Dirty South Drug Wars

by Jae Hood

  Of course he had a girlfriend. Why wouldn’t he? Cash was the epitome of a sexy, Southern, good ole boy. And he was obviously attached, yet didn’t mind shooting me a smooth grin across the room. I scowled at my attraction to an apparent playboy.

  Rambling guy continued to talk, his words slightly slurred from the booze. For the first time since he planted himself in front of me, I gave him a good look. Sure, he wasn’t the type of guy I normally went for, but was that really so bad?

  Maybe I should take Nana’s advice, not to get laid, but to stop being so uptight.

  Making a hasty decision, I slipped my tongue inside the shallow plastic cup, twisting it in my hand and loosening the Jell-O. The guy stared, slack-jawed, as I sucked the shot down my throat and crushed the cup in my fist.

  “Damn, girl. That’s so hot,” he said.

  Across the room, Cash stood, removing his arm from the redhead as he began walking. His tall body twisted and turned, avoiding the dancing teenagers, a murderous scowl on his face.

  Did this guy think one sexy grin was his way of laying some sort of claim on me?

  That thought alone pissed me off.

  “Hey, let me pop your collar.” I reached out and popped the collar of his über-preppy polo shirt.

  Cash grew closer, his body creeping into my vision. I denied myself the privilege of looking up at the handsome boy. Instead, I focused on the lusty face of the guy now touching my thighs as Cash rounded the bar and passed me by without a second glance. He left a hint of spicy cologne in his wake. Out of my peripheral, I saw him grab a red cup and head to the keg behind me.

  Cash’s proximity was overwhelming. My body crawled, my blood churned in my veins, and my stomach clenched in nervousness. I’d never felt this way before, and it was terrifying. All I wanted was to get away.

  All thoughts of seducing the more than willing stranger in front of me flew from my mind. I slid down from the bar, cringing as the wrong guy’s erection brushed against my thigh. A muttered, feeble excuse for fresh air left my mouth, and I darted across the room, hurrying through an open door leading outside.

  My feet hit a large, wooden deck. The river that separated Birchwood from Mayhaw stood a good distance away near the woods. A few strangers laughed and lounged outside, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. No one noticed me as I eased by them, hiding my face with my long wig. I jogged down the wooden walkway leading to the grass below. When I reached the grass I slowed down, noticing a pier ahead of me jutting out into the river.

  Once my boots touched the pier, I gazed up at the huge, white, full moon shadowed only by its own deep valleys and crevices. It hung surprisingly low in the sky and seemed to dip down toward the Earth’s surface. The sky was the color of ink and peppered with white, twinkling stars.

  I lay back on the pier and let my blonde wig spill out around me. Closing my eyes, I lost myself in the sound of water lapping against the shore, the crickets singing, and the frogs croaking their song of the South. Calmness overtook me, and I opened my eyes, searching the patterns of stars for my favorite constellations.

  Heavy boots caused the wooden boards of the pier to creak and groan. I was instantly aware of him. I tried to ignore the warm current that flowed through my veins and the tiny sense of panic of the unknown. After a deep, soothing breath, I disregarded the effect of this stranger and stared into the night sky. His dark boots arrived nearby, and I avoided his face that hovered above me, right next to the moon. An unfathomable amount of time passed before he sat down beside me.

  From the corner of my eye I watched as he lay back, his face only inches from mine and eyes fixed on the sky. It took all my strength to fight the urge to stare at him, for he really was the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen. I turned my attention back to the sky to avoid being caught.

  We said nothing for a long time. We simply stared at the stars as they flashed in the inky blackness. He eventually turned to me, and my breath caught in my throat as I reached for a lock of hair to twirl around my finger. It was me who broke the silence.

  “I was looking for Orion,” I said, taking a deep, shaky breath, “but I forgot he’s not allowed in the night sky until winter.”

  I regretted my words as soon as they left my lips, expecting him to run from the geek hiding behind tight clothes and bold makeup.

  “Orion? Is that a constellation?” he asked, his voice sweet and soft.

  It had a warm thickness to it, like molasses, and he sounded genuinely interested in my response. I swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Why is it not allowed in the sky?”

  His voice was tinged with curiosity as he turned back toward the stars. My body slumped in relief when he was no longer studying me.

  “Because the scorpion is in the sky. See? There he is.” I pointed at the constellation above.

  He followed the direction in which my finger pointed and looked at the sky closely.

  “They’re not allowed in the sky together, so Scorpius shows himself in the summer and Orion shines in the winter.”

  “Why can’t the two constellations share the sky?” he asked, his face drawn in confusion.

  “Um, well …” His spicy scent washed over me, and I filled my lungs with the smell, memorizing it. “There’re different versions of the story, but I’ll tell you my favorite if you’re really interested.”

  He nodded slowly, eyes on my face before they turned back to the heavens above.

  “Orion was a great hunter who spent the majority of his time avoiding people. He was somewhat nocturnal, hunting and fishing at night and resting during the day. One of those nights the moon goddess, Artemis, spied him down below as she flew across the night sky.

  “She wanted to leave the sky and tell Orion she’d fallen in love with him, but she was a goddess and Orion was a mortal. If Zeus, her father, found out her secret affections, he would kill them both.

  “One night, Artemis decided she couldn’t hide her feelings for him anymore. She began sneaking out of the sky to hunt with him night after night. Orion fell in love with her as well.

  “Zeus somehow found out about his daughter’s reckless behavior and hatched a plan to end the affair. He commanded a giant scorpion to drop down on the land where Orion slept. Orion awoke and began fighting the scorpion, but the scorpion killed him.”

  “What happened next?” he asked.

  “Artemis arrived just after it happened, finding her lover dead. She grabbed the scorpion in a rage and flung him high into the heavens where he became the constellation Scorpius. Artemis carried Orion to the heavens, opposite of the scorpion that assassinated him so they’d never have to share the same night sky.”

  There was a lengthy pause before he blew out a deep breath. “That’s the saddest, most depressing story I’ve ever heard.”

  I burst into laughter. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “How do you know so much about the constellations?”

  “My father and I used to search for them on clear nights. I’ve always loved studying the night sky, looking for comets and shooting stars. The mechanics of how everything works so perfectly together: gravity, mass, weightlessness. Imagine what it’s like to weigh nothing. I wonder if it’s like floating in the water with your eyes closed, or maybe something entirely different. The universe is so vast and so unexplored. There’s so much out there that we’ll probably never know about. The unknown terrifies, yet thrills me.”

  My proverbial word vomit caused me to cringe, and my fingers searched for a strand of hair. Silky and synthetic, I locked one piece around my forefinger and twisted it tightly.

  “Who are you?” he whispered.

  “What’s in a name?”

  “Everything. Everything is in a name. Your name tells who you are, where you come from.”

  I said nothing in response but thought to myself he was absolutely right.

  “If you won’t tell me your name, I’ll just call you Moon Goddess.”

  His fingers brushed against
my limp hand by my side. The action sent a warm, tingly feeling up my arm, a foreign, yet hauntingly familiar feeling.

  “Artemis was a selfish goddess,” I whispered, staring at Scorpius shining above. “If she’d kept her feelings hidden, Orion wouldn’t have died. Why would you call me that? I’m nothing like her. I’d never risk someone’s life that way.”

  “Why do I call you that? Because you’re beautiful just like a moon goddess.”

  My breath caught in my throat as his warm hand cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing across my lips.

  “How do I know you’re not just trying to seduce me with your pretty words? Maybe that’s how you seduce all the girls.”

  “I’ve never tried to seduce anyone,” he said, no hint of falsity in his soft voice. “It’s normally them trying to seduce me.”

  “Well, I’m not like most girls, Cash.” My cheeks burned hot as I gave away his secret name.

  “Cash? Did you just call me Cash?”

  Cash’s hand abandoned my face, dancing down the column of my neck. His fingertips sent chills down my spine, igniting my already burning body into an unwavering blaze. My heart thumped erratically as his fingers lingered near the top of my shirt. He quirked an eyebrow, waiting for a response.

  “The Man in Black … Johnny Cash,” I whispered. “Besides, you haven’t told me your name either.”

  “I asked first.” Cash paused, staring at my lips. “Mind if I kiss you, Moon Goddess?”

  The thought of kissing him made my heart flutter. “Most guys don’t ask first.”

  “I’m not like most guys.”

  I didn’t have to answer him. He knew my answer from the way my body responded to his touch. He studied my face with a furrowed brow, as though I could deny him. Leaning in, he captured my mouth with his own. His warm tongue slid into my mouth and met mine slowly, carefully, as though he savored the taste and cherished the feeling. I reached up and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. Fisting his hair between my fingers, my bones turned to jelly with each swipe of his tongue against mine. Liquid heat bubbled in the pit of my belly, popping and sizzling and sending my pulse askew. Our kiss broke apart, my regretful heart plummeting into my stomach and seeming to melt.

  “You taste like candy and smell like birthday cake,” he whispered, brushing his lips against mine, breathing life back inside. “Why is that?”

  “I had a few Jell-O shots earlier, and the cake smell is icing. I work in a bakery. Actually, it’s a cake shop. But we sell other sweets and party decor as well,” I told him in an apologetic voice, rambling, embarrassed.

  “I love it. I love the way you taste, the way you smell. Tell me your name.”

  I bit my lip and shut my eyes, relishing how his fingers drifted over my sensitive skin and the way he looked at me. I nearly cried when his fingers left my flesh to grasp my chin. His grip and the abandonment of his innocent exploration caused my eyes to open in surprise.

  “I have ways to make you talk.”

  I gulped as he released my chin and ghosted his fingers down my body. When he reached my pants, he tugged at the waistband. The tremble of my heart sped into overdrive with the knowledge of what was about to take place. For the first time, this night, this guy’s actions, they meant something to me, something to cherish, to cling to. This wasn’t a moment full of teenage reckless abandon. I felt it in my bones, and it stirred in the sultry night air, stiff and billowing off the river.

  Cash felt it too. A stranger to me, but somehow not, I could read it in every stroke of my skin, in each brush of his lips against mine, and especially in the resolution in his eyes. He was so beautiful hovering above me, like an intangible angel surrounded by nothing but the black sky, the twinkling stars, and the full moon.

  “Oh God,” I whispered once he tugged down on my pants slightly. His breath hitched and his fingers froze against my flesh.

  “What’s that?” he asked in an odd tone, staring down at my ink.

  My tattoo traveled from my right hip down to my lower abdomen. Aunt Maggie had taken me to a tattoo parlor on my seventeenth birthday. She had pretended she was my mother, signed the waiver, and gave me an encouraging grin. It was her idea of revenge on my mother for shaming our family by bedding a Montgomery.

  The tattoo was a bouquet of white lilies, the petals broken and crushed. The edges were brown with age and decay. Rips and holes covered the tattered petals. A white ribbon hung limply from the flowers and trailed down my hip. The lilies were flushed yellow at the base, near the deep green stems. Even in their broken, despairing state, the flowers were still beautiful.

  “That’s my lily tattoo. Why?”

  Swallowing hard with a strange expression, Cash stared at the lilies and ran his fingertips over the surface of my skin, tickling it and causing me to squirm.

  “Why crushed lilies? Why do you have this tattooed on you?”

  I bit my lip, baffled over the change in mood and his thick, strained voice. A heavy tension hung over us, darker than the murky waters churning nearby.

  “It’s a reminder to myself. To enjoy things while you can because even the most beautiful things can easily be ruined.”

  Pain flashed in his eyes, his gaze drifting back down to my ink. His fingertips lightly massaged my flesh below the almost translucent flowers. The pale moonlight fell across his body, highlighting his own ink. An elegant, black scroll drifted up his forearm, the same arm that touched my hip. My body froze as my brain repeated the word permanently etched across his skin.

  Montgomery.

  I uttered the word in shock, my voice breaking at the end.

  Chuckling nervously, the tension only slightly eased on his face. “Yeah, I guess you know at least part of my name now.”

  He flinched in shock as I jerked away from him, stumbled to my feet, and yanked my pants above my hip bones. My body was flooded with humiliation, sickness, and shame for letting a Montgomery touch me so intimately and loving it.

  Bewildered, he jumped to his feet. Turning on one heel, I darted down the pier. Low music pulsed from the house, the sound growing louder with each step I took. Each thump of bass pounded in succession with my heart. Nausea churned inside my belly, the lusty, liquid heat long since simmering away, replaced with bone-cold horror. I didn’t make it far before he caught up, grabbed my arms, and spun me around to face him. The house was still several yards out of my reach.

  “What’s wrong? Where are you going?” he asked, not even out of breath.

  My body was pressed against his. He was too close. His body was warm and he smelled so good. Why couldn’t he be someone else? Why couldn’t I?

  “Nothing. I’ve just … I’ve gotta go,” I said.

  Cold terror consumed me as my uncle’s words from long ago ran through my mind.

  I’ll kill you myself.

  “You’re lying. You saw my tattoo and ran. It’s because I’m a Montgomery, right?”

  Tilting my head up with his fingers, he held my stare, his confused and suspicious. Horror shone back at me, my own reflection gleaming in his moon-kissed eyes. Dark eyebrows knitted together, his expression demanded an answer, but received none. Lips sealed tight, I trembled under his touch, but no longer for the same reasons.

  “I see it on your face.” Cash chuckled bitterly. “You saw my tattoo and began making assumptions about me because of my name.”

  He leaned down and brushed his warm lips against mine. I attempted to pull away, but it was no use. Fingers left my chin, drifted along my jawbone, and cupped the back of my neck. My body became a traitor against me as it pressed against his, melding myself against his hard planes, my lips parting, receiving his kiss. Warning bells alarmed inside my head and I broke away.

  He shook his head. “Is that it? Are you like everyone else, assuming the worst because I’m a Montgomery?”

  Cash’s words stung because they were true. That was exactly what I’d done. But if he knew who I was he’d assume the same thing. I tried in vain to pull away from
him, but he held me against his body and stared down at me as tears formed in my eyes.

  “Please don’t cry,” he whispered, his face bunched in worry, the words, his voice suddenly so familiar. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  I covered my mouth with one hand and reached out to cup his face. The teenager transformed before me, morphing into a ghost from the past—a little boy clutching a bouquet of flowers.

  It was him. He wasn’t just any Montgomery. He was Tanner Montgomery, the little boy from the funeral home. The boy who gave me the lilies. The boy I’d thought about constantly since the age of twelve. He stood there, right in front of me, in the flesh, smelling like heaven and looking like sin. Gone was that little, sweet boy. In his place stood a grown man.

  “Just … just pretend like tonight didn’t happen,” I whispered, stricken.

  The horror and realization of his identity washed over my body. My hands fell from his warm, smooth face. A look of hurt and anger crossed his features as I continued to speak.

  “Believe me, it’s best this way.”

  His fingers lost their grip and he rubbed his temples. Tanner shook his head and laughed dryly.

  “Is it that easy for you? To pretend that something amazing didn’t happen back there on that pier?” He pointed over one shoulder with his thumb, glaring at me. I backed away. His hands no longer held me back.

  “No.” I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. “I know something amazing happened back there, but believe me when I say you need to stay far, far away from me before something horrible happens to the both of us.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not letting you leave until you explain.” He reached for me once more.

  “I need to go,” I choked out.

  The sound of someone yelling my alias drifted in the stiff, warm breeze. Josie stood on the back deck of the house screaming for Mandy.

  “That’s my cousin looking for me. I have to leave. Let me go, please.”

  “I’m not letting you go,” he countered, his expression stubborn. “And you don’t want me to. Deny it, but I see it. I see it in your eyes, in the way you kiss me.”