Part time manager at Good Burger.

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.”

The certainty in her voice chipped away at some of his anger. Not enough to erase it, but enough to confuse it. Annie wiped at her face, looking younger somehow. “My mama would’ve gave ’em to me.”

Smoke looked away because maybe she was right. Maybe she wasn’t. But the problem was that the possibility didn’t change what those years had felt like from his side.

“I called,” he said, quieter now.

“I know.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t.”

At first she answered. He remembered that part too clearly. The strange phone calls where neither one of them knew how to speak naturally anymore but tried anyway. The pauses. The awkward laughs. The ache that settled in his chest every time they hung up. Annie remembered too; he saw it in the way her eyes closed briefly, the way guilt moved across her face before she could hide it.

“You answered,” he said. “Then you got busy. Then you started callin’ back less.”

The silence that followed was answer enough.

“One day I realized I was the only one still callin’.”

Annie flinched. The movement was small, but Smoke saw it, and some wounded part of him was glad she did. He still remembered exactly what that had felt like.

“I wasn’t doin’ it on purpose,” she said.

The defense sounded weak the second it left her mouth. Not because it was not true, but because the truth of it did not undo the damage. Smoke nodded slowly.

“I know.”

Annie frowned. “You know?”

“Yeah.” He looked at her for a long moment, and the anger she seemed to expect was not there anymore. “I know. You was seventeen. You was scared. You was in a new place. You was tryin’ to figure shit out.”

For a second she could not breathe because he was not describing her now. He was describing the girl she had been. The girl he had somehow understood all along. Then his eyes met hers again, and the hurt surfaced in him fully.

“And I knew every one of them reasons,” he said. “But they ain’t stop the shit from hurtin’.”

Everyone remained where they were. The whole yard seemed to understand that this was no longer an argument. This was grief. Eight years of it standing in the middle of Aunt Cheryl’s backyard.

“I kept makin’ excuses for you,” Smoke said, and the confession seemed to surprise even him. Annie’s face crumpled immediately, but he kept going. “I told myself you was busy. I told myself school was hard. I told myself you’d call tomorrow. And then eventually I had to stop tellin’ myself that shit.”

Annie had no answer for that. For the first time since she walked out of the house, she seemed unable to find one. The tequila was not helping her anymore. Whatever warm numbness she had been chasing upstairs had disappeared completely, leaving every emotion exposed and every memory sharper than before. She hated that everyone was watching and seeing her crying. Hated that Elijah was standing in front of her looking just as miserable as she felt. Most of all, she hated that some part of her believed him, because believing him changed things. Not everything, but enough.

“You could’ve came.”

The words left her before she could stop them. Smoke blinked, and Annie immediately looked away because the sentence sounded childish now. Stupid. Still, it was true. It had always been true.

“You could’ve came and got me,” she said, the hurt returning instantly, seventeen-year-old hurt and twenty-five-year-old hurt all tangled together. “You knew where I was.”

Smoke stared at her until the confusion on his face slowly gave way to recognition. Now he understood what she had been waiting for, and somehow that broke his heart worse than anything else she had said.

“You wanted me to come get you?”

Annie laughed through her tears, the sound cracking halfway out. “I don’t know. I just…” She shook her head, struggling to organize a truth that had probably never made sense outside her own chest. “I thought if you loved me bad enough, you’d come.”

The confession settled over them with the weight of something painfully young. Childish. Seventeen. The impossible expectation people place on love when they are too young to understand that love still requires words. The belief that if something is real enough, the other person will somehow know exactly what to do.

Smoke dragged a hand across his face, looking exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the hour or the heat. “Annie,” he said, barely above a murmur. “I was seventeen too.”

The words hit her harder than anything else he had said. In every version of the story she had told herself, Elijah had always seemed older somehow. Stronger. More certain. More capable of handling things. But he was right—he had been seventeen too. Just as lost. Just as scared. Just as heartbroken.

“You keep talkin’ like I knew what to do.” Smoke laughed once, no humor in it, and a few people actually smiled despite themselves because it sounded like him. Real. Unfiltered. “I didn’t know shit. I didn’t know how to fix shit.” His eyes found hers again. 

“I didn’t know how to make you stay.”

The tears Annie had finally gotten under control started again because none of this was supposed to happen. She was supposed to come home, see old friends, survive one awkward conversation with Elijah, and go back to North Carolina pretending she had finally moved on. Instead she was standing in the middle of a backyard realizing neither one of them ever really had.

For one impossible moment, it felt like they were seventeen again. Not because anything had been repaired, but because they were staring at each other with the same unfinished ache they had carried out of high school and into adulthood, and neither one of them seemed to know what to do with it now that it had finally been named. 

Then Smoke broke eye contact, and Annie watched something change in his face. The softness that had been there moments earlier slowly disappeared beneath something older and far more dangerous. The understanding faded next, followed by the grief that had kept his anger tempered throughout most of the conversation. What remained was not rage. It was exhaustion. The kind that settled deep inside a person after carrying the same hurt for so long it stopped feeling separate from them.

Smoke looked at her for a long moment before finally shaking his head.

“You keep talkin’ like I left you.”

The words were not loud, and that made them worse. Annie froze because for the first time all afternoon, she was not sure what her response was supposed to be. Smoke laughed once under his breath and looked away, but nothing was funny. After everything they had just said, he still couldn’t believe they were standing here having this conversation.

“You keep tellin’ this story like I walked away.”

Annie opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Smoke looked back at her. His eyes were red now too, though she was not sure when that had happened. “You talk about North Carolina. You talk about missin’ me. You talk about waitin’.” He shook his head, his voice steady in a way that made every word harder to hear. “But every version of this story end the same.”

Annie tightened her grip around the suitcase handle.

“You leave.”

Smoke didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even sound angry. If anything, the absence of anger made the words harder to hear. They landed between them with the weight of something he had repeated to himself so many times it no longer felt like an opinion. To him it was simply fact. Annie left. Everything else had happened afterward.

“You leave,” he said again. “You stop answerin’. You stop callin’.”

Annie shook her head immediately. “It wasn’t like that.”

Smoke laughed, and the sound broke halfway through. “See?” His eyes closed briefly. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Tears gathered again, blurring Annie’s vision. “I was seventeen.”

“SO WAS I!!!!!”

The response came so quickly it startled both of them. Years of hurt sat between them, heavier than anything either one had said before. Smoke dragged a hand across his face and looked away toward the house, toward the trees, toward anywhere but her. When he spoke again, his voice sounded rougher.

“Do you know what the fucked up part is?”

Nobody moved. Nobody interrupted. Stack stood beside Pearline with one hand hovering near her back. Aunt Cheryl had lowered her eyes. Mary had finally stopped fidgeting. Jada sat very still, watching a man she knew in one way grieve a girl he had clearly known in another.

Smoke looked back at Annie, and whatever she saw in his face made her stomach drop.

“All these years…” His voice cracked once before he caught it. “…I thought you knew.”

Annie stared at him.

Smoke laughed again, but this time there was nothing left in it to protect him. “I thought you knew how much I fuckin’ love you.”

The tears hit Annie instantly. Hot. Merciless. Impossible to stop. Smoke nodded slowly, like he had known this was going to hurt them both before he ever said it.

“And somehow…” He swallowed hard, his eyes never leaving hers. “…you still look at me like I’m the one who left.”

The silence that followed didn’t t feel empty. It felt full of every year they had spent telling themselves stories that only held up because the other person had not been there to challenge them. Nobody spoke. 

Annie stared at Smoke, and Smoke stared back, and for the first time since she came home, she realized she had absolutely no idea what happens next.

End Note: I promise we are almost done....cause I can't take it. But let me know what you think in the comments, please! I love every one of your thoughts. 💜

Tag List:      

The hands of the grandfather clock ticked quietly in the front room of the boarding house, but to Annie it sounded like gunshots. 

It was late. 

The house had fallen into its nighttime rhythm— mostly quiet except for the random sounds of boarders stirring in their rooms. A cough from behind a closed door. The creak of a bed frame. The slow pouring of water into a basin. The smells of supper still lingered like they always did this time of night, settling into the walls like a layer of time. The fragrant aroma of clove hung over top of everything, bursting through the air every time Aunt Della parted her lips. She chewed on it slowly. Methodically. Watching Annie as her fingertips smoothed gently over the leather of the sketchbook cover. 

Annie sat on the couch across from her. Her eyes looked full of possibility as she flipped through the paper, the corners of the pages sitting crisp beneath her thumb.

Something was on Aunt Della’s mind. 

Annie could feel the warm flush of her skin cooling under the quiet intensity of her gaze.

Her voice broke through the silence. “He been comin’ ‘round a lot lately.” 

There it was. 

Annie looked up.

Aunt Della stirred her drink in her hand, ice cubes clinking against the sides of the mug. “How you feel ‘bout that?” she asked. Then she took a sip.

Annie’s head lowered. Her first instinct was to not respond. Her second was to deflect. Her third was to ask why. 

“Baby,” Aunt Della probed. “I been alive too long. I know what it means for a man to stand around tryin’ to make himself useful.” She crossed one leg over the other, her ankle bouncing with anticipation like she knew this was going to take a while.

Annie’s mouth curved despite herself. She turned a page in her sketchbook, smoothing the spine down harder than necessary with her palm. 

“You like him?” 

Annie still couldn’t look up. It was like her words got stuck in her throat. The more Aunt Della talked, the more Annie felt caught off guard.

“Annie Royal, I ain’t talkin’ to myself,” she said sternly.

Annie’s head snapped up. She opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. “I don’t know,” she said finally, in a hushed tone.

Aunt Della rolled her eyes. She let the words sit between them long enough for Annie to hear how untrue they sounded. 

“Yes you do,” she answered back. 

Annie looked down again, her throat tightening with something she didn’t have the name for. Aunt Della watched her for a moment, admiring how softly the lamp light curved around the edge of her face. It was smooth. Innocent. There was a vulnerability in her that she wanted to protect. But as much as she wanted to shield her, she knew she needed to be ready for the day the world came knocking. 

But she was so young. Barely 18. 

She remembered herself at that age. She remembered how quickly she got swept up in her husband’s kind words and gentle eyes like it was yesterday.

It happened so quickly. Marriage. Mississippi. A son. 

She thought about the day her husband came back from town hall with the deed to their house. He painted the outside a rich buttery yellow and whitewashed the shutters with a puffed up chest. Dug out the underground storage with his bare hands, a shovel, and a strength that could only be explained by a feeling he’d never experienced before in his lifetime. Pride. Ownership.

The boarding house became a sanctuary without a steeple. They took in anybody who needed a hot meal and a place to lay their heads. Musicians, preachers, teachers, people trying to get up North. And two little boys trying to escape their father’s fists.

Elijah and Elias.

She met them young. Back when their father, Adam Moore, went door-to-door in town, strumming his guitar and sipping hooch straight from the bottle while his young sons walked around hungry. 

She knew them before they went by Smoke and Stack. Then she watched them earn those nicknames in blood, gunpowder, and grit. And now Smoke was coming around her sister’s granddaughter. Her only great-niece. 

She watched Annie nervously brush her thumb against the edge of the sketchbook and sighed. “I ain’t tryna fuss at you,” she clarified. “I just wanna know where your head’s at, and how you feel when he’s around.” 

A moment passed. Then two. 

Aware. 

That’s how Annie felt when he was around.

Aware of herself. Aware of him. Aware of the space between one breath and the next. Like something inside her had started listening before she knew that there was sound. 

Loose.

Not in the way men and women meant when they whispered about such things. 

But in a way that words just came out of her mouth before she could stop them. She couldn’t carry on with him like she could with Aunt Della right now—taking the hard parts and making them sound just right so she didn’t reveal too much too soon. He got the truth before she could dress it up. And she hadn’t taken the time to figure out why quite yet. And that scared her. But it made her feel something else, too.

Seen.

She was holding back. Aunt Della could see that with her eyes closed. She could see the wheels turning in Annie’s head like she never got a chance to sit with her feelings long enough to name them. But she already had her answer. It was in the way she held the sketchbook to her chest before remembering she wasn’t alone.

She tried a different angle.  “He good to you?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Annie could reply quickly when she could answer without thinking too hard. 

“Respectful?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He pressure you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I feel like—” Annie paused, embarrassed by the honesty that sat right on the tip of her tongue. She was fighting to keep it to herself. Not because she didn’t want to be honest, but she felt like words couldn’t do her thoughts justice. And she felt foolish that she felt any kind of way to begin with. “He makes me feel….”

Aunt Della let out a sigh. “You ain’t gotta explain it yet. Sometimes when the feeling’s good, you can’t explain it right away. You gon’ find the right words when you ready.”

Annie nodded once. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“You intact?” 

“Yes ma’am.” Heat climbed up her neck as she held the sketchbook to her chest.

“Don’t let him take it, if that’s not what you want.”

“Yes ma’am.” 

A quiet beat passed. “If it is—” Her breath hitched when she cut herself off. 

It felt like the room held its breath. Annie, too. 

“Nevermind.” Aunt Della shook her head like she regretted saying anything.

Annie frowned, her lips poking out. “What is it?” She asked. Her voice was cautious, but not in the way it had been earlier. It was more braced than anxious. 

Aunt Della looked at Annie with a fierce protectiveness. “What you think about him?” she asked quietly.

Annie twisted her lips, searching for something that wouldn’t feel foolish the second it came out of her mouth. “At first I just thought he was quiet,” she said finally. “Not empty quiet, but the type of quiet that’s always holdin’ somethin’ back.”

Aunt Della’s eyes stayed on her.

“But when he’s with me, when he look at me…” Annie’s voice softened despite herself. “It feels like…the rest of the world disappears. And it’s just us. Just me and him. And he can let go.”

Aunt Della didn’t answer immediately, and her face didn’t change. The silence felt worse than being questioned. “And how you think he feels about you?” 

“Ummm….” Her eyes flitted around the room nervously.

“The truth do just fine.”

Aunt Della set her mug down on the coffee table with a soft thump. Then she sat back and crossed her legs again, twirling that ankle in the air in slow, deliberate circles. 

“Truth is…” Annie started. “I think he’s taken a shine to me. He got me this.” She rubbed the cover of the sketchbook, her cheeks warm flushed with warmth and a hint of embarrassment trying to explain herself. “He comes around, he sits with me, he listens–really listens–to what I say. And he don’t forget,” she said, remembering the note he left her, and the conversation that sparked the words he left.

“What’s all this?” Smoke asked, gesturing to the drawings sprawled across her quilt under the magnolia tree.

“Drawings,” she replied sarcastically.

Smoke sucked his teeth. “I know that,” he tutted. “What they for?” 

“Helps my memory. Drawin’ things. Writin’ them down.”

“So you remember what they look like?”

“Kinda. So I remember what they for.”

Annie glanced over, bracing for laughter, amusement, or even teasing. She got none of it. When she found Aunt Della’s eyes she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t laugh. She almost looked sad, but not in a way Annie fully understood. 

She simply crossed her arms across her chest and arched a brow in challenge. “So you think that means…what?” 

The bluntness felt like a physical thing. It cut sharply through the room like a knife slicing through a thick fog.

Annie blinked. “Ma’am?” 

“You think every man who buys you a little somethin’ or listens to you talk, means to do right by you?” 

Annie blinked twice this time.

All of a sudden, she felt every bit of eighteen. 

Not a child anymore, but not grown in the ways the world seemed to demand all at once. 

Smoke wasn’t the first to come around. She had a few who called on her back in New Orleans. Always respectfully, always in the proper way. 

She had a freedom up here that she didn’t have living under the roof of her very protective family, and that freedom allowed her to get to know Smoke in a way that would have been damn near impossible back home. 

But he was always respectful. Never pushed. Always made sure she felt comfortable. That meant something to her. Time. Energy. Intention.

She kept getting four when she added two and two together.

But maybe Aunt Della was trying to tell her she wasn’t too good at math.

“I’ve known the twins since they were real young. Seen ‘em grow into bright young men. Good-lookin’ young men that every woman in this town want a piece of.” She paused. “And men like Smoke…they can make a girl feel like the whole world done gone quiet around her. But that don’t mean the world ain’t there no more.” 

Annie’s ears had already perked up at the mention of his name. But now she listened even more intently. 

Aunt Della’s gaze sharpened. “Don’t assume nothin’ based on a man’s silence. You’ll get yourself in trouble fillin’ in blanks that ain’t yours.”

The flame of the oil lamp shifted behind its glass, throwing a soft tremble across the wall. “You got dreams. Hopes. You want your own shop right?”

Annie’s chin lifted with a defiant certainty. “Yes ma’am.”

“Good. Don’t you put that on hold for him, or any man. If he really likes you, he won’t keep you from it.” Her voice got lower, like she wanted to say something hard but make it sound sweet. “Smoke ain’t a man who say much unless he mean it. But if a man really wants you, he’s gonna spell it out plainly.”

The words moved through Annie slowly, crawling up her spine and down her chest where her heart thumped a little faster. She traced her thumb along the back cover, feeling the grain of the leather beneath her fingertip. 

The ceiling creaked softly above them. Another lodger, maybe. Or just the house settling into itself. Crickets chirped low in the grass while the night wrapped around them, fully aware of what truth hid behind her silence. It chose not to soften it. 

“I understand,” she finally said, quietly.

“Now gone’ to bed. I know you tired.” 

Aunt Della stood. Annie did, too. Aunt Della turned towards the kitchen, then thought better of it and turned to grab Annie’s forearm before she got too far. She grabbed her face gently, staring at Annie with warm brown eyes. “I ain’t sayin’ all this to scare you. I’m sayin’ it ‘cause I love you.” 

The tightness in her chest eased a bit. “What were you gonna say, when you stopped yourself?”

Aunt Della’s eyes softened. “It’s not for me to say,” she said softly. “But you’ll find out soon enough.”

She pulled her into a hug then released her. Annie moved slowly towards the staircase, purse slung tightly over her shoulder, sketchbook secured underneath the crook of her arm. 

“Goodnight Aunt Della,” she called out.

“Goodnight, Annie.” 

Annie started up the stairs. Halfway up she paused, her fingers tightening their grip on the banister. She looked back toward Aunt Della who was halfway to the kitchen. 

“Thank you,” she said, just loud enough so she could hear it.

The night was dark and tonight that darkness felt loaded. The sky was bare. No stars, just an endless stretch of shadow that pressed against the windows, barely softened by the faint glow of the waning moon. 

Annie laid in her bed just staring. First she counted the cracks in the ceiling. Then she traced the lines on the walls with her eyes.

The words of Aunt Della replayed in her head. That and the feeling that something laid quietly underneath their conversation. Something Aunt Della knew and refused to say. 

Two questions came to mind. 

What was Aunt Della holding back from telling her? 

What made her change her mind?

It took a while for Annie’s eyes to get heavy while her thoughts refused to shut off. Something settled in her bones at that moment. 

Somewhere beyond the boarding house, Smoke—Elijah—had come and gone and left something behind. Something more than just a pretty sketchbook and a thoughtful note. 

Morning light came soft through the windows, a pale gold that stretched across the floorboards, taking on the pattern of the lace curtains. Annie stood at her dresser with her nightgown hanging off one shoulder, a satin scarf sliding slowly down her braids. 

She counted under her breath, the silver coins plunking against the thin metal of the container where she kept her money. It was a tea tin, a small one that smelled like mint no matter how many times she tried to air it out. The last coin clinked against the others in the tin. She closed the top of it, taking a moment to write the total on the back cover of her sketchbook. She kept a running tally there, one that she copied over from a piece of scrap paper she used to keep track of her earnings before last night. 

Annie set Smoke’s note on her dresser. She traced her fingers over the words, brushing her hand over his name on the paper. The ink pooled thickest where he dotted his “i,” and when she touched it, it stained the part where flesh met fingernail. Aunt Della’s words from last night crossed her mind as she watched the ink bloom and spread across her fingertip before slowly sinking into the skin. 

Crossing the room, she knelt near the loose floorboard in the corner that lifted without a creak. She tucked the tin into the hollow space and started to fit the wood back into place. Then she hesitated. Not because she doubted herself, but because she wanted to imagine what it would be like for a spell. Her own shop. A modest house with blue paint. She’d sell and barter healing herbs and medicines that ward off sickness and bad spirits, the shelves lined top to bottom with jars, vials and bottles of them. A long table, polished smooth by her own hands, would stretch proudly across the front room where she’d serve meals to sharecroppers and passing workers. Dried roots tied in bundles would hang from the rafters in a shed off to the side. People would come to fill their bellies and stay for something more.

That was hers. 

Annie left New Orleans before dawn, dust kicking up from the soles of her shoes and darkening the hem of her dress. She kept her money folded small, eyes cast down the way she was told to when she was traveling alone. A few things she held close to her chest— her great-grandmother’s bible, some knick-knacks, and a few letters. A burlap sack hung from her shoulder, holding some other possessions she held dear. An old trunk held the rest.

The Mississippi River laid before her, wide and brown. She boarded a boat with other people heading upriver, women with their satchels, men with their hats pulled low to keep the mosquitos away. Annie hung onto the railings, watching the trees dip their roots in the water, their branches swinging heavily in the wind like they’d seen too much. The depot was next. When she boarded the train, she closed her eyes and said a prayer underneath her breath— one for the journey, one for the destination. 

She spent the night in a Colored waiting room with families piled on top of each other and solo travelers with tired eyes wearing all their possessions.

The next day was another train. Cotton fields stretched wide beyond the thick glass of the windows, the grim landscape broken only by oak trees and tiny shacks lined up in a row. They passed by another stretch of land mostly hidden behind the treeline, but she could feel it— water, soil, roots, foundation. 

An elderly man, skin the color of pralines, sat on his porch watching the train go by. Striped overalls with the clasps unbuckled, white shirt with the sleeves rolled, straw hat, heavy work boots— but what caught her attention was his eyes. One was completely covered in cataracts. The other one looked sharp enough to hold the sight of four people. The man sucked on a stick of sugarcane while a hound dog sat by his side, tongue out, panting hard under the burn of the Mississippi sun.

Then he was gone. 

All that remained were the muted shades of nature as the train trekked through the countryside.  No house. No dog. No sugarcane. But Annie could remember every detail, even the dusty blue denim of the man’s overalls. And the expectant look in his eye.

She woke up with a jolt, spine snapping straight where she was slumped over in her seat.

The train cabin was quiet. Most people were asleep, some lingering in the corners, some just starting to wake up. Nighttime was on the horizon. Shades of orange and pink swallowing what was leftover from the day. 

“How long I been out?” she asked the woman next to her.

The woman thought for a moment. “Since we got on, I reckon.” 

“I been sleep this whole time?”

“Mhmm,” she confirmed. “Must’ve had you a long day…” 

“Must’ve…” Annie frowned, rubbing the sleep from her drowsy eyes. She looked out at the land through the thick, cloudy windows of the train cabin, and the land looked back. 

Time passed and she still remembered it all. The land. The house. The way the sun slanted just right through the trees. The man. How he looked like he was waiting for something. How real he felt, even after she realized she was dreaming. When she finally pressed the floorboard back into place the room became itself again. A bed. A dresser. An altar. And a young woman kneeling on the floor daydreaming about possibilities.

One state over, the road began to flatten towards Memphis. It was bad in places, rutted deep from wagons, farming equipment, and animal hooves. Dust rose up behind the truck in low brown puffs, sparkling in the light before disappearing up into the trees.

Smoke drove with both hands steady on the wheel. Stack rode beside him, one arm hanging lazily out the window, hat tipped low against the glare.

“So you gon’ tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Stack sucked his teeth. “Don’t do that.”

Smoke kept driving. Stack waited him out. That was the thing with twins, when one soul splits into two. Silence didn’t work on somebody who already felt it on the inside.

“Annie,” Stack blurted after a while.

Her name shifted something in the cab. Stack could tell by the way Smoke’s eyes narrowed slightly, his hands tightening around the wheel all of a sudden, the leather groaning under the force of his grip. 

“What about her?”

Stack barked out a laugh. “So, it’s like that?”

The road curved just ahead of them, pecan trees crowding close to the edge on either side of the road like they were trying to listen in on their conversation. 

“I talked to Della,” Smoke admitted. He looked over to Stack, whose smile eased a bit where he sat.

“About?”

Smoke didn’t reply.

Stack sat up fully. Back straight, slouch gone. “For real?”

Smoke shot him a look. 

Stack leaned back slightly, studying the side of Smoke’s face. “Damn,” he trailed off. “What she say?” 

It was the day before they were set to head to Memphis, and the early evening sun poured molten gold through the back windows, warming the floorboards of Della’s kitchen. Smoke stood in front of the counter watching her slice a batch of onions. Della stood on the other side, her arm moving like the wheels of a locomotive, the movement slow, methodical, and sharp because she’d done this a thousand times. 

“I been meanin’ to ask you somethin’,” he said, voice steady. 

Della kept her pace, she didn’t slow or stop. “That right?”

“That’s right.” 

“This ‘bout my girl?”

“It is.”

Della stopped what she was doing. She wiped the knife off on a kitchen towel, then set it down on the counter.

“I was hopin’ I could court Annie,” Smoke said firmly. “Proper like.” 

“What you know about courtin’ a woman proper?” Della asked. She crossed her arms. 

Smoke took his lick. He didn’t flinch.

“She ain’t just anybody,” Della said before he could respond.

“I know,” Smoke replied. Something in him leaned forward before his body did. “I wanna do it right. If she’ll have me.”

Della looked over Smoke carefully. For the lie in his eyes. For the joke tugging at the corner of his mouth. For the doubt in his posture. “You talk to her ‘bout this already?”

“Not yet.”

“You need to.”

“I will. Wanted to ask you first.” 

She eased her weight off one hip, and put it on the other. “She ain't built for no half steppin’.”

“I don’t do half.”

Della’s eyes narrowed for a second, then relaxed. “That girl want somethin’ of her own,” she said. “Don’t know if she told you that yet.”

“She did.”

“Well.” Her voice came out soft but sharp. “She got powerful hands. Hands that ain’t meant to be locked up under some man’s roof waitin’ for permission. If you wanna court her, you better not try to shrink her.”

“I won’t,” Smoke replied. 

Della picked up her knife again. She sliced into an onion slowly, the thin, methodical rhythm of metal hitting wood echoed in the otherwise quiet room. 

Lodgers started to walk in from their work shifts, heading to their rooms or back out to the porch where a few of them were squatting over a dice game. A few of them poked their heads into the kitchen to ask about supper. 

Smoke hadn’t moved an inch. He waited quietly, letting the silence sit between them, more for him than her.

“You like her,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She didn’t even need to ask. She could see it. Feel it, even. 

“Yes ma’am.”

“How much?” 

“I care about her. Wanna see her more. Respectfully.” 

Della’s nose wrinkled. “You serious?”

“I am,” he said with finality. 

Something passed through Della’s eyes as she looked him over carefully, from head to toe. It didn’t feel like judgment. It was something Smoke didn’t have a name for. He raised a brow, a silent question.

“Still seein’ other women?”

“No, ma’am.” 

“Ain’t what I heard.”

Confusion. It spread slowly across his face like the petals of a night-blooming flower before turning into something darker. Smoke flexed his hands at his sides before clasping them firmly in front of himself. “What you heard?” he asked, inclining his head.

“Little here, little there,” she admitted. She tilted her head. “May not be loud, but I can hear whispers just fine.” 

Smoke’s jaw worked. He shook his head once, firmly. “It ain’t true.”

“It ain’t?”

“I ain’t lyin’,” he stated simply. “Since I started spendin’ more time with Annie, I’ve only been seein’ her.” 

“Then why they still talkin’?”

Smoke sighed, running a hand down his face. “I don’t know,” he shrugged.

Della sucked her teeth. She looked away, then looked back. “That don’t answer my question.” 

Her eyes got a little sharper, then. Defensive. She folded her arms across her chest, pushing back.

Smoke looked like he was racking his brain for the answer. When it clicked, let out a ragged, frustrated breath through his nose. “I guess, I ain’t really end it the way I should,” he confessed.

Della’s voice went up a whole octave. “You guess?” she asked incredulously. 

“That’s on me,” Smoke said, jaw tight. “But I’ma handle it.” 

“How you tryna court Annie, when you can’t even end somethin’ proper? What happened?” 

“I stopped reachin’ out,” he explained. “Ain’t seen ‘em, none of that.” He sighed into his words. His voice tight, but firm. “Thought that was it. I moved on, figured they did, too.” 

“You figured wrong,” she corrected. “You leave one woman guessin’, don’t come over here askin’ me for permission to leave another one guessin’.” 

Smoke nodded, the muscle in his jaw fluttering. “I won't. I’ma clear it up. Before I bring anything to Annie.” 

“Don’t lie to me,” Della started. 

“Miss Della—” he started. 

She searched his eyes. “Elijah,” she said, in a tone that sounded like a warning.

Smoke’s gaze didn’t waver. He looked at her firm, steady, unblinking. “I mean to do right by her. I wouldn’t be askin’ you if I didn’t.” 

Della sighed. “Alright.” 

Smoke’s face relaxed. 

“There’s rules.”

“Okay.” 

“Handle that business, first.” 

“Trust me, I will,” Smoke said, nodding once.

Della picked her knife back up, turning it sideways so she could start dicing the onions. “Y’all been kissin’?” 

He wasn’t about to lie. He didn’t lie anyways, not when it mattered, but especially not to a woman who could put a root on him with one hand, and chop an onion clean down the middle with the other—at the same time. “Yes ma’am,” he admitted. 

She didn’t flinch. “That it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Mhmm,” she muttered. “No funny business in my house,” she warned, pointing the tip of the knife towards him. 

“You ain’t gotta worry about that.” 

“I know,” she said warmly. “Not with you.”

“Can I leave this for her?”

Smoke held up a thin, black leather covered book.

“What is it?”

His jaw worked. “It's for her drawings,” he said simply. “So she can keep 'em all in one place.”

“I will,” she said. She could feel the tenderness in his words, even though he tried to hide it.

Smoke let out the breath he’d been holding since he walked up the steps of her porch with a gift and a question. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said, sweeping the diced onions into a bowl with the edge of her blade. “That girl’s heart is her own. She gotta say yes, first.”

“Smoke.” Stack’s voice came out quiet. 

Smoke slowed without thinking. He cursed under his breath, sitting fully forward in his seat. 

Up ahead, the road dipped towards a narrow wooden bridge that laid over a stretch of shallow, muddy water. Off to the side, something rose from behind the cotton fields. 

Dust. It came from the far side of the bridge, lifting faintly through the trees along with the sound of a mule dragging something through dirt. 

Smoke eased the car to a stop beneath the shade just before the bridge. Stack moved from the passenger seat and stalked towards the edge of the field, his body loose in the way men looked when they were prepared not to be. He looked for what didn’t belong while Smoke stayed behind the wheel listening for it.

Wind rustled through the leaves, a dry, papery sound that blew through the acres of cotton plants. Sharecroppers that sang hymns and blues songs as they moved down the line. They picked cotton with tired, calloused hands, the cost of their labor paid in bright red splotches of blood that dripped from their fingers, staining the stark whiteness of the cotton bolls. A vulture circled overhead, then found its prey. It swooped down, its wings spreading menacingly slow as its talons gripped the rung of abandoned machinery.

Stack walked back to the truck with the cautious confidence he carried no matter how many times they’d taken this route. His face didn’t show it, but his eyes stayed sharp. “Just some nigga on a wagon,” he said, waving it off.

Smoke looked back, looked towards his brother, looked towards the bridge, flexed his hands on the wheel, then steadied. 

Memphis appeared thirty minutes later. 

The city smelled like hot grease and opportunity. The sound of brass instruments hung heavy in the air, cutting through all the cigar smoke and pipe exhaust. A band played on the street once they turned the corner, a crowd of people gathered around them tossing money, dancing, and singing. Vendors lined the streets selling all kinds of treats, both savory and sweet, shouting their prices above all the noise. 

There was a lightness here. 

But Stack hadn’t spoken since they crossed that bridge.

“Just say it,” Smoke muttered.

“Say what?” He spoke with his usual slick tone, toothpick hanging out the corner of his mouth like he knew something you didn’t. 

“Whatever it is.” 

Stack grinned. He rolled the toothpick around his mouth. Cleared his throat. “I’m just thinkin’.”

Smoke waited.

He rubbed a hand over his freshly lined up goatee. Smiled again, wider this time, his gold fronts shining in the late afternoon. “You ain’t seen…you know?”

Smoke didn’t even let the question linger in the air. “No.”

Stack didn’t back down. “Last I heard…”

Smoke’s brows pulled together. “It ain’t true,” he said flatly. 

“I knew she was full of shit.” He shook his head in disgust. “She gon’ be pissed, though.” 

“Who, Annie?”

Stack looked over. “Nah.” He shrugged. “I mean, maybe…” He shook his head again. “I mean...”  

“Nigga.”

Beale Street pulsed around them. A saxophone blared loudly on the sidewalk. The sultry voice of a woman floated out from the open door of a juke they passed by. 

“Look at my nigga tryna be serious,” Stack teased, clapping his brother on the shoulder. “I mean you was born serious but…” 

“Aight….” Smoke mumbled. 

“For real," he continued. Voice lighter now, but not unserious. “I’m happy for you brotha.”

Smoke didn’t answer.

Stack leaned back in his seat, arms folded behind his head as the truck slowed in front of The Monarch. The juke joint was already breathing through the walls. Music, laughter, and the smell of fried food spilled out into the street. 

“You know she good for you, right?” 

Smoke’s eyes cut over. 

Stack lifted a hand. “I’m bein’ serious,” he said with a grin.

“I ain’t ask you for all that,” Smoke grumbled. He pulled the brake and cut the engine. “I just need you to be serious ‘bout this business we ‘bout to handle.” 

Stack smoothed out his suit jacket before climbing out first. “Nigga, I’m always serious ‘bout—” He cut himself off. His grin widened. “Oh, you really like her huh.” 

Smoke stepped out after him, shutting the truck door harder than necessary. “Shut up, Stack.”

Stack only laughed as he headed towards the door of the joint. Smoke followed behind him, both brothers disappearing into the smoky mouth of the juke.

They waited until the boarding house was empty. Breakfast was long over, the kitchen back to the way it looked before the lodgers ran through it in the morning. The floors were swept, shelves dusted, dishes washed, dried, and stacked neatly in the cupboard. Flour dust hid between the cracks of the table no matter how many times it was wiped down, a chipped blue bowl full of onions and garlic hiding most of that. A heavy cast iron pan hung over the stove with something in it that would cook low and slow until supper. 

Annie stood in the kitchen with her sleeves rolled past her elbows, wiping down the edge of the table. Aunt Della watched her from across the kitchen, tending an arrangement of calla lilies in a slender glass jar. “Ready?”

Annie looked up from wiping a stubborn corner of the table. “Yes.”

“Nervous?”

Annie rung the rag out, twisting it once and dropping it in the wash basin. “A little.”

The kettle hissed softly behind them, steam reaching up towards the ceiling in white, pillowy puffs. A burst of bright, mid-morning light flooded the room through the curtains, catching the edge of a jar of dried bay leaves that sat near the windowsill and the fur of Felix who was curled up with his paws tucked under him like he was waiting on this exact moment. He purred gently, the sound a sharp contrast to the kettle whose whistle was now piercing the air.

“Come on,” Aunt Della said, leading her towards the lean-to in the backyard.

The space was narrow and dark even though the sun was high, only slivers of light peeking through the cracks in the siding. The shelves held various grooming items needed for a house full of men. Lye soap, oils and tonics, shampoos and aftershave. A galvanized tub sat in the middle of it all. Aunt Della moved two small crates aside in the corner of the room. Annie looked down, her mouth dropping open when she caught the glint of the iron ring hidden between the floorboards.

“Don’t just stand around catching flies,” Aunt Della threw over her shoulder. She was already bending over as quickly as she could for her age, hooking two fingers into the ring and pulling up. 

“What’s down there?” She bent down to help her. 

“You ‘bout to find out.”

The wood lifted from the floor with a low groan and a whistle of trapped air that escaped like the room was letting out a breath. The smell of something earthy and dark—roots, clay, old wood, and something more sharp—hit them with the first whiff that rose from beneath the ground. Aunt Della lowered herself carefully onto the first step then looked back, a lit oil lamp secure in her hands. “Mind your skirt,” she told Annie. “And close the door behind you.”

Annie gathered the length of her skirt, wrapping it twice around her hand. The stairs creaked beneath her feet, each one more narrow and steep the deeper she moved below the boarding house. The hum of the street disappeared first. Then the sounds of the backyard—chickens, birds, bees and the breeze. 

Then the daylight. 

Annie paused at the bottom to take in all that she could see from the stretch of Aunt Della’s oil lamp. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, crowded with everything from bottles to tins to roots dark and twisted that reached into the soil like fingers. 

Aunt Della led her to a door. They had to be underneath the front porch of the house, Annie thought to herself. She unlocked the room, a heavy oak door fitted with two heavy padlocks, and guided them inside.

More shelves.

Glass jars caught the flickering flame of the lamp in dull flashes. They were lined up along the walls, filled with graveyard dust, mandrake, cinquefoil, High John, and camphor. A stack of bones too small for Annie to name. A brown bag of black mustard seeds, blue glass beads, river stones smooth as polished teeth, and an assortment of other things. 

Aunt Della set the lamp on a low table in the middle marked with knife nicks and stains like old wounds. On it sat a mortar and pestle, a ledger book with a cracked spine, a fountain pen, three small bowls, and a white candle burned low in its dish. 

“This where we gon’ start.”

Annie looked around, wrapping her arms around herself. “This all yours?”

“It’s all mine,” Aunt Della confirmed. “Take a seat.” She gestured for Annie to sit on one of two cushions around the table and moved to one of the shelves. She glanced at a bundle of dried leaves, touching them lightly with two fingers before bringing it back to the table. “Some of this belonged to my mama. Some of it from women I met along the way. Women whose names don’t get spoken much anymore.” 

She opened the ledger to a blank page, then pushed it to the corner of the table. “First thing you learn ain’t gon’ be what does what, it’s gon’ be what not to touch.” 

Annie’s eyes narrowed.

“There’s stuff that heals and stuff that calls. Calling is where it gets tricky. You can call luck, love, happiness. You can call something darker. Something that settles. Something that unsettles. The thing that gives you mercy can be the same one you beg for mercy. It all depends on which hand holds it.” 

Annie absorbed as much as she could while her gaze drifted around the room. This room felt smaller, not because of its size, but because of what it held. Most things felt familiar, a few things did not. It was the few things that didn’t, that unsettled her. 

She thought of her grandmother. Of the stool in her apothecary. Sometimes she’d sit there all day, just watching. Reaching for things out of curiosity and being told ‘not yet’ so often that it became part of her rearing. 

Aunt Della must have seen something cross her face, because her voice softened. “You know more than you think,” she said. 

“Then why do I feel like I don’t know anything…all of a sudden?”

She paused. And then— “Lemme show you.” Aunt Della reached for a jar of something dried and fragrant hidden under a strip of blue fabric. She set it on the table. “Name it.”

Annie tried to peer through the glass. The leaves were green, obviously. Smooth, and curled at the edges, from what she could see. She opened the jar carefully and sniffed the fragrance that wafted through her nose. The smell was earthy. Sharp. “Sage?” she asked.

Aunt Della gave her a look.

“Not sage,” Annie winced.

Aunt Della paused a moment. “You know that ain’t no damn sage.”

Annie brought the jar to her nose again. She took a deeper whiff. It smelled different this time, something warmer and sweeter. Familiar, but not from the kitchen. “Boneset?” she guessed.

“You askin’ or tellin’?” 

“Tellin’,” she said, twisting the lid closed and setting the jar down.

Aunt Della waited a moment for Annie to second guess herself. She didn’t. “There she is.”

Annie smiled despite herself. 

“What’s it for?”

“Fevers and aches,” Annie began. “Unless you take too much.” 

Aunt Della hummed as she shuffled through the  jars, vials, and pouches littered on the shelves. “Every living thing got a spirit,” she started. “It had a spirit ‘fore it had a name.”  She continued on. “Its smell will tell you its name. But its spirit, that’ll tell you what it wants.” She looked at Annie closely, eyes narrowing. “This,” she tapped her temple, “is how you learn the spirit of a thing.” 

She reached behind her without looking, pulled another jar down, and set it on the table in front of Annie. “Name it.”

They went on like that for a while, one jar after another. Some Annie knew right away, some she hesitated on, and some that made her feel straight foolish when Aunt Della corrected her.

“Don’t just guess ‘cause you wanna be right.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You was.” 

Annie huffed softly, frustrated. 

“You gotta learn how to trust yourself, baby. Like when you close your eyes to draw.”

Aunt Della turned her back to the shelf, her eyes sweeping over her collection until she landed on a small bundle wrapped in red thread. She placed it on the table without a word.

“Gon’ head. Pick it up,” she insisted. 

Annie hesitated at first. Her fingers wrapped around it gently, something tightening low in her belly once it touched her palm. Whatever was inside the cloth was hidden, but she could feel the weight of what she held in her hands. 

“What?” Aunt Della challenged her. “Tell me how it feels.” 

Annie rubbed her thumb along the fabric. “This one feels…like it wanna be left alone,” she said breathily.

The flame of the oil lamp that sat on the low table shifted, flickering once then standing still—but it wasn’t from any wind. 

There was no wind down here.

Just darkness, soil, and walls that held their breath like lungs. 

Aunt Della watched her for a moment, then reached out and took it from her. Annie’s hands felt lighter instantly. 

“What was that?” Annie’s eyes lifted, following the bundle.

“Not today.”

“Really?”

“I said,” Della repeated. “Not today.” She sat back down. “Lesson number two. Curiosity don’t mean permission.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Power ain’t always in what you can hold. Sometimes it lies in what you know to leave alone when you ain’t ready. When it ain’t ready.” 

She looked up to the ceiling. “They know?” 

Aunt Della snorted. “Men don’t notice half of what’s goin’ on.”

Annie laughed and Aunt Della smiled back, pulling the ledger towards the edge of the table. The pages were filled with names, dates, ingredients, measurements, and notes. Some in Aunt Della’s hand, others in foreign script. Most of the entries were normal: fever, toothache, bad blood, sleeplessness. Others were less common: keep someone away, restore peace to a home, stop a tongue from speaking ill, return what was sent. Annie traced a line without touching it. Her pulse felt different as her finger hovered over the script. Slower, heavier, like something had reached up and guided her hand. 

Aunt Della flipped to the next page of the ledger, tapping a blank line on the page once with her finger. “When you open a door with your name on it, you better know what you sellin’. You ain’t just sellin’ an herb. Ain’t just sellin’ a bottle. You sellin’ a promise.”

“A promise?”

“When a woman’s hurt and she comes to you for help…she ain’t just lookin’ to buy a root. She’s lookin’ to buy trust. Silence. The hope that somebody knows what to do with what she can’t carry alone anymore.”

Annie thought about the women slipping through her grandmother’s door. Their faces covered with veils, hands holding tight onto coins, voices just above a whisper. She drew them sometimes while she sat in the corner on that stool—not just their faces, but the changes. How they came and how they left. 

Aunt Della pushed the pen, ink, and the ledger on the table right in front of Annie. “Write today’s date.”

le 31 octobre 1919

Annie wrote it in her best script. When she put the pen down she felt different somehow, like she had crossed a threshold she didn’t even know was there. 

Aunt Della moved the ledger away to let the ink dry and the moment settle. Then she stood, took down another jar from the shelves, popped off the lid, and set it in front of her. 

“Name it.”

Annie lifted the jar to her nose, but this time she didn’t rush.

She smelled first. 

Looked second. 

And listened to whatever quiet thing inside her answered third.

It took Smoke three attempts to light his cigarette.

It was later that same evening. He stood on the second-floor balcony of the Greenwood House. It sat on the corner of Hernando and Beale; the place he and Stack stayed every time they came down to Memphis. The clink of utensils and the hearty smell of andouille sausage and gumbo drifted out the open windows of the porch and floated upward to where he stood outside, making his stomach twist with hunger. 

An older woman named Mrs. Johnson owned the place and knew them well, often turning a blind eye to whatever they (Stack) got up to when they came down for business. 

“This ain’t no whorehouse! You want a whorehouse, there's plenty of them down the street! Tryna soil my good furniture. The sheets is one thing, but I catch one of them hussies on one of my couches, I’ll put you out on ya ass in the middle of the night with just ya draws on!”

Smoke held a lighter in one hand, an unlit cigarette in the other, rolled up tight with the special New Orleans blend of tobacco laced with a little grass that he got from Bo every other week.

His thumb slipped on the spark wheel on his first try.

His hand shook suddenly on the second. 

He gripped the base harder, clenching his teeth on the third try. An eruption of flint and fuel sparked a flame that burned bright and angry against the setting Memphis sun and the backdrop of Beale Street.

Smoke brought the cigarette to his mouth, its red ember heating the inside of the palm. 

He exhaled with relief. 

It felt like a betrayal. That a white man’s war was the reason his hands had a mind of their own sometimes. The lack of control that had him shook. Angry.

He took another drag to calm his nerves, his thoughts searching for somewhere soft to land.

Annie.

He’d seen her walk into some shop on Issaquena a few weeks back. Long blue dress with buttons down the middle. Curved just right over her hips and thighs. Like it was painted on. 

Smoke took another hit, blood sparking heavy with desire. He let the smoke filter through his nostrils when he exhaled. He inhaled it back through his nose, letting the fumes settle deep and spicy in his chest.

He had to think about something safer.

Like lips or eyes.

But Annie’s lips? And Annie’s eyes?

Her lips were dangerous. Soft, fluffy, inviting. Sweet.

He thought about how his name slipped out of them like it was the best thing she ever tasted.

“Smoke,” she’d drawl. It melted on the tip of her tongue like a scoop of her favorite ice cream from downtown, her Louisiana lilt drawing out the o, making her lips form a perfect circle like she was—

“You good?” 

The sound of familiar steps made him turn his head to the side. 

It was Stack. 

“Yeah,” Smoke said, flexing his hands at his sides. “Food ready yet?”

”Just about. She puttin’ dishes out and shit.” Stack turned to walk away. Then he paused. Turned back. “She made sweet potato pie, too.” 

Smoke snuffed out his cigarette and hurried his ass downstairs. 

One Week Later…

It was lunch hour. The dining area at Blackbird was packed full of hungry customers, unbridled laughter, and the smell of frying oil. Annie weaved expertly through the tables and around the booths like she belonged there. Since she started working there, she’d already found her own rhythm even though she only worked a few times a week. She was keeping up with the seasoned waitresses, the ones who didn’t write orders down and could balance two serving trays and a pot of coffee with one hand. She was doing so well that even Mr. Hightower was impressed with how she held her own, even with the sudden increase of diners from out of town.

Especially people’s relatives from up north.

There wasn’t a family in Clarksdale who didn’t have somebody who went north for better opportunities, higher wages, and more or less, more freedom. Annie heard the stories. Walk off a train, walk into a stockroom or a shipyard and find work that pays four times what you’d earn in the fields or as a domestic down south. 

And now she was looking at them sitting in the booths, laughing with their friends and family while showing off their fancy cars, shiny shoes, and new clothing. 

That ‘Northern’ polish. 

Stack had that type of polish. Always kept a waistcoat. Always wore real gold—chains, pocket watch, gold fronts. Shoes always shined like they were polished by the sun. 

Smoke didn’t dress like his brother, but he had a way about him too. His clothes weren’t flashy, but they were clean. Neat. He kept a wristwatch instead of a pocket one. One with a black leather strap, smooth bezel, and a nice engraving carved on the back. But he still had a ruggedness about him that she liked...a lot.

She wondered if their “travels” ever took them up north. Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago. She knew they’d been to New York. Smoke told her that. Spent some time in Harlem staying with Aunt Della’s son before they shipped off to war.

Annie didn’t know exactly what they got up to when they went out of town, but she wasn’t wet behind the ears. She didn’t need all the details to know the shape of danger. The town knew what the SmokeStack twins were; they earned those names here. Even if the town knew to not go into detail about what they did to earn them. But there were rumors.

Especially about the women they dealt with.

Stack was the womanizer. Annie knew that the minute she first met him at the train station. He had a mouth so slick, he could make a woman apologize to him for breaking her own heart. Smoke was a little different. Quieter about his, at least. But quieter didn't mean it ain’t exist. Where Stack left noise, Smoke left silence. The type of silence that was hard to measure sometimes. And with silence came people trying to fill that empty space with their own version of the truth. So they whispered. 

“So-and-so said…but you ain’t heard it from me.”

“He don’t talk as much as Stack, but he ain’t no saint.”

Aunt Della’s words came to mind. About things being spelled out plain and not assuming attention meant intention. But Annie wasn’t so sure if it was a warning, or just plain words of wisdom.

Was she just another woman in a line of quiet whispers?

“Annie!” It was Mr. Hightower.

She looked up. 

“You been wipin’ the same spot for a minute, now.”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head a little, plopping the rag in the bucket. 

“I need you to dump the coffee in the back please,” he requested, walking off.  

Annie sighed. “Yes, sir.”

She made her way to the back, coffee pots in one hand and a bucket of hot, soapy water in the other. She set the bucket by the back door and walked outside. 

The back alley smelled like cigarettes and old food. 

Annie’s nose wrinkled as she walked over to the trash receptacles before getting startled by a raccoon that darted out from under one of the trash bags. She managed to dump the coffee out without splashing it all over her shoes. The cool, brown liquid pooled on the ground for a minute before seeping into the dirt, the coffee grounds scattering across the wet surface like ash.

Fourth Street was alive. Wagons, voices, music, smoke drifting up from cigarettes and woodstoves. Smoke had finished one last piece of business near Fourth Street. He stepped out of the back room of a building and onto the street, money folded tight in his pocket, hat sitting low on his head. He stepped off the curb and crossed the street, slowing right in front of Blackbird Cafe. He stopped. Looked through the windows casually, trying to be subtle. He wasn’t. The writing and the glare from the sun made it hard to see, but he found her instantly.

Annie was behind the counter, but her head turned towards the kitchen. Probably listening to one of the cooks talking shit from the back like they always did. He saw her shoulders shake and her head dip forward like she was laughing at something one of them said. But when she turned back around, the smile on her face broke the room open. 

Something struck him low in the chest. A possessive tightening pull on his ribs. Annie’s eyes shifted. She looked around the restaurant. Through the other waitresses that darted around her, through the people in the dining area. They kept on moving until they finally found him. 

Her face went blank for a second and he thought his chest would cave in. Then it softened, then the corner of her mouth lifted slowly. Just for him. That was enough for him to walk inside before he even realized what he was doing.

The cafe got quieter when he walked in. Conversations lulled, laughter turned into low chuckles that turned into throats clearing. Men nodded to him. Either out of respect, fear, or something else. Smoke took a seat at the counter and watched as Annie made her way over with a coffee pot in her hand.

“Afternoon,” she said softly.

“Afternoon.”

“You hungry?”

“Coffee’s fine.”

She took a mug from the shelf behind the counter, placed it in front of him, and started pouring. The coffee spilled into the cup dark and hot, steam rising off the top before dissolving into the air like the things left unspoken between them. 

Smoke wrapped his hands around the mug and took a sip. Warmth settled into his palms and spread throughout his chest. And it wasn’t from the coffee. “Thank you,” he said, voice low.

“My pleasure,” Annie giggled. “How was your trip?”

“Long.”

“That it?”

“Mostly.”

Annie didn’t push. She studied him for a second, topping off his coffee and wiping down the countertop while the diners went back to their own conversations and meals. She thought about saying more. She decided not to. It was too quiet now. Too many ears perked up. She reached behind the counter again, this time to pull out a clean napkin.

“Thank you,” she said as she set the napkin down next to his mug.

“For what?” His eyebrows pulled together.

“The sketchbook,” Annie said incredulously, head cocked to the side.

Smoke’s mouth twitched. “You welcome.” 

“Mhmm.” She rolled her eyes playfully.

“You been good?” His voice was rough when he asked that question. 

She tapped her fingers slowly on the counter as he set his mug down. Annie leaned forward on her hands. Smoke leaned forward on his arms. Annie looked at Smoke. Smoke looked at Annie. 

“Been great,” she said finally. Her lips were pursed in that playful way he liked. “You?”

Smoke’s eyes moved over what he could see of her from his seat at the counter. Slowly. 

“Better now.” 

She raised a brow. “Oh yeah?”

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” he said casually. He kept his eyes on hers. 

Her mouth dropped open, whatever she was fixing to say right on the tip of her tongue when Sheila’s voice from the kitchen made it snap shut. 

“Table six, order up!” Followed by two dings.

Annie turned around, quickly sliding the plates of hot food from the pass-through window onto her serving tray. She moved from behind the counter to a table with hot food and a smile brighter than the sun reflecting off the windows. Smoke watched her working, stealing glances over the rim of his mug. Every so often while she was taking an order, or refilling a coffee, she’d look over at him like she could feel his eyes on her, then quickly look away. When it started to get busier and she couldn’t steal a look at him, he felt something. Like a dull ache. 

He stood as Annie finally circled back to where he was sitting, stretching his arms above his head. 

“You leavin’?”

Smoke nodded. “Got some business to handle.” 

He put his money on the counter, their hands meeting when she reached for it before he had pulled his hand back. The contact made them both still. Their index fingers brushed against each other where they touched for a second before pulling away completely. Their eyes met again.

“I’ll see you,” Smoke said.

“Okay,” she replied. It was just above a whisper.

He wasn’t finished. “Soon.”

Their eyes held, the contact lingering for a moment like they both had something they wanted to say but knew it wasn’t the moment. 

Smoke slipped away, steps light even though he carried weight. Annie watched the door swing shut behind him, letting in a flash of air and street noise before locking it out again. She stood behind the counter still, fingers resting on the money he’d left on the table, feeling the ghost of where his finger rubbed the side of hers. She stood there for a second, letting it sink in. Two seconds went by, then three. Then she snapped out of it, pulling herself back into what she was there for— the money. 

“Felicia!” Annie called for her as she carried a tray over her shoulder. “Table four said they want two more sodas!” 

“Got it,” Felicia huffed. 

The bell above the door rang again. Annie moved quickly, sat the diners at a table, pulled out her pen and pad. She gave recommendations, talked up the specials. She even took on an extra table—a party of six that started off with a round of drinks. 

She kept herself busy. There was no such thing as a quiet moment during a lunch rush. But every time she looked out into the street, she thought of him. Coming through like he owned the place. Leaving something behind every time he walked out. 

—

Smoke was far enough away that he couldn’t see her clearly through the window anymore. Just movement and light and the shape of her passing between the tables. Blackbird stayed loud and alive behind him. Annie’s world now. Part of it, anyway. The more Smoke saw her, the more he wanted to be that other part. Not keep her waiting. Not tuck her away. 

Della was right. Just wanting her wasn’t enough. Other men wanted her, too. He saw the way their gaze would follow her around as she moved around the cafe…until they saw him. He heard about the one at the theater. And the preacher. But he knew she needed to hear it from him soon.

When they stared at each other before he left Blackbird, the look in her eyes held a question. One he didn’t have to ask to know. He knew one thing, he was gonna set shit straight before she was left guessing what kind of man had walked into her life.

Only three days. Three more days until they’d be out for Spring Break and she’d be back to lounging around her home in a moomoo with no panties. She was looking forward-

His scent. Mahogany and amber.

It invaded her space, her home unapologetically. But still… she leaned into it as if it were second nature. Her thighs clenching together under the flowy maxi dress. The woman stood frozen in her own doorway, her mind refusing to believe what her body already confirmed.

“Smoke?” It was said in an almost whisper. Deep down the woman had hoped that she was simply tired from the day and overthinking.

There was no way possible Elijah Moore was in her home. But…she was wrong.

Elijah pushed the chair back into it’s place and responded from the kitchen. “Yeah?”

He materialized in front of her and Annie just about threw everything to the floor.

The man grabbed all of her things and walked over to the couch to sit the items down. Annie remained in place as if she was imagining all of this but deep down? She wasn’t that shocked and after today? She didn’t have any more fight left in her.

But she still couldn’t give up that easy.

“What you doin’ here at my house, Smoke?” she hissed, trying to retain some level of control.

“You here, thats’s why I’m here.”

🇧🇷

Well….. 👀😭 Elijah is not a serious man. Skksskks. Or maybe he is.

He was in that lady house like:

A/N: I was threatened in my dm to post this, plz. 😭 I’m almost done. Just a few kinks to clean up.

And also, some real life shit been happening lately.

Anywayssss….let’s chat later. 💛💛

Mood: 😭

October 2026

Wunmi's house looked like a storm had completely wrecked it. Drawers were pulled open, clothes spread all over the place, shoes were kicked off in random directions, and couch cushions had been tossed aside. Even the kitchen had things out of place, which never happened.

Wunmi stood in the middle of the living room with her phone pressed between her ear and shoulder while she dug through yet another bag for what felt like the hundredth time.

“I don’t understand,” she muttered tightly. “I don’t lose things like this.”

On the other end, Michael was quiet for a second, listening to the sound of things shifting and falling in the background.

“Hey, slow down,” he said, calmer than she felt. "You’re tearing the whole place up.”

She let out a sharp exhale, dropping the bag onto the floor before moving to the next thing.

“I already did tear the whole place up,” she shot back, her accent heavily slipping through. “It’s gone, Michael. I’ve looked everywhere.”

He leaned back in his chair on set, phone pressed to his ear, eyes tracking the movement around him. He ignored the faint sound of someone calling for him to be ready in a few minutes.

“It’s not gone, you just misplaced it, baby,” he said steadily.

Wunmi laughed, but there was no humor in it. She yanked open a drawer, rifling through it quickly.

“The one time I take it off and it goes missing,” she said, her voice starting to crack.

Michael’s jaw tightened slightly at that.

“When did you take it off?”

She paused, thinking, her movements slowing for a second.

“The night I washed my hair. I didn’t want it slipping off or getting caught, so I put it—” She stopped, her brows pulling together. “I put it on the counter I think.”

Her hands moved faster again, more frantic now that she was second-guessing herself.

“Wunmi, stop moving for second,” he said firmly.

She didn’t.

“I can’t stop,” she snapped, moving into the living room and dropping to her knees to check under the couch again. “It’s not here.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to stay patient.

“Aye, listen to me,” he called. "It's fine we'll find it and if we don't—"

Her movements slowed just a little.

“I don’t want another one,” she cut in quickly, sitting back on her heels, her chest rising and falling. “You paid too much money for this one, Michael.”

He shook his head, a small frown forming.

“I don’t care about that.”

“Well, I do,” she said immediately, pushing herself up and started to pace. “And it’s not even just that. You—you really thought about it and took the time to pick it out.”

He rubbed his hand over his mouth, leaning forward slightly.

“And I’ll easily do it again,” he said.

She huffed under her breath, shaking her head like he just wasn’t getting it.

“That’s not the point,” she murmured.

On his end, someone tapped his shoulder lightly. He nodded without looking at them, waving them off for a second.

“Give me a minute.”

He turned his attention fully back to her.

“Alright, listen. You probably left it at my place,” he said.

Wunmi stopped pacing immediately.

“…No, I didn’t.”

“You might’ve,” he pressed. “Think about it. Last time you were here—”

“That was a week ago,” she cut in, frustration creeping back in. “And I didn’t take it off there.”

He paused, tilting his head slightly.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “Why would I take it off there and not put it back on?”

He shrugged even though she couldn’t see it.

“I don’t know. You do a lot when you’re over here.”

That earned him a small, irritated huff.

“Michael,” she warned.

He let out a quiet breath, easing back a little.

“Alright, alright. All I’m saying is it’s somewhere. It didn’t just disappear.”

She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she turned slowly, looking over the mess of her home again. The reality of it hit her and her eyes started to burn.

“I don't like not having it on,” she admitted softly.

“Hey, don't do that,” Michael said gently.

She pressed her lips together, blinking a few times as she crouched down again, picking up a pillow just to check under it as if she hadn’t already done that ten times before.

“I just—” she started, her voice wobbling slightly. “You were so thoughtful with it. And now I’ve just lost it and you're being far too calm.”

“Because you're doing enough panicking for the both of us, baby. I'm not going to say it again but you didn't lose it, you just misplaced it." he said.

She didn’t argue, but she didn’t agree either.

“Michael—”

“I’m serious,” he cut in. “You don’t need to stress yourself out like this. It’s not worth it.”

She let out a long breath, some of the tension leaving her shoulders, but not all of it.

On his end, someone called out for him again. He closed his eyes briefly, exhaling.

“I gotta go,” he told her.

Wunmi nodded even though he couldn’t see it, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of a blanket.

“…Okay.”

He didn’t hang up right away.

“You good?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“…I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t fully believe that.

“Stop tearing your house up and take a break. I'll look for it when I get back. And if we can't find it then I'll get you another one,” he spoke lightly.

“Okay,” she said finally, even though it wasn’t fully okay.

“Alright,” he replied.

“…Be careful. I love you,” she added quietly.

“I love you too.”

The call ended and wunmi stood there in the middle of the mess. Her eyes drifted back down to her bare finger. It just felt so wrong.

She swallowed, pressing her lips together before letting out a slow breath. Her gaze moved around the room one more time, then she shook her head slightly, stepping over a pile of clothes as she moved toward the couch. She sank down into it, exhaustion finally catching up to her.

Wunmi sat there for a while, staring at nothing. Her mind tried to retrace every step she’d taken over the last few days. She pressed her lips together, then pushed herself up from the couch with a quiet exhale.

If she wasn’t going to find it right now, then she at least wasn’t going to keep living in the middle of a disaster. So she started with the living room. She picked things up and put them back into place. Every now and then her eyes would flick down to her hand out of habit, but each time it annoyed her.

She cleaned the kitchen next. Then moved to her bedroom. She was haflway through folding her thrown around clothes when her phone rang from somewhere behind her. She paused, listening for a second before turning and spotting it on the bed. She was able to that it was her good friend Danielle Brooks calling her.

Wunmi blinked, then walked over, picking it up and answering as she sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“Hello?”

“Wunmi!” Danielle’s voice came through bright and warm, full of energy. “Girl, where have you been?”

A small smile pulled at Wunmi’s mouth instantly.

“I’ve been around. You're the one that's been busy,” she said lightly, tucking one leg under herself.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Danielle laughed. “But still. I feel like I haven’t seen you seen you in forever.”

“Same,” Wunmi admitted, her voice softening just a little.

“So what you doing today?” Danielle asked.

Wunmi glanced around her half-clean room

“Nothing, really. Just at home,” she said.

“Perfect. That means you can come out to lunch with me,” Danielle replied immediately.

Wunmi huffed out a quiet laugh.

“You didn't even ask me!”

“Why would I? And I'm not taking no for an answer, so don't say it,” Danielle said.

Wunmi shook her head, smiling despite herself. “I wasn’t going to say no.”

“Good, because I already have the reservations made,” Danielle said. “So you're definitely coming?”

Wunmi hesitated for half a second, her thumb brushed lightly over her ring finger without thinking.

“I’ll come,” she said.

“I'll send you the address because I’m already on the way there, so don’t take forever.”

Wunmi laughed softly. “I won’t.”

“Alright, I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Okay.”

The call ended and Wunmi immediately got to work.

She stood in front of her closet for a minute, scanning her options before deciding on something simple. Once she was dressed, she moved to the mirror, smoothing her hands over her outfit, adjusting small things here and there.

Her gaze lifted to her reflection then dropped. Her bare hand came up slightly.

“…It’s fine,” she murmured to herself.

She reached for her shades, sliding them on before grabbing her purse. The sun hit her with a warmth as soon as she stepped outside. She locked her door, adjusted her bag on her shoulder, then headed to her car.

During the entire drive, Wunmi had the music on low playing softly in the background with er fingers tapping lightly against the steering wheel.

Eventually she pulled up to the restauraunt. She parked, grabbed her purse, and stepped out, adjusting her shades slightly as she made her way inside. The place was lively but not overwhelming. Soft chatter filled the air, the clink of glasses and silverware blending into the background. She approached the host stand, offering a small smile.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” the hostess greeted warmly. “Do you have a reservation?”

“Yes. I believe it's under Danielle Brooks?”

The hostess nodded immediately, grabbing a menu. “Right this way.”

Wunmi followed her through the restaurant, weaving past tables and people until they reached the patio doors. Danielle sat at one of the tables, sunglasses perched on the top of her face, her posture relaxed as she scrolled through her phone. She looked up just in time, her expression breaking into a wide smile as she stood up.

“Wunmi!”

They closed the distance quickly, wrapping each other in a warm hug.

“Hey,” Wunmi laughed softly against her shoulder.

“Hey, stranger,” Danielle teased, squeezing her a little tighter before pulling back to look at her.

They both took a second, really taking each other in.

“It’s been too long,” Danielle said.

“It has,” Wunmi agreed.

Danielle shook her head, smiling. “You look good.”

“So do you,” Wunmi replied easily.

They both laughed, that easy, familiar energy settling right back into place like no time had passed at all.

“Come on,” Danielle said, gesturing toward the table as they sat back down.

Wunmi slid into her seat, setting her purse down beside her, her shades still on as she leaned back slightly.

Their server approached not too long after they sat down, a polite smile on her face as she glanced between them.

“Hi, ladies. Can I start you off with something to drink?”

Danielle didn’t even look at the menu.

“Yeah, I’ll do a margarita,” she said easily, handing it back.

The server nodded, then turned to Wunmi.

“And for you?”

Wunmi glanced down briefly, then back up. “I’ll have a French 75.”

“Perfect. I’ll be right back with those.”

They both murmured a quick thank you before the server stepped away. The second she was out of earshot, Danielle leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table.

“Okay, now talk to me. What's been going on with you?,” she said, eyes narrowing playfully.

Wunmi smiled, shaking her head a little as she settled back in her chair.

“Just work and life like always,” she said.

Danielle hummed like she halfway believed her, her gaze drifting casually as she listened. Her eyes dropped right to Wunmi’s hands that were resting on the table.

Wunmi didn’t even realize what Danielle was looking at until she felt her reach across the table.

Danielle grabbed her hand, lifting it, her face twisting in confusion.

“Wait, where's your ring?”

Wunmi’s stomach dropped. She let out a slow sigh, her shoulders sinking just a little.

“I lost it.”

Danielle’s head snapped up.

“Already?!” she gasped.

Wunmi let out another breath, this one heavier, her lips pressing together as she looked down at their hands.

“I’ve been looking for it for days, and I don't know where it is,” she admitted, sounding almost hurt.

“Oh, baby…” she murmured, still holding her hand.

“I turned my whole house upside down to look for it. I don't understand how I lost it…” she trailed off.

Danielle squeezed her hand gently.

“What did Michael say?”

Wunmi let out a small, humorless huff.

“He told me to calm down and we'd find it,” she said. “Or he’d just get me another one if we couldn’t.”

Danielle’s brows lifted slightly. “And you didn’t like that.”

“No,” Wunmi said immediately, shaking her head. “I don’t want another one.”

Danielle nodded slowly, understanding settling in her expression.

“Mm, I get it,” she said gently. “I lost mine before.”

Wunmi blinked, looking up at her.

“You did?”

“Mhm,” Danielle nodded. “Thought I was about to pass out when I realized it too. Tore my whole house up just like you.”

Wunmi let out a small breath, something easing in her chest just a little. “Did you find it?”

Danielle smiled. “I did. It was in the most random place too. You're gonna find it, so don't stress yourself out too much.”

Right then, their server returned with their drinks, carefully placing them down in front of them.

“Margarita for you, and a French 75 for you ,” she said, setting Wunmi’s glass down gently. “Are you ladies ready to order?”

Danielle picked up her drink, taking a quick sip before nodding.

“Yes please."

They both grabbed their menus again, scanning over them briefly as they placed their orders. Danielle confidently went first, while Wunmi took a second longer. The server nodded, jotting everything down. Once she walked away again, Danielle leaned back in her chair, lifting her glass slightly.

They clinked their glasses together and fell right back into conversation. They talked about everything. From work to people to random stories. Danielle filled her in on things she had missed, little industry gossip here and there that made Wunmi laugh and shake her head. Wunmi shared her own updates of things she hadn’t realized she needed to talk about until she was saying them out loud.

Time moved quickly and they hardly even noticed. Their food came and went, plates slowly clearing as they kept talking.

Danielle tilted her head slightly, a knowing look on her face.

“So,” she started, dragging the word out just a little. “How’s wedding planning going?”

Wunmi let out a soft laugh immediately, shaking her head as she set her fork down.

"It’s…a lot.”

“I know it is,” Danielle grinned.

“It’s not even the planning itself, it's the timing,” Wunmi continued.

She reached for her glass, taking a small sip before continuing.

“Michael’s been filming, so everything has to work around his schedule. And when he does have time, it’s like we have to squeeze in ten different things at once. It’s just a lot of back and forth. All of the calls and meetings. where we have to make decisions so quick because we don't know when the next free window is,” Wunmi said.

“So do y’all have a date yet?”

Wunmi picked up her glass and took a small sip.

“Not officially, but we've been looking at spring time or maybe early summer,” she said. “But we’ve been looking at spring. Maybe early summer. I really want May, but that's only if everything lines up properly.”

Danielle raised a brow. “Oh, that's soon soon.”

Wunmi gave a small nod, setting her glass back down. her fingers brushed along the stem of her glass. All of it felt too real.

Wunmi smiled faintly, her fingers brushing along the stem of her glass. The idea of it felt real when she said it out loud like that.

Danielle studied her for a second, then asked, “Are y’all planning to go public before then?”

Wunmi shrugged, her expression easy.

“I don’t really care about that right now. It's not at the top of my list,” she said. “Michael said he’d rather wait until after we get married.”

Danielle hummed, like she was considering that, then a small smirk crept onto her face.

“Mm. Maybe he’s just trying to get his last little bit of fun in ebfore everybody really backs off,” she said casually.

Wunmi didn’t even hesitate to say, “I’m not worried about that.”

“Not even a little bit?”

Wunmi shook her head, leaning back into her seat.

“He's already learned his lesson,” she said simply.

That made Danielle laugh.

“Okay, I hear you,” she said, holding her hands up.

Wunmi just gave a small unbothered smile.

They stayed for a little longer just talking. Eventually their plates were cleared and their dreams were long finisehed.

Danielle glanced around, then back at Wunmi.

“You ready?”

Wunmi nodded. “Yeah.”

Danielle lifted her hand slightly, catching their server’s attention as she passed by.

“Whenever you get a chance, can we get the check?”

The server nodded with a polite smile.

“Of course.”

She disappeared for a moment, and Wunmi reached for her purse. It didn't take long for the server to come back. She didn't set anything on the table. Instead she gave the two women a careful look.

“Actually, your check has already been taken care of,” she said.

Wunmi frowned slightly. “By who?”

The server gave a small, knowing smile, then subtly angled her head toward the inside of the restaurant.

“The gentleman over there.”

Both Wunmi and Danielle turned, their gazes following the direction she’d indicated.

Inside, a small group of men sat at a table not too far from the patio doors. It took a second to even figure out which one she meant until they watched as one of the men leaned back slightly, his attention already on them.

His face wasn’t fully clear from where they were. The lighting inside hit at an angle, shadowing part of it, and he had on a hat that didn’t help. Wunmi narrowed her eyes just a little, trying to place him.

They both turned back toward the server.

“Well…tell him thank you,” Danielle said, still sounding unsure.

“Of course,” the server replied before she walked away.

Wunmi and Danielle exchanged a look. Then they both glanced back toward the table, but the moment had already shifted. The man wasn’t as clearly visible anymore, someone else moving in front of him briefly, the angle changing just enough to make it harder to get a good look.

Danielle leaned closer.

“Do you know him?”

“I don’t—” Wunmi started, then stopped, her eyes narrowing again slightly. “I mean, I can’t see him properly.”

They sat there for another moment, trying to piece it together, but neither of them could land on anything. And then the patio door opened. The man from inside stepped out into the sunlight, moving with an easy confidence. As he got closer, the shadows fell away from his face and Wunmi's breath caught.

Her eyes widened almost immediately in recognition. She quickly turned her head toward Danielle, surprise flickering across her face.

“What? Who is that?” Danielle asked under her breath.

Wunmi didn’t answer. She just looked back at the man as he closed the distance to their table.

“Ladies,” he greeted smoothly as he reached the table.

Danielle straightened slightly, already smiling out of politeness.

“Hi,” she said. “Thank you for paying for us. You didn’t have to do that.”

He waved it off with a small shrug.

“It’s nothing. I figured I'd use it as an excuse to come say hello. Hope you don't mind,” he said.

Danielle glanced at Wunmi briefly before looking back at him.

“No, not at all. That was relaly nice of you,” she said.

Wunmi hadn’t said a word. She kept her posture composed, but her gaze had shifted off to the side for a moment, like she needed a second to collect herself before fully engaging. Because standing in front of her was someone she hadn't seen in literal years. And wasn't expecting to see again.

Tyree Lawson had been someone she had been seeing before Michael even came into the picture. They hadn’t ended badly. They just ended. The distance, timing, and their careers pulled them in opposite directions. He got traded, she picked up a new acting job, and their lives moved on.

But she remembered him. And judging by the way he was looking at her now, he remembered her just as well.

His attention shifted fully to her, a slow smile pulling at his mouth.

“Hi.”

Wunmi cleared her throat softly, finally looking at him.

“Hello.”

The formality of it made his brows lift immediately. A small, amused crease formed between them as he tilted his head.

“Why you acting like you don’t know me?”

Danielle’s eyes flicked between them instantly.

Wunmi exhaled quietly, then extended her hand out.

“Hi,” she said a little less stiff.

He reached out and took it, his grip warm. His thumb brushed lightly across the back of her hand.

“How you been?” he asked.

Wunmi gave him a sharp look and he caught the meaning of it immediately. He smirked.

“I’ve been fine,” she said while pulling her hand back. “Very busy, but fine.”

“I see that. You been everywhere lately,” he nodded, leaning back slightly so he could take her in properly. “I didn’t get to tell you before, but I saw Sinners.”

Wunmi’s expression shifted just a little.

“And?” she asked.

“I liked it a lot. You did your thing in that,” he said. "I'm proud of you."

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I appreciate that.”

There was a brief pause before she shifted the focus.

“What are you doing out here? Didn't the season start?” she asked.

He nodded once. “Yeah, it did. I’ve just got some business to handle out here before I head back.”

Wunmi’s brows lifted slightly. “What business?”

“I started a winery.” A small smile tugged at his mouth.

“Congratulations. That's big,” her tone was more warm and animated now.

“Thank you. The grand opening's coming up soon,” he paused. "You should come."

Wunmi looked at him, and for a split second she let whatever was in the air sink into her. She became a little too soft and a little too open.

“I would have to see, but I think it should be fine,” she said.

Danielle sat back in her chair, watching the exchange unfold with quiet interest. Her gaze moved between them. It wasn’t hard to read the situation. There was clearly history there and it hadn't fully gone away.

He was satisfied with that answer.

“I’ll send you the details.”

“Okay,” Wunmi said.

There was another small pause before he glanced between them, stepping back just slightly.

“I won’t hold you any longer,” he added. “Just wanted to say hello.”

Wunmi nodded, pushing her chair back as she stood.

“Yeah, of course.”

She stepped around the table, closing the small distance between them. And they hugged.

This time their contact wasn't awkward. In fact it was easy and familiar. His arms wrapped around her firmly, pulling her in. They slid a little lower than they probably should have.

Wunmi inhaled softly at the contact, her body reacting before her mind could catch up. He’d always been built strong and solid. Her hands rested against him briefly, her fingers pressing lightly against his back. She let out a quiet hum without meaning to.

He dipped his head slightly, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before pulling back, his hands lingering at her waist for just a second longer.

“Good seeing you,” he murmured.

“You too,” she replied.

He gave Danielle a quick nod before turning and heading back inside.

Nobody noticed the the camera lens across the street taking pictures of them.

Wunmi sat back down, adjusting her bag at her side, and Danielle was staring at her hard. Wunmi didn’t meet her eyes right away. She just reached for her shades instead and slid them back up.

“What?” she casually asked.

Danielle leaned back, crossing her arms loosely.

“You might not be worried about Michael with other women, but he should probably be a little worried about you,” she said pointedly.

Wunmi let out a quiet hum, not denying it, but not feeding into it either. She grabbed her purse, standing up.

“You ready?” she asked simply.

Danielle stared at her for a second longer, then shook her head with a small laugh as she stood too.

“Yeah, I'm ready,” she said.

A few days had passed, and the ring still hadn’t turned up.

Wunmi had stopped tearing her house apart, but the absence hadn’t gotten any easier. If anything, it got worse. Every time she reached for things or rested her hand on her lap she was reminded of it not being there.

She was leisurely stretched out across her couch when Michael called, one leg tucked under her, and her sketchbook open beside her with loose pages scattered around it.

“Hey,” she answered, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder as she absentmindedly flipped through one of the pages.

“Hey baby,” Michael’s voice came through low and tired. “You find it yet?”

She let out a small sigh. “…No.”

There was a brief pause on his end.

“It's fine.”

Wunmi frowned slightly, her fingers coming up to rub over her bare ring finger.

“It doesn’t feel fine,” she muttered. “My finger feels weird without it.”

That earned a quiet exhale from him, something close to a soft chuckle.

“You'll be okay. It's not permanent,” he said.

She hummed under breath, shifting a little on the couch.

“So how are you feeling about everything?” sheasked while glancing down at her sketchbook.

“About what?” he asked.

“The wedding,” she said.

There was a small pause.

“I’m good,” he answered. “Why? You not?”

“I am,” she said quickly. “It's just that there’s a lot to keep up with.”

Her hand moved across the page, tracing over one of the rough designs she’d started.

“And don’t forget we have that meeting next week with the planner coming up,” she added.

“Yeah, I remember,” he said.

She sat up a bit to reach for a pencil.

“I’ve been trying to get a head start on my dress too,” she continued. “I started sketching some ideas, but I don't know how I feel about any of them.”

On the other end, Michael was half-listening when his phone buzzed. He pulled it away from his ear just enough to glance down at the notification to see that it was a text from his publicist.

How do you want to handle this?

A twitter link followed.

His brows pulled together as he tapped it. The page loaded and his eyes instantly went to the caption.

Academy nominee Wunmi Mosaku and Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Tyree Lawson seen pretty close at lunch.

Michael blinked once. Then he looked down at the photos. There were multiple pictures of Wunmi and Tyree hugging. His arms wrapped low around her waist and his cheek pressed against hers. There was even a picture where his lips were pressed against her cheek.

Michael was utterly confused and tense all at once.

“Aye, what is this?”

His voice cut her off mid-sentence.

“What are you talking about?”

Instead of answering, he sent the link to her. And at the exact same time, her phone buzzed against her ear. She pulled it away to see that it was a text from her own publicist.

We need to get in front of this.

Her stomach dropped. And as soon as the tweet loaded she felt her whole breath evaporate.

“Oh my God.”

Her eyes widened as she scrolled through the photos, her chest tightening.

On the other end, Michael said nothing he just waited. His silence made her pulse stutter.

“Okay, wait. When I went out with Danielle the other day someone paid for our meal. It was him,” she said quickly. "Then he came over to our table."

“Y’all look pretty close.”

The way he said it was too controlled.

Wunmi exhaled, already feeling that dangerous shift in him.

“Do you remember the guy I told you about that came before you?” she asked.

There was a beat. Then Michael hummed.

She swallowed. “That’s him.”

He remembered the conversation and the way she described how serious it could've been and how much she liked him before things fell apart. And now he was looking at pictures of that same man with his hands on her like that.

“So then what,” Michael said slowly.

Wunmi shifted on the couch, her fingers tightening slightly around her phone.

“It wasn’t like that, baby,” she said. “He just paid for our food and came to say hi. That’s it.”

Michael let out a quiet breath through his nose.

“That don’t look like just saying hi.”

Wunmi frowned, her chest tightening.

“I didn’t know what to do. It caught me off guard,” she said.

He shook his head, even though she couldn’t see it.

“You didn’t know what to do?” he echoed.

She heard the edge in his voice.

“I mean—no,” she said, her tone softening. “I wasn’t expecting to see him. And he just came up—”

“And you hugging him like that?” Michael cut in.

Her lips parted, then pressed together again.

“He did all of that,” she said, quieter now.

“That don’t change what it look like.”

Wunmi exhaled, her shoulders sinking slightly.

“It wasn’t anything. You're making it more than it was,” she insisted.

Michael didn’t respond right away because then he realized something that made this all that much worse.

“And you ain’t have your ring on. Did you at least tell him you were engaged?”

Wunmi froze. She didn't answer right away which made Michael grunt in frustration.

"Oluwunmi…"

“…No,” she admitted softly. Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

Michael let out another low, frustrated grunt, dragging a hand down his face.

“Aight,” he said. "It's cool."

Wunmi sat up straight.

“It’s not—Michael, listen—”

“I said it’s cool,” he repeated.

But it didn’t sound like it was at all.

“I’ll see you later.”

Her brows pulled together immediately. And she went to ask him what he meant by that, but the line had already gone dead. She pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at the screen for a second, confusion settling in just as fast as the panic. He wasn’t supposed to be back for another two days. So really what did he mean?

The rest of the day blurred together.

Her phone stayed in her hand. If she wasn’t on a call, she was answering a text. If she wasn’t answering a text, she was reading something she wished she hadn’t.

Her publicist called her once. Then again. Then a third time, looping her into another call but this time with Michael’s publicist.

Wunmi pressed her lips together, pacing slowly through her living room as she listened, her free hand resting against her forehead.

“It wasn’t like that,” she said for what felt like the tenth time. “He came up to us and I didn’t even know he was there until—”

“We understand that, but perception matters far more than intent right now,” her publicist cut in gently.

Wunmi closed her eyes as she took that statement in because of course it did.

They talked through options of what to do. If she wanted to make a statement and the timing of it, or if she would want to stay silent. By the time that call ended, her head was pounding. And of course, it didn’t stop there.

Danielle called her as well.

“Girl, are you okay?” she asked immediately.

“I’m fine,” Wunmi said, even though she wasn’t.

Danielle sighed. “I didn’t even notice anybody out there taking pictures like that.”

“Me either,” Wunmi muttered, dropping down onto her couch again.

“You talked to Michael?”

“I did and let's just say it didn't go too well. He hung up on me.”

“Okay, well, that's not ideal,” she said slowly.

Wunmi huffed a small, humorless breath. “No, it’s not.”

After that the calls just kept coming. From close friends to family. And they were all asking questions that she didn't really feel like answering. The only person who hadn't was Michael. And not for lack of trying on her part either.

Every time she tried to call him, it went unanswered. Every text was stuck on delivered. She even checked his location at one point, but it was off.

When evening came, her energy was completely drained.

She sat curled up on her couch, her phone resting in her lap as she stared at the screen. The tweet was still circulating, but with more comments and opinions. More people were inserting themselves into something they didn’t understand.

Her thumb hovered over Michael’s name for the fiftieth time that day. She still had nothing from him. Her chest tightened, and she swallowed hard, blinking a few times as that familiar pressure started building behind her eyes. All of this was getting to her.

She slowly moved through her nighttime routine. The house fell still the moment she turned the lights off ready to curl up and hide from the world.

She grabbed her phone one last time, glancing at it, and still nothing. Wunmi let out a quiet breath and set it down on the table. She had started to head to her bedroom when there was a knock on her door.

It was far too late for anyone to just be showing up. So she stood still for second to listen. But then another louder and more insistent knock came.

Her heart picked up slightly as she walked toward the door with cautious steps.

“Who is it?” she called out.

No verbal answer, only another knock.

She hesitated for half a second before unlocking the door and pulling it open. And her breath caught when she saw Michael standing there with a hood pulled over his head and hands tucked into his pockets.

“Michael—” she gasped in relief. “Baby, I am so—”

“Come on,” he cut in firmly. He left no room for disagreeament.

When she didn't move, Michael stared at her harder.

“Let's go,” he repeated, stepping slightly to the side and holding the door open wider.

Her breath hitched. It was something about the look in her eye that made her really not want to argue with him. She simply turned and went to grab her phone and purse off of the table. She walked past him, his presence heavy as she went by.

He stepped out right after her, pulling the door shut and locking it without a word. Wunmi looked back slightly to watch him. He slipped by her to lead the way.

Once he got to the car, Michael pulled the passenger door open for her to get into. She climbed in with her heart beating faster than normal. The door shut and a second later, he was in the driver’s seat, starting the engine.

The silence inside the car was thick during the drive.

Wunmi glanced at him. His hands were tight on the wheel and eyes forward. She opened her mouth then closed it. Whatever she was about to say didn’t feel like it would go right, so she stayed quiet.

The drive only lasted about fifteen minutes, but it felt much longer.

As soon as they pulled into his driveway, he was out of the car almost immediately, coming around to her side and opening her door before she could even reach for it.

She stepped out, watching him carefully. He led the way inside, unlocking the front door and holding it open for her. She stepped into the house, instantly being met with a comfortable familiarity. He closed the door behind them, locking it again before moving past her.

“Where were you when you took it off?” he asked roughly.

Wunmi blinked, trying to keep up.

“I was washing my hair, but that was back at my—”

She could hardly answer before he turned and headed straight for the stairs. Wunmi followed quickly behind him.

“Michael—” She called for him as they swiftly moved up the stairs.

She knew she hadn’t taken her ring off here, so she didn’t argue. At this point, she didn’t have the energy to push back on anything. Not after the day she’d had. So she just followed him into the bathroom and watched him as he immediately got to work.

He moved around the space like a man on a mission, opening drawers, shifting bottles, checking along the edges of the counter and behind things that hadn’t been touched in days. His movements were completely focused yet annoyed.

Wunmi stood in the doorway for a second before stepping in, her arms folding loosely over her chest as she watched him.

“Michael…” she started softly.

He didn’t even look at her. Instead, he crouched down instead, checking along the base of the cabinets, his fingers running along the small spaces.

Wunmi swallowed. Then slowly, she moved further in, kneeling down on the opposite side, her movements much more hesitant. She checked places she knew didn’t make sense. Behind containers and inside small trays and corners that didn’t hold anything. She wasn’t really expecting to find it, but she helped anyway.

The only sounds in the room were the soft shifting of items and Michael’s quiet, frustrated exhales every few minutes. He was getting irritated and she could not only hear it but see it as well. His shoulders were tight and his jaw flexed every time he searched and came up empty-handed.

Enough time passed for the silence between them to stretch and fill the room.

Michael was crouched low near the side of the counter, his fingers reaching into a narrow gap between the cabinet and the wall. His face was scrunched together when he pulled his hand back. And there it was in his fingers. The ring.

Wunmi let out a relieved exhale, “Oh thank God.”

Michael stood up, holding it between his fingers as he wiped it off against the side of his shirt, inspecting it briefly. Then he looked at her.

“Come here.” His voice was steady.

Wunmi carefully pushed herself up and walked over to him. He held his hand out. She reached for it, her fingers slipping into his automatically. He lifted the ring slightly between them, his gaze flicking from it to her.

“You better not lose it again.”

Wunmi’s lips parted slightly, and she nodded, her voice soft, “I won’t.”

He slid it back onto her finger, the cool metal settling into place.

Wunmi exhaled shakily, her shoulders dropping just a little as she looked down at it. Relief flooded her instantly.

Michael’s expression softened as he took her hand again, bringing it up and pressing a kiss to it. Then he stepped closer and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her into him. He pushed his lips onto hers and she melted into the kiss almost immediately. Her hands came up to rest agaisnt his chest before sliding up around his neck.

The tension from earlier simmered.

She pulled back just a little, her forehead brushing against his as she looked at him.

“I’m sorry for not really telling you,” she said softly.

“It’s alright. I get it,” he said after a second. “I guess this is my payback.”

Wunmi frowned faintly.

“Payback? For what?”

He looked at her, something protective settling back into his expression.

“I don’t like nobody thinking they can come up and be that comfortable with you,” he said. “Especially not somebody you had something with.”

Her breath caught slightly.

“I didn’t—”

“I know. But I'm saying,” he said firmly. "I'm protective over what's mine."

His hand pressed lightly against her waist.

“And I don’t want you going out without your ring so we don't have this problem again,” he added.

Wunmi nodded slowly, her fingers tightening slightly against him.

“Okay.”

He leaned in again, kissing her slower this time.

Her arms wrapped around him fully now, holding him close as she lifted her hand slightly behind his head. The ring caught the light. She smiled softly against his lips.

“I really did miss it,” she murmured.

Michael let out a quiet breath against her skin, his lips trailing from her jaw down to her neck, pressing a few soft kisses there.

Her eyes fluttered closed, her grip tightening just a little. After a moment, she pulled back slightly, catching her breath.

“What are you doing back already? I thought you weren't coming back for two more days,” she asked.

Michael looked at her for a second, then shrugged lightly.

“I had to come handle my business.”

Wunmi bit her lip, her gaze dropping for a second.

“I really am sorry, Michael,” she said again.

He shook his head, stepping back just enough to look at her fully.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m tired.”

He moved past her, already pulling his hoodie off as he headed toward the bedroom.

Wunmi followed, watching him as he stripped down to his boxers.

They both slipped into bed without much more conversation. Wunmi settled in beside him, her hand resting against his chest, her thumb brushing lightly over the ring.

December 2026

Michael had finally wrapped filming for Miami Vice, which meant he was home more, but somehow, that hadn’t made life any less hectic. Now they had wedding stress and awards and press season.

Wunmi had already picked up several nominations. Her name was floating in conversations again. All of the hype was starting to stack on top of everything else.

The wedding planning had been intense. They officially had their date, the venue was picked, and invitations had been sent. That should've made things easier, but it didn't.

Now it was all about the details. They still had to lock a lot of things in while coordinating their schedules around two careers that clearly weren't slowing down. It was a lot.

And Michael had been on her more than usual. He was always touching her or near her. Especially after the whole Tyree thing. Even though they had moved past it, something about it had stuck with him.

They were on the couch with the TV playing something neither of them was fully paying attention to.

Wunmi sat sideways, her legs draped across Michael’s lap and her back resting against the arm of the couch. Her phone was in her hand, thumbs moving as she typed.

Michael’s hand rested on her calf, absentmindedly sliding down to her ankle before coming back up again. His other hand lifted her foot slightly, thumb pressing into the arch, working it gently.

Wunmi exhaled softly at the pressure, not even looking up from her phone.

“Mm,” she hummed.

Michael glanced at her.

“Who you texting?”

“I'm just updating the bridesmaids,” she said while typing.

“About what?”

“The dates that we agreed on for our trips. And the fittings."

Michael shook his head slightly, a quiet breath leaving him.

“This is still so crazy to me,” he muttered.

Wunmi glanced at him briefly, a small smile pulling at her lips.

“What is?”

“The fact that we're getting married.”

“I’m excited,” Wunmi's smile softened.

Michael smiled back at her, then went back to rubbing her foot.

She returned her attention to her phone. And just then a new text came in from an unknown number. Her brows pulled together in confusion as she opened it.

The first message was a picture of an invitation. Then there was a text right under it.

Can’t wait to see you.

Wunmi was utterly confused, until she scrolled up slightly, looked at the number again, then back at the image. That was when it all clicked.

“Oh.”

Michael’s hand paused slightly against her foot.

“What?”

Wunmi’s lips pressed together as she read it again.

“I just got an invitation,” she said.

“To what?”

She hesitated for a second.

“Tyree’s winery opening.”

Michael’s hand stilled completely.

“No.”

It was an immediate rejection that took Wunmi aback.

“You didn’t even let me explain.”

“Didn't have to,” he said as he leaned back against the couch.

Wunmi let out a small breath, sitting up a little.

“He just sent it to me and I don't even have his number,” she added.

“I don’t care. You're not going,” Michael said. His hand dropped from her foot, resting on her leg instead, his fingers tapping once against her skin.

Wunmi frowned, “Baby—”

“You're not going,” he repeated.

She shifted, pulling one of her legs in so she could turn toward him more.

“But I kind of want to go.”

Michael’s eyes snapped to her. “Why?”

Wunmi blinked at his tone, then exhaled.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It just doesn't feel like a big deal. It's a grand opening, so we'll be in public. And it's not like I'm sneaking off somewhere with him.”

Michael stared at her completely unmoved.

“That’s not the point, baby.”

"Then what is the point?" Wunmi tilted her head slightly.

“I don’t trust him.”

Wunmi’s brows lifted slightly.

“It sounds like you don’t trust me?”

“That's not what I said. I trust you,” he said immediately.

“Then—”

“I don’t trust him,” he repeated, slower this time. “And I don’t like the idea of you going somewhere he invited you to like that.”

Wunmi sighed softly, her shoulders dropping a little.

“It’s not like I have feelings for him. Whatever was there is gone,” she said.

Michael’s gaze stayed on her.

“That doesn’t mean it’s gone for him. Especially after how them pictures looked. Now he's inviting you out. I don't like that,” he said.

“I’d be wearing my ring,” she said quietly.

Michael let out a short breath, shaking his head, “That don’t stop nothing if somebody don’t care.”

Wunmi studied him for a second.

“So what? I just don't go?” she asked softly.

“Not unless I’m there,” he said.

Wunmi leaned back against the couch again, thinking.

“I don’t even know if you can go. You might have press,” she said.

“Then you not going,” he replied without hesitation.

She let out a quiet huff, somewhere between frustration and understanding.

“Michael…”

He reached for her leg again, pulling it back across his lap, his hand sliding up her thigh before settling there.

“I’m serious. I'm not about to have a repeat of that,” he said.

Wunmi looked at him, really looked at him this time, and she saw the tension still in his body. So she decided to concede.

“Okay,” she said after a second.

Michael’s shoulders relaxed a bit, his thumb moving against her leg.

The following weekend came quicker than Wunmi was honestly ready for. Between wedding meetings, awards conversations, and Michael attached to her to her body every second, the days just blurred together. Yet she still found time to get ready for unplanned events.

Music was playing lowly from downstairs while Michael moved around the room getting dressed.

Wunmi sat at her vanity in their bedroom, one leg crossed over the other as she leaned closer to the mirror. She had gotten her hair done a few days ago. It was in soft, full curls that fell around her shoulders. Her makeup was simple, especially since she didn't feel like going through her glam team.

She dabbed lightly beneath one eye when she heard Michael’s footsteps getting closer. A second later, he appeared in the mirror behind her with a hoodie on and cologne loud. He glanced at her reflection immediately.

“I’m about to head out,” he said.

Wunmi hummed softly. “Okay.”

But then his eyes narrowed, because she was clearly getting ready too.

“Where you going?”

Wunmi kept her expression neutral as she reached for her gloss.

“Out.”

Michael leaned one shoulder against the doorway, "Out where?"

"Just out," she shrugged.

His eyes stayed on her through the mirror for another second longer than necessary. He was clearly suspicious and she could feel it. But after a moment, he pushed off the doorway and walked over behind her instead. His hands settled warmly onto her shoulders, thumbs pressing lightly into the muscles there.

Wunmi relaxed under the touch.

“You look pretty,” he murmured.

A small smile pulled at her lips, “Thank you.”

His hands slid down slowly before he leaned down toward her face.

“Wait—” she laughed softly, turning her head slightly. “You’re gonna mess up my lip gloss.”

“I don’t care.”

Before she could protest again, his hand tilted her chin toward him and he kissed her anyway. It was only a soft quick one, but it was annoyingly affectionate.

When they pulled apart, Michael looked entirely too satisfied with himself. His hands lingered on her shoulders a second longer before he straightened back up.

“You got my card?”

“Why would I need your card?”

“Just in case.”

“I’m not going to need it.”

Michael reached over and picked up her purse from the vanity chair anyway, unzipping it and slipping the black card inside.

Wunmi rolled her eyes softly but didn’t argue.

He leaned down one more time, brushing his lips briefly against the top of her head this time.

“Text me when you get where you going.”

“Okay.”

He squeezed her shoulder once before finally heading out of the room.

Wunmi waited until she heard the front door downstairs close, then she exhaled. She walked over to her closet to get her dress for the evening. The dress was all-black, but it hugged her body absolutely perfectly.

She stepped into it carefully, pulling it up slowly, and adjusting it into place. Then she turned toward the mirror to look at herself. And honestly she looked a little too good.

She knew that Michael would hate to see her looking this good and going there. Which was exactly why she hadn't told him where she was going. She knew how her man would react, but she also knew that if she didn't go Tyree would only push harder. He was the kind of man that liked the chase. He only got more interested when someone pulled away.

Wunmi slipped on her heels, then sprayed perfume lightly along her neck and wrists. She grabbed her purse and headed downstairs.

When she made it outside the air was cooler than it had been earlier in the week. Her heels clicked softly against the driveway as she walked toward her car. Once inside, she checked herself quickly in the mirror, then started the engine.

The drive was long enough to give her time to think. Streetlights blurred past as her fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel.

Her thoughts swirled with a mix of Michael and Tyree. All she could really think about is if they got caught again just like how they got caught at the restaraunt. Her hand tightened on the wheel and her ring caught the passing lights immediately. She was just glad that she had it on this time.

The venue was on the other side of town, so she ran into some thick traffic. By the time she finally pulled up it was packed. A line of cars stretched down the block. Dozens of blacked-out vehicles rolled forward one after another as valet attendants moved quickly to get them in and out.

Wunmi slowed as she pulled up, immediately spotting the entrance ahead glowing warm against the night. The building itself was gorgeous with modern architecture, dark wood accents, and huge windows revealing pieces of the event happening inside.

Before she could even fully put the car in park, a valet attendant was already stepping forward and opening her door.

“Good evening, ma’am.”

Wunmi gave him a polite smile as she grabbed her purse and phone.

“Thank you.”

The cool evening air brushing against her skin as she stepped out carefully in her heels. A few heads turned as she straightened up fully, smoothing a hand lightly over her dress before handing over her keys.

“Enjoy your evening,” the valet said.

Wunmi nodded softly before making her way toward the entrance.

As soon as she entered into the venue, the more impressed she became because it was beautiful. The lighting was dim with warm gold tones bouncing off dark interiors and polished surfaces. Music floated through the air low enough for conversation, and the entire place smelled faintly of wood and wine.

Before she could get too lost in the beauty of her surroundings, she remembered something important that she was supposed to do. Wunmi reached into her purse and pulled her phone out knowing she needed to say something before he found out another way.

Her fingers moved quickly over the screen.

I know you’re going to be mad but I’m at Tyree’s event. I’m going to let him know that I’m engaged.

She stared at the message for a quick second, then turned her phone completely off. Beccause she knew the second that he saw it, he was going to call her and she honestly didn't feel like dealing with that right now.

She slipped the phone back into her purse and exhaled slowly, squaring her shoulders before continuing further inside.

A server approached her with a tray of wine glasses.

“Would you like one?”

Wunmi glanced down briefly before taking one carefully by the stem.

“Thank you.”

She took a small sip, eyes moving around the room. A few familiar faces caught her attention here and there. Some even greeted her once they noticed her.

She smiled politely through all of the exchanges, stopping for quick conversations here and there and accepting compliments. She was also being very aware of her surroundings, because if she wasn't things could very well become a problem.

She lifted the wine glass to her lips again, taking another small sip as she continued walking through the venue. She took her time moving through the different rooms.

Every section flowed into the next seamlessly. There were private tasting areas, lounge spaces, and long wooden tables filled with bottles and small plates. The lighting stayed dim and warm throughout the entire building, giving everything this intimate feel.

She found herself near one of the display areas where rows of massive wine barrels lined the wall with engraved plaques beneath them. Wunmi lifted her glass for another sip, leaning slightly to read one of the plaques when a hand slid around her waist. Her body instantly tensed up.

She turned quickly, only to come face to face with Tyree. And he was smiling down at her.

“I’m glad you made it,” he said.

His voice was smooth and easy over the music.

Wunmi recovered quickly, giving him a small smile back.

“This place is gorgeous,” she admitted honestly, glancing around again briefly. “Like really gorgeous.”

Tyree chuckled softly, “Appreciate it.”

She lifted her glass slightly, “And the wine’s good too.”

That made him grin wider.

“Alright now, don’t gas me too much.”

Wunmi laughed softly. But then she remembered his hand that was still resting against her waist. Her eyes flicked downward briefly before she subtly stepped sideways out of his hold. The movement was smooth enough not to make a scene, but still he noticed.

Tyree’s brows pulled together as his eyes moved over her slowly.

“You look real good tonight,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He stepped toward her even more. He lifted his arm like he was about to settle it around her waist once more, but Wunmi moved before he could.

“Watch yourself,” she said lightly.

Tyree paused. Confused amusement spread across his face.

“What? Why you acting like this?” he laughed.

Wunmi didn’t verbally answer. Instead, she lifted her left hand up between them. The ring caught the warm lighting, sparkling beautifully against her skin.

Tyree’s eyes dropped to it and he looked genuinely surprised. But his expression smoothed back over.

“When that happen?” he asked.

Wunmi took another sip of her wine before answering casually, “He proposed in August.”

His brows shot up again.

“August, huh?”

She nodded.

“You ain’t have that on at lunch.”

“I lost it and got in so much trouble because of what happened,” she admitted and pointed lightly at him with her glass. “I should’ve told you then that I was happily engaged. Maybe pictures of us wouldn't have ended up all over the internet,” she said.

He briefly glanced away like he was thinking. Then he looked back at her with a dangerously confident smirk on his face.

“I guess I gotta try harder to get you to come over to the best side," he said.

Irritation immediately flashed across Wunmi's face. It was so fast Tyree almost missed it.

“I’m already on the best side,” she said plainly. “And it can’t get any better than my man.”

Tyree sucked his teeth, unconvinced.

“Yeah okay,” he muttered.

Wunmi stared at him for another second before taking another sip from her glass.

Tyree looked at her ring one more time before nodding once.

“You enjoy yourself." he said. Then his mouth curved up. “I’ll be talking to you soon.”

Wunmi narrowed her eyes at that, but she didn’t respond. She just nodded once and watched him walk away through the crowd.

The second he disappeared, she exhaled quietly.

“…Jesus Christ.”

Her fingers tightened slightly around the stem of the glass. Now she understood exactly why Michael didn’t want her there. Tyree wasn’t outright disrespectful, but he also clearly wasn’t backing down just because she had a ring on.

After that exchange, she stayed there for about another hour or so. She mingled with people and sampled more wine. But the longer she stayed, the more aware she became of the pit forming in her stomach. Eventually she had to go home where she knew Michael was waiting for her.

She handed off her empty wine glass and headed toward the exit, she already knew she was in a whole lot of trouble.

After an entire drive of Wunmi's stomach twisting knots, she finally pulled into Michael's garage. When she parked the car she noticed that Michael's car wasn't there. She hadn't seen it out front either. Relief washed over her.

She grabbed her purse and stepped out of the car, her heels echoing softly through the garage before she headed inside.

The house was completely dark. A little too dark.

Wunmi paused just inside the doorway, listening carefully. A small breath escaped her. The tension in her shoulders loosened.

She locked the door behind her and kept the lights off, moving quietly through the house before heading upstairs. The bedroom was dark too. That eased her nerves even more because it meant he hadn't even stepped foot in the home.

She set her purse down carefully and headed toward the closet, ready to get out of the dress and wash the night off her.

The closet light was dim as she slipped her heels off first with a relieved sigh. Then her jewelry. Then her dress. She wrapped her robe tight around her body and tied it securely at the waist. Her hair fell softly around her shoulders as she pushed the closet door back open and stepped into the bedroom. She casually reached toward the wall and flipped the light on.

Her breath stopped.

Michael was sitting in the corner chair near the window. Legs spread, body leaned back, arms resting on the arm of the chair, and face blank. The light caught him good, and he was just watching her.

Wunmi physically jumped, her hand flying to her chest.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “You scared me.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs as she stared at him.

There had been absolutely no sign he was home. His car wasn't around, he made no sound, there was absolutely nothing.

Michael didn’t answer. He just looked at her, giving her a completely unreadable look. His silence somehow made her even more nervous.

Wunmi swallowed hard, trying to recover.

“Hi,” she said softly, attempting a small smile as she bit lightly at her lip.

Still nothing.

The room suddenly felt very warm, very quiet.

Wunmi shifted her weight under his stare.

Slowly, Michael lifted two fingers and crooked them toward himself. He had no words for her, only the simple gesture.

Wunmi’s breath hitched and her stomach tightened, but she obeyed. Her bare feet slowly moved across the carpet until she stood directly in front of him between his spread legs.

Michael leaned back in the chair, his hands settling on her thighs, fingers gripping the thick flesh through the soft fabric of her robe.

“Anything you wanna say?” he finally asked calmly.

Wunmi swallowed. Her fingers twisted lightly together at her sides.

“I’d be lying if I said I was sorry,” she admitted quietly.

Michael’s face tightened and he gave a stiff nod.

The room stayed silent for another long second.

“Get on the bed.”

Wunmi’s eyes widened and her stomach dropped. She knew exactly what kind of mood he was in. And there had only been maybe three times where she had gotten herself in enough trouble to see this side of him.

Wunmi's pulse blared in her ears as she turned toward the bed. She climbed onto the mattress slowly, knees first, then hands, positioning herself on all fours with her back arched just enough to present herself to him.

Michael rose from the chair without a sound. His footsteps were heavy as he approached the bed. He placed one hand between her shoulder blades and pressed down firmly, forcing her upper body to lay flat against the cool sheets. Her cheek pressed into the fabric, arms stretching out in front of her.

"Stay down," he commanded, voice low.

A soft whimper escaped her lips, her body trembling under the weight of his palm. She was completely at his mercy.

"You're gonna count each one," Michael said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "And I'm not telling you when it stops."

Wunmi braced herself, fingers curling into the sheets, muscles tensing as she waited for the first hit.

He gathered the hem of her robe and pushed it up over her lower back, exposing her completely. His fingers hooked into the thin straps of her panties next, tugging them up hard and wedging the fabric tight between her cheeks like a makeshift thong. The pull made her gasp, the material pinching her skin, leaving her bare and framed for him.

She had no idea what was going to happen. Her nerves were all over the place.

Then it came. A sharp smack landed on her left cheek. The hit stung like fire and jolted her entire body. It caught her so off guard that her mind blanked, and no words came out of her mouth.

Michael grunted disapprovingly. His hands clamped onto both large cheeks, gripping hard enough to make her wince.

"Count."

"One," she whispered shakily.

The next hit came down harder than the first, the force snapping her hips forward an inch across the bed.

"Two," she managed, sucking in a breath.

"Why'd you go when I told you not to?" he demanded, one hand kneading her flesh roughly.

Wunmi drew a shaky breath, her voice soft against the mattress. "I needed to. If I didn't he'd be all over me."

Michael's eyes narrowed as he processed her words. Without warning, he delivered two quick hits— one on each cheek—the slaps echoing through the room.

She whimpered, body jerking with the double sting, heat spreading fast.

"Three...four," she counted while clinging to the sheets.

"You're in so much trouble," Michael growled, his palm hovering for a beat before delivering the fifth smack, firmly across the center of her right cheek. The heat built, layering over the previous stings.

"Five," she counted, hips twitching involuntarily.

"And you're gonna make it up to Daddy," he added, his voice dropping as the sixth hit landed on the left cheek.

Another groan came from her and her thighs pressed together against the growing ache. "Six."

He didn't pause. The seventh hit was quick and the eighth followed just as quickly. Then the ninth and tenth were all rapid-fire, alternating cheeks. Each one made her skin tingle. The sensations twisted into a mix of pain and pleasure that had her toes curling and breath hitching.

She winced with the seventh, whimpered through the eighth, gasped on the ninth, and let out a shaky whine on the tenth. Her entire backside was throbbing and aching, but somehow that made it more intoxicating.

"You had enough?" Michael's hand rested on her warm skin, rubbing slow circles.

Wunmi nodded frantically, her cheek still pressed to the bed, tears at the corners of her eyes from the intensity.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, voice breaking softly.

He hummed a low, skeptical sound rumbling from his chest as he shook his head.

"Nah. I don't think you are yet." His fingers tightened on her hip. "Don't move."

Wunmi stayed where she was with her forehead pressed to the sheets and ass raised high as the door to the closet clicked shut behind him. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what he was grabbing. Her breath came in shallow pants and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Then she heard the low hum starting up from somewhere behind her.

Her eyes flew open and a whimper slipped out, "Michael..."

She felt the cool, buzzing head of the vibrator wand press directly against her clit through the wedged fabric of her panties. Her whole body jumped forward on the bed, a startled yelp escaping her as pleasure shot through her like lightning.

"Hold it," he ordered.

Wunmi reached back with one trembling hand, fingers wrapping around the handle. She held it lightly, the vibrations teased her. Still it was too much.

Without giving her a warning, Michael covered her hand with his and pressed down hard. The wand felt intense against her clit. A deep moan tore from her throat, hips pushed back involuntarily.

His free hand landed a hard smack on her already tender cheeks. He kept going, each sharp spank jiggling her body and mixing with the pleasure of the wand.

She moaned loudly, head dropping to the mattress. She could feel herself dripping wet, slickness coating her inner thighs from earlier and now. The wand hummed against her clit, every pulse matching perfectly with the hits of his palm on her ass.

Wunmi felt herself starting to reach that edge quickly. Her body tensed up, mouth dropping open in a silent gasp. Her free hand clutched the sheets in a death grip while her legs trembled. She clenched and pulsed around nothing.

Michael noticed it right away, his rhythm never faltering.

"You better not come," he warned her.

She shook her head, biting her lip hard to fight it. She knew he wanted her to give him the excuse for more punishment, but holding back felt impossible. The pressure was getting worse with every second.

Her body moved on it's own, and her hand pressed wand harder against her clit.Consistent needy moans fell from her lip as she started to grind against the vibrations. She could feel herself right there, she was so close.

Michale snatched the wand from her grip, the sudden absence making a frustrated sound fall from her lips.

"You don't get to come," he stated flatly, tossing it aside.

Wunmi whimpered as every nerve in her body was screaming for release.

Michael gave her two final smacks to each cheek. Then his palms rubbed slow, drawing a soft sigh from her. Then he grabbed her hips and yanked her back toward him, pulling until her lower body pressed against his.

Wunmi felt his straining through his pants, making her throb even more. She couldn't help but to rub against him in a silent plea to be filled.

"I'm not fucking you tonight," he said firmly as his hand cracked down once more on her ass. He stepped away, leaving her empty and wanting.

Wunmi whimpered, fully collapsing onto the bed. She shifted onto her side.

A while later, Michael slid into bed behind her. He held her close, draping one arm possessively over her waist.

For the next three days, Wunmi was denied orgasm after orgasm by Michael. Every time Tyree called or texted, it put her further into trouble.

The first morning, Michael had her on top of the kitchen counter, vibrator pressed against her clit. She was gasping, thighs shaking, and so close her vision blurred. That was until her phone lit up with a "good morning" text from Tyree. Michael instantly snatched the vibrator away, leaving her desperate whining.

One afternoon, after doing some errands for the wedding, Tyree called her as they were getting intside of the car. She ignored it, but Michael noticed.

He slid his hand between her legs, and pushed his fingers so deep into her. He curled them just right and stroked her so good. She rocked against his palm, moans filling the car as she worked her way up. Then he pulled away. He built her back up, only to deny her again. And again for a third time. Each denial left her more wrrecked than the last.

And after three days of torture, Michael finally decided she'd earned a reward.

They were in bed. Him sat up against the headboard, legs spread wide with kneeling between them. Her lips were wrapped around his thick length as she took him deep down her throat.

Michael groaned as his hand gripped the back of her head, fingers tangled in her hair to guide her further down, hold there, then back up.

She moaned around him, the vibrations pulling more groans from him.

They were so lost in the moment. Her tongue eagerly swirled around him as she sucked him up. And his eyes couldn't move away from the beautiful sight in front of him. That was until her phone broke the moment by ringing so loud on the nightstand.

Almost instinctively, Wunmi tried to lift her head to check, but Michael's grip tightened. He pushed her head firmly back down onto his dick, keeping her mouth full.

He snatched the phone with his free hand, glancing at the screen. Tyree's name flashed across the screen. Instantly, Michael was annoyed. The ringing stopped only to start up again seconds later.

Wunmi took Michael's brief distraction as opportunity, so she slid him out of her mouth with a soft pop and peered at the screen. She was just as frustrated as her fiancé was and couldn't help but to release the most aggravated sound along with a quick roll of her eyes.

"Just decline it," she urged.

He met her eyes. "Nah. Talk to your little boyfriend."

Before she could protest, he swiped to answer and held the phone out to her.

Wunmi's eyes went wide, panic flickering as she stared at him, trying to understand the challenge in his eyes.

"Michael—" she started, but Tyree's voice cut through.

"Wunmi?"

Michael raised an eyebrow expectantly.

She grabbed the phone with shaky fingers, putting it on speaker.

"Hello?" she said timidly, heart pounding as she knelt between his legs.

Tyree's voice came through the phone, "Hey, gorgeous. What you doing?"

Wunmi shot a quick glance at Michael, biting her lip hard.

"Um...just laying in bed," she murmured.

"Cool. I, uh, just wanted to give you a call so we could talk. It's been a while," Tyree easily replied.

"Mhm, it has," she managed, her free hand fidgeted against Michael's thigh.

Tyree started talking about how the football season was going for him, but Michael took that as his chance. He practically manhandled her. His hands gripped her hips and spun her around to face the end of the bed. He shoved her body down so that her face was buried in the sheets and her ass was in the air.

She gasped at the sudden shift in positions.

"You okay?" Tyree asked.

"I'm fine…" Wunmi swallowed. Her voice shaky as she steadied herself. "

Michael gave her ass a light smack. Wunmi bit her lip hard to stifle the gasp.

He gripped her big, round cheeks in both hands, kneading the soft flesh, spreading her wide. One finger slowly trailed through her dripping wetness, parting her folds, and she let out a breathy sigh.

Tyree kept talking through the speaker, "…I really been thinking about a lot lately and I just gotta say…"

But Wunmi barely registered it. She could only focus on the man behind her and his heated touch. Michael's fingers had found her clit, circling it with teasing pressure, then dipped low to her soaked entrance, sliding a little inside before pulling back out.

She fought to stay quiet, body tensing up, but Tyree pressed on, obliviously.

"You still there? Tell me what you up to this weekend?" It was clear he was expecting a response.

Wunmi opened her mouth to answer Tyree's question, but Michael chose that exact moment to slide deep inside her, filling her completely in one smooth thrust. She clamped down around him, stunned to silence.

He pressed one hand firm between her shoulder blades, pinning her chest flush to the bed, and leaned forward until his lips brushed her ear.

"Answer him," he whispered sending shivers down her spine.

"Uh... n-nothing really," she managed to get out.

Michael gave her a few quick love taps to her inner thigh before pulling back up onto his knees. His gaze dropped to where their bodies joined, watching intently as he slid out slowly, then thrust back in deep.

A quiet, breathy moan escaped her lips. Wunmi moved the phone away from her mouth for a second, sucking in air.

Michael started with a few slow strokes to ease them both into the rhythm, letting her feel every thick inch stretching her. He built it gradually until his pace turned consistent, her ass bouncing softly against his pelvis.

Wunmi put the phone on mute just in time to release her moans. With each bounce a needy cry spilled out.

"You should come out this way soon. When are you free?" Tyree's voice came through the speaker.

She barely processed it. Her mind was wiped blank by Michael fucking her so good, hitting that spot over and over. Nothing existed but her man. All she could think about was the grip of his hands on her hips.

Wunmi took the phone off mute just long enough to gasp out, "I don't know when," before putting it right back on as another loud moan tore free.

"...we could hit this spot I know downtown, grab drinks, see where the night goes..."

Michael smacked her ass hard then, the hit echoing.

She blurted out, "Oh baby," followed by a deep, throaty moan that she couldn't hold back.

He kept one hand planted firm on her jiggling cheek to control the pace.

When he drove especially deep, she moaned out a shaky "Okay". Her free hand shot back, grabbing his forearm tight as he kept fucking her.

Michael ramped up the speed and depth, pounding into her harder, chasing that release for both of them.

Wunmi tried to take it all—she really did—arching back to meet him, but it really overwhelmed her.

"Okay, Michael, okay," she gasped as he went a little deeper than necessary, nailing that spot right next to her cervix.

"What you keep saying okay for?" He smacked her ass , growling, "Like, come on."

He pushed his hips forward, bouncing her roughly on him, urging her to move on her own. She did, but only just enough, rolling her hips back hesitantly.

"You want me to stop?" he demanded.

"No," she moaned out desperately. At this point she'd completely forgotten about the phone in her hand.

Just then Tyree's voice came through loud and clear. "...whoever that fiance of yours is ain't watching you right. Imma come get you for real."

Michael's face twisted up into a scowl, annoyance built up in him. He leaned down over her back, roughly thrusting in in deeper.

"Michael—Michael—fuck," Wunmi moaned his name over and over.

"Looks like Daddy's gonna have to put a baby in you so they know this pussy's mine," he growled against her ear.

"It's yours. I promise."

"Take it off mute so he can hear how good i'm fucking you," he ordered.

Her hand shook as she obeyed, pressing the button on the screen.

The second the phone came off mute, Michael picked up his thrusts. Driving into her so quick and rough it made her ass bounce loud off of his pelvis. The sound of her soaked pussy filled the room.

Wunmi moaned into the sheets, her cries muffled against the fabric, but Michael wasn't having it. He gripped her hair tight, yanking her head up until her back arched deeper.

"Who this pussy get wet for?" he demanded.

"You, Daddy," she gasped.

Tyree's voice came out sounding confused. "Wunmi? What the—?"

Both of them ignored him completely.

Michael smacked her ass again. Then snatched the phone from her weakened grip and held it so Tyree could hear every moan and every slick sound of her taking him.

"Tell him not to call you anymore," Michael said, pressing the phone right to her mouth.

She moaned through the words. "Don't call me anymore."

Michael hung up then tossed the phone across the bed to thud against the pillows.

"Good girl," Michael murmured, palm rubbing soothing circles over her tender ass. "You wanna come?"

"Yes, Daddy," she whimpered. Her body was already right there. She needed this.

"You did so good with your punishment," he praised, grinding against her walls.

Wunmi felt herself clenching hard as her stomach tightened. "Can I come? Please?"

"Yeah, come for me," one of his hands slid around to rub her clit.

She crumbled almost immediately. Her orgasm crashed through her. She cried out his name as her walls pulsed around him and she soaked the sheets.

Michael kept going, chasing his own release now, groans turning guttural as pleasure tightened in his gut.

"You gonna let me put a baby in you?" his voice was rough as he thrusted harder.

Wunmi moaned, nodding into the bed.

They'd had plenty of conversations about babies. They agreed to wait until at least after the wedding, but it was clear that tonight his possessiveness had him acting different. And she melted under it.

Michael thrusted a few more times before he finally released inside her. He held there, pushing deep, feeling her pulse around him. He pulled out slowly.

Wunmi collapsed forward, breathing heavy, chest heaving as aftershocks rippled through her.

"Don't go near that man again," he said firmly, hand stroking her back. "Block him."

Wunmi nodded weakly, turning her head to meet his eyes. "Okay, baby. I'm sorry."

Late January 2027

Now, into the new year, their lives were completely overtaken. Every day belonged to somebody else. There was barely any room left for themselves in between it all.

Michael had officially started press for The Thomas Crown Affair, and his schedule had exploded. Interviews, photoshoots, appearances, magazine covers. It felt endless. Most of it was alongside Adria Arjona, which only fueled certain online conversations even more.

Meanwhile, Wunmi was deep in awards season.

The Social Reckoning had become a big conversation piece of the year, and her performance had the people talking. Every week brought another event, another panel, and another rumor about if she would end up nominated again or not.

And through all of that, they were less than four months away from getting married. May was practically right around the corner.

Earlier in the month they had finally sat down with both of their publicists to figure out how exactly they were going to reveal the relationship publicly without it becoming a circus before the wedding. The final decision had been simple. Michael would handle most of it.

Strategically, it made the most sense.

Wunmi’s team wanted all attention during awards season to stay centered on her work, not her relationship. So Michael had agreed to slowly start opening the door publicly while still keeping things vague enough to maintain some control.

He actually preferred it that way. Mostly because he was tired of hiding her.

After over a year of rumors, especially after the leaked audio, Michael was exhausted from pretending. And since she was his fiancée now, he wanted to share that with the world.

Still timing mattered…a lot. Everything had to be controlled carefully. And unfortunately, control was the one thing their schedules weren’t allowing them to have right now.

Most days they weren’t even in the same city.

There had been recent stretches where they only saw each other through FaceTime screens and blurry airport selfies. Sometimes one of them was waking up while the other was heading to sleep.

It irritated both of them more than they admitted. Especially Michael. He had been so clingy with her, and now he barely even got the chance to breathe in her direction.

Their conversations had slowly become reduced to logistics. Things like wedding updates and travel plans. They hardly talked about things of substance. It wasn't intentional though. It was just all they had time for.

One night, Wunmi was sitting in her London hotel suite while Michael was back in New York finishing another round of press. She had kicked her heels off and was curled sideways across the bed, exhaustion written all over her face as she held her phone up during their FaceTime call.

Michael was sitting in the backseat of an SUV, chain sitting against a black thermal shirt, one hand rubbing tiredly over his jaw while traffic lights flashed outside the window behind him.

“You look tired,” Wunmi murmured softly.

Michael looked at her through the screen.

“I am tired.”

She smiled faintly, “Poor baby.”

“I’m serious,” he muttered. “I done answered the same damn questions all day. I’m over it. ‘How was it working together?’ ‘Did y’all have chemistry?’”

"Well, did you?" Wunmi grinned.

"Don't start," Michael gave her a flat look through the screen.

She giggled softly, resting her cheek against the pillow, “I was just asking.”

Michael shook his head, but his expression softened while looking at her. God, he missed her. He always had this thought during the day, along with the constant irritation that she wasn't there..

“When do I see you again?” he asked suddenly.

Wunmi sighed dramatically.

“Um…” She reached for her planner nearby. “I think…after the BAFTAS?” she started slowly, flipping through pages.

Michael stared at her.

“That’s not for another week, babe.”

“I know.”

“A whole week?”

Wunmi laughed softly at his expression.

“You’ll survive.”

Michael looked unconvinced.

“You say that now,” he said. “Then you gon’ start crying the longer we're apart.”

“I do not cry.”

“You absolutely do.”

Wunmi sucked her teeth softly, “Whatever.”

Michael smiled for the first time during the call, the tiredness easing slightly from his face.

The conversation naturally shifted to the wedding. And despite how exhausted they both were, those conversations kept them intertwined.

Everywhere Michael went there were cameras waiting for him. Going form film festival to awards gala to museum benefit to private dinners. Tonight wasn't any different.

The carpet outside the event was packed shoulder to shoulder with photographers and journalists.

Michael stepped out of the SUV with his black suit perfectly tailored to his body. Confidence radiated off of him without him even trying.

He adjusted the cuff of his jacket before looking up with a calm and controlled expression.

His publicist walked beside him briefly while fixing the front of his jacket.

“She approved it,” she murmured quietly.

Michael glanced at her.

“Yeah?”

She nodded.

His mouth twitched slightly.

“Aight,” he nodded.

He moved down the carpet, stopping for photos, greeting people, and shaking hands. As he approached the press line, he relaxed himself.

Interview after interview rolled by. They asked him the typical questions about directing, balancing acting and filmmaking. Michael answered each question like he had prepped for it.

Then he reached one platform in particular.

A Black woman stood there holding the microphone, smiling brightly as he approached.

“Michael B. Jordan!” she grinned. “You look good tonight.”

Michael laughed, “Thank you.”

“Everybody's talking about your film already. But what was it like stepping into directing mode again?” she started.

“It was challenging,” he admitted. “But I think I’m at a point now where I trust myself more creatively. I know how I wanna tell stories now. And honestly, I learned a lot from the last few years. Working with different directors, producing more, it changed how I look at filmmaking.”

The interviewer nodded along.

“And you can tell,” she said. “Especially after the year you had last year. Mr. Oscar winner. How has life changed since then? Because it feels like the world has not stopped talking about you.”

Michael laughed softly.

“It's definitely gotten more chaotic,” he admitted. “But I try to stay grounded and keep moving forward.”

The interviewer tilted her head slightly.

“So what does moving forward look like for you now? More directing? Less acting?”

Michael paused for a second.

“Well…” he started slowly, “where I’m at now in my life and career I'm focused on celebrating my wins. And I got some pretty big ones that I need to make room for.”

A tiny smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"As you should," The interviewer smiled.

“I wanna spend more time focused on my family. So there’s definitely a chance I slow down a little," he said honestly. "My fiancée and I have both been incredibly busy with all that's going on in our careers and now wedding planning. But I've been trying to figure out how to even get to the point of slowing down."

The interviewer looked stunned.

“Wow, um…when—”

Michael stepped back with the biggest smirk trying to break across his face.

“You have good one,” he laughed.

“Michael!”

He pointed at her playfully, “Appreciate you though.”

Then before she could ask another question, he walked off down the carpet looking satisfied with himself. He made his way inside, barely even slowing down as he reached for his phone that was in his pocket. There was only one person he wanted to talk to right now.

He tapped Wunmi’s contact immediately. The phone rang a few times before she answered.

“Hello?”

Her voice was thick with sleep.

Michael’s face melted.

“Hey baby.”

There was rustling on the other end followed by a small sleepy hum.

“What time is it?” she murmured.

Michael smiled to himself as he ducked into a quieter hallway away from the crowd.

“Not that late. Why you sleep already?”

Wunmi sighed into the phone.

“I’m so tired.”

"You okay, Mama?" Michael’s brows pulled together.

“Mhm,” she hummed quietly.

He leaned back against the wall, listening to her breathing through the phone.

“I can’t wait for all this to be over,” she admitted sleepily.

Michael chuckled under his breath, “Me too.”

There was a quiet pause before Wunmi spoke again.

“Did you do it?”

Michael’s grin spread, “Yeah.”

He could practically hear her smiling through the phone even though she barely made a sound. Just a quiet little hum.

Michael shook his head fondly.

“That’s it?” he laughed quietly. “That’s all I get?”

“You woke me up,” she mumbled.

“You're supposed to be excited.”

“I am excited. I'm just sleepy, Mike,” she said.

Michael could picture her perfectly. She was probably curled up in a hotel robe, hair wrapped up, and half asleep with the phone pressed against her face. He missed her so much.

“You gon’ be at the honoring next week?” he asked after a moment.

There was a pause. Then Wunmi sighed.

“…Baby. It's next week with the BAFTAs and my team scheduled a bunch of press here,” she reminded him.

“Damn," He briefly closed his eyes. "So when will I see you again?”

“A week and a half maybe,” she said quietly.

Michael dragged a hand over his face dramatically.

“That's so long”

Wunmi laughed tiredly.

“You’ll survive.”

“That’s what you keep saying.”

“Because you will.”

Michael shook his head with a smile.

“Barely.”

There was another comfortable silence between them.

“Imma let you sleep.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“And I miss you so much.”

Wunmi exhaled softly through the phone.

“I miss you too,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come.”

Michael’s expression softened even more.

“Don’t apologize. I’m just being needy.”

That earned another sleepy laugh from her.

“Very needy.”

“Mhm.”

“I still love you though.”

“You better.”

Wunmi smiled against her pillow.

“Goodnight, Michael.”

“Goodnight, baby.”