Smoke had danced with the devil—and bore the scars like tattoos only ghosts could read.

He stood in the distance beside Sammie, the two of them watching the juke joint burn like it was a funeral pyre. Flames licked the Mississippi night sky, crackling like laughter from something long dead and mean. The air stank of smoke and secrets. The sun finally cracked over the horizon, casting the world in gold and regret.

Smoke closed his eyes, letting the first light touch his face. It didn't feel like redemption. "We take this shit to the grave. You hear me?" he muttered.

That was four years ago. Sammie left Mississippi. So did Smoke. Different paths, same haunted silence. They kept in touch—barely—but neither ever said what really needed saying.

Smoke carried it. In the hollows beneath his eyes, in the ache between his ribs when the night got too still. He'd lie awake, replaying screams that didn't belong to living people anymore. Despair wasn't just a feeling. It was a woman. And he'd laid with her more nights than he could count.

Until her.

Rain had been falling the night he met her, hard and fast like it was trying to wash the whole world clean. But she was the only thing he saw. Bright-eyed, unbothered by the storm, her voice soft and sure. She didn't pull him from the fire. She sat with him in the ashes until he could breathe again. She was a goddamn godsend.

He loved the way she touched his face like it wouldn't break, like he was more man than monster. How she'd stroke his beard and whisper things into his ear so sweet it made his bones feel warm. There were nights he'd stare at the ceiling and wonder what their baby would look like. Her eyes. His hands. Maybe that same crooked smile he'd lost so long ago.

But Annie.

His wife. Their baby girl.

The one who never made it to her first steps. Who never said "daddy." Who lived and died in the same breath. Smoke's heart twisted like barbed wire every time that thought crossed his mind. Even now, as he watched her hum soft and low in the kitchen—her back to him, her hips swaying gently as she stirred a pot like the world was still kind.

He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. As she passed by, he reached out and pulled her into him, arms sliding around her waist like he never meant to let go. His face found her stomach, the soft fabric of her dress brushing against his cheek. He breathed her in like a man starving.

Her fingers curled in his hair, slow and tender. "You know I love you, right?" he murmured against her skin, looking up at her through the haze of all the things he couldn't say. "I wanna fill you with that love... so fuckin' badly," he said, his voice rough, splintered by truth.

He squeezed her waist gently, not possession but fear. "I wanna have a baby with you," he whispered, his voice cracking at the edges. "But I'm scared, sugar... scared of losing this one. Scared of losing you." And in that quiet kitchen, surrounded by shadows and sunlight, he finally let himself be held.