she's literally getting sexually harassed for it
American Sun
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Soapy
- Posts: 12239
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 18:42
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redsox907
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
American Sun
I was just thinking they sound like a pair of old lesbians, then got to the end
maybe she likes throating dick for moneyCaptain Canada wrote: ↑11 Oct 2025, 15:39Trying to maximize money by hanging around a shipyard where you used to throat dick for money is... a choice.
lord knows shes a hop, skip, and a jump away from doing it for Stasia and Felix anyways
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 12111
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
Y'all be saying this like she was doing this everyday. She did it TWICE.Captain Canada wrote: ↑11 Oct 2025, 15:39Trying to maximize money by hanging around a shipyard where you used to throat dick for money is... a choice.
You not wrongredsox907 wrote: ↑12 Oct 2025, 03:58I was just thinking they sound like a pair of old lesbians, then got to the end
maybe she likes throating dick for moneyCaptain Canada wrote: ↑11 Oct 2025, 15:39Trying to maximize money by hanging around a shipyard where you used to throat dick for money is... a choice.
lord knows shes a hop, skip, and a jump away from doing it for Stasia and Felix anyways
Apropos to say that Sara hasn't dated anyone in 18 years, man or womanSee above about saying this like this was an everyday occurrence.
Stasia and Felix ain't no pimps. Everyone who works for them are independent contractors who are also W-4 workers
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 12111
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
He Didn’t Do It Before and He Won’t Next Time
The blinds leaked a thin gray that made the room look quiet. Cardboard boxes sat half open where the wall met the floor, blue tape folded on the ends. A bag from the dollar store slouched on a chair with paper plates and a pack of sponges showing. The bed frame hadn’t come yet. The mattress was on the floor.
Tyree lay on his back, one arm behind his head, phone bright over his face. His other hand rested on his stomach, thumb moving when a reel made him laugh under his breath. The laugh died fast. Paz was on her side turned away from him, hair spread on the pillow, screen glow washing her cheek the color of milk. Her nails tapped the glass when she scrolled. Her foot pressed against his shin so she knew he was still there.
It was early enough that traffic sounded like a hush instead of a fight. Somebody downstairs closed a door and the hallway went still again. A pot leaned in the sink in the tiny kitchen and caught a slow drip. Tyree watched a video of a pit bull riding shotgun in a low car and smiled, teeth showing quick.
“Are y’all in a gang?” Paz asked, eyes still on her phone.
Tyree’s eyebrow climbed without his face moving much. He slid his eyes over at her, then back to the screen. “Why you ask that?”
“Ramon brought Mireya a lot of money,” she said. “Y’all don’t have jobs.”
Tyree shrugged, a ripple across the mattress. “We be getting money.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It mean what it mean.”
Silence came back and spread. Tyree snorted at a video of a kid breaking a mop and tried not to laugh out loud. Paz’s screen dimmed and went dark. She didn’t touch it. She looked at the wall where a row of nail holes waited for pictures that weren’t here yet.
“That don’t answer the question,” she said.
Tyree set his phone down on his chest. He turned to face her, elbow under his head now. He watched her a second, the way she didn’t blink when she was serious. “We sell a little weed,” he said. “That’s it. Nothing crazy like you see on WDSU.”
Paz took it in. The unit buzzed and clicked. A siren ghosted the block and faded. She looked at him over her shoulder. “So like… did Caine do that with y’all, too?”
Tyree lifted one shoulder. “Caine one of our potnas. One of the bruddas.” He let it sit, then squinted at her. “You asking this cause of Caine?”
She shook her head and rolled onto her back, hair fanning again. “No. Mireya.”
Tyree flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. A water stain had started to form in the corner like the place already knew where it was. “I don’t really know her to say,” he said. “She just seem like a getting money ass chick.”
Paz breathed out once like she might laugh but didn’t. “Yeah. She’s just been shady lately.”
“Mm.”
Tyree picked up his phone again. The light bounced in his eyes. He thumbed open IG and let the sound run low. A man balanced six plates on one arm. Another clip of somebody dancing outside a corner store. His stomach tightened and eased. He looked over at the kitchen doorway and pictured the pan there and the eggs in the fridge.
Paz rolled toward him, knee touching his thigh now. Her phone lit up with a text and went dark before she looked. She studied his face the way you study a picture when you’re trying to see what’s in the background.
“Why you asking all that if it ain’t about Caine?” he said, eyes still on his phone like the question was an afterthought.
“I told you. Mireya.” Paz paused. “She’s my best friend.”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Then why you ain’t asking her?”
“She’s never been all that talkative.”
“Probably because y’all be all in her damn business.”
She smirked and let it go. The blinds clicked in the AC’s breath. A car horn chirped outside, quick, like someone finding their ride in the lot. Paz stretched an arm above her head and felt the line of tape on the wall catch her sleeve. She thought about asking something else and didn’t. She turned her face back to the window and watched the light get a shade less gray.
Tyree scrolled through quiet. After a while he locked the phone and laid it screen down on the floor beside the mattress. He put both hands behind his head again and stared up. The quiet made itself known. He looked over at her.
“Hey,” he said. “You can make me some breakfast?”
She cut her eyes at him without moving the rest of her face. “We’re at that level?”
“Fuck yeah, we are.” He smiled with just the corner like he didn’t want to press it. “Nothing crazy. Just some eggs and bacon, some toast if you got it.”
“We have a pan and some eggs,” she said. “No bacon.”
“That work.”
She didn’t move yet. The A/C unit rattled and the drip in the sink found a new rhythm. She watched him hold her gaze without trying to win anything. The city outside found its regular voice, bus brakes and distant bass warming up. She tossed the blanket back and sat up, hair falling forward, then pushed it behind her ear.
“Hand me my phone,” she said.
Tyree reached down, passed it over. She stood and the floor was cool under her feet. She walked toward the kitchen, scratching the back of her thigh where sleep had creased her skin. He watched her go, then leaned over and plugged his charger into the wall. A bird landed on the sill and tapped once and flew off. He lay back and stared at the ceiling again, listening to the fridge door open and close and the click of the burner.
From the kitchen came the soft scrape of a pan and the quick whisk of a fork in a bowl. The smell of egg hit the air. Water ran a second and shut off. He picked up his phone and opened IG reels again for a moment. He locked the screen and set it down again.
He breathed in and let the morning be what it was.
The plate warmed his hand through the paper. Caine came out of the kitchen with two breakfast burritos stacked in his palm and a glass of orange juice cold enough to sweat. The AC rattled in the window and pushed air that barely moved the heat. Sun pushed through cheap blinds in skinny bars.
Rylee was sunk into the couch, hoodie over her head, face turned into the armrest. Her knees were pulled up under a throw. One ankle hung loose, sock half spun around her heel. She didn’t look up when he set the plate and the glass on the low table.
“You want some of this shit?” he asked, dropping down beside her.
Her answer came from inside the hood. “Absolutely fuckin’ not. This hangover’s beatin’ me down.”
He shook his head once. He picked up a burrito and bit in. Egg and pepper and tortilla filled his mouth. He grabbed the remote and woke the TV. Film lit the room without sound. Jerseys moved across a tight green. The camera angle rode the play and cut to another.
“You probably need to cut it out with all the drinking,” he said. “It’s the middle of the fucking week.”
She didn’t move. “When you go out in Statesboro, you let me know when you find what else there is to do ‘round here ‘sides drink and marry some redneck.”
He huffed, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Ain’t Savannah like an hour away? Might got less red necks for you.”
She rolled her eyes at him from under the hood. “Caine, fuck off.”
He kept eating. Grease dotted the paper under his thumb. He clicked the film back a few seconds, let it run, clicked it back again. No sound. Just the stop and slide of bodies and numbers.
“I’m serious though,” he said. “You ain’t got a job or some shit to do? You just hang around, pop up at the church, drink and fuck?”
Her hand came out and flipped him off, lazy. “You don’t seem bothered by that last part.”
He lifted the orange juice and took a long drink. Cold cut the hot food. He set the glass down and watched two linemen cross and miss. His thumb froze the frame.
“Work for what?” she said, voice rough. “I live at home. If Mama’n Daddy ain’t got it, Laney or Caleb do, and their houses right there. I ain’t clockin’ in just to do it.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You actin’ like you was out on your own before you come here.”
He wiped his hand on a napkin. “We was broke. Broke broke. Broke for New Orleans broke.”
She gave a short laugh that sounded like it hurt. “Then I’d’ve been drinkin’ this much too.”
“Probably able to hold your liquor though.”
She grunted and pulled the hoodie closer. Sweat showed at her hairline. She shifted deeper into the cushion until the fabric swallowed her face again. The AC coughed and steadied. Somewhere in the building a door shut and somebody’s voice crossed the hall and went quiet. The room smelled like tortilla, cleaner, and the old wood of the table giving off last night’s heat.
He finished the first burrito and reached for the second. The film rolled. He watched a back release late and made a face. He paused, backed it up three taps, let it play forward, then froze it again, finding the spot where the route should have snapped.
Rylee tugged the hood halfway back and squinted. Her voice was raw. “That shit stinks right now.”
“Close your nose.”
“Asshole.”
He slid the plate farther down the table. The orange juice had left a wet ring. He wiped it away with the heel of his hand and went back to the remote. On screen the hash marks slid by. The TV’s light flashed on the glass and on the curve of her cheekbone under the hood.
She lay still for a minute, only her breath moving. “You always watch it on mute?” she asked.
“I’m trying to be nice.”
“Sure, okay,” she said, flat. “You don’t listen anyway.”
He snorted a laugh. He ate, chewed, swallowed, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He tracked a pulling guard with his thumb on the rewind, ran it back again, watched the footwork break.
She shifted and nudged his thigh with her toes under the throw, not hard, testing the contact. The TV flickered across her knuckles where the sleeves had slid back. Her phone buzzed once in the pocket and went quiet. She let it ring out.
“You annoyin’ sometimes, Caine,” she said, and her tone said it wasn’t a fight, just a fact she wanted hanging there with the smell of eggs and orange.
He didn’t answer. He kept the film moving and took another bite, wiped his fingers, and set the plate aside. The AC rattled again. Outside, a car rolled over the lot’s pothole and the sound rose and dropped.
She breathed slow. The hangover held her in place. He felt the nudge of her foot again, a little firmer, and then she pulled it back. He set the remote on a knee, lifted it, and pressed pause. The image stilled on a corner bailing too early. He tapped rewind, short pulls, counting it down, and stopped where he wanted.
He paused, rewound one more time, and held the picture on the exact step he wanted to mark.
Cartoons chirped from the living room, all bright voices and canned giggles, the kind that bounced off the cheap paint and stuck around. Mireya sat at the kitchen table with money spread out in a messy halo. Most of it was soft one-dollar bills that held the smell of sweat and perfume and the floor cleaner from last night. A few tens and twenties broke the green sea in stubborn islands. Two shoeboxes sat open in front of her like shallow drawers. Paper clips. Sticky notes. A pen with a chewed cap.
Camila sang along with the cartoon theme, two beats behind, her baby voice catching the last word and turning it into a squeal. Blocks clacked against each other. The AC rattled, thought about helping, and went back to a hum.
Her phone vibrated on the table. Leo. I want to see you. The preview flashed and slid away when she thumbed it left without opening. No answer. The phone face-down again. Count, square, clip.
She flipped a stack, thumbs running the edges to tame them. The bills were damp at the corners from being in someone else’s hands all night. She had more cash in front of her than she’d ever had at once. It still didn’t provide the breathing room she thought it would. She wrote 100 on a sticky note and pressed it to a bundle. Another label for 72 because the ones never came out even. The note crooked. She fixed it.
On the TV a cartoon dinosaur roared friendly. Camila roared back and then coughed because she put too much throat in it. Mireya smiled without looking up. She set aside a neat hundred and wrapped it with a different color note.
“Camila’s birthday,” she wrote, block letters tidy, then traced the heart she added after without thinking. The bundle looked small the second she named it. She turned it over in her hands anyway, feeling the thickness under her fingers, letting herself hold the promise for a beat before she tucked it into the left shoebox.
“Camila,” she called, keeping her voice soft. “Ven, mi amor.”
Tiny feet thudded across the old tile. Camila rounded the couch and came in with both hands out like she might climb the table if invited. Her curls were already frizzing at the edges. A smear of snack dust lived at the corner of her mouth.
Mireya lifted her onto her lap and settled her close, one arm a seatbelt around a small, warm belly. “Your birthday is next month, mi amor. What do you want?” she said into the curls.
“A dinosaur,” Camila announced, serious. “A big one.”
Mireya laughed in her throat. “¿Un dinosaurio? Okay. What else?” She nudged her nose against a damp curl. “Anything. Lo que quieras.”
Camila’s eyes flicked to the shoeboxes, then to the living room where the cartoon still did its happy roar. Her brow pinched the way it did when she worked hard to make a thought into a sentence. “Anything?”
“Anything,” Mireya said again, Spanish rounding the word.
Camila pressed her lips together, thinking like it mattered, then looked up with that open, bright face. “Can we go see Daddy?”
Mireya had been waiting for it. The ache came and went in one breath. She smoothed a curl back from the girl’s forehead, kept her smile steady. “Claro que sí, mi amor.”
“Today?” Camila pushed, hope rocking her body forward. Her fingers had found the corner of a bundle and were tapping it like a drum.
“Soon,” Mireya said. Not a lie. Not today. “We’ll plan it. Vamos a verlo.”
Camila nodded hard, satisfied by the shape of yes even if the date was fog. Her small hand wandered again, the pads of her fingers petting the squared edges of money like it was a new toy. Mireya watched the touch with a still face. Money earned dancing on a stage. Money counted next to cartoons. The two truths sat side by side on the table while her daughter breathed against her.
“Don’t touch, mija,” she said after a second, gentle. “Es sucio.” She tipped Camila’s hand back to her own lap and kissed the knuckles. “Go play while I finish, y después we go to the bank. Ice cream after.”
“Ice cream!” Camila bounced once and half-slid off Mireya’s legs in her rush to the floor. “Chocolate,” she declared over her shoulder, already running.
“Chocolate,” Mireya agreed. “Wash your hands first.”
The sink squealed. Water ran. A stool scraped. Mireya listened for the sound of soap, the little thumps of a toddler trying to be careful, then the cartoon reclaimed the room with its tinny music.
She pulled the “birthday” stack closer again and pressed a new clip on it to be sure. The note had lifted at the corner. She dropped the larger bills in their own thin pile and kept those separate in case she needed quick legitimacy at a teller window.
Her phone buzzed again. Another text from Leo. “Don’t ignore me.” She slid the notification away, knuckles tight, and put the phone under the lip of a shoebox. The room gave her the fan’s soft click, the AC’s tired breath, and Camila’s running commentary to herself about a dinosaur that could talk.
She rubbed the edges of two bills to separate them. The paper rasped, soft. She stacked the last uneven handful into her palm, clicked a clip open with her teeth, and clamped it shut around the rolled edge. The note waited, pen ready beside it.
She wrote the number slow so she wouldn’t fuck it up.
Then Mireya shoved another stack of ones together.
The garage held the night’s cool longer than the driveway did. Heat pressed at the open door in a slow crawl, the day bright on the concrete. Dust lifted with each drag of a box and turned to glitter in the strip of sun across the floor. Laney stood on the ladder in sock feet and pushed a carton marked with a blunt black “BOYS” along the top shelf. Plastic bats and a dented helmet rattled inside.
Out at the curb, voices carried. Tommy’s stayed steady and clipped, the way he talked when he had a task even if the task was conversation. Dale let his words roll easy.
“Blade’s dullin’ on that Toro,” Dale said. “You hear it chew at the St. Aug?”
“It nicks it,” Tommy answered. “You feel it in the handle.”
“Might be runnin’ the deck too low.”
“I go with two and a half. Edges first. Walk the line.”
A mower coughed somewhere farther down the street and then settled. The neighborhood smelled of cut grass and hot gas. Laney kept her eyes on the shelf. She leaned and slid another box to make space. When she reached for the next, the cardboard held to the wood. Some old spill had glued them in a low tack that refused to give. She reached farther, fingers working the edge. It wouldn’t budge.
She glanced toward the driveway. Tommy faced Dale, one hand cutting a short line through the air to show the angle of a pass along a fence line. He was nodding once and then still. She almost called his name. She didn’t.
“Fine,” she muttered. “Be a bastard, box.”
She climbed down to move the ladder over. Her foot felt for the last rung and missed. The drop wasn’t far but it hit wrong. Her ankle rolled hard and heat flashed up her leg. She yelped. The ladder tipped as she grabbed for it and she pulled it with her, trying to keep weight off the hurt foot. It rattled and clanged against the concrete and then lay slanted against the shelf with a tired scrape.
Tommy’s head turned before the sound finished. Dale stopped talking. The two of them came from the sun into the dim of the garage, boots ringing a little on the floor.
Tommy reached past her first and set the ladder upright again. “What happened?”
“Missed the last rung,” she said through her teeth. “Twisted it.”
“Can you walk?”
Laney pushed the leg of her pants up. The skin looked fine. No puff. No shine that meant trouble. She ran her thumb along the bone the way she had hundreds of times before over the years. It hurt. It was clean hurt. She nodded.
“Get up then,” Tommy said.
She braced on the shelf and brought weight into the foot a breath at a time. Pain flared and sat there, sharp and honest. She took two small steps forward. She took two back. The ache settled.
Tommy watched the way her foot set down and the way it came up. He nodded once.
“Got it,” she said. “Ain’t broke.”
He gave her one more quick look, scanning ankle to knee, and then turned for the door, stepping back into the heat without breaking stride.
Dale lingered. He tipped his cap with two fingers and let his grin show. “My wife would’ve been crying for days. You got one tough gal as a missus.” He followed Tommy back to the driveway.
Laney blew air out through her nose. She kept her face steady and reached for the ladder.
The traffic sound on the next road went on steady. A cicada started up in the oak and quit. Laney slid the ladder two feet to the right and set it hard. The ankle didn’t love that. She moved anyway. The lists in her head kept running. School paperwork. The boys’ jerseys. Wipe down the shelves. Sweep. She hooked her good foot on a rung and climbed.
Each step put a pinch in her breath. She didn’t make a sound. At the top, she planted both feet and tested her balance with a hand on the frame. The stuck box sat there like it owned the place. She took a slow breath and pressed her palm to it. The cardboard hissed and lifted a corner, then held. Not yet.
At the mouth of the garage, Tommy’s voice met the light. “Run the trimmer before you bag.”
“Yessir,” Dale said, amused. “You got that edge square every time. Folks notice.”
“Square’s how it’s supposed to be,” Tommy said. “Nothing wrong with doing things right.”
Laney let the corner of her mouth lift. She checked the ankle again with her weight and took it down one rung, then another. The floor felt closer on the way down. When she hit concrete the ache brightened, not worse than before, just reminding. She dragged the ladder two more feet and set it again. The work went on.
Sun brought heat across the floor by inches. Sweat gathered in the small of her back and under her hairline. A light grit stuck to her heel where the sock had slipped. She tugged at the sock and tensed when the movement caught the sore. The box she wanted moved sat there, waiting. One thing at a time.
She climbed once more. The shelf at the top smelled faintly of old cleaner and sweat that never washed out of plastic. She set her palm and shoulder and shoved. The box scraped, freed, and slid into place, her push a little harder than it had to be.
The sun sat hard on the yard, turning the court into hot stone. Dre’s shirt stuck to his back. The ball knocked against concrete, a dull thud, and rolled chalky dust across his palm. Four on four.
“Run that,” somebody called, easy. Laughter chased it around the key. The talk had bite but not teeth. Not yet.
Ricky drifted over from the baseline. A new guy. He talked like he had breath to waste. “I got two soups on next bucket,” he said to nobody and everybody.
“I’ll take that bet,” one of the older heads said, grinning. “Ain’t got no sense.”
“None of them youngsters do,” another answered. The circle pressed in tighter, waiting on a check.
Dre palmed the ball and nodded. Sweat ran into his eye and stung. He blinked it clear and looked past shoulders, hands, angles. The pass came back to him quick. He faked middle, spun that way anyway, then slid right. Two steps and he went up easy for the backboard, thinking soft touch.
Ricky crashed through him. Hip to thigh. Forearm caught Dre across the face and then the elbow rode high. Dre’s shoulder hit air. The layup clanged. He landed off balance and skidded a shoe across the grit.
A few heads went up. Someone whooped, half amused, half warning.
Dre steadied himself and let the ball bounce away. He looked at Ricky. “Calm that shit down.” His voice stayed even, flat enough to carry.
Ricky grinned, hands wide. “It’s prison ball, bro.”
“Cool,” Dre said. “Keep that energy.”
He turned away, shook the sting out of his arm, and held a palm for the inbound. The older guys near the sideline watched without speaking. One rubbed the bridge of his nose. The game stretched thin.
The run moved on. Jokes came back in scraps. “That’s cookies, nigga.” “Let him shoot! Let him shoot!.” Chuckles, then quiet once the ball swung to Dre again.
He caught on the wing and jabbed, heel firm. Ricky met him fast, too fast. Almost before Dre put the ball down, a hand chopped down through space and cracked across his face again. Knuckles skidded off cheekbone. A flash of white burst in his eye. The leather slipped. Dre smelled iron and dust.
He didn’t think about it. He stepped through Ricky’s reach and drove a right hand into Ricky’s mouth. The sound was short and thick, bone under skin. Ricky’s head snapped. He grabbed at air. Dre hit him again, this time on the bridge of the nose, and Ricky folded into himself.
They went down together for a breath and then Dre was up first. He shoved Ricky to his back and kicked him once in the stomach, heel sinking into soft. Air left Ricky in a barking cough. Dre kicked again. All that talk leaked out of the new guy in a wheeze.
Voices spiked and scattered. “Yo, yo—chill!” “Aw shit.” Shoes scraped. Bodies drew a ring and then edged away from it. On the other sides, the whites and Latinos kept doing what it was doing. The COs watched until they didn’t.
Boots hit concrete. The yard swallowed its noise. Two guards rushed the court. Dre felt the space change before the hands got to him. He backed up one step, palms open, chest heaving steady, not wild. A baton smacked his wrist and his fingers curled by reflex. The second guard hooked a forearm around his neck and drove him down. Knee in his back. Grit in his teeth.
“Hands behind your fucking back!”
“Quit fucking moving!”
The cuffs bit. Heat pressed into his face. He breathed through it and tasted dust, sweat, the faint bleach that never left this place. Ricky rolled on his side and coughed again, eyes watering, hand on his belly.
“Bet you ain’t gonna foul no more, nigga!” Dre shouted, voice bright over the yard.
“Shut the hell up,” the guard snapped, pushing his head down until the concrete felt closer. Somewhere a whistle kept blowing even though everything had already stopped.
The circle broke apart under orders. The old heads had their hands out, palms flat to the sun. Eyes down. Everybody knew how to look when the COs came in. Dice froze midroll. A ball spun slow and settled against the paint line, humming a little as it lost its fight.
Ricky wheezed into his sleeve and groaned. “Man…”
“Should’ve kept your hands up,” someone muttered near the free throw line, just loud enough for Dre to hear.
Dre’s cheek burned where it touched the ground. His heart stayed steady. He stared at a pebble by his face and watched a thin ant try to drag a crumb the size of its whole body toward the crack in the slab. Keys jingled. The metal taste in his mouth got stronger. He swallowed it and didn’t say anything else.
The guards hauled him up. The cuffs clicked again even though they were already tight. Ricky tried to sit and made it halfway. A CO put a boot between his shoulder blades and told him to relax.
“Walk,” the older guard said into Dre’s ear.
Dre set his feet and moved where the hands told him.
The blinds leaked a thin gray that made the room look quiet. Cardboard boxes sat half open where the wall met the floor, blue tape folded on the ends. A bag from the dollar store slouched on a chair with paper plates and a pack of sponges showing. The bed frame hadn’t come yet. The mattress was on the floor.
Tyree lay on his back, one arm behind his head, phone bright over his face. His other hand rested on his stomach, thumb moving when a reel made him laugh under his breath. The laugh died fast. Paz was on her side turned away from him, hair spread on the pillow, screen glow washing her cheek the color of milk. Her nails tapped the glass when she scrolled. Her foot pressed against his shin so she knew he was still there.
It was early enough that traffic sounded like a hush instead of a fight. Somebody downstairs closed a door and the hallway went still again. A pot leaned in the sink in the tiny kitchen and caught a slow drip. Tyree watched a video of a pit bull riding shotgun in a low car and smiled, teeth showing quick.
“Are y’all in a gang?” Paz asked, eyes still on her phone.
Tyree’s eyebrow climbed without his face moving much. He slid his eyes over at her, then back to the screen. “Why you ask that?”
“Ramon brought Mireya a lot of money,” she said. “Y’all don’t have jobs.”
Tyree shrugged, a ripple across the mattress. “We be getting money.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It mean what it mean.”
Silence came back and spread. Tyree snorted at a video of a kid breaking a mop and tried not to laugh out loud. Paz’s screen dimmed and went dark. She didn’t touch it. She looked at the wall where a row of nail holes waited for pictures that weren’t here yet.
“That don’t answer the question,” she said.
Tyree set his phone down on his chest. He turned to face her, elbow under his head now. He watched her a second, the way she didn’t blink when she was serious. “We sell a little weed,” he said. “That’s it. Nothing crazy like you see on WDSU.”
Paz took it in. The unit buzzed and clicked. A siren ghosted the block and faded. She looked at him over her shoulder. “So like… did Caine do that with y’all, too?”
Tyree lifted one shoulder. “Caine one of our potnas. One of the bruddas.” He let it sit, then squinted at her. “You asking this cause of Caine?”
She shook her head and rolled onto her back, hair fanning again. “No. Mireya.”
Tyree flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. A water stain had started to form in the corner like the place already knew where it was. “I don’t really know her to say,” he said. “She just seem like a getting money ass chick.”
Paz breathed out once like she might laugh but didn’t. “Yeah. She’s just been shady lately.”
“Mm.”
Tyree picked up his phone again. The light bounced in his eyes. He thumbed open IG and let the sound run low. A man balanced six plates on one arm. Another clip of somebody dancing outside a corner store. His stomach tightened and eased. He looked over at the kitchen doorway and pictured the pan there and the eggs in the fridge.
Paz rolled toward him, knee touching his thigh now. Her phone lit up with a text and went dark before she looked. She studied his face the way you study a picture when you’re trying to see what’s in the background.
“Why you asking all that if it ain’t about Caine?” he said, eyes still on his phone like the question was an afterthought.
“I told you. Mireya.” Paz paused. “She’s my best friend.”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Then why you ain’t asking her?”
“She’s never been all that talkative.”
“Probably because y’all be all in her damn business.”
She smirked and let it go. The blinds clicked in the AC’s breath. A car horn chirped outside, quick, like someone finding their ride in the lot. Paz stretched an arm above her head and felt the line of tape on the wall catch her sleeve. She thought about asking something else and didn’t. She turned her face back to the window and watched the light get a shade less gray.
Tyree scrolled through quiet. After a while he locked the phone and laid it screen down on the floor beside the mattress. He put both hands behind his head again and stared up. The quiet made itself known. He looked over at her.
“Hey,” he said. “You can make me some breakfast?”
She cut her eyes at him without moving the rest of her face. “We’re at that level?”
“Fuck yeah, we are.” He smiled with just the corner like he didn’t want to press it. “Nothing crazy. Just some eggs and bacon, some toast if you got it.”
“We have a pan and some eggs,” she said. “No bacon.”
“That work.”
She didn’t move yet. The A/C unit rattled and the drip in the sink found a new rhythm. She watched him hold her gaze without trying to win anything. The city outside found its regular voice, bus brakes and distant bass warming up. She tossed the blanket back and sat up, hair falling forward, then pushed it behind her ear.
“Hand me my phone,” she said.
Tyree reached down, passed it over. She stood and the floor was cool under her feet. She walked toward the kitchen, scratching the back of her thigh where sleep had creased her skin. He watched her go, then leaned over and plugged his charger into the wall. A bird landed on the sill and tapped once and flew off. He lay back and stared at the ceiling again, listening to the fridge door open and close and the click of the burner.
From the kitchen came the soft scrape of a pan and the quick whisk of a fork in a bowl. The smell of egg hit the air. Water ran a second and shut off. He picked up his phone and opened IG reels again for a moment. He locked the screen and set it down again.
He breathed in and let the morning be what it was.
~~~
The plate warmed his hand through the paper. Caine came out of the kitchen with two breakfast burritos stacked in his palm and a glass of orange juice cold enough to sweat. The AC rattled in the window and pushed air that barely moved the heat. Sun pushed through cheap blinds in skinny bars.
Rylee was sunk into the couch, hoodie over her head, face turned into the armrest. Her knees were pulled up under a throw. One ankle hung loose, sock half spun around her heel. She didn’t look up when he set the plate and the glass on the low table.
“You want some of this shit?” he asked, dropping down beside her.
Her answer came from inside the hood. “Absolutely fuckin’ not. This hangover’s beatin’ me down.”
He shook his head once. He picked up a burrito and bit in. Egg and pepper and tortilla filled his mouth. He grabbed the remote and woke the TV. Film lit the room without sound. Jerseys moved across a tight green. The camera angle rode the play and cut to another.
“You probably need to cut it out with all the drinking,” he said. “It’s the middle of the fucking week.”
She didn’t move. “When you go out in Statesboro, you let me know when you find what else there is to do ‘round here ‘sides drink and marry some redneck.”
He huffed, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Ain’t Savannah like an hour away? Might got less red necks for you.”
She rolled her eyes at him from under the hood. “Caine, fuck off.”
He kept eating. Grease dotted the paper under his thumb. He clicked the film back a few seconds, let it run, clicked it back again. No sound. Just the stop and slide of bodies and numbers.
“I’m serious though,” he said. “You ain’t got a job or some shit to do? You just hang around, pop up at the church, drink and fuck?”
Her hand came out and flipped him off, lazy. “You don’t seem bothered by that last part.”
He lifted the orange juice and took a long drink. Cold cut the hot food. He set the glass down and watched two linemen cross and miss. His thumb froze the frame.
“Work for what?” she said, voice rough. “I live at home. If Mama’n Daddy ain’t got it, Laney or Caleb do, and their houses right there. I ain’t clockin’ in just to do it.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You actin’ like you was out on your own before you come here.”
He wiped his hand on a napkin. “We was broke. Broke broke. Broke for New Orleans broke.”
She gave a short laugh that sounded like it hurt. “Then I’d’ve been drinkin’ this much too.”
“Probably able to hold your liquor though.”
She grunted and pulled the hoodie closer. Sweat showed at her hairline. She shifted deeper into the cushion until the fabric swallowed her face again. The AC coughed and steadied. Somewhere in the building a door shut and somebody’s voice crossed the hall and went quiet. The room smelled like tortilla, cleaner, and the old wood of the table giving off last night’s heat.
He finished the first burrito and reached for the second. The film rolled. He watched a back release late and made a face. He paused, backed it up three taps, let it play forward, then froze it again, finding the spot where the route should have snapped.
Rylee tugged the hood halfway back and squinted. Her voice was raw. “That shit stinks right now.”
“Close your nose.”
“Asshole.”
He slid the plate farther down the table. The orange juice had left a wet ring. He wiped it away with the heel of his hand and went back to the remote. On screen the hash marks slid by. The TV’s light flashed on the glass and on the curve of her cheekbone under the hood.
She lay still for a minute, only her breath moving. “You always watch it on mute?” she asked.
“I’m trying to be nice.”
“Sure, okay,” she said, flat. “You don’t listen anyway.”
He snorted a laugh. He ate, chewed, swallowed, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He tracked a pulling guard with his thumb on the rewind, ran it back again, watched the footwork break.
She shifted and nudged his thigh with her toes under the throw, not hard, testing the contact. The TV flickered across her knuckles where the sleeves had slid back. Her phone buzzed once in the pocket and went quiet. She let it ring out.
“You annoyin’ sometimes, Caine,” she said, and her tone said it wasn’t a fight, just a fact she wanted hanging there with the smell of eggs and orange.
He didn’t answer. He kept the film moving and took another bite, wiped his fingers, and set the plate aside. The AC rattled again. Outside, a car rolled over the lot’s pothole and the sound rose and dropped.
She breathed slow. The hangover held her in place. He felt the nudge of her foot again, a little firmer, and then she pulled it back. He set the remote on a knee, lifted it, and pressed pause. The image stilled on a corner bailing too early. He tapped rewind, short pulls, counting it down, and stopped where he wanted.
He paused, rewound one more time, and held the picture on the exact step he wanted to mark.
~~~
Cartoons chirped from the living room, all bright voices and canned giggles, the kind that bounced off the cheap paint and stuck around. Mireya sat at the kitchen table with money spread out in a messy halo. Most of it was soft one-dollar bills that held the smell of sweat and perfume and the floor cleaner from last night. A few tens and twenties broke the green sea in stubborn islands. Two shoeboxes sat open in front of her like shallow drawers. Paper clips. Sticky notes. A pen with a chewed cap.
Camila sang along with the cartoon theme, two beats behind, her baby voice catching the last word and turning it into a squeal. Blocks clacked against each other. The AC rattled, thought about helping, and went back to a hum.
Her phone vibrated on the table. Leo. I want to see you. The preview flashed and slid away when she thumbed it left without opening. No answer. The phone face-down again. Count, square, clip.
She flipped a stack, thumbs running the edges to tame them. The bills were damp at the corners from being in someone else’s hands all night. She had more cash in front of her than she’d ever had at once. It still didn’t provide the breathing room she thought it would. She wrote 100 on a sticky note and pressed it to a bundle. Another label for 72 because the ones never came out even. The note crooked. She fixed it.
On the TV a cartoon dinosaur roared friendly. Camila roared back and then coughed because she put too much throat in it. Mireya smiled without looking up. She set aside a neat hundred and wrapped it with a different color note.
“Camila’s birthday,” she wrote, block letters tidy, then traced the heart she added after without thinking. The bundle looked small the second she named it. She turned it over in her hands anyway, feeling the thickness under her fingers, letting herself hold the promise for a beat before she tucked it into the left shoebox.
“Camila,” she called, keeping her voice soft. “Ven, mi amor.”
Tiny feet thudded across the old tile. Camila rounded the couch and came in with both hands out like she might climb the table if invited. Her curls were already frizzing at the edges. A smear of snack dust lived at the corner of her mouth.
Mireya lifted her onto her lap and settled her close, one arm a seatbelt around a small, warm belly. “Your birthday is next month, mi amor. What do you want?” she said into the curls.
“A dinosaur,” Camila announced, serious. “A big one.”
Mireya laughed in her throat. “¿Un dinosaurio? Okay. What else?” She nudged her nose against a damp curl. “Anything. Lo que quieras.”
Camila’s eyes flicked to the shoeboxes, then to the living room where the cartoon still did its happy roar. Her brow pinched the way it did when she worked hard to make a thought into a sentence. “Anything?”
“Anything,” Mireya said again, Spanish rounding the word.
Camila pressed her lips together, thinking like it mattered, then looked up with that open, bright face. “Can we go see Daddy?”
Mireya had been waiting for it. The ache came and went in one breath. She smoothed a curl back from the girl’s forehead, kept her smile steady. “Claro que sí, mi amor.”
“Today?” Camila pushed, hope rocking her body forward. Her fingers had found the corner of a bundle and were tapping it like a drum.
“Soon,” Mireya said. Not a lie. Not today. “We’ll plan it. Vamos a verlo.”
Camila nodded hard, satisfied by the shape of yes even if the date was fog. Her small hand wandered again, the pads of her fingers petting the squared edges of money like it was a new toy. Mireya watched the touch with a still face. Money earned dancing on a stage. Money counted next to cartoons. The two truths sat side by side on the table while her daughter breathed against her.
“Don’t touch, mija,” she said after a second, gentle. “Es sucio.” She tipped Camila’s hand back to her own lap and kissed the knuckles. “Go play while I finish, y después we go to the bank. Ice cream after.”
“Ice cream!” Camila bounced once and half-slid off Mireya’s legs in her rush to the floor. “Chocolate,” she declared over her shoulder, already running.
“Chocolate,” Mireya agreed. “Wash your hands first.”
The sink squealed. Water ran. A stool scraped. Mireya listened for the sound of soap, the little thumps of a toddler trying to be careful, then the cartoon reclaimed the room with its tinny music.
She pulled the “birthday” stack closer again and pressed a new clip on it to be sure. The note had lifted at the corner. She dropped the larger bills in their own thin pile and kept those separate in case she needed quick legitimacy at a teller window.
Her phone buzzed again. Another text from Leo. “Don’t ignore me.” She slid the notification away, knuckles tight, and put the phone under the lip of a shoebox. The room gave her the fan’s soft click, the AC’s tired breath, and Camila’s running commentary to herself about a dinosaur that could talk.
She rubbed the edges of two bills to separate them. The paper rasped, soft. She stacked the last uneven handful into her palm, clicked a clip open with her teeth, and clamped it shut around the rolled edge. The note waited, pen ready beside it.
She wrote the number slow so she wouldn’t fuck it up.
Then Mireya shoved another stack of ones together.
~~~
The garage held the night’s cool longer than the driveway did. Heat pressed at the open door in a slow crawl, the day bright on the concrete. Dust lifted with each drag of a box and turned to glitter in the strip of sun across the floor. Laney stood on the ladder in sock feet and pushed a carton marked with a blunt black “BOYS” along the top shelf. Plastic bats and a dented helmet rattled inside.
Out at the curb, voices carried. Tommy’s stayed steady and clipped, the way he talked when he had a task even if the task was conversation. Dale let his words roll easy.
“Blade’s dullin’ on that Toro,” Dale said. “You hear it chew at the St. Aug?”
“It nicks it,” Tommy answered. “You feel it in the handle.”
“Might be runnin’ the deck too low.”
“I go with two and a half. Edges first. Walk the line.”
A mower coughed somewhere farther down the street and then settled. The neighborhood smelled of cut grass and hot gas. Laney kept her eyes on the shelf. She leaned and slid another box to make space. When she reached for the next, the cardboard held to the wood. Some old spill had glued them in a low tack that refused to give. She reached farther, fingers working the edge. It wouldn’t budge.
She glanced toward the driveway. Tommy faced Dale, one hand cutting a short line through the air to show the angle of a pass along a fence line. He was nodding once and then still. She almost called his name. She didn’t.
“Fine,” she muttered. “Be a bastard, box.”
She climbed down to move the ladder over. Her foot felt for the last rung and missed. The drop wasn’t far but it hit wrong. Her ankle rolled hard and heat flashed up her leg. She yelped. The ladder tipped as she grabbed for it and she pulled it with her, trying to keep weight off the hurt foot. It rattled and clanged against the concrete and then lay slanted against the shelf with a tired scrape.
Tommy’s head turned before the sound finished. Dale stopped talking. The two of them came from the sun into the dim of the garage, boots ringing a little on the floor.
Tommy reached past her first and set the ladder upright again. “What happened?”
“Missed the last rung,” she said through her teeth. “Twisted it.”
“Can you walk?”
Laney pushed the leg of her pants up. The skin looked fine. No puff. No shine that meant trouble. She ran her thumb along the bone the way she had hundreds of times before over the years. It hurt. It was clean hurt. She nodded.
“Get up then,” Tommy said.
She braced on the shelf and brought weight into the foot a breath at a time. Pain flared and sat there, sharp and honest. She took two small steps forward. She took two back. The ache settled.
Tommy watched the way her foot set down and the way it came up. He nodded once.
“Got it,” she said. “Ain’t broke.”
He gave her one more quick look, scanning ankle to knee, and then turned for the door, stepping back into the heat without breaking stride.
Dale lingered. He tipped his cap with two fingers and let his grin show. “My wife would’ve been crying for days. You got one tough gal as a missus.” He followed Tommy back to the driveway.
Laney blew air out through her nose. She kept her face steady and reached for the ladder.
The traffic sound on the next road went on steady. A cicada started up in the oak and quit. Laney slid the ladder two feet to the right and set it hard. The ankle didn’t love that. She moved anyway. The lists in her head kept running. School paperwork. The boys’ jerseys. Wipe down the shelves. Sweep. She hooked her good foot on a rung and climbed.
Each step put a pinch in her breath. She didn’t make a sound. At the top, she planted both feet and tested her balance with a hand on the frame. The stuck box sat there like it owned the place. She took a slow breath and pressed her palm to it. The cardboard hissed and lifted a corner, then held. Not yet.
At the mouth of the garage, Tommy’s voice met the light. “Run the trimmer before you bag.”
“Yessir,” Dale said, amused. “You got that edge square every time. Folks notice.”
“Square’s how it’s supposed to be,” Tommy said. “Nothing wrong with doing things right.”
Laney let the corner of her mouth lift. She checked the ankle again with her weight and took it down one rung, then another. The floor felt closer on the way down. When she hit concrete the ache brightened, not worse than before, just reminding. She dragged the ladder two more feet and set it again. The work went on.
Sun brought heat across the floor by inches. Sweat gathered in the small of her back and under her hairline. A light grit stuck to her heel where the sock had slipped. She tugged at the sock and tensed when the movement caught the sore. The box she wanted moved sat there, waiting. One thing at a time.
She climbed once more. The shelf at the top smelled faintly of old cleaner and sweat that never washed out of plastic. She set her palm and shoulder and shoved. The box scraped, freed, and slid into place, her push a little harder than it had to be.
~~~
The sun sat hard on the yard, turning the court into hot stone. Dre’s shirt stuck to his back. The ball knocked against concrete, a dull thud, and rolled chalky dust across his palm. Four on four.
“Run that,” somebody called, easy. Laughter chased it around the key. The talk had bite but not teeth. Not yet.
Ricky drifted over from the baseline. A new guy. He talked like he had breath to waste. “I got two soups on next bucket,” he said to nobody and everybody.
“I’ll take that bet,” one of the older heads said, grinning. “Ain’t got no sense.”
“None of them youngsters do,” another answered. The circle pressed in tighter, waiting on a check.
Dre palmed the ball and nodded. Sweat ran into his eye and stung. He blinked it clear and looked past shoulders, hands, angles. The pass came back to him quick. He faked middle, spun that way anyway, then slid right. Two steps and he went up easy for the backboard, thinking soft touch.
Ricky crashed through him. Hip to thigh. Forearm caught Dre across the face and then the elbow rode high. Dre’s shoulder hit air. The layup clanged. He landed off balance and skidded a shoe across the grit.
A few heads went up. Someone whooped, half amused, half warning.
Dre steadied himself and let the ball bounce away. He looked at Ricky. “Calm that shit down.” His voice stayed even, flat enough to carry.
Ricky grinned, hands wide. “It’s prison ball, bro.”
“Cool,” Dre said. “Keep that energy.”
He turned away, shook the sting out of his arm, and held a palm for the inbound. The older guys near the sideline watched without speaking. One rubbed the bridge of his nose. The game stretched thin.
The run moved on. Jokes came back in scraps. “That’s cookies, nigga.” “Let him shoot! Let him shoot!.” Chuckles, then quiet once the ball swung to Dre again.
He caught on the wing and jabbed, heel firm. Ricky met him fast, too fast. Almost before Dre put the ball down, a hand chopped down through space and cracked across his face again. Knuckles skidded off cheekbone. A flash of white burst in his eye. The leather slipped. Dre smelled iron and dust.
He didn’t think about it. He stepped through Ricky’s reach and drove a right hand into Ricky’s mouth. The sound was short and thick, bone under skin. Ricky’s head snapped. He grabbed at air. Dre hit him again, this time on the bridge of the nose, and Ricky folded into himself.
They went down together for a breath and then Dre was up first. He shoved Ricky to his back and kicked him once in the stomach, heel sinking into soft. Air left Ricky in a barking cough. Dre kicked again. All that talk leaked out of the new guy in a wheeze.
Voices spiked and scattered. “Yo, yo—chill!” “Aw shit.” Shoes scraped. Bodies drew a ring and then edged away from it. On the other sides, the whites and Latinos kept doing what it was doing. The COs watched until they didn’t.
Boots hit concrete. The yard swallowed its noise. Two guards rushed the court. Dre felt the space change before the hands got to him. He backed up one step, palms open, chest heaving steady, not wild. A baton smacked his wrist and his fingers curled by reflex. The second guard hooked a forearm around his neck and drove him down. Knee in his back. Grit in his teeth.
“Hands behind your fucking back!”
“Quit fucking moving!”
The cuffs bit. Heat pressed into his face. He breathed through it and tasted dust, sweat, the faint bleach that never left this place. Ricky rolled on his side and coughed again, eyes watering, hand on his belly.
“Bet you ain’t gonna foul no more, nigga!” Dre shouted, voice bright over the yard.
“Shut the hell up,” the guard snapped, pushing his head down until the concrete felt closer. Somewhere a whistle kept blowing even though everything had already stopped.
The circle broke apart under orders. The old heads had their hands out, palms flat to the sun. Eyes down. Everybody knew how to look when the COs came in. Dice froze midroll. A ball spun slow and settled against the paint line, humming a little as it lost its fight.
Ricky wheezed into his sleeve and groaned. “Man…”
“Should’ve kept your hands up,” someone muttered near the free throw line, just loud enough for Dre to hear.
Dre’s cheek burned where it touched the ground. His heart stayed steady. He stared at a pebble by his face and watched a thin ant try to drag a crumb the size of its whole body toward the crack in the slab. Keys jingled. The metal taste in his mouth got stronger. He swallowed it and didn’t say anything else.
The guards hauled him up. The cuffs clicked again even though they were already tight. Ricky tried to sit and made it halfway. A CO put a boot between his shoulder blades and told him to relax.
“Walk,” the older guard said into Dre’s ear.
Dre set his feet and moved where the hands told him.
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Soapy
- Posts: 12239
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 18:42
American Sun
Laying the ground work with Tommy and Laney to make it excusable
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redsox907
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
American Sun
Like I said, Tommy a fuck boy. Rylee messy.
Leo getting impatient makes me think he's going to get reckless soon
Leo getting impatient makes me think he's going to get reckless soon
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 12111
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
You're talking about a devoutly religious and God-fearing woman married before God, Our Holy Father, by Pastor Franklin Hadden, her earthly father, devoted wife of 8 years to a man laying his life on the line to defend Our God-given Rights and Freedoms in the Greatest Country on Earth and a mother to three young boys. A woman who understands the Godly role of the husband in the household. I'm unsure what "it" it is you're referring to but have some respect and look inward on why you keep seeing something there.
Tommy just a stoic gentleman. Nothing wrong with that. As for Rylee, she's just different to what Caine is used to with Mireya. Different is good.
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 12111
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
What God Has for Me, It Will Destroy Me
The plates clanged in a tired rhythm that matched the hum of the vents. Rubber and chalk and the bite of cleaner lived in the air. Caine slid his palms under the bar and pressed, smooth from chest to lockout. He racked it and sat up, breath even, sweat gathering at his temples but going nowhere in the heavy room.
Javier spotted out of habit, hands up but loose.
“You know what the crazy shit is,” Dillon said from the next bench without looking over, “I thought it was gon’ be way more hectic than this right before practice. Feels like high school to me.”
Jaylen rolled a dumbbell to his thigh and leaned back. “That’s cap and you know it,” he said, grinning. He pressed and watched the mirror more than the ceiling. “I ain’t never had motherfucking coaches like Fatu. That motherfucker crazy.”
Javier wiped his palms on his shorts and tipped his head at the big whiteboard where lifts and macros sat in blocks. “I don’t know what your high school had,” he said, sweeping a hand at the room, “but mine ain’t look like this. We got nutritionists and shit here. Motherfuckers to give you meal plans.”
Caine stood to strip a pair of tens, wrists white where the chalk had found lines. “We didn’t have none of that either,” he said. “Should’ve though, with all the shit people eat back home.”
Jaylen set his dumbbells down with a soft thud and sat up, laughing. “That’s why everybody down there fast,” he said. “Hearts be beatin’ out they chest from all that fried food.”
Caine let the smile stay. “You ain’t wrong.”
They shifted stations. Dillon took the rack and sank into squats, hips back, knees tracking. The bar bent a little and then straightened when he stood. He racked it clean and blew out a breath. Javier shook his arms loose and stepped into place for rows.
“You think I’m crazy for already looking at the portal for next spring?” Javier asked, eyes on the floor like the answer might be written there.
Dillon slid the plates down a peg and snorted. “I don’t think I’m playin’, so unless I’m trying to go FCS, it ain’t worth it,” he said. “Best bet is I let Weston, Caine, or Turner transfer ’cause they ain’t get the job, then wait for that dude to leave after he ball.”
Caine chalked up and clapped his hands once. “So, you waiting for Weston and Turner to transfer and then for me to transfer?”
Jaylen barked a laugh and reached across to dap him up. “I like that confidence, my nigga.”
Dillon shrugged from the rack. “Or some crazy shit happen and I start this year.”
Caine slid under the bar again for incline. “If motherfuckers like Arch Manning can start at Texas,” he said, lining the bar over his eyes, “you can start here.”
“See.” Dillon nodded like the math checked out and went back to work.
They moved without rushing. Caine’s reps stayed slow on the way down, quick on the way up, the way he liked it. The room popped now and then with iron meeting iron. A strip of sun cut across the floor, dust floating in it like it had nowhere else to be.
Between sets, Javier leaned a shoulder into the upright. “You planning on dipping after a year if you start?”
Caine shrugged with one shoulder and took the bar again. He pressed, racked, and sat. “Ain’t really thought about it. I ain’t even thought I’d be here.” He rubbed at a line of chalk on his palm. “It’d be nice to get some NIL money. Got a lot of mouths to feed back in the Boot.”
Jaylen tilted his head like he heard the seriousness under it. “You can get that here.”
All three of them looked his way. “Be fucking for real,” they said together, then laughed.
Jaylen raised both hands. “Y’all ain’t say millions.”
Javier laughed and shook his head, then bent to pick up his bar. “Fucking wild, bruh.”
They shook their heads and went back to the work, the sound of metal settling back into place saying more than any of them needed to.
The office had a child-sized rug with little roads stitched into it, the kind that told cars where to go. A plastic bin of blocks sat under the window. The manager’s desk was neat in a way that felt practiced. Laminated sheets. A pen clipped to a string. She smiled like she had done this same talk a hundred times and started through the tiers again—full time, part time, after care, drop-in rates if there was space, discounts that weren’t really discounts unless you ignored the math.
Mireya nodded and let the numbers roll past her face. Her fingers tracked the edge of the pamphlet, the gloss catching on a hangnail. The air smelled faintly of bleach under something sweet, maybe a spray they used between groups. The manager tapped the last box with a nailed finger and waited.
“So,” the woman said, still smiling. “Do you want to put your child on the waiting list?”
Mireya took the clipboard when it came. The forms had little boxes that asked the same question in five different ways. She said, “I’ll think about it. I’m still looking around.”
“The waiting list is pretty long,” the manager said, the tone lighter than the words. “You’ll want to get her on it as soon as possible.”
Mireya nodded. “Thanks for the information.”
She stood. The chair legs bumped the rug’s sewn streets. Out in the short corridor the sound changed—kids somewhere behind a door, a cartoon voice rising and cutting off, a teacher saying shhh and then laughing. The waiting area had soft chairs that tried to look expensive. Jaslene and Alejandra sat close, Alejandra bent over a pamphlet, nail tracing a line of text like she was memorizing it.
A couple came in through the first door as Mireya pushed the second. The husband’s eyes slipped without hiding it, a quick pass from Mireya to the curve of Jaslene’s mouth to Alejandra’s top. The wife caught it with two fingers at his elbow and a small twist of her wrist, redirecting him toward the clipboard on the stand. He looked where she turned him to look.
Jaslene glanced up, caught Mireya’s face, and rose. “¿Listo?” she asked, voice low.
Mireya nodded. She tucked the forms against her chest and they walked out into the heat that sat on the lot. The sun hit the glass on the door and threw a square back at them. Jaslene clicked her fob and the Accord answered two spots down, clean and humming, the kind of old that said cared for.
By the time Mireya opened the passenger door, Alejandra was still reading. “Why you reading that?” Mireya asked, sliding in. The seat held heat from the day.
“So, I remember why I don’t want children,” Alejandra said from the back, flipping the page without looking up.
Jaslene laughed under her breath and backed out smooth. “Probably for the best,” she said, eyes cutting to the mirror. “We don’t need little yous running around.”
Mireya added the new forms to the stack already tucked into a plastic folder. The corner had started to bend. She pressed it flat with her palm.
“What’s the verdict?” Jaslene asked, chin tipping toward the building.
“Same price as the others,” Mireya said.
Alejandra leaned forward, bracing a hand on the headrest. “Did you ask Mari for recommendations?”
Mireya nodded. “Mari’s aunt don’t work. She watches Graciela.”
“Sounds like you need to pay Mari’s tía,” Alejandra said. “Problem solved.”
Jaslene eased them to the light and shook her head. “It’d probably still be cheaper than what these people are charging white people.”
The light changed. They rolled. Mireya watched the daycare shrink in the side mirror and then disappear behind the hedges. “I still got time to figure out something,” she said. “As long as I find somewhere for Camila so my cousin don’t have to be the one to do most of it, I’ll be fine.”
Alejandra reached forward and gave her a small tap on the side where her shirt drapped. She pointed her thumb back toward the daycare. “If you’d show some skin walking around,” she said, teasing in the words, “you could have los gringos ready to take care of that for you.”
Jaslene snorted. “Those two definitely got a joint account.”
Mireya shook her head. “I like men who don’t need SPF 100.”
“Yeah,” Alejandra said, settling back, “but the white ones? Those are the ones who give you money and don’t fuck.”
“Can’t fuck,” Jaslene said, straight, eyes on the road.
The AC pushed cool air that never felt cool enough. Traffic gathered them into a slow line and loosened again. Mireya slid the plastic folder open with her thumb and started flipping through the forms. Income verification. Work schedule. Immunization records. Signature lines that wanted dates and the same name ten times. Her nail caught on the same hangnail and she left it.
Jaslene and Alejandra kept going. They switched to Spanish for half a sentence and back again, the rhythm familiar, the words soft-edged and fast.
Mireya didn’t add to it. She found the page that said waiting list and stared at the empty blank where Camila’s name would go. The car moved through a patch of shade and then sun again. In the back, Alejandra rustled the daycare pamphlet and made a face at some fee that lived three bullet points down. Jaslene shook her head and clicked her tongue once like the number offended her personally.
Mireya breathed and kept her eyes down. The corner of one page lifted in the vent’s breath and she pressed it down with her thumb. Outside, the street opened up, and the Accord picked up a little speed.
The bass in Ramon’s car sat low, a thump under the breath of the AC that never quite caught up with the heat pressing through the glass. He had one elbow on the window ledge, phone in his other hand, thumb skating over Nina’s name. She’d left his last text on read. He typed, erased, typed again, then sent something simple. The message balloon went blue and hung there. He let the song roll.
A car slid into the next space. A door creaked and feet scraped. Knuckles tapped the glass twice. Ramon hit unlock. Ant opened the passenger door and folded in. He didn’t say anything at first. He closed the door and let the music sit between them.
“I been asking round about you lil’ niggas,” Ant said, voice even. “Heard y’all putting in real work.”
Ramon shrugged. “Me, E.J., and Tyree been jumped off the porch.”
Ant just looked at him. It wasn’t a hard look. It was steady. He sat back and watched Ramon the way a man watched corners. Ramon blinked slowly and kept his eyes on Ant’s, face just as blank.
“Y’all steppas?” Ant asked.
“We all done caught a hat or two,” Ramon said. He turned his face to the windshield and let the wipers’ dust line show itself under the garage lights. “Why you ask me to meet you if all you gonna do is interrogate me like you a jake?”
Ant’s mouth ticked once. He shook his head. “Wanted to talk to you face to face like a man,” he said. “I don’t go round behind nobody back asking other people like a bitch. Bitch niggas always the ones end up snitching. And if you a snitch, I don’t want you round me or Trell.”
“I’d jump in the Mississippi before I talk to the people,” Ramon said.
Ant’s right hand came up from the shadow of his thigh. The pistol had been resting under his palm. He flicked the safety back to safe, a small click swallowed by the bass. He set the gun on his left knee so it wasn’t pointing at anything but door panel. His eyes never left Ramon.
“Trell throwing another kickback,” Ant said. “Y’all should come through.”
Ramon nodded once. He didn’t look at the gun. “Bet. Text us the lo.”
Ant picked up the pistol with his left hand and reached across with his right. They dapped each other up in the tight space. Ant popped the door and climbed out. He closed it with a clean push and walked back to his car without looking around.
Ramon sat still. The other car eased out of the slot, tail lights washing the concrete in red. The lot went back to sodium orange. Somewhere past the fence a siren wound down and left a thin hum in his chest. His phone lit. Nina hadn’t answered. Another promo text popped from a number he didn’t know. He glanced over his shoulder to watch Ant’s car leave the parking lot, then reached down into the footwell.
His hand found cold metal where it had slid when Ant got in. He lifted the pistol off the floor and checked the position. He put the weapon back in the slot between seat and console where he could feel the stippling if he needed it.
The song switched. 808s rolled across the glass. He could smell fry oil and chicken mixed from the takeout spot across the street and the janitor’s work inside the building behind him. He looked at his screen again. “Pulling up later,” he typed. He didn’t send it. He deleted it. He dropped the phone face down on his thigh and let his head tip to the headrest.
A dragonfly kept knocking at the windshield, thudding and falling, thudding and falling, stupid against the glass. Two cars over, somebody laughed at something on speaker. Tires hissed at the curb. The heat held its hand to his neck.
He started the car and pulled his shoulders off the seat. He glanced at the empty slot Ant had left, then checked his mirrors and backed out.
At the end of the row, he stopped long enough to look down each lane without turning his head too much. He slid into the street, the bass pounding in his chest.
The hedge trimmers buzzed dull in Caine’s hand and spat small green against his forearms. Heat soaked through the shirt at his shoulders. He stripped weeds from the flower bed with a slow pull and flicked them into a black bag that lay open on the mulch. The walkway from the fellowship hall cut a square across the shade and out toward the church doors. He reached for another clump and felt grit under his glove where the dirt tried to hold on.
The fellowship hall door pushed open. Laney stepped out and caught the post with her palm. She moved careful. One foot stayed light, the other did the work. She paused halfway down the path and leaned against the wall under the overhang. Her ankle lifted off the ground. She set her jaw and breathed through it.
Caine watched a second, then straightened and pulled the gloves off. The air hit the sweat on his fingers, cool for a beat and then gone. He wiped his hands on his shorts and crossed the path.
He came up beside her and looked at her foot before he met her eyes. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just twisted it a lil’.”
“You ice it? Wrap it?”
“Iced it, yeah.”
“You gotta wrap that or you’re gonna fuck it up more walking around on it.”
“I know, I do,” she said, tired but even. “Couldn’t get it snug enough myself.” She set her foot down like she was proving a point and started toward the sanctuary. “I gotta get the space ready for Sunday.”
“You’re gonna mess it up more,” he said. “I can wrap it for you.”
“I’ll manage.”
He nodded toward the back porch where a line of plastic chairs sat against the brick. “Go sit down.”
“I’ll be alright.”
“Laney, just go sit down. It’ll take like two minutes. I know how to wrap an ankle.”
She hesitated, then angled toward the porch and made the short walk, weight still off the bad side. She picked the chair at the edge where the shade met the light and lowered herself slowly.
Caine cut through the side door into the daycare kitchen. The hum of the big fridge sat under the room like a note. The stainless counters held a basket of snacks and a stack of paper cups. He opened the utility cabinet where the white cross on a red box sat behind a tub of wipes. He took the kit and headed back out.
Laney sat with her good foot planted and the other lifted just enough to keep pressure off. She watched the parking lot, not him. He set the kit on the porch boards, then knelt in front of her and held a hand out for her foot.
She looked down at him, then away.
He waited. “I ain’t got a foot fetish, boss,” he said, dry.
She ran a palm over her face and lifted her foot. Her fingers reached to the shoe, but he caught the heel and eased it off for her. He slid the shoe free and held her foot steady, his palm broad against the arch to keep from twisting her ankle more than he had to.
“Yeah, this all swollen,” he said. “Should’ve wrapped it when you did it.”
“Yeah.” She stared past him at the grass, jaw tight.
He opened the kit and found the ACE bandage. The roll felt rough and light. He set her heel on his thigh so her ankle stayed floating and pulled the bandage across the top of her foot. He kept the wrap smooth, snug with each pass, not rushing it. Methodical figure eights.
“Tell me if it’s too tight.”
She didn’t answer. Her fingers tapped the armrest in a small restless rhythm, her other hand pressed down on her dress despite it being past her shins and Caine’s height putting him above her legs even kneeling.
“Move it a little,” he said.
She tested side to side and gave a small nod.
He put her shoe on the same way he had taken it off. The heel squeaked when it met the insole. He straightened the bandage so her walking wouldn’t work it loose.
He stood, picked up the kit, and looked toward the hall doors. “Let me know if you need help setting up.”
“Thank you,” she said, quiet. She pushed herself up and took a step. The hobble had less in it now. She didn’t look at him, just at the door she meant to reach. She crossed the porch and went inside, steps steadier than before.
He watched until the door eased closed on its soft hinge. He turned and carried the kit toward the kitchen to put it back where he found it. The weeds waited on the bed and the hedge trimmers sat open on the mulch, ready where he had left them.
The highway ran empty and dark, two lanes skimming brush and low hills. Ricardo drove with one hand low on the wheel. The corrido on the radio thumped through the doors, the singer dragging lealtad over the bass.
Benito had the dome light on. Rubber bands and fat bills sat in a split backpack on his lap. He licked a thumb, counted, scribbled totals on a receipt. “Cuatro ayer. Tres hoy,” he muttered.
Miguel slept sprawled in back, jacket balled under his cheek. His snore caught and let go. A seam in the pavement bumped his boot.
Out here the road gave Ricardo quiet. No taxis cutting him. No drunk tourists calling amigo from a doorway. Just tires humming and shoulder lights ticking past.
They passed a dead bulb. In that pocket of dark he saw a black pickup tucked deep off the right-of-way, nose turned toward the asphalt. He checked his mirror once, then again when it eased out behind them.
His hand went to his hip and found only denim. That weight had been gone since he crossed south.
High beams snapped on. White filled the rear glass. Benito twisted to look. “It’s la policia, mano.”
The truck settled to their rear quarter. Ricardo lifted off the gas. The corrido rolled on.
“Tranquilo,” he said.
“Tranquilo mis huevos.” Benito palmed the cash into the bag and reached back to slap Miguel’s thigh. “Oye, güey. Levántate.”
The pickup lunged across their nose and braked hard. Ricardo stomped. Belts bit. Money slid off Benito’s lap and fanned at his feet. The car juddered to a stop. Dust floated in the headlight wash.
Ricardo kept his eyes on the silhouette blocking both lanes.
Miguel jerked awake. “Qué pedo—” He pushed up between the seats, breath sour with sleep. “¿Son placas?”
“No.” Ricardo set it in park and hit the hazards. The click filled the cab with a dumb patience. “Nada.”
Doors on the pickup opened together. Four men. Two rifles. Two pistols. One bandana. The high beams turned the road chalk white around their boots. Gravel ticked under each step.
Benito pulled his hood up and raised both hands, fingers spread. The pen rolled and tapped plastic. The backpack gaped, straps trailing.
Miguel wiped his face with his sleeve and stared through the windshield. “¿Qué hacemos?”
“Put your fucking hands up,” Ricardo said, low. He kept his palms high. In the wash, he could read the rub on one pistol’s slide, bright at the edges.
The lead man came to the driver window and tapped the barrel on the glass. His eyes didn’t bother with faces. He watched angles—door gaps, window lines, where hands might come from. He pointed to the keys, then the hood pull, then back to Ricardo’s fingers. Instruction without words.
Ricardo nodded once and lowered the window with two fingers. Night air pushed in with dust and hot-brake smell. “Buenas,” he said.
No answer.
He kept his gaze ahead and angled his voice toward Benito. “Those ain’t the fucking federales.”
Fog hung thin from machines in the corner. LEDs washed the room in slow color, red to blue to soft violet. The DJ kept a bounce remix low behind a trap set, the bass making the tables hum. Mireya moved through it in heels and glitter and patience
The three men at the table barely looked at her at first. They leaned in over their drinks, voices crowded with numbers and names, dropping the kind of words she had learned to ignore. Product. Half now. The plug said Friday. She let the song hold her, rolled her hips, let her back find the beat. She watched the stack of bills in the middle of the table. No ones on top. Better.
One of them finally lifted his chin, a small appraisal. “Turn around for me.”
She turned. Slow. She felt the eyes, the way a room decided if she was worth anything. She set her hands on her knees and twerked, keeping rhythm with the beat. The man closest let out a short laugh.
“That shit looked fat on stage. How much for a private dance, shorty?”
She didn’t break the motion as she looked over her shoulder. “Not doing those tonight.” She kept her voice easy, a little sweet.
Another one laughed like he knew every trick. “She tryin’ get us back.”
He shifted his chair so the leg scraped and the sound cut the air. He turned his head to her. “You ain’t slick, baby.”
Mireya smiled. The song pushed her shoulder, pulled her spine tall. The first one hooked a five around the waistband of her thong anyway.
“I do treat my regulars better,” she said.
She let the five sit. The song wound down, the DJ cutting the treble so the bass felt wider. The third man, quiet until then, lifted a twenty and held it out the way some men did when they wanted to be remembered.
“I’ll be back to see that monkey up close, Luna.”
She slid the bill from his fingers and let a brighter smile show for a second. “You do that.” Then she moved past their table and slipped off the floor.
The hallway to the dressing room held heat. Sound bled through the walls, muffled by curtains clipped to pipes. She exhaled and stepped into the back, the lights harsh and clean, mirrors smudged with setting spray and fingerprints. She pulled on soft gray sweatpants over the sparkles and sat next to Mari.
Mari had her legs up on the ottoman, leggings and a hoodie, hair tucked into a messy bun. Done for the night. She slid a cold bottle across without looking away from the screen in her lap.
“You look like you need it.”
“Gracias.” Mireya cracked it and drank, cold running fast down.
Brooke and Jessica were at the nearby table, heads bowed over neat stacks, the sound of quick fingernails shuffling paper. Out on the floor, the DJ hyped a change and the room answered. Jaslene’s name, Sol, rolled back from the crowd. Then the crowd exploded, likely from some trick Alejandra pulled off on the pole.
“How’s Graciela?” Mireya asked.
Mari’s mouth pulled into something soft and sad at once. “She’s been okay this week. But that’s how it goes. Some weeks she can’t get out of bed, others she’s fine. It’s a lot.”
Mireya nodded and let the bottle rest against her thigh. “I can’t imagine Camila being sick.”
“I put you and Camila in my prayers every night,” Mari said, then she laughed once and shook her head. “I know. Sounds dumb saying that in here.”
Mireya looked down at her own skin. Glitter on her collarbone. Nothing but a bra on top. She let a dry laugh out. “Didn’t Jesus hang out with prostitutes?”
“You know they don’t teach that part of the Gospel.” Mari leaned her head back against the cushion.
“Because they’re hanging out with prostitutes, too.”
“Only the young male ones.”
“Facts.” Mireya stood and crossed to the charging table. Her phone sat under a tangle of cords, screen lit with stacked notifications. Two from Caine. A handful from Angela and Paz. Bills. At the bottom, three from Leo. She opened the thread. Each message pushed harder than the last, location dropped, time stamped, the tone sliding into that familiar pressure.
She typed “no.” Sent it. The delivered dot hit and then the bubble came back quick.
We’re not playing this again for a year, Mireya.
She ran her hand through her hair and caught her reflection in the mirror mounted over the outlet strip. Glitter, sweat, the line of fatigue around her eyes. She opened a new thread and typed in a number.
I need a favor…
Her thumb hovered. She hit send. The cursor blinked. She typed again.
But you can’t tell Caine.
She sent it, put the phone screen down on the table, and went back to sit with Mari as Brooke and Jessica kept counting and the room on the other side of the wall rose for Jaslene and Alejandra.
The plates clanged in a tired rhythm that matched the hum of the vents. Rubber and chalk and the bite of cleaner lived in the air. Caine slid his palms under the bar and pressed, smooth from chest to lockout. He racked it and sat up, breath even, sweat gathering at his temples but going nowhere in the heavy room.
Javier spotted out of habit, hands up but loose.
“You know what the crazy shit is,” Dillon said from the next bench without looking over, “I thought it was gon’ be way more hectic than this right before practice. Feels like high school to me.”
Jaylen rolled a dumbbell to his thigh and leaned back. “That’s cap and you know it,” he said, grinning. He pressed and watched the mirror more than the ceiling. “I ain’t never had motherfucking coaches like Fatu. That motherfucker crazy.”
Javier wiped his palms on his shorts and tipped his head at the big whiteboard where lifts and macros sat in blocks. “I don’t know what your high school had,” he said, sweeping a hand at the room, “but mine ain’t look like this. We got nutritionists and shit here. Motherfuckers to give you meal plans.”
Caine stood to strip a pair of tens, wrists white where the chalk had found lines. “We didn’t have none of that either,” he said. “Should’ve though, with all the shit people eat back home.”
Jaylen set his dumbbells down with a soft thud and sat up, laughing. “That’s why everybody down there fast,” he said. “Hearts be beatin’ out they chest from all that fried food.”
Caine let the smile stay. “You ain’t wrong.”
They shifted stations. Dillon took the rack and sank into squats, hips back, knees tracking. The bar bent a little and then straightened when he stood. He racked it clean and blew out a breath. Javier shook his arms loose and stepped into place for rows.
“You think I’m crazy for already looking at the portal for next spring?” Javier asked, eyes on the floor like the answer might be written there.
Dillon slid the plates down a peg and snorted. “I don’t think I’m playin’, so unless I’m trying to go FCS, it ain’t worth it,” he said. “Best bet is I let Weston, Caine, or Turner transfer ’cause they ain’t get the job, then wait for that dude to leave after he ball.”
Caine chalked up and clapped his hands once. “So, you waiting for Weston and Turner to transfer and then for me to transfer?”
Jaylen barked a laugh and reached across to dap him up. “I like that confidence, my nigga.”
Dillon shrugged from the rack. “Or some crazy shit happen and I start this year.”
Caine slid under the bar again for incline. “If motherfuckers like Arch Manning can start at Texas,” he said, lining the bar over his eyes, “you can start here.”
“See.” Dillon nodded like the math checked out and went back to work.
They moved without rushing. Caine’s reps stayed slow on the way down, quick on the way up, the way he liked it. The room popped now and then with iron meeting iron. A strip of sun cut across the floor, dust floating in it like it had nowhere else to be.
Between sets, Javier leaned a shoulder into the upright. “You planning on dipping after a year if you start?”
Caine shrugged with one shoulder and took the bar again. He pressed, racked, and sat. “Ain’t really thought about it. I ain’t even thought I’d be here.” He rubbed at a line of chalk on his palm. “It’d be nice to get some NIL money. Got a lot of mouths to feed back in the Boot.”
Jaylen tilted his head like he heard the seriousness under it. “You can get that here.”
All three of them looked his way. “Be fucking for real,” they said together, then laughed.
Jaylen raised both hands. “Y’all ain’t say millions.”
Javier laughed and shook his head, then bent to pick up his bar. “Fucking wild, bruh.”
They shook their heads and went back to the work, the sound of metal settling back into place saying more than any of them needed to.
~~~
The office had a child-sized rug with little roads stitched into it, the kind that told cars where to go. A plastic bin of blocks sat under the window. The manager’s desk was neat in a way that felt practiced. Laminated sheets. A pen clipped to a string. She smiled like she had done this same talk a hundred times and started through the tiers again—full time, part time, after care, drop-in rates if there was space, discounts that weren’t really discounts unless you ignored the math.
Mireya nodded and let the numbers roll past her face. Her fingers tracked the edge of the pamphlet, the gloss catching on a hangnail. The air smelled faintly of bleach under something sweet, maybe a spray they used between groups. The manager tapped the last box with a nailed finger and waited.
“So,” the woman said, still smiling. “Do you want to put your child on the waiting list?”
Mireya took the clipboard when it came. The forms had little boxes that asked the same question in five different ways. She said, “I’ll think about it. I’m still looking around.”
“The waiting list is pretty long,” the manager said, the tone lighter than the words. “You’ll want to get her on it as soon as possible.”
Mireya nodded. “Thanks for the information.”
She stood. The chair legs bumped the rug’s sewn streets. Out in the short corridor the sound changed—kids somewhere behind a door, a cartoon voice rising and cutting off, a teacher saying shhh and then laughing. The waiting area had soft chairs that tried to look expensive. Jaslene and Alejandra sat close, Alejandra bent over a pamphlet, nail tracing a line of text like she was memorizing it.
A couple came in through the first door as Mireya pushed the second. The husband’s eyes slipped without hiding it, a quick pass from Mireya to the curve of Jaslene’s mouth to Alejandra’s top. The wife caught it with two fingers at his elbow and a small twist of her wrist, redirecting him toward the clipboard on the stand. He looked where she turned him to look.
Jaslene glanced up, caught Mireya’s face, and rose. “¿Listo?” she asked, voice low.
Mireya nodded. She tucked the forms against her chest and they walked out into the heat that sat on the lot. The sun hit the glass on the door and threw a square back at them. Jaslene clicked her fob and the Accord answered two spots down, clean and humming, the kind of old that said cared for.
By the time Mireya opened the passenger door, Alejandra was still reading. “Why you reading that?” Mireya asked, sliding in. The seat held heat from the day.
“So, I remember why I don’t want children,” Alejandra said from the back, flipping the page without looking up.
Jaslene laughed under her breath and backed out smooth. “Probably for the best,” she said, eyes cutting to the mirror. “We don’t need little yous running around.”
Mireya added the new forms to the stack already tucked into a plastic folder. The corner had started to bend. She pressed it flat with her palm.
“What’s the verdict?” Jaslene asked, chin tipping toward the building.
“Same price as the others,” Mireya said.
Alejandra leaned forward, bracing a hand on the headrest. “Did you ask Mari for recommendations?”
Mireya nodded. “Mari’s aunt don’t work. She watches Graciela.”
“Sounds like you need to pay Mari’s tía,” Alejandra said. “Problem solved.”
Jaslene eased them to the light and shook her head. “It’d probably still be cheaper than what these people are charging white people.”
The light changed. They rolled. Mireya watched the daycare shrink in the side mirror and then disappear behind the hedges. “I still got time to figure out something,” she said. “As long as I find somewhere for Camila so my cousin don’t have to be the one to do most of it, I’ll be fine.”
Alejandra reached forward and gave her a small tap on the side where her shirt drapped. She pointed her thumb back toward the daycare. “If you’d show some skin walking around,” she said, teasing in the words, “you could have los gringos ready to take care of that for you.”
Jaslene snorted. “Those two definitely got a joint account.”
Mireya shook her head. “I like men who don’t need SPF 100.”
“Yeah,” Alejandra said, settling back, “but the white ones? Those are the ones who give you money and don’t fuck.”
“Can’t fuck,” Jaslene said, straight, eyes on the road.
The AC pushed cool air that never felt cool enough. Traffic gathered them into a slow line and loosened again. Mireya slid the plastic folder open with her thumb and started flipping through the forms. Income verification. Work schedule. Immunization records. Signature lines that wanted dates and the same name ten times. Her nail caught on the same hangnail and she left it.
Jaslene and Alejandra kept going. They switched to Spanish for half a sentence and back again, the rhythm familiar, the words soft-edged and fast.
Mireya didn’t add to it. She found the page that said waiting list and stared at the empty blank where Camila’s name would go. The car moved through a patch of shade and then sun again. In the back, Alejandra rustled the daycare pamphlet and made a face at some fee that lived three bullet points down. Jaslene shook her head and clicked her tongue once like the number offended her personally.
Mireya breathed and kept her eyes down. The corner of one page lifted in the vent’s breath and she pressed it down with her thumb. Outside, the street opened up, and the Accord picked up a little speed.
~~~
The bass in Ramon’s car sat low, a thump under the breath of the AC that never quite caught up with the heat pressing through the glass. He had one elbow on the window ledge, phone in his other hand, thumb skating over Nina’s name. She’d left his last text on read. He typed, erased, typed again, then sent something simple. The message balloon went blue and hung there. He let the song roll.
A car slid into the next space. A door creaked and feet scraped. Knuckles tapped the glass twice. Ramon hit unlock. Ant opened the passenger door and folded in. He didn’t say anything at first. He closed the door and let the music sit between them.
“I been asking round about you lil’ niggas,” Ant said, voice even. “Heard y’all putting in real work.”
Ramon shrugged. “Me, E.J., and Tyree been jumped off the porch.”
Ant just looked at him. It wasn’t a hard look. It was steady. He sat back and watched Ramon the way a man watched corners. Ramon blinked slowly and kept his eyes on Ant’s, face just as blank.
“Y’all steppas?” Ant asked.
“We all done caught a hat or two,” Ramon said. He turned his face to the windshield and let the wipers’ dust line show itself under the garage lights. “Why you ask me to meet you if all you gonna do is interrogate me like you a jake?”
Ant’s mouth ticked once. He shook his head. “Wanted to talk to you face to face like a man,” he said. “I don’t go round behind nobody back asking other people like a bitch. Bitch niggas always the ones end up snitching. And if you a snitch, I don’t want you round me or Trell.”
“I’d jump in the Mississippi before I talk to the people,” Ramon said.
Ant’s right hand came up from the shadow of his thigh. The pistol had been resting under his palm. He flicked the safety back to safe, a small click swallowed by the bass. He set the gun on his left knee so it wasn’t pointing at anything but door panel. His eyes never left Ramon.
“Trell throwing another kickback,” Ant said. “Y’all should come through.”
Ramon nodded once. He didn’t look at the gun. “Bet. Text us the lo.”
Ant picked up the pistol with his left hand and reached across with his right. They dapped each other up in the tight space. Ant popped the door and climbed out. He closed it with a clean push and walked back to his car without looking around.
Ramon sat still. The other car eased out of the slot, tail lights washing the concrete in red. The lot went back to sodium orange. Somewhere past the fence a siren wound down and left a thin hum in his chest. His phone lit. Nina hadn’t answered. Another promo text popped from a number he didn’t know. He glanced over his shoulder to watch Ant’s car leave the parking lot, then reached down into the footwell.
His hand found cold metal where it had slid when Ant got in. He lifted the pistol off the floor and checked the position. He put the weapon back in the slot between seat and console where he could feel the stippling if he needed it.
The song switched. 808s rolled across the glass. He could smell fry oil and chicken mixed from the takeout spot across the street and the janitor’s work inside the building behind him. He looked at his screen again. “Pulling up later,” he typed. He didn’t send it. He deleted it. He dropped the phone face down on his thigh and let his head tip to the headrest.
A dragonfly kept knocking at the windshield, thudding and falling, thudding and falling, stupid against the glass. Two cars over, somebody laughed at something on speaker. Tires hissed at the curb. The heat held its hand to his neck.
He started the car and pulled his shoulders off the seat. He glanced at the empty slot Ant had left, then checked his mirrors and backed out.
At the end of the row, he stopped long enough to look down each lane without turning his head too much. He slid into the street, the bass pounding in his chest.
~~~
The hedge trimmers buzzed dull in Caine’s hand and spat small green against his forearms. Heat soaked through the shirt at his shoulders. He stripped weeds from the flower bed with a slow pull and flicked them into a black bag that lay open on the mulch. The walkway from the fellowship hall cut a square across the shade and out toward the church doors. He reached for another clump and felt grit under his glove where the dirt tried to hold on.
The fellowship hall door pushed open. Laney stepped out and caught the post with her palm. She moved careful. One foot stayed light, the other did the work. She paused halfway down the path and leaned against the wall under the overhang. Her ankle lifted off the ground. She set her jaw and breathed through it.
Caine watched a second, then straightened and pulled the gloves off. The air hit the sweat on his fingers, cool for a beat and then gone. He wiped his hands on his shorts and crossed the path.
He came up beside her and looked at her foot before he met her eyes. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just twisted it a lil’.”
“You ice it? Wrap it?”
“Iced it, yeah.”
“You gotta wrap that or you’re gonna fuck it up more walking around on it.”
“I know, I do,” she said, tired but even. “Couldn’t get it snug enough myself.” She set her foot down like she was proving a point and started toward the sanctuary. “I gotta get the space ready for Sunday.”
“You’re gonna mess it up more,” he said. “I can wrap it for you.”
“I’ll manage.”
He nodded toward the back porch where a line of plastic chairs sat against the brick. “Go sit down.”
“I’ll be alright.”
“Laney, just go sit down. It’ll take like two minutes. I know how to wrap an ankle.”
She hesitated, then angled toward the porch and made the short walk, weight still off the bad side. She picked the chair at the edge where the shade met the light and lowered herself slowly.
Caine cut through the side door into the daycare kitchen. The hum of the big fridge sat under the room like a note. The stainless counters held a basket of snacks and a stack of paper cups. He opened the utility cabinet where the white cross on a red box sat behind a tub of wipes. He took the kit and headed back out.
Laney sat with her good foot planted and the other lifted just enough to keep pressure off. She watched the parking lot, not him. He set the kit on the porch boards, then knelt in front of her and held a hand out for her foot.
She looked down at him, then away.
He waited. “I ain’t got a foot fetish, boss,” he said, dry.
She ran a palm over her face and lifted her foot. Her fingers reached to the shoe, but he caught the heel and eased it off for her. He slid the shoe free and held her foot steady, his palm broad against the arch to keep from twisting her ankle more than he had to.
“Yeah, this all swollen,” he said. “Should’ve wrapped it when you did it.”
“Yeah.” She stared past him at the grass, jaw tight.
He opened the kit and found the ACE bandage. The roll felt rough and light. He set her heel on his thigh so her ankle stayed floating and pulled the bandage across the top of her foot. He kept the wrap smooth, snug with each pass, not rushing it. Methodical figure eights.
“Tell me if it’s too tight.”
She didn’t answer. Her fingers tapped the armrest in a small restless rhythm, her other hand pressed down on her dress despite it being past her shins and Caine’s height putting him above her legs even kneeling.
“Move it a little,” he said.
She tested side to side and gave a small nod.
He put her shoe on the same way he had taken it off. The heel squeaked when it met the insole. He straightened the bandage so her walking wouldn’t work it loose.
He stood, picked up the kit, and looked toward the hall doors. “Let me know if you need help setting up.”
“Thank you,” she said, quiet. She pushed herself up and took a step. The hobble had less in it now. She didn’t look at him, just at the door she meant to reach. She crossed the porch and went inside, steps steadier than before.
He watched until the door eased closed on its soft hinge. He turned and carried the kit toward the kitchen to put it back where he found it. The weeds waited on the bed and the hedge trimmers sat open on the mulch, ready where he had left them.
~~~
The highway ran empty and dark, two lanes skimming brush and low hills. Ricardo drove with one hand low on the wheel. The corrido on the radio thumped through the doors, the singer dragging lealtad over the bass.
Benito had the dome light on. Rubber bands and fat bills sat in a split backpack on his lap. He licked a thumb, counted, scribbled totals on a receipt. “Cuatro ayer. Tres hoy,” he muttered.
Miguel slept sprawled in back, jacket balled under his cheek. His snore caught and let go. A seam in the pavement bumped his boot.
Out here the road gave Ricardo quiet. No taxis cutting him. No drunk tourists calling amigo from a doorway. Just tires humming and shoulder lights ticking past.
They passed a dead bulb. In that pocket of dark he saw a black pickup tucked deep off the right-of-way, nose turned toward the asphalt. He checked his mirror once, then again when it eased out behind them.
His hand went to his hip and found only denim. That weight had been gone since he crossed south.
High beams snapped on. White filled the rear glass. Benito twisted to look. “It’s la policia, mano.”
The truck settled to their rear quarter. Ricardo lifted off the gas. The corrido rolled on.
“Tranquilo,” he said.
“Tranquilo mis huevos.” Benito palmed the cash into the bag and reached back to slap Miguel’s thigh. “Oye, güey. Levántate.”
The pickup lunged across their nose and braked hard. Ricardo stomped. Belts bit. Money slid off Benito’s lap and fanned at his feet. The car juddered to a stop. Dust floated in the headlight wash.
Ricardo kept his eyes on the silhouette blocking both lanes.
Miguel jerked awake. “Qué pedo—” He pushed up between the seats, breath sour with sleep. “¿Son placas?”
“No.” Ricardo set it in park and hit the hazards. The click filled the cab with a dumb patience. “Nada.”
Doors on the pickup opened together. Four men. Two rifles. Two pistols. One bandana. The high beams turned the road chalk white around their boots. Gravel ticked under each step.
Benito pulled his hood up and raised both hands, fingers spread. The pen rolled and tapped plastic. The backpack gaped, straps trailing.
Miguel wiped his face with his sleeve and stared through the windshield. “¿Qué hacemos?”
“Put your fucking hands up,” Ricardo said, low. He kept his palms high. In the wash, he could read the rub on one pistol’s slide, bright at the edges.
The lead man came to the driver window and tapped the barrel on the glass. His eyes didn’t bother with faces. He watched angles—door gaps, window lines, where hands might come from. He pointed to the keys, then the hood pull, then back to Ricardo’s fingers. Instruction without words.
Ricardo nodded once and lowered the window with two fingers. Night air pushed in with dust and hot-brake smell. “Buenas,” he said.
No answer.
He kept his gaze ahead and angled his voice toward Benito. “Those ain’t the fucking federales.”
~~~
Fog hung thin from machines in the corner. LEDs washed the room in slow color, red to blue to soft violet. The DJ kept a bounce remix low behind a trap set, the bass making the tables hum. Mireya moved through it in heels and glitter and patience
The three men at the table barely looked at her at first. They leaned in over their drinks, voices crowded with numbers and names, dropping the kind of words she had learned to ignore. Product. Half now. The plug said Friday. She let the song hold her, rolled her hips, let her back find the beat. She watched the stack of bills in the middle of the table. No ones on top. Better.
One of them finally lifted his chin, a small appraisal. “Turn around for me.”
She turned. Slow. She felt the eyes, the way a room decided if she was worth anything. She set her hands on her knees and twerked, keeping rhythm with the beat. The man closest let out a short laugh.
“That shit looked fat on stage. How much for a private dance, shorty?”
She didn’t break the motion as she looked over her shoulder. “Not doing those tonight.” She kept her voice easy, a little sweet.
Another one laughed like he knew every trick. “She tryin’ get us back.”
He shifted his chair so the leg scraped and the sound cut the air. He turned his head to her. “You ain’t slick, baby.”
Mireya smiled. The song pushed her shoulder, pulled her spine tall. The first one hooked a five around the waistband of her thong anyway.
“I do treat my regulars better,” she said.
She let the five sit. The song wound down, the DJ cutting the treble so the bass felt wider. The third man, quiet until then, lifted a twenty and held it out the way some men did when they wanted to be remembered.
“I’ll be back to see that monkey up close, Luna.”
She slid the bill from his fingers and let a brighter smile show for a second. “You do that.” Then she moved past their table and slipped off the floor.
The hallway to the dressing room held heat. Sound bled through the walls, muffled by curtains clipped to pipes. She exhaled and stepped into the back, the lights harsh and clean, mirrors smudged with setting spray and fingerprints. She pulled on soft gray sweatpants over the sparkles and sat next to Mari.
Mari had her legs up on the ottoman, leggings and a hoodie, hair tucked into a messy bun. Done for the night. She slid a cold bottle across without looking away from the screen in her lap.
“You look like you need it.”
“Gracias.” Mireya cracked it and drank, cold running fast down.
Brooke and Jessica were at the nearby table, heads bowed over neat stacks, the sound of quick fingernails shuffling paper. Out on the floor, the DJ hyped a change and the room answered. Jaslene’s name, Sol, rolled back from the crowd. Then the crowd exploded, likely from some trick Alejandra pulled off on the pole.
“How’s Graciela?” Mireya asked.
Mari’s mouth pulled into something soft and sad at once. “She’s been okay this week. But that’s how it goes. Some weeks she can’t get out of bed, others she’s fine. It’s a lot.”
Mireya nodded and let the bottle rest against her thigh. “I can’t imagine Camila being sick.”
“I put you and Camila in my prayers every night,” Mari said, then she laughed once and shook her head. “I know. Sounds dumb saying that in here.”
Mireya looked down at her own skin. Glitter on her collarbone. Nothing but a bra on top. She let a dry laugh out. “Didn’t Jesus hang out with prostitutes?”
“You know they don’t teach that part of the Gospel.” Mari leaned her head back against the cushion.
“Because they’re hanging out with prostitutes, too.”
“Only the young male ones.”
“Facts.” Mireya stood and crossed to the charging table. Her phone sat under a tangle of cords, screen lit with stacked notifications. Two from Caine. A handful from Angela and Paz. Bills. At the bottom, three from Leo. She opened the thread. Each message pushed harder than the last, location dropped, time stamped, the tone sliding into that familiar pressure.
She typed “no.” Sent it. The delivered dot hit and then the bubble came back quick.
We’re not playing this again for a year, Mireya.
She ran her hand through her hair and caught her reflection in the mirror mounted over the outlet strip. Glitter, sweat, the line of fatigue around her eyes. She opened a new thread and typed in a number.
I need a favor…
Her thumb hovered. She hit send. The cursor blinked. She typed again.
But you can’t tell Caine.
She sent it, put the phone screen down on the table, and went back to sit with Mari as Brooke and Jessica kept counting and the room on the other side of the wall rose for Jaslene and Alejandra.
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Soapy
- Posts: 12239
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 18:42
American Sun
Why Caine blowing up her phone lol
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 12111
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
American Sun
Caine can't text his baby mama... TWICE? In an undisclosed amount of time, two texts from her baby daddy, who doesn't know that she's stripping so doesn't know her hours, is hardly "blowing up"
He ain't Brice. Those texts could've been about Camila.