The duffel hit his shoulder on every other step. Caine had the strap caught between two fingers, keeping it from swinging wide. His shirt still clung at the back from practice, damp enough to pull when he moved his shoulders.
He had the key out before he reached the step. It went in clean, one turn, and he pushed the door with his forearm.
Cool air rolled out first, the apartment holding against the heat. Then the TV came in under it, low, cartoon voices. Mireya and Sara sat together on the sofa, angled in toward each other a little. Camila was wedged between them with her legs tucked under her, chin tilted up at the screen. A bowl sat on the coffee table, something half-eaten, a spoon leaned against the rim.
The door swinging brought both women's heads around at the same time. Sara's face opened up, her whole expression easing. Mireya's mouth pulled at one corner, slow,.
Mireya leaned down toward Camila and tipped her chin in his direction. "Look, mi amor. Your daddy's home."
Camila's head came around fast. For a half second she just stared at him, eyes wide. Then she was off the couch. Her feet hit the floor and she came across the room at a dead run, arms already out, and crashed into his legs hard enough to make him take a step back. She had her arms locked around his knees and her face pressed into his thigh.
Caine laughed. He dropped the duffel off his shoulder, letting it hit the floor beside him, and bent down. He caught her under the arms and brought her up in one motion. She grabbed his face with both hands, palms flat against his cheeks, and held on.
"Feliz cumpleaños, mi vida." He could feel her grip tightening. "How do it feel to be four?"
Camila giggled and pressed her palms together, squishing his lips out. "I'm vieja!"
He reached up and got both her small wrists, peeling her hands off his face. She let him, fingers curling around his thumb when he took hold. "Vieja? If you're old, what's that make me?"
Camila's eyes went wide, certain about this. "Mucho! Mucho! Mucho viejo!"
Caine shook his head and carried her over to the couch. She had both arms looped around his neck now, chin over his shoulder, looking back toward the TV. Sara and Mireya moved without being asked, each shifting toward their armrest and opening the space between them. He sat, and the cushion took his weight. Camila immediately rearranged herself, turning sideways and pressing her back into his chest, her legs swinging out across Mireya's lap. He let her find her position, one arm settling loose around her middle.
He leaned over and kissed Sara on the cheek. She brought her hand up and covered his for a second, warm and steady, before he straightened. He turned and kissed Mireya. She tipped her face just slightly toward him, the pillow shifting when she moved. Then her attention drifted back to the screen.
"She didn't want everyone over?" he asked. He kept it low, Camila already fixed back on the cartoon.
Mireya shook her head. Her thumb moved in a small slow arc along Camila's ankle. "She said just us."
Caine smoothed his hand over Camila's curls, fingers spreading along the back of her head. She was warm from sitting between them. He kept his palm there, weight light, and watched the cartoon without really watching it. Colors moved across the screen. Something small and bright was being chased by something bigger. Camila's toes flexed once against Mireya's thigh.
"You didn't want a big party, mi vida?"
Camila shook her head, eyes still on the screen.
"Alright then," Caine said.
Sara reached over and set her hand against his arm, fingers closing once and releasing. "We'll cook something after you get cleaned up." She looked at him. "Because you stink, mijo."
Mireya made a sound in her throat, a short sharp thing she caught behind closed lips, shoulders shaking once. "As if she's gonna let him out of her eyesight long enough for him to shower."
Caine looked down at Camila, still locked onto the screen, Mireya's thumb still moving that same small path over her ankle. "¿Celoso?" he asked.
Mireya rolled her eyes. She adjusted her position on the cushion, tucking one foot up under herself. "If that's what you want to call it."
Caine shook his head once and settled back into the cushion. Camila was solid and warm against his chest, her breathing already gone slow and even. One of her hands found his forearm and rested there.
The cartoon kept going. Sara shifted beside him, reaching for the remote on the end table. She turned it up one notch and set it back. Mireya's thumb kept moving over Camila's ankle, the same small path.
~~~
The laptop was the loudest thing in the room. Sydney had it turned low enough that the voices coming out of the laptop balanced on the tray table sounded thin and distant, but she'd left it on anyway because the alternative was just the beep of the monitor and the hum of the overhead light and her mother's quiet in the chair beside the bed. The fluorescent light overhead made everything look worse than it was. On Sydney it showed up as pale, washed out, the color gone from her face. Her hair was greasy, pulled into a knot at the back of her head that had stopped being intentional sometime yesterday. She'd asked one of the nurses about dry shampoo. The nurse had said she'd look into it and hadn't come back.
Her mother kept her arms folded in her lap, watching the same show in the same detached way. She'd brought food that morning in a container that Sydney had eaten half of. Neither of them had said much since.
Two knocks at the door. Her mother glanced toward it. Sydney looked up from the screen.
The door opened and Stasia's face appeared in the gap, that slight smile already in place. She pushed it the rest of the way open and stepped into the room with a vase of flowers held in both hands, something pale and softly arranged.
Sydney's eyes went wide.
"I hope I'm not interrupting," Stasia said, "but I was passing by and thought I'd come check on you."
Her mother unfolded her arms and turned from the laptop. Her eyes ran over Stasia once, quick and thorough. The flowers. The clothes. The easy, unhurried way the woman stood in a room she had no obvious reason to be in.
"Who this?" she asked.
Sydney shifted against the pillows, adjusting the thin blanket across her legs. "My boss."
Her mother's expression didn't open. She looked at Stasia again. "Ai cho phep anh lam dieu do o noi lam viec?" she said, the words flat, carrying exactly the edge she intended.
Stasia's smile didn't move. She turned toward the woman. "Sau gio lam viec," she said.
The woman's eyebrows rose. She blinked at Stasia twice and went still, jaw working.
Sydney looked at her mother and kept her voice even. "Má, can you go see if you can find me something to eat?"
Her mother stood slowly, eyes still on Stasia. She didn't say anything directly to either of them. She moved toward the door with the careful deliberateness of someone making clear they were leaving on their own terms, and she said something low in Vietnamese under her breath as she passed Stasia. The door swung shut behind her.
Stasia stayed near the doorway for a moment, the vase still in her hands. Then she crossed to the window sill and set it down, shifting the vase left an inch and then touching two of the stems to straighten them. Sydney watched her without speaking.
Stasia walked around the foot of the bed to the chair her mother had vacated. She sat down and reached out, taking Sydney's hand in both of hers, fingers settling over her knuckles. "How are you feeling?"
Sydney let out a breath. "Like shit." She glanced toward the window, then back. "I just want to go home, but they keep saying I need another day of observation."
Stasia's thumb moved across the back of Sydney's hand, slow. Her expression pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Those drugs do a number on your system."
Sydney dropped her head back against the pillows and looked up at the ceiling. "Yeah."
The monitor beeped steady into the quiet.
"I know when you're laid up like this," Stasia said, "you start wondering who's fault it is." Her thumb kept moving over Sydney's hand. "I hope you don't put that blame in the wrong place."
Sydney turned her head on the pillow and looked at Stasia. "What?"
Stasia reached up with her free hand and cupped Sydney's cheek in her palm, fingers warm. She held it there. "Sweet girl." Her eyes stayed on Sydney's face. "I just want you to focus on getting better. We're going to pay for everything, okay?"
Sydney looked at her. She searched her face, the steadiness of it, the way the smile sat there neither cold nor fully warm, just present and certain.
Stasia held her gaze a beat longer. Then she let her hand fall from Sydney's cheek, released her other hand, and stood up from the chair. "Give me a call when you're discharged," she said. "We'll sort everything out then."
Sydney nodded.
Stasia smiled at her. She turned and walked out of the room, the door opening on the hall noise for a moment before closing again, her heels clicking steady and then fading down the corridor.
~~~
The fan overhead made one slow revolution and then another, barely moving the air in the office. Laney sat with her chair tipped back, ankles crossed on the edge of the desk, eyes on the ceiling. The blades turned. The chain pull swung in a small arc with each rotation and tapped the housing. A 21 Savage song came from her computer, low enough that it was more feeling than sound. The office had been like this for the better part of an hour, just her and the fan and the music.
She turned the ring on her finger. Pushed it up toward the knuckle, then back down to the base. Up. Back down. The gold caught the light coming through the blinds and threw a thin stripe across her palm.
Two knocks on the glass.
Laney pulled her feet off the desk and leaned forward, turning in the chair. She put two fingers between the blinds and spread them. Marianne stood on the other side of the window in the full sun, squinting against it, one hand lifted to wave her out.
Laney let the slats fall back together and pushed up from the chair.
She went down the hallway and out through the front door. The heat outside came at her all at once, dry and pressing. Marianne stood on the porch with her arms crossed over her chest, face fixed in a frown.
"Yes?" Laney said.
Marianne's jaw shifted. "Did you let that..." She stopped. Started again. "That boy come here today?"
Laney raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what you talkin' 'bout."
Marianne lifted one hand and pointed across the lot. Caine's Lexus sat in the shade at the far edge of the parking area, nose facing out. Then she turned and pointed past the fence, out toward the pasture. "Mr. Charlie just seen him. Two women and a child walking out there."
Laney looked toward the pasture. From the porch she couldn't see them, just the open field and the wooden fence and the tree line at the back. "Probably his mama, his daughter and his daughter's mama," she said.
Marianne's chin came up. "We told him not to randomly come here."
Laney reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out her phone. She tapped the screen, looked at the date. Put it back. "It's his daughter's birthday," she said. "She likes lookin' at the horses."
Marianne made a sound, something low and unimpressed. "Of course you would know all of this." Her eyes cut toward the lot and back. "I'm going to tell him to leave."
"You'd only be hurtin' that baby doin' that," Laney said.
Marianne's shoulders came up. "Mr. Charlie said one of those women is dressed like a harlot. Seems to me that they are hurting that child plenty enough on their own."
Laney nodded once. "Don't mean we gotta add to it, mama."
Marianne stared at her. Down the road somewhere a truck engine turned over and then faded. Marianne lifted one finger and pointed it at her. "You stay in your office until they leave."
Laney kept her face still. "Okay," she said. "Anythin' else?"
Marianne dropped her hand and waved it once in a short dismissive arc. She turned her attention toward the parking lot.
Laney turned and went back inside.
She pulled the front door shut and stood in the quiet for a second, hand still on the push bar. Then she walked back to her office and pulled the door partway closed behind her. She sat down at the desk. The fan ticked. The song on the computer had rolled to the next track.
She tapped her fingers on the desk. Four fingers, slow and rolling, the sound soft against the wood. She stopped and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
She opened the photos app and moved past the regular albums. Past the camera roll. Past screenshots she'd been meaning to delete for months. She navigated to the hidden folder stored in iCloud.
The thumbnails loaded one row at a time. Her and Caine. She scrolled up through them slowly, thumb moving, pictures rolling by.
She stopped on one. Stayed on it a moment. Moved on.
She reached the bottom of the folder. The delete option sat at the end of the last row. She let her thumb hover over it.
She backed out of the folder.
She set the phone face down on the desk. She leaned back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling, at the fan turning slow and steady overhead.
~~~
Sound came through the front of the house from outside, the low back and forth of a transaction running, words traded quick, footsteps on the concrete, then quiet that stretched out before another set of voices started up.Trell sat in the armchair with one leg crossed over the other, beer held loose at his knee. The chair had a rip in the arm that somebody had taped over once and then left, the tape going yellow. He looked at the ceiling for a moment, then tilted the bottle up and took a slow pull.
"We're gonna slow down for a bit here," he said. "We been doing a lot of expanding but been bleeding numbers at the same time."
Ant reached over to the coffee table and grabbed a chicken wing from the open box. Grease had darkened the cardboard around the edges. He tipped his beer back, swallowed, and then took a bite from the wing, tearing the meat clean. He worked through it unhurried, chewed, and pressed a paper towel to his mouth before he answered.
"We could always get a few more bodies in the camp." He set the stripped bone back in the box and picked up a fresh wing, turning it over in his hands. "I told that nigga Ramon that he need to change teams."
Trell's eyes dropped from the ceiling. "What he say?"
"Shot me down." Ant pulled the meat off the second wing in one motion. "Ain't even wanted to hear it."
Trell snorted, the sound low and brief. "That's what happens when a nigga been in some shit since he was a lil' nigga." He turned the bottle in his palm, thumb dragging over the label. "He probably more loyal to that shit than his own people."
Ant dropped the bone and wiped his hands on the paper towel, wadding it up. "That's the kind of niggas we need." He tossed the ball of paper toward the box, missed, left it. "Not niggas like Boogie."
"You ain't wrong." Trell uncrossed his leg and planted his foot flat on the floor, shifting his weight forward until his elbows found his knees. He stayed there, forearms resting on his thighs, looking down at the coffee table. "But I think for now, we just consolidate what we got."
Outside, two voices started up. One sharp, one sharper. Neither of them moved. They just listened long enough for their ears to sort it out. The voices peaked and fell and peaked again, then tapered down to nothing.
Ant reached back into the box. He turned another wing over, inspecting the size of it before he said anything.
"While we doing that, it might be a good idea to get rid of that nigga Dez." He bit into it. "He a snitch just looking for an opportunity."
Trell's eyes went to the window. "You probably not wrong about that either." He picked up his beer and finished what was left, then set the empty bottle on the table with a soft knock. "That's a tomorrow problem, though."
The argument outside went another level up. Two voices climbing over each other. Then a single shot. Shouting opened up after. Footsteps scattered fast in different directions.
Ant was moving before the echo finished. He crossed the room in a few steps, hand already on the door, and pulled it open. He leaned out just far enough to get a look at the block, then pointed to the nearest man on the sidewalk. "Get the work and get the fuck out of here before the jakes come."
The man nodded, quick and more than once, already moving.
Ant watched a beat longer. Then he stepped back inside and slammed the door hard enough that the frame held the sound for a second after.
He crossed back to the sofa and dropped into it, the whole thing shifting under him. He reached for his beer and found it, took a drink, and settled his arm along the back of the cushions.
Trell leaned back and shook his head. "You need to move, my nigga."
Ant let the beer hang from two fingers beside his knee. "Can't keep an eye on them niggas if I lived somewhere else."
Trell looked at him for a second, just looked. Then the laugh came. He reached down and picked up a fresh beer from the table and raised it once.
~~~
Camila was out cold, sprawled across the middle of the bed with her arm thrown to the side, mouth parted, one sock still on and one somewhere in the sheets. The room was dim, just the streetlight coming in around the edge of the curtain. It had been a full day. Horses, presents, cake. She'd spent the last hour on her feet telling everyone about the horses, then crashed before they made it through the door.
Caine sat on the edge of the mattress, back to her. His elbows found his knees, just looking at the wall. He pressed his palms together, rubbed them slow, then hung his head. His hand went up through his dreads, fingers working until they found the band at the base and pulled it free. The locs fell around his face, and he let them, sitting with his head down and his hands clasped and the quiet of the room pressed in around him.
Mireya came out of the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway, hand resting on the frame, and watched him. Him sitting with his head bowed, the locs falling, the set of his shoulders.
Then she looked behind him at Camila. At the peace in her face, the way her chest rose and fell without any of the tension that lived in it sometimes when she was awake. Her small hand was open against the pillow.
Mireya's throat tightened.
She looked down at the floor. It came on her the way it always did when she wasn't ready for it, without a knock. Jordan's voice in her head, cold and certain. Dirty fucking gutter slut. She blinked and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and told herself to put it down.
Caine looked up. Then he turned and looked at her.
"Ven acá," he said.
She walked over but she didn't sit on the bed next to him. She sat on the floor beside his legs instead, back against the side of the mattress, knees pulled up in front of her. Caine raised an eyebrow, watching her settle. She just brought her head to rest against the side of his leg and closed her eyes. The carpet was thin under her. The mattress was firm against her back. She stayed there and breathed.
"You know we're fucking up her childhood," she said. Her voice was quiet enough not to cross the room.
Caine looked down at her, then back at Camila. He exhaled through his nose. "I know," he said. "That's the problem with being babies raising a baby."
Mireya snorted, a small involuntary sound. "Mi mama would say the problem is us, not our age."
"Fuck Maria," Caine said.
Mireya's head came up a little. "Estás hablando de mi madre."
"As if you feel any different about her," he said.
"Yeah, but I can say that."
Caine laughed, a low sound. He shook his head once.
The room held the quiet again after. Mireya stayed where she was, her cheek against his leg. She looked at nothing, or she tried to. It came back at her anyway. The words he'd used. The look on his face when he said it, like it had been waiting in his mouth for a while. Like it was already there before the argument started. She thought about Camila sleeping behind her, the open hand on the pillow.
She moved. She pulled back and turned so she was kneeling between his legs, looking up at him. Caine noticed her eyes before she could do anything about them. She saw the shift in his face, the attention sharpening.
"¿Qué pasa?" he asked.
Mireya took his hands in hers. Her fingers closed around his. "I just want you to know that I love you." She kept her eyes on his face even as they started to burn. "Despite everything. I love you so much, Caine."
Caine looked at her for a beat, then back at her eyes. "I love you, too, but what's wrong?" He squeezed her hands once. "Someone do something to you?"
Something moved across his face, a tightening in the jaw, a shift in his eyes. She watched it pass through him, the anger at the idea of it. She shook her head quickly, twice. "No, no, no. Nothing's wrong." She pressed his hands in hers, steadier now. "It's just with how everything's been over the last couple years. I want you to know. To remember that."
Caine looked at her. His face had settled but his eyes were still watching her. "You don't need to remind me of that," he said.
Mireya reached up. She cupped the back of his neck and pulled him down to her, and kissed him. Slow. When she pulled back she ran her fingers under her eyes, catching what was already there.
Caine took her wrists gently and drew her up. She let him pull her into his lap. She curled into him, her face against his chest, and let his arms come around her.
"Te amo tanto," she said, into his chest, the words gone soft. The tears came down her face without any sound. "Tantísimamente."
Caine pressed his lips to the top of her head. He held them there. His hand came up and settled against her hair, fingers spreading once and going still.
"Yo también," he said. "Para siempre."
