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. 💜

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The summer before junior year felt endless. It was hot enough for the air to still stick to your skin long after the sun went down. Everybody knew who was having people over. Sometimes it was a cousin home from college. Sometimes a classmate whose mama was working the night shift. Music played way too loud in somebody's backyard while the neighborhood kids wandered in and out the gate like they lived there.

This one sat behind a small brick house a few streets over from the Moores’. Cars lined both sides of the curb. Music rattled the chain-link fence while people crowded around folding tables covered in chips, soda, beer bottles, and half-melted ice. Smoke from the little charcoal grill drifted thick through the yard along with the smell of lighter fluid and somebody’s cheap cologne.

Stack stood near the speakers arguing with two boys over what song to play next.

“Nah, y’all killin’ the vibe.”

“You always say that, bruh.”

“Cause y’all music trash.”

An older boy near the grill yelled for Stack to bring more charcoal and he finally wandered off still talking shit the entire way.

Pearline rolled her eyes from her lawn chair nearby. “Stack, shut up.”

He grinned immediately. “You so fine.”

“Boy.”

Annie laughed softly beside her, knees tucked up against the chair while she sipped from a warm Sprite Smoke handed her twenty minutes earlier. Her curls were pulled back loosely, thick around the edges from the heat and humidity. The silver hoops in her ears glinted in the afternoon sun.

Across the yard, Smoke leaned against the fence talking to one of the older boys from the neighborhood. Black tee. Long shorts. White Air Forces already dirty around the edges from summer. One hand hooked inside his pocket while the other held a sweating cup low near his thigh.

Jada watched him from across the yard.

Annie noticed first. “Mhm,” she muttered, nudging Pearline.

Pearline glanced over. “What?”

Annie tilted her head slightly toward the drinks table.

Pearline’s eyes moved automatically.

Jada stood near the coolers laughing loudly at something another girl said, honey-brown curls bouncing around her shoulders while her attention kept drifting back toward Smoke every few seconds. She was pretty. Everyone thought so. Curvy already, tube top, and tiny shorts showing off thick thighs every boy talked about when she walked passed. 

Except Smoke—he barely looked over there at all. Jada was pretty. He mostly remembered she laughed loud.

That should’ve made Annie feel better. Instead something still irritated her.

Pearline caught the look on her face instantly. “Girl…”

“I ain’t sayin’ shit.”

“You don’t gotta.”

Annie rolled her eyes hard and looked away first.

Across the yard Stack suddenly yelled—“ANNIE.”

He pointed dramatically toward the folding table. “Bring me a bag of chips.”

“You got two hands.”

“Please! You love me.”

“I actually don’t.”

Stack clutched his chest while everybody around him laughed.

Smoke looked over then and immediately found Annie. Every time. Didn’t matter how many people stood around her either. His eyes always landed there first. The look on his face changed too. Softer. Like seeing her settled something in him automatically.

Pearline saw that part and snorted quietly beside her. “Girl that boy obsessed with you.”

Annie tried not to smile. Failed a little anyway. She stood and headed toward the chips table near the drinks before Stack could start yelling again.

Pearline grabbed her cup and followed behind slower, already watching Jada out the corner of her eye.

Halfway there, Smoke peeled away from the fence and met Annie without saying much.

“You ate?”

Annie blinked at him. “Yes, Elijah.”

“You lyin’.”

She laughed immediately. “I had chips.”

“That ain’t food.”

He grabbed a paper plate off the table and started piling food onto it before she could argue again.

Annie leaned lightly against the table watching him move around the grill. “Why you keep makin’ me plates?”

Smoke shrugged once without looking up. “Cause you need to eat.”

“I eat.”

“Not enough.”

Annie rolled her eyes softly. “Smoke, I promise the world not gon’ end if I miss one plate.”

That finally made him look at her. His eyes moved over her once before settling back on her face again.

“Nah,” he said quietly. “But I might.”

Annie’s breath caught before she could stop it.

And right on cue—Stack gagged loud as hell behind them. “Mane, if y’all don’t leave each other alone for five minutes—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Smoke muttered.

Everybody near them laughed.

Smoke ignored all of it. That was the thing. He ignored everything when Annie stood close enough.

Jada came over to where they were a minute later with Mary and two other girls trailing behind her, all loud laughs and glossy lips beneath the fading summer light.

Pearline stood up straighter immediately. “This bitch…,” she muttered under her breath.

Mary waved dramatically the second she spotted Stack. “There go my man.”

Pearline rolled her eyes so hard Annie almost laughed. “Your man?” Pearline muttered. “Girl please. Stack flirt wit’ everybody.”

“Jealousy ugly on you, Pearl,” Mary called back instantly.

Pearline looked up slow and smiled. “Bitch, I can’t be jealous of community dick.”

Stack barked out laughing.

Mary’s mouth dropped open. “Community dick?!”

Pearline shrugged. “You ain’t special, ho.”

Stack barked out laughing before Mary walked over smacking his arm. Jada drifted easily toward the grill instead.

“Damn,” she said, looking down at the plate in Smoke’s hand before glancing toward her friends. “Smoke don’t do nothin’ but feed Annie.”

Stack barked out laughing instantly. “Cause that’s his girl.”

Smoke frowned slightly. “What?”

Jada smiled. “Nothin’.” But her eyes slid briefly toward Annie before looking back at Stack.

“I’m serious,” She continued. “He act like she the only girl out here.”

Stack opened his mouth immediately. “Cause to him she is.”

Smoke finally handed Annie her plate. “Move before Stack fat ass steal yo’ food.”

“Wow nigga,” Stack said. “You rude.”

Annie was focused very hard on balancing the paper plate in her hands even while warmth kept crawling up the back of her neck. Beside her, Pearline sucked her teeth quietly into her cup.

Jada laughed softly and reached for Smoke’s cup sitting on the table, taking a sip without asking.

Annie noticed immediately. So did Pearline.

Annie’s fingers tightened slightly beneath the paper plate, before she could stop herself, her body was leaning forward a fraction towards Jada. Pearline caught the reaction instantly, one hand touching Annie’s wrist beneath the excuse of reaching for a chip. Subtle. Quick enough nobody else seemed to notice.

Except Jada.

Smoke barely reacted—mostly because he was already looking at Annie again. “You want somethin’ else to drink?”

Jada lowered the cup slowly.

Annie saw that too, and suddenly the heat outside felt heavier than before. “I’m good,” she answered quietly.

“I been tellin’ y’all Smoke don’t talk to nobody but Annie,” Jada said, laughing lightly as she nudged Stack with her shoulder. “It’s weird.”

Mary snorted softly beside Stack, already watching the whole interaction unfold. “One hundred percent true,” Mary jumped in immediately.

Smoke looked genuinely confused. “I talk to y’all.”

Stack barked out laughing instantly. “Nigga no you don’t.”

Mary laughed harder. “You barely even looked over here.”

Annie looked away immediately before Smoke could catch her laughing.

Pearline covered her mouth instantly trying not to laugh because there it was. Exactly what she’d been saying. Smoke really did miss half the shit girls tried to do around him.

Jada looked thrown off for maybe half a second before recovering smoothly. “I’m sayin’ you act different with Annie.”

Smoke frowned like he genuinely didn’t understand the point. “That’s my girl.”

Simple. Certain.

Mary made a loud fake throwing-up noise while Stack nearly folded over laughing beside her.

Annie felt warmth crawl straight up her neck.

Jada laughed too, but this time it sounded tighter. Her eyes met Annie’s.

A small smile pulled at Annie’s mouth before she could stop it. Bitch.

Jada’s smile stayed in place.

But barely.

Present Day

The memory faded slowly beneath the low hum of Smoke’s truck engine.

Sunlight flashed through the windshield in uneven patterns as he drove, one hand loose against the steering wheel while warm air moved steadily through the cracked window beside him. His other hand tapped once against his thigh before going still again.

Then the truck speakers crackled softly.

Incoming call. Jada.

Her name spread bright across the dashboard. Smoke stared at it for a long second. Long enough for the phone to ring twice.

Three times. Then he hit ignore. Silence settled back inside the truck immediately afterward. Ever since Annie walked back into town, his thoughts hadn’t stayed where he put them. Eight years gone—and somehow seeing her again still felt too close to touching a live wire.

Aunt Cheryl’s house already smelled like seasoning and heat by the time Annie and Pearline finished getting dressed.

Music drifted through nearly every room. Beyoncé’s II Hands II Heaven played low from the Bluetooth speaker sitting on the guest bathroom counter. Outside, somewhere deep in the backyard, a blues guitar rolled through the open windows mixed with the sound of laughter, dominoes slamming against folding tables, and Aunt Cheryl’s husband Lewis loudly arguing with somebody over whether Bobby Womack was better than Marvin Gaye.

Pearline’s aunt—her mama Maxine’s younger sister, had always been the kind of woman whose house never really belonged to just her. Doors stayed unlocked more than they should. People were always sleeping over. Some needed a hot meal. Someone always got fussed at and fed in the same breath. Growing up, Annie had spent enough weekends there that people stopped asking whose child she was and started assuming she belonged to Cheryl.

Which, in a lot of ways, she had. 

Annie loved her mother. She did, but Aunt Cheryl had become the adult she ran to for things she didn’t know how to explain at home. The conversations that felt too embarrassing, too confusing, too complicated to say out loud to her own mama somehow came out easier sitting at Cheryl’s kitchen counter while she cut onions, folded laundry or fried fish. Crushes. Friend drama. College fears. Questions she couldn’t even ask properly yet.

Aunt Cheryl never pushed. She just listened. Then eventually she’d say something annoyingly simple that made Annie realize she already knew the answer.

Pearline’s family became Annie’s family so gradually she never noticed it happening. Holidays. Sleepovers. Last-minute rides. Summer afternoons. Somewhere along the way Aunt Cheryl stopped introducing her as Pearline’s friend and started introducing her as one of hers.

Right on cue her voice cut through the house. “AND WHO ATE MY DAMN DEVILED EGGS?”

“There go Cheryl,” Pearline muttered calmly.

“And turn that sad shit down!” another older voice yelled from somewhere outside.

Pearline rolled her eyes immediately. “…and there go mama.”

Annie laughed despite herself.

The whole house felt alive. They ended up staying the night at Cheryl’s after grocery shopping the evening before. Pearline originally planned to drop the food off and leave, but Cheryl took one look at the amount of prep still sitting untouched across the kitchen counters and shut that shit down immediately.

“Leave if you want to,” she’d said, snapping green beans into a bowl without looking up. “But yo’ mama gon’ talk so much shit about you tomorrow I might join in.”

Pearline groaned while Annie laughed.

So they stayed. Annie even ended up helping too despite Pearline repeatedly telling her to sit down because the cookout was technically for her. Cheryl ignored all of that. “Girl please,” she said, sliding a cutting board toward Annie. “You back home now. Slice them onions.”

And she did. Standing barefoot in Cheryl’s kitchen at nearly midnight while old school R&B drifted low through the house and women arguing lovingly over recipes felt strangely familiar. Like being dropped back into another version of herself she hadn’t touched in years.

By one in the morning, half the food was prepped. Uncle Lewis was asleep in the recliner in the family room with the TV still blasting low. Annie and Pearline ended up stretched across a queen size bed in the guest bedroom laughing quietly in the dark like they were teenagers again. For a few hours, it almost felt like no time had passed at all.

Currently, coolers crowded the hallway near the front door packed with beer, juice, bottled water, soda, and foil pans waiting to be carried outside. Younger cousins ran through the living room screaming before another auntie immediately yelled at them to stop running in the damn house. The kitchen smelled like barbecue sauce, fried fish, onions, and sweet baked beans while women moved around each other shoulder to shoulder arguing over seasoning.

Upstairs inside the guest bedroom, Annie had changed clothes four times.

Pearline sat stretched across the bed eating hot chips while watching the latest outfit reveal with growing amusement.

First it had been denim shorts and a tank top. Too casual. Then a black sundress. Too obvious. Then jeans. Absolutely not. Now half the room looked like a tornado touched down inside it while Annie stood in front of the mirror quietly questioning every decision she’d made since coming back home.

Pearline watched her for a little while before reaching toward the tequila bottle sitting beside Annie’s makeup bag.

“Aight,” she muttered. “Come here.”

Annie looked over immediately. “What?”

“You nervous as hell.”

“Not.”

Pearline snorted, already pouring two shots into plastic cups. “Sure.”

Annie laughed softly despite herself before walking over. The cups clinked together lightly.

“To Annie finally outside again,” Pearline said.

“That’s…dramatic.”

“And is.”

Annie laughed again before both of them tipped the shots back. The tequila burned all the way down, warm and sharp enough to make Annie squeeze her eyes shut briefly afterward.

“Shiiit.”

Pearline coughed once immediately after. “See? That’s why I don’t do dark liquor.”

“You literally bought it.”

“And?”

Annie shook her head laughing while Pearline shoved the open chip bag toward her.

“Eat somethin’.”

“I’m fine.”

“Aight. You gon’ be sweatin’ tequila and fucked up in Cheryl backyard if you don’t eat somethin’.”

“I won't.”

Pearline pointed at her immediately. “That’s exactly what drunk people say.”

Annie rolled her eyes smiling despite herself before turning back toward the mirror again.

After another ten minutes of changing her mind twice more, Annie finally settled on the striped halter dress mostly because Pearline threatened to physically pick something for her if she kept standing in front of the mirror sighing.

The dress was a soft knit material striped in deep blue, green, white, and pale lavender, the colors bright enough to feel summery without trying too hard. The halter neckline dipped low across her chest while the open back left most of her skin bare except for the tie sitting neatly behind her neck. Unfortunately or fortunately, the dress hugged her body tighter than she remembered when she bought it. The material curved around her hips, her thighs, the softness of her stomach. Her breasts sat high beneath the neckline, enough cleavage showing to make her immediately fold her arms the second she caught herself staring too long in the mirror.

Pearline crunched another chip slowly. “Girl.”

Annie didn’t look away from the mirror.  “What?”

“You know what.”

“It’s hot outside.”

“Mhm.”

“It is.”

Pearline’s mouth twitched.  “And apparently you tryna make Elijah Moore lose consciousness beside Cheryl’s potato salad.”

Annie groaned instantly. “Please shut up.”

“I’m serious.” Pearline pointed dramatically with another chip. “That man already looked halfway dead in Stack apartment yesterday.”

Annie narrowed her eyes finally turning away from the mirror. “Oh, so we not gon’ talk about YOU?”

Pearline blinked innocently. “What about me?”

Annie looked her up and down slowly.

Pearline’s red-and-white striped maxi dress clung to every curve she had, the soft material hugging her hips and thighs while the slit climbed just high enough along one leg to show smooth brown skin every time she moved. The open back exposed nearly her entire spine beneath her sleek ponytail, and somehow the dress still looked casual enough for a cookout despite the fact it was absolutely ruining the peace.

Annie folded her arms. “You look like summertime temptation.”

Pearline barked out laughing instantly. “But you got the nerve to talk about me?”

“This?” Pearline looked down at herself pretending to be confused. “Girl this comfortable.”

“Comfortable where?” Annie stared. “At a cookout or on somebody's son's prayer list?”

Pearline nearly choked on her chips laughing.

Annie shook her head. “You absolutely tryna make Elias act stupid outside.”

“Chile…,” Pearline continued, waving another chip dramatically, “Elias been stupid since tenth grade. That ain’t got nothin’ to do wit’ me.”

Annie laughed softly despite herself.

Pearline pointed immediately. “There it is again.”

“What?”

“That little happy-ass laugh.”

Annie’s face fell instantly. “Line…”

“I’m just sayin’.” Pearline’s expression softened slightly afterward. “I ain’t seen you like this in a long time.”

Annie’s face dropped instantly. Somehow that felt worse. She turned back toward the mirror too quickly afterward pretending to adjust the side of the dress while heat crawled slowly up her neck.

Pearline watched her quietly. That tiny hopeful look on Annie’s face hit harder than expected, because yesterday had been the first time Pearline saw her genuinely excited about something in a very long time. Hopeful. Pearline hated what she knew might ruin it. Her eyes flicked briefly toward her phone laying beside her on the comforter. Towards the memory of Smoke sitting beside Jada inside that restaurant booth. Towards Stack saying—He not bringin’ her. Pearline wanted to believe that.

Still…

Annie sighed. “I don’t even know why I care this much.”

Pearline knew why. Both of them did. But she let Annie keep pretending.

Annie sat near the foot of the bed smoothing nervous hands over the dress before glancing casually toward the open bedroom door. “You said Elijah came by already this mornin’?”

Pearline looked up. “Uh huh. Him and Uncle Lewis set the speakers up outside.”

Annie nodded slowly like that information didn’t matter nearly as much as it actually did. 

“Oh.”

Pearline watched her for a little too long.

Annie reached over stealing one of her chips casually. “He stay long?”

There it was.

Pearline smiled immediately. “You fishin’.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “I’m askin’ a question.”

“Yeah, okay,” Pearline’s grin widened.

Annie threw the chip at her. Pearline laughed harder dodging it while Annie shook her head trying unsuccessfully not to smile too.

“So…is he?” Annie asked a second later, quieter this time.

Pearline’s laughter softened slightly. “He said he was comin’ back.”

Annie looked down too fast afterward, like she didn’t want her face caught reacting. 

Pearline watched the small smile trying to pull at Annie’s mouth before it disappeared again.

There it was again. Soft. Careful. Still alive somehow after all these years, and suddenly Pearline’s chest tightened, because now Jada pushed back into the front of her mind immediately afterward. Laughing. Too comfortable. Too familiar.

Pearline swallowed slowly. “Annie…”

Annie looked up immediately. “Hm?”

Pearline hesitated. She almost said it. Almost told her everything. That she saw Smoke with Jada. That nobody really knew what was going on between them. She didn’t want Annie walking outside blind, but then she smiled again. Tiny…nervous.

Suddenly Pearline couldn’t say it. Couldn’t bring herself to throw Jada between this fragile little piece of happiness Annie somehow found again. So instead she stood tossing the chip bag aside.

“Nothin’,” she muttered instead, standing too fast afterward. “Come on before Aunt Cheryl start cussin’ everybody out for standin’ around useless.”

Annie looked at her strangely for a second but stood anyway, smoothing her hands down the front of the dress one last time before glancing toward the mirror again.

The smile appeared again. Quick. Almost shy.

Hope looked strange on her now. Older. More careful. But still there. The realization unsettled her immediately. She had not come back to Mississippi expecting this. Didn’t come back expecting her stomach to flip every time Elijah looked at her. Or expect one awkward afternoon inside Stack’s apartment to crack open something she spent years forcing shut.

Outside, a car horn blared. Then another. Music swelled louder beneath a burst of laughter somewhere near the backyard.

Pearline groaned instantly. “That better not be Stack blowin’ that fuckin’ horn.”

As if summoned, her phone rang immediately afterward.

STACK.

Pearline answered, already irritated. “What?”

“Bring y’all asses outside,” Stack shouted loudly over music and voices in the background. “Everybody arrivin’.”

Annie’s stomach flipped hard enough to make her regret every sip of tequila she’d had while getting dressed.

Now it was real.

The second Annie stepped outside, the sound hit her first.

Music layered over more music. A blues record played somewhere deeper in the backyard while Frankie Beverly and Maze floated from another speaker closer to the patio. Laughter cracked through the humid air in bursts. Dominoes slammed hard enough against tables to sound competitive. People yelled for more ice. Kids tore across the grass shrieking while an older cousin threatened to spray them with the water hose if they knocked over another chair.

Aunt Cheryl’s property stretched wide behind the house, big enough for generations to spread out across it comfortably. Cars lined both sides of the road outside the gate already, more pulling up every few minutes. Folding tables covered in aluminum trays sat beneath two huge pecan trees while smoke rolled thick from the grill pits farther back near the fence line.

The smell nearly overwhelmed her immediately—charcoal, barbecue sauce, hot grease, sweet liquor, and fresh-cut grass baking beneath the Mississippi heat. Underneath all of it was that familiar Delta smell she never figured out how to describe properly after moving away. Warm earth. Humidity. River air somewhere nearby.

Home.

Her chest tightened unexpectedly.

“ANNIE BABY!”

Before she could process anything else, one of Pearline’s older cousins, Geneva, was already crossing the yard toward her.

Geneva had always occupied that strange space growing up where she never quite felt like a cousin. Five years older than Annie and Pearline, she’d been old enough to seem impossibly cool but young enough to still let them into her world. She was the cousin whose room they wanted to sit in when they were kids, whose clothes they wanted to borrow before they were old enough, who knew everybody and always had the gossip before anybody else. She gave them the best advice, defended them when adults got too loud, and slipped easily between big sister, best friend, and professional instigator depending on the day. If Geneva was going somewhere, they wanted to go too.

She looked exactly the same now—just grown into herself.

A striped maxi dress moved around her legs as she crossed the yard, the fabric light enough to catch every bit of warm Mississippi air. The colors softened against her caramel skin—cream with narrow lines of rust, black, and muted gold running vertically from neckline to hem. Thin straps framed her shoulders while the neckline dipped low. Big tassel earrings brushed her neck every time she moved, and a woven straw bag hung from one arm despite the fact she absolutely did not need a purse for a backyard cookout. Long straight hair fell over one shoulder and sunglasses rested on top of her head like she had somewhere more important to be later.

She reached Annie and immediately grabbed her face with both hands. “Lawd, look at my Annie.”

Before Annie could answer Geneva pulled her into a tight hug that smelled faintly of perfume, body oil, and summer heat before leaning back again to inspect her dramatically. “Bitchhh…you done got finer sittin’ up there in North Carolina.”

Pearline barked out laughing immediately. “‘Neva.”

Geneva ignored her completely, looking Annie up and down. “Nah, for real—look at all this ass.”

“GENEVA.”

“What?” She shrugged. “I got eyes.”

Annie laughed so hard she almost snorted, and just like that, some of the tightness in her chest loosened. For a second. Then others started calling her name. Then another.

“Oh shit—Annie?!” 

“When you get back?”

“Girl, look at you!”

Suddenly she was being pulled into hugs from every direction. More relatives. Old classmates. Women she hadn’t seen since before high school kissing her cheek and telling her she looked beautiful.  Questions came rapid-fire before she could even answer the last one.

How long you staying?You still in Charlotte?Yo’ mama good?You remember so-and-so?You workin’?

Annie smiled through all of it. Laughed through all of it. Answered each question. But underneath every conversation, every hug, every joke—she was looking for him. It happened automatically. Every car or truck door slamming outside the gate made her glance up. Every deep laugh somewhere across the yard tightened something low in her stomach before she realized it belonged to somebody else. Every time people moved around near the grills, her eyes moved there instinctively.

Pearline noticed every single time. “You look so nervous, friend,” Pearline muttered low beside her while accepting a beer her cousin handed her.

“I’m not nervous.”

“Right.”

Annie ignored her. Or tried to.

Outside, the heat wrapped around her immediately, making the halter dress cling softer against her skin the longer she stood there. Her long braids brushed warm against the open skin of her back every time she moved, humidity already settling along the base of her neck while sweat gathered slowly between her breasts beneath the neckline. Still somehow she became even more aware of her body because of him. Even without seeing him yet.

The music changed suddenly. Blues faded lower beneath newer bass while voices rose louder near the grill pits. Then a familiar voice carried across the yard.

“Move, nigga. Damn.”

Laughter erupted near the driveway immediately afterward. Annie froze. Her stomach dropped so fast it almost hurt because she knew that voice. Knew it down to muscle memory.

Annie turned before she could stop herself. Dark oversized shirt hanging loose over his frame, the deep brown fabric softening against the width of his shoulders and chest. Tattoos disappeared beneath the loose sleeves. Black shorts hung low against narrow hips, white and black Nike Dunks scuffing lightly against the pavement. A black cap sat low over his eyes, single gold chain glinting faintly against his throat.

“Smoke!” Stack exclaimed as he turned around from where he stood near the grill pit. “Bout time yo’ muthafuckin ass got here!”

“There he go,” a classmate named Mike laughed, already moving toward him.

Smoke lifted one hand in acknowledgment before pulling Stack into a quick dap and shoulder bump that looked practiced from years of repetition. Mike stepped in after that. Then another. Hands grabbing at him. Voices overlapping. Smoke laughed at something another said, head dipping slightly while one of his homeboys slapped his shoulder.

Laughter carried through the music.

Yesterday, inside Stack’s apartment, he felt almost unreal. Too close. Too quiet. Too heavy with history. But standing outside now beneath fading sunlight and backyard music with everybody surrounding him—Elijah looked dangerous again. Familiar. Beautiful. Like every version of the boy she used to love had grown all the way into a man.

Maybe it was the tequila talking, the heat, or eight years refusing to stay buried. But for one terrifying moment, Annie forgot how to breathe because Elijah Moore looked up and found her immediately. Like some part of him had already known exactly where she was.

Smoke forgot what Mike was saying halfway through the sentence. Something about a fight that happened outside Club Fusion last month. Cornbread laughed loud as hell beside him, while Isoo kept interrupting every five seconds adding details nobody asked for. Stack stood near the grill pit drinking beer and talking shit like always while Bo argued with Uncle Lewis over whether the ribs needed more sauce. The kind of evening Smoke usually moved through without thinking too hard. Then something shifted. Like pressure changing in the air. His eyes lifted automatically and found Annie. And everything in him suddenly went very still.

She stood near the patio beside Pearline surrounded by women talking over each other while music rolled through the yard behind them. The dress she had on wrapped around her body soft and close, pulling against curves he absolutely did not remember being that dangerous.

Jesus Christ.

Smoke’s jaw flexed once. Because yesterday inside Stack’s apartment had been too sudden. Too crowded with history and shock and confusion for him to really look at her the way he wanted to. But now? He could see everything.

The long braids falling down her back. The neckline dipping low enough to show the soft swell of her breasts beneath the summer light. Hips fuller than they used to be. Thicker through the thighs too. Ass sitting heavy beneath that dress in a way that made something low in his stomach pull tight immediately. 

Grown.

Annie had always been beautiful. But this? This felt unfair.

“And then this nigga gon’ say—” Cornbread stopped mid-sentence laughing at his own story while everybody around Smoke reacted.

Smoke barely heard any of it, but Annie looked up and there it was again. That feeling. Like the rest of the yard dimmed slightly every time their eyes locked. Want. Yearning. Recognition. All tangled together so tight it almost made his chest ache.

She looked away first. Not by much. Just enough to smile at Grace and Therise as they walked over toward her carrying babies, diaper bags and chaos with them. Smoke’s attention followed automatically. 

Grace balanced little Lisa against her hip while Therise waddled carefully beside her, one hand rubbing absentmindedly across her stomach while her boys ran circles around her legs screaming at each other. Annie’s entire face changed when she saw them, brightening instantly. Grace pulled her into a one-armed hug while Lisa immediately started reaching for Annie with grabby little hands.

“Look at her!” Grace laughed. “This girl doesn’t go to just anybody.”

Annie laughed softly, taking Lisa against her hip without hesitation. Natural. Easy. Like she’d done it a hundred times before.

Something inside Smoke twisted painfully, because for one stupid dangerous second—he saw it. Saw Annie standing in a kitchen holding his baby while music played low in another room. Saw little brown babies with her eyes and his attitude running through a backyard somewhere. Saw years he never let himself think too hard about. The image hit hard enough to steal the air from his lungs.

Stack noticed immediately. His eyes slid toward Smoke before following his line of sight across the yard. Then back again. Stack cleared his throat loudly. Sharp enough to snap Smoke partly out of his head.

“You hear this nigga, bruh?” Stack asked suddenly, shoving a beer into Bo’s chest hard enough to spill some. “Talkin’ bout he could beat me one-on-one right now.”

Bo frowned immediately. “Man, when I say that?”

But before Stack could keep the distraction going—Isoo looked up.

“Hold up.”

Everybody went still automatically because Isoo always talked the loudest right before saying something stupid.

“Where Jada at?”

Stack’s entire body stiffened instantly. “Shut the fuck up,” he muttered fast.

Too late.

Isoo blinked. “What?”

Stack cut his eyes sharply toward Annie across the yard before lowering his voice. “Nigga damn.”

Smoke didn’t say anything immediately. Instead he reached into his pocket. Pulled out his cigarettes. Tapped one loose. Stuck it between his lips. The lighter clicked once. Twice. Then caught. Smoke took a slow drag while the group went quiet around him. His jaw ticked once as smoke rolled out low through his nose.

Jada heard him talking to Uncle Lewis a few days earlier about borrowing speakers. She started asking questions—

“Y’all havin’ somethin’?”

“Who all gonna be there?”

Small smile.

“Sounds fun.”

Smoke didn’t think much of it. At the time, it was just a cookout. People came. People brought people. That was normal. So when she casually mentioned coming too…he never corrected the assumption.

Then yesterday happened.

He opened Stack’s apartment door and Annie was standing there.

By the time Smoke realized she was staying—realized she’d be at the cookout, something selfish inside him tilted immediately. Not because he was doing anything wrong or he owed Annie anything. But suddenly the idea of Jada coming with him to the cookout and standing beside him all day felt wrong in a way he didn’t wanna examine too hard.

He hated himself a little for how quick that feeling came.

Then this morning Jada left a voicemail.  Soft. Apologetic. 

“Hey…I won’t be able to come to the cookout. Danielle called out sick and I gotta cover a showing.” She laughed. “Bad timing.”

Smoke remembered listening. Waiting to feel disappointed. Instead his chest loosened. That bothered him more than anything. 

Another drag. Then finally—“She had to work.” His voice came out flat. Smoke flicked ash into the grass. “She ain’t comin’.”

Bo looked at Cornbread. Cornbread looked at Stack. Stack looked at Smoke.

Everybody knew.

Only Isoo stayed oblivious. His eyes drifted toward the patio. His eyes widened dramatically. “Aw hell nah.”

Smoke already felt irritation crawling up his spine.

“Bruh, I know that ain’t fine ass Annie over there.”

Stack closed his eyes briefly like he already knew where this was going.

“She back back?” Isoo asked. “Like for real?”

Nobody answered fast enough. Which was apparently answer enough for him. Isoo straightened immediately, adjusting his shirt. “Shiiit then. Lemme go say what’s up.”

Cornbread muttered, “Here this nigga go.”

Isoo started moving.  Actually moving. Straight towards Annie and suddenly Smoke understood very clearly how easy it would be to hit somebody with a folding chair.

The thought arrived calm. Instant. Violent enough to make his jaw tighten hard. Annie wasn’t his anymore. He knew that. Understood it. But watching another man walk toward her still felt wrong enough to make something ugly rise low in his chest anyway.

Stack saw it happen in real time. Saw Smoke’s posture change. Saw his grip tighten slightly around the cigarette. 

“Aye,” Stack said, quickly stepping sideways into Smoke’s path just enough to interrupt whatever terrible decision was forming. “Relax.”

Smoke’s eyes stayed fixed on the back of Isoo’s head.

“He grown,” Stack continued lower. “Don’t start actin’ crazy in Cheryl yard.”

Mike snorted immediately beside them. “Too late. That nigga already look homicidal.”

Cornbread started laughing into his cup.

But Smoke didn’t laugh. Didn’t move either, because across the yard Annie looked up just as Isoo reached her. Isoo hugged Annie. Too long. Then said something and Annie laughed. Easy. Warm. The way she laughed with everybody. Smoke felt something pull low in his chest anyway. He watched another a little longer. Took one last drag. Then held the cigarette away from himself and exhaled.

“Somebody pour me somethin’.”

Stack looked over immediately.

Bo’s mouth started twitching.

Cornbread snorted into his cup.

Smoke kept watching Annie. “Strong.”

Stack blinked once. Looked toward Isoo. Then back at Smoke. His eyebrows lifted slowly. 

“…Oh niggaaaa.”

“ANNIE?”

The voice pulled her attention away from Lisa tugging at one of her braids. She turned and immediately laughed. She recognized him instantly.

Isaac Carter aka Isoo.

Older now, broader. Still handsome in that easy unfair way he’d always been. Dark skin glowing beneath the late afternoon sun, close-cut beard filling in where a baby face used to be, smile still stupidly nice. Tall too. Taller than she remembered. Athletic without trying too hard. He was always laughing, always flirting, and somehow there was always at least one girl claiming she was done with him before ending up right back beside him the next weekend.

But somehow—never hers. 

He’d always been sweet to Annie. Never flirty…just easy to be around. Annie remembered he carried her backpack once in sixth grade because she had too many books. By freshman year he’d gotten taller and louder and started football with Smoke and Stack. She remembered him telling some boy to leave her alone at a game once before wandering off like it wasn’t a big deal.

Pretty. Friendly. Community-approved. Terrible for relationships. Her mama loved him. Smoke tolerated him. Which honestly should’ve been her first clue. Isoo reached her and immediately pulled her into a hug. Long enough to feel familiar. Not long enough to feel weird.

She laughed against his shoulder. “Well damn.”

He pulled back looking at her fully. “Look at you.”

Annie rolled her eyes immediately. “Boy bye.”

“No seriously.” He looked offended. “You been in North Carolina eatin’ money?”

She laughed. “Hi to you too.”

Isoo smiled bigger. “Nah for real though.” His eyes moved over her once. Respectful. Surprised. Then landed back on her face. “You good?”

Something softened in her chest. She nodded. “Yeah.”

He smiled, then immediately started talking asking questions, and catching her up on old classmates who moved where, who got married and even who got arrested. Stories. People. Names.

Annie laughed, answered and nodded, but she wasn’t really listening. Her eyes kept drifting back towards Smoke.

Smoke leaned near Stack now. Cup in one hand, cigarette in the other. He talked less than everybody else. Watching more, then he tipped the cup back. One swallow.

Finished.

Her stomach tightened immediately and her eyes narrowed.That seemed…intentional.

He lowered the cup and looked directly at her.

Annie blinked and looked away back to Isoo. “…and remember Mary used to swear Stack wanted her?”

Annie nodded automatically. “Yes, yes I do.”

Isoo kept talking.  “…and Sarita got four kids now.”

“Uh huh.”

“…and you still owe me for them chips.”

She blinked. “Wait, what?”

Isoo laughed immediately. “See. You not listenin’.”

Her eyes widened. “No I am!”

His smile softened. His eyes drifted past her. He smirked slightly.  “Oh.”

Annie frowned. “What?”

Isoo laughed under his breath. “Nothin’.”

She turned automatically and saw movement, Pearline, Grace, Therise, little Lisa, and the boys, all slowly migrating toward the grill pits where Stack, Smoke, and the other men were.

Annie immediately straightened. There it was—her out. She looked back at Isoo, smiled and pointed. “Oh they movin’.”

Isoo looked over then back at her. His smile widened immediately. “Aw damn.”

Annie laughed. “What?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nothin’.” But his eyes flicked once—past her. Towards Smoke, then back again.

Suddenly Annie had the strange feeling she wasn’t the only person pretending not to notice things today.

Stack noticed Pearline before she noticed him, though he told himself he was only looking because Grace and Therise had started making their way toward the grill pit with the kids. That was almost believable for a minute. Grace had Lisa balanced on one hip, the baby’s fat hand reaching for every dangling necklace and plastic cup she passed, while Therise moved slower beside her, heavily pregnant and already threatening her boys through clenched teeth whenever they got too close to the food tables. But then Pearline stepped around a folding chair and Stack’s attention went straight to her. 

The red-and-white striped dress hugged her body in a way that made him forget whatever Cornbread had been saying about ribs, the slit opening with every other step to show the smooth brown line of her leg. Her ponytail brushed the open skin of her back, and the sunlight caught her hoops each time she laughed at something Grace said. 

Stack stared too long. He knew he had because Pearline caught him before she even reached the group, her eyes narrowing with that familiar warning that usually meant he was already in trouble.

“What?” she asked once she got close enough to be heard over the music. 

Stack took a sip from his beer and tried to look innocent. “Nothin’.” 

Pearline folded her arms, which only made the dress worse on him. “That was a look.” 

Grace immediately made a noise under her breath, delighted to have caught something. Stack ignored her and let his eyes move over Pearline one more time, slower than he meant to, before he shrugged. 

“You look good. That’s all.” 

Pearline’s face changed for barely a second, the smallest softening around her mouth before she rolled her eyes to cover it. 

“You drunk?” 

“Not yet,” he said, and that pulled a laugh out of her despite herself.

The laugh didn’t last long. Pearline’s gaze drifted past his shoulder towards Annie and Isoo, then towards Smoke, and the lightness left her face almost immediately. 

Stack saw it happen and sighed through his nose, already knowing where her mind had gone. She stepped closer so the music and voices around them swallowed the conversation. 

“She really ain’t comin’?” 

Stack didn’t ask who. He glanced at Smoke, who had been pretending to listen to the men for the last several minutes while watching Annie every chance he got, then looked back at Pearline. 

“She ain’t comin’.” 

Pearline looked away, but her exhale didn’t sound relieved enough. “I should tell Annie.” 

Stack frowned. “Tell her what?” 

The look she gave him answered before she did. 

Stack followed Pearline’s gaze toward Annie, who was still smiling at Isoo and pretending she wasn’t checking Smoke’s location every few breaths. 

“You worried for no reason,” Stack said quietly.

Pearline folded her arms tighter. “She deserves to know.” 

Stack studied her face, then shook his head. “If them two stop bein’ scary and actually talk, Jada gon’ become a memory real quick.” 

Pearline looked at him long enough for her expression to soften, but the guilt didn’t leave her face completely.  “…I hope you right.” 

Stack hated how small she sounded when she said it, so he reached out and hooked an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side before she could decide whether she wanted comfort or not. 

Pearline shoved at his chest immediately, but there was no force behind it. “Stack.” 

He only held on tighter, which was exactly when Grace saw them.

“Oooooh,” Grace said, loud enough to drag Bo’s attention from his cup and Cornbread’s from the grill. Therise smiled immediately, one hand on her stomach rubbing it in circles. 

“Look at the lovebirds,” Grace sang, pointing like she had discovered something scandalous instead of two people who had been circling each other since high school. 

Pearline groaned and tried harder to push Stack away while he grinned beside her. 

Bo nodded like he was witnessing history. “You finally wore her down, huh?” 

Pearline gasped. “Excuse me?” 

Stack, because he had no sense of self-preservation, nodded solemnly. “Persistence.” 

She shoved him again, and this time he actually laughed. 

Before Pearline could cuss him out properly, Aunt Cheryl’s voice cut across the backyard loud enough to make several conversations stop at once. 

“AIGHT! FOOD IS READY! OLD FOLKS FIRST, THEN KIDS, THEN EVERYBODY ELSE’S GREEDY ASSES!” 

The yard rearranged itself immediately. Chairs scraped across grass, kids ran toward the tables, aunties started directing traffic, and Cornbread stood up with an enthusiasm that made Therise stare at him in disgust. 

“Boys,” he called, and both of his sons appeared like he had summoned them. 

He pointed at himself proudly. “That’s us.” 

The crowd moved in that strange, ordinary way people always did once food got announced. Conversations broke apart mid-story. Somebody’s aunt called for kids that pretended not to hear. People started drifting toward the tables in loose groups with paper plates already in hand while others migrated toward shade and folding chairs to claim seats before the older folks took the good ones.

Pearline noticed Annie.

She looked up and caught her standing a few yards away with Isoo still beside her. Grace had already moved off toward the food with Bo and Lisa while Therise followed after Cornbread and the boys, one hand rubbing her stomach while fussing at her youngest to stop running. Mike had disappeared toward a group of women near the fence and somebody else called Isoo’s name from across the yard.

Pearline watched the moment happen in real time. Isoo looked toward whoever called him. Annie looked toward the grill. Isoo said something. Annie laughed politely. Then they split. Isoo peeled off into another conversation without much thought and Annie kept walking.

Stack followed Pearline’s line of sight and immediately understood.

Smoke hadn’t moved, but his attention already had.

Stack looked between them once before leaning slightly toward Pearline. “Oh.”

Pearline folded her arms. “…yeah.”

Annie slowed near the grill pit.

Smoke looked up. Nobody had orchestrated it or moved out the way on purpose. But somehow when everything settled—kids, plates, conversations, chairs—there wasn’t anybody left standing between them.

Stack looked over at Pearline. Pearline looked at him. Neither said anything. Stack smiled first. Quiet.

“Told you.”

Smoke looked at her first. Annie looked up a heartbeat later. The backyard stayed loud around them, all music and laughter and children whining for juice, but the space between them seemed to quiet anyway.

Annie smiled first, too quick and nervous, her fingers brushing one of her braids behind her ear. 

Smoke cleared his throat like the simplest word required effort.  “…hey.” 

Her smile softened.  “Hi.” 

The silence after that stretched just long enough for everybody close enough to notice and pretend they weren’t watching. 

Smoke’s eyes moved over her once, brief and controlled, but not brief enough.  “You look nice,” he said, voice lower than it had been with anybody else. 

Annie blinked, surprised by the directness, then looked at him with a warmth that made Stack glance away out of respect for what felt like an intimate moment between them.  “Thank you, so do you.”

For a moment neither of them moved. Then Smoke leaned in for a hug, careful in a way that made the gesture hurt more than it should have. His hand touched the bare skin of her back for less than a second before he seemed to remember himself and pulled away. Annie stepped back too quickly, smoothing her dress even though nothing had moved out of place. 

Smoke looked toward the grill. Annie looked toward the tables. 

Stack looked at Pearline, and Pearline looked right back at him. Neither of them said it out loud, but they both understood the same thing— 

If Smoke and Annie were going to survive the rest of this cookout, everybody else needed to get out of the way.

As they moved toward the food tables, the crowd gradually absorbed and rearranged around them in the familiar rhythm family gatherings always settled into once food got announced. 

An auntie passed by balancing a stack of paper plates against her stomach while still carrying on a conversation over her shoulder. Children threaded between folding chairs until their mother finally caught one by the arm and redirected him toward the drinks cooler. The buffet stretched beneath two long folding tables pushed end to end and covered in white plastic tablecloths already wrinkled from heat and elbows. 

Aluminum pans ran nearly the entire length of it, some covered in foil folded back halfway, others already opened and steaming into the humid air. Ribs sat dark and glossy beneath sauce collecting in the corners of the tray. Fried catfish rested in paper towel-lined pans beside golden chicken wings dusted with seasoning. Hot dogs rolled against each other near hamburgers wrapped loosely in foil to keep warm. Baked beans glistened thick with brown sugar and pieces of smoked meat, while macaroni and cheese sat heavy and golden around the edges where it had baked too long in the best way. Someone brought green beans cooked down soft with onions and turkey necks. And corn that sat shining looking like sunlight slathered in butter. 

The potato salad disappeared the fastest.

A pan of deviled eggs already looked picked over. Coolers lined the ground underneath, packed with bottled water, canned soda, wine coolers, beer, Capri Suns, and ice melting faster than people could replace it.

Annie found herself walking beside Smoke simply because everybody else had drifted off somewhere and neither of them seemed interested in making a thing out of separating.

The heat had settled differently now that the sun was lowering. It still sat heavy against her skin, but the sharpness had worn off and left everything softer around the edges. Her braids brushed against her back every time she moved, and she became hyper aware of things she hadn’t meant to notice.

Smoke still shortened his pace slightly whenever people crowded too close. He still moved to the outside of pathways without thinking. When one of Cornbread’s boys nearly collided with her carrying a dripping popsicle, Smoke placed a light hand at the center of her back and guided her around him before continuing forward. He didn’t seem aware he’d done it.

Uncle Lewis passed carrying another folding table under one arm and slowed long enough to nod toward Smoke.

“Smoke, appreciate you bringin’ them speakers and tables over.”

Smoke shrugged without looking up. “Ain’t nothin’.”

Lewis laughed and kept moving. “Easy for you to say. You got more room out there than all of us.”

Smoke shook his head once but didn’t answer and Lewis kept walking.

Annie watched him go before looking over.

“…more room?”

Smoke glanced at her. “At my house.”

She looked at him and waited for the rest of the sentence. When none came, she frowned slightly. “Your house?”

His expression switched immediately into confusion.

“…yeah.”

She stared at him long enough that he finally looked over fully. “What?”

Her eyebrows lifted, “you got a house?”

Now he looked confused that she was confused. Assuming she knew already. “Yeah.”

She looked at him harder. “What you mean ‘yeah’?”

His shoulders moved lightly. “I been there a few years.” Then after a second— “Built it.”

Her steps slowed enough for him to notice, just enough for something in his expression to soften as he looked over at her again.

She stared for another second. “You built it?”

He nodded once.

Her mouth opened slightly.“Oh my God.”

Smoke frowned. “What?”

She looked at him again, then laughed quietly. “You said that.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Said what?”

She smiled and looked toward the food line ahead of them, but she wasn’t really seeing it anymore. The memory came back whole in the strange way old things sometimes did when one detail unlocked another. It had been junior year. Football season. Everybody sitting outside Mike’s house after practice because nobody wanted to go home yet. Stack had been arguing loudly about something nobody cared about and Smoke had been sitting back quieter than everybody else. Mike asked what they wanted to do when they got older and everybody gave normal answers first. But not Smoke.

She looked back at him. “You said if you ever had enough money you wanted your own place.”

His face stayed still.

She kept walking. “You said you wanted a house nobody could tell you to leave.”

His eyes stayed on her now.

She smiled. “You wanted land too.” Her smile widened slightly. “You said enough land that if you wanted to walk outside in your drawers and yell at people, nobody could stop you.”

That got an actual laugh out of him.

She noticed immediately. Then she continued. “You said you wanted a porch.”

Her voice softened naturally as more of it came back. “You said you wanted somewhere that felt yours.”

Smoke looked at her for a long moment before speaking. 

“…you remember that?”

The question surprised her enough that she looked at him fully.

She smiled. “Yeah.” Then she shrugged lightly. “I remember stuff people tell me.” Her eyes moved away briefly before returning. “Especially people I care about.”

She heard herself as soon as she said it. Her expression changed before she could stop it. Not because she regretted saying it. More because she realized she hadn’t filtered herself before speaking.

Smoke looked at her. It wasn’t the polite kind of looking people do while waiting for their turn to talk. He looked at her in a way that made her suddenly aware of how many things she still remembered that she had never meant to keep. Not birthdays or milestones or dramatic moments. She remembered conversations. Things said in passing. Dreams he admitted before they became real. The version of him that still existed before life hardened around them.

The feeling settled strangely in her chest.

Before either of them could sit inside it too long, a cousin farther back the buffet line shouted asking whether they planned on eating or standing there flirting all damn day while everybody else starved.

Everyone in the vicinity laughed immediately.

Annie smiled and looked away.

Smoke shook his head and stepped forward reaching for the plates and silverware, handing Annie hers first.

Annie grabbed rice first, then baked beans, one rib, and macaroni before lowering the spoon.

Smoke looked down at her plate. “That’s all?”

She looked over. “What?”

His eyes stayed on the food. “That ain’t enough..”

Before she could answer, he reached over and took the plate from her hands with a familiarity that surprised both of them. He added another rib, another spoonful of macaroni and baked beans, then a piece of chicken before handing it back.

Annie laughed. “Elijah.”

His hand paused for a second after she said his name. Then he nodded once. “Aight, aight.”

He didn’t remove anything.

She looked down at the plate, then back at him. Her smile stayed.

Together they moved down the line while someone behind them accused Cornbread of taking too many deviled eggs while Aunt Cheryl threatened to start assigning portions if people didn’t stop acting greedy.

The line moved slower than it looked from far away. Every plate became a conversation. A family friend wanted to know who made the potato salad. Another was trying to negotiate for corner pieces of macaroni before Aunt Cheryl caught them digging. An uncle argued loudly that people always forget the hot sauce until another aunt pointed at the bottle directly in front of him and called him an “old senile ass.”

By the time Annie and Smoke reached the end of the buffet, the noise had settled into that familiar cookout rhythm where nobody stayed in one place long but somehow everybody still knew where everybody else was.

Smoke took a step aside to let a man squeeze past carrying three overloaded plates and looked around while Annie adjusted her grip on hers. Every table seemed occupied. Not full exactly—there were open seats scattered around, but occupied in the way family gatherings always worked where every chair belonged to someone else whether they were sitting in it or not. Kids had abandoned half-eaten plates to run through the yard. Older people spread purses and keys across tables like territory markers. A guest had even turned a cooler into a seat. Another was eating standing up beside the fence.

Without saying anything, Smoke angled toward one of the folding tables beneath the pecan trees.

Annie followed automatically.

The table sat just far enough from the speakers that conversation didn’t require yelling but close enough that the music still carried. Empty paper plates and sweating drink cans crowded one end where people had clearly already eaten and moved on. Two chairs sat open.

Smoke reached the table first and pulled one out with his foot before sitting in the other.

The movement was small. Easy. So easy she almost missed it, but she didn’t. Her chest tightened unexpectedly. Not because he pulled out her chair. He didn’t. It was the assumption of it. The same quiet way he used to make room for her without asking.

She adjusted her dress beneath her legs before settling into the folding chair. Annie picked up her fork.

Smoke looked at her, looked at the plate, and then back up. His eyebrows lifted slightly.

She blinked. “What?”

Something flickered across his face—just enough.

She stared at him for another second. Then immediately laughed. “Oh my Go—I mean, forgive me Jesus.” She shook her head smiling. “Sorry.” She put her fork back down.

He watched her for a second before reaching across the table and taking one of her hands. Natural, like he’d done it yesterday instead of years ago.

His hand was warm. Calloused. Her breath caught for reasons she chose not to examine.

Smoke lowered his head slightly.

“Lord, thank You for this food. Thank You for bringin’ everybody together and lettin’ us see another day. Bless the hands that prepared it. Watch over everybody here and everybody we still waitin’ on. Keep us grateful for what You give and open to receive what You send.”

His thumb brushed once lightly against the side of her hand. Then— “And let Aunt Cheryl stop threatenin’ people over them damn deviled eggs.”

Annie laughed instantly.

Around them Aunt Cheryl yelled—“I HEARD THAT.”

Smoke smiled faintly, then finished quietly. “Amen.”

“Amen.”

He let go of her hand. Too fast. Annie looked at her hand before looking back at him. Her smile softened. “You still do that.”

Smoke frowned. “Do what?”

She looked down at her plate. “Pray before you eat.”

He shrugged. “You know who raised me.”

Annie smiled. No. That wasn’t it. His mama did raise him, but Smoke had always prayed. Quietly. Consistently. Even back then. She realized she remembered that too.

Smoke unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap before immediately reaching for the hot sauce.

Annie watched.

He caught her looking. “What?”

She smiled. “Nothin’.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

She looked down at her plate. Then up at him again. “You still put hot sauce on everything.”

Smoke looked at the bottle in his hand, then shrugged. “Food be needin’ help.”

She laughed. His mouth twitched. That surprised her more than it should have.

For a while they ate in silence. The kind of silence that would’ve felt uncomfortable with anybody else, somehow didn’t here. Around them people moved in waves—some yelling for more napkins. Children screamed somewhere near the water hose. Latimore had turned into GloRilla and half the older crowd immediately started complaining. Smoke ate slowly. Methodically. Annie realized she remembered that too.

She looked down at her own plate, and then reached for her fork.

Smoke looked over. “That all you eatin’?”

She looked up. His eyes were already on her plate again. She laughed. “You already fixed my plate, Elijah.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You eat around stuff.”

Her hand paused. “What?”

He nodded toward the plate. “You ain’t touch the beans.”

She blinked. Then looked down. He was right.Her fork had worked around the baked beans completely.

She stared. Then looked back at him.  “…how you know that?”

Smoke looked confused. “You always did that.”

She laughed softly and shook her head.

That one got her. The fact he said it like it was obvious. Like eight years wasn’t enough time to forget she hated baked beans touching other food.

She picked up her fork again. “You remember weird stuff.”

He shrugged. “I remember regular stuff.”

Something about that landed heavier than she expected. She took another bite before smiling. 

“You still do that.”

His eyes lifted. “Do what?”

She nodded toward his plate. “Eat like somebody gon’ grade you on it.”

One side of his mouth moved. “What that mean?”

She laughed softly. “You eat real careful.”

His eyes dropped briefly to his plate. “That’s normal.”

She smiled. “No. Stack eat normal.”

Smoke glanced over automatically.

Stack stood near the grill eating the way he did everything else—too fast, talking too much, and one distracted moment away from ruining his shirt.

Smoke looked back. “…aight.”

That made her laugh harder. His mouth moved again into an almost smile. She leaned back in her chair and looked around.

The yard felt different sitting down. Slower. The sunlight filtering through the pecan trees had softened now, turning everything warmer. Smoke from the grill drifted lazily overhead. Lisa ran by holding a juice pouch bigger than her arm while Grace chased behind her. Therise sat nearby rubbing her stomach while Cornbread argued with one of his boys about eating vegetables.

Annie looked back at Smoke. “You really built it?” 

He looked up.

“The house.”

His expression softened slightly. “Oh.” He nodded. “Yeah.”

She rested her elbow lightly against the table. “How?”

He looked at her. Then looked out across the yard, like he had to decide where to start.

She realized she wanted to hear all of it. Not the short version people gave at reunions or the highlights. She wanted the real version. 

The one she would’ve gotten if she never left.

Smoke realized halfway through explaining it that he was talking more than he usually did.

At first he answered the way he answered everybody else when they asked about work. Short version. Practical version. He stabbed at his red velvet cake while he talked and kept his eyes mostly on his plate.

“Started doin’ framing after high school.”

Annie looked up.

He kept going. “One of Uncle Lewis’ friends needed people. Started residential first. Learned enough to move around.”

She nodded once, listening.

Smoke kept eating. “Then commercial work. Then started doin’ jobs myself.”

She tilted her head slightly. “How old were you?”

He thought about it. “Twenty-two? Twenty-three.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “That young?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t feel young.”

She smiled a little at that.

He noticed. Then kept going.

Somewhere between another bite of food and folks across the yard yelling about cheating at dominoes, he realized he stopped giving the short version.

He told her about working in summer heat until his clothes stuck to him by noon. About learning measurements by messing things up first. About figuring out pretty quickly he liked being outside more than behind a desk. He told her how one house became two and then somehow there were people working under him before he ever felt ready for that part.

He expected her to eventually stop listening. People usually did. They asked questions because they thought houses sounded impressive, then lost interest halfway through answers.

Annie didn’t. She kept asking strange questions. Questions nobody asked. “What’s your favorite part?”

Smoke looked up. “What?”

She shrugged and took a bite of her peach cobbler. “When you build.”

He stared at her, nobody ever asked that. He thought about it. Then answered honestly. “When it stop lookin’ like work.”

She smiled. “What that mean?”

He looked out toward the yard automatically. Trying to explain. “When you first start, it's just dirt.”

She watched him.

Then he continued. “Then wood and walls. Then eventually you standin’ in somethin’ that ain’t exist six months ago.”

She nodded immediately, like she understood.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

She smiled. “You always liked that part.”

Smoke looked at her.

Her fork paused halfway to her mouth. She blinked. “What?”

He stared.

“What?”

His voice came quieter. “How you know that?”

She looked confused, then looked down and laughed. Her shoulders lifted. “You used to draw houses.”

His eyebrows pulled together.

She kept talking. “Back of notebooks.”

His chest started tightening just enough to make breathing feel different.

She looked embarrassed suddenly. “I remember weird stuff.”

Smoke looked at her. Then shook his head. “Nah.”

She looked up.

His mouth moved slightly. “You remember regular stuff.”

Something changed in her face after that, something smaller than sadness. More careful. She looked down at her plate for a second before taking another bite.

He looked away first.

The yard kept moving around them.

Cornbread was chasing one of his boys holding a rib in each hand. The music somehow got louder. Aunt Cheryl yelled at people to throw their plates away. Little Lisa was crying somewhere and Grace sounded one second from laughing and losing patience at the same time.

Smoke looked back at Annie. She was eating slower now. She always did. Then he realized something. He’d been talking almost the entire time.

He frowned slightly. “What about you?”

She looked up.

He nodded once. “What you been doin’?”

Her expression changed immediately. He recognized that too. The small pause before she answered, like she was deciding what version to give.

She looked out at the yard, then back at him and started talking. Work first. Easy things. North Carolina. Her apartment. Her routine. People she’d met.

Stories.

While she talked, Smoke realized something he wasn’t prepared for. She still told stories the same way. Started in the middle. Circled back later. Used her hands when she got excited. Apologized when she thought she was talking too much.

He listened and somewhere between hearing about grocery stores, coworkers, apartment maintenance requests and how she still hated driving in Charlotte traffic—he realized something that settled low in his chest and stayed there.

He didn’t know this version of her. Not like before, but every few minutes she’d laugh a certain way, tilt her head, or remember something small and he’d recognize her again.

By the time people started slowing down on third plates and settling into the familiar rhythm of a Southern cookout—eating, arguing, walking, sitting back down just to stand up again five minutes later—the energy in the yard softened into something looser. The loud excitement of arrivals had worn off and settled into clusters. Older folks migrated toward shade and folding chairs, paper plates balanced on laps while conversations stretched across years and family trees. Kids had already abandoned actual meals in favor of popsicles, chips, and running themselves sick. The music changed again. Luther faded into Dru Hill for a minute before somebody protested and switched it back.

Geneva appeared carrying a clear plastic storage tub against her hip with the same expression she always wore before causing problems.

Nobody noticed at first, except Aunt Cheryl. She pointed immediately . “Ah hell nah.”

Geneva ignored her and kept walking.

Stack spotted the tub next and groaned. “Put them fuckin’ pictures back, mane.”

That got everybody’s attention. People started reacting before she even reached the tables.

“Not today.”

“Who got old pictures?”

“Geneva don’t start.”

Geneva dropped the tub onto an empty section of the buffet table between the leftover buns and a sweating pitcher of sweet tea. “I was cleanin’ closets.”

Nobody believed that.

The pictures came out anyway. 

It happened naturally after that. People stopped eating long enough to drift over and look. Hands started reaching. Some found an elementary school picture and immediately started roasting hairstyles. Someone else found old prom photos. A cousin started lying about ages and got corrected instantly. Kids kept trying to grab pictures and getting their hands smacked away before somebody else handed them disposable cameras from another pile to distract them.

Annie ended up near the table without meaning to. Smoke ended up there too beside her. Close enough, but nobody commented.

Geneva stood flipping through a stack while narrating to nobody in particular.“Lord look at this.”

“Oh this was ugly.”

“Who dressed us, the fuck?”

People leaned in and out around her shoulder. Grace had Lisa balanced against one hip while trying to steal bites off Bo’s plate at the same time. Therise sat lower in her chair rubbing absent circles over her stomach while one of her boys climbed halfway into her lap. Pearline had somehow inserted herself directly into the center of everything and Stack kept appearing over her shoulder anytime she laughed.

Geneva flipped one more. Stopped. Looked again and her face changed. Her eyebrows climbed and her mouth opened slightly before she made a low noise in her throat.

“Aww shit.”

That caught more attention than yelling would have. People turned.

“What?”

Geneva stared another second, and looked up. Her eyes moved once to Annie and Smoke, then back down. A sneaky ass smile started pulling at her mouth. She held the picture against her chest.

“Oh y’all thought y’all was slick.”

Immediately everybody wanted to see. Pearline reached for the picture, but Geneva pulled away. 

Stack tried to reach for it and again, Geneva pulled away.

Grace leaned forward laughing. “Move!”

Geneva laughed and finally handed the picture over.

Pearline took the photograph and immediately stopped smiling.

At first Annie thought she was joking, waiting for some exaggerated reaction or teasing comment, but Pearline just looked down at the picture for a long time. Her eyes moved once across the image, then lifted slowly toward Annie before drifting across the table toward Smoke and back down again. Something changed in her face—it wasn't a shock exactly, more recognition mixed with the satisfaction of finally having evidence for something she already suspected.

Her mouth stretched into a grin. “Oh y’all was bad.”

That was enough.

People started reaching automatically. Stack tried to take it and got smacked away. Bo leaned halfway across Grace to see. A cousin behind them started asking questions before they’d even seen it. The picture moved from hand to hand through overlapping reactions and commentary until eventually it ended up in Annie’s hands.

The photograph looked older than it actually was. Printed on glossy paper that had picked up faint bends and fingerprints over the years, the colors had softened just enough to make the whole thing feel warmer than real life. Like memory had edited it. 

Summer sunlight flattened everything into soft gold. Somebody’s backyard stretched behind them in a blur of folding chairs, coolers, and people half-cut out of frame. Stack stood in the background throwing up signs with his hands. Smoke sat in one of those cheap ass woven lawn chairs that somehow survived every cookout, stretched out in a white t-shirt and basketball shorts, looking mildly irritated that a camera was pointed in his direction.

And Annie—She stared. 

She was asleep, actually asleep.Her head rested against Smoke’s shoulder and her body had turned naturally toward him in the way people did when they trusted something enough to stop paying attention to it. One hand sat folded beneath her cheek. Her legs had curled in his direction.

But her attention kept returning to something she hadn’t noticed immediately. Smoke’s arm.

It rested around her side.

Not wrapped tightly, but it looked absentminded almost—his forearm curved behind her, hand resting lightly against her body as if steadying her had become automatic somewhere along the day and nobody thought enough of it to move. The thing that unsettled her most was that he wasn’t even looking at her. He’d been talking to somebody outside the frame. His expression looked normal. Like there was nothing unusual about any of it.

Annie stared harder. She remembered that cookout. She was fourteen at the time. She remembered being tired as hell. She remembered being hot and eating too much and probably complaining about something.

She did not remember this though.

Around her the conversation started unfolding the way family memories always did—not one person telling a story while everybody listened, but people remembering sideways together.

“Oh I remember that.”

“That was Barbara backyard. She done gone to Glory now.”

“She had worked that morning.”

“She fell asleep outside?”

Grace leaned farther in and laughed before pointing directly at Smoke.

“Wait. Why she sleep on you?”

Smoke looked once at the picture. His shoulders moved. “She was tired.”

That answer got a louder reaction than the picture itself.

Stack stared at him in disbelief. “That’s your defense?”

Smoke looked confused. “What else was she supposed to do?”

People started laughing harder.

Aunt Cheryl wandered over carrying sweet tea and looked down at the picture. Her face changed immediately. 

“Oh yeah.”

Everybody turned.

She pointed with her cup. “She passed out after she ate.”

Another cousin snapped her fingers. “Yes.”

Aunt Cheryl nodded once. “And Smoke wouldn’t let nobody move her.”

Annie looked up. Smoke looked away.

Another auntie laughed. “He carried her inside later.”

Smoke frowned. “No I didn’t.”

That got corrected immediately from three different directions. “Yes you did.”

Geneva pointed at the picture. “You carried her upstairs and put her in Barbara room.”

Another cousin jumped in. “You wouldn’t let nobody wake her.”

Smoke looked offended now. “That is not what happened.”

Uncle Lewis finally looked over from where he’d been eating and didn’t even pause before answering. “You said she wake up irritated and you ain’t want folks botherin’ her.”

The yard lost it.

Smoke looked personally betrayed. Geneva kept flipping. Another picture surfaced. Football game. Annie wearing a hoodie too big.  Smoke’s. Smoke beside her. Another cookout. Smoke fixing her plate. Another. School event. A group photo. People spread out across the frame. Except somehow Annie and Smoke were always touching. Shoulders brushing, knees angled together. Standing too close. Leaning or looking enough that once people started noticing it became impossible to stop.

Grace took one and looked down for a long second before slowly lifting her eyes. Her smile faded slightly. 

“Oh.”

Nobody answered.

She looked again. Then back up. “Oh y’all was together together.”

That quieted things more than the teasing had.

Aunt Cheryl looked over casually. “I always knew.”

People looked at her.

She shrugged. “What?”

Her eyes moved toward Smoke. “That boy looked for her before he did anything.”

Another auntie nodded immediately. “If Annie wasn’t outside he wasn’t stayin’ outside long.”

Someone laughed. Another added—“She sat beside him everywhere.”

Lewis pointed with his fork. “That boy built his whole schedule around her.”

Smoke immediately objected. “Mane, Unc—”

Stack started laughing immediately and pointed toward Uncle Lewis. “Nah, Unc—you right. You right.”

Smoke turned instantly. “Shut the fuck up, mane.”

Stack ignored him completely. “Practice over?” He nodded dramatically. “Where Annie.”

People started laughing harder.

Stack kept going. “Weekend?” Another nod. “Where Annie.”

He pointed toward Smoke with his cup. “Lunch?” Shrug. “Did Annie eat?”

Cornbread barked out laughing.

Stack looked around the group like he’d just solved a mystery. “Damn. This nigga ain’t have no hobbies.”

Annie looked over at Smoke. Smoke refused eye contact.

Aunt Cheryl took another sip and looked down at more photographs in front of her and began shaking her head. Her voice softened. 

“I really thought y’all was gon’ get married.”

Nobody laughed, because it didn’t shock them, she sounded sincere.

Her eyes moved between Annie and Smoke before settling back onto the pictures.

“Y’all was serious.” She smiled faintly. “Then Annie moved.”

The conversation didn’t stop after that. Somewhere behind them kids screamed over a water hose, others argued about ribs. Foil crinkled. But Annie looked back down at her fourteen-year-old self sleeping against Smoke and realized something she had never considered before.

They thought they had been private while everybody else had been watching them fall in love.

Aunt Cheryl took another sip of her sweet tea and continued casually—“I told yo’ mama to let you stay with me.”

The noise around the table kept moving for another second before it stalled.

Annie looked up. “Ma’am?”

Aunt Cheryl looked at her like she’d forgotten Annie didn’t know. “When y’all moved,” she shrugged lightly. “I told her leave you here with us so you could finish school.”

Smoke looked over, actually looked.

Pearline frowned. “You did?”

Before Cheryl could answer another voice floated over.

“She did.”

Everybody turned. Pearline’s mother Maxine stepped out from the house carrying a wine glass and one of those paper plates bending under too much food.

She looked between them. “We both did.” She sat down carefully. “We told your mama movin’ you your senior year wasn’t right if she didn’t have to.”

Annie stared.

Maxine shrugged. “Especially when you already basically lived over here.” She gave a small laugh. “You and…” she pointed toward Pearline.  “…Pea.”

Pearline groaned immediately. “Mamaaa, please stop callin’ me that.”

Maxine ignored her. “…came home cryin’.”

Annie blinked. “What?”

Aunt Cheryl nodded once. “You don’t remember?”

And suddenly she remembered. The memory came back the way it always did—through feeling first and details second. Cardboard boxes stacked against her bedroom wall. Her mother kneeling beside an open suitcase folding shirts with the kind of quiet focus that usually meant her mind was already somewhere else. Annie standing in the doorway pretending she wasn’t crying yet.

She remembered asking casually the first time. What if I stay with Pearline for the year?

Her mother hadn’t even looked up. No.

Annie remembered trying again later. Different day. Different approach. What if I stay with Aunt Cheryl?

That time her mother paused long enough for hope to show up where it shouldn’t have. Then— Baby, we already talked about this.

Annie remembered stepping farther into the room. I’ll come to North Carolina after graduation.

Her mother finally looked at her then. You comin’ with me.

Final.

Back then Annie thought that had been the whole conversation. She thought she asked, her mother said no, and life kept moving.

Sitting here now with a faded photograph in her hands and Aunt Cheryl looking at her over sweet tea, she realized there had been other conversations after she left the room. Adult conversations. Aunt Cheryl and Aunt Max offering. Them trying. People who saw her life here and tried to protect it in ways she never knew. And suddenly the ache sitting in her chest wasn’t about moving anymore. It was realizing she hadn’t imagined wanting to stay. 

She looked back at Aunt Cheryl. “…you asked?” 

Aunt Cheryl nodded.

Maxine took a sip. “She wasn’t hearin’ it.”

Nobody said anything more after that.

Annie looked down at the photograph again. Fourteen. Asleep on Smoke. Everybody thinking they had time. Her chest tightened worse. Not at her mother. Her mother had done what she thought was right, but suddenly—for the first time—she saw another version.

Senior year. One more year. Graduation. Prom. Football games. One more summer. One more year with him.

Her eyes lifted before she meant them to. Smoke was already looking at her. For the first time all afternoon—he looked surprised as well, like this changed something for him too.

Annie swallowed and set the picture down carefully.

Pearline looked up immediately. “Annie?”

Annie forced a small smile. “…I need a drink.”

She started walking away before she started mourning something she never realized she almost had.

Annie started moving before she fully decided to.

Her hand left the photograph and settled automatically against the edge of the table while her mind tried to reorganize itself around information she hadn’t known existed five minutes earlier. 

Around them the cookout continued uninterrupted. Mike asked where the hamburger buns went. Children ran past with wet shirts and popsicles staining their mouths. One of the older men near the domino table laughed so loudly the sound carried over the music. 

Normal.

The whole yard stayed normal. Which somehow made the ache sitting low in Annie’s chest feel sharper.

She smiled automatically and leaned her weight backward.

“I’m finna go get—”

Her voice stopped from surprise. Smoke’s hand had closed loosely around hers. For a second she looked at their hands before she looked at him.

He hadn’t moved otherwise. He was still standing near the table. Same expression mostly. But something had changed. The usual restraint she remembered in him had slipped somewhere while everybody talked. His face looked quieter now. Less guarded. Like he’d stopped paying attention to the people around them without realizing it.

When he finally spoke, his voice stayed low enough that she almost missed it beneath the noise.

“You asked to stay?”

She looked at him and suddenly she understood that he wasn’t asking for clarification. He was asking if what they said was true.

Her chest tightened.

She looked away first trying to find the right version of the answer. She gave a small laugh that disappeared almost immediately.

“Yeah.”

Her thumb stirred once beneath his hand.

“I asked.” She swallowed. “Then I asked again.” A small smile pulled briefly at her mouth. “And again.” 

Her shoulders lifted slightly. “Till she finally had to tell me stop askin’.”

Annie said it so lightly, like something she’d made peace with a long time ago.

But Smoke’s face changed. His eyes stayed on her longer than before and she felt his thumb move once against the side of her hand before he seemed to realize what he was doing and went still again.

When he spoke again his voice sounded different—honest in a way she wasn’t prepared for. 

“I thought you wanted to leave.”

Her head turned immediately in confusion. “What?”

His eyes dropped briefly before coming back to her. His jaw flexed once, then his shoulders moved in the smallest shrug. 

“I thought you was ready.”

Annie stared at him—something uncomfortable and sad opened inside her. Not because of what he said, but because she understood. She thought he knew. Thought he understood she didn’t want to go. Thought he knew she cried every night. All this time he thought she left and learned how to live without him.

Her eyebrows pulled together. Her answer came before she could edit it. 

“I never wanted to leave.”

Smoke looked at her the way people look when they realize they’ve been carrying the wrong version of a story for years and suddenly don’t know where to put it.

Neither of them moved or acknowledged they were still holding hands.

The yard kept moving around them anyway. Music changed. Coolers opening. Aunt Cheryl started yelling about sweet tea.

But something had changed. Not outside.

Between them.

Annie looked at him and realized she had been carrying guilt she never examined. Smoke looked at her and realized he’d been carrying rejection that wasn’t real. For one impossible second she wondered how many years they had both spent grieving two completely different versions of the same goodbye.

Then a voice came from in front of them.

Familiar.

Close enough that it belonged there.

“Hey...”

The moment broke. Smoke turned. Annie turned too.

Jada stood a few feet away with an expensive handbag in her hand and sunglasses pushed up into her curls. She looked like somebody who had arrived late to something ordinary.

Her eyes landed on Smoke first. Then lowered… stopped.

Annie followed her gaze.

Their hands.

Jada looked up again. This time at Annie.

Annie turned back toward Smoke automatically and for the first time all day she couldn’t read his face. He didn’t pull away and he didn’t tighten his grip either. If anything, he seemed to become aware of the moment at the exact same time she did. 

His eyes moved to Jada and stayed there for a second before coming back to Annie. She watched something pass across his face—surprise first, then something she couldn’t organize quickly enough to understand. His hand remained around hers for another second before his fingers eased away gradually, not dropping her hand, but releasing it carefully, almost reluctantly, like he had become aware of the touch at the same moment she had.

Annie looked down briefly before lifting her eyes again. The feeling that hit her wasn’t embarrassment or even disappointment. It felt stranger than that. For one impossible second she had forgotten there was a world outside of this conversation, and now it had returned all at once with names, history and context attached to it.

But underneath all of that sat another realization arriving slower than the others.

Jada didn’t look confused. She looked surprised to see Annie. Not surprised to see Smoke.

And suddenly Annie became aware of something. The ease in the way Jada approached them. The familiarity in her voice when she said his name. The way she stepped into his space without hesitation, like she already knew she had the right to be there.

Like she belonged there.

Nobody spoke. Then somewhere behind them at exactly the same time—

Stack said quietly—

“…oh shit.”

Pearline whispered—

“…fuck.”

End Note: Soooo....yeah. This chapter did NOT go as I planned. This was supposed to be the blow out, but I swear these characters have a mind of their own. They take me where THEY want to go. But I hope you liked this chapter and next chapter (I promise) is where it all goes down!

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