Dirty South Drug Wars

by Jae Hood

  “I have a boyfriend.” I avoided his stare. “The guy I was talking to inside … that’s my boyfriend.”

  “You’re lying to me,” he said without hesitation. “It’s because of who I am.”

  Tanner pulled me into his arms and captured my lips. Nothing seemed to matter when he kissed me, not either of our surnames or the fact that our relatives had a long, bloody history. Time stood still, and I grew lost in his lips, in his arms, in the warm sense of protection he provided. For the first time in my life, something as simple as a kiss sent shockwaves throughout my body and I felt free, floating in the space of someone’s heart.

  Tanner’s heart.

  Josie’s voice grew louder as she searched for me, her persistent yelling pricking through the hazy fog of lips and tongues, of something more. I pushed myself away from him, breathless.

  “Stay away from me,” I told him weakly, trying to convey my seriousness with my firm stare.

  Everything within me screamed to run, to stay, conflicting my thoughts, but not confusing my words. Simply speaking to me was placing Tanner in imminent danger, so I lied. I lied with my words, with the way I retreated, step by step.

  Jaw clenched, he shook his head, looking absolutely lethal. “Impossible. I’ve never felt anything like the way I felt on the pier, and you haven’t either. Tell me why you’re fighting it.”

  Tanner followed me, moving forward with each stumbling step of my boots against the grass. He continued to blame himself and his family for my reluctance, not understanding the truth behind my reason to run from him. I begged him to let me be, but he followed me up the hill. My pace quickened the closer I got to the deck.

  Josie’s voice intermingled with an unfamiliar male voice. She stood on the deck, her brow furrowed with worry and irritation until she spotted me crossing the lawn. She descended the wooden steps, a tall, lanky, handsome boy with a head full of auburn curls close on her heels. The guy was drunker than Cooter Brown. He stumbled and swayed down the steps behind her.

  “Cassie, my fair Cassie,” he crooned.

  The guy grabbed her hand, ignoring the way she batted at him and struggled from his grasp. He fell to one knee, proposal style, the action so strange I froze in my tracks.

  “Do not leave me, my fair Cassie.”

  Josie shot me a pleading look. “Get this freak away from me.”

  She struggled to yank her hand away from the guy and succeeded. He toppled over on the dewy grass and laughed. Josie spun around and grasped me by the crook of my elbow, steering me away from the house toward the driveway. With one last glance over my shoulder, I saw Tanner help the guy to his feet. He practically dragged the guy beside him, running to catch up to Josie and me.

  “Cassie, do not leave me. For if you leave, you take my heart with you as well!” the guy slurred, stumbling over his boots in his attempt to catch up to us. “I cannot live without my heart, dear Cassie.”

  “I have a gun in my truck,” Josie said, her shoes clacking against the paved driveway. “I’ll be doing the world a favor.”

  “Who is that?” I asked.

  Josie said nothing, only pressing her lips into a tight line.

  Tanner and the drunk guy caught up to us. The guy grabbed Josie by her sparkling silver shirt. She stumbled for a moment before she turned around and slapped him across the face. The guy looked shocked for a second before giving her a sloppy grin.

  “That was so hot. You really lit a fire under me, darlin’,” he drawled, rubbing his angry red cheek.

  “Okay, what the hell is going on?” Tanner asked, placing a hand on the guy’s shoulder.

  The guy stared at my glaring cousin, stars in his eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and shot me a worried frown that made my stomach drop.

  “You ask her,” the guy said. He ran his hand up his white T-shirt and rubbed his belly, exposing his six-pack and happy trail. “I was just about to make sweet, gentle love to her in the upstairs bathroom when she went nuts and bit me, man. And I’m not talking about one of those kinky bites, the ones I like. She bit a plug out of me.”

  The guy pointed to a large, red bite mark near the crook of his elbow where a familiar black scroll ran up his arm.

  Montgomery.

  “Touch me again, Montgomery, and I swear to God you’ll wish it was only your arm I bit off,” Josie hollered, wagging her finger in his smirking face.

  “Promises, promises, baby. Look at my girl. She’s got some good, child-bearing hips on her, doesn’t she, man? She’s gonna look good running around the yard, pregnant and barefoot.”

  Josie’s face turned red and she began to scream like a wild woman, swinging her fists in the air. I snapped out of my trance and grabbed her around the waist as Tanner wedged himself between Josie and the Montgomery guy who was laughing hysterically at her. Josie was so strong she pulled me behind her, clinging to her waist. My knees were locked and I dug my heels into the pavement.

  “Okay, look. I’m gonna take Bryce home and get him sobered up,” Tanner said, dodging a swing Josie sent his way.

  Josie stopped her actions, her breath heavy in the night air. “Good idea. Get him away from me before I do something drastic. Come on, Mandy, let’s go.”

  Josie dug her keys from her pocket and hit the automatic unlock button. Tanner gave me a pointed look before I climbed into the truck, a look that told me he’d be seeing me very soon. I shook my head minutely, but he ignored me and pulled away a still screaming Bryce.

  “I’m coming for you, Cassie,” Bryce hollered. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, baby.”

  Bryce’s boots slid on the pavement as Tanner pulled him down the driveway. He continued to hoot and holler Josie’s alias, even after she rolled the window down far enough to flip him the middle finger. Josie hit the gas, speeding down the road in a frenzy of loose gravel and spinning tires. The two boys disappeared behind us, melting into the ebony night.

  Neither of us exchanged a single word for a long while, not until the front tires of Josie’s truck hit the pivotal bridge that separated our world from that of the Montgomery family.

  Josie took a deep breath and whispered, “Is it totally weird that I kinda like that Montgomery guy?”

  We stared at each other in seriousness for a moment before we both burst into laughter. It felt good to laugh after the emotional night.

  “No. No, it’s not weird at all,” I said after our laughter died down.

  The weight of the night pressed heavily on my shoulders. There was a long pause as we crossed the bridge. Josie broke the silence.

  “So, who was that guy you were with?”

  A warm spark of happiness burned deep inside my chest. Fleeting yet intense as it flamed and flickered away, it was a feeling I’d never felt in my life. I quickly extinguished it, knowing in my heart of hearts there was no chance for Tanner and me.

  Dreams of the moon and stars and his angelic face would have to keep me company at night. Expecting anything more was not only foolish, but deadly.

  “No one.” I pressed my face against the smooth glass beside me. Although the night was warm with the lingering summer heat, the window was cool, soothing my feverish forehead. The back tires of Josie’s truck left the bridge for what was possibly the very last time for either of us. “No one at all.”

  Chapter 5

  Josie and I developed a silent understanding between the two of us. After we entered Mayhaw, she didn’t question the identity of the angry, broken man again and I didn’t mention Bryce.

  We arrived at my house, and I was momentarily pulled from my deep contemplation. Lucy and Olivia lay where we’d left them, thankfully still breathing. Josie cast one last thoughtful look my way before she crashed in Lucy’s bed.

  My mind was too busy and too alert with thoughts of Tanner to sleep. I sat on the edge of my bed and faced the small bookshelf crammed with books nearby. Hesitantly, I removed a few of the classics that had been arranged by size. I placed them on the bed beside
me. Some of them had been bought for me by my father when I was a child as his way of acknowledging my love of reading.

  Some of them had belonged to my father himself, including the Mark Twain and William Faulkner books, books I’d snatched from under his old cigar table soon after his death. My mother never even missed them. She never understood his love of reading, nor mine.

  The pages of my father’s aged books still smelled of pungent cigar smoke. Memories of him sitting on his old chair, smoking his cigars as he read late at night faded in and out of my mind.

  Hidden behind the worn stack of books sat one of my cherished sketchbooks, the cover slightly yellowed with age. After pulling the sketchbook from the shelf for the first time in years, I stood and tucked it beneath my arm. I walked over to the sliding glass doors and pulled them open. Sitting in one of the plastic chairs, I stared down at the sketchbook in my lap for a long time before opening it about halfway. Time had worn the sketches from the book binding, leaving them loose and the edges yellowing. Some of the old sketches I remembered drawing in my youth were absent from the book. Lost over time. But one drawing still remained after all these years.

  An angelic face peered back at me, a male face slightly round from youth. Countless hours were once spent working on his dark hair with my charcoal pencil until I’d drawn it perfectly. His cheekbones weren’t as sharp in youth as they were in adulthood and his nose wasn’t as defined, but it was still him in all his youthful glory. A twelve-year-old Tanner Montgomery stared at me from the page with curiosity and regret. Those eyes were the very same ones I’d spent an enormous amount of time perfecting. The exact color of brown had been practically impossible to replicate; sometimes they were too light, sometimes too dark, from pecan to chocolate. Pages and pages of sketches remained in the book. The eyes were erased and re-colored until I finally found the shade closest to his.

  Muddy brown, like the Mississippi River, and just as full of depth and unearthed secrets.

  In one sketch he held a fistful of white lilies, flushed yellow near the stems. The trumpet-like shape of the petals curved and swirled above his fingers. The white ribbon was tied in a bow around the stems and trailed down the length of the page.

  After shuffling back inside my bedroom, I searched through my old rollback desk for my secret ribbon. A tiny smile crossed my face as my fingers touched its silky surface. I pulled it from its hiding place and curled it around my fingers, amazed it remained stark-white.

  Changing into a camisole and sleep shorts, I allowed my mind to return to the first time Tanner and I met. I braided my hair loosely down one side and used the ribbon to tie the end, the memory still warming my mind. Once I finished the braid, I dug around for my old sketching pencils and found them in the top drawer of my nightstand. I carried the sketchbook to bed with me, leaving the sliding glass doors open.

  I spent the rest of my night drawing the contours of Tanner Montgomery’s face using the glow of the moon to provide a natural light. Hours were spent remembering his thick, low-lying eyebrows, perfect red lips, and the jut of his jaw. I smudged the charcoal against the thin paper with the tips of my dirty fingers, casting shadows along his cheekbones. Tanner’s face was the last thing I saw when I fell asleep as the sun peeked above the horizon.

  The alarm on my phone woke me sometime later. The sketchbook lay splayed open at my side; a white ribbon was loosely tied in my hair. Body aching from lack of rest, I groaned at the thought of working all day after the emotional night I had.

  After hiding my sketchbook, I took a long shower, threw on my required pink shirt and a pair of shorts, and avoided the suspicious glares of my sister and my sleepy-eyed cousin, Olivia.

  Josie had vanished sometime in the night. Lucy’s bed lay empty and Josie’s truck was no longer sitting in our driveway. Olivia drove home, and Lucy rode beside me in my Jeep on our way to work. My mind was too distracted to notice the tenseness between the two of us. If I’d been paying attention, I’d have noticed how easily she’d picked up on my mood, probably knowing something had happened during the night while she was passed out in a Purp-induced haze.

  The day started out as any other. Between customers, Lucy practically lay on the counter near the register, whining and complaining about her wretched life of ringing up orders. When she wasn’t whining, complaining, or ringing up orders, she was scrolling through her phone, wasting her life away on social media.

  Josie and I were too busy to be bothered with her attitude. Nana had called me earlier that morning complaining of a summer cold, causing us to become short of help. Our grandmother was in her sixties but had more energy than all of us put together, and that was obvious during her absence. Thankfully, all the cake orders were completed, but Saturdays were extremely busy, meaning I’d have to shuffle to make fresh cookies and other sweet treats to keep up with the demands of our customers.

  Josie was a fabulous decorator, but she sucked at baking. This produced a great challenge since our grandmother and I typically performed all the baking duties. With baking, it was either done correctly the first time or ruined completely.

  Josie was amazing at ruining food.

  It was during the middle of her third batch of horribly bitter-tasting chocolate chip cookies when the phone rang. It wasn’t like the cake shop phone rang constantly, but on this particular day it was nonstop.

  “I’ve already told you once,” Lucy’s shrill voice said into the cordless phone. “No one by the name of Cassie or Mandy works here. Stop calling, you nutjob.”

  Lucy pressed the end button with her thumb, eyes narrowing down at the offensive object. Josie and my argument over cookies paused, our gazes mirroring each other in surprise. The phone rang again almost immediately.

  “Will one of y’all answer that phone?” Lucy called in a sugary-sweet voice. “There’s a couple customers up front.”

  “Jesus,” Josie mumbled.

  We walked over to the cordless phone perched on the wall. The caller ID announced the number was blocked, and we exchanged nervous glances as the phone eventually stopped ringing, only to start up once again.

  “Do you think it’s Bryce … or that other guy?” Josie wiped her hands on her apron but didn’t make a move to answer the phone.

  “Who else could it be? We haven’t used those names in a couple months. Even then, we didn’t exchange numbers with anyone.”

  “How do they know where we work?”

  “I sort of mentioned working in a bakery,” I admitted. “We’re the only one in the county. Maybe they assume we work together? Who knows?”

  Taking a deep breath, I snatched the phone from its stand. The screen glowed as it connected me with the caller.

  “Monroe’s Sweet Confections. This is Rue.” I winced as I realized I gave my first name by answering the phone the way I typically did.

  The line was silent except for the tell-tale sound of someone pressing their hand over the speaker. My name, my real name, was spoken in a murmured voice. As soon as the words left the lips of whoever was calling, I hit the end button and slammed the phone back on its base in terror.

  “Who was it?” Josie asked.

  “No one,” I whispered. “I mean, they didn’t say anything.”

  Josie stared at me while I began to bake a new batch of chocolate chip cookies.

  As I dumped the ruined cookies in the trash and started on a new batch, my mind was lost in thought. Was it Bryce calling … or Tanner? Worry infiltrated my mind, causing my hands to fumble and nearly spill an open bag of chocolate chips. I hated that my momentary lapse into stupidity may have given a Montgomery my real name.

  If the caller was Tanner, he probably had it all figured out by now. He’d probably tied the loose ends of my rejection together, formulating a reason for my desperation to get away from him.

  Unless he doesn’t even remember me.

  Part of me hoped he didn’t remember me. A forgotten memory of a young girl could mean the difference between someone’s life
and someone’s death. Shaking my head in frustration, I was pissed at myself for agreeing to cross that stupid bridge and attend that dumb party, but if I hadn’t crossed that bridge I never would have seen Tanner. The risk we took almost made it worth it.

  Almost.

  Somehow I managed to avoid Josie’s critical, questioning stares the rest of the morning. Closing time approached and the phone rang again. Lucy huffed in the front of the shop. Josie darted from where she stood, explaining to Lucy she’d take care of the insistent caller. Lucy nodded, too distracted with a customer picking up a large sheet cake to pay Josie much attention.

  Josie ran back to where I was stacking cookies on a cooling rack. I hollered as she yanked me into Nana’s office, slamming the door behind us and locking it. I sank into the chair across from Nana’s desk. Josie hit a button on the phone that sat next to Nana’s computer, putting it on speaker.

  “Monroe’s Sweet Confections, this is Cassie speaking. How may I help you?” she asked in a bored tone, smirking at me.

  I leaned on the desk waiting on the caller to respond and wondering what Josie had up her sleeve.

  “Cassie? Uh … this is Bryce. Bryce Montgomery.”

  I couldn’t tell if it was the same muffled voice from earlier, but it was definitely the same Bryce from the night before. Except now he sounded sober, slightly nervous, and more than a little awkward.

  “We met last night?” It sounded more like an uncertain question than a statement.

  “Bryce Montgomery.” Thoughtful perplexion drawled in her voice. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Male laughter sounded in the background, a deep tenor belonging to Tanner. A thrill of excitement clutched my chest, constricting it around a racing heart.

  “You don’t remember me?”

  The smirk left Josie’s face at Bryce’s disheartened voice. Josie swallowed hard before taking a deep breath and bringing the sarcastic grin back to her face.

  “Of course I remember you, Bryce. It’s not every day that some idiot chases me to my truck yelling his undying devotion.”