American Sun

[Captain Canada]

Why does it feel as though Laney and Blake got a sexual history? It feels like she was for the streets in her hey day.

I got the same vibes

It’s just misogyny at this point. Why would she want the fuck up brother when she married the stable brother? don’t know why yall portraying this woman as a ho

Why would she want the ex-felon 19-year old when she's married to said stable brother with three young children? Clearly, Laney doesn't always make the best decisions.

[redsox907]

I got the same vibes

It’s just misogyny at this point. Why would she want the fuck up brother when she married the stable brother? don’t know why yall portraying this woman as a ho

Why would she want the ex-felon 19-year old when she's married to said stable brother with three young children? Clearly, Laney doesn't always make the best decisions.

Caesar coming at us for insinuating this woman could have slept around before marrying the clearly psychotic military man that has her in a loveless marriage for the sake of optics, yet he's the one got her hunching in the same church she was married in - BY HER FATHER - with a 19 year old ex-con that is only working there on parole.

But we the bad guys. I'm just saying, the way she acted to being startled and how he kept trying to initiate contact, something happened there #soxstradamus

[Caesar]

I got the same vibes

It’s just misogyny at this point. Why would she want the fuck up brother when she married the stable brother? don’t know why yall portraying this woman as a ho

Why would she want the ex-felon 19-year old when she's married to said stable brother with three young children? Clearly, Laney doesn't always make the best decisions.

Because he, as she perceives it, is a good father which is the most hurtful gap in her loveless marriage and what attracted her to him. Add in him showing compassion and care toward her and 1+1=2 nahimean

It’s just misogyny at this point. Why would she want the fuck up brother when she married the stable brother? don’t know why yall portraying this woman as a ho

Why would she want the ex-felon 19-year old when she's married to said stable brother with three young children? Clearly, Laney doesn't always make the best decisions.

Caesar coming at us for insinuating this woman could have slept around before marrying the clearly psychotic military man that has her in a loveless marriage for the sake of optics, yet he's the one got her hunching in the same church she was married in - BY HER FATHER - with a 19 year old ex-con that is only working there on parole.

But we the bad guys. I'm just saying, the way she acted to being startled and how he kept trying to initiate contact, something happened there #soxstradamus

I ain’t saying she ain’t sleep around. I’m saying assuming that included this dude is a take

Or she just really doesn’t like him and he’s touchy feely.

[Captain Canada]

The debate raging on whether or not Caine is a certified good father needs to be completed at some point.

[Caesar]

The debate raging on whether or not Caine is a certified good father needs to be completed at some point.

I got you.

Caine Guerra is a good father. Misguided, yes. Good father? Also yes.

/debate

[redsox907]

The debate raging on whether or not Caine is a certified good father needs to be completed at some point.

I got you.

Caine Guerra is a good father. Misguided, yes. Good father? Also yes.

/debate

I would argue he isn't necessarily a good father, but a caring father.

there is more to being a father than caring for your child and you could argue that his actions, including up and leaving his family without providing support, would put him squarely outside of the "good" classification.

Not saying he is a bad father, just not the best in terms of providing for his daughter, which is just as important as providing for her emotionally (which he does his best at and genuinely tries)

[Caesar]

The debate raging on whether or not Caine is a certified good father needs to be completed at some point.

I got you.

Caine Guerra is a good father. Misguided, yes. Good father? Also yes.

/debate

I would argue he isn't necessarily a good father, but a caring father.

there is more to being a father than caring for your child and you could argue that his actions, including up and leaving his family without providing support, would put him squarely outside of the "good" classification.

Not saying he is a bad father, just not the best in terms of providing for his daughter, which is just as important as providing for her emotionally (which he does his best at and genuinely tries)

Fair enough

[Caesar]

God Won’t Be There When You Want Him

The AC worked a tired rattle through the vent and pushed a line of cool across the carpet. Caine sat on the living room floor with his back against the couch, the tablet lit in his hands. The room was a thin gray, early-morning quiet holding to the window screens. He scrubbed the clip back a second and let it run. Clemson’s nickel walked down late, the safety spun off the picture, and the edge came hot. He watched the backer’s feet, not the helmet. Calm lived in him where nerves used to be. They were better than North Alabama, sure. That was fine. He felt loose in his chest. It was house money. Everyone expected them to lose big. If it came, it wouldn’t take a piece out of him he needed.

He paused the frame and let the defenders hang there on the screen, bodies caught mid-intention. The apartment kept its small sounds. The vent ticked, then settled. A neighbor’s door thudded once down the hall, then nothing. He set the tablet face down on the rug and reached beside the couch for the box of journals.

He slid the lid off and found the journals stacked the way he always left them—cheap spirals. The one he wanted sat at the top, pages rough enough to keep the pen honest. He opened it across his knees and felt the apartment lean quiet around him.

He didn’t have to warm up. The words were already lined up.

Hey, mamas, he wrote.

He breathed, letting the line sit the way he always did, making room for her name inside the room. The paper held a little grit under his wrist.

He listened to the AC hum, flipped the pen between his fingers, then put it back down.

I been thinking about being your daddy and what that really is. What it really means. Not when it’s cute. I mean the part when you getting pulled by every bill, every rule, every man with a badge or a pen, and the baby still needs to eat and the car needs gas. I ain’t proud of it, but I made choices that got me what I needed right then and I didn’t look too hard at the part that came after. That’s the truth. You make a move because today is loud, and tomorrow whispers like it ain’t even sure it’s coming.

He stopped and rubbed his thumb along the page edge until the paper warmed, then kept going.

That’s how I ended up in more than a few of the bad spots I been in. I ain’t gonna lie to you and say I’d undo all of it. Minus a few things, I probably do most of it the same, because we were hungry right there in that minute. Folks judge, but they ain’t counting the days the way we had to count them. They ain’t never had to trade freedom for food.

A small draft found the sweat at his neck and cooled it. He shifted his back against the couch and let the quiet come in again. The tablet on the rug stayed dark like it could wait.

Your mama’s built different from me. She’ll think a hole into the ground before she steps over it. She’ll hold on an idea for weeks, turn it, flip it, stare at it from one end of the kitchen to the other before she even moves her foot. I used to say she doing too much with it, and maybe she is sometimes, but she trying to make sure it’s solid down below before she leaps. Me, I was out here grabbing what I could reach and leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.

He looked toward the kitchen. The shelf where he stacked cans sat neat in their pretend fullness. He let the sight register and come back to the page.

Some days I think about how that will sound to you when you get older. How to tell you that your daddy was out there doing dirt. If I even tell you about half the shit I’ve done. The truth is we, me and your mama, were both getting pulled by the same storm. I did what I knew. She did what she knew. That’s the burden nobody teaches you about being a parent when you come from where we come from.

His hand cramped. He set the pen down and held the words where they lay, not fixing them, not dressing them up. The vent clicked. The tablet screen stayed black. Outside, a bird started up and then stopped. He closed the journal and rested both palms on the cover until the quiet found its level. Then he slid the book back into the box and pulled the tablet toward him, the defense frozen where he’d left it, ready to move when he was.

~~~

The University Center had a hush to it at this hour, a low air that cooled the skin and flattened voices to a murmur. Fluorescents hummed above and the vending machine clunked somewhere behind the columns, then settled again. Mireya picked a two-top along the edge, where the light broke softer, and set her backpack down.

Her phone pulsed with her “midnight ballerinas” group chat as it had been named. She thumbed the screen open.

Jaslene: I think those people from Southern Decadence are still in town. Bourbon’s fucking packed.
Hayley: Or the Saints
Alejandra: It’s a money making weekend bitches

A photo from Bianca crawled up. Beads. A plastic cup sweating sugar. Someone’s arm throwing a blur of gold.

Liana’s dots flashed and went quiet. Mari dropped a single money bag and a devil face. Hayley liked her message. Jaslene sent a heart.

The laptop woke with a couple keys and the screen washed the table in a calm blue. She signed into her portal and found the new grade. The number sat in a clean circle. She let it land, then scrolled the feedback. One paragraph. Another. She traced the last sentence with her eyes and heard the room again. Good so far.

A chair moved at the next table. Not a scrape, just a placement that said the person paid attention. She kept reading. The feeling of someone watching found the side of her face and stayed. She let a breath out and kept her attention on the trackpad until the page stopped moving.

“Can I help you?” she asked, not looking up yet.

“I’m always seeing you around campus,” the voice said. Jordan. “Never anywhere else. That’s weird for somebody from here.”

She turned. He sat angled toward her, elbows on his knees, phone face down in his hand. He looked rested in a way that said he took his time with mornings.

“I told you I work a lot,” she said.

“What you do?”

“Cleaning businesses,” she said. “Other buildings.”

He nodded once. “Call out,” he said. “Let me take you out. I’ll cover whatever money you miss.”

Her mouth curved before she could stop it. A short laugh came and was gone. “You persistent.”

“What you got to lose?”

“A lot.”

The AC rolled a steady breath across the back of her neck. She pressed her palm on the warm hinge of the laptop and felt awake in her fingers.

He tapped his phone once on his knee, a quiet click. “At least let me get your number,” he said. “So I don’t have to keep popping up on you.”

“You not my type.”

He shrugged. “Yet.”

He set his phone upright on his palm and offered it across the space between tables. He did not push it toward her face. He just held it there like he had time.

She glanced at the phone. Then at him. A small sigh moved through her and left her shoulders loose.

She reached out and took it.

~~~

Ramon caught the breeze rolling thin along the block and checked Duke’s text again before he slid his phone away. Trell’s house sat low and neat, front yard trimmed, exterior hiding what was usually going on in there.

The door opened before he knocked. Trell stepped out with Ant and Dez. Trell didn’t bother with greetings. He lifted his chin toward the curb.

“Get in,” Dez said, unlocking with a chirp.

Ramon pulled the rear handle. Ant’s hand came across his chest, light but final. A point to the front passenger seat. Trell and Ant slid into the back. Dez started the engine and the dash lit blue. The AC coughed, then steadied. They rolled off the block and took the turn toward the highway.

NBA YoungBoy spread low from the speakers. The bass rode through the seats more than the air. Houses gave way to long runs of fence, then to the slow widen of open lots and billboards with sun-faded paint. Ramon sat easy, knees apart, one palm on his thigh. He watched the traffic climb around them and fall away.

Trell’s voice came from the shadows of the back seat. “You got family out here?”

Ramon shook his head. “Just my potnas.”

“What about your people?”

“I don’t know where they at,” he said. “Out west, I guess.”

Trell didn’t press. The car settled into road noise and a drum line from the track that wouldn’t commit to a hook. Dez drove one-handed, eyes forward, the other hand drumming two fingers at the gear selector when the hi-hat asked for it. Ant said nothing. The city thinned. A scrap yard. A line of power poles cutting a straight path. A strip of water flashing through trees.

Half an hour later they turned off the larger road and followed a rutted shoulder to a house that wore dust and the kind of quiet that kept nosy away. The place looked abandoned from the street. No curtains. A door that matched the paint too well. Ramon scanned the eaves and the windows because his eyes always did that, then let them come back to the steps.

They got out. Heat climbed off the ground and met them at the knees. Ant gave Ramon the smallest nudge with a look that meant keep moving. Dez rapped a knuckle on the door. A narrow slat slid back. One eye, then both. Boogie’s grin showed before the door did.

“Come on,” he said, stepping aside.

Inside ran on a different air. Plastic and cleaner. Old smoke hiding under both. The front room opened into a longer space that had been made into a line. A dozen women worked along folding tables, naked except for panties, hands moving at a steady pace. Scale, bag, press. Scale, bag, press. Their faces kept their eyes where their hands were. The floor under the tables held boxes and flat stacks of plastic bags banded tight.

Boogie held court near a couch with three other dudes, phone out, a speaker somewhere behind them humming a throwback beat. He dapped Dez up quick and went back to what he was saying.

Trell gestured across the line of women. “You got a problem with this?”

Ramon looked once, then back to Trell. He shook his head.

Trell’s chin flicked at Ant. Ant walked the line like he was checking a fence for weak boards. He stopped at a woman near the end. No words. His fist snapped once and caught her cheek clean enough to drop her to one knee. He took a fist of hair and pulled her through the hall to the front, the sound of her breath cutting high, a scream building that seemed to catch in her throat, and then going small when she hit the porch. Her clothes and purse landed in a soft scatter after her. The door shut again. The line didn’t slow. Plastic hissed. Tape popped. Nobody looked up.

“Stealing,” Trell said, shoulders loose, voice even.

Trell faced Ramon again. “How much you want.”

“Two birds,” Ramon said.

Trell’s eyes stayed on him a beat, then moved. Ant was already at the end of the line, hands neat as he pulled two wrapped packages that clinked soft with what was inside. He tucked them under one arm and brought them back. They were heavy enough to say they were real. Ramon took both, tested the balance, then set them into the bag he had kept folded flat against his rib the whole ride.

Boogie turned the phone so Dez could catch a last slice of a red-lit room. The track under the video kicked into a chorus that never finished. Dez pocketed it in his head and grinned.

Trell stepped close. His hand landed on Ramon’s shoulder just long enough. Pressure. Release. He turned and walked out without looking back. Ant ghosted around Ramon, shoulder almost brushing his. “Let’s go, nigga,” he called to Dez without heat.

“Send me that,” Dez told Boogie, pointing with his chin. He jogged after them.

Ramon gave the room one more pass. The women kept working. The plastic whispered. The scale blinked its same numbers. Boogie slid the phone into his pocket and was already half into a new joke. Ramon shifted the bag higher on his shoulder, turned, and followed them out.

~~~

The knock came light, three taps that flattened under the hum of the stove fan. Caine turned the burner down, steam lifting from the pot and fogging the edge of the microwave door. He wiped his hand on a towel and cracked the deadbolt.

Rylee stood in the hall in a faded tee and cutoffs, hair pulled back, cheeks a little warm from the outside heat. She tipped her chin once and walked past him before he said anything, the clean slap of her sandals small in the room.

She leaned on the counter where he’d lined up what he needed. Boxes squared to the edge. Seasoning lined tight. The pan sat dead center on the coil like he’d measured it. Rylee looked from the stove to him, head tilted, a smile pulling at one side of her mouth.

“You gon’ tell me why you bein’ strange all of a sudden?” she asked. “You always been a lil’ odd—kinda autistic—” her fingers flicked at the boxes like a joke he was supposed to catch “—but lately you real weird.”

“Autistic?” Caine said, one eyebrow up.

She shrugged. “Ain’t mean it like that. Just… you keep every lil’ thing in a line, even them boxes you cookin’ with.” She tapped one with her knuckle, then settled her hip against the laminate.

He shook his head and went back to the stove, turning the spoon through the pot, wrist loosening the clumps. “I been busy. They don’t ease you in out here. Football and classes start up and they throw you straight in.”

“What you was doin’ all summer then?” she asked, voice softening, country in it.

“Ain’t have school in the summer,” he said. He tested a piece, flicked the burner lower again, and slid a lid over the top to hold the heat.

Rylee came around the counter and got close enough that her perfume found the steam. “Well, what about right now? You don’t look all that busy.” She put a palm on the counter with her wrist angled, leaning into him enough to make it a choice.

He scoffed, small. “I gotta go back to campus in a bit for some meetings,” he said. “And I gotta go to sleep early. Walkthrough in the morning before we roll to Clemson.”

She made a face that sat between a smile and a dare he wasn’t going to take. “How much time you got before you leave?”

“Counting finishing this, eating it, then going back?” He cut his eyes to the stove clock, lips moving while he did the math. “Twenty, twenty-five.”

“That’s plenty time,” she said, low, pleased with the line.

He shook his head once. “I’ll text you when I’m done with the meetings.”

Her mouth thinned like she didn’t buy it, but she didn’t push. She reached past him and flicked the corner of one box into perfect line, then stepped back out of his space. “Mhm. Alright.”

The room held the soft clap of the AC cutting on. He lifted the lid, stirred once, killed the burner, and let the sound fill the quiet. Rylee rolled off the counter with a palm, her bracelets clinking once as she went to the door.

“You cookin’ like somebody’s grandma,” she said, not quite teasing anymore. “You gon’ text me?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“You ain’t answerin’ the question I asked,” she said, turning the deadbolt for him and opening the door with her wrist. The hall’s light spilled in flat and yellow.

“Yeah, I got you,” he said, steady.

She searched his face for a beat. Whatever she wanted to say turned into a tiny nod. “Alright then.” She slipped out, the door catching and then shutting with the soft thud the building always gave back.

Caine held still until the latch settled. The apartment went back to the stove’s tick as the element cooled. The smell of what he’d made hung in the air with the last of her perfume.

He plated the food at the counter, neat. Fork set to the right. Napkin folded once and squared. He carried the plate to the table, sat, and ate two quiet bites, eyes on the vein of wood running through the tabletop. He reached to the chair beside him and pulled his notebook onto the placemat, thumbing to the page where his handwriting cut clean lines down the margin.

Notes from the position room sat stacked in bullets. Clemson fronts scrawled at the top. Safety tells. Boundary pressure. Protections circled. He turned a page with his fingertip and let the paper lie flat. The pen sat where he had left it under the clip. He clicked it once, set the point to the page, and traced over a checkmark he’d already made.

~~~

The yard still held the weight of the day’s heat. Grass stuck to the bottoms of bare feet, and the air hung thick with the smell of clay and cut stems. Laney stood near the middle, football balanced in her palm, squinting through the last of the sun.

“Alright, Knox,” she called. “Hands, not your belly. Look it all the way in, baby.”

Knox nodded, jaw set, arms already lifted. Laney took a slow breath and threw. The ball came off her hand in a clean spiral, barely wobbling before it smacked his palms. It bounced once against his chest but he held on, clutching it like it might wriggle free.

She smiled. “That’s good. You had your hands right. You just pulled it too close at the end, that’s all. Do it the same way again, just softer on your fingers.”

Knox grinned, wiping sweat from his forehead with his wrist. “Okay, Mama.”

“That’s my boy,” she said. “Now line back up.”

A giggle broke from the side yard where Braxton and Hunter had started chasing each other in circles, kicking up dust. Laney glanced their way. “Hey—stay where I can see y’all, you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am!” Braxton yelled, not slowing.

Laney rolled her eyes but kept her smile. She looked back at Knox and set the ball again. “Ready?”

He nodded. She threw. The spiral was true, and this time Knox caught it right in his hands, soft and sure. His eyes went wide.

“There you go,” she said, pride slipping into her voice. “You see that? That’s how you catch a ball. Good job, baby.”

The latch on the back gate clacked, and Jesse came walking up from their parents’ place, hands in his pockets, the top button of his shirt undone. He stopped halfway across the yard.

“You cook?” he asked.

Laney turned. “I’m gon’ to.”

“When?”

“When I finish out here.”

“I’m starvin’ now.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “Maybe it’s about time you learned to cook.”

Jesse frowned, half smirk, half disbelief. “Why would I do that when I got Mama and you to do it for me?”

Laney shook her head, tossing the ball back and forth between her palms. “Then you gon’ wait till I’m done.”

He sighed loud, made a show of dragging himself to the porch steps, and sat down like he’d been worked half to death. “I swear y’all tryna kill me.”

Laney laughed. “You’ll live.”

She turned back to Knox, who still had the ball tucked against his ribs. “Alright, sugar, one more. Let’s see if you can make three straight.”

Knox lined up again, focused, face serious. Braxton and Hunter had crept closer to watch. Laney threw, her motion smooth as muscle memory. Knox caught it clean. She raised her hand in a little cheer. “That’s one.”

She threw again—another good spiral. “Two,” she said.

Knox’s chest lifted, ready for the last. She sent the third ball with just enough speed to test him. It struck his hands and nearly slipped, but he caught it. His laugh came out loud and bright.

“There you go! That’s my baby!” she called. “You see what happens when you don’t blink?”

Braxton was already bouncing. “My turn, Mama!”

She grinned. “Alright, you up next. Knox, hand it to your brother.”

Knox jogged it over and handed it off carefully. Braxton lined up, eyes wide and serious. Laney softened her stance, voice low and calm. “Alright now, just catch what I give you. Don’t squeeze too tight or it’ll bounce out.”

She threw it slow. Braxton caught it against his chest and hollered. “I did it!”

“You sure did,” she said, clapping once. “Now toss it back easy.”

His return wobbled off course and rolled near Jesse’s shoe. Jesse picked it up and flipped it back to Laney without looking. “Form looks just like yours,” he said with a grin.

“Still better than yours,” she warned, laughing anyway.

A car engine cut through the sound of the boys. Laney looked toward the gravel drive next door. Caleb’s car eased in, neat and slow, and the driver’s door opened before the engine had even settled. He rounded the front, opened the passenger side, and held out a hand. Gabrielle took it, stepping down careful in her wedges.

Laney lifted a hand.

Gabrielle smiled and waved back before turning toward the porch. Laney cupped her hand to her mouth. “Caleb! C’mere a second!”

He glanced her way, closed the truck door behind him, and crossed the fence gap that split their yards. His stride was easy, steady — not slow country, just controlled. “You need something?” he asked, voice clipped, not unfriendly but practiced flat.

Laney nodded toward him. “Blake’s back in town. Said he might want to use your camper to sleep in.”

Caleb raised a brow. “Why wouldn’t he stay in the house with his brother and sister-in-law?”

Laney gave him a look. “Blake’s your brother-in-law too.”

He huffed a laugh, sharp and quick. “I already have one fuck-up sibling. Didn’t ask for another.”

Laney’s tone cooled, her drawl sharpening. “You ain’t usin’ the camper. Might as well let him. It’s only if Tommy says yes. I’m askin’ you first.”

Caleb rubbed his jaw, eyes skimming the yard. Knox and Braxton were tossing the ball back and forth now, the little one over-rotating, Knox chasing it down and throwing it back without complaint. Hunter sat on the steps beside Jesse, swinging his legs.

Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know how Tommy manages it,” he said. “His mother, his brother, his father gone, and then being married to you.”

Laney’s eyes narrowed. “You gon’ let him or not?”

He exhaled, tone flat. “Sure. But you’ll clean it when he leaves.”

“That’s fine,” she said evenly.

“Good.” He turned back toward his house. “Just tell him not to tear it up. And keep that meth smoking bitch Neveah out of my shit.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said, voice flat.

Gabrielle had paused near the porch, waiting. She waved once more before they disappeared inside. Laney waved back, then turned to her boys. Knox still had the ball. Braxton reached for it. Hunter laughed like he didn’t care who got it.

“Alright, fellas,” she called. “That’s enough for now. Go wash them hands. I’ll start supper.”

They groaned but did as they were told. The sound of their bare feet slapped up the porch steps, Hunter giggling as Braxton tried to beat him inside. Jesse took his time standing, stretching like a man twice his age, and still barely rose before the boys.

~~~

The iHOP stayed too bright for the hour. Cold air pushed across the vinyl booth and smelled like coffee and fry oil and syrup. Glitter clung to the back of Mireya’s wrist where the soap at the club sink never got it all, a faint shimmer each time she moved her phone to check her face. Liana had skipped to study. Mari was home because Graciela was sick. Hayley, Alejandra said, was out with some guero who had money.

She held the phone in one hand and a toothpick in the other. She angled the screen, tilted her head, and caught the line of lipstick she had missed. Across the booth, Jaslene and Bianca were already halfway through a plate of pancakes they kept dragging through a mess of butter. Alejandra sat sideways, one heel on the bench, rolling her ankle and complaining.

“Nah, he was breathing for real,” Bianca said. “Every time I got near him. Sounded asthmatic.”

“Sí, heavy heavy,” Alejandra added, dragging out the word. “Como un toro. And staring.”

Jaslene laughed behind her straw. “He had on them tight jeans too.”

Mireya slid the toothpick and kept her eyes on the screen. “That was Brooke’s little brother,” she said. “He turned twenty-one. His boys brought him out.”

Bianca paused, fork in the air. “Brooke was dancing tonight, right?”

Mireya nodded and kept picking. Jaslene reached without looking and passed over a napkin, like they had done this a hundred times. Mireya pressed the corner of the napkin to the edge of her mouth, checked again, and set her phone down facedown on the table. The toothpick joined the jumble of syrup packets.

“See,” Bianca said, leaning back, “that’s why these white folks nasty. Why you want your lil’ brother in there when all your pussy out?”

Alejandra raised both hands. “I guess she figured if he throwing money, who cares. Capitalismo, bebé.”

“Mm,” Jaslene said, unimpressed. “Her problem.”

A waitress walked by with a tray full of eggs. Somewhere behind them a dishwasher banged. Mireya rubbed at a spot of glue on her lash line and then stopped, hands flat on the table.

“Y’all, I gotta find a way to get three grand,” she said.

The table went quiet. Jaslene’s eyes flicked up first. “¿Pa’ qué?”

“So, I can buy my mama’s car,” Mireya said. “She said three thousand to buy it.”

Alejandra snorted. “Why you gonna drop three grand on that shitbox? Buy yourself a car that ain’t gonna die on you.”

“I can’t afford a note,” Mireya said. She did not blink. “Insurance will be low on that one. I know how it run. I just need to get the money.”

Bianca grinned, tapping her nails. “Girl, I got this white man in Dallas I met on Twitter paying my shit. I just gotta call him a little cucky boy every so often.”

Jaslene cracked up, hand over her mouth to keep the syrup from flying. Alejandra shook her head and stole a piece of Bianca’s bacon. Mireya smiled and reached for her water.

“I’m serious,” she said. “I gotta get this money together quick.”

Alejandra shrugged, casual. “Then come with us Saturday.”

Mireya’s fingers slowed on the cup. “Where?”

“Bachelor party,” Jaslene said.

Bianca rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Easy money. Bunch of white boys. They gonna be drunk in an hour and too busy screaming in each other’s faces. We slide through, get the bag, slide out. It’s the niggas you gotta watch. That Henny don’t do them nothing.”

Alejandra laughed at that, tossing her hair. “Or we can steal their shit again.”

“Please,” Jaslene said, making a face. “None of that was even worth anything.”

Mireya tapped her nails on the laminate. The habit beat a little rhythm. “It’s all tips?” she asked.

Alejandra shook her head. “No. Two-fifty just to show up. Then whatever they throwing. You can make that double, Mexicana. Tú sabes.”

Jaslene pushed her plate away and angled her body toward Mireya. “I’ll look out for you.”

The AC pushed again. On the other side of the window, a truck rumbled through the lot and then faded. Bianca wiped butter off her finger with the corner of a napkin and watched Mireya with her chin down, waiting for the tell.

Mireya ran her tongue along her teeth, felt for anything left, and set her hands in her lap for a second. The number sat there between them. Her shoulders loosened. She nodded once.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

[Soapy]

I was wondering what happened to the letters

that's gotta be a record for scenes in an update

that brother trying to get to the games! finally!

[Captain Canada]

I know the other shoe is going to drop on Caine and Mireya, I just can't figure out what its going to look like specifically.