Laney shouldered the door with her hip and let the quiet of the house meet her. Keys hit the dish on the dresser with a soft clatter. She stood in front of the mirror and took herself in the way she always did before heading to the church. Then she ran her fingers through her hair and squeezed the back of her neck until the muscle eased under her thumb.
The air had been working all morning—thin and cool, a small mercy. It cut off mid-breath. The house went still in that way that made you hear your own moving. She glanced to the bedside thermostat. Seventy-four. Cooling. The numbers glowed steady. The vents stayed quiet.
She let the curtain fall back into place and moved through the hall. The back door stuck at the top of its swing. She put a shoulder to it and walked out into air that already wanted to press on skin.
At the condenser she hit the disconnect and slid it back in. Nothing. She pulled it again. Counted to ten. Pushed. The fan didn’t even twitch. A hush settled across the yard.
She tried it again. Same nothing.
“Damn it.”
She dragged the ladder from the garage through the house, careful not to gouge walls. In Hunter’s room she leaned the ladder inside the closet where a security system switchbox used to sit. She steadied the ladder with one hand and climbed.
Her phone light washed the space in cold white. Dust danced in the beam. She lifted the camera higher and angled toward the relay where Tommy had told her to patch together. The zip tie she’d used to keep tension on the loose spade connector had slipped free. The line hung lazy, not touching anything that would make it work.
She held the phone closer to be sure. The screen showed her knuckles chalked with drywall, the wire sagging away from the relay’s tooth. The video hiccuped in and out of focus with her breath.
“Of course,” she said under it. No drama. Just a tired kind of recognition.
The house held its breath with her. The quiet pressed against her ears. She tilted the phone a little more, trying to see if the tie had snapped or just slid. It had slid. The cut end poked out from behind the bracket like it was hiding.
She lowered the phone, blinked sweat out of her eyes, and leaned her weight into the ladder so it didn’t chatter against the drywall. Another Tommy told her he was going to get fixed. Another thing she had patched together instead. Another thing she’d have to patch together again.
She lifted the phone again and caught the connector one more time on the screen, just to put certainty on it.
“Fuck me,” she muttered, and let her head tip against the frame.
~~~
August heat worked through every layer of fabric until it found skin. The air over the practice field felt thick enough to touch, the kind that burned in the chest when you tried to breathe too deep. Helmets clicked down the line. Coaches shouted to reset. Caine crouched at the sideline, elbows balanced on his knees, eyes fixed on the huddle where Weston called the play.
The sound of the field had its own pulse—cleats biting, pads knocking, the short bark of cadence. Weston moved clean through the set, feet planted, shoulders level. The offense flowed around him, practiced and fast, and Caine studied the little things: the way Weston looked off the safety before a throw, how long his hands lingered on the mesh before he let the back go. Every motion was a sentence he needed to memorize.
The sun found the back of his neck. Sweat slid under the collar and disappeared. The smell of grass, rubber, and heat mixed until it was all the same. Aplin’s whistle cut, sharp and quick. Weston’s series ended on a crisp completion that drew a single nod from the head coach—approval, not praise. Weston jogged off, helmet tipped toward the sideline, and Coach Aplin’s chin rose toward Caine.
“Twos. You’re in.”
Caine pushed off the turf and jogged to the huddle, breath steady. His hands found the ball and the texture of it grounded him. Faces turned toward him—some new, some who still didn’t know what to expect. He gave the call low and quick, broke the huddle, and let the rhythm take over.
First rep, inside zone. A clean exchange with Nate that opened nothing more than a breath of space but enough to keep the tempo. The next snap, a short throw to the flat, ball spinning smooth off his fingers. Then a play-action call that rolled him to the right. He saw Tracy drift, fired to the window before it closed, heard the pop of the catch before the whistle.
Everything narrowed to noise and motion. The second-team line leaked in spots, but he felt it without panic, shifting just enough to stay clean. His eyes caught movement, recorded it, released it. The work felt simple in moments—read, throw, reset—but the weight pressed it into something heavier.
By the fourth snap his breath had evened out. He heard Fatu’s voice behind him somewhere, low and approving. Aplin didn’t speak. The silence was its own measure.
When his series ended, he jogged back toward the sideline. A student manager met him halfway with a squeeze bottle. The water hit his mouth warm, but it still felt like relief. Weston stood a few yards down, helmet off, sweat beading at his temples. They met eyes for a second—nothing spoken, no smile, just a line of acknowledgment.
“Turner,” Aplin called next.
Caine leaned on one knee at the sideline, body cooling by degrees that didn’t reach comfort. Turner’s reps ran slower, the rhythm off by a beat. The ball came out late, pockets collapsed early. Caine watched without letting it show in his face. His mind replayed his own throws, checked them against Weston’s, cataloged the pieces that had worked and the ones that hadn’t.
Mizell scribbled something on his clipboard. Fatu muttered to Aplin and the head coach just nodded, expression blank. A dragonfly hovered near the chalk line and darted off again. Heat shimmered over the field, making the far uprights bend.
Turner’s final rep ended in a tipped pass that fluttered short. The whistle blew, and the players reset for the next period. Caine took another drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. Weston was already turning back toward the field, helmet in hand, jaw tight.
Caine watched him go, the muscles in his shoulders drawn clean and tired. The competition wasn’t something either of them had to talk about. It lived in the small spaces—the nod, the silence, the way they both lingered a moment longer after the whistle to see what the other would do next.
The horn blew again. Coaches shouted about special teams. Helmets swung up. Caine stayed crouched for one more breath, feeling the hum in his chest from the reps, the burn in his lungs that never fully left.
August kept its hold on him.
~~~
Mireya lay half-sprawled on the couch with the fan doing its best to cut through the New Orleans humidity. The phone sat in her palm, thumb idling through nothing. Paz had draped herself in the chair like she wanted distance from everything in the room. Angela sat cross-legged on the floor, back against the couch, hair scraping the collar of her tee every time she moved.
“Did you pay your tuition yet?” Angela asked without looking up.
Mireya shook her head, eyes still on the screen. “I’m wait ’til the last day to pay it. I’ll have it.”
Angela laughed, soft and smug. “Couldn’t be me. I ain’t have to worry about none of that—with the scholarships and all. Right, Paz?” She pivoted her chin toward the chair.
Silence. Paz didn’t blink.
Mireya slid her gaze over the phone to look back at her. “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” Paz said, flat.
Mireya sucked her teeth, dropping her eyes back to the glow. “Fucking seems like it.”
The A/C kicked and coughed and then quit again, leaving the room loud with nothing. Paz’s voice rose a notch to fill the quiet. “You’re talking like you broke, but you got a big ass pile of boxes for toys in the corner right there.”
Mireya turned her head, cut her eyes to the corner, then back. “Lower your fucking voice. Camila’s asleep.”
Angela lifted both hands, palms out, scooting a knee under the coffee table. “Okay, okay—y’all chill.”
Paz didn’t. “Where you getting all this money?” Her heel tapped the chair leg like a clock. “For real.”
Mireya kept her body where it was, only her mouth moving. “Those are presents from my coworkers. And I’m getting my money how everybody else get money—by fucking working.”
Paz leaned forward, elbows to knees. “A bunch of women cleaning floors can buy all that?”
Mireya pushed herself to her elbows and looked at her full on. “Are you looking down on people who clean floors?”
“Don’t try to flip this on me,” Paz snapped. “I’m not the one suddenly able to afford all this shit.”
Mireya sat up, feet to the floor, the couch sighing under her. “So, your problem with me is that I’m not struggling enough for you?”
“She didn’t mean it like that, girl,” Angela said, voice pitched easy, eyes bouncing between them.
“Paz is a big girl. She knows what she said.” Mireya stood, phone face-down on the table with a small slap.
Paz rolled her eyes so hard the whites flashed. “You know that’s not what I said.”
Mireya jabbed a finger in her direction. “I should beat your fucking ass. But because I love you, I’m just going to tell you to get the fuck out.”
Paz scoffed, a dry little sound, and pushed up from the chair. The room shrank with the scrape of wood on tile. She moved to the door, shoulder tight. “You’re changing and you don’t even see it.”
“No,” Mireya shot back, following two steps, heat rising to her face. “I’m just not walking around thinking I’m holier than thou, puta.”
The door swung hard and the hallway’s dim light split the room. Paz disappeared into it without turning around.
Angela’s shoulders sagged. She looked at the door, at Mireya, back to the door. “Hold up,” she said, breath catching on the words, and hustled after Paz, sandals clapping.
The apartment went quiet again, that sticky, sour quiet that came after people said too much. Mireya stepped to the frame and shoved the door shut, hard enough that the pictures on the wall answered with a small rattle.
“Cunt,” she said under her breath, the words slipping out thin. She stood there a beat, hand still on the knob, listening for Camila’s stirring down the hall. Nothing.
She turned back toward the couch.
She walked, jaw tight, and dropped onto the cushion where her body had already left a warm shape, the phone waiting where she’d left it, its dark screen holding her own face in the gloss for half a second before it went back to black.
~~~
Ricardo climbed out of the van and let the door thud once. The metal threw a hollow ring that didn’t carry far in the garage heat. Concrete held tire dust and the sharp cut of exhaust that drifted up from the ramps. He took a breath through his mouth. The Kentucky plate on the bumper caught the light from a sodium fixture that buzzed, the characters clear on dirty white.
The phone in his pocket trembled. He pulled it and saw the single character on the screen. A question mark, nothing else. He leaned on the pillar, thumbs quick. He sent the stall number and those four letters and numbers. He didn’t add any words. The message pushed and the screen went to black.
From the far side, two men came in from the stairwell, heads up, eyes moving. Their clothes were ordinary but they walked like they knew they were being watched. One met his stare as they drew even. The man’s gaze slid down and up again, took him in, then his hand dipped to a pocket for a phone. The other kept scanning the rows. They moved past. Sound came down to the low hum of the garage and a plane somewhere outside pulling power.
Ricardo didn’t look back. He set off across the lane and down the concrete slope, taking the turns without hurry. The handrail was sticky at the landings. The air warmed and carried food and hot brakes. At the bottom level, a family spilled from an elevator with rolling bags. He slid around them and hit the door out.
Noise broke open. Newark’s sky chewed at him with jet roar and bus brakes and the horn of a shuttle that never stopped long enough. Warm wind pushed the shirt against his ribs and brought the smell of coffee that had burned too long. He stepped for the crosswalk and lifted a hand for the rideshare island.
An Audi pulled to the curb and shouldered the space he meant to take. The front window rolled down with a grind that said the motor had been asked too many times. The driver looked straight at him. “Súbete,” the man said.
Ricardo opened the rear door. Inside, cold air pushed out and swept sweat from his face. A man in a dark suit sat behind the passenger seat, posture neat, tie close, wrist flat on his thigh. He didn’t glance over. Ricardo slid in and shut the door. The car eased from the curb and joined the line.
The suited man watched the windshield, not him. “¿Qué pasó con Dani?” he asked. The voice held no heat. It held reach.
“La Migra,” Ricardo said. “He left the bag and ran.”
The man nodded once, small. “And you stuck around for the bag to get it here?”
“That was the job.”
Only then did the man turn to look at him. The detail in his face came alive in the half light from the dash. He didn’t speak. He measured. Tires thumped a seam in the road. A plane lifted overhead, a shadow across the roof liner. The driver merged, stopped, and merged again. The car smelled faintly of cologne that wasn’t from the driver.
“¿Cómo te llamas?” the man said.
“Ricardo.”
The silence after was unbroken but not empty. The Audi cleared the loops and took a right at the first light beyond the airport fencing. Warehouses gave way to blocks with chain-link and low houses that kept their blinds halfway shut. The driver rolled through two more turns and nosed against the curb under a tree big enough to make the car look small.
“Bájate, Ricardo,” the man said.
Ricardo opened the door. The heat outside felt heavier here. He set one foot on the gutter, then the other. He didn’t lean down to see back in. The street had a dog’s bark far off and the rattle of a train line that never went quiet.
“Ricardo,” the man called before he closed the door.
Ricardo looked in.
“Keep that phone with you,” the man said. “Y si vuelves a Culiacán, call La Flaca.”
Ricardo dipped his chin. He shut the door. The Audi pulled away without a sound and swung down the block, brake lights small and then gone. He stood long enough to hear the engine fold into the city’s sound before he turned his face to the corner.
~~~
Jaslene eased the car to the curb and killed the music. Heat pressed through the cracked window. Mireya bent to catch the strap of the takeout bag between her feet and lifted it, grease already touching the paper, the smell of cilantro and char climbing out.
“Mari wasn’t wrong,” she said, taking in the clean slab of the building and the neat row of mailboxes.
Jaslene popped her door. “It’s dumb to pay twenty-five hundred to share a wall,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But yeah. It’s nice.”
They crossed the short walk. Jaslene rapped the door once and pushed it open. “Estamos aquí,” she yelled, voice easy and familiar.
“En la sala,” Alejandra answered from inside.
They moved through a hallway that felt cold even with the air barely on. White walls, gray couch, everything neat in squares. Alejandra sat sprawled on the sofa in a short silk robe, legs out, hair twisted up with a clip. She pointed at the kitchen with her chin.
“Put it there, Mexicana.”
Mireya took the bag to the island. The kitchen gleamed. She set the food down and wiped her palm on her jeans.
“You couldn’t put on some clothes for us?” Jaslene said, grinning.
“In my own house?” Alejandra laughed. “For bitches who already seen my pussy? Absolutely not.”
Mireya came back and dropped onto the cushion next to her. The robe rustled. Alejandra cut her a side look.
“Oye, quítate los zapatos.”
“My bad,” Mireya said. She curled a foot behind her and pulled both shoes off, tucking them under the table.
Footsteps thudded down the stairs. Hayley hit the kitchen without a word and dug into the bag, paper tearing loud.
“I’ve been starving waiting on y’all,” she said around the first bite, still unwrapping.
Jaslene lifted a small eagle from the console shelf, turning it in her hand. “This new?”
Hayley looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Marcello gave that to me,” she said, mouth full.
Mireya squinted. “Looks like some MAGA shit.”
“It is some MAGA shit,” Alejandra said, snorting.
“Ale just mad he don’t want her ass,” Jaslene said, setting the eagle back.
Alejandra scoffed. “His son does though. Doesn’t want to fuck. Just eats my ass. Motherfucking cuck.”
Hayley shrugged. “He pays less though.”
Mireya glanced from one to the other. “So y’all really be out there like…”
“They always hustling,” Jaslene said, walking to the island to snag a taco before Hayley cleared the bag.
“Don’t act like you’ve never come, too,” Alejandra said to Jaslene, eyes glinting.
Jaslene rolled a shoulder, noncommittal, and bit into the taco.
Alejandra leaned back, robe gaping just enough to be a joke she was in on. She tipped her chin at Mireya. “Puedes venir si quieres. They’re not gonna be mad about one more.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Mireya said. She felt the heat of the food in the room now, grease and onion dense in the air. “Some dude asked me to suck his dick the other night in the VIP.”
“Did you?” Hayley asked, blunt.
“Fuck no.”
Alejandra laughed. “Can’t be leaving on the table, Mexicana. You suck dick for free, no? When you go see you baby daddy?”
“That’s different,” Mireya said.
“What’s different?” Alejandra said, rolling her head to look at her. “You go to Georgia. You suck his dick. You fuck him. He has a little money. He sends it to you. Es lo mismo.”
Jaslene licked salsa off her thumb. “Ale, you just don’t believe in love. Those are two different things.”
Alejandra shrugged, bored with the argument before it finished. “I don’t see the difference. If a man buys his wife a Tiffany bracelet, it’s okay. If a man buys me a Tiffany bracelet, it’s not? That’s stupid.”
She reached forward and tapped Mireya’s knee with two fingers, playful and pointed. “You don’t have to worry about slow nights if you do a few parties, get yourself a few regulars, Mexicana.”
Mireya snorted and stood, the couch cushion sighing under her. The smell from the bag hit her harder at that height, meat and hot corn, a little sour cream. She needed air that didn’t taste like food.
“You can just leave me off that roster,” she said.
Hayley watched her for a second, then slid a wrapped taco across the island with the back of her hand. Paper skidded and bumped to a stop.
Mireya walked to the edge of the living room and looked toward the glass. The backyard lay bright and exact, a tidy square of green with a small deck and clean chairs. Even the outside looked expensive. She stood there, bare feet on cool floor, the hum of the fridge steady, Hayley chewing, Jaslene rifling for napkins, Alejandra’s robe whispering when she shifted. The condo held its clean breath.
She didn’t open the door. She didn’t say anything else.
“Eat that,” Hayley called lightly, eyes back on the foil. “Before I do.”
Mireya glanced at the taco resting on the island, then back at the yard, the pretty fence line, the little lemon tree in a pot by the rail. The luxury stretched all the way out there, neat and unbothered.
She stood there a moment more, the paper-wrapped taco waiting, the view quiet and gleaming beyond the glass.
~~~
Caine’s phone lit just as he killed the engine at the church. Laney’s name sat on the screen, not a text bubble, a call. She never called.
“Hey, boss lady,” he said, shoulder rolling loose while he glanced toward the daycare door.
“I need your help with somethin’,” she said. “Can you come to my house?”
“Yeah, that’s no problem.”
“I’ll text you the address.”
The map link hit a beat later. He turned the Buick back onto the road and let the quiet Georgia stretch roll by, pines leaning in and the late sun catching on mailboxes.
The neighborhood was clean in a way that looked practiced. Grass cut to one length. Boxwoods squared. Laney’s place held a small porch with a flag moving just enough to prove there was air. He clocked the manicured yard and thought. That fit.
He knocked once. The deadbolt turned and Laney opened in jeans and a T-shirt, hair pulled back neat. Her eyes were business.
“Come on,” she said. “AC went out. It’s old. I gotta jiggle a relay to get it runnin’ again, but I can’t get to it from the attic and I ain’t climbin’ up without somebody holdin’ this ladder.”
She led him past framed school pictures and shoes lined by the door, down a hall into a boy’s room that smelled faintly of detergent and marker. A ladder waited in the closet under a square.
“I tried Caleb and Jesse,” she said, almost to herself. “Couldn’t get a hold of neither of them.”
“I got it,” he said.
He leaned in to look. The hole above the shelf wasn’t much bigger than a pizza box. He could get his head up there, maybe an arm, but not his shoulders.
She read his thought. “Space’s too small for you. Your arms’re too big. I just need you to hold the ladder and make sure I don’t bust my ass.”
He stepped into the closet’s narrow space and wrapped a hand around each rail. She climbed. The aluminum clicked under her weight and then smoothed out. She went to the top step on her toes, stretching, shirt riding up. Her jeans caught on the edge of a rung and tugged down a little. When she shifted her hips forward to reach, he saw a rise of ink bright on her thigh, just below her waistband. She braced her wrist on the frame and reached into the dark.
“Lil’ more,” she breathed, more to the relay than to him.
A dry crackle spit in the cavity. The hairs on his forearm lifted. She hissed a curse and stretched further. The ladder flexed. Caine’s hands moved without thought—one palm opening at her stomach, the other finding her hip. He steadied her, his thumb catching heat through cotton. Her inhale was sharp in the small closet.
“Hold still,” she said, voice thin now. “There it—”
Static snapped again. Somewhere outside the closet, the condenser coughed like a stubborn old man. She pressed forward and the crackle turned to a low buzz. He felt the ladder sway and dropped the hand at her stomach back to the rail, keeping the one at her hip until the shake leveled out. On the far side of the house the compressor gave a grudging start, then a steadier hum.
Laney looked down, found the top of the ladder with her feet, and took each step slow. He kept the ladder firm until both feet were on carpet. A dust fleck clung to her cheek. He stepped backward out of the closet.
“That’s a little dangerous, huh?” he said, half a smile.
“Been meanin’ to get it fixed,” she answered, shaking her head. “I never have time.”
They moved through the hall again. The cool had already started to creep back, thin first, then more sure. In the kitchen, the counters sat clear. A row of lunchboxes waited near the sink. He said he was good when she offered a drink. She poured him a glass anyway, the water catching light as it rose.
He took it because refusing twice felt wrong. The living room opened beside them, ordered the way he expected, nothing out of place, remotes lined straight. A corkboard held a week mapped out in her tight handwriting.
“It looked like your daughter had fun last week,” she said, leaning a hip to the counter.
“She did,” he said. “She don’t like Statesboro much, but she loves presents.”
“Don’t all kids?” Her smile reached her eyes for a second.
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“And I ain’t take you for the type to know how to dance,” she said, tipping her chin toward the open space.
“Mireya taught me when we started dating,” he said. “She said I couldn’t embarrass her at her quince.”
“Did you?”
He eased a shoulder. “She might’ve made me look bad, if we keeping it real.”
“It looked fun. Show me?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You sure?”
She nodded once. “Mm-hmm.”
He pulled his phone and cued a track, huapango bright and insistent through the little speaker. He set the glass down and stepped to where the rug gave a little under their feet.
“All you gotta do is step,” he said, letting his hands hover before they settled. “Left, right. Bend your knees, sway your hips. I’ll lead you. Stay light on your feet.”
“Alright,” she said, the word softened by her drawl.
He took her right hand and set his other at her waist. He set the rhythm with his feet first, then let his hands tell her the rest. She followed. He felt the exact moment her body trusted his lead—the small release at the shoulder, the foot catching the beat without thinking. He spun her and brought her back, their hands not quite letting go before finding each other again. Her laugh rose up, unexpected and young, and it pulled one from him.
He didn’t rush. When the guitar drove them forward he guided her through another tight circle and felt her settle closer, chest to chest for a breath, then angled at his side, testing. She looked up at him. He dropped one eyelid in a quick wink.
They rode one song and then another. Sweat gathered at his temples and along her hairline where the AC hadn’t won yet. His shirt clung at the back when he pulled her into the last slow turn before the track faded. They stopped in the soft afterward, a hush that made the kitchen hum sound big.
She stood in front of him, bodies still close enough to feel the air move between them. Her pupils were wide. She searched his face the way a person reads a verse twice to make sure they got it right. Then she closed the last inch and kissed him.
He felt the press of her mouth first, then the catch of breath that followed. It wasn’t a question. His hands slid down the line of her back, stopping at her lower spine. Her arms went around his neck. The second kiss opened, slower, deeper, the kind that turned the room down until there was nothing but breath and pulse and the way her shirt bunched under his fingers.
He let himself be pulled toward the edge of losing track of everything else. A half step. Another. The side of his hand bumped the counter. She made a sound low in her throat and then she stiffened, as if she’d remembered herself.
She broke away, breath catching. Her fingers went to her lips like she was holding the moment in place.
“I think you should go, Caine,” she said, voice quiet.
He didn’t argue. He nodded once.
He walked to the island, picked up his phone, and slid it into his pocket. The house had the kind of stillness a cooling unit brings, a steady working hush. He looked at her once more, not asking, not promising, then let himself out. The latch caught with a soft click.
Laney stayed in the middle of the living room, palms pressed flat to her mouth, the cold of her wedding ring against her lips. The AC pushed cool through the vent and found the damp at her throat. The house was clean and in order and it was suddenly hard to look at any of it.
She definitely didn't handle it like it was her first time stepping out. She knew what she was doing with that show me line.
