The drive-through wrapped around the building in a slow coil that didn’t want to move. Sun sat high and hard. Heat burned up off the stained concrete and pushed through the open crack in E.J.’s window. The fryer hissed behind the brick wall and sent out a grease smell that clung to everything.
Kevin Gates rumbled low from the speakers, bass thudding through the doors. Dez kept time with it, head dipping, shoulder twitching at the hook. He watched the door like it might speed up if he looked long enough.
E.J. rested his wrist on the wheel and texted with his other hand, phone tilted so the glare didn’t wash it out.
Tessa: this job is boring already and it’s just the first day
He typed: ’yeah but it’s paying’
Dots showed, disappeared, came back.
’not going to mississippi.’
He sat in it a second. ’good. I ain’t want you that far from me’
’ yeah.’
He let the screen dim and set the phone face down in the cup holder. The car in front edged forward a few feet, then stopped. Paper taped over old prices on the menu sign clicked in the wind. Somewhere behind them a horn flashed.
They stayed quiet. The music did what it did.
Dez finally said, still looking straight ahead, “You be getting money with them boys y’all run with?”
E.J. slid his palm over the top of the wheel. “We alright.”
Dez nodded. “I just prefer runnin’ with a lil crew. Ain’t nobody forgetting you putting in work, too.”
“If people forgetting you getting money,” E.J. said, “then you ain’t getting enough money.”
Dez laughed under his breath. “Yeah, yeah. You right.”
The line inched. A worker shouldered the side door by the window and let it close behind her. Heat chased her out. Her face looked tired even in the short walk. She disappeared again.
Dez let the beat ride a little longer, then went, “You got a bitch?”
E.J. looked over once. “Something like that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I ain’t got no like main bitch but it’s always a movie, you know what I’m saying?”
E.J. turned his head a touch more. “Nigga, you talk a lot. You know that?”
Dez put a hand up like he knew. “My bad, I just get nervous sometimes.”
“Nervous?” E.J.’s eyebrow went up. “What, you jumped off the porch yesterday? We ain’t even got the shit in the car yet.”
“Nah, nah. You know how it is.”
“I don’t.” He let it breathe. “Niggas like Ant let niggas that get nervous hang around?”
Dez scratched at his jaw, smile tight. “Well, I don’t get nervous around him. That nigga fucking crazy, bruh.”
The worker came out again, hip popping the door. She had a greasy paper bag in one hand and two drinks pinched together in the other. She didn’t look at them, just shoved the food through the open window.
“Appreciate it,” E.J. said, low, already sliding the bag out of the way.
She sucked her teeth and grabbed the door with her elbow, yanking it open and vanishing back into the noise.
E.J. passed the bag to Dez and dropped the car into drive. Tires bumped over the cracked lip where the lot met the street. The light at the corner held red. Heat wavered above the hood.
Dez waited while they cleared the exit. “That kinda shit why a nigga like me go to Cane’s or Chick-Fil-A.”
E.J. glanced over, just his eyes. “Bruh, shut the fuck up until we get to the drop.”
Dez nodded. He started to say something else, mouth already open, then closed it. He reached into the bag and rustled past napkins, steam fogging his fingers. The bass rolled on. Cars slid by, fast and then slow again when the light flipped. E.J. steadied the wheel and followed the lane out into the hot afternoon with the bag heavy in Dez’s lap and the city pressing in on all sides.
~~~
The fellowship hall kept its own weather, fluorescents humming a steady pitch while old air pushed from the vents and slid over tile marked by years of folding tables. Caine carried two chairs in each hand and set them down with a soft knock, the legs landing on grout lines. The room still held a fading lemon-cleaner smell that had given up hours ago.
Outside the door, Caleb’s voice floated in, all business. A quick laugh that didn’t touch his throat. A promise to call back before the contract showed. Caine stepped out and came back with another stack from the shed. The hinges he’d oiled gave a short squeal and then minded themselves. He had the bins labeled now, cords coiled, chair carts where they belonged. In and out was easy.
He nudged the front row a hair to the right, lined the next pair, let his palm ride each back until the seats faced the same invisible point.
Low voices tightened outside the open door—Caleb and Laney, clipped. He couldn’t catch the words, only the feel. Laney’s short answers. Caleb’s wind-up. Then Laney stepped in, careful and steady, hands empty, eyes already counting.
She touched the first seatback, fingers quick, then bent to check the legs. The next one. Tap, glance, tap.
“I already got ’em lined up, boss lady,” Caine said without looking up.
Laney nodded but kept on. “Mmhmm.” She moved down the row anyway, like her hands needed a job while her mind tried to quiet.
Caine set another pair and sighted along the edges. “I got it,” he said. No heat in his words, just confirmation.
She didn’t stop. Another chair. Another check. Her fingertips jittered once, then stilled, energy hunting a place to land.
He stepped back and tipped his chin toward a bench against the wall. “Laney, sit down or something. I got it.”
She paused. Her hands found each other and started to work until she caught them.
“You know everything is how you want it already.”
A breath moved through her. She tried on stillness, half sat, then rose again as if the bench didn’t fit. He went back to the chairs because work was the easiest way to make peace.
“Why he don’t do this?” he asked after a beat, eyes on the line he was pulling true. He flicked a glance at the doorway where Caleb’s shadow dragged across the threshold.
“You need work to do,” she said.
He shook his head. “I know why I do it. I’m asking why he don’t. And you do.”
Laney shrugged. “We all got jobs.” It landed flat, neither defense nor complaint. She eased onto the bench this time, knees together, back straight.
Caleb walked in mid-call and wrapped it with a bright “alright then.” He dragged a chair a half foot out of the row and dropped into it, legs wide, the whole line bent around him. His gaze slid to Laney and settled long enough to set the tone.
“It’s almost dinner time,” he said. “You might wanna get home, because you know Gabrielle don’t know how to cook and them boys are going to starve if left with her.”
“¿No es una mujer adulta?” Caine said under his breath in Spanish, the words low in his chest.
Laney’s head turned a notch. She caught the words, the tone, but not the meaning. She smoothed her dress at the hip and stood.
“Let me finish up here then,” she said.
“I got it,” Caine told her again. Same words. Same weight. He tipped his chin at the door.
She looked like the protest wanted out, then she pressed her lips together and nodded. She started past Caleb.
“Remember that Gabi doesn’t really eat pork,” he said, stopping her with a finger in the air.
Something quick and sharp flashed through Laney’s eyes and was gone. “Alright.” She left.
The door swung, sighed, and settled. Caine stepped to the row Caleb had broken and put the chair back in its place.
Caleb crossed one leg over the other and let his eyes roam the room. “Getting good at this,” he said.
Caine slid one last chair into the back row, nudged its front feet onto the grout line, and checked the run of the aisle until the sight clicked. He lifted the stack cart back to the wall, coiled the extra strap, and let the quiet shape of the room settle.
~~~
Heat pressed up from the gravel and the busted blacktop, turning the lot bright enough to squint. Flags on a bent pole clicked against each other in a lazy breeze. The smell was tires and Armor All and old oil. Saul walked the front row slow, eyes skimming price cards taped crooked in the windshields. He kept to the ones with faded paint and hubcaps that didn’t match, the cars that would start if you asked nice and didn’t ask for more.
He stayed with numbers. Payment lines. Insurance guesses. Titles that might come clean if the papers were real. They needed something that ran and wouldn’t get them laughed out of an agency. Cheap enough that one name on a policy didn’t make the whole plan fall apart.
Down the third row a Hellcat sat in the sun, paint deep enough to hold the sky. Somebody had wiped it so hard the hood glared. Saul clocked it without stopping. That wasn’t why he was here.
He almost missed her.
Zoe stood near the front fender with one hand on her hip, hair pulled back off her face. The man they’d seen at the mall leaned with a salesman a few stalls over, talking low with that little forward tilt men used when they were buying. The salesman held a clipboard like it made him official. The man nodded and cut his eyes toward the office box at the edge of the lot, a single-wide with a window unit rattling.
Saul dropped his gaze to the Civic in front of him. The sticker said CASH ONLY and the pen had bled through the paper. He checked the tread on the front tire and listened to the road out on Chef, the honks, the off-beat bass, the quick siren that was already gone.
“Saul.”
He looked up quick. Zoe had already crossed the space between the rows. Up close the sun put a shine on her cheekbones. She kept her voice even.
“How you doing?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Alright.”
“I didn’t know you were trying to get a car.”
He nodded. “With Javi and Trent. None of us got the money to get it by ourself.”
Zoe’s mouth tipped once. “That’s pretty cool.”
He glanced past her and made a small gesture with his chin toward the man. “That your new dude?”
“Something like that,” she said.
The air hummed with the window unit’s rattle. A gull cut a line high and loud and then the sound faded under the freeway. Saul didn’t add anything to what he’d already said. He let the Civic’s hood warm his palm and read the cracked paint in the reflection.
Across the row the man called, sharp enough to carry. “Zoe.” He pointed toward the office with two fingers and then talked to the salesman again without waiting for her to answer.
“I’ll see you around, Saul,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She turned toward the building. Her shoes kicked little puffs of dust that stuck to her ankles. The man looked back over his shoulder, eyes cutting through the gap in the cars. A bit of anger lived there. Just a flare that said he’d clocked Saul. He snapped his chin again toward the office and the salesman fell in beside him.
Saul watched until the door shut and the window unit swallowed them both. The glass bounced his own shape back at him for a second—tall, thin, the sun sitting hard on his shoulders—then steadied.
He went back to the cheap row.
~~~
The kitchen stayed hot no matter how low they set the A/C. The air had weight to it, the heat clung to the paint. Mireya sat across from Angela at the small table with their laptops open, the screens lighting both their faces more than the single bulb overhead. The hum from the fridge was steady, the sound of it filling up the pauses between clicks.
On Mireya’s screen, the page loaded slow. The models stood in good light, all long legs and tiny smiles. The numbers next to the clothes didn’t even try to hide—three digits, no sale. She knew she should close the tab, go back to the discount sites, but her hand stayed on the trackpad. Then she leaned back and exhaled through her nose.
Angela made a face at her own screen. “I might really gotta get a job,” she said. “Living on your own tears your account up. I swear I blink and my money gone.”
Mireya huffed out a short laugh. “Tell me about it.”
Angela twisted a small hoop earring between her fingers. “They hiring at your job? I can clean. I don’t even care what it is.”
Mireya shook her head. “They only hire when one of the crews got an opening. And ain’t too many people giving up 18 an hour.”
“Fuck, but facts.” Angela took a drink from a sweating can, then set it next to the laptop. “You right about that.”
The smell of Dawn still hung from when they’d wiped the counters that morning. It mixed with a faint sweetness from an open box of cereal on the stove. Mireya checked the next tab, some cheaper site with pages that took forever to load. Everything looked worse.
“Paz being weird with you too?” she asked, eyes on the corner of the screen.
Angela looked up. “With me? I ain’t noticed nothing. She just gets mad when Tyree’s hard to reach.”
Mireya raised an eyebrow. “She know what Tyree does?”
Angela’s shrug came slow. “He goes to, like, UNO, right? He’s crazy for starting right after graduating. I had to take a break.”
Mireya didn’t answer. Her laptop chimed—an email sliding into view. She clicked it before she could think twice. The UNO logo filled notification at the top of the screen. “Your Fee Bill Is Ready.”
Her throat felt tight. She opened it. The screen lagged, then settled on the number. After the scholarship, she still owed $2,700. Payment due in under a month.
Her jaw worked once. She opened a spreadsheet she kept minimized, a running list she checked too often: rent, utilities, groceries, gas, what she paid Elena for Camila. The number for child care would jump to almost eight hundred a month once daycare started—days only, still too high. She typed a new line at the bottom, 2700, and watched the total at the bottom stretch.
Angela tapped her trackpad again. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Mireya said, still staring at the screen. She clicked out of the spreadsheet and back to the site with clothes she shouldn’t buy. The colors there looked cleaner, fabrics that didn’t pill after a wash. She scrolled anyway, a quiet escape.
Angela’s voice pulled her back. “Okay, tell me the truth.” She turned her laptop so Mireya could see. “Can I pull this off?”
On the screen was a dress so short it might not survive a bend forward. The kind that needed confidence to wear more than it needed fabric. Mireya tilted her head. “Don’t see why not.”
Angela grinned. “You lying.”
“I’m not.”
Angela’s grin spread until it softened into a laugh. “I’m trying to get like you, my girl.”
Mireya smiled despite herself and shook her head. “You stupid.”
Angela still laughed, clicking the picture to zoom in, muttering something about saving it for later. The fan clicked with every slow rotation. Outside, someone shouted about selling shirts. The sound felt far away, like it belonged to another world.
Mireya closed the window with the expensive clothes and opened the one with her email again. The balance sat there, unmoved. Twenty-seven days. She stared a second longer, then went back to the blank search bar. It didn’t matter what she typed next. It all cost.
