Authors: Jae Hood
“You've never disappointed me.” His fingers tighten around mine. “But I disappointed you, and I'm sorry for that. I'll never keep another secret from you, and if it takes the rest of my life to make up for what I've done, I'll spend it grovelling. Because I love you, Six. Will you forgive me?”
I pretend to mull it over. “Yeah, I guess. Since you said you love me and all.”
The beginning of a smile stretches across his face. “Of course I love you. How could I not? It was destined from the beginning.”
“And I love you … but what do you mean?” This time the scrunch of my brow is sincere. “About it being destined from the beginning?”
Eight leans forward, filling the space between us. His words are barely audible against my lips as I concede to a kiss. “Someday I’ll explain.”
The promise of another summer hangs onto the cool coattails of the following spring, and with it the first birthday of my nephew, Dean.
“I can’t believe Evie’s had a birthday party every single month since this kid’s been born,” I grumble. “She had a petting zoo at the last one, with a clown. A freaking clown! How can she top that with his first actual birthday? Elephant rides?”
Eight reaches across the console and takes my hand. “It’s her first kid, give her a break. She’s excited.”
“Don’t worry. That’ll get old fast,” Madi pipes up from the backseat, fetching a fallen toy from the floor and handing it to Eli. He reaches for it from where he’s strapped in the toddler seat between her and Logan.
Logan bounces an oversized gift in his lap. “All this baby talk is making me want to have another.” He wags his eyebrows at Madi. “What do ya say?”
“I say you’ve lost your damn mind.” But she smiles, and I’m happy they seem to have gotten over the weird bump in their relationship.
Eight pulls into Evie’s drive and parks behind Ayden’s truck. Everyone piles out and heads to the house, except for Eight and me. He grabs my hand and we hang back, watching as Ayden waves to us from the porch. He’s got the birthday boy in his arms and a smile on his face.
Who would have thought a guy like Ayden and a girl like my sister would fall into an instant friendship? And from the way they look at one another, possibly even more.
Mom and Dad join Ayden on the porch, Mom with a mimosa in one hand, a relaxed smile on her face, and Dad with what’s probably a much stiffer drink in his. Dad lost his papa bear role the day his second grandchild entered the world. He formally apologized to my boyfriend and that was that. The two fell into a stiff relationship soon after.
Hey, everything can’t be perfect.
Or can it?
I ask myself when Eight makes a big deal of bending down on one knee. My mouth parts open in shock and my hands find their way to my warming cheeks. Someone whoops in excitement from the front porch and I don’t even hear what he says. I open my mouth, the word already solidified on my tongue, but then I notice he’s only tying his shoe.
My palm is already warm with the thought of smacking him on the back of his big, dumb head. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Crossing my arms, I’m fully prepared to stomp past him to the house, but his hand touches my ankle as I walk by. I spin on one low heel, my pointer finger thrust forward ready to give him the lecture of his life.
He grabs my outstretched hand, placing a scrap of paper inside my palm.
“Don’t just stand there,” he says, grinning. “Read it. I’m getting a leg cramp down here.”
With an unsteady hand, I unfold a familiar looking scrap of paper and read the printed script.
Look up and into the eyes of true love.
Lucky Numbers: 6, 26, 36, 46, 66, 106
“We have the same fortune,” I whisper. “Except mine had different numbers.”
“I know. I saw it on your dresser the morning I left you sleeping after your accident.” He laughs and shakes his head. “Freaked me out a little. That’s why I tucked tail and kinda hid out that day, watching you from the peephole in my apartment. I meet you and you’re great. Then there’s your fortune, and
mine
.”
Eight reaches for my hand again, but this time it’s my left one. Sunlight glints off a diamond ring he works onto a very important finger. “Six, the age I was the last time I saw my parents kiss. Baby, I don’t ever want to stop kissing you.”
I shake my head, tears welling in my eyes. “Never. Never stop.”
Drawing in a ragged breath, he continues. “Twenty-six, the age I was when I first understood what true love meant. The age I was when I met you. Thirty-six, forty-six. Anniversaries. Each one ten years after the other. Each one spent with you.”
“Sixty-six,” I say, smiling past my tears. “We’ll be retired by then. We’ll sit on the front porch of our house, hoping the grandkids stop by for a Sunday visit.”
“One hundred and six. Not enough years spent with you. Never enough. Never.” Eight stands, takes the fortune from me, and tucks the scrap of paper back inside his wallet. “Because I love you, Alexa Hannah, the girl with two first names, the girl who’s anything but a simple six.”
There’s no saying yes. No saying anything, really, because his lips are on mine, snuffing out the words.
But it’s yes. It’ll always be yes. And if I have to rate this day, I won’t rate it a six or an eight or even a ten. I won't rate it as anything. Because this day is off the charts. And why was I ever rating anything? Looks or relationships or otherwise? In the end, no one can rate true love.
###
Dirty South Drug Wars
Chapter 1
My family said the man in the long, shiny wooden box was my father, but I didn’t believe them.
My father had warm and ruddy skin, earned by working on his old pickup truck in the driveway. Days of being out under the hot Mississippi sun left his skin tanned with small cracks and wrinkles on the surface.
The man was pale and cold, his hands placed one over the other. He wore a gray suit the color of charcoal, so the man couldn’t be my father. My father never wore a suit, not even to church. And he especially wouldn’t wear the light pink tie that was tucked so neatly below the man’s starched, white collar.
The Montgomery family murdered my father, according to Uncle Amos. They took him down with a single bullet to the head. The man in the box had heavy eyebrows and thick sideburns like my daddy, but no bullet hole.
Wouldn’t there be a bullet hole?
Uncle Amos walked with me, hand in hand, while he spoke to Uncle Matt. The name “Montgomery” came up over and over as they whispered to one another. I’d heard that name my entire life, all twelve years of it.
Uncle Amos escorted me away from the box and eased himself down onto the pew behind me. I sat next to my mama and sister Lucy on the first pew of the funeral home. My little sister sat in our mama’s lap, a solemn expression on her round face. Lucy was eleven and very pretty with shiny auburn hair that flowed down her back in large waves. She had dainty features and big, periwinkle-blue eyes that normally shone blissful and twinkling.
But not that day.
They were solemn and fixed high above our heads. I followed her gaze and saw a moth resting on the ceiling of the room, its dark wings standing out against the faded white ceiling. Lucy’s gaze held, never wavering as she stared at the insect, lost in her own world, a world few of us understood.
Lucy did that from time to time, traveled somewhere in her own head, unaware of the things happening around her. Our daddy called Lucy special. Our mama called her crazy, but she was still my mama’s favorite child. I was too serious, too quiet. Mama didn’t understand me or my love of the galaxy, of science and poetry, or my love of reading anything I got my hands on.
No, I was my daddy’s child, his pensive little hunting and fishing buddy.
Family, friends, and curious townsfolk crowded the room. Flower arrangements signed with the names of judges and lawyers lined the space, sent by crooks my daddy claimed as his friends. Daddy called them “the Southern elite” or “the good ole boys,” and he loved surrounding himself with them.
The room quieted as a handsome man and little boy entered. They both wore crisp matching suits, their similarities striking. The man looked to be in his forties, with raven hair and brown eyes. The boy, no older than me, with a thick mop of shiny black hair, the color of a starless night, stood by his side scanning the crowd. He seemed undisturbed by all the people gawking at them.
Then his gaze settled on mine.
The shade of his eyes would forever be embossed in my mind. They reminded me of the fun things in life, like root beer floats and chocolate-covered anything. They were the color of the warm mud on my bare feet during the summer while catching tiny slithering snakes from the low-lying sloughs below my grandparents’ house.
Deep, dark, endless, and warm, his lingering stare captivated and unnerved me. I shifted on the pew, and the boy broke his trance-like hold over me. He followed the tall man down the center aisle. He clutched a bouquet of white flowers in his hands, his slender fingers wrapped around the deep green stems. With crisp white petals flushed yellow at the base, they were the most beautiful flowers I’d ever seen, far more beautiful than the flowers covering the man in the box.
Someone shifted beside me and I turned around in the pew, breaking free from my rude staring. Uncle Amos stiffened in his seat, his face a mask of bitterness before he covered it with an expression of indifference. He rested uncomfortably while the raven-haired man and the boy approached the casket.
The boy cast one last glance my way before he and the man met their destination. The man leaned down and whispered something in the boy’s ear; the boy nodded.
My grandmother sat on the front pew near me, but she stood, unsteady on her feet, at the sight of the man and child. She shuffled from the main area of the congregation, and one of my aunts assisted her. My aunt glared over her shoulder at the two unfamiliar visitors. Uncle Saul shook the man’s hand, a gesture I found odd considering the growing scowl on Uncle Amos’ face. It seemed as if all of my family members shared the same matching scowl while the noble-looking man smiled somberly at them.
Mama’s sobs faded away, dissolving into quiet sniffles. She scooped Lucy up like a baby, mumbled something about checking on Nana, and rushed out of the room. Lucy’s clear blue eyes abandoned the moth on the ceiling to meet mine over my mother’s shoulder as she was carried away.
Uncle Amos stood and joined me on the pew. He nodded in the direction of the raven-haired man. “You see that man, Ruby Red?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s Graham Montgomery.” He lowered his voice and bestowed a brief, friendly nod to a passerby. “That little boy is his nephew, Tanner. Graham and the little boy’s father, Tanner Sr., were brothers.”
I nodded my understanding, my young mind mapping out the relationship of the two males standing nearby.
“Tanner’s father died not too long ago, and Graham raises the boy now as his own. Graham Montgomery is king now that your daddy is gone,” my uncle said, his voice intense.
People quietly referred to my daddy as a king, but I never understood what they meant. We lived in a pretty decent house compared to others in our poverty-stricken state of Mississippi, but it wasn’t a castle. The two-story cabin and private lake where Lucy and I grew up were created by my father and grandfather’s hands. Made of rough-cut lumber, it certainly wasn’t a castle, and our father didn’t wear a crown. He only wore faded caps with chewing tobacco logos splashed across the front.
“Why does his uncle raise him? Where’s his mama?”
“She passed away when he was still a baby. Lung cancer, they say.”
Sadness for the boy flooded my heart and soul, casting aside all thoughts of kings, crowns, and red, furry robes. Even at the age of twelve, the relationship between Mama and me was strained, but I still couldn’t imagine growing up without her in my life.
“What happened to his daddy? How’d he die?”
“Murdered, just like your father. Shot in the head, the poor bastard. He never stood a chance.”
Uncle Amos’ voice faded away as Tanner and his uncle approached. Amos stood, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks, shunning Graham’s outstretched hand. Graham chuckled and placed his hands in his pockets as well, unperturbed by the brush-off. My other uncles abandoned their post near the casket, joining Uncle Amos.
My chest tightened when Tanner reached out, offering me the breathtaking flowers. Hesitantly, I took them, awed by their simple beauty. Pure and white, held together by a long, matching white ribbon, their smell mesmerized me. I closed my eyes, pressed the petals to my nose, and drew the scent into my lungs, savoring it.
“Death and innocence. How appropriate for you to present them to the child who just lost her father.” Uncle Amos’ voice was thick with sarcasm.
“Is that what they symbolize?” Graham sounded surprised at the meaning behind the flowers. My family glared at him from all directions, undeterred by the innocence in his voice. “I honestly didn’t realize that was their symbolization. I simply asked my nephew to pick out some pretty flowers for a pretty girl.” Both of his hands remained deep in his neatly pressed suit pants pockets. He rocked on his heels and shot me a smug wink that made my skin crawl.
Uncle Amos ignored his niceties, his face reddening with each second that staggered by. “We’re even now, Montgomery. We’ve both lost a brother because of this feud. Let’s end this dispute between our families once and for all. Let it end here, in this room, forever.”
“Ah, but I’m not entirely convinced the right brother is being buried today,” Graham said, his voice no longer friendly. His smiling face grew cold as he leaned back on his heels. “I’ll never be sure who killed my brother, not until every last Monroe is dead.”
The threatening undertone of the words he ground out made me shiver. I clutched the flowers between my fingers, hiding my face from the boy standing by his uncle’s side.
“But I agree we should make some negotiations, go over the rules, and settle some boundaries. The moment the funeral is over, you and I will talk.”
Graham reached out and touched his nephew’s shoulder then nodded his head in my direction, giving Tanner a pointed look.
“Sorry for your loss.”
Soft and quiet, Tanner’s voice was nothing like the firm, confident tone of his uncle. The simple syllables sent my heart racing inside my chest. I imagined the group of men could see it fluttering under my dress. I brought the bouquet closer to my heart in an attempt to hide the quivering behind the delicate flowers.
Graham smiled down at him and they turned, strolling down the center aisle of the chapel.
Uncle Amos sat back down. With one last glance, I turned to my uncle, catching his dark eyes narrowing on mine. Morbid curiosity got the best of me.
“So, who murdered his father?” I asked, anxious to get back to the conversation we hadn’t finished.
Uncle Amos stared at me for a long moment before speaking. “Can you keep a secret, baby girl?”
“Of course.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes at him.
He chuckled quietly, a cold, bitter sound. “You’re right, Rue. You’ll keep my secret, because you’re a Monroe. Are you sure you want to know though? It’s a heavy burden to carry, Ruby Red, knowing the truth when no one else does.”
“Yes, just tell me who killed him,” I whispered.
Uncle Amos leaned forward, making my ears burn in anticipation before he said two words, two words I’d remember for the rest of my life.
“I did.”
Dirty South Drug Wars
is available from most major retailers.