Scarlett reached over and squeezed Devin’s hand, smiling at him when he looked up at her. She’d convinced him to go to church with her family – partly out of his guilt for not spending enough time with her recently and partly as an excuse to avoid going to church with his own family. They’d be angry about it, but at least he was getting a bit of Jesus in his life somewhere.
On the plus side, Catholic mass was much shorter than any Baptist service.
In his pocket, Devin could feel his phone vibrating and hoped no one else could. Hasan asked him to cover an early morning shift for him and after being told why it wasn’t possible, Hasan had been jokingly insulting Devin for the last few hours. His friend had called it a way to pass the time trawling the aisles of a mostly empty grocery store on Sunday morning.
Being someone who wasn’t religious, let alone Catholic, Devin didn’t understand any of the traditions going on around him. He just followed Scarlett’s lead. It had the bonus of endearing him further to her parents which was a win-win in any case.
After a few more minutes, everyone stood up and began to file out, so Devin did as well.
Scarlett’s mother turned to Devin and touched his arm while smiling. “Thanks for coming with us, sha. Lord knows we need more God in our lives.”
“It’s not a problem. I enjoyed it.” Devin said it with a smile, but deep down he was mostly lying. He could’ve done without sitting through anyone’s church service.
“We’re going to go grab lunch,” Scarlett said. “Let me know if y’all want us to bring something back for you.”
As expected, neither of her parents had a problem with her and Devin going to do anything. He found himself feeling bad about the arguments and small tiffs they’d had over the past few months. It was hard to deny that their relationship was basically perfect.
With a few more goodbyes to other folks Scarlett knew, the two of them made their way to Devin’s car.
Feeling a bit chivalrous, he opened the door for her. She thanked him with a quick peck on the lips as she got in.
“So, where are we going?” she asked when he got in on the driver’s side.
“Anything that’s not Waffle House. I don’t know how that chain hasn’t fallen apart and shut down after all this time,” he said.
“Because the food is good. You just don’t like it because it’s ‘dirty’ which isn’t even true.”
“How would you know? The health department doesn’t put grades on the door like they do in other states. All kinds of weird stuff could be going on in the back of that restaurant.”
She shrugged. “That’s why the food is good because of the weird stuff that’s going on in the back. No one wants food that tastes like bleach because it’s so clean.”
“Well, I’ll drop you off at Waffle House and I’ll go find something to eat that I won’t regret later.”
“We can just go to Mimi’s,” she said, laughing. “One day, I’m going to get you to eat at Waffle House and you’ll like it because you love me.”
“Risking death is a sign of love?”
“Yep.”
She connected her phone to the radio and put on some country music as she was prone to do. Devin shook his head but let her as he was prone to do despite hating country music.
“I’m sorry for being a pain in the ass these last few months,” Devin said. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye to gauge her reaction.
She looked at him and smiled. “I haven’t been the easiest to deal with either. I’m just not used to not being around you as much. I can adjust, but sometimes I get clingy. Annoying, I know.”
“Well, it’s the summer so we can go back to how things were before. For the most part anyway. Both of us work and I have football, so it’ll be tough, but we’ll make it work even if I have to go to church with y’all every week.”
“You start doing that and my mom will be dragging us up to the priest and demanding that we get married now.”
“Give me a couple years on that. I’m too poor now.”
She shrugged. “We could make it even if we were poor. As long as we have each other, it’d be alright. You’ll have to learn how to cook though.”
Devin raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you Cajuns all know how to cook? I figured y’all were born knowing your way around a stove.”
“Nope, I burn water.” Despite her saying it, Devin knew her well enough to know that she was lying. She just refused to cook around him. Women’s liberation and all that.
“I guess we’ll be eating take out every night.”
“Or Waffle House.”
Devin laughed and shook his head as the two of them fell into a companionable silence. It felt good to reset things with Scarlett. She was the one constant in his life and he didn’t like when they were even remotely on the outs.
Caesar resisted the urge to look over at his father as his knees and calves burned from exertion. His feet danced through rings placed on the ground. At the end of the line, he planted his feet, turned, caught a tennis ball thrown at him by DeMarcus, threw the ball back and restarted the circuit.
It felt like he’d been doing the same thing for hours and his body agreed.
“Stop running like a bitch!” Deion Jenkins shouted as Caesar’s steps faltered and he missed a ring or two. “I know you’re not getting tired. Your mother says that you’re my son and if you’re my son then that means you ain’t no pussy because I didn’t make any fucking pussies, did I?!”
DeMarcus winced when Caesar bobbled one of the tennis balls, clearly beginning to tire. “You think he’s had enough, boss?”
Deion looked at his watch. “He hasn’t passed out yet, so no. He’s alright.”
Almost if on cue, Caesar’s legs cramped up and his running turned into an awkward hopping as he tried to keep going. Deion walked over to a pile of footballs and picked one up. He spun it in his hands, finding the laces as he’d done a million times before. With the precision and arm strength that had made him an All-Pro quarterback, he threw the ball just as Caesar rounded the end of the rings.
Not prepared for a football to be thrown at him, Caesar’s hands didn’t come up and the ball hit him square in the chest. The wind knocked out of him, Caesar doubled over and fell to his knees to quell the burning in his lungs.
Deion nodded to DeMarcus. “Good session today. I’ll get him to pick up all this shit. See you on Tuesday.”
The trainer looked between the two Jenkins men then nodded to his employer and headed around the house to leave.
Deion walked over to his son, shaking his head. “You’re supposed to be an All-State receiver, future All-American. Your mom could’ve caught that one.”
Caesar didn’t say anything, only rolling to a sitting position.
“You’ve been skipping sessions because you’re too busy getting your dick wet and getting drunk. Now, your instincts are slow. You’re slow. And you’re getting subpar practice at a subpar school with a subpar coaching staff. You expect to stay where you are on the recruiting boards if Terrebonne’s coaches are showing you how to improve? Do they even know how to improve a player?”
Caesar knew better than to interrupt his father when he was angry and ranting. Instead, the boy hung his head and just listened.
“I get it, though. I grew up the same way you are. You got these little cunts throwing themselves at you either trying to latch on to the gravy train or trying to get knocked up so you have to pay them child support. What 16-year-old boy would turn all that pussy down?” Deion paused as if waiting for an answer, but none came. “You’re going to start turning some of it down though. I’ll be damned if my kid looks as pathetic on the field as you did today. Either you’re going to be the best or you’re going to quit. Maybe you don’t have the Jenkins DNA.”
“I’ll fix it,” Caesar said, his voice strained from exhaustion.
“You’re damn right, you will.” Deion reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his phones. An angrier look appeared on his face as he put the phone to his ear, turning on his heel and heading toward the house. “I told you to never fucking call me. I don’t give a fuck what he needs--”
Caesar waited a few beats after his father entered the house before he stood up. He pulled up his shirt and looked down at this chest. A perfect red circle had formed where the ball had hit him. Scouts used to say Deion Jenkins’s accuracy sometimes let him down, but even as he aged, he was still able to hit his target from a handful of yards away with sniper precision.
He pulled the drenched shirt over his head and tossed it on the ground before walking over to a table that held his phone and a few bottles of water. He chugged two of them down, almost throwing it back up. Once his stomach had settled, he drank from a third more slowly.
Dozens of notifications appeared on his phone when he passed his thumb over it. Some from the guys, some from girls, none from any unknown numbers from the North Shore. That last bit disappointed him every day a little more
Sitting down, he started sending responses back. His finger hovered over a text from Emma. She’d been trying to get back into his good graces for a few months now. All the message said was that her parents would be at some function at the church for the rest of the afternoon.
His father’s words played on his mind. He needed to put more of a focus on football, but he was confident that he could continue to juggle his social life and the game.
In the end, he tapped out that he’d be there in a few minutes and hit send. Forgetting the equipment on the ground, he headed into the house.
Pierre stopped him with a plate of food. It looked especially bland.
“That doesn’t look remotely appealing, P,” Caesar said, looking at it with a grimace.
“Your father, he say to me to give you this to balance the beer,” the cook said. “It’s ch—”
Caesar waved his hand and took the plate from him. “It’ll probably be better if I think this is just the slop that it looks like.”
Pierre nodded and headed back into the kitchen. Caesar took another look at the plate then went up stairs to choke it down, shower and change. He’d worry about any repercussions later.