Searching for my Great Perhaps ♡

Tee♡. Mental Health Therapist with a variety of hyperfixations including Sinners and anime. Smoke and Annie enthusiast ♡

[waitingtobreatheagain]

⋆˙⟡♡𝔱𝔢𝔢'𝔰 𝔪𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱⋆˙⟡♡

Hi, I’m Tee❦.

𓏲ּ𝄢 Check out my *~about me~*

𓏲ּ𝄢 FYI, h e r e

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𓏲ּ𝄢 MDNI Divider credit: @cafekitsune

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𓏲ּ𝄢 𝖲𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗅 01 02 03 04 (coming soon)

(𝚊𝚘3 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔)

This is where the one/two shots will be!

This is where you can check out all my Coming Soon posters and summary/teasers:

𓏲ּ𝄢 Still

𓏲ּ𝄢 Sugar

𓏲ּ𝄢 Same Space

𓏲ּ𝄢 Sex Therapy

𓏲ּ𝄢 I Do

𓏲ּ𝄢 Check Yo Self

𓏲ּ𝄢 Come See Me

𓏲ּ𝄢 Every Kind of Way

This section will house any prompts I receive in my asks or any prompts I do based off of Smoke x Annie, etc. fic prompts posts floating around on here.

This is where any drabbles will be! They may or may not lead to becoming longer or complete fics!

My asks are open!

𓏲ּ𝄢 Please feel free to ask my opinion on anything Annie, Smoke, Smoke x Annie, and Sinners (and other characters)!

𓏲ּ𝄢I am accepting prompt requests…as I am in writing mode for my coming soon fics I cannot promise I will get to it immediately but I WILL get to it.

𓏲ּ𝄢Let’s keep it cute! Please be respectful!

𓏲ּ𝄢I also love chatting in my comments as well so please feel free if something I post resonates with you!

𓏲ּ𝄢Fin .

[sintizc]

MAJOR MOORE PT.1 PT.2 PT.3 WC : 6.4k(don’t ask🌚) Summary: Two weeks of trying to get back into the rhythm of civilian life, Elijah 'smoke' Moore was finally back in uniform, back in the corps. Back to being a Major. CW: none, just fluff and a cute date and maybe a little bit of kissing and stack being chaotic as ever! A/N: finally got this out! WOO, ENJOYY! (This also took so long to come out cause I kept rewriting scenes, they just wasn't to my liking🤍)

10 : 45 on Monday night.

:

:

Elijah finally settled down for the night after making sure the other boys and Tiger were really asleep. Sighing softly, he lies down staring at the ceiling as he thinks about her.

“I wonder what Annie's doing?..” he muttered to himself with a thoughtful expression as his head tilted to the side of the pillow. His mind drifts towards her like it usually does when he starts to wonder about her.

A faint grin grows on his face as he thinks about the date they set for Friday.

Elijah starts to fall asleep, his eyelids slowly falling, for the first time in Elijah's life, sleep finally comes to him easily tonight.

That's new for him.

Five hours later.

Elijah woke up suddenly to a noise downstairs, and he glanced at the clock seeing it was three in the morning. Sighing he got up, thinking it's Tiger probably getting some water like he usually does.

He slowly heads downstairs, making sure not to be too loud so he won't scare Tiger. Elijah tends to do it by accident because of how quietly he moves.

He rounds the corner and pauses as he sees a tall body instead of the short and adorable body he was expecting.

Elijah minds rushing to figure out if it's one of the other boys or an actual intruder.

“Hm, he's been eating good yo.” an almost familiar voice muttered underneath their breath as they reached for Smoke's good cheese and salami. They chuckled.

Elijah's eyes narrowed in confusion before grumbling under his breath as he realized who it was.

He moves slowly up to them before quickly moving his arm around their neck, quickly putting them in a headlock.

“Whoa!” They blurted out while Elijah turned on the light.

“What the hell are you doing, Stack?!” He asked firmly with a huff as he kept his hold around his brother's neck tight.

“How did you know it was me?” Elias immediately asks as he struggles against his hold.

“There's only one person in this world that messes with my food and it's you, fool.” He huffed out, letting him go with irritation written all over his face.

“Messing with my good cheese and meat, that's for my lunch.” Elijah sighed deeply as he moved to put away his sandwich ingredients.

“Well now, I ain't know it was for your precious lunch,” Eilas said as he moved to take a seat, rolling his eyes at Elijah's words. While he watches his brother grumble to himself as he grabs eggs deciding to make Elias something to eat anyway.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Elias speaks up.

“So..how you been?” He asked softly with a faint smile as Elijah placed the plate in front of him. “I've been fine, you?..” he responded with a sigh as he took a seat across from him.

“Well I've been better, Mary ain't talking to me and I ain't got no place.” He sighed as he bit into the egg sandwich. “You are the only one who knows how to make an egg sandwich right, I swear,” Eilas said softly with a chuckle as he looked at his twin.

Elijah shook his head and smiled faintly as he slowly got over his irritation. “It’s nice to see you too, Stack.” he said with a warm tone.

Elias smiled softly and nodded slightly as he resumed eating the egg sandwich. “ You think I could stay here?” he asked after a moment. “Just until I find something for myself of course Don't wanna get you in trouble.” He added shortly after he wiped crumbs away.

Elijah hesitated for a moment, he didn't want to get in trouble with the school but then he remembered who ran it which helped him get over his hesitation rather quickly. “Of course you can stay, I ain't got no problem with that,” he said with a firm nod as he stood up “just don't cause too much trouble, you do have my face remember?” He teased as he shook Elias' head slightly, knowing his brother couldn't stay out of trouble even if he tried..

“Now why would I cause trouble? I'm an innocent man,” he said loud enough for him to hear as Elijah headed back upstairs, shaking his head in amusement.

“Sure, sure.” He muttered with a huff as he leaned against the railing, a chuckle escaping him.

“There's a spare bedroom down here on the right by my office and extra covers in the closet if I'm not mistaken,” he mentions as he watches his brother for a moment. 

Elias hummed quietly as he enjoyed his egg sandwich. Elijah wasn't good at cooking many things, but an egg sandwich was the one thing he could make right.

“Try not to stay up too late, and make sure to clean up when you're done,” he called out softly as he continued up the steps.

“Thanks again Elijah!” he quickly responded.

“Don't mention it.” He said over his shoulder before re-entering his room.

—

11:34 in the morning. 

Tiger wakes up and smells pancakes and bacon, he quickly gets out of bed, noticing the other boys heading inside the house. He beats them to the kitchen before pausing, something off.

“Damn, y'all look hungry,” Eilas said with surprise as he chuckled at them, he could see that they felt something was off so he decided to play into it.

He placed pancakes on plates. “Y'all gonna eat or what?” He asked sarcastically.

“This gotta be a trick,” Dwight muttered to the other boys.

“He's..happy?..” Alex soon spoke as they all took a seat, a bit cautious.

Eilas's head turned into a smirk as he heard their words, “This is gonna be fun” he thought to himself. 

–

Meanwhile, outside.

“What the hell is taking them so long?” Elijah muttered to himself with a deep sigh as he glanced at his watch, they were supposed to be training by now.

He glanced at the barracks before seeing something move out of the corner of his eye immediately recognizing who it was.

“Miss Richard's, what a surprise,” he said with a hum as he tilted his head as he watched her walk towards him.

“You're still surprised by me showing up?” She said with a chuckle as she adjusted her grip on her briefcase.

“Well no, just like saying that I suppose,” Elijah muttered with a faint smile as he glanced at her outfit. “You look very nice today.” Her light yellow dress complements the deepness of her skin tone.

Annie held back a smirk as she watched his eyes linger a bit on her body before finally traveling back to her eyes. “Thank you, you don't look bad yourself. Major.” She spoke softly as she chuckled.

“Ah, it took me forever to pick out this outfit,” Elijah said with a bit of sarcasm as he adjusted his collar.

Annie giggles softly at his words, shaking with amusement. He watched her, his smile growing to a full-blown grin.

She glanced around the field. “Where are the boys, Ain't y'all supposed to be training?..” she asked softly as she tilted her head, resting her hand on her hip.

He sighed deeply and nodded."We were, yes. I don't know what's taking them so long, they should've gotten Tiger by now.” He answered as he glanced at the house before it finally clicked for it. 

“Damnit.” he sighed before starting to walk back to the house.

Annie looked at him confused before slowly catching up with him.

—

“Well major, I didn't know you knew how to cook.”Dwight expresses disbelief while chewing his pancakes as the other boys nod in agreement.

“Eh, I cook here and there when I feel like it.” Elias says as he sips his coffee having to stop himself from gagging at the taste “How does my brother drink this shit?” He muttered to himself with a hint of disgust and irritation, hating how he was taking his role of pretending to be his brother too seriously now.

Tiger watches him closely, sensing something isn't right he just can't place what it is yet.

–

Elijah sighed deeply as he opened the door, he let Annie go first before entering behind her, moving towards the kitchen.

His eyes landed on the breakfast and then soon his brother who was clearly messing with the boys.

“What's got you so-” Annie starts saying before going quiet as she sees a man with the same face as the major, and soon disbelief grows on her face.

“There are two of you?!” She blurted out without thinking, and the boys quickly turned to look at her before surprise grew on their faces as well, quickly glancing between both men.

“Whoa..” Tiger muttered with curiosity and slight awe at the fact that there are two of the Major now.

Elias pauses as his eyes land on her, a smirk growing on his face as he's back in his element.

“Well, who is she?” He asked with a raised eyebrow, his eyes traveling along her curves with curiosity and a hint of something else.

Elijah sighs deeply as he glances at everyone else before looking back at his brother.

“Pretending to be me again, huh?” He said with a huff as he noticed the uniform on his brother. 

“Well, who else besides me, hm?” He responded with a smirk as he leaned back in the chair, resting his hands behind his head.

“You still didn't answer my question, Smoke,” he said with a hum as he stood up and basically glided towards Annie.

“Who is this beautiful woman?” He asked again with a certain charm in his voice as he smiled, gently grabbing her hand to press a faint kiss towards her knuckles.

Elijah rolled his eyes hard at his brother's antics.

The boys watch with curiosity and amusement as they glance at both brothers.

Annie stared at him in disbelief, having to make sure she ain't dreaming by pitching Elijah.

“Really?” He grunted softly as he looked at her before looking at Stack, who was still staring at Annie with a look he had no business giving her.

He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering what he did to deserve this before clearing his thoughts and moving Stack from Annie. “Everyone, this is my brother Elias..” He answered the question that was on their faces. 

“Stack, this is Annie. She's one of the school counselors here, she helps me with the boys from time to time.” He sighed as he finally answered Stack’s question.

“Annie,hm.” He mumbled under his breath as he tilted his head.

Annie lets out a soft huff as she looks  between the two of them again, just to make sure she's seeing correctly.

“You didn't think to tell me you had a twin?” She expresses crossing her arms, stack eyes immediately traveling there unable to stop the freak in him.

Smoke's eyes do glance there but his gaze doesn't linger long like his brother's , he refocuses on her eyes after smacking stack on the back of his head.

“Why you did that?!” Stack huffed out as he rubbed his head, glaring at the smoke.

“Huh, that's why he smacks us on the head,” Dwight muttered to Alex under his breath before continuing to watch the twins.

Smoke immediately glares right back. Stack rolled his eyes and shook his head as he looked back at Annie.

Smoke breaths deeply already feeling irritation grow.

“Well, I was gonna tell you on Friday. As a conversation starter.” He said gently with a soft gaze he genuinely did mean to tell her. 

It's not like he expected his brother to show up unannounced.

Stack looks between both of them, starting to realize what's happening. He crosses his arms, smirking to himself. 

—

“I still can't believe you're a twin,” Annie uttered softly, still in disbelief at there being two of him.

Elijah chuckled faintly, finding her reaction a bit amusing even though he won't admit it.

“You still finding that hard to beli-” he started 

“I’m the better twin of course.” A voice suddenly spoke up behind them, spooking them.

Elijah had quickly turned around to punch whomever it was before realizing it was his brother. “Damnit, stack..” Elijah muttered with irritation, feeling a headache come on already and his brother has only been here for a damn day and he's already getting on his last nerve.

“Whoa, man! Chill with all that.” Stack huffed as he used his hands to block his face. “This is the Second time he has done that, you know.” He says to Annie as he steps up to her, smirking trying to use his charms on her.

Annie chuckles faintly at Stack’s antics, tilting her head slightly, humoring him a bit. “Is that so?..” looking between both of them.

Elijah watched his brother through narrowed eyes, he's this close to choking him. He glanced at Annie, pausing as he noticed the look she was giving his brother and now he's ten times more annoyed.

Is he being a little irrational? Yes, yes he is..

Does he care though? No, no he does not.

“I gotta go..” he muttered to them before walking away, heading back to the training field.

—

Annie started to say see you later but smoke was already gone before she could get the words out.

“Ah don't mind him,” Stack spoke up beside her, dismissively waving his hand watching his brother walk for a moment before turning to face her.

His gaze traveled along her body, unable to stop himself as he started to circle her.

“That's a mighty fine dress you got on.” He said teasingly, voice a bit deep as he flashed a smile at her, a hint of his top grill showing a bit.

She let out a soft amused huff and tilted her head, resting a hand on her hip as he stopped in front of her.

“Mhm, thank you.” She responded with a faint chuckle, fixing her head to look at him fully.

Stack’s smile grew bigger, his dimples getting deeper. 

That usually gets them.

“So, what's up with you and my brother, hm?..” he asked softly with a raised eyebrow placing his hands behind his back, stepping closer to her.

Annie paused a bit, surprised by his direct question.“Excuse you?..”

He chuckled, rubbing his mustache.“What's going on with you and my brother?..” he asked again, even more directly if that's possible.

“Nothing is going on with Elijah and me," Annie said simply with a sigh as she crossed her arms. “We're just friends.”

Stack stared at her for a moment, observing her expression before laughing. 

“You is funny, Annie.” He said in between laughter as he wiped away fake tears, a smirk on his face.

Annie blinked in surprise at the sudden laughter. “What's funny?..”

“That you think nothing's going on with you and him.”

“Nothing is.”

Stack pauses and tilts his head before chuckling, sighing gently as he looks her in the eyes.

“And you really believe that?”

She freezes before huffing softly, letting out a chuckle of disbelief.

“Yes, I actually do believe that.” She says firmly with a sigh.

“So what's happening on Friday?..” he asked simply, raising an eyebrow, chuckling as he saw her taken aback.

Clapping his hands, he steps back. “you know what? I'mma just leave that alone..” He said softly.

Annie sighed and adjusted her bag. “Just be gentle with him, he got bad nerves!.” Stack called out watching her walk away.

–

Elijah hums quietly to himself as he walks around the grocery store, grabbing a few things. “So you and Annie have a date on Friday?” Stack asked out of nowhere

“Jesus Christ,stack!” Elijah said as he turned to face him. “Stop sneaking up on me or next time I'm shooting your ass.” He grumbled with a huff ,turning back to the cart.

Stack chuckled as he moved to the side of him. “Oh please, like you would ever do that,” he said while putting his things in the cart.

Elijah glares at him and if looks could kill Stack would be six feet into the ground about now.

“Okay maybe you will.” He muttered to himself as he smirked at him.

“Still ain't answer my question.” He said simply as he crossed his arms as they reached the check out counter.

“You're really testing me” He said back as he glanced at stack.

“You know I ain't trying to take your girl right?.” Stack says with a small smirk as he knows exactly how his brother is going to react.

“She ain't my girl,”

“She ain't my girl.”

they both said, Elijah immediately turned to face stack.

“Stop that.”

“Stop that.

Elijah paused, glaring at him before speaking again.

“Stack, stop.”

“Stack, stop.”

Elijah takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose , knowing his brother wasn't going to stop.

“We just friends.” Stack says immediately with him.

“You know, she said the same thing.” He hummed as he rubbed his chin, watching Smoke before chuckling softly, shaking his head as he focused on the things getting scanned by the cashier.

Smoke took in his words, Annie said the same thing? He leaves his thoughts as Stack starts up again.

“So what's happening on Friday?” He questioned again a bit more seriously now.“Because you and your woman are dodging my questions.”

Elijah sighed deeply, this close to throwing him through a window.

“You've only been here for a day and you already tap dancing on my last nerve.” He muttered underneath his breath with a huff.

"Dinner,just dinner. That's what's happening on Friday.” he sighed, eventually giving into his brother's persistent questioning.

“Only dinner?..” Stack challenged with a raised eyebrow, tilting his head.

“Yes, only dinner,” he started, paying for his and stack’s things. “And she ain't my woman, she's my friend. There's a big difference.”

Stack narrowed his eyes before smacking his lips as he grabbed his bag. “big difference my ass, that's yo woman, rather you want to admit it or not.” he uttered sarcastically. 

“She's not my woman.” He muttered with a sigh, watching stack leave the store before following suit.

-

Thursday 2 :30 pm

Three days..

It's been three days and his brother has already caused some mess.

Stack being the man that he is, has flirted with every female teacher he sets his eyes on which has caused problems for Elijah because they all think he's him when they see him.

“Hey, you think Miss James is married?..” Stack asks as he jogs by smoke.

“Stack..I don't even know a Miss James." He sighed deeply as he glanced at him before focusing back on the jog.

“Really?” He muttered with a huff, "I thought you being here for six months, you've known everyone by no–” he gets cut off as smoke starts to jog faster.

“Now I know y'all can move faster than that, come on!” He said as he started jogging backwards to look at the boys.

Stack sighed deeply and narrowed his eyes before catching up with him.

“Is it because of her, that you haven't learned every woman's name at that school?.” he asked bluntly, sugarring coating nothing as he looked at his brother.

Smoke sighed deeply and faced forward.

“Who exactly is this ‘her’,you speak of?..” he asked, he knew exactly who he was talking about because she's been the only thing he can think about..

Besides other things..

Stack rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Now you know damn well.” he smacks his teeth,looking at smoke.

Elijah held back a smirk before clearing his throat. “Gonna have to finish this conversation a different time, little brother.” 

“Bruh! I'm your little brother by three minutes!..” Stack huffed as he started chasing smoke.

Later that day

 You remember Miss James? Yeah, here she comes.

“Elijah, you didn't forget our date on friday?” she spoke up softly, standing in front of the lunch table he's sitting at.

Elijah pauses, blinking blankly at his sandwich he was about to tear up in a moment. “Ain't you married?” he asked bluntly, looking at her with a bit of irritation.

“I ain't married.” she scoffed, crossing her arms.

He looked at her hands , searching for a ring or any indication she might be married. “Well you’re talking to the wrong twin.” He said after a moment, not finding anything that gave off married from here.

Now it was her turn to look at him like he was crazy. “The hell do you mean ‘wrong twin’?..” she narrowed her eyes.

Of course stack forgot to mention that important detail.

He sighed deeply and rubbed his nose, he just wanted to enjoy his sandwich.

–

5:20 pm, Elijah’s office.

“So, what are you going to wear on your date?,” stack questioned with raised eyebrows.” Cause I can't have you going on that date looking crazy, you are a reflection of me.” He added shortly after with a nod.

Smoke looked up from the papers and stared at stack blankly. 

“It's not a damn date.” He corrected it for the millionth time. “It's dinner.”

“Fine, not a ‘date’..” stack reluctantly muttered with air quotes. “Still, what are you going to wear, bruh?..” he asked again.

“Alright, what's with this?” Smoke gesturing towards his brother doing air quotes, irritation entering his body, Elijah pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“You know exactly what this is.” stack muttered underneath his breath as he avoided smoke's gaze, knowing he probably glaring a hole into his face.

“And I don't know, I'm just gonna wear my whites.” Smoke added reluctantly, he sighed before going back to reading papers while keeping an eye on stack as he walked around the office.

“Your whites?..hm."Stack muttered to himself as he rubbed his chin in thought.

“Miss Annie does seem like the type of woman to like a man in a uniform..” he muttered to no one in particular.. “big bro! You might get some Friday!."Stack exclaimed with a smirk as he walked up to him.

“Stack, what the hell are you talking about?..” he sighed deeply as stack pulled him up. 

“My boy, you're getting some tomorrow night, and I'm gonna make sure of it.” stack expresses with a chuckle.

Elijah stared at him with a blank expression, watching him circle him like he was a model.

“You gon need a haircut, definitely a shave around that beard..” stack muttered to himself , tilting his head as he stopped back in front of him.

Smoke raised an eyebrow at his brother's words before walking over to the mirror. “What's wrong with my beard? I like it.” He said with a huff as he glanced at himself,tilting his head side to side.

“Well of course you like it, you don't  care about your appearance as much as i do.”he said with an eye roll as he stepped to the side of him.

“You wanna look good for Annie, yes?..”stack asked with a raised eyebrow.

Smoke glanced at his brother before looking away , sighing gently. He did want to look good for her, it's hard not to try to look good for a woman like that.

“Fine.”he uttered after a moment. 

“Just don't cut too much off, please,” he quickly said as stack went to grab his clippers, stack never goes anywhere without them damn clippers. “I worked hard to grow this beard.” He added quietly to himself as he turned his gaze back to the mirror.

–

5:55 pm Annie's home

Annie was cleaning up in the kitchen, keeping her hands busy.

Her thoughts went to the date dinner that Elijah and her were having tomorrow. She honestly doesn't know what it means.

Two adults can go have dinner and not have it be a date..

Right?..

“Ann, why you moving around like a busybee?” A soft rusty voice spoke from the living room.

Theodore, her grandfather, had been watching his shows when he noticed how fidgety his Lil Ann was.

“Huh papa?..” She muttered softly, getting out of her head as she looked over her shoulder through the kitchen opening.

Theo let out a soft huff and shook his head. “I said why you moving around like a busybee,chère?..” he repeated, still keeping the soft tone.

Oh..

Annie lets out a small sigh and gives a small nod. “Just trying to keep busy papa.” She says gently with a soft gaze before turning back to the dishes.

He watched her with a raised eyebrow “Right..” he muttered with a small sigh before focusing back on the tv..well tired too.

–

Friday 8:00 pm

It was finally time for their date..

Elijah stood anxiously outside her door, he glanced around the house seeing the modest yet warm feel it had , he could also tell she didn't live alone.

He turned his gaze to the flowers. “You can't go wrong with roses, Smoke. Women love them.” Elijah recalled what his brother said.

He didn't really think Annie liked roses but he wasn't gonna show up empty handed either.

“He cut too much of my mustache, man.” He muttered as he noticed himself in the window reflection, sighing deeply Elijah rubbed the bridge of his nose counting to ten in his head.

He paused before finally knocking on the door, he had stood out there for a good five minutes, his nerves getting the best of him.

–

Theodore watched his granddaughter with a soft and warm gaze.

“you remind me of how your grandmother looked on our first date.” He spoke up softly with a small smile.

Annie beams at his words, smiling gently as she smooths out her dress once more.

“Thank you papa, you never fail to remind me.” She kissed his cheek softly.

Theodore, usually the stoic man that he is, couldn't help the full grin that started to grow on his face, he’ll proudly admit to his other grandchildren that Annie is his favorite grandbaby and he has no shame in it.

“So..you still aint tell me nothing about your date, all i know is he took that job to work with that military unit at your school.” he spoke softly as he watched her head down the hallway to grab something.

“His name is Elijah and he's around the same age as me papa.” She says over her shoulder she grabs her earrings off the nightstand and starts to put them on. 

She didn't tell him that Elijah served in the military because he always told her to never marry one, ironically considering he served in the army.

 “Elijah? Sounds respectable enough.” he thought to himself as he glanced at the tv before hearing the knocking at the door.

“Ah, right on time.” He says to himself he stands up and answers the door, he moves quite fast for his age.

“Wait pap-” she started to speak

–

Theodore stood tall as he looked the man in his eyes, giving a once over.

Noting the dress whites, he raised an eyebrow, his Annie forgot to mention that the man was also a military man as well.

“You must be Elijah, I'm assuming?..” he asked simply. Holding eye contact with him.   

Elijah paused.

He gotta deal with her father now? His nerves are gonna be all over the place now.

“Yes sir, I'm Elijah. Elijah Moore." He spoke with a nod as he extended his hand, fighting back the trembles. 

Thedore noticed the trembles.

He knows exactly what they mean because he gets them from time to time. This man fought in the war, his expression softened up a little but not by much, didn't want Elijah getting too comfortable just yet. 

He gave him a firm handshake, nodding as he

acknowledged the simple respect.

Most of Annie's dates in the past always gave half-assed handshakes and he never liked them simply because it showed they would half-assed love his grandbaby and he wasn’t gonna let them do that to his Lil Annie.

“Come on in,son” he opened the door up, making room for Elijah to come in.

 ‘Guess the old man doesn’t hate me yet.’ he thought as he stepped through the threshold.

“You must be her father,sir?” he questioned with a curious gaze as he glanced around the home.

Theodore stops in his tracks to look at Elijah before laughing right in his face.

“Son, I am not that young.” he chuckled as he patted him on the back while heading back to his favorite chair. “I’m her grandfather.” he added with a hum,relaxing into the chair.

 ‘That's even worse.’ Elijah thought cause now he really gotta prove himself to this man. A man that came from a generation where men paid for everything without complaining.

He gotta step his game up.

“So what are your intentions with my granddaughter?”

–

Annie sighed deeply as she hid in the room for a moment, suddenly feeling nervous and she usually doesn’t, what has Elijah done to her?

“Girl calm down, it's not that serious.” she muttered to herself as she looked in the mirror , putting one more pin in her hair. “It's just dinner,nothing too serious.” she thought with a small nod before grabbing her clutch.

–

“Well me and her are just friends sir.” Elijah said to him, fidgeting with the flowers as he looked at the man.

“Right..friends.” Theodore says simply, not believing it one bit. 

She stepped out of the room and headed to the living room where Theodore and Elijah were talking before the conversion went quiet as she entered the room

Elijah sat there starstruck, words stuck in his throat as his gaze traveled along her curves. 

Theodore watched him with a small smirk, exactly how he was with her grandmother. 

“This might just work out.” He thought to himself as he watched Elijah stand up clearly going to approach her but his feet just won't cooperate at this very moment.

“Y-you look incredible, ann..” Elijah finally got out as he met her gaze, his grip on the flowers so tight that they're starting to shake.

Annie smiled softly at his words and that almost sent him into a coma.

Theodore watched silently, letting out a small chuckle. “Son, you're supposed to give her the flowers.” He spoke up softly,lightly pushing him towards her.

Elijah glanced at the older man before looking back at Annie. “I ain't know which flowers you would've liked, so I went with roses.” he says with a small nod, rubbing the back of his head while giving her the flowers. 

He ain't ever been shy like this before but this got him acting like a teenager with their first crush.

“These are pretty, Elijah." She beamed.” Imma put these in some water and then we can go, okay?..” she says softly and he gives a small nod.

He watched her head to the kitchen and his gaze linger a bit too long for grandpa's liking. 

Theodore cleared his throat very loudly, the way it sounded like a duck quaking. 

Elijah sighed deeply realizing he just got caught staring by this woman's grandfather.

He turned to face him slowly, giving a tight lip smile.

“Watch them eyes, son.” Theodore said simply but the threat was very much clear.     

He responded with a small nod.

—

At the restaurant.

“You don’t really talk that much about yourself do ya?.” she said softly with a faint smile as she looked at Elijah, tilting her head slightly.

Elijah looked up from his food, having been focused on her talking. “I like to listen more than I speak.” He sighed as he gave a small nod.

She observed him as he returned back to eating. “Aren’t you a military kid?” She asked softly , taking a bite of her steak.

“It’s obvious..huh?..” he said softly with a faint smile as he wiped his mouth.

She gives a small nod.

“Well,me and my brother have been military kids all our life really, been all over the place.” He said with a nod as he adjusted in his seat. “My father was a hard ass but he installed some great values into me and my brother.” He sighed.

“I just don’t know how much stayed with stack, though.” He muttered softly with a chuckle as he tilted his head, matching hers subconsciously.

Annie chuckled softly , giving a soft smile as she looked at him. “Sounds like your father was an okay man..” she spoke gently with a hum.

Elijah's smile faded a little . “Yeah, I guess he was.” He muttered thoughtfully before switching the subject. 

“So Ann, why did you become a teacher?..” he asked softly as he sat up straighter, genuinely curious.

She tilted her head and smiled faintly, catching onto the nickname. “Well, I suppose I became a teacher because my grandma was one,”she started off. “She was no nonsense type of teacher but her students loved her to death.” She says with a warm tone , a hint of nostalgia entering her voice.

Elijah listened intently to her, saving the information for later.

But for a small moment his gaze traveled along her face , watching the way she always has a hint of a smile on her face or the way she tilts her head when she notices something.   

Or the way her eyes- “Elijah?” Finally reaching his ears, he snapped out of it, clearing his throat as he met her gaze.

“Did you hear a word I said?..” she asks with a teasing tone, taking a sip of water as she stared at him with a knowing look.

He stared back at her , a faint smile growing on his face.

She caught him and he..likes that.

“I absolutely did hear everything you said.” He finally speaks, matching her tilted head.

She bites back a smile. “Then what was I just saying?”

Elijah raises an eyebrow at her, sitting up straight.

“You were just talking about what has pushed you towards becoming a teacher,” he began with a hum. “And how your grandmother is your motivation and inspiration for yourself, you take pride in that.” He finished off, his gaze softening as he watched hers do the same. 

“Anything else you would like to test me on?” He teased, feeling a bit more out of his shell around her.

Annie lets out a soft giggle, glancing away for a moment.

He smiled at that, biting the inside of his cheek before returning back to eating.

—

9:20 pm on the way to Annie’s house.

They sit in comfortable silence as Elijah drives her home, the radio playing Marvin Gaye quietly.

He hums along as he hears ‘I want you’ start playing.

“I want you , the right way” he starts singing quietly to himself , tapping his fingers against the stirring wheel.

Annie glances at Elijah as she hears him singing , smiling faintly as he keeps going.

“But I want you to want me too.”

 “I want you to want me, baby.” She starts singing along and Elijah immediately looks at her, chuckling softly.

“What you know about this song?..” he teased, smiling softly.

She giggles at him , turning towards him. “What I know about this song? Baby ,this my favorite song.” She   responded back with a small smirk on her face.

He chuckles softly as he shakes his slightly “thought I was the only that listens to this album.” He exclaims with a warm tone, glancing at her as she sings.

“Well you thought wrong.” She teased,smiling as she resumed her singing.

 “Oh, I give you all the love I want in return, sweet darling” 

“I guess I did..” he muttered to himself as he watched her for a moment , his feelings for her getting dangerously serious.

But they’re just friends..right?   

Right.   

—

“I had a good time tonight, Eli.” Annie says with a soft smile as he walks her up to her door.

Elijah chuckles and gives a small nod. “I did too, glad I found someone who also listens to Marvin Gaye.” He says with a smile matching hers as he steps up the stairs with her.

“Thought I was the only one..” he mumbled as he looked at her. 

“Well you ain’t anymore.” She says back with a hum as she pulls out her key.

He watched her quietly, his gaze traveling along the side of her face, a tenderness passing through them as he noticed the faint dimple she has.

He leans against the door frame, paying attention to how he puts the key in the lock but doesn’t turn it.

“Elijah..” she started , pausing as she turned to him.

“Yes, Annie?..” he whispered softly, his voice getting a little raspy without him realizing it.

“I-..I would like to do this again some time.” She whispered back, matching his tone.

(Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?🌚)

“Me too.” He hummed as his gaze landed on her plump lips,the amount times he thought about them is down right crazy.

They stare at each other's lips for an eternity before Elijah finally gives in and presses his lips against hers,sighing into the kiss as it starts off soft but quickly turned heated.

He cups her face in his hands, tilting his head slightly as their tongues brushed against each other. He pulls back slightly for air before his mouth is on her neck, leaving wet kisses there.

Annie lets out a quiet moan. “E-Elijah.” 

He pulls back thinking he did something wrong before meeting her gaze and seeing the quite opposite, he pulls her closer resuming his kisses on her neck, grunting quietly as he feels her hand on his belt.

Before it can go further there’s a knock on the window.

They immediately pulled away and turned to face the window, seeing Theodore standing there with raised eyebrows and a small smirk.

Annie immediately hides her face against Elijah's chest, he chuckles nervously and gives a small wave to her grandfather before turning to her.

“Well, um..” he tries to say anything but he’s stuck on that kiss they were lost in. “Well we just got caught..”he finally gets out with a chuckle and, rubbing her back as she finally opens the door.

“See you at school, ann..” he muttered with a small smirk as he looks at her.

“See you at school, Eli..” she muttered back with a small smile before closing the door.

Elijah chuckles as he walks down the steps towards his car.

“I want you , baby.” He sang quietly to himself with a warm smile opening the car door.

—

Welp..what yall think?😗✌️ first time writing a kiss ya girl was nervous LOL

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

[myheartsaysyes]

The Mixtape: Part 7 (Smoke’s Interlude)

Summary: After eight years, Smoke finally listens to what Annie has to say… through a mixtape of her own. What begins as stubborn curiosity becomes a night of memories, revelations, and one undeniable truth: some people never stop being home.

A/N: Thank you @waitingtobreatheagain for the subtitle. 🤭

W/C: 11k+

Smoke left Aunt Cheryl’s without a second glance backwards.

The gravel crunched beneath the truck tires as he pulled onto the road, the familiar stretch of Mississippi highway unfolding beneath a sky slowly bleeding gold into orange. His knuckles ached every time he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, a steady reminder of the punch he’d thrown and the argument that had come before it. The pain should have made him feel foolish.

Instead, it mostly made him feel tired.

The entire afternoon weighed on him. Annie’s tears. Her yelling. The way she’d looked at him like he had personally ruined eight years of her life. How she stood in the middle of Aunt Cheryl’s yard and told him she’d spent all those years waiting for him to fight for her.

Then Stack’s voice showed up right behind the memory.

You punched him because she grabbed that suitcase again.

Smoke swore under his breath.

Unfortunately, his brother hadn’t stopped there.

The first person she reached for wasn’t you.

That part irritated him most because Stack had said it with the confidence of somebody who already knew the answer. Smoke had wanted to tell him he was wrong, and say Isoo got punched because he should’ve kept his fucking mouth shut. He wanted to tell him it had nothing to do with Annie. The problem was every time he replayed the moment in his head, he arrived at the same conclusion Stack already had.

The punch was never about Isoo.

His jaw tightened.

The road curved gently ahead. Smoke followed it automatically, barely paying attention to where he was going. He’d driven these roads his entire life. He could’ve found his way home blindfolded. His eyes drifted toward the passenger seat. The mixtape sat there. Quiet. Innocent. Like it hadn’t caused a damn thing. Annie’s handwriting stretched across the cover exactly the way it always had. Uneven in places. Slanted slightly to the right. Familiar enough that he recognized it before he’d even registered what he was holding.

Two weeks.

That’s what she said. Two weeks making the fucking thing. Choosing songs while thinking about him. The thought annoyed him, confused him. Then irritated him again because confusion felt entirely too close to hope.

His phone vibrated against the center console. Smoke glanced at the screen and sighed. He knew where this conversation was headed.

LEWIS JONES.

For a moment he considered letting it ring. Then he answered. “Uncle Lewis.”

“You done?”

The corner of Smoke’s mouth twitched despite himself. “Done what?”

“Actin’ stupid.”

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Small. Brief. Then it was gone. 

“Depends.”

“On?”

“How bad do his face look?”

The answer came without hesitation. “Bad enough.”

Smoke nodded once. “Aight.”

Silence stretched between them. One of the things Smoke appreciated most about Uncle Lewis was the man’s refusal to fill every empty space with noise. Most people got nervous when conversations slowed down. They rushed to fill the gaps with questions, opinions, or advice nobody asked for.

Lewis never did. 

The older man let the silence breathe before speaking again. “You know everybody saw through that shit, right?”

Smoke looked out the windshield. “Saw through what?”

“You ain’t punch that boy ‘cause he butted in.”

There it was. Smoke should’ve known. He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and watched a pair of headlights pass in the opposite direction.

“You ain’t even know that boy was there half the afternoon.”

Smoke huffed quietly. “That ain’t true.”

“Who you lyin’ to?” 

The question came so quickly Smoke almost laughed.

“You been mad for a long time.”

The words sank in a little deeper. Lewis wasn’t talking about the cookout anymore. Smoke knew it. Lewis knew it. Hell, everybody who loved him knew it.

The older man sighed softly through the phone. “You ever get tired?”

Smoke frowned. “Of what?”

“Being mad.”

The question caught him off guard, because it wasn’t complicated. For a while all he heard was the hum of tires against pavement and the low growl of the engine beneath him. Eventually he shrugged. “I guess.”

Lewis made a low sound. The kind that meant he wasn’t buying the answer. “You know how many arguments me and Cheryl survived because one of us was too stubborn to shut up?”

A smile tugged briefly at Smoke’s mouth. “Too many.”

“Exactly.” A pause followed. Then Lewis added quietly, “You know how many we survived because one of us was too stubborn to talk?”

The smile disappeared. Smoke’s eyes turned to the passenger seat again. To the mixtape and Annie’s handwriting. He looked back at the road. Neither man spoke. The silence stretched longer this time. Thoughtful and heavy at the same time.

“You know what I keep thinkin’ about?” Lewis asked eventually.

Smoke already knew. Still— “No, sir?”

“That girl flew all the way back to Mississippi.”

Smoke swallowed.

Lewis continued. “Three states.”

The truck rolled forward through the fading evening light.

“Three states and two weeks makin’ some CD.”

Smoke let the words sit with him.

“You think folks do that for somebody they don’t love?”

The question sat heavy between them. The answer coming fast. No. Of course not. But saying it out loud felt dangerous somehow. So he didn’t.

Lewis didn’t push either. He never had to, but he still continued— “You ain’t gotta forgive her tonight.”

Smoke stared ahead.

“You ain’t gotta fix everything tonight either.”

The road stretched empty before him. Fields on one side. Trees on the other. Home getting closer with every mile.

“But don’t spend another eight years punishin’ yourself.”

Something about the way Lewis said it made Smoke’s chest tighten unexpectedly. Yourself. The distinction mattered more than Smoke wanted to admit. Because if he was honest, truly honest, the years hadn’t only hurt Annie. They’d hurt him too. More than he’d ever admit.

The truck grew quiet again. The sky darkened another shade.

Eventually Lewis cleared his throat. “You headed home?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good.”

Smoke waited.

Lewis chuckled. “Go home.”

“That’s yo’ advice?”

“Yep.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “You called me for that?”

Uncle Lewis chuckled. “I taught you construction. Might as well teach you common sense too.”

Despite himself, Smoke laughed. “Yes sir.”

The word left before he thought about it. A habit nearly as old as he was. For a minute he considered ending the call. Instead, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. 

“Thank you.”

The line went quiet. Then Lewis answered simply. “Welcome, son.”

There was a tightening in Smoke’s chest. It wasn’t that Uncle Lewis had never called him ”son” before. He had. A handful of times over the years. Usually when Smoke showed up to help with a project around the house or worked alongside him on a jobsite. Small moments. Easy moments. The kind that never seemed important until later. But hearing it now felt different. Maybe because there hadn’t been many men in Smoke’s life who earned the right to say it.

His father certainly hadn’t. Most of Smoke’s memories of his own father involved whiskey on his breath, anger in his voice, and the sound of boots crossing a porch that made two little boys tense before he even opened the door.

Uncle Lewis had been the opposite. Patient where his father had been cruel. Steady where his father had been unpredictable. The man who taught him how to frame a wall, read a tape measure, show up on time, and finish what he started. Uncle Lewis handed him his first construction job and expected him to work for every dollar of it. He was who Smoke thought about whenever people talked about good fathers.

His throat felt tight suddenly. “Yes sir,” he said again.

For a while neither of them spoke. Then, like always, Lewis broke the tension before it could become something either of them had to acknowledge.

“Get home safe.”

“I will.”

“And Smoke?”

“Yeah?”

Uncle Lewis paused. “Listen to that damn CD.”

The line went dead before Smoke could answer. For the rest of the drive, Uncle Lewis’s words followed him home. Not about Isoo or even the part about Annie. It was Uncle Lewis’ question that stayed with him.

You ever get tired?

At the time Smoke had brushed it off. Gave him a half-answer and kept driving. But the farther he got from Uncle Lewis and Aunt Cheryl’s house, the harder it became to ignore. Somewhere between North Carolina and Mississippi, between missed calls and unanswered letters, pride and hurt and eight years of silence, carrying it all had become exhausting.

And for the first time, Smoke found himself wondering what it might feel like to finally put some of it down.

By the time Smoke pulled into his driveway, the anger had given way to something heavier than it had been when he left the cookout. It still sat in his chest, still burned every time he replayed parts of the afternoon, but it no longer felt sharp. Sharp things cut quickly. This felt more like a weight. Something dense and stubborn that had followed him all the way across town and climbed into the truck beside him.

The engine idled for a moment after he parked. Smoke rested both hands on the steering wheel and stared through the windshield at the dark outline of his house. Usually coming home felt like relief. Quiet. Predictable. A place where nobody needed anything from him for a few hours. Tonight it felt different. Maybe because he knew exactly what was waiting on the passenger seat. And Stack’s voice had still managed to survive the entire drive.

You punched him because she grabbed that suitcase again.

Smoke exhaled slowly through his nose.

The worst part wasn’t that Stack had said it. The worst part was that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He replayed the argument, Annie calling for Isoo, and the look on her face when she said she wanted to leave. He still arrived at the same conclusion. The punch hadn’t been about Isoo. It hadn’t even been about whatever smart ass shit came out of Isoo’s mouth. It had been about Annie reaching for somebody else when everything inside him had been screaming for her to stop running to any and everything, but him.

Eventually he killed the engine and climbed out. The house was quiet when he stepped inside. Not peaceful, quiet. Empty quiet. The kind that made every creak of the floorboards sound louder than it actually was. Uncle Lewis and Aunt Cheryl’s house had always been full. Full of people, conversations, and yelling from one room to another. Even when nobody was talking, there was always the feeling that somebody might start. Smoke’s place wasn’t like that. Most days he preferred it. Tonight it gave him too much room to think.

The mixtape landed on the kitchen counter while he headed for the refrigerator. He opened the door and stared inside, as though something useful might appear if he gave it enough time. A container of leftovers sat on the top shelf beside eggs, sandwich meat, and vegetables he’d bought because he told himself he was going to start eating cleaner. None of it looked particularly appealing. Smoke shut the refrigerator and got pissed all over again.

Aunt Cheryl had probably made enough food to feed half the county. There had been ribs, potato salad, baked beans and rolls. Even Pearline’s nasty ass Mac and cheese was there. And at least five desserts. Normally he’d have left carrying enough leftovers to survive the next several days. Instead he’d left carrying a bruised hand and a damn mixtape.

“Ain’t even get to bring no fuckin’ plate home.”

The complaint sounded stupid the second it left his mouth. Unfortunately, that didn’t make it less true.

For half a second he considered getting back his truck, driving to Aunt Cheryl’s, and fixing himself a plate like a grown man with priorities. Then he pictured Annie sitting in that house, Stack there with a stupid ass look on his face, and Aunt Cheryl looking at him like she had a sermon ready.

Hell nah.

A little while later he found himself standing over the stove making a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. The entire situation felt ridiculous. He’d spent the afternoon arguing with Annie, punching Isoo, getting lectured by Stack, and receiving life advice from Uncle Lewis, only to end the night standing in his kitchen cooking like a man who hadn’t just had his entire emotional foundation kicked in. The sandwich wasn’t terrible. It also wasn’t Aunt Cheryl’s ribs.

Smoke ate anyway.

Afterward he grabbed a beer, stared at it for a second, then put it back. The whiskey seemed like a better idea. He poured himself a glass and carried it into the living room. A few minutes later, he looked down and found it untouched. His attention kept drifting back to the kitchen counter. To the mixtape. That pissed him off too.

At some point he found himself wiping down countertops that weren’t dirty. Then reorganizing a drawer that hadn’t bothered him in months. Then checking laundry that didn’t need checking. 

The thought arrived slowly enough to make him feel stupid. He was avoiding the mixtape. A grown ass nigga avoiding a CD. Worse, Annie would probably find it hilarious. That thought alone nearly made him put the fuckin’ thing in the CD player just out of spite.

Instead he took a shower.

The hot water should’ve helped. Usually it did. Construction work had a way of settling into muscles and joints. A shower could wash away most of a hard day. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough hot water in Mississippi to wash away Annie. She showed up anyway—crying, yelling, and saying she’d waited. 

And she called him Elijah. 

That always stayed with him. Most people call him Smoke now. Some folks probably forgot Elijah existed. The nickname had become easier over the years. Simpler. Safer. Smoke belonged to everybody. Smoke was the man people expected him to be.

Elijah belonged to Annie. 

Always had.

After the shower, Smoke dried off and pulled on a pair of sweatpants before catching sight of his hand in the bathroom mirror. The knuckles looked worse now than they had at Aunt Cheryl’s. Adrenaline had carried him through the drive home, but it wasn’t doing him any favors anymore. Swelling had already begun to set across the back of his hand, and purple bruising was working its way beneath the skin.

“Shit.”

He flexed his fingers once and instantly regretted it. The punch felt good for about three seconds. Now it just hurt like hell.

Smoke dug through the bathroom cabinet until he found peroxide and a box of bandages his mom had practically forced him to buy after splitting his hand open at a construction site a few months earlier. At the time she’d fussed at him for nearly twenty minutes about keeping basic first-aid supplies in the house. Standing here now, pouring peroxide across busted knuckles, he hated admitting she might’ve had a point. A few minutes later he found himself sitting on the edge of the bathtub while the antiseptic fizzed against broken skin. The sting should have kept his attention. Instead, his mind wandered right back where it had been all evening.

Annie.

It seemed like no matter what he was doing, every road eventually led back to her. The tears. The yelling. The way she’d looked at him in the middle of the yard. Then, inevitably, his thoughts landed on the part he hated most.

Isoo.

The punch? Nah. Not even the argument that led to said punch. It was the moment before it. The moment Annie grabbed that suitcase and looked past him. Smoke lowered his head and rubbed a hand across his jaw. By the time he’d wrapped the worst of the damage and tossed the used bandages into the trash, he was in a perpetual state of irritation. Because Stack had been right. And so was Uncle Lewis.

A cigarette seemed like a logical next step. Then whiskey. Then sitting on the back porch convincing himself he wasn’t thinking about the mixtape while doing exactly that.

The Mississippi night wrapped around him warm and familiar. Crickets chirped somewhere beyond the fence. A dog barked in the distance. His neighbor several houses over was playing music low enough that only the bass reached him. Smoke sat there until his cigarette burned almost to the filter and the whiskey glass sat empty beside him.

Eventually he ran out of things to do. He’d exhausted every distraction available.

The house felt different when he walked back inside. It was later now and the whiskey had finally done its job. But now there was no avoiding the fact that Annie’s mixtape was still sitting exactly where he’d left it. Waiting. Patient in the way Annie never was. Smoke shook his head and picked it up off the counter. The plastic case felt surprisingly light in his hands. His thumb brushed across the writing on the cover before he could stop himself.

For Elijah.

Never Smoke.

The version of him she always seemed able to find no matter how deeply he buried it. For a moment he simply stood there staring at the words. Then Uncle Lewis’s voice echoed in his head.

Listen to the damn CD.

Smoke sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah.”

He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was answering Uncle Lewis or Annie.

Maybe both.

The disc disappeared into the stereo. Smoke stood there with one hand resting on the shelf beside it, seriously considering taking it back out. The thought lasted right up until he remembered the few hours of his evening had been spent avoiding it.

Enough was enough. He pressed play and static crackled softly through the speakers.

Then Annie’s voice filled the room. “Elijah, if you’re listenin’ to this, it means you finally stopped bein’ hardheaded.”

Smoke froze. All he could do was stare at the stereo. Then Annie laughed. Not a big laugh or one of the loud ones that made everybody else join in. This was smaller, the one that usually appeared when she thought she’d gotten away with something. Her voice came through the speakers again, pleased with herself.

“Good.”

A click followed.

Seconds later the opening notes of Can We Talk came through the living room.

Smoke closed his eyes and laughed despite himself. “Oh, she got jokes.”

The song continued playing.

Track 1: Can We Talk

The opening notes of Can We Talk filled the room as Smoke leaned back into the couch. At first he listened the way most people listened to old songs. Half paying attention. Half letting familiarity do the work. The melody was recognizable, pulling up memories he hadn’t thought about in years. He could already hear Annie laughing at herself for choosing it. Shit, he was laughing too. Of all the songs she could’ve started with, she picked the one that practically came with a flashing sign attached to it.

The thing was though, the joke stopped being funny about halfway through. The song didn’t change, but he did.

The longer he listened, the harder it became to separate the music from the message underneath it. Annie had never been the type to do anything halfway when she cared. If she baked a cake, she spent three days finding the right recipe. If she bought somebody a gift, she’d somehow remember a throwaway comment they made six months earlier and build the entire thing around it. Every meaningful thing Annie had ever done came with intention attached to it. Looking back, maybe that was why the last eight years had hurt so much. Neither of them had ever stopped caring enough to become indifferent. 

They’d simply found different ways to carry the hurt.

Smoke clenched his jaw until the muscle ticked, then leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The whiskey sat forgotten on the coffee table. At some point he’d stopped drinking it. He wasn’t sure when. His attention had been entirely on the stereo, which was annoying because it meant Annie had managed to hijack his evening without even being in the room.

A bitter laugh escaped him. That sounded about right.

The song continued playing, and with every passing minute Smoke found himself thinking less about the argument at the cookout and more about the years before it. Not the breakup or the misunderstandings. The good parts. 

Annie stretched across his couch with textbooks scattered around her. Annie stealing fries off his plate after claiming she wasn’t hungry. Her singing along to songs she only knew half the words to and making up the rest with complete confidence. There had been a time when talking to her felt as natural as breathing. Somewhere along the way they’d lost that. Or maybe they hadn’t lost it at all. Maybe they’d simply buried it beneath years of pride, hurt, and assumptions until neither of them remembered where it was.

By the time the song ended, Smoke hadn’t moved in several minutes. The room felt quieter afterward, though that probably had more to do with the absence of Annie’s chosen soundtrack than actual silence. He sat there waiting without meaning to. Waiting for the next song and for whatever she’d decided came next, because curiosity had quietly replaced resistance along the way.

Annie’s voice returned before the next track started. Something in his chest tightened. It wasn’t the recording itself. It was how normal she sounded. She wasn’t crying, there wasn’t any anger in it or heartbreak.

Just Annie.

There was amusement in her voice before she even spoke, the same amusement she’d carried since she was fourteen years old and entirely too pleased with herself. “Before you start rollin’ your eyes, yes, I know that one was obvious.”

Smoke shook his head and rolled his eyes despite himself. 

There she was. 

Since she’d stepped back into Mississippi, he wasn’t thinking about the woman standing in Aunt Cheryl’s yard with tears streaming down her face. He was hearing the girl he’d fallen in love with. The girl who always had something to say, and who could make him laugh when he was trying his hardest not to.

Annie laughed softly on the recording. “If I gotta suffer through eight years of your stubbornness, you can survive one Tevin Campbell song.”

The smile lingered longer this time. She wasn’t wrong, because she’d always known exactly which nerve to touch. Or maybe hearing her like this reminded him of something he’d forgotten. The Annie sitting safely inside this recording wasn’t trying to win an argument. She wasn’t defending herself and not asking him to choose between his version of the past and hers. She was simply trying to talk to him. Really talk to him. And judging by the fact that he was sitting alone in his living room listening this closely, it was working. 

The knowledge came over him slowly as Annie exhaled on the recording and fell quiet for a moment. She hadn’t made him a playlist. She’d built him a conversation.

And Smoke was finally listening.

Track 2: Truth Is

The silence that followed Annie’s recording didn’t last long. A few seconds later another song began to play.

Smoke recognized Fantasia instantly. That alone made him sit back. Annie had always loved Fantasia. Not casually either. That girl treated Fantasia songs like scripture. Back in high school, he’d spent an entire semester listening to Annie defend her against people who insisted she sang too many sad songs. Annie always disagreed.

“They ain’t sad,” she’d argued one afternoon from the passenger seat of his car. “People just don’t like the truth.”

At the time he’d rolled his eyes and told her she sounded fifty years old. At sixteen, he’d thought she was being dramatic. At twenty-six, he wasn’t so sure.

The song continued playing while Smoke leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling. At some point he’d stopped treating the mixtape like background noise. His attention remained fixed on every word, every transition, every choice she’d made. Annie had spent two weeks putting this thing together. Two weeks deciding what came first and what came next. Nothing about that sounded accidental.

Which meant Truth Is was here for a reason. The message wasn’t difficult to understand.

The truth is. Three simple words. Words capable of ruining an otherwise peaceful evening.

Smoke closed his eyes.

The memory arrived before he could stop it.

It was years ago. Long enough that he couldn’t remember the exact date anymore. Stack had talked him into going out after work. A restaurant on the other side of town. Some female Stack was messing with at the time had a cousin or a friend she insisted would be perfect for him. Smoke remembered almost none of the details now. Not her name, what she ordered, or what they talked about.

He only remembered the feeling.

The woman was beautiful. Smart too, and easy enough to talk to. The conversation never stalled. She asked questions and listened to the answers. By every measurable standard, the night should’ve been a success. Stack certainly thought it was. The first thing out of his mouth the next day had been, “So when you seein’ her again?”

Smoke remembered shrugging. Remembered saying, “I don’t know.” At the time he’d blamed work, timing, then the fact that he wasn’t looking for anything serious. The same excuse he’d been feeding everybody for years. Listening to Fantasia now, he found himself wondering if that had ever really been true, because the part he remembered most wasn’t the woman.

It was the moment she’d laughed.

For one brief second she’d tilted her head back and smiled, and before he could stop himself he’d thought about Annie. The thought had simply appeared. 

Uninvited and Automatic.

Annie would’ve laughed louder. Annie would’ve made fun of him afterward. Annie would’ve stolen something off his plate and then argued about why it didn’t count as stealing.

The comparison lasted all of three seconds. The date never stood a chance after that.

Smoke rubbed a hand across his mouth.

The song continued. Another memory surfaced. Then another. Different women. Different years. Different cities. Every single one ending exactly the same way. Nothing wrong with them. Nothing he could point to and say that’s why this didn’t work. Just a persistent feeling that something wasn’t there.

Or maybe somebody.

The thought crept up on him so gradually he almost missed it. For years he’d told himself Annie was the exception. The first love. The one that got away. The person everybody compared others to for a little while before eventually moving on. The problem was “a little while” wasn’t supposed to last eight years. “A little while” wasn’t supposed to survive multiple relationships, birthdays, holidays, and entire stages of life. “A little while” wasn’t supposed to follow somebody into adulthood.

Yet Annie had.

The song was still playing when Smoke lowered his head and stared at the floor. Across the room, the stereo glowed softly in the darkness. The house felt smaller now. Quieter. Like Annie was sitting somewhere nearby saying all the things neither of them had been brave enough to say before.

Truth is.

The words echoed through his head. Not the lyrics—the title. The confession hidden inside it, because the longer he listened, the harder it became to ignore the possibility that Annie wasn’t the only person this song belonged to. Maybe that was why it bothered him. Why he hadn’t reached for the whiskey in nearly twenty minutes, because for the first time all night, the mixtape wasn’t asking him to think about Annie.

It was forcing him to think about himself and that was a much harder conversation.

Track 3: Garden (Say It Like Dat)

The transition into the next song happened so smooth Smoke almost missed it. Almost. SZA’s voice eased through the speakers, and he understood Annie wasn’t done telling the truth.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Of course she picked this one. Of all the songs on the radio, Annie had always gravitated toward the ones that sounded like confessions. Songs that peeled back ugly feelings people normally tried to hide. Songs that admitted things most folks would’ve rather kept to themselves.

Garden was one of those songs.

Smoke reclined a little further into the couch. Outside, the Mississippi night continued without him. Crickets. Distant traffic. The dog was still barking. The sounds filtered through the screened window above the sink, familiar enough to disappear into the background. His attention remained fixed on the stereo. On what Annie was trying to say. At first he thought the song was about vulnerability. It was about fear.

There was a difference.

What it meant became clear slowly. The way most important things did. Piece by piece. Memory by memory.

Smoke found himself thinking about a night during their sophomore year. Football practice had run late, leaving him sore, exhausted, and running almost entirely on instinct by the time he finally met Annie outside the library. She’d talked nearly the whole walk home, telling him about a history article she’d read, Pearline getting written up in chemistry for arguing with the teacher, and some recipe she'd seen on a cooking show that she was convinced she could make better.

Smoke had listened the way he usually did after practice. One-word answers. A nod here. A quiet laugh there. Enough to let her know he was listening. Or at least he’d thought so.

Along the walk Annie got quiet. He barely noticed at first. She always had something to say. The silence felt strange enough that he eventually looked over at her.

“You alright?”

She shrugged.“Mhm.”

“You sure?”

“I’m fine.”

Smoke frowned. He knew better. Annie wasn’t the type to stop talking unless something was bothering her. 

He tried again. “What happened?”

“Nothin’.”

The answer annoyed him instantly because it was obvious she was lying. They went back and forth for nearly twenty minutes, Annie insisting she was fine while Smoke insisted she wasn’t, until she finally stopped walking altogether. He’d taken another few steps before he looked over. She wasn’t beside him anymore. When he turned around, Annie was standing in the middle of the sidewalk staring at the ground.

“You still like me?”

The question caught him so off guard that he laughed. It wasn’t that it was funny, it didn’t make any sense to him.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Where’d that come from?”

She shrugged again, refusing to look at him. “I don’t know.”

Smoke walked back toward her. “Annie.” “You serious?”

Another shrug.

He remembered reaching out and tipping her chin up until she finally looked at him. “Of course I still like you.”

“You do?”

“Man, what…” He laughed again, shaking his head. “I thought that was obvious.”

She searched his face for another second before finally smiling, small and almost embarrassed. “Okay.”

Then, just like that, she started walking again.

At sixteen, Smoke thought that had settled it.

He’d chalked the whole conversation up to Annie overthinking things the way Annie sometimes did. He never stopped to ask what had made her question it in the first place. Didn’t consider that spending one evening distracted by football and fatigue had been enough to make her wonder if she’d done something wrong. Sitting in his living room now, listening to a woman who had flown across state lines carrying a mixtape and eight years’ worth of unresolved feelings, Smoke felt that memory differently. Back then he’d blamed Annie’s insecurities. Now he wondered if he’d been looking at them wrong the entire time.

Maybe Annie wasn’t asking because she doubted him. Maybe she was asking because she needed to hear it. Needed confirmation, reassurance, and needed something he wasn’t particularly good at giving. Now, he wondered how many times she’d needed words and never gotten them. Because if there was one thing Annie had been asking for their entire relationship, it wasn’t grand gestures, gifts or promises.

It was words.

And words had always been the thing Smoke struggled with most.

Track 4: Damage

The next song started before Smoke could talk himself into getting another drink. He recognized the voice. But the artist? No idea. Couldn’t have told anybody if they paid him. But he’d heard the song plenty of times on the radio. At the time, he’d never paid much attention to it. 

Now he did.

That seemed to be happening a lot tonight.

By the second verse, Smoke was on his feet. He didn’t mean to stand. He just found himself moving. Restless. The same way he’d been restless beneath the pecan tree earlier. The way he’d been restless sitting on the porch pretending he wasn’t thinking about Annie while thinking about nothing else. He crossed into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, one hand rubbing absently across his jaw.

The song continued—and unfortunately, so did his memory. 

Standing in Aunt Cheryl’s yard crying.

“I came to yo’ house so excited to see you.”

The words hit differently now than they had a few hours ago. At the time he’d been too busy defending himself to really hear them.

Now he couldn’t stop hearing them.

“You acted like you couldn’t wait for me to get the fuck outta Mississippi.”

Smoke closed his eyes, because that wasn’t what happened. He knew that. Annie knew that now too. At least part of it. But knowing she misunderstood him didn’t erase the hurt she’d carried all these years. For years he’d been focused on the fact that Annie left. Focused on the unanswered phone calls, unreturned letters… silence. The feeling of being abandoned. He’d spent so much time staring at his own wound that he’d never stopped to consider hers. Didn’t stop to think about what it must’ve felt like walking out of his house that day believing she was saying goodbye to somebody she loved.

Believing he didn’t care.

Smoke exhaled slowly and looked down at his bandaged hand. The irony wasn’t lost on him. All afternoon he’d accused Annie of running, but the more he thought about it, the less that word fit. Annie hadn’t run from hard things. She stayed through grief, through loneliness. Shit, she’d spent seven years carrying around his mixtape.

Seven years. 

Through college. Through apartments. Through every version of herself she’d become since leaving Mississippi. She’d been too afraid to listen to it. Too afraid it would confirm the thing she’d feared most. That he’d already said goodbye. Yet she kept it anyway. Like some part of her couldn’t bear to hear him let her go, but couldn’t bring herself to let him go either.

That wasn’t somebody running. That was somebody hurting. The thought lingered long after the song ended. Smoke found himself looking at the damage between them and recognizing something he’d spent almost a decade avoiding.

Not all of it belonged to Annie.

Some of it belonged to him too.

That—that left him restless.

Smoke pushed himself away from the kitchen counter and crossed the living room without thinking. He grabbed his cigarettes off the end table, slipped through the back door, and stepped onto the porch. The night air met him immediately, thick with humidity and the familiar chorus of crickets beyond the fence. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the porch railing, hoping the nicotine would quiet the thoughts Annie had spent the last four songs stirring up.

Track 5: Say Yes

By the time Smoke came back inside, the cigarette had done absolutely nothing to help. The night had grown later while he stood on the porch. The sounds of the neighborhood had thinned considerably. The dog that had been barking earlier was finally quiet. The bass from music farther out disappeared. Even the crickets seemed softer now.

The house felt still when he stepped back through the door. Still and entirely too empty. Smoke shut the door behind him and stood there for a moment, looking towards the stereo. Part of him considered calling it a night. 

The smarter part. 

The part that understood Annie had already managed to drag him through memories he’d spent years avoiding. Unfortunately, the smarter part hadn’t been winning much tonight. A few minutes later he crossed the room and sat back down. He pressed play on the stereo remote. The stereo clicked. Then Annie’s voice returned. For a moment she didn’t say anything. Smoke could hear movement in the background. Paper rustling. A quiet breath. 

When she finally spoke, her voice sounded different. Softer. “You know what’s really embarrassing?” 

A soft laugh escaped her. Smoke could hear the smile in it, because sometimes Annie laughed when she was nervous.

“I almost didn’t put this song on here.” A pause followed. “Actually, that’s a lie.” Another small laugh. “I knew I was gonna put it on here. I just kept trying to talk myself out of it.”

Smoke’s attention shifted completely on the stereo. Her voice sounded less playful. More exposed.

“I think what bothers me most is that I know better.” The words came quietly. “I know people probably gonna hear this and think I lost my mind.” Another pause. “Maybe I have.”

Smoke dragged a hand over his chin.

“I called you.” The words landed softly. “I tried to talk to you.” A longer pause. “And you made it real clear that whatever we used to be ain’t what we are now….”

Smoke closed his eyes.

“Maybe that’s true.” Her voice dropped. “There really is no us anymore.” 

The sentence sat between them.  Heavy. Honest.

“But…” A breath. “If somebody asked me today.” Another breath. “Knowing all that.” 

The next words came without hesitation.

“I’d still choose you.”

Smoke stared at the floor.

“I’d still say yes.”

The click sounded. Then the song began. Smoke closed his eyes. For a long moment he didn’t move. Didn’t think. He didn’t do much of anything except listen. The music filled the room, wrapping around everything Annie had just admitted.

I’d still choose you.

The words lingered because they carried a weight he wasn’t prepared for. Yet here Annie was. Still choosing him.

The thought followed him into memories of her. 

Annie asleep on his shoulder during a movie she’d sworn she wanted to watch. The way she’d automatically reach for his hand whenever they crossed a crowded room. How she’d laugh when something genuinely caught her off guard. How she’d curl her feet beneath her whenever she sat on the couch. 

The way she’d say his name.

After she gave herself to him that first time, it was like a dam broke. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Every stolen moment, every quiet hour they managed to find, he wanted her again and again—wanted to feel the way her body softened and fit against his, the way her breath would catch as she cried out his name while her fingers would dig into his back like she was trying to keep him there forever. He had never known hunger like that. He couldn’t get enough of her skin, her scent, her warmth, or the quiet sounds she made when it was just the two of them and the rest of the world disappeared.

Smoke rubbed a hand across his jaw. 

That was the part nobody ever talked about. It wasn’t just the attraction or the chemistry. It was the familiarity. The comfort. The ease of being understood without having to explain himself. Even as kids, Annie had a way of making his world feel quieter simply by being in it.

His mind went there anyway. Annie now. Grown ass woman. Hips thicker, body filled out in all the right ways. She had that steady confidence in her voice on the tape now, even with the tiredness underneath. He wondered how it would feel to take his time peeling her out of her clothes, no more rushed teenage shit. Slow. Thorough. Learning every new inch of her.

He could picture it— her looking up at him without that old nervousness, hands sure as hell when she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down. The way she’d probably arch into him, legs around his waist, knowing exactly how she wanted it. Deep strokes. Heavy breathing. The kind of sex that came with history and hunger and the quiet understanding that they’d already lost too much time.

There had only ever been one person for him. The only person who felt woven into the fabric of his life so completely that imagining a future without her felt unnatural. The only person who understood his silences without demanding explanations, and who could sit beside him for hours without needing to fill every quiet moment. Somehow, she had always managed to make a room feel less empty simply by existing inside it.

Smoke let out a slow breath, trying to shake the image.

It wasn’t just about sex. It never had been.

Annie.

The name moved through him quietly.

The song continued playing. Smoke lowered his head and stared at his hands. One knuckle was still swollen beneath the bandage. His skin still carried the faint scent of cigarette smoke.

The house remained empty. Yet for the first time all night it didn’t feel quite as lonely. Maybe because Annie’s voice still lingered in the room. Or maybe because she’d just admitted something he’d spent trying not to admit himself.

Given the chance, he’d still choose her too.

He’d say yes.

Track 6: Made For Me

The last song ended, but Smoke didn’t reach for the remote. He remained where he was, forearms resting on his thighs, staring at nothing in particular, letting the last few minutes sink in. The house had gone completely quiet again. The clock above the stove ticked steadily behind him. The ice in his abandoned whiskey glass had melted into cloudy water. Outside, the darkness pressed against the windows.

It was late.

Later than he’d thought. The mixtape had stolen most of his night. The thought should’ve made him mad. Instead, he found himself reaching for the remote before he could talk himself out of it.

The stereo hummed softly.

Then Annie laughed.

The sound caught him off guard. It wasn’t loud, but it was familiar. The kind of laugh that always sounded like she was smiling at her own thoughts.

“You know what annoys me…again?”

Smoke shook his head. Despite everything, the corner of his mouth twitched. Annie had been starting conversations that way for most of her life. “You know what annoys me?” usually meant Annie was about to say something she’d spent entirely too much time thinking about.

“I spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with me.”

The smile disappeared. His attention fully on the stereo.

“I thought maybe I was comparing everybody to some impossible version of you that didn’t even exist anymore.”

Something tightened in his chest. Her words didn’t surprise him. The older he got, the harder it became to ignore how often he’d done the same thing.

The recording continued.

“But the older I got…” Her voice softened. “The more I realized there wasn’t nothin’ wrong with me.”

The room seemed to grow quieter.

“I was just lookin’ for you.”

The click sounded. Then the song began. Smoke leaned back slowly against the couch. For a long moment he didn’t do much of anything except listen. The song floated through the room while his attention slipped somewhere he usually tried not to let it go.

Years. Entire years. Twenty-six wasn’t old. At least that was what everybody kept saying. Yet somehow adulthood had arrived anyway. Careers. Responsibilities. Bills. Funerals. Relationships. Life kept moving whether you were ready for it or not. That was the strange part. Somewhere inside all those years, Smoke had convinced himself he’d eventually wake up one day and Annie would stop being the standard. The way people claimed first loves were supposed to fade. Time, distance, and life were supposed to handle it. 

Instead, life kept handing him reminders. Jada had been a good woman. She was funny. Easy to talk to. Pretty. He enjoyed being around her, and for a while he’d convinced himself that was enough.

So he tried. 

He tried to ignore the feeling that something wasn’t quite clicking. Tried to believe that whatever he’d shared with Annie belonged to another lifetime, another version of himself that had long since grown up and moved on. But every time he started thinking maybe this could work, something held him back.

It wasn’t anything Jada did. That was the problem. She’d done nothing wrong. Yet every goodbye came too easily. A few days could pass without seeing her and it never really bothered him. When she left, he missed her company, but never her presence.

Annie was different. She could leave a room and somehow take the room with her. Annie wasn’t perfect. Lord knew she wasn’t. She overthought things. Jumped to conclusions. Held onto hurt longer than she should’ve, and when she got angry enough, she could say things sharp enough to leave scars. Yet somehow none of that changed the fact that she’d always felt right.

Right.

Such a simple word. But it explained more than all the others combined. 

Annie fit.

It wasn’t that loving her had been easy. Quite the opposite. There had been moments when loving Annie felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done. But even then, she still felt right. Like the missing piece of a conversation he’d been having his entire life. Like somebody he’d been searching for long before he knew enough to search.

The song continued. Smoke lowered his gaze toward the floor. For years he’d told himself he was protecting his peace. Protecting his heart and himself from disappointment.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe he’d simply been protecting a place nobody else had ever managed to reach. A place Annie had occupied so completely that every attempt to replace her had failed before it truly began. The thought should’ve bothered him.

Instead, it felt suspiciously close to relief.

For years he’d told himself there had to be a reason nobody else ever felt right. There had to be a reason he kept comparing Jada and other women to somebody who lived three states away. A reason eight years had passed and Anissa Marie Landry still occupied more space in his head than she had any right to.

It wasn’t because something was wrong with him. He wasn’t stuck, he didn’t believe. He'd simply spent years looking for something he’d already found once. 

Annie was right. Maybe she had just been looking for him. And maybe he’d been looking for her too.

The thought lingered. Then, before he could stop it, another one followed.

Maybe she was made for him too.

Not maybe.

She was.

Track 7: Thinking Out Loud

The track began so quietly Smoke almost missed it.

For a second he simply sat there, one arm stretched across the back of the couch, eyes half-lidded from exhaustion and whiskey and the emotional beating Annie had spent the last several hours delivering through a collection of songs. The house had gone quiet around him hours ago. The kitchen clock ticked steadily somewhere behind him. Outside, the night pressed against the windows in a blanket of darkness broken only by the occasional passing headlights.

Then the opening notes drifted through the speakers. Smoke’s eyes opened completely. Recognition arrived immediately. Not because he remembered the title. Shit, if somebody had asked him what the song was called, he probably couldn’t have answered. But he knew the song. More importantly, he knew exactly where he knew it from.

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Man.”

The word escaped quietly into the empty house.

Out of every song Annie could’ve chosen, somehow she’d found this one.

The memory came so fast it almost felt like being pulled backward through time. One minute he was twenty-six years old sitting in the middle of his living room. The next he was fourteen years old standing inside Rollers Skating Rink with rented skates laced too tight around his ankles and half the church youth group packed inside.

The place smelled like floor wax, popcorn, sweat, and stale nacho cheese. Colored lights swept across the rink while music echoed through speakers that had probably been outdated before any of them were born. Every few minutes, somebody crashed into somebody else, and laughter erupted from somewhere across the building.

Smoke had spent most of the evening regretting coming. Skating wasn’t his thing. If he’d had his way, he’d be sitting at home. But his mama informed him that sitting in the house all weekend wasn’t a personality trait and practically shoved him out the door. Stack had spent the entire ride there acting like the church had personally organized the event for his entertainment.

Unfortunately, the night had gone exactly the way Stack wanted. He was in his element. He was showing off and making a fucking fool of himself while a cluster of girls laughed at everything he said. Every time Smoke looked up, Stack was somehow at the center of another conversation.

Smoke had no interest in any of that. He’d been perfectly content skating slow laps around the edge of the rink and counting down the minutes until their mama decided they’d stayed long enough.

Then the youth pastor announced a partner challenge.

Looking back now, he couldn’t remember what the challenge actually was. He couldn’t tell you the rules, the prize, or whether anybody even won. What he remembered was standing near the wall when the youth leader started pairing people together and noticing there weren’t enough partners left.

The youth leader barely finished explaining the challenge before everybody started scrambling for partners. Stack wasted no time, calling dibs on a girl before half the room even understood the rules. Across the rink, Pearline laughed as one of the girls from church grabbed her arm and claimed her for their team. Within seconds everybody seemed to have found somebody. 

Everybody except Smoke and Annie. 

Smoke noticed it at the exact same time Annie did. Her eyes met his briefly before darting away.

Neither moved.

The youth leader looked between them and laughed. “Boom, there you go.”

Annie dropped her gaze to her skates. Smoke rolled his eyes.

The youth leader sighed dramatically. “Y’all act like I told you to get married.”

That only made things worse. 

A few minutes later they found themselves skating side by side. The awkwardness lasting all of ten minutes. Annie talked too much for awkwardness to survive around her. Every time the conversation threatened to die, she dragged it back to life with another question. Another observation. Another completely random thought that somehow made perfect sense inside her head. By the third lap she’d gotten him talking. By the fourth they were arguing about music. By the fifth Smoke found himself looking forward to whatever ridiculous thing was about to come out of her mouth next.

The crazy part was that Annie wasn’t even trying. She wasn’t flirting, showing off, or doing any of the things girls usually did when they wanted his attention. She was simply being herself. At one point she started skating backwards while carrying on an entire conversation.

Smoke stared at her. “You gon’ break yo’ neck.”

“I’m fine.”

“You ain’t even lookin’.”

“I know where I’m goin’.”

“Do you?”

Annie laughed. The sound followed him halfway around the rink. 

The music changed a few minutes later.

Smoke didn’t think much of it at first. Songs had been rotating all night. Some people cheered when they recognized one. Others groaned dramatically before continuing whatever conversation they were already having. The speakers crackled slightly as the next track started, and for a second nobody paid much attention.

Then Annie gasped. The sound caught his attention.

“Oh, I love this song.”

Smoke glanced toward the ceiling speakers before looking back at her. “Nah.”

Annie blinked. “Nah what?”

“I ain’t skatin’ to this.”

Her expression shifted instantly. Confusion first. Then suspicion. “Why?”

Smoke pointed vaguely toward the music overhead. “Cause this some white people shit.”

She shot him such an offended look that he almost laughed.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“If you actually listened to the words, they’re beautiful.”

Smoke snorted. “Aight.”

“No. Not aight.” Annie folded her arms.

The movement nearly threw her off balance and she corrected herself with an irritated little skate adjustment that only made her look more annoyed.

“Sorry, this ain’t Lil Wayne. 

Now it was Smoke’s turn to be offended. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Weezy F. Baby, girl.”

“Of course you’d say that. Every song can’t be about sex, selling drugs and threatening people, you know.”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

“There is when it’s all you listen to.”

“It ain’t all I listen to.”

“Sure it ain’t.”

The argument continued for another lap around the rink before Annie finally threw her hands into the air.

“You know what? Forget it.”

Smoke didn’t like that tone. “What?”

“I’m done arguing with you.” Then she pointed toward the center of the floor where couples were beginning to gather. “I’m gonna skate by myself.”

The words shouldn’t have mattered. Looking back now, Smoke knew that. She wasn’t leaving, going home, or disappearing. She was moving maybe twenty feet away. Yet something unpleasant sat low in his stomach anyway.

Annie started pushing off before he could fully understand why.

For the first time all evening, the thought of her not being beside him felt wrong. The thought arrived quietly. So quietly that fourteen-year-old Smoke almost missed it. Somewhere over the last hour he’d gotten used to her. The questions, her laughter and used to looking over and finding her beside him. The idea of spending the rest of the night without any of that suddenly felt far less appealing than it should have.

“Annie.”

She stopped and turned. “What?”

Smoke regretted speaking, because now he had to explain himself. His ears felt warm.

“I mean…”

Annie waited. One eyebrow slowly rising.

“If you wanna skate…”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “You wanna skate to the white people  music?”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “Man, shut up.”

Annie laughed. “No, answer the question.”

The smile she was trying to hide made it difficult to stay annoyed.

Smoke shook his head. Then finally looked at her. “I wanna skate… with you.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. Before he could make them sound cooler, or could pretend they meant something else.

For a moment Annie just stared at him. She wasn’t laughing or teasing him. Just looking. Then something flickered in her expression. Surprise. The honest kind. Then, slowly, she smiled. The smile was different from the others she’d given him all night. Smaller…softer. Like she’d suddenly become aware of something she couldn’t quite name.

Without saying another word, she held out her hand. Smoke looked at it for half a second before taking it. Her fingers were warm.

That was all.

Nothing dramatic happened. The lights didn’t get brighter. The music didn’t swell. Nobody stopped skating. The world continued exactly as it had thirty seconds earlier. Yet Smoke became painfully aware of the fact that he was holding Annie’s hand. The awareness followed him straight into the slow skate.

Around them, teenagers paired off beneath the colored lights while the song echoed through the speakers. Some couples talked. Others didn’t. A few boys looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.

Annie looked delighted. She quietly sang along to parts of the song under her breath, mouthing words she clearly knew by heart. Smoke pretended not to notice. He noticed. Every single time.

“See?” she asked after a minute.

Smoke frowned. “See what?”

“The lyrics.”

He groaned. “Oh Lord.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“They aight.”

Annie gasped dramatically. “‘Aight’?”

“They ain’t Lil Wayne.”

That earned another laugh. The sound landed deep in his chest.

The song continued. The conversation flowed. At some point Annie stopped trying to convince him the song was amazing and started talking about something else entirely. A teacher she didn’t like. A test she thought she’d failed. Pearline threatening to fight somebody earlier that week.

Smoke couldn’t remember most of it anymore. What he remembered was how easy it felt. The strange comfort of it. The way an hour had somehow turned into two without him noticing. How being around Annie required less effort than being around almost anybody else.

That was the part that stayed.

Her.

The way her eyes lit up when she talked about something she cared about. How she laughed with her whole body, and she always looked directly at whoever she was speaking to. The way she made ordinary things feel interesting simply because she was the one talking about them. And somewhere along the way, he found himself wishing the night wouldn’t end. The thought surprised him enough that he almost looked around to make sure nobody had heard it. When the song finally faded and another one took its place, Annie released his hand and skated ahead a few feet before turning back toward him.

“You survived.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “Barely.”

Annie laughed again, then she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “C’mon.”

Before he could ask where they were going, she pulled him towards the middle of the rink.

To this day, Smoke couldn’t even remember what they were supposed to be doing the rest of the night. But he remembered everything about Annie that night. Her laughing, singing along to a song he’d spent years pretending he hated. Annie grabbing his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

And maybe that was the night it started.

A week later he would be standing in a crowded school parking lot listening to Jada talking about something, when Stack yelled from across the pavement.

He’d turned automatically. Not towards Stack—

Towards Annie.

She stood near the curb laughing with Pearline, her backpack hanging from one shoulder. The sight of her found its place in his chest with the same ease it had at Rollers. Familiar. Comfortable. Natural.

Annie looked up. Their eyes met. Surprise crossed her face first. Then a smile. Small and quick before it disappeared again.

Smoke looked away before she did, but the feeling stayed.

Looking back now, Smoke he’d spent years mistaking the feeling for coincidence. The parking lot after school. Football games on Friday nights. Church on Sundays. Cookouts at Aunt Cheryl’s house. Hallways crowded with students rushing to class. 

Somehow his eyes always found Annie.

At the time, he never questioned it. Annie had simply become part of the landscape of his life. As familiar as Stack, his Mama, and Uncle Lewis. As familiar as home. If he arrived somewhere and she was there, his attention naturally went her way sooner or later. If she wasn’t there, he noticed that too.

Back then he thought it meant nothing.

Now he knew better.

A fourteen-year-old boy standing beneath colored lights at a skating rink had looked at a shy girl with a quick smile and a laugh he couldn’t seem to get enough of. Somewhere between arguing about music, holding her hand, and wishing the song would last a little longer had quietly taken root inside him.

It wasn’t love—yet. Just the first fragile beginnings of it. The kind of feeling that grows so slowly you don’t notice it’s happening until years later, when you look up and find it’s woven itself through nearly every important memory you have.

Smoke leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. A fourteen-year-old boy had taken Annie Landry’s hand and thought the night was better when she was in it.

And whether he’d understood it or not, he’d been looking for her ever since.

Sometime during the night, Smoke fell asleep. He wasn’t entirely sure when it happened. One minute he had been lying on the couch staring at the ceiling while Thinking Out Loud drifted through the speakers. The next he was fourteen again, with Annie’s hand in his and her laughter ringing through the air. Even asleep, the memory lingered.

The sound of music pulled him back toward consciousness.

Slowly.

Reluctantly.

Smoke frowned before he even opened his eyes. Sunlight pressed against his eyelids. His neck ached from sleeping on the couch. One arm had gone numb during the night and the stiffness in his shoulders reminded him that thirty-minute naps and sleeping in an actual bed were two very different things.

Music continued as he laid there listening without really hearing it. His mind was still caught somewhere between sleep and memory. Then different lyrics rolled through the room and his eyes finally opened.

My face turns to gold

Hoping to find my way home

This place I don't know

No yellow brick road to follow

The living room looked different in daylight. The whiskey glass still sat on the coffee table. His bandaged hand rested against his stomach. The CD case remained exactly where he’d left it the night before. Smoke pushed himself upright and rubbed a hand across his face.

The song continued. Unfamiliar to him. At least he thought it was. Frowning, he looked toward his phone. It was lying face up on the coffee table with the screen illuminated.

Spotify.

The CD must’ve ended hours ago. At some point the stereo had switched back to the playlist he’d been listening to earlier while he spent half the evening finding excuses not to press play.

Mmm, take me home, let’s make love, real love

Take me home, let's make real love, real love

Take me home, let's make real love, real love

Take me out of the blue

Smoke glanced at the screen.

Green Papaya — Lianne La Havas

The title meant nothing to him. Still, he found himself listening to the words. Really listening.

Our hearts overgrown

Longing for peace of our own

Found heaven in you

Promise to be pure and true

The house remained quiet except for the music and the occasional creak of old wood settling beneath the morning heat. Sunlight spilled through the windows, painting bright rectangles across the floor while the song floated through the room with an easy warmth that reminded him entirely too much of Annie.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop listening.

Still mountains to climb

We will survive, still got time

Or maybe everything reminded him of Annie now.

The thought would’ve pissed him off yesterday. This morning it felt suspiciously close to acceptance.

Smoke leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The lyrics continued, soft and thoughtful and intimate in a way that felt less like a performance and more like a conversation. Not a desperate one.

Just someone who knew another person completely.

My partner-in-crime

Hoping you'll love me till we die

The kind of knowing that couldn’t be built overnight— that came from years. The kind that came from paying attention.

And suddenly he thought about Annie knowing he hated tomatoes, but loved tomato sandwiches. How he ate slowly, always taking twice as long as everybody else to finish a meal. How, when he was angry, she never pushed him to talk. She’d simply sit beside him in comfortable silence because she knew her presence mattered more than her words. She remembered the houses he used to draw in the margins of his notebooks. She knew he always reached for the corner piece of cornbread. She could tell when he was lying before he’d even finished the sentence.

She knew him. 

The truth quietly fell into place. Even after everything that had happened, and the years between them, Annie still knew him. His gaze went towards the CD case again. Towards the careful handwriting on the front—to the evidence of an entire night spent listening to a woman explain herself in every way she knew how.

Something shifted. Not another revelation. Those had come all night long. A decision. Clear, certain and simple. Smoke stood so quickly he nearly knocked the coffee table with his knee.

He needed to see her, not call or text. See her. 

Today. 

Now. 

Before fear had another chance to talk and pride convinced him to stay home. Before he could come up with a single excuse not to go. The urgency surprised him. One minute he was sitting on the couch and the next he was looking for his keys. 

The kitchen counter. Nothing. Coffee table. Nothing. End table. Nope…not there either.

Smoke frowned. “Where the fuck…”

He checked the kitchen again. Then checked the coffee table again. Then stopped. The keys were already in his hand. For a moment he simply stared at them. Annoyed. Half awake. Entirely too tired to be trusted.

A laugh escaped him. His shirt was still missing. He was standing in the middle of his house wearing nothing but sweatpants and determination.

He didn’t care.

For the first time in years, he knew exactly what he wanted. And for once, he intended to do something about it.

Then came the knock. Three soft taps against the front door. Smoke froze, he thought he’d imagined it. Then the sound came again. Softer this time. His heart kicked hard against his ribs. Because somehow he already knew. The distance between the living room and the front door had never felt longer. He crossed it anyway. Slowly at first. Then faster. His hand closed around the knob. For one brief second he simply stood there. Then he opened the door—

And there she was.

Morning sunlight spilled across the porch behind her. She stood there with her braids pulled into a high ponytail and a pale yellow dress that made it entirely too easy to stare. The color shouldn’t have done anything for him. It was just yellow. Yet somehow it made her look more beautiful against her smooth chocolate skin. Brighter. Like she’d carried a piece of the morning with her. 

Her hands were clasped loosely in front of her, fingers lacing and unlacing together while uncertainty flickered across her face. It had been a long time since he’d seen Annie look this nervous around him. Then again, maybe she wasn’t nervous around him. Maybe she was nervous about what came next.

Neither spoke. They simply stared at each other. Two people who had spent eight years carrying the same thing in different ways.

Then Annie swallowed. A small smile appeared.

“Hi.”

Smoke forgot every single thing he’d planned to say.

End Note: Y'all know Smoke is about to fuck Annie into a coma, right? Right. K, byeeee! ✌🏾💜

Tag List:

@partylikemajima @brownskincheyenne @lizbehave @anniensmoke3 @margepimpson @brownsugarcoffy @aellesa @lilblckraincloud @hdfen2474 @magnifique2be @chromexbarbie @loveabledovee @milkywayzard @katezy2x @nicanotnika @wakandamama @numb1smokeanniestan @sunshinerepublic @pennopencil @shereeluvssinners @chknnwffls @underated345-blog @thefutureemmywinner @shamansha @tnychellee @blue4everrsworld @girlmath101 @bananajoeclone @ayishia101 @summrsovrinterlude @mmbee675 @lestatthelioncourt @nyifly22 @storiesbyasl @thebumblebeesworld @thedutifulone @dealore @cocoagadgetsworld @hotebonynearby @sighsrollseyes @atpeaceinthestars @saralance03 @miss-spiders-sunny-patch @imqueenmelanin @cardi-bre91 @soufcakmistress @charmedthoughts @waitingtobreatheagain

[waitingtobreatheagain]

MY SHOW BACK ON!!!!!!! Can’t wait to leave way too many thoughts 🥹🥹🥹

[myheartsaysyes]

And I can’t wait to read them! 🥹💜

[waitingtobreatheagain]

Smoke’s interlude friend (also thank you for the credit I didn’t expect it to be the subtitle)…..YOU DID THAT! AGAIN. WOW.

Uncle Lewis showing the importance of REAL father figures and also knowing he could impact Smoke in a way where he really HEARS him because he respects him so much and how similar they are.

The song choices floored me to be honest like they really worked so well to showcase the emotions and memories that are connected to them. SAY YES. GARDEN. TRUTH IS. MADE FOR ME. GREEN PAPAYA.

Quotes I loved:

“Elijah belonged to Annie. Always had.” (This is my favorite canon compliant sentiment to see in fics because he always did. Like it seems simple but is really powerful when you think about it.)

“She hadn’t made him a playlist. She’d built him a conversation.”

“When she left, he missed her company, but never her presence.”

“The kind of feeling that grows so slowly you don’t notice it’s happening until years later, when you look up and find it’s woven itself through nearly every important memory you have.”

Also, Annie is my type of petty for can we talk lmaoo you deserved that Smoke. I also like the common thread of the different people who are the closest to him (Stack, Uncle Lewis, and then Annie in her first intro before the first song played ) in some way or another voicing are you tired of stubbornness taking any more time from you—the very thing that titled your world on its access since you were like 14.

I also loved some of the realizations he had which showed that the conversation had opened up what he intentionally had forced shut which is a good sign for how things will be different. Like the realization that he doesn’t have to change who he is BUT sometimes words are needed even if she knows you care, you love her, you need her.

THEIR MEET CUTE HAD ME SWOONING AND JEALOUS 😭😭😭. I think it is so beautiful for people who have the opportunity to meet their person from a young age and do life together so so cute. The way you described it as well. Like knowing this wasn’t just a fun night with an interesting cute and different girl, it was the beginnings of something he can’t even fully grasp the meaning of. Then how that preceded the stare in the school parking lot yeahhhhhh.

I also really like Annie talking about really trying with others but it JUST couldn’t work because the ghost of that love was both dead and alive somehow. It being the same for Smoke like they mirror each other even miles and miles and years and years apart.

& I know I give JustForMe a lot of smoke and I don’t regret it one bit and would prolly do it again tbh BUT seeing how he really tried to convince himself hey, maybe this would be fine. Maybe it could work. Maybe the feelings could get there. His heart reminding him though that’s not how you should feel above love and that’s not how it blooms. No with good-enough-isms. Annie didn’t need multiple auditions like a 10 round job interview to get his love…it just was.

The urgency among waking up. Having to see her NOW to find she had the exact same THOUGHT. Now, THAT’S what I call romance writing!!!!

& WHEN. HE. TAKE. HER. THRU. THERE.

Go ahead, and bite that pillow sister. 😅🤭😩

[myheartsaysyes]

Usually I have something to say, but I’m speechless. Thank you for these words—and for every kind word you’ve shared about my fics. You have no idea how much I appreciate them. They truly mean so much to me. 🥹💜

[waitingtobreatheagain]

Every Kind of Way preview

Preview for Every Kind of Way...Coming out soon!

A Smoke POV where he ponders on when he realized that he loved Annie.

Smoke had a tendency to get contemplative during the hours when the night sky slowly transitioned from black to gray signaling the beginning of a new day. The faint grey of the sky slowly filtering soft light through their room catching the gleam of his wedding ring.  As he looked down at his whole world who was softly nestled to his chest, his mind started drifting to how they got to this point. 

Love isn’t something that Smoke ever witnessed up close. The very prospect of love is something that he questioned the very existence of growing up the way he did. Losing one parent before you could ever know their love and being deprived of love from the other. Where love should have existed—malice, harm, and destruction were watered and nurtured to ensure love never had a chance to sprout. If the nigga who was partially responsible for him being alive couldn’t love him, what could he expect from a stranger. 

Annie was currently growing their greatest gift and he could not even express how much he loved her already. It only made his disdain for his father grow despite him being gone for a decade at this point.

He had one consistent, sustaining experience with love his whole life—his twin. While he loved Stack he saw that as automatic, almost like a genetic drive. He saw the phenomenon of twins almost as being granted the gift of never feeling the emptiness of loneliness. Another being beside you from the very start who, from birth, automatically understands you, supports you, and is ever present.

Completely different from meeting a stranger, building a bond, feeling settled just being in their presence, hearing a love song and suddenly being inundated with visions of them, and baring your soul while laying your vulnerabilities at their feet which gives them the power to potentially crush your heart beneath their heel.

Romantic love was something Elijah longed for and something that Smoke saw as a crutch. 

Until her. 

Full one shot should be posted in the next few days! Will tag once the full fic is out.

[designlikenonsense]

P.S. if people want I can add more colours!! (please do let me know! Tumblr stops me at 28!)

[diviniyae]

wavy dividers

credit not needed. recoloring welcomed. feel free to edit as you need!

[robinavitchslut]

.✦ ݁˖ 𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 .✦ ݁˖

some random gradients i made, credit not necessary but appreciated, i'd love to see how you use them <333 more below the cut, the post got too long!!

𑣲⋆ blue and orange

𑣲⋆ cotton candy

𑣲⋆ pink and blue

𑣲⋆ pink and green

𑣲⋆ pink and orange

𑣲⋆ pink and purple

𑣲⋆ pink and yellow

𑣲⋆ purple and yellow

𑣲⋆ pink and white

𑣲⋆ purple and blue

𑣲⋆ purple and green

𑣲⋆ pastel rainbow

[rpclefairy]

growing closer.

prompts for characters getting to know each other.

“i don't think you realize how much people notice you.”

“you don't seem particularly trusting. then again, maybe neither am i.”

“you have a habit of appearing at interesting moments.”

“you strike me as someone who trusts their gut. am i wrong?”

“i've noticed you always leave before everyone else.”

“i think you enjoy keeping people guessing.”

“you seem restless.”

“it's strange how you can be surrounded by people and still feel alone.”

“have i ever told you that you're difficult to read?”

“you look like you haven't slept.”

“you know this place well enough that i'm starting to wonder if you've always lived here.”

“do you ever worry about the kind of person you're becoming?”

“i've known a lot of people. none of them were quite like you.”

“i can't decide whether people truly change, or if they just become better at hiding parts of themselves.”

“i had the strangest dream last night. do you remember yours when you wake up?”

“the more i get to know you, the more i keep noticing little similarities between the two of us.”

“i didn't realize you'd remember that.”

“most people seem uncomfortable with silence. i never minded it much.”

“you seem to know more than you're saying.”

“you seem comfortable on your own. i wonder if that's the same thing as never feeling lonely.”

“do you always look this serious?”

“you're easier to talk to than i expected.”

“i've always thought trust is harder to earn than people pretend.”

“you always seem to be watching.”

“i think you've been avoiding me.”

“you're not at all what i thought you would be.”

“whenever i ignore my instincts, i end up regretting it. what about you?”

“i wasn't expecting to run into you again.”

“i can't tell if you're someone who enjoys solitude or just tolerates it.”

“i know it sounds childish, but i can't help believing some people are meant to find one another.”

“you make a terrible liar.”

“you don't strike me as the sort of person people forget.”

“i think people underestimate you.”

“i can't decide whether you're charming or frustrating.”

“i don't think i've seen you smile before.”

“i wasn't sure you'd come.”

“it's a little strange. i think i've started looking forward to seeing you.”

“sometimes i wonder if we ever really know anyone.”

“you're surprisingly good company.”

“i think most people would like to believe they're good. i'm not sure it's always that simple.”

“i think being truly understood is a far rarer thing than people realize.”

“i don't usually tell people this...”

“you make that look easy.”

[dweetling]

Second Thoughts & Cold Feet

slightly suggestive but relatively tame prompts fitting for one night stands & unhealthy relationships - written by max

“Are you saying last night was a mistake?”

“Last night . . . was a mistake.”

“I’m not sure if I can go through with this.”

“It wasn’t meant to last, you and I.”

“As much as I’d love to do that again . . . I can’t.”

“As much as I loved every second of it . . . never again.”

“We really shouldn’t . . .”

“I can’t do it. I can’t quit you.”

“I’m not sure I can be with you . . . like this.”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet . . .”

“What, you’re having second thoughts?”

“Does it scare you? The way I can make you feel?”

“If you want it so bad, why can’t you let yourself have it?”

“I’ve seen how this story ends. One of us gets left at an altar somewhere and the other is never the same again.”

“I want you. But I shouldn’t.”

“Damn it. I can’t do this anymore.”

[pinkkfantasy]

The job search has been draining tf outta me but I’m gonna work on the next chapter of Sprung this weekend.

But I’m gonna publish a Drabble of Smoke x OC. It will be about her evolving body/weight gain and Smoke reassuring her that she is always beautiful no matter what in only a way he can (hehehe 😈🍆).

[lestatthelioncourt]

Personal Writing/health tips from yours truly

I've been trying to dissect what the hell is going on with my lack of being able to write. Then I remembered I actually had/have too much going on, and need to take a different mental approach within myself. So I can actually finish my chapters. I'm sharing the self realizations with y'all. In case other writers or people need to see it too! I'm not a professional or anything just into writing fanfic 😭 so think of reading this as a peer or something. I'm just tryna help lol

1. Don't be hard on yourself!!

Even if you REAALLY REALLY REALLY want to get a chapter out and it's making you mad. Back off for a moment and take a break, even if it's longer than you wanted. Nothing is more important than taking a moment and then reassessing!

2. If so much is happening in LIFE don't let that upset you. Go back when you can.

This past year for me has been crazy, so I've noticed I've been really hard on myself for what I WANT to do. But realized it's not just my writing that I had to take a pause on. It was ALL of my hobbies, I have school, family, work, and those are responsibilities I need to get and do. Writing/other hobbies naturally comes second. They don't always fit, but when the time comes it will come! I'm slowly creeping back from the break, even if it was months long and that's okay! Ugh!

3. Only add pressure/timelines when you can handle it

Okay to be honest I was really eager to drop chapters earlier but then other stuff popped up. So it's not like I DIDNT want to drop shit fast as hell. But then well stuff happened. So with how unpredictable life can be, I should've taken the "coming soons" back. But we ball. Technically soon is better than never 😬 but the take away is don't rush yourself, writing is an art we ain't AI LMAO

4. Rest oh I beg

This is a general rule but please go to sleep like actually just lay down and do nothing. Close your eyes, it's great after a long week lol. The writing can wait, but it can't be done if you can barely think. And that's with anything!

-----

Struggling to actually write at all? Try thinking like this idk man

You don't need to rush because someone out there is always excited to see what you've written!

Love the Internet for that, so uhm even if it takes months hell even near a year for an update. Someone will find it, and be like YAAY. And if you are new, trust with a few things especially on Tumblr they are gonna eat it up!

Also remember writing takes time, and if it's not the top of your list of things right now. What's cool is that it's easy to revisit. And you can always slash out works you don't wanna finish. Or change whatever it stumping you. Hell I remembered I can just do whatever the hell I want, and it don't have to be hella accurate. It's only fanfic, i'm just a perfectionist who needs to chill at the end of the day. Lmao so don't fret guys.

Indulge in other media, take some time to bring back that spark that brought you to writing in the first place. Lucky for me I don't do it as a full-time job sooo I don't gotta lock in for a paycheck. It's all for fun!! Remember guys it's for fun!! So if it's like aah take a moment. Reassess, and then come back with a bang. On your own terms.

Okay I'm done yapping hope this helps someone but especially myself 😭😭

[waitingtobreatheagain]

These two one shots are more involved than I anticipated but they are still coming! 😅😅😅

[thebumblebeesworld]

ALL • CONSUMING • DESIRE

modern!au annie x smoke

preview: When it came to Annie, Smoke grew soft. It was something she had teased him about early on in their relationship because no matter how much she pissed him off, he was always going to give her whatever she wanted. She commanded his attention with ease, and how can you blame him when she pled with such a pretty, whiny voice; when she batted her eyelashes and apologized for doing what she shouldn't have?

They'd end up in this position again—with her not listening and doing something she had no business doing—but for now, he was giving in, letting her have it, and showing her just the type of rough nigga he could be—because she'd asked.

cw: smut, daddy!smoke, baby!girl!annie, bratty!annie, orgasm denial, possessive, spanking, aftercare, use of the nword

a/n: this was requested!!! i worked more on the build up of the scene but yessss. send me more requests fr because this was funnnn

masterlist

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

She needed this.

This moment alone after her shitty day at work. This time to herself after putting up with Smoke acting like he could run shit. This was her damn house that she took care of. Fuck it if Elijah fronted a few bills. He only did it because he was a control freak. But this was Annie’s house, her business, and she needed this.

That morning, she realized she was out of coffee creamer after the pot had already been made, and Annie needed a perfect, homemade cup of coffee with her hazelnut creamer to start her day right. Then, her pantyhose ripped on the way out the door, and she hadn’t shaved in weeks, so it was between wearing shitty ass tights to the office or hairy ass legs. Then, she remembered that she was supposed to leave early that day because she needed gas, and since Smoke had been acting like he ran her life, she decided today would be the day she wanted to be an independent woman and pump her own gas. Then, when she showed up to work, inevitably late, her boss was standing near her desk with a stack of folders that took her all damn day to sort through. There’d been no lunch. No break. No chance to call her man.

So how could anyone blame her?

She needed this, damnit.

Over the years, Annie had found that when life was doing her in, the best way to fix it was to either manifest and set some intentions or to orgasm. She’d been doing the first thing often enough, and though the latter half of her day had settled some, there was a lingering frustration that needed to be overcome.

And her man wasn’t there to fix it because he had his own life, and his own house, and his own shit to do.

Reaching over into her side table drawer, she pulled out their vibrator. It was cute and petite and an electric blue because when Smoke had chosen it out of the sea of other toys, he’d commented that it looked “tough” (He meant to say that it would look good settled between her thighs and pussy lips as he used it to tease her later that day—but he was too shy in the environment to admit it). Annie twirled it in her hand, contemplating her next move. Smoke had put rules and regulations on their vibrator like he was the damn FDA, and the most important rule was that she couldn’t use it without him.

When she’d heard it, disbelief had entered her system. Who was he to be demanding shit? Who was he to be calling shots like that? He knew how sexual Annie was and how important an orgasm and pleasure could be. But Smoke saw that electric blue vibrator as theirs. It was theirs to explore with, theirs to use together. So if he wasn’t in her home and on her bed, Annie was not to be permitted access to it.

But this was her damn house. The house she made a home. The house she would have paid every bill for if her man wasn’t such a damn control freak.

When the vibrator hit her clit, a bolt of energy ran through her. All throughout her body, her muscles tightened, and a sharp gasp parted her lips. When Smoke would use it on her, he'd start all slow and shit, dragging it through her folds on the lowest setting just to piss her off. But Annie didn't want to be teased right now. She wanted release and pleasure as quickly and as easily as possible. Knees wide open, feet pressed into the bed, and head thrown back, she felt every ounce of the day begin to wash off of her. She started to forget all about the coffee and the pantyhose and the gas and being late and her boss and all those stupid folders. The only thing she cared about was how good her body felt right now and how quickly she was about to tumble over the edge.

~~~~~

When he stepped foot into her home, nothing seemed too out of place. He placed his keys in the dish and shrugged his jacket off. He removed his shoes and set them right beside the haphazardly-placed heels she had worn to work.

Smoke hadn’t heard from his girlfriend since that morning, but if he knew anything about her, the text saying she was out of her favorite hazelnut creamer was the perfect set up for an awful day. He’d already been at work himself, so he couldn’t save her, but he made sure to buy her a fresh bottle as soon as he could. Settling the creamer in the fridge, Smoke went in search of his girlfriend. He wasn’t the type to call out for her because she was the type to only be in one of two places: the living room or the back patio. And when both of those places came up missing, his attention was sparked.

It was like his body tuned in to find her. His ears perked up at every shuffle and buzz. His feet tingled with every vibration.

“I know she better not,” the man mumbled under his breath, gritting his teeth and already in motion toward her bedroom. He kept his steps light no matter how much he wanted to stomp. He needed to see this. He needed to look upon her wrongdoing.

The closer he got to her open bedroom door, the more her sweet moans filled his ears. He could tell she was exhausted by the whine that accompanied her cries of pleasure, and even though he wanted to halt her when he saw their—his—electric blue vibrator, he refrained. Shoulder pressed into the doorframe, he analyzed the roll of her hips and how her jaw dropped open when she shifted the toy upwards. He marveled at the sheen covering her body and how she went harder than he normally would.

He could tell she was chasing it, and as much as he hated it, he knew she probably needed this. Annie was a woman of order—after his own heart. She had systems. Procedures. Those misplaced heels at the door had been one sign that she was losing it, and her work attire which was tossed in piles on the floor and across a chair was another. He hated how much he knew she needed this, but he kept quiet and sat back watching the show nonetheless.

~~~~~

Her need had turned carnal.

She craved it. That release. That pleasure. That succumbing to her own body and crumbling as the result of her own efforts.

She’d been holding the toy in place, but now she was growing more courageous. She attempted to move and her body thanked her by releasing a tremble up her spine—encouragement that allowed her the peace of mind to circle her clit. She did it quickly, completely uncaring because if she was going to have this, she wanted it now.

Nails piercing the fabric of her sheets and feet grounding her in place, Annie felt herself tipping gloriously over the edge of her desire. Her body trembled. Her thighs ached, but that meant nothing because she was getting what she deserved after a long ass day where nothing went as planned. Bright color filled her eyes and her chest practically lifted into the air as she came with the vibrator between her legs, pressed right up against her clit.

And when she turned it off and the last buzz rang out softly in the dense air, her heart sank.

She was finally able to pay attention to her surroundings again, finally about to care, and the first thing she noticed was his cologne. Strong. Teak. Spice. It was his signature scent, and Annie could pick him out in a line up of men with her eyes closed—and she realized then that her eyes were closed. She was afraid to open them, afraid of the jumpscare that would be an angry Elijah upon seeing their—his—vibrator where it didn’t belong without his permission.

But, shit, this was her house and her bed and her pussy and her bad day. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted. Yeah—so believable.

There he stood: shoulders filling out the doorframe, eyebrows set in a scowl, jaw working in an effort to calm himself down.

As scared as she was, as regretful as she was, Annie could never deny the fact that her man was sexy as fuck. He was all shoulders and unsettling disposition, and that was the biggest turn on for a bitch with a bad day. Where her body had previously calmed down from the height of her orgasm, deciding that the awfulness of today had been rid from her, she was sparked again by greed to be taken care of by her Elijah. This was her bad day, and she should be receiving treatment from all sides.

“Hey, baby,” Annie breathed, shaky and sultry at the same time. She attempted a smile and her best and brightest soft eyes, but he wasn’t giving in.

“Put it down,” Smoke huffed, stepping one foot into the room. He had to gain control quick because Annie thrived off doing the exact opposite of what she was told. Her pout grew deeper and her finger moved back toward the button on the underside of the toy. She needed it. Turning it on and yelping from the vibrations that ran through her oversensitive body, she tried again to get her way.

“But, ‘Lijah—”

“I said put it down, Annie,” he interrupted, reaching for her wrist, but contrary to the response he hoped to gain, Annie moaned. Right in front of his face like she hadn't been properly touched or taken care of in ages. And that's truly how she felt inside her body. She watched her man scrunch his face in confusion and disbelief, rubbing the vibrator against her cunt as the feeling of Smoke's heavy breath brought her to the edge again.

“You in big trouble, baby girl,” he gritted, looking down at her, lust quickly clouding his eyes. His hand reached for her waist, but he didn't make her stop.

Got 'im, Annie thought, throwing her neck back in silent, wicked laughter when he began to kiss her pulse point. Her stomach curled deliciously, and even though she'd just cum, she felt like she could go for the rest of the night.

"Just give me what the fuck I want," she grumbled in his ear. Teeth marked her skin in response, keeping the memory of him on her body, and she laughed lowly from her throat. "Come on, baby," she coaxed, hips rutting against the vibrator and his left thigh. "Take care of what's yours, Daddy." The plea left her mouth raw. Her climax was near, desire at an all-time high. It was just in her reach, and just as her pussy clenched around nothing, Elijah sharply pulled the toy away from her.

Annie trembled against the sheets, orgasm ruined in a way that left her fluttering in disappoint. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and before she knew it, her head was turning away from her man's face.

"Turn over," Smoke bellowed, wrecked in his own unique way.

"Fuck you," she croaked, too concerned with the view of him putting the toy far out of her reach. She writhed in the sheets, throwing a fit at him ruining this for her. "The fuck you even doin' over here? Don't you got a house or business to tend to or something? Always in my fuckin' face." Every word was laced with annoyance. She was pissed, angry, livid, because her bad day was just getting worse and worse. Now she was in trouble and her orgasm had been stolen and she was having a horrible day.

"I know yo' morning started off bad or whatever," Smoke deadpanned, "but you ain't finna talk to me like you ain't got no fuckin' sense. Now turn that ass over."

Huffing and groaning—like she ain't want it when she really, really did—Annie assumed the position. Smoke enunciated each word to make sure she heard him good and clear, and the woman could tell that even though punishment was coming her way, he was also working to soothe her and alleviate all pain because he understood.

"You know better, baby girl," the man roared, hand coming down to rain hits upon her ass. Gasping, she grabbed ahold of a pillow, stuffing her face in it to hide her moans. "You don't touch my shit when I ain't here," he growled. "This my pussy, and that's my damn toy. But since you had such a bad day and you obviously ain't thinking straight, I'll go easy on you."

"Please, Daddy," she moaned, pressing her ass back into his hand. One spank landed on the back of her thighs far too close to her pussy for her to hold it in any longer. She rattled off every thing she needed done to her. She needed to be put in her place, needed to be reminded that she was his, needed to remember why it was important to listen to what she was told.

~~~~~

When it came to Annie, Smoke grew soft. It was something she had teased him about early on in their relationship because no matter how much she pissed him off, he was always going to give her whatever she wanted. She commanded his attention with ease, and how can you blame him when she pled with such a pretty, whiny voice; when she batted her eyelashes and apologized for doing what she shouldn't have?

They'd end up in this position again—with her not listening and doing something she had no business doing—but for now, he was giving in, letting her have it, and showing her just the type of rough nigga he could be—because she'd asked.

Each thrust of his hips felt like an ambush, stealing her breath, looting her ability to do anything other than cry out his name. He smacked her ass with each stroke, and when she recoiled against his pelvis, he couldn't help what happened next. Leaning into her, he pressed the arch of her back further into the bed, stuffing her face into her emotional support pillow.

His thrusts sped up, and his words came out wet and reckless.

"This my shit," he slurred, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose. "This my damn pussy and you gon' listen to what the fuck I got to say."

"Y-yes, Daddy," Annie stammered, clawing herself up the bed.

"Fuck you think you goin'," Smoke questioned warningly, dragging her impossibly closer to him.

"Nowhere," she avowed. "I swear I-I ain't goin' nowhere!" The woman begged for forgiveness and appealed for mercy, but all she wanted was for him to go harder, stronger, rougher. She needed it to help her forget what had occurred up until this point. The only thing she needed to remember about today is that she had wound up with her face down and ass up with her nigga fucking her into the mattress. The more he tightened his hold on her hips, the closer she got to that glorious restructuring of her brain.

Fucked out of her mind is what Elijah called it, fucked silly and without a single care in the world.

So close.

Almost to the tipping point.

When Smoke reached over to retrieve the vibrator once more, he knew this would be the thing to successfully rid her mind of any thoughts. He pressed it into her folds, rubbed her clit, held it there until she was stuttering all the while making sure that his strokes stayed consistent and that she couldn't possibly want for more.

"Imma cum, Daddy," she thundered. Tears fell down her face, darkening the cloth of the pillow, and the man knew then that she was ready.

"Cum for me baby girl," he permitted, and as she broke apart, he held her through her fall, succumbing soon after.

~~~~~

Sheets changed, bodies clean, and clothed in soft fabric, Annie clung to Smoke's body, seeking refugee in his hardiness. He stroked up and down the length of her back, and she slipped further and further into him.

"I bought you creamer," Elijah admitted softly. His eyes that had been on the ceiling took in the woman's face. A glorious calm had settled into her features but her eyes looked appreciative because he understood. He cared.

"Thank you," she whispered, cuddling closer into his warmth.

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

word count: ~2,800

a/n: i hope you enjoyeddd

taglist: comment HERE to be added!

@brownskincheyenne @bigjh @zer0productions @devonda81 @raysogroovy @terayne-4 @hdfen2474 @mbjswife @iiiheartfayee @nifniffy @nuttyinternetprincess @chrome-edition @my-name-is-h-u-m-a-n @sweetalittleselfish-honey @theegyal @known-only-by-the-insane @nanak0matsux @thugger-wugger @voidlesslove @massiv3tr33p3rsona @thefutureemmywinner @thelifeoflagab @itstayleigh @shamansha @margepimpson @everlucivee @katezy2x @chknnwffls @juniooox @milkywayzard @bbymuthaaa @zunibugsiren @strawberrylemonades-stuff @rkiiives @kitesatforestp @saralance03 @wildcardmelaninfreak @thevelvetwhispers @queenofklonnie22 @wakandamama @numb1smokeanniestan @mayday39 @bl3ssyn @blue4everrsworld

[waitingtobreatheagain]

Happy Birthday Tee! 🥳🎂🎁

Thank you so much sis!!!! I truly appreciate you more than you know & you are truly a special soul 🥹😭💗

[myheartsaysyes]

Aww! 🥹🫶🏾

[love4leoo]

spin bout you

elijah “smoke” moore x aneika “annie”

college and modern au

warnings: cussing, drinking, fighting, blood, ghetto shit, the n word, smoke and annie both young hos fr. childish stuff and very goofy.

an: heyyyy y'all. i'm back ;) i played to bad writing this but it was so fun. i wanted to write something playful after my last work. y'all was on my ass about them not getting away so i made y'all favorite couple have an eventful night lol. hope you guys enjoy and happy reading.

annie was sitting in her walk in closet, glancing up at all the outfit choices in front of her. she let out a deep sigh. the irritation was already there. she did NOT want to go out tonight. a bad feeling was sitting deep within her chest. all of the warning signs to stay home were going off but she ignored them anyway.

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

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

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

but that was a later annie problem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

jah jah 💋

why tf i just get into a

group fight at the club😭

aneika 😐

i'm otw

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

he shook his head and led her to his car still parked halfway on the sidewalk. he would go to hell or jail behind aneika so he couldn't judge at all. he was forever riding behind her.

[waitingtobreatheagain]

Happy Birthday Tee! 🥳🎂🎁

Thank you so much sis!!!! I truly appreciate you more than you know & you are truly a special soul 🥹😭💗

[waitingtobreatheagain]

I think I will successfully get on my Zoom so expect “Every Kind of Way” and “Morning Dew” tomorrow.

It’s my birthday but y’all get a gift too lmao.

[nika324]

Happy Birthday!!!! 🎉🎈🎂

May your day be filled with peace and blessings.

[waitingtobreatheagain]

Thank you so much, genuinely 🥹😭💗