Sara had almost turned back twice on the walk from her car to the door.
Not because she was scared of him. Not because Devin had done anything wrong. It was the simple, stubborn discomfort of being seen in that place.
This restaurant didn’t have plastic menus with fingerprints on the sleeves. It had heavy paper that curled at the edges, a server in a black apron who moved quickly, and a host stand that looked polished enough to show her face if she leaned the wrong way. The air inside was cool, colder than the sidewalk outside, and it carried butter and garlic and something sweet under it, maybe wine.
Devin was already there.
He stood when he saw her, quick and practiced, and his smile hit like he’d been waiting for that moment in particular. He wore a jacket this time, not a button-down with rolled sleeves. He pulled out her chair before she could reach for it, hand on the back.
“Look at you,” he said. “You came on time.”
Sara’s mouth pulled into a half smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
He laughed, low, and leaned in just enough to catch her. “I had to upgrade on you,” he said, glancing around. “Figured you deserved better than last time.”
Sara slid into the chair and let her hands rest on the edge of the table. The surface was smooth and cold under her fingertips. Somewhere in the room, somebody’s laugh rose, then softened again. Silverware clinked. A glass touched down against another glass.
“You trying to make me feel bad?” she asked.
“I’m trying to impress you,” Devin said, easy. He sat across from her, posture open, shoulders relaxed like this was nothing for him. “It working?”
Sara lifted one shoulder.
“Depends,” she said. “You paying?”
He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
A server appeared and set down water without asking, condensation already gathering on the glass. Sara wrapped her fingers around it, letting the cold bite her palm for a second. Outside the window, the day was bright but thin. The city still sounded like itself even through the glass, a distant horn, the rush of tires on wet street.
Devin leaned forward a little. “So,” he said. “How was your trip to Georgia?”
“It was good,” she said. “But it’s always tough because my granddaughter gets so upset whenever she has to leave her daddy.”
Devin’s eyebrows lifted. “That little girl loves him like that?”
Sara’s laugh came out short. “That little girl is his shadow.”
He tipped his head. “Her mama doesn’t want to live in the same place as your boy?”
Sara shook her head. “I love her,” she said. “But that girl is stubborn as an ox. She’s not gonna follow him around like those girls on TV.”
Devin laughed. He lifted his water glass and took a sip, eyes still on her. “I guess that makes your job easier since you don’t have to worry about an angry baby mama coming to take all your son’s money.”
Sara’s laugh rolled out this time, fuller.
“Guess so,” she said.
The server came back to ask about drinks. Devin ordered something she didn’t recognize. Sara just asked for sweet tea. The server nodded, pencil moving fast, then slipped away again.
Devin folded his hands on the table. His watch flashed when he moved. “What about you?” he asked. “You could go live out there.”
Sara stared at him a beat.
Her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth. She let the silence sit long enough to be honest, then she shrugged.
“He’ll only be out there for a year or two more,” she said. “I’ve never lived anywhere other than New Orleans, though. And before this year, the only other places I’d been were Tegucigalpa a few times when I was a kid.”
Devin nodded slow. His eyes softened. “I’d like to take you to see the world then,” he said. “That’s the best part about my job, no set hours, no one making sure I’m at a desk. I go somewhere new at least once a month.”
Sara let out a laugh, shaking her head. “Well, your job might be like that but my two aren’t.”
Devin’s smile tilted. “Can I just say that working two jobs when your son is a football star is crazy?”
Sara’s eyes narrowed a little, not angry, just cautious.
“He doesn’t make money from that,” she said. “Not a lot.”
Devin lifted both hands, palms out, surrendering and teasing at the same time. “Yet.”
Sara only shrugged.
“Alright,” Devin said, letting the subject drop when he saw her face. “I won’t pry.” He leaned forward again, voice lighter. “Tell me where you’d go if you could leave right now. Anywhere in the world.”
The server returned with Sara’s tea and set it down, straw still in the wrapper. The glass sweated against the tablecloth. Sara peeled the paper off the straw in one smooth pull, the sound small and sharp in the quiet between them. She stirred the ice with it once, listening to the clink.
Where would she go.
She thought for a second then said it before she could talk herself out of it. “Finland.”
Devin laughed.
Sara reached across the table and swatted at his arm. “It’s not funny,” she said, but she had a smile on her face.
~~~
The grass was cold enough to bite through denim.
Caine felt it every time he shifted, damp seeping into the back of his thighs, into the thin place where his shirt had ridden up and the bark pressed his spine. The field behind the church sat wide and empty in the dark, nothing moving but the slow sway of weeds near the fence line and the occasional flash of a distant car cutting along the highway. The sanctuary lights were off. The daycare windows were black. No laughter. No doors slamming. No voices yet. Just the low hum of a town still sleeping, and the thin scrape of something small in the brush.
Laney lay between his legs with her back to his chest, tucked in like she’d been built to fit there. The tree was thick enough to hide them from anyone who might cut through the lot early. Her hair smelled like whatever she’d sprayed on herself before she left the house, sweet under the morning air, and when she breathed out, the warm puff of it hit his forearm where it was wrapped around her middle.
Caine kept his hand flat on her stomach, fingers spread. He could feel the rise and fall.
She shifted her shoulder, the movement small.
“What was it like?” she asked. Her voice came out quiet, drawn thin by the cold. “Bein’ in jail?”
Caine snorted a laugh, the sound dry. “You said that shit like I was up in Angola doing 25 to life. I was in juvenile lockup in the parish.”
Laney tipped her face up just enough to look back at him out of the corner of her eye. In the dark her expression was mostly shape and shine, but he could still read the stubbornness in it. “But that’s what you was lookin’ at, right? Life? I mean, it’s the same thing when you goin’ through it.”
He shrugged, the movement rolling through his shoulders and into her back. The bark scratched. “Yeah, you right on that. It was hell. Even with all the baby gangsters in there. Ain’t never knew when you were gonna have to fight ’cause someone wanted your ramen noodles or ’cause somebody tried to make you hold they fucking pocket.”
Laney went still. He felt it, the pause in her breathing, the way her fingers curled into the grass as if she could grab onto something there. She turned more this time, twisting at the waist so she could see his face better.
“That happens in juvie?”
Caine laughed again, softer. “It ain’t no different in there. Prison rules is prison rules.”
Laney’s mouth pulled tight. She looked forward again, back to the empty field. “That’s awful.”
He nodded once. “Ain’t help that I’m tall and kinda built. Every motherfucker in the car wanted to fight me to show they were tough.”
Laney’s shoulders lifted, then dropped. “How’d you survive?”
Caine let his head rest back against the tree. The morning smelled like wet dirt and old pine, and somewhere in the distance a dog barked twice and stopped. “Played by the rules. Cliqued up with some dudes and fought. Word got out what I was facing and ain’t nobody really mess with me after that ’cause I ain’t have nothing to lose. Kid doing a little 10, 15 days down on their ass not gonna fuck with the dude going to the Farm.”
Laney made a small sound in her throat, not quite a gasp, not quite a curse. He felt her swallow. She reached down and picked at a blade of grass, rolling it between her fingertips until it split.
For a moment neither of them spoke. The silence didn’t feel peaceful. It felt like the space right before a door opened.
Laney’s voice came again, lower. “Sometimes, I feel like I been in a prison for the last ten years. Not the same you went through, but a different battle.”
Caine’s grip tightened a notch on her stomach. Just enough to let her feel he heard her.
“You know you can just leave, right?” he said.
Laney let out a breath that turned into a small laugh that wasn’t funny. “Could’ve. Probably would’ve if not for my boys. Now? I don’t know.”
She shifted again, pressing her spine firmer into him.
“And he not gonna leave me. I think he tryin’ to make me lose my shit. Confess or somethin’. But I ain’t. So, we just gonna do this for however long.”
His throat worked once before he spoke again. “So you just stay stuck in this until you die?”
Laney didn’t answer right away. The pause stretched long enough that he started to think she might not. That she might tuck it back inside herself and pretend she’d never said any of it. Instead, she nodded once, a small dip of her chin he felt more than saw.
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”
~~~
Ramon pulled up short of the curb and coasted the last few feet, brakes squealing faint against the cold. The community center squatted at the edge of the block, its paint dulled by years of sun and rain. Kids still swarmed the front despite the season, bundled in hoodies and light jackets, breath puffing pale as they ran. One boy juked left with a ball tucked under his arm. A girl with beads clicking in her hair darted across the sidewalk, cutting too close to Ramon’s bumper before veering off.
Ramon leaned forward over the steering wheel, jaw tight, eyes tracking movement out of habit. He waited until the knot of kids cleared, then killed the engine. The sudden quiet inside the car felt sharp. He got out, the cold biting at his knuckles, and shut the door. His shoes hit the pavement and he stepped around a kid who skidded past his shin, laughing, already gone.
The air smelled clean and thin, winter-cut, with a trace of old fryer grease drifting out from somewhere inside the building. A box fan was jammed in the doorway anyway, rattling as it pushed stale air around. Ramon crossed the sidewalk and went in.
Inside, the community center was bright in a flat, institutional way. Fluorescents hummed overhead. A bulletin board sagged under too many flyers. Someone had put out a jar of candy with a handwritten sign asking for donations. Ramon didn’t slow. He followed voices toward the back, past a hallway that smelled faintly of cleaner and paper towels, past a room stacked with plastic chairs.
The larger room opened up ahead, stage at the far end, scuffed steps worn pale at the edges. Near it, Nina stood with a clipboard tucked against her ribs, talking to another worker. The other woman held a roll of tape, nodding as Nina spoke, her voice clipped and efficient. Nina was in work mode, posture straight, eyes focused.
Then she looked up.
Her gaze hit Ramon and slid away immediately. She turned her shoulder, angling her body so her back was mostly to him, attention snapping back to the other worker. The move was small but deliberate. Ramon felt it land anyway.
He stopped a few feet away and waited.
He didn’t pretend to read a flyer or check his phone. He just stood there, hands loose at his sides, weight shifting once as the cold crept up through the soles of his shoes. The seconds stretched. The other worker laughed at something Nina said, then peeled off toward a closet with the tape.
Nina moved to leave in the opposite direction, clipboard still in hand.
Ramon stepped in and caught her elbow.
“Nina, we gotta talk,” he said.
She didn’t look down at his hand. “I’m busy right now, Ramon.”
“You ain’t doing shit,” he said, voice low. “Stop playing.”
Her shoulders lifted with a breath she’d been holding. She pulled free, eyes flashing once. Then she sighed, heavy and tired, and walked toward the stage.
She set the clipboard carefully on the edge, then turned back. “Come on.”
She pushed through the back door and the cold hit hard, the kind that snapped at exposed skin. Ramon followed her out.
Nina stopped and turned, crossing her arms tight against her chest.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Ramon took a step closer, shoulders squared. “For you stop with this bullshit and let me come back to your crib. I get you still tore up about stuff, but c’mon. You gonna let that come between us?”
Nina’s laugh came out too loud, bouncing off brick. “You killed a man!”
Ramon’s head snapped slightly, eyes flicking toward the alley mouth. Nina caught herself too, breath hitching. She lowered her voice, but the words stayed sharp.
“You fucking killed a man, Ramon.”
He waved it off with a flick of his hand. “Don’t put that work on me. I ain’t do nothing. I know who did it, but I ain’t gonna say because I ain’t no snitch. But it wasn’t me. Like I told you.”
She stared at him, unblinking. “You were willing to and that’s close enough.”
“You were willing to let me do it,” Ramon shot back. “So, what that say about you?”
Nina looked away, jaw working. Her arms stayed crossed, but her fingers dug into her sleeves. “I’m still trying to figure that out,” she said, quieter.
Ramon stepped closer, cutting into her space. He put his hand at the small of her back, palm warm through her jacket, a familiar touch. She stiffened but didn’t move away.
“But what that gotta do with how you feel about me?” he said. “I ain’t do it. That’s facts.”
He leaned in, breath fogging faintly between them. “C’mon. I’m tired of sleeping on E.J. and Tyree couches. You know them niggas dirty.”
For a moment Nina said nothing. Her eyes slid past him, down the alley, toward the pale strip of sky overhead. The cold crept in around them, settling into concrete and bone.
“One night, Ramon,” she said finally. “You can come back for one night.”
“A week.”
“A night.”
He nodded fast. “Alright. But I ain’t sleeping on no couch.”
Nina rolled her eyes.
~~~
Mireya killed the engine and sat there for a second with both hands still on the wheel.
The street was quiet in that Bayou St. John way, the kind of quiet that still had movement under it. Water down the block, slow and dark. A car passing somewhere farther off, tires hissing on damp pavement. The air outside her window smelled like wet earth and old leaves and something sour off the bayou.
Her hair was still stiff at the roots from spray. Glitter clung where her collarbone met the neckline of her hoodie, stubborn flecks that didn’t come off no matter how many times she wiped. She rolled her shoulders once, trying to shake the night out of her muscles, then grabbed her keys and pushed the door open.
Cold hit her face. She locked the car and started up the walk, sneakers whispering over the concrete.
She knocked.
For a second, nothing. Then the lock turned and the door opened.
Trell filled the doorway, shirtless, tattoos cutting across his chest and shoulders. His joggers rode low on his hips, drawstrings hanging loose. The warm light from inside made his skin look even darker. He looked at her with that calm, lazy amusement that always made her feel like she was already a step behind.
“Come on,” he said, stepping aside.
Mireya walked in.
And then the island pulled her attention hard.
Boxes. Bags. Designer logos. Stacked and piled like somebody had dumped the inside of a high-end store right there and walked away.
Trell came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist.
“That’s all for you, baby,” he said, voice easy against her ear.
Mireya didn’t move right away. Her gaze stayed on the pile, on the rope handles and tissue paper. Her mouth went dry.
Then she looked at him over her shoulder. “After what you told me?”
The smirk showed slow. He let her go, not even bothered by the shift in her tone, and walked around the island like he was taking a casual tour of his own generosity. He reached into a box with Yves St. Laurent etched on it and pulled out a purse, lifting it by the strap.
He came back to her and held it out.
“We building something here, me and you,” he said. “Together. I just ain’t want you to lose sight of that.”
Mireya took it because it was right there and because her fingers didn’t know how to refuse things that nice, not immediately. The leather was smooth under her palm. The smell of it was clean and new. She held it by the strap and stared down at it like it might start talking.
“Lose sight of what?” she asked. Her voice came out sharper than she meant. “Being someone to fuck whoever you need?”
Trell’s hand rose and landed on the side of her neck. Not a squeeze. Not soft either. His fingers brushed the base of her skull, thumb resting along her jaw in a way that made her hold still without realizing she’d done it.
“Mireya,” he said, a warning and a compliment at the same time. “If I just needed someone to fuck people, I can get any bitch to do that.”
His eyes stayed on hers. Steady. Patient.
“The fact you standing here right now is why I want you near me,” he continued. “You don’t let shit get to you. You’re mentally strong. Smart as fuck. And you good at what you do.”
His fingers drifted a fraction higher, grazing her hairline.
“You make niggas fall in love with you in five minutes,” he said. “Any bitch can throw pussy at a nigga. They can’t control them like you can.”
Mireya’s mouth opened, ready to spit something back, ready to remind him what he’d said to her in that car, how he’d taken her pride and twisted it until it felt dirty. The words were right there.
But the purse sat heavy in her hand. The logo shone under the kitchen light. She looked down again, almost against her will.
Her grip loosened.
Trell’s arm looped back around her waist, drawing her, like he hadn’t just said what he said. He guided her toward the island with a steady pressure.
“Look at this shit I got you,” he said.
Mireya let the purse hang from her fingers and then set it down on the marble. Her hand stayed on it a beat too long before she pulled away.
She reached out instead, fingertips brushing the edge of a bag, the raised lettering of a logo. Tissue paper crinkled under her nails.
Trell tapped a box. Honey Birdette, printed bold across the lid.
“This shit right here was five hundred fucking dollars,” he said. “That’s for tonight.”
Mireya’s eyebrows lifted before she could stop them. She slid the lid off and stared.
Purple lingerie. Not the cheap, itchy kind. The fabric looked soft even in the box, lace clean and sharp, straps neat and thin.
Her mind jumped without permission.
Caine, the day before. Thoughtful. Trying. The way he always tried, even when they were broken. Jordan that morning with the Starbucks gift card.
And then this. Trell dropping five hundred plus the rest.
Her throat worked once. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t trust the sound of her own voice.
Trell watched her face the whole time.
“And I’m taking you out this weekend,” he said. “Whole day spending on you.”
Mireya blinked and forced herself back into the room. The house. The island. The boxes. The way her body still felt tired from the shift, legs sore in that dull way that made her want to be alone in her bed.
“I was gonna go out with my friends this weekend,” she said, and she hated how quiet it came out. Like she was asking permission.
Trell didn’t miss it. His smile stayed in place.
“Shit, I got them, too,” he said. “Unless you don’t want them to know you with a nigga like me.”
Mireya looked up at him. The line sounded light, but the hook under it was familiar. The same little test.
“They know,” she said. “I work with them.”
Trell nodded once, satisfied, as if she’d answered the right question.
“Smart to keep bitches around you who understand you and ain’t gonna judge your hustle,” he said. “You don’t need no bougie bitches dimming your light, baby.”
Mireya nodded without meaning to. Her hands kept moving, drifting from box to bag, pulling tissue aside, letting herself touch things. She opened another bag and slid a dress out partway, the fabric smooth and heavy, the cut daring even folded. Her brain did the math on instinct. Three nights, maybe more.
She stared at it a second too long.
Trell saw it. He always saw the moment she gave something away on her face, even when she tried to keep it locked.
A smile spread across his mouth, slow and pleased, and his hand slid up her back to her neck again.
but I think its not going to end well.
Tough crowd.
