American Sun

[Caesar]

Pe / Ome

Caine had his overhead light on, the small circle of it falling across the tray table, the open journal and the backs of his hands where they rested on either side of the page. The cabin was dim around him, most of the team asleep or folded into their seats with headphones on, a few screens glowing blue down the aisle in both directions.

He uncapped the pen and set it against the paper.

Mija, one thing they never tell you about when you start getting any level of fame, start getting talked about by this person or that person that’s never met you, is how fucking weird it is to hear your name everywhere you go. But for me, it’s different than these other dudes playing football. I went from a name of a kid who was looking to survive, doing whatever I needed to, drugs, carjackings, stealing, whatever to a number. Two of them actually. Case number 2024-JV-4121 and inmate number 71182341.

His thumb moved along the edge of the page where the paper met the spine, the grit of the fibers catching against his skin. The hum of the engines shifted register for a beat as the plane adjusted, a slight tilt in the cabin that pressed his shoulder into the wall before it leveled. Across the aisle, Cam had his head back against the headrest, his mouth open, a blanket pulled up to his chest. Behind him, Kona and Zaire played something on a tablet propped between them, the sound off, their fingers tapping the screen in turns.

Caine looked back at the page.

Now, when people say my name. Your name, mija. It’s potential Heisman. Potential number one pick. Best this, best that. It’s got dollars and cents attached to it. But I ain’t never changed. I’m still inmate number 71182341. Still case number 2024-JV-4121. Even now, when I ain’t on probation anymore. My name has weight to it. A weight I can’t ever escape because I put a gun in people’s faces and told them to get their ass out of those cars. Weight from standing in a court room and hearing defendant Caine Guerra facing over 100 years behind bars.

He set the pen down, flexed his hand once and picked it back up.

I ask myself when I’m sitting in these fucking charter jets, flying all over the country, playing football in front of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people, living in a penthouse, does this USC quarterback Caine Guerra erase defendant Caine Guerra, erase inmate Caine Guerra otherwise known as inmate 71182341. Or if come December, when they hand me a trophy and I become Heisman winner Caine Guerra, am I still that kid sitting in adseg because I couldn’t let no one put pussy on my name and had to bat the piss out of them?

He lifted his eyes from the page. The window beside him held nothing but dark and the faint reflection of his overhead light against the outer pane, the shape of his hand and the pen blurred in it. Somewhere below them, the terrain had changed from the flat sprawl of the valley into what sat between Los Angeles and Oregon, but at altitude it was all the same black.

For some people, the answer always gonna be yeah, I’m that same motherfucker and I ain’t gonna be nothing else, nothing more.

He tapped the pen once against the margin and let the ink dot the paper.

But for you, mija, when you start doing great things and you introduce yourself as Camila Rosas Guerra, one thing they ain’t never going to be able to take from that name is that we’re survivors. Me and tu mama. We got it out the mud so you don’t have to. I put baggage on your last name and I’m sorry for that, but you will be the greatest of the best of us. I know that in my soul. As long as you never let anyone tell you what your name means. Never let anyone else define you.

He capped the pen and closed the journal, the cover pressing the pages flat, the pen rolling into the spine’s groove through the cover. He slid it off the tray table, folded the table back up and put the journal into the seat pocket in front of him, the spine catching once on the edge of the pocket before it settled. He reached up and turned the overhead light off.

He leaned his head against the window. The cold from the outer pane pressed into his temple through the plastic. Below, a scatter of lights sat in a cluster where a town held its shape against the ground, the glow of it small and isolated, the dark pressing in from every direction around it.

~~~

Camila had her fork in her fist and was working through the eggs on her plate in quick stabs, her feet swinging free under the chair. She talked between bites, the words running over each other, her fork pausing in the air each time she got to a part she needed both hands for, which was most of it. A boy in her class had brought a lizard to school in his backpack and it got out during circle time. The teacher screamed and Camila had to help catch it because nobody else would.

Mireya sat across from her with her chin in her hand, her elbow on the table, smiling. She nodded when Camila looked at her for confirmation that this was as serious as it sounded. Camila took it as permission to keep going and did. The baby monitor sat between them on the table, the speaker playing its low hiss of static underneath Camila’s voice. Every few seconds a small sound came through it, Micaela shifting in her crib, a soft noise that could have been a breath or the beginning of a cry that never arrived.

Sena came down the stairs wrapping her hair up into a ponytail, her fingers pulling the length of it through the elastic in two passes. She rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand as she crossed into the kitchen.

Mireya looked over at her, her smile pulling wider. Sena smiled back and walked past the table toward the counter.

Mireya nodded toward the stove. "There are more eggs there. Bacon, too."

Sena yawned with her hand covering her mouth, her eyes squeezing shut. "I’ll just make some coffee."

Camila’s nose scrunched. "Coffee’s nasty, Sena."

Sena’s smile came up at the corners. "You just got to get used to it."

Mireya leaned over to Camila. "She puts so much milk and creamer in it, that she’s not drinking coffee anymore."

Camila looked from Mireya to Sena and back, her fork still in the air, a piece of egg balanced on the tines. "Why not just drink milk? Milk’s good."

"So you’re not sleepy. You’ll find out when you get older and have to go to work."

Camila shook her head, the curls swinging across her forehead. "I’m not gonna be sleepy. I never get sleepy."

"I ain’t know I was raising Kevina Gates."

Sena snorted a laugh from the counter, her back to them, the coffee maker already pulled forward by its cord.

"Who’s that?" Camila asked.

Mireya smiled and ran her hand over Camila’s hair, her palm smoothing the curls back from her forehead. "Just a singer, baby." She nodded toward Camila’s plate. "¿Ya terminaste, mi amor?"

Camila nodded.

"Go upstairs and brush your teeth then."

Camila slid out of the chair, her feet hitting the floor, and walked out of the kitchen toward the staircase. Mireya called after her without turning her head. "Todos tus dientes, Camila."

Camila’s voice carried back from halfway up the stairs. "Okay, mami."

Her footsteps moved overhead, each one landing heavier than the last as she got closer to the top. A door opened then the faucet ran, the sounds filtering down through the ceiling in small muffled pieces.

Mireya looked over at Sena where she stood at the counter watching her mug fill, the coffee streaming thin and dark from the basket into the pot, her fingers resting on the edge of the mug she’d set on the counter beside it.

"You were talking in your sleep."

Sena looked over her shoulder. "Was I?"

Mireya nodded, her chin still in her hand, her elbow still on the table. "Talking about some dude named Ray."

Sena closed her eyes, her shoulders dropping with the exhale.

"You told your parents my name was Rey."

"How’d you figure that out?"

Mireya’s mouth pulled at one corner. "I know a thing or two about fake names, baby. I never would use that, though. Too close to my real name."

"Right." Sena turned back to the counter and pulled the carafe out, the coffee swirling dark against the glass as she poured. "I keep forgetting."

"Why were you talking to your parents about me?"

"To get my mom off my back about dating. But my fucking brothers brought it up in front of my dad."

"And what happened then?"

"My dad wants to meet Rey."

Mireya let her hand come down from her chin. She sat back in the chair, her arm resting along the table. "But you can’t do that because Rey is me and I’m a woman and you won’t come out to them."

Sena took a sip from her coffee. She set the mug down on the counter, her hand staying on it, her fingers wrapped around the ceramic.

Mireya pushed her chair back and stood, crossing the kitchen to where Sena stood, took the mug from Sena’s hand and set it down on the counter beside them. She put her hand on Sena’s cheek and kissed her. She pulled back and leaned her forehead against Sena’s, her hand still on her face, her thumb against Sena’s cheekbone.

"You sleep in my bed. You know my daughters. You know my darkest secrets. Yet you’re still ashamed of me."

"No, I’m not as—"

"I’m not going to force you to, but you have to decide eventually, Sena."

Mireya kissed her on the forehead. Her lips pressed flat against the skin above Sena’s brow before she pulled back. She dropped her hand from Sena’s face and walked out of the kitchen, her footsteps crossing the hardwood toward the staircase.

"Camila, voy a revisarte los dientes."

Sena stood at the counter and her hand found the mug again, lifting it to her mouth.

~~~

Ramon pulled up to the block and let the car idle for a beat before he killed the engine. He scanned the street through the windshield, his hand resting on the top of the steering wheel.

Shauntoine stood at the telephone pole with his shoulder against the wood, his arms crossed, his chin tipped up at a car rolling past on the cross street. Tee Phil had the fence, his weight leaning into the chain link, his phone out, his thumb moving across the screen in short pulls. A few of the other BGs were spread down the block in their usual positions, bodies loose, eyes working the traffic.

Ramon got out and shut the door behind him. He lifted his chin at both of them and motioned with two fingers, calling them over.

They jogged across the street toward him, Tee Phil pocketing his phone on the way, Shauntoine’s arms uncrossing as his stride opened up. They stopped in front of Ramon near the hood of his car, their sneakers scuffing the asphalt as they settled.

Shauntoine reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills and held it out to Ramon. "Business been good today, big brudda."

Ramon took it from him, his thumb running across the top bill once before he folded the roll into his back pocket and pressed it flat against the denim. "Good. We gonna need some money."

He looked between the two of them, his eyes moving from Shauntoine to Tee Phil and back. "I need y’all to do something for me, but I ain’t gonna lie to y’all. Shit ain’t gonna be easy and I need to know y’all ain’t gonna talk if you get your lil’ asses arrested."

Tee Phil’s hands went to the front pocket of his hoodie. "You paying or this an internship type thing?"

Shauntoine laughed, his head turning toward Tee Phil. "The fuck is an internship, nigga?"

Ramon’s mouth pulled flat. "Like a jo—" He stopped. "Nigga, ain’t y’all in fucking school?"

"Nah, I ain’t been to school in a lil’ minute," Shauntoine said.

"I can tell, nigga." Ramon shook his head, his hand coming up to rub the bridge of his nose before it dropped back to his side. "I need y’all to find a nigga named Jerron. Tall, lanky nigga. Lives out in LaPlace. Find him, get him to tell y’all who shot at Tyree then tell me what that nigga say."

Tee Phil shifted his weight, his shoulder pulling back a fraction. "Why would he know who shot at Tyree?"

"He an informant. I figure if anyone know it’s gonna be him. Nigga been singing to the people for years but he in too deep with the jakes so he think he untouchable. He used to be Melph but got run out that bitch. Got a little operation out there in the boonies, now."

Shauntoine’s chin came up. "I’m ’bout it if you paying."

"Two racks for both of y’all if y’all find him and get the information."

Tee Phil looked at Shauntoine. Shauntoine looked back at him. Tee Phil’s chin lifting a fraction, Shauntoine’s mouth pulling flat at one corner before it released.

"Shit, you ain’t saying nothing but a word, big brudda," Tee Phil said.

Ramon’s hand came out of his pocket and he pointed between them, his finger moving from one to the other. "Just make sure y’all asses don’t get fucking caught by the people. I’ll put money on your books if you do, but I’d rather not have to worry about y’all talking."

"You know we solid, man," Shauntoine said.

Ramon shook his head. "Y’all ain’t never been arrested. I don’t know shit." He looked between them. "Call me when y’all decide if y’all gonna do it or if I need to find someone else."

He turned and walked back to the driver’s side, his keys already in his hand by the time he reached the door. He opened it, dropped into the seat, and pulled it shut. He reached across and opened the glovebox, tossed the roll of bills inside on top of the registration and a box of ammunition that sat against the back of the compartment, and pushed it closed with the heel of his hand. He started the engine and pulled off from the curb, the tires rolling over the asphalt, the two of them still standing near where his car had been, their bodies turning to watch him go.

~~~

Mireya pulled her shirt over her head, her hair catching in the collar before she tugged it free and let it fall against her shoulders. She smoothed the fabric down over her stomach with both hands, her fingers pulling the hem where it had bunched at her hip. Across the room, Nathan had his back to her, pulling his jeans up from his ankles, his belt already threaded through the loops. He zipped them and turned around, reaching for his shirt where it hung off the back of the chair.

"I thought you were a lesbian because you’re always hugged up with Sena."

Mireya snorted a laugh. She stood up from the bed and grabbed her shorts from where they’d landed on the carpet near the foot of it, stepping into them and pulling them up over her hips in one motion. She gathered her hair off her neck with one hand and let it fall back. "You’d think that you were smart enough to know what the fuck a bi bitch was."

Nathan pulled the shirt over his head and worked his arms through the sleeves. "I didn’t get this far by making assumptions that I don’t have the information for."

Mireya crossed to the door and opened it a few inches, leaning her head through the gap into the hallway. The house was still around her. The air conditioner cycled its low hum through the walls. Down the hall, past the closed doors, the baby monitor in the master bedroom picked up Micaela’s breathing in its faint static rhythm.

"Worried about someone coming home unexpectedly?"

Mireya pulled her head back in and shook it. "Just trying to make sure that my kids are still sleeping so you can get the fuck out."

Nathan laughed, his hands smoothing down the front of his shirt. "So, you just called me over here, used me and now you’re kicking me out."

Mireya stepped out into the hall. "Exactly."

He shook his head, the corners of his mouth pulling up as he followed her out of the guest room and down the hall toward the staircase. Mireya pulled the guest room door shut behind them, her hand pressing flat against the wood for a second to ease it closed.

She took the stairs first, her hand trailing the banister, her feet bare on the wood, each step landing soft. Nathan came behind her, his sneakers in his hand, his socked feet finding the treads.

She crossed the foyer to the front door, turned the deadbolt, and pulled it open. She stepped to the side and held the door, the other arm gesturing toward the dark outside with a sweep that covered the porch and the walkway.

Nathan stopped in the doorway. He leaned his shoulder into the frame, his sneakers hanging from two fingers at his side. "We going to do this again?"

Mireya rested her hip against the edge of the open door, her arms crossing over her chest. "It wasn’t that good."

"That sounds like a bit of a lie to me."

Mireya tipped her chin up. "Believe me. I know what good dick feels like and what it doesn’t. You were a good five out of ten."

Nathan whistled. "That’s some cold ass shit."

Mireya shrugged. "I might call you to eat me out, though. We’ll see. Now, come on. I don’t have all night."

Nathan pushed off the doorframe and stepped onto the porch, dropping his sneakers on the concrete and working his feet into them. He turned back toward her. "You sure you—"

Mireya pushed the door shut. The frame caught the air and the slam carried through the foyer. She held still for a second, her hand flat against the wood, listening for any stirring from the rooms above then turned the deadbolt under her thumb.

She turned and walked back to the stairs, taking them up two at a time, her feet finding the same path she’d come down. She crossed the hall to the guest room and picked her phone up from the nightstand where she’d left it. She turned the screen over and thumbed it awake. Sena’s name sat at the top of the thread, the message timestamped five minutes ago.

Stopping to get food before I come back to the house. You want anything?

Mireya smiled, the corners of her mouth pulling up slow. Her thumb moved across the screen.

I’m good. Hurry back, baby.

~~~

Caine stood in the middle of his teammates on the sideline with his helmet in one hand =. The crowd at Autzen pressed its noise down from every side of the stadium, the sound thick enough to feel against his chest.

The lights overhead threw the field in a white wash that erased the shadows and made the green of the turf look synthetic. Across the field, the Oregon sideline moved in its own current of bodies and coaches pointing at clipboards.

Caine raised his voice over the noise. "These motherfuckers still doubting us! Still don’t think USC back! Still think that shit sweet! Motherfuckers saying we ain’t play nobody yet. This somebody across that field, huh?!"

Some of the players shouted yeah, the word coming from different points around him. Others nodded, mouthpieces clamped between teeth.

"But they gonna have to show me something! They gonna have to show me they ain’t no bitches! They gonna have to fucking show me ’cause I ain’t scared of no motherfucking Ducks!"

Another round of yeahs, louder this time, hands coming down on shoulder pads and the crowns of helmets, the sounds flat and sharp under the noise of the stadium.

"Tonight, we gonna show everyone in this motherfucking stadium, everyone in this motherfucking conference and everyone in this motherfucking country that the national championship runs, through motherfucking Los Angeles! Trojans on three! One, two, three!"

"TROJANS!"

The huddle broke. Bodies scattered toward the field, cleats tearing at the turf, helmets going on, chinstraps buckling. Caine pulled his helmet over his dreads and worked the chinstrap under his jaw with two fingers. He walked toward the field with his mouthpiece hanging from the cage.

[Captain Canada]

You know my darkest secrets.

I mean, technically cap.

Mireya nasty, throw the whole woman out.

Yeah, get Caine his Heisman. He's already wrapped that thang up. Boy too used to CFB 26 to lose at this point

[redsox907]

Mireya nasty, throw the whole woman out.

she a fiend at this point but we know Caine gonna cape for her in the end

good game against Oregon. I'm waiting for the CFP and a Bama/Georgia showdown, tbh

[Soapy]

these teams really laying down like some hoes

so you are Miles

I'm not even going to say anything anymore. Nothing needs to be said.

[redsox907]

so you are Miles

[Caesar]

You know my darkest secrets.

I mean, technically cap.

Mireya nasty, throw the whole woman out.

Yeah, get Caine his Heisman. He's already wrapped that thang up. Boy too used to CFB 26 to lose at this point

Sena should introduce her to her parents.

Caine's just the blueprint.

Mireya nasty, throw the whole woman out.

she a fiend at this point but we know Caine gonna cape for her in the end

good game against Oregon. I'm waiting for the CFP and a Bama/Georgia showdown, tbh

This is the usual Mireya coping mechanism for rejection.

I think Caine was talking about you in his pep talk. First it was "back half of schedule," now it's "Georgia."

these teams really laying down like some hoes

so you are Miles

I'm not even going to say anything anymore. Nothing needs to be said.

What you're seeing is a master at work. Brice Colton could never.

so you are Miles

so you are Miles

Is you cool? How'd you even come to that conclusion?

[Caesar]

Kari / Tlein

Sena pulled the door and walked into the Starbucks. The line at the counter ran five deep, tables filled the middle of the floor in clusters of two and four, most of them taken, bags hung over chairbacks and laptops open on the surfaces. A woman near the window shifted her chair and the leg scraped across the tile.

Alex sat in the far corner with two cups on the table in front of her and her phone beside her elbow, her thumb pulling slow drags across the screen. She looked up when Sena was halfway across the floor. Her face opened and she sat straighter, the smile arriving full across her mouth.

Sena pulled the chair out and sat down. She hooked her bag off her shoulder and set it on the floor beside her, tucking it against the table leg with her foot.

Alex picked up the second cup and held it out across the space between them.

"I got your favorite."

Sena took it from her, the cardboard sleeve warm through to her fingers. "Thanks. I could use a pick-me-up. I stayed at my place last night and Cassidy broke the coffee maker."

Alex's eyebrow came up. She shook her head once, the smile flattening before she spoke. "I'm surprised that you agreed to come spend some time with me. After everything."

Sena wrapped both hands around the cup and brought it closer to the edge of the table in front of her. "I said I'd try being friends with you."

Alex's gaze moved over Sena's face for a beat then she picked up her own cup and brought it close to her mouth without drinking, her thumb resting against the lip of the lid. "Yeah, but after I saw you and your girlfriend together at the bar, I don't know. I just thought you were rubbing it in my face."

"She was rubbing it in your face."

"What?"

Sena brought the cup to her mouth and sipped, the coffee landing warm at the back of her throat. "That's the kind of person Mireya is. Competitive. She definitely wanted you to know that she saw us."

Alex snorted a laugh, her chin lifting with it. "I guess that's the fiery Latina thing."

"I guess so."

Alex picked up her cup and took a long sip, her eyes staying on Sena's face over the rim. She set it back down and turned it once against the table with her palm. Her mouth pulled to one side and she settled her shoulders back against her chair.

"So, how is that going anyway?"

"Good. Things are good between us. She really cares about me, really attentive."

Alex nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. You deserve someone who's going to love you openly."

Sena's gaze dropped to the table. Her mouth lifted at the corners, the curve of it settling across her face before she reached for her cup and brought it to her lips, sipped once, and lowered it back to the table. "It's just tough because there's no one's opinion she really needs to worry about. Well, I guess her children's grandma. She's close with her."

"So her mother."

Sena nodded. Then she shook her head. "It's complicated. It's not her mom really. It's her children's father's mom. But she calls her mom."

Alex leaned forward in her chair, her forearms against the edge of the table. "Sena."

"What?"

"Are you serious?"

"I'm not getting you."

Alex spread her hands on the table. "She's so close to her baby daddy's mom that she calls her mom and you got mad at me because I got a boyfriend."

Sena turned her cup a quarter rotation. "It's different."

"Yeah, it's different. It's worse. If you just said that to someone who didn't know, you'd sound like you were talking about that woman's mother-in-law."

Sena brought her eyes up to Alex's face. "She's with me. And the father is with someone else."

Alex held her gaze. "Can you really trust her though? For this to be serious?"

"Yes, I trust her." The words came out pressed together. "She doesn't give me any reason not to and gives me what I need to put my mind at ease."

Alex held her hands up. "If you like it, I love it."

Sena drew a breath and let it go through her nose. She picked up her cup and took another sip. "So, how are you and David?"

~~~

Caine sat in a director's chair with his hands resting flat on his knees, his back straight against the canvas. The backdrop behind him was USC cardinal, the logo centered at shoulder height, the fabric pulled taut across the aluminum frame. A camera crew worked the space in front of him, one of them adjusting a ring light on a telescoping stand while a second checked the monitor on the back of the main camera, his face close to the screen as he studied the frame. A third ran cables along the floor in taped-down lines toward a power strip against the far wall.

A staffer with ESPN credentials hanging from a lanyard around her neck crossed in front of the camera rig and stopped beside his chair. She held out a small black IFB unit in one hand and a coiled earpiece wire in the other. She tapped the hood of his hoodie with two fingers.

"Clip it there and put that in your back pocket. Put the earpiece in your left ear."

Caine nodded. He took the unit and clipped the mic to the inside of the hood where she'd tapped. He fed the wire along the collar of his hoodie, running it down behind his ear, and fitted the earpiece into his left ear. He tucked the slack into the neck of his hoodie and slid the receiver into his back pocket.

Lauren came across the floor from the far side of the room. Her SID badge bounced against her chest with each step, the Trojans logo on it catching the overhead light. She stopped beside the camera rig and crossed one ankle behind the other, her weight shifting as she looked at him.

"It's just going to be a quick five, six minute hit. All the same stuff we went over before we walked over here."

"Remind me of what I can't say."

Lauren's chin dropped a fraction. "Don't say anything about No—" She looked at his face then shook her head. "You're fucking with me."

"Yeah, I'm fucking with you."

Lauren pressed her lips together and shook her head again. She walked off to the side, taking a spot next to the cameraman, and folded her arms across her chest. The cameraman beside her leaned forward and checked the frame on his monitor one more time, adjusting the angle a fraction before he stepped back and set his hands at his sides.

The staffer moved behind the camera. She held her hand up where Caine could see it past the ring light and counted down on her fingers. She dropped her hand and gave him a thumbs up.

The earpiece crackled once and Pat McAfee's voice came through, already mid-stride.

"Alright, we got Caine Guerra, superstar USC quarterback with us. How are you doing, my man?"

Caine kept his hands on his knees. "I'm good, man. Can't complain."

"Appreciate you taking the time out to talk to us. Look, that game you played against Oregon the other day? Wow. How are you feeling after the win?"

"Team's good. I'm good. We went into a hostile environment against a tough opponent and came out of there with the win."

McAfee's voice came right back. "A big win. Don't sell yourself short. 45-10, I mean, come on. A lot of people are saying USC's back on the map. What's the atmosphere like in the locker room?"

"We got a championship mentality so ain't nothing back until we win in January. But it's nothing but dogs in the locker room here. You can see it on the field. Ain't nobody that can slow us down."

"I hear that. I like that. Big game against Michigan coming up in the Big House. This is where the rubber meets the road so to say. What's the preparation like?"

"Same as always. It don't matter who on the opposite side of the field. Coach Riley and all the coaches get us ready the same way."

Lauren shifted her weight to her other hip. The ring light threw its flat wash across the cardinal backdrop behind Caine.

"What about a prediction?"

"We gonna win. Like I said, our goal is a natty. We giving everyone belt. Michigan, too."

McAfee's laugh came through the earpiece. The show's studio bled through behind it for a beat before his voice came back.

"Always want your quarterback to be confident. I like it. What about the Heisman, kid? You're still second in the odds. Do you think you should be first?"

Caine shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. "Yeah, I do, if I'm being real with you. But all I can do is keep doing my thing out there on the field."

"Is that your message to your doubters?"

"Let 'em doubt me. Then come talk to me in January."

~~~

Mireya sat with her arms crossed over her chest, one leg resting over the other. The leather creaked once when she shifted her weight deeper into the back of it. Fernanda sat across from her, her hands resting in her lap, her ankles crossed beneath the seat.

"Mireya, I think you've been coming to see me long enough now that you've begun to develop some patterns with the things you tell me."

Mireya's mouth pulled at one corner. "Like I need to stop saying what I am and starting saying who I am."

Fernanda smiled, the corners of her mouth lifting, and she nodded. "That would be somewhere to start."

Fernanda let a beat pass, her eyes on Mireya's face, her body settled and still in the chair. Her hands came together in her lap, one folding over the other.

"I want to bring something up to you and I want you to sit with it for a moment before you answer. I believe you have an extremely unhealthy relationship with sex and with your body and they go hand in hand. For many young women, you'd see this in eating disorders or body dysmorphia, for example. You're different. You use it as a coping mechanism, a way for you to take control of situations, but also you use it as a form of self-harm. Does that make sense?"

Mireya's thumb pressed once against the inside of her elbow, the nail digging a crescent into the skin. "I don't do that."

"If Caine called you right now and told you that he and Autumn were engaged and he was filing for full custody, what would be your first course of action?"

Mireya shrugged. "I don't know. He wouldn't do that."

"You're dodging the question."

"I just don't think it's a good question."

Fernanda leaned forward a fraction in the chair. "Based on what you have told me, I would be willing to predict that you'd find someone to have sex with. Whether that was Sena or someone else. Because you want to take control of yourself back. But also, you want to give other people ammunition to belittle you and that's where the self-harm comes in."

Mireya's eyes moved past Fernanda's shoulder to the photograph on the wall. Her thumb slid from her elbow to her mouth, the pad of it pressing against her bottom lip. "I like it and I'm good at it. That's why I enjoy having sex."

"How do you feel after?"

"Satisfied."

"And?"

Mireya sucked her teeth. Her thumb came down from her mouth and her arms tightened across her chest. "You know what Caine does when he's stressed out? He starts organizing shit, straightening shit all in neat little lines. He started doing it after he got out of jail. That's no different than what I do."

"You're right."

Mireya's eyes came back to Fernanda's face. "What?"

Fernanda nodded. "You're right. It's not different. The way it manifests is different but what he's doing is the same thing. He's taking control of something he can control. Just like you knowing you can control a man through sex."

"Women, too."

Fernanda nodded again. "Women, too. I say this to say whatever started this relationship with sex and your body is likely a source of much of the anger and unhappiness you have."

Mireya's jaw worked once. Her eyes dropped to the strip of light on the carpet between them, then came back. "It ain't nothing weird."

"I didn't say it was."

"I'm just saying that it ain't no shit like my daddy touched me. He was long gone by the time I started fucking."

Fernanda's posture held in the chair. "I never said that's what it was, Mireya."

"Good, I was just saying."

"So it was something later in your life?"

Mireya shrugged, the motion smaller this time, her arms staying locked across her chest, her fingers pressing into the fabric at her elbows. "I don't know."

"Do you want to explore that today?"

Mireya shook her head. "No."

Fernanda nodded.. "What else would you like to talk about then?"

Mireya shrugged, her eyes dropping to her own lap for a beat before they came back to Fernanda's face. "How about why Sena is embarrassed by me."

"Why do you think that?"

Mireya leaned back in the chair, her shoulders pressing into the leather. "Because she should be."

"Go on."

~~~

Autumn moved through the racks with her fingers trailing across the fabric, her pace unhurried, each hanger clicking soft against the next as she pushed them one at a time down the bar. She pulled a blouse out by the shoulder and held it at arm's length. The cut ran clean along the back, the stitching tight at the seams, the color a muted sage that would sit well against her skin. She turned it once, checked the tag, and slid it back into place.

She moved to the next section and started again. A silk camisole caught her eye two pieces in and she pulled it free, her thumb running along the hem where the fabric folded over itself in a narrow seam. She held it up, tilted her head, and draped it over her forearm. She kept going down the bar, her free hand skimming the tops of the hangers, pulling one out every few pieces to check the neckline or the weight of the fabric before pushing it back

Autumn pulled a blazer from the rack and turned it in her hands, running her thumb across the lapel, pressing the pad of her finger into the texture of the weave. She held it against her chest and looked down at the drape of it against her body. She slid one arm through the sleeve to check the fit across the shoulder.

"Autumn, is that you?"

She turned with the blazer still half on. Michelle was coming toward her from three racks over, weaving between a display table and a mannequin, her face already breaking into a grin, her stride picking up as she closed the distance between them. She looked the same as she had at Whitney, her hair straightened and parted to one side, her posture pitched forward with the energy of someone who arrived everywhere a half step ahead of herself.

Autumn slid the blazer off her arm and folded it over the rack beside her. Autumn smiled, the corners of her mouth lifting into position. Michelle held her arms out and pulled Autumn into a hug, her hands pressing flat against Autumn's back, her chin coming to Autumn's shoulder. Autumn brought one hand up and patted her twice between the shoulder blades.

She stepped back and set her hands on Michelle's arms. "Girl, where have you been? Still at Pomona?"

Michelle smiled, nodding, her weight rocking forward onto her toes and back. "Until the end of the year then I'm going start my MBA at Wharton."

Autumn swatted her hand through the air between them. "I always knew you were going to end up doing something like that."

Michelle's chin dipped and she pressed a hand to her chest. "It's my way of trying to get a leg up on you after being number two in the class for four years thanks to you."

Autumn laughed. "That's back then. I'm sure you're killing it now."

Michelle shrugged. She glanced at the rack beside them and ran her finger along the sleeve of something she wasn't looking at. "I'm doing alright. But you know I was just telling my roommate about you the other day."

Autumn's eyebrow rose. "Oh yeah?"

"They didn't believe me when you popped up on my IG feed and I told them I knew you before you were a famous WAG."

Autumn looked at her. Her weight shifted onto one hip, her bag and the draped camisole settling against her side. "Famous WAG?"

Michelle laughed, the sound coming loose and easy, her hand lifting and waving toward Autumn as if the answer were written somewhere behind her. "Girl, you know. Your boyfriend, USC's quarterback."

Autumn's mouth held its shape. Her eyes stayed on Michelle's face, level, the smile still there but the warmth behind it pulled back a degree. "I'm hardly just a WAG."

Michelle's laugh thinned at the edges. She brought her hand down from the wave and tucked it against her hip. "You know what I meant."

Autumn smile, slower this time. "You're right." She brought her phone up from where it sat against her hip and glanced at the screen, her thumb swiping once across the glass before she looked back up. "I have to go, but good luck at Wharton. It's hard to stand out when you're a dime a dozen, but I know you'll knock 'em dead."

The smile left Michelle's face. It fell in pieces, the corners dropping first, her mouth flattening, her eyes catching up a beat later.

Autumn turned back to the rack beside her. She picked up the blazer she'd set down, checked the tag once more, and draped it over her forearm with the camisole. Her fingers found the next hanger and slid it along the bar. She tilted the piece toward her, looked at the cut, and kept moving down the rack.

~~~

Mireya lay back in the lounger with her legs stretched out in front of her, one ankle crossed over the other, her hands resting flat on her stomach. The pool was beside them, the surface catching the light from underneath in a low blue glow that spread across the water and threw faint ripples of color along the underside of the patio cover.

Alejandra sat sideways in the chair next to her with her legs pulled up and her back against the armrest, her phone balanced on her knee, her thumb moving slow across the screen. Hayley had the chair on the far side with her feet propped up on the edge of a small table, a drink resting on the armrest beside her hip, the ice in it down to slivers. Bianca sat between them with her chair pulled close to the pool's edge, her toes hanging over the coping, one foot tracing slow circles in the air above the water.

Sara had both girls for the night. She let her eyes close for a beat, then opened them to the sky above the patio cover, the clouds low and lit on their undersides by the city beneath them.

Bianca looked over at her. "Bitch, is you really not going to start getting back to this money with us?"

Mireya turned her head on the cushion. "I been doing some stuff on my own here or there."

"You ain't making the same kind of money though."

Alejandra gestured around them with her phone hand, the screen flashing as she swept it in an arc that took in the house, the yard, the pool. "Bee. She a kept woman now. She doesn't need to turn tricks."

Mireya snorted a laugh. "Need and want are two different things because I don't think y'all need to either."

Hayley picked up her drink from the armrest and took a sip, the ice shifting in the glass. She set it back down and wiped the condensation off her fingers on the thigh of her shorts. "I need to if I want to get my body done before I turn 30."

Mireya looked at her, one eyebrow lifting off the cushion. "What the fuck are you getting work done for?"

Alejandra's leg swung once off the side of her chair. "She's trying to branch out from old white men to young Black men."

Bianca sucked her teeth. "As if her white ass don't get plenty attention from niggas."

"That's not why I want it. I've always wanted bigger tits."

Mireya let her head fall back against the cushion. "Just get pregnant. It's cheaper."

Alejandra pointed at her. "Don't put that bad luck on us, Mexicana."

"Trying to have y'all in the same boat as me."

Bianca held her hands up, her palms open toward the sky, her fingers spread wide. "Ho Jesus. I rebuke this bitch. I claim no negative energy."

Alejandra's laugh came first, her body curling forward in the chair. Bianca's followed, sharp and loud, her feet pulling up from the pool's edge, her knees drawing toward her chest as her shoulders shook. Hayley shook her head with her glass still in her hand, the ice clinking once as her body rocked with laughter. Mireya's laugh came low and easy, her stomach rising and falling under her hands.

The laughter died off in pieces.

Mireya kept her eyes on the sky above them. "This is what I miss the most about working."

Hayley looked over at her. "What? Us? We're still around."

"It ain't the same. I'm not at work with y'all, not going get breakfast in the morning after dancing all night. I don't know how Mari and Liana do it. Everytime I think about hanging out with regular bitches, it just doesn't feel right."

Hayley set her drink down on the armrest and turned in her chair, drawing one leg underneath her so she faced Mireya. "Aww, Mireya. You should've told us that you're lonely. We would make time for you."

Bianca stretched her legs back out toward the pool, her toes finding the coping again, her heels resting on the concrete lip. "Or you can get some siddidy bitches to have brunch at this nice ass house and we'll come throw ass on the tables."

Alejandra tipped her head back. "Those soccer moms? Mira. They pay to see pussy."

"Probably pay to eat it, too."

Mireya snorted a laugh and shook her head against the cushion, her hair catching on the fabric. "They not good, though. Too afraid to really taste it."

Hayley grinned. "You would have fucked some of them."

They all laughed. Mireya's hands rose and fell on her stomach with it, her eyes on the glow the pool threw against the underside of the patio cover, the four of them sinking deeper into their chairs.

~~~

Autumn lay with her head on Caine's chest, one hand resting flat on his sternum with her fingers splayed across the cotton. His arm wrapped around her shoulders and his fingers moved along the bare skin of her upper arm in slow passes, tracing the same line from her shoulder down to just past her elbow and back again. The covers were pulled to their waists, the sheets bunched where their legs had shifted underneath.

Her voice came up through his chest as much as it reached his ears.

"I can't believe that bitch tried to throw her going to any fucking Wharton in my face. She's only fucking going there because her stank ass daddy is a fucking alum."

Caine's fingers kept their pace on her arm. "I don't know shit about that, but you know everyone gonna try to get their shit off when they have a chance."

"You know you wouldn't let no nigga get in your face trying to talk shit."

"Yeah, but I don't think you be beating bitches in boutiques on Rodeo."

"Bitches and niggas. Actually."

Caine laughed, his head shaking against the pillow.

His eyes moved down to her hand on his chest. Her fingers were splayed against his skin, the polish on her nails starting to chip at the tips where the color had worn through to the bare nail underneath. He brought his hand up from where it rested on the mattress beside his hip and slid it under hers, lifting it off his chest. He turned her hand once in his grip, her fingers loose against his palm. A hangnail on her index finger caught the edge of the lamplight, the skin pulled up and dried along the cuticle, the corner of it lifted away from the nail bed.

He reached over to the nightstand with his other arm, keeping her hand raised in his left, and pulled the drawer open. His fingers moved through the contents, past a phone charger and a cord, until they found the nail clipper. He brought it back and closed the drawer with his elbow. He held her hand up where the lamplight hit it full, angling her finger between his thumb and forefinger, and positioned the blade of the clipper against the base of the hangnail where it met the skin. The small blade bit through clean and the sliver of skin fell somewhere onto the sheets between them. He ran his thumb once across the spot where the hangnail had been, checking the edge.

Autumn watched him through the whole thing. Her chin rested on his chest, her eyes following the movement of his hands above her, the way he turned her finger in the light, the precision of the clipper. Her mouth pulled at one corner, and deepening as he turned her finger once more to check his work.

He set the clipper on the nightstand beside the lamp and laid her hand back down on his chest. Her fingers settled against the skin, her nail smooth where the hangnail had been. His arm went back around her shoulders.

He saw her looking at him. "What?"

"On one hand, I should be pointing out you doing some weird ass fucking shit. On the other, I gotta say I always forget that you're one soft ass nigga when you want to be."

"You better keep that in here. I got a reputation to uphold."

Autumn pressed her cheek harder into his chest, her body shifting against his side. "No. I like it. More dudes need to get in touch with their sensitive sides."

"Ain't nothing about me sensitive."

Autumn laughed, her body shaking against his side, her cheek lifting off his chest for a beat before it came back down. "A lot about you is, bae. I don't have to do anything when I'm over here. Ask your niggas if they do everything around their girls."

Caine shrugged. "It is what it is. I'll take the charge." He let a beat pass, his fingers still on her arm. His eyes came down to her face. She was looking up at him from his chest, her chin tipped, her eyes on his. "But only from you."

Autumn rolled her eyes. She lifted her hand from his sternum and held it up in the light from the nightstand, spreading her fingers wide, turning her wrist so she could see each nail from the front and the side. She studied them for a moment, her thumb running across the tips of her fingers one at a time.

"You know it's about time for me to get a new set anyway. You got what you need in that draw to do some gels?"

Caine sucked his teeth. Autumn's laugh came fast and warm against his ribs, her body shaking once more before it settled.

[redsox907]

Mireya was too quick with the defense there. Don't think it was her pops, but definitely someone in the family

Autumn stays petty.

[Captain Canada]

Mireya was too quick with the defense there. Don't think it was her pops, but definitely someone in the family

I concur, there's some childhood trauma there. It's still fuck Mireya but, there's something there.

Fuck Autumn too while we're at it.