Caine stepped into the meeting room and the cold air hit him in the face. The lights were dimmed down for the projector. A Georgia Southern logo sat in the corner of the screen over a slide full of numbers he couldn’t quite make out yet.
Derrick McCray and Erica Paulson were already on one side of the table with their laptops open, the university logo on the backs of both. Brandon Lytle sat a seat down from them, polo tucked, tablet in front of him, a pen rolling slow between his fingers. At the other end, near the screen, Coach Aplin leaned against the wall, arms folded, while Chris Davis, the athletic director, stood closer to the door like he’d just stepped out of another meeting and hadn’t decided yet if this one was worth being late to.
“Caine,” Derrick said, standing halfway and reaching across the table. “Good to see you, man.”
They went down the line. Quick handshakes. Erica’s bracelets clicked when she reached for him.
“You doing alright?” Brandon asked, that tone that always sat somewhere between coach and big cousin.
“I’m straight,” Caine said.
He dropped into the chair they’d left open at the head of the table. The leather creaked under his weight. From here the screen filled his vision. Big white letters over a dark background, his name in the top right corner. Somebody had gone to work on this.
Derrick didn’t waste time. “Alright, so we all know why we’re here,” he said, easing back into his seat. “Portal’s not open yet, but conversations are. You got people calling.”
Caine didn’t answer that. Everybody in the room knew who’d been circling.
Derrick clicked the remote. The first slide shifted to the next—a simple title across the top: WHAT GEORGIA SOUTHERN CAN AND CAN’T DO.
“Let me start with this,” Derrick said. “We’re all grown here. We don’t have to pretend a Sun Belt school can offer what an SEC or Big Ten school can. We can’t.” He shrugged once, easy. “The money’s different. The TV deals are different.”
He let that hang a second. The room hummed with the projector fan, a low steady whir. Caine watched the words on the screen.
“What we do have,” Derrick went on, “is something they can’t guarantee you. You stay here, you’re the starter. Period.”
Brandon cleared his throat, spinning the pen once between his fingers. “Provided Coach Aplin is happy with your play and effort in camp over the offseason,” he added. His mouth twitched like he knew he had to say it that way.
Erica leaned in, bangs falling forward. “Let’s not be silly now,” she said, eyes sliding to Caine. “It’s Caine’s job.”
Aplin pushed off the wall enough to come stand by the end of the table. “He knows what’s expected of him,” he said.
Caine nodded once.
Derrick hit the remote again. The next slide came up, a table with three columns, all numbers. The top line was highlighted.
“Like I told you before,” he said, “we’re not gonna sit here and pretend we can offer you seven figures. That’s not where we at. Here’s what we can do.”
He pointed at the highlighted line with the remote. “One fifty, up front. That’s yours. We’d structure it in ten installments across the year so everybody stays happy on the admin side, but that’s guaranteed. No bullshit.”
Caine’s eyes tracked the line. $150,000. Ten installments dropped under the main figure in smaller type.
Erica tapped her trackpad so a small list of logos popped up on the side—local car dealership, a regional grocery chain, a couple of smaller brands he recognized from billboards around town. “On top of that,” she said, “we’ve been talking with some local and regional partners. We’re looking at an extra fifty to seventy-five from brand deals depending on how you perform. Social, appearances, that kind of thing.”
Caine did the math in his head.
“So… two twenty-five at best?” he asked, voice low.
“Only schools paying this in our weight class are in the American, kid,” Aplin said. “And that’s still a maybe.”
Chris Davis spoke for the first time, his voice a little rough from whatever meeting he’d just come out of. “It’d be the most we’ve ever committed to one player here,” he said. “Ever.”
Caine nodded slowly, eyes still on the screen. “I ain’t gonna play in y’all face,” he said. “Can’t I go to a P4 school, sit on the bench, and make this too?”
The question came out steady. No apology in it. If anything, it sounded like he was just reading the numbers out loud.
Aplin didn’t look offended. If anything, his mouth twitched like he respected it. “You got too much talent to be sitting on somebody’s bench just because you want to put on an Alabama helmet and say you go there,” he said. “You know that.”
Erica clicked to the next slide. The header read TIMING MATTERS. Under it, two big boxes: TRANSFER NOW and TRANSFER LATER. Each one had dollar amounts underneath, arrows pointing forward.
“You probably could get more going P4 right away,” she said. “I won’t lie to you. Some of those schools will throw crazy numbers. But…”
She pointed at the TRANSFER NOW box. “You do that and don’t start? Your brand value drops. You’re behind whatever five-star they already promised the world. You’re a name on a depth chart. You can rebound from that, sure, but you’re running uphill. You lose money over the long run if you jump too fast.”
Caine leaned in, elbows on the table, looking at the numbers. The TRANSFER NOW box had a range under it: $300k–$500k. Under that, a smaller font line: IF YOU DON’T START - BACK IN PORTAL. The TRANSFER LATER side had a different range in thick bold: $8M–$10M. Underneath: TOP OF PORTAL, DAY ONE STARTER, ELITE P4.
Derrick stood up and walked toward the screen, remote in one hand, the other tapping the side of the TRANSFER NOW box. “This here is what the number guys came up with based on what’s out there right now. Recent reports, what we’re hearing from collectives, real deals being done. You leave after this season? Maybe you’re looking at five hundred if you land somewhere and start right away.”
He moved his hand down to the small print. “If you don’t? You go back in the portal trying to find somewhere like UL-Monroe to take you. That’s reality.”
He slid his hand across to the other box. “You stay here? Put up another season like you putting up right now?” He glanced back at Caine. “One, you’re probably the top quarterback in the portal. You can go anywhere you want for your last two years. Two, now you’re looking at eight to ten million, if not more, plus the two twenty-five from us. That’s millions of dollars guaranteed on the back end, instead of chasing half a million now and hoping it works out.”
Caine tapped his fingers against the table, a slow rhythm that kept his face even.
Aplin shifted his weight off the wall and stepped closer, hands loose at his sides. “I’m not asking you for an answer today,” he said. “You know when the portal opens. You know when you can enter. I’m just telling you that one fifty guaranteed, with you not fighting to even be in the building, is good money. For where you came from and where we’re trying to help you go.”
Caine let that sit. The room felt smaller with all those numbers bouncing around inside it.
“Y’all got any more slides?” he asked.
Erica’s mouth twitched into something like a smile. “We do,” she said. She clicked the remote, and the screen shifted again, fresh columns and bars loading in. More comparisons of his earning potential in each scenario filled the wall in front of him.
~~~
Ramon had the seat pushed back enough that his knee sat easy under the wheel. The car idled with a low shake.
Tyree lounged against the passenger seat, shoulder sunk into the backrest, one foot on the dashboard. Smoke curled out of his nose and drifted up toward the headliner. The blunt burned between his fingers, ash fat on the tip.
“When we going back to the A?” he asked, eyes on the front door instead of Ramon.
Ramon tapped his fingers against the wheel. “Duke hasn’t said shit about that in a little minute,” he said. “I know some of them G-Strip niggas were saying they got a plug up in Gary.”
Tyree coughed once. The sound snapped off the glass and had more in it than just the pull he’d taken. He leaned forward, hand out with the blunt. “Gary?” he said. “Like in fucking Indiana?”
Ramon took the blunt and tipped the ash out of the crack of the window. Tiny orange flecks fell and went out. He pulled, held it, exhaled slow into the heat. “Something about one of their mawmaws went up there in the forties or whatever,” he said. “They got cousins up there.”
Tyree laughed, the sound sharp in the small car. He sat back again, head bumping the headrest. “Who the fuck moving weight in Indiana?”
Ramon passed the blunt back across the console. “Probably some fucking hillbillies,” he said. “They better watch them boys up there. Niggas might be on some weird shit.”
The house stayed quiet. The curtains moved in Tessa’s front window, a little hand gripping the fabric and pulling it back for a second then letting go.
The door opened. E.J. stepped out first. Tessa came with him, bare legs catching a little of the glow. They stopped at the top of the steps. E.J. dipped his head and kissed her, one hand at her waist, the other dropping to her hip and holding. Whatever he said stayed between them and the screen door.
Tyree watched through the glass, then let his eyes roll. He held the blunt out toward Ramon again. “That nigga whipped behind some white pussy,” he said.
Ramon’s mouth pulled up. He took the handoff without looking away from the yard. “Couldn’t be me,” he said, smoke riding his words when he talked.
Tyree shifted in his seat, turning more toward Ramon now. “Ain’t you niggas fuck on some white bitches without me when y’all went kick it with Caine?” he asked. “Ain’t even let a nigga know y’all was doing that.”
Ramon sucked on his teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “Because you were playing school instead of putting in work, nigga.”
“A nigga can’t better himself,” Tyree said.
The front door thumped again. E.J. came down the steps, Tessa’s hand slipping out of his at the bottom. She stayed on the porch for a second, arms wrapping around herself, watching him walk away. He threw a last look over his shoulder and then crossed the yard.
He reached for the front passenger handle. Tyree’s hand lifted fast, two fingers snapping toward the back seat. “Nah, nigga,” he said. “Get in the back.”
E.J. paused, hand still on the handle. “Man, what?”
Ramon didn’t say anything, the blunt riding the corner of his mouth. He waited.
Tyree pointed again. “Get in the back,” he said.
E.J. sucked his teeth, but the fight in it was small. He let go of the front door, yanked the back one open, and climbed in, knee hitting the seat before he slumped down behind Tyree. The car rocked once with his weight.
“I thought you’d want to be driven around since you cultured,” Tyree said, eyes still on the house.
E.J. leaned forward between the seats, forearm on the back of Tyree’s headrest. His other hand reached past Tyree’s cheek and plucked the blunt from his fingers. He took a long pull, then blew the smoke toward the half-open window. “Nigga, shut yo goofy ass up,” he said.
Ramon put the car in gear. The gearshift clicked. He eased off the curb and pulled away from the house.
They didn’t get halfway down the block before light flared behind them. Red and blue lights going back and forth in the rearview. The chirp of a siren snapped at their rear bumper.
“Motherfucker,” E.J. said under his breath. His shoulders tensed where he leaned between the seats. He glanced back, saw the NOPD cruiser tucked up on their bumper, and sank back into the shadows of the back seat, jaw set.
Ramon’s eyes cut to the mirror, then to the speedometer. He clicked his tongue and eased them to the curb. Tires rolled against gravel and broken glass. The engine idled, rougher now that everything else had gone quiet.
The cruiser door opened. The street picked up the sound and gave it right back. A figure stepped out, walk steady, hand resting near his belt. Ramon watched him in the side mirror as he came up.
A knuckle rapped on the driver’s side window. Ramon rolled it down, slow enough to show he had time. As the glass dropped, he took the blunt from E.J.’s hand where it had drifted back up between the seats. The cherry glowed again even with the lights on them.
“Brent LaDoux, New Orleans police,” the cop said. His voice wore a tired kind of polite. “You know what I stopped you for?”
Ramon pulled, let the smoke sit, then let it slide out the side of his mouth and into the night between them. “No,” he said. “But this even your jurisdiction, officer?”
Brent’s eyes shifted past him into the car. Tyree slouched in the passenger seat, head turned toward the window, and E.J. in the back. His gaze caught on E.J. for a beat.
Brent gave a small nod in that direction. “Morning,” he said.
E.J. didn’t nod back. The most he gave him was the flat of his stare.
Brent looked at the burning tip between Ramon’s fingers. “Y’all got a card for that?” he asked.
Ramon’s hand left the wheel and dropped to the center console. He flipped it open, thumb brushing past registration and a tangle of receipts until he pulled out a worn medical marijuana card. He pinched it between two fingers and held it up without leaning, the blunt still resting in the crook of his other hand.
Tyree cleared his throat. “It’s for my cataracts,” he said, eyes still on the windshield.
The corner of Brent’s mouth ticked. He took the card, glanced at it in the wash of his headlights, then handed it back. “Mmhmm,” he said. “Y’all be safe out here.”
He started to turn away, then slowed and looked back into the car, this time straight at E.J. “I’ll let Belle Chasse know to be on the lookout for your type,” he said.
E.J.’s lip curled. His hand came up to rest on the back of Ramon’s seat, fingers spread. “They ain’t worried about your ass,” he said.
Brent let out a short laugh. “We’ll see,” he said, and then he stepped away from the car. On his way back to the cruiser, he angled his head toward Tessa’s block, eyes skimming in that direction before he opened his door and slid in.
The red and blue dropped a second later. The tires crunched over gravel as he pulled away.
Ramon rolled the window up halfway, the glass squeaking in the tracks. He looked into the rearview, met E.J.’s eyes there. “You need to handle that,” he said.
E.J. stared back at him a heartbeat, jaw bunched. “Nigga I know,” he said.
~~~
Sara pushed the restaurant door open with her shoulder and stepped into the cooled air. The noise from the street dulled behind her, traffic and a far-off horn pressed back by glass and brick. Inside, the place hummed in a quieter way. Forks hit plates. Somebody laughed under their breath. The air carried lemon, butter, and the fryer smell that clung to a New Orleans kitchen no matter what the menu said.
The host glanced up from the little screen in his hand. “Table for two?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m meeting someone. Devin.” She added his last name, watched recognition flicker, and knew she was in the right place.
“Right this way,” he said.
He led her through the narrow aisle between tables. Chairs scraped against tile as people shifted. The hem of a server’s apron brushed her hip when they passed too close. Her sandals made a soft scuff on the floor. She had timed it so she wouldn’t be the one sitting alone waiting, and not so late that it looked like she didn’t care. This time, the text about running behind stayed in her drafts.
Devin stood when they reached the two-top by the window. The glass behind him caught the movement of cars and a bleached strip of sky. He stepped around his chair and pulled the other one out for her with an easy motion.
“Sara,” he said, smile quick and warm.
He was in a pressed button-down, sleeves rolled to his forearms, watch band snug at his wrist. Sara put her hand on the back of the chair and let herself sit.
“Hey,” she said. “Sorry again about being so busy and rescheduling on you a bunch of times.”
He pushed her chair in with one hand, then circled back to his side of the table. “It’s all good,” he said, giving a small dismissive wave as he sat. “We’re both adults. Stuff comes up.”
She let out a breath that had been sitting shallow in her chest and let it show as a faint smile. “You’re not wrong,” she said. “It doesn’t help that my son had a home game this weekend and I go to all of them with his daughter and her mom.”
A waiter slid up beside her and set down a sweating glass of water. The ice clinked once against the sides.
“For you,” he said.
“Thank you,” she answered, steadying the base with her fingers so it did not slide on the condensation.
Devin tipped his chin, studying her. “A grandma, huh?” he said. “We’ll have to get you one of those old blue hair wigs so you can fit in with the other ones.”
Sara shook her head, but the laugh still slipped out of her anyway.
“I don’t think that’s my color,” she said.
The waiter came back with menus and set one in front of each of them. Plastic sleeves caught the light from above. “I’ll give y’all a minute,” he said, and vanished into the swirl of other tables.
Devin flipped his menu open but his eyes didn’t drop right away. “So, your boy’s an athlete?” he asked. “Here I was thinking he was just a regular ol’ college student.”
Sara laid her palm flat on top of her menu instead of opening it. “No,” she said. “He plays football at Georgia Southern.”
The name landed and moved something in his face. Devin straightened a little. His eyebrows lifted, and the easy smile sharpened into recognition.
“Caine Guerra?” he said. “The one that they’ve been talking about for months? That’s your son.”
Heat moved through her chest, quick and contained. She thought of him in his jersey for a beat. The smile she gave Devin was small and proud and careful.
“Yep,” she said. “He’s mine.”
“Small world,” Devin said. He leaned back, shaking his head once. “I guess I never put it together. Kid named Guerra from New Orleans. Woman named Guerra from New Orleans. I guess there can’t be too many Guerras running around here.”
Sara lifted one shoulder, then let it fall. “Only ones I know I’m related to,” she said.
Behind them, a chair leg dragged across the floor. Somebody’s phone buzzed against a tabletop. Outside, a bus chuffed through a green light and rolled on. The city’s noise slipped in and out through the glass.
Devin finally looked down at his menu for a beat, then back up at her. “I’ll have to be on my A-game to impress a woman with a famous son then,” he said, grin creeping back in.
Sara’s mouth tugged up, amused and wary at once. “He’s hardly famous,” she said. The words came out with more truth than argument.
Devin shrugged, still smiling, eyes dropping to the list of entrees. “Just don’t let him do what Diego Pavia did last year,” he said. “You might break the internet.”
She raised an eyebrow over the top of her menu. “Who’s that?” she asked.
The waiter reappeared beside them with his pad out, timing it clean. “Y’all ready to order?” he asked.
Sara opened the menu for real, skimmed just enough to land on a grilled fish that wasn’t the most expensive thing on the page. Devin ordered something with chicken and vegetables, handed his menu back.
The waiter collected the menu, repeated their order back, and left with a soft promise that it wouldn’t be long.
Devin watched him go, then looked back at her. “We’ll save that for our next date,” he said. There was a little weight on next that he didn’t bother to hide. “For now, I want to know about you.”
Sara drew the water glass closer. The ice knocked gently against the side when she tilted it. She smiled, the expression settling easier on her face now, and took a sip from her water.
~~~
Mireya hit the brakes a little harder than she meant to and felt the seat belt catch against her chest. The red light held steady over the turn lane, hanging against a gray. Her engine ticked under the low hum of somebody’s truck’s bass two cars ahead. A professor’s voice droned out of her phone in the cup holder, talking about algebraic formulas.
She toed her sneakers off heel-first, one then the other, and caught them with her hand before they hit the floor. She tossed them onto the empty passenger side, rubber soles smacking against fast food napkins and an empty water bottle.
The light flipped green. A horn tapped behind her. Mireya slid her foot back onto the gas and eased the car through the intersection, taking the turn that her GPS had already told her to make. The buildings dropped lower the deeper she got into Marrero. Shotgun houses clustered together, then gave way to a squat brick apartment complex with a faded sign out front and patchy grass along the sidewalk. A couple of kids chased each other along the walk, one of them dragging a plastic sword.
Her phone buzzed once, the lecture shrinking down to a corner of the screen. Dez’s name sat over the last text, the address and building number sitting there waiting. She swiped the lecture away with her thumb and checked the numbers painted on the front of the building as she turned in. The car bumped over a dip in the driveway and rolled into the lot.
She pulled into a spot near the stairwell, and shifted into park. A family worked their way around the front of her car, parents carrying plastic grocery bags tight in their hands, two little girls balancing cereal boxes and a carton of eggs between them. Mireya watched them for a second, the way the mama tilted her head toward the girls, the way one of the bags stretched thin around a gallon of milk.
The lecture was still talking in the background when she reached into the backseat. She groped for the heels she kept there, fingers finding the thin straps and cool leather. She slipped them onto her feet, buckling the straps with quick, practiced motions. The angle shifted her calves, straightened her posture even sitting down.
She angled the rearview mirror and checked her face. She smoothed a thumb along one eyebrow and then peeled her jacket off her shoulders, tossing it onto the back seat. The tank top she had worn to class followed. The air inside the car brushed over her bare shoulders and sent a small chill over skin still damp from the day.
She grabbed the more revealing top from the back, one that was cut higher and lower at the same time. She tugged the neckline until it sat where she wanted it, cleavage set. The phone on the console kept talking about the formulas. She picked up a pen, flipped over an old gas station receipt, and scribbled down the one line that mattered for the final before it left her head.
When she finished the numbers, she clicked the pen closed, tucked the receipt into her backpack, and ended the lecture. The sudden quiet rang in her ears for half a heartbeat.
Mireya gathered her purse and stepped out, heels hitting the cracked pavement. The heat met her full on, pressing at the back of her knees and the hollow of her throat. She locked the car and headed toward the stairwell, following the peeling paint and spidered concrete up to the second floor. The metal rail felt sticky under her palm.
Halfway up, two men leaned against the railing, sharing a cigarette and talking low. Their conversation thinned when they saw her. Eyes slid over her legs, over the line of her shirt. Mireya let Luna sit over her skin and turned her mouth into a small, practiced smile. She met their eyes one at a time and winked, breezing past without breaking stride. Their soft chuckle followed her up the stairs.
She stopped in front of Dez’s door and checked the number against the text one more time. Then she shifted her weight onto one hip and knocked, knuckles quick against the wood. The jamb was warm under her shoulder when she leaned against it, phone held loose in her fingers.
A few moments later, the deadbolt clicked. The door opened on Dez. His T-shirt hung loose over his shorts, chain gone from his neck but the tan line still there. His gaze slid down and up, slow. She smiled at him, letting it reach her eyes.
“Ready for me, papi?” she asked.
His mouth pulled into a grin. He stepped back, opening the door wider.
“Been ready,” he said.
…
The room after was quiet except for his breathing and the buzz of the old window unit. Dez lay stretched between Mireya’s legs on top of the rumpled sheet, his head resting heavy on her stomach. His hair tickled the soft skin there each time he shifted. Sweat cooled in the line of her spine where it touched the wall. She had scooted up until her shoulders met the corner, pillows shoved out of the way so she could sit half upright.
Her phone sat in her hand again, screen lighting her face. Her thumbs moved quick as she tapped out a message to Boogie. Dez’s fingers drew slow lines up and down her side, the soft drag of his nails tracing the curve of her waist and the edge of her ribcage. Each pass mapped the same path, unhurried.
Mireya glanced down at him, the rise and fall of his back, the way his lashes rested against his cheeks. He watched her stomach instead of her face, eyes unfocused, breath easing out warm through his nose.
“You good, baby?” she asked.
Dez tipped his head enough to look up at her.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You in the life so you might get it, but you ever think about leaving all this shit behind?”
The words settled in the small room, over the smell of weed and cheap detergent and whatever cologne he had put on hours ago. Mireya shrugged, shoulder brushing the wall. She let her hand fall from the phone to his back, nails tracing light circles over warm skin.
“I like life like it is,” she said. “I get money. You get money, too, don’t you?”
Dez sucked his teeth, a small sound. His fingers paused at her hip, then kept moving.
“Yeah,” he said. “But like…”
He trailed off. The ceiling fan clicked through another slow turn overhead. Dez drew in a breath.
“Nevermind,” he said.
“You can tell me,” Mireya answered. Her circles on his back widened, slow and steady. “I’m not gonna tell anyone.”
He huffed, not quite a laugh.
“Nah, you Trell’s,” he said.
Her mouth curved. “I’m not a cow, papi. No one owns me. You can trust me. It’ll just be between us.”
He was quiet for a second, running his thumb along her thigh. Then he spoke into the hollow of her stomach, words brushing skin.
“I just feel like I could be getting money on my own and not having to worry about niggas shooting at me or me having to shoot niggas,” he said. “It’s plenty motherfuckers out there who got bread and don’t even be fighting. You know what I’m saying?”
Mireya nodded, though he couldn’t see it. Her hand kept moving on his back, a steady, comforting rhythm.
“Like I ain’t no killer or nothing,” Dez went on. “My homeboy’s uncle, Peanut, gave me the game. We wasn’t doing all this shit back then. Not until P got killed. He just wanted shit small, quiet, get this paper, party a little, go home.”
Mireya felt the way his shoulders tightened under her palm when he said killed. She let her fingers move higher, tracing slow circles between his shoulder blades.
“What changed?” she asked.
Dez lifted one hand and let it fall back to her waist, grip tightening for a second.
“Trell and Ant always said they ain’t like the small time shit,” he said. “Now they running the clique. Shit’s fucked up.”
She made a soft sound in her throat, nothing that picked a side. Her thumb smoothed over the dip in his spine. She hummed, noncommittal, letting his words hang in the air until they started to settle.
Her gaze dropped back to the screen. She brought it closer, thumb moving again. Her fingers never left his skin as she typed, telling Boogie to give her an hour.
~~~
Laney braced one knee in the grass and tugged the folded tent canvas toward her, fingers already gritty with red dirt. The field behind the church sat open and bright, the late afternoon sun coming down hard on the short grass and the tired line of the chain-link fence. Cardboard boxes, rolled banners, and stacks of metal poles lay scattered in rough rows where she had marked off the layout in her head.
“Lord, this is too much shit,” Rylee said behind her. The girl dragged one bundle of poles across the ground instead of lifting it, boots scuffing. “Daddy needs to start payin’ folks to do this mess.”
Jesse snorted and kicked at a tent stake half-buried in the dirt. “Yeah, he could at least hire the deacons or something,” he said. “Ain’t this what men’s groups supposed to do? Where’s Caleb?”
Laney didn’t look up. “Y’all could hush and hand me that pole,” she said.. “We got a week to get all this ready.”
Blake was a few yards away by the open trailer, sleeves pushed up, pulling another frame out from the jumble of metal. Sweat darkened his shirt between the shoulders. He hefted the bundle and walked it over, boots sinking a little where the soil turned soft. When he passed behind Rylee, his eyes dipped, a quick cut down her back as she bent to grab a tarp corner and stretched, T-shirt riding up a notch over her jeans.
Laney saw it. The glance, the little curl of Blake’s mouth before he flattened it back out. She didn’t say anything. She put it away, same place she stored everything else she didn’t have time to deal with. Later.
“Here,” Blake said, dropping the poles with a dull clatter beside her. “That all of ’em for this one?”
“For now,” Laney said. She caught one with her foot before it rolled, fingers wrapping around another, metal hot in her palms. “Rylee, get that end.”
Rylee huffed, but she stepped in, shoulders working as she lifted. “I’m tellin’ you,” she muttered, “they could at least get the kids out here. Ain’t fair we gotta do it all.”
Jesse picked up a crossbar and held it across his chest. “They just gonna stand around and talk anyway,” he said.
Laney started to thread the pole through the first set of loops on the canvas. The metal shifted with the weight and her grip slipped. The pole dipped hard. For a breath she thought it was gone.
“Whoa, Laney.” Rylee grabbed the far end before it thunked to the ground. She grinned, breathless. “You better get used to doin’ all this work yourself again since Caine’s gonna be transferin’.”
Laney’s hands went still on the pole. She lifted her head. “Caine’s transferin’?” The words came out even, though her chest pulled tight once and eased.
Rylee nodded, hair frizzing where the humidity had started to win against her ponytail. “He told me he’d basically already decided the other day,” she said. “Said he just gotta figure out when he’s gonna start tellin’ folks.”
Laney held her eyes for a beat, mind ticking backward, adding up where that “other day” was. Heat moved under her skin that had nothing to do with the Georgia sun.
She rolled the feeling down and away. She had been the one to end it. She reminded herself of that and turned back to the pole.
“That’s good,” she said, lining the metal up with the next ring. “Hope he land somewhere close to his little girl.” The words sat plain, nothing in her tone but effort and the strain of the weight.
Behind her, Blake’s voice cut in. “The kid you got workin’ here got a kid?” He sounded half curious, half offended, scratching at the back of his neck.
Laney glanced over her shoulder. Blake stood with his hands empty now, hat tipped back, watching her instead of the pile of poles still waiting. She nodded once.
Blake let his gaze travel from Laney to Jesse to Rylee and back again. “You and your daddy drag me through the mud for having a kid outta wedlock,” he said. “But I ain’t never heard no one talking bad about him.”
The air around them seemed to thicken. Jesse shifted his grip on the crossbar. Rylee’s eyes flicked from Blake to Laney, brow pulling in.
Laney set the pole down in its slot and straightened. She rested one hand on her hip, sweat dampening the fabric of her shirt at the small of her back. When she looked at Blake, her face stayed flat.
“That’s ‘cause he actually tries to see his child,” she said.
Blake’s jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed just a hair. For once, he didn’t say anything. He looked away, reached down, and grabbed another bundle of poles from the grass.
Jesse cleared his throat and broke the quiet. “I bet he’s gonna get a shit ton of NIL money,” he said, voice lighter, chasing a different track.
Blake snorted and moved in fast, looping an arm around Jesse’s neck, pulling him in against his side. The crossbar clanged to the ground as Jesse’s balance went. Blake held him there in a loose headlock, knuckles pressing into Jesse’s scalp.
“You’ll be gettin’ all that money and all the girls too once you get to college with that fastball, kid,” Blake said, shaking him once.
“Man, get off,” Jesse laughed, trying to pry Blake’s forearm away. “You messing up my hair.”
Rylee rolled her eyes, her mouth curving. “Jesse wishes girls wanted him like they want Caine,” she said, dragging the canvas farther so it would stretch clean.
Jesse shot her a look and pushed at Blake’s arm again. Blake let him go, finally, hand landing in a thud on Jesse’s shoulder before he stepped back.
Laney stayed out of the back-and-forth. She hooked the last ring over the pole, fingers working steady. The chatter and scuffle pressed around her, but she kept her eyes on the fabric, on threading the pole clean through the rings and making the line of the tent smooth and straight in the fading light.
oh she just gave me the goods but I know she the bosses. But I'm going to go ahead and tell her that I want out so she can tell the boss. Mad dumb 
