The van’s engine clicked as it cooled. Heat was already rising off the gravel, and the porch boards looked white under it. Laney swung out with her tote on one arm, keys tangled in her fingers, mind already on the work waiting at the daycare. She caught sight of the figure on her porch and stopped short.
Blake sat in the chair beside the door, one boot heel hooked on the rung, elbows out like he owned the space. He stood when she reached the steps, rubbing his palms against his jeans.
“Morning,” he said. “Been tryin’ to catch you. I finally got ahold of Tommy. He said I can stay out back.”
Laney’s mouth flattened. “Mm.” She shifted the tote higher on her shoulder. “So he said that, huh?”
“Yeah,” Blake said, quick to fill the quiet. “You know how he is. Don’t do too much talking. But he said it was alright.”
She stepped up another board. “Alright then.”
“You said you were going to talk to Caleb.” Blake nodded, hopeful. “You did, right?”
“I did.” Her tone made it clear that was the end of the good news. “He said yes—but only if it’s you. Just you. Ain’t nobody else settin’ foot in it.”
Blake’s jaw worked. “What if I wanna bring my kid out there? Spend some time with him. You expect me to tell him he can’t come see his daddy for an hour?”
Laney unlocked her gaze from the door long enough to meet his. “You don’t wanna spend time with that child. You just want somewhere to drag whoever you pick up.”
He shook his head. “That’s not fair.”
“Ain’t gotta be.” The words fell flat, unbothered. “That’s the rule. You stay by yourself. You don’t like it, you know where the cheap motels are. They probably know you by name.”
The chime above the door clinked once in the wind. A lawn mower started two yards over. The hum filled the space he didn’t know how to use.
Blake let out a dry laugh. “You’re really gonna hold this over me forever, huh? You call yourself a Christian woman, sittin’ here full of hate.”
Laney’s keys jingled in her palm. “God forgives,” she said, slow and even. “So, I don’t have to.”
He blinked, smile faltering. “It wasn’t my fault. She—”
She lifted her hand, stopping him cold. “We’re not doin’ this.”
For a second he didn’t move. Then he tried a softer voice. “I’m just askin’ for a few weeks, Laney. I’m not tryin’ to make trouble.”
“I’ll tell Caleb to go get the camper for you,” she said. “You ain’t comin’ in this house.”
He spread his arms, half smile, half plea. “Laney, it’s me. I’m your brother-in-law. You gonna act like I’m some stranger?”
“You not comin’ in this house,” she repeated. “And you not talkin’ to my sons.”
Blake stared at her like the words needed translation. “Those are my nephews.”
“I don’t care.”
She slid the key into the top lock. The bolt turned with that old wooden scrape, same sound it made every day. The smell of lemon cleaner drifted out from last night’s wipe-down. Heat pressed at her back, and she could feel Blake standing there, trying to work up another line.
“You really ain’t gotta do me like this,” he said, voice thinner now. “I’m just tryin’ to get right. You act like—”
She didn’t turn around. “You done said what you came to say. Now get on ‘bout your business.”
“Lan—”
The name barely left his mouth before she pushed the door open, stepped through, and slammed it hard enough to shake the glass.
~~~
The chill in the lobby hit the sweat still drying on Caine’s neck. The morning air outside had been warm enough to sit on his skin. Inside, the vents worked hard and the floor smelled faintly like disinfectant and turf glue. A couple of student workers in polos looked up from a computer and a stack of mail. One of them tipped her chin toward him.
“They’re waiting on you in the conference room,” she said, already reaching for the phone. “I’ll tell Mr. Lytle you’re on your way.”
Caine nodded once. “Appreciate it.”
He walked the hall slow, not dragging, just letting his pace find the rhythm of the building. He pushed the door with the small window and stepped into a room set for meetings, not film. No projector humming. Just a long table, three water bottles, and a stack of folders.
Brandon Lytle, Director of Player Development, sat nearest the door. He had a worn notebook and a pen resting across it. Two people from the athletics foundation filled the far side, already halfway rising out of their chairs.
The first, a tall Black man in a navy suit with a loosened tie, reached his hand across the table. “Derrick McCray,” he said. “Development. It’s good to meet you, Caine.”
The second, a woman with a sharp bob and a blue GSU pin on her lapel, stepped in right after. “Erica Paulson,” she said. “Also development. Thanks for making the time.”
Caine crossed to them. He took their hands in turn, firm, steady. “Wasn’t no problem.”
They didn’t sit right away. Derrick’s grin carried easy pride that didn’t spill over. “Hell of a week,” he said. “North Alabama, then Clemson. Best we’ve had at quarterback since Van Trease was spinning it.”
Erica nodded. “You were decisive. Comfortable. Looked like you belonged there.”
Caine kept his eyes on them. “I appreciate it,” he said. He slid into the chair opposite, shoulders loose, elbows on the table. Lytle leaned back a little, a casual anchor on the near side of the table.
“Alright,” Derrick said, palming the top folder and pulling it closer. “Let’s just get right down to it. We’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how this story goes when one of ours breaks out.”
Erica’s voice followed, clean and practiced without feeling canned. “If you keep doing what you’re doing for the next couple of weeks, folks with deeper pockets are going to start sniffing around. They’ll tell you to hop in that portal. We want you to see we’re committed to you now and next year.”
Caine let the words come across the table and set down in front of him. He flicked a glance toward Lytle. Lytle gave him the smallest nod, more a breath than a movement.
“I mean,” Caine said, “I ain’t played nothing but two games. Seems like it’s a little early for that, huh?”
Derrick didn’t flinch. “Tampering don’t got a calendar, man. It’s all day, all season. This ain’t going to be different.”
Erica folded her hands. “Programs want to know who they’re going to have at quarterback. That can be a high school kid or somebody with experience. Either way they want to be first in the door.”
Lytle set his pen on the notebook. “What they’re saying is real. You keep stacking up good days, your phone’s going to get busy with people who ain’t supposed to have your number.”
Caine sat with that. He looked back at Derrick. The man had already opened the folder and turned it around to face him.
“This,” Derrick said, tapping the top sheet with one knuckle, “is us showing commitment both now and next year.”
The paper wasn’t glossy. Just a typed list with logos down the margin and numbers in a right-hand column. Local restaurants. A tire shop. A smoothie place. A training app. A car dealership. Appearances. Social posts. A little for a photo day with a youth league. Hundreds in some lines. A couple of boxes in the low thousands.
Erica watched him read. “You’re not going to be driving a Ferrari here,” she said, a thin smile curving but not selling. “But we can make it worth you staying.”
Caine pulled the folder in tight and slid the first sheet free with his thumb. He scanned the rows, steady. A post-practice signing for four hundred. A sit-down for a local radio hit, eight-fifty. Social for a barbecue spot across town, twelve hundred plus a comped tray. He turned the page. A meet-and-greet at the mall that paid more if they won on Saturday.
He felt the shape of the opportunity. He slid the folder a little closer and kept reading, interest piqued at the chance to make more money — legal money.
~~~
Mireya lay along the couch with one knee hooked over the arm, the cushion holding the weight of her weekend. The fan ticked above. The AC hummed, but heat still pressed at the walls. Her throat was scraped raw from the weekend. She’d skipped her afternoon class and come home, undressed, shoes kicked off, hair pulled loose and half-tangled.
The shoebox sat on the kitchen table under the window, lid crooked. She’d counted once, then again, then lost the thread when her eyes blurred. Tomorrow she’d take it to the bank. For now it sat where she could see it. She closed her eyes and let the couch keep her.
A knock dragged her up through a sleep that wasn’t all the way sleep. Two short raps, then one more, off rhythm. She rolled to her back and rubbed her face. “Hold on,” she called, voice husked low.
She expected maintenance. The bathroom faucet had dripped all night. Through the peephole, Angela’s hair filled the fisheye and Paz stood behind her, jaw set. Mireya undid the lock and stepped back, waving them in with a slow hand, then drifted to the couch and fell back into her spot.
Angela laughed when she saw her, bright in the small room. “Girl, you look like you been running marathons all weekend.”
“It feel like I been running marathons all weekend,” Mireya said, her voice breaking rough on the first words. She turned her face to the cushion and coughed, a dry scrape that made her eyes water.
Paz took in the apartment like the paint might answer her. “You got anything to drink?”
“In the fridge,” Mireya said, not bothering to sit up. She pointed at the kitchen. “Might just be Capri Suns for Camila and water. That’s it.”
Paz crossed to the kitchen. The fridge door pulled open with a rubber squeal. Angela dropped into the chair by the couch, set her feet on the other cushion, ankles crossed, tank strap slipping down her shoulder like the day had worn it out too.
Paz cracked a bottle and turned toward the living room. The shoebox blocked her path. She stopped. The lid sat crooked in a way that invited hands. She set her water on the table edge and lifted the box. The lid shifted. Paper rasped on paper.
“Where you get this?” Paz asked.
Angela leaned in, brows up. “Damn, girl. You working hard, huh?”
Mireya pushed herself upright, fingers raking her scalp. The room tipped, then steadied. She crossed to the kitchen, took the box from Paz, pressed the lid down, and set it back with a solid thud. “I remember you asking for water, not anything else.”
“Where’d you get the money?” Paz asked.
“It’s none of your fucking business,” Mireya said. She walked back to the couch and dropped into the cushion, the springs giving a tired sound. Her bra strap dug into her shoulder. The shorts cut a groove in her thigh when she shifted.
Paz came around the half wall and stayed standing. “You selling drugs?”
A short laugh slipped out of Mireya. “No.” She stared up at the ceiling where a tiny brown fleck marked an old bug by the vent. “I work for a cleaning company. Sometimes they pay cash bonuses. I can show you the damn check stubs if you want.”
“Cash bonuses for a cleaning company,” Paz said, arms folding. Plastic crinkled in the crook of her elbow.
Mireya looked to Angela. Angela lifted both hands, not stepping into it. A small shrug, mouth tilted, said she wanted the air to cool down.
“Yes,” Mireya said. “If we clean a building faster. Faster means more in a night.”
“I don’t believe you,” Paz said.
“It don’t fucking matter what you believe.” Mireya let her head fall back and watched the fan slice light into thin bands across the ceiling. Her calves and knees still ached. Her throat still tasted faintly of liquor.
Angela leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Paz, chill. It’s not like she doing anything illegal for the money.”
“Yep,” Mireya said. “Nothing illegal.”
Paz’s sigh pushed out slow, like she’d been holding it. She sat across from Angela and balanced the bottle on her knee. “I’m just worried about you.”
“You’d have a lot more to be worried about if I was broke,” Mireya said. “So drop it.”
Silence ran a line through the room. The fridge motor kicked on. Footsteps passed heavy in the hall outside. Mireya closed her eyes until the floor quit feeling loose.
Angela cleared her throat and offered a small smile to the air. “So what you wearing?” she ask, twirling a finger toward Mireya’s bra and shorts, handing the room a way out. “Or not wearing?”
Mireya looked down at herself, at the soft black bra and the barely-there shorts. “What? I’m supposed to get dressed for some bitches who’ve seen me naked before?”
~~~
Caine lay on his back with the sheet riding low on his waist, the room holding the last of the late light. The picture on the dresser—Tommy in a suit, Laney in white—sat face down again. She’d nudged it that way as soon as he walked in.
Laney’s head rested on his shoulder, hair warm against his skin. Outside, a truck downshifted and kept going. The house settled around them in small ticks.
“My brother-in-law’s back in town,” she said. The words came easy, but her cheek pressed a little harder to his shoulder.
“That a problem?”
“Blake’s always a problem.”
He breathed once. “Damn, that’s crazy.”
“You cain’t come here no more.” She lifted her head and looked toward the window. “He gon’ be stayin’ in Caleb’s camper out back.”
“I can get to the front door without being seen.”
“Caine, I’m serious.”
He nodded to the window over the headboard. “Then I’ll come through there.”
She rolled her eyes, a small circle he felt more than saw. “Mmhmm. You so hard-headed.”
He let it sit. For a while neither of them said anything. She traced a line with her fingertip at the center of his chest and stopped when his heartbeat rose to meet it.
“What you was like before you got married?” he asked.
Her hand stilled. “Why you wanna know ‘bout that?”
He kept his eyes on the window. “Trying to see if you been this proper church lady the whole time. Or if you was for the streets like Rylee.”
She snorted and the sound turned into a laugh. “Who say I couldn’t be both?”
“I guess you could’ve been.”
She pushed up and reached into the nightstand. The drawer slid open with a soft scrape. She pulled a laptop out, set it on her thighs, and leaned back against the headboard. The glow caught her face and made the room feel smaller. Her fingers moved fast over the keys. He watched the way her mouth set when she typed the password, long as a Bible verse, and didn’t miss a letter.
She clicked through and a grid of old videos filled the screen. She picked one. A pasture opened up on the display, night heavy over a fire. A girl who was her and not her stood there in cutoffs with two beers in one hand. A man off-screen held up fingers to count. She punctured the cans and drank both in long pulls, cheering when the last stream ran down her wrist. “I need a fucking shot,” the younger Laney yelled, and somebody whooped. In the corner another girl gagged on her beer, doubled over. Whoever held the phone laughed so hard the picture shook.
Laney’s voice was even. “I think I was seventeen in this.”
She scrubbed forward, then moved to the next clip. A porch. A kitchen with a crowded counter. A tailgate. Music too loud for the tiny speakers. Her hair different in each one, her smile the same. He saw a version of her that had edges he hadn’t seen.
She backed out to the account page, clicked sign out, then opened the settings and cleared the cookies and the history. The routine looked practiced. The screen went blank to the login field.
“So you was outside outside,” he said.
She set the laptop on the nightstand and slid back down to him, head finding its place on his shoulder again. “I was rebellin’ without even knowin’ what I was rebelling against,” she said. “Got real good at livin’ a double life.”
He let a quiet laugh push out. “Yeah. Me too.”
“I knew, know all the Beatitudes.” Her voice thinned and then steadied. “And I know all the hot girl tricks. Used to tie a knot with my tongue and have the guys hollerin’.”
“Some might call that balance.”
“Yeah, okay.” She rolled her eyes again and breathed out through her nose. “I just ain’t wanna end up like my mama. I needed to know there was life past bein’ a wife and a mama.” Her fingers drummed once on his chest. “I had the papers ready for Georgia Tech, you? Letter of intent sittin’ there, ready to send.”
He turned his head a little toward her. “You were an athlete?”
She nodded against him. “All-state three years. Softball. Center field. Four-star.”
He gave a low whistle. “So how you go from all that, wanting that, to getting married?”
Her face shifted before she caught it. The guard came back quick. She didn’t answer. She reached up, took him by the wrist, and pulled him over on top of her.
