Caine pushed through the glass doors of the football ops center and felt the thin, conditioned air slide over his skin. The building sat quieter than usual. Thanksgiving week had emptied most of campus out. Even here, it felt like the place was holding its breath.
He rolled his shoulders once and followed the framed jerseys down the hallway toward the conference rooms. The soles of his slides made a low slap on the tile. A staffer in a Georgia Southern polo crossed in front of him with a box of tape and towels, nodded once, then kept moving. Farther off, a vacuum cleaner hummed, then cut off sharp.
The door to the conference room stood cracked. Yellow light spilled through the narrow window. Caine checked the room number against what they had told him, then put his hand on the handle and pushed.
Inside, the space sat simple. No projector running, no stack of coaches waiting, just the long table and Derrick McCray on the far side of it. The man sat in a leather chair with one arm stretched along the table’s edge, tablet in front of him, a closed folder off to the side. His navy jacket hung on the back of the chair, tie loosened a notch at his throat.
As soon as McCray saw him, he got to his feet, grin coming easy.
“I’ve been meaning to find you on campus and tell you what a hell of game y’all played against Georgia State,” he said as he reached across the table. “Just remember we hate Appalachian State more.”
Caine’s mouth pulled into a quick smile. He stepped in and took the hand, grip firm.
“I hear you,” he said.
They broke apart and sat, each taking a side of the table. Caine eased into the chair. The leather creaked under him as he leaned back, one hand resting on the armrest, the other on the table near the tablet.
McCray glanced at him over the edge of the screen, that grin softening into something closer to business.
“I’ve discussed your requests with the foundation,” he said. “They’re open to it.”
Caine nodded once, slow.
“Open and agreeing ain’t the same thing, though,” he said.
McCray barked out a laugh and pointed at him, hand slicing the air.
“You’re one sharp young man,” he said. “The problem is they don’t want to be in a position that you’re using this to negotiate with someone else for a bigger payday.”
Caine let his shoulders roll in a small shrug. His gaze stayed steady on the man’s face.
“I don’t see how that’s different than y’all doing that to grab some shit five-star out the portal,” he said.
McCray spread his hands, palms up, like he was putting the whole thing on the table between them.
“Be that as it may,” he said, “we’re both just going to have work on a little faith here.”
The word sat between them.
Caine nodded anyway, letting the silence ride for a few seconds. The hum of the vent over their heads filled in the space. Somewhere down the hall a door shut and footsteps faded.
“Coming from where and what I come from,” he said finally, voice even, “I’m gonna need a little more than faith y’all ain’t trying to snake me.”
McCray’s smile came back, small but real. He pulled the tablet closer with one hand and woke the screen with a tap. The glow lit his face from below. A couple swipes brought up a document, blocks of text and numbers lined up in clean rows. He turned the tablet and slid it across the table until it rested in front of Caine.
“This season,” McCray said, leaning on his forearms, “five thousand if we win Saturday and ten thousand if we win the conference championship. You just gotta put it out there that you’re not entering the portal.”
The tablet had a little weight to it when Caine drew it closer. He set his fingertips at the top and scrolled. The numbers sat there in black and white, his name at the top, the conditions dropped in under the payout. He read the language slowly.
He scrolled again, making sure he wasn’t missing a line somewhere. No hidden paragraph. Just the same numbers, the same condition.
“I gotta do that before Saturday?” he asked.
He didn’t look up right away when he said it. His eyes stayed on the tablet so he could watch the cursor blinking next to his name. The room stayed quiet except for the soft whir of the air.
Across from him, McCray lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“I think it just depends on when you want your money deposited,” he said.
Caine nodded, eyes still on the screen. His index finger tapped once against the glass, then again, a slow, steady rhythm as he weighed it.
~~~
Mireya shoved her phone into her jacket pocket as she climbed the last stairs. The hallway outside Angela and Paz’s place smelled like somebody’s cooking and old mop water. Voices bled through the thin door, music low under them, a run of laughter that wasn’t theirs.
She knocked once and pushed the handle when she heard Angela call out something over the noise. Warmth and light pressed right up against her when the door opened. The apartment looked smaller with this many people in it. A cluster of girls crowded the couch and the armchair, paper plates balanced on their knees. Two guys stood by the window passing a bottle of wine back and forth, another leaned against the far wall, attention half on the TV, half on the girl talking beside him. Coats hung sloppy off the back of chairs. Somebody had strung orange string lights over the curtain rod and the glow painted everything soft.
Angela spotted her first. Her eyes went wide, whole face lighting up as she grabbed Paz by the wrist.
“Mireya, you made it,” she said, already dragging Paz toward the door.
Mireya stepped inside and kicked her shoes to the side so no one would trip. Angela came in hot, arms open, perfume and hair product wrapping around Mireya before anything else did.
“Girl, you made it,” Angela said, squeezing her. “I was about to start talking shit about you.”
“You do that anyway,” Mireya answered, laughing against her shoulder.
Paz hung back half a step. When Mireya turned toward her, Paz leaned in for the hug, arms light, body not quite closing the distance. Her cheek brushed Mireya’s, cool compared to the heat of the room.
“Hey,” Paz said.
“Hey,” Mireya said back.
She started to pull away, but Angela caught her sleeve, fingers pinching the fabric and dragging it out.
“Hold up,” Angela said. “Girl, since when you wear Moncler?”
Mireya looked down at the black sleeve, at the little logo patch catching the light. For a second Trell’s face moved through her head. She pushed that aside and smiled.
“It was a gift,” she said. “Early birthday present.”
Paz’s brow lifted, curiosity cutting through the flat look she had come in with. She reached out, thumb tracing the stitching at the cuff, the way it sat clean on Mireya’s wrist.
“Who do you know that can just give people Moncler jackets?” she asked.
Mireya shrugged like it was nothing. She let her shoulders loosen and caught Paz’s hands, thumbs brushing over her knuckles on purpose, gentle.
“Just a guy,” she said. “But enough about me, how have you been? I’ve missed you.”
The words came out warm and easy. Paz’s mouth parted, whatever question she had lined up slipping for a second.
“Oh,” she said, stumbling a little. “I’ve been good. Yeah, good.”
Mireya held her hands another beat, then let one go so she could slide her arm around both of their waists, pulling them in close enough that they bumped hips.
“Come on,” she said. “Introduce me to your friends at the fancy school.”
Angela snorted, letting herself be steered back toward the main room. “Says the girl who probably got on thousand dollar chonies.”
Mireya rolled her eyes, playing with it. “Don’t need to spend a thousand dollars on panties if you don’t wear them,” she said, voice dropping just enough. “Right, Paz?”
They were only a few steps into the living room. A couple of Angela’s friends looked over, catching the tail end of it. Paz froze for half a second, caught between the joke and the picture that came with it. Her eyes darted between Mireya’s face and Angela’s.
She looked like she wanted to say something back. Nothing landed fast enough. She nodded instead, a small, jerky dip of her chin.
“Uh… yeah,” she said.
She didn’t know she was getting the Luna treatment. Mireya smiled and leaned into both of them, soaking in the brief awkwardness as Angela cackled.
“You a nasty ho, Reya,” Angela said, delighted. “Come on.”
She started down the line, tossing names out. The girls shifted, making room on the arm of the couch for Mireya if she wanted it. The guys near the window lifted their chins in hello, eyes doing the usual once-over. Mireya smiled back, the last eight months taking over. Talks about finals and internships and professors she didn’t know rolled over her in pieces. Every now and then Angela translated something with a joke, bridging Loyola and UNO in the space between them. Paz stayed tucked more at the edge, arms loosely folded, her gaze sliding back to the jacket whenever she thought Mireya wasn’t looking.
The afternoon stretched, the light outside slipping from bright to the softer gray that came before dark. Paper plates piled in the sink. Somebody put on an R&B playlist low enough that it didn’t fight the conversations. The air picked up the mixed smells of store-bought pies, turkey someone’s mama had sent over, and whatever cheap candle Angela had burning on the TV stand.
…
Later, Mireya found herself in the kitchen. It was a little calmer there. Only the hum of the fridge and the muffled rise and fall of laughter from the living room followed her. She stood at the counter with a bottle of vodka in front of her, twisting the cap off. The shot glass in her hand clinked once against the laminate before she steadied it and poured.
Out in the other room, a group at the table broke into laughter over something she hadn’t caught. The joke had to do with a professor’s weird habit. Somebody did an impression, everyone else lost it, their voices overlapping in that easy way people had when they spent all their time together. The reference flew right past her. She smiled anyway, a small curve of her mouth as she knocked back the shot and let the heat spill down into her chest.
The front door opened over the noise, a short burst of street air cutting in. A deeper male voice came with it, greeting Angela, asking where to put something. Mireya didn’t turn. She set the empty glass down and reached for the bottle again.
“Boy, you late,” Angela called, somewhere between the hallway and the living room. “Go fix you a drink before everything gone.”
Footsteps crossed the floor, shoes hitting the slightly raised edge where the tile met the wood. One of the guys peeled off toward the kitchen, an unfamiliar cologne arriving a second before he did. When he stepped in, Mireya saw him from the corner of her eye. Older than most of the boys in the room, shirt tucked in, watch bright on his wrist. Finance bro, she thought. Then her gaze slid up to his face and recognition snapped into place fast enough that she felt it in her stomach.
She turned her back, shoulders rounding a little as if she could shrug herself into the cabinets. Her hand closed around the neck of the vodka, fingers tight.
“Can I get this?” he asked, nodding toward the bottle.
“Yeah,” she said, sliding it across the counter without lifting her eyes.
There was a beat. She could feel him watching her now, not just the bottle. The music in the other room dipped between songs, leaving the space around them thinner.
“Wait…” he said. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Nope,” Mireya answered. “Not me.”
He stepped back a little, like he was trying to take her all in at once. His fingers started snapping, the sound small but sharp in the close kitchen.
“You’re Luna,” he said.
Mireya’s jaw clenched. She turned around, every muscle pulled tight under the Moncler. Her words came through her teeth.
“Lower your fucking voice.”
The guy held both hands up, palms open, grin flashing quick.
“My bad,” he said. “I’m Kai. You remember from that one party?”
She did. She nodded once, lips pressed thin.
“It’s not the time or the fucking place, Kai,” she said.
“You’re right,” he said, dropping his hands. “Can we, you know, talk after?”
He tapped two fingers against his pocket.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just keep your fucking mouth shut.”
Kai smiled, easy, like they were just lining up a normal conversation for later.
“You got it,” he said.
He reached past her for a plastic cup, the movement close enough that she caught the faint mix of his cologne and whatever downtown bar he had come from. He grabbed the vodka, a mixer from the counter, and headed back toward the others, shoulders already relaxing into the party.
Mireya stayed where she was for a second longer. She let her face go blank, then smoothed it over with a new expression, something lighter around the eyes, a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. When she was sure nothing sharp showed anymore, she picked up her own cup and walked back into the living room, folding herself into the noise again.
~~~
Ramon stood on one of 3NG’s corners, hood up against the thin holiday breeze, watching the younger guys work the spot. Cars rolled past slower than usual, most of them already pointed toward somebody’s mama house, not coming to buy dope. Every now and then one crept up to the curb, window rolling down just enough for a hand to slide out, palm jittery, fingers twitching for what they came for.
The BGs handled it. Quick hand-to-hands near the mouth of the alley, heads down, hoods up. Money in, work out. They moved with that half playful, half hungry energy they always had, but even that sounded duller today. A couple of them had on thrifted button-downs thrown over their hoodies, holiday attempts that never made it past the block. Someone’s phone played a Thanksgiving commercial on loop between songs, the bright jingle leaking out the tinny speaker and dying fast in the air.
Thanksgiving. Street looked the same as any other day. Just meant the fiends begged harder.
Tyree was with his people. E.J. was in Belle Chasse, with his siblings at Tessa’s. That left Ramon watching on his own. He clocked every slow roll, every unfamiliar face, every neighbor who stepped out to smoke or drag a trash can. The same cracked sidewalk. The same leaning light pole. The same sagging porch across the way where somebody’s auntie usually sat on nicer days. Empty now.
He shifted his weight and went to sit on an overturned bucket near the fence. The plastic had a hairline crack along one side. It creaked under him but held. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a small folding knife, thumb popping the blade open with a soft click. A stick lay near his shoe, dried branch blown in from somebody else’s yard. He picked it up and set the end against his thigh.
The knife shaved down the bark in thin curls. They dropped onto the ground between his shoes. He worked slow, just enough pressure to make the wood give, turning the nothing piece of branch into something pointed. It kept his hands busy while his eyes stayed doing what they needed to do.
“Ramon!”
He heard his name before he saw her. He didn’t look up right away. The blade kept moving, gliding down the stick in short strokes, his fingers turning it without thinking.
“Ramon!”
He could hear the drag in her voice. The dry throat. The little hitch at the end where the high rode her words. He kept his eyes on the stick and started to sharpen the tip.
Down the sidewalk, Asia walked toward him. Her outfit might have turned a head once. The black skirt barely covered the tops of her thighs, hem ragged where stitches had given up. The tank top clung to her, stained and stretched out, one strap hanging off her shoulder. Fishnets clung to her legs, gray with dirt, one knee blown wide so skin showed through in a web. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, strands stuck to her sweaty temple. Whatever makeup she had started the day with had smeared around her eyes.
“Ramon, hey!” she called again.
He kept cutting. The knife scraped more bark away, the point getting sharper in his hands. He moved from the tip down, smoothing the sides.
The younger guys saw her and turned away in unison, that same threat from months ago playing behind their eyes. They shifted down the sidewalk, bodies angled so they could keep working but not be anywhere near the line of her sight. One of them pretended to focus on his phone. Another watched the street like he was suddenly security.
Asia crossed the last patch of broken concrete and stepped into the yard. Her shoes, once some cheap version of heels, were caked with grime. The strap on one hung loose at her ankle. She came up on his side and hovered there.
“Ramon,” she said.
He didn’t turn his head. The knife shaved another thin curl from the stick. It dropped between his sneakers. He rolled his wrist, working the blade down the length.
She tapped him on the shoulder with the tips of her fingers. “Ramon, you hear me?”
He didn’t move. The stick turned in his hand. The point had started to take shape now, wood pale where he had stripped the bark.
She tapped his shoulder again, harder. The hit barely shifted the fabric of his hoodie.
“Ramon.”
Still nothing from him. When he didn’t so much as flinch, something in her snapped. She put her palm flat on his shoulder and shoved.
His arm jerked. The knife skipped. The blade slid toward his thumb and he had to pull his hand back quick so it didn’t slice him. Heat flared in his chest. Before she could pull her hand away, he swung the handle of the knife down and cracked it against her ankle.
“Get yo fucking ass back before I stab you,” he said.
Asia yelped and grabbed her leg, hopping half a step away. Her fingers clamped around the spot he had hit, nails digging through the fishnets. She sucked air through her teeth and winced, eyes watering for a second. The pain had her hunched, but she still looked back at him, shoulders drawn tight.
“Damn,” she muttered, straightening up slow. She shifted her weight to the other foot. “Can you tell them to let me cop?”
Ramon shook his head. The knife went back to the stick, blade kissing the wood that was already bare.
“Fuck no,” he said.
Asia licked her lips, jaw working. Her eyes flicked toward the younger boys on the corner, then back to him.
“Can you give me some money then?” she asked. “So, I can get a room for the night.”
Ramon didn’t look up. The tip of the stick grew cleaner, sharper with each stroke.
“Fuck no,” he repeated.
Asia’s mouth twisted. She shoved his shoulder again, not as hard as before but enough to jostle him on the bucket.
“You really gonna let me sleep out on the street?” she said.
Ramon finally lifted his head. He looked past her, out over the block, and let his free hand cut a vague circle in the air.
“What you do any other day?” he said. “Find some desperate ass white man to get you a room for some head, right? Better hurry up before they start getting off the streets for the night.”
Asia sucked her teeth, loud and sharp. Her eyes burned holes into the side of his face. For a second it looked like she might spit something back. Instead she turned away, limped a few steps, and grabbed another empty bucket tipped against the fence. She flipped it over, dust puffing up, and dragged it back next to him.
“I’m just gonna sit here until you give me some money,” she said.
She dropped onto the bucket, knees spreading, hands loose on her thighs. Up close, the sour sweet smell of sweat and old perfume rolled off her. Her heel bounced once, jarring her sore ankle, and she hissed under her breath but didn’t move it.
Ramon turned toward her, leaning back a little so he could look her full in the face. The stick sat across his knees. The knife rested light in his fingers.
“If you asked me to let them sell you some dope first,” he said, head tilted, “how the fuck was you gonna pay for that?”
Asia sucked her bottom lip between her teeth for a second, then let it go. “Fifteen dollars ain’t enough for a room, nigga,” she said.
Ramon shrugged, shoulders lifting and dropping once.
“I wouldn’t fucking know,” he said. “That’s triflin’ shit you do.”
Asia shook her head, a sharp little movement. Her gaze slid away from his and fixed on nothing in front of them. The two of them fell quiet.
Traffic moved slow on the far end of the block. A kid on a bike rolled past, front wheel squeaking each turn. Somewhere a radio played an old R&B song, the words too far to catch. The younger guys went back to their work, voices lowering each time someone walked up. Money still changed hands. Product still left palms in quick exchanges.
Beside him, Asia shifted. The minutes dragged long enough that the hard edge of his irritation dulled. He kept shaving the stick, wood dust sprinkling the ground. The point grew finer, the sides smoother under the blade.
After a while, Asia slapped her leg, the flat sound snapping through the slow air.
“You really ain’t gonna give me no money?” she asked. “Just forty dollars. That’s all I need.”
Ramon did not stop the motion of his wrist. Shavings curled off the stick and dropped.
“Asia, shut the fuck up before I jug you with this shit,” he said.
She raised both hands in front of her chest, palms out in surrender, then let them fall into her lap. Her fingers twisted together there, restless for a second, then stilled.
Asia’s eyes went to the corner. She watched the hand to hands go on, watched each fiend shuffle up and leave lighter. The younger guys made their moves, quick and practiced. The block kept breathing slow.
Ramon sat beside her on his cracked bucket, the knife whispering against the wood as he kept on whittling.
~~~
Laney stood at the end of the table with one hand under the rim of the casserole dish and the other steadying the towel she had folded around it. The heat from the glass pushed through the fabric and into her palms. The dining room buzzed around her. Chairs scraped. Silverware clinked. Somebody at the far end laughed at something Jesse said, the sound sharp and quick before it folded back into the rest of the chatter.
Her daddy sat at the head of the table, shirt cuffs rolled once, Bible already open beside his plate even though he hadn’t said grace yet. Marianne moved behind him, straightening a stack of napkins and fussing at Knox for picking at the rolls before anyone had prayed. Caleb and Gabrielle sat on one side of the table, Gabrielle’s laptop bag tucked between her feet. On the other side, Rylee hunched over her phone, thumbs moving, and Jesse leaned past her, looking at his phone that charged on an empty chair. Braxton and Hunter shared the bench at the wall, their feet not quite touching the floor, arguing under their breath about who would get the drumstick.
Tommy sat halfway down, shoulders set, phone in his hand under the table. His plate was still empty. He kept his eyes on the screen while Marianne reminded Braxton to stop kicking the leg of the table.
Laney slid the casserole into the last open space on the table. The smell of cheese and canned soup rose up, mixing with turkey and dressing and the sweet glaze from the ham Marianne had pulled out of the oven an hour earlier. She wiped her hands on the dish towel and stepped back toward the kitchen doorway, giving herself a little space from the crowd of arms reaching for serving spoons.
Tommy’s phone lit his face for a second. His eyes moved over whatever sat there. Then he pushed his chair back. The legs scraped over the hardwood and cut through the noise.
“Where you goin’?” Marianne asked, not looking up from the bowl of green beans she was passing to Knox.
Tommy didn’t answer. He stood, slid the phone into his pocket and headed toward the front of the house. Laney watched his back as he moved through the doorway into the hall. Her eyebrow climbed. Her hand caught the edge of the doorframe, holding her in place.
The front door opened. The hinges groaned faint through the hum of conversation. A second later, she heard Blake’s voice float down the hall, easy and familiar. Another voice followed, higher, the worn-out lilt of Nevaeh’s, and a small boy’s chatter underneath them.
Laney’s jaw tightened before she could stop it. She turned her head toward the hallway as the footsteps came closer.
Tommy came back first, shoulders a little tighter than when he had left. Blake walked beside him, hat in his hands, Josiah tucked against his hip. Nevaeh followed behind, one step off, hair pulled back in a ponytail that had seen better days but eyes clearer than they had been the last time Laney had seen her.
Pastor Hadden pushed his chair back and stood, chair legs scraping. He stepped around the corner of the table with his hand already out.
“Pastor,” Blake said, grip meeting his. “Thank you for lettin’ us come have dinner with y’all. You know my mama and her man went up to Virginia Beach and all.”
Tommy cut him a look at that, quick and sharp. Pastor Hadden shook his head once, squeezing Blake’s hand before he let it go.
“You’re family, son,” he said. “Your brother asked that we fellowship with you and God says don’t turn anyone away.”
He clapped Blake on the shoulder and nodded toward the table. Then he turned back to his seat without so much as a glance in Nevaeh’s direction.
“Laney,” Tommy snapped.
Her name hit across the room. She looked at him. He jerked his chin toward the end of the table where the boys’ chairs stopped and an empty patch of floor waited.
He pointed to the space. “Down there.”
Laney bit back what wanted to come out and nodded once instead. She stepped through the parlor, past the old couch and the upright piano, to the wall where the spare chairs leaned. The carpet rubbed her ankles as she dragged two into the dining room, wood bumping into the doorframe on the way through.
She set the chairs where Tommy had indicated, lining them up so they would fit without crowding the boys too much. Blake shifted Josiah on his hip and guided him toward one of the seats. Nevaeh followed, eyes skating over the table before they landed on Laney.
“Hey,” Nevaeh said, voice soft, but clear, clearly not high.
Laney held her gaze for a beat. She took a breath that stretched longer than it needed to, then nodded once and turned back toward the kitchen.
Pastor Hadden sat again, hand resting on the open Bible at his plate. Blake eased into his chair. Josiah climbed up beside him, small hands already reaching for the nearest roll. Nevaeh slipped onto the other new chair without comment, her shoulders pulled in just enough that they didn’t brush anyone else.
Laney went back into the kitchen to grab the last bowl of macaroni and the gravy boat. The light over the sink buzzed. The house smelled of starch and meat and perfume and the faint chemical edge of cleaning spray Marianne had used that morning. She steadied the gravy with one hand so it wouldn’t slosh, then carried everything back into the dining room.
She set the dishes down and slid into the empty chair beside Tommy. His knee pressed once against hers then stilled. Pastor Hadden cleared his throat and stood again, one palm lifting off the Bible.
Everyone bowed their heads. Chairs creaked. The room went quiet as he began to pray.
…
Later, the air had cooled enough that people migrated outside, plates scraped clean and stacked in the sink. The porch light cast a yellow cone over the front steps. Knox and Braxton chased each other across the yard with plastic swords while Hunter sat in the dirt with Josiah, ramming toy trucks into a line of rocks. Jesse tossed a football back and forth with Blake and Tommy near the edge of the driveway, the ball thumping into palms and chest. Marianne stood near the railing with Caleb, talking low, hands moving as she talked. Pastor Hadden had drifted toward the far side of the yard where a few church members had stopped by to say hello.
Laney sat on the porch steps near the top, hip leaning into the post. Rylee occupied the step just below her, phone in hand, screen lighting her face in a cold glow as she tapped out a text. On the other side of Laney, Gabrielle balanced her laptop on her knees, the glow from the screen reflected in her glasses as she murmured into a bluetooth headset about closing dates and signatures.
The night hummed with crickets and the occasional passing car out on the road. Grease and smoke from the fried turkey still hung faint in the air, mixed with the scent of cut grass and someone’s cologne.
“Laney?” Nevaeh’s voice floated up from the bottom of the steps.
Laney looked up. Nevaeh stood on the walk, hands twisting in the hem of her shirt. Her shoulders bunched in, eyes darting once toward the yard, then back to Laney.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
Rylee didn’t look up from her phone. Gabrielle’s fingers kept moving on the keyboard.
Laney let her eyes move over Nevaeh from head to toe. The shirt hung a little loose. The jeans were clean enough. Her eyes stayed steady. Laney gave a short nod.
“Come on,” she said, pushing herself up.
She stepped around Rylee and Gabrielle and jerked her chin toward the front door. Nevaeh followed close behind, footsteps quiet on the wood.
Inside, the house felt smaller with everyone still outside, the noise muffled through the walls. Laney closed the door behind them and turned the deadbolt out of habit. She moved to the side window and peered through the curtains, counting quick.
Nobody near the house.
Satisfied, she let the curtain fall back and turned to Nevaeh, lifting her hand in a small motion.
“Go ‘head,” she said.
Nevaeh swallowed and twisted the fabric at her waist again. “I know why you told me I couldn’t come ‘round your house no more,” she said. “But I’m gonna try to get clean. Me and Blake.”
Laney rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “If a baby ain’t convince you to get off that shit, ain’t nothin’ else gonna.”
Nevaeh’s mouth pulled. “No, I’m serious this time,” she said. “You gonna see. I can be like you and Tae.”
Laney shook her head once. “Shouldn’t be tryin’ to be like no one else,” she said. “Should be just tryin’ to live right.”
“I know I been doin’ wrong, ‘specially by you but I ain’t myself when that devil in me,” Nevaeh said. “You know that. Like when I told Blake about that Black guy. I ain’t know he was gonna tell Tommy, hones—”
Laney moved before the sentence finished. Her hand shot out and closed around Nevaeh’s arm, fingers digging into the soft skin under the sleeve.
“What the fuck you just say?” she asked.
Nevaeh flinched. “You hurtin’ me.”
Laney’s grip tightened. “What you just say?”
“I saw ‘em when he left your house that one night,” Nevaeh said, words stumbling. “I thought he was a cleaner or somethin’.”
Laney shoved her back, the movement sharp enough that Nevaeh bumped into the wall. Laney dragged a hand through her hair, fingers rough against her scalp.
“You couldn’t just keep your fuckin’ mouth shut,” she said.
Nevaeh’s eyes shone in the dim hallway light. “I ain’t mean to,” she said. “‘Sides bein’ a worker, I thought Tommy was on that weird shit. That cuckold stuff? Everyone know you always liked ‘em Black. ‘Specially back in the day.”
“Nevaeh. Stop. Talkin’.” Laney’s teeth stayed clenched around the words.
Nevaeh’s mouth opened, then closed. She nodded instead.
“Don’t talk to not nobody else ‘bout this,” Laney said.
Nevaeh nodded again.
“You need help gettin’ clean?” Laney asked.
“If you know where some meetin’s at?” Nevaeh asked.
Laney’s gaze slid to the framed family portrait hanging on the hallway wall. She stepped closer, eyes skimming over her own younger face pressed up against Tommy’s, Rylee and Jesse, her parents on either side. The glass threw back a faint reflection of her now. She used it to fix her hair, smoothing the strands she had just raked out of place.
“The ones you went to last time still ‘round,” she said. “I’ll get you the information again.”
“Thank you, and I ain’t mean to mess nothin’ up. Promise.” Nevaeh’s voice dropped.
Laney waved off the apology with a flick of her hand. “Just don’t talk no more ‘bout it.”
She walked to the front door and unlocked it, pulling it open enough to let the cool air press in. She stepped aside and nodded toward the porch.
Nevaeh moved past her, shoulders still tight, and stepped back outside.
Laney took a breath, let her face smooth over, and followed her back out onto the porch.
~~~
Caine sat behind the table with a Georgia Southern backdrop filling the wall behind him, the blue and white logos repeated in neat rows. The camera lights on the far side of the room beat down on his face, hot and steady. He rested his forearms on the edge of the table, name placard just in front of him, a bottle of water pushed off to the side where he had set it down.
A half circle of reporters sat in the chairs facing him, some with cameras up on tripods at the back, others with phones held out to record. The murmur in the room settled as the SID stepped up beside the first row and pointed toward the front.
“All right, questions for Caine,” the SID said.
A man in a polo with a Sun Belt logo on the chest lifted his hand halfway and spoke up before the SID could even nod at him.
“Caine, first off, congratulations on breaking the single season Sun Belt touchdown record and leading Georgia Southern to the conference championship game,” he said. “How does it feel knowing you’re coming up against Louisiana–Lafayette with all that on the line, especially considering you’re from Louisiana yourself?”
Caine lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “It don’t really make much of a difference to me who we playing,” he said. “We going out there to get to the CFP.”
Pens scratched against notepads. Someone in the back adjusted his lens, the tripod creaking a little as he shifted the angle. The SID pointed to another hand.
“How is the team coping with the pressure of carrying the Group of Six right now?” a woman asked. “You guys are kind of the last hope for a non-power conference in the playoff.”
Caine shook his head. “I don’t think we carrying anyone,” he said. “We out here for Georgia Southern and that’s it. They can get on the game and replay the season so they sitting where we at.”
A few reporters chuckled under their breath at that, the tension in the room easing a notch. The SID slid his hand to the side and nodded toward a beat writer Caine recognized from earlier in the season.
“Talk a little bit about tonight’s performance,” the man said. “Three sixty-four through the air, four touchdowns, eighty-one on the ground. The game ended up a ten point win, thirty-eight, twenty-eight. App State kept it closer than a lot of people expected. How did it feel out there for you?”
“It was a good game,” Caine said. “They got a good team. They played hard. We made some mistakes we gotta clean up but at the end of the we beat another rival. This one bigger than Georgia State so it was important we got the win.”
Another voice jumped in as soon as he finished.
“Was there ever a point tonight where you felt like they might have the momentum swinging their way?” a reporter near the aisle asked. “You were up by three scores at one point and they tied it up in the fourth.”
Caine kept his eyes on the man, tone steady. “Nah we ain’t never worried,” he said. “We got dogs all over this team. Someone might be able to hang with us but they ain’t gonna be able to beat us over 60 minutes.”
The next question came from deeper in the pack, the man not even bothering to raise his hand all the way before speaking. His recorder was already held straight out toward the table.
“You’re getting a lot of national attention now,” he said. “But there’s also been a lot of talk about Cameron Dyer at USF. Some people have him higher than you in their freshman of the year rankings, some say he’s the better Group of Six quarterback. How do you feel about the way he keeps getting more praise than you despite what you’ve been doing this year?”
Caine blinked once. “I ain’t never been the guy that people putting on no lists,” he said. “I looked at some of his highlights. He’s a great player, but I don’t mind people doubting me. That’s on them. Congratulations to him if he win it.”
A couple of reporters glanced at each other, hands already moving as they typed. The SID’s eyes moved over the room, tracking who was still trying to get in.
He nodded to another reporter near the middle.
“What did Coach Aplin say to you after that last touchdown drive?” the man asked. “It looked like he had a pretty long talk with you when you got back to the sideline.”
Caine shook his head, a faint hint of a smile touching his mouth and vanishing. “Just told me good job,” he said. “Same stuff he always say. Keep leading. Keep everybody locked in.”
“On that read option that set up the score before that,” someone closer to the wall called out, “was that a check at the line or was that what was called from the sideline the whole way?”
“That was the call,” Caine said. “We liked the look. Line did they job. I made the read and took it.”
The questions kept coming after that. One about Josh’s two long touchdowns and whether Caine had any doubt throwing it into that window. Another about how much freedom he had to change protections and routes pre snap. Someone asked him to put into words what it meant to be eleven and one headed into the title game after where the program had been.
Caine’s answers stayed even. He talked about his receivers getting open and finishing plays. He mentioned the offensive line giving him time and how they didn’t get enough credit. He brought up Nate running hard, wearing down defenses, the way the defense picked them up with stops when they needed them. Nothing that made the room shift. Nothing that pulled anything out of him besides the steady give and take the reporters had come to expect.
Near the wall, the SID glanced at his watch, then lifted his arm and made a small circling motion with his hand.
“We got time for one more,” he called out.
The buzz rose a little as a few hands went up at once. The SID picked one from the front row. The reporter scooted his chair in closer and leaned toward the microphone set up between them, voice carrying just enough to cut through the low hum of everyone else starting to close laptops and gather bags.
“Caine, we know you’re focused on the championship game now and a CFP berth,” he said, “but everyone is still asking if this is the Caine Guerra swan song in Statesboro. What do you have to say?”
Caine didn’t hesitate. He leaned forward toward the mic, forearms pressing into the edge of the table.
“We running it back next year,” he said. “So, these boys in the Sun Belt better get ready for some more BTAs. Y’all ain’t gotta talk about it no more, because I’m gonna be right here getting after their asses.”
The room reacted in a quick shuffle of movement, reporters straightening, cameras clicking a little faster, fingers flying on keyboards as they tried to catch every word. A couple of heads turned toward the SID at the side of the room, but he only lifted his hand once.
“Thank y’all,” Caine said.
He pushed his chair back, the legs scraping against the thin carpet laid over the concrete, and stood up. The Georgia Southern logos behind him stayed in their neat rows as he turned away from the table. The SID stepped in behind him as he walked off the small riser and through the doorway, the murmur of voices already rising again in his wake as the reporters started cutting and rearranging their questions around the sentence he had just given them.
