The parking lot was nearly empty, just the weak glow of streetlights casting long shadows over puddles of rainwater and broken glass. The sign for PJ’s Coffee flickered, neon buzzing, closed hours ago—nobody left inside but the scent of old espresso and bleach leaking through the door seams. Caine pulled the Buick into a dark corner, engine cut, windows up, seat dropped low so his face stayed hidden in the orange-tinted gloom.
Past midnight, and the whole block felt quiet but not safe. The wind off Lake Pontchartrain cut sharp and cold through the cracks in the car door. Somewhere close, the howl of a jet on final approach rumbled over the roofs, lights dipping toward the runway at the airport on the other side of the highway.
He watched the street through the rearview—headlights sweeping by slow, every car a maybe. Two blocks down, the Altima coasted to a stop, idling under a dead streetlamp, nothing but silhouettes inside. He clocked it: Ramon in the driver’s seat, Tyree and E.J. half turned, hoodies up, all of them staring straight ahead like they belonged.
His phone buzzed in his lap—Tyree: You see us?
Caine didn’t answer with words, just tapped the “like” so no text would light up the screen. He felt the nervous energy bouncing in his leg, thumb drumming slow on the steering wheel. This wasn’t his first time watching, but the dark always made everything tighter, more dangerous, the shadows longer.
He waited five minutes, heart pacing the minutes, then slid out the car, hoodie up. The night air was wet, heavy with the smell of spilled gas and something sour drifting from the airport. He kept his head down, moving fast across the parking lot to PJ’s side door—one light still burning over the drive-thru menu, buzzing with moths.
A guy mopping inside looked up through the window, but didn’t bother unlocking. Caine tapped on the glass, motioned to the drink cooler by the door. The guy shrugged and came over, cracking the door just wide enough for the exchange. Caine handed over a few crumpled bills, grabbed an energy drink, kept his head down.
Back outside, he found a seat at a little metal table just beyond the half-lit patio, facing the street. The chair was cold under him, air biting through his thin jeans. He cracked the can, the hiss sharp in the night, took a long sip, eyes never leaving the Altima across the block.
His phone vibrated again. Mireya, this time: Where you at?
Caine stared at the message. He could picture her—probably up late, exhausted, Camila finally asleep, worry settling in all the places it lived these days. For a second, he wanted to call, to hear her voice, but he made himself keep it short:
Gonna swing by in a bit. Got something to handle first.
He didn’t add anything more. He never did before doing dirt. Superstition, maybe—or just knowing how thin luck ran in New Orleans after dark.
He set the phone facedown, tapped his fingers on the can, and watched as Ramon flashed the Altima’s brights, twice.
The night felt stretched, electric, holding its breath. Caine sipped his drink, shoulders tight, and told himself he was just another shadow waiting out the hours, same as anybody.
~~~
The apartment was already humid when Mireya rolled over, sunlight leaking through the battered window unit, turning the faded walls a pale yellow. Camila was awake beside her, wedged into the crook of her arm, babbling softly—little legs kicking the sheets, her words tumbling from Spanish to English and back.
Mireya cracked one eye, hair wild and pillow-creased, and let Camila crawl up her chest, demanding attention. “Mommy, shoe? Where it go?” Camila’s stuffed bear was in one hand, only one sock on, her curls everywhere.
Moving slow, Mireya reached under the bed for the missing shoe, checked her phone—already later than she wanted. She scooped Camila up, carrying her into the kitchen, where Maria was already at the stove, frying eggs and reheating beans in a battered pot. The sizzle and hiss of oil mixed with the scrape of a pan, the air thick with the smell of tortillas warming on the comal. The radio was on low—news murmuring in Spanish from Mexico, stories about Veracruz or Mexico City, distant but familiar.
Maria glanced over her shoulder, lips pressed tight. “You’re running late again.”
“I know, Ma,” Mireya said, settling Camila into her high chair and buckling the strap. “She didn’t sleep good last night.”
Maria grunted, eyes flicking to the table. “You got some mail.” She pointed with the spatula at a stack, mostly junk, but a long white envelope with official blue print sat on top.
Mireya frowned, grabbing it. Her stomach dropped at the return address: City of New Orleans, Traffic Violations. She tore it open, hands shaking, and unfolded the paper. Inside, the photo was clear—her car, half-blurred, running a red light. $225.
“Chingada madre,” Mireya muttered, barely above a whisper.
Maria didn’t look up, just slid a plate of eggs and beans in front of Camila, who immediately started smearing them across her cheeks.
“You’re going to pay that,” Maria said, voice clipped, “and the extra on the insurance. That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
Mireya bit back a retort, feeling the pressure build behind her eyes. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Camila’s head, the baby’s small hand grabbing a lock of her hair and giggling.
Maria turned off the burner, still not meeting her gaze. “If you want coffee, take it to go. You’re already late.”
Mireya grabbed her bag and Camila’s things, tucking the ticket deep inside so she wouldn’t have to see it again until she figured out how to pay. She forced a bright smile for Camila, who was still chewing and laughing in her high chair, then looked at her mother one last time, nodded, and slipped out the door into the thick, already-hot morning.
The hall outside smelled like bleach and old sweat, other doors slamming, the city waking up around them. As she hurried down the steps, Mireya ran her thumb along the edge of the envelope in her bag and whispered to herself, “No te preocupes. We’ll figure it out.”
The promise tasted thin and desperate in her mouth, but she held onto it all the same.
~~~
The practice field behind Edna Karr smelled like cut grass, rubber pellets, and sweat, the kind of late-spring air that clung to your skin and stuck in your lungs. The sun was setting, low and mean over the top of the bleachers, striping the field with gold and shadow. Cleats chewed up the turf, coaches barked from the sideline, and somewhere down the block a second line band was warming up for a repast, the distant tangle of brass notes mixing with shouts and the crack of helmets.
Caine wiped sweat from his brow as he jogged off to the sideline, helmet tucked under his arm. Practice had run long—defense getting too many looks, offense running the same mesh drill until Jayden dropped a ball and Coach Joseph threw his whistle on the ground.
Inside the fieldhouse, it smelled like old Gatorade, mildewed towels, and boy funk. Caine peeled off his jersey, rolling his stiff shoulders, sweat cooling in the AC as the other guys jostled and talked shit. Jay was at his locker, arms crossed, still in full pads, acting like he wasn’t watching every move Caine made.
Coach Joseph appeared in the doorway, voice carrying. “Caine, Jay—y’all come with me.”
The office was cramped, walls lined with faded pictures of past Karr teams. Coach Joseph closed the door behind them, sighing like he’d been waiting all day to get this over with. The air inside was stale with old coffee and the faint bite of sweat that even the janitors couldn’t kill.
He waved Caine and Jay in, not bothering to look up from the paperwork he was shuffling. He finally sat back, folding his arms, letting the silence stretch until both boys shifted on their feet.
“Y’all know why you here,” Joseph said, voice heavy, tired but sharp. “Destrehan coming up. That’s a real team—not no pushover, not no tune-up. We got a state schedule, and I can’t roll out with half-steppin’ behind center.”
Jay nodded first, eyes steady. “I’m ready, Coach.”
Caine nodded too, jaw set. Joseph studied both of them, weighing something behind his eyes.
“I been watching both y’all since March. Jay, you been in this system. You got legs, can extend plays, know the locker room. But Caine, you got the arm, and don’t nobody rattle you—not even the defense, not the coaches. But you still learning the offense. Ball security gotta get better. You both got things to prove.”
Jay couldn’t help but cut his eyes sideways. “It’s my job, Coach. I’m the leader on this team. I won us state last year.”
Joseph raised an eyebrow. “It’s your job until it ain’t, son. Y’all both gonna get reps with the ones in the spring game—rotate every drive. I want you to run this shit like it’s the dome. I want command. No wasted motion, no excuses, no jawing at each other on the sideline.”
He looked at Caine. “You got any questions, Guerra?”
Caine’s voice was low but steady. “What you need from me, Coach?”
Joseph leaned in, leveling his gaze. “Keep learning the system. I know you can sling it, but I need you to run the offense, not just play streetball. When the read’s not there, don’t force nothing. Don’t try to be Superman. And if you see something in the defense, call it out—don’t wait for me.”
Jay bristled. “He ain’t had my reps. He don’t know the playbook like I do.”
Caine didn’t look at him. “Don’t take but a couple nights reading to learn it.”
Coach Joseph let the challenge hang a second. “Jay, you know the scheme. Don’t get complacent. Just ‘cause you had last year don’t mean you get this one.”
Jay’s jaw flexed. “I ain’t complacent.”
Coach Joseph nodded. “Good. I want to see who wants it more. You think you deserve it, show me. Both of you.”
The room went quiet. Coach reached behind him and tossed an old practice ball from the shelf, letting it thump onto the desk between them.
He pointed a finger. “Last thing—I see y’all barking at each other, putting drama in the locker room, I’ll sit both your asses down and start a freshman. This ain’t about pride. This is about state.”
Caine nodded. “I just wanna play, Coach.”
Jay kept his eyes on the ball, hands balled in fists. “We’ll see.”
Coach Joseph stood, stretching his back. “Y’all got three days to get right. Bring it to practice tomorrow. Questions?”
Both shook their heads.
“All right, get out my office and go hydrate. And if either of y’all throw a pick next week, y’all running stadiums before school.”
He looked at each one, heavy. “This program’s bigger than both of you. Don’t forget it.”
They filed out, tension buzzing between them—Jay first, shoulders stiff, Caine close behind, mind already running through formations and routes, feeling the pressure mounting with every step. Nothing was promised, not here.
The walk back to the locker room was silent, tension stretching long between them. Jay’s jaw flexed, his eyes cutting sideways. When they reached the end of the hall, Jay finally spoke, voice low and tight. “Nigga trash but can white boy that shit down the field so they think he good.”
Caine didn’t stop walking, but his mouth twisted into a half-smirk. “Sound like you mad you getting exposed out there. I get it. I’d be mad, too, if someone benched me in a month.”
Jay stepped up, chin high, crowding him. “You ain’t tough as you think either, motherfucker.”
Caine met his gaze, dead cold. “I’ll smack the shit out you, son. You don’t know me, lil’ bitch.”
For a second, neither moved—just the sound of showers running and music leaking from somebody’s speaker. Then Caine shook his head, backing away, hands up. “You know what? You got it, big dog. I’m just tryna get to my locker.”
Jay let him pass, face tight with anger, but didn’t say anything else.
Caine pulled off his pads, shoving them into his duffel, breath coming fast and shallow. Every day felt like this—one test after another, nothing given, everything waiting to blow up. He looked around at the other boys laughing and clowning, tried to shrug off the pressure, but it stuck with him as he left the fieldhouse, the city lights flickering on past the levee, another night already rolling in.
~~~
By the time Mireya clocked in at the concrete yard, the sun was already starting to sink, the last of the heat shimmering off the cracked lot. The office was stuffy—bare bulbs humming overhead, old receipts curling at the corners on her desk, the faint tang of metal and sweat in the air. Denise sat nearby, flipping through a magazine with one hand and scrolling her phone with the other, the local radio barely audible over the hum of the window unit.
Mireya’s shirt clung damp to her back, a headache blooming behind her eyes. Her mind kept drifting: the ticket, Camila’s shoes, her mother’s warning that the insurance would go up, all of it circling, making it hard to focus on the delivery logs in front of her.
Denise caught her spacing out and asked, “Rough day?”
Mireya forced a weak smile. “Yeah. Hey, Denise… how much do you actually make here?”
Denise laughed, closing her magazine. “Minimum wage. My husband handles the bills. This just gives me something to do so I don’t go crazy at home.”
Mireya just nodded, the envy sharp as glass. She went back to pretending to check invoices, biting her cheek to keep from saying anything bitter.
Her phone buzzed on the desk—first a message from Angela, then one from Paz.
ACT scores are up, Reya!
Girl check!
For a second, Mireya’s stomach dropped. She excused herself—“I’ll be right back”—and slipped out the back door into the yard. The dusk was deepening, forklifts idling, the smell of diesel hanging heavy. She perched on a stack of pallets, thumb trembling as she logged into the testing website.
The page loaded slow, the WiFi always spotty out here. She tried to steady her breathing, tried to believe maybe, maybe she’d gotten lucky. But when the screen finally blinked into focus, there it was.
15.
She stared, then refreshed the page—once, twice—like maybe the number would change if she just wanted it bad enough.
But it didn’t. It never did.
Everything felt tight: the ticket in her bag, the cost to retake the test, her mother’s voice, Camila’s laugh echoing from her phone’s lock screen. Mireya blinked back angry tears, then, with a hissed “fuck,” hurled her phone onto the gravel. It skittered away, landing face-down, the case now scuffed and dirty.
She let herself sob, quiet and hunched, shoulders shaking as night closed in around her. The noise of the yard faded, replaced by the rush of her own breath and the static in her head—just for a moment, she let herself feel how unfair it all was.
When her phone finally pinged again, she wiped her face with her sleeve, walked over, and picked it up. The screen was cracked, Angela’s name still blinking. Mireya stuffed the phone in her pocket, straightened her shirt, and walked back inside, face set in hard lines.
Back under the humming lights, she sat down and started entering numbers into the spreadsheet, eyes dry now, jaw locked, refusing to let anyone see her break.
~~~
The street was black except for the blue flicker of a busted porch light two houses down. Ramon killed the Altima’s headlights before rolling to a stop, engine ticking, the hood cooling fast in the humid night. The windows were up; the car smelled like sweat, gun oil, and E.J.’s leftover fries turning stale on the floorboards. For a second, the only sound was the far-off whistle of a train and the bass thud of someone’s late-night party blocks away.
E.J. adjusted his ski mask, checked the pistol in his lap one more time. Tyree was on his phone, texting Caine: You see us?
A “like” came back, then nothing.
Ramon nodded at them both, low and serious. “Let’s do it.”
They moved quick, hoods up, masks tight, the air thick with the smell of wet grass and spilled beer as they slipped around the back of the house. Boots crunched over kids’ toys—a plastic trike, a ball, a single tiny shoe, reminders of someone else’s day that meant nothing right now.
At the back door, Ramon raised three fingers and counted down with a clenched jaw. E.J. planted his foot and kicked hard—the door crashed open, bouncing off the frame. For a split second, the house was silent, stunned, then shouts broke out.
They surged into the living room, guns drawn, voices hard as steel.
“On the floor! Don’t fucking move!” Ramon barked, gun sweeping the men on the couch.
There were four—big, grown, and caught off guard, TV blaring a basketball game, bottles on the coffee table. Tyree was already circling the sofa, pistol up, reaching over and snatching a shotgun that had been stashed behind a cushion like he’d known it would be there. “Don’t even think about it, my boy,” he warned, cold and flat.
One man tried to stand—rage and pride all over his face, chin lifted. “You know who son I am?”
E.J. didn’t even hesitate. He swung his boot up, catching the man square in the mouth, sending him sprawling and spitting blood. “Fuck yo daddy, nigga. Where the money at?”
The others froze, eyes darting between guns and faces, weighing options and consequences. For a moment it was dead quiet but for the TV, a crowd roaring for some play nobody here was watching.
Finally, one of the men—skinny, nervous, clutching the arm of the sofa—blurted out, “It’s in the back! Closet by the bathroom.”
Ramon jerked his gun in the man’s direction. “Get up,” he ordered. “Move slow.”
He dragged the man toward the hallway, the barrel of his pistol pressed hard into the man’s side. The rest of the crew kept the living room locked down, guns steady, Tyree pacing a slow circle, shotgun in hand.
Ramon shoved the man ahead of him through the narrow hallway, past a half-open bedroom and into a cramped back room where a couple of duffel bags sat on the floor, open and spilling cash. Next to the bags, stacked on top of a cardboard box, were clear gallon ziplocks of powder and a brick of tightly wrapped weed, the sharp smell of it mixing with the sweat and bleach of the house.
Ramon’s eyes narrowed—score just doubled. “All of it,” he said, low and mean. “Fill the bags. Don’t do no stupid shit either.”
He cocked his gun for emphasis, the sound loud in the small room. The man’s hands shook as he shoved the stacks of money and the bags of dope into the duffels, glancing over his shoulder like he thought he might still talk his way out of this.
“You move and you on a t-shirt tomorrow,” Ramon hissed, voice flat as concrete.
Back in the living room, E.J. and Tyree kept everyone else pinned, eyes hard, guns up, the TV still screaming about a last-second shot, the neighbor’s dog barking high and wild. In that thick, stinking air, time stretched out—just heartbeats, threats, and the long shadow of what came next.
~~~
Caine sat in the Buick, engine running low, streetlights throwing long, broken shadows across the cracked pavement. The taste of that cheap energy drink still lingered—sweet and metallic, masking the anxious dryness in his mouth. He drummed his fingers on the wheel, scanning the block again and again, waiting for the night to crack open.
Then he saw them: a woman, bundled in a faded pink hoodie, hustling up the sidewalk with two kids. The littlest one dragged a threadbare blanket, half-asleep, while the older girl whined, “Mama, I’m tired!” They were headed right for the house—the house.
Caine’s jaw clenched. He watched as they reached the walkway, only to be waved over by an older lady across the street—head wrapped in a scarf, porch light burning yellow behind her. “Come on here, baby, don’t mess around with them boys on the corner tonight!” The woman hesitated, then cut across, her kids trailing in a sleepy daze.
Relief flushed through him, but his hands still trembled as he shot off a text to the group, a peace sign emoji.
E.J. replied a second later, a “high five” emoji.
But that wasn’t enough. Caine popped the Buick into drive, rolling slow until he was even with the women, his window cracked just enough to talk.
He forced a clumsy, drawled accent—part country, part lost, just enough to not sound like himself. “Scuse me, ma’am? Uh, y’all know how to get to… uh… Buras? I’m ‘posed to seein’ my people out here, but I get turned round. Phone don’t wanna work out here neither.”
The younger woman shot him a look, sizing him up. The old lady narrowed her eyes, but started giving directions, voice sharp and protective. “You gotta go back down that way, take a left at the second light. And don’t go past the levee, you’ll get stuck. This ain’t the West Bank, you know.”
He nodded, fumbling with his phone, pretending to punch in street names. “Uh… could you spell that? B-U… I ain’t never been down here, lo prometo.”
The older woman sucked her teeth. “Baby, you lost lost. You need to call somebody. You sure you from Lake Charles?”
Caine put on his best awkward smile, waving the phone. “Si, si, si, yes, ma’am. Cousin said meet by the café place but I think I miss my turn. Appreciate y’all.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when the front door of the house slammed open, splintering the quiet. Ramon, Tyree, and E.J. exploded out, faces covered, duffel bags fat and heavy. They sprinted to their car, feet slapping the pavement, Ramon yanking the door open and gunning it in reverse—the tires screaming as the car whipped around and sped off down the street.
On the porch, four men burst out after them, one with a pistol already drawn, arm cocked. For a breath, Caine watched, heart thundering, as another man jerked the shooter’s arm down, pointing directly at the cluster of women and kids in the street. The gunman hesitated, jaw tight, as Caine recognized him—Tee Tito, mean as hell, eyes wild.
Caine played the part, wide-eyed, voice pitched up in panic. “I—uh—gracias, gracias, I’ma get out the way. Don’t wanna get caught in nothin’!”
He slammed the Buick into gear, spun into the nearest driveway to turn around, and peeled off slow but steady—never showing the rush, just a visitor trying not to get lost.
In the rearview, he caught the street flaring alive again—men shouting, women hustling the kids inside, lights flickering on house by house. Only when he turned the corner, out of sight, did he let himself exhale, hands shaking against the wheel, the city’s heat now cold on his back.
