Ex Hoc
E.J. pulled up on Tessa’s block in Belle Chasse, tires crunching over the same cracked strip of concrete he always hit before he parked in front of the house. The sky sat low and gray over the West Bank, that wet kind of air that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be cold or warm. The porch light over Tessa’s door was already on, throwing a dull circle on the neat patch of grass and the pale door he knew by heart.
He killed the engine and let the quiet settle. For a second, he just watched the house. The curtains in the front window hung still. No silhouettes moved behind them.
He got out and shut the car door with a quick thud. He jogged up the short walk, shoulders loose, hoodie pocket heavy against his ribs.
At the door he reached up, fingers feeling along the top of the frame for the little spare key Kate kept there for “in case my hands full, baby.” His palm slid over rough paint and dust. Nothing.
His fingers swept the length again, slower this time. Still nothing.
E.J.’s eyebrows pulled in. He blinked, looking at his hand. Then he knocked, quick and low with his knuckles.
He waited. No answer. He wrapped his hand around the knob and gave it a turn. Locked.
He knocked again, harder, fist landing with more weight. The sound carried through the quiet of the block.
The deadbolt clicked. The door opened only enough for Tessa to fit half her face and one bare shoulder through the gap. Blond hair piled on top of her head, no makeup on.
“You can’t be here right now,” she said.
Her voice came out low and urgent. She kept her body angled toward the inside.
“Why the fuck I can’t?” E.J. asked.
He leaned his weight on one hip and looked past her into the hallway, but she shifted, blocking that angle too. Light from the kitchen washed down the narrow hall behind her, yellow and warm.
Tessa cut her eyes over her shoulder, then back at him. “Because Brent showed up and he’s still here.”
E.J.’s jaw moved once. He tipped his chin, a humorless half smile trying to rise and not making it.
“Y’all in there fucking or something?” he asked.
Tessa rolled her eyes. The motion came sharp, like she needed it to cover the rest of her face. “No, but I’m not trying to be around any drama right now.”
“Man, Tessa, open the fucking door and let me in,” E.J. said.
He kept his voice steady, but there was a drag underneath it. His hand came up, palm flat against the wood beside her head.
“No.” She shook her head and braced a shoulder against the edge of the door. “You know how you get.”
“Open the fucking door,” he said. “I ain’t gonna do shit.”
They stared at each other through the crack. Her fingers tightened on the knob until her knuckles went pale. He didn’t look away. The air between them felt small.
Tessa sighed first. It came out through her nose, shoulders dropping. “Fine,” she muttered. She slid the chain free and opened the door wider.
E.J. stepped in, brushing past her. The familiar hallway smell hit him. Laundry detergent. Grease from a meal that had been cooking. Something sweet under it from whatever candle Kate had going. He wiped the sole of one shoe quick on the mat and kept walking.
The kitchen opened up at the end of the hall. Brent sat at the table that had seen every foster kid Kate had ever taken in, a faded floral cloth spread under his plate. He was in uniform pants and a T-shirt, badge nowhere in sight but the cop still on him. A plate full of food sat in front of him, rice and something smothered, steam rising. He laughed at something Kate had just said, head tipped back. Kate sat opposite him with her elbows on the table, a dish towel over one shoulder, face warm and open.
Both of them looked up when E.J. hit the doorway.
“Hey, bro,” Brent said, eyebrows lifting. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Kate’s smile sharpened when she saw E.J. “You know Eric always comes around when he’s hungry,” she said.
E.J. shook his head once. He felt the sharpness of Brent’s little “bro.” He pushed it down and focused on Kate.
“You got more?” he asked her.
“Yeah, baby. Right there on the stove.” Kate pointed with the edge of her fork toward the pots, then stood to move a dish towel out of his way. “Fix you a plate.”
E.J. crossed to the stove. The burners were low. A pot of smothered meat thick with gravy sat closest, oil beading on top. Another pot held rice, fluffy and sticking just enough to the sides. The smell crowded him, heavy and good.
Tessa followed him in, bare feet soft on the linoleum. She stopped close enough that he could feel her breath near his. Her voice dropped to a hush that barely cleared the noise of the spoon scraping the pot as he stirred.
“Don’t start any shit, E.J.,” she said.
He scooped rice onto a plate, then spooned the gravy over it, hand moving slow and deliberate. “I wouldn’t have anything to start,” he said, eyes still on the food, “if you’d tell him to fuck off and you ain’t giving him no pussy. But it seem you like the attention.”
Tessa’s jaw locked. “Don’t do that,” she said through clenched teeth.
He glanced at her then. Her cheeks flushed. Her mouth pressed thin. For a second he looked like he might push the point, then he let it go.
“It’s all good,” E.J. said. “We gonna handle it.”
Tessa’s stare sharpened. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“That we gonna handle it,” he said again.
He didn’t explain. He balanced the plate in one hand, grabbed a fork from the drawer and turned from the stove.
He walked back to the table and pulled out a chair on the side opposite Brent. The legs scraped lightly against the floor. He sat down, setting the plate in front of him. The chair across from Kate stayed empty until Tessa came over and sat down, folding one arm across her stomach, eyes on her food and nowhere else.
E.J. let the heat from the plate rise into his face for a moment. “This shit smell good,” he said, looking at Kate. “But you always putting your foot in it.”
Kate laughed, the sound quick and pleased. “You know I got that cabinet full of seasonings,” she said. “Ain’t nobody in this house eating bland food.”
E.J. nodded as he cut into the meat with the side of his fork. “You gotta teach Tessa,” he said.
He lifted a bite to his mouth and blew on it once.
“Didn’t know you be cooking, Tes,” Brent said.
He leaned back in his chair a little, fork loose in his hand, eyes sliding from Kate to Tessa.
Tessa rolled her eyes, not looking at him long. “Every so often,” she said.
She ripped a piece of bread from a roll on the table and tore it into smaller pieces, fingers moving faster than they needed to.
Brent looked back at E.J. “Been a minute since we’ve been at the table like this,” he said. “What you been up to for work, Eric?”
E.J. took his time chewing, swallowed, then set the fork down a second.
“Same as you, Brent,” he said. “Keeping the streets safe.”
Kate’s head turned toward him, eyes widening. “Oh, I didn’t know you were applying to NOPD,” she said.
Tessa’s eyes cut to him sharp across the table, warning tucked inside the quick look.
“Something like that,” E.J. said.
He picked his fork back up. Brent just laughed.
~~~
Jordan’s couch had a dip on his side where he always sat. Mireya lay tucked against him in that groove, her shoulder pressed against his ribs, legs curled under her. His laptop sat balanced on his thighs, the blue-white glow lighting the front of his T-shirt and the edge of her face. He typed in short bursts, pausing every few lines to frown at the screen, then backspace and try again.
The TV was on mute in front of them, some show rolling by. Out past the balcony door, the city hummed low, traffic noise softened by the height of the building and the air pushing through small gaps in the frame.
Mireya’s phone was warm in her hand. Her thumb kept moving, a lazy scroll. Screen after screen of girls dancing in tiny tops, outfit hauls laid out on beds, makeup brushes sweeping highlighter over cheekbones. Every now and then a stripper pole slid into view. She watched all of it without letting her face change much.
Jordan’s gaze drifted off the assignment again. He glanced down, trying to be casual, eyes sliding toward her phone. Whatever clip she was on had a girl in a matching set and a ring light shining hard in her eyes. Mireya flicked past it before he could read the caption.
It all looked normal. That stuck in his teeth more than if it hadn’t.
He dragged his eyes away and let them land on the couch arm. Her jacket sat there, slumped in a pile. The pattern caught his attention every time. Burberry check, neat and obvious. His brain lined it up with Maddy’s voice in the AirBnB, the way she had said it. All those clothes. Those nails. Those bags.
He swallowed and looked at Mireya’s hands. The nails that wrapped around him, glossy and long, weren’t there. Now a new set curved over the phone, a different color, fresh edges catching light when she moved.
“You got a new jacket?” he asked.
His fingers paused on the keyboard. On the screen, the cursor blinked in the middle of a half-finished sentence.
Mireya looked up from her phone. Her cheek brushed against his side as she shifted. “New to me,” she said. “I’ve had it since Christmas, though.”
Jordan nodded slowly. He let his eyes go back to the check print.
“How much was it?” he asked. “I like it. Might get my mom one.”
Mireya let out a quick laugh, head tilting. “That’s the kind of gifts y’all get your mama?”
“Yeah,” Jordan said. “She likes that fancy shit like everyone else we know.”
“It was like a hundred on Depop,” Mireya said.
The number came easy off her tongue. She dropped her gaze to the screen again.
Jordan stared at her profile for a second longer. “A hundred?” he said. “Kinda cheap.”
Mireya shrugged one shoulder against him. “Yeah,” she said. “Like I said. Good deals on Depop.”
His mouth pressed into a line. He nodded, but his eyes went back to her hands. He watched one of them slide, the nails tapping across glass.
“New nails, too,” he said.
“Did them myself last night,” she said.
She didn’t look up, voice light and even. She shifted just enough to angle her fingers, letting the set catch a different piece of light. They were clean, smooth, the kind of finish that came from someone else’s steady hand.
Jordan snorted, a short sound under his breath. “You got an answer for everything,” he said.
The words hung in the space between them. He knew they came out sharper than he meant. He didn’t pull them back.
Mireya’s thumb stopped moving. She sat up, leaning away from his side. The warmth of her weight left his ribs. She turned on the cushion so she was facing him now, one knee folded under her, the other foot planted on the carpet.
“What the fuck is your problem?” she asked.
Her face had shifted, eyebrows pulled together, mouth set hard. The anger sat there where he could see it.
“I don’t have a problem,” Jordan said.
“You’re being a little fucking bitch,” she said. “So, I would say you have a problem. Why are you interrogating me?”
Jordan let out a breath and reached forward to close the laptop. The plastic clicked as he shut it and set it down on the coffee table. The glow cut off, leaving only the TV’s muted light and the softer lamp in the corner.
“Because some things don’t add up about you,” he said. “And you’re so secretive it comes across as shady.”
Mireya’s jaw worked once. “What doesn’t fucking add up?” she asked.
He lifted a hand and motioned toward the pile of her clothes, then her hands, then the line of her outfit. “Everything,” he said. “I’m cool with it if you do OF, but you gotta be real with me because I’m not cool with you lying to me about it.”
She watched him now instead of looking away.
Mireya pushed up to her feet in one movement. The cushion rose behind her. She jabbed a finger toward him, the nail aimed just below his collarbone.
“I fucking told you that I don’t do that shit,” she said. “I don’t even send you nudes.”
Jordan’s eyes flicked to the finger, then back to her face. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
She felt something in her settle. Mireya pulled her phone out and held it toward him, screen open, notifications stacked.
“You can look through my phone if you want,” she said. “What’s it gonna take to prove to you that I’m telling you the fucking truth?”
Jordan stared at her. The phone in her hand. The tension in her shoulders. Anger sat sharp on her face, but her breathing stayed even, eyes clear. For a beat, he didn’t move.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said finally. His hands lifted a little, palms out. “My sister—”
Mireya sucked her teeth, cutting him off before the name could land. “Of course,” she said. “Some rich white bitch would think that I have to be doing some shady shit to have anything nice. Dollar General nails and hand-me-down designer shit is way too much for a Mexican bitch, huh?”
Jordan stood up too, the couch giving under his weight. He reached for her instinctively, hand angling toward her forearm.
“It’s not that,” he said.
She stepped back, out of the reach, the space small but definite. “That’s what it sounds like to me,” she said.
Her phone dropped back into her pocket in one practiced motion. She turned toward the couch arm, grabbed her jacket, and swung it off the rest. The fabric brushed against his knee as she pulled it to her chest.
“You can kiss my fucking ass, Jordan,” she said. “Accusing me of all this shit.”
He moved around the coffee table, closing the distance as she headed for the balcony door. “Mireya,” he said. “Can you just wait a minute?”
“No,” she said. “Fuck you.”
Her hand hit the handle. She yanked the door open. The cooler air from outside brushed against her face. She stepped out onto the balcony and threw one last line over her shoulder without turning around.
“And tell your fucking sister that I was born here,” she said. “At Touro. Just in case she wants to claim that I’m not just poor but not American, too.”
The door rattled as she slammed it behind her. Jordan’s voice came muffled through the glass, her name flattened by the barrier.
Out on the balcony, the sounds of cars on the street below floated up, mixed with someone’s music a few apartments over. The railing was cool under her free hand when she brushed it and let go again. She started toward the stairs, boots thudding once on the concrete.
She ran her hand through her hair, fingers spreading at the roots. Her shoulders rolled with the motion. The edge of the anger slipped away as fast as it had risen. She rolled her eyes once, more at the whole thing than at him.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out as she reached the top of the stairs. A text from Jaslene lit the screen, her name bright at the top of the thread. Right over it, Jordan’s call came in, his contact photo filling the screen for a second.
Mireya hit decline, already tapping out a reply to Jaslene, a soft smile spreading across her lips.
~~~
Trell eased the car to the curb and reached for the key and turned the engine off. The sudden quiet let the city noise seep in more. Somewhere down the block, a siren whined and then faded. Music thumped low from a car a few streets over. Voices carried thinly on the air.
Trell stepped out and shut the door with his hand. He stood there for a moment and looked up and down the block. The rundown house he had come for sagged in front of him. One shutter hung crooked over a window, wood swollen from too many rains. The chain-link fence in front leaned forward near the corner, metal posts pulled half up from the dirt. The gate sat twisted on its hinges, more suggestion than barrier.
He glanced farther down the street. Shad’s grandmother’s house sat further down the block. Kam and three other men stood out front, clustered near the walkway, talking with their hands, smoke curling up from one of their mouths. Kam caught sight of Trell first. His eyes narrowed, then his arms opened out a little, palms turned up, chin lifting in that familiar challenge.
Trell let a small laugh leave his nose. He gave his head a slow shake, not interested.
He turned back to the fence and reached for the gate. When he tried to pull it, the metal caught and the whole run of fence shifted with it, groaning, leaning even farther toward the sidewalk. For a second it felt like the whole section might give and fall.
He let it go. The fence creaked back to its old lean.
Trell stepped over instead, one hand on the cold top rail for balance, shoes touching down in patchy grass and bare dirt on the other side. The yard was littered with bottle caps and a couple of crushed cans, a busted toy car half buried in mud. Near the porch, a black trash bag sat split open, gray chicken bones and Styrofoam spilling out where animals had gotten to it.
He walked up to the front door. The screen door hung there with no screen left in it, just the metal frame and a few ragged threads along the edges. The wood door behind it was closed, paint peeling, the knob brass worn dull.
Trell lifted his hand and knocked on the wood through the open rectangle of the frame. His knuckles thudded dully, the sound carrying inside.
For a moment, nothing. Then he heard it. Feet skittering over floorboards. A dog starting up in sharp barks. Little voices yelling over each other as they ran. Somewhere deeper in the house a woman’s voice cut across everything, loud and rough with fatigue.
“Sit y’all ass down,” she snapped. “Damn.”
The barks eased a little, dropping to low growls and short bursts. The running slowed to pattering steps. Something bumped against a wall.
Locks clicked and metal scraped. The inner door cracked open and then pulled wider. The woman filled the doorway, one hand on the knob, the other braced against the frame.
She was pretty enough. Brown skin, eyes big and set off by lashes that needed filling, a gold stud in one nostril. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail that had given up hours ago. What sat heavier on her face than anything else was the kind of exhaustion that never seemed to leave. Dark smudges under her eyes. Mouth pressed tight even before she spoke.
She looked Trell up and down, taking in hoodie, chain, the line of his jaw. Recognition moved across her features.
“You was over at Mrs. Trina house the other day,” she said.
Trell dipped his chin once. “Yeah,” he said. “You Desirae?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Why you asking?”
“I ain’t know Boogie had you and his kids living like this,” Trell said. “Boogie works for me. I just wanted to come help you out.”
Desirae raised an eyebrow, her grip tightening on the door. “Help me out with what?” she asked.
Trell tipped his head toward the inside. “Can I come in?” he asked.
She hesitated, weight shifting from one foot to the other. The pitbull barked again behind her, nails clicking on the floor as it tried to push past her leg, head low and alert. A kid shrieked with laughter from somewhere over her shoulder.
After a second, Desirae huffed through her nose, then stepped back. She pulled the door open wider.
“Whatever,” she said. “Come on.”
Trell stepped over the loose edge of warped wood and into the living room. The smell hit him first. Stale smoke. Fried grease that had sunk into everything. Old milk. Dog. Under it all, the damp of a house that never really dried out.
The inside was worse than the outside. Filth sat on every surface. Clothes were piled high on a chair, spilling onto the floor in a mix of kids’ things and adult jeans. Fast food bags crumpled near the door. A roach darted along the baseboard and vanished behind an outlet.
An old box TV perched on top of a cardboard box in the corner. On the floor in front of it, a bare mattress lay directly on the wood. Two children sat on it cross-legged, faces turned toward a cartoon that bled static at the edges. Each of them held a plastic bowl of off-brand Cheerios, milk sloshing close to the rim.
The pitbull hovered tight around them, ribs faintly showing through its coat, nose bumping into their hands, tongue quick every time a piece of cereal slipped out of a bowl. The dropped O’s stuck to the floor where milk had dried in rings, a gray halo around each one.
Trell took it all in, jaw set. He shook his head once, then turned back to Desirae.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small roll of money bound tight with a rubber band. The bills were soft and broken in from use. He held it out toward her with an easy, steady hand.
“This five hundred,” he said. “For whatever you need.”
Desirae’s eyes went straight to the roll. Her hand came up, fingers reaching, then stopped just short of touching the money. She squinted at him.
“What I gotta do for that?” she asked.
Trell’s mouth curved in a small smirk. “You ain’t gotta do nothing for it,” he said. “The same way I make sure all the niggas working for me families straight, I’m making sure Boogie family straight.”
She watched his face for another beat, then took the money. The rubber band snapped a little as she pulled it off and started thumbing through the bills, fingers moving fast and practiced.
“That nigga Boogie don’t even give me this much,” she said.
Trell shook his head. “That’s a shame,” he said. “Can’t trust no man that don’t make sure his kids good.”
He let his eyes move around the room again, taking in the mess, the mattress, the bowls, the dog licking at the floor. He gestured with his chin and one hand, a small sweep that took in the space.
“You want me to get some people over here and clean for you?” he asked.
Desirae leaned back a little and set one hand on her hip, the other still holding the money loose now that she had counted it. “You saying my house dirty?” she asked.
“Yes,” Trell said without pause. “It’s fucking filthy.”
Desirae sucked her teeth, loud and sharp, then waved her free hand in a dismissive arc. She shoved the roll of cash into her bra in one smooth motion and turned away from him, already heading toward the back of the house.
“Do whatever you want, nigga,” she said over her shoulder.
Trell snorted a laugh, the sound short. He turned to look at the two kids again, shaking his head at just how filthy everything was once more.
~~~
The used car lot sat just off the highway, one a strip outside Statesboro that had more gravel than grass. Strings of faded plastic flags ran from the corners of the property to a crooked pole near the road, snapping when a truck passed and pushed air through them. A hand-painted sign promised “DEALS ALL DAY” under a sun that had already taken most of the color out of the letters.
Caine walked the first row slow, hands in the pockets of his Georgia Southern hoodie. The air had a damp edge, not cold enough to bite, just enough to get into his sleeves and linger. His shoes crunched over loose rock and bottle caps scattered between the tires. Every few steps, he glanced back toward the entrance, where the Buick sat a little crooked near the road.
The car had gotten him from New Orleans to Statesboro and everywhere he needed to go in between. It had stalled, coughed, blown fuses on him. He had still kept it running. He had already used NIL money to put his mama in something new back home. The Buick was now a problem he was finally willing to solve.
He moved past a line of cars with paper tags crooked in the back windows. A sedan with peeling clear coat. A Tahoe on oversized rims that would drink gas fast. An older Altima with a cracked taillight and a price still written in grease pencil across the windshield.
The small office sat at the back of the lot, a narrow building with more glass than wall. Inside, a man in a collared shirt and shiny shoes stood up from behind a desk, phone pressed to his ear. He glanced out the window once and froze for half a beat when he saw Caine. His mouth moved around a quick goodbye, and then he hung up and came out, door chime jingling as it shut behind him.
He headed straight toward Caine, steps quick, hand already reaching out in front of him.
“I knew that was you as soon as I looked out the window,” he said. “Name’s Roger. You looking to buy today, Mr. Georgia Southern?”
Caine took his hand. His palm a little too dry, like the man washed them right before he stepped out.
Caine’s eyes slid past Roger’s shoulder to the car parked just behind him. A Dodge Charger sat there in gunmetal paint, hood scooped, wide face turned toward the road.
“Yeah,” Caine said. “Tired of having to fix my mama’s old Buick.”
He jerked his chin in the direction of the entrance. Roger followed the motion. His eyes landed on the Buick, taking in the sag to the suspension and the chipped paint. He let out a low whistle.
“I figured you would’ve been gotten out of that if that’s what you been driving since you got here,” Roger said.
Caine shrugged. His shoulders rolled easy under the hoodie. “It ran,” he said. “It got me where I needed to go. That’s all I needed.”
Roger nodded like he could respect that, even if he didn’t understand it. “Well,” he said, energy ticking back up. “Let’s get you in something flashy, huh?”
He turned slightly, one arm sweeping back toward the Charger behind him. He stepped aside so Caine could get a better look, his smile widening.
“Hellcat,” Roger said. “Everyone likes these. Can’t go wrong with it.”
Caine let his eyes move over the wheels, the tires, the dark tint on the windows. He did his own math on it without looking at the sticker.
“That shit’s easy to steal,” he said.
Roger laughed, the sound a little too loud for the empty lot. “Yeah, they show those videos all over the internet,” he said. “But they ain’t too bad. Just gotta make sure you lock it.”
Caine shook his head once. His eyes stayed on the car. “Ain’t no videos told me,” he said. “I know they easy to steal. Bust out the sunroof, put it in neutral, scanner to start it, gone.”
He listed the steps flat. His voice stayed calm. The knowledge sat there heavy in the space between them.
Roger’s laugh trailed off. The last bit broke into his throat and died there. He cleared it and looked from the Charger back to Caine, measuring him in a new way.
“Alright,” Roger said. “No Hellcats.”
He adjusted his belt and tried on another smile, smaller this time. “Any other needs?” he asked. “Some nice rims?”
Caine pulled one hand out of his pocket and ran a hand through his hair. The other stayed buried in the hoodie, fingers curled around his phone. His gaze moved from the Charger to a row farther back.
“Just gotta be a four door,” he said. “So, I can get my kid’s car seat back there.”
Roger nodded, the salesman’s eyes catching that detail and filing it away with the rest. “Come walk with me,” he said. “Let’s make a deal and remember to tell your buddies on campus that Roger Smith helped you out.”
Caine huffed out a short laugh and started walking beside him, gravel crunching under both their feet.
“Get me a deal first,” he said. “Then we’ll see about that.”
~~~
Laney walked along the outside edge of the fence behind her parents’ house, fingers brushing the cool wood as she went. The grass thinned out near the line, patchy and flattened where the boys liked to cut through toward the woods. Beyond the fence, pines and oaks rose in a thick line, trunks close enough to cast the whole back stretch in shade even in the middle of the afternoon.
She ducked under a low branch and stepped off the mowed yard into the trees. The ground turned soft and uneven under her shoes, a mix of pine straw and old leaves that muffled her steps. She followed the familiar path on instinct more than sight, skirting the property line between her parents’ yard, her house, and the disconnected square of land her father had bought years back. He had pointed it out once with that same sure voice, talking about how Rylee and Jesse could live close when they were grown. The woods held all of that and still just felt like the woods to her.
Bare branches clicked overhead when the wind moved through. Somewhere farther out, a crow called and then went quiet. Laney tugged her jacket tighter around herself and kept walking. A few dozen feet in, the fence and houses dropped out of view. The trees opened just enough to show the old blind pressed into a shallow dip in the ground.
The blind had been there before her parents ever signed the papers on the property. The boards had gone gray and soft along the edges, nails rusted, but the shape still held. She had found it as a teenager and claimed it, a spot where she could disappear just enough to breathe. Rylee and Jesse had found it later.
Laney stepped down into the blind, shoes sliding a little on the packed earth. The wood walls rose to her shoulders when she straightened. The air inside smelled like damp wood and old dirt, with the faint ghost of smoke ground into the grain from too many years of kids thinking they were slick.
She knelt and ran her hand along the front wall, fingertips searching the familiar seam. The board there had always been a little looser than the others. She curled her fingers under its edge and pulled. It came away with a low creak. Behind it, the earth had been scooped back into a small hollow, just big enough to tuck something out of sight.
The small plastic box sat tucked in the dirt. It wasn’t the same one she had used years ago, but the size, the placement, all of it was close enough that her hands remembered what to do before she thought about it. She pulled it out, dust clinging to the bottom, and popped the lid open.
Inside, a few little baggies of weed lay pressed together in a stack. Tucked alongside them sat a lighter.
She reached in and grabbed one of the baggies, the plastic crackling under her fingers. With her other hand she picked up the lighter, closing her palm around it. The weight of both sat easy in her hands. She set the box back into the hole, fit it into the shape carved there, and slid the board back in front.
Laney pushed herself up and stepped out of the blind, one hand still closed around the lighter, the baggie pinched between two fingers. When she turned, a shape moved around a nearby pine. Rylee came into view, hands in the pockets of her hoodie, hair pulled up messy on top of her head.
Laney’s shoulders went tight for a second before she let them drop again.
“What you doin’ out here?” Rylee asked.
Laney lifted the hand with the weed and the lighter, the baggie swinging a little. “Stealin’ from y’all since y’all keep usin’ my spot,” she said.
Rylee’s gaze dropped to the baggie first, then to the lighter in Laney’s palm. One eyebrow lifted. “Thought you quit way back,” she said.
Laney shrugged, the motion small. “I never really stopped,” she said. “Just ain’t want to smell like smoke ’round the boys.”
Rylee didn’t answer right away. She kept walking toward the blind, boots pressing lines into the soft ground, eyes snagging on the lighter again. The print on it caught what little light came through the trees, the color blocks of Georgia and little sayings standing out.
She pointed at it with her chin. “You got that outta here?” she asked.
Laney nodded. Her fingers adjusted around it, the plastic warm now from her skin. “You can take it and I’ll find another one,” she said. “I think I got one in the house.”
Rylee shook her head, mouth pulling into a quick, crooked line. “I’m gon’ be with some friends so we’re good,” she said. “I was just wonderin’ ’cause I thought I had that in my purse.”
Laney rolled the lighter once between her fingers. The small details on it felt even clearer now that Rylee had named it.
“You know how easy it is to lose these cheap lighters,” she said.
Rylee snorted a laugh, a short sound that hung in the cold air. “I got that off Etsy,” she said. “Paid like eight bucks for it. I done refilled it like fifteen times.”
Laney turned the lighter over, looking at it closer. The wrapper was more detailed than she had given it credit for when she first saw it. “Huh,” she said. “I guess it is different. Not just a pink Bic.”
Rylee moved past her and dipped down into the blind without waiting for a reply. Her shoulders vanished below the top edge of the boards. Laney heard the scrape of wood as she pulled the front panel free and the soft thud of the box hitting the dirt when she pulled it out again.
A second later Rylee straightened back up, box in hand, and flipped the lid. She reached in and grabbed the rest of the baggies, stuffing all of the weed into the pocket of her hoodie before snapping the box shut.
“Just tellin’ you so you bring it back,” she said as she shoved the box back into the hollow and slid the board into place again.
Laney nodded once. “You got it,” she said.
They turned together without any more talk and started back the way Laney had come. The woods closed in behind them, the blind disappearing between trunks and shadow after a few steps. Pine straw shifted under their feet with each move, small twigs snapping under their weight.
For a while they walked in a loose line, Laney a half step ahead, Rylee just behind her shoulder. The light grew a little brighter with each yard they put between themselves and the blind. The faint outline of the fence came back into view through the trees.
“Who you even be smokin’ with?” Rylee asked suddenly.
Laney kept her eyes on the fence. “No one,” she said.
Rylee jerked her thumb back over her shoulder, toward the spot they had left. “Must be Jesse goin’ smoke with Tanner that’s burnin’ through the stash like that then,” she said.
Laney shrugged. “Must be,” she said.
~~~
The lobby doors hissed shut behind Tommy, the rubber seals catching on the glass with a soft drag. Most of the lights on the ground floor had been cut down for the night, every third fixture left on so long bands of dull fluorescence stretched across the tile and left wide patches in shadow.
A floor scrubber moved slow across the open space, its low whir echoing off the high ceiling. The janitor walked behind it in a lazy line, hands loose on the handle, earbuds tucked under a knit cap. The machine left a wet, shining path in its wake, the sharp smell of cleaner and wax mixing with the faint leftover coffee smell from the day.
Tommy stepped out of the way before the scrubber reached him, boots shifting onto the dry edge of the tile. The roses in his left hand rustled in their brown paper wrap, the stems knocking together once. He gave the janitor a short nod when he glanced up.
The call button lit orange under his thumb. He stood still, shoulders squared, the uniform lines hidden under a plain jacket now but still there in the way he held himself. The bouquet sat easy in his grip, the paper already damp where a drop of water had slid off a stem and soaked through. Red petals brushed his knuckles when he adjusted his hand.
A muted chime sounded above the doors. The panels slid open to an empty car. He stepped inside and hit the button for the third floor. The doors closed again with a soft clack. The car hummed as it rose, numbers ticking up over the door, two, then three. He watched them without really seeing them.
When the doors parted on the third floor, the difference in sound hit first. No machine noise, no echo. Just the soft breath of the building through vents and the distant thump of the scrubber below, dulled by concrete and carpet.
The hallway lights had been cut even further here. Only a few fixtures were still on, each casting a shallow pool of yellow light on the gray carpet. The rest stretched out in dim strips between them. Closed doors lined both sides, plaques catching small flashes of light when he passed.
At the far end of the corridor, a single office window glowed, hard-edged and steady. Corner office. The light spilling through the frosted pane cut a bright rectangle onto the hall floor.
Tommy walked down the length of the hallway, boots sinking into the carpet. His shadow stretched toward the office door, then folded back in as he got closer. The hum of the building’s systems stayed even, unchanged by his presence.
He reached the door and lifted his hand, giving it two short knocks with the side of his fist. Then he turned the handle and stepped inside.
Claire sat behind the desk, her face washed in the bluish light of the computer screen. The monitor cast a faint glow over the open folder spread above the keyboard, pages laid out in a neat fan. The rest of the desk was empty, save for a legal pad with a few lines of notes and a pen lined up parallel to its edge.
She looked up as soon as the door opened. The thin frames of her glasses rested low on her nose. She slid them off with practiced ease and set them on top of her head, pushing a few strands of hair back with them. Her gaze ran over him, down to the bouquet, then back.
He crossed the rug that ringed the desk and stopped at its edge.
“Figured I’d get you something nice,” he said, and set the bouquet down in the clear space by the corner of her desk.
The room still held the stale edge of day-old coffee and paper. The roses cut through it as soon as they settled, a fresh, green sweetness pushing in around the edges.
He didn’t stay planted in front of her. He turned and walked over to the window, crossing the stretch of carpet to the corner where a small couch sat angled toward the glass.
The blinds were rolled up. Outside, the Savannah River lay in its channel, a dark run between the lights of the riverfront and the shadowed mass of the far bank. The water didn’t shine so much as shift, catching scatterings of yellow and white from the bridges and the scattered warehouses along the shore. A line of red and white lights from a passing tug moved slow downriver, small and bright against the dark.
Behind him, her chair creaked as she shifted her weight.
“What’d you tell Laney?” she asked.
He held his eyes on the glass a second longer. His reflection sat faint against the dark, the straight cut of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw.
“That I was working’ late,” he said. “Which I was.”
He had come straight from Hinesville. Same long day on his back. Different end point.
Claire’s chair rolled back a fraction as she pushed away from the desk, though she stayed seated. Her gaze dropped to the flowers. She reached out with her right hand, thumb smoothing along the edge of one of the petals. The color was deep, almost black at the folds in this light.
“I forgot that you were the romantic type once upon a time,” she said.
Tommy turned away from the window and crossed to the couch in the corner. The cushions gave under his weight when he sat, the fabric stiff. He slid an arm along the backrest, open posture, legs set solid to the floor.
“I never stopped being’ that,” he said. “I just stopped doing’ it because I didn’t have anyone to do it for.”
Her laugh came out on a short breath, a little rough at the edges. She pushed herself up from the chair and walked over, the line of her blazer catching the light as she moved. Her heels clicked a steady beat across the low-pile carpet, the sound small but sharp in the quiet office.
She sat down on the coffee table in front of him, skirt smoothing under her as she settled.
She leaned back on one hand, fingers curling around the edge of the table behind her for balance. With the other, she edged her feet out of the heels and kicked them off one by one. They landed beside the table leg with two soft knocks.
“Well, since you’re here,” she said, stretching her legs out toward him. “I been on my feet all day running’ from here to the courthouse.”
Her bare feet came to rest in his lap, deliberate but not heavy. The skin at her heels still showed the pale lines from the backs of the shoes. Her toes flexed once, nails painted a dark color.
Tommy looked down at them, then brought his gaze back up to her face. She didn’t look away.
She tipped her chin toward her feet, a small nudge of her head.
He let out a quiet sigh through his nose and shook his head once, but his hands moved anyway. He set them on her closer foot, fingers closing around the arch and the ball, his thumbs pressing in with steady, practiced pressure.
Claire’s mouth curved slow at the corners, eyes on him.
“Look at you,” she said. “Romantic and useful.”
