the quilt. 

Annie huffed out a quiet laugh, “Maybe.” 

He nodded once. He understood that completely. 

“Didn’t see you at church today,” she said, crossing her arms under her chest.

“Little busy.” 

“You too busy for the Lord?” She asked teasingly.

“Nah,” he said, stretching his arms. “He too busy for me.” 

“He ain’t never too busy for his…children.” 

“I ain’t on that list.” 

“Nah, I think you right at the top. Next to Peter and Paul,” she said, turning around to drop her blade down on the quilt. 

“Definitely ain’t no saint,” he said to the side. 

“That don’t make you a sinner, Smoke.”

A silent beat passed between them. A breeze blew by, making the windchimes on the front porch let out a low jingle. 

“That happen a lot?”

Smoke narrowed his eyes, “You got a lot of questions.” 

“And you answer almost none of ‘em.” 

A low hum, almost a laugh, left his chest. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“Can’t threaten me with a good time.” 

Smoke looked down at Annie, his gaze dropping to her lips briefly, then back up to her eyes.

“Me and Stack went to my uncle’s church.”

And they did. Macedonia Missionary Baptist, their uncle Jedidiah’s church right on the edge of the Sunflower plantation. It was a small rickety building, white-washed with high wooden ceilings and low pews. They sat in the back row, in their whitest whites like they always did. After service, they helped distribute the allotment of wine their uncle got from the county every month for communion. Since prohibition started, he’d sell some off on the side for extra money to offset the quota that he wouldn’t fulfill, even with all the little ones he and his wife, Ruthie, had.

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “So your uncle’s a preacher?” 

“That’s what he say, anyway.”

“Are y’all—,” Annie started to ask before noticing his jaw clench suddenly, “— nevermind.” 

She tilted her head at him. “Why don’t you come to one of the services in town?” 

“Habit.”

“Makes sense.” 

He paused. Took a breath, his eyes drifting to the quilt again then back up. “I used to go to the services in town. Before my uncle became a pastor,” he started.

Annie watched him carefully. “When’d he become a pastor?”

“Few years back. ‘Fore the war.”

“Oh,” she said, letting the sound of her voice fade into silence while he continued.

“We went every Sunday before then. Stack liked the singin’. I liked the quiet after.” 

The confession surprised her. Not because it was ground-breaking, but because he gave one. At all. “What changed?” 

Smoke got quiet like he was searching for the right words, his gaze shifting towards the road beyond the fence. “People.” 

Annie swallowed hard. People. Something about the way he said it made her chest ache unexpectedly. He pivoted quickly, like he could feel it too.

“Annie?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s all this?” 

“Drawings,” Annie said, sitting back down on the quilt, drawings spread out evenly across the fabric. Smoke cleared his throat, then lowered himself down beside her with the same quiet heaviness that accompanied everything about him. 

The sun was dipping low, throwing a veil of gold over the landscape. The sound of a guitar floated over from Fourth Street. Folks were sitting on their porches, enjoying the slight drop in temperature.

“I know that,” he tutted. “What they for?” 

Annie pulled a knee to her chest, absentmindedly tracing her fingertip along one of the quilt seams. “Helps my memory. Drawin’ things. Writin’ them down.”

“So you remember what they look like?”

“Kinda. So I remember what they for,” her voice drifted off as a loud buzzing sound got closer. 

A hummingbird. 

Its sharp beak poked at the gardenias clustered by the fence, their petals still closed. It floated from one flower to the next, searching for sugary nectar it could feed on.Annie’s hand touched a vial of water that sat on the quilt next to her legs. She picked it up, pointing the tip at her outstretched finger. 

“Watch this.”

A hummingbird hovered overhead, the flapping of its wings a dull buzz. It floated to her finger that she held up, its long beak piercing through the cap of the vial. Smoke flinched a little at the rapid movement of its wings, but quickly recovered. 

“How you get them to come to you?”

Annie shrugged her shoulders slightly. “They like the sound of my voice.” 

Smoke’s gaze went from the bird perched on her finger up to Annie. Her grin, her delicate finger, the way her chest moved with her breathing. The way the setting sun smiled on her skin. Smoke watched her as she watched pieces of sunlight flicker across the yard through the leaves. 

A breeze moved through the magnolia branches overhead carrying the faint floral scent down with it that mixed with the smell of freshly laundered cotton from the sheets hanging in the backyard, swaying gently in the breeze. 

Annie smelled sweet—like sugary vanilla, cinnamon, and rum from baking. Her sweetness wrapped around his senses, pulling him in like the song of a siren. He used to hear tales about them during the war. With their eyes and the sweet, sultry sound of their voices that were known to lure soldiers into a watery grave. 

Smoke didn’t believe in any of that shit. 

Not in ghosts, not in magic, and definitely not in no tall tales. But he couldn’t help but feel time slow down around her. At this very moment, right next to him, she looked—

“Smoke?” 

His vision snapped back into focus. He cleared his throat, swallowing the words he really wanted to say. “Hmm?” 

“You okay? Look like you were somewhere else for a second,” she remarked. 

Smoke comes back to himself. “Just thinkin’ bout that bread pudding you made.”

Lie.

“You had some?”

“Mhmm. Earlier. Your aunt gave me some.”

“You liked it?”

Smoke shrugged his shoulders, “It was aight.”

“Ugh!” Annie tutted, smacking Smoke’s shoulder playfully. “That’s how I know you a damn lie.”

“I thought you not supposed to be cussin’ on a Sunday.” 

“Not when you out here…insulting my cookin’.” 

“I was just playin’,” Smoke teased, his lips flattened to suppress the grin that was quickly spreading across his face.

The evening heat wrapped around them, creeping slowly up their necks. Smoke picked at a loose thread near the edge of the quilt while Annie studied him quietly. The roughness of his hands resting against the quilt. The slight tremor in his right palm. The heaviness he carried in his shoulders even when he wasn’t moving. The stillness. The tension underneath the stillness. For the first time, she realized how much of him always seemed braced for something. At this very moment, spread out on a quilt under a magnolia tree. 

The thought sat strangely in her chest. “You look like you always ready for somethin’,” she said softly before she could stop herself.

Smoke looked at her, immediately focusing on her face in a way that made Annie almost regret what she said. He didn’t look angry. Didn’t look defensive. The expression flashed behind his eyes before disappearing just as quickly as it had arrived.

Vulnerable?

Not quite.

Not in a dramatic way. But just enough to realize she was watching him. Had been watching him. And for Smoke? That landed hard. Because he hadn’t realized she was paying attention. Not like that. For a long moment neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. Smoke looked away first, gaze dropping towards the quilt between them then back to her. 

“That so?” he asked, his voice quieter now.

Annie nodded once, “Like you never really…let yourself settle.” “Or be settled,” she said, voice just above a whisper. 

The magnolia branches stirred overhead again, their shadows moving slowly across the grass beneath them. 

Smoke spoke again. This time, his voice carried something new and unknown in it. “Most people don’t notice.” 

“Most people don’t sit still long enough to notice a lot of things.” 

Smoke paused for a beat. This time it stretched longer. The cicadas screamed louder for a moment, filling the silence neither of them seemed interested in breaking. Annie looked towards the back of the house when she sensed movement. She relaxed when she saw somebody moving past one of the kitchen windows. Then—

“And you do?” Smoke asked finally.

Annie turned to face him. She shrugged softly, “Somebody got to.”

A faint smile pulled briefly at the corner of his mouth. 

The sun dipped deeper into the horizon. The sky darkened further. It was a smooth shade of black with a twinge of gold from the warmth spilling out of the neighborhood windows that caught against Smoke’s face. He leaned back on one arm, gazing up towards the sky. His hand drifted next to where hers was on the quilt. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the heat of him on her skin. 

“What you got goin’ on this week?” His tone was almost hesitant, like he shouldn’t be asking this kind of question, but decided to do it anyway.

“I start at the cafe in town tomorrow.”

“Blackbird?”

“Yep.”

Smoke nodded in approval. “What time?”

“Nine.” She took a breath. “Why? You comin’ by tomorrow?” 

Her eyes widened. The question slipped out before she could catch herself. Again.

Smoke watched her for a second, “Maybe.” 

The kitchen window above where they were sitting slid up suddenly. 

“Annie!”

Aunt Della’s voice. 

Both of them looked up. “You left these dishes sittin’ on my counter like they pay rent!” 

Smoke’s mouth twitched. Annie groaned softly under her breath, her head dropping back dramatically, “She soooo…” she groaned, already reaching to pack her things.

“She family. I gotta go anyway,” Smoke said. Like something came over him, his hand rose to find the small of her back, his hand moving up and down gently. 

The sudden burst of fragrance from the night-blooming jasmine that laced through the fence like roots and moonflowers that hung like little white bells wafted towards them as the crickets began their rhythmic chirping and the cicadas changed rhythm. 

Annie stopped what she was doing. The warmth of Smoke’s hand on her back made her turn towards him slowly, her face close enough to his that she could feel his breath on her collarbone and smell the scent of tobacco and spice that clung to his shirt. They locked eyes. Smoke held hers a second, not long enough to call it anything but long enough to feel it anyway. He licked his lips, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. His warm, wet lips lingered softly against her skin, sending shivers down her spine and warmth beneath her ribs. The silence after that stretched in a way that made it feel loud. Louder than the crickets. Louder than the heartbeat that thumped violently in her chest. 

Smoke shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Annie said quickly. 

Their faces were still close. He leaned in again and this time brushed his lips against hers. Just enough for Annie to feel the pressure of his mouth. Annie’s lips followed his, giving back that pressure so he knew she was feeling the same way. Their lips separated slowly, pulling away with a soft, wet smack. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” she said. Voice warm but with a hint of something else behind it. 

He stood up, grabbing her things for her while she folded up her quilt.

“Goodnight, Annie,” he said, walking towards the front of the house where his truck sat parked on the street. The side gate creaked open as he walked through it. 

“Goodnight,” she sighed softly as he disappeared from her view. 

Aunt Della’s voice cut through the romantic haze bubble that had her staring dreamily at the street. 

“Annie, get yo ass in here!”

The small, rusty shop bell above Blackbird Café didn’t really jingle. It clanked with an exasperated, dull thud like it was already over the day. It was Monday morning, the small space slightly busy with diners sipping coffee and tea and enjoying steaming breakfasts of scrambled eggs, fried meat, and fluffy biscuits. The first thing that Annie noticed was the sound. The scrape of chairs against old wood floors, the hiss of grease hitting hot cast iron, the sound of a knife moving against a cutting board in a familiar, practiced rhythm. It smelled like coffee grounds, hot grease, bleach, and lemon cleaner soaked deep into the walls over the years. Something lived-in, almost ancestral. 

Annie made her way past the hostess stand to the back room. Mr. Hightower stood near the kitchen doorway, broad-shouldered and already sweating through his collar despite the early hour. His suspenders stretched over a white button-up rolled at the sleeves, a freshly laundered apron in his hands, his expression serious in a way that older men often wore when they were actually amused. 

“Go change, washroom’s in the back. Then I’ll show you around.”

“Okay.”

Annie padded to the washroom. She wrapped the uniform apron around her waist and stared at herself in the mirror. Her forehead was still shiny from oil Aunt Della had anointed her with that morning. She wiped a small crumb from the curve of her mouth from the tea biscuit she had earlier, slathering vaseline balm on her lips before making her way to the kitchen for Mr. Hightower. 

The kitchen was hotter than the rest of the building by at least ten degrees. Two women worked the stove already, moving around each other like it was a song and dance they’d been doing all their lives. One of them glanced up briefly at Annie before returning to the skillet.

“That’s Loretta,” he said, putting his hands on the cook’s shoulders. “She’s head chef. Loretta, this Annie.” 

“Heyyy, Miss Annie,” Loretta said amusingly, tossing a skillet of onions and peppers together. 

“Nice to meet you, Loretta.”

“And this,” he said, moving to the woman thinly slicing tomatoes, “this Sheila. Sheila – Annie.” 

“Nice to meet you, Sheila.” 

“Mm,” Mr. Hightower remarked. “Try not to scare her off before the lunch rush.”

“Aint you Della’s girl?” Loretta asked.

“Mhmm, niece.”

Sheila snorted. “She from New Orleans, she’ll be aight.”

Mr. Hightower pointed as he talked, moving quickly like he expected people to keep up. “Coffee station here. Tea there. Carry plates confidently, even if you scared. Folks tip better when you check on them often.” He pointed out towards the swinging doors that led from the kitchen to the dining area, “And don’t let them blues men flirt you into forgettin’ things.”

“Blues men?” Annie repeated.

“Musicians,” Sheila corrected. That earned a laugh from Loretta. 

The dining area looked different once people started to fill in. By noon, smoke curled thickly near the ceiling fans, dominoes slapped against tabletops near the windows where men argued over cards, and the low sound of a guitar rolled through the room, soft as heat from the jukebox near the wall. 

Annie moved carefully through the cafe at first. Coffee pot full of freshly brewed chicory coffee in one hand, plates balanced in the other. She listened more than she spoke and watched how the room moved before taking action, observing closely which customers wanted conversation, which wanted speed, and which wanted to be left alone with their thoughts.  The work settled into her body quicker than she expected. There was a rhythm to it here, a sort of dance. Not a graceful one, but something practiced and practical. Not only with the customers, but between the other servers as well. 

“Behind you!”

“Door!”

Annie learned those phrases quickly, at one point narrowly avoiding a clash with another server when she didn’t register the meaning quickly enough. By the second hour, she stopped hesitating before moving through crowded tables. By the third, she’d identified who were regulars and who were just passers-by. 

“You catch on quick.”

Annie looked up from wiping down a booth. One of the younger waitresses, a girl named Felicia, stood beside her with a tray against her hip and a smile on her face.

“I got six brothers. I’m used to chaos,” Annie answered. 

Felicia barked out a laugh, “Oh, you definitely gon’ fit in here.”

Over by the stage, a guitarist plucked a few lazy notes while setting up for the later crowd. The sound rolled through the cafe, settling low and heavy in the air. Outside, Fourth Street buzzed beneath the muggy Delta heat. Inside, Blackbird Cafe dishes clattered, voices did too, and the sound of the blues drifted slowly through cigarette smoke. 

By three, the cafe had settled into its late afternoon lull. Annie wiped down the counter one last time before untying her apron. Mr. Hightower glanced up from his ledger near the till. “See you tomorrow, Annie.”

Annie folded the apron over her arm. “Tomorrow.” She smiled to herself, satisfied, as she headed towards the back door. Just as she reached it, Mr. Hightower’s booming voice made her pause. 

“Annie?” he asked, peeking around the corner. 

“Yes sir.”

“You did good today.”

Annie smiled faintly, “Thank you.” 

The sky began its slow shift into gold. The evening air wrapped around her warm and damp, carrying the smell of riverwater, fried food, and dust. Annie adjusted the strap of her bag against her shoulder and started down the sidewalk. 

A feeling started to hit her all at once. 

Exhaustion. 

She tried to wind her mind down, but her body was still acting like she was at the cafe. Moving quickly around corners and slower around blind spots, her mind counting things automatically. 

But beneath all the tiredness in her limbs sat something else, too. 

Pride. 

She made her way down Fourth Street, past men leaning in doorways, women talking on shaded porches, and children chasing each other barefoot through red dirt near the edge of the road. One man tipped his hat as she passed by. A man right next to him catcalled something ridiculous enough to earn a laugh. She walked past both of them without breaking stride.

She turned off Fourth and onto Issaquena. 

The sign hung just ahead. 

Luella’s. 

It was a worn, weathered sign that hung over the sidewalk from a wrought iron bracket and chains that swayed gently in the breeze. Pastel paint peeled slightly at the edges of the rectangular wooden plaque with carefully painted gold lettering in the center. A gold frame was tacked on sometime later to make the sign look more polished. Warm light glowed through the front windows, and inside were bolts of fabric, sequined accessories, and hanging garments of every color imaginable swaying faintly in the breeze that flowed through the window like they were alive. 

The floorboards creaked under the weight of Annie’s feet as she stepped through the door and walked down the stairs leading into Luella’s Dressing Room, bringing with her a whirlwind of humid Mississippi air. 

There were a few customers lingering, some by the spools of ribbon, some in the front where bolts of fabric were lined on shelves and piled on top of the large wooden workspace in the center of the shop. Curtains hanging in front of the store windows kept the sun from dulling their vivid coloring, along with bulbs hung from the ceiling that created a cozy, buzzing atmosphere. Glass displays with accessories—gloves, purses, stockings, shoes— lined the walls that were decorated with fashion plates and fading photographs as Annie made her way to the back of the shop. 

The heels of her Mary Jane pumps clicked against the wooden floors as she crossed the room to where Luella was looking at a dress posed on a mannequin, her glasses perched at the tip of her nose. She wore a chatelaine around her waist with small measuring tools hanging from the hooks, and stood with a tape measure slung over her shoulders, her expression perking up as soon as she heard the groan of the floorboards coming her way. 

“Annie,” she said, instantly wrapping her hands around Annie’s middle. 

“Miss Luella,” Annie replied warmly. “I’m here to get my measurements taken.” 

“Gimme a second, baby. Lemme finish up pinnin’ this dress.” 

The back room was fitted with two dressing stalls, a three-way floor-to-ceiling mirror, and a few velvet chairs and a settee for guests. Annie made herself comfortable on one of the chairs, taking a peppermint twist from the jar on the table next to it. 

After a few minutes, she was ushered through a narrow corridor leading to a private alcove flanked with damask velvet drapes, a small platform, and a set of mirrors. The smell of rose scented perfume hung heavily in the air, a pair of Dressmakers’ mannequin sat off to the side, displaying sequined fabric held up by pins. 

Luella gave her a robe, a washcloth and towel, then pointed her to the washroom where a basin full of warm, soapy water was waiting for her. When the door finally shut behind her she sighed. She stripped naked then lathered and dragged the soapy washcloth across her body, scrubbing away the smell of grease and exhaustion from the day. Once she was done, she shrugged the robe on, the feel of satin cool against her skin. 

She stepped out of the washroom freshly oiled with the scent of lavender on her skin and stood on the platform while Luella’s assistant, a quiet, young girl, took her measuring tape while Luella took the measurements down. 

“Hips 46.”

“Good child-birthing hips,” Luella remarked.

“Bust 44,” her assistant continued.

“And they just gon’ get bigger once you start poppin’ out babies.”

“What kind of neckline you want, sugar?” 

“Somethin’ I can tuck my beads into,” Annie replied. 

“Gon’ need a little bit extra to hold these up,” she teased.

Annie laughed quietly and looked at herself in the mirror as she felt the measuring tape tighten around her ribs. The breeze from the small fan by the curtains hit her exposed skin, the sudden chill giving her goosebumps.

“Waist 33.” 

“We usin’ that fabric you picked out last time?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

Luella moved in front of Annie with a finger on her cheek in contemplation. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She tapped her cheek with her finger. Once, twice. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Annie looked at her assistant through the mirror who shrugged. Luella disappeared into the store, then returned excitedly with a bolt of a lush dark green velvet fabric.

“I was thinkin’ a straight drop waist, hem just below the hips. Plunging neckline. Maybe some scalloped detailing to frame it. Have them titties sittin’ up high. Decorate it with some silver fringe at the bottom. Like one of them flapper dresses. What you think?” 

“I don’t have the—”

“Don’t worry ‘bout the money. Your auntie said you can get whatever you want. Plus I been dyin’ to get someone in here so I can practice sewin’ a push-up bra.” 

“Push-up bra?”

“Mhmm—supposed to push ‘em in and up,” Luella said with a sly look, gesturing with her hands.

“So, you in?”

Annie nodded once, “I’m in.”

Luella clapped her hands, “I’ll even gift you a necklace and a coin purse to wear with it.” 

“A…necklace?” she asked, her hand instinctively going to her beads. 

“You can’t wear this ol’ thing,” she said, her face softening when she saw Annie slowly trace a bead with her fingertips. 

“It’s just for a night,” she said softly. 

“Okay,” Annie replied with a smile. 

“You should wear your hair down. Finger waves. I can sew a decal in the middle here a few inches above the hem. Mhmm, let the fringe hang from the bottom….” 

Luella’s voice began to fade away as Annie stood in front of the mirror. Her assistant continued taking measurements and writing things down while they circled around her, narrating her entire look for the harvest party. A twinge of nervous energy fluttered in Annie’s belly. Her gaze dropped to her stomach, the few rolls on her upper torso and pudge that sat underneath her belly button. She pulled at it through the robe, sucking in her stomach a bit and smoothing a hand down her torso before just letting it be. 

She’d always been taught to love her body, and she did. But this was Clarksdale, a small town with a lot more small people than she was used to, and she towered over a lot more men here than at home. 

What would a dress made for a short, skinny woman even look like on a tall woman like her? 

What would people say? 

Would they laugh? 

Would they sneer? 

Luella’s gentle hand rubbing her arm soothingly pulled her out of her thoughts. She had pulled a fashion plate from the wall of her shop and brought it over for Annie to look at. 

“What’s wrong, sugar?” she asked, handing Annie the sketch of the dress inspiration.

Annie looked over it carefully, then traced the edges with her fingertips. “Don’t you think I’m too…tall to be wearin’ stuff like that?”

Luella looked at Annie like she knew what she really meant to ask. “Don’t worry, sugar,” Luella whispered with a wink. She rubbed her arms from behind. “You gon’ be the prettiest one in the buildin’.”

Annie smiled, standing just a little bit taller. 

A thick wax candle burned unevenly in the dark. Tiny dancing shadows flickered against the thin walls of the bedroom, the soft light catching the glimmer of oil on Annie’s arms still warm from her bath. 

She sat at her desk. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration while her pencil moved across the page. 

She drew a curve. 

Then another one.

She angled the pencil to flatten the tip. 

Shaded. 

Used the pads of her fingers to soften that. 

The line blurred—not right. 

She scoffed under her breath, erased, and tried again, this time squaring off at the base where the hand felt broader than she expected. 

Her eyes fluttered shut. 

A shape appeared. Then another one, right on top to give it dimension. 

Shade. Mark. Smudge. Erase—until the sides of her hands were stained with graphite. 

She paused at the knuckles, pressing the tip of her pencil down just a little harder, roughing them in before softening the edges with her finger. 

For a moment she felt like she was back at home. Watching her grandmother in the apothecary, sketching the detail of her skirt on any scrap of paper she could find. 

She set her pencil down, letting it roll to the edge of the table as she looked down at her half-finished product. 

Still—something in it didn’t quite feel right. 

She pressed her thumb lightly over one of the lines, then stopped. Folded it up. Tucked it in the drawer of her desk. Closed the drawer carefully. 

A few moments passed. A few shallow breaths. 

She listened to the sounds of the boarding house. Heavy snores. An occasional throat clearing. The house cat purring gently just outside her bedroom door—legs tucked, eyelids heavy, ears always alert. 

Outside, the chickens were settled in their coop. A chain-link fence rattled somewhere down the road, where a fox lingered behind it, watching them restlessly. 

Annie opened the drawer again, this time to pull out a clean sheet of paper. She grabbed her pencil from the edge, dated the letter, then began to write. 

Mama, she started. 

Skipped a line. 

Paused. 

I made it to Clarksdale, she continued. It’s—

She paused again, tapping the pencil on her cheek. 

Tap.

Tap. 

Tap.

Thunder rumbled outside, slow and dangerous, like a rolling boil. Her gaze followed the sudden sound. Lightning followed, finding the shadows that clung to the corners of her room. She turned back to her letter. 

…different. Skipped another line.

The Delta got demons.

She could already hear what her mama would say. “What she mean by that?” She imagined them all there—mama, daddy, grandma, brothers— standing around her while she sat reading it to them. Arms crossed, eyebrows raised, faces scrunched up.

At this point she didn’t even know what she really meant. Smaller, obviously—but they knew that. She knew that. They knew that she knew that. 

Clarksdale was less spooky than New Orleans, but somehow more haunted. Life here hummed along while something else lingered quietly in the shadows.

Outside, storm clouds hung high and heavy, waiting for their moment to break open. Rainfall started slowly, just a light pitter-patter at first, then more steadily, drumming the streets, the land, the roofs.

Annie’s pencil hovered over the paper. 

I got a job in town to save for my shop, she wrote. On the colored side, so don’t go worrying. 

I ain’t looked at any places. But if Aunt Della can have something of her own, so can I. 

She blinked twice, hesitating. Then—

Send grandma, daddy, and my siblings all my love. I hope y’all can come see me soon. 

Love, 

Annie

P.S. Ain’t found good fried catfish yet. 

Annie’s gaze lingered on the letter for a moment. She folded it neatly, pressing a gentle kiss in the center like an invisible seal. The chair scraped against the floorboards as she stood, thunder crashing just as she blew out the candle. Her room was blanketed in near darkness until the flash of lightning lit up the shadows again. She tiptoed to her bed. The creak of the iron frame was silenced by the sounds of the storm as she sat down in the middle, bringing her knees to her chest. She looked outside, her mouth twisting into a sleepy, satisfied smile. The wind whistled through the cracks of the siding, carrying raindrops along with it, smearing them across the windows in long streaks. She cracked it, leaving it slightly open with a small block of wood, before laying down and tucking herself under the covers.

Outside blurred into sheets of rain. Inside, the room blurred into a sheet of darkness as Annie’s eyelids started to feel like lead. 

All of a sudden she was in the kitchen, the house held under its familiar morning hush.

A fire crackled faintly in the stove, smoldering low just like it was left. 

She set the kettle on top, reaching for her special blend in the cupboard. Her fingertips brushed the shelves, gliding over jars, vials, canisters, mismatched mugs with chipped rims, and something soft tucked in between, until they landed on an empty spot— the one where her favorite mug usually lived. 

She turned. Her eyes searched the room– the table, the shelves, the door, the wash basin next to it— until they landed on it. Her face relaxed slightly, perking up again when the kettle let out a deafening whistle. 

Annie grabbed the mug from the wash basin, the lingering warmth on the handle making her pause—just for a second. She relaxed again as she took a slow sip, testing the heat on her tongue. 

Somewhere in another room, in a house that never settles, a floorboard creaked.

Water trickled. Then ran smoothly. 

The floorboard creaks got heavier. Closer. 

A shadow darkened the threshold. Her eyes followed it. Then—

Rain hammered the tin roof of the boarding house as night dragged on. 

A silver stream of moonlight sliced sharply through the darkness in Annie’s room. She was staring at the ceiling—jolted awake by a loud boom of thunder that shaken her out of her sleep. The storm had thinned out to a familiar, early fall rain.

She listened to the echo of crickets through the window. They chirped low, mimicking her heartbeat— a rapid, arrhythmic flutter. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and slowed her breathing.

Didn’t work. 

Annie scoffed, sitting up to lower her window some, careful not to close it completely. 

The outside noise had faded— crickets, rain, animals. Gone. Mostly. Annie tucked herself in again, her eyes slowly beginning to close. 

In a few minutes they were back open. 

Because it wasn’t the night that was too loud. 

A gentle wind slipped through the crack of the window, bringing with it the earthy smell of rain— but the breeze did little to cool the heat that crept through her body. 

Her hand moved along the curve of her, stopping at her right ear where her fingertips grazed the side. It was hot to the touch, like his breath, his voice, his words were right there.  

Her breath hitched when she realized the turn her mind had taken, her hand snapping to her side as that heat—froze. 

Chill. 

Sharp and sudden, a shiver slid down her spine before disappearing just as fast. 

She rolled to her side suddenly, pulling the covers tighter, squeezing her eyes harder— pleading. 

The rain tapered off, now reduced to an audible drip from the edge of the roof by her bedroom. Slow. Methodical. Taunting. 

Her eyes didn’t snap open this time. She didn’t get flustered. She just laid on her side facing the window, watching the sky like she knew what to expect. 

Because she did. 

And dawn was approaching.

It arrived as it always did, a gentle, pale wash of color that slowly softened the edges of darkness. 

Annie’s body moved ahead of her mind, her legs sweeping over the edge of the bed as she stood to her feet. She was tracing the outline of her ileke beads with her fingertips when she realized— it was Saturday.  

Which meant today would be easy. 

Breakfast chewed slow, coffee sipped slower. Everything a little lazier, a little less urgent. She could get out of the house, take a walk by the river, follow it to the place Chayton showed her—a spot he said the grass was tall and honeysuckle grew sweeter. 

After washing up, she slipped on a dress made for sunlight—a green wrap dress—and practically floated toward the staircase until she heard movement downstairs. She tiptoed down the stairs, turning the corner slowly to find Aunt Della in the kitchen, rolling biscuit dough, her movements deliberate, unrushed.  

“Where you think you goin’?” She asked without looking up. 

Annie set her bag beside the woven basket on the table by the door. “Out to the woods.” 

“This early?” 

“Mhmm.”

“Where?”

“That place Chayton took us to the other day.”

“Hmm. Well, stay off the roads. Stay to the side and don’t be out there daydreamin’. Keep your ears open.” 

Aunt Della clapped her hands free of flour, then pulled something from her pocket. She approached Annie, grabbing her hand and putting it firmly in her palm. Annie looked down at it. It was a switchblade, small, foldable, with a bone handle and a sharp, serrated blade. Her thumb grazed the inscription carved into the handle— Seven Sisters. 

“Keep this on you,” Aunt Della said firmly. “Always.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Annie said, slipping on her work apron, then slipping the knife into her apron pocket.

“Come here,” Aunt Della insisted, grabbing her arm. “Have some tea first ‘fore you go.” 

Annie slid into a stool in the kitchen as Aunt Della poured boiling water over a pack of herbs. The smell rose quickly. Jasmine, sassafras and mint. She stirred a spoonful of honey in, the spoon clinking against the insides of the ceramic cup. 

“I wrote a letter,” Annie said as Aunt Della slid the cup towards her on the table. “To mama.”

“Mmm?” 

“Was hopin’ you knew how to get it to her.” 

Annie sipped from her cup, letting the tingle of warmth wash over her. A familiar feeling found her ankle. The gentle brush of the house cat’s coat. 

“Tsk tsk tsk,” she tutted. “Coucou, Felix,” she lulled. The cat purred, the sound a deep rumble against her skin. He contorted his slender body against her like a long wave, then sat at her feet, his tail stroking her leg every other breath.

Aunt Della took a sip of her own tea before placing the cup down in its saucer. “Bring it with you,” she said. “To church.”

“Don’t let me forget,” she said quietly, staring at her aunt with pleading eyes. 

She reached over to touch Annie’s hand where it rested on the table. The warmth from the tea cup lingered like a pulse between them. “I won’t, baby,” she said softly, reassuring. 

“We leave for church a little after first bell. Just before the night clears.” 

Annie took another sip of her tea. “When’s that reverend due to come in?” 

“Before supper.” 

“And he’s preachin’ tomorrow?”

“Mhmm. Got a big followin’,” she said, stirring her tea with her finger. “They say he’s one of the most successful soul winners in the country,” she added, emphasizing every word sarcastically. 

“Hmm,” Annie hummed, putting her teacup down. She stood, dodging Felix still curled up at her feet, and took it to the wash basin.   

“I’ll be back before supper,” she said while rinsing her cup. “Probably little after lunch.”

“Be careful, Annie,” Aunt Della insisted, as she slipped into her boots and grabbed her things by the door. 

The screen door shut firmly behind her, the porch steps still damp from morning dew and last night’s storm. Annie walked down them carefully, dodging puddles and pools of mud in the front yard. 

The road painted a picture of the night it had suffered through— wet, soft and dark. Annie walked with purpose when she stepped onto the packed dirt, keeping to the sides of the road, partially hidden by shrubs. One arm was hooked through the handle of her basket, the other found its place in her pocket firmly palming her switchblade. 

She looked at her surroundings— fall was approaching Clarksdale.

Leaves of all shades, burnt amber to pale green, lay along the packed dirt road like an offering. Cicadas still screeched from their treetop lairs while Spanish moss swayed elegantly in the early morning breeze. Little bits of milkweed seed blew gently through the air, leaving small blossoms in her coils like little white stars. She left behind a trail of jasmine and river water, like a midnight garden blooming in the crisp morning air behind her.

Annie was just to the riverbend when she felt a chilling stillness that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The same feeling from her first day in town when they passed the white section, that tightness around her throat. It made her stop suddenly in her tracks. 

Then she heard it, the sound of an exhaust pipe sputtering and wheels crunching up the road.

“Shit,” she hissed under her breath.  

The road sloped downwards into the woods surrounding both sides. She ducked off into the brush, boots sliding over the slick mud at the top of the bend. 

The brakes let off a lingering squeal as the wheels slowed, then stopped completely. 

A door opened, a rusty creak of a sound that echoed in the silence of the morning. It shut carefully, with a quiet click.

Her heart kicked against her ribs. 

She stepped over a fallen log to find cover behind a large oak tree, the fallen leaves rustling underneath her careful steps. 

It was silent for a beat, her heartbeat hammering in her ears as a mix of anticipation and dread took over. 

“Annie?”

Annie squeezed her eyes shut when she heard the familiar voice. Relief washed over her like a cooling balm on a burn. But she didn’t move. Not yet.

“Annie,” the voice said, louder, more firm. 

She peeked out from behind the tree slowly. Just her head. 

Smoke stood at the top of the bank, peering down into the trees. He wore only trousers and suspenders, a simple undershirt clinging tightly to his muscles in his broad chest. 

“What you out here for?” 

Annie’s mind went blank for a second. Smoke raised a brow in response. 

“Work,” she said finally. “Just doin’ work.”

He tilted his head, his hands flexing at his sides. “What kinda work?”

“Foraging.”

“Right here?”

“No,” she said, nodding towards the road, “a lil’ further up.”

He sighed. “Annie–”

Annie stepped out from behind the tree, slowly. Her voice echoed off the trees. “I’m fine, Smoke. Really.”

Smoke scanned the treeline before he spoke, jaw tight. “These roads ain’t safe to be walkin’ alone.”

A pause.

“I’ll take you.”

She gasped under her breath. “You ain’t gotta—”

“I said,” he interrupted. “I’ll take you.” 

Annie exhaled slowly. Something in his gaze took the fight out of her.

He held out his hand to her to help her up the bank, looking down at her face that was tilted up at him. Her eyes were lighter here. Bigger, somehow. A warm chocolate brown with a flicker of gold in the irises where the sun touched them.

Annie looked down at Smoke’s hand, then back up to his face. Up close, his features softened. Or maybe it was just the way the sun hit them. 

Either way, she held her hand out, accepting his help as she stepped out of the brush. 

The wind whispered delicately around them, Annie’s skirt blowing slightly in the gentle breeze, exposing the swell of her thigh. Smoke’s jaw tightened at the movement, his eyes dropping to where the fabric lifted. His hand hesitated for a moment, before smoothing the side of her skirt down. 

“Thank you,” Annie said softly. 

Smoke held her gaze for a moment before rounding the front of the truck to the driver’s side door. 

The drive was quiet except for the light tap of Smoke’s thumb against the steering wheel. Annie rested her right arm out the window as the landscape moved past her in flashes of muted orange, green and brown. The land was dead, or at least that’s what the color of it told her, the once green shrubs and brush shedding like snakeskin, baring itself for winter to swallow it whole.

“So what you lookin’ for?” Smoke asked, cutting through the near silence. 

“Some herbs. Roots and such,” she replied plainly.

“So you–” he said, then hesitated. He swallowed, then continued. “You like your aunt? Do all that hoodoo stuff?” 

Annie smiled, just faintly. “Yeah,” she said, looking over. “That stuff.” 

“You believe in all that?” he asked, eyes fixed on the road.

“Believe in what?” 

He paused before he spoke. “Magic.”

Annie smoothed her hands down her skirt, setting them on her lap gently. She looked out the window. “I believe in people. What’s passed down from ‘em,” she answered. Paused. Then, “What you believe in?”

Smoke’s head turned to the side, tilting. “Money. Respect.”

Annie hummed in acknowledgement, turning her head back towards the window.

“What exactly you need?” Smoke probed. 

“Stuff you can find in the dirt. Plants. Herbs.”

A quiet sigh escaped from Smoke, making Annie turn her head again. She arched her brow. A silent prodding.

“I know that. What kind?” 

Annie looked at Smoke skeptically. “Why?”

Smoke shrugged his shoulders slowly, “Just wanna know.” 

Annie faced forward. Exhaled. Took her time with her answer. “Comfrey. Honeysuckle. Mugwort. Stuff like that.”

“I know a place,” he said, looking over briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “If that’s okay with you.” 

Silence settled for a beat before Annie realized Smoke wasn’t driving in the direction she pointed him towards. She looked over her shoulder then back to Smoke, then back over her shoulder again. Her face twisted, but not with panic— curiosity. “This ain’t where…Smoke…where we goin’?” 

“I told you, I know a place,” he said simply. 

Annie sat forward in the seat—skeptical—her eyes tracing the side of Smoke’s face. “Where is it, Smoke? Where you takin’ me?” 

“There’s a spot,” he said, clearing his throat. “In the woods. It’s safe. Nobody goes out there but us.” 

“Us?”

“Me and Stack,” he clarified. “That okay with you?” he said a bit louder, looking over to meet Annie’s gaze once more. 

Annie’s hand tightened in her lap. “If it’s not?”

“I turn around, take you to your spot.” 

Annie considered for a moment, then nodded. 

“Okay.”

—

Smoke pulled up to a stretch of land, split in two by a rough dirt path. 

The ancient oak and sweetgum trees were tall surrounding it, bent over almost as if they were in reverence.

Smoke ushered Annie out of his truck, holding her steady by the waist so she wouldn’t fall victim to the uneven earth that made up the path. 

Leaves brushed the walkway, crunching underneath their boots as they made their way further into the forest. Smoke walked just ahead of Annie— sure in his steps, leading the way, looking behind him every so often to make sure she was still there. 

Annie’s eyes darted from the oak trees, to the blanket of fallen leaves beneath it, to the tiny animals that scurried in the thicket. 

The cicadas screeched above them, dulling the trickle of the creek just ahead of them— but Annie still felt the current. 

“Right here,” Annie said, stopping in her tracks, kneeling— her bare knees burrowing in the rich dirt where she landed. 

She brushed away the few leaves that laid over the spot, hands hovering over the earth. 

Then she dug. 

Smoke stopped when he didn’t feel her behind him. He turned around to find her completely absorbed in the ground.

Annie planted her hands in the dirt, soil instantly collecting under her fingernails. Her fingertips wrapped around a plant rooted deeply underneath the surface. 

She paused before pulling it towards her, pressing her other hand into the soil to steady herself. 

She stopped. 

Pulled the switchblade from her apron pocket, and made a clean cut at the root. 

Then she whispered something under her breath— not loud, just audible enough for Smoke to hear it. Her eyes squeezed shut, focusing on the plants, the soil, her own instinct. 

Smoke kept his eyes on Annie as the cicadas went quiet. 

The rustle of leaves faded. 

The silence of the woods lingered before it started to feel deafening. 

He took a step towards her before crouching down. Not interrupting, just giving into a sudden urgency that seemed to overtake his instinct. 

He balanced himself, his palm pressing into the soil next where Annie’s hand was firmly planted. 

A moment of silence—almost like he knew better than to interrupt—passed between them. 

“You good?” he whispered suddenly. 

Annie looked up towards Smoke, her hand pressing deeper in the soil. 

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice almost a whisper. She finished pulling the root, brushing dirt from her hands. “I’m good.” 

Smoke didn’t move right away. Neither did Annie. 

His hand flexed once in the soil, his thumb pressing into the dirt like he needed the touch. 

“Okay,” he replied, standing when pressure built in his ears that had his eyes scanning the woods. He cleared his throat, flexing his hands as he took a step back. 

“I’m right here,” he said, pointing to the outline of a house a ways down the dirt path.

Annie nodded again, turning back to her work as the sound of Smoke’s footsteps disappeared down the trail.

Time felt like it stood still.

It was afternoon now, the rays of sun that peeked through the trees the only indication of the day passing. 

Annie worked slowly, reverently—pulling, dusting and stacking in her basket until she felt like she collected enough. 

She sat on her knees, exhausted, wiping a small bead of sweat from her temple. 

Then she pulled out her paper and pencil.

She smoothed the paper as much as she could as it curved over her legs. It found the dips and grooves in her skin and the wrinkles in the fabric of her dress.

The tip of the pencil hovered for a moment before touching down. She drew a line, light at first. Then another, curving off it without closing. She paused, glancing at the ground, then back to the page. 

The roots pushed through the dirt the way they wanted, twisting under the surface before breaking through. She followed that with her pencil, letting the line bend where it needed to. It dragged slightly where the soil had been packed down. She smudged that part with her thumb. 

Light cut across the page unevenly— patches of it catching, others falling into shadow. She tilted the paper just slightly, filling in those parts with softer strokes. 

The lines didn’t come together cleanly. They spread, overlapped, smudged, and shaded, fading into one another until something like a moment took shape on the page.  

She looked at it for a minute longer, then slid the pencil back into her apron pocket. She folded the paper up until it was just a small square, and tucked that into her purse. 

Then she was back in the dirt.

Pressing soil back into place, covering what had been disturbed, working her hands until the ground looked just as she’d found it. 

—

Annie was gathering her things when she heard him in the distance. She perked up, her head craning over her shoulder. 

Her eyes narrowed as the bright afternoon sun blinded her from the sight walking up the path in the distance, but she could hear boots crunching against the bed of fallen leaves.

Smoke.

She raised a hand to block out the sun, her eyes sweeping up his frame until they landed on his. 

“Got lunch if you want some.”

She nodded once, moving to push herself up to her feet in one swift motion. Smoke caught her mid-motion on the arm, helping her stand all the way up. “Thank you,” she said, wiping her hands against her apron to shake off the dirt.  

Smoke turned, motioning his head for Annie to follow him. They walked side by side, the occasional birdcall or soft snap of twigs beneath their feet the only sounds between them. The house came into full view through the trees, a modest, well-preserved shotgun on cinderblocks. 

They stopped at a wash basin outside where she scrubbed her hands clean before moving to the porch. It was wide, slightly sagging, with sun-scorched floorboards that lifted on one side. Annie stepped through the door slowly, her eyes moving without hurry. 

The smell hit her first. The savory aroma of meat. Something smothered, simmered low and cooked slow. And spice. Enough to make your nose tingle, but not enough to make you sneeze.

The inside of the house was warm, but not in temperature. It was cozy—a neat space maintained with care. 

The space was deep, one long room sectioned off into separate areas. Two cots at the front behind a divider, and two heavy, metal trunks with rusted latches stood at the foot of each bed. The living area was just beyond that, decorated with bookshelves along the walls and a brown striped fabric couch in the center covered in plastic. By the back door was the kitchen— a wood-burning stove, table and chairs, and wooden shelving along the walls. 

Everything had its place, but not in a way that felt stiff. Stacks of clean dishes in the kitchen, neatly folded blankets on the couch, a slew of medals arranged carefully on a bookshelf, set apart from the other items in a way that made Annie pause. 

Smoke saw her glancing at them, but said nothing. The silverware clinked where he began to set them on the table.

“What are these?” Annie asked, pointing. She took a step towards them, careful not to touch. They were held inside a velvet box, displayed on a bed of faded cream-colored satin.

Smoke shrugged. “Shit from the war,” he muttered, moving past her to pull out glasses and plates like the question didn’t need much more than that.

Annie narrowed her eyes, leaning in just enough to read. Her lips moved faintly over the inscription.

 “République Française,” she read. She paused, looking across the room where Smoke was setting the table. “Why is it French?” 

Smoke exhaled sharply, setting a plate down harder than he meant to. “That’s who we fought with.”  

Annie’s brows pulled together. “What you mean?”

Smoke’s jaw ticked. “We fought…with the French army.”

“Why?”

That made Smoke pause.

“Jim Crow.” 

Annie didn’t say anything back. She had heard the stories. Knew them intimately. One of her own brothers was packed up and shipped out of Hoboken. Six months later, they sent word he was accidentally shot. Didn’t say how or why a man in the engineering battalion was subject to gunfire. 

They wouldn’t even send his body back. Said they wouldn’t pack it on a ship with the bodies of white men. 

All on account of Jim Crow. 

She slowly turned back to the medals. Green and red striped fabric affixed with brass stars sat at the top, at the bottom was the medal, its color a dull bronze. A round, raised figurehead sat in the center, intersected by two overlapping swords and four triangular spokes alternating between them. 

It looked delicate. It looked dangerous. It looked like something earned with blood, bone, and brutality.

“You speak it?” Smoke threw over his shoulder. 

Annie took her time to answer. She was still looking over the medals, drawn in by the detail. “Huh?” 

“French.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly, still looking at the medals. “I do.”

A beat passed. Annie’s eyes moved to the row of bound notebooks on the shelf next to the medals. Threadbare bindings, some canvas, some leather— all neatly aligned. On their spines were neat handwriting. Precise, thin, cursive, written in a deep, onyx ink. 

“Where you learn that?”

His voice came suddenly. Deeper. Closer. Right there next to her ear, just like in Chow’s.

Annie’s eyes fluttered shut, then snapped back open. She sighed, then twisted her neck over her shoulder to look Smoke in the eye.  

“You sho’ do live up to your nickname,” she drawled, squinting.

Smoke tilted his head. He had a twinkle in his eye and half a smirk on his lips. “What you mean by that?”

“You have a habit of sneakin’ up on people.”

He tilted his head to the other side, huffing a quiet laugh under his breath. “Ain’t sneakin’ if you payin’ attention, Miss Annie,” he teased.

“Who said I wasn’t payin’ attention,” she fired back, her Louisiana lilt wrapping around more than just her words. 

Smoke’s eyes flicked down slowly, following the curve of her face before landing on the pulse in her throat. It was steady. Too steady. His eyes flicked back up. 

Annie turned, fully facing him and crossing her arms lazily under her chest in one smooth move. “Back in Louisiana,” she answered, holding his gaze. “Everybody there know some kind of French.” 

Smoke answered with a grunt. Annie answered back with a hum, then moved around him to the kitchen. She sat at the table, easing herself into a chair that faced where he was still standing. Smoke let her go. He didn’t follow her—but his eyes did, body twisting slightly, hands flexing once at his sides. 

“You learn any?” She asked, leaning forward a little. “From the war?” 

Smoke turned until he was facing her where she was sitting across the room. Slowly. Not like he wanted to make a show out of it, just like her voice pulled him there. He walked back into the kitchen where cups and plates were stacked haphazardly on a row of shelves. He grabbed two glass mason jars, looking them over for a second before turning towards the table with them. “Little bit.” 

Annie tilted her head, something playful in it. “Like what?”

Smoke set the glasses down, one in front of Annie, the other directly across the table. “Hi. Bye.”

Annie smiled. “That it?”

“Mhm.”

She leaned back slightly in her chair, looking at him like she didn’t believe that for a second. “What else?”

Smoke paused for a second. Then shook his head. “Nah, nothin’.” 

Annie’s smile curved into something sly. “Tell me.” 

“Nah.” Smoke shook his head again. “Nothin’ a lady need to hear.”

She let out a soft laugh, fingers curling on the table. “Smoke, I got brothers,” she sassed. “Ain’t much I ain’t heard.” 

“That don’t mean—” He paused abruptly, cursing under his breath. Whatever was starting to curve up on his face flattened into a straight line.

He could hear it in the distance, the rumble at the edge of the dirt road that led the path to their home. The tread of tires crunching over leaves and fallen branches. The roar of an engine. The sudden cutoff. Then bootsteps. Familiar, unhurried, confident— like a walking permanent smirk. 

Smoke didn’t look up. 

The screen door reared back and slammed shut just as fast. In with it came the sweltering Mississippi heat like an unwelcome guest—and Stack. He stepped through the threshold casually like he owned the room, jacket hanging loose on his shoulders.  

“Smell somethin’ decent for once. Thought I was comin’ to the wrong hou—” 

He paused, standing in the doorway. His eyes moved quickly out of habit— from Annie’s hands resting lightly in her lap, to Smoke leaning over the table, then back to Annie.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said with a grin. 

Smoke looked up then, meeting his brother’s eyes. Something quick and quiet passed between them, making Stack’s brow rise a fraction. Just barely. Stack looked at Annie, her eyes darting between the two of them curiously. 

“Hey, Annie,” Stack said warmly.

Annie’s mouth curved, just a little. “Hey, Stack,” she replied just as warmly.

“Thought you was goin’ out,” Stack remarked to his brother as he moved further into the room. 

Smoke reached for the pitcher of tea, pouring it into glasses like nothing in the air had shifted. “Change of plans.”

Stack pulled out a chair and sat, leaning back like he was settling in to watch something play out. He nodded towards Annie. “You settlin’ in alright?”

“Yeah,” she replied, taking a sip of her tea. “Still learnin’ my way around.”

“Mm,” he hummed. “Ain’t too much to it. You’ll get used to it just fine.” 

Annie nodded, considering. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Stack’s eyes swept the room again. Table set. Two glasses. Two plates. Smoke at the counter, reaching for a third. Annie at the table. “Y’all ate?” Stack asked, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees. 

“‘Bout to,” Smoke replied. 

“Good,” he answered with a grin. “Came home at the right time, then.” 

Smoke uncovered the heavy pot on the stove. The savory scent of smothered neckbones filled the air— even more fragrant now. The aroma mingled with the sharp scent of bay leaf from the rice on the burner next to it. 

Smoke set Annie’s plate down in front of her, then set Stack’s plate down on the table and slid it to him, before setting his own down.

They ate their meal quietly, just the clinking of plates, occasional clearing of a throat, and hum of satisfaction that came with a good meal. 

Annie took slow bites, her eyes flicking between Smoke and Stack every so often, before drifting over to parts of the room she could see without turning her head. 

Smoke took slow, deliberate bites of his food— eyes much more steady, finding Annie where she sat across from him, then over to Stack where he was looking between the two of them with a glint of something in his eyes. 

Stack took a healthy bite of rice and meat, then set his fork down. He grabbed the mug in front of him, took a large audible gulp of tea, then set it on the table a little harder than necessary. He wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and cleared his throat dramatically, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest. 

Smoke didn’t react. Annie paused for half a second before returning right back to her food.

“So what y’all been doin’ all day?” He asked.

Annie looked across the table mid-bite at Smoke, who spoke up first.

“Miss Della asked me to give Annie a ride,” he said, looking at her while he spoke. “So she could do some work.” 

Stack’s eyes lingered on his brother before looking over at Annie, then back over to Smoke. “That right?” 

Smoke turned his head, looking Stack dead in the eyes. “That’s right.” 

Stack leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Why she ain’t ask me? I was already in town.” 

Smoke shrugged casually, his eyes still locked on his brother’s. “Gotta ask her.” 

They shared a look— whatever passed between them this time made Stack stand down. He leaned back in his chair, still smirking, eyes still sharp. “What work you doin’, Annie?”

“She tryna eat, Stack,” Smoke said firmly. “Her basket by the door since you so curious.” 

Stack put his hands up in a playful surrender. “My bad. Shit.” 

Annie’s legs swung under the table as she reached for her tea. She took a sip. Set the cup down, then cleared her throat. “This a nice place y’all got.” 

Stack rubbed the rim of his glass with his fingertips and looked up. 

Smoke rose from the table, taking his plate and Annie’s with him. “Thank you.” 

Annie stood up. She walked around the room slowly, eyes focusing on everything and nothing at all. “It’s just y’all two?” She asked, fingertips grazing a stack of quilts folded neatly, piled high on the couch. 

“Yeah,” Smoke answered quickly. “Just us.”

Annie processed that answer, then proceeded—hesitantly, for some reason. “Y’all got family here?” 

Stack’s jaw tightened. “Uncle. Aunt. Cousins.” 

Annie could feel the tension with her back turned. She didn’t push. 

“What ‘bout you?” Stack asked. “Miss Della the only family you got in Mississippi?”

“Mhmm,” Annie responded. “She the only one who left Louisiana.”

“Nobody else left?” Smoke asked.

“Nah,” she replied with a shake of her head.

“Why not?” Stack asked. 

“My family been there since we crossed…you know. We got land there. History. Guess they don’t want it fallin’ in the wrong hands.” 

“Makes sense,” Stack replied. 

Stack was still sitting at the table. Smoke was standing by the wash basin, arms crossed. They were both looking at her.

“I should get back,” she sighed, turning around. “Aunt Della’s probably wonderin’ where I am.” 

Smoke nodded, pushing himself off the counter. He crossed the room and grabbed his hat, keys, and Annie’s basket by the door, holding it open for her. “Ready?” 

“Yeah,” Annie said quietly. She stopped towards the door and paused. “Nice to see you again, Stack.”  

“Good seein’ you, Annie,” Stack said as she slipped out the door. His golds flashed. Smoke looked back at him once before stepping out behind Annie, giving Stack a look that made him grin a little wider just as the door shut behind them. 

—

The air outside felt like an exhale. The rays of sunset bled through the trees, splaying a single streak of gold across Annie’s shoulder where her top had shifted slightly. She walked just ahead of Smoke to his truck. She took a second to look back at him, just to find him already looking at her. She smiled a little, almost instinctively, before turning forward again. 

“Thank you, again,” she said as they reached the truck, her back flush to the passenger door. “For today.”

Smoke said nothing. He tilted his head down at her. Took a step closer. Then his gaze dropped. His hands rose, hovering over her shoulders. They hesitated for a second. Then they lowered, fingers hooking underneath the straps of her dress. He pulled it over her shoulders where it had slipped from them. Patted them gently, like his touch would make the fabric stay in place. Only then did he look back up at her— just before reaching behind her to slowly open the passenger side door. 

Annie didn’t exhale again until he rounded the front. 

The truck roared to life underneath them, bouncing over grooves and holes that the storm had made slick. The transition from countryside to town was quick, but that didn’t make it any less quiet. The sound of cicadas was traded with wagon wheels and commotion on the street. In one place it was just the land that watched, but the closer they got to Fourth, the more it felt like the town had eyes too. 

Annie hung gently out of the passenger side window, watching the scenery go by. Old equipment lay discarded in vines and weeds until the countryside gave way to wooden buildings and wire fences. Livestock turned into faces that stared back intently. She waved at some people she recognized out of instinct. Some she remembered from Chow’s, others from Luella’s and everywhere in between. They paused for a moment, whispering to one another. Their wave finally came, but it was a second too late. The feeling it carried with it was a little too stiff. Annie noticed it all—the hesitance, the whispers. 

She didn’t react all at once. 

First it was her arm. It moved from the window down to her lap. 

Then her head. It went from looking out the window to looking down. 

Then her shoulders slumped. Just slightly. 

Smoke looked over to the passenger side. To Annie’s hands gripping the hem of her apron, fingers fiddling with a loose string at the edge. She wasn’t looking out the window anymore. Smile was gone. Her head was down, her lips moving slightly, but no words were coming out. She almost looked smaller like this. Not dramatically, just enough for him to notice. 

But that wasn’t even what really bothered him. 

His hands tightened on the wheel. “Aye,” he said. “Don’t pay ‘em no mind.” 

Annie kept her eyes on the loose string, her fingers flicking it around. 

“You hear me?” Smoke asked as they came to a stop. He cut the engine, leaving them with only the sound of their own thoughts. 

Annie straightened up a little. “I’m good,” she replied. 

Smoke raised a brow, one hand on the wheel. “Good. Cuz we still gotta schedule our lesson.”

“Lesson?”

He tilted his head down, looking at Annie under his lashes. “Our French lesson.”

Annie chuckled, crossing her arms gently. “French lesson?” 

She blinked slowly, her long, thick lashes framing them delicately. “I thought I was too much of a lady for you to tell me what you learned over there, what changed?” 

Smoke gripped the wheel a little tighter. “Instead of me teachin’ you, I reckon you can teach me.”

“Teach you?” she asked incredulously. “What makes you so interested in French all of a sudden?” She continued, eyes wide.  

He looked over to the boarding house, then back over to Annie. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping a fraction. “I like the way you say it.” 

Annie’s eyes narrowed. “I said two words, Smoke.” 

“And I like the way you say it,” he said slower. 

Annie blinked, slowly, hands still crossed over her chest. “Hmm.”

He paused for a moment, eyes searching hers. 

“You sure you good?” He asked again.

Her breath caught. “Yeah,” she replied earnestly. “I’m okay.” 

“People ‘round here always got somethin’ to say about me, my brother. Especially people who ain’t even had a conversation with me. Don’t let that bother you none.” 

Annie felt her heart beat a little faster. His words, the care they carried with them, settling into her skin. Her eyes sparkled, that edge from a few moments earlier— softened a smidge. 

She hesitated first, then leaned over, planting a quick, innocent kiss on his cheek. 

“Bonne nuit,” she said gently. 

Smoke’s breath hitched. 

He heard the creak and thud of his truck door opening, then closing.

Watched Annie as she made her way up the steps of the boarding house.

Waited for her to disappear behind the door. 

Only then did he exhale.

Dividers: @/chrisssiren @/strangergraphics

Taglist: @milkywayzard @bananajoeclone @myheartsaysyes @nika324 @brownsugarcoffy @soufcakmistress @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @dealore @thedutifulone @lilbitt @kkbeauty86 @nyifly22 @brownskincheyenne @atpeaceinthestars @explodesallovertheplace @miss-spiders-sunny-patch @sweetarchivistsiege @zunibugsiren @blue4everrsworld @xeebop @hdfen2474 @girlmath101 @sintizc @chromexbarbie @theogbadbitch @shereeluvssinners @anniensmoke3 @og-goddesstrill @thebumblebeesworld @merrymaryfebruary @partylikemajima @numb1smokeanniestan @shamansha @nicanotnika

they had been on the run for six weeks. six weeks since they had to leave behind the home they built from the ground up. the roots and connections made in a city annie was beginning to love. all over a spur of the moment decision smoke made to save his brother. stack had gotten caught up. it was supposed to be a standard run. in and out. he had been meeting with the same business partner for months now. he didn’t pick up on the signs of the man being a fed.

but smoke did. elijah hardly ever missed a detail, he even paid attention to the smalls one. which was exactly how he ended up in this mess. it started off small: cars making the exact same turns, at the exact same time. then it picked up. money coming up missing, people who didn’t usually look twice suddenly asking too many questions. elijah took note of it all. knew when to be in place when the raid happened. played as his brother during questioning. they were twins after all. he could mirror mannerisms without a second thought.

and when he came to aneika’s door telling her he had to dip out for a while. she packed a bag and emptied her safe without another word. she knew it was dumb but smoke was all she knew. and if he was going, she was riding too.

he told her the plan: they would only be moving for a few weeks. laying low while also not being sitting ducks. cash payments only, they couldn’t afford to be tracked. not when the feds were on their tails and the devil was knocking at their door. and no matter what, he would never leave her behind. not then and not now.

annie played the plan back in her head. smoke was a man of his word. so if he said something annie had no choice but to trust it.

annie was so locked into her thoughts that she almost missed the passenger side door cracking open. almost. the intensity of the situation had her on high alert. her head snapped up quickly. smoke slid in stealthily while throwing two duffles bags into the backseat before the door even closed. she pulled off from the bank without another word.

they both chose to ignore the faint sound of sirens as they pulled off of the 2nd block from the bank. they had put enough distance between themselves for smoke to finally lift the ski mask from his face. sweat sliding down his temple. half from the cali heat and half from the adrenaline.

the car cruised into a smooth motion as they blended into the ongoing traffic. smoke peeped it off rip. a car unmarked just like theirs making the same turns, at the same speed. he felt a tingle go down his spine.

“speed up a lil bit ma” he tapped her thigh to gain her focus. she floored the pedal. weaving in and out of cars on the busy street. elijah stayed calm to not scare her as a heavy feeling creeped into his stomach.

aneika knew what the look on his face meant. someone was catching up to them. she shifted her mind off of him and back onto the packed highway, only a few more miles until the interstate. they could make it. she had been training for moments like this one since the day she met smoke and became a permanent part of his world.

her heartbeat echoed loudly in her ears. she could hear it over the sound of hot tires gliding over worn down roads. smoke felt the unease as if it were his own body creating the sensation. he lifted a hand to rub the back of her neck soothingly.

“whatever happens it’s me and you baby” he said emotion weighing down his words. annie blinked back tears. for some reason his words sounded like a goodbye. the exit for the interstate glowed like a small sun in front of the couple’s eyes.

she moved lanes smoothly. the exit she took was deserted, a sweet reprieve from the fast paced city they just left behind. elijah let out a deep sigh. everything felt too good to be true.

as they neared the end of the street, aneika blinked rapidly. lined up in front of them were swat cars stretching from end to end in a pool of flashing lights. then she heard it. the whooshing noise of helicopters circling above the roof of the car.

the car came to a halt in the middle of the empty road. smoke gripped her hand tightly and pulled her in for a breath taking kiss. every memory they shared together played on a loop in their heads.

“STEP OUT OF THE VECHICLE” was just background to smoke and annie.

sneaking into each other’s dorm rooms to share cold chinese food.

“FINAL WARNING” the chief sounded off again.

wedding vows whispered quietly before they faced the noise.

“FIRE” was the last thing the couple heard before rounds let off.

they had been on the run for six weeks. six weeks since they had to leave behind the home they built from the ground up. the roots and connections made in a city annie was beginning to love. all over a spur of the moment decision smoke made to save his brother. stack had gotten caught up. it was supposed to be a standard run. in and out. he had been meeting with the same business partner for months now. he didn’t pick up on the signs of the man being a fed.

but smoke did. elijah hardly ever missed a detail, he even paid attention to the smalls one. which was exactly how he ended up in this mess. it started off small: cars making the exact same turns, at the exact same time. then it picked up. money coming up missing, people who didn’t usually look twice suddenly asking too many questions. elijah took note of it all. knew when to be in place when the raid happened. played as his brother during questioning. they were twins after all. he could mirror mannerisms without a second thought.

and when he came to aneika’s door telling her he had to dip out for a while. she packed a bag and emptied her safe without another word. she knew it was dumb but smoke was all she knew. and if he was going, she was riding too.

he told her the plan: they would only be moving for a few weeks. laying low while also not being sitting ducks. cash payments only, they couldn’t afford to be tracked. not when the feds were on their tails and the devil was knocking at their door. and no matter what, he would never leave her behind. not then and not now.

annie played the plan back in her head. smoke was a man of his word. so if he said something annie had no choice but to trust it.

annie was so locked into her thoughts that she almost missed the passenger side door cracking open. almost. the intensity of the situation had her on high alert. her head snapped up quickly. smoke slid in stealthily while throwing two duffles bags into the backseat before the door even closed. she pulled off from the bank without another word.

they both chose to ignore the faint sound of sirens as they pulled off of the 2nd block from the bank. they had put enough distance between themselves for smoke to finally lift the ski mask from his face. sweat sliding down his temple. half from the cali heat and half from the adrenaline.

the car cruised into a smooth motion as they blended into the ongoing traffic. smoke peeped it off rip. a car unmarked just like theirs making the same turns, at the same speed. he felt a tingle go down his spine.

“speed up a lil bit ma” he tapped her thigh to gain her focus. she floored the pedal. weaving in and out of cars on the busy street. elijah stayed calm to not scare her as a heavy feeling creeped into his stomach.

aneika knew what the look on his face meant. someone was catching up to them. she shifted her mind off of him and back onto the packed highway, only a few more miles until the interstate. they could make it. she had been training for moments like this one since the day she met smoke and became a permanent part of his world.

her heartbeat echoed loudly in her ears. she could hear it over the sound of hot tires gliding over worn down roads. smoke felt the unease as if it were his own body creating the sensation. he lifted a hand to rub the back of her neck soothingly.

“whatever happens it’s me and you baby” he said emotion weighing down his words. annie blinked back tears. for some reason his words sounded like a goodbye. the exit for the interstate glowed like a small sun in front of the couple’s eyes.

she moved lanes smoothly. the exit she took was deserted, a sweet reprieve from the fast paced city they just left behind. elijah let out a deep sigh. everything felt too good to be true.

as they neared the end of the street, aneika blinked rapidly. lined up in front of them were swat cars stretching from end to end in a pool of flashing lights. then she heard it. the whooshing noise of helicopters circling above the roof of the car.

the car came to a halt in the middle of the empty road. smoke gripped her hand tightly and pulled her in for a breath taking kiss. every memory they shared together played on a loop in their heads.

“STEP OUT OF THE VECHICLE” was just background to smoke and annie.

sneaking into each other’s dorm rooms to share cold chinese food.

“FINAL WARNING” the chief sounded off again.

wedding vows whispered quietly before they faced the noise.

“FIRE” was the last thing the couple heard before rounds let off.

they had been on the run for six weeks. six weeks since they had to leave behind the home they built from the ground up. the roots and connections made in a city annie was beginning to love. all over a spur of the moment decision smoke made to save his brother. stack had gotten caught up. it was supposed to be a standard run. in and out. he had been meeting with the same business partner for months now. he didn’t pick up on the signs of the man being a fed.

but smoke did. elijah hardly ever missed a detail, he even paid attention to the smalls one. which was exactly how he ended up in this mess. it started off small: cars making the exact same turns, at the exact same time. then it picked up. money coming up missing, people who didn’t usually look twice suddenly asking too many questions. elijah took note of it all. knew when to be in place when the raid happened. played as his brother during questioning. they were twins after all. he could mirror mannerisms without a second thought.

and when he came to aneika’s door telling her he had to dip out for a while. she packed a bag and emptied her safe without another word. she knew it was dumb but smoke was all she knew. and if he was going, she was riding too.

he told her the plan: they would only be moving for a few weeks. laying low while also not being sitting ducks. cash payments only, they couldn’t afford to be tracked. not when the feds were on their tails and the devil was knocking at their door. and no matter what, he would never leave her behind. not then and not now.

annie played the plan back in her head. smoke was a man of his word. so if he said something annie had no choice but to trust it.

annie was so locked into her thoughts that she almost missed the passenger side door cracking open. almost. the intensity of the situation had her on high alert. her head snapped up quickly. smoke slid in stealthily while throwing two duffles bags into the backseat before the door even closed. she pulled off from the bank without another word.

they both chose to ignore the faint sound of sirens as they pulled off of the 2nd block from the bank. they had put enough distance between themselves for smoke to finally lift the ski mask from his face. sweat sliding down his temple. half from the cali heat and half from the adrenaline.

the car cruised into a smooth motion as they blended into the ongoing traffic. smoke peeped it off rip. a car unmarked just like theirs making the same turns, at the same speed. he felt a tingle go down his spine.

“speed up a lil bit ma” he tapped her thigh to gain her focus. she floored the pedal. weaving in and out of cars on the busy street. elijah stayed calm to not scare her as a heavy feeling creeped into his stomach.

aneika knew what the look on his face meant. someone was catching up to them. she shifted her mind off of him and back onto the packed highway, only a few more miles until the interstate. they could make it. she had been training for moments like this one since the day she met smoke and became a permanent part of his world.

her heartbeat echoed loudly in her ears. she could hear it over the sound of hot tires gliding over worn down roads. smoke felt the unease as if it were his own body creating the sensation. he lifted a hand to rub the back of her neck soothingly.

“whatever happens it’s me and you baby” he said emotion weighing down his words. annie blinked back tears. for some reason his words sounded like a goodbye. the exit for the interstate glowed like a small sun in front of the couple’s eyes.

she moved lanes smoothly. the exit she took was deserted, a sweet reprieve from the fast paced city they just left behind. elijah let out a deep sigh. everything felt too good to be true.

as they neared the end of the street, aneika blinked rapidly. lined up in front of them were swat cars stretching from end to end in a pool of flashing lights. then she heard it. the whooshing noise of helicopters circling above the roof of the car.

the car came to a halt in the middle of the empty road. smoke gripped her hand tightly and pulled her in for a breath taking kiss. every memory they shared together played on a loop in their heads.

“STEP OUT OF THE VECHICLE” was just background to smoke and annie.

sneaking into each other’s dorm rooms to share cold chinese food.

“FINAL WARNING” the chief sounded off again.

wedding vows whispered quietly before they faced the noise.

“FIRE” was the last thing the couple heard before rounds let off.

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. 

Jada Wilson wasn’t the type of girl who liked to lose. 

It wasn’t because she was mean, and it wasn’t because she thought she was better than everybody else. She liked working hard and seeing results. If she studied for a test, she expected a good grade. If she auditioned for something, she expected the spot. If she walked into a room, she expected to leave an impression. Most of the time life made sense to her because effort and reward usually moved together. Teachers remembered her because she participated. Boys noticed her because she was pretty. People gravitated towards her because she was funny. None of that felt complicated. 

It felt earned.

That was probably why Anissa “Annie” Landry irritated her so much.

She didn’t dislike her at first. At first Annie was barely a blip on her radar. Nothing more than another smart girl in her Honors Biology. They sat near each other, partnered on projects occasionally, and shared enough classes that familiarity came naturally. Jada liked her then. Everybody liked Annie. The problem was Annie seemed completely unaware of the effect she had on people. Teachers, classmates, and even complete strangers trusted her, confided in her, and listened when she spoke. Annie never seemed to chase attention, yet attention found her anyway.

By October, most of the freshman class already knew whose names lived at the top of the grade rankings. Annie. Jada. Malcolm. Sometimes another student slipped into the conversation, but those three stayed there consistently enough that everybody noticed. Jada noticed because she cared. Annie only seemed to notice only when somebody pointed it out.

Jada could admit that she paid more attention to Annie than Annie ever paid to her. Annie shrugged off good grades like they were nothing to celebrate, like success was something that simply found her whether she reached for it or not. She didn’t treat life like a competition. In fact, Jada found it frustratingly difficult to tell whether Annie ever competed for anything at all. Every conversation she had with Annie left her feeling like she was in a race by herself. Annie never bragged, gloated or rubbed anything in anybody’s face. If she had, Jada might’ve found it easier to straight up dislike her. Instead, Annie never seemed to fight for attention, yet attention found her anyway. That made everything worse.

And then there was Elijah “Smoke” Moore. 

She had World History with him and Stack, and found herself gravitating toward him. It wasn’t just because he was fine. All the girls thought he was fine as hell. Stack too. The difference was that after a while, his looks stopped being the thing she noticed first. He was quiet without being shy, smart without showing off, and funny whenever he actually felt like talking. She mentioned him in conversation casually enough that nobody thought much of it, including Annie. Looking back, she wasn’t even sure when curiosity became attraction. She started looking for him in crowded hallways and listening for his laugh across cafeterias. Which would’ve been embarrassing if it hadn’t happened to half the girls at school. It was the fact that he didn’t react to her the way other boys did. Most boys either flirted immediately or spent so much time trying not to stare that it became awkward. Smoke did neither. There was a quiet confidence about him. A steadiness that felt older than seventeen. The kind of confidence that never needed announcing.

He talked to her like everybody else. He remembered things she told him. Laughed at her jokes. Held entire conversations without once making her feel like he was trying to impress her or fuck her. At first she found it refreshing. Then she found it confusing.

The more time she spent around him, the more she paid attention to him. She noticed that the “quiet reputation” people gave him wasn’t entirely true. Smoke wasn’t shy. He just didn’t waste words. So when he did speak, people listened. There was a steadiness to him she didn’t find in other boys their age. 

Mike was sweet. 

Isoo was funny. 

Stack was…Stack. Impossible to ignore. 

But Smoke was something different. Being around him felt easy, and she wanted more of it. More of him.

By the middle of freshman year she started doing things she’d never admit to out loud. Lingering after class. Choosing seats closer to him when she could. Finding reasons to continue conversations that should’ve ended five minutes earlier. The frustrating part was that Smoke never treated her like a girl he was trying to avoid. He talked to her. Laughed with her. Sat beside her in class when the seating chart put them together. If he’d been rude, she probably would’ve gotten over her crush on him. 

Instead, he was kind. 

And kindness left far more room for imagination than rejection ever could.

If somebody had watched them from a distance, they probably would’ve assumed he liked her. Hell…she almost convinced herself of the same thing.

But she never expected Annie to factor into the equation.

One afternoon after school, a crowd of students lingered outside waiting for rides while the Mississippi heat rose from the pavement in visible waves. Stack was in the middle of a story and Smoke stood nearby having his own conversation with Mike. Jada walked over and joined them, enjoying the small satisfaction of making Smoke laugh at something she said. 

Then something happened. Something that anybody else would’ve overlooked. It should’ve been forgettable. Instead it became one of those memories that stayed rent free in her mind for years. 

Stack yelled something from across the parking lot and Smoke turned. Jada expected him to look at his brother. Instead his attention drifted somewhere over her shoulder. The movement was subtle enough that most people would’ve missed it, but she didn’t. She followed his line of sight and when it landed, her heart dropped. Annie stood near the curb with Pearline and a few other girls, her backpack hanging from one shoulder laughing at something one of them said. Smoke was looking right at her. Annie wasn’t flirting. She wasn’t loudly trying to get anyone’s attention. In fact, she looked completely unaware that Smoke was even looking hee way at all. 

Jada glanced back toward him and felt something in her chest tighten unexpectedly. His expression hadn’t changed much. There was no grin. No obvious reaction or giveaway that would’ve made the answer easy. What she saw instead was interest. Pure interest. The kind that settled naturally and comfortably, like he’d found exactly what he was looking for without meaning to. When Jada looked back, Annie looked up. Her and Smoke’s eyes met for barely a second before surprise crossed her face in that honest, unguarded way people managed when they weren’t expecting to be seen. Smoke looked away first and the moment disappeared so quickly that nobody else seemed to notice it had happened. The conversation picked right back up. Everything went back to normal as though a five-second interaction in a parking lot hadn’t just rearranged something inside her.

And Jada couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d just seen. 

The truth landed harder than she wanted it to. Smoke liked Annie. And not in the casual way boys claimed to like half the girls at school. It wasn’t in the temporary way crushes came and went every few weeks. He liked her. Liked her.

The part Jada couldn’t understand wasn’t that Smoke liked somebody. It was that the somebody was Annie. Annie wasn’t louder than anybody else. She wasn’t chasing him. Half the time she seemed completely unaware of him. And yet, out of all the girls walking those hallways every day, his attention found her.

Why Annie? 

The question stayed with Jada long after that afternoon ended. Not because she thought Annie wasn’t pretty, smart, or worth liking. Annie was all of those things. What bothered her was that she couldn’t figure out what Annie had that made Smoke look at her differently. 

The more she watched them over the following months, the more that question followed her around, and the harder it became to pretend she didn’t already know the answer. Once she noticed it, she started seeing it everywhere—in the way Smoke listened when Annie talked, in the way his attention settled on her naturally no matter who else was around, and in the quiet consistency of his choices. There were no grand gestures, no public declarations, nothing dramatic enough to become gossip. What existed between them was built from a hundred small moments most people would’ve overlooked and a hundred more that Jada couldn’t stop noticing.

At some point she started testing it. Nothing obvious or anything she couldn’t explain away afterward. A comment here. A joke there. Sitting a little closer than necessary. One time at a party she picked up Smoke’s cup and took a sip while she was talking, mostly because she could. Smoke didn’t notice. Annie didn’t react the way she envisioned. The conversations kept moving. At first she thought she’d proven nothing. Later she realized she’d proven exactly what she’d been afraid of. Neither of them acted like there was anything to compete for because they belonged to each other already.

That was the part Jada hated most.

Whatever existed between them had been there long before either one of them said it out loud.

Life eventually moved on the way life always did. High school ended. Annie left for North Carolina during their senior year and, for a while, it felt like she took part of the town with her. It wasn’t because people sat around talking about her every day, but because certain stories suddenly stopped being told. People changed. 

Smoke most of all.

Jada noticed that too.

The version of Smoke everybody knew after Annie left wasn’t an angry one. If anything, he became quieter. More closed off. He still laughed when something was funny, showed up when people called, and still worked, helped, and handled business the way he always had. But something about him felt absent, as though a door had closed somewhere inside and nobody knew how to open it again.

But life carried Jada away too, before she had much time to dwell on it. College came next. An engagement. Then a marriage. Neither lasted the way she’d hoped. By the time she moved back home and started building a career in real estate, she was older, smarter, and considerably less interested in fairy tales.

Then she ran into Smoke again.

One of his construction crews had been working on a property she was helping list and for a second she thought she hadn’t recognized him. Then he looked up and gave her a half smile and just like that, she was sixteen again. The attraction came back embarrassingly fast. Older now. More controlled.

But still there.

The difference was that adulthood gave her advantages she hadn’t possessed in high school. She didn’t have to sit around wondering whether a boy liked her. She could simply ask him to dinner. So she did. One dinner turned into another. Then another. At some point the conversation drifted toward old classmates the way it always did when people got older.

“Whatever happened to Annie?” Jada asked.

The reaction was immediate. Something closed. Smoke took a drink and looked away. “She live in North Carolina.”

Jada laughed. “I thought y’all would’ve been married with twenty kids by now.”

Smoke didn’t laugh. The silence that followed answered more than words ever could. A few minutes later he changed the subject entirely.

Jada never brought Annie up again. Later that same night she asked if he was seeing anybody.

“No.”

“You lookin’?”

“No.”

The answer should’ve discouraged her. Instead she smiled. “Well, lucky for you, neither am I.”

The arrangement that followed worked because neither of them pretended it was anything else. They spent time together. Ate dinner once in awhile. Called sometimes. Shared her bed often enough. Smoke was kind to her. Respectful. But from the beginning he made one thing clear. 

He didn’t want a relationship. 

He told her more than once that she deserved somebody capable of giving her what she wanted. More than once he told her that if she found that person, she shouldn’t let him stand in the way of it. 

Jada heard every word. 

The problem was…she kept hoping. 

Not because Smoke encouraged it, but because she thought time might. She thought consistency might. She thought enough good days stacked together could eventually become something neither of them planned. Maybe that was foolish. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, she had started believing they still had time.

Then Mary called the day of the cookout.

Jada had been at the showing she was covering for a colleague. The conversation started normal enough, which should have been her first warning sign. Mary was never normal when she had gossip. By the time she finally got to the point, Jada wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Bitch, Annie’s back!”

Suddenly all those years she hadn’t spent thinking about high school came rushing back at once. The words settled somewhere unexpected. Surprising. The surprise lasted exactly three seconds before Mary delivered the second piece.

“The cookout at Pearline’s aunt house… it’s a party for Annie coming back home.”

That was the moment everything else disappeared. The noise of the clients asking about square footage faded into the background. The showing stopped mattering. Even Mary’s voice asking her what she was going to do became distant as another thought slid immediately into place. 

For the first time since hearing Annie’s name, she wasn’t thinking about high school anymore.

She was thinking about Smoke. 

He had been acting strange. Distracted. Quieter than usual. Looking at his phone more than normal. Now she understood exactly why he hadn’t seemed like himself. Some old shit came back up…. I ain’t figured out what to do with it yet. The pieces connected so quickly that Jada almost laughed.

Annie.

By the time she pulled into Aunt Cheryl’s yard, she already knew who she was looking for. The problem was she hadn’t expected to find them standing together.

And she for damn sure hadn’t expected to find them holding hands.

Smoke was holding Annie’s hand. 

On its own, that didn’t mean anything. 

People touched, hugged, and got caught up in conversations and forgot who was watching. 

What unsettled her was everything wrapped around the gesture. 

The look that had passed between them before Smoke finally let go. The way neither of them seemed aware of anybody else until she spoke. The strange sense that she’d walked into the middle of something already in progress.

For a moment nobody said anything. 

The sounds of the cookout continued around them as though nothing unusual had happened. Children ran through the yard screaming over water guns. Two men at the dominoes table accused each other of cheating. Mrs. Cheryl was threatening bodily harm if they didn’t quit acting stupid. The music changed somewhere behind her. Life continued moving. 

Yet standing there, looking between Smoke and Annie, Jada couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d interrupted a conversation neither of them had wanted to end.

The hand didn’t bother her nearly as much as Smoke’s face had. Over the past year she’d seen him tired, irritated, amused, distracted, and halfway asleep after a fourteen-hour workday. She’d seen him fresh off job sites and fresh out of the shower. She’d seen him after bad days and worse weeks. What she’d just seen standing across from Annie felt different.

There had been a lightness to him she couldn’t remember seeing, as though some invisible weight had disappeared without warning. Now the distracted silences, the moments he’d stared at his phone and seemed somewhere else entirely, made perfect sense.

What unsettled her more was how he looked at her. The surprise on his face had disappeared quickly enough.

The irritation hadn’t.

It was subtle. Most people would’ve missed it. Smoke wasn’t expressive enough for dramatic reactions. But Jada had spent too much time learning his moods not to recognize one when she saw it.

Every time she spoke, his attention drifted back toward Annie. When Annie looked away, his eyes followed her. And when he did look at Jada? 

The expression wasn’t warm.

It wasn’t guilty either. It looked closer to frustration. Like she’d walked into the middle of something he wasn’t finished with yet.

The realization settled heavily in her chest. She recognized that look too.

From high school.

Back when she’d stand beside him talking and catch him looking over her shoulder at Annie. When she’d convince herself she imagined it. 

Back when she still thought being patient would eventually change the outcome.

Still, Jada smiled. She had spent too many years learning how to smile through discomfort to stop now. 

“Annie.” Her voice came out warm and easy, exactly the way it was supposed to. “It’s been a long time.”

Annie smiled back automatically, but there was a delay to it that immediately caught Jada’s attention. She looked like somebody still trying to catch up to a conversation everyone else had already started. “Yeah. It has.”

“When did you get in town?”

“Thursday.”

“No kidding.” Jada adjusted the strap of her purse and glanced briefly toward Smoke before looking back at Annie. “Smoke didn’t tell me you were back.”

The sentence left her mouth easily enough, but she knew exactly why she’d said it.

She wanted to see. 

So Jada watched Annie carefully. The confusion arrived first, then recognition. Then something else. 

Jada recognized that look because she’d worn versions of it herself before. The moment when information rearranged itself into understanding. If she was being completely honest, some small, selfish part of her wanted Annie to understand. Wanted her to know she wasn’t just another person at the cookout. That Smoke existed in her life too.

Maybe that made her petty or even insecure. Maybe it made her exactly the same girl she’d been in high school. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t deny the small flicker of satisfaction when she saw it finally click for Annie.

Whatever Annie had expected when she came back to Mississippi, this wasn’t it. Jada watched her expectations crumble behind her eyes and Jada immediately felt guilty for her own smugness that followed. It wasn’t Annie’s confusion she enjoyed. It was the confirmation that she wasn’t invisible. For years she’d been the girl standing on the outside of whatever existed between Annie and Smoke. Now, for the first time, Annie was being forced to acknowledge that Jada occupied space in his life too.

Across the yard, movement caught her eye. Mary had finally wandered close enough to be useful and dangerous at the same time. The woman was carrying a red cup and looking entirely too pleased with herself. One glance toward Stack confirmed he had already figured out exactly who was responsible for this shit. Pearline looked ready to strangle somebody. Probably Mary. Maybe Stack. Maybe Jada. Possibly all three.

Jada almost laughed.

Almost.

Because standing there between Smoke and Annie, she had the uncomfortable feeling that this situation was about to become everybody’s problem.

“No kidding... Smoke didn’t tell me you were back.”

Annie wasn’t sure how to respond to that. The statement felt simple enough on the surface, but something about it snagged in her chest.

Jada laughed softly and shook her head.

“Then again, he ain’t really been himself lately.”

The comment was delivered so casually Annie almost missed it.

Almost.

Annie looked toward Elijah before she meant to. His attention was already on her.

Not Jada.

Her.

The conversations around them hadn’t stopped, but something in his posture had changed. His shoulders were tighter now. His expression quieter. Like he was listening to a conversation he couldn’t quite hear but already knew he wasn’t going to like the ending of.

Annie tried to focus on what Jada was saying to her. She really did. Jada was standing right there asking normal questions in a normal voice, smiling the same way she always had, and nothing about the interaction should have felt strange. 

People moved on. People dated. People built lives. Eight years had passed since Annie left Mississippi. She knew all of that. She understood it so completely that she almost became angry at herself for struggling with something that should have been obvious.

Still, her attention kept snagging on small things she couldn’t seem to ignore. The ease in Jada’s posture. The familiarity in her voice. And now that one sentence kept replaying itself in Annie’s head.

He ain’t really been himself lately.

It wasn’t what Jada had said. It was how she’d said it. Like she knew what normal looked like. Like she’d been close enough to notice the difference.

But Elijah wasn’t looking at Jada at all. Every time Annie glanced up, his eyes found her again. Concern. Like he could see something growing and didn’t know how to stop it.

Annie couldn’t process that at the moment. She couldn’t stop noticing that nobody around them seemed surprised Jada was standing there. Not Stack and definitely not Pearline. The realization arrived gradually, settling into place one piece at a time.

Jada wasn’t visiting Elijah’s world. She was already a part of it.

“Mississippi must seem different now,” Jada said with a small laugh.

Annie looked at her. “What?”

Jada smiled. “I said Mississippi must seem different now.”

“Oh.” Annie forced a smile. “Yeah.”

The conversation continued around her, but Annie found herself looking past Jada and toward Pearline. The glance was brief. It didn’t need to be longer. Something flickered across Pearline’s face the moment their eyes met, and Annie felt her stomach drop before her mind fully caught up.

Suddenly the entire day looked different.

Pearline sitting on the edge of the bed while Annie changed clothes for the hundredth time. Her listening to her talk about Elijah. Her watching her spend an entire afternoon slipping back into old memories she should have known better than to trust.

None of those moments had felt unusual at the time. Standing here now, they rearranged themselves into something else entirely.

Pearline looked away first.

And that hurt more than anything Jada had said.

Annie smiled automatically when somebody laughed at a joke she hadn’t heard. The expression felt strange on her face. Around her the cookout continued without interruption. Auntie Max was waving a paper plate around while telling a story loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear. Everything looked exactly the same as it had fifteen minutes ago, yet everything felt completely different now.

She looked toward Elijah before she could stop herself and immediately regretted it.

He was still looking at her. 

He wasn’t really talking anymore. Stack had said something. Mary laughed. Jada answered somebody’s question. Elijah hadn’t reacted to any of it. His attention remained fixed on Annie, his expression growing more troubled the longer she stood there pretending everything was fine.

Concern sat plainly across his face now, and the sight irritated her more than it should have. Concern meant he knew something was wrong. Concern meant he could see it happening. Concern meant he was watching her fall apart in real time.

That was the final straw.

Because Annie could handle disappointment. She could handle awkwardness. She could even handle finding out Elijah had moved on. 

What she couldn’t handle was standing here feeling exposed. 

Feeling foolish. 

Feeling like the only person who hadn’t known what was happening. 

The humiliation crept in quietly, attaching itself to every memory she’d made since getting off the plane. Every conversation. Every question. Every moment she’d allowed herself to hope for something she had never said aloud. By the time she finally spoke, her voice sounded perfectly normal.

“Excuse me.”

Nobody would have noticed anything wrong. Nobody except Elijah and Pearline.

Annie saw it immediately when Elijah straightened and took a small step forward. The movement was instinctive, the kind people made when they sensed trouble coming. For a second it looked like he might say something. Explain something. Stop her. Annie didn’t give him the chance.

“Y’all enjoy yourselves.”

The smile never left her face as she turned toward the house. She heard Pearline call her name before she reached the steps, but she kept walking anyway. The screen door opened and closed behind her, muting the sounds of the cookout almost instantly. Only then did she allow herself to stop pretending she was fine.

The bedroom door clicked shut behind her, muting the noise from the backyard without silencing it completely. Music still drifted faintly through the floorboards. Every few minutes a burst of laughter floated up from downstairs, followed by the low hum of conversation and the occasional shout from Aunt Cheryl whenever somebody touched food they weren’t supposed to touch. The sounds were familiar enough to be comforting. Instead they made Annie feel trapped. The cookout was still happening. Everybody was still down there. 

The world hadn’t stopped just because hers suddenly felt off balance.

She crossed the room and dragged her suitcase onto the bed. The zipper caught halfway open and she jerked it harder than necessary, dislodging the contents inside. A shirt disappeared into one corner. A pair of jeans landed on top of it. One sandal followed before she stopped and stared at the mess she’d created. Nothing about it resembled packing. The blue sundress she’d rejected earlier that morning still hung over the chair near the window. Seeing it there brought back the memory of standing in front of Pearline’s mirror for nearly an hour while her friend laughed and told her she looked fine. At the time she’d told herself she was nervous about coming home. Looking at the dress now, she realized that hadn’t been entirely true. 

Nobody spent forty-five minutes deciding what to wear to a family cookout unless some part of them cared who might be there.

The thought followed her to the dresser. The bottle of tequila sat exactly where she’d left it earlier, half-forgotten beside a hairbrush and a tube of lip gloss. For a second she just stared at it. Then she twisted the cap off and took a long swallow straight from the bottle.

The liquor burned all the way down, sharp enough to make her wince. She stood there waiting for it to do something useful. Numb her. Distract her. Slow her thoughts down. Instead the burn faded almost immediately and left everything else untouched.

Jada’s face remained exactly where Annie had left it.

So did the sound of her voice.

Smoke didn’t tell me you were back.

That was the problem. 

Jada had said them the way people said ordinary things, the way people spoke when they weren’t thinking twice about what they were revealing. There had been familiarity in the statement. History. Conversations Annie hadn’t been a part of. Enough conversations that her return to Mississippi had become information Jada expected to have. Annie took another drink and walked toward the window before she could think too hard about it.

The backyard stretched beyond the trees in patches of movement and color. She couldn’t make out individual faces from here, only clusters of people gathered around tables and lawn chairs while smoke drifted lazily upward from the grill. Somewhere down there Elijah was probably sitting beside Jada.

The thought arrived uninvited and irritated her immediately.

Smoke could date whoever he wanted. He wasn’t married. He wasn’t obligated to explain himself to her. Eight years was a long time. Long enough for people to build entirely different lives.

She knew that.

She believed that.

The problem was that knowing something and feeling it turned out to be two very different things.

Every time she tried to reason her way through it, her mind circled back to the same uncomfortable place. Not that Elijah had moved on, it was that she’d spent the entire day realizing she never had.

She took another shot. The tequila burned less this time, or maybe she was just getting used to it.

What she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about was Jada.

It was because it was Jada.

The same girl who always seemed to be measuring herself against Annie back in high school. The same girl who smiled while making comments that left Annie wondering whether she’d imagined the insult. The same girl who spent years trying to figure out why Smoke paid attention to Annie and not her.

Annie closed her eyes. Immediately she hated herself for thinking it. It wasn’t fair. Elijah didn’t know any of that.

Not really.

He knew Jada the same way everybody knew Jada. Funny. Smart. Beautiful. He hadn’t been standing beside Annie during those hallway conversations. He hadn’t seen the looks. He hadn’t felt the subtle edge hiding beneath the smiles.

Still, the thought lingered.

Did he know?

Annie stared back out the window.

Didn’t he know how she felt about Jada? Didn’t he know she’d never really trusted her? Didn’t he know enough about Annie to know that this, out of everything, would fucking hurt?

The questions sounded ridiculous the second they formed, because what exactly was Elijah supposed to do with information like that?

Avoid a woman for eight years because his high school girlfriend didn’t like her?

The idea was absurd. Annie knew it was absurd. Yet somehow that didn’t stop it from hurting. 

The truth was she hadn’t spent the day grieving what Elijah had with Jada. She’d spent the day imagining what might still exist between her and Elijah. That was the part she couldn’t forgive herself for. 

Not the jealousy.

The hope.

That truth settled over her slowly as she sat on the edge of the bed. The photographs. Geneva talking about Elijah carrying her inside when she fell asleep on his shoulder. The way everybody at the table had spoken about them like they were inevitable. The way Elijah had looked at her after learning she never wanted to leave. 

The warmth of his hand around hers. 

None of those moments would’ve mattered if some part of her hadn’t been carrying hope onto that plane from North Carolina. She hated admitting that, even to herself. Hope felt childish at twenty-five. Hope felt irresponsible after eight years. Yet the evidence sat all around the room. The dress she’d changed out of three times. The suitcase she’d never fully unpacked. The mixtape buried somewhere among her things. She hadn’t come to Mississippi looking for closure. 

She’d come looking for possibility, and now she felt stupid for pretending otherwise.

Another swallow of tequila disappeared before she realized she’d picked up the bottle again. The burn barely registering anymore. What did register was the growing discomfort that had nothing to do with Jada and everything to do with Pearline. 

The longer Annie sat there, the more the last two days began rearranging themselves. Pearline encouraging her to come. Pearline listening to every story about Elijah. Sitting on the edge of the bed that morning while Annie changed clothes. Watching her spend an entire afternoon slipping back into old memories she should’ve known better than to trust. 

None of those moments had felt strange when they happened. Looking back now, they felt different. Heavier. Like pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t realized she was assembling.

Annie stared at the bedroom door and tightened her grip on the bottle. She didn’t know exactly how long she’d been sitting there, but she knew Pearline well enough to know what would come next. 

Pearline hated conflict. Hated disappointing people even more. There was no chance she was leaving Annie up here alone. Sooner or later those footsteps would come down the hallway. Sooner rather than later the door would open. The thought should’ve prepared her. 

Instead it made the hurt settle deeper. 

Because for the first time since walking into the house, Annie stopped thinking about Jada standing beside Elijah and started thinking about her best friend downstairs, the one person who had known exactly how much hope Annie had carried back to Mississippi and said nothing at all.

Pearline didn’t knock.

The door opened slowly before Annie could tell her not to come in, and the look on her face was so familiar Annie almost hated her for it. Concern. Caution. The expression Pearline wore whenever she thought somebody was about to make a bad decision.

Unfortunately for both of them, Annie had already made several.

Neither of them spoke at first. Pearline’s eyes moved from the open suitcase to the tequila bottle resting beside Annie’s leg before finally settling on Annie herself. Annie knew exactly what she saw. Red eyes. A half-packed suitcase. Clothes scattered across the bed. One sandal near the bathroom door and the other somehow buried beneath a blouse sleeve hanging halfway out of the luggage. The packing wasn’t real. Annie knew it. Pearline probably knew it too. She’d managed to put three shirts into the suitcase and somehow remove four. Every few minutes she found herself folding the same piece of clothing she’d already folded before throwing it into a different corner of the room.

“How much of that you done drank?”

Annie glanced down at the bottle. “Enough.”

Pearline sighed and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

The sound made something tighten in Annie’s chest.

“You ain’t finna leave.”

Annie laughed under her breath and reached for another shirt. “The hell I’m not.”

“You drunk.”

“I’m buzzed.”

“Annie.”

“I’m grown.”

Pearline rubbed a hand across her forehead.

The movement irritated Annie so bad. The careful voice irritated her. The patience irritated her. The concern irritated her. All of it felt like somebody trying to calm her down before she’d even been allowed to be upset. 

She shoved another armful of clothes into the suitcase and immediately regretted it when the zipper refused to cooperate. The tequila bottle found its way back into her hand before she even realized she’d reached for it.

Pearline watched her struggle with the suitcase for another minute before speaking again.

“I was gonna tell you.”

Annie stopped. She couldn’t help it. The words settled somewhere deep enough to hurt.

Slowly she looked up. “No you wasn’t.”

“I was.”

“When?”

Pearline opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Annie laughed. The sound wasn’t pleasant. “Exactly.”

“I didn’t know how.”

The answer hit Annie harder because it sounded honest. Honest and useless at the same time. She looked away before Pearline could see it landed. 

Outside Annie could hear laughter. She hated them for laughing. 

“You could’ve started with the truth.”

“I didn’t know what the truth was.”

Annie took another swallow from the bottle. The burn was gone. “What truth?”

Pearline hesitated. “Them.”

The word sat between Annie and Pearline.

“I thought they was just fuckin’.”

Pearline shifted from foot to foot. “It didn’t look serious.”

Didn’t. Past tense. Annie heard it. Her stomach dropped.

“What changed?”

Pearline froze.

The hesitation told Annie almost everything.

“What changed, Pearline?”

For a second it looked like Pearline might refuse to answer. Then she sighed. “I saw them Thursday.”

Annie frowned. 

Thursday.

The word rolled around in her head before settling into place. The restaurant. That strange feeling she’d had all night. The uncomfortable certainty that somebody familiar was nearby. The way she’d caught herself looking around for no reason she could explain.

Pearline acting strange afterward. Starting a sentence and never finishing it. Looking at her like she wanted to say something before changing her mind.

The pieces connected so quickly Annie almost felt sick. “He was there.”

Pearline didn’t answer.

“He was there with her.”

Still nothing. The silence told her everything she needed to know.

Annie stared at the bottle in her hand before taking another drink. The tequila was more than half gone now. At some point she’d stopped counting. Her face felt warm. Her thoughts felt loud. Every emotion she’d spent the last eight years carefully suppressing seemed determined to show up all at once.

“You saw them and still said nothin’.”

“I wanted to.”

Annie laughed.

The sound came out sharp enough to make Pearline flinch.

“No you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t, ’cause if you did, you would’ve.”

“I really did, Annie.”

Annie shook her head and looked away.

Outside, the yard erupted into laughter after. The sound drifted through the screen window and landed in the room like an insult.

She took another swallow from the bottle.

“Fuck, Pearline, I could’ve handled him messin’ with ANYBODY else.”

Pearline’s face changed immediately.

“Annie—”

“No. I’m serious.” She laughed again and wiped at her eyes. “I could’ve handled some random girl.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “Some girl from Jackson. Memphis. Atlanta. Hell, California.”

Pearline stayed quiet.

“But Jada?” Annie shook her head. “Jada of all people?”

The room fell silent, because Pearline knew. Maybe not every detail.

But more than enough.

Enough to remember the little imsults disguised as jokes. The competition Annie never agreed to participate in. The way Jada always seemed to know exactly where she stood with Elijah. Enough to understand why hearing her name hit differently.

“You should’ve told me from jump.” Annie looked down at the bottle in her hand. “You should’ve told me the second you saw them.”

Pearline sighed. “She ain’t hate you, Annie.”

“Don’t do that shit.” The warning came fast. “Please don’t sit up here and act like you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about.”

Pearline looked away.

Exactly.

“That’s what I thought.” Annie laughed and immediately wished she hadn’t, because now she sounded bitter.

Maybe she was.

“I know it sound stupid.” Her voice cracked. “I know he don’t owe me shit.” Another laugh. Smaller this time. “And I know he got every right to move on.” She stared toward the window. “But for some reason hearin’ it’s Jada make me sick to my fuckin’ stomach.”

The confession hung between them. Raw. Embarrassing.

Honest.

“And that’s why I’m mad at you.”

Pearline frowned.

“Cause you knew that.” Annie looked back at her. “You knew exactly how that was gonna hit me.”

Annie sank onto the edge of the bed and looked down at the shirt in her hands. At some point she’d stopped packing and started moving things around just to keep her hands busy. The same shirt had gone into the suitcase three separate times and somehow kept ending up back on the bed. The tequila wasn’t helping anymore. It had moved past the point of making her feel better and settled into that dangerous place where every thought felt louder than it should.

“You know what the crazy part is?”

Pearline looked up. “What?”

Annie laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “I still would’ve came.”

For a minute neither of them said anything.

Annie picked up the shirt and started folding it. Then unfolded it. “I would’ve still got on the plane.”

The words surprised her because she hadn’t realized they were true until she’d said them out loud. She would’ve come for Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Lewis. For Geneva and Auntie Max. For Pearline. For Stack. For the cookout. For every piece of home she’d spent years pretending she didn’t miss. And somewhere in that list sat Elijah too. Not that she expected anything from him. Or because she thought eight years could disappear in a weekend. But because he mattered whether she wanted him to or not.

Pearline watched her carefully.

Annie laughed again and wiped at her face. “That’s the part that got me.” She looked down at the bottle. “You should’ve told me anyway.”

Pearline lowered her eyes. “I thought if y’all talked—”

“There you go.” The words came out tired more than angry. Annie shook her head. “That’s the part you keep missin’.”

Pearline started to talk, then stopped.

Annie looked toward the window where the sounds of the cookout drifted in through the screen. “You keep tellin’ me what you thought.”

Her voice cracked. “What about me? What about what I wanted?”

Pearline’s face tightened immediately.

Annie hated herself a little for saying it. The regret didn’t make it less true. “You knew.” The words came quieter now. Which somehow made them worse. “You knew and watched me get off that plane.”

Silence.

“You knew and watched me talk about him.”

Pearline looked away.

“You knew and sat on this bed while I changed clothes fifty fucking times.”

The tears finally came. Hot. Embarrassing. Impossible to stop.

“And you still brought me here.”

Pearline looked devastated now.

Good.

A terrible thought. An ugly thought. One Annie hated the second it crossed her mind. But it was there anyway. 

“You watched me hope.”

The room seemed to shrink around them as Annie’s words settled into the space between them. Outside, somebody shouted something followed by laughter. The sound drifted through the screen window and disappeared into silence neither woman seemed willing to break.

Pearline stared at her. Then something in her expression changed.

Exhaustion.

“You think I wanted this?”

Annie looked away.

“You keep talkin’ like I sat around plottin’ on how to hurt you.”

“I ain’t say that.”

“You don’t gotta say it.” Pearline wiped at her face with the heel of her hand before crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “For two fuckin’ days I’ve been watchin’ this happen knowin’ eventually you was gonna look at me exactly like this.”

Annie didn’t answer because she was looking at her exactly like that.

“You think it was easy watchin’ you get off that plane smilin’?” Pearline laughed once, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “You think I didn’t know why you was really nervous?”

“Pearline—”

“No. Let me finish.” The words came out sharper than anything she’d said all evening. “You wasn’t nervous about no cookout and you know it.”

Annie looked down at the shirt twisted in her hands.

“You talked about him the whole ride from the airport.” Pearline’s voice softened again. “You talked about him while you unpacked.” 

Another breath. “You talked about him when we went to breakfast.” Another. “You talked about him every time his name came up like you was tryin’ real hard to convince yourself it didn’t matter.”

The tears Annie had been fighting rose all over again.

Pearline shook her head. “And every time I thought about tellin’ you, I’d look at your face and think maybe I was wrong. Maybe Smoke and Jada wasn’t serious. Maybe they would’ve ended whatever they had goin’ on by now. Maybe y’all could finally sit down and talk.”

Annie swallowed hard. The words should’ve made her feel better. Instead they somehow made everything worse. For the first time since the argument started, she could see exactly how Pearline had convinced herself to stay quiet. Not that she thought she knew best, but she wanted the same impossible thing Annie wanted.

“I was hopin’ too, Annie.”

Annie closed her eyes.

The confession hit differently than everything else Pearline had said. Anger she knew how to carry. Embarrassment too. But this felt heavier. It forced her to acknowledge something she’d been trying very hard not to look at. Pearline hadn’t been trying to hurt her. Pearline had been hoping right alongside her, building entire possibilities out of half-finished conversations and old memories that she wanted so badly for them to be true.

Pearline looked down at her hands. “Remember when I told you I left my charger at Stack’s apartment?”

Annie frowned. The question felt random enough to pull her briefly out of her own misery. “Yeah.”

“I ain’t leave no damn charger.”

Annie stared at her while her facial expression said DUH.

Pearline laughed once and shook her head. “I went back and straight up asked him.”

The room grew quiet.

“I wanted to know if what I saw was real.”

Annie’s stomach tightened.

Pearline rubbed her palms against her jeans. “I asked Stack straight up.”

“What’d he say?”

“That Smoke and Jada wasn’t together.”

The answer came immediate. Like she’d replayed the conversation a hundred times already.

“He said they wasn’t serious. Said they wasn’t in no relationship.”

Despite herself, Annie almost laughed.

Pearline kept going. “I asked him twice.” The confession sounded pathetic now. “I kept askin’ different ways hopin’ he’d tell me somethin’ else.”

Annie looked away.

“Cause if he would’ve told me they was serious…” Pearline swallowed. “If he would’ve told me Smoke was in love with that girl or plannin’ a future wit’ her or somethin’ like that, I’d have told you right then.”

The words settled heavily between them.

“Shit, Annie, I would’ve told you before we even got to Cheryl’s house.” Pearline’s voice cracked slightly. “That’s why I didn’t know what to do.”

Annie stared at the floor because that sounded exactly like something Pearline would do—convince herself this was reasonable. It sounded exactly like something done with love that still managed to hurt anyway.

“You still didn’t let me choose.” 

The words came out quiet. 

Pearline’s shoulders dropped. For a second she looked as tired as Annie felt. Her mouth opened slightly before closing again. Whatever explanation she’d been holding onto all evening seemed to collapse beneath the weight of those six words.

Annie reached for another pile of clothes and shoved them into the suitcase harder than necessary. The zipper caught again. Frustrated, she yanked at it. Something beneath the clothes came loose, and a plastic case slid free, tumbling across the comforter before bouncing onto the floor near her feet.

Both women looked down.

The mixtape.

Not the mixtape Elijah made her all those years ago. Not the one she’d refused to listen to all those years ago, but somehow carried with her through college, breakups, apartments, and every version of herself she’d become after leaving Mississippi.

This was a new one.

The one she’d spent weeks putting together before coming home. The one hidden beneath folded shirts because she hadn’t been brave enough to admit why she’d packed it in the first place.

For a long moment neither woman moved. Then Annie bent down and picked it up. 

Pearline’s eyes followed the plastic case before lifting back to Annie’s face.

Something flickered there. Understanding. Somehow Annie hated that most of all, because now Pearline knew. 

Not that she still loved Elijah.

But how much.

The truth settled quietly between them. Annie wrapped her fingers around the mixtape, tucked it beneath her arm, grabbed the suitcase, and forced the zipper closed.

“Annie—”

“Fuck all y’all.”

Pearline took a step forward. “Annie.”

“No.” She wiped angrily at her face. “I came down here lookin’ stupid as fuck.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.” Her voice cracked hard enough to make her wince. “I did.”

The tears started again. Hot. Humiliating. Impossible to stop.

“And I blame you for lettin’ me.”

Pearline flinched.

Annie hated herself for saying it. Hated herself even more for not taking it back.

Then she grabbed the suitcase handle and headed for the door before Pearline could stop her.

Smoke kept his eyes on the house long after Annie disappeared inside.

Around him the cookout continued without interruption. Some old head at the dominoes table accused a young nigga of cheating. Again. Tired of hearing Aunt Cheryl fussing, Uncle Lewis stepped in and threatened to throw both of them out of the yard if they didn’t shut the fuck up. Children ran through the grass screaming while music drifted lazily from the speakers near the patio. 

The normalcy of it all felt strange considering how quickly the afternoon had changed. Ten minutes ago he’d been standing beside Annie listening to her laugh. Now she was inside the house and Pearline had gone after her wearing the same expression people wore when they already knew trouble was waiting on the other side of a door.

He replayed the last few minutes in his head whether he wanted to or not. Annie’s hand in his. Jada’s voice. The way Annie’s guard went up the moment she understood Jada wasn’t standing there as an old classmate. The look she’d given Pearline afterward stayed with him most. There had been hurt in it. Confusion too. But beneath both sat recognition, like she’d suddenly understood something nobody had bothered to explain to her.

Smoke didn’t know every piece of what had just happened, but he recognized the result. Annie thought he and Jada were together. Not casually seeing each other. Together-together. The certainty settled heavily in his chest because it explained the expression he’d seen on her face before she walked away.

What unsettled him wasn’t that she’d misunderstood the situation.

It was that seeing him with another woman had hurt her at all.

Somebody shoved a plastic cup into his hand.

Stack.

“The good shit,” his brother said before dropping back into his chair.

Smoke glanced down at the bourbon. Aunt Cheryl only brought it out for family and special occasions. Under different circumstances he probably would’ve appreciated it. Instead he took a swallow and tasted almost none of it.

A few minutes later he found himself reaching for a cigarette.

The lighter clicked.

Smoke took a slow drag and watched the front porch through a haze of smoke that did absolutely nothing to settle his nerves.

Beside him, Jada smoothed a hand over her blouse and adjusted her position in the chair.

“Thought you had a showing today.”

The question made her blink. “I did.”

“You said you wasn’t comin’.”

“I changed my mind.”

Smoke nodded once, but his attention had already drifted back toward the house. The answer sat wrong with him for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. She hadn’t called. Hadn’t texted. Some part of him couldn’t stop wondering whether things would’ve unfolded differently if he’d known she was coming. The thought irritated him. Jada hadn’t done anything wrong by showing up to a public cookout. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that the afternoon had veered off course the moment she stepped into it.

“You mad I’m here?”

That pulled his attention back to her.

“No.”

The answer came easily because it was mostly true. He wasn’t mad she came. He just couldn’t understand why she hadn’t mentioned it. Over the last year they’d fallen into routines. Nothing serious. Nothing that required explanations. Still, telling somebody you were showing up somewhere after saying you weren’t seemed like information worth sharing.

Jada studied him for a moment. “You ain’t really looked at me since I walked over here.”

The words were light. Teasing. At least they tried to be.

Smoke glanced at her. “What?”

“You keep starin’ at that house.”

His jaw tightened around the cigarette. The expression vanished almost immediately, but not before Jada caught it.

He knew she did. Over the last year she’d gotten good at reading him.  Unfortunately, Annie had always been better.

Before Jada could say anything else, Mary wandered over carrying a red cup and entirely too much satisfaction. Stack noticed her at the exact same time.

“There she go.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Oh Lord.”

“Nah.” Stack pointed directly at her. “Nah. Bring yo’ ass over here.”

Smoke looked between them. Mary suddenly became very interested in her drink. That alone made him suspicious.

“You ain’t change your mind.”

Jada’s eyes flickered. “Elijah—”

“You was already comin’.” The words landed quietly. “You could’ve told me.”

The silence that followed was answer enough.

Something tightened in his chest. He turned his attention to Mary. “What you do?”

“I ain’t do shit.”

“That’s a muthafuckin’ lie.” Stack exclaimed.

“It ain’t.”

Stack laughed. “Jada just magically decided to show up after tellin’ my brother she wasn’t?”

Jada’s head turned. Mary looked away. Smoke’s eyes narrowed. The silence lasted a little too long.

“Mary.”

“I was just talkin’.”

“There it is.” Stack threw his hands up. “There it is right there. That’s the shit I be talkin’ about. You stay runnin’ yo’ fuckin’ mouth.”

Mary looked offended. “How was I supposed to know she’d actually come?”

Stack stared at her. Then at Jada. Then back at Mary. “You serious?”

The pieces settled into place one by one. Smoke looked at Jada. Then Mary. Then back toward the house.

Something tightened in his chest.

Pearline still hadn’t come back outside. The front door remained closed. The upstairs windows remained dark. From where he sat, the entire house looked still. Meanwhile his mind kept returning to Annie’s face. Not the smile she’d forced before excusing herself. The look right before it. The moment she’d looked from Jada to him and then toward Pearline. The hurt in her eyes had been so quick most people probably would’ve missed it.

He hadn’t.

That was the problem. He hadn’t missed any of it. Not the confusion, the disappointment, or the moment it all clicked.

The feeling settled heavy in his stomach because he knew exactly what she’d seen. Maybe not every detail. Maybe not the history. But enough. Enough to think he and Jada were something they weren’t. Enough to believe she’d shown up in Mississippi only to discover he’d moved on.

The thought bothered him more than it should have.

Life kept moving around him, but Smoke couldn’t. Every few seconds his eyes found the house again. The cigarette burned down between his fingers. The bourbon now gone.

Stack watched him do it. Then he sighed. “You need to go talk to her.”

“Pearline with her.”

“For now.”

Smoke leaned back in his chair. “What that supposed to mean?”

“It mean Annie upstairs cussin’ Pearline the fuck out right now.”

Despite everything, a small smile threatened at the corner of his mouth.

Stack pointed toward the house. “You know I’m right.”

Unfortunately, he was.

The smile disappeared as quickly as it came.

Smoke rubbed a hand across his jaw and looked back toward the front door. The longer Annie stayed inside, the worse the feeling became. Something closer to dread. Annie had spent eight years running from difficult conversations. He knew because he’d spent eight years wishing she’d stayed for one.

Then the front door opened.

Every thought in his head disappeared at once.

Annie stepped onto the porch with a suitcase in one hand and a plastic case tucked beneath her arm.

Before he realized what he was doing, Smoke crushed the cigarette beneath his sneaker, set the cup on the nearest table, and started walking.

“Annie.”

Smoke was calling her name halfway across the yard before he realized people were starting to watch. At first it was only a few people. Aunt Cheryl paused beside the grill with the tongs still in her hand. Geneva lowered her cup. Maxine turned away from whatever story she had been telling. Then more heads began to turn because Annie was not exactly subtle carrying a suitcase through the middle of a family cookout, and neither was the look on her face. Even from thirty feet away he could see she had been crying, and the sight settled heavy in his chest before he could prepare himself for it. Pearline had barely made it back onto the porch behind her, wiping at her own face, and Stack was already moving toward her with concern written plainly across his. Whatever had happened upstairs had gone bad enough to leave both women in tears.

Smoke was not surprised. The moment Annie had looked at Jada, then at him, then at Pearline, he had known something was coming. What surprised him was how quickly everything had unraveled. Less than an hour ago she had been laughing beside him beneath the shade tree. Less than thirty minutes ago he had been standing there holding her hand without thinking about it. Now she was heading toward the driveway with a suitcase like she planned on disappearing before sunset, and the familiarity of that made something old and bitter twist inside him. Annie leaving before a conversation could catch her was not new. He knew that move. He had lived with the damage of it for eight years.

“Annie.”

She didn’t stop. The suitcase rolled awkwardly through the grass as she continued toward the driveway, and whether she genuinely hadn’t heard him or was pretending not to hear him didn’t matter. Smoke knew her too well to believe either would be enough to stop him.

“Anissa!”

That stopped her.

When she finally turned around, the look on her face hit him hard. The tears were obvious. The anger was not. That lived deeper, somewhere behind the red eyes and tight jaw, tangled up with something older and far more familiar. It was the same hurt he had caught a glimpse of before she disappeared into the house, only now it wasn’t masked anymore. The music still played behind them. Somebody laughed near the dominoes table before realizing nobody else was laughing. Children ran through the yard with a water guns bigger than them. Life kept trying to continue around them, but Smoke could feel the whole cookout slowly holding its breath.

“Can we talk?”

The laugh that left Annie wasn’t loud, which made it worse. Loud would have been easier. Loud would have given him something obvious to answer. Instead, she sounded tired, like someone who had finally run out of ways to be disappointed.

“Oh, now you wanna talk?”

The words landed uncomfortably because he knew exactly what she meant. Not the sentence itself. The accusation underneath it. When she finally called him after eight years. Eight years of missed conversations and assumptions. Eight years of silence neither one of them had been able to outrun. 

Smoke opened his mouth, but Annie was already shaking her head.

“No. Don’t do that.”

His brow furrowed. “Do what?”

“Act like this ain’t exactly what you wanted.”

Confusion flashed across his face before frustration followed close behind it. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

Annie stared at him as though she couldn’t decide whether he was lying or genuinely that oblivious. Then she laughed again, wiped angrily at her face, and pulled something from beneath her arm and threw it at him. The plastic case struck his chest hard enough that instinct took over before thought could. Smoke caught it automatically and looked down. For a moment, he didn’t understand what he was holding. Then his eyes moved over the case, the handwriting, the familiar shape of something he had once given her in another lifetime, and it dawned on him slowly.

Annie pointed toward it before he could speak.

“I made that for you.”

Smoke looked down at the plastic case.

The words came out sharper than she probably intended, not because she was trying to hurt him, but because she was already hurting and had nowhere else to put it.

“I spent two damn weeks makin’ that.” Annie laughed. The sound was ugly. “Ain’t that some shit?”

She wiped angrily at her face. “I’m twenty-five years old makin’ a mixtape.” Annie shook her head. “I brought it all the way from North Carolina.”

Her voice dropped. “I brought it because some stupid part of me thought…” The sentence died there.

Annie laughed again. “Never mind.”

Around them the cookout had grown noticeably quieter. Smoke was aware enough that Aunt Cheryl was no longer pretending to focus on the grill. Geneva had stopped mid-conversation and Maxine stood beside her with her mouth pressed into a tight line. He was aware enough that Mary suddenly looked like she regretted every decision she had made that afternoon, and Jada had gone completely still in her chair. Annie didn’t seem to notice any of them, or maybe she did and simply couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Go ’head,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward the backyard. “Maybe you and your girlfriend can listen to it together.”

Smoke’s jaw tightened immediately. “Jada ain’t my girlfriend.”

The look Annie gave him was so full of disbelief it almost would’ve been funny under different circumstances. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Don’t.”

He took a step closer. “Don’t do that.”

The hurt in her face deepened, and Smoke knew before she even spoke that whatever came next had been sitting inside her for years.

“Oh, now we don’t wanna do that?”

The memory hit him before he could stop it. The conversation. The frustration. The moment he had shut something down instead of opening it, thinking silence would keep them from making things worse. Annie saw the recognition cross his face and nodded once, her eyes shining with a kind of hurt that made his stomach tighten.

“What happened to ‘we ain’t doin’ that, huh?’”

This time there was no laughter in her voice. No sarcasm either. Just eight years of hurt finally finding somewhere to go. Around them, the cookout kept trying and failing to pretend nothing was happening. Aunt Cheryl had completely abandoned the grill now. Geneva stood beside her with one hand pressed against her chest. Across the yard, Stack had reached Pearline and was asking questions she clearly was not answering. Even the dominoes game had stopped, the players still seated around the table with untouched tiles between them.

Annie wiped angrily at her face again and shook her head. The tequila had blurred the edges of her embarrassment enough to make honesty feel easier than silence, but Smoke could see the cost of it. She looked exposed. Furious about it. Hurt because of it. Still, she stood there with the suitcase in one hand and the rest of the cookout watching while years of silence crowded up behind her.

“You know what pisses me off the most?”

Smoke didn’t answer. The question felt rhetorical.

“Everybody knew but me.”

The words hung there longer than Annie intended. Once they left her mouth she couldn’t take them back. It felt like saying them out loud made the humiliation feel real in a way it hadn’t five minutes ago. She looked past Smoke toward the crowd gathered behind him. Pearline stood beside Stack with red eyes and a guilty expression. Aunt Cheryl had completely abandoned the grill. Geneva looked like she was debating whether to intervene or pray. 

Everybody.

Everybody had apparently known except the one person standing in the middle of it.

“Pearline knew. Stack knew. Mary’s ass obviously knew.”

“Why I gotta be in this?” Mary called from somewhere behind Smoke.

“Cause yo’ ass always in everythin’.”

The response came from so many directions at once that a brief burst of laughter rippled through the yard before disappearing just as quickly. Annie wasn’t laughing. The knot in her chest had only grown tighter. Every time she replayed the afternoon in her head she found something new to be embarrassed about. Every conversation. Every look. Every moment she’d spent thinking she was simply reconnecting with old friends while apparently everybody else was aware of something she wasn’t.

“I spent all day lookin’ stupid.”

“You wasn’t lookin’ stupid.”

The answer came immediate. Too immediate. Annie laughed and pointed at him. “There you go.”

Smoke frowned. “There I go what?”

“That thing you do.”

“What thing?”

“When I tell you somethin’ and you decide it ain’t true just ‘cause you don’t like hearin’ it.”

His jaw tightened. “Annie—”

“No.” Her voice cracked hard enough that she hated it. “You asked to talk. So let’s talk.”

The yard went quiet again. Annie looked at him for a long moment before shaking her head. “You know what makes this shit worse?”

Smoke waited.

Annie laughed without humor and glanced toward Jada. “Her.”

Jada visibly stiffened.

“Annie—”

“No. Cause ain’t nobody finna sit here and act confused.”

The alcohol had long since stopped making her feel better. Now it was just making honesty easier.

“Outta everybody, Elijah?” Her eyes landed on Jada again. “Her?”

Smoke frowned. “What that supposed to mean?”

Annie laughed. “See? That’s exactly what I mean.” She wiped at her face. “You ain’t even know.”

The words weren’t really directed at him anymore. “You never paid attention to none of that.”

Smoke’s brow furrowed deeper.

Annie shook her head. Her laugh sounded tired. “Why would you?”

The alcohol was doing most of the talking now. Not enough to make her incoherent. Just enough to lower every wall she’d spent years building.

“You don’t know what it felt like bein’ around her.”

Jada stiffened slightly.

Annie noticed. But kept going anyway. “Maybe she didn’t do nothin’. Maybe it was all in my head.” The words sounded doubtful even to her. “But every time she walked into a room, I felt it.”

She looked back at Smoke. “And now I come back home and find out you’re with her?”

The question hung between them.

For a while Annie wanted it to be about Jada. Wanted to be able to point at one woman and blame her for the way her chest hurt. But the longer she stood there, the harder it became to pretend Jada was the real problem.

Jada had simply been the thing that cracked everything open.

The hurt and the truth sat somewhere deeper than that.

The real truth was that seeing Elijah with anybody would’ve hurt. Him being happy and moving on with anybody else would’ve hurt. Seeing him living a life that no longer had room for her would’ve hurt.

Nobody spoke or moved. Everyone seemed to understand at the same time that Annie and Smoke were no longer talking about Jada, or the cookout, or the mixtape in his hand. They had moved backward without warning. Back into the years nobody in that yard had been able to touch for them.

Annie laughed again and shook her head. “You know what North Carolina was like?”

The question caught him off guard. For the first time since she had walked out of the house, uncertainty crossed his face because the answer was no. He didn’t know. Not really. He knew where she had lived. He knew the city she moved to. He knew she had graduated. He knew random pieces gathered over the years through social media, mutual friends, and accidental conversations he pretended not to care about. But he didn’t know what it had been like. Not the real version.

Annie looked away briefly before looking back at him. “I hated it.”

Smoke felt something in his chest twist because that was not what he had expected her to say.

“I hated every fuckin’ minute of it.” Her voice shook now, but she did not look away again. “I didn’t know nobody. I didn’t have Pearline, Aunt Cheryl, Stack. I didn’t have…”

She stopped long enough to swallow, and when she looked directly at him, the rest of the yard seemed to fade around them.

“I didn’t have you.”

Smoke wasn’t prepared for that. He had spent eight years telling himself she had moved forward because that was the only way to make sense of the silence. Annie in North Carolina had become a version of her he could survive imagining. Busy. Happy. Adjusting. Growing into a life that no longer had space for him. But standing in front of him now with tears on her face and a suitcase in her hand, she was telling him something completely different, and the new version did not fit into any of the places he had built for the old one.

For a moment Annie saw it.

Really saw it.

The years she had spent imagining Elijah untouched by her absence suddenly felt less certain. She could see the hurt sitting on him now. Not fresh hurt. Old hurt. The kind people carried so long they stopped noticing the weight of it.

And yet none of it changed what came next. Because understanding that he suffered wasn’t the same thing as knowing he had.

Annie laughed and immediately seemed to hate the sound of it.

Smoke blinked.

“So what, Elijah?”

The use of his name landed exactly the way she intended it to. A warning.

“You think I was supposed to know that?” she asked, pointing at him. “You think I knew what the hell you was feelin’?”

His jaw tightened. “You ain’t ask.”

“Neither did you.”

Stack looked away. Pearline closed her eyes. Smoke felt the hit land exactly where she meant for it to, and the worst part was that she wasn’t wrong. 

Annie wiped at her face again and shook her head, her voice breaking around the edges as the anger started turning into something less controlled.

“You keep standin’ here talkin’ like I wasn’t alone. You think I wasn’t drivin’ around a city I ain’t know? You think I wasn’t callin’ Pearline cryin’? You think I wasn’t sittin’ in my mama’s house every holiday wishin’ I was home?”

Smoke’s expression switched before he could stop it, and Annie saw it. Good, her face seemed to say. Let him hear it.

“You keep talkin’ like I chose all this.” The tears were coming faster now, and she stopped trying to hide them. “I was seventeen. I was seventeen, Elijah. I was a kid. I was scared!”

Smoke closed his eyes briefly, and Annie saw that too. Saw the way his face tightened. Saw something flicker across it before disappearing again. For the first time since this started, she understood that he was not angry because he did not care. He was angry because he did. Maybe because he always had. The answer should have made her feel better. Instead, it seemed to make her furious because if that was true, then eight years suddenly felt even more unnecessary.

“You know what I kept waitin’ on?” she asked.

Smoke didn’t answer.

“I kept waitin’ on you.”

Even Mary looked stunned by that. Annie looked away as soon as the words came out, embarrassment crawling up her throat too late to stop anything now. “I kept thinkin’ maybe one day you’d show up. Maybe one day you’d come get me.”

Smoke stared at her, and the disbelief moved across his face before he could hide it. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe she had waited. He couldn’t believe what she had been waiting for. Annie saw it. Saw exactly what he was thinking. Something passed between them then, heavy and terrible, and for the first time since she got off the plane, Annie looked like she was realizing neither of them had been waiting for the same thing. Neither of them had been telling themselves the same story.

Smoke stood there for several seconds without speaking. He could still hear the cookout somewhere around them. A baby started crying near the patio before someone scooped them up and carried them away. Music drifted from the speakers like it belonged to another yard entirely. Aunt Cheryl probably still standing beside that grill, food getting colder by the minute, but none of it felt real anymore. The only thing that felt real was Annie standing in front of him talking about waiting as though he had simply let her go without trying.

“You waited on me?”

The question came out quieter than he intended.

Annie laughed bitterly. “Yeah.”

Smoke looked away, dragging a hand across his jaw while the hurt he had been holding onto all afternoon changed into something sharper and older. Nothing about this conversation was unfolding the way he had imagined. Not once. Not in eight years. Not today. Not now.

“Annie…” His voice cracked slightly, not enough for most people to notice, but enough for Stack to notice. Enough for Pearline. Enough for Smoke himself. “You think I wasn’t tryin’?”

The confusion on Annie’s face stopped him cold. For a second neither of them moved, and then Smoke realized she genuinely didn’t know. She had never looked more honest or more confused, and the sight twisted painfully in his chest.

“You think I just let you go?”

Annie opened her mouth, then closed it.

“I called you every fuckin’ day.”

The words left him before he could stop them. Annie blinked once, then again, and the color seemed to drain from her face in real time.

“What?”

Smoke laughed, but the sound came out broken. “I called you every day.”

The memory came back all at once. His room. The phone. The ringing. The waiting. The voicemail. Again and again and again until the sound became part of the shape of those months. “I called so much my mama started askin’ if I was goin’ to pay the phone bill.”

The crowd around them seemed to understand at the same time that they were no longer listening to an argument. They were watching two people discover that they had lived through entirely different versions of the same heartbreak.

Smoke couldn’t stop now. Not after eight years. Not after hearing Annie say she had waited. “I wrote you.”

Annie stared at him. “What?”

“I wrote you.” His jaw tightened because the word sounded ridiculous now. Ancient and pathetic and still true. “Letters. Birthday cards. Christmas cards. I sent every fuckin’ thing I could think of.”

Annie looked like she had forgotten how to breathe. Smoke noticed. He simply could not stop anyway.

“You think I was sittin’ around muthafuckin Mississippi havin’ the time of my fuckin’ life?” His voice rose for the first time, not much, but enough. “You think I wasn’t lookin’ and waitin’ for you?”

Fresh tears started slipping down Annie’s face, confused now more than angry. Smoke saw them and kept going because the truth had finally cracked open, and if he stopped now, he was not sure he would ever say it again.

“Then one day you stopped answerin’.” His voice dropped again, the sentence wounded in a way anger could not cover. “You stopped callin’ back.”

Annie shook her head slowly like she could not understand what he was saying. “I never—”

“Yeah.” Smoke laughed again, rougher this time. “That’s what I thought too.”

For the first time all afternoon, fear appeared in Annie’s eyes. Not fear of him, but fear of the possibility that something had happened neither of them knew about, because suddenly neither version of the story made sense. Smoke could see her realizing it at the same time he was.

“I never got them.” Her voice was so quiet he almost missed it. “I never got those letters.”

Smoke stared at her, then slowly shook his head. “Yeah, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You had to.”

“Elijah, I didn’t.”