Free The Innocents by Ace Atkins

and knows how to work the magic on the still. He has some real sweet stuff he makes for special occasions calledbirthday cake shine. I’ll get some for you, if you like. I know your daddy appreciates a good scotch, but he ain’t above his raising.”
    “I know he’d like that, Mr. Colson,” Bentley said, getting to his feet and having to hold the rail of the chair for a little balance. “Good to see y’all. I’ll talk to some folks and see what kind of interest we can get down here. Always appreciate the hospitality.”
    Bentley nodded at Quinn and Quinn knocked off his cigar ash with the heel of his cowboy boot. His dad took a sip of moonshine and stood to give Bentley a hug and a solid old pat on the back.
    After he was gone, Quinn turned to his father.
    “You taught that boy to ride?”
    “Sure did,” Jason said. “Got real good at it, too.”
    Quinn just nodded and walked back to his house, the glowing lights of the front porch welcoming him back.
    •   •   •
    I got nowhere to go,” Milly said.
    “You got me,” Nikki said. “You can sleep on my couch tonight. I got an entire shithole trailer I rent from my folks. We could be roomies.”
    “You’re about busting that trailer, as it is,” Milly said. “You and Jon-Jon don’t need me and my crazy-ass problems busting into that single-wide.”
    Nikki nodded and passed the joint back to Milly, who took a long, deep drag and held it. They sat on a big pile of concrete blocks near the Gas & Go dumpsters, the Gas & Go being the only real action in Blackjack. It had closed up an hour earlier, but if you wanted to find friends and meet up, open or closed, this is where you came. On a good night, if you were lucky, the train might rush through town at two a.m.
    “Wasn’t that woman any help?” Nikki said. “That author in Tupelo?”
    “Hell, no,” Milly said. “I had to pay $29.95 for her book, too. I told her I had a story to tell and she asked me how I wanted my book signed. I wanted to tell her I couldn’t afford a damn book, but it was too late. There was a line behind me as we talked and it was like she wasn’t even listening. Just scribbling in her shitty book. All she wanted to know is if I had made a pact with God about not having sex until I was married. You know, that’s her thing. She writes something called
The Sacred Promise
series and she’s up to a book now called
The Christmas Promise
. Basically, every book is about how a man keeps on trying to get his girlfriend to take off her panties, but she knows how this might really piss off Jesus. She’s gotta decide between Jesus or getting laid. You got to read the whole three hundred pages until they get married and she can get nekkid. That’s what keeps you flipping pages.”
    “Damn, Milly,” Nikki said. “I’m real sorry.”
    “I spent the whole summer long writing in journals about things that’s happened in my life,” she said. “About my folks getting divorced, Daddy going to jail ’cause of the meth and shit, and what happened with Brandon. There are things that happened around here that people should know. Everybody just smiling and grinning like life is grand. The reason Daddy threw me out of his house is because I called him a coward.”
    “I thought he was pissed because you were dancing down at Vienna’s?”
    “That started it,” she said. “But I don’t think he would’ve followed through if I hadn’t called his ass out. That’s why he couldn’t handle Momma and why he shacked up with Big Charlotte. Charlotte won’t call him on nothing. You should have seen her there tonight, asking him for permission to eat potato chips. I bet he even tells that woman when and where she can take a crap.”
    Nikki was wearing yellow silk pj’s with green flowers and plastic flip-flops. Her hair was in a short ponytail and she had on her glasses because it was late and she had already been in bed when Milly called. Milly had brought the weed and they’d smoked