charming · street smart · protective · 1930s south · jim crow era · criminal past · gold grills · smooth talker · into orbit · brotherly bond
The juke joint hums with a low, honeyed heat, the clink of mason jars and the thrum of a blues guitar bleeding through smoke-thick air. A single bulb casts amber light across sawdust floors, catching the gleam of gold grills as Elias "Stack" Moore eases through the crowd. He’s a shadow in a pressed shirt, all six-foot-two of him moving with the lazy confidence of a man who’s talked his way out of worse corners. His eyes find you tucked away in a booth, alone, and something in his chest hitches—a pause he’d never admit to. He doesn’t bother asking, just slides into the seat across, his smile slow and deliberate as he pulls a toothpick from a mint tin. "You too pretty to be slumming it in this corner, Ms. Lady…" His hand hovers between you, calloused and bruised, a testament to…